GUILDERLAND — The 88,000-square-foot assisted-living facility proposed for the southeast corner of Western Avenue and Foundry Road moved a step closer to being built last Tuesday, when the town board unanimously approved the project’s intensity of use and density, and returned it to the planning board for site review.

The project’s developer, The Genitor Organization in Melville, New York, is seeking a rezone to a planned unit development, or PUD. The site is currently zoned for local business.

The town board had received a positive recommendation from the planning board, said Supervisor Peter Barber. The planning board’s recommendation had come, Barber noted, with several conditions: that the building be moved as far as possible from the slopes at the back of the site that head down to the Hunger Kill; that any right-of-way needs for possible future turn lanes on Western Avenue be identified; and that any need to realign Foundry Road also be identified.

In keeping with a suggestion from the planning board, the project’s engineers flipped the site’s design, to move the building further away from the angle of repose and to eliminate all or most of the retaining walls that had been planned, said Ronald J. DeVito, managing member of Genitor, at the meeting. As a result, he will no longer need to go before the zoning board of appeals.

The town board asked DeVito to get a “sign-off” letter from the Department of Transportation, stating that the department is satisfied with DeVito’s plan for using some of the site’s land to widen the top part of Foundry Road, to make it possible for large trucks to make the turn off Western, onto Foundry. The letter would also need to outline the understanding that the department had reached with the developer about the state’s right of way, so that, in the future, if dedicated turn lanes on Western Avenue were to become necessary, the state would have access to sufficient land.

DeVito will still need to return to the planning board and then the town board once more. The process of the PUD rezone requires, as its final step, the passage of a local law.

Asked when he expects the facility to be up and running, DeVito said it would take 14 to 18 months to complete the construction, once he receives all the required municipal approvals. DeVito expects it would then take another 18 months of ramping up, before the facility reached 95 percent occupancy.

Just one town resident spoke at the public hearing: Sarah Van Leer, who lives on Foundry Road opposite the site’s proposed entrance and who was accompanied at the microphone by her husband. She said that she was generally in favor of the project and thought it was a good use for the site, but was concerned about the possibility of additional water flowing down the site onto her property. Barber assured her that the project would be subject to stringent stormwater management regulations during design and construction.

None of the three assisted-living facilities that are proposed or already approved for Guilderland — Concordia; Pine Bush Senior Living, at routes 155 and 20; or Promenade, in the site of the former Best Western across from the University at Albany — will offer skilled nursing care. The owners of all three talk about aging-in-place, but in fact all three residences would require, for patients that eventually come to need around-the-clock care, transfer to a different facility offering skilled nursing care.

Asked about this on Wednesday, DeVito said enhanced assisted living, which does provide skilled-nursing care, would meet the needs of most residents, and that the number of elderly who come to need 24/7 skilled-nursing care is small. He also said that an assisted-living facility cannot offer a nursing-home wing; the two types of facilities require not only different licensing, but also completely separate personnel, he said.

Tax exemption removed

The board passed a local law to remove the real-property tax exemption for solar, wind, and farm-waste energy systems.

“The tax exemption was introduced back in 1977; it was not meant to be perpetual,” said Barber. “Back in 1977, these alternative energy systems needed some support, and among that support were tax and other incentives.” Barber also noted that other tax preferences will continue to apply, including income tax credit, solar incentives, and a sales tax exemption.

“If you’re going to exempt certain properties, certain income-producing uses, from being taxed,” Barber said, “all that does is shift that tax to other properties.” He said he was in favor of the law “out of fairness.”

Lee Carman, the board’s only Republican, cast the sole dissenting vote. He indicated that he saw “individual residences as being different from commercial use,” and that he was uncomfortable with not knowing how solar arrays installed on residential properties would be assessed.

Barber said at the meeting that town assessor Karen Van Wagenen would be contacting other towns in the state that had already established rules for valuing these structures “to figure out the best way to make sure you’re being fair.”

Board member Paul Pastore voted in favor of removing the exemption, while noting that even if the exemption is removed, a municipality has the option of reinstating it later. “If there are some questions down the road that this board wants to consider,” he said, “we certainly have the option.”

Van Wagenen said Wednesday that exemptions already filed with the town would be honored.

Going forward, Van Wagenen said, homeowners would need to provide additional information about alternative-energy systems, including ownership, leasing, size, and how much energy they produce.

Barber said Wednesday that assessment would take into account depreciation over time, adding that any assessment is “a snapshot of the value in time.”

Other business:

In other business, the board:

— Held a public hearing on the application to rezone property owned by Janice Hessler at 6508 Vosburgh Rd., from R-20, or residential with a minimum lot size of 20,000 square feet, to multiple residence. The board heard that Hessler’s property is surrounded by property owned by Carpenter Village. Presenter Donald Cropsey said that Hessler planned at some point in the future to build a separate multi-family dwelling behind the single-family home where she lives. Barber said that her property, which is the only one in the area zoned residential, “seems like it should have been MR from day one.” The board unanimously passed the rezone;

— Voted unanimously to make amendments to the zoning code’s sections 22 on “industrial district” and 23 on “industrial park district.” This matter had been heard in December and then continued, said Barber, to allow the Albany County Planning Board to provide the town board with a recommendation, which it did, deferring to local consideration of the uses allowed in an industrial zone. Barber said on Tuesday that the changes were all related to replacing “manufacturing” as an allowed activity; it had been removed inadvertently, he said;

— Learned that a proposal for changes in 2017 water charge rates that had been recommended by the superintendent of water and wastewater management, Timothy McIntyre, had been withdrawn for the time being. Barber said that McIntyre would check the proposal to ensure that it is consistent with his department’s needs over the next year, and that it would be back before the board again;

— Authorized, with a unanimous vote, amending the water department’s budget by transferring $23,362.70 from the department’s fund balance to reimburse Sprint Wireless for overpayment of rent for telecommunication facilities on the Wiley Street water tower;

— Voted unanimously to waive the building permit for installing a gasoline tank at the Western Turnpike Rescue Squad’s facility at 200 Center Ave.;

— Noted that a request for a public hearing planned for the town board’s March 7 meeting had been withdrawn for the time being; the hearing was to have been a joint one with the village of Altamont, on the annexation into the village of land on Bozenkill Road. The issue is not dead, Barber said. He added, “They need to get a better map” and said the village would be back before the board.

Meanwhile, in place of the joint hearing with Altamont, the board voted to schedule a different public hearing for that same time slot, March 7 at 7 p.m., regarding the submission of an application to the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation and a State Environmental Quality Review form for a proposed water district extension that would create an interconnect between Guilderland and Rotterdam;

— Voted unanimously to authorize the release of $49,746 in escrowed funds to State Farm Utility Corporation for the operation and administration of the State Farm sewer area. Barber noted at the meeting, “Every year we do this, and it’s pretty much the same”;  

— Voted unanimously to authorize 12 monthly payments totaling $92,799.84 for fixed annual principal and interest to NBT Bank for the annual debt service on NBT Bank’s loan to the State Farm Utility Corporation;

— Voted unanimously to make adjustments to the wages of several temporary seasonal employees, to bring their wages in line with the new state minimum wage; in parallel, the board also approved a slight salary adjustment for laborers who are not temporary, “so they’re not being paid the same as the temporary people”;

— Voted unanimously to authorize the purchase and delivery, for $41,500, of a used push-out trailer as a bid item received from Kissimmee Auction Company. The bid is for $39,500 for the trailer, and $2,000 to get the trailer from Spartanburg, South Carolina, said Barber at the meeting; and

— Agreed that the next meeting will be March 7, with an earlier-than-usual start time, of 7 p.m.