GUILDERLAND — A resident wants to open a business in town but he doesn’t want to follow all the rules to get there. 

Christopher Beckmann proposes using his barn on his parents’ property at 580 Route 146 as a special-occasion facility for functions such as wedding rehearsal dinners and showers of up to 100 guests. His parents own and run the Appel Inn events venue.

Beckmann’s 2,200-square-foot facility, to be known as the Barn at Black Creek, would begin as a three-season space with the possibility of expanding to a year-round business on the 31-acre property.

The zoning board is the lead agency on the project. Beckmann needs a special-use permit for the use. The zoning board in 2016 granted Beckmann an area variance so the barn could be built within 75 feet of the Black Creek; town code requires a minimum setback of 100 feet from watercourses. 

The current proposal was before the planning board on March 9 for site-plan review, which came with an additional request from Beckmann.

Town Planner Ken Kovalchik told The Enterprise by email Guilderland’s town code “requires an applicant to submit a site plan that is stamped by a professional engineer, architect or surveyor,” but “Mr. Beckmann submitted a hand drawn sketch plan and was requesting the Planning Board to waive the requirement for his site plan to be stamped.”

The request appeared to be an attempt at cost savings and Beckmann’s own confidence in his ability to draw by hand documents typically spit out by a computer and certified by a licensed professional. 

The planning board was leery of setting precedent for future applicants by waiving the stamped-plan requirement, and repeatedly explained as much to Beckmann, throughout the meeting.

“I mean, weeks and weeks and weeks ago, first, we said, you know, our opinion was you needed a stamp drawing,” Chairman Stephen Feeney said to Beckmann; the project was first before the board in May 2021. Feeney said he was told Beckmann would provide the board with stamped plans, “and then, here [you] are making a pitch again ….”

Board member Christopher Longo, an engineer, said at one point in the meeting that minor commercial-use applications have a requirement for a stamped engineering plan, as do commercial projects with disturbance greater than one acre.

During the March 9 meeting, Kovalchick brought up an additional concern to the board: Guilderland’s culpability if Beckmann didn’t submit certified drawings. “Would there be liability on the town because we didn’t confirm whether it meets all of the [Americans with Disabilities Act] requirements?” he asked. 

The board was unanimous in that it wanted Beckmann to provide a set of stamped plans, according to Kovalchik. But where members differed was whether he should have to come back before the board again with those certified plans, or if the board should just require the stamped plans and refer the application back to the zoning board so it can complete its review, according to Kovalchik.

Ultimately, in a 4-to-3 vote, the board decided to refer Beckmann’s application back to the zoning board without the stamped plans, but included as part of its recommendation that he submit certified plans to the zoning board as part of his application.

“I’m voting on faith that he will provide what’s necessary for this,” Herb Hennings said after voting to move Beckmann’s site plan without further review. 

Joining Hennings in the majority were Feeney, Gustavo Santos, and Terry Coburn. Voting against the motion were Longo, Thomas Robert, and Laura Barry. 

Kovalchick explained, “If the vote did not pass, a second motion would have had to have been made, which most likely would have required Mr. Beckmann to return to the Planning Board to continue the site plan review once the plans had been prepared and stamped by a professional engineer, architect, or surveyor.”

The driveway

Beckmann’s submission to the board included hand-drawn plans for the parking lot and driveway of his proposed business. 

In discussing the driveway with two openings (one already exists) onto Route 146, Feeney told Beckmann he couldn’t submit his sketch to the state’s Department of Transportation and say, “I want to build this; can I have a permit?”

Beckmann told Feeney the driveway sketch he provided to the planning board had been “in accordance” with a state DOT “pamphlet.” 

Feeney said he didn’t know how Beckmann “represented it” to the state DOT when he initially asked for a driveway permit. “It’s one thing to put in a residential permit for a house or something. I get it; people do that all the time,” Feeney said. “But a commercial permit requires an engineer.”

Beckmann told Feeney the representative for the state Transportation Department “was fine with the widening that I did to it.” Beckmann said the permit for the second driveway onto Route 146 is under review. 

Feeney then asked, “As a commercial permit with insurance and everything?”

Beckmann did not answer Feeney’s question directly, but said he “did all the paperwork” the representative from the state transportation department “asked me to do.”

Beckmann was asked by board member Thomas Robert if he explained to the state DOT exactly what he was doing on the property, to which he responded, “I explained exactly what I was doing. He came out to the site.”

“He came out to the site,” Robert said, “it’s different than telling him you will have in 100 people ….”