NEW SCOTLAND — The crowd was triumphant after the town board voted last night, 5 to 0, in favor of a six-month-long moratorium on commercial building.

They rose to their feet and cheered.

Over 800 people had crowded into the high-school auditorium three hours earlier to voice their views and listen to their neighbors. They brought with them a petition with 2,400 signatures that stretched to 60 feet long, all in favor of the moratorium to give the town a chance to revamp its zoning regulations.

The night before, the town’s planning board had recommended against the moratorium. (See related story.) Earlier, the Albany County Planning Board had recommended a year-long moratorium.

The Sphere Group, a two-year-old firm based in Cazenovie, N.Y., has said it will buy the 179-acre Bender melon farm in the heart of the town to build a 750,000-square-foot mall.

The developer told The Enterprise that a moratorium would make their work difficult, putting them in “suspended animation.”

Much of the petitioning was carried out by a grassroots group, New Scotlanders 4 Sound Economic Development, which formed in reaction to news of the Sphere proposal.

Scores of residents spoke in favor of the moratorium, their comments punctuated by applause from the crowd. Only one man, an old farmer, spoke against it. He said he had been in town a long time and a moratorium wasn’t needed.

Edie Abrams, a citizen watchdog, read town board members excerpts from Enterprise interviews, highlighting statements each had made on the importance of planning and considering the townspeople’s wishes.

Sphere has repeatedly attempted to assuage the doubting residents that their aim is to provide a development at a scale and aesthetic not only acceptable, but pleasing to the populace.

The property was set to close several weeks ago, but the Sphere Group says that the closing has been postponed due to a title issue involving the former D & H railroad track running through the property.  Now owned by the Canadian-Pacific railroad, the defunct track cuts off around a quarter of the property.  Representatives from Sphere say they intend to close on the sale, but if the title issues can’t be resolved, the sale won’t close.

Assessment

The property, assessed by the town to be worth around $750,000, was placed on the market for $4 million.  Town assessor, Julie Nooney, said the discrepancy was due to limits on the assessing process.  She said that there hadn’t been any sales in New Scotland’s commercial zone to justify a $4 million price tag.

“If you are marketing a piece of property, you don’t have to have any substantiation,” Nooney told The Enterprise.  “Believe me, if I had put a $4 million assessment on that piece of property … you can bet I would have had the owners knocking on my door, asking where I got those numbers.”

“I would never put an assessment on a piece of property that I don’t have justification for,” said Nooney.

Does that indicate shortsightedness in the assessment guidelines?  Not necessarily, according to Nooney.

“Not for four-and-a-half million dollars…No one could have foreseen that,” said Nooney.  “When assessing vacant land, you are assessing ‘as is,’ not to highest potential.  If you have the investment, if you have the land, you are going to sit on it and wait for that ship to come in,” said Nooney.  She told The Enterprise that a 60-acre parcel of commercially-zoned land across the street had sold for $540,000; unlike the Bender property, the site had water and sewer, making it worth much more per acre than its 179-acre neighbor, which has no such infrastructure.

“We can’t estimate and say, Vista is coming in this year,” she said, referring to Bethlehem’s Vista development project, one-quarter of which will extend into New Scotland’s northeastern quadrant, currently zoned residential for two-acre lots.  Nooney said she thought the Vista project opened the door for developers to consider the entire area as potentially viable land for development.

“The Vista Technology Park was still in proposal when we assessed the piece,” said Nooney.

According to Joseph Hesch, spokesperson for the state’s Office of Real Property Services, the value  at which land is assessed is up to the assessor.

“They can use any method,” he said.  “The evaluation is strictly the assessor’s call.”  He said that the method of using recent market sales is mainly used for residential real estate.

Sphere Group wag fingers

at Vista Tech Park

Saratoga Associates, is handling the Vista project, which will include office spaces and 250,000 square feet of retail space, but during a recent conference with the Enterprise editorial board, Sphere representatives said that they felt the Vista developer had been “dishonest.”

 “In my mind, it’s dishonest,” said Sphere Group representative Kurt Wendler.  “You start with office and then flip over to retail.”

Saratoga Associates were contracted by the Sphere Group to draw up the concept plan presented to the town board and residents on April 7.

Although Wendler said that there were no other anchor stores committed, Wendler said of propositions from other anchor retailers, “I would be a fool not to consider it.” 

He later said, “We can guarantee you, what you see on that plan: we’re not doing more than that.”

The developers also expressed that they felt they had been characterized as “dishonest” and that the town had not given them a fair chance.

“I could have stood up there and said five-hundred-thousand square feet, just to keep my numbers,” said Gregory Widrick, managing founder of the Sphere group, remarking on the disparity of his first estimate.  At an earlier meeting, Widrick said the development would probably be around 500,000 square feet; now developers say the project size has increased by 50 percent to around 750,000 square feet.  Widrick said that people had pressed him for a number; he said he gave them the best number he could.

The Sphere Group has failed to disclose many other numbers, however; although they say a moratorium would be unfair and prevent negotiations, representatives refuse to say how much they have already spent on the project.  The developer has also failed to disclose how much they are paying for the property, which they have not yet purchased.  On whether there exists a sufficient customer base for the mall, which according to residents would be the fourth largest in the area, Sphere partners say yes; they think that the two tenants already signed on have conducted sufficient studies.

Drumming up support

After last night’s planning board meeting, Sphere Group public relations consultant John D’Alessandro criticized NS4SED’s citizen advocacy as “negative,” and said that his group would never try to “cultivate support among the residents.” 

However, the Sphere Group took around 20 residents to Bella Sera, formerly J. J. Madden’s, on Tuesday afternoon.  While some residents said that representatives of the Sphere Group contacted them at their offices and workplaces, Widrick suggested that many of the residences in attendance had contacted them through their public relations consultant, Zone 5, based in Albany, the firm Sphere hired for public-relations consulting.

Sphere associates John D’Alessandro and Eric Wohlleber are both from the public affairs firm; D’Alessandro has had more than 30 years of experience in public relations and has worked for Reliant Energy and British American Development and Wohlleber has worked as a broadcast reporter and producer.  Widrick acknowledged spending “no more than $500” on “appetizers” for the residents who attended the meeting, during which Widrick said he presented information about the development and how it would benefit the local economy.

“When I saw what they were going to put up there, it was adorable,” said Kristy York, one resident who attended the meeting at Bella Sera.  “I just don’t see what the problem is.”

York, who co-owns a local business in New Scotland, said that she wasn’t afraid that corporate shops and restaurants would undermine her business.

“My fear that someone else won’t be as cooperative as this developer is now,” she said. 

“If you don’t need it, why do it?” said York of the moratorium.  “Both sides give a little, and then you don’t get this big box-size store in the middle of our town, or their town, or whatever.”

“I believe they can make roadways and parking lots fit into the community without taking away the rural characteristics…They can add the trees so they don’t look like the parking lots at Wal-Mart and Crossgates,” said York.  I think boosting our economy would be good for everyone.”