$100M Glass Works Village Proposed
Developers have clear view of hamlet’s future . . .

and Jo E. Prout

GUILDERLAND — As the town holds community meetings to plan for its future, a giant $100 million mixed-use development near the YMCA and elementary school was proposed at yesterday’s planning board meeting.
"I don’t want to get into the minutiae of the site plan this evening," Chairman Stephen Feeney told the applicants. "This is the beginning of the process."
The new development is called the "Glass Works Village" — a name suggested by the town historian, Alice Begley. The name refers to Guilderland’s glass-making factory, founded in 1785 on the banks of the Hungerkill, known as the Glass House. It was the largest glass-making factory in the country at the time.

The proposed project would include 345 condominiums with 195,000 square-feet of retail and commercial space, a village green, a nature preserve, and three parks on 57 acres off of Winding Brook Drive and Western Avenue.
According to Platform Reality Group, partners in the project, the proposed village is designed to honor the town’s history and encourage residential interaction with a "walkable mix of homes, shops, offices, and parks."
"It will have a village feel to it," Supervisor Kenneth Runion told The Enterprise. "It will create some identity for the Guilderland hamlet."

Atlantic Pacific Properties, Platform Reality Group, and DRA of Troy, which are proposing the project, made a presentation to the town’s planning board yesterday evening.
"I love the idea of it, but now we really need to look at the details," the town’s planner, Jane Weston, told The Enterprise earlier this week. Weston added that traffic impacts and design issues will have to be thoroughly discussed before serious consideration can be given.
"Over 50 percent of the property is going to remain green space," said Runion.

A decade ago, a different Guilderland Town Board turned down a proposal to re-zone the same area as commercial. Developers Salvatore Beltrone and Joseph Lucarelli, known as B&L, had proposed 210,000 square feet of retail and office space and 26 single-family homes, scaled back from its original proposal of 260 units of senior housing.
Anne Rose, then a councilwoman who voted against the plan, said at the time, she could not vote for a re-zone "which could give the developer an opportunity to build the most intensive level of development on this property""
Timothy Sheehan, another councilman who opposed the plan, said at the time, in December of 1996, "We have a lot of retail space in town already. The developers may be barking up the wrong tree."

The B&L proposal was initially tied to the building of the YMCA facility; the YMCA proceeded with its project after B&L was turned down.

The Glass Works Village proposal comes less than a week after a workshop was held at the Guilderland firehouse, which gave residents a chance to participate in the planning for the future of a strip along Route 20, which the planners refer to as a hamlet.
The workshop defined the "Guilderland Hamlet" as stretching between routes 155 and 146 along Western Avenue, and surrounding areas south to the Normanskill and north to the Albany Pine Bush Preserve.
"It’s still in the preliminary stages," Runion told The Enterprise yesterday of the Glass Works proposal. "I’m not going to say anything negative about the project at this point." He did add, however, that preliminary estimates show the project will bring a very promising tax base to the town.
"We have been working for a long time to identify the right site for this project. Glass Works Village will incorporate the traditional village concept that has proven successful for hundreds of years," Daniel O’Brien, director of the project and president of Platform Realty Group, told The Enterprise.
"That village, walkable community, I think is very important," said Runion.

Partners in the Glass Works Village project include O’Brien; Dominick Ranieri, who is a principal in the architecture and planning firm DRA of Troy; and Joseph A. Sausto, who is a real estate professional and attorney with Platform Realty Group.

The partners presented their proposal to the planning board Wednesday in hope of receiving planned unit development zoning.

A planned unit development is a re-zone approved by the town board that allows greater design flexibility than traditional zoning. PUDs are generally used for mixed-use developments on large plots of land with the intention of achieving flexible architectural design.

PUDs also have a mix of compatible land uses including varying residential and commercial use, while making creative uses of open space to preserve key natural or historic features. It clusters buildings onto smaller lots than usually permitted, while maintaining the same permitted density to the overall area.
"The town we build tonight will help build the community," Ranieri said. "People are searching for a coherent community. We believe GlassWorks Village will strengthen the community"enriched by social interaction."

Planning board’s reaction

At the agenda review, Chairman Stephen Feeney said that the proposed development does not meet the description of a PUD request.
"It’s just developed every piece of the property," he said. "If there’s a huge mitigation, okay"but [the applicants] are murky about the $1,500 per site rec[reation] fee."
Board member Thomas Robert said that the proposal "is a big chunk of high-density development" when the town is "trying to ease up."
"We need that type of housing"instead of McMansions," said board member Terry Coburn.
At the meeting, Feeney said that some of the "design elements are excellent." But he added, "This is full development of the site, as I see it, which is fine""

Feeney said that the applicants have honored the required setbacks, but that every amount of available space has development planned for it. He told them that wetlands cannot be calculated into the plan as active usable open space.

Steep slopes and water areas are in the forever wild portion of the property, Ranieri said earlier.

Feeney asked him to better define green space on the plan.
Feeney also noted that the town wants to conserve the natural topography of the site, but that the plan calls for "major digging out." He said that construction would remove 200,000 tons of material from the site. "That’s a significant amount of material," Feeney said.

The plan provides for three small parks, but not playing fields or other recreational areas. Feeney explained that each new home built in the town is subject to a $1,500 recreation fee because the town provides for the recreational needs of the residents.

Feeney touched briefly on several environmental issues related to the project. Near a proposed pool and clubhouse, the plan depicts a ravine crossing that shows little conservation of the site, Feeney said.
"What is the impact versus the benefit" That concerns me," he said.

Feeney noted that stormwater management must be an integral feature of the site.

He looked at three separate residential portions of the plan, and said that their garage-dominated profiles were not in the character of the proposal.
"It’s sort of celebrating the automobile. Clearly, traffic’s a huge issue."

The planning board received a traffic study of the area on Wednesday, he said, but had not yet examined it. Feeney said that the traffic study would be critical to the project.
Overall, the board supported the concept. Board member Paul Caputo said that the proposal would be a "good use of the property."
Board member James Cohen, however, said, "In a town grappling with tremendous growth, this is practically an explosion."

The planning board voted to concur with the town board’s request to be lead agency for the project.

At Wednesday’s meeting, representatives from a number of organizations — the town’s Pathways Committee, the Guilderland Hamlet Association, the YMCA, the Guilderland Public Library — all voiced support for the proposal. Several nearby neighbors have voiced concerns about lighting, traffic, and water runoff.

Hamlet workshop

Several dozen residents, and many of the town’s leaders went to the Guilderland firehouse last Thursday to listen to a presentation by Behan Planning Associates of Saratoga Springs, and to tell the planners what they want to see in their community.

The Hamlet Planning Workshop, as it was called, is one of several Guilderland has held after hiring Behan to develop a comprehensive land-use plan for the town. Last Thursday’s workshop began with an introduction by Runion and John Behan. The workshop is a part of a project which is partially funded by a grant from the Capital District Transportation Committee’s linkages programs.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss land use, bicycle and pedestrian opportunities, and transportation issues throughout the hamlet. Runion called the meeting an important part of the town’s planning process, and an opportunity for residents to be active participants in the future of their communities.

The workshop will be used to identify a vision and long-term plan for the area, as well address development patterns, land uses, and transportation needs and options, according to Runion.
"They all seemed very consistent," Runion told The Enterprise about the resident’s reactions, saying the area’s identification was a key theme to the meeting.

Begley gave a presentation, as well, describing the historical hamlet’s significance to the town. With the town’s first industry in the hamlet, glass-making, the area has historically and recently become the town’s center, she said, even though it is not the geographic center. The hamlet of appropriately-named Guilderland Center is at the center of town.

The Behan planners asked residents to break into groups and discuss a range of issues and how they would propose to deal with them. Among the issues were:

— Transportation, including access, streetscapes, crosswalks, and sidewalks;

— Connectivity, including off-road trails, pathways, and bicycle lanes;

— Roadway management, including limiting curb cuts on Western Avenue and shared parking lots;

— Land-use patterns, including commercial and residential planning; and

— Addressing design guidelines and developing agricultural and site design.

"If you demand it, it can happen," a Behan associate told residents before they broke into several smaller groups. Residents were divided by either house location or specific interest, and they discussed all the issues presented to them. At the end of the discussion, each group presented their ideas to planners.

Runion told The Enterprise that there will be at least one more public meeting after planners digest and incorporate the residents’ suggestions into their own plans for the hamlet. The town leaders in attendance at the workshop included Supervisor Runion; town board member and the town’s Democratic chairman, David Bosworth; Councilwoman Patricia Slavick; and Receiver of Taxes Jean Cataldo.

When asked, Runion said he does not believe that Guilderland is experiencing any radical development phase, despite three re-zoning hearings next week, a large senior citizen development proposal at the former Bavarian Chalet, and the new Glass Works Village proposal.
"I think the town’s always had development pressures. I don’t think it’s any greater now than in the past," Runion said. "We go in cycles."