GUILDERLAND — A massive protest from rural landowners melted into words of praise at a hearing last week on a plan to preserve open space in western Guilderland.

Over the past several months, as the group of strenuously opposed parts of the plan, its creator, John Behan, a consultant hired by the town, has said that he’s never felt criticized.

Last Tuesday, as the landowners, who once said the plan violated their rights, voiced overwhelming support for a revised version, Behan praised them for being involved.
"They rolled up their sleeves and we worked together," Behan told The Enterprise. "It’s always easier to be a critic and not a problem-solver, but they did both. They didn’t throw rocks and run."

At its meeting last week, the Guilderland Town Board seemed ready to approve Behan’s plan, which, he said, has minor changes and much definition clarification. The board put off voting until its July 12 meeting, however, to wait for a final version of the revised plan.
"I feel it’s a workable plan that will be good for the future of the town," said Gary Pruskowski. The plan now seems more like a set of guidelines, rather than a list of rules and regulations, he told The Enterprise.

Pruskowski, a Guilderland farmer, is president of the citizens’ group, Landowners Offering Guilderland Intelligent Choices (LOGIC), that formed earlier this year. Members of the group organized before the town board’s first public hearing on the plan and pointed out what they thought were flaws.

LOGIC then encouraged dozens of residents to speak out against the plan. At that hearing in March, many said that Behan’s plan would take away their rights as landowners.

Behan told The Enterprise then that these concerns were more philosophic than realistic.
"Some people just don’t believe in zoning," he said. "None of us likes rules and regulations, but, to live without them would be foolish."

Other LOGIC complaints were that the town doesn’t encourage expansion and development for the economic benefit of those living in western Guilderland.

The western half of town, which, except for the village of Altamont, does not have municipal water, is rural while the eastern part — with water — is largely developed.

LOGIC members have said they want town water so their part of town could be developed.

Others at public workshops, however, have stated they are glad western Guilderland does not have municipal water, because that keeps developers away.

Behan’s plan has since been revised to give some incentives to developers who provide public water to others.

Revisions

The rural Guilderland plan was drafted by Behan, of Behan Planning Associates, as part of the town’s implementing its comprehensive land-use plan.

Behan has been working for over a year on town guidelines for farmland and open-space conservation. Behan’s plan consists of an open-space and farmland protection plan, rural design guidelines for the town, and a proposal for a new hamlet zoning district.

Last Tuesday’s hearing on the plan was dramatically different than the March public hearing. While the hearing in March was packed with over 100 people and many voiced strong objections to the plan, at last Tuesday’s, only 20 people attended the meeting and no one spoke against it.

At Tuesday’s hearing, brothers Joseph and John Abbruzzese both thanked the town supervisor and board, the town planner, and Behan for working with LOGIC.
"We’ve met constantly over the last two or three months," Joseph Abbruzzese said. "You’ve been very, very helpful."

At the March public hearing, eight members of the Abbruzzese family had spoken separately. The Abbruzzeses own Altamont Orchards, Orchard Creek Golf Course, and much land on Dunnsville Road; all are members of LOGIC.

The Abbruzzeses and several other speakers at that hearing emphasized that selling their land is how they plan to support themselves in retirement. If the town put zoning or lot-size restrictions on their properties, they said, the land will be devalued if they try to sell it.

Behan told The Enterprise in response then that this isn’t true. Smart zoning helps protect property values, he said.
"If there’s good planning and good zoning, people are confident in investing in that land," Behan said.

This week, Behan told The Enterprise that new changes to the plan include increasing the size of proposed country hamlet districts from 40 acres to 160 acres. The idea of clustering, to encourage open space, remains, but more businesses are now allowed.

In the plan, some special uses have been expanded, such as the addition of a home occupation that allows up to three employees. Offices are also allowed, but not stores or retail sales.

Behan also added the option of country stores — small businesses that can sell products — as a special use, he said. The country stores can be up to 5,000 square feet. Non-agricultural retail products can be sold there with some limits, he said.

As part of the open-space subdivision provisions there will be open land. If the benefited use of the property is mainly private, a homeowners’ association may take care of it. If it’s more publicly accessible, the town can decide to maintain it.

The revised plan offers more incentives for maintaining open space in a country hamlet. Before, landowners who kept over 60 percent of their land as open space got a density bonus from the town board. Now, if they maintain 75 percent or more as open, the landowner will be awarded additional bonuses.

Also, if a proposed developer agrees to extend public water along corridors where water is not currently provided, they may be awarded bonuses.
"Overall, the intent hasn’t changed, but some of the specifics have," Behan said.

Since the last public hearing, the town and Behan have had three or four meetings with LOGIC and several phone and e-mail conversations.

Asked if he were surprised at the support for the plan last week, Supervisor Kenneth Runion said he wasn’t. The meetings and conversations with LOGIC were positive, he told The Enterprise.
Major changes weren’t made to the plan, Runion said. Rather, he said, the intent of the plan was clarified. He has always supported the plan, but said before that it needed "tweaking."

Last week, Runion said he approves of the latest version of the plan.
"This is a much better product than the initial draft," he said. "We were able to go through it and re-examine some of the issues raised. We were able to clarify language."
Behan said he showed LOGIC members the current zoning and everyone agreed it had to be fixed. Comparing today’s zoning to his new plan, he said, people could see, "This is better for the landowner, better for the environment, and better for the town."
"When concerns were first raised, it didn’t seem like the people didn’t like the ideas, they just didn’t like the specifics," Behan said. "We changed it to make the intent more clear, but everyone has been on the same page."

The overall design guidelines were altered so they are less onerous, Behan said. This flexibility made a lot of landowners feel better, he said.

This week, The Enterprise asked LOGIC’s president, Pruskowski, why his group is suddenly supporting the entire plan.

All along, not just since the last public hearing, Behan has been considering the group’s comments and suggestions and incorporating them into the plan, Pruskowski said.
"We had a great open dialogue," he said.

The original plan made it sound like things were mandatory, he said. The new draft has cleaned up the language and presents changes as guidelines, he said.

New density bonuses and incentives to bring water to the western part of town have been added to the plan, Pruskowski said.
"If this all happened in the beginning, we probably wouldn’t have had such a rowdy first public hearing," Pruskowski said.
Asked about the future of his group, Pruskowski said, "LOGIC has to stay together because this is a living, breathing document." Group members will continue to speak out on planning issues, he said.

Pruskowski has lived on the same farm, on Grant Hill Road, for 52 years. Guilderland has changed much in his lifetime, he said.
"Before, where I live right now, if you were eight or nine years old and you fell off your bike and hurt yourself, you’d die because nobody ever went by," he said.

Other comments
At last Tuesday’s hearing, Jane Schramm, director of the Guilderland Chamber of Commerce, said the plan is "excellent and has a lot of potential."

She thanked Behan for the changes to the plan dealing with businesses and country stores.

Patricia Marciano, a LOGIC member who had voiced strong objections to the plan, told the board last Tuesday that she and a group of her neighbors went to Pittsford to see the results of a plan Behan created for that area. They liked what they saw, she said.

Pittsford, in western New York near Rochester, is slightly smaller than Guilderland but is growing at the same rate, Behan told The Enterprise. Since his plan was incorporated years ago, Pittsford was just named as one of the 20 nature-friendly communities in the country, he said.

Pittsford’s property values are also the highest in its region because the town has good zoning, Behan said.

He told The Enterprise this week that he was surprised and pleased that Marciano and her friends traveled to visit the town.
"That helped them get comfortable with what Guilderland is doing," he said. "It’s in everybody’s interest."
"I appreciate everyone’s work on this," Marciano said at last week’s meeting. "It was a long haul, but it was worth it."
Guilderland resident Lindsay Childs said the incentives to keep open space are good. "When I was on the planning board in the ’80’s, we’d try to get a developer to do things, but we had no carrot," he said.

Childs, who is the chairman of the Guilderland Pathways Committee, added that he likes that sidewalks and bike paths are encouraged in the plan.

The board then decided to vote on the revised plan at its next meeting, July 12. Copies of the plan are available for review at Town Hall, at the Guilderland Public Library, and on the town’s website, www.townofguilderland.org.