GUILDERLAND — Concerns raised by the Westmere fire chief caused the zoning board to delay voting on a parking variance for the proposed New York Oncology Hematology building to be constructed next to Crossgates Mall.

The board’s chairwoman, Elizabeth Lott, said the variance will be considered “probably in August” when the board also considers a request by NYOH for a special-use permit and will also discuss the State Environmental Quality Review.

The zoning board considered the parking variance request for about an hour and 20 minutes at its July 17 meeting.

A special-use permit is required for the medical office structure with a building footprint of 40,000 square feet and a gross building area of 120,000 square feet. The steel-framed building is to be three stories tall and is to include a drive-through pharmacy. 

The regional cancer center, being built by Columbia Development Companies, needs a parking variance because town code requires 760 parking spaces for a project of that size and the request is to have just 600 spaces.

Richard Rosen, vice president and partner at Columbia Development, said he doesn’t anticipate difficulties with the SEQR process since the original environmental impact statement for the property had “a denser use.”

“We’re just one building,” he said.

The company had worked with the town’s planning board on a parking-lot plan before coming to the zoning board, which is the lead agency for the project.

 Rosen noted that the location is on the Capital District Transportation Authority’s Purple Line, which provides rapid transit from Albany to Crossgates Mall, and the line “is an option not only for just patients but also for employees.”

His company has built many medical offices, Rosen said, and knows how much parking is needed. “If you have too much parking, it just reduces the amount of green space; it increases the amount of impervious surface,” he told the board.

Rosen also said the planned 25 spaces for handicapped parking was “way beyond code” and that there will also be parking spots where electrical vehicles can be charged.

Rufus Collea, the medical director for NYOH, said, “What we’re trying to do is fold two practices into this one office building. We’ve outgrown our current space.”

NYOH plans to expand its research trials and clinical development, Collea said, and the complex is being built with “room for growth.”

Collea said fewer than 5 percent of the patients are at the office for an entire day, getting treatment, while many are in and out for “just a follow-up.”

He estimated 15 to 20 providers would be in the office on any given day, treating 200 to 250 patients. About 200 total workers — including nurses, receptionists, social workers, palliative care workers, medical assistants and pharmacy staff — would be on site, he said.

Typically, he said, a family member or friend will arrive in the same car with a patient, and patients who get regular chemotherapy treatments often drive themselves.

Currently, NYOH offices are open Monday through Friday but, Collea said, “In the future that may change and we want to have that option available to help our patients have better access.”

Lott asked several times about snow removal to which Rosen replied if the town was “hit with two Nor’easters” and the “green space where the snow is supposed to go can’t go there because of safety issues — it’s too high blocking line of sight, things like that, and starts impeding on parking spaces, we would have to truck it off site.”

Public comment

Three residents spoke to the zoning board — each of them in favor of the project — but with specific insights.

Sandra Dollard spoke as the director of the Guilderland Chamber of Commerce, saying her board was strongly in support.

She also spoke as a cancer patient, in remission, who had been treated at NYOH. She gave the board a specific description of her six months of chemotherapy and the logistics involved.

“The reason why I’m so excited about this facility is that the current building is shared by other types of practices,” she said. During several emergencies, Dollard said, her doctor had to rush from a different floor to get to her.

“Having everything here is going to be so much more helpful,” she said. “And being regional, yes, you will get more traffic. OK. But there are people coming in from all over the place now and we are just so blessed to have them here and to have the possibility to have it.”

Donald Csaposs, who works as a grant writer for the town and is the chief executive officer of the Guilderland Industrial Development Agency, noted the variance request for fewer parking spaces deviated from town code by more than 20 percent.

“The numbers in the code exist for a reason,” he said.

He noted the application package lists 275 workers in the building and that the center is billed as regional, drawing patients from southern Vermont and western Massachusetts.

“If you’re talking about clinical trials … the likelihood of people being there for an extended period of time is very real.”

Csaposs suggested “a simple solution” — a parking garage.

“We build second-rate facilities,” Csaposs said of the Capital Region, referencing sports venues. “They’re not what they should be, and I think that this facility without a parking garage is not what it could and should be.”

Rosen later pushed back on the recommendation to build a parking garage, saying it wasn’t economically feasible.

“Between where reimbursables are, Medicare and Medicaid and the HMOs now, expenses are very important to these physician groups,” he said. “They’re having to see more and more patients to hit the same numbers that they did four or five years ago. So it’s almost like we’re forcing these caregivers to become a volume type practice because everything costs more.”

Rosen also said, “We are a huge car culture, right? We have space out there.” Crossgates has “all those surface parking lots,” he said “because if they put up parking garages, that rent that they would have to charge would be astronomical … A parking lot up in the air is like $30,000 a spot, plus the yearly maintenance.”

Finally, Anthony Carrow, the chief of the Westmere Fire Department, noted that the volunteers in his department are covering a burgeoning area, including not just Crossgates but the proposed Costco Wholesale and now the NYOH center.

“One of the biggest challenges we face is the size of fire apparatus,” Carrow said. “They have definitely gotten larger over the years.”

Carrow went on about the need to accommodate a truck’s turning radius. “We struggle with developers [who] will always do their site plan with the minimum requirements,” he said.

Often, just an inch or two of leeway is left for turning.

Carrow went on, “Something we’re addressing right now with the town is the Rapp Road modifications between Gipp Road and the crossover ramp. We cannot make the turn … We cannot do it. We hit a sign the other day attempting to do it … 

“This was a total mess because we were not notified and brought in when the design was being done. So that’s going to impact life safety and response in that area because now we’re going to have to go all the way around through Gipp Road.”

As the board seemed poised to vote on the variance, Carrow reiterated his concern.

“I don’t want to hold up the project at all,” he said, “but I carry concern with the maneuverability of fire apparatus through those parking lots. I had a conversation with the engineer for the project. They said they used the bare minimum turning radius requirement for the fire apparatus.”

Lott noted that the Guilderland Planning Board had already approved the plan before the zoning board.

Rosen then said, “if the board saw fit to grant the variance for 600 spots,” he would go back to work on an adequate turning radius and if six parking spots were lost, “it would be on me to go back and make other modifications to the site to pick up those six.”

Jesse Fraine, the town engineer said, “We can certainly work with Tony to give him some confidence by running his exact truck through the parking lot; provided we get that layout in an AutoCAD or some format, we can roll that model of the truck through that.”

While Lott said the board is “allowed to have a variance with conditions,” she saw no need for a rush.

“This is something that should be ironed out,” said Lott, and the board voted in agreement to consider the parking variance once a new plan has been drawn up.