GUILDERLAND — Two business owners cleared the first hurdle on July 15 of having their properties along busy Route 20 rezoned.

Jennifer McClaine wants to rezone her 3.8-acre parcel at 2093 Western Ave. and Christopher Laviano wants to rezone two parcels — totalling just 0.31 acres — at 1859 and 1865 Western Ave.

The request for all three parcels is to change the zoning from Business Non-Retail Professional to a Local Business district.

The town planner and planning board reviewed and supported the changes for each while the county’s planning board said it would defer to local consideration in both cases.

Kenneth Kovalchik, the town’s planner, told The Enterprise earlier, “The BNRP District is heavily weighted towards smaller office uses and the demand for office space has declined significantly since the pandemic.”

On July 15, following the State Environmental Quality Review Act, the town board made a negative declaration for the McClaine and Laviano properties, meaning the zoning change would not have a significant impact on the environment.

The next step will be for Kovalchik to draft a local law for the zoning changes on which the town board will vote at its next meeting.

Jennifer McClaine

McClaine told the board she plans to reduce the size of her 13,000-square-foot salon to 1,500, leaving the front half for rent but she does not plan to change the outside of the building.

She said she had worked with two real-estate agents and tried on her own to get businesses to lease her space, including another hair salon.

“Unfortunately, the young people aren’t looking for that right now, which is too bad because it’s fully equipped,” she said.

An employee of McClaine and two of her clients who live in Guilderland spoke in favor of the change.

“She’s had the building a long time,” said client Rebecca Beard; McClaine said she’s been there since 2007. “She maintains it very well,” said Beard. She’s good at what she does. She takes care of both the property and the people that work for her.”

Kyle Bradley, with Carrow Real Estate who represented McClaine, said Hamilton Square and Star Plaza, across the street from McClaine’s property, and “up and down Western Avenue,” have “numerous 1,500-square-foot vacancies” that allow uses not allowed for McClaine’s property because of the current zoning.

The change is needed, he said, for a “private business owner to kind of stay competitive with some of these bigger, more well-financed strip malls.”

Rosemary Tobin, a Westmere resident, said she was concerned that more businesses in McClaine’s building would worsen already congested traffic on Western Avenue.

“When I come out of my development on Van Wie, the traffic sometimes is backed up from [Route] 155 all the way to that street,” she said.

Jeannie Roberts, a client who called McClaine “fabulous,” countered, “I don’t think the traffic is any worse there than it is anywhere else on [Route] 20, or probably even worse. I live over by the high school. You should try being over there some days.”

Finally, Andy Arthur of Delmar, speaking as a volunteer with Save the Pine Bush, noted that the property “is in a full protection area.”

However, he also noted, “It seems like this proposed development would not actually change the use of the area.”

He raised a concern, though, if brighter lights would be involved and concluded, “It’s just a rezone of an existing building so it’s not like it’s the worst offense to the pine bush ever. But keep in mind that it is in a sensitive area.”

Supervisor Peter Barber noted that approval of any particular project on the property would “still have to go to the planning and/or the zoning board so those issues would be addressed at another public hearing.”

Christopher Laviano

Noting the rarity of Laviano’s request, Barber said, “I believe this is literally a zone that splits a building.”

“Straight down the middle,” Laviano concurred. He added he wants to match the Local Business zoning on the other part of his Laviano Plaza.

Laviano said, like McClaine, he’d had no luck renting out the portion zoned Business Non-Retail Professional. 

He said of the requested Local Business zone, “LB opens it up to a little bit more variety of potential businesses that can move into the community.”

He noted that his mother had owned a hair salon in Guilderland and said, “The new generation, they don’t need necessarily the square footage.”

Laviano said he had advertised to rent the section zoned more restrictively with no luck.

Laviano, who is himself a real-estate broker, went on, “There’s tens-of-thousands of square feet in the town of Guilderland that’s vacant office space right now. That’s significantly less per square foot than what a new construction building would go to. So I’m very limited.”

The zoning change, he said, would be good for himself, his property, and the community.

Questioned by Deputy Supervisor Christine Napierski, Laviano said he hopes by the end of next month to get approval from the State Liquor Authority to transfer his current liquor store, which is next to the new building, into the left side of the new building, “which will take up the majority of that first-floor space.”

His real-estate office is currently in the middle of the new building with the right side, about 23,000 square feet, ready to rent. Four apartments upstairs are fully rented, he said.

“What’s going to happen to the empty liquor store then?” asked Napierski.

Laviano responded that the building is already zoned Local Business. With about 1,200 square feet on the first floor and 900 on the second, he said, “It’s going to be something unique” but he has no one lined up.

Councilwoman Amanda Beedle praised him on the new plaza, saying, “The design of the building, it’s just a clean look. And you have a great story. It’s supporting small local businesses, somebody who grew up here and still wants to keep the integrity of that area.”

Robyn Gray, who chairs the Guilderland Coalition for Responsible Growth, had the final word.

“It’s a smart move to approve it,” she said, “for the simple reason that you’re talking about one building that’s split, and it just makes sense to allow it to all be the same thing so that the property can be rented and can be used.”

Other business

In other business at its July 15 meeting, the Guilderland Town Board:

— Scheduled a public hearing for Aug. 19 at 7:15 p.m. to consider issuing serial bonds up to $6,796,970 for proposed improvements at the town’s water filtration plant.

Delaware Engineering has prepared a plan to filter iron out of the town’s three wells so they can be fully utilized.

“Currently the Town procures raw water and finished water from other municipalities to meet all of the town’s water demands,” Superintendent of Water and Wastewater Management Bill Bremigen wrote to the board in a July 14 memo.

Beedle noted the price the board had discussed earlier for the filtration had gone from about $4 million to about $6 million and asked what else it was going to cover.

Barber responded, “It’s the same project, but I’m going to guess, like everything else over the past several years,” the price has gone up.

“Which is still cheaper than our original ask … which was $10 million,” said Councilman Jacob Crawford.

“It’s a 60-40 grant,” Barber noted.

“It’s a substantial investment,” Napierski said, “but … making us sustainable and having our own water source is a good idea”;

— Adopted the Title VI plan for transportation by the Senior Services Department, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in programs and activities receiving federal assistance.

James Melita, the town attorney, told the board, “It just helps provide the staff guidance in addressing these matters, and it also gives the public information about addressing these matters, too, if they feel they’ve been discriminated against.”

Melita added, “Luckily, up to this point, we haven’t received any complaints … even though we didn’t have this plan … I think the staff already does a fine job, and this just gives some additional guidance”;

— Heard a recommendation from resident Karen White that Guilderland set up a station for residents to recycle food scraps, similar to the system used in the neighboring town of Bethlehem. She suggested a “drop spot” at the town’s transfer station where residents, for free, could leave their food scraps, which would be picked up and composted, with “really good dirt” returned to the town.

White concluded, “It’s an expense, but think about how much compostable food scraps are now getting landfilled. So it’s really a shame when you watch the news about the flooding and the wildfires and everything else”;

— Heard from Barber that Albany’s Playhouse Stage Company will present “Oklahoma!” at the Guilderland Performing Arts Center July 31 to Aug. 2, free to town residents;

— Heard from Barber that Town Hall will close at 12:30 p.m. on Aug. 8 for Employee Appreciation Day when town workers will have a picnic; and

— Heard from Beedle that the Guilderland Farmers’ Market has signed a new three-year contract. The market is held Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Guilderland Public Library’s upper parking lot at 2228 Western Ave.

“You can shop local, support small businesses,” said Beedle. “They have dozens of rotating vendors and the veggie vendors are just starting to come out.”