NEW SCOTLAND — Joseph Kaiser, the owner of New Scotland Auto, and Howard Amsler, the owner of Blackbird Prime Properties, want to swap land with each other.

Amsler owns the trailer park off of New Scotland Road (Route 85) set back from the road, behind the commercial businesses on the street. One such business is Kaiser’s auto repair and auto sales shop at 1958 New Scotland Road across the street from Stonewell Shopping Center, at the junction of routes 85 and 85A. The two men’s properties touch each other.

The arrangement is for Kaiser to get a .63-acre strip of land from Amsler’s back 33.1 acres, to extend his car business behind his building. In return, Kaiser is to give a .12-acre side strip of his 1/2 acre to Amsler.

Tuesday night, the zoning board approved a variance that will allow the land swap, granting Kaiser 24 feet of relief from the required minimum lot width; Kaiser’s new lot will be 116 feet wide at the building line.

Zoning board Chairman Ronnie Von Ronnie said that this property will now go before the planning board for site-plan review.

Both property owners told The Enterprise that there are no definitive plans yet for what they want to do with their new land, but they both had some ideas.

Von Ronnie told The Enterprise Wednesday that he believes Amsler would ultimately, although not for awhile, like to create another entrance to his mobile-home park.

Amsler told The Enterprise after the meeting that the arrangement creates the opportunity for many things, including more growth to the mobile-home park. He also said that it creates some nice space for a cul-de-sac.

Kaiser said that he plans to move the cars that he is working on into a back parking lot and leave only the cars that are for sale out in front of the building.

He is allowed currently, based on the old site plan, to have 19 cars parked out in front. Kaiser said he has owned the property for three years.

Cynthia Elliott, a land surveyor, spoke at this and last month’s zoning board public meeting on behalf of her client, Kaiser.

She had said at a previous zoning board meeting that Kaiser’s lot is a pre-existing non-conforming lot, but, by acquiring the land behind his shop, the lot-size would meet code. She also said this would allow him to build an extension onto his building if he wanted.

One reason Kaiser’s side strip of land is appealing to him, Amsler said, is because it brings him closer to the planned public sewer lines.

Keith Menia of Vollmer Associates, the town’s engineering firm, had said at last month’s zoning board meeting that, while Kaiser’s property is part of the Heldervale sewer extension number four, the new back portion would not be. The mobile-home park was purposely left out of the area of the extension, because the town cannot support all those properties, Menia said.

Kaiser’s current private septic system is located on the land that he wants to give to Blackbird Prime Properties. The agreement, Elliott said, is that Kaiser can use his septic system until municipal hook-up is allowed, or until Kaiser puts in a new private septic system. This way, Kaiser is retaining his rights for sewer-system maintenance, Elliott said.

Additionally, Elliott said, no road can be built until that sewer is abandoned.

Elliott pointed out that, without the land swap, Amsler could take down the trees that serve as a buffer to the neighboring house to put a roadway in, but, by exchanging the parcels, he has space to build a road and still leave the vegetation.

Elliot said at the last meeting that there would be a common driveway after a new sewer is put in.

Von Ronnie said that, if the piece of land does become a road, it gives both properties a place to enter and exit. He added on Wednesday it would allow Amsler to access his back lot from Route 85 and Kaiser could use the common driveway to move his cars from his front parking lot to a newly-created rear lot.

Zoning board attorney Louis Neri questioned and clarified the language of Elliott’s proposed legal agreement between the land owners. He said, after a new septic system is built on Kaiser’s property, the right to enter Amsler’s property to maintain that septic will be gone but the egress and ingress will still be in effect.