RENSSELAERVILLE — The crowd of dozens in the Rensselaerville Town Hall on Sept. 7 was an unusual sight, but made sense given the business at hand: a resident was seeking a special-use permit that would allow him to operate an automobile shop off his residential property on County Route 351.

What would become clear soon into the public hearing, after the planning board quickly moved through its other business, was that there would not, in fact, be any kind of auto shop on the property. 

The purpose of the special-use permit, applicant Chris Gerken explained to the board and to the audience, was to let him attach his existing automobile dealer license to a property after he sold off his primary business, a motorcycle shop in Coxsackie. 

After he sold the business with the intent of opening another shop in a different location, he said, the Department of Motor Vehicles notified him that he had to turn in his license since he was no longer considered a dealer. When Gerken asked how to get around that, he said a DMV rep told him that, if he lived on a commercial property, he could keep the license under that property. 

New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law Section 415 backs this up; in addition to meeting surety bond and record-keeping requirements, a dealer needs to provide a place of business, though no requirements appear to be specified. 

“This will not be a business that has hours of operation,” Gerken said. “This will not be a business that has employees. This will not be a business that’s open to the public. This will not be a business, period … Basically, I have to take two signs and put them on the front of my building in order to keep a dealer’s license to sell automobiles in the future.”

He said that obtaining the license is a “very hard” process and “kind of expensive.”

Although the special-use permit would apply to the land and not to Gerken, it would not necessarily run in perpetuity since the planning board is free to issue the permit with any requirements it sees fit, town attorney Andrew Clark explained. 

“I don’t want to get too far in front of the board … but just as an example, say it was granted and [the condition] was something, like, the hours of operation are one hour per day, that intensity would not increase,” Clark said.

Any change in the use that put it outside the terms of the permit “would result in this same procedure — essentially starting over,” he said. “Everyone would be notified and the planning board would go through the proper analysis.”

Clark also said that the permit expires when the use has been discontinued for two years, meaning that, if the property were sold to someone who didn’t list it as an auto business, it would eventually go back to its original state. 

None of this information, however, seemed to slow the locomotive of discontent that rolled into the town hall that evening. 

Around two dozen people weighed in (not counting people who wrote letters that were not read aloud), all but three of them strongly opposed to the planning board issuing the permit. Many seemed to disregard the fact that the planning board is able to set the conditions of the permit, and was not necessarily deciding on whether to allow a full-fledged auto business to operate.

“The fact that we are [taking Gerken] at his word and perhaps not putting that into writing, perhaps not putting that into stipulation any special-use permit he may receive is very short-sighted of us,” said resident Viviane Galloway. “He may change his mind, he may sell the land to someone else.

Diana Hinchcliff, who told The Enterprise about the “highly controversial project” in an email ahead of the hearing, pointed out that Gerken’s license expired in June, and so would render the whole effort moot, in addition to claiming that Gerken’s application was incomplete and didn’t meet the definitions in the town code. 

Gerken acknowledged that his license is expired but was active when he submitted the application to the town board in January, and that his ability to renew it is contingent on having a commercial property to list. The town attorney said that whether Gerken’s license is active or not is beyond the planning board’s scope.

Most of the other speakers hit on themes common among any other big planning application: the project will put the community character at risk, increase traffic, drive down home values, etc. 

“Assuming that test-driving would be part of an active property …,”Galloway said, “that will increase emissions and traffic issues that are a serious concern to our community already.”

“We are people who have poetry readings and hoedowns, OK?” said Katherine Lanpher, who said she was one of a group of people who moved to town during the pandemic. “We don’t necessarily have a lot of electronic vehicles. We don’t even have anything electronic or mechanical on our lake. 

“I am very, very, very worried about the fact that we have no say over what can happen in the future with this license,” she went on. “I wish people well. I just want the hamlet to stay quiet.” 

Some also needled in unrelated complaints about Gerken’s son riding a motocross bike on the property. 

At times throughout the long meeting, Gerken’s wife, Jennifer, who was standing at the front of the room with her husband as the audience members spoke, shook her head in disbelief. 

Former planning board chairman Richard Amedure was one of the few to speak in favor of the permit, explaining that similar things had come before the board when he was on it.

“We never had any issue with these,” he said, reminding the audience about the conditions and the fact that Gerken was putting forth conditions on his own. 

“He won’t have public hours, he won’t have this, he won’t have that,” Amedure said. “He’s made the conditions. If someone comes in and tries to violate those, guess what? Someone reports it to the board, and the board reports it to the code-enforcement officer. They cite the new owner or Mr. Gerken, they come down here, have a hearing in front of a judge, and it gets resolved.”

Still, some residents who had internalized the information were uncomfortable. 

Rebecca Platel questioned, rhetorically, whether the board was comfortable taking on the burden of ensuring that any terms of the permit are adhered to. Another resident felt the town would be helping someone exploit a loophole. 

After all the residents who wished to speak did, and the board read aloud the letters from people who had requested their written letters to be read, the Gerkens were given time to address the comments — the final word before the town refers the project to the Albany County Planning Board.

“My character is being attacked tonight,” Jennifer Gerken said. “My family’s character is being attacked tonight. We’re supposed to be this small-knit family here … You’re being very hypocritical.”

Stoking a pre-existing tension in the town between rural natives and the well-heeled, “In This House We Believe” weekenders and newcomers, Chris Gerken called attention to the fact that, unlike some of those who fret about the town changing its nature, he has deep roots in the area.

“I’ve heard several comments here that a lot of people here are COVID transplants,” he said. “I am not. I graduated from Middleburgh High School. If anybody feels offended, I should feel more offended that you are changing my culture that I grew up with, on a horse farm, since I was a little boy.

“With that being said,” Gerken said, “go back to where you lived or came from. You left there to come here. I grew up here; I’m here. I’m not looking to change anybody’s ideas or processes. I’m just looking to do something for my family.”