To the Editor:

We are writing this letter to all members of the planning, zoning and town boards because there is an unprecedented and frankly shocking amount of development proposals all coming before the boards right now in one very discrete and highly sensitive part of Guilderland. These proposals are amazingly all within about a 1-mile radius of each other and include:

— Hiawatha Trails: 256 senior apartments, three to four stories high;

— Winding Brook Commons: 283 apartments, 80,000-square-foot commercial building;

— Winding Brook Planned Unit Development: 52 apartments, 13 buildings;

— New project on Winding Brook/Mercy Care Lane Extension: Details as yet undisclosed to public; and

— Pine Bush Senior Living Center: Two buildings, 96 units each, senior/assisted living.

This much-concentrated development in one area of Guilderland, all coming before the boards at the same time, is unheard of before in the history of our town. We are guessing that the explosion is partially due to the economy, and partly due to the redrafting of the zoning code in June 2016 to, admittedly, deliberately favor businesses over residential areas.

It’s too late to go back in time and rethink the wisdom of that, but it is not too late to, as we like to say, just “tap the brakes” a little and see if this is really what is best for the future of Guilderland, and is it really what the majority of the residents want?

Make no mistake, this will change the character of the town from a residential family town in which to raise a family, to a more transient apartment and business town. The apartment ratio alone if this and other pending projects are passed will go from 40 percent to 60 percent. Is that what we really want?

Regardless of your personal opinion or position either for or against these individual projects (and we can disagree), no one can deny this is a major and irreversible change that will affect generations to come, and we think it’s time for us all to take a step back and hit “pause” to give the whole town time to thoroughly look at the impacts of these proposals and how they will change the town as a whole.

That includes a cumulative look at the environmental impacts, the traffic impacts on an already overloaded area of routes 20 and Route 155, and the question: Is there even a demonstrated need for more apartments (senior or otherwise) in Guilderland?

Toward this effort, we would like to suggest that before these five major proposals are each individually and rapidly passed through the planning, zoning, and town boards, the responsible and intelligent thing to do is to step back and treat this critical area of town, as we would if we were doing a mini master plan.

That means a temporary halt on any approvals of projects in this area in order to hold citizen planning and discussion groups, much like the process in developing a neighborhood plan for an area inside the master plan. If any area ever cried out for its own mini neighborhood plan, this one certainly does.

The time is now; after these projects are built, it’s too late. We’re not saying there should be no development, just that any development that comes out of this process should be responsible growth, not rubber-stamped piecemeal, unlimited free-for-all development.

And yes, the town residents should be the ones at the helm, with input from developers, the town planner and other interested parties, just as they are when any neighborhood plans are drafted. We envision that the work of drafting a comprehensive mini neighborhood plan for this area could easily be done within a year.

The end result would be a much stronger plan, with the confidence and input of the residents, as well as the developers, behind it. Isn’t that democracy in action?

The alternative is continuing to go blindly forward and irreversibly change the character of the town of Guilderland forever in this area through multiple spot rezonings, variances, and special-use permits, defying any existing master plan.

Isn’t it worth at least taking a small time-out to do it right? We’re sure the developers will still be there in a year; nothing will be lost.

We strongly urge each of you to really think hard about this issue. No harm will be done by carefully taking the time to include everyone’s thoughts and ideas in the planning of what kind of town they want Guilderland to be before it’s too late. In fact, that would be the responsible thing to do.  

Laurel Bohl, Esq.

Frank Casey

Gordon McClelland

Britt Westergard

Rob Piculell

Judy Kahn

Erin Coufal

Brad Sporleder

Brian Collins

On behalf of

Guilderland Citizens

for Responsible Growth