SLINGERLANDS — To some residents of Bethlehem, Slingerlands stands as the last bastion of historic homes and small-town feel in a town that has seen more and more commercial and residential developments and increased traffic since these residents first moved here.

Within this neighborhood is the Slingerlands Historic District, made up of structures dating back as far as 1790 and including a 19th-Century mausoleum and a former railroad hub.

The Bethlehem Alliance for Historic and Community Preservation was formed last November, said Sheri Sanduski-Rutherford, in response to a need for zoning reforms, specifically to protect the historic district.

The Slingerlands Historic District runs along New Scotland Road (Route 85) from Helderberg Parkway east to Couse Lane and Maple Avenue. Streets like Bridge Street, Mullens Road, and Font Grove Road are encompassed by it. Most of the area is zoned residential or hamlet, with 104 historic homes and other structures like Toll Gate Restaurant and Trustco Bank (formerly a post office). The Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail also runs through the district.

Preserving history

Ilona Muhlich moved to her home on New Scotland Road in 1973. Out of curiosity, she said she consulted the Historic Albany Foundation, and a member estimated her house had been built in the 1820s.

Then, about six or seven years ago, Muhlich saw a sign put up on Couse Lane commemorating a Revolutionary War hero and his nearby burial site, which she realized was adjacent to her home. She reached out to the New York State Historic Preservation Society; a representative determined the house dated back to the 1840s. However, the house on its own did not have a historic connection and was not eligible to be registered with the group.

This is when Muhlich, along with the town’s historian, Susan Leath, contacted everyone in the area about their homes in order to determine if the area could be registered as a historic district. The district was designated as a national and state historic district in 2012.

“I was just curious about my house,” said Muhlich. “And it just snowballed from there.”

Kathleen and George Bragle live in the oldest structure in the district. In fact, Kathleen Bragle said that they now warn contractors  not to dig too deep when doing yard work.

“The last time we went digging, we found part of a burial — tombstone,” she said.

One of the more prominent of Slingerland’s sons, John I. Slingerland, was a congressman who was both anti-rent, seeking to end a feudal system of rent collection by Dutch patroons from tenant farmers, and an abolitionist; he served in the White House when Abraham Lincoln was president.

The Bragles had the town historian at the time, Ed Mulligan, inspect their home and the historic objects left there, including a diary left behind by John I. Slingerland’s wife documenting the split between the family over a vote on moving bodies to the family mausoleum.

The mausoleum is now surrounded by an orange-net fence between a homeowner’s backyard and a parcel of land with the former Mangia restaurant. Students used to walk from nearby the Slingerlands Elementary School to the graves to learn about local history, said Kathleen Bragle.

Development ahead?

The town has purchased the mausoleum, but the Mangia parcel has seen an application for a 24-unit development and a drive-through bank to be established there. Another application to go before the planning board on Tuesday would have two businesses set up in the restaurant’s former building, said Sanduski-Rutherford.

According to Robert Leslie, director of economic development and planning for the town, there are no applicants before the planning board looking to build in the historic district. An application to develop on the Mangia property, he said, went before the town’s development committee, but has yet to submit to the planning board.

The property is located in the hamlet, he said, and an application would require a site plan review and a design review ensuring any building would have a Victorian style to blend with the surrounding 19th-Century homes.

Susan Peters has lived in the town of Bethlehem for the past 66 years, having grown up in Glenmont, which she has seen go through immense changes (that hamlet now includes a sprawling shopping plaza with a Walmart and chain restaurants). Her home on Bridge Street in the historic district dates back somewhere between 1880 and 1895; she has never found out for sure. The end of the cul-de-sac on her street includes a home built by Albert I. Slingerlands in 1840.

Sanduski-Rutherford has lived in her Kenwood Avenue home with her husband since 2002. Their house was built by John Slingerland’s son, Albert I. Slingerlands, in 1874 (the deed says 1876, but she found plaster marked 1874). Her home is located outside of the historic district, she said, but individually is on the historic register because of its historical significance.

Sanduski-Rutherford said she originally was looking into issues surrounding the rail trail and the county property spilling over onto residents’ property. She then came across a proposal for the multi-unit development on the Mangia property.

Sanduski-Rutherford looked through the town code and realized there was no mention of the historic district and minimal criteria for approving projects, she said. When she submitted a Freedom of Information Law request to the town, she said, she also learned there has not been an application disapproved by the planning board since the 1980s.

Bethlehem’s comprehensive plan, finalized in 2005, and zoning laws do not acknowledge the historic district, although the town’s zoning summarizes residential zoning as written to protect residential structures. The hamlet district’s zoning is described as a means to encourage mixed-use development of businesses and homes.

The three types of zoning in the historic district are hamlet, core residential, and residential A, said Leslie. The hamlet district allows  for mixed-use between residential and commercial on the same lot.

“You can have multiple uses on the same parcel,” he said.

The core residential and residential A zones allow for only single-family residential use.

“It really comes down to the lot size,” said Leslie, of the difference between the two zoning districts. Residential A allows for up to three units per acre, while core residential allows up to six.

Protecting the district

Sanduski-Rutherford said that her group met last year with Bethlehem Supervisor John Clarkson and Councilwoman Julie Sasso, both of whom are not running for re-election. The group was tasked by the town board with coming up with a plan on how to protect the historic district.

In December, the group submitted suggestions to Clarkson, which included restoring the Slingerlands’ mausoleum, adopting zoning policies that protect the historic district and quality of life in the community as well as limit development, and update the town’s comprehensive plan.

“Our goal is to stay positive, to work positively with the town,” said Kathleen Bragle. “We’re trying to work together.

Clarkson said that he and Sasso met with the group once last year, but was waiting for more specific suggestions from the group.

“We want to hear their specific goals and objectives but we don’t know what that is,” he said.

He added he is not yet sure if the suggestions would be approved by the board, should it be restrictions on something as nominal as changing the paint color of a home, for example.

Sanduski-Rutherford said that there are several means of protecting the district, the easier possibly being either setting up a historic overlay district with supplementary regulations in addition to current zoning in the area, or establishing a landmark preservation law that would supplement the current zoning with maximum protection against new construction, demolition, or remodeling.

“We’re not going to tell somebody what color you’re able to paint your house,” said Kathleen Bragle.

The district itself was formed simply by having the town historian go door-to-door in the neighborhood and inspect the homes for eligibility. Historic landmarks in the district include the mausoleum and the freight house, located next to the rail trail.

The former Mangia building, while in the district, is not historic. But it was the site a former gas station, and has two gas tanks encased in concrete, said Sanduski-Rutherford, and possibly more tanks underground.

The comprehensive plan, said Clarkson, has in fact gone through changes over the past few years, with updates in the town’s zoning and planning codes as well progress on a new waterfront revitalization plan and an open-space plan. The comprehensive plan was last reviewed in 2014 and 2010, he said.

The planning process to renovate the mausoleum is underway, said Clarkson. The site is owned by the town and the town has right-of-way access to it. According to Leslie the site boundaries have been staked out as a first step to renovate. The goal is to work with the highway department, town historian, and other groups to clean up and maintain the site and gather historical information about it, he explained in an email.

More concerns

Residents are also concerned about the rising rates of rent businesses pay, which could be driving them away, and about dangerous, high-traffic intersections, and a need for a better serviced rail trail hub, said the group.

“Now, in terms of development, we’re number two to Colonie,” said Sanduski-Rutherford. She noted that Bethlehem is also second to Halfmoon, in Saratoga County, in number of multi-family homes.

Sanduski-Rutherford said she took an inventory of the town’s buildings and found almost 100 different housing complexes in Bethlehem, but an 8.1 percent vacancy rate in these homes.

The historic district is not far from the Vista Technology Park and is part of a town that has seen steady growth since the 1930s. The federal census between 1810 and 1930 shows population ranging between 3,000 and 7,000. By 1940, there were close to 10,000 residents, which climbed to 13,000 in 1950, close to 19,000 in 1960, over 23,000 in 1970, over 24,000 in 1980, over 27,000 in 1990, over 31,000 in 2000, and over 33,000 in 2010. Bethlehem’s population is now close to 35,000.

The group feels not only the threat of development at the former Mangia property, but also from potential sites. Although there is no specific indication that this would happen, Sanduski said that it’s only realistic to consider sites such as behind the Toll Gate Restaurant should the business permanently close.

The restaurant has not opened since its owner, Rob Zautner, was hospitalized; he is currently in rehabilitation. Toll Gate’s property has a full market value and a taxable value of $553,000, according to Albany County tax rolls.

The property at the now-defunct Mangia Restaurant, owned by 686 Route 7 LLC, has a full market value and a taxable value of $343,000, according to Albany County tax rolls.

Sanduski-Rutherford said that there is still an ability to run small businesses in the historic district, if they can be run from within historic buildings.

Bethlehem’s comprehensive plan does have a proposal to take an inventory of “historic cultural resources,” noted Leslie. He acknowledged that the comprehensive plan does not specifically identify historic districts, but said the site plan design guidelines found within the town’s zoning laws serve as a guide for the town planning board to ensure approved projects are “in harmony with the neighborhood.”

The site-plan review and approval guidelines for Bethlehem state that the historic qualities of an area should be considered.

The board is required to follow the plan, he said. Leslie also said any new building in or near the district would have to be referred to the New York State Historic Preservation office.

“The planning board has the tools at its disposal,” he said, of the ability to protect the historic district.

The Bethlehem Alliance for Historic and Community Preservation is also critical of Bethlehem’s lack of an open-space plan, saying this makes for zoning that favors development over open space.

The comprehensive plan does include a proposal for an open space plan, said Leslie. The town has laid out plans to create an open-space plan, but is still in the process of identifying and mapping out significant areas and doing an inventory of its natural resources.

He said a developed Open Space Plan would not limit or prevent development, but instead allow property owners the option to sell their land to the town rather than a developer.

He added that he would like to meet with the Bethlehem Alliance for Historic and Community Preservation and learn about its goals. He said he believes this could happen soon.