VOORHEESVILLE — With Voorheesville in the process of making revisions to its current zoning code, changes may have to be made to accommodate the potential buyer of the former Smith’s Tavern. 

The person who plans to buy of 112 Maple Ave. is not yet known, but Chuck Marshall of  Stewart’s Shops, the property’s previous owner, told The Enterprise in early February the building would be used as a restaurant.

The village code prohibits “formula businesses” in the Creekside Commercial Business District, where 112 Maple Ave. is located.

A formula business, according to Voorheesville’s zoning code, is a business that is “required by contractual or other arrangements to be virtually identical to businesses in other communities because of standardized architecture, services, merchandise, decor, uniforms and the like.”  

Mayor Rich Straut was asked by The Enterprise in early February if an existing stand-alone restaurant operating in another municipality were to buy the former Smith’s Tavern, would the new Voorheesville restaurant be considered a formula business. 

Straut said, “I think it’s something that has to be clarified.”

The mayor later said, “I think we can better define [formula business] and what that intent is as part of these tweaks.” During their Feb. 10 workshop, the trustees briefly discussed wider changes being made to Voorheesville’s zoning code.

Straut said the village has since adopted design standards based on the 2019 zoning overhaul that could clarify some of these issues. The design standards offer examples of formula (or chain) businesses that have adapted to their local surroundings. But the standards, referring to the village code, are only applicable to formula businesses in Voorheesville’s South Main Street Business District.

Village attorney Rich Reilly said, “Ultimately at this point, the code-enforcement officer would interpret the current code that we have.” Based on the code’s language now, Reilly said there have been discussions as to what was intended with certain definitions in the code. 

“I don’t know that the view [of the current language in the zoning code] is that the intent was to preclude somebody who owns one business from opening up one more,” Reilly said. “I don’t think that was really what was envisioned when people were talking about formula businesses. I think it was more like a chain.”

Reilly said, with design standards now in place, “maybe there are other ways to look at” what kind of business would or wouldn’t be allowed in the Creekside Commercial Business District. “Because even if it were a chain [store or restaurant], but it was within a building that totally complied with the design standards, maybe that’s something” that might be approved. 

The Creekside Commercial zoning, which ultimately disallowed Stewart’s from building a gasoline service station and convenience store on Maple Avenue, may have had “some unintended consequences,” Straut said. “I think we need to look at that.”