GUILDERLAND — Once presented as market-rate housing for seniors, 130 apartments billed as “luxury active lifestyle at an affordable rate” are nearing completion on Route 155 across from Guilderland’s middle school. 

The project, which has received millions of dollars in town-approved tax breaks, has been controversial since its inception. Neighbors distraught with the proposal were the genesis of the grassroots group now called Guilderland Coalition for Responsible Growth.

In a press release drumming up business last week, Hamilton Parc sought and received publicity for single-room apartments with a starting low of $2,475 per month and two-room units at the high end for nearly $4,000 a month

The release stated, “The first phase of the Hamilton Parc project, which is nearing completion, includes 130 units. An additional 25 units will open shortly afterwards. Construction on Phase Two is already underway and will include 101 units, bringing available units to a total of 256.”

A statement attributed to Arye Schwimmer of Webster Management, the company managing the project on behalf of developer Markstone Group, said “Hamilton Parc,”  located at 6025 and 6051 State Farm Road, “recognizes that the needs of independent seniors in the Capital Region are too great to ignore, and we’re committed to offering a luxury active lifestyle at an affordable rate.”

Dr. Frank Casey, who lives close to and has been a frequent critic of the project, told The Enterprise on Tuesday that, ever “since the new developer came on board, I think what they’re looking at is Rockland County market rates. Not the market rates for around here, that’s for sure.”

A market rate apartment is a rental property whose rent level aligns with the current rates in the local area for comparable apartments. Rent is determined by the supply and demand of the local housing market, and is not influenced by government programs, restrictions, or subsidies.

An earlier analysis submitted by developers placed the market rate for senior housing in Guilderland between $1,600 for a one-bedroom unit and $2,000 for a two-bedroom apartment. 

Median rent in Guilderland, depending on the source, ranges from about $1,400 per month to close to $1,700 per month. 

“Yeah, I did some quick calculations,” Casey said. “I’ve got a house that’s a little bit less than 3,000 square feet. And my monthly expenses are probably $100 more than what it would cost for a one-bedroom apartment” at Hamilton Parc.

“In other words,” Casey said, “the rates, I think, are extremely high.”

Casey said, “I feel sorry” because when the project was in planning stages, he recalled some residents speaking in favor of the developer at that time, Anthony Carrow, a Guilderland resident and chief of the Westmere Fire Department. 

“They spoke in favor because they said they were really looking forward to being able to go someplace and afford to be able to live there,” he said. 

Carrow sold the project’s three parcels of land, about 43.8 acres, to Hiawatha Land Development, a New York City-based LLC, for $3.25 million, according to the deeds on file with the Albany County Clerk’s Office. 

Criticism, court cases, and cash

Hamilton Parc, first known as Hiawatha Trails, has had a contentious history. 

It initially took Carrow over a year of controversy and changes to gain approval from the town’s zoning board of appeals, in May 2019.

The project was originally proposed, in 2017, as a planned-unit development, and catalyzed the organization of the grassroots citizens’ group Guilderland Coalition for Responsible Growth, which opposed the development’s size and height.

In August 2019, seven neighbors in Presidential Estates, across Route 155 from the then-potential future site of the project, filed an Article 78 proceeding against the zoning board; Geoffrey Van Epps, then-owner of the Hiawatha Trails golf course; and Carrow. 

The citizens’ challenge asked the court to annul and vacate all of the decisions the zoning board had made in approving the project. But the judge in the case decided that the plaintiffs did not have standing to maintain the legal action and that, even if they did have standing, their petition would still be denied.

One of the conditions of approval from the zoning board was that the owner submit evidence, every year, on the anniversary of the certificate of occupancy, showing each lease signed by an occupant who qualifies to live in the senior facility. 

In September 2021, the board of the Guilderland Industrial Development Agency granted mortgage- and sales-tax relief to Hiawatha Land Development for the eventual 256 senior-housing units. But a request for a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreement failed. 

The developer received about $2.46 million in sales- and use-tax exemptions and an approximately $664,000 in mortgage-recording tax exemption, but not the $1.06 million in property-tax exemption it had been seeking. 

During the September 2021 meeting, Donald Csaposs, the IDA’s chief executive officer, told board members that, after a review of the Hiawatha application, it was determined the $4.1 million figure had been “unreasonable.” That observation was then conveyed to the developer, who returned with the $2.46 million ask.

During a public hearing on the tax-break request, nearly all speakers urged the IDA not to grant the request, including a now-town board member. 

Christine Napierski, then a candidate for town board and now Guilderland’s deputy supervisor, said during the August 2021 public hearing that the goal of an IDA is to attract development, prevent economic deterioration, and help create jobs for the town. 

But “it wasn’t till the very end” of the developer’s presentation that it mentioned “a mere seven permanent jobs” would be created, Napierski said, three of which have salaries of about $50,000 and another four that are between $15 and $20 per hour. 

Napierski also pointed out that the project no longer had the same owners and that Carrow, who remained attached to the project, would only be the local face of a development now owned by two men from New York City. 

“If we lower the bar to a mere seven permanent jobs for this type of tax exemption. Then this is going to open the door to all types of businesses requesting tax exemptions. Is [there something] special or unique about this project?” Napierski asked.

She also noted that there’d be a donation of land to the town, a point Casey also highlighted. 

“It’s been an interesting situation all through these years,” he said. “The town had it in mind that they wanted to have senior apartments,” and along with that would come “a good chunk of that land which has been supposedly donated to the town.”

But what the really means, Casey said, is that “we, the taxpayers, are now going to have to pay to maintain the parcel of land, [while] at the same time the people who own the facility are going to include in their advertisements that they sit next to a very nice green space and walking paths and all that.”