To the Editor:
I am writing in response to the article of May 15, 2024 which chronicled the Guilderland Town Board meeting for the Guilderland Village LLC’s proposed project at the Charles Bohl Inc. properties from 2298-2314 Western Ave site [“Another mixed-use proposal for contaminated Western Avenue site”].

The writer used negatively-slanted adjectives at every juncture in describing the site, the project, and the board’s reaction, mirroring the tenor of some of the board members’ questioning at the May 7 town board meeting.   

I have written tomes on the history of what my family has done over the past 13 years in trying to remediate and sell this property, which we have owned since the 1920s (exception being the dry cleaner site which we bought out of tax foreclosure in 2011 from the county many years after it was out of business).

The public can rest assured we have done everything according to the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation guidelines to address the contamination to this point. We have expended considerable treasure, heart, and soul to keep this property viable and protect my family name.

It has been a constant banter of “fix this site, do something with this eyesore” for years. I agree that it’s an eyesore. But now we have a proposed project to do all this. The boards now have a chance to make or break this site.

It’s easy to ask for more. All of the recently approved and built huge apartment projects have gone up without these requirements for “workforce” housing, etc.

This project offers both remediation of a site and a turn lane at an intersection that has needed one for years. And they have offered 10-percent workforce housing when no other project has been required nor offered such. It is 10 percent more than exists today.   

So, it is now up to the boards to decide — will this be your (the boards’) legacy? Either this site is remediated and redeveloped or will we now do what any other person would have done years ago and declare bankruptcy and abandon the property and leave it to the taxpayers to pay for the remediation.

This is the reality. Yes, all you taxpayers will pay the price for the board’s refusal to allow this project to go through.

Oh and by the way it will be at least a decade that the site will sit abandoned until the county can go through the courts and repossess, etc.

So, it is now up to you, board members, for your legacy in this town — you have the chance to be reasonable and look at the bigger picture and compromise or it will be on you that this site is abandoned.

It will no longer be my battle if the boards decide to penalize the one last chance this property has for redemption by tagging it with all the “wants” the other projects never had to carry. Please be practical, board members.

You have no idea what it has taken to get to this point. You want this property cleaned up, but now you don’t want this project — so which is it?

Compromise and come up with a doable and fair plan or let it be abandoned, stick the taxpayers for the bill and continue to talk about it for decades to come?  It’s up to you to do the right thing.  

Theresa J. Bohl

for Charles Bohl, Inc.

Guilderland