GUILDERLAND — A 72-unit income-restricted apartment project located behind the Guilderland Public Library is in the very early stages of development. 

No formal application has been submitted to the town, but members of the development team looking to build the project at 6 and 10 Mercy Care Lane met this week with Guilderland’s Development Planning Committee. 

The committee is effectively made up of town staff members who meet with prospective developers to provide them with feedback on topics such as traffic and environmental impacts, open space and street layout, stormwater management, and whether there’s enough infrastructure to accommodate such a proposal. 

The site had previously been approved for the 65-unit Beacon Meadows, which was to become Guilderland’s first development for people aged 55 and older, adoptive families, and young adults with developmental disabilities.

Members of the current development team, which included developer Rockabill Development, engineering firm LaBella, and site owner First Columbia, explained to committee members that Beacon Meadows failed to secure funding through the state’s Homes and Community Renewal agency because the development had age restrictions placed on it. 

With the new Mercy Lane proposal, Rockabill will be looking to offer a mix of affordable and workforce housing, with a certain number of apartments being made available for prospective residents based on a tiered median income scale. 

The project before the committee currently has no funding; its members were told Rockabill would try to secure the funding through HCR, which becomes something of a chicken-and-egg situation. 

Rockabill is looking to have the project rezoned as a Planned Unit Development, for which the town board is the lead agency because the project requires a new town law for the rezone. 

The town board would be asked to approve a project without funding, but the state, the committee was told, likes to see municipal approvals in place before it will dole out any funding. 

The town recently ran into issues with approving projects lacking funding. 

In August 2021, town board members unanimously approved an amendment to a 2017 law that allowed for 96 market-rate senior apartments slated for New Karner Road to instead become 86 units of affordable senior housing: 56 assisted-living units and 40 for memory care.

The development was to be for people aged 55 or older whose incomes ranged from 30 percent to 90 percent of the area median income, with rents between about $444 to $1,244 per month.

But the developer, Pine Bush Senior Living LLC, failed twice to obtain state funding and the project ultimately fell apart.