ALTAMONT — At a meeting of the village planning board Monday night, the board voted to forgo making any recommendations to the village board about the application by Stewart’s for a zoning change for the property adjacent to its Altamont store that would allow the chain to rebuild on an expanded footprint.

The board had the option of deciding to recommend for or against the zoning change, Village Attorney Jason L. Shaw explained at the meeting. It could also have recommended for or against the change, while citing specific condition or concerns, for instance, about environmental or aesthetic issues, Shaw said. The board also had the option of deciding — as it did — to do nothing.

In any case, any recommendation it made would not be binding, Shaw said, on the village board, which is set to make a decision on the application at the public hearing scheduled for Tuesday night at 7 p.m. at the village hall.

Planning Board Chair Timothy Wilford indicated that he had received a large number of impassioned letters from residents, but that he would not be reading them at the meeting. Since the planning board meeting was not a hearing, and members of the public were not invited to speak, it did not seem fair, Wilford said at the meeting, to read aloud letters for or against the plan, and then refuse to allow residents actually present to say anything.

Wilford plans to pass those letters over to the village board, he said, since that is the body that will decide this issue.

Planning board member Elaine VanDeCarr said, “We need to consider precedents.”

She said that, if the committee set the comprehensive plan in 2006, and then the planning board came along a few years later to say that some detail of the plan should be changed, “we’re setting precedent” for the next project that will alter another piece of the plan.

Planning board member Kevin Clancy said that the board did not need to make judgment on a specific project, but only evaluate the basic idea of a zoning change. The board needs to consider, he said, “would changing that parcel adversely affect anything?”

Shaw then said that the planning board did indeed need to consider the specific use planned by Stewart’s, since, according to law, if there is an applicant making the request for a specific reason, the zoning change would be either granted or denied on the basis of that particular plan. A company cannot, for instance, he said, make a request for a zoning change to do a specific project, and then build something else on the site instead.

Wilford complained that the planning board did not have any “official plans” before it about what Stewart’s wants to put on the site. He was then handed a provisional plan, copies of which had previously been made available at a village board meeting and which has previously been printed in The Enterprise, but was told that this meeting was not the venue for going over specific details of the plan.

If the zoning change were approved, Shaw said, the plans then come back to the planning board for more specific consideration of details such as setback, lighting, fencing, and green space.

“I’m asked to give my opinion on a project that I’m not really allowed to pick over with a fine-tooth comb,” said Wilford.

The board discussed the line of trees that currently stands between Stewart’s and 107-109 Helderberg Ave., the house that would be torn down if the zoning change were approved. The line of trees would come down, too, if the zoning change is approved, board members said. They noted that Stewart’s original plan, for simply refurbishing the building on the property’s existing footprint, also called for that line of trees to come down.

VanDeCarr asked what is the distance, in feet, between the proposed fence line of Stewart’s and the side of the house owned by Carol Rothenberg, at 111 Helderberg Ave. Other board members were unsure. Wilford said that village law calls for at least an eight-foot setback, so the minimum distance would be eight feet, but that the actual distance could be much more.

Clancy noted that the property at 107-109 Helderberg Ave. is not “at the center” of the residential district. Tearing it down, he said, would not change the current situation, of having a store adjacent to a residential property.

John Scally said that he himself lives in a one-family house that is two doors down from a business, with a two-family house in between, and that he “would not like it” if the zoning of the two-family house next door were changed.

Stephen Caruso said that he had mixed emotions about the application, and that he did not feel the board could come to a consensus.

Clancy said that he thought it was more important for members of the public to speak, “rather than the five of us.”

Wilford indicated that the village board members — who are elected officials and, he said, can better speak for residents — have the same information before them and can come to a decision as well as the planning board can.