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ROTTERDAM: Board spars over land use

Posted on: 02/21/07
Written by: Jessica Harding, Schenectady County Reporter
email: hardingj@spotlightnews.com

The Rotterdam Town Board approved a resolution for Chazen Companies to prepare a request for proposal for the development of the Curry Road Shopping Center Plaza at its regular meeting Wednesday, Feb. 14. The town is going to pay Chazen Companies up to $4,500 to complete the proposal.

Board member Robert Godlewski questioned the resolution because he said the Golub family gave the property to the town to be used for town purposes. In a telephone interview, Godlewski said he thinks the town should use the property to consolidate its services, which could mean building a new town hall, police station and senior citizen center.  

“The town should consolidate all its buildings and services in one area. Right now they are all spread out and in older buildings,” Godlewski said. “I told them (the board) the maintenance and energy costs are going to start eating you alive.”

Supervisor Steven Tommasone and the rest of the board disagreed with Godlewski.

In a telephone interview, Tommasone said, “As supervisor, it is my desire to see as much property in private hands paying taxes as possible in order to alleviate the tax burden from our residential taxpayers.”

Mona Golub, spokeswoman for the Golub Corp., said the only restrictions the family put on the land when gifting it to the town was that there couldn’t be any food store or supermarket there. The Golub family kept the land parcels where a Trustco Bank now stands, the land where the family has a print shop and some land in the front of the property.

“We kept a little less than 1 acre and gifted the remaining 10 acres for the town to develop as they wish,” Mona Golub said.

Tommasone said he hopes Chazen Companies will complete the request for proposal and then the town will turn it over to a private developer. He said he would like to see some form of senior housing on the property.

The land is zoned as business, which under Rotterdam’s zoning laws means anything could go there — from commercial development to multifamily residences.

Godlewski said Clough, Harbour & Associates did a similar study on the property three years ago and came back with four different scenarios to develop the site for town purposes. He said the cost of each was between $8 million and $15 million, which the previous administration thought was too high. Godlewski said the current administration hasn’t looked at that study.

“Why would you want spend another $4,500 when we’re facing a reval. We’re spending money we don’t have to spend,” Godlewski said.

Tommasone said he is working to consolidate the buildings and services in the town.      

“There are buildings that we have now that we shouldn’t and we’re still lighting them and heating them,” Tommasone said.

“These are long-range decisions that will impact the town for 50 to 60 years,” Godlewski said. “For Tommasone to say there is nothing wrong with the current town hall is like sticking your head in the sand and ignoring what is going on.”

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ROTTERDAM
Firm hired to study plaza development
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter

   Rotterdam officials have contracted with a private firm to investigate development opportunities at the Curry Road Shopping Center Plaza, nearly three years after a study determined the construction costs of a new municipal facility on the town-owned plot would be prohibitive.
   Board members last week approved a $4,500 allocation hiring the Poughkeepsie-based Chazen Companies to prepare a request for proposal to develop the 11-acre property donated by the Golub Corporation in 2003. Supervisor Steven Tommasone said the study should help guide future economic development of a plaza that has remained largely dormant since 1980.
   “This property needs to go back on the tax rolls,” he said Thursday. “We have to have economic development to offset future tax increases that residents can’t afford.”
   Once the study is completed, Tommasone said the town will likely seek out a private developer to build the site. Once developed, he said the town would then sell the property for funds to be used for public benefit, such as to offset the cost of building a new police station or to purchase park land.
   “We want to have something there that will add to the community and quite frankly, refl ect the generosity of the Golubs,” he said.“We’re looking to get something redeveloped out there in such a way that it fits within the characteristics of the surroundings.”
   Studying the development of the property is a departure from a previous $38,700 study conducted by two private companies in 2004, which explored options to convert the largely barren plaza into a combined police station and court building or a municipal complex grouping both with the town hall.
   Board member Robert Godlewski was critical of the sudden change in plans for the plaza. He said developing the land commercially would deprive the town of an ideal parcel of land that could be used to consolidate some of Rotterdam’s aging and inadequate municipal facilities.
   “The town doesn’t have any property that is centrally located to consolidate the town hall, police department and justice court,” he said. “You can only do so much with the way you’re configured now.”
   Rather than spend more money on a study, Godlewski said the board should have considered methods to construct a new municipal complex in a piecemeal fashion or at least investigated grant funding possibilities for such a project.
   “I know their feelings about that site but, to me, it’s up to us to gather the resources to make that a feasible project,” he said. “Here we have all this vacant land, so why should the town give back a piece of property they got for nothing?”
   But Tommasone said the plot of land off bustling Curry Road would be impractical for emergency vehicles to use. And given the cost of construction, he said building a large municipal facility would be impractical for taxpayers, especially in the wake of a recent renovation project at the existing Town Hall. All but an acre of the original 12-acre parcel was originally donated to the town by Golub, after the company was unsuccessful in securing tenants for the site.