Quoted Text

SCHENECTADY
City plan includes new zoning Regulations draw on mistakes made in past
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

   The city is learning from its past mistakes as officials carefully craft new zoning regulations for the proposed comprehensive plan.
   If the plan is approved, professional offices won’t be allowed on the first floor in any structure in the new waterfront zone — a reaction to the large expanses of brick wall in downtown State Street, where MVP and Department of Transportation both built large office buildings.
   Any new buildings downtown would also have to have front entrances, a proposal that could have saved the Planning Commission much grief two years ago. It lost a long fight with the Hampton Inn developers, who eventually got permission to put in a side entrance instead of a door on State Street.
   The entire draft plan will be posted Nov. 26 on the city’s Web site, and the planning commission intends to vote on the plan soon. Once the commission makes a recommendation either in favor or against the plan, the Schenectady City Council will hold a public hearing — likely in February — and vote in March.
   Many of the new rules are based on painful experience, Zoning Officer Steve Strichman said.
   “On Erie Boulevard we just had a front door removed. It’s not just the Hampton Inn, it’s all over,” he said. “In good urban planning, you don’t want people driving from one site to another to get to the entrance in the back.”
   He’s going to keep fighting that battle downtown, but he’s giving up on the idea of first-fl oor retail.
   “I’m not concerned about that downtown anymore,” he said, citing the many office buildings already operating downtown without first-floor retail.
   But he plans to learn from that mistake in the new waterfront development off East Front Street.
   “We’re learning from our past,” he said. “The intent is a district where you live, work and shop. You don’t have to pass a big building you can’t go into.”
   Small offices that would attract customers — such as tax preparation and law firms — would be allowed.
   Strichman also looked at the current zoning in the neighborhood commercial corridors and decided it was so restrictive, it was actually inhibiting development. The commercial zoning allows only retail and professional offices.
   “That goes all the way through the corridors. Look at all the buildings there — there’s no way retail is going to fill all of them,” Strichman said. “It seemed like it was very limited.”
BETTER MIX
   The new zoning would allow small manufacturing, a category that would include such businesses as the community kitchen that Hunger Action Network wants to build on Hamilton Hill.
   “Things like that are nice in a neighborhood. It’s a good thing to mix in. It’s small, not a lot of truck traffic, smells or noise,” Strichman said. “We’re trying to create opportunities in these neighborhoods.”
   The proposed code is also far more specific in terms of design and other aesthetic considerations. It bans the use of exterior insulation and finish systems on the fi rst floor of any building, for example. EIFS, a synthetic mix of mesh and foam covered by a thin layer of stucco, is used to make fake wood, brick and stone facades because it’s far cheaper than the real thing.
   “However, it’s not really durable on the ground floor,” Strichman said. “We’ve seen it on ground floors and we don’t want it because kids with skateboards, people with baby carriages, even putting your feet on it can damage it.”
   In the past, he said, the Planning Commission has denied proposals for the material on fi rst floors, but he said developers would prefer to know the rules upfront.
   “We’re creating concise guidelines, so it’s easier for developers,” Strichman said. “If you’re specifi c and tell the developers exactly what you want, we anticipate people will come in with site plans we want.”
   If they don’t, the planning commission would have much more power to deny them.
   “The most important thing in this, I think, is we gave the planning commission teeth to make properties look good,” Strichman said. “They didn’t have teeth before.”
   That’s because the new code includes standards for design, landscaping, buffering and lighting. It also makes it clear, for example, that buildings cannot be surrounded by parking.
   “We’ve had drugstores come in that are suburban in design. Downtown there’s Two Guys and Holiday Inn — neither of them tie in to downtown. They’ve got a sea of parking,” Strichman said. “The Lottery Building is always going to be an island. We want a dense downtown.”
   To make it denser, some of the longtime downtown rules would be loosened. Buildings now can only cover up to 78 percent of their site and can’t go higher than four stories. Those rules are being eliminated.
   Strichman pointed out that the new Golub headquarters, which on Thursday was proposed to be built at the former Big N Plaza, would be six stories tall. The plaza is zoned industrial now — where buildings can be up to 10 stories — but is slated to be rezoned commercial in the new comprehensive plan.
   “It’s a good thing it’s industrial now,” Strichman said. “But this is such a tight restriction. The [former] Ramada Inn is at least six stories. What is wrong with that?”