[RP TownTalk] MUTC Meeting Outcomes

[Alice Ewen Walker]

Town Talkers,

Last night the M-UTC committee met with Pete and Sons (owners of
Dumms) to review their new application for redevelopment of properties
at Queensbury / Lafayette / Riverdale Rd. (the properties where the
boarding house, convenience store/sub shop, and credit union building
are now located.)

As with the previous development proposed by Patriot Group, the
redevelopment does not meet the M-UTC guidelines on a few very major
points: building height, setback, and parking.  Those are standards
that are mandatory, which the zoning committee has no legal ability to
waive. The county, in consulatation with town council, does have that
authority through the 'special exception' process.

The M-UTC voted to approve the project subject to it securing permits
from the county through the special exception process. In essence,
this means the zoning committee approved everything that we have the
authority to approve and now the proposal passes to the county to
secure those big exceptions. The county will consult w/ the town in
this review.

It is really up to the town's elected body, reportable to voters, to
determine major variations from the zoning -- such as building height.

(In my view, building height is the only big issue on the table.  The
variance needed for setbacks is reasonable - it allows them to build
closer to the train tracks than current county codes now allow, but is
consistent with our historic build to lines. The parking variance is
minor.)

About the project -

The proposal we saw reflected effort by the applicant to incorporate
many of the comments the committee and public provided during the
Patriot Group's earlier application process. Several of the
concessions/improvements that were made in this application are:
- 4 stories rather than 5 on the building on the south side of Riverdale Rd.
- use of quality materials and articulation on all faces of the
building, including the courtyard/back sides
- more surface level parking to serve retail businesses
- no net loss of retail space. this version of the project provides
about twice the retail area as what the Patriot Group had proposed.
- effort made to minimize the roof profile
- a two phase building process that will allow the owners to continue
to operate their businesses with no shut down and no loss of these
valued businesses to the town.
- larger unit sizes to the residential units than what was previously proposed

While there are some details that are still pending regarding interior
amenities, landscaping and other features, these are things that the
applicant has stated will be in compliance with the M-UTC guidelines.

At this point, the applicant is going to move with all haste to submit
for the special permit and get a decision about whether the project
will be granted an exception or not.

If you have opinions about the project (in favor or not), the most
appropriate thing to do is to review the plans at town hall and get in
touch with your council person. You may also want to talk to the folks
at Dumm's Corner, who would like to keep the lines of communication
open and would rather have a chance to answer/address concerns now
than later.

Many thanks to the Spiropoulos family and their architecture team for
a thorough and straight forward presentation of the project last
night.

Alice Ewen Walker
M-UTC Committee Chair