[RP TownTalk] MUTC Meeting Outcomes

[Andrew Farrington]

Four stories is one two many.  Five stories is two too many.

  -Andrew Farrington
4605 Queensbury Road


On Thu, 7 Dec 2006, Alice Ewen Walker wrote:

> 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
>