At a meeting of the Guilderland town board, town officials were presented a report by the McKownville Zoning Study and awarded two bids for separate projects on two of the town’s water towers.
In December 2005, the town board appointed a committee that consisted of McKownville residents to develop recommendations for future development throughout the Western Avenue corridor.
I think what we discovered was McKownville was very built up, and we’re essentially fine tuning the development along Western Avenue, said Don Reeb, committee member and president of the McKownville Improvement Association.
`We are very much looking forward to having the town board look at our report and take from the parts they find can be used in McKownville to keep Western Avenue as much a residential area as possible,` said Reeb, who added that the committee understood the corridor was zoned to be a mix of commercial and residential but, Reeb said, `We don’t want it to swing all the way over to a business corridor.`
Reeb said there were a few properties the committee was concerned with and recommendations were made on about 10 parcels.
`I found this report very enlightening because it contained a detailed analysis of that entire corridor,` said Supervisor Kenneth Runion.
The town board also decided to award bids for the demolition and removal of the Depot Water Tank and for the repair and painting of the Westmere Water Tank. Both projects were made at the request of the town’s Office of Water and Wastewater Management.
The award for the demolition of the Depot tank went to All Industrial Services, Inc. at a cost of $31,868. The next lowest bid was $48,000 and the highest bid was over $130,000.
`It’s something that needs to come down,` said William West, superintendent of the Office of Water and Wastewater Management, of the Depot Water Tank. `If you let it go, someday it’s going to come down on its own.`
The water tower, built during World War II as part of the Voorheesville Army Depot infrastructure holds .5 million gallons of water and was in use until the construction of the 2 million gallon Relyea Road water tank in 2002.
After both the Depot Road tank and the Westmere tank were inspected it was determined that a great deal of structural repairs were needed for the Depot tank.
`It would be cheaper to demo the tank than to fix it,` said West.
In addition to being costly, the Depot Road tank has been the target of vandalism in the past.
`It’s a liability,` said West, and despite barb wire fencing and posted signs the tower’s exterior still has messages painted on it. `The kids find a way in and a way up.`
The Westmere project was awarded to Amstar of Western New York, Inc. at a cost of $564,000 and would ultimately prevent rusting inside the tank, a process that West said causes `irreparable harm.` The last improvement to the tank was made around 25 years ago.
The next town board meeting will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 3.“