The Town of Bethlehem Planning Board is in the process of determining the lead agency in the State Environmental Quality Review process for a proposed 77-parcel development near Clapper Road.
Bob Walsh of Charlew Construction appeared before the planning board at its Tuesday, Jan. 15, meeting with an outline of the Brookside Meadows project. The project is a neighborhood of 77 single-family detached homes west of Interstate 87.
Walsh said an additional 12 residential units or a couple of estate homes could be added to the project, depending on the result of the ongoing Route 9W study.
There is always a market for a few estate homes, Walsh said in a later interview. `But if the study comes back and recommends that the land adjacent to where we’d like to put those should be, say, industrial or retail, we wouldn’t put estate homes there.`
Planning board members indicated that they were comfortable with Charlew’s site plan and said they would start working on the next level of review.
`I wanted to move that forward to just to let the developer know that we are interested,` said Parker Mathusa, planning board chairman.
Mathusa asked Walsh if the project could be extended to Beaver Dam Road.
`It certainly could be, but not by us,` replied Walsh.
This is a scaled-down version of a previous proposal by Charlew in which the builder would develop 173 acres between Clapper Road and Beaver Dam Road for 345 single family homes; 39 town homes of two units each; 14 condominiums of six units each; and 10 apartment houses of eight units each.
Walsh said that project was withdrawn due to the possible Selkirk Bypass and an overall `lack of progress,` and the builder came back with the most recent proposal.
Mathusa said he would have liked to have seen some of the lower-cost homes that were in the first proposal included in the most recent one.
`I was interested in the high-end and the low-end homes, because our comprehensive plan calls for a mixture of homes with different values,` he said.
Mathusa said the least expensive properties in the development would be well above $250,000.
Mathusa said the next step is to determine lead agency in the SEQRA process and further review the proposal.
`And I’m sure that the state Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historical Preservation will be interested because of all the historic components of the Hillman Farm,` said Mathusa, who had a paper route near the development and remembers going to square dances on the property.
`Clapper Road is a very special place for me, so I’m very interested in seeing it done well,` he said.
Incorporated in 1967 by Charlew President Lawrence Lewandowski and brother Charles Lewandowski, Jr., Charlew Construction has built and sold more than 2,000 homes in 36 neighborhoods across the Capital Region, Walsh said.
He said he would like to appear before the Planning Board again in April or May of this year. If everything goes smoothly, he said, Charlew Construction could have shovels in the ground in 18 months.
`Certainly not sooner,` he said.“