At the Tuesday, March 3, meeting, the New Scotland Planning Board unveiled a draft of its commercial zoning law that calls on developers to prove the viability of projects larger than 10,000 square feet in the commercial zone.
According to the proposal, the developer would be responsible for showing that the impact on the community, economy, environment and infrastructure will not be negatively affected by the development. A potential developer would have to foot the bill for all of the studies related to the proposal.
Under state law, developers must provide certain impact studies, but Bob Staph, chairman of the New Scotland Planning Board, said including a provision in the law will allow a double guarantee that the community will not be adversely affected.
Staph said the process of hammering out the law spawned a good amount of debate and discussion.
`I thought it was very good. Everyone on the board had different issues. There was a lot of back and forth,` Staph said.
A draft of the law was first submitted to the planning board by Commercial Zone Advisory Committee members Liz Kormos and Mike Naughton, but the Planning Board redrafted it to remove the 50,000-square-foot cap on retail developments and left out any provisions dealing with the industrial zone and commercial hamlet.
Kormos and Naughton are both members of New Scotlanders for Sound Economic Development, an advocacy group supporting a 50,000-square-foot size cap on commercial developments.
Staph said the most recent draft of the law does not mention the industrial zone and commercial hamlet and deals only with the commercial zone itself. He said there will be four stages of use, starting with 10,000 square feet of permitted use, up to 350,000 square feet of special use.
As the size of the proposed development goes up, so does an open space requirement.
Paul Cantlin, building inspector in the town, called the new draft a `rational approach` to development.
`To put a cap doesn’t really solve the issue,` said Cantlin.
A 10,000-square-foot car crushing operation could have more of a negative impact on the community than a 60,000 square foot market, he said.
The town currently has a moratorium in place on new commercial buildings larger than 30,000 square feet while it examines the zoning laws that affect residents. The moratorium is set to expire Wednesday, April1. The town will be scheduling a public hearing on the zoning proposal in the coming weeks.
Greg Widrick, a representative of Sphere Development LLC, a Syracuse-based company with plans to develop a 137,000 -square-foot retail anchor store, such as Target, at the corner of routes 85 and 85A in New Scotland, said he is hopeful for the opportunity to present the board with its plans.
`We would obviously do whatever is necessary under the law,` Widrick said.
He said under the provision of the proposed law, known as Local Law I, Sphere would provide a feasibility study to determine the viability of their development.
Attempts to contact Daniel Mackay, founder of NS4SED, were unsuccessful.
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