Ulderic Boisvert says landowner’s allegations of a deal with the town are ‘trumped up conspiracy theories’
Former board member Ulderic J. Boisvert said allegations that he struck a deal with the previous Colonie administration to change the zoning on his property near the Pine Bush Preserve are untrue.
At a Town Board meeting earlier this month, Colonie resident Suzanne Perry-Potts said Boisvert had the zoning of his residential property changed from Industrial F to Business E during the Comprehensive Plan process in 2005, to the detriment of the preserve. Boisvert’s residence, however, is actually near Memory’s Garden by Shaker Rental. He does own property on Albany Street near the preserve, but that parcel is zoned agricultural, a change that was made in 2007.
She’s making crazy accusations, Boisvert said. `She’s making baseless conspiracy theory claims that hold no water.`
Boisvert said Saratoga Associates made a recommendation to the previous administration to change what was left of the zoning area where his Albany Street property was located to Industrial, which the board approved. Boisvert said his property was not part of that change.
`The way she [Potts] made it sound was that I made some backroom deal with the Town Board to say, ‘OK, I’m going to make this property only Industrial,’ and that’s not the case,` he said. `If you look at it, it’s just a block.`
Boisvert said Brian Hogan, who was a Colonie Town Board member and liaison to the planning department at the time, discussed the proposed changes with the board.
`At the end of it was all put together with the Saratoga Associates, they said, ‘This is our plan, this is how we want to move forward on it,’` he said. `I did not at any time give an inference on how to change the comprehensive plan. I never spoke up and said, ‘Well, we should do it this way or that way,’ it was whatever Saratoga Associates put in front of us. There were other board members who put input on it, but myself, I thought they did a very good job in crafting this document.`
When Potts spoke in front of the Town Board on Sept. 2, she charged that the land where Boisvert lived was changed to Industrial so he would vote in favor of the plan.
`They allowed Boisvert to go to Industrial so he could vote yes [on the Comprehensive Plan],` said Potts. `Since he was getting a benefit, he shouldn’t have even voted. It also went against the Comprehensive Plan that said no property would be intensively zoned.`
Boisvert said five other board members, along with the town supervisor, voted in favor of the plan, so his vote would not have made a difference.
As president of H.U.R.B. Landscaping, which is located on the Albany Street parcel, Boisvert applied to the Albany County Legislature to change the zoning to an Agricultural designation three years ago.
He said he doesn’t know why Potts would accuse him of wanting to change to Industrial after he changed to Agricultural.
`I make mulch, I grow flowers, I grow mums, that’s what I do,` he said. `I have no intention of selling my land. And when it does sell, and it’s residential, that wouldn’t hurt my feelings.`
He said the changes that were made at the time to clean up the zoning borders at the time `made good sense,` but she wasn’t sure why they changed Potts’ land to single-family residential.
Potts currently has a resolution before the Town Zoning Board to change the zoning of her property back to industrial.
`The only conclusion I can come to is when the forefathers back in the ’50s put the first zoning plan in place, it was supposed to be all industrial over there and it wasn’t happening,` he said. `It’s mainly houses over there. So they [the current Town Board] looked at it and said, ‘OK, conforming and non-conforming use now, we’ll make it all residential.’ It made good sense at the time. Do I think it was a perfect instrument? It was meant to be built off of.`
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