Bethlehem Town Board tackles plenty of items at biweekly meeting
The Bethlehem Town Board tackled a number of issues at its Wednesday, July 13, meeting.
More info needed on Wemple Corners rezone
A developer’s request to rezone land in Glenmont to pave the way for Wemple Corners, a huge new urbanism-type commercial and housing project, is moving ahead, albeit slowly.
Milltowne Plaza Inc. is hoping the town will rezone a 95-acre parcel of land at the intersection of Wemple Road and Route 9W from mixed economic development to `commercial hamlet.` That request was forwarded to the town’s Planning Board for a review in April, but that body decided it didn’t have enough information.
That created a sort of Catch-22 scenario, said Town Planner Jeffrey Lipnicky, as the Planning Board is required to return a recommendation within 45 days. That’s a requirement included in a 2006 revision to the zoning code.
`Since then, we’ve never had a conventional zoning request of this scale,` Lipnicky said.
So the Town Board on Wednesday voted to put the brakes on the rezoning request to conduct a state environmental impact review, which would have been required of the Wemple Corners project anyway. That should provide a lot more information for the town to review when it comes to the rezoning request.
Milltowne is hoping to build over 500 units of senior apartments, conventional apartments, mixed-use apartments above businesses, townhomes, condominiums and over 140,000 square feet of commercial and office space.
It’s the senior housing that is really necessitating the change to a commercial hamlet zone, according to the developer.
Babe Ruth shed gets green light … after the fact
It turns out a local private baseball league jumped the gun on construction of a large shed at the town’s Elm Avenue Park.
Bethlehem Babe Ruth has been in discussions with the town since the spring to construct a 16-by-32-foot shed for storing equipment and operating two pitching machines out of. The league even obtained a building permit for the structure, but not any approval from the town to build on Bethlehem land. Still, work began recently.
Once the oversight was discovered, construction was immediately stopped, said Bethlehem Supervisor Sam Messina.
`I think there was full cooperation to get things righted again and moving in the right direction,` he said at a meeting where the Town Board took action to approve the building of the structure and enter into an agreement with the Babe Ruth league.
Babe Ruth will donate the shed, which is estimated to be valued at $15,000, to the town once it’s complete. Accepting the donation was approved unanimously, but Councilman Mark Hennessey dissented on a vote to enter into a license agreement with the league to allow construction to continue.
`I’m very uncomfortable with the way this was done,` Hennessey said. `The idea that we change procedure to match up with what someone did in error is an error on our part.`
The agreement allows Babe Ruth to use the shed, which will replace two smaller sheds. The license is revocable at the town’s discretion.
The shed will tap into the town’s electrical service running down Line Drive. Other organizations benefit from this electrical power through use of scoreboards and other services, said Director of Parks and Recreation Nan Lanahan.
`We have electricity all throughout Line Drive that we pay for,` she said.
Other news:
A public hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 10, on an amendment to the Town of Bethlehem’s noise ordinance.
If adopted, the amendment would grant an exemption to the law for `any functions of businesses that were in use prior to the adoption of this chapter.` The code was voted into law late in 2009.
`It’s taking those businesses and stating they are allowed to make the same amount of noise and do the same business they were in the past,` said Gil Boucher, the town’s building inspector.
The matter came to the town’s attention after it received complaints about the Jericho Drive-In, he continued.
`The Jericho Drive-In has always been a drive-in … and it should still be allowed to be a drive-in and continue to be allowed to do what they’re doing,` he said.
The same would go for any noisy businesses, such as CSX and its railway operations. New businesses will still be held to the law, and the Planning Board will take possible noise into consideration during its review of any application.
Secondary business functions, like a band playing outdoors at a bar, would not be covered by the exemption.
The noise and abatement and containment law sets decibel limits for noise created during the nighttime hours that travels off one property and on to another. The law already allows exemptions for a number of activities, including agricultural operations, government-related or public utility activities, trash removal and manufacturing, to name a few.
First-time offenders found in violation of the law can be assessed a fine of up to $250.
The Town Board renewed an agreement with Selkirk property owners that grants an easement to access wellheads the Clapper Road Water Treatment Plant draws water from.
The terms of the agreement were unchanged: The town will continue to pay the property owners $5,000 a year to operate and maintain wells on about 7.6 acres of their property. The extended agreement will last through March of 2016.
The Town Board voted to accept a donation of $500 from the Bethlehem Garden Club to be put toward the expansion and beautification of the town’s Veterans Memorial Park on Delaware Avenue. The money was added to an existing fund for the upkeep and improvement of the park, which with the newest addition stands at around $7,000.
The Town Board voted to accept a donation of $265.55 from the friends of Dottie Bradt-Weller for a bench at the Elm Avenue Park Pool.“
