Editor, The Spotlight:
In last week’s Spotlight it was reported that in order for the Delmar Pointe project to move forward, the Bethlehem Town Board would have to approve a rezoning. This would involve rezoning the rural green space on Delaware Avenue past the high school, amending it from “residential” to “planned development.”
I applaud the board members who questioned the need for more residential development in town and particularly thank Councilman Kuhn for his question: “At what point have we determined that we have enough?”
May I ask why we went through the long, Comprehensive Development Plan process in the first place? For all too many decades previous Bethlehem Town boards have rubber stamped almost any sort of land development and I urge the current board to stick with the residential zoning classification.
People don’t move to residential areas of Bethlehem in order to have every inch of green space around them put on the table for down zoning or nibbled away on construction. If addition tax revenue is needed, maybe we should ask why recent tax abatements have been given at Vista; so a 14th bank could move to town, another grocery store and a professional office? Does anyone really believe they would have gone elsewhere because we wouldn’t offer tax relief?
Alan Via, Slingerlands