Ace Hardware Complex Looks To Expand
At its Thursday, January 4 meeting the Brunswick Planning Board was presented with a proposal that would see Ace Hardware take down its current rental/repair building on the Route 7 (Hoosick Road) lot and move it into a planned 3,000 foot expansion. The expansion would be built on the rear of the current hardware store. The demolished building would be replaced with a two-story office structure.
The main question the Board had that night dealt with parking, in particular would the site changes allow for expanded vehicle use, especially since the extension to the main building would eliminate the employee parking in the rear. The Board indicated it would have to see the actual site plan filing to determine if the parking proposal was conceptually correct before it could move forward.
Another Commercial Solar Site Is Proposed
High Peaks Solar is asking the Board for permission to construct a utility scale solar facility at 566 Brunswick Road (NY Route 2), although the actual entrance into the site would be off Garfield Road in the hamlet of Eagle Mills. They have presented the Board with an amended site plan that has the majority of the transmission lines from the solar panels to National Grid’s collection site underground, except where the utility requires the equipment to be mounted on poles. They also argued that the site’s proposed location is not visible from Dater Hill Road, a concern the Board had previously expressed. High Peaks also says there are no wetlands on the site, a problem the recently approved Borrego Solar site had to mitigate.
High peaks will also require a setback variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals. Both Boards will be required to hold public hearings on the matter, something that might be done jointly, as it was with the Borrego application.
Sending the Letter
As the Board stated was its intention, it have sent a letter to the Brunswick Town Board expressing concerns about the proposed 144 unit apartment complex that MJ Engineering and David Leon want to construct on land located just off Hillcrest Avenue, that in turn, runs off Hoosick Road. The Planning Board is seeking input on the density of apartment complexes in the town and traffic impacts on the already very congested Hoosick Road. The Town Board has several options, ranging from simply offering advice to actually instituting a moratorium on such construction, until the concerns can be further studied.
The Board gave Nick Snyder a subdivision waiver to carve a new 9.42-acre parcel from the 110.5 acres of land he currently owns at 196 Town Office Road. His stated intention is to construct a home on the new lot. The approval was conditional that the driveway first be given approval by the Rensselaer County Highway Department as Town Office Road is a county owned highway.