Major – and controversial – redevelopment proposal of commercial and residential project on Route 20 gets green light
Aldi is coming to Cazenovia.
The controversial Route 20 redevelopment proposal, which includes commercial businesses and residential apartment housing on a 10.7-acre lot, was approved Monday night, Nov. 28, by a 3-2 split vote of the village planning board. The approved resolution contained 17 conditions.
Board members Rich Huftalen (chair), Anne McDowell and Adam Walburger voted yes; Jennifer Gavilondo and Stephen McEntee voted no.
The project developers were present during the three-and-a-half-hour special meeting, as were about a dozen interested local residents.
“Obviously we’re happy with the vote and we’ll just continue through the process,” said Greg Widrick, partner, Sphere Development, which is developing the Aldi project. “The best victory is when we can open the doors and people can start to shop.”
Widrick said he did not know how long it would take to build the Aldi or when it would be open, that will be up to Aldi company officials.
For the rest of the redevelopment project though — which includes a drive-thru pharmacy, a drive-thru bank, a fourth retail space yet unspecified for a business and four, eight-unit apartment buildings aimed at people ages 55 and older — developer New Venture Assets is ready to start construction on the apartments in the spring.
“We’re planning on the timing to start as quickly as possible — end of January — on the demolition [of the defunct Cazenovia Motel buildings],” said David C. Muraco, owner of New Venture Assets. “I’m going to work immediately on my plans for the apartments … I’m excited to get to work on that.”
Muraco said the construction sequence will be for the Aldi to be built in the spring, with the residential apartments, bank building, road work and necessary infrastructure all done simultaneously next; and the drug store component maybe not for 12 to 18 months.
Both Muraco and Widrick said they were not overly concerned by the numerous conditions placed on the planning board’s project approval, that most of them were already items discussed throughout the project application phase.
Some of the conditions included items such as: verification and final approvals to ensure the project conforms to required landscaping guides, stormwater treatment programs, greenspace and street layouts, and design details. One of the more substantive conditions included that no building permits be issued for the three non-Aldi retail businesses until the residential apartment buildings are under construction; this is to ensure the apartments get built in good time since they are an essential part of this project being “mixed use.”
The complete list of conditions is included in the final resolution as approved.
The review process for this redevelopment proposal has been an arduous one for the village planning board. The board has been working for months with the developers and other municipal boards and agencies to ensure the proposed development conforms to village codes, specifically the VES Development Guidelines. Its members have also been spending hours researching and reviewing submitted documents, holding numerous meetings and listening to vast amounts of public input.
“I am proud to serve on a board where each of the board members take their duty to the community so seriously, worked so diligently throughout the process and respectfully and intelligently deliberated the matter,” said Huftalen, the board chair.
The planning board has been reviewing the redevelopment proposal since early this year, which included requests for site plan approval, subdivision approval, architectural review and special permit approval. The proposal has been a contentious one, with community members and preservation groups urging the planning board to reject the project for fear it will destroy the character of the village, while supporters have said the project offers reasonable and necessary economic development to Cazenovia.
The Madison County Planning Department (MCPD) also created shockwaves throughout the community when it issued a nine-page GML Recommendation Report on Oct. 3 that meticulously dissected the proposal and called it merely “a start” that was so developer-driven as to be nowhere near approvable. In response, Mayor Kurt Wheeler sent a letter to the county and the village planning board calling the MCPD report inaccurate and biased in a way “unprecedented in scope and tone,” and “a direct attack on the sovereignty of the village.”
Changes to the proposal have been constant for many months based on planning board questions and requests, and at the Nov. 14 meeting Huftalen said more changes were made recently in response to the county planning report. Those changes incorporated new green infrastructure facilities into the plan and replaced a sidewalk with two green islands in the Aldi parking lot that would improve water infiltration into the ground and add to the amount of green space in the site plan.
Huftalen said village engineer John Dunkle declared the new green infrastructure facilities will, in his opinion, meet the DEC requirements and satisfy the wellhead protections for the site. The applicant’s engineer also has a 100-page stormwater treatment plan ready to submit to the board, Huftalen said.
In addition to the site plan revision, another item for the planning board to consider was the release that day, Nov. 14, of the county planning department’s supplemental report on the Cazenovia Market proposal. The county report — two pages this time instead of nine — declared the plan changed little from the plan on which the department based its previous report, called it still “incomplete” and returned it to the planning board for local determination.
During the Nov. 28 special meeting, Huftalen said the village planning board had declared the proposal complete despite the county planning department’s contrary opinion.
The final resolution with conditions giving approval for the Cazenovia Market redevelopment project will be available for public viewing as part of the village planning board records in the village office.
