Town board votes in favor of Route 20 land moving into village, path now open for Aldi development project
BY Jason Emerson
editor
The Cazenovia Town Board voted Wednesday night to allow annexation of a 10-acre piece of town land into the village. The town’s approval, which came nine days after the village board also approved annexation, will allow the forward movement of a proposal to build an Aldi grocery store and other commercial and residential buildings on the Route 20 land just east of the village line.
Unlike the village board’s annexation approval, the town board vote was not unanimous.
Close to 100 people attended the town board’s June 29 special meeting to discuss annexation, with the vast majority of those present opposed to annexation and urging the board to reject the application. Cazenovia attorney Barry Schriebman presented to the board a petition opposing annexation with 241 names affixed.
For more than 70 minutes, 15 opponents and five proponents of annexation offered comments to the board, after which supervisor Bill Zupan called for a vote if the board was amendable. Councilor Pat Race made the motion, which was seconded by Councilor Kristi Andersen.
The annexation request was approved by a vote of 4-1, with Councilor Jimmy Golub voting no.
“I feel that if we are going to move away from a very carefully, expensive, recent [Comprehensive Plan] plan, I would need to see a new comprehensive plan and new study before I can vote in favor of a plan like this,” Golub said. “Make no mistake, we are voting for annexation and for this plan. Voting for annexation, and leaving the scope of the plan up to the planning board, puts too much pressure on the planning board to overturn the will of both boards. If there are question marks about the site plan, and I think there are, then at this point, I think it will be wise to err on the side of being conservative. This is a big deal. By rejecting this site plan, we leave our options open to carefully develop this site in the future. If we are to go ahead with this project, there’s no turning back.”
On the other side, Andersen said she believed annexation is “supported by the Comprehensive Plan and this plan is, in general, consistent with the Village Edge South Design Guidelines which both the town and village worked on.”
Councilor Tom Driscoll agreed, but also urged opponents to continue the dialogue into the next stages of the development process. “If indeed the mood is against this, now is the time for this same group of people to attend the village planning board meetings and make their concerns known,” Driscoll said. “I dare say that if it was a Trader Joe’s we would not have had this opposition. Sometimes we in Cazenovia see things in terms of haves and have-nots … we have to look at the opportunities created for all people in this town.”
Zupan said he wanted to thank the meeting attendees, who were “very well spoken, gracious and courteous.”
With the land annexation approved, the next phase of the Route 20 development project — which includes an Aldi grocery store, Rite Aid pharmacy with drive thru, another commercial business and senior housing apartments — is for site plan review by the village planning board. As of press time, the project was not scheduled to be discussed at the planning board’s July 11 monthly meeting, according to the village clerk.
