Board continues to deliberate on proposal, county planning department issues supplemental opinion
A decision to approve or reject the proposed Cazenovia Market development on Route 20 is closer to being made by the village planning board — but that decision did not come last Monday during the board’s recent meeting.
The incorporation of “recent updates and new information” into the record — including a supplemental GML Recommendation Report by the county planning department — has necessitated more time for digestion and discussion of the proposal among planning board members, said board Chair Rich Huftalen at the Nov. 14 meeting.
“At this point, we’ll continue to discuss elements of this resolution and continue to work together as a board,” Huftalen said. “No vote will happen tonight, based on the volume of information we need to review and consider.”
The redevelopment proposal in the Village Edge South development zone on Route 20 includes an Aldi grocery store, a drive-thru pharmacy, a drive-thru bank, a fourth retail space yet unspecified for a business and four, eight-unit apartment buildings. The land is owned by New Venture Assets, which is also the company proposing all the development on the site except for the Aldi, which is being proposed by New Market Development.
The planning board has been reviewing the proposal since early this year, and is currently working to prepare a resolution on which it can vote to either approve or reject the development. The board has before it requests for site plan approval, special permit approval, subdivision approval and architectural review, and 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.
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.
“Except for a few altered parking spaces, an altered pathway along Route 20, and some minor landscape alterations, there is little new to comment on,” the report stated.
The report stated that while the project is for an Aldi grocery store, a drive-thru pharmacy, a drive-thru bank, a fourth retail space yet unspecified for a business and four, eight-unit apartment buildings, satisfactory information has been submitted only for the Aldi portion of the project. “The Aldi isn’t permitted to happen without the residential component, and we caution the village from approving one component of this project without a complete application for another part of the project,” the report stated.
Huftalen said the board had deliberated on the Cazenovia Market proposal for a couple of hours before the meeting on Nov. 14 and, after updating the audience on the current status of the project review, the planning board went into executive session to continue its discussions with counsel. Huftalen said the board would identify the aspects of the proposal members agreed on and disagreed on, as well as any aspects on which they feel they need more information.
The planning board has scheduled a special meeting for 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 28, in the village office meeting room, to continue its discussion of the Cazenovia Market proposal. Huftalen said he did not know if the board would be ready to vote on the proposal during the meeting or not.
