By Russ Tarby
Contributing Writer
The Johnson Tract neighbors are up in arms, figuratively speaking.
Peg Salvatore, the president of the Johnson Tract Homeowners Executive Board which represents homeowners off Tulip Street north of the Thruway, recently sent a six-page letter to both the village of Liverpool Planning Board and Board of Trustees, to express her membership’s “numerous concerns” about the proposed Meyer Manor Apartments at 1225 Tulip St., just south of Donald Place on Marvin Meyer’s property located within the village.
Salvatore specifically focused on the volume of traffic on Tulip Street/Morgan Road, public safety and ingress and egress issues involving emergency vehicles, school buses, service-providers and snow-removal vehicles.
The trustees are mulling the change of a small portion of Marvin Meyer’s property from R-1 to R-3 zoning, which would allow the parcel to be used to create an entryway on Tulip Street for the planned complex. Some 90 percent of his eight-acre property is already zoned R-3, allowing for multiple-family dwellings. Most of his neighbors’ homes are outside village limits in the town of Salina.
Local developer Cosimo Zavaglia wants to purchase Meyer’s parcel to construct a 108-apartment complex.
At its July 25 meeting, the planning board heard from Zavaglia’s engineer, Steve Calocerinos, who presented a plot plan showing buildings arranged on the site closer to the NYS Thruway with less frontage on the Johnson Tract line.
“The density of units was also lower,” said Planning Board Chairman Joe Ostuni Jr. “Board members asked if an arrangement with smaller buildings was possible.”
In her July 26 letter, Salvatore questioned the June 27 traffic study submitted by GTS Consulting on behalf of the developer, calling it “limited in scope” and not reflecting “real-time traffic” in the area.
“For those of us who experience traffic congestion and high volumes every day,” Salvatore wrote, “we feel that this development will have a detrimental impact.”
She urged the planning board to give weight to traffic counts made by the state Department of Transportation and attached a DOT count from June 2014.
GTS estimated that the proposed 108-apartment complex would add just 53 vehicles entering or exiting the area during peak periods. That number is unrealistic, Salvatore stated, especially in view of the fact that many of the apartments will be two- or three-bedroom units.
According to LPD statistics collected from January 2012 to June 2014, Salvatore wrote, there were 50 accidents in a one-mile area from 100 to 1026 Tulip St., and accidents have increased by nearly 40 percent.
Last Dec. 21, nearly three dozen Johnson Tract residents attended the Dec. 21 meeting of the Liverpool Village Board of Trustees to protest the proposed zone change, which still remains under consideration.
At that time Mayor Gary White assured the neighbors that traffic studies would be conducted and that their concerns would be addressed.
Salvatore hoped to convince village leaders that “new developments should not have a negative impact on [the] neighboring environment.” Such developments, Salvatore wrote on July 26, “should enhance, improve and complement the existing area.”
The mayor acknowledged receipt of the latter at the Aug. 15 village board meeting, and the planning board was expected to continue reviewing the site plan at 7 p.m. Aug. 22, at the Village Hall, 310 Sycamore St.
