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HomeMy WebLinkAbout20210062 Stewarts Marion Avenue- Maple Dell PUD Public Comment (19) Zimbra amber.upton@saratoga-springs.org Online Form Submittal: Land Use Board Agenda Public Comment From : noreply@civicplus.com Thu, May 27, 2021 10:17 AM Subject : Online Form Submittal: Land Use Board Agenda Public Comment To : susan barden <susan.barden@saratoga-springs.org>, lisa shields <lisa.shields@saratoga-springs.org>, amber upton <amber.upton©saratoga-springs.org> CAUTION: This email originated outside of the City network. Please contact IT Support if you need assistance determining if it's a threat before opening attachments or clicking any links. Land Use Board Agenda Public Comment SUBMIT COMMENTS REGARDING CITY PROJECTS Thank you for submitting your comments. Your feedback will be forwarded to the City's Planning Department and Land Use Board members. NOTE: Comments submitted later than 12:00 noon on the day before the Land Use Board meeting may not be reviewed prior to their meeting. All comments will be added to the project file in the Planning Department. Land Use Board Planning Board Name Jack Wallace Email Address suzasw@gmail.com Business Name Field not completed. Address 32 Maple Dell City Saratoga Springs State NY Zip Code 12866 Phone Number 518-584-7905 Project Name Stewart's Marion Avenue-Maple Dell PUD Project Number 20210062 Project Address 34 Marion Avenue Comments I belong to the Marion Ave. Maple Dell Neighborhood Assoc. and support its recommendation to reject Stewart's PUD pro- posal. The proposed development conflicts with the compre- hensive plan devised in 2000 and updated in 2015. The PUD concept was created to pursue such positive goals as flexibility &creativity; this PUD simply enables Stewart's to achieve its long term corporate goal of building much larger stores. Over the past five years Stewart's has spent$245 million dollars on new or rebuilt stores averaging 60% added capacity; this year the total will be 16 such stores, on top of last year's 17. This fo- cus is illustrated further by the closing of a number of existing stores in urban areas that lacked sufficient property to expand. Clearly Stewart's had this expansion in mind when the Marion Ave. property was purchased; however, the property's zoning was an obstacle. The PUD thus is a cynical attempt to get around zoning restrictions to fulfill long term corporate goals. The PUD also changes the zoning of 34 Marion Ave. from resi- dential to professional. Five years ago the Zoning Appeals Board denied a zoning variance request for the same change and a subsequent court decision upheld this denial. The owner's position that the residential zoning prevents a fair re- turn on investment is fallacious. The weakness of this argument is that the owner's failure to make a good faith effort to sell the property as a residential property has resulted in the current state of the investment. The owner even has listed the property incorrectly as commercial in at least one previous sales at- tempt. The property's listing price consistently has been tremendously overpriced. Taking appropriate indices of inflation into account , the listing prices were $650,000, $450,000, and $405,000 in 2008, 2010, and 2011, respectively. After all, the property is an empty lot of modest size. The owner likely bet that the zoning would change to commercial. Jack Wallace Attach Photo (optional) Field not completed. Email not displaying correctly?View it in your browser.