Major reduction of units planned at Tillson School

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Michael Moriello, attorney for Fortune 488 LLC, and Dennis Larios, consulting engineer for the adaptive reuse project for the former Tillson school property, presented at the Rosendale Town Board meeting May 4. Moriello said, “We have been away for some months conducting studies. On April 18, I delivered this package, to Rosendale Town Board members, town attorney Mary Lou Christiana, and the planning board. It includes a March 28, 2016, report by Mr. Larios, an April 8, 2016, traffic impact evaluation by Creighton Manning and Associates, a letter report from Joseph Diamond, Ph.D., who is the archeological consultant to the project, and an endangered species report, by North Country Ecological Service.”

“Creighton Manning did traffic counts and level service analysis, and they concluded that the level service at that main intersection is level service ‘B’ at the morning peak hour, and it would stay at ‘B’ as a result of this project. They concluded that it is level ‘C’ at the evening peak hour, and after this project is built, it will remain at ‘C’,” Larios said. (Wikipedia defines traffic level of service “B” as “reasonably free flow” and “C” as “stable flow, at or near free flow.”)

The biggest concession is that the owners, George and Stacy Fakiris, have agreed to reduce the project from 48 apartments with 76 bedrooms to 32 apartments and a total of 52 bedrooms. “The owners heard the concerns of the neighbors and the board and came to that number without any cajoling from Denis or me,” Moriello said. “George called us up and said ‘I want to reduce that number.’ As the board probably knows, 32 units is a long way from 48.” In the revised plan, the building height will remain the same as it is now, with everything on one level except for the gym.

Larios responded to resident complaints about the size of the proposed parking lot. “We originally planned two parking spaces per apartment, but have reduced that to 1.5 spaces per apartment. That last strip of parking can come out,” he said, pointing to the area by the basketball courts.

“Because the parking lot is over an unconsolidated aquifer, various plans are being considered to collect and treat the rainwater runoff. To protect the aquifer, instead of herbicides and pesticides on the grass, they will consider an integrative pest management protocol,” Larios said.

“The owners are willing to do pump tests on the two wells on the property to test the drawdown and, if the neighbors are cooperative, monitoring neighboring wells concurrently to demonstrate that there will be no negative impact. The reduced plan will bring the 24-hour volume demand to 4 gallons per minute,” said Larios. “We are willing to pump 6 gallons a minute for 16 hours, drawing slow and steady. We will store a minimum of 1.5 days’ worth of water in a storage tank to cover the peak demand times.”

“All the outdoor lighting will be compliant with the Dark Sky Society guidelines, which includes full cut-off fixtures downward directed for all outdoor light, and avoidance of excessive light. We want to limit light spillage over property lines to 0.5 footcandles, which is a very low level of lighting,” Larios said. “We will limit parking lights height to 20 feet, and lighting levels in the parking lot will be an average of 0.8 footcandles. Lighting for sidewalks will be 0.2 footcandles average.”

When asked about allowing the public to recreate in that space, Larios said, “I think it is a bad idea to invite the community into a private apartment complex for recreational activities. I think that would have a greater impact on the neighbors then a normal housing area. The owners would prefer to have the recreation area for their residents and guests and not have it open for Little League, for liability reasons and for the impacts of bringing a lot of people in, such as overloading the parking area, and noise. The owners would much rather take whatever resources they would spend on public recreation on the site and give it to the town to help with the Rosendale Recreation Center expenses.”