OCT 4 7 PM
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL
CHURCH Quail St
Subject: new owner-developer for
proposed office-retail mixed use
project opposite St Peter's Hospital.
Buckingham Pond-Crestwood NA
residents, particularly those residing
high priced-high property taxed homes
on S Manning Blvd, Marion Ave and
the adjacent streets, including the heavily
trafficked New Scotland Ave corridor
should attend.
Your home values, property taxes and
neighborhood residential integrity/quality
life are on the line. Nor, is it good for St.
Peter's Hospital.
As proposed by the original owner who
has since sold out to the developer of the
4 apartment buildings on the former
Palladium bowling alley site ( next to AOH
Ontario St) - this proposal should be
scrapped.
It will likely revert to section 8 housing
and turn into a slum like that formerly
adjacent to Albany Med, which required
an expensive urban renewal project to remedy.
Don't expect that a similar urban expensive
urban renewal project will occur in our
neighborhood.
Event details
As you will recall last year, Dan Hershberg convened a meeting of neighbors at Temple Israel to present and obtain neighborhood feedback on plans for a new apartment building and retail space in the area encompassing the buildings housing the Post Office, the three apartment buildings on South Allen and parking lots and structures within the space bordered by and including Onderdonk. Following that meeting, meetings were held at the First Congregational Church to formulate a neighborhood response and many neighbors attended and /or submitted written comments and spoke at the subsequent Planning Board Meeting on the project. Representatives of the planning board also weighed in. Since then, the project has not appeared on city agendas etc. I have recently been informed that the owners at that time, McClosky and company have recently sold the project to Ryan Jankow, the developer of the former Playdium site on Ontario St. David Pfaff will be representing Mr. Jankow as the community liaison on this project. At this time, not knowing what Mr. Jankov envisions, it behooves us to review what we considered priorities then, as we should assume assurances made by the former owners are off the table, for example space for the Post Office, waiting for the St. Peter's traffic study etc.. The 7pm October 4 New Scotland Woodlawn neighborhood association meeting at the First Congregational Church on Quail St.will be devoted to this topic. Anyone interested in the future of this site is encouraged to come and invite anyone else you think might be interested.
Going
Julie Elson
New Scotland
Joe Sullivan
Pres., Buckingham
Pond Crestwood NA
38 years
We are not Buckingham Lake NA which is Mayor Sheehan's
association established last year to further her Mixed use
Rezone Albany agenda which will destroy our neighborhood
residential integrity/quality of life, home values and the city
tax base that supports city schools,city government services.
There should be an immediate moratorium on all lavish
tax breaks for "luxury: housing-mixed use development plans
in our predominantly single family residential neighborhood
until : 1. The city sewer system is fixed to handle additional
sewage and flooding issues
and, until
2. Rezone Albany is amended/repealed particularly
with reference to our formerly R1B single family
zoned neighborhood where single family homes
and Houses of Worship were the only permitted
uses. That part of the former code, including
definitions, and use variances should be restored
and the Rezone Albany provisions repealed.
Albany is on the verge of fiscal insolvency and the fast track
to becoming Detroit on the Hudson.
Wake up Buckingham Pond Crestwood NA residents- pay
attention and save your homes and neighborhood from ruin.
Joe Sullivan
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