Review of the teleconferenced Town of Guilderland Planning Board Public Hearing to receive comments on the DEIS related to the proposed construction of the Rapp Road Apartments, the Costco, The Costco Gas Station, and additional Office Space and Apartments.
Public comments are due on May 26th by 4:30pm for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) regarding the proposed development by Pyramid (owners of Crossgates Mall) on Rapp Road, the Mall Road and Western Avenue to build up to 360 Apartments with up to 3 five-story apartment buildings, up to 50,000 sq ft of office space and up to 278,900 sq ft commercial expansive retail including including a Costco with a 700 car parking lot and a 16 pump gas station.
The public is encouraged to provide written comments attention to Kenneth Kovalchik, AICP, Town Planner by email at kovalchikk@togny.org or by mail to: Town of Guilderland Planning Department, 5209 Western Tpk., Guilderland, NY 12084.
We have created these "Sign and Send" letters that you can send as is or with your own edits:
Please join us for the next meeting of the Rapp Road working Group. This is the night before the virtual public hearing for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), so the focus of our discussion will be making final preparations for that and getting comments in before the current deadline of May 26th for written comments.
To assist you with sending comments we have created these 3 "Sign and Send" Pre-written Comments that you can use:
Feel free to send one, two or all three letters and you can customize them if you wish to do so.
The agenda for the meeting will be posted on the GCRG website and sent out the our mailing list as soon as it is prepared. (Hopefully on Monday, May, 11.)
Don't forget you can also make donations to support this effort at: http://rapproadgofundme.org/
According to the public hearing notice:
the Planning Board of the Town of Guilderland, as SEQRA Lead Agency, has determined that the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (“DEIS”) for the Type 1 action entitled Rapp Road Residential /Western Avenue Mixed Use Redevelopment Projects is complete and adequate with respect to its scope and content for the purpose of commencing public review and comment, and will conduct a public hearing on May 13, 2020at 6:00 P.M. at the Town of Guilderland Town Hall, 5209 Western Turnpike (Route 20), Guilderland, New York, pursuant to 6 NYCRR 617.9,to obtain public comment regarding the DEIS.
Pursuant to Governor Cuomo’s Executive Order 202.8, which bans large meetings due to coronoavirus (COVID-19), and Executive Order 202.1, which suspends the Open Meetings Law, the meeting will be held electronically via conference call instead of a public meeting open for the public to attend in person. Members of the public may listen and view the meeting live on Verizon channel 34 and Spectrum channel 1303, on the Town website, and may dial (518) 579-3721 to participate in a conference call. Minutes of the meeting will be transcribed and posted on the Town’s website.
Click here see the full public notice, click hear for the Town's webpage for Draft Environmental Impact Statement and click here for meeting agenda that has the guidelines for how the public hearing will be conducted.
At the April 20th virtual meeting of the Rapp Road Working Group, we decided to meet on Wednesday, April 29th because we expected that the comment period for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) would be on May 4th, 2020.
We are still planning to meet on Wednesday, April 29th, however at the April 22nd meeting of Guilderland Planning Board the deadline for the comment period for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) has been extended to May 26th and a virtual public hearing has been scheduled for May 13, 2020 at 6:00pm.
The Albany County Planning Board is also scheduled a vote on the Costco special use permit and area variance April 30th. See https://www.albanycounty.com/departments/public-works/planning-and-land-use for the agenda and the call in number.
Here's the agenda download link for this virtual meeting of the Rapp Road Working Group.
As usual we will be discussing updates on experts, fundraising, the SEQR process and getting comments submitted on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
We will also be discussing new potential legal developments as a result of the clear cutting the Costco site as well as other strategies of resistance that we can do this week and in the future.
This will be the first meeting of the Rapp Road Working Group since the illegal clear cutting for the proposed Costco, so we will be discussing those events and our response to it as well as the usual planning and updates on experts, fundraising and the DEIS process and comments.
We were originally going to meet at the Guilderland Library, however do to the coronavirus (COVID-19) we are going to meet virtually at 7:00pm.
Here is the agenda for Monday night’s meeting:
Update on experts
Update on fundraising
Importance of getting comments submitted and how to make it easier to get comments sent in
Anything else?
This meeting will be to prepare for the March 25th public hearing on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the development on Rapp Road, the Mall Ring Road and Western Avenue.
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