GUILDERLAND — Jonathan Phillips has modified his plans to accommodate wetlands.

The board held a public hearing on the new site plan submitted by the owner of Phillips Hardware at the corner of routes 146 and 158. The plan calls for a new hardware store and company headquarters; a 4,200-square-foot convenience store with four gas pumps and a drive-through fast-food restaurant; 11 apartments; and a 47,470-square-foot sports dome that he hopes to build where a small Phillips Hardware store now stands.

The revised site plan, Phillips said at the meeting, was intended to speed the approval process by greatly decreasing the amount of wetlands to be affected. He had been advised, Phillips said, that if he did not reduce the amount of wetlands affected, the project might languish in discussions and negotiations for about five years.

In his initial site plan, Phillips had envisioned all of the buildings together in the center of the lot.

Now, by separating them, and leaving an area of undisturbed wetlands in the center, he said, he has reduced the affected wetlands from 1.6 acres to .46, bringing the amount of affected wetlands below the the amount allowed, of half an acre.

The sports dome is now shown toward the back of the lot, a little further up Route 158.

Several neighbors expressed concerns.

One, Michael Litz of 6533 Route 158, said that he “didn’t move out here to have neighbors,” and was concerned about the planned apartments.

Another, Allan Ditton of 6572 Route 158, was worried about light from the sports dome, saying, “I’ve seen these domes before. They look like a big glowball.” He doesn’t want to go outside at night and “see the Aurora Borealis going on over there,” he told The Enterprise later.

Board Chairman Thomas Remmert told him that the board generally tries to ensure that the light generated by a business would not spill over and affect neighbors.

Ditton also said he was worried about increased traffic. The speed limit on Route 158 there is currently 55 miles per hour, and he has seen two accidents in front of his house. He asked if the speed limit could be lowered.

Remmert said that routes 146 and 158 are both state highways, and that their speed limits are set by the state. He said, “We can refer that to the Traffic Safety Commission.”

Phillips said that the convenience store would tend to draw people from the area, who were passing through anyway, rather than generating additional traffic.

The businesses would have different peak hours, which would help limit the effect on traffic, he said. The convenience store would be busiest during the morning and evening commutes and during the day, and the sports dome would be busiest after school and into the evening, he said.

The board continued the public hearing to an unspecified date.

Can a boat be parked in a driveway?

Two police officers were seated in the back of the room, out of range of the video camera, throughout the meeting.

They were there to keep the peace during a long-simmering dispute between next-door neighbors on Fletcher Road, one of whom was on the agenda with a request for permission to “park/store” her 22-foot Crown Line boat in her driveway.

Chief Acting Building and Zoning Inspector Jacqueline M. Coons said both parties — the applicant and the neighbor — had requested that police be there.

The town’s new Zoning and Land Use Code, enacted in May 2016, states, “No boat, trailer of any kind, or recreational vehicle shall be parked or stored in a front yard.”

Because of the law, Kellie Baldwin and her husband, James Baldwin, who live at 11 Fletcher Rd., are applying for a variance.

Remmert said that this was the first challenge to this portion of the new code, and added, “There is some question as to whether we can grant variances in this area, and whether we should.”

Baldwin said that she and her husband loved going out in their boat most weekends during the summer, and for next summer they have finally managed to get a spot to dock their boat at Sacandaga Lake. When they return home, they generally need to unload, clean, and sometimes service or fine-tune the boat, then load it again for the next trip, Baldwin said. Having the ability to park the boat at their home makes it much more convenient, they said.

The boat would not be there all the time, Baldwin said. The couple does have off-site storage for it. In the application, she wrote that the boat would be in the driveway “during summer months, on occasion.” During the winter months, the boat is parked in a barn, according to the Baldwins’ application.

The Baldwins state in their application, “We cannot change or increase our current property line to gain access to drive into our back yard.”

The folder on file with the town’s zoning board includes two DVDs submitted by Duffy, with photos and videos of the neighbor’s driveway. One video shows the boat running in the driveway as one man works on it and another gives Duffy the finger and then begins to videotape her.

The Baldwins and Duffy each report feeling harassed by the other.

Although several homes on Fletcher Road have L-shaped driveways, including Duffy’s, those yards have less pavement than the Baldwins’.

A letter from Duffy — who lives at 15 Fletcher Rd. — contained in the folder says that the Baldwins regularly park a number of small trucks and business vehicles in the driveway or expanded parking area in front of their house, reducing visibility for anyone pulling out of or looking for her driveway. Duffy wrote that the Baldwins are flouting town law by using their home, located in a residential district, as the site of a business. Code enforcement officer Lou Vitelli says he has visited 11 Fletcher Rd. on “numerous  occasions” in response to Duffy’s complaints, but “could never confirm any business activity” at the Baldwin home.

According to the town’s new code, Coons recently told The Enterprise, vehicles with commercial plates can be parked in a private driveway at any time, as long as each vehicle’s gross weight is no more than 10,000 pounds and the vehicle is no more than eight feet, six inches in size. (Commercial vehicles larger than that cannot be parked in a driveway between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.)

Any vehicle that falls within the guidelines is viewed as a personal vehicle, Coons said. And the town does not limit the number of personal vehicles that can be parked in a private driveway, Coons said.

The board decided to continue the public hearing at a later date, and to ask town attorney James Melita to “do some research” into whether it would be more appropriate to consider the Baldwins’ request as an area variance or as a use variance, and how best to respond.

Verizon store at Star Plaza?

A Verizon store may be coming to Star Plaza, at the corner of Western Avenue and Route 155.

The zoning board passed, on Dec. 7, after lengthy hesitation and discussion, a variance request by Affordable Signs to be allowed to put up two signs at Star Plaza that would total 80 square feet instead of the allowed 50.

Plaza owner Michael Ermides told The Enterprise, referring to Verizon, “It’s not a done deal at this point. First they needed to get approval for the kind of signage they needed, to be able to contemplate coming into the plaza.”

If the company does move in, it would take over the Guilderland Dry Cleaners site, which is now empty.

The store would have two signs, one wall-mounted on the building above the entrance, which would be a little larger than those over the plaza’s other stores. The other would be on a currently existing, free-standing sign at the corner of Western Avenue and Route 155 that alerts passing motorists to the presence of several of the plaza’s occupants.

The sign on the corner is needed, the applicant wrote in the variance request, because the Key Bank building located in the parking lot at that same corner makes the stores in the plaza difficult to see from Route 20.

The name at the top spot of the free-standing sign is currently Star Plaza, after a grocery store that originally anchored the plaza. This would be replaced by the name Verizon, and the address of the plaza. The address is not currently shown on the sign.

The vote was 5 to 0.