It was recommended to Altamont resident John Polk during last month’s zoning meeting that he try to get the village board to change the law through an amendment process laid out in the zoning code.
In a Jan. 5 letter to the Surface Transportation Board, village attorney Allyson Phillips writes that Altamont is opposed to CSX’s attempted acquisition of Pan Am Systems because the running of a 1.7-mile-long train twice per day over the Main Street railroad crossing would leave parts of the village inaccessible to emergency responders for as long as 10 minutes.
“It would be in line with the town’s hamlet idea,” said developer Ron Kay of his plan for 20 acres along Route 85, across the road from the Stewart’s Shop and in between Stonewell Plaza and the convent-turned-apartments at 1903 New Scotland Road.
Voorheesville Mayor Rich Straut said he wasn’t sure why the same state funding was announced again, but surmised it had something to do with the village hitting another threshold in the project, what Straut called “closing on the financing.”
Knox residents Mary Varbero and Frank Muia have succeeded in their quest to free their Berne-Altamont Road property from the restrictions dictated by a covenant that the previous property owner said she was forced to agree to by the town’s planning board in the early 1990s.
The positive State Environmental Quality Review Act declaration, passed at the Nov. 23 New Scotland Zoning Board of Appeal meeting, means the board thought that the 4.2-megawatt solar proposal would have had an adverse environmental impact.
