PINE BUSH – At the town board meeting for the Town of Crawford on May 21, R.J. Smith appealed to the board for a change in the zoning regarding the proposed commerce park on Stone Schoolhouse Road. Instead of as many as 12 buildings, with a maximum size of 100,000 square feet, the developer, Black Creek Development, seeks to build warehouses of up to 400,000 square feet in size — as much as nine football fields in area.

When asked about this request, Phil Jamison, Chairman of the Town of Crawford Planning Board, said "That's not exactly the way the whole project was presented to us. I mean, the ink's not even dry on the first approval."

Charles Carnes, Supervisor of the Town of Crawford, said, "As long as the density of the project remains the same, then I don't have a problem with it. That is, if it's 10 buildings that add up to a million square feet, or three buildings that do that, that's fine. Of course, we still have to get advice from the town planner on this."

There may be complications, however. As Jamison noted, "That parcel of land has a number of restrictions on it, like the wetlands. The natural divisions on the property may lend itself to smaller-type lots."

Jamison also made a point about the economics of the proposed Commerce Park for the longer term. "I'd prefer to have a diversified commercial base there, with 10-12 businesses, not just two big ones. There are places, not far away, that have lots of empty warehouses. Now, I don't want to say that changing the zoning here is a terrible idea. I just think that it's something that should be given a careful review."

Shalom Lamm of Black Creek, however, sees the environmental issue through another lens. "Limiting a project like this on building sizes ends up creating more environmental damage because then you need so much more infrastructure — roads, wells, waste water treatment, parking lots. There's just so much more coverage on the property with the smaller buildings than with the bigger ones."

Lamm also points to what may be an even more important issue for the developer.

"Right now the zoning in the Town of Crawford is inefficient. It's taken us a very long time to get our approvals. So what ends up happening is that it forces us to make decisions in ways we'd rather not. For instance, we have a number of projects that we are currently working on, too many in fact, to bring to market all at once. So we must decide which ones to hold back on right now and which ones to press forward with. We're working with R.J. Smith to identify the ones that we can make the quickest progress on."

The zoning request from Black Creek will now be examined by the town planner and the zoning board of appeals and eventually the planning board for approval.

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