Town OKs zoning change needed for Rotron expansion

The Town Board has approved zoning changes that bring the entire Ametek Rotron site on Hasbrouck Lane into a “light industrial” district.

The rezoning, approved Tuesday evening, was the last land-use change needed in advance of the manufacturer submitting a site plan for an expansion to be carried out with $604,000 in state grants awarded in 2018.

Ametek Rotron makes regenerative blowers, some of which are used by the military and the aerospace industry.

“We just amended ... the zoning map to move the lines from the middle of the buildings out to the property line,” said Woodstock Supervisor Bill McKenna.

The town last year found that the boundary line for the R3 (residential) and the LI (light industrial) districts on Hasbrouck Lane bisected the Rotron manufacturing complex, which apparently was an error but would have required the company to take extra steps to get town approval for the expansion.

“We all, early on, indicated a favorable outcome” for updating the map, McKenna said. “Somebody produced this map. I’m not even sure it was correct. But we ... amended it to make it clean.”

With the change approved Tuesday, three parcels at the Rotron site have had their zoning designations changed entirely from R3 to LI, while a 22.6acre parcel that was split across the districts has had its LI designation increased from 4 acres to 6.5

acres.

Rotron Facilities Manager Matt Cline said in January that, as part of the expansion, the company will buy equipment that will allow more efficient production.

“Right now we’re using equipment as old as the 1940s,” he said.

The planned expansion is expected to create up 18,000 square feet of space connecting to existing buildings that each have about 25,000 square feet of work space.

Cline said the Ametek Rotron, which has been at its Woodstock site since 1947, has 260 full-time employees and expects to add five to eight employees within a year of the expansion.

Rotron was founded in 1947 and incorporated in 1949, according to company’s website. It was bought in 1976 by EG&G and then became known as EG&G Rotron. It was bought by Ametek in 1998.