Costco, town win appeal for store, apartment plan
Planning Board’s review deemed proper by appellate judges
The owners of Crossgates Mall and the town have won an appeal that overturns an earlier lower court decision that had put on hold plans for a new Costco warehouse-style store and a 222-unit apartment complex next to the existing mall.
“It was a slam dunk,” Guilderland Supervisor Peter Barber said of the appellate decision, signed Thursday, overturning the November decision by Albany County state Supreme Court Peter Lynch that contended the town’s earlier review was inadequate.
Much of that earlier decision centered on the plaintiff ’s contention that the town Planning Board failed to take the requisite “hard look” at the environmental and other impacts of the project, which is essentially a substantial westward extension of the existing mall, with some of it going very close to residential neighborhoods.
The original plaintiffs opposing the project in the lawsuit were led by one of those residents, Thomas Hart, and others, including some who believed the expansion could threaten the nearby Pine Bush nature preserve. They were represented by New Paltz lawyer James Bacon.
Defendants included the town of Guilderland as well as Crossgates owner Pyramid Management group, represented by the Whiteman Osterman & Hanna law firm.
“The Planning Board’s review was proper and thorough and the mitigation measures that RRD was required to implement were appropriate,” appellate judges wrote. RRD is Rapp Road Development, which is the entity looking to build the apartments. Much of the case focused on that part of the project.
Rapp Road is near an historic African American community settled by Black people from Mississippi in the 1930s.
But the judges ruled that protections, including a green space buffer, would protect the neighborhood. Other add-ons mentioned by the judges were berms, street modifications and a protective corridor for endangered Karner blue butterflies in the area.
The decision went on to say that, “It is not the court’s role to secondguess an agency’s determination, the Planning Board identified potential avian impacts as an area of environmental concern, took the requisite hard look and made a reasoned elaboration of the basis for its determination thus, Supreme Court erred by annulling this.”
“The Planning Board’s review was proper and thorough,” it added.
Thursday’s decision doesn’t meant that the project can immediately move forward. Barber noted that the Costco project still needs a special use permit from the town’s Zoning Board and it needs a site plan review by the Planning Board as well as public hearings.