Fire apparatus company gets OK to operate

The Town Board has granted a special-use permit to Kenneth Finke to open a fire apparatus sales and service company at 68 Leggs Mills Road in the hamlet of Lake Katrine.

Finke’s plan calls for some changes to an existing building on the 3.3-acre property — the former Cobra Manufacturing site — but the structure’s footprint will not change, the project architect said.

“There will be no construction as far as additions to the building are concerned,” Ciro Interrante said. “However, we are proposing to raise the roof on the building that’s furthest away from the road from 12feet ceiling height to 18-feet ceiling height.”

Interrante said parking spaces will be added to accommodate about 10 employees but no new areas will be paved.

“They’ll be servicing from seven to 10 fire trucks per week and maybe have a couple of delivery trucks,” he said.

Finke was not certain what the traffic impact related to sales might be.

“We are a dealer for a brand of fire apparatus and there will be sales and service there,” he said. “However, each truck is special ordered, and every once in a while, you have a demo — one truck or two trucks for a demo. If they’re there, they’ll be kept in[doors] during the night.”

The property, less than a quarter-mile west of U.S. Route 9W, has three buildings comprising a total of 18,264 square feet.

Cobra Manufacturing received attention in 2002 when it secured a $5 million with the U.S. Department of Defense for 200,000 bales of security wire.

Information was not immediately available about when Cobra vacated the site, but it was more than a year ago, according to Ulster Building Inspector Kathy Moniz.

Moniz said Cobra’s last filing for improvements to the buildings was in 2012.

She said that after Cobra left, a paper recycling company considering moving to the property.