ZBA denies complicated college request for fire school bunkhouse

6/28/2017

By Patsy Nicosia

The Zoning Board of Appeals denied a SUNY Cobleskill request Thursday that would have let its for-profit arm, Cobleskill Auxiliary Services, turn the Ski Lodge into a bunkhouse for a START-UP NY fire training school.
But even before the ZBA issued its decision, SUNY Cobleskill President Marion Terenzio said she was walking the project back for another look.
“We hear you,” she said after about a dozen neighbors shared their concerns.
“We’re going to rethink the entire thing. If it’s too much of a stretch…if it’s not a good match…Rest assured we will go back and talk about this. There’s lots of good stuff we can do together.”
The ZBA hearing was a complicated one that essentially looked at two different issues on parallel tracks:
• A request from CAS for a special exemption for the bunkhouse.
The for-profit CAS is subject to zoning law; bunkhouses—dorms—aren’t allowed in the zone without a special exemption.
• SUNY Cobleskill’s plans to allow 454 Fire Training LLC to set up a fire training school on adjacent state land—which isn’t subject to local zoning.
The CAS request was rejected on quasi-legal grounds after Chairman Craig Morlang first led the ZBA through a SEQRA review that found its impact—based on the answers to those questions--would be small—but then determined that the ZBA doesn’t have the authority to grant the exemption CAS was seeking.
“I think the remedy is to go to the Town Board to get the use change you’re looking for,” Mr. Morlang said. “I really think your remedy is elsewhere.”
By that time, though, two hours into the hearing, Dr. Terenzio had already promised to give the project a second look.
According to CAS Executive Director Brian Marhaver and other SUNY Cobleskill reps, 454 Fire’s plans call for using the Ski Lodge site about 12 weekends a year, April-November.
Firemen would bunk in the Ski Lodge while they learned how to extinguish wood and hay fires below the pond.
Class size would be about 15 people per session—though it could grow to no more than 25.
The project, however, can’t go forward without the bunkhouse, Mr. Marhaver said.
Neighbor Ryan McAllister criticized the college for not doing a good job explaining the project beforehand and said promises that smoke from the fire wouldn’t travel are hard to swallow.
“We hear you and we take you at your word,” he told Dr. Terenzio, “but there is skepticism in this village over how this will impact us.”
“Why would I want to accept any impact?” asked Michele Finin, another neighbor.
Patty Boyer, yet another neighbor, said she was alarmed by what she saw when she went to 454 Fire’s website, where the project is presented as a done deal and characterized as a premier fire training center for all of the Northeast.
“It belongs in an industrial development area,” Ms. Boyer said. “This is a for-profit enterprise at $1,800 a person. I don’t see it staying small.”
While most of the concerns focused on air quality, other neighbors were worried about their wells and run-off.
“It’s complicated. I get it,” said Dr. Terenzio.
“I want to be a good neighbor. I’m interested in being connected with the community and in helping with economic development. I take that very seriously.”