There is a plan in place to move to move Stewart’s to 76 North Chestnut Street in New Paltz. (Photo by Lauren Thomas)
Village of New Paltz Planning Board members took another look at the proposal to move the Stewart’s shop to 76 North Chestnut Street at their November 8 meeting. Variances are still being considered, but no determination on them can be made until there’s a lead agency for the environmental review. Planning board members agreed to circulate notice of intent to take on that job.
Board members quizzed Chuck Marshall, a real estate representative for the corporation, about assumptions being made in this application. In particular, board members noted that factors such as traffic and water usage are being based on what’s happening at the existing location up the block, while the desire to move is predicated on the assumption that the store could be busier but for that congested location.
Rich Suoto, in his last Planning Board meeting before taking a leave of absence, expressed hopes that Stewart’s could become an “important anchor location” on the corner of Henry W. Dubois Drive, but a more meaningful analysis would be to the existing lot conditions, rather than data pulled from the old store.
As the plan is laid out, eight gasoline pumps would be alongside the side street, and the new Stewart’s would be built close to the road, in the spirit of the neighborhood-business-residential zoning rules. It’s up to ZBA members to decide if ignoring the two-story minimum and mixed-use requirements would be enough of an improvement to grant a variance from those aspects of the NBR requirements.
One single vehicle attempting to make a left turn from Henry W. on to 32 in a southerly direction can, has and will back up traffic past Church St. See it all the time. Now that the telephone poles have cut off Huguenot Street to Broadhead, the matter has only worsened. Stewarts would be better off purchasing the old town Hall site, and have Store A and store B, same stuff, two locations. Highest and best use for McPeady’s would be using the parking lot for a by-pass for vehicles attempting to make a left-hand turn from Henry W. onto North Chestnut.
One irony: Stewarts Ice Cream is assessed at $731,500. McPeady’s is assessed at $713,800. That says that one broken down gas pump, with only one octane type gas, a few crusty donuts and a towing company does the same kind of business as four multi-selection pumps, tons of ice-cream to select from and free-air. I don’t think so.
That “side street” being Broadhead Avenue? The vacant, empty house is an “historic” house; it was one of two that were moved away from the rail line area in 1931, along with 14 Mulberry Street. The other two houses on Broadhead are student rentals, that is, commercial lodging services, in the “spirit of the neighborhood”. In fact, up to the Creem house, it’s all commercial lodging services. So the grass will go for pavement to be put down, right on top of where the oil tank behind the railroad house spilled out all over the lawn 6 years ago and killed the beautiful growing tree there. Broadhead Avenue is the lowest geographic point in the whole sector, it still overflows with raw sewage from Mulberry Street on the west side of the rail trail, all the way thru the baseball field to Broadhead and then down past the Deyo House. There will be so much water coming off any new paved area, it will only exacerbate the situation in the other “historic area”, State sewer lines repairs of last summer not withstanding.
The traffic will also increase on Church Street from Henry W. to Mulberry, where developers of apartments and boarding houses and off campus dorms were forgiven putting in sidewalks by the last planning board who put up the Maurice Whiteman signs, whomever the hell he was? People walking in the street are at enough danger now, let alone the plan to connect those roads to the rail trail, still without sidewalks, plus all the summer traffic, crazy traffic, to the privatized park and pool, plus all the school children who wait on the corners for the buses.
This new Stewarts location proposal should go thru without any forethought only. “You want sprinkles with that?”
Zero Point is never going to be built because all of its advocates have left the Village Planning Board. Put the new Town Hall there at Zero Point, and Stewarts will be right across the street.