Little-used procedural moves and hours-long comment periods dominated by angry residents marked last December’s rezoning of a parcel on Holland Avenue in Albany [“A Little Highway in the City,” Newsfront, Dec. 8, 2005]. Neighborhood activists decried the rezoning from commercial office to highway commercial to accommodate a proposed Walgreens as spot zoning and said the move privileged one business owner at the expense of others.

One of the first official actions of incoming Councilwoman Cathy Fahey (Ward 7) has been to introduce legislation to reverse the zoning change.

Councilman James Scalzo (Ward 10), who championed the original proposal, said reversing the previous decision would send a bad message to the business community that they could face “double jeopardy” on zoning issues. Fahey responded that December’s decision was so “extraordinary” as to warrant an extraordinary response.

Louise McNeilly, president of the Delaware Area Neighborhood Association and one of the central organizers against the highway-commercial designation, added that she agreed that zoning should not swing back and forth or be unpredictable. But, she said, that is exactly why December’s change, which was possibly illegal spot zoning for the benefit of one owner, should be nullified. “It’s just bringing it back into compliance.”

Nonetheless, the newly formed group Citizens for Responsible Zoning may well have to fall back on their threatened strategy of a lawsuit. In a petition filed on Feb. 6, Picotte Companies, the owners of the Holland Avenue parcel, invoked the state’s General City Law Section 83(2)(a), which requires three-quarters of a municipal body to approve any zoning change that is the subject of a written protest by the owners of more than 20 percent of the land in question.

CRZ has hired lawyers Joshua Sabo and Lawrence Howard to file an Article 78 proceeding against the city for illegal spot zoning, and are busily fund-raising to cover the cost of the lawsuit. McNeilly said that the negative effects of the zoning change are already being felt, as other business owners have come to the neighborhood association saying they think they should get zoning changes as well, rather than the more appropriate use variances.

Meanwhile, speculation on the motives for the council’s actions in December continues to spread through the neighborhoods. Dan Van Riper of the Lincoln Park Neighborhood Association noted that two letters have surfaced that indicate that the mayor and his corporation counsel may have been working quite closely with the developers of the Holland Avenue plot.

The first letter is from the developer’s lawyer, Peter Lynch, to assistant corporation counsel Patrick Jordon on Dec. 2, 2005. It advises Jordon about the legality of changing the order of business in order to get the zoning change through in one meeting. The other is from Jordan to Scalzo on Dec. 5, and outlines the proper procedure for passing an ordinance whose sponsor has not brought it for a vote, the method Scalzo followed to the letter when then-Councilwoman Shawn Morris tried to hold the ordinance until January.

—Miriam Axel-Lute

maxel-lute@metroland.net

albanyweblog.com

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