RAVENA-COEYMANS-SELKIRK — It may be the off-season for wrestling, but that doesn’t mean RCS wrestlers aren’t seeing some action.
The school on April 27 hosted the Ravena Fury dual meet in the high school gym, featuring both varsity and youth teams.
While RCS did not have enough competing wrestlers to form a team, the district’s athletes were placed on other teams to have their turn on the mat.
Thanks to photojournalist Gina Pelletier for providing all of the photos.
By Melanie Lekocevic
Capital Region Independent Media
COEYMANS HOLLOW — The town’s planning/zoning board of appeals granted an appeal Wednesday filed by Town Supervisor George McHugh with regard to a proposed series of music concerts at Magic Forest Farm.
The board’s decision means the concert series will likely not take place, but the farm’s operator is looking for a way to hold the smallest event, an August concert of about 250 attendees booked directly through the musical band.
McHugh filed the appeal April 12 requesting that the property owner be required to apply for a use variance rather than a special-use permit for the five concert weekends, which would include on-site camping, at the Coeymans Hollow agritourism farm located at 134 Bucks Ranch Road.
The proposal had been met with both opposition and support from the community.
The farm’s operator, Jason Ball, and property owner, Joan Mahony, had applied to the town for a special-use permit to hold the five concerts on weekends beginning in mid-June and running through October, with 250 to 1,000 attendees.
A public hearing on the appeal was held May 9 and the board reconvened prior to the May 25 meeting to discuss the issue with town attorney Andrew Brick.
“We met in executive session with attorney-client privileges for an hour before this meeting,” planning/zoning board of appeals chairman Robert Nolan told Ball and Mahony. “It was a very in-depth discussion about your application. It was a hard decision. We all know you, everybody likes what you do up there. There is nothing against what you do up there.”
Brick read the board’s decision granting McHugh’s appeal.
“A review of the application materials and testimony provided makes it clear that the use being sought for the property is multiple music events with on-site camping incidental to them,” Brick said. “The for-profit event is the music, not the camping. The self-described event promoters are selling tickets to a music event, not to campsites. The use of campsites is clearly incidental to the planned music event. In fact, the camping itself can be viewed as a byproduct of the music events’ no re-entry policy, not a stand-alone use of the property. This determination is based upon the totality of the applicant’s materials and presentations.”
Brick cited specific examples gleaned from the record that he said support the board’s determination, including the application’s wording of the proposal as “five separate music festivals with camping,” similar wording in the environmental assessment form completed by the applicant, and the applicant’s agents, who testified at April 11 and April 27 board meetings and introduced themselves as event promoters, rather than campground operators.
“Their testimony centered primarily upon conducting a multi-day music event with overnight camping incidental,” Brick said.
To back up the board’s determination, Brick also cited other instances — such as the property owner’s testimony at the previous meeting that she did not want to apply for a commercial campground special-use permit. Campgrounds would be a permitted use for an RA, or residential-agricultural, zone, which is the zone in which Magic Forest Farm is located.
“Operating campsites for commercial gain is an allowable use in the RA district subject to obtaining a special-use permit,” Brick said. “Conducting music events for profit, regardless of their size or their planned overnight accommodations, is not an allowed use in the RA district. The appeal is granted.”
The applicant has the option to apply for a special-use permit for a commercial campground site, if he desires, Brick said.
Property owner Joan Mahony asked if motorcycle racing is allowed under the code as another farm in the area holds racing events.
“How is that allowed?” Mahony asked. “Same exact thing, whether it’s motorcycle racing or music events.”
Brick responded that the issue is “not relevant to the appeal” with regard to Magic Forest Farm.
“I’m limited to addressing the facts of your application and the appeal,” he said. “I am not aware of any complaints to code enforcement or motorcycle racing in violation of the town code. If they were made, I’m sure they would be investigated.”
Mahony challenged that assertion.
“I know there were complaints made over the years by the neighbors,” she said. “This is exactly the same situation, where this activity is not listed as part of the zoning codes, with overnight camping. They are not a commercial campground… We followed their lead and now you are saying we can’t do exactly what they are doing. Either they shouldn’t do it or we should be able to do it. You can’t make different rules for different properties, correct?”
Brick agreed that was the case but said the motorcycle racing events are not the issue before the board at this time.
“This board is addressing the application before them and the appeal before them,” Brick said.
Ball asked if music is permitted.
“Are we allowed to have music at a campground?” Ball asked. “Is music an acceptable form of entertainment at a campground if we do go with a commercial campground?”
Brick responded, “If you submit an application for a commercial campground, this board has the ability to process that application and impose any reasonable conditions it deems necessary to alleviate any concerns that may arise for neighboring properties, for adjacent properties, for abutting properties, as part of a special-use permit application for a campground.”
Mahony said she felt the board’s decision was unfair in light of motorcycle races being permitted in the area and said creating a commercial campground would be a pricey venture.
“Putting in a commercial campground is a large expense and I feel like we were misled the last few years and we already put a bunch of money and time into this, and now it’s no, you can’t do that,” Mahony said. “So how do I make sure that is not going to happen again? We were getting permits the last few years, we were given green lights, so how do I believe this is not going to happen again?”
Magic Forest Farm has held smaller concert events on its grounds in previous summers, with fewer attendees, and were granted operating permits by the town’s Building Department.
This is the first time the farm owner and operator have applied to the planning/zoning board of appeals for a special-use permit for such an event.
Ball wanted to know if they would be permitted to hold the smallest concert — an August event with about 250 attendees.
“The big guys, they are able to go and get another venue easily, but the 250-person event where it’s the band throwing it, it’s very difficult for them and they will be out $5,000 or $6,000,” Ball said. “I am asking if I move forward with one event and abide by the sound ordinance, do I pay a fine or will the event be shut down? What can I do to proceed with one August event?”
Brick and the code enforcement officer agreed to meet with Ball and Mahony to review the code and see what would be permissible under town law.
By Melanie Lekocevic
Capital Region Independent Media
COEYMANS — With a mold problem in the basement of town hall, officials are looking at remediating the problem, making repairs, and then coming up with a long-term solution to the question of what to do with the town hall.
The original plan was to build a new town hall, with a price tag of up to $7 million. But when a public referendum was forced, voters in November rejected that plan.
Now, officials are working to come up with an alternative.
The first and most immediate issue to be dealt with is the mold problem in the basement of the existing town hall, where the Coeymans Police Department was formerly located. The water infiltration that plagues the building’s basement led to a widespread mold problem.
The space was deemed unsuitable for town employees, so the town board made the decision to relocate several town departments, including the supervisor’s and business offices, to a rental space on Mountain Road Extension, so the police department could move upstairs to the first floor.
Town Supervisor George McHugh said the first step will be to address the mold and water problems.
“I think the priority right now is to get the mold remediation under control downstairs, but equally important is the water infiltration,” McHugh said. “I did confirm today every time it rains fairly hard, it pours in. The wall is where it is pouring in from so there are probably some problems with the wall. We have to do them simultaneously.”
Once the mold is addressed, McHugh said he intends to hold public hearings to consider various options the town can take next, now that the voters rejected the board’s proposal to build a new town hall.
Fixing the current town hall will not come cheap, he said. McHugh said he has been working with engineer Chris Dooley from MJ Engineering to come up with a plan and an approximate figure for repairs.
“It will cost about half a million dollars to fix the mold and the water infiltration problem, ballpark, unless we find a problem, like a broken wall or other issues — that could be upwards of a million dollars to fix the mold, and that just gives us this 5,000-square-foot building without mold,” McHugh said. “It doesn’t do any of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) issues, it doesn’t do anything about the size issue or what we actually need to house the departments adequately and appropriately, now or going forward. So you are probably looking at closer to a million dollars in making this building solid and sound again.”
“And safe for everybody to be in,” Town Councilwoman Marisa Tutay added.
After the mold and water infiltration problems are taken care of, the town will look at other options for the town hall.
“Do we want to build onto this building and make it larger and ADA compliant and put money into that? And when I say ‘we,’ I mean the town — that’s why I want to hold public hearings with options,” McHugh said. “Do we want to go down to the Coeymans hamlet and turn this building into a police and court building, like a public safety building, where it’s just the sheriff’s and the Coeymans Police and the court? And do we want to go down to the old Coeymans firehouse, add on to that, which is why I had Chris (Dooley) go down and look at it, add on to that and make that our town hall? I don’t know, that is another option.”
Other options could be constructing a new town hall at another site or building an addition to the current structure to create a campus setting for town offices.
Those are all alternatives the town could consider and gather public input about at hearings, he said.
“I do know we need to do something because right now we are renting space for half of our staff, the other half is in a building where we can only use this upper floor because downstairs is dangerous,” McHugh said. “And it is only getting worse.”
Dooley explained how the mold problem would be handled.
“We would address the mold issue by removing the interior finishes that are subject to mold — the carpet, the paneling on the walls, the sheetrock, and so on,” Dooley said. “Once we’ve done that, on the outside, assuming that you have a wall that is not deteriorated, we would put in some sort of waterproofing on it — a waterproofing membrane — and then some sort of drainage.”
It is unclear how much mold and water damage there is to the building and engineers won’t know the extent until the work commences, Dooley added.
“So you are looking at half a million dollars assuming everything is fine, but knowing that you have water seeping in through the walls, there probably is something going on,” Dooley said.
After renovations to the building begin, the town will then be mandated to address another issue — bringing the building into compliance with regard to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“Once you start renovating it, you have to bring it up to code if renovations will be more than 50% of the building, and you will be renovating more than 50% of the building so you have to bring it up to code,” Dooley said, adding that other structural features will also have to be addressed, such as upgrading and reinforcing the downstairs areas of the building to comply with the code.
These issues were among the reasons the engineers recommended building a new structure rather than repairing the old one in the first place, Dooley said.
“That is why we went with the new building because you would be sinking a lot of money into what you have and then eventually doing an add-on that will cost money as well, and probably wouldn’t give you as much square footage as you would with a brand-new structure,” the engineer said.
Deputy Town Supervisor Brendan Lefevre asked about the former firehouse building and whether that was a viable option.
“I thought the building, the bones of it, looked pretty solid,” Dooley said. “It does have some site challenges — there is a pretty steep slope in the back so from a parking perspective and access it would be a little bit more of a challenge.”
Tutay said the firehouse building could be a feasible alternative.
“But I would like to hear what the public has to say,” she said.
The current town hall, at 18 Russell Ave., was built around 1960 as an American Legion building.
