Issues concerning the New Hartford Business Park have been raised one after another.
First came the discovery that the $25 million Hartford Financial Services Group building was built outside of the park’s boundaries and shouldn’t have been reviewed by a special panel set up to oversee the park’s planning.
Two more proposed buildings — a Hampton Inn and Suites and an office building for Costello Eye Physicians and Surgeons — also are outside the panel’s official domain.
Then earlier this month, the state Department of State issued an opinion saying the panel doesn’t have the right to review projects independently anyway.
But it gets even worse:
* Town planner Kurt Schwenzfeier admitted he had realized as early as summer 2007 that The Hartford was outside the park’s boundaries. But nothing ever was done about it.
* And because of the boundary issue, it’s possible proper state environmental reviews weren’t done for the project.
So where do officials go from here?
Planning Board Chairman Jerome Donovan, who also is a member of the panel, has moved to involve the Planning Board in all future reviews for the business park.
He’s also considering dissolving the panel entirely and trying to determine whether the Planning Board should re-review The Hartford site.
“No matter how you cut it, The Hartford approval process was defective,” Donovan said. “This is going to be a lot more work for the Planning Board now.”
Meanwhile, park developer Larry Adler, said he would work with the town as they sorted matters out.
“We thought we were doing everything we were supposed to do,” he said.
Town Supervisor Earle Reed said things were now on the right track.
“I think things are going to proceed very nicely now that they are in Planning Board hands,” he said.
Review process
The town panel was set up by a 1999 town code to oversee aspects of the planning process inside the New Hartford Business Park. It even provides a map showing the park boundaries.
At the time, the park was intended to be municipally owned, but the town never followed through. Then, in 2006, Adler purchased the land, as well as some adjacent parcels.
Planning reviews for Adler’s park were overseen by the panel, with no Planning Board involvement, even though some parcels were outside the original boundaries. The Hartford, the sole occupant of the park, is on one of those parcels.
Donovan said he believes The Hartford is also outside the area studied for the business park’s environmental impact statement, which means a new State Environmental Quality Review should be done.
“Was the land subject to proper review?” Donovan asked. “To the best of my knowledge, no.”
Donovan’s predecessor, Hans Arnold, agreed that if The Hartford’s site indeed was outside the study area, a new review should be done.
“If the sequence had been identified correctly, there would have been a proposed zoning change and part of that would have been some sort of SEQR determination,” Arnold said.
DEC spokesman Steve Litwhiler of the department’s Watertown office said he couldn’t speak specifically about The Hartford site. But he said if a building was outside the district that was originally studied, then a new review could be needed.
“When an environmental impact statement is done, it covers a specific footprint, and if a project is expanded beyond that footprint, (a State Environmental Quality Review) should be done at least to determine whether a project would require a supplemental EIS or not,” he said.
Town Councilwoman Christine Krupa said she believed an environmental review was needed of the site.
“I think one should be done so the town can adequately identify and address any possible adverse circumstances before they hit an emergency or crisis level,” she said in an e-mail.
Legal questions?
The Department of State opinion said the way that the town law that created the panel was written indicated that it never was meant to have the same powers as the Planning Board.
Former Town Supervisor William Keiser, who was in that position when the law was conceived and passed, said the panel had never been intended to supersede the Planning Board.
Instead, it was meant to “do some initial leg work and groundwork,” and “get it in a format so it could go to the Planning Board,” he said.
But that didn’t happen with The Hartford, which only was approved by the panel.
It’s unclear what the legal implications of the approval issues will be.
Rick Su, an associate professor of law at the University at Buffalo Law School, said The Hartford building was not in compliance with the law, and the town and the developer should move quickly to remedy the matter.
“If I am the owner of the building, I am technically outside the law,” Su said. “I’m in a weird legal limbo.”
Even if no legal challenges exists now, they could come later, under a different political administration or if other circumstances changed.
But Donovan said statutes of limitations could protect The Hartford from legal challenges.
