In two years, the town of Niskayuna will celebrate the bicentennial anniversary of its founding. Some local preservationists, however, question whether there’ll be much history left to celebrate after town officials gave the thumbs-up for a project that will radically alter one of the town’s most historic plots.

“What are you going to have to show for [the 200 years of history]?” asked John Wolcott, one of several people involved in fighting the commercial-development project that’s planned for the State Street and Balltown Road area.

The plan put forward by Highbridge Development of Schenectady would surround the historic Stanford Home (which today is an adult-care facility called Ingersoll Residence) with retail, restaurants and parking spaces while clear-cutting and paving the bordering trees and open space. As for the home, it would be partially deconstructed and converted into a restaurant, an idea that makes some preservationists, such as Linda Champagne, cringe.

Champagne, president of the Friends of Stanford Home and former Niskayuna town historian, has been a major player in the fight to protect the Stanford building and its surrounding scenery. Having come away with few results from their efforts at the town level, on Friday she was among several petitioners who argued the matter in the state Supreme Court.

The crux of the legal challenge, Champagne explained, is the town board’s decision not to require a full environmental-impact statement for the commercial-development project, called Stanford Crossings.

“A place of this significance, historically and environmentally, deserves the same thorough treatment that an environmental-impact statement would provide,” Champagne said. “We have never picked out something so significant, and smaller places have had a full environmental-impact statement. So why did we rush this?”

In March, the town board voted 3-2 that the Stanford Crossings did not have significant environmental impacts and therefore did not require a full EIS, a process that can take about a year. The decision came despite a conflicting recommendation from the town’s Conservation Advisory Council, which as far back as November 2006 had voted unanimously to recommend that the town board require the thorough environmental review.

The council’s recommendation stated that “the proposed action would cause an adverse change to the existing environment; impair the character and quality of an important historic, archaeological and aesthetic resource; and adversely impact the existing community and neighborhood character.”

An EIS would have forced studies into factors such traffic issues, the historical significance of the plot, alternative scenarios, and others.

Included among the three-person majority that rejected the need for environmental review was Luke Smith, town supervisor, who said he has been painted incorrectly by many of those seeking to preserve the Stanford plot.

“I know people who have said Luke Smith is pushing this,” he said. “No. What I’ve done is I’ve followed the state laws and rules and regulations. The property is zoned commercial. It has been for about 40 years.”

The plot’s commercial designation shouldn’t exempt the need for an EIS, however, said those fighting against Stanford Crossings, and that perhaps the plot should never have been zoned commercial in the first place.

Champagne and Wolcott both expressed concern about adding more commercial development to an area that they said has seen enough suburban sprawl.

“Today when I was in the co-op store in Niskayuna, somebody said to me, ‘I see they haven’t done anything on State Street yet,’ and they said, ‘That’s all we need is another store,’ ” Champagne said. It’s a sentiment she said she’s heard from many others.

Others have expressed concern about how Stanford Crossings, which would be located along the border with Schenectady, could affect business there, especially after the city’s work to attract business to the downtown.

Smith responded to that concern by pointing to the support that’s been expressed by Ray Gillen, chair of the Schenectady Metroplex Development Authority, with whom Smith has had discussions. Smith said the county planning department also has indicated no problems with the project.

“I don’t sit at home dreaming about creating malls and stuff like that,” Smith said. “I do take my oath very seriously as far as following the codes and the laws, and that’s what we did and that’s why the majority of the board voted the way they did.”

That decision also had nothing to do with a disregard for historical preservation, added Smith, who said he is concerned about protecting historic properties. “That’s why we worked with the developer to make sure that the historic Ingersoll home would be used,” he said. “We convinced him [the developer] to keep the historic building from the early 1800s, and they’re going to convert it into a restaurant, so I’m very pleased with that.”

Champagne said she’d like to see the building be used for other, more educational purposes that could incorporate the telling of the plot’s long history.

Although the original Stanford House (additions were later added to expand the structure) dates back only to the early 1800s, when the Stanford family resided there, the history of the land’s previous owners dates back to the 1700s.

—Nicole Klaas

nklaas@metroland.net

Overdue Acknowledgement