Courtesy, Saratoga Hospital via Saratoga Springs Planning Board (2021)
This view from the north, or from the Birch Run neighborhood, shows the height of the proposed 75,000 square foot office building. The dotted line shows the height allowed in an earlier plan.
Glens Falls attorney Claudia Braymer has asked that Saratoga Hospital withdraw its application to build an office complex at the corner of Morgan and Myrtle streets in Saratoga Springs after an appeals court decided the city conducted an improper environmental review. That review had allowed the hospital’s project to move forward, and the hospital currently has plans with the city’s planning board.
“We are not against the hospital,” Alice Smith wrote in an email to FoothillsBusinessDaily.com. Smith lives in the neighborhood and was the primary client bringing the appeal. Braymer represented her. “But the proposed project is not a hospital facility. It is a large commercial office building complex which, in addition to destroying a neighborhood, is very bad city planning by modern standards.”
The hospital said in an email this morning that they will have a statement later today.
The current project includes three phases, building out eventually to three buildings totalling 105,000 square feet and hundreds of parking spaces on a surface level parking lot. The location just north of the main hospital building, is surrounded by current hospital parking, single family homes, and multifamily apartments and duplexes. A golf course sits along the parcel’s west side.
“The fact that the city council messed up on its environmental review means that the zoning change did not stick,” Braymer said in an interview, and therefore the project cannot move forward. The property was zoned residentially before the change.
The SEQR, as the environmental review is called, asks questions not only about the ecological effect of rezoning, such as the effect on groundwater or nearby wetlands, but also on the lived environment, such as the effect on traffic in neighborhoods or how the size of the project fits with surrounding areas.
Although the appeals court said the city could change the zoning to allow for a medical office buildings in that location, they said the city should have conducted a full environmental review as part of the zoning change.
Instead, the city improperly “segmented” the environmental review and only considered the environmental impact of the zoning change on the property itself without also considering the impact a three-building office complex would have on the location. The SEQR rules require municipalities to consider zoning changes along with any "known" projects together.
At the time the zoning change was made, during a special city council meeting in December 2019, both then-Commissioner of Accounts John Franck and then-Commissioner of Public Safety Peter Martin asked the city attorney at the time, Vince DeLeonardis, for clarification numerous times. They asked if they were voting on a specific project at all or just on zoning.
DeLeonardis said it was a legislative action that merely changed the zoning. Then-Mayor Meg Kelly and DeLeonardis told the city council before the vote that any development plan would have to go before the planning board and undergo a SEQR analysis at that time.
As part of the resolution which would change the zoning, DeLeonardis included the advisory opinion of the Planning Board on a previous project the hospital had put forward at that location. The planning board at that time had issued a "negative" SEQR on the project, meaning it would not impact the environment adversely.
In the resolution that was eventually approved, DeLeonardis also said, “There is no proposal currently pending before the city council or any of the land use boards. The city council is not aware of any immediate development proposal by Saratoga Hospital.”
The Appellate court disagreed and said that the city did in fact know about a project planned for “Parcel 1.”
They cited DeLeonardis' stance that the planning board had approved another similar project in 2015 and a letter from the hospital that went to people in the neighborhood in early 2019. The letter said in part that the city was acting to change the zoning and the hospital planned to propose the office building once changes were made.
According to the judges, the letter continued "[The project is] all predicated on how the revised zoning map unfolds."
Separating the known project from the zoning change is the "segmentation" that is not allowed under the law, the judges said.
Reversing the lower court’s decision, the panel has sent that environmental review back to the city council for consideration.
“The matter is remitted to the City Council for a full environmental review of the proposed action as to parcel 1,” the judges wrote.
Mayor Ronald Kim wrote in a text message Thursday evening Feb. 17 that the city “probably will comment tomorrow.” He and the four city council members elected last fall were not a part of the environmental decision in 2019.
Anthony “Skip” Scirocco is the only current commissioner to have been a part of the decision. He voted to approve the environmental impact statement along with the rest of the board.