VALATIE PROJECT ON HOLD

Mike McCagg

ccSCOOP News

11-16-09 - 10:45 a.m. - A major development project in Columbia County remains on hold, but for how long is in dispute. Valatie Village Planning Board Chairman Angelo Nero told ccSCOOP last week that the project has been put on hold by the Planning Board until February. The decision, he said, was made at the request of a representative of developer Timothy Holk. Holk, however, told ccSCOOP that he plans to move forward at the December Planning Board meeting. “I met with my attorney and engineer yesterday,” he said last Tuesday. That would mean the project would come before the Planning Board on December 2, if the board agrees to put it on the agenda.

Holk is proposing an 89-unit development on Route 203 on the northern boundary of the village. He had been scheduled to appear at the board’s meeting on November 4 to address questions largely about maintenance of the common areas of the proposed development.Nero had said last summer that the project was close to approval pending the answer to those and a few other general questions. The project has not moved forward in the review process since midsummer.

The new housing development, to be called Kinderkill Meadows, includes both town houses and single-family dwellings. The project started out as 45 single-family homes, but the original proposal was withdrawn and resubmitted to the Planning Board as a larger project. Nero cautioned that the final size of the development will depend on a rebound in the economy.