Social media in an uproar about the rezoning project on Union Avenue, but only two dozen showed up for the project's public outreach meeting

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The lawyers representing the owners of 161 Union Ave., the property undergoing a transformation that will turn Asahi Sushi into a condominium complex, hosted a public outreach meeting to address residents’ concerns.

The March 22 meeting at the Knights of Columbus saw scarce attendance, attracting about two dozen people despite a lot of social media community pushback.

Attorney William Bonesso and one of the property owners, William Geier, took attendees through a timeline starting when the project was approved.

In late December of 2020, the 18-unit condominium complex was unanimously approved. At the public outreach meeting, Bonesso said that the property was “not sightly.” It was reported that people would frequently go to the parking lot at night and smoke as well as leave trash on the ground.

One community member asked why the property owners couldn’t just address those specific issues instead of going through with the rezoning project. “With the landlord-tenant law, tenants have a lot of rights and property owners can only do so much,” Bonesso said.

Another issue people noticed is the beeping of trucks at 5 a.m.

“This will go away the sooner that this is built,” Bonesso said. He added that for these issues to stop now, the village would have to issue summonses or violations.

However, he said, the owners of 161 Union Ave. “fully intend to remove not only the tenants, but all of the illegal activities that may be occurring on the property, but they have to go through the legal process to do so.”

Bonesso hosted meetings with community members around the time the project was approved in 2020.

“We had a total of four meetings, over two days,” Bonesso said. “One afternoon session, one evening session on each of the two days, and a notice of that was posted on the Village website as well as our website.” At these meetings, Bonesso and Geier addressed questions about the property.

“We knew the community wanted input and we wanted to be as transparent as possible,” Geier said. He believes it is an unfair characterization to say that he wasn’t transparent about this project. “We did a lot to make sure everybody had this information,” Geier said. “Even at the hearing for the zone change, we made it available for Zoom.”

The project entered the limelight recently when a zoning meeting was announced to be held in a month to address parking variances associated with the development. Community members thought the project wasn’t going to happen, as it has been over two years since it was approved. “There were just facts and clauses within the contract that weren’t being met, and we just couldn’t move forward,” Geier said.

Now that Geier can move forward with the project, he plans to transform 161 Union Ave. into a more inviting and attractive property.

According to Geier, the condos will reduce traffic. “I definitely see there being less traffic issues with the apartments than what’s currently going on there,” he said. “Most people aren’t going to be sitting in their house for several hours, having some drinks, and then leaving.”

With a traffic study conducted in 2020, Bonesso explained how the street by the property would not be congested. “We will have an updated study for the hearing in a month,” Bonesso said. Along with the decrease in traffic, he said the property will generate a lot of revenue for the town.

“Right now the property generates about $80,000 a year in taxes, of which $55,000 goes to the school district,” Bonesso said. “If this is built with 18 units, it’ll yield probably over $300,000 of which $200,000 will go to the school district.”

According to Bonesso, the one- and two-bedroom condominiums will generate “extremely low numbers of school-aged children.”

“This is a long process,” Geier said. “We still have to go back and finish all of our construction plans, all of our site plans, and the reason why we don’t do that now is because if we get denied, then we would’ve wasted $100,000 on plans.”

If the variances are approved, Geier said, he will finish work on the plans. He expects construction to last about 12 to 16 months.

Bonesso will appear before the Board of Zoning Appeals on April 27, at 7 p.m., to ask for parking variances as well as a rear yard variance. This will be a public hearing and Bonesso encourages community members to attend so he can directly address their concerns.