BROADALBIN - The Village Board conducted a special meeting Wednesday to finalize an agreement with the towns of Broadalbin and Mayfield for the sales-tax revenue on a five-year-old Bellen Road housing project plan.
Geoffrey Brooks, of the Clifton Park-based Heritage Development Holdings, joined the board to go over the agreement that states the town of Mayfield would get 50 percent of the sales tax of their annexed land. The town currently owns half of the property on the project's site. Homeowners will pay the same property tax to the town of Mayfield they normally would but would also have to pay property taxes to the village.
Village Mayor Eugene Christopher, Broadalbin Town Supervisor Joseph DiGiacomo and Mayfield Town Supervisor Richard Argotsinger all have to sign the agreement. Christopher expects to have the deal finalized by the three municipalities by Friday or Monday.
Article Photos
Contractor Geoffrey Brooks, center left, is shown with members of the Broadalbin Village Board as he discuss the Bellen Road annex agreement on Wednesday.
The Leader-Herald/John Borgolini
The town of Mayfield initially rejected the proposal, but were left with only one alternative choice - to lose the land and receive no revenue from the taxes, which Brooks said would be in the neighborhood of $11,000.
The project began in 2007, but was delayed for the past two years because of legal resistance from?Mayfield.
Brooks had applied for a federal grant in 2010 and got $400,000, but it required the project to begin by April 2013 - something Brooks and the board called impossible now.
The project site contains 100 acres of land, and the current draft has 167 single-family house plots to go into the neighborhood just north of Kettle Road. However, Brooks said it is still too early to know how many houses there will be by the end of the project.
"There's a lot of attrition that occurs over the process of development," he said. "What the final product will be, it's hard to say. All the agencies have to give their two cents. There's a host of other governmental processes we have to go through yet that will whittle away at that number."
Whatever the final development, village Water Commissioner Lawrence Cornell said it will be an improvement to the village.