Manocherian Advances Plan To Build Homes in Otsego, Springfield

By DEBRA MOFFITT
OTSEGO COUNTY

A prominent Manhattan real estate owner has taken another step toward building 126 homes on a 1,525-acre site west of Otsego Lake.

Representatives for Manocherian Brothers/Pan Am Equities presented a revised sketch plan to both the Otsego and Springfield town planning boards last week. The proposed housing development spans both towns with 776 acres in Springfield and 749 acres in Otsego.

Originally proposed as 111 single-family lots, the sketch plan for the subdivision now includes 126 dwellings due to a 46-unit multi-family duplex community planned for McRorie Road in Springfield, which will require a special permit.

Manocherian plans to build:

• 50 single-family homes in the Town of Otsego, where the minimum lot size is currently three acres.
• 30 single-family homes in Springfield, where the minimum lot size is five acres
• 46 multi-family homes in the duplex community, also in Springfield

As they did last summer, members of the public filled planning board meeting rooms with questions about how the project will impact roads, the water supply and the environment. No public comment was permitted at the sketch plan stage, but planning board members raised questions of their own, with some saying they lacked the expertise to assess such a complex proposal.

With so many new homes needing well water, Otsego Planning Board member Alexander Nirenberg questioned whether the local aquifer could “bear that load without affecting the groundwater of all the other residents.” Otsego Planning Board member Jeffrey Banner asked how much of the potential open space was usable and how much was steep slopes and wetlands. Otsego Planning Board Chairman Tom Huntsman asked what “potential open space” meant after Manocherian’s engineers used the term repeatedly.

“That seems so vague as to be undefinable,” Huntsman said.

Allyson Phillips, a lawyer representing Manocherian, said it was too soon to know how various areas of open space would be managed—through conservation easements, a homeowners’ association or some alternate means. Asked about the same issue in Springfield, Phillips said open space parcels would not contain structures or pools.

At both meetings, planning board members wanted to hear about traffic impacts on roads like Allen Lake Road and Thurston Hill Road. The developer’s plan calls for an extension to Thurston Hill Road that would link with a new road labeled “Road B” that leads to a cluster of about 30 homes.

The revised plan reduced the amount of new roads by a mile, engineers for the project said, but existing roads may need to be widened, graded and improved to manage drainage. Upgrades to public roads would be the developer’s responsibility, Phillips said.

“It’s a very low density development but we’ll need to quantify what that means in terms of traffic,” said Rob Aiello of JMC Engineering, the firm representing Manocherian.

The Manocherian team stressed that the project is in its early stages and that the process to come would address unanswered questions. Months of surveying are ahead, Phillips said.

“We are at the entry point of the project,” Aiello said.

Since the 1960s, Fraydun Manocherian has owned the properties north of Cooperstown, green acres in a landscape far from the metropolis where his family built its real estate business. Pan Am Equities, also founded by the Manocherians, now boasts 34 buildings and more than 3,500 apartments—mostly in New York City, according to its website.

Both Otsego and Springfield planning boards passed resolutions requesting funds from Manocherian so the towns can hire their own engineers and lawyers. Springfield’s Planning Board also passed a measure seeking to serve as “lead agency” on the project regarding environmental matters—something that could be challenged. The process provides 30 days for the various entities to agree on which will take the lead in carrying out the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

The lead agency should make efforts to get input from other agencies and the public, according to the SEQR process. The SEQR process calls for a period of public comment and an optional public hearing.

In the meantime, Springfield Planning Board Chairman Henry Miller said the public can access materials related to the proposed project on the town’s website.

“You should be able to educate yourself,” Miller said.