The Village of Cooperstown has changed and is still changing. Fifty years ago, there was one baseball souvenir store and house prices were reasonable. Houses were homes to families; kids walked to school and played in the parks.
Things change and that change brought more and more visitors, capitalizing on the nearby baseball camps, the rise of tourism in the entire region, and the focus on domestic family travel. Families came to Cooperstown to watch their sons, grandsons or nephews play in week-long baseball tournaments near the “Home of Baseball.”
With this influx came a change to regional housing. Short-term rentals for the time that these camps were open became more and more popular. An owner could rent for the summer and make as much, if not more, than a year-long rental. Summer rentals meant less strain on the homes during with winter, less maintenance and the owners could travel away during the off seasons.
Last Tuesday, March 7, 2023—in front of an overflow, standing-room-only crowd—the Village of Cooperstown Zoning Board of Appeals considered and ultimately denied an application by Mark and Margaret Curley, the owners of 40 Lake Street, to permit four of the residence’s five bedrooms to be used for short-term rentals.
Prior to the hearing, the ZBA had received 24 letters and/or e-mails, all of which expressed the writers’ objection to the application. The same was true of comments made at the hearing: the residents who spoke all opposed the application. The owners, who had purchased the house also known as Averill Cottage four months earlier, were not present. Although a family member did attend and was given the opportunity to be heard, he declined.
T-Mobile Project Manager Robert Willson discusses T-Mobile’s proposed antenna with Cooperstown’s ZBA last evening. Counterclockwise from back are Zoning Enforcement Office Jane Gentile, Mikal Sky-Shrewsbury, ZBA Chair Susan Snell, and ZBA members Marcie Schwartzman, Joe Perdue and Frank Leo. (Patrick Wager/AllOTSEGO.com)
By PATRICK WAGER • Special www.AllOTSEGO.com
COOPERSTOWN – After studying five church steeples suggested by village trustees, the Key Bank building, 103 Main St., still makes the most sense for T-Mobile’s proposed antenna, Project Manager Robert Willson told the village Zoning Board of Appeals last evening.
“Key Bank is the best choice due to its height and location,” Willson told the ZBA at its monthly meeting. The other five locations his team evaluated were Templeton Hall (formerly Unitarian-Universalist church), and the Baptist, Catholic, Methodist Presbyterian churches.
