100 houses eyed for large Clifton Park tract

PHOTOGRAPHER: Tatiana Zarnowski

Builder Geoffrey Brooks wants to build about 100 single-family homes on one of the last prime tracts of land on Grooms Road at Exit 8A of the Northway.

Brooks presented a concept for a 100-unit traditional housing development or a 105-home cluster subdivision to the town Planning Board on Tuesday.

During its first look at the proposal, the board preferred the cluster subdivision, Clifton Park town planner John Scavo said.

Developers who want to build a cluster development, which allows more homes per acre than the zoning normally would permit and requires the developer to provide open space, must submit plans for both a traditional and a cluster development at the beginning of the planning process.

Brooks’ proposal for 105 homes in the cluster option is fewer than the 127 maximum that would be permitted for the lot, Scavo said.

Brooks, who owns Heritage Custom Builders of Clifton Park, wants to build the single-family homes at 504 Grooms Road, just west of Evergreen Avenue and roughly half a mile from the Northway exit. The 70-acre lot lies on the south side of the road.

Currently, the lot is wooded, grassy and has one single-family home on it.

There are still some other large tracts of undeveloped land in the area, but many of them have significant wetlands that would limit the number of homes built, Scavo said.

The property Brooks is looking at only has 2.42 acres of wetlands and has sandy soil with good drainage, Scavo said.

In the cluster plan, Brooks proposes putting sidewalks along the roads in the development, which the town does not require but is preferred.

“People want to get out and walk,” Scavo said. “It just promotes healthier lifestyles.”

The builder also proposes putting about 2 acres of open space along Grooms Road, siting a 1.5-acre park with walking paths and a gazebo in the middle of the development and leaving 13.57 acres of open space on the south end of the property.

The traditional development would provide 8.76 acres of open space at the south end of the property.

That area would abut 21.7 acres of permanent open space in the Carlson Farms development to the west.

Both the traditional and the cluster plan show entrances from Grooms Road to the north, from Jarose Place and Balsam Way to the west and from Lincoln Avenue to the east. Both also show woods behind every home on every lot.

Traffic engineers who studied the property determined that road and intersection improvements would be unnecessary for the amount of traffic generated, they stated in a report provided to the Planning Board.

They estimated the houses would generate 83 vehicle trips during the morning peak and 110 in the afternoon peak. About 90 percent of those drivers would drive east toward the Northway.

For those heading west or south, the proposed entrances onto neighborhood roads provide access to Moe and Lapp roads.

The property is serviced with Saratoga County sewer and Clifton Park public water.

The next step in the planning process is for Brooks to submit a preliminary subdivision plan.