Shad Point Housing Development Project to Begin Next Spring - To Have 76 residential Units

COBLESKILL — The $600,000 grant for the Shad Point Housing Development was approved and now the over $5 million project is scheduled to begin soon. The Town of Cobleskill’s Planning Board has gone over the paperwork and are sending the information to Schoharie County for their recommendations. 

Alexander and Analiese Chacho represented Chacho & Sons Holdings LLC and Brandon Becker from Lamont Engineering presented the proposed property.  The proposal is to build a mix of residential units and storage units.  There will be single story 2 family houses, single family homes and 2 story 8 family apartments with a total of 76 units.  The majority of the parcel is residential R-2 and doesn’t require a variance. The B2 area isn’t going to be developed. All roads will be paved and built to town specs.  There is a plan for an emergency access road in addition to the main entrance road.  Mr. Chacho already owns the property attached on the Route 7 corridor.  A brief traffic impact review was done, which may allow up to a 12 second delay if the main entrance is at Shad Point Road. There will be screening of trees along the Southeastern part of the property.  The property will be connected to water and sewer and will have street lighting and paved roads.  Power will be extended to the site from existing power lines then it will be underground.   

The Planning Board had several questions about site management, methods for emergency access, timeline of the project, and when the construction will start.  Brandon Becker said they are hoping for at least 10 units to be completed by 2027.  The owners will be the site managers of the property.  The phased plan will take approximately 10 years to complete. 

The planning board opened up the discussion to the public. There were several concerned citizens from Shad Point Road who were questioning how many vehicles will be added daily?  Brandon answered approximately 400 more vehicles per day. A resident asked if this was section 8 housing? Brandon said it is not a HUD project and will be more like the Donat’s Brow development on Mineral Springs Road.  

Traffic was a significant concern from the residents. They asked about the access point off Route 7 and Shad Point Road.  Residents stated Shad Point Road currently does not meet the standards for the traffic it will have on it.  Concerns were addressed for peak level traffic. Brandon stated DOT are the people who make decisions on the intersections off Route 7 and the Town of Cobleskill will make the decision for Shad Point Road. Peter Nichols, planning board member said this is done through the Town preservation law.  The residents questioned why the developers don’t put the main road on Route 7 across from Shady Tree Lane instead of going up Shad Point Road.  They requested that Brandon and the owners look at your road cut and possibly somehow fix  the intersection on Shady Tree Lane? No decision was made as to the exact location of the main road and access road at this time. Brandon and Alex said they would look into the options. 

Brandon said they are trying to build additional funding to boost water pressure with a booster pump up Shad Point Road. This will provide more water pressure to current residents and for the project. No decisions were made by the planning board at this time and they will reconvene next month to discuss Schoharie County's recommendations and additional input by Lamont Engineering.