COEYMANS — Carver Cos. and a private landowner intend to ask the town to rezone two plots of land — including a 364-acre wildlife management area — as the Port of Coeymans tries to prepare for potential offshore wind projects.
The proposed rezoning is essentially a swap: The company wants to have 134 acres of privately owned land to its north rezoned as industrial. A portion of the land in question is part of a larger 224-acre plot of land Ten Eyck “Trip” Powell owns between River Road and the Hudson River.
In exchange, a state-owned, industrially zoned property to the west along River Road that was supposed to become a dump for the city of Albany will be rezoned under a designation for recreational areas.
The result would be a reduction in the overall amount of industrially zoned land in the town, but neither plot hosts any industry. If the rezoning is approved and the manufacturing moves forward, the resulting projects would reshape the stretch of the town north of the port along the Hudson River.
Such developments are being watched closely by environmental advocates like Riverkeeper, which is concerned about how the offshore wind industry will impact the Hudson.
Carver Cos. told the town it is looking to pursue three major projects related to offshore wind turbines. One of the projects, which manufactures steel components for the wind turbine bases, is already underway.
Under Coeyman’s comprehensive plan, the town is supposed to try to balance industrial, environmental and residential concerns by directing industrial development to existing industrial areas and to maintain a buffer from residential areas.
Nick Laraway, the chief operating officer at Carver Cos., told the town’s Planning and Zoning Board this week that the company needed the space as it prepares to undertake as many as three projects related to offshore wind construction. Most of the land under consideration to be rezoned as industrial was previously mined or used for industrial purposes in the 20th century, Laraway said.
“Overall, we feel the project we are presenting is consistent with the comprehensive plan. It would reduce the industrial footprint in north Coeymans by 230 acres,” he said in a meeting earlier this week.
During a Town Board meeting last month, Supervisor George McHugh told Laraway the town is not looking to expand its industrial footprint.
“But what we do have we want to build it out and certainly make the best of it,” he said.
Laraway said the proposed rezoning and related projects would not impact a 54-acre plot of land at 47 Bronk Road that his father, Carver Laraway, bought and cleared earlier this year.
The company wants to use the land north of the port, which is owned by LaFarge Holcim and Powell, as parking and a storage facility for wind turbine blades manufactured by LM Wind Power that would be shipped out of the port to sites in the Atlantic Ocean. The company’s plans include an 80-acre campus with 450,000 square feet of buildings on land owned by LaFarge Holcim.
“We’re not looking to go further north and build a bunch of buildings,” Laraway told the town’s combined Planning and Zoning Board. “We’re looking to use that basically as an accessory to the manufacturing buildings we’re proposing on Holcim’s land.”
The city of Albany previously purchased the land Carver Cos. hopes to swap from industrial to community use from private landowners years ago in hopes of turning it into a replacement for the city’s Rapp Road landfill. But that project never came to fruition and the city sold the property in 2019 to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
The state DEC has not received any official correspondence from the town on the proposal. The zoning change would not affect the public’s use of the property.
The company has not yet made a formal request to the town for the change in zoning.
Laraway told the board he understood it would be a lengthy process to get the land rezoned, including a public hearing on the proposal. If the company is successful in landing all three projects, it could mean thousands of construction and permanent jobs, he said.
Carver Cos. is awaiting an award announcement from NYSERDA as part of the third round of solicitations for bids to manufacture and develop offshore wind energy projects. The other two projects the company hopes to be a part of include manufacturing cables that connect wind turbines to the electrical grid and manufacturing and building nacelles, which house a turbine’s gearbox, shafts, generator and brake.
“We really don’t know which way they’re going to go but we’re hopeful they’re going to choose to work with us,” he told the Town Board.