By Stephen Williams
The Daily Gazette
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — The town’s two fire companies may have a new site for a shared downtown fire station.
The Malta Ridge Volunteer Fire Company and the Round Lake Hose Company announced Wednesday that they have agreed to consider sharing a site on Hemphill Place.
The companies had been eyeing town-owned land on Dunning Street, but that site encountered opposition from residents of the adjoining Luther Forest housing development. The Town Board last month declined to support the site until the fire companies did extensive studies, which promoted Malta Ridge officials to vote against pursuing the plan.
Now, the fire companies say they have agreed on a tract of land in the Parade Ground Village development, off Hemphill Place. Preliminary review indicates it may be suitable for a fire station, the two companies said in a joint statement.
The proposed site is on 2.25 acres currently owned by the Parade Ground Village development company. There have been discussions about a sale but no final deal has been negotiated.
The firefighters think the concerns Luther Forest neighbors had about the Dunning Street site are addressed, because the new site is no longer near homes; it has access to either Route 9 or Dunning Street.
“The fire companies continue to work together to meet the expanding fire protection demands resulting from residential, commercial and technology development in Malta,” said Fred Lee, president of the Malta Ridge company.
A shared downtown fire station was one of key recommendations of a fire protection master plan done for the town in 2009, to address concerns about fire protection in the rapidly expanding downtown area. A shared central station would replace the small substation each company maintains on the edges of downtown. Their main stations are at the northern and southern edges of town.
The two substations could be sold to help pay for the new station. The volunteer-staffed companies also estimate a shared station will delay the day when the town will need to staff a fire station with paid firefighters.
“It is essential that we take advantage of this rare opportunity that will allow us to improve service delivery and also drastically reduce the cost of future fire protection to our community,” said Fred Sievers, president of the Round Lake Hose Company.
The station would need town Planning Board approvals, but not the public referendum that would have been involved in buying the Dunning Street land from the town. The town would still have a say in any new fire station’s financing. The cost isn’t yet known, but is likely to be $3 million or more.
“We’re happy to see they have decided to work together,” said Town Supervisor Paul Sausville. “Now it’s a budgetary issue. Is the town going to step up and fund a new station, and I think it will.”
Maury Crawford, a neighborhood leader in the Luther Forest development, said he thought the Hemphill Place site would be more acceptable to neighbors than Dunning Street was, but he expects the residents to remain involved in the proposal.
“It’s awakened more people to what’s going on in town, and that’s a good thing,” said Crawford, president of the Ermine Lair Neighborhood Association.
He said the financial plan for the new fire station the town requested as one of the Dunning Street studies remains a good idea.
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