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Town board holds public hearing on Caliber Collision plan for 4959 Genesee Street
Summary
Developers of a proposed 12,475-square-foot Caliber Collision repair shop told the Cheektowaga Town Board the facility will operate indoors with paint booths that meet state air-quality rules; board members pressed for more environmental and traffic detail before the application advances.
The Town of Cheektowaga Town Board opened and closed a public hearing on a special-use permit application for a Caliber Collision vehicle-repair facility proposed at 4959 Genesee Street.
The applicant’s engineer, Robin Cerniak of GPI, told the board the project would sit on a 1.5-acre, motor-service–zoned parcel and would include a 12,475-square-foot building with 16 indoor service bays, 59 parking spaces and an enclosed vehicle yard. “This facility is smaller,” Cerniak said of the current plan, noting it has about half the bays of a previously proposed project and that “all the work is indoors.”
Why it matters: Neighbors and board members raised questions about noise, paint fumes, stormwater and the project’s relationship to a town pump station on adjacent property. Several board members said they want concrete information from state and federal regulators before taking an approval vote.
Architect Melissa Hernandez of Cross Architects addressed air quality and noise concerns. “All services including cleaning up will be done inside the building with closed doors,” Hernandez said. She said the paint booths are self-contained, meet applicable spray-booth codes and that the facility will obtain a state air-quality permit. The project team also said the paint booths will use multi-stage filtration and that the manufacturer’s systems meet federal and state requirements.
Board members pressed for specific data. Council member Michael Jasinski asked whether the applicant could provide expected parts-per-million figures for volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The applicant said such calculations could be produced and that paint suppliers typically tailor mixes and VOC controls by county to remain in compliance; the applicant offered to provide the VOC estimates and filtration specifications to the board.
The applicant also told the board the site will use an existing New York State Department of Transportation curb cut and that the project has already been reviewed by the Zoning Board of Appeals, the Planning Board and the Environmental Advisory Committee. The ZBA granted a small variance for the vehicle-use area and the planning board recommended site-plan approval, the engineer said. Cerniak said the project team has submitted a highway work permit application to the NYSDOT and that DOT storm-drain approvals remain pending.
On traffic and operations, the applicant said hours would typically be Monday through Friday about 8 a.m.–5 p.m., with occasional half-day Saturday work. The team said similar facilities of this size typically see about 30 vehicles in and 30 vehicles out on peak days and that, based on DOT counts for Genesee Street, the additional traffic would not materially change conditions at the road.
Board members and the developer discussed access to a nearby town pump station. The project team said the owner had agreed to provide town access to the south side of the pump station and that the project would preserve a drive aisle that could be used to reach the facility.
The public hearing was opened and then closed after the developer’s presentation and unrelated public questions; the board did not take a final vote on the special-use permit at the meeting. The applicant said it expects to return with any requested supplemental data and regulatory approvals in a future meeting.
