WAWARSING – The question of sidewalks and charges of discrimination by the Wawarsing planning board held up their June 20 meeting with a lengthy executive session with board attorney Mary Lou Christiana. Attorney Dennis Schlenker questioned the board's motives in not overriding the county's sidewalk recommendation for Route 209 Mobile station owner Tariq Gujar as they had done with another applicant, Tom Pinkerous, across the road.

"I feel my client should be treated equally and similarly as Mr. Pinkerous and I fail to discern any engineering reason or safety reason for a different result in this case," Schlenker said in relation to plans for a storage unit complex at a former bowling alley across from Gujar's property.

Board chairman James Dolaway explained how Gujar originally agreed to put sidewalks in, then reneged.

Still seeing no zoning issue, Schlenker pointed out how Pinkerous' project involves the replacement of an existing building, involving more expenses, and asked whether Doloway's owning of a similar business to Gujar's might call for the chairman's recusal, which Christiana objected to.

After their executive session, Christiana said that if the applicant would like to continue with their application, they would have to submit updated plans showing outside water user agreement between themselves and the village. Schlenker agreed to keep the public hearing open in the event Gujar and the planning board could still reach an accord regarding their issues.

Later in the meeting, Greenfield Resorts owner Chesky Landau expressed disappointment that approval of his proposed 91-unit condominium project at the site of the old Tamarack Lodge would be stalled another month as the board sought new plans.

"I've been doing this for 30 months. I've passed a few seasons. The town has had endless amount of time," he said, regarding the issues he claims the board has already reviewed. "It's very hard to be sitting in this position. We've passed substance for a while. Now we're just talking about technicalities."

Those technicalities are important, Christiana said. Dolaway added that he would feel more comfortable granting conditional final approval if the board's engineer was given the opportunity to review the entire set of plans and not each page piece meal.

In other news, City of Light Sanctuary representative Stan Khaldarov asked if he was required to come before the planning board to allow visitors from a Queens, NY yoga community to camp on his land. The board said he'd need to apply for a special use permit. He will return to next months' meeting along with a proposal for a year-round Latin food trailer with outdoor seating to be located at the corner of Clinton Street and Route 209.