The Town of Wallkill Planning Board tabled site plan approval for place of worship proposed by Gurdwara Hudson Valley Sikh Society Inc., at public hearing meeting held on Wednesday, April 3.

The new proposed 23,500 square-foot building located at 20 Rykowski Lane would serve as a place of worship and event space in the community. The applicant also proposes an apartment in the building for the clergy and his family.

At the meeting on Wednesday, the planning board discussed with the applicant the 26 technical review comments that were given to them by the town’s engineer as some of the board’s concerns had not been met prior to the public hearing. According to MHE Engineering, some of the technical review comments of the application included:

The Planning Board had requested a narrative be provided that detailed the use of the premises. Some detail of the use has been provided in the technical response letter, but a narrative has not been provided.

As discussed at the Planning Board meeting the Applicant is only providing parking for the assembly space of 2,878 SF (of the total building area of 23,500SF) No parking has been allocated been for the dining area (2,214 SF). Further discussion with the Planning Board is required.

The biggest issue for the board was that the application of the 23,500 sq building only provided 10 percent parking and needed satisfactory parking as in accordance with the Town Code Section 249-12, places of worship should provide in excess of 1 parking space per 4 seats or 1 parking space per 40 square feet of seating area where fixed seating is not provided.

“To be honest with you if I knew we needed this much stuff to get, we probably would have asked you to take another couple weeks before you came in,” said Gary Lake, Planning Board Chairman.

The planning board advised the applicant to go back to work session to address the 26 comments as they voted to leave the public hearing open and tabled the application for further action.