ALBANY - In this quality-of-life clash, a woman with a medical business is pitted against those who want to protect the character of their neighborhood.

Nearly a decade ago, Albany native Kathleen Cronin watched her mother lose a long battle with cancer.

All the while, Cronin – a registered nurse for 39 years – worked with many women who had undergone mastectomies.

“Breast cancer is incredibly dear to my heart. I just think that we’re all just waiting for our number to come up, that’s the reality in my life,” the 59-year-old said. “Sooner or later, it’s going to get you, or someone you love, if it hasn’t happened already.”

And then there are the unavoidable after-effects – the loss of hair that may never return after chemotherapy treatments cease, misshapen breasts or the loss of areolas and nipples after mastectomies.

“So here this woman has been through all this already, and now you take away her eyebrows and you take away her eyelashes, and she has nothing,” Cronin said.

That’s where Cronin’s business – Colour Cosmetic Studio – comes in. She and her daughter, Nora Quinn, a licensed esthetician, provide what is called paramedical micropigmentation services for those who have scars or hair loss from surgery, injury, or medical conditions like alopecia.

“I set out on a mission to learn how to become an exceptional micropigmentation artist and give back women, not just something that they had lost, but something that looks so real that you couldn’t tell that it wasn’t theirs to begin with,” Cronin said. “We attempt to put back on the body what’s missing.”

But now Cronin finds herself defending her business and how its defined as she looks to move her studio into a former chiropractor’s office at 372 New Scotland Ave. in Albany.

Common Council member Judy Doesschate, who lives across the street from the proposed site of the studio, as well as members of the Helderberg Neighborhood Association are urging the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals to block Colour Cosmetic from opening on New Scotland to keep the area residential and avoid "creeping commercialization."

Doesschate and other residents say they're not opposed to the business, but instead want to ensure the city's zoning is followed.

"We want to make clear. We are pro small business in the neighborhood," the neighborhood association wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday. "We felt a duty to comment on this to express support for transparency between the city and its neighborhoods, and our concern lies not within the particular business at hand, but with the city upholding its procedures it created for the purpose of strong planning and respecting the opportunity for public participation."

The board heard public comments Wednesday on Doesschate’s appeal, but no decision has been made. Members meet again Dec. 12.

Albany Planning Commissioner Chris Spencer earlier this year determined that Cronin’s plan for 372 New Scotland was most like an office use, and thus was allowable because it was last a chiropractor’s office.

Those opposed to Spencer's determination say the studio isn't an office, but a personal or business use, which would require the zoning board to decide whether Colour Cosmetic can operate.

Doesschate says she's tried to address the location's non-conforming use before - it was being used as an office, but the owner wasn't occupying the building - but has had little success. She even reached out to the realtor who was selling 372 New Scotland after a sign went up advertising it as commercial space, Doesschate said.

"I feel bad about the situation, but at the same time, we need to enforce the zoning code," she said. "That's what the majority of my constituents are looking for. I think what she does is a worthwhile service, but the question is does it belong in a (residential) zone that only allows for home occupations of commercial enterprises?"

Doesschate also has filed a notice of claim against the city – the precursor to a lawsuit – alleging Albany officials are violating her and her neighbors’ rights, exposing them to health and safety risks along with possible reductions in property values and emotional harm by allowing the studio to operate at 372 New Scotland.

The buildings surrounding the site are mostly two-family homes, with restaurants, retail and medical offices as well as a school and church a few blocks away.

Cronin pointed out that within a block of 372 New Scotland there is the Albany Art Room at the corner of Harris Avenue and New Scotland and Upstate Infectious Diseases Associates at the corner of Pinewood and New Scotland avenues.

The longtime nurse said if Doesschate understood what her business does and how it operates, people wouldn’t see it as a “tattoo parlor.”

Colour Cosmetic Studio most often is referred clients by medical professionals, provides restoratives services not “body art” and is by-appointment only. The equipment used is different than a typical tattoo parlor as is the overall experience, Cronin said.

At most they’d see five clients a day since the process takes longer and includes numbing the area before the procedure begins, she said.

“The biggest aspect is the restorative part of the work that I do. Seventy-five percent of my clients, I would say, are over the age of 50 and come to me because their faces are missing essential elements,” Cronin said. “They don’t want to go to a tattoo parlor, that’s not where they go for this. They seek me out because I’m an RN and doctors refer their patients to me to do the work.”