ALBANY - A Common Council member has filed a notice of claim against the city, alleging Albany is violating zoning ordinances by allowing what she and her neighbors view as a tattoo parlor in a residential zone on New Scotland Avenue.

Businessowners Kathleen Cronin, a registered nurse, and Nora Quinn, a licensed esthetician, are eyeing 372 New Scotland Ave. for the site of Colour Cosmetic Studio, where the duo will provide what is called paramedical micropigmentation services for those who have scars or hair loss from surgery, injury, or medical conditions like alopecia.

But Councilwoman Judy Doesschate says the city’s rezone doesn’t allow for the studio – which she says is akin to a tattoo or beauty parlor, not a doctor’s office – to operate in a residential district. Doesschate filed the notice of claim against the city Wednesday.

“I don’t know anybody who is happy with this decision,” Doesschate told the Times Union. “We had a half dozen or so homes on New Scotland Avenue that have been used for office use, and there is a concern that more of them could be turned into purely commercial uses like this.”

Colour Cosmetic Studio, which works with breast cancer patients to restore the look of an areola and nipple after a mastectomy, emphasizes the process is not the same as traditional tattoos on its website, a type of business considered to be "restorative cosmetics." Calls to the business weren’t returned late last week.

Doesschate wants the Board of Zoning Appeals to reverse Commissioner Chris Spencer’s determination that the business is most comparable to a doctor’s office, and said in the notice of claim that her and her neighbors’ rights have been violated by the city’s actions.

According to the claim, those actions resulted in “exposure to health and safety risks…damages to one’s quiet enjoyment of one’s properties and emotional harm, reductions in property values, adverse impact to one’s neighborhood and denied of equal protections under the law.”

The cosmetic studio currently operates out of a suite on Western Avenue and hasn’t opened on New Scotland yet.

In August, the businessowners sought a zoning compliance certificate to determine whether their planned use of 372 New Scotland would comply with zoning, Spencer said.

The area currently is zoned two-family residential, but it was previously used as a chiropractor’s office until the owner, Seth Kohl, was arrested in June 2017 and later pleaded guilty to sexually abusing several of his female patients. He was sentenced to probation in January 2018.

According to the city’s zoning, non-conforming uses can’t be reestablished at a location if it’s been discontinued for a year or more.

Doesschate also argues that since Kohl was arrested over a year ago and hasn’t operated a business from 372 New Scotland since then, it should revert to two-family residential.

But Kohl’s license to practice wasn’t surrendered until February this year, according to the summaries of Regents Actions on Professional Misconduct and Discipline through the state Education Department’s Office of the Professions.

“They had not lost their license, they had not ceased operation,” Spencer said. “We looked at when the license was no longer valid.”

There was no question of the non-conforming use of the property continuing, he said, so Spencer’s focus was on determining whether Colour Cosmetic Studio would operate like an office.

Because the exact service provided by the studio isn’t listed in the city’s zoning, the planning commissioner is responsible for determining whether the use is “so consistent with the size, scale, operating characteristics, and external impacts of a listed use that it should be treated as the same.”

Doesschate argues that the studio is required to be licensed as a tattoo studio and beauty salon, making it a personal and business service, not an office.

“It is a complete stretch to try and fit this in to an office definition and sets an awful precedent,” she said. “It clearly changes the complete character of the neighborhood.”

The buildings surrounding 372 New Scotland are mostly two-family homes, sandwiched in a three-block stretch by a school and church on one side and restaurants and a bank on the other.

As Albany sees continued development across the city, expanding commercial territory has been a concern for many who want to keep their communities residential with low-density housing.

Doesschate said allowing the cosmetic studio in the two-family residential zoning could lead to similar decisions in the future.

“People like the charm of our residential neighborhood that has walkability to services in appropriately zoned areas,” she said. “When you zone something residential, it’s supposed to be residential.”