By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- Potential uses for the former General Motors site could be a business park, technology park, tourism destination, sports complex or tourist and visitors center. That came from Jason Pfotenhauer from the county Planning Office at Wednesday's Town Council meeting.

He said those options are outlined in a brownfield opportunity area report on the lot, and the town will have to rezone to make any of it happen.

The current zoning, industrial, excludes commercial and tourism use.

Pfotenhauer and Heidi Ames, also from the Planning Office, suggested they zone the area as a planned unit development.

“It’s a planning tool that’s a little bit different from traditional zoning," Pfotenhauer said. "In a planned unit development, you’re not inhibited by a specific type of use ... it's a blank canvas … as long as you meet certain criteria and go through a thoroughly vetted process with your planning board."

He said under the planned unit option, they could also revoke the industrial designation. They also have the choice to come up with a totally new zoning, or leave it as is.

“You want maximum flexibility. You want something as close to all-encompassing as you can come," Councilman Albert Nicola said.

The lot used to house a General Motors plant, which closed after the company went bankrupt in 2007. The lot was turned over to the RACER trust in federal bankruptcy court, which used Environmental Protection Agency funds to clean it up. During the cleanup, they found and removed pits of mostly pure polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), which is highly toxic, that the auto manufacturer left buried deep underground at levels 250 percent higher than expected.