2006-09-26
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SECOND REGULAR MEETING
SEPTEMBER 26, 2006
INDEX
Site Plan No. 22-2006 Martha Schmulbach 1.
Tax Map No. 227.17-2-12
Site Plan No. 33-2006 Steven & Debbie Seaboyer 2.
Tax Map No. 227.13-2-36
Subdivision No. 6-2006 Cifone Construction 8.
FINAL STAGE Tax Map No. 308.1-21.2 thru 21.6
Subdivision No. 4-2006 Lee Jarvis 12.
FINAL STAGE Tax Map No. 307.-1-32
Subdivision No. 3-2006 John Whalen 13.
FINAL STAGE Tax Map No. 289.17-1-1
Site Plan No. 27-2006 John Miles 18.
Tax Map No. 308.16-1-60, 59, 58
Subdivision No. 11-2006 Richard Solomon 24.
SKETCH PLAN Tax Map No. 278.-2-4
Site Plan No. 37-2006 Angio Dynamics 28.
Tax Map No. 297.8-1-10
Site Plan No. 57-2005 Northeast Dining & Lodging 51.
Tax Map No. 296.18-1-6
THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO BOARD
AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING
MONTHS MINUTES (IF ANY) AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL OF SAID
MINUTES.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SECOND REGULAR MEETING
SEPTEMBER 26, 2006
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
ROBERT VOLLARO, CHAIRMAN
GRETCHEN STEFFAN, SECRETARY
THOMAS SEGULJIC
DONALD SIPP
THOMAS FORD
CHRIS HUNSINGER
MEMBERS ABSENT
TANYA BRUNO
SENIOR PLANNER-STUART BAKER
TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX, SCHACHNER, & HAFNER-MARK SCHACHNER
STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI
MR. VOLLARO-Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Queensbury
Planning Board for September 26, 2006. I have a couple of things to do this evening
before we get to the first application, which is Mr. Cifone for his Final application. Two
things I want to look at is, one, a resolution for Mrs. Schmulbach.
SITE PLAN NO. 22-2006 MARTHA SCHMULBACH
MR. VOLLARO-A resolution for Martha Schmulbach. The motion here, and I’ll read it
into the record.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 22-2006 MARTHA SCHMULBACH, Introduced by
Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford:
Based on the following:
1. We’re going to table this to an unspecified date.
2. On July 18, 2006, this applicant was tabled for the following action. They request that
the Code Enforcement Officer review disposal of soil from the site’s excavation and
pending Department of Health review of the septic system.
3. To date the Planning Office has not received any documentation that either of these
events have taken place. Additionally Ms. Bitter stated in the minutes of July 18, 2006
that the applicant would apply to the Town Board of Health for a septic variance based
on the installation of an Eljen system. The use of this type system may then mitigate the
separation distances from the wells on her property as well as the distance to her
neighbor’s well. To date we have not received that variance from the Town Board of
Health. Receipt of that variance is a requirement of this motion.
4. Additionally, the applicant must submit a Stormwater Management Plan per Chapter
147, being that the property is within a CEA, 500 feet from mean high water mark of Lake
George set at 320.2.
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Duly adopted this 26 day of September, 2006, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Vollaro
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mrs. Bruno
JON LAPPER
MR. LAPPER-Thank you. I just want to just briefly explain. You’re probably all aware
that the Town Board just hired Barton & Loguidice. They want to have the Town
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
Engineer verify the results of the applicant’s engineer for soil tests, and that’s what we’ve
been held up on. We haven’t been able to apply for the variance, and it may be possible
that it won’t need a variance. We may be able to switch the location of the well and the
septic so it doesn’t need a variance, but until we have soil tests that are verified by the
new Town Engineer, we can’t before the Town Board or the Planning Board. So that’s
why we’ve been held up, but that’s just been taken care of last night at the Town Board
resolution. So we’re hoping that we can get that done and get right back here.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. The Town Engineer that you described, Barton & Loguidice, they
are not the Town. They are the selected engineer for this particular project. Is that
correct?
MR. LAPPER-For verifying soil tests, yes. So now that they’re on board we can move
forward.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. LAPPER-Okay. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re welcome. Thanks for the information. The second thing we want
to talk about tonight, and before I can go into this, I’ve got to let all the Town Board
members and it be placed in the record that I got a phone call at home by Mr. O’Connor
today asking, wanting to talk about this particular application, and I’m not in the habit of
hanging up on people, so I did talk to him, but I want the Board members to know that I
did speak to him outside of the forum of this Board, and those of you that have read this,
the Town Board resolution concerning this application.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman, what application are you talking about?
Seaboyer? Okay. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s Seaboyer, yes.
SITE PLAN NO. 33-2006 STEVEN & DEBBIE SEABOYER
MR. VOLLARO-And there is a, it’s a resolution by the Town Board, Number 440-2006, it
was introduced by Mr. Boor who moved for its adoption. It was seconded by Mr.
Sanford, and essentially I can read it, it’s rather lengthy. I can say that it revoked the
approval set forth in the original local Board of Health resolution for this sewage disposal
system on the site of Debbie and Steven Seaboyer. I believe that’s up on Rockhurst,
and the vote by the Board, Resolved that the Queensbury Town Board hereby directs the
Director of Building and Code Enforcement to revoke Building Permit No. 2006-006,
issued to Steven and Debbie Seaboyer, concerning the Seaboyer’s property located at
83 Rockhurst Road, Queensbury, and bearing tax number, so on and so on, until such
time as all necessary variances are granted for placing a new septic system within a
Critical Environmental Area for the purpose of serving new construction. This was Duly
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adopted on the 11 day of September, and the AYES were Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr.
Stec, Mr. Boor, and Mr. Sanford. On the strength of that, I’m going to make a motion to
deny this application, based on the fact that it no longer has a septic system that we can
work with, and I’ll make that motion.
MR. SEGULJIC-If I could just have a clarification. So what happened was they got the
original approval for the septic system in ’95?
MR. VOLLARO-Back in 2005.
MR. SEGULJIC-Based on the existing structure.
MR. VOLLARO-Based on the existing structure. That’s correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-Then they went out and did a proposal for a new construction.
MR. VOLLARO-There is a question of whether or not the applicant would say that this is
a modification. Other people would say this borders on new construction. I think that’s
part of the situation that we have here.
MR. SEGULJIC-So what the Town Board is essentially saying, they have to stay on the
existing holding tank.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. VOLLARO-That’s one of the proposals for, the reason that I think, the fundamental
reason for the rejection was that the property does not demonstrate at least 50% of the
area of the existing septic field.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right, doesn’t have the 50% allowable increase.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MICHAEL O’CONNOR
MR. O'CONNOR-Mr. Chairman, may I be heard on this?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. FORD-Before we get into any further discussion on the motion, do we have a
second?
MR. VOLLARO-I haven’t done the motion yet.
MR. FORD-I thought you had.
MR. VOLLARO-I was talking to Mr. Seguljic. Mr. O’Connor, did you want to say
something first?
MR. O'CONNOR-Yes, I do. For the purpose of your record, I’m Michael O’Connor from
the law firm of Little & O’Connor, and with me at the table is Mrs. Seaboyer and Mr.
Seaboyer is in the audience and Mr. Center, who is the engineer on the project, is also at
the table with me. In the sense of fair play and due process, I think your motion is not in
order. The resolution that you refer to by the Town Board was made without a hearing,
without notice, and in fact I think is incorrect in that it was made by the Town Board
sitting as the Town Board, not as the Board of Health, but I acknowledge that we have a
problem with the Town Board and that we’re going to have to go to the Town Board and
straighten that problem out. Either that or we’re going to have to go to court and try and
straighten it out in court, but I would ask that you treat this resolution the same as you
treated the Peek application that we were here maybe two months ago, and in that
application, in fact, that applicant had gone to the Town Board and had been denied a
variance, but was told to come to the Zoning Board to get the variances they needed,
come to the Planning Board, get site plan approval, and then go back to the Town Board,
and the Town Board would take care of the septic, and you did approve that application,
and you made it subject to them getting approval for the septic system from the Town
Board, which is the same thing I would ask you to do for the Seaboyers. I’m not 100%
sure that we even need to go to the Town Board, but that’s maybe a legal argument, and
I’d ask you to look at Section 179-5-110, and that specifically talks about sanitary
requirements in Waterfront Residential districts. That’s the only thing that I found in the
Zoning Ordinance that kicks in consideration of septic when you’re doing something in
that area or that zone, and that says any increase in the floor area of a principal structure
serviced by sanitary sewer facilities of any kind that is located in a Waterfront Residential
district, and which requires a building permit shall conform with the requirements of
Section 136 of the Code of the Town of Queensbury. This application is not for an
increase in the floor area. The Seaboyers have been very careful to make sure that this
is not an expansion. We spent about three months or four months before the Zoning
Board of Appeals talking about whether this was new construction or modification of
existing construction. The Zoning Board approved this on the basis that it was an
improvement to the area, and we’ve had some discussions, and I apologize to the
Chairman for my conversation within him this afternoon, but I wanted an opportunity to at
least be able to address this before the Board made a motion, so that you would have full
knowledge of what is going on. If you look at the Town Board’s resolution, they talk
about expansion. They talk about new construction, and that, again, was without a
hearing, without us there to put in any information before that Board, but that’s a Town
Board issue. It’s not a Planning Board issue, is the point that I make. We came in with a
plan before you for at least one month if not two months, and I don’t have my calendar
here in front of me. You set forth how you wanted us to do the stormwater. You wanted
it to be a major stormwater plan, as opposed to a minor stormwater plan. You
acknowledged the fact that we are increasing the permeability of the site. You
acknowledged the fact that we were willing to, or we acknowledged that we were willing
to do the buffer along the lake with the plantings, with the landscape plan that you
wanted. I think we’ve dotted every “I” and every “T” that you had in your concerns,
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
except for the issue of septic. We represented to you that we believed that we had Town
Board approval the last time we were here, and we had it the last time we were here.
MR. VOLLARO-And all of what we did during the time we went through that approval
routine was based on the fact that you had an approval by the Town Board for your
septic system.
MR. O'CONNOR-Correct, okay, but this is no different than I think the Peek application.
The Peek application was for a residence that was being modified within the Waterfront
Residential zone that obviously needed variances. The depth of that lot, I think they
actually are asking for variances greater than ours.
MR. VOLLARO-They withdrew their application last night, you know, in front of the Town
Board.
MR. O'CONNOR-I understand that, but it was before the Town Board, and it was on the
basis, as I understood it, that the Town Board said that if they came back to them, they
would allow them to put in a holding tank that would work, okay. We are not necessarily
opposed to that. We think that it may not be the best to do, but we are not necessarily
opposed. We want the opportunity. We want the opportunity to go to the Town Board. I
don’t want to go to the Town Board and the Town Board say you’ve got to complete the
Planning Board. I mean, some place the circle has to end. Each Board has to stand on
its own and make its own decisions. With what falls within your jurisdiction, the way that
we’ve set this up with the Town Board of Health, and the Town Board acting as the Town
Board of Health, and we assuming and willing to assume the risk of whatever that
outcome is for our presentation before them, I think we’ve got on the table everything you
need to approve the application.
MR. VOLLARO-See, we’d be approving an application that has no septic system
associated with it, and, you know, then we’d be going against our own Code 136, which
says that we’ve got to work with an acceptable system.
MR. O'CONNOR-We have an acceptable system that works. We offered to put in an
anaerobic system. If you remember the language in the Town Board, they thought we’d
take a step forward ahead of everybody else and we had a system that nobody else had
offered, and that they recommended to Mr. Center and to Mr. Nace and his firm that
when he comes back with applications, that they try to convince the applicants to use as
good a system as we’ve proposed. I mean, I don’t understand the difference between
this application and the Peek application.
MR. VOLLARO-I think there was some problems with that system when C.T. Male really
looked at it, I believe.
MR. O'CONNOR-The only problem, okay, we have a signoff letter from C.T. Male and a
series of letters from them with one exception, and that was they wanted to talk to the
designer of the septic system and they talked to the watershed manager in Canandaigua
Lake because when you come down to the nitty gritty, the system that we designed was
oversized and wouldn’t function properly and they recommended that we decrease it and
you wanted to verify it with him. You also wanted to verify the maintenance program that
we would put with them. We understand that as of this afternoon he has verified that, but
within the rules of this Board, you gave us a comment to that effect, but would not give a
signoff letter on that, but his comments and his only problems with the system that we
provided, which may or may not be the system that the Town Board approves, was only
with regard to the septic system. They had no comments and no problems with the
stormwater management plan that was proposed or anything else on the site.
MR. SEGULJIC-I think, overall, the plan looks great, but the problem now we have is we
don’t have a septic system.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s the fundamental problem.
MR. SEGULJIC-As I recall, when we made the motion, one of them, the last part of the
motion was to go to the Town Board and get approval, and then the Town Board
essentially has denied it.
MR. VOLLARO-Denied it. That’s correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s the problem. I guess, can’t we just leave the application tabled?
I can’t see approving it because, Number One, we don’t have the final plan, and then,
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
Number Two, we don’t have Town Board approval, which was part of our, one of our
conditions. So I don’t see how we can approve this.
MR. O'CONNOR-The last one that you approved, you approved with the condition that
the applicant, you approved it in the final form, and asked, and said that it’s not effective
until the Town Board signs off on the septic.
MR. SEGULJIC-I forget the details and I’m getting confused, but I recall, because this
one the Town Board wanted us to review it first.
MR. O'CONNOR-Not this one here.
MR. SEGULJIC-Not this one here. I mean, we don’t have the final plans either here, so
we can’t approve.
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MR. O'CONNOR-I think you do, no, you do. They were submitted on September 11.
MR. CENTER-The minor modifications to comments made to C.T. Male.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t have any.
MRS. STEFFAN-We didn’t get new plans in our package this week.
MR. CENTER-I was told, looking at the meeting minutes, we had to submit by
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September 12 in regards to the comments made at the last meeting in August,
addressing your comments, which we addressed, sent those in, get them to the Town,
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C.T. Male sent us a comment letter on the 20. We received it. It’s dated the 18. It
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was faxed to us on the 20. We answered those on the 21, responded back by fax to
C.T. Male. I talked to him on Friday and then again on Monday. He was waiting to hear
from George Bardin. He spoke to Mr. Bardin of the Canandaigua Lake Watershed on
yesterday afternoon, and then I spoke to him this morning and he gave us an e-mail
letter which basically said he couldn’t give us a final signoff, but he had spoken to Mr.
Bardin, and the only concerns were maintenance issue of the septic system. There were
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no other comments. The four comments that he had in his September 18 comment
letter were all septic related, nothing in regards to the stormwater. Assuming that with
that, that the stormwater plan was acceptable to him.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, you are correct, because in the Staff notes it does say that the,
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noted on the plans submitted by the applicant on September 11 . I never got the plans.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we didn’t get them.
MR. VOLLARO-Is this what we’re talking about? Are these the plans where it says
comment number one, comment number two, comment number three, four, comment
five?
MR. CENTER-There was a couple of comments letters, I’d have to look at them.
MR. VOLLARO-This is the only thing that we have in our packet is what I’m showing you
now.
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MR. CENTER-No, on the 11 I submitted new drawings, new stormwater report, an
entire package. I’ve got it out in the truck. I was prepared to go over it when we were on
the agenda. I didn’t bring it in right now, but I have all that, if I can run out and grab it, if
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we’re going to continue to discuss that. I can show you what we submitted on the 11,
and we submitted 14 copies.
MR. VOLLARO-To who?
MR. CENTER-To the Town, I dropped it off to the Town.
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MR. BAKER-They were hand delivered on September 11.
MR. FORD-Do you recall the date you submitted those?
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MR. CENTER-September 11, sir.
MR. FORD-Not the date you submitted, the date that you developed them?
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
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MR. CENTER-I believe it was September 11. If I can run out to the truck, I’ll grab them.
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MR. BAKER-I have a copy right here, and it was hand delivered on September 11 to
our office, I have nothing in my file to indicate that it wasn’t forwarded to the Planning
Board. This is the first I’m hearing of this.
MR. CENTER-The revision date is Revision Five, 9/11/06.
MR. VOLLARO-I just want to see what Staff has in their file.
MR. O'CONNOR-Tom, do you have anything with 9/11?
MR. FORD-No. I’m looking. This goes back further.
MR. O'CONNOR-Here’s a set that was delivered. This is the set that was delivered to
my office on the day they delivered it to the Town, with a revision date of 9/11. It’s got
everything that you asked for.
MR. HUNSINGER-The Staff notes refer to it, but we didn’t get them.
MR. SEGULJIC-I see no advantage in denying this, at this point.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, let me ask you this. What I would like to see probably is the
applicant, my own personal opinion, and I’ll go along with whatever the Board would like
to do, but I would like to see them come back with a new application that’s nice and
clean so we understand it. Right now it’s fragmented. I don’t have it clean in my mind
with respect to the septic system, knowing that it’s been denied. I know that there’s an
Eljen system that’s going to go in there, but they don’t have enough room right now, on
that system, to get 50% replacement.
MR. SEGULJIC-If we table it, which I think we have to anyway because we don’t have
the plans, it just stays in the system and they still have to get Town Board approval.
MR. VOLLARO-The problem with keeping it in the system is that it’s always up on the
blackboard and we always have to deal with it and moving it forward. We could table it
to some time in December and put a date on it, so we’ve got a date on the board so that
we can deal with it. We know it’s coming up on that date.
MR. SEGULJIC-I think that’s what we should do. They just have to overcome the septic
hurdle, which is out of our control.
MR. O'CONNOR-When you say you have a clean set of plans, the revised plans are
standalone plans, fully intact.
MR. VOLLARO-I understand that, Mr. O’Connor. I don’t have them. My problem is I
haven’t had a chance to review them. When I don’t get a chance to review something,
my mind doesn’t have a picture of what we’re talking about. Let me go up and down the
Board. There’s two decisions here. We either deny this or table it. I’m going to ask, I’ll
start off with you, Don, where do you stand?
MR. SIPP-If we deny, can they re-submit?
MR. VOLLARO-Sure, they always can re-submit. Absolutely, no question that they can
re-submit a brand new application.
MR. SIPP-And if we table it it’s going to go to December anyway.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ll put a date on it, for the benefit of Staff, so that. With Schmulbach that
we have here that’s been tabled indefinitely. I don’t know what’s going to happen there.
MR. SIPP-Until the Town Board, as the Board of Health, makes the determination, I think
we’re just spinning our wheels here. When they make a determination, then we can go
ahead.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom Ford?
MR. FORD-In as much as there is additional information that has not been brought
before us upon which to make a decision, I would feel uncomfortable with a denial at this
point, but I would feel more comfortable with tabling it.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. VOLLARO-To some specified date.
MR. FORD-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-I agree with that. I don’t see any reason to deny it. It’s unfortunate
that we didn’t get those revised drawings. They were referred to in Staff notes so we
knew they were available, but you mentioned tabling it until December.
MR. VOLLARO-Until some date, because usually when we get into this position, Staff
would like us to tie it to a date, as opposed to letting it float.
MR. HUNSINGER-No, I understand that, but, I mean, we already know there’s a revised
plan. I’d feel a lot more comfortable tabling it to next month than two months out,
because it’s certainly not the applicant’s fault that we didn’t get the benefit of the whole
package.
MR. VOLLARO-No, but don’t forget, one of the problems that we’ve been dealing with all
along here is that we have no viable septic system. All this application is for, by the way,
that’s before us, as I understand it, is looking at hard surfacing within the first 50 feet of
the shoreline, that’s what we’re doing here.
MR. HUNSINGER-I understand that, yes. All the more reason.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Tom, I know where you are. Gretchen?
MRS. STEFFAN-I think we should table it. I don’t think we should deny it. Obviously
there’s some, as Mr. O’Connor said, there’s some process issues that have to be
addressed. So I think the right thing to do is to table it.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. We will do that, and do you have I think, a date that’s plausible on
that, 10/24?
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MRS. STEFFAN-For the 10/24 meeting, the deadline was the 15, which was obviously
a couple of weeks ago, but.
MR. O'CONNOR-We’ve already filed, Mrs. Steffan.
MRS. STEFFAN-Right, but we have to give you a deadline date for any more
submissions.
MR. FORD-Bob, will that include the approval by the Board of Health?
MR. VOLLARO-No, what they’re saying is they want us to go forward, as I understand it,
they want us to go forward with this, in the absence of anything from the Town Board of
Health with respect to the new septic system, and then we make this tabling motion
based on the fact that a new septic system will be, when the new septic system becomes
available, then this automatically, see, it’s very convoluted when you do it this way.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I guess, the septic system could change the whole site design?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. When you start playing with fragments and stuff like this, you get
yourself in a lot of trouble.
MR. SEGULJIC-When do you think you can get Town Board approval? How is that
shaking out?
MR. O'CONNOR-We’ve got to go to the Town Board hopefully in October. I want to talk
to them about their resolution, which basically was without a hearing, revoking a prior
permit, and I will try to do that before October.
MR. HUNSINGER-You made a comment earlier that you have an existing septic system.
Is that in compliance with current Department of Health regulations?
MR. O'CONNOR-It’s a holding tank right now.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. FORD-If we considered tabling this until after the Town Board has acted as the
Board of Health and given its stamp, or given direction relative to the one issue that was
of great concern to us.
MR. O'CONNOR-I think Mr. Vollaro made a point, though. This application is before this
Board for the hard surfacing within 50 feet of the lake. The septic system and the
location of the septic system is not going to affect that. We certainly aren’t going to put
any proposed septic system, whatever it might be, within 50 feet of the lake.
MR. VOLLARO-But we don’t know. I understand what you’re saying, but it’s not hard
information.
MR. O'CONNOR-I think commonsense has to play some part in this, Bob. I mean, these
people, we’ve been at this thing for two and a half years.
MR. VOLLARO-I know we’ve got a lot of stuff that’s been, we’ve got a couple of things,
one thing in particular here that’s has gone on.
MR. O'CONNOR-Well, my position is the same as, I think you approved the Peek
application, on the parameters that you were concerned about, subject to the Peek
people going to the Town and getting a septic system approved by the Town Board, and
that I would understand if you conditioned it, your approval on that basis.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s what I’m writing now.
MR. O'CONNOR-Okay, but to table it to the point that we go to the Town Board and then
come back, the Town Board may very well say the same thing that they said to us that
they said to this applicant, that they said to Peek. Get all your other approvals done first,
and then we’ll talk about what you’re going to do.
MR. VOLLARO-And Peek went all the way through all of that routine, and pulled their
application last night, withdrew it.
MR. O'CONNOR-My understanding is they pulled their application because they were
told that the application that they had before the Board would not be approved, and I
don’t mean to speak for somebody else, but how it was paraphrased to me, but they
were led to believe that if they came back with a holding tank, in compliance with 137,
they would get that approval. You need a variance for a holding tank, too.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, on a full-time basis you do, yes.
MR. O'CONNOR-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. What I’m going to do is I’m going to change this to a tabling
motion, and it will be tabled until such time as the septic approval is received from the
Town Board of Health. When they get an approval for their septic system, they come
back to us and then we’ll go from there.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 33-2006 STEVEN & DEBBIE SEABOYER,
Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Donald Sipp:
It will be tabled until such time as the septic approval is received from the Town Board of
Health. This would be tabled to an unspecified date, until such time as the Town Board
of Health takes its action.
th
Duly adopted this 26 day of September, 2006, by the following vote:
MR. O'CONNOR-The applicant does not consent to that motion.
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ford, Mr. Vollaro
NOES: Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger
ABSENT: Mrs. Bruno
SUBDIVISION NO. 6-2006 FINAL SEQR TYPE N/A CIFONE CONSTRUCTION
AGENT(S) NACE ENGINEERS OWNER(S) SAME ZONING SR-1A LOCATION
SMOKE RIDGE ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES TO FURTHER SUBDIVIDE 5
8
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
PARCELS INTO 10 LOTS RANGING IN SIZE FROM 0.51 ACRES TO 0.95 ACRES
AND SEEKS FINAL APPROVAL FROM THE BOARD. SUBDIVISIONS OF LAND
REQUIRE PLANNING BOARD REVIEW. CROSS REF. AV 6-06, SB 7-85M, SB 11-01,
AV 74-01, AV 98-01, SP 23-02 6/22/06 SKETCH REVIEW WARREN CO. PLANNING
N/A LOT SIZE 6.20 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 308.8-1-21.2 THROUGH 21.6 SECTION
A-183
MICHAEL O’CONNOR & TOM CENTER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. O'CONNOR-For the purpose of your record, I’m Michael O’Connor from the law firm
of Little & O’Connor, representing the applicant. With me at the table is John Cifone and
also Tom Center, who’s the engineer for the project. We’ve been here before for
Preliminary, and we’re here tonight for Final approval. We think that we have met all of
the conditions that the Board was considering at the time of Preliminary. There was a
comment by Staff, and if I go through the Staff comments, that a no cut buffer is provided
on the Final plat, however, it excludes Lots 20A and 21B for no apparent reason. We
went through that at great length the last time and talked about the grading requirements
of the site and said that there would not be a no cut buffer on those two lots.
MR. VOLLARO-I remember that, and when I looked at it I understood that.
MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. That’s the only comment.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, the other one is compliance with Kathy O’Brien’s letter of 21 July
2006. Her second paragraph talks about the eight foot stockade fence along the east
property line and along the back of the southern property line in back of the 25 foot no
cut buffer, and it looks like that was agreed to?
MR. O'CONNOR-No, I think we had great discussion about that also last time and based
upon the discussion, the comments by Mr. Cifone, I had the feeling that the Board was of
the consensus that it was not really necessary. It wouldn’t serve a real useful purpose.
The fencing is shown on S-2.
MR. FORD-That’s my recollection as well.
MR. O'CONNOR-The fencing along the side, southerly boundary, is already a developed
lot, and our comment was that once these buildings get built, people aren’t going to feel
as free to run through this property as they might now.
MR. VOLLARO-The drawing, S-2, as dated 7/14/06, shows a stockade fence across the
back end.
MR. O'CONNOR-Yes, it does. We would like permission, or an understanding, that we
remove that stockade fencing from the mylars when we submit them for signature.
MR. FORD-Based upon our last meeting, why were they not eliminated?
MR. CENTER-The submission deadline had passed. These were submitted prior to the
meeting, in hopes that everything on here would address the comments, and we have
final comments on Kathy O’Brien, and that’s what we talked about. These, you didn’t
have these drawings in front of you the night of the meeting. We got Kathy O’Brien’s
letter and submitted our comments and submitted for a Final at the same time, in hopes
that, and we couldn’t change them. The deadline had passed to submit them. We
weren’t allowed to submit revised drawings, and it was kind of left that, my understanding
at the last meeting, was that we’d sleep on it and come back to this meeting and make a
final decision on whether or not they needed to be left in or not, but there was not an
opportunity, because it was tabled, we couldn’t do Final that night, and then we
subsequently got bumped in the September meetings.
MR. O'CONNOR-We had already submitted the Final plans, but they hadn’t been
distributed to you, not unlike the last thing, for some reason, nobody seemed to know
where they were, or why you hadn’t gotten them, and the time for filing new Final plans
would have passed for this meeting.
MR. FORD-Is there a Final plan that deletes those?
MR. CENTER-We would say that we would ask for a condition that our Final mylars do
not show.
9
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. FORD-So the answer is no.
MR. O'CONNOR-The answer at this time is no.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. O'CONNOR-As opposed to the ordinary where we ask for approval subject to us
adding something to the plan, we would ask for approval subject to us removing
something from the plan.
MR. VOLLARO-Did you have any further discussions with Kathy O’Brien on this at all, to
why she was so adamant about this in her letter?
MR. O'CONNOR-I have not.
MR. CENTER-The initial discussion was to prohibit traffic from getting on to the pole
lines.
MR. O'CONNOR-We had made inquiries but never got a reply.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’ll throw this open to the Board. I have no, by the way, I don’t
have any comments on this application. I think it’s well done, but I’d like to get the
Board’s comment on this fence.
MR. SEGULJIC-Just a clarification. If I recall correctly, she had said she recommended
the fence there to prevent ATV traffic from going through.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. CENTER-Yes, from Smoke Ridge Road to the pole lines, yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-The discussion was there’s already a house on the lot to the east, you’re
building a house there and that’s going to prevent it anyway.
MR. CENTER-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-So I have no problem with taking the fence down.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t particularly have a problem taking it out either, to be honest with
you, but let me ask the rest of the Board.
MR. SIPP-I have no problem.
MR. FORD-I didn’t at the last meeting, I still don’t.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So the condition is that when I go to sign the mylar, it will be
removed. It won’t be there.
MR. O'CONNOR-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Any other comments from any Board members on this? I think
it’s a pretty complete application. It looks clean to me.
MR. SIPP-Just a point of interest to me. On the landscape you have a Pear tree right up
by the front door, Aristocrat Calorie Pear.
MR. VOLLARO-Which drawing is that on, Don?
MR. SIPP-It’s on the landscape. It’s no big deal to anybody but who’s ever going to
move in there.
MR. VOLLARO-You mean it’s right on somebody’s front door?
MR. SIPP-Yes, well, this is a big tree. This is no little bush. This is a 15 foot by 10 foot
spread tree, right by the, see the CP-1 on the landscape.
MR. O'CONNOR-In the middle of the house, the door is on the outer part of the house.
That’s like in the middle of the yard.
10
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. SIPP-You’ve got a spread of 20 to 25 foot of mature tree. I mean, I don’t care if you
put it there. It just doesn’t seem the logical place to slap a Pear tree.
MR. O'CONNOR-Mr. Cifone will delete that if, we will have a reasonable tree that will
grow well.
MR. FORD-That’s approximately in line with the fire wall, correct, between the two
structures?
MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. Obviously we didn’t prepare the landscape plan.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ve got one comment that I would like to make, however, that I would
like to put in the motion, and it has to do with what’s in the stormwater management
report, on Page Number Three, and it’s Item Number Five. I’d like to add to that, if we
could, that the design engineer will make a final inspection of the site and confirm that
the stormwater controls are installed per the final approved drawings. Do you see where
I am on Number Five, prior to commencement of construction, the contractor shall have
the engineer conduct an assessment, etc. Follow that with the design engineer will
make a final inspection of the site and confirm that the stormwater controls are installed
per the final approved drawings.
MR. CENTER-Does Number Seven satisfy that, at completion of construction the
contractor shall perform a spot final inspection?
MR. VOLLARO-Well, that’s the contractor performing the inspection. I understand that,
but what I’m really looking for is the design engineer to say, you put it in according to my
design.
MR. CENTER-Would you like that added to Number Seven?
MR. VOLLARO-You could add it to Seven, that’s fine.
MR. O'CONNOR-We’d have no objection to that.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 6-2006 CIFONE
CONSTRUCTION, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Thomas Ford:
WHEREAS, a final stage subdivision application has been made to the Queensbury
Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes to further subdivide 5 parcels into
10 lots ranging in size from 0.51 acres to 0.95 acres and seeks final approval from the
Board. Subdivisions of land require Planning Board review.
WHEREAS, a public hearing was advertised and scheduled on 7/25/06; and
WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the
subdivision application requirements of the code of the Town of Queensbury; Chapter A-
183 entitled subdivision of land; and
WHEREAS, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been
considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and /or
if the modification is a modification, and the proposed modification[s] do not result in any
new or significantly different environmental impacts, and therefore no further SEQRA
review is necessary; and
WHEREAS, this application is supported with all documentation, public comment and
application material in the file of record; and
MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 6-2006 CIFONE
CONSTRUCTION, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Thomas Ford:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. Paragraph Three complies. Paragraph
Four, Negative. Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved, that this application is approved with
the following conditions:
11
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
1.Final plan/mylar will have a stockade fence removed at the rear and east of
the property.
2.On Page 3 of the Stormwater Prevention Plan, Item # 7 should read that the
design engineer will make a final inspection of the site and confirm that the
stormwater controls are installed per the final approved drawings.
th
Duly adopted this 26 day of September, 2006, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Vollaro
NOES: NONE
ABSTAINED: Mr. Hunsinger
ABSENT: Mrs. Bruno
MR. O'CONNOR-Thanks.
SUBDIVISION NO. 4-2006 FINAL SEQR TYPE UNLISTED LEE JARVIS AGENT(S)
VAN DUSEN & STEVES OWNER(S) SAME ZONING SR-1A LOCATION 729
LUZERNE ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES SUBDIVISION OF A 7.76 ACRE PARCEL
INTO 3 RESIDENTIAL LOTS OF 1.50, 1.55, AND 3.84 ACRES RESPECTIVELY AND
SEEKS FINAL APPROVAL FROM THE BOARD. SUBDIVISIONS OF LAND REQUIRE
REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REF. AV 29-2006 & 3/28/06 SKETCH
WARREN CO. PLANNING N/A LOT SIZE 6.31 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 307.-1-32
SECTION A-183
MATT STEVES, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. STEVES-Good evening. Matt Steves representing the applicant, Lee Jarvis, who’s
seated with me tonight. There was I think two comments that were left open after
th
Preliminary, was for C.T. Male signoff, which you received on July 20, and that you
receive some signed and sealed prints, which I believe I handed you tonight, along with
the mylar.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, and they are I believe up on Staff’s desk. The only thing I would
add to this, and I think the Final Stage is good. I have no problems with any of it myself,
I’m going to open it up for Board comments, and then I’ll give you my one comment that
I’m going to make. So I’ll start off with you, Tom Ford.
MR. FORD-I don’t have any comments at this point.
MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Seguljic?
MR. SEGULJIC-All set.
MR. VOLLARO-All set. Mr. Hunsinger?
MR. HUNSINGER-I’m all set.
MR. VOLLARO-Gretchen?
MRS. STEFFAN-The stamped drawings have been explained. That’s the only thing I
had.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. The only thing I would ask for is that that areas of disturbance be
clearly marked with construction material for inspection by the Town. This is the area
that, you know, where we talk about the areas of disturbance.
MR. STEVES-Yes, we’ll flag those out. Not a problem.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, and we’ll put that into the motion.
MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 4-2006 LEE JARVIS,
Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro:
WHEREAS, a final stage subdivision application has been made to the Queensbury
Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes subdivision of a 7.76 acre parcel
12
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
into 3 residential lots of 1.50, 1.55, and 3.84 acres respectively and seeks final approval
from the Board. Subdivisions of land require review by the Planning Board; and
WHEREAS, a public hearing was advertised and held on 6/20/06; and
WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the
subdivision application requirements of the code of the Town of Queensbury; Chapter A-
183 entitled subdivision of land; and
WHEREAS, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been
considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and /or
if the modification is a modification, and the proposed modification[s] do not result in any
new or significantly different environmental impacts, and therefore no further SEQRA
review is necessary; and
WHEREAS, this application is supported with all documentation, public comment and
application material in the file of record; and
MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 4-2006 LEE JARVIS,
Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. Paragraph Three complies. Paragraph
Four, Negative. Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved, that this application is approved with
the following condition:
1.That the area of disturbance be clearly marked on the site with construction
material for inspection by Town personnel.
th
Duly adopted this 26 day of September, 2006, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Vollaro
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mrs. Bruno
MR. STEVES-Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re all set.
SUBDIVISION NO. 3-2006 FINAL SEQR TYPE UNLISTED JOHN WHALEN
AGENT(S) VAN DUSEN & STEVES OWNER(S) SAME ZONING WR-1A, RC-15, LC-
42A LOCATION BIRDSALL ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES A SUBDIVISION OF A
40+ ACRE PARCEL INTO 5 RESIDENTIAL LOTS RESULTING IN FOUR
RESIDENTIAL LOTS AND ONE 34-ACRE LOT AND SEEKS FINAL APPROVAL FROM
THE BOARD. SUBDIVISIONS OF LAND REQUIRE REVIEW BY THE PLANNING
BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE 3/28/06 SKETCH 6/20/06 PRELIMINARY WARREN
CO. PLANNING: N/A ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY YES; GLEN LAKE CEA LOT
SIZE 40.29 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 289.17-1-1 SECTION A-183
MATT STEVES & MICHAEL O’CONNOR, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. VOLLARO-I’ll just make a note on here that this property is not within the Lake
George basin and therefore Chapter 147 does not apply to this application.
MR. SEGULJIC-I concur.
MR. STEVES-Okay. Again, Matt Steves representing John Whalen who is here with me
tonight. Again, this was another one that was already granted Preliminary. There were a
few items to clean up between then and Final. I believe that the only one that was
significant that was left was the one the one you just talked about with Chapter 147,
which does not apply.
MR. VOLLARO-Correct.
MR. STEVES-The plat notations of no principal structures or residences within 100 feet,
we did place that on the plan. Clearing limits, no cut zones noted. We did place that on
there as well. Test pit denoted on Lot One. That was shown, provided, and I think that
was about it. There was one as far as the draft language for the, in the deed, and it
13
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
would comply with what’s on the map as well, for the clearing limits and for the principal
structures. I’ll have that conform with that. Mr. O’Connor is here tonight.
MR. O'CONNOR-It would be identical to the language that’s shown on the plat.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. STEVES-And I think the only other comment that was there in the C.T. Male letter
was questioning the 33 foot wide right of way for Birdsall Road. At the time, that road
was dedicated as a Town road. It was a 33 foot wide road. That’s all it is. New roads
after a certain date, I believe it was by 1967, you required them to be three rod roads,
which would be 49 and a half, or 50 foot, but before that it was only required to be two
rods, which is 33 feet, but it is a Town road.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s maintained and plowed by the Town.
MR. STEVES-That’s absolutely correct.
MR. VOLLARO-One of the things on your Map S-1, does the Town have an easement to
go on the property of Lot Number Four?
MR. STEVES-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-They do?
MR. STEVES-Well, the Town can claim up to 50 feet for maintenance of the road as an
easement, automatically by highway law.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Because I know that was something that was asked about in
there.
MR. STEVES-It’s just like any other road that even if it were a deeded road or a deed for
a property adjoining a road would go to the center of the road. The Town automatically
has the right, up to 50 feet, for maintenance of that road. It’s highway law.
MR. VOLLARO-I think that the comment Lot Four needs a driveway.
MR. STEVES-On S-3 it is shown.
MR. VOLLARO-On S-3 it’s shown.
MR. STEVES-If you would like I could put it on S-1 as well. I have no problem, but it’s
shown on S-3 on the grading plan. If you want the exact same location incorporated
onto.
MR. VOLLARO-I saw it in S-3. It looked right to me.
MR. STEVES-Yes, it is shown. If you look over on the other side of the road, it is shown
on that lot.
MR. VOLLARO-Now the only other thing we have here is that Lot Number Five is a land
hooked basically across the bike path.
MR. STEVES-Correct. We explained that at the very beginning, that it was all one tax
parcel that was broken by the bike path and a sliver of Niagara Mohawk in there, and we
have, the Chairman has talked to Craig Brown and made a statement to me today about
putting the metes and bounds on the inset map for the remaining property and show the
area. It is well in excess of five acres, or it isn’t reviewable by the Department of Health,
and it isn’t a building lot at this time and we have no objection to that.
MR. VOLLARO-The only thing you’d want to do is when it gets put on the final mylar is
the metes and bounds of that lot have to be noted on the final mylar before I sign it.
MR. STEVES-That’s what I just said.
MR. VOLLARO-Did you? I’m sorry.
14
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. STEVES-And we understand, there’s no objection to that. We have it. We just
didn’t place it on this map, but bearings and distances on that large lot will be shown for
the mylar. No problem.
MRS. STEFFAN-Comment Six from C.T. Male, it says ingress/egress rights and
easements for the adjoining property owner should be shown.
MR. STEVES-That’s across the front of the lots where there’s no building, and as I said,
the gravel drive, I will denote on that that it is also, there are deeded right of ways across
that, obviously, for those two other parcels, and I have already changed my map to say
right of way to others, but that’s a good point. Thank you.
MR. SEGULJIC-Two things. One is, as I understand it, Glen Lake has a CEA 100 feet
from the shoreline. So if you could just show that on the plat. The other thing is.
MR. STEVES-That’s why we said no building within 100 feet.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right, but just put the CEA.
MR. STEVES-Understood.
MR. SEGULJIC-The other thing is, and this is probably our fault, but you’re using two
different terms, no cut zones, and clearing limits. Is there an intention for a difference?
MR. STEVES-Clearing limit is the maximum to be cleared, and the rest of it is no cut.
The reason for the no cut zone you see on the south side of the bike path is that was a
requirement of the Board to make sure that no cutting was done over there for any
reason. On the north side where the lots were to be developed we showed the clearing
limits.
MR. SEGULJIC-So the clearing limits mean that there won’t be any cutting beyond those
clearing limits.
MR. STEVES-Correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Now the no cut zone along the bike trail, if you could just,
because to me it’s kind of tough to follow on here, all the different, is it the dashed lines
in there?
MR. STEVES-No, the dashed lines are the actual building setback. We’re just saying
that if you see the loop line to the north of that word “no cut”, that whole area what is now
wooded is to remain wooded.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-What would help us look at some of these drawings, if you didn’t lay all
the layers down on your CAD.
MR. STEVES-Understood.
MR. VOLLARO-If you pull a layer or two off your CAD, the drawings would be a lot easier
to look at. When you lay them all down, it’s real confusing to the eye.
MR. STEVES-Understood.
MR. SEGULJIC-And the reason why I’m bringing it up is because recently we had an
application that had to come back because they went into what was a clearing limit and
you could see how it was very confusing.
MR. STEVES-I know the application you’re talking about. I was here sitting in the
audience. I can do a separate sheet if you’d like, but the intent there, so the Board is
clear, is the driveway that we’re sharing for those three lots is existing, the clearing is
existing. We’re not, on the south side of that, going to clear anymore trees whatsoever.
MR. SEGULJIC-If you could just try and make that clear.
MR. STEVES-I can cross hatch it on the mylar so it’s very clear.
15
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. O'CONNOR-Do you want it cross hatched, or do you want a separate sheet with the
mylars?
MR. VOLLARO-I would like to see a separate sheet with the mylar, just pull the layers
off, so it becomes clear.
MR. STEVES-And we’ll cross hatch it as well, take the contour and everything off.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, you can do that. It’s a key stroke.
MR. STEVES-Separate sheet for clearing plan. You’ve got it.
MR. VOLLARO-Computers are great, but they don’t figure on the acuity of the two things
l look at it with. That’s part of the problem.
MR. STEVES-Understood. It’s a lot easier looking at it on the screen when it’s in multi-
colors.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. A condition of the motion would be that Lot Number Five would be
plotted on the final mylar and metes and bounds will be shown, on Lot Number Five. Is
that Lot Five defined as Lot Five anywhere?
MR. STEVES-Not yet, but it will be. On my map currently, that you don’t have yet
because we’re going through it, it says Lot Five, other lands of Whalen.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. STEVES-And I’ll have the bearings and distances in the area on it.
MRS. STEFFAN-So Lot Number Five will be plotted on the mylar.
MR. VOLLARO-Right, with metes and bounds shown.
MR. STEVES-The 100 foot CEA line.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, right. There would be no building within the 100 foot CEA line.
MR. SEGULJIC-I believe at Glen Lake it just says 100 feet within the shore of the CEA, I
believe, is the way it’s worded.
MR. O'CONNOR-I thought it was up to a certain elevation line.
MR. SEGULJIC-Lake George’s elevation. Lake George is 400 feet, and then 100 feet.
MR. O'CONNOR-I thought it was based on elevation off of Rush Pond.
MR. SEGULJIC-I can only speak to this map which I got from George Hilton. Critical
Environmental Areas, it says Glen Lake CEA 100 feet from shore.
MR. O'CONNOR-I remember when it was adopted.
MR. STEVES-I’ll look into it, but I’ll show the line.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-Do we have a C.T. Male signoff?
MR. STEVES-There was only those two questions.
MR. VOLLARO-I didn’t see it.
MR. STEVES-The only remaining question from C.T. Male was the 147.
MR. VOLLARO-The 147, that’s right. I’ve got it on here.
MR. STEVES-So we had to have the answer from you that it doesn’t apply, and that was
the only comment they had left.
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes.
16
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MRS. STEFFAN-So what do we do with that ingress/egress note on Number Six C.T.
Male note?
MR. STEVES-I have that on the map, I already related that to them that it was on the
new map, but if you want a signoff because we now have the verbiage here today that it
does not apply 147, then I can call it to them and then they’ll mail me the signoff, or mail
you the signoff.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. That’s fine. Yes, because C.T. Male signoff will cover all that.
MR. STEVES-I mean, if it was a lot of issues, I’d understand, but that’s the only issue
they had.
MR. VOLLARO-We’re just going to condition this upon receipt of a final signoff by C.T.
Male. That’s all, and it’ll take out anything to do with 147, and it takes out anything to do
with his comments on the easement.
MR. STEVES-You’ve got it.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. So we’ve got four conditions.
MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 3-2006 JOHN WHALEN,
Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas
Seguljic:
WHEREAS, a final stage subdivision application has been made to the Queensbury
Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes a subdivision of a 40+ acre parcel
into 5 residential lots resulting in four residential lots and one 34-acre lot and seeks final
approval from the Board. Subdivisions of land require review by the Planning Board.
WHEREAS, a public hearing was advertised and held on 6/20/06; and
WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the
subdivision application requirements of the code of the Town of Queensbury; Chapter A-
183 entitled subdivision of land; and
WHEREAS, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been
considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and /or
if the modification is a modification, and the proposed modification[s] do not result in any
new or significantly different environmental impacts, and therefore no further SEQRA
review is necessary; and
WHEREAS, this application is supported with all documentation, public comment and
application material in the file of record; and
MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 3-2006 JOHN WHALEN,
Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas
Seguljic:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. Paragraph Three complies. Paragraph
Four, Negative. Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved, that this application is approved with
the following conditions:
1.A C.T. Male signoff.
2.A separate sheet for clearing plan.
3.Lot Five plotted on a mylar with metes and bounds shown.
4.Put a 100 foot CEA line on the plat with no building denoted.
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Duly adopted this 26 day of September, 2006, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Ford, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Vollaro
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mrs. Bruno
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. STEVES-Thank you.
SITE PLAN NO. 27-2006 SEQR TYPE: UNLISTED JOHN MILES AGENT(S): ROB
PRATT OWNER(S): SAME ZONING: LI LOCATION: 312 CORINTH ROAD
APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF NINE (9) SELF-STORAGE BUILDINGS
(TOTALING 37,800 SQ. FT.) AND ASSOCIATED SITE WORK. SELF-STORAGE
FACILITIES IN THE LIGHT INDUSTRIAL ZONE REQUIRE PLANNING BOARD
REVIEW AND APPROVAL. NEW INFORMATION HAS BEEN SUBMITTED BY THE
APPLICANT IN RESPONSE TO THE JULY 18, 2006 TABLING. CROSS REFERENCE:
BP 2005-955 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 7/12/06 LOT SIZE: 5.51, 1.35, 2.97 ACRES
TAX MAP NO. 308.16-1-60, 59, 58 SECTION: 179-4-020
ROB PRATT, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. PRATT-Hi, Rob Pratt representing John Miles.
MR. VOLLARO-Good evening.
MR. PRATT-Good evening.
MR. VOLLARO-We have a public hearing on this tonight, and we have to do an Unlisted
SEQRA, I believe. So this is a site plan.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, this is an Unlisted Action.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. I noticed there were only eight buildings proposed on Drawing C-
1. So that’s a change, I guess.
MR. PRATT-Well, I got the inkling from you that you weren’t too happy about a buffer
change. So we decided not to ask for any buffer change. (Lost words) on the buffer
exactly what we needed to do. So we deleted a building.
MR. VOLLARO-All right. If Board members would like to openly discuss this, feel free to
jump in on it.
MRS. STEFFAN-Mr. Pratt, did you get the Staff notes?
MR. PRATT-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-You got a copy of those?
MR. PRATT-Yes, he addressed them all.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. There was one of the items about the rare and endangered
species. There was a discussion from the.
MR. PRATT-For the Pinebush. You should have gotten a letter from Mr. Sipperly.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-I think what happened there.
MRS. STEFFAN-It says in the Staff notes that the consultant’s letter, which would be Mr.
Sipperly, does not address the presence, or lack thereof, of any rare or endangered
species, I think it’s supposed to say typically associated with this flora, the role or
significance of this 2.5 acres, in terms of its relationship with the ecology community’s on
undeveloped adjacent lands is also not addressed. He specifically talked about the Pine
Barren but didn’t talk about. There’s something on Karner blue.
MR. VOLLARO-It reverts back to a letter from Deb Roberts. Deb Roberts talks about the
pitch pine, scrub oak areas as being a prime habitat for Karner blue. This was in the Deb
Roberts letter of July 12, 2004 to Matt Steves on the John Whalen application, which I
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think we just did. That’s where that comes from Richard Sipperly’s letter of August 21
doesn’t touch on the Karner blue at all, and the fact that he talks about pine pitch, scrub
oak being the primary area there is a concern.
MRS. STEFFAN-And the reason I brought that up is because if we go through the
SEQRA, one of the questions is about environmental, those environmental things and
so, I don’t know, can we do SEQRA if we don’t know that?
18
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
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MR. PRATT-He has an August 12 letter, where his comments are this cover type is
beset perpetuated by periodic fire in order to destroy invading vegetation.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s in Sipperly’s letter.
MR. PRATT-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-We’re talking about another letter from Deb Roberts. She’s a PhD that
does a lot of work for the Town on this area, and so I think you’d need a DEC letter from
Kathy O’Brien, when we talk about the areas of this application that are in the pine pitch
scrub oak area, since that turns out to be a prime habitat for Karner blue.
MR. SEGULJIC-Do you understand what we’re getting at?
MR. PRATT-Yes, but I mean, he’s saying that this, other large areas of this type are
found in Albany County, Long Island and Clinton County. I mean, if this is left alone, this
has been left for a long time. The common forests, you know, tend to overgrow it and it
has to be periodically burned in order to seed back for future pitch pine. I mean, there
shouldn’t be that much.
MRS. STEFFAN-The problem is, if the Karner blue is there, and it’s living there, and it
has to be protected.
MR. SEGULJIC-See, we have to do our SEQRA, and one of the questions that gets
asked is are there any endangered species there. Karner blue is a potential for an area
like this. So we need a letter or something stating they’re either there or they’re not
there.
MR. PRATT-I don’t know, why wasn’t that concern brought up in the last meeting?
MR. HUNSINGER-It was.
MR. PRATT-It wasn’t on my notes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. There’s a letter dated May 31, 2006 from Nicholas Conrad from
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation saying that your property is
considered a sensitive area, and we asked that you bring back documentation, a
response from DEC saying that you’re okay. I mean, the report that you got from Mr.
Sipperly helps, but it doesn’t give you clearance from DEC to say it’s okay to go ahead,
and that’s really what we’re looking for is some sort of a response from DEC, and
basically what that involves is giving them a phone call and getting them to come out to
the site.
MR. PRATT-I think we did call them. Getting them to come out to the site is another
thing.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, no, I realize that, I appreciate that, but that’s what we were
looking for, is some sort of a response from that letter from DEC.
MR. VOLLARO-Usually Kathy O’Brien’s pretty responsive.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, she’s usually pretty good.
MR. VOLLARO-She’s pretty good. She comes right out, takes a look at the property and
comes up with a letter of, you know, a recommendation of some kind. She usually does
a pretty good job.
MR. PRATT-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-So is that clear that we need a response as to whether Karner blue is
present or not?
MR. PRATT-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Because we have to answer that question.
MR. VOLLARO-Do you know how to get a hold of her?
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. PRATT-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’d give her a call. She’s usually pretty good. She might even do
it on the phone for you. She could bring it up on her screen, take a look at it, and she
might give us a comment letter and that’s all we need, because we can’t answer a
SEQRA question without that. Anybody else? I’ve got some questions, but I’d like the
Board to talk a little bit before I get into any of my stuff here. Has anybody got any other
comments they want to make on this application before I make any of mine?
MR. SEGULJIC-Go ahead.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Where is the existing septic tank and field located for the auto
repair facility? Where is that located? It’s not on the map. I didn’t see it on the drawings
anywhere.
MR. PRATT-He has that directly behind the building.
MR. VOLLARO-See, what I was concerned about there, I’ve got my own note here, but
what I was concerned about is the proximity to the parking lot. I just want to make sure
that this proposed parking that you have here for these 20 spaces don’t in any way
encroach on the septic field itself.
MR. PRATT-No. He’s not in the back, but I could have that put on for you.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, do you know where it is?
MR. PRATT-Yes, it’s off the back of the existing auto, it’s off the back. It’s not off the
side.
MR. VOLLARO-So it’s off to the west, is that what you’re saying?
MR. PRATT-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So it’s in that cleared space some place back in there where it
can breath and do it’s job?
MR. PRATT-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I think that needs to be added to the drawing, to be located at
least. The other comment that I have is on the Fire Marshal’s letter of 8/28, where the
fire hydrant is located and what are the means of securing the gate. He wants to know
about this gate, the sliding gate right here. He wants to know how you go about securing
that gate.
MR. PRATT-That would be the way that they would want it done. I mean, it wouldn’t be.
MR. VOLLARO-He has a letter to that effect in here where he asked for three things, I
believe. Did you see that letter?
MR. PRATT-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, and I think he’s asking, that letter is written to the Board as advice
to this Board to think about that kind of problem. That’s why I’m bringing it up. Do you
have his letter in front of you?
MR. PRATT-I’ve got it here some place.
MR. VOLLARO-It says the submitted plans have been reviewed and I offer the same
comments outlined in the review performed on 5/22. Apparently he’s re-stating
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something he stated back on May 22, and those three comments are. “1) An on-site
fire hydrant will be required, in the vicinity shown on drawing C1 per NYS FC 508.5.1. 2)
The means of securing the 25’ sliding gate must be approved per NYS FC 503.6, 503.4.
Note: Additional yard hydrants will be required when additional phases are begun.” So
those are the three things that he noted on his comment letter of 8/28. So I guess we’ve
got to come up with, you might want to get in contact with him and determine what the
means of securing that gate is, or are going to be.
MR. PRATT-Okay.
20
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. VOLLARO-The next thing is, I guess this is more a help for you than anything else,
but remove the bench mark at Elevation 505.65 from the nine foot pine tree to a more
permanent location. I think it’s tacked on to a pine. So somebody’s put a benchmark in.
Is that benchmark for survey purposes?
MR. PRATT-Yes, it was for survey purposes. We can put a more permanent one in.
MR. VOLLARO-It would probably be good for the future, especially if you’re going to do
some, has everything already been surveyed out for the next phase?
MR. PRATT-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-I think you have a deed in here that I read. It’s a deed of consolidation.
So it consolidates all your properties into approximately 9.83 acres. Now, your
submission on FAR, then, is incorrect, and your worksheet shows 5.7.
MR. PRATT-That’s 5.4 for the three parcels that were consolidated in the back, and then
it’s .34 acres of that piece in the front. So it’s 5.7 acres. It’s not nine, there’s only 5.74
acres there.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I thought it was 9.83. Well, I did that by adding all of them
together. I think there’s some, if I look at the deed and I start to look at all of, the way the
deed is written, it seems like it’s consolidating three properties.
MR. PRATT-Three properties were consolidated, in order to start off, and then there was
a third, or a fourth piece on the front that was consolidated, to make it 5.7. It was 5.4
acres, and we added .34 on to make it 5.7 acres.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So that should satisfy our consolidation requirement on our
tabling motion. It seems to me. Your Site Development Data Sheet shows that you want
30 spaces, on your C-1 Drawing shows 11 for the auto repair, 20 for the new storage
units up front, and 32 for future parking when the next phase is completed. That gives
you 63. It seems to me that you’ve satisfied the requirements for parking. Where did
you get the 30 from? My note is, where do you get 30? I think your drawing satisfies the
requirement for 62 spaces. You have a space in addition to that. It seems okay to me.
MR. PRATT-I’m asking to build the spaces as we do the, not to build all 62 at once.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Those spaces that are shown along, there’s 32 spaces shown for
future on your drawing, I believe. Now, you’re saying that you would like to do those
incrementally?
MR. PRATT-I’d like to do the spaces as we did the last four. It’ll be done in two phases.
It’ll be the first phase of four buildings. The second phase of four buildings. Just build
the parking spots with the second phase.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, but when the second phase is in, you will have satisfied the
requirement for a 62 spaces on that property?
MR. PRATT-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-And that seems satisfactory to me.
MR. FORD-May I ask what is the length of time you anticipate to complete both phases?
MR. PRATT-One and a half to two years.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will Phase Two be dependent on the utilization of Phase One, the first
four buildings?
MR. PRATT-It’s going to be done through bank financing. So it’s going to go right along.
The financing is in place.
MRS. STEFFAN-For all of them.
MR. PRATT-It will go.
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MR. VOLLARO-Now you’ve sent, C.T. Male has a letter in of September 19, and I have
a note on my notes that says a response to C.T. Male letter of 9/19, then a signoff. I see
21
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
Jarrett-Martin Engineers has commented on some of the C.T. Male comments. This
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letter serves the purpose of addressing your comments on a letter dated July 12, but
now we have a new letter dated September 19, 2006. Have you gotten together with
anybody at C.T. Male on this? I think this was done by Jim Houston, yes.
MR. PRATT-Yes. We have done everything. We have responded to all of it. There was
like 24 different things that they were looking at, and we have a response to everything.
Except, I’ve briefly reviewed your response letter for tonight. We cannot provide a
comment letter because we are too close to the meeting. Generally the responses
address our comments except for the following, no sub catchment map was in their
submission. That’s drawing C-11. He had 21 which was existing topo should be
provided for the northernmost portion of the site, and our response were the existing
grades in site visits show that the site slopes from east to west, and the last 100 feet has
similar slopes and contours. We believe the grading shown will suffice for the
construction. It should be verified through the construction, if required, and then, 22,
consideration should be given to the increasing slope from east to west across the
northern portion of the site to promote more positive drainage to the infiltration basin, and
our response was the grading has positive drainage, one percent plus or minus, toward
the sediment basin. We feel the grading as shown will transport the water to the basin,
and everything else they’ve said that they, those were the three things that they had a
question on. Everything else has been addressed.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So you’ll probably get a signoff letter from him, based on your
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response to his September 19 letter. He’ll probably give you a signoff letter.
MR. PRATT-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-So what you’ve got to do, one of the things you’ve got to do, is put the
location of the septic tank and its associated field on your map, so that we know where it
is. You’re going to remove the benchmark. That’s already done, or you’re going to do
that?
MR. PRATT-We can do that.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. SIPP-Do you want the location of the fire hydrant also on that?
MR. PRATT-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, that would be a good idea. I’d prefer, have you had any discussion
at all with the Fire Marshal of the Town, Mr. Palmer?
MR. PRATT-Not with the Fire Marshal.
MR. VOLLARO-It might behoove you to do that, call him and sit down and discuss just
what he’d like to have done, particularly with that gate lock. Because I’m not familiar with
the New York State Fire Code. I can’t help you with that at all. He can tell you exactly
what he wants you to do.
MR. PRATT-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-And then we get a letter from him that says everything has been
satisfied, and we’re clear and you’re clear.
MR. SIPP-Do you propose a new sign for this property, business?
MR. PRATT-No.
MR. VOLLARO-You will get together with Kathy O’Brien on that pitch pine, scrub oak.
MR. PRATT-I’ve got to get a letter from DEC for the Karner, right?
MR. VOLLARO-The Karner blue. You’ve really got to go to Kathy O’Brien for that, and
she’ll know right away where your site is. I think she’s got a GIS system up there at
DEC. You just tell her where you’re at, as far as your tax map is concerned. I think she
can pick it up, and then discuss it with you from there, or she can come out and actually
walk it with you. I understand she’s got a pretty good GIS system there, at DEC now.
It’s not too old, but George Hilton has told me they’ve got a pretty good system up there
22
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
now. So she can do a lot of this right from her desk, unless she sees something she
really wants to not look at. Okay. That’s about all I have. I’m looking over my notes, and
that’s, anybody else have any comments, other than what we talked about?
MR. SIPP-Would you explain this, what you said about the buffer to begin with?
MR. PRATT-We were asking for relief on the buffer, on one side of the buffer, and we
decided that I didn’t get a good response on the first meeting, so I decided not to ask for
relief. So, we took a building out and made it so we kept our buffer.
MR. SIPP-Now, on Landscape C-3 I believe you’ve showed transplanting three native
trees.
MR. PRATT-In the front here, in the front of the property it needs to have some trees put
back in that.
MR. SIPP-What are you going to be using, pine?
MR. PRATT-We’ll be using trees from the existing property, exact trees from the
property, use a tree spade and take them and move them.
MR. FORD-My compliments to you for listening to us about the buffer zone, and
responding in a fashion that I feel is appropriate.
MR. HUNSINGER-Is there a public hearing?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, there is. I’m going to open the public hearing now. I just wanted to
converse a little bit on this. I’m going to open the public hearing on this application.
Does anybody have any comments? This is on the site plan for John Miles. Okay.
PUBLIC HEARING OPEN
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. We’ll leave the public hearing open. We’re not going to be doing
a SEQRA tonight because we’ve got some information that has to come in before we do
the SEQRA. So the public hearing will remain open, and we have a motion prepared.
MR. HUNSINGER-Are you ready, Gretchen?
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. Did anybody have anything to say about the colors? We talked
about that the last time. You’re okay with everything?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-I just thought Polar Blue trim.
MR. PRATT-It’s not Polar Blue. It’s a gray building with a garnet trim and garnet door.
There’s no polar blue in there. I don’t know why that came up.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. It just seemed kind of odd, actually. Okay.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 27-2006 JOHN MILES, Introduced by Gretchen
Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Chris Hunsinger:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. With the following conditions.
1.That the applicant provide a DEC response regarding presence of rare or
endangered species.
2.A C.T. Male signoff.
3.That the applicant makes sure that the Fire Marshal’s comments in the letter
of August 28, 2006 have been addressed satisfactorily.
4.To remove the bench mark from the nine inch pine to a more permanent
location.
5.That the septic tank and field location from the auto repair shop be denoted
on the plan.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
6.That the location of the fire hydrants be included on the plat.
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7.Tabled to the November 21 meeting. The application deadline for that would
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be October 16.
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Duly adopted this 26 day of September, 2006, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Hunsinger, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Vollaro
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mrs. Bruno
MR. VOLLARO-You’re all set. Hopefully we’ll get you the next time.
MR. PRATT-I’m tabled until when?
MR. HUNSINGER-We didn’t specify a date.
MRS. STEFFAN-No, because I didn’t know how long it would take to get the DEC
information.
MR. VOLLARO-We can put any date and change it, so long as the Board has a date to
work with.
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MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Table it to the November 21 meeting, the application deadline
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for that would be October 16. That’s about two weeks to get the material together.
MR. PRATT-Okay. You need 14 copies of all that information, right?
MR. VOLLARO-I’m afraid so.
SUBDIVISION NO. 11-2006 SKETCH SEQR TYPE RICHARD SOLOMON
AGENT(S) BPSR OWNER(S) GEOFFREY & CHERYL HOFFMAN ZONING: RURAL
RESIDENTIAL RR-3A LOCATION: BAY ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES
SUBDIVISION OF A 14.38 ACRE PARCEL INTO 4 LOTS OF 3.0, 3.0, 3.98 & 4.4
ACRES. SUBDIVISIONS OF LAND REQUIRE REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD.
CROSS REFERENCE NONE FOUND WARREN CO. PLANNING N/A LOT SIZE
14.38 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 278.-2-4 SECTION A-183
JON LAPPER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. LAPPER-A four lot proposed subdivision, conforming lot size. There are APA
wetlands that have been flagged, and it’ll be a minor subdivision under APA because it
involves APA wetlands. The driveways are shared, as required in this zone, and the
Staff notes indicated that they didn’t initially have the owner’s consent, which we just
received that recently from Mike Muller, the owner’s attorney, and that was sent to Staff.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Now the property appears to be outside the Lake George basin.
So I don’t think 147 is required here. It’s just outside the basin. Any Board members
have any comments? I want to open up comments on this and discuss this application.
MR. HUNSINGER-I thought it looked pretty straightforward.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, it does.
MR. SIPP-Is that stream that crosses the north end, is that intermittent?
MR. LAPPER-No, I think that that’s a year round stream.
MR. SIPP-Year round stream.
MR. LAPPER-It comes off the back of French Mountain.
MR. SIPP-Has there been any test pits made?
MR. LAPPER-There have been test borings, four of them on each site, and that
information is on the Preliminary map, for the Sketch Plan. The house locations have
been designed to stay away from the stream and to stay away from the wetlands.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. VOLLARO-Does that stream have a name or is it just an unnamed stream?
MR. LAPPER-I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me if it has a name, but I’ll find out for
next time.
MR. VOLLARO-It probably comes under the heading of an unnamed stream. We have
some words in here about the APA wetland area must be removed for density calc’s, but
when I look at our own GIS generated, it looks like even if you remove all of those, well, I
guess that we just have to make sure that the density calculations for this take out the
lands that are designated as APA wetlands.
MR. LAPPER-It would require 12 acres for the four, three acre lots, and there’s 14.38.
So it looks like you’re right, like it’s pretty close. So we’ll have to make sure that the next
submission specifies that.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. It’s close enough to take a look at it. If it was that far away, I
wouldn’t care, but it’s pretty close. I’d like to have an APA letter of non-jurisdictional
interest, if that’s, so that.
MR. LAPPER-It’s actually going to be jurisdictional. We’ll have to get a minor permit
from, we’ve already submitted the jurisdictional.
MR. VOLLARO-It is jurisdictional.
MR. LAPPER-Yes. They came to the site and flagged it, but it’s just a minor subdivision.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, sometimes when they look at a subdivision like that from the APA
point of view they take a look at it from their entire area to see how much you’re
pertibating their area.
MR. LAPPER-Any time that’s actually a subdivision where the wetland will ultimately
wind up on two lots after you’re done, then that’s jurisdictional, even when you have an
approved plan like Queensbury does. So that’s why, because it’s a division of a wetland.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So this is, the idea of a non-jurisdictional letter goes out the
window. Sight distances look good north and south. They appear to be adequate. I
don’t have any comments really, of any significance, concerning the layout of this thing.
It looks pretty good to me.
MR. FORD-I’ve got concern about Lot One, both the proposed house and the proposed
septic and it’s relation to wetland designated. The septic is definitely in the wetland and
the house may be.
MR. LAPPER-Lot One. The wetland setback is.
MR. VOLLARO-Is 100 feet. This is what they say their wetland is right here. This is the
100 foot mark, and it’s set back 100 feet from that.
MR. FORD-This is what I’m referring to, in comparing this map with this map.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I agree. There’s some inconsistencies there, no question about it.
MR. FORD-Right.
MR. LAPPER-We actually had APA out to do a field delineation. That’s what’s on here.
You’re looking at GIS.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. FORD-Yes.
MR. LAPPER-And so this was an actual field delineation by APA, that’s on this map, and
it says at the top Adirondack Park Agency statement that Mary O’Dell came out on May
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15 and actually flagged it.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, the wetland boundary as shown on this survey was flagged in the
field by Mary O’Dell of APA staff on May 12, 2006.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-So she actually set the flags that delineate this line.
MRS. STEFFAN-And actually the perc test on Lot One is better than the other lot, the
same as one other, but better than the other two.
MR. BAKER-Mr. Chairman, it’s worth noting that additionally that note continues to state
that additional wetlands may exist elsewhere on the parcel that have not been flagged.
We don’t really have any indication on this plat what wetlands weren’t flagged.
MR. FORD-It’s interesting on the GIS that the wetland is part and parcel of that stream
that runs through there and is not designated on this at all, but that may be the area that
it has not been flagged.
MR. LAPPER-I think that’s just a standard note, but we’ll get a letter from APA to verify. I
mean, I know that she was out to the site, obviously.
MR. FORD-Sure.
MR. VOLLARO-Once we see a person identified with the APA has actually been to the
site and set the flags, I probably would have to take that over and above the GIS. I don’t
know.
MR. FORD-I agree, except that the point was made that there are additional wetlands
that could exist on the property that have not been flagged, and that concerns me.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. BAKER-It says there may be additional wetlands. It doesn’t say there are for
certain.
MR. LAPPER-We’ll check that.
MR. VOLLARO-Is that in your opinion, Stu, somewhat of a boilerplate that comes with
APA, or is that?
MR. BAKER-I don’t know if it’s boilerplate language or not, but I think when the GIS is
indicating potential wetlands associated with the stream and they aren’t shown on the
plat, it’s something to be looked at further.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I think it’s a good thing to do it, so that you don’t get caught in
anything on the Preliminary.
MR. LAPPER-And we will. Absolutely.
MR. VOLLARO-Other than that, if nobody else has any comments, I have no comments.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, just a couple. Go back to the Comprehensive Land Use Plan for
this area. One says to maintain the rural look along the road. So I’d really like to see.
MR. LAPPER-Well, that would be why we have three acre lots, but I think what’s
proposed, after, the seller is going to retain Lot Two, the second most northerly lot, and
after they looked at it, they decided that they wanted to move the house back a lot closer
to the 100 foot buffer. So I think that might be one way to help that by moving one of the
lots back.
MR. SEGULJIC-Maintain some trees along there, that rural look.
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I can tell you one thing that we’re looking at in the new Zoning
Code is to maintain any natural buffers along the road. So I think that would be another
way to accomplish that.
MR. LAPPER-There’s plenty of room to accomplish that.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-The other thing is to minimize your driveways. You’ve already done it.
You’ve taken two down from four. The one thing I was just looking at and discussing is
clustering. I don’t know. Can we do that here? Because I think you need 15 acres
minimum, clustering in RR-3.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I don’t know.
MRS. STEFFAN-I think the site’s got some limitations because of the wetland setback.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t know whether you can cluster on this or not, because of exactly
what Gretchen said. It seems to me that there’s some prohibition here against the
clustering operation. It certainly can be looked at. I mean, you might want to make a
note, as to whether or not clustering would be appropriate here.
MR. LAPPER-That would serve to put the houses closer together on smaller lots, and
that might make it look less rural. Really, there’s a lot of buffer. I think what’s important
is keeping, along the road, keeping the trees and moving the houses back.
MR. SEGULJIC-You can keep the trees along the road.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, because the other houses in that particular area, they are set back
from the road, the natural pines are next to the, you know, they’ve been maintained. So
that’s a general look on that side of the road.
MR. LAPPER-Yes. So I think that would go a long way. We’ll certainly do that for next
time.
MR. VOLLARO-Personally, from a personal point of view, I just don’t think clustering is
something I’d want to see there.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, by the time you work around the100 foot setback, it’s almost
impractical.
MRS. STEFFAN-I didn’t visit this piece of property. This hasn’t been cleared. There’s a
piece of property across from French Mountain lumber that’s been cleared, is this it?
MR. LAPPER-I went by very briefly when the contract was signed, and I don’t know
what’s happened since then. It’s about a half mile north of, even less than that, north of
the intersection of 149.
MRS. STEFFAN-I’m just wondering, because we’re talking about keep maintaining the
tree buffer and there is a, looked like a log landing.
MR. LAPPER-I think that that may be part of this, but that’s just, most of this is still
natural.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. LAPPER-And it can be planted as well.
MR. VOLLARO-How long ago were you there, Gretchen?
MRS. STEFFAN-Actually our drive around last month. We went up Bay Road and we
went up to the lake. We drove by and there was a big log landing.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, there is.
MRS. STEFFAN-And I think it was right in this vicinity. Actually I kind of assumed that
that was it.
MR. HUNSINGER-I thought it was maybe that, part of the nursery lands, because it’s
right near there, too.
MR. LAPPER-It is near the nursery.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
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MR. VOLLARO-If there’s no other comments from the Board, we’ll, there’s no public
hearing and no SEQRA on this. It’s a Sketch.
MR. LAPPER-Thank you.
SITE PLAN NO. 37-2006 SEQRA TYPE: UNLISTED ANGIO DYNAMICS AGENT(S):
NACE ENGINEERING OWNER(S): SAME C/O IDA ZONING LIGHT INDUSTRIAL
ONE ACRE LOCATION 603 QUEENSBURY AVENUE APPLICANT PROPOSES A
35,500 SQ. FT. WAREHOUSE BUILDING AND ASSOCIATED SITE WORK.
EXPANSIONS OF SITE PLAN REVIEW USES REQUIRE REVIEW BY THE PLANNING
BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE AV 52-06, SP 19-02, SP 20-06, SP 25-92 WARREN
CO. PLANNING 8/9/06 ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY N/A LOT SIZE 13.00 ACRES
TAX MAP NO. 297.8-1-10 SECTION 179-4-
JON LAPPER & TOM NACE, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. LAPPER-We’d like to start out by thank you for putting Angio on the agenda tonight.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ll just make a slight humorous comment on that. I received on this
application, I think, 4 letters requesting that this go on. It was quite interesting, there
was, I said to myself, there’s no pressure here, including a phone call from Mr. Stec, and
a letter from Mr. Caimano and a so, you know. One of the things I’d just like to express,
is that why we do what we do is to try to keep some semblance of order in the way we
review things, and the fact that this Board very often when we don’t do that is here ‘til,
you know, could be 12:00, could be 12:30, late, because we haven’t managed these
applications well, and that’s why people get moved from one month to the next and that’s
why you were out in October and not in September, but you’re here now. Mr. Lapper
you, for the record, you are so that we can.
MR. LAPPER-For the record, John Lapper with Randy Bodkin on behalf of Angio and
Tom Nace, Project Engineer. I’d like to just say that some people took on their own
when we told them that we might not be on the agenda to write the Board. Because this
is one of those rare projects in Queensbury where there’s a whole bunch of descent
paying jobs associated even though the economic development guys always talk about
that’s what they want it doesn’t happen all that often. So, I know that there’s a lot of
people who’ve taken a real interest in this project, but we know that our job is to prove to
you that it’s designed well and that’s why we’re here and that’s why we have Tom. One
thing that’s a little bit unusual about this application I’d like to explain to start with is that
because they do hope that their business will support a second phase after this, the
plans show, although we’re not asking for approval for the next phase for an office
building, but in terms of the SEQR review it’s totally appropriate and really mandated that
that be disclosed, and so we discussed it at the Zoning Board and after that point we
supplemented the SEQR application. The plans actually show that next phase. It’s not,
there’s no plan to build it this year, next year, they hope that they’ll get there, but in terms
of the SEQR we wanted to show you that the stormwater plan would accommodate that
and that the site would accommodate that without requiring any variances in terms of
setback, green space, etc. So we’ve got another phase and for the SEQR you certainly
need to contemplate that, but we’re not proposing it at this time.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s located in what I would call this parking area for Building 6, is that
what you’re talking about?
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
MR. NACE-The end of Building 6, which is north, or, up the page from that you can see
the Building 6.
MR. LAPPER-Between the parking lot and the building.
MR. LAPPER-Randy has a rendering, Bob, of that, which will show you right.
MR. VOLLARO-I had thought that this would where the add-on was going to be.
MR. NACE-No, this is the parking for it, this is.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. NACE-This outline here is the future office building.
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MRS. STEFFAN-Wow.
RANDY BODKIN
MR. BODKIN-Is this expansion here, which is a warehouse area and then we’re also
showing here is a rendering for a potential two-story office structure on the north end of
the current facility. Currently all on current blacktop area, but, I do not have approvals
from the Angio board for that expansion. It’s our hopes that our growth continues in the
right direction and we’ll be back in the future for that. We went ahead and designed the
stormwater and everything with the assumption that would happen someday so the
system would handle it. We’d like to do things once, right and not twice, so.
MR. VOLLARO-So right now that’s going to go in some of the spaces that you have for
existing parking.
MR. BODKIN-Yes, but like we’re saying is the main focus of this is for, just from the back
view, looking at it, this warehouse distribution center. And this is future parking that’s
labeled on the site plan. The intent would be that would be only graded at this point and
planted, seeded. It then becomes a staging area for this construction so I don’t tear up
blacktop and so on and so forth.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, I see.
MR. BODKIN-Then when this gets completed, this gets finished off, blacktopped, but,
again we’re not looking for that now. Just trying to set the groundwork for the future.
MR. VOLLARO-Right, now have you done for the future, have you done a density
calculation so that your floor area ratio, you’ve got enough space?
MR. BODKIN-Yes, no issues.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. BODKIN-So, hopefully that helps.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, it does. Because I was looking at the drawing and I didn’t see that,
what I was looking for there anyway. Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-So just to follow up on that question. The site data on S-1, does that
include provision for the future development or is that just what’s proposed?
MR. NACE-The site data excludes what we’re asking for approval for now. The EAF,
revised environmental assessment form that was submitted does include Building 6,
which is the office building.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay, great.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay that’s your Part I submission.
MR. NACE-I think that was some of the confusion, there was an issue about number of
parking spaces shown on the EAF versus what’s shown on the site plan and that was the
discrepancy, er, the difference the EAF shows Building 6.
MR. LAPPER-We have staff comments and CT Male comments and Tom responded to
the CT Male comments and we got the same type letter you just discussed where they
said that they looked at it and it looks pretty good, but they didn’t have time to write the
detailed letter, but we can handle this however you’d like or we can go through Tom’s
response and show you the changes.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m interested in what Tom just said on the Environmental Assessment
form. What area of that Part I were you talking about when you said there was some
discrepancy there?
MR. NACE-Okay, the Staff I think had questions about the number of parking spaces.
They said that there were 405, I think, noted on the EAF whereas the 357, if I have the
right number in my head was on the site plan data sheet and on the zoning variance.
That is because as you saw from future plans when Building Number 6 in here, or the
office building is constructed, a lot of these existing parking spaces are going to be
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
eliminated but we’re also contemplating a new parking lot out here which will replace
what is lost, plus add a few. So, that’s the difference between 357 and the 405.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, I understand. Yes, I see it, it’s on page 5 of 21, and it’s under B-F,
number of off-street parking spaces existing and proposal is 405. There’s a little bit of a
discrepancy there between that and so when we do SEQR we’ll have to note that, that’s
all.
MR. FORD-I’m sorry I didn’t ask this while you were up there, but can you show us
where the existing access road is as compared to the proposed off Hicks Road?
MR. NACE-Sure, the existing access road is right here okay, and the new access road is
here.
MR. FORD-Will both be utilized?
MR. NACE-Yes, both will remain. In the current stage of things before the office building
is built when the warehouse is constructed this will primarily be a truck entrance, plus an
entrance, an alternate entrance to the back parking and this will remain an entrance to
the parking here plus maintenance access for the mechanical courtyard back in here.
MR. BODKIN-That’s in addition to the two parking entrances of off (lost word).
MR. NACE-Right, we have these entrances as well. Thank you.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Does that proposed truck entrance currently exist?
MR. NACE-No, this is proposed.
MR. VOLLARO-No, it doesn’t, this is proposed.
MR. NACE-Anything labeled on here “proposed”, is proposed for what we’re asking
approval for now.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. NACE-The only thing that is shown on here for future is the Building 6 office building
and the future parking, and both of those are labeled “future”.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, let me just digress for a second. Something may help you out
here, I don’t know if it will or not, you, under project description, under G, where you have
maximum vehicle trips generated per hour. Now, does this come out of an ITE
assessment or is something that?
MR. NACE-It’s sort of a melding of ITE and what we know to be the case from existing
traffic.
MR. VOLLARO-Because what happens when you do this, when you get into this 255
range, you trigger a driveway separation requirement in 179.
MR. NACE-That’s assuming a single access portal, you know single access point. We
have 4 access points on the site, so none of those driveways are gonna see even a 100
cars because they’re distributed between the driveways.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, then maybe 255 is a wrong number?
MR. NACE-For analyzing the driveways.
MR. BODKIN-It’s the right number for the site, but not for the driveways.
MR. VOLLARO-For the site, but not for the driveways and when you say maximum
vehicular trips generated per hour that’s for all four maybe?
MR. NACE-That is correct, for all four.
MR. BODKIN-That’s at shift changes, within any given hour we’ve got people coming to
work, going.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. VOLLARO-That’s the idea of the maximum trips generated per hour, it would
probably be during your shift change.
MR. NACE-That’s correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Alright, we’ll get back to that because I, still have a little bit of a problem.
What we try to do is limit the number of curb cuts on an arterial of that type, and when we
go back to 179, it talks in there about, we can talk about the language, but the language
is interesting, it says that the Planning Board can waive this, but it also has some other
information in terms of the waiver itself. It talks about and I’m trying to get to where it is,
this would be off-street parking. I think it’s 179.6.
MR. LAPPER-We looked at it today and we really thought that it doesn’t apply because
that 255, or 225, excuse me, is through the four different access points. So it’s not that,
so we don’t think it really requires the waiver. Beyond that, this is an area of Town,
except during balloon weekend where it’s pretty quiet.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, well, you know, I can see where if you spread this across four of
them, then it won’t be 255. It’ll be 255 divided by 4 and so that 255 may not trigger this
driveway separation in my mind because you’ve got four access points as opposed to
one. Usually, that one access point tends to trigger that requirement for driveway
separation, but I can see your point. Okay, you can continue or the Board can continue
to ask questions if they like go forward with that before we get to a public hearing, we do
have a public hearing tonight.
MR. SEGULJIC-Could you clarify for me on drawing SP-1 in the bottom of the center you
have it labeled as a wet area.
MR. NACE-Okay, that’s a wetland, that’s a flag, you notice the flag’s numbers around
here. That is a flagged Army Corp wetland, Army Corp.
MR. SEGULJIC-So that is a wetland?
MR. NACE-Deb Roberts went out and located that for us.
MR. SEGULJIC-And then you have a retaining wall along the edge of that correct?
MR. NACE-Correct, along the very periphery.
MR. SEGULJIC-That seems like it’s a 14 ft. retaining wall?
MR. NACE-No, no that’s, I think the highest retaining wall is maybe 6 ft., 7 ft. I should
remember that, I just looked at it the other day. 41 to 32, 3, 4.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t see a top of wall, bottom of wall note here, so I’m looking for it.
MR. NACE-It’s about seven feet tall at the highest.
MR. SEGULJIC-And I’m drawing SP-5.
MR. FORD-Above the ground.
MR. NACE-What’s that? It’s a segmented wall, so it only goes about 12 inches below
the ground.
MR. FORD-How did you describe that again, please?
MR. NACE-It’s called a segmented, a masonry segmental masonry wall. It’s reinforced,
it gains it strength from soil reinforced matting that goes back under the fill. So it doesn’t
have to have a big foundation, it doesn’t stick out beyond the toe of the retaining wall the
way a concrete retaining wall would.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. SEGULJIC-Then on Drawing SP-5, for reinforced retaining wall section it’s 14 ft. 4
inches maximum.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. NACE-That’s the maximum for that design. Okay, in fact maybe that’s, that
dimension should be changed. Okay, that, the maximum on this particular site. That
should have been edited out of there.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s like a standard detail or something?
MR. NACE-Yes, it should have been edited.
MR. SEGULJIC-Alright.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s the problem we always have with these retaining walls, when you
get into 179, they talk about no higher than and I think they mention something like 18
inches and we always struggle with these retaining walls and the way they’re. I notice
you’ve got the Army Corp wetlands sitting right up against it, very typical, it’s right up
against the wetland, much like we’re going to be seeing in a little while.
MR. NACE-In two very narrow points only.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. If you go to that Section of 179, where it talks about that and I’m
trying to recollect what that is. It’s 6-060.
MR. FORD-It’s Number Three.
MR. VOLLARO-On the retaining wall, it says now, there is a problem, I think, internally
and I hope that when Saratoga Associates gets to write 179 or rewrite 179, that this
section gets a little clearer. Because there’s this fine line between the DEC wetland and
the Army Corp wetland and things that apply to both. If you read this very carefully it
starts off talking a lot about the DEC regulations, when you get to “D”, of 179-6-060, it
talks about miscellaneous provisions and then it moves into all applicable federal, state
and other agency permits shall be obtained. And then in addition, the following specifics
shall apply and then they talk specifically to retaining walls, and I think in the new 179,
and really I’m talking to the folks that are working the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and
also 179. This wording should be carefully looked at because right now we’re being told
that we’re not looking at anything, even the federal wetlands because this whole article
talks only about DEC wetlands. I have a disagreement with the Zoning Administrator on
these words and the way they read, especially how “D” reads. Because when you get
into “D”, they say all applicable federal. They jump out of the DEC mode and go into the
federal mode. And that’s where this retaining wall.
MR. NACE-I think Bob, what it may be speaking to is in the DEC regulations if you’re
looking for a wetland permit, part of the DEC requires you to do what’s called a joint
application, okay, and it’s joint with the Army Corp of Engineers as well as DEC. Okay,
so, they’re saying about any other applicable permits, they’re not saying any other
federal wetlands, they’re saying any other applicable federal, state, local permits, and I
think that’s probably what they’re speaking to is that once you start working with DEC
permit for a wetland, the Army Corp is automatically brought in because it’s a joint
application.
MR. FORD-So the operative word there is applicable.
MR. NACE-Right, we’re not, you know, with the federal wetland we can disturb right up
to it.
MR. VOLLARO-Right up to it.
MR. NACE-To the wetlands, there’s no setback.
MR. VOLLARO-See, but, that’s true, but when they talk about getting right up to it, it says
in addition expansion or replacement of any retaining wall shall be discouraged, now this
is under the federal section of this code, shall be discouraged except where the case
where the alternative of a shoreline restoration or natural state is impossible due to
excessive slope and that’s to be determined by the Zoning Administrator. Retaining walls
shall be permitted to be constructed only for aesthetic reasons. Obviously, you’re not
doing it for aesthetic reasons. Where permitted retaining walls shall not exceed 16
inches in height as measured from the stationery mean high water mark. And the mean
high water mark under this would be the shoreline would be coincident with the
shoreline. So I’ve never known how to get around this or how to treat this, Chris I guess
I’m sort of making these remarks almost for your benefit, so that when you looking at this
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
in terms of 179 rewrite by Mr. Catalano, he takes this into account. I’ll make a note of
this on an e-mail, if you need or whatever.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure, go ahead and send it to Stu and you copy me.
MR. VOLLARO-Sure. Okay.
MR. FORD-The height of that retaining wall is what instead of 16 inches?
MR. NACE-It’s seven feet at the max. A lot of it’s only 1 ½ - 2 ft., but at the highest point
it’s seven feet.
MR. VOLLARO-So it’s a sloping wall.
MR. FORD-And the rationale for that is?
MR. NACE-That’s to avoid the wetlands, that’s our road, with the geometry of our road,
for access to the back of the trailer area, to the back of the warehouse.
MR. FORD-But the rationale for the differential between 16 inches and seven feet is?
MR. NACE-Oh, that’s just the natural grade difference in the existing grade. As you
come past the wetland, okay, here the walls at the highest because we’re closest to the
lower point of the wetland as you come on down here that natural grade is higher and as
you go on down it’s higher yet. So it’s the natural, the top of the wall is even with the
pavement which slopes a little, but not much, but the bottom of the wall varies with the
existing natural grade.
MR. VOLLARO-So it could vary between seven feet., six feet, five.
MR. NACE-Between a foot and a half down here to seven feet up here.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, and you can’t disturb the natural grade cause it’s in the wetland
that’s the other side of it.
MR. NACE-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, again, you know, I always struggle with this and I think other Board
members struggle with this as well, and I will send something to Stu on this and copy Mr.
Hunsinger on it as well. I’ve always had a problem with this area.
MRS. STEFFAN-This property adjoins the airport property, correct?
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-One thing I did notice is the pictures are lovely, but the landscaping
plan that you provided is very different than the pictures that are, for example, the tree
line on Hicks Road is different then what is denoted on your landscaping plan.
MR. BODKIN-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN- I like the picture.
MR. BODKIN-The plans are the plan.
MRS. STEFFAN- But I like the picture. I don’t know how any of the other Board
members feel about the landscaping.
MR. NACE-One thing while you’re talking about landscaping, one thing to point out. We
have not provided, well, let me go to the landscape plan. We’ve provided some street
trees along our new entrance road, but we have not landscaped the area here between
Hicks and the new parking. Thinking we would, the most appropriate time to do that
would be after we’ve used it as a staging area and all disturbance is done with the future
Building 6. When this parking lot is done, then we would landscape this very nicely.
MR. VOLLARO-That makes sense.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
UNKNOWN-(Lost words) requirements are a lot more stricter than yours, so rest
assured, those trees (lost words).
MR. VOLLARO-You’ve got a vested interest in making it look right, I agree. I guess to get
something off my board here, off my work, I’d like to just talk to the Board about this curb
cut, this 225 trips per hour. I think they have a point when they say there are four
ingress/egress points on this lot and that the 225 would probably be split evenly between
that and wouldn’t trigger that 440 ft. separation. I’d like to get some comments from
Board members on how they feel about.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, just clarification are some of these entrances, egresses going to
be designated truck routes?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, there’s one on the bottom that says.
MR. FORD-Yes, I don’t think it gonna be an even distribution.
MR. NACE-They’re not exclusive truck routes. Obviously, the most logical route for
trucks will be in and out here, around and in and out here, but, you’ll notice there is also
parking accessible off those same routes so, there will be parking, you know, employee
access, using the same entrances as well. This entrance probably takes, right now
takes the bulk of the traffic, and this with the parking back here and with future parking in
here you’ll get a reasonable amount for this entrance.
MR. SIPP-What are the hours, what would be the peak hours of traffic?
MR. VOLLARO-It would be during the shift period.
MR. BODKIN-Well, look we’ve talked before our schedules are flex schedules, so we
can attract for the workforce we’re looking for, but, roughly starting at 5:30-6:00 in the
morning your first shift starts to arrive, some of them don’t get there ‘til 7:00, and then
your office people 8:00 and 9:00. Then second shift arrives around 3:30, 3:15, first shift
being over at 3:30. So probably the highest peak would be between 3:00 and 4:00,
that’s your highest peak hour depending on where those people live. If they live in
Washington County, they’re exiting out to Queensbury Avenue, you know, Queensbury
area they’re coming out Hicks Road. Providing the additional outlet onto Hicks, I would
say 80% of our major truck traffic comes from the Northway and that’s the first point that
they get to. Ridge Road and Hicks into that entrance. So we try to provide safety to our
employees and we went back and forth on the placement of parking lots for a while
because we don’t want employees walking across a truck route to get to the buildings,
we want a safe egress there as well. So, with the way it’s laid out here now, we’ve
satisfied everything.
MR. FORD-It’s a good placement, I believe.
MR. BODKIN-Yes, I mean, it’s what makes sense.
MR. HUNSINGER-So do trucks come up Ridge Road or up County Line Road, typically?
MR. NACE-Most of our traffic comes up Ridge, cuts over, Ridge to Hicks.
MR. FORD-Ridge to Hicks.
MR. NACE-Ridge to Hicks. You know we got some local box-makers that we have in
Cambridge, they would come up or Fed-Ex and UPS and the like.
MR. SIPP-My concern here is the 3:00, 2:00 to 3:00 would be school bus traffic also.
MR. NACE-That one bus that comes through?
MR. SIPP-Well there’s more than one isn’t there?
MR. NACE-I think there’s two, I think there’s two buses, but yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-If I can chime in on that, Mr. Chairman, I have no problem with the
egress you’re speaking of.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, I just want to get around so that we’re all comfortable with this 440
foot separation and the fact that at peak hours probably no one of those ingress, egress
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points hits the 225 mark. That’s what I, that’s what I, I’m not sure it’s a, it’s split directly in
quarters, but I don’t think anyone rises to the level of 225. That’s just something that I
have in my head and would not trigger the 440 separation. I don’t know whether, how
other Board members feel about that?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the other issue to me, particularly when you look at the Hicks
Road entrances those are the only driveways. So it’s not like he’s, you know, any traffic
coming in and out of their site is going to compete with any neighboring sites.
MR. VOLLARO-Right, exactly.
MR. HUNSINGER-So I think that really mitigates any impact that there would be.
MR. VOLLARO-The requirement for separation, yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Exactly.
MR. VOLLARO-I agree with that. I like the way the sites laid out particularly well. So I
wouldn’t want to impose even the thought of having to remove that truck site for any
reason at all.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well and also it is an employer. They have a social responsibility to
their people and if there is a traffic issue, they can very well tell their employees that they
want them to use a determined entrance, and so I don’t see a problem with that.
MR. VOLLARO-No, I agree, so I’m gonna get rid of that in my notes, anyway. I’ve got a
couple of notes, I’ll get rid of them in a hurry here so that Board members can,
incidentally, SEQR for this Board is usually the last thing I want to get into. I want to
make sure the Board understands every line in SEQR before we do it, not that I think it’s
gonna be a problem here, but, you know, that’s just something that I’m trying to institute
here. SEQR is last, last, last, last, three lasts in a row. On the sewer, just a notation that
comes out of Mike Shaw on the sewer is that this parcel is located in the Warren County
sewer district and they should be reviewing and permitting and inspecting the proposed
changes here.
MR. NACE-Yes, they’re already connected, the facility is already connected to
Washington County.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s already connected. So probably Mike’s comment doesn’t even, isn’t
germane to this application. Okay. Now CT Male does have 20 items you have
obviously talked to him about those and.
MR. NACE-I’ve address them all with a letter hand delivered Monday morning first thing.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. NACE-And we got back from CT Male a response from CT Male, an e-mail a copy
to us, original to Craig, says, we’ve reviewed the response letter from Nace Engineering
nd
dated September 22 for the Angio Dynamics projects, based on a cursory review of the
responses we feel that most of our comments have been addressed.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay
MR. NACE-Since we were so closed to the meeting, so on and so forth.
MR. VOLLARO-So, you still need a sign-off letter for them to clear that.
MR. NACE-We need a sign-off letter, I’ve talked to them and he’s okay with all the
responses but we need the final sign-off.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, I’ve got a couple of questions on lighting, Tom, we can just
discuss those. The easy one, what is the height of the pole mounted lights?
MR. NACE-Good question, I don’t recall off hand.
MR. VOLLARO-The spec we have is 20, so.
MR. NACE-I’m pretty sure that’s what we submitted there was a package with a.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. VOLLARO-I didn’t see in the details a lighting, you know, I was looking for it in your
details, on details chart.
MR. BODKIN-There were cut sheets on the fixtures (lost words).
MR. VOLLARO-Does it say that in the cut sheet, I looked for that.
MR. FORD-How does that compare with existing lights?
MR. NACE-That’s what I’m looking, I’m not, I don’t remember seeing that specified, but
we would certainly specify that as 20 feet. I don’t see it noted, we will make a note to 20
foot height.
MR. BODKIN-Yes, we’re paying for it.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s just, you know, you got a different problem than I do. I’ve got to
know that it’s kind of nailed down for the. Just put a note on that the pole heights match
the 20 foot requirement in the code. Now, in the lighting plan itself there’s a min in there,
you know, I like to look at the average over min to get a uniformity ratio and the min is at
zero.
MR. NACE-It’s our old argument, it’s where you put the box.
MR. VOLLARO-You know, there’s never min zero unless the software is dictating that
zero is someplace on, you know.
MR. NACE-One of the problems is we’re probably at the point where we need to buy our
own software package so we can do the lighting calculations ourselves because the
consultants we use never quite make a reasonable analysis of where the actual box that
they’re analyzing the numbers within, falls.
MR. VOLLARO-When I take a look for example, Tom, when we’re looking at our code in
parking lots I think it talks about a minimum of one foot candle or two foot candle, I’m not
sure, I think it’s two.
MR. SEGULJIC-It’s one in industrial parks.
MR. VOLLARO-Is it one?
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m picking out foot candles in the parking lot of 3.2, 3.3, 4.0, 5.3, just a
couple I’ve looked at in the distribution of those lights.
MR. NACE-There are some that get down to .8.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. NACE-So.
MR. VOLLARO-You know it’s hard for me, you know, I’d have to sit there and I don’t
have the software package, if I had it I could manipulate it around, but.
MR. NACE-I think that’s my problem too, I think what they’ve done is the numbers you
see, are the ones they’ve used to calculate their statistics.
MR. VOLLARO-And I.
MR. NACE-The numbers you see if you go out to the back of wetlands it’s 0.0, so that’s
where your zero came from.
MR. VOLLARO-See what, in order for example to take a look at uniformity ratios in
different parts of sites, in order to do the calculation of the average over min, I can’t do it
in any place on here because the average over min, because the min is zero. I can’t get
a mathematical answer out of that.
MR. NACE-Did you actually look at the parking areas or the road areas it’s really not
zero, when I got this and looked at it, and I didn’t do a number by number statistical
analysis but I looked to see if we were in reasonable shape for parking areas, are we
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close to a foot candle. Then in the truck loading area, obviously we’re less as you get
toward the outside of the truck loading area.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s real hard to do with an eyeball integration though Tom, you know.
MR. NACE-I understand that.
MR. FORD-To what extent have federal aviation administration regulations for lighting
near an airport have been taken into consideration?
MR. BODKIN-There really wasn’t nothing specific from the FAA, although part of my
intent to keep these values down low so we didn’t have an issue, ah, and keeping the
parking area and the point of egress for employees getting in the building well lit. You
know, the back route closer to the airport, keeping that less and so on. I do have
approval from the FAA for this building structure based on it’s height and location so that
form is filed and complete and on file.
MR. FORD-And that didn’t taken into consideration the lighting?
UNKNOWN-No lighting, no lighting was part of that, just the height issue because we got
the whole flight.
MR. SEGULJIC-So there was no lighting issue that.
UNKNOWN-There was no lighting requirements, but just common sense we wanted to
keep the lighting lower toward the airport.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, see our spec calls for approximately one foot candle across the
entire parking area, that’s a requirement in our code. In order, particularly out where you
are in a rural area, you don’t want this big hot spot. Everything has got to be down lit, but
in the statistics and the symbols they give was the average is 1.6 and the max is 56.5,
the min is zero. So, in order to do what’s called a uniformity ratio, it means what is, a lot
of people want to know what that is. It’s the ability of your eyes to react quickly for
example, if you’ve got a very highly lit parking lot and an employee goes onto the dark
road, these two things here don’t adjust that quick. So what they do is try to come up
with a uniformity radio that allows for the adjustment of the eye to different light levels as
you progress through. And there’s a, and we like it to be 4:1, and Tom is very familiar
with this cause he’s done it a couple of times with us, so I would like to see the lighting
so you know, we can come up with a least a uniformity ratio around the parking lots.
MR. NACE-We can draw the boundary for that analysis, tight around the parking area
and I think that will show you that it is. I’m confident from looking at it that’s it’s pretty
close, it may not be 4:1, but it’s in a reasonable proximity thereof.
MR. VOLLARO-Four to one is probably not achievable in most areas I’ve looked at, you
can’t get the four to one, but if you could get close to a reasonable uniformity ratio I
usually go along with that. So that’s what I’d be looking for in the lighting
MR. NACE-Okay. Sure.
MR. FORD-How difficult would it be to get a FAA sign-off on the lighting plan?
MR. BODKIN-It’s not a requirement, not a necessary element from them, nor was it in
the previous expansion that was done.
MR. FORD-They don’t have any requirement for lighting on an approach to an airport?
MR. NACE-Nothing in any of the permits I’ve ever filed with them or any question ever
asked by them.
MR. SEGULJIC-I don’t have any problems with the low lighting in the parking lot, what I
do see though is that there’s a lot of hot spots in different areas. Now, is than an
anomaly of the?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I was going to say, I wonder if the software is right?
MR. NACE-It’s also the software, okay, because what happens if you accidentally locate
your light fixture right on a grid point, it’s going to blossom like that, okay. You may be
able to move your grid so that’s it’s taking on a value five feet away and it’s reduced the
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light level in half. So it’s an anomaly of the software and that’s one of the reasons, and
you might, because you don’t have a site that’s laid out on a perfect grid, or a light
pattern that’s laid out on a perfect grid, you may move the grid off of one light and end up
having it on another light. Those typical, real 50 or 40 foot candle values are generally
indicative of right under the light.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, yes in fact when you look at the proposed new truck access
road you have, well, there’s two different types of lights. You have the “A” lights and the
“FA” lights, but for the same lights, you have different numbers underneath them. And,
they’re pretty significantly different. You know the most is 56 ½, but the same lighting
fixtures, just a littler further up, you only have 29 so, it must be some.
MR. NACE-That’s just may be 5 feet off the grid, or something of that sort and that’s one
of the reasons I don’t like the uniformity ratio on a site lighting plan because it’s just a
numbers game.
MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re saying those numbers that are on this plan are really not
indicative?
MR. NACE-Well, they are indicative but it’s, it may be that that one grid point where you
get a number is directly under the light, where the next light up is the same light but the
grid is five feet away from the light and it makes that difference.
MR. SEGULJIC-I guess I’m kinda thrown off to cause when you look at the photometric
pattern for the lights, as I read it, it has a maximum of 10 foot candles right under the
light.
MR. NACE-That’s an anomaly of the program, the what, the diagram you’re looking at
there for the light is the manufacturers average analog type of diagram. What you get in
the program is a digital read out of every point along that grid.
MR. SEGULJIC-So this is averaging over (lost words)?
MR. NACE-That’s right, the typical lighting diagram with the nice cloud looking thing that
you get is actually easier and more accurate to design with because it does give you
averages. The digital read out of every point is something you’ve got to understand
before you.
MR. VOLLARO-This is the old analog to digital conversion, that’s part of the problem.
MR. SEGULJIC-I can understand that, where I’m getting hung up is I’ve seen a lot of
other lighting plans where there weren’t these big high spots. Number One. Number
Two, if we approve this, we’re approving it with all these high numbers on it which is not
the signal we want to be sending people, we want lower lighting.
MR. NACE-And I think if you look at the, at the average, you know, get out and look
away from the lights a little bit and it is the reasonable number. We’re pretty close, from
what I can tell, around a foot to a foot and a half around the occupied areas of the
parking lot.
MR. HUNSINGER-And the thing is, the higher numbers are underneath fixture A which is
two 400 watt metal halides, which is not a very high wattage bulb.
MR. NACE-No, it’s not.
MR. SEGULJIC-There’s something going on here.
MR. HUNSINGER-That’s what I’m wondering, that’s my conclusion.
MR. VOLLARO-You know when we looked at the Wal-Mart plan, that was extremely well
done in terms of the lighting and it was done by Lathonia. They’re the ones who did that
lighting plan for Wal-Mart. I would suggest.
MR. NACE-They’ve done a lot of our previous ones, they did not do this one.
MR. VOLLARO-I know that I see Richard Jones did this, and I like Rich’s work but I don’t
know whether this is his specialty or not, frankly, when I looked at that. So, Lathonia
does a great job at this.
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MR. NACE-We can get it re-run by Lathonia.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s what I would like, would like to see you do on that. I don’t know if
everyone agrees with me on that, but I’ve seen a lot Lathonia’s work.
MR. SEGULJIC-It just doesn’t, I can’t see approving this tonight with the hot spots.
MR. FORD-I’d feel more comfortable with that.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, what else do I have here before we get going. Now, this is not my
area, trees and I don’t get along on this board, I’ve never been a good “tree man”. I like
a couple of trees but a lot of people put a lot of trees in and I don’t think a lot of trees is
what we want, but, anyway the number of parking spaces in here say that you need
about 23 trees in the parking lot and I’m gonna punt on this one to the rest of Board
because I’m not good at this tree thing. Don does a very good job on it and I think the
other Board members are very good at this, I never look at this. Anybody else have any
comment on trees at all? Do they want, right now they do have trees in their parking lot
in terms of their design. I think it looks okay, I wouldn’t want to load the parking lot down
with unnecessary foliage. That’s, you know, you’re going to be removing snow during
snow times, trees don’t live well that way.
MR. BODKIN-Right, and that’s the other thing again, the number of people, the shift
hours, we try to make it so it’s easy to plow and maintain so we minimize that. Most of
our trees are on the perimeter of Hicks Road and Queensbury Avenue where it’s most
visible. We did want to stay away from big trees. Some of our trees that we’re planning
to take down have been sited by the airport as being to high already, okay, as part of that
whole flight plan approach thing. So, planting a maple that’s going to grow 70, 80 feet tall
isn’t the best interest either. Be awhile before it gets there, you and I probably won’t see
it, but..
MR. VOLLARO-Particularly me.
MR. BODKIN-Right, so
MR. SIPP-You’re going to be planting on the edge of Hicks Road when you do that.
MR. BODKIN-Yes.
MR. SIPP-And because those 3 inch caliber maple trees are not gonna bother anybody
at that point. Well, you’ve got some going in.
MR. BODKIN-Along the truck route and the right hand side there’s a string of soft
maples.
MR. SIPP-Yes, now, in the parking lot itself is there, there’s no center island or anything
like that?
MR. BODKIN-We’re trying to ease center islands for ease of snowplowing removal, etc.
We do have some soft maples running down that left hand side next to catch basin two.
MR. SIPP-Yes, those are sugar maples, yes.
MR. BODKIN-Yes.
MR. SIPP-One thing here, for this new telephone service, electric service, new gas
service, all of this area is going to have to be disturbed, right?
MR. BODKIN-Correct.
MR. SIPP-And that future building? When is the future office building proposed?
MR. BODKIN-If you could tell me when that happens then we could all be rich, but, I’m
not sure at this point.
MR. SIPP-You going to have a new sewage grinder pump.
MR. BODKIN-That’s going in now.
MR. SIPP-Going in now, so the actually the new electric and the new..
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MR. BODKIN-All going in now.
MR. SIPP-Will go also but will stop at the proposed warehouse building.
MR. BODKIN-It comes all the way in. We’re putting in new electric, new sewer line, so
where you’re headed probably, is some of those trees that are there now are going to be
uprooted. True. Especially there’s a couple of them there, one is a memorial tree that
we planted a couple of years ago, in memory of a former employee, that’s going to be
uprooted, replanted off site, probably at Jim Girard’s until such time the site is ready for it
so we can bring it back along with a couple of others cause they have meaning to us and
we’re going to retain them along with others, so.
MR. SIPP-Well, also, Is this a whole new sewer line that’s going to be put in?
MR. BODKIN-Whole new holding tank.
MR. SIPP-Joins up with what is already existing.
MR. BODKIN-Goes to an existing connection on County Line Road.
MR. SIPP-And this is Warren County or is this Queensbury sewers.
MR. VOLLARO-Warren County.
MR. SIPP-Warren County.
MR. BODKIN-Warren-Washington, whatever.
MR. SIPP-You know around that pond…
MR. BODKIN-Based on location, this warehouse and the future expansion.
MR. FORD-You’re taking that future expansion into consideration with all of this.
MR. BODKIN-Yes, for the size and location so we can tie in. We only want to disturb the
ground here once.
MR. SIPP-To give you a buffer between the pond and the existing parking lot where this
disturbance of the new telephone line.
MR. BODKIN-Yes, in the current grass area.
MR. SIPP-No, I’d like to see some smaller trees put in there to give you a buffer between
that.
MR. BODKIN-That’s an existing green space there today between the pond and our
current parking lot.
MR. SIPP-Yes, but if you go east of that, up towards County Line Road.
MR. BODKIN-There’s a string of white birch trees through there today. The intent was
one has to be removed but they’ll be replanted after the excavation. So there is existing
white birch there along County Line Road today in the intersection of Hicks.
MR. SIPP-As long as when you tear something up, if you put it back. You know. Those
sugar maples, if you use a lot of salt, are not going to survive. At that size, you use a lot
of salt in that parking lot. They won’t do well. Sugar maple is susceptible to salt.
MR. BODKIN-Be replaced as required.
MR. VOLLARO-What would recommend in lieu of, are you talking about the ones that
are in the parking lot now?
MR. SIPP-No, the ones that they’ve proposed along the edge of the new entrance road.
MR. BODKIN-I think of the eight or nine or ten, whatever we had planted in the Phase
One expansion, I think we lost one of those maples over the last several years. I think
that was due to wet feet syndrome.
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MR. FORD-I think there were 10, weren’t there?
MR. SIPP-We got 10. They’ll survive quite a bit, but that size and if you use a lot of salt
on these parking lots, it’s gonna get to them.
MR. BODKIN-Yes, it’s a Jim Girard mixture, so whatever salt content there is.
MR. SIPP-There’s not much that will survive salt.
MR. VOLLARO-So, Don, let me ask you this. Are you satisfied generally satisfied with
the landscaping plan in this?
MR. SIPP-Yes, I think that you’ve got enough shrubs and perennials going in will make it
look nice. I would like to see a couple more red maple up in that, you’ve got two red
maple and that’s it on the new parking to the south of the, I think there’s room for some
more in there.
MR. NACE-Where’s this at?
MR. SIPP-Alright, to the south of the existing building you’ve got two red maple right
together on the center of the new parking lot. Now, I would think there would be a need
up at the other end, another couple of maples. Here, again.
MR. NACE-Right.
MR. NACE-We could probably put one up here towards the farm. I think we didn’t put
any on this island because of the light poles.
MR. BODKIN-Sure. Then across the way, there’s several hundred trees across the
driveway there in that wetland area. It’s all wooded.
MR. LAPPER-So is that okay, an additional red maple in that island?
MR. SIPP-Red maple will do better with the wetness of that area right there.
MR. VOLLARO-Don, I guess I’m not following this, there’s a new parking area with no
tree in it and you want a red maple in that area? Is that where you..
MR. SIPP-Yes, they’ve got two at the west end.
MR. NACE-We’re talking, Bob, we talking right here beside stormwater basin two.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, okay, I got it.
MR. NACE-We’re talking about putting an extra tree in here.
MR. SIPP-And then you move to the south there’s a couple more islands there which I
assume they’re for.
MR. FORD-Those are light posts.
MR. SIPP-Maybe on the east side of that, the east end of those new parking lanes, there
could be some more trees.
MR. BODKIN-On the east end it’s up next to the building, it’s in that area. That’s not an
option.
MR. SIPP-That’s open area right now.
MR. NACE-That’s blacktop area for that.
MR. SIPP-Blacktop. Well, to the east of that?
MR. VOLLARO-To the east of that you’ve got a building, you know, looking at.
MRS. STEFFAN-It doesn’t meet the code though, I mean this, when you look at it
according to Staff notes. The landscaping plan does not meet the code. 179.8-040.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. SIPP-Where’s the gazebo that I can see from the road?
MR. VOLLARO-So Don, what have you added to that, you’ve added what to the, cause
we’re trying to make a set of notes here for the tabling motion and we need to try to nail
this down.
MR. SIPP-I would say at least two, four, probably four to six more red maples in the area
designed for the new parking on the east side. How about up near the gazebo also?
MR. BODKIN-There’s one or two at the gazebo already. There’s no more room for more
maple trees
MR. SIPP-Okay. What is that, that’s not designated as.
MR. NACE-Existing or soft maple, sugar maple.
MRS. STEFFAN-One of the concerns I have here is in the Staff notes, it says very
specifically that there are two code sections, no landscaping is proposed between or
along the road edge between the two Hicks Road entrances and then the landscaping
plan does not provide a calculation of trees required for the parking lot, but it appears
that the new parking areas will require more trees to meet the standards. Both of those
are referred back to 179-8-040. So your plan is lacking vegetation, the trees that are
required according to code.
MR. VOLLARO-The Code gives him 23 and they don’t have 23 here. It doesn’t quite
meet the Code, but then again I’ve always had a problem with jamming trees into these
sites.
MRS. STEFFAN-But, then landscape strips along streams. I mean, this is very specific to
the Code.
MR. NACE-Code is 23 on the whole site, er?
MR. LAPPER-Tom has a suggestion that you might be satisfied with.
MR. NACE-What if we were to, okay, I think we can put maybe an extra two or three red
maples over I think where Don was talking about. We can put one here by the pond. We
have an island up here that’s not lighted, we could put one or two up here, but then what
if we were to go ahead and do some landscaping in here with this phase. Okay, we can
keep it out toward the road so it’s protected from damage when we come back to do this
parking lot in the future, but, get some landscaping, some street trees in here and some
shrubbery.
MR. HUNSINGER-Could you just leave some of the existing trees there and work
around them, perhaps?
MR. NACE-We can take a look if there’s anything, the existing trees right now end right
here.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. NACE-We can certainly look there to see if there’s anything worth saving once it’s
thinned out. I’m not sure, from what I saw.
MR. HUNSINGER-I was hoping I could find an easy, ah solution, you know.
MR. BODKIN-Those are scrub ash.
MRS. STEFFAN-I think certainly would satisfy the Code requirements and it is the same
standard we hold other applicants to so I think it’s the right thing to do.
MR. NACE-Okay, sure.
MR. BODKIN-It’s our long term goal to do that.
MRS. STEFFAN-Right, and since we don’t have a definite date when you’ll phase the
next pieces in, I think it’s a good thing to do proactively.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. LAPPER-We’re gonna put three red maples in the parking lot and then plant that
area along Hicks.
MR. VOLLARO-I think that’s the answer. That would be in the parking lot to the south of
the existing building.
MR. NACE-Let’s say to the south and east of stormwater basin number two.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, south and east of stormwater basin two, I see it. And there would
be how many going in there? Three?
MR. BODKIN-Three.
MR. VOLLARO-You said three, I think before.
MR. NACE-I said three and (lost words).
MR. VOLLARO-Three.
MRS. STEFFAN-I’m just gonna put some generic language, we’ve had the discussion
and you guys can follow up on that.
MR. VOLLARO-She’s going to use a generic description to satisfy the code and then.
MRS. STEFFAN-What other conditions have to be in this. I’ve got a lighting plan
alteration.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, that’s one.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, that’s there.
MR. LAPPER-CT Male sign-off. Verify the 20 ft. poles.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I think you’ve got that, do you have the 20 ft. poles?
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, on the lighting alterations.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I don’t really see anything else actually. Warren County, CT Male
sign-off. We’ll do the SEQR maybe next time around when all of this is settled down.
The lighting is covered. I don’t see anything else.
MRS. STEFFAN-There is a public hearing.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, there is a public hearing. Don’t get up cause I’m not sure that
anyone’s here that wants to talk to this from the public, but I’m going to open the public
hearing for anybody who’d like to speak to this application.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. VOLLARO- I’m looking at Mr. Salvador and he’s not looking at me, so that probably
means there’s probably nobody here to speak to this application. I will leave the public
hearing open.
MRS. STEFFAN-I’m going to make a motion to table site plan 37-2006 for Angio
Dynamics, 603 Queensbury Avenue, Queensbury. Today’s date, whereas a site plan
application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for a 35,500 sf
warehouse building and associated site work. We’re tabling this application with the
following conditions. That we receive a CT Male sign-off, that the applicant provide an
enhanced landscaping plan to satisfy zoning code requirements. That the applicant
verify 20 ft. pole heights on lighting. The fourth condition is that the lighting plan, is that
they provide a lighting plan alteration to satisfy calculations of the uniformity ratio.
MR. VOLLARO-It doesn’t have to be 4:1, Tom, you know, it’s gotta be close.
MR. LAPPER- Could we try and get this on for the first meeting in October, would that be
possible? If we get this back in a week. They are hoping to get this under construction in
October.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. HUNSINGER-I just commented to Tom, I might be the only person, I mean
personally I would feel comfortable approving it based on, I mean we didn’t go through
SEQR obviously, we haven’t considered SEQR yet, but if these are the only issues I feel
comfortable moving forward.
MR. SEGULJIC-These are the kind of projects we want.
MR. VOLLARO-Oh yes. Well, moving forward to an approval based on our approval for
SEQR? We’re doing SEQR tonight?
MRS. STEFFAN-We’re doing SEQR now.
MR. HUNSINGER-We’re doing SEQR tonight and doing a conditional approval.
MR. VOLLARO-I have no objective to that, we can go with that, so long as we’re going to
do that, though I do want to talk about a couple of sections in SEQR. So long as this
board feels it’s ready to go through and understands this application well enough to
answer all the questions accurately in SEQR, I won’t stand in the way of that. I’m not
necessarily a fan of doing that, but I’ll go along with the will of the board on that one. If
you want to move on SEQR tonight I’ll certainly participate in that. I think before we do
that however, I want to go over their Part I before we do that, and take a look at their Part
I before we do that, because I wasn’t anticipating going into SEQR tonight, I think Mr.
Hunsinger has a point however, we do want this kind of thing in the Town of Queensbury
and we can move.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, that’s not the, the point is these items, they seem pretty
minor. I mean, we’re talking about adding a few trees. The lighting plan alteration, I
think the lighting plan that was provided just isn’t a true reflection of what the
specifications, the cut sheet show. So I think there are some anomalies there, which I
think we could explain. So you’re left with the CT Male sign-off letter, which they
basically have in concept already and you know, we can condition it on that anyway. So
I’m just looking at the items that are lest outstanding and nothing jumps out as being real
insignificant.
MRS. STEFFAN- The other thing to consider is they’re gonna have to for example, re-do
the landscaping plan, re-do the lighting. If they come back, if we can get them back in, in
three weeks they’ll have all of their drawings finalized and we could wrap it up that night.
We can do it either way.
MR. HUNSINGER-I appreciate that.
MR. BODKIN-Three weeks could make a big difference with the construction cost, the
heating, but, you know, so If we could do it, I would certainly appreciate that.
MR. LAPPER-We’re ready to go.
MR. NACE-Yes, we’re ready.
MR. HUNSINGER-I was just raising my opinion.
MRS. STEFFAN-I can go either way.
MR. VOLLARO-I think Mr. Hunsinger has a valid point. I certainly feel that we can go the
extra mile here. It’s gonna take a little bit of time, cause I want to go through Part I and
try, I did not go through Part I myself, personally, except for 255 thing that I thought might
bother you. I did not want to have to go through the 440 ft. separation. Other than that, I
have not reviewed this, so I’m going to have take a few minutes to look at Part I and see
what your comments are on that. So you’ll have to bear with me a little bit. I suggest all
Board members do that, go through Part I and see if you’re satisfied with a lot of these
answers in here before we go to Part II.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m going to ask questions as I go. That 15%, this is under 3, what are
the predominant soil types on the site? The poorly drained areas at 15%, that’s basically
the wetland area
MR. NACE-That’s the wetlands.
44
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. VOLLARO-Correct. Okay. Now, when you say the depth to ground water here, is a,
the depth of the water table is zero to five. The zero is again down near the wetland
area, I would presume, right?
MR. NACE-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-And since you don’t have to deal with on-site septic I’m not worried
about the depth below the field itself. Have we come to a resolution on the parking, in
one place it’s 405, the other place it’s 357?
MR. LAPPER-357.
MR. VOLLARO-So 357 is the correct number.
MR. LAPPER-Since your SEQR is going to contemplate the future expansion, can you
MR. VOLLARO-405 is what you.
MR. LAPPER-Ultimately.
MR. VOLLARO-Right, so we don’t segment the SEQR.
MR. LAPPER-Right, exactly.
MR. VOLLARO-Right, I’ve got it. The second phase would be a twelve month build cycle
and you’re estimating 2008, that’s your best guess. Okay.
MR. BODKIN-For completion, yes.
MR. VOLLARO-There’s Number Nine of.
MR. NACE-That’s because the darn form doesn’t have a blank there and I meant to
come back and write it in.
MR. VOLLARO-It doesn’t. I created it, but I corrected it. I put a blank in for myself so
what should go in there. Is that the 177 we’ve been seeing? It talks about number of
jobs generated during construction.
MR. NACE-Number of jobs after project is complete, Randy?
MR. VOLLARO-It would be 15? After construction there’s a blank.
MR. BODKIN-They filled that in for us pretty much. The press has filled that in, I guess
over the next five years it could be upwards of additional 300, which was much high than
what I had, you know I, talked about here.
MR. VOLLARO-With this phase, phase I, this new building, this warehouse. By the way,
this warehouse or does it house construction capability, manufacturing.
MR. BODKIN-It frees up additional manufacturing and the old warehouse will be able to
be expanded into. This area is 6000 sq. ft. on the first floor, 6000 sq. ft. on the second
floor. Parts of this warehouse is office space and the rest of it is warehouse and
distribution. High bay racks.
MR. VOLLARO-So you don’t have any manufacturing in this building?
MR. BODKIN-No.
MR. LAPPER-But they’ll be able to convert existing manufacturing space, excuse me,
existing warehouse space to manufacturing space.
MR. VOLLARO-In some other place.
MR. BODKIN-In the current warehouse. We’ve had conversations with Staff on that
already and through multiple discussions.
MR. VOLLARO-So I need to get a number in here, after the project is complete?
MR. BODKIN-Put 150 in there.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, 150. It just should be filled in so we have it. Just for my own
edification, there’s nothing to this, where do you get most of your people from, local?
Most of them?
MR. BODKIN-Yes, the assembly type jobs are local.
MR. VOLLARO-You train them up to do what they have to do.
MR. BODKIN-Right, right. Part of our growth in the future years is engineering and
research development. So a lot of those jobs are coming from outside to here.
MRS. STEFFEN-They come from outside the country, often.
MR. BODKIN-What’s that?
MRS. STEFFEN-They often come from outside the country.
MR. BODKIN-You got one starting from outside the country, yes.
MR. VOLLARO-I noticed from taking a look Tom, some of our engineering enrollments in
some of the engineering colleges have started to increase.
MR. NACE-Really?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, very little, but yeah. You know, we’ve been on the down slope for
like the last 15 years, people prefer basket-weaving to engineering.
MR. NACE-Sometimes I don’t blame them.
MR. BODKIN-Engineering will drive you to basket-weaving.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, I’ve looked at this. I don’t have any problems with what’s in Phase
I. I think the only thing we’re gonna do is to take out the 255 trips generated per hour
would be you’ve got to put something in there that doesn’t trigger the 440 foot
requirement.
MR. NACE-Put the total for four entrances.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay we can do that and let the distribution fall where it may. Okay.
Alright, Gretchen do you want to start off on, I’m happy. If everybody else is ready to go
with SEQR, I’ll go with it.
MR. FORD-Let’s go.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Will the proposed action result in the physical change to the
project site?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. FORD-Yes.
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-What are the impacts? Small to moderate?
MR. VOLLARO-Small to moderate as far as I can see. I don’t see major impacts to the
site over and above what’s impacted already, so this is small to moderate.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay, let me go through the criteria.
MR. SCHACHNER-What’s the change? Before you characterize the magnitude, you
have to pick a change.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay, any construction of slopes of 15% or greater. 15 ft. rise per 100
ft. of length or where the general slopes in the project area exceed 10%.
MR. VOLLARO-In their Part I, it does not.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MRS. STEFFAN-Construction on land where the depth to the water table is less than 3
ft. Doesn’t apply.
MR. VOLLARO-They have 0 to 5, so they’re okay I feel. In their Part I, they say 0 to 5, 0
being on the wetland and 5 being, 5 is greater than 3, so I think they’re okay there.
MRS. STEFFAN-Construction of a paved parking area for 1,000 or more vehicles?
Doesn’t apply.
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Construction on land where bedrock is exposed or generally within 3 ft.
of existing ground surface.
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MR. FORD-No.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Construction that will continue for more than one year or involve more
than one phase or stage. Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-I guess we could say yes there.
MR. VOLLARO-The answer is yes to that, cause they’re talking two stages. They’ve got
two stages listed in Part I.
MR. HUNSINGER-They said it could be 15 months.
MRS. STEFFAN- But, is it a small to moderate impact, a potential larger, or can the
impact be mitigated by a project change?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, it’s small to moderate impact.
MR. VOLLARO-Small to moderate I would think.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay, and then the last example, excavation for mining purposes that
would remove more than 1,000 tons of natural material, rock or soil per year.
MR. VOLLARO-No, they haven’t stated that in here, but it looks like there’s gonna be
nothing removed off that site that would require, for example trucking onto either of those
arteries.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay, so. Number 1, the answer was yes, construction will continue for
more than one year but it was a small to moderate impact.
MR. BAKER-Mrs. Steffan, there’s actually two other questions under the item on the top
of the following page.
MRS. STEFFAN-I just flipped it over and found it, thanks.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sanitary land fill or designated flood way, both of which are no.
MRS. STEFFAN-And both don’t apply. Okay, will there be an effect to unique or unusual
land forms found on the site.
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MR. FORD-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action effect any water body designated as
protected?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. VOLLARO-No.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action effect any non-protected existing or new body
of water?
MR. SIPP-No.
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action effect surface or ground-water quality or
quantity?
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action alter drainage flows, patterns, or surface water
run-off?
MR. HUNSINGER-I’d say no.
MRS. STEFFAN-The examples are the proposed action would change flood water
flows? Which I don’t think applies. Proposed action could cause substantial erosion.
Proposed action is incompatible with existing drainage patterns. Proposed action will
allow development in a designated flood way.
MR. VOLLARO-I’d say no to all of those.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay, so will the proposed action alter drainage flows, patterns, or
surface water run-off? The answer is no.
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect air quality?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect or threaten any endangered species?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action substantially affect non-threatened or non-
endangered species?
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect agricultural land resources?
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect aesthetic resources?
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action impact any site or structure of historic,
prehistoric or palentological importance?
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect the quantity or quality of existing or
future open spaces or recreational opportunities?
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS.STEFFAN-Will the proposed action impact the exceptional or unique
characteristics of a critical environmental area established pursuant to subdivision
6NYCRR617.14?
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will there be an affect to existing transportation systems?
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect the communities sources of fuel or
energy supply?
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will there be objectionable odors, noise or vibration as a result of the
proposed action?
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect public health and safety?
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect the character of the existing community?
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Is there, or is there likely to be public controversy related to potential
adverse environmental impacts?
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Then, I will make a motion for a negative SEQR declaration.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’ll second.
RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE
RESOLUTION NO. 37-2006, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Chris Hunsinger:
WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for:
ANGIO DYNAMICS, and
WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning
Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED:
1. No Federal agency appears to be involved.
2. The following agencies are involved:
NONE
3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of
Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental
Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury.
4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant.
5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental
concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has
a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New
York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will
have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board
is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a
statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by
law.
th
Duly adopted this 26 day of September, 2006, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Hunsinger, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ford, Mr. Vollaro
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mrs. Bruno
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, with SEQRA out of the way, I opened the public hearing. I’ll now
close the Public Hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MR. VOLLARO-We are going to an approval with conditions, right?
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. We don’t have a motion so I’m drafting, I’m putting this together,
okay.
MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 37-2006 ANGIO DYNAMICS, Introduced by
Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford:
Whereas a site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for
the following: The applicant proposes a 35,500 square foot warehouse building and
associated site work. Whereas a public hearing was advertised and was held on
9/26/06. Whereas this application is supported with all documentation, public comment
and application material in the file of record, and Whereas pursuant to relevant sections
of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code (Chapter 179) the Planning Board has
determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning
Code, and where appropriate the requirements of the State Environmental Quality
Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA
Negative Declaration. Whereas, final approved plans, in compliance with the site plan,
must be submitted to the Community Development Department before any further review
by the Zoning Administrator or Building and Codes personnel. Subsequent issuance of
further permits, including building permits, are dependent upon receipt. Now, Therefore,
Be It Resolved, that we find: That this application is hereby approved with the following
condition:
1.That the applicant receive a C.T. Male signoff.
2.That an enhanced landscaping plan be submitted to Staff to satisfy Zoning
Code requirements.
3.That the applicant verify the 20 foot pole height on lighting.
4.That a lighting plan alteration be submitted to comply with Town Zoning
Uniformity Ratios.
th
Duly adopted this 26 day of September, 2006, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Vollaro
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mrs. Bruno
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. You’re all set.
MR. LAPPER-Thank you.
MR. BODKIN-Thank you very much.
MRS. STEFFAN-Good luck.
50
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
SITE PLAN NO. 57-2005 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED NORTHEAST DINING &
LODGING AGENT(S): THE CHAZEN CO. OWNER(S): RICHARD CUNNINGHAM
ZONING HC-INTENSIVE LOCATION NORTH QUAKER ROAD APPLICANTS
PROPOSE A 10,330 SQ. FT. RESTAURANT AND ASSOCIATED SITE WORK.
RESTAURANTS REQUIRE SITE PLAN REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. NEW
INFORMATION HAS BEEN SUBMITTED BY THE APPLICANT IN RESPONSE TO THE
AUGUST 15, 2006 TABLING. CROSS REFERENCE AV 68-2005 WARREN CO.
PLANNING 10/12/05 LOT SIZE 3.104 ACRES TAX MAP NO.296.18-1-6 SECTION
179-4-020
JON LAPPER & CHRIS ROUND, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. VOLLARO-The public hearing is still open. I would just like to make one comment,
and I would like to congratulate Mr. Baker, Stu Baker, on the completeness and
thoroughness of the Staff notes, the way they’re written. I think this is, in my view at
least, the way Staff notes should be presented to this Board. Thanks a lot, Stu.
MR. BAKER-You’re welcome. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-I won’t have Mr. Baker read these notes. They’re fairly lengthy and
reasonably compact in the information that they present. I will ask this. Have all Board
th
members read these Staff notes of September 26?
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes.
MR. FORD-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes.
MR. FORD-I have one correction, though.
MR. VOLLARO-Sure, Mr. Ford.
MR. FORD-On the second page of the issues from 8/15/06, motion to table, the second
bullet on the next page, ingress and egress will be right in/right out only directed by an
island with a mountable curbing, and that I believe is inaccurate.
MR. LAPPER-You’re right.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. FORD-It is a right out only.
MR. LAPPER-Still left out.
MR. ROUND-Full movement in, prohibited left out.
MR. BAKER-It’s full movement in?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. BAKER-Okay.
MR. LAPPER-Mr. Chairman, since we were here last, we’ve made some submittals, and
so I guess we’d like to go through, in terms of, for the record, to just go through how we
responded to the items that you had requested, and then we had C.T. Male comments
and we responded to those comments, and now we have Staff comments. So we’d like
to just bring the Board up to speed, to just review our submittal, and then we can talk
about it, if that’s okay with you.
st
MR. VOLLARO-This is the submittal of August 21?
MR. LAPPER-Yes, and then we’ve just received C.T. Male comments last week, which
we w have response that obviously we couldn’t give you. We’ve submitted written
response to them, but we will just go over our response, just so that the record is
complete.
51
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. VOLLARO-Go forward, sure.
th
MR. ROUND-Thank you. Chris Round, for the record. We were last here August 15.
We provided you with a response to these seven items which were raised and were
identified in the tabling motion, and I’m not going to read each of those, but I just have
some slides, just to talk about what our response was, just so that you’re clear on what
our response provided to you. First was estimate of excavated soils. We provided a
calculation which indicated 13,625 cubic feet of excavated material would come out of
the site. That’s the cut, and then also 9,875 fill to be brought back on site. Those
numbers differ from the numbers that we’ve been talking about historically because
we’ve applied this 25% expansion factor, which is a rule of thumb that, you know, when
you excavate soils they expand from their compacted nature, and so C.T. Male reviewed
those numbers and found a slight differing in opinion and their difference was based on,
they assumed a six foot cut where the retaining wall is to be placed versus our proposal
for four foot cut. The geo technical report does not say six feet of cut. It does say
removal of organic soils, and then placement of fill. I think C.T. Male assumed a six foot
cut. We’ve assumed a four foot cut. They’re both reasonable assumptions. Rather than
argue that point, the issue with the cut and fill calculations was the amount of truck traffic
that was to be generated as a result of that.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s the most significant outfall of material in and material out. That’s
correct.
MR. ROUND-Right. So that was the reason you folks wanted an accurate calculation for
that particular issue. So what we agreed, you know, rather than continue to debate a
particular element of fact, we said let’s, for the purposes, let’s use the C.T. Male estimate
for generating truck traffic, and a conservative estimate, at the end of the day, equates to
four truck trips per hour, assuming the C.T. Male calculation is valid, and that’s four truck
trips, four trucks leaving the site under the excavation portion, smaller number of trucks
per hour would be leaving the site under, to bring the fill.
MR. VOLLARO-We had a total number of trucks that we have to deal with, however. We
have 1670 trucks.
MR. ROUND-That’s correct. That’s 1670 trucks over an eight week period, and we had
mentioned in our previous conversation, back in August, that there’s over 20,000
vehicles on the roadway, and I’d have to look to Michael Hartman. The existing truck
volumes are on the order of, 10% of that volume is, if you recall, it’s in our prior submittal
that was before you last month that the volume of trucks that would be increased as a
result of the construction phase, again, a temporary short term impact, would be
negligible with regard to the additional truck traffic on the existing highway, and we’ve
mentioned that, four trucks per hour.
MR. FORD-While you’re addressing that, I would like to address it as well, because if
you consider four truck loads coming out per hour, that’s four empty trucks hour going
back on site. So that really doubles your truck traffic, and it really amounts to 3340
trucks, if we, because we can’t just consider a truck and its impact on traffic when it is
leaving full. We have to also consider that same truck coming back on Quaker Road and
entering the site.
MR. LAPPER-Our statistics, we talk about truck trips. So it’s entering the site and
leaving the site. So that’s correct, but what Chris just stated for the record, because now
we’re talking about four truck trips per hour, four in and four out, and that’s compared to,
if there’s 2,000 trucks a day on Quaker Road and there’s very good sight visibility on a
straight area of the road, and there’s gaps because of the traffic light.
MR. FORD-So you’re referring to round trip?
MR. LAPPER-Yes. We’re talking about the round trip, but we’re making the point that it’s
an insignificant addition to the trucks that are already on Quaker Road and Quaker Road
is certainly designed to handle that and it’s a short term, temporary impact during
construction. So, while, you know, we’ve been talking about this for the last few weeks
about trucks, we view that as a pretty minor part of this construction process, you know,
much less significant that Home Depot. The same site contractor looked at that site, did
that site is looking at this site, and he said, you know, you could build four restaurants for
what came out of the Home Depot site. I mean, so there’s nothing special or unique
about this. The Target site needed an incredible amount of fill removed, and that wasn’t
even an issue before this Board, nor was it for Home Depot, at Lowe’s, I mean, this is a
much smaller site. So, yes, we’ve been talking about that issue. We think C.T. Male
52
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
pretty much agreed with Chris’ numbers. They added 25% because they want to be
conservative, and we understand that, but there’s not a big difference, other than 25%
they added just to be conservative. So we just want the record to show that we don’t feel
that that’s significant.
MR. FORD-I appreciate your opinion.
MR. VOLLARO-I think the significance that I see in this is that while this is 1670 trucks,
what you gave us as a requirement in your 8/21 submission was 800 trucks. So I see a
difference between what you gave us then and what we have now, almost a 100%
different in trucks.
MR. ROUND-I think, as you did previous application is you identified how many would be
generated, and it is 800, and if you either count it as a single trip to the site, it’s 800. If
you double that, if you want to count it as break out trips entering and exiting, it will be
double that amount, and our previous submittal said 800 trips out of the site. The EAF
had a corresponding number, consistent with what was on the record last month, and
consistent with what was on the record this month.
MR. LAPPER-There’s no issue with a truck turning in.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I guess the basic issue that I have here, in my mind, is when we
did the original SEQRA and we talked about the amount of fill, we talked about 10,000
cubic yards.
MR. ROUND-That’s correct.
MR. VOLLARO-And that was the mindset that this Board had at the time they entered
into SEQRA. We are now looking at 24,160 yards.
MR. ROUND-No, you’re not.
MR. VOLLARO-We are, as far as I can see.
MR. ROUND-No. The amount of excavated material, the formal EAF asks how much fill
is to be removed from the site. We are on record for 10,900 cubic yards that evening,
th
and in the evening of August the 15. Our calculation that we presented in response to
your question was 10,900 cubic yards, continues to be 10,900 cubic yards. That’s the
amount of excavated material. The volume of excavated material that will be trucked
converts by an expansion factor of 25%. So that’s not a new number, and then C.T.
Male agreed with that, with the exception of a two foot difference in the amount of
excavated material associated with the retaining wall.
MR. FORD-Which you’re not debating. You’re accepting that.
MR. ROUND-No. We don’t believe that’s the amount that needs to be excavated, but for
the purpose of generating truck trips, rather than argue, every time we’ve been here, it’s
been, we don’t like your number. We want to see another number. Rather than debate
that, you know, our goal is to give you the information you need. We’ve continually given
you 10,900 cubic yards, and that’s consistent with your environmental assessment form
that was presented to you and reviewed in the SEQRA Neg Dec issue. That number’s
there, but for the sake of generating truck traffic, you know, if you want to use a more
conservative number, you’re welcome to use that number, and again, that number is not
different than the number that we’ve put on our EAF. It’s 800 truck trips, that is a trip. If
you want to calculate them, that was leaving the site. If you want to count it entering the
site and leaving the site and call that 1600, that’s a reasonable way to characterize that
data. It’s still the same data.
MR. LAPPER-It’s 3.4 truck trips per hour during that short construction period, versus
four truck trips per hour. So we feel that that’s an insignificant difference because four
trucks and hour, when you’re talking about 2,000 trucks a day, is just not significant, on a
straight section of Quaker Road.
MR. FORD-How many of those 2,000 trucks are at a pace that those trucks will be,
entering and leaving the site?
MR. ROUND-I guess I don’t understand the question.
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MR. FORD-Is drawing a comparison between actual moving vehicles, truck traffic at
whatever pace it’ll be, 30, 35, 40, 45 miles an hour, as compared to those trucks which
will be entering and exiting the site.
MR. LAPPER-Trucks stop to make deliveries. You can have tractor trailer trucks at Mark
Plaza next door for the furniture store. They have break lights. There’s trucks that stop
at the intersection at Lafayette because there’s a traffic light. I mean, there’s just nothing
unusual about, you know, construction trucks have a sign on the back that says don’t
tailgate construction vehicle. We just don’t think that there’s anything unusual about it.
MR. ROUND-I think your concern is there’s two different issues there, you know, the
volume speaks to a capacity issue, is there capacity on the highway. There’s not a
capacity issue. Is there a concern about vehicle safety, vehicle entering the site. That is
a normal construction activity that’s done on any construction site. There’s an adequate
shoulder width. There’s adequate sight distances. So there’s not a particular unique
circumstance on Quaker Road, the largest road in the County, and it’s one of the highest
volumes, second highest volumes in the County. It’s a facility designed to handle truck
traffic. We talked last month that the truck traffic, I think your concern is that it’s a
significant number. We see the traffic impacts of the site when built is more significant
than the activity that will take place during construction. When built, we will be
generating a significant volume of traffic, and through our Traffic Impact Analysis, we
indicated that would not have a negative impact on the highway system. So to take a
single number of trucks during a short, very short period of time, and say that that is
going to cause a significant problem and that is new rather than the facility when built,
that seems to be arbitrary.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, one of the things that doesn’t compute in here is that when we
asked, I think, analysis of materials to be removed from the site, specifically the amount
of fill to be removed and the amount to be brought in, and the estimated truck trips,
what’s missing in that is how far do these trucks have to go and how long.
MR. ROUND-I didn’t hear that, though, in that first statement, Mr. Vollaro.
MR. VOLLARO-We never got that piece of information. That’s missing.
MR. ROUND-We provided that last month when we were in front of you. We indicated
that we did not identify.
MR. VOLLARO-You said you didn’t know. I have the record that says you don’t know.
MR. ROUND-I said we did not identify a fill site. We said we suspect, we have not
contracted for the construction of this, and when the facility was contracted for
construction, we’d have a definitive answer for that. We said based on our knowledge
and based on our consultation with Frye Companies. Frye was a site contractor.
There’s correspondence in there.
MR. VOLLARO-I read your attachment from Frye.
MR. ROUND-We know Galusha. We know O’Connor. All these folks have pits in either
western, excuse me, eastern Queensbury in the area of 149, or in Fort Ann. That’s
where most of the sand and gravel pits are located in our region.
MR. VOLLARO-But we don’t have a calculation to show how long a truck takes to get
there, how long it takes to get back.
MR. ROUND-I don’t think that was asked for last time. If you look at your record, it
wasn’t said how long in time does it take a truck to travel to the site. I don’t know what
bearing that has on this particular project, if it’s a 20 minute trip or a 30 minute trip.
MR. VOLLARO-It does because you’re saying four trucks per hour. It may not be.
MR. ROUND-Well, that doesn’t say that there’s going to be just four trucks servicing the
construction activity. There may be more than that.
MR. VOLLARO-You’ve got to know what the size of the fleet is, and that’s another thing
we don’t know.
MR. ROUND-That’s not the case. You don’t, that’s not an issue. Somebody might serve
this site with four trucks. Somebody might service this site with four trucks. Somebody
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might serve it with 16. Regardless, there’s, the volume of fill that could be loaded on to
a truck at any given point, given, you have one excavator, excavating the site, putting it
on to the truck, that’s a fair assumption to make. It takes more than, you can’t fill a truck
instantaneously. It takes time to excavate and it takes time to fill a truck. So filling a
truck once every 15 minutes is a fair estimate, and it was not a comment of C.T. Male,
and in their response to our submittal, they did not raise that issue. That issue of travel
time was not raised last month or the month before or the four previous times that it was
in front of the Board.
MR. VOLLARO-No, it was.
MR. ROUND-Truck travel time was not identified. I would like to see the record.
MR. VOLLARO-We asked in the record how far were the cut and fill, and you said you
didn’t know.
MR. ROUND-We said we didn’t know. We suspected that it would be from Fort Ann or
Queensbury, and I just don’t know, how is travel time germane to the impact of the site
activity?
MR. LAPPER-Beyond that, these were not questions that were raised in Home Depot or
Pyramid.
MR. VOLLARO-We’re not talking about.
MR. LAPPER-But those were much bigger cut and fill projects on Quaker Road. This is,
you know, a small site.
MR. ROUND-What would be the maximum number of trucks that would, during
construction, that would enter and leave the site in a given day?
MR. ROUND-Four per hour, for an eight hour shift.
MR. HUNSINGER-Four per hour, so 32 trucks.
MR. VOLLARO-No, it turns out to be less than that, actually. You’ve got to figure that
there’s a seven hour shift here. People aren’t going to run trucks, trucking isn’t going to
operate on an eight hour day. They have to have an hour for lunch. I calculated 21
trucks per day.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-In my calculation.
MR. HUNSINGER-So that would even make the impact smaller.
MR. VOLLARO-Over a longer period of time, is what it turns out to be
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I’m just trying to get a handle on, I don’t understand the
concern from the Board, from members of the Board, about the truck traffic. The
average daily traffic on Quaker Road is 24,000 trips a day. So even if you added the
maximum, say 32 trucks, it’s a thousandth of the existing traffic. That would be the
equivalent of putting this piece of paper on top of this stack. I mean, it’s so negligible, it’s
not even worth the time that we already spent discussing it.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s what you said last time, Chris, and I really disagree with that.
MR. HUNSINGER-One out of a thousand, Bob, is what we’re talking about.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t care. These trucks still have to get onto Quaker Road. You’re
going to have to have a flagman there depending if they go right or they’re going to cross
traffic and go left, whichever way they’re going to go. This is an impact to Quaker Road,
as far as I’m concerned.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, then let’s talk about mitigate measures instead of volumes.
Because volumes are insignificant.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t think so. I think they all go hand and glove in the calculation.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
NIRAL PATEL
MR. PATEL-Is the concern of the impact safety of civilians? I mean, I’m just trying to
understand, so I’m clear.
MR. SIPP-It’s definitely.
MR. PATEL-Okay.
MR. SIPP-Because you’ve got a loaded truck leaving there. If it makes a left turn at one
or two miles an hour at low, low gear, how long does it take him to make that left turn? Is
there traffic being held up? Is it being stopped, or is it continuing as it was? That’s a
safety point is to see that these people who are traveling on Quaker Road at 35, 40, 50
miles an hour do not come up upon a loaded truck creeping out of this site in order to get
to the point where he’s going to dump his load. The same way coming back, where it
may have to make a left turn into the facility. There’s a safety factor here.
MR. PATEL-The only concern I have is, there is, and what’s funny about that, to me, is
that, you know, what I don’t understand is Chris mentioned something last time whether
the Board was somewhat predisposed on this project, whether they had a disposition
pre-considered, but now we’re talking about safety, and we’re talking about the Home
Depot job, which probably was 400 times the size of my job.
MR. SIPP-That had the traffic signal.
MR. PATEL-If I may finish. I have a vacant site that’s in close proximity to a traffic signal
which has been proven through a Traffic Impact Statement that there’s enough time,
enough gaps for ingress and egress of X amount of cars, let alone four trucks an hour,
and by the way, I did the math on 20,000 cars a day, that’s two thousandths of a percent
increase, two thousandths of one percent increase out of the traffic on Quaker Road.
Furthermore, the Home Depot plaza has approximately 250,000 square feet of occupied
retail space, children, family, post office, restaurants, office space and everything else,
but safety wasn’t a concern there, to the point where.
MR. VOLLARO-But that’s not before us tonight. That’s not before this Board tonight.
We’re not looking at this evening.
MR. ROUND-I can respond to Mr. Sipp. I think that is a fair concern, is trucks leaving the
site, will that cause a safety concern. We have agreed to restrict left hand turns from our
site during operation. We would agree to restrict left hand turns from our site during the
construction process, eliminating that left hand turn movement. That certainly would
mitigate or eliminate, not just mitigate, eliminate, any safety concern from construction
traffic.
MR. SIPP-Chris, you’ve still got a truck at two miles an hour pulling out of this site.
MR. ROUND-But this is Quaker Road where there are those vehicles traveling every
day. It is a two lanes in that direction, and then there’s an additional 15 to 20 foot
shoulder. That is a normal movement. This is Quaker Road. Where are we to have
trucks turning in and out of a site if not on a four lane highway, and a four lane highway
with an unstriped center turning lane. Every construction project on Quaker Road has
had truck traffic associated with it, and I don’t know that that’s been an issue that’s been
raised for any project in front of you previously, and I think that is new to this particular
project. It is a valid concern and I think that it’s properly addressed through restricting
left hand turns out of the site by trucks.
MR. FORD-Good. I’m glad we agree it’s a valid concern. That’s where I’m coming from,
safety.
MR. ROUND-We can address that. We’re here to address concerns. We can’t, I mean,
the question about how long does it take a truck to travel to the site, I don’t know that
that’s a safety concern. A truck leaving the site is a safety concern.
MR. VOLLARO-No, it’s not safety, but it’s impact on the road.
MR. ROUND-And I think the answer that we gave you is that there’s 20,000 vehicles on
the road, and regardless of, and there’s nearly 1,000 heavy vehicles on the road.
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MR. VOLLARO-But, you know, this idea of vehicles on the road doesn’t wash with me at
all, because if I’ve got a stream of vehicles and I just drop a couple into that stream, that
doesn’t bother a damn thing. What bothers it is when I cross that stream of traffic at right
angles, that’s a big impact.
MR. ROUND-And we’ve agreed to restrict that movement. So we hear your concern. I
think we’ve answered it.
MR. SIPP-Now, if you take Mr. Ford’s pictures of accidents on Quaker Road, which
happen coming out of the bank or coming out of the doctor’s office across the road, there
have been several of them with cars.
MR. LAPPER-That is anecdotal evidence, because we provided traffic data that said that
this road has low accidents, for other roads under guidelines. You can’t say that Quaker
Road is a dangerous road. I mean, people can do dumb things anywhere, but there’s
very good sight distance and there’s four lanes, plus a center turning.
MR. SIPP-A 15 cubic yard truck is not a station wagon.
MR. LAPPER-I guess if we jump ahead to where we’re going to get probably in an hour,
that for whatever reasons there are some members of the Board that seem to have been
pre-disposed, that there were traffic issues here, you know, our job, my job is somewhat
of a mediator to try and address the concerns of the Board and to change the project to
satisfy the Board. Chris just said in that vein, hey, if it’s really a safety issue, then if we
eliminate left turns out with trucks, and it’s only a right turn out, that addresses it, but it
just seems that every time we come up with a suitable answer, it doesn’t make the issue
go away. I mean, we know that Tom, who I have a lot of respect for, works next door,
and so he’s particularly focused on this and he said that probably in November when we
first started talking about it, but that said, we provided parking, or excuse me, traffic data
which was reviewed by C.T. Male. We talked about, you know, we went to the County.
We have the County conceptual approval. It’s just not an issue. There’s not a traffic
issue on that road, and there certainly isn’t with truck traffic. So we don’t understand why
this project, which seems pretty simple to us and to some Board members, to put a
restaurant in practically the only zone in Queensbury where you’re allowed to put a
restaurant has gotten you guys so worked up. We just have a hard time understanding
that. So we’re here to deal with the issues as they come up. It’s a safety issue. We’re
happy to agree to say no left turns for trucks out of the site. We think that should dispose
of the issue.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I still don’t understand, we went into SEQRA at 10,000 cubic yards.
I don’t understand now where we’re at 24,160 cubic yards, how those things equate into
there’s no difference.
MR. ROUND-I think, Bob, if I might, the calculation was 10,000 cubic yards. It’s how
much fill would be removed from the site, what is the excavated material? You’re now
counting material excavated from the site and fill brought to the site.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s correct.
MR. ROUND-And the question that was answered was answered accurately, and it
remains accurate.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t think so.
MR. ROUND-Would you read the question from the SEQRA form if you’d like, and
maybe we can clarify that.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t have that in front of me, but we can certainly get it, but I feel that
when we went into SEQRA we were assuming 10,000 cubic yards. We are now up to
24,160.
MR. ROUND-You can’t count fill twice.
MR. VOLLARO-We’re not counting fill twice.
MR. ROUND-You are counting it twice. Can you read to me from C.T. Male’s letter what
their numbers are? And C.T. Male indicated, and I’ll read it for you, on the bottom of the
page it says, in summary, if six feet were used in lieu of four feet, it doesn’t say use six
feet, this would bring the total volume of cut to 10,250 cubic yards, rounded. Our number
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
was 10,900. I don’t see that as significantly different. The SEQRA form asks for the
amount of excavation to be removed from the site, will be removed, and the answer was
10,900. Your consultant says if six feet were used instead of four, 11,250 cubic yards.
That’s a difference of 350 cubic yards. That seems minor when we’re dealing with a
volume of that significance. You may feel differently, but we believe it to be minor.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’ve also looked at this 1670 trucks, and was looking for the math
piece that I did, but I think I used your 20 minutes per interval, 20 minutes, and I came up
with I believe 21 trucks per day or 105 trucks per week, divided in 1,670 trucks, and I
came out with 16 weeks.
MR. ROUND-You’re using a lower number that we used. You assumed a seven hour
work day. We proposed eight. I think you can slice it and dice it any way you want. We
presented numbers we believed were valid and your engineer did not dispute.
MR. VOLLARO-What I look at, when I look at that, I see 16 weeks, or four months of
traffic interference at right angles on Quaker Road, fundamentally, that’s what I see.
MR. ROUND-I think we’ve moved beyond that we’ve agreed that a right hand out only
would be acceptable and we proposed that and would make it part of the record. So I
think that issue does go away.
MR. VOLLARO-But that’s a different issue than we looked at SEQRA. We have new
information to look at now.
MR. ROUND-The same amount of fill. The same project, same construction activity. I
don’t believe that it is different.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. FORD-They were presenting before and I raised a question about the number of
truck loads, and so maybe we ought to let them get back to their presentation.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, go ahead back on that. I’m not happy with it, but go forward with it
anyway.
st
MR. ROUND-Yes. We presented the cut and fill calculations in our August 21
correspondence. C.T. Male corresponded to you and to us as well in their September
th
19 correspondence and we’ve talked about the volume of excavated material consistent
with what was identified on the EAF, and we’ve talked about truck traffic, and we’ve
agreed to prohibit a left hand turn for construction vehicles out of the site consistent with
the build condition. The Chairman identified last month that the SWPPP, Page 25, had
identified incorrectly on our form a 25 year storm volume, storm events have been used
for design of the system. We noted again in our reply that it was indeed a 100 year
storm as we had articulated at the meeting that evening. I think Staff notes commented
that they did not receive a revised SWPPP. We have a revised page for your records. I
think we talked about it. I think the Chairman was kind enough. I think, hey, it’s probably
an error and bears correcting and we agreed that it was. The Fire Marshal had a number
of comments that were transmitted to us after that meeting. We didn’t have them in
advance of our meeting last month. Those five issues were about emergency vehicle
access, the request for a hydrant. The Fire Marshal identified that there’s an existing
preemptive signal control at the Lafayette Street signal that is not functioning correctly
right now, asked for a building floor plan and then asked for cooperation in regards to
siting our fire protection, fire suppression equipment controls, referred to as SDC,
sprinkler and other information as part of the building permit process, and we agreed to
all of those elements. We demonstrated that the fire company’s vehicle that they had
identified to us, they provided us with truck turning radius. We demonstrated it could
enter the site without any prohibition. The concern was that there would be tipping of the
vehicle. The Fire Marshal and the Fire Chief for Central looked at that and said it was
not an issue. I think there was concern that we only showed a left hand turn movement.
That was the movement that the Fire Department had a concern with. In fact both
movements, either the right or the left, could be made without any interference of our
lamb chop that prohibits the left hand turn out of the site. Regardless, we modified the
lamb chop to use a mountable curb, so that means it’s, instead of a vertical curb, it’s
angled, and that would further eliminate any concern from the Fire Department, and
they’ve looked at that and accepted that as well.
MR. VOLLARO-They wrote that off.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. ROUND-Site hydrant. We installed that. They agreed to that. Preemptive signal
control, there was some concern that there’s malfunctioning equipment. What we did is
we didn’t say we would not fix that. We think that’s an existing condition that’s an
existing malfunctioning piece of equipment and it should be fixed today, and it should not
wait until such time as we receive an approval and construct our facility. We passed that
information on to Warren County Department of Public Works, and we also passed it on
to A/GFTC, Aaron Frankenfeld. They took note of that. The County has two projects, an
access management project as well as a signal timing, intersection improvement project
that’s currently underway, and the indication from Lisa Penistan at Warren County is that
they will address that issue. So we’re satisfied with that and we’re glad that was brought
to our attention.
MR. HUNSINGER-Can I just ask, what’s the problem with the signal now?
MR. ROUND-I don’t know. What happens is that when an emergency vehicle
approaches the signal, they can actuate a signal and control the signal and allow them
free movement through the intersection.
MR. HUNSINGER-That’s what doesn’t work?
MR. ROUND-It’s malfunctioning right now, and we said, hey, you should fix it now, it
shouldn’t wait.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. FORD-It’s called passive control.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. ROUND-We provided a copy of the building layout to the Fire Marshal, and then we
also agree that as we develop our building permit plans, we will certainly site those
facilities and the most convenient location for the Fire Marshal and the Fire Department.
It just makes good sense.
MR. VOLLARO-While you’re at that, he did a calculated occupation load of 596. We
don’t have to talk about it now, but I just wanted to say that that’s his latest position.
MR. ROUND-Okay. Buffer to the cemetery, this was one that was raised new to us last
month, and in our response to you last month, we provided a series of figures, and I just
have those on the screen for you. Our concern is that we do have a plan that can
comply with that. You asked us to comply with the 50 foot buffer adjoining cemetery
lands. We went out, and this photo is Ortho Photos. We superimposed our layout on
that photo, and those little blue arrows that you see are photo locations. We took a
series of photos, presented those last month to you, and our position, our opinion is that
we would prefer our layout that’s proposed to you with a 33 foot buffer. If you look at the
air photo, you can see that that area that’s directly adjoining us and also directly north of
the Mark Plaza is significantly constrained by wetlands, both DEC and Federal wetlands,
based on our review of the mapping availability, and we don’t see that that area is ever
going to be developed without a significant fill, well in excess of any permit threshold. So
we, you know, we don’t think a buffer’s required or necessary here, but we would agree
to plant our existing plan to screen, basically what they’re going to see is that retaining
wall. So it’s a masonry, and I have a picture of it later. You’re going to see masonry
from a certain point in the cemetery, if visible at all. This is a photo from partially on
Quaker Road, partially on the Mark Plaza site, Mr. Boychuk’s property, looking into the
site, and basically the center of the photo where you see those two trees side by side,
that’s where the corner of our parking area is going to be, just to give a perspective on
that location. This is a photo that is, and I’ve got to scroll back, I apologize. This is a
photo in the area of, and I don’t have a laser pointer, but it’s not in the developed area of
the cemetery. It’s internal in the wetland area. There’s actually a little goat path, or a
desired path, if you can see where several of the photos that I have that are on the
wetland site, that line right there, there’s a little path in there that you can walk, and it’s
basically, it’s 12 foot wide. It looks like they’re dumping grass clippings back in there.
We took that photo from internal to the cemetery site, and what you’re looking at, in the
background of the photo, is the Mark Plaza building. So this shows you, I’m in the
wetland. I’m looking at the Mark Plaza building, and there’s a significant amount of
vegetation, and that’s not even the corner of the building closest to our site. That’s the
building closest to the cemetery.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/26/06)
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. For a second, pardon me, but I just want to make sure that
everybody understands, on 179-8-070, which is Code, I’ll read it, it says all industrial and
commercial uses shall maintain a 50 foot Type C buffer between the use and the
adjoining line of any cemetery. It says you must. It doesn’t say you may. It doesn’t say
it’s a good idea, not a good idea. I’ll read it again, it says all industrial and commercial
uses shall maintain a 50 foot Type C buffer between the use and the adjoining lot line of
any cemetery. It can’t be any clearer. The King’s English is clear to me.
MR. ROUND-I think where I was going, Bob, is that there is a waiver provision, and if you
read further on, or at least initially on, and I have that reference, and I’ve got to just scroll
ahead, and that’s why we provide you with the photos, and that was in our
correspondence, is that there’s a waiver from the provision, and the Staff notes reference
it in the Code, and so we’re asking for your waiver. You do not have to grant that to us.
We acknowledge that. We’re simply requesting it. We think, as you do in many
instances, you look at the Code, you look for the goals that you’re trying to achieve, and
the goals of the buffer requirement is to screen adjoining commercial/industrial uses from
view from the cemetery. All we’re saying in this case is our site’s not viewable from the
cemetery, regardless of how the Code reads. So we think a waiver’s warranted, and
later on in my slide, I’ve got to go back down, we said, you know, I think the reasons for a
waiver are that portion of the site’s not going to be developed. It’s in excess of 500 feet
away from, or even greater from the developed portion of the cemetery, there’s
significant vegetation, existing native vegetation, that provides that buffer, and in most
circumstances you like to retain vegetation rather than eliminate it.
MR. VOLLARO-In the wintertime many of those deciduous trees are going to lose their
leaves and you’re going to get a clear view.
MR. ROUND-I can appreciate that, and then we also note that under our provision we
would provide plantings to screen it. Again, buffer, screen, we’ll agree, and we’ll show
that, and I’ve got to apologize, zipping through all this.
MR. LAPPER-We were proposing 33 feet, and we proposed.
MR. ROUND-There’s the screening that we propose. Regardless, if you choose not to
grant a waiver, we have presented you with a proposal. Last month we presented you
with this proposal of 50 foot buffer. So if you choose not to grant the waiver, we would
comply with the Code. We think, though, applying commonsense and judgment, that
with a 33 foot buffer, we can plant it and screen it and achieve the desired effect of the
Code, and that’s your job to make that decision, and we can debate that, but there’s the
planting plan, consistent with the Code. There’s the planting plan with a 33 foot buffer
with the waiver granted.
MR. SIPP-What are those trees?
MR. ROUND-We have a series of, you see those larger looking species. Those are
white pines. So those are coniferous, and this is consistent. It’s right out of the Code. It
says plant with a mix of coniferous and deciduous and use trees and shrubs and lower
cover. So that’s what those are. I think there’s an Arrow Wood in there, Don, and then
there’s another species, and I’d have to look at the planting schedule, and I have it
written down on the plan, but there’s three different species so that you would have a
buffer and cover during all seasons, and so that’s what we propose, and at the end I was
going to ask you to just come back to the waiver. We’d like ask for that waiver, we think
it makes sense.
MR. SIPP-If you look at your photos, you don’t have any white pine growing there
obviously because it’s too wet.
MR. ROUND-But this is not photos taken directly from the corner of our building. If you
look back under existing conditions, if you look in the photo, you can see there are a
series of pines there, but there are deciduous trees as well. I’m not going to tell you that
they’re all pines back there. There’s a mix.
MR. LAPPER-But also we’d plant whatever species you want.
MR. ROUND-Right.
MR. SIPP-Well, it’s not what I want. It’s to screen and conifers are not going to grow that
well in that kind of soil.
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MR. ROUND-There are conifers out there, and white pine do grow in a variety of
conditions.
MR. SIPP-Yes, but if you look at some of your own photos, those white pines are barren
from 50 feet up.
MR. ROUND-Well, I think some of those pines are further out. They’re in those wetlands
that are on the cemetery lands, and we don’t propose. If you recall last month we said,
you know, we don’t propose to plant in the wetlands because that wouldn’t be
appropriate.
MR. LAPPER-We could plant scrub willows like we did out in front of Lowe’s, that aren’t
as attractive, but they provide a lot of screen. I mean, the type of vegetation.
MR. ROUND-Yes, Don, I’m not a landscape architect. Our landscape architect designer
did provide this planting. They consulted the Code, and they provided what the Town
Code requires, in regards to the species, but we would do whatever would be most
appropriate in the Board’s opinion. So that’s just, you know, we can come back to that,
but in summation, we can comply with the buffer requirement.
MRS. STEFFAN-If you go with the 50 foot buffer versus the 33 foot buffer, how many
parking spaces will you lose?
MR. ROUND-We’d lose eight spaces. We would go from 154 to 146.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. ROUND-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-While we’re talking about spaces.
MR. ROUND-Why don’t we wait and save that, because we have a whole section on
parking analysis that we’ve provided you that talks about parking, and I think that’s the
appropriate time to do that.
MR. VOLLARO-Go ahead.
MR. ROUND-Lo and behold next on our agenda is parking analysis. Okay. I think first
and foremost our proposal revised, or as it’s initially proposed, exceeds the Town’s
standards. Okay. The Town’s standards require.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, the Town standard was 104 for this, okay.
MR. ROUND-The Town standard is 104. We propose 154. If the buffer waiver was not
granted, we would provide 146. We think that’s still significant. We asked and received
a variance to provide that additional parking for a number of reasons, and the Zoning
Board saw fit to grant that. That waiver request, or that variance was presented to you a
year ago in September, as a part of our application, and the amount of parking was
identified at that time. We came in in September, presented our plan for 154 spaces,
and gave a rational, and it’s on the record.
MR. VOLLARO-There’s no, we’re not contesting that in any way.
MR. ROUND-Okay. I’m just letting you know, because not everybody that’s here was
here necessarily a year ago when we started. So, first and foremost, we have parking in
excess of what the Town requires. We were here last month, and new to us was you
asked for a parking analysis. We think the concern was that we don’t think there’s
enough parking because of two Board members visited a Wilton or Saratoga Golden
Corral and said, hey, it’s extremely busy. We had difficulty finding a parking spot, and
we had to wait in line to receive our meal, and I think the Chairman had a spreadsheet
that evening that said, hey, I’ve done a parking analysis, and anybody can do it, and we
suggest that you provide us with a spreadsheet and do so. We asked for copy of that
analysis, and the Chairman, and the Chairman said, I think the words were, I’m not an
engineer. It’s not my job to do engineering.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s correct.
MR. ROUND-It’s not my job, according to my attorney, to do engineering, and I said just
so we understand what the record is, we said, you know, we want to give you the
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information you need. Having that template would certainly be helpful. So we moved on
from that. So we went out and we did a parking analysis. We did two things, and we’ve
done a number of parking analyses, by the way. We’re doing a parking analysis for St.
Peter’s Hospital who’s undergoing and building a parking garage, building a big facility, a
number of facilities on their Hospital. So we’re familiar with doing a parking analysis. So
it wasn’t a stretch. The request was merely so that I can provide form and format that the
Board is looking for. We provided that, a parking analysis.
MR. VOLLARO-You gave us a two hour parking analysis in both cases.
MR. ROUND-Please let me finish. We provided a parking analysis. So I asked for
guidance. I was provided no guidance. I provided parking analysis and we used two
figures, the ITE, Institute of Transportation Engineers, who’s business it is to do traffic
analysis and to provide parking figures. We provided ITE rates for our Traffic Impact
Study, some time ago, back in January of this year, and when we presented that
analysis, this is in our response to C.T. Male’s comments today, in that we initially, we
proposed to collect traffic data from an existing Golden Corral facility, the Colonie Golden
Corral. We collected that data, presented traffic impact data from actual field counts.
This Board and the Town Engineer said we do not want actual field counts. We believe
the ITE rates are more accurate, and I think, and actually, we believe the actual data
understates the amount of traffic that’s going to be generated at the Queensbury store
because we think Queensbury’s restaurant is going to be more robust than Colonie. So,
we said, rather than argue that point, we said we’ll use the ITE rates. We believe the ITE
rates overstate the Traffic Impact Analysis. The Traffic Impact Analysis that was
accepted by both the County and the Town Engineer included ITE rates. Okay. Back to
my parking analysis, so we provided a parking analysis that included ITE rates, and we
also included a parking analysis that collected actual field data from Friday and Saturday
PM peak periods from a Colonie operating restaurant and provided actual meal counts at
that facility. C.T. Male look at that and said, we think the ITE rates are not acceptable,
and we don’t like the Colonie rates. We think you should use the Wilton rates. We’re
troubled by that. I have to be frank, candid, and a little bit animated here, because as
Mr. Patel stated earlier, every time we provide some information, if it’s not the
information, or the answer you want to hear, we’re asked to seek other information. So
rather than argue that, we collected last Friday and last Saturday, we collected traffic
data, during the PM peak period, when Mr. Vollaro says during a two period, in some
instances we collected it for three or four hours, but the idea was to collect it during the
busiest time. The busiest time was when the most parking is going to be consumed, and
that’s a rational assessment. That’s a rational method to take. So we did that in both
instances, and in both instances, and I’ll speak to those slides, in both instances, it
demonstrated the ITE rates as well as the Colonie and as well as the Wilton parking
analysis concluded, by real observance, that no more, less than 100 vehicles are parked
at any one time. C.T. Male did not provide me with a complete analysis, but provided
pieces of an analysis that was done, I don’t know if it was done by C.T. Male or if it was
done by somebody else, but in that analysis, they assumed 27 vehicles would leave the
site per hour, and following that rational, if 100 vehicles or some multiple of 80, enter our
site and only 27 leave, pretty soon we’ll have too many vehicles on the site. Well, that’s
absolutely true, but it’s not fact. It’s artificial. It’s a scenario, all right. We collected real
information, and what we found is that in order to serve 200 people an hour, you’re going
to have people enter and people leave. Turn over time in a restaurant, both as published
in the ITE data, says high turn over fast food, or high turn over restaurant, average turn
over is 45 minutes. That’s in our submittal previously, and then it’s based on our
conversations with the operator of an existing Golden Corral and based on our
conversations with a Golden Corral corporate representative, 45 minutes is normal turn
over time. So 45 minutes, what does 45 minutes mean? That means somebody’s going
to come in. They may have some time to wait in line, as they enter the restaurant, but
they’re going to purchase a ticket to enter the restaurant and within 45 minutes their
meal’s going to be done and they’re going to leave.
MR. VOLLARO-Not true. My experience in two places. I’ve been to Colonie and I’ve
been to Wilton.
MR. ROUND-And how long did you take to eat?
MR. VOLLARO-Approximately, in Colonie, we took approximately an hour and a half.
MRS. STEFFAN-Wilton. We were in Wilton.
MR. VOLLARO-We were in Wilton. We had to wait and when you get back to your table
they have about four plates there that you can go back and you can go back and you can
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go back. You don’t get out of there in 45 minutes. There’s just no way that that
happens, not in either of those two, and I’ve been to both of them.
MR. PATEL-In January, when this first, the traffic issue first came up, I did a study, at the
Saratoga location, and the one thing that everyone has to understand is it’s an average,
okay, just like everything else, just like the AADT on Quaker Road. It’s not to say there’s
20,000 cars evenly spread over 24 hours in a day. It’s an average annual daily traffic
count. My average time in Saratoga, back in January, was 47 minutes precisely. I did
20 individual parties walking in, during the peak meal hour, because I didn’t want to
leave any room in there for arbitrary conclusions. I said, all right, I’m going to take my
peak dinner hour when I’m at max capacity, or close to max capacity, and what is my
average dining time, and that number was 47 minutes. So how you ended up having an
hour and a half experience is beyond me, and that may be because there was some.
MR. VOLLARO-I can tell you how it happened. I mean, it’s very simple. We walked in
and there was a cast of thousands waiting, a cast of thousands, maybe 50 people
waiting to get tickets, at that area. You got a ticket, and the person that we went to said,
sorry, there are no seats. As soon as we have a seat, we’ll get you seated. Then we did
get seated, and because there weren’t any seats, that means that whole place was
occupied, at that time of night, and it just doesn’t add up that you’ve got 45 minutes.
MR. ROUND-I think there’s some concern that we’re presenting you with information that
suits our needs and doesn’t suit your needs, and that’s what I’m hearing from you.
That’s me saying that, and there was some concern that Colonie was not representative
of Queensbury or other markets, and so we have Bob Burkeheimer from Golden Corral.
He’s the Senior Vice President of Real Estate, Director of Real Estate, excuse me, deals
with, and sites these facilities and is part of that. Bob’s going to speak a little bit to
market size and operations turn over, etc., but we’ll come back to meals, etc. I think
there’s a concept that if you have 365 seats during a peak hour, you’re going to have 365
people seating, and as we know, as the C.T. Male proposed is like two and a half people
come in an vehicle on average and don’t fill a six top table, but we’ll come back to that.
MR. VOLLARO-In testimony, Mr. Patel said between two and three people a car. I did all
my analysis on worst case. What would be the worst case, at the ah.
MR. ROUND-Yes, we have actual counts and we’d provide you with these estimates that
there’s 2.6 people, based on meal tickets and vehicles on the site, and that’s the only
way you can do the math. You can guess something else, but we’ve provided you with
real numbers and C.T. Male looked at that and they used, their analysis used similar
figures, but we’ll let Bob.
MR. VOLLARO-I used two and a half myself in my calculations on my spreadsheet, you
know, but my spreadsheet obviously shows, and C.T. Male’s spreadsheet shows.
MR. ROUND-C.T. Male didn’t give us a spreadsheet.
MR. VOLLARO-No, they didn’t, but they said that the site would probably not work during
maximum time.
MR. ROUND-They didn’t say that. It doesn’t say it in their letter. It doesn’t say it won’t
work.
MR. VOLLARO-It doesn’t say it won’t work. What it does give you is, so we’re into the
C.T Male thing, what it does is talk about the number of parking spaces that would be
available, and I think they said 140 something.
SOMEONE WITH APPLICANT-They’re assumption of a 25% exit rate in no way is
representative of actual.
MR. ROUND-Of real world.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I’ll tell you what, I got the 25%, and I’ll tell you how I got it. I got it
from a couple of areas in the original traffic study that I did, and I looked at some of your
input/outputs that you’ve got there, and that’s how I drew the 25%, right from here.
MR. LAPPER-Well, we’ve got actual traffic counts.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t care about that.
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MR. ROUND-You don’t care about actual counts?
SOMEONE WITH APPLICANT -These are actual counts taken at a restaurant.
MR. ROUND-You asked us to do the analysis. Now you don’t like it. You want us to use
the (lost word) number. I just don’t get that.
MR. SCHACHNER-As Town Counsel, part of my job is to make sure that the record is
accurate here, and now we’ve got people speaking not from the microphone, speaking
simultaneously, and that won’t work for our proceeding. So, Mr. Chairman, however you
want to control this, I don’t much care, other than that it has to be controlled for the
benefit of our minutes.
MR. VOLLARO-I understand that, sir.
MR. LAPPER-I’d like to put on the Director of Real Estate for Golden Corral Corporation
and let him explain both comparing the market in Queensbury, Colonie, and
Wilton/Saratoga, and also the operation of number of spaces that they have, that they
require for restaurants, and what the demand is for parking.
BOB BURKEHEIMER
MR. BURKEHEIMER-My name’s Bob Burkeheimer. I’m Director of Real Estate for the
east coast of Golden Corral. I oversee the real estate development. I’ve been with the
company over 13 years and have experience in finding both of these sites, Colonie and
Wilton. I did the real estate work on both of those sites. I understand there’s some
question regarding the market size, in terms of Queensbury, how it relates to Colonie
and how it relates to Wilton. In our demographic study, which is what we use in
determining market size and volumes, store volumes, Queensbury is actually a smaller,
much smaller market than Colonie. In the one mile demographic, and this is based on
2005 population, and in one mile of Colonie there’s 5,922 people. In one mile of the
Wilton store, there’s 3,081 people residing. In one mile of Queensbury, there’s 2,616. It
has the lowest demographic.
MR. VOLLARO-And what was the other one before that? You had 3,000 something?
MR. BURKEHEIMER-There was Wilton at 3,081 people.
MR. VOLLARO-And Queensbury at?
MR. BURKEHEIMER-And Queensbury was 2,616, about 400 less, and in Colonie there
was 5,922. Colonie has the largest one mile demographic. Queensbury has the lowest
amount, but the other thing that’s more significant than that is the growth rate. In one
mile of the Colonie store, the growth rate is, and this is based on same thing ’05
information given by the U.S. Census Bureau, 1.84% growth rate. In Saratoga Springs in
Wilton it’s 22%, and in Queensbury it’s negative four percent.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m sorry. You’re saying our growth rate in Queensbury is negative four.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-In one mile.
MR. SEGULJIC-In one mile.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Exactly right, in one mile of the site it’s a negative four percent.
This is U.S. Census data. So, of the three markets within one mile, Queensbury has the
lowest amount, population, as well as the growth rate. In three miles of the site, we look
at, when we do all of our stores, we have over 500 restaurants. We do an average of 40
stores a year. We look at one and three miles. So we are consistent on all of our sites,
the demographic information. On three mile population of the Colonie store, there’s
32,282. Saratoga/Wilton is 27,713, and in Queensbury there’s 33,498, which is roughly
the same, a little bit higher, Queensbury actually has the highest three mile population,
from roughly a little bit higher than Colonie, about 1,000.
MR. VOLLARO-May I just ask you a question?
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Yes, sir.
MR. VOLLARO-You do the work to choose sites that are suitable, areas that are suitable
for your restaurant. Is that correct?
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MR. BURKEHEIMER-We look at market and site specific, correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. If a lot of your demographics are correct, and that Queensbury is
within one mile a negative four, why would you want to site a store here, rather than
some place else?
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Well, because if you look, what I just said was three mile
population was equal to or a little bit higher than the Colonie store.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Well, then that translates into the fact that this store will probably
be visited even at a higher rate than Colonie and visited at a higher rate than Wilton.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Not necessarily. Because at the five mile population, which is
within the demographic and market radius serving this market, the Colonie store at five
miles population is 116,000 people, with a growth rate of 3.7%. Wilton, at five miles, is
42,553 people, with a population growth rate of 12%. The Queensbury store, within five
miles, is 55,000, less than half of the Colonie store, with a growth rate of two percent.
MR. VOLLARO-And yet, you’re putting in, by testimony from Mr. Patel, you’re putting in
the same size store in Queensbury.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-That’s correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Without the market that the other two have. That, to me, doesn’t sound
like very good marketing.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Well, no, sir, you’re obviously wrong, because at 55,000, and
42,000, it’s bigger than the Wilton store. The five mile population is a little bit bigger than
the Saratoga store, but much smaller than the Colonie store. Both of those markets
have the same size restaurant. We only have, because of the concept, the markets that
we have, I mean, the store size that we have for these markets is basically one store.
MR. VOLLARO-One size store.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Correct, that’s right.
MR. VOLLARO-And the one that’s going in to Queensbury would be the same size as
Wilton?
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-And I think that’s what Mr. Patel has said to us before.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-That’s right, 10,330 square foot store.
MR. VOLLARO-Whatever it is, it’s the same size, 365 seats.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-That’s right, but the point I was trying to make is that the sales for
both Colonie and Wilton are roughly the same, give or take a little bit. They’re not that
much farther apart, and this store, for Queensbury, and both of those stores are average
stores, sales volume stores, for the market, average sales stores for our company, and
we think that the Queensbury store will also be an average sales volume store.
MR. VOLLARO-What do you mean by average sales volume? Give me a number.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Exactly right. I mean, we average, roughly about 3.2 to 3.5 million
dollars in sales.
MR. VOLLARO-How does that translate to people? I’m not worried about how much
money you’re making. I’m worried about how much, we’re talking about, in a night, how
many do you serve?
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Well, you know, if you take like the meals served and what they
have up there, with Wilton and with Colonie, both are average sales volume stores, and I
think that the gentleman provided you with excellent data in terms of peak hours, which, I
mean, Friday’s, dinnertime five to seven, is probably one of the busiest times. It is a
peak hour. You don’t get much busier than during those two hours.
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MR. VOLLARO-I was at Colonie Saturday night, five to seven, full store.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Good, I appreciate that, and we hope you come back all the time.
MR. VOLLARO-Full store.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-And the other thing I want to say is that we work on averages, and
we’ve done extensive studies because we are, you know, the concept of a Golden Corral
is quality food at a reasonable price in a family atmosphere. We don’t serve alcohol.
We’re not the same as a Friday’s. We’re not the same as an Olive Garden where they
have a bar where you can sit down and have a drink. What we do is we turn people.
Our average customer stay is 45 minutes. What I’m saying is an average at 45 minutes.
If you want to sit there and eat longer and have a great meal, that’s great. We appreciate
it, but what I’m saying is the average customer stay is 45 minutes, and what you don’t do
in other restaurants, or what you do in our restaurant you don’t do in other restaurants.
You go in. You pay up front. You go. You serve yourself, and it’s dictated by how long
you want to do it. It’s not dictated by someone serving you, somebody bringing you
drinks, cocktails before, you know, everything’s done, the meals are prepared, the food’s
cooked already. We don’t have off the menu. We don’t have entrees. So we base it on
average time, and that’s how we get the volumes is turning people, and we’ve been in
business over 30 some years and they’ve perfected this concept, and the way it is, is to
move people in and out of the restaurant. So, obviously people are going to stay longer,
an hour, whatever, or less, but on average time, it’s 45 minutes.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, we’ve asked Mr. Patel, and in testimony he has told us that the
meal turns in dinnertime is somewhere between two and three turns, which means he’s
got 365 tables in the Wilton, in the proposed store for Queensbury, gives us a little over.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Well, that’s not true. One of the things, you know, what you have
to realize is, like I said, we’re not like a, you know, like a TGI Friday’s or an Olive Garden
where you have a hostess seat you. What we have is, you know, we might have, and
actually the restaurant that we’re proposing has 342 seats, not tables.
MR. VOLLARO-No, 365 is the number.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Three sixty-five, okay.
MR. VOLLARO-That number’s kind of burned in my head.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Okay. What we have is you seat yourself, and often, and…
MR. VOLLARO-No, I’m sorry, that is not true, because when we went to the Golden
Corral in Wilton, somebody seated us because there was no room. They said you have
to wait until we get a table.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Let me tell you how it is on average, let me tell you how it is in
most system wide within our chain. You seat yourself, unless it is one of those, you
know, rare occasions where we are so busy. That doesn’t happen very often, but the
problem is we have a lot of four and six top tables. That means four and six people,
chairs to a table, but what you often have seated are people, you know, like all of us, you
don’t want to be seated at a two table where you’re feeling crammed in, especially when
you’re having a buffet, you could take two or three plates or whatever. So you have two
people sitting at a table that accommodates four people, and usually, more so than not,
and it just drives our operations people crazy, you have two people sitting at a six top
table. So, you know, you don’t have, in a restaurant with 360 seats, you don’t have 360
people sitting at that restaurant. For the most part you probably have on average about
200 and some people, and even though all the tables, in your case, might be full, you
don’t have a restaurant full to capacity. I wish we did, to be quite honest, but it never
works that way.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I think, and you know, I’ve got a whole packet of testimony here,
and one of the things that came out in that testimony, in the minutes that, I’ll try to
paraphrase it, but most of the time we are at full capacity, most of the time.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-I would like to think that. I know restaurants that are at full
capacity, and we have a few of them, and I think that Mr. Patel’s sales would be probably
double of what he’s doing, and I would love to have Mr. Patel be at a seven million dollar
store, but I know he’s not there.
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MR. SEGULJIC-Excuse me, Mr. Burkeheimer, if I could ask a couple of questions.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Yes, sir.
MR. SEGULJIC-How do you account for transient population then?
MR. BURKEHEIMER-What do you mean?
MR. SEGULJIC-You’re taking population within five miles, but there’s loads of people
driving up and down the Northway.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Yes, you know, we look at seasonality, and that’s what you’re
talking about, I’m presuming.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, we’re a tourist based population. Our population fluctuates
dramatically.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Yes, and we look at that as, you know, that’s your gravy, and the
same thing in, we have markets all around the country that have a portion of seasonality,
but the seasonality, for the most part, when we look at these markets, usually doesn’t,
you know, effect it more than a couple of percentage points. It’s usually, you know, I live
in an area where there’s tourism and we have tourist boards who, boy, they just, you
know, they want you to believe what it is, but in reality, the reality is it affects you just a
couple of percentage points.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I could point out a number of hotels.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Exactly right.
MR. SEGULJIC-I would assume that one of your mainstays would be families traveling.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Actually, no. We’re not like a Cracker Barrel off of a highway.
Cracker Barrel has done a very good job in marketing highway business, and actually we
do not. We rely, the majority of our business are local residents within the market.
MR. SEGULJIC-So you see no increase in business in August in Saratoga, maybe two
percent?
MR. BURKEHEIMER-I mean, and Mr. Patel can answer that better than I can, but I think
what the six week racing season I guess you might have, I mean, you’ll see an increase,
but I mean, is it?
MR. PATEL-Eight to ten percent.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s it, only eight to ten percent.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-I mean, most of it is residential, people who live there. That’s the
bread and butter, and that’s why we look at the demographic information.
MR. LAPPER-How about in terms of the number of parking spaces that you require.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-We look at, we have a recommended 150 spaces that we require,
that we look at per site, per area.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s for your standard restaurant, of the same kind that’s going in?
MR. BURKEHEIMER-That’s right, and it’s a recommended number, and we have, I
mean, and many of our restaurants are less than that, and the reason we have that
recommended number is because we get a lot, I mean, we get calls constantly. We’re
developing around the country, in all 48 states, and, you know, what it does, it gives
developers guidelines, so we’re not getting hit with every quarter acre piece of property
out there. So they know that as a guideline we need two acres, 150 spaces, you know,
but it’s a guideline. We also know that most of our stores, and I mean the majority of our
stores, and I’m not talking the I Drives in Orlando, Florida that service, you know, Disney
World. Most of our stores at peak times, I mean, if we break 100, 120 parking spaces,
we’re happy. What we try to do is accommodate for those few days a year, you know,
we do not want our customers inconvenienced at all, and, you know, two of our busiest
days that come off the top of my head are where you’ll see a full parking lot are Mother’s
Day and Veteran’s Day. We do, on Veteran’s Day, we give all of our veterans, anybody
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can come in to our restaurant saying they’re a veteran, they get free meals. We do a
major campaign with the VFW for, we collect, I think last year we collected, I don’t know,
half a million dollars for the VFW system wide, and we give it to them, but that’s two of
the busiest days that I can think of, but, for the most part, I mean, it just doesn’t happen.
MR. VOLLARO-Can I ask a question?
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Yes, sir.
MR. VOLLARO-When the standard for Queensbury was 104, they went to the Zoning
Board of Appeals and got 154.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-That’s right.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Now, so that’s very much in line with your 150.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Does that 150 number that you’ve given me service basically patrons?
MR. BURKEHEIMER-No. What we do is we estimate the number of parks for both
employees and guests. So we could adequately house everyone on site.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. In that case, Mr. Patel says, based on that, on testimony in
November of last year, 2005, he says that he needs 35 of his 154 spaces for employees.
MR. LAPPER-Niral’s going to have to talk about that. It’s the wrong number.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s not the wrong number, it’s the wrong number, but it’s what’s on the
record.
MR. LAPPER-But it’s the wrong number.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ve got a problem with that.
MR. LAPPER-No, let Niral talk about that.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ve got a real serious problem, you know. I can come up with the
testimony and tell you exactly what Mr. Patel told us.
MR. LAPPER-Read it, but he still has to testify about who he actually employs.
MR. PATEL-Thirty-five is absolutely worst case scenario, if I have a dozen, or depending
on what day of the week it is, a half a dozen employees in training. I’ve always tried to
be honest with this Board and give them worst case scenarios, and now it’s being turned
against me. Okay. I came into the Town of Queensbury looking for a fair application
process and I am not receiving that. We’re discussing parking issues. Wal-Mart Super
Center, a proven 250,000 square foot big box was given a variance for less parking. No
safety concerns addressed there. Nobody was sent down to the Wal-Mart in Saratoga
Springs and said, hey, go count cars coming in and out of your parking lot. How am I
being held to a double standard here?
MR. VOLLARO-You’re not being held to a double standard.
MR. PATEL-Absolutely. Twenty-six employees is absolute peak after a fully staffed
trained restaurant exists, that includes management. So that’s a 22 employees, hourly
employees and four management.
MR. VOLLARO-Just let me read this if I may. It’s testimony that comes out of November
2005. It’s Mr. Patel says, I may mention something about traffic. There’s 154 spaces
that we are proposing on this site, and the restaurant does seat 350. It’s actually 365.
During peak periods of the 154 parking spaces, all of them were to be occupied, but 35
were to be occupied by employees alone. That’s exactly what he said. So avoiding
peak periods, and so 35 of those spaces would be occupied immediately by just
employees and management. That’s his statement to us. Just so we get the record
straight.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-I’d like just to, in our restaurants, and this is, you know, I mean,
considering, using commonsense here, in terms of our employee base. A lot of our
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employees for the most part, do not have cars, you know, so I’d like for the board to
consider a common sense approach to this. The fact is that in most of our restaurants,
we have younger people working, high school kids, college kids. A lot of kids are being
dropped off by parents, then a lot of adults; some have cars, some don’t. I would think
the worst case scenario, would probably be 30 cars. I just can’t imagine there would be
much more, to be honest.
MR. VOLLARO- But, that’s what on the record.
MR. PATEL- I understand that was the record from nearly a year ago, and actually what
was enlightening through this entire process was I actually got a good gauge on what my
mealtimes were, what my customer flow were, where my traffic counts were in and out of
the parking lot. And during this process, I actually learned that I was off. So I’m for the
record admitting to that, that I was wrong in November 2005 and that the real number as
it shows in my traffic counts, done as recently as this past weekend, when maximum
occupants on the parking lot on worst case scenario which occurred on Saturday
between 5:30 and 5:45 was 93 cars total including employees. So, going back to what
we were just talking about 2., you know, going into the numbers we have already
discussed, you know, I’m now corrected.
MR. LAPPER- That’s the number 93.
MR. PATEL- 93 is worst case scenario at a full, or when I say full again, I’ve got to be
real careful these things are being taken out of context at my highest volume point during
the day, whether that means all seats are occupied or not, it’s at the highest volume
when the restaurant is full efficiency, 93 cars occupied my parking lot.
MR. ROUND-I think one of the reasons for Bob to speak, was about the gauge that
Colonie is representative of the real world. It’s an average store, it’s in a very large
market. It’s comparable to Queensbury, and so, for us to present you with information
from Colonie, is certainly representative of what might occur if Queensbury was to be
built and was to be an average store. We presented that information from Colonie and I
have a graph and this was the same information presented to you last month in our
submittal, a little different colors, little different configuration, but this just shows a Friday,
PM peak at Colonie. Colonie has, help me out, Niral, number of spaces.
MR. PATEL-181, I believe
MR. ROUND-Colonie does have a larger lot, however.
MR. VOLLARO- Colonie also can share a lot with the Colorado which is next door.
MR. ROUND-No it does not, there is no cross use.
MR. PATEL-There is no cross parking between Colorado Steakhouse and the Golden
Corral.
MR. VOLLARO-But, they’re right next door to you.
MR. PATEL-That means nothing, there’s a natural buffer in between. That’s like saying
I’m gonna share parking with Mark Plaza, even though there’s a major wetland and
grassy area right there.
MR. FORD-May I just go back, I have a question for Bob.
MR. ROUND-Sure.
MR. FORD-Because, you do this analysis of the population and so forth.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Yes, sir.
MR. FORD-Both Colonie and Wilton are average stores, so they turn about the same
number of meals on average per day.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Or week.
MR. FORD-You pick it. Then what is the value of your analysis of the population when
they vary so much. You’ve got in a 5-mile radius, Wilton at 42,000+ , an average store,
turning the same number of customers in 5-mile radius of Colonie at 116,000.
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MR. BURKEHEIMER-You’re absolutely right and I think you’re being over simplistic in
terms of.
MR. FORD-I’m giving you your figures.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-No, no, no, that’s right. I mean, I could go into a whole detail job
description or a detail analysis of what I do in looking at markets, in terms of everything
from income base to.
MR. PATEL-Retail.
MR. BURKEHEIMER–When we look at a market, we’re looking at not only the
population, income, employment levels, who’s employed, what kind of employees there
are in markets, you know. What kind of day time population.
MR. FORD-This is helpful information, because all you stated were numbers.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Well, I didn’t know if the Board actually wanted me to go into the
whole analysis of what I do when I look into a market. I’ve been doing this for 20 some
years and quite.
MR. LAPPER-If I could just interrupt. The purpose was just to show that when we have
actual counts that we’ve submitted for Colonie and Wilton, that those are similar to what
we can expect in Queensbury and that was the purpose of putting Bob on to testify.
MR. VOLLARO-Well you know, I’ll say something. In the data that was supplied, and I
won’t bring it out now, but the ones you said was the Wilton site. I did analysis on that, it
was the Colonie site that was put into Wilton. If we’ve got to go off-line and bring this
out, I’m not gonna bring it out tonight, but, I did the analysis.
MR. BURKEHEIMER -You’re saying we were confused?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, you were confused. Either confused or you put the wrong data in
the wrong place. So, I’ve got a problem with a lot of this.
MR. ROUND-Our point was just get back on topic, on task is that I think.
MR. VOLLARO-We’re already into 25 minutes to 12:00. This gentleman did a great job,
it took up to 45 minutes of our time here and I don’t know exactly what I got out of that,
but ah.
MR. PATEL-If I may respond to that Mr. Vollaro, the one thing I’m going back to where I
don’t understand how the board really feels about my application. We were supposed to
be number seven, that was a special issue to the agenda for tonight. You passed a rule
and regulation that said you were only going to listen to six meetings, agenda items, a
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night. Somehow on the 15, exactly 11 days ago, you swept another application per
your decision in front of us. So, I feel that’s a little unfair as well and I do agree it is
getting late and we do need to start making some decisions here.
MR. ROUND-I think the information was helpful, I think some of the board members felt
so. The idea, the concept is that Colonie is representative data. We presented you with
data from Colonie parking counts. The graph in front of you shows the Friday peak. We
did 210 meals between 6:00 and 7:00, 159 meals between 7:00 and 8:00, and what the
bars show is our, how many spaces were occupied. So, a maximum of 91 spaces were
occupied on a Friday at the Colonie store, doing 210 and 159 meals during those
periods.
MR. LAPPER-What were the other numbers for Wilton?
MR. ROUND-Similar situation Saturday, as many as 82 vehicles housed in this parking
lot and actually did more meals and so what this says is that there is higher turnover. If
there’s less cars in the lot, it means that the vehicles are entering and leaving and if you
look at that bottom line, the red line is vehicles out, so you do see on the order of 20
vehicles leaving on a 15 minute time segment. I think CT Male’s analysis or perhaps the
Chairman’s analysis was on average 37 vehicles and so turnover was understated and
that’s why the analysis of CT Male, an hour versus 20 per 15 minute period.
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MR. VOLLARO-Where that came from was from data supplied on the Traffic Study,
you’re saying that a lot of the data that was supplied on the Traffic Study really doesn’t
count because.
MR. ROUND-No, because Traffic Study studied traffic and trip generation and used.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, it showed more than that, it showed vehicles in, vehicles out and
that’s how I come up with a number.
MR. ROUND-Right, but, but, traffic analysis.
MR. VOLLARO-What you’re trying to tell me, Chris is that all of the data that you’ve
supplied over the last year is really sort of immaterial because now you’ve got actual
analysis on site.
MR. ROUND- Bob, if I presented you with a parking analysis back in January would you
have accepted that as a traffic impact study?
MR. VOLLARO- A traffic analysis back in January?
MR. ROUND-If I presented tonight’s parking study and tried to call that a traffic impact
study would you have accepted it?
MR. VOLLARO-The traffic impact study.
MR. ROUND-No it was not, it was not a traffic study. I’m presenting you with a parking
analysis where we’re actually counting cars exiting and entering a site from Colonie. We
presented that information and you rejected it back in January. You said, we do not like
the Colonie traffic counts, we want you to use IT estimates and what we said and what
you’re agreeing with is that the data that’s presented in the traffic analysis overstates the
volume of traffic that’s entering and exiting the Colonie site. The parking analysis counts
real data. The traffic analysis that the counted Colonie data was real data, but at every
turn you’ve rejected real data and you’ve found it to be unacceptable and you instead
relied on picking and choosing pieces of information to manufacture your own outcome.
MR. VOLLARO- No, no.
MR. ROUND-I have great frustration with this effort and with this process because we
present information, your Town engineer signed off on it, but that’s not acceptable, let’s
reopen it, let’s re-look at it.
MR. VOLLARO-When did he sign off on it.
MR. ROUND-Sign off on it? We were here last month. He signed off on it and you ask
for a parking analysis? The only information that CT Male looked at this month was
parking and excavation of fill, because you asked him to look at it again. Not because
they found it insufficient.
MR. VOLLARO-Look if he thought that I was wrong in asking for them to look again, he
had an obligation to tell me.
MR. ROUND- He works for you, he does what you tell him to do.
MR. VOLLARO-Really?
MR. ROUND-I believe so.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t believe that’s true at all. If he’s got any integrity as an engineer, I
really disagree with that.
MR. ROUND-I don’t doubt his integrity, but he is of your employ.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s true and you’re in the employ of Golden Corral, and that’s where
we stand. You’ve got the same problem that I do, Chris.
MR. PATEL- Well, you know what, let’s let’s, I’d like to present a question. I guess I want
to understand as Chairman, as a Planning Board, am I wrong in saying that your job is to
make decisions on applications based on what your Code calls for?
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MR. VOLLARO-That is correct.
MR. PATEL-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, no.
MRS. STEFFAN-No, no.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s part of it. We’re looking at it holistically, Code is our guiding light.
MR. PATEL-So Code is your guiding light. Understood, so let me present a scenario to
you. Alright, again going back to what I said a few minutes ago. It’s been my honest
approach to this whole process, my sincerest wishes is to appease the board, why I’ve
made concessions, whether they be restricting left hand turns, whether they be planting
vegetation to separate me from Mark Plaza, whether it be reducing the pylon to a
monument sign, whether it be just tonight restricting turn movements with trucks during
my excavation point, which is going to cost me thousands of dollars more. I’ve done
that. To appease the Board and their concerns. Okay, so now, I present the question
now while we are harping on this parking issue, if there were no other Golden Corrals in
upstate New York and I came to you and said I want to build a 10,330 square feet
restaurant which seats 365 people and I’m proposing 104 parking spaces, on what
grounds, could you deny me?
MR. VOLLARO-On a 104 parking.
MR. SCHACHNER-Excuse me, excuse me.
MR. PATEL-Maybe that’s calling for a decision, okay, but.
MR. VOLLARO-Hold on a second, counsel would like to say a word, may he speak
please.
MR. SCHACHNER-Counsel is going to advise the Planning Board, that I don’t think it’s
appropriate to answer that question. There’s any number of reasons for that advice, not
the least of which are, it’s, I don’t think it’s your job to be answering questions in a cross-
examination format from an applicant or an applicant’s representatives based on
hypothetical situations of applications that are not before you and don’t exist.
MR. PATEL-Okay, I’ll agree with that, I’ll remove my statement. But, I guess what I want
to understand is.
MR. VOLLARO-You want to understand, sir, and I’ve give you the understanding now,
exactly what you want. This is out of our Code and I’ll read it to you. It’s out of the Code
of site plan review and what it says, this is taken out of context. In making the
determination, the Planning Board shall consider those factors pertinent to the project
contained in the development consideration set forth herein under this chapter 179-9-80
and in doing so the Planning Board shall make a net overall evaluation of the project in
relation to the development objective and general guidelines set forth in this article. A net
overall. Then it talks about the parking, it talks about the Planning Board review of site
plans shall include as appropriate, but not limited to the following general standard, the
location, the arrangement, the appearance and the sufficiency of off-street parking and
loading. It’s something we’ve got to look.
MR. PATEL-I understand that.
MR. VOLLARO-This is not something we’re fabricating.
MR. PATEL-I understand that, but my problem with this whole process is this. Is I have
not only met, but I have more than exceeded all requirements in developing this project.
My application meets and exceeds all requirements, again I state, of your Town Code
and policies and regulations to approving this project. So now I begin to wonder is there
really some predisposition here by some Board members whether it be, you know,
because, well, I’ll leave that out, but, what is that that is holding my approval? You know,
many suggestions were made, whether it was reducing the sign, the color scheme and
you know, I’m actually glad someone brought up the color scheme because after we
went to the Adirondack theme, I actually liked the appearance of the restaurant much
better, so thank you for that. But, everything that’s been asked for was conceded to,
including this buffer. Even at 146 parking spaces, I have met and exceeded your parking
requirements.
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MR. VOLLARO-I don’t think you have 146 spaces cause I think that in testimony you say
that of those 46 (146), 35 will be occupied by your management and staff.
MR. LAPPER-Our simple answer to that, but, we have actual numbers from peak hours
that say that 90 spaces is all they need.
MR. VOLLARO-But, but, that’s not the case. If you take a look at your worst case
analysis there are, the last time that we were down at Wilton, we could not find a space.
And I can tell you when I sat there.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Excuse me, does Wilton also include the hotel spot?
MR. PATEL-Yes, it does.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, it does.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-How do you know which park? When we did the Wilton store, I
think we designated. If you are talking about cross-parking, the Wilton store has the
hotel adjacent, I mean, they share the same parking. I don’t quite all understand how you
can determine which cars were resident guest parking of the hotel?
MR. VOLLARO-Because we watch people pull into the parking lot and go into the
restaurant.
MR. BURKEHEIMER-Okay, okay, alright, okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-I guess I’d just like to, I’d just like to say, I kinda share that applicants
frustration with the parking issue. Going into this evenings meetings, I had concern too,
based on the information presented by CT Male. But, based on the information, analysis
and empirical data that they’ve just presented, I think unless there is some question or
some discussion we haven’t yet had, I think we should move on to the next item. Just for
the record, Mr. Round was correct, we did have a sign-off letter from CT Male, dated
th
August 7.
MR. VOLLARO-He did and I stated on the record that I thought and said to Mr. Edwards
that I thought that the sign-off was premature.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, that’s your opinion, Bob. That doesn’t dismiss the fact that we
had a sign-off letter.
MR. SEGULJIC-But, on the other hand, we have the ability to open up other issues as
we move along.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’m not saying we don’t, I’m just saying let’s move on.
MR. VOLLARO-Don’t forget we’ve gathered.
MR. HUNSINGER- We seem to be stuck on parking, we should try to move on.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, we’re stuck on a lot of things. We’re over a year on this. We’re
approaching the kind of time we took to do Wal-Mart on this application.
MR. PATEL-Who you gave a parking reduction to, might I add.
MR. LAPPER-If I could slow this down for a second. There’s just, now we’ve been
talking about this obviously for a year, and we’ve been trying to analysis this and I just, I
don’t, I understand that people on the Board, I understand that this Board analyses
things far more than any of the other dozen towns that I practice in, in any given month,
and I accept that and that’s just how it is. But, what bothers me about this particular
project more than everything else that we do here, and I’ve been before this Board for
basically 20 years, but it just seems that some of the Board members have had
predisposition that somehow putting this restaurant on Quaker Road is something that’s
going to mess up the road or mess up the area. I don’t understand that, because this is
the only place in town where you can put a restaurant like this. It’s appropriate because
of traffic. CT Male signed off on traffic. We have a County letter, that you have now that
says it’s a county road, it’s a state road that the county manages and the county issues
permits and they’ve given us a conceptual sign-off. In fact, their letter said that our traffic
report was too conservative. So I just don’t understand. If we’re showing numbers from
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actual, because you asked us to supplement with actual numbers, that we really need 90
spaces peak hour and we’ve got 146, if that’s the number.
MR. VOLLARO-I think you’ve got 111.
MR. LAPPER -But even if that’s the case, that 90 included employees. I mean, so that 90
number that we’ve used in these other, that was shown.
MR. VOLLARO-Let me ask a question, the last letter that we got from DPW, from Lisa
Penistan?
MR. LAPPER –Yes.
st
MR. VOLLARO-There was a traffic study issued on August 1, 2006.
MR. LAPPER -No, we have to explain that, that’s a mistake.
MR. VOLLARO- That’s a mistake, another mistake, okay.
MR. LAPPER -Let Chris explain that.
MR. ROUND-Bob, Staff said the report was dated August 1, 2006, that was the traffic
impact study as you recall, has been supplemented three times at the request of this
board. There was an original traffic study, they used ITE rates.
MR. VOLLARO-That was, that was January 12, 2006.
MR. ROUND-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s the only study I’ve ever seen.
MR. ROUND-Right, and then you asked for queuing analysis and we actually did a
queuing analysis that supplemented that, it was letter of report to you. And then we also
supplemented it with driveway counts at the Mark Plaza, so we sent that information, and
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put an August 1 date on it, cause that was the date it was packaged and sent to Warren
County. So, everything that you’ve seen was consolidated in that document and sent to
Warren County. One and the same, reports one and the same.
MR. VOLLARO-But, we’ve never seen the consolidated document, is that what you’re
telling me.
MR. ROUND-But you have.
MR. VOLLARO-We’ve got it incrementally, we’ve got it.
MR. ROUND-Right, for convenience sake rather than say, the traffic impact statement is
the January date, the “X” date letter and the third letter, we put it all in one package, for
simple, simplification for the review.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. LAPPER-But, one important note.
MR. VOLLARO-Now, just one second, did Lisa Penistan sent a letter with respect to that
consolidated package?
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Could you read that into the record, please?
th
MR. BAKER-Yes, it was sent by Lisa Penistan to Chris Round on September 19, 2006.
On that same date we received a copy of this in the Community Development
department by fax. The letter reads: Dear Chris Round, The Warren County
Department of Public Works has reviewed the revised Golden Corral traffic impact study.
We felt the study included good information but we would also like to note that in our
opinion when evaluating the level of service at this location, it may in reality, be better
than computed using the highway capacity software. We feel this way because the HSC
is not able to take into the consideration that vehicles can and do use the bus center
median. Use of the median for storage allows a vehicle more effective use of directional
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traffic gaps, while the software requires one gap in both directions. Because of this we
also feel that the recommendation to add a site exclusive left turn lane on Quaker Road,
to enter the Golden Corral will have a negative effect on traffic entering and exiting this
and other sites on that section of Quaker Road. If a turn lane was placed we feel that
vehicles waiting to enter or exit sites on the opposite side of Quaker Road, will be unable
to use the median as a storage location resulting in vehicles being forced to stop in the
traffic lanes causing more backups and adding additional conflict locations. Respectfully
yours, Lisa A. Penistan, Transportation Analyst.
MR. VOLLARO-Thank you.
MR. ROUND-Do you have a question about that?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I mean, the fact that she seems to be concerned about the traffic
movements on Quaker.
MR. ROUND-No, there’s two points. One, she states that first, the highway capacity, the
HCS model, does not allow you to place vehicles from a modeling standpoint, does not
allow you to take vehicles out that you’re traveling and put it in the center turn lane.
MR. LAPPER-To make a left hand turn.
MR. ROUND-That’s what occurs in the real world conditions, people get out of the
center, need to get out of the left hand turn lane to make a left. So what it does is it
overstates the amount of vehicles traveling in the two lanes traveling in either directions.
Are you following me?
MRS. STEFFAN-So it makes it five lanes.
MR. ROUND-So no, it doesn’t allow you to use five lanes, even though there are five
lanes.
MRS. STEFFAN-Right.
MR. ROUND-Alright, so it models, it doesn’t recognize the center turn lane, okay. This
Board and CT Male asked us to look at striping this dedicated left hand turn lane, the
County has said, we prefer not to.
MR. LAPPER -Left turn in.
MR. ROUND-Left turn in.
MR. LAPPER –It’s not necessary.
MR. ROUND-So please do not stripe the center turn lane, that’s the sum and substance
of the letter.
MR. LAPPER -They say it works fine without striping it.
MRS. STEFFAN-Let it stay the way it is.
MR. LAPPER -Yes, which means.
MR. ROUND-Right, you’ve seen that they have not, we’ve talked about this several
times. The County, on Quaker Road, for some reason, does not like to stripe the center
turn lane. They’ve had a change of heart, they have striped Bay Road, you’ve seen with
a center turn lane. It’s a little bit different character roadway, but they’ve started to do
that. I suspect in the coming years, you’ll see a change in that school of thought and
they will start to allow the striping of center turn lanes because I think they’re concern in
this case was, let’s not just do it for this one location, let’s take an orchestrated approach
and I suspect that down the road you will see that. It’s preferable from our standpoint, but
they’ve chosen not to. You asked us to go consult with Warren County, we did so. They
said hey, you’re model overstates the traffic on the roadway. There’s no concern and we
prefer not to have a striped turn lane.
MR. LAPPER-And they’re the ones who are going to issue the permit for the road work.
Cause it’s their road, their jurisdiction. Where I was going with this, you know I, don’t in
any way want to make this personal. I know that the Chairman and the members of the
Board take this extremely seriously as do we. We don’t understand why there’s been
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such a road block on something that we see as a pretty straight forward, putting the
restaurant on Quaker Road.
MR. ROUND-Does, public, receives this debate with projects that have significant public
opposition. It’s not in the barometer that the project is good or bad, but generally we
struggle with projects as a community when you have a bunch of people pulling at us in
different directions and that we’re going to have you know, significant impacts which
hasn’t been the case.
MR. LAPPER -Al has been the only neighbor who’s stepped up and he owns the site
next door. And what’s most interesting about that, is that, that is the site that has the
extra curb cut that if were approved now, they wouldn’t get two curb cuts. So we, when
Chris was talking about the supplemental information that went in, in August to Lisa, to
Warren County DPW, that information included, we went back and studied, after Tom
raised the issue after we talked about the Mark Plaza eastern driveway curb cut, which is
nearest to our proposed curb cut. We went and studied that, and the peak hour left turns
out of there were eight cars. Which is just, which is absolutely miniscule, because the
prime entrance where most of the stores are is the western most entrance. So we went
and did that analysis that in terms of what the impact on that site is, if people have to wait
an extra few seconds to take a turn, “A”, they can go to the other site, the other driveway
which would be easier, but “B”, we’re only taking now about 8 cars, peak hours, making
left turns. That’s not a big deal.
MR. VOLLARO-Out of their western most drive?
MR. LAPPER-Out of their eastern most drive.
MR. VOLLARO-Out of their eastern most drive.
MR. LAPPER-Cause that driveway is closest.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s the Passonno Paint driveway.
MR. LAPPER-Right, that’s closest to the driveway.
MR. VOLLARO-Most people don’t use that, most people use the other.
MR. LAPPER-Exactly, which is why it’s a minimum issue because we’re near their least
used, less used driveway and when we actually got the numbers, eight cars making left
turns is no big deal. So we look at this thing in terms of all the numbers, Niral knows
what he’s selling, he knows how many cars are there, he knows how busy his parking lot
is. We’ve asked for a variance so we can have extra spaces and we just don’t
understand why you’re fighting us on that 146, 154 spaces isn’t enough. We obviously
believe and Golden Corral corporate believes that that’s plenty of spaces for this facility.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, why would they then put an average of 150 when my calculations
show you’ve got 111. I’m looking at the difference between the two.
MR. LAPPER-Their 150, that includes employees, so you got to be apples to apples, so
that’s, we’re 146. The 150 is how many spaces per restaurant it doesn’t, it includes
employees and guests.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, well, see, what happens is when you get testimony that seems in
conflict with that.
MR. ROUND-It’s not.
MR. LAPPER -Niral telling us he has 22 employees, plus 4 managers.
MR. ROUND-Right, I think the Wilton store has 208 parking spaces, total. Has a 64-unit,
63-unit hotel. Typically, at full occupancy you have a manager and 63 occupants. I
mean, you don’t car pool and two desk clerks. So there’s 64 out of 208. Do the math, 66
less 208, so we’re well below the 150 target. Even with the employees. The things I’m
struggling with, these are both operating facilities. We have observed data and we’ve
exceed the standard and I know, what information can I give you so you’ll say this is
adequate parking.
MR. VOLLARO-You know what, I think you’ve given us all the information we can take
on at this particular point.
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MR. LAPPER-I’ve gotta give you something else in the interest of compromise because I
don’t like to get land use approvals through litigation. I never want to do that, it’s
expensive, it’s time consuming, it’s not the way any of us want to do business. It’s not
the way Niral wants to do business. At the same time, does he think legally he deserves
to have this permit? Yes, he does and we want to convince you to grant it to us not to
ask a judge whether you made the right decision. So what we would be willing to do,
much like Chris said, that we would voluntarily give up the left turn out for the trucks to
bring the eight weeks of excavation, and whatever, six weeks of fill. What we would be
willing to do when we got together with Golden Corral corporate last week, we’d be
willing to do a different configuration within the restaurant, instead of the 365 number that
has burned into the Chairman’s mind, we could do more booths and less tables which
would reduce that count by 23 seats.
MR. VOLLARO-Let me ask a question so long as you’re on that kick. Is there any way,
because you know when you put that drawing up there, that shows the whole site, it’s
obvious to my eye that it’s a very tight site. It’s tight because, and the fact that you’re
developing with an underwater, or stormwater controls.
MR. LAPPER-Underground.
MR. VOLLARO-Which is very, I think engineering wise, I love it, you know. But, you’re
doing that because you don’t have the room to do it any other way. It’s expensive to put
this site together.
MR. LAPPER-Because that site is valuable enough because of the traffic count and the
visibility to do it, but, by doing it that way, yes, it’s expensive. But it makes it so we can
develop this site without impacting the wetlands. I mean it’s good engineering.
MR. VOLLARO-I understand that, but you’ve got.
MR. LAPPER-And the ground.
MR. VOLLARO-You’ve got a very, very tight site for the amount.
MR. LAPPER-Well, when you say that, we have a lot of green-space. We’re not asking
for a green-space variance, if we were then it would be a tight site. We’ve got all of the
development area on the site and we leave all the resources alone with less than a tenth
of an acre of federal wetland disturbance and no state wetland disturbance.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, yes. One of the things that’s always sort of bothered me in this a
little bit is the design criteria that says we’re designing to .095, that’s always bothered me
on this site.
MR. LAPPER-You know I know that and that’s not really fair because federal standards
are you can go and do a disturbance of up to a tenth of an acre and you fall under the
nationwide permit and you don’t have to talk to the Army Corp I mean those are the
rules. It used to be it was a half acre a few years ago and it’s gotten more restrictive. So,
that’s.
MR. VOLLARO-I would have probably felt more comfortable on this had you gotten a
letter, or whatever, I forget what they call it from Army Corp.
MR. LAPPER-Here’s what, the way that works is that once we do the disturbance we
have to fill out a form and file it with the Army Corp, so we do have to notify them.
MR. VOLLARO-Well look, it’s getting on to 12:00.
MR. FORD-We’ve got people who have been sitting here waiting to address the Board
as well and we may have an additional communication from the public that we’d like to
hear.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, I’m gonna open the public hearing, I think my.
MR. ROUND-Bob, under the alternate plan that would allow us to do the 50’ buffer, we’d
further reduce our wetland impact, so it wouldn’t…be closer. But again, we’ve always
been consistent in that that’s a design target. Everybody that’s doing site development
tries to stay below the tenth of an acre. That’s just the way it is, if it, if John said if it was
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a half an acre, we’d disturb up to a half an acre. You know, cause it would cost us less.
We’d have to do less site work, you know, so that’s just the fact.
MR. LAPPER-But, it’s gonna be less than .95.
MR. VOLLARO-.095.
MR. LAPPER-.095, excuse me because of that.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re just slightly under the line.
MR. LAPPER-Because of that 50’ buffer.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m going to open the public hearing, if someone would like to come up
to speak to this application, come right up now. I’m sorry it’s so late, but it’s what we do
here.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
AL BOYCHUK (63 QUAKER ROAD ADJOING THE PROJECT)
MR. BOYCHUK-A couple of things. Again, the process, I believe there’s a letter to
Gretchen, from another neighbor, adjoining neighbor across the street. Last time you
had a letter from TD Bank North also stressing that because the center lane, the middle
lane will be used as a stacking lane for people turning in to, from the west entering the
restaurant and that will create problems for people exiting on the south-side of Quaker
Road, majority of them, and these are the letters that you had from TD Bank North and
now Adirondack Specialist, which is also Cingular telephone (lost words) and the other,
the doctors were not able to arrive, but they did also have concern, but they’re not here
we can’t take that for anything. But, it’s the stacking of all the cars that are going to be
coming in; buses. These people do a tremendous bus business which should be
addressed. A bus crossing Quaker Road heading through two lanes, they also move
very slow. So you know, there will be tie-ups, additional tie-ups on Quaker Road, which
are there now and it’s going to actually make it worse. These are you know, the letters
from Mr. Tatar should also be noted.
MR. VOLLARO-We’ve received that letter in our packet from Mr. Tatar. We have it, it
was delivered to us.
MR. BOYCHUK-All right, and that’s it, I’m not going keep repeating the same thing over
and over. It’s a great restaurant, but this site is just too small. If they lower the standards
of seating inside, the people are still going to come in looking for parking spaces to fill
up, so the space is going to be smaller.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ve tried to intimate that to the applicant, whether or not this building
could be made smaller and be more accommodating to a site of that size, but it seems
like it’s going to be that size or nothing.
MR. BOYCHUK-You know, but, even if they make it smaller, the people are still going to
be coming in there trying to utilize it. The traffic will be building up, more so, because
they’re going to be leaving there, without, looking for spaces and then leaving the
premises. So, the traffic will.
MR. VOLLARO-That would form a problem with internal circulation which is another
thing that I’ve concerned myself with. If there is not enough parking and people come in,
it’s an attractive site and they want to eat there. They come in and there’s no, they’re
gonna want to get out. That going to definitely affect the circulation on the site, another
concern I have. And it goes right back to what I read to the applicant before and that is in
making decision the Planning Board shall make a net overall evaluation of the project.
They give us that room, here, you know, we’ve been playing here with numbers for
several hours now.
MR. BOYCHUK- I’ve addressed the Board in the past, I’m sorry for taking up their time,
but basically it’s not worth repeating the same thing over and over. The main concern
would be the traffic, the congestion this will create for people trying to enter and exit all
the other businesses in that small area of Quaker Road.
MR. VOLLARO-I understand.
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MR. BOYCHUK-Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Thank you very much Mr. Boychuk.
MRS. STEFFEN-Is there someone else, Mr. Strainer?
MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Strainer?
DAVID STRAINER (1124 RIDGE ROAD)
MR. STRAINER-I’d first like to start off, I have no problem with the Golden Corral coming
to Queensbury. It’s not the restaurant per se, that I don’t agree with in this location. It’s
any type of high volume restaurant in this location is going to be difficult. You know, this
is a restaurant that’s going to do a number of cars. When you take a look, you just can’t
take a look at that one area, cause you have peak mealtimes for every one of these
restaurants here. You’ve got Applebee’s down the road, you’ve got Giovanno’s, you’ve
got Red Lobster, you’ve got the Olive Garden and from what I always thought we were
going to get a (TGI) Friday’s in the Northway Plaza. Another time period is going to be
extremely difficult on this road. I do agree with the fact where they’re talking about the
trips with the dump trucks. Those aren’t significant numbers for Quaker Road, if you’re
going from Aviation to Hudson Falls, or vice versa. But, you are looking at these dump
trucks that are going to be stopped, hard to get out cause I work right next door. I know
at times it takes me five to seven minutes just to get out of Mark Plaza that Mr. Boychuk
owns. You know, alone, just looking at what they have to do to make this a buildable
site, tells you that it’s not right. You know, you can only have in and out going right.
Who’s going to police this? At the Northway Plaza if you’re coming out on Quaker Road
there’s a left that you’re not supposed to take and I can count ten times a day when
people are doing that. Who polices it? Also when come down here to Applebee’s, there
are people pulling a U-turn to pull into this plaza. It’s dangerous. You know, we’re
supposed to promote the health, safety and welfare of our citizens and if you’re gonna
make this road even more dangerous then it really makes no sense, but the big
difference to me that the Northway Plaza has and that the Lowe’s Plaza has, is they
have other ways to get out. They don’t have just one place to come in and out and to
force them to go right on right. Who’s going to police this? Nobody, and it’s going to be a
dangerous situation. What bothers me even more about this, again, I could mitigate
every little problem you’ve come up with tonight, but the fact of the matter is right across
the street is the firehouse. That is one of their main entrances of getting in and out onto
Quaker Road. What happens if there is an accident? What happens if those people
can’t get out? You know, I just sat here and listened to this for quite a while and it’s the
same thing, this is too much of a project in too small a space.
MR. VOLLARO-Thank you, Mr. Strainer. Anybody else want to speak to this application
while this public hearing is open.
MR. FORD-Do we have any written communication that has not been entered?
MR. VOLLARO-We have, we have one that we’ve gotten ourselves, but nothing in that’s
in the record to be read.
MR. BAKER-There was a submittal by the applicant in response to both staff and
engineering comments, as well as the letter which I’ve read from Warren County DPW.
MR. LAPPER-Can we respond to the public comments?
MR. FORD-There’s also a letter from the owner of the Cingular.
MR. VOLLARO-Oh yes, we’ve got that, that’s in the record.
MR. FORD-That’s in the record?
MR. VOLLARO-That’s in the record.
MR. LAPPER-Can we respond to the public comments?
MR. VOLLARO-Sure, by all means.
MR. LAPPER-Those are anecdotal and lay testimony about fears about traffic problems
next door. And, Mr. Boychuk mentioned the bank. The bank closes at 5:00 and the peak
hour for this restaurant is 5:00-7:00. I mean, just in terms of conflict, I don’t think that the
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Mark Plaza or Realty USA is too busy generally after 5:00 pm on weeknights because
the restaurant’s peak hour is different than those businesses. But in general, we’ve
submitted traffic reports that have been modified as you’ve required. We’ve submitted it
to Warren County who is going to issue the permit. We’ve submitted it to CT Male, on
your behalf and no one is saying there’s a capacity problem, no one is saying that we
need a traffic light at our exit. That’s again, anecdotal lay testimony that people are
concerned, but this site, the whole issue of, and I know that the Board, cause you’ve
mentioned it a number of times, you just think there is too much on the site, but it’s been
engineered and designed that the site can accommodate the building. The parking
surface, the landscaping, we’re not asking for green-space variances. We’ve done
everything you’ve asked, so it may appear to you that there’s too much on this site, but
we’ve complied with what the code requires for siting this, and Niral comes to town and
with two successful restaurants in nearby communities and says, I’d like to be in the
Queensbury market and he pulls out the Town Zoning Code and asked himself, gee
where do I have to find a piece of property so that I can build my restaurant? And the
answer is, Quaker Road is one of the few areas in Town where it’s allowed and the
reason why it’s allowed is that you have this five lane road that has good visibility and
good access and good capacity. And no one has ever said that there’s a capacity issue
like this is going to be too much traffic for Quaker Road, Quaker Road needs another
lane. That’s not what we’re talking about here, this is just and I don’t understand it. I
know that you guys are careful and you’re trying to do the right thing, but I think you’re
going overboard here. This is just not the project you need to shoot down to protect the
town, it’s just not that big a deal about putting this restaurant on this piece of property on
Quaker Road. Does it have to be designed properly? Does it have to be engineered?
Do we have to deal with the stormwater, so the stormwater can be treated before it goes
into the wetland? Yes, that’s what has to happen, it has to be treated on site.
Everything, all those design requirements are being met and I don’t know why this
process has gotten so out of hand. I’ve heard from Planning department members that
there have been all sorts of private meetings on this property between members of
different boards and the Town engineer. I don’t understand the level of concern, I don’t
see it. I’ve done many many projects in Queensbury and I don’t understand this doesn’t
compare to the scope or magnitude of Lowe’s, Home Depot, Target, any, I mean, I could
name dozens and this is not that big a deal. It’s not a traffic generator like these other
big traffic generator in this corridor.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s the highest volume turn-over restaurant in Queensbury, or will be.
MR. LAPPER-But if you take the cumulative, what’s there now, with all these other
restaurants. Um, Olive Garden, Red Lobster.
MR. HUNSINGER-That’s an interesting comment, I remember we’ve heard a lot of
anecdotal information tonight, so I’m going to throw my two cents in. I remember a few
years ago when this board was looking at the Dunkin’ Donuts on Upper Glen Street.
There was a lot of concern about the drive-through window at Dunkin’ Donuts and people
concerned that the queuing of the drive-in window would back out into Glen Street. And
finally I just said, if the drive-in lane is full of cars, you just don’t stop, you drive on, you
go somewhere else. And I can’t tell you how many times when I’ve gone to go out to
dinner, I’ve gone to Applebee’s and there was a 45 minute wait or you couldn’t find a
parking spot. You know, if the parking lot is full, you drive on.
MR. VOLLARO-However, Chris.
MR. HUNSINGER-If the store’s full and you have to wait 45 minutes to get a table, you
go somewhere else. That’s the beauty of Queensbury, that’s why people like to live
here. You got 15 choices within a 5 minute drive. You don’t have to fight traffic to go visit
this restaurant if you don’t want to.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re absolutely right, what you’re saying is the site self-polices itself.
That’s really what.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, to a certain degree it does. I mean, it’s human nature.
MR. VOLLARO-But, in the Code, you know.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’m not trying to diminish the concerns. I had the same concerns as
the Board tonight about parking and traffic.
MR. VOLLARO-But, the Codes says when we talk about parking. It’s gets specific in that
areas of the location and sufficiency of the off-street parking. They’re not saying that,
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well, you know, they want the parking to be adequate for the space that’s involved and
whether or not it gets people go.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think the applicant has met the test. I think he has more than met
the test. He has given empirical data, he has shown us everything that we have possibly
asked for and more. I’m sorry, Bob, I think we should move on.
MR. VOLLARO-No, it’s.
MR. HUNSINGER-We spent 2 ½ hours on this tonight alone.
MR. VOLLARO-To me it’s important.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’m not saying it’s not important, I’m saying we covered it, let’s move
on.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-I have to get up in five hours and go to work.
MR. VOLLARO-Chris, that’s not my problem.
MR. HUNSINGER-I know it’s not your problem, Bob, but it’s your problem to sit here and
argue with our applicant for an hour and half, while the rest of the Board sits wanting to
move forward.
MR. VOLLARO-Look I didn’t.
MR. HUNSINGER-While the rest of the board sits here wanting to move forward.
MR. VOLLARO-Look I didn’t chew up all the time, the time has been chewed up by the
applicant. I’ve given the applicant every opportunity to say everything he wants to say.
And that’s what we gotta do. Now, one of the things I see in the Fire Marshal’s report,
they talk about a calculated occupancy load here. He says this building can be occupied
by 596 people. When I look at that at three patrons per vehicles, I get 198 spaces. Every
time I look at this.
MR. LAPPER-You have to let respond to that, that’s really funny. We laughed when we
saw that. Because what they’re doing, you can’t be at the buffet line if you don’t have a
seat. So what they’re saying is that if everybody standing in the buffet line has five
square feet. that how many people with the fire code if you jammed it? But because it’s a
restaurant you don’t get into the restaurant if you have a seat. So that, you can’t count it
twice, you can’t count the people on line at the buffet grabbing their apple pie.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re saying that his analysis is incorrect.
MR. LAPPER-I’m saying that his analysis would be like if it was a meeting hall and how
many people you could have if everyone is standing there shoulder to shoulder, but you
can’t have shoulder to shoulder because the same people at the buffet line are the same
people that are sitting at the seats and you can’t count it twice.
MRS. STEFFAN: You also get a certificate of occupancy for a certain number of people
so the restaurant has a capacity.
MR. LAPPER-Yeah, yes both of those.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s what he’s got here, 596 for his certificate.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the maximum occupancy of this room is 300. If there were 100
people in this room it would be packed. I mean that’s what the Fire Marshal is saying.
That’s the most people you could put in that building.
MR. LAPPER-Let me go on from that, somewhere that I really don’t want to go, but I
don’t know why the Board has taken this special interest in trying to find reasons to turn
this down. But what I see in the record is that the Fire Marshal seems to have gotten
annoyed that he was talking about emails from the Board to him, asking pushing him to
try and say stuff. That stuff needs to be in the record and it’s not in the record. There’s
obviously communications that should have been in the record. You know, there’s the
new FOIL law that the governor just signed that gives you legal fees, if you don’t. I mean
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that there have been private discussions, private emails, I don’t want to get into that stuff.
All we’re trying to do is build a restaurant, I don’t want to make a case why this process
wasn’t fair. But, I do think that it was pre-judged and I don’t understand it cause I’m used
to this Board and it doesn’t usually happen.
MR. VOLLARO-Pre-judging would have been back in September of last year when we
could’ve come out and said we just don’t like this project, but we’ve been looking at it for
a full year now.
MR. LAPPER-Well, I don’t think you’ve been looking at it fairly.
MR. PATEL-I think though, in all honesty, if you look at the last three months, four
months, it’s been the same issues repeated. And for the last four months we’ve done
nothing, the engineer, who is a very well known, respected engineering firm in the area,
a very well known attorney in this area and myself, as a restaurateur, who wants to only
do the right things to get this restaurant built and functioning safety not only for myself,
but for the Town, civilians, everything else. And we’ve responded and tried our hardest to
go above and beyond what was technically really required of us. Technically, if this was
the first Golden Corral, I was opening, there really would be no empirical data to
compare to in Saratoga. And by your code, I’m not required, I’ve met the requirements,
simply. But, no I said, you know what, I’m gonna do my, I’m gonna be straight forward
and I’m gonna show them that this is okay. But now it’s coming back and I’m really firmly
believing that it’s not gonna go that way because there is a predisposition here.
MR. LAPPER-I want to just make the record clear, that what I offered when we went to
the public hearing is that what we’d be willing to do would be again, to change booths,
tables to booths so we would be a net decrease of 23 seats so we would go from 365 to
342, which in terms of the how many, 2.5 per car, it certainly helps the parking analysis.
It makes it smaller than the other restaurants, and again, I agree with what Mr. Hunsinger
said, if somebody drives by on Quaker Road and see every spot taken which based on
our numbers of 90 spaces including employees, is not going to happen. But, if they see
every spot is taken, it’s just like when you drive by Olive Garden and you see eight
people standing outside, you keep going.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but that not what our Code says we’re supposed to do. I
understand.
MR. LAPPER-But the code says 104 and I know you understand.
MR. HUNSINGER-What are we going to do Bob, we gonna move on or are we gonna sit
here and argue until 4:00 in the morning?
MR. ROUND-Bob, I just want to make this point, the code that you sited says, talked
about sufficiency of parking, that’s your concern, right? What are the tests for sufficiency
of parking? We looked at the Town code, we exceed the Town code, we looked at ITE,
the Institute of Transportation Engineers, we looked at their code, we exceed their code.
We looked at two operating restaurant and we exceed what we demonstrated capacity.
So, you tell us how we determine the sufficiency of parking, you tell us how to collect that
information to demonstrate it to you and we will collect it. But, I suppose that we present
that information, there will be a new standard established the evening we present that.
MRS. STEFFAN-We’ve got a couple of other things on the letter, retaining wall and sign
details and that would conclude the comments.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, let me try and resolve this.
MR. ROUND-This could be very quick. What we presented to you in our submission
back in August, was the concern I think Mr. Seguljic brought it up, he said there was
concern is there going to be a guardrail, a fence? How would you prevent pedestrians
from doing that, but we haven’t specified that particular thing, but we’ve identified two
options. One is a rigid cast in place slab type feature, which is on the screen in front of
you, which was presented to you. This is if we choose the Versa-Lock type wall. The
applicant prior to us talked to you about segmented wall with stackable blocks. This is
the type of structure that would work with the Versa-Lock installation. The other option is
a post and rail type of feature, so you can put in a guardrail and/or fence. We agree and
we recommend to the applicant, to Mr. Patel, that we include a stop for vehicles as well
as either a handrail or fence to prevent pedestrians and so we concur with the Board on
that issue. There’s just two photos of what we’ve been talking about, Versa-Lock, this is
one option. We also presented to you and the Town engineer reviewed a, what is called,
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it’s a Ready-Rock, it’s very similar in appearance, but it’s a much larger profile block. So
instead of these smaller stackable boxes, it’s much larger, similar appearance, similar
type of installation detail. So these show like a, you see the photo on the right shows a
fence, guardrail detail it’s gonna either be that or there’s a fence and you can’t quite see
that there’s a rail up above. Sign detail, there was the monument sign we presented, I
think we presented it to you last time and you asked for copies. We provided that with
our submission, 15’ feet all, nominally 10 feet 3 inches wide. So, we came down from a
proposed pole mounted sign at your request, and propose a monument sign. So that
was that.
MR. SIPP-How much did you come down?
MR. ROUND-Well, a monument or a pole mounted sign, I believe you’re allowed 25 feet.
tall and that’s what we’re proposing.
MR. SIPP-25 feet?
MR. ROUND-That’s what allowed under your code is a 25 foot pole mounted sign.
We’re not proposing that, we’re proposing a 15 foot tall monument sign.
MR. SIPP-Can we go up on Rte. 9 and take a look at the.
MR. ROUND-Yes, we agree with you, that’s why we proposed the monument sign.
MR. SIPP-Well, I proposed the monument sign and I don’t think 15 feet tall is what I
proposed.
MR. ROUND-If at the end of the day that’s the issue that’s gonna resolve this project, we
would happily shorten the height of that monument sign, but we’ll save that one for last.
MR. SIPP-I agree, I agree that we’ve hashed this over. We’re just going over the same
ground time after time. To give you my impression, I have given you this before, this is
the only high volume restaurant in the Town of Queensbury that has no light to exit onto
a main arterial.
MR. LAPPER-You said that.
MR. SIPP-I’ve said that before and I’m saying that again. I am concerned not with
anecdotal reference or whatever you want to put on it. The people of Queensbury are
concerned about traffic and this will continue to put more traffic onto the road because
it’s in the wrong place.
MR. LAPPER-But, if this was about a light we’d be talking about should we put a light in.
MR. SIPP-No, no Jon, you twist the words here .
MR. LAPPER-No, I certainly don’t, I’m listening to you.
MR. SIPP-And next week you’ll say well, you wanted a light there, we’re gonna do
whatever we can. You’re not going to get a light there. It’s the only restaurant without a
light, it’s the only place in the Town of Queensbury where we don’t need any more traffic
and this is what people have said in the latest of the year, year and a half, we’ve been
into the PORC rewriting.
MR. LAPPER-But a light is not necessary, I mean, the traffic, the County would issue a
permit for this for a curb cut. A traffic light just isn’t necessary in this location.
MRS. STEFFAN-Can I ask a question about the sign? You talked about a monument
sign out front, there’s a sign on the side of the building. So, this monument sign is in
addition to the signage on the building.
MR. ROUND-Correct, there will be a sign mounted on the Quaker Avenue face or the
southern face.
MR. VOLLARO-Excuse me. I’m gonna call for a time out here for about a couple of
minutes and I’m want to confirm with my attorney on a time out basis. Okay? We’ve
taken all the testimony we can take. We’ve got everything we need in terms of
testimony, in terms of information and we will give you a resolution within the allotted
period of time. That’s at least my decision, I don’t know how the Board feels, but I’m
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gonna poll the Board and see how they feel about that. But, we’ll make a resolution to
give the applicant a resolution within the allotted period of time. How do you feel about
that, Tom Ford?
MRS. STEFFEN-Does counsel have input here? He’s making a.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. SCHACHNER -You don’t need a resolution and I don’t know that I would advise a
resolution to agree to provide a decision within the allotted time. You have a legal
obligation to provide a decision within the allotted amount of time, and you can simply, if
this is Board consensus, you can simply tell the applicant, if there’s a Board consensus,
you can simply tell the applicant that this case will not be decided tonight but will be
decided within the allotted time. However, you skipped on very important procedural
point which is, right now as we sit here I understand it you have an open public hearing.
MR. VOLLARO-We have to close the public hearing.
MR. COUNSEL-Right, that is my concern.
MR. VOLLARO-I understand that, but before I even do that I would like to.
MR. SCHACHNER -You can discuss it among the Board where you want to head, that’s
fine.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s what I want to do, I want to get a consensus. Does the Board
agree that we’ll take the allotted period of time to make this decision. Right now we’re
not gonna.
MR. SCHACHNER -I don’t think you should commit to taking the entire allotted period of
time, I think you should simply indicate to your fellow Board members your proposal is to
not, as I understand it, what you’re proposing to your fellow Board members is to close
the public hearing and to make a decision on this application within the statutorily
required time frame.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s exactly right.
MR. SCHACHNER-If you want to sound out your Board members, that’s fine.
MR. VOLLARO-Don.
MR. SIPP-I agree.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom Ford?
MR. FORD-I can proceed that way.
MR. VOLLARO-Gretchen?
MRS. STEFFAN-I do not agree.
MR SEGUJLIC-Can you explain it to me. So, we’re gonna take, what 62 days?
MR. VOLLARO-We’re gonna take.
MR. SCHACHNER-Up to, up to.
MR. SEGULJIC-Up to 62 days.
MR. SCHACHNER-Right. You can take four days if you want.
MR. SEGULJIC-Then a resolution, then at one of the meetings that the applicant is
notified.
MR. SCHACHNER-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Then we give them our decision at that time.
MR. SEGULJIC-Then at that point we have vote on it, the resolution?
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MR. SCHACHER-Right. At an open public meeting at which the applicant is present and
anyone else who wants to be. Right.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, I’m for that.
MR. VOLLARO-Chris?
MR. HUNSINGER-I’m ready to move forward and my suspicion, well, I won’t say it.
MR. VOLLARO-Go ahead.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, my suspicion is the only reason why you don’t want to move
forward tonight is because you want to take the time to draft a declination resolution,
because that’s the only time that we have postponed resolutions. So that someone can
draft an iron clad resolution to defeat a motion.
MR. VOLLARO-You can take the allotted time to do an approval or a denial.
MR. HUNSINGER-I said it’s my speculation, I understand that, I understand that, Bob.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, I think we have consensus to go on the allotted time period.
MR. SCHACHNER-Within the allotted time period.
MR. VOLLARO-Within the allotted time period.
MR. SCHACHNER-Now that being the case, the only formal step I’m going to
recommend is a motion to close the public hearing.
MR. VOLLARO- We have to close the hearing.
MR. SCHACHNER-That’s my concern.
MR. VOLLARO-I make the motion to close the public hearing.
MOTION TO CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING FOR SITE PLAN NO. 57-2005
NORTHEAST DINING & LODGING, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford:
th
Duly adopted this 26 day of September, 2006, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Vollaro
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mrs. Bruno
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. We’ll get back to you.
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Robert Vollaro, Chairman
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