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2008.02.07(Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SPECIAL MEETING FEBRUARY 7, 2008 INDEX Site Plan No. 55-2007 Kenny Properties/David Kenny 1. Tax Map No. 288.12-1-21 Site Plan No. 48-2007 Schermerhorn Residential Holdings, L.P. 2. Tax Map No. 288-1-63, 64 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. 0 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SPECIAL MEETING FEBRUARY 7, 2008 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT CHRIS HUNSINGER GRETCHEN STEFFAN THOMAS FORD THOMAS SEGULJIC DONALD SIPP TANYA BRUNO STEPHEN TRAVER (ALTERNATES DON KREBS & PAUL SCHONEWOLF IN FOR FORD AND BRUNO FOR SCHERMERHORN PROJECT) GIS ADMINISTRATOR-GEORGE HILTON TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX, SCHACHNER, & HAFNER-MARK SCHACHNER STENOGRAPHER-SUE HEMINGWAY SITE PLAN NO. 55-2007 SEQR TYPE II KENNY PROPERTIES/DAVID KENNY OWNER(S) SAME ZONING HC-INT. LOCATION 1454 STATE ROUTE 9 APPLICANT PROPOSES ADDITION OF A COVERED ENTRY TO HOTEL, REDESIGN OF COURTYARD AREA, EXPANSION AND ADDITION OF OUTDOOR POOL. MODIFICATIONS OF EXISTING STRUCTURES IN THE HC-INT ZONING DISTRICT REQIURES SITE PLAN REVIEW APPROVAL FROM THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE SP 28-95, 7-96; AV 8-96, 55-04, 18-94 WARREN CO. PLANNING 11/14/07 LOT SIZE 3.40 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 288.12-1-21 SECTION 179-4-020 DAVID KENNY, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Good evening. If you could identify yourself for the record and tell us about your project. MR. KENNY-Good evening. I’m David Kenny. My daughter Laura. We’re here tonight to hopefully have our project approved. It’s a carport at the entrance to Days Inn, in front of the office, and in the courtyard area I’m proposing to put a pool area. I believe you have all the plans, engineer’s comments. Everything’s been submitted, discussed. MR. SEGULJIC-The issue I had with stormwater, they’ve addressed that. So I’m all set. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Any other questions, comments from the Board? MR. TRAVER-I agree with Tom. It appears that everything’s been addressed. MR. FORD-I like the green space. MR. KENNY-Thank you. MRS. BRUNO-My largest concern had been the lighting, you know, around the pool, and we had discussed that and I was glad to see more information regarding that, as well as the lot. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions, comments from the Board? We do have a public hearing scheduled. It was left open from January. Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to address the Board on this application? PUBLIC HEARING OPEN NO COMMENT PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED 1 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. HUNSINGER-This is a Type II action. So, if anyone would like to put forward a resolution, I’ll entertain a motion. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 55-2007 KENNY PROPERTIES/DAVID KENNY, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford: 1. A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes addition of a covered entry to hotel, redesign of courtyard area, expansion and addition of outdoor pool. Modification of existing structures in the HC-Int zoning district requires site plan review approval from the Planning Board. 2. A public hearing was advertised and held on 11/27/07, Tabled to 1/22/08; and 3. This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; and 4. 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 5. 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. The applicant must meet with Staff after approval and prior to issuance of Building Permit and/or the beginning of any site work. Subsequent issuance of further permits, including building permits is dependent on compliance with this and all other conditions of this resolution. 6. The applicant will provide as-built plans to certify that the site plan is developed according to the approved plans prior to issuance of the certificate of occupancy; and 7 If applicable, Item 7 to be combined with a letter of credit; and 8. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 60-2007 KENNY PROPERTIES / DAVID KENNY, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford: According to the resolution prepared by Staff. Paragraph Four complies. Paragraph Five, this is a Type II. Paragraph Eight does not apply. No conditions. Duly adopted this 7th day of February 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Ford, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSTAINED: Mr. Sipp MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you very much. MR. KENNY-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Sorry we couldn’t take care of you the last time. SITE PLAN NO. 48-2007 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED SCHERMERHORN RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, L.P. AGENT(S) B P S R; JAMES MILLER, MILLER ASSOC. ZONING PO LOCATION SE CORNER OF GURNEY LANE & WEST MT. RD. APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 85,340 +/- SQ. FT. OFFICE BUILDING. OFFICE USES IN PO ZONES REQUIRE PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE PZ 6-03, SP 72-05, AV 2-06, AV 59-07 WARREN CO. PLANNING 9/12/07 CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL AREA RUSH POND CEA LOT SIZE 0.90 & 16.12 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 288-1-63, 64 SECTION 179- 4-020, 179-9-020 JON LAPPER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT 2 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. HUNSINGER-George, I don’t know if you want to try and summarize Staff Notes, as to where we are. MR. HILTON-There were no new Staff Notes. We anticipate meeting this evening to continue the SEQRA review. I believe the applicant has some additional information they’d like to present, and obviously the public hearing has been left open and will be continued this evening. That’s all we have. We really don’t have anything additional to add at this time. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Good evening. MR. LAPPER-Good evening. For the record, Jon Lapper with Rich Schermerhorn, and we have our consultants here as may be necessary tonight to answer any questions. When we left the meeting, two and a half weeks ago, you had asked us to present some additional information on two specific aspects, which you had come up with under the SEQRA review, after reviewing the Long EAF, and one of those was in written form, and we presented letters from the emergency service providers, the County Sheriff, the Queensbury Central Fire, and the West Glens Falls EMS to verify that they would not have any problem getting to the site because of additional traffic, and those were presented to the Board last Friday, as was required under your resolution, and we can certainly answer any questions that you have on that at this time. We think they’re pretty self-explanatory. On the second issue, Mr. Seguljic’s issue of the visual impact, you asked us to look at that differently to see if we could come up with a better rendering to prove that we weren’t going to have a visual impact from the adjacent highways. You were talking about the Northway and also from West Mountain Road at the driveway entrance. So, by making some phone calls to some of the engineering firms that we deal with, we were able to come up with a computer consultant from Saratoga who does computer modeling, Jim Zack, who’s sitting behind us, and he took the photographs, he’ll explain his methodology, but he took the photographs that Tom Nace had previously presented to the Board. He took the Site Plan, the landscaping plan that is pending, and put them all into his computer model, along with the architecture of the building. So I’m going to ask Jim, if there’s nothing else you want to ask us at this point, I will ask Jim Zack to make the presentation to explain his methodology and show you what the building will look like, or won’t look like, from the Northway and from West Mountain Road, to address that fact issue that you asked us to address. MR. HUNSINGER-Any questions from the Board? MR. LAPPER-We have a hard copy that we printed, which we’ll hand to you for the record, and we also have it on disk that he’ll go through on the Board, so everybody can see it. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. TRAVER-Mr. Chairman, when you asked about questions, are we going to discuss both topics, or should we take them one at a time? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I guess procedurally, I wanted to give the applicant the opportunity to present any new information, as we had, you know, given him the opportunity to, and then I thought we could ask questions. JAMES ZACK MR. ZACK-For the record, my name is James Zack, for all members of the Board. I own and operate Xtra Spatial Productions, LLC, out of Saratoga Springs. I’ve been practicing geographic and spatial data analysis for 25 years. For the past seven years, I’ve specialized in 3-D visualization of natural and built environments. I’ve been retained by Schermerhorn Residential Holdings, L.P. to build a 3-D model of the West Brook office park site and its environs in order to simulate and analyze potential visual impacts from both the northbound lanes of the Adirondack Northway and from the vicinity of the proposed site entrance on West Mountain Road. A very important stipulation of our Memorandum of Understanding was that my compensation was to in no way be linked to the results of my analysis. Both parties agreed that the determination of the extent, if any, of potential visual impact was the sole objective of our collaboration. Before photo simulations could be produced, the 3-D model of the proposed site and its environs needed to be produced. Basically this process combines all design and environmental data to yield a scale model that exists in the computer. This scale model is, as any model is, a simplification of reality that captures the salient properties necessary to achieve our objective. In this case our objective was to produce reasonable and 3 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) accurate photo simulations, illustrating the visibility of the project from key vantage points. Industry standard methodology was used to create the computer model, and if the Board would like, I can list the inputs to the model, if that would serve to clarify this process. MR. HUNSINGER-How lengthy is it? MR. ZACK-It’s short. MR. HUNSINGER-Go ahead, please. MR. ZACK-This whole intro will take less than five minutes. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. ZACK-Inputs to the process include terrain data for the environs, CAD contours for the site, including both existing terrain and the proposed grading plan, CAD data delineating the footprint of the proposed building, the extent of vegetative clearing, landscaping plantings and hard scaping elements of the plan. I was also provided a large format architectural rendering illustrating the form and style of the proposed building and additional verbal and written descriptions about the design of the proposed buildings were also provided. Land cover class for the environs was provided, through the US Geologic Survey, and that exists as hierarchical classification scheme, known as Anderson Level Two. Canopy closure for the forested areas of the environs, which served as a surrogate for forest density was also provided, as an input, a positionally corrected aerial photograph, which is also known as an ortho photo, which at one meter resolution was used to delineate clearings, roads and buildings adjacent to the site, as well as to place critical foliage elements germane to the objective. A set of 134 images of trees and shrubs which could be instanced multiple times throughout the model and these tree models were designed, these tree images were designed to facilitate congruent leaf off and leaf on photo simulations for deciduous tree species. A set of photograph landscaping trees and shrubs were input to portray the site landscaping plan and a set of calibration digital images provided by Tom Nace and supplemented by my own images. Once all these inputs were collected, a geographic information system was used to integrate all the spatial data to ensure consistency and positional accuracy. The office building was modeled using 3-D Studio Max, and was supplemented by creating three strings of weather balloons, which would help locate the site even if the building itself were not visible, due to screening or intervening terrain or vegetation. Once validated, all spatial data and the building model were imported into Visual Nature Studio, which I’ll call VNS in the future. VNS is a state of the art, 3-D visualization software package which I’ve been using for eight years now. Once the model was built in VNS, photo realistic renderings could be generated. The model was calibrated by comparing a set of, series of renderings from the same points as the digital field imagery. Tree heights were varied from their nominal heights within the range of 80% to 130% of that height, and compared with the digital imagery to find the appropriate tree heights. Tree density was calibrated similarly. Two sets of photo simulations were produced to demonstrate the extent of visual impact of the proposed project, one set from the Northway and one set from West Mountain Road. In order to present the same visual field of view and apparent size that we’d see with our eyes, these images should be viewed from a distance that is one and a half times the width of the screen here. So I don’t expect everybody to huddle around about eight feet from screen, but for your reference, Board members, the hard copy that was provided to you should be viewed from approximately 16 inches away from your eyes, in order to preserve the same apparent scale and size of the objects. Without any more ado, if there’s any questions, I’ll conclude my presentation. This is map, locator map, showing where the Northway simulations, Northway view simulations were conducted from. The site can be seen to the upper left, northwest corner of the map, and this is a color infrared, so don’t get all upset that the colors aren’t what you’re used to seeing. This is color infrared photography that I’ve mentioned. The stations where the initial simulation was produced range from Station Zero, which is highest up on the Northway as you’re coming down the grade towards Exit 20, to Station Ten, which is the farthest down the slope. These areas were deemed, this one tenth of a mile stretch of highway was deemed as having the most possible visual impact of the proposed site. South of Station Zero, the median would obstruct visibility towards the site, and north of Station Ten, the median vegetation and the low elevation, as we go down the grade, would prevent views up to the site. So this is a simulation, photo simulation of the Northway during the winter conditions, leaf off conditions, from Camera Location Zero. In all these simulations, the site is centered from the center of the photograph, of the simulation. So here we can just barely start to see some of the weather balloons that I had tied to the Ten, Twenty and Thirty feet. The 4 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) weather balloons can just barely be seen in the center of the image. Those weather balloons were suspended 10, 20 and 30 feet above the roof ridgeline of the proposed building. Next slide, please. So this is from Camera Location Six, and here we can see the yellow and blue balloons, which are twenty and thirty feet above, but we cannot see the building itself. Next slide, please, and this is Camera Location Nine, which is pretty much the last station before the additional trees and the vegetation in the Northway median would obstruct and views towards the site. So, using those ten stations, I chose Station 6.5. Being a mathematician, I’m not restricted to just integers. So I went halfway between Station Six and Seven to produce the next simulation. This is a simulation from Station 6.5, in leaf off conditions, winter conditions. You can see a string of balloons just to the right of the tall, there’s two, actually two very tall, two or three, depending, I don’t know how far up they bifurcate, two or three pine trees that stick pretty high up in between the site and Station 6.5. Next slide, please. This is a simulated binocular view, what you would see if you had eight power binoculars, as you were driving down the Northway, from Station 6.5 during leaf off winter conditions. So here we cannot see the building, yet we can see the red weather balloon, which is ten meters above the roof ridgeline, and there were three sets of balloons, one on the south end of the building, one over the center part of the roof ridgeline, and one over the north end of the building. So these three give us some idea of the extent of the project. Next slide, please. I ten raised the camera close to 16 or over 1600 feet above the Northway, same location, raised the camera up 1600 feet so you could get an idea of what we’re talking about, how this is shielded, how this project is screened by the vegetation between the Northway onramp, the southbound onramp, and the site itself, and also to show you that we just didn’t put the balloons in there. We put the whole model in there, and it still was not visible at the ground level, Northway level. This is, again, an eight times magnification, showing the level of detail of the model itself and the weather balloon configuration. You can see the three sets of weather balloons now. All right, next slide. During the summer, the deciduous trees are fully leafed out. This presents much more vegetative screening than the winter conditions. This is a simulation, photo simulation, from Camera Location 6.5 during the leaf on conditions. Next slide, and here’s an eight times magnification. Evidently some deciduous trees would form enough vegetative screening to hide even the weather balloons at this point. Next slide, and again, raising the camera up 1640 feet, looking towards the site, this is the conditions that would exist during the summer. Next slide. Zooming in, we can see the landscaping, the level of detail for the landscaping, etc., West Mountain Road in the background. Next slide. Moving now to the West Mountain Road simulations, and for this simulation, we have eleven stations numbered zero through ten. Again, being a computer geek, I start at zero. I know it’s a little weird, but that’s the way we do things, and Station Zero is the southernmost end of where we determined that would be visibility towards the project, and once we get to Station Ten, there’s a ridge there that would prevent views towards the site, but the entrance is opposite Station Seven. Next slide. Here we are looking at the site from Station Zero, and we’ll just move to Station One, Camera Location One, Camera Location Two, Camera Location Three, Four, Five, Six. Again, all these simulations were centered on, or the center of the frame is the center of the building. Nine, and by the time we’re at Ten, we’re already starting to get into that ridge, that small swale, I guess you’d call it, rather than a ridge that would tend to obstruct any further viewing. That’s the extent of the simulations. At this time, I’d like to turn it back over to Jon. MR. LAPPER-There are a few other shots that I asked Jim to photograph, just for comparison’s sake, to show other buildings that have recently been approved by the Planning Board on the Northway, just to compare to what, the visual screening that we have here. George, could you just go through. MR. HUNSINGER-If I could just ask a question. On the West Mountain Road simulation, so once you get past Balloon Number Ten, you wouldn’t be able to see the building? MR. ZACK-Station Number Ten? I can’t say that for sure. I only, I stopped at Camera Station Ten, because it looked like it was getting out of the range of visibility where you’d see it through the entrance. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. ZACK-Originally, I had done one from the entrance only, and, at Jon’s recommendation, I extended quite a ways to either side of the entrance. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. MR. TRAVER-I also have a question with regards to the simulation. This particular 5 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) photograph here from location ten will work well. It looks, it appears to me that, looking at the intervening trees, between the observer location and the building, they seem to be quite mature. Are those trees that are part of the landscaping that are simulated as having some period of growth, or are they trees that are left untouched by the project? MR. ZACK-In this particular case, we have the screening vegetation. There is some vegetation that is left in place, and the landscape trees are, for example, the honey locust in the background there, on the right hand side in the background, whereas the foreground trees, I believe, are part of the existing screening and vegetation that’s left in place. MR. TRAVER-Okay, and for the simulation, did you put parameters into the computer for age, for example, so we would know approximately how long after the construction phase, this is what we would expect to see in terms of maturity of the trees? MR. ZACK-No. This was a snapshot in time, as it exists now. Again, we can’t say what would be the result if there was a derecko that would knock down all the trees on the Northway entrance ramp, onramp. We can’t. It’s a model. We take it for what it is right now, conditions as they are now. MR. TRAVER-I’m sorry. What I’m referring to is the plantings that are part of the landscaping plan. MR. ZACK-Yes, I see. MR. TRAVER-It appears to me that, or I guess I’m asking the question, if the trees that are represented in this image, for example, which are a part of the landscaping plan, are they representative of the trees immediately after construction? MR. ZACK-Yes, they are. MR. TRAVER-They are. Okay. MR. ZACK-They are. The caliper widths were converted to heights, and from that. It is possible to simulate growth. We did not do that for this study. MR. TRAVER-Thank you. MR. LAPPER-George, if you could just go through the next few. It’s the Tribune building, which is under construction. MR. HUNSINGER-So is this an actual photograph? MR. LAPPER-These are actual photos. Jim stopped his car along the Northway. This is just a little bit farther north looking at the Tribune building. The West Glens Falls EMS building, and a direct shot of the EMS building from the Northway, looking back at Tribune, and then a shot at The Great Escape Hotel coming down the hill heading north, and that’s it, just for comparison’s sake. So that is our additional information. It’s certainly our position that this building is almost invisible from the Northway because of the large buffer that was left, and because of the vegetation along the Northway, and that this is a higher standard than the Board has required on other projects. It’s going to be somewhat visible , but shielded along West Mountain Road. There’s certainly no requirement that an office building in Queensbury be invisible, but because only part of the site is being developed, there’s a large buffer here. So it’s well screened, and obviously at the entrance drive you’re going to see the building because that’s where the pavement is. MR. SEGULJIC-I have one question here, and I guess I have two different pictures here. This was submitted during the public hearing. That picture looks a lot different than this computer simulation. MR. LAPPER-Tom, what’s the picture that you’re holding up? MR. SEGULJIC-This picture is from the same area, looking in the same. MR. LAPPER-Is that a Tom Nace picture? What are you referring to? MR. SEGULJIC-This one, here. 6 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. LAPPER-Yes, what is that? MR. SEGULJIC-This is a picture, looking north along the Northway. MR. LAPPER-Who provided that? MR. SEGULJIC-It was provided during the public hearing. MR. LAPPER-By one of the neighbors. MR. SEGULJIC-I believe so, yes. MR. LAPPER-Can I take a look at that? MR. SEGULJIC-Sure. I’m just trying to understand, because they do look different. MR. ZACK-Could you please tell me what looks different to you, which elements of this? MR. SEGULJIC-Well, there doesn’t seem to be as steep a grade in that picture you appear to be looking. MR. ZACK-This is a telephoto lens. MR. SEGULJIC-That’s a telephoto lens. Okay. MR. ZACK-A telephoto lens will foreshorten. For purposes of simulation, we stick to a 50 millimeter equivalent lens, so we’re not distorting, we’re not showing a wide angle view, we’re not showing a telephoto view. MR. SEGULJIC-So that’s giving the perception of the valley being deeper? MR. ZACK-Yes, yes, it is. It will bring things closer to you, eight times closer, five times closer, and that has the effect of foreshortening. Anybody who’s taken a telephoto picture up a steep slope will say, wow, that slope looks a lot steeper than it does when I drive it. MR. SEGULJIC-I guess, then within this picture, where is the building proposed to be? MR. ZACK-The building is proposed to be in the center of the frame, which would be behind that tree. MR. SEGULJIC-Right there, then? MR. ZACK-Yes. No, behind the tree, behind the foreground tree. MR. SEGULJIC-It wouldn’t be up over in this area? MR. ZACK-No. Definitely not. Most assuredly not. This Station Zero is just. MR. SEGULJIC-Right there. MR. ZACK-Approximately there, yes. Approximately there. MR. SEGULJIC-And here is the project here. So it looks like there’s a straight shot down. MR. ZACK-No. A straight shot along the Northway would put it over there. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. So you’re saying it’s more over here. MR. ZACK-With the 3-D modeling software, it’s possibly to specify both the camera location and a target location. I put the target for all my simulations directly on, except for the calibration photos, which weren’t aimed directly at the proposed site, it’s very difficult to find the proposed site out in the field when it’s not there. So I just took my camera and aimed. Then, through, in the calibration stage, I move my camera in the 3-D model until it matches the photograph. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. 7 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. ZACK-And so, but then for all these simulations from Camera Location Zero through Ten, they’re centered. The target of the camera, the center of the picture, the principal point of the picture, is the proposed site. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. So that’s one of the keys is it’s hooked over, over here more so instead of there? MR. ZACK-Yes, and so, let me see that picture again, so, on this, Tom, I would argue that that is not the location, that is not the location. MR. SEGULJIC-So it’s more over here. MR. ZACK-This was, I would question the methodology here and challenge it, of where that dot is. MR. SEGULJIC-All right. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-We had another question on that same picture, exactly where the building is located. It’s not that white spot. What would that white spot represent? MR. ZACK-Can you tell me what white spot? MRS. STEFFAN-On Figure Two, this white spot. MR. ZACK-That white spot is the Northway. There’s the ramp, onramp for the Northway, and then between the site, there’s a little bit of a setback. There’s clearing back there. If we can put up the ortho image, from the Northway. Actually, it may even show up on the West Mountain ones. Right there. That might show it up. Yes. That white spot is right here. What you’re seeing is the snow covering the non-vegetated area, just west of the onramp. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions from the Board? MR. TRAVER-I have a question with regards to traffic. With regards to the letters that you were able to obtain from Queensbury Central, and I see we have an updated or amended letter from Joe tonight, which says in essence the proposed site will not impede Queensbury Central’s response time to emergencies in any way. As you recall from our last meeting, we talked about the traffic obviously a great deal, and one of the things that we, as a Board, decided was that there was a potential that impact on the traffic, transportation system, and I think it was my homework assignment to try to take a look at that, and my concern, as I had looked at the information, really centered on this issue of emergency response to the area, and the letters that you obtained from Queensbury Central, Warren County Sheriff, and West Glens Falls EMS, with the possible exception of the letter this evening from Queensbury Central, really don’t address that. The Warren County Sheriff’s Office talks about they’re going to continue to provide professional service, and certainly they do provide professional service, but that was not really the question. The question was, would there be a delay caused by an impact on the transportation system that would preclude them being able to provide that professional service as quickly as they pre-project. My understanding is that they were contacted during the day today and asked to clarify that, specifically with regards to response time, and didn’t feel that they could make a statement, that they could, in fact, respond in the same time period. The same can be said, really, for your letter from West Glens Falls, you know, they say our agency will respond to any call dispatched at this location, and again, we weren’t questioning whether or not they would discontinue their service to the area, but rather would the response be, would any impact to the transportation system cause an impact in the emergency response, which might be considered a large impact. MR. LAPPER-I think probably we should have the letters read into the record so that everybody’s aware of what we’re talking about, but Steve, you asked us to go out and get letters from the three service providers to see whether they would have a problem with this new building, and we got those letters, and now what you’re saying is that you don’t like the language that they used. They clearly said that they will not have a problem, and the letter today from Queensbury Central was very specific about response times. Last time we were here, you were attempting to say that the automobiles with their gas tanks, that this should be treated as a petroleum bulk service facility, storage facility, because there was gas in the tank, and now we went and got the letters that the emergency service providers are all saying they’re not going to have a problem, and you 8 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) don’t like how they’re saying that they’re going to have a problem. So to me that means that there’s some prejudice on your part because these letters speak for themselves. RICH SCHERMERHORN MR. SCHERMERHORN-Could I ask the Chairman to please read, I think it’s very important for the audience if we read the three letters that were requested by Mr. Traver into the record, I’d like the people to hear it, and then there was a response. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. George? Thank you. MR. HILTON-Actually, there are three letters, and then a follow up letter from today. So if you want, I’ll read all of them. MRS. STEFFAN-Please. st MR. HILTON-I’ll start with a, let’s see here, letter received January 31, from Queensbury Central Volunteer Fire Company. It’s addressed to the Planning Board Chairman. It says, “In reference to the proposed building site on West Mountain Road, for Traveler’s Insurance Company, Queensbury Central Fire Company would like to offer our opinion. The proposed site as opposed to the current site on State Route 9 poses us no additional hazards with our response. In fact, the responding apparatus out of our Aviation Road station would be at a much lesser risk, being that the new response would not include responding through the State Route 9 and County Route 254 intersection. As for the Lafayette Street station, they would already have been responding through that intersection, thus impending no additional hazards. As with all other commercial occupancies in the Town of Queensbury, the construction oversight would be done through the Town’s Code Enforcement Office. Queensbury Central’s involvement would be somewhat limited, including logistical items that may pertain to a fire response, should that situation arise. In closing, we appreciate the Planning Board’s request for our participation in this matter. Should there be any other questions, comments or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me. Respectfully, Joseph DuPrey, Chief” The second letter is from the Warren County Sheriff’s Office. A letter dated January 30, 2008. It says, “This letter is to inform you that the Warren County Sheriff’s Office will respond to any and all calls for police service anywhere in the Town of Queensbury. If any new business is commenced in the Town that should create an influx in traffic or calls for police service, I would expect that we would provide the same professional service currently being provided by the Warren County Sheriff’s Office. This would include the proposed building to be constructed at the Exit 20 corridor. Should you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to call me. Thank You, Nathan H. York” The third letter is a letter from West Glens Falls EMS, received February 1, 2008. It states, “This letter is to inform you that the West Glens Falls Emergency Squad will and does provide emergency medical coverage for the proposed construction site at the corner of Gurney Lane and West Mountain Road. Our agency will respond to any call dispatched at this location that would be dispatched by the Warren County Sheriff’s Communication Center. Any questions can be directed to me at 361-2113. Sincerely, Peter Harrington Asst. Captain West Glens Falls EMS” And the fourth letter that I’m th going to read is a follow-up letter received today, February 7, from Queensbury Central Volunteer Fire Co. It says, “In reference to the proposed building site on West Mountain Road, for Traveler’s Insurance Company, Queensbury Central Fire Company would like to offer our opinion. The proposed site as opposed to the current site on State Route 9 poses us no additional hazards with our response. In fact, the responding apparatus out of our Aviation Road station would be at a much lesser risk, being that the new response would not include responding through the State Route 9 and County Route 254 intersection. Aviation Road apparatus would have to travel less miles to the new location, going from 2.38 miles (Route 9 location) to 1.47 miles (West Mountain Road Location). As for the Lafayette Street station, they would already have been responding through that intersection, thus impending no additional hazards. Mileage would increase from 0.64 miles (Route 9 Location) to 2.49 miles (West Mountain Road Location), but keep in mind the major hazard that is already involved is the 9 & 254 Intersection. In essence, the proposed site will not impede Queensbury Central’s response time to emergencies in any way. As with all other commercial occupancies in the Town of Queensbury, the construction oversight would be done through the Town’s Code Enforcement Office. Queensbury Central’s involvement would be somewhat limited, including logistical items that may pertain to a fire response, should that situation arise. In closing, we appreciate the Planning Board’s request for our participation in this matter. Should there be any other questions, comments or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me. Respectfully, Joseph DuPrey, Chief” 9 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you, George. Was there anything else that you wanted to add to any of those? MR. SCHONEWOLF-I’d like to comment on those. MR. HUNSINGER-On one of the letters, or just in general? MR. SCHONEWOLF-On the response time in general. I had questions. MR. HUNSINGER-Go ahead. MR. SCHONEWOLF-I think the issue of response time, as it’s brought up here, is really a bogus issue. Response time in the emergency service, is measured from the unit that’s responding where they started from and how long it takes them to get to where they’re going. Now, the Sheriff said he doesn’t have a problem. The reason he said that is he’s got cars on the road that cover different zones, and the response time to your house, if you’re living out there, he could be a block away or he could be out on the Northway and another car’s going to have to come. That’s what determines response time, not whether they can get through an intersection. They can all get through intersections. I have driven emergency vehicles for 35 years, aerials, tankers, pumpers. We all do it the same way. We try not to blow through intersections. We try to slow down and stop, especially the trucks, we put on our lights and siren, and guess what, sometimes people do things we’re not counting on, but they stop or they pull over, and believe me, in this Town, and I’ve lived here for a few years, there isn’t enough traffic in this Town to worry about, even that big intersection that they’re talking about, never had a problem getting through that because you just pull the other light and go through, and when you’re talking about ambulances in this Town, remember, there’s six ambulances in this Town. You’re not always going to get that ambulance from West Glens Falls. You’re going to get the one that’s in service, and the same thing for the fire trucks. Central Queensbury answers 2,000 calls. They’re out all the time. Where are they going to be when you need them? I don’t know, but it’s from when they’re notified and when they get to their house, and that’s the response time, and that’s what you want to find out if you had a problem, and you could get that from the dispatcher, but the traffic and everything, it’s not a factor, believe me. I’ve been there for 47 years. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. MR. SIPP-Mr. Chairman, in regards to that, I agree that at midnight there probably would not be any difference in the response time, but at four o’clock in the afternoon when that throughway bridge is impacted, for a response, emergency response vehicle to get through that, there’s no place for those people to pull over. I’ve seen both lanes of that clogged for about 150 feet, either side of that Northway bridge. In this case, somebody with a heart attack at the County Center with West Glens Falls Emergency Squad trying to get across that bridge, where do the cars go? So it does make a difference, the traffic in this area, not at midnight but at four o’clock, or five o’clock, or eight o’clock in the morning will make a difference. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Mr. Sipp, just so we can clarify, just so I guess the audience knows, it is a law to pull over when emergency vehicles have their lights on, just so they know, and just to take one step forward, and this is something I ran out of time, but I did make a phone call to the Lake George Fire Department. They would be more than happy to respond, heading north on the, or south on the Northway, if Route 9 corridor was to be plugged up. I’ve thought of everything I could possibly think of. So we do have responses from Lake George that would be happy to respond if there was an emergency. MR. SIPP-What is the response time from Lake George? MR. SCHERMERHORN-Very quickly, obvioulsy it’s minutes. MR. SIPP-What is quickly, five minutes? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, and I think the other comment that I would make is, to Mr. Sipp’s question, when you start talking about specific intersections, we do have the traffic study that talks about Level of Service at specific intersections. So I think the answer that you seek on your question is in the traffic study that was provided by the applicant. MR. SIPP-Yes, and some of those, by placing a light where they want to place it, it takes this intersection from an LOS of E down to a D, which is a term of 15 seconds, I believe. 10 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) Now, if it’s a D intersection, your waiting time, then, is 45 seconds of that light? And we’re talking right off that Northway bridge. MR. LAPPER-Well, if you’re talking about emergency services, people are going to pull off the road, and the emergency service providers are saying they’re not going to have a problem. So you’re speculating, Don, that the bridge is going to be clogged and these emergency service vehicles won’t be able to get there, but the record shows differently because we have these letters. MRS. STEFFAN-I just want to weigh in for a minute, because I think we’re losing perspective. I think the debate is important, and the Planning Board has asked for some information, the applicant has furnished some information. The reason that those questions were asked is because the public was concerned. The letters that were just read into the record are based on the perspective of can the emergency services service the new office building as it’s proposed, and all the emergency services responded to that. The residents, during the public hearing, were just concerned that during the hours of operation of the building, would their houses or property or whatever be able to be serviced and accessed by the emergency services. So, you know, the debate that’s going on right now is not really, does not really support the purpose of what we were trying to accomplish by asking for that information. I think we do have enough information to be able to make some decisions on the Planning Board, but I just don’t think we should argue or debate about something that will not really get us anywhere. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MR. SIPP-Speaking of traffic reports, I was handed a report from a Lawrence Levine, February 7, 2008. MR. HUNSINGER-Do you have that, George? Would you hand that to Staff so he could read it into the record, then, Mr. Sipp. MR. SIPP-Okay. MR. SCHACHNER-I’m a little confused about the process. What do you mean you were handed this, today, some other day, by whom? MR. SIPP-Tonight. MR. SCHACHNER-By Mr. Levine? MR. SIPP-I don’t know who did it. MR. SCHACHNER-Some stranger just walked up to you and handed you a traffic report? MR. SIPP-He’s not a stranger. He’s in the audience, but I don’t know his name. MR. SCHACHNER-I mean, Mr. Chairman, I have no knowledge of this, obviously, nor is it important what I know about it, other than for process purposes, if it’s a comment from the public, public comments, of course, are supposed to be delivered to the Board through Staff. MR. SIPP-That’s what I was asking, would we be hearing from Mr. Levine tonight? AUDIENCE MEMBER-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-By coincidence, I know Mr. Levine. I know Mr. Levine. I now see him waving in the back of the room. It would seem to me the appropriate thing would be to have Mr. Levine speak at whatever time, and submit, if he wants to submit something, submit something. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SCHACHNER-The only point I’m making is for the legal process to be sound, Planning Board members should not be just accepting, and people should not be offering and handing things in to Planning Board members outside the context of the public hearing. That’s all I’m saying. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, and I appreciate that comment because during the Planning Board’s review of this project, there were several occasions when residents were able to 11 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) access the personal emails of individual Planning Board members and I think it was the second or third such email I did respond, and I just want to read that into the record, because I want to make sure that the public understands the process, and it is very relevant, given the situation that was just brought by Mr. Sipp. Public comments should be submitted to the Planning Board or the Zoning Board by handing them out at public meetings/public hearings and or sending them to the Board’s attention at Queensbury Town Hall. It is inappropriate to send personal emails and or to provide comments to Board members outside of public meetings. Public access to Board meetings is supposed to occur within the context of the public meetings and public hearings, and submission of public comments in the manner described above. The proper method, as Counsel has pointed out, is if someone has a comment for the Board, they can either make it on the record verbally or they can submit it to Staff to be read into the record. We are very, very careful in controlling the flow of information from the applicant to the Planning Board. All information is distributed through Staff, so that there is an official public record of the application. We, then, only receive information from the applicant through the Staff and through the official record, and it is very important that the public follow the same procedures, so that we have a public record that is complete and so that all Planning Board members have all of the information that is included as part of the public record. Having said that, I’ll ask the Board if they had any other questions or comments of the applicant, and that would be specific to the two issues at hand, aesthetic resources and traffic. MR. TRAVER-Well, I would just like to follow up. Queensbury Central, evidently, was able to provide us a letter today where they say, where they address the issue of response time. I would like to see the same from the other emergency services. It sounds as though there is an opinion that it shouldn’t be a problem because the traffic is not going to be an issue. So, I think it would be appropriate for us to have those signoffs so that we can feel comfortable that the transportation system is not going to put lives or property at increased risk. MR. LAPPER-I guess, after we get through the public hearing, we can talk about what everybody’s position is and whether there’s sufficient information on the record. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. If there are no further questions or comments from the Board to the applicant, when we concluded our meeting in January, I did leave the public hearing open. The minutes say that it was specifically for purposes of the Site Plan Review. However, we did offer the applicant an opportunity to comment on traffic and aesthetic resources. I think, in all fairness to the public, since we allowed the applicant to provide new information, that we will consider public comments this evening, as part of the public hearing, but I would request the public that the comments be limited to either the impact on aesthetic resources, as described in the SEQRA Part II, or the impact on transportation. I will read the specific questions that the Board is wrestling with. The first question is that the impact on aesthetic resources, the proposed land uses or project components obviously different from or in sharp contrast to the current surrounding land use patterns, whether manmade or natural. The second question, proposed land uses or project components visible to users of aesthetic resources which will eliminate or significantly reduce their enjoyment of the aesthetic qualities of that resource, and then the question on the impact on transportation is alteration of present patterns of movement of people and/or goods, and we heard, again, mentioned several times this evening, the major concern was emergency vehicle access to the site. I would ask that anyone wishing to speak on these topics raise their hand to be recognized by the Chair. I would also request that you limit your comments to five minutes. We will have a timer. When you hear the timer beep, then your time will be up. When you speak during the public hearing, you should address the Board and you should address any questions or comments to the Board and in a professional and courteous manner. Who would like to be first? Yes, sir. PUBLIC HEARING OPEN DENNIS FRANKLIN MR. FRANKLIN-I’m Dennis Franklin, West Mountain Road. Hi. I don’t think, you know, everyone’s always going to agree on any net gain or loss from a project. I’m sure we all agree we don’t want to see anyone killed or injured by our actions that others may judge as irresponsible or reckless. Consequently, the West Mountain Corridor Group for Responsible Land Use, private citizens and interested professional groups and businesses, have jointly sponsored an independent traffic study. Not one that focuses on counting cars or comparing January to July, one who’s focus is on overall traffic safety. We engaged Mr. Lawrence Levine, Professional Engineer, a Michigan State 12 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) graduate with a BS in Civil Engineering with Honors, a Masters in Transportation and Civil Engineering on full Scholarship from Northwestern University, RPI, I’m sorry, and has attended courses from Northwestern University, University of British Columbia, George Washington, St. Catherine’s and Amherst Colleges relating to accident investigation, accident reconstruction. He has authored many texts on highway issues, safety, signs, guard railing designs, guide railing, reconstruction manual for New York State OGS, ice and snow maintenance practices for New York State. He has his own consulting and traffic engineering business since 1984. He has done impact studies in Glens Falls and the Lake George area. His client list includes, briefly, New York State Department of Law, U.S. Attorney General’s Office, the LA Group, Rist Frost Associates, Richard Jones Associates Architects, Saratoga Associates, New York State DOT, Maryland DOT, Massachusetts DOT, Queensbury Town Planning Department and last but not least Travelers Insurance. He has received advance training in accident investigation and reconstruction at Northwestern University, RPI, George Washington University Institute for Traffic Engineers and Society for Automotive Engineers. He has a fully integrated computer application technologies of accident investigation and highway design. He specializes in accident causation and highway defect analysis for cases involving heavy equipment, trucks, bus, off road vehicles, platform lifts, fork trucks, cranes, motorcycles and automobiles. Mr. Levine is a member of the Institute of Traffic Engineers, expert witness counsel for the National Association of Professional Accident Reconstruction Specialists. Mr. Levine is a past Junior Engineer with New York State DOT and is very familiar with highway design and the workings of New York State DOT. We are most fortunate to have Mr. Levine’s expert input into the safety of the traveling public. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. Good evening. LAWRENCE LEVINE MR. LEVINE-Good evening. My name’s Lawrence Levine, and I was just introduced. I did put together a letter, three copies of which I believe were handed to the Staff before this meeting, and a separate copy was handed to each individual member to review, which does summarize my findings. What I did was I went to the site and I did an independent view. The first thing I did was I went to the driveway, located where the driveway would be and observed sight lines, which would normally be the first thing hat you would do as an engineer or a traffic engineer in evaluating a site design for safety, and for operations, and the first thing I noticed is that there, if you’re sitting in that driveway, where it will be, in a car, with your eye at three and a half feet over the pavement, plus or minus, that if you look to the right, and you watch, there’s a hill and there’s a sharp curve, to the north of the site, to your right, and you will observe, if you stand there and watch the cars, that they come up, you see them, and then less than two to three seconds later they’re by you, okay. They’re traveling at 45 miles per hour, or in excess of 45 miles per hour, which is 66 feet a second, and I explained that in the report, and there are specific criteria for designing highways so that people have enough time to react and to press on their brakes and to have enough time and distance to stop. What I observed was there isn’t enough, okay. So that was the first item. That’s a big item, and that’s a safety concern which should have been addressed in design. Certainly it should have been addressed by Creighton-Manning when they looked at the site, but I think they just maybe assumed that somebody else looked at it because it isn’t addressed. So the alignment and the sight distance from the driveway is not dealt with at all in the Creighton-Manning report. Now I saw that later. First thing I was doing is looking at what was going on. Now I am familiar with this area, and everyone knows the bridge over the, for the Northway ramps is only 25 feet wide. It’s an old bridge. I have information it is a structurally deficient bridge, which means it shouldn’t be carrying trucks and so forth, but it is. It is being used as a by-pass route and as a cut through. Goggins Road, from Exit 21, and then over to, let me just show this. I did a diagram which is attached. I’m sorry, I don’t have a copy for the audience. The pink route shown on this drawing on the right, as you’re looking at it, there are double arrows and a pink outline showing the cut through that is being used right now. It’s being used, not all of it is being used by trucks, but certainly Gurney Lane to West Mountain Road to Mountain View Road to Aviation Road is a big cut through. Especially in the summer, huge cut through, for trucks, for locals, and even people like me who don’t live here but know about it, okay. If you want to avoid the congestion and the backups on Route 9, you take that pink route. That’s a hell of a lot faster. Okay. That was not considered in the Creighton- Manning report. Projections of traffic five years, ten years in the future, were not considered by the Creighton-Manning report. I don’t know why. The only reason I can imagine is they make one statement in there that the Route 9 traffic has, for some reason, in the last three years, declined, according to their report. I don’t see it, but it’s possible that the counts that they were using may have been faulty. I didn’t see anything 13 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) that showed that they had done any actual counts to verify this, or to check with DOT. It’s possible on the day that the counts were taken by DOT something may have happened. There may have been a hold up, an accident, who knows, but, in any event, just because Route 9 is declining in traffic doesn’t mean the cars disappeared. It’s very possible that the cars are using this cut through, and based upon just standing out there, you know, I’ve been out there over the last 20 years. I don’t go up there all the time, but I did stand there for quite some time. It’s busy. It’s very busy, compared to what it used to be on Gurney Lane. It’s busy on West Mountain Road, all the way up and down Aviation Road is just crazy, and certainly there’s a lot of truck traffic on Mountain View Road cutting through. There’s nowhere else for them to be going. MR. HUNSINGER-Your time is up. MR. SEGULJIC-Can we have him extend his time? MR. HUNSINGER-No, because if we extend him, then we have to allow everyone else to extend. MR. SEGULJIC-But this is new information regarding traffic. MR. HUNSINGER-Did everybody on the Board get a copy of this study? MR. LEVINE-Well, I’m not an interested citizen. I’m an expert. So I don’t think I fall under that category. Do I? MR. SEGULJIC-I’d be interested in having him continue on. MR. HUNSINGER-No. MR. SEGULJIC-But isn’t that a vote for the Board? MR. HUNSINGER-I’d defer to counsel. I know what your opinion is. MR. SCHACHNER-Yes. Legal advice is all members of the public, speakers, whomever, anybody offering a comment, if you’re assigning a time limitation, everyone should be subject to the same time limitation. I can tell you that attorneys often say, well, we’re lawyers. We should be exempt, and that’s not the case. I mean, if you’re imposing a time limitation, you should impose a time limitation. Uniformly and fairly across the board. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Levine. MR. LEVINE-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-I appreciate it. We have your written report. MR. LEVINE-I will leave the two copies of the large drawing that are easy to see. They’re pretty well explained here. MR. HUNSINGER-And they’re in our package as well. MR. LEVINE-Right, and in the report it describes what is in the drawings, and if you have any questions, you’re welcome to call me. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MRS. STEFFAN-Mr. Levine, everything that you were going to present is in this report, though? MR. LEVINE-All except one thing. Just that this site will add traffic going eastbound on Gurney Lane on that two lane bridge, and on top of all the other traffic around this area that’s going to be added, you may have, you may see more of that bridge being blocked up, and then Creighton-Manning could certainly do a study to determine what the response time would be. I mean, that’s part of what they do. That’s part of what I do. All of these issues are safety. Safety you don’t skimp on. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MRS. STEFFAN-Thank you. 14 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Were there any other members of the public that wanted to address the Board on these two issues? Yes, sir. Good evening. DON ROSS MR. ROSS-Good evening. I’m Don Ross. I live on West Mountain Road in Queensbury. I’d like to talk about the traffic problem with the Travelers project. I’m not against Travelers. I’m not against Rich Schermerhorn. I think he does a nice job on things that he does. As a retired member of the Warren County Sheriff’s Office, over 30 years, as a patrol officer and the last ten plus years I was a Sergeant. I don’t consider myself a traffic expert, but over my long career I’ve handled a lot of traffic. I was a supervisor that handled the County part of the Schroon Lake marathon. For six years I was the day supervisor that handled Americade, which I handled the traffic flow and patterns. I took care of the mini tours out in the morning, and numerous accidents and other functions within the County requiring traffic flow. By their own accounts, they’re saying that 30% of the traffic leaving Travelers will go down West Mountain Road, and that will only be getting worse once the people that come north on I-87 and get off the Northway and try to go right onto Route 9, right onto Gurney Lane, when the middle of the summer the traffic is backed up for The Great Escape or if the traffic is backed up on a rainy day because the outlets are so busy. Where are they going to go? They’re going to now get off Exit 19 and come back up Aviation Road, up Mountain View Lane, up West Mountain Road. This is already added to the already overloaded roadways in the area. In 2001, the Warren County DPW did a traffic study on West Mountain Road. The traffic count at that time said 3,677 cars, dump trucks, log trucks, school buses travel that road every day. That’s a very busy road. That does not take into account the national average of one to one and a half percent increase each year. With those numbers, traffic would have an increase average of, from the 3,677, up to 3,934 to 4,063 cars, trucks and buses every day. Now we are going to add another 30% of Travelers traffic, which is, of that 537, it would be another 180 cars, going in and out, maybe at least twice a day, coming to work, leaving, and then going to lunch, coming back from lunch. That’s five days. People on the road have enough problem getting out of their driveways in the morning. Don’t add to this congestion. The bottom line is, the area roads cannot support the traffic. This goes along with the saying that you cannot put eight pounds of sugar in a five pound bag, and that’s exactly what they’re trying to do now. Thank you for allowing me to talk and making the correct decision on keeping the roads safe for the bikers, the walkers, and the residents along West Mountain Road. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. Yes, sir. NICK SIGISMONDI MR. SIGISMONDI-My name is Nick Sigismondi. I live at 168 Aviation Road for the last 19 years. What I want to say is strictly traffic. I have had my own fleet of trucks, trailers. I’ve worked for the school ten years as Assistant Superintendent, buses and trucks. What I want to say, the other morning I was going up Aviation Road. Cars were three deep, and I was four blocks back now. If there were a fire engine coming up there, there was no way he could get around, and Dixon Road, when you come up Dixon Road, into Aviation Road, you’re taking your life in your hands, because nobody will stop. You’ve got to scoot right across that road into Aviation Road, coming down towards West Mountain Road. All this traffic, I don’t know where we’re going with it. I think it’s a bad, bad, you can’t get out of your driveways. There’s no way, on Aviation Road. You’d have to wait five and ten minutes to get out of our own driveways. When you get up by the School, you can forget it in the morning. It’s backed up to Sokols. I don’t know if you know where it is, but it’s all the way down every day, and there’s not much I can say, but most of the people know all about this stuff. I thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Yes, sir. STEVE MEYER MR. MEYER-My name is Steve Meyer. On the pictures that we did, if we could bring that screen that just went out here a few minutes ago. When they did the simulations of it, they did the northbound of the Northway. They didn’t do the southbound Northway. Have we addressed that, what it would look like if we came from the southbound? We’ve always talked the northbound. Nobody’s ever talked about the southbound. MR. HUNSINGER-We’ll ask. 15 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. MEYER-And secondly what they’ve done is they’ve come from the south to the north along West Mountain Road. If you were to look, they stopped right about where the entrance is going in to it. What about the quarter of a mile coming off the bridge and down, south on West Mountain Road? As soon as he gets it, you’ll see that it’s on the southern part of the proposed area, and not on the northern part, and I’d also like to make a comment on Mr. Traver’s question whether or not those, right here you can see, it stops right there. What about the northern section, where the vegetation is very thin and a lot of tall pine trees where you can see right through. No one’s ever addressed that, or this wasn’t addressed here. So I think that the Board should also look at the visual impact from the north side of the exit, not just from the southern, where there is a knoll, and another question that Mr. Traver asked was a question about vegetation. I’ve run on that road almost every day. You can ask anybody in the Adirondack Runners Club who runs by there. Those pictures of that vegetation is not what is existing on that land now. That is not true. That would have to be something that would have to mature. So we’re talking probably 10 years before we even get close to that picture. So anything between now and then you’re going to have a better view of those buildings. So that, so his simulation is assuming mature trees that are not existing, and the third thing I’d like to ask is we’ve always allowed someone to take some other’s time. Are we going to follow that past practice or no? MR. HUNSINGER-No. This Board has not allowed that. MR. MEYER-This Board has allowed that. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, we have not with this applicant. MR. MEYER-With this application because I gave my time to someone else once before. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I don’t know when that would have been, but we haven’t with this application. MR. MEYER-It was in December. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, okay. Thank you. Anyone else? JOHN CAFFRY MR. CAFFRY-I’m John Caffry from Caffry and Flower in Glens Falls. MR. HUNSINGER-Now are you the gentleman that asked to be heard this evening? MR. CAFFRY-Yes, I did. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MR. CAFFRY-I’ve been retained by Mr. Richard Linke on behalf of the West Mountain Road Citizens for Responsible Development. I want to focus tonight on the SEQRA determination that you’re going to make perhaps tonight, perhaps later. We’re requesting that you adopt a Positive Declaration, require a Full EIS, primarily on visual and traffic impacts, but there may be others that would come up in the scoping process. We think that the new testimony you’ve heard tonight from Mr. Levine and Mr. Ross contradicts the applicant’s testimony. These issues need to be resolved through the SEQRA process. On visual impact, I think Mr. Linke’s report that he filed previously does a very good job of showing that the buffers will not screen the project. With regard to the simulations presented tonight, first of all, I’d like to point out that they were not filed st with the Town by the February 1 deadline that you gave the applicant for filing new materials. My office called here today, said there were no new materials. I didn’t get a chance to review this before. The Board didn’t get a chance to review it before. The public didn’t get a chance to review it before. So it seems to me that, if anything, this matter should, if you’re not going to do a Positive Declaration tonight, then you ought to table this again so people can review this report and have a chance to comment on it fully, while having a chance to read it. With regard to the report itself, the last gentleman pointed out some significant defects in that. Another one is that it relies a lot on the vegetation in the middle of the Northway. A lot of the visual impact studies I see, and I’ve seen a lot of them, do not take off site vegetation into account when doing visual impact assessment. Sometimes they do, but they really shouldn’t because the applicant doesn’t control those trees, whether or not they’ll stay there. DOT likes to go down and remove trees in order to prevent people from hitting them when they go off the road. Pine trees along the Northway are being damaged by the salt. These trees may or may 16 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) not survive, and they could just die and blow down, and then that effect will not be there. So really this should have been done without taking into account the off site vegetation. Also, as we’ve seen, there’s significant views from West Mountain Road, which the Town has designated as a scenic road. I think there’s a similar Schermerhorn project on Pine Street in West Glens Falls, which has similar buffers, and as you drive up that street, and before they built the new connector road, that was the main cut through to Corinth Road, Exit 18 from Downtown. You look right through those buffers. That building he’s building there is totally visible, despite the buffers he’s got there. You’ve got the Town Comprehensive Land Use Plan, the Town Open Space Plan, all of which talk about preserving the views from these rural roads, like West Mountain Road and Gurney Lane and the Northway. It talks about preserving the views of Rush Pond are significant views. I saw minutes that it may not be visible from the Pond. Well, very few people actually get on the Pond, but the view of the Pond, if you have this building in the background, is going to be affected, and I see nothing that’s been done to make this building compatible with the neighborhood from a visual impact point of view. So the planning work of the Town, on multiple levels, identified this as a visually sensitive site, all of which means you should take the utmost care. Because you’ve apparently had this in here four or five times, they’ve had multiple opportunities to address these issues, and it really seems that the only way you’re going to finally get them resolved is with an Environmental Impact Statement. It appears to be a Type I Action because it will disturb over 10 acres, and it’s less than 1,000 feet from the Gurney Lane Park or approximately 1,000. So carries with it a presumption that an EIS should be required, and you have to remember, too, under SEQRA, the Board only needs to find that it may have a significant environmental impact. You don’t have to find that it absolutely will. It may possibly is the standard, and you only need to find that for one impact. If you look at 20 impacts and 19 of them are fine but one’s potentially significant, that’s all you need to require an Environmental Impact Statement, and I think this record fully justifies requiring an Environmental Impact Statement. If you look at the Part III Evaluation that you’re going to get into, I think one of the key elements of that is whether or not the project is potential divergence from local needs and goals. Those have been well identified in your Open Space Plan, in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, and the area description for the Professional Office zone. So I think you’re fully justified in doing an EIS and if I can just wrap up briefly, I’m concerned about another issue, too, which is segmentation. Very briefly, the Town Board is in the process of rushing through an amendment to the Code that will increase the parking lots. MR. HUNSINGER-That has nothing to do with this Board. That’s outside of the realm of this Board. MR. CAFFRY-Mr. Stec was quoted in the Chronicle today as saying it is related to to this Travelers project. If you and the Town Board do not look at this together, you’ll be segmenting the review. MR. HUNSINGER-Excuse me, sir, your time is up, but thank you. MR. CAFFRY-Thank you, Mr. Hunsinger. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. Yes, sir. Good evening. GEORGE LANGFORD MR. LANGFORD-My name’s George Langford on Lehland Drive. SEQRA regulations dictate that any project stands on its own. Any data or attributes based on Travelers occupancy are totally without merit. First of all, they are not the applicant, and who knows if Travelers will ever occupy the building or remain a tenant. After all, they are already moving for a second time in only a few years. I have heard the applicant state several times that Travelers will stagger their arrival and departure times. Therefore the impact on traffic will be minimal. Even if Travelers is the eventual tenant, their business plan may change such that staggering times is no longer advantageous. For example, a business that services customers in more than one time zone needs to stagger their hours, but the office providing this service can easily be changed to a more central location. Alternately, other tenants may eventually occupy the building and need to have all of their employees present at the same time. Traffic studies obviously should be based upon the assumption that the number of cars arriving and departing correspond to the number of parking places. Also, why should we rely on studies undertaken by the applicant. An independent assessment is required as you’ve heard this evening. I’ve heard traffic engineers state that the Route 9 corridor study will not be undertaken for a couple of years. This means that the impact of the shopping outlets and Great Escape have not been properly addressed. Expansion of the Municipal Center is also an issue. 17 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) The studies used to justify the project were not conducted during the time of year when traffic is already a problem. This is unacceptable. Also, what happens when employees smarten up and find alternate routes to avoid Exit 20? People getting off at Exit 18 will go through Bedford Close, Revere Road. I personally have grandkid waiting for the school bus there. Those getting off at Exit 19 will increase traffic past Queensbury Schools, Prospect School, and flood onto Mountain View Road. This is all unacceptable. This project demands a complete EIS with proper studies as per a Type I Action. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Mr. Strough. Good evening. JOHN STROUGH MR. STROUGH-John Strough, Queensbury. Did we ask emergency services, especially fire, to give us an assessment of the internal circulation in the worst case scenario, for example during the winter, snow mounding, full parking lot, what’s the ability of the vehicles, especially the vehicles at Station Two, and their turning radius abilities, to be able to access this building in a safe manner. Was that asked of emergency services? I think that’s important, because what it could mean is a complete re-design of the parking. Maybe a relocation of the building, etc., and it just makes me wonder that we made the mistake before. Why don’t we do Site Plan Review and then do SEQRA, because Site Plan Review may address this and many other problems that may come up. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Yes, ma’am. JO ANN SIGISMONDI MRS. SIGISMONDI-Hi. My name is Jo Ann Sigismondi. I live at 168 Aviation Road in Queensbury. I object to this project because I do believe in front of my home, which is across the street from Crownwood, we are going to see a definite impact in traffic. Three months ago approximately I went to a meeting where there were approximately 60 people present about where they did a roundabout study that was going to go from the Northway down to West Mountain Road where they talked about approximately maybe five roundabouts being put in, and they discussed each one in detail. This, I would think, would now have to put in another one near Prospect School because it is going to have so much more traffic there, and at that meeting, it was brought up by people who worked at Prospect School, how they cannot, employees and children, cannot safely cross the street. So they have to be taken into consideration also. I’m sorry. I want to say something about how that gentleman talked about future generations. I had something happen. MR. HUNSINGER-Can we limit your comments, ma’am, to aesthetic and traffic issues, please. MRS. SIGISMONDI-Okay. Aesthetically, I would like to know like where all the runoff is going to go, because I lived in Flushing, Queens. I lived there 40 years at the one house. They did not plan for where the sewage was going to go, and before I left, because there was improper planning throughout, and there was density, that I had three and a half feet of sewage in my home backed up to my home, as did every single house on my block, and the Rush Pond is there. I think that would be aesthetics, how that would look, but not now, but in 30 or 40 years from now, how is that going to affect what the aesthetics of that place looks like, and one other thing, because of what the other gentleman didn’t get to say before, I want to read, because it applies to this here, th because it’s about the Travelers. In the February 7 issue of The Chronicle, it says no sooner than the new Councilman took office did the Town set a hearing. MR. HUNSINGER-Ma’am, what the Town Board may or may not do is not going to impact our SEQRA deliberations this evening. MRS. SIGISMONDI-Even if he talked about this here in the newspaper? MR. HUNSINGER-It’s not going to impact our SEQRA deliberations this evening. Thank you. MRS. SIGISMONDI-Okay. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Is there anyone else that wanted to address the Board on either visual impacts or transportation issues? Yes, ma’am. Good evening. 18 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) BETTY MONAHAN MRS. MONAHAN-Betty Monahan, Sunnyside. We’ve heard a lot of comments tonight, references to the traffic studies done by the applicants engineers. I’m wondering what’s happened to commonsense, and local historical experience. There’s been gridlock on Route 9 since Fran Walter was Supervisor of this Town. You’ve got the Warren County health related facility there. I have no idea how many emergency calls that they get. We’re talking about how we get emergency vehicles there. Somebody said we can bring some in from Lake George, and you can, over Gurney Lane hill there, but how long do you think that’s taking? And have any of you ever had somebody in your house with a heart attack or losing blood, while you’re waiting for an EMS vehicle to show up? Minutes can be important, seconds can be important. Has anybody considered what happens on Route 9 when there’s a function at the Lake George Forum? I was in gridlock last summer because of a function at the Lake George Forum. You could not get up except at a crawl. I mean, you know, stop and start and a few cars through the traffic light there. We’re talking about EMS vehicles, everybody else has to pull over, well, I’d like to know where you’re going to pull over on the bridge, unless we’re going to go over the guardrails and go down on the Northway, or maybe the emergency vehicles are like Batman and they can take to the air. As far as the aesthetics are concerned, pine trees are not an aesthetic barrier. I live surrounded by pine trees. Across the road, they’re on my land between me and the golf course next door, they’re south of me. Pine trees die from the bottom up, their branches, they die off. When they’re little they look like a nice fuzzy Christmas tree and they’re beautiful, but give them any age at all, all those bottom branches start dying. All you have left is a canopy and trunks and I think you saw that in one of the slides that was shown there. So don’t depend on Pine trees that are going to shelter a building from the public’s view. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Yes, ma’am. NORA BUCK MRS. BUCK-Hi. My name is Nora Buck. I live at 251 Gurney Lane. I wanted to mention that these comments were first prepared for the recent zoning meeting where the issue was tabled, and public comment had been not allowed since the Planning Board has taken over the Zoning Board’s decision making body, and I do refer to traffic. So I’m hoping it still fits. I’ve been coming to quite a few of these meetings lately, and it seems that people seem to get cut off. So if you don’t mind, I am going to pretty much read from a script so that I don’t get cut off. MR. HUNSINGER-Go ahead. MRS. BUCK-Okay. Some wise person zoned the area in question Professional Office. That’s perfect. That allows building projects that transition to and can be used by the surrounding community. That would be nice. We’d have services like doctors, dentists, even insurance agents within walking, biking, or a short drive of our houses. People would make appointments and keep them. Traffic would come and go all day at a rather slow and steady pace, just as was intended by the Town Planners when they decided Professional Office zoning was right for this spot. As far as I can tell, zoning seems to be what defines Professional Office space. Even a huge Professional Office, as this monstrosity being proposed, should require only 285 parking spaces. Because one hundred or so people would work there and the other hundred to hundred and fifty other places would be reserved for people who are going as patients, who are waiting in the waiting rooms, the patrons of whoever is there. So the other traffic would, so the 100 people, 120 people, would come in the morning and leave in the afternoon, but the other people would come and go all day long sporadically. Mr. Schermerhorn, I believe, is not proposing a Professional Office space. He need a parking lot that’s nearly twice as big as any parking lot, as any Professional Office should need. Even an 85,000 square foot one. That’s like twice as big as anything on Quaker Road. That’s 500 cars coming in the morning, leaving in the afternoon and a couple hundred probably at lunchtime, going back and forth. That’s like four to five times as many cars as was originally proposed, if it were really Professional Office space being put there. My feeling is Mr. Schermerhorn is not really asking for a variance. Five percent, ten percent, that, in my opinion, is what a variance is. He’s looking for 90%. He wants you to change the rule by 90%. He doesn’t want a variance. He wants a rezoning of the property from Professional Office space to whatever it is that allows for twice as many cars. Please deny him his request. Professional Office space is what should be on that corner. Anything beyond will be a traffic nightmare, one hundred cars, as would be proposed for that spot, versus five 19 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) hundred cars, and as Mr. Larry Levine says in his letter that you all have, it would create a hazardous condition, that many more cars. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, Mrs. Bruno. Good evening. TANYA BRUNO MRS. BRUNO-Good evening. Tanya Bruno, 119 Gurney Lane. I have a little story to tell you, and before you tell me that it’s irrelevant, it isn’t. Please just listen. I live across from the Park. We moved in and I wanted to try maple sugaring like my grandparents. We turned it into a big family event. One day, one Spring, Dan Stec stopped by, when first campaigning, stating how wonderful it was, our stewardship of the land. I believed him, given his dad’s past employment at DEC. Anyway, one of those maple sugaring fires got out of control. It got to my garage and burned it down before it got hosed down. I’m not insulting the firemen. They were caring and wonderful and came back as this fire actually passed over into the Park three times. We joked that we’d get them pizza. Will there be a dangerous effect by additional traffic? You better believe it. I will continue to go across the street when the kids are waiting for rides at the Park and tell them to wait inside, not at the end of the drive, because I hear those wheels. If any of those children, or mine, get hit by someone who is in that neighborhood because of this project, it will be on the Town’s head. My education in our process on the Planning Board has been solidified dramatically sitting on this side of the table. I’ve studied SEQRA more, and the historic portion that I mentioned last time that you passed so easily because SHPO signed off, the Planning Board has the ability to deem local areas locally significant. At minimum, this historic aspect is character of the neighborhood. You should revisit this and, yes, you can go back, still, to review that on the Part II. I have checked legal, and I have, in the past, recused myself, as you all know. I tried to direct that recusal toward our new alternate at the last meeting, so that he might have an awakening of conscience. I have had public tell me I should vote now, given the means many officials have gone through to see that this development be passed. If I were still on that side of the table tonight, I would be insulted by these pressure tactics. It seems like they’re really not respecting all the time that you and I and everyone on the Board put in on any application. However, I will remind you that Town Counsel himself has stated that any professional report, and I’m referring to the traffic report, whether paid for by the applicant or by the public, has to be fully digested by the Board before they can deliberate. You cannot pass this SEQRA, legally, tonight. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, sir. Good evening. DAVID BRUNO MR. BRUNO-David Bruno. I wanted to read this letter into the record, but you’re already been, it’s already been emailed to the Town. So you may already have a copy of it. Dear Chairman Hunsinger: After great thought and attending the County Planning Board meeting last night, I feel I must write this. It has become apparent that no matter how much you, the Town of Queensbury Planning Board, evaluates the Schermerhorn West Brook Office Project, regardless of the tenant or some perceived economic loss, the developer, Mr. Lapper and other Town officials keep pushing the issue of tenancy. The Planning Board and its members have actually stated at meetings, are to review each project strictly on the potential of maximum impact, maximum, of the development. It is unfortunate that an overzealous minority in favor of all development in the Town are trying to derail this standard process and proper scrutiny that project of this magnitude th deserves. On another note, your comment, Mr. Hunsinger, at the January 17 meeting, as quoted, I think that all of us involved in this project have done the community an incredible disservice in not moving it forward sooner and quicker, and it’s unconscionable to me that projects can take six months and more to be reviewed in the Town of Queensbury was totally and wholly inappropriate. Projects in this Town need thorough vetting and discussion, which takes time. The idea that developers need only answer the questions that they feel are pertinent and then will be automatically granted full permission for the project is the problem. The problem is not the length of the process. The Planning Board is here to protect the Town from inappropriate development that is out of line with the adopted Open Space Vision and Comprehensive Master Plan and has the right to due diligence. Finally the process of SEQRA and EAF give examples for Planning Boards as a relatively thorough starting point. Moreover the examples or illustrations listed in Part II under each questions are exactly that, examples. However, SEQRA is not all inclusive. The Board has the right and actually the obligation to expand on the forms and procedures if any member deems that there is a potential community impact. Thank you for your voluntary donation of time. Your stewardship of the Town is appreciated, and one other note. We have a singularly perfect opportunity 20 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) here with 500 individuals to, as Town Planning goes, really increase our economic growth in this Town. Instead of moving 500 people from one spot, putting them in a box, shoving them in a corner, where there is no benefit to the Town economically. This could take one business, turn it into 10, take 500 employees, turn them into 700, if it was put in the proper area of this Town, and it would stimulate economic growth. Travelers does not care about this Town as far as economic growth goes. They did not sit down and say, gee, how can we best suit Queensbury and really spur some economic development, some new shops, some new businesses around this? No, they picked a spot on the Northway and said, this has great access. This is where we want it. The developer has no real interest in economic development. He’s a businessman, and as businessmen should be, they’re interested in one thing, the bottom line. He would like nothing better than to walk out of here with a positive vote from the Board so that he can increase his bottom line, his profit, and Mr. Lapper is an attorney. He’s not an environmentalist. He’s not a scientist, which I happen to be, and his sole purpose is to defend his client. He is here to persuade you, as he would persuade a jury, to believe that his client is right and everything that his client is saying is pertinent to this project. That’s what he’s here for. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? We will conclude the SEQRA public hearing. George, you have a written comment? MR. HILTON-There are I guess a few, four or five more letters. They don’t deal specifically with the two issues that you identified previously. I can read them if you’d like, or if you’d like to hold off until after? MR. HUNSINGER-Would they be more appropriate for Site Plan comments or? MR. HILTON-Well, I guess they address more than the two items that are still outstanding. They don’t touch on those items, per se. They go beyond that. That’s why I’m wondering if you want to review them at Site Plan Review or? MR. HUNSINGER-I’m looking at Counsel for some advice, here. MR. SCHACHNER-Yes. I think, consistent with what I understood to be your description of the purpose of at least the first part of tonight’s meeting, it seems to me that those letters should be held in abeyance until after the Board completes SEQRA review, since they don’t, as I understand it, they don’t pertain to either of the outstanding SEQRA review issues. MR. HUNSINGER-That would be my preference, yes. Okay. MR. HILTON-However, in addition, I do have one letter that we received today from the New York State Department of Transportation regarding traffic that I would like to read in. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. That would be appropriate. MR. HILTON-Yes. I guess, just as a little bit of background information, it’s a letter from New York State DOT addressed to a Mr. Linke. Evidently some information was forwarded to the DOT from Mr. Linke. This response was sent back to Mr. Linke and copied to myself. However, as I feel it’s pretty important to the project, or to your consideration, I figured I’d read it. MR. HUNSINGER-Sure. MR. HILTON-It says, “Dear Mr. Linke: Your January 8, 2008 letter and attached material to Brian O. Rowback has been forwarded to me for review and response. The NYSDOT participated in a multijurisdictional review of the traffic impact study prepared for this project at a meeting held on November 19, 2007. The discussion at this meeting included a review of existing traffic volumes, trip generations, distributions and proposed mitigations with all interested transportation agencies by N.Y.S.D.O.T., the Town of Queensbury, Warren County D.P.W. and the Adirondack/Glens Falls Transportation Council. Each reviewer of the study has accepted the data in the study as representative of the average conditions which could be expected on the highway network in the vicinity of the project. While at times it may be a requirement of a local land use approval board to include an evaluation of worst case conditions in a traffic impact study, the NYSDOT practice is to evaluate average conditions for the design of our capital projects to determine the appropriate mitigation for the impacts of development projects on our highways. We understand your concerns for the increase in traffic due to the proposed 21 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) West Mountain Road Office Building and acknowledge that there may be changes in traffic flow in the vicinity of the proposed office building on state, county, and town highways. The purpose of our review of the impact of a development project is to ensure that the state highways can continue to serve their function which is to support the industry, tourism and commuting patterns of the region and the state as a whole. This is clearly somewhat different than the perspective which the Town of Queensbury Planning and Zoning Boards must take in their review which is to find a balance in the many viewpoint within the Town on the positive and negative affects of a project. We are confident in our position that the installation of a traffic signal at the intersection of the I- 87 southbound ramps with Gurney Lane and the provision of a southbound right turn lane on the off ramp will result in a net improvement to the traffic flow at this intersection. We agree that there is a need to provide an improvement to the pedestrian accommodations on the bridge carrying Gurney Lane over I-87 and when this bridge reaches the end of its useful life, pedestrian accommodations will be included in the project to rehab or replace the structure. We encourage you to communicate your concerns regarding the affects of this office project on town and county facilities to your planning board and the Warren County Department of Public Works for their consideration. If you have any questions on this, please call Lorinda Tennyson. Sincerely, Mark J. Kennedy Regional Traffic Engineer” MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Chris, if I may, could George read these two letters? They’re very short ones, the Warren County Department of Public Works and Adirondack/Glens Falls Transportation, because they pertain to this. MR. LAPPER-They’re already in the record, but it’s our response to the public comments about traffic. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Are these the letters that were previously read into the record this evening? MR. SCHERMERHORN-They haven’t been read into the record, but you’ve had them. MR. HILTON-They’ve previously been provided to the Board. I guess I’ll start with the first letter from Aaron Frankenfeld of the Adirondack/Glens Falls Transportation Council. It’s addressed to Ken Wersted. It says, “This letter is to confirm that the comments from the A/GFTC”, Adirondack/Glens Falls Transportation Council, “staff that were submitted on October 31, 2007 regarding the proposed office development on West Mountain Road near Exit 20 have been given due consideration as part of the multi-agency review process. I’m personally satisfied that the comments were adequately addressed through either notation or supplemental discussion or explanation. Additional comments I had th regarding the meeting minutes of November 19 have also been incorporated to my satisfaction. Thank you for taking the time to respond thoroughly to each comment. Please feel free to share this correspondence with those agencies that seek our concurrence.” The second letter I have here is from the Warren County Department of Public Works, dated November 30, 2007, to, again, Mr. Wersted. It says, “The Warren County DPW staff has reviewed the traffic impact study, traffic signal warrant analysis, and your most recent correspondence to the Town of Queensbury Planning Board, for the above referenced project. These documents, in conjunction with coordination th meeting held November 19 have sufficiently addressed the DPW concerns regarding the traffic impact of the project on County roads in the area. In addition, the County DPW concurs with the determination of the New York State DOT in regards to the installation of a traffic signal at the intersection of the I-87, Exit 20 southbound ramp, and Gurney Lane, as detailed in the letter from New York State DOT to Creighton-Manning dated November 29, 2007. Very truly yours, Jeffrey Tennyson, Deputy Superintendent, Engineering” MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you, George. Did you have any comments relative to the public comments? MR. SCHERMERHORN-I know Jon does. I just wanted to, I guess, talk about the traffic again, because out of the 13 applicants that spoke there was 10 of them that brought up the traffic again, and I know we’ve been going over this and over this since September, and I knew this was a very important thing, and as everyone can recall at the last meeting, at a very late hour, I was more than willing to do whatever it took to satisfy, and I never did get an answer because we were at a point, I believe, where I’d done everything that was requested of me. Again, I want to make very clear to everyone that, when Mr. Bruno said that Jon’s job is to persuade this audience, I’ve made it very clear, 22 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) I’ve never persuaded anybody in this Town of Queensbury. I’ve always followed procedures. I’ll continue to follow procedures. All the individuals that I’ve hired are respectable people. I mean, I guess I could go on about all their credentials and their degrees and their masters and all that, but again, I’m following procedures and I would ask that we respect the New York State, the people that have signed off on this. Now one thing that Mr. Caffry didn’t mention, and I’m glad that he introduced himself that he was representing Mr. Linke. He talked about everything but traffic. Because that last letter, which only by accident, because I called at four o’clock today, and I said I’d like to do a FOIL request for any records or letters that are on file to prepare myself for this meeting. Mr. Caffry talked about everything but traffic, and I can see why. Because the letter that George just read was addressed to Mr. Linke, and I’m sure that Mr. Linke didn’t like, and Mr. Caffry didn’t like the answer he got from New York State Department of Transportation, and the person that was mentioned, Mr. Brian Rowback, that is the Regional Director that is above Mark Kennedy, that signed off on this. So Mr. Linke went above this person to the highest up, and, again, they obviously didn’t like the response, and it wasn’t brought up. I just wanted to make that clear. So I think I’ve covered traffic. I don’t know what more I can do. MR. HUNSINGER-Were you give a copy of the, well, it’s a report from Mr. Levine that was presented this evening? MR. SCHERMERHORN-No. MR. LAPPER-We weren’t, but I’ve just spoken with our engineer, Ken Wersted, from Creighton-Manning who prepared all the traffic, and, I mean, our simple response on traffic is Rich asked to have these letters read in is that the State agency, the local agency, the County agency, which have control of those roads, have reviewed the traffic studies and said that with that mitigation it is sufficient, and in fact, thanks to Mr. Linke, we have a letter in the record today that confirms what they’ve said. So we think that that addresses the issue, but just for whatever reason, maybe Mr. Levine, their new traffic consultant, missed it, but he said that there was no sight distance issue. It was pointed out by Ken that on Page 17 of the report, it addresses the sight distance, and the sight distance is sufficient. So I don’t know what that’s about, but our goal here all along, we know that this is a site that has been of concern to the neighbors for the last ten years, what have you, and most developers wouldn’t do what Rich did, which was the last time we were here to do an apartment project, to say, okay, you don’t want apartment, we’re not going to fight you. We’ll go off and do other projects elsewhere, but at some point we’re going to do an office project here, because that’s essentially the only thing we can do, and it was certainly not our goal to maximize this. People are saying Rich is just trying to make a buck. Well, by taking 17 acres and putting this project with eight acres of vacant property around it as a buffer, we’re trying to do right by the neighbors. Obviously that’s falling on deaf ears, and the neighbors don’t recognize it. In terms of the nature of this project, this is about zoning and science and law, and we think that we’ve done everything we have to do under the Zoning Code, that we have done all of the studies. We have all of the signoffs on the impact issues, and we’re showing you tonight, in terms of that visual, that we’re doing so much more than you’ve ever asked anybody else to do, but yet we’re willing to do that because we’re obviously trying to get this done without a fight and to satisfy you, as Rich has always done in all the years he’s been before Queensbury, but there is nothing remarkable about putting an office on a property zoned for office that is next to the Northway. The reason it’s zoned for office is because it’s next to the Northway, across the street from County offices. There was a project on Dixon Road a few years ago that was a residential project that Councilman Strough opposed when he was on the Planning Board because he didn’t want somebody to put residences right next to the Northway. So, in terms of what is appropriate to go next to the Northway, an office building, and this office building, as you can see from what’s up on the map, there are so many trees that are there, I mean, somebody could, you know, Mr. Caffry could say don’t take into account the trees along the Northway. There are a lot of trees. This is a cocoon. This is well buffered. We’re not trying to get away with anything. We’re not trying to fool anybody. We’re trying to get a project approved. Now, if this doesn’t happen now, if it’s not approved, Rich still owns the land. So we can keep coming back and working with you for, you know, another three months to re-answer every question and get new letters from the emergency service people, if that’s what you want, because you want more words. I mean, we’ve done what you’ve asked us to do, as we always have, but the problem is that we have two goals here. One is to get an office building approved, and hopefully it’ll be for Travelers, and if Travelers goes elsewhere, then it’ll be for the next tenant that comes along, and it’ll still be the same office use. The problem is that Travelers is a major employer in this community, and this process, by going on for six months, they’ve told us that they’re at the end of their rope, in terms of whether or not they can go forward with this project. So, if this is 23 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) delayed, there’s going to be a serious financial implication for our whole community, and if it turns out that half the jobs are ultimately relocated to another community, and I don’t mean Glens Falls, I mean out of the area, that’s a bad thing, and Queensbury’s going to get blamed for taking a major national employer with clean, high paying jobs, non- polluting, high paying jobs, and telling them to go elsewhere. These are the kinds of jobs that any other town in America would love to have a Travelers facility in their town, and yet, what Travelers has perceived and has told us, is that the Town does not want them here because this has gone on for so long and it’s been so negative. That’s just a reality. You don’t have to believe me, but we’re going to read something in the paper, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, you know, maybe two months from now, but if jobs are lost, it’s going to be a sad day when they came here and said, okay, where am I allowed to put a building in Queensbury, where can I relocate? That’s what they did. Mr. Bruno said they don’t care about economic development. They care about zoning. They looked at the zoning map and they said, this is where you’re allowed to put us, right next to the Northway. It’s not going to mess up anybody’s neighborhood because we’re right next to the Northway. They’re trying to do it right, and, you know, these neighbors, for whatever reason, cannot be satisfied. They didn’t want single family. They didn’t want multifamily. They don’t want office. They cannot be satisfied, but Travelers is looking at this and saying, we’re a good corporate citizen. We employ a lot of people in the community. We want to be here, and they’re told that they can’t be here. We’ve been told that changes are going to be made, and those changes are going to be unfortunate for the community. So, this isn’t a threat, this is just a reality, and everybody should understand this. MR. HUNSINGER-Are there any other questions or comments from members of the Board before we continue on our deliberation of Part II? AUDIENCE MEMBERS-Mr. Chairman, could I just respond to Mr. MR. HUNSINGER-I concluded the public hearing on SEQRA, sir. AUDIENCE MEMBER-But Mr. Schermerhorn put words in my mouth. I’d just like to correct that. MR. HUNSINGER-I think members of the Board can make those differentiations. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from the Board before we continue on to Part II? MR. SEGULJIC-Well, the one thing that’s always a concern about the traffic study is how you didn’t allow for growth. Because my understanding is the DOT policy does not project growth, and that’s one of the things Mr. Levine put in his letter. MR. SCHERMERHORN-All right. Again, if we may please. MR. LAPPER-You mean growth on the site, that the building would get bigger? MR. SEGULJIC-Growth on the site that the building would get bigger, growth in the area. MR. SCHERMERHORN-On the record, I will not grow the building. That’s it. I will not, as a condition to the Site Plan, I will not grow the building. We’ve been going over this for six months. This has been a long time, and as you know, Tom, I’ve always been more than willing to supply anything, anything at all, but we could beat this to death. I mean, I really, again, I’ve said I’ve done what’s required and more. Unless I drag New York State DOT in this room. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I guess what I’m getting at is DOT said you don’t take into account growth. Therefore another traffic study is due. MR. LAPPER-No. What they said was that they don’t take into account the worst condition, which we talked about last time, that you don’t make Aviation Road eight lanes wide for the weekend before Christmas, but this has met DOT standards. I mean, we’ve gone through this, and we have their letter. They want us to put in a traffic light and a turn lane, and that that’s going to improve the situation where it is now. Those are the facts. We have their signoff. MR. SEGULJIC-Still you didn’t take into account growth, right? MR. LAPPER-Ken said last time, on the record, that he looked at all the traffic and did 537 trips and it didn’t need anymore mitigation. People keep talking about an increase. 24 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. SEGULJIC-Excuse me. Did it take into account growth? MR. LAPPER-We’re not proposing any growth beyond 537. That’s what this building can accommodate. So we’re not proposing any growth. We’re not asking for anymore parking spaces, and Rich has said that he will stipulate that he won’t increase the size of the building. So we’re not proposing any growth. We’re saying that even though the 17 acres. MR. SEGULJIC-Nor growth in the area. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Again, on the record, I will not, I repeat, will not grow this building. I will not come back for another parking spot. MR. LAPPER-They don’t have that many employees now. That accommodates them, and the growth is to go to 537. That’s in there. MR. SCHERMERHORN-And let me just explain one thing about the parking. If it wasn’t a need, I wouldn’t ask. No developer, no individual wants to pay for parking lots. No one wants to pay to maintain parking lots. It’s pretty common in the workplace, at least from what I’ve experienced, that most employees have a car. It’s rare that people carpool. I’m not saying it’s not done. People will probably start doing it more if fuel prices keep going up, but they’re asking for what works for them, and again, Tom, for the record, I will not expand this building. That’s it. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions, comments from the Board? MR. TRAVER-Well, I have to say, I remain concerned about the safety issue. The letters that have been provided by the emergency services in the area do not address the specific issue of response times. When contacted earlier today, they were not comfortable with the information they had in addressing that issue, and this Board requires clear, unambiguous signoffs for the Karner blue butterfly before we move forward, and we need to have the same thing with regard to the safety of humans and property. MR. LAPPER-Well, I spoke to Craig Brown, after you spoke to Craig Brown today, and he said that when he went back, you had asked him to go back to the emergency service providers, and they didn’t say they weren’t comfortable. They said that nothing else is needed to be added, that their letters were comprehensive. That’s what Craig told me. MR. TRAVER-Well, I actually have that communication right here, somewhere. MR. LAPPER-I mean, the Sheriff is across the street. MR. TRAVER-All parties have re-stated their position that service will continue to be provided to the project area neighborhood. Again, that was not an issue. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Who said that? MR. TRAVER-Again, that was not an issue. This is from the Staff in the Planning Office. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Who, is there a name? MR. TRAVER-They were not amenable to offering an answer or estimate regarding response times. Again, and there’s been subjective comment that it shouldn’t be a problem, that it’s not anticipated that there will be a problem with response times, but let’s get the signoff on it. MR. SCHERMERHORN-So you want to table again, to have them just put in a letter that response time, I guess, is not going to be an issue. MR. TRAVER-My response to Part Three was submitted and available to you on January th 28. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Yes, Stephen, I’m not trying to be short with you. MR. TRAVER-And it specifically addressed the issue of response times. Last time we met, in this Board, we specifically talked about response times, and the letters that have been obtained talk about continuing to provide professional service. They talk about the 25 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) fact that yes, we affirm that this is in our service area. That does not address the question. This is not a new question. MR. LAPPER-That’s just an excuse to delay the project. MR. HUNSINGER-We have a comment from Counsel. MR. SCHACHNER-No. It’s actually a question of Mr. Traver. Steve, I just want to make sure I’m not missing something. My job, of course, is just to make sure the record is clear. MR. TRAVER-Sure. th MR. SCHACHNER-Has the Board received, or has only Staff received, the February 7 letter from Queensbury Central? MR. HUNSINGER-We just got it this evening. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay, and that was read in the record, right? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. MR. TRAVER-And I will stipulate that, in that letter received today, they do address specifically the issue of response time. MR. SCHACHNER-Excellent. I thought I was missing something. MR. TRAVER-No, no. I apologize. I thought I clarified that earlier. MR. SCHACHNER-I thought so, too, but then just now I thought you said none of the emergency service providers addressed response time, so I wanted to make sure this letter was part of the record. Okay. Great. MR. TRAVER-If I did, I stand corrected and I apologize. There are two, however, who have not addressed the issue of response times. They talk about providing professional service. They talk about. MR. LAPPER-The County Sheriff is across the street at the Municipal Center. In terms of response time, they’re across the street from this project. MR. TRAVER-Why do they feel they cannot sign off on response time? MR. LAPPER-They gave a letter which addressed the issue that was asked, that they have no problem servicing this facility. MR. TRAVER-Well, again, my comment, and from my fellow Board members, is we require clear and unambiguous signoffs for a butterfly. We ought to be able to at least do the same thing for the community and people. MR. LAPPER-Well, you’re saying that’s unambiguous is not unambiguous. I think it’s unambiguous, they’re saying they can service it, but I just want you to understand, Steve, that if the ramification of you tabling this for a better sentence is that hundreds of jobs may leave our community, I wouldn’t be saying that on the record if I didn’t believe it. MR. TRAVER-Well, and it’s my position that this is not a new issue, Jon. We talked about this. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. We’ve heard your comment, Mr. Traver, and we could sit here and argue it for the rest of the evening. MR. LAPPER-I’ve never heard that on any other project. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Were there any other remaining questions or concerns from members of the Board? MR. SIPP-Just one. Has anybody, Travelers, you, anybody ever considered using Glens Falls Transit as a way into this, delivering people in to work and bringing them back? 26 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. LAPPER-The problem, if you look at the traffic report, Don, these people come from 41 towns. I mean, they’re dispersed all over the place. MR. SIPP-I agree with that, but can they not come to a central location and be picked up, so that. MR. LAPPER-Then you’d have to have a parking lot there. MR. SIPP-And the other thing that concerns me is DOT’s characterization of that Northway bridge as not being up to standard. MR. LAPPER-No. They’re saying that when it gets replaced it’s going to have pedestrian. MR. SIPP-What does it say before that line? MR. LAPPER-Most of the bridges on the Northway were built 25 years. That doesn’t mean it can’t handle the traffic. MR. SIPP-Well, we had a bridge in Minneapolis which had no signs of any deterioration collapse. Now, in that letter it says that that bridge does not meet standards. MR. LAPPER-No. It said it’s getting towards the end of its useful life. MR. SIPP-Yes. MR. LAPPER-You can’t treat this project different than any other project that’s ever been before this Board and apply different standards. MRS. STEFFAN-I think, one of the questions I wanted to ask, since there’s such a controversy on traffic, would you be willing to do something similar to what The Great Escape does? Every year they submit, and I’m not really sure what the duration is. George, you might be able to help me on that, but The Great Escape, as a condition of part of their approval, was to submit an annual traffic count. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Which would be, I suppose, for information to keep on hand to provide to New York State DOT I guess? MRS. STEFFAN-It’s often, I just went to a Planning conference last week, and so often what happens in areas like Clifton Park and such, is that when there are issues like this, when there’s, not necessarily a controversy, because that’s what we’re dealing with right now, but when the cumulative impacts of a project or a development are unknown, what a developer, condition of approval, is that they will do a traffic study, and then they will also put a bond in place, so that if there’s a significant impact that wasn’t known from their traffic study, that the traffic study would obviously impact the condition that needed to be changed or identify an impact that needed to be changed, and the bond would be there, so that the developer would be responsible for mitigating the traffic problem related to their development, and the reason for that, according to what I’m learning, is that then the costs associated with development are absorbed by the developer and not by the township. MR. SCHERMERHORN-I mean, basically, you’re. KEN WERSTED MR. WERSTED-Ken Wersted, Creighton-Manning Engineering. Our firm was involved in The Great Escape analysis. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MR. WERSTED-And if I understand correctly, and I’ve been doing those annual counts every August, the way that project was set up, they were phasing in rides and so forth. They expected different annual attendance levels. At each of those levels, we had done an analysis to project that at this level of attendance there were going to be this type of traffic impact and that these improvements would need to be installed. So the monitoring was put in place as part of, you know, the approvals and the acceptance that every year we would go out there and count the traffic at these particular locations to see if the volumes have grown enough to where those different phases of improvements were 27 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) going to be needed. So I think that’s going along the lines of doing that monitoring, as you go through. MR. LAPPER-That’s a different situation from The Great Escape. MR. HUNSINGER-Right, yes. Certain mitigation measures were triggered based on Park attendance. MR. WERSTED-Correct. One of those levels was creating the ring road, you know, coming out from the parking lots up to Route 9 and putting in a new traffic signal and so forth. There are other stages of improvements that were identified, but at this time, their attendance levels haven’t reached that point where it causes that much traffic impact and that that next level need to be improved, but that’s part of the annual traffic monitoring is every year we’ll be out there to check those locations and we send in those reports to the Town every year and when they do get to those levels, then we’ll have to address the traffic issues as part of that. MRS. STEFFAN-I just thought it might be a reasonable solution to some of the conflict that we’re having. MR. LAPPER-Rich will agree to anything reasonable, and he always has with this Board, but in terms of just the traffic, what he’s spending, the $300,000 or so to do the extra lane and the traffic light, that doesn’t just address his problem, that addresses, you know, anything created by the additional traffic. That addresses the existing situation. So he’s already going pretty far. I mean, if there was something tangible that you want him to agree to, I’m sure he’ll agree to it, but I think that’s a different situation from a phased development like Great Escape that Ken just talked about. MRS. STEFFAN-I just thought with the, just as an example, the Aaron Frankenfeld feedback about, you know, no shoulders on West Mountain Road, as example, and some of the public comment that we’ve heard this evening is related to sight distance, and this is also in Mr. Levine’s study that I quickly went through, but. MR. LAPPER-Yes. We disagree with him on sight distance, but. MRS. STEFFAN-It’s sight distance, but also one of the issues that I have with the SEQRA process as we looked at some of the large impacts of traffic, is what about people backing out of their driveways and those kinds of things? I mean, this has been brought up over time. So what happens somewhere down the road if there are problems? I mean, the traffic study identifies there won’t be any, but what if there are? And so, what happens as a result of that? MR. LAPPER-Well, part of that answer is that it’s a County road and if the County needs to make improvements over time, that comes out of our tax dollars. If you’re asking Rich to put something in escrow with the Town to cover, I mean, it’s not something that’s generated by this project. There’s going to be background traffic growth in the neighborhood that’s going to happen, and at some point the County will have to make improvements to, you know, all County roads. So it’s a question of what, specifically, you’re asking for. I mean, it’s not, our traffic report we stand behind, and DPW said that they’re satisfied, and they’re the ones issuing the permit for West Mountain Road, but if you feel that there needs to be something put in an account, you know, as long as it’s specific to what and why, but it’s not going to be based upon anything that our traffic report said. MR. SCHONEWOLF-My question would be, then, too, Gretchen, if there’s another subdivision put in, say across the road from Lehland Estates, does that person have to contribute to the cost of any improvements in the road because they’re going to contribute to the traffic? MRS. STEFFAN-The Planning Board would make that decision, and we know that there’s a potential subdivision right down the road from this, and certainly, if there was that kind of condition on this applicant, there would certainly be a condition on another applicant. MR. SCHONEWOLF-That’s all I wanted to know. MRS. STEFFAN-And that would be a reasonable expectation, because I think some of the comment that we’ve heard is relating to, you know, over time, because I’ve been through some of the minutes and stuff, property values, safety, sight distances, no 28 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) shoulders. I mean, there are a lot of issues, and even in your traffic, or Creighton- Manning, identified, I mean, the intersections are at capacity right now, and yes, you’re mitigating some of the measures to make the increase in traffic that you’re going to be contributing to the area better, by putting in turning lanes and traffic lights and those kinds of things. MR. SCHERMERHORN-I suppose if you wanted, I guess, updated traffic studies for the next three or four years, I suppose I could put a fund in place where it would be useful and helpful to the Town of Queensbury and Department of Public Works or the County. I suppose if you wanted, I guess we could call it a fund to put towards shoulders or something, maybe we could do that, too. I’ve always been reasonable and flexible, but I certainly feel like the 21 years I’ve been in front of the Boards, I’ve always been willing to be reasonable and try different things, I’m not saying I wouldn’t, but to bond, what you’re talking about, it’s almost like buying an insurance policy. That would kind of be a tough one. I don’t know of anybody that’s done that, other than maybe what you’ve just discovered. MRS. STEFFAN-It’s actually done quite a lot down in the Albany Counties, the surrounding towns around Albany. MR. LAPPER-I guess the difference is that if the traffic study had said that Rich needed to put a traffic light in at Mountain View, he would have put a traffic light in. He’s doing what’s being required. If you’re talking about something specific like shoulders, and you’d like a contribution towards the County doing shoulders, that’s up to them. I mean, they were talking about a bike lane, that’s probably reasonable, but it has to be specific. MR. SCHERMERHORN-I mean, I know the Rush Pond corridor’s been of interest. Of course I’ve already offered, there’ll be an easement on the Site Plan for the bike path. I mean, if we want a contribution towards the bike path, which I think has been very important to a lot of people, that Rush Pond bike trail that they want to get in. I mean, I could do something like that as well. MRS. STEFFAN-The difficulty with that, and obviously this is related to traffic and your Site Plan, is that once, you know, for anybody who lives or travels in that part of Town, and Mr. Levine’s report talks on this, some of the traffic that may be diverted onto Gurney Lane. Once somebody gets off of your site, whether it is a County or a Town path that leaves Rush Pond, and goes out to Gurney Lane, where do they go? I mean, there are no sidewalks. There are no shoulders, and there’s really nowhere for anybody to go on a bike that’s safe. We have folks that, and I live on Buckbee Road, which is off of Gurney Lane, and so we have folks that work at the Municipal Center, all summer long, they walk out of the Municipal Center, up Gurney Lane. They walk in the roadway, then they walk up Buckbee Road, and there have been many times, and this is my personal experience, where I’ve come down Gurney Lane and there are pedestrians in the middle of the road. So, you know, even though the ideal would be, you know, to have a bike path that goes from your property to the Gurney Lane recreation, the feasibility of that, I have real doubts about, just because there are no shoulders. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right. MRS. STEFFAN-There’s no room. MR. SCHERMERHORN-But, I mean, it’s obvious that sidewalks would be a great thing, and wider shoulders, but if we look at Town of Queensbury as a whole, how many neighborhoods can we really think about that have sidewalks that run in the neighborhoods? It’s always a topic, every Site Plan. MRS. STEFFAN-There is not a developer that comes in here who entertains sidewalks. We talk about it every time. MR. SCHERMERHORN-No, no, no. Every project I’ve been in front of you guys, I offer to put sidewalks in, but it comes down to who is going to maintain them, and I’m always willing to put them in. I’ll put them across the whole property of this right now. MRS. STEFFAN-DOT has the same issue. MR. LAPPER-I have one constructive thought, that at the corner that the County owns, right at the corner of West Mountain and Gurney Lane, where the bike path would come out to, and it doesn’t take you up the mountain, if Rich contributed towards a parking lot there, you’d be able to park and get on your bike and ride into Rush Pond and I guess 29 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) eventually to the schools on Aviation Road. So that would be something that would keep people off the road, but it would provide a place to park for the bike path. That’s something tangible. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. MR. SCHERMERHORN-If I may, just, I mean, I’m a father of two children. If I lived in that area, I’m not sure I’d want my children riding across the Route 9 bridge, even if there were sidewalks or bike paths. MRS. STEFFAN-Exactly. It’s too dangerous. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Or Route 9, or West Mountain Road. I mean, there’s no doubt that sidewalks would be welcome anywhere we go, but I don’t think it’s reality everywhere. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, and that’s one of the issues with the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, and I certainly think that that’s what a lot of the public comment has focused on. That part of Town is Rural Residential, Single Family Residence, and this kind of development wasn’t envisioned in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. So that is the kind of debate that we have. MR. LAPPER-It’s Rural Residential up the mountain. Certainly where you are it’s beautiful, but here we are next to the Northway and across from the Municipal Center Annex. So this is not Rural Residential. This is next to the Northway, in between West Mountain Road. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Residential hasn’t been welcome at that site. The single family, ten years ago, wasn’t welcome. The multifamily wasn’t welcome, and this particular project is not welcome as well. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, and also in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, on that side of the Northway, and this actually goes back to some of the visual presentation here when you gave examples of the emergency services building and then the Tribune Media building. Those are right next to the Northway, that is on the other side of the Northway, and then the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, those areas are commercial, and it is different than what was envisioned for the other side of the Northway up there. MR. LAPPER-That’s why we have this buffer. I mean, that’s why this site doesn’t look like those sites. MRS. STEFFAN-Absolutely, but there’s still, it’s buffered with residential area. Yes, there’s the Municipal Center, but everywhere else around there is Rural Residential and Single Family Residential. MR. LAPPER-But office and residential aren’t incompatible. I mean, the office is the buffer so you don’t have commercial next to next to residential, and we have a big tree buffer, and we’re trying to do it right. I mean, you know Rich always tries to do it right, and we, unfortunately, are never going to make these neighbors happy, but we’re still trying to do it right. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions, comments from members of the Board? Are we ready to move forward from where we concluded a month ago? Okay. Before we re- open our SEQRA considerations, it was brought to our attention that we did not pass a resolution at the last meeting to accept SEQRA Lead Agency status. A draft resolution was provided in your packet. Did anyone have any questions on that draft resolution? If not, I will entertain a motion. It’s the record of resolution to accept Lead Agency status. MOTION TO ACCEPT THE RECORD OF RESOLUTION FOR LEAD AGENCY STATUS PREPARED BY STAFF FOR SITE PLAN NO. 48-2007 AND AREA VARIANCE NO. 59- 2007 SCHERMERHORN RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, L.P., Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: WHEREAS, in connection with the Schermerhorn Residential Holdings project, the Town of Queensbury Planning Board, by resolution, previously authorized the Community Development office to notify other involved agencies of the desire of the Planning Board to conduct a coordinated SEQRA review, and 30 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) WHEREAS, the Zoning Administrator has advised that other involved agencies have been notified and have consented to the Town of Queensbury Planning Board being lead agent, and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the Town of Queensbury Planning Board hereby recognizes itself as lead agent for purposes of SEQRA review according to the resolution prepared by Staff. MOTION TO ACCEPT THE RECORD OF RESOLUTION FOR LEAD AGENCY STATUS PREPARED BY STAFF FOR SITE PLAN NO. 48-2007 AND AREA VARIANCE NO. 59- 2007 SCHERMERHORN RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, L.P., Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: th Duly adopted this 7 day of February, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Traver, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Schonewolf, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE MR. HUNSINGER-Before we focus in on the two, well, three questions that remained open, does any member want to discuss other SEQRA questions that were covered previously? Okay. Hearing no comments, the first item that we did not complete was Impact on Aesthetic Resources, and there were two comments, two examples, proposed land uses or project components obviously different from or in sharp contrast to current surrounding land use patterns, whether manmade or natural, and then the other question was proposed land uses or project components visible to users of aesthetic resources which will eliminate or significantly reduce their enjoyment of the aesthetic qualities of that resource. MR. KREBS-I’d like to read this in, relatively to the out of character in the surrounding area. In response to comments on this subject, I would like to point out that this building is not out of character with the surrounding area. First, when you look north from the property, there are four commercial buildings, the closest being the West Mount Nursing Facility, and the very visible Municipal Center Annex, which is an office facility, and two large houses that have been converted for office use. Less than .3 miles is the very large Warren County office complex housing Motor Vehicle Department, Warren County Court, and offices of the County employees. To the west of the property is an old brick garage and a storage facility for sand and gravel on Gurney Lane. Approximately .5 miles from the property is the start of a very large factory outlet center, restaurants and hotel. Looking at this, I see an area that is predominantly a commercial area, not a rural area, as has been indicated. I quote, Travelers along West Mountain Road and Adirondack Northway including commuter and vacationers would note a large commercial development out of character with this area. If anyone travels the Northway, through Queensbury, they will hardly notice the Schermerhorn building as it will look like the rest of the landscape. Starting at Exit 18, going north, you can see, from the Northway, the following, the Tribune building, the West Glens Falls EMS, a large blue storage facility, a water storage tank, the Mall, Robert Gardens apartments, parking lots for The Great Escape, and many of the tall rides, Trappers and a very large water park building and an even larger hotel attached to it. Continuing north of Exit 19, you can see the rear of Montcalm Restaurant and its very large sign, the backs of many of the outlet buildings, the back of the Comfort Inn, Boats By George storage building, the Leather Outlet, which is on Route 9, the Lake View Motel. For brevity, I will not list the buildings you can see from the Northway going from Exit 20 to Exit 18 traveling south. I find it hard to conceive this building is going to change the character of the area of the Northway. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MR. SEGULJIC-So what are our options here? Could I get clarification on that? MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to ask Council that, yes. MR. SCHACHNER-The stage you’re at, if I recall correctly, and I certainly hope I do, is that you identified several potentially large impacts, and by you I mean a majority of the Board. It was your responsibility, after identifying several potentially large impacts, to move to Part III, or complete, I should say, preparation and completion of Part III of the Long or Full Environmental Assessment Form, that’s the narrative portion entitled Evaluation of Importance of Impacts. You’ll recall that the SEQRA regulations 31 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) themselves give some guidance about how to evaluate the importance of impacts, and I believe that several members were asked to prepare drafts, narratives, of that Part III evaluation, and I believe you’ve done so. So that the next step in the process would be for either unanimity, a consensus, or at least a majority of our seven member Board to decide on the importance, and I’m sorry to use that word, but that’s the word that’s in the regulations, to decide on the importance of the three impacts that you identified as potentially large, using the narrative Part III to guide you in accordance with the regulations. Ultimately, if you decide that any of the impacts you’ve identified as Potentially Large are important, then the law indicates you should then issue, and by you, again, I mean a majority of the Board, you should then issue a SEQRA Positive Declaration, requiring preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement. If a majority of the Board concludes that, although having identified several impacts as Potentially Large, none of them rise to the level of importance, then you can issue a, again, a majority of you could vote to issue a SEQRA Negative Declaration, which would be a determination that no Environmental Impact Statement is required, and that would conclude the SEQRA process, not the application review process, but the SEQRA process. MR. HUNSINGER-Can we back up a second, though. MR. SCHACHNER-Certainly. MR. HUNSINGER-Because one of the things that has occurred in the past month since we concluded our deliberations on SEQRA Part II, is we had new information presented. Certainly the Visual Impact Analysis was brand new, that we had not seen before. MR. SCHACHNER-Yes. I imagine, this is where you’re headed, as to reconsideration of any of the answers? MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. SCHACHNER-Is that where you’re headed? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-Yes. You can keep going if you want, but I know what you’re asking. MR. HUNSINGER-No. You answered, yes. MR. SCHACHNER-Certainly the Board certainly can lawfully look back to any of the earlier answers you provided to the questions on Part II of the EAF, those were the twenty questions that we went through in some great length last month. If you feel that any of the new information that’s been presented warrants re-examination of any of those earlier answers, you absolutely have the legal right to go back and re-consider those. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-So, for example, we can go back and re-consider the visual impact, based on the information submitted tonight. MR. SCHACHNER-Certainly, absolutely. MR. SEGULJIC-And change our determination. MR. SCHACHNER-Absolutely. MR. HUNSINGER-From a Potentially Large Impact to Small to Moderate. MR. SCHACHNER-You absolutely have the legal right to do that, you and I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise when I gave that answer. I’m glad, Chairman, that you asked that follow up question. Absolutely. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I guess that’s where I’d like to start with the Board, because we did have new information, both on visual impacts as well as on traffic issues. So I guess I’d like to start with that, on the Impact on Aesthetic Resources, specifically the two items that were mentioned. MR. SEGULJIC-Just clarify specifically the two items that were mentioned. 32 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. This is on Question 11, on Page 16 of 21. Will the proposed action affect aesthetic resources, and we had said yes, and then the examples, the first example, proposed land uses or project components obviously different from or in sharp contrast to current surrounding land use patterns, whether manmade or natural, and I believe the vote was four to two to say that those, that there was a potential large impact, and then the next item, proposed land uses or project components visible to users of aesthetic resources which will eliminate or significantly reduce their enjoyment of the aesthetic qualities of that resource. It was mentioned that there was a Potential Large impact, but the actual vote was three to three. So there wasn’t a consensus on that item. MR. SEGULJIC-So, that was actually the visual one? MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Those are the two visual comments. MR. SCHACHNER-I think those were both under Question 11, as I recall? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, they were both under Question 11. So I guess I would just ask the Board if we want to reconsider those answers? I mean, I personally felt that the impacts were Small to Moderate to begin with. MR. SEGULJIC-For my clarification, I’ve always looked at those two issues as being different, the second one being more of a visual one, and the first one being more of a land use quality of life issue. MR. HUNSINGER-Land use one, sure. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. So why don’t we take the second one first, the visual one. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SCHONEWOLF-I just want to remark that I was not on the record at the last meeting, but I am on the record tonight. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MR. SEGULJIC-And I guess I just have a quick question with regards to the visual. Can you show me on the rendering there where your property line ends? MR. LAPPER-It goes south. MR. SEGULJIC-Correct. What’s the southern? Excuse me, on the aerial. JIM MILLER MR. MILLER-On this one, it comes down, if you look at the Site Plan and the orientation of the building, you could see where the edge of the parking lot is. So the property line here runs across like this and then comes all the way down to West Mountain Road. So all this corner, and the trees down to a point about here is on the property. MR. SEGULJIC-Excuse me. It’s not where there’s the difference in the? MR. MILLER-No. That’s just where they imported the Site Plan data into the photo, the aerial photo data. MR. SEGULJIC-So how far from the parking lot to the edge of the property line, approximately? MR. MILLER-At this point here, you’re talking about, Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-Correct. MR. MILLER-I think it’s about 80 feet or so. I’d have to check it exactly, because up here we tried to maintain a buffer of a minimum of 50 foot of trees, trees, not just green space. So this is about 50. I’d say that’s closer to 100. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. I guess, you know, as it was brought up, one of the concerns is that they don’t have control of the other area. So at least they can get 80 feet. So I guess I’d be satisfied with the visual. 33 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Do we have consensus, now, on the visual impacts? MRS. STEFFAN-Does that design take into account the bike path right of way? Trees would have to come out of that. MR. LAPPER-But it’s not there, it’s near the Northway. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. It’s on the Northway side. MR. LAPPER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Do you guys understand that? MR. SEGULJIC-I guess, could you show where that’s going to be? MR. LAPPER-It’s on one of the Site Plan drawings. MRS. STEFFAN-We talked about the sewer line running through, and there’d be a limited number of trees that would be taken out for that, but the bike path right of way will take out trees between the parking lot and the I-87. MR. MILLER-Well, I think, though, the bike path access has never really been defined. So we’re kind of guesstimating where it would be. We’re assuming it would, you know, somehow have to traverse a slope to the south coming up from the lower areas of Rush Pond, and we’re showing it coming up basically, you know, going through those woods, and I think, you know, we didn’t define the specific route because I think the way we’d recommend doing it is to go through and, you know, look at, I mean, obviously it would be best to try to maintain the existing trees there as much as possible. So the idea would be to define that route in the field, minimize the tree cutting, you probably can’t avoid it entirely, but at least verify it in the field. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. So, Mr. Miller, then what you’re saying is that that wasn’t part of, I think there’s a Rush Pond plan out there. So this wasn’t part of the plan. You just identified where it hypothetically might be. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right. The process with the six months ago, and a year and a half ago, John Strough, it’s important. He wants to get Rush Pond corridor where the bike paths and stuff. I said, on the record several times, we’re more than willing to put that in there. We just showed it there, if we could move it, but as far as I know, I don’t know if all the land’s been secured for the Rush Pond corridor bike path yet anyway, but, for the record, I’d be willing to change it, move it, whatever you’d like. MR. LAPPER-Bike paths are usually six feet wide. MR. MILLER-Well, it’s usually eight. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. I just thought it was important to mention because we’re talking about visual, and if they’re going to take trees down, then that’s going to change the topography. MR. LAPPER-And we’re not going to take trees down. That would be up to the Town. MRS. STEFFAN-Exactly, but you would get blamed for it. MR. LAPPER-Of course. MRS. STEFFAN-I just wanted to put that on the record. MRS. STEFFAN-That was sarcastic, sorry. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. That’s okay. MRS. STEFFAN-I apologize, that was sarcastic. I didn’t mean that. MR. HUNSINGER-We talked about visual. Let’s talk about the land use question. 34 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. SCHACHNER-Mr. Chairman, I’m sorry to interrupt. The last thing I heard you say about visual, I think I heard you say something about so now we have consensus on the visual. Did I hear you say something like that? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I was going to go back to it, but, yes. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. You’re not done with it. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. What I was going to do was go back to the whole question. MR. SCHACHNER-Great. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Thank you. Let’s discuss the proposed land use issue. We just heard a comment from Mr. Krebs specifically related to land uses as they relate to the Northway corridor and that general neighborhood. Is there any other comments from the Board on their feelings on the impact of the land use, the proposed land use of the site? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, I have a couple. MR. HUNSINGER-Go ahead. MR. SEGULJIC-According to the Comprehensive Plan, if I’m understanding it correctly, a good portion of the northern portion of this site is in what’s referred to as the Rural Residential Planning area, and this portion of the community is highly valued for its rural character which not only contributes to the high quality of life for Town residents, but also makes it economically attractive to visitors. (lost words) these recommendations is to perpetuate the connection residents have with their natural surroundings and protect the rural landscape, and then the southern portion of this site is in a CEA, which has been designated as an area of exceptional or unique environmental characteristics. So, I mean, we keep on bringing out the past mistakes we’ve made, and I realize there’s a lot of areas along the Northway that are not screened, but I think, you know, that’s more in our commercial area. This is identified as a Rural Residential area, Rural Residential Planning area. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, we have two comments from Board members. Would anyone else like to chime in on this item? MR. SIPP-I would say that if you’re going to travel that Northway and look at what’s on the side of it, let’s start at the north end of Queensbury’s line, going south, and what can you see from the Northway as you travel south past this site between that site and Exit 19, you can see Rush Pond. You can see a little bit of The Great Escape, mostly to your right, to the west, you see nothing but unbroken tree cover through that, until you get close to Exit 19. You can see a little bit of the Queensbury school grounds, but not that much. There’s no commercial development, from the Queensbury line going south, until you get to Exit 19. MR. SEGULJIC-And I would agree with that comment, and then also, one of the goals in the Comprehensive Plan, also, is to promote pedestrian and bicycle friendly residential and commercial design for new and re-development projects. Re-balance design in general to concentrate on people and walking rather than cars and parking lots. I mean, this does not. MR. KREBS-Yes, but the Comprehensive Plan is a guide. It is not law. It is not zoning. MR. SEGULJIC-It is a guide. MR. KREBS-It’s a guide. MR. SEGULJIC-And I’m taking the guide. MRS. STEFFAN-And the Zoning Board has to deal with zoning. The Planning Board deals with zoning and the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, and so it is a guide, but it is something that we do need to. MR. SEGULJIC-It’s something we need to lean on. It is a division that the citizenry and the Town Board has selected for the Town. MRS. STEFFAN-Adopted. 35 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. SCHERMERHORN-Tom, the visual that we provided, is it not sufficient? MR. SEGULJIC-It’s the visual we’re fine with, but now you’re changing the character of the area. One of the goals of the Comprehensive Plan is to promote pedestrian and bicycle friendly areas, instead of parking lots. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Mr. Strough’s identified that through the years with trying to do that through the Rush Pond corridor, and I’ve been more than willing to work to accomplish that. So, I’m more than willing to work with you on that issue. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I don’t see how we can square the fact that this is in a Rural Residential Planning area. MR. LAPPER-It’s not. It’s PO. MR. SEGULJIC-No, that area has been defined as that. MR. LAPPER-The answer is that when you look at the West Mountain Road corridor, that’s why we provided the Visual Impact Analysis. You’re going to see mostly trees and a filtered view of the building, versus looking at the Municipal Center Annex where you’re looking right at the building without any screening. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I guess we have diverging opinions on the land use and I guess the next step is to look at the impact again. The first is, is it a Small to Moderate impact, or is it a Potentially Large impact? And previously the Board felt that it was a Potentially Large impact. MR. SCHACHNER-Mr. Chairman, which bullet item is the Board focusing on, the first or the second? MR. HUNSINGER-The first one, yes. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Which deals specifically with land uses. MR. SCHACHNER-All right. So just for the benefit of the public, I just want to make sure everyone’s on the same page, figuratively, if not literally. We’re now focusing on the first bullet item, which is proposed land uses or project components obviously different from or in sharp contrast to current surrounding land use patterns, whether manmade or natural. Correct? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. MR. KREBS-And I don’t see how you can say it’s obviously different and in sharp contrast to West Mountain, to the Annex, and to the other two buildings that are being used as office buildings. If you stand on the corner of West Mountain Road and Gurney Lane, the only thing you can see are commercial buildings. You can see the Municipal Center. You can see the traffic light at the Municipal Center, and you can see commercial buildings. I cannot, from that corner, and I was there twice in the last two days, I cannot, from that corner, see any residential area. MR. SEGULJIC-And remember, the goal is to protect it. MR. HUNSINGER-Other comments from the Board? MR. TRAVER-Well, it sounds, as though, again, the two issues are being blurred a bit. We’re talking about the visual impact, and I agree and appreciate the applicant’s efforts to more clearly demonstrate the visual impact. It certainly has done that for me. However, the land use is an entirely different matter, and there’s no getting around the fact that going from a forested area to this project is huge. I mean, you couldn’t have much more of a dramatic impact than that. So that’s really not, the visual impact is certainly subjective, and, you know, I think under the circumstances, it seems to me that they’ve done a good job in attempting to deal with that, but, in terms of land use, going from the Comprehensive Land Use design, to going to this design is a large difference. I mean, that’s not subjective. 36 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Well, and just to pick up on your comment, I think you hit a key point there, and that is that the heading of this section is effect on aesthetic resources. It’s not simply land use, but it’s, does this project site differ so dramatically from the surrounding land uses that it will create a problem with the aesthetic resources, and I think, based on the Visual Impact Analysis that we were shown, that the land use, because of the screening that this site provides, you won’t see a sharp contrast, but I also tend to agree with Mr. Krebs that the surrounding land use patterns are similar to what’s being proposed. MR. SCHACHNER-Could I just add a comment there? I just, again, obviously you know whatever the Board concludes, the Board concludes, and I have no influence on that, but, Steve, I just want to make sure you’re focusing correctly on that bullet item. The notion is whether or not it’s in sharp contrast to current surrounding land use patterns, not the use of the existing site. I just want to make sure you focus on that. MR. TRAVER-Right. I understand that. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-I think, from my point of view, you know, on two sides, it’s contrary to the land uses on two other sides, you know, certainly the Planning Board or Town government has no jurisdiction over the Municipal Center or the West Mount Health facility. They can do whatever they want. Site Plan Review is not part of our purview, and so is it a similar use than the Municipal Center I suppose, the Town garage, or the County garage that’s across the way, you know, is that similar? I guess, but across the street and then on the residential side, it’s a very different use, and the other thing is when we were talking about aesthetic resources and visual impacts. Based on the presentation and materials, you won’t be able to see it, it appears you won’t be able to see it from the Northway during the day. Certainly at night you will, even with downcast lighting, there’s going to be a glow that comes out of that area. So I don’t know if the Board’s considered that, but that is a visual. MR. LAPPER-But there’s still not an invisibility standard in Queensbury. MRS. STEFFAN-No. MR. TRAVER-That’s a good point, Gretchen. I think the other thing to consider, if you will, is the Municipal Center and the associated buildings that are there pre-date, by a considerable point of time, the land use, and in that sense they’re kind of a pre-existing, nonconforming structure, if you will, and perhaps the, I know in our discussion we talked about the commercialization of the east side of Route 9, and you can almost turn it around. I think that the Comprehensive Land Use specifically tried to prevent this type of thing, in the sense that they wanted to preserve, the idea was to preserve the character, as it is, although acknowledging and perhaps because of the pre-existing structures that were built there long ago. MR. KREBS-But, Steve, that’s not what that says. This says proposed land uses or project components obviously different or in sharp contrast to current surrounding land use patterns, whether manmade or natural. It doesn’t say anything about what the Plan called for. This, we’re answering this very specific question, and that specific question has nothing to do with what you were just talking about. MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t know, land use patterns. I mean, that may be what exists, but on two other sides. MR. KREBS-It says current surrounding land use. MRS. STEFFAN-Correct, and on two sides, Municipal Center, DOT, and on the other two sides, green space and residential. MR. SEGULJIC-And I think, thinking ahead, if this project goes through, it’s going to change the land use there, because what’s someone going to do, build a deli there, build a dry cleaner there to service all the people that are there. MR. SCHERMERHORN-I will condition no dry cleaning. No delis. MR. SEGULJIC-That’s on your site, but what about. 37 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, how could they do that, Tom? MR. KREBS-How could they do that without your approval? MR. HUNSINGER-It would require a zone change, and then it would require a Site Plan Review. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, that’s what’s going to happen, because all of a sudden we’re going to spread this to the other side of the Northway. MR. SIPP-That’s easy to do. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s purely speculation. MR. SEGULJIC-Speculation, yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, you can’t base your SEQRA determination on speculation. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I have to look at the maximum impacts. MR. HUNSINGER-Of this project. MR. SEGULJIC-It’s going to change the area, the characteristics of the area. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I mean, that is a question. Will it induce additional development, and we can talk about that, that impact, but I don’t see where that impacts aesthetic resources. MR. SEGULJIC-It’s going to impact the quality of life there. This is defined as the Rural Residential Planning area, and one of the goals is to protect the rural landscape and quality of the area. MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t think Tom’s completely off base, because when you talk about obviously different from or in sharp contrast to current surrounding land use patterns. Chris, you just talked about speculation on zoning change. I think I brought this up when we were talking about the sewer issue, and we have had situations, I mean, this is a classic example. This particular lot was zoned commercial, and it was changed to professional office, and so, you know, we’re trying to look at planning for the future. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay, but let’s think this through and turn this around for a second, then. I’ll go down this path with you for a second. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Right across the street, you have the Warren County Municipal Center. How many people work there? Do you think there’s at least 500? That has not spurred additional development, such as drycleaners or delis. In fact, the closest restaurant to the Warren County Municipal Center has changed hands countless times in the past seven or eight years. It hasn’t resulted in the kind of additional future impacts that you’re talking about. So I’m not buying that speculative argument. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I can cite a number of examples on the other side. MR. SIPP-Only because they own the land on the opposite side of Route 9, that there could be no development there. MR. TRAVER-Yes, and actually we did have an applicant, not terribly long ago, that had a, originally it was just a filling station, and now they’re adding a convenience store with food. MRS. STEFFAN-Actually, we have three of them. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, but they’re doing that at every gas station they own that’s at an intersection on the Northway. I’m just not buying the argument that. MR. KREBS-Well, not only that, but there are restaurants and places to eat up in the outlet areas already. MR. HUNSINGER-Right, there are. 38 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MRS. STEFFAN-Again, and that relates to the traffic issue, though. MR. SEGULJIC-Let’s assume that we do continue with the finding that this has a Large impact. What does that mean, then? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, then we have to complete Part III. MR. SCHACHNER-Right. Assuming you remain of the opinion, a majority of you remain of the opinion that it’s a Potentially Large impact, then it has to be evaluated, it’s importance has to be evaluated under Part III. MR. SEGULJIC-So if we say tonight it has a Large impact. MR. SCHACHNER-You’ve already said that. MR. SEGULJIC-We’ve already said that. MR. SCHACHNER-Correct. Right. If you stick with that, then you have to evaluate it under Part III. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, but I guess, what can the applicant do in response to that, then? MR. SCHACHNER-Well, right now, as I understand it, the Board is conducting its SEQRA review. There’s no real opportunity for the applicant to do anything more, unless you want the applicant, unless you want to ask for more information of the applicant and the applicant wants to provide it. You always have that option, and the applicant always can certainly offer to provide more information, but as I understand the process, the procedure you’re involved in right now, you’re conducting your SEQRA review as a Board, based on the information you have before you currently. MR. HUNSINGER-I guess where I was going is I was trying to get discussion on each of the items individually, and then I was going to re-ask the SEQRA question, you know, the topic heading, will proposed action affect aesthetic resources, and put it back to a vote for the Board, and that was really what I was trying to do here. So I guess if there’s no other comments or discussion on the land use example, I guess that’s where I’d like to go next, is to put it back to the vote of the Board on the heading, will the proposed action affect aesthetic resources. Yes or no? MRS. STEFFAN-That’s Question 11? MR. HUNSINGER-That’s Question 11. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, it is. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. So the Board, again, says yes, and now let’s talk about the specific topics. The first one, proposed land uses or project components obviously different from or in sharp contrast to the current surrounding land use patterns, whether manmade or natural. MR. SEGULJIC-So that would be yes, Large. MR. KREBS-No, small. MR. HUNSINGER-I just don’t see it as being a sharp contrast. MR. KREBS-I don’t, either. MR. SCHONEWOLF-I don’t, either. MR. HUNSINGER-I could go with a Small to Moderate impact, but I don’t see it as being Potentially Large. We’ll call a vote. How many members, let’s talk about Small to Moderate impact. Let’s take a vote on Small to Moderate impact. Don? MR. KREBS-Small to Moderate. MR. SIPP-Let’s go back over this again. A yes vote means what? 39 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. SEGULJIC-I guess, Mr. Chairman, can we do it this way? Just have a vote on is the impact, does it have an impact, yes or no, and then query the Board. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I think I heard more than half the people say yes, there’s an impact. MR. TRAVER-Why don’t we just vote on what we already voted on and just repeat the same vote? We voted before it had a Large impact, Potentially Large. Let’s see if that still stands. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Let’s do that, then. It doesn’t matter. I’ll put it up to a vote, Potentially Large impact. We’ll start down at this end. MR. TRAVER-I say, yes. MR. KREBS-Small to Moderate. MR. SCHONEWOLF-Small to moderate. MRS. STEFFAN-Chris, how many people did you say worked at the Municipal Center? MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t know. I’m sure there’s 500, though, plus you have people coming in and out of DPW all day long. Just look at the number of cars that are parked out back on a weekend. MR. SEGULJIC-But recall, that’s on the east side. MRS. STEFFAN-I would say Potentially Large. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Don Sipp? MR. SIPP-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Potentially Large, yes? MR. SIPP-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-Potentially Large. MR. HUNSINGER-I think it’s Small to Moderate. So is that four to three, Small to Moderate? MR. SCHACHNER-No. MR. HUNSINGER-The other way? MR. KREBS-It’s the other way. MR. SCHACHNER-I had four Potentially Large. MRS. STEFFAN-You were correct. MR. KREBS-Yes, you’re correct. MR. HUNSINGER-The next item, the proposed land uses or project components visible to users of aesthetic resources which will eliminate or significantly reduce their enjoyment of the aesthetic qualities of the resource. No, yes? MR. SEGULJIC-I would say, based on the information provided, no. MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone else? MR. TRAVER-I would say, based on the information provided by the applicant, Small to Moderate and mitigated by their efforts. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Any other comments? 40 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MRS. STEFFAN-That’s what I said. MR. KREBS-I agree. MR. SIPP-This building will have lights on at night for cleaning crews and so forth? MRS. STEFFAN-There’ll be lights on in the building all the time. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SCHACHNER-So is the Board consensus on that one Small to Moderate? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, Small to Moderate. Okay. I guess what I’d like to do, before we move on to Part III, unless there’s an objection, is to discuss the transportation item, which is Item 15. The question says, Will there be an effect to existing transportation systems. The Board said yes. Under examples, alteration of present patterns of movement of people and/or goods. The Board felt that there was a Potential Large impact, specifically emergency vehicle access, and there were also some comments made about weather, issues due to weather, and I guess I’ll open that item up for discussion among the Board members. MR. TRAVER-Well, I submit that we still have the potential for Large impact, in that not all of the information has been received with regards to all of the impacts, especially in the area of response times to some area emergency services, and I submit that any impact on response times has to be Large. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other comments from members of the Board? MR. KREBS-Why does it have to be Large? MR. TRAVER-Because somebody might die, because somebody might suffer more serious injury than would if they had received help earlier, because. MR. SCHONEWOLF-Okay. If you’re going to go down that road, forget it. MR. HUNSINGER-See, and again, I disagree, because the traffic study provided level of service analysis for all the intersections, if anything, the waiting time has been reduced, not lengthened. So I don’t know how we can say that there’s going to be a Potentially Large impact. MR. SCHONEWOLF-Yes, I’d say it’s a Small. In fact, you call a Sheriff, you’re going to get him. He wants to argue about how many minutes it’s going to take, it depends on where the Sheriff is when you call him. It’s the same thing for an ambulance. It’s nothing to do with anything but that. That’s the way the system works. That’s the way it works today, and that’s the way it’s going to work tomorrow. That’s the way it’ll work 20 years from now when they do something with the roads or the bridges or whatever they do. That’s not a factor here. MR. TRAVER-Well, our responsibility with regards to this question is to specifically look at the impact on the transportation system, as it relates to this project, and I submit the fact that some emergency services don’t feel, at this time, that they can state that there will not be an impact on response times indicates that the impact is, there’s potential there for a Large impact, and until that’s clarified. MR. HUNSINGER-And see I guess my own opinion is what you’re asking them to do is to review the traffic analysis and then draw their own conclusions from that traffic analysis, and in doing that then, I mean, they’re not experts in the field. They only respond to real life actual situations. They don’t know, they’re not trained to respond to traffic analysis and level of service analysis, which is what the traffic study is based on. I mean, certainly we all agree there’s going to be an impact to the existing transportation system, but to say that the overall effect is a Potential Large one because of emergency vehicle access when all of the related responders have said they can serve the site just as well as the other site, I just don’t see where we can leap to that conclusion. MR. TRAVER-Well, I guess I disagree that the letters say that. The Sheriff, again, the Sheriff talks about continuing to provide professional service. Certainly I think we can all say we’re very fortunate we have very professional Sheriff’s Office and that was never a question for me. The West Glens Falls EMS says that our agency will respond to any call dispatched at this location that would be dispatched by Warren County Sheriff’s. 41 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) That to me has nothing to do with the impact on the transportation system, and I submit that if the impact is that, yes, they will respond, but because of the impact to the transportation system caused by this project lives and property are potentially impacted, that impact, whatever it is, has certainly got to be considered large, and we don’t know the answer to that, and neither do they, and as I said before, we don’t move on a project where the Karner blue butterfly is effected unless we have a clear unambiguous signoff on that, and as we sit here, we do not, I submit, on the issue of response time. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. TRAVER-And I think we have a responsibility to the community to ensure that we do, before we pass on this discussion. MR. SCHONEWOLF-Well, first of all, they can’t even guarantee that they’re going to be the responding agency. You don’t know that. If they’re busy, or they’re at the hospital, you’re going to get. MR. TRAVER-We’re not asking them that question. MR. SCHONEWOLF-Yes, you are. You’re asking them about response time, and response time is governed by that. It’s like saying to them they can reverse every cardiac arrest. They can’t guarantee that. MR. TRAVER-Response times, you know, if you’re saying that you can’t study response times, that’s, you can say, they will, I can assure you that they will. (Tape Turned – some conversation not picked up) MRS. STEFFAN-Tom, to go back to the sentence before, the construction of an 85,000 square foot building with over 525 parking spaces will have significant adverse impact on the area’s, instead of Rural Residential quality. MR. SCHACHNER-You took it out. MR. HUNSINGER-Strike that sentence. MRS. STEFFAN-The whole sentence comes out? MR. SCHACHNER-Right. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-All right. MR. SEGULJIC-It’s irreversible including permanently lost resources of value. Once again, this quote is from the Comprehensive Plan. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s, right after it says, it’s irreversible including permanently lost resources of value, that’s a quote from the Comp Plan? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, I believe so. MR. SCHACHNER-The project will have significant impacts on the area? That doesn’t sound right. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. You’re correct. I believe I opened it up, the last portion of it is. MR. TRAVER-Much of it is a quote, but not all of it. MR. SEGULJIC-And should also be the impact. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, no, I’m seeing, project and impact seem to be used correctly. I’m just not following which part’s a quote. It doesn’t matter. I mean, it’s up to the Board, but if you’re saying part of it’s a quote, it doesn’t jump out at me at least which part that would be. MR. HUNSINGER-It’s already stated two sentences above. So maybe we just end the comment at valued for its Rural character. Since the rest is already stated. MR. SCHACHNER-I see, it’s repeating the language that’s quoted above. 42 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-All right. So we’ll strike that out. MR. SCHACHNER-So you’re striking after Rural character, the rest of that sentence? MR. SEGULJIC-Correct, Rural character, period, and then strike the rest. MR. SCHACHNER-And then what do you do with in addition? MR. SEGULJIC-That would come out also. MR. SCHACHNER-All right. MR. SEGULJIC-Whether the impact can or will be controlled. MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t understand what that means. That doesn’t mean anything to me, Tom. MR. TRAVER-I think what that’s trying to say is that once the construction is complete, the impact is concluded, and it’s permanent. It’s not something that’s going to be adjustable or controllable. It’s either there or it isn’t. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, except we said earlier that it could be. How could the project be mitigated, and we have four remaining bullets. So the impact can be controlled. MR. SEGULJIC-So we can say it can be controlled by reducing the scale of the proposed building? MR. TRAVER-Or by applying mitigation measures listed above. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-So I’ll say reducing the scale of the proposed building and. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I like Steve’s language better, by applying the mitigation measures above. MR. SCHACHNER-So are you leaving in or taking out the language that’s already in there? MR. SEGULJIC-Take that out. MR. SCHACHNER-Take it all out? MR. SEGULJIC-Correct. MR. SCHACHNER-And replace it with? MR. SEGULJIC-By applying proposed mitigation measures noted above. MR. SCHACHNER-Are you putting something in front of that, like impact can or would be controlled or something? MR. SEGULJIC-Right. Impact can be controlled by applying mitigation measures noted above. This regional consequences of the impact will have to be changed. MR. HUNSINGER-I think if you just take the last clause off, as well as have adverse visual impacts. I think if you just cross that off. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. SCHACHNER-You’re keeping in the middle sentence there, as noted? MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Potential divergence from local goals and needs. Here we have to strike the second one, protecting the important natural area and view sheds. 43 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. SCHACHNER-Just for consistency’s sake, that’s why I asked about the middle sentence. So you’re striking it here, but you’re leaving it up above. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I guess, you know, right there, protecting the natural, important natural area, we just strike the last part, and view sheds in the Town, just the last half of that sentence. The first half is okay. MR. SCHACHNER-Why don’t you just cross out and view sheds, then. MR. SEGULJIC-Correct. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay, but you’re leaving the view sheds above? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the one above talks about the buffer along the Northway. That’s why I thought it was okay. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s fine. I’m just making sure the Board is knowingly going through it. Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-Mark, can I question? We’ve never been through this before. When this is all done, do we get like a copy of it before we approve it? MR. SCHACHNER-There’s no law that says anything about that. I mean, there has to be an official copy of this for the Town records. MRS. STEFFAN-Right. MR. SCHACHNER-So I’m not sure what you’re asking. MRS. STEFFAN-Because if we’re editing this document, and I have to vote on it, and it’s a marked up document, and I’m not sure exactly what’s on it, and I don’t have a final copy, I’m really nervous about that. MR. SCHACHNER-Right. It’s up to the, I mean, you’re one of seven. It’s up to the Board. I mean, there’s no requirement that you have a beautifully printed out, corrected copy. You’re supposed to make a reasoned decision based on the information before you. For what it’s worth, I think you’re conducting Part III, at least in a detailed manner. It’s up to the Board. MR. HUNSINGER-We can cross the bridge when we get to the end. MRS. STEFFAN-All right. MR. TRAVER-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-I disagree on Item Three. Because the scientific analysis that’s been provided has shown that there will be no impact on the CEA. MR. SEGULJIC-All right. MR. HUNSINGER-So I don’t think you can say the project diverges from it. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. TRAVER-Although there are 120 parking spaces that are in that CEA. So we are reducing, are we not, the Rush Pond CEA by paving part of it? So is that not a divergence from the protection of it? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I mean, we have a stormwater report that says that none of the stormwater will impact the CEA. MR. TRAVER-Right. I’m not talking. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, again, go back to, the heading on this is aesthetic resources and open space. MR. TRAVER-Right. I’m not talking about the stormwater. I’m talking about paving over part of it. Is that, by paving part of the Rush Pond Critical Environmental Area, are we protecting it? I only say that in counter to your suggestion that we strike that line. I’m 44 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) just saying I think we should leave it in there. I mean, we’ll find out later what the impact of that is, correct? MR. HUNSINGER-What do you mean? MR. SIPP-I think, Mr. Chairman, we’re changing the drainage pattern within that Critical Environmental Area, by blacktopping. We’re changing the drainage. MRS. STEFFAN-But the documentation that’s been provided, the science that has been provided to us identifies that that’s been mitigated. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MRS. STEFFAN-So we can’t identify that. The stormwater report has been submitted and signed off by our engineer. MR. SIPP-Yes, but stormwater covers all, the whole area, not just the one specific area. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I would propose we strike it because this is aesthetic. MR. TRAVER-So we are striking that one, Number Three? MR. SEGULJIC-We’ll strike that one, and then the fourth bullet we’ll strike and visual quality. Then on the Whether Known Objections to the Project Relate to the Impact, we’ll strike the last comment, the adverse visual impacts. MR. SCHACHNER-You’re taking out the period after area, in other words? MR. SEGULJIC-Correct. MR. SCHACHNER-So five bullets remain before that paragraph? MR. SEGULJIC-I’m sorry, you’re right. MRS. STEFFAN-Tom, the promotion of pedestrian and bicycle friendly residential and commercial design for new and redevelopment. I mean, the applicant put the bike path in their plan, you know, so they were furthering that. I think that need would be met. So I don’t think you need to put it in there. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. KREBS-So we’re going to remove the last bullet. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, it would be the last two, really. MR. TRAVER-The last two? MR. KREBS-Yes. MR. TRAVER-So we have one and four remaining, part of four? MR. SEGULJIC-One and part of four remaining. MR. SCHACHNER-What part of four did you take out, the last three words? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-I thought we left part of number two? MR. SCHACHNER-And I thought two, right, I thought two stuck in except for view sheds? MR. SEGULJIC-Correct. MR. SIPP-View sheds. MR. SCHACHNER-So one, two without and view sheds, three without, I’m sorry, three is gone, four without and visual quality, and that’s it? 45 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. SEGULJIC-Correct. MR. SCHACHNER-And then someone said something about the last paragraph, right? MR. SEGULJIC-Correct. There’s a period after area, as well as adverse impacts. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-So what do we do, Mark? Should we vote on this section before we go to the next? MR. SCHACHNER-Either one. Either do traffic and then vote on them both, or vote on them separately. It doesn’t matter. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Why don’t we move on, and we’ll vote on them both together. MR. KREBS-Whether Known Objections, all we did was take the last part of the sentence as well as the adverse visual impacts and remove that? And we removed Three, Five and Six. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. One and Four remain, and part of Two. We had a draft on Transportation. Does everyone have a copy of that? Mr. Traver, do you want to walk us through it? MR. TRAVER-My homework this time. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. TRAVER-Briefly describe the impact. Existing transportation systems surrounding the project site will experience an increase in traffic volume leading to a large alteration in the present patterns of movement of people and goods. This alteration is most severe with regards to response times of emergency services. I think since we don’t actually have that information at this point, should we add potentially after, where we say this alteration is potentially most severe? MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, I think it’s speculative to say that it is if we don’t know that it is. MR. TRAVER-That’s why I’m saying, why don’t we say potentially? MR. SCHONEWOLF-Then you’re saying that it is, it has the potential to be severe. MR. TRAVER-That’s right. We’ve already voted on that. Several sections of highway and the bridge over the Northway have little or no shoulders. This can effectively block emergency vehicles or significantly slow the time required for emergency services to respond to threats to life and property. Though the project design calls for a signal at the Exit 20 ramp, traffic back ups on the bridge, strain on the transportation system caused by bad weather or accidents and traffic volume impacts on other intersections surrounding the project site can clearly have a significant impact upon the consequences of emergencies in the affected area. MR. SCHACHNER-Did you add that word potential or not? I’m sorry, earlier on? MR. TRAVER-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. MR. TRAVER-Second sentence, we added that as the fourth word. MR. SCHACHNER-Right. Got it. MR. TRAVER-Okay. Number Two, Describe (if applicable) how the impact could be mitigated. There were two things. The impact could be mitigated if the project design were changed to include concurrent improvements to the transportation system. Roads surrounding the site could be widened. Number Two, the impact could also be significantly mitigated if a “park and ride” system for employees was implemented. This could remove the vehicle volume to a more robust section of the area’s transportation system. Based on the information available, decide if it’s reasonable to conclude that this impact is important. The first section is, the probability of the impact occurring, and 46 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) my response was, unfortunately the need for emergency services in the area of the project is inevitable. Duration of the impact. The impact coexists with the duration of the occupation of the project site, and then on its irreversibility, including permanent loss of resources of value, and my response was the loss of lives and property may be incalculable. Whether the impact can or will be controlled. The impact cannot be controlled without additional mitigation, was my response. Regional consequences of the impact. My response was in addition to the increased risk to victims of emergency situations, insurance rates are likely to be increased by underwriters causing a significant financial impact on residents of the area. Its potential divergence from local needs and goals. My response was this impact reverses the desired trend for improved emergency services to the area of the project, and last, Whether known objections to the project relate to this impact. I just said, there has been significant public comment reflecting concern about this impact to the area. MR. KREBS-Steve, can I ask you a question? Relative to insurance rates. Do you have some kind of documentation that indicates that that will happen? MR. TRAVER-Again, we don’t know. That’s one of the major factors driving that is response times. You might recall perhaps from your own homeowners, there are things like when the hydrant system was put in. MR. KREBS-Right, how close is the hydrant determines whether, if you don’t have a hydrant, it’s a different rate than it is. MR. TRAVER-Right, and also things like your distance from emergency services, which basically is all revolving around response time. So what I’m reflecting here. MR. KREBS-But the distances, I don’t think that, I’ve never seen anything in any of my insurance policies that asked what the response time was for the fire department or the ambulance. It says how far are you, physically, from the sources. MR. TRAVER-Right. Correct, but we do have, I’m glad you mentioned that, we actually have, in the most recent letter that we got from, I guess it was Queensbury Central, the project, the people that currently work at Travelers, when moving to this site, are actually going to be, they’re going to have an increased distance to travel in response. I forget what the figure was, it went from like 1.46 to 2. whatever it is, but I put that in there as a potential impact. MR. KREBS-I think it’s not substantiated. I don’t think that there’s anything in anybody’s insurance underwriting that actually measures response time. MR. TRAVER-We’re talking about potential large impact. We’re not talking about large impact. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, I think all of this is speculative. MR. SCHONEWOLF-But the underwriters don’t look at that. The underwriters look at the time that it takes you to get to the firehouse and response, the number of people that respond, the fact that they have the proper equipment, that there’s a proper water to site. That’s what they rate you on. MR. TRAVER-Okay. I’m only saying it’s a potential impact. If we find that it isn’t, that’s great, and I’m sure that we’ll have a lot of residents that will be very happy. I think it’s a potential impact because we don’t have the information on the response time. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. KREBS-Okay. MR. TRAVER-Anything else? MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I guess I’ll put it up to a vote on the two drafts. MR. SCHACHNER-So the only change to that was the one word, right? MR. TRAVER-We added a word, I guess. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, that’s the only mark up I had. 47 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. SCHACHNER-That was the only modification to the language as drafted. MR. LAPPER-Are those going to get read into the record before they’re voted on? MR. SEGULJIC-Well, we also have Gretchen’s traffic. Do we want to look at that? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I mean, why would we do that? There were only two areas that we needed to comment on. MR. SEGULJIC-I mean, you also wrote this one, Gretchen. MRS. STEFFAN-I did. I asked Counsel if I could write a separate one, and he said I could, so that’s why I sent it to everybody last night before the meeting. So you could read it. MR. KREBS-I was on today, and it wasn’t in my box. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, does it differ broadly from the other ones? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, it doesn’t take the approach, the emergency services approach. It takes traffic volume approach, and actually some of the situations that we got tonight are actually, I don’t know. MR. KREBS-Gretchen, did you send this directly to us, or to Staff? MRS. STEFFAN-I actually didn’t send it to you, Don, or to you, Paul. I sent it to Chris and I asked him to forward it to the alternates because I didn’t have your email address, but I sent it to all the other, you know, I sent it to Don and Tom and Chris, and Steve. MR. TRAVER-I received it. MR. HUNSINGER-I didn’t. If I got it, I didn’t see it. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. I don’t know what you want to do. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I mean, we have two Part III’s that we just painstakingly marked up and reviewed. I mean, we have three out of four members that haven’t seen your draft. MRS. STEFFAN-All right. Counsel’s got it. MR. HUNSINGER-I was ready to put the two drafts up for a vote. I mean. MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t know what to do. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, what was the thought? I mean, is it an either/or? Is it your draft or the other two drafts or, I mean how would they be melded? MRS. STEFFAN-I thought it was would be a (lost word), but I’ve never done it before. That’s why I asked Counsel. We’ve never done a Part III before. MR. HUNSINGER-No, we haven’t. MR. SCHACHNER-Actually, you have, but that’s neither here nor there. You did for Golden Corral. MR. HUNSINGER-Really? Okay. Yes, we did. MRS. STEFFAN-Why don’t I remember that? MR. SCHACHNER-I’m not sure what the question was. Gretchen’s proposed Part III does not deal with the aesthetic issue at all, I don’t believe, it’s strictly traffic. MRS. STEFFAN-Right, yes. MR. SCHACHNER-So as far as melding, if you’re looking to meld them, it would not have any impact, bad choice of words, it would not have any influence on the aesthetic 48 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) impact evaluation that you just went through. It’s, I’m not sure, is there a question to me now, Gretchen? MRS. STEFFAN-I think we actually went through Mr. Traver’s, regarding the traffic. MR. SCHACHNER-Correct. MRS. STEFFAN-And so mine was regarding traffic. MR. SCHACHNER-Correct. MRS. STEFFAN-And so, you know, I didn’t know whether we would discuss it or not, but if all the members didn’t get it, I don’t know what to do. MR. SCHACHNER-It’s up to the Board. MRS. STEFFAN-I’ll start to read it and see if you think it has merit. Briefly describe the impact. The proposed project will increase traffic volumes to levels that are not compatible with the zoning and will dramatically affect the resident’s quality of life. The applicant’s property is zoned Professional Office, which is, as defined in the Plan, located along arterials adjoining residential areas where compatibility with residential uses is important. This property borders property that is Single Family Residential One Acre, which is, as defined, intended to protect the character of Queensbury’s low, medium and high density strictly Single Family neighborhoods and Rural Residential, which are intended to enhance the natural open spaces and rural character of the Town by limiting development to sparse densities, steep slopes, wetlands, limiting soils and marginal access to populated areas often characterize such areas warranting such densities. The proposed Professional Office development will have a maximum employee population of 537, which is supported by the number of parking spaces requested by the applicant in their parking variance application. Their trip generation summary for peak hour trips in both the AM and PM only reflect 46%, and that’s 248, and 48%, 259, of the employee population. Under the scenario that the applicant’s traffic study provides, 54 and 52% of the employee population will be traveling to and from work during non-peak hour time periods. The number of overall car trips per day would add significant traffic to the Rural Residential roadways that according to zoning are intended to be sparse densities. This potential 1,074 car trips per day without accounting for lunchtime travel, 5,370 trips per week, 279,240 car trips per year, again, without accounting for lunchtime travel, which could easily bring the annual number to 300,000 additional car trips per year to area roads. The traffic report also identifies that 30% of the traffic will use West Mountain Road, which is a local arterial road, and in our Code, 179-19-020, and this is Section B(2), defined in the Zoning Code as a road serving comparatively large volumes of high speed, 45 miles per hour or greater, long distance or through traffic which also provides access to abutting properties. Based on the 537 number, that would be 90,000 trips per year, and that 25% will be traveling to and from the north on I-87 and Route 9. It is logical that the departing employees that will be traveling north will avoid the congested intersection on Gurney Lane, which is a collector road, as identified in our Code, 179-19-020B(3), and that’s defined as roads which improve access to abutting properties and which link development roads, collector roads, or other local roads to major traffic roads. MR. HUNSINGER-How many pages is your draft? MRS. STEFFAN-Five. MR. HUNSINGER-Five, and only four out of seven have reviewed it. MRS. STEFFAN-That’s why I was in a strange spot. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, and there’s a lot of detail and a lot of information to digest, and, you know, we already went through the other drafts. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-I guess it would just be my inclination to. MR. LAPPER-We’d rather have this done tonight. Whatever the decision is, we’d rather have it all out there. 49 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Well, you don’t know what I was going to say. I was going to say my inclination would be to go with what we just reviewed and, you know. MRS. STEFFAN-I think that the impact is far greater than the emergency services, regarding traffic. So that’s one of the reasons why I did this. When we got our draft, but that’s up to the rest of the Board. MR. TRAVER-Well, Gretchen, we did start on the Part III, my homework, I guess, the first sentence says existing transportation systems surrounding the project site will experience an increase in traffic volume leading to a large alteration in the present patterns of movement of people and goods. I know I’m not as specific as you are, but it is in there. MRS. STEFFAN-Right. Some of the issues that I went on to talk about were that there were, I was talking about driveway safety, and actually some of this is in Mr. Levine’s study. So I know we got information tonight. I know I presented this and a couple of members didn’t get it. I don’t know why, but. MR. TRAVER-You also talk about a mitigation which is one of mine, too, that we. MR. HUNSINGER-Did Staff have it? MRS. STEFFAN-Craig Brown has it. MR. HILTON-Yes. We received one. We don’t have one in the file here, but someone on our Staff did receive one. MR. HUNSINGER-Did Staff forward it to the rest of the Board? MR. HILTON-Can we? We will. MR. HUNSINGER-No. Did you? MR. HILTON-Did we? That I can’t say. It wasn’t sent to me personally. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-I don’t know how many copies we have, but can we take 15 minutes so we can read it and then reconvene? MR. KREBS-And then when we reconvene are we going to make a decision whether we’re going to use this one or hers? MR. SEGULJIC-Or marry them or? Some people here haven’t seen it. MR. HUNSINGER-I know. I mean, three out of four members haven’t seen it yet. MR. SEGULJIC-I’m willing to give my copy up. MR. KREBS-Right, but if we’re going to marry them, then what are we going to finally have to be able to look at to really make a decision to vote on? MR. SEGULJIC-That’s the only thing I can think of. MR. SCHONEWOLF-Can we just vote on the first two? That’s what you should do. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Well, that’s what I think we should do. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I don’t think the first two carry everything, all the other concerns. MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t emergency services is the only traffic issue, personally, and we’ve also gotten new information tonight from a licensed professional engineer. MR. TRAVER-That’s a good point. What are our options? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the options are limitless. I mean, my own personal feeling, no disrespect to Mr. Levine, but many of the concerns that he addresses I think are more Site Plan related. I mean, specifically, you know, driveway sight distances. To me, that’s a Site Plan issue, that’s not necessarily a SEQRA issue, and some of the things I 50 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) think are more a statement of fact that this project doesn’t have an impact on. I mean, saying that West Mountain Road and Gurney Lane already have high levels of traffic. I mean, it’s just a statement of fact. It’s not anything that this project, you know, has control over. I guess I’m really kind of stuck here, because, you know, we had asked two of the members to draft the impacts to be presented to the Board, you know, and until you brought it up just a couple of minutes ago, I wasn’t aware that you had drafted something different, and, you know, three of the members didn’t have it. I think we ought to, if we can’t control the flow of information within our own Board, I don’t know how we can expect, you know, applicants or the public to control it as well. I’m not saying you did anything wrong, but for whatever reason it fell through the crack, and I, you know, is it new and additional information, you know, it’s written differently. It’s not really new information. MR. KREBS-Is this report even admissible? I mean, none of us, well, I didn’t get it before the meeting. MR. SEGULJIC-Nor did you get the visual impact information. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I mean, we take it into consideration in our deliberations. MR. SEGULJIC-This is no different than that. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. We take it into consideration as part of our deliberations. MRS. STEFFAN-That’s right, and one of the reasons why you, we can get information on the Planning Board but we can’t talk about it once we get it, and so this was written the day before yesterday. I think I sent it to, I’m trying to remember when I sent it to Counsel or Staff. MR. SCHACHNER-4:12 yesterday. MRS. STEFFAN-It was yesterday, and then yesterday evening I sent it to the group. Because we’re obviously not supposed to talk about it, so it came at the eleventh hour. MR. TRAVER-Well, why don’t we go at it from this direction. Is there anything in your Part III draft, Gretchen, that cannot be looked at based upon the other Part III’s that we’ve discussed? MRS. STEFFAN-Actually, some of the things that are in here are things I talked about tonight, controlling the impact, and, you know, some of the things I presented a little bit earlier by looking at a traffic study and, you know, some of those issues are addressed in here. So it is a little bit different and I’m, personally, after we’ve edited Tom’s document, you know, I’d rather take a look at something before I’m going to sign off on it, or vote on it. It’s my nature. MR. TRAVER-Yes, I would agree with that. I’d be willing to bet my version is not identical to everyone else’s version, I’m afraid, but what, if we could review the procedure that happens next, now that we have, let’s say that we have the two Part III’s agreed upon, what is the next, if I could ask Counsel, what happens next? MR. SCHACHNER-I want to make sure I understand your question, but I think what you’re questioning is if the two Part III evaluations, if a majority of the Board adopts their conclusions that the two potential impacts are not only Large, but are also important, correct? MR. TRAVER-Correct. MR. SCHACHNER-Then the next step would be to issue what’s called your actual SEQRA determination, a Positive Declaration requiring an Environmental Impact Statement or a Negative Declaration not requiring an Environmental Impact Statement, and if you conclude that some of the potentially large impacts are important, then you’re supposed to issue the former, the Positive Declaration. MR. TRAVER-Right, and what is the, that generates the Environmental Impact Statement? MR. SCHACHNER-Statement, correct. It doesn’t happen magically. There’s then an optional process called scoping, which is a process whereby the Board, as Lead Agency, has the opportunity, but not the obligation, to have a public scoping process, which 51 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) would be a process whereby the scope or contents of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement is decided upon. The applicant would have to first, or is supposed to first prepare a draft scoping document and submit it to the Board for the Board’s consideration, and there also has to be, scoping is optional. This is an odd wrinkle in the SEQRA regulations. Scoping is optional, but if you conduct scoping, and have a scoping process, then it’s mandatory that that scoping process includes some opportunity for public participation. The opportunity for public participation can be a scoping public meeting, at which the public is allowed to be heard on what the issues to be included in the draft Environmental Impact Statement are, or, the scoping public participation can be a public comment period during which people, not at a public hearing, but people have an opportunity to submit written comments about the draft scope of the Environmental Impact Statement, and again, that process, scoping, is optional, not mandatory. MR. TRAVER-Thank you. Then if I understand your explanation, is it not so that in the scoping process we can accommodate the points that Gretchen has raised in her draft Part III? MR. SCHACHNER-That’s a very good question, Steve, and the answer is, unfortunately, a very bad answer, a kind of sort of, to use technical legal jargon. What I would suggest is that Gretchen, the draft Part III evaluation that Gretchen has drafted is not, in my opinion, does not substantially overlap with the one that you’ve prepared. The general idea here is that the items that are identified in the scoping process for discussion in the Environmental Impact Statement are supposed to be the items that you identified in your Environmental Assessment Form evaluation as both Potentially Large and Important. So while that doesn’t have to be a perfect match, to use a different example, if you had indicated in your EAF review, pretend it’s not even this project, just hypothetically speaking, a project has no noise and odor impacts whatsoever, you’re not really supposed to then, during the scoping process, requiring a draft Environmental Impact Statement to discuss the potential impact of noise and odor because you said there weren’t any earlier. You don’t want to be inconsistent. MR. TRAVER-Okay. However, in my Part III, I did talk about the increase in traffic volume and the impact on the existing transportation system, a large alteration in present patterns of movement of people and goods. That would seem to me that would have the potential to talk about these, perhaps not all, but many of the issues that Gretchen has raised in her document with regards to trip generation summarizes and significant traffic to Rural Residential roadways and so on. Would it not? MR. SCHACHNER-I guess I’ll respectfully disagree on the basis that I think after that very first sentence of your document, if I’m not mistaken, all the rest of it, the very next sentence says this alteration is potentially most severe in regards to response times for emergency services, and if I’m not mistaken, all of the rest of the discussion deals with emergency services only. So I guess, to rephrase your question to my liking, I don’t mean it that way, I think what you’re asking me is, is that first sentence sufficient so that all of Gretchen’s proposed detailed traffic analysis could be brought in in the Environmental Impact Statement process, and I’m not totally comfortable with that. MR. TRAVER-What about the idea of the rest of my document, when I talk about emergency services, would any examination of the emergency services that I’m discussing not require looking at the emergency services in the context of these trip generation summaries and so on? MR. SCHACHNER-I presume that it would. MR. TRAVER-Okay. So, it would seem to me, then, that we would be looking at, perhaps not all, but a great deal of the information that she’s discussing. MR. SCHACHNER-You’d be looking at it in the context of its impact on provision of emergency services, and I don’t believe that Gretchen’s analysis, not only do I not believe Gretchen’s analysis is limited to the provision of emergency services, I think it’s expressly not focused on provision of emergency services. MRS. STEFFAN-Correct. MR. TRAVER-I see. MR. SCHACHNER-And I want to make sure that the Board is not misconstruing my statements here. I’m not suggesting I support or don’t support the analysis or anything else. I express no opinion about any of that. 52 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. TRAVER-I understand. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-Can we, just a thought here, at the end of Mr. Traver’s briefly describe the impact, put a sentence like, in addition the project may have the following impacts, and then have Gretchen, if you could just give us a list, then we could put those there. MRS. STEFFAN-I didn’t catch that, Tom. MR. SEGULJIC-If we just use Mr. Traver’s as the framework, for example, on Number One, at the end of his, just put, in addition, the project may have the following impacts? Because his concentrates on emergency services, and then we could just put bullets there. MR. TRAVER-In other words, amend mine to include significant aspect of yours. MRS. STEFFAN-You mean have like a 1 A and 1 B? MR. TRAVER-Whatever. MR. LAPPER-Gretchen could have read hers in all the time you’ve been talking about this. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, the bottom line is the vote’s going to be four to three. So, you know, I almost feel like it’s almost irrelevant which draft we end up adopting. I’m not trying to be snide or sarcastic, but I think the battle lines have been drawn, you know, the opinions have been strongly made back and forth on each side. No one’s going to budge or move, so, in some respects, it’s not irrelevant, but, in terms of the actual outcome, it is relevant, which is why I, you know, certainly go with the will of the Board, but I guess if it goes to an EIS, the scoping process would bring out the details. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Chris, and the Planning Board, the consensus is I know where this is going. So, please, save the public and my time and let’s vote on it, I know where it’s going, and I’ll be back, continue to move on and we’ll take the next step. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SCHERMERHORN-I think it’s going to save everyone some time, for now, that this will carry on and continue on, and I just want to say that the four members that have been here, I hope they’re comfortable with the decisions that they’ve made, the allegations, the opinions, because what I understand is that all professional information, engineering, letters, signoffs, you’ve disregarded every bit of it, the Town Engineer, the State, Department of Public Works, Soil and Water with the stormwater. I went to all these additional levels. Everything’s been disregarded here tonight, and I know that I’m not going to change anybody’s opinions, but I feel disgusted with the fact that being in this community for 21 years and always following the rules, and I’ll continue, when I leave this room, I will still walk out with a smile on my face and say, you know what, I will be back. I will try harder, and I will never quit, especially this project, but the four of you that I’ve listened tonight, it’s absolutely disgusting the way you carry on. Disgusting. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s enough, Rich. I know you’re upset, but that’s enough. MR. SCHERMERHORN-I’m sorry. MR. HUNSINGER-Can we vote on the two drafts that we got through? MRS. STEFFAN-I would just like to say I am offended as well. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Do we want to read through them, or is everyone comfortable with what was scratched and added? MR. SEGULJIC-I’m comfortable with what’s been scratched and added. MR. KREBS-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. 53 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MRS. STEFFAN-I’m not comfortable with anything right now. I’m not comfortable with the draft of the document. I’m not ready to go forward. MR. HUNSINGER-What would you like to do, Gretchen? MRS. STEFFAN-I want to see these scratched up copies of these, I want to see them before I’m going to vote on them or signoff on them. I want to see what they look like when they’re done. MR. HUNSINGER-Do you want me to read or go through? I mean, the one we only added, all we did was add one word, on Mr. Traver’s draft, we added one word. The other one, I mean, I have a pretty clean copy of what was scratched out, and there’s only a couple of words, and one clause that was added. MRS. STEFFAN-My copy of Tom’s is pretty well marked up, and I’ve already identified that I didn’t think that Steve’s response was sufficient to address Number Fifteen on the effects to transportation, and so I’m one Board member. I’m just stating my opinion. MR. HUNSINGER-What’s the rest of the Board feel? MR. KREBS-I think we know what the vote’s going to be, given one way or the other. So, let’s just vote and get it over with. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Would anyone like to make a motion, then, to accept the two Part III’s as discussed and modified? MR. SEGULJIC-Is there any downside to accepting the two Part III’s as they are now? MR. SCHACHNER-I don’t understand the question. What do you mean is there any downside? MR. SEGULJIC-If we accept, for example, Mr. Traver’s Part III, it only talks about emergency services. MR. SCHACHNER-Except for the first sentence, correct. MR. SEGULJIC-Do they just then have to address the emergency services? MR. SCHACHNER-Well, that’s the question that Steve asked before and that I gave a lousy answer to, but it’s the most responsible answer. The answer is that, in theory, the way the process is supposed to work, if and when an Environmental Impact Statement is prepared, it’s supposed to focus on the impacts that you’ve identified as Potentially Large and important in your EAF review. In my opinion, the issues that, if the Board votes, however you vote, but if a majority of the Board members accept the draft EAF evaluations as prepared thus far, then in my opinion you’ve identified as Potentially Large and important impacts some impacts of aesthetics, under the aesthetics heading, some impacts that I would characterize as largely involving compatibility with surrounding land uses, but not visual impact, and under transportation, potential impacts that involve largely the provision or impact on provision of emergency services. MR. SEGULJIC-And that would be my concern, because Gretchen has other concerns with regards to traffic. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Why don’t we take a break and we’ll get copies of the report made for the rest of the members and we’ll go through it. Can we do that, take a five minute break? Okay. Okay. Everyone has a copy of the draft that Gretchen prepared. Gretchen, if you want to lead us through it. We did have one comment on the first sentence, the proposed project will increase traffic volumes to levels that are not compatible with the surrounding zoning. I don’t know if we need to read it word for word or just go through it, maybe a paragraph at a time, like we did the other ones, and see if there’s comments or questions from Board members. I mean, I don’t have the trip generation numbers right in front of me. I assume those are correct. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, I took them right out of the CME’s plan. MR. TRAVER-I’m wondering in the sentence, it says, it is my belief. MRS. STEFFAN-That’s done, that’s crossed out. 54 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, that’s crossed out. MR. TRAVER-That’s crossed out? Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-As well as, did you mean to cross out the sentence, this number is not well supported by the numbers provided in the traffic study? MRS. STEFFAN-I did. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. It is crossed out. I mean, personally I’m not comfortable with the extrapolating the car trips, but, I mean, it’s a factual number. So I just don’t see the, I know why you did it, but. MRS. STEFFAN-It was just representing the volume. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, exactly. There’s another cross off about a third of the way down on Page Two. MRS. STEFFAN-It’s just an at doesn’t belong there. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. TRAVER-I’m sorry, what was that, which one? MR. HUNSINGER-There’s a, the word at. MR. TRAVER-The word at, at Exit 21? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. It’s right after the collector road definition. MR. TRAVER-Okay. MR. SCHACHNER-It doesn’t make sense without that at. Unless I’m at the wrong place. It is logical that the departing employees, am I at the right place? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-Then you want the at. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I think so. MR. SCHACHNER-It is logical that the departing employees that will be traveling north will avoid the congested intersection on Gurney Lane. Then you have something in parenthesis. MRS. STEFFAN-You’re right. At does belong there. It’s crossed out. I don’t know why. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Anything else on that page? MRS. STEFFAN-Curb cuts, I used the word curb cuts. DOT looks at curb cuts, driveways are curb cuts. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Moving over to Page Three. You did intend to cross off that sentence? MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I’ve got some problems on the first probability of impact. It’s really at the top of Page Four. It is probable that major traffic congestion will occur on Gurney Lane, West Mountain Road, and Mountain View Road based on the employment numbers provided for the project. The engineering studies don’t point that out. I mean, maybe we say it’s possible, then I would feel comfortable with it. MRS. STEFFAN-I had the word likely, and I changed it to probable. I don’t know, they pretty much mean the same thing, but what was the word you suggested, Chris? MR. HUNSINGER-Possible. 55 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MRS. STEFFAN-Sure. MR. TRAVER-It is possible that major? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. TRAVER-Okay. That’s fine. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I mean, we did this one on the other one. Irreversibility. It talks about a decrease in the value of property. I mean, that’s purely speculation. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-But, well, you go on to qualify it. MR. TRAVER-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-So that’s staying in or coming out? MR. TRAVER-We can delete the word it, at the very, very end. MR. SCHACHNER-Right. MR. HUNSINGER-I guess it’s staying in, Mark. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Anything else on Page Four? Page Five? Any comments on Page Five? Okay. Page Six? MR. TRAVER-I would say under Known Objections, Part A, instead of saying there has been hours and hours, I would just say there’s been much public comment. MR. HUNSINGER-How about considerable? Extensive. MR. TRAVER-There you go. How about all of the above? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. KREBS-Extensive sounds good. MR. TRAVER-I don’t know about that. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Any other comments on Page Six? How about Page Seven? MR. SEGULJIC-Well, just under, Known Objections, under A, the last sentence in that is there has never be. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s right. MRS. STEFFAN-Where are you? MR. TRAVER-Page Six. MR. SEGULJIC-In the middle of Whether Known Objections, and A, the end of that paragraph. MR. SCHACHNER-There’s four dangling words that end that paragraph. MRS. STEFFAN-I corrected that. They just need to be ditched. MR. KREBS-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-It’s not on mine. I don’t know why they were there. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s right, it’s only on the ones she sent out yesterday. It’s been changed since. 56 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, I got a phone call when I was finishing it up and I was typing something else. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay, and there’s a quote from the Comprehensive Vision Statement. Okay. Anything else on Page Six or Seven? MR. SCHACHNER-Did you change one word on Page One? If you did, I missed it. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we added the word surrounding, the first sentence, the proposed project will increase traffic volumes to levels that are not compatible with the surrounding zoning. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s the one I missed. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. We have three marked up Part III’s. Would anyone like to make a motion? MR. KREBS-Are we going to use both of them? MR. SCHACHNER-Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt. MR. HUNSINGER-Go ahead. MR. SCHACHNER-The first two say in them that the impact is declared to be important. Does this one say that? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I thought it did. MR. SCHACHNER-If it does, I missed it, and that’s the, the punch line is, and therefore this is or is not an important impact, and I didn’t see that if it’s in here. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m sorry. MR. TRAVER-No, it’s not in there. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SCHACHNER-The first two both somewhere within their text do reach that conclusion, and the ultimate conclusion you’re supposed to be reaching here is whether an impact is or is not important. So that conclusion should be stated one way or another, in my opinion, on any matter that you vote on as a Part III. MRS. STEFFAN-Are you talking about mine? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-Correct. MRS. STEFFAN-Right at the end, it’s a Potentially Large impact. Do I need to change that to important? MR. SCHACHNER-You don’t need to change anything, you don’t need to do anything. I’m just providing legal advice, but in order for this to be a meaningful Part III, I think somewhere it should conclude that. MR. HUNSINGER-That is way traffic is a. MRS. STEFFAN-Important. MR. SCHACHNER-You can say that, or and therefore constitutes an important impact, or not, whatever you say. MR. HUNSINGER-So instead of Potentially Large, important. With that correction, would anyone like to make a motion? MOTION THAT THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD ACCEPT THE THREE DRAFTS AS AMENDED FOR OUR PART THREE IN REGARDS TO SITE PLAN NO. 48-2007 AND AREA VARIANCE NO. 59-2007 SCHERMERHORN RESIDENTIAL 57 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) HOLDINGS, L.P., Introduced by Stephen Traver who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: th Duly adopted this 7 day of February, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan NOES: Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Hunsinger MR. HUNSINGER-Now what? MR. LAPPER-It sounds like Golden Corral all over again. I had hoped that some of the Board members would have learned a lesson, but we’ll just moving forward. Rich owns the land, and we’ll just keep moving forward. MR. SCHACHNER-Mr. Chairman, in my humble opinion, you’ve not quite concluded your SEQRA review. You’re one resolution shy? MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Yes. We have not reached a declaration, yes. You’re right. Would anyone like to put forward a SEQRA resolution? MR. SCHACHNER-And just by way of guidance, I often suggest that, in doing so, people look in, I presume you have Page One of the Environmental Assessment Form? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-And in the box you should have, on that Page One, there should be a box entitled Determination of Significance. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-And generally speaking you want to be using language under one of those options, A, B, or C, in formulating a motion for a SEQRA determination. MOTION THAT, BASED UPON THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD’S PART THREE EVALUATIONS AND DRAFTS THAT HAVE BEEN PREPARED, THE PROJECT MAY RESULT IN ONE OR MORE LARGE AND IMPORTANT IMPACTS THAT MAY HAVE A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT. THEREFORE A POSITIVE DECLARATION WILL BE PREPARED FOR SITE PLAN NO. 48-2007 AND AREA VARIANCE NO. 59-2007 SCHERMERHORN RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, L..P., Introduced by Stephen Traver who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: th Duly adopted this 7 day of February, 2008, by the following vote: MR. HUNSINGER-Discussion. When it says a Positive Declaration will be prepared, I mean, we just made a statement of Positive Declaration. What do we need to do further? MR. SCHACHNER-Well, you haven’t done it quite because the motion hasn’t been voted on. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. SCHACHNER-But if the motion is adopted, then you will have issued a SEQRA Positive Declaration, and Staff can summarize, based on the Part III evaluations that you’ve already approved. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. AYES: Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic NOES: Mr. Krebs, Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Hunsinger MR. HUNSINGER-In terms the applicant, if we pursue the Environmental Impact Statement, what would be the next step? MR. SCHACHNER-To decide whether or not you’re going to conduct a scoping session process. 58 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. HUNSINGER-And what would be the reasons for making that decision? MR. TRAVER-Well, I think the scoping process is going to be important on all of these issues because we need to identify, of these issues that are raised, exactly what we’re going to be seeking in the Environmental Impact Statement. MR. HUNSINGER-Did you have a comment, Mr. Lapper? MR. LAPPER-No, I’m listening. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SCHACHNER-Was there a question to me? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I guess the question’s still begged. I mean, what basis would we determine and decide whether or not we want to do a scoping session? MR. SCHACHNER-Generally Lead Agencies make that decision based on whether they think they, they and the applicant already know what they want to see in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement or feel that there is a need to flesh it out a bit more. That’s generally how people make that decision. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SCHACHNER-And again, it’s optional. MR. LAPPER-We haven’t even seen the resolution yet. MR. HUNSINGER-So in terms of the public hearing and the process, do we table it a future meeting, do we leave it open ended? MR. SCHACHNER-Yes. You’re not allowed to do anything further, process wise, before the Environmental Impact Statement process is completed. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. SCHACHNER-So, yes, you can leave the public hearing open, if you like. I mean, at this point, I wouldn’t leave it open to a date certain. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Okay. MR. SCHACHNER-So, just for my standpoint, you’ve decided to have scoping, to not have scoping, or have you not made that decision? MR. HUNSINGER-I’m sorry. MRS. STEFFAN-I thought we were supposed to make it at a later date, based on what you just said? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I understood you to say we need to review this? MR. SCHACHNER-Then I mislead you. I apologize. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SCHACHNER-The decision of whether you’re going to have a scoping process is a decision that you can make as soon as now, and you should make that decision soon, because part of the SEQRA process, believe it or not, is that it’s supposed to proceed, you know, a pace, and it’s important for the applicant to know whether you’re going to conduct a scoping process or not, because if you are going to conduct a scoping process, then the SEQRA regulations require the applicant to prepare a draft scope and submit it to the Board. If you’re not going to have a scoping process, then it’s incumbent upon the applicant to prepare a Draft Environmental Impact Statement. MR. HUNSINGER-So if we have a scoping session, what’s the time limit for the applicant to submit the scope? 59 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/07/08) MR. SCHACHNER-The applicant actually can do so, that’s up to the applicant. There is no specific timeframe for that. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SCHACHNER-The timeframes kick in after receiving a draft scope from the applicant. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. LAPPER-And we can’t do that until we get a copy of the resolution that you just passed tonight, which we haven’t seen yet. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SCHACHNER-Yes. Really, I don’t think you can go much further than deciding whether to have scoping or not. I mean, certainly, the applicant’s right. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Well, we heard one member’s opinion. Would anyone like to put forward a resolution? MOTION THAT THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD HAS MADE A DECISION TO HAVE A SCOPING PROCESS WITH REGARD TO SITE PLAN NO. 48-2007 AND AREA VARIANCE NO. 59-2007 SCHERMERHORN RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, L.P., Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: th Duly adopted this 7 day of February, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Traver NOES: Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Hunsinger MR. SCHACHNER-That I truly believe is as far as you can go tonight. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Is there any other business to be brought before the Board? If not, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. MOTION TO ADJOURN THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING OF FEBRUARY 7, 2008, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: th Duly adopted this 7 day of February, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Schonewolf, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Traver, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: Mr. Traver On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Chris Hunsinger, Chairman 60