Loading...
2009-02-24 SP MTG#8SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING MTG. #8 FEBRUARY 24, 2009 RES. 82 7:00 p.m. TOWN BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT SUPERVISOR DANIEL STEC COUNCILMAN ANTHONY METIVIER COUNCILMAN RONALD MONTESI COUNCILMAN JOHN STROUGH COUNCILMAN TIM BREWER TOWN OFFICIALS Sr. Planner Stu Baker Zoning Administrator Craig Brown Town Counsel Mark Schachner PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE LED BY SUPERVISOR STEC SUPERVISOR DANIEL STEC-Opened the meeting. PUBLIC HEARING-PROPOSED LOCAL LAW TO AMEND ZONING PROVISIONS OF TOWN CODE AND MODIFY TOWN ZONING MAP NOTICE SHOWN PUBLICATION DATE: 02-12-2009 Supervisor Stec-This public hearing that we are going to conduct this evening on the proposed zoning code that the Town has been working on for quite some time. Town Clerk Darleen Dougher has already made a couple of announcements and I will make one now and try to make the periodically through the first part of the meeting, reminding people that there is a sign up sheet if you do wish to speak because we are expecting several comments we want to try to keep things going. So, Darleen is maintaining a sign in sheet that she will call on people and then as you hear your names that will be queue and if you want to make your way to the front row so that you can speak when the next person is finished that will help to make sure everyone gets an adequate opportunity to speak this evening. With that said we are going to make sure that everyone gets at least an initial opportunity to speak before we get into any lengthier comments. So, I am going to allow for the first pass through the list anyone that wants to speak a four minute limit and then once we have had an opportunity for everyone to have at least that first opportunity we will see where we are and we will see how many more people want additional time to make comments and then we will continue on from there. When you come to the microphone I am going to ask that you state your name and address for the record, these microphones not only amplify but they record for the purpose of the record. If you have a comment regarding a specific property that you own as much information that you can give about it specifically address or tax id number it will be helpful. We have a couple staff members here tonight that are going to betaking pretty diligent notes and trying to make sure that they capture the essence of each comment and at the conclusion of the process, Stu Baker tells me that it is his intent to attempt to address as many of those comments as he can meaningfully address. We have been and we will continue to accept written comments this evening and after the meeting if you want to add more to your comments tonight or if you are more comfortable adding comments in a written form, so that is an option that is available. Likewise I will add that you know, assuming that there are some people in here most notably attorneys are known to do this, have a prepared lengthy written thing that they want to read in, it is their option if they can read it in four minutes, great, or if they want to read it and then come back to it, finish reading it, great. If you want to summarize the written comment and then turn in to Darleen the actual written comment for the purpose of the record that is acceptable as well. We are looking to take public input tonight on the draft code that is the purpose of this meeting, is to receive public comment. Additionally the APA in the last couple days provided us with a few statutorily required changes that they wanted us to incorporate SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 2 into this, I will let Stu Baker touch on that in a minute. But, Stu Baker today did compile a list of relatively I would think it is fair to say minor changes that are required by APA in order for us to continue to be have an approved land use program with the APA which believe me is in the interest of the Town to continue that relationship. Again, I will let Stu revise them but there are several copies of that document on the desk tonight and for your review. With that said what I would like to do again, remind people that if you are just walking in there are a couple of the sign up sheets right over there by the door if you want to sign into that if you intend to speak, we are going to be using that list at least to get through the first go around and with that I will turn it over to Stu Baker who is going to make a brief presentation as to where we are from process standpoint as far as how we got to where we are tonight and then when he is finished with that I will ask him to also touch on the APA comments that we have in response to their initial comments to us. Stu? Sr. Planner Stu Baker-Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone, thank you very much for coming out this evening it is nice to see so much interest in this project. Tonight's public hearing is indeed part of a much larger project that actually began back in the fall of 2004 with the creation of the Planning Ordinance Review Committee by the Town Board. That Committee was charged with three tasks actually, to review and revise the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, review and revise the Zoning Code and review and revise the Subdivision Regs. Of course all of that Committee's work was advisory only, the authority to adopt those documents rest solely with this Board here this evening. The Comprehensive Land Use Plan was completed in 2007 and adopted by the Town Board in August of that year. Prior to the Town Board adopting that document the Planning Ordinance Review Committee was already at work on recommendations on Zoning changes. Between August of 2006 and May or 2007 the Planning Ordinance Review Committee held ten public meetings in this room over that nine month period to review and discuss proposed changes to the Zoning Code. The Committee was working with consultants from the Saratoga Associates and I was staff to the Committee on the project. Upon the completion of the Committee's work in May of 2007 they recommended the draft Zoning Code, much of the draft Zoning Code to the Town Board. The Committee did not agree on all of the articles in the Zoning Code, the draft Zoning Code, there are twenty one articles but the vast majority they agreed unanimously to recommend to the Town Board for their consideration and review. The Town Board has been working with the draft code since May of 2008. Initially two members of the Town Board worked with three members of staff on reviewing the code over a three month period seven meetings were held during regular office hours with staff to go through the Code and then the draft code was then referred to the full Town Board for their review and they worked on the draft code from August of 2008 through the end of January of this year holding over twelve public workshop meetings during that five month period. Between the Planning Ordinance Review Committee meetings on the draft zoning and the Town Board workshop meetings there has been a total of at least twenty two public meetings where the draft code was reviewed. That brings us to this evening, the public hearing on the draft code. As Supervisor Stec pointed out we have had the code reviewed by Staff at the Adirondack Planning Association. Supervisor Stec-Park Agency. Sr. Planner Baker-I am sorry. Supervisor Stec-Adirondack Park Agency. Sr. Planner Baker-I am sorry, Adirondack Park Agency, I work with too many APA's . They have been very helpful in their review, they did submit a number of comments to the Town Board late Friday afternoon, yesterday I met with Staff from the APA, they were kind enough to travel down to meet with me for that meeting. We were able to glean through the comments to determine really what was statutory in nature that the Town Board must change in the code in order for this code to be acceptable to the APA and the Town to continue to have an APA approved local land use program. Those items are five in number and I will go over them briefly, but there is a hand out up here at the front table outlining these changes, these are changes that are not noted yet in the draft that is available at the Town Clerk's Office or the draft that was distributed this evening SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 3 or even the draft that is on line. This is a document that was just produced today. So, I will go through that briefly. These are changes that I am recommending to the Town Board and the Town Board will hopefully consider these changes as part of their review of this document, this chapter in the Town Code. The first deals with the waterfront setback overlay zone. As many of you may know our current Zoning Code has two waterfront residential districts one on Lake George north and west of the intersection of Bay Road and Route 9L. There is currently an area designated as WR3A under the current proposed Code that you have this evening there is a fifty foot set back requirement. The Adirondack Park Agency would like a seventy five foot set back which is actually the same water front set back as the current code. So, that change is proposed. The second deals with density calculations within Queensbury lands within the Adirondack Park. As you may know the proposed Code does allow for some increased densities in certain conditions, APA review of the Code resulted in their determination that those increases would exceed the densities allowed by the Adirondack Park Act. So, consequently they are asking the Town not to allow density bonuses within the Adirondack Park. So, we are proposing two changes to Article 4 and Article 11 that essentially say density bonuses are not applicable to the Queensbury lands within the Park. Additionally regarding seawalls, the APA is requesting and I am recommending that the new Zoning Code require shore line set back variances for seawalls that are greater than one hundred feet in square area. That is because the APA in their regulations consider such seawalls to be structures and thus subject to setback regulations and they do require locally approved land use programs that have similar regulations. Another issue is in Article 5 dealing with fences, the current draft of the Code states that no fence is greater than two hundred square feet in area shall be located within the setback, the shoreline set back, the APA standard is one hundred square feet so again we are recommending that change from two hundred to one hundred square feet. In the final change deals with non conforming lots in terms of their size. The APA Act which is Section 811 of New York State Executive Law Article 27 does not allow non conforming lots to be developed for commercial uses, only for single family residential and mobile home uses. We are going to reference that section of the APA Act and Article 13 and thus adopt the same standard. Again, all of these changes are intended to keep the Town's revised Zoning Code compliant with the APA and thus allow the town to continue to have an APA approved local land use program. Supervisor Stec-Thanks, Stu. Sr. Planner Baker-One additional thing I did want to point out if you haven't noticed we do have Zoning Maps posted in a number of places in this room. We have two posted in at the rear of the room, feel free to get up and take a look at those if you haven't already. There is one posted up here if you are making comments during the public hearing related to the Zoning Map feel free to go over and use that as a visual aid, please take the microphone with you so we can get all the comments on record and I will be using the copy behind me for taking notes related to comments on the map through the meeting. Supervisor Stec-All right, thank you Stu. So, again that is where we are and as I mentioned before I saw a couple of people trickle in while Stu and I had been talking. There is a sign in sheet if anyone wants to address the Town Board verbally this evening that Darleen will be working off the sign in list to try and keep things moving and she will call a couple names, if you hear your name, you know, make your way toward the front to one of the front seats in the front row so we can take as much comment as we possible can, and efficiently as we can. With that said the public hearing is open and Darleen if you want to give us the first couple commentary names? Town Clerk Dougher-Our first comments will be from Mr. Rick Garrand and then Robert Glandon can come up, John Whalen and Peter Garvey. If you could come up front and just go in that order that would be great. Mr. Rick Garrand-Dixon Court, Queensbury A year ago I was hoping to see this it is nice to finally see it, I think you guys did a great job on this. It covers a whole lot more than what the past Code covered. Of course, no Code is going to be perfect there are scenarios that I do not think anybody can anticipate. I have almost no problem with this what so ever, looking thorough it. I have read it over almost twice and I basically looked SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 over it with the intent of trying to find flaw with it, there are very few things I can find flaw with this at all. One of which I was just hoping for a little bit of clarification on. When one section the Town Board, Planning Board, Zoning Board are all separate entities and on occasion some projects require both Town Board and Planning Board appeal or approvals, maybe Mr. Schachner can help me out with this. In one section it says 179 9-070 where a project requires both the Zoning of Appeals and Planning Board approval. The Zoning Board of Appeals shall request that the Planning Board provide a written recommendation concerning the proposed variance. It almost implies that it is mandatory that we get a written recommendation from them? 4 Councilman Brewer-Dan, could I make a recommendation when some one is referencing something in here please recommend or let us know what page you are on so that we can follow with you if you do not mind. Sr. Planner Baker-What would be most helpful if you can give us page and section references. Mr. Garrand-9.8 paragraph j section 1 number b letter b Supervisor Stec-Because, while they are pulling that up, I just wanted to tell you what we are intending to do is if you can, and I should have said this earlier the more specific you can possibly be with your comments the more helpful that would be to the process. Stu Baker will make the note the question I guess there is the nature of the language and the word shall in that particular instance and while we may not attempt to explain tonight all of the questions Stu is going to take all the comments and then he will compile the document at a later date that will be available that we will try to answer as many of these questions as we can, so we are looking for comments. I am not sure that we are necessarily going to be able to provide an answer to every question that comes up tonight but, the nature of your question is you have got a concern as to whether or not we really mean to have a mandatory referral to the Planning Board before it goes to the Zoning Board. Mr. Garrand-Traditionally it has been sort of the thing we requested Planning Board recommendation on these things. If you go to page 14.3 paragraph d it says the Zoning Board of Appeals at its discretion may request Planning Board to make recommendations. Pretty much that is the way we have been doing it all along, I believe that is the way it should be, as separate boards we take the recommendations and add them into the record and take everything into consideration from there. Beyond that the only thing that I have been seeing lately is building permits being issued, once these structures are built a lot of times they do not seem to match the plans submitted to the Town, we have been seeing that quite a bit lately. Supervisor Stec-That is an enforcement issue I am not sure it is relevant to the Code itself but its been noted and I am familiar with a couple of issues as well. Mr. Garrand-Just thought I would bring it up, thank you very much. Supervisor Stec-Thank you. Town Clerk Dougher-Mr. Robert Glandon Mr. Rick Glandon-and my wife Victoria we are at 63 Knox Road on Assembly Point. We have sent a letter in to Mr. Stec from Tom West the Attorney and I assume that gets Supervisor Stec-We received it that is part of the record, yes, Sir. Mr. Glandon-Great, I just wanted to re-iterate what we, the problem that we had and the Zoning Board of Appeals the case that is now being adjudicated to make sure that we don't we kind of close those loop holes. So, that is what we tried to identify how building height is measured and make sure that we get in there that it is finish grade of a cut that is excavated below the nature grade and that in a situation where, the way it is written right now, proposed right now would say that if you cannot identify the current SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 the natural grades then you just use fill. If we do that we will be right back to where we were, so it's we have got to assume that we can have actual grades on building plans and so we should require that. Certainly if somehow that is missing that we just extrapolate from on either side of the lot you know, unmarred grade so if somebody happened to be in a valley then they could build up but if they were on a peak they would be in trouble. But, that way make sure that they do not pop up above everybody else. So, that was building height and then the other that we wanted to just confirm on the whole floor area ratio. We had a small one to point out that we wanted to make sure the measurement was taken from the outside of the exterior walls. It says from the exterior walls and there was an eight inch difference there and I believe the way it was written it is meant to be on the outside. Then finally the question of structures in the side yards and we had the question of a structural wing wall 8x20 feet tied into a structure that went into. That wing wall hits the word structure I mean it would be defined as a structure and it is tied to the building so we just look for clarity there to say the set back you have to do it with the building or the attached structures. So, those are the three major items we thought would help clarify that. Then I had just one kind of question that I don't know if it means, but in Section 13 or page 13 .2 so that is 179-13060 it is under non conforming lots, there is a Subsection A talks about an existing lot and so my own position I have a hundred year old lot that is fifty feet wide on the water and so that is not conforming any more but this grandfathers and I understand that but there is a final clause in that section, Section D that shows up on page 13.2 and that says that development of non conforming lots in the Adirondack Park shall be in accordance with minimum yard set backs as set forth in this chapter. I wondered if this chapter is the entire Zoning Code so the whole Zoning Code talks about side yard set backs but also talks about essentially grandfathering. So, I don't know what that APA clause does there and it is also repeated again in Section 20 and it, you could read it to say it trumps everything but you don't know what it trumps or you could read it that in the Adirondack Park it's only, you only have to look at set backs with permeability like you could ignore clear cutting or anything like that. I think that clause D and then when it re-appears as clause E in Section 20 you might want to look at it because unless somebody can tell me what it does I could not figure it out and I have read it upside down. Supervisor Stec-Thank you, Sir. Mr. Glandon-Ok, Thank you. Nobody has an answer I guess, all right. Supervisor Stec-Again, Stu is going to take notes we are going to check the comments and incorporate necessary changes that make sense and he also as an added benefit going to try to compile a list of as many questions as he can, and it will be available. Mr. Glendon-When the minutes come out they will also have questions and answer type thing? Supervisor Stec-Well I do not know if it will have that finished as part of the minutes but it will be a separate document that the Planning Department will produce and it will be available and we will probably end up putting it on line as well. Sr. Planner Baker-We will put it on line and it will be available in the Town Clerk's Office as well. Mr. Glendon-OK. Councilman Metivier-Bob, I will try to get the answer and I will get back to you on that. Town Clerk Dougher-John Whalen and then Peter Garvey Mr. John Whalen-My name is John Whalen and I live at 794 State Route 149 in Queensbury I strongly object to a proposed zoning change on a thirty five acre parcel of land I own that would change thirty one acres of it from Recreation Commercial RC-15 to Land Conservation forty two acres LC-42A. This change would make this property worthless and would amount to a confiscation of private property. The Queensbury assessed full market value on this property is a hundred and seventy eight thousand seven SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 6 hundred and sixty seven. The tax map number is 289.17-1-1.1 This is not land that has serious physical limitations to development, I had it surveyed by VanDusen and Steves, test holes dug and examined by Charles Maine a soil expert. The results of this work concluded that a twelve lot subdivision is feasible with an overall density of approximately three acres per home. I am asking the Town Board to keep the existing RC-15 zoning on this property. I would like to meet with the Town Board to discuss this matter. I have given a map and a letter to Darleen. Supervisor Stec-Thank you. Mr. Garvey Town Clerk Dougher-After Mr. Garvey, Marylee Gosline Mr. Peter Garvey-My name is Peter Garvey I live at 77 Masters Common North in Queensbury If you will excuse me please for not being prepared I have been away for two weeks and did not know that this hearing was going to take place to about a half an hour ago. I want to talk about page ten, ten indoor firing ranges. The reason I am speaking is that I am a member and happen to be Chairman of the Board of the Dunhams Bay Fish and Gun Club. This club has been in existence since 1957 in the location that it is in now. During that particular time we have made many improvements to the property at this time we have just over five hundred members. Our provisions says that we are able to shoot any time we want, twenty four hours a day no one said that we couldn't shoot at night or anyplace else. We have limited our shooting from gam until a half hour before sunset, seven days a week. We train many people in the shooting arch there, the Warren County 4H Club, 4H's situated there, we do the NRA pistol, rifle and shot gun safety and shooting courses. We also have the DEC hunter safety and bow safety courses there. Last year we trained over seven hundred and fifty students in all of the shooting arts. Many of our members work five or six days a week and only have Saturday or Sunday to shoot, to get their shooting up to par for hunting and also just recreational shooting. If you were to eliminate Sunday shooting which we have right now you would reduce the shooting time of those people that are working people by fifty percent. That means that they would only have one day a week to shoot which would be Saturday. I am kind of amazed that you have decided that for some reason that you are not going to allow shooting on Sunday are you going to do the same with snowmobiling, ATV riding, dirt bike riding, down hill skiing, cross country skiing, snowshoeing? Are you going to eliminate those knock those down to certain days and certain hours? I think that it is basically unfair. Thank you. Supervisor Stec-Thank you Mr. Garvey. Town Clerk Dougher-After Marylee, there will be Kevin Brennan Ms. Marylee Gosline-Hello, I came to address the Article 179-10-070C Kennels and Veterinarian Clinics, for both of them you have taken, they have been on a special use permit on ten acres, two hundred foot setbacks and you want to change them to twenty acres three hundred foot set backs for both. The Planning Board sets conditions on proposed kennels or gives them a denial which happened in my case. As the code sits today under the special use permit it works and the Town should have more confidence in its own system. I have given you a paper up there showing you how many parcels in this town really are even eligible for twenty acres, three hundred foot set back a lot of them you can't. On the ten acres its well, ten acres would not even apply anymore. I mean you have limited a lot of people and there is different parts of the town, different considerations which are denying some people in the future to be able to open up a kennel or animal clinic in this town. I live in a rural residential area and we are beginning to have so many restrictions on our land it is far from rural. What we do today, right now, will have an accumulation effect on all our tomorrows and the character of our town. I would like to keep it a good place to live not to exist. Thank you. Supervisor Stec-Thank you. Town Clerk Dougher-After Mr. Brennan, Michael O'Connor SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 7 Mr. Kevin Brennan-Good evening, Kevin Brennan Orchard Drive, Queensbury I actually what to echo some of the sentiments that the last lady had as far as the decisions that we make now impacting us for many years to come. I just wanted to commend the Board actually for working on this it has been a long time in coming and over all I think it is good. The comments that I have are just constructive comments maybe some little changes that can be made to make the document a little bit better and I also think that there are things that are not going to ruffle anywhere near as many feathers as some of the things that you folks will have to deal with here in the coming days. What I want to comment on is 179-6-020 page 6.1 which is the lighting code. You know some quick points about it, one right in the beginning the purpose you have basically to maintain the towns night time character while reducing glare unsightly or un-necessary brightness. Having that in there in the Code is good and I appreciate that some of the things that I think could be improved also good that you have a sunset clause as far as trying to bring up some of the non compliant lighting. It is set currently seven years, my thinking is more like five would bring things because most of the places are going to wait until the last minute to do anything so it will be years before we see some improvement and what is really been a degrading situation for many years. We have many examples around town of just horrible lighting, Staples, Walmart, you know these are situations that have reduced the quality of life in Queensbury, creates glare, safety issues for driving. In some of the other improvement areas that I see in these sections one is I think it needs to be enforced one of the causes that I had a little bit of a challenge with is the Board basically being able to over look or ignore the code, or change it as they see fit. I really think that ought to go to some sort of an approval process a Zoning Board approval or a variance. Secondly, we had in recent years just way too many variances in that area, just about anybody that brought anything before the Planning Board it was just either asked about or largely ignored and we have had some of these situations that have cropped up. As an example with Walmart side shields for all the perimeter lighting were called for but they are still not installed, even to this day. Car dealers should be required to turn off the lights you know, perhaps a half hour after they shut down. Nenoyer Chev. in Colony does this, they are not going out of business, they are not leaving town you know. Other towns across the country have good lighting ordinances that have, give the towns campus feels, like have heard about, talked about you know along the Bay Road corridor, resort areas they have very subdued lighting that does the job just fine and they are much more attractive places to look at to stay in, you know hotels, resorts. They also I think some of the levels should be brought down including car dealers and gas stations those two in particular have gotten very bright in recent years in communities across the country and in particular along the Quaker Road corridor. The is pretty much the points that I had. Thank you. Supervisor Stec-Thank you, Sir. Town Clerk Dougher-After Mr. O'Connor, will be James LaPann Mr. Michael O'Connor-Good evening I am Mike O'Connor I reside at 546 Glen Street, I also have a year around home on Pioneer Point on Glen Lake. I would like to address the change in the definition of building floor area. I believe that is on the January 2009 version that I took off line on V2:2.6 what has been added to the definition is the terms basement and attics with more than five feet of ceiling height. Right now you figure the building floor area to be the combined area of all square footage as measured from the exterior walls of a structure on the property including all floors of the structures, garages, covered porches. This version here adds basements. In my lot on Pioneer Point is fifty by two hundred feet it is ten thousand square feet and with a cap on the floor area ratio of 22%. That means I can have a structure of twenty two hundred square feet. If I have a garage which is typically four hundred feet that means that I can have eighteen hundred feet of living space. If you are going to count my basement where my furnace is my pump, is my fuel storage tank, and my only storage on that property, that limits me to nine hundred square feet for my living space on the first floor. If I have a sixty foot lot it would limit me to eleven hundred and twenty square feet on the first floor. Most of the lots on Glen Lake are either fifty or sixty feet, this is also applicable on Lake Sunnyside. I think those lots are even smaller and I deal a lot with lake lots and whatnot the lots on Lake George tend to be larger but not an awful lot larger. I would like to have you take out this basement business. Basically what you are saying is you do not trust anybody, SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 you do not trust your enforcement people, you do not trust the people that are making applications because you are afraid that they are going to show a basement and after they get their certificate of occupancy going to convert it to living space. There is a very clear definition under the building and construction code as to when you count basement area as living space. It has to do with the light, it has to do with ventilation. My basement you get into by going through basically a two foot by three foot opening under a porch and you go down into the basement. It is not a living space, I have to go outside of my, I do have to go outside of my house to get to my basement. This thing right here totally uses up my property I cannot put anything on here as a way of a room or anything of that nature, I think it is totally unfair. Councilman Brewer-You said that was what section Mike? Mr. O'Connor-I have got it as V2-2.6 I will give a copy of this to Darleen. Also in the water front residential we've scrunched these down to the point that it is unreal and it is alone in Queensbury. We have a twenty eight foot height and you are going to have people walking around like this in their crawl space coming up stairs and not having the typical nine foot, ten foot ceiling. The APA which is stricter is a forty foot height, we are twenty eight foot. You are now saying that every lot in water front must be two acres. I dare somebody to count more than five lots on Glen Lake that are two acres. You have made every lot and I think somebody at one meeting said that there was about three hundred and fifty homes on Glen Lake, you made every lot on almost on Glen Lake a non conforming use. It is great for lawyers, it is great for engineers because everybody who does anything is going to have to come for a variance. It is totally unreal. I also have a problem with your definition of set backs. Supervisor Stec-Thank you. Mr. O'Connor-Let me just say this one thing maybe un-intentional, you set back under the new code says side yard setback is twenty five feet, I have got a fifty foot lot, twenty foot from this side and twenty five from that side leaves me standing on a banana peal. The old code had a sliding scale this does not. Supervisor Stec-Thank you. Mr. O'Connor-The old code had a sliding scale this does not. Town Clerk Dougher-Mr. LapPann, after Mr. LaPann, Peter Accardi Mr. James LaPann-Hello, everyone, I do expect that I will go over four minutes so I will get started now and then I will come back. Supervisor Stec-If you prefer to do it that way or submit something in writing or whatever. Mr. LaPann-I would rather just continue on so when you get back to me I will finish up. Supervisor Stec-Fair enough. Mr. James LaPann-My name is James LaPann and I am Assistant Attorney for the City of Glens Falls. I am here to speak on behalf of the City of Glens Falls and the City is opposing those sections of the Code that apply to the land that the city owns. I do not have all the City code section or the code sections or the land sections but we own quite a few properties in this Town of Queensbury. I am going to, I am not going to say everything that is a basis for our oppositions but I will hit the highlights here. There are three main areas that I want to talk about, the first is the park land recreational forty two acres. That is a pretty good size section of land between Potter Road and Peggy Ann Road. That land is part of the lawsuit that we have still pending against the town in regard to the local law ten of two thousand and four involving that property. What we thought then we still think and that is that the land and the zoning of forty two acres in that section is inappropriate and is arbitrary. I have heard a lot of talk about how much work went into the Zoning Code, I know the City of Glens Falls has past the Zoning SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 9 Code I know that it is a tremendous amount of work and as is shown by all the different comments here there are many, many details to be involved with it. We at the City of Glens Falls believe that your work, you haven't quite finished the work that you need to do in order to pass the law and that we would like to work with you on some of your continued work. One of the aspects of that particular section the area between Potter Road and Peggy Ann Road is the issue that we have a problem with is that the decision to make that forty two acre zoning. We, you have all around that I know that your new Code makes it as two acres for without out septic and one acre with septic, but a look at the properties that are actually developed there many of them are on ten thousand acre lots there are twenty thousand acre, ten thousand square foot lots there are twenty thousand square foot lots there are one acre lots there are very very dense around there. To, have the zoning go from one side of the line it's a one acre and the other side of the line a foot over the line it goes from one acre to forty two acres but we do not believe that, that make sense. I submit to you that a decision of a forty two acre as opposed to some other designation is really an arbitrary designation. Supervisor Stec-Jim, let me interrupt you just briefly, and I will apologize because I am going to do my best tonight not to interrupt people but because this is a subject of litigation, I just want to make sure that the record is clear that the objection that your launching to the forty two acre zoning is the current zoning. There is no proposed zoning change on the density of that, the forty two acres has been in place for several years, it is the subject of the litigation. I just want to make sure that the record is clear that somehow we are not considering to change it for forty two from something else it has been and it is and that is what the lawsuit is about. Attorney James LaPann-The way, my understanding of when you do a Town wide zoning that you do a comprehensive plan you do a Town wide zoning basically there is nothing in place, every single lot in the entire town is being decided by the in use of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and then you make a designation as to what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. So there is no existing zoning there is only that zoning that you pass. Supervisor Stec-We most certainly have zoning in this town. Attorney LaPann-But you are going to replace the zoning with new zoning there is no question about that. Your proposal is to revoke the zoning and place all new in so my point is every single lot is being zoned anew. Is that my buzzer for four minutes? Supervisor Stec-It is and you can come back and I am sure that our Attorney would probably disagree with you but again this is not the venue for that. Attorney LaPann-Its my, I guess it is my opportunity to make a comment. Supervisor Stec-Yes, Sir, absolutely Jim, thanks good seeing you. Pete Town Clerk Dougher-Our next speaker will be Mr. Accardi and then Doug Auer Mr. Peter Accardi-Good evening everyone. My name is Peter Accardi, I live at 281 Warren Street in Glens Falls. I am a Commission on the Glens Falls Water and Sewer Board and I am here speaking on behalf of that Board and the City. As you know the City of Glens Falls is in the process of doing a fourteen million dollar repair and upgrade to the dams in the watersheds regions in the Town of Queensbury. Significant portion of that cost is to upgrade the design of the dams to provide added protection to down stream properties and residents in the Town of Queensbury. Fourteen million dollars is a heavy burden to the City, the City is a small city with around fourteen thousand a little bit over fourteen thousand residents and very small sales tax base. Another consideration with respect to this issue is that in both your Comprehensive Plan and your Open Space Plan call for creating a dialog between the Town of Queensbury and the City to come up with a plan for the watershed properties. A plan that would benefit the citizens of both the Town and the City of Glens Falls. Given the current situation that we face in the City with upgrading the dams a benefit to the City a very strong benefit to the City would be for us to be able to gain some financial benefit from the use or sale of parts of the SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 l0 property that we own in the water shed areas. Some of those properties may not be needed to protect the water supply and therefore they could be considered as a revenue source for the City. One suggestion is in your Open Space Plan which suggests that the Town or the Queensbury Conservancy might buy conservation easements for some of the water shed property which would be a benefit to the City. Another suggestion is that the parcels that lie along the road fronts in the Town of Queensbury could be rezoned for development which would benefit the town to a great extent. But, the designation of the property in the Halfway Brook Reservoir area water shed of PR-42 is an impediment to the City to gain any benefit from the lands in that area that may not be necessary to protect the water supply. In fact that is the only area in the whole town that you have zoned R-42. It is the most restrictive zoning designation that you have. That seems a little bit unfair. I think it would be in the interests of both the Town and the City to have a more liberal designation for the properties along Aviation, Potter and Peggy Ann Roads. Along Aviation Road, between Dixon Road and Peggy Ann Road would be prime spot for some commercial zoning. Along Peggy Ann and Potter Roads there are parcels there are parts of the water shed property that extend out to those road fronts that are in between highly developed areas of residential, and those, parts of that land that are adjacent to the roads could be rezoned to your benefit and to ours into some form of limited residential zoning. Perhaps zoning for elderly or something like that which is an increasing need in this area. So, we would urge that you postpone this 42 acre designation and let us get together as figuring your Comprehensive Plan and your Open Space Plan and start talking with the City about coming up with a plan for the water shed properties including the ones on the mountain that would be beneficial to both the City and the Town. So, we would appreciate if you could postpone this decision at this time. Thank you. Supervisor Stec-Thank you. Town Clerk Dougher-Doug Auer is next and then Mike Swan Mr. Doug Auer-Good evening, Doug Auer 16 Oakwood Drive I want to speak specifically about one of the things and this shows up in your Table II Commercial which is at the back of the Code. Now, we have been round and round on this back about four years ago having to do with setbacks you know on Bay Road. We are back again talking about the same thing. I for one really do not want to be here tonight I had better things to do, but this is important, because this smacks of moneyed interests. We had a thousand foot set back that everybody adhered to the latest one is Dan Valente, right here at Fairfield Professional Park, he adhered to the thousand foot set back for commercial property or Professional Office that is gone. I guess we are not using that designation anymore. It has been sub-planted with a three hundred foot set back for office. We have precious little space left in this town for that type of thing. If you lookup and down Bay Road you will see that everybody that has put a stick of lumber up there in construction has adhered to this thousand foot set back. Now, what is it that has changed? This Board, the make up of this Board has changed and then we are looking at a different configuration for this, why? This makes no sense whatsoever. If the mission here is to build more residential properties what the purpose of that, the purpose can only be for someone's financial gain. When you are in the real estate business there is no law that says that government should be there to further their financial gain. It is there for the good of the people in the community. We have a school district that is busting at the seams contrary to what some people think because we are mandated up the yin- yang as far as having to do certain things by the State it is a shame that we have all of that but that is a reality. Now, by adding additional housing space you add to the school district, so for one that is something that you should not be doing. So, has anybody got an explanation as to why we are doing this? Anyone? Do you want to take a stab at it John? Councilman Strough-Well, I will tell you I have been in support of keeping commercial, commercial since day one I have given many, many reasons for it, I mean I have given e- mails to this Board but you know I think we are here today to hear what the people have to say and I will voice my opinion on this Doug, sure as there is day light. SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 Mr. Auer-Ok, fine. Believe me I will be back on this as Arnold Schwartzenager said, and if I have to I will drain my IRA's to sue you folks on this, because this smacks of special interests Supervisor Stec-Thanks Mr. Auer Mr. Auer-Dan, you full well know it. Supervisor Stec-Thank you, next. Mr. Auer-And the camera's do not have to be here for me to get upset believe me. Supervisor Stec-Thank you Mr. Auer. 11 Town Clerk Dougher-Mr. Swan is next then Mr. Langford, or Ms. Langford excuse me. Mr. Mike Swan-Mike Swan, 55 Mannis Road I just want to express my concerns also about the increase in the set backs in the rural residential zones for dog kennels and veterinary purposes. Mrs. Gosline has submitted the stuff that I worked on with her about so I will make it very brief and just say that I am in support of that also. Thank you very much. Supervisor Stec-Thanks Mike, good to see you thanks for coming tonight. Town Clerk Dougher-After Ms. Langford, Mark Hoffman. Ms. Connie Langford-Connie Langford, 40 Lehland Drive, Queensbury. Most of the things that bothered me about this have been said but I feel since it is public comment I would like to be on record as well. I worry about the quality of life in the Town of Queensbury, I do not think that enough has been done to make small offices walkable. I do not think enough has been done to make the town bike and pedestrian friendly. I think the bright lights in the Town are much too bright and in a lot of areas and where safety is not a real concern. I think they need to be toned down. The 42 acre business in Glens Falls seems to me in the property that Glens Falls owns it seems to me that is just a wonderful opportunity to do what the gentleman a few people ago said is to use some of that property for maybe senior citizens complexes or other kinds of things. My personal opinion is that having 42 acres is just like sticking it in the eye of the City of Glens Falls I think it is just pure meanness. I just think that the Town of Queensbury has the opportunity to be such a wonderful, wonderful Town if you would only address some of the things that more progressive areas and I hate to use that, but more progressive doesn't always mean money in special interest pockets or whatever it can be political, it can be a lot of things. But, the real nice towns in this Country worry about the average citizen who needs to have the quality of life that they really got a right to pursue especially in these times. The last thing is I worry very much about this 300' set back I think it is wrong, I think it increases the, it has already been said, it increases the possibility of so many more residences and so much more of an impact on our school system. I think more thought should go into this before this is passed. Thank you. Supervisor Stec-Thank you, Ms. Langford. Town Clerk Dougher-Mark Hoffman is next and then Mr. Fallmann Mr. Mark Hoffman-Mark Hoffman, Fox Hollow Lane I am pretty sure I am going to have to be coming back for a second round. One thing I just wanted to mention I am disappointed that there is no TV here tonight I think this is the most important subject that the Town Board will be dealing with during this, during your two year term. Another quickie in regard to the City Water Shed property, somebody who has an office in Glens Falls and drinks a lot of Glens Falls water I am very concerned about allowing additional development in the Glens Falls water shed property. I know that they have filters now and all kinds of technology but I think the more layers of protection that you have for your drinking water the better off you are. You never know, even Queensbury might need to use that water some day. As far as the specifics in this plan I am going to SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 l2 give you the page numbers the chapter and verse is pretty difficult to not pinpoint in this but, on page 2.10 definitions Common Open Space you can read it at your leisure, but I read that and to me Common Open Space as defined that way could easily just be my own back yard. There is nothing in there that designates it as something that would be shared by people in a particular subdivision or by the community in general. So, I think that needs to be clarified. With regard to rural residential on page 3.3 this indicates that the zoning for the rural residential is going to be one house for five acres or one house for three acres. This I think got picked up by the Park Commission and it led to their recommendation to get rid of the density bonuses. In the recommendation from Saratoga Associates which also was incorporated and is in our current Comprehensive Land Use Plan that land if recommended as zoning for one house for ten acre, which may seem like a lot. Now, with the density bonuses that would, which would have applied to any multi family, multi house subdivision that would have knocked it down to one house per five acre, but you have eliminated that ten acre zoning so now you have got the same zoning that we have now except that you have got the density bonuses which in effect means that for all rural residential we now are going to have twice the density that we currently are zoned for. So, I do not think that anybody had that in mind when this plan was designed. It is completely counter to our current the adopted Comprehensive Land Use Plan I think that if you want to keep the current three acre and five acre zoning that you have to completely get rid of the density bonuses. Having said that the Conservation Zoning should be kept in place that is an important component and one of the major improvements that is in this zoning ordinance. On 3. on page 3.7 Enclosed Shopping Center I found it difficult to determine, this came up recently with the proposed Aviation Road expansion which was subsequently aborted but they were talking about putting in free standing buildings along Aviation Road and yet it was still an enclosed shopping center district and I could not find anywhere in the Zoning where it addressed the issue of what, how to deal with free standing buildings that are within an enclosed shopping center district and whether we should have commercial design guidelines as would be the case in a regular commercial district. I think that would be important considering the location of our enclosed shopping center. I will be back. Supervisor Stec-You can come back. Town Clerk Dougher-After Mr. Fallmann, Betty Monahan Mr. Bob Fallmann-Bob Fallmann I live up on Gurney Lane I just have a few comments. First I would just make a couple general comments I think in the future if you are revising any document like this it would be nice if you highlighted the changes you were making or put a cover letter in there and also I did not see a table of contents when I down loaded the thing. I do not know whether that is missing or just an oversight thing. Specifically I have a couple comments, first on page 3.8 on section titled Office under uses allowed I see that the residential uses are now within 300' of an arterial road, I would just like to remind you that you had petitions with over a thousand signatures on it when this one thousand foot set back was put into effect. So, I would like to see that retained. Also if you are going to designate a special zone for office why allow commercial or residential uses in it at all? Those types of uses I think you know, should be,you know, require a variance. As much as I like Stewarts Coffee I would not want to see a convenient store down at the bottom of the hill. The next thing there is a section in there large offices are prohibited uses in the Gurney Lane Office District. I like this, I would like it even more if you were to consider anything over ten thousand square feet as a large office building. Twenty thousand square feet that is a pretty good size building that could be two hundred by one hundred foot. I would like to see that, you know, I think the thousand foot would you now promote a more campus type arrangement in this particular area. I think that is more in line with the general rural character of the area. My last comment concerns the RRSA Rural Residential that is on page 33 and I think Doctor Hoffman I did not quite hear everything that he said he was touching on it a little bit but one section says here five acres for residential unit without clustering, I do not like the idea of clustering at all. I would request that you keep that as five acres period. I have seen clustering where they have had clustering before and they come in and they cluster, for instance I think it is twenty five acres you require for clustering, you come in on that twenty five acres and you cluster and even if it is only five acres you know, five units that you are going to put in there, you are going to put that five units on five acres SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 I3 and leave twenty acres vacant. Five or six years down the road they are going to be back in there wanting to develop that. I have seen this happen before where they put a group of town houses in on a three hundred acre property and it was originally zoned for like two and a half acres per residence, those units were not even fully built before they were back in there requesting to develop that forever wild area that was set aside. So, I am not really, when it comes to clustering if you got a piece of property that you cannot build on because there is a swamp or something like that I think the variance is in order in that situation but to kind of promote it for green space I do not like it. If you take five acres, you can hid a house on five acres pretty good so you cannot see it from the road. You can still retain the rural character and the green space and nobody even knows the house is there. Thank you for attention and I appreciate the time. Supervisor Stec-Thank you Mr. Fallmann Town Clerk Dougher-After Betty Monahan it will be Dan Galusha Mrs. Betty Monahan-Betty Monahan Sunnyside Road I do have a lot of comments about the definitions I am not going to go through them all I will give Darleen a written copy which would have been ready except one of the bugs hit me, so I will do that. But, I want to point out something in 179-1-020 when they are talking about the purpose and objectives and it says the size of the yards, courts and other open spaces the density of population. I am sorry but you guys don't have the right to do that density of population you have, unless you are in China, you have structures and you have things like that but you do not have the right to do density of population. I have found in many places that certain words that are used in the code are not defined so words that should be crossed referenced are not or the cross reference is incorrect and those I will put down. I want to mention that in the definition of museums, many museums do have a small retain stop that supports what they do at the museum I think that needs to be added. And nurseries trees are not listed, I would not be concerned about that except that we have a Zoning Administrator who tends to look at things like that so I think you need to add the word trees. The Professional Occupation definition still needs clarification and if you go back and look at the first couple of ordinances of zonings 179's that this appeared in the wording is not the same and the wording is ...and now kind of changes it. Offices large and small I think besides defined by the size of the building there are other defining things that should be in there. Maybe by the number of trips during the peak times because that makes a big difference. I used to say when I was on the board I wanted the Planning Department to do paper dolls, paper dolls was taking a concept and really laying it out and seeing if it worked, had that been done you would find that kennel set back did not work on twenty acres if the lot is configured in certain ways, it is really a taking of property. I agree with someone else that talked about the light pollution, there are many times that the light pollution is so terrible that you cannot even see the stars and I think we do need to do something about turning off these lights at a certain time and dimming them down and stuff. 3-14 Veterans Field, which of course you seeded to Glens Falls I think there needs to be a note there that, that is part of Glens Falls but Queensbury has the rights for Zoning so that people don't get confused and realize that they have to go to Glens Falls for some things too. 4-2 you have got easements, minimum often feet, I question whether or not that is wide enough for sidewalks, utilities, lighting, water, cable all these different things now that come there. Under design standards, you have made no mention of retaining the historic stone walls on Chestnut Ridge and Ridge Road that I am familiar with, I am not sure if there are some more in town or not. Many things you talked about measuring from the edge of the road right of way, the right of ways in Queensbury have many, many different you know, thirty, forty, fifty feet and some of them are road by use. I would suggest that, that be measured from the owners property line because you are going to have a survey map of the owners property line anyway easier to determine and I will come back for further comments. Supervisor Stec-Thank you Betty. Town Clerk Dougher-Dan Galusha and then Matt Fuller (Mr. Galusha withdrew his request to speak) SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 I4 Mr. Matt Fuller-I am not Dan Galusha he is going to pass and allow me to speak, I will be brief, I have written comments that I will submit to the Board. Just a couple of comments, I am first on your table of areas on the back moderate density residential one, two acres there is a note at the bottom that says one acre is two acres if you are not connected to municipal water and sewer. That has a dramatic impact on the area west of I87 there is a lot of, you have just made massive non-conformity, in that area. I think you should take a look at that, again because people come back to do anything they are going to need variances. My comments on the Professional Office Zone on Bay and other areas, again, I am going to submit these comments, you know, just going back to the history of how that came be that thousand foot setback that originally was on overlay permissive use, many of the Town Board Members know that. It allowed Professional Offices in addition to residential use when the project was proposed over here on the corner people got worked up and said no it is a thousand foot set back. It wasn't the case. Even your Counsel had issued an opinion on that point back then, so people were allowed to take steps to develop their property, infrastructure was put in and that was changed, it was changed to a thousand foot set back. I think when you look at the primary definition in the Professional Office Zone, it is to create a professional office identity mixed with some high density multi family residential use. This isn't changed in your zoning, not changed in this draft. That still remains the intent. So, if you completely stick to the thousand feet and leave that in there you are defeating yourself and the intent of that zone. Looking at the Bay Road Corridor in general a thousand feet right now renders quite a few properties non conforming. Even some of the apartments across the street, some of the properties in Bay Bridge they are non conforming uses. You want to put a deck on the back of your place you want to add to it you need a use variance. So, that is an issue and the three hundred foot set back elevates that for most all of the corridor. There are a couple of properties obviously that are residential right on Bay that would be still within that but that is not a bad thing because you know slowly you want to transition those properties into conforming uses that is a laudable goal. I do not think anybody would disagree with that. On the impact to the schools, that seems to be a recurring theme I have seen some letters to the editor in the past on this issue there have been comments submitted, the fact of the matter is it is not true. I got from the Queensbury School District the population trends and the enrollment trends the population is declining. I took a step further and went to the US Census and the American Housing Figures and you know the arguments that we have heard in the past are apartments bring more kids, that is not true. Single Family residences bring more kids not apartments and I have got the data, I will give it to you for 03', OS' 07' it is all right here and it is very clear, the numbers do not lie. You are in the 70 to 80% range on single family residences, you are in the 40% range on apartments, these are numbers these are not people getting up here and tell you that they think that the school exploding and the numbers are increasing every year and apartments bring more kids, they don't. So, with that I will submit these written comments. Thank you. Supervisor Stec-Thank you. Town Clerk Dougher-Joann Sigismondi and after that Kathleen Sonnabend Ms Joann Sigismondi-I am Joann Sigismondi I live on Aviation Road I believe that everyone gives their point of view from what their past life experiences have been and that is why I think I am talking probably different than a lot of people who are here tonight. I am glad that this is coming to an end because I think it has gone on a very long time. There are good things and bad things one of the good things I think flagged lots because it, they are not being able to be used anymore will help keep our residential neighborhoods from being too densely populated. Where I have lived in Queens it got so densely populated it was awful, I lived there forty years as my primary residence and I would not want to see that happen here. It effected sewage, parking, schools, traffic, transportation, health care and a lot of other issues. One of the bad things that I saw in there was I believe it is our politician's job to provide citizens a safe and protected environment, that means me and my family. The health effects of cell towers has not been established. I know they are equalivent to that of a public utility. If the language in the code I think should be made stronger for health and esthetic reasons to keep them out of the residential neighborhoods. They are looking to put one up nine hundred feet from my house at the fire house on Aviation Road. I would not only on my road I would not SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 I S want to see it on anybody else's who live in a densely populated area because they might be there at my house this week and next month at your house. It will devalue my property and the residents will have to get reductions in their taxes and that will end up reducing Queensbury the taxes on the Queensbury tax rolls. Another bad thing is residential, I believe, residential development should not be allowed in office zoning space, because when you look at our financial environment we need to keep Queensbury to have a strong tax base. I think if we put apartments from what I heard at one of the other meetings that, that brings down the amount of taxes that would be paid to Queensbury. The offices in appropriate locations will give Queensbury a good tax base and good jobs. Tonight I heard people talking about three hundred foot setbacks. I was, I am not sure but I thought from one of the things the meetings that I went to in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan that they were looking to put a thousand foot set back for residential uses along the Northway. If that was in the code I was wondering why that is a thousand feet there, but three hundred feet other places. I agree with the man that said twenty thousand square feet building upon West Mountain Road near Gurney Lane is too large and for that neighborhood should be kept smaller. I think one of the greatest things that is in the Code is because of my forty years of living on Flushing I saw how pollution can change things. I would like the Board to consider if the wording is strong enough and comprehensive enough to have an equally good environment forty years from now here in Queensbury. I hope the Code will support the control of sewage so people do not get three feet of sewage in their basements during bad rain storms like twenty two neighbors got on my block in Flushing. It only happened to us once but other neighborhoods in Queens they get it every single time it rained. I would hope that everything would be worded so it can be enforced, because sometimes if it is not strong enough enforcement can't take place. Thank you. Supervisor Stec-Thank you Mrs. Sigismondi Town Clerk Dougher-After Mrs. Sonnabend, Kathy Bozony Ms. Kathy Sonnabend-Kathy Sonnabend, Cedar Court I strongly support the conservation zoning provided the ever wild area do stay forever wild, hopefully there is a way to do that. I also strongly support the watershed protection improvements, I strongly object to the elimination of the Professional Office Zone. What we have now in this, if I am reading this correctly is just an office zone and in that office zone it is very contradictory it says and this is probably taken from the old code, the office district encompasses areas where Professional Offices are encouraged these are located along arterials joining residential areas where compatibility with residential uses is important. Later on it says the office district can function as a transition zone protecting residential zones from more intensive commercial uses while providing convenient professional services to residential neighborhoods. It goes on to say that large offices are prohibited uses on the Gurney Lane Office District thereby implying that large offices are ok in other districts. So, what we have done is taken the Professional Office Zone on Bay Road which is supposed to have a thousand foot set back for residences it was supposed to have professional offices that were residential look like the ones that were across from ACC, doctors, dentists, eye glass places and now we have got both large and small commercial office buildings. That means an office building of any size can be put on there and it can be put or we could have large residential complexes starting at three hundred feet back My problem with the residential despite what Mr. LaPann was saying is that indeed any kind of residence hurts the tax base because that means that there are kids. Now, I know some office buildings, apartment buildings don't have a lot of kids but some do. If you drive down Meadowbrook Road and you see the number of kids waiting for the bus by Hiland Avenue you will see how many kids are generated there. It is not good for our tax base. I agree that residences should not be in office zones but also to the point having a very, very large office building potentially on the corner of say Blind Rock and Bay Road which is the largest piece left, is not a great thing. There is no transition from a really large office building to residences which is what this code says is supposed to be for. The other problem that I have with a very large office complex is are companies like Tribune large companies that want large building aren't necessarily going to stay in Queensbury. They can move any time they want to another State or even out of the Country. When you have a big employer leave a big office building like that it leaves a big empty office building in our community. That is very hard to fill. Where is if you SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 I6 have smaller office buildings for professionals which is the kind of job we want to have here and will probably be generated when AMD comes in and we are talking long term of course, ten, fifteen, twenty years smaller office buildings if someone vacates is a lot easier to find someone to take that space so you do not have a huge building sitting there empty. So, this office zoning has got to be re-worked. I do not know what happened you know in 2004 the last time we had a big controversy over this I was involved in a grass roots campaign that collected over a thousand signatures in a short period of time. The Board was astounded they had not seen this type of activity before. We thought we put to rest the big controversy but ever since then there has been working behind the scenes to try and change it. The only thing I can think of is that certain developers, real estate attorneys property owners are getting the ear of the Board. I know for a fact that the owners and the attorney for Blind Rock and Bay Road got a special audience with the Town Board at a workshop meeting to plead their case. It was shortly after that, that is when the three hundred foot set back started showing up so it looks very suspicious to me and I do not think as a Board you are thinking about the interest of the community. Town Clerk Dougher-After the next speaker will be Tanya Bruno Ms. Kathy Bozony-Lake George Waterkeeper The changes that have been made to the draft revised zoning ordinance regarding waterfront residential have incorporated many measurers that will positively protect and help restore water quality and reduce the ambiguity and subjective interpretation of the code. I am very pleased to see a lot that has been done and I hoping that other communities are going to take some of your examples and adopt them as well. I have just a couple of questions that I would like the Board and the Committee to discuss at some point about clarification. In the floor area ratio I am wondering whether or not it includes stairwells in the total floor area as defined? The definition says that total building floor area is all square footage as measured from exterior of exterior walls of all structures on the property. If this does not incorporate or does not include stairwells I think that it should be more specific in the definition and subtracted as a line item from the exterior or exterior walls in the floor, far calculation. It is always a question at Planning Board meetings is it there or not and I think that would save a lot of time for everybody. The building height measured from the lowest portion of the natural grade of the building to the highest point of the structure removes the existing definitions and ability for interpretation. I think that is great. What I would like the committee to discuss is when the natural grade prior to any disturbance of the building site cannot be determined the vertical distance shall be measured from the lowest exposed portion of the structure or building to the highest point of the structure. I think that this means of determining nature grade may not be indicative of the original elevation it might better be determined by utilizing nature grade of neighboring properties, just a suggestion. Percent of permeability is calculated by the area of the lot which is not covered by building structures or impervious surfaces and I am wondering if impervious surfaces could be defined here. Would a gravel driveway be included in the calculation as an impervious surface? Shoreline building setbacks are for buildings and accessory structures and I am wondering if in that shoreline set back instead of just buildings and accessory structures it could also include any impervious surfaces such as driveways that type of thing. Conversion of seasonal residences requiring site plan review is excellent this is seasonal to year round residences and also the fact that septic systems servicing these residences need to be apply the health code requirements and plans must be submitted. I would ask the committee to also look at an issue regarding properties that transfer ownership and possibly that they should also be required to have septic system inspected and certified. Use of fertilizers this is very good to have on waterfront properties as far as restriction the code states fertilizer within fifty feet of the shore line is prohibited where allowed fertilizer shall have a phosphorous content of 1% or less and contain slow release nitrogen. I am wondering if were allow could be defined and does this allow, does this imply when establishing new lawns or gardens. Often that is the regulations are stated so that it is two years after establishment you are allowed to use it. The lawns do not require phosphorous they do not take phosphorous and therefore a phosphorous free fertilizer would be a better choice for lawns, so maybe you could talk about that as well. Shoreline buffering I think that there should be an introduction of intent to better define the benefit of shoreline buffers in order to encourage homeowners to not only plant minimum require but to create a functioning buffer on the shoreline SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 I7 where land as limited an enhanced buffer should be required more density of plantings within that reduced buffer area. May I say one more thing? Supervisor Stec-Yea, sure and if you want to when you are done you do not have to if you want to give a copy of that to Darleen absolutely feel free. Ms. Bozony-I will, thank you. A shoreline overlay district would require site plan review for all shore line extreme corridor property within a specific distance from the shore line and that would ensure that the proper storm water management, on site wastewater treatments systems, limited fertilizer use and appropriate plantings of vegetative buffer and rain gardens are included in the site development. Lake George Park Commissions designation of a critical environmental area is five hundred feet from the shore line. A shore land overlay district similar to that of the Town of Lake George was originally discussed for the proposed revised regulations. This district is no longer in the draft but is an extremely important of shore line development and its impact to water quality. The Waterkeeper would like the previously proposed shore line overlay district discussed and included in the revised zoning and we were really excited about the fact that we were going to utilize Queensbury as the example for the rest of the watershed for this. I see it has been taken out but maybe it could be discussed at some point. Thank you very much. Councilman Montesi-Kathy just a clarification you said when property is transferred, in other words father gives it to the son? Ms. Bozony-Or a sale Councilman Montesi-or sale that is when you should trigger a review of the septic. Ms. Bozony-Yes. Thank you. Supervisor Stec-Thank you. Ms. Tanya Bruno-Good evening again, it has been so long. I had one comment and I ended up with four. First thing is that we need to have more than one public meeting for, I am sorry, Tanya Bruno for the record. We need more than one public meeting for people who could not attend tonight. The sudden increase in velocity to bring this about is not a method guaranteeing quality. People that can't attend tonight such as my husband, I mentioned last night why he was not around, who really would like to be here and participate there are others like that, I think that needs to happen. I have not had time to review the architectural design standards, I am hoping that it is addressed with specific designs for the different sections of town and also for what we envision our town should look like before we no longer could even consider it unique. I just really think everything needs to be spelled out. I apologize that I don't have specifics mentioned, but that wasn't going to be my key topic tonight. My topic was about view sheds, we are starting to notice the pockets of clearings within out view sheds more and more. The Planning Board is able to address the view shed the clearing of trees, design of driveways when looking at a subdivision application it is not really mentioned for individual pieces of property once that subdivision happens or even if the property did not go through a subdivision. It looks like 179-6-10 clear cutting and grading has been improved if I am reading it correctly from the older zoning by being more restrictive. It also takes into account Chapter 147 which I think is responsible. I think we need to add in some language that is very pointed for the owners and builders stating a desire to not allow their lots to be seen from roads and neighborhoods. We must need to add something in there that can guide the Planning Board if in deed it is only a quarter of an acre that can be cut. I noticed on one in particular driving up Sherman and I went looking for it behind the houses, sand slide much like over around Round Pond Road that happens on slopes and I know that's all part of the view shed. Last but not least I heard the two gentlemen from Glens Falls speaking about the water sheds I do live up on Gurney Lane which is quite close to Butler Pond if the City does decide to sell off some portions of the land I understand why they want to do that I do disagree with that because of the natural filtration buffers needed for water supply. I really think Queensbury should buy it period. Excellent passive recreation, I suspect that Queensbury has been anticipating this because they paved the entire Buckee Road up to Butler Pond a hand full of years ago. Which SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 I g actually just going in and paving it and not engineering it the run off from the road has gotten into the Class A water streams along there and one passes right by my property and it is in bad shape now. It is full of about six feet of silt. We are wondering if it is in anticipation of helping favorite developers? Now, I try to stick to facts in that is an opinion just one of those thoughts when you are going walking up in your neighborhood, but there it is. The County originally, when we first moved into our house the County had also owned some of the property up behind us and we were assured that it was all water shed property, I am almost done, the County then decided to share to sell off part of their property which is actually right behind mine and has since been subdivided. Apparently what I understood back at the time was that Queensbury should have gotten the first right of refusal and somehow it just went by the wayside. If Queensbury is serious about maintaining their open spaces and their passive recreation like the beautiful park across from me I really think that if parts of those Queensbury or Glens Falls lands are sold lets just be really responsible and think ahead of time of how that is going to be handled. Maybe that should go in the Code. Thank you. Supervisor Stec-Thank you That is everyone that Darleen had on the list for the initial pass thorough is there anyone else, Mr. Salvador, always a little different. You missed the sign up sheet but that is all right. Councilman Brewer-I thought his name was at the top of the list. Supervisor Stec-I was surprised when it was not in the top five I know he was here first. Mr. John Salvador-You know I cannot understand why this document does not have a table of contents, I do not know how anyone could prepare a specification without having an outline. How does the thing hang together with out any. Councilman Brewer-I bumped my head and I agree with you too, John. Mr. Salvador-The other thing I have searched the Zoning Map and I cannot find my waterfront land being in an particular zone. Councilman Montesi-The State owns it. Supervisor Stec-Let the record show that Mr. Montesi is expressing levity. Mr. Salvador-I have to be in some zone ok, I have to conform to some set of standards. Supervisor Stec-I could not agree with that statement more, John. Mr. Salvador-Will you take care of it? Supervisor Stec-I will do my best. Thanks John. Is there anyone else that we didn't get in the first pass through, Yes, ma`am. Again we just ask that you state your name and address for the record, please, thank you. Ms. Nancy Murtha-My name is Nancy Murtha I live on Fitzgerald Road In deference to the previous comments regarding the proposed zoning changes regarding the dog kennels and the veterinarian clinics I believe the changes and being considered with the rezoning are justified as the rural residential designation in many areas of Queensbury has changed drastically since the last zoning was done twenty years ago. Many rural residential area have become more residential, more residential than rural during those years. I believe those proposed changes are vital to Queensbury's effort to protect the rights of residential property owners and an ever increasing expansion of residential growth in Queensbury. In light of the recent community controversy over this very issue I urge you to consider the interests effecting the massive of constituents and Queensbury residents in the years ahead as compared to the benefit of only a few. And that you retain the position you have already taken presented in the proposed rezoning. Thank you. Supervisor Stec-Thank you Mrs. Murtha Is there anyone else that we did not get in the first pass thorough before we figure out who would like to comment in the second pass SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 19 through anyone at all? If you change your mind later we will pick you up. But is there anyone that wants to say something before we Town Clerk Dougher-Did Mr. Garvey just sign in? Supervisor Stec-Is there anyone that wants to speak for the first time tonight? Can I have a quick show of hands how many people would like to have the second bite of the apple that we talked about? One, two, three, Mr. Garvey you would be the first one, we are asking for, you were not paying attention that is all right anyways. How many people would like a second bite I have got about five or six. What we will do we will take Mr. Garvey's comments and anyone else that has not spoke yet and then I will call on the five or six people that wanted to and come back and let them finish their thoughts. Mr. Garvey if you want? Mr. Shawn Garvey-..gather my thoughts, I would rather speak after someone else has their second time. Supervisor Stec-Fair enough Mr. Garvey-Thank you very much. Supervisor Stec-Mr. O'Connor Councilman Brewer-This time it is only two minutes. Supervisor Stec-No, we will give you another four minutes. Mr. Michael O'Connor-I also have a problem with your definitions and I should have brought the pad up there, a bunch of definitions you really need to take a look at. Supervisor Stec-We will take written comment after tonight, by all means put your thoughts together and get them to either Stu Baker or the Town Clerk, and that goes for everybody, if there is anything that you think of after tonight and you want to get to us we will be taking some written comments. I am sorry Mike go ahead. Mr. O'Connor-The comment I tried to make at the end was in the old ordinance on the smaller preexisting non conforming lots on the lake you had a sliding scale for set backs for the side line set backs. That has been eliminated in this version or at least I could not find it. You had less than fifty was then twelve feet, fifty to sixty was fifteen feet, sixty to a hundred and fifty feet was twenty feet and lots greater than a hundred and fifty got to the twenty five feet which you now have said by broad brush applies to all lots. The other thing in the ordinance you are talking about a new definition called seasonal use. Your definition says a use that occupies continually a building or sit for fewer than six months of the year. I think that is problematic particularly with people who live near by. I do not occupy my house on Glen Street six months continually; I do not occupy my house at Glen Lake six months continually. I want to go home to go back to Glen Street I go back to Glen Street, if I want to go to Glen Lake I go Glen Lake. This is going to be problematic I think from an enforcement point of view. There is definitions of what is seasonal or what is not seasonal. I have a central heat, I have central or year round water I do not discontinue either at any point during the year. I have heat, the house year round, I think my house at the lake is year round even though I can't tell you that I live there except my refrigerator is full year round. But, I think you are creating problems for people unintentionally, un-intention results. I give that to you. The other things is and I do not know if you can update it or not you probably can update it in the APA area but your definition of tourist accommodations is very much outdated. You have a density requirement for units with three hundred square feet or less and you have a different density requirement for units with over three hundred square feet. Most new motels and what not, are doing suites and almost all of them exceed this three hundred square foot. If I read this right and somebody else is going to read it someplace to somebody's disadvantage it says that if you are in a three acre zone for every unit over three hundred square feet you are supposed to have three acres. That is considered a principal building. I think you are putting everybody in a great disadvantage; you are putting a lot of people SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 20 out of business unintentionally. I think if my recollection if correct that definition if the same definition that is in the APA and you may not be able to change it in your APA territory but you certainly could ask them and maybe they have updated their definition of what is the common suite. That is it, I think I have talked with your staff a little bit, if you look at your use schedule you have got some uses that were put there but you do not say where you can get a permit for them. You try to take care of your problem with golf courses but you left golf driving ranges as being non conforming, they are not permitted I do not know why you did that. I will submit a letter to you there is a whole bunch of definition issues. You give specific protection to CEA zones that are designated by the Town you don't recognize CEA zones that are designated by someone else which I think is counter, is not what your intent was. There is a whole bunch of little things. Thank you. Supervisor Stec-Is there anyone else that wanted a second go around. Mr. LaPann Mr. LaPann-I will speak briefly and I will prepare written comments and submit them within the next week or so. There were a couple things stated in your Comprehensive Land Use Plan that had to do with placing stores near a residential area so that people can walk to them or bike to them that is one goal promote pedestrian and bicycle friendly residential and commercial design, another create mixed use neighborhood commercial centers. The City owns a large parcel of undeveloped land which is immediately adjacent to a large number of residences. Not all of that land that is proposed to be zoned 42 acres Park Land is necessary or vital to the watershed and that there are certainly segments as Mr. Accardi said earlier there are segments of that parcel and other parcels that are seeking to be rezoned here or be zoned that the City could use for small commercial areas. I know in our conversation Mr. Stec that we had after about a year ago you indicated that it would be very important to try and get some commercial areas, because not everybody that want to buy things had to drive across the Northway to get to the other side. We have some beautiful areas on West Mountain Road, Potter Road, Peggy Ann Road a couple different sections of West Mountain Road that would be ideal for a small commercial areas and those are not reviewed or not there was not opportunity to talk with the Town about those things. One of the goals is to encourage municipal cooperation, and I will just make the statement and it is said not only in the Comprehensive Plan but the Open Use Plan that you guys all agreed when you passed those laws it was important to work with the City of Glens Falls and that was part of your goals and it is stated several places there to work with us. We, the City is ready willing and able to work with you in an efficient and effective manner and we are ready to go, we are not going to drag our feet we are ready to make decisions and move forward on this and we ask you what is in your own plans that you approved, we ask you, you said you need to work with us, we are asking you to work with us. We assure you that we can really help some of the needs that you have in the Town of Queensbury and it would be better use of our watershed better for everybody. I will yield now and submit written comments. Supervisor Stec-Thank you Mr. LaPann Councilman Brewer-I thank you very much for that comment Tim and I work forward to working with the city. Supervisor Stec-Jim as you know I had a really good relationship with the late Mayor and actually Jack and I are off to a really solid start we have had our own information conversations and I know that I have expressed to you and I have expressed to Counsel that I view this as a parallel issue that certainly we can move forward and I think that we are also ready to move those things forward. I know that there are some other irons in the fire with respect to the future of the water shed property not necessarily from a Zoning perspective but from an ownership perspective that the City has been engaged in. We are very concerned and interested and we see an opportunity there as well and I am sure that we will be progressing those conversations, we look forward to that. Councilman Montesi-Jim, one of the things that I think is important in order to open the door here is that Mr. Accardi representing the water and sewer, there are critical areas within the water shed property that obviously the City and the water engineers and those do not want to see any development for the protection of the water. SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 Mr. LaPann-We agree 21 Councilman Montesi- On the other side there are some areas that the City is probably looking at for whatever kind of development and I would strongly suggest that and echo this thought, yea we are ready to sit down and talk and maybe the way we open this dialog is you guys come in with a map and show us what you want to do. That would be the thing that would start it off and we are going to say, yes, no, maybe but at least that would open the dialog to see what you think the future holds. Along with that there maybe some thoughts from my perspective as a Board Member that there are some parts of the watershed property that I would love to see the Town of Queensbury buy to protect forever wild and maybe passive recreation. So, I think if you do your thing and come in and present us with a plan that you have then we can have something to discuss rather than a bunch of politicians sitting around arguing. Supervisor Stec-Jim, let me add to that, to Councilman Montesi's sentiment there, that is exactly the model that this Town Board has had since before I was Supervisor with people that are interested with significant property development issues, they want a zoning change they typically what happens they ask us for a workshop we meet with them they say this is what I have got in mind you know what we entertain so I think what Ron just mentioned is exactly the sort of thing and in this instance. I view the City as a major landowner in the Town and we should have that kind of discussion similarly to we would have with anyone else that says hey I have got this project but I want you to consider a zone change that what essentially in my opinion that is what you are asking us to consider. We do those all the time they don't necessarily have to be part of every five or six years, town wide rezoning the other thing this is a living document when we do finally get around to adopting this thing after three or more year process it does not mean that, that is it and the zone is set and we are never changing it again. In fact I think it is our intention just for not only for your benefit for everyone's benefit we anticipate that as we roll this out and people start using it and applying it in the real world and they are going to find typo's they are going to find a reference that is wrong. It is a two hundred page document that has been worked on by dozens of people and as Stu mentioned earlier twenty three public meetings and the last year on this subject. There is going to be somebody that hasn't seen it yet, that is going to have an issue that no one has thought of and we are likely going to have a list of issues hopefully minor and few but over the next several months there is going to be a list of things, staff will track them and if we say all right now is the time to do the housekeeping public hearing to come in and address this parcel this issue, these typographical or reference errors or definitions that are not quite jiving correctly or make sense. I do not want anyone, you or anyone else to leave here thinking well, you know what there that is it for the next six years. This is, you know, I think we have at least an annual basis with the exception of the last couple of years because we have been working on this, but at least on an annual basis there has been an amendment to Chapter 179 for various reasons, whether minor or major. So, your, I view you as a property owner and if you want to have that conversation and like I said Jack and I have had a couple preliminary ones and I know Jack is having some conversations with the Land Conservancy and you listen tonight there is a lot of people in here that think well, what you are suggesting is good and there are other people I guarantee you that there will be people that live around Peggy Ann, Potter and Aviation that will say what do you mean commercial, what do you mean Stewart shops and so you know it will be a dialog and the Town will work something out and the litigation kind of complicates it a little bit but the relationship is still the same, you are a property owner with you know with rights to ask the Town Board to consider things and we got a process to follow where we may or may not entertain them. But, the dialog, the door is open and the dialog will continue. Mr. LaPann-I do not think it takes long is we come in, we can set up a workshop in the near future and we will not delay your passing of your zoning law we can get a good, we can make some changes and get something done. Supervisor Stec-All right, thanks Jim. Is there anyone else that would like the second pass or if there is anyone that didn't say anything on the first time along, the first pass. Betty. Thank you. SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 22 Mrs. Monahan-Betty Monahan I do want to say I would have appreciated a presentation of showing the old zoning and the new zoning as an overlay type of thing so we could see where changes have taken place. I want to talk about neighborhood commercial one acre, many of these neighborhood commercial zones are where there is neither public water or public sewage, if you recall in your residential zones you limited those to two acres if there wasn't water or sewage so I think that we need to be consistent. Also, again doing the paper doll thing because we have done this before you will find with the one acre commercial zone you cannot get on that the things you want for setback, green space, the size of the building and etc. So, I would like you to look at the size of that neighborhood commercial again. Now going to home occupations which is 5.8 if you look under b there is some things that need to be considered. 7. no retail sale of goods 11. vehicle traffic not in excess of three vehicles per day and then you look at what is allowed under home occupations, office facilities for clergy; that could easily run more than three vehicle trips a day. Child care, home care, day care operation same thing. Home crafts such as model making, rug weaving, and lapidary work, I know like in rug weaving there are people who give lessons in that and they do have supplies to sell. That is the same for some other things down thorough there so it is a facility for instruction for not more than three pupils at any given time. You need to look at your requirements verses what you allow in home occupation and see if they are realistic. I also wonder why you have prohibited barbershops,hairstylists or beauty salons? There are many women in this town that have a beauty salon usually one or two chairs that has allowed them to stay home either as single parents or as a mother who needs to work to add to the income but she can be home with her children. I think, I would like to see you allow that as a home occupation with some you know, details on it. Mike O'Connor's comments about Glen Lake of course applies to Sunnyside the size of the lots. Mr. Accardi's comments and the Attorney from Glens Falls about the water shed property certainly needs to be taken into consideration. I will say that since the days of Frank Walter and Ed Bartholomew we have been trying to work out something about the water shed property particularly around the reservoirs and Butler Pond realizing that they are also going to need a trade off to get more return out of some of their property along Potter Road and those areas. The density that you are allowing for LLED I do not think that you should be allowing density we are trying to allowances, we are trying to cut down the carbon foot print. Queensbury is an honorable place, you know we are not asking people to come to us they are beating down our doors to come here. I would suggest instead that a subdivision a certain number of the structures must meet the LEED requirements. Then I would like you to look under some of your landscaping regulations where you recommend Norway Maples and certain zones, or certain parts of the document then you go onto another part and it is absolutely forbidden because it is an invasive species. I mean we have got some things through here Supervisor Stec-That happened to be one of the catches that APA had. Mrs. Monahan-I am also concerned about subdividers that pile dirt for indifferent periods of time, we have got problem right on Haviland Road with piles that have been there for years, they are a health hazard, because if you look rag weed is coming on them that means the seeds of that are blowing on everybody's else's property. If you have anybody with allergies in your family you know what a problem rag weed is in this town. I can remember back before the days of shots when a neighbor of mine had to actually leave the area because she could not be here during rag weed season. I want to go back to the thousand feet on the Professional Zone, when that first went into place we had two good examples in town. The one that John Hughes has done on lower Bay and the one that Dr. Schultz has done and if you go into the one that John Hughes did you will never realize that, that amount of professional development is in there because of the way it is done and the buildings are all in keeping with the residences behind them. That is an area that definitely needs to reworked. So, that is my main comments and I will do them in written order for Darleen and some of the discrepancies I have picked up in your definitions for varlous reasons. Supervisor Stec-All right, thank you Betty. Dr. Hoffman did you want another go I thought? SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 23 Dr. Hoffman-Just a general comment probably not going to happen this go around, but at some point this whole things needs to be edited its just grown in a mish mash haphazard way over the years it really should be reorganized so you look at what zone you are in and then everything you need to know about the zone is in one chapter. To sort your way though this current thing you have to devote your entire life to studying this code. Councilman Strough-I tried. Dr. Hoffman-There was a comment made about going the moderate density 2 acre without the water and sewer and the non conforming zoning, most of the homes to the west of the Northway are already non conforming with the one acre zoning. So, I do not really think that is going to make much difference. I think the way to address that is not to change the zoning but to change the section to accommodate non conforming uses in your Chapter of non conforming uses. I have not read through that carefully. It does not seem like it is been a big problem. There was in the current zoning referenced to the Highway Commercial intensive or Highway Commercial moderate, we have gotten rid of the word Highway because we wanted to eliminate the idea that we are sort of into strip mall type development and create more of a community commercial center type idea and that's, it is just a word but words are important. For some reason it was taken out in some areas but that word was left in another areas so we need to go through and completely eliminate that Highway Commercial discussion and they also use the initials HCI in some places that needs to be eliminated. Neighborhood Commercial I think Betty mentioned that we might want to consider having design guidelines for neighborhood commercial if we, if there were design guidelines there would probably be less resistance to the idea of incorporating neighborhood commercial into some of the residential areas. As it is in this current zoning we really have not expanded Neighborhood Commercial at all. That is something that might be beneficial in terms of promoting pedestrian friendly community but as long as there are no design guidelines and there is unpleasant associations with Commercial areas you are not going to see them in residential areas. Travel Corridor Overlay 75 feet I understand the reason for it, it maybe unrealistic in certain areas, I am thinking, in particularly about Route 9 between Quaker and Glens Falls, most of the properties are less than seventy five feet now if we are interested in creating a pedestrian friendly environment and we want to have the parking lots in the back rather than in the front it would be very difficult to accommodate that with a seventy five foot set back. Having said that don't get rid of the seventy five foot set back and then not have the parking in the back. Which brings me to the other issue which is that in the section it is page where is it, page 7.3 and 4 it specifically states that parking shall be behind buildings and commercial areas and that is what the comprehensive land use plan requires. But, then if you go to section 7.6 it makes reference to store entrances being in the back just in case you cannot get the parking in the front. So, that needs to be made consistent. But, having parking in the back is important as far as pedestrian. I do have more things to say I do not know if you want to finish up? Supervisor Stec-Give Mr. Garvey and chance and then maybe we will have a third round, Dr. Mr. Garvey? Mr. Shawn Garvey-Good evening, my name is Shawn Garvey I am a hard working resident and taxpayer of the Town of Queensbury I applaud this membership of putting forth the amount of time and effort that you have put into coming up with these ordinances. Obviously, you love this town and care about its well being and its long term existence. Out of the two hundred and eighty seven pages I unfortunately was not aware that there was particular mention in here about gun clubs and that is why I am here tonight. I am the President of the Dunhams Bay Fish and Game Club I am a certified NRA instructor and pistol, rifle, shotgun, muzzle loading, I am a DEC hunter safety instructor in bow and firearms. I am a NRA certified range safety officer I am certified in 4H in many disciplines and Boy Scout merit badge instructor in fire arms and other things. I am here tonight representing the Club. One of the first laws in this land after the constitution excuse me was the Bill of Rights. The first law in the Bill of Rights is very clear when it comes to the constitutional right of you to assemble, and I appreciate you letting us assembly and address our grievances tonight, and of course the freedom of religion and the freedom of the press. These rights are unyielding when it comes to your ability to exercise them. You can worship anywhere and any day you want, the same SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 24 with the freedom of speech. You can even yell how you feel if it is within reason, if it is not in a movie theater or in someones face. These rights end and stop there, they are black and white, there is no yielding in them. One of the second laws made in this land was the right to bear arms. It is a Constitutional right it is an individual right that has been guaranteed by the Constitution and up held by the Supreme Court just recently. So, excuse me if I am a little sensitive when someone is attempting to restrict these rights a little more then I would like them to. There is no reasonable restriction of certain rights such as the freedom of speech and the freedom of worship. It seems like some of the suggestions for this ordinance for these zoning laws were from a special, some of them had special interests or maybe they were cut an pasted from a different source. Restricting, we own about twenty acres, we have been in existence since just after WWII we are in that location since I think 52' or 53' I am not quite sure exactly but we have been there for almost 65 years in that location. During that sixty five years obviously people have started building around our twenty acres and obviously as more people moved into the Town, more people joined the club. It is possible that some of the sources of these ordinances came from those sources I am not sure but they have all been invited to join and some of them are members. To address specific things, quickly and I will try and make it short and quick. The indoor shoot range requirement being a thousand feet, you cannot make an indoor shoot range which we do not have now, except for bow and arrow and pellet, it has to be within a thousand feet from an existing range or from an existing building. That would make it impossible for us to construct an indoor shooting range in our facility. There is no way we could build it in a location that would be a thousand feet from any existing building or existing shooting range. So, that precludes us from building, bring shooting sports indoors which might not offend the neighbors as much. Building Construction, if we do build an indoor range it needs to be ok'd by an engineer, of course that I do not even know why that is in there. I have built buildings in this Town and I know what the requirements area. Fire arm storage it says we cannot store fire arms inside this building in a safe manner. It says we need range safety officers, of course we have range safety officers. We have scores of them that work at the club and volunteer. We have standard operating procedures and rules and By Laws that govern our actions and we have to be compliant with State Laws. It talks about us having to have a to transport firearms according to State Law. That is a law already, I am not quite sure why it is in here. Minors cannot handle fire arms, that would be illegal. We do not do that. When it comes to outdoor range construction, it says we have to obey the rules of the NRA source book, I have one in the back it is four inches thick and I would be happy to show you, if we do any modifications of the range of course we will be compliant. We have a clean bill of health by the EPA and APA we on site about two years ago when it comes to lead contamination and storage of lead on site. Your ordinance says that I have to be within a thousand feet from a school, a church, an adult or child daycare or family home. What the State said if someone, one of our neighbors decides to have a child care house, child care in their home, that would preclude us from operating. That seems ludicrous. Councilman Brewer-Is that so Mark or would they be Mr. Garvey-That is exactly what it says, this out door range cannot operate within a thousand feet from a school, a church, adult or child day care or family home then it goes into from a hospital too and things like that. It say it cannot operate where there is a hundred feet set back, right now our fire line is about sixty five feet from the Town Line. So, that would make our outdoor shooting range illegal if this is adopted. It mentions about signs along our property line, we have signs there and we replace them every year, or every other year. If there is detection of lead off site it says they can close our range or revoke our use permit our special use permit. Ok. Our hours are from 8 am to 9 pm. We have night shoots there occasionally but we typically only shoot after 9 in the morning and we stop shooting at sundown, typically or a half an hour before sun down depending on the season. I guess I am a little sensitive and excuse me for being sensitive. If I was representing the Post Star I would not want to yield on millimeter when it comes to my right of free speech. Or if I was a Priest, or Reverend I would not want any of my rights restricted at all. I have a book in the back that is an inch thick of New York State gun laws that control the transportation, storage, the use and the discharge of firearms. Obviously it is the Constitutional right to own fire arms it is an individual right, but part of that right I guess it is not really a right it is the responsibility of those gun owners that SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 25 they have to learn how to handle these fire arms in a safe manner and to do that you need to shoot. Last year, we have about four to fifty five hundred members there, family members so that families are two to four people there is maybe two thousand active members of the club. Last year we probably processed close to a thousand people, probably hunter safety and everything about five hundred and the rest was teaching gun safety, fire arm safety, hunter safety, 4 H classes and Boy Scouts. Our women on target which is cancer survivors and of course the typical Warren County Pistol Safety instruction, we conduct there. I feel that this should be stricken, absolutely 100% from the proposed zoning ordinance. It serves no purpose it restricts my rights it doesn't add to the welfare or well being of anyone in this town and we have been there since after WWII. Councilman Metivier-You are aware though that what you are talking about on your property is grandfathered. Supervisor Stec-Pre-existing use. Mr. Garvey-It does not say that in the Zoning Law. Councilman Metivier-We are not taking away your rights with that, and correct me if I am wrong, but Town Counsel Schachner-It actually does say that in the Zoning but unfortunately it appears that both the speaker and the earlier speaker from the Gun Club either are not aware of or perhaps have not had a change to read to perhaps not appreciative of the meaning of proposed Section 179-13-010 which appears on page 13.1 which is called continuation and which essentially grandfathers any pre-existing non conforming use. Both speakers have made excellent cases to the point that this is apre-existing use and that means that the proposed provisions will not render that use illegal in any way. Supervisor Stec-And let me add Shawn to what our Town Counsel just pointed out. The second layer of protection in that is that we are taking public comment tonight the benefit of that will be staff and the Board will review that comment and we will factor in your arguments and there is a opportunity for us to mitigate the draft code to your liking and then of course the third layer of protection if you are still not satisfied is that if you want to expand in the future something that wouldn't be caught under the grandfather clause as we talked about first you have an opportunity to use the Zoning Board of Appeals process so there are all kinds of opportunities to make sure that the Gun Club has the right to exist and continue on. With that said the neighbors are going to have concerns about you know what are the hours of operation, I mean, one man's right is another persons night time issue. Mr. Garvey-Well, obviously we rarely shoot at night we typically stop before sundown and there is not much shooting that occurs in the winter there so it is really a seasonal type thing. Councilman Montesi-More over riding issue that Peter brought up and that was I thought he thought that we were closing the gun range on Sundays. Supervisor Stec-That is not the case. Mr. Garvey-Why does it say the hours? Councilman Metiver-You have to remember one thing, if you were to pick up the gun range and move it to across the street you would have to do it by the rules that are proposed to you because it is new, but Mr. Garvey-What if I want to modify what is there, what if I want to build a building on the range I have now? Councilman Metivier-Then you would have to go through SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 26 Mr. Garvey-There are twenty acres there I can build a second building on that legally the set backs are what is the side set back is it thirty or fifty feet for side building, building. How far does a building have to be from Councilman Metivier-It depends on where you are. Mr. Garvey-Roughly, what is it thirty to fifty feet in most places in the Town. Councilman Metivier-Probably 35 Mr. Garvey-Which means that if another building has to be thirty, fifty feet from the line that is a hundred feet between buildings. This says I have to be a thousand feet that is ludicrous. That is like if someone doesn't like swimming pools say I am going to pass an ordinance that they have to have over an acre of land for swimming pools now because I just don't like them, I do not want to look at them, I do not want see them. Obviously by passing that precludes anyone from, I am just using that one as an example Councilman Brewer-What is the setback? Mr. Garvey-It says a thousand feet if I need to build, if I want to build an indoor building this is something that I presume you know, that you have read, if I want to make an indoor shooting range I have to be a thousand feet from an existing shoot range or from another building. A thousand feet. I have maybe a two hundred foot shooting, two hundred yard shooting range there is a little bit beyond that, that I own it is ludicrous, I don't know what purpose. Supervisor Stec-We are going to review your comment, you have made your point and we will review it. Mr. Garvey-I feel passionate about a few things and this happens to be one of them. Thank you very much. Supervisor Stec-I know, thank you, your point is well made, you walked in kind of you missed a lot of the preamble stuff so that is why I gave you a little bit more latitude. My point is you kind of missed the explanation, hey, what is the purpose and what are we going to think we are going to do with it here so I want you to assure you that we heard your comments we are going to review this with staff. You may or may not be completely satisfied with where we ultimately land but you know we are sensitive to that and the comment that we got we have got a good mix tonight from people that like it, don't like it think it is too restrictive don't think it is restrictive enough. I can guarantee that there is ample people in the audience that are scratching their heads over what you want to do and I can venture pretty good fair guess that a lot of the stuff that they spoke to tonight you probably scratching your head and saying why would we do that. So, you mean you get ten people in a room you are going to have ten different opinions on this and it is our charge to sift it all out and try to do the right thing. Your comments were certainly not lost onus. Mr. Garvey-Thank you very much. Supervisor Stec-Thank you Shawn. Is there anyone else that would like to address the Board? Mr. Nace Mr. Tom Nace-For the record Tom Nace 30 Owen Avenue, Queensbury I will be submitting some written comments, technical, how definitions work together and how parts of the code work together. But there is one thing I wish you would really back up a step and reconsider and that is the moderate density residential zoning and the one acre with sewage and two acre without sewage. What you are really ending up doing is zoning everything on the west side of the Northway two acres and you have heard that already tonight. Supervisor Stec-You know that, that is part of our Comprehensive Land Use Plan as well, you know the relationship between Zoning and the Comp. Plan. SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 27 Mr. Nace-Ok, but using sewage is an excuse to make it two acres is really not realistic. It is not factual. You are in essence zoning it two acres just because you want a two acre zone. In doing that I think what you are doing is just spreading out, we are going to have growth whether you plan for it or not. All you are doing is taking that growth and spreading it out over a larger area. You are taking away potential clear areas or potential conservation areas that we could, open space areas that we could have by spreading the density that is going to occur whether you want it or not. I think the Town would be much better served like staying with one acre zoning there. The two acre zone doesn't accomplish anything in the character of the community that the ten acres zone for instance would. It does not make going from one acre to two acres doesn't make a subdivision look less residential; it does not make it look more rural. Going to ten acres, yea, ok course it makes it look more rural. But, I do not think going to two acres is going to accomplish any good other than just chew up land un-necessarily. Supervisor Stec-Or reduce population density in school enrollment, you have been here for many years, you know the issues. Mr. Nace-Yea, but we heard that argument back in the 8O's too and we can rezone a lot of, we rezoned a lot of stuff to three acres and it really did not curtail Supervisor Stec-What I am trying to, for now is a little bit of a tutorial. Mr. Nace-growth of the Town. The growth is going to occur one place or another why not make is occur where you want it to occur and leave open spaces that you want to be there. That is all. Supervisor Stec-Thanks Tom. Is there anyone else that would like to comment this evening? Dr. Hoffman do you want one final bit and then absolutely if you have got more to say a good idea to put it in writing. The written comment, just for those of you that may not know, written comment, counts the same as verbal comment and it will get distributed to the Board and part of the record and factored into the decisions. Doctor? Dr. Hoffman-The issue regarding preserving open space by keeping one acre vs two acre it is just wrong. Supervisor Stec-And again we are trying to avoid a debate between commenters. Dr. Hoffman-In particular that would be largely mitigated by the Conservation Zoning Ordinance which will specifically protect open space in that two acre zone as well as in the Rural Residential. Regarding the Office Zone, maybe I missed it apparently you know there is the thing about the large offices being prohibited on Gurney Lane and apparently there is some dimensional discussion of that but I couldn't find it. So, maybe it is there but I just doubled checked because I could not find any definition of what a large office was. Bay Road three hundred foot set back I am not going to go into the history of that and so forth I will just repeat the same thing I have said many, many times which is what has happened on Bay and Meadowbrook and the whole area of Town basically you have created urban densities without the support structure that makes Urban life livable. If you are really committed to high density residential development in that area you have got to make provisions for sidewalks, that you are going to clear in the winter, you have to have public transportation, you need to have neighborhood parks, you need to have pedestrian facilities, bicycle paths, you need to have small scale shops, groceries, neighborhood schools. If you are willing to make that investment and you are willing to make that commitment fine, you can build as many apartments as you want, but I am not seeing the commitment there. Parking regulations, we had a whole discussion and a law was passed regarding reducing the maximums and now all I see in the zoning is minimums. I do not know if it is in some other part of the Town Code but I could not find any reference to any maximum parking requirements. Along those lines I think some of the minimums are excessive certainly for offices it requires more then I have for my office and I think we have plenty of parking. I think what you are doing with this minimum parking you are legislating permanent tyranny of the automobile in this town. I think you know maybe some limited minimums should be necessary but you SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 2g need to give more leeway to the merchant to decide maybe he does want to appeal to more of a pedestrian group especially if you are going to promote these high density apartment type complexes. Maybe there should be less parking because they are to some degree mutually exclusive. The more parking you have the more difficult it is to walk from one place to another. It is just every thing gets more spread out so to do degree the more parking the less pedestrian friendly your community is going to be. 179-5 this is on page 5.1 179-5-090 Pedestrian walkways are discussed in multi family developments and it mentions there are walkways within the development but no discussion of any pedestrian connection between developments which is a big problem that is why so many people have to get in their cars and drive on heavily traveled roads to get from one place to the next which maybe only a few blocks in distance but there is no way for them to get from one neighborhood to another neighborhood safely. So, you need to have neighborhood connections between developments not just within developments. Finally, I will throw in something about the gas stations are prohibited within two hundred fifty feet of an exit ramp of a limited use highway. I do not know where else you would want to put a gas station, certainly you do not want them in residential neighborhoods, they should be restricted from residential but to me I would say that is where most of our gas stations are and that is where they should be. Supervisor Stec-Thank you Doctor. Is there anyone else that would like to comment this evening, anyone at all? Ok. Like I said before we are continuing to take written comment, also as I said before this is a living document there is a very good chance as we operate with this Code at the Planning Board level at the staff level with engineers and what not that we are going to find additional things that have not been identified. I fully anticipate, in fact I communicated earlier today to the Adirondack Park Agency that probably approximately six months or so after we have adopted a Zoning Code we will be back to go through a long laundry list to things that we may consider later or that we have not discovered yet. So, I do not want anyone to leave in thinking darn it that is it and that is the end of it. With that said, what I am going to do is I am going to close the public hearing for verbal comments, we are going to continue to take written comment until close of business Monday, March 2"d. a week from yesterday, Monday, anybody that wants written comment get it to Stu Baker and or probably preferably Darleen Dougher we will factor it in, it counts the same as verbal comments. So, if you know of anyone that could not be here tonight and feels strongly about something encourage them to get us that language, we will factor it in and then we will go through and the Town Board will see where we are. I think that we have factored in enough comment and we are ready to move forward with adoption, pending an APA approval we may end up doing that. If not the Town Board could always re-open the public hearing and continue on or we have a variety of other options available to us. So, for the time being the public comment for verbal is closed we will continue to receive written comment until next Monday and then sometime in early March the Town Board will try and take that and we will do as much as we can with it to factor in what we won't, staff will be busy the next several days working on it. Again, something that was important to you did not get worked into this round it is not to say that we will not continue to tract it see if it is an issue and we want to revisit it. It is a living document and we can change it again with a public hearing. What separates this one from previous ones is that this is a new Zoning Code it is a very complicated review. What we are hoping is, is that the six month checkup that I am calling it where we find little errors here and staff and the Planning Board I am sure will be writing notes as we find them we will generate a list we will then have somebody there was at least one commenter tonight that mentioned it would be nice to have a red line version or a highlighted version what the changes are. The reason why we did not have that is because it is a replacement because the format and the language and the layout although similar is very, is at the same time not identical and it did not lend itself to that. It had significant amount of rework from Saratoga Associates and the Planning Ordinance Review Committee. But, once we get this settled if somebody says that number doesn't work and I suggest that number and we agree with that a red line version will be available and that public hearing and that process will still need to go all the same hoops and we are trying to avoid it a ..process here and never adopt anything. Get it on the green and then six months from now take what ever errors inconsistencies, definitions that are missing that none of us have caught yet and go back and then hit it in the cup. So, that is the game plan. So, by all means get us some written comment, Mark looks like he wants to stop me and say something. SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 29 Town Counsel Schachner-Just in case I think very few people came late but in case anyone did I think you should reiterate about the minor changes that were made today to the proposal and that they are sitting on that table so if anyone wants them they can take them. Supervisor Stec-Let me do that now, anyone that got here after I did a open preamble and then Stu Baker kind of brought us up to speed, there are copies, they will be on the website as well but there are copies on the table. APA required five or six changes from a statutory standpoint that relatively minor and easy to change but needed to be changed. In that document, that document will be available on the Town's website where you can get this red lined version and there will be copies in the Town Clerk's Office and everywhere else that we put this Zoning Code throughout Town, I think it is in the Library. But, again they are relatively minor in nature but they should be noted for the record and if you did not hear me in the beginning of the meeting now you have heard me at the end of the meeting. Town Counsel Schachner-Now if anyone has comments about them they can submit them before Monday. Supervisor Stec-Thank you. Anyone that has comments on that or if you really want to say something about them now you could have said something all night but I will take it now, otherwise if you want to include a written comment on that three page document I think if you read it, it is very straight forward. Anything else, like I said the public hearing is closed, we will continue to take written until Monday, Thank you. RESOLUTION ADJOURNING TOWN BOARD MEETING RESOLUTION NO. 82.2009 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. John Strough RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns its Town Board Meeting. Duly adopted this 24th day of February, 2009 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Metivier, Mr. Montesi, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec NOES: None ABSENT: None Respectfully submitted, Miss Darleen M Dougher Town Clerk-Queensbury SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 02-24-2009 MG. #8 30