04-25-2017 Q ueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SECOND REGULAR MEETING
APRIL 25, 2017
INDEX
Site Plan No. 17-2017 Hilliard, Tyrer, Lyon & Cerny 1.
Special Use Permit No. 3-2017 Tax Map No. 289.17-1-5
Site Plan No. 30-2017 Stewart's Shops Corp. 19.
ZBA RECOMMENDATION Tax Map No. 266.3-141
Site Plan No. 31-2017 Robert Fulmer 24.
ZBA RECOMMENDATION Tax Map No. 296.14-1-49
Site Plan No. 33-2017 Greg Teresi 28.
ZBA RECOMMENDATION Tax Map No. 239.18-1-27.1, -27.2
Site Plan No. 13-2017 Stephen, Carol & Andrew Bodette 28.
ZBA RECOMMENDATION Tax Map No. 289.10-1-32
THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO BOARD AND STAFF
REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING MONTHS MINUTES [IF ANY]
AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL OF SAID MINUTES.
Q
Q ueena:ary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SECOND REGULAR MEETING
APRIL 25, 2017
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
STEPHEN TRAVER, CHAIRMAN
CHRIS HUNSINGER, VICE CHAIRMAN
GEORGE FERONE, SECRETARY
BRAD MAGOWAN
JAMIE WHITE
JOHN SHAFER, ALTERNATE
MICHAEL VALENTINE, ALTERNATE
ZONING ADMINISTRATOR-CRAIG BROWN
LAND USE PLANNER-LAURA MOORE
SPECIAL TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX, SCHACHNER, 8T HAFNER-MARK SCHACHNER
STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI
MR. TRAVER-Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Town of Queensbury Planning
Board meeting. This is the second meeting for the month of April and the eighth meeting for 2017.
We have an agenda tonight that includes some Planning Board recommendations and one tabled item,
with which we will start, and that is Site Plan 17-2017, Special Use Permit 3-2017 for Hilliard, Tyrer, Lyon
& Cerny.
SITE PLAN NO. 17-2017 SPECIAL USE PERMIT 3-2017 SEQR TYPE TYPE 11 HILLIARD, TYRER,
LYON & CERNY AGENT(SJ TRACEY CLOTHIER OWNER(SJ DAVID & LISA DOSTER
ZONING WR LOCATION 94 ASH DRIVE APPLICANT PROPOSES TO INSTALL A 40' X 4'
DOCK AND A PATHWAY FROM ASH DRIVE TO DOCK LOCATION. PROJECT IS CONSIDERED
A CLASS A MARINA, AS DOCK IS FOR MORE THAN ONE OWNER — A TOTAL OF FOUR.
PROJECT IS PART OF A COURT ORDER FOR PROPERTY OWNER TO INSTALL. PURSUANT
TO CHAPTER 17940-040 OF THE ZONING ORDINANCE, CLASS A MARINAS SHALL BE
SUBJECT TO PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE AV 23-2014,
SP 21-2014 RES. &SEPTIC ALTERATION, AV 15-2017 WARREN CO. REFERRAL N/A LOT SIZE
1.1 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 289.174-5 SECTION 17940-040
MICHAEL BORGOS REPRESENTING APPLICANTS, PRESENT; MARY HILLIARD, PRESENT
MR. TRAVER-Good evening.
MR. BORGOS-Good evening. Mr. Chairman, thank you for accommodating us at the beginning of
this meeting, as a follow up to our last appearance before you. I know we have some people in the
audience today who may not have been present before. It's been a few weeks since we were here. So
if I may just kind of orient everybody. I know we've had some time to digest this, but I'd like to offer
the following comments and observations as part of our presentation this evening, in hopes that it will
help focus our discussions today.
MR. TRAVER-Thank you.
MR. BORGOS-This proposed dock that we're talking about is, indeed, a compliant dock. We were at
the Zoning Board and we talked about how it was a replacement dock and it may have been a different
size before, but they approved what they approved, and that's not the subject of tonight's discussion.
That is the variance that was granted. So a 40 foot long by 4 foot wide dock has been authorized
with the variance to be there, and it is, indeed, compliant with what this 165 foot of lakefront lot can
support. The Code allows for two docks. It is below the total square footage of 700 square feet for
per dock. It's 1400 square feet total. The two docks combined are below that number. I don't
think there's any dispute, and I think Staff will confirm to you that this is a proposed compliant dock.
That's not an issue. The property can indeed support it. The two docks are actually shown on the
Assessor's web page. The RPS Property report as of the date of 2000, there's two docks that were
shown. The Area Variance,as I mentioned,was approved. Now this application is before the Planning
Board correctly for Site Plan Review and Special Use Permit discussions. The oddity that we got hung
up on last time was why is this a Class A Marina on the lake, and some of the nomenclature issues,
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but I think the Zoning Administrator was constrained by the Code that we have in the Town of
Queensbury, concluded that it was a Class A Marina permit that was required, and as we gave you all
the history of the litigation between the property owners, it was well understood by the attorneys who
handled it at the time, through consultation with the Zoning Administrator, that Special Use Permits
would indeed be required. So it was no surprise to anybody, and that's why it's in the order, or the
settlement agreement that was then so ordered by the court. When we last were here, I heard the
Planning Board have two questions for counsel, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I
understood those questions to be, Number One, is this order binding upon the Planning Board, and I
think the answer to that is certainly not. The order, settlement agreement itself says, in Section 5B,
Page 9,the parties agree that the terms of this stipulation agreement are subject to all applicable federal,
state and administrative local and/or municipal approvals that may be required. So I clearly interpret
that as the Planning Board gets to make the decision as to whether or not something's approved. The
second question was, is the Zoning Administrator's determination correct? Well,that's not an appellate
review power of the Planning Board. That's a Zoning Board of Appeals power. Nobody's appealed it
to them. So I think it stands and it's not really a relevant question. In doing some digging I found
that, in talking to Molly Gallagher at the Park Commission, they would view this as an Association
Dock. The Queensbury Town Code doesn't have that definition adopted within it. So it wasn't
available to render it as an Association Dock. Hence I think we're constrained to proceed with the
application as it was submitted and we'd like to go through the requirements for Site Plan Review as
Tracey Clothier submitted in the application, and then the criteria for the marina standards. I think
it's fairly straightforward and a rather easy review, because there are a lot of things that are just not
applicable because the property owners are adjacent to this property that have these dock rights. So
we'd be happy to go through those specific criteria with the Board, but I didn't want to be remiss. I
haven't had anybody from my clients sitting with me before, but I do have Mary Hilliard here today,
and I want to give her an opportunity to briefly make some comments.
MR. TRAVER-Sure. Good evening.
MRS. HILLIARD-Hi. Mary Hilliard, 79 Ash Drive. I'm one of the three applicants here. I just shortly
want to say, you know, two things. I've been living, myself and my family have been living on Glen
Lake since 1990. We've had beach rights, dock rights and swimming rights since that time, until 2012,
when we had some difficulty with the new property owners. I feel like we've been essentially off the
dock for five years because of this. I don't know the exact legal reasons why we had to go through
this permit review, but part of it is the dock was removed. So in order to get a new dock in, we need
basically the Town's permission. My concern here is that this has been a long, arduous process for
us. It's been extremely expensive. It's, including this process, as wonderful as these guys are, it is
not cheap, and we've been waiting five years essentially to restore it back to where we were back in
1990. So the only pre-emptive thing I want to say about the quality of the lake, I know Glen Lake
Association's been vocal about being against this classification of Class A Marina, but truly there is
absolutely going to be no difference, no more boats, no more, there's no lights, there's no parking, t
there's no bathrooms. There's nothing that's going to impede the quality of the lake. So I'm a little
concerned about that, and the fact that I don't think that the Glen Lake Association, I want to make
this point, represents all of Glen Lake owners. Okay. You have to be in our shoes to really realize
what this process has been and it has not, you know, been very difficult. So what we're asking is we
came to the Town in good faith, asked what to do to get this reconciled, and for five years we were
told a Class A Marina was required. We went through that process, hired somebody that we had to,
as part of this agreement we had to hire somebody, I don't feel like I should even be in this, to write
this site plan up, review it and then, you know, hopefully, we just want to get this restored any way
that the Town feels that's proper, but I just wanted you to have a face, you know, Mike's been speaking
well about this, but I wanted you to have a face with kind of what we've been through, you know, as
part of a percentage of the applicants here.
MR. TRAVER-All right. Thank you.
MR. BORGOS-Mr. Chairman, I mentioned that the last time we were here we referred and incorporated
by reference to the submissions, and we have very detailed responses to each of the site plan review
requirements as part of the package. I didn't hear any questions from the Board at the last meeting.
I don't want to read these to you now, necessarily, take that kind of time, but I would like to be
responsive to any inquiries from the Board that perhaps more necessary would be some review of the
specific marina requirements for the Class A Marina, as much as they are more unique, to review due
to the inquires of the Glen Lake Association and other residents.
MR. TRAVER-Well, I appreciate that you did come prepared to do that, but I'm not sure if that will
be necessary. That would be up to the other members of the Board, and I would add, as well, that I
think, I did want to make note that as a result of the discussion that the Board and the applicant had
at the last meeting, I did request that our Zoning Administrator attend for this review this evening,
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and also we have with us Mark Schachner, Esquire who's representing us as Special Town Counsel this
evening. So I agree with you that one of the main functions of continuing our discussions on this
application this evening was to allow clarification of any remaining issues that the members of the Board
might have. There were some. As we all understand at this point, it's a rather unusual situation and
one that we haven't routinely dealt with before. So I feel I am in understanding of where we are this
evening, and I will I guess start by asking and opening it up for other members of the Board if you
have specific questions either of the Zoning Administrator, counsel or the applicant, as a follow up to
the various things we've spoken about when we last reviewed this application.
MR. HUNSINGER-Could you comment on the Class A marina requirement, could you comment on
the restrooms specifically. Because I understood that one of the allowed users was.
MR. BORGOS-That's correct, but they have permission amongst themselves because they've been
through so much in the last four years. They can use each other's restrooms. So that there are
facilities available to them and as you may have experienced in other applications particularly on Lake
George, the restroom accommodations are often provided from the existing camper cottage that's
associated with the existing dock. So it's much the same here it's just that those residences are across
the street.
MR. TRAVER-There's also a, commonly with the Class A marinas, certainly on Lake George, there's a
permit for pump out service. Generally that's not commonly available with this type of marina. So
generally they would get a letter from a nearby marina facility that does have pump out facilities that
the users of that Class A marina can use that. So that's not unheard of. Any other questions,
clarifications that are requested by members of the Board?
MR. SHAFER-Mr. Borgos, I think I asked you at the last meeting about whether or not these upland
three property owners had deeded rights to the path, the beach and the dock, and I think you said
during that conversation that the lawsuit, the lawyers during the evolution of the lawsuit decided that,
by doing the deed research, that there would be in fact deeded rights for these three property owners
to the path, the beach and the dock. Is that correct?
MR. BORGOS-Well that may be an oversimplification. Because each of the parties have their own
perspectives on what the deed said, but there's a copy of one of the deeds at least in your packet, and
they're all very, very similar language, and the deeded language gave easement rights to cross over the
property, use the beach and a space on an existing dock and swimming, too. Now the settlement
agreement specifically clarifies that and perfects those existing deeds that were recorded. For
interpretation purposes for subsequent owners as well as the current owners, and specifically beginning
with Section One on Page Three, the defendants, the Dosters who own the frontage on the lake, hereby
grant and convey. That language is indeed the grant of pedestrian right of way, that was that four
foot wide path along the western boundary. Following Section B states that that right of way shall
include the right of access to and use of a dock at the terminus of that right of way, and then following
Section D it says, you know, until that dock is in place, the plaintiffs are allowed to continue to use the
pre-existing access that they had had, which was kind of in general over the paved surfaces of the
driveway down to the water. So what this agreement, settlement agreement did was between the
parties came up with a resolution to what was rather vague before and parceled it off with a lot of
specificity and you'll see in there a lot of rules and restrictions that were agreed upon between those
parties. Again, it's not binding upon this Planning Board. This is between the parties as to how they
they're going to utilize the parcel, and as I've illustrated, the docks are allowed to be on the parcel.
The Zoning Board has said that it can be in this location that they've agreed upon and now it's up to
this Board to conduct the normal site plan review and review the special use permit criteria. So I hope
that answers your question.
MR. SHAFER-Specifically I guess I'm trying to understand better what legal rights those three upland
property owners have relative to this situation.
MR. TRAVER-Excuse me, John. Counsel has comment.
MR. SCHACHNER-I'm going to suggest that the question be directed to me as your Planning Board
Special Counsel and the answer is it doesn't matter what's in the deeds preceding the court ordered
stipulation of settlement because even if there were no rights in the deeds, which is not the case, but
even if there were no rights in the prior deeds, we now have a court order that allocates certain rights
among the parties. Among the rights allocated among the parties are the very rights that the applicant
has referred to. The applicant, the rights of the co-applicants, if you will, to access the property by
way of the footpath, or whatever you want to call that access area, and to utilize the dock in question.
So while there does seem to be historical deeds referencing these rights, I don't disagree with the
characterization that they may have been less than perfectly clear, but it's completely irrelevant what
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the deed history is because you now have a fixed point in time signed by a judge, and the fixed point
in time signed by a judge says these are now the real property rights among these parties, and the real
property rights among the parties do seem to be what the applicant contends them to be.
MR. SHAFER-Then explain to me what relation those property rights have to the wording in the
definition of a Class A marina which is not registered to the owner of the property. Are they owners
of the beach and the dock and the paths?
MR. SCHACHNER-The technical legal answer would be they are not what is called fee title owners,
meaning they are not the sole owners of all of the real property rights to the beach and dock area,
but they have certain real property rights to that area. One could call them owners of some real
property rights, but not of the fee title, but again, from my perspective as Special Planning Board
Counsel in this matter, I don't think that matters either, because it's crystal clear that the applicants
have legal rights to utilize the property subject to, as far as the dock goes, subject to what this Planning
Board decides, but as between the private parties, the civil private parties, regardless of the history,
they have the rights to use the property as they're proposing to use it because we have a court order
so stating.
MR. SHAFER-That's not my question. My question has to do with, versus the Code language that
has the term owner in it.
MR. SCHACHNER-1 don't understand your question. I'm sorry.
MR. SHAFER-Are they owners of the property?
MR. SCHACHNER-1 tried to indicate that they are not what are called fee title owners but they are
owners of a portion of the bundle of real property rights in that area. I guess I don't so much not
understand the question as the relevance of the question.
MR. SHAFER-The Code is pretty simple. It says two boats, 18 feet in length or more, not registered
to the owner of the property.
MR. SCHACHNER-Right.
MR. SHAFER-And I'm getting to the question of whether or not those three upland owners own the
beach, the dock and the path. Are there ownership rights there that would preclude the need to
define it as a Class A marina?
MR. SCHACHNER-It doesn't matter, and the reason I say that is because our, correct me if I'm wrong,
but I believe our zoning officer has classified it as a Class A marina, and no one, I think the applicant's
counsel made reference to this earlier, no one has appealed that determination to the Zoning Board of
Appeals. The Zoning Board of Appeals is the only body to whom or to which a legal appeal of that
determination can be made. So, while this doesn't happen often, I'd like to say it doesn't happen ever,
but I don't think that's the case, while this doesn't happen often, once in a while zoning officers actually
mischaracterize or misclassify something, but Planning Boards don't have the right to change the
characterization or the classification, any more than applicants do, any more than the public does.
We're bound by determinations of the zoning officer.
MR. SHAFER-Then what rights do we have relative to this application?
MR. SCHACHNER-You have the rights to review the dock in accordance with the site plan review
requirements of the Town of Queensbury and the Special Use Permit requirements for the Town of
Queensbury. Nothing in the court order, the court order cements and fixes the rights among and
between the private parties. It does not fix in cement the rights of this Planning Board other than
preserving explicitly the right of this Planning Board to conduct the very review that you're conducting.
If you, at the end of the day, feel as a Board, a majority of you, if four of you feel that there's a failure
to meet the criteria for a Special Use Permit, you have the legal right, as long as you do it on proper
grounds, obviously, you have the legal right to deny this Special Use Permit. If you feel rationally,
when reviewing the application in accordance with the Site Plan Review requirements of the Town of
Queensbury that the application doesn't meet those requirements you have the legal right to deny the
Site Plan approval, despite the existence of the court order that fixes the rights among the civil parties.
So you have plenty of authority here, plenty of authority.
MR. TRAVER-Do you have a follow up, John?
MR. SHAFER-No.
Q ueensary ury Nannk)c, Board Od/23/2.0[7]
MR. TRAVER-Are there any other questions, particularly as pertains to the legal issues surrounding
the context within which we're looking at this application?
MR. MAGOWAN-So basically what you just said was this has to be a Class A marina application?
MR. SCHACHNER-Correct.
MR. MAGOWAN-It can't go to a Class B saying that the people do have a right to the property but
they don't own the property?
MR. SCHACHNER-It can if you convince my colleague Mr. Brown that that would be the more
appropriate determination, but otherwise that's correct.
MR. MAGOWAN-1 mean, the way I heard from the last meeting, is, you know, if we classify it as a
Class A, that makes it a commercial piece of property in a residential area, which is unfair for everyone
else down there?
MR. SCHACHNER-We're not sure where you got that assertion from, but if a member of the public
made the assertion, that by classifying this proposal as Class A marina that somehow changes the
underlying zoning of the property to commercial, that's not correct. That is not correct.
MR. MAGOWAN-All right. I'm just looking for the fairness of the other people, and that's what I
kind of heard at the last meeting.
MR. SCHACHNER-From the public.
MR. MAGOWAN-The difference between the A and B, you know, and from what I understand, in
small terms for me, it's, you know, if you, you have the right to have a marina if you own the property.
Since they don't own it but they have deeded rights to a dock and that, and a beach area, you know,
I just don't understand why we just can't make it a Class B marina.
MR. SCHACHNER-Well, I'm going to repeat, as far as that goes, it's a Zoning Administrator
determination. Maybe he wants to reconsider that. Maybe you want to ask him to reconsider that.
You certainly have the right to ask him to reconsider and he has the right, but not obligation, to do
so, but backing up one step. If you heard, and I obviously wasn't here, but if you heard objections
or comments or questions from the public along the lines of, well, we can't have or we want to have
or are concerned about having a Class A marina on Glen Lake at this location or at any location
whatever, because that somehow changes the underlying zoning of the property, that is legally not
true,and legally not correct. This property,as most properties, or perhaps all properties,this property
as all properties around Glen Lake is zoned WR, Waterfront Residential. I don't know if this helps or
not, I spent a good portion of the morning at the Lake George Park Commission meeting. They meet
on the fourth Tuesday of every month. It happened to be today. A whole slew of its very lengthy
agenda items were matters that fall within the definition of marina, and it's very, very confusing to call
these things, what some of us call residential boat slip rentals, marinas. My own humble opinion is
it's the fault of the Lake George Park Commission in 1988 when the Lake George Park Commission
revised its regulations, that's when the use of the term marina started being applied to what many of
us call residential boat slip rentals. When laypeople and myself and others hear the word marina, we
typically think sale of gas, sale of boats, refueling, you know, pump outs and all kinds of things like
that, and as somebody who attends way too many Lake George Park Commission meetings, I will tell
you that we're constantly having to explain to people don't be confused or mislead by use of the word
marina. We're not talking about a quote, unquote marina in any traditional laypersons sense of the
term. That was discussed this morning in Lake George. It may be appropriate to discuss it here, but
the most important thing of the things I've just said is if your concern is that if you authorize the
Class A marina that that's somehow establishing a commercial use or changing the underlying zoning
of the property, that is legally incorrect.
MR. SHAFER-The owner actually testified to that at our public hearing.
MR. SCHACHNER-To what?
MR. SHAFER-She was concerned that the property would be downgraded to commercial,and therefore
decrease its value.
MR. SCHACHNER-I'm not, I have respect for everybody's opinion, but what I'm saying is, unless the
Town Board somehow comes along and changes the zoning of the properties that front on Glen Lake
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from Waterfront Residential to something commercial, nothing this Board can do or not do with this
application tonight or any other night can change the underlying zoning of the property from
Waterfront Residential.
MR. SHAFER-Mr. Chairman, can I ask him another question?
MR. TRAVER-Sure.
MR. SHAFER-Mr. Schachner, what difference occurs if we say yes or no to a Class A marina? I mean,
the dock is there. It's going to be put in according to the way it was before. Does anything change
if the Board does something?
MR. SCHACHNER-If I'm understanding your question correctly, if you deny, in my language, I'm
going to try to rephrase your question to make sure we're on the same page. Are you asking what
happens if the Board denies this Special Use Permit?
MR. SHAFER-Let's start with that.
MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. I'm interpreting your question, the Special Use Permit is necessary, correct
me if I'm wrong, Craig, because of the classification as a marina.
MR. BROWN-Correct.
MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. So what I hear you asking, but I'm re-shaping your words, is what happens,
what is the result if the Board denies this Special Use Permit.
MR. SHAFER-Correct.
MR. SCHACHNER-And the answer is that the applicant, the co-applicants will not be able to lawfully
continue to rent those boat slips or use, I shouldn't say rent, use those boat slips.
MR. SHAFER-Even though the stipulation and settlement agreement was very clear on all of the details
of how that happened?
MR. SCHACHNER-Crystal clear on many details, but equally clear, and the applicant's counsel actually
quoted this very language, but equally clear that the terms are subject to all applicable federal, state,
administrative, local, I'm emphasizing local on purpose, and/or municipal approvals that may be
required. So, yes, even though there's lurid detail in the court stipulation about the mechanics of this,
he physical dimensions and how this will work and even the rules and regulations governing the use of
it, if this Board denies this Special Use Permit,then the co-applicants will not be able to lawfully continue
to use the boat slips.
MR. SHAFER-And the Special Use Permit is synonymous with a Class A marina.
MR. SCHACHNER-1 believe that's our sole reason we have a Special Use Permit in this case. Right?
MR. BROWN-In this case.
MR. SCHACHNER-Yes, in this case that's correct. There are any number of other things that could
require a Special Use Permit, but none of them are applicable here.
MR. MAGOWAN-Craig, can I ask you a question?
MR. BROWN-Sure.
MR. MAGOWAN-Would you re-consider your classification?
MR. BROWN-No.
MR. FERONE-Well, and my question is going to be, can you explain, there were a lot of people who I
think were concerned just with that terminology, Class A marina.
MR. BROWN-Sure. Go ahead, there was another question?
MR. FERONE-So maybe explain a little bit as to your coming to that determination versus Class B.
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QQueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. BROWN-Yes, I'm not sure how much more I can add. Attorney Borgos did a fair job of kind
of characterizing, you know, the rationale that I had to use when making the decision based on the
information I was provided, based on the language and the allowable uses in the Code. Many times,
well, not many times. There are some times when a use is applied for, somebody comes in and asks
questions and it's not easily pigeon-holed into a use that's listed here. Despite the couple hundred
types of uses here, there's probably a couple of thousand individual specific uses. You have to find a
place that best fits. In this case, in the WR zone, the use of a property for boats that aren't registered
to the owner of the property, and we have some differences on what ownership means, but that, by
definition, is a marina. Now on the scale of marinas, one being low, ten being high, this is probably
about a .5, right. There's no, like we've talked about, no gas, no retail, no pump out, no garbage,
none of those facilities that you traditionally think of with a marina, no parking, but at the same time,
all of the marinas or many of the marinas that you probably think of as marinas, they may not have
all of those things either. So to be a marina you don't have to have all of those components. There
are several marinas on Lake George that don't have pump out facilities. They have an agreement with
a marina that does have those type of facilities to accommodate those needs. So you don't have to
check all the boxes to be a marina, and if you check one and trip that threshold, you get lumped into
that because it's the best fit in this case.
MS. WHITE-And if any of those were ever questioned to be added in the future, they would have to
come before this Board before they could ever be added.
MR. BROWN-Yes.
MR. SCHACHNER-No, wait. First they'd have to go to the ZBA. Because then they would be
commercial uses not allowed in Waterfront Residential. Right?
MS. WHITE-But I'm just addressing the concern that those might be added at some future date. None
of these facilities can be added without coming to get permission.
MR. BROWN-Right. Yes, and where I was going to go next is, as part of your authority and your
duty or your potential approval processor denial, whatever you want to do, but if it's approval, you
can condition the approval with certain restrictions that there is no on-site parking, there will be no
dock rentals. There will be no retail sales. There are no gas pumps. You can tighten it down pretty
tight, and the applicant may even offer those things when we get to that point.
MR. HUNSINGER-1 was going to ask that very question. If it's in the application saying they're not
going to do that, isn't it implicit in their application?
MR. BROWN-It is, and I'm not that familiar with the application. I'm sorry. I just kind of have the
overview of it. Yes, if it's approved as submitted and in the application it talks about all these things
we're not going to do, yes, it's pretty tightened down already.
MS. WHITE-I'm just trying to address some concerns.
MR. SHAFER-Were you aware of the stipulation and settlement agreement when you decided that?
MR. BROWN-No.
MR. SHAFER-You weren't.
MR. TRAVER-That's not, I don't believe that that would be relevant.
MR. TRAVER-Mr. Schachner.
MR. SCHACHNER-1 don't know if this adds any fuel to the fire or not, but the Queensbury Town
Board did not wake up one morning and come up with these definitions of Class A and Class B marina,
and it didn't even do it one night. This is all the result of the Lake George Park Commission regulations
that were, what they like to say reinvigorated, what I like to say messed up, in 1988, and the distinction,
if this is helpful, the distinction between Class A marina and Class B marina, in the context of use of
boat slips, okay, there's other distinctions, but in the context of use of boat slips, the distinction is
purely how many boats are on the dock, and if it's one or two, it can be Class B, but if it's more than
two, it's Class A. Not because anybody in this room thinks that necessarily makes sense, but that's
how the Lake George Park Commission distinguishes Class A marina versus Class B marina, and that's
how the Town of Queensbury ended up using those definitions.
MS. WHITE-That helps. That helps a lot.
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Q ueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. TRAVER-Thanks for that clarification.
MR. BROWN-Yes. Mr. Shafer, just to clarify was I aware of the court decision, I may have been
provided with that decision, but it didn't really weigh into the ownership issue I think is probably where
you're going with that question.
MR. SHAFER-Well, the initial question is my hang up. When the paperwork first came out to the
members, I asked Laura for a copy of the court order.
MR. BROWN-Right.
MR. SHAFER-And when I got it, it became clear it was a stipulation and settlement agreement approved
by the court as opposed to the engineer's interpretation of a court order, which is different.
MR. BROWN-Sure.
MR. SHAFER-And then when I read the court order for the stipulation and settlement agreement,
there was nothing in there having to do with the rights of the three upland properties, and my concern
was giving up land owners access to a lake, whether it's Lake George or Glen Lake. That's a precedent
I don't think we want to set. So I was looking for whether or not the stipulation and settlement
agreement had language in it anywhere that gave those three upland owners deeded rights to the lake,
and it didn't. There's no language in there that does that. So at one of the meetings I asked Attorney
Borgos whether or not, in the research that the lawyers did coming up with the stipulation and
settlement agreement, those upland three property owners had deeded rights to the dock, to the path,
and to the beach, and the answer was yes. So that gives me a problem with, if they've got deeded
rights to the shore, that gives me a problem with the word owner in the Class A marina definition.
Do you see where I'm going?
MR. BROWN-Yes.
MR. SCHACHNER-We understand your quandary. We understand your quandary.
MR. BROWN-Yes.
MR. VALENTINE-Mr. Borgos, just to sort of entertain and amuse me, you had made a reference
before to the fact that we have the packet of materials and have read through them. Would you mind
taking a few minutes, because we'll be looking at the Special Use Permit to start off, can you highlight
how this is how it is?
MR. BORGOS-Absolutely. Let's go through that. It's in the application. Tracy has set forth the
separation section after the Site Plan Review criteria, it's entitled Marina standards, 94 Ash Drive, Glen
Lake access easements. The first requirement is for restrooms, which we've already addressed that
question already. On-site parking is prohibited on this site. So we don't have to worry about capacity
to carry the requisite number of cars, and there's a ratio, I can't remember. The Special Use Permit
marina application that I had at the Park Commission this morning was for five slips and that required
eight parking spots. So with these four slips there'd probably be six or something, but since nobody
is allowed to drive to the site, they're all parking on their own properties, it's not applicable here, but
this site actually has more than 12 spaces available, but that's not part of our application, but certainly
one of the review standards that there is here is to make sure that we're not stuffing too much into
an undersized lot, and that's not at all what we're doing. Another big distinction, you know, I think
a lot of these comments that we've had from the public and from Board members have been this
slippery slope or concern about opening Pandora's Box to some intensification of use of Glen Lake or
commercialization. Mr. Schachner's already clarified that this is not commercial activity. There's no
money exchanging hands here. This is something that has been resolved by this stipulated settlement,
but it's not a slip rental. The one on Lake George that I had today that I just referred to, that's a
property owner who has five pre-existing docks on her property and she can rent out every one of
them because she now has a Class A marina permit. She's receiving income from that. The applicant's
before you tonight are not paying anything for this. This is a property right. So it is, as Craig said,
a .5 out of a scale of ten, might be lower than that because it doesn't have any kind of commercial
nature to it whatsoever. Storage of trailers, again, that's a space utilization, an area consideration. Not
relevant here because there are no trailers.
MR. HUNSINGER-That almost begs the question, though, that I had wanted to ask. In order for one
of these users to launch their boat, where would they launch it?
Q ueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. BORGOS-1 think they're going to use drones.
MRS. HILLIARD-The Docksider.
MR. TRAVER-There's a public free launch.
MRS. HILLIARD-Not free, not free.
MR. TRAVER-The Docksider? I'm thinking next door the kayak. Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-So you would launch a boat once a year and then take it out in the fall.
MRS. HILLIARD-Take it out in the fall.
MR. BORGOS-And that's the other big consideration. A lot of times with these Class A marina
where they are season long rental slips, it's an important distinction for the review process to make
sure that they're seasonal as opposed to more in and out weekly basis type things. This is certainly a
seasonal duration thing, May through October. It's for the use of the property owners. There's not
going to be a lot of transitions. It's really the same boats that were on there before the dock was
removed.
MR. HUNSINGER-But there's nothing to prohibit that.
MR. BORGOS-There is, within the.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, for an individual to take their boat in and out, daily or weekly or however
often they want. There's nothing that prohibits that.
MR. BORGOS-True, except the expense and the hassle, but it does not permit the four applicants to
lease their spaces to others. It's only for their personal use.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. BORGOS-Attendant to the particular lots that they own. Proof of compliance with New York
State Fire Code standards, bulk storage standards for the storage of gasoline and hazardous materials,
not applicable because there won't be any there. Same with the fuel sales, garbage and debris removal.
Very, very onerous and strict within the guidelines between the parties. The applicants are required
to make sure that everything's removed I think by seven p.m. each night. There's a proven history of
going to the court for enforcement so I don't think there's an impediment to doing that. Were this
Board to impose another layer of enforcement at the Town level it would become a headache for Bruce
Frank who's the enforcement officer. He would have to go out there and police that. So that's a
consideration for the Board to make, but we're willing to comply with everything that's in that
settlement agreement because we've already agreed to it, but if you want to add on another layer, that's
your prerogative, but we don't see the need for it because the other parties have.
MRS. HILLIARD-And can I also say we've been on this lot for 27 years now. Never had any kind of
issue with any prior property owner. That won't be an issue.
MR. BORGOS-Item Seven deals with pump out. I don't know if any of the boats that you currently
have, have facilities. So all the other property owners who have boats have the same situation. No
boat cleaning is allowed at the site. No washing activities are allowed. And there's no commercial
vessels or activities. So we really see this as a Class A marina light. There's not much to it. It really
is just residential use of docks, and because the Zoning Administrator's made a determination that we
have to be here to obtain a Special Use Permit, we wish to be in compliance before the dock is put in
place and utilized. The parties have resolved their differences between themselves through the court
process and now we're here before the Town to make sure we're in full compliance with all those local
municipal requirements, and that is one of the requirements that we agreed to.
MR. TRAVER-Thank you very much. Any other questions for the applicant or counsel or the Zoning
Administrator before we go to the public comment? Okay. All right. Thank you. I know there
are members of the public in the audience that would like to address the Board on this application.
Just again to review the procedure that we follow thus far, obviously the last time we heard this
application we had a public hearing. We took a tremendous amount of public comment. We actually,
or I actually closed the public hearing thinking that we possibly would conclude the application review
that night. It turned out that we wanted to have further review and discussion tonight with counsel
and the Zoning Administrator here. So we re-opened the public hearing and we kept it open,
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Q ueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
continuance to tonight. So the public hearing is still open, and we will take public comment at this
time. I would advise members of the public that are here and remind folks that we took a tremendous
amount of comment last time, issues about dock length, about increased boating activity on the lake.
Some of the issues have been discussed by the applicant and some of the Board members already this
evening, the threat to the environment of the lake and other people using the dock and all these kinds
of things. So I would like to conduct a public hearing this evening in such a manner that those folks
who have brought up issues before the Board the last time we heard this application, please do not
repeat the same comments and allow other people with new information to come forward if they have
it they would like to offer to the Board. So with that, we'll begin the public hearing. Who would
like to speak to the Board this evening? Yes, sir. Would you come up to the table and state your
name for the record.
PUBLIC HEARING OPEN
GARY HICKS
MR. HICKS-Hi, good evening. My name is Gary Hicks and I'm the owner of Taylor Hill Properties,
which owns 88 Ash Drive. That's the property just to the west of the Doster property with T Shaped
dock on it. Last month and this month you've heard a number of people speaking out against
classifying this dock as a Class A marina. I don't believe anyone here really wants it to be a Class A
marina. I don't believe the applicants wanted it. I think they were force to bring forward the
application. They're here tonight and they've certainly spoken about that. The landowners where the
dock is to be placed, the Dosters, I don't believe want it to be a marina. The neighbors including me
don't want it. The Glen Lake Association doesn't want it. I doubt you'll find anyone here tonight
who truly wants this to be classified as a Class A marina. Designating it as such really serves no useful
purpose. In fact it only harms the landowner, me and other neighbors. Government is supposed to
serve the people, not harm them, especially when there's no constituency that you would be seeking
to protect with this designation. The applicants have a legal right to use this dock. You've heard
discussion tonight about that. Each of the owners has a type of deeded right to put one boat slip per
lot for their own personal use. This is not a commercial enterprise. Classifying it as a marina but
striping out all the definitions of a marina, leaving it with title only, carries a connotation of still
something more. I believe the current applicants would abide by the stipulations as were previously
discussed last month, but future owners years from now could be tempted, with a marina classification,
to use it for more undesirable purposes. You would be leaving that door wide open. Also if I chose
to sell my property someday I would be left explaining why I had a marina sitting three feet from my
property line when it really isn't a marina. Try explaining that to someone with any degree of logic.
The Zoning Board last month approved the location of this dock which was only three feet from my
property line, based on the previous older dock's location and the litigation settlement. This approved
three foot setback places half of the applicant's boats directly in front of my shoreline, so the western
half of that dock. Although the Zoning Board did not rule in my favor, they did listen to both sides
of the argument and came to a decision and that's how democracy works. Now to classify this dock
as a marina would do further irreparable harm, in my opinion, to others with no positive results and
without protecting anyone or anything. So I'd ask you tonight to apply commonsense to this situation
and declare the requirement for this dock to be a Class A marina to be not applicable, given the
circumstances. It serves no useful intent and only inflicts harm. I ask that you not table the item any
further and that you grant the applicants the immediate right to use their dock without any further
proceedings. If a change in Town Code is required, then grant the applicants a temporary waiver of
some type until that Code change is complete. That's the right thing to do. Thank you.
MR. TRAVER-Thank you. Is there someone else in the audience that would like to address the Board
this evening on this application? Yes, sir. Do you have some new information to offer this evening?
RON KUHL
MR. KUHL-I do.
MR. TRAVER-Very good.
MR. KUHL-Good evening. My name is Ron Kuhl, I'm on 31 Dineen Road. I live on the lake. First
of all these people should be granted their waiver, but the situation here is, in coming up as a Class A
dock, I like that application that they talked about an association dock, because on the lake if there are
other properties that have easements for the use of a dock, we have probably two others. So, I mean,
you think about what your charge is in giving approvals, you can do a permanent, you can do a
temporary approval, you could do a renewable approval with this Class A marina classification, until
the Zoning Administrator changes the regs and comes up with an association dock classification, which
would be really right to do because that would take away the toilet and parking and all the items that
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Q ueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
are giving you a little bit of frustration. My point right there is give them the permit, but nit
permanent, until the Zoning Administrator can change the classification. That's it.
MR. KUHL-Okay. Thank you.
MR. TRAVER-Is there anyone else who would like to address the Board on this application this evening?
No?
PAUL DERBY
MR. DERBY-Paul Derby, 86 Ash Drive.
MR. TRAVER-You have new information to offer us this evening?
MR. DERBY-Well, I'm also an affected neighbor so last time I was here pretty much talking about the
Association. One thing I would add for the Glen Lake Protective Association is that we did meet as
a membership on April 17t". So that's since the last meeting, and the vote was clear that people very
much do not want Class A marinas on Glen Lake, for a variety of reasons, and also the other half as a
an affected neighbor I really agree with everything that Mr. Hicks said. That dock is going to be
right on his property line. He's going to have boats on this side. How does that affect me? That
affects me because I'm right on the other side of Mr. Hicks, and when there were two boats on there
before it just forced more, and a 20 foot dock, it forced more boats on my side which caused more
congestion on my side and at one point boats trying to get in with people trying to swim out there.
It's just a very, very congested part of the lake. So just for clarification of another thing. The
applicants never had four boat docks there. There were never four. So that's a misrepresentation of
what they're saying, and there never was a 40 foot dock there either. So this is going to be a very
big burden on the neighborhood, and we hope you can set some conditions. I know across the lake
they have a boat dock on a property line. They wouldn't let them put boats on one side because it
crossed a property line, or, I don't know if you still have the right to condition to have them move
that dock over so it doesn't go over Mr. Hicks' property line. They also have a swimming area right
there which is right on the property line. So it's a real burden to the neighborhood.
MR. TRAVER-Thank you.
MR. DERBY-Thank you.
MR. TRAVER-Is there anyone else that would like to address the Board on this application this evening?
Yes, ma'am.
LISA DOSTER
MRS. DOSTER-Lisa Doster, owner of 94 Ash Drive. I'm also the owner of the easement area of the
dock that affords the applicants the benefit of days, not ownership. The Board has the ability to set
conditions to the use of the special permitting process. So if you do consider Class A marina, I hope
that you consider setting conditions, conditions like making it apply for three to five years, so that
you can make adjustments, so that if there's Code changes within the Town, or if there's safety issues
that occur, that anything could be mitigated at the time of renewal. That would be helpful. Also just
maybe the size of the boats. You need to take that into consideration for the size of the dock and
the area of congestion, but one thing that I wanted to make clear is, you know, there were a couple
of statements made that this isn't a commercial use, which, from legal I get, but the Lake George Park
Commission rules states that it deems the whole property commercial, and Town Code states it follows
the Lake George Park Commission rules and regulations. So I find that that's contradicting. We're in
an issue of supply and demand here. Apparently there's quite a demand for marinas, and as legal made
very clear, they're not actually marinas. So if that's the case, and we have such a demand, and we
maybe look into re-writing the Code? If this is going to be an issue going forward for all of these
properties, why wouldn't the Town consider re-writing it? Thank you.
MR. TRAVER-Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience that would like to address the Board
on this application this evening?
MRS. MOORE-Mr. Chairman, I do have two public comments that were received. The first one is
dated April 24t", and the second one is from April 15" and I apologize for Mrs. Doster. One of them
is from Christopher Doster. Do you want that read into the record? It's a timeline.
MR. TRAVER-Is this different than information that was offered at our last meeting?
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QQueena:ary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MRS. MOORE-It offers a timeline of observation of activity on the property.
MR. TRAVER-1 think we got that last time. There was a whole discussion of the history of the
property and who was using it. So can you make that part of the record without reading it?
MRS. MOORE-That's part of the record. Okay. The first one I mentioned was from April 24t". It's
from Lorraine Stein, and I don't believe that person's in the audience. So I can read that one into the
record.
MR. TRAVER-Okay.
MRS. MOORE-It says, "I'm a property owner within 100 feet of the affected property. I am unable to
attend the 4/25/17 Planning Board meeting and want this statement read into the record. I am asking
the Town Planning Board to deny the applicants' application because it does not meet the Town
Shoreline Regulation requirements per section §179-6-050 Shoreline regulations. Section § 179-6-050
A (1) Regulations were established for the following purpose: "A. Purpose (I) The purpose of these
shoreline regulations is to promote and protect the public health, welfare and safety and to protect
economic property values,aesthetic and recreational values and other natural resource values associated
with all lakes, ponds, streams, or wetlands." The regulations were established to protect economic
property values. Based on conversations with the Town assessor, allowing a Class A Marina would
clearly decrease property values. Further, Provision C (I )(g), Provisions for shared or contractual access,
states "commercial activities of any kind are prohibited." In addition, the allowance of a 40' dock and
4 dock spaces that were not preexisting would cause safety problems in this very overcrowded area.
The proposed dock would overcrowd the parcel and the adjacent water surface; and this would pose
substantial hazards to boating and swimming safety, which do not conform to the Shoreline Regulation
requirements, see § 179-6-050 C(I)(c) which states: "Such use shall not significantly impair the natural
appearance of said parcel; would not overcrowd the parcel or the adjacent water surface; would not
produce unreasonable noise or glare to the surrounding properties; and does not pose any substantial
hazards." Also, approving 4 assess parcels would not meet the minimum shoreline requirements per
section 179-6-050 (C)(2)(a) &[b] which states: "2) Minimum shoreline frontages: (a) Where two to four
lots, parcels or sites or multiple-family dwelling units are involved a total of not less than 100 linear
feet of shoreline; and (b) Twenty-five additional feet of shoreline for each lot, parcel or site or multiple-
family dwelling unit thereafter." The Doster multifamily property already has 4 units and adding four
more access lots/parcels to the property would not be within code, and this would overburden the
Doster property and the adjacent property. The adjacent property has 7 rental units, and if this
application were approved, the Doster property would have 8, which is not allowed per the Town
regulations for shoreline requirements. Therefore, based on the requirements of the Town Shoreline
Regulations, the Planning Board is required to deny the application. If the Town approves this
application, I ask that the Town Planning Board explain the reasons why the Shoreline Regulations do
not apply and are not required to be met. Respectfully, Lorraine Stein, 86 Ash Drive, Queensbury"
MR. TRAVER-Okay. Thank you. Anything else?
MRS. MOORE-No.
MR. TRAVER-Okay. In that event, we will close the public hearing for this evening on this application.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MR. TRAVER-And I'll ask the applicant to return to the table. Do you have anything to add? I
know much of the comment addressed some of the questions and concerns that we discussed earlier
this evening in regards to the terminology and definitions and the previous location of the dock. Is
there anything you'd like to add to that?
MR. BORGOS-Brief observation, I think. As I was sitting back there, I was reminded, we've got a lot
of students in the audience who are here to learn a little bit about our procedure, and I think we've
talked a lot about procedure tonight. Mr. Hicks came up during the public comment and raised a
concern about the enforceability against future owners, and I wanted to re-assure the Board that all
the agreements between the parties, the plaintiffs and the defendants, that resulted in that stipulation
and settlement agreement, are to be binding upon not only these individuals currently owning the
properties, but all their successors, heirs and assigns. It runs with the property. Just as your approval
or disapproval as it relates to the property not specifically the applicant. Those things, if you were to
approve it tonight, would be going with the property forever and ever, and I think that ties into the
concerns raised by others about making it a temporary or a time-limited approval. I don't see any
benefit to doing that because the applicant's already expressed the expense and the frustration and the
hardship upon them to go through the process, and we're not anticipating any changes in the use or
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QQueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
in the attitude reflecting the use. So I don't see any benefit to a time-limited type of approval, and
then lastly there's been a lot of great comment and observation about perhaps a look at the Code.
That's not for this Board. They can certainly make a recommendation, but that is indeed part of our
process. Coming from the public, coming from the Planning Board of from the Zoning Board of
Appeals to the legislative body of the Town, which is the Town Board. So for those students out
there listening, we hope that they would understand that it's the Town Board that makes the rules that
we all follow, and you are tasked with following as the Planning Board, but it's perfectly appropriate
for those policies and procedures to be coming from suggestions from the public or from particular
applications such as this one. So if that's something the Board wants to follow through on, that would
be part of our overall process. If there are any other questions, I'd be happy to address them.
MR. TRAVER-Thank you very much. Do members of the Planning Board have questions, comments
for the applicant?
MR. FERONE-Well, to follow up on Mr. Borgos' question, I had a follow up for both Mr. Brown and
Mr. Schachner. What would be the process for considering a change, or adding a different classification
to zoning? Does someone need to petition the Town Board with that? Or I just heard possibly that
it's within our purview as we go through this process of requesting that. And if it was considered,
how long does something like that take?
MR. BROWN-Yes the process is definitely a petition to the Town Board. It's a zoning change that
can come from any number of places. The public can request that. A Board can present a
recommendation based on what you might find in an application. Change of the rules by the Town
Board. That's how it has to take place. The timeframe for something like that to happen, you know,
could take three to six months, being conservative. I'm sorry. Was there another question in there?
MR. TRAVER-Are you speaking about the association dock?
MR. FERONE-Right.
MR. BROWN-Some sort of revision to the Zoning Code.
MR. TRAVER-1 think that what's being suggested is not so much at the Town level but perhaps with
the Park Commission. Right now we know that they have defined different docks and marinas and so
on. That's part of their responsibility, and so would it not be, and perhaps this is a question for
Special Counsel, but would it not be the purview of the Park Commission to decide that they were
creating another type of dock and call it an association dock or a multi-owner dock or some other
term other than the Class A marina?
MR. SCHACHNER-Well, I guess I'll say a couple of things about that. First off the Park Commission
does have a series of classifications within the overall titles, including association docks. Second of all,
we don't literally, we're not literally bound by what the Park Commission does or doesn't do in its law.
We have, the Town of Queensbury, rightly, wrongly, better, worse, you know, express whatever view
you want, essentially adopted almost identical regulations, but we're not necessarily required to. We
are allowed to, we the Town of Queensbury, is allowed to have different differences within the
regulations, and then lastly I will say that if you want to pin hopes for legislative amendment or
regulatory amendment on the Park Commission, then take his three to six months and add at least one
zero to both numbers. Probably more.
MR. TRAVER-And still with an unknown outcome.
MR. SCHACHNER-Right. I mean, 60 months is only five years, right? So add more than that.
MR. FERONE-So lastly, Craig, just hearing what you heard tonight, I mean, do you think something
like that would be warranted, or are you still comfortable with?
MR. BROWN-Well, that decision lies with the Town Board. I can't say what they'll do. If it's
reasonable, the Board's a reasonable Board. If it seems to make sense to alleviate any future problems
it may, or future issues, future situations that may come up around the lake, they might consider that,
but it's entirely their call, it's discretionary on their part.
MR. TRAVER-I would just add the obvious, I guess, but for members of the Board and the public,
that's not before us tonight. What we have is the Class A marina permit.
MR. BROWN-Right.
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QQueensary ury Hannk)c, Board Od/23/2.0[7]
MR. TRAVER-All right.
MR. MAGOWAN-My question is, though, can we give them a temporary? I mean, like I said, it
really is a pretty fine line here, and it's really not that fine. It's quite a wide line. Because we're
classifying because we have more than two boats, as a Class A marina, but the Town Board has the
ability to change that Code to an association dock, which sounds like would be a happier outcome for
really both sides. So, you know, we don't have to go by the Code stipulations of the APA, you know,
their guidelines and that. So could we make a recommendation to the Town Board to adopt a new
Code for this type of application? Because I'm sure we're going to see more now, now that the cat's
out of the bag here.
MR. TRAVER-We could certainly make a resolution to ask them to look at it, I think, and they could
respond, although, again, that's separate from the application that's before us.
MR. MAGOWAN-1 understand that, but to move this forward and close this, and to give those people
the right to use the dock this season.
MR. BORGOS-Sorry to interrupt you. The applicant, we wanted to try to bring some closure to this
four plus year ordeal that has obviously taken up a lot of time and money, and it's taken up a lot of
your time, too, and we apologize for that. I didn't mean to incite a long debate about this. I do
think that, you know, the town Board members could be approached by any member of the public
with this notion, and a suggestion that they simply adopt the 645-2.1 definition of terms, Subsection
D, entitled Association Dock from the Park Commission regulations. That would be a simple curative,
but at the same time, you know, I'd be looking at some of these broader questions that come up as to
maybe this terminology is not appropriate for all the Town of Queensbury, and we could undo what
happened as Mr. Schachner indicate in 1988. They could probably improve upon it, and that might
be a mission for one of the Town Board members to take up. It is a campaign season. Why not have
a popular topic to talk about. That's a suggestion, but that's for them to run with. We have this
specific application before you tonight, and we are looking for permanent relief so we don't have to
ever come back here with this question again.
MR. HUNSINGER-I did have a question. The stipulation agreement and court order specifies the
length of the dock, but I don't recall anything in the materials that specified the limits on the length
of the actual boats.
MR. BORGOS-That's correct.
MR. TRAVER-So if you had two boats of 20 feet, that would be the maximum on one side of the
dock. If you had four users, correct?
MR. BORGOS-And Glen Lake is generally a lake that has much smaller boat sizes than what Lake
George has, but that was not something that was restricted between the parties and it's not something
that I'm aware of being restricted in any other Class A marina applications that have come before this
Board. You would know better than I would. You see all of them.
MR. TRAVER-Well, yes, I mean, I think where you would see the impact from that has to do with the
pump out, because if you get into a much larger boat you're going to get into a cabin cruiser which
would have a sink and that type of thing. The type of utility or runabout boat that's typically used
on Glen Lake would not have that, and they tend to be 20 feet and under, say.
MR. MAGOWAN-Well, the dock's 40 feet long, and if you have two boats at 20 feet, that's one side.
MR. TRAVER-Right.
MR. MAGOWAN-Now I'm thinking that the dock is 40 feet long from the shore out, correct?
MR. TRAVER-Yes. So they have four boats.
MR. MAGOWAN-And if you look over there, and if you know the lake, it's a little shallow over there.
So two 20 foot boats, you're going to have probably eight feet of a boat sticking out past the dock.
So now you're 40 foot dock goes to a 48 foot dock, with no dock.
MR. TRAVER-Yes, well, I think the concern was, you know, do we need to be concerned about some
giant boats being parked there. I would submit from my own experience what I know of the area and
the length of the dock and the number of boats that need to be accommodated by that dock, that
essentially, no. I mean, if you get anything up to 20 feet, as you point out, we're already.
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Q ueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. MAGOWAN-Well, here we are talking about a Class A marina because it's two more boats than
a Class B marina. Like I said we have it spelled out.
MR. TRAVER-That's actually not why we're talking about a Class A marina. We're talking about a
Class A marina because the Zoning Administrator decided.
MR. MAGOWAN-What I'm saying is it's written down in the Code. So, you know, if you don't put
in there, I mean, I think a 20 foot boat, you know, if you're going to do it, I guess what I'm saying is
that you can't have two 20 foot boats on one side. So, it's.
MRS. HILLIARD-I'm sorry. Can I just respond here? Because we've been using, I just want to go back
to prior to this dock being taken out. I just want to explain to you how this was, and there was a 30
foot dock. It was referred to there used to be a 20 foot dock there. There was never a 20 foot
dock. That was a misrepresentation. There was always a 30 foot dock. There was a five foot frog
hook and another 20 foot boat extended. So before this all happened, we had, there was 55 feet
going out into the lake. There is now going to be 40 feet. All the parties. I mean, I hope I can
speak for all the parties. All the parties know the math of 40 foot on each side. We're well aware of
that, and, you know, we've always been respectful of the rights and the lake and we will continue to
be. So I'm just, I don't know how to assure you that we're not going to have 48 foot of dock out,
hanging over a dock. We're aware of the situation. We're aware of the specifications. We have
boats now. Okay. I don't have a 20 foot. We only have 18, and frankly, to be honest, we're looking
for a 16 foot, because we want to go down a couple of feet and we've been looking for that. So we're
aware of the specifications and we will be respectful of that, but we certainly, and I just want to say we
certainly don't want the Town to dictate more constraints. You read this document. It's full enough,
and we really don't want that.
MR. MAGOWAN-I'm more worried about someone coming up from Long Island or the City or
something and deciding they're going to put an ocean cruiser on there.
MR. TRAVER-1 think that's already been addressed by the applicant, in that the restrictions related to,
and correct me if I misunderstood, but that can't happen because the property owners and the
restrictions with the agreement go with the property. So if somebody wants to sell and somebody
from New York or anywhere else comes up and they happen to have a huge boat, I don't think they
would put it on Glen Lake anyway, but if they wanted a boat on Glen Lake, it would be restricted to
one of four sites on this dock. So I don't think you'll see any ocean liners. I certainly hope not.
MR. MAGOWAN-Well, I kind of exaggerated a bit.
MR. SHAFER-Mr. Chairman, in that respect,the definition of a Class A marina is non-motorized vessels,
motorized or non-motorized vessels 18 feet in length or more. What if we had four 17 foot boats
here?
MR. TRAVER-1 guess that would be a question for, I think that, again, the reason that this was selected
out of the, as the Zoning Administrator said, there are thousands of different particular contexts or
situations. He needs to identify the existing aspect of the Code until it's added to, changed, or
whatever, and in this case and in this context, the decision was made by his office that the Class A
marina was the fit that made the best sense. So there are other aspects to the Class A marina. When
you talk about the boat length it also is associated with pump outs and restrooms and parking and
none of those things apply either. So it's not just the boat length that we're dealing with that's
different from the complete classification or definition of a marina. There are many elements her with
this application that don't meet all the elements of that definition, yet that's what's before us tonight.
MR. FERONE-Mr. Chairman, so on this Special Use Permit, we normally put a time limit on it. Do
you think?
MR. TRAVER-Well, that's a discussion that we need to make. The two elements of this application
before us are, one the Site Plan, and then we have the Special Use permit. Does it meet the criteria
for the Special Use Permit, and if it does, then we need to look at limited or make it permanent. So,
why don't we start with the site plan. How do members feel about just the site plan aspect of it?
Are there those that feel uncomfortable with the idea of moving forward on a decision on the site plan
aspect of it? Okay. So then let's take a look at the Special Use Permit. Is there anyone that does
not feel that the applicant has met the criteria for a Special Use Permit being granted? Okay. I'm not
hearing any.
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Q ueensary ury Nannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. HUNSINGER-1 was going to say, I think the applicant's done a very good job of demonstrating
the Special Use Permit requirements.
MR. TRAVER-1 do, too. So then what's left to us is to talk about the term length. There are some
situations where we have had kind of an uncertain or to some degree unpredictable impact or outcome
that we would want to monitor and review at some point later on. If there's been some light
manufacturing or a significant change of use where we'd ask that the Special Use Permit be time limited
and have the applicant come in and report that, yes, we're successful or, you know, whatever is
happening. I think one of the things to consider in terms of the time limit for the Special Use Permit,
in the context of this application, is the fact that it's basically a re-production of a pre-existing condition,
which existed, as I understand, for many years. I know there was discussion about a possible change
or we talked about at some point the Planning Board might pass a resolution asking that the Town
Board consider reviewing the different marina classifications or the different dock use classifications, I
the context of what other definitions might be available in the Park Commission regulations or anything
else, but again, that's not before us tonight, and my own feeling is, and I would like to poll the Board
on this, my own feeling is I would be in favor of a permanent Special Use Permit, but I'm certainly
open to, I'm interested in what other people feel about that.
MR. FERONE-And my question is, does it serve the applicant and other concerned parties if there's a
limit like a year, two years, whatever? I know it would be a hardship for them to come back, but if,
in that time, that different classification becomes available, does that give the opportunity for that new
classification to be used?
MS. WHITE-Forgive me if I'm wrong, but if that changes, isn't that open for them to come back before
the Board whether it's a permanent or a special, you know? If that changed, they could come back
before the Board at that time.
MR. TRAVER-Yes. I guess what I offer first is to kind of step back, not so much with this application
but just our role in general. I mean, there are all kinds of things that we could speculate. We know
that there are going to be changes to zoning going forward. We know that there's going to be
changes in regulations. We know traffic is going to change. We know that environmental wastewater
aspects are going to change. To me it doesn't make sense, and a number of times people, and I think
even members of the Board, have recalled, you know, well, I remember we had a situation back in the
90's and they didn't have to do this or we were doing this differently. I really don't think it's
appropriate for us to speculate and apply it to our actions as to something that hypothetically might
happen down the road. You can certainly advocate for that, but I don't think that it's an appropriate
rule for this Board to say, well, we're not going to take a look at what we've got. We're going to take
a look at what we might have. I'm not sure that that's really even fair to the Town and, you know, I
almost think in a way we're kind of referring our responsibility to some future thing. That's just my
own feeling.
MS. WHITE-I'll start and say I agree.
MR. TRAVER-Okay, and how do you feel about the Special Use Permit?
MS. WHITE-That it should be permanent.
MR. TRAVER-That it should be permanent. John?
MR. SHAFER-I have no problem with it being permanent. I'd like to find some way to either put a
condition or a note on our approval that somebody here tonight said that almost everybody in the
room is uncomfortable with this being classified as a Class A marina on Glen Lake, and I'm still
uncomfortable with that concept.
MR. TRAVER-Okay.
MR. SHAFER-I don't know how to do that.
MR. MAGOWAN-I'm uncomfortable, too.
MR. TRAVER-To that I would offer that we've heard a lot of comment about that and a lot of it I
think is because of the, sort of the memory triggers that we think of when we think of marina. I
think it was Mr. Schachner that said well right away with think of gas pumps and mechanics and, you
know, all this kind of stuff, and so it makes it kind of awkward because that's not the image that we're
brought up to think about is not what we're dealing with in terms of reality. So I think it's really, and
I think if that's the case inevitably for the public as well that there's a kind of thought that, you know,
Q"I
Q ueensary ury Nannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
this is going to be something bigger than what it really is, and I think if you could go back in time and
take an aerial photograph of this piece of property in the 70's or 80's or something you would see
this dock there with private parties using it and so on, and if you take that photograph, assuming this
Board acts this evening, you take an aerial photograph of the exact same spot next year, I submit that,
aside from a subtle change in the shape of the dock, you'll see the same thing. You're not going to
see mechanics running around and boats for rent.
MR. SHAFER-That's kind of why I asked the question. What changes if we approve this as a Class A
marina?
MR. TRAVER-Well, I'm not sure that our goal was ever to change anything. Certainly that wasn't the
intent, I didn't interpret that as the intent of the court order. What was being adjudicated was that
property owners, as I understand it, and we weren't party to that thing, but property owners were
arguing that they had rights that they functionally lost because of actions of new owners and so they
went to court and they came up with something that all the parties agreed to, which was, if accepted
by everybody except maybe the new owners, as restoring what they had previously, not greater or less
than, but a version of restoration of access specifically to the dock and the waterfront area and so on.
So that's really what we're looking at. Our goal wasn't really to change anything. It's just they're
going through the mechanism that we have available to them to allow them to get the Town recognition
of what they've gone through in the courts. That's my feeling in terms of basically what we're going
through. Although I would offer to either the Zoning Administrator or Special counsel, if that's not
the correct or a reasonable way to look at it.
MR. SCHACHNER-It's a reasonable way to look at it.
MR. TRAVER-Thank you. Okay. Anything else? So to clarify, then, aside from a little bit of
concern about the nomenclature, you're okay with the, if we approve a Special Use Permit, making it
permanent?
MR. SHAFER-Yes.
MR. TRAVER-Okay, as am I. Chris?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I kind of see it as there's three issues that we've debated and discussed. The
first one is the definition of a Class A marina. That's the job of the Zoning Administrator.
MR. TRAVER-It is.
MR. HUNSINGER-That's not the job of the Planning Board. One of the issues that I'm uncomfortable
with, quite frankly, but again is not the purview of the Planning Board, is the actual location of the
dock, and that's the purview of the Zoning Board. They approved the variance that you requested.
Perhaps we didn't spend enough time discussing that at our meeting when we made recommendation,
but, you know, hearing some comments from the public, I understand their concern. I share their
concern, again, that's the job of the Zoning Board. So that's not our role. What we, where we do
play our role is in the Special Use Site Plan conditions, and I said earlier I think the applicant has done
an excellent job showing how they meet the requirements of the Special Use Permit. So I'm certainly
in favor of the Special Use Permit, but again, I have some of those concerns that are outside of our
purview. So our job is to do our job and let the other Boards do their job, and we're limited to our
authority and what we can do here. I'm perfectly comfortable with the Site/Special Use Permit
application.
MR. TRAVER-And what do you think about the term?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, based on the stipulation agreement, I mean, they would be in violation of their
stipulation agreement if they were to violate any of the Special Use Permit. So I don't see any reason
why it wouldn't be permanent.
MR. TRAVER-Well, that would be a civil matter as I understand. Okay. Mr. Magowan?
MR. MAGOWAN-1 really, I just, it took a long effort to get it to where it is, and I agree, you know,
they have met all their materials for the Special Use Permit. I'm just really not happy or comfortable
calling it a Class A marina, and I personally wish I could just wave a wand and we could change it, but
we can't, but in all fairness, the rights that you have and the property owners next door, I'm torn. So
I won't be able to make a decision until it comes time to vote and I'll see what comes out of my mouth.
MR. TRAVER-Fair enough. Mr. Valentine?
Q��
QQueena:ary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. VALENTINE-Well, I think that in many municipalities that I deal with at work, there are
municipalities that do have time limits. They're there for a certain reason, and for the most part they
have a historic basis because they're going to be compliance problems, probably. I don't think that
that compliance problem with this application, it's necessary to impose any time limits. I think that if
you have Craig and Laura in that position their memories are intact, that this, as an issue, is not going
to go away. It'll still be there and it'll be part of a memory there that may come up at some point if
the Town has what some towns would have is a, like a zoning review committee, and throw them in a
box, certain issues that come up during the course of the year that you're going to review in a year
or so.
MR. TRAVER-Yes, I think that box has already got some things in it.
MR. VALENTINE-And this is maybe something that automatically goes in without having to have it
add anything to our resolution. So I don't think there's a need for any imposition of a time limit or
constraint of any kind. I tried to pull the conversation away from some stuff and bring it back to
Mr. Borgos, especially with the Special Use conditions, and as Chris had said I think they were well
addressed.
MR. TRAVER-I agree. Thank you. All right, I guess at this point, Mr. Secretary, we're ready to
entertain a motion.
MR. FERONE-1 have a question for legal counsel. So there was a draft resolution prepared by Staff
for tonight's meeting. In the Staff Notes they went into a lot of detail as to what a Class A marina
was and what was not going to be applicable in here. Should that information be read into the
resolution? Should we refer to the Staff Notes or disregard that completely?
MR. SCHACHNER-1 can't answer the question using the word should, but I can answer the question
if you change it to can, and the answer is, yes. You could incorporate that information by either
reading it, incorporating it explicitly into your resolution, or by stating something in your resolution
along the lines of, and subject to, they may not be conditions. Maybe it's subject to the description
of activities that will not be occurring on the property as stated in Staff Notes. You can include that
in a resolution if you like.
MR. FERONE-For example, it says restrooms including toilet facilities, it says applicants/tenants homes
are within walking distance of the dock have access at their homes. So that's not required.
MR. SCHACHNER-Right.
MR. TRAVER-It is part of the application.
MR. SCHACHNER-Yes, that particular issue, I agree with the Chairman, that particular issue is already
addressed in the application.
MR. FERONE-Okay. Question answered.
MR. TRAVER-All right.
MR. HUNSINGER-Did we close the public hearing?
MR. TRAVER-We did. Yes, thank you for reminding me, though. It is a SEAR Type 11. I'll note for
the record, for the public, this is a Type 11, which means no addition review is required for SEAR.
RESOLUTION APPROVING SP 17-2017 & SUP 3-2017 HILLIARD, TYRER, LYON & CERNY
The applicant has submitted an application to the Planning Board for Site Plan approval pursuant to
Article 9 of the Town zoning Ordinance for: Applicant proposes to install a 40' x 4' dock and a
pathway from Ash Drive to dock location. Project is considered a Class A marina, as dock is for more
than one owner — a total of four. Project is part of a court order for property owner to install.
Pursuant to Chapter 179-10-040 of the Zoning Ordinance, Class A marinas shall be subject to Planning
Board review and approval.
Pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code-Chapter 179-9-080 and 179-
10-040, the Planning Board has determined that this proposal satisfies the requirements as stated in
the Zoning Code;
Q�1
Q ueena:ary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
As required by General Municipal Law Section 239-m the site plan application was referred to the
Warren County Planning Department for its recommendation;
The Planning Board opened a public hearing on the Site plan application on 03/28/2017 and continued
the public hearing to 04/25/2017, when it was closed,
The Planning Board has reviewed the application materials submitted by the applicant and all comments
made at the public hearing and submitted in writing through and including 04/25/2017;
The Planning Board determines that the application complies with the review considerations and
standards set forth in Article 9 and Article 10 of the Zoning Ordinance for Site Plan approval and
Special Use Permit,
MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN 17-2017 & SPECIAL USE PERMIT 3-2017 HILLIARD, TYRER,
LYON & CERNY; Introduced by George Ferone who moved for its adoption;
Per the draft provided by staff conditioned upon the following conditions:
1] Waivers request granted: Site lighting, signage, stormwater, topography, traffic, commercial
alterations, construction details, floor plans, soil logs, construction demolition removal and
snow removal.
2] Adherence to the items outlined in the follow-up letter sent with this resolution.
a) If application was referred to engineering,then engineering sign-off required prior to signature
of Zoning Administrator of the approved plans;
b) Final approved plans should have dimensions and setbacks noted on the site plan/survey, floor
plans and elevation for the existing rooms and proposed rooms in the building and site
improvements,
c) Final approved plans, in compliance with the Site Plan, must be submitted to the Community
Development Department before any further review by the Zoning Administrator or Building
and Codes personnel;
d) The applicant must meet with Staff after approval and prior to issuance of Building
Permit and/or the beginning of any site work;
e) Subsequent issuance of further permits, including building permits is dependent on compliance
with this and all other conditions of this resolution;
fJ As-built plans to certify that the site plan is developed according to the approved plans to be
provided prior to issuance of the certificate of occupancy;
gJ Resolution to be placed on final plans in its entirety and legible.
h) The Special Use Permit will be a permanent permit.
Motion seconded by Jamie White. Duly adopted this 25" day of April, 2017 by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Shafer, Ms. White, Mr. Valentine, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Ferone, Mr. Traver
NOES: Mr. Magowan
MR. TRAVER-You're all set. Thank you.
MR. BORGOS-Thank you.
MR. TRAVER-I'd just like to say thank you again to the Zoning Administrator and Special Counsel to
the Planning Board this evening for their attendance. It was greatly appreciated. Very valuable.
MR. SCHACHNER-My pleasure. Nice seeing you all.
MR. TRAVER-All right. The next item on the agenda is, or I should say the next series of items we
have on our agenda are Planning Board recommendations to the Zoning Board. The first being
Stewart's Shops Corporation, Site Plan 30-2017.
PLANNING BOARD RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
SITE PLAN NO. 30-2017 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED STEWART'S SHOPS CORP. AGENT(SJ
CHARLES MARSHALL, STEWART'S OWNER(SJ SAME AS APPLICANT ZONING NC
LOCATION 977 STATE ROUTE 149 APPLICANT PROPOSES DEMOLITION OF 2,292 SQ. FT.
CONVENIENCE STORE WITH FUEL TO BUILD A NEW 3,695 SQ. FT. CONVENIENCE STORE
WITH 2,360 SQ. FT. CANOPY TO HAVE 4 ISLANDS/8 FUELING POSITIONS. FIRST PHASE
WILL BE STORE CONSTRUCTION WITH ASSOCIATED SITE WORK, THEN DEMOLITION OF
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Q ueena:ary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
PRESENT BUILDING & CANOPY TO INSTALL NEW CANOPY. PROJECT INCLUDES SITE
DISTURBANCE GREATER THAN AN ACRE AND ASSOCIATED SITE WORK. PURSUANT TO
CHAPTER 179-3-040 & 176-4-030 OF THE ZONING ORDINANCE NEW CONVENIENCE STORE
WITH FUEL SHALL BE SUBJECT TO PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. VARIANCE:
RELIEF IS SOUGHT FOR SETBACKS. PLANNING BOARD SHALL PROVIDE A
RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS. CROSS REFERENCE SP 354989
NEW CONSTRUCTION; 2003 MOD. &AV 18-2003 FOR GAS ISLANDS/CANOPIES; 2009 MOD.
FOR 600 SF ADDITION; AV 26-2017 WARREN CO. REFERRAL APRIL 2017 LOT SIZE 1.72
ACRES TAX MAP NO. 266.3441 SECTION 179-3-040 & 176-4-030
CHRIS POTTER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. TRAVER-Laura?
MRS. MOORE-The applicant proposes to demolish an existing 2,292 sq. ft. convenience store with a
fuel canopy and build a new 3,695 sq. ft. convenience store with a canopy on this project of 2,360 sq.
ft. with four islands and eight fueling positions. The first phase is of the project includes construction
of the new store and then subsequently demolishing the existing store and constructing the canopy.
So that's the gist of the application, and the variance request is for the setback for the canopy location
on 149 as well as Ridge Road.
MR. TRAVER-Okay. Thanks, Laura. Good evening.
MR. POTTER-Good evening. Chris Potter from Stewart's. I'll see if I can add a little more detail to
that. As Laura said we're looking to re-develop our existing site at 977 Route 149, which is located at
the northwest corner of 149 and 9L, and we would like to construct a new convenience store and new
gas canopy. It would be a phased project where we would construct the new building and then once
the new building is operational, we would then close the store. The old store would remain open and
operational throughout the duration of the project. Once the new store is up and operational, the
old store would close down and then at that time it would allow us to construct the new gas canopy
after the demo of the old store. We would also be removing the existing underground fuel storage
tanks that are there. In doing so we would be adding diesel to the location. With this location we
would be increasing the parking to 29 spaces. As far as our driveway on Northway 9 and 9L they
would remain at their current location just brought up to the current NYS DOT Design standards, and
as far as our site lighting it's all LED fixtures, 15 foot high light poles and the canopy lights as well as
the soffit lights are fully recessed and there are some wall lights that are on the sides. As far as our
building design, similar to what we just constructed at the Outlets, clapboard siding with stone veneer
on the bottom, one, two differences with this. There were no porches on that other building that we
just constructed. This will have a porch that would face the intersection as well as a porch off to the
side on 9L side which would also house a patio for picnic tables for outside. There will be access
doors from both locations. We would be re-using our existing well that's on site for water and we
would have to install a new septic system for the new location. As far as stormwater goes, it would
collect through a series of catch basins and go through an underground stormwater allay system for
storage and it would then go through a hydra unit into an oil water separator and eventually into our
infiltration basin in the rear of the site, and then as far as landscaping, the entire site would be re-
landscaped with all new material, perennials and shrubs and trees and that's it.
MR. TRAVER-Okay. This landscaping looks like quite an improvement over what's there now. Could
you, since you're here specifically tonight to address the variance with regard to setbacks, can you
speak specifically to that this evening?
MR. POTTER-Sure. It would be for the front yard for just the canopy. The actual, the setback to
149 is increasing from what is currently there, and then the setback to 9L is decreasing from what's
currently there slightly.
MR. TRAVER-Okay. So it's going to be a little better on 149 and a little worse on 9L.
MR. POTTER-On 9L, yes.
MR. TRAVER-Because you're adding additional pumps.
MR. POTTER-Correct, yes and they're going, you know, instead of just the two in line they're spread
out across the site.
MR. TRAVER-Right. Gotcha. Okay. Does this have anything to do with the development that's
anticipated across the street?
2:
Q ueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. POTTER-No. I don't know if you're familiar with the site, but we have done a number of
transitions over the years. We've just outgrown the space that we currently have there. It's a very
busy location for us.
MR. TRAVER-It is.
MR. HUNSINGER-It's just coincidental that they're keeping up with the neighbor.
MR. TRAVER-All right. Anything else to add before we go to the members of the Board?
MR. POTTER-No.
MR. TRAVER-Okay. Again, this is for the variance this evening, and referral to the ZBA. Are there
members of the Planning Board that have questions on the setback variance request?
MR. HUNSINGER-No, as the applicant pointed out, the setback from 149 is actually further back.
MR. TRAVER-Yes, it's actually a little better.
MR. HUNSINGER-It's only how many feet closer? It was hard to tell from your plan. Three or four
feet closer on 9L?
MR. TRAVER-If it was more than that I'd be surprised.
MR. POTTER-Proposed 27. The sign that we're proposing is 29 feet, and the canopy is a little bit
further than that. So I would say it's probably existing is maybe like 33, you know, an additional 6
feet closer to 9L.
MR. TRAVER-I thought it looked less than that to me when I was there. No matter. Any other
questions from members of the Board?
MR. VALENTINE-1 just have one, if I can ask the applicant.
MR. TRAVER-Sure.
MR. VALENTINE-Just to get numbers straight as they come out in resolutions down the line, the
store size is noted on your February I" site plan as 3695, but the EAF on March 15" says 3816. The
narrative in our notes says 3816, and the Staff Notes say 3695.
MR. POTTER-It would be 3695.
MR. VALENTINE-So the EAF which came after the site plan is incorrect?
MR. POTTER-Yes.
MR. VALENTINE-Okay.
MR. TRAVER-Nice catch.
MR. SHAFER-Do you have an economic study supporting the number of pumps? That looks like a
lot of pumps.
MR. POTTER-No. We don't do economic studies. Cash flow.
MR. SHAFER-There are two now there, I think?
MR. POTTER-Two, correct. We're doubling the size of what's there.
MR. SHAFER-So the setbacks are driven by the doubling of the canopy size.
MR. FERONE-Well, two pumps but four stations.
MR. POTTER-Right. We were going to four and then eight, yes.
MR. SHAFER-Would the setbacks disappear if you had like three instead of four?
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Q ueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. POTTER-They would. Another option would be to change the orientation of them, which would
be less desirable for flow. If they were perpendicular to the store as oppose to the angle. It shortens
up the canopy to where you would probably meet the setback, but we chose to go with the better
flow to sacrifice the setback.
MR. HUNSINGER-1 remember very vividly when you proposed the store on Upper Glen Street with
the angled canopy pumps, and there was a lot of discussion and people had questions about that. I'd
prefer that. It's so much easier getting in and out of there. You just have to be a little more cautious
when you pull out into traffic, but it's so much easier.
MR. TRAVER-We look at some of these things on paper and we think, but then you find out when
it's a reality all of the study into why they insisted it be exactly that way. It's interesting stuff.
MR. HUNSINGER-1 did have a question, more of a question, comment on the lighting. Because I
know you weren't here when we approved other stores. So I would just ask that when you come back
for site plan that you do the research and be ready to report on it. The store down here on Bay,
right out here on Bay, personally I think it's too dark. Craig didn't hear that but. It's hard to see
the driveway when you go in. I mean, underneath the canopies it's fine, but the driveway is difficult
to see. The one on Upper Glen, which is all LED, you know, I think that one's fine.
MR. POTTER-Bay has LED also, but I think it may be just the quantity of lights.
MR. HUNSINGER-So if you could kind of give us some discussion about how this proposal compares
to those existing ones. That would be helpful.
MR. POTTER-Yes, I can take a look at that.
MR. BROWN-Mr. Chairman, I had a question, I don't want to be out of line, if you don't mind me
asking.
MR. TRAVER-No, go ahead.
MR. BROWN-Sometimes it's easier to get ahead of things rather than later, and this would probably
be a question you guys ask at site plan, but I notice on the plan a big stormwater basin to the north
of the site which probably means a lot of tree removal and grading. Have you guys reached out to
the golf course which is right next to there and the impact that golf balls flying into your site might
have?
MR. POTTER-We have not.
MR. BROWN-Okay. Just curious. I didn't know if it would come up but. Is there any parking back
there?
MR. POTTER-There's not, no.
MR. BROWN-Okay.
MR. POTTER-You would be able to drive around the building, but, yes, those sites, that's for septic.
MR. BROWN-1 think immediately north of where that septic system is is one of the golf course greens.
Just a thought. Just putting it out there that's all.
MR. POTTER-We'll start selling used golf balls, then.
MR. BROWN-1 mean, I don't know if all the trees that are there are on your property or some are on
the golf course property. So there may be a buffer that remains.
MR. POTTER-Well, there's an existing fence line that runs through there, which is about, I don't know,
two feet onto the golf course property. We would pretty much be clearing to the property line.
Yes.
MR. BROWN-Okay. Well, you might want to do some PR, reach out to the golf course people.
MR. TRAVER-Yes, good point.
23
QQueena:ary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. HUNSINGER-Laura, can you just go north a little bit.
MR. POTTER-There are quite a few on the line there.
MR. BROWN-Yes, I mean, and that map that you're looking at right there isn't an actual survey. It's
not indicative of who's trees are on who's property, but it's, if all those trees go away, then you could
have some action.
MR. POTTER-We do have an existing stormwater area in the back, which has grown up with trees over
the years due to lack of maintenance, which really shouldn't be. So there are a lot of trees there.
MR. BROWN-1 didn't mean to get too far sidetracked.
MR. TRAVER-All right. Any other questions for the applicant this evening relative to the referral to
the ZBA? Okay. Then I guess we're ready for a motion, Mr. Secretary.
RESOLUTION RE: ZBA RECOMMENDATION RE: AV PZ-AV-26-2017 STEWART'S SHOPS
The applicant has submitted an application for the following: Applicant proposes demolition of 2,292
sq. ft. convenience store with fuel to build a new 3,695 sq. ft. convenience store with a 2,360 sq. ft.
canopy to have 4 islands/8 fueling positions. First phase will be store construction with associated site
work, then demolition of present building & canopy to install new canopy. Project includes site
disturbance greater than an acre and associated site work. Pursuant to Chapter 179-3-040 & 176-4-030
of the Zoning Ordinance new convenience store with fuel shall be subject to Planning Board review
and approval. Variance: Relief is sought for setbacks. Planning Board shall provide a recommendation
to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
The Town of Queensbury Zoning Ordinance, per Section 179-9-070 J 2 b. requires the Planning Board
to provide a written recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals for projects that require both
Zoning Board of Appeals & Planning Board approval;
The Planning Board has briefly reviewed and discussed this application, the relief request in the variance
application as well as the potential impacts of this project on the neighborhood and surrounding
community, and found that:
MOTION TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION ON BEHALF OF THE PLANNING BOARD TO THE
ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FOR AREA VARIANCE NO. 26-2017 STEWART'S SHOPS CORP.:
Introduced by George Ferone who moved its adoption, and
a) The Planning Board, based on a limited review, has not identified any significant adverse impacts
that cannot be mitigated with current project proposal.
Motion seconded by Brad Magowan. Duly adopted this 25" day of April, 2017 by the following vote:
MR. SHAFER-The Chazen letter, the Town Engineer, can you respond to all of those comments in a
positive way? Have you looked at the comments?
MR. POTTER-1 believe so. We're working on them currently and I believe we're on for the May, the
next meeting.
MR. BROWN-The 161H
MR. POTTER-Yes, and we'll have comments at that point.
MR. TRAVER-Okay.
AYES: Ms. White, Mr. Valentine, Mr. Shafer, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Magowan, Mr. Ferone, Mr. Traver
NOES: NONE
MR. TRAVER-All right. You're off to the ZBA.
MR. POTTER-Thank you.
MR. TRAVER-The next application we have, again, is a Planning Board recommendation for a referral
to the ZBA. It's Robert Fulmer, Site Plan 31-2017.
2d.
QQueena:ary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
SITE PLAN NO.31-2017 FRESHWATER WETLANDS PERMIT 3-2017 SEQR TYPE TYPE 11 ROBERT
FULMER OWNER(SJ SAME AS APPLICANT ZONING SFR4A/MDR LOCATION 54
COUNTRY CLUB ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES TO CONSTRUCT A THREE DOOR, 1, 100 SQ.
FT. DETACHED GARAGE. PURSUANT TO CHAPTER 179-3-040 & CHAPTER 94 OF THE
ZONING ORDINANCE, WORK WITHIN 100 FT. OF WETLAND SHALL BE SUBJECT TO
PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. VARIANCE: RELIEF FOR A SECOND
GARAGE. PLANNING BOARD SHALL PROVIDE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING
BOARD OF APPEALS. SP 34-2007, AV 39-2007, FWW 1-2007 ALL FOR 2,050 ADDITION; AV
29-2017 WARREN CO. REFERRAL APRIL 2017 SITE INFORMATION WETLAND LOT SIZE
3.2 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 296.14-1-49 SECTION 179-3-040, CHAPTER 94
ROBERT FULMER, PRESENT
MR. TRAVER-Laura?
MRS. MOORE-This applicant proposes a three door 1,100 square foot detached garage. The work is
within 100 feet of the wetland, and the applicant's relief from the Zoning Board is a request for a
second garage.
MR. TRAVER-Thank you. Good evening.
MR. FULMER-Good evening, Mr. Chairman, Board members, Staff and Adirondacks, they're gone.
Thanks, folks. I'm Robert Fulmer and my wife Suzanne and I live at 54 Country Club Road. This is
our third Queensbury residence. Probably our last one. It's a large lot of 3.2 acres, and before I
forget I want to thank the Staff of the Planning Department since January for encouraging me to do it
as an amateur non-professional, and keep slogging, and they kept me going in my darkest hours, and
I sit happily before you today with a much simpler project than the first one. Would you like to have
a summary, briefly, of what we want to do and why?
MR. TRAVER-Yes, and particularly relevant to the variance, the relief for the second garage. Why
the second garage.
MR. FULMER-Understood. We bought this place two and a half years ago. Attached garage is a two
car garage 752 feet. It's chock-a-block with everything you can imagine, starting with two vehicles,
and then a large yard tractor with a front end loader, snow blower attachments, etc., a classic
motorcycle, a generator, a lot more stuff so that you can barely open the car doors. We just got rid
of a two door to shorten our doors down to a four door. That helps a little bit, but there's a lot of
stuff there, and what doesn't fit is in the backyard. So there's a boat on a trailer and a rowboat upside
down on the grass, and a kayak and a grill and a six by ten utility trailer, all outside. So we'd like to
pretty it up a little bit and also get the stuff out of the elements, and we are asking for a variance for
a second garage which would be consistent with what's in the neighborhood already. I've spoken to
my three contiguous owners and they said do whatever you want. We're happy for you. Good luck
and do it. The process started last summer looking for a site, and we've got 3.2 acres and you'd think
there'd be plenty of sites there. So I traipsed the property with some people and I did it through the
snow, and then we basically, with help from your Staff, we really needed to flag the wetlands, which
were somewhat out of date. So that was done in March, and then a couple of days later the wetland
flags were surveyed and put on a survey map, and the next day was a giant blizzard, 22 inches, and we
got it in just in time. So the survey that you've got, even though we surveyed it two and a half years
ago, is very, very accurate. It has the wetlands there. On the right side of your survey will be the
setback requirements for this classification, as well as wetlands. What we want to do is get everything
that we have under cover and also get it out of site and make it as unobtrusive as possible and the
least damaging environmentally as possible. It's a great lot, no longer available in Queensbury, and it
is ringed by tall trees, both white pine and poplar, tall trees, and we just don't want to clear cut to put
a garage in. Fortunately the previous owner put a finger of land, like the peninsula of Florida only a
lot smaller, and about 40 feet wide, and it's just like parking a garage and having the woods. We
oriented it so that it was perfect with the trees. Have to take down no big trees, maybe just a couple
of stragglers that are leaning, and it's lawn now, and it kind of buries it way in the backyard, and there
is no other good place on this property that is feasible with a leach field in the front, a lot of wetland
along the north side as you can see there. Setbacks which are not violated with this plan at all. I'm
not asking for a setback variance on front, side, rear or wetland, and we have placed the structure
almost exactly between the rear wetland and the pond wetland. So that's a pretty unique piece and
we don't have another real place to put it. Any questions?
MS. WHITE-1 have a question. What about driveway out to the garage?
25
QQueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. FULMER-We're not going to put in a driveway. It would be like along the pond, and I'm not
going to treat this like a daily garage like the other one where you come in with groceries and that
sort of thing. This will be more for storage, and it's going to be unheated, no water, and just keep it
really simple. So what I do now is drive on the grass, but obviously no paving, no driveway, no paving
to the garage. It would basically, I think, ruin the aspect of the pond and we take care of the pond's
inhabitants, and we have 99% green space perc, you know, and this won't really change this a tenth of
a percent.
MR. TRAVER-1 see you've applied for a DEC permit and that has been received.
MR. FULMER-Did you get it?
MR. TRAVER-1 think it's in the packet.
MR. FULMER-Well, it was pretty close, because I got it on Friday morning, and I called Staff and I
made 30 copies and delivered them Friday afternoon. It's a two pager. The first one is a letter from
DEC in Warrensburg,and the second page is the actual permit. So Freshwater. I made my presentation
there about three weeks ago to a committee of three. Okay. So that's good.
MR. TRAVER-All right. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from members of the
Planning Board?
MR. VALENTINE-1 have a question on the site plan related to the wetlands. The actual wetland
boundaries marked in black outlined on the map, the corresponding 100 foot adjacent area in gray
shaded, but I'm not sure, the heavy dashed line on here that's labeled DEC wetlands. Is that the actual
wetlands or is that the wetland buffer?
MR. FULMER-No, that's the actual wetland, and then the zoning notes are on your right side. So our
setback is 50 feet. I would have to ask you for a variance if I was going to have the structure closer
than 50 feet. I'm not. The structure is 59 feet from the pond and 61 feet from the backside. The
only reason I needed a Freshwater Wetland permit for both Queensbury, which is in your packet, and
from DEC, is because I want to do some work, like pour a pad an erect the structure, and have to re-
seed within 100 feet of the wetland.
MR. VALENTINE-But that was the point I was getting at was the 100 foot buffer area. That was my
point was the 100 foot buffer area is not shown on here for DEC's wetland, but you're not doing
anything within there. They've already looked at that and they've said that?
MR. FULMER-Their buffer, all I can tell you is that their setback would be 50 feet, because they will
defer to Queensbury zoning, okay, 50 feet, and that's what it was in 1982 when this six lot subdivision
was created, 50 feet, and I said we aren't going to go inside 50 feet. The only reason I needed permits
from Queensbury and from DEC was to actually do the construction within 100.
MS. WHITE-How close is the back of the property line to the bikeway? Can you see?
MR. FULMER-The line that you see there of my back property, that's about 60 feet. Now that line is
the end of the right of way that Warren County has on the bikeway from when it was the railway, and
I'm not exactly sure what the centerline, something like 33 feet. So the line you're looking at now I
think is about 33 feet from the center of the bikeway, and that's all wooded in there with scrub and
tall stuff and things like that. These woods around the structure on the survey, that is the tree line,
okay, and there are other people along the bikeway, as you know, who have structures that are not
screened or are closer and stuff like that. I don't know if anybody else here could tell me what the
right of way is for the Warren County bikeway.
MR. BROWN-Laura's measured approximately from the garage site to the bikeway is about 90
something feet, if that's kind of the question you're asking.
MR. FULMER-Thanks.
MS. WHITE-Yes, I knew it must be very close.
MR. FULMER-That sounds about right. I believe there are others within, well, you've probably been
on the bikeway and you've seen structures closer than 90 feet.
MR. SHAFER-Is there another shed on the property?
26
Q ueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. FULMER-Yes, there is. It came with the property which is right on the south side in the middle.
It says shed, and that is 10 by 12. That is with the property. So that's 120 square feet. That is just
filled wall to wall because I don't have a garage. So in there are just yard tools, power tools for
maintaining the lawn and the yard. I have other attachments for the tractor like a chipper and mower
deck, bicycles, skis, it's just, you can't get stuff in and out.
MR. FERONE-Would you be eliminating that with the, having the larger structure?
MR. FULMER-What I would like to do, folks, is, it's in great shape. I have painted it to match the
house. It's very unobtrusive to the neighbors, nobody has a problem with it. What I love about it
is its proximity to the house. So what I would request would be I could leave bicycles and sports
equipment and hand tools and stuff like that in the shed which are very easy to access and the garage
would be for larger items and, you know, a boat, a classic car.
MR. TRAVER-And the shed that you were speaking about is very small.
MR. FULMER-It's 10 by 12, and if I could perhaps help here. We inherited a blacktop basketball court
right in the middle of the back lawn. So I got a hoop up for my two granddaughters, but I have to
tell you I think they're a little more soccer than basketball. So I taught them some of the basics. That
basketball court is 40 by 45. So that's one of the largest impermeables that I have. That's 1800
square feet right there, and I have to mow around it. So if I might be allowed to keep the shed for
convenience, and I won't be able to sell it or anything. I'll just be, take it away, I'd like to keep that
120 square feet and it's perfect where it is, and maybe turn, rip up the blacktop if that's okay with you
and return that to seeded lawn. That would actually enhance the permeability and the green space
here. So the garage would be 1100 square feet. I'd like to keep the shed for another 120. That
brings me up to 1220, but I'd be taking away 1800 square feet of impermeable. So it would be a gain,
and I wouldn't have to mow around it any longer, and then it would be softball, whiffle ball and soccer
with the grandkids.
MR. MAGOWAN-No badminton?
MR. FULMER-1 played badminton in high school believe it or not. If that's a condition of this green
light, badminton's in. It's a high sport. We'd be happy to do that, but that would be great if you
guys would be interested in. It would move the permeability up and it would be a big help, and the
shed is pretty tiny and somewhat set. It's 10 by 12 and it's a different type of function than the garage
is. The garage is all of this stuff that's all over the property, the lawnmower, everything, and the shed
would be perfect for lawn tools and bicycles and skis and things like that. That would be close, you
know.
MR. MAGOWAN-All right, I'm not speaking for anybody else, but you had me at removal of the
basketball court.
MR. FULMER-And turning it into a badminton court.
MR. MAGOWAN-Right.
MR. FULMER-Is there anybody else who would have a sport they'd like?
MR. HUNSINGER-1 was going to say, then you could tell your grandkids, geez, I wanted to keep it
but the Planning Board made me take it down.
MR. FULMER-You know what, the basketball hoop went to their house on the side of their driveway,
and they've been practicing dribbling and stuff, but not much. I have a feeling that basketball is not
in their near future. So I think it would be a win/win situation.
MR. MAGOWAN-That was Dan Valente's house, wasn't it?
MR. FULMER-It is. It was Dan, Jr.'s. Dan's was Lot Four, and Lot Six would have been originally Dan,
Sr.'s,and then Lot Six was sold to Dan Sr.'s daughter, okay,and this would have been the Maple cottage,
whatever, six development, back in the 80's. Okay. So that was Valente property, yes, and then he
moved onto Brown's Path, and I talked to Dan about a week ago and he said to say hello.
MR. MAGOWAN-He's a good egg. No, you did a lot of homework to place that nice and you do
have the, you know, the little finger envelope to stick it right in. I know next door has a garage back
there, Dawson's, and I know across the street the Sellick's have a big garage behind their.
27
QQueena:ary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. FULMER-Well, of my three contiguous neighbors, two already have an additional garage separate
on the property, Lot Two and Lot Six, and I think also Lot One. I could be wrong there. I'm not
sure, but it seems to be consistent with what people have done previously in the neighborhood. It's
just that I wasn't there then.
MR. MAGOWAN-1 just really have one main question. Are you able to use all this stuff?
MR. FULMER-Yes, absolutely. I'm a retired educator, Bolton, Lake George. My wife was the
Superintendent at Greenwich and Putnam,and I worked at BOCES for 10 years here,and we consistently
worked 70 hour weeks for months and months, and so I think that right now it's time for the toys. I
just have two more pieces to put in the garage there, and they are a wooden classic boat. I'm not
talking about an expensive one, just something for Lake George and the second thing is a summer
classic car to restore. So I'm looking at that as storage for stuff like this, to try to make it as pretty
as possible, and 33 by 33 allows me to get three doors across it, comfortably without trying to back
in a boat trailer and ripping off a fender and a door. It also allows me to do some nose to tail parking
in there, like a boat and a tractor, a utility trailer and a car. So I don't expect this to be used on a
daily basis.
MR. MAGOWAN-You've really planned everything all out.
MR. FULMER-I'm an amateur but I do the best I can.
MS.WHITE-You mentioned working on these vehicles. What is the potential for a spillage,oil, gasoline?
MR. FULMER-1 don't want to work on them back there. It's not going to have any heat. It's not
going to have any water. It's not going to have a paved driveway. It's not my intention to create a
work garage. It's more of a storage garage. I already have a two car garage with all of my tools and
stuff.
MS. WHITE-So these aren't services you're going to offer to people?
MR. FULMER-No.
MS. WHITE-It's just your own personal.
MR. FULMER-This is me. I spent 40 years working, folks. It's time for a rest. This is not a
commercial operation. Is it possible if there's a flat tire back there on a boat trailer that I would
change it there? I guess I would, but I'm not looking to make it into a mechanic's garage. It's basically
storage, and anything that I need to do I'll do, as much as I can in the existing garage. Pull out a car,
pull out something to work on.
MR. TRAVER-Sure. All right. Any other questions regarding the relief for the second garage? All
right. Well we can entertain a motion, then.
RESOLUTION RE: ZBA RECOMMENDATION RE: AV Z-AV-29-2017 ROBERT FULMER
The applicant has submitted an application for the following: Applicant proposes to construct a three
door, 1,100 sq. ft. detached garage. Pursuant to Chapter 179- 3-040 & Chapter 94 of the Zoning
Ordinance, work within 100ft. of wetland shall be subject to Planning Board review and approval.
Variance: Relief for a second garage. Planning Board shall provide a recommendation to the Zoning
Board of Appeals.
The Town of Queensbury Zoning Ordinance, per Section 179-9-070 J 2 b. requires the Planning Board
to provide a written recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals for projects that require both
Zoning Board of Appeals & Planning Board approval;
The Planning Board has briefly reviewed and discussed this application, the relief request in the variance
application as well as the potential impacts of this project on the neighborhood and surrounding
community, and found that:
MOTION TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION ON BEHALF OF THE PLANNING BOARD TO THE
ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FOR AREA VARIANCE NO. 29-2017 ROBERT FULMER:
Introduced by George Ferone who moved its adoption, and
a) The Planning Board, based on a limited review, has not identified any significant adverse impacts
that cannot be mitigated with current project proposal.
28
Q ueena:ary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
Motion seconded by Brad Magowan. Duly adopted this 25" day of April, 2017 by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Ferone, Mr. Magowan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Valentine, Mr. Shafer, Mr. Traver
NOES: Ms. White
MR. TRAVER-All right. You're off to the ZBA.
MR. FULMER-Thank you for your service to the Town, neighbors, and with a little luck I'll see you
on Tuesday. Curt, I'm sorry for taking so long.
SITE PLAN NO. 33-2017 SEQR TYPE SEQR TYPE TYPE 11 GREG TERESI AGENT(SJ
HUTCHINS ENGINEERING OWNER(SJ DARK BAY PROPERTIES/LARRY DAVIS ZONING WR
LOCATION 3300 STATE RT. 9L APPLICANT PROPOSES 1,810 SQ. FT .FLOOR AREA, 885 SQ.
FT. FOOTPRINT SINGLE FAMILY DWELLING. THIS INCLUDES A BOUNDARY LOT LINE
ADJUSTMENT FOR THE NEW HOME WITH A SHARED CURB CUT TO THE ADJACENT PARCEL.
PARCEL 239.184-27.1 WILL REDUCE A 1.5 AC PARCEL TO 0.91 ACRE AND INCREASE PARCEL
239.18-27.2 TO 0.81 ACRE. HOUSE CONSTRUCTION WILL BE ON PARCEL 239.184-27.2 AND
ASSOCIATED SITE WORK ON BOTH PARCELS. PROJECT SUBJECT TO MAJOR STORMWATER
IN LGP. PURSUANT TO CHAPTER 179-3-040 OF THE ZONING ORDINANCE, NEW
CONSTRUCTION WITHIN 50 FT. OF 15% SLOPES SHALL BE SUBJECT TO PLANNING BOARD
REVIEW AND APPROVAL. VARIANCE: RELIEF IS SOUGHT FOR REDUCTION OF NON-
CONFORMING SIZE PARCEL TO LESS CONFORMING SIZE. PLANNING BOARD SHALL
PROVIDE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS. CROSS REFERENCE
AV 31-2017 WARREN CO. REFERRAL APRIL 2017 SITE INFORMATION APA, LAKE GEORGE
PARK COMMISSION LOT SIZE 1.59 ACRE/.22 ACRE TAX MAP NO. 239.184-27.1, 27.2
SECTION 179-3-040
MR. TRAVER-The next application we have before us is Greg Teresi, and we did receive a
communication e-mail from his attorney requesting that this application be tabled until the May 16"
Planning Board meeting.
MRS. MOORE-There's no public hearing scheduled for this. So it's just going to be moved to the
next available agenda.
MR. TRAVER-Right. So do we need to make a motion or no? Okay. So noted, for the record.
Thank you, Laura. The next application we have before us is Stephen, Carol, 8T Andrew Bodette, Site
Plan 13-2017. This is also a referral to the ZBA. This is SEQR Type II.
SITE PLAN NO. 13-2017 SEQR TYPE TYPE 11 STEPHEN, CAROL 8T ANDREW BODETTE
AGENT(SJ CURTIS D. DYBAS OWNER(SJ SAME AS APPLICANTS ZONING WR LOCATION
10 HEMLOCK ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES A SECOND FLOOR RENOVATION REMOVING
EXISTING 572 SQ. FT. AND CONSTRUCTING PROPOSED 570 SQ. FT. SECOND FLOOR WITH
OFFICE AREA AND MASTER BEDROOM. NEW CONSTRUCTION DOES NOT MEET
SHORELINE SETBACK AND EXPANSION NONCONFORMING. PROJECT INCLUDES AN
EXISTING PORCH RENOVATION 98 +/- SQ. FT. FOR NEW ENTRYWAY AND OPEN PORCH.
PURSUANT TO CHAPTER 17943-010 & 179-3-040 OF THE ZONING ORDINANCE, EXPANSION
IN A CEA SHALL BE SUBJECT TO PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. VARIANCE:
RELIEF IS SOUGHT FOR SETBACKS AND FAR. PLANNING BOARD SHALL PROVIDE A
RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS. CROSS REFERENCE 1991, 1992
BATH ALT.; AV 13-2017 WARREN CO. REFERRAL LOT SIZE .24 ACRE TAX MAP NO.
289.104-32 SECTION 17043-010, 179-3-040
CURT DYBAS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. TRAVER-Laura?
MRS. MOORE-The applicant proposes a second floor renovation. This is removing the existing 572
square foot second floor space and constructing a new proposed 570 square foot second floor. This
would include a master bedroom and office area. New construction does not meet the shoreline
requirements, and the project also includes renovation of the existing entryway, 98 square foot porch
area and an open porch area. Relief is sought for setbacks and the floor area ratio.
MR. TRAVER-All right. Thank you, Laura. Good evening.
29
QQueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. DYBAS-Good evening, Mr. Chairman, Staff, Board members. Curt Dybas representing Mario
Pezzulo and Carol Bodette. The Pezzulo's, first let me back track. This property was originally Dick
and Tracy Bodette's property and the three children, the three siblings inherited the property, and the
three siblings still own the property. There is a buyout situation taking place, and Carol will end up
owning the property. The Pezzulo's have decided, because of two previous burglaries of their home in
Worcester, one of which they were home, they decided to move here on a year round basis. Mr.
Pezzulo is in partnership with like a small Panera type restaurant, which home base is his office, and
Mrs. Pezzulo is a teacher and a physical trainer. So they could be anywhere with their three daughters.
They decided they were going to make this their home. So it is presently a year round residence that
is heated, but it's not conducive to a year round facility for a family of five. So the initial thought
was to tear down and re-build it, but economically that's not in the cards. So the approach was to re-
model is, and part of the renovation will be gutting the first floor and reconfiguring, go up in space.
Those of you who have visited the site, it looks like a tower on the second floor, which it is. They
built it on top of the original roof. Don't ask me why. Don't ask me why. I don't know how it
happened, but it's like 14 feet from the first floor to the second floor, and we're going to take that off,
take the roof off and drop it down so that the second floor becomes the master bedroom and Mr.
Pezzulo's office, and the new entryway we're going to take the existing porch and reconfigure it to
make it an enclosed entry, with a small deck off the side for barbecuing, and the front basically is the
front and the site will remain pretty much as is. Mr. Hutchins received a wastewater permit on the
17" of April from the Town Board for a new wastewater system which will go up in the back where the
present well is, and we have to drill a new well down by the lake, but there will be a new well and new
wastewater here, with the project, and stormwater, I sent a letter that I received the other day. The
Pezzulo's sent me a bill for old remediation which was done in the fall of'13, in the amount of$14,000
because of mold in the basement, and I'm going to have to re-examine the stormwater thing because
originally on the documents there's eaves trenches along with permeable pavement. So I think I'm
going to talk to Mr. Hutchins. I think we're going to have to go to some type of gutter and retention
because part of the remediation was they increased the slope around the foundation, they hit the
waterway and digging a new eaves trench I don't think will help the whole situation in the basement.
So basically that's the project in a nutshell, and the exterior will remain. We're going to keep the same
type and color of siding that's on the house right now. Obviously we're going to have to remove a
great deal of it but that's the plan.
MR. TRAVER-All right. Thank you. Questions from members of the Board?
MR. VALENTINE-I've got another numbers thing.
MR. TRAVER-Sure.
MR. VALENTINE-The second page of the Staff Notes is looking at a 25 foot shoreline setback where
50 is required.
MR. TRAVER-26.7%.
MR. VALENTINE-And then on the Site Development Data setback requirement sheet, under the
setback requirements it says proposed 17 feet.
MRS. MOORE-So it's new construction. The new construction piece is the setback, and on the data
sheet he has the existing structure which is the closest point to the shoreline.
MR. VALENTINE-That's the 17.
MR. TRAVER-That's the 17.
MRS. MOORE-That's the 17. The new construction is that other setback.
MR. VALENTINE-Okay. Thank you.
MS. WHITE-Is the 25.
MRS. MOORE-Yes.
MS. WHITE-Okay.
MR. TRAVER-Thank you for that clarification. Any other questions?
30
Q ueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. MAGOWAN-Yes, I have a couple there. I was reviewing the new septic tank and the pump tank
and it goes up there above the, well I'm looking at the sheet, it says asphalt driveway there, and it looks
like the leach bed is actually going underneath the driveway.
MR. DYBAS-I did not do it. All I know is Tom Hutchins received the approval from the consolidated
board of health for the system that's in front of you. I was not involved in it.
MR. MAGOWAN-Well, if you look, well for everybody else it looks like on Sheet One you look at,
you know, you've got your septic tank and then it goes into the pump tank, and then it goes up and
half of it's underneath the macadam driveway.
MR. DYBAS-On my sheet,yes,that is correct. That's what I laid out,and the system that was approved
is in the same configuration.
MR. MAGOWAN-Underneath the driveway?
MR. DYBAS-Yes, and, well I can't think of the name of the system off the top of my head.
MR. BROWN-Is it a Presby.
MR. DYBAS-Presby septic system, and to the best of my knowledge you are permitted to put a Presby
system under the driveway.
MR. MAGOWAN-Wow. All I know is we did that once in a parking lot and stone and that, and it
ended up, and I was the builder at the time, and I disagreed with it and it was told to go with it. It
was signed off by an engineer. Within five years it was being re-done. Thank God I had a signoff.
The other question I have, and I always get concerned, is always seeing an office on a second floor
adjacent to a bedroom, and you said it them and three kids, and I see two bedrooms downstairs, a
master suite, and then an office, and three bathrooms, with a pump tank, with a leach field that's okay
to go underneath the driveway. There's just some red flags there.
MR. DYBAS-Two daughters share one room. One daughter they call the princess has her own room,
and Mr. Pezzulo needs a home office. I mean that's where he does his work. That's where he travels
from. They do not have a corporate headquarters.
MR. MAGOWAN-1 see that. I just always say it's a red flag when I see an office on a second floor
on a small septic system that, you know, could be easily converted into a bedroom and nobody knows,
sitting so close to the lake.
MR. DYBAS-I can understand.
MR. MAGOWAN-And then the other, and I'm not busting your chops, but the other thing I noticed
in my readings was we're not quite sure about the, what the arborvitaes and the trees going down the
property to get the rate down there.
MR. DYBAS-That is still an ongoing item, and the Dansbury's who I did the home next door, they're
well aware that the arborvitaes, they're in the autumn of their years anyway, they're going to have to
be severely trimmed or the upper portions taken out to get a well rig down there. We have no other
place to put a well on the property to get 100 foot separations. We were lucky on Dansbury's, we
made it before we had to get through the oak trees, which the Board conditioned that they couldn't
take them down, but we have not had a well driller on the site yet. We'll take a look at it. I think
there's something like 12 or 13 feet into a corner of the house and the first arborvitae up on the upper
end. Whether he can get down through there, I don't know. It's a tough site.
MR. MAGOWAN-And I really didn't see anything, with all this going on, and being so close to the
lake, any form of planting and that in the front.
MR. DYBAS-I have to honestly say there's nothing on there.
MR. MAGOWAN-1 rest my case.
MR. TRAVER-All right. Are there any other comments with regard to the setbacks and the FAR
variance request? I think the applicant has gotten some feedback regarding site plan issues and some
clarification on the setbacks. So I guess we're ready for a motion.
MR. DYBAS-Excuse me, clarification on the setbacks?
3m
Q ueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. TRAVER-Yes, we had some discussion about the setbacks to the new construction versus.
MS. WHITE-So the new construction will actually bring a non-conforming building a little less non-
conforming than it is now.
MR. TRAVER-No.
MRS. MOORE-No. It's in the same location, and so once he takes it down it's considered new
construction, and that's where that setback is taken from.
MS. WHITE-Okay.
MR. TRAVER-But the closest point to the lake is not decreasing.
MS. WHITE-Okay. Thank you.
MR. MAGOWAN-Well, before we vote, so you have to re-do some planning on the stormwater,
right?
MR. DYBAS-I have to, yes, I have to figure out what we're going to do here, in light of the mold
situation that they had and had to remediated in '13. 1 don't expect my client to spend $14,000
because of water. So originally I had eaves trenches on the drawings, and that's not conducive to the
basement water with an existing stone and whatever foundation.
MR. MAGOWAN-So you're actually going to have to do some remediation on the outside of the
ground and that.
MR. DYBAS-We will have to collect and remediate, either by infiltrators or something, and get the
water away from the foundation wall. We're going to have to do that. That's my feeling.
MR. MAGOWAN-So I guess my question is, you know, here we don't know about the trees along
the property edge that the well driller's got to come down. Possibly they're going to be coming out,
and how are we going to replace them or take care of them in between? There's no landscaping plan
and we don't really know how you're going to remediate the water, the basement, the mold issue in
the basement.
MR. DYBAS-I'm not positive on that yet. I just received that letter Friday.
MR. MAGOWAN-I'm not busting your chops on it.
MR. DYBAS-I just received that invoice that was paid back in '13, and I looked at and I said, $14,000 in
change, and I said I definitely have to look at this eaves trench situation because right in the invoice it
says mounding around the foundation wall. Well that makes no sense to dig an eaves trench right
next to the foundation wall, and I want to talk to Tom about it to see what he feels, and he has the
information on the soil perc. I don't, and see where we stand and they stand. I don't know, but the
water's coming from somewhere and that basement is, given the report, it had 52% humidity in that
basement and that's not something you can live with.
MR. TRAVER-But you're not expecting that that would impact on setbacks or FAR?
MR. DYBAS-No.
MR. TRAVER-So for the variance that wouldn't have any impact.
MR. DYBAS-No. No impact. The plantings and the cedar hedgerow and stuff, you know, I'm back
before this Board, hopefully, next month, you know, if everything goes well, and at that time I will
present all that and at that time I will present all that and the findings from the well driller. Find out
exactly how much or all of that hedgerow, if we have to take it down. I don't know.
MR. MAGOWAN-Well, this is where I have a problem, you know, and I spoke to the Chairman of
the Zoning Board. We send this stuff over for variance and, you know, to get the variances, right, is
this a recommendation?
MR. TRAVER-Yes, it is.
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QQueena:ary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. MAGOWAN-And we don't have all our facts to actually say, how do we know that we can
actually remediate this with, when you come back? How do we know it's not all going to change with
all the information you come back with?
MR. TRAVER-Well, that's why I asked the applicant if there was an expected impact on the setbacks
or the FAR, because if it was, then that might have an impact on what's before us tonight, but
apparently it's not.
MR. MAGOWAN-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-It's not going to change the floor plan.
MR. TRAVER-Those are site plan issues that will have to be addressed.
MR. DYBAS-Site Plan issues that has to come back to you.
MR. TRAVER-Right. So we'll have to have all of that prior to the item getting back on the agenda
for site plan. So we can look at any revisions to stormwater, the landscaping, all that stuff will have to
be on there.
MR. MAGOWAN-Okay.
MR. TRAVER-Any other questions, comments regarding the variance request on this application?
Hearing none, I guess we can move to the motion.
MR. FERONE-Okay.
RECOMMENDATION RE: ZBA RECOMMENDATION RE: AV Z-AV-13-2017 BODETTE
The applicant has submitted an application for the following: Applicant proposes a second floor
renovation removing existing 572 sq. ft. and constructing proposed 570 sq. ft. second floor with office
area and master bedroom. New construction does not meet shoreline setback and expansion
nonconforming. Project includes an existing porch renovation 98 +/- sq. ft. for new entryway and
open porch. Pursuant to Chapter 179-13-010 & 179-3-040 of the Zoning Ordinance, expansion in a
CEA shall be subject to Planning Board review and approval. Variance: Relief is sought for setbacks
and FAR. Planning Board shall provide a recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
The Town of Queensbury Zoning Ordinance, per Section 179-9-070 J 2 b. requires the Planning Board
to provide a written recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals for projects that require both
Zoning Board of Appeals & Planning Board approval;
The Planning Board has briefly reviewed and discussed this application, the relief request in the variance
application as well as the potential impacts of this project on the neighborhood and surrounding
community, and found that:
MOTION TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION ON BEHALF OF THE PLANNING BOARD TO THE
ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FOR AREA VARIANCE NO. 13-2017 STEPHEN, CAROL 8T
ANDREW BODETTE: Introduced by George Ferone who moved its adoption, and
a) The Planning Board, based on a limited review, has not identified any significant adverse impacts
that cannot be mitigated with current project proposal.
Motion seconded by Chris Hunsinger. Duly adopted this 25" day of April, 2017 by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Ferone, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Valentine, Ms. White, Mr. Shafer, Mr. Traver
NOES: Mr. Magowan
MR. TRAVER-All right. You're off to the ZBA. We'll see you when you come back on the agenda.
I guess before we adjourn for the evening there was discussion earlier about the possibility of requesting
the Town Board to look at the various types of marinas and whether or not all of those definitions are
still appropriate or whether they might be expanded upon. Do we want to do that in a formal way or
do we want to, I think that Town Staff and the Zoning Administrator are aware of the lengthy discussion
we had on that. Do we want to make a formal referral to the Town Board to do that or do we feel
confident that that will be handled in the normal course of things?
33
Q ueena:ary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. MAGOWAN-I'd like to make a formal resolution.
MR. TRAVER-Okay. Do you want to propose a motion?
RESOLUTION TO TOWN BOARD RE: CLASSIFICATION OF DOCKS & MARINAS
MOTION FOR THE TOWN BOARD TO LOOK INTO MODIFYING THE MARINA CLASSES AND
ESPECIALLY TO LOOK INTO THE ASSOCIATION TYPE DOCKS, Introduced by Brad Magowan
who moved for its adoption,
Motion seconded by Chris Hunsinger. Duly adopted this 25" day of April, 2017, by the following
vote:
AYES: Mr. Shafer, Ms. White, Mr. Valentine, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Magowan, Mr. Ferone, Mr. Traver
NOES: NONE
MR. TRAVER-All right. Very good. Is there any other business before the Board this evening?
MR. MAGOWAN-For our May 2" meeting, are the packets ready to pick up?
MRS. MOORE-No, because I have Zoning Board tomorrow night. You have to wait until the Zoning
Board makes their decision on two of the applications.
MR. MAGOWAN-So we have all the other packets already?
MRS. MOORE-You have all the other information, yes.
MR. TRAVER-Also just anecdotally,the information that I have is that they will be mailed to us because
of the physical size that will accommodate that. So as Laura and I had that discussion earlier today.
So it won't be necessary for us to come in.
MR. MAGOWAN-All right. I just wanted to make sure.
MR. TRAVER-Yes. So that will be taken care of. Hopefully we'll get them by at least May I"
Anything else?
MR. BROWN-Yes. If you don't mind just a couple of minutes. I know it's 9:30 already, but I was
able to have some conversation with the Town Board last night at a workshop about the issue of
modernizing the way we get the packets to you, as far as whether it's a laptop or an I-Pad or maybe
trying to get away from the piles of paper and the big packets that you get in the mail. It seems to
be the consensus of the Town Board to not move towards purchasing, making a big purchase of
electronics. Their thought was, you know, if we can continue or somehow, you know, get you copies,
whether it's on a flash drive specifically of the application materials or you can pull it from the website,
to maybe try and encourage, and these are my words not theirs, but encourage you to use your own
personal laptops if you want to be electronic. They just didn't seem ready to make that move yet.
So I know we had talked about it. We kind of did an informal poll before and said, who's interested,
who would like to go to I-Pads to try and modernize and limit the amount of paper that you have, but
the update is that they're not moving in that direction very quickly.
MR. TRAVER-Well, I would comment a couple of things. First of all, if we were to move to that
technology, I would recommend against I-Pads, simply because they're not secure. I instead would
recommend that we go with like a Samsung Galaxy Tablet or something. There's other tablets other
than the I-Pads that I think are a bit more secure and capable. That's Number One. And Number
Two, my own feeling is that until we do that, I think if we individually interact with the applications on
whatever our own device happens to be, we know right away it's going to be inconsistent. It may not
be completely reliable. It may be more convenient to those of us that are early adopters and always
have the new thing, but I think it's putting an additional burden on members of the Planning Board.
So my recommendation, and whether it would be, even though it is often difficult to deal with the
paper as you point out, I know it's a burden on Staff as well, but I think until we have a consistent
application of a different type of technology across literally across the board I think we should keep it
the way it is. I think if we go halfway, as well meaning as they might be, I think in the real world, and
I've run into this with my own staff where they've said, well, I'll send it to you as a PDF. The next
thing you know it gets misplaced or you have multiple versions or somebody has one device, then you
have, you know, are we going to be bringing the devices to the meeting? Some of them are going to
have wireless so we can access additional information on the Internet. Some are not. So my suggestion
d
Q ueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
would be we wait until the Town is ready to make the device, and understand and appreciate that it's
an additional expense, but I think in addition for members of the Board, we would also have to provide
one for the applicant table, so that they would have the same access to the same technology we did
with the same information on it.
MR. BROWN-Well, what you'd have on yours would be the information they submitted. So they
would hopefully have a copy of their own information, whether it's on their own personal electronic
device or paper copies, but I guess the beauty of the system we have right now is the information the
Board members would get is consistent. It's what's posted on our website.
MR. TRAVER-That's correct.
MR. BROWN-So everything that comes in, we're required to let you know. If we have a Town website
and we provide the information to our Board members prior to a meeting, we're required, by New
York State law, to post it on the website to make it accessible to the public. So you would have access
to any information that's been submitted by the applicant, provided you have access to the Town
website.
MR. TRAVER-And we have that access now.
MR. BROWN-And you have that access now.
MR. TRAVER-And my comment regarding having the same device at applicant table is not just for the
applicant but also for the public hearing session.
MR. BROWN-Right. Well, we've got the laptop and the screen. We try and get everything up there
that we can, and that's really meant for the public.
MR. TRAVER-Right. Understood, but I think, you know, even with regards to things like Public
Meetings law, we might be getting into a bit of a gray area if we have a technology that only we have.
MR. BROWN-Right. Well, right now you have paper copies and the public doesn't. So you have
technology that they don't have. I mean, we don't have a set of application materials at the table for
the public. Maybe we should or shouldn't. I'm not sure. It's certainly something that's FOILable.
They can come in and look at it any time they want to, get copies of it if they choose to.
MR. TRAVER-And I would also add, I mean, other members of the Board might have comments or
may not agree with me. I'm just throwing, just from my own experience with technology.
MR. HUNSINGER-1 agree with what you've said, Steve, and I'm actually glad you brought this up,
Craig. The issue that I have with the stuff that are on the, the documents that are on the Town
website is the clarity isn't there, and, you know, even Staff Notes and agendas, if you go to print them,
the clarity isn't as good as the paper copies, and it's the way that they're created. If you create it from
a word document and just save it as a PDF.
MR. TRAVER-But it might just be scanned in.
MR. HUNSINGER-That's why, because they're scanned in instead of created as a Word document.
MR. FERONE-When you look at a Stewart's project like this on a big document like that, and you're
going to condense that down to whatever size laptop screen, it might be a little bit more difficult.
MR. MAGOWAN-We'll all be wearing glasses.
MR. TRAVER-Although we would have the same access. We could certainly request a paper copy. In
other words, that would be.
MR. BROWN-Well, that would be a goal of going electronic is to take the stack of 15 sets of everything
that we get from every applicant and maybe make that three or five or we have a copy for the file and
a copy for Town Counsel.
MR. TRAVER-To George's point. There might be an application, say a Stewart's application, where
we would say to Laura, you know, we have the electronic copy, but, you know, just for this one
application could we still have the paper, and we could do that, and that will still be a huge reduction
in paper.
3!5'
Q ueensary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. BROWN-That might be difficult because we get the copies from the applicant. So if you see it
on an agenda, we've only got the five copies. Say we've gone electronic.
MR. HUNSINGER-They can't copy the big sheets.
MR. BROWN-1 mean, we can, but, I mean, we would rely on the applicant to do that. We're not
going to make copies of 50 sheets of a Wal-Mart set for every Board member.
MR. TRAVER-That's all the more consideration to be cautious.
MR. BROWN-Yes, and how do we scan? We do have large format scanner. Typically it's a learn
curve for applicants, but we request that they give us electronic copies of their submittals so we don't
have to scan it. We just drag and click it in the program that we use. That's part of the problem
that Chris was talking about is that there's a little bit of this kind of data integrity when you take a
PDF or you take an electronic version and you drag it over and drop it into this laser fiche program
that Laura puts up on the screen. Sometimes it loses some of the clarity and you try and blow it up
or do something to it and it just gets all pixilated and it's something that we're struggling with right
now with the IT guys.
MR. TRAVER-But that technology would probably change at the same time that we made that leap.
MR. BROWN-That's what we're hoping.
MR. TRAVER-Yes, and I would offer that I think it might be a benefit, whether we're ready to make
that move now or not, that there be maybe an Ad Hoc committee between say members of the
Planning Board, Zoning Board, Town Board or whatever and I would certainly be very interested in
participating in that, to simply continue to monitor what we could do and what the budgetary impact
might be, so that should a grant or something befall us or the Town decide to make that leap, we're
ready to pull the trigger and we know what we don't want to do, and we know what we, because right
now we'd be just starting that process, even if we identified the money tonight. So it would be good,
and again, just on my experience, it's always good to be ready to go, because sometimes you get a
windfall or grant or something.
MR. BROWN-Yes, we've kind of had it on the radar screen of the IT people, which is outsourced. We
don't have anybody in-house. It's Stored Tech. So, you know, it's been on the radar screen.
MR. TRAVER-Sure.
MR. BROWN-Not as responsive as maybe it could be, but, you know, we have identified some of the
dollars when we talk about how much we spend on postage and the man hours we put in putting these
packets together. We don't deliver them anymore, but you know there's probably, what, six or eight
thousand dollars a year that's spent between mailing just packets for Board members, Town Board or
Zoning Board or Planning Board, and the hours it takes to put those things together, and it's something
you could recoup in a couple of years if you made that leap, but again, it's just an update that it's not
any time in the near future.
MR. TRAVER-Well, I appreciate that. I know it's something that the Town's been looking at. I mean,
I'm the one that's sold Ryan. So I know that it's been on the radar, and I think it's entirely appropriate
that it be so, even if the Town does not feel that it's positioned to make that leap right now. It's
certainly something that I think is worth investing in some volunteer time to just ask the question and
look at what the options are and come up with some numbers.
MR. BROWN-Yes.
MR. TRAVER-And I would urge that any members of the Planning Board, Zoning Board, whoever,
that would like to participate and be part of that, and I think we could contribute to that discussion.
MR. BROWN-Fair enough. Next time it comes up, I'll make sure I add that to the conversation.
MR. TRAVER-Thank you.
MR. BROWN-Okay. Thank you.
MR. SHAFER-Craig, how would you handle a big set of plans? I think George sort of asked that
question before, like Stewart's?
36
QQueena:ary ury Hannk)c, Board ()d/23/20[7]
MR. BROWN-Yes, well, what the plan was for an I-Pad Pro which is basically an 11 by 17. It's the
biggest one that they make, and it's, you know, a lot of scrolling and moving around if you want to
look at something specific on the plan.
MR. TRAVER-But there are times when hard copy is a definite advantage. There's no question about
that, but I think that it doesn't have to be one extreme or the other, I think, you know, we can move,
I mean, maybe the goal would be to move completely, I mean, I almost got sick of hearing that around
my office, that we're going to go paperless and we're going to do it, and what you end up with is you
end up with paper less, but not paperless in the sense that there's no more paper. You end up paper
less.
MR. BROWN-Paper lighter.
MR. TRAVER-Paper lighter. Thank you, and I'm sure that that's what would happen, because the vast
majority of the stuff, but we might, even if we took the step to say, we're only going to look at the
site plan printouts and all the pre application material, the application, SEQR and all that stuff, all of
that is, even that would be huge, and we would have it immediately and it would be updated. I can see
a lot of advantages to it and I agree with Craig. I think that, you know, we would recoup the expense
in no time. So it would be better for communication. We would all be, you know, we could mark
them up. We could send them off to Laura for questions. It would be.
MS. WHITE-Not have three stacks on my desk.
MR. TRAVER-That's right.
MR. HUNSINGER-Or boxes in the basement.
MR. TRAVER-Yes. All right. Well, thank you for that.
MR. BROWN-We'll keep it alive, but it's on life support.
MR. TRAVER-Is there any other discussion this evening that the Board wants to talk about before we
adjourn? Then we'll entertain a motion to adjourn.
MR. HUNSINGER-So moved.
MR. VALENTINE-Second.
MOTION TO ADJOURN THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING OF APRIL 25, 2017,
Introduced by George Ferone who moved for its adoption, seconded by Michael Valentine:
Duly adopted this 25" day of April, 2017, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Valentine, Mr. Shafer, Ms. White, Mr. Ferone, Mr. Magowan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Traver
NOES: NONE
MR. JACKOSKI-All right. Thank you, everybody.
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Stephen Traver, Chairman
37