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2006-04-10 SP MTG13 1 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING MTG. #13 APRIL 10, 2006 RES. 204-206 7:00 p.m. TOWN BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT SUPERVISOR DANIEL STEC COUNCILMAN ROGER BOOR COUNCILMAN RICHARD SANFORD COUNCILMAN JOHN STROUGH COUNCILMAN TIM BREWER OFFICIALS PRESENT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT MARILYN RYBA SENIOR PLANNER STUART BAKER MEMBERS OF THE PORC COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN CHRIS HUNSINGER MEMBER GRETCHEN STEFFIN MEMBER LEO RIGBY LAKE GEORGE LAKE CHAMPLAIN REGIONAL PLANNING BOARD MEMBER SHARAH GEBBIE WARREN COUNTY PLANNING OFFICE LAURA MOORE PLANNER 1.0 MS 4 PHASE II STORMWATER GAP ANALYSIS PRESENTATION TO THE TOWN BOARD MARILYN RYBA, SARAH GEBBIE, LAURA MOORE Supervisor Stec-Introduced Sarah Gebbie of the Lake George Lake Champlain Regional Planning Board and Laura Moore Planner from the Warren County Planning Office Executive Director Ryba-Presented the Board with a map covering Phase II MS4 Boundary, the Lake George Basin covered by the Lake George Park Commission Storm water area and the area covered by our current Chapter 147 Storm water regulations. What Sarah and Laura worked on was information from Environmental Conservation they are looking at MS 4 communities Phase II storm water communities and looking at the regulations including our subdivision and zoning as well as our storm water regulations to see where there are any discrepancies with what the State is requiring. By January 2008 we do have to have a revised ordinance in place that corrects any deficiencies. Councilman Brewer-Asked to define MS4 community. Ms. Gebbie-Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System 2003 the Department of Environmental Conservation enacted Phase II Storm water Regulations which applies to municipalities of a certain population, Queensbury being one of them. These communities are considered regulated MS 4’s municipalities that own and operate storm sewer system. It is your road ditches, anything that conveys storm water into a water body anywhere in the US. They have to implement storm water management program which consists of six minimum control measurers. Of the six control measurers two of them requires some sort of local law that will control the storm water runoff on construction and post construction sites. In 2004 the Dept. of Environmental Conservation came up with a model law. (Handed out sample law) Noted that Laura and myself have been trained to do a gap analysis of the communities local laws compared to the model. Ms. Laura Moore-The only designated MS4’s within the County is the City of Glens Falls and the Town of Queensbury. Noted the following has been reviewed, Chapter 136, Chapter 147, Chapter 179 and Chapter A183, compared these with the model law. Under general provisions, Queensbury’s law was stricter than the model, simply because you require disturbance of less than fifteen thousand square feet where the DEC regs is an 2 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 acre. However this only applies to the portion of the Town within the Lake George Basin, it doesn’t apply to the entire town. The model law suggests you can do it as a target area to only the organized areas it is my recommendation that I would see it more of a benefit to the Town of Queensbury to enact it for the entire town. Under Amendment to the Zoning Law, your law is consistent with the model law, some of the thing identified was cross referencing issues, alternate words that you might want to use, you use storm water control, they use storm water pollution prevention, that is just terminology, so that anybody who makes an application this consistency would help them understand that it is DEC regs. and the Queensbury regs in one, they are not applying for two different things. Councilman Boor-But they would have to file with both. Ms. Moore-But it would be consistent with the process. Councilman Boor-Questioned which one would be done first? Ms. Moore-They can be done at the same time. Director Ryba-When the Planning Board reviews storm water plans, anything that is an acre of more has to go to the Department of Environmental Conservation, we cover areas of an acre or less, in the Lake George Basin only at this time, typically most of the th developments need to go through DEC anyway. In January 8 2008 I believe at that point both the DEC and the Town have enforcement provisions, for all of the storm water regulations, so right now it is one acre or more it is only DEC that is looking at that or if th it is a plan that we review then we have some enforcement provisions, after January 8 2008 is that it is both the Town and DEC who does enforcement of the storm water regulations. Councilman Boor-(commenting on the map) It is odd that only half of Glen Lake they are concerned with drainage storm water, Rush Pond they don’t care about at all. I am trying to understand the logic here. Ms. Gebbie-It was based on the 2000 census data so they went to where the populations were. Ms. Moore-This is why the recommendation is to go town wide it is easier in terms of enforcement. Supervisor Stec-Questioned the difference between required and recommended here? We are required to go town wide or Unknown-No. Councilman Sanford-If we did this, who is on first with DEC would it be like SEQRA where one entity would request lead agency status for review? I could see situations where DEC would have a different concern or opinion than the Town and how is that reconciled? Ms. Moore-That is the permitting process. Councilman Sanford-One feels comfortable issuing a permit the other doesn’t. How do you reconcile? Councilman Brewer-There is no guarantee of any approval. If an applicant goes to the Planning Board and DEC and DEC gives them a permit, we found legitimate reasons not to give them a permit we do not have to. Councilman Sanford-We typically either try to sequence at the Planning Board level or condition it upon DEC, you are saying that any approval the Town did would have to be conditioned in terms of also getting the DEC sign off. 3 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Ms. Moore-It is possible, because of this being a mandate there are already changes being made to the model. Councilman Boor-Once we mandate it do we have to abide by revisions and can we back out? Questioned future mandates that we would not be able to get out of. Director Ryba-One of the concerns that I have would be enforcement who is qualified to look at this? I would propose, once this is adopted we are doing enforcement in -----that we are supposed to be investigating these sites and that is a lot of work for staff, the choice is to add staff or get something at the Planning Board stage where you say to the applicant we want an annual certification from your engineer, then staff looks it over to see if it contains everything it needs to contain. Councilman Boor-If our mandates were identical to DEC can’t we put it on DEC to enforce it? Director Ryba-I think DEC is trying to put it onto us. Councilman Sanford-When would the Town entertain a decision on this? Councilman Brewer-Sometime before January 2008. Councilman Strough-I understand from reading the material before is that the Town with its new program does take up a certain liability responsibility. Ms. Gebbie-You can always write it in that you require the contractor to take on some of the responsibility after words. Councilman Strough-What if they don’t do what they are supposed to do and there is a storm water problem the buck stops back here. Ms. Gebbie-You can go back and require them to fix it you can put provisions in, yes there will be more responsibility put on the town. Ms. Moore-Under Article 2 I did note about the amount of one on one time that will be spent by local staff, to ensure an applicant has complied with the plans that are filed, however there is always assistance that is outside of that such as Soil and Water, Sarah’s office, local advances’ groups, the County Planning Office when we have that time, so yes, we have allowed one on one staff time but there is always services around you that can provide assistance. Under amendment 3.5 this is the kind of review, here is where I identified some cross referencing issues if an applicant applies for a subdivision they are directed to look at Chapter 147, directed to look at 183, directed to look at 179, it would be nice, to make it easier for an applicant to review at one location for all storm water information and if the word storm water shows up in the zoning please refer to Chapter 147, so it is all in one location, they are not hunting for it within the ordinance. Councilman Strough-All in one location, that is one of the other issues besides storm water that makes it easier for the applicant to have our open space plan and everything else in on location. Councilman Sanford-Right now under all subdivision we do storm water management, is that correct? Ms. Moore-It is very detailed, yes. Councilman Sanford-We do at the Town so that would not be anything additional that we would assuming by this because we already do it, am I correct? Ms. Moore-There are a lot of things that the Towns Ordinance already handles and addresses, many of those items. There are very few legislative items that I thought needed to be added, some wording changes, that was the primary thing, cross referencing issues. The last item was Article 6 was the advent and enforcement and right now there 4 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 isn’t a fee for storm water permit, you might want to think about that if it comes out. Other than that I thought it was consistent with the model law, the fact that you had to do it for the Lake George Park Commission in 1999 gave you a great basis. Councilman Sanford-To summarize what I think I am hearing is when we do it, we are doing it now that is as strict or stricter than the model law however there are certain gaps where you would encourage us to evaluate whether we want to do it in those areas. Director Ryba-Correct. Councilman Strough-Questioned if Mr. Decker was working on storm water control that he would like to see all eleven municipalities adopt along the Lake George Basin? Supervisor Stec-The Albany Law Center collected all the various regulations from around the lake and is going through them and is trying to propose something for consistency. I will venture to guess that whatever they propose for consistency we will be on the right end of that bell curve as well. Ours will all ready be more restrictive. The compliant on the Basin isn’t that Queensbury doesn’t have enough regulations or control it is that the others don’t. They are going to encourage everyone else to come up a little bit. Councilman Strough-I will assume that whatever Mr. Decker comes up with will be consistent with our MS4 program. Ms. Moore-The hope is to do one district so you are only submitting one NLI for the entire County and you do not have right now it is the City of Glens Falls, Queensbury and Warren County. Director Ryba-What Laura is referring to is that every year we have to have a report due in June, in May we will be setting a public hearing we will get public comment on the report, we are meeting with Highway, and other staff to get the draft report in line so we can have it available for people to review. We have been discussing is seeing how we can have every community just do one report instead of each community do a separate report. Part of all of this implementation for the minimum control measurers Lake Champlain Lake George Regional Planning Board put together a grant application which was awarded in 2004 and we just got the contract so we are helping the communities to do different things. All the communities are involved so it makes sense to do one report that is under investigation. In the mean time Queensbury is still going to have to complete its own report for this past year. Councilman Boor-Page 4 on sample local law … refers to landing areas, is that for planes? Unknown-Yes. Ms. Moore-Noted with each of the check list there was work sheets presented to the Town Board that went along with each item to be changed. Councilman Boor-Questioned if Ski areas were subject to this? Ms. Moore-You would need some type of review. Councilman Boor-Even if they were existing? Ms. Moore-Any improvements to the site, if you wanted to retro, you could retro. Councilman Boor-It is not a concern, just again am trying to think about situations. Ms. Moore-In the long run however your committee on the Comp Plan the Ordinance, interested parties that are in your committee are going to take this information and digest it and come up with your ultimate written documents. 5 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Director Ryba-It is less than two years away, the thing is going through the first steps seeing what needs to be added or the suggestions that need to be added and I think the suggestion first off of having it all in one place and then having perhaps the subdivision regulations and the zoning code return to Chapter 147, here is the items of the Code that come from these implementation regs and here is some additional language and then go through it and make the decision. Do you want it to apply to the entire community do you want it to comply to only require parts of the community? It is a lot more work but in terms of consistency and that is something that we have been hearing is people want to know that we are consistent and sometimes people do not understand that oh, this rule only applies under certain situations and that is one of the toughest things to explain to people because they think you are not being consistent but you are, you are following the rules. We have some things to outline, it does not have to be done right away but it is something that we should be working on. Councilman Sanford-This is not applicable to Chestertown or Warrensburg, this is only Queensbury and Glens Falls. Ms. Gebbie-They are not required to but the Warren County Soil and Water District got a grant to go and present this gap analysis to the other communities in the County other than Glens Falls and Queensbury and a lot of them are considering adopting it because they want to be in control of the enforcement. Sometimes they feel that DEC isn’t doing a good enough job so they want to be able to put their Code Enforcement in service. Councilman Sanford-Going back to the marina with DEC, they required and responsibility for it and they seemed to have no problem at all with the Town of Queensbury getting involved with it. Looking at it from a State of New York taxpayer, here we are paying taxes for DEC and then DEC is now displacing responsibility onto local towns. Local towns are incurring costs, increasing taxes and I do not think DEC budget is dropping accordingly. Do you ever think this through in terms of this is creating an additional tax burden to the people of the State by having two agencies doing pretty much the same thing and one being a State Agency looking to displace their responsibility? That was my point on the marinas. They had their little boats and they drove around and they were supposed to make sure that these boats were permitted at all these locations and they basically encouraged the Town to take on this duty. Other than this is a feel good thing that we want to do good things with storm water we want to be consistent, you are saying right in here this is going to be an extra burden to the Town at what cost? Councilman Strough-This is part of a National Program isn’t it? Ms. Gebbie-Yes, the EPA. Councilman Sanford-I do not feel confident that if we take on this responsibility they will shrink the budget of DEC, that is my point. Ms Gebbie-There is a grant in place that works with the Warren County Soil and Water District to do a lot of this work for you. The Storm Water Management Program has six parts and they are addressing a portion of each of them and that is a two year grant it is going to do a lot of work for these MS4’s. There has been funding provided for positions such as mine in each regional planning board in the State so that we can go to the regulated MS4’s and help you, that is what I am here for these eight communities to help out with these things. Director Ryba-A big point is ultimately when the program is over in terms of the grant program we are still going to be dealing with the enforcement. Supervisor Stec-Thanked you for coming. 2.0 PORC/SARATOGA ASSOCIATES PRESENTATION OF CLUP 6 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 PROGRESS Chairman of PORC Chris Hunsinger-We had scheduled a Town Board workshop back a year ago, originally it was to be in March, for a variety of reasons it worked out to be better in April, this was always part of the work plan for Saratoga Associates. It was always part of the goal of the Committee as well, to keep the Town Board up to date on where we are, where we are headed and to feed you draft documents as we move forward. With me from the Committee are Gretchen Steffan, Leo Rigby at least two other members were out of town today. Turned this discussion over to Saratoga Associates. Noted that the Committee has not discussed the draft yet. Councilman Sanford-Just a question, Chris, throughout all of this back and forth on communications, what I have here in front of me is a memorandum dated September 29, 2005, which references the events and dates, you mentioned just a minute ago originally it was going to be in March but made sense to wait until April, actually mine said February when we were supposed to receive the Town Board update. Sr. Planner Stu Baker-That agenda was actually amended in January there is an updated memo. Chairman Hunsinger-Actually part of what happened was the updated memo was dated th January 19 inadvertently omitted the Town Board workshop. We had a conversation with Stu and George Homsy and myself and we said well that was just an over sight it was always part of the work plan. Councilman Sanford-One other question, since I am new to the Town Board effective th January 1, 2006 according to this schedule it was supposed to be an October 17 Town Board update, did that take place? Chairman Hunsinger-It did. It was right after the kick off and we met with the Town Board. Basically the presentation at that point in time was we introduced Saratoga Associates to the Town Board and they ran through the schedule and one of the, and this is as much for the public as it is for the Town Board. I have just been really pleased with the Town’s website. Literally everything that the Committee has done is on the towns website including copies of reports that I suggested be distributed to the Committee those are even on the site. The presentation from October is there if you want to go back and review it and find out what was presented back in October it is there. All the Committee presentations are there all the meeting agendas all the meeting notes literally every document that the committee has prepared or drafted is there on the Towns website. I will introduce George Homsy who is principal with Saratoga Associates and with him is Joe Catalano, Joe is the Attorney who is working on the actual zoning. Mr. Homsy-I helped work on the policy part with the Town Joe makes sure everything we end up putting into the Code is legal and correct. I know you printed this all out but this is the color version, it also has a map in the back which is the traffic plan recommendations map which we have also up on the board which we have not as of yet distributed to the Town Board and the Committee. My agenda is to talk about the plan, the visions and goals that start off the plan and drive the plan and then go through the recommendations and then I will talk about the next steps. One of the next steps that I want to make sure happens is that as you guys have comments and as the Town Board we start getting those fed back tonight as you over the next couple of weeks spend time looking thorough the document, funnel either a written comments or e-mail comments through Stu who is the Town’s Project Manager and he will get them all to me and also pass them out to the committee. Mr. Joe Catalano-Since this is the first time before the Town Board I just being an Attorney I always start with the process. Right now it is my understanding the Town Board created the Committee and authorized the Committee to prepare a plan, we are in the middle of that process. Once the Committee feels that they have a draft which to the Committee’s mind is appropriate for public review the Committee is going to have to hold the public hearing on the draft plan. The Committee by law has to hold the public 7 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 hearing on the plan before the Committee can adopt the plan and forward it to the Town Board. The Town Board ultimately has the legislative authority to adopt the plan by Local Law. With that authority when the plan gets to the Town Board, the Town Board has the authority and jurisdiction to change the plan or adopt it as is to make some amendments or not to adopt it at all. So, we are in the planning stage with the Committee it is a good idea that we have meetings like this to make sure things are on track and that the Town Board knows what is going on along the process. It will ultimately go to the Town Board for Town Board final decision on the plan. Mr. Homsy-One of the things you mentioned was the public hearing, we will actually be having more Town Meetings which are not the official public hearings but based on the draft of the plan as well. To continue getting public input. Attorney Catalano-Once the Committee is comfortable with the plan and has the public hearing it is my understanding that the Committee is also authorized to start drafting, preparing amendments to the Zoning that would be consistent with the plan. Councilman Sanford-We will be discussing that tonight once we get something like this as a point of departure. I was not here when this Committee was set up and maybe you are the lawyer maybe you could give me a little advice before we begin. In response to some of the issues that Gretchen mentioned in her letter which we will be discussing later with PORC, I have done a little research, I am using this which is sort of takes the Town Law and puts it in a Town Law Manuel for dummies. Citizens Committees and it says, Although not specifically authorized by statue, Town Boards are increasingly ..to appoint one or more citizens committees to advise them on particular matters. The important matter here is that the Town Board cannot delegate its authority or authorize the spending of public monies by private persons. The role of such committees is advisory only. The makeup can very in size and often includes one or more members of existing boards or bodies of the Town. For example, the Town may set up a master plan advisory committee or local citizens with expertise in land use issues and appoint the Chairman of the Planning Board to the Committee and the Town Board Member as an adhoc member. What I would like to keep in mind as we talk about this is what I see most important here is their statement that the important factor is that the Town Board cannot delegate its authority and it goes on. Attorney Catalano-Let me just point out that, that paragraph that you read doesn’t say the whole picture, because we are talking about a comprehensive land process and there is a separate Town Law Statue that governs the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan. In that statue it authorizes the Town Board to appoint a Comprehensive Land Committee or a Committee to prepare the Comprehensive Plan. That is using somewhat outdated language because you do not use the Master Plan language. Councilman Sanford-I do not know about that. Attorney Catalano-The idea is that the Town Board has delegated authority to repair the plan consistent with the State Town Law and that authority is the authority to prepare a draft plan that goes back to the Town Board. It is not designating the authority to actually adopt the plan that is going to be binding on the Town. Councilman Sanford-Not to belabor the point, I am not sure if our minutes will reflect your understanding. I read some of the initial minutes of the Town if you read that that is not necessarily what … Chairman. Hunsinger-For what it is worth it clearly the opinion of the committee, we have had that total understanding is all we are doing is presenting the draft plan to the Town Board. We are advisory only. We talk about that at almost every meeting. Supervisor Stec-I think I might know what you are referring to and frankly there are other resolutions to look at ie the resolution that authorized spending the money to hire Saratoga Associates so I would not put all the eggs in the formation of PORC resolution 8 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 basket, these are all questions that are probably more appropriate for our Attorney, probably not germane to this instances discussion. Chairman Hunsinger-That is a good example that you brought up Dan, the request for proposals was prepared by the Town the Committee just acted as a advisory and we made the recommendation to the Town Board. It was the Town Board that actually hired Saratoga Associates. Councilman Sanford-I understand that, I was just trying to understand what is in your thinking process because in Gretchen’s letter she talked about how additions or subtractions to the PORC Committee, she got a little upset, she said that the PORC Committee had discussed whether to add members and I looked at this and read it I questioned whether that was within the jurisdiction of the PORC Committee. Supervisor Stec-They would have asked us to add members. Chairman Hunsinger-The discussion was to ask the Town Board… Mr. Homsy-What I would like to do now is go thorough what we have got now in terms of a draft. The visions and goals are on page 5, this is a vision that was created by the Committee, its goal is to set the stage it is sort of you paint the picture of the community where you would like to be very general terms and you measure your goals you measure your recommendations against that. This is the first part that paints that picture. It is different however, I know that this track plan is up on the web site it is different than the one that we presented at the Town wide meeting the last time we did that, we took feed back from that and turned it over in Committee and recreated this vision. The goals are essentially the same as what we had presented there. I will not read through all of them the thrust of many of them is well, it’s a look and feel thrust that we are getting to and that makes sense for what Queensbury is in its development process. The title of the draft document is Shaping Success, designing the future of Queensbury and that is because in many ways Queensbury is a very successful community. The Commercial success is obvious, you have got a lot of great stores, a great tax base a lot of places in up State New York would be envious. In addition you have great neighborhoods, places to live, people are very happy here it is a popular place to live, so there is that success. So, now what we are considering is the next stage in development which is how you protect your rural character how you shape that success for the future. One of the thrusts that we are discussing in this plan is the idea that the look and feel of the community matters. In many ways we want to perhaps and it is especially important in some of the commercial areas we want to get away from the idea that the Code should control every little bit of what goes in it out of these areas but instead controls more the look and feel of it. Make sure it is pedestrian friendly, which we hear time and time again. Making sure it looks like it protects rural character or protects character that is people consider to be Queens bury character. So, this is sort of the thrust of discussions we have in the plan, this idea of controlling the look and feel of the community. Many of the goals start to move us toward that, protecting the character of the community. Now in terms of recommendations, what we are (page 13) it is called Neighborhoods, and the way we have looked at the neighborhoods, and we discussed the neighborhoods is that it is not radically different from the way Queensbury is laid out now. You have the denser area around the City of Glens Falls, it is a little more suburban and moderate as you go further out and then you have the rural areas in the third ring. So, what we have done for Planning Areas, recommendations, as you can see them on the map is devise sort of three rings. The tan ring, and they do not look like rings they look like lines but that is because we put other areas on there, is what we consider the neighborhood planning area. The yellow one which is in the center is the more moderate density residential area and then the lighter yellow color in most of the rest of the community is the more rural area. Now, these are planning areas and I want to say upfront these are not zones. We are not down to creating zones yet that is an important thing to keep in mind. These tend to lead us to the zones but we have not started mapping out zones yet and quite frankly that is why these bubbles are fairly loose. These by and large don’t go along property boundaries. So, the recommendations for the neighborhood planning area, they entertain one, start on the next page which is page 14 and there you have a total of three recommendations 9 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 which are to maintain and strengthen the grid the connections that exist there. This is an important component in terms of walk ability, that is the first recommendation. Councilman Boor-I think everyone loves documents that have pictures and I think they are powerful and I am wondering when you adopt a plan and it has pictures in it is it germane and appropriate to use those pictures when the applicants become before you as characterizations of this is what we expect suburban to look like. Mr. Homsy-Yes Councilman Boor-I really like what you show as suburban because I consider it rural, that is just my philosophy. I would like to think that is suburban that would be excellent, and what I am getting at I think it is very important that the pictures accurately depict what we are calling this, that and the other. Mr. Homsy-At the point you are right and as you go through if there are other better pictures, that one you like, there is a blank there that I am still trying to fill in. There are going to be others relating to other things. As you see those make notes, especially if you know particular places. Recommendation two is essentially at the top of page 15, is another thing that hits on the walk ability of the community that is in this area we need to start installing sidewalks in the community. That is one of the most important things in terms of creating a walk-able community is people have to have safe places to walk. In this area you drive around and you do see a lot of sidewalks already, so it is not like this is a new idea for this part of town. It is just a matter of making sure that it is maintained, strengthening it in some places. Recommendation three, is to because this is a denser area and this is also the area that is best served by infrastructure, so that is place where if you are going to encourage denser growth you do so. So, that is where you might allow two family homes in neighborhoods and then along the major roads, you might allow bigger dwellings. You know the denser residential building, small apartment buildings things like that. Those are the three major recommendations for the neighborhood residential area. Moderate Density Residential Area, which is the large yellow area, Page 17 The goal here is to increase connections. We are not talking about a grid in this area because a lot of it is built out and you cannot construct a grid over a lot of these places. We can start thinking about connections, because that is important both in terms of traffic on major roads providing more direct driving and walking routes and that is the second most important factor in creating walk-able communities is having interesting and various places to go. That also makes it safer in terms of walking and then places have found that when having multiple ways to get to houses for emergency vehicles is important and it felt right these can reduce infrastructure and public service cuts as well. The two recommendations in terms of this, sort of sub recommendations are you start to look for places where maybe you do make vehicle connections, but almost as important is you find places where you make pedestrian connections and trail connections between these kinds of subdivisions, so that a lot of these are not isolated pockets but they start to turn into a little bit greater neighborhoods. That can be done thorough walking or through driving as well. The second recommendation similar to what we had in the denser area, which is about sidewalks but this is for just new developments. The goal here to is start the process and in some of these areas where you decide to put a lot of homes in, the places that are not built, but as you get new developments sidewalks go in there because you want to create walk ability. The reality of the situation is a net work of sidewalks is what you really need to do walk ability and that does not happen over night, that is going to take time. As if you are looking for five or ten years down the line things start to come together as areas are developed and re-developed so that is what is important here. The third recommendation is that in this area a subdivision should be conservation subdivisions. It is an improved form of cluster design. What it does is instead of just laying out the subdivision the way engineers typically do, and subdividing all the land and putting the houses on what their acreage, the way it is typically done. The first thing you look at, is you look for what open space wants to be preserved. Perhaps it is along a network which I will describe a little bit more in the next chapter, perhaps it is along some open space that is identified in the open space plan. Perhaps it is a place to protect a rural view or something that is another community benefit. That is identified first then the house lots, the houses are put in the streets drawn and the housing units, the housing lot lines are put in. There is a good illustration of that on the bottom of 10 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 page 19, which shows that instead of the ..subdivision which is on the left where every piece of land is taken up by a lot what you have you start to concentrate things on the right but if you look at the way the concentration is done it provides each of those houses with a view, or an environmental value something so it is not only the community that benefits by preserving in this case say, a view from the road which is on the bottom of the picture but each of these units also gets to have this view, they just do not have to worry about mowing all their lawn. They get the benefits without having to worry about the costs. Studies have shown that these kinds of Conservation Subdivisions tend to be more valuable to the homeowners as well as to the community. They are better many ways to the developers because there is a lot less road to the picture to the right then there is on the left which also helps in some ways with the storm water issues because you have a lot less impervious surface. Page 20 The recommendation that you maintain a moderate density in this area, which is roughly about one unit some three acre zones and some one acre zones, we are saying roughly one unit per every two acres although people who connect to public water and sewer perhaps the community wants to consider giving a density bonus for that. That is essentially what would be in the moderate residential area. Then the Rural Residential Area, we are looking at maintaining mobile rural density, providing some density bonuses for community amenities. We are thinking one house per ten acres is appropriate, although the density might be increased to one house per five acres if a subdivision is built of multi units and they do as this says you should require a conservation subdivision. We are also starting to think that in a little bit different than many codes are written in New York State. Instead of saying people should build on one acre lots or half acre lots, we are talking about density. So, you would have a one acre lots would be two units per acre, because what we do not want to do when you are trying to do a conservation subdivision is restrict people to say well, if we have this is my acre we have to put one house here, one house here. We want to encourage perhaps putting two houses here and letting people enjoy keeping half of it open space. So, we start to phrase things a little bit differently in that regard and define things a little bit differently, eventually if this is what the community likes this will be redefined in the code as well. Recommendation two, is that you have conservation subdivision would be required in rural residential area as well. Recommendation three, it requires site plan review for these units. This is something that the principal in charge of the project, already rein me in on. The goal of the committee was that we want to preserve the rural character and so one of the tools that I thought of was we are working with the Boards to say if you do your house this way perhaps that is not appropriate. Working with the boards to decide how the houses should go in up there. In reality site plan review even though there might not be regulations around it the discussion that goes back and forth could get onerous in terms of individual houses. So, we are think and he was starting to brain storm with some ideas as well and I presume we will get some from the Town Board and the Committee in terms of ways to preserve that character that are easier for people to meet. One thing might be education, one thing might be a simple set of guidelines out there that would sort of help people understand what would be appropriate. We start that on the next page in terms of the guidelines to help people understand what is appropriate development to preserve our kinds of character. This is something that could easily expanded upon and show people what would be good. What would help minimize the visual impact of the buildings which is what when people say preserve rural character, they do not want to see lots and buildings. So, that is the first section, that is neighborhoods. On page 23 we are starting with the Natural Environment Councilman Sanford-In the 1998 Comprehensive Land Use Plan there might have been twelve or fourteen neighborhoods that were identified and in there they talked about the history, where they have been where they are going they talked about detailed specific characteristics, specific desired traits associated with those neighborhoods and gave in essence when you read the document as clumsy a document as it was it gave you at least an appreciation for that area and where you can move into the future. In all due respect I read your section on your three neighborhoods I came away with ok, dense, not so dense and more rural. Mr. Homsy-You had wished there was more sort of design guidelines? Councilman Sanford-Kind of looking for this document to basically provide the parameters upon which decision making can take place. A good example would be along 11 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 this Bay Road we had a developer a very controversial issue wanted to put a hundred and seventy four apartments in a PO Zone, we looked to the old 1998 Comprehensive Land Use Plan we were able to say if you read that neighborhood description it talk in terms of the vision, it talked in terms of a professional office not encouraging that type of thing. It gave a sense of direction so that the zoning could reinforce the vision for the neighborhood. As a site constructive criticism here this is generalities. It does not give any kind of direction that I can think of other than dense, less dense, rural. Mr. Homsy-All right, no that is exactly what I want. Councilman Sanford-I was going to wait until the end and share some of these when the appropriate time comes but I could not resist sort of letting that out. It looked very simplistic and general. Mr. Homsy-Ok, that is what we want to hear from. Attorney Catalano-The other thing is that leads to a larger issue is and your zoning is very much like this, is very specific and ridged as far as the number of zones that you have and the fact that a lot of those zones are already built out or underutilized for the intent that they were formed for. So, if the committee is working on and is trying in fact to simplify create a broader brush stroke on some of these areas as far as the plans. Councilman Sanford-That is one of the things that kind of upset me, when I was on the Planning Board when we requested the moratorium in stead of a moratorium we got this process. In there the reason why we wanted the moratorium and then this process was considered important was because we were having things call them abuses, but we were having development coming up that was very, very concerning and we wanted to have them addressed. We were having projects being built in flood plains and in wetlands and we wanted to have basically the strength to basically go and say no, this is not what we want in this town. But, when I was reading this document it is weaker in a lot of ways then the other document in terms of providing justification for the zoning. The zoning has to follow the comprehensive land use plan. This is talks in terms of generalities and feel good things but it doesn’t get in terms of setting a direction. Councilman Boor-It does bring up an interesting yin and yang it is like if it sounds to me that you think we have ridged zoning well, one of them has to be firm either the Comprehensive Land Use Plan paint such an indelible image that the zoning does not have to do much, because the Comprehensive Land Use Plan is clear as a bell. Now, if you go with a very general Comprehensive Land Use Plan it almost requires incredibly strict zoning, because one of them has to have teeth. I am not actually concerned which one it is but one of them has to provide a mechanism. Councilman Sanford-We were looking for teeth, I could look at what was said here in one of the neighborhoods, neighborhood one, and I could say, we need to have sidewalks, but go ahead and build in two feet of water. Go ahead and build in that wetland. I want to have sidewalks too, but the real reason why the moratorium was suggested was because we had severe infrastructure abuses taking place, and they are not really touched upon in here. Director Ryba-I think the next section is the Natural Environment and that is also part of the comp plan and it probably explains some of that. Mr. Homsy-It explains some of it but those are exactly the kinds of things that we need to hear, so that is fine. In the Natural Environment Section starting on page 23 the first recommendation the water trans wetlands as an organizing element for the development. What I mean is if you take a look on the next page 24, you see a map, what we did when you have a comprehensive plan we take a look at all the areas of high conservation value, your steep slopes your wetlands things like that, take a look at developable places, places along roads, places with infrastructure and we create a map of areas of conflict and areas of where there is not such conflict and that exercise led us to a different thing this time which is this idea that all these waterways and for people who live in Queensbury this is probably not rocket science. But, this is what we started to see is that there is this 12 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 little network illustrated by this dash line that sort of goes through wetlands, goes through streamways and could serve as a back bone for organizing things like conservation subdivision. So, when you need to decide as a community you want the open space to be preserved in any particular subdivision you might say, individually you can point them to what the community sees as values and those values being the wetlands, those values being some of the stream corridors, some of these things along this skeletal network for the community. That is one of the problems that a lot of communities face when trying to do conservation subdivision is each project is judged individually. What we are trying to construct here and this meshes with the open space plan and certainly those are the two documents that could guide that is the idea that there is a town wide vision for conservation subdivisions and for the open space and things that should be preserved. Now, one note this is a network of natural features, it is not a proposed trail, it is a way of organizing things. There are trail options in some of these areas but it is more of a natural system, not necessarily something … Councilman Boor-Something you would want to maintain as natural. Mr. Homsy-Exactly, you are right. Some of it is being done already. It is stuff that Queensbury has been doing it for awhile some of these things. Recommendation two is establish an open space preservation program which stems more or less you have done the open space planning you started that process before this document will end up picking up on some of that stuff. I lot of that will be helped along by the next step which is actually making plans to preserve the open space. That goes hand in hand with recommendation three which is on page 26 which is consider the creation of a Town Fund for Open Space Conservation, because Open Space Conservation is nice but people own the land they, some people give it away and that is one of the strategies that you can put into it. Work with communities, work with conscientious people who may have valuable parts of land and want to see the open space preserved and they often donate conservation easements to communities. But, also many communities have to pay for it and so there are a number of strategies that New York State Communities use to do that. So, that is something that you need to consider, you should talk about considering as a tool to ..preserving open space. Recommendation four, builds on something that has been in development for awhile, both in terms of the Rush Pond Trail System which has been under development and embracing other aspects of the Town Open Space Plan in terms of exploring options for trails. Ways for the public to get into some of these natural areas because not all of us can have homes with great views, can have lots of property where we can walk around and enjoy rural areas. So, that is the recommendation for highlights. Recommendation five, is something that I know that the Town is also undergoing in some way shape or form at the moment, is to work on, a town vision for that water shed land. This is something that we actually need to talk a little bit more about in the Committee as well, in terms of whether what parts of it the Committee; the Town wants to do with it. Recommendation six is to re-examine the health of Glen and Sunnyside Lakes and decide if there are any problems and figure a way to fix them. The development on there is just a signal that these things need to be kept in mind. Recommendation seven is to create instead of a zone for water front but to create an overlay district around waterfront areas to put a little more, to basically build on the zoning in these areas and do things that will protect water quality promote walk ability in these denser areas, find ways to do that within an overlay district that you would not necessarily apply these regulations to the rest of the zone. Another one and this is a common one we hear in Up State New York is all the light pollution, ways to get that under control. I know that the Town has some controls in this way, this recommendation is to make sure that it is applied Town wide. Supervisor Stec-I like recommendation eight very much. Mr. Homsy-Recommendation nine, is purchasing renewal power for the Town and this is a bigger picture item that a lot of communities are starting to do. It is an issue where they can become leaders and models for the rest of the citizenry. I know that, I list on page 31 a number of municipalities that have made commitments like this it is just something that, it is something that we suggest doing in communities that I work in, we suggest doing something like this. 13 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Councilman Boor-Are any of these actually generating or are they? Mr. Homsy-On no, it is all the way they purchase. Councilman Boor-Some of them might be generated too.. Mr. Homsy-As well, the nice thing and this is sort of incorporated in recommendation ten is that idea, maybe there are ways that the community can for example when you are trying to find incorporate more green policies into the Town maybe the town decides it wants to be a show case for something like that. There are grants that help pay for this, isn’t something that the Town has to shoulder on its own. It can be teaching or businesses and citizens in the community and as energy prices go up things like solar panels, hybrid cars start to make a lot of sense fiscally as well. Recommendation twelve is a little bit redundant with the earlier recommendation about the City of Glens Falls area it is more of a reminder to talk about this in the committee a little bit more. Councilman Boor-I think all the reservoirs not just Butler, right? Mr. Homsy-Yea, the water shed properties is what you are talking about. Supervisor Stec-Not to interrupt I do not want to get off the path because we are making good progress but Marilyn do you have any idea because it has been mentioned twice now when we might hear about that grant? All the indications that I have gotten from Mayor Akins in the numerous conversations I have had with him about this and other things they are looking to cooperate with us on this so I, but we are all waiting to hear about this grant. These recommendations will be easy to work with the City on. Mr. Homsy-Tons of neighborhood commercial centers the recommendations, there are four areas that we have identified as neighborhood commercial centers existing, Bay Road, 149, Ridge Road and 149, Aviation Road and Dixon Ave., and the Oneida Corners Intersection. Councilman Boor-We might have something going there already, in preservation of the Grange. Mr. Homsy-A lot of these again, the plan is not that radical from a lot of things that happen in the Town and here you have design guidelines in some of these areas and they just need to be reviewed and make sure that they are appropriate and then you know, once ..are appropriated and incorporated into the code, if changes need to be made. So, that is recommendation one. Recommendation two is to implement pedestrian safety measures within these areas. Three of them are within more rural areas it is not like you are going to start extending sidewalks into the community. The one exception would be the one that is closest to the school campus on Aviation Road. Supervisor Stec-Just as an aside there is a traffic study that is in the works right now a GFTC working in loose concert with an interior traffic issue with the school. A lot of this is stuff that we have pieces and part already on one burner or the other. But, just so you know that is also one that is going to be in full swing here in the near future. I think Paul Naylor left but he was very close to getting a lot more done than he did we ran, this was long before any of us, but some neighbor resistance in trying to widen that road but the stretch that you are talking about is something that is current again. Mr. Homsy-Many of these are not current things in the Code and are currently underway programs, once you put them into the Comprehensive Plan it both reminds people of it, gives guidance and quite frankly strengthens grant opportunities because they see that this individual effort is part of a bigger picture. We were just asked today at a Department of State grant workshop and fitting these things into the bigger picture is an important criteria that they use in creating these grants. So, that is why I tend to put a lot of things into the plan. The final recommendation is to create a neighborhood the idea of a floating district that the Town at some point may decide there is a commercial area that is really warranted somewhere as some of these places start to grow put it at a particular intersection and then implement the design guidelines to make sure that it fits in with the 14 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 community. One thing I am glossing over and is mentioned here and if it is not strong enough that is something you can tell me is the idea that these design guidelines vary for different parts of town. Obviously the northern parts of town we have heard and many of the public meetings have to do more with the Adirondack looking feel of things, the southern parts of town we have heard has to do more with spinning off more from what is in Glens Falls. You are not going to duplicate that density you are not going to create a City but as you in your commercial buildings that is sort of the guidance the design that people may be looking towards. In terms of the Commercial Mixed Use Corridors, this is perhaps where we have the most changes. These are outlined in two colors here, kind of three. The red is the major portion, the pink is the less intensive portion, and then there is the brown over Main Street and then the brown circle over Dix Avenue. Councilman Sanford-What is the pink? I know the red. Councilman Boor-Commercial Mixed Use Moderate. Councilman Sanford-What road is that? Councilman Boor-Bay Road and Quaker.. Mr. Homsy-The goals here, or the recommendation here are, the goals that we try and emphasis with these recommendations is creating the standards for architecture site layout that move the town toward the vision that they outlined in the earlier pages. Making a place pedestrian and bike friendly, requiring these connections between residential neighborhoods and the commercial places so people have a place to walk and again if possible to you are able to drive more to and take the burden off the heavier roads. The visual clutter of commercial corridor signage and develop an economic program that reflects the communities land use goals while keeping up its tax and jobs base. Those are the goals that specifically help drive these recommendations. Councilman Sanford-I have got a lot to say on it ..do that off line on that, what you are saying here I do not think anybody is going to say they have any objections to it and it sounds fine in an academic context but in a practical sense and I read through this everything is judgmental and you are missing the point that certain developers will work this system and take advantage of it, worse than it is being done now. I guess no one sat down and explained to you the geneses of some of our concerns a few years back with all of this. The geneses that I had from the Planning Board was that we have people who are exploiting situations. For example you are big on market forces dictating, well that means that everything will be multi family housing because we do not have light industrial demand right now. So, if you let the market place dictate it we will never earmark certain areas for future career opportunities for people instead what we will do is we will just build multi family that is market driven. We have real concerns here in this community Mr. Homsy-You had mentioned that, and because you mentioned that and that is your, exactly one hundred percent right and by you mentioning it what you did was you triggered my mind that maybe I need to be a little bit more specific in this. So, then for example the commercial corridor there are restrictions in terms of where residential should go because you also without, you cannot get real mixed use if as you said residential ends up swamps the whole corridor. Within the industrial area. Councilman Boor-When you refer to mixed use I can go a lot of places with mixed use and I guess what you are referring to is residential and some form of commercial? I can see industrial and commercial and so I do not want to get boxed into this is the only thing we are concerned with. There are a lot of different types of Councilman Sanford-But here is the philosophical …has been in this section that I saw Roger was paying less attention to zone prescribing uses and deal more with our architectural standards and a look and a feel in terms of how the buildings are built. Attorney Catalano-In the context of what is there now and also to make accommodation for future development as well. 15 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Councilman Sanford-Here we have a situation right here right across the street from the Town Hall, Town Building, totally lost in this process was the Town Board went through very difficult process to make sure that one hundred and seventy four apartment buildings one built on the corner of Blind Rock and Bay Road based on this definition that would be fine. That would be fine as long as they were designed in a way that was esthetically appealing because we are not going to concentrate on the use we are going to concentrate on the look and the feel for the community. Mr. Homsy-It is the look and feel but within the prescribed not specific uses but for example and I do not know the details of that project but in these areas along the road you would not allow necessarily, you would not allow residential here because that is, you do not get vibrancy in commercial in mixed use areas if it is all residential. You might allow upper floors if someone wanted to put commercial on the first floor and then allow upper floor residential or you could allow behind certain places. Councilman Sanford-I will just leave it alone, when I was reviewing this I was saying we do not live in that world in Queensbury we live in a world in Queensbury where there are skilled groups of people representing developments and they are ready to go take advantage of a situation and what you are assuming is that everybody has good intentions and that community boards and planning boards are going to be able to get the right thing done. Attorney Catalano-You are also assuming why wouldn’t you want the Town to be in an equal position to those savvy developers that you are talking about? Councilman Sanford-I certainly do want it but basically the way in which this is reading gives me less assurance as opposed to what you currently have. Mr. Homsy-What you are telling me now is that, because what you say is what I try to convey and obviously I need to, Councilman Boor-This is fine Mr. Homsy-it’s the words. Councilman Boor-if you have extremely stringent zoning. Attorney Catalano-Not so much stringent as clear. Councilman Boor-That is what I tried to get at earlier, I have no problem with the general description but if you are going to go loose on one end you have got to make sure you close the loop holes on the other. I do not care really which one it is but the tools have to be available where the lay boards that ultimately review these project understand very clearly what is supposed to be here and what it is supposed to look like. Lets face it politics infuses in everywhere and I want it clear what is allowed and what isn’t. What is acceptable and what isn’t. What do we really want this place to look like twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years from now. As Mr. Sanford pointed out we have a situation now where market forces are driving a lot of what gets done. That is not good planning. Mr. Homsy-You are right and those things are what we are trying to lead to and we are going to have to work out the language either here or in the code. Chairman Hunsinger-But see one of the things that we have been trying to do with this and you will recall these discussions when you were on the Planning Board Richard, one of the things we do not have now is design guidelines. Councilman Sanford-I agree with you on that. Chairman Hunsinger-That is almost a trade off, the trade off is we are going away from very ridged specified uses where you cannot do this or that here or there into very strict design guidelines. That is really, that has been the planner’s answers if you will to 16 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 ..instead of three acre lots with houses spread you know a hundred and fifty yards apart every as you drive down the road, that is based on use. So, if you are not going to have the control of use you are going to have the control of design. Councilman Boor-You do not want to have just have a lot of nice looking homes and no business. Chairman Hunsinger-Of course not. Councilman Boor-That is my point. Mr. Homsy-Don’t minimize the power of…what you do not have. Councilman Sanford-Mr. Strough…in other words he is talking about professional office and then you will also have design criteria within a professional office in certain localities. Councilman Strough-Not only that but I also showed is copasetic with your open space plan because it is right there all the wording is right there. It is copasetic with the comprehensive land use plan and it is copasetic with the character of the neighborhood because all those descriptions and the history of the area are all in one place. Now you melt that all together into a type of zoning that fit that particular area. I do not know if you have read it yet, but the type B of professional office zoning would be for an area that tends to be right now very rural. There is also a lot next to the Northway and for health reasons and for a whole list of them you do not want to put residential near an interstate. That is a given. So, what do you put there. Professional Office seemed to be a good idea by many, if you are going to allow professional office and many of George’s ideas are also incorporated because I read what you guys were working on and I included those ideas into this. The natural buffers and for that particular area over in Gurney Lane, West Mountain Road that probably what you do what natural buffers. You have an environmentally sensitive area, it addressed that. It addressed everything all together one package. But it was also to get back to what Richard was saying it was designed and use specific, both. Councilman Sanford-And again, what I am afraid of is because you have a political environment here you have culture that transcends politics to staff, the thinking process of staff they work for the elected officials and you have our hired consultants the same thing, our lawyers our engineers and then you have of course the developers and what I am saying is if you make this too judgmental the town is not going to be able to hold up to it. The town is not going to be able to Councilman Boor-Too general. Councilman Sanford-what I mean is if the project can be deal with by exercising the parameters that is laid out here of good judgment who knows what we are going to end up with. I hate to say it we have to be pretty darn specific and detailed minded in order to make a difference with what we have experiences in this town. I thought though all those meetings the PORC committee meetings and everything else and I heard the people and I thought that those things were being repeated and repeated and you do need a cop on the block. This is sort of like trust me everything is going to be ok. That is the only criticism I had on this, other than that I do not have a problem with it except it is not going to go the way we want it. Mr. Homsy-All I am suggesting you are not seeing the whole picture yet, this is only the start. Councilman Boor-An excellent point, we just do not want you to put in a lot of work going in the wrong direction. If these people don’t like to hear don’t like to hear it but you need to hear it so that you don’t put a lot of work and time into something that can’t be accepted, that is all. 17 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Mr. Homsy-We are on page 36 Some of these guidelines which you know we want projects to be more walk able, that means within large commercial areas more private streets, more sidewalks within them there is a couple of good examples on. (tape turned) My recommendation one which is more site design and recommendation which is two which is architectural standards that is where we are going in terms of laying those things out, whether or not that goes far enough is what we are starting to hear. Supervisor Stec-To give you some positive reinforcement, I want to make sure that we do head in that direction. I would like to see us tighten the design standards for our town. The classic example of this is what you get, XYZ company comes to any town this is what we know then you know if you drive and you look around you can find pictures of a Walmart that looks like this and a Home Depot that looks like that you got some fantastic stuff around here and if we could have picture like that in our.. Attorney Catalano-Further and provide with these design guidelines actual sample designs in the zoning itself. Mr. Homsy-Some things that you have done and some of the design areas in the Code that exist already. Supervisor Stec-I know that coming up here in the not too distance future but we are starting to talk about architectural design standard kind of thing and I know that we are not specifically addressing the sign code although I think in the very near future we will be addressing our sign ordinance. Along that line and I am serious about that light thing that I made a remark about before is that both of those have something in common in that both of them in my opinion are light lifts to do the right thing and to do the smart, good looking, attractive whatever thing. Councilman Boor-You are suggesting we put in as plan, I would like to. Supervisor Stec-What I am saying is in addition to that to go the extra step and you did in the lighting thing and I hope we do, I expect we will in the sign thing is the amortization schedule. We never really, that is a tool that we could take advantage of I do not want to tell a guy that just built a brand new sign six months ago you have to change your sign, but I do not have big problem saying it is in our code that seven years from now five years from now what ever we can.. Councilman Boor-That is why if we could put this in this plan we start the clock ticking so. Supervisor Stec-I think that is important if we are going, I do not like pulling the rug out from anyone, I do not like changing the rules in the middle of the game I like to give people as much notice as we can and then be as tough as you want and shoot for the stars, absolutely. Councilman Boor-That florescent bulb code that sign is out of there. Supervisor Stec-Those two things, the sign and the lighting we should make sure that we push to get what we want because no matter what we build whether it is professional office or apartment buildings anything except for residential you are going to lighting you are going to have signage and those are two areas that I would say lets make sure that we get exactly what we want there and make sure that here is an opportunity where you are not talking about a two million dollar building that you say you know what you need a peek roof now. That is a little bit much. But, a sign and lighting those are things that are relatively easy to say, you know what over X years by the time that this is over you need to comply. Then that way a lot of this stuff we are talking about you know my thoughts on sidewalks but you touched on that, this is something that will take many, many, many years likewise with signage and lighting but you know you amortize them in and before you know it, five, seven, ten whatever the number that the Board agrees to we will know that there is a turn over there and it is reasonable. You get seven years out of a sign you have gotten your monies worth … 18 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Councilman Boor-Just as an aside, I did not obviously have the benefit of the color copy but I have the black and white copy and I noticed that one of the pictures that you had in here was of a building that is almost completed and I bumped into the owner today, I am good friends with him, and I said you will be please to know that your building was sighted as an example of how we would like things to be done, he said I have got to tell you when I first proposed this to the Planning Board they gave me a hard time but I have gotten so many complements and he goes he is glad that he did what they made him do and it is a good looking building and he said he is already reaping the benefits of putting additional money in. Supervisor Stec-To build on that comment and you guys know this because this is your line of work, but you are going to get that natural resistance to change and it is really, really hard to convince some poor sole to be the first developer on the block to raise the bar. How we got there or whether we should have been there many years ago or whether we have gone far enough I think it is very safe to say that in the last ten years, the last five years for sure that the Town has through the efforts of the Planning Board and others but particularity at the site plan level. Again, easy or not easy, far enough or not far enough the bar has been moved in a upward direction and it is a lot easier now to get that Dunkin Donuts to come in and say we do not want to do this, this is our standard plan and you can point to examples in town that are existing. You can say look at the Home Depot go look at the Target, go look at the new Walmart, we are not kidding and it perpetuates itself. Now, when you have ten examples, twenty examples then they do not even spend the money on the initial design saying here is our standard boiler plate, they know when they are going to go business in Queensbury go to the back room and get the plans off the top shelf. That is again goes hand in hand with lighting and signage. Mr. Homsy-And goes hand in hand with what was said earlier in terms of making sure that your document tells the community, tells the developers what you want. Supervisor Stec-I was hearing that there was some criticism and I think it is hard, Roger is right, at some point you need to draw the line in the sand and perhaps as Chris was pointing out that is the other side of the story, that is the second half of your work the other documents that we are not looking at tonight so, it is hard to do that for residential but what I am seeing and we have left the residential portion of your plan, we are starting to hang a little bit more detail out there. Maybe not quite enough for some but certainly I am liking what I am seeing especially pictures says a thousands words you show somebody a picture this is what we want here we want this, not this. That is hard to argue with. Councilman Strough-When I was on the Planning Board striving for those architectural upgrades there was always a Planning Board Member who said, where does it say that we can do that? You are trying to do the right thing for the community and some people if it is not clearly written that you can do that. Mr. Homsy-It is great to hear that you want this kind of direction, is very encouraging. Supervisor Stec-The appendix of pictures of good examples of store fronts and buildings you go down to Peekskill and find that a Hess Gas Station in the sky. Director Ryba-We have a book down stairs of architectural guidelines with pictures we have taken, staff has taken … Supervisor Stec-Refer that make that an appendix or an addendum, absolutely, say as examples. Director Ryba-We have offered those to George and many are right from our area and differently a lot of Adirondack Theme type buildings so. Mr. Homsy-We will incorporate more that is fine. Supervisor Stec-To me a lot of this stuff you know you are going to argue about a number how dense is too dense, how tall is too tall but I think most people seem to 19 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 understand they know quality when they see it. Unfortunately right now we do not have an architectural review I do not know if I want to see us get into business of a architectural review board. But, there is pluses and minus but certainly guidelines that the Planning Board can apply, that Planning Staff can apply to say this is what we are talking about for the community and you give them that twenty pictures of this is what we like and twenty pictures of this is what we don’t like and then on some of the stuff where you can obviously you are not going to change the building but you can certainly mandate change signage and some of the walk ability stuff and the parking lot layouts. Some of that stuff you can say you know what in ten years we want to change our access management on this road so we do not have as many curb cuts and we want you two neighbors to work it out and you got ten years or five years or whatever to figure it out I do not know how legal that is that is something for the Attorneys to work on. But, some of these lighter lift things will go a long way to improving traffic flow esthetics and all the good stuff that goes with it. Attorney Catalano-That is why you start with the policies and you agree with the policies and then you work from the polities to the actual language in the code. The point is well taken that the Planning Board who ever is administrating the Code has got to know what their authority is and how far they can go with that authority and it is time I think for the Town to have that Planning Board or the Zoning Board of Appeals or even the Town Board to be able to say no, this is what we want and this is why and .. Councilman Boor-Come to our meetings and say that would you? Attorney Catalano-You have I have looked at your Code and you have the authority in the Code but it is confusing and I think just from a personal perspective from my work with other towns you have a lot of past practice that is hard to break even though that past practice might not even be consistent with your current code. But, I think with the development pressures that Queensbury is facing the increased value of land and the increased cache of being in Queensbury for Commercial and Residential you have the Councilman Boor-The argument..now they are going to leave, I do not think so. That argument is still made and people still buy it. Attorney Catalano-But, well then get to play the bluff, and say ok Councilman Boor-Leave, there is the door. Attorney Catalano-We want a certain type of development and we are going to stick by that and I think the time is right for Queensbury to do that. Mr. Homsy-I did not time this but lets just whip through it, Supervisor Stec-I am sorry George, I wanted you to hear some positive enforcement, a lot of what I have seen is good and again the proof will be in the flip side of what is the Zoning Code product and what it will look like and what is the subdivision regulations is going to look like, I am hearing you all saying we have got a few more months here we are working on that. Mr. Homsy-Skip to recommendation nine, which starts with some of the pictures we are talking about and also some of the sign issues, maybe we need to flush that out. There is no amortization here Supervisor Stec-I would like to add that. I do not have a number I would almost feel comfortable saying what is the norm out there? Attorney Catalano-We .do the research. Supervisor Stec-Also the lighting. Mr. Homsy-That was a middle number I found based on 20 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Attorney Catalano-The amortization just so you know is based.. Supervisor Stec-I do see value in for simplicity sake when you hand this out, what is the amortization for sign vs the lighting, I see some value in keeping it simple and having the same number. Mr. Homsy-That is great. Supervisor Stec-Again, the sign someone could say this is a twenty five thousand dollar sign or whatever signs costs you know what in seven years it owes you nothing and it is ok to upgrade and it is probably time to upgrade anyways. Attorney Catalano-Anytime you have appeal process in those cases where. Supervisor Stec-Sure you can have an appeal process fine, that would make sense to me too. Mr. Homsy-The Industrial Economic Zones, page 5 The Committee was quite adamant about not losing any industrial or the total acreage for light industrial areas. Supervisor Stec-That is part of the towns history as long as I have been on the Board and probably long before that, that every time we ever talk about rezoning something from light industry to something else and it happens and it happens and it is very seldom that somebody comes in and says we would like to do a rezoning from a residential to light industry, it is usually the other way around. Is it a marketing thing is it a climate of up State New York, is it a fact that New York State is never going to be the Mecca of industry again, I do not know but I do know the Chamber of Commerce the Economic Development Officials the County they all, they do not want to tell us our business but by the same token ..they have all made it clear that they don’t want to see us turn over property from light industry or from any industrial zoning to something else, because they are hopeful that we are going to be able to, they are hopeful that Luther Forest becomes a reality and that somehow all of a sudden we do have a market here in town. Councilman Sanford-We do it all the time, we just did it with the Dome, the Dome was light industrial and we turned it into … Supervisor Stec-I did not say we haven’t done it but every time we do, do it we hear about it. Mr. Homsy-The key thing is, keep the acreage you have now and see what happens, in five years who knows if the loop is going to work or not and you may decide if there has been no movement it is time to go to something else. The one thing that I recommend that is different is that you concentrate on the Empire Zone now because there is some light industrial in different pieces. Supervisor Stec-The Empire Zone, I am sure you know this, the Empire Zone language the legal language has recently changed as an aside it changes every year you want to talk about State bureaucracies and pulling the rug out from underneath people. It has been limited to very discrete pockets whereas you used to have a bank and you used to be able to spread it all over and we know where those are and hopefully you have seen those maps. Mr. Homsy-Yes. That is where we tended to focus .. Supervisor Stec-Where you have got it is Mr. Homsy-Where the new zones will be… Historic and Cultural our two basic recommendations in terms of inventory and possibly looking at certified government programs which is another trying to take a look at the big picture and fitting things together. Enforcement and administration on page 51 the number one recommendation is consolidate the number of zoning districts, there are twenty eight or twenty nine now, I said in the meetings, most towns ten or a dozen is probably appropriate. 21 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Supervisor Stec-In 2002 when we did the town wide rezoning that was a goal and I think we came out of that with the same or maybe even a couple more. Again, it will be because you will have somebody that will show up at a meeting you will not have twenty percent of twenty five thousand people there, you will have a hand full that will show up with very specific my backyard issues and you will say you are going to try to put these two residential zonings under one zoning and somebody is going to see you get more restrictive and somebody is going to see you get less restrictive and you are going to have a problem and people will show up and that is why we never consolidated these zones. Mr. Homsy-We should try it again because it is very hard to administrate this way. On recommendation two which again helped some of the issues that were raised is create a smart growth check list a score card, that the Planning Board gets with every project and that they can go through and it’s a small plan, it hits the high points. There might be one for residential one for commercial how that will exists we have not decided yet. Basically, they have to go thorough it and they might do it together as a group they might do it at home by themselves but they should have to go through it with each exercise. In addition because that is a public document, you do not necessarily have to have the developers fill it out but you might want them see it and they are going to know what they are going to be judged on. That is a constant education thing… Recommendation three, is along the lines that we have been talking about here, the regulations should make it easier to the landowners and developers to give the community what it wants and make it hard to give them something that’s what they do not want which is all that we have been talking about, I will not spend very much time on it. Just the idea if you have got the pictures if you have got the rules in place and they can see it clearly it saves them money because they do not have to spend months arguing with the Planning Board. The Planning Board gets this is it, do this, if you do not want to do this you leave. It makes it easy for them, it is not like onerous it is easy for them to understand. Attorney Catalano-It is great also for predictability in the process so that the administration the applicant the people that are concerned in the audience they can all be on the same page and so you have a process as it unfolds should be somewhat predictable as to how your recount comes. That is where you need to get a little bit more detailed in some areas of your code and a little less detailed in some areas of your code and a little less detailed in other areas of your code. But I do not see that predictability by reading the code, a lot of times this is the only thing that’s looked at. So, that is one of the things that we are going to voice particular emphasis on. Mr. Homsy-Our recommendations four and five are two sides of the same coin. Rezoning should be a rare thing. It should only be if it fords the code, I mean acquire fords division. Supervisor Stec-I think you have accomplished a lot of that one with reducing the numbers of zoning districts. That will do that. Mr. Homsy-That will start to do that but you can’t then increase it later on too. The same thing with variances, variances are supposed to be fairly rare things. Attorney Catalano-A use variance is almost impossible. Supervisor Stec-In this Town a use variances are pretty rare and the sign ordinance is pretty well protected, I would not say that they never give a variance but they are protective of the sign ordinance they have been for a long time. I think one of the issues that you are going to run into here and certainly we have a lot of pre-existing non conforming lots we have especially in the waterfront residential zones. The classic example of that the Town Board sees all the time is septic variances, but even set back variances, now granted you have got, we could all think of examples of people that pushed that envelop who tried to put ten pounds of building on a five pound lot. Mr. Homsy-Actually pretty successful? 22 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Supervisor Stec-But there are instances where the most minor thing is going to trigger the requirement for a variance and then you are running into that reasonable use of their property issue where you try to, you do not want to be draconian and said sorry you now if your lot was just two feet wider you could have a house there but now you cannot build a house there, you cannot replace the house that just fell down because of the wind storm because your lot is too small. That is where I think you are going to run into a lot, it is not like we are Nebraska where you are going to say lets go plan, I have been in Countries where lets go plan a community and they roll out a piece of paper and they draw the lines and that is it. But we do not have that here. Mr. Homsy-No, you are right and that is where especially in some of those areas, with area variances you now the Boards will still have to make those decisions. They should rare because there are reasons that those rules are in place. Sometimes you should allow rebuilding and sometimes not. The use variance is always the bigger issue you said it is not such a big deal here but in many communities it is not the case. Supervisor Stec-A use variance in Queensbury is pretty uncommon. How regularly is regularly? I know you say five to seven years, what have you seen in other communities, because I know that there are neighboring communities that don’t have one of these at all, let alone one that is only eight years old. Mr. Homsy-Well, review is the key thing, I think that the Town Board should set down and take a look at it every year, and say are we, are conditions changing, is it not working for some reason? Then every five years you might want to do a more formal look at it. You might want to appoint a committee to take a look at it, you may or may not want to update it or redo it but. Attorney Catalano-A lot of it depends on the rate of growth in the area. Councilman Boor-And how good the current one is. Mr. Homsy-Exactly. How well it is working. Councilman Boor-Did we predict accurately when we did this? Councilman Sanford-That was one of the things that I was a little bit disappointed in that when you, you talked about three neighborhoods classifications and you did not have a historical perspective or an appreciation of the kind of development that has taken place since the 1998 Comprehensive Land Use Plan to where we are today, particularly the first ring of density where you actually go into your document and you talk in terms. Councilman Boor-When you talk about the first ring of density? Councilman Sanford-The most density, and really what I think from going from 98 to 2006 what I see is so much of what you are now prescribing in your document has already been realized into the point that the reason we wanted the moratorium and the reason we had the problems is because so much of the land the good land that is has been developed that now there is encroachment on environmentally sensitive properties and yet in your recommendations on that first rend is to do the same things that were suggested in 98 where that realization has already taken place and in fact that is one thing that this document does relatively well is the narrative that it does on the specific neighborhoods where it talks as to where they are, where they hope to go. I would like to see more of that in the document where you basically say ok Cronin Road has had it. Councilman Strough-I think where we are going to go is from what I am hearing from Richard ..we have our 1998 Comprehensive Land Use Plan it has a lot of good value to it, George what you put together here has a lot of good value to it. We have spent a lot of time on our Open Space Plan it has a lot of value to it. What we want to do is melt, the three. Melt three together and then we want to put together zoning that matches that. Is worded in a way that everyone understands it clearly. Now that is not going to be possible in all cases, we know that. You take for example floor area ratio, the concept behind the floor area ratio, was so that you have a building given a certain size lot that is 23 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 kind of appropriate. It is not going to be overwhelming big for that size of lot. Well, what some people are going to do because it is not specifically saying you couldn’t they will buy a lot across the road or down the road and call it their lot. Now, I can put on this huge building that takes up most of the lot but meets the floor area ratio if you count the other lot that is down the road that I have. Attorney Catalano-You have got to make sure that you don’t count that .. Councilman Boor-That is actually happening. Actually on the other side of the road, some of them on the other side of the road and that is getting approved in the Town of Queensbury. Attorney Catalano-That should not get approved even if it, the Planning Board don’t forget has discretion based on. Councilman Boor-But they are not comfortable slamming the door when something like, and that is why we have got to have the language so that they don’t get bullied and intimidated and maybe miss led. Attorney Catalano-I understand. That is our goal to make sure as like I said that its Councilman Boor-That is happening one just happened where they granted property on the other side of a road for a floor area ratio on the lake. Director Ryba-Just to clarify they are land hooked so it is all one lot. Mr. Hemsy-It is technically one lot? Attorney Catalano-But still Director Ryba-Just a clarification that is all. Councilman Boor-Well, is great except that is really poor planning I am going to be right up front on that. That is my opinion you may have a different one but I find that reprehensible on the lake to allow that to happen. Director Ryba-All I am saying it is just something that is in the.. Attorney Catalano-To bring it back to the point I think there is a lot of technical requirements in the Code but there is not a rational relation to what those requirements are intended to do. So some more plan language is to what these requirements are intended, for will help in understanding how to implement those requirements and not to back down. Mr. Hemsy-At our very first committee meeting that is what the committee said they wanted that backup so that through this document as well as in the zoning code it was understood not only what the rules were but why they were in place so they weren’t granting variances that are not. Attorney Catalano-Cohesiveness that you do not have right at the moment. Supervisor Stec-A quick comment, and then a quick question. The format and whatnot as far as we move forward with the Zoning Code and whatnot certainly the tabular form I think is user friendly if you have a table of setbacks, I would not replace the language with that but to supplement it with something that you know matches the language matches the plan that somebody can just say hey I need to know real quick and for most cases they can look at something and they have got something that I think that is user friendly. The other question is and I know that this was part one of the earlier things that PORC was discussing and then frankly to be honest and much to my chagrin a year ago, but, I do not have a problem with it now, but, there were definition issues that we were having a problem we got a lecture about one from John Salvador last week but there was certain things there we said well we wanted the Planning Ordinance Review Committee 24 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 said we want, the governing document is the Comprehensive Land Use Plan we would rather start with that first and worry about some of these definition issues later. I just want to make sure that and my question is and I am sure that it is that some of those things like what a renovation is vs what new construction is that to me is something that the average guy on the street should know but apparently and I don’t know I am not going to vouch for whether to not all the details that were presented are a hundred percent accurate. But, I do know that it is something that has come up multiple times in the past and maybe what we are seeing was a very egregious example. Councilman Boor-We are going to deal with it. Supervisor Stec-But, that should be … Attorney Catalano-That is always the last thing you do to make sure that whatever new code provisions there are, are also defined. Supervisor Stec-Some of this stuff might fall out … Attorney Catalano-Stu and the Planning Board Members have given me some heads up on what issues they had. Councilman Boor-Town Board Members are going to pick up stuff that they may not, after all we are the ones ..at that end I am sure all of us are going to have things we want to include that may have been overlooked. Supervisor Stec-I just want to throw a few of the things that I have been aware of and I know that we all have them. Sr. Planner Baker-As issues come up as Joe was saying we have rolling e-mails of these two saying here is a new issue. Attorney Catalano-One of the bigger issues not for purposes of tonights meeting but down the road because we are not there yet is when we get into the drafting of the amendments the issue is do we incorporate amendments to existing code or would the Town be open to a redrafting of the Code? Councilman Sanford-First of all I think we are moving into maybe the second phase of the discussion but I will go out front on it. What I am looking to do is try to within a reasonable period of time charge you to finalize with probably quite a few changes this draft into a document that we all basically sign off on in terms of giving us the right sense of direction. The next phase after that is to then probably work on section 179 and this document here I was disappointed but I have a better understanding because of the kind of unorganized for lack of a better word I think it was a good effort in the 1998 Comprehensive Land Use Plan but in 179 I would like to see is a different approach I would like to see 179 take the existing document as the point of departure with additions added to that document and read lined omissions so that when I am reviewing it I know exactly where it has come from and where it is going and that is the only way I can do it. If I get a new document on Zoning I am not going to have the reference from the old one so I need to have. Attorney Catalano-It can be done. Councilman Sanford-You can do it but I prefer to go with my approach with the red line version of the 179, it will probably be the same I am certain it will be the same 183 ok. But I think what we want it to say Attorney Catalano-What if I red line the whole chapter? Councilman Boor-Well if it is appropriate, seriously if it is appropriate. 25 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Councilman Sanford-You may be able to you know but again when I read in the beginning about this Town Board delegating or assigning this responsibility I was dead serious Supervisor Stec-We have not done that. Councilman Boor-He is saying he does not want to. Councilman Sanford-What I am trying to say I am taking this serious and I want to have the Town Board get more involved with it and pay attention to where this process is going because this is very important to us and I have no..complements for the people that have been working on this thus far but I feel that I have an obligation to the people who elected me into office to be an active participant in this and so I want to be able to follow this in a way that is best understood by me which is to use the existing 179 as the point of departure and understand where you are make additions. If in fact Attorney Catalano-I heard that Councilman Sanford-you could just strike it right out. Attorney Catalano-I am not in disagreement with you I am just trying to bring out the bigger issue or the policy issue of do you want to try to fit amendments into the existing code and you want to take a new approach to the code. Supervisor Stec-In order for me to give you an answer in that I think responsible thing is to ask a couple more questions because maybe some of the base line assumptions are inaccurate so my question to you is, in your opinion is the format or the organization of our current 179 worth working off of. I understand the value of being able to look at something one piece of paper and say I can see the change rather than going back and forth and saying I am trying to figure out where this is. But if this is junk? Attorney Catalano-Well, the thing is Councilman Boor-You do have to strike it because if you are going to consolidate. Attorney Catalano-The idea was that you would know exactly what the existing provisions are being utilized with whatever changes there are and also what new provisions, there would be and what provisions would be discarded. The idea is we have not and we are just beginning to discuss this at the committee level at that last committee meeting was trying to see what is the best approach and you have a number of options. In effectuating your policy and the plan to Code amendment and the idea is just to get the thinking process started on what type of options you want to explore. One of them is the completely redrafting another is to put in targeted amendments here and there and utilize your code pretty much in the same type of format. Supervisor Stec-From a practical standpoint and again going back to one of the last few recommendations that we looked at if we are serious about pursuing fewer zones it would be really hard to go thorough and red line a twenty three zone document if we Councilman Boor-Just get rid of it. Supervisor Stec-That is what I am saying though Councilman Boor-No, I mean get rid Councilman Brewer-Get rid a zone. Councilman Boor-a zone. Councilman Brewer-Consolidate it into something else. 26 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Councilman Boor-I don’t think you are going to get rid of three acre zoning, maybe you are. Councilman Brewer-You work off what you have and ..it. Councilman Boor-That is what he is saying. Councilman Sanford-That is what I want to do, in fact, to be honest with you I cannot see no other way that I am going to feel comfortable with it. I know this went the other direction but I am looking at this now and I have many comments that I will probably share with Stuart and others which ultimately get back to you. But, it is hard for me other than going back and reading this whole dam document and making notes and saying is this included in this or not, well I have got to go back and reference this or should I do it? That is the process. Councilman Brewer-No, you have to edit that because in other words you would have to sit here and read page 472 and then come over here and read 472, I understand it, I agree with you. Supervisor Stec-Whatever you do it is going to have to be crystal clear, so we can see what was changed. Attorney Catalano-Lets take that from the starting point, that will be done the next question if how extensive a change do you want and again we are not there yet it is just a matter of after the plan. Councilman Brewer-I would suggest you do the same thing, go thorough make you changes that you think that we want bring it back to us in draft form and then we will discuss it like we are doing tonight. Councilman Boor-At the appropriate time because we can not do it until we know what .. Attorney Catalano-This has to get solidified and then I think. Councilman Sanford-We should give them some guidance we should not leave it up to Saratoga Associates to say ok we have twenty eight different or whatever, thirty zoning classifications our goal is to narrow it down to twelve or thirteen. I think what we need to do is we need to decide, again that is the last, you know PORC’s involvement with this and or other citizen committees and what have you. One way or the other Saratoga Associates needs to get some sense to direction before they get cut loose and start doing this. Director Ryba-I just want to mention a couple things that might help in terms of looking at the current plan. When you look at the current plan look at how many things have been accomplished I think there are a lot of things that were Councilman Boor-When you say current you mean the 98 or new one. Director Ryba-98, the current plan the draft plan is not yet adopted. The current plan is the 98 plan. There are a number of things that have already been accomplished I think probably the only thing that has not been accomplished was the discussion about the reducing the number of zones. There was a build out stuffy that was done, there was an open space plan that was done there were a whole host of things. There are also a number of zoning recommendations in there that have been accomplished, so there is an awful lot that I think that is in there that probably already been done so the thing to do is look at it in terms of what do you think is valid what you want to keep. Then going back to the neighborhood discussion just a little bit of history, those neighborhoods were developed based on census tracks from 1980. So if you look closely it is just like the frustration with the USGS Map when the one municipality or place you are looking for is in the middle of four different maps. So, sometimes you see that when you are looking at the neighborhoods, so that is something to keep in mind is really how, are they still useful is the question or … 27 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Supervisor Stec-With you reference to the various different the thirteen different neighborhood groups and the census data, for what it is worth I like the organization of your proposed plan as far as we do not need ..that by itself was cumbersome and counter productive and there was a lot of inconsistencies and conflicts. I like the general organization but to get that to something that Roger mentioned before that I think am hearing might conflict with something that Richard just said is that certainly we are going to see a draft of some change to the zoning code. We want to make sure that our bases are covered. If one document, some where either one or both have to have some level or teeth that I do not necessarily want to get ahead of ourselves say we are ready to adopt this Comprehensive Land Use Plan and then say ok, now everything else that is not in there we have got to make sure is in this zoning ordinance because we might come across something you say you know what we are having a hard time cramming that into the zoning ordinance it would be better off addressed as a remark in the comprehensive land use plan. So, I do not want to close the book on it either. Councilman Boor-But we are not, we are not, they will but we can edit it right to the end, either or. Attorney Catalano-Let me get back to the process again, just real briefly. Once the committee is finished with the plan and forwards it to the Town Board, the Town Board can sit on it for awhile and let the committee finish the work on the zoning. Then the committee can forward that work to the Town Board and the Town Board can work on both of those simultaneously. One way to address your concern which is a very valid concern and a lot of communities do that they do not finalize the comprehensive plan document until you look at the zoning as well. Councilman Strough-One thing about the Comprehensive Lane Use Plan that I found very valuable on the Planning Board and Town Board is it does describe the areas of the Town. It gives you descriptions that you need to use if you are going to plan and Planning Board Members do plan, that is one of their jobs. For example the Sunnyside area, it describes the environmental area of the lake itself, Sunnyside, it also talks about the history of the Oneida Corners. It gives anybody that is planning area that sense of history the description of the area what is important, environmentally important and if you take a look at Rush Pond it goes into great detail of explaining that Rush Pond is part of the head waters for the Glen Lake system and it comes from the mountain. It is very sensitive; it goes on to describe its CEA and the boundaries of the CEA. It gives you the whole description and it gives you a little history of the area. So, when you are a Planning Board Members looking at something that is being proposed in that area you have got something of a history and a description of the area to work from. You know what do you call it ..neighborhoods or you want to call it a hundred neighborhoods it does not make any difference you need those little localized descriptions. Councilman Sanford-I agree with that. Supervisor Stec-So, when you say melding that is your idea, you like keeping that portion the description portion. Councilman Strough-We have to sit down and say, what do you like. Now he has the vision statements in here that many of us agree with and we like to go with that and we like to add that to our 98 Comprehensive Land Use. Supervisor Stec-I think you have done some solid work I like most of what I saw tonight. Councilman Strough-There are recommendations in here that we should add to it. Marilyn has also pointed out there are many things that we have done that aren’t needed. What we really need to do is go through the 98 program and say ok, how do we want to improve that and using some of your ideas using the open space plan, melding these things and getting them together. It is a monumental task but if we want to do it right and we are at a crisis point in this town where we have got to do this right this time. It is not 1998, it is not 1988 any more it is 2006. We are at a very, very important moment in our 28 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 towns history, developmental history, we want to preserve that Queensbury look and feel then we have got to be very particular about what we end up with… Councilman Sanford-This plan here conceptually sets lays the foundation but make no mistake about it because Dan was talking in terms of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and 179 and 183 they are not equal documents. The Court of Law the 179 is going to trump the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. The Comprehensive Land Use Plan is laying the foundation. As you build your building 179 and 183 we are going to have a detailed 179 and 183. Councilman Strough-The law says that 179 has to reflect. Councilman Sanford-I understand that. Councilman Boor-But he is saying as far as the law Councilman Sanford-You cannot have something in here and have it weaken 179 and feel strong making a determination and be challenged ..you have to have 179 as strong as possible. Councilman Strough-We all know that has been one of the problems. But, to get back, a planning board member can use a Comprehensive Land Use. Councilman Sanford-No they can’t. Councilman Boor-But if it goes, … Councilman Sanford-They are not equal. Councilman Boor-179 is the trump card. Councilman Sanford-This is a supporting very important document we have made cases and have defended decisions based on the intent of the CLUP. It would have been far easier if the 179 totally Councilman Boor-Was clear. Councilman Strough-Oh yea, that is why we are here. Attorney Catalano-I think we are all in agreement on that. Councilman Sanford-Dan said earlier though maybe if it is in here it does not have to be as strong in the other one. The bottom line is they have to mirror each other. Supervisor Stec-I was quoting Roger. Councilman Boor-I say we have got to have teeth. Mr. Hemsy-That is the bottom line you are right and we understand that. Gretchen Steffan-I also think that we need to use the intelligence the collective memory that Saratoga Associates brings to the table. One of the reasons why the Ordinance Reviews Committee recommended that we hire a consultant; we needed somebody with professional expertise to make some of these recommendations based on ..public comment and the draft that is here if the …of all that public comment. So, that is a good basis and there is more work to do but I think we also need to ask for input from Saratoga Associates and rely on some of their professional experience in helping us get where we need to go. Chairman Hunsinger-Being a member of the committee now feel that we have come full circle. This is the discussion where we started this is exactly where we started do we just throw out the 98 plan or do we change it do we update it do we throw out 179 we have 29 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 two members of our committee one of which has since resigned that spent together like a hundred hours just on definitions in the zoning ordinance and then did not get half way through it. Supervisor Stec-I agree with what we heard tonight that has to come toward the end. Chairman Hunsinger-All these comments are well taken but put them back into context of what has already been done the work that the committee has already done. Again we have had these conversations a year ago that, that is where it was started. Here we are we now have the first rough draft we have made some great progress we got a lot of work left to do. Attorney Catalano-This meeting has been very valuable and in evaluating this and providing some further insight for the rest of the work we have to do as well. Supervisor Stec-As far as the 1998 plan like I said I like the current format I think we hit on all the main points that we are going to have to build on where we go up from here. Although I agree and I think it is complementary I do not think it is contradictory that some of the descriptions of the thirteen neighborhood areas, certainly there is room to include that, because that coupled with that map you can look at a neighborhood and say where does this fit? Oh, this is in whatever the name of the tan one is or whatever the name of the light yellow ones is and you can say ok so that is how this fits in and that way if certainly that gives you a where it has been where is it going in a neighborhood specific level there is some value in that. I think, I am not critical to me but it certainly there is value in it to other people I do not have a problem including them. I think the majority of everything else in it I am not, I was never crazy about how it was organized, I thought it was hard to use and I think that this, this is a cleaner document and so if we are talking about a melding, what we did not do tonight is we did not sit down and say ok, lets go through the 98 plan what do we want to keep what do we want to toss, but if it is as generic as, and there will be more of this and certainly more of, your committee is going to go back and if our direction to PORC is take the two and maybe there is twenty percent that we like from the 98 plan that doesn’t conflict with, but I think we should be using this as a base and see what else can we pull from the 98 plan to keep that we did like rather than trying to say lets take a fifty page document and ninety page document and make a hundred and forty page document. I think we used your fifty page document is a base and lets go through the 98 plan and rescue out of that what we like. Councilman Strough-Just the opposite. You are going to go through the 98 plan and then you are going to keep eighty percent of it. You are going to add twenty percent new philosophy. Supervisor Stec-We will dump that to PORC to figure that out eighty twenty or twenty eighty. Councilman Sanford-Lets talk about it again, one of the discussion items is PORC future, Town Board and PORC. I am interested in trying to understand what everybody envisions as the time line to see the product on the CLUP? In my opinion that is a distinct Councilman Boor-It is a pre courser to the Zoning. Councilman Sanford-distinct event that has to take place in order to really move to the next step which would be as I see it 179 and 183. So, I guess the question here is and I have got to tell you it is easy to get into the feeling where everybody is complementing everybody else but this has been a long process. Especially frustrating for me probably for John he was also on the Planning Board because we wanted some things done then in terms of changes so that we could put a halt to what we thought were some destructive development that was taking place on wetland and traffic concerns and the whole laundry list. It has been a few years now, a couple of years anyway. When do you see if you are working with Staff and you are working with PORC and you are working perhaps with input from the … when do you see this Comprehensive Land Use Plan being put in a final version. 30 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Supervisor Stec-You have the time line right Chris? Chairman Hunsinger-It has not changed from the entire. Supervisor Stec-Can you summarize from here on out? The highlights. I know that we were talking about in August, September adopting Unknown-July. Councilman Boor-CLUP not zoning. Supervisor Stec-CLUP and then how long after words to the Chairman Hunsinger-No that is not right, Councilman Boor-That is what my question is though. Chairman Hunsinger-CLUP only? Councilman Boor-Yes.Because I think the zoning, I do not want you guys to start working on zoning if we think this is terrible and it doesn’t reflect anything we want. I do not want you wasting your time if what I am saying. I do not want them wasting their time and money if what we have, if the amendments to this and the additions to this is something that we hate, why would we want you to match zoning to it? Unknown-Late May. Councilman Sanford-Ok, what we are saying we are thinking of we follow the agenda, or not the agenda, the sequence through where we are now and what we are trying..as a Town Board now is looking to the future and making some changes because here as I am looking at it there is concurrent stuff going on. There is moving into zoning and subdivision regulations without final product Councilman Boor-Or even a final draft. Councilman Sanford-On the CLUP and what I think, what I am saying is I am going to feel more comfortable in having a final product in the CLUP and then moving in and substantiating and changing and editing and doing all that stuff with these other things so that as Mr. Strough has said a hundred times if he said it once they totally intersect and they complement each other. Councilman Boor-I would call it a final draft because the final product is what the Town Board.. Supervisor Stec-Here is the Town Board now. Chairman Hunsinger-This is where we need to be careful about what we are talking about and where we are going, because the Saratoga Associates were hired about a year ago and in their proposal was a specific work plan and a specific time table. We have been following that specific work plan and that specific time table right from the beginning and we are right on it, we have been, we have been moving forward with what the Town has contracted with them to do. Now, if we want to start changing things, I am not an Attorney I certainly do not represent Saratoga Associates all I am saying is it starts to get a little complicated with the committee because we do not have the authority to go off and say ok, Saratoga Associates you guys now have to spend more time and more money. Councilman Boor-First of all they do not have to spend more money. Supervisor Stec-I was going to say I think we are two, three steps and probably two or three guys heading down the road beyond where we need to be right now. The question is when do we think that we want to and I heard what you are saying, we have a time line 31 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 and your time line says that we should be late May. What I want to do I want to put some specific dates out there since we have Saratoga Associates as far as the Town Board schedule the Town Board in order to adopt a Comprehensive Land Use Plan we need to set a public hearing in order to do that, pass a resolution at one meeting to have it at another meeting. Councilman Boor-Dan, this is where I, I do not want you to go down the wrong road here. It is a final draft, we do not need to have a public hearing for a final draft. Attorney Catalano-The committee is going to have to hold a public hearing. Supervisor Stec-So, you are saying that we will adopt it later than? Councilman Boor-Adopt it later in October the whole thing. Supervisor Stec-After the zoning has been Councilman Boor-Yea. Supervisor Stec-I follow you, that makes sense. Councilman Boor-We may tweak a little in the CLUP a little in the Zoning once we have them, but we really need is a final draft of the CLUP to know how we want the zone. Chairman Hunsinger-The last couple of months there are no dates attached to them. The committee dates are attached but the last two months, June and July. June is the towns accepts final draft of the Comprehensive Plan from PORC for review, the Town Board complies with all SEQRA requirements, the Town Board sets public hearing dates and causes notice of public hearing to be published the Town Board forwards final draft Comprehensive Plan to Warren County Planning Board for review. That is June, then in July is the final.. Supervisor Stec-You have six weeks to the end of May you are confident of where you are as far as having a final draft in six weeks? Councilman Sanford-You are going to be able to put together with the Open Space Plan, the Comprehensive 1998 Plan and what they are proposing here together in one month? Councilman Boor-And one CLUP in final draft? You think you can do that? … Chairman Hunsinger-Again, I think this is a point of departure from where we were headed. …. Councilman Strough-Number one, prepare and update the Town of Queensbury Comprehensive Land Use Plan, Zoning and Subdivision regulations. Project mission statement Saratoga Associates and the Town recognize that community Planning requires a comprehensive approach that addresses the multiple dimensions of problems including social and economic planning and design skills. So, a rational planning process based on solid analysis, Saratoga Associates will use their professional services to; one, review, define, address inconsistencies, problems or concerns that exist in the Towns planning and zoning documents. More specifically but not limited to the towns zoning ordinance and official map, subdivision regulations, and comprehensive land use plan. That is all number one. Number two, collect and analyzing information to frame solutions that will provide the town with the following; A. An updated Comprehensive Land Use Plan that is more in accord with the Communities goals. B. Updated Zoning and Subdivision Regulations that are consistent with the revised Comprehensive Land Use Plan and is user friendly. So, number one is an updated Comprehensive Land Use Plan and is more in accord with the community’s goals. That is number one and then B, is updating 32 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Councilman Boor-That is zoning updating the CLUP. Councilman Strough-as Roger was saying Councilman Sanford-Item B, what I am trying to communicate to everybody so there is no miss-understanding I think the Town Board has been, has for what ever reason not been that involved with the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, I think we need to get it to a point where we are all comfortable with it, but then moving on to B, I can speak for this Town Board Member I am going to be a heck of a lot more involved with it. I am not going to want a citizens committee to take it and then come back to me with a product, I want to be involved in that somehow and I am not sure how but that is the way I feel about it and I feel it is part and parcel of my responsibility. Unknown-No one said you were not part of it. Councilman Sanford-I want to make sure that everybody understands.. Supervisor Stec-Is there anything else for Saratoga Associates right now? Councilman Sanford-What is your comment, if six weeks is not enough time is eight weeks enough time, I would like to nail this down so when you leave we could be realistic. Mr. Strough has a good point we are going to be ..people that are going to be providing Stuart with sections from 1998 CLUP that we think are important and still should be incorporated into the document. Likewise with the Open Space Vision Plan so there will be input coming in through various channels …has to be digested and incorporated into a document that we are going to feel comfortable and review it and basically sign off on it as a final draft. How much time do you think you will need for that? Mr. Homsy-It depends on the amount of input. It depends on what the committee decides, when the committee gets the input it then says this is what we want to do this is where we want to go or they might say this is not where we want to go and we need to talk to the Town Board about why. But, it really all depends on that, so I cannot say because, I can say that if you want to go back, this is the direction that we are going in right now, if you do not like this direction that’s a different product. Unknown-It is a significant point of departure, then we have been in. Mr. Homsy-Having said that that’s up to the Committee and the Town Board. Councilman Sanford-There is nothing in here that I really object to except as I stated earlier, it is general it talks in terms of certain things that I wrote little notes on it, I do not disagree with this but I also believe in apple pie and motherhood and they are in there too, and I haven’t a problem with it, but what I want to have is some of the things that John brought up. I want to have some of that neighborhood history and stuff put in and that might be very quickly done and inputted and it just needs to be inserted and things of that nature and I want to put some things with a little more teeth in this because I anticipate we are going to have a more detailed 179. I think that then what PORC and Saratoga Associates was contemplating based on the discussion we had tonight my concerns about making sure that we manage the growth and development and don’t leave it to chance. So, as Chris’s of six weeks too ambitious? Mr. Homsy-It depends on how much more, I cannot say that because I don’t know what chunks they are going to put in. If you just want some neighborhood descriptions that is easy. Attorney Catalano-Also it is also a matter we are working with the committee at this point too, that information has got to go to the committee or if you go thorough us we will work with the committee on it. The committee will make in its opinion what to incorporate and what not to incorporate and at the end it is going to be back to the Town 33 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Board and you are going to make the final decisions. So, you are going to get basically two bites at the apple. Councilman Boor-As Town Boards we walk a fine line where we are often times characterized as being intrusive and mico-managing. We are trying not to do that and some of us have I think done a pretty good job of not pushing this is what we want. But, at some point in time as Councilman Sanford pointed out we are the only ones that can accept the job. As I said at that very first meeting before PORC was even formulated I would like to attend these meetings, I am not necessarily going to get involved in them but I find it is my responsibility to speak up if I feel that we are going in a direction that I believe the majority of the board can’t support because I do not want to waste your time, I do not want to waste their time so it is not micro-managing but it is saying hey look you guys are doing a lot of work here and it is good work, I do not agree with this part of it though. I am just giving you a heads up. Attorney Catalano-From a legal perspective also the committee has been charged with doing something and we are working with the committee to get to that product the input that we received tonight and the input that we receive in the future before that product is completed I would assume is going to be considered and worked in to that product at some point. Again, but in coming back to the Town Board you are going to be the final arbiter of whether that has been done to your liking or not. Councilman Boor-I like a lot of what I see but I also Attorney Catalano-…I would say let the committee finish with what is ..with this insight and maintaining the schedule and see where we are after that. Supervisor Stec-I to do not find anything that I object to other than the sidewalks. I am not going to lose sleep over it. Councilman Boor-You might want to pole the board on that. Supervisor Stec-I might not have the controlling interest there that, that is all right. But, no, as a whole I think it is very good, I am encouraged, I am more encouraged now, where I hoped we would be at the conclusion of this tonight I think we are farther ahead because again I really don’t see anything controversial or objectionable in this. There might not be value in that because of some, maybe it doesn’t go too far, maybe it is too general, but I think coupled with your re-assurances and that staff and half of the Planning Board is review committee is here, hearing that hey we are concerned that we are hanging the details and the teeth somewhere, maybe it is best hosted in the code itself. If somebody is saying we need to go back to the PORC and continue with those meetings and the public input and putting everything on the web and certainly these are all open meetings and the Town Board just like any other resident of the Town can go to these things if you are going to complain and pontificate that the Town Board should not be involved then go to the meetings. I think that if we are going to say, you know, what we think we would like now as we, we like this but we like big chunks of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan the 98 plan and I think everyone likes the Open Space Plan that we have to find a way to make sure that they are all consistent with each other and that they are boiled down into one document. I don’t know, six weeks, eight weeks, I don’t know I think where you are as far as a leaping off point I think we are in good shape. My question is going beyond that and it is not critical but it is more a point of curiosity how long from where we say ok, this is a final draft the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, the Town Board has looked at it and sure we reserve the right to edit right up to the last minute, but you have given us something that we can work with and now you have moved on to the zoning issues and the set back and the zoning and all that. How long, and again depending on do you want a complete re-write or do you just want to red line a copy of to get from that point to say here is the final draft of the zoning ordinance how long does that take? Unknown-..with the schedules Mr. Homsy-two months. 34 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Attorney Catalano-That is an aggressive schedule. My fear with that was that we were going to start dealing with some issues of the zoning along with the Comprehensive Plan. The stuff that the committee felt comfortable in dealing with, we have not gotten to that point yet but it was coming up. Mr. Homsy-It is really three months. Attorney Catalano-It is definitely doable. Councilman Sanford-Lets target six weeks for the trail draft of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and then we will discuss a little bit tonight is once we have consensus among the board that we are comfortable with that we can now discuss how we are going to proceed with the re-write of 179 and 183. Supervisor Stec-Frankly, that to maybe concisely put a closure on this that to me is a common sense point to make any personnel changes. I think if we have got six weeks to get a final draft on the Comprehensive Land Use Plan lets dance with who we brought and finish. Councilman Strough-My argument with that is the same argument you had prior Dan, was that you know, this is a monumental task but the more hands you have sharing the work load the better it is going to be for everybody. Not only that we have more diversity of thought. It is hopefully a community product. It is not mine, it is not yours, it is Queensbury’s and it is the residents of Queensbury. That is why I have taken the position that an expanded PORC Committee if you will would be a healthier PORC Committee. Supervisor Stec-I disagree Councilman Strough-Because it shares the workload and it brings in diversity of thought. Councilman Brewer-John in that vein, if it is a community project a community document and they bring that back to us and you do not like what it say and he doesn’t like it and he doesn’t like it and you take it out it becomes your document. So, what is the difference? Supervisor Stec-I don’t know how long this is going to go on, this might not go on very long but I am not sure that you guys have indicated that a great desire to stick around. Attorney Catalano-This is a political issue that we felt that this is not ours, it is not within our scope, outside of Saratoga Associates project. I deal with as Attorneys for town boards very often, and the idea is you guys have some options to consider and one of the options is the committee is in the middle of a project towards the tail end of a project it has been going on for months. The idea is do you want to have them finish the product that we are heading to, the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and then take a look at it at that point and see the direction to go. Supervisor Stec-That makes sense to me. Attorney Catalano-It is going to be very inefficient from a practical standpoint to expect new members of a committee to deal with where we are at the present time. Supervisor Stec-That make sense to me, but I know that I want to hear from members of the Planning Ordinance Review Committee because they are the ones that have invested th six month of their life doing this already. October 17 is when we met ..but as far as working with you six months. Councilman Boor-PORC has been working on this th Supervisor Stec-I am talking about working with you all since October 17 almost exactly six months. 35 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Attorney Catalano-One other point I want to make from a practical standpoint also, the idea is there are some things in the plan that will sound good but there is going to be a lot of question as how those particular things are implemented. That is why at some point you are going to want to compare a policy statement that the Town Board agrees with , with how it is implemented before you make a final judgment on it, because if we say we want the plan says X,Y and Z this is what we want well there is a lot of options that you can do X,Y and Z in code amendment and so you are going to want to be able to say this sounds good to me but I am going to withhold judgment lets see what the code amendment is. Now, the question the Board is going to have to decide is when in the process you want to do that and who do you want to be responsible for the code amendments. I would not prejudge issues in the plan without the zoning code issues being flushed out in some sense. At least in ideas maybe not in exact final language. But then you will see where that meshing takes place or not to your satisfaction. Councilman Sanford-I would like to see more involvement with this Town Board on that. Councilman Strough-183 which is our subdivision regulations does it have to be separate or do some towns combine like their zoning regulations together rather than? Attorney Catalano-Actually, there is a separate enabling statue in Town Law for subdivision as opposed to zoning and that is why they are traditionally separated. That is why, they should be, they are actually two different jurisdictional responsibilities and that is why they are kept separate. But there can be, what I have done in the past is cross reference certain design standards and so forth so that there is at least an interconnectedness between the subdivision regs and the zoning. First you have the subdivision regs but then you have the zoning that comes after the subdivision and you cannot lose site of that. So, that can be done… Supervisor Stec-Anything else from Saratoga Associates right now, thank you very much. 3.0 PORC FUTURE – TOWN BOARD AND PORC Supervisor Stec-First of all your reaction to what we have said here tonight, I think before we get all the way into number 3 just amongst ourselves here the idea of putting the three together, I am not hearing any argument from the Town Board that, that is not reasonable, what we include and what we don’t include maybe everyone’s got their own idea but is that a good, are you comfortable with those marching orders to say hey this is a pretty good document work with this what we have got in the Open Space Plan and come up with something? Chairman Hunsinger-Again, that is where we started, when the committee started Supervisor Stec-You do have a new document that we seem to like. Chairman Hunsinger-It is a bit of a point of departure and my concern is not so much the concept but the specifics. I think that is where there might be some falling out. I do not want to speak for George who has left, ..it is just pulling up the neighborhood background information that is not a big deal but if it becomes, ok, lets spend two months reading the old Comprehensive Land Use Plan again and seeing what we like and don’t like that was an exercise we did two years ago. Those notes were given to them in concept those thoughts and concepts and opinions from the committee and from the public were already included in where we are. But I agree with what John said, I think some of the neighborhood specific information the neighborhood definitions in the old Comp Plan never made sense to me. Census tracks are artificial boundaries they are not really neighborhoods. So, there are some issues there. So, how far do you go? We do not have those census tracks anymore, so the neighborhoods that are outlined they do not exist. They were arbitrary thing. 36 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Gretchen Steffan-We had a long discussion about how our government has changed in Queensbury that now we have Ward Systems and perhaps instead of talking about neighborhoods we should talk about Wards and what they encompass. Those were initial discussions. Supervisor Stec-When I was down stairs in Stu’s office last week and I glanced at that, that make a lot of sense. That is a, if somebody is going to say draw a picture of the town that is right behind you that is pretty accurate. Now, do I think we can get to seven zones, no but heck we would have a heck of an improvement if we had two zones for every one of those seven. Councilman Boor-One of the things we might consider we can maybe have seven zones with three overlays. Chairman Hunsinger-That is what we talked about is the use of overlays specifically. They have been put into adoption currently and from the Planning Board perspective where we have the overlays we tend to get better projects because the overlays are pretty specific. Where we have problems is where we don’t have an overlay or a nebulous defined zone. Those are the problems that you were speaking about. Councilman Sanford-Again, I read this and my knee jerk reaction was this was more of a feel good document to me then a meat an potatoes document. I am sorry but and I could have gone through page by page and pointed out my comments along those lines but it is so general and vague and it talks in terms of sidewalks, ok we have agreed we all want sidewalks. But it does not get into enough of a where in particular we want do we recognize and notice this and that we feel strongly that this should be the direction. This other document did do some of that. I do not think it was organized particularized well and I do not think as you just mentioned it is applicable now for a lot of reasons. But, I think that someway of putting more meat on this thing is definitely needed because this thing is something quite honestly probably could have gone to a Planning Text Book and got ninety percent of it out of there. He talks in generality about the concepts associated with certain things, well, sure, we always talked about them on the Planning Board. There is nothing really different it is just in the document but it does not set a whole lot of direction on the implementation of those. Gretchen Steffan-I think that one of the misunderstandings that we have right now is that this document is a reflection of all the public comment that we have had so far and yes the committee has done some work but we have not done as much of the hard work the rolling up the sleeves up work that we know that we have to do going forward. We just finished our focus meetings in February and so we continued to gather public comment to try to shape the direction of where we are going to go. Comparing the existing Comprehensive Land Use Plan to this document is not a good comparison because that is a finished product and this is a work in process in infancy even though we have got six weeks or two months in order to provide you with a draft of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan the work that was done up until mid February absolutely was necessary to get the public comment we needed. We did all kinds of advertising we did as people at the meetings and at public forums because we needed their input in order to shape some of these policies and make recommendations. This is our work this is Chairman Hunsinger-That is how this is different than a planning text book because all these thoughts fell out of the public participation. Councilman Sanford-This document this is on page seven to jest give you a few. These are some of the things that I said to myself how valuable this is as a document when you have things like, “Protect important natural areas and view sheds in the town especially unique landforms, ridges and slopes. Promote the protection of natural resources such as the water and air.” The next paragraph, “Require more connections within and between residential neighborhoods and commercial corridors.” For the four years I was on the Planning Board we always emphasized and already did that, we do it now. “ Eliminate the visual clutter of signs in commercial corridors.” I am saying to myself we are playing this stuff is playing a fiddle while Rome is burning. This whole genesis was we had some real issue that we wanted addressed on a timely basis because we saw some very 37 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 sensitive areas being encroached upon by un-favorable development and then nineteen months later I get a feel good document at least in the beginning. And then there is more substance and there is nothing wrong with it, what I am saying it does have to have the good things that are in this document updated and put into this document and then if you do not want to have this Open Space as a stand alone and you can integrate that as well and then, that then creates a milestone. At this particular point in time and if we can do it in six weeks great, we then say ok, we have something that we feel comfortable as the blue print. Then lets do some real construction and your 179 and 183 and make sure that those are really tight good documents and that process on how that unfolds is up from heavy discussion because as I said once again, I do not want to receive a product, I want to be involved in the process. Councilman Boor-If I could just add one thing, because you use the word construction and I think it brings to my mind I think the analogy is used a lot but I think it is really appropriate here. Look at the time line that you referred to Chris and I understand how you guy got there, it is almost akin and this is corny but it really works here to be doing the CLUP at the same time you are doing the zoning is like building the foundation and the house at the same time. You have got to have the foundation first. The notion that you could be doing these simultaneously just doesn’t work. You can be saying I want to have red carpet in the window right here in this bedroom before the concrete you have to have something to build the zoning on and this is the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. The notion that you are going to do these at the same time I don’t you are going to be going back and forth well we will change the zoning, no, your, I do not know how you are going to determine how, what you are going to change to make them fit. To have the vision first to know what you want to do then you make the zoning fit it. I just think it is a more logical approach to the total product. Chariman Hunsinger-That is the approach Look at the time line it is laid out Councilman Boor-I misunderstood what was said. Gretchen Steffan-Once again in the original Saratoga Associates proposal there is …chart and there are things there being done simultaneously and I can see from the project management point of view you can look at zoning you can look at the current zoning you can look at the information that is here. There are things that are in the current zoning code that fit and there are certain things that aren’t. That editing process could be going on simultaneously. Councilman Boor-The assumption that we like this, what if you are tailoring a portion of zoning that this Board is not going to go for, in your Comprehensive Land Use Plan? Gretchen Steffan-But this Board is representative of people are the head of their wards and this information came Councilman Brewer-from those people. Gretchen Steffan-from public comment. More people have said that, this is what we want the town to be someday. Unknown-That is why this document is this way. Councilman Brewer-That is exactly what we are missing. Councilman Boor-I am glad that you said that because I want to read something in a little bit. Councilman Brewer-My observation is this to date not necessarily the end product to date what they have is they have had all their meetings and they put the public comment the towns people so to speak into this. This what the towns people want it is not what absolutely everybody here likes but that is what it is. 38 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Councilman Boor-If I could just finish this, this is Saratoga Associates this is the consultants this isn’t what PORC is going to give us Tim, I want to see what PORC gives us. I know what is in here I have read it. I want to see the Councilman Brewer-We are sitting here criticizing it. Councilman Boor-No, I am saying I have not seen the product from PORC. That is what I want to see. Supervisor Stec-Maybe I am confused. Let me ask this question then Chris, Gretchen and Leo. That document from Saratoga Associates I went to the ACC morning and got a lot of editorial comment some good and some not so … but the format of that presentation what was covered the goals and then the recommendations a lot of that stuff I can see in that document so I am assuming that, that is obviously you did not sit down and key it in, somebody at Saratoga Associates did but is this document representative of where you think you as an organization are so far and then the next thing I want to say back in the days when I was in school and they taught you outlining, when you are outlining something and you start. How to outline a story or whatever you are going to start generic and so I agree with you, you had to get through February to get the big picture stuff and you got the big picture stuff. Now people are saying well, no one said I find this document objectionable, I mean some people said I would have liked to see a little bit more meat on it and then we are saying there is a lot of the 98 plan that we like and that one seems to have a lot of meat just wasn’t very organized. I mean the Town has not changed that much in eight years that if we are looking for specific examples or do’s and don’t if there is details in the 98 plan that is still relevant then I do think you are pulling from that and putting it into, if you are pulling what matches out of the old document and putting it into the new document that we just spent six months and a bunch of money with Saratoga Associates getting to where we are now, it is not done. You have to go back to your organization and continue to do a little more honing and work and you know six to eight weeks you are going to give us something that is going to look a lot like that document but with the more detail, more meat on it. Perhaps the Town Board Members will go and they will pull their copies of 1998 Comprehensive Land Use Plan along with all of you and anyone else in town that wants to and say this is important to keep, this is important to keep. Find a place for this in the new one and we do that over the next month and then you guys have a month to hone that down. Whether the Open Space Plan is part of this or continues to be a stand alone document. I see a lot of value in melding them together so that you do have one document for somebody to go through but I do not know how critical, if it is the end of the World to have two documents. I guess if no one is objecting to what we have got other than they want more detail I think you have plenty to pull from to put the detail in there. Councilman Boor-Just so everyone understands this is not the Comprehensive Land Use Plan … Councilman Brewer-I understand that 100%. Chairman Hunsinger-We got this the same time you guys got this one and the reason for that was this is what we are going to review at our next meeting next week. We had set up the workshop with the Town Board partly because of the concerns we heard from two weeks ago from a Workshop, we wanted to give you something concrete that you can look at. So, what we are doing is basically putting the Town Board on the same level as the PORC Committee for first look at this. You are absolutely right nobody on the committee sat down with pen to paper to draft this document. But, lets talk about some specific things. One of the first things that we drafted was the vision statement, it was drafted at a public workshop it was the public’s vision. Saratoga Associates took notes, they wrote down the notes they then took the committees comments drafted a vision statement that the PORC committee then modified and added to. So, whose work is it, its everybody’s work. Councilman Sanford- Actually I went to that vision statement Chris.. 39 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Chairman Hunsinger-…plans and goals same sort of exercise, we had a series of community workshops where comments were made from the public, the Saratoga Associates drafted the language the committee reviewed it we added a bit and we accepted it. We recommended that it go into the final document. So, again, who, it is not my work it is not Gretchen’s work it is not Leo’s work it is everybody work. Councilman Boor-I do not think anybody said it way. Councilman Sanford-A couple of comments, Chris, on that, the goal is to devise a plan that pushes the look and feel of Queensbury closer to what the community desires while letting the market place govern uses. I wrote on that, who came up with that? Because one of the problems that I have with planning is that sometimes you have to take a longer perspective and if you look at the market place they are looking typically in short of time horizons and it can be dysfunctional to the well being of the community. I went and was part of that visioning statement and we had three different break out groups and nobody in our group ever mentioned that they were concerned about the market place governing uses. I am not sure where that Chairman Hunsinger-You are reading way too much into that. Councilman Boor-But, it is in the document. Chairman Hunsinger-It is in the document because when you defend it, you are putting me in the position of where I have to defend this document so I am going to defend it and I am going to tell you what the intent is. Councilman Boor-Don’t if it is not yours don’t defend it. Chairman Hunsinger-I want to finish my thought because we talked about it, this is the point this is why we feel you guys are micro managing the work of the committee, because we already had these ..and discussions. Councilman Boor-I thought you said that this was Saratoga Associates Chris Hunsinger-… Councilman Sanford-One other point, I have people call me up quite often and they tell me there is a concern out there that the Town Board is addressing and it could range from a Bay Meadows Project that is controversial, the Planning Board is dealing with that as well, or it could be a fire tower a burn center and I talk about community involvement in these issues and let your voice be heard. You know what I hear more often that I can tell you, we elected you to be our voice, we expect you to do these things this is your job. So, then I go and read the code and it says in the code you cannot delegate and assign your responsibility to committees and what have you and all I am trying to say here is I cannot speak for Dan or Tim or Roger or John but I aspire to get involve with this kind of stuff because I am being told by my people who aren’t going to those meetings. The reason they did not go to the meetings is because they voted for me to represent them. You know something that is pretty much how our government works. Ok. So, it is a debatable thing it is nice if they show up but she also, this woman that I was talking to most recently had a very valid point. Why should I have to go and speak at a public hearing on something when I voted for you to represent my interests. So, that representative government. Chairman Hunsinger-For the same reason that the Town Board wants to put a stop sign in the middle of your street you show up and say this would be a bad thing. Supervisor Stec-If we did not need public hearings then we would not have them in the law. Councilman Sanford-We can debate but what I am trying to say, there is nothing wrong with wanting to get involved. 40 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Chairman Hunsinger-Let me give you the short answer, I agree one hundred percent with what you just said, totally a hundred percent of what you just said, the difference being this process was specifically designed to maximize public input. Everything that we have done todate in this committee has been designed to maximize public input. So, for somebody to say you take care of it for me, they are just copping out. And I am sorry, but they are in this case here. Councilman Sanford-Well, first of all they didn’t show up at the organizational meeting for a citizens committee that has all employees on it. Lets talk about that for a second, you talk about this independent process which by our Town Law you cannot have an independent committee Councilman Brewer-Richard, you are not being fair because you are miss reading that because the independent attorney said that you are not reading that right. Councilman Sanford-I am not sure that he disagreed with me. But, Supervisor Stec-I heard him disagree with you. Councilman Brewer-Because he said you were wrong. Councilman Sanford-He said I was wrong when I read the law? Supervisor Stec-He said you were pulling bits and pieces there is more… Councilman Boor-He read it verbatim. Councilman Sanford-I read it verbatim from the Councilman Brewer-And he said you were mistaken because there was another law that supersedes that… Councilman Sanford-What is the law that supersedes it. Director Ryba-Local Law. Councilman Sanford-Where is it, show me in the Code Book because I went and checked it out. Sr. Planner Baker-He was referring to the Town Law enabling statue for a comprehensive planning is what Joe was referring. Councilman Brewer-Which is not indicated in that book Richard. Councilman Sanford-My point merely on all of this is that I think there was a mind set that took place back when this PORC Committee was established and you talked to it in your letter and you talk about you do not like us mingling in an independent process and you go on and on and on. And you talk about community involvement and everything, you know something you guys get a W2 every year for your stipend that you get paid at the Planning Board you carry an employee ID I can argue that it is not a citizens advisory committee at all. It is a committee of employees that is supposed to be doing the work of the community. Leo Rigby-PORC Committee is a voluntary committee we are volunteers on the PORC committee we are not compensated. Councilman Sanford-And we all live in Queensbury too … … Unknown-We have got to work together that is the whole idea. 41 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Councilman Boor-I think I can add some clarity here because what I have here is a resolution establishing Planning Ordinance Review Committee and appoints its members and I am going to read this because I think it is really vitally important that we have an idea where we are coming from. WHEREAS the Queensbury Town Board wishes to establish a Planning Ordinance Review Committee which committees scope will be to review and address inconsistencies and problems known to be at issue in among other things the Town Zoning Ordinance and Map, Subdivision Regulations and Comprehensive Land Use Plan. And WHEREAS the Town Board wishes to also appoint members to such committee NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Queensbury Town Board hereby creates the Towns Planning Ordinance Review Committee and appoints the following current Planning Board and Zoning Board Members to such Committee, Chris Hunsinger, Craig MacEwan, Gretchen Steffan, Robert Vollaro, Charles McNulty, Leo Rigby, Lewis Stone and Roy Urrico. Be it further RESOLVED, that such members shall serve on the committee until such time as maybe set forth by the Town Board and Resolved, that the Town Board further authorizes and directs the Planning Ordinance Review Committee to meet as necessary and regularly reports discussions and recommendations to the Town Board. And BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Town Board further authorizes and directs the Town Supervisor and or Community Development Department to take any action necessary to effectuates the terms of this resolution. Then it says Discussion held before vote: Supervisor Stec this is a quote “The scope at this point is not to re-write a Comprehensive Land Use Plan but to correct modifications of the current document to make it a better document. Here is where it gets important, some time within the next calendar year we will migrate this committee into a larger committee involving more members to look at the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, so we do not go ten years in between this several months away.” So, at the inception of this you agreed that when we were going to do the Comprehensive Land Use Plan that this would be expanded. Supervisor Stec-And I don’t disagree, except… Councilman Boor-Well, good you did disagree because I got the meetings from the most recent and you disagreed vehemently with what you said right here. Supervisor Stec-Because now we are six the ship sailed six months ago. Councilman Boor-..one of the criticisms that I leveled with you is your inconsistencies and when John Strough brought to this boards attention that he thought it was appropriate to expand which is what you had said we would do when we got to the CLUP…when I am done, so I have a problem when we have to keep switching gears. That is what you said. Leo Rigby-Can I say something,what I am observing and I have not been involved in this political process but I can tell you whatever is transpiring here is affecting this committee and it is affecting the people on this committee you have got at least five very upset. Councilman Boor-I just want to make sure that we have got three of you here right? Supervisor Stec-Three of them here. Leo Rigby-I can tell you there are five people on this committee that are upset. (tape changed) Supervisor Stec-I want to thank Marilyn for providing the entire Town Board with copies of the minutes back almost twenty months ago I do reserve the right to change my mind certainly over the course of twenty months. However, I think I gave an adequate explanation by saying, if somebody pointed out six months ago when we hired Saratoga Associates that this is what we had intended to do and that would have been the time to change gears. I think now, right or wrong or indifferent we are six months into a process that they are six to eight weeks away from completing so that is how I feel. Councilman Boor-Make no mistake I am not saying we expand this .. 42 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Supervisor Stec-I am just saying don’t say that I said that we shouldn’t ever do, I mean the time to have pointed that out would have been six months ago and we all said things, two weeks before that vote I said I do not think the Town Board should be members on the committee, we talked about that Councilman Boor-And we are not. Supervisor Stec-Well that was talked about a week ago Roger, Councilman Boor-And we are not. Supervisor Stec-I hope not I do not think so Councilman Sanford-Five oh five was when Saratoga Associates was selected May of 2005 it was a year. Supervisor Stec-Then a year ago somebody should have pointed that out. Councilman Sanford-What product have you gotten out of this since 9/04 when PORC was formed, what is the tangible product that we have gotten. Supervisor Stec-You have gotten this. Councilman Brewer-Give them time to finish. Let them finish the last two months. Chris Hunsinger-Do you want it Richard, this about half of it, ok? -- Supervisor Stec-I am not finished with my comments, again I am not going to hold any ones feet to the fire on something that was said twenty months ago, but, I think we can be present but my personal opinion I do not think it is a good idea for Board Members to be nd on the committee, that is what I said August 2. Councilman Boor-We are not Dan. Supervisor Stec-Well, Roger Councilman Boor-There aren’t any Board Members on the Committee. Supervisor Stec-Somebody at the last workshop suggested that John should be on this Committee. Councilman Boor-That was suggested. Supervisor Stec-All right, if we Councilman Boor-It was suggested that we expand it if we were going to do a CLUP Supervisor Stec-We should have done that a year ago or when ever we started this. Councilman Brewer-Let them finish they are almost done that is the proper thing to do then if you want to criticize it or critique it Councilman Sanford-…for a change. I suggest we give them the six weeks to give us a final CLUP and if at that particular point in time this Town Board decides on where it is going in terms of how the 179 and 183 is going to be addressed. It is not necessarily going to be we stick with the PORC committee and we have them follow through to the completion of the .. 43 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Supervisor Stec-I don’t have a big problem with that though. I do not have a big problem allow the six ..if they are still… Councilman Brewer-My concept of this thing is and I have not said much tonight, but what we should do and what we are doing is two different things. What we should do is let the public create what this town looks like and what it wants to look, or what they want it to look like not five guys in a room. Councilman Boor-That is fine, Tim. We want to see Councilman Brewer-We are not letting that happen. Councilman Boor-We want to see the final draft of what the public has had to say. Councilman Brewer-Give them the last two months to finish it. Councilman Sanford-And on the 179 I will give you a hypothetical on 179 when particular issues are being looked at this Board could decide that hey, we need to get public input and so we set up little work groups to explore it further and get help so it is not done unilaterally by this Town Board. Mr. Strough fore instance if he has a particular interest on a particular code or zoning area he very well seek input from two or three other people in the community to give him advise and consult on it. Councilman Brewer-When this came to us Richard, you weren’t here but you were on the Planning Board and I remember distinctly that the Planning Board wanted a moratorium because they had inconsistencies and problems, so many problems with the zoning code. Never did once did they ever bring any problems that they had to this Town Board. Right up until last year when you were on the Planning Board, Richard. Councilman Sanford-Oh Timmy that is not the case. Supervisor Stec-Anyways in any event Councilman Brewer-You gave a ten point plan I remember that Supervisor Stec-Six items. The heavy lift ones are done. The big lift was more staff, and build out study. Check both boxes, done. Leo Rigby-I want to go back to something that I said before Roger when you were concerned if I was on the record or not. You have got people on the Planning Ordinance Review Committee that are very upset, whatever is transpiring here Councilman Boor-What are they upset about Leo? Leo Rigby-They are upset with not being included. Councilman Boor-In what? Leo Rigby-Your meeting last week, we read in the newspaper and the Post Star Councilman Boor-I did not set that agenda. You have to talk to the Supervisor. Leo Rigby-I do not know who set anything … Councilman Boor-You be critical of …go to yours? Leo Rigby-Let me finish what I am saying. If this committee is to do the job that it was set out to do..it better be a committee to take care of the people that are on that committee, and you better be sure that they are involved and you better be sure that you are feeding them with some type of motivation, because right now you are not. 44 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Councilman Boor-What did I say that you take exception to in that meeting Leo I would really like to, I am serious, what did I say at that meeting that you take exception to. Leo Rigby-I take exception to reading in the Post Star Councilman Boor-That is not my issue, because I had nothing to do with that. I did not set that. I want to Supervisor Stec-That is a true statement. Councilman Boor-I want to know what I said that you Leo Rigby-I take exception to reading it, as a matter of fact… Chairman Hunsinger-I down loaded the minutes from the web site, “we have not gotten one recommendation from PORC out of eighteen or twenty however ever months they have been together” Councilman Boor-That is right. I have not gotten one recommendation, I have read all the notes I have seen all of the comments but I haven’t seen one recommendation from PORC that has come to the Town Board, give me one, right now. Chairman Hunsinger-How about recommending that we go out for an RFP to hire a consultant? How about recommending the consultant to be hired. How about recommending the visioning statement and how about the … Councilman Boor-We gave you the money to do to hire somebody. I am talking about Unknown-How about the fact that you said that, regardless of whether it is true or not. Unknown –It sounds like we have not done anything… Supervisor Stec-One at a time and Chris has the floor. Chairman Hunsinger-This was the animosity that was created when you make a blanket statement like that and it was in the context of these guys are not doing anything. Councilman Boor-I did not say that, I did not say that Chris. Chairman Hunsinger-That is how it came across. Councilman Boor-..received a recommendation… you were not there so I do not know how you could Chairman Hunsinger-I read the minutes. Councilman Sanford-Let me make a comment on this, first of all when I read Gretchen’s letter I made a note here and I can see that point that Leo just made. You have been invited to the meeting, however I do want to point out there was a public meeting, advertised, agenda was posted on the web site in the same manner as the PORC communicates its meetings. Furthermore its rather complicated on this Town Board in this regard. If Mr. Strough fore instance or if I communicated unilaterally to you people about some of the desires to expand PORC or do whatever we wanted to do with it we would be accused and rightfully so of making an unauthorized unilateral comment without first having had Town Board discussion. So, we have a Town Board discussion and now we are and I see the point, being criticized for having a public meeting advertising it inviting anybody who wishes to show up and saying we are not including you. It is a bit of a catch twenty two. Having said that certainly we should have extended an extra ordinary if you will invitation by a personal phone call hey we are going to be talking about this you may want to be here. That we did not do my apologies on that, but yet in the legal spirit of it this was in no way in no manner at all what you 45 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 represent in your letter a secret behind the door closed doors discussion. It was an advertised public meeting. Supervisor Stec-I want to throw in the thought in here before, before I lose this point and before this thought that just shared evaporates, the same defense that he just issued for the Town Board ditto to the criticism that we have shed on PORC tonight. All of your meetings have been noticed, we have begged people to go to the meetings we have advertised it, if I have a nickel for every time I said it on television to try to get people to go there I would be a wealthy man. Everything is on the web site, everything is open and you got ten people that care with it, an agenda perhaps or with a certain bias that are showing up. We do not have a big cross section of the town showing up at these meetings, I am thankful for those that do show up but I feel better if there was a hundred people at all these meetings and they all weren’t there because they were ticked off at the last developer that submitted an application because that is who is going to these meetings. But PORC has done, I do not have an criticism for how PORC has tried to do their thing and I do apologize and in my over exuberance to try to satisfy a Town Board Member who asked for something to be placed on the agenda I neglected to think, I need to extend a personal invitation. I did not necessarily think that it was going to be as critical of your efforts as it turned out to be but be that as it may whether it was all positive or partly positive or all critical I should have thought to invite you all. That was an over site on my part and I apologize for my. Councilman Strough-Well, first of all there is nothing you should apologize for Dan, and Leo when I asked Dan to put it on the agenda it was this, lets discuss as a possibility, as a possibility and see how the Town Board Members feel, before we even go to you I got to see if it is an idea that is going to fly on the Town Board first. Discuss looking at possibly adding some members of the community to the PORC Leo Rigby-But don’t you think John that is a meeting that some of us would have like to have Councilman Strough-First of all, Leo wonder if the Town Board, I do not know how the other Town Board Members feel what if they think it is a lousy idea? Stop, dead, that doesn’t go anywhere. Supervisor Stec-Two of us thought it was lousy. Councilman Strough-I have to start here, maybe the next step maybe you are right Leo, maybe the next step would be to go to PORC. Leo Rigby-The first step should be, the first step you should have decided, Councilman Strough-The first step should be here on the Town Board. There is no sense in me even going to you if it does not fall in favor here. Leo Rigby-I understand entirely. Councilman Strough-So, it is a process. Councilman Sanford-Somehow I feel kind of funny, feel embarrassed and defensive for wanting to include concerned community people in to a public process. Gretchen Steffan-I am trying to be really calm here and I really rather not be calm. Richard you offended me to night by the comment you made about the employees and not getting paid, all of us have spent a tremendous amount of time volunteering because we are on the Zoning Board and the Planning Board and we really are trying to work toward a common purpose of making this a better town. There is nothing in this for any of us except for clarity in the code and so I was offended by that comment. I could be doing a thousand other things than what I am doing right now. As a matter of fact I asked Craig MacEwan to put you on the PORC committee because I thought you would be a better candidate and that did not happen. 46 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Councilman Sanford-It did not work politically. Gretchen Steffan-Well, I think Councilman Sanford-It did not work politically, Dan did not want it. Unknown-..lets..the politics ok, we are just being serious Gretchen Steffan-I don’t know that. Councilman Sanford-I am being serious. Chairman Hunsinger-Let me be the first to say this we are tired of it we are tired of the politics of the Town Board impacting the work that we are trying to do for the town. Councilman Boor-How have we impacted you? I am serious how have we Chairman Hunsinger-This whole discussion. Leo Rigby-You are not serious Roger Councilman Boor-I am very serious, ..we get to the point where we received a draft and we are asking how we are going to proceed and should we expand and we should do CLUP and you take offense Leo Rigby-I am talking about the motivations of people, I am talking about the motivation of the people on this committee that is what I take offense to. Councilman Boor-You take offense of the public being interested in this? Gretchen Stefan-Oh, no, I think Councilman Boor-Tell me what you take offense in, I am having a very hard time what we have done to offend you. Tell me how we have offended you, Leo. Leo Rigby-We have already been over it. Councilman Boor-Tell me how we have offended you. Leo Rigby-We have comments Councilman Boor-Read by comments that offend you. Leo Rigby-We just did. Councilman Boor-No, he read one and I disagree with him the fact that we hired a consultant for you I do not feel is a valid recommendation.. Leo Rigby-Lets knock every thing…all I can tell you is that we have five people that are very upset on this committee Councilman Boor-I cannot help you. Leo Rigby-Whether it is justified or not we do. Supervisor Stec-I am going to bring some closure here tonight because I am getting. Councilman Boor-Well, I am sorry your offended, I truly am. Supervisor Stec-Gretchen I am sorry. 47 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Gretchen Steffan-Over the many months that we have been involved in this process there has not been an instance where the Planning Ordinance Review Committee has been caught doing something right, and we have been putting in a lot of time and there has been a lot of turbulence over the last months since this started to where we are. We have changed courses several times, we have had input, we have had, there have been political changes we have had course changes and here we are coming down the home stretch of the process and now we are still not being caught doing something right but it appears we are being caught doing something wrong. Now you want to change course and change direction and the people who have committed a lot of time have not been included in the process and I know that you have had several discussions as to why that happened. But, from our point of view we have been riding the rocky road we have been trying to do good work, we volunteered our time and no one has appreciated it, caught us doing something right and now we are in the middle of a political discussion, disputatious at best and none of us are feeling very good about what we have accomplished so far. So, I am feeling invalidated the e-mail that I sent was heart felt, I was very upset. Councilman Sanford-I know it was. Supervisor Stec-It was not a voice in the dark. Gretchen Steffan- I am not happy with where we are right now because there are things in this document that I love, no, but I think that the vision and the goals of this document are an accurate representation of the public comment we got and from the public comment of the people that participated their public input on where they want this town to go. And so have we edited this document? No. But this has the thoughts and feelings of all the people that thought enough to attend those meetings. We are not as a committee we have not force fed this document with what we want or what we believe. Councilman Boor-I do not think anybody said you had. … Councilman Sanford-..she has to wrap her point up here, I think a lot of this is directed at me so I would just as soon hear her finish it up. Are you done with what you were saying? Ok. Let me add this comment on it, first of all I am not trying to belittle you personally and your work, as you know I have always admired you on the Planning Board and I thought we had a mutual respect there. When I read your letter and I understood, when everything was said and done I understood what you were getting at although I did think that some things were taken out of context and I did want to spend some time and clarify it. What I want to do now, what I think makes sense, and I am not sure that this is agreeable to the PORC Committee, but what I would like to do is give a reasonable period of time to get a finalized draft CLUP. Then I want, then have the Town Board decide what makes sense to move on to the other very important documents like 179 and 183 that may or may not include the perpetuation of the PORC Committee. How do you feel about that? Is that probably is offending too. Now, the justification for wanting to do that on my part is because I wasn’t part of this original conception of this whole PORC Committee. As you know I was on the Planning Board at that time. I was in favor or a limited moratorium on large scale residential subdivisions. But other people made it a political issue, did not want to go in that direction and created a committee to deal with it. Now, I am on the Town Board and I naturally want to get involved in a process that I am not involved in, that I feel is very core to what my elected responsibilities are. I do not apologize for that, I would like to work with you in a way not to offend you. I am not sure if we can reach that common ground, but I think Leo is doing the job trying to portray people like me as cold hearted and insensitive and to some degree that may be true. But, there is another side to it. I am hoping you have an appreciation for the other side. I feel I would be neglecting the people who voted for me and my oath of office if I stay away from this. Ok. I want to be involved, I cannot speak for the rest of the Town Board Members on it. If that offends you I am sorry. Leo Rigby-Richard I am not trying to portray you as anything, all I am telling you is you have a motivational problem with the people on this committee, that is what I am trying 48 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 to tell you. It should be corrected or you have got to do radical changes. That is what I am telling you. Councilman Brewer-Let me just one thing because I am not going keep sitting here and listening to this argument all night, but Richard I understand you want to be involved and we should want to be involved but keep in mind it should be the peoples document not out personal document. Supervisor Stec-Until it is our turn. Councilman Strough-Let me just say too, that I think a lot of people have misinterpreted and made things political that aren’t political and maybe somebody fed the fire on that, but lets get down to basics. I suggested the idea of including members of the community outside of the current PORC Committee for two reasons. One, I thought maybe you wants some help, this is a monumental task and tonight I think you heard including or incorporating or melding whatever word you want to use three major town documents into one finished body, it is not going to be easy. So, my motive here was looking for somebody to help you. The other thing is, I just know from listening tonight’s discussion the diversity of thought beyond the five members and the six members, the diversity of thought is good. So, I did not think there would be any opposition to the idea at all with that as my premise. I was surprised that there was opposition. But, you know, down the road, this is a huge task I just thought more people less work, more people diversity of thought, get more done and include members of the community. Every Comprehensive Land Use Plan Committee I have ever seen has always included members of the community at large. Now, I have had some people step forward I am not going to mention their names, but one is a local business man who’s business is sports oriented. Another one is a math professor who has been very active in coming to every single meeting that they could make. They have been very active, they have said yes, we would like to help you out. It wasn’t take over, it wasn’t anything else so I think some of this is looked, turned to be political and it shouldn’t have and it wasn’t meant to be. Leo I only brought it up as, I asked Dan to put it on the agenda for discussion only, because it really should happen here first. Leo Rigby-It got the discussion going. Councilman Strough-It certainly did, didn’t it. Leo Rigby-I also had people approach me with the same thing too, after reading it in the paper they said they would be interested in it as well, so there is the interest out there. Chairman Hunsinger-There are a couple of things that I just want to comment, you know again, Richard I don’t disagree with what you said, you certainly have the right and the obligations to be involved in this process. I guess my answer to you John, is those people that have been coming to every meeting, well if they have been coming to every meeting they have already been a part of the process. When I, I did not know anything about the workshop until I read Gretchen e-mail, I had no knowledge of it and after I read Gretchen’s e-mail I went on line a couple days later and read the minutes. They are pretty offensive. I mean they are very offensive. I do not know how anyone could sit there and say oh, I do not understand why you are offended. You know I really don’t think it makes any difference whether he agrees or disagrees I mean that is a challenge. That is not trying to promote team work and good will here. I thought we were on the same team guys. When I chair those meetings you know I step into a role, I don’t do what Chris Hunsinger wants I step into a role of chairing the meeting and putting forward the work of the committee and that is all. There is some very specific things that I wanted to see go into this draft that aren’t in there either. But, all that tells me is that ok, I am out there on a limb, we have been all out there on a limbs in the Planning Board, John, me, Richard, Gretchen, you know. That is what the process is all about. Supervisor Stec-I am going to try to rap this up and take my stab at what I feel the consensus is here and then give a motion to adjourn. I want to thank the three of you not only for coming tonight and enduring this although I thought that our meeting with Saratoga Associates was very productive and it is not a Dan Stec document my document 49 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 would read differently everyone in the room would have a slightly different document. Is it a good point, no one is screaming that they are furious about what that document says it may not have enough detail on it. You know what that is what the next, in my mind, the next two months of your labors with our input and our participation to some level but without controlling I think ought to be. But, I want you to know that I appreciate everything that you guys have been trying to do and we all have our frustrations as to what should be done and what order and where we should be and how far along this should be. But, I would rather get a good product and take a little longer doing it, and I think we are on that path. What I am going to take a stab that the consensus I am hearing is, is that for the time being we believe that we are six to eight weeks out on a final draft for the Town Board to review. That we do not want to change any musical chairs in that process at least for those six to eight weeks. So, I am going to propose that we just let you guys do your thing for the next couple months you know, take two months if you are going to need more time or that is going to become an issue let us know as soon as you can and maybe we will say fine, take another two or three weeks. I would, I am hearing that we want to leave you do your thing and hope, unless it turns into six months let you guys rap this up in the next couple of months and give us a document with the current cast of characters that we have involved in the process without shuffling the board. Then at that point perhaps the Town Board in a workshop discussion with you all at a future status meeting have another one of these and say ok, we think we have got a Comprehensive Land Use Plan Councilman Brewer-No, lets not have another one of these. Supervisor Stec-And then do we want to add do we want to re-create, reconstitute some other committee to bring us home n 183 and 179. Maybe some of us will want to change and maybe some of us won’t. I am pretty content with the six, I believe I know the characters of the six people involved enough that I think they will give us a good product. Do, we need ten, if you guys ask for help then you know, but if the six of you are saying we have got it I am fine with it. But, that is a conversation that we all could have and maybe the three people won’t feel that way and maybe make a mid course correction, but for now I think we should stay the course to quote Bush 41. Councilman Strough-I will be in Rome next week doing Nero’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan. Councilman Sanford-I do not disagree with what you said Dan, and Chris he mentioned, you mentioned six weeks he is mentioned eight is eight preferable? Supervisor Stec-I do not even give you a hard deadline. Councilman Sanford-I would like a target. Councilman Boor-We want a target. Supervisor Stec-June10, two months from today. Chairman Hunsinger-We are following the schedule that was published in the memorandum from Saratoga Associates. … Councilman Boor-What date would that be? Supervisor Stec-Late May. Councilman Sanford-But the product what I think I heard Dan say is take the necessary time he used two months to wrap the CLUP and is that enough time to do that? It is not necessarily, what we are talking about is it not being in this kind of a form but being in a form where its integrated the 98 Comprehensive Land Use Plan, Open Space and you guys feel comfortable with it as well, Saratoga Associates and you get it to us. 50 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 Chairman Hunsinger-It really depends on the work load of the Saratoga Associates you now, again, I think, what was asked of us tonight is a little shift in direction. If they have the capacity to incorporate that into a draft that they can get to us on the committee in time to review it at our main meeting then sure. Councilman Sanford-We will target for the 6/10. th Supervisor Stec-I think our regular meeting in June is the 5 so we do have a workshop th on the 12 is you want to say lets plan on meeting anyways. By that first workshop in June if we do not have a product I think we are going to need a meeting is what I am th saying. What ever our second Monday in June is I think it is the 12. Anything else for the good of the cause? Thank you all. Councilman Brewer-Thank you for your help. RESOLUTION CALLING FOR AN EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION NO. 204.2006 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Roger Boor WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. John Strough RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby moves into an Executive Session to discuss the employment history of a specific individual. th Duly adopted this 10 day of April 2006 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Boor, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec NOES: None ABSENT: None RESOLUTION ADJOURNING EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION NO. 205, 2006 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. John Strough RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns its Executive Session and moves back into Regular Session. th Duly adopted this 10 day of April, 2006 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Boor, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec NOES: None ABSENT: None No action taken during Executive Session. RESOLUTION ADJOURNING SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING RESOLUTION NO. 206, 2006 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION 51 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 04-10-2006 MTG. #13 SECONDED BY: Mr. Roger Boor RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns its Special Town Board Meeting. th Duly adopted this 10 day of April, 2006 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Boor, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec NOES: None ABSENT: None Respectfully submitted, Miss Darleen M. Dougher Town Clerk-Queensbury