2006-02-28
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SECOND REGULAR MEETING
FEBRUARY 28, 2006
INDEX
Freshwater Wetlands Permit Jeffrey Kilburn 1.
FWW No. 2-2005 Tax Map No. 295.15-1-30
Site Plan No. 64-2005 Jeffrey Kilburn 1.
Tax Map No. 295.15-1-30
Site Plan No. 57-2005 Northeast Dining & Lodging 3.
Tax Map No. 296.18-1-6
Site Plan No. 12-2004 A. Bhatti/Econolodge 28.
MODIFICATION Tax Map No. 302.5-1-51, 52.12
Subdivision No. 2-2006 Ridgewood Homes 37.
SKETCH PLAN Tax Map No. 266.3-1-73
Site Plan No. 2-2006 Schermerhorn Res. Prop. Holdings 40.
Tax Map No. 309.10-1-45
Site Plan SUP No. 3-2006 Kenneth Ermiger 69.
Tax Map No. 295.12-1-5.2
THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO
BOARD AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE
FOLLOWING MONTHS MINUTES (IF ANY) AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL
OF SAID MINUTES.
0
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SECOND REGULAR MEETING
FEBRUARY 28, 2006
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
ROBERT VOLLARO, CHAIRMAN
GRETCHEN STEFFAN, SECRETARY
THOMAS SEGULJIC
ANTHONY METIVIER
CHRIS HUNSINGER
THOMAS FORD
DONALD SIPP, ALTERNATE
LAND USE PLANNER-SUSAN BARDEN
STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI
MR. VOLLARO-Before we get going on this evening’s agenda, I’d like to make a couple of
announcements. First of all, I’d like my Board to meet Tanya Bruno who’s going to be our
new alternate on the Planning Board.
MRS. STEFFAN-Welcome, Tanya.
MR. FORD-Welcome.
MR. VOLLARO-She got confirmed last night, and Chris Hunsinger, who’s Vice Chairman of
this Board, would like to say a few words about the Planning & Ordinance Review
Committee. I guess there’s a big meeting this weekend. So, Chris, do you want to?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Thanks, Bob. This Saturday at 9:30 at the Scoville Learning
Center at Adirondack Community College, there’s a town wide meeting on the Visioning
Statement, Goals and Planning Concepts that have come out of the Planning & Ordinance
Review Committee. That Committee is charged with re-writing the Comprehensive Land Use
Plan and the Zoning Ordinance for the Town, and of course it’s a public meeting. The public
is not only invited but encourage to attend, and not just to attend, but to participate, and I
do hope that, you know, try to get the word out, and as many people can show up as they
can. Again, it’s this Saturday at 9:30 at the Scoville Learning Center at ACC.
MRS. BARDEN-Chris, we have a flyer that’s in the back, too, if anyone wants to pick one
up.
MR. HUNSINGER-Great, thanks.
MR. VOLLARO-It’ll pay to go this meeting. These folks have done a lot of work, and go
there and listen and say your piece.
FRESHWATER WETLANDS FWW 5-2005 SEQR TYPE II JEFFREY KILBURN
AGENT(S): JAMES MILLER, RLA OWNER(S): SAME ZONING SFR-1A LOCATION
NORTH SIDE FOX HOLLOW LANE, BETWEEN #22 & #24 APPLICANT PROPOSES A
3,177 SQ. FT. SINGLE FAMILY DWELLING AND IMPROVEMENTS TO AN EXISTING LOG
ROAD. PORTIONS OF THE FILLING ASSOCIATED WITH THE DRIVEWAY OCCUR
WITHIN 50’ OF THE SHORELINE OF A DEC WETLAND. REVISED INFO. RECEIVED
1/17/06 CROSS REF. SP 64-05, SUB WESTLAND SECT. 15 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING
11/9/05 LOT SIZE 12.9 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 295.15-1-30 SECTION CHAPTER 94
SITE PLAN NO. 64-2005 SEQR TYPE II JEFFREY KILBURN AGENT(S): JAMES
MILLER, RLA OWNER(S): SAME ZONING SFR-1A LOCATION NORTH SIDE FOX
HOLLOW LANE, BETWEEN #22 & #24 APPLICANT PROPOSES A 3,177 SQ. FT. SINGLE
FAMILY DWELLING AND IMPROVEMENTS TO AN EXISTING LOG ROAD. PORTIONS OF
1
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
THE FILLING ASSOCIATED WITH THE DRIVEWAY OCCUR WITHIN 50’ OF THE
SHORELINE OF A DEC WETLAND. REVISED INFO. RECEIVED 1/17/06 CROSS REF.
FWW/ SUB WESTLAND SECT. 15 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING 11/9/05 LOT SIZE 12.9
ACRES TAX MAP NO. 295.15-1-30 SECTION 179-6-60
MR. VOLLARO- First, this is something we had promised one of the applicants to do last
week, last meeting, and so I’ll go through it now, and it’s a motion that I’ll make publicly.
This is for Freshwater Wetlands Permit No. 5-2005, and Site Plan 64-2005, for Jeffrey
Kilburn. I’ll just read into the record the tabling motion that I promised the applicant we
would come up with this week.
MOTION TO TABLE FRESHWATER WETLANDS PERMIT FWW 5-2005 & SITE PLAN NO.
64-2005 JEFFREY KILBURN, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Thomas Seguljic:
A. This motion is based on discussions with the applicant and his agent during their
appearance before this Board on February 21, 2006,
B. This motion tables the application to the 18 of April, 2006 and is based on submitting
th
the responses to Staff on the following conditions by March 15, 2006:
1. Since a one [1]” water service line is proposed to be installed at a depth of five feet
under the center of the proposed driveway, the applicant shall, as a possible alternate
to the proposed drainage design, B & C on Drawing S-1 dated January 16, 2006,
examine the benefits of following an alternate design. The alternate design would be
construction of a five foot deep stone absorption trench similar to a French drain on
the west side of the proposed road in the area of the driveway, Type B & C, where the
steep slope meets the road. In addition, the reverse pitch of two percent on the road
to allow drainage to the trench rather than toward the wetland. As with all drainage
systems, maintenance will be required to keep the trench operating to design capacity.
2. As a result of Number One, remove all six inch PVC under drains that are set a 50
feet on center, thereby eliminating point sources of infiltration into the wetland.
3. Examine the pros and cons of using three inches of porous material on the final top
coat phase of driveway construction.
4. The Hutchins Engineer drawing that’s dated 10/14/05 shall be modified to reflect
comments two, three, and four in the Miller Associates letter to James Edwards at
C.T. Male Engineering dated 12/15/05.
5. Examine Detail C driveway section Type C with respect to extending the stack
stone rip rap wall beyond the five foot level, as well as reducing the slope to allow for
increased infiltration prior to the surface flow arriving at the interface with the
driveway. The design of this section appears to have the greatest impact on the
wetlands below.
6. A revised detail F culvert end design, the outlet side of that culvert, to provide a 20
foot level stone apron per Item Six of letter from Miller Associates to James Edwards
at C.T. Male, dated 12/15/05.
7. Provide a cut and fill analysis related to the entire project as shown on Drawing S-
1 dated January 16, 2006, paying particular attention to the excavation required to
install the one inch water service and the entire driveway from Fox Hollow Lane to
the proposed house. Provide an elevation drawing of the proposed house.
8. There was a set of referenced drawings with the proposal provided with the
application to show the height of the house to be under 40 feet. Refer to Section K on
the Miller Associates drawing dated January 16, 2006, in particular that portion of
the section through the elevation 464 down to elevation 450 which is at the driveway
level. Define the number, the type, and the caliper, and the average height of trees on
that slope over a distance of approximately 80 feet, either side of the KK section.
9. Describe the functional application of the curlex erosion control blankets called out
in Details B & C.
2
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
10. The applicant must agree with a no further subdivision notation on any final site
plan describing the build out of this 12.91 acre parcel.
11. Any freshwater permit issued by the Town of Queensbury will be subject to the
requirements stated in 179-6-100, which is entitled The Wetland Regulations,
including a date when the permit will expire. In addition, the final site plan will
contain the following statement: The Planning Board or its designed Staff member
shall have the right to inspect the property from time to time.
12. No treated lumber shall be used to construct the wood stake dock which is 40’ by
40’. This is required to prevent toxic substances from leaching into the wetland
during rain and snow events.
13. Susan Barden, our Staff Planner, has been in contact with DEC to clarify the
intent of certain areas of the DEC permit which was issued to Jeffrey Kilburn in
DEC’s letter of November 14, 2005, and it was determined that if there is a new
drawing associated with it, it has to go back to DEC. Does the permit as written,
against the application, as the applicant puts in, obviate the need for the 50 foot
separation? The drawing is less than 50 feet. I want the DEC to clarify the
ambiguity. That the drawing include extents of construction disturbance on the
drawings, limits of disturbance.
Duly adopted this 28 day of February, 2006, by the following vote:
th
MR. VOLLARO-I’d also ask that we ask another question, and that question is this. In the
permit from DEC, on the front end of it, it talks to the 50 foot separation between an activity
and the wetland, and I’m asking them when a permit is issued to a specific drawing, and that
drawing is approved, whether it essentially eliminates the 50 foot requirement. I don’t think
we’ve gotten a good answer to that yet. I saw your e-mail, Susan. I don’t think that they’ve
really answered that question yet, and I want to make sure that ourselves the and the
applicant understands exactly where DEC sits on that.
MRS. BARDEN-Well, I think that DEC’s answer was that the Freshwater Wetlands Permit
that they’ve issued is tied to the site plan. So, although Items Four and Eight are authorized,
that is to be in conformance with the site plan of the project.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but it still doesn’t address a key question in my mind. Does the permit,
as written against the application that the applicant puts in, obviate the need for the 50 foot
separation?
MR. LAPPER-The drawing is less than 50 feet.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. LAPPER-So there’s an ambiguity, is what you’re saying.
MR. VOLLARO-There’s an ambiguity. I want them to clarify that.
MR. LAPPER-Certainly.
AYES: Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ford, Mr. Metivier, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Vollaro
NOES: NONE
ABSTAINED: Mr. Hunsinger
MR. LAPPER-Thank you.
OLD BUSINESS:
SITE PLAN NO. 57-2005 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED NORTHEAST DINING & LODGING
AGENT(S): THE CHAZEN COMPANIES OWNER(S): RICHARD CUNNINGHAM ZONING
HC-INT. LOCATION NORTH QUAKER ROAD APPLICANTS PROPOSE A 10,330 SQ. FT.
RESTAURANT AND ASSOCIATED SITE WORK. RESTAURANTS REQIURE SITE PLAN
3
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. PLANNING BOARD MAY CONDUCT SEQRA
REVIEW. CROSS REF. AV 68-2005 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING 10/12/05 LOT SIZE
3.104 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 296.18-1-6 SECTION 179-4-020
JON LAPPER & CHRIS ROUND, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. VOLLARO-Susan, would you care to read the Staff notes on that?
MRS. BARDEN-Sure. Thank you. Again, this application is for Northeast Dining &
Lodging, to be located on North Quaker Road. The zoning is Highway Commercial
Intensive. It’s a SEQR Unlisted Action. This is a proposal for a 10,330 sq. ft. Golden Corral
restaurant and associated site work to be located on Quaker Road. As you will recall, at the
November 15, 2005 meeting, the Board tabled this application to, “retain the services of a
traffic consultant for purposes of reviewing the traffic data presented”. In response, the
Town requested that CT Male review Chazen’s traffic summary dated September 28, 2005.
Subsequently, CT Male suggested additional information be provided by Chazen to
supplement their initial traffic summary. In response to these 5 items, a traffic impact study,
dated January 12, 2006 was received by this office, distributed to the Board and sent to CT
Male for further review. Based on the results of the capacity analysis, accident history
review, Lafayette Street signal gap analysis, and Quaker Road queue analysis, Chazen offers a
driveway with no turn restrictions and monitoring for operational and safety perspectives. If,
the driveway is operating at an unacceptable level of service that denigrates the overall traffic
operation of Quaker Road, or becomes a safety problem, a prohibition of left turns leaving the
driveway can be implemented. The Level of Service analysis (LOS) suggests that the left turn
movement out of the site onto Quaker Road will be difficult during peak hours. In addition,
CT Male points out that, “Although the gap analysis conducted shows adequate gap times to
cross Quaker Road due to the signal at Lafayette, this gap may not actually be of much use
since traffic will begin to queue at the light, prohibiting left turning vehicles from entering
onto Quaker Road. This is due to the driveway’s close proximity to the signal at Lafayette.”
Concluding, “It may be prudent to consider prohibiting left turn movements exiting the site
for these reasons”. If it has been identified that the left turn out of the proposed driveway will
be problematic by both Chazen’s and CT Male’s Engineers, it should be addressed now at the
design stage not after monitoring the site. Additionally, a letter dated February 8 from Lisa
Penistan at Warren County Department of Public Works, concludes that a shared driveway
with the adjacent property owner to the west is the preferred alternative because it would
eliminate any possible competition in turning movements and storage between the two
establishments and it would further the distance of the driveway from the signalized
intersection. Finally, CT Male states that Chazen’s responses to their comments of November
9 seem reasonable, but a revised set of plans detailing the changes has not been received.
MR. VOLLARO-Thank you.
MRS. BARDEN-You’re welcome.
MR. VOLLARO-There will be a public hearing on this application this evening. The
Planning Board is Lead Agency on this, as far as SEQRA is concerned. Now I don’t believe,
what I said when I came up with the introduction, we will not be doing SEQRA here until
this Board is completely familiar with this plan, understands it well in order to go through a
SEQRA application, and with that, I’d give the floor to the applicant, and if you would state
your name for the record.
MR. LAPPER-For the record, Jon Lapper with Chris Round, and Mike Hartman from
Chazen Companies. As Susan just read, the tabling motion had to do with traffic, and since
we were here last we have prepared a detailed traffic analysis based upon the requirements of
C.T. Male and submitted it to them, and we have their response. We’ll get into some detail
about the traffic, but jumping to the punch line, even though the left turns were only a
problem a very small percentage of the time, in terms of the process of working with C.T.
Male, we have conceded, or the applicant has conceded, that they would give up the left turn
out because that would satisfy C.T. Male. So we’re offering that as a concession that it would
be a right turn out only, and that just avoids the whole issue about whether or not there’s
sufficient stacking distance for that left turn movement at Saturday PM which is when there
was the smallest amount of stacking available. So with that said, we think that C.T. Male is
satisfied. That was the one recommendation that they really wanted us to adhere to or to
change. The letter that Susan referred to from the County Planning Department, she read
their suggestion that it would be nice if there could be shared access with Mark Plaza, eastern
4
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
driveway, but her last sentence, which Susan didn’t read, said that, obviously, the Town can’t
require that the adjacent neighbor permit that, and the problem for us is that, even if the
adjacent would permit it, which we don’t expect that they would, that it doesn’t really work,
because that’s where their loading dock is, so that’s where tractor trailers pull up to offload
furniture and carpet. It doesn’t really work for patrons of the restaurant, in terms of that
shared access, but we did go into detail in terms of the stacking, because the neighboring
property owner spoke at the last meeting, I think he and his real estate broker were the only
ones that appeared, if I recall, and were talking that they were concerned about left turns out.
So we did include that in our analysis. Mike Hartman, our traffic engineer, will speak to that
in a minute, but I think he looked at that 18 separate times, and in terms of revolutions of the
light, to determine what was going on there, and there wasn’t a stacking problem, and C.T.
Male has signed off on that, but we did look into it and he’ll talk about it. In terms of the
project, in general, and the SEQRA, I think because it’s been a few months since we were
here, we’d probably be smart to start off and have Chris just walk you through the site plan,
so we can just refresh your memory about the stormwater provisions that we’ve added, and
why we chose to locate the building where we have, and how the whole site works, and then
we can get into the traffic issue with Mike.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I would like to make just one comment before we get in there. I
don’t want to get into this too deep. I’d like to just talk about one particular thing before you
folks start, if that’s okay.
MR. LAPPER-Sure.
MR. VOLLARO-What I did is I took a pretty good look at the traffic study. I’ve almost
memorized it at this point.
MR. LAPPER-We would expect no less, Bob.
MR. VOLLARO-Before we get into other technical details, I’m concentrating on 179-19-010,
which calls for driveway separations, and if I look at your first table where you take a look at
the ITE rates, at 321, but I think what you do there is you say that, they’re a little
overstated as far as the ITE rates are concerned. So you went down, I’m going to go through.
MR. LAPPER-We did actual counts, that’s why, for their other restaurants.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m going down to Table Six, which is the project generated volumes.
There’s where you begin to boil your data down and you get to Table Six, incidentally, it
would be good if you had put numbers on your study. I couldn’t find what I wanted. I had
to keep going. The pages aren’t labeled. Table Six boils down to the Saturday PM generated
163 events, it looks like to me. Assuming that’s correct, the time of year and the source data
and so on, I have some problems with, but I’ll assume that 163 is a correct number. You
would need, under those numbers, 440 feet of driveway separation on Quaker Road for the
163 volume of traffic. Your parcel width’s about 260 feet. It is 260 feet. There’s no place you
can put a curb cut and maintain that 440 foot separation. Where you show the present curb
cut, for example, it’s exactly, it’s scaled, not exactly, by scaled off at 195 feet from the main
entrance to the Mark Plaza, which is well below your 440 foot requirement for 163 units, and
so I’m concerned, now, how that site works against the commercial driveway separation
requirements that are called out in 179-19-010.
MR. LAPPER-Let me give you a legal answer, first, and then Mike can give you an
engineering answer. The separation distances in the Code, I believe, are for when you design
brand new sites, and what you have here are pre-existing sites, and the location of the
driveway, it was pre-determined by the State and County when they re-did Quaker Road
where they wanted the driveway on this site, because of the distance to the light.
MR. VOLLARO-You mean the separation of the guardrails?
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t know that that determines that.
MR. LAPPER-That was why they put the separation of the guardrails there, because that’s
where they wanted it. They wanted a distance from the intersection. Mike can speak to that,
but if you were to say that you required 400 feet, obviously, this lot could never be developed.
5
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-That’s correct.
MR. LAPPER-Because there’s nowhere on it that would be 400 feet which would be, you
can’t have a lot that doesn’t have a curb cut because then it would be a regulatory taking. So
our job is to design this so that it works the best that it can under the circumstances, albeit
there isn’t 400 feet, and that’s why we did the detailed traffic review for C.T. Male to say that
this site would work, and we believe with that left turn restriction, that that’s how it would
work out, and it will work, but let me let Mike answer that from the engineering perspective.
MIKE HARTMAN
MR. HARTMAN-Well, of that 163, you’re only talking about 49 in the Saturday PM peak,
which would be occupying space between those two driveways that you’re referring to.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, what I’m using the 163 for, which is your number, is to determine
what the driveway spacing had to be by our Code. That’s the only reason I used that.
MR. ROUND-Chris Round, for the record. As part of the process of drafting that regulation,
we realized that that’s not an achievable standard, and you can’t impose a standard that’s
not achievable in this process. You can’t raise the bar and say, okay, here’s the standard, you
can’t meet it. Jon spoke to that. That would be a regulatory taking, and that’s not looked
upon favorably in the land use world, and the law. If you read further on, there’s a section
that says the Planning Board can waive that particular requirement.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s true, but I see this as a great differential, in my mind, between the
440 and what you really need. I mean, the waiver is one thing, but the percentage of waiver
is very high here.
MR. ROUND-The other issue is those are guidelines. Those are objectives to meet when
designing new facilities and new subdivisions, and they’re tied also to lot widths. You can’t
say that, hey, you need to meet a 440 separation standard when you have a 220 foot lot. So
you have to apply commonsense and look at it from that perspective as well. New York State
does not have standards, per se. They have goals and objectives for access management. So
even on State highways, they recognize that that’s not an achievable effort to impose on a
landowner, and the other thing is that it is a County highway. Warren County Department
of Public Works did sign off on it, and will authorize the curb cut, and they’re the entity
that’s engaged in permitting access to the highway, realizing you have a role to play in
looking at the impact to the site, and Warren County Planning Board, which is looking at
County impacts. One of the things they’re looking at is this is a County resource. They
evaluated that, and the Public Works Department sits on that Board. They’ve had that
opportunity to look at that issue as well, and in both cases they passed favorably on a
driveway at this location.
MR. VOLLARO-I didn’t see that in any of our, I saw the Warren County Planning Board’s
comment on this, but I didn’t see that they acknowledged that the driveway cut, or curb cut
was accepted by them.
MRS. BARDEN-Can I just clarify what Chris just said? In 179-19-020, that you are stating,
it says the Planning Board may waive the separation standards in the event the applicant can
demonstrate that no negative impact on the transportation system will result in the relaxing
of this standard, and the applicant has provided for future consolidation of curb cuts and
cross easements consistent with the intent of these regulations.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. First of all, I see this as a new development. I mean, it’s new to me.
The whole site is empty and this is a brand new operation that you’re going on to here. So
there’s somewhat of a dichotomy here, in my mind.
MR. LAPPER-Well, what’s not new is the size of the lot. That’s what pre-exists.
MR. VOLLARO-True. I guess to cut to the chase in my mind, this may not be a good site for
this restaurant.
MR. LAPPER-And here’s our big picture answer, that Quaker Road is a main commercial
corridor in Town, a five lane road, if you will, because it has the center turning median where
6
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
people can wait when they’re making left turns either on or off of that corridor. There’s not a
capacity problem with the road. There are a few vacant lots left. The Town has permitted a
whole bunch of other commercial uses within the last few years. Home Depot, Lowe’s,
Applebee’s, the car wash. The road functions well. It’s signalized. It’s flat. There’s good
sight distance, and our peak hours are different than the peak hours for the road. So in
general, we think that we have a sign off from C.T. Male as long as we get rid of the left turn,
we’ll have a signoff from the County DPW, and our job, as Susan just read, is to show that it
will work, or that the traffic will work on this, for this site and we believe that the County
DPW and C.T. Male passing on it and our traffic engineer will show that it will work.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ll tell you. I think maybe we ought to let Chris go through this, his
presentation. One of the things, I haven’t seen a signoff by C.T. Male.
MR. LAPPER-They responded, and we responded.
MR. VOLLARO-I saw their response, and I saw your responses back, and I see there’s
disagreement between the two. I feel that there is.
MR. LAPPER-Yes, but it’s that left turn that we weren’t willing to concede until the final go
around with them about that left turn out, and on that basis, we believe they’re satisfied.
MR. VOLLARO-If I read what I’ve got to read, I still see a separation of agreement between
C.T. Male and Chazen.
MR. LAPPER-They’ve asked us to concede, and we’ve conceded, but they haven’t, and we
did that verbally. It hasn’t been documented.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Why don’t we continue now, before I rudely interrupted Mr. Round,
and go right ahead and give us another presentation on this site.
MR. ROUND-Sure. For the benefit of all who weren’t here back in November, I think most
of us are familiar with the location of the site. Lafayette Street, there’s a signalized
intersection. There’s Quaker Road on the bottom of this page, and I’m just going to throw
this drawing up for a short time. It’s right adjacent to the Mark Plaza, the old TV 8 studio is
in this facility, Passano Paints is in this location right here. So it’s an empty, vacant site
today. As Jon mentioned, there is an existing access, defined access to the site, at this
location, it’s the location that we’re going to propose to use. You can see on this drawing,
what you do have, this is Drawing SP-2, which is the Erosion and Sediment Control Plan,
just to reference we’re using, just to simplify what’s on the plan here, there are wetlands on
the site that parallel Quaker Road and then there’s a wetland that is contiguous to the
Niagara Mohawk transmission line and then extends on to our site, at the rear of the site.
What we’re proposing, as we said, is a 10,300 square foot restaurant. What I wanted to talk
to you a little bit about was wetlands and stormwater management system, which we gave
you a quick go around last time. Our wetlands disturbance, it is a difficult site. It is
constrained by wetlands and slopes. What we did, and from a design perspective, was sited
the building at the street, in order to match the existing façade of the adjacent structure. We
brought it close to that building. We don’t think this is a very attractive façade. No
disrespect to the property owner, but it wasn’t designed as a face to Quaker Road. Our
building hides that perspective and provides a front entrance, or a front façade to Quaker
Road that we showed you last time that we thought was an attractive façade. The site
grading activities, we constrained those to the existing pad that’s out there. So that elevated
plain that you see out there today is going to exist after development. So it’s going to be very
similar to that. The wetlands impacts are less than one-tenth of an acre. So we would be
obtaining general permit coverage under Nationwide Permit 39. So we don’t need a
discretionary approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
MR. VOLLARO-I thought it was pretty close, Chris.
MR. ROUND-It is. You work to that goal. That’s the design objective, and sometimes, as
you know, you hit it right on the mark, Bob, sometimes you have some latitude.
MR. VOLLARO-It depends on who sets the flags. The wetland is defined.
MR. ROUND-It’s all subject to Army Corps jurisdiction and verification. So there’s no
discretion on our part. They verify the wetlands delineation. They verify those elements. So
7
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
our wetlands disturbance is less than one-tenth of an acre. Our stormwater management
system, as we mentioned, in order to use the entire site, as we’ve shown, we put stormwater
management underground, and we used a series of catch basins that collect stormwater and
direct stormwater to what they call a stormwater flow splitter, and the stormwater is directed
to two different devices over here on the eastern side of the site. This first area provides some
storage and with stormwater, New York State DEC regulations, we’re required to treat for
quality and quantity or retain storage volumes on your site to pre-development conditions,
and so this stormwater diverters directs all stormwater to this system over here. There’s a
sediment chamber and then a series of cartridge filters, and I think last time there were two
questions from the Chairman, or the Acting Chairman at that time or Chairman, I’m not sure,
Mr. Hunsinger, and he said, what happens, how frequently do you have to change out the
cartridges, and what would happen in the event that the cartridges are by-passed, and we
looked that up. The cartridge maintenance is basically an annual requirement. So on an
annual basis you need to change those cartridges out and either clean them or replace them,
and there’s, as we mentioned in our Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, there’s a
maintenance manual in there that identifies those requirements. What this does, the short
answer, is it meets the New York State DEC water quality treatment standards. So that first
flush of stormwater gets treated through this system. Ignore all this. All this is, is typically
you’re seeing ponds when you see stormwater management on commercial and residential
sites. Just think of this as a pond. This is the four bay, treating this sediment. This is the
secondary pond that treats for water quality, and this, under a 100 year storm, stormwater,
the first flush would go through this system and the balance would be either stored in here for
that one year storm, and then the 100 year storm would be stored in this device here, and
you’re not required to treat all that. You’re required to treat the water quality volume, that
first flush, and so the balance of the stormwater would be collected in this series of chambers
and discharged at a measured rate to mirror pre-development conditions. So as we
mentioned, this is a very expensive solution to treat stormwater. So we’ve gone the extra
length. It is an engineered system. There’s systems that we’ve used in the Capital District,
on commercial sites, and they function very well and we’ve had good success with them. So
that’s wetland and stormwater issues. I know there wasn’t a lot of discussion on that the last
time, except for those two concerns that were expressed previously.
MR. FORD-Could I ask a question, please?
MR. ROUND-Sure.
MR. FORD-How close is that to the designated wetland?
MR. ROUND-There’s an outfall to the wetland. Water does go, this structure discharges to
the wetland, and that’s permitted by DEC. The outfall device is not in the wetland. You’re
not allowed to put stormwater outfall devices within a Federal wetland.
MR. FORD-How close is it?
MR. ROUND-Five feet. Three feet, two feet, one foot. It could be up to, you know, it can be
right up to the edge of the wetland. That’s not in the wetland. You’ve seen sites like this
before. The idea is to take stormwater, manage it on-site, and treat it and discharge it in the
same direction that it was pre-development. So, today stormwater’s being discharged to the
site. After development, stormwater’s going to be discharged to the site. So you’re mirroring
those pre-development conditions.
MR. VOLLARO-Chris, I’ve got a question myself.
MR. ROUND-Sure.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m working from an e-mail from Jim Houston that was dated November
15, 2005, we’re going back into some history here. It says, regarding the proposed retaining
wall, it is my opinion that the typical wall detail be provided for a wall that will not require
construction in the adjacent wetlands. The wetland impact is shown to be .098 acres, just
under the .1 threshold, which would trigger the need to submit a pre-construction notification
to the Army Corps of Engineers. Submission of the pre-construction notification usually
triggers the need to provide wetland mitigation. Consequently, it is important that the
proposed wall construction take place without any additional impact to the wetland beyond
what is shown on the plans. So I just want to make sure I entered that into the record.
8
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. ROUND-Yes. We have that and we acknowledged it, and we responded back to Jim.
That detail would be provided. The reason you don’t have a revised set of plans in front of
you today is we want to identify all those issues. We didn’t have a lengthy discussion last
time other elements that you wanted changed. So we didn’t want to produce version two for
the site plan and version three. What we we’re trying to get our hands around is the SEQRA
impacts, and so what we’ve talked about last time was stormwater, typically the things that
fall out of commercial site plans, stormwater, traffic. We talked about wetlands impacts. So
we think we’ve given you the detail that you need to make decisions about, does this reach
the threshold that triggers an environmental impact statement? During SEQRA production
documents, you generally don’t provide construction level details. What Jim is asking for is
construction details for SEQRA review process.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, well I just brought that out because it was very germane to the
particular, to the subject we were talking about.
MR. ROUND-Sure.
MR. VOLLARO-And, thanks, that was a good presentation.
MR. LAPPER-Response to Tom’s comment also, the reason why you have a wetland is
because that’s where the water is going, and we need to maintain that. If you stop the water
from going there, you’re disturbing the wetland. Even if that disturbance doesn’t happen
within the wetland, you’re impacting the wetland. It has to be treated
MR. FORD-I understand that. I just wanted to know how close this facility was to the
actual wetland.
MR. ROUND-That was the discharge structure. So what that discharge structure is, stone,
okay. So there’s a pipe that discharges onto a (lost word) size stone that basically dissipates
the energy of the stormwater. So it prevents erosion. I mean, you can put stone right up to
the edge of the wetland. That’s a permitted, and it’s a practice that’s used regularly. It’s not
unique to this project. That’s the way stormwater’s managed.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. ROUND-I think that’s as much, close to the level of detail that we gave you last time.
Just to refresh the record, we were back here, and we provided a traffic memo back in
September, and you asked for some time to look at that. Two months transpired, and C.T.
Male gave us comments on that initial traffic memo.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s your January 12 traffic study, right? January 12, 2006.
th
MR. ROUND-Right.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s the traffic study that was just done, that C.T. Male reviewed.
MR. ROUND-Well, no. As a part of our Environmental Assessment Form, we came here and
we presented information to you initially, and we presented quantification traffic volumes,
and you said you’d like somebody to look at the traffic aspect of this project. We didn’t have
a traffic study at that time. So we did, subsequently, submit a traffic study, and that’s what
you have in front of you, and that’s what we’re looking for comment on. I know they didn’t
have, I’ll pause there and let Jon speak.
MR. LAPPER-And we’ve been working with C.T. Male to get a signoff.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. If that’s the end of the presentation, I’d kind of like to open the
public hearing.
MRS. STEFFAN-No. Mr. Hartman was going to speak to the traffic.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Did you want to continue on about the traffic study?
MR. HARTMAN-Yes. I won’t get into great detail, but I think the comments that C.T. Male
presented this month, we’ve responded to. I think we’ve responded to them such that they
9
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
will agree with our concepts that we used. The traffic study that we submitted in January
greatly expanded on the initial cursory report that we provided.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, it did.
MR. HARTMAN-We looked at accidents. We looked at the signal operation at Lafayette
road, which is adjacent to the site. We looked at queue analysis. We looked at gap analysis,
in order to make the left turn into the site. We studied a very, very similar Golden Corral
facility in Albany on Central Avenue. Central Avenue is an exact replica of Quaker Road at
that point, two lanes each direction, undivided, with a large center median for storage. There
is a signal about 200 feet from the driveway on Central Avenue. So it’s almost an exact
duplicate of the site here.
MR. VOLLARO-Except Central Avenue doesn’t receive a traffic differential during the
tourist season. That’s the one thing about Central Avenue. It’s pretty constant. It doesn’t
receive this influx of tourist traffic, which I’ll talk about later on.
MR. HARTMAN-Okay. I think that’s certainly a valid point. It doesn’t, but the reason we
looked at the Central Avenue site was we also acknowledge the study that was done, and I’m
not equating the location of this study to the location we’re talking about, but a study was
done at the Applebee’s Restaurant that’s in the Lowe’s plaza, and it was only done relative to
what that restaurant generates as far as traffic goes, not how they get in and out, or anything
like that, just the generation that that restaurant provides, and that study was done in regard
to a comparison with the ITE generation rates, which are one of the main guidelines for
establishing trip generations for any commercial or residential land use development. That
study and our study at the Golden Corral site in Albany, showed us that the ITE rates for this
type of land use are greatly overstated for this area based on those two studies. Now, that
may seem that it’s something that we did that makes our life easier.
MR. VOLLARO-It certainly does.
MR. HARTMAN-But, ITE, in all of its literature, indicates that it’s part of our responsibility
to, one, look at their rates as guidelines. Those rates were developed over information that’s
been gathered over the last 30 and 40 years, at all different parts of the Country. There’s no
argument that during the weekday their rates are based on a lot higher studies than what we
did. They’re 20, 30, maybe 40 studies that were used, but during the weekend peaks, the
studies that their rates are based on are minimal, and in fact there are warnings relative to
using those rates because they are based on less than minimum amount of studies, at which
point is their recommendation.
MR. VOLLARO-I think it was something like four that was used.
MR. HARTMAN-Right. It’s their recommendation that if possible the professional look at
sites in the area and develop as much data as they can to supplement those studies, which we
did. We’re confident that, based on the one study that was done at Applebee’s, and especially
our study at the Golden Corral site in Albany, that the use of our generation rates and
therefore the resulting volumes are appropriate for review and appropriate for use in our TIS
study. There’s no argument that the left turn movement out of the site is problematic.
Quaker Road is a very busy intersection. We did show that there would be sufficient gaps in
traffic based on the light at Lafayette, and based on guidelines in engineering, except in
engineering manuals, that there was enough time provided at points in the cycle length to get
traffic out. However, what you see on paper empirically sometimes doesn’t translate to how
people drive, you know, when they’re out on the roadway. We have, at this point in time, as
was brought up, said that we will now prohibit that left turn movement out of the driveway
onto Quaker Road. That leaves the only other movement, I think, that was of concern was
the left turn into the site.
MR. VOLLARO-From the people who are eastbound on Quaker.
MR. HARTMAN-Eastbound on Quaker, turning into the site. There are two concerns here.
One is they would not have time or gaps in traffic to make that turn. Our gap analysis of the
light at Lafayette indicates that they certainly will have time to do that. Our Level Of
Service analysis which measures the delay that those people would experience, it was an
average delay of 10 to 30 seconds, based on which peak period you’re talking about. That
equates to an average queue length of less than one car, over an hour, based on number of
10
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
people going in. So very, very rarely, I’m not saying it’s not going to happen, but you’re very
rarely going to see four, five cars queued up there to go in there, which is what you would
need to even approach blocking the secondary driveway entrance to the next door plaza.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I’ve got comments on all of this, but I’m going to save them until
later on, so some of my fellow Board members can also speak to this. What I would like to do
is, are you about done with your presentation?
MR. HARTMAN-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I would like to try to open this up to the public, so that we, on the
Board, and you, the applicant, can listen to what some of the public has to say about this. So
I would like to, at this point, open the public hearing, and ask anybody who would like to
talk to this application to please step up to the microphone and discuss whatever you’d like to
talk about. Mr. Salvador.
PUBLIC HEARING OPEN
JOHN SALVADOR
MR. SALVADOR-Good evening. Thank you. My name is John Salvador. I have a comment
and a concern. With regard to guaranteeing the no left hand turn on the egress from this site,
I think they should develop something very similar to what’s been done for that motel up on
Miller Hill where they have an island separating the entrance from the exit, and you really
force the traffic to make that right hand turn. You direct the traffic. It would be very
difficult for them to make the left. They’d be pointing in the right direction.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re talking about the right out?
MR. SALVADOR-Yes, the right out should have an acceleration lane, more or less. The
other thing is the use of these filters to treat the stormwater. Filters are very maintenance
intensive, and they have an ever decreasing life during their use. It’s not infrequent that the
filter median gets ruptured in the process, and then they just don’t function. The other thing
is, filters tend to get removed and not replaced, and then there’s nothing being done. There’s
no treatment being accomplished. As I say, they are maintenance intensive and they are
expensive to replace. So there’s got to be some kind of control, inspection, reporting,
something to guarantee that that facility is functioning as it’s designed. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Thanks, Mr. Salvador. Anybody else like to talk? Mr. Boychuk?
AL BOYCHUK
MR. BOYCHUK-Al Boychuk from Mark Plaza, 63 Quaker Road. As far as the building, the
use being commercial, I agree, but the usage being a restaurant, which is highly trafficked,
will take high traffic, I just feel it would be a problem, even for left out, for right out only, it’s
fine, but people are going to try to pull in, and they will, they can be backed up six, eight, ten
cars trying to make the turn into the restaurant, which will back cars up, interfering people
turning left going west on 254 trying to get into the bank, to the doctor’s offices, Cingular,
directly across the way. Those properties are also going to have problems with customers
trying to go in. As far as the bank, they put a road in strictly as an entrance so that people
have access to their drive-in tellers. If they’re backed up, six, eight cars, people trying to pull
out of Mark Plaza, where Passano Paints customers, Realty USA, and Dream House, all the
other tenants at Mark Plaza, they would have a problem pulling out of the Plaza because
people will be backed up. There are problems there, arising there today with traffic going east
and west, and the center lane is pretty well occupied. I don’t know if Chazen has been there
on site. On paper it’s one thing, but have they been there at three, four o’clock in the
afternoon when there’s traffic, when you have people leaving the light. By the time they hit
Mark Plaza, they’re doing 45 and 50 miles an hour. That becomes, you know, trying to have
people pull out and merge, where you have heavy traffic.
MR. VOLLARO-Are you talking about the center lane?
MR. BOYCHUK-The center lane. I’m talking about the center lane. The center lane is an
entrance for all the people on the south side of Quaker Road, and you have, from the bank,
the orthopedic surgeon’s, and you have Cingular. They’re all direct neighbors that use
11
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
Quaker Road also, on the opposite side of where the proposed restaurant is. The site is fine if
it were not all going to be used for the heavy traffic that it’s going to encounter. The
restaurant will most likely draw a lot of people and a lot of cars. The neighbors, myself, for
instance, Mr. Cunningham has complained of parking problems even within the Plaza,
because he has a space there and he would like to have direct parking. You’re going to find
people parking at Mark Plaza to walk over to be able to use the driveway to leave in opposite
directions because that’s further away. So that’s going to even create, from a neighborly
standpoint, problems.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, there would be no prohibition of people parking in the Mark Plaza lot
and walking the short distance to the restaurant, using the lot itself as a parking space. I
thought about that.
MR. BOYCHUK-That is also one of the problems. I know that happens at Regan and Denny
when you have a large funeral. Our parking lot fills up. People are parking along Quaker
Road, and the road is filled up and jammed. You have to have the Sheriff’s patrol there
patrolling and trying to guide people in and out, and so, you know, comparing the site to
Albany, it’s not equal. We have a, this is a resort area. Central Avenue, I don’t know if they
have the same types of businesses directly across the street from their restaurant, like a bank,
orthopedics, and it will be utilized with all, you know, from families to senior citizens to
younger people. The restaurant is excellent. It will attract a lot of people, but it may be a
bottleneck as far as traffic. That’s the only question that I have that still needs to be
answered, but has not really been addressed properly.
MR. VOLLARO-We’ll try to get to that, Mr. Boychuk. Thank you very much.
MR. BOYCHUK-Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Is there anybody else that would like to speak to this application? Okay.
Obviously not. Do you folks want to come back up to the table. Okay. The Board itself, and
yourself, have heard at least a couple of people from the public speak, and I’d like to try to
get some conversation going among the Board members.
MR. LAPPER-I guess if we could just have two minutes to quickly respond to those
comments for the record.
MR. VOLLARO-Sure.
MR. LAPPER-I just have some general comments and then we can do some traffic comments
from Mike. In terms of Mr. Salvador’s comments, we didn’t discuss it, but of course we would
understand that we would put in an island like there is at Taco Bell to restrict lefts. So you’d
only be channelized to make the right turn out. That’s the way to prevent people from
violating a sign that prohibits that.
MR. VOLLARO-This is a curbing that you’d use.
MR. LAPPER-Yes, a raised curb, and in terms of filter maintenance, and of course there has
to be maintenance, just like a grease trap for a restaurant has to be maintained and we would
certainly agree to whatever conditions the Planning Board wanted in terms of reporting and
inspection, what have you. That has to be taken care of like anything else. In terms of Al
Boychuk, I would point out that we understand his concerns. I think that ultimately what
will happen is that restaurant patrons will go shop for furniture and carpets in his Plaza. I
think it would be good for his business, but in terms of the traffic issues that he’s concerned
about, his comments are anecdotal, versus the detailed traffic analysis, which obviously he
hasn’t read, although we’re doing our best to explain, and what Mike stated before, and he’ll
respond again, was that he did look at the queuing analysis, in terms of how this would
impact the left turns into this site would impact the left turns out of Al’s site, but on the
Mark Plaza site, they have, of course, two curb cuts, and if they built it today they probably
wouldn’t be permitted to have two curb cuts under the present Code. His primary curb cut is
near the funeral home on the west side of the site, and the secondary one is near our site,
Passano Paints. So if people are making a left because they want to go east, the natural
inclination may be to move to the east side of the site to turn, to make that left hand turn,
but that’s closer to the traffic light. I mean, the better stacking would be to make a left turn
from his western entrance/exit, rather than his eastern. So it may be possible, he can restrict
left turns out of his eastern entrance just to give his own people more stacking, but either
12
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
way, I’m only suggesting that as mitigation on his part, but either way, what Mike’s study
showed is that there’s plenty of stacking distance, and that there won’t be any conflict with
people turning into the restaurant and turning out of his site, but that’s what our traffic
study shows, and C.T. Male looked at that, but let me let Mike go on the record.
MR. VOLLARO-I’d just like to ask Mike a question. I use that a lot. I go to Passano Paints.
I go to Al to buy carpets, and so I’m familiar with this area. When I’m coming down Quaker,
in the westbound lane, I normally into Passano Paints, slide right in there. It could very well
be that people that want to go to this restaurant will do exactly the same thing. They may
not, because of the configuration of the entrance, they may go right in there, park in Mr.
Boychuk’s lot, and walk over. It’s not that much of a walk, and so I’m concerned about
impacting their lot. Mike, are you familiar with the way that lays out right there?
MR. HARTMAN-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. ROUND-I think it’s going to be fairly well signed. So there’ll be a sign here. The
entrance is 140 feet separation between the two at this location.
MR. VOLLARO-Between Passano and this.
MR. ROUND-That’s a pretty significant distance between the two, and I think it’s going to
be fairly obvious that this is the lit front of the building, and so people coming from this
direction making an entrance into here, and go by the main entrance and enter, could it
happen? It certainly could. I mean, a lot of other things could happen as well that I can’t
predict or control.
MR. VOLLARO-None of us can predict this. That’s the problem.
MR. ROUND-And coming from this site, I don’t think, you’re going to see the sign here, at
this location, you’ll see the sign to enter, and there’ll be signs to enter, you know, there’ll be
the typical directional signs that say enter the site.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s the left hand turn in.
MR. ROUND-Right.
MRS. STEFFAN-And, Bob, I understand your point of view, but I am thinking about what
happens when folks go to the Mall. I see people circling the parking lot so that they can get
the closest possible spot. The thought of walking that distance is just, I don’t know, I can see
that there would be some folks who want to do that, but I think the likelihood of it happening
very frequently is small.
MR. VOLLARO-A lot of it would depend, I think, on the extent of the queuing at the time
you arrive.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-And if there’s a queuing taking place at the time you arrive, you might try
to select an alternate spot and say, gee, let’s go right into this one right here, which is the
Passano Paint, move on and park in Mr. Boychuk’s lot.
MRS. STEFFAN-I think you could guarantee that during Christmas, during Balloon Festival
weekend, and on the Fourth of July weekend. I mean, I think during those periods of time
we’ll probably see that kind of thing.
MR. VOLLARO-Plus, we haven’t seen a couple of other things that I’ll mention here, that
haven’t been mentioned. The two primary sources of traffic, over and above what we’ve
looked at in the traffic study of January that you put together. One is that this is going to be
the first season where The Great Escape is operating its water park, right up on Route 9. The
second one is it’s going to be the first season where the Waikita Motel is going to be opening
up a big hotel, right opposite the water park hotel. Now they’re both located up on Route 9,
north of the 254/9 intersection. Saturday afternoon or Saturday night, people are going to
want to be going some place. They may not go to the restaurant at The Great Escape. They
13
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
may want to go to the Golden Corral. So I see traffic coming down Route 9, making a left
turn on Quaker, and heading east on Quaker and trying to get into this restaurant, and
queuing up, trying to make that left turn into that, if there’s enough traffic there, that queue
on a Saturday night will almost obviate anybody getting into Mark Plaza, it seems to me.
That might be a fairly large queue.
MR. HARTMAN-I mean, basically we looked at the volumes that we had and we knew
existed on Quaker Road.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m trying to look downstream a bit, Michael.
MR. HARTMAN-I understand that, and I’m aware of the seasonal nature and the seasonal
peaks in the area, and our queue analysis, even if you increased the general traffic on Quaker
Road, and even if you increased the demand for that left turn in there, right now we’re
operating at a very low, or good Level Of Service B, relative to delay. You could increase
main line traffic by a substantial lot, and you could increase that left turn traffic by a
substantial amount, and you would still be either at a high Level Of Service B, or a low Level
Of Service C, which is acceptable in all instances by any transportation agency for operation
at an intersection, be it signalized or unsignalized. Like I said earlier, with the volumes we’re
looking at, and that are in the study, the average queue length is very, very minimal.
Nobody is saying that there will never be an instance when there might be four or five or six
or seven cars there, but traffic analysis and traffic mitigation is not based on a one peak
instant that is not replicated over the course of normal operation.
MR. VOLLARO-I understand that.
MR. HARTMAN-If I could, just one more thing in the gentleman’s analogy to Central
Avenue, and relative to other type businesses that are similar to Quaker Road, very close, not
directly opposite, but within 100 feet on the other side of Central Avenue is a Mobil gas
station. About 150 feet down on the same side of the road, but west of the Golden Corral exit
is a K-Mart driveway. I mean, those are certainly the equal or more relative to generation of
traffic and possible conflicts than what is now present on Quaker Road.
MR. ROUND-The queuing analysis, also I think there was the comment, was were those real
observations? Those were real observations. Those were somebody going out to the site and
observing the traffic conditions.
MR. VOLLARO-At Albany?
MR. ROUND-No, today out at Quaker Road. The question was asked, are there vehicles
backing up at the Lafayette Street light that would prohibit entrance onto Quaker Road. We
looked at that. It would not be the case. We also looked at, you know, you can’t observe the
build conditions today because it’s not built, but it was empirical data that was imposed on
this site. If we were to build this site, would vehicles queue up and block, vehicles making the
eastern approach, the left hand turn into the site, would they block that, and that’s the
condition Mike is speaking about. So, if you recall back, when we met initially, there was
concern that the ITE rates were mumbo jumbo. That’s a standard of use. So we went the
extra mile and we looked at an actual site, an actual Golden Corral, not another high turn
over restaurant site, an actual Golden Corral site operating on an urban arterial. I don’t
know what other data you could collect in order to present a case about what the build
conditions at this location might be, other than build it and then observe it. I think we’ve
gone a pretty significant distance to give you the information on that.
MRS. STEFFAN-I have a question. There’s a Golden Corral Restaurant in Saratoga. What
is the utilization. I’m not sure if that’s the correct word, but the utilization of that restaurant
compared to the Albany location that you selected?
MR. HARTMAN-We did not do an actual count of people going in and out of that restaurant
because it’s very difficult to tell where they’re going unless you follow the cars because there
are common driveways for the hotel and the restaurant.
MRS. STEFFAN-I just wondered if it was the same kind of seating.
MR. ROUND-The business, what are you looking at.
14
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, the same kind of business volume.
MR. LAPPER-Our client, Neral Patal, the President of Northeast Dining can answer that
best.
MRS. STEFFAN-Thank you.
NERAL PATAL
MR. PATAL-The seating capacity is identical. The layout and everything will be exactly the
same. In regards to guest flows, similar to Queensbury, as you mentioned, during tourist
seasons, there is some upswing, but when you look at an annualized volume, they’re very
comparable, as far as guest counts and guest traffic goes.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Thank you.
MRS. STEFFAN-And this is a 365 seat restaurant. It’s open lunch and dinner. How many
turns do you do in a night? Like I know in the restaurant world you look at tables and how
often they turn.
MR. PATAL-In a night, if I could give you a weekly average, in a night or in a whole day?
MRS. STEFFAN-I would say a dinner.
MR. PATAL-During dinner, for an average, on a week, probably twice for each meal period.
Two to three times for each meal period.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Thank you.
MR. HARTMAN-I think one other comment I’d like to make is when you look at the
volumes and if you think about possible conflicts and capacity issues, the peak periods for
Quaker Road do not correspond directly to the peak periods for the restaurants. Quaker
Road’s peak period is weekday PM. Of the three peaks we looked at, that is the lesser of the
three peaks for the restaurants. The restaurant peak is Saturday PM, that is the lesser of the
three peak periods for Quaker Road. So some of those issues relative to the ability to get in
and out of that driveway are to some degree ameliorated.
MR. VOLLARO-Are you saying that there is not coincidence in peak periods on Saturdays
for both, in other words, there’s people who are shopping Saturday night and the people who
are going to restaurants at the same time. It seems to me there’s an additive function there,
as opposed to an independent function.
MR. HARTMAN-The overall volume on Quaker Road for Saturday PM period, based on the
study we used, brought forward to 2006, was ballpark 1650 vehicles. The peak period during
the weekday PM peak was over 2000 vehicles.
MRS. STEFFAN-On the weekend you don’t have the commuting traffic.
MR. HARTMAN-The restaurant peak period is Saturday PM.
MR. HUNSINGER-I always find these traffic discussions interesting, and it seems to me like
this Board always reduces it to anecdotal evidence, and we say, when I do this or when I do
that, I don’t find that to be true, or, you know, I have a problem making a left hand turn, or,
you know, so and so they had a problem doing that at one point in time, and it’s interesting,
nobody has asked the question yet, how much additional traffic is going to be on Quaker
Road as a result of this restaurant. Because that’s usually where we start. Usually when we
talk about traffic problems, we talk about the increase in traffic, and we talk about the
capacity of the roadway to handle the additional traffic, and no one has raised that issue at
all here, and I bring that up because the interesting point about your traffic study is, as you
just pointed out, your weekday peak is very, the traffic patterns are very different than the
Saturday peak. During the weekday peak, your traffic in and out of your restaurant is only
about five percent of the traffic on Quaker Road, which I would argue is pretty minimal.
15
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. HARTMAN-And which shouldn’t be considered as a five percent increase to Quaker
Road traffic. You do have pass by traffic that would normally be on Quaker Road who
would stop at that restaurant because it is now there.
MR. HUNSINGER-Exactly, and then on the Saturday peak, when the peak is greater at the
restaurant, it’s more than 50%, your weekday peak, the traffic on Quaker Road is 30% less.
So even though there’s a lot more cars coming in and out of the restaurant, there’s a lot less
background traffic for those cars to compete with, and I just find it very interesting that
we’re reducing the discussion to sort of anecdotal evidence, when you have tried to present
sort of scientific and more factual evidence, and I don’t know if it’s, you know, we, as people,
have a hard time understanding it, or if, you know, I’ve often said traffic is a relative term,
because I drive to Albany every day. Even when traffic’s really bad on the Northway, it only
delays me five to ten minutes, and I hate it, you know, and up here, if we have to sit through
a red light more than one turn, we think that’s a major traffic jam. Whereas, in other cities,
that’s normal.
MR. HARTMAN-You could be on the Long Island Expressway.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. So, it always intrigues me when we get into these discussions, you
know, certainly the driveway separations are an issue, and the left hand turn coming out is an
issue, but I guess I would suggest that what is being proposed here is very, very similar to the
entrance to Country Club Road. You have about the same separation between Country Club
Road and the red light on Lafayette, or, I always get the two streets mixed up, the next street
down, Glenwood, and at times taking that left hand turn onto Quaker Road is very difficult.
At other times, you stop, and that’s as long as you have to wait, and I would suggest that it
might be the same here, but coming out, certainly a left hand turn would be difficult.
MR. HARTMAN-I don’t think there’s any argument for that point of view.
MR. HUNSINGER-The other comment that I wanted to make, though, is, you know, as I
was sitting here listening to the discussion, you know, down at Exit 15, I think they have
done a very good job in developing the connector roads that run behind the back of the
properties, and, you know, I would suggest that there’s an opportunity to do that here, to
have a connector, you know, in the rear of the restaurant into the Mark Plaza.
MR. LAPPER-We’re showing an easement. It’s just that that would be up to Al Boychuk.
It goes to his loading docks, but it would be up to him to show the other side.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. LAPPER-But we’re putting that on the plan as required by the Code.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. LAPPER-I also just want to point out, in response to one of his comments I forgot
about, that he was talking about parking concerns that the restaurant patrons would park at
Mark Plaza that one of the applications that’s pending for this Board to make a SEQRA
determination is that we’ve asked for a parking variance from the Zoning Board so we can
provide extra parking on the site, which we can do and still maintain the green space
requirement. So that we’re trying to handle the parking on this site, to have more parking
than the Code would otherwise allow, more than the 20%. We’ve been at the Planning Board
for a while. We have to go back to the Zoning Board after SEQRA is done.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anyway, I just wanted to finish the thought. Has there been any serious
discussions with Mr. Boychuk about a connector to the rear of the proposed restaurant?
MR. LAPPER-It’s up to him. We’re showing it on the site. He’s have to agree to it, but we
have to show it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. VOLLARO-I guess my only problem, Chris, is that, for example, when they present a
case based on this anecdotal information, I look at that as their justification for the traffic
study, and one of the things I see here, in Table 3 and 4, is the count on The Golden Corral
16
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
was taken in the wintertime, it was not taken in June and September, and I think there is a
differential, in terms of timing.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, that would be science, Bob. That wouldn’t be anecdotal
information. There is a seasonal variation of traffic on Quaker Road. There’s no question.
MR. HARTMAN-If I could address that, Albany on Central Avenue does not have the tourist
seasonal peaks that you do up here, but when the counts were taken there, it was the
Christmas shopping season, which would be their peak period.
MR. ROUND-Our actual counts were not collected, do you know the dates when those were
collected, Mike? The actual counts. I think the concern with the seasonal variation is that
you’re not capturing all the traffic that’s on the highway. So the trip generations for the
restaurant are not going to vary significantly seasonally. They will peak and rise during
holiday events, where people will have a tendency to dine out more, during the holiday. The
seasonal variation that you’re looking for is that you’re underestimating the volumes on your
highway network, and so you might have higher volumes during the shopping season, during
Thanksgiving or Christmas. There’s not a capacity problem on Quaker Road. So it’s not like
we’re at a critical threshold where we really need to take in a seasonal variation.
MR. HARTMAN-The counts that we took at The Golden Corral in Albany were taken on
Saturday the 17 of December and the next week on the 21. I can’t imagine a busier period,
thst
relative to the Christmas season.
MR. VOLLARO-I think Central Avenue in Albany, because I used to live there at one time,
is pretty static.
MR. HARTMAN-I would agree with you most of the time.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t see great shifts in the traffic.
MR. HARTMAN-But if you’re looking for a peak on Central Avenue, one of the times you
would look for would be a busy holiday shopping season, and that’s when these counts were
taken.
MR. ROUND-And again, are we trying to capture the highest visitation rates of the
restaurant, or are you trying to capture the volume on the highway? What are we going to
miss with the seasonal variation? What question are you asking?
MR. VOLLARO-Well, the question I’m asking is that, during our seasonal transition period,
I think the traffic on, for example, the Northway is going to generate, is a major generator,
and people coming up the Northway making a right turn on Aviation Road, coming down
and making a trip east on Quaker, that’s one, and the north south traffic being generated
from 9, south and north, and this is during the summer season, and I’m just trying to get, in
my mind, the differential between that and winter months, because I see a great, you know,
I’m going to get into Chris’ box here for a minute, and say that during the tourist season, I,
personally, see a shift in traffic. A big shift in traffic.
MR. LAPPER-There’s not a lot of magic here, in terms of if you look at Olive Garden and
Red Lobster and the Pizzeria Uno, and Applebees. It’s not a restaurant in this corridor is not
anything unusual. It’s a tourist area. There’s lots of restaurants.
MR. VOLLARO-I think Jim Edwards mentioned that Applebee’s was not a good, because it
had two separate entrances.
MR. LAPPER-But Mike used it for the number of cars that we extrapolated to the number of
cars that we could expect in terms of how many seats, how many square feet, not in terms of
the configuration, but in terms of the use, and I guess, you know, I understand that you’re
trying to be sensitive to the neighbor, Bob, but in general, we’re on the major commercial
corridor with five lanes with a dedicated center median and Mike’s done the study, and C.T.
Male has looked at it and we just don’t think that there’s anything unusual about this use on
Quaker Road.
MR. VOLLARO-I still see a differential between what Jim Edwards had to say about your
January traffic study. I mean, I’ve looked at his comments and I’ve looked at your
17
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
comments back. I’ve got to see Jim Edwards getting much closer to an agreement with you
before I get satisfied.
MR. LAPPER-Well, we understand that, and we, just in terms of how the process went, we
just conceded the left turn out to him this week, and so he’ll put a letter together in response,
and we expect he’ll be supportive.
MR. VOLLARO-What I would like to do to terminate this, because I’m just watching the
clock. I’d like to ask other Board members, Tony, where are you on this, traffic wise?
MR. METIVIER-I, personally, don’t think that this one restaurant is going to make that
much of a difference in the overall traffic flow. I’m just thinking, you know, if you’re going to
go out to dinner, I don’t care who you are or where you’re coming from, unfortunately, the
truth be told, you’re going to go to one of the 15 restaurants on Quaker Road. If you decide
to go to this one or Olive Garden or Heidelberg or wherever it is, you’re going to be on Quaker
Road, most likely, unless you go Downtown or something like that. So really, what is the
difference of this restaurant? It’s not going to be a traffic generator, above and beyond any of
the other restaurants that sit there. You’re not going to sit there and say, you know, let’s run
to The Golden Corral tonight, and create one more car than if you were going to say, let’s go
to The Olive Garden tonight, and just go one block further down the road. So I think to sit
here for almost an hour and a half stressing over this is, it’s time to move on.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. That’s your position. Tom?
MR. FORD-Thank you. I find anecdotal information much more acceptable, Chris, when
I’m providing it.
MR. LAPPER-That’s a very honest comment.
MR. FORD-Thank you, and I collect that information, six, eight times a day, because my
office is in the Mark Plaza, and I read and studied the expertise that went into the traffic
studies, and I appreciate that, and the rebuttals and then the countering and the offering
suggestions. I’d like to throw out one or two ideas that I’d like to have you react to. Let’s
assume we’ve got only the right turn coming out from The Golden Corral, in other words, it’s
westbound on Quaker. How does that impact the Mark Plaza eastern entrance/exit for
anyone coming out of there and making a turn to the left, making a left.
MR. LAPPER-Making a left.
MR. HARTMAN-You would introduce a few more vehicles heading westbound on Quaker
with that movement. The ones that would have come from the west, that made a left into the
restaurant, and who would then, and all of them make a right out, okay, you would be
introducing, during the PM peak, the evening peak on Saturday, you’d be introducing some
70 or 80 vehicles making that movement, an hour.
MR. FORD-What I’m trying to get at is how that would impact the current situation of
making a left hand turn from that eastern entrance/exit from Mark Plaza, because you’ve got
this.
MR. HARTMAN-Right. You would be providing an occasional additional conflict for that
left turn movement coming out of Mark Plaza, but it’s not a constant conflict, and it certainly
isn’t as constant as the main body of traffic on Quaker Road. Quaker Road per hour, there’s
850.
MR. FORD-I’m thinking of from a safety standpoint, of somebody making a right hand turn,
someone making a left hand turn in at the same time.
MR. LAPPER-You’ve got to wait, if somebody’s coming, you don’t make a left. You’ve got
to wait until there’s a gap.
MR. FORD-Well, if you’re both sitting there on the edge of Quaker Road sometimes that’s
hard to determine who’s going to have the right of way.
MR. LAPPER-They’re 140 feet away.
18
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. HARTMAN-During the peak period of the restaurant, you would still, total on Quaker
Road, cars that those people coming out of Mark Plaza would have to consider to make their
left, that total is still less than it would be at other peak periods of the day.
MR. VOLLARO-There’s still an additional conflict there. There’s the one that Tom is
bringing out now, but there’s also the conflict of cars traveling, coming from Route 9,
traveling east on Quaker, wanting to make a left as well. You’ve got a number of turning
conflicts at the Mark Plaza itself.
MR. LAPPER-That’s what the median is for.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, the median is like a capacitor. It’s going to hold cars. That’s what the
median is designed to do. The problem is when new people, in my mind, when new people
arrive here during the tourist season, they may not be that familiar with how that capacity
lane is stacking up. They just may not be. I’m concerned about that.
MR. HARTMAN-That capacity lane is a common situation everywhere you go, that flush
median used as a stacking lane as a common occurrence. In fact, it’s a legal occurrence.
MR. FORD-I have another point to make.
MR. VOLLARO-Go ahead, Tom.
MR. FORD-In reading this, these reports, I didn’t see one of the things that I really was
looking for in there, and in reviewing the draft from our PORC Committee, the draft
proposal, and, Chris, you mentioned it as well, it’s access management. Was there any
consideration given to a parallel road, an access which would provide both for Mark Plaza but
particularly for The Golden Corral, a road heading east/west, parallel to Quaker Road, on the
north side, so that everybody, anyone from Golden Corral or the Mark Plaza could access the
light at Lafayette.
MR. LAPPER-The problem is the wetland.
MR. ROUND-Yes, that’s all wetland. That’s something we did talk about at the last
meeting, that that would be, one, it’s not our property. It’s Niagara Mohawk lands, okay.
You see that little partial. Number Two, it’s wetlands, and so you’d have to fill it, and that’s
just one.
MR. FORD-And mitigate.
MR. ROUND-And mitigate. It’s pretty significant, that would be a pretty significant
permitted project. They’d say, are there other alternatives, like do nothing, is one
alternative, no alternative, but that’s one tool in access management. The tool that you’re
asking us to employ is a prohibition of a left hand turn. That’s an access management tool.
The idea is you’re getting rid of that conflict, and so we’ve agreed to do that, and that’s a
good thing from your standpoint that you’re asking us to do that, and we’re agreeing to do it.
MR. FORD-At what meeting was it you introduced that concept of utilizing the fill in that
wetland and going to the Lafayette light?
MR. ROUND-No, I think you raised, somebody on the Board raised the issue at our first
meeting with the Planning Board and said, could you put your driveway at the light, and we
said, we don’t own the property, Number One, so that’s the big push, and then, Number Two,
it is all wetlands. If you see our drawing back here.
MR. FORD-That ditch on the north side.
MR. ROUND-Yes, this gray area is all wetland. So that whole area, if you were to bring a
(lost word) in there parallel in order to access the rear of the site.
MR. FORD-No, I’m not talking about the rear of the site. I’m talking about a road.
MR. ROUND-A service road parallel to Quaker.
19
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. FORD-A berm separating it from, or a curb, whatever, from Quaker Road and coming
out, giving sufficient turn radius, and making a right hand turn or left hand turn at the light
at Lafayette.
MR. ROUND-Still we couldn’t get out. That’s Niagara Mohawk lands.
MR. VOLLARO-They’d be in the wetland.
MR. ROUND-Yes. We’d have to traverse through these wetlands, and then come out, in
order to come out to the light there.
MR. VOLLARO-If you were forced to do that, you’d have to mitigate, you’d have to come
up with some mitigation plan to mitigate that intrusion on the wetland.
MR. LAPPER-We’d also have to get NiMo to agree, and that’s a major transmission
corridor.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom, how are you doing? Do you want me to ask another question?
MR. FORD-Move on.
MR. VOLLARO-Move on.
MR. SEGULJIC-Could you take a second and explain to me what’s happening with Table
Nine, in regards to the eastbound left and the southbound left right. I see a lot of F’s and E’s
there. I guess what I’m most concerned about would be the eastbound left that is the E.
MR. HARTMAN-Okay. One of the points that C.T. Male brought up in their comments of
this report was the information provided on the bottom line for Saturday PM, eastbound left
E and a southbound left and right B. Unfortunately my proofreader probably needs to find a
new job. Because those things are reversed. If you reverse them, you’ll see that it becomes
consistent with the other two peak periods, and is what is actually out there. The eastbound
left continues to operate at a Level Of Service B, 10.4 is the delay in seconds per vehicle
trying to make that move on the average.
MR. SEGULJIC-What are the southbound left, right then?
MR. HARTMAN-The southbound left right is the movement coming out of the driveway.
MR. SEGULJIC-Either going left or right.
MR. HARTMAN-Left or right, right. Because it’s one lane, it’s classified as both movements.
MR. SEGULJIC-And then with regards to the Albany site, Table Three and Four, if I’m
understanding this correctly, the second column to the right is the number of customers. So,
for example, on 12/21/05, on Table Three, they had 171 or so customers during that period,
something like that, and there were 46 cars then that entered. Am I understanding that
correctly?
MR. HARTMAN-Right. Those are the number of customers they had and the vehicles that
were entering and leaving the site, yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right. So that puts about three and a half people per car, which is what
one would expect. So Mr. Patal indicates he expects to do two turnovers for lunch and for
dinner, at his restaurants 250 seats.
MR. FORD-Two to three.
MR. SEGULJIC-Two to three. So that’s 700 people coming in, which puts us at well over
200 cars there. I’m just trying to understand, over a two hour period. So we’re looking at
almost three times greater than Albany, if I’m understanding this correctly.
MR. PATAL-Again, the counts that you have are just an hourly count and what my claim
for being two to three at highest point would be during a full dinner period. So that would be
from four to ten. To reiterate, that’s an hourly count, and my claim to doing two to three
20
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
turns at a busy volume would be during an entire dinner or lunch shift, which is five hours
long either way.
MR. SEGULJIC-But wouldn’t it also be safe to say that a Golden Corral is mainly families
and more of the older people. So you’d be biasing towards the earlier part of the five, six
o’clock hour?
MR. PATAL-No. Actually, our peak periods fall in Albany and Saratoga consistently
between five thirty and seven.
MR. SEGULJIC-And what percentage of the people would that be? I mean, 50% of the
people?
MR. PATAL-Yes. I’d rather not make claims. I can probably look back to my history and
give you a proper answer. Yes, probably right about there.
MRS. STEFFAN-And I obviously didn’t put this table together, but this restaurant was not
at full capacity at that time, and correct me if I’m wrong. Most restaurants are not at full
capacity every night. So I think that may be the difference.
MR. SEGULJIC-It just seemed like there were some discrepancies there. I’m just trying to
straighten it out.
MR. VOLLARO-Don, what have you got? Have you got something?
MR. SIPP-I see the traffic problem, but I don’t see any good solution. I think the right turn
is about as best as you’re going to do, and I would like to see some check on this, if it doesn’t
work, what can be done after, can there be any mitigation?
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I think the horse is out of the barn.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s the question, is there anything that could be done?
MR. SIPP-I would also, in getting away from the traffic, just some thoughts I had today,
where do you plow the snow in this parking area?
MR. ROUND-I don’t know what the answer to that. I don’t know what Neral’s maintenance
operation is. You do what you do on any other commercial site. You plow it to the perimeter
of the site. You do allow for snow removal. When you have serious storm events, you haul
off site.
MR. SIPP-Haul off site. What about the salt used in the parking lot? Would these filters
take out the salt?
MR. ROUND-Yes. This meets the DEC requirements to treat for those constituents.
MR. SIPP-Both the sodium and the chlorine.
MR. ROUND-Right.
MR. VOLLARO-If you look at your drawing, if you’re going to plow snow to the perimeter,
you’re going to be taking up a good deal of your parking space. You’ve got a good deal of
parking space running on the perimeter of that wall. So the snow removal is something.
MR. ROUND-It’s an operational issue.
MR. VOLLARO-The reason, it’s a tight site to begin with. Let’s face it. You don’t have an
ample amount of room on this site to work.
MR. PATAL-And that is also one of the reasons why we’re going for that variance, to
accommodate those wintertime needs when we do have a severe winter to where if we’re not
able to haul it immediately, that it would leave ample room for not only safe parking areas,
but for snow storage, is also the reason why we’re going for that.
21
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MRS. STEFFAN-I think that issue was discussed, C.T. Male brought that issue, too, up, and
then the Clough Harbour response on November 30, there were 19 points, and the question
th
was, a note should be added to the plans identifying how snow removal will be accomplished,
and their response was that snow removal is a maintenance and operation issue that will be
addressed by the owner. We anticipate snow may be removed off site if necessary. That’s in
our notes.
MR. LAPPER-At least Chris is consistent, since he said the same thing.
MR. SEGULJIC-I have one other comment.
MR. VOLLARO-Are you done, Don?
MR. SIPP-Yes, I’m done.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-Where are the buildings going to be located? One of my concerns is people
coming in, I guess there’s enough distance, people coming in, dropping off and picking up
people in front of the building. People queuing there as people try to come in and go out. Is
there adequate room there for that?
MR. ROUND-Yes, there is, because as we mentioned last time, there’s, we see buses as well.
So it’s sized enough to accommodate larger vehicles and so this width in here would allow
vehicles in both ways. So somebody might stop, let somebody out, and then continue on to
the parking area.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. So that was one of your considerations?
MR. ROUND-Right.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-While you’re talking about that access, one of the concerns I had was what
happens when deliveries come, like, you know, some of the Sysco delivery trucks and things
like that are usually pretty big, and what happens if a tractor trailer came in? Is there
enough room to turn in there?
MR. ROUND-Again, either ask them to use the bus service area, because buses are not
routinely on-site during the delivery periods, or we do have the service area. So vehicles will
come in, back in, and there’s, the service doors are along the back of the building, or the side
of the building. So they come in here and they go down this walkway. That gray area is a
paved walkway.
MRS. STEFFAN-Because I didn’t measure the turning radius, but I know with another
restaurant that we had up on Route 9, the turning radius wasn’t adequate for a tractor trailer
to get in and then to back in to the pad that they had identified for unloading.
MR. ROUND-I don’t know that, if there’s a differential between a bus and a tractor trailer,
but I’ve got to believe they’re fairly similar, but that’s something we can confirm.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, because with the landscaping, it just looked like it would be very tight,
and obviously I’ve never driven a tractor trailer.
MR. LAPPER-We’ll check that turning radius.
MR. FORD-Historically, at the other two sites that have been mentioned, what is the
frequency of large buses?
MR. PATAL-Large buses generally come in the Fall season when there’s a lot of tourists
coming to the Adirondacks to see the turning of the leaves, and minimal during the summer.
There’s just some Canadian tours that drive down to Manhattan and come back, but what’s
nice about it is most of them stop in Saratoga because of the amount of close retail that exists
there, but if I was to anticipate a bus traffic at this location, I wouldn’t even be able to say
that it would be, if I had to give an average on an annual basis, one every other week.
22
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Since we’ve heard from most members of the Board on the traffic
issue, what I would like to see is, on the Chazen Engineering response, the traffic responses of
February 7, 2006, you have a response to C.T. Male’s questions. I think C.T. Male had, I
believe, basically six questions. The seventh one I don’t think responded to traffic. It had to
do with stormwater. I’d like to see a closure between Chazen and C.T. Male where I get an
actual signoff from Jim Edwards on the fact that he agrees with this, the traffic study as
done.
MR. LAPPER-Certainly.
MR. VOLLARO-So I think we’ll close the traffic on that area and get into some areas. We
spent an awful lot of time just talking about the traffic end of things. If we went to our check
off list where we check things off in the site, site plan review criteria, when you’re starting off
with design standards, I’m going to go through that now with the Board and see if there’s
comments on it. Are there any comments on the design standards, which are conformance
with Comprehensive Land Use Plan, conformance with design standards in the corridor,
corridor designs. Building design and layout is something I think that we would want to talk
to. We need some elevation drawings on this building.
MR. LAPPER-We had them last time. We didn’t bring them this time. We’ll get them next
time.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, and then, Chris, I think you talked about signage, and I’d like you to
just go through the signage one more time for me at the entrance, of the proposed entrance
anyway.
MR. ROUND-There’s a proposed pole mounted sign at that location right there.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, and what does it say?
MR. ROUND-Golden Corral.
MR. VOLLARO-No, but it’s a sign that’s got to direct the driver.
MR. ROUND-I think my response was there was concern that people would drive past this
and there was a concern that they wouldn’t know that it’s the entrance to Golden Corral. We
could certainly, if you asked us to, we could put an in and out symbols to do that.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. I think that that’s appropriate.
MR. ROUND-Directional signage.
MR. VOLLARO-Directional sign in that entranceway, because I think that that’s something
that, you know, I’m just thinking of the average driver trying to get into that site. It’s a
tight site. It’s going to be tight.
MR. ROUND-It’s typical, you see those. They’re generally a foot and a half square to three
square feet and they’re arrows.
MR. VOLLARO-Is there any questions on the site development design itself? Now, in that
package is vehicle access and traffic patterns. I think we’ve run that pretty much into the
ground. We want to get a closure with C.T. Male on that subject. Does anybody have any
questions with the parking field design itself?
MR. SEGULJIC-Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, what is our goal here? Is it our goal to get
enough information to get through SEQRA and then come back to do site plan.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, we’re not going to do site plan now. What we’re trying to do now is to
develop enough knowledge on this Board to be able to enter into SEQRA.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
23
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-We’re not going to enter into SEQRA until I get every Board member to
say I understand this well enough to go into SEQRA. So is there anything to do with parking
field design at all?
MR. SEGULJIC-Not at this point.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-There was a notation, I think, by C.T. Male about 20 foot wide entrances. I
think they might have been 16 or 18 feet, and C.T. Male wanted 20 feet. So that’s an access
issue.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, because there’s, I think while Jim Edwards did his thing on traffic, I
think Jim Houston did his on C.T. Male on the rest of the operation, the rest of the
application.
MR. ROUND-Do you know what comment number that was? I see Comment 16 asks for the
purpose of the proposed 20 foot wide cross easement. The purpose of that is access to the
adjacent site, and so that was our response there.
MR. VOLLARO-The adjacent site being Mr. Boychuk’s site?
MR. ROUND-Right. It’s required under the Code to identify a cross easement. So that was
compliance with the Code. So I didn’t see the.
MRS. STEFFAN-Can you go on and I’ll try to find it?
MR. VOLLARO-Good enough.
MRS. STEFFAN-There’s a lot of material.
MR. VOLLARO-The next one is stormwater and sewage design. Sewage is obviously not a
problem because you’re going to be hooked up to municipal sewer. So we’re not talking about
this. Stormwater, I think we want to, the whole underground detention system and water
quality volume storage is, it’s operation is really based on good maintenance. The system will
work, from a science point of view, on the function. The question is to keep it functioning,
over time. You have to have some sort of arrangement with the owner of the building that,
and this has got to be something that’s either on the site plan because, if it’s in the deed, it
doesn’t give us, the Town, the capability of getting in there to take a look at it. If it’s on the
drawing, we can come in and take a look, and that’s where I want it to be, okay.
MR. ROUND-Sure.
MR. VOLLARO-So I think you’ve given us a pretty good description, Mr. Round, of how it
functions. So I won’t get into that anymore. The lighting design. Does anybody have any
questions on lighting? I’ve taken a look at the lighting. It doesn’t look bad. I think we’re
going to need cut sheets on those. We’re going to need cut sheets on the 21 lighting fixtures,
the downcast and cut off, and this is on the Saturn Sills City Light, 150 mod, the mod number
of those lights is, I think it’s S454-1-3M Black finish. Just get us some cut sheets. The reason
we need the cut sheets is simple. When the site’s being constructed, we’re going to be sending
somebody out there to look at the fixtures themselves, and what he does, he has the cut
sheets with him to make sure that the lighting fixtures are the same that are on the drawing.
MR. ROUND-We’ll add a detail to the plan that shows that.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. Landscaping design. Does anybody have any questions on
landscaping design?
MR. SEGULJIC-Not at this point.
MRS. STEFFAN-Not so far.
MR. VOLLARO-On the parking, does anybody have questions on parking itself? I guess, the
Queensbury requirements for 104. We can give you 20% over 104. We can give you 125,
versus your 154 requirement. Are you going to the ZBA with that?
24
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. LAPPER-We’re at the ZBA, but because it’s coordinated review, they indicated that
they were favorable, but they couldn’t make a decision until you pass on SEQRA.
MR. VOLLARO-So you’re going to be looking for a 23% over limit value?
MR. LAPPER-Yes, and this is a case where you obviously can’t park on Quaker Road, so we
don’t have the ability for on-street parking. So we better make sure that we have it on-site,
and since we’re not violating the green space, it shouldn’t be a problem.
MR. FORD-Or the wetlands.
MR. LAPPER-Right, which would be a real problem.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I guess I interrupted myself on landscaping. Are we all pretty much
in agreement that the landscaping plan is acceptable?
MRS. STEFFAN-I thought it looked good.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-I would be inclined to allow more parking, just because we want to contain
the parking on site, and so I think that it’s a reasonable request.
MR. VOLLARO-I already plugged in the 20% that we’re allowed to give. The 104’s our spec.
Twenty-percent over 104 gives us 125. They’re looking for 154. That’s 23.2% over limit.
They’ve got to go to ZBA to get that. So that’s an understanding of what they would have to
do. If the ZBA grants them that, then that’s fine.
MRS. STEFFAN-And the other comment on that 20 foot, I can’t find it, but I’m believing it
was from the Fire Marshal, and sometimes we get joint, you know, there’s three different
things.
MR. ROUND-I may not have that.
MR. LAPPER-Yes, we probably didn’t get that. I don’t think I’ve seen that.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. I can’t find it here, but sometimes we get three different
applications on a note from the Fire Marshal, and I think that’s where it came from.
MR. LAPPER-We’ll look into that.
MR. VOLLARO-In looking at the drawing, just while we’re talking about that, to take a look
at the, we were talking about the service area here, and getting down into, are there some
loading docks back in here?
MR. LAPPER-It’s just a paved walkway.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s just a paved area. Why were we talking about getting a tractor trailer
in here?
MR. LAPPER-Up on top. They would just back in, right there, back in.
MR. VOLLARO-Where it’s called service area?
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So we’re looking to see whether we’ve got turning radius for a tractor
trailer to make that motion.
MR. LAPPER-Yes, to back in.
MR. VOLLARO-You’ll look into that?
MR. ROUND-Yes.
25
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-How about neighborhood character? Anybody got any questions on
neighborhood character at all? It’s Quaker Road.
MR. HUNSINGER-It’s the right place for it.
MRS. STEFFAN-It’s the right place for it.
MR. VOLLARO-As far as involved agencies are concerned, I just put a note down on what
C.T. Male is asking for there, and I’ll read it again. On C.T. Male’s e-mail of November 15,
2005, they were concerned about this .09 acres, just underneath your requirement, and I
think that they talk about this retaining wall, and it’s something that, the construction being
in close proximity to wetlands, I think Jim Houston’s going to have to be a little more
satisfied that their wetlands do not get impinged by this retaining wall.
MR. LAPPER-And we were always going to provide construction drawings, just not at
SEQRA, but we’ll certainly get that for site plan.
MR. VOLLARO-And I don’t have any other questions concerning anything else here, except
that I think your drawing has to be brought up to date, that’s for sure, and I expect that,
now, I want to ask the Board a question. The public hearing is still open. We still have a
SEQRA ahead of us. It happens to be the SEQRA on this thing is a coordinated event with
the other agencies, announced agencies. Does everybody on the Board feel they now have
enough information to be able to answer the questions for SEQRA, without hesitation,
without too much deliberation on the questions? Are you all satisfied with being able to go
into SEQRA at this point? I’ll start with you, Don.
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Thomas?
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Chris?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Gretchen?
MRS. STEFFAN-As long as C.T. Male signs off on the wetland issue, yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom?
MR. FORD-I believe so.
MR. VOLLARO-Tony, I know your answer. With that, I think we will entertain and going
into the SEQRA application at this point. You supplied a Short Form on this?
MR. LAPPER-Yes, a Long Form.
MR. VOLLARO-A Long Form. I’m sorry.
MRS. STEFFAN-I thought that meant, is everybody ready to go into SEQRA now? I
thought we were talking, because you were going to table it.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, that’s why I asked the question. Are you all considering going into
SEQRA now? I want to know that from the Board. Do you want to do it now or do you
want to do it when they come back, after upgrading the plans and possibly after getting their
variance from the ZBA on parking?
MR. FORD-If that’s the question, then I want to wait.
MR. LAPPER-We can’t get the variance, first, though. We’d have to get SEQRA before the
variance.
26
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Well, you’re saying now that you’d rather wait until the drawings
are updated? Where are we?
MR. FORD-With those caveats that you just tossed out this time, yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-You said you’re looking for elevation drawings and signoffs on traffic.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. That’s why I asked the question on whether or not you’re ready to
go into SEQRA now or not. I want the Board to concentrate on that. If you’re ready now,
fine, but I think I’m not ready, frankly.
MR. FORD-Personally, I’d rather wait.
MR. HUNSINGER-What are your concerns, Bob, SEQRA concerns, specifically?
MR. VOLLARO-The SEQRA concerns, I want to see the drawing, the final drawing.
MR. HUNSINGER-No, SEQRA concerns. Not a site plan, SEQRA.
MR. SEGULJIC-I’m fine with SEQRA. A lot of the details will come out during site plan
review.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-There may be things that come out in site plan review that we’ve already
agreed to on SEQRA and you won’t have a retraction capability at that point.
MR. METIVIER-Let’s just wait. Let’s not spend another hour on SEQRA. Let’s just go.
Let’s wait until we get the other information.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. That’s two. Gretchen, what do you think you want to do?
MRS. STEFFAN-I want to do it next time.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s three. Chris?
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, I understand the opinion of Board members wanting final
drawings and everything, but, you know, at this point we’re just tinkering on the edges. I
certainly feel comfortable going forward with SEQRA. That’s why I asked what the SEQRA
concerns are, not site plan. There is a difference.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, you know, I’m very sensitive to getting into SEQRA, because once we
get into SEQRA and get locked into SEQRA, we’re done, pretty much. We don’t have very
much retraction capability after SEQRA. I mean, we’ve all discussed this before at
workshops.
MR. HUNSINGER-I gave you my opinion.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-I’m fine with going to SEQRA.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Don?
MR. SIPP-Yes, I would.
MR. VOLLARO-Be ready to go to SEQRA now?
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I think we’re four to three.
MR. FORD-We have someone who’s still in the public, if the public hearing is still open.
27
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-The public hearing is still open. John, if your comments are germane to this
thing and don’t repeat what you said before, I’ll allow you to come up to speak. So, is it a
new subject?
MR. SALVADOR-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. SALVADOR-I heard, very late in the deliberation here, the term “retaining wall”.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. SALVADOR-And I don’t know what the function of the retaining wall is, but having
some understanding of where it might be located, I remind you that retaining walls are
engineered items. The Building Code of the State of New York has the following, in Section
1806.1, retaining walls shall be designed to ensure stability against overturning, sliding,
excessive foundation pressure, and water uplift. Retaining walls shall be designed for safety
factor of 1.5 against lateral sliding and overturning. Now that’s a hell of a bill to fill in a
wetland area.
MR. VOLLARO-John, just so you know, if you haven’t seen the drawing, this is retaining
wall, this black line. I don’t know if you can see this or not, and it’s a reinforced concrete
retaining wall and guardrail designed by others, and that’s what it is. That’s the whole story.
Those are the retaining walls, and there’s one here as well. So that you know.
MR. SALVADOR-Okay. It’s understood that they will supply the engineered drawing to
meet the Building Code.
MR. VOLLARO-We can certainly make that a notation, but I think that they would have to.
This is going to get inspected I would assume?
MR. LAPPER-We need a building permit.
MR. VOLLARO-They’re going to need a building permit to do this, and then that’s got to be
inspected.
MR. SALVADOR-The last time I checked with Mr. Hatin he said we don’t permit retaining
walls. That’s a statement I got from Mr. Hatin. Now, he is remiss in his responsibility. He is
supposed to. I’m reading from the Building Code.
MR. VOLLARO-Thank you.
MR. LAPPER-I guess the only thing that I would say is that now that everyone’s so familiar
with this, if you wanted to just go through SEQRA and get that over with, we could go to the
Zoning Board and deal with our parking variance.
MR. VOLLARO-I think the Board’s taken a vote on that, four to three.
MR. LAPPER-Okay.
MR. PATAL-Mr. Vollaro, may I ask a question?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. PATAL-I’ve never been through SEQRA previously, so I’m just trying to understand.
What aspects of site plan design or SEQRA approval right now, or negative declaration
would not be alterable? How do the SEQRA and site plan, what aspects of them would
coincide?
MR. VOLLARO-Well, a lot of it depends. I mean, I can go through it.
MR. PATAL-Yes, I would like to, because I’d like to have a clear understanding as to why we
can’t do the SEQRA.
28
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-Go through it one by one for you, if you want to. I just feel that, as far as
I’m concerned.
MRS. STEFFAN-I think one of the issues that comes into play is that once a SEQRA
determination is made, it can only be, we can only do another SEQRA if new information
comes up that is material, that materially changes the project, and I think the discomfort
with some of the Board members is we just want to make sure that we have all of the
information that we’ve discussed tonight to make sure when we go into it we do it one time,
and that we don’t regret the decision to go through it, and I think that’s the logic behind
some of who didn’t want to go through the SEQRA tonight.
MR. FORD-Well said, Gretchen.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m just looking through here to see, will the proposed action alter drainage
flow or patterns or surface water runoff. That’s one of the things, I think. Just let me go
through it. You’ve asked the question. We’ve got to answer it. I think there’s one here,
impact on transportation. We have to think a little bit about that. Will there be any affect
on existing transportation systems? Alteration of presentation patterns of movement of
people and/or goods, something that I want to think about before we get into SEQRA and
say, you know, before we do that, I’m asking for you to close with C.T. Male. When C.T.
Male closes, I’ll have an easy answer to that. Before closure, I would not.
MR. LAPPER-We’ll get you that.
MR. VOLLARO-So that’s one of the answers, and I don’t want to spend all night justifying
the SEQRA position, but that’s one of them.
MR. LAPPER-No. It’s just new to Neral, and we understand, and we’ll get everything you
need and get back here.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I guess we’re really heading for a tabling motion here at this
particular point.
MR. LAPPER-We understand what you’re looking for.
MR. VOLLARO-All right. Just so the Board understands something here, we do not have, as
you probably have seen, we do not get prepared resolutions. We haven’t gotten them twice
now. There’s a reason for that. I talked to Cathi Radner, so the Board understands where
we’re coming from. I’ve talked to Cathi Radner about the extensive boilerplate, I call it, in
the prepared resolutions. We had a meeting on the 7 of February at about 10 o’clock in the
th
morning and we talked about, and she said most of the boilerplate that’s in the prepared
resolutions are useless for legal purposes, and she was going to get back to me with what she
thought was a better prepared resolution. She has turned that over to Mr. Schachner, who
has not given us any comments on it as such. So, in this interim, we’ve got a little hiatus
here. We’re going to be doing our own motions. I’ve done my own motions last week, and I’ll
have to do them this week again, or somebody else can take over and do a motion, but I have
a motion prepared for Northeast Dining and Lodging, and until we get prepared motions,
we’ll have to do them ourselves. I don’t know if any Board members have any questions on
that or not, but that’s the situation we have. Until legal gives us a better, apparently they
said all that boilerplate is unnecessary, but we’ll see what comes out of that. I’ll make the
motion to table.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 57-2005 NORTHEAST DINING & LODGING,
Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford:
Based on the following conditions:
1. An analysis of how to comply with our 179-19-010 Commercial Driveway standards. I
think I understand how that standard can be compromised, based on the fact that there’s no
other way to do it.
2. A complete update of your drawings SP-1 through SD-8, reflecting C.T. Male’s 25
comments in their letter of November 9, 2005, plus your response letter of November 11 to
th
those comments.
29
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
3. Additionally, respond to C.T. Male’s e-mail from Jim Houston to Craig Brown dated
November 15, 2005, the e-mail that concerns the possible getting closer to the .095 area.
4. We need a set of building elevation and designs and that includes a color scheme, so we
know what it’s going to look like sitting on Quaker Road.
5. Obtain a final signoff from C.T. Male on two things:
a. One would be Jim Houston’s letter and b. also the traffic study letter that was
done by Jim Edwards.
6. We need cut sheets for the lighting, to define the fixtures so that they can be inspected.
7. We’ll table it until April 25, 2006, assuming all information is back into Staff by March
15.
th
8. Make sure you get back to Jim Houston on the retaining wall. Make sure he’s satisfied
with that. That a statement should be made in your response that the wall would be an
engineered wall.
9. Take a look at the turning radius in the back of the building to make sure that tractor
trailers can get in back there.
Duly adopted this 28 day of February, 2006, by the following vote:
th
AYES: Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Metivier, Mr.
Vollaro
NOES: NONE
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Thank you very much.
MR. LAPPER-Thank you very much.
MR. VOLLARO-A little bit long, but a tough site.
SITE PLAN 12-2004 MODIFICATION SEQR TYPE UNLISTED A. BHATTI/ECONOLODGE
AGENT(S): JARRETT-MARTIN ENGINEERS OWNER(S): SAME ZONING HC-INT
LOCATION 543, 547 AVIATION ROAD REVISED INFO. RECEIVED IN RESPONSE TO C.T.
MALE ASSOCIATES COMMENTS OF 6/15/05. APPLICANT PROPOSES SITE PLAN
MODIFICATION TO A PREVIOUSLY APPROVED MOTEL PROJECT, INCLUDING
PARKING, GRADING, LIGHTING AND LANDSCAPING. CROSS REF. SP 20-2003, AV 19-
04, AV 29-05 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING 3/10/04 LOT SIZE 1.00 ACRES, 0.83 ACRES
TAX MAP NO. 302.5-1-51, 52.12 SECTION 179-4-030
TOM JARRETT & JON LAPPER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. VOLLARO-I like to refer to this, rather than the Econolodge, I think we’re really
referring to the Quality Inn here, more than we are the Econolodge. Is that correct?
MR. JARRETT-Fair enough.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. For the record, would you folks care to?
MR. LAPPER-Jon Lapper and Tom Jarrett.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Susan, do you want to do Staff notes for us.
MRS. BARDEN-Does anybody have the e-mail Staff notes that I sent they’d like to read?
MR. VOLLARO-The only thing I got was a cover letter over C.T. Male’s letter.
MRS. BARDEN-That’s all I have in my package as well, but I know that I sent out an e-mail
of Staff notes on that, and I don’t have them.
30
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-I haven’t looked at my e-mails today, unfortunately.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do you want me to read them?
MRS. BARDEN-Do you mind?
MR. HUNSINGER-Site Plan 12-2004. Aftab Bhatti is the applicant for the proposal. The
applicant proposes modifications to their 2004 site plan application, specifically, parking,
grading, landscaping and lighting. The subject property is located at 543 Aviation Road.
The property is zoned HC-I, Highway-Commercial-Intensive. This application is a SEQRA
Type II action. No further Planning Board action is required.
PARCEL HISTORY:
?
AV 29-2005: 5/23/05, Setback reliefs and minimum access driveway width relief.
?
SP 12-2004: 3/23/04, reconstruction of hotel office, and alterations to the building
exterior along with the associated lighting (Econolodge)
?
AV 19-2004: 3/17/04, setback and FAR relief for a new office/manager’s apartment
addition to Econolodge.
?
SP 20-2003 Mod: 11/18/03, building exterior modification to a 36 unit, 8000 sq. ft.
hotel building.
?
SP 20-2003: 6/24/03, construction of a 36-unit, 8000 sq. ft. hotel building.
?
AV 85-2002: 11/20/02, front setback and FAR relief for a 36 unit, 8000 sq. ft. hotel
building (Quality Inn).
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The applicant has constructed an 8000 sq. ft. motel building
(Quality Inn) with associated parking, grading and stormwater controls, landscaping and
lighting.
STAFF COMMENTS:
Most recently, this application was tabled on June 21, 2005 for two items, a final submission
and CT Male sign-off from their comment letter dated 6/15/05.
The applicant has been granted setback relief (front and side), access driveway width relief
and previous FAR relief for the project. AV 29-2005 approval did not include additional
FAR relief for the conference rooms in the basement of the building. The site plans submitted
should be changed to reflect that no conference rooms were approved, and no parking
associated with them is needed.
It does not appear that the interior parking lot landscaping requirements of a minimum of
one shade tree for each 15 parking spaces has been met. The proposed landscaped buffer on
the East-side of the property has been enhanced. The Board needs the applicant to address
maintenance of this area and require an agreed upon plan that will be a condition of approval
and filed with the plat.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ll make one correction to that, in that that was an old, the previous set of
Staff notes on that. The current calls for the SEQRA Type as Unlisted. There was some
question. It was resolved by my telephone calls today, to Staff, that we were going to make
this an Unlisted as opposed to a no further SEQR action required, and with that, we can go
forward.
MR. LAPPER-I guess just very briefly, we were here based upon the tabling resolution that
required a submission from Tom and a C.T. Male signoff. We have C.T. Male’s letter of
February 21, which we would characterize as pretty close to a signoff, and Tom wants to
st
talk about the few issues that they’re asking about.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. There’s a Q & A, I guess, really between C.T. Male and yourself on
their February 21 letter.
st
MR. LAPPER-That’s right.
MR. VOLLARO-And that’s on your letter, Mr. Jarrett, of January 16, 2006?
31
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. JARRETT-That’s correct. They basically agree with our design changes and our
comments addressing their comments. Item Number Two of their letter asks if a DOT permit
was ever obtained, and what’s the status of the DOT permitting right now. DOT was never
contacted for a permit originally. We have been in contact with DOT. In fact, they’re
comfortable with the configuration of the site, with the exception that they want the planter
and the light pole removed, and I’ve discussed with them waiting until we meet with you and
get approval from you before that’s removed, and they’re fine with that.
MR. LAPPER-You know what he’s referring to, right, at the end?
MR. VOLLARO-No, I don’t.
MR. LAPPER-There’s a masonry planter that’s raised up. The way the site works, because
that used to be Old Aviation Road, what looks like their front yard is really DOT right of
way, and so the planter goes over the line into the State right of way, and Sam Bhatti did it
because it looks nice. DOT has said it’s over the line on our property. Tom asked for
permission for it to be maintained. DOT said as a safety concern they want it gone, and Tom
just told DOT we should take it out as soon as we had permission from you on the new site
plan to take it out. So that’s just going to be removed.
MR. JARRETT-You have your drawings available. Drawing R-1A, B shows a block planter
on the entrance drive. That’s to be removed.
MR. VOLLARO-This is R-1A, B?
MR. JARRETT-R-1A, B, yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’ve got it. That’s the block planter.
MR. JARRETT-It shows up a little better on R-3A, B, if you have that handy, and right
next to it there’s a light pole with two fixtures on it, and that has to be removed.
MR. SEGULJIC-The light pole you’re referring to is to the east of the planter there?
MR. JARRETT-Yes, basically adjacent to, just east of it. DOT did not permit any of those
improvements in the right of way. They asked for those to be removed, and we’ve agreed.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s right in here, Tom.
MR. JARRETT-The planter itself is going to be totally removed. The light pole will be
moved to the rear of the site, which you’ll see on another drawing.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. It’s pretty well shown on R3A,B, though. That’s the most
significant.
MR. JARRETT-Right. We’ve been dealing with both the residency in Warrensburg, as well
as the Region One office, real estate in Schenectady.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. JARRETT-Items Three and Four are addressed. Item Five regards an access sign to
depict the traffic, internal traffic on the site, and we have no problem with that. We’ll
stipulate to that and add that to the plan.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. That’s Comment Five.
MR. JARRETT-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-The location and size of the new canopy creates a difficult two way traffic
circulation.
MR. FORD-Which way are you going to go on that, do you know?
MR. JARRETT-Our traffic flows underneath the canopy of the Quality Inn, and then out,
adjacent to Econolodge, and we’ll note that with signage, internally.
32
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. FORD-They were suggesting either one way traffic or do not enter or.
MR. JARRETT-Yes. We’re going to depict it as one way traffic, the way we designed it.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. JARRETT-Item Number Six regards the dumpster in the rear, adjacent to the end of
the Econolodge, and it’s blocked by two spaces, and the owner, Sam Bhatti, has said he’s
going to schedule his access to the dumpster when parking is minimum, and C.T. Male’s
agreeing to that. Item Seven is addressed, and Item Eight is C.T. Male concurs with our
grading and stormwater. They just want us to state that it’s in compliance with DEC and
Town standards. Previously we stated on the record that it was in compliance with Town
standards, and we were modifying the design to come into DEC standards and it does now.
MR. VOLLARO-I guess a quick question on that that I had on that whole thing was, does
the stormwater report that’s dated April 14, 2005 now reflect the proposed Drawing RC-2,
dated 1/17, by the way, it’s ’06, not ’05. The drawing should be ’06.
MR. JARRETT-Did we misstate that?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, it’s okay. Not a problem. It’s a typo. In other words, you have a
stormwater report.
MR. JARRETT-Still represented in this stormwater report? Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-April 14 does reflect the proposed drawing in RC-2?
th
MR. JARRETT-Yes. Because all we did was add landscaping and grade in the rear of the site
to improve the stormwater filtration capabilities.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So, for the record, the stormwater report that supports this
application is dated April 14, 2005.
MR. JARRETT-Just to go one step further, one of the major issues that was tabled in the
Spring, in addition to C.T. Male’s comment letter, we were still working on a grading plan for
the front of the site near that sign island, and the stormwater conditions in that area of the
property were rather suspect, if not faulty, and you’ll see, in the fact that we gave you a new
grading plan, as well as a new aesthetic design for that sign planter.
MR. VOLLARO-I saw that.
MR. JARRETT-So we think it’s a much more functional, as well as aesthetic, entrance to the
property.
MR. VOLLARO-And that would be the one, I guess it’s R4-C?
MR. JARRETT-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I looked at that, and I had a comment here that R4-C looks
reasonable to me. I struggled with the lighting program, again, but I see, there’s only one
area, there’s one hot spot in this whole thing, and that’s the uniformity ratio of 24.5 to 1.
That’s under the canopy. With respect to the 6.8 to 1. So that’s a 360% difference in
uniformity ratio, but I don’t know how to correct that, to be perfectly honest with you. I
don’t know what to do with that.
MR. JARRETT-As we reported to the Board last year, this was built, this site was built way
out of compliance, including lighting, and we’ve done our best to bring it into compliance
without tearing everything down and starting over. I think we’ve made some pretty
significant improvements, but we’re not totally, totally in compliance.
MR. VOLLARO-No, I can see that. It looks like you’ve made, from the time the, there’s two
drawing, the proposed and constructed, and then there’s what you’re going to do now, and
you’ve done fairly well with the lighting, except in this one area, but I don’t know how to
correct that, other than, you know, increasing the 6.8 to 1 will drop the other 24 and a half,
33
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
but, you know, I struggled around with those numbers myself and couldn’t make them play.
The drawing changes are minor on Number 1R1-A, B. The height should be less than 40 feet.
It’s up to 51 on your drawing.
MR. LAPPER-That’s because of the grade.
MR. JARRETT-I’m not sure I’m following.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’ll take you through, Tom. It’s on the first page of your, go to R1A,
B, and get up into the site and zoning requirements at the top.
MR. JARRETT-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Where you’ve got the height of the building at 51 .5. That’s been changed,
I’m sure, or is it the same? I was told by Craig Brown.
MR. JARRETT-No, it’s down. It’s lower.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s below 40.
MR. JARRETT-Yes, it’s 36, I believe.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. That needs changing on your drawing.
MR. JARRETT-That was the original.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s what you fixed?
MR. JARRETT-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. The other one is your Floor Area Ratio. Your requirement is 30.
You say 42, but your calculations show .38.
MR. JARRETT-.38 is what it stands at.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So that needs to be changed.
MR. JARRETT-Well, again, that’s the original drawing that was built above that, and we
pulled it back down to 38.
MR. VOLLARO-Right.
MR. JARRETT-.38, that’s correct.
MR. VOLLARO-So do those two things have to be changed on R1A, B, or are you going to
put them some place else, because 1A, B is prior, as opposed to C’s.
MR. JARRETT-I’m thinking they don’t, but I guess I’ll have to reflect on that and talk with
Staff and we’ll change it if it needs to be changed.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, because some place in the drawing it ought to show the actuals.
MR. JARRETT-Yes.
MR. LAPPER-This was our attempt to show what we had to fix. So it shows what it was
before they changed it.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. JARRETT-I’ll try and find it here.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m pretty much down to the C.T. Male signoff, but we have a public
hearing on this tonight. I know most of the people in the audience are not here to talk about
this motel. I’ll bet. So what I’ll do is I’ll request that anybody who wants to talk to this
34
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
application of the Econolodge or the Quality Inn, feel free to come up now, but I suspect
there’s nobody here that wants to talk about that. Am I correct? It looks like I am.
PUBLIC HEARING OPEN
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. This is a Short Form SEQRA on this application, but again, I’d like
to be willing to bring this back for a SEQRA when we’re complete. You’ve got just one thing
to do, and that’s the C.T. Male signoff on their letter of 21 2006, and those are the only
questions I have. Do Board members have any questions? Do you think we need to go
through the site plan review in any way at all? In other words, the questions on site plan
review? I think this is probably pretty straight forward, and we’re going to table this for
some drawing changes.
MR. LAPPER-We were hoping that you might accept Tom’s acknowledging that he would
do the things that C.T. Male wanted, because it’s all pretty minor.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m really looking for the signoff.
MR. LAPPER-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-We get ourselves in a lot of problems by doing it the other way, unless, if
Board members have different opinions, speak up.
MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to ask you, Bob, if you were going to let the Board
participate on this one.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I am.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, there were only two things that we were looking for to begin
with, and one we’re about, well, I wanted to say 90% there, but maybe it’s only 80. I don’t
know. Maybe it’s 95% there.
MR. JARRETT-Yes. I must be misreading it, because I thought we were there.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, personally I felt comfortable.
MR. LAPPER-We’re just stipulating to take out the planter and move the light.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. LAPPER-And also the one way signage, and that’s pretty much it.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Any other Board members have any questions besides Chris? Chris
has a question he’s posed. Tom?
MR. SEGULJIC-I’m all set.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Tony?
MR. METIVIER-I was actually pretty comfortable with this one. I made a comment before
they started that I was all right with this, but I guess I’m kind of surprised that we’re not
going to move forward with it, frankly. I thought that, I understand where you’re going with
the, you know, you want the C.T. Male signoff, but in this particular case, I think we’re so
close that we should entertain something to perhaps move forward with it, unless other Board
members feel otherwise.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Tom?
MR. FORD-I’ve seen such progress, and we are so close, that, I know this is the exception to
what we agreed to do, but if the others want to proceed tonight, I’d be willing.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s the will of the Board. I’d be willing to go along with the will of the
Board. Gretchen, how do you feel?
35
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MRS. STEFFAN-I think we can go forward on this. They’ve made a lot of progress and
they’ve obviously done a lot of, made a lot of changes to the site.
MR. VOLLARO-All right. We’ll agree with that, then. We’ll go forward. That means what
we have to do is go into SEQRA. Are you all comfortable enough to go into SEQRA, I
assume, by the fact you want to go forward.
MR. METIVIER-Absolutely.
MR. FORD-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-You need to close the public hearing.
MR. VOLLARO-I will in just a second. Okay. I am going to close the public hearing, and
this Board will go into a SEQRA motion.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MR. VOLLARO-I think it’s a Short Form?
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-I just want to ask clarification. In the original Staff notes, it was an
Unlisted Action, and then you said that there was a determination that that was not.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s right on your.
MR. HUNSINGER-In the past, I’m sorry, originally it was a Type II Action. In the past,
modifications to site plan have been Type II.
MR. VOLLARO-I asked the same question this morning to Staff. I talked about it
extensively with Sue and with Craig, and it was determined that this really should have been
an Unlisted Action, and that’s why it was changed.
MR. HUNSINGER-Why, though? That’s what I’m asking.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ve got to ask Staff why they re-did it. I don’t know.
MRS. BARDEN-Well, that was Craig Brown’s determination, and on the agenda it was listed
as Unlisted. You spoke to him directly. I’m not sure what your conversation was, other than
keep it as an Unlisted Action.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. He thought there was enough change from the original drawing to
this one, so that the modification was extensive, and he thought it ought to be called an
Unlisted. That was Craig Brown’s position to me this morning on the phone.
MRS. STEFFAN-I highlighted on their Short Environmental Assessment Form. They were
talking about parking, stormwater, lighting, landscaping and utility changes, and I thought
maybe that triggered.
MR. HUNSINGER-Maybe because of the stormwater.
MRS. STEFFAN-To re-do it, yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-So, Gretchen, you want to go forward with that?
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes.
RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE
RESOLUTION NO. 12-2004 MOD Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro:
36
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for:
A. BHATTI/ECONOLODGE, and
WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning
Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED:
1. No Federal agency appears to be involved.
2. The following agencies are involved:
NONE
3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of
Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental
Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury.
4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant.
5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental
concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a
significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the
Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this
Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no
significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby
authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-
significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law.
Duly adopted this 28 day of February, 2006, by the following vote:
th
AYES: Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Metivier, Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr.
Vollaro
NOES: NONE
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. We’re through SEQRA. Now I think if we want to go into a final on
here, the final is going to have to be conditioned with some conditions. For example, minor
changes to drawings. I guess there isn’t really anything else. There’s a minor change to the
drawings, and really a C.T. Male signoff, so that we can, you know, get a letter that says
signoff on it, for the record, mostly.
MR. JARRETT-They’ve asked for our concurrence on these issues, and we have. We’ll get a
signoff.
MR. VOLLARO-So, if somebody wants to make a motion on this for.
MR. METIVIER-What are the updates for the drawings that you’re asking for?
MR. VOLLARO-The drawings themselves, all he has to do, he has to make a change to the
date on the drawing. He had ’05. It should be ’06. There’s no problem with that. Two
minor changes, the height of the building has to be shown at less than 40 feet, and the Floor
Area Ratio should be .38, as opposed to what’s on the drawing now, which I believe is.
MR. LAPPER-It shows both.
MR. VOLLARO-It shows both.
MR. LAPPER-Before and after.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t see that on mine.
MR. LAPPER-We’ll make sure that it just shows the three acres.
37
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-So those are the only.
MR. JARRETT-We’re also going to add the signage, the one way signage.
MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to say, you’re going to add the signage.
MR. FORD-Bob, aren’t those the kind of minor issues that we’ve discussed of adding it as
Old Business, and possibly taking eight items on a night?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. We said, well, that hasn’t gotten instituted yet. It doesn’t become a
requirement until the first April, April 18, meeting.
th
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, let’s not confuse site plan with subdivision, either.
MR. VOLLARO-I think we can go forward with this.
MR. JARRETT-Right now you’re talking about documenting the drawings for re-submission
back to the office, right?
MR. LAPPER-For Planning Staff.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Is everybody clear on the motion? Tony, do you want to do it?
MR. METIVIER-I’m not clear on the signage, and I apologize. Add signage to indicate?
MR. JARRETT-One way traffic flow through the site.
MRS. STEFFAN-Is that along the canopy island?
MR. JARRETT-We’re going to enter through the Quality Inn canopy and then exit along
the Econolodge.
MR. HUNSINGER-So you’d have arrows in the pavement.
MR. JARRETT-Counterclockwise. Signage, hadn’t considered on the pavement. We can do
both, if you wish.
MR. VOLLARO-Basically, Tom, you’re talking about a one way flow through the site.
That’s basically what the signage will show. Is that correct?
MR. JARRETT-Actually, we’ve shown it on the pavement as one way through the canopy
area next to the Quality Inn. Two way next to the Quality Inn, but that would be the only
exit from the site.
MR. VOLLARO-What drawing are you on?
MR. JARRETT-R-1C.
MR. HUNSINGER-R-1C.
MR. JARRETT-C.T. Male was concerned mostly with the canopy at Quality Inn.
MR. HUNSINGER-Maybe that wasn’t sufficient for C.T. Male.
MR. JARRETT-They want the canopy, the traffic flow at the canopy to be more clear.
MR. LAPPER-And that’s what that shows, one way.
MR. JARRETT-So we can put a freestanding sign on the site that shows that.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, this won’t be able to come in for signoff until the C.T. Male letter
comes in, in any event.
MR. LAPPER-Right.
38
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. JARRETT-Right, final acceptance.
MR. VOLLARO-Final acceptance, because I won’t sign it until I see that anyway.
MR. JARRETT-That’s fine. We don’t have a problem with that.
MR. VOLLARO-Tony, you could say in the motion, signage will show a one way flow though
the site. That’s where we’re at.
MR. METIVIER-All right.
MR. LAPPER-One way at the Quality Inn.
MR. JARRETT-Yes, one way along the Quality Inn. That’s what C.T. Male asked for, and
that’s we.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, we’re really looking at, even though it says Econolodge, I’m always
looking at this as The Quality Inn.
MR. LAPPER-No, it’s two different parts of the site.
MR. JARRETT-That particular building is where C.T. Male feels the sign is needed, along
the canopy aisle, The Quality Inn.
MRS. STEFFAN-The canopy aisle is what they say in their notes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. JARRETT-And that would be clearest for traffic flow, the way we’ve got it designed.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So the signage would be a one way flow through the site of The
Quality Inn.
MR. LAPPER-Canopy.
MR. VOLLARO-Canopy.
MR. JARRETT-Yes, right.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MOTION TO APPROVE MODIFICATION TO SITE PLAN NO. 12-2004 A.
BHATTI/ECONOLODGE, Introduced by Anthony Metivier who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Thomas Ford:
With the following conditions:
1. That they receive C.T. Male signoff.
2. Make changes to the plans to indicate the drawing dated 2006 versus 2005.
3. Indicate on the plans that the height is less than 40 feet.
4. Indicate on the plans that the Floor Area Ratio is .38.
5. And add signage to the plans to indicate one way traffic flow through the site, along the
canopy aisle to the Quality Inn site.
Duly adopted this 28 day of February, 2006, by the following vote:
th
AYES: Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Metivier, Mr.
Vollaro
NOES: NONE
39
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. LAPPER-Thank you.
MR. JARRETT-Thank you. We will get these cleaned up.
MR. HUNSINGER-Nice job, Tom. It was so easy to follow, because I remember at the last
meeting saying what we really needed was the proposed and then the as built, and I think you
did a really good job of presenting that.
MR. VOLLARO-Once you broke the code of R1, R2, R3, and RC, you had it.
MRS. STEFFAN-The original project was just mind-boggling to try to figure, you know,
what was going on. We do appreciate that. Thank you.
MR. FORD-Good job.
NEW BUSINESS:
SUBDIVISION NO. 2-2006 SKETCH SEQR TYPE UNLISTED RIDGEWOOD HOMES
AGENT(S): VAN DUSEN & STEVES OWNE(S): MARGARET MEYER ZONING SR-1A
LOCATION 1548 RIDGE RD. APPLICANT PROPOSES A 7-LOT RESIDENTIAL
SUBDIVISION OF A 7.85 ACRE PARCEL RESULTING IN LOTS SIZED APPROXIMATELY 1
ACRE EACH. SUBDIVISIONS OF LAND REQUIRE REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD.
CROSS REF. NONE FOUND WARREN COUNTY PLANNING N/A LOT SIZE 7.85 ACRES,
RPS 7.90 AC. TAX MAP NO. 266.3-1-73 SECTION A-183
JON LAPPER & TOM NACE, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. VOLLARO-For the record, Mr. Lapper.
MR. LAPPER-Jon Lapper and Tom Nace, and the applicant is here as well.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. This is a Sketch Plan.
MRS. BARDEN-This is a Sketch Plan Review for Ridgewood Homes. The subject property
is located on Ridge Road approximately 1,050 feet north of Route 149. It’s zoned Suburban
Residential One Acre. This project is a SEQR Unlisted Action with no parcel history.
Project Description. Applicant proposes a 7-lot residential subdivision of a 7.85-acre parcel,
resulting in lots of approximately 1-acre each. A density calculation is needed on the plan,
taking the total area and subtracting any unbuildable areas, street ROW, wetlands, rock
outcrops, etc., per § A183-22. Is the Road proposed to be dedicated to the Town? If so, a
road name should be identified at preliminary stage. Test pit/percolation information is
shown on the plan, taken by Charles Maine on November 22, 2005. It should be identified
where exactly these six test pits were dug on site. There is an existing house on proposed lot 1
with access from a circular driveway off of Ridge Road. This driveway will have to be
abandoned with new access provided from the subdivision road only. It should be specified
on the plan that the existing driveway will be abandoned, seeded and mulched. The existing
house on the proposed lot 1 will no longer meet the setbacks. The roadway could be moved
South or the house will need a variance from the front yard setback.
MR. NACE-Okay. Tom Nace. I’ll address Staff comments first. I’ll just give you a quick
rundown of the project. First of all, as the Staff said, it’s a seven lot subdivision on the east
side of Ridge Road, north of 149. There is an existing house, which Staff indicated or showed
was encroaching on the setback line. This house will be removed. So the Lot Number One
will be re-developed with a new house. The existing house and existing driveway will be
removed. So construction on that will be all new.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom, I have a question, just quick before you go through that. The house is
setback roughly 60 feet from the property line now.
MR. NACE-The new road.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s the side yard you’re looking for, not the front.
40
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. NACE-No, it would be a front yard. With the new lot, it will have two front yards,
okay.
MR. VOLLARO-So we’re taking the two story wood frame house out. Okay.
MR. NACE-Yes, it will be removed. The test pits have been located on the print I have, not
the one you have, but we have shown them, in essence, there’s one pit on each of Lots Two
through Seven. The other Staff comment, we will name the road. The density calculation.
That’s what I was trying to think of. We have indicated on this plan, again, not on yours, the
density. There’s the road area, the total lot area is 7.85 acres. There are no steep slopes or
wetland areas that would have to be deducted. The area of the road is .68 acres. That leaves
7.17 for density, which is seven lots, and as Jon said, the road name will be selected and
shown at Preliminary Stage.
MR. LAPPER-So as far as we understand that this is a conforming subdivision.
MR. VOLLARO-There’s just one thing. On the test pits, this is over five lot subdivision. So
DOH, I think, has to get into the.
MR. NACE-Obviously, they will have to be redone. The first go around was just to see if the
soils were suitable, and they are, it’s all sandy.
MR. VOLLARO-We’ll have a DOH signoff on the test pits?
MR. NACE-Yes, we will.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. FORD-There was not one done on Lot One, is that correct?
MR. NACE-There will be, obviously when we get to DOH.
MR. HUNSINGER-What about the existing septic system with Lot One?
MR. NACE-It will be abandoned.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-Are you going to fill that in?
MR. NACE-Fill in the septic tank, yes.
MR. VOLLARO-You might even think of taking it out, Tom, if it’s a new lot. I don’t know.
MR. NACE-It depends on where it is relative to the rest of the construction on the lot.
Obviously, if it’s near the house, it would be removed.
MR. HUNSINGER-I thought it looked pretty straightforward.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, it is. The only comment I really had of significance was the DOH has
to sign off on over a five lot sub, on test pit data.
MR. METIVIER-The only issue I have with this at all is if we you can recall a few years ago
the Little subdivision was done right up the road, that turned out to be an absolute disaster,
and just, at the time, there were questions about the test pits that were dug, and actually the
fact that they may not have been dug, and it appears to me, because that’s a wet area, and
this is relatively higher, that we really do need to have verification of the test pits.
MR. NACE-Absolutely. We wouldn’t go through the Health Department without
verification.
MR. VOLLARO-The test pit data looks in keeping with what Tony said, and knowing the
plot that he’s talking about up on Ridge, these look extremely good, as opposed to what we
might see a little bit further north on Ridge Road.
41
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. NACE-I think as you go north on Ridge, the soils get worse, as you go south from this
area, the soils are getting better and better, and better, until you get south of 149 where it’s
all sand and gravel.
MR. VOLLARO-When we were up there on Saturday, it looked like a pretty flat lot, too, you
know, we didn’t walk it, but we took a good look at it from the driveway.
MR. FORD-It drops off in the back.
MR. NACE-There’s some drop off.
MR. VOLLARO-But it’s not significant. It’s like maybe eight feet, six feet, something like
that.
MR. NACE-I don’t recall offhand what the total.
MR. VOLLARO-Just looking at 75, maybe 5 feet, that’s about it. According to what you put
on the drawing, I don’t see any great change in elevation in the drawings.
MR. NACE-We’ll have, obviously, at Preliminary, we’ll have a complete grading plan.
MR. VOLLARO-So as far as the Sketch Plan is concerned, I think it looks pretty good to go
into Final. That’s about all I’ve got to say about it. Any other Board members want to talk
about this?
MR. SIPP-All of these lots will be supplied by well water?
MR. NACE-Yes, all of them would be on-site septic and wells.
MR. SIPP-Now, you have mottling at five to eight feet for your test pits. What’s the water
table there?
MR. NACE-Well, mottling is an indication of where the maximum water level gets up to in
high water table periods. So with the Health Department, for standard septic systems, we
need a minimum of four feet to mottling, or for shallow systems we need two feet. So this
would all be adequate.
MR. SIPP-Your test pit, 60 inches is your, excuse me, 49.
MR. NACE-This still would be adequate for standard septic systems.
MR. VOLLARO-I guess you’re saying the worst one, Don, is the 49 inch?
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-I think it’s still enough to get a standard system in.
MR. SIPP-How thick was the mottling?
MR. NACE-Well, mottling is very subjective. It’s a discoloration of the soil that you can
detect, and I wasn’t there to see the pits. Charlie Maine was the one that logged them. So I
really can’t speak to how distinctive the mottling was.
MR. SIPP-If that has developed into a real hard pan, you may have some drainage problems
in that one spot.
MR. NACE-I don’t think, all the soils, even down into mottling, still remained a fine sand
material.
MR. SIPP-It’s still a fine sand.
MR. LAPPER-So our client’s actually found a lot that can have conforming, conventional
septic systems in Queensbury. I thought there wasn’t one left.
MR. VOLLARO-Getting close, you’re getting close.
42
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. METIVIER-Yes, this might be it.
MRS. STEFFAN-I know this is Sketch Plan, and this is a traditional, what I’ve heard
referred to as cookie cutter subdivision, and it meets the standards for the Town, but it’s a
lovely piece of property the way it rolls, and it would be a good candidate for a conservation
subdivision, to put the houses, you know, all in a cluster in one section and leave the rest
green.
MR. NACE-Well, it’s fairly open now except for the one south side there that’s wooded, and if
the houses are situated, they’re one acre lots. If the houses are situated not in cookie cutter
fashion on the lots, I think that’s probably a better way to make it look more open than
trying to cluster on such a small area.
MR. VOLLARO-I think it’ll look pretty nice. I have no further comments on this one.
MR. FORD-I’m comfortable with it. I like the project.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t think we can make any recommendations that you’d need to go into
Preliminary. I think you’re okay.
MR. NACE-We’re all set.
MR. LAPPER-Thank you.
SITE PLAN NO. 2-2006 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED SCHERMERHORN RES. PROP.
HOLDINGS AGENT(S): NACE ENGINEERING, JONATHAN LAPPER OWNER(S): ST.
ALPHONSUS CHURCH ZONING MR-5 LOCATION PINE STREET/LUZERNE RD.
APPLICANT PROPOSES TO CONSTRUCT 40 TOWNHOUSE APARTMENTS WITH
ASSOCIATED SITE UTILITIES, ROADS, PARKING, AND SITE WORK. MULTI-FAMILY
DWELLINGS REQUIRE REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REF. AV 7-06
WARREN COUNTY PLANNING 2/8/06 LOT SIZE 4.87 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 309.10-1-45
SECTION 179-4-040
JON LAPPER & TOM NACE, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT; RICH S.,
PRESENT
MR. VOLLARO-And we’ll have Susan read the Staff notes on this, please.
MRS. BARDEN-This is Site Plan Review for a 40 unit multi-family housing project. The
subject property is located at Pine Street and Luzerne Road. This property is zoned MR-5,
Multi-Family Residential Five Acre. The project is a SEQR Unlisted Action. The applicant
proposes a 40-unit multi-family project (5 buildings with 8-units apiece) and associated site
work. There is an Area Variance 7-2006 which was approved February 22, 2006 for
additional parking, and I believe you have that resolution in your packet.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MRS. BARDEN-Staff Comments. On February 22, 2006, the ZBA granted a variance for
this project from the maximum parking requirements, specifically, granting 2 parking spaces
per dwelling unit, where 1.5 per unit is the maximum in the MR-zone, per §179-4-040. Many
public concerns were aired at this meeting, including increased traffic on an already busy
thoroughfare to the Thruway, increased auto and pedestrian safety concerns on an already
unsafe, unsignaled intersection. Additionally, questions regarding a plan for recreational
opportunities for residents of the development, concerns for preservation of rural character
and increased noise. Consideration for community connections should play an important role
in the review of this project. A sanitary sewer district (Veterans Field) is approximately
1,200-feet from the project site. The applicant should extend the sewer lines from Luzerne
Road to this development. A connection to the future EMS building/park and ride facility
from the rear of the site and to the proposed Main Street connector road should be shown. A
sidewalk should be installed along Pine which will eventually carry residents to Main St. A
plan for recreational facilities on-site or a plan for access to an already existing recreational
facility nearby should be discussed. An alternative to the proposed layout should be
considered, such as staggering the buildings and breaking-up the total parking lot area to
lessen the visual impact of an approximately 31,000 sq. ft. paved parking area. The five trees
43
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
shown within the parking area meet the minimum average density requirement of one shade
tree for each 15 parking spaces, per §179-8-040. In addition 8% of interior parking lot
landscaping is required for the approximate 31,000 sq. ft. of total parking area, which is 2,496
sq. ft. of landscaped area. A buffer type C should be installed in the rear of the site (between
multi-family and industrial uses), which is a 50-foot landscaped buffer, minimum 5 trees per
linear feet of buffer at a minimum of 10-feet high, per § 179-8-060. No elevation drawings or
floor plans were submitted with the project package, these need to be provided for review
prior to any further approvals granted. A comment from the Fire Marshal dated January 23,
2006 regarding the proposed boulevard is included. You have a C.T. Male comment letter
dated February 16, and that’s all I have.
th
MR. VOLLARO-Thank you.
MR. LAPPER-Good evening. For the record, Jon Lapper, Tom Nace, and Rich
Schermerhorn. To begin with, this is property that’s owned by St. Alphonsus Church, which
they deem to be surplus property. I believe at one time they thought it might be needed for
cemetery use, but they determined that it would be better for them to sell it, and because of
the location of the property and proximity to Main Street, and commercial uses, and actually
Parks and Recreation, Rich thought that this would be a perfect location, also because of the
sandy soils, that this would be a perfect location for a very small apartment complex
property. So he got together with the Real Estate Department of the Albany Diocese and
was able to get the property under contract, and I know that they are hopeful that he will get
this through and they can sell it. We were at the Zoning Board, as the Staff mentioned, last
week what we consider a minor parking variance. I think at the end it was eight spaces above
the 20% over, which is just because, in Rich’s experience, he feels that it’s better to have the
spaces rather than to have guests on the grass or on the street, and some of the neighbors were
pretty worked up about the use. They weren’t really talking about the parking variance.
They were just very upset about the use, and we view this as a conforming use. This is one of
the few zones in the Town where you can build a nice apartment complex, albeit it a small
one here, and there are a lot of things that make it appropriate, just because of the location in
this part of Town. One comment I want to make to make, just to start with, in terms of
traffic, that right now Pine Street is a cut through street to get from the City of Glens Falls to
the Northway. The Town is in the process, as you probably know, of constructing the new
connector road, as they’re calling it. The Emergency Squad building, the land has already
been acquired and they’ve already conveyed the land behind this building. So it actually
would be the Emergency Squad that’ll be behind Rich’s property, the re-located Emergency
Squad, and the benefit of the cut through street is that there’ll be a four way intersection on
Corinth Road, on Main Street, so that the people that now travel on, or certainly a percentage
of the people who now travel on Pine Street to use that as a cut through to get to the west
side of the Northway, would take the first left that you can get off the Northway, which will
have a signal, which will make it easier than Pine Street, cut through that property, and be
on Luzerne Road to go west. So that project should alleviate some of the traffic on Pine
Street, but, you know, that said, most of the day Pine Street’s pretty quiet anyway, except
perhaps at rush hour. We view this as fairly minor, in terms of the traffic generation, and
Tom will get into that, for only 40 units, but certainly an appropriate project for that parcel,
and because it’s heavily wooded, we’re leaving a good buffer in the back.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I think a lot of tonight, because I have a feel from the audience
from the last meeting, is going to come down to, I feel, probably traffic, and a lot of research
went into this project, as I do all projects. There is a document, and I brought it, and I think
the Town’s probably well aware of it. It’s 250 pages that the State of New York did back
from 2004, and it focuses on that whole corridor, Glens Falls Technical Park, the Northway,
the cut through, the zoning of the particular area, the potential build out. This report that’s
been done and approved specifically, specifically has in here, and I’ve highlighted it, Main
Street, Luzerne Road and Pine Street . It mentions those streets as relief being thought by
doing this connector road, and of course in helping the Big Boom and all that. So traffic has
been seriously, seriously looked at, not by my engineer or a traffic engineer I hired, but the
State of New York. Queensbury has exercised this option, and as a matter of fact, it’s
addressed to Marilyn Ryba, Executive Director. So this is not anything that’s just surfaced.
This traffic that, you know, I know everyone has been talking about, has been addressed for
the last couple of years, and they’re now going forward with this, and it’s even budgeted the
numbers that were approved, $600,000, Town Board has approved the West Glens Falls
firehouse being relocated, and that connector road is going to be constructed this summer. So
relief is going to be brought to that corridor of Town. So I just wanted to address that with,
like I said, Glens Falls Technical Park, everything, full build out has been done. The other
44
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
thing with this property is, and I brought this up at the ZBA, and I don’t mean to be
sarcastic to the general public. This property has been zoned MR-5 for over 12 years. This
property has not changed. We’ve had Comprehensive Land Use meetings, and I’ve always
suggested to people, you know, get involved. Everyone waits to the end. As soon as I come
up and I mention I’m going to do an apartment building project, everyone comes out, and
everyone has that right to voice their concerns, but this property, I just want to let everyone
know, has been zoned MR-5 for over 12 years. Permitted uses in MR-5, I can’t even do single
family. When they say, it’s not in character with the neighborhood with the five single
family houses that are on that street, I can’t build a single family house without even getting
a variance because it’s not permitted. The listed uses are Multi-Family, Duplex, Daycare
Center, which I’ve built on Bay Road. They have a lot of traffic that generates out of a
daycare center, and I know that because I built it, and it’s right in my office park. Cemetery
is a permitted use, but I’m restricted from building a cemetery because the Church doesn’t
want me competing with them across the street, and Queensbury owns the cemetery behind.
So that’s out. Health Related Facility. Now, I built the Glens Falls Rehab, The Imaging
Center. I own buildings in Glens Falls that I rent to the Glens Falls Hospital, tremendous
amount of traffic with health related facility. Place of Worship. Now a Church has traffic,
obviously, at very set times. I certainly don’t build churches. The other use is Professional
Office, and again, depending on the type of use, Office Buildings can be a very high generator
of traffic. Some could say, well, it’s only during the day. It wouldn’t be evenings and
weekends, but there’s no guarantees with offices. Like I said before, you could get somebody
that’s a call center and they’re busy seven days a week. The only other use is a school that
could go on the property. So, I’m just bringing these points out, that, as far as traffic goes, it
has been proven, time and time again, that Multi-Family dwelling units have the least
amount of impact, as far as traffic, trips per hour, and things like that. You can drive up and
down Meadowbrook Road, where I’ve built 128 unit project, 120 unit project, very rarely will
you see more than two cars, three cars stacked up during the day. The only time you’ll see
cars waiting in a row would be if they’re waiting for their children to get off the school bus,
and that’s certainly, I know is another concern of the residents is children. My apartments
have mixed uses. I’m not going to say we don’t get children, but it’s not, you know, when
people think of 40 units, they think, my gosh, we’re going to have 30 or 40 children. You’d be
surprised. I may get 10 or 12 children at the complex. I may get a little more. I may get a
little less, but it’s not an overburden thing of children. I have a lot of single people, married
couples, I get a lot of elderly couples, and the reason the apartments have been certainly
popular is not everybody can afford a home today, not everybody wants a home, but they
like the Town of Queensbury. People want to stay in the Town of Queensbury if they can.
There’s a lot of jobs here. There’s a lot of growth with a lot of the businesses being proposed.
Recreation was another thing that was brought up. It’s certainly, the Town zoning says that
50 units or less you don’t have to have recreation. I’ve discussed this before. I prefer not to
put swing sets and things like that in, if I can help it, but I’m always agreeable to Board
suggestions, and the other thing is, these projects aren’t exempt from the Rec fees. I have to
pay $500 per unit to the Town of Queensbury Recreation Fund, and with that money, that
money goes to, under the zoning, it goes towards the corridors of Town where that money has
been contributed. So, you know, as far as recreation goes, we certainly can discuss that, but
again, I don’t have an overabundance of children. Now, aesthetics, now, for whatever reason,
I generally don’t miss anything on an application. I did submit 10 copies of a colored photo
that was in the package. I don’t know why I didn’t get it. I just got Staff notes at four
o’clock, I had to call for them, and there was a Fire Marshal note that I didn’t get either. So
I’m not sure what that’s about, but I certainly can hand around, this is the previous project
that you guys approved about a year and a half ago, which was the Northbrook project that’s
all built out and complete. So I certainly can give you that to pass around. The same
building design. I’ve taken in the hip roofs and the things that you asked me to consider in
the past. I’m certainly not trying to, I guess I’m not trying to sell the audience on anything.
I guess I’m here tonight just hoping that we all focus on the fact that this is a piece of
property that has been zoned this way for quite some time. I didn’t zone it this way, and it is
an appropriate spot. I asked that they put the tax map up on the wall so that when the
people do come up, they can certainly introduce themselves, say whereabouts in proximity
that they are located to this, so that I can better focus on if I need to maybe address a buffer
zone or something like that. Right now, on the Luzerne Road side, there’s only two homes
next to me before you go under the bridge. There’s Bare Bones factory, or warehouse, I
should say, Transfer Station, QEDC owns all the property behind me. On Pine Street there’s
only five residential houses. The one house that’s closest to me, I believe their name is
O’Hanlon. I believe their lot is no wider than 75 feet. As a matter of fact, I had a survey
done. Their driveway’s on my property, and I’d be happy, just so you know for the record,
I’d deed that portion over to them. I wouldn’t ask them to move the driveway or anything
45
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
like that. So, you know, hopefully we can get through this tonight, and, again, as far as
buffers, anything like that, I’m happy to work with people, and one of the Staff comments,
again, was on buffering. I am an MR-5 zone to an MR-5 zone which QEDC owns the land.
The Light Industrial is across the street where the Transfer Station and the Bare Bones
factory is. So I think it was maybe a misinterpretation as far as the buffer goes.
MR. VOLLARO-I didn’t see it, I couldn’t come up with the buffer either. That’s okay.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-And I’ll hand it over to Tom, and we do have a signoff for C.T.
Male.
MR. NACE-I don’t know what you have in your packages. We got a C.T. Male letter last
week. We responded to it Monday morning with a full response and a revised set of plans.
C.T. Male, this afternoon, sent an e-mail to Craig Brown, and I was copied on, which says, I’ll
read it into the record, this is to Craig from Katherine Sear at C.T. Male. It says, “Jim
Houston received a response letter dated February 27, 2006, from the applicant’s consultant
for the above referenced project. The letter was in response to our comment letter dated
February 16, 2006. A revised set of site plans and stormwater pollution prevention plan was
also provided with this submission. The project is on tonight’s Planning Board agenda. I
have reviewed the letter, the SWPPP, and the revised site plans. It appears that all of our
comments expressed in the February 16 comment letter have been addressed. A signoff
th
letter will be drafted by Jim Houston upon his final review of the plans.” If there are any
particular issues, most of the C.T. Male letter dealt with stormwater. There was one issue
regarding utilities where we agreed to move a fire hydrant to make it a little more accessible
to the entire complex, but if there are any particular questions you’ve got regarding C.T. Male
comments, I’ll be glad to go over them individually.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’d like to ask the Board a question. There’s a lot of people in the
audience that apparently want to talk. We’ve all had a chance to look at these plans. I’d
really like to hear what the audience has to say. How does everybody feel about that?
MR. FORD-Yes, please.
MRS. BARDEN-I just want to make one comment on the buffer. The buffer requirement is
to separate uses, not zones. It’s true that that’s MR-5. Can everybody see where the parcel
is?
MR. VOLLARO-Stand up and point to it if you want.
MRS. BARDEN-But, just so you know, this is the parcel right here. This is what will be the
park and ride facility for West Glens Falls EMS. So the buffer that I’m talking about here is
to separate uses, again, not zones.
MR. LAPPER-But the park and ride, that’s not an industrial use, and the EMS, that’s not an
industrial use.
MR. NACE-Actually, the land is vacant now. So there’s no use.
MR. VOLLARO-I couldn’t, I got a note here.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, we approved the site plan for the Rescue Squad, and the Park and
Ride.
MR. LAPPER-It’s not an industrial use.
MR. HUNSINGER-So, I mean, even though the land’s vacant, there is an approved site plan
for it.
MR. LAPPER-Right.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-And again, you can see it’s heavily treed. I mean, I’ll certainly
leave whatever. I mean, if you say you want me to add some, I mean, again, I don’t have
problems with that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure.
46
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. SCHERMERHORN-When we sit down, I know I can’t talk during the public hearing,
but if you could kindly ask the people just to locate where they are in proximity. It would
only help me to answer questions when they come up. Thanks.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’ll do that, Rich. Thanks. Okay. I’m going to open the public
hearing now, and I’ll invite anybody in the audience to come on up and speak to this
application. The first hand is back there.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
JOHN O’HANLON
MR. O’HANLON-Good evening. My name is John O’Hanlon. I live at the property adjacent
to the development in question. First of all, I’d like to say, I realize Rich Schermerhorn’s a
businessman. I’ve got no problem with that. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. My
concern is, we have a single family neighborhood, within two blocks. There’s not even a two
family house. It’s all single family on just about one acre parcels. Now you’re trying to put
40 apartments on four and a half acres of land. I don’t understand how you could put septic
systems for 40 apartments. Where is this leaching to? When you have PCB’s across the
street. The second, which everybody is talking about, is the cars. Major issue, major issue,
but everybody’s going to get into that. My biggest problem is the people. You’re putting
more people on that corner than live in a two block radius, as you can tell by the petitions,
everybody within two blocks has signed that petition. Then the children. I don’t care if you
have 15 kids. Where are they going after school when their parents aren’t home from school
yet? You’ve got the Transfer Station across the street. You’ve got the cemetery they can
vandalize, and you’ve got my property, and they’re not welcome on my property. A single
family house, the kids are welcome on my property. They can play baseball on my property.
Apartment dwellers are not welcome on my property. What do we do in the summertime
when the parents aren’t home at all? We have a garden out back. I have a wading pool for
my granddaughter who comes over. Now when I’m at work, is that a grocery stand for these
apartments and a swimming pool for these apartments? I don’t know. It’s just something I
wish somebody would address. Plus sidewalks, you’re going to have young kids going up and
down the street. There’s not a street light. The first street light is about 60 yards south of
this development. There’s not a street light in front of that development, no sidewalks, and I
don’t see any reason why Rich Schermerhorn couldn’t build single family houses there. I
know you people would probably zone it in a minute to build single family houses, and keep
it, even duplexes I would be happy with. Why do we have to put 80 people on a corner, when
you don’t have 80 people within two blocks. So, like I say, I hate to say goodbye to a nice
neighborhood. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re welcome. Anybody else? In the back.
CONNIE FISH
MS. FISH-Hi. My name is Connie Fish, and I’m from the properties at five, six, and eight
Newcomb Street.
MR. VOLLARO-Can you recognize your property up there and just point to it?
MS. FISH-I’m on the back side of St. Alphonsus cemetery, and I have three parcels in that
area, and ironically, I came in possession of two of them because they were being turned into
rentals, and I did not want an absentee landlord. I have already dealt with drug dealers,
alcoholics, mechanics, you name it, 20 feet off my back door. Not living that anymore. So I
purchased two additional homes, that I did not need, and could ill-afford, in order that I have
control over who’s in my neighborhood. I have many issues. I think a lot of us have issues
with traffic. This study that he has is two years old. There are going to be major changes in
this end of Town. There are five major projects that are going to take place. We are going to
have Main Street reconstruction. We are going to have the through road put through,
decontamination of the chemical dump. We are also possibly, and looks pretty promising,
J.E. Sawyer being built in Fireman’s Field. Now we’re going to have this. How much can
you saturate one neighborhood? My kids stand at the bus stop, just drainage on Luzerne
Road. In the Fall, it rains, freezes in the morning. I watch cars spin at the front of my
daughter’s school bus while they’re crossing the street. I can’t tell you how many cars I’ve
seen pass the school bus. Now you have not one traffic light from West Mountain to Western
47
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
Avenue, nothing. It’s a straight shot and they go as fast as they can. It’s a passing zone,
right there at that corner, past the cemetery. That’s crazy. You’re going to put another 10,
15, 20, possibly 40 kids on the corner waiting for the bus in a passing zone. Crazy. It’s
absolutely crazy. You’re saying he applied for additional parking. Okay. Eighty cars. How
many times a day do you come and go from your own homes? You’re not going to find traffic
coming out to Luzerne Road coming up and using your connector road. They’re going to
have to go against traffic to get to that connector road. They’re going to funnel back out to
Main Street, catch the light and hop on the Northway. It’s just commonsense. When I leave
my house, if I’m going to the Northway or I’m going west, I go out to Main Street. If I’m
going north, south, or east, I go out Luzerne Road, just so I don’t have to cross traffic.
Because you can’t. It’s impossible. We’ve complained to the Sheriff’s Department. On a
daily basis, you can see three to seven cars every day being ticketed for speeding, unsafe
passing, failure to stop for the school bus. It doesn’t end, just in that section of road. From
the overpass, to the Firehouse, in the last ten years I’ve lived there, three pedestrian deaths.
That’s food for thought, and they were adults. We’re not even talking kids. We’re talking
adults. Full grown adults who should know better about traffic have been killed. I don’t
know what else to say about that. As far as recreational facility, whether he supplies one or
not, the kids are going to go down to the west end park. I always did. I always went to
Crandall Park. I didn’t play in my own back yard. I went down to the Park where all the
other kids are going to be. No streetlights. No sidewalks. You’re just asking for more trouble
on that road. That road is horrendous.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re referring to Luzerne Road?
MS. FISH-Yes, I am. You can tell kids, stay on the sidewalk. I tell my kids the same thing.
When they want to go down to Hannaford, half the time I find them coming back up the
other way, up Luzerne Road, no sidewalks, you know, they don’t listen. They’re kids. They
don’t understand. The other things I had concerns about is drainage in that area. It’s a very
wet lot, that whole area. If you watch the slope of the cemetery, that parcel also follows the
same slope, and how would the lot be graded? Will it run off into Chris’ yard, or out into the
road, cause more black ice, more problems? I mean, I don’t know how it’s going to handle
septic systems. When you put in asphalt, where’s your stormwater going? Is it going into a
tank? How’s that going to affect the workings of septic systems? I just think drainage is an
issue on that parcel. The land, has the land been tested for PCB’s? I don’t know. I know
that whole end of Town has been tested, and there are hot spots here and there, and the
complex just doesn’t fit in with the neighborhood like everyone is saying. Single family
homes, duplexes, even, would satisfy, I believe, most of us. It’s just too much. Too much for
one little area, all these construction projects adding, doubling or possibly tripling the size of
the neighborhood, in one shot. What effects will it have on the school system? I don’t know.
He says he could only have 10 kids. He could have as many as 100, you know, 40 families,
three children a piece. Do the math. It’s there. It can happen. Presently my daughter’s
school bus is overflowed. There are days when there are three to four to a seat, and she is
standing, because she’s the last stop all the way to school, on the school bus. There is no more
room on the bus, on any of them.
MR. VOLLARO-The school system you’re working on is Queensbury, Queensbury School
System?
MS. FISH-Yes, and I’m particularly speaking of the Middle School bus. I don’t have
elementary students anymore, so I don’t know. High Schoolers, most of them are driving,
but Middle School seems to be an issue, and we’ve already received several tax increases for
the school district. Is his project going to cover the cost that’s incurred by the school district
or are we going to pay for it again? They’re bursting at the seams. They said they would go
up, I believe the last budget was one percent. It ended up being 10%. They told us it would
be one, now it’s ten, and the school is bursting at the seams again, and most of the
renovations are not completed yet, and we’re already over the limit, and just general
questions that I have is what is the screening process for a potential renter? What does it
consist of? Will there be some sort of regulations for evictions, such as in Glens Falls. If the
police are making numerous, regular visits to one particular apartment, are they going to be
evicted? If a renter is convicted of vandalism in the cemetery, or area homes, burglary, will
that be grounds for immediate eviction? And who’s responsible for simple things like trash
removal? We have a tremendous, illegal dumping of garbage in our, they pull in the
cemetery, dump it in my woods, Fireman’s Field, or they leave it at the gate at the dump, if
it’s not open. Which brings me to another issue. Have any of you ever gone to the dump on
Saturday morning? It is nerve racking driving through there. You’ve got traffic lined up the
48
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
full length of Bare Bones, and now you’re going to have all this traffic, just converging in that
one area coming and going. It’s just not a good project for that area, and we’re not saying
we’re against developing the area. I would go commercial. I would go for duplexes. I’d
prefer single family homes, but it’s an awful lot to ask of a very small neighborhood, and
that’s about all I have to say. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Thank you. Anyone else?
WILFRED KLEIN
MR. KLEIN-I’m in the same area as she is. My name is Wilfred Klein. I live at 12C
Newcomb Street. It’s on the same road. I’ve owned my property for almost 30 years. I’ve
been living there almost 20 years, or over 20 years. The zoning has changed in there, in that
area, in my area at least twice in the time I’ve been there. Zoning restrictions, I mean, when I
built my existing house now, we had to have 20 feet to the property line on each side of the
house. Now I think you’re down to 11.
MR. VOLLARO-No, I don’t believe so.
MR. KLEIN-It was reduced on my street.
MR. VOLLARO-I think we still have 20 feet on either side.
MR. KLEIN-I thought they reduced it in the Mixed Use. Anyhow, as far as that land being
rezoned 12 years ago, it’s still all single family homes. All right. So it’s Multi-family. So put
two duplexes in. So now you have four houses. It’s a residential zone. Even if it says it’s
zoned Multi-Family, it’s still a residential neighborhood. I’ve been against the widening of
Main Street for traffic alleviation because the bridge under the Northway is still only two
lanes. So no matter how many lanes you put in and how many cross roads you put in on the
east side of the Northway, if somebody wants to go south, they have to go under that bridge.
That’s where the back up is on those roads. It’s not coming off the Northway and heading to
the industrial zone onto the Luzerne Road. That’s not where the major traffic is. The major
traffic is in the evening when everybody wants to go home. They’re either going up the
Corinth Road, or they want to get on the Northway and head south, and that’s where the
traffic backs up on Main Street. So you can put six lanes across that road. Once they get to
the Northway, they’re backed up. This cross road, you’re going to put another light within,
what, a block of the Northway. So you’re going to have two lights right there, with people
coming to and from work. People, the main entrance for this apartment complex isn’t on
Luzerne Road, thank God, it’s on Pine Street. People aren’t going to go out on Pine Street,
like she said, and go down Luzerne Road to get the connector road. They’re going to take a
right out Pine Street to go to the Northway. So they’re still going to cruise up and down Pine
Street. Just because it says MR doesn’t mean it has to be saturated with as many buildings
as we can get on the property, but like I said, two, three duplexes on, you have three families.
If he doesn’t want to build, there’s plenty of builders that would love to come in there and
put two or three duplexes in. The neighborhood, since I’ve owned my property, when I first
purchased it, there were a lot of tar paper shacks. There were a lot of broken down trailers.
Most of them are gone. The neighborhood’s been cleaning up. People have come in and built
new houses, small houses. Aside from a couple of areas where variances were given, one of
which I fought because it was adjacent to one of my lots, which ended up going through, and
we fought them for over a year and a half to try to clean up that property, and finally he, the
person in question was arrested and evicted, and he’s gone and now it’s starting to clean up.
Like I said, we’re cleaning the neighborhood up. We’re single family residences in a
residential area. There’s no other apartment buildings nearby. There’s really no need to put
them there. Like I said, a couple of duplexes there, and you could put four families in there,
and everybody’s happy, and it doesn’t hurt anybody. Our taxes keep going up, and they just
keep stuffing more people in our area and the taxes keep going up more. The schools, she hit
all the high points. I’ve got to 100% agree with her. She did it pretty good. We’re just not
into having apartments and turning our neighborhood into a city. Like I said, the cross road
that they’re planning on building there, I don’t see that alleviating a whole lot of traffic on
Main Street. About all it’s alleviating is the traffic going to the industrial site, not away from
it, because that traffic’s all still going to go under that bridge to go south.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re talking about the collector road, now?
49
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. KLEIN-The connecting road that they want to build. That’s still on the east side of the
Northway. Anybody coming, if a truck’s coming from the south, yes, it’s a quick way across,
but coming back, if they want to get on the Northway, they’ve still got to go under that
bridge, and that’s still going to back up traffic, and if you have trucks, like they say that
you’re going to have trucks on that, most of the people leaving this apartment complex are
not going to use this connector road. They’re going to use Pine Street to stay away from the
trucks. It’s a nice residential neighborhood. We’d like to keep it that way, and that’s what
we’re all here about. Mr. Schermerhorn’s built a lot of apartments. He doesn’t really have to
build an apartment house in our neighborhood. The Church doesn’t care, as long as they sell
their property. Their property’s worth the same amount if four people put four houses on it
or if they sell it for an apartment complex. The only one that stands to gain in this operation
is Mr. Schermerhorn. We don’t stand to gain anything. There aren’t really any positives to
our neighborhood. That’s all I have to say.
MR. VOLLARO-Thank you. Anyone else? Yes?
CAROL TOSSIE
MS. TOSSIE-Hi. I’m Carol Tossie.
DAN FOOTE
MR. FOOTE-Dan Foote.
MS. TOSSIE-We live at 71 Luzerne Road, which is directly behind the property he wants to
build on. It’s right behind, off the corner. Our driveway will abut the property line. We also
have some concerns, and while a major concern is traffic and there are a couple of points I do
want to address, there are some issues as well. Obviously, as our neighbors have mentioned,
and will mention, a big concern is not just traffic but the character of the neighborhood, and
how we all feel about the possible caliber of people that may be coming in. Not just now.
Obviously he’s claiming he builds quality properties, and he has a pre-screening process and
he’s going to get doctors and lawyers and professional people in who want to travel to
Albany, and that’s great, except that that’s very short term. Properties, I have lived in
apartments most of my life, okay. Not everyone takes a great deal of pride in owning and
keeping up an apartment dwelling as opposed to a home. With a home, you have an
emotional investment as well as a monetary investment, and you’re going to care more about
the neighborhood you live in with a home, even with a duplex dwelling or something like
that, as opposed to apartments, and over time apartment buildings, in my experience, have
not been kept up, and five, ten years down the road, what is that corner going to look like? In
an already half industrial area, what is that apartment building going to look like? So that’s
a big concern to us. It’s not that we don’t, that we want to see that property stay
undeveloped, although in my personal opinion, nothing wrong with undeveloped property,
especially in an area, and I do have to say this, I thought that was quite amusing, I went on
the Queensbury.net website to look up the agenda for this evening, and right on the title page
it says, The Home of Natural Beauty, and here you are wanting to tear down a big area of
natural beauty in our neighborhood, which holds a lot of wildlife. We all get a great deal of
pleasure out of the woodpeckers and the birds, and the animals. We’ve had deer come in our
back yard and stuff, and that’ll go, you know, that will go, and it’s just, this development
really takes away from the area that we enjoy. We do live across from the Transfer Station.
There’s heavy traffic there three days a week, especially on Saturday. We’ve got the highway
noise in our back yard that we are trying to build. Dan just spent six, eight months building
a two car garage in the back to help relieve, not just for, you know, storing our personal
goods, but to help relieve some of the traffic noise in the area, and now you want to put 40
apartments on the other side of us. I mean, are we going to have to build a bubble over our
yard, just to enjoy our own property? So that’s a big issue for us. There’s personal privacy,
being able to enjoy our own land that we have for many, many years. I don’t want to be
driven out or hate living where we’re living simply because he wants to make more money,
and he thinks it’s more convenient for people to hop on the Northway right there. The
project that is going to have the cross over street to help alleviate some of the traffic coming
down through Main Street, I had heard at the Zoning Board meeting, someone had
mentioned something about a proposed to alleviate it up to 15%, but if you’re going to put 40
families, 80 cars there, how much of that alleviation of traffic is going to be negated by the
increase of the people on that corner that are going to have to go one way or the other, either
into the city or onto New York. So it’s kind of like you’re negating a project that’s already
been approved, and you’re canceling out another effort. It didn’t make sense to me. The
50
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
traffic light, the fact that there is no traffic light there at Pine and Luzerne, I had heard, Mr.
Schermerhorn had mentioned that in the plans they were going to put a sidewalk in front
from Pine Street, as well as, I guess, it was suggested in the notes that they were going to
connect to the sewer lines and stuff, would certainly help with some of the drainage problems,
but I’d like to see all of them addressed. Sidewalks running from Pine to Main would
certainly be a help. However, that’s not the only place anyone staying in that complex is
going to use. With the trend, nowadays, towards better health, walking, people like to jog,
ride their bikes, children obviously playing, looking for a place to go, that short little
sidewalk, where are these people going to do their morning jog or bike ride, or get their, you
know, if they’re going to get up in the morning before they go to work and drive to the health
club or wherever, it’s going to increase traffic. You’re going to have more foot traffic in the
area. You’re going to have more pedestrian problems as well as automotive problems, and
Dan had mentioned, as we were sitting back there listening, the woman mentioned that in the
past several years, there have been three deaths on the roadway, adult deaths. One was in
front of our house. Right in front of, including two deer killed in front of the house. There is
very poor lighting there. There is very high traffic there, and I don’t care what studies say, if
you don’t live it, you don’t know. There are constant traffic sound, day and night, constant
traffic noise. They’re going by, and they’re not going by at 30 miles an hour. They’re going
by, 40, 50 miles an hour. So I think the increase in automotive traffic and pedestrian traffic is
going to be a major issue, as well as, personally, for us, privacy. Right now we live on a quiet
corner. We’ve got one neighbor that we can see. We’ve got neighbors on the other side of us
we see from time to time, but not very often. Now we’re going to have 40 apartment
buildings looming, that he’s going to tear down the trees and now we’re going to have 40
apartment buildings looming, looking on to our back yard, and I don’t care if you put up a 10
foot high fence, that second level of those apartment buildings are going to be looking right
into our yard. As I said, that’s a personal privacy issue with us. We can’t always keep away
neighbors. We’re not living in a cave somewhere. I understand that. I just think it’s more
appropriate for us, as a couple, as a family, to have, keep it in the single family or even duplex
family neighborhood and not build a huge complex, and I had to laugh, I apologize, when he
said small apartment complex. Five, eight apartment buildings to me is not a small complex.
It seems like anywhere from 80 to 120 people, anywhere from 30 to 80 pets, which are going
to roam into our yards. Children who will trespass onto our property. We also have a garden,
and noise level, litter bugs. It’s just a huge neighborhood issue, as well as an aesthetic
problem. I just don’t think it suits the neighborhood. I think it’ll be an eyesore. I don’t care
how pretty he makes the building, I think it’ll be an eyesore. I don’t think it’ll improve the
look of the neighborhood at all, and I just, if you’ll bear with me, I want to go through my
notes and make sure I didn’t miss anything I wanted to speak about. If, for some reason, this
plan does go through, I’m going to ask that the Board consider a few things, just for the
neighborhood’s satisfaction. Be very careful, please, and make sure that any runoff doesn’t
affect neighboring properties, because I don’t think anybody wants an ice rink in their side
yard, or sewer problems. Also, the buffer zone between the properties, I really would not like
to see all those trees torn down, so that I have to stare at the backs of all those buildings. I
would like to keep underbrush of some sort in there. If Mr. Schermerhorn could somehow be
responsible for putting up not just a buffer but a fence, so we don’t have a trespass problem
into our yard, that would be terrific. I would love that.
MR. VOLLARO-How high are the trees there now, on the western side?
MR. FOOTE-Good size trees, 40, 50 feet.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So if we would hold that in a large buffer, that’s something you’d
like to see?
MS. TOSSIE-Yes. The safety of the people in the neighborhood, including any new tenants
would be paramount, which includes possibly, I know he’s not responsible for this, but as
public zoning or planning, street light additions of some sort, as well as sidewalks, and of some
sort of other traffic control of some sort, if at all possible.
MR. VOLLARO-Now, when you talk about sidewalks, are you talking from Pine all the way
down to Main?
MS. TOSSIE-I don’t know. I don’t know. I just know that it’s an issue, and I think it’s a big
issue with an increase in the number of people there. I know he’s, sidewalks from Pine to
Main, and then, but I don’t know if you can really ask at this point. The west end park is
right down Luzerne Road. How do they get there other than to drive? If you’re going to
51
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
have kids going down to the west end park, they’ve got to find a way to get there, other than
walk along the edge of the road.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s your ten minute warning buzzer. So I think you’ve done a great job
of talking to us and telling us your thoughts and thanks very much.
MS. TOSSIE-Okay. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-There was another hand someplace, right there.
BETSY LEVENDOS
MRS. LEVENDOS-I’m Betsy Levendos, and I live three houses down from where he wants
to put the project on Pine Street.
MR. VOLLARO-Toward Main?
MRS. LEVENDOS-Yes. I live right dab center in the middle of Pine Street. I’m the third
house in, fourth if you’re coming from the Main Street.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MRS. LEVENDOS-There’s a few things. I have children, two children, only children on Pine
Street, other than grandchildren, and one problem with the school system, as Connie has
mentioned, is bus pickup. My problem is a little different than hers, which is not
overcrowding of the bus. I have a problem of where the bus picks up my children. There are
no sidewalks on Pine Street. The only place to really put one would be right in front of the
cemetery, and the school would either like the children picked up at Hess, which is the gas
station at the end of Pine, corner of Main, or on the corner of Luzerne, where he wants to put
his development, which would either be, the pick up would be on his property, or at the stop
sign, which we have to drive to and then we have to park, literally, at the end of the street,
which causes traffic problems, which the State police have stopped and asked us to move.
Can’t move when you’re waiting for your children, you know, middle of winter, there’s no
sidewalks, you can’t walk down there. You have to drive. So they pick my children up at my
house this year. If he puts his development, building at the end of that road, the children are
going to have to walk down that road, and it is already busy. I’ve grown up there. I’ve been
there for 30 years, and you’ve seen the difference. It went from almost no traffic when I was
little. We could walk down that street. We rode our bikes in the street. We played. We went
through the back yards of all the neighbors. The only new neighbors was John, this past
year. Everyone gets along. We know each other by name. We visit. We have tea, we have
barbecues, play in the back yards, no problems. You add more people, there’s going to be,
not just kids, but people wanting to come down the street and see what’s going on. People
tend to be nosy and want to see what’s going on and join in, which there’s not a problem with
that, but it’s going to cause conflict with some people, you know, you’re going to add another
120 people. Mr. Schermerhorn mentioned that there were only five houses on that street.
There’s actually eight plus the business, so there is a difference there. If he doesn’t even know
how many houses are on the street, how does he expect to keep the traffic, how does he know
what the traffic flow is? How does he know what the people in the community want, if he
doesn’t even know how many houses are on that street? Do you understand what I’m
saying? He says there’s five, but there’s eight, plus a business. The other, as everyone else
has said, they’d welcome two family houses. Each house on that road right now, on Pine
Street, is a single family house per lot, per acre. We wouldn’t mind seeing a two family house
per acre on that corner lot. Leave some trees. It looks nice. It helps with the air and cleaning
and, you know, drainage, things of that nature. We wouldn’t mind that, but we don’t want,
per se, 20 to 40 units put in there, and then have to worry about the drainage, the traffic, the
vandalism, things that you’ve already heard about and realize are going to happen to some
extent. The less houses that he is able to put in there will decrease, there’ll still be that
possibility of the problems, and we’re not saying we’re not willing to help out with them, you
know, if he puts in less houses, we’ll help, you know, keep as much community spirit, if you
want to say, as we can. We are used to being there, single families, most of them, all almost
all those houses, except for John, have been there, and families, for over 75 years. It hasn’t
changed. Mr. Schermerhorn also brought up the point that the property zoning was changed
about 12 years ago, and no one showed up. Unfortunately I wasn’t old enough to show up. I
would have. I thought it was still cemetery use, as far as I knew. We tried to buy it. I
actually talked to the Church in 2001. I looked for six years for a house, I wanted to move
52
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
into my own place, start my own family, couldn’t find anything that I liked, that was like
this neighborhood. This neighborhood is friendly, and satisfying. The people help you. The
neighbors come over and help you fix your yard. I mean, my house is not the best on the
neighborhood. I’ve got to admit, but they’ve helped me fix it and get on track, without any
complaints, or heartache or being mean, and if you put 40 to 120 people in there, that’s not
going to stay that way. There’s no way you’re going to get 120 people that have the heart the
community has right now. They all care about each other. They all know about each other.
They help each other. Two families couldn’t be here tonight. That was Carmine. She lives on
the corner behind Hess, and the Palmers, which live right next to her. They both have health
problems. They signed the petition, and they wished us luck. They help out, and we help
them as much as possible, but they are elderly, and they can’t protect their property like the
rest of us can, you know, if someone trespasses, they can’t, they’re older, they’re sick, they
can’t do it. We will help them as much as we can, but we can’t take charge for 120 more
people going in there. Like I said, there’s a lot of traffic. Bare Bone trucks go through there,
and if my kids have to be picked up on the corner, that causes conflict with, you know, where
parking’s going to be, where pick up’s going to be, where drop off’s going to be. Eight years
old, they’re not going to be walking down the street by themselves, with that kind of traffic,
no sidewalks, no proper supervision. There’s no bus stop sign. There’s no designated spot,
changes every year. There’s no traffic light at the end of our street, and it is very hard to get
out of there, and with the entrance being on Pine Street, you are going to have traffic going to
the right past my house to the Main Street. It’s a Hess Station. They stop there for gas
before they get on the Northway, milk at night, you know, candy, coffee, cigarettes,
whatever. You’re going to have a lot of flow up and down that street, all day, all night,
whether it be walking, driving, bicycling, and there’s only two street lights. It causes
concern, because there’s going to end up being some kind of accident, you know, a kid drops a
ball, it goes down the street, they don’t think about it. They’re going to run out there.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re talking about Luzerne Road now.
MRS. LEVENDOS-No, Pine Street.
MR. VOLLARO-On Pine Street itself.
MRS. LEVENDOS-We have Bare Bones trucks, delivery trucks, you have UPS trucks. You
have 18 wheelers that cut across to go down Luzerne to get to other drop offs in Queensbury
and Glens Falls. Even with your extension, they’re still going to come down Pine. It’s
quicker. They’re easier to turn. They come down Pine they go basically straight across the
street. They don’t really have to turn their rigs. They don’t have to maneuver a lot.
MR. VOLLARO-Is there any no trucking signs at all, on Pine at all?
MRS. LEVENDOS-There are no signs on that road at all. There are no speed limit signs,
there are no children at play signs. There are no sidewalks. There’s only the two lights. The
drainage, there’s one right next, at the end of my driveway. My driveway’s actually five
inches lower than the road. So my driveway floods every year. The drainage is right next to
my house, where it is now. That’s going to increase with the traffic flow and stuff, people
throwing out garbage, cigarettes, McDonald’s bags, what not, but there are no signs on that
road whatsoever for anything. Basically, I bought this house when I couldn’t find anything
that was close to it. I looked. The school’s good. It has a good rating. They try to help the
children. They try to work with the parents. The community itself I’ve known for many
years. Everyone helps, listens, shares. It’s always been that way, as long as I can remember,
and I hope it stays that way. I just really hope that you guys think about, you know, I’m not
saying that he can’t put anything in there, but put something smaller in.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s your ten minutes, and thanks very much.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, ma’am.
LOIS HAMMOND
MS. HAMMOND-My name is Lois Hammond and I live at 16 Pine Street, and it would be
four houses down from the proposed complex.
53
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-Toward Main?
MS. HAMMOND-Toward Main Street. Tonight Mr. Schermerhorn stated, quote, this
property has been vacant for some time, at least 12 years, unquote. Does this mean that just
because it’s vacant in our Town it has to be eaten up by development? Just because the land
is vacant, do we have to rush right in and tear down everything to put up buildings? I have
lived on this street for 25 years, and it has been vacant of buildings for the whole time. The
land has not been vacant, though. It is covered with trees, bushes, and vegetation that has
provided a home for deer, rabbits, squirrels and birds for those years. Why is it bad to have,
quote, vacant land, unquote, in the Town of Queensbury? Let some of the areas in
Queensbury remain undeveloped. At the Zoning Board last week, Mr. Schermerhorn
reiterated that he was swayed by public dismay at his last apartment complex proposed for
the vicinity of Exit 20 in Queensbury. He reminded us that he withdrew the apartment
complex proposal during that Planning Board meeting last month. Was this comment made
to tell us that we should not expect him to do this again with the Pine and Luzerne
apartment complex proposal. If you look around the room, you will notice that there are a
lot less people here ready to speak against this Pine and Luzerne proposal. There is a very
good reason for this perceived lack of interest. This proposal mainly affects the residents of
Pine Street and the residents of Luzerne Road next to that corner. Well, there are seven
houses on all of Pine Street. I know we’ve gotten various numbers this evening, and only two
houses on Luzerne Road that are affected. As it’s been mentioned, one side is a cemetery and
one side is the Transfer Station. In those nine affected houses, there’s only about 15 or 20
residents. Seven out of nine of those homes are represented here tonight, and as it’s been
mentioned, the other two homes are elderly people. So 78% of the residents are here to
express their dismay at this proposed apartment complex. I dare say that this is a higher
percentage of residents than there were at that last meeting when he withdrew his other
apartment complex proposal. If he changed his mind, due to the large public outcry, we also
have a very large public outcry here tonight with the percentage of affected residents present.
A lot has been mentioned here tonight about the increased traffic that will result from this
proposed complex. The plan is to have the traffic enter and exit onto Pine Street. At present
there are only 10 cars in the homes on Pine Street. When the request at the Zoning Board
meeting last week was made for 86 parking spots at this complex, that represented an increase
of 860% in the traffic originating on the street. Mr. Schermerhorn mentioned that when the
connector road constructed as a result of the Main Street project is done, a lot of the traffic on
Pine Street will use the connector instead. He is correct in that statement, but what he does
not say is that his proposed apartment complex will easily make up for that traffic by
increasing the number of cars on the street by 860%. It was changed to just 80 spots, so it
was changed to 800%. If Mr. Schermerhorn has asked for a minimum of two parking spots
per apartment, which he did at the Zoning Board meeting, he must expect that each unit will
have two adults that can drive living in it. Since some of these apartments are two bedroom,
there will be families living here also. So let us say that there will be, at minimum, an
increase of 120 residents on the street. Compare that to the present 15 residents that live now
on Pine Street. That’s, at minimum, an increase of 800% in the number of residents on that
small street. There’s no sidewalks. Where will the children and the people walk? How
dangerous might this become? There are many reasons to delay this project or vote it down.
One is that there is a Comprehensive Land Use review committee that is looking over the
zoning in Queensbury. They plan to be done with their work in September 2006. It is
obvious to you now that this proposed apartment complex is controversial. Why not wait
until this Committee has finished their work on the zoning review. Let us see what the new
zoning regulations are, as recommended by this Committee. The designation of this area
might very well change. This project calls for septic systems. Why not the municipal sewer
system? The sewer system is already on Luzerne Road, and as mentioned in the Staff notes,
it’s 1200 feet down the road. If this project goes forward, Mr. Schermerhorn should be made
to run the sewer up farther to his site. Using the sewer system instead of septic systems is
much better for the environment. Again, mentioned previously, has this land on this corner
been tested for PCB’s? As we all know they are found in areas around the landfill just across
the street and up Luzerne Road on some of these residential streets. What is to say that
PCB’s are not present on this land? This needs to be looked into. He did, Mr. Schermerhorn
presented a traffic proposal that was used when they discussed the Main Street project, and so
that, you know, that traffic study was done, but what about the impact of adding 80 cars to
our street? Has there been a study done on that? Should there be red lights added at either
end with this additional traffic? Even if we have a connector road, how does this impact the
traffic trying to get out on Corinth Road that’s been mentioned by many other people tonight
and I also feel there are lots of questions that need to be looked at. It is obvious that I am not
in favor of this proposed apartment complex. It is not because I am against people who live
54
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
in apartments. I, myself, was a renter for eight years before moving to my home on Pine
Street. I feel that this project is too big and too much for 4.87 acres in a small residential
neighborhood. I feel that leaving this as green space would be best, but progress calls, and I
am aware that the Catholic Church is free to sell their land, and that the use of this land
might change. Please do not allow this many apartments on this parcel.
MR. VOLLARO-Thank you.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Salvador?
MR. SALVADOR-Good evening. My name is John Salvador, and I’m so far off that map
that I don’t even think the Town has mapped our neighborhood yet. Your agenda this
evening outlines this project as to construct 40 townhouse apartments. Mr. Schermerhorn
mentioned in his presentation the allowable residential uses in this district, and he mentioned
one of them, a multi-family dwelling. It doesn’t say anything in this list about apartments,
but it does talk about dwellings. In our Town Code, we have particular kinds of dwellings
that are defined, and I’ll mention one of them to you. A townhouse, as it’s mentioned in the
outline here, is a dwelling unit, which is one of a series of units having a common party wall,
etc., etc., each with its own separate lot of record and in which no unit is located one above
the other. In addition to that, there’s another type of dwelling unit defined in our Code. It’s
called a condominium development. A project of individual dwelling units, and it goes on to
describe the type of facility that is. My point here is that are we really permitting
apartments, rental apartments, or could this project convert some day to some other kind of
dwelling unit, that fits within our Code, that’s not necessarily an apartment. The outline here
of one septic system for each dwelling unit is bizarre. It’s not cost effective. It’s not State of
the Art. It’s not something that the public health officials can support. Better to manage
this wastewater in a central facility, treat it under proper supervision, and discharge it to the
groundwater. There are State of the Art treatment processes can be purchased in a package
type unit, put into a building. You wouldn’t even know it was a sewage treatment plant.
Much more cost effective I’m sure. The Zoning Board of Appeals was exercised at their
meeting last week, and as you know, the Code allows 1.5 parking places per dwelling unit,
with an allowance to go 20% above that, which would take it up to 1.8 parking places per
unit, and this tag team here worked that Board and they worked that Board until they got a
recommendation out of that Board for two parking places per dwelling unit. A perfect set up
for a townhouse operation to be sold in parts. Now you can’t deed a dwelling unit with 1.5
parking places. What good is that to anyone? Are you going to park a half a car some place?
Nor can you do it with 1.8 parking places, but two parking places does the job, and would you
believe that a person on that Board who’s in the real estate business made this
recommendation? Now, I believe that if something is permitted here that we should
understand what’s being permitted, and what’s coming down the road for everyone. The
other thing, if Mr. Schermerhorn, he wrings his hands about this zoning being MR-5, if he
thinks something else is more appropriate and the neighbors can support it, why don’t we
petition the Town Board for a zoning change? Why don’t we put it in to the PORC
Committee for a zoning change? Maybe it’s more appropriate than this MR-5 zoning. So
those are things that maybe should be considered, but the neighbors comments and concerns
are well taken, well taken. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Does anyone else want to speak to this application?
SHARON O’HANLON
MRS. O’HANLON-My name is Sharon O’Hanlon, and my husband and I live in the piece of
land right next to the parcel being proposed. First I want to say that I called St. Alphonsus
Church in 2004 because there was a question of the City looking at it, to ask them, if they did
sell it, if we could just have 50 feet on the side of our driveway, and the secretary said some
Italian word, you know, it’s not for sale, and she said it’s this, and so I said can we submit a
letter, and if it did come for sale, would you just consider selling us a little bit of the land, and
so she said she would, and then the Chronicle article came up and I called and they said it’s a
done deal, and someone from the Diocese did call me and said it’s under contract, so there’s
really nothing we could do, but it’s just when he said, you know, he wouldn’t ask us to move
our driveway. The only, I agree with all the things people have said, but I am concerned
about the land, you know, because it does slope down, and the drainage factor, and I’m not
55
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
long winded, and the trees do buffer the smell of the Transfer Station in the summer, you
know, if they get knocked down. That’s all I have to say. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Thank you.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Anyone else? Okay. There being no show of hands, we’ll have you folks
come on back up again.
MRS. BARDEN-Mr. Chairman, let me take a minute and read this petition.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Go ahead, you want to read it into the record.
MRS. BARDEN-“Petition against the development of townhouses on Pine Street in
Queensbury. The residents, signatures below, of properties near the proposed site of 40
townhouses located at the Luzerne Road end of Pine Street object to this development for the
following reasons: 1. Sewage: Each unit will need septic systems, causing ground pollution.
2. Environmental: Losing all the trees on this land would destroy the watershed. 3. Traffic:
It would greatly increase the already high traffic on Luzerne Rd., Corinth Rd., and the pass
thru Pine Street. 4. Safety: Safety for children due to increase traffic. 5. Security: With
increase in residents increase chance for crime.” Signed by, I have 19 signatures on Page One,
residents on Pine Street, on Luzerne Road, primarily Newcomb Street, and the second page
about as many, 18 signatures from Newcomb Street, Luzerne Road. That’s it.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Thanks.
MRS. BARDEN-You’re welcome.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I’ll certainly answer questions from the Board, but I’ll just be brief
for the moment. One of the things that kept coming up about the PCB’s. I had, as soon as I
went to contract on this, under due diligence, I did a Phase I environmental, which any
commercial lender today, any piece of property you buy it’s required, that has been done.
There’s a clean bill of health on the property. I just want to assure the people that there’s no
PCB’s on the property. Secondly, as far as the drainage issues, my engineer can answer that,
but C.T. Male has also reviewed, the Town’s engineer, and appropriate test pits, all the
appropriate measures have been made. Now, again, about the sewers, it’s approximately
1200 feet.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s 1200. I checked with Mike Shaw.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Twelve hundred feet away.
MRS. BARDEN-One thousand.
MR. VOLLARO-No, it was 1200.
MRS. BARDEN-I have a letter from Mike Shaw, the Director of Wastewater.
MR. VOLLARO-I talked to him today.
MRS. BARDEN-His letter states SP 2-2006, Schermerhorn Residential Property Holdings,
“This proposed apartment complex is not within the Town’s sanitary sewer district. The
Tech Park Sanitary Sewer District is within an estimated 1,000 feet.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but I talked to him today and had him actually go out and map it. It’s
1200 feet exactly from the corner of, from the center of Pine, Luzerne, down to the drop inlet
for the connection.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Okay. Just to address the sewers quick. Again, it’s roughly 1,000
to 1200 feet, whatever. Mr. Salvador made a comment about the cost effectiveness of these
septic systems. I’ve been doing this for 20 years now, and I have systems in Washington and
Warren County. The soils at this site are very, very accommodating to septic systems. I do
have a septic tank for each and every unit of the building, and leach fields are very cost
effective to install, especially, I have my own mining and gravel pit, and I supply my own
56
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
gravel for a lot of my projects. So it is cost effective to do the septic systems. The sewer to
bring 1,000, 1200 feet is very costly. As you probably know in this room, I’ve brought a lot of
sewers, as far as half a mile a way. This project doesn’t warrant sewers. They function very
well, but certainly, if, at such time, sewer should come and there’s a need where I need to
address tying in to a sewer, if one ever comes there, certainly, no problem, but I can tell you
from experience, proper maintenance, it’s not a problem. The other thing, as far as the people
with, you know, the neighborhood and stuff. I certainly can’t, I don’t know their past
problems with the speeding and the rubbish and the school bus concerns and things like that.
All I can tell you is, I’ve been doing this for quite some time. I screen all my tenants. You
look at any of the apartment complexes I have around Town. They’re very well kept. I have
very, very good individuals. We do, everyone fills out a rental application, has to get
approved. We do this for a living, and if I was to ever sell these apartments some day,
anybody that purchases these properties today, they’re going to properly manage them, but
to sit and say there’s going to be additional crime and additional garbage blowing around and
things like that, all I can ask is the Board think about the ones that have been approved over
the last 17 years and I’d also like to mention that, go on file with the Town of Queensbury.
I’ve had no violations with my apartment complexes. Town of Queensbury, there’s a Bruce
Frank that came on line two years ago. He does a wonderful job, not just my applications,
but he reviews every application that’s approved by this Board, and if there’s a violation, if
you have a three inch maple tree that’s died, he let’s you know about it. You go on record,
you’re cited for it, and you replace it. So the policing of these apartment complexes aren’t
only just done by me, but they are done by the Town of Queensbury, and I do have to say
that Bruce Frank does keep up with policing these applications that are approved. So that’s
all I have for now.
MR. VOLLARO-Just a quick question, on the PCB contamination. You have a report on
that do you?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-CPI Environmental does them for my lenders that I use, like, for
example, like a Bank North. I will call them first, they investigate the sites, they call and
they say yes, no, this is appropriate. Because without them reviewing these reports, whether
it’s me or anybody else, you can’t get financing today. Commercial lenders, well, any bank,
even if it’s a residential house, they will not lend if there’s environmental impacts. So I can
assure you this has been.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Well, what I’d like to do is throw this open to the Board. There’s
been a lot of discussion. The Board has heard it all. I have my own notes, but I want to toss
this open to the Board and see what they’re going to say, and I’ll start with, Tom, how about
you?
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s a tough question. Forty units, what can we do about reducing that?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Respectfully, I prefer not to reduce these. I’ve made a lot of
compromises in the past. I can compromise with the fences and the buffers and things like
that, but I feel it’s very appropriate, with the green space that I’m showing, and under the
zoning, I’m meeting all the requirements and exceeding them, and I’m willing to add to this,
but as far as reducing the units, at this time, I don’t have any interest.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, and as far as the septic system, you also expressed no interest in
hooking in to the sewer?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Well, I mean, if I had assistance from the neighbors and from the
Town, if they wanted to help bring it up, because it’s very expensive. It wouldn’t be cost
effective for just my project, but I did hear, in the audience tonight, I didn’t hear any
complaints about their own septic systems, and that whole corridor of Town, just so you
know, does have very, very good soils, and there’s nothing wrong with septic systems,
providing they’re maintained and you have good soils. So, again, it’s certainly, to bring it
1,000, 1200 feet would be very expensive.
MR. VOLLARO-The soils being as good as they are, though, Rich, to dig a deep trench, for a
gravity feed down to the DI that’s 1200 feet down is not a, doesn’t sound like a big deal to
me. When you’re dealing with rock and boulders and moving heavy stuff, but that looks like
pretty deep sand in through there, and I recognize it’s good for septic, but I sure would like to
see a stretch to try to tie into that sewer. That’s, you know, it’s there, it’s only 1200 feet
away, and it’s not a difficult thing, I don’t believe. Your big expense is the bore under the
57
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
road, I suspect that’s what you’re thinking. Because the sewer drop inlet is on the north side
of Luzerne.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Believe me, if I thought it was cost effective, I’d much rather have
the sewers, but, like I said, I have experience with these systems, and it’s a tank per unit. It’s
not like there’s four units shared on one tank, and again, if they’re properly maintained, you
know, I’ve got some out there that are 15 years old, and, you know, we pump the tanks every
two years, three years, and there just hasn’t been any issues with them, and I said, when the
appropriate time comes, if sewer should ever come up that way, and I need to make that
change, certainly, no problem.
MR. SEGULJIC-How about the package system? How about package systems, a package
septic system, treatment plant?
MR. NACE-That’s really not appropriate for this type of a site. There’s no need. It’s better,
the septic systems we’ve designed spread the effluent over larger areas. You start talking
about a single package type unit discharging to groundwater at one point in one area, single
area. It’s just really not appropriate when you get these kinds of soils, and there’s really no
need.
MR. SEGULJIC-My overall concern with this project is it looks like you just plopped down
five apartment houses. There’s really not a lot of imagination, when you plop down the five
apartment houses and put parking in the middle. Really that comes because of all your septic
systems, you’d have to (lost word) the entire place. For example, if you were to, you know,
connect to the sewer or go to a package system, you could make the site more appealing and
have the open areas in the middle so you could almost have like a courtyard. Right now you
just have parking lots. It doesn’t look very appealing to me at all.
MR. NACE-Well, I think a lot of that is not necessarily driven by the septics, but by the
narrow, long dimensions of the site, or the rectangular dimension of the site.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, it’s driven by the fact you’re trying to maximize it.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I mean, I guess it’s an appropriate use. I mean, there comes a time
when you maximize a site, and the site won’t support maximization, but this site does
support how the zoning was written and intended to be used. I’m not doing anything that
the zoning is not permitted, or the site won’t support. There are sites, and I agree with you,
where a site will allow more use, but if it won’t support the use, I mean, we could go all day
back and forth about what the zoning, I mean, why zone it to allow 40 units if that’s not
what you wanted? Why wouldn’t it have been cut back to 20 units, you know. I mean, I feel
I’m fair.
MR. SEGULJIC-I agree with you, but one of the points I’m trying to make is there’s not a
lot of imagination in this site design.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Well, remember, you’ve got setbacks from the Luzerne Road, plus
you have setbacks from Pine Street, too, then you have rear setbacks and the site’s not overly
wide. So I know where you’re coming from, and, believe me, I’ve demonstrated that on other
projects, but there are other projects where we’ve had more of the consistency of that. I am
going to keep as many trees in the rear of the property, the side of the property, especially
over by the Transfer Station, and the Bare Bones spot, but I’ll certainly keep as much trees,
and like I said, I’ll add buffering if we need to.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I guess I’d just like to see something more appealing. It just looks like
five buildings plopped down with a big parking lot in the middle.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Now, again, if you look at the landscape plans, Jim Miller that
does these landscape designs, in the past, this Board has always requested landscaping, a lot
of landscaping, and I believe I’ve demonstrated that on a lot of the projects that you have
approved around Town, and again, if you look at the landscape design, there’s a ton of
landscape. I even did the divided boulevard for aesthetic reasons. There’s a nice light, a dual
light on the plan that shows a nice entrance way.
MR. SEGULJIC-For example, in the parking lot you have a minimal amount of trees. I
mean, I think you could do a better job with landscaping within the parking lots.
58
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Certainly, if you feel we need more trees than I can be
accommodating to that.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I’d like to leave the existing trees, as many existing trees as possible.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I certainly will. I mean, I’d like to keep as much buffer as I
possibly could, too. That’s, there’s no advantage for me to over clear these trees and have to
maintain extra lawns and things like that.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Well, my last comment, then, would be, again, 40 units is what you
want to stick with?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Yes, please.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-I had, I don’t want to say similar thoughts, but I guess for lack of a
better word, it was somewhat similar thoughts, related to the aesthetic appearance of the
development, and one of my thoughts was, the easternmost buildings, the two buildings that
are actually closest to Pine Street, I’m trying to imagine what they would look like as you
drive down Pine Street, and I wonder if it would be more aesthetically pleasing if the fronts of
the buildings actually faced Pine Street. There was some talk about sidewalks, and I’m also
thinking, you know, this is pretty close to where we have the new Main Street, well, it’s not
that new now, the Main Street design standards, and, you know, maybe there’s an
opportunity to sort of extend some of those design standards, you know, down Pine Street,
this being a large property, nearest to Main Street.
MR. LAPPER-Well, that’s the mixed use zone, that has commercial upstairs.
MR. HUNSINGER-No, I understand that, but just in terms of the visual appearance, you
know, having a better presentation to the street and to the public.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Sure. I mean, certainly the two buildings on Pine, one of the
considerations was, yes, facing towards the road, but then it’s, all your parking is kind of near
the front.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, no, keep the parking in the rear. Just flip the buildings, so that,
you know, what you have designed as the front, the picture that you passed along, that’s
what you would see, and then, you know instead of entering a front door from the parking lot,
you’d basically be entering the rear door.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Yes. What I’ve done in the past, for example, the Hiland Park
apartments, the town homes, when you drive down Meadowbrook heading south, the backs of
those, and I intend on doing this, I’m doing it now on a project I’m doing down on Dix
Avenue by Sutherland Pet Supply, I can gable the backs of those buildings, and aesthetically
making more pleasing, I can shutter them and I can do different ornamental details over the
windows and stuff, like we did down at Hiland Park. I mean, there are aesthetic things that
we can do to soften the look. Certainly, if that’s a concern, we can address that.
MR. HUNSINGER-But how do you feel about sidewalks, though, along Pine Street?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-For the record, I’m the one, when I first proposed a large
apartment complex on Hiland, I’m the one that spoke out and said, gee, sidewalks are a thing
that the Board and the Town have always talked about, and I said I was certainly happy to
put them in. The concern was the insurance and who maintains them. I have no problem, for
the record, if at such time when everyone else on Pine Street and Luzerne Road run the
sidewalks, within a 30 day period, I’d put the sidewalks in. If you said, Rich, would just put
them in now, you’ve got it, I’d put them in now, but it just goes to a dead end to a dead end.
I don’t see the purpose of it, and I know we’ve tried this around the Town and it’s been a
dead end street, but I’m not opposed to it. Let’s put it that way.
MR. HUNSINGER-And we talk about that a lot. I mean, not necessarily with your projects,
but it’s like where do you start.
59
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right, but certainly I’ve always conditioned for the record that if
at such time the walkways do come, within a 30 day period, I’d be more than willing to put
sidewalks in on my property.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, it certainly was something that the public identified as being a
concern.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ve only have one problem with that, and I guess I’ll speak my mind on
that. I would like to see the sidewalks go in all at once, you know, and I think that, because if
you build a section of sidewalk, by the time you build the next section, this section is either
broken up, heaved up out of frost heave and whatever. If we’re going to do it, we’re going to
do it all the way from the corner of Pine all the way down, not that you should do that, but I
think that this might be a Town function one day to put in sidewalks all the way from the
corner of Luzerne, on Pine Street, down to Main Street, so that we have a nice stretch of
sidewalk, newly built, and it slowly degrades over time the same way, as opposed to having it
done piecemeal. That’s just my feeling on it. As long as I have a Town Board member here,
and one over here, I might as well speak that out. That’s my position on sidewalks.
MR. SIPP-I also feel that there’s too many units on this piece of property. Could dropping
one unit in each building cut down? Landscaping or no landscaping, I think it’s just too
many units on the piece of property that you’ve got. I’d like to address this buffer in the
back. Now, I was under the impression that this would be a 50 foot buffer between industrial
sites. If this site is owned by Queensbury Economic Development, is that an industrial site?
MR. LAPPER-I can talk about that. The site in the back is where the Emergency Squad is
being re-located, and then there’s going to be a Park and Ride facility that the Town is
helping to build, so that people can leave their cars and get on the Northway. So that’s
what’s going to be immediately behind here. In the future, there’s the ability for Queensbury
Economic Development Corp. to put in two industrial lots to sell, but right behind here is
where the Emergency Squad and their parking is.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I plotted the Emergency Squad site building at about a half mile from
that back line, roughly a half mile, and the Main Street connector road about 1800 feet.
MR. LAPPER-I can’t imagine that it could be that, I think it backs right up.
TIM BREWER
MR. BREWER-The EMS building is going to be on the corner of that connector road.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but the connector road, it looks to me like it’s sitting about 1800 feet
from this property.
MR. LAPPER-I think that the Park and Ride goes back towards Rich’s property, because
it’s behind the EMS.
MR. SIPP-What’s on the property right now is mostly white pine and popular.
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
MR. SIPP-And it’s, you know, the junk popular needs to be replaced and it needs to be filled
in with something that’s decent, and once you cut out the popular, you’ve got a lot of under
story, which there’s nothing there, because the pine needles are, pine branches are 20, 30 feet
in the air. So what has to happen underneath, and then the bulldozing of these septic systems,
you’re going to destroy these root systems on the existing trees, and they’re going to die.
MR. LAPPER-Rich will certainly supplement the landscaping, anyway, that the Board
wants.
MR. SIPP-Yes, but I would think that, well, I think it needs to be bigger, and you drop some
units off of here, you could get the smaller septic system. I am in favor of sewer for this
particular project, and cutting down on the size of it.
60
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. LAPPER-It’s hard to do both, because if you require him to connect the sewer, he can’t
afford to do it if he doesn’t have the 40 units.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, look, when I look at all the septic systems, first of all, you’ve got to
put tanks in for every one. So you’ve got 40 tanks going in. You’ve got to have a drain field
for every tank. I assume that’s how you’re designing this.
MR. NACE-For every two.
MR. VOLLARO-For every two you’ll have, okay. Looking at the bottom line on this, now,
what’s the cost differential of doing all of that work, versus putting in 1200 foot of sewer
connection, roughly, we’re looking for this balance of cost.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right. Okay. First of all, it’s still less money, considerably less, to
do the septic systems. Secondly, with these systems, properly maintained, you get 25, 30
years out of these systems. Now remember, I’m not paying for a sewer usage charge. Once
these are in, that’s it. It’s a one time shot. There’s no sewer bills coming every quarter. It’s a
huge, huge savings.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, you’re saying the recurring cost is a problem?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Recurring cost with the out of district user or if we, you know,
however we form it.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, when I talked to Mike, he said you’d have to do a map plan and report
on this, and you wouldn’t be an out of district. You’d apply for a sewer district.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right. Even if we did a map plan and report, I’ve done them both
ways.
MR. VOLLARO-I know you have.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-And I just want to clarify, on the scaled map that I have, from
Barton & Loguidice that did the study, you’re 500 feet from my property line to the
connector road. So the emergency.
MR. VOLLARO-Five hundred feet. The map I used is wrong, then.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-I got a half mile out of it.
MR. LAPPER-And the Emergency Squad is in the direction of this property.
MRS. STEFFAN-I wasn’t exactly sure, because it wasn’t denoted on the plan, where the
EMS building was, but I looked at this development a little differently, I think, than the rest
of the folks, and I look at this as a corner lot, and I know it’s very wooded now. As far as
density goes, the five buildings, I wasn’t opposed to it, as long as the buffering around the site
was significant, and that’s keeping some of the trees that are there, but also supplementing it,
because I see this as a self-contained unit. I don’t think that there are places for kids to go,
and there will probably be kids who will live here, and so a couple of my recommendations is
that I would recommend a playground here, and there’s a place over like at the corner of
Luzerne and Pine where, I think there’s a logical place for a playground. I would also suggest
that the entrance have a pretty significant landscape theme, so that when you drive down
Pine Street, you’re not going to see too much of the development. So, you know, you can
kind of feel like you’re in your own little place. I looked at staggering the buildings, but at
the same time, if you stagger the buildings and you change the configuration on this lot, with
the geography that’s here, what are you going to do with the snow when you plow the
parking lot? You know, it has to go somewhere, and it’s logical for the parking lot and the
buildings to be laid out the way they are, but I’d also like to see, you’ve got all these leach
fields around the back, with septic tanks, and it would be awful nice to have like a walking
path all the way around this thing, because if you’ve got a heavy buffer all the way around
the site, and then you’ve got a walking path, so that people can walk, you know, whether
they’re, whether you have seniors living here or just folks with baby carriages, they can walk
there. There are no sidewalks on the road. There are no sidewalks on Luzerne either. So
61
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
where are folks going to go. So, you know, those were some of my recommendations, and
some of the folks talked about bus stops. I mean, at the entrance to this site would be a good
place for a bus stop.
MR. LAPPER-That’s what they do with Rich’s other complexes.
MRS. STEFFAN-So I think that some of those things would certainly enhance the project.
I’d also recommend a fence around the whole thing, just, you know, because you’ve got a
high traffic area, and you want to protect the neighbors, but you also want to protect the
folks who live here, you know, so kids aren’t wandering out.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Okay. I’m certainly not opposed to a walking path. We can,
certainly, we’ve done that on other projects. Playground, not a problem. We’ll do what we
did on Hiland Park, one of the last ones. As far as fencing the whole thing I, I was probably
going to do that anyway, just because of being that it is a corner lot. I’d prefer to just do
Luzerne in the rear of the property, and I can do, along O’Hanlon’s, but possibly leave it open
on Pine Street, and it is a considerable expense, because I’m not going to put just a regular
stockade fence. I usually scallop them, so that they look nice.
MRS. STEFFAN-That would be preferable, because I was thinking about the O’Hanlon’s.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Yes, and, again, remember, I’m going to try and leave as much as
the densely populated trees that I can around the perimeter, and sometimes that presents a
problem when you’re trying to run a fence, because you’re trying to weave in and out, but I
will do that if that’s the condition that you would like.
MRS. STEFFAN-I certainly thought that sewers were the best way to go, but I understand,
based on the conversation, I’m not sure whether that’s the best situation. So, those are some
of my insights.
MR. VOLLARO-I think sewers, it has to do with money.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-And again, they’re inspected annually by DEC. So, I mean, you
have the safeguard of the DEC plus the Town of Queensbury. Every year Dave Hatin goes
out and inspects my systems.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, you don’t have the same problem that Surrey Fields has, because this
looks like a pretty good area. I live in a sandy area, Tom, you know where I live, and I pump
my system every two years, just because, because I know what that leach field doesn’t like to
see out there. They don’t like to see fines and stuff of that nature. Let me ask a question.
Has anybody contacted Warren County DPW in terms of a warrant for the corner of Luzerne
and Pine? I think it’s at least worth doing, a warrant for a light. You have to have a warrant
for a light.
MR. NACE-The public was talking about the speed on Luzerne Road.
MR. VOLLARO-On Luzerne Road.
MR. NACE-With that new connector and stop light there, that’s certainly going to (lost
word) speed.
MR. VOLLARO-Is there a light warranted right now for that?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-It’s not even proposed. It’s in the approved, that it’s going to
happen this summer with the connector road.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So that should certainly curtail some speed on Luzerne Road, which
I heard was a big concern here, people traveling at high speeds on Luzerne. I didn’t realize
there was going to be a light up at the new.
MR. BREWER-I don’t think there is.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Not Pine Street. We’re talking about the connector road.
JOHN STROUGH
62
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. STROUGH-And Main Street.
MR. BREWER-It’s not going to be on Luzerne Road.
MR. STROUGH-Not on Luzerne Road.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I’m pretty sure it said Main and Luzerne, but I mean, I could be
wrong.
MR. VOLLARO-If it’s not on Luzerne, I’d like to see DPW at least talk to, you know, the
Remington folks up there in Warrensburg about getting a light here.
MR. NACE-It’s a Town road.
MR. VOLLARO-Is it a Town road? Okay. So where does a light come from if it’s a Town
road? How does that happen? Does the Town put that light in, it’s a Town road? How does
the light get up? I know how DPW does it. I just don’t know how the Town does it.
MR. BREWER-It’s got to have approval from DOT I think. I’m not sure of the exact.
MR. LAPPER-It would be Rick Missita and the Town Board.
MR. BREWER-No, it’s DOT.
MR. VOLLARO-So we have to go through the Department of Transportation to get a light.
Whatever way we have to go, I’d like to see the applicant explore a light at Pine and Luzerne.
MR. LAPPER-I would guess that it’s unlikely with the new connector road that there’d be a
warrant for it, because so much traffic is going to be on the connector road, rather than on
Pine.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, let’s do it anyway, okay. Let’s see if we can get a light there, because
I can understand what these people are talking about. I mean, we’re going to generate some
traffic from this site.
MR. LAPPER-People were talking about how this was going to generate as much as it was
taken off, and that 15% of the, something like 18,000 cars a day on Corinth Road, I mean, so
much of the traffic is proposed, anticipated to be on that connector road, that it doesn’t
compare to the traffic generated by 40 apartment units, not even close. So, I mean, we expect
that there’s going to be vastly less traffic on Pine after the connector road is built this year, so
that it wouldn’t warrant a traffic light, but we’ll certainly ask the question.
MR. VOLLARO-You certainly should, I think, because there’s going to be thru traffic on
Luzerne that goes at high speed right past Pine, just like that, without even thinking, going
into the City. So that light would slow them down, and it would be safer for kids getting on
school buses and things of this nature. I think it’s worthwhile checking with DOT about it.
We talked about a 50 foot buffer. Tony, have you got anything on this?
MR. METIVIER-I don’t really have much to add. I’m looking at this proposal and thinking
that it is going to be very self-contained. It’s going to be its own little world, and while I’m
extremely sensitive to the neighbors’ issues, I just, I guess I see what goes on on
Meadowbrook Road, and the fact there’s just so few, you know, vehicles during the day that
travel it overall. I mean, obviously, there’s a lot more vehicles than there used to be. I used
to live on Meadowbrook Road, and when I lived there, there were apartment complexes, but
nothing like you see today, but yet I still travel Meadowbrook Road every single day, in the
morning, at night, and I’m usually behind a school bus like every day, both ways, and I see so
few children getting on the bus, honest to God, and I had a brother who lived at one of the
apartments, right in the major complex on Meadowbrook Road, and you just would not see
anyone out, I mean, all day long, weekends, nights, I mean, you’d see the kids that walk from
the school bus back to their home, but everybody portrays these poor kids and these renters
as bad people, and they’re just not bad people. I mean, the first gentleman that spoke, I was
almost embarrassed, because, you know, he portrayed them as being like criminals, and
honest to God, they’re not bad people, and these kid aren’t, they’re not troublemakers, and
they’re not out at night, and I mean, I literally lived it for years, and we never had a problem
63
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
at all, never. If you go back through the last 10 years of Rich’s apartments and you take any
crime statistic, I guarantee you, if he’s had one call a year to these places, that would be a lot.
So I really need to express my opinion that I think the general public has to give these people
a break. I mean, honest to God they do, because they’re not bad people. They’re not out to
get you. They’re not going to trespass on your lawns and destroy your property. So it’s going
to be a nice little community here, but give these people a break. I mean, really, they’re not
bad people, and I was really taken back by some of it, because I guess, I don’t know, I was a
tenant once, too. I’m not a bad person. Why do people come up and portray people who
actually live in apartments as, you know, dwellers and, you know, the kids are all criminals,
and they’re not. I mean, they’re good people. I mean, there’s a lot of different reasons why
they live there, and, you know, I just don’t understand why you constantly portray these
poor people as anything but human beings, I mean, honest to God.
MS. TOSSIE-I was an apartment dweller. I lived with a lot of other apartment dwellers. My
issue is not them particularly as individuals, okay. I’ve known one of the worst neighbor’s
I’ve had in my life own their own home, and they were nasty, cruel, sloppy people who took
no pride in their homes. In my experience, and the experience of a lot of people that I know,
when you live in an apartment, when you have no ownership of where you are, and it’s a
temporary place to stay, whether that temporary place to stay is a year, five years, and
you’re saving to buy a home of your own, you don’t take as much pride in that place as a
general rule, not targeting particular individuals, but as a general rule. You don’t take as
much care with that property as you do when you own your home, and this I know based on
people I’ve known and people I’ve lived there, and it’s not that I’m targeting you when you
lived in an apartment or me when I lived in an apartment, but the people I have lived near
for a lot of my life. It has just been, and I have no statistics for this, only my experience, that
pride comes from ownership a lot of times, and that was my point and I’m sure other people’s
points.
MR. LAPPER-Mr. Chairman, if you’re going to send the final applicant packing, maybe you
could do it now, so that they don’t have to wait around, since it’s 11:45. The last application
tonight, are you going to hear it?
MR. VOLLARO-Well, you know, do you want to hear the last application?
MRS. STEFFAN-We’ve made them wait all this time.
MR. VOLLARO-I think we’re going to have to. It’s 11:45. This is what we do here.
MR. LAPPER-I just know that in the past you’ve cut it off at 11:00. So I just thought.
MR. VOLLARO-I find, personally, I don’t know how everybody else feels, cutting things off
at 11:00, it’s got to come back anyway. It’s going to load up the agendas in the future. We
just tough it out here.
MR. HUNSINGER-I agree with you, Bob, but we’ve got to do something to get out earlier
than midnight.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. FORD-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-This is ridiculous.
MR. FORD-I’m not sure that decisions made at this hour of the night, soon to be morning, I
think they can come into question.
MR. METIVIER-Well, they have before.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Do we have a tabling motion for this project?
MR. VOLLARO-I haven’t prepared a tabling motion for this, no.
MR. METIVIER-The problem is, what do you table this for at this point?
MRS. STEFFAN-There’s been so much discussion.
64
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. FORD-I haven’t asked my questions.
MR. VOLLARO-I think, to answer Tony’s question, then we’ll get to yours. I think there’s a
site plan change here that’s coming up, in my mind. First of all, I think the central aisle has
to be taken out, in order to get your fire trucks in, according to the Fire Marshal’s report.
There’s going to be some fencing. There’s going to be some tree retention around the
property, and probably some, at the side that interfaces with the Queensbury Economic
Development, we’re looking to get a larger buffer in there. So I think the drawing will change
some, the overall design.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-We just never received the Fire Marshal letter.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m sorry.
MR. LAPPER-Could you go on record with Staff and just ask them, I mean, that’s
something that we should have had notice of before the meeting, because it would be helpful.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I don’t know why. I will ask Staff now why they don’t have the Fire
Marshal’s letter. I got it.
MR. LAPPER-It’s dated January 23, and we’ve never seen it. I don’t understand that.
rd
MR. SCHERMERHORN-And again, I didn’t get Staff notes. I had to call at ten of four to
get Staff notes.
MR. VOLLARO-Don’t feel bad, I didn’t get mine either. If it wasn’t for this lady that went
down there at four o’clock on Friday, I wouldn’t have had them. The rest of the folks sitting
here didn’t get them until Monday afternoon. So we have a problem with Staff. We’ve got to
try to fix it.
MR. LAPPER-This is what Gretchen was referring to, and we were clueless because we never
saw it.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I’m happy to table this to move this along and get whatever
comments Tom has, because, you know, I know where everyone’s coming from and I’m
certainly happy to add these items that were requested.
MR. VOLLARO-We’d have to get to a tabling motion where we would list these items in any
event. We are going to look at DOT for a light. That’s one of the things.
MR. LAPPER-It’s not DOT. That’s the State. It’s not the State.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, who is it?
MR. NACE-We’ll have to find out. I don’t know, honestly.
MR. LAPPER-If it’s a Town road, it’s Rick Missita and probably the Town Board.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. There you go.
MRS. STEFFAN-Tom, you had some questions.
MR. FORD-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Go ahead, Tom.
MR. FORD-Thank you. I agree with a number of observations that have been made. Let me
just approach it a little bit differently. Why 40 apartments, the rationale?
MR. LAPPER-Per zoning. That’s what zoning allows.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Well, yes, it’s certainly per zoning.
65
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. FORD-I find it aesthetically not appealing. What other considerations were given,
other than apartments? Did you consider single family homes, no, you couldn’t with single
family. Did you consider town homes?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Well, first of all, these are town home apartments. Okay. Just for
the record, these can’t be sold individually later on, because if you’re going to sell them
individually, then we’d have to do separate water services. You’d have to do fire walls
between every unit, not just every four units. So these are town homes, but they are rentals.
Other considerations, I have some seven commercial lots in the Town of Queensbury that are
zoned PO. I currently don’t have buyers for those. So to consider anything else, office
buildings over there, I’d simply be buying this property and inventorying it. So I don’t have
a use for it, but again, I keep going on about this. I currently have an operation, almost 600
apartment units, and they’re full, and, well, some of those are over in the Town of Kingsbury,
but the majority of them are in Queensbury. They’re full. There’s a need. There’s people
that, well, that live in Queensbury, want to stay in Queensbury, or there’s people that
possibly from outside Queensbury that want to come here. So there’s a need for it.
MR. HUNSINGER-How long is your waiting list, do you know?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-We have, well, it’s an application process, and you certainly can’t
discriminate in this Country, but we take a rental application, and just to give you an idea,
it’s $25 just fill out a rental application. If someone doesn’t want to come up with $25, right
there, that’s clue number one they may not be a good tenant, but we have, at any one time,
we can have 25 applications during the month, sometimes more, sometimes less, but generally
on an average, 25 applications. Now, let’s say, I can give you, I know, due to yesterday, we
had 22 applications. About three-quarters of those applications we’ve denied, some of them
probably would have been okay, but we pick the ones that are the best, that have the best
credit records, because we also have an account with the Central Credit Bureau. We run
everyone’s credit. We do background checks, we even know if they have a criminal record.
So we just chose the ones that are the best applications. So at any one time, we have upwards
of 20, 25. It doesn’t mean they all get approved, but there’s always people waiting to get in.
I’m building down in the Town of Kingsbury right now. I’ve got 288 approved that are going
up right now, and they just keep on coming, and not everyone can afford ownership or not
everyone wants ownership, and we have a lot of very good tenants.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I always remember when we were reviewing your first project in
Meadowbrook, and someone asked the question, it might have been me, I don’t know, you
know, where your tenants came from, and you said, well, sadly to say most of them are people
who live in Queensbury and end up divorced. So you get a lot of single parents.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-And that’s why, you know, I can sit here and say we don’t have a
lot of children, and people just, yes, yes, yes, right. We don’t. It varies. We get a lot of, I
have husbands and wives living in different complexes and the kids bounce back and forth.
It’s sad. It’s really sad, but doesn’t make them bad people. It’s just the course of life at this
time period maybe didn’t work for them right now, that’s all, but I can assure you, we have
good quality people. I have absolutely no problems, and we take it to the authorities if there
are problems. We address everything according to the letter of the law. Renters are not a
problem.
MR. FORD-May I continue?
MR. VOLLARO-Sure.
MR. FORD-I’m concerned about the trees, and I tie that in with septic versus sewer. Right
now we’ve got a lot of mature vegetation there, particularly the white pine, and we’re going
to lose a tremendous number of those. The majority of those are going to be gone.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-And if I can address that real quick, Tom. If someone came in
with an office proposal use. Now keep in mind my office buildings on Bay Road. Now there
weren’t trees to begin with, but as soon as you put office buildings in, usually it means quite a
bit of parking, parking lots. So if you came in with a day care use or you came in with an
office building, doesn’t mean that these trees would be saved under those scenarios. Now it’s
also zoned for a cemetery, which the Catholic Church, that’s originally what they bought it
for. They don’t have a need for it now. So if it was a cemetery, how do you tell them to keep
the trees if it’s zoned for a cemetery? So, do you know what I’m kind of getting at?
66
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. FORD-Yes. I know what you’re saying, but that doesn’t discount my concern for the
(lost word).
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Absolutely.
MR. FORD-If you put nothing but head stones in (lost words).
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right, and I certainly, I could do one, a, dwelling, we could save
them all, but it’s just, you know, people don’t want to hear about financing, but the cost of
property and the cost of doing business today is expensive, and I know everyone strives for
affordable housing. The APA called me, last year, they just called me today. They want me
to go to Saranac Lake and do a seminar on how to get affordable housing in communities.
Saranac and Plattsburg and these areas need it, and it’s very hard when you can’t, you need
density to make things somewhat affordable. You need utilities. You need sewers. It’s a
very difficult task. Not to get into finances, but this property certainly would not warrant
any individual buying this to put up three or four duplexes, I can tell you that, with the cost
of what properties are going for.
MR. FORD-Something that, with buffering, you may be able to impact somewhat, let’s keep
this in mind. I know people who live a lot further away from the Northway than this
complex will be, and the noise is substantial.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Let me address that. Two months ago, when we had the
Westbrook development, we call it, at Exit 20, I was proposing, the one that I pulled back.
Creighton Manning did a noise abatement study of the Northway and that property, and
there’s a misconception that trees and leaves on trees are a buffer. Buildings, believe it or not,
with my buildings and they way they’re staggered, will be more of a sound buffer for let’s say
the people east of this property. So saving those trees, it’s been, you know, studies have been
done. It doesn’t act as much of a buffer as these buildings will.
MR. FORD-Well, you’ve got a sufficient number there. So there ought to be a good buffer.
Street lights.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Yes. At the last meeting, and several meetings we’ve had before,
we’ve had people complaining about the coach lights that I’ve had on Bay Road, saying
they’re very bright. By Code, each entrance to the townhouse apartments, I put a light on
each side of the entrance doors, just those entrance light doors, the lights in the entrance way
lights it up very bright, and I do have, at the entrance coming in on Pine Street, there is a big
light on the plan, a dual light, that will light up the entrance way. So to add post lights, I
have no problem with it, but it was requested at I think the last meeting or the meeting
before that it’s too much lighting putting the post lights in.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, we’ll have to take a look at the lighting spec on that, just to see how
you are going to light this. I mean, we do have a lighting specification.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right. I meet the specification for the lights that your require.
MR. VOLLARO-In other words, if I said, do you have one foot candle of lighting on the
parking, you would say yes, right?
MR. NACE-No. That’s what we’ve gone through before with the other apartments, and that
Rich was talking about, with the lights on either side of the door, that they provide enough
light for people to safely get from their cars to the entrance.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, if you have enough of those, you might get a foot candle out of that. I
don’t know.
MR. NACE-It’s probably marginal, okay, but that’s what people have requested is enough
light and please don’t do any more. That’s what we’ve agreed to.
MR. VOLLARO-Actually, I’m a believer in a dark sky anyway. I don’t like to light up the
night sky if I don’t have to.
67
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. FORD-As a consideration, a gesture for the neighborhood and your neighbors, be
creative in your thinking relative to a sidewalk, or sidewalks, and I’ll just leave it like that.
You can look at that creatively. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Where do we want to go with this? Do we want to go to a tabling
motion, is what we want to do?
MR. METIVIER-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Could I ask one more question?
MR. VOLLARO-Sure, go ahead.
MR. SEGULJIC-Each of your buildings is eight units. How about if we made them ten units
and eliminated one building? I’m just thinking it would help break up the site more.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Honestly, yes, I don’t have any problem with that. In the past, I
did show 10 and 12 unit buildings, but the consensus from past Boards was they didn’t want,
they got really large. I have to sprinkler these buildings anyway for Fire Code. So 10, 12, it
doesn’t matter to me. If you want 10, I’m happy to do 10.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I want a visually appealing site is what I want.
MR. LAPPER-So we eliminate one on the west side, is that what you’re thinking, so there’ll
be two and two?
MR. SEGULJIC-Something like that.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Again, visually appealing, Northbrook and Hiland and the other
projects that you’ve approved, the only one I seem to take a lot of heat on has always been
this Hunterbrook one, because of the color, but, I mean, it just seems to be certain individuals
don’t like it but I certainly can, you know, there’s moldings we can add to the things, I mean,
there’s things to jazz them up, like I did at Hiland.
MR. SEGULJIC-I guess I’m not so concerned about the building. I’m concerned about this
big, huge parking right in the middle. It’s going to be 100 degrees in the middle of that in the
summer.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Well, again, I don’t have a problem with the 10’s, but I know that
we can address, with landscaping, keeping it a community within itself and keeping it
attractive.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I think it would make it more compact and we could have more trees
around the edge, because one of my other concerns is visibility from the Northway. These
buildings are going to be how high, 40 feet or 36 feet?
MR. HUNSINGER-Thirty-six.
MR. SEGULJIC-Thirty-six feet.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-If the rest of the Planning Board wants the 10 unit buildings, I’ll
do four 10’s.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t know.
MR. SEGULJIC-I’d have to see what it looks like. I’m not saying.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Well, it’s going to be the same as the colored photos. It’s just
going to be longer.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom, let me ask you, what do you want? Do you want to centralize four
buildings in the middle of that lot?
MR. SEGULJIC-I am looking to maximize the ability to have a buffer around the site,
because the with the septic systems, my other concern is, as Don brought up, I don’t know if
68
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
you’re going to be able to maintain that buffer, because he’s going to have to trench and take
out all these roots. So we’re trying to get everything as centralized.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, that’s a problem. Getting your septic systems in there is not going to
help the root system in those trees.
MRS. STEFFAN-I think one of the things that the neighbors also talked about is that there’s
some mature trees. So the underbrush is going to need to be replaced. So they’re going to
have to beef up the landscaping when they’re done clearing this. Otherwise you’ll be able to
see through those and they’ll be no protection. So the landscape plan will have to beef that
up.
MR. VOLLARO-All right. Look, it’s getting late. What I want to do is make a tabling
motion. We can talk about this.
MR. SEGULJIC-One other thing, should we have them look at Glens Falls Transit, have a
bus stop?
MR. LAPPER-It’s a school bus stop we’re talking about.
MR. SEGULJIC-No. It’s one of the things that maybe they want to look at it.
MR. METIVIER-The Transit up Luzerne.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-We’ve checked before. I can check with them.
MR. SEGULJIC-Check with them.
MR. METIVIER-I misunderstood and I apologize. I thought you wanted him to have a bus
stop there, but I’m saying why would you do that? There’s no buses running there, but
you’re asking would they. I apologize. I misunderstood that.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Is he talking about the school bus or the Glens Falls Transit?
MR. SEGULJIC-Glens Falls Transit.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Okay. I’m confused.
MR. LAPPER-The neighbors were talking about school bus.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Okay. I’ll check on both.
MR. LAPPER-Did you want us to do anything about it?
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. I’d like to see, one, if Glens Falls Transit would be interested in
making a route, here.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-And where the Queensbury bus would propose to stop?
MR. SEGULJIC-Right. Have a bus stop right on the corner.
MR. HUNSINGER-It is something we’ve talked about with other projects. I mean, this isn’t
the first time we’ve talked about accommodating a location for a school bus.
MR. LAPPER-The neighbors were talking about the school bus stopping at the corner of
Pine and Luzerne, which is a busy intersection. If there’s enough kids here, they might stop
at the driveway, but as Tom says, that changes year to year.
MR. SIPP-Stop beyond, you stop beyond, you go to the south of Pine and stop beyond.
That’s the way the bus stop should be made, not on the corner, but beyond it, which would be
a short walk from there.
MR. LAPPER-It would be better.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Okay. We’ll check.
69
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. I’m finished.
MR. FORD-I sure would appreciate it if you could flip those around so you’re not having the
backs facing out towards Pine, with that layout.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom, I’m going to give you and Mr. Seguljic the task of putting together
this motion for tabling, okay, and we’ll take a little time off and sit down and do that. How
does that sound?
MS. HAMMOND-My name is Lois Hammond and I live on Pine Street, and I know three of
the committee members asked why 40 apartments I think the gentlemen are missing their
point, that, yes, it may be zoned for 40 apartments, but that doesn’t mean, I think what
they’re asking is why do you have to have 40 apartments, and I just kind of thought that’s
how I understood their question, and you did not take it that way. You mentioned you have
288 apartments in Kingsbury.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Under construction.
MS. HAMMOND-Right. On how many acres are the 288?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-It all varies.
MS. HAMMOND-It’s not one big apartment unit on so many acres?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-No.
MS. HAMMOND-Okay. I just was wondering what the units per acre density was of your
other.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-They’re 10 per acre, if you want to know what it is in Kingsbury.
MS. HAMMOND-Okay. I just wanted to know that, and when you talk about the noise from
the Northway, have you given any consideration to the noise that the people in those
apartments will hear? Because I can tell you, living on Pine Street, you hear the Northway.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Well, the renters will have a choice, certainly. If they think the
noise will be a problem, they won’t rent from me, but I don’t believe that’ll be a problem.
MR. VOLLARO-There’s a gentlemen in the back. Is there something that you want to say
that you didn’t say before?
MR. KLEIN-Yes, there is. We’ve had our whole neighborhood come out. Mr. Schermerhorn
has said that this has been zoned multi-residential for twelve years, and that we should have
come out sooner. We’ve only got seven houses, nine houses on that corner. If everybody
would have come out when the zoning was being changed, it would have been nine people,
and it would have been zoned this way anyhow. Okay. I tried to fight zoning on my street,
and that didn’t work either. On my street, and on Veterans Road, just recently, within the
last five years, they built four small houses, four on Veterans, one on my street. It’s a four
acre lot. You can come in for a variance to go from one and a half to two parking lots.
MR. VOLLARO-Sir, let me ask you a question, before you continue on. What does this
really have to do with the proposal before the Board now? I think you’re far a field from the
subject.
MR. KLEIN-No. I’m not.
MR. VOLLARO-I think you are.
MR. KLEIN-Nobody in this neighborhood wants to see apartment houses.
MR. VOLLARO-We certainly understand that, and you’ve made your point. Sir, please.
You’ve made your point, we understand you. Now, I’m going to have to ask you to give up
the mic. We’ve got something to do here. We’ve got people outside waiting for the next
application and it’s ten minute after twelve. Okay.
70
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. KLEIN-I understand that. My time hadn’t run out before. I had left early.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s fine, but I said when I first started this, that if you came back to talk
about an application and you didn’t materially add to what you said before, I wasn’t going to
let you speak, and I’m not going to let you speak any further. Okay. So that’s my
determination.
MRS. LEVENDOS-Can I answer Mr. Schermerhorn’s question about the septic system?
MR. VOLLARO-I think we’ve been through the septic system. We understand about the
system and how that works.
MRS. LEVENDOS-He asked if there were any problems, (lost words) said no one had voiced
any problems about the septic tanks. No one asked if there were any problems with the septic
tanks that were on our street. The tank at my house has been (lost words) twice (lost words).
MR. VOLLARO-Well, it doesn’t mean that the soil doesn’t accept it. It means that whoever
tried to maintain that system just let it run and never pumped it, and what happens when
that happens is your field gets clogged and, boom, you’re dead. You’ve got to replace the
whole system.
MRS. STEFFAN-I think the other point that needs to be made is the public hearing is not
closed, and when the application comes back on a future date, everyone will have the
opportunity to address these issues again.
MR. VOLLARO-It will be advertised. Well, if we keep the public hearing open, we won’t get
it advertised, but we’ve heard your concerns. We really understand you. We’re wrestling
with it, you can tell that, I think, up here, trying to balance the need for somebody to be able
to develop a piece of property the way he wants to and the need to the people. It’s always a
balance up here. Not an easy seat to sit in, believe me.
MR. HUNSINGER-What’s the date that we’re going to table this to?
MR. VOLLARO-We’ll do it to April 18.
th
MR. HUNSINGER-4/18?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Based on data by 3/15.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right. Why don’t I first run down the conditions I have.
MR. VOLLARO-Go ahead.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Submit building elevations and color schemes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-Review installation of sidewalk along Pine Street. Maintain minimum 50
foot buffer around site perimeter and supplement with landscaping.
MR. VOLLARO-Around the whole perimeter? Because he talked about not doing it on Pine.
You want all the way around?
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. I mean, it’s open for discussion.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t even know, aesthetically, whether all the way around on Pine, from
my own viewpoint, would be.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Or simply, to the best of my ability, I’ll try and accomplish that.
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. I mean, what I’m asking you to do is come back with your plans and
we’ll see what happens.
71
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. LAPPER-I think if we do 50 feet, which is all around, we’d be taking up too much of the
site.
MR. SEGULJIC-That comes to my next one. Review reconfiguring building sizes, locations
to maximize site buffer.
MR. LAPPER-We can do that, but we can’t promise 50 feet.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I guess what I’m asking you to, saying, these are the things I’m
interested in. See what you can do for me. Okay. Increase parking area landscaping.
Contact Glens Falls Transit/School District to discuss the possibility of bus stop at entrance.
Review installation of sewer and package sewage treatment systems. Review them.
Anything else? Did I hit everything?
MR. METIVIER-Let me ask you the question on the last comment. Can you re-state that
for me, how you put that?
MR. SEGULJIC-Review connection to existing sanitary sewer and use of package system, or
use.
MR. VOLLARO-So you’re asking them to take two alternate solutions to septic tanks, one is
a package system on site, and the other one is connecting 1200 feet away to a municipal
sewer.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right.
MR. NACE-I can tell you right now, the package on site is not something that we or the
Town would want.
MR. FORD-Examine the other alternative.
MR. VOLLARO-On the sidewalks, where do you want that, just along, just in front of this,
on Pine only?
MR. FORD-No, no.
MR. SEGULJIC-That was Tom’s.
MR. FORD-Just leave that to Rich’s creativity, please.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Well, I think you’ve got to give him some direction. I mean, you
want it on Pine Street?
MR. FORD-I want it on Pine Street.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-You had something about the lighting.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Didn’t we want to see a lighting plan? Okay.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Do you want the 10 plexes, or do you want me to stay with the
8’s?
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, that goes back to building size and location, review reconfiguring
building size, locations, to maximize site buffering.
MR. NACE-Okay. Give us the flexibility.
MR. FORD-Be flexible. Be creative.
MR. SEGULJIC-I’m looking to break up that big parking lot in the middle.
72
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. HUNSINGER-Tom and I had brought up the issue of having the front of the buildings
facing Pine Street.
MR. VOLLARO-The other way. I kind of like that idea myself, actually, it’s the façade
being up front on Pine.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. VOLLARO-Take a look at that and see, because I think that that helps.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, it doesn’t have to be literally the front of the house, but instead
of a back deck, have a front door.
MR. VOLLARO-He did that very nicely on his units on Bay Road.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-The back of the building is really facing Bay Road, but it looks like the
front. He doesn’t have any entrances on Bay Road to that one building, but you.
MR. HUNSINGER-The commercial buildings you’re talking about.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. FORD-They weren’t all just squared off like that. There’s a configuration, I think, that
perhaps.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-We can bring a nice elevation in there. I know what you’re looking
for.
MR. VOLLARO-The other thing I didn’t hear, Tom, was the taking out of the center island
to allow the entrance of fire trucks. There was a letter in there from the Fire Marshal that
talked about.
MRS. BARDEN-Well, there’s an option of either to remove it or make each lane 20 foot
minimum.
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, address the Fire Marshal’s letter of February 23.
rd
MR. SCHERMERHORN-The only reason I curbed it is because it keeps people from driving,
it’s nice having those entrances with flowers and bushes, but people drive on them and they
plow and rip them up.
MR. VOLLARO-If you widen the lanes to 20 feet, I think that’s what he’s asking for, the
Fire Marshal.
MR. NACE-He’s probably looking for a turning radius.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. NACE-We’ll look at the turning radius.
MR. HUNSINGER-Personally, I like the boulevard idea.
MRS. STEFFAN-I do, too. I think it would be an aesthetic improvement.
MR. NACE-I think if we simply make the turning radiuses comply with the (lost words).
MR. VOLLARO-I think that’s what he’s looking for. They’ve got to turn a truck around.
MR. SEGULJIC-I guess, last but not least, address C.T. Male comments.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-We have a signoff from C.T. Male now, but I understand we’ll have
to resubmit this with new configurations, I’ll have to get another signoff. Okay.
73
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
MR. SEGULJIC-So can I just, so moved?
MR. LAPPER-It works for us.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-And again, just before you do the motion, all but the, and I’ll look
at the sewer, I know I can accomplish all the things you’re asking for. The sewer is the only
one that I still see difficulty with, but all the other ones I don’t see difficulty with.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. I can understand that, but I was just asking you to go back and look
at it.
MRS. STEFFAN-There’s no way that they’re bringing that farther up the road with
industrial development?
MR. VOLLARO-As far as I know, when I talked to Mike, I talked to him.
MR. HUNSINGER-What about the other way, though? Aren’t they bringing sewer up Main
Street?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-They’re talking about bringing it down Main Street eventually.
MR. HUNSINGER-I know the Town was looking to do that with the Main Street plan.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-That’s another option when the time comes.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but that’s a longer run from you to Main Street than it is the 1200 feet
to go to the drop inlet that exists now.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I don’t know why I’m thinking Main Street’s closer.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. So Tom made the motion.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s my motion.
MS. GAGLIARDI-Because I type the motion’s, could you just say, I make a motion to table
and just list those, so I know exactly what you want in the motion?
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 2-2006 SCHERMERHORN RES. PROP. HOLDINGS,
Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford:
With the following conditions:
1. Review installation of sidewalks along Pine Street.
2. Submit building elevation and color schemes,
3. Maintain 50 foot buffer around site and supplement with landscaping,
4. Review reconfiguring building sizes, locations to maximize site buffering,
5. Increase parking lot area landscaping,
6. Contact Glens Falls Transit and School District to discuss possibility of bus stop at Pine,
7. Review connection to existing sanitary sewer or usage of a package system for sanitary
waste,
8. Address the Queensbury Fire Marshal letter of January 23, 2006, and address C.T. Male
comments.
Duly adopted this 28 day of February, 2006, by the following vote:
th
74
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/28/06)
AYES: Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Metivier, Mr.
Vollaro
NOES: NONE
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Thank you.
MRS. STEFFAN-Thank you.
SITE PLAN NO. SPECIAL USE PERMIT 3-2006 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED KENNETH
ERMIGER AGENT(S): NACE ENGINEERING, JONATHAN LAPPER OWNER(S): SAME
AS APPLICANT ZONING HC-INT. LOCATION 1079 ST. RT. 9 APPLICANT PROPOSES A
26,800 SQ. FT. BUILDING AND ASSOCIATED SITE WORK TO THE EXISTING GO-KART
ADVENTURE RACING. AMUSEMENT CENTERS IN THE HC-INTENSIVE ZONE REQUIRE
A SPECIAL USE PERMIT BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REF. SP 6-96, NOA 3-96,
NOA 4-96 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING 2/8/06 LOT SIZE 5.6 ACRES TAX MAP NO.
295.12-1-5.2 SECTION 179-4-030, 179-10
MR. HUNSINGER-So on the next one do you need to open the public hearing?
MRS. BARDEN-You have to formally table it to whatever date, March.
MR. VOLLARO-We tabled it to our next meeting.
MRS. BARDEN-You need to formally table it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we need to do a resolution. You need to open the public hearing
and leave it open, and then we can table it.
MR. VOLLARO-So we don’t have to advertise, that’s the basic idea.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ll make a motion to table.
MOTION TO TABLE SPECIAL USE PERMIT NO. 3-2006 KENNETH ERMIGER, Introduced
by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Chris Hunsinger:
Tabled Until March 21, 2006. To be placed first on the agenda.
Duly adopted this 28 of February, 2006, by the following vote:
th
AYES: Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Metivier, Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr.
Vollaro
NOES: NONE
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Robert Vollaro, Chairman
75