2006-03-28
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SECOND REGULAR MEETING
MARCH 28, 2006
INDEX
Site Plan No. 4-2006 David R. Kelly & Sally N. Kelly
1.
Tax Map No.239.15-1-3
Subdivision No. 4-2003 Thomas Schiavone 2.
EXTENSION
Site Plan No. SUP 3-2006 Kenneth Ermiger 3.
Tax Map No. 295.12-1-5.2
Site Plan No. 7-2006 Lehigh Northeast Cement Co. 22.
Tax Map No. 310.7-1-1
Subdivision No. 3-2006 John T. Whalen
25.
SKETCH PLAN Tax Map No. 289.17-1-1
Subdivision No. 4-2006 Lee Jarvis 33.
SKETCH PLAN Tax Map No. 307.-1-32
Site Plan No. 9-2006 Stephen Kirshon 38.
Tax Map No. 227.13-2-41
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.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SECOND REGULAR MEETING
MARCH 28, 2006
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
ROBERT VOLLARO, CHAIRMAN
GRETCHEN STEFFAN, SECRETARY
THOMAS SEGULJIC
CHRIS HUNSINGER
THOMAS FORD
DONALD SIPP, ALTERNATE
TANYA BRUNO, ALTERNATE
LAND USE PLANNER-SUSAN BARDEN
STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI
MR. VOLLARO-We have a little housekeeping to do before we get started. So if you’ll bear
with us, I’ll get it done as quickly as I can.
SITE PLAN NO. 4-2006 SEQR TYPE II DAVID R. KELLY, SALLY N. KELLY AGENT(S):
JONATHAN LAPPER OWNER(S): SALLY N. KELLY ZONING WR-3A LOCATION 8
ROCKY SHORE DRIVE DEMOLISH EXISTING HOUSE AND CONSTRUCT A 2,662 SQ. FT.
SINGLE FAMILY DWELLING. DEVELOPMENT WITHIN 50 FEET OF THE SHORELINE
REQUIRES SITE PLAN REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REF. AV 8-06, SP
9-03, AV 8-03, SP 57-02 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING 3/8/06 ADIRONDACK PARK
AGENCY YES LOT SIZE 0.89 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 239.15-1-3 SECTION 179-4-030
MR. VOLLARO-I’m going to make a motion to table Site Plan No. 4-2006 for David and
Sally Kelly.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 4-2006 DAVID R. KELLY, SALLY N. KELLY,
Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford:
To June 27, 2006, per request from Staff, due to ZBA tabling of this application to May 24,
2006.
Duly adopted this 28 day of March, 2006, by the following vote:
th
AYES: Mr. Ford, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr.
Vollaro
NOES: NONE
MR. VOLLARO-As part of this, I will open the public hearing and I will leave it open.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. VOLLARO-Second is a motion as a supplement to the Planning Board motion of
3/21/06, for the Stewarts Shops.
MOTION AS SUPPLEMENT TO THE PLANNING BOARD MOTION OF 3/21/06 FOR SITE
PLAN 5-2006 STEWARTS SHOPS CORP., Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Gretchen Steffan:
Tabled to May 26, 2006, based on receipt of new information to Staff by April 17, 2006.
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Duly adopted this 28 day of March, 2006, by the following vote:
th
MR. VOLLARO-Apparently this was not picked up at the last meeting for some reason or
another. Don’t really know.
AYES: Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Ford, Mr.
Vollaro
NOES: NONE
MR. VOLLARO-The third thing is Subdivision 4-2003 for Thomas Schiavone. Mr. Schiavone
is requesting that we grant a 90 day extension on this deadline at their March 28 meeting,
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which this evening.
MOTION TO EXTEND SUBDIVISION NO. 4-2003 THOMAS SCHIAVONE, Introduced by
Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford:
Granting a 90 day extension on this deadline at their March 28 meeting, which is this
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evening.
Duly adopted this 28 day of March, 2006, by the following vote:
th
MR. HUNSINGER-Did we get any information on that?
MR. VOLLARO-What we’ve got is a request from them to do so, from Nace Engineering. I
will read that request.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Why don’t you read that. Because this is all brand new.
MR. VOLLARO-The referenced subdivision for Thomas Schiavone was approved by the
Planning Board on October 18, 2005. The Planning Board’s resolution granting Final
approval stipulated that all necessary outside agency approvals be received within 180 days.
To date, we have received final Department of Health approval, and they are ready to sign
the final mylars. However, we are still waiting for the final New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation approval. We have responded to their comments and believe
that final approval should be received in the near future. However, the 180 day deadline falls
just before the Planning Board meeting in April. Therefore we are hereby requesting that the
Planning Board grant a 90 day extension on this deadline at their March 28 meeting. Please
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call me if you have any questions. Sincerely, Thomas W. Nace, Professional Engineer cc:
Thomas Schiavone.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do you have the original letter?
MR. VOLLARO-This is the original letter, yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Did that come to Staff or did that come to you personally?
MR. VOLLARO-This came from Staff to me just now.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
AYES: Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Ford, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mr.
Vollaro
NOES: NONE
TOM NACE
MR. NACE-Excuse me, Bob, before you proceed, did you receive a request for extension on
BMI Supply site plan? Staff had told me they were giving that to you with the other one?
MR. VOLLARO-No, I’ve got it on Schiavone only, from Staff this evening.
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MR. NACE-I had submitted that to Staff a couple of weeks ago, request for extension for the
site plan for BMI Supply addition. They intend to build. They just haven’t been able to put
it together within this first year.
MR. VOLLARO-I haven’t seen anything on it, Tom.
MR. NACE-It runs out before your next meeting. That’s why. In fact, I checked with Craig
yesterday, I believe, and I talked to him about Schiavone, and he said that he had it on for
the meeting.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re talking about Thomas Schiavone?
MR. NACE-No. I’m talking about BMI.
MR. VOLLARO-Or BMI.
MR. NACE-I talked to Craig about both of them.
MRS. BARDEN-I don’t know about it. Sorry.
MR. VOLLARO-I have nothing from BMI.
MR. NACE-Is there any way that you could entertain a motion?
MR. VOLLARO-Not tonight, unless I have it in front of me.
MR. NACE-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Can you act as their agent?
MR. NACE-Yes, I was their agent in the site plan submittal process.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, and what was the issue?
MR. NACE-It’s just that he hadn’t gotten his building permit pulled within the one year or
will have it pulled within the one year, and the one year runs out in April, from his site plan
approval of a year ago.
MR. HUNSINGER-And it’s before our next meeting?
MR. NACE-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-So how much time is he requesting an extension for?
MR. NACE-He intends to build this Spring. He just hasn’t been able to get his building plans
submitted for a permit yet. I think there’s been some architectural.
MRS. BRUNO-What was the original site plan to be reviewed plan?
MR. NACE-It’s for the addition, I don’t remember how many square feet, but an addition on
the back of his building for BMI Supply. It’s just a warehouse and manufacturing addition
out in the industrial park.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t intend to accept that until I get input from Staff on it, in any event.
MR. NACE-So then we’ll have to come back for a new site plan review at that point?
MR. VOLLARO-It’s the parallel to what we just did for Schiavone, and you were asking
whether I got it straight from Schiavone or I got it from Staff. I think Staff has got to give it
to this Board officially. Okay.
SITE PLAN SUP 3-2006 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED KENNETH ERMIGER AGENT(S):
NACE ENGINEERING, JONATHAN LAPPER 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-
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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 3/8/06 LOT
SIZE 5.6 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 295.12-1-5.2 SECTION 179-4-030, 179-10
JON LAPPER & TOM NACE, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. VOLLARO-There will be a public hearing this evening, and there’ll be a SEQRA Long
Form to be done on this application, and for the record you are?
MR. LAPPER-Good evening. For the record, Jon Lapper, project attorney. Tom Nace,
project engineer, and the applicant, Mr. Ermiger, is here as well to answer any questions.
MR. VOLLARO-Excuse me, Mr. Lapper. I would like to have Staff read her Staff notes, if
she would, please.
MRS. BARDEN-This is a Special Use Permit application for an amusement center in the
Highway Commercial Intensive zone. Subject property is located on Route 9, south of Round
Pond Road. The property is zoned Highway Commercial Intensive. This is a SEQRA
Unlisted Action. Applicant proposes a 26,800 sq. ft. building and associated site work to the
existing Go-Kart Adventure Racing. The applicant needs to provide a completed FAR
worksheet, the maximum requirement is 30% for the HC-I zone, which Mr. Nace has supplied
tonight. Additional parking totaling 133 spaces is proposed, the remaining 41 required (to
total the required 174) will not be constructed, but an area is proposed to be set aside if
additional parking is needed in the future. Comment #11 from CT Male’s letter dated
February 22, indicates that the future expansion parking is shown over the proposed
stormwater management area. “Removal/relocation of the stormwater management
practices should be discussed if the future parking lot is to be built”. It should be discussed
and delineated, where the relocation of the stormwater management area will be placed if or
when the additional parking area is built. It does not appear that the interior parking lot
landscaping requirement has been met. It is the decision of the Planning Board whether or
not the existing parking lot should be in compliance with this standard. However, the
additional 50 spaces and 14,400 sq. ft. of proposed parking area should meet the requirement
of 1 shade tree per 15 spaces and the additional requirement of 5% interior landscaped area,
per § 179-8-040. The 5 summit ash and 4 sugar maples are sufficient for the exterior parking
lot requirements; however, “Landscaped areas located outside the parking lot may not be
used to meet the interior landscape requirement.” An average 60-foot landscaped buffer in
the rear of the site is shown, this should be respected and maintained. Although a buffer is
not required here, this property borders the Lake George Campground and a vegetative buffer
will help to soften any visual and noise impacts from this project. Finally, elevation drawing
and building floor plans were not submitted with this application. You have a, in your
package, C.T. Male comments dated February 22, Warren County Planning Board
Recommendation of No County Impact, on February 8, 2006. There’s also a memo from
Mike Shaw from the Wastewater Department, indicating that this planned addition to
Adventure Racing is within the Route 9 Sanitary Sewer District. Sanitary sewer connection,
for this parcel, has not been constructed as of this date, and finally a letter, again from Mike
Shaw, indicating that this sewer connection has not been done, and this is a reminder as of
September 29, 2005.
MR. VOLLARO-One of the things you didn’t mention was we have a C.T. Male March 21
letter, as well as the February 22 letter.
MRS. BARDEN-Okay. That’s not in my packet, so I assumed it wasn’t in yours.
MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Lapper?
MR. LAPPER-Yes. What we have here is another project that would be a winter use. The
advantage here is to try and create a recreational use that is indoor, so that it could be used in
the winter months as hopefully more tourists and residents will be looking for recreational
activities in the winter. Because it’s a winter use, these are electric cars, so it doesn’t create
any kind of pollution issue that you’d have with gas cars, which obviously would have to be
vented and would be an engineering aspect if it were gasoline powered cars. Because it’s in a
building, it also eliminates the noise issue, because it’s an enclosed facility, and it’s located in
the rear of the site, behind the existing building and the existing golf course. As I’m sure
you’re aware, the applicant keeps this very well maintained, in terms of landscaping and
shrubs and flowers. It’s a very attractive site, and very successful, in terms of how it’s
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received by the public. It’s been a good business, and this is a proposal to utilize the vacant
space in the back to just do the same use, but to make it indoors. We’re trying to take
advantage of shared parking, and not build parking that’s not needed, and that’s why Tom
did the site plan, to show that the space is available to build more parking if needed, and
under the Code, you’re allowed to waive that requirement, if it needed to be built in the
future, it would have to be built. The Staff notes indicated that elevation drawings and floor
plans were not submitted, but they are attached to the full size sheets that were submitted
originally. Tom subsequently submitted revised drawings based upon C.T. Male’s comments,
but the original set included elevation drawings of the building that were done by Ethan Hall
Architect, and in terms of the sewer, the applicant will connect the entire site to the sewer
system, as part of this project. He’s already been paying the sewer tax, of course, but now
he’ll run the lateral and connect to the system on Route 9 as part of this project, and we’ll
certainly stipulate to that. Let me ask Tom to walk you through the site plan.
MR. NACE-Okay. I don’t know if this is close enough to see. What’s being proposed, is an
addition to the existing building. The existing amusement building, arcade building, is right
in here. The existing go kart track. Back behind that, we would be adding on a fairly deep
building and coming back along the south side of that building to enclose the, or to add on to
the southern extent of the building. The actual indoor track would be located in the back
portion, and additional arcade features would be located in this side portion up here. As Jon
said, the parking, we’ve tried to anticipate what we feel will really be needed, because this is a
kind of mixed use, actually three mixed uses, one being Pirates Cove, one being the existing
outdoor track, and one being the indoor track. We don’t anticipate that the indoor track
would be heavily used at the same time the outdoor track would be. The primary use on the
indoor track, as Jon explained, will be in the winter also with a rainy day use, during the
summer where that’ll receive heavy use, but the outside track would not be used, and
probably Pirates Cove, on a rainy day, would be lightly used. So we’ve anticipated that and
are planning to add 50 spaces. I would make a correction. We found when we corrected the
plans for C.T. Male’s comments, that there are actually 146 existing, 96 existing spaces on the
site, and our addition will bring it up to 146, total, spaces. That leaves us 28 spaces short of
meeting the zoning requirement, and if we ever needed those, we would build those, as Staff
said here, where the proposed stormwater basins will be. In that event, what we would do is
reshape the stormwater basins to come a little further, just to the west of that parking, and
concentrate them more, because the parking would fall short of what the end of what we’re
proposing, we would concentrate a good bit of the stormwater in this area here that would be
left off the end of the, what would be overflow or new parking at that point. So we certainly
can accommodate, the stormwater, we would move the two structures and move this portion
of the basin where the future parking would be, and we could accommodate it. Staff’s
comments regarding landscaping, what we tried to do, again, was look a it and take a
reasonable approach. The parking, as you’re aware if you’ve been into the site, is pretty
much in back. It’s, because of the configuration of Pirate’s Cove and the existing track, the
parking is really not visible from Route 9. For that reason, we felt it was more important to
get a little bit of landscaping with some good shade trees up at the entry, so that when you’re
coming in the entrance road, you don’t just see an expanse of parking, and also to get some
landscaping over along some fairly decent sized landscaping, along the western boundary of
the parking, to help buffer it from the adjacent Lake George Campground.
MR. LAPPER-I think that addresses the Staff issues, and we’re available for any comments
or we could have the public hearing first, whatever you’d like.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m going to open the public hearing. I want to see if anybody here wants
to speak to this application. Does anybody want to talk to this application at all?
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. VOLLARO-I have no comments. Okay. I thought what we would do, as a Board, we
would use the site plan review criteria to go over this application. Even though this happens
to be a Special Use Permit, I think the site plan review kind of mimics that pretty well. So I
would start it off with design standards. Anybody want to talk about design standards,
building, conformance with the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and conformance with design
corridor standards? Building design and layout?
MRS. BRUNO-Have we seen the FAR worksheet? Has that been turned in prior to this
evening?
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-The FAR worksheet was turned in by Mr. Nace today. We have a copy of
it.
MRS. BRUNO-I guess that was before I took my seat this evening. Thank you. I’ll share
with Chris.
MR. VOLLARO-We usually don’t, I’m going to ask the Board. We’re going to be accepting a
piece of information the night of a meeting, and I want to hear from the Board on the
acceptance of the Floor Area Ratio worksheet on the night of the meeting. I’ll just go down
the line with that. Chris, how do you feel about that?
MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t have a problem with it.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Tanya?
MRS. BRUNO-I don’t have a problem. It’s a relatively small piece.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Tom?
MR. FORD-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-As a policy matter, we decided as a Board we wouldn’t accept things on the
night of a meeting, and so, as a policy decision, the Board made a policy decision, and I think
we should support that.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom?
MR. SEGULJIC-I don’t have a problem. It’s a very important piece of information.
MR. VOLLARO-Donald?
MR. SIPP-I have a little problem. I want to ask some questions about the building.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but this is just whether we’re going to accept the Floor Area Ratio
worksheet on the night of the meeting. I
MR. SIPP-No comment.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. NACE-And I apologize for submitting this the night of the meeting. The worksheet is a
little bit confusing. The way it’s worded, when you do an application, it makes you think
that this is only for waterfront property. So that’s why it wasn’t submitted.
MR. VOLLARO-I see.
MR. LAPPER-It refers to WR-1A, and 3A.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I see that up in the corner. Okay.
MR. LAPPER-And certainly we don’t have a FAR issue here because we’re within the
requirements.
MR. VOLLARO-I can see that by the numbers.
MR. LAPPER-Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, we’ll continue on. Does anybody have any questions with building
design and layout?
MR. SIPP-Approximately how many go karts would you be running at any one time?
MR. LAPPER-It’s 16 at one time. There’s twice that number, 32, but half of them have to
get re-charged every other race, or they get used and then they have to be plugged in. So use
the other 16. So it would be 16 at one time.
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MR. SIPP-These are not, these are battery operated?
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
MR. SIPP-Battery operated. Is there any ventilation system in this building?
MR. NACE-There would just be normal air handling, air conditioning, and heating. Because
they’re electric cars.
MR. SIPP-There’s no windows, I see.
MR. NACE-No.
MR. LAPPER-Because it’s electric, there won’t be exhaust, so it’s not necessary, other than
what you’d need under the State Building Code for air handling system for heating and
ventilation, air conditioning.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I think the drawing, if I recollect correctly, is everybody done with
this? Can I?
MR. FORD-As far as site development?
MR. VOLLARO-As far as the design standards are concerned.
MRS. BRUNO-What palate is proposed for the exterior? I’m trying to recall.
MR. NACE-The color? To match the existing. I believe it’s a tan and green.
MRS. BRUNO-Okay. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Anybody want to talk about signage?
MR. SEGULJIC-Mr. Chairman, could I go back to the design?
MR. VOLLARO-Sure. Absolutely.
MR. SEGULJIC-I forget. I’ve been there. Is there a sidewalk in front of this?
MR. LAPPER-Yes, along Route 9.
MR. SEGULJIC-All the way across, along Route 9?
MR. LAPPER-Yes, there’s a sidewalk.
MR. NACE-Sidewalk all on Route 9, yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. Now how about trees along Route 9? I don’t believe there are any,
though.
MR. NACE-I believe trees were put in with that sidewalk project when they re-did, yes, they
put in street trees with the sidewalk when they did Route 9.
MR. LAPPER-The State.
MR. NACE-The State did that, yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Every 35 feet? Okay. I apologize. I’ve been there. I just forget. Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-It was a couple of months ago.
MR. SEGULJIC-I’m all set, Mr. Chairman.
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MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Anybody have any comments on signage at all? I’ll just ask the
question. Are there any additional signs contemplated for this addition, directional signs at
all?
MR. LAPPER-No, the sign works for the existing and the future go kart business.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So you won’t be applying for any signs or anything of that nature
then. Okay. Site development, parking field design?
MR. HUNSINGER-I got confused on the number of parking spaces.
MR. NACE-We made a correction, as I said. Actually there were more spaces down along the
front of the existing track than we thought that there were.
MR. HUNSINGER-So how many, what’s the existing?
MR. NACE-There are, existing are 96. There are 50 proposed, and your Code would require
146. One thing to remember, though, your Code is based on a square footage for amusement
space.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. NACE-And basing for a track area, where it’s all track, basing that indoor square
footage as a parking requirement over inflates, you know.
MR. HUNSINGER-So where did you make up those other 13 spaces?
MR. NACE-They hadn’t been picked up correctly in the survey. We thought that they
stopped in here somewhere, coming down along the front of the building, and they really,
when the snow was gone and we could count the number of stripes, we saw that they really
did extend on down.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. LAPPER-In terms of parking, it’s just, we’re repeating that what Tom said, that both
in the summer, because they will be used on rainy days when the golf course and the outdoor
track are not used, and in the winter, when obviously the golf course and the outdoor track
are closed, it’s really a shared parking concept. So we feel it’s better not to pave it if you
don’t need it, but if you do need it, the Planning Department would just tell us, and we’d
have to come in and get them built. Because we’ve shown that the land is there.
MRS. BRUNO-I would actually certainly have to agree with you on that point. I’d rather
see if the flex space works. One thing that I would like to comment on is the existing parking
towards the back. I think we really do need to press the issue that we have the interior
plantings, especially because there are structural integrity questions with the existing parking
lot. I think you’re going to have to rebuild part of that. If you go out, it’s caving in.
MR. LAPPER-The issue there is that, I mean, certainly that parking lot can be changed and
the islands could be added, but because we’ve got the campground next door, we felt that the
neighbor would probably prefer if we had the 60 feet. Staff pointed out in the notes that that
60 feet isn’t a requirement, but it’s a nice thing to have, of that buffer area.
MRS. BRUNO-I agree with the buffer area most certainly. I’m not saying the reserved
spaces. What I’m saying, perhaps I’m jumping around a bit too much.
MR. LAPPER-No, no. It’s just that the point that I’m making is that if you move, we’d
have to reduce the buffer, because if we put in a strip of landscaping, we’d have to move the
parking lot into the buffer.
MRS. BRUNO-I understand what you’re saying now, okay.
MR. LAPPER-So we think it’s probably better for the neighbors to have the buffer.
Because, I mean like at Hannaford it’s really lovely when you have the trees within the
parking lot. It’s just a nice design to use that as an example, but here you really don’t see it
from off site, and what you see from off site is the buffer.
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MRS. BRUNO-Well, I think it would, just because we don’t know what’s going to be
happening to the site next to it, I think we should maintain consistency with expecting those
design guidelines to be reached, and if you’re saying that you gain 16 spaces up towards the
front, most certainly I don’t think you’ll have to, you know, you might be able to flip flop
that a bit. Your existing and the newly proposed parking lots won’t necessarily need to be as
long, because of the 16 spaces, but given, if you put the islands in there for the planting, they
would stay. They would remain as long as they are, are you following me?
MR. NACE-I am. I’ve got a suggestion maybe.
MRS. BRUNO-Okay.
MR. NACE-What if, you know, I think I hear your concern. This adjacent property is
currently used for parking The Great Escape. However, what if we were, because we don’t
really think we need all that many spaces. What if we were to lop off a few spaces here, create
additional buffer, and put some additional landscaping in this area, to buffer it from the
adjacent parking lot to Great Escape?
MRS. BRUNO-And you’re saying simply so that you don’t have to potentially go into the
back buffer if you should go wider?
MR. NACE-Well, yes. What Jon is saying, if we put internal buffering in here, we end up
with a, you know, five, six foot strip that doesn’t really become very effective. If you look at
some of the commercial parking lots around, unless you make the strip 15 feet or so, you
really don’t get a good effective green buffer within your parking, and if we made that wide
enough to be effective, we’d be losing buffer over here where we really don’t want to.
MRS. BRUNO-What if you did the buffers perpendicular to that smaller island, say breaking
up your parking areas into thirds?
MR. NACE-Back in here? From a visual standpoint, it doesn’t break it up except just along
the one row here, and again, because it’s back on the site, hidden from public view, we
thought it was more important to keep it compact and not spread it out any more than we
had to, but I think that maybe adding some buffer back in here might be effective to reaching
your goal.
MR. SEGULJIC-I, for one, would like to see some interior landscaping on the parking lot
also. Just because you’re going to have a big mass of asphalt that I’d like to see it broken up
somehow. The 60 foot buffer, is that just on this site side or is that?
MR. NACE-No, it’s not really buffer. That’s just what we have, we’ve been able to leave.
MR. SEGULJIC-There’s 60 feet on side, you’re saying?
MR. NACE-On the west side.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
KEN ERMIGER
MR. ERMIGER-The bank is about 20 feet high, and then there’s 60 feet of trees going back.
MR. NACE-With the internal buffer, Tom, you’re talking about a long strip that separates
the lots or are you talking about?
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, the one, what is it, one tree for every 15 spaces we’re asking for?
According to the Code.
MR. NACE-Right, but as they pointed out, that would only be, what, three trees or four
trees, back through here, and that really, from what your goals seem to be, I’m not sure that
that’s going to be very effective.
MR. LAPPER-Well, what if we added six trees and put them in the buffer area instead?
9
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, personally, I’d like to see some landscaping within the parking lot.
MR. NACE-Okay. Well, we have done some. We’re not ignoring your regs, okay. We have
done some landscaping. Up here we’ve created these islands, up here in the front, where we
can get some substantial green to help buffer the view of this back lot from the entrance
drive. Okay. We’ve created these two islands. We could maybe make those a little bigger,
and certainly get in the required number of trees, if it’s just to meet a standard.
MR. SEGULJIC-How wide a strip do you need for the trees, five feet or so?
MR. NACE-Well, as I said, yes, we can plant trees in five feet. I’m not sure that if you look
around at the parking areas in Town, that that becomes, you know, that accomplishes what
you are expecting it to accomplish.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think, at least what we had in mind down here, would be to just,
instead of a long strip all the way down the middle of the parking lot, just do something like
that. Just take out like four spots, put four trees in. That really would break up the parking
lot.
MR. NACE-In here? Just an island in the middle?
MRS. BRUNO-Yes.
MR. NACE-We can do that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Just do that twice, put two trees on each one.
MRS. BRUNO-Cutting it in thirds, like I had mentioned.
MR. NACE-We’re already doing it up here, and we’ve got a couple of trees up here that, if
you’re going to start counting numbers, should count.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. NACE-Okay. So if we were to do that, and again, back in the middle of the lot.
MR. HUNSINGER-And then some on the end of the lot.
MR. NACE-And some back here.
MRS. BRUNO-Right, because it’s not just the view from the road. It’s also the quality of
the product for your customers coming in. I mean, I know I always look for the shade spot
when I park. I have a black car. So you look at things like that.
MR. NACE-Okay.
MR. LAPPER-So two islands of taking out two spaces, they’re, what, 10 by 20’s.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, that’s certainly more than five feet wide. So that would give
you plenty of room to put a couple of trees in.
MR. LAPPER-So that would be 10 by 40. We’d take out two 10 by 40 islands we’d create.
MR. NACE-Correct.
MR. FORD-That would break it up nicely.
MR. VOLLARO-The proposal is to do what, to put two islands in?
MR. LAPPER-Two islands 10 by 40.
MR. NACE-Two islands or one combined island?
MR. LAPPER-They want two, in thirds.
10
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. FORD-Two.
MR. NACE-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-And they’re 10 by 40’s.
MR. LAPPER-Because we’d be taking out four spaces, two and two. That’s fine.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I have one question. Is everybody done with parking field design?
Have any other questions on parking field design? Anybody?
MR. SEGULJIC-All set.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I have a question on it. The future parking appears to be over the
proposed stormwater management area. Now, what are the contingencies, in the event the
other spaces have to be built? You’d have to come back for a site plan modification, I
believe, at that point.
MR. NACE-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-So I don’t think that’s an issue, but if you do, you come back for a site plan
modification.
MR. LAPPER-And Tom’s showing that the land cretainly exists that can support it.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. Plus the stormwater would have to change.
MR. NACE-That’s right. The modification would include the additional parking, paving and
the stormwater.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I understand that. Okay. The next one we’re looking at in that area,
then, would be, we’re at stormwater and sewage design.
MRS. BRUNO-Bob, I have one quick question. If you were to put this stormwater
management system a little further west, is that going to affect your current buffer existing
trees? How much of that will have to be removed?
MR. NACE-It’ll affect a little, but we can minimize that. If you’ll look, there’s the tree line.
What we would do would be move, we would still drain across, but we would move most of
that stormwater into the back here, where it’s already cleared. So there would be a swale, the
beginnings of a swale, along the side here that we would have to form, and it would require a
small bit of additional clearing, but most of the stormwater would be located back in the
back.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s that vacant area back there.
MR. NACE-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-It looks like there’s a spot back there that could accommodate some of it.
MR. NACE-In fact, one of our proposed drywells is already in that area. So we would
probably leave it and locate, either relocate or build new one or ones in the area behind it.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. We’ll get into stormwater and sewage design. We have a stormwater
management report. This is the latest one, Mr. Nace?
MR. NACE-That’s correct. It was submitted in response to C.T. Male’s comments.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, January 17. While we’re on C.T. Male’s comments, do you have a
th
comment to their March 21 letter?
MR. NACE-To their March 21.
MR. LAPPER-The last issue was still open.
11
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. NACE-Okay. The only issue that was in their March 21 letter that was still open was
they had looked at the grading and had thought we hadn’t addressed one of the previous
comments, which was to get some additional topography up in the area around the existing
garage to verify that our grading did not go off site. We did that. When they looked at it,
they didn’t realize that it had been done. Okay. I talked to Jim Edwards this afternoon. Did
he call to discuss it with you?
MRS. BARDEN-Yes.
MR. NACE-So you can verify that he went back and looked at the plans again and said, yes,
you have done it.
MR. VOLLARO-So that really negates his March 21 letter, except for the fact that he’s
st
talked about in general the comments have been adequately addressed. So that phone call to
Staff negates the March 21 letter essentially. Is that what you’re saying?
MR. NACE-Yes.
MR. LAPPER-Negates the open issue.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. The Board’s still open to questions on stormwater and sewage design.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, there was the letter from Mike Shaw about connecting to the
sewer.
MR. LAPPER-And we’ll stipulate before a CO is issued that it’ll be connected.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So the marker there would be the Certificate of Occupancy would
have to be held off on this until you made the connection to the sewer. So that would be a
condition of approval.
MR. LAPPER-Yes. It will be done as part of the construction project. So it’s not a problem.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I don’t see a water line on the drawing. I was looking for a water line
coming in for potable water.
MR. NACE-There is an existing line. We did not re-show it, because we’re not doing
anything with water in this particular addition.
MR. VOLLARO-Where would the sewer be coming in at? Do you know where that is?
MR. NACE-Yes. I can point it out to you. The existing sewer system is located down in here.
So the connection would be down along the south side of the track, and I’m not sure exactly
where the stub was left for their connection out on Route 9, but it would be somewhere along
this frontage here.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. All right. I just had a question on the, again, I guess I’m in the
potable water area, but I wanted to know just what’s the well at Pirates Cove and what is it
used for? Is it, it’s on their property. Do you use that, is that well used at all for this
applicant? Does he use that well?
MR. NACE-Boy, you’re taxing my memory. That was several years back.
MR. VOLLARO-Well it’s on the drawing. That’s why I asked.
MR. NACE-I think that it’s used for their irrigation water. They put it in when they were
doing their irrigation.
MR. VOLLARO-At Pirates Cove?
MR. NACE-At Pirates Cove.
MR. VOLLARO-This is not something that this applicant uses?
12
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. NACE-No.
MR. VOLLARO-That was all my question. We’re into lighting design, conformance with the
lighting design standards. Anybody on lighting design? Okay. I have one, then. Our 179-6-
020 requires two and a half foot candles in recreation areas, parking lots. By my counts, in
looking at the photometrics that you’ve provided, this is the photometric, and it looks like it
goes out to .05 foot candles at the outside one, and then two, but if you look at all of these lots
that I’ve got in yellow here do not receive two and a half. These are new lights that you’ve
put in. It looks like they’re new to me, on the parking lot. If you look at your two foot
candle profile, it doesn’t cover a good deal of the lots.
MR. NACE-Agreed. We can increase it. For safety purpose, we don’t think it needs to be
increased, okay. We can certainly put in brighter lights, higher wattage lights, but we put in
what we felt would be adequate for safety purposes.
MR. LAPPER-We’ve got a campground next door, too.
MR. NACE-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Right.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do you get any spill from the Pirates Cove? I mean, your parking lots
are adjacent.
MR. NACE-Yes, there is. In fact right now the light back in that parking lot is fairly
minimal, on site lighting, but it’s still, if you go back there during operation, there’s a good
bit of spill light from Pirates Cove, but we didn’t want to light it up so bright that it was a
nuisance, and we felt that a lot of it’s covered at the two foot candle to one foot candle.
MR. VOLLARO-It is on the eastern portion of the lot. If Pirates Cove is leaking over, as Mr.
Hunsinger says it is, or has asked you about whether it does or not, there’s some leak over
from Pirates Cove which may give you some fill on this side, but these are almost totally
absent the one foot candle, or the two foot candles, two and a half really. So what you could
do is spread these out a little more and put one more light in of the same wattage. You may
not need a higher wattage.
MR. NACE-But that still increases the total light. We can certainly meet the two foot
candles if that’s what the Board desires, two and a half.
MR. VOLLARO-Two and a half is what it talks about, 2.5.
MR. NACE-Two and a half, we just didn’t feel it was necessary.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, let me ask the Board how they feel. Let me go up and down the Board
and ask whether we want to relieve that requirement or not. Tanya?
MRS. BRUNO-I think I would need to sit and study the light, the quantities a little bit
closer, the actual numbers to feel comfortable.
MR. VOLLARO-Chris?
MR. HUNSINGER-I always prefer less than more. I don’t have a problem with it.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom?
MR. FORD-I’m not sure that personal preference should supersede what we have as
standards.
MR. LAPPER-It’s only a guideline.
MR. NACE-It’s really not personal preference. It’s based on experience. That’s what we feel
is more than adequate for parking lot type lighting, and if you want more, we’ll make it more.
There’s no question.
13
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-You said it was a guideline?
MR. LAPPER-Yes. Don’t you have the ability, with the lighting standards?
MR. VOLLARO-With the parking we do, with the lighting we don’t. I don’t believe. When
you said it was a.
MR. LAPPER-Yes, I thought with lighting there was language that it should be met as
appropriate.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t think so. We can certainly check it, but I don’t ever remember
anything in the Code that says, by the way.
MR. LAPPER-I thought with lighting that there was some discretion, and I don’t have a
copy of the Code with me. We certainly haven’t asked for a variance from it.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, let me go down. Gretchen, what’s your opinion?
MRS. STEFFAN-Less is okay with me.
MR. SEGULJIC-Less is better.
MR. SIPP-Yes. I think less is better because of that campground back there.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Then let’s not take that any further. I think we have the Board’s
consensus that you stay the way you are.
MR. LAPPER-Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-One of the items on our site plan, there is a pile of tires in the back of the
property, I think it’s on the campground side.
MR. LAPPER-I can explain that.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. FORD-I was going to take that up under health and safety, too.
MR. LAPPER-Those were purchased with the intention that those were going to be used as
bumpers on the outside of the new track, but instead the applicant is purchasing this fancy
plastic system on the inside, so it’s not going to be needed, and they’ll be removed. So they
were purchased with the intention of being incorporated as part of this project, but they’re
not going to be used.
MRS. STEFFAN-So they’ll go.
MR. VOLLARO-Can the CO be based on that as well?
MR. LAPPER-Absolutely.
MR. VOLLARO-In the same way as the sewer connect.
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-I shouldn’t you be asking you that. I probably ought to be telling you that.
MR. LAPPER-We will consent to that condition.
MR. FORD-And the condition is?
MR. VOLLARO-That the tires be removed before a Certificate of Occupancy is awarded.
MR. FORD-May I ask how long they’ve been there?
14
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. ERMIGER-Two years.
MR. FORD-Why have they not been removed to date?
MR. LAPPER-They were going to be used as bumpers for the outside of this new track.
MR. FORD-Based upon this design, which is how old? The design, the current design before
us?
MR. ERMIGER-A couple of months.
MR. LAPPER-You told me you bought them so that you could use them?
MR. ERMIGER-We’re going with a new rail system.
MRS. BRUNO-When was that new rail system decided upon, I think is what Tom is saying.
MR. LAPPER-Just recently.
MRS. BRUNO-Just recently.
MR. LAPPER-Yes. I mean, he purchased them in anticipation of doing another project, and
now he’s doing it.
MR. FORD-My concern is for health and safety of the community, and I think that,
indicative of future use, probably is past performance, and we have had these tires there as a
breeding ground for mosquitoes and other vermin now for two years, and I’m concerned.
MR. LAPPER-Well, it was purchased as building materials. It wasn’t like this was disposal.
This was to be used as materials for a project.
MR. FORD-It amounts to the same thing. Does it not?
MR. LAPPER-Well, if you’d like, we could stipulate that they’ll come out, you know, right
now rather than waiting to CO, to be removed, if that would make you happy?
MR. FORD-Sooner s better.
MR. LAPPER-Immediately.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Landscape design. I think we’ve talked a good deal about the
landscape design, in terms of the parking lot, and that the buffer mentioned in the back to the
west, but I’ll open it up to the Board for comments on landscape design, if anybody wants to
continue with that at all.
MRS. STEFFAN-I would like to see as much of the existing tree line as possible be kept.
MR. NACE-Happy to do that.
MRS. STEFFAN-One of the things, the campground is there, but also the back of this
property backs up to the Northway, and it’s pretty well secluded, and I think that it should
stay that way.
MR. NACE-Okay.
MR. LAPPER-Do you want us to show a no cut on the plans?
MRS. STEFFAN-That would be great.
MR. SIPP-Yes, I think so.
15
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MRS. STEFFAN-Because you’ve got limit of clearing, and then existing tree line. Very little
of that existing tree line really has to come out.
MR. SIPP-What is there now, mostly white pine?
MRS. STEFFAN-No, there’s a mix. There’s hardwoods in there, too.
MR. SIPP-There’s hardwoods back there.
MR. NACE-I think it’s mostly white pine when you get back into the forest. I think on the
edge there may be some scrub oak.
MR. SIPP-I’d go for a no cut there.
MR. VOLLARO-What’s the depth of that no cut zone?
MR. NACE-Well, what’s shown as limits of clearing now.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m looking at the limits of clearing that’s indicated by the tree line, is that
correct?
MR. NACE-Well, it’s a new tree line, okay, and everything behind that will be no cut.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I understand. Anybody else on landscape design? I guess we were
really into the buffering and screening portion of that area.
MRS. BRUNO-I just have a question. Do you recall back when the existing parking lot was
built, was that built on fill brought up from the projects?
MR. NACE-The back end of it was, yes.
MRS. BRUNO-Okay, and just bringing up the point, again, that a lot of that is starting to
buckle and open up.
MR. NACE-That will be repaired, yes.
MRS. BRUNO-That will be brought up and re-tamped, the whole works. I was just there
over the weekend. You’ve got a crater about like that. It’s at least a foot deep.
MR. VOLLARO-Tanya, where is that exactly located?
MRS. BRUNO-I would say right about where the “E” is on your existing Adventure Racing
parking, right around there.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So that’s in the existing lot?
MRS. BRUNO-Yes.
MR. LAPPER-So we’ll repair erosion in the existing lot, as a condition.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. We’re going to jump down to environmental. We’re into areas of
wetlands, noise, air quality, aesthetics, historical factors or wildlife, including rare and
endangered species. Anybody have any comments on wetlands, noise, air quality, aesthetics,
historical factors or wildlife?
MR. SIPP-I think you’ve done a lot to alleviate the fact that I think people thought there
would be more gasoline powered go karts there, no noise, and your motel owner across the
street and the people in Twicwood were a little annoyed with the fact of increasing the
number of go karts, but if these are going to be indoors and battery operated, and there’s no
noise factor, either for them or for the campground.
MR. LAPPER-That was definitely the intention.
MR. FORD-That’s appreciated, the noise factor and the use of the battery operated go karts.
16
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. LAPPER-It’ll make it a much better business.
MR. VOLLARO-The fact that they’re electrical kind of shoots down my question on the
ambient noise versus the dba coming out at full track motion.
MR. NACE-We went through the once. I don’t want to go through it again.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Okay. Neighborhood character, neighborhood impacts, health, safety
and welfare of the community?
MRS. STEFFAN-I think we’ve taken into consideration the campground.
MR. FORD-As long as we get rid of those tires.
MRS. STEFFAN-Right.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, we’ve got that down as a pending condition, removal of tires.
MR. FORD-Yes, I understand.
MR. VOLLARO-Involved agencies? Any other criteria that we failed to review, anybody?
Okay. I think we have to go into a SEQRA. Before we go into SEQRA, I will make one more
request. The public hearing is still open. Does anybody now want to talk or make a comment
on the public hearing, now that you’ve heard a good deal of what has transpired here? Seeing
none, I will close the public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
NO COMMENT
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MR. VOLLARO-And we’ll get into our SEQRA, and I believe you submitted a Long Form?
MR. NACE-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Before we get into that, I’d like to just ask a couple of questions on Part I.
MR. NACE-Sure.
MR. VOLLARO-Before I start, does anybody else have questions on Part I SEQRA, supplied
by the applicant?
MRS. STEFFAN-I just wanted to verify. There’s a February 22 letter here that talked
nd
about that the project will result in more than one acre disturbance. Has that all been taken
care of? The C.T. Male letter said that a SPDES Permit was warranted and Notice Of Intent
with Stormwater Prevent Plan?
MR. NACE-We will be filing an NOI, yes with DEC, and the stormwater does conform to
their requirements.
MR. VOLLARO-I think, I’m taking the March 21, 2006 letter from C.T. Male letter from
Craig Brown, in a sense, as a signoff, and it says, in the second paragraph, in general, the
comments have been adequately addressed. I think one of the things I would like to make
sure of, when we get letters from C.T. Male, that they say this is a signoff, and not, I think
Jim Edwards has made sort of a vague, you know, in general the comments have been
adequately addressed. I find that not quite closing language.
MR. LAPPER-He might have done that because he thought there was that one issue about
the topography which he missed, but who knows.
MRS. BARDEN-He still does need to issue a signoff for this.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So a signoff is still a requirement in your mind?
17
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MRS. BARDEN-I think it probably should be. It’s standard practice of the Board.
MR. VOLLARO-It certainly is, but I was under the impression that we were going to be
taking the March 21 letter as a signoff, essentially, and if that’s not the case, then a condition
of this application would be a signoff from C.T. Male.
MR. LAPPER-We certainly viewed that as a signoff with the call to Susan that we covered
that issue. That would be our position.
MR. VOLLARO-I think we just talked about that a minute ago, but I think, in this
particular instance, I would prefer to see a definite signoff by C.T. Male.
MR. NACE-Okay. Would Staff take care of contacting C.T. Male to get that then?
MR. VOLLARO-They should.
MRS. BARDEN-Yes.
MR. NACE-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-All right. I just have a couple of questions. On Page Three, I would assume
that the depth to water and the depth to bedrock was determined to be 20 plus, based on
something that’s in the geological database somewhere.
MR. NACE-Actually, based on experience with the construction of both Pirates Cove and this
site when they were putting in the original drywells for this site, there were some deep
excavations.
MR. VOLLARO-I assumed it was because of prior work. Just wanted to ask the question.
On Page Five, has the site ever been used for the disposal of solid or hazardous waste, and it
says no, but I think we’ve talked about this tires thing, and I think that it obviously could be
mitigated, but I think it has been used for the disposal. Even though these tires were
purchased as building material, as Mr. Lapper said, I still think that that probably should
have been yes. I still think it should be yes. Is the site served by existing public utilities, and
it’s yes, and really, in terms of not having a sewer connection at the time this was written,
and I think this was written some time back, on January 17, 2006 of this year. So I think it
should have been no, in my opinion anyway that should be no, because the sewer was not yet
connected, and since the CO is going to depend, one of my questions, I guess, in my mind,
that’s milling around, how long will it take, well, let me ask you a couple of questions. When
do you intend to open the facility?
MR. LAPPER-The applicant said July.
MR. VOLLARO-Is it expected by the time the facility starts to operate, that is the outside
track and the whole facility begins to operate?
MR. NACE-No, we’re talking about the new facility.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, but if the old facility opens up, and the CO is based on getting a CO
when the sewer is connected, what do you do in the meantime? Are you using a septic
system?
MR. LAPPER-Yes. There’s an existing approved septic.
MR. VOLLARO-The septic system is not on the drawing. I don’t know where it is.
MR. NACE-Well, I pointed out when I went to the map before where it was, but that’s
already approved. That was part of the previous site plan. It shows on the previous site
drawings, okay, and we’re not re-doing any of the plumbing inside the building.
MR. VOLLARO-All right. I just wanted to explore that, get that straight in my head, that
that’s what’s going on here. All right. A lot of these have to do with the sewer system itself
and the ambient. So I don’t have any further questions on Part I. We can proceed to Part
II. Do you want to start that off Gretchen?
18
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MRS. STEFFAN-I do. “Will the proposed action result in a physical change to the project
site?”
MR. VOLLARO-It’s a physical change, yes, but it can easily be mitigated. It’s small.
There’s a physical change to the site, I believe.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay, but it’s small to moderate. Okay. I didn’t hear, I only heard from
two Board members.
MR. HUNSINGER-I would say no.
MR. FORD-Small to moderate.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. BRUNO-Small to moderate as well.
RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE
RESOLUTION NO. 3-2006, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Thomas Seguljic:
WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for:
KENNETH ERMIGER, 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 March, 2006, by the following vote:
th
AYES: Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Ford, Mrs. Steffan, Mr.
Vollaro
NOES: NONE
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I think at this particular point we can entertain a motion. There will
be some conditions associated with the motion. Whoever wants to make the motion may put
the motion up.
MRS. STEFFAN-I just want to go over with the Board some of the things that I jotted
down, based on our discussions, is that, Number One, we wanted removal of the tire pile in
19
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
the rear of the property. We want the applicant to come back to the Planning Board for site
plan modification if additional parking spaces are needed and stormwater management field
must be moved. You need to come back if the stormwater management field has to be
moved. Number Three was the addition of two islands in the parking lot with two trees each.
MR. VOLLARO-They would be 10 by 40 additions.
MRS. BRUNO-Let’s put a minimum of two trees. Can we put it like that? If you should be
so inclined to add more.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, we can ask them. I don’t want to leave it up to the applicant to make
that determination. I’d rather we make it. I mean, do we want two trees per forty foot?
MR. HUNSINGER-We should specify the species.
MRS. BRUNO-That’s a good point.
MR. VOLLARO-Could we specify it as trees that are indigenous to the area, as opposed to
trying to be a horticulturist and pick out the right word?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, they have their existing plant list. It makes sense to pick
something from there, either the Green Mountain Sugar Maple or the Summit Ash.
MR. NACE-Either one would work, or we can put one of each in each island.
MRS. BRUNO-I have a concern with the Sugar Maple. I think the salt tends to.
MR. LAPPER-Ash is a nice parking lot tree.
MR. NACE-That’s true. Ash would probably be best.
MR. LAPPER-Queensbury Plaza has Ash in it. They’re pretty nice.
MR. SIPP-I wouldn’t go with white pine.
MR. VOLLARO-They’re talking about Ash up at this end.
MR. SIPP-I would like to see the Sugar Maple rather than the Ash.
MR. VOLLARO-Is it tolerant? I mean, I’ve heard words up here about being salt intolerant?
MR. SIPP-Yes, but you’re not going to be.
MR. NACE-Yes, we’re not a city street.
MR. LAPPER-Either one’s certainly okay with us.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-So is it Maple or Ash? Maple?
MR. VOLLARO-Do you want me to call it?
MRS. BRUNO-One of each. It doesn’t matter.
MR. VOLLARO-A normal distribution of Sugar Maple and Ash.
MR. LAPPER-Two of each.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay, and the fourth condition was granting of the Certificate of
Occupancy will be contingent on sewer connection. The fifth item was identification of no cut
zone on the drawing.
MR. LAPPER-Can we say that the limits of clearing will be shown, that are shown now will
be identified as a no cut buffer?
20
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-There’s one more. I don’t know if you’ve listed the repair.
MRS. STEFFAN-No, that’s next. Repair erosion in existing parking lot and number seven
was a C.T. Male signoff.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s it. Go for it.
MOTION TO APPROVE SPECIAL USE PERMIT NO. 3-2006 KENNETH ERMIGER,
Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic:
The Queensbury Planning Board has received the following request at the below stated
meeting and has resolved the following:
WHEREAS, an application has been received for final review for Special Use Permit No. 3-
2006 for Kenneth Ermiger.
WHEREAS, the application is supported with all documentation, public comment, all
application materials in the file of record.
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED,
That we find the following: The application is approved and subject to the following
conditions:
1. Removal of the tire piles at the rear of the property, and
2. That the applicant will need to come back to the Planning Board for site plan
modification if additional parking spaces are needed and the stormwater
management
field must be moved, and
3. Addition of two islands in the parking lot, the size 10 by 40, with a minimum
of two trees each, Sugar Maple and Ash, and
4. The granting of a Certificate of Occupancy will be contingent upon sewer
connection, and
5. That the limits of clearing will be identified on the drawing, as a no cut zone,
and
6. Repair erosion in the existing parking lot, and
7. C.T. Male signoff, and
8. Also, that the Town will periodically review parking utilization for adequacy and
appropriate action.
Duly adopted this 28 day of March, 2006, by the following vote:
th
MR. HUNSINGER-Discussion.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Regarding the overflow parking, what would be the trigger for the need
to install that? I mean, C.T. Male talks about, we would recommend that the site be
monitored periodically during the peak summer periods for adequacy of spaces.
MRS. STEFFAN-That’s true. Who would monitor it?
MR. LAPPER-We could say the Zoning Administrator or the Code Enforcement Officer,
whatever the Board prefers.
21
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-Well, that could be true, but I think the applicant himself, in this particular
case, is a self-policing action. He would know best, more than anything else, whether he
needed to do this or not. It would be to his benefit to do it if he does need it.
MR. HUNSINGER-I agree.
MR. VOLLARO-And if he does, he has to come back to us.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I just wanted to make sure that that was the understanding.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, that’s my understanding. I don’t know what the Board?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, in reading C.T. Male’s letter, they don’t say, you know, who should
do the monitoring.
MR. VOLLARO-They don’t.
MR. HUNSINGER-And I just wanted to make sure that the Board was comfortable knowing
that, you know, we were kind of leaving it up to the applicant to decide.
MR. VOLLARO-I think the suggestion was that we have Mr. Frank look at it and see
whether it is overflow in the parking which would trigger it, doubling parking or poor
parking, whatever, but the applicant, I think, is probably the best overview of that, in my
view anyway. I don’t know how the rest of the Board feels. Does somebody want to weigh in
on that?
MR. SIPP-If he doesn’t have the parking, he’s going to lose business.
MRS. BARDEN-I guess, just a suggestion, I would put it on the applicant to submit some
document, maybe on a busy weekend during the summer, indicating how the parking is
working out, rather than keeping it open ended for Bruce Frank to go out there and look at it.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, we didn’t say we were going to use Bruce Frank. It’s a discussion the
Board is having among itself as to which way it prefers to go, and it seems to me that what
we’ve put up is that the applicant would be his own police, if you want to call it that, and
would notify us when he thought that parking had to be extended or increased.
MRS. BRUNO-I think I would have to agree with the formalization of his input, like Staff
just suggested. That, yes, it is to his best interest to increase it if need be, but.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, that he talk to the Board or send Staff an indication that he would
like to increase his parking. Is that what we’re saying?
MRS. BRUNO-No. I think what we’re saying is that perhaps a weekend that, like Staff was
just saying that we know is a prime weekend, that he actually set that time aside to write the
letter to the Planning Board that he has, in fact, gone out and counted, you know, rather
than it being a vague time.
MR. VOLLARO-We’d have to sort of construct, or he would have to construct, some sort of a
control document to do that. I mean, I think he merely wants to advise the Staff or the
Town, and the Planning Board, that he has observed the need for additional parking and send
that request to Staff, and then Staff would, that would be the trigger that Mr. Hunsinger was
asking for. There has to be a trigger set here that says at what time that he would want to do
that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I’m just raising the question. I’m not suggesting that the
applicants do anything. I guess my thought was, and I’m not saying that would happen in
this case, but let’s say, after several summer weekends, it’s obvious that there’s not enough
parking. Now, I don’t think that’s the case, but let’s just say for the sake of argument that
that happens, the neighbors complain because there’s traffic spilling out onto Route 9,
whatever, you know, so the Code Enforcement Officer goes out and says, well, you don’t have
enough parking. You need to construct your overflow parking space, and the applicant says,
well, you know, the Planning Board didn’t require me to. They said it was up to my
discretion. I think it’s okay, and then we end up in some sort of legal issues or enforcement
issue.
22
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. LAPPER-What if we go both ways? Either the applicant or the Planning Department
requires it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, again, I’m just raising the discussion here. I’m not suggesting one
or another. I mean, if we leave it open ended, there’s no enforcement, you know, there’s no
ability for us to go back and say you need to do it.
MR. LAPPER-And if it needs to be done, it needs to be done. So if you want to say that the
Planning Staff or the applicant says it’s required, it’s required.
MR. HUNSINGER-That’s fine by me.
MR. SEGULJIC-That sounds good to me, the Town’s or the applicant’s request.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Do you want to modify the motion to state that? That it would be
up to either the applicant or Staff to review, and either one can act as the trigger for parking?
How does that sound?
MRS. STEFFAN-That sounds kind of odd to me, but.
MR. VOLLARO-It does to me, too. I’m just trying to satisfy the sense of this Board as to
what they want to do. I mean, I want to hear something from you, a little more than what
I’ve heard, in terms of this parking situation, expanding the parking.
MRS. STEFFAN-My feeling, we’ve asked them to come back for site plan modification if
they have to add spaces, and certainly, in my opinion, what would trigger that is if traffic is
spilling out and it’s causing a safety hazard, or if anybody parked on the road. I mean, I
can’t imagine that happening, but if someone parked on the road and they had, you know, a
parking issue, they would want to make sure that their customers were safe and could
accommodate that. So that would be the trigger for them to come back for site plan review.
MR. VOLLARO-I tend to agree with that. My first impression here was that the applicant
would be the best person to police himself. Now, if we can’t do that, if we want additional
coverage that we can say, it’s either the applicant, or, if Staff determines that there’s an
inadequate parking situation, Staff can act as the trigger. What we’re trying to do is set some
trigger in motion here, and in effect we’re setting two. One is the customer imposed, and the
other one is Staff imposed. I don’t think the second is a bad way to go. I think it’s a little
overkill, but it’s up to the Board. I’m not going to make that decision here. I’d like to hear
from the Board which way they want to go.
MR. SIPP-The applicant.
MR. SEGULJIC-I can go either way.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom, pick one, please.
MR. SEGULJIC-Both.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Gretchen?
MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t think it’s necessary.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom?
MR. FORD-Either.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think the Town should retain some right.
MRS. BRUNO-I agree, both.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So I guess what we’re saying is that the Town would carry the right
to do this. So we’d have to put it in the motion that the Town would periodically survey the
parking situation, and if the Town felt that the parking was inadequate it would act as the
trigger for additional parking.
23
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t know if we need to say the Town would survey, but, you know, if
there were complaints or if there were recognized problems.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I think the Town is going to be Bruce Frank.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. VOLLARO-And Bruce Frank’s got to go out and make that decision. He’s got to
eyeball the situation there and determine whether or not there’s overflow parking or not.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I don’t think we’re suggesting that he go out periodically, unless
there’s a problem.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, how does Staff do this, then? I’m trying to understand how this
happens. I’m trying to look at the mechanics of this. If you’re saying that he doesn’t
necessarily go out, maybe if he’s driving by and notices it, is it happenstance, or is it
something that we’re asking Staff to be cognizant of?
MR. HUNSINGER-All I was suggesting is that the Town not give up the right to ask the
applicant to put it in. I’m not trying to obligate the Town to do anything. Because I don’t
think that this Board has that authority. There’s a subtle difference there.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, there’s a subtle difference, but I think this Board does have that
authority to ask for surveillance by the Town in this area.
MR. HUNSINGER-That’s not what I was suggesting.
MRS. STEFFAN-How about an additional condition that says that the Town will
periodically review parking utilization for adequacy and appropriate action?
MR. VOLLARO-I would accept that language, myself personally. How about the rest of the
Board?
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s good.
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. All right. We’re adding that as a condition of the motion.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-All right. That’s my motion.
AYES: Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Ford, Mrs. Steffan, Mr.
Vollaro
NOES: NONE
MR. NACE-Thank you.
MR. LAPPER-Thank you. That allows the applicant to order the steel and get going. We
really appreciate it.
SITE PLAN NO. 7-2006 SEQR TYPE II LEHIGH NORTHEAST CEMENT CO. AGENT(S):
NORTH COUNTRY ENGINEERING OWNER(S): SAME ZONING: HI-3A LOCATION 313
LOWER WARREN STREET CONSTRUCT A 18’ X 24’ [432 SQ. FT.] HYDRAULIC EQUIP.
ENCLOSURE AND IMPROVEMENTS TO THE ELECTRICAL SUBSTATION INCLUDING A
20’ X 32’ [640 SQ. FT.] ENCLOSURE AROUND BANK 2 SWITCHGEAR. MODIFICATIONS
TO SITE PLAN REVIEW USES REQUIRE REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS
REF. AV 17-2006, SP 10-89, AV 6-89 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING MARCH 8, 2006 LOT
SIZE 46.97 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 310.7-1-1 SECTION 179-4-
MICHAEL O’CONNOR & DAVE KLEIN, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
24
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-Good evening.
MR. O'CONNOR-Good evening.
MR. VOLLARO-For the record, you are?
MR. O'CONNOR-I’m Michael O’Connor from the law firm of Little & O’Connor. I’m
representing Lehigh Northeast Cement Company. With me at the table is Rick Parker, who
is the Plant Manager, and Ed Kokowski who is the Engineering Manager for Lehigh
Northeast and Dave Klein from North Country Engineering who is the project engineer. We
have more than enough people. Do you want me to get right into it?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Just a couple of announcements. This is a Type II. There’ll be no
SEQRA on this application, and there also is a public hearing this evening.
MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. Basically we’re building two very small buildings in the midst of the
existing plant site. They are for upgrades of the present equipment. One building is 18 foot
by 24 foot, which I think is 432 square foot, and the other is 20 by 32 foot, which is 640
square foot. The buildings will be some place between 15 and 16 feet in height. They will
concrete block. They will not be visible to anyone from offsite, either to the south, which is
the Ceiba Geigy site, to the south, which is across the river, in fact, the quarry is across the
river from where these are. To the north, which is Warren Street, a great deal of distance
separates these two buildings and a great number of buildings are between us and Warren
Street, and to the west, I think because of change of grade and elevations, they also will not
be visible to anyone.
RICK PARKER
MR. PARKER-My name is Rick Parker. I’m the Plant Manager. What we’re doing is a,
we’re, this past year we’ve merged with Lehigh Cement, and we were a joint venture
partnership before, owned by two large cement entities, and this year we’ve seen finally some
capital infusion into our plant, and this project that we’re doing is actually an improvement
project to extend the life of the plant. It’s very exciting. We’re seeing some major dollars put
in, and these two buildings will house some of the equipment that we’re going to be
upgrading. So the plant configuration will not change. What we’re doing is retrofitting some
of the equipment with this new technology. So, it’s a very exciting time for what we’re doing.
MR. O'CONNOR-The cost of these buildings is about two percent of the total 4.3 million
project that they’re in, but unfortunately, everything is timing, and timing is very critical,
because there’s a great significance when the plant shuts down and has to shut down for part
of this operation. So everything has to fall like dominoes or follow one after the other. The
plant shutdown is planned for mid-April. So we need to have these buildings up so that we
can move the new equipment into them during the shutdown process, and David can answer
any questions, technical questions as to the buildings.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’ll ask this real quickly because I don’t see any, there is a public
hearing tonight, and I just wondered, is there anybody here that wants to speak to this
application? So I can take a look around and see if anybody wants to talk to it at all.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
NO COMMENT
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MR. VOLLARO-Being none, I’m going to close the public hearing, and I’ll just discuss
something with the Board. This is a site plan. I do not believe that this warrants us going
through the entire site plan check off list at all.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-I, personally, do not have any comments on this, for the first time in a long
time. So I would throw it open to the Board and ask the Board, starting with Don at that
end. Don, do you have any comments on this application?
25
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. SIPP-No, I do not.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom?
MR. SEGULJIC-No comments at all.
MR. VOLLARO-Gretchen?
MRS. STEFFAN-No.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom?
MR. FORD-Are there any emissions from the building?
MR. O’CONNOR-No. They’re basically enclosures.
ED KOKOWSKI
MR. KOKOWSKI-No power is generated there, and they’re not really part of our process.
They’re just electrical equipment.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-I hope you’re able to get Empire Zone credits for your project?
MR. O'CONNOR-I honestly don’t think that Glens Falls before them, Glens Falls Lehigh
which followed them, or Lehigh Northeast has actually applied for any of that. I don’t know
if it’s part of their corporate entity or corporate character or whatever, but they have not.
I’ve talked about it, but they have not done that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. That was my only question. It’s almost too bad that you had to
come before the Board. It’s a slam dunk.
MR. O'CONNOR-I have that problem. We talk about having shovel ready sites, and if you
have an existing industrial complex like this, there’s 47 acres there. There ought to be some
administrative discretion that says, yes, you can put up this 12, or 20 by 30 building where
you’re going to enclose a piece of equipment that otherwise would sit in the yard, but we
don’t seem to have that now, and we probably ought to have that. That might be something
that you would.
MR. VOLLARO-The PORC Committee ought to be able to.
MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to say, that’s something we could talk about in the revisions
to the Comprehensive Land Use Plan.
MR. VOLLARO-Right.
MR. O'CONNOR-We’d be happy to cooperate in that, particularly as we’re probably one of
the few heavy industrial sites, this applicant is one of the few heavy industrial sites in the
Town.
MR. HUNSINGER-Point well taken. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Tanya?
MRS. BRUNO-I’m fine down here.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. O'CONNOR-I would ask specifically for waivers, as Staff has pointed out in their
comments on lighting. In our application, I will amend it just a little bit. We said that there
are no new exterior lights being proposed. We may have a couple of exterior lights on the
building when we’re all said and done.
MR. VOLLARO-These are wall pack type lights?
26
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. O'CONNOR-Yes, they would be, if they are.
MR. VOLLARO-I see they say no new exterior lights being proposed, and this is the letter
from David Klein, P.E. Is that you?
MR. KLEIN-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s you. Yes.
MR. KLEIN-After I wrote that letter, they had shown a desire to put a couple of lights over
the doors of one of the buildings.
MR. VOLLARO-If they’re wall packs, I don’t even think that that’s a.
MRS. STEFFAN-Plus it’s in the center of the site. There’ll be no spillage.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, there’s no spillage. It’s probably fairly low wattage. It’s almost a
safety issue type wall pack.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s one place where you do want lights.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes.
MR. O'CONNOR-We also request a waiver on landscaping. This is right in the middle of the
manufacturing, and I don’t think you’ve got a plant that would live.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ve already looked at the letter for lighting, landscaping, grading,
stormwater management and the note on there that we would grant those waivers.
MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. I think you’d just have to specifically do it so we dot our I’s and
cross our T’s.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, we’ll do that. Is everybody satisfied?
MRS. STEFFAN-They were looking for waivers for lighting, landscaping, grading and
stormwater.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s correct, four issues.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. They wanted four waivers.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. So if somebody wants to make a motion here.
MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 7-2006 LEHIGH NORTHEAST CEMENT CO.,
Introduced by Chris Hunsinger who moved for its adoption, seconded by Gretchen Steffan:
In approving that site plan, we are granting the waivers requested for lighting, landscaping,
grading and stormwater management.
Duly adopted this 28 day of March, 2006, by the following vote:
th
AYES: Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Ford, Mr.
Vollaro
NOES: NONE
MR. O'CONNOR-We thank you very much.
MRS. STEFFAN-Good luck on your project.
SUBDIVISION NO. 3-2006 SKETCH SEQR TYPE N/A JOHN T. WHALEN AGENT(S):
VAN DUSEN & STEVES OWNER(S): SAME ZONING WR-1A, RC-15, LC-42A LOCATION
BIRDSALL ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES A SUBDIVISION OF A 6.31 ACRE PARCEL
INTO 4 RESIDENTIAL LOTS OF 1.58, 1.12, 1.37 AND 1.52 ACRES. SUBDIVISIONS OF
27
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
LAND REQUIRE REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REF. NONE FOUND
WARREN COUNTY PLANNING N/A LOT SIZE 40.29 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 289.17-1-1
SECTION A-183
MATT STEVES, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. VOLLARO-There are no SEQR’s and no Staff notes on this at all, and no public hearing
at this time. What we want to try to do, as Board, on these Sketch Plans is to look at these
and try to get as much information to the applicant as we can, in terms of helping them with
a Sketch Plan of this type. Now, on Sketch Plans, there’s normally no public hearing. Okay.
For the record, you are?
MR. STEVES-Good evening, I’m Matt Steves. I represent Mr. Whalen on this application.
This is a proposed four lot subdivision on Birdsall Road. Lots on both sides of Birdsall Road,
with a small new cul de sac on the west. There was a few Staff comments.
MR. VOLLARO-I’d like her to read the Staff notes into the record, if you will.
MRS. STEFFAN-You said there were none.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Error.
MRS. BARDEN-Just a few comments at Sketch. The applicant proposes a 4-lot residential
subdivision of a 6.31-acre parcel, resulting in lots of 1.58, 1.12, 1.37, and 1.52, acres. This is a
subdivision of a total 40.29-acres split-zoned WR-1A, RC-15, and LC-42. A density
calculation is needed on the plan, taking the total area and subtracting any unbuildable areas,
street ROW, public easements, slopes over 25%, etc., per § A183-22. Is a private drive
proposed? Where will the individual lots be accessed? Lots 3 and 4 from Birdsall, and lots 1
and 2 from the proposed drive? Each principal building is required to have a minimum of 40-
feet of frontage on a public road (§179-4-090). Additionally, each one-family residential
structure is required to have a minimum of 150-feet of lot water frontage measured along a
shoreline. Lot 4 shows two house sites. A variance would be needed for two principal
dwellings on one 1.52-acre lot. A cluster subdivision is not appropriate within 500-feet of the
high-water mark of Glen Lake, however the applicant should incorporate the objectives of
clustering by preserving the natural topography, scenic vistas and trees.
MR. VOLLARO-Thank you.
MR. STEVES-Okay. Good evening. Again, Matt Steves, representing Mr. Whalen. In
regards to Staff comments, this portion of the property that Mr. Whalen owns that is in front
of you for the proposal is completely within the Waterfront Residential. To the south of this,
across the land that is owned by Warren County for the bike path, and again, south of the
portions that are owned by Niagara Mohawk, which is another 100 foot width there, is land
that he also owns which I believe, even though there’s a separate ownership in between the
County may still have land hooked, which we know the Town doesn’t like to do that any
more with separate ownerships being in between, and that portion contains the 15,000 square
foot zoning, and then a portion extremely to the westerly end of an LC-42, because of the
slope down toward the pond. We are not developing anything within the 15,000 square foot
or the LC-42.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re within the WR-1A zone.
MR. STEVES-All within.
MR. VOLLARO-All in this one zone.
MR. STEVES-Correct, and we understand that, but the reason for it is we’re only developing
the portions of the property within the Waterfront Residential zone. So we would definitely
provide a density calculation in moving forward to Preliminary. As far as the roads, Lots
One, Two, and Three are all proposed to enter, or access from the road that we’re proposing,
and we’re proposing an actual Town road, a small cul de sac in there. We just think it’s a
better situation to have lots that if you look around Glen Lake and the entirety of the
Waterfront Residential zone that surrounds Glen Lake, these are probably one of the few lots
that will actually meet the required area of one acre. So these are going to be nice lots,
overlooking the lake. They sit up above the water, to have it on a Town accessed highway.
28
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
So that’s the purpose of that cul de sac is to dedicate it to the Town. As far as Lot Four, on
the east side of the road, those two buildings are currently existing buildings. They’re part of
an old like cottage colony that was in that whole area around Glen Lake, and those will be
removed for the building of a single family home on that lot. That will be depicted with the
septic system and the Town water, water supply. The grading, clearing limits, all that will be
shown at Preliminary, and anything else that you may have that you bring up, but like I say,
we just wanted to show you what existed on the property. We do not intend to leave two
residential structures on there. Coming through, the high water mark of Glen Lake would be
the requirements of the lot widths in that zone, the Lots One, Two, Three and Four are all on
their own tax parcels. The parcels that you see as the four tax parcels on the lakeshore are
current separate tax parcels. We’re not intending for any building, you know, any building to
be done on those portions of the lot. What they are is they will be conveyed in their entirety
to the new lots lake access areas. The building envelope will be entirely within the new one
plus acre lot. So what you see is, like on Lot One, Bob, you see a lot of 50 foot in width that
extends down to the lake. That is a current separate tax parcel. He owns five tax parcels on
Glen Lake.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s the Lands of Newell?
MR. STEVES-Just to the east of that there is.
MR. HUNSINGER-He’s talking about those tiny little postage stamp lots that are right on
the lake.
MR. STEVES-They are existing tax parcels.
MR. VOLLARO-These?
MR. STEVES-Correct.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the shaded ones.
MR. STEVES-The portions of it that we attached to our lots to give our lots lake frontage,
but they will not be built on. Do you see what I’m saying? They’re separate tax parcels.
MR. VOLLARO-What’s the definition of the tie line? Exactly what does that mean? There’s
a tie line here of 150 foot.
MR. STEVES-The tie line? That’s the distance between the points that are set 10 feet from
shore. So it’s 100.01 feet as a straight line distance instead of measuring along the shore,
which ends up being slightly over 101 feet. It’s just so that you could mathematically close
the lot. That’s what the tie line’s for.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m trying to get to how each lot gets to this 150 foot requirement. I think
that 150 foot of lot water frontage measured along the shoreline. How does each of these lots
gather 150 foot of water frontage?
MR. STEVES-They don’t. They’re pre-existing lots, Bob.
MR. HUNSINGER-They’re 50 foot wide.
MR. STEVES-They’re 50 foot pre-existing separate tax parcels on the shore. What we’re
saying is that Lot One, the purchase of Lot One, would also purchase that particular tax
parcel that is in front of their lot and use it for access to the lake but not a building lot.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. This is the lot that sits, that’s called the Lands of Newell.
MR. HUNSINGER-To your right.
MR. STEVES-No.
MR. HUNSINGER-To your right. That one, that lot.
MR. VOLLARO-Here. That lot. That falls outside this zone. Okay.
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MR. HUNSINGER-One more over, Bob.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but that seems to be currently part of Lot One.
MR. STEVES-No, I’m proposing, as I said, to attach. This is a separate tax parcel. This is a
separate tax parcel. That’s a separate tax parcel. These are separate tax parcels here. I’m
proposing to attach this tax parcel to Lot One, these two to Lot Two, this one to Lot Three,
and this one to Lot Four. They are all currently five separate tax entities.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ve got you, but I still don’t see, even with that, how does each one of these
lots get their 150 foot that’s required in the waterfront.
MR. STEVES-They’re not.
MR. HUNSINGER-They don’t. They’re pre-existing lots.
MR. STEVES-They do not. These are pre-existing. So they will be buying this, and then
acquiring this as well, as a separate tax parcel, but this will have a deed restriction of no
building. So it does not have to apply to your lot width for a building because there’s not
going to be any building. I think this is, if you look at it as far as planning purposes along
Glen Lake, what the intent of a Waterfront Residential One Acre zone is not to have these
little tiny postage stamp lots built upon, and what we’re proposing is that they won’t be built
upon, and currently Mr. Whalen could sell those as individual lots, because they pre-exist,
nonconforming. What we’re proposing to do, and Sketch Plan, and that’s why we’re in front
of this Board, we think it’s good planning to let you know that those five tax parcels do exist,
but we thought, I brought up earlier, a lot in the one acre zone that is actually one acre in
size, and then also acquire an access to the lake, but it cannot be built upon, except for a dock
or a small gazebo or something like that, but a primary structure would not be allowed on
those areas. It would make these very valuable lots, but would not detract from the shoreline
of Glen Lake.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. The whole 150 foot issue is tied to the pre-existing lots. Is that what
you’re saying?
MR. STEVES-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I understand that.
MRS. STEFFAN-And plus, on those small parcels, the slope is significant enough so probably
stairs and a boat dock would be what would be allowed.
MR. STEVES-Correct, and so what we’re saying is that the proposed structure will be back
onto the one acre lots, and those people would have the benefit of being away from the lake,
as far as the benefit to the rest of the lake, but yet have access to the lake via that 50 foot
with a no build restriction.
MR. HUNSINGER-So do you have a minimum distance from the lake that these houses
would be?
MR. STEVES-These houses would be a minimum of about 145 feet from the lake, 150 feet.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ve marked an X on Lot Three where I thought you’d probably build it
right to that test pit number five.
MR. STEVES-Exactly.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s the highest point.
MR. STEVES-Correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-Now the lots that are in between shall I say, are those built on now, on the
lake?
MR. STEVES-Yes.
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MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, there’s houses on them.
MR. SEGULJIC-That asphalt drive is how they got their access.
MR. STEVES-That’s correct. There’s an easement that goes across all those, but only two of
the portions, because Mr. Whalen owns on both sides, really. So it only extends to the west to
the portions he owns, and then they come in from the other direction for the lots that would
be west of Lot One.
MR. FORD-So those two that are unknown ownership, that’s where that asphalt drive
terminates?
MR. STEVES-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-I notice that the asphalt drives goes on to Lot Four for a little bit. Is there
an easement required?
MR. STEVES-There is pre-existing easement there.
MR. VOLLARO-There’s a pre-existing easement.
MR. STEVES-That’s correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. STEVES-And we will denote that the deeds are on here. We have the deeds, we have
the copies of the abstract. We’ll place all that on there, but those are all pre-existing
conditions.
MR. VOLLARO-You mentioned that Niagara Mohawk power line was 150 foot wide. It’s 50
foot either side of that line that’s inscribed here?
MR. STEVES-I believe it’s a total of 75 feet, and then with the County property in there, I
believe the Niagara Mohawk right of way is 75 feet.
MR. VOLLARO-What I’m looking at, that’s why I’m asking, is it either side of that line?
MR. STEVES-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Because that jumps into the area of the road.
MR. STEVES-No. The road is the northerly boundary of Niagara Mohawk, and the bike
trail, combined.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So there is no impingement there at all, you’re saying.
MR. STEVES-None.
MR. VOLLARO-Because I notice Niagara Mohawk comes very, very close to that.
MR. STEVES-Yes. There is another easement in there for the power lines that will be
relocated as underground utilities, and it would be to the north of the new road as you see.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. STEVES-They do have a couple of poles that go down and feed some of the camps on
the water, and they would be, in talking to Niagara Mohawk, they would love the idea to be
able to have them put it underground there, and we would, too.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. FORD-What about the cul de sac, how is that being addressed, as far as the Niagara
Mohawk easement there?
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MR. STEVES-Like I say, the power company easement that runs through it, there’s an
existing power pole. Those power poles run down to feed camps and homes that are on the
lake. Niagara Mohawk would love to have us, or, you know, with the subdivision put that
underground, so that the underground, then it would continue to feed the buildings in the
back with an easement, but would be underground throughout the subdivision.
MR. VOLLARO-So, when you come back at Preliminary, like the pole, these little diagrams
indicate poles.
MR. STEVES-Correct. They would be relocated.
MR. VOLLARO-They would be relocated. So they would not impinge upon this road
development?
MR. STEVES-No. I already discussed that. Good point, but we already discussed it. We
just thought it’s very nice of Mr. Whalen to have this property that’s in the one acre zone
develop one acre lots and then take away really the potential for somebody to try to build,
you know, not that they would ever get it approved, but there’s five potential lots that could
be sold as individual lots.
MR. FORD-Can you address why a test pit was not dug one Lot One?
MR. STEVES-There was, actually the four test pits that were done, it was just, we weren’t
aware of the actual location of the lot configuration at the time, but you can see from the test
pit data, that’s all pretty much standardized soils over there. It’s all the same. We will dig
another pit prior to Preliminary, so that we have one on that particular lot as well, but I have
no issue that it’ll all be the sandy gravel that’s throughout the Glen Lake area.
MR. VOLLARO-I had a question on test pits. Were they dug by hand auger or backhoe?
MR. STEVES-They were dug by backhoe.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, because I couldn’t see doing, in January, with an auger.
MR. STEVES-No. They were done with a backhoe. That was done by Charlie Maine, but
Ellsworth Excavating.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Now I just have a couple of questions, but I’m going to let the Board
continue to deliberate on this while I look at some of my own questions. So feel free to jump
in anybody that wants to talk about this. This is our opportunity to design this to the best of
our ability, and to help the applicant with his design. So I’d appreciate it if everybody kind
of got in, dug in on this a little bit, unless you’ve already asked all the questions you want to
ask.
MR. FORD-I’m fine so far. I’ve asked the questions, had it addressed, comments and so
forth.
MR. STEVES-I just want to bring up one. Some people might be looking at the topography.
It actually was one foot contours is what you have on here. It’s not as steep as it looks with
one foot contours.
MR. VOLLARO-The one foot contours tie things up tight, but that’s okay. As long as you
know it’s one foot, you can do your slope.
MR. STEVES-You can do a design as far as your grading plan a lot more efficiently with the
one foot contours than you can with two or five footers. We just like it when we can.
MRS. STEFFAN-I know from my point of view, as I looked at the property, I was thinking
that I hoped you’d be able to keep some of the rolling nature of the property and also a lot of
the trees. I mean, it’s heavily wooded and it’s very nice. I’m glad to see that the utilities are
going to go underground, because I wondered how NiMo, you know, without cutting through
those properties, how you would handle that. So underground utilities is a great solution.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ve got one question on this, along the Niagara Mohawk power lines. Is
there any Karner blue present there at all that you would know, any lupines?
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MR. STEVES-I would say that in this area definitely not. I know by the Town’s review with
Kathy O’Brien, this wasn’t an area of concern, and plus the fact that the whole portion that
would abut our property is maintained and mowed by the County bike path. So, I mean, I
don’t think there can be anything there, because just the maintenance of the bike path, I
think, precludes that potential, and it wasn’t designated as one of the areas in the Town as
potentially, as potential habitat.
MR. VOLLARO-Usually when I see a power line running for a long distance, I get triggered
off into the Karner blue thing.
MR. STEVES-If you look closely, the paved bike path runs the entire length, and like I say,
that’s a manicured area along the bike path right up to the property line. I would highly
doubt it. I can contact Kathy again to be certain, but it wasn’t an area of concern.
MR. VOLLARO-In the Preliminary review, I would get a comment letter from her that, no,
there’s no interest here as far as she’s concerned.
MR. STEVES-Absolutely.
MR. VOLLARO-Just to make sure that we get that covered. Is Birdsall Road a Town road?
MR. STEVES-Yes, that’s a Town road at that portion.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s plowed by the Town, been accepted by the Town, so the Town
maintains Birdsall Road. Okay. About where on the cul de sac line are you going to put the
entrance to Lot One and Lot Two? I’ve got a couple of arrows here that I’ve put on my own
drawing.
MR. STEVES-Well, we’re going to review that with the engineer during the septic design and
stuff, but I would say that Lot Two is going to be probably right about in the middle of the
lot, or closer to the westerly edge, and then on Lot One would probably be fairly close to the
property line, to get in onto that plateau, and keep away from the grade issue with the
easements, that you keep it down there. When we re-grade the road, we’re looking at the
road grade probably at about the 445 or so. So it would make all those lots basically a one or
two foot grade change to come up the driveway to the lowest house site.
MR. VOLLARO-Will Niagara Mohawk maintain their right of way even if they put their
utilities underground?
MR. STEVES-There will then be the typical utility easement that is applied to every road in
the Town of Queensbury where it’s six foot on the public and four foot on the private, with a
10 foot box around each of the utility manholes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-Now, what I’d like to see is, I don’t know for sure, I assume this property is
in the, at least a portion of it is in the CEA. I would assume so. Does anyone know for sure?
MRS. STEFFAN-I would think the lakefront, but not the other.
MR. SEGULJIC-I think it’s going to go at least 500 feet back from the lakefront.
MR. STEVES-Lake George CEA, I know, is anything within 500 feet. I don’t know about
Glen Lake. I don’t believe it extends that far back.
MR. VOLLARO-One of the things that I had discussed with Counsel, with Mark Schachner,
and it had to do with another application that was before this Board, and still will be before
this Board, is that if we’re going to talk to Critical Environmental areas, we can only really
talk to four Critical Environmental Areas in the Town of Queensbury that are recognized as
CEA’s in the Town of Queensbury. That’s coming from Counsel. Now, there is nothing in our
Code that really talks adequately to Critical Environmental Areas.
MR. SEGULJIC-Absolutely, but we have a chance to on the Sketch.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. VOLLARO-Absolutely, but I’m just trying to say that, according to Counsel, when we
talk about Critical Environmental Areas, we have to make sure that we’re talking about the
four that are recognized that in Queensbury. He made that comment to me.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right. I’m pretty sure Glen Lake is one of them. I’m not exactly sure
where the line is.
MR. STEVES-It triggers the Long Form, and it triggers review of.
MR. SEGULJIC-Not anymore though. I don’t know why, it didn’t make a lot of sense.
MR. STEVES-But subdivision requires the Long Form anyway.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, it does.
MRS. BARDEN-It does look like those are in the CEA, the shorefront.
MR. STEVES-The shorefront lots only, correct?
MRS. BARDEN-A portion.
MR. SEGULJIC-Which line there is the CEA?
MRS. BARDEN-The tan, I guess, as opposed to the yellow with the red.
MR. SEGULJIC-So just the lakefront lots.
MR. STEVES-Just the lakefront lots.
MRS. BARDEN-That’s right.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MRS. BARDEN-But it would be part of your review in this subdivision.
MR. STEVES-But no development’s proposed on those.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right. I would just like to see any development be minimized, you know, as
in the minimum amount of trees cut down for the development. Any houses be in harmony
with the landscape, shall we say. Instead of building this big white monstrosity on top of the
hill, something that says, you know, don’t look at me, essentially. That type of thing.
MR. STEVES-Understood.
MR. SEGULJIC-Further away from the lake rather than closer. I would assume, also, that
drainage here is not a problem.
MR. STEVES-No. Pure sand and gravel.
MR. VOLLARO-Looking at the test pit information, they’ve got 74 inches of gravel. It
doesn’t sound like percolation is going to be a problem.
MR. SEGULJIC-And along the lakefront no clearing at all, maybe just a path down there.
MR. VOLLARO-One question that I had, the proposed conveyance to Thomas. What is that
about?
MR. STEVES-Well, there’s a small triangular area on the extreme westerly portion of Lot
One, where you look at the lots that currently exist along Glen Lake, the actual lake frontage
lots, the usage over the last 50 years, as you can see with the area behind Lands of Thomas,
there’s a crushed stone driveway, and a little concrete pad that’s actually part of the usage of
that lot, that we’re just trying to clean some stuff up there by, we’ll convey property to him.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So Thomas owns that pre-existing piece out on the lake?
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. STEVES-That’s correct.
MR. VOLLARO-And he’s going to get conveyed a piece of land to go with it?
MR. STEVES-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Is that what we have here?
MR. STEVES-Correct. We’re not creating any new tax parcel, but we’re proposing to convey
that. It’s up to the people along the lake, that and Nicholson, whether or not they want to
acquire that. There will be a fee associated with that.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, there’s the Lands of Munsey and the Lands of Nicholson. I didn’t
really know how, how does that fit in? Because both of those look like Nicholson has a little
piece of this, and Munsey has a little piece.
MR. STEVES-They’re not using that area at all. It’s actually Thomas that’s using that area.
So as I say, the proposal is just to clean up the usages, but that, again, you know, is
dependent upon negotiations with those two neighbors.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, but the applicant owns that piece of property right on up, that
triangle.
MR. STEVES-That triangle all the way to the very end.
MR. VOLLARO-Owns all the way to the very end. So whoever gets Lot One, whoever you
sell Lot One to, takes that property, unless you convey it to somebody else.
MR. STEVES-That’s correct, and we’re showing that we’re trying, we’re working with that
negotiations.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So, effectively, Lot One may have that, their property line as right
where it says Niagara Mohawk.
MR. STEVES-Which currently Lot One area only includes to that line.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. STEVES-That 1.58 acres is inclusive of, or not inclusive of those two areas of .03 and
.16.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, because you’re going to do something else with those, in terms of
conveyance to other people.
MR. STEVES-Correct, but not create a new tax parcel.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-Will an association be created?
MR. STEVES-No. It’s Town road, not a private road.
MR. SEGULJIC-It’s going to be a Town road. Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-Will the planned road be private or dedicated?
MR. STEVES-Dedicated Town road.
MR. VOLLARO-Dedicated Town road. I am out of questions, and things I want to ask the
applicant on this.
MR. FORD-On Lot Four, I just want to confirm, both houses and the gazebo are coming
down?
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MR. VOLLARO-That’s what he said, he’s going to remove all that, and there’s going to be a
single family home.
MR. FORD-What about the shed?
MR. STEVES-That would come down, too, wouldn’t it, John, the shed?
JOHN WHALEN
MR. WHALEN-If it doesn’t fall down. We’ll take it down.
MR. STEVES-If you’ve seen those buildings.
MRS. STEFFAN-They’re ready to go, yes.
MR. STEVES-They’re ready to, you know, we wanted to have the Board see exactly what is
there currently, but that is nothing that I think you’d want to try to fix up.
MR. VOLLARO-Any other questions from the Board on this? With that, Mr. Steves, thank
you very much.
MR. STEVES-Thank you.
MRS. STEFFAN-Thank you. We’ll see you soon.
SUBDIVISION NO. 4-2006 SKETCH SEQR TYPE N/A LEE JARVIS AGENT(S): VAN
DUSEN & STEVES OWNER(S): SAME ZONING SR-1A LOCATION LUZERNE ROAD
APPLICANT PROPOSES SUBDIVISION OF A 7.76 ACRE PARCEL INTO 3 RESIDENTIAL
LOTS OF 1.50, 1.22 AND 4.16 ACRES CROSS REF. NONE FOUND WARREN COUNTY
PLANNING N/A LOT SIZE 7.76 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 397.-1-32 SECTION A-183
MATT STEVES, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT; LEE JARVIS, PRESENT
MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Steves, you are representing Mr. Jarvis on this application?
MR. STEVES-Yes, I am. Good evening. Matt Steves, representing Mr. Jarvis on this
application. I believe there’s a few Staff comments on this one as well, Bob, if you want those
read in.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, there are. Would Staff like to read the Staff notes.
MRS. BARDEN-This is a Sketch Plan review for a subdivision located on the south side of
Luzerne Road, 350 feet west of the intersection of Twin Mountain Road and Luzerne Road.
The property is zoned Suburban Residential One Acre. The Applicant proposes a 3-lot
residential subdivision of a 7.76-acre parcel, resulting in lots of 1.50, 1.22, and 4.16, acres
respectively, in addition .88-acres to be conveyed to neighbor. I think the biggest comment
here is that, residential lots fronting collector roads (Luzerne Road) shall have two times the
lot width permitted in the zone (150-feet) or each lot meets the required width of the zone and
ingress or egress in limited to and provided by a single common driveway (§179-19-020).
Consideration should be given to having lots 1 and 2 share a driveway and lot 3 share with
Stanton. If not, variances will be required from the above regulation.
MR. VOLLARO-Thank you, Susan.
MR. STEVES-Okay. Good evening. Again, this is property that is located on the south side
of Luzerne Road, almost opposite Twin Mountain Road, just to the west of West Mountain
Road, Mr. Jarvis’ current home. Pamela Stanton who owns the property in the back is his
sister. As far as the comment, Lot Three, which would be the southerly lot, would share a
driveway with Stanton as the way it is currently set up. Stanton’s driveway is on the
extremely easterly portion, and the additional conveyance to Stanton. The two lots, being
Stanton’s lot and Lot Three, would share a driveway. We have made a slight modification. I
know this is Sketch Plan. It’s still basically the same as you have in front of you. We just
extended the lots along Luzerne Road so that they’re both just one and a half acres, instead
of the 1.22. We just extended them back slightly. As you can see, with the current driveway
on Lot Two where the house and the garage situated, it would be awful difficult to split that
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
road frontage any way and share that driveway, and trying to share the driveway on the
common line between lots one and two really wouldn’t be suitable because of the fact of the
location of the garage doors. So we are aware of that, and to keep the separation distances,
what you’re really looking for with 300 foot lot widths or shared drives, is to try to keep
driveways as far apart as possible. The driveway that would be shared between Stanton and
Lot Three is in this current lot. Leave the one on Lot Two in its current location and the
proposed one on Lot One would be to the extreme west as far as is feasible to accomplish that
about 280 feet of separation, actually more than that, almost 300 feet of separation between
the two driveways. We do realize that that would need a variance to allow that to be on Lot
One as its own standalone, but again, it would meet the intent of the Code to keep a driveway
at 300 foot separation, and there isn’t any real driveways across from u that we have to worry
about, as far as aligning up with or more traffic. So we believe that that variance is
attainable because of the fact we’re maintaining that 300 foot. Again, there are some,
everything else meets the criteria of the Code, as far a the minimum 150 foot lot width, the
minimum of one acre in size, and Mr. Jarvis would like to build his own home on Lot Three
and then share it with his sister for the driveway for Pamela Stanton, and then have Lots One
and Lots Two for sale.
MR. VOLLARO-Who’s Marshall and Lorraine Jarvis?
MR. JARVIS-That’s my father. My parents. They own that land west of my property.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. It’s open to the Board for comments. Suggestions. Clarifications.
MR. SEGULJIC-I apologize. I had to leave for a minute, but the driveway for Lot Three,
again, is going to be shared with?
MR. STEVES-Shared with the existing driveway on Stanton.
MR. SEGULJIC-Where’s the existing driveway?
MR. STEVES-It’s right on the property line between Lot Three and Stanton. The property
line runs right down the middle of the driveway. That’s an existing driveway.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s going to be conveyed to Stanton, that flag?
MR. STEVES-The additional “L” that wraps around the current Lands of Stanton, Stanton
currently has a 200 foot square with a 15 foot strip running all the way out to Luzerne Road.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t see it. I guess I’ve got the same problem as Mr. Seguljic.
MR. STEVES-I did darken that line because of the fact that right here, this is current Lands
of Stanton. She has a 15 foot wide ownership.
MR. VOLLARO-This is a driveway here, okay.
MR. STEVES-And that’s her driveway, coming back to her lot. She currently has a 200 foot
square.
MR. VOLLARO-She’s going to now have this.
MR. HUNSINGER-How about the driveway for the property to the west? How far away is
that from the proposed driveway? Yes. Well, Lot One.
MR. STEVES-It would be at the most westerly side. There’s a curve there before the water
tower, and that’s where it’ll be best obtainable to see, up the mountain road. It’s all clear.
There’s no trees on that road frontage. So that’s where you get your 300 foot between that
driveway and my driveway that goes into the farm now.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, well, I’m talking about, go to the next driveway, that’s not on your
plan.
MR. STEVES-Your parents driveway?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
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MR. JARVIS-My parents driveway is even farther from my driveway to there. I’m not sure
how far.
MR. STEVES-About 4, 500 feet. That’s the one that they have the field and right above the
bend they have that house that you can see as you drive up the road, and the driveway, I
would say, somewhere between 4 and 500 feet north, or west, sorry, of our westerly driveway.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. STEVES-And then you have the portions on the Twin Mountain Road that’s a lot that’s
about 50 acres in size and there’s no current driveways coming off of that property. So I said,
you know, and I’m not putting words in anybody’s mouth, but the intent of the Code is to
have separate, driveways of around 300 foot of separation, and you still will accommodate
that.
MR. VOLLARO-So there would be, in a sense, three drives. There would be the drive coming
from Pamela Stanton out onto Luzerne.
MR. STEVES-That currently exists.
MR. FORD-And used with Lot Three, correct?
MR. STEVES-Right.
MR. VOLLARO-It would be used with Lot Three, and then there would be the one that’s
shown for Lot Two and the one that’s shown for Lot Number One.
MR. STEVES-Right.
MR. VOLLARO-And that’s where you’re talking about your driveway distances.
MR. STEVES-Correct. The current driveway on Lots to Stanton and Three and Lot Two
exist. The driveway for Lot One is proposed to be 300 feet away from the one on Lot Two.
MR. VOLLARO-Now that driveway that comes down to the end of Stanton’s place there,
when you build your house on Lot Number Three, you would be coming down that road and
turning into your property, is that what the idea is here?
MR. JARVIS-Yes, sir.
MR. STEVES-Near that power pole.
MR. JARVIS-There’s a power pole there, and that’s inside the wood line.
MR. VOLLARO-I just drew it by the power pole, right here, the most logical place.
MRS. STEFFAN-And you said you were going to square Lot Two off?
MR. STEVES-Correct.
MRS. STEFFAN-I actually looked at this and thought, I don’t like this, you know, I just
wasn’t feeling.
MR. JARVIS-It was a correction after the thought because I didn’t want any jogs in the
property and I didn’t want to have the farm on a small lot because it just looks farm-y.
MR. VOLLARO-So that brings Lot Two up to how many acres now?
MR. STEVES-1.55.
MR. VOLLARO-1.55. Okay.
MR. STEVES-Lot One is 1.5. Lot Two is 1.55, Lot Three 3.84, and .88 acres to be conveyed
to land currently of Stanton.
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MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’ve got it. As far as test pits and septic locations are concerned on
here, I know this is pretty sandy.
MR. STEVES-We have, in the past, we haven’t done test pits over here. The property across,
we have done test pits in that area, and we did test pits just to the south of this on West
Mountain Road at about the same elevation, and all the way down as far as the ski area, and
I haven’t had a change from the (lost words) Queensbury sands in this area. A few boulders
once in a while, but not very often.
MR. FORD-The question I had is relative to you have bedrock at eight feet and I was going
to ask how that was tested and where.
MR. STEVES-It’s just from other areas in here.
MR. FORD-So there have been no tests done on this site.
MR. STEVES-No, but I mean, the foundations have been dug on this property, and like I
say, we have done test pits on either side and found that there’s, you know, we dug down to
eight feet and encountered nothing. So we say that it’s at eight plus feet as far as what you
see on the Environmental Assessment Form. It’s more than eight feet, because we have dug
eight feet on either side of this in previous applications, and if you look through the soils
handbook for Warren County, it says the same thing, but if a test pit has to be done, we don’t
have a problem. I just know what we’re going to find.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, the trees that are growing there indicate that it’s very sandy.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, it does. I think that where you’re going to put your septic tanks, we
probably ought to have a perc test there anyway, because these soils may run faster than the
one minute.
MR. STEVES-The one minute, and we might need the modified soils.
MR. VOLLARO-And you might have to modify the bed.
MR. STEVES-Understood, and we don’t have an issue with that.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. What I did, I looked at your slope analysis here, and what I did is I
arbitrarily put in what I thought what was a 480 in the slope, and what I came up with really
was about an 11% slope from one side of this property to the other, running to the east, as
opposed to what you have on there. You’ve got a percentage of slopes, zero to ten was
seventy percent, and ten to fifteen. So I think the overall slope on this property this way is
about 11%.
MR. STEVES-If you average across the entire property, I’d say just about 11 to 12%.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So I’m happy with, that’s nearly dead flat, in that distance. I’m
talking about retention of lands, of water running over to the lands of Flewelling.
MR. STEVES-Yes, Flewelling.
MR. VOLLARO-So being that things will perc reasonably well here, I’m assuming that
stormwater will remain on site pretty well, without retention ponds or things of this nature.
MR. STEVES-Right. The disturbance on Lot One is extremely to the west, way, way up
gradient from lands of, to the east. There’s no way it would ever reach there, and the
proposed house on Lot Three, except for the curl of the driveway off from the existing
driveway, which I don’t think there’s been any kind of erosion beyond that driveway, is going
to develop over in the larger section of Lot Three. So I really wouldn’t anticipate any
stormwater problems with the neighbors.
MRS. STEFFAN-It appeared very flat. Lot One appeared very flat, and I didn’t see, I
thought maybe there was a bit of slope in the back of Lot Three, but it’s almost non-existent.
MR. JARVIS-It just dips off.
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MRS. STEFFAN-Yes.
MR. JARVIS-There’s two runoffs on the property that have been there since, I grew up
there. There’s two runoffs, and we already plan on putting culverts and the bridges over
them to keep them, because that’s where it melts every year, and it’s already channeled down
all the way to West Mountain Road, to the Flaherty’s.
MR. STEVES-That’s correct.
MR. VOLLARO-When we did our site visits, based on the directions that we got, we were
looking at the piece on Twin Mountain Road. That’s the one we looked at. Remember, we
went up and we said.
MRS. STEFFAN-I went today. So I wasn’t on site visits.
MR. SIPP-Yes. We went up.
MR. VOLLARO-Those of us that went up looked at the wrong piece.
MRS. STEFFAN-I think you should also, there’s a stone wall between the parents property.
You should probably put that on the plan.
MR. STEVES-Okay.
MR. JARVIS-Everything’s staying the way it is. I’m keeping all the trees, too, as many as I
can, just for where the house goes. I don’t like the lawn. As you can see, I have a very big
lawn. I’d like to sell my lawn mower.
MR. VOLLARO-I understand that. I don’t have any further questions. Does any other
Board member have a question on this Sketch at all?
MR. STEVES-Any particulars you would like to see, you know, with the waiver request and
such going through to Preliminary? Just a perc test or do you want to see one deep test?
MR. VOLLARO-In this soil, I would just as soon satisfy myself. Board members have to
weigh in on this. I’m just one member here. I would like to see perc tests done on the
approximate location of your septic.
MR. STEVES-I would do perc tests on Lots One and Lot Three. Like I say, Lot Two is an
existing.
MR. VOLLARO-Knowing how this soil is, because I live in this area a little bit, pretty close,
I want to make sure it doesn’t perc too fast.
MR. STEVES-That’s a good point. Well we know it’s sand. So let’s just see how fast the
sand is.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, right. Other than that, I don’t think test pits need to be done. I don’t
know how other people feel.
MR. STEVES-We’ll do the perc tests and make the modifications as suggested with the stone
wall and a couple of other items, and we will also submit this to the Zoning Board at the same
time so we can finish this up.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re going to get your waiver on the 300 feet, yes.
MR. FORD-The reason I asked the question about the bedrock was that it was specific eight
feet, and then in your description you said it was eight plus feet. So I was just trying to
determine how that was.
MR. STEVES-Understood. Typically when you go down, you go six to eight feet. So if they
say, on that Environmental Assessment Form, the depth to bedrock, if you went down eight
feet, you say eight plus because we didn’t encounter, because if we tried to find bedrock there,
we might be digging for quite a while.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. FORD-I just thought it said specifically eight feet.
MR. STEVES-Understood. I’m just letting you know the reason why we also do that plus.
MR. FORD-Yes. I understand. Good.
MR. STEVES-Thank you very much.
MR. JARVIS-Thank you.
SITE PLAN NO. 9-2006 SEQR TYPE II STEPHEN KIRSHON AGENT(S): HUTCHINS
ENGINEER OWNER(S): SAME ZONING WR-1A LOCATION 84 ROCKHURST
APPLICANT PROPOSES LANDSCAPE WALLS, PATIO, STAIRS AND WALKWAY.
CONSTRUCTION OF HARD SURFACING WITHIN 50 FEET OF THE SHORELINE
REQUIRES REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REF. AV 38-92, SP 56-96
WARREN COUNTY PLANNING 3/8/06 ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY YES LOT SIZE
0.27 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 227.13-2-41 SECTION 179-4
TOM HUTCHINS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. VOLLARO-This is a Type II application with no SEQRA, and I would like Staff to read
the Staff notes. I think we’re going to have a little modification to the Staff notes here.
MRS. BARDEN-The applicant, Stephen Kirshon, requests site plan review for hard surfacing
within 50 feet of the shoreline. Property is located at 84 Rockhurst Road. The property is
zoned Waterfront Residential. Applicant proposes approximately 850 sq. ft. total hard
surfaced area within 50-feet of the shoreline, including a portion of the main patio, the second
patio, and lakeside walls, walkway and stairs. Staff comments. The area of all surfaces is
identified on the previous development conditions layout plan, however this is not done for
the proposed layout plan (elevations are shown). These should be on the layout to compare
with the table of site coverage data. For example, the existing and proposed sidewalk both
scale at 198 sq. ft. however, the proposed is shown at 108 sq. ft. With that, the site would be
under the minimum permeability. The minimum is 65% and the site is 65.08%, because of
the closeness of these numbers, the Board could ask for more detail on the plan. The mean
high water mark should be identified to verify the 50-foot shoreline setback shown, as shown
the landing with stairs to the second patio may encroach on this setback. The floor area
worksheet was not completed. The floor area calculated, with the numbers provided, is
21.3% where 22 is the maximum. Warren County Planning Board recommended No County
Impact at their meeting, March 8. Stormwater and septic permits were included in the
building permit. There is a letter in your packet dated March 21 from C.T. Male, and just
st
other comment. There was a building permit issued for this project December 15, 2005 for
demolition of the existing single family dwelling and as well a building permit for construction
on January 18, 2006 for a 2,551 square foot single family dwelling. Did you want a correction
on something?
MR. VOLLARO-Did Craig Brown talk to you at all?
MRS. BARDEN-About?
MR. VOLLARO-The fact that I spoke with him and spoke with Mark Schachner at the same
time on a three way phone conversation about this property. Did Mr. Brown speak with you
at all?
MRS. BARDEN-I think that he wanted to indicate to the Board that, again, a building
permit has been issued. I think that my clarification on things were just because the
application, the site development data page was not completed, floor area worksheet was not
completed. Those aren’t necessarily areas that this Board should consider, but just to make
sure that the application was complete.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’d beg the Board’s indulgence for a minute, and I will try to relay to
you the discussions I had in a three way phone conversation with Mr. Schachner, and Mr.
Brown. The only thing this Board is to look at is anything to do with the hard surfacing from
the shoreline to 50 feet from the shoreline. Nothing else comes into our purview here at all.
The part of 179 that dictates, in this case, is 179-6-060, and the building permit that’s been
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issued supersedes anything that we would look at. We’re not to look at Floor Area Ratio,
height of the building, permeability, all of that is covered in a building permit.
MRS. BARDEN-Not the permeability.
MR. VOLLARO-The permeability as well, I talked to Craig about that. The permeability,
we will look at that in the 50 foot area.
MRS. BARDEN-Exactly.
MR. VOLLARO-But that’s all.
MR. SEGULJIC-Mr. Chairman, I’m very confused. The building permit was for 2,551 square
feet. What is the square footage of the house?
MIKE GARGIULO
MR. GARGIULO-That’s what it is.
MR. SEGULJIC-What floors does it include?
MR. HUTCHINS-The floor area is whatever it was in the building permit, 2500, which
includes the main floor and the second floor.
MR. SEGULJIC-What about the basement?
MR. HUTCHINS-It’s not in there.
MR. GARGIULO-It doesn’t count.
MR. SEGULJIC-The basement is included, according to Dave Hatin it is.
MR. GARGUILO-Only if the basement is living space.
MR. HUTCHINS-If it’s living space.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I believe you are technically correct. It says living space.
MR. VOLLARO-No, it doesn’t say. Living space is generated by a number of things. It’s
generated by.
MR. SEGULJIC-I guess the question is, excuse me, what is the height of the basement?
MRS. BARDEN-Again, Floor Area Ratio isn’t something that.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I’m pointing out that I think that this is something that this square
footage of the building area is incorrect.
MRS. BRUNO-I have to agree with Tom.
MR. VOLLARO-I understand all of this, but I’m trying to tell you what Counsel told us.
Look, let me tell you what happened. I did a complete review on this, like this was a site
plan, and after the telephone conversation, whatever I did doesn’t count, and I’m telling you,
that comes right from Counsel. I’m not diluting this in any way.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I hate to be the one that said I told you so, but here is a great
example of where we definitely need Counsel to be at the meeting and they’re not here, and I
know that wasn’t your call, Bob, for the record.
MR. VOLLARO-I know, for the record, that’s true, but I said to Mark can I repeat this? He
said, by all means. You tell the Board what I told you. That came from Counsel directly.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, well, you’re not an attorney. So if we ask follow up questions,
you’re not an attorney, so you can’t answer them.
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MR. VOLLARO-I know, but this was rather simple. Mark said, look, I’m telling you, all you
can look at here is from the 50 foot mark forward, and that’s it.
MR. SEGULJIC-Mr. Chairman, where I’m confused is how did they get a building permit
when it appears to me as if their Floor Area calculation is incorrect. They’re exceeding the 28
feet.
MRS. BRUNO-That’s my confusion as well. I wasn’t sure if it was just because of.
MR. VOLLARO-They’re not exceeding 28 feet. The building drawing, we checked this. The
drawing says this building will not exceed 28 feet.
MR. GARGIULO-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Now, when I scaled your rendition, I scaled it higher than that, but so what.
MR. HUTCHINS-And that, I think I indicated that I was trying to show how the
landscaping relates to the house and it wasn’t the building plan.
MR. VOLLARO-It makes no difference in terms of the building permit, none whatsoever.
MRS. BARDEN-I guess, just as a clarification on that, that when a building permit is
submitted, the Zoning Administrator does look at the permit to make sure that it’s compliant
with the zone. That includes height, Floor Area Ratio, setbacks. He did approve this on
January 18, and a building permit was issued. So I guess that’s the distinction here, is that
th
unless something changes, this building permit that we have, the Zoning Administrator has
determined is compliant with the Waterfront Residential zone.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, then how come last week.
MR. VOLLARO-He found out it was compliant with the exception of hard surfaces within 50
feet of the lake. That’s why we have it.
MR. SEGULJIC-I personally disagree with him, and Number Two is how come last week we
had the Dion permit, the Dion site plan in front of us.
MR. VOLLARO-Because that was a modification.
MR. SEGULJIC-Excuse me. Could I hear that from the Staff.
MR. VOLLARO-That was a modification to a building.
MRS. BARDEN-That was an expansion of a nonconforming structure.
MR. VOLLARO-Right.
MRS. BARDEN-This is a new construction.
MRS. BRUNO-Just a few weeks ago there was a, at the ZBA meeting, house that far
exceeded the FAR, and they needed to go for a variance because of that, and I don’t really see
any difference between this and that, and I think that’s what you’re saying, Tom.
MR. SEGULJIC-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, the difference is this.
MRS. BRUNO-That it’s already gone through so we have no say at this point?
MR. VOLLARO-Well, there was a demolition permit issued and the house was taken down,
and this house now becomes new construction. Normally this Board does not look at single
family new construction. We don’t do that, but in this case, next to the lake, the only reason
they raised the issue to the Planning Board was to look at their hard surfaces within 50 feet.
MRS. BRUNO-It shouldn’t have gone to the ZBA for a variance for, actually I haven’t
worked the numbers, so I’m.
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MR. VOLLARO-When I talked to Schachner, and we had a three way conversation between
him and Craig Brown, the issuance of the building permit supersedes anything that we do on
this Board, with the exception of 50 foot from the hard surfaces, and that’s it.
MR. SEGULJIC-But once again, Mr. Chairman, the building area ratio is incorrect.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom, I’ve got to tell you. I got the same thing here. I’ve got all my notes
the same way that you do.
MR. SEGULJIC-What I would like to do is have the Zoning Administrator re-look at this, in
light of the fact that the house is about 4,000 square feet, when you take into account the
basement.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I don’t know that we can say, I don’t know whether the building
permit says this or not, but there’s certain criteria that has to define a basement. One is the
windows have to be low enough to be able to allow somebody an escape route. They have to
have a second entrance, and the height has to be high enough. I think it’s over six feet, to be
considered living space. I calculated the height below the beams here to be about eight, two.
MR. HUTCHINS-The basement as shown doesn’t meet the definition of living space, and if it
doesn’t meet the living space by the Floor Area Ratio procedure, it doesn’t count as floor area
ratio.
MR. SEGULJIC-Why doesn’t it meet the definition?
MR. HUTCHINS-Why doesn’t it? Because there’s no means of egress.
MR. VOLLARO-That was one of, the windows are four by five. I scaled those out, but
they’re not low enough.
MR. FORD-There’s not a second.
MR. HUTCHINS-Right. You can go up the stairs. There’s inside stairs.
MR. VOLLARO-There’s no second entrance.
MRS. BRUNO-Bob, you’re saying the windows aren’t close enough to the floor?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, for egress, according to what I get from Craig Brown, now. This is not
something that comes from Counsel. This is a dimensional thing.
MR. GARGIULO-The windows are not close enough to the ground, and the opening of the
window.
MRS. BRUNO-I’m sorry, I recognize Tom, but.
MR. GARGUILO-I’m Michael Garguilo, the builder for the project.
MRS. BRUNO-Okay.
MR. GARGUILO-The windows are not close enough to the ground to count as egress
windows, and the window opening is not large enough to be an egress window.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s four by five. I don’t know what the specs are.
MR. GARGUILO-It’s a four by five, they’re two separate units. They’re not one window. So
that when they open up, the square footage of the opening does not meet egress standards.
When we designed the home, they had sheds behind the house. They want to be able to use
their basement to store their large amount of stuff. So that, because we couldn’t get a bilco
in, for setback reasons, they had these things put in so they could pass stuff into the basement
and take stuff out of their basement without tracking it through their home because it has a
switchback set of stairs in it, which, if you’ve ever had one of those, it’s difficult to get stuff in
and out of the house.
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MR. FORD-Is there a bathroom in the basement?
MR. GARGUILO-No.
MR. SIPP-What is that white pipe, then, sticking up in the basement?
MR. GARGIULO-There’s a provision for laundry, because they don’t have a laundry room in
their house. They want to have a place for a washer and dryer.
MR. SIPP-That doesn’t make it living space.
MR. VOLLARO-No, I think living space defined in the Code is very, very particular.
MR. GARGUILO-It’s specific. You have laundry, not you specifically, but many people
have laundry in their basement that’s not living space.
MR. VOLLARO-If we want to get down to the hard surfacing only, let me switch to that for
a second. First of all, without having the mean high water mark on here, there’s no way for
me, on these drawings, to determine the location of the 50 foot mark. I can’t do that. The 50
foot mark now is located from a line along the lake, but the high water mark is not shown
here.
MR. HUTCHINS-Well, it’s shown as a parcel line, which is what the surveyor located when it
was surveyed.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I’m sure it’s not straight. It’s got to be 320., I forget what the other
number, 322, 320.2, and, you know, you’re saying that this is the line.
MR. HUTCHINS-I’m saying that that’s the, I’m an engineer. I’m saying that that’s the
survey information that was provided to me by the surveyor. As an engineer, I can’t define a
property line. I can use survey information, and that’s the survey information that I have.
MR. VOLLARO-I understand that. Now, I understand that you did send an extra letter to
Craig Brown with that information on it, some place, Staff has a piece of information that
modifies this line that came from you. It came from you? Okay. That’s what’s missing here.
Now, if you get into 179-6-060, which is shoreline and wetland regs, I’m going to read them to
you because they’re very specific. They talk about retaining walls, and it says, “in addition,
expansion or replacement of any type of retaining wall shall be discouraged. Number One,
except in the case where the alternative of shoreline restoration to a natural state is
impossible due to excessive slope or severe erosion problems, a condition to be determined by
the Zoning Administrator. Retaining walls shall not be permitted to be constructed for
aesthetic reasons. When permitted, retaining walls shall not exceed 16 inches in height, as
measured from the stationary mean high water mark, which is 320.2. Now, when I look at
your drawing, I get bottom of wall at 322 and top of wall at 326. That’s like a four foot wall.
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, but that’s not a sea wall. Doesn’t that retaining wall, and maybe I’m.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, see now we’re in the 50 foot area. We’re now talking in what we’re
perceiving to be 50 foot from the shore, and that retaining wall is now 50 feet from the shore.
MR. HUTCHINS-That’s correct.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s in the 50 foot scope.
MR. HUTCHINS-That’s correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. HUTCHINS-But that reference is 16 inches above the water mark, above mean high
water.
MR. VOLLARO-It says, when permitted, retaining walls shall not exceed 16 inches as
measured from the stationary mean high water mark. So that means wherever the high water
is, that’s how high. So you’re at four feet. I can’t imagine you’re going to be able to solve the
differential between 16 inches and 4 feet.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/28/06)
MR. HUTCHINS-No, but I guess, and I did read that, and I guess I interpreted it, and I
discussed it with Craig, as that’s really intended as a sea wall that’s built at the shoreline. If
it’s 16 inches above the mean high water mark anywhere where your land slopes in the first
50 feet away from the lake, you could only, that says you could only have a wall within the
area that is 16 inches above mean high water mark.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s correct.
MR. HUTCHINS-So we could have absolutely no wall within that 50 feet?
MR. VOLLARO-That exceeds the 16 inches. That’s how I read that.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay. I didn’t read it that way, and I discussed that one with Craig, and I
thought we came to the conclusion that that was intended to be a sea wall.
MR. VOLLARO-Just a second. It’s 179-6-060.
MR. HUTCHINS-But it does say retaining wall. I know that.
MR. SEGULJIC-It also further states that, in three also, an addition, expansion or
replacement of any type of retaining wall shall be discouraged. I’m interpreting that to mean
no sea wall. No retaining wall along the lake.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay. I didn’t get that interpretation, and obviously we didn’t get that
interpretation when we met with Staff and planning on the project.
MR. VOLLARO-I just talked about that today with Craig on the phone.
MR. HUTCHINS-And I discussed it with Craig today, too.
MR. VOLLARO-So we’re getting two different inputs it sounds like to me. See, first he said
to me, Bob, we’ve got information here at Staff which indicates what the mean high water
mark really is. It may not be on your drawing, but it’s been supplied.
MR. HUTCHINS-By the surveyor, yes.
MR. VOLLARO-By, well, this gentleman said he supplied it.
MR. GARGUILO-I delivered the survey to Craig.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So Craig’s got the survey. We don’t have it, and then it goes on to
further state, as it measures 16 inches in height, that it shall be constructed from native stone
or wood, when treated lumber is used for construction of the retaining wall, it shall be of the
sealed and non-leaching type. So what I see in the pictures that were supplied basically was
an engineered wall.
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, segmental block.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. So those are the differentials that I see here.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, in addition, when we were at the site, it looked like there was a, it
looked like the front of this house had been dug up or something. The area didn’t look
natural.
MR. GARGUILO-If you look at the plan, the old house was much closer to the house. So I
guess when we took the old house out, there was a hole there.
MR. SEGULJIC-So, I’m sorry, Bob, I misunderstand the point you’re making. You’re
saying that, according to this, they can only build a wall along the shoreline, and they cannot
build another wall within the?
MR. VOLLARO-No, but the wall I’m referring to looks like along the shoreline to me.
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MR. SEGULJIC-Excuse me. I don’t think you can build a wall along the shoreline, unless
it’s the only way to protect the shoreline.
MR. HUNSINGER-Due to excessive slope or severe erosion problems.
MR. VOLLARO-This is the wall we’re talking about right here, where it’s bottom of wall 322
and top of wall 326, within the perceived 50 foot area.
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, but obviously that’s not at the shoreline.
MR. HUNSINGER-That’s not at the shoreline.
MR. VOLLARO-No, but it says retaining walls of any kind.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, you have to look at the heading of this section. The heading of the
section is alterations to the shoreline.
MR. HUTCHINS-Alteration to shoreline, yes.
MR. GARGUILO-Yes, we’re not proposing a wall on the shoreline.
MR. SEGULJIC-According to your drawing you are.
MR. GARGUILO-Well, not of that height.
MR. SEGULJIC-But, no, you are.
MR. HUNSINGER-On this drawing you are. You show select boulders and then the lower
wall (lost words).
MR. HUTCHINS-Elevation 321 is the bottom of the wall.
MRS. BARDEN-Which is sixteen inches at the shoreline is the height.
MR. HUTCHINS-Is the height of the wall.
MRS. BARDEN-That regulation is applicable to the back part which is four feet high.
MR. HUTCHINS-That was my interpretation, if it is, then I.
MRS. BARDEN-That’s mine as well.
MR. SEGULJIC-Just to clarify, you’re showing a wall along the lake because you’re showing
the dock and the wall going below your dock. The last drawing, it says U-shaped dock.
MR. HUTCHINS-The dock is shown for reference, okay.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, we’re not looking at docks.
MR. HUTCHINS-The dock’s going to be a separate permit. Okay. The bottom of the lower
wall that we’re showing, the 16 inch wall, is at Elevation 321, which is above the shoreline.
It’s essentially at the shoreline. It’s not in the lake. It’s on upland. It’s 16 inches high. Then
we step back.
MR. SEGULJIC-Excuse me. I’m looking at the select boulders and rip rap.
MR. HUTCHINS-That’s the total wall. There’s rock there. We’re going to toe the wall with
the rock that’s there.
MR. SEGULJIC-What do you mean by toe the wall?
MR. HUTCHINS-Put rock against the toe of the wall.
MR. GARGUILO-If you just put a wall at that height, when the waves come in, it’s just
going to wash it out.
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MR. HUNSINGER-So those boulders, the lower wall does not sit on top of the boulders?
MR. HUTCHINS-That’s correct. The lower wall, we would excavate to firm ground, inside
the shoreline to Elevation 321. Construct the wall, protect the front of the wall, particularly
the material that’s underneath wall, from the wave action with boulders, which is typical.
MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re building a wall into the water.
MR. HUTCHINS-No. The wall, the bottom of the wall is above the water. We’re protecting
the wall with boulders because waves come above Elevation 320.2.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, once again, you’re showing a wall that’s proposed below the dock.
MR. HUTCHINS-No, I’m not showing. I don’t believe I am, Tom.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t see here where it says that this only pertains to it being exactly on
the shoreline.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, Part Four is part of E which is part of two, at the top of that page,
it all falls under the Section Alterations to the Shoreline. So that whole section below that
only relates to alterations to the shoreline. That would be my interpretation of that page.
MR. HUTCHINS-And that was mine. I believe that’s what I gathered from Staff and,
Susan, do you?
MRS. BARDEN-That’s the way I looked at it was that that just applied to that front portion
of that wall.
MR. HUTCHINS-Right.
MRS. BARDEN-Which is 16 inches high, and along the shoreline.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s actually only a foot high, 321 to 322.
MRS. BARDEN-322.3.
MR. VOLLARO-.3, all right.
MRS. BARDEN-I may be wrong. I mean, we can definitely get a Zoning Administrator
determination on that, but again, that’s the way I looked at it.
MR. VOLLARO-It depends on what the definition, how far away from the shore do you have
to get, I guess, before it’s not normally considered the shoreline? I don’t know. Because
when they talk about retention walls here, except in the case where the alternative of the
shore restoration or natural states is impossible due to excessive slope or severe erosion
problems. There’s where retaining walls shall be discouraged except for that. Is it such that
erosion is going to be that bad along that area that a wall has to be even erected?
MR. HUTCHINS-No, I don’t think that.
MR. SEGULJIC-It’s probably been like that for hundreds of years.
MR. HUTCHINS-I don’t think that we’re making that case, no.
MRS. BRUNO-Is there a wall there now, Tom?
MR. GARGUILO-There’s an old wall.
MR. HUTCHINS-There’s remains. There’s a bunch of concrete. I do have a photo of the
shoreline if anybody wants to, two poses of the shoreline, if people would like to look at it. I
know you don’t like to see things on the night of a meeting, but I have several copies of it. If
you care to look at it.
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MR. VOLLARO-Well, I think in this particular case I would like to hear more. I thought I
heard what I heard today from Craig, but I’ve got to hear it again, or somebody, every
member of the Board’s got to hear it, or Craig has to write a determination that says this is
okay. We’ve got to get somebody to determine this. Because it says a condition to be
determined by the Zoning Administrator, and I think maybe we need a position from him on
this.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think you’re right.
MR. FORD-Yes, I agree. That’s what I was focusing on.
MR. SEGULJIC-If I could point out also, under four, it talks about shoreline, fill and hard
surfacing that occurs within 50 feet. That implies to me that everything within 50 feet is
subject to all of two.
MR. VOLLARO-To hard fill.
MR. SEGULJIC-The retaining walls and everything.
MR. VOLLARO-It seems that way to me.
MR. SEGULJIC-The question is retaining walls. What I’m saying is, what’s the definition of
a shoreline, and when you look at 179-6.
MR. VOLLARO-They talk about 50 feet, shoreline, fill hard surfacing.
MR. SEGULJIC-And it talks about 50 feet. I’m interpreting that to mean that all of Section
Two applies within the 50 feet. Meaning no retaining walls for aesthetic purposes. That’s the
way I interpret it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, yes, it’s saying it’s not permitted unless it’s approved by the
Planning Board.
MR. VOLLARO-Correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-And they discourage it.
MR. VOLLARO-I still think in this particular area I’d like to hear from the Zoning
Administrator since Number Three above that talks about, except in the alternative of
shoreline restoration of a natural state due to excessive slope or severe erosion….a condition
to be determined by the Zoning Administrator. I think he’s got a role to play here to talk to
us in writing about how he feels about that, Number One. Then again Number Four certainly
defines the 50 feet as shoreline fill hard surfacing. So I think it talks about everything within
the 50 foot area.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s the way I interpret it.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, from my point of view, this Section, Alteration to the Shoreline, that
one sentence, retaining walls shall not be permitted to be constructed for only aesthetic
reasons, and just the way this is laid out, I think it’s beautiful, but this is aesthetic. The sand
area, I don’t know what the purpose is. It seems like a play area, you know, like a sand box,
and so, you know, that’s aesthetic. It’s not necessary, and so judging from the Code, you
know, evaluating the project from the Code, it just doesn’t seem like an appropriate use.
MR. HUNSINGER-I thought the sand area was for stormwater retention. Since the rest of
it’s paved some place for the water to go.
MR. SEGULJIC-We’re in a Critical Environmental Area once again. No design here takes
into account that. As a matter of fact, Mr. Vollaro and I were talking, and you look at their
infiltration trenches, you have hard surfaces over the top. That’s why you have no
evaporation.
MR. HUTCHINS-There’s a drain at the patio.
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MR. SEGULJIC-Correct, but don’t you want the water to also evaporate within there? You
have a hard surface over the top. We’re talking about what’s in front of us. You have taken
none of the Critical Environmental, the fact it’s Lake George, into account.
MR. GARGUILO-By the definition of stormwater management programs for Lake George,
the net project has a decrease of 1,000 square feet of impervious area. So that by the
stormwater management plan definition, outlined by Lake George, that the project itself
requires no additional remediation for stormwater management. We have included the
infiltrators under the patio and a stone trench around the perimeter of the house, an eaves
trench around the perimeter of the house, adding, I don’t know, how much capacity.
MR. HUTCHINS-A couple hundred cubic feet. Yes.
MR. GARGUILO-A couple hundred cubic feet of capacity that wasn’t there at all.
MR. VOLLARO-That couple of hundred cubic feet is tantamount to storage, in effect. We
don’t know when you build a French drain or an eaves drain, that’s a storage function that
has to slowly leak off like a capacitor, for example.
MR. HUTCHINS-That’s correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Now we don’t know anything about the perc capability underneath that for
leak of, what it really is, but then again, I’m saying, you know, this is all nice academic data,
but it doesn’t apply to the 50 feet. We’re only supposed to be looking from the 50 foot
forward.
MR. HUTCHINS-We put that in there because we thought it was appropriate to address the
stormwater. Even though, if we, in accordance with the regulations, we don’t need to do
anything beyond what was in the past to address stormwater. We felt it was appropriate to
do something, and we did so, and.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, and I think it’s very hard for the mindset, including mine, and I’m not
talking for everybody on the Board, but for me. When I looked at this originally my mind
clicked off to Article Nine, and Article Nine states, and I’ll paraphrase it. It states that if a
site plan is triggered, any site plan is triggered, the Planning Board is authorized to all of the
information contained within this chapter. Now when I looked at that, my mind didn’t sit
into the first 50 feet. It looked at the whole thing, which was probably wrong on my part.
MR. HUTCHINS-No, I don’t think that was wrong, because that’s why we presented all the
information. We didn’t draw a line at 50 feet from the lake and stop there.
MR. VOLLARO-According to what I was told, by both the Zoning Administrator and the
attorney, is our obligation, in fact, our authorization here, is merely the first 50 feet.
Everything else is covered by the building permit. Period. Very simple. Dark line. Fifty
feet, you look at that. Don’t touch anything else. No FAR. No permeability. It’s all part of
the building permit. That’s the only reason that you’re in front of us. If there were no hard
surfaces, within the first 50 feet, you wouldn’t be here.
MR. HUTCHINS-That’s correct. If we weren’t doing anything within 50 feet, we wouldn’t
be here. The owner would like to do the proposed improvements within 50 feet of the lake,
and that’s why we’re here, but we presented all the information for you so that you can see
what’s going on on the remainder of the site, and I think that’s appropriate. It wouldn’t be
right for us to block off behind 50 feet and we certainly wouldn’t intend to do that.
MR. VOLLARO-No, but unfortunately, we’re not supposed to, according to directions I got,
the building permit covers everything else, except this, the 50 foot of hard surface. The only
thing the building permit doesn’t cover.
MRS. STEFFAN-What about the docks, are we supposed to be looking at those?
MR. VOLLARO-No.
MR. SEGULJIC-If we approve this, we’re approving a nonconforming dock.
MR. GARGUILO-How do you figure?
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MR. VOLLARO-No, it’s 704 feet.
MR. GARGUILO-It’s the sketch. There’s no permit for a dock. Craig will never allow us to
put a dock in that doesn’t conform.
MR. VOLLARO-We’re not supposed to look at that.
MR. HUTCHINS-I should have shown it as a more conceptual. I intended it to be
conceptual, and I guess I didn’t state that, and if that’s the case, I apologize.
MR. VOLLARO-We’re not supposed to look at it anyway. I don’t know why we’re wasting
any time.
MR. SEGULJIC-One of my other big concerns is you’re showing this infiltration down three
feet. You can’t dig three feet around the lake, unless you brought in all kinds of fill. There’s
no three feet of soil around that lake.
MR. HUTCHINS-I’m showing you infiltration behind the.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right. It’s three feet deep.
MR. VOLLARO-We’re going into areas we shouldn’t be going into. Tom, I’ll tell you what,
you have the right, as a Planning Board member, to challenge this, I think, to the Zoning
Administrator’s level, or to any other level. Feel free to do so, but I really don’t want to take
any more time with this.
MRS. BRUNO-Can I ask one really quick question, to go back to what we started with at the
beginning?
MR. VOLLARO-That’s good. I like that.
MRS. BRUNO-What is your sill height intended for the windows in the basement? Is that
the only reason why they’re saying that they’re non egress?
MR. GARGUILO-They have to say they’re non egress, because the sill height isn’t correct
and the opening size is not adequate.
MRS. BRUNO-What is the sill height?
MR. GARGUILO-The sill height is, honestly, I don’t know.
MRS. BRUNO-You can’t tell from the plans. Do you know if they’re intending, there are no
areas in here where it says the header is to be set at.
MR. GARGUILO-The header is set at 12 inches below the thing. I can probably tell you.
MRS. BRUNO-That’s your clear opening height. That’s the height of the window.
MR. GARGUILO-So the bottom of the window to the window sill is about four feet eight
inches off of the finished grade.
MRS. BRUNO-So you’re going to be putting the window in flush with the top of the
foundation wall?
MR. GARGUILO-Yes.
MRS. BRUNO-Okay. I’d just like to state for the Board that I’m not quite sure what Craig
was looking at, but those window sizes do match egress for that level. That sill height would
strictly be the only thing that dictates that, and it’s off by ten inches. So originally when he
was stating that, you know, 12 inches down, it made it sound like it was right in there. It
just, I have to say, I’d like to speak with Dave. I know it’s not under our purview, but, the
basement seems like it’s going to be intended for use. I’m sorry, I have to disagree.
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MR. VOLLARO-That’s fine. I think you have a set of manufacturer’s stamped drawings
there. There’s an engineering stamp on that drawing in the lower right hand corner.
MRS. BRUNO-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-We’re not operating to that drawing here. We don’t have that.
MRS. BRUNO-I didn’t know if, in accepting or declining a site review, I’m trying to get feel
here in terms of the steps between the permit to the site review to now.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, the first thing that Schachner asked me is how come a building permit
was issued before the building went through site plan, and I said to Mark, we don’t normally
review, at this Board, single family residence, one single family residence. The only thing that
triggered a site plan here was hard surfacing, period. I mean, I’ve said that 200 times tonight,
but you can certainly, you have the right, Tom, as a Board member, to challenge what you
see here. I am not going to challenge it, because what I am challenging is the fact that I
cannot determine, myself, what the 50 foot line is because I don’t really have the 320.2 high
water mark on this drawing, even though the gentleman here has given it to Craig Brown. I’d
want to see that, and the second thing is, I still think that the shoreline fill hard surfacing
within 50 feet of the lake gives us the opportunity to look at that wall at it’s four foot height,
when it should be 16, and also that it’s probably for aesthetic reasons when aesthetic reasons
are discouraged. I think this needs to be further discussed. I would like to be able to, I think
I want to table this issue until we’ve had a chance to speak further with the Zoning
Administrator.
MRS. BARDEN-About the retaining wall?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, about the retaining wall.
MRS. BARDEN-Okay.
MR. HUTCHINS-Can I ask a question of you while you’re on that thought?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes. Let’s say we were to not have the two lower walls I’m showing by the
lake. Would you still interpret that that the wall near the house could still only be 16 inches
above high water level? Where the patio is, the patio wall, or the other wall, the ones by the
house that create the patios.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, it’s within the 50 foot line, and that’s something we’ve got to talk
about. In other words, the Planning Board’s got some discretion here.
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes. I’m just asking. I’m trying to see where we may be able to go with
this.
MR. VOLLARO-I understand, but I need to get with the Zoning Administrator. I’d like to
ask him some questions about this, after he’s already spoken to me. Questions like, does
everything within the 50 foot mark have to be at 16 inches or what? What discretion do we
have, as a Planning Board, to say, hey, it’s okay?
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. In my mind it’s pretty clear that the 16 inches only applies to the
shoreline, but it can’t be constructed, as you pointed out, Bob, unless the Zoning
Administrator makes a ruling that there’s excessive slope or severe erosion problems.
MR. VOLLARO-But then you get down to Number Four, and it says no hard fill or surface
shall be permitted within 50 feet of any lake, except by site plan approval review. We’d have
to say, yes, it’s okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. VOLLARO-But I’m not ready to say that yet.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’m not, either.
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MRS. STEFFAN-And I went down to the shoreline today and I didn’t see significant erosion.
It’s grass right down to the rock. Yes, where the construction is occurring, it slopes down to
the water, and that’s grass, and it’s rocks and the water, and there’s no erosion there.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, what we can do as a Board, we have no problem, as a Board, because
it’s well within our jurisdiction to have anybody come up and, I don’t want to use the word
testify, but support this Board when we ask for it. That includes the Zoning Administrator. I
believe it’s in Town law. If I remember reading Town law correct, we can have the Zoning
Administrator come here and talk to us about this in open forum, and I think that’s what I’d
like to do.
MR. SEGULJIC-Could I just ask a couple of more questions, Mr. Chairman?
MR. VOLLARO-It’s 10 o’clock. You folks have all said you don’t want to be here late, but
you want to talk. Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-Could I just ask, on the C.T. Male letter, what is the status of the
jurisdictional request from the APA?
MR. HUTCHINS-It’s been submitted, we haven’t heard back.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I can shed some light on that for you. I’ve talked to Mr. Connelly,
who used to be the Director up there, on a previous application that we had here, and I won’t
mention the name, but he said if you send anything to the APA that you really want us to
look at, you’ve got to send it Certified Return Receipt mail. He says, we get so much mail
here, that if we don’t get one of those, we probably do not ever look at it, and the Statute of
Limitations, I think, is 60 days, goes by, and they just can it. That’s the truth.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay, because I had done that on, you may recall I was here with a
retaining wall replacement several months ago, before this Board, within 50 feet of the lake,
and that one I had sent to the APA and we received a non jurisdictional letter, subject to
review by Queensbury, which is probably why I didn’t send this one as early as perhaps we
could have, but I did send it, and I’ll follow up with it.
MR. VOLLARO-Call Ray Brook and ask them where it is.
MR. SEGULJIC-One more question. Any test pits dug on site, so we know what the soils
are?
MR. HUTCHINS-Test borings and inspection of the foundation wall. Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s in the building permit, I believe.
MR. HUTCHINS-I don’t know if it’s in the building permit. I didn’t prepare the building
permit. I inspected the foundation hole.
MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re sure the soils adequately drain?
MR. HUTCHINS-I confirmed that the soil is adequately drained for the stormwater that
we’re showing on here, yes, and I also did more test pits for the wastewater system up on the
higher ground.
MR. SEGULJIC-So have you responded to C.T. Male then?
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, I have.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s the other thing that threw me here was the whole C.T. Male letter
looked like a typical site plan review, and, see, it says we have received reviewed plans for site
plan application and renderings for the referenced project completed by Hutchins
Engineering. Based on this information, we offer the following, and it sounded like, you
know, the first thing he asked was what the jurisdictional request was. Water surface
drawing drawn from the lake. He asked about what the depth, diameter, method of
treatment, etc., and I looked at this and I said this is a typical site plan review, you know,
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sponsored by Article Eight of Chapter 179, or Article Nine, sorry. Anyway, that’s all beside
the point. What I’d like to do is get a motion going here, the motion being that we’re going to
table this application to a certain date, a date certain, and I’ll pick that date, and that we’d
also like the Zoning Administrator to be present at this meeting to discuss this with the
Board.
MRS. BARDEN-Is there anything that you want the applicant to do in the meantime?
MR. VOLLARO-He’s already submitted what he’s submitted, I mean, unless he wants to
submit something other than this, the answer is, no.
MR. HUTCHINS-What I’d like to do is I’d like to at least leave here with a feel from the
Board as to what parts of this does this Board feel is reasonable and what parts of this does
the Board feel is unreasonable? Because what we’re doing, we’re presenting what the owner
told us he wants to do. Okay, and we’ve designed it as best we can, to comply with the
regulations and meet the owner’s intent, and if we’re going to have a tabling, I would just as
soon be able to have a conversation with the owner and say, this Board doesn’t like anything
we’re showing right on the shore, but maybe the patios they feel are okay, and I guess that’s
kind of the feeling I’m getting, but I guess what I’m saying, I’d like to be able to progress this
in the interim.
MR. VOLLARO-I get what you’re saying.
MR. HUTCHINS-Is that a reasonable request?
MR. VOLLARO-It sounds reasonable to me. I understand what you’re driving at, from one
Board member’s position, one, me, and I want to hear from everybody else first before I give
you my position. So I’m going to start down with Tom.
MR. SEGULJIC-I’m not prepared to say what I would accept at this time. I need some
clarifications.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Don, thoughts? You’ve been quiet on the end there, thinking.
MR. SIPP-I’d like to hear a lot more about this high water mark, and where we are in
measuring from that to this proposed wall.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. SIPP-How is this determined, this high water mark?
MR. VOLLARO-It’s a standard, it’s 320.2 is the standard high water mark along Lake
George, 320.2. That’s the elevation number.
MR. SEGULJIC-I’ll take back my comment. I’d be prepared to approve it if you had
something that was sensitive to the lake. Take that for what it’s worth. I mean, for example,
you have no vegetation buffer along the lake. All you have are areas for plantings where I’m
sure they’re going to use fertilizer. You have lawns. You have hard surfaces. You have not
taken the lake into account at all.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-Gretchen, how do you feel?
MRS. STEFFAN-Those are very good points. I guess I support the idea of having the Zoning
Administrator come and talk to us, because I’m not really sure how this project got to this
point without us seeing it. So I think that there’s a lot of unanswered questions, and so I
think we need clarification.
MR. VOLLARO-So you would support bringing the Zoning Administrator to the next
Planning Board meeting?
MRS. STEFFAN-Absolutely. I think there’s enough questions from all the Board members
so that we need some clarification on the project and the interpretation of the Code in
approving the project.
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MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Tom?
MR. FORD-I agree with what Gretchen just said, and I need to hear from the Administrator,
and I’m not prepared at this time, although when you stated it, it seemed reasonable, but I’m
not prepared to give you that information, this is good and that’s bad and I like this and I
don’t like that.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay. That’s fine.
MR. VOLLARO-Chris?
MR. HUNSINGER-I think, in addition to having the Zoning Administrator here, we should
have Counsel here. I mean, you started out the whole conversation by saying, you know,
Counsel has advised us this and that, but they’re not here to ask the questions. So I think
they should be here. We’re at a distinct disadvantage.
MR. VOLLARO-I will definitely have them here. There’s no question about that, although I
talked to him and he said I didn’t think it was necessary for him to be here because of what he
told me.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, you know I’ve gone on record to the Town Board saying that this
is a huge mistake not having Counsel here at every meeting.
MR. VOLLARO-I know you have. I understand.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think it’s penny wise, pound foolish, I think.
MRS. STEFFAN-I agree.
MR. HUNSINGER-That’s my own opinion for the record.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I know where you’re coming from on that, and I thoroughly
understand it. I mean, I understand your position. I’m not sure I agree with it, but I
understand where you are.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the position, I mean, they’re not represented by counsel, but the
majority of our applicants have counsel representing them. We don’t have counsel
representing us. We’re at a distinct disadvantage. A legal question comes up on this
applicant, we don’t have Counsel here. So we’re tabling it. What’s more important, the $100
an evening to have a Counsel here, or our collective time?
MR. VOLLARO-I think what Mark gave me, in terms of a legal position was, you know, that
the building permit suffices, and all you’re doing is looking at that, and that was, the legal
position was that the building permit suffices. The 50 foot is up to you, how you look at that.
When he steps out of the legal arena, he’s like you and me and Tom.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, how is that any different than when Home Depot came before this
Board and we said, hey, if we’re going to look at a site plan, we’re going to look at the whole
site, and you know we have done that every opportunity we have. So I don’t understand how
this would be different from every other application that we review. So that’s why I think
Counsel should be here.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re absolutely right. I debated that with Mark for 25 minutes, on the
phone, because I said, and I went to our Article Nine that says if a site plan is triggered, the
Planning Board is empowered to use all of the requirements of this chapter, period.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MRS. BARDEN-The difference is that this isn’t a site plan review use. This is an allowable
use in the zone. So you wouldn’t see it otherwise. The Home Depot is a site plan review use.
MR. HUNSINGER-I understand that subtle difference, and there’s been a number of
occasions when applicants have come before us with a site plan and said, look, if I wasn’t
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building hard surface within 50 feet of the lake, I can do everything else that I have shown on
this plan, and certainly that is their discretion here. I understand that. I do.
MR. VOLLARO-And yet there’s the other on balance thing that this document talks about
when it says if a site plan is triggered.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right, and it’s kind of like, well, if you want your patio, you need to put
in the light, or you need to put in the landscaping, and that’s kind of what Tom’s saying. If
you want your patio, you’re going to have to put in some landscaping. You’re going to have
to do something different to mitigate the effects of the patio.
MR. VOLLARO-And without having the high water mark shown on the drawing at 322, we
have no idea exactly where that 50 foot mark is. We can’t draw it. We really can’t determine
it. Without that number, we can’t determine it. It says from that section. Not talking about
the height now. I’m talking about determining the 50 foot line.
MR. HUTCHINS-The shoreline as legally defined.
MR. GARGUILO-They’re going to want to see the new survey overlaid onto that site plan.
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s correct.
MRS. BARDEN-That would be great, yes.
MR. VOLLARO-So, in any event, the time is moving along here.
MR. GARGUILO-I want to be as prepared as possible for the next time we get to sit
together. Do you want us to prepare a whole site plan review? I mean, putting aside
counsel’s request and all that stuff, our intention, coming into here, was not to make the site
plan review board because we were only dealing with 50 foot back from the shoreline. That
was all we were told. We had meetings with Craig, you know, before we could even submit
our application, that said this is all we’ve got to take care of, and this is what we took care of.
Everything that was going to go within that 50 feet, you know, we addressed on our site plan.
MR. VOLLARO-I understand.
MR. GARGUILO-It was not our intention to not address the issues behind it, but it seems
like it’s gotten the Board.
MR. VOLLARO-No, I think you’re on relatively solid ground having talked to the Zoning
Administrator yourself personally and having gotten direction from him, and we having
received the drawings and so on. The problem that I have is that when we got this
information, for example, when we reviewed Staff notes and I said, I looked at it and said this
project is, it said the FAR worksheet was not completed, and I looked at that and said, okay,
that’s a problem. We need to get the FAR sheet completed, but that indicated to me, as soon
as we talked the FAR sheet, my mind caged into a site plan review, not 50 feet, because FAR
has nothing to do with 50 feet.
MR. HUTCHINS-The FAR was done with the building permit application.
MR. VOLLARO-Absolutely. That’s right, but I missed the mark, like a lot of other people
did. I might have missed it alone. I looked at it as site plan review. As a matter of fact, I
brought my, the whole thing that this Board knows I fool with, and that’s the whole site plan
review questionnaire, from me to you, but I’m not using it tonight, because I’ve been
instructed that we’re only going to use, only going to talk to the 50 feet.
MRS. STEFFAN-Bob, you didn’t ask Tanya. You asked everybody else on the Board.
MR. VOLLARO-Tanya, yes, what?
MRS. BRUNO-I think Gretchen put it very succinctly. I have some concerns, just curious as
to how it got this far, and I think we just need our questions answered, so that we’re all on the
same page.
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MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I agree.
MRS. BRUNO-So we can comfortably go forward with it.
MR. VOLLARO-I agree, and the only way we’re going to get our questions answered, as a
Board, is by having the Zoning Administrator and Counsel be here. So, does anybody want
to put a motion up to do those two things?
MR. SEGULJIC-I’m going to make one more request.
MR. VOLLARO-Tom, I’m closing it.
MRS. STEFFAN-But there is a piece in the Code that talks about vegetation and
stabilization and other pieces of our Code that talks about things should be re-seeded as soon
as possible. I was at the site, and there’s a lot of open soil, you know, it’s all around the front
of the house, the side of the house, and then in the front where it’s been excavated, and that
really needs to have some seed put on it as soon as possible, and there’s the erosion fence that
is in front of the property, it’s flat in one spot, and so that needs to be remedied right away.
MR. HUTCHINS-It’s down?
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. There’s some construction debris on top of it, and it’s flat, and so if we
had a big storm, that dirt would come right down and find it’s way to the fence. So that
needs to be fixed right away.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay.
MR. SIPP-You’ve got about a two week window, here, to get some rye grass growing in there
before you get some heavy rain, may or may not happen, but usually does in April, that’s
going to cut your erosion factor, even if it’s just annual rye grass, until you get to the point of
permanent seed mixture.
MRS. STEFFAN-That’s what the Code says, yes.
MR. SIPP-But again, as Tom said, fertilizer is not the thing to be used here. So you’re not
going to get a great catch, in the sense, of on that sand.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. It really is interesting, from a time point of view, you can’t stop it,
what do you do. Okay. Are we done?
MR. SEGULJIC-Done.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’d like to call for a motion from somebody, now if we want to take a
couple of minutes to write this motion, you can do that. Let’s see, Tom, you want to get
together with Gretchen and see if you can drum a motion out here. Basically the
Administrator and Counsel.
MRS. BARDEN-And what you want the applicant to bring back.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t want the applicant to bring anything back, other than what he’s
already submitted. I don’t think he needs anything else.
MRS. BARDEN-What about APA jurisdictional letter, C.T. Male signoff, mean high water
mark on the map.
MR. SEGULJIC-Soil data.
MR. VOLLARO-This is all within the 50 feet?
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes.
MRS. BARDEN-Yes.
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MR. VOLLARO-I don’t know whether the APA’s letter of jurisdictional interest is going to,
or non-jurisdictional interest is going to address the 50 foot.
MRS. BARDEN-Well, that’s part of C.T. Male comments as well. So it does need to be
addressed with that as well.
MR. VOLLARO-You think we need C.T. Male signoff, but we need C.T. Male signoff on the
50 foot only. I’m going to keep insisting that all we’re looking at is 50 feet. I’m not going to
drift into site plan review here. This is not what we’re doing.
MRS. BARDEN-Right. Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. FORD-May I just ask a question?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. FORD-Pursuant to what Susan, the question that she asked, the applicant’s
representatives, do we really want to say they don’t have to, or should not come back with
anything? Because based upon our conversation tonight, they may go back and re-visit this
and get a sense of our concerns, even though we haven’t made a definitive judgment.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, that’s certainly their prerogative to do that. We don’t have to give
them permission to do that.
MR. FORD-No.
MR. HUTCHINS-Based upon what I’ve heard, do I think I could make this project a little
more amenable to this Board? I think I could, based on what I’ve heard. Even though I
didn’t get a lot of, I like this, I hate this type of thing. I think I could make some
modifications
MR. FORD-That’s where I’m going.
MR. HUTCHINS-However, I’m also a little concerned on the timing issue, but I think that
issue is going to be secondary for a while.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I think so.
MR. HUTCHINS-I mean, we’re looking at next month at a minimum. Is that right?
MR. VOLLARO-Well, yes, I think we would need all the application material that you
wanted to put in by 4/17, by April 17. That means we would put you on at 5/16.
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MR. HUTCHINS-Okay, and if we were to stay with the application material we have now,
would we be on next month?
MR. VOLLARO-The application material that you have now probably has to be modified
slightly. You need the 320.2 definition of your shoreline, high water mark. You need that.
That’s got to be submitted. I doubt whether you’re going to get a response from the APA in
that time. I don’t believe so. I don’t think it’s going to come in. It may, but I doubt it.
Being that C.T. Male has asked some questions, I would be looking for a signoff from C.T.
Male.
MR. HUTCHINS-Sure, and I responded to them, shortly after I got the letter. I didn’t seem
to think they were big issues. I can’t address the APA issue. I can only say we’ve submitted
it.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I realize that. I know that. The other thing is, on the construction of
the retaining wall, we’ve got to be looking at native stone or wood of the non-leaching type.
Apparently from our Code that’s what you need to do, as opposed to an engineered wall.
MR. HUTCHINS-As opposed to a segmental block wall, you’d rather see wood?
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MR. VOLLARO-It says wood or non-leaching type of wood. I, personally, if I had to look at
it, if I was doing it, that’s what’s in the Code. Now, we could say, as a Planning Board, we’re
not going to look at it. We’re going to give you the stone the way you’ve got it. It says here
specifically, constructed from native stone. I can see what the intent of the writer was here.
The writer didn’t want a retaining wall. He made it very difficult.
MR. HUTCHINS-He didn’t want a sea wall. I think the intent was he didn’t want new sea
walls for the convenience of having sea walls. To create as much land as you can.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but in the next paragraph the writer talks about the 50 foot, under B,
general, the shoreline, fill, hard surfacing, no fill or hard surfacing, any hard surfacing, shall
be permitted within 50 foot of the lake, except by site plan approval by the Planning Board.
That means that, you asked the question a little bit ago, what would we accept, how about
the walls within 50 foot that are right up here, and you asked me what do you think about
that. I know what I think about it, personally. I’ll give you what I think about it. I would
probably say okay to that, but not to this.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay. That’s the kind of feedback I was looking for.
MR. VOLLARO-Don’t forget, I’m one.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m one-seventh of who sits here.
MR. HUTCHINS-I know, but that is within 50 feet of the lake. We still need to bring that
back here for site plan review, and it’s still called site plan review.
MR. VOLLARO-But it’s a restricted site plan review to a certain section of this site, only.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay. I guess I didn’t understand it that way.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s why Mr. Hunsinger wants Counsel here to reiterate what Counsel has
told me, and hopefully it stays the same.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, it’s not to reiterate it. It’s so that we can ask them the questions
that we have, and get their answers.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, absolutely. I know what we want to do. There’s a motion being
created to that effect. So let’s go with that.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. These are the conditions that Tom and I came up with. The mean
high water mark noted on the plans. I’m looking for a C.T. Male signoff on the items that
they identified, an APA jurisdictional determination. We’d like Counsel present at our next
meeting on this application. We want the Zoning Administrator present at the next meeting
to address Code interpretations, specifically on 179-6-060 and also to discuss the building
permit process. Soil test data, we want stabilizing, we want stabilization of the disturbed soil
around the home without using fertilizer, and we also want the applicant to fix the sediment
fencing to prevent runoff to the lake. How does that sound?
MR. VOLLARO-Sounds good. I don’t think you missed anything, and we’re going to be
tabling this to 5/16 based on the receipt of information, application material, to Staff by 4/17.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 9-2006 STEPHEN KIRSHON, Introduced by Gretchen
Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic:
The Queensbury Planning Board has received the following request at the below stated
meeting and has resolved the following:
WHEREAS, an application has been received for Site Plan Review.
WHEREAS, the application is supported with all documentation, public comment, all
application materials in the file of record.
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that we find the following:
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Tabled to May 16, 2006, based on receipt of any additional application material to Staff by
April 17. This application, Site Plan No. 9-2006, for S. Kirshon, is tabled and subject to the
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following conditions:
1. We’re looking for the mean high water mark notation on the plan,
2. C.T. Male signoff,
3. APA jurisdictional determination,
4. We would like Counsel present at the next meeting just for this particular
application,
5. Have the Zoning Administrator present at the next meeting to address Code
interpretations, specifically 179-6-060, and discuss building permit,
6. We’re looking for soil test data, stabilization of the disturbed soil around the house
site without using fertilizer,
7. And to immediately fix the sediment fencing to prevent runoff into the lake.
Duly adopted this 28 day of March, 2006, by the following vote:
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AYES: Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Ford, Mrs. Steffan, Mr.
Vollaro
NOES: NONE
MR. VOLLARO-Tough one.
MR. HUTCHINS-Thanks for your time, Board, and good evening.
MR. VOLLARO-Thanks for your patience. I mean, it’s not easy for you either, I know that,
and with that, I’d like to make a motion to adjourn.
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Robert Vollaro, Chairman
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