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2006-06-29 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) JOINT QUEENSBURY ZBA & PLANNING BOARD MEETING SPECIAL MEETING JUNE 29, 2006 INDEX DISCUSSION 1. THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO BOARD AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING MONTHS MINUTES (IF ANY) AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL OF SAID MINUTES. 0 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) JOINT QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD & ZONING BOARD MEETING SPECIAL MEETING JUNE 29, 2006 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT PLANNING BOARD: ROBERT VOLLARO, CHAIRMAN GRETCHEN STEFFAN, SECRETARY TANYA BRUNO DONALD SIPP THOMAS FORD CHRIS HUNSINGER ZONING BOARD: CHARLES ABBATE, CHAIRMAN JAMES UNDERWOOD, SECRETARY JOYCE HUNT ROY URRICO ALLAN BRYANT LEWIS STONE CHARLES MC NULTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR-MARILYN RYBA SENIOR PLANNER-STUART BAKER MR. VOLLARO-This is an informal meeting, try to make it as informal as possible. I think we all know each other here, most of the people know each other on each other’s Boards. We’ve got some familiarity with that. There is an agenda. We’ll go through that first, and Item Number Five is not on there, but Item Five is open discussion by any Board member on any topic concerning what takes place as an operational Board. We won’t discuss anything about applications that are pending before either Board or discuss the implications of those applications. The purpose of this is free and open discussion. Don’t be bashful because we run a recorder, or if there’s something that’s bugging you speak up. This is an opportunity for those that feel that there should be different about how a Board operates or why it operates the way it does or why it doesn’t operate the way it should. So feel free to discuss that if you will. What we’ll do is when you want to speak, when you get to Number Five, after we get through some of this other stuff, when you want to speak, just raise your hand and you’ll be recognized by Mr. Abbate will be recognizing members from his Board. I’ll recognize the members from mine, so that we get it going that way. Discussion items are as follows. The pre- application conference between Staff and the applicant. Now, what’s that really all about? Chuck and I have been looking into that and talking to Staff about what happens at the pre-application conference. It is the first time that an applicant meets a member of this Town. They may be very familiar with it, some of the attorneys, some of the lawyers are very familiar with it, but some people don’t, and the first time that they approach the Town and get to a pre-application conference, that kind of sets the tone, at least that’s what Mr. Abbate and I have felt. So we pay a lot of attention to what takes place at the pre-application conference and what is written down when we get our Staff notes, that it be clear and concise and that we can understand pretty much what the Town representative has said to the applicant, and I know that when I go through my, I tend to look at that piece of paper. So if anybody has any comments that they’d like to make, what does the pre-application conference do, why do we have it, why don’t we have it, is it good or is it bad, is it helpful to me as a member of either one of these Boards. So if anybody has a comment on the pre-application, let them raise his or her hand. MRS. STEFFAN-Bob, do you have a checklist that you use when you go through that? MR. VOLLARO-There is a checklist that’s now been revised, and it’s been revised recently so that the Staff member checks off a yes or a no on certain things, but the key to it is what is written in terms of what they said, what they need. They need to have a FAR. They need whatever they need to do to make this application, and when we get to the next comment on here, which is the completion review meeting, Chuck and I attend that meeting together. I see what his Board is doing. He sees what this Board is doing, and we look to see what degree of completion we have, and one of the things we look for 1 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) is the pre-application conference. If it’s blank, we usually set it aside, as not being complete. MRS. STEFFAN-I guess I didn’t phrase my question correctly. What I was getting to is do you have a checklist when you go through completion review? MR. VOLLARO-Yes, we do. There’s a checklist that’s already made out. Essentially, if you look at some of the stuff that comes through in Staff notes, I think there’s a pretty good checklist. We don’t follow it absolutely to the letter, because I think, you know, we go down and pick out the salient points of it, because sometimes with different applications they may be different. So we look at it to see whether it’s got the majority of things that should be on this application. Yes. The answer to your question is there is a checklist, and we do use them. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. So the word that you used was majority, because occasionally, it doesn’t happen all the time, we’ll get an application in front of us, you know, why is that here, you know, there’s some things. MR. ABBATE-Bob, let me address that, will you, please, for the ZBA. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MR. ABBATE-Yes, that’s an excellent observation. One of the purposes of my being there is just to address what you have just said. In many instances, I take a look at the application and I reject it. I say, I know the Board, and there isn’t sufficient information, and by the way, I have my own checklist for the ZBA, there isn’t sufficient information in here that will hold water once it gets before the Board, and to table this is not only a waste of time for the ZBA, but a waste of time for the Town. So I reject them, and I then request that the Zoning Administrator, and he does, send a letter to the individual stating that the Chairman of the ZBA indicated that there’s not sufficient information and specifically this is what he wants. That’s what I do, and as a matter of fact, since we’ve been doing this pre-application, we’ve reduced, based upon checking the history, our tabling close to 75%, because I starve off, if you will, ahead of time, problems before it gets to the ZBA. MR. VOLLARO-I do the same thing. We both follow about the same. A lot of things that come before you have been checked. Hopefully nothing comes through now. See, let me just back up a minute. There’s a statement that as long as an applicant has filled out all the proper paperwork, he is allowed to come before the Board. Chuck and I have a little different opinion. I think we have a different opinion as to what completion means. For example, when I go through a FAR, and it doesn’t make sense. To me, because somebody submitted a Floor Area Ratio that’s not properly done, to me that’s not an incomplete, that’s not a complete application. There is some difference of opinion between Staff and ourselves in that area. So what we deem to be incomplete, they may deem to be complete. We have these discussions, and that’s why sometimes you’ll see when somebody starts talking about how much time we spend on certain things, why we spend about three hours going through completion review. Whether it’s complete or not complete. The last time we did it, I was faced, and he was faced with less, but I was faced with 30 applications and try to get 14 that were complete. MR. ABBATE-And a good example, again, Bob and I and one of the Staff spent five and a half hours, from 10 o’clock in the morning until 3 o’clock in the afternoon, without a break, one day, going through pre-application. One day, five and one half. MR. VOLLARO-Completion review you’re talking about. MR. ABBATE-Completion review, yes. MR. VOLLARO-So it takes a lot of time. We try to make sure that what comes before the Board is negotiable by the Board, is reviewable by the Board, as opposed to saying, well, we don’t have this and we don’t have that, so we’re going to table this. Try to keep tabling to a minimum, if we can. Things may come up where you’re going to table. MR. HUNSINGER-What’s the point of this item on the agenda? Is it just to inform the Boards of what’s going on? I mean, I think we all know that there’s a pre-application conference. We know that there’s always, I don’t care what you do, there will always be conflict between opinions of what’s complete and what’s not complete, and a lot of times it’s a judgment call. If the FAR’s completed and there’s an error in it. 2 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. FORD-I’m sorry. I couldn’t hear you. A conflict between what? MR. HUNSINGER-I think there will always be a conflict between differences of opinion about what’s a complete application and what’s not, and a lot of times it’s a level of detail. I mean, if they complete the FAR ratio and there’s an error in it, does that make it incomplete? Or does that mean that there’s an error? There will always be things like that. So I’m just curious as to why this item’s on the table for discussion. MR. VOLLARO-Well, there are some people that have said why do Chuck and I spend as much time as we do, and I’ve got a list of how much time I actually spend in Board work, in a month, in detail, and one of the things that make up that compilation is the completion review meeting, and if anybody has any questions as to why do Chairmans spend this much time at Town Hall doing this kind of thing. This is the reason. I would expect to get some reaction from people here to say, well, is it really necessary. Are you accomplishing anything there? You guys are telling us, you’re spending all this time, what are you getting out of it? What are we getting out of it as a Board, whether it be the Planning Board or whether it be the Zoning Board of Appeals, and based on the input of Board members, Chuck and I may say, don’t go. MR. BRYANT-Can I ask a question? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MR. BRYANT-Are you, just out of curiosity, because I don’t know where this is going, are you and Chuck doing things that theoretically should be accomplished normally by Staff? Are we making up for an overloaded Staff that can’t address these applications beforehand? What’s going on here? Why do you have to do that? I’m not understanding. MR. VOLLARO-Well, I guess I can answer that very simply. I don’t believe the Zoning Board of Appeals has what amounts to a set of Bylaws, Policies and Procedures. MR. ABBATE-That’s not quite correct. Our policies and guides are by Statute and by precedence. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, you’re right, Chuck, but we have a document that’s been prepared with us and Staff and in that document is a requirement for the Chairman to do exactly that, to attend the completion review meetings. So I’m required to do it. I don’t know whether Mr. Abbate is or not. MR. BRYANT-Well, Mr. Abbate, by Statute, is required to do it. MR. ABBATE-He’s right. Thank you. MR. BRYANT-But the question, I’m not saying about the requirement. I’m just, you’re talking about all these pre-conference things. MR. VOLLARO-Pre-application conference. MR. BRYANT-I understand that you have to do a certain amount of things, but my question is, are you doing or spending so much time because you have to or because? MR. VOLLARO-Because we want to? Is that what you mean? MR. ABBATE-To answer your question, to be very blunt, are we doing Staff’s work? Absolutely. Then your next question is going to be, why the hell are you doing Staff’s work? There are a number of reasons. Number One, Staff is overloaded, and Number Two, in my opinion, Staff is understaffed. So consequently, and unfortunately, if we, on the ZBA, wish to receive applications that will get us out in plenty of time early, and as you all know on the ZBA we’ve been getting out pretty early, and it’s only because we’re better organized. So to answer your question, Staff, basically, is overloaded and Staff is understaffed, and I say that because we have this evening with us the Executive Director of Community Development. MR. MC NULTY-I think the other point here, too, Chuck, is there’s some of these questions that are probably marginal. That the Staff might feel they’re overstepping their bounds if they refuse to let an application move an application on because there’s a number missing or something. 3 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. ABBATE-Absolutely, yes, you’re right. MR. MC NULTY-And yet we know we’ve gotten some in on ZBA that we look at it and we say, why has Staff written that question and why didn’t they ask the question and get the answer before. MR. ABBATE-Correct. MR. MC NULTY-But some of it’s marginal and I think that’s why you guys need to be there. MR. ABBATE-You’re right. There isn’t just one answer to this thing. There are a number of answers to why we do this thing. So your question is valid. I hope we answered it. MR. BRYANT-Your opinion. MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t see in our Bylaws where it says the Chairman has to. MR. VOLLARO-I know you were looking for that, and I looked for it today and it’s in here. MR. HUNSINGER-Tell me what page, because I certainly don’t see it. MR. ABBATE-Bob, hang on for a second. He doesn’t see in the Bylaws, but lets understand something. That the Planning Board and the ZBA are completely different. We’re a quasi-judicial Board, and by Statute I am mandated, let me make this clear, by Statute the Chairman is mandated not only to set the agenda but to give out notification and to do a number of other things as well. As far as the Planning Board is concerned, I don’t know. MR. HUNSINGER-In fact it says very clearly a pre-application conference conducted by Planning Staff. I don’t see the word “Chairman” in there. MR. VOLLARO-No, no. Not pre-application. We don’t go to the pre-application conference. You’ve got to look at the completion review here. MR. HUNSINGER-I thought we were talking about the pre-application conference between Staff and the applicant? MR. VOLLARO-No. I think we passed that and got down to the completion review. I think that we’re interested in what the pre-application conference says. There’s a piece of paper that comes to us that has all of the information on it that took place at the pre- application conference. We don’t go to that. That’s a Staff/applicant interface. We don’t, what I said in there was, a few minutes ago, it’s the first time that an applicant who hasn’t been here before, gets to meet the Town and gets an opinion set. When they leave the pre-application conference, they either think, well, this is a piece of cake, or this is going to be tough. One or the other. Under Chairman’s activities, you’ll notice that it says completion review and completion review is in the Bylaws. MR. HUNSINGER-I see a section on complete application which says it’s reviewed by the Community Development Department Planning Staff to be included on the Planning Board meeting agenda. MR. VOLLARO-Marilyn, would you do me a favor while I’m trying to concentrate on this, would you look into our Policies and Procedures and find that section, because I know it talks to it. I guess one of the questions was, and I left it, is it something that this group of people feel is important for us to be doing? I know that I’m required to do it and so is Chuck, and you see what’s a result of what we do is that you get reasonably good applications, hopefully. We try to screen them. We try to go through a checklist. We try to make sure they’re as complete as they can be within whatever bounds we set. We’ve got a checklist and we go over that. Now, when I see, for example, a site plan organization or a Floor Area Ratio that might have a couple of scratches on it, I’m going to reject that. It may look like somebody’s done some work, but essentially it’s not correct. MR. FORD-Bob, I want to reiterate what I have voiced before and that is a concern and hopefully tonight we’ll be able to sharpen the focus on it. It is really appreciated what you and Chuck do, and the countless hours that you put in. The question is, is that necessary, and if it is necessary, in order to get us the quality of applications that we get before us, then is it because, one, we are understaffed, or, two, the Staff isn’t doing its 4 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) job? Because I am fearful, in times to come, when two Chairs will not have the quantity of time that you two gentlemen are devoting to these positions, what in the world is going to happen then to these two Boards, if, in fact, the quantity of time that you are expending right now is a requirement? MR. HUNSINGER-And I would further add, I agree with where you’re going with that, and I would further add, you know, if you look, and I mentioned it earlier when we all came in. Tuesday night’s meeting went until midnight again, four items on the agenda. Now if those items were complete, in my mind I wouldn’t think that they would warrant that kind of discussion. Two years ago, last year was sort of a transition year, if you will, but two years ago we would have a full agenda of eight items and it would be very unusual for us to go past 10 o’clock. Now it’s unusual for us to be done before midnight, and that’s why I wasn’t at the last three meetings, because I just couldn’t stay that late. I have to get up to go to work the next morning. MR. VOLLARO-I understand. What I did do, as long as we’re getting on that subject, there’s a thing that’s called the prior evening’s debriefing. It’s the next morning at nine o’clock when these things are debriefed and I have all the debriefing notes. On average what we spend on an application in an evening now is 50 minutes. On average it’s 50 minutes. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s too long. That’s too long. MR. VOLLARO-Okay, but two years ago, we weren’t dealing with applications that were coming for site plan reviews and for subdivisions in as critical areas as we’re dealing with today. Some of the areas we’re dealing with. MR. HUNSINGER-I think that’s just anecdotal information, Bob, and I think we really need to take a look at that and just see if that’s really true. I think that’s kind of a copy out for us to justify spending too much time. I really do, and please don’t take it the wrong way. MR. ABBATE-I’m assuming you’re referring to the Planning Board? MR. VOLLARO-Yes, he is referring to the Planning Board. MR. ABBATE-Because I would take exception if you said it to the ZBA. Because we had a case the other night that lasted two hours and fifty-five minutes because, again, we’re a quasi-judicial Board, and that particular case is in litigation with the Supreme Court. MR. HUNSINGER-And of course we’ll get those. We’ll get an application, and in the past, you know, The Great Escape, for example, we would have a special meeting, just to deal with The Great Escape, because we knew it would be, because it was a complicated project or we knew it would take a lot of review, but the average meeting, you know, the average items shouldn’t be taking as long as they’re taking. That’s just my opinion. MRS. BRUNO-Chris, I have to disagree, actually, with that, being new on the Board, one of the reasons why I tried to obtain the seat that I did was because of the warp growth, as Gretchen puts it, of the Town, and I think that we are losing easily reviewed sites, very quickly, and I think it’s very smart that the amount of time is put in before the train goes past. I do think, I have to agree with Bob, and I was going to say it before he even did, and I just did, about that the sites are just much more difficult. We have to think about the Critical Environmental Areas. We live in a special area and it’s very quickly changing. The other thing I think coming in and just seeing from a newcomer and it’s benefited me greatly. I think sometimes we get discussing maybe educational aspects of what’s going on, perhaps that could happen a little bit less. We start talking about ZBA and incorporating it with Planning Board and Planning Staff, you know, something that’s perhaps we shouldn’t be talking about in front of the public. It reminds me kind of disciplining one child, or talking to one child while not explaining it to the other one. It’s just where do you do certain things, and I think maybe we take a little bit of time on that, but I have to say, we’ve got to be careful. The developers come in and they say, you folks have to understand that we’ve got so much change going on and you’ve got to realize that you’ve got to go along with the change. You can’t hold on to your open spaces like you were before. Likewise, they have to understand that we are going to change and get tougher because we want to hold on to what makes our community special, and so that’s my opinion. MR. STONE-Bob, or Chuck, when you get a chance, I’d like, over here. 5 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. ABBATE-I’m sorry. MR. STONE-I promised myself I wouldn’t say anything tonight because obviously I will be off the Board as of tomorrow night, but it strikes me that we have Boards of seven people because we have seven minds at work on a particular application, and it has always been my contention that we should never censor our own thoughts as Board members. MR. ABBATE-Absolutely. MR. STONE-That is why are here. That is why the Town, in its wisdom, has made both Boards to be seven members. That’s not a law. It could be seven. It could be less. We have seven people because we have seven people looking at a project, whether it’s a simple variance or a very complex plan, and we should take as much time at Board meetings as necessary to get every question on the table and every question answered. MR. ABBATE-Absolutely. MR. STONE-And I think we need to do more rather than less. MR. ABBATE-And I agree, and let me go a little bit further. Again, unlike the Planning Board, we are a quasi-judicial Board and procedural issues are crucial, and why are they crucial? We are subject to judicial reviews. We have four cases before the Supreme Court right now, and not one case did the Supreme Court judge say to the ZBA, your procedures were false or in error. Not one, and so I agree. If it means we have to take additional time, so be it. Because we save the time money in lawsuits, and first of all, by Statute, we are charged with providing a fair and unbiased hearing, and if it means being here until three o’clock in the morning, by God we’re going to do it then. That’s a little exaggeration. MRS. BRUNO-How many of you have gone in front of either a Zoning Board Appeals or a Planning Board in a personal or work related capacity? I’m just curious, so about half. MR. SIPP-Chris, I’ve been around this Town a long time and have been to Planning Board meetings going way back, and I’ve never seen, since I became a member, since February, the number of applications that are in Critical Environmental Areas, which I think takes much more time and much more study in order to do it right. We’ve been foxed out on some of them because of applicants not giving us the correct information, I’m sure of it, but we’ve tried and made it a point to make these issues up on Lake George and in critical areas, we’ve given them a lot of questions and a lot of things to think about, and I think this is what takes the time. I also think, I don’t go to work any more, and I can feel for you, or anybody that does, and I don’t know as I could do it when I was working, but now I’m not and I figure that this is my time to do something for the community and if it takes until 12 o’clock at night, then it takes until 12 o’clock at night. I don’t like it, but I didn’t sign on to have everything. MR. ABBATE-Do we have your permission to kind of follow up on that, please. Would you mind terribly much if I did that? One of the major issues today, and I discussed this in Staff with the Executive Director and everyone else concerned is this. Queensbury is a fast growing Town, and we are having better educated people in the Town, more sophisticated people in the Town, and we’re finding that the public is more sophisticated. We call them the appellant. The appellant is more sophisticated, the attorneys are more sophisticated. So in our case, judicial procedures are critical. So consequently we take our time, as Mr. Stone said, and I do believe, without any doubt in my mind, that every member on the Zoning Board of Appeals does an outstanding job. Quite frankly, but we need the time to do it. You can’t just go through quickly. So when I go through the completion, I go through that thinking in the back of my mind, what are the Zoning Board of Appeals members going to say if I let this through. I know some of the questions that are going to be asked. So I attempt to make sure that every individual application is complete. Now, additionally, Statutes indicate that the ZBA has wide latitude in procedures. So that includes, also, the fact I can determine, as Chairman, what I consider to be complete or incomplete by Statute, and my primary duty and responsibility is to the ZBA members, to ensure that they receive as much evidence as possible so they can make an intelligent decision. MR. BRYANT-Mr. Abbate, I want to ask you a hard question. We’re talking about the Chairman’s activities and all these things. We talked about the debriefing, and I know that you and Mr. Vollaro probably spent hours after our meetings in a debriefing. My 6 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) questions to both of you really are what’s the benefit of that if then the Board members don’t get any input as to what went on in the debriefing? MR. ABBATE-Good point. MR. BRYANT-We don’t get an e-mail saying, we had a debriefing, these are the comments about Joe Blow’s case or this case. So you’re spending all of that time, but it’s not generating any benefit for the rest of the members. MR. VOLLARO-Usually Staff, at least I get, whether everybody does, I get a copy of the debriefing. MR. BRYANT-Yes, the debriefing notes, though, I’ve got to tell you, it’s one sentence. This was approved, six, Bryant voted against it. That’s the debriefing notes. MR. ABBATE-Okay, you know what, he is absolutely correct. MR. BRYANT-That doesn’t serve me. There’s no benefit because I was there. MR. ABBATE-Okay. Well, I’m going to solve that right now. Because after each debriefing, like I was there this morning for the debriefings, here’s what I will do. I will then e-mail, after each debriefing, every member of the ZBA and put in my interpretation of comments. How’s that? MR. BRYANT-Fine, then there’s benefit to the Board members MR. ABBATE-You’re right. MR. BRYANT-Thank you. MR. ABBATE-I will do that, because I think your point is right, and I will forward furnish every member of the ZBA, not the copy, but my interpretation of what Staff basically said and what I said, the Chairman said, concerning each case that we heard the night before. I’d be happy to do it. MR. BRYANT-That would be great. MR. ABBATE-Now you understand, now, having said that, guys, that adds more hours to me, but I don’t mind doing it. MR. MC NULTY-I was going to say, let me bring that around in the circle and back to Chris’ comments back awhile ago, because I’ll agree with him, and I’m not sure there’s a total solution, but I, too, have a concern, and I think I sent it to you back a while ago on one of the e-mails I sent you. MR. ABBATE-You did. MR. MC NULTY-It’s great that we’ve got some of us that are retired and some of us that are not, but when we end up with retired people that are Chairmen, there’s a danger of generating more of a job than what somebody that is gainfully employed can do. MR. ABBATE-You’re right. MR. MC NULTY-That then says that Chairmen from then on have to be retired person, and that limits our choices. MR. ABBATE-There’s another explanation, Chuck. It also means that maybe the Chairman has to be a full time position. MR. MC NULTY-I don’t know whether that’s feasible or not, but. MR. ABBATE-Or half time position, but unless the Chairman, in the future, puts in these hours, they are not serving the ZBA, not serving the Town, not serving the appellant, and not serving the public, and it’s true, and it’s unfortunate, and you’re right. If you work for a living, I don’t see how anyone working for a living can do what I do, but unfortunately it has to be done, and if it’s not done, the ZBA suffers. 7 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. FORD-Chuck, to accept what you just said, are you saying that previous or prior Chairs did not serve the community, did not serve the Board because they weren’t spending that quantity of time? MR. ABBATE-Not at all. No. I don’t think anybody suggested that. MR. BRYANT-Can I answer that? Since I’m on the Board. I think, in all fairness, okay, we still have our problems. We still get cases that don’t have all the information, and even with the work that Chuck is putting in, and occasionally something will slip through, something that didn’t come to his mind and that’s still occurring, okay, but in all fairness, a lot of the notes are better and a lot of the cases are better presented. When Mr. Stone was Chairman, we didn’t have that much difficulty, either. Okay, but we had our bad cases and we had our good cases, but I think now, I think we’re dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s a little bit better than we were in previous years. MR. FORD-I was just picking up on the observation that that quantity of time was needed in order to serve the community well. I have a personal concern, and I can speak only for myself, but when we approach the witching hour, I, personally, start to question my effectiveness in being able to really focus my attention, speak clearly and openly and focus on the issues at hand when we have been sitting there for sometimes five plus hours, and I don’t know that I’m serving the community, the applicant, my fellow Board members or myself when I’m sitting there at midnight and past deliberating some of these vitally important issues. MR. ABBATE-You’re absolutely right. MR. MC NULTY-I think that you shouldn’t put that on just yourself. I think the same thing applies not only to all members but to the applicant and their attorney and get the whole process probably from eleven o’clock on. It’s going downhill fast. MR. ABBATE-You know what, Tom, you’re absolutely correct. You’re correct to the point this is what the Statutes say for the ZBA, basically, I may not get it word for word, but the ZBA is charged with, the Statute states to hold a hearing to a reasonable time. Now, a reasonable time, okay, we have the public, in most instances who are working for a living. We have, in many instances, seen senior citizens. We have Staff who have to go to work the next morning. We have ZBA members who have to go to work the next morning. So what is a reasonable time? To me, anything beyond 11 o’clock is not a reasonable time, and quite frankly, and I’ll be honest with you, when it starts to go to twelve o’clock, or one o’clock, I’m tired, and I’m not so sure I’m ask effective as I could have been at seven o’clock. So you’re right, and I intend to do something about that with our Board. MR. BRYANT-I want to add something to that. Basically, this is one of the benefits of the extracurricular work that the Chairmen are doing, because I know Mr. Abbate is actively working with Staff to set the agenda, and since he’s been Chairman, I can’t recall a time that we’ve stayed until 12 or 1, and I can recall many times when we stayed until 12 or 1 in years gone by. So that’s one of the positive effects of their labors, and that’s setting the agenda, making sure that we don’t have, you know, eight complicated cases that are going to go until two o’clock in the morning, and there have been times where he split the case load because they were going to be complicated, and, knowing that, he made the change. So, it’s been very beneficial for us. MR. ABBATE-Let me give you an example. We have a total of six cases for July. I split them up three and three. MR. HUNSINGER-I had a couple of comments to follow up on what you said, Chuck, and maybe kind of bring some of my earlier comments full circle and back around. The comments that Tanya made about the projects being more complicated, I mean, I say that at every Planning Ordinance Review Committee meeting. So, I mean, I agree with you, but that doesn’t mean our meetings need to be longer, and one of the areas where we have fallen down, I think, as a Planning Board, and I don’t know when we started doing this, was with respect to the public hearings. It even says right in our Bylaws that the public hearings are designed to receive information, comments may be made in the form of questions but neither the applicant nor the Board is necessarily obligated to answer them. The purpose of public comments is to bring issues to the attention of the Planning Board not to engage in dialogue with the applicant, and far too often that’s what ends up happening is we end up in a dialogue not just with the applicant, but with the public, and that’s not what the public hearing is designed to do. Sometimes it’s useful, but a lot of the times it just gets out of control, and that’s where we waste time. 8 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. ABBATE-Not with the ZBA. Let’s keep this thing separate. With the ZBA, Statutes demand that we allow any interested party to say their piece, to present any type of information that they wish. In addition, we must guarantee a fair an unbiased hearing which results in due process. Anything less than that, the Chairman is responsible for, if you will, negligence. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m not questioning that. MR. ABBATE-You’re talking about the Planning Board. Okay. MR. BRYANT-No, I don’t think he’s saying that anyway. He’s saying that they go back and forth. MR. HUNSINGER-We go back and forth. MR. BRYANT-Yes, see we don’t do that at the ZBA. MR. ABBATE-No, we don’t that. MR. BRYANT-They make their comments. If a Board member has a question, they ask the question and then they’re excused. MR. ABBATE-And they’re cut off at five minutes. No extensions. MR. BRYANT-They’re cut off. What he is saying basically, correct me if I’m wrong, is you go back and forth. MR. MC NULTY-We used to, at times, end up doing that. I think we’ve gotten a lot better in focusing and saying in public comments you’re off track. We don’t handle that kind of question. MR. HUNSINGER-And that’s where we lose time. It’s not, you know, it’s not on the considerations, it’s not on the deliberations, but it’s on the public hearing. It’s on things like that where we get off track. We get off topic, and we reiterate the same arguments over and over and over again. For whatever reason, we started a process where if a Planning Board member votes no they go into a lengthy dissertation as to why they’re voting no. It’s yes or no. You don’t need an explanation as to why you’re voting no. MR. ABBATE-Our procedures are completely different. So I can’t comment on that. MR. HUNSINGER-Those are the things that waste so much time. MR. UNDERWOOD-I would just make the comment that that’s where it becomes important for the Chairman, because it’s just like you said. If you’re in one of those nights where it’s just been one thing after another after another and you’re mind is fried after the third case or something, you’ve got a Vice Chairman, and this would be my suggestion. You’ve got seven Board members that are sitting there. You’ve got maybe seven cases before you. So make one of your, designate each one of your seven people to be the lead guy or lead girl on that case, because then let them troubleshoot the case. In other words, that’s going to help your completion review meetings That’s going to give you the ammunition where in other words you’re going to say, well, what did you think about this one, and they will have thoroughly gone through it, and they can make you the pertinent comments that are necessary. You’re missing this. You’re missing this. You’re going to need more information as far as this goes. That cuts out your time significantly. So in other words, you’re not having to go through every case through all the minutia that’s there and figure it out. Then when you get into the actual evening’s agenda there, just like I said, oftentimes we go off on tangents, too, where you get off into some, way out in left field on something and it’s nothing to do with what you’re trying to accomplish that evening. Somebody ought to be able to just prompt the Chairman and say, look, we’re getting way off base here. Let’s remember what we’re here for and what we’re doing and so you’re not wasting your evening and not going off on some wild goose chase into the wild blue yonder for hours. MR. ABBATE-Explain to me what you mean, Jim, assign a case to a particular member? I’m not sure I follow you. 9 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. UNDERWOOD-Well, say you have seven cases coming up on the agenda for each meeting that month. For the first meeting, you’re going to get the Joe Shmoe case. You’re going to get the maximum case over here. MR. ABBATE-How are you going to do that? MR. UNDERWOOD-Well, here’s what I think, most people, you have senior Board members that you can assign the ones that you think are going to obviously be more difficult cases to. I mean, if you’re coming up against a case that you know is going to be controversial in the community, that’s going to bring people out of the woodwork and things like that, what are the concerns of the public going to be? You know what the concerns are going to be. Right. Have they been addressed in the plan? Is the reasonable plan to begin with. You can kind of do a minute summary of what you think the troubleshooting is going to amount to. MR. ABBATE-And when would that take place, Jim? MR. UNDERWOOD-I think after the pre-application conference with Staff and applicants, when we receive the plans to go through. MR. ABBATE-I think that would be illegal, Jim. I don’t think we could do that. I don’t think we’re allowed to allow one individual to be the lead. MR. UNDERWOOD-No. I don’t mean the lead in the sense of the meeting. I mean, in the sense of the, for completion purposes. In other words, you will take that plan out some night, spend an hour and a half or two hours or whatever it takes you to go through that plan and say, I think this is wrong. Then they’re going to call the Chairman up and tell the Chairman here’s what I noted is wrong on the plan here, and what is missing. MR. ABBATE-You mean after we get our package and what have you? MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes, after you get your package. MR. ABBATE-You know what, okay, I understand. MR. UNDERWOOD-So in other words, you’re not having to scrutinize all the plans as Chairman, but in other words you’re, and basically because you’ve got all the other members on the Board helping you along, that way everybody’s doing your job for you. MR. ABBATE-Not bad. At our next meeting we’ll discuss that, and see whether the Board members would go along with the fact, after we get our packages. Otherwise, we’ve got to be careful of ex-parte and all that stuff. After you get your packages to say, will you take this one. Is that what you’re saying? MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes, and that’s the other kind of thing, too, where, you know, like how many times have you gotten your package and you’ve gotten your package and you’ve gone through and you say, well, I’ve got to call the Chairman up because I know this is missing, and, you know, your gut feeling you say to him, I don’t know if we can do this because we’re missing this information, and then Staff’s not going to be in a position where they have to say, tell the applicant, well, I’m sorry you’re incomplete, we can’t deal with you this month, but if it’s something minor or something reasonable that can be dealt with, say, look, get this in to me so I can get this to my members because they still need time to digest it prior to the meeting then you’re not going to be putting off applicants when they’re coming in and they’re getting put off because they’re missing one item in the packet or something like that. MR. ABBATE-Not a bad idea, and I’m going to bounce it off the members. Listen, do me a favor, guys and ladies, will you, think about what Jim said. I always yield to the Board. If you folks want me to do that, I’ll be happy to do it. It might be a good idea. If you don’t want to do it, that’s okay, too, but think about it. MR. VOLLARO-Let’s kind of explore that for a little bit. I don’t know if I, I’ve been listening to you pretty carefully, Jim, but I’m not sure I follow exactly. Let’s say that, let’s go through it chronologically. The completion review meeting Chuck and I go to and see that everything looks about right for it to be on the agenda. MR. UNDERWOOD-I’m saying before the completion review meeting, in other words. 10 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. ABBATE-No, we can’t do that. No, but his idea hasn’t died yet. Now, conceivably, after we receive our packages, think about that for a second. Why not ask a Board member to take a look at A, another Board member to take a look at B, not to make decisions, but to evaluate it. MR. BRYANT-If I could make a comment about where that would be helpful. We’ve had a couple of cases where the property has gone before the Town Board, the Board of Health thing for a septic tank, and there was a vote and discussion and we didn’t know that until after we already voted and a lot of times a case will come before the Planning Board for example, and I’m not just interested in the resolution. I’m interested in reading the comments to see what the sentiment was, how the Board members felt and what their ideas were, and that’s what I’m interested in. So I think he’s got something there. MR. ABBATE-We could do it afterwards. MR. UNDERWOOD-And that’s the kind of thing, too, where if you know there’s going to be a Board of Health resolution that has to go first, a lot of times if I see one that’s coming up, I’ll go in, because they’re always the first thing dealt with on a regular Town Board meeting anyway. So in other words, you can go, you see, you know, were there any real concerns about this project, you know, is a no-brainer, things like that, and it just helps your thought process along. MR. VOLLARO-There’s a good place to start that, I think. If the kernel of thought is to remain, I think it might be a good one, when we finally set the final agenda, that’s usually very late in the month. Today the final agendas for July were set. Once we know what they are, then maybe that assignment can be made, then we know, Chuck and I pretty much have a feel for each one of them. Like I’m holding on here tonight to 28. We have between now and the stuff that’s in front of the Board, we have 14 that are coming up, seven and seven, but there are 28 hanging on the board downstairs and about nine probably to come in during the month of July, let’s say. So we’re going to be up to around 35. MR. UNDERWOOD-And that’s the same thing for Staff, too, like I don’t know how Marilyn does it with the numbers that she deals with each month, but all I’m saying is like if you have your Staff members that are working for the Town down there, you know, assign each one of them a certain number that they’ve got to process, you know. All I’m saying is this. If you have a huge number to deal with, how are you possibly going to be able to scrutinize them adequately, given the number of hours you’ve got in a day? MR. VOLLARO-Well, that turns out to be a problem. One of the things we have, and I’ve discussed this with Marilyn several times, and she knows where I’m coming from with it. We have one Staff member that handles both Boards and does all of the Staff notes for both Boards. So she’s got to do 14 a month for our Board and I don’t know, X amount for your Board, whatever that turns out to be, and so it gets to be a load, and sometimes the Staff notes are, you know, it has to be looked at carefully. MR. ABBATE-And that’s a good point, Bob. Again, to go back to you. You were really right, not certainly all wrong on this, you asked the question, I’m not so sure about Staff, but there’s only one Staff person handling both the ZBA and the Planning Board. Now the other day Bob and I spent five and a half hours on 31 cases. Three one. MR. VOLLARO-Well, in my case, I had to try to get 14 applications, that I considered to be reasonable to go before the Board. MR. ABBATE-And let’s be fair to Staff, now, and I raised this issue before, in not too nice a way, and the response I got was reasonable. In my opinion, based upon what I see, they are understaffed and overworked. It’s as simple as that, and when you say, well, what do you mean, when you have only one person, and they don’t have that many people handling both Boards, it borders on almost an impossibility, to do what Bob and I are doing. So, Staff has their problems as well, but, hey, listen, guys, do me a favor, think about what Jim said. It might not be a bad idea, okay, and let me know. MR. BRYANT-I want to just ask a question. I had no idea that Susan was expecting. What’s going to happen in August when she has her baby? MR. VOLLARO-I will give you my understanding of it, is that Mr. Baker, Stu Baker, and George Hilton will share that load, whether it’s, when Susan Barden leaves for maternity leaves. At least that’s the plan is to have that done. 11 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. BRYANT-Well, if you’re understaffed now, and you lose one, it’s going to be really tough. MR. VOLLARO-I know what Marilyn is thinking, because we’ve talked about this. She’s going to have to sort of re-prioritize what’s being done at that particular time. MR. ABBATE-When there’s an alternate, she’d probably call us up and say you’re going to have to, both Chairmen are going to have to put more time in, and not sign any vouchers. MR. BRYANT-I’d like to ask a question about the next item. MR. VOLLARO-Setting the final agenda? MR. BRYANT-I thought we already did that. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. BRYANT-I was down to Counsel meeting. What’s that about? That’s the first I ever heard about that. MR. ABBATE-Here’s what happens. Once a month, Town Counsel holds a meeting. Staff attends, certain selective Staff attend, and Bob and I attend, and the purpose of that meeting is to discuss legal issues. Now, speaking of the Town Attorney for the ZBA, I, as Chairman, have many conferences with the Town Attorney for every case that’s under litigation, and basically once it goes under litigation, Counsel calls me down to their office, and what I do, I go through the minutes of the meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals. I examine the minutes of the meeting, and I rebut in writing those inaccuracies that are described by the appellant which I know are inaccurate. In addition to that, once that’s done, I leave, I come back, and that is typed up for me. I sign it, it’s notarized, and it becomes a part of the case, it’s perfected and becomes a part of the case that goes before the Supreme Court. So I’m involved in two ways. One in the monthly meeting at Staff. I think we’re having it Monday or Tuesday, Marilyn, something like that, and when we go Article 78 Supreme Court and we do a motion to deny, I become a part of that as well. MR. BRYANT-So that’s all the discussion, then, really, there’s nothing discussed about any other potential problems or cases that are upcoming that might be sticky? MR. ABBATE-We don’t generally discuss cases in detail. That would be inappropriate, for us. I don’t know about the Planning Board. MR. VOLLARO-I can tell you a couple of things that did happen, and I think Mr. Hunsinger brought it up, and I thought it was a good idea, actually. He wanted to limit the time. For example. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, except you misunderstood what I was suggesting, but that’s okay, Bob, go ahead. MR. VOLLARO-What were you suggesting, so I don’t go and spend a half hour saying something that doesn’t make sense? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, really what I was suggesting is along the lines of what Jim has suggested is that at the beginning of each meeting the Board basically say, you know, let’s take a look at this agenda, and, you know, this item we should be able to dispense of in a few minutes. So let’s keep on topic and make sure we get through it in a reasonable time. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s all I was suggesting. I wasn’t saying that we, you know, that we set up an artificial time limit for each item, but to put somebody in charge of keeping track of the time and then keeping the Board on top of it, and that’s really all I was suggesting. I don’t see that as being any different than an eleven o’clock curfew really. MR. VOLLARO-I don’t know. An eleven o’clock curfew, in the eight years I spent, or seven and a half years I’ve spent, it’s never worked. We’ve never made it work. Many, many times we’ve tried and we’ve failed, and that was long before I took the seat of this Chair. I know this, that we discussed this with Counsel as to putting an artificial time on. 12 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) She said be careful when you do that, because if anything happens, it would be considered arbitrary and capricious, and she said I caution you against that. That’s all she said. MR. HUNSINGER-I understand. I understand. MRS. STEFFAN-I think we’ve had a discussion, actually we’ve talked about many facets of dysfunction from my point of view, and, you know, we’re at a point in our Town where the growth hasn’t stopped. I remember when I joined the Planning Board as an alternate over two years ago, folks said, well, most of the land’s developed in the Town. Things will get slower. I laugh about that because things have never gotten slow. The momentum continues, and with some of the recent announcements, the economic development announcements, I certainly see things getting busier than they are right now. Over two years ago the Planning Ordinance and Review Committee was created because the Planning Board had asked for a moratorium to try to address some of the issues, and I think that if we look back at some of the systemic problems we’re having right now, we’ll get to the root cause of the problem, and that’s that the Town doesn’t have a common purpose. The Ordinance Review Committee has been spending a lot of time trying to get community consensus on a new Comprehensive Land Use Plan, and we’re not there yet, and we still have a lot of work to do, and I think because we haven’t been able to accomplish that that we’ve got a lot of dysfunction as a result of that, because there’s not a lot of agreement on exactly where the Town’s going, and when we are looking at applications and when we’re making decisions, there’s a lot of ambiguity in the current Zoning Code relating to the kinds of development we’re seeing, the complexity of the applications and the decisions that we’re trying to make based on what each one of us believes is the future vision of the Town, and so if a group of folks, like the Zoning Board or a Planning Board or a Town Board or even the Community Development Department don’t have a common purpose, we’re not all on the same page, and so we can’t see things from the same point of view, or a common point of view, and the result of that is that there’s a storming process that ensures, and folks don’t get along, they back bite, they pick at each other, and a lot of the things that we’ve been seeing over the last few years, at this point, and it’s unfortunate, but it’s an expected part of the group dynamic’s process. MR. ABBATE-Mrs. Steffan, let me explain something to you. You say a common purpose. The Zoning Board of Appeals, as a quasi-judicial Board, is neither obligated to the Town or to anyone else in the Town. Our primary mission is to, if you will, do justice. We are a safeguard. We don’t report to the Town Board. We don’t report to the Planning Board. We don’t report to Staff. So we can’t have a common purpose because we are neutral, and we base our decisions on a fair, balanced, and unbiased portion of the evidence received in the record. So when I say independent, we are truly independent. MR. HUNSINGER-But it’s still based on the Zoning Ordinance, and if the Zoning Ordinance changes, then your interpretation changes. MR. ABBATE-Of course. MRS. STEFFAN-And the Zoning Board is driven by the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. MR. ABBATE-Yes, and you used the word ambiguity, and you’re right, because many of the folks who come before us, particularly who are attorneys, and citizens who are quite sophisticated, bring this out. Here’s a sentence and this is quite ambiguous, as far as I’m concerned. We hear that all the time and you know in some cases they’re right. Sure, but I just wanted you to know that we are completely different than the Planning Board. MR. VOLLARO-Chuck, I think that’s an important point, because I’ve been listening. Your Board is far more structured, in a sense. MR. ABBATE-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Because it’s forced to be structured. MR. ABBATE-It’s cut and dried according to the law. MR. VOLLARO-What we on the Planning Board are faced with is a lot of, it turns out that we do get into a lot of dialogue, and it’s because we are not a structured Board, and it’s because people come before us, and I believe we’ve got to give the public a chance to speak, and we try to hold a five minute limit, but three people from the public, that’s 15 13 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) minutes out of our schedule already, just like that. So you’ve got to understand, we get into a lot more give and take discussion than you do, I believe, because you’re much more structured in your requirements than we are. MR. ABBATE-And you’re right. Just the other night I think somebody said I’m structured to a fault, but that’s true. When they come in, they know what to expect. MR. BRYANT-Can I ask Staff a question? Is that possible? MR. ABBATE-I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you ask me the question, and then I’ll. MR. BRYANT-Well, I know there was some kind of Master Plan in the Town, and I’m just, since it really doesn’t apply to us as a Zoning Board, but when you say there’s no direction, isn’t that plan, all this that the Planning Department has been working on, the specific corridors, I don’t know what they’re called, okay, but there’s a master plan. It’s on line. It tells you what’s going to happen where, it tells you what the Main Street corridor’s going to look like, what Quaker Road is going to look like and all that stuff. MRS. STEFFAN-That’s part of the story. MR. BRYANT-Isn’t that the common cause, the banner, I mean, that’s the direction that everybody is going. MR. ABBATE-Let me address that, Allan. We have the Executive Director here this evening. Of course she’s not participating, but just a simple question. Does the Town have a plan? MR. VOLLARO-Sure, it’s the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. MR. ABBATE-So we have direction. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, but that’s the reason why the Planning Ordinance and Review Committee was formed, because the current Zoning Code that exists today and the Comprehensive Land Use Plan are outdated for our needs, and they are not an accurate reflection of where the community wants to go, and this is based on input and discussion and Town Board meetings, at Planning Board meetings, and so that’s one of the reasons why we’ve engaged Saratoga Associates to help us, you know, with this public process of re-writing the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. That’s the common purpose, and so that will drive updates to the Zoning Code, and when I talked about ambiguity in the Code, there are lots of different ways to interpret the Code, and where are we going. If we don’t have common agreement on some of the meanings, then decisions are being made that everybody doesn’t feel comfortable about. MR. ABBATE-Well, Mrs. Steffan, let me ask you a question. Isn’t that more appropriate to be raised before the PORC Committee than this hearing tonight? Here we’re only addressing ZBA and Planning Board, I thought. MR. VOLLARO-Chuck, I think she’s got a point, and let me tell you what I think it is. Our 179 Code is the law. The Comprehensive Land Use Plan is not. However, the objective is for Chris’ Committee, the PORC Committee, to get a Comprehensive Land Use Plan that everybody can agree on, and then the Zoning Code then has to be brought in parallel with that, and, Chris, correct me if I’m wrong on this, but what we do is first get the Comprehensive Land Use Plan so that it makes sense and then try to alter your Zoning Code so that it tracks that. Is that a fair statement? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. That’s a fair statement. MR. ABBATE-I’m not arguing that point. The agenda this evening is Town of Queensbury Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals. It doesn’t address PORC Committee, or PORC Committee concerns. MR. VOLLARO-No. That’s true, but what she’s really addressing, Chuck, is the law that governs how both these committees work, 179. MR. HUNSINGER-And the other point to that is there are instances where the Comprehensive Land Use Plan is not in synch with the Zoning Ordinance, and by law they are required to follow each other. 14 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. MC NULTY-And the prime reason that the PORC Committee has been working is because the Zoning Board and the Planning Board saw the need. MR. HUNSINGER-Exactly. MR. MC NULTY-That’s where it got started from. The Planning Board wanted a moratorium and the Zoning Board looked at a lot of the Zoning Code and said there’s five different ways to figure square footage in one Code. MR. BRYANT-How many recommendations? MR. ABBATE-That’s a good question. How many recommendations have you submitted? MRS. STEFFAN-Well, the reason I brought that up was not to debate the outcomes at this point. I really do want to talk about policy and about some of the dysfunction that we’re seeing, because as a result of some of this confusion, Planning Board members, I can’t speak for Zoning Board members because I’m not a Zoning Board member, but there is some confusion when we’re reviewing applications, I mean, we have site plan criteria that we use. We have subdivision regulations and criteria that we use in decision making, but we have to consider the Zoning Code, the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, the Open Space Vision Plan and the Affordable Housing Strategy, all that were adopted by the Town Board and we are supposed to be using those to base our decisions on, and so we have many roles, even though we are Planning Board members, we have many different roles that we are responsible for considering. MR. VOLLARO-There’s a couple you left out. The 136 Wastewater Code, we’ve got to know about that. It’s in Article Nine of 179. Also now 147 is the stormwater requirements for the boundaries around Lake George. So when you take a look at the number of things that we’ve got to do as a Board, to try to give a fair and balanced hearing if you want to call it to the applicant, we’ve got a lot of criteria we are trying to follow. Your criteria is basically, I think you’ve got four or five. MR. ABBATE-Five statutory criteria. MR. ABBATE-Five statutory criteria. When I do a site plan review, you know, if you try to do it right, it’s just a long time. It just takes a lot of time, and I think that’s why our meetings are longer. We’re becoming a little more sophisticated as a Board, and we’re starting to think about all of these various items, and just not easy to melt them altogether. MR. ABBATE-And you are absolutely correct. Initially I wasn’t sure I agreed with you when you said that the Planning Board takes too much time at their meeting. Look what’s happening this evening. We’re taking too much time. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. ABBATE-So you guys are violating the very thing you’re complaining about. MRS. STEFFAN-When I started off what I don’t believe is a tangent, but I’m putting that word in your mouth, I was trying to talk about the level of dysfunction that we’re seeing. There is a lot of role confusion. There is a lack of common purpose. We’ve got a tremendous workload. The types of applications that we’re seeing are far more complex. We’ve had process changes. We have people in new roles. We have brand new alternates who are now full time Planning Board members. We have a new Chairperson, and with some of the changes that we have in the Community Development Department, no wonder why we’ve got some of these systemic problems, and we can’t seem to get our work done in a reasonable amount of time. I don’t know what the answers are, but I do know that there’s a level of dysfunction here that we can’t ignore. MR. ABBATE-And you’re right, an guess what you just did, supported why the Chairman and I are putting in the number of hours that we’re putting in. MRS. STEFFAN-But there’s still, there has to be, if we trace this back, there has to be some root cause issues that we can identify and target, because if we can eliminate some of the root causes of these problems, then we can solve some of them. MR. ABBATE-And you’re right, and that should be a subject where all parties should be involved. I think it’s unfair to really pinpoint duties and responsibilities of that function 15 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) without having Staff present, the Executive Director and everybody else, so that they can have input, and they may have comments that may offset some of the comments. So I think to go any further is unfair unless they can participate in this. MR. HUNSINGER-And I just want to thank you for making my point. MR. ABBATE-Sure. MR. HUNSINGER-You said the meeting’s gone too long. Well, how do you know the meeting’s gone too long unless you had a preconceived idea of how long the meeting should go. That’s exactly what I have suggested we do on our agenda. Thank you for making my point. MRS. BRUNO-On the other hand, we’re sitting here and we are trying to work things out. I was under the impression that the Planning Staff was going to be able to be here. I had no idea that we weren’t going to be able to ask them questions. Maybe that’s just because I came in a couple of minutes late, but to be quite frank, and I know that your Board operates differently than ours does, we’re sitting here and we’re trying to work through this, and you said this evening you’re not acting as Chairman. You’re cutting people off very quickly, and how are we going to work through this if we’re saying it just very black and white. I think we really need to. MR. ABBATE-We stay on track. MR. BRYANT-On track. The other night, I’ll give you a specific, I won’t mention the case, someone, one of the public started talking about septic systems and the Chairman said, that’s an issue for the Planning Board. That’s it. MRS. BRUNO-Fine, I can understand that. MR. BRYANT-Okay, and that’s exactly what he’s doing. Okay. We don’t experience the same problems you have. We get out at a reasonable hour. We don’t have the back and forth and the banter, and all this confusion, and I don’t know why there’s, probably because of the way it’s structured. MRS. BRUNO-I was calling it education when I was talking about it earlier, and what I was referring to is what Gretchen was referring to, and Bob, in terms of the number of documents that we need to know, the interpretation. All Codes are interpreted different ways. You take the Building Code, you’ve got different interpretations. Everyone struggles with that, and I really, I’m concerned if we just say, just to keep it specifically on target on that, and I have a difficult time, I understand that the ZBA is a quasi-judicial Board, but I still think that we are here for a common purpose, and that is the Town of Queensbury. MR. BRYANT-Well, I understand that, but one of the things that I’ve said numerous times is that both Boards are really undereducated. There should be mandated courses relative to each Board, okay, that all the members have got to go through, because frankly it took me years to figure out what the heck was going on, okay, and it’s not fair to somebody who’s not, and I had a construction background, okay. It’s not fair to somebody who doesn’t have any background in building or development or real estate or anything to come into this situation, never have any formal training, and then be expected to go through this volume of documents and know what the heck is going on. MRS. BRUNO-Right there, what you just pointed out was one of those dysfunctional aspects that Gretchen was talking about. I agree with you. I think we should have the education. MR. BRYANT-I think it should be mandated. MRS. BRUNO-But I think it’s important that we take the time, too, I have to agree with Gretchen, that we take the time to determine what caused the dysfunction, because if we don’t dig into that, and take the time now, you’re right, it will continue to go over time, in the meetings. MR. ABBATE-And, you know, Mrs. Bruno, we do have a program already, Pace University School of Law has New York Zoning Board of Appeals and other Planning Board issues. There is a course available. All you’ve got to do is go to Mr. Baker. He’ll set you up. 16 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. VOLLARO-Well, I’ve looked at that course. I don’t want to get into that, because if we do, we get a little off track. Let’s get back on to Number Three. I think we’ve all talked about, we’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s going. We can talk about this a little bit later if we want. The third item here is the late submission of review material. We have this requirement that review material comes to the Board, comes in to Staff by th usually the 15 of the month, but we’ve got material that comes in late, that we get late, or don’t get, and I think that you and I, Chuck, have agreed that if it comes in late, we don’t want to see it, okay, or, B, we can say continue the hearing without benefit of the review material. I’ve done that a couple of times now with saying all the material’s not in. If you want us to continue reviewing this application, we will, but we don’t have benefit of anything you’ve submitted late, or we can table it to the next available date, one of those two options, and that’s another thing. We can cut meetings very, very short and very quickly, if we find stuff is not available, we just table it, and don’t talk to the applicant and say, well, I just want to talk to you now about, and they do that. They’ll ride us on to a point where they want to continue talking, and I’ve got probably, as Chairman, I may learn a little bit more about how to shut things down. I can, but I don’t want to be rude to people. That’s a big problem I have. Personally. MR. ABBATE-It’s not a question of being rude. It’s a question of following procedures. Nobody should be upset about following procedures. MR. VOLLARO-That’s true. I understand that. MR. BRYANT-There are a couple of flaws in that tabling thing. One of the flaws is that eventually it catches up with you. You start tabling a lot of things. The second thing is, you’ve got, it’s already been announced, whatever, and everybody’s been notified. You’ve got the public there who wants to participate, and then all of a sudden you want to table the thing. MR. VOLLARO-Well, one of the reasons we go to completion reviews, and I think you said you think there’s value in it. One of the reasons we do that is to try to eliminate as much tabling as we can. Because what Chuck and I are doing when we’re reviewing these applications, we’re seeing if it’s flawed in any way where a tabling is problematic. MR. BRYANT-What Chuck has done now in a couple of cases, where these attorneys decide to bring volumes of information to the table the night of the hearing, he’ll say, well, this is fine, Counselor, but we haven’t had the time to absorb this. If you want to continue without this information, we can continue tonight. If you want this information included in the record, then you have to table it. MR. MC NULTY-I think, however, when we do that, we’re abdicating our responsibility. I don’t think we should leave it strictly to the applicant whether it would be tabled or not. If there’s a piece of information there that is quality information, I would want it before I make a decision. MR. ABBATE-Not that evening, 40 pages? MR. MC NULTY-Not necessarily that evening, but I don’t want to ask, necessarily, the applicant, do you want to continue without us looking at this or not. It’s not his choice. We have to make the best decision and I think we should decide. We’ve got 40 pages. We don’t have time to look at it tonight. It will be tabled. MR. BRYANT-Not really, because if it’s not included in the record, it’s not something that we consider. MR. MC NULTY-Yes, but this is not a court. When you say we’re quasi-judicial, but that means just as much as it says that we are kind of like judicial, it also says, just as emphatically, we are not a court. We have a responsibility to the Town of Queensbury citizens. They expect that we’re going to take their side into consideration without them having to be here as a prosecutor or a defendant to speak about the other side. MR. ABBATE-We don’t take anybody’s side, Chuck. That’s not our function. MR. MC NULTY-The point is we have a responsibility to the Town of Queensbury citizens to enforce the Zoning Code. MR. ABBATE-That’s correct. MR. MC NULTY-They should not have to be present to present their side of the case. 17 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. ABBATE-We have a responsibility to provide a fair an unbiased hearing, and our decision is based upon the evidence contained in the record, and no more, that’s the law. MR. BRYANT-In the record. So if they bring something and then they decide, well, we don’t want to give it to you or we don’t want to wait, we want to go ahead with the thing, it’s not in the record. MR. MC NULTY-Yes. Heaven forbid we should make an intelligent decision. MR. BRYANT-Some of the things that they bring at the last minute are not even bearing on the case. MR. MC NULTY-Granted, but a quick review would tell us whether it looks like it might be useful or not, and if it should be useful, I don’t think that option should be left for the applicant to decide. If it’s good information that’s going to contribute to an intelligent decision, we should table it. MRS. BRUNO-I agree. MR. MC NULTY-I think that the Board has a responsibility. MR. ABBATE-That’s not our decision to make. That’s the decision, you can’t dictate to the appellant what to do. MR. MC NULTY-Sure, you can. MR. ABBATE-That’s the appellant’s decision. MR. MC NULTY-Not in that case. We’re the one’s that’s hearing it. MRS. BRUNO-We’re looking out for the betterment of Queensbury. MR. ABBATE-No, you people are getting it all wrong. We don’t have a role to look out for, our role is to provide a fair and unbiased hearing, not on the benefit of the Town. We’re not, we don’t advocate for the Town. Under no circumstances, nor do we advocate for the applicant, under no circumstances. That’s not our role. MRS. BRUNO-I don’t mean the Town as in Dan Stec or the Town Board. I mean the Town as a whole, our community, as our property. MR. ABBATE-That’s covered under the five statutory criteria. We do that under our five statutory criteria. MRS. BRUNO-But I think if you, I’m not going to repeat what Mr. McNulty said. I think he said it quite well, that if there’s some piece of information that the person should look at. MR. ABBATE-Let me ask you a question. Do you have a legal background? MRS. BRUNO-No. MR. ABBATE-Have you been to legal school? MRS. BRUNO-No. MR. ABBATE-Have you taken any legal courses? MRS. BRUNO-No. MR. ABBATE-Thank you. MRS. BRUNO-This whole thing isn’t just legal, though. I have a younger sister who just graduated from law school, and there are times that I might disagree with her as well, because there is something called the essence of what’s going on. MR. ABBATE-We’re getting off base anyway. MRS. BRUNO-I don’t think so at all. 18 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. VOLLARO-If we do our completion review, and everything is supposed to be in by th the 15 of the month, and if it’s not in at completion review, I, for one, would agree with Chuck, it gets tabled, because we don’t have a good opportunity to look at the information that hasn’t been submitted MR. ABBATE-But that’s not what he’s saying. I agree with you. MR. VOLLARO-I think we’re all saying the same thing. th MR. ABBATE-In other words, if this document is not presented by 4:30 on the 15 of July, okay, us, we have to accept it, we can’t reject it. We have to accept it, we don’t have to hear it. MR. VOLLARO-That’s correct. MR. ABBATE-I agree. If that’s what you’re saying, I agree. MR. VOLLARO-But it’s an acceptance, really, it goes into Staff, Staff kind of holds that document. They know now, by the discussions they’ve had with us, at least I want to know it’s there, but I don’t, but I’m not going to include it. MR. ABBATE-Let’s be realistic about this thing, Bob. At 4:30 on the evening of a hearing, we received 40 pages of documentation. You mean to say that, according to Chuck, we should take the time, where there are people waiting. MR. MC NULTY-I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that if it’s 40 pages, and a quick flip through it indicates there’s some valuable information in that, that says, then, the Board should table it. Never mind whether the applicant wants to table it or not. If there’s information in there that might change our decision, then the answer is, table it so we have time to look at it. MR. ABBATE-Okay. What do you do if the attorney says, files an Article 78 and says we tabled it and wouldn’t let it be heard? Then what? MRS. BRUNO-Then you deal with that. MRS. STEFFAN-They submitted the information late. MR. MC NULTY-We didn’t refuse to hear it. We just refused to hear it that night. MR. ABBATE-I’m not disagreeing with you. Maybe I’m not making myself clear. We have to offer the appellant the opportunity to hear their case that evening, even if they submit late recommendations, and we basically say, fine, we’re willing to hear your case, but you may not address the evidence, duly presented evidence this evening, until we have had time to assimilate this information, and then we will reserve 62 days after assimilating this information, to make a final decision. To arbitrarily tell the applicant, since you submitted 40 pages this evening, we’re going to table this, wouldn’t stand up for a judicial review. MR. MC NULTY-Okay. Well, what you’re saying now is in effect the same thing. What I’m saying is you don’t say to the applicant, do we ignore that and make our decision tonight. The answer is you’re not making a decision that night. You’re eventually going to table it. Whether you table it before you talk to the applicant or whether you table it after you talk to the applicant, you’re going to table it until you have a chance to look at the 40 pages. MR. BRYANT-See, that’s one of these situations where we’re a little bit different. I don’t know if the Planning Board has the same provision. We hear a case and let’s say we get late information and they still want to go on, whatever the story is, we don’t have to render a decision that night. MR. ABBATE-That’s correct, 62 days. MR. BRYANT-We can go 62 days and render a decision in 62 days. Okay. You have the same flexibility? MR. HUNSINGER-Actually we have more flexibility. We can table it and require them to submit more information. The 60 day rule, 62 day rule doesn’t kick in until after we complete SEQRA. Only after we complete the SEQRA. 19 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. BRYANT-Well, I’m not talking about tabling. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m talking about rendering a decision. Only after we complete SEQRA do we then have to make a resolution within 62 days. MR. ABBATE-You have 120 days, don’t you, Bob? MR. VOLLARO-We have 62 days. MR. HUNSINGER-From when we complete the SEQRA process. We can tell an applicant, look, you don’t have enough information for us to complete SEQRA. We’re going to table this until next month or two months out. MR. ABBATE-Yes, I think you could do that in that case. MR. HUNSINGER-We do it all the time. MR. ABBATE-That’s okay, but I don’t see any problem with that. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m saying it’s different. We have more flexibility. MR. ABBATE-Yes. See, that’s a good point. The Planning Board has so much more flexibility than we do, and everything that I do, in the back of my mind, is this. Will the Town Attorney be able to successfully defend the Town and the ZBA. So if I shy away from something, it’s because of caution. MR. VOLLARO-Well, the fact that we’ve got as much flexibility as we have, I think, works to our benefit in some cases and it works to our detriment in others. The flexibility produces a lot more dialogue than perhaps we should be getting into. That’s part of our problem I think. We’ve got so much, I think Gretchen pointed it out, when you’re doing a review and you’ve been on the Board a while, you know you’ve got 179 to look at. You know you’ve got the Comprehensive Land Use Plan that you should put in. You know 136 is in the plan. You know 147 sits with Lake George. We’ve got all of these things that are constantly going on in our minds about the review, and, you know, that’s what causes as much dialogue on our Board as it does. MR. HUNSINGER-I think your comment, Chuck, I think we should all have that. I think we should all have in the back of our minds, would this case, would our deliberation, stand up in the court of law. MR. ABBATE-Exactly, and that’s what I’m saying, guys. MR. HUNSINGER-Based on how we’re dealing with it, and I think we all should treat everything this way. MR. ABBATE-Right, and I worry about that. Because here’s what happens. When the Supreme Court comes down, they come down on the Chairman, not on the ZBA members, because of improper procedures, and that’s why I spend the time down with the Town Counsel, and that’s why, now, I have to sign affidavits and the whole bit, but you know, and let me be fair to the Planning Board, too. The Planning Board is a more complicated kind of thing. You folks have to consider so many other things, than the Zoning Board of Appeals does. I’m safe and I feel comfortable in the ZBA because we’re dealing with the law. It’s basically black and white, and I don’t have a problem with that. You guys don’t. You guys have a much bigger problem than we do. I just wrote him a little note and I said, under no circumstances would I be on the Planning Board, you know why, I wouldn’t fit. MRS. STEFFAN-No, you wouldn’t. MR. ABBATE-I’m being very honest. So I understand your problem. You guys have a hell of a lot more problems than we do. I understand that. MRS. STEFFAN-There are many shades of gray, but we also, we used to have the benefit of having Counsel at all of our Planning Board meetings and we no longer have that. In my opinion, they helped us a great deal to keep us out of trouble and to answer those questions whether we were getting into muddy water, but we don’t have that benefit now, which has complicated the process. 20 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. ABBATE-See, and I want to give you another big example. Counsel can provide all of the advise they wish. We don’t have to accept it. We can reject it. That’s the difference. MR. VOLLARO-The big thing that I see with Counsel is that when it’s a matter of a legal matter, I would like them to be there. One of the things we do, Chuck, at the completion review meeting is, at least I dwell on, would we need Counsel there, and very often on one case that just went before us or one application, as I call it, happened to be an application that I said Counsel should be there, and they were there, and they helped us out tremendously that night. MRS. STEFFAN-But there was one meeting where there wasn’t a legal issue, it was on Lake George. We spent two hours at two meetings on it, and at the second meeting Counsel just happened to be there because they were waiting for another application to be heard, and told us that, you know, if they had been there the month before, then it never would have gone to the second meeting, and it’s frustrating. MR. ABBATE-Yes, I understand, and I see Counsel, too. I asked Counsel to be there last night for us, because of a complicated issue. We’re not afraid to ask for Counsel if we need it, but we don’t ask for Counsel because of the cost involved. Last year, if I’m not mistaken, we spent $362,000, which equates to $1,000 a day for every day of the year for legal fees. Well, I know it’s a fact. MRS. STEFFAN-Is that for Zoning Board only? MR. ABBATE-No, that’s for everything. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. That would be eaten up very quickly with one lawsuit. It’s a good insurance policy. MR. ABBATE-Again, I don’t mean to be harsh, but I have to stand firm, because right now we have pending before the Supreme Court four cases, and that’s costing the Town a bundle. MRS. STEFFAN-I’m sure. MR. ABBATE-One case has been before us over a year, something like that, and that costs us money. MRS. STEFFAN-But one of the other issues that I’m extremely frustrated with is the amount of time, the cumulative time of all the people sitting here. I track all my time. I know how many hours I’ve spent in the last two and a half years on this Board. I get paid $55 or $60 to be at a Planning Board meeting which is no big shakes, but when you’re spending 20, 30, 40 hours, up to 50 hours a month, for free. MR. ABBATE-Like we are, the Chairmen. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, and I get a little bit frustrated and hot under the collar when I’m getting told that I need to do this and I haven’t done this, in Town dialogue, recommendations on things we should be doing, things we should be looking at differently, public comment that comes up. Trust me, the frustration level from that kind of criticism is overwhelming, and the other thing is that, look how many, we don’t have any alternates on the Planning Board at this point. Our alternates are now full time Planning Board members. There’s a couple of folks on the Planning Board that are ready to pull the pin and bail out, and it’s because of burnout, and it’s because of some of these issues that we’re talking about. MR. ABBATE-We don’t have that problem on the ZBA, and I can assure you that each ZBA member is independent, I can assure you, and they are not bashful. They say whatever they wish to say, which I think is fantastic. So we don’t have that kind of a problem. Nobody, basically, tells us what to do. They don’t dare to. You guys, you’re much different than we are, and I understand you have a hell of a lot more responsibility in another area than we do, much more than I would care to become involved in personally, and I understand that. MR. VOLLARO-Well, you know, just to tell you, we’re going to be seven and seven this month. MR. ABBATE-I know. I was there today. 21 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. VOLLARO-And you’re four and three. MR. ABBATE-No, we’re three and three. I got rid of one. MR. VOLLARO-That’s a difference, very basic difference. MR. BRYANT-Well, if you have a schedule of seven and seven, why aren’t you having a third meeting? MR. ABBATE-I said that. MR. VOLLARO-Well, if you look at Number Four, it says use of a third monthly meeting when an agenda contains several difficult applications, but I’d like to go even further than that. I’ve looked at all of the time that our Board has spent on each application, and I get that by looking over at the debriefing material. Because she says how long it takes, and I’ve calculated that we do about 50 minutes, over the last March, April, May, June and July, four months, about 50 minutes. Now I don’t know who’s fault that is, maybe it’s mine as Chairman, that I don’t know how to run the meeting well, I don’t cut the public off fast enough or whatever. What I’m saying is that if we do, if 50 minutes is any where near accurate, then if we do five applications in 50 minutes, that’s four hours. Four hours, just a tad over four. That’s eight, nine, ten, eleven. That’s the way to get out at eleven o’clock, in my opinion. So what I would like to do, in talking to Planning Board members now, is that, one of the views I would have is I would like to probably, at a meeting, make a resolution that we do ten meetings a month, and not fourteen. Seven is just too much in today’s world. MR. BRYANT-We discussed that at one point. The reality is, as Chairman, you’re going to be able to determine which cases are going to be more difficult, and what are going to take more time. MR. VOLLARO-I’ll tell you what, I try and it never works out that way. Circumstances, are you agreeing with me or not. I don’t know. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m totally agreeing with you. Probably every Planning Board member here can say the same thing. You leave your house it’s quarter of seven, and your spouse asks you what time are you going to be home. I’ll be home at ten o’clock tonight. Twelve o’clock comes around and we’re not through with the agenda. Or, once in a very great while, maybe even one out of one hundred times, you’ll say, it’s going to be a long night, and you get out early. A lot depends on how many people from the public show up, and we never really know what’s going to create a major controversy in the neighborhood. MR. VOLLARO-As soon as the public shows up, they can cut into your meeting on the five minute bell, four of them are cutting into 20 minutes of your meeting time, just like that. So, you know, when you think you can get out in 50 minutes. Sometimes, but anyway. MR. HUNSINGER-And probably half our cases, we don’t get any public comment at all. So we really never really know if we’re going to have 15, 20 people to hear, or zero. MR. ABBATE-That’s true, you’re right. MR. VOLLARO-But I guess one of the things I’d like to come out of this meeting with is some consensus by at least the Planning Board members that we think about, as a result of what went on here tonight, think about, because we have, in our plans and procedures right now, I guess it’s on Page 11, that complete application received during the previous month but not to be placed on the agenda in excess of 14 items. I’d like to see if we could modify our plan and procedures to make that 10 rather than 14. I’ve talked this over with the Zoning Administrator. I know there’s a blackboard downstairs. It contains a tremendous amount of stuff. We’ve got 28 meetings here, and I figure we’ll get 10 more applications, at least, in July. There is no rule or law that I know of that says that the Planning Board has to move at warp speed to do these. MR. UNDERWOOD-I would think, too, it would put the onus more on the applicants, too, because I know in many instances in the past, I mean, we’ve had applicants come in and, you know what the Code says. You know what the density allowance is and things like that, especially when subdivisions come in before you and, you know, they’ll come in with some pie in the sky number. You read it and you go, the first thought in your mind is 22 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) you’ve got to be kidding me, and you’re saying to yourself why not, in that instance, just say to those people, you know, this is so far out of whack with reality, I’m not even going to look at it, and our Board’s not going to look at it either until you come in with a reasonable number, and I think in essence, too, you know, as time goes by in the community, and as you were saying, as build out occurs and as you get into more difficult sites and CEA’s and things like that, you’re going to have to, people are going to have to become reasonable, and the other instance that I would suggest to the Planning Board is, come up with ideas. In other words, when you’ve got a lakefront waterfront property, you have many instances in the Town where you have best use, in other words, the attorneys will come in, they’ve done their homework, they’ve come in with a reasonable plan. It’s palatable to everyone, and I think in that instance you can pull that out of the file and say, look, here’s an example. If you want to go up and see this, go up and look at this one. This is one that was done properly, and it would cut down on the instance and the number of ridiculous items that come before you. In other words, by the time you’re through, it’s right what the Codebook says, I mean, from some huge number that’s way up here or something and as you said, you can submit numbers that are way up in the air like that if you want to, but, you know, if they want to waste your time, I mean, don’t let them waste your time with stuff like that. I don’t understand why it’s allowed, Number One. I think it’s unreasonable to expect your Board to have to sit there and deliberate items that aren’t negotiable. MRS. STEFFAN-This month we did it with one application. There was a second time we saw it. I made a motion to table it the first time it came up. When it came back this time, the engineering comments numbered 40. The Staff comments numbered 19, and that’s when I said, Mr. Chairman, there are so many outstanding issues here, this application needs to be tabled. The applicant was shocked, but my point of view is I shouldn’t have to do more work reviewing it than they did preparing it. MR. UNDERWOOD-And the whole idea, you know, when you guys were facing the moratorium issue, and that came up, why did it come up? And I think in that instance it was unfair to the collective responsibility of your Board, representing the interests of the community, not to have thrown up a red flag and said, wait a minute, wait a minute, this has gone way out of whack, way out of control. Too much is coming in here, and it would slow the pace down, and that way if you guys had only 10 items a month, all right, these guys are not going to come in and get blown off and just say, look, I’m sorry, you gave us this information, it’s missing all this information. It’s improper to do that. I think eventually you would see that everybody, the applicants would come in before you and they would be more realistic to begin with, and you’d be starting at a reasonable level of expectation, instead of some ridiculous example. MR. VOLLARO-There was another thought, too, that was proffered by somebody. I don’t know who it was. I think it was Mr. Ford, who said why don’t we start earlier, maybe one hour earlier, at six rather than seven, to try to get us out of there a little earlier, but I would still try and say that five should be the most that we should look at in any one night, should be five, and there’s no reason why, you know, we shouldn’t be penalized if we leave at nine o’clock. I mean, you know, there’s no penalty for the Planning Board to go home at nine o’clock, if we happen to have a soft night. So what. MR. ABBATE-We leave at twenty after eight. We don’t yield at all. MR. MC NULTY-If you can get a nine o’clock, you deserve it. Some thoughts on this. One, if you’ve got something like 28 or 30 applications hanging there, then there certainly is somewhat of an obligation to the citizens or the applicants or whoever to try to get to them as quick as you can. At the same time, I think like we said earlier, once you go past about eleven, you’re starting to get fuzzy and past midnight, you’re not doing the job, and it’s not just the Board members. It’s the applicant and everybody else. So a cut off at eleven or twelve is a good target. It can’t be an iron clad thing but it’s a good target to go for, and the only other solution I can see is if you cut back, you’ve got a problem now at 14 a month, you’re going to cut back to ten which gets you to a reasonable length of meeting, but that then suggests maybe add a third meeting, which can be a hardship on your members right now because you’re down with no alternates. If you get to the point where you’ve got alternates, then you’ve got the option of using them on the third meeting. If there’s somebody on the Board that can’t afford to spend the time for being at three meetings a month, let them attend two meetings and kick and alternate in there for one or two meetings, and if you used alternates for two meetings, each alternate covers two meetings, you could split that up so there’s not too many people that really have to come to three meetings a month. MR. ABBATE-Absolutely. 23 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. MC NULTY-And yet you’re still getting through a few more applications. MR. ABBATE-As a matter of fact, what I was going to do, and I spoke to Roy Urrico last night, and he gave me permission to say, I’m going to recommend at our next meeting that we do a motion, a resolution that we hear no more than five a night, and I spoke to Roy, and Roy gave me permission to state that he supports that concept. So you’re not alone in that thinking, and at our next meeting, I’m going to raise that same issue. You’re right, Chuck, anything past 11 o’clock, we’re getting older. MR. MC NULTY-But even if you’re not older, most of the applicants, and the attorneys have been working all day. They show up at night another four, five hours, that’s enough. MR. ABBATE-Staff works all day, and you have senior citizens who work all day. You have the public basically who works all day. MR. STONE-Courts of law adjourn in the middle of a trial, every single day. So why can’t we set, you set, a time limit. After eleven, no further discussion. We’ll take it up next week. MR. ABBATE-I suggested that, and here’s what I was told by Town Counsel. Okay, yes, you’re right, I suggested that. The problem she suggested is this. If we have scheduled, let’s say, seven cases, and we’ve only heard five and it’s quarter to eleven, the problem is this. Since we’re charged with, and we schedule an individual to be heard, the problem that if we say it’s quarter to eleven, we’re going to finish this case and the next two are not going to be heard, that might be cause for litigation. That’s what I was told. So I said, okay, then how about this? I said, I want to reduce it. She said you could reduce it, as Chairman, to as many cases as you want, and that’s what I’m going to do. MR. BRYANT-I’ll tell you. I’m opposed to saying five and that’s it, and I’m going to tell you why, give you a clear example. We had one last meeting that was tabled. You knew it was going to be tabled. Staff knew it was going to be tabled. It was a two minute job. You mean you’re going to say, we’re only going to do five cases, and then you’re going to go on one that you know is going to be tabled in two seconds. MR. ABBATE-No, that would be unfair. MR. BRYANT-I like the way you’re doing it now. You analyze the cases, okay. Sometimes you have four, sometimes you have five, sometimes you have seven, but he knows what type of case it is, what kind of objection we’re going to have. I like the way it’s done now. Because frankly we’re getting out at a reasonable hour. Sometimes we go beyond eleven, but it’s very rare, and it’s been working a lot better. MR. ABBATE-I know. MR. MC NULTY-I’ll echo that. I think the Chairman, in combination with Staff, can intelligently look at these, make an intelligent estimate. MR. ABBATE-That’s what I’m trying to do, Chuck. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do. MR. MC NULTY-And it may be artificial for us to say five. The Planning Board may be a different situation where they need to say five to compensate. MR. HUNSINGER-We have the two minute cases, too. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-And in fact one of the things that we’ve been doing lately is we approve Preliminary review and then we table until Final, just to get a clean plot, and we said that those wouldn’t count toward our maximum number, because we literally spend five minutes on them. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Did you put this label on, did you mark this, did you mark that, yes, you’re done. It’s literally a two minute review. So those shouldn’t count. 24 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. VOLLARO-No, those shouldn’t count, but I would like to hold five as the nominal number, and then when we’re setting the final agendas, and we see these two minute guys, stick it on, that’ll be Number Six, but it’s right up front, boom, boom, boom and it’s done, or there’ll be a couple up there that we know are going to be tabled because they have no information and we just automatically table them to another date. I’m just saying hold five to the ones that we know we’ve got to do due diligence on. MR. ABBATE-I’ll go with whatever the Board wants I’m flexible. If you guys are happy, fine, that’s okay with me. I don’t have a problem with it. I take a look at them and I say, we can get rid of this in about two seconds, and I say, this looks like it might run about two hours, and we had one that ran two hours and fifty-five minutes the other night, which is unusual, but, yes, okay, if you’re happy. Let me explain to Planning Board members. The rapport that you’re seeing this evening goes on even during the hearings, okay. We bust and we have a lot of humor, too. So what you’re seeing is not unusual, for what it’s worth. MR. VOLLARO-I’m just saying that I would like our Board members, the Planning Board members, to think about bringing this down from 14 to 10, and what I can do is when I go to set the final agenda, I can say, this is going to be two minutes, this is going to be two minutes, and I might put seven on, but knowing that I’m going to be able to close two fast, and we’ve got five to really think about. We’d have to make a resolution to this effect when we sit at the Board the next Tuesday I guess it is. MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t know if we really need a resolution for that. The policies say the maximum number of items is 14. There’s nothing that would prohibit us from not doing 14. MR. VOLLARO-True. MR. HUNSINGER-But if you’re looking for a consensus, that’s different. I guess my own feeling is I’d be willing to try it on a trial basis, and that’s kind of how we got to the maximum that we have now is we said let’s try it for a few months, see if it helps. MR. VOLLARO-And we could say we’ll do ten and when I sit setting the agenda, I may use the Chairman’s position to say, we’re going to have two but they’re guaranteed to be short, that we know is going to be quick. Try and do that, put the onus on me. If something happens you know you’re not doing too well. MR. ABBATE-And could I go back to what Lew says? Lew, you mention that even the courts stop in the middle of a session, and you’re absolutely right, and what I forgot to tell you and the rest of the Board members is this. The other consideration I was told was this, why we can’t cut off at eleven o’clock and leave cases hanging, I forgot to tell you, and this is critical. The rationale that I got was this. Is that really fair to the public? Let’s take a group of 10 or 20 people who are waiting to hear case Number Seven, they come in at seven o’clock. They wait, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, only to be told, go home. That was another consideration. Is that a good thing? I’m not so sure that’s fair to the public. I forgot to mention that. MR. VOLLARO-Not only that, if you do that, if you’re sensitive to what Staff has contend with downstairs where you and I stare at the blackboard every day, we’re telling them, we didn’t finish that. You’re going to have to rearrange your schedule so that. MR. ABBATE-And that causes a serious problem. MR. VOLLARO-And there’s a big burp in altogether. MR. HUNSINGER-And legally, since the items were warned as a public hearing, if you do that, you have to open the public hearing and table the public hearing for all the items you didn’t get to. MR. ABBATE-There you go. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. MR. VOLLARO-And that’s the reason why eleven o’clock has never worked well. It just hasn’t, and it’s not an option, in my book. The only option I see to help us out to do due diligence for us, for the public and for the Town is to give us the time to work on these applications, so we don’t have to be there until midnight. MR. ABBATE-Let me reverse your position here. You indicated earlier that we should work in the best interest of the Town, and I gave a long dissertation. Now I’ve got to 25 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) back up a little bit. Tomorrow, I’m going to do just that, because the Executive Director of Community Development has given me permission to ride around with the Code Enforcement Officer so I truly understand what’s going on. So what I said was because of a legal thing, but now I’m saying you’re not all wrong. MRS. BRUNO-I knew I wasn’t. MR. ABBATE-So tomorrow, gentlemen, ten o’clock, and I’m going to be taking notes, too, because my position is everybody, I said this the other night. Everybody should be cited, well, they’re going to say, why don’t you ride with the Code Enforcement Officer and I said I will, and I got permission today to do it, starting tomorrow. Just to see what the hell’s going on. If anybody wants to go with me, let me know. Anyway, you can see we’ve got a pretty darn good Board. I’m really proud of the members of the Zoning Board of Appeals. I can’t help it. They are. We’ve got a group of men and women who have a high degree of integrity. They’re independent, and they say what they have to say. MR. VOLLARO-I would have to say, we have a hardworking Board, and a Board that’s gotten quite sophisticated over the years, because a lot of members really understand what’s going on. So it’s a struggle. A lot of it’s a struggle. We look at some fairly large subdivisions. One is coming up that’s a huge subdivision that’s coming up that we got a Sketch Plan on the other night. It’s going to be a bear. Stormwater wise it’s going to be really tough, and when you start to take a look at what specification you should be using when, in terms of stormwater, whether you should go to 179 or whether you should flip over to 147, and Board members are just starting to get 147 started. I just started reading it, and getting some depth on it. MR. ABBATE-And let me say this, that the meetings that I’ve had with your Chairman on the Planning Board, I’ve learned a tremendous amount. Just the other night I used what I learned, what he taught me, quite frankly, he taught me a lot, about Critical Environmental Areas, and now I understand there’s going to be a resolution that no building permit, it’s going to the Town, can be issued, etc., etc. I learned more about The Golden Corral that I didn’t know before. So the interchange between your Chairman and me, to me, has been tremendous. You’ve helped me out a lot, Bob. I want you to know that. You’ve taught me a lot, because I don’t know the first thing about anything, other than basically the law. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, well, you’ve taught me a lot, too, about what takes place at Zoning Boards, I think one of the benefits we’ve got is being two chairmen who can walk arm and arm together here and understand each other’s problems, and learn from each other. It’s a great asset. MR. BRYANT-What’s Number Five on the agenda? MR. VOLLARO-Number Five on the agenda was really just open discussion. I think we’ve had that now pretty well. MR. SIPP-Bob, getting back to the third meeting, is there any consensus among the Planning Board members? I would say that if it’s necessary, it’s necessary. Is there any reason why a person cannot get up at 10:30 and leave the room if they feel that they’re not being, if a Board member cannot lead because he feels that he’s not sharp enough or he has to get up at five o’clock in the morning, why can’t he? MR. ABBATE-He can. A Board member can recuse themselves anytime they wish. MR. SIPP-So we had a situation the other night where I thought it would be a half hour on one of those cases and it turned out to be over an hour because we discovered that the Sketch Plan was missing some vital information, and we had a long discussion on that. These things happen, where things are discovered during the questioning period, and asking questions, you discover sometimes that you’re pretty sure the applicant is lying to you, but you can’t prove it. MR. ABBATE-We never have an applicant who comes before the ZBA that practices deception, never. MR. STONE-Bite your tongue. MR. SIPP-So, if we have a third meeting, I can see no reason why this wouldn’t work, if somebody has to leave or feels that they want to leave, then they can. 26 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. VOLLARO-Well, the reason for the third meeting, this last month, was when I sat with the Executive Director and we went over the programs that were scheduled. We started putting times on them, and it was his times not mine. He said, Bob, on this one, you’re going to be there until 1:30 in the morning, there’s a lot of tough ones here, and sometimes they fall that way. MR. SIPP-It would have been, Tuesday night, had one not pulled out. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Well, yes, if one didn’t pull out, we would have been there late, late, late. Luckily it was a withdrawal. MR. ABBATE-Can I get back to Mrs. Steffan again? One of the major, in my opinion, one of the major sources, and I said earlier that the public’s becoming more sophisticated. One of the major sources of good information, probably unbiased in many instances, is the public. You’d be amazed. We have members of the public who are indeed sophisticated and very astute and they speak out before our Board and what have you, while I may not agree all the time, but there’s merit. So there is another instance where not only the appellants, practically nobody comes before us anymore without an attorney, and the public is more sophisticated and they’re not bashful to stand up and say I wish to be recognized, and that’s one of our problems, not a problem, but that’s one of the things that may possibly take time and what have you. MRS. STEFFAN-We get a great deal of public comment and some of it is very enlightening and it’s actually absolutely necessary because they often will provide us with information that we would have no way of knowing if they had not provided it for us. So certainly public comment’s a very important part of our hearing process. MR. ABBATE-And would it be appropriate this evening to take a consensus and write perhaps a letter from both you and I to the Executive Director of Community Development requesting that our honorarium be increased considerably, for all members? I don’t know if that’s appropriate or not. MR. VOLLARO-I don’t think it is. MRS. STEFFAN-We’ve talked about extra meetings and I’m very vocal about hours, and I don’t know whether I’m just whining or if I am expressing the sentiment of other people, but one of the reasons why, I have lots of reasons for being on the Planning Board, but community service should really be a source of pride, and it should not be a burden, and I have a full time regular job. I’m self-employed, and I give the Town a great deal of time, and when we’re considering three meetings, or in this case for me I had six meetings this month for the Town, and that doesn’t include all the preparation for the three Planning Board meetings, and the Ordinance Review meeting, but I don’t want to feel burdened, and I am feeling burned out. I know there are other members who are feeling that way, and so I think as we move forward and consider extra meetings, we need to consider the greater Board members and what they’re capable of. MR. VOLLARO-That’s why I’m asking for the Board to think about going down to ten a month as opposed to fourteen. I think that would eliminate a lot. If there’s a couple in the hopper that look like they’re going to be really fast, when we set the agenda, I can set those, I can put them in and say we’re only really going to do five, the others are going to, I’d have to guarantee that they’re going to be no more than five minutes, maybe a tabling motion, or something of that nature. MR. HUNSINGER-But let me just follow that logic, though, if the reason for doing that is because the cases are taking too long, we then should not be then turning around and saying, well, now we need a third meeting, because then we just defeated the purpose of limiting the number of cases a month. MR. VOLLARO-No question about that. I really think we can handle five without any trouble at all. I really do. MR. HUNSINGER-And what we’ve done in the past is Bob and Gretchen, you know and the newer members don’t know, perhaps, in the past, when there has been a big back log, we’ve said, you know, why don’t we have a third meeting, usually it’s July, because that’s when all the applications come in during the construction season, but once in a while to occasionally have a third meeting so we can get caught up on the back log is okay, too, but not to do it every month because projects are more complicated and we 27 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) need to spend more time on them, because that’s just defeating the purpose of limiting the agenda number. MR. VOLLARO-Absolutely true. I can see that. I know that Mr. Ford had asked me a question, and I did a calculation for him, and you had asked me how much time, and I’m locking in directly to Gretchen’s numbers, and I’ve done an honest assessment of what I put in in a month, and I’ve broken it down into detail, and it turns out to be about 40 hours a month, that I put in. So that’s basically a week a month that I put in on Planning Board work, trying to understand conversations with Staff, going down to these various review meetings and so on, because I think they’re necessary. I think it’s part of the Chairman’s responsibility to try to make sure that he understands everything that’s going to go before his Board. MR. FORD-Following that logic then, Bob, every Chairman in the future should either be employed part time or retired. MR. VOLLARO-Maybe that should be considered. I don’t know. It’s a good point. I don’t know. I don’t know how Chairman MacEwan did it when he did it for so long. I mean I think that Chairman MacEwan was a Chairman for I don’t know how many years, five or six years as Chairman, at least that, and he never seemed to be burdened at all. He’s a different personality than I am. We come from different places we people. Some of us do things differently. Our backgrounds dictate how we work, and that’s part of the problem. MRS. STEFFAN-It’s also, we can learn from history, but we also can’t look back. We have to look at the circumstances that exist today and what we can expect going forward, and that’s where our analysis should be, and our planning for the future, because we can’t continue on the path that we’re on right now, otherwise we will self- destruct. There’s no way that you will be able to staff these Boards and do the work that needs to be done if we continue this kind of scheduling. It’s just not going to happen. MR. HUNSINGER-To follow up on that, and maybe this is being overly optimistic, but the hope is that the new Comprehensive Land Use Plan will provide more direction to the Planning Board, so that the reviews won’t be as difficult and won’t take as long and be as complicated. Again, maybe that’s being overly optimistic, but that’s, you know, and that’s what’s keeping me going, to be honest, is to say, you know, we’re in this temporary place where things are not working well, but it’s going to get corrected at some point in the near future. MR. FORD-I sure support that and I hope that comes to pass, Chris, because it’s my belief that we are in this hiatus and we can go one way or the other, and it isn’t just incumbent upon the Planning Board or the ZBA, but upon Staff as well to follow that direction. I think that both Staff and Boards need to be saying no more frequently. I believe that there needs to be an improvement of communication and the quality of communication between Staff and our Board, and as was mentioned earlier, we all have different backgrounds. We bring, whether it’s education or engineering or administration or law or architecture or whatever it is that we bring to these Boards, we come from different places, and we melt together and try to make good decisions and we do the best that we can. One of the things where I feel that there is a great need in this community is that we, I’m looking at this as an administrator. This is what I’m bringing to it. So I’m used to organizational structure, line and staff organization. I’m looking at planning in our community and our Staff and I really see the need for, I want to make sure that our current structure, and I’m not sure that the current structure is such that is it efficient, effective, and well organized. I’m not at all sure that we have sufficient Staff, and those are all my concerns, and without any of those components, our entire community and the planning process are behind the eight ball. MR. ABBATE-Can I follow up on that, please? I would agree with you, and I’ve said it before, that I believe that we are, not the ZBA, the Staff, is understaffed, quite frankly. How can you have, and I think one of our Board members made it quite clear, I think it’s almost physically impossible to be competent attempting, asking one person to do the work of both for the ZBA and the Planning Board. It’s almost a physical impossibly. The complexities are so great. The second thing, you talk about, I think Mrs. Steffan talked about being burned out. Unfortunately what has happened today in my opinion is this, and I said it earlier. Queensbury is growing. Queensbury is becoming more sophisticated. The public are becoming more sophisticated. The appellants are becoming more sophisticated and the attorneys are becoming more sophisticated. What does that mean? Unfortunately it means, because of that, those of us who volunteer have to make greater sacrifices today than ever before. I really believe that. 28 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. VOLLARO-We’re going to have to have people who are willing to make those sacrifices. MRS. BRUNO-I think we already do. I think what you’ve demonstrated in terms of the number of hours that you put in and that I have been slowly gearing myself up to, that that’s happening. MR. ABBATE-So that’s where we’re at. MR. VOLLARO-I think we’ve kind of wrung this thing out pretty well. I think that the Staff has heard us speak. They know a little bit about what we’re thinking. I think we’ve come to a conscious level that says maybe we should examine the load we put ourselves under now, and go from there, because looking at 28 applications, some of them, admittedly, are light. I mean, I’ve looked at some of them. It’s not like, there’s not 28 hard ones in there, but like Mr. Hunsinger said, sometimes you look at one and you say, this has got to be a piece of cake, we could do this in 30 minutes. We get three people out there from the public who already chewed up the 30 minutes because you’ve given them, if there’s three of them, they’ve already taken half of your time. Just by public comment, and public comment’s very important. I think you learn a lot from the public. MR. ABBATE-We have no choice but to listen to public comment. MR. VOLLARO-None of us do. We should, none of us, consciously limit the public to coming in front of our Boards. MRS. STEFFAN-But our democracy ensures that people have the ability to speak out. MR. ABBATE-Absolutely right, and it’s called due process. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, absolutely right. MR. ABBATE-Could I mention, Staff, let me say this. I don’t want Staff to take a beating. From a personal point of view, I work well with Staff. We certainly don’t agree with everything. In many instances I’m sure they don’t agree with me, but I have to say this. That whatever I’ve asked of Staff, they’ve attempted to come through, as long as I was reasonable, and it’s obvious to me, and I truly mean this, they’re understaffed. You have one person, and I’m going to find out tomorrow, riding around with the Code Enforcement Officer, we have one, I think I’m right, one Code Enforcement Officer for the entire Town? Okay. For the entire Town. So now I’m going to find out what’s going on, and maybe I may have to retract what I said the other night, every person should be cited. I may be right, technically, according to the law, but it may be physically impossible because we don’t have the people to do it, but Staff, as far as I’m concerned, has been reasonable. I’m sure at times when they said no was right. Those times I asked for a black cartridge for my printer I didn’t get it. They may be right, but that’s okay. We have to agree to disagree sometimes. MR. STONE-Mr. Abbate, I just want to be sure, from Staff, that the transcript of this meeting will be made available to the Town Board. Okay, because as most of you know, I have one day and two hours and 50 minutes and I will have resigned from all my Queensbury positions, in anticipation of moving. I do intend, Monday night, to appear before the Town Board in their open forum, to do two things, one of which is to make a suggestion about the matter that you’re talking about, Mr. Abbate, enforcement. I, too, have had my discussions with the Executive Director, and I certainly agree with you that we need more, more Staff. I think this transcript from this meeting will hopefully alert the Board to what most of us think about what we need to do the job we’ve been asked to do, to do it better, to do it correctly, and to keep doing it, as Gretchen says, I mean, quite frankly, one of the reasons I’m leaving, not, we’re certainly planning to leave Town, but I, too, am tired. I’ve been involved a long time, and we are a sophisticated community. I would agree with Mr. Abbate. We do have people appearing before us that are very knowledgeable. I don’t think it’s necessarily new. I think we have surprised a lot of out of town lawyers over the years when they’ve come before us and they think they can roll over us and all of a sudden they find they cannot, and that’s to our credit, and that’s all of us, our credit, so I intend to make one parting very short swan song to the Town Board, and I do thank all of you, those I have worked with directly and those whom I have worked with obliquely, be the Planning Board or certainly directly with the PORC, for the opportunity to serve the Town of Queensbury. MR. VOLLARO-Thank you. 29 (Queensbury Zoning/Planning Board Meeting 6/29/06) MR. ABBATE-Does the Town Board have a five agenda limit like the ZBA? MR. STONE-I’ve got four minutes and 27 seconds. MR. ABBATE-Then I may go. MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Abbate, I think I’d make a motion that we terminate. MR. ABBATE-I don’t have a problem. Before we do that, do any of our ZBA members wish to say anything or add anything before we go? MR. BRYANT-Well, this has been a very interesting meeting. I’ve learned a lot about the Planning Board. I think maybe the Chairman of the Planning Board ought to spend a little time with the ZBA Chairman to hone in on his organizational skills, but other than that, it’s been a great. MR. VOLLARO-As a parting comment, Chuck, what Mr. Bryant says, maybe you ought to Chair the Planning Board one time and I’ll try Chairing the ZBA. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Robert Vollaro, Planning Board Chairman Charles Abbate, ZBA Chairman 30