Loading...
2007-12-20(Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SECOND REGULAR MEETING DECEMBER 20, 2007 INDEX Site Plan No. 48-2007 Schermerhorn Residential Holdings, L.P. 1. Tax Map No. 288-1-63, 64 Subdivision No. 8-2007 Sherwood Acres Construction Corp. 12. FINAL STAGE Tax Map No. 289.11-1-59.1, 30 Site Plan No. 55-2000 Queensbury Village Mobile Home Park 17. RECOMMENDATION Tax Map No. 308.6-1-61 Site Plan No. 58-2007 Great Escape Theme Park 26. Tax Map No. 288.20-1-20 Site Plan No. 65-2007 Great Escape Theme Park 36. Tax Map No. 288.20-1-20 Site Plan No. 62-2007 Great Escape Theme Park 40. Tax Map No. 288.20-1-20; 295.12-1-3, 4 THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO BOARD AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING MONTHS MINUTES (IF ANY) AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL OF SAID MINUTES. 0 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SPECIAL MEETING DECEMBER 20, 2007 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT CHRIS HUNSINGER, CHAIRMAN GRETCHEN STEFFAN, SECRETARY TANYA BRUNO DONALD SIPP THOMAS SEGULJIC STEPHEN TRAVER SENIOR PLANNER-STUART BAKER TOWN ATTORNEY-FITZGERALD, MORRIS, BAKER FIRTH-JEFF MEYER STENOGRAPHER-SUE HEMINGWAY MR. HUNSINGER-Good evening. I’d like to welcome everyone to the meeting of the Town of Queensbury Planning Board. Happy Holidays to everybody. SITE PLAN NO. 48-2007 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED SCHERMERHORN RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, L.P. AGENT(S) B P S R; JAMES MILLER, MILLER ASSOC. ZONING PO LOCATION SE CORNER OF GURNEY LANE & WEST MT. RD. APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 85,340 +/- SQ. FT. OFFICE BUILDING. OFFICE USES IN PO ZONES REQUIRE PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE PZ 6-03, SP 72-05, AV 2-06, AV 59-07 WARREN CO. PLANNING 9/12/07 CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL AREA RUSH POND CEA LOT SIZE 0.90 & 16.12 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 288-1-63, 64 SECTION 179- 4-020, 179-9-020 JON LAPPER & TOM NACE, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-For members of the audience, for those who have been following this project in the newspaper, as you may know, last week at the Zoning Board meeting, the Zoning Board has requested that the Planning Board take Lead Agency Status on a coordinated SEQRA review. Because we are now being asked to consider the Lead Agency status, we will not be taking any public testimony tonight. We will table the public hearing to a future date in January, at which time we will certainly hear from the public. The only action that we can take this evening is a decision whether or not we want to accept Lead Agency status, and that is the only action that will be considered. We will allow the applicant an opportunity to summarize the new information that was submitted since the last meeting, earlier in the month, and we may ask them some questions or ask them for more information, but no further action will be taken, other than the SEQRA Lead Agency status request. With that, if the applicant could come forward. MRS. BRUNO-Mr. Hunsinger, before we continue, I’d like to, as I have been over the past, recuse myself this evening, so that there’s no sense of impropriety. I will be sitting out in the audience. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Good evening. MR. LAPPER-Good evening. For the record, Jon Lapper and Rich Schermerhorn. As Chris said, at last week’s meeting, the Zoning Board ruled on the use issue that this a permitted use, and they asked for SEQRA. Before they determined our request for a parking variance, they asked the Planning Board to be Lead Agency for the SEQRA review. So, in response to that, we have now submitted an enhanced Long Form because the SEQRA Regulations require that if you decide to indicate your intention to be Lead Agency, you have to send out a notice to the other involved agencies. So we sent in a revised Long Form that includes an enhancement of all the stuff that’s happened over the last two months, basically categorized by the impact areas, traffic, stormwater, that archeological noise, etc. So this is just a current version with everything that’s happened. Most of these documents have been presented to the Zoning Board because we’ve had two meetings with the Zoning Board since we’ve last been here, two public hearings. So this is just the status of where we are as of today, so that you’ve got a current version to send out to the other agencies tomorrow, and just on a procedural issue, I’m assuming that you will want to be Lead Agency, because usually this Board 1 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) th does assume that role. I would ask that you schedule your next meeting on the 15, which is less than 30 days, but State agencies always want the Planning Board, the local Planning Board, to be Lead Agency, and I’m sure that we can shepherd it through the State agencies so it won’t take the 30 days, the default. I’m sure that we’ll get their notification back in a week or so, that they’d like you to be Lead Agency. So we would just ask you to put it on for the first meeting, in the hope that we could get to the Zoning Board for their first meeting, to move things along. MR. HUNSINGER-I guess I would ask Town Counsel what risk we would be taking if we tabled this for less than 30 days. MR. MEYER-The risk is we don’t hear back and you can’t do anything or take any action. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. So the risk is yours, basically. MR. LAPPER-Okay. We’ll take that risk. I’m sure that the agencies would want you to be Lead Agency. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Is there any other information you want to present this evening? We did get new information. MR. LAPPER-Yes. What we’ve submitted, and most of this was compiled in preparation for the Zoning Board meeting, but it’s all equally relevant to the Planning process, to the Site Plan Review. Our traffic engineers, Creighton Manning, and of course they’re here tonight to answer any questions, have been working with the County Highway Department, the State DOT, because they have jurisdiction on the two various roads, and also the A/GFTC, local transportation council. They had requested some additional traffic studies, or the traffic study be expanded to include intersections south of the project site, Aviation Road, Mountain View, Bonner, a bunch of other intersections, and they asked for some other information north of the project as well. So the traffic process went forward, and ultimately with additional mitigation our engineers had proposed, of course, the traffic light at the south bound ramps and DOT ultimately came back and said that they would also like to see a right turn lane coming off the south bound ramp to improve the level of service from what exists today and that was something that we’ll talk about more at Site Plan, but Rich has agreed to that. So those letters are now here. I know that the Planning Board was copied on those from the agencies as these reviews proceeded, but we’ve now compiled it. There’s nothing in here that’s different from what’s already in the record. It’s just organized better. So another important fact is that after one of the public hearings at the Zoning Board, or actually probably the last public hearing here, we went to Dave Wick, Warren County Soil and Water, to see if there was any other mitigation that he recommended for stormwater. What we did, since we were here last time, was that we, of course hearing the Board and the public, we moved the two drainage basins out of the CEA, and of course we moved the building out of the CEA. So the only thing in the CEA is a little bit of parking, but all of the stormwater from that parking drains out of the CEA into the pre-treatment basin and then the infiltration basin which are also outside of the CEA, just to make sure that there wouldn’t be any impact from the project on the CEA, I know that was something that was important to Tom at the last meeting. So we have a new review letter from your engineer, from the Town Engineer, and we also have a review letter from Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District, and that’s in here as well, and we also have now received a signoff letter from SHIPO on archeological. We had already one, but then because of putting the sewer line under the Northway, that was just an expanded area, so we had to supplement that, went back to SHIPO and they signed off on that as well. So for each of these areas, we’ve provided you with the correspondence. Usually when we get to the point of Site Plan, these are outside agency approvals that would happen subsequently, but because this process has been going on for a number of months, we’ve gotten to the point with these other agencies where we already have their review letters. So that’s where we are at this point, and we’re here with our consultant team to answer any questions. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I’ll open it up to the Board. Any questions or comments of the applicant? th MR. SIPP-In reading the traffic report, the first one I have is August 14. The next one th was in October, I believe, October 12, and then the last one that I received was October th 25. Going back to the first one, on Page 20, conclusions and recommendations, proposed office building is expected to generate 248 trips during the AM peak hour and 259 trips during the PM peak hour. Now where’s the rest of the 500? 2 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. LAPPER-The answer is that the employees come in staggered shifts. So everyone doesn’t arrive at nine o’clock, and because we know who the tenant is, the traffic engineers had the location of where people, and the hours that people start. So they did an exhaustive study with the Travelers Human Resources people. So we were able to, it’s not just from the ITE, Institute of Traffic Engineer’s manual, that’s real data from the employees. Now, of course, they’ll add employees over the years, that may change slightly, but in general those are real numbers, based upon what the peak hour’s going to be. Other people will come off peak hour. Their employees arrive at the site between six and ten. MR. SIPP-You’ll have, in the AM, 250 people arriving at an off peak? MR. LAPPER-No, that’s the peak hour. MR. SIPP-You’ve got 248 at peak. MR. LAPPER-Right, and the other ones, they would be coming between six and ten in the morning. So they’ll be coming spread out over the morning, because traffic reports generally deal with the worst case. So they deal with that peak hour. MR. SIPP-All right, now. Is this same thing, too, of leaving? MR. LAPPER-The hours are a little bit different, but the concept is the same. We’ve got the traffic engineers, so I’ll let them answer that. They’ve got all the details. MR. HUNSINGER-If you could identify yourself for the record. KEN WERSTED MR. WERSTED-Ken Wersted, Creighton Manning Engineering, the traffic consultant for the project. Yes, that’s true. It’s also for the afternoon, people start arriving to the office probably around six thirty in the morning. It won’t be very many people at that early in the morning, but as you get closer to when most of the people are going to be arriving there, between eight and nine, that’s when you’re going to see your heaviest traffic volume coming in. Now the people who got there early in the morning, you know, six o’clock, six thirty, they’re obviously not going to want to stay until five. So they’ll be allowed to leave the office earlier. So they might start leaving at around two or three o’clock in the afternoon, and the bulk of the people will be leaving between, you know, four and five or five and six o’clock. You also have some people who are arriving after nine o’clock, between say nine and eleven. Those people are obviously a lot less, and they’ll be staying later in the afternoon, and they won’t be leaving at five o’clock, but they may leave at six or seven o’clock at night. So when you look at everyone coming in and out of the development, there’s going to be one particular hour in the morning and one in the afternoon where you’re going to see the most traffic coming in and out, and at the other times, before and after those peak times, it’s going to be smaller amounts of traffic coming in and out. MR. SIPP-But you’re still putting 248 in within that AM peak hour. MR. WERSTED-Correct. MR. SIPP-And that would be eight to nine, or seven to eight? MR. WERSTED-Correct. It’s going to be one of those hours. It’s probably going to be eight to nine, and then in the afternoon it’ll be five to six when people are leaving. th MR. SIPP-Now if you take, on the traffic report from October 25, where you do a weekly vehicle count, and then average it out as to hours. So if we’re looking at the eight to nine average, Monday is 302, Tuesday is 304, Wednesday is 294. You skip Thursday. Friday is 313. So it averages out something around 304, and yet that average is not what you show, and why are you counting Saturday and Sunday? MR. WERSTED-Which report are you referencing, the October? th MR. SIPP-The weekly traffic, and it’s October 25, weekly traffic count. MR. WERSTED-And you’re looking at the counts in the back. Those are traffic counts of the cars that are actually on Gurney Lane, and so we counted Saturday because we had the tubes down there and they counted through the weekend. 3 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. LAPPER-Those were existing numbers, without the building. MR. WERSTED-Correct. MR. SIPP-Yes, but that tends to skew the PM one that for some reason is much higher, not much higher, but not as low as it would be on a Saturday count. Saturday count is 170 where you’re getting close to 300 during the week on the four o’clock, three to four o’clock, you’re getting close to what you have during the week, and that skews the average, as far as I can see. MR. WERSTED-The only averages that we use from that information is the week day information. We don’t use the weekend because the office isn’t going to be generating any significant traffic. You might have a handful of employees who are catching up on work, but for the most part they won’t be, the office will be empty on the weekend. So the weekend information that we collected on the road, you know, we don’t use with anything in particular for this analysis. MRS. STEFFAN-I have to admit, I went to the Zoning Board meeting last week, and as I was listening to some of the public comment, it occurred to me, and of course I live in that area, that when we’re looking at the parking variance, and looking at the potential of having 500 cars, and I think the parking variance was for up to 537 parking spaces, but if you look at that from a big picture point of view, if 500 cars came in the parking lot in the morning, or any time, it doesn’t matter what shift, and left, that would be 1,000 trips a day, and five days a week is 5,000 extra trips on the road, times 52 weeks. You’re looking at over 250,000 extra trips generated to that part of Town by this office complex, in a Rural Residential area, and I know that the traffic report that’s submitted, that it works, but, to me, it’s mindboggling. I live in that area, and I’m thinking, you know, in the grand scheme of things, over the course of a year, 250,000 extra trips is just a remarkable number to me. MR. LAPPER-Well, let’s just break that down a little bit, Gretchen. A quarter of those people are residents of the Town of Queensbury. So they’re either driving to where they’re driving now to go to work, or they’ll be driving here. They’re already on the roads. Everyone is on the road, because these are existing employees at that number. So it’s a question of moving a few a miles, so these are people that are already in the community, already on the roads, and this particular site, one of the beauty’s of this site, is that it is right next to the Northway and right next to Route 9. So this has major transportation corridor. So in terms of the impact on the neighborhood, there is Rural Residential nearby, obviously, Gurney Lane, Goggins Road, West Mountain Road, but what the traffic studies show, and the reason why the traffic review agency signed off on it is because they agreed with the data, and these, of course, are independent agencies, that the majority of these people are going to be getting right on the Northway or right on Route 9. So they’re not going to go into the residential areas. What we also talked about at the meeting last week was that there were very few residents who live within a quarter mile or even a half mile of this site, visually to look at it or to be impacted by traffic, but the real answer on traffic is that with that mitigation, even after adding these cars, the traffic system in the vicinity of this building will be functioning better than it is functioning right now, and we all know, if you’re going down the Northway and you get off and try to make a left turn towards Route 9, coming off that exit ramp, you’re sitting there for a while, because the people on the bridge have the right of way, and by installing that traffic light, the traffic is going to be improved for the people who live on Goggins Road and Gurney Lane, etc., from what it is now. There’s going to be less conflict. The traffic light will help that situation. I mean, so in terms of traffic, yes, I mean, peak hour, 250, 300 people, but the roads can handle it and these improvements will make it better. So we’ve designed for it. We’ve engineered for it, and that’s what the reports show, and that’s what the review agencies have said. MR. SIPP-I live in that area, Jon. You get a thundershower at three thirty, four o’clock in the afternoon, and Great Escape empties out, and you people are emptying out, and everybody up at the Outlet malls is running for cover, I don’t care what your figures say, practically, something’s got to fail. I’ve seen cars lined from the bridge over the Northway, back eastward to the corner on Route 9, in front of the County building, backed up in that turning lane, almost back to the entrance, or the exit off of northbound Exit 20. Now, that whole thing is a failure, and everybody agrees that Route 9 is a failure. You throw an extra 100 or 200 cars into the mix, and you’ve got a colossal failure. 4 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. LAPPER-That’s anecdotal evidence. You can’t just say, I mean, we’ve done the traffic counts. We’ve done the analysis. Again, these are people t hat are on the roads anyway. MR. SIPP-Yes, but that’s on paper. It doesn’t take into account the different scenarios that do happen on that road. MR. LAPPER-But you have to rely on DOT. That’s the State agency. They control the bridge, the Northway. MR. SIPP-And DOT would not put a light on Glen Lake Road because there weren’t enough people killed there. That was the story I got out of DOT. Now, if I’m going to listen to that agency, we’re going to have to go out and kill people in order to get a traffic light? RICH SCHERMERHORN MR. SCHERMERHORN-Mr. Sipp, I hear what you’re saying, but the last two Planning Board meetings that we’ve had, specifically the last one when I was in front of you, you made it very clear, very clear, that traffic was going to be the highest and most important, as well as stormwater on this project. As an applicant, I have to rely on, I have to follow the procedures that are put in place with the Town and the State and everything else. I left the last meeting and it was recommended to us that we explore Bonner Drive and Mountain View, Aviation Road, and all these other roads and corridors, and we went and went further than normally I guess you would do for these studies, but that’s okay, because I have to be able to make you guys say that, hey, this works, but Aaron Frankenfeld, his first letter, had a lot of concerns, a lot of concerns from Glens Falls Transportation. The other person is from Warren County, Jeff Tennison. I don’t know these individuals, but these are the individuals that I have to go to as an applicant, and then we have the State, New York State Department of Transportation. Well, all three of these agencies spent a lot of time and a lot of review, the minutes of all the meetings that we’ve had, and just knowing that the emphasis on this project, the main emphasis, I feel the Number One, but stormwater is right up there, but the number one emphasis has been the traffic. I’ve done all I can do as an applicant. I’ve taken to the proper authorities. They have, all three have signed off on traffic. I don’t know where I could go after I leave this room if you didn’t want the traffic. I don’t know where I could go. I’ve done everything, by law, and by zoning, that I could do. I guess, you know, if we left this room, and I know people don’t agree with the traffic, or the consultants, or their answers, but I certainly didn’t come up with them. I’m just following the procedures, and they’ve all signed off on the project, or on the traffic, excuse me, not the project. They have signed off on the traffic, the three State agencies. There’s nobody above the State level that I can go. There’s no other place I can go to convince anybody. I’m at the end for getting any results. So I don’t know what more I could possibly do in this situation. They have said, and if you read, you’ve probably read them, but you may not agree with them, but they have all signed off on the traffic, and we are taking the level of service from an F to a C, which was very important to Mr. Seguljic, because I heard the F is like getting a failing grade in school. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. SCHERMERHORN-But it was brought up to a C. So the information is saying, and the professional engineers that have signed off, are saying that I’m mitigating not only my project but I’m making the situation better than it is. So I don’t know what other answers or what other resources I could possibly give to the Board. If they’re available, I’d give them, but they’ve already signed off. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Any other questions, comments from the Board? MR. TRAVER-Yes. I would like to see some additional information, I guess it’s in the context of stormwater, but we’re talking about at least 547 vehicles in the area of that stormwater, and I think it’s a matter of common experience that vehicles are imperfect, that vehicles tend to weep a little bit of oil. They weep a little bit of perhaps antifreeze, whatever, and I’m wondering if we could get some information on, for example, what is the age of the average American automobile? I know we’re talking about 547 vehicles here, but if we said, what is the typical automobile, and then from an engineering standpoint, what can we reasonably expect this typical automobile to leave behind, in a day, in a year, or whatever, in terms of chemical residue, or whatever, just as a matter of normal operating procedure, and consider that in the context of the stormwater going into the watershed, how is that quantified and what is going to be the history of those 5 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) chemicals as it goes from the vehicle into the stormwater management system, and eventually into the watershed. MR. SCHERMERHORN-All right. Just quickly, my engineer is here, and he certainly could probably answer questions of that. From our last Planning Board meeting, again, the high emphasis was put on stormwater, and when I left the meeting, the last time with everyone, it was clear to me that stormwater absolutely had to be addressed. No if’s, and’s or but’s about it, and I think you hear Jon quickly say we moved the building out of the CEA. We’ve moved all the stormwater out of the CEA. Part of the parking lot is in the CEA, but it drains out of the CEA, but when I left here, and I was listening to the Glen Lake Association President, Mr. Derby, had some concerns, and I said, how can I address these concerns? Well, one thing I did do is sent him an e-mail and said if we can get together, let’s look at ways that maybe we could find ways to make this work. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I didn’t hear back, and that’s okay. So I went to the next level and I called Tom Nace and I said is there anybody at DEC, anybody that could give us a second review, because the Town Engineer had already given us a signoff at the last meeting for the stormwater. He said, well, there is a guy, Mr. Wick, Dave Wick is his name, Soil and Water. My understanding is he’s very, very, very well respected. So Tom sent the plans up to him, he reviewed them, and again, that’s all in your file. I don’t know how much reading you guys, or how much of a chance you’ve had to look at all this, but Dave Wick went through it and he actually said we doubled the standards. We doubled DEC’s standards, and he said the possibility of us having any impact on this was not there. He went on about the soils, how good they were. I mean, it’s a really, and I don’t know this gentleman, but that’s two signoffs that I got, one which is required, the Town Engineer. I did go to Dave Wick, and I certainly, hopefully Tom has the answers for you, but I just wanted to let you know, I did take another step which is not customary, I don’t want to say customary, it’s not required, and I took another level, and it was a clear signoff from Mr. Wick, which you’ll get to read, but I’ll certainly have Tom answer the question. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, and just for your information, for the, you know, information of the audience, I know there was some concern about us not accepting public comments this evening. We weren’t really sure until, quite frankly, yesterday morning, until we heard from Town Counsel what we were going to be able to accomplish this evening. So I’d ask the Board members to be prepared to talk about Site Plan Review issues, because they didn’t want to waste the opportunity to ask questions of you and to send you back to do some more research or provide additional information, but, you know, we have reviewed everything that’s been submitted so far. MR. NACE-Okay. Generally, in response to your question, most of the pollutants from the parking lot, the oils, the particulates, are tied up in the first couple of feet of soil that the stormwater goes through. I will see if I can find some authoritative reference and provide you with some backup information to back that up. MR. TRAVER-Yes, I think if we just had an idea, for example, the quantity, for one thing, of the very, first of all, what are the substances, and in what quantity? MR. NACE-Sure. MR. TRAVER-And I would like to see the issue of the wintertime management of that parking lot addressed as well, in terms of the sodium and so on, I’m assuming, that would be used. MR. NACE-Sure. MR. TRAVER-And what’s the lifecycle, if you will, of this chemistry, as it leaves the vehicles or the parking lot or the plow, or whatever, and as it passes through into the watersheds? MR. NACE-Okay. I will certainly provide that information for you. MR. TRAVER-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone else on the Board, questions, comments? Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-I think I need more information with regards to the visual impacts. I didn’t see anything in there with regards to wintertime when there’s not going to be as much foliage, and, Number Two, I didn’t see anything in there about, you know, it looked like you had floated balloons amongst the canopy, and I have no, it doesn’t give me any 6 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) indication of what that’s going to look like when that whole area is cut out. I can understand you can’t see a balloon in there now, but there’s, it’s heavily treed right now. What’s going to happen when all those trees are cut out? That’s what I’d really like to see. MR. LAPPER-We can provide some more testimony on that. Tom, I was driving by on the Northway today, and there’s a lot of evergreens along the Northway, and usually when there’s evergreens the low growth is pretty sparse and you can see underneath, and I think from the Northway you certainly can’t, but we showed last time, when you look at the Site Plan, with the exception of the area where the entrance drive is, and the area where the borrow pit is, the site is completely treed, and we talked last time that there’s eight acres of green space that, of buffer that we’re leaving, which is very substantial. You don’t usually have a project that’s 17 and a half acres in size and you’re leaving almost half of it as a buffer. We’re exceeding, of course, the Town buffer requirements, and so what Tom tried to do was to show you where the building would be in the center of this. The Site Plan, the revised Site Plan with the two story building shows it in the center surrounded by a lot of trees, but we will provide more testimony at the next meeting about that. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, maybe just to follow up on that, maybe to help with some context. I think one of the projects where we had been told the project wouldn’t be visible from the Northway would be the Dome, you know. MR. LAPPER-This is very different than that. MR. HUNSINGER-I understand that, but the buffer, the size of the buffer, if you could compare the size of the buffer of your project and the type of tree to the buffer that’s there. MRS. STEFFAN-It’s actually similar to the Pine Street development that you’re doing with the townhouses. MR. LAPPER-Right. MRS. STEFFAN-When we approved that, we thought that the buffers would be sufficient to, you know, protect the residents as well as the view shed from the road, but once the lot was cleared, that buffer’s really not sufficient. I mean, you can see right into the lot, and so I think that that’s the basis of our concern. MR. SCHERMERHORN-My understanding, I was in the Zoning Office, coincidentally, with the Dome situation. It was a clearing limit line, I guess, that got surveyed wrong, and I guess that was the reason why more trees were taken down. I happened to be standing in the office. So I don’t think it was deliberate that the Dome was visible. It was an accident by whoever was there, because I was standing in the Zoning Office when the call came in. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. LAPPER-I think those are two good comparisons, because you’re going to see that what we’re providing here is substantially more than those two projects, but Tom will provide you with some data on that. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay, and if that’s the case, I think that would be very useful to us. Yes. MR. SCHERMERHORN-A question for Mr. Seguljic. If there is anything with the stormwater, I don’t know if you had a chance to read Mr. Wick’s yet, but I certainly will take it further with stormwater if there’s more review that I need to do with it. MR. SEGULJIC-I guess, what Mr. Traver said. I’d like, you know, quantitative and qualitative analysis of the stormwater. MR. SIPP-Yes. Going along with that, we received, tonight, a thing from Jeffrey Holt of Holt Consulting. Have you seen any of this? MR. SCHERMERHORN-No. MR. LAPPER-No. 7 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. SIPP-Which he defines what happens with salt. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. That would be a public comment, Mr. Sipp, that would be, you know, certainly could be read into the record by Staff, but I would appreciate if Board members don’t bring up unsolicited information. MR. SCHERMERHORN-But I think, Mr. Sipp, I think you’re on the same line as Mr. Traver, wanting to know more about the products in the parking lot. MR. SIPP-Yes. MR. LAPPER-We’ll provide that. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, if you’re referencing a certain letter, I mean, I certainly don’t know if the applicant has seen or reviewed that letter. It’s not fair to them to. MR. SIPP-Well, we haven’t, but it would be my concern. We did a project a year and a half ago down below the, in the southern end of Rush Pond, Jeffrey Kilburn. On that property, at a depth of approximately six feet, there was a hard pan layer in which water was continually seeping into Rush Pond along that hard pan layer. The soils on top were not the same soils as this. They were not as sandy, but that seepage line is not from what came down through the soil from rain or snow melt. It came from a different source, and it was continually leaching into the Rush Pond. Now, this is sand where you’re putting this, and it’s a very good soil to do that, but is there a hard pan layer or a layer of, what holds the water in Rush Pond? MR. NACE-Okay. I can’t speak to Rush Pond because I haven’t done any exploration down there, but on our site, we have borings for the building going down 50 feet, and they did not run into any hard pan layer. It was all sandy material. MR. SIPP-I hope you get a copy of this. MR. LAPPER-We will. MR. NACE-We will respond to it, obviously. MR. SEGULJIC-Another issue would be the blue Karner butterfly. Because I believe with this application was submitted a November 26, 2006 letter. MR. LAPPER-We have a follow up from that. MR. SCHERMERHORN-Yes, you have a follow up. There’s a follow up letter in there, from DEC, and actually Kathy O’Brien, I did a mitigation in the development that I did on Sherman Avenue called Pine Ridge, and they’re more than satisfied with it. It’s actually a Karner blue farm. You guys actually approved the subdivision for me, but that is in there, and that’s been 100% addressed with her. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-Did you submit that? MR. SCHERMERHORN-Yes, it’s in the package. MR. LAPPER-It’s in this. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions or comments from the Board? MR. TRAVER-Mr. Chairman, I don’t know how this can be quantified, but at one point in a public hearing there was, someone spoke to the issue of the area being used by wildlife as a means to access the Rush Pond area, and I don’t know whether that would be something that DEC would in any way be able to quantify or how we could consider that in terms of environmental impacts. MR. NACE-Yes. If you look at the Site Plan, the corridor along the Brook, which is what wildlife would tend to travel, going up and down the slope, that corridor is completely untouched by our project. So there is a substantial area remaining in there that would be the primary corridor, from the plans, the other side of the Old West Mountain Road. 8 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. LAPPER-South of the project. MR. NACE-Yes, south of the project site, down to Rush Pond. The flat area on the site may occasionally be frequented by wildlife, but I don’t think it would be a natural corridor for them. MR. TRAVER-Right. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I think the public comment was that it was a pathway for deer, bear, or even a moose. MR. LAPPER-And that’ll still be the case. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. LAPPER-After this is built. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions or comments from the Board? Okay. We have been asked by the Zoning Board to accept Lead Agency status. There is a Draft resolution prepared by Staff. Would anyone like to put forward a motion? MR. MEYER-Mr. Chairman, if I could just interrupt quickly? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, go ahead. MR. MEYER-In looking at the Draft resolution, the involved agencies, I’d just ask that if you do use this resolution, you include the Zoning Board of Appeals. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. LAPPER-We updated the involved agencies in the updated Long Form. I don’t know if that’s been looked at. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, we haven’t seen that yet. MR. LAPPER-No, the Planning Staff has. MR. HUNSINGER-Did you bring those copies tonight to pass out? MR. LAPPER-No. We submitted it days ago to the Planning Staff. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Did Staff bring them tonight to pass out? MR. BAKER-I don’t have it at hand, but if the resolution can be amended to state the agencies currently listed on here and any additional ones noted on the Long Form, that would cover it. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. LAPPER-Sounds good. MR. HUNSINGER-Would anyone like to put forward a motion? Is there anyone on the Board that has concerns of us accepting Lead Agency status? MR. SEGULJIC-No. MR. HUNSINGER-I think, personally, I think that was a good move by the Zoning Board to request a coordinated SEQRA review. That way, you know, it leaves any doubt out of the process, and follows the SEQRA rules more appropriately than an uncoordinated review. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MOTION THAT THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD SEEKS LEAD AGENCY FOR SITE PLAN NO. 49-2007 AND AREA VARIANCE NO. 59-2007 SCHERMERHORN RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: 9 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) WHEREAS, the Town Planning Board is in receipt of a Site Plan and Area Variance application for construction of 85,340 +/- sq. ft. office building; and WHEREAS, the Planning Board of the Town of Queensbury has determined to begin an environmental review process under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), and WHEREAS, the Planning Board of the Town of Queensbury has identified the projects to be a Unlisted action for the purposes of SEQRA review pursuant to 6 NYCRR 617, and WHEREAS, the Planning Board is the agency most directly responsible for approving the actions because of its responsibility for approving the land uses for the property, and NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, The Planning Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby indicates its desire to be Lead Agency for SEQRA review of this action and authorizes and directs the Zoning Administrator to notify any other potentially involved agencies of such intent. That Part I of the SEQRA will be sent to the following agencies: Zoning Board of Appeals, NYS DOT, NYS DEC, Warren Co. Department of Public Works & OTHERS MOTION THAT THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD SEEKS LEAD AGENCY FOR SITE PLAN NO. 49-2007 AND AREA VARIANCE NO. 59-2007 SCHERMERHORN RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: According to the resolution prepared by Staff, amended to include the Zoning Board of Appeals and any other agencies identified in the applicant’s Long Form SEQRA. th Duly adopted this 20 day of December, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Ford MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. The other thing. MR. LAPPER-Just the date for the next meeting. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, that’s what I was about to say. The other thing we need to decide is we need to table the Site Plan Review and the public hearing associated with th the Site Plan Review. The applicant has requested January 15. Did you want to elaborate on that, Counselor? MR. LAPPER-Just that that would allow the Zoning Board, if you were able to get th through SEQRA that night, to schedule it for their meeting the next night on the 16, and obviously those dates are subject to change, but that’s what we’re hoping for. MR. HUNSINGER-Is there a need to submit any additional information? MR. LAPPER-We have the list of items that you discussed tonight, which are somewhat really elaborating on what we’ve already submitted. I’m sure that we could get something to very really quickly. th MR. SEGULJIC-I don’t believe I can make it on the 15. MR. HUNSINGER-I did get an e-mail from Staff saying that the meeting room is thnd available, our normal meetings in January are scheduled to be the 15 and the 22, and th I did receive an e-mail from Staff today saying that this room was available on the 17 th and the 29 as well. thrd MRS. STEFFAN-Their Zoning Board meetings are on the 16 and 23, and I think the recommendation from Staff was that we could make a Special Meeting for this project on ndth January 22 and make the second regular meeting of the Planning Board on the 29. MR. HUNSINGER-Do we want to do a Special Meeting, I guess is the first question. 10 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. SEGULJIC-I think we should. MR. SIPP-I think it depends upon what else is on the agenda. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I’m sure we have a full slate of projects to review. MR. BAKER-We do. MR. SIPP-Then we might better get it off onto another night. Another night might be better, with a full slate. th MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Is everyone available on the 17? MR. LAPPER-Could you also schedule us for your second meeting, in case that becomes necessary? MR. HUNSINGER-Just in thinking through the process, the Zoning Board can only act after we review SEQRA. rd MR. LAPPER-Yes. So they could act on the 23, and your second meeting would be on nd the 22? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. nd MR. BAKER-Yes. The Planning Board can’t review this on the 22. If they’re meeting th on the 17 to do SEQRA, assuming they complete SEQRA, the Zoning Board then rd meets on the 23. th MR. LAPPER-Okay. I guess we’ll take the 17. That sounds fine, and we’ll talk about it that night, about what has to happen afterwards. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-That will be a Special Meeting just for this project? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. LAPPER-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Would anybody like to put forward the resolution? MRS. STEFFAN-And this is just the tabling? MR. HUNSINGER-We’re just tabling it, pending. MR. LAPPER-When would you like us to submit the information that was requested tonight? th MRS. STEFFAN-By Friday the 4? MR. BAKER-I’m sorry, what was the question? MR. HUNSINGER-When would we like them to submit new information that was th requested this evening? If we get it on Friday the 4, does that give Staff enough time? th MR. BAKER-Friday the 4 would work. th MR. HUNSINGER-Friday, the 4, and we are tabling this pending the response to the SEQRA Lead Agency status. I don’t think there’s a resolution just to table it. MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 49-2007 SCHERMERHORN RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan whom moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: Tabled to a Special Meeting to be held on January 17, 2008, with a submission deadline of January 4, 2008. This is being tabled pending a response to our SEQRA Lead Agency status. 11 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) th Duly adopted this 20 day of December, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford MR. LAPPER-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-For all of the members of the audience that are in attendance. RICHARD LINKE MR. LINKE-I can’t be here on that date. MR. HUNSINGER-Excuse me. Thank you. MR. LINKE-I’m mad. MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t have a choice. We’re following State law. MR. LINKE-You have public comments. MR. HUNSINGER-I am not going to argue with you, sir. I am not going to argue with th you. We will take public comments on the 17. The meeting will begin at seven o’clock. I would welcome anyone and everyone who wants to attend to attend. We will try to limit comments to new information. This Board has already accepted well over three hours of testimony. The Zoning Board has accepted over five hours of testimony. It is all part of the public record. So if you could keep that in mind, we would appreciate it. I, again, welcome your presence, and I thank you for coming this evening, and I’m sorry to send you away disappointed, but I really had no choice. We were just following State law. SUBDIVISION NO. 8-2007 FINAL STAGE SEQR TYPE UNLISTED SHERWOOD ACRES CONSTRUCTION CORP. AGENT(S) LITTLE & O’CONNOR HUTCHINS ENGINEERING OWNER(S) SAME ZONING RR-3A, WR-3A LOCATION HALL ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES SUBDIVISION OF A 12.74 +/- ACRE PARCEL INTO 4 RESIDENTIAL LOTS RANGING IN SIZE FROM 3.01 TO 3.17 ACRES. SUBDIVISION OF LAND REQUIRES PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE AV 41-07 WARREN CO. PLANNING N/A LOT SIZE 12.74 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 289.11-1-59.1, 30 SECTION A-183 MICHAEL O’CONNOR & TOM HUTCHINS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Whenever you’re ready, Stu, if you could summarize Staff Notes, please. MR. BAKER-Certainly. The subdivision submitted for final approval appears to be in conformance with what was granted Preliminary approval from the Planning Board. The applicant has submitted a stormwater and erosion control plan, which has been submitted to Vision Engineering for their review and comment. Staff recommends that the .59 acre piece of Lot “C” be labeled as Lot C and a land hook be added to the subdivision plat in order to clearly identify that property as part of the larger lot it belongs to, and we do also have written comments from the Town’s Consulting Engineer. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you, Stu. Gentlemen, the floor is yours. MR. O'CONNOR-For the purpose of your record, I’m Michael O’Connor from the law firm of Little & O’Connor. We represent the applicant and with me at the table is Tom Hutchins and Raymond Lorti who works for the applicant. We don’t have any problem labeling that lot as part of Lot C, and putting a land hook on it. I personally disagree with land hooks, but that’s neither here nor there. If that’s what you want us to do, we’ll do it. MR. SEGULJIC-Maybe you could tell me what a land hook is? MR. O'CONNOR-It basically says that the two parcels are connected for tax purposes, is the way that I’ve always looked upon the land hook. That’s the way it’s been used. The Assessor’s Office will tell you that that’s illegal, that if you have a Town road that 12 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) separates two parcels, you’re not supposed to put them both on the same tax map number, but as I said, if that’s what Town Staff suggests, we’ll be happy to do it. MRS. STEFFAN-One of the questions I have is that I put on the record that my family, my sister and brother-in-law, own the property on the other side of the subdivision, the Schadwills, and when they were going through the process of building their home, they looked at this Town road by deed, and I know Matt Steves obviously did the survey, and I’m kind of confused about this, and maybe you can clarify, and I don’t know if Counsel can help us here. On this plan, and this relates to the land hook, the Town road by deed, unimproved, is on the map, and it’s part of the survey. However, this particular road has, it was deeded to the Town, but it was never accepted by the Town, and there is no office within the Town that can find any record of that road ever being accepted by the Town. Now I know it’s on the survey. However. MR. O'CONNOR-I don’t know the timing of when it was. The Town has ended up with roads, typically by either use, which is over a period of time, or by deeds, and I just, somebody that owned this subdivision at one time or another deeded that parcel to the Town for road purposes. I had suggested, we’ve gone through different scenarios here, as to trying to lay this thing out. I actually suggested to some of the people that lived there is that they ought to go to the Town Board and have the Town Board abandon it, because if you went and actually physically looked at it, that’s never going to be built as a Town road. MRS. STEFFAN-Correct. MR. O'CONNOR-It goes straight up like a mountain goat. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we talked about that during Preliminary. MR. O'CONNOR-And if you would make a recommendation, we might even be happy to follow through on it, not as a condition, I don’t think it should be a condition of this, but it should go back on the tax role. It would also allow these people that have lots that front on the lake the ability to come back a little further with their septic. It could serve a lot of different purposes. MRS. STEFFAN-Because there’s no, in the investigation that was done by the family, there was no way, they went to the Community Development Office. They went to the Town Supervisor. They went to the Town Counsel, different Town Counsel at the time. They went to the Town Clerk. They went to Warren County Records, and there was nowhere that it was on paper that road was ever accepted by the Town. MR. O'CONNOR-But there was a deed to the Town recorded. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, but there was no acceptance. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. My personal experience is that sometime after Paul Dusek became Town Attorney, or during his watch while he was Town Attorney, he did get into a process by which the Town had to actively accept an offer of dedication, and until then, I don’t think the Town actually did anything. You would bring a deed up. You’d record the deed. There wasn’t a process. There now is a resolution by the Town Board and particularly even that there are now forms, before you can record the deed, the Town has to sign on the TP-584, and on the E and A form. So in order to give a deed to somebody, the party who is receiving the deed nowadays has to sign and acknowledge the acceptance of it. So it’s a different ballgame than whatever. MRS. BRUNO-You said you approached some of the neighbors? MR. O'CONNOR-That was my suggestion. MRS. BRUNO-Or it was a suggestion to approach. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. MR. SIPP-Where does it go beyond, to the north, Mike? Does it go any further north or northeast? MR. HUTCHINS-As it goes over, it connects with Reardon Road. MR. SIPP-Okay. Does anybody use it? 13 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. O'CONNOR-But Reardon Road, as it’s built, wasn’t built within the area where it’s deeded. MRS. STEFFAN-Correct, and that’s the other thing with the initial plan. MR. O'CONNOR-I’ve got a file map of where, because that was one of the suggestions that we, when we were trying to come out that way, we wanted to come out that way, you don’t just go to what is shown here as the Town road and you’re home. You’ve got to go across that Town road, and then cross more private property to get to where Reardon Road Extension is actually built. MRS. STEFFAN-The paved Reardon Road is very different, and one of my concerns, and why I brought this up is if, in reality, this road doesn’t exist, and if it exists on this particular Site Plan, and the Site Plan is accepted, then future development in the area, or re-development, may use the same survey that you folks are using, and so then it becomes an issue where we’re making future decisions on bad information. MR. O'CONNOR-I think this is shown on prior surveys that are recorded. You’re not doing something new. MRS. STEFFAN-The reason I’m not sure of that is because my brother-in-law’s original deed didn’t have this on it, but the new. MR. O'CONNOR-His deed might not have, but there are surveys. MRS. STEFFAN-The survey, excuse me, the survey map. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-And then Matt did a new survey map, and then it was on. MR. O'CONNOR-Let’s see if I can answer your concern. Do you want us to put a note on our Final map that the showing of the road is not intended to indicate acceptance by the Town? MRS. STEFFAN-Stu, or Counsel, can you help? MR. TRAVER-I remember we discussed this when we went on site visits. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we did. Because we went to both sides. We went to Reardon Road first, and then we came around onto Hall Road. MRS. STEFFAN-And the paper road didn’t match the road that was on the paper, and it was very confusing. MR. TRAVER-Yes. It was an odd situation. MR. O'CONNOR-If you really look at the research, and you see the front road, when that front road was built, it wasn’t built where the paper road was either. I did a boundary line agreement with the Town of Queensbury and conveyed to them lands on each side of a 50 foot strip from where the road was built, so that we could get that road straightened out. MR. HUNSINGER-Wow. MR. O'CONNOR-This goes back, I think somebody by the name of Lots. I’m not sure who it was, Russell Lots, I think. I did the boundary line agreement with the Town of Queensbury in 2004, on the front piece, but I don’t know if it has anything to do with you giving us Final approval. Does it? MRS. STEFFAN-No. The thing that I’m concerned about is obviously I have information that I wouldn’t have on a normal Site Plan. I mean, if I didn’t have a relative who lived close by, we could just approve this and say, okay, it is as it appears on the map, but the reality is, things are not as they appear on the map, and so that’s why I brought it up. MR. O'CONNOR-No, I think the map actually displays what’s there. Whether what’s there is there legitimately or not, I don’t know, but there is a deed of record in the County Clerk’s Office for that road as it’s shown here. This is not a, this is accurate. 14 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MRS. STEFFAN-But if it wasn’t accepted by the Town. MR. O'CONNOR-Did it need to be accepted by the Town? MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t know. That’s a question that’s never been answered. It’s a hot potato that no one wants to touch. MR. MEYER-That’s a loaded question. I mean, if it’s recorded and someone were to challenge whether or not the Town owns it, essentially, not actually seeing the deed or knowing anything else about it, it puts the Town in the position of saying, no, that’s not actually a road. No, we never actually accepted it, and having to prove that. Having it here and everybody seeing it may be incentive for the Town to declare it surplus property and sell it. We’re outside the realm of this issue, but it is a recorded deed. So, I mean, you’re kind of stuck. Whether or not it’s an actual highway is left to interpretation, if someone wants to try and establish a use and you’re wandering off somewhere completely different. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Any other questions of the applicant? MR. SEGULJIC-Just hopefully a quick one. This deals with stormwater. I still don’t understand how the stormwater works. So really what you’re doing is collecting stormwater from the driveways into infiltration trenches? That’s it essentially. MR. HUTCHINS-We’re trying to get it in as small a quantity as we can, and infiltrate it. MR. SEGULJIC-So he’s going to slope it to the side into the infiltration trenches. Okay. I’m all set. MR. O'CONNOR-If you, Gretchen, if you go back, and I’m not sure if this is the right one, there’s a map of Reardon and Harold Roads dated August 10, 1966, by John B. Van Dusen. 1966, I think was even before the Town had zoning. MRS. STEFFAN-Because George Savale, I think, owned that piece of property back then. MR. O’CONNOR-So, I mean, there are, and I haven’t got them all, but there are, there’s probably 15 different survey maps that are referred to as map references for, this was a 2002 survey that was done for Goodrich, which is our predecessor, Ruthie Barber Goodrich. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. MR. O'CONNOR-To the question of Staff, somebody asked the question, what’s the land hook. We draw a line on there, it’s a zig and a zag, that says they’re connected, and we’ll put a label on there that says part of Lot C. MR. HUTCHINS-And that is labeled that way on some of the sheets, on S-2 and S-3. MR. HUNSINGER-Because those lots are hooked, could they build on the lot to the, the portion that’s west of the Town road? MR. O'CONNOR-Now you’re asking a real muddy question. I’ve argued for two years that we didn’t need to come here for the subdivision because of the Town road being there. I’ve had two determinations, three determinations, or something like that saying, yes, you need to. It’s not of the size, what will happen to that lot is probably the adjoining owners will try to buy that and may be able to buy that, that actually adjoin it and use it as part of their property. It would be hard for us to use it as part of Lot C. MR. HUTCHINS-With the road there. MR. O'CONNOR-With the separate ownership. Now if the Town abandoned that road, the way it would happen is that the Town, when they abandon a road, they abandon 50% of it to each side that adjoins it, and in that particular instance, at least for that first strip, we would get the full 50 feet. On the next 50 feet, we would get 25 feet and Stevenson would get 25 feet, and then the same thing probably falls all the way down through. I don’t know how far down that goes before you actually get to where Reardon Road is. Somebody would have to do some surveying and spend some money. That little 15 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) triangular piece over there, we will give that up to somebody. I mean, it’s a gore. It has no purpose at all. MR. TRAVER-That’s how Gore Mt. Ski Center was named. Gore Mt. Ski Center was named by that term, gore. MR. O'CONNOR-A gore between lots? Was it? MR. TRAVER-Yes. It was not on the old maps. It was a mountain that somehow got overlooked, and they actually went out there, here was this mountain that was not on the map, they called it Gore Mountain. MR. O'CONNOR-So I think we have an engineering signoff and everything. MR. HUNSINGER-We do. Yes. Okay. It doesn’t require SEQRA. No public hearing. Would anyone like to put forward a resolution? MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 8-2007 SHERWOOD ACRES CONSTRUCTION CORP., Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: 1. A subdivision application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following; Applicant proposes subdivision of a 12.74 +/- acre parcel into 4 residential lots ranging in size from 3.01 to 3.17 acres. Subdivision of land requires Planning Board review and approval. 2. A public hearing was advertised and held on 9/18/07; 3. This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; 4. Pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179], the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and 5. The requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and 6. If the application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered, and the proposed modification[s] do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and 7. Final approved plans, in compliance with the Subdivision Plan, must be submitted to the Community Development Department before any further review by the Zoning Administrator or Building and Codes personnel. The applicant must meet with Staff after approval and prior to issuance of Building Permit and/or the beginning of any site work. Subsequent issuance of further permits, including building permits is dependent on compliance with this and all other conditions of this resolution. 8. The applicant will provide as-built plans to certify that the subdivision is developed according to the approved plans prior to issuance of the certificate of occupancy; and 9. If applicable, Item 8 to be combined with a letter of credit; and [N/A] 10. The Sanitary Sewer connection plan must be submitted to the Wastewater Department for its review, approval, permitting and inspection; and [N/A] 11. MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 8-2007 SHERWOOD ACRES CONSTRUCTION CORP., Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: In accordance with the resolution prepared by Staff. Number Four complies. Number Five is negative. Number Nine does not apply to this approval. Number Ten does not apply. With the one following condition: 16 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) 1) That Lot C be labeled with a land hook on the subdivision plat. th Duly adopted this 20 day of December, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSTAINED: Mrs. Steffan ABSENT: Mr. Ford MR. O'CONNOR-Thank you very much. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MR. O'CONNOR-Have a nice holiday. MR. HUNSINGER-Good luck. You, too. Thank you. SITE PLAN NO. 55-2000 RECOMMENDATION TO TOWN BD. SEQR TYPE N/A QUEENSBURY VILLAGE MOBILE HOME PARK AGENT(S) B P S R OWNER(S) SAM WAHNON, VIOLA WAHNON ZONING SR-1A LOCATION 0 PETRIE LANE APPLICANT IS PROPOSING A MODIFICATION TO THE EXISTING APPROVED SITE PLAN TO ALLOW DOUBLE WIDE HOMES IN THE PARK. THE TOWN BOARD IS SEEKING A RECOMMENDATION FROM THE PLANNING BOARD REGARDING THE PROPOSED MODIFICATION. CROSS REFERENCE SP 55-00 T B RES. 332, 06; 379, 00 WARREN CO. PLANNING 3/14/07 LOT SIZE 12.48 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 308.6-1-61 SECTION CHAPTER 113-17 SAM WAHNON, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Stu, if you could summarize Staff Notes, please when you’re ready. MR. BAKER-The Town Board is seeking a recommendation from the Planning Board on the proposed action. The applicant is seeking approval to allow double wide homes to be used throughout the entire mobile home park. The proposal requires Town Board approval. The information submitted by the applicant includes septic design plans that show that a single septic system will be shared between two units, also showing a swale to be constructed between two units, likely to be used for stormwater management A lot layout for the existing park Rules and Regulations for use of the lots within the park. As part of the requested recommendation to the Town Board, the Planning Board should review and provide comment on any stormwater, sanitary sewer, grading, clearing, landscaping or lighting impacts on properties in the surrounding area. MR. SEGULJIC-Mr. Chairman, could I just get clarification? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-So this is just a recommendation to the Town Board? MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to ask for the same clarification. Does it come back to us for Site Plan Review at all, or does the Town Board have the final say? This is the equivalent of Site Plan Review, is my understanding. MR. BAKER-That’s mine as well. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-So it does not come back to us. MR. BAKER-Let me review the Code, if I may. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I think the applicant’s going to comment on that. MR. WAHNON-Good evening. MR. HUNSINGER-Good evening. 17 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. WAHNON-It is for their final approval. I went to a, my name is Sam Wahnon. I’m the owner of the parcel, and my engineer Ryan Burns. I went to a Town Board workshop about a year or so ago and told them my dilemma, my dilemma being that I purchased a mobile home park in 2000, and apparently, unbeknownst to me, there was a clause in the approval in 1995 that said single wide mobile homes only in the park, which is, that approval is the only one of its kind in the State of New York. MR. HUNSINGER-Wow. MR. WAHNON-It really is a wow. It’s the only one of its kind in the State of New York. So, what I asked the Town Board was that I wanted the opportunity to be able to place mobile homes in my mobile home park, in accordance with the Town’s Zoning Ordinance and not in accordance with the approval. I presently have 22 double wide mobile homes in my park, all permitted, CO’s, nothing about water runoff or anything. They’re in there. They’re in place. They’re permitted, and I have eight single wide mobile homes. It’s not my intention to put double wide mobile homes in my park entirely. That depends on the customer and the tenant when they move in. The point is that I’m restricted to single wides only, and I’m the only mobile home park in the State of New York that is, and only half of my park is restricted to single wide mobile homes, not the other half, and there’s no rhyme or reason. I’ve been everywhere in this Town. I’ve talked to everyone. I’ve asked them why is this. Nobody has the answer. Apparently the prior owner, Barry Converse, when he noticed that his approval was for single wides only, he came to the Town some time in the 90’s, I really don’t know exactly when, and I’m sure there’s record of it, asking to be able to put double wide mobile homes in, and they granted him, without any Site Plan Review, they granted him permission to do so, and they took a yellow marker and marked a map of where he could do it, and there was no rhyme or reason because if you look at my map, on lots that double wides are permitted, they’re the same size and right across the street from a lot where it’s not permitted. So, really my purpose is just to change that nomenclature, that description of single wides only, because even if somebody buys a single wide, they should be allowed to put an addition on that single wide, as long as they conform to the setbacks that the Town requires, and that’s all I’m asking, is that I’m able to put homes in my park and adhere to the setbacks of the Town Ordinance. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MRS. BRUNO-Again, can you clarify, their original stipulation on the mobile home park, you said the very first one said only single wide mobile homes? What year was that that the ‘95 person ended up coming across? MR. WAHNON-I think it was in 1995 when the park was approved as a mobile home park, might have been 1993. I could research it. MRS. BRUNO-I’m sorry. I thought ’95 was when you said they put the yellow marker around. MR. WAHNON-No, that was in the 90’s, in the later 90’s. It was right before Mr. Converse passed away. He got that accomplished, and it was just prior to me purchasing the park. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. Question for Staff, do we have meeting minutes from back in ’95 and prior? We do, don’t we? I’m just wondering if there is some research that we can do to find out what their theory was behind single homes only. MR. BAKER-I can pull those up right now, actually. MR. WAHNON-I asked Mr. Brewer, Councilman Brewer, who was on the Town Board when that approval was done, I said, how did that happen? And he had no answer. He says he thinks it’s just something that Mr. Converse was not versed, well versed in mobile home parks. He was just a, you know, he lived in a house and he had some property so he decided he wanted to make a mobile home park out of it. So he wasn’t knowledgeable in the industry as to whether he should have a park that’s just single wides or I don’t think it mattered to him, until he started putting homes in it. When he started to put homes in, then he found out he could only put single wides, he came back to the Town and got permission to put double wides in, and I have double wides on all of those lots, plus three or four more that are all permitted but not permitted. Do you know what I’m saying? 18 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MRS. BRUNO-Right. I understand. We’ve just found in the past that sometimes it’s good to look into, you know, previous Planning Board’s motions, as we would hope that that would happen for us in the future, if we go through the diligence of researching and understanding and making a motion on something, that we would just take a moment to look back and just see. It very well, you know, I’m not saying. MR. WAHNON-I’ve been a year and a half trying to get this done, a year and a half. MR. HUNSINGER-You were before this Board already once. Right? MR. WAHNON-Well, what happened is the last two times that my representatives came before the Board, unfortunately for me I was medically incapable of coming. I had some operations. So I couldn’t be here. So I was not intentionally misrepresented, but misrepresented that the story wasn’t getting to your ears, okay. This is a park. We’re living there. There’s people 55 and over in 35 homes. It’s not like it doesn’t exist. It’s there. Now, right across the street is the same exact lot that if Mr. and Mrs. Jones wanted to come in and buy a double wide from me, or anyone and put it there, they couldn’t do it, and it has nothing to do with the Zoning Ordinance. The Zoning Ordinance in the Town says I can do it. No problem. I’ve got plenty of square footage on each lot. I have the setbacks. I meet all the setbacks, everything. What I can’t meet is this dumb approval. So I would like to get that approval changed. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. WAHNON-I’m not asking to not adhere to the Town Zoning Ordinance. That’s what I want to adhere to is the Zoning Ordinance. MRS. BRUNO-I understand that. I just want to take a few moments and see if we can just pull up something to review it for you. MR. WAHNON-If you find it, I’ll be amazed, because I’ve been asking this Town for that approval for a year now, and nobody can come up with it. So I would love to see how they came about approving a mobile home park for only single wide trailers. Additionally, I’d just like to say one other thing before you go into your caucus here. The homes that I have in the park, owned by seniors 55 and over, range in the price from $50,000 to $120,000. That’s the tax base that I’m providing the Town. Okay, and that’s on record. So it’s nothing that I’m dreaming up. If they were all trailers, I don’t have to say what the value would be, or what the tax base would be. We have a very nice community there. It’s very quiet, nice, well maintained, and the people are very happy. All I want is the right to be able to put in what everybody else in this Town can put in their park. MR. HUNSINGER-Did you have some information, Stu? MR. BAKER-I’m still looking for it. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m sorry. I thought you were about to say something. MR. BAKER-Regarding this Board’s review authority, though, on this application, under the Town Code, Chapter 113, this is the only review of this application that the Planning Board will do. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. BAKER-Sir, I’m sorry, what was the year of that approval, with the restriction? MR. HUNSINGER-He thought it was ’95. MR. WAHNON-I would have to go back into my records. I don’t have it right here. MR. BAKER-I may not be able to pull that up this evening. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. WAHNON-Just let me take a look here. The Town approved this mobile home park in 1993. MR. HUNSINGER-’93. 19 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. BAKER-Do you have the month, by any chance? MR. WAHNON-No. That was a comment made by my attorney, Ms. Bitter, to Mr. Hunsinger, if he’s here. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m here. MR. WAHNON-That’s Chris Hunsinger, right there. Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-No, I did remember when you were before us, I mean, not you personally, but when this site was before us before. MR. WAHNON-I was in the hospital when she came here then, right. MR. HUNSINGER-And we had asked for additional information which was provided in this submittal. MR. WAHNON-And I understood from the Town Board, when I went to the workshop, that they said for me to go to the Planning Board for a referral to the Town Board for approval. That’s exactly what they told me. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Any questions from the Board? MR. SIPP-At the present time, you have standard septic systems in there? You’re using a septic tank? MR. WAHNON-I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t hear the beginning of that. MR. SIPP-Do you have a standard septic system in what you are now operating with? MR. WAHNON-The septic system that’s in there, and it’s an approved septic system, is very large, and that’s why I want to change it. The Eljen system that I’m requesting to put in is a much more efficient system that’s less likely to fail. MR. SIPP-That’s what I’m wondering. Have any of these other older systems failed? MR. WAHNON-No, sir. I’m building these systems for six bedrooms and four baths, and we have retired people in these homes that are using two bedrooms and one bath, do you know what I’m saying? So there’s been no failure whatsoever. The only reason I’d like to go to Eljen is because most of my tenants in the park are, as I said, retired. They like gardens and so forth. The Eljen system takes much less square footage in a yard. So you don’t have. I mean, the system I’m putting in now is a 1250 gallon tank with big drywells scattered all over the back yard, and I want to just keep it nice and neat. I’d also like to bring to the Board’s attention that the Eljen system is twice as expensive to do than the standard system I’m putting in now, but I still want to do it because of the maintenance factor, and I don’t have any. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. You don’t have a problem in requiring the minimum septic tank size of 1750 gallons? MR. WAHNON-Not at all. No. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. That was in the engineer’s comment letter. I don’t know if you saw that. MR. WAHNON-Not at all. I have no problem with overbuilding, because it’s always good for future development. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Have you seen the comment letter from our engineer dated th December 13? MR. WAHNON-I did, I have. Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay, and you have no problem with any of those conditions? MR. WAHNON-Not at all. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. 20 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. TRAVER-You understand that’s a change in your engineering plans that currently show, on Sheet One of the engineering drawings, for the system, it does reflect a 1500 gallon. Do you understand that’s a change from what you have currently designed? MR. WAHNON-It’s 1750, I thought. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. TRAVER-It’s required to be 1750, but on the submitted plans it’s 1500. MR. WAHNON-Understood, yes. He made the change. MR. TRAVER-Okay. RYAN BURNS MR. BURNS-Yes, we brought with us here tonight an updated drawing that reflects the engineer’s comments. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. TRAVER-Great. MR. SEGULJIC-So, just for my clarification, I’m looking at one of the plans, it says that an Eljen is proposed as a substitution to previously approved septic pits. So you had septic pits. MR. WAHNON-Seepage. MR. SEGULJIC-Seepage, yes, I’m sorry, and you’re going to change that to Eljen systems, then. MR. WAHNON-Correct, on the next development. See, understand that there’s 53 lots in this park, 22 of them are not developed yet. They still have to be developed. Okay. So going forward we would be upgrading the septic systems and the upgrade, what I mean by upgrading the septic systems, doesn’t mean that what’s there is bad or poor, because I’m all sand. I mean, it’s going to last forever. The upgrade is for my tenants. It makes things easier for them because they don’t have to stay out of the backyard, so to speak. MR. SEGULJIC-Right. The other question I had was, when you look at your stormwater calculations, you use the term seven square feet, storage capacity of the swale is seven square feet a foot. MR. BURNS-That’s right. MR. SEGULJIC-What exactly does that mean? There’s seven square feet? MR. BURNS-That means, I’m trying to show the calculation of how much capacity is in that swale. So if you look at that cross section, and it just goes down very shallow, actually it’s a foot, and it’s 12 feet wide, if you take that area S, that’s approximately seven square feet. So you multiply that by the length, to get the volume. MR. SEGULJIC-That’s in a cross section? MR. BURNS-That’s right. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. BURNS-That’s a cross sectional area. MR. SEGULJIC-I thought it was a plan view. Okay. That makes more sense. Okay. MR. WAHNON-Also keep in mind that there’s 22 double wides in the park presently, and ten single wides, with no stormwater management. Because it’s all sand. It just seeps right away right into the sand. MR. SEGULJIC-The only issue I really see is lighting. 21 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-Go ahead, ask the question, because I had the same thought. MR. WAHNON-I can address that. All the lighting is provided by, as the entrance to the park has private area lighting on the street, Warren Lane, and then as you go into the park, there’s a light at the mailroom, and then each individual home has lights. There is no private area lighting in the park and none was required when it was approved. MR. HUNSINGER-But in terms of the individual homes, what kind of lights do they have? Do they have just standard, you know, like a porch light? MR. WAHNON-Porch lights, front and rear lights. MR. HUNSINGER-That shines down, no floodlights or spotlights that shine out into? MR. WAHNON-No. Well, I don’t know, I mean, there might be somebody that has spotlights, sure. Yes. I wouldn’t say no, they don’t have them, but they’re not restricted. They can have any type of lighting that they require or think is necessary. A lot of them put lights in their lawns, you know, the lampposts between the driveway. All the driveways are in the front, right off the road. MR. HUNSINGER-Right, yes. MR. WAHNON-And then the house is right behind the driveway, because the lot is 55 feet wide. So we have a driveway, then the house, and all of them have end elevations, meaning the front door is at that end. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. WAHNON-Okay. So there’s a light on, at the front of the house, that lights the driveway. Every single lot is the same. MR. SEGULJIC-It was just requested that the lighting be, because you’re possibly constructing 22 new units. Correct? You’re potentially going to construct 22 new units. MR. WAHNON-Twenty-two more sites, yes. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. So potentially what we could request is that those units have downcast lighting. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. WAHNON-Have what? MR. SEGULJIC-Downcast lighting, that the lighting is downcast. MR. SIPP-Shines downward. MR. SEGULJIC-Shines downward. MR. WAHNON-Why? MR. SEGULJIC-It just helps reduce light pollution. MR. WAHNON-Instead of porch light you mean? MR. SEGULJIC-All the lights have to be downcast. MR. WAHNON-Well, they are. Yes, I’m sorry, they are. They’re globes like this. Porch lights, the light comes from the bottom. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, that would be fine. We wouldn’t want to see big open globe lights or floodlights. MR. WAHNON-No, nobody has any of them. These are just porch lights, and they’re all with hoods. They all have hoods on them, and the light is down, facing towards the porch and the stairs and it doesn’t light the wall. 22 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. SEGULJIC-That sounds good, then. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Any other questions from the Board? What’s the Board’s feeling? We’re making a recommendation to the Town Board. MR. SEGULJIC-To approve this or to say? MR. HUNSINGER-The applicant is proposing a modification that would allow double wide homes in the park, and the Town Board has requested a recommendation from us regarding that modification. So, I mean, the only thing we’re really dealing with, I mean, we could put stipulations or conditions on it. MR. WAHNON-Well, what I’m really seeking is the right to operate my park according to the Town Ordinance. That’s what I’m seeking. I’m not seeking to put 22 more double wides in, because that may not happen. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. WAHNON-I may put seven in and the rest may be single wides. I’m just seeking the right for not only the right to put double wides in, but I’m seeking the right for my present tenants, who have single wides, to be able to put an addition on if they so chose. MR. HUNSINGER-As long as it’s within the Zoning Ordinance. MR. WAHNON-Yes. I mean, as long as it’s within the Zoning Ordinance. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. WAHNON-So I want my park to operate according to Town law, that’s all I’m asking is that. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Mr. Strough, did you have a comment? You’ll have to come and get it on the record. JOHN STROUGH MR. STROUGH-This isn’t for or against this particular application. It was sharing some of our concerns. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s what I figured it would be, yes. Thank you. MR. STROUGH-And nothing against double wides. I might be there, in the retirement days, but our concerns were this. A double wide is no longer a mobile home. Okay. They’re not on wheels, per se. They’re glued together. They’re a little bit more than a mobile home of the traditional path, okay. They’re bigger. There’s more bedrooms. There’s more bathrooms. They can conceivably have more people, and all that’s fine. Here’s our concerns. Now, way back when, when we did the original trailer parks, if you will, mobile home parks, we divided up the lots according to what they were in those days. They were mobile homes, single wide mobile homes, with their individual septic systems in some cases, in most cases, but not in all, but in some cases, their water supply lines, and then, but the question is this. Now that we’re moving from the single wides to a double wide, and that seems to be the trend, and that’s okay, but are you comfortable with the lot sizes that may have been originally designed for single wides? I mean, will the lot sizes, and I don’t know, of this individual and this project, accommodate a double wide, a septic system, a reserve area, should that septic system fail, and enough of a comfort zone between the other residents that you’re comfortable with, and his may meet all those obligations. I don’t know, but they’re coming before you to kind of say, are you comfortable with this? Or, because you know what, there’s another thing that we’ve kind of neglected. We have not really sat down as a community to take a look at, well, what is happening in this move from mobile homes to double wides, and see, as we do mobile home communities, should we lay them out a little bit differently in taking into consideration that these are bigger units and they are not as mobile, okay, and I could argue that it would be very difficult to move a double wide once they’ve been connected and everything. It would be very difficult to disconnect and move it. I suppose it’s possible, but you know what I’m saying. So our concerns were, nothing for or against this project, but are we opening the door to say, you know, the mobile home on Mt. View Lane? If we give them the right, if everyone has the right, do they have the right to go to double wides? I mean, or do we want to develop some kind of standards here that would accommodate the double wides and accommodate these 23 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) people that have these mobile home parks? We don’t have any standards for these. So I guess we just dumped it in your lap. I just wanted you to know that. Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-It happens often. MRS. STEFFAN-I was just going to say, yes. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MR. STROUGH-But those were some of our concerns. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-I appreciate it. Thank you. MRS. BRUNO-There’s something mentioned in here under 113-18, site requirements, H- 3, mobile home site under lighting. I’m just reading this because of the earlier questions. All mobile home park roads and lots and facilities shall be furnished with adequate lights to ensure safe movement of vehicles and pedestrians at night. Such lighting shall be placed to minimize the glare, electric service to such lights shall be installed underground. I don’t know, there was something mentioned earlier just about SEQRA and we might ask the Town Board to look at, perhaps consider some of the little lighting, lower lighting requirements per the Code for other neighborhoods. MR. WAHNON-Excuse me. I hope the Board realizes that I’m already approved. Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. WAHNON-The park is done, finished, it’s an approved park. There are 22 double wides in this park, all right. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. WAHNON-I really can’t comprehend, in my mind, what the problem is, and if the Board would tell me what the problem is, I’d like to address it, because this should be approved. I am the only park in New York State that can only put single wides in. I mean, Mr. Strough mentioned Mountain View. I don’t know what Mountain View is, but if Mountain View has the approval I think it has, it has the right to put any mobile home in its park it wants, as long as it adheres to the property line setbacks, and I want that right. That’s all. That’s all I’m asking. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I understand. MR. WAHNON-I’m not asking, double wides should not even be an issue. Mr. Strough made it an issue, saying we need to address it because it has more bedrooms and more bathrooms. That’s not true. You can buy a single wide with four bedrooms and two baths as well as a double wide with four bedrooms and two baths. All it means is that they’re just a little crowded more, all right. The same size family will habitat, fortunately for me and for the Town, the senior citizens that are moving into my park don’t want trailers. They just sold their house. They want to live in my park for five months and they want to live in Florida for the rest of the time, and they don’t want single wide trailers. They want nice, double wide mobile homes, and I know if any one of you took the time to drive through my community, you’d like it as nice as Danny Drellos’, or, well, that’s it. It ends right there, okay, because as we all know in Queensbury there are some parks that we have our problems with. Mine isn’t one of them. They’re very nice people with very nice homes, and they’re very expensive homes, up to $120,000, and granted, I agree with Mr. Strough. They’re not going to pack that home up and move it quickly. That’s for sure, but if you look at Homestead Village, they’re in and out of there all the time. Double wides, single wides, it doesn’t make any difference. I’m established, and I have the right to operate under the Town Zoning Ordinance. That’s what I want to do, and that’s what I’m asking you to let me do. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Understood. Thank you. I certainly think the request is reasonable, but I’m only one person. Are there any other concerns by the Board? MR. TRAVER-I just had a question. On your welcome to Queensbury Village that you provided us, thank you for that, by the way. MR. WAHNON-Thank you. 24 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. TRAVER-You talk about the lot rent, obviously important. If you, is the lot rent the same for a single wide or a double wide? MR. WAHNON-For all. MR. TRAVER-It’s the same. MR. WAHNON-The same. MR. TRAVER-Okay. MR. WAHNON-And everybody gets their STAR credit. No problem. MRS. STEFFAN-So they own the home. They put it on your lot. They rent that from you. MR. WAHNON-Yes, ma’am. MRS. STEFFAN-And then who pays the taxes? They pay the taxes? MR. WAHNON-I pay the taxes. MRS. STEFFAN-You pay the taxes. MR. WAHNON-It comes out of that lot rent. Taxes in my park are, I think it’s $29,000 a year. MR. TRAVER-Certainly I think for new parks that might be proposed, this issue of the spacing of the buildings, we might want to take a look at. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. WAHNON-Well, the Town Ordinance states 6,000 square foot. Mine are bigger. Okay. Mine are bigger than 6,000 square foot. So if the question is, are my lots big enough to accommodate this? Yes, they’re bigger. Because Section 113 also says 6,000 square feet, 55 by, mine are 55 by an average of 125 to 160, depending on, and that’s not including the buffer between us and the world. Okay. MRS. BRUNO-And here it says the mobile homes shall be so placed on each lot that it shall be a distance of at least 20 feet, and I think in your schematic you had an additional 15 feet, 35 total, or something, between the two? MR. WAHNON-No, plenty. Each lot is 55 foot. Each home is 28 wide. Do the math. It matches. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. WAHNON-In fact, one of the very first. MRS. BRUNO-All of the mobile homes do have their own chaises and everything, then, still? MR. WAHNON-Yes. MRS. BRUNO-Even after they’re placed, they don’t require? MR. WAHNON-No. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. I’ve worked on modular houses before, and I know then you get into the support and the skirting and all that. MR. WAHNON-A modular comes off, manufactured home it stays on. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. MR. WAHNON-In other words, any double wide, triple wide, quadruple wide, whichever. MRS. BRUNO-Is still on that? 25 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. WAHNON-You can move them, yes. I mean, every one that’s set up on my sales lot I take down when I sell it and move it and set it up. 113-3, Interpretation. The provisions of this article shall supersede local laws, ordinances, codes or regulations to the extent such laws, ordinances, codes or regulations are inconsistent with the provisions of this article, and that’s what I have. I have an inconsistent approval. Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. We understand. Do you have a resolution ready, Gretchen? MRS. BRUNO-I don’t want to give you the impression that I’m putting you under fire, either. Part of this is because it’s a newer application that I’m trying to educate myself more. MR. WAHNON-To tell you the truth, this is the first time I’ve ever been in front of a Planning Board and I’ve been sweating, but I feel real comfortable. I really do. MRS. BRUNO-Well, you’re acting fine. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MOTION THAT THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE QUEENSBURY TOWN BOARD ON SITE PLAN NO. 55- 2000 FOR THE QUEENSBURY VILLAGE MOBILE HOME PARK, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Donald Sipp: The Planning Board supports the applicants request to allow double wide homes to be constructed on all lots. The only concern that we have is to make sure that the applicant satisfies the VISION Engineering comments and gets a signoff based on their letter of December 13, 2007. th Duly adopted this 20 day of December, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford MR. HUNSINGER-You’re all set. MR. WAHNON-Thank you very much. I appreciate it. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. Thank you. MR. BURNS-So we’re directed to submit our new revised drawing based on his comments to the Zoning Administrator? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, and then that will go to the Town Board. MR. WAHNON-Thanks again. SITE PLAN NO. 58-2007 SEQR TYPE PREVIOUS SEQR GREAT ESCAPE THEME PARK AGENT(S) LEMERY GREISLER, LLC OWNER(S) SAME ZONING RC-15 LOCATION 1172 STATE ROUTE 9 APPLICANT PROPOSES DEVELOPMENT & CONSTRUCTION OF A THEMED CHILD’S AREA CALLED WIGGLES WORLD. AMUSEMENT CENTER USES IN THE RC ZONE REQUIRE SITE PLAN REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE FGEIS 7/11/02 WARREN CO. PLANNING 12/12/07 APA/DEC/CEA DEC, CEA LOT SIZE 237.6 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 288.20- 1-20 SECTION 179-9-050 JOHN LEMERY, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Stu, if you could summarize Staff Notes when you’re ready. MR. BAKER-The applicant is proposing use and structure changes to a 1.26 acre project area in order to create a new themed area within the park. Staff concurs with the applicant’s position that these changes are consistent with and do not exceed defined thresholds in the 2004 Supplemental GEIS for the park. While the project will result in over a 4% increase in impermeable are on the 1.26 acre project site, the project will also result in additional landscaping – including the planting of a substantial number of trees. 26 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) Pedestrian access to the area will be through one entrance, with decorative fencing separating pedestrian areas from the rides. There’s also engineering comments. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Gentlemen, whenever you’re ready. Good evening. MR. LEMERY-Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Board. My name is John Lemery, Lemery Greisler, Counsel to The Great Escape Theme Park. I want to introduce you, tonight, to Don McCoy who’s the new President of The Great Escape Theme Park and the Hotel Water Park. He recently arrived in the area and will tell you a little bit about himself, and Bob Holmes, our engineer, who’s with Jarrett-Martin, who designed the two themed areas that we’re hoping that you’ll approve tonight. The first involves a mini children’s area, much like what you approved when you approved the, it was the Warner Brothers, the Looney Toons park, some time ago. This one is called Wiggles World. I didn’t know much what Wiggles World was. One of the younger lawyers came in with a disc, or a CD and showed me what they were. I’ll ask the President, Don McCoy, to tell you about it. It’s in the area where the circus used to be, the circus tent. That is coming out. It will be right in that area there. If you come at it from the Round Pond Road, you’d go through the area by the Bavarian Palace, and as you came in you’d end up over near the circus area, and that’s coming out and that’s where Wiggles World will be located. Six Flags was recently able to get the Wiggles World franchise which they’re hoping to develop in a number of the parks to continue their program, which is to make these theme parks that they own, these regional theme parks, much more friendly, much more children friendly, and so far that seems to be working. The Looney Toons park was and has been a terrific success. We’ve provided the Planning Board with the plan. We have the engineering report from the Town’s engineers. Bob has responded with that report. We got it Friday afternoon. So today was the first day that you’re probably seeing the response. It was an administerial issue that they raised, in any event. I don’t know, Mr. Chairman, how you want me to take these, one at a time do you think is the best way to do it? MR. HUNSINGER-Sure, that would be fine. MR. LEMERY-So that’s Wiggles World. It involves the so called, the big red cars, which are part of the Wiggles World, the big red planes, mini tea cups, to be installed at a future phase. It’s a ride that is in fact a movable ride, a theater which will host live musical performance shows, a pop jet fountain, similar to what they have at Looney Toons, and four video monitors located throughout the area. We don’t see a traffic issue. This doesn’t appear to us or our traffic engineers, as imposing any additional traffic to the theme park. Visibility and lighting. We think we comply with that. We’ve submitted a lighting plan. The highest point of the Wiggles World attraction will be 35 feet. We’re in the 115 feet area, in terms of the 2000/2001 SEQRA. So we don’t have a SEQRA issue with that. It doesn’t fall within the 20 feet of 115 foot height by any means. The dust, the color and the lighting are not subject to additional review by the Board during its Site Plan. The proposed rides are what are called in the industry as flat rides. They’re not coasters, those kinds of things. There’s no existing exterior lighting in the project area, just existing lighting in the area surrounding it. New or proposed existing exterior lighting involves eight, twelve foot high decorative light poles with dual radio wave light fixtures. Sound, the August 2007 sound study performed by ENSR, which is an annual requirement of the theme park, indicated that the general sound levels were consistent with those measured in 2006. They’ll be measured again in 2007. We have both the traffic study and a sound study which we do every year, and provide it to this Board. At this point, neither the traffic levels nor the population base at The Great Escape has come anywhere near where we were in ’99, and of course one of the issues is to try to get that population back somewhere, and in fact the plan was approved at 1.5 million, and we’re not even half there, in terms of our population base. We’ve described the impervious and the pervious area that the Wiggles World will take up. There are no restrooms or sanitary wastewater discharges proposed here, other than that which already exists and that which is fully permitted. The park continues to move forward in getting everything on to the Queensbury sewer program, and that’s continuing. The cafeteria will approve, the café will produce some amounts of wastewater associated with the cooking of food, and that will go into the existing sanitary line. So, other than that, with your permission, I’d like Don to tell you a little bit about himself and also about Wiggles World, what it is, and the Wedgie, so you can hear a little bit about that. DON MC COY MR. MC COY-Good evening. 27 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-Good evening. MR. MC COY-Yes, that was my opening line within my own company was today’s the day, wiggles and wedgies, but I am very excited to be here and I did want to share with you a little bit about myself. I’ve been with Six Flags 25 years, and I’ve lived in such cold climates as San Antonio, Dallas, and most recently Atlanta. We’re getting acclimatized quickly, and my own team had a good laugh. They asked me if I owned a snow shovel. After this week, what good’s a snow shovel. I think I need a blower, but at any rate, it’s a pleasure to meet with you and I did want to talk a little bit about what the wiggles is and historically The Great Escape has been a family oriented park, and it’s got a great tradition. There’s a lot of local ownership in that property, and I’m proud to be a part of it. Our company is strategically engaged in re-attracting and attracting families, and this is probably the foremost park in line with our company’s strategic vision, in terms of a family product, and so this particular investment falls very much in line with that. The Wiggles World is a three plus million dollar investment in a children’s oriented product. It’s going to be very colorfully themed, and we’ll talk a little bit about that. It’s going to have three attractions, as John mentioned, they’re all kid oriented rides, and if anybody’s familiar with the Wiggles, it’s a big red car ride. It’s got a tea cup ride and a mini airplane ride. They’re all (lost words) flat ride. They stay on the ground, very quiet rides, very fun rides for kids. The area will also feature a new kid’s show. It’ll be a live show performed and emulating the Wiggles themselves, and if you’re not familiar with the Wiggles, and I wasn’t. My kids are a little bit outside of that age group. The kids from ages 2 to 6 are absolutely fanatical about this group. They’re four guys from Australia, and they sing a lot of songs that are very healthy in nature. They promote good education and good clean fun, and so we’re very proud to be associated with them, and in fact we plan to have them in concert in the area this summer. So it’s definitely something we’re very proud and pleased to share with you tonight. The area will also have, and I also love having the construction guys call, but the Yummy Yummy café will also be part of it. It’s a food venue. We’ll serve fruits and grilled cheese and other more healthy snacks, all of which is closely supervised and under the guidelines of the Wiggles. So if there’s any questions, I’d be happy to answer those. MRS. BRUNO-I haven’t been to the Park in a few years, just because my kids are getting older, and they insist on going alone. I’m just looking at the airplane ride. Is there still the, I think it was elephants or something that flew similar to that ride. I’m just curious. MR. MC COY-No, there’s still a convoy in, but not a jumbo, a flying elephant ride. MRS. BRUNO-I’m trying to remember back to those years. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions, comments from the Board? MR. LEMERY-Mr. Chairman, do you want to do three separate public hearings? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, they are listed as separate Site Plan Reviews, unfortunately. Well, I shouldn’t say unfortunately. It’s just the way we have to do it procedurally. MR. SIPP-Will any of these be the same height as the tent was, any of these rides, no? MR. MC COY-No, sir. MR. SIPP-Well, now, will the removal of the tent affect the noise quality from the Alpine? MR. MC COY-The Alpine bobsled ride? MR. SIPP-The bobsled ride, which is the noisiest thing you’ve got in the Park. BOB HOLMES MR. HOLMES-I can cover a little bit of that. It’s not expected to affect, the removal of the circus tent is not expected to increase, or have any impacts as far as elevated noise radiating off of The Great Escape property, because even though we have new venues that are going in there in its place, they’re a little bit shorter, we’re actually increasing green space and vegetation in that area in which we’re going to hope to achieve a better absorption, if anything, but as far as being able to provide you any quantitative reductions in what that noise could be, that’s really not known at this point, but that’s not anticipated to have an adverse effect with regards to noise radiating to the south. 28 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. SIPP-You’ll know it very quickly from the Twicwood residents. The residents of Twicwood are noted for calling when the noise level gets up. MR. MC COY-Yes, I’m not a sound engineer, but that tent tended to amplify noise. It was very hollow and very large, and if anything, with it being gone, I don’t suspect that we would have that. If anything, it may, in fact, be an improvement. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-Stormwater. Could you tell me what you’re going to be doing on stormwater? MR. HOLMES-Yes. This stormwater, just let me give you a little bit of a background. We’re working within the 237 acre parcel which is The Great Escape property, which the Park itself encompasses roughly about 40 acres of that. The plans and packages that I had prepared and presented, which you folks have before you, we’re working in a 1.26 acre site, which we’ve kind of identified, which is the area immediately surrounding the circus tent. Because of all the previous developments and re-developments that occurred on the property, we’re already in, required to meet the New York State SPDES Stormwater Phase II runoff requirements. In this instance where we’re redeveloping a portion of this property, we’re only increasing, in this 1.26 acre area, we’re only increasing by approximately 2300 square feet, isn’t an increase of impervious area, and under the guidelines for re-development through the New York State DEC SPDES guidelines and regulations, we’re required to meet certain portions of that, but any new impervious area increases we’re meeting the full requirements as if it was all new construction. I mean, that’s pretty broad stroke statements. Hopefully that covered it for you. MR. SEGULJIC-Right, and you’re going to be capturing it, it looks like, in a series of catch basins and it’s going to go to a treatment? MR. HOLMES-Yes, and the plan is in the midway areas we’re collecting them in the catch basins. Some areas will go into a catch basin and into immediate drywells, or other portions of it will be conveyed to open infiltration basins that are going to be off to the side, and we’re going to be re-utilizing existing green spaces. MR. SEGULJIC-So it looks like you’re going to be capturing all the impervious areas, then. MR. HOLMES-That is correct. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Other questions from the Board? MRS. BRUNO-Yes. You reference, in your cover letter, under the traffic, I see Page Nine of the 2001 Findings. I wasn’t on the Board in 2001. Is that something, I don’t seem to find it in the package. Is that just something that you’re referencing or did you turn that into Staff at this time? MR. LEMERY-Well, we had a Generic Impact Statement done. I guess that the former Chairman was the last person. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I think I’m the only one. MR. LEMERY-Were you on the Board back in 2000/2001, Mr. Chairman? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I was. MR. LEMERY-We did a Generic Impact Statement for the theme park which, among other things, provided for traffic and mitigation thresholds to a population base of 1.5 million people. There were certain thresholds. For example, I think it was either 900,000 people or 1.2 million people we were obligated to put the turning lane in and do some other mitigation. We accelerated that substantially when the Hotel Water Park went in. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s right. MR. LEMERY-We were under mandate to build the pedestrian bridge by the County Planning Board and then the Town Planning Board, so we don’t have any other traffic 29 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) mitigation to do until traffic thresholds reach, I think, that 1.2 million, and I think at the 1.2 million, we’ve already met the traffic light at Glen Lake Road. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. LEMERY-And the turning lane on Route 9. So I believe, I don’t have it in front of me, but I think we’ve met our traffic mitigation requirements. MR. SIPP-Yes, I think so. As I remember it, you know, I was kind of involved with that. MR. LEMERY-Yes, I think we met that. I mean, do you recall anything further? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the only other mitigation was the traffic light at Blind Rock Road, which the traffic counts haven’t matched that yet. MR. LEMERY-Right. The traffic haven’t gone anywhere near where that’s supposed to go into effect. MR. HUNSINGER-In fact, we were kind of surprised that, when we got all the comment letters back from DOT, and I think it was when we were doing the Site Plan Review of the Hotel. MR. LEMERY-They wouldn’t even entertain a warrant. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. LEMERY-I think we all talked about that, and they wouldn’t. MR. HUNSINGER-We wanted it and DOT said no. MR. LEMERY-Right, we couldn’t get it done. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we couldn’t get it done. Yes, in fact, you’re right, the applicant, you were advocating for it as well. MR. LEMERY-We were willing to do that. MRS. STEFFAN-In the summer the backup on Blind Rock was not sufficient to warrant it, I mean, just our experience. MR. LEMERY-Well, you can sometime get a four or five car backup, but you’re usually out within a minute to two minutes, you know. MR. SIPP-It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. MR. LEMERY-No, right. MR. HUNSINGER-And I think the red light at Glen Lake Road has really helped immensely. MR. SIPP-That’s a lifesaver. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, that’s really helped a lot. MR. LEMERY-Thank you. MRS. BRUNO-Do you recall when Creighton Manning did their study, where it started? Did it start down at Blind Rock and go up to the Outlets? MR. LEMERY-My recollection is that we, in 2000/2001, we studied every single intersection from Route 9 at Quaker Road, all the way up to 149. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. LEMERY-We were mandated by the Planning Board to look at every single intersection all the way up. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, it was the whole Route 9 corridor. 30 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. LEMERY-Which we did. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. Thanks. MR. LEMERY-The Planning Board has, we’re going to be coming back year after year after year for new things, you know, and it probably, if you have the time some time to go in and look at those impact studies. We try to give the, what we do is when we have an application, we go through that Impact Statement and the Supplemental Impact Statement of 2004, and then determine whether or not we’ve either met SEQRA under the existing plan, or we have to supplement the Impact Statement, which we did when we put the Hotel Water Park in, and I think we provide Staff with that information. MRS. BRUNO-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-What I wanted to add is if I remember correctly, the actual Findings Statement wasn’t that extensive, in terms of, you know, number of volumes. I mean, I had a whole box that was the whole, you know, Generic Environmental Impact Statement, including the Draft and everything else. MR. LEMERY-Well, the Draft was huge, but by the time we got to the Final, and then we got to the Findings, right. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, but the final Findings Statement really wasn’t too extensive, and, you know, I think if there were a project in the future of significant magnitude that we could ask for copies. I know I still have a copy somewhere. MR. SIPP-The only thing that concerns me, and it has nothing to do with this, is the sewer hook. I’d like to see that go forward as quickly as possible in order to prevent any problems with Glen Lake. MR. HOLMES-The sewer hook up, the plan is to complete the entire Park, the Park area connection by 2008. That was, we had asked for a variance extension from the Planning Board back in the Spring, and that was obtained. It’s just that this, we’re in the process of adding close to two miles of on site sewer to connect everything into the Queensbury municipal sewer, and we’re in the final phase of that. This area for the Wiggles World is already sewered at this time, and it’s a matter, we’re removing one food venue. A new food venue is going back in its place and it’s going to be using an existing sewer connection that was installed in actually early 2006. MR. BAKER-Mr. Chairman, just a clarification. The variance from the sewer connection requirement granting an extension was done by the Town Board, not the Planning Board. MR. HOLMES-I’m sorry, if I said Planning Board. MR. HUNSINGER-You didn’t say either. You just said it was extended. MR. HOLMES-Okay. MR. LEMERY-They’re working on it right now. MR. HOLMES-I was going to say, that work is underway currently. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SIPP-Good. I don’t know what year I worked there, but I know there was leakage, and it had to be, you could see it in the water, what used to go through the old Jungle Land, whatever that was called, where the swinging bridge was. MR. HOLMES-I assure you, that has all gone away. MR. SIPP-Good. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions or comments from the Board? We do have a public hearing scheduled for this evening. Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to address the Board on this application? Just for the benefit of the public, there are three separate Site Plans before us this evening for The Great Escape, and we will keep them separate, to the extent that we can, and if you could speak into the mic and give us your name for the record. 31 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) PUBLIC HEARING OPENED LORRAINE STEIN MS. STEIN-Will do. Lorraine Stein. I live on 86 Ash Drive, which is right close, on the back side of the Park. I actually just watched one of the Wiggles shows the other day, because I did see the billboard on the Northway and on Route 9 advertised, and I noticed that they’re very music oriented shows. So I’m concerned about the noise. This past summer, I had called The Great Escape because there was a lot of noise coming from like the loudspeaker, and when I contacted, I think it was the Marketing Manager, or Director, it was a woman, and she had informed me that there was an Olympic bobsled special event that was going on, the Olympic team, and I thought, okay, special event, just for the day. They ended up turning down the volume of the loudspeaker so we couldn’t hear it, but as the summer progressed, that became, whatever they were doing, I don’t know if it was the same event or other events that were going on, but that loudspeaker was on significantly, you know, a lot more than it had been before. Years prior, we didn’t really hear that. The main concern was the bobsled, the noise from the bobsled. Like I said, last summer it just seemed to progress with these loudspeakers. So I’m sort of concerned about that, because, you know, I don’t have a problem with the rides themselves and what not. I would like them to address, you know, whether there’s outside speakers, how they’re going to be directed, where they’re going to be directed to. They mentioned something about performances that are going to be held. Are they going to be outside? Are they going to be enclosed in the theater, like I think they mentioned there might be a theater of some sort. Are those performances going to be in the theater where it’s going to be enclosed. I’m just trying to see if there was anything else, but that’s my main concern, because, like I said, that’s become more of an issue, more so last year than any other year. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. MS. STEIN-Okay. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone else? Good evening. MANDY DIEFFENBACH MRS. DIEFFENBACH-Good evening. My name’s Mandy Dieffenbach. I also live on Ash Drive. I am a year round resident. I’m not a renter. I’m not a seasonal. I feel that a lot of people in that particular area are seasonal, are renters and obviously aren’t present for that reason. In general, in speaking with a lot of people this summer, in regards to the noise level, as Lorraine did speak of, it has progressed, louder. In hearing that the Wiggles World is coming in, I’m not opposed to a family oriented ride. I think that’s a great thing, but, my concern is, knowing the Wiggles World, knowing that it’s probably continuous noise, you’re going to hear noise from the Wiggles, their show. Obviously there’s going to be a lot of young children, obviously a lot of noise. The sound level does concern me. They talk about wanting to be family friendly, which I agree with. My concern is family friendly versus resident friendly also. I’d like to see an equal balance. If the noise level as it is is loud, there’s loudspeakers. My concern would be, where would this impact the current noise level? If it is the same, if it would be considered the same as the noise level now, I would obviously be opposed to that, and as far as them addressing, obviously they mentioned having vegetation to help with the noise radiation. Obviously they do anticipate there will be an issue with noise. The type of vegetation that they would be looking at, what kind is it? Is it tall? Is it small? Which areas would it be in? Also, being that it’s live shows, is it outside? My understanding is it’s going to be outside. There’s going to be no canopy. So obviously the noise level is going to be louder. I think that pretty much addresses it. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Good evening. PAUL DERBY MR. DERBY-Good evening. Paul Derby, 86 Ash Drive, President of the Glen Lake Protective Association. I want to start by saying that in recent years that The Great Escape has been a good neighbor, and for all the things that you talked about, the traffic light, thank you for doing that. It’s made things great, the bridge, and we’ve had actually no problems, and the direction that they’re going is good for the community, the children, family direction works. I do have two concerns. One that the previous speakers just mentioned. That has to do with noise. I also live in that area, obviously, and we did 32 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) notice an increase in noise over the summer, and a couple of calls were put in, and they aid they were event specific, but they seemed to be continuous. So I guess I have a couple of questions for the applicants, if they could tell us who we should call, as community persons, to talk about noise, to talk about those things, and also for the current Wiggles shows, if they’ve done this other places, if they actually have studies about the sound that is generated from these, that they could share with us, or if it’s an experiment, and if so, how we could participate in mitigating, if there are problems with that, and the other concern I had coming in has sort of been addressed, and that has to do from the Glen Lake Protective Association with the hooking up of the Park side to the sewer line, and I know they’re in the process to do this, and if they can get it done by 2008, fantastic. I wonder if the applicant would actually attach a stipulation to these approvals saying we’re going to hook up by this date in 2008, and kind of appease us at the same time. Thanks. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MRS. BRUNO-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone else? Okay. I’ll leave the public hearing open for the time being. If you’d come back to the table, please. MR. LEMERY-Should we go to the second one, or do you want to take them all at the end, or do you want to address these issues? MR. HUNSINGER-No, if you could address these issues now, that would be great. MR. MC COY-Okay. I’ll do the best I can, and I appreciate the comments. I guess the first course of direction I would suggest is I would encourage you to call me. The number is 792-3500, and speak to me. You’re a local resident, and I’m Extension 3202, and just call, leave me a message, and I’ll be happy to call you back. Now, with regard to the questions about the show itself, I can tell you a little bit about what the show is, and hopefully that’ll alleviate concerns. The show itself is going to have speakers that are just intended to amplify into a small set of bleachers immediately in front of the stage. It is an outdoor show, and it will basically be a one person kind of show. It’ll have a singer, and the rest of them will be the Wiggles stuffed characters, Wags the Dog and Dorothy. So they’ll actually be in costumes. So it’s not intended to be a loud show, and it’s not intended to be a lengthy show. It’ll be, you know, age two to six appropriate in time, you know, somewhere between 12 and 18 minutes, depending on the final script. It’s also, by nature of who we’re appealing to, it’ll be predominantly a daytime events. They’ll happen, you know, pretty much, most of the kids and most of the families are leaving by 4:30 or 5:00 in the afternoon. So I don’t anticipate, now those shows do exist in several of our other parks, Chicago, New England, New Jersey, and to my knowledge there hasn’t been any complaints whatsoever about the amount of noise generated by that particular area. MRS. BRUNO-How are those parks situated, as compared to The Great Escape, in terms of neighborhoods nearby? I’ve never visited any of the other parks. MR. MC COY-They’re all different. New England has a residential area around it, where as New Jersey’s 40 miles from the nearest civilization, but this area is inside the park, and it is intended to be, the sound is directed down, right towards the bleachers section. So, if it’s too loud, I mean, the people in the immediate area will let us know that. So I truly don’t anticipate having any ambient noise beyond the immediate location of the actual show. MR. LEMERY-I think the first way to approach this is to have people call if they’ve got an issue, try to get somebody and see if that can be mitigated right away, and if not, we have very specific standards set in the Impact Statement, and we have to meet those standards every year. So we won’t know until the summer when the ride’s there, we’ll do some testing and see what that looks like at the parameters of the park, but The Great Escape has been there since 1954, and probably pre-dates most of what’s going on. So the issue becomes what’s going on at the parameters of the park in terms of the decibel levels, and we went all through this, and so we understand that we have these, you know, these studies to do, and we’ll do these studies. In the meantime, the best way to address it, if there’s a problem, is to call up and see if we can get it fixed right away. I don’t think anybody wants anybody to have to not be able to have a rest or anything because of excessive noise over there, but it is an amusement park. It is zoned as an amusement park, and it’s been there since 1954. 33 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. SEGULJIC-Those studies are done periodically, the noise studies? MR. LEMERY-Pardon? MR. SEGULJIC-The noise studies are done periodically? MR. LEMERY-Yes, it’s done annually, and from all different receptors that have been defined in the Impact Statement. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we got a copy of that report. MR. LEMERY-And we provide the Board with a copy, an independent engineer. That’s not something we do. MR. SEGULJIC-Right, but it’s done one time per summer? MR. SIPP-No. MR. HUNSINGER-No, multiple dates. MR. LEMERY-Multiple dates. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. What I’m getting at, there is a safeguard in place. MR. LEMERY-Well, we try to do that. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the thing I wanted to add is in your submission letter you do state correctly that any ride or attraction that will result in an increase of the L-90 by more than five decibels is subject to additional environmental review. MR. LEMERY-Right, either remove it or mitigate it. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. SIPP-A lot of it, John, has to do with which way the wind’s blowing. MR. LEMERY-There are times, you know, I’ve been playing golf and many times think it’s a thunderstorm and recognize it as the one ride we’d all like to see go away. So I’m with you there. MR. SIPP-Are they going to keep the old wheels, the noisy ones? MR. MC COY-They recently did put a new set of pneumatic tires on there to reduce the noise. MR. SIPP-Yes, because at one time they put new wheels on, it was quieter, but then they determined that it was unsafe, and then they removed those and went back to the old ones, and like John, who was the original. MR. MC COY-Mr. Collins, yes. MR. LEMERY-Yes. MR. SIPP-He said he would. MR. LEMERY-I’m not sure we’d have had an Impact Statement if we had not put that ride in there in the first place. MR. HOLMES-Just one observation for the Board, and you folks, you can actually, I’ve got them on the presentation board, some of the photographs are renderings that we have and the drawing set that we put together, one is of a Wiggles theater. It’s not an exact duplication of what we’re proposing here, but you can see in it that there are, that speakers that are in here, and they’re angled down. It’s going to be a similar setup for that, and if you folks want to come up, I mean, they’re right here. I can’t tell you which ones right there right now, but it’s a fact that they are going to be angled down, as Don had indicated, that I just wanted to have you guys, if you hadn’t noticed that, that’s one of the things they. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. 34 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. TRAVER-With regards to maintenance and so on of your equipment, do you periodically do metrics of the sound? I mean, I know that typically, this happens in my own home, listening to the stereo, you know, you can make an adjustment to the volume control, and the next thing you know it’s louder than it needs to be or perhaps louder than it should be for health reasons. Do you periodically measure the acoustic levels? You’re talking about dealing with young children and so on here, as opposed to having the summer workers simply adjust what apparent volume seems appropriate for them? MR. MC COY-I think the best way to answer that is this year we recently put in a new sound system that gives us the ability to control each section of the park, both by music type and by volume, and it is intended to be continuously monitored. It’s located right at the front gate, and there’s actually a gentleman that’s assigned to man and monitor that location, and that’s why it’s very easy for us to make adjustments to specific areas. It’s not just one area. So it’s continuously monitored by the team there inside the park. That’s part of the team supervisor’s responsibility is to notify us if anything’s out of line. MR. TRAVER-Good. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions or comments from the Board? Are people comfortable in moving forward? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I will close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. HUNSINGER-Then. SEQRA Is not required since it’s covered under the Generic Environmental Impact Statement. I think the only condition, the applicant did address the engineering comments, but, just a final signoff from the engineer I think would be appropriate. MR. HOLMES-I would imagine Staff would be forwarding my response letter to the engineer? MR. BAKER-Yes, we will. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 58-2007 GREAT ESCAPE THEME PARK, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: 1. A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes development & construction of a Themed Child’s Area called Wiggles World. Amusement Center uses in the RC zone require Site Plan review and approval. 2. A public hearing is scheduled for12/20/07; and 3. This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; and 4. Pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179], the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies / does not comply with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and 5. The requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative / Positive Declaration; and if the application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered, and the proposed modification[s] do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and REVISED [SEE BELOW] 35 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) 6. Final approved plans, in compliance with the Site Plan, must be submitted to the Community Development Department before any further review by the Zoning Administrator or Building and Codes personnel. The applicant must meet with Staff after approval and prior to issuance of Building Permit and/or the beginning of any site work. Subsequent issuance of further permits, including building permits is dependent on compliance with this and all other conditions of this resolution. 7. The applicant will provide as-built plans to certify that the site plan is developed according to the approved plans prior to issuance of the certificate of occupancy; and 8. If applicable, Item 8 to be combined with a letter of credit; and N/A 9. The Sanitary Sewer connection plan must be submitted to the Wastewater Department for its review, approval, permitting and inspection; and MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 58-2007 GREAT ESCAPE THEME PARK, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: According to the resolution prepared by Staff. Paragraph Five, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the proposed Site Plan does not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts from the previous General Environmental Impact Statement. Paragraph Eight does not apply. This is approved with the following condition: 1) That the applicant obtain VISION Engineering signoff. th Duly adopted this 20 day of December, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford MR. HUNSINGER-You’re all set on that one. MR. MC COY-Thank you very much. SITE PLAN NO. 65-2007 SEQR TYPE PREVIOUS SEQR GREAT ESCAPE THEME PARK AGENT(S) LEMERY GREISLER, LLC OWNER(S) GREAT ESCAPE THEME PARK; SIX FLAGS, INC. ZONING RC-15 LOCATION 1172 STATE ROUTE 9 APPLICANT PROPOSES THE ADDITION OF “WILD WEDGIE” WATER RIDE TO EXISTING SPLASHWATER KINGDOM. AMUSEMENT CENTER USES IN RC ZONES REQUIRE PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE FGEIS 7/11/02 WARREN CO. PLANNING 12/12/07 APA/DEC/CEA DEC, CEA LOT SIZE 237.6 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 288.20-1-20 SECTION 179-9-050 JOHN LEMERY, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Stu, whenever you’re ready to summarize Staff Notes. MR. BAKER-The applicant is proposing adding a slide ride into an existing swimming pool on a 0.49 acre project area in Splashwater Kingdom. The slide will become the only use of this pool. Staff concurs with the applicant’s position that these changes are consistent with and do not exceed defined thresholds in the 2004 Supplemental GEIS for the park. The proposed project will result in increased permeable area at the project site and the significant addition of landscaping where limited plantings currently exist. Pedestrian circulation for this ride area will be the familiar one entrance, one exit arrangement. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. The floor is yours, gentlemen. MR. LEMERY-This is attraction is much like the one that went in last year, The Tornado, only on a much smaller basis. It only allows for a couple of people to accelerate down 36 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) this fiberglass tunnel, where they then shoot out into the existing pool that has been there for many, many years. Again, this is not a traffic generator. There is no additional lighting, other than what’s already existing, which will be added to the attraction. Addressing the sound, again, ENSR will look at the sound, but this kind of water ride shouldn’t add at all to any kind of sound at the park. MRS. STEFFAN-Just the screaming. MR. LEMERY-Well, it’s not a very long scream because you’re in this tunnel until you get out into the water. No restrooms, locker rooms or food service stands and associated wastewater discharges are proposed in conjunction with this ride. All backwash, water generated will be directed to the existing Noah’s Sprayground, and from there into the holding dechlorinazation tank, and other on site filtration systems which are already there. There is some limited landscaping, but this is in the Splashwater Kingdom area, and with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I’ll turn it over to the President. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. DON MC COY MR. MC COY-I don’t know if there’s a tremendous amount that I can add to it. The water attraction, we feel like, was an important addition. Our Splashwater Kingdom is popular, and our guests gave us some very positive feedback about the Tornado ride this year, and so this attraction’s from the same manufacturer, Pro Slide. It’s going to have an enclosed tower, or an enclosed tube ride that you descend, whether on single or double tubes together, and you’ll descend down into this bowl, and you will spin around until you descend out of a trough into our existing pool. The actual diameter is about 30 feet. It’s a new attraction designed for us by Pro Slide called the Bullet Bowl. We’ll, of course, call it the Wedgie. So we wanted to have an additional attraction that appealed to that age group slightly above, you know, that six year old range for this year, and so I’ll let Bob talk to you a little bit about it. We are, the mechanical aspect of this is going to be down in location, across and under the ground to have any mechanical noise eliminated, and truly it should be just limited to running water and guests, you know, riding the ride. Hopefully laughter and screaming. MR. HOLMES-Right. Again, similar to the development that we had just talked about with Wiggles World, this is, we’re re-utilizing an existing space within the park or within Splashwater Kingdom. There’s an existing swimming pool that’s actually, it’s my understanding it’s decades old, actually. It dates back to when Mr. Wood had his campground up in that neighborhood, and we’re looking to re-utilize that existing swimming pool as the splash pool for this slide. With regards to filtration water and backwash water discharge, since that pool is already existing, we’re re-utilizing the existing filter package and discharge system that was already present and existing, and that’s actually located just across the midway in I believe it’s now referred to as the Splashwater Kingdom restrooms. It’s actually in the basement level of that. The actual pump that runs, I believe it’s somewhere around 3500, 4,000 gallons a minute, is actually going to be located below grade out at the water park itself, or out at the slide itself. Again, just moving on with wastewater, similar scenario. Because this is, SPDES has been triggered for stormwater in the park already, we’re obligated to maintain and perpetuate the SPDES stormwater mitigation treatment requirements, and this .49 acre project site that we have for this, again, we’re meeting and exceeding what those requirements are going to be, and for the stormwater, we’re just primarily utilizing shallow infiltration basins. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Questions, comments from the Board? MRS. BRUNO-So is that pool the one that almost looks like a wading pool? MR. MC COY-It’s about a three and a half foot deep pool. It’s right across from the lockers and the changing areas. It wasn’t operated last year. It was maintained but not open. MRS. BRUNO-Is that going to be deep enough for someone at that? MR. HOLMES-Right now it’s actually too deep. For the way the slide is set up, as you’re coming out of the run out from the slide into the pool, when a person comes and dumps off of the tube, the inflatable tube as is the case, we don’t want someone that’s going to completely submerge themselves in the water. So actually shallower water allows them 37 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) to get their feet acclimated onto the bottom of the pool and quickly exit the pool. That helps facilitate operation of the system, of the slide. MR. MC COY-And it will have a height restriction of either 42 or 48 inches. MRS. BRUNO-I’m also just curious. You guys put up a pretty big retaining wall. Were you having erosion back there by the other? MR. HOLMES-That was a previous application. MR. MC COY-It’s an electrical substation. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we approved that. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. I guess I missed that one. Sorry. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we do have a public hearing. Did anyone want to comment on this application? Anyone want to address the Board? Good evening again. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED LORRAINE STEIN MS.STEIN-Lorraine Stein, 86 Ash Drive. I just had a quick question. I just wanted to make sure there was no music on that ride, from what I gather? MR. HUNSINGER-We’ll ask, to clarify. MS. STEIN-I just wanted that to be clarified, if there was anything else, other than what they mentioned, if there was anything other than, that they were going to be generating other than just the ride itself. MR. HUNSINGER-Sure. Any other comments? PAUL DERBY MR. DERBY-I probably missed it. I’m Paul Derby, but did they indicate the height of the ride and which zone it’s in? MR. HUNSINGER-They didn’t specify, but it is in the application. It’s 36 feet high at its highest point, but we can ask them to clarify that, that it’s in the area with the height restriction of 115 feet. MR. DERBY-Okay, and if they could answer a question about lighting on the ride, and visual impact. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. DERBY-Thanks. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other comments from the public? Okay. I’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. HOLMES-There’s no additional music or sound amplification or devices going to be utilized in this area, other than what’s already pre-existing. As we had indicated with the Wiggles World, it’s already piped around the park itself. Exterior lighting. There is no exterior lighting proposed, other than what is previously existing for security purposes, and there was one other question. MR. HUNSINGER-The height. MR. HOLMES-The height. Yes, you are correct. The height is 36 feet, which makes it about 18 feet actually lower than what the Tornado slide is, and actually the rendering we have is if you were to look at that, up on top of the hill, as if you were looking at it from the Round Pond Road. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. 38 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. SIPP-Is that the color it’s going to be? MR. MC COY-It’s going to be more of a purple and green. It is a very colorful attraction. Those are closer to the colors that are going to be used. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions or comments from the Board? The same comment. Provided we agree that SEQRA is within the Generic Environmental Impact Statement as stated by the applicant and confirmed by Staff, no additional SEQRA review is required. We did have a couple of engineering comments that the applicant has provided a response to. I’m sorry, just one comment that the applicant has provided a response to. Would anyone like to put forward a resolution? MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 65-2007 GREAT ESCAPE THEME PARK, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: 1. A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes the addition of “Wild Wedgie” water ride to existing Splashwater Kingdom. Amusement Center uses in RC zones require Planning Board and approval. 2. A public hearing is scheduled for12/20/07; and 3. This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; and 4. Pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179], the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies / does not comply with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and 5. The requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative / Positive Declaration; and if the application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered, and the proposed modification[s] do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and 6. Final approved plans, in compliance with the Site Plan, must be submitted to the Community Development Department before any further review by the Zoning Administrator or Building and Codes personnel. The applicant must meet with Staff after approval and prior to issuance of Building Permit and/or the beginning of any site work. Subsequent issuance of further permits, including building permits is dependent on compliance with this and all other conditions of this resolution. 7. The applicant will provide as-built plans to certify that the site plan is developed according to the approved plans prior to issuance of the certificate of occupancy; and 8. If applicable, Item 8 to be combined with a letter of credit; and 9. The Sanitary Sewer connection plan must be submitted to the Wastewater Department for its review, approval, permitting and inspection; and MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 65-2007 GREAT ESCAPE THEME PARK, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: According to the resolution prepared by Staff. Paragraph Five, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the proposed Site Plan does not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts from the previous General Environmental Impact Statement. Paragraph Eight does not apply. This is approved with the condition that the applicant will obtain VISION Engineering signoff. th Duly adopted this 20 day of December, 2007, by the following vote: MR. BAKER-And I will forward their revisions to VISION Engineering. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. 39 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford MR. MC COY-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. SITE PLAN NO. 62-2007 SEQR TYPE PREVIOUS SEQR GREAT ESCAPE THEME PARK AGENT(S) LEMERY GREISLER, LLC OWNER(S) GREAT ESCAPE THEME PARK; SIX FLAGS, INC. ZONING RC-15 LOCATION 1172 STATE ROUTE 9 APPLICANT PROPOSES MODIFICATION OF APPROVED SITE PLAN – FENCING. COMMERCIAL ENCNG REQUIRES SITE PLAN REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE FGEIS 7/11/02 WARREN CO. PLANNING 12/12/07 APA/DEC/CEA DEC, CEA LOT SIZE 237.6 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 288.20-1-20, 295.12-1-3, 4 SECTION 179-9-050 JOHN LEMERY, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Stu, if you could summarize Staff Notes when you’re ready, please. MR. BAKER-This application is for modification of the May 2007 site plan approval for the following changes: Replacement of 1,340 feet of existing chain link fence with decorative ornamental fence Installation of new 150 feet of decorative ornamental fence This is the same type and height of new fencing that the applicant has placed elsewhere along its Route 9 property frontage. The applicant has requested waivers from the following three application requirements: lighting plan, stormwater management plan and landscaping plan. These same waivers were granted in the May 2007 application. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MR. LEMERY-The purpose of this new fencing, Mr. Chairman, is to continue to try to get people to go over the pedestrian bridge and get off Route 9 so we’re fencing that portion from Martha’s restaurant north, up through the Kay’s Motel site, up to the existing fencing, and the chain link fencing that is there is being replaced with the black decorative fencing that makes it look nice. So we’re taking that out and replacing that, and we’ve asked for waivers, because there’s no stormwater management plan associated with this, really, and there’s no lighting plan associated with the fencing. So we’re trying to, as best we can, get the traffic off 9. We can’t control what happens in those two properties. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. LEMERY-Or coming down the Hotel, but if we can get them onto the sidewalk and get them over to the bridge, that’s the purpose of the fencing. MR. MC COY-Not much more to add to that. It just looks better and I think it’s going to be a safer situation than we have currently. MR. HOLMES-The only thing I would add is just the letter, this last letter I gave you was nothing more than confirmation of the assumption that Mr. Ryan had made in his engineering review of the project. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Okay. Questions, comments from the Board? MR. SEGULJIC-It looks like a big improvement. MR. SIPP-One thing, I think on the north end, above where the entrance is to the parking now, this fence seems to go over onto the New York State Department of Transportation right of way. MR. HOLMES-That is correct. We’ve actually got quite a few fence locations that are on the right of way. That fence which you’re referring to is already pre-existing, and which we’ve already obtained use and occupancy permits from New York State DOT to utilize that area, and again, because we’re replacing it, we’re in the process of re-applying for a 40 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) work permit to do so, and that’s actually a permit application is running concurrently with you folks. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Any other questions or comments? MR. SIPP-One of the best things you ever did was put that fence in. It cuts the view of the parking lots, the acres of cars and it dresses up the whole place. I really think you did a very good job here. MR. MC COY-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Again, we do have a public hearing scheduled. Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to comment on this? If you could state your name for the record and address your comments to the Board. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED DOUG BAERTSCHI MR. BAERTSCHI-My name’s Doug Baertschi. I operate Northland Sport Operators, right across the street the Six Flags Hotel. The existing fence that’s there now, the chain link fence, is four feet high. I have no problem with The Great Escape putting the ornamental fence in like exists across the street. However, I do have some photos that I took today that are very hard to see, but if this fence that is, the existing fence that’s across the street now, if it’s six feet high, it’s going to be cutting off a third of the bottom of my sign, it’s also, coming from the north, it’s going to be cutting off a big chunk of my building, and it’s going to impede my business. So I don’t have a problem with him doing that same type of fence, but it shouldn’t be any higher than the existing four foot fence that is now. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? I’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. HUNSINGER-If you could comment on that. MR. HOLMES-Just one clarification. It’s a five foot high fence. I mean, I don’t know if that’s an improvement from Mr. Baertschi or not. MR. BAERTSCHI-I measured today, the highest point is six feet. It’s a scalloped fence, ornamental fence. MRS. STEFFAN-Is the fence available in shorter sizes? I know some are. MR. LEMERY-Could we see a photograph of what he’s saying? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, could you show us the photo? MR. HOLMES-Right. I’m just curious as to what angle he was referring to. MR. BAERTSCHI-I measured this this morning. From here to the top of these posts is six feet, and this fence here is four feet high. This is the one where my sign is. As you can see, that four foot fence is right at the bottom of my sign. Six feet would be cutting that sign off right there. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-So we could just limit that area. MR. BAERTSCHI-This is a four foot fence. Six feet would bring that fence right across there. Also coming down from the north, it would be cutting off my building up there, and this fence here, from here to here, is six feet. MR. HOLMES-Is this on the west side of the road? MR. BAERTSCHI-That’s across the street, yes. MR. HOLMES-Okay. 41 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-Is there any way that we could limit the height of the fence in front of his property to four feet? MR. MC COY-Yes. We can take a look and research that. I’m not sure what’s available and in what heights it’s available. MR. LEMERY-If the sign were raised another couple of feet, that would take care of that fence that he’s referring to there. The fence that comes down Route 9 on the eastern side of Route 9, I personally don’t think that cuts off his business, but I’ll defer to you for that. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I think what he’s saying is the existing four foot high fence is okay, but if you make the fence higher, than it’s going to cut off part of his sign. MR. LEMERY-Yes. Well, it’s not the sign. He’s talking about his building. MR. BAERTSCHI-It’ll also cut the building off, coming from the north. I mean, I don’t have a problem with that type of fence, just, the existing four foot. Why should it all of a sudden be raised to six? MR. MC COY-Is the new fence any different? MR. HOLMES-The new fence that’s proposed is identical to everything else, what is there presently. MRS. STEFFAN-Do you know, is it a custom fence? MR. HOLMES-Yes, it’s a custom made fence. MRS. STEFFAN-I know that on some of the fences that are available, similarly in plastic, they have sections that are available that slant down, and usually it meets with the property line or it tapers down at the end of a fence run, and so there may be sections available that will allow you. MR. HOLMES-As a transition to that. What he’s referring to on here is that what we’ve called Fence A and Fence B. MR. LEMERY-Yes. You’d have this piece looking across the southern end and then this piece going up north. MR. MC COY-Yes. Maybe we just don’t even do that piece. MR. LEMERY-Well, that would take care of the sign. MR. HOLMES-On that end, we’re only proposing replacement of any fencing on the south, or referring to Fence B. We’re only proposing to replace any fence that’s parallel to Route 9. Anything that’s running back in front of the billboard, which is along the south property line, that would be, remain the same. MR. LEMERY-What if we just left it the way it is? We can leave it the way it is, Mr. Chairman. It just doesn’t look very good there. I mean, we don’t want to take away from his, the building view. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. LEMERY-But, it’s not that far a run anyway, this run here, right? MR. HOLMES-The entire length of that north of the Northland Sports property, we’re talking is 400 feet about. That total length is 530 feet, which is north of his property. MR. LEMERY-Or we could leave it that way up to this tree and then run it up again. MR. MC COY-Yes. You’d have two different styles of fence. MR. LEMERY-Well, that’s the thing. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, it would look cheesy. 42 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. MC COY-Yes, I think so, too. It would be chain link part way and then the decorative iron. MR. LEMERY-I mean, it is a fence you can see right through. It’s not as though it’s a, so I’m having trouble thinking that you couldn’t see his building just as clearly as you can with this. I can see where the sign, the lower piece of the sign from the southern end, so maybe we could do. MR. MC COY-We just don’t do that. MR. LEMERY-Maybe we just do that one section, which would make sure that sign doesn’t get. MR. HUNSINGER-So you weren’t planning to replace the perpendicular fence? It’s only the fence that? MR. HOLMES-If you’re looking at Fence B, which is the south side, which is right in front of, I think that’s where the roller coaster sits behind it, it’s only that section which is parallel to Route 9. The section that extends perpendicular, or along the common boundary line with Mr. Baertschi, that’s to remain the existing four foot high fence. MR. LEMERY-Which would not affect his sign, then. So the only question becomes, that fence along Route 9, I’m having trouble seeing the difference, really, in terms of visual. In fact, leave it to your judgment, I guess. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. So the picture of his sign, that’s the perpendicular fence. MR. LEMERY-That won’t change. We’ll leave that the way it is, and this is what we propose and this is what’s there. This is Mr. Baertschi’s building. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other thoughts? Has what’s been suggested, I mean, they’re not proposing to replace the perpendicular section of fence that would block your sign. MR. BAERTSCHI-The fencing that’s parallel to the Route 9, I mean, if you’re standing in front looking at the fence (lost words) if you’re driving up Route 9, you’ve got a solid fence, when you drive by to look at it, and that’s where people are not going to be able to see in and see my sign, or my building. If it’s a custom made fence, I can’t see what the big deal is, cutting two feet off the bottom of it, it’s going to be the same fence, it’s just going to be four foot high instead of six foot high. MR. HOLMES-One option that I know we’ve seen other places in the park where they have a similar fence, is unfortunately putting it down to a four foot height, is we don’t want to tempt people to try to climb over it. MR. HUNSINGER-Step over it, yes. Let me just ask this question, though. It was commented that sections of the ornamental fence that’s currently in place are six feet high, but in the design that you’ve submitted, it shows to the very top of the post as being five. MR. HOLMES-That may be an oversight on my part. I think when we looked at it, it’s designed or stated as a five foot high fence by the manufacturer. I think it may be the case that maybe they’re taking it as an average height or it may be the height at the, it’s scalloped at the top. It may be at a lower dimension as opposed to where I have depicted it there. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. HOLMES-I think right now that’s my only thought. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Okay. MR. BAERTSCHI-Can I interrupt a second? I did measure it today, the fence, and what I’m saying it’s actually from the post to the top of the balls that they have on top of the posts is actually six foot three inches. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. So it’s probably five foot high to the lowest point of the fence. Well, what do we want to do? 43 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MRS. STEFFAN-I certainly think that the fence would be very nice because it would improve, obviously, the aesthetics of that corridor, but it would be unfair to block the merchant’s sign, and of course there are a lot of variables here. The solution would be to raise Mr. Baertschi’s sign up, you know, to accommodate the fence, but I don’t know how that could be accommodated, whether that’s, I don’t know if The Great Escape wants to assume the liability to raise the sign up so that it’s above the fencing or, you know. MR. LEMERY-I don’t think that’s the issue, because we’re saying we won’t change the fencing there. We’ll leave that fencing there. MRS. STEFFAN-I know, but if, indeed, the fencing, the ornamental fencing that is along the road and Route 9, does obstruct, and as you’re driving north towards the Outlets, and if it does obstruct the merchant’s sign, then it would be reasonable to try to remedy that for them, but I don’t know how to suggest to do that. MR. BAERTSCHI-My question would be, how are you going to raise my building? MR. LEMERY-It wasn’t the sign he was concerned about, it was the building. MR. BAERTSCHI-I’m concerned about the sign coming from the south, the building coming from the (lost word). The existing fence that’s there now is four foot high. MR. HUNSINGER-So what you’re saying is only replace the fence where you show Fence C and Fence D and not replace. MR. LEMERY-We’re trying to get people from jumping over the fence and getting into the property and getting them off 9. MR. HUNSINGER-I understand that. Yes. MR. LEMERY-So that ultimately the $2 million we spent on the bridge, you know, they go over the bridge. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. LEMERY-And not hop the fence and try to get into the park and come down. They’ll cross that road. It’s already bad enough where those two restaurants are. They come there, they’ll come down from Martha’s and try to get over. So that’s what we’ve attempted to address with the height of the fence. They can’t so easily jump over the fence, but we understand. MR. HUNSINGER-Right, and it does look so much better than the chain link fence. I mean, I really commend you for trying to extend the decorative fencing. I think it looks very attractive. MRS. BRUNO-Is there any way, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, down by the main area where the brook comes through, the fence had to kind of break because of the culvert and everything. Have you ever noticed people cutting through there? The kids squish through and then go across. Is there any way that, if this is a custom fence, that something can be? MR. HOLMES-You’re talking about at the culvert their crossing? MRS. BRUNO-Yes. MR. HOLMES-We’ve actually closed that gap. We’ve spanned that fence over the gap. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that. MRS. BRUNO-No, I haven’t. MR. MC COY-Yes, we’ve lowered that fence down. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. Thanks. MR. SIPP-I assume this is steel, steel fence, or is it aluminum? MR. HOLMES-It’s a powder coated steel. 44 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. SIPP-It seems to me you could lower both the upright and the cross members, with a welding torch very quickly, and just re-paint it. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SIPP-And that short section shouldn’t be a huge job. MR. HOLMES-Part of that would depend on what kind of distance in order to alleviate his concern as far as that eyesight or looking at his sign, how far back that will go. I mean, if we’re talking several hundred feet, or that whole distance, it is quite a bit of modification to the fence, and there is the potential for someone, with a lower fence, trying to scamper over the top of it, and that’s not an ideal situation. MRS. BRUNO-What if it’s the same height as the lowest point? MR. SIPP-Well, then a small bar, half inch rod, across the top. You’ll never see a half inch rod, at five feet, or if you lower the fence to four and put the rod at five, which the center of that fence is anyway. I mean, with a welding torch, you can do an awful lot of cobbling up very quickly. MR. HUNSINGER-Do you have a suggestion, Tom? MRS. BRUNO-Are you saying this fence is actually already made? MR. SEGULJIC-It’s sort of a cop out, but we approve everything but, this is Section B we’re talking about, I believe, right? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, it’s A and B. MR. SEGULJIC-It’s A and B we’re talking? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-I guess my recommendation is, obviously there’s new information, I mean, the fence does vary in size, and I don’t think we’re going to come up with the solution tonight, but what we could do is, based on the new information, maybe we could th table this to the first meeting in January. We could get you on on the 15, and give you a th submission deadline of Friday the 4, if you want to come up with an alternative option. We’re less than a month from now. MR. LEMERY-Is this an alternative option to all the fencing we’ve proposed? MR. SEGULJIC-No. MR. HUNSINGER-Just for A and B. MR. SEGULJIC-Give you approval for C and D, and you could sit down. MRS. STEFFAN-I think there has to be another option we just haven’t explored. I mean, obviously. MR. HOLMES-I mean, one option we’re talking here would involve us to put some direction negotiation with Mr. Baertschi with regards to some reorientation. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, and knowing what your options are on the fence. I mean, if it’s a custom or if there are other options. MR. LEMERY-Or leave it the way it is. MR. SIPP-Well somebody come back with some photographs taken at various points up north of his business. MR. SEGULJIC-We can also look at it ourselves. MR. HUNSINGER-We can also go look at it again ourselves. I mean, when I looked at this application, I’m sure I did the same thing everyone else did. I said, great, this is a no-brainer, you know. MR. LEMERY-Well, he’s got, those are legitimate issues. 45 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, absolutely. MR. LEMERY-We’re with you. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I mean, we think so as well. th MR. LEMERY-You have a meeting on the 29 of January? th MR. HUNSINGER-We have a meeting on the 15. thth MR. LEMERY-Right, but I’m not in Town on the 15. Do you have one on the 29? nd MRS. BRUNO-The 22. MR. LEMERY-That’s not the one where Schermerhorn’s up here, right? MR. HUNSINGER-No. th MRS. BRUNO-That’s on the 17. MR. HUNSINGER-And we’ll put you first on the agenda as well. MR. LEMERY-Great. So would that be all right? th MR. HUNSINGER-That’s fine. I mean, we were going to try to do it for the 15, but if nd you’re not there, then we’ll do it the 22. MR. LEMERY-Can we get the other piece of this approved, however? MR. SEGULJIC-I was going to say. Do we want to table the whole thing, or give approval for Section C and D. MRS. STEFFAN-I think, let’s just do it in total. Otherwise, it will be difficult for Staff to track. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I’d rather do it altogether. MR. LEMERY-Okay. MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 62-2007 GREAT ESCAPE THEME PARK, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: This will be tabled to the second Planning Board meeting in January which would be nd January 22. There will be a submission deadline for the applicant of Friday, January 4, 2008. Tabled so the applicant can provide an alternative design to accommodate the retail operations. th Duly adopted this 20 day of December, 2007, by the following vote: MR. HUNSINGER-And let the record show we did promise to put them first on the agenda. AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford MR. LEMERY-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MR. MC COY-Thank you very much. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. The next item on the agenda, Staff pointed out that we did have it on the agenda on Tuesday, but we didn’t address it, and that is the 2008 meeting dates. There was a calendar provided in our Board packets. All of our 46 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) scheduled meeting dates are on the third and fourth Tuesdays of the month, and, I don’t know, did you want a motion or just make sure it’s on the record? Okay. MR. BAKER-Just concurrence with the Board that you want to stick with that schedule. MRS. STEFFAN-Do we need a motion? MR. HUNSINGER-He said no. The only other item on the agenda is consideration of officers for 2008. MRS. STEFFAN-I would like to nominate Chris Hunsinger for Chairman of the Queensbury Planning Board. MR. SEGULJIC-Second. MR. SIPP-Chris, what about the note here, the December meeting dates. MR. HUNSINGER-Don had a question on the meeting dates for December. thrd MR. SIPP-I mean, you’ve got them on the 16 and the 23. Do you want to change thth these to the 16 and the 18, or, that’s the only question I would have. MR. HUNSINGER-I know this year we didn’t really address it until November. MRS. STEFFAN-You know, Don, I think that that’s a really good idea. MRS. BRUNO-What? thth MR. HUNSINGER-Do it the 16 and the 18. MRS. STEFFAN-Can we get the room, I mean, that far in advance, Stu, do you think? MR. BAKER-We should be able to. I can check on it tomorrow certainly. MR. SIPP-It would eliminate getting around the Christmas week. MR. HUNSINGER-It sounds good to me. MR. BAKER-We’ll check on that tomorrow. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, it’s a question on there. MRS. STEFFAN-That is a really good idea. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-Back to the nominations? MR. HUNSINGER-Back to nominations. Gretchen put forward a resolution. MRS. STEFFAN-I’d like to make a motion to nominate Chris Hunsinger for Chairman of the Queensbury Planning Board. MR. HUNSINGER-Any discussion? MR. BAKER-I take it you’re going to re-up, then? MR. HUNSINGER-I am. MR. BAKER-Okay. Congratulations and condolences. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Both are in order. MOTION TO NOMINATE CHRIS HUNSINGER FOR CHAIRMAN OF THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: 47 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) th Duly adopted this 20 day of December, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Traver, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford MRS. STEFFAN-That means he’s committed, or he should be committed. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Exactly. Would anyone like to put forward a motion for Vice Chairman? MRS. STEFFAN-I’d like to nominate Tom Seguljic for Chairman of the Queensbury Planning Board. MR. HUNSINGER-I’ll second that. Any discussion? Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-I’m fine with that. MOTION TO NOMINATE THOMAS SEGULJIC FOR VICE-CHAIRMAN OF THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Chris Hunsinger: th Duly adopted this 20 day of December, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Secretary. MR. SEGULJIC-I’d like to nominate Gretchen. MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to say, Tom, you can get your revenge now. MRS. BRUNO-And I’ll second that. MR. HUNSINGER-Any discussion? MOTION TO NOMINATE GRETCHEN STEFFAN FOR SECRETARY OF THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Tanya Bruno: th Duly adopted this 20 day of December, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford MR. HUNSINGER-And just for the record, since Tuesday night, I did send a letter to the Supervisor asking to be reappointed at the organizational meeting in January. I fully expect that that would be done. I did also mention to him some of my concerns about the workload of this Board, and, you know, some of the issues that we face, and he has told me that he would make it a high priority to work with the, for the Town Board to work with the Planning Board to address the concerns that we continue to express about the workload and the length of our meetings and the lack of resources. I did mention specifically additional access to the Town Engineer and also to legal staff. I mean, certainly this year we’ve been represented at every meeting, but in the past, that has not been true, just for your benefit, Jeff, and so I think one of the things that we talked about a little bit on Tuesday is to see if we could have some sort of an organizational meeting of the Board, perhaps as early as January, to try to flesh out some of the issues that we continue to grapple with, specifically the length of the meetings being my primary concern, and the complexity of our work, and the lack of resources to help us. We certainly don’t need to set a meeting date or time now, but I just want everyone to know, 48 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) you know, what I was thinking, and I’m sure you share many of my same thoughts and concerns. MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, and I would think that if had an engineer here, I think it would help speed things along because you could just turn to them and say, well, what’s your feeling on this, is this accurate. Instead of us, as non-experts on that particular topic spinning wheels. MRS. STEFFAN-I agree. It was helpful here in the past to have the engineer here as a resource, because engineering questions come up all the time. MR. SEGULJIC-And I think they’re going to come up more and more. MRS. STEFFAN-And I’d like to suggest that we have our organizational meeting be the thth first full week in January, in that week of the 7 or the 11, so that we can make some decisions about how we want to proceed, organizationally, at the meetings, and then try them out at the Board meetings that month, to see how it goes, and then if we have to course correct, let’s re-group, in the beginning of February, and see if we have to tweak procedures or protocols and those kinds of things. MR. HUNSINGER-Stu, just to follow up on that thought for a second, if we wanted to have a meeting, would we be able to use like the Supervisor’s Conference Room, if this room is not available, you know, for workshop or organizational kind of meeting? MR. BAKER-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. BAKER-I can certainly check on that. MR. HUNSINGER-When you said the first week of January, Gretchen, did you mean the th week of the 7? th MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, the 7. MR. HUNSINGER-I can check on its availability. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SIPP-Did you address both the Planning Department and the lack of alternates? MR. HUNSINGER-I did. MR. SIPP-And, you know, they’ve saved somebody’s salary, because you can’t carryover the money, but, you know, it shouldn’t be a money thing to staff the Planning Department. So if they’re workload is less, to help us. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-I personally believe that if we can better organize the meetings in some of our protocols and procedures, and we shorten our meeting, we would be able to recruit and to attract and retain Planning Board members, but right now, if anybody comes to a Planning Board meeting, why would they want to come on this Board, when they would be committed to twelve, one o’clock in the morning, you know, a couple of meetings a month, plus all the prep that goes, you know, that’s involved with it? I mean, all of us here know how much work this job is. MR. TRAVER-Along those lines, in talking about the calendar, this past year, to accommodate the workload, sometimes we’ve scheduled a third meeting in a month. I wonder if, by default, in the ’08 calendar, we ought to schedule three meetings every month, and then not use it, rather than suddenly find we need one and then try to find a date that’ll work. If we schedule three every month, if we don’t need it, then we don’t have the meeting, but at least that way it’s on the calendar. MRS. BRUNO-I think we’d be more inclined to fill it up, kind of like empty rooms in the house. You’ve got it, you fill it. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, that would be my concern, too. 49 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MRS. STEFFAN-Just thinking, Stu, our usual construction season, the summer is quite busy. We start to get backed up in April and May because folks want to get their approval before construction season. Maybe it would be a good idea to schedule three meetings for those months. MR. HUNSINGER-Like May, June, July. MRS. STEFFAN-Because we’ve traditionally had three meetings. MR. SEGULJIC-My only concern is if we schedule three, to hear the applicants, then we have a third meeting and we’re sort of boxed in then. Whereas, if we don’t have the third one, we have the option of always doing that. MR. TRAVER-Well, we still have a limit on how many Site Plans we’re supposed to review in a month, by the By-laws. It doesn’t say how many meetings we have in order to accomplish that goal. So it doesn’t automatically mean that we’re going to add. MR. SEGULJIC-I think, personally, I’d rather spend time on getting more efficient at our meetings. MR. TRAVER-If that will work. I agree, there’s probably things that can be done to accomplish that. MR. BAKER-The By-laws do state that the regular schedule is two meetings a month. MR. SEGULJIC-I really think if we have the engineer here, I think that’ll put an end to a lot of things, at least I hope. MR. HUNSINGER-The question I would ask Staff is, if we were to request that, how would that work logistically? I mean, this Board, we don’t usually get into the dollars and cents part of the work, but I know, on occasions now, if we request the Town Engineer to be present, it’s usually on the applicant’s dime, but if we were to request them to be here at every meeting, unless we say we don’t need them, is that something then that the Town would be paying for, or would the applicant still be paying for that? MR. BAKER-I would imagine it would be a combination of Town and applicant time. I mean, certainly the time the Town Engineer spends answering questions pertaining to a specific application can be billed towards that applicant, but otherwise, vacant time, when the engineer would be sitting here not answering questions, would probably have to come out of the Town’s pocket. MR. HUNSINGER-Right, and that’s when it changed over was, I think it was probably three years ago, the Town kind of said, you know, we’ve run out of our budget, you know, you can’t have the Town Engineer here unless it’s on the applicant’s dime. Okay. If you could get back to me on room availability and we’ll try to schedule something for early January. MR. BAKER-Absolutely. MR. HUNSINGER-And hold a workshop, and hopefully it won’t take us more than an hour and a half or two, and if people have ideas or thoughts, comments that they want to, you know, get to me to collect, to help facilitate that discussion, I think that would be helpful. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, one thought I would have is, remember Craig MacEwan had that. MRS. STEFFAN-The review criteria. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I have those. MR. SEGULJIC-Maybe it would be helpful if we tried to go back to that process. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Do you know what he’s talking about? MR. BAKER-I didn’t hear his comment. MR. HUNSINGER-In the past, we have used Site Plan Review criteria. There were actually two lists, one for Site Plan Review and one for Subdivision. 50 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. BAKER-Yes, we still have those. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. If you could make copies for everyone. MR. BAKER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-The other thing that I think would be helpful at that meeting is that we still have, you know, folks who are relatively new, and I don’t think that everybody has a firm grasp on what folks’ roles are in the Community Development Department. MR. BAKER-Every member of this Board has been to an orientation discussion with Staff. MRS. STEFFAN-I know, but one of the things that happens in orientations, you’re new to a process, and you get the information, but it’s not terribly relevant at the time, and so, you know, as time goes on, there isn’t any reinforcement. MR. BAKER-Certainly, Staff’s available to Board members to discuss, you know, Staff roles and responsibilities, especially given our reduced staffing levels. As you know, things have changed a bit. You have George Hilton and I generally alternating staffing the Board, and he and I do split the Staff Notes responsibilities. George had some conflicts this month, so I agreed to take both meetings. So you’ll be graced with his presence at both meetings in January. MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to say, I think you said we get George in January. Yes. MR. BAKER-You get George in January. MR. SIPP-Two unrelated things. One, I talked to John Strough tonight about identifying his shoreline overlay, shoreline to eliminate the possibility of having to deal with some CEA’s on Bay Road and so forth. This would be mainly identified as on the lakefronts, waterfronts that are critical, Lake George, Glen Lake, Sunnyside, maybe the Hudson River, Rush Pond, you know, but without getting into all the CEA’s that are identified. th Secondly, next week, it must be the 26, the Zoning Board is taking up an Appeal on the Solomon property, Craig Brown’s directive of Stop Work, I believe. MR. BAKER-I’m not familiar with that particular Appeal. MR. SIPP-It’s on their agenda. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SIPP-So I doubt that I’ll make it. I’ll have a houseful of kids. If somebody were interested, that Solomon property is a disaster that has happened. It’s not waiting to happen. It’s happened. MRS. BRUNO-Review which one that is, Don, which one is that? MR. SIPP-What’s that? MRS. BRUNO-I remember the name. I’m not pulling out the project. MR. SIPP-You know, where, I think you went up there, a house, they had taken down a good share of the trees and sodded the front of the property. MRS. BRUNO-The one with the wing walls? MR. SIPP-The one with the wing walls. That’s the one. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. They’ve done more? MR. SIPP-Well, the day we were there, I don’t think you were with us, they had brought in all kinds of landscaping materials, and they were going to plant them to make up for what they had done to, now I hear that there are photos of that property before they chopped all the trees. So they may come up, and they will be obligated to replace anything within 35 feet of the lake that they chopped down, but this looks like the owners, or the people the house is being built for. I mean, this is a house where over the garage they had a storage room with a bathroom. 51 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MR. TRAVER-Right. MRS. BRUNO-And it’s For Sale, isn’t it? I vaguely remember seeing a For Sale sign. MR. TRAVER-Well, yes, they left that up by mistake. When we did the site visit, the sign was still up, or it was lying down, I think, and the guy said, no, that was supposed to have been taken away. MR. SIPP-It’s not by the owner, it’s by some other couple, which I assume this house is being built for. The house doesn’t conform to the original plan, floor plan either. They changed that in the middle of the stream. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s how the projects get out of hand. MRS. BRUNO-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Stu, one question. The Zoning Ordinance that was put together by Saratoga Associates and the Planning Ordinance Review Committee, where is that in the Town Board’s agenda? MR. BAKER-That is in the hands of the Town Board since July. The newly elected Town Board members also have copies of it. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MRS. BRUNO-I have a curiosity question. The Golden Corral, did that come to a screeching halt for any particular reason? It’s like all of a sudden they did work, and then all of a sudden it just stopped. MR. HUNSINGER-People had asked me that, too. MR. BAKER-I don’t know. MR. HUNSINGER-I know they brought the fill in. Did they pour footings? MRS. BRUNO-I don’t think they dug out what they were supposed to. MR. SIPP-They just pushed up the topsoil. They didn’t bring anything in. They did put down the plastic. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. They put the fencing in. MRS. BRUNO-There’s silt fence up, but they actually dumped some stuff, like trees and whatever, that tipped over on the other side. MR. SIPP-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Don had mentioned the Shoreland Overlay district. I did forward to John Strough the comments of the Board. I think I had copied everyone on that e-mail when I sent that out. MR. TRAVER-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Just so he has everything, and of course our minutes will provide additional information. I just want to thank Fitzgerald, Morris, Baker and Firth. I understand that you did not put in a proposal for next year or some such thing. MR. MEYER-Correct. That’s also my understanding. I don’t know all the details. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, but please extend our regards to Matt as well. MR. MEYER-Absolutely, and thank you. You guys have been great. MR. HUNSINGER-Thanks. MR. MEYER-Happy to help you out. I hope you enjoyed our, not enjoyed our work, but approved of it, and the level of professionalism. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-If there’s no other business, I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn. 52 (Queensbury Planning Board 12/20/07) MRS. STEFFAN-I just wanted to thank you, Chris, because I know your term was up, but I think we all appreciate you staying with us. MR. TRAVER-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Thanks for the vote of support. MRS. BRUNO-And the same goes for you, Gretchen. We know that you’ve put an immense amount of time in and I don’t know how you guys haven’t burned out yet. So thank you. MRS. STEFFAN-I think we would all like to see, anybody who was on the Ordinance Review Committee from the very beginning, would like to see the zoning that we put on the table and discussed, because there’s a lot of work that went into that. MR. BAKER-I’d encourage you to talk to the Town Board members. MR. HUNSINGER-I know I will. MOTION TO ADJOURN THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING OF DECEMBER 20, 2007, Introduced by Chris Hunsinger who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: th Duly adopted this 20 day of December, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford MR. HUNSINGER-Happy holidays to everybody. MR. SEGULJIC-Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. MR. BAKER-We’ll see you next year. On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Chris Hunsinger, Chairman 53