2007-12-12(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
SPECIAL MEETING
DECEMBER 12, 2007
INDEX
Notice of Appeal No. 9-2007 Mackintosh and Linke, etal. 1.
Tax Map No. 288.00-1-63 and 64
Area Variance No. 59-2007 Schermerhorn Residential Holdings, L.P. 33.
Tax Map No. 288.00-1-63 and 64
THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO BOARD
AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING
MONTHS MINUTES (IF ANY) AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL OF SAID
MINUTES.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
SPECIAL MEETING
DECEMBER 12, 2007
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
CHARLES ABBATE, CHAIRMAN
JAMES UNDERWOOD, SECRETARY
JOYCE HUNT
ALLAN BRYANT
RICHARD GARRAND
ROY URRICO
CHARLES MC NULTY
ZONING ADMINISTRATOR-CRAIG BROWN
STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI
MR. ABBATE-Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Town of
Queensbury Zoning Board of Appeals hearing dated 12 December 2007. Prior to
setting this hearing in motion, I would like to acquaint you with information that will
familiarize you with the responsibilities of this Board, the mandated legal requirements
we are guided by, and the procedures for a hearing before this Board. The function of
the Zoning Board of Appeals is to listen to and consider all evidence that appears on the
record, and may bear upon the issue we are deciding. This Zoning Board of Appeals
can grant (or deny) two types of relief; interpretive and variance. In either case, this
Board will affirm, reverse or modify the enforcement officer’s decision. In doing so, this
Board will either permit or deny the requested relief. If the appeal is for an interpretation,
this Board’s decision will be based on the Town of Queensbury zoning regulations. If the
appeal is for a variance, this Board’s decision will be based on the standards of proof
contained in NYS Town Law 267-b. Additionally, the Zoning Board of Appeals may only
authorize the minimum variance necessary to relieve the applicant. Other than
administrative items, public comments will be invited on each appeal, however, in the
interest of time please be crisp, organized and limit your comments to only the facts and
information given this evening. On opening the public hearing the public will be allowed
a maximum of 5 minutes to comment on a specific appeal. The purpose of this time
limitation is to provide each member of the public an opportunity to be heard, and also to
limit the length of the hearing to a reasonable time frame. All questions from the
appellant or the public will be addressed to this Board. All dialogue during the hearing
will be between the appellant and this Board, and I’m going to ask the Secretary to
please monitor the time and, Mr. Secretary, do we have any correspondence that should
be read into the record, and if so, would you be kind enough to do so, please.
MR. UNDERWOOD-None at this time.
MR. ABBATE-None at this time.
NEW BUSINESS:
NOTICE OF APPEAL NO. 9-2007 SEQRA TYPE: N/A MACKINTOSH AND LINKE,
ETAL OWNER(S): SCHERMERHORN RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, L.P. ZONING:
PO GURNEY LANE AND WEST MT. ROAD APPELLANT IS APPEALING A
NOVEMBER 1, 2007 LETTER FROM THE ZONING ADMINISTRATOR REGARDING
DEFINITIONS FOUND IN THE ZONING ORDINANCE. CROSS REF.: AV 59-2007
WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: N/A LOT SIZE: 0.90 AC; 16.12 AC. TAX MAP NO.
288.00-1-63 AND 64 SECTION: 179-4-040; 179-16-050
JANE MACKINTOSH, LOU BUCK, PRESENT
MR. ABBATE-Board members, before we begin, I’m going to respectfully recommend to
the Board that we hear this Appeal in two parts, that is the Appeal No. 9-2007. The
Town Attorney and I have discussed at great length how the Board should proceed this
evening, and we have come to an agreement, and our agreement basically is that we
hear the Appeal No. 9-2007 in two parts. Part One, the running of the 60 days, and, Part
Two, the appellant’s affirmative argument. The rationale is there may be other issues
affecting the 60 day run on the August decision of the Zoning Administrator. If this Board
deems that the intent of due process merits the right to be heard, after addressing Part
One, this Board would then move forward to Part Two, the affirmative argument of the
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appellant. In any event, providing the appellant an opportunity to be heard would, in my
opinion, demonstrate to the public as well as the courts, the tolerance of this Board to
provide due process. However, before I address the issue of the two part hearing for the
record, it is not my intention to suggest there is merit in the Appeal before us, only a
recommendation to this Board we address the issue of the 60 day run first, prior to
hearing the appellant’s affirmative argument. Procedurally, I would make adjustments as
follows. One, the Board will be advised of our legal obligations. Two, the Chairman will
provide an opportunity for the appellant and Zoning Administrator to make an opening
statement. Three, both the appellant and the Zoning Administrator will have the
opportunity to rebut. Four, the Board will have the opportunity to ask questions of the
appellant as well as the Zoning Administrator. Five, the public hearing will be open, and
I give notice to the appellants that they will not be afforded an opportunity to speak
during the public hearing. As an appellant, you will be afforded the opportunity to
present your affirmative argument during your opening statement and subsequent
responses to questions from this Board, and there will be no debate on this issue, and I
strongly urge you to be organized and address only the evidence contained in the record
and in view of the fact there are 24 signatures on the Appeal, I suggest you designate
two or perhaps three spokesmen for continuity. Six, upon completion of the public
hearing, the Board may offer their comments to the Chairman. Upon completion of the
Board’s comments, the Chairman will then ask for a motion to address the issue of
timeliness, that is the 60 day run period. Is there a member who wishes to move a
motion, or does the Board prefer the Chairman move the motion, to hear the Appeal in
two parts? What is the Board’s desires?
MR. BRYANT-Go ahead and make the motion, Mr. Chairman.
MR. ABBATE-Okay.
MOTION THAT NOTICE OF APPEAL NO. 9-2007 MACKINTOSH AND LINKE ETAL.
BE ADDRESSED IN TWO PARTS. PART ONE, THE RUNNING OF THE 60 DAYS,
AND PART TWO, HEARING THE APPELLANT’S AFFIRMATIVE ARGUMENT AND
THE MERITS OF THE APPEAL, Introduced by Charles Abbate who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Joyce Hunt:
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Duly adopted this 12 day of December, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Urrico, Mr. McNulty, Mr. Garrand, Mr. Bryant, Mr. Underwood,
Mr. Abbate
NOES: NONE
MR. ABBATE-In a seven yes, zero no vote, this Board will hear Appeal No. 9-2007 in two
parts, Part One the running of the 60 days, and Part Two, the appellant’s affirmative
argument and merits of the Appeal. Would the appellants of Appeal No. 9-2007, I
believe that’s Mackintosh, Linke etal. please approach the table, speak into the
microphone and state your names and place of residence.
MS. MACKINTOSH-My name is Jane Mackintosh. I’m the first signer of the appeal. I
have introductory comments. I’m not sure if they actually are going to fit the dividing of
the Appeal into two parts, but I will try.
MR. ABBATE-Before you begin, would you be kind enough to give us a moment,
please?
MS. MACKINTOSH-Sure.
MR. ABBATE-We did receive some correspondence which directly affects this Appeal.
So would you be kind enough to allow us a moment to read it into the record, please.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Absolutely.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, ma’am.
MR. UNDERWOOD-This is the original letter that was received by the Town. It’s dated
December 2, 2007. It’s a letter to the Town of Queensbury Zoning Board of Appeals.
The Schermerhorn allowed use determination. “Please accept this as a summary of the
Public’s rationale for a Queensbury ZBA overturn of the Zoning Administrator’s decision
to allow Schermerhorn’s West Mt. – Gurney Lane office project in this unique
Professional Office Zone. The concepts brought forth here are not just my own, but
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collected from many concerned area citizens. A single individual, Zoning Administrator
Craig Brown, made a decision which has now been documented to adversely affect
thousands of citizens, both residents living within the Town of Queensbury, and traveling
motorists, tourists, and shoppers passing thru this major hub in Warren County. In light
of the numerous overwhelming negative public comments, outcry, and concerns
expressed at town meetings, and in a petition signed by over one hundred citizens,
about the significant, dangerous and destructive nature of Schermerhorn’s inappropriate
overdevelopment of this site….It can only be concluded that this administrator made a
very casual, arbitrary and capricious decision. The only other conclusion that could be
drawn, is that there existed some kind of ill-informed external political pressure. In
either case, the ZBA needs to look very closely at the wisdom and appropriateness of
Mr. Brown’s decision. There appears to be just two very thin threads of common
connection regarding this “allowed use” decision. The word “office” appears in
Schermerhorn’s proposal, and indeed again in the “Professional Office Zone”
description. The other word in common is: “insurance”. Apparently these two small
words were enough for Mr. Schermerhorn, his attorney, and Mr. Brown to think that this
mega-project could be “legalized” for this particular property, and thus thrust upon a
busy, distracted, planning and zoning board, and inattentive public. Placing all their bets
on two small words, these individuals were somehow able to ignore all of the other
adopted, published words that are used to describe what is indeed mandated both by the
letter and intent of our law. It seems that in the world of law, the word “Intent” is quite
powerful and useful in interpreting legislation. In conflicts involving ambiguous definition
and semantics, words alone have little meaning without proper context. It is clear that
the intent of the PO zoning was to be low impact, low-density transition area between
commercial and residential zones. The State Board of Appeals has stated that in zoning
cases , “great care must be taken to ensure that the purpose and intent of the ordinance
or local law is carried out. One of the most relevant and insightful comments that I have
heard regarding this astonishing misinterpretation of language in PO Zoning was this
casual outcry: “Hey, just because doctor’s offices are allowed here, that doesn’t mean
you can build a hospital!” Nearly every citizen aware of this zoning issue, believes that
the scale and scope of Schermerhorn’s proposal is just plain too big for this site, and that
because of the clear commercial nature of the project, along with many other obvious
problems, it should not be allowed in this PO zone. The public does not understand how
Mr. Brown could act in favor of this allowed use in this case, while causally ignoring so
much of the abundant non-conforming aspects of this project in clear opposition to
specific language and intent of the PO zone. What happened to all of the other words
and descriptions that run contrary to Schermerhorn’s proposal, all the clearly written
guidelines, definitive factual language, and obvious implied intent behind the letters of
law, interpretation, and enforcement of the allowed uses in PO zones? How could all of
this other language of the law simply be thrown out the window and disregarded? --- For
example, what happened to the word “Professional”? This zone is not just title and
intended for “offices”, it is titled Professional Office. If the intent were not to distinguish
between the Professional Office and Commercial offices, this discriminating category
would never have even been established. With all due respect, these 500+ entry-level
data processing employees housed in this gigantic 85,000 sq. ft. building with its six-acre
blacktop parking lot, are not considered “professional” in the sense of describing doctors,
architects, dentists, and attorneys, etc. who need to earn professional licenses in order
to practice. As per town code, “commercial” offices should locate in commercial zones
that are located in areas better designed to accommodate high-impact uses and should
not be allowed in our town’s transitional-residential-friendly-low-impact Professional
Office zones. – What happened to the specific and clearly written words that state that
these professional offices would “provide convenient professional services to residential
neighborhoods”? -- What happened to the following words in our local law that declare
that PO compatibility with residential use is important, and PO should protect residential
zones from intense commercial uses. A professional office facility should be sited and
built to minimize any negative impacts on adjoining (in this case, residential) land uses. –
What happened to the language in the Master Plan adopted in 2003, and published with
intent to “Celebrate and promote scenic roads in the town”? Intent to preserve the
increasingly rare forested edge of the Northway” is also expressed. How is it that the
zoning administrator could simply ignore the fact that a gigantic building and 6-acre
parking lot at the very junction of three of Queensbury’s identified scenic roads, would
not have a significant negative impact on the visual character and quality of the
neighborhood and surrounding West Mt. Road corridor? -- What happened to all the
words and language and expressed concepts that are in the town Master Plan that are at
complete odds with Schermerhorn’s huge project? The State has written regarding the
ZBA, “Because one of the basic purposes to zoning is to adopt reasonable regulations in
accordance with a comprehensive plan, it follows that changes would disrupt or alter the
character of a neighborhood, or a district, would be at odds with the very purpose of the
zoning regulation itself.” It seems that every single aspect of this office proposal rings an
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alarm of caution and uncertainty. The project is filled with fatal flaws, and because of its
very large size, very large risks could surface as a result of failing to anticipate the
negative consequences of careless miscalculation, insufficient research, or even
intentional “oversight”. The State Court of Appeals has pointed out that no administrative
body may destroy the general scheme of a zoning law. The rules laid down in the
statutes are requirements not options. It appears, then, that Mr. Brown simply ignored
the many parts of the code that obviously didn’t fit, and gave his stamp of approval for
allowed use, based upon two mere words: office and insurance. Our town code: 179-1-
030 says that “no land use or development shall be undertaken or maintained except in
conformity with ALL provisions of the land use area.” State guidelines remind the ZBA
that “the protections afforded residents and property owners within the community from
undesirable development come from the restrictiveness of zoning”…. (not a casual
ignoring, bending, or disobeying the laws of the town). It is this perception of a casual,
permissive, even careless decision to allow such a significant distortion of the law…and
possibility that this might have been a pressured decision, that prompted concerned area
citizens to draft a formal appeal for a ZBA overturn. Another issue of public confusion in
this case is that little common word: “insurance” There is an issue even more important
than whether a data processor crunching insurance numbers is in fact considered
“Professional”. How can the Zoning Administrator or the ZBA even consider this “use”
word “insurance” in any of these proceedings? Is it not the actual building itself, in its
long-term use that needs to be evaluated? Two or three years down the line, when
Travelers Insurance goes bankrupt or moves to India, what kid of mess will we face
then? Six acres of blacktop will have already been laid, the view from the Northway and
our other two scenic roads will have been damaged, the commercial nature of the
building in conflict with the character of the neighborhood will have already been
established. I do not believe, especially in this decision for such a very large (near
permanent) development, that the short-term immediate use can be a decision maker,
ignoring the potential for non-conforming use later. I believe that in many of these
zoning regulations that worst case scenario must be considered. In the same way that a
small business might be required to put in a storm drain that will stand up to the “100
year storm” engineering standard, shouldn’t the town need to consider the likelihood that
in even a few years down the line, this gigantic commercial sized building with its super-
sized parking, be used for something other than insurance! The other common disbelief
voiced by area residents is “how in the world can this be allowed!” The public thought
that zoning laws were in place to protect the community from such overdevelopment and
most people believe that there are community governing boards that honestly and fairly
regulate such activity. It seems shocking to almost everyone hearing about this case,
that the project has proceeded so far on the opinion of just one man…..the zoning
enforcement officer. One person, who contrary to all apparent common sense, and
expected professional behavior, has it appears, turned a blind eye and allowed this
project to move forward. On a personal note, I would like to express my dismay and
discouragement related to difficulties I encountered when I tried to obtain information and
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a public document relevant to this development. On Monday, November 19, 2007, I
went to the town hall hoping to get a copy of Schermerhorn’s updated traffic study in
preparation for that Wednesday’s board meeting. To make a long story short, I was
“given the runaround” and after my third trip to Bay Road finally left empty-handed and
disgusted. Excuses like “our machine is broke” and “we can’t find the clerk” are pretty
pathetic. I had another similar adventure with planner Stuart Baker, who took four weeks
to respond to a simple email question. His email response was a simple link to a web
site. While I am not really surprised, I am deeply disturbed by these events, and what
appears to me to be a bias in favor of Schermerhorn by the town staff. I truly hope this is
not the case. The citizens of Queensbury are thankful that there is this mechanism for
review of this allowed use decision, and hope that the board can plow through the
politics and arrive at a just evaluation based upon the laws of our community. Thank
you. Richard Linke”
STAFF INPUT
Notices of Appeal No. 9-2007, Mackintosh and Linke, etal., Meeting Date: December 12,
2007 “Project Location: Gurney Lane and West Mt. Road Description of Proposed
Project: Appellant is appealing to the Zoning Board of Appeals relative to a November 1,
2007 letter from the Zoning Administrator to an unaffected party.
Staff comments:
The first issue at hand is timeliness. The original determination relative to the necessary
review process for the project in question was issued on August 17, 2007 (see attached
copy). As such, it would appear as though the allotted timeframe of 60 days has expired
and the appeal is untimely. Please see attached §179-16-050 of the Town of
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Queensbury Zoning Ordinance. For purposes of the Area Variance application on the
project (AV 59-2007) as well as the Site Plan Review application ( SP48-2007 ) the
August 17, 2007 determination stands as the Zoning Board of Appeals required denial
letter. A review of the September 25, 2007 Planning Board minutes reveals that several
of the appellants in this appeal attended and spoke at the public hearing held that night.
As such, it may be argued that they were aware of the August 17, 2007 determination.
The second procedural issue is standing. If the appeal is found to be timely, then the
question of does the November 1, 2007 letter referenced in the appeal constitute a
determination from which the appellant(s) may argue that they are aggrieved. The
November 1, 2007 letter referenced only refers the recipient to certain sections of the
Town of Queensbury Code where the answers to their questions may be found. The
November 1, 2007 letter represents simple recitation of the Town Code Requirements
and no decision or determination of “allowability” of this project was rendered in the
letter.
In the event that the appeal is found to be timely and the appellants are found to have
standing, the merits of the issue are straight forward, clear and unambiguous. The
property in question is located in a Professional Office (PO) zone. Both Office and
Professional Office are listed as allowable uses in the PO zone subject to Site Plan
Review. The proposed use clearly fits the definition of an OFFICE, which again, is listed
as an allowable use in the PO zone. All of the issues raised by the appellant are issues
that can be addressed through the Site Plan Review process.
No place in any previous Zoning Administrator correspondence on this project has “Big
Box” office been use. In the original and binding determination issued on August 17,
2007, the Zoning Administrator letter references the project as an Office Building which
is an allowable use in the PO zone. No reference to the project in question as a
Professional Office was made by the Zoning Administrator. Only the appellants and the
unaffected party to whom the November 1, 2007 letter was sent have made such an
assertion.”
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Let’s start from the beginning again, please. Would you be kind
enough to tell us who you are.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Okay. I’m Jane Mackintosh. I live on Gurney Lane. I’m the first
signer of the Appeal.
MR. ABBATE-Okay, and, sir?
MR. BUCK-My name is Lou Buck. I live at 251 Gurney Lane, where my family and I
have resided for the past 25 years.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Are you represented by counsel?
MR. BUCK-No.
MR. ABBATE-You are not. Okay. Do you understand our intent in terms of our
procedures this evening? Okay. Do you wish to raise any objections? You do not. If
you do not, if you’re prepared to proceed, please do.
MS. MACKINTOSH-I would like to mention, before we proceed, that we have Mrs. Betty
Monahan, who we have met with and is advising us on issues of the Town Zoning
Codes, and that we would like her to speak with us in presenting our issues.
MR. ABBATE-Is she here this evening?
MS. MACKINTOSH-Yes, she is.
MR. ABBATE-And she is representing you, is that what you’re suggesting?
MS. MACKINTOSH-Informally, yes.
MR. ABBATE-Well, either she is representing you or she’s not. If she’s representing
you, then by all means, I would invite her to the table. If not, then she would be allocated
five minutes to respond. The decision is yours.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Representing isn’t quite the right word. She’s advising us.
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MR. ABBATE-Advising you.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Yes.
MR. ABBATE-Would you prefer she sit at the table with you?
MS. MACKINTOSH-If she can be called to speak after we are finished, that would
adequate.
MR. ABBATE-Either she sits at the table with you, or she will only be allocated five
minutes, as every other member.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Okay.
MR. ABBATE-The choice is yours.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Then we’ll need another chair.
MR. ABBATE-By all means. As a matter of fact, I think we have one right there. Thank
you very much. Good evening, Mrs. Monahan. Would you speak into the microphone
and tell us who you are, please.
BETTY MONAHAN
MRS. MONAHAN-Betty Monahan, 120 Sunnyside Road, Queensbury.
MR. ABBATE-Yes, ma’am. All right. If you folks are prepared to proceed, please do.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Thank you very much. I will start, I have used the Staff comments
as a springboard for explaining our position.
MR. ABBATE-Okay.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Item 1 of the Staff comment is in reference to the timeliness of our
appeal Staff writes: “The original determination relative to the necessary review process
for the project in question was issued on August 17, 2007 (see attached copy)”. The
attached copy referred to is a letter from Mr. Craig Brown to Mr. Schermerhorn dated
August 17 stating an Area Variance will be required for the “Office Building” project.
Staff continues with: “As such, it would appear as though the allotted timeframe of 60
days has expired…” My comment: We, the authors of the November 19 Appeal, do not
consider Mr. Brown’s August 17 letter, first, to be a public document; and, second, to be
a determination that the Schermerhorn Residential Holdings project is an allowable use
which does not require a Use Variance. We feel it is inappropriate and unfair, at best, to
make the determination that the Schermerhorn Residential Holdings project is allowed in
a Professional Office zone by omission, and that this action cannot be considered a valid
and definitive determination. We also feel this determination-by-omission, made in an
unpublished correspondence, in no way qualifies the determination as a public
announcement. Without public notification we don’t see how this can be considered the
date from which the 60-day-appeal period begins. ZBA Staff contends that we, the
current appellants, must have known about the allowable use determination simply
because some of us spoke at the September 25 Planning Board meeting. This, we feel,
is irrelevant and unsubstantiated in the Planning Board minutes. Again, any
documentation or discussion of a required Area Variance does not spell out an approval
of Allowed Use. Further, review of the November 1 Planning Board meeting minutes will
show that at least two members of the public (former Town Board Member Betty
Monahan and I) did not know or understand when or how an Allowed Use determination
was or could have been made, and contended the project required a Use Variance at
that time. At least one of the Appellants (Richard Linke) and one member of the public
(John Salvador) attempted to learn from Craig Brown, during late October, when a
determination of Allowed Use was made. Mr. Linke did not receive a response from Mr.
Brown; Mr. Salvador did receive a response on November 1. While still not a public
document, the letter from Mr. Brown to Mr. Salvador, a friend of two of the Appellants,
was the first indication the Appellants had that an actual Allowed Use determination had
been made. Our Notice of Appeal was filed as soon as we learned of this November 1
letter. Item 2: Staff comment in reference to standing Staff writes: “The second
procedural issue is standing…..does the November 1, 2007 letter….constitute a
determination from which the appellant(s) may argue that they are aggrieved.” My
comment is: Without any other document showing that the Schermerhorn Residential
Holdings project was determined to be an Allowed Use, the Brown-to-Salvador letter was
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the first true indication we had of the Zoning Administrator’s decision; hence the
November 1 date is the only date we have from which to claim a grievance. It is our
stance that we made efforts prior to November 1 to determine when the Zoning
Administrator made his determination, and what basis, and were unable to learn either.
Further, as town Zoning Board members and staff know, Planning Board hearings are
not question-and-answer sessions; even if we had fully understood the significance of
the Zoning Administrator’s “Area Variance is necessary” decision (which, staff seems to
be claiming, was equal to a determination that a Use Variance is not required), we would
not have been able to ask or learn about the date of the Use Variance determination or
the reasoning behind it. Minutes of the November 1 Planning Board meeting will show
that Mrs. Monahan’s and Ms. Mackintosh’s question of the Allowed Use determination
did not spawn explanation of that decision. It is a mere coincidence that Mr. Salvador
has also questioned the Zoning Administrator’s decision; he is not an appellant in our
November 19 action. I add this in case the ZBA is wondering whether we considered Mr.
Salvador to be a party-of-standing in our appeal.
MR. ABBATE-Okay.
MS. MACKINTOSH-I have additional comments in reference to the merits of the issue,
and I’ll hold those until Part Two.
MR. ABBATE-That would be fine. Thank you. Mrs. Monahan, would you like to speak?
MS. MACKINTOSH-Mr. Buck, I believe, is going to speak next.
MR. ABBATE-Please. Fine.
MR. BUCK-In reference to Part Two.
MR. ABBATE-In reference to Part One.
MS. MACKINTOSH-I’m sorry.
MR. ABBATE-We only will address Part One, the running of the 60 days at this time.
MS. MACKINTOSH-I beg your pardon. That is the extent of our group’s comment, as far
as Part One.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you very much. All right. I’m going to move on to the
Zoning Board of Appeals members, and I’m going to advise the Board, as I normally do,
that the jurisdiction of the Zoning Board of Appeals to construe the Ordinance includes
the power to determine the application of the Ordinance to a specific property, and the
Zoning Board of Appeals has the jurisdiction to interpret the Zoning Regulations upon an
appeal from the issuance of a permit by an enforcement official and as such
interpretation by the Zoning Board of Appeals will not be disturbed, absent of showing
that it is irrational or unreasonable. The Zoning Board of Appeals jurisdiction to review
the zoning decisions of enforcement officers is exclusive. It cannot be exercised by any
other administrative officers or by the legislative authority of the municipality. The ZBA
may, after appropriate notice and hearing, reverse or affirm, wholly or partly, or may
modify the order, requirement, decision of determination appeal from, as in the ZBA’s
opinion ought to have been made. Now, we’re going to start this way here. As I
indicated earlier, since you’re not accompanied by counsel, I’ll go through it once again.
I’m going to allow you, basically, to make an opening statement, unless you consider
what you said earlier as your opening statement, because I have to offer the Zoning
Administrator an opportunity for an opening statement as well, and then, if you consider
your opening statement, the statement you made earlier, as an opening statement, I will
ask the Zoning Administrator to make an opening statement. Then you will have the
opportunity to rebut what he says, and he will have an opportunity to rebut what you say,
and then we’ll go on from there. Okay?
MS. MACKINTOSH-Very good. Please consider my remarks to be my opening
statement.
MR. ABBATE-Okay, that’s great.
MS. MACKINTOSH-And I have that in printed form here. Would that help the Board?
MR. ABBATE-Well, if you’d like to give that to our Secretary, we’ll certainly enter it into
the record, although it’s on the record microphone, but if that makes you feel better.
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MS. MACKINTOSH-Well, I have a copy for each members.
MR. ABBATE-Well, that’s fine. Okay, and, Mr. Zoning Administrator, when the lady
finishes handing out, if you would like to make an opening statement, please do. Would
the Zoning Administrator like to make an opening statement?
MR. BROWN-Just a short one. I think the Staff Notes summed up, pretty much, the
position that I have on determination. A couple of procedural issues. The requirement to
publish a determination, that’s not a requirement. The only requirement that’s put upon
any Zoning Administrator is to keep a record of the determination. We do that. All the
determinations that are made by myself and the Zoning Office are on file. They’re
available under the Freedom of Information Law. They’re certainly something that can
be viewed by any member of the public at any time. The determination itself, you know,
it’s implied that the use is allowed, as identified by, you need Site Plan Review and you
need an Area Variance. It’s the list of what approvals you don’t need would far outweigh
the list of approvals that you do need if I wrote a determination letter that way. So I
identified the reviews that were necessary, and not the reviews that weren’t necessary.
So, unless there are any other questions, the Staff Notes really sum up what I have.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Now you will have an opportunity to rebut what the Zoning
Administrator has said, if you wish to.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Thank you. I’m just somewhat mystified. I think that if the process, I
think we all know that the zoning regulations and the process of Site Plan Review, the
process of getting these sort of projects built in any community, is confusing, especially
to the public. It’s not by any means a transparent process, and I am, I really would
question if there is, how is the public to know when the 60 day limit for an appeal begins
if the public doesn’t know when a decision has been made. That’s my first question.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. I will be addressing that later on.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Okay.
MR. ABBATE-Mr. Zoning Administrator, would you like to rebut anything the appellant
has had to say?
MR. BROWN-No, thank you.
MR. ABBATE-No. Okay. Then we will continue. Do Board members, the ZBA, have
any questions for the appellant or the Zoning Administrator?
MR. BRYANT-Let me just ask a question, Mr. Chairman.
MR. ABBATE-Go right ahead.
MR. BRYANT-Mr. Zoning Administrator, the letter that you wrote to Salvador, in your
mind, would you consider that a determination?
MR. BROWN-No.
MR. BRYANT-And how do you differentiate between the two?
MR. BROWN-Well, specifically, not a determination for this project. There’s no reference
to the project in question here, the Gurney Lane office project. Questions that were
raised in Mr. Salvador’s inquiry letter were, where is Professional Office allowed? Where
st
is Office allowed? And my November 1 letter basically says, here’s the Section of the
Code. Here’s where the Definitions are, you know, and these are the Sections of the
Code you can find these answers. There was no interpretation. It’s just, like the notes
said, just the recitation of the Code. There’s no gray area, just black and white. It’s in
the Code.
MR. BRYANT-Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Any other Board members have any other questions?
MR. URRICO-Just to follow up on a question that was asked earlier, Craig. In a typical
Area Variance, when you notify the party that’s made the appeal for a variance, there is
no public record at that point, is there not? When does the public become aware of the
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project? Is it not when the Staff Notes are published and the 500 feet of notification is
made?
MR. BROWN-Yes, that’s typically when that happens. If you needed an Area Variance
to put a deck on the back of your house, you couldn’t meet the setbacks, my letter to you
would be the official date of the determination. When does the public notice process
start? When the public hearing notice for that meeting goes out.
MR. URRICO-Okay. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Any other questions?
MR. UNDERWOOD-I would place a question to Craig. I know you’re usually very
thorough and very careful when you make your determinations, but I think that in the
past, under numerous times, I think that the Board has, you know, I can’t specifically nail
it down at this point in time, but I’m thinking in the sense that there probably are times
when you’ve made your determinations that later on things are discovered and you’ve
changed your mind, and I’m thinking back to the paintball case specifically down on West
Mountain Road there, where in other words initially you made a determination, there was
a public forum meeting where the person who was going to build that project met with the
neighborhood. There seemed to be a lot of animosity at that meeting, and a lot of
questioning as to the judgment of the project, and then a week later, like within a day of
that meeting, you made a change in your mind of your determination at that point in time,
which precipitated a whole chain of events that, you know, ended up going to the ZBA,
back to the Town Board, back to the ZBA, ad infinitum, until it finally got overturned in the
courts. Do you always assume that your judgment is perfect in this instance? I mean, I
don’t think anybody, I don’t want to put you on the spot with that, either, but I’m just
saying to you, I’m thinking in the case of this project here, knowing the background of the
project, the fact that the last time it came before us it was very controversial, it was very
emotional on the part of the neighborhood, not that it was a good or bad project. I mean,
we didn’t really make that determination because it never came, never got back to us
back the Planning Board basically quashed that one and the project was pulled, but I
think in this instance here, there’s something wrong with standard operating procedure
as it exists, and that, in my mind, is that the public should have a right to know, and as
has been mentioned by the applicants here this evening, the people questioning your
judgment, if the public doesn’t know that a determination has been made, I mean, how is
it that that triggers a number? I think that it’s a little bit off the wall to have someone, I
mean, for any project anywhere in Town, if the public was not noticed of that, you know,
and that would be the people immediately affected by it, I don’t think that there would be
a chance for them to understand what the project was, if they didn’t understand the
th
scope of the project. In other words, the initial meeting on the 25 of September with the
Planning Board, I think at that point in time people could identify what the project was. I
mean, up until then it’s, you know, just happenstance. We know a project’s coming, but
we don’t know what it is until we see the pictures, until we see the plots and things like
that as done, but I would think it would be more appropriate at that point in time to have
that as your starting point at least, because then the public would have identified if there
were other issues adjacent, you know, things that hadn’t been brought to their notice at
the time. I still find the process a little bit unnerving, because no one seems to ever get
the question until many days have passed from the determination. I mean, other than
the applicant. I mean, they know, but nobody else does.
MR. ABBATE-All right. Any other questions before I begin? Okay. Interestingly enough,
I’m going to be addressing the concern of the appellant and the concern of the Board
member as well. The Appeal before us, in my view, has ramifications that may very well
show a systems failure in the due process in the right of the people to be informed. So,
having said that, ladies and gentlemen, I ask that you please consider the following.
Several careful reviews of the 17 June 2007 decision by Judge Krogmann in the East
Slope vs. Town of Queensbury decision, this is New York State Supreme Court, as well
as the statement by Judge Krogmann addressing the propriety of the Zoning
Administrator’s procedure, modification of the original decision, intrigued me, and the
possibility of raising factual and legal questions that may have a bearing, not only on the
Appeal before us, but on all future appeals of the Zoning Administrator. Judge
Krogmann stated, quote, while the court also has concerns regarding the propriety of the
Zoning Administrator’s issuance of the amended March 12, 2004 letter determination, in
so far as the petitioner’s have taken no appeal there from, it remains the law of the case,
unquote. It is my belief that Judge Krogmann’s statement, quote, in so far as the
petitioner’s have taken no appeal there from, unquote, is referring to the March 12, 2004
letter determination and is obliquely suggesting, Judge Krogmann, suggesting had the
appellant’s appealed the correspondence in which the Zoning Administrator modified his
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decision, that would have opened the window of opportunity to an appeal. I offer that
nowhere in the law, and the Zoning Administrator is correct, does it stipulate in order to
meet the criteria for an appeal, only the one time original decision is subject to an
appeal, nor does the law provide immunity or sanctuary, in the event the Zoning
Administrator responds in written form, issues inquiries for his decision, subsequent to
the original decision. So the question I raise, is only the original action, in script by the
Zoning Administrator, the one and only basis for an appeal, regardless of the number of
times he responds in writing to address the cause, the reason, the rationale, the
motivation or justification for his original decision? Where is the threshold between a
written decision or action and subsequent modifications, explanation, justification that set
the parameters for an appeal? And, ladies and gentlemen of the Board, to add to the
dilemma of this Board, as well as the public and potential appellants, it is the fact that
there are no legal requirements that a Zoning Administrator determination be published
or publicized. I then raise the question, where does due process begin? Is the Zoning
Administrator immune when he positions himself in writing, after an original decision has
been made, and subsequently alters communication by either modifying his original
decision, justification for his decision, or response to questions from the public on the
topic of his decision. Is the Zoning Administrator without accountability for his decisions
to the public, or for that matter, the Town Board? I ask the members of this Board, at the
present time, may not the current procedures best be described as a hide and seek
policy, which, in my opinion, does not satisfy the principles of due process or the right of
the people to be informed. I present this logic to the Board. Is it unreasonable to
suggest that all original decisions of the Zoning Administrator and all subsequent
modifications, justifications or all other correspondence autographed by the Zoning
Administrator, addressing his decisions, at the instant of discovery by a potential
appellant or the public under the umbrella of due process grounds for an appeal and a
fresh start of the 60 day Statute of Limitations? Might the Zoning Administrator’s written
response on 19 November 2007 to John Salvador’s letter of 1 November 2007 move
within the context of an order, a requirement, a decision, a determination, an
interpretation, a clarification or justification, and as a consequence, create an entrance to
the window of opportunity for an appeal, which then offers a fresh breeze through a 60
day window of opportunity. I believe the current procedures are flawed and do not
satisfy the principles of due process or the standards of fairness, of the right of the
people to be informed, and as a final note, as to the issue of standing, if the Zoning
Administrator chose not to respond to Mr. Salvador’s inquiry of 1 November 2007, there
would not be a basis to form an appeal to the ZBA. This has been addressed by the
courts, and there are a number of court decisions addressing that issue, and, in my
opinion, the Zoning Administrator erred when he responded to Mr. Salvador and opened
the window of opportunity for an appeal, and I recommend, in the interest of fairness and
due process, we at least consider the affirmative argument of the appellant. Now, having
said that, I’m going to open up the hearing on Part One for the public, and in the interest
of time, I request the public be crisp, organized and limit your comments to only the facts
and information given this evening, and would those wishing to be heard, please raise
your hand and I will recognize you. You will be limited to five minutes, and again, the
time limitation is to provide each member of the public an opportunity to be heard and to
limit the length of this hearing to a reasonable timeframe. Yes, sir, would you be kind
enough.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED FOR PART ONE OF APPEAL
JON LAPPER
MR. LAPPER-For the record, attorney Jon Lapper, on behalf of Rich Schermerhorn, the
applicant. I just have two quick points on this issue. One, when we get to the second
part of this, which I expect that we will, on the merits, we would like to be considered
what’s called real parties in interest, rather than members of the public. I should have
presented that in writing, but I expected that the Town Attorney would be here tonight.
Because the case law says that when it’s an appeal of our application, that we are a
party, just like the appellants are, in terms of the issue of whether an office is a permitted
use in the office zone. So, we would like to have our time at the table not limited by five
minutes.
MR. ABBATE-And the second part of that, Counselor, says it must be requested in
writing, which we don’t have. So I’ll consider your position.
MR. LAPPER-Thank you. In terms of where you are now, my personal feeling is that
what Craig did was appropriate, in terms of the standards for filing this, and that the
public was put on notice when the Site Plan application, certainly they were put on notice
when the Site Plan application was heard. With that said, my preference would be to
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have the Board decide this on the merits, because, in terms of the level of the interest in
the public, and certainly, you know, the importance of this project to the community, I
think it’s important for everyone to understand that an office is a permitted use in this
zone. So my preference would be to request that the Board goes forward and hears this,
even though I think that there is a problem with standing, and with Statute of Limitations.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, Counselor, I agree with you.
MR. LAPPER-Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Do we have any other members of the public who wish to be heard? If so,
would you be kind enough to raise your hand and I will recognize you. Would you be
kind enough to come forward, please. Yes, ma’am. Would you be kind enough to
speak into the microphone and tell us who you are.
CONNIE LANGFORD
MRS. LANGFORD-Yes. My name is Connie Langford. I live on Lehland Drive. My
addition to all of this, I agree with everything that has been said prior, but one point I
think has not been made is that fact that this project exceeded, far exceeded, all of the
thresholds required for a Full EIS in the Environmental Impact Statement process, and it
wasn’t done, and until it is done, that’s when the publishing period starts and the 60 day
comment period starts and all the rest of it, and I think that really speaks to the very basic
part of this. That will address the environmental quality, the Rush Pond situation, the
Glen Lake situation, and many things other than just traffic and lowering of property
values and other problems that this project may cause. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you, ma’am. Do we have anyone else in the audience?
Raise your hand, please. Yes, ma’am, please. Would you be kind enough, please, to
come to the table, speak into the microphone, and tell us who you are.
LORRAINE TEFFT
MS. TEFFT-Yes. My name’s Lorraine Tefft, and I am a Travelers employee. The reason
I’m here tonight is I’m representing myself and others as a Travelers employee, and I’m
here voluntarily, not on behalf of the company.
MR. ABBATE-Okay.
MS. TEFFT-What I’d like to share with you tonight is my position at the company. I
joined the company in 1996. I was employee at the Continental Insurance Company,
and when the Company actually closed their doors and took their business and moved it
out of Warren County and out of New York State, I and myself and other people were
obviously out of work. I was very fortunate to be able to be employed at the Travelers
literally up the road. I left the area for about five years. I was born and raised here in
this area. I left the area for about five years, came back, because I made a decision to
come back to the Adirondacks to start a family here and to be closer to my mom.
Travelers, when they hired me 11 years ago, I started out as an Assistant Manager at
that Company. It was not a data entry position, and I was fortunate it was the same
position that I had had at Continental Insurance, again, not having to leave the area. At
that time, there were not any other positions or companies that could afford me the same
opportunities that I had had at Continental Insurance. There was mills that were closing,
catheritization companies that were closing, and Travelers was there for me, and 11
years later, through stability and through opportunity at that Company, I’m now one of the
Second Vice Presidents at that Company. I may not be your neighbor and living in the
neighborhood at Gurney Lane or here in Queensbury, but I do feel very strongly that I am
your neighbor. I work in the community. I support local charities. I participate in Relay
for Life, and when the food banks in the local companies say that they need help, for
instance like family services, I’m usually one of the first folks to rally the troops and say,
let’s give back to the community that needs our help. I’ve raised three children in the
area. Our doctors are in this community. I bank in this community, and I’m most positive
that I employ several people at the local AT & T Company through the usage of three
children’s cell phones. I grocery shop there before I go back home at night. I go to Wal-
Mart and Target. My salary goes into this community, and I know firsthand the impact of
what it means when a company pulls out, not only from being at Continental Insurance,
but I live in Corinth where International Paper Company closed their doors. I know all
too well the fights and the arguments about environmental issues and the impact that it’s
had on neighbors versus neighbors and neighbors versus people that are employed in
that area. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this project and what it means to not only
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myself personally but to the people that I work with. When we all moved up to Travelers,
back about ’95 and ’96, I remember many people asking me the question of, what am I
going to do, what if I can’t find a job in the area? I just bought a new car, Lorraine, what
should I do? Should I get rid of it? I’m a self-employed family member. My husband
isn’t working. I have three kids in college, all those emotions. So all those emotions
come back to me again as I listen to what’s being said, you know, locally, and the
decisions that you all are having to make here. So what does it mean to me and this
decision as you move forward? All those same kind of emotions, the impact that losing
these jobs or moving out of Warren County, not necessarily out of New York or losing
jobs, but moving. Are these same people going to be faced with having to travel great
distance? State Farm, down several exits away, a lot with the gas prices and people’s
vehicles and daycare and their children in local schools. Albany, we could go to Albany,
I suppose, but I also think about the local impact on the restaurants and the people that
we support and the charities that we support, the school systems, the banks, the car
dealerships. I bought my car in August at the Saturn dealership because I wanted to be
local and I wanted to support the local people. I do my business and live most of my life,
even though I’m not living in a home in this area, and as you make this decision tonight,
and as we move forward, I just ask that you just think about those things as well. I think
it’s important that you realize and appreciate the impact that the 500 employees and the
Travelers make. I just wanted to share one interesting thing that I thought was pretty
interesting for me. Our average service for our employees is eight years, and we have
87 employees that have been with this Company over 15 years. Our average payroll,
with bonuses and incentives, is around $38,000 a year, and with benefits, it’s more than
$46,000. I don’t believe that we would find jobs locally for these folks that would be
comparable. No, I know we wouldn’t find jobs locally that would comparable to that type
of income. They’re full-time jobs. They’re not seasonal jobs. These folks live and
support this community. They’re not data entry folks. They’re professionals in that office
with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. These folks are coming to us from colleges, and
most importantly, we are attracting people from out of the area that we’re not going to
attract to seasonal positions. These folks are moving into our community, and I say our
community because, again. All of my business and personal stuff takes place here.
We’re not going to attract people to this area with seasonal jobs. We’re a large
employer. I’m proud of the Company that I work for. I am most appreciative and grateful
that this Company is here locally, so that I could stay here and raise my family, and I’d
just ask that you recognize and consider those 500 employees as you make your
decisions. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, ma’am.
MS. TEFFT-Thank you.
MR. BRYANT-Excuse me. I know this is not the time, because we’re really discussing
the timeframe. Your last, would you mind coming up when we actually hear the case
later on?
MS. TEFFT-No, I’d be happy to. That’s fine.
MR. BRYANT-Okay, and your last name, please?
MS. TEFFT-It’s Tefft, T-e-f-f-t.
MR. BRYANT-Thank you.
MS. TEFFT-You’re welcome. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, ma’am. Do we have anyone else in the audience? Yes, sir,
please. Would you be kind enough to come forward. Are you a signature on the
Appeal?
RICHARD INSERRA
MR. INSERRA-No.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Fine.
MR. INSERRA-Richard Inserra. I’m a concerned citizen. I believe there’s too much
development in Queensbury. We’re a rural community, and we have a nice quality of
life. There are tradeoffs with a rural community. We don’t have big city services, but we
have a nice lifestyle. We don’t have big city problems. It’s a tradeoff, you know, and you
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can’t have both. I believe it’s not, development, but sustainable development. There’s
other ways of doing it. We’re losing all our greenways and we’ve got to use our heads
about development, different ways. Save some of this virgin land that we have. We’re
going to lose our quality of life.
MR. ABBATE-All right. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
MR. BRYANT-Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, we need to keep to the topic of the
timeframe, or we’re going to be here until Christmas.
MR. ABBATE-Yes, sir, please.
MR. BRYANT-It’s got to be on the timeframe.
DON KREBS
MR. KREBS-Hello, my name is Don Krebs and I have one question, and that is, do we
really want to use a John Salvador letter as a point to start? I have been on the Planning
Board in this Town for five and a half years. I just spent a year on the Planning
Ordinance Review Committee, and I will tell you that John has been at every meeting
and comes with unsubstantiated information at the end of the meeting. I’m sure you
have seen that at your Board, the Planning Board has seen that. I do not think that’s a
point to start. We also have to give our government officials the right to do their job to
the law, and if the law is written that Craig has the right to issue that start point, then he
has the right to do that. We can’t change those. If we’re going to publicize every
decision, so that everybody is aware, then we have to change the procedures, but that’s
not the procedures that are in effect at this point in time.
MR. ABBATE-Are you a member of the Planning Board currently?
MR. KREBS-No, I am not.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. You’re not. Okay. Thank you very much for your testimony. Do
we have anyone else in the audience who’d like to be heard? Please raise your hand.
TANYA BRUNO
MRS. BRUNO-I just have a quick question before I start.
MR. ABBATE-You’ll have to come up here. Everything we say must be on the record.
MRS. BRUNO-I’m not going to use my five minutes unless I know that we have separate
ones for each thing that’s being heard this evening.
MR. BRYANT-She doesn’t want to use five minutes now. She wants to be able to talk
during the second portion.
MR. ABBATE-By all means.
MR. BRYANT-That’s five minutes.
MRS. BRUNO-Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Sure.
MRS. BRUNO-Tanya Bruno, 119 Gurney Lane, and I am a current member of the
Planning Board. I would like to respectfully disagree with the precursor that just came up
here. You all know John Salvador. He is a Town curmudgeon, but I have found that
information that information he has come in front of us with, some of it has been correct.
It gives us a moment to think, to check our Code books. Sometimes he’s wrong, but
sometimes he’s right, and I think we need to look at that in the big picture. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-You’re very welcome. Do we have anyone else in the public who’d like to?
Yes, sir, in the back of the room, please. Would you be kind enough, please, to come to
the table, speak into the microphone and tell us who you are. Before we begin, you’re
not a signature to the Appeal, are you?
STEPHEN GECEWICZ
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MR. GECEWICZ-No.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Fine.
MR. GECEWICZ-My name is Stephen Gecewicz. I live on 61 Sara-Jen Drive in
Queensbury, and my one comment is, if the law allows things to be done without due
process and without proper notification to the public, then the law is what’s flawed, and
the law will eventually be overridden in the courts, at least that’s my belief, and I hope
that that’s what happens. That’s all I have to say.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, sir. Do we have anyone else? Anyone else in the audience
who’d like to say anything at this particular point in time? Please raise your hands. I
don’t see anyone. Okay. All right. Now, okay, the public hearing on Part One of the
Appeal No. 9-2007 is closed. Now, I will now request Board members to offer their
commentary, and I respectfully remind Board members that precedence mandates we
concern ourselves with the testimony and evidence which appears on the record to
support our conclusions and the evidence relied upon should be specifically stated. This
is necessary for a judicial review, and the comments made by Board members are going
to be directed to the Chairman, which is me, and they are not going to be subjected to
debate. Now, do we have anyone on the Zoning Board of Appeals who would like to
comment?
MR. BRYANT-Mr. Chairman, I’ve been very vocal on this issue, and I know the Zoning
Administrator disagrees with me, but he has one function basically, and that is to
determine the scope of the Code, and that’s his job, and regardless of whether he’s
writing a response to an inquiry, whether he’s actually making a formal determination,
whether he’s writing Staff Notes, which I’ve been very vocal about, the inappropriateness
of the Zoning Administrator writing Staff Notes, that is a determination. Okay. That’s his
only function. So, regardless of whether it was a letter to Salvador, or whether it was an
e-mail or whether it was a Staff Note, that’s a determination. So, as far as I’m
concerned, the appellant has standing.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you. Yes, Rick, please, by all means.
MR. GARRAND-Certainly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the interest of due process, I
believe that the moment of discovery should begin the 60 days for the appellant.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Joyce, please, would you like to say
something?
MRS. HUNT-While I agree with the Zoning Administrator, pursuant to 179-16-050,
Appeals, I do not think that they responded in the allotted timeframe. However, the
Appeal is not timely, but I do think that in the interest of fairness, that we should hear the
Appeal.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, ma’am. Roy?
MR. URRICO-Are we still talking about the first aspect of Appeal?
MR. ABBATE-Yes, we’re still talking about the run of the 60 days.
MR. URRICO-Because the line seems to be.
MR. ABBATE-Well, it can’t help it. It’s going to over, you know, a little bit.
MR. URRICO-On the issue of timeliness, I believe the Appellant has a right, because the
clock, when the clock starts ticking is nebulous and vague at best, and I feel that the, in
this case, the Appellant should be heard.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, sir. Yes, Chuck, please.
MR. MC NULTY-Okay. I’m inclined to agree that it probably would be best to move on to
the substance of the issue, and I think that’s probably where we’re going to arrive at it.
However, looking at the law, the law says 60 days after the determination is made.
Granted there should be some system, I don’t know what it would be, but there should be
some system where it would be easier for the public to discover when it a determination
is made. That’s a big can of worms to figure out how to do it, but whether or not they
discovered it, the fact of the Ordinance right now that’s in place says 60 days after the
determination was made. The determination was made in August. There was a chance
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for the Appellants to discover, in September when the Planning Board met. So there
was an opportunity there, but I don’t think it’s proper for this Board to amend the
Ordinance of the Town. It’s not our job. So even though we wished that the discovery
period could start, or the 60 days could start at the point that somebody that’s aggrieved
discovered the problem, that’s not what the rules are. So I’ve got to support the Zoning
Administrator’s position in his Staff Notes on Part A that the 60 days has run out. I also
agree with him on the John Salvador letter, which is different than the letter that was
involved with the Paintball. In the Paintball, the determination was made later that, we
need a Site Plan Review. That was a determination. There’s no determination that was
made in the letter that went back to John Salvador. So I think, in this case, I’ve got to
support the Zoning Administrator, even though I’m hoping and planning that the Board’s
going to decide the other way.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. I do want one clarification. The law reads like this. Whenever the
Zoning Administrator makes an order, a requirement, a decision, or determination or
interpretation or clarification, that is subject to an appeal. Those are not my words.
Those are the court’s words. So, it’s not just, Chuck, when he makes a determination.
There may be other things as well, such as a requirement, a decision, a determination or
an interpretation. Those, too, are subject by law to 60 days.
MR. MC NULTY-True, I would argue, though, that his letter did not do that.
MR. ABBATE-Yes, right. Well, that’s the question. Okay. Do we have any other Board
members who would like to raise any issues at this time? Mr. Underwood?
MR. UNDERWOOD-I would just echo the sentiments of most of the Board members
here this evening. I think that, you know, in the interest of the public, you know, good
government accepts responsibility for all of its actions, and, you know, it’s standard
operating procedure, the way Mr. Brown has operated, you know, over the years. He’s
been a Town employee for many years. It’s always been done this way, but I think it’s
been pointed out very poignantly by many people this evening here, and in the record, so
far as this case is concerned with us, that, you know, discovery’s always allowed in any
instance in the public, and I think in the instance of a determination on the part of the
Zoning Administrator, it would make more sense to me to have the public notification
occur in the instance, in case of this one here this evening, that in the initial meetings
with the Planning Board, that ought to be the starting point, because the public has a
right to know. The public also has a right to be able to be, you know, figure out for
themselves at a certain point in time, when they’re given the heads up on any project
that’s proposed in this community. I think it’s wrong. I would have to side with the
appellants in this case this evening. I think that the public does have the right to know,
and things can’t be done under the table. Otherwise you could just have a secret
meeting and not release the information to anybody, you know, for 60 days you could
just hold it in abeyance, and, you know, the period would be over in every instance for
every project in the community. So I’m going to have to side with the appellants.
MR. ABBATE-Well, I have to say that the Zoning Administrator is correct, however, and I
addressed that earlier. He is absolutely correct. It is a fact that there are no legal
requirements that a Zoning Administrator decision be published or publicized, but the
major issue I raise is the question of due process, and the right of the people to know,
and certainly, when the people are not advised of something, how could they possibly
appeal anything? So, in my opinion, and I would love to have this entire case go to the
Appellate Division, in my opinion, that at the moment of discovery by the public that
opens up, and that starts a new 60 day, but anyway, that’s only my opinion. Do we have
anyone else on the Board who would like to address anything? Okay. Then I’m going to
request a motion on Part I which is the 60 day run, and I’m going to ask that a motion be
presented, based upon the testimony that we heard this evening, based upon the
evidence contained in the record, and if we have a Board member who’d like to do it,
move a motion, please do. If not, I’ll have to do it, but it’s worth it, ladies and gentlemen.
You have no idea the amount of money we make. It’s well worth it. All right. I’ll move a
motion.
MOTION THAT, BASED ON THE TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE CONTAINED IN THE
RECORD, WE MOVE TO GRANT THE APPELLANTS OF APPEAL NO. 9-2007
MACKINTOSH AND LINKE, ETAL., THE OPPORTUNITY TO PUT FORWARD THEIR
AFFIRMATIVE ARGUMENT, Introduced by Charles Abbate who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Richard Garrand:
15
(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
th
Duly adopted this 12 day of December, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Garrand, Mr. Underwood, Mr. Bryant, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Abbate
NOES: Mr. McNulty
MR. ABBATE-The vote is six yes to one no to have the Appeal No. 9-2007, to hear the
affirmative argument of the appellants. Thank you very much. Now, ladies and
gentlemen, we are going to then begin Part Two, and again, I’m going to ask the
appellants of Appeal No. 9-2007 please to return to the table, speak into the microphone,
and again identify yourselves, please. All right. Good evening, folks. Okay. We are
going to now approach what we consider to be an affirmative argument. You understand
what that means. Okay. So if you’re prepared to present your affirmative argument,
we’re more than willing to listen to you.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Thank you very much.
MR. ABBATE-You’re welcome.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Okay. My name is Jane Mackintosh. I’m one of the appellants. I’ll
continue with my comments in reference to Staff Notes on this Appeal. My third
comment is based on a Staff comment in reference to the merits of the issue, where Staff
writes the merits of the issue are straightforward, clear, and unambiguous. We feel the
issues in the case are straightforward, clear and unambiguous, and show that the project
in question – by its scale, configuration, parking requirements, traffic impacts,
neighborhood impacts, and other features – is not allowed within the Queensbury
description of Professional Office. While “staff”, who appears to be Mr. Brown, states
that an Office Building is an allowable use in a Professional Office zone, and this is the
basis of his argument. He seems to be focusing on the fact that this is an Office
Building. He fails to mention that the only Office Building allowed is one which can be
described as a Professional Office! - and that the current project clearly does not match
the definition of Professional Office in Town Code. Much of my summary here is
irrelevant, since you’ve just made your decision. So I’m going to skip to requesting that
the ZBA overturn the Zoning Administrator’s decision and require Schermerhorn
Residential Holdings apply for a Use Variance. Thank you for your time. Lou Buck will
speak to the issues of the case, followed by Betty Monahan. Excuse me, Betty Monahan
will speak first. As I described, she is not an appellant directly, but she has been.
MR. ABBATE-She is an advisor.
MS. MACKINTOSH-She is an advisor to us. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-And would you identify yourself, ma’am, please.
BETTY MONAHAN
MRS. MONAHAN-Yes. Betty Monahan, 120 Sunnyside Road, and if you’ll indulge me
for a minute, I’d like to tell you a little bit about my background in Planning and Zoning. I
first got interested as a member of the League of Women Voters, and that was a local
program. In fact, the Town had no professional planning staff at that time, and so when
they did the re-zoning that was approved in 1982, the League (lost words) the workshop,
and that was really my first introduction into this process. Well, I came on the Town
Board in 1982, and Fran Walter, who was the Supervisor, planning was her field, and it
was under her administration that we put professional planners in the Town Office
building and started doing staff. Before that we’d had a Building Department. We’d had
the Zoning Board of Appeals, and we had the Planning Board. So I was lucky, at the
time that I came on the Board first, that Fran wanted all the Boards to get all the training
they could get. We were also lucky that the Department of State was offering
outstanding and superior training, and some of our trainers were Dick Boos and, the
name’s gone out of my mind right now, excuse me, anyway, these two gentlemen were
known as the gurus of planning and zoning through New York State. I then, for the
Association of Towns, I think I attended 14 of those conferences in the 16 years I was on
the Board, and where I specialized in the seminars I went to were planning and zoning. I
was also on the committee for the Town Board on planning and zoning and chaired it for
very many years, and then during this time we had an attorney in-house that was a Town
employee, Paul Dusek, and Paul was very thorough in how we attacked researching
zoning and planning matters. So what I’m going to go through with you now really is a
process that I was taught, because Paul always said to us, you can’t look at a couple of
items. You’ve got to look at all the items in the Codes that may have any bearing, and I
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
have given you, so you don’t have to flip flop in a Codebook, that’s what I just gave you
and have highlighted them. So the first one is the Summary of Allowed Uses in
Residential Areas, and you go down, and you see Professional Office is an allowed use,
and Professional Office within a residence, and it has a note, for note five, which is on
the back, and that is the distance that we all know about that controls where they can be
placed. The next page is Professional Office zone, and it’s entitled Summary of Allowed
Uses in Commercial Districts, and if you will notice that both of these sheets were
amended by Local Law #1 2006. There’s another one, a commercial district amended
2/27. Now, again, you’ve got on the back about the footage and where they’re allowed to
be placed within that zone. If you look at Table Three, which is the Industrial Districts, it
has offices, and just offices. It does not have a Professional Office listed on that page.
So, obviously, we’re starting to make a difference now between Offices and Professional
Offices. Okay. There’s another note that I’m looking for. Okay. On the second page,
second page of tables, on the back of that, you will see the note reads, all Professional
Offices/Office Buildings, and that’s when we start thinking, what is an Office Building,
what is this referring to. Well, actually there Professional is an adjective, and it describes
not only offices but it describes office buildings, and I checked my correct use of the
English language by a person in the education field that has a Doctorate and whose
background is English, and that is the correct interpretation of the way this is written
here, that Professional is understood in front of Office Buildings also. If that were not the
case, it would be written Professional Offices and/or Office Buildings. So we’re definitely
talking about Professional Offices or Professional Office buildings. Now the next step
would be to go to the definition. Office, a building that has been planned, developed,
and operated as a facility to accommodate one or more separate offices as its primary
use, and where other uses such as restaurants, tavern, or health club are secondary or
accessory. So I ask you to go back and look at the tables again. It’s further proof that
there’s a difference between Office and Professional Office. If you look on Table Two,
you’ll see Restaurant. You see nothing by Restaurant under Professional Office, even
that it can be an accessory use to that building. Because they’re only allowed in an
Office, a Commercial Office building, in the same area, according to the definition of
Office in our own Code, and where other uses, such as restaurants, taverns, or health
clubs are secondary or accessory. Now, we’ll go to the Professional Occupation. One
who is engaged in professional services including but not limited to all members of the
fields of medicine, law, architecture, engineering, surveying, accounting, insurance,
planning, or financial planning. Now let’s look at this and analyze this, because
insurance seems to be the hang up here. A profession is an occupation or vocation
requiring training in the liberal arts or the sciences and advanced study in a specialized
field. That’s one definition according to the dictionary. Another one is one who is
engaged in professional services, including but not limited to all members of the fields of
medicine, law, architecture, engineering, surveying, accounting, insurance planning, or
financial planning, which is the definition that we have. Now these all have a common
ground as they take advance study. They’re not something you can be trained to do
walking in off the street and getting a job. So how does insurance come into this?
Insurance is obviously an insurance agent or an insurance broker, which does require
advanced study, which does require licensing, as least as far as an insurance broker,
and I believe an agent, and they have the knowledge to give you, as a client, in other
words, they should know what type of coverage is proper for you, give you options. If
you’re a professional, you’ve probably got errors in omission coverage. These are the
type of things a professional in insurance does. They’re not a data input or that type of
thing, and then a Professional Office is an office use to conduct a professional
occupation. Then on your last page is the purposes of the zones, and that’s your
Professional Office zone, and I put in brackets that part is new, and underlined that that
is important, but what I want to go to right now is the Local Law #1 of 2006, and this is in
a copy of the official minutes of the Town of Queensbury that was filed with the State of
New York as all these laws have to be. The heading is, a Local Law to amend Chapter
179 Zoning of Queensbury Town Code to make revisions to the Professional Office, PO
zone, and Tables One, Two, and Four. Under Professional Office, and this is still the old
wording, it says purpose and establishment of zoning districts, and Professional Office is
under these districts. In the old wording, which is still part of the law, it talks about the
Professional Office encompasses area where Professional Offices, it doesn’t say
anything about regular offices, commercial offices, it says professional offices. Then the
new language that was added in 2006 to clarify this, and I’m just going to read you parts
of it. The PO district can function as a transition zone protecting residential zones from
more intensive commercial uses while providing convenient professional services to
residential neighborhoods, and all the services that we talked about under that definition
are services that the neighbors could use. It goes on to say, office and residential
facilities shall be used and built to demonstrate compatibility with adjoining uses and to
minimize any negative impacts on adjoining land use. Further down, when they talk
about where the housing is put, it says again, behind Professional Offices. It does not
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
say behind Offices. If you go down into Section Three of the Local Law, and this is
talking about where these buildings are to be placed relative to Bay Road, Sherman
Avenue, etc. All Professional Office/Office Buildings. So that’s construed to mean,
again Professional Office buildings, goes on to say in that same section, the use is
subordinate to a Professional Office. Down later in the same section, Professional Office
Building, and then Section Six says all local laws or ordinances or parts of local laws and
ordinances, in conflict with any part of this local law are hereby repealed. So, I think, you
know, there is no doubt that what this zone is talking about is Professional Offices. I
don’t think there’s any way that the building that we’re talking about, either the scope of
it, the use of it, can comply with the definition of a Professional Office, and therefore we
believe that Mr. Brown’s decision was in error, and did not, you know, fully research all
areas of the Ordinance that applies to it.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Sir, do you have something you wish to say?
MR. BUCK-Good evening. Again, my name is Lou Buck. My family and I live at 251
Gurney Lane, where we’ve resided for the past 25 years. In addition to residing in this
part of Queensbury, I also serve as President of the West Mountain Corridor Residents
For Responsible Land Use. It’s our contention that the project being proposed for the
intersection of West Mountain Road and Gurney Lane is being mischaracterized and
misrepresented as a Professional Office when, in fact, it is a large commercial office
building not allowed or appropriate for this area of Queensbury zoned Professional
Office. On this basis, we respectfully ask the Zoning Board of Appeals to review and
invalidate the interpretation of the Zoning Administrator. When this section of
Queensbury was rezoned Professional Office in 2002, Article Three of the Zoning Code
encouraged the development of Professional Offices along the arterials adjoining the
residential neighborhoods which would be compatible with residential use. The
Professional Office district was to function as a transition zone, protecting residential
zones from more intensive commercial uses, while providing convenient professional
services to residential neighborhoods. Within this zone, offices and residences were to
be sited and built to demonstrate compatibility with adjoining uses and to minimize any
negative impacts on adjoining land uses. Appendix A of the Zoning Code provides a
depiction of the residential style professional office building which is encouraged in this
Professional Office zone. In this depiction, one can clearly see attractive single story
buildings which look very much like private residences nestled in nicely treed and
landscaped surroundings. The project being proposed for this section of West Mountain
corridor involves the development of an 85,000 square foot office building. There’s a
dramatic distinction between the development of a cluster of small professional offices,
as originally intended in the Professional Office zone, and the construction of a large,
85,000 square foot commercial office building. These differences are most manifest in
three very significant ways. First, Professional Office as originally intended for this
section of Queensbury is compatible with the surrounding residential neighborhoods and
fits in seamlessly. It has a human scale. This commercial office building is not
compatible with this residential neighborhood, with the Critical Environmental Area of the
Glen Lake Watershed, and it does not fit in seamlessly with the surrounding residential
neighborhoods. Two, Professional Office space is a low impact on the existing
infrastructure of roads and traffic patterns, and with limited and shared parking doesn’t
require any appreciable enhancement with regard to parking and lighting or municipal
services such as water and sewer. This commercial office building will have a very and
significant impact on the Rural Residential neighborhood and the existing infrastructure.
The increase in the volume of traffic, in this case caused by 537 more vehicles traveling
at peak commuter hours, five days a week, will tax the ability of the arterial roads along
West Mountain Road to adequately handle any influx of cars of this magnitude. This
increase in traffic will further burden the longstanding heavy congestion at Exit 20. The
parking necessary to accommodate this size office building is excessive and well beyond
that allowed in the Professional Office zone, as is the intensity of the lighting required for
such a large parking area. A project of this size would require providing sewer, water to
this part of Queensbury, and Number Three, Professional Office space provides a range
of professional services to individuals who travel to and from these offices to access
these services. This commercial office space does not support the surrounding
residential neighborhood by providing any professional services, as defined in the
Zoning Code. I’d like to reiterate that the building being proposed for West Mountain
Road and Gurney Lane is being mischaracterized as a Professional Office Building when
in fact it is, without any doubt, a commercial office building, and therefore does not
conform to the requirements of a zone designated Professional Office. Please carefully
consider the intent and nature of a Professional Office zone and invalidate the Zoning
Administrator’s determination. Thank you, and I’d like to share with you this supporting
and additional material for the Board to review.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
MR. ABBATE-Yes. If you’d give that to the Secretary, we’d be more than happy to enter
it into the record. Thank you, sir. Okay. Have you folks concluded your opening
argument? Okay. All right. Go ahead.
MS. MACKINTOSH-I’m sorry. One more comment, and I would just, if I can ask your
indulgence, I would go back to Mr. Craig Brown’s statement that both Office and
Professional Office are listed as allowable usage in the Professional Office zone, and I
would repeat that if you look at the tables that Betty has pointed out, and the language in
the Ordinance that the only way Office is allowed is if it is a Professional Office, so that I
believe Mr. Brown’s argument here is disingenuous and incorrect.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you. Mr. Zoning Administrator, would you like to offer an
opening statement?
MR. BROWN-Yes, thank you. It’s been referenced, a few times that this project is being
classified as a Professional Office. As stated in my Staff Notes, I’ve never classified it as
a Professional Office. That’s the position that’s been taken by the appellant and Mr.
st
Salvador, the inquiry generator of that November 1 response letter. My position’s
always been that this is an Office Building and I find myself agreeing with Mr. Buck here
that it’s a large Office Building, no question about that, but Office Building is an allowed
use in the Professional Office zone. There is no limitation on what the size is in the Use
Table, and if you look at the tables that have been referred to by Mrs. Monahan, I’d refer
you to the Industrial Use Table, and if you look in the Commercial Industrial zone where
Office is allowed, there’s a footnote there that says maximum office size 10,000 square
feet. So if there’s an intent, or was an intent, with the Town Board to limit the size of an
Office Building in the Professional Office zone, there’d be a footnote there that says
here’s how big you can make it, like they did in the Commercial Industrial zone. That’s
not the case here. What is allowed is a Professional Office, an Office, a Commercial
Office, if you want to call it that. How it fits, how it operates, how it looks, how it smells, is
all something that is ironed out during the Site Plan Review process. Office and
Professional Office are allowed through Site Plan Review. So just because you’re old
enough to get your license, you’ve still got to take the test to pass and see if you get your
license. So the use is allowed. Does it pass the Site Plan Review test to see if it fits in
with the neighborhood character and, you know, other impacts that may be generated by
the project, that’s only a test for the Planning Board through Site Plan Review. So, you
know, the use is clearly allowed, and the test to see if it’s a Site Plan Review.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you. One rebuttal, one rebuttal and then we’re going to
move on to Board members.
MRS. MONAHAN-Again, we disagree with Mr. Brown’s conclusions for the reason we
stated, and also, if you look through your whole Zoning Code and examples are given,
we’re not particularly talking about the size. We are talking whether or not this building
qualifies to be in a Professional Office building for what is going to take place in the
building, too, and if you go through your Codebook, you will see that there are definitely
a differentiation between offices, regular offices and Professional Office zone. I’m talking
about parking requirements, different schematic things that are in there. You can pick up
a million different contrasts of what’s allowed in both. So, obviously the Town Board,
when they passed this, was making very much of a distinction between a Professional
Office building and an Office Building, and I have yet to see any place under the
Professional Office zone, except one place where the word Office is in the side of the
table, but my feeling is that that is probably there because let’s say I’m looking for where
I can put an office. I’m not going to think maybe a Professional, I am a professional. I’m
not going to think of the word Professional, necessarily. I am going to think of Office. So
the first place I look at Office and where it’s allowed, and then I start looking and seeing
the restrictions on an Office in a Professional Office zone, and then decide, yes, as a
professional, I can put my building there, in a Professional Office building. If I were not a
professional, I could not put my office building there, and that is the only, I mean, if you
look at these sides here and find out where Office is, that’s the only place that the word
Office is, but then if you follow it through to the logical conclusion, as I was taught to do,
and do the differentiation, you’ll realize that a regular office building cannot go in a
Professional Office building.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Mr. Zoning Administrator, would you like to rebut?
MR. BROWN-No, thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. No thank you. Then we’re going to move on, and I’m going to ask
members of the Board if they have any questions for the appellants?
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
MR. LAPPER-I’d like to be able to put in our argument as a party of interest.
MR. ABBATE-Well, after members of the Board ask questions, I’ll be opening the public
hearing.
MR. LAPPER-I don’t think we’re members of the public, as I mentioned.
MS. MACKINTOSH-May I make one more comment? I would like to protest any special
treatment for Mr. Lapper. I think that Mr. Lapper has ample opportunity to speak in
behalf of this project on other issues and not during this Appeal necessarily, but on other
appeals. He can speak when it comes time for the Area Variance, which he is a party to,
and he’s had ample opportunity to speak before the Planning Board, and I would ask,
with all due respect, that he not be given special consideration during our appeal.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, and I will take that into consideration and make a decision just
prior to the opening of the public hearing. In the meantime, I’m going to ask members of
the Board if they have any questions for the appellants or the Zoning Administrator?
Ladies and gentlemen of the Board, do you have any questions for the appellants or the
Zoning Administrator? All right. You have no questions? Then I’m going to open up the
public hearing for Part Two, and I’m going to request, again, that the members of the
public comply with my initial guidelines and five minute limitation, and I’m going to ask,
again, the Secretary ensure that those wishing to speak, they are not signatories on the
Appeal, and, again, I’m going to ask that those members of the public who wish to be
heard, if you could please raise your hand, I will make every attempt to recognize you
and ask you to step up to the table. Would you tell us who you are, please.
PUBLIC HEARING OPEN FOR PART TWO OF APPEAL
JUNE TALLY
MS. TALLY-Yes. My name is June Tally, and I live on Pinewood Avenue which is very
near the area we’re discussing. I just have one thing to say. Listening to everything
that’s going on here this evening, the one part about a Professional Offices serving the
people in their area really hit home, because I was wondering how Travelers serves the
people in our area living around there.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you, ma’am. Let’s go to Mr. Lapper first, and, Mr. Lapper,
please come up, and I made a decision. You will be allocated five minutes.
JON LAPPER
MR. LAPPER-The appeal is an appeal of Rich Schermerhorn’s project, and as such,
Rich is a party to this, and I did send in a letter to the Chairman, when the Appeal was
made, which stated our argument. So I probably need 10 or 15 minutes, and certainly I
think due process requires that, but at the same time there are plenty of people on my
consulting team that can give up their five minutes so that I can make a presentation.
MR. ABBATE-Well, I would prefer it that way, Counselor, because, quite frankly, as you
know, the rules and regulations require that you submit in writing to the Chairman of the
Board.
MR. LAPPER-But after you said that, I realized that I did write a.
MR. ABBATE-So if you wish to have some members of the public who wish to support
your position to grant you their five minutes, that’s fine, but I will not allow you to continue
with an argument. Okay. You’ve got five minutes.
MR. LAPPER-And that gets the same results. That’s fine. I’ve got three traffic engineers
from Creighton Manning who will give me their time.
MR. ABBATE-Is that correct? You understand you will not be allowed to testify this
evening.
MR. LAPPER-On this half of it.
MR. ABBATE-On this, of course, on this, yes.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
MR. LAPPER-Okay. We’re here in support of the Zoning Administrator’s determination
that an Office and a Professional Office are both permitted uses in the zone. When
there’s no ambiguity, the case law is that you don’t have to look to intent. You just look
to read the chart and the definitions in the Code, and it’s very clear, but actually what the
Appeal was on was two very specific things. One, and you read it yourself to begin with.
A big box office building is an allowable use with Site Plan Review and approval in a
Professional Office zone. They’re challenging whether a big box office. So that is a term
that is not defined anywhere in the Town Code, a big box office, and in terms of big box,
big box generally refers to a commercial project, like a Wal-Mart or a K-Mart or a Lowe’s,
of over 120,000. I think somebody’s trying to make a political statement that at 85,000
square feet this is a large project, but it’s not a big box. A big box connotes retail and
customers, and this doesn’t have customers and it is not a retail establishment. So all of
the arguments about, that this is a big box, don’t apply. What you do look at, and Craig
mentioned this, besides the Use Chart, there’s also an Area and Bulk Chart, of course, in
the Town, and the Area and Bulk Chart say what the minimum lot size are, what the
setbacks have to be, what the maximum height is, and in every respect with comply with
the Area and Bulk Chart. So when you have a 17 and a half acre parcel, the size of the
project is determined, or is limited, by the setbacks on the site under that Area and Bulk
Chart. So the fact that this site can more than support 85,000 square feet does not
qualify it as a big box office. It doesn’t change the use. It is an office. Craig said that he
has characterized this as an Office, and in truth we applied for this as an Office, but this
project does fit the bill, fit the definition of both an Office and a Professional Office,
because I think what Mrs. Monahan said was that these are people that are not licensed,
that are not brokers, and that is, she is incorrect. In the record, the fellow, Linke,
disparaged the Travelers employees by saying that they were entry level data
processors, and I’ve got a number of Travelers people who will testify after me as to what
they do, but there are many people in the Travelers building that are licensed
professionals, that are licensed insurance brokers, insurance agents. Many of them are
licensed in many States, as well as New York. So they will speak to that, but she sat
here and said that unless they’re licensed they don’t qualify as professional. I’m saying
many of them are licensed. There’s not a requirement that every single one of them
have to be licensed. In my law office, we have paralegals and legal assistants who are
not licensed, but we have lawyers who are licensed and it’s the same with Travelers.
There are licensed people and there are people that don’t require a license that are
supervised by licensed people. So this project qualifies, the chart that you were handed,
it lists two separate uses. One is an Office use and one is a Professional Office, and it
qualifies as both under the Definitions. So there’s no question, and certainly in terms of
precedent, I’ve been before this Board with office projects in the Industrial zone, with
office projects in the Professional Office zone on Bay Road. I want to just quickly turn to
the Chart.
MR. ABBATE-As time goes on, Counselor, this Board will bill your office.
MR. LAPPER-I understand.
MR. ABBATE-Okay.
MR. LAPPER-Summary of Allowed Uses in Commercial Districts under PO. The general
description of the zone, which was read by the appellants, that said that Professional
Offices are encouraged, and that’s the word, it doesn’t say that they’re exclusive. It says
that they’re encouraged in the zone, but the list of uses that, as the Zoning Administrator
said, are permitted with Site Plan Review in the Professional Office zone, and I’ll read,
daycare center, permitted principal use, office, parking garage facility, which is
something that we’ll talk about later, as a separate permitted principal use, personal
service business, separate permitted principal use, Professional Office, of course,
seasonal produce business, cemetery, health related facility, place of worship, public or
semipublic building and a school. So all of their arguments that the only thing you can
have, because the title of this is called Professional Office, that is the title of the zone,
but this zone allows many uses, including the two that we’re here to talk about tonight, an
Office and a Professional Office, and this building qualifies as both an Office and a
Professional Office and for that reason it’s just English language. You don’t have to look
any farther as to intent. You just look at the Summary of Allowed Uses in the
Commercial District. Mrs. Monahan also made a statement that was incorrect where she
said that, she distinguished the parking requirements for Office and Professional Office,
and if you look on the parking chart, both of them are one space per 300 square feet. So
just for that reason, that they’re treated the same. The Definitions have been read. So I
don’t have to bore you with that again, but again, one who’s engaged in professional
services including all members of the field, which doesn’t mean all licensed people, all
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members of the field of insurance, and again, Office, a building, planned, developed, and
operated as a facility to accommodate one or more separate offices, as its primary use.
MR. ABBATE-Read that for me again, will you, Counselor?
MR. LAPPER-The definition of Office is a building that has been planned, developed,
and operated as a facility to accommodate one or more separate offices, as its primary
use, and where other uses, such as restaurants, taverns or health related facilities, are
secondary or accessory. This will also have a cafeteria which is accessory for the
employees, but one or more offices.
MR. BRYANT-Mr. Lapper, do you mind if I ask you a question on that point?
MR. LAPPER-Of course.
MR. BRYANT-You make that point about you just read the definition of Office. Mrs.
Monahan made the point that if you look in the Professional Office listing, Restaurant is
not one of those in the list. However, in the Definition, Restaurant is an accessory use to
Office.
MR. LAPPER-Yes. The difference is whether a principal permitted use or an accessory
use. You can’t just build a restaurant. I just can’t build Friday’s on that site, but if I have
an office building, I can have an accessory use where I have a restaurant for the
employees.
MR. BRYANT-Okay. I just wanted you to clarify that.
MR. LAPPER-I want to, now, just very quickly go through the Linke letter that was read
by the Secretary at the beginning of the meeting, just to distinguish some of the stuff. He
talks about inappropriate overdevelopment of the site, and again, 85,000 square foot
building and parking on a 17 and a half acre site, where we’re leaving eight acres as
complete buffer, and 65% green space, is hardly overdevelopment. Then he talks about
the only two words, Office and Insurance, and again, yes, those are the two words you
look at. You look at the Chart to see what’s a permitted use in the zone. He’s talking
about interpreting and ambiguous, and my point is that there’s nothing ambiguous about
Professional Office and Office and Insurance. Plain too big for this site, clear
commercial nature, and again, commerce is people coming and going, buying and
selling. The whole point about this being a transitional zone, our project is a transitional
zone. If you think about what’s on Route 9, not just Wal-Mart, but you think about what’s
at Route 9 at the Outlets, restaurants, stores, that is commercial. Then you’ve got
Lehland Estates and the people a mile away on Gurney Lane. That’s residential. So the
point of a Professional Office zone which allows all these things, including a school, a
cemetery, a health related facility, is that an office, in and of itself, an office is a
transitional use. Generally people aren’t there at night. The lights don’t have to be on at
night. They’re generally not there on weekends. An office is quiet, and in this case, an
office doesn’t have people coming and going to buy things. You don’t have cars. I know
that it was mentioned at the prior hearing that, gee, it would be nice if this was all medical
offices, and the difference is if you had medical offices you’d have lots of patients coming
and going. You’d have more traffic. What we’ve got here is people that come to the site.
They may go out to lunch. It’s quiet. You don’t have customers. This is a transitional
use in between Commercial and Residential. The scenic roads. We’ll get into this when
we talk about the variance, but as Tom Nace pointed out at our last hearing, almost all of
the site. He talked about scenic roads, and almost all of the buffer of this site, except at
the entrance drive, is going to be left the way it is. There was a picture in one of his
posters with a barn. It’s not on our site. We’re not touching it. It’s going to stay the
same. He talked about, then he goes into this argument about two or three years down
the road, Travelers goes bankrupt and moves to India, you have to look to the future. I
mean, that’s just a misunderstanding of zoning. We’re talking about what’s being
proposed, when a large employer wants to build a new office to have something built to
suit to them, they look in the Zoning Code, they look on the Zoning Map and see where
they can build. Professional Office zone, one of the places where there was appropriate
land, suitable land for their project for an office building. This is just some speculative
argument that they’re going to move this to India. The whole purpose here is to keep
these jobs in Town. That’ll do it at this point. Any questions?
MR. ABBATE-Well, let’s ask the Board. Do you have any questions for Mr. Lapper? If
none, fine. You understand, of course, there’ll be no rebuttal during the public hearing.
MR. LAPPER-I’m fine.
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MR. ABBATE-Okay. Fine.
MR. LAPPER-Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Do we have any other members of the public who wish to be heard? That
young lady right there, please. Yes, ma’am. Would you be kind enough to tell us who
you are.
KARA DURFEE
MS. DURFEE-Hello. My name is Kara Durfee, and I’m an employee of Travelers
Insurance, and I’m here voluntarily to give you my opinion of this project. I’ve worked for
Travelers Insurance for seven years now, and I went to college in Troy at RPI where I
received my Bachelors of Science Degree in Mathematics and Management Information
Systems, and I looked for a job in this area, and was unable to find one, so I went to the
Travelers office building in Hartford, Connecticut. I was employed there for three years,
and, due to personal circumstances, I wished to move back to this area, and thankfully
Travelers was located in Queensbury and they had a position open that was able to fit
my skills and needs. During the rest of my time since, I’ve received my Masters degree
in Management Information Systems part time through RPI, and I’ve been able to apply
those skills to the work that I do with Travelers. I have a very professional position. I
develop applications for use as well as doing data analysis. I have many colleagues
here tonight, and we think it would be very important for you to consider keeping this
office building in this area. At a time when many companies are moving away, Travelers
wishes to stay in this area and keep employees and more jobs in this area. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-You’re welcome. Thank you very much. All right.
MR. BROWN-Mr. Chairman, could I just ask a quick question?
MR. ABBATE-By all means.
MR. BROWN-I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of public comment on both sides of the
issue here, and I think, and no offense to the first speaker here, it wasn’t on the point of
is this use allowable in the zone. I think if we focus on that we can get to the bottom of
this issue, and the other comments on the Area Variance may come later, but allowability
of the use is really what we probably want to focus on.
MR. ABBATE-Yes, I agree with you. As a matter of fact, prior to the meeting, Counselor
and I came to an agreement that there would be only several spokesman for Travelers,
to cut down on the time, and I don’t know, Mr. Lapper, what happened to our agreement
that Travelers would, in the interest of time, would designate several people to speak
rather than 100?
MR. LAPPER-Yes. I just asked for somebody who has an insurance license to come up
and put that on the record, just to address that issue to be responsive to what Mr. Brown
said, a professional license.
MR. ABBATE-Okay, and also I’d like it known, I realize you don’t represent Travelers, I
understand that, but I would like it made known to the Travelers folks, I appreciate what
you’re saying, however, we have to address your comments to the merits of the case,
not the economics or the financial aspects.
MR. LAPPER-The Travelers people are mostly here to address the next issue, which is
the parking variance issue.
MR. ABBATE-Of course, I understand that.
MR. LAPPER-But I think it’s relevant to have some of them speak about the professional
license aspect of the use. So I just asked if somebody could do that.
MR. ABBATE-Fine. That would be fine. We’re willing to negotiate and be fair.
MR. MC NULTY-Mr. Chairman, I’d just like to make a comment, too, on the last speaker.
I think, while there were some extra things she said, she did speak to the point. She
made the point that she has a college degree.
MR. ABBATE-Absolutely.
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MR. MC NULTY-And she’s moved on to a Masters degree, and she’s using those skills
in her job.
MR. ABBATE-I agree.
MR. MC NULTY-So I think, for that part, it’s to the point that if you’re going to call this a
Professional Office, that argues that direction.
MR. ABBATE-Well, see, that is the dilemma when Mr. Bryant requests that it be limited.
However, I’m uncomfortable with that, because I believe there may very well be pertinent
information, and I agree with you, Mr. McNulty. I was delighted to hear educational
qualifications and what have you.
JANE MACKINTOSH
MRS. MACKINTOSH-I just have a procedural question, which is whether or not the
appellants have an opportunity for rebuttal after public comment?
MR. ABBATE-I’ll take that into consideration.
MRS. MACKINTOSH-Okay. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Sure. That gentleman, yes, sir, please.
NELSON MILLER
MR. MILLER-My name is Nelson Miller. I’m a resident of Gurney Lane. I am not a
signatory.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Good.
MR. NELSON-Just a couple of comments. One is, Mr. Lapper suggested that
interpretation of intent is unnecessary, and I think that, I would just like to point out to the
Board and the public that laws are created by humans and by their nature are imperfect
and interpretation is always part of the process of trying to follow the law, and
interpretation of intent is appropriate for the Board, I think, under these circumstances,
because the other, and relating to my other point which is that really the Professional
Office designation and zoning in general has to do with aesthetic issues, and aesthetic
issues, by their nature, are somewhat subjective, and because of that, the intent of the
writers of the laws needs to be considered. Now, you know, I think my neighbors and
myself are not unsympathetic with the fact that Mr. Schermerhorn and his associates
have perhaps had a different interpretation, and I think Mr. Brown’s decision was
described by one speaker as disingenuous, and I don’t think that. I agree that it was
incorrect, but not disingenuous. I think that there may be room for interpretation, but I
think it’s very legitimate for the Board to consider the intent of the law and how that law
was directed at preserving the aesthetics of the community and, just as a final note for
the Board and for the public, I would just direct them to the mural on the wall, I can’t see
who the artist is. It looks like perhaps John Galushi’s work, but in any case, and just
imagine that we now put in the 527 space parking lot and the 85,000 square foot office
building back at the edge of the woods there, and consider whether or not that would be
an improvement in the aesthetics or not.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you very much, but again, I have to caution the public. The issue of
parking spaces is inappropriate at this time. Yes, sir, this gentleman right here.
DON KREBS
MR. KREBS-Don Krebs, 43 Masters Common. I think what we’re looking at, whether or
not this is appropriate for the area. Not very far from there is West Mountain, which is a
large facility. The County is going to build a 66,000 square foot building on their existing
campus, which is already a very large office complex that also has a prison, okay, which,
by the way, abuts to a very nice subdivision, Courthouse Estates.
MR. ABBATE-Yes.
MR. KREBS-So I don’t see how this office building is necessarily going to be out of
character for the area. The County is also thinking about putting another 50,000 square
foot building where West Mount is. So that’s all in the same area. So I think, yes, if you
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read the rules, the rules say that it’s an acceptable use in the area, and it’s certainly fits
the character of the area.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir, please.
PHIL KENYON
MR. KENYON-Hello, Mr. Chairman and members of the Board. Mr. Underwood
requested that a Travelers representative attend the meeting, and I’m the Travelers
representative. My name is Phil Kenyon.
MR. ABBATE-Well, welcome.
MR. KENYON-Yes, it’s nice to be here, and I’m the Vice President of Operations, and I’m
responsible for our office here in Queensbury. So I wanted to just spend a few minutes
and give you a little bit of information about Travelers and tell you about some of the jobs
that we have at the facility and also ask the Board that if you have questions about
Travelers you please can direct them to me.
MRS. BRUNO-You need to get an address for the record.
MR. ABBATE-No, quite frankly, he doesn’t. By law, we are really forbidden to ask for an
address, only the identification of the individual. So continue, please.
MR. KENYON-Thank you. Travelers is one of the largest, oldest, and most successful
insurance companies in the United States. We wrote the first auto policy about 140
years ago. We’re a publicly traded company. We’re listed on the New York Stock
Exchange under the symbol of TRV. We have assets of $114 billion. We have revenue
of approximately $25 billion annually, and our operating income for the last year was in
excess of $4 billion. We employ 33,000 employees in every State in the Country, the
United Kingdom, Canada, and we have a facility here in Queensbury which we’ve had
for close to 20 years now. We have 499 employees, and we’ve been very, very happy
with the quality of the work here. Our office outperforms most of our other offices. They
were awarded prestigious awards throughout the years. The most recent one was a
New York one, Empire State Advantage award, and I wanted to tell you a little bit about
some of the jobs that we have at our facility. Many of our employees have associates
degrees, undergraduate degrees, as well as graduate degrees. Many of our employees
have professional designations such as CPCU, which is Charter Property Casualty
Underwriter. It’s one of the most difficult ones to obtain in the industry. We have over
150 of our employees that hold a New York State Insurance Residence license, and they
are also licensed in approximately 46 States. The group here in Queensbury holds over
7,000 insurance agent licenses throughout the Country. Our business is growing, and
we have a need to expand our space. We have identified this as the only desirable site
for our business needs. We want to stay in Queensbury. We’re very happy with this
facility. If this is not available, we will have to investigate all of our other options,
including options outside the community.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Do any of the Board members have any questions for Mr. Kenyon?
You are a Vice President of Operations for the Travelers Insurance Company?
MR. KENYON-Of operations, for Travelers Insurance Company.
MR. BRYANT-And you work in the Queensbury office?
MR. KENYON-No, I work in the Hartford, Connecticut office.
MR. BRYANT-Okay.
MR. KENYON-And I’m also responsible for other offices throughout the Country.
MR. BRYANT-Will you be here for the other part of the thing, because I do have some
questions to ask you that are relevant to the next.
MR. KENYON-Yes, I will. The other question I just had for the Chairman is our Chief
Executive Officer wrote you and the Board a letter. I wasn’t sure if that was going to be
read into the record.
MR. ABBATE-Yes. We will read it into the record, definitely.
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MR. KENYON-Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-And we did receive that. As a matter of fact, all the Board members
received the two page document.
MR. KENYON-Okay.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you. Yes, sir, please. Would you tell us who you are, please.
JOHN O’CARROLL
MR. O’CARROLL-Yes, sir. Good evening. My name is John O’Carroll. I’m from
Queensbury. I live in Lehland Estates. I believe in fair government, honestly, and first of
all I want to commend you on at least going to this stage of seeing whether this should
be investigated or not.
MR. ABBATE-Thank.
MR. O’CARROLL-I truly believe that. I look at this, and, you know, I hear from the Board
that somebody invited residents from, or representatives from Travelers here. I don’t
remember getting my invitation, and I wonder how fair that is when they get that kind of
opportunity. Number Two, I’m angry. I’m angry at Travelers here. I think they’ve got a
lot of nerve. They talk about how much they value the people, they value the workers.
This place does 20% better than everything else, yet if they don’t get this building,
they’re going to leave. They must really value the professionalism of your group.
Because they’re willing to walk from that, and I just am amazed by it. I’m angry that this
has gotten to this point, and I hope you people will continue to do the right thing. Thank
you.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, sir. Yes, ma’am. Go ahead, please.
GWEN O’HANLON
MS. O’HANLON-Hi. My name’s Gwen O’Hanlon, and, at risk of giving my age, I’ve lived
here for 52 years. I started working at Travelers 16 years ago, seven of which when I
was a single mother trying to take care of two children. There weren’t many
opportunities, and Travelers gave me that opportunity to start out at a CSR, Customer
Service Representative. Over the past 16 years, I’ve been promoted. I now work in
Human Resources. I guess what I’m trying to say is, in Human Resources, I am getting
applicants from a lot of kids that their parents may be here tonight or may not be here
tonight. I’m getting applicants that have Bachelors Degree, kids that have gone away to
school, come back to Queensbury, and they want to start a career, and I just find it, I’m
very emotional about it. We weren’t invited, I wasn’t invited here tonight. I’ve been to
many meetings here. These people, they wanted to come. I mean, this fellow back here
doesn’t need an invitation that I know of. I mean, I think it’s open to the public for all of
us to come, but I guess I’m upset because it’s just that when you hear the way they’re
describing Travelers, it’s not the culture. It just isn’t. We have very, you know, and to
your point, I’ve said we’ve had professionals, and we do, and what really, what I really
enjoy in my job in Human Resources is to see when my kids graduated, they went to
college and their friends are coming back, and they’re calling me, or their parents are
calling me, and saying, Gwen, can you help him out, he wants to start a career, and I get
a lot of that, a lot of it. They start their career at Travelers. Some of them have bought
homes. They’ve had their kids and they come back to the community, and that’s all I
have to say. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you, ma’am. Yes, sir, in the back of the room, please, sir.
GEORGE LANGFORD
MR. LANGFORD-My name is George Langford. I live at 40 Lehland Drive. Now I wrote
a letter to the Board, which I’d like to read and then pass on for the record. I didn’t know
this was a three part meeting, so you’ll have to bear with me a little bit here.
MR. ABBATE-You take your time, sir.
MR. LANGFORD-All right. I do not understand why the Queensbury Planning Board has
allowed this project to proceed. The project is in direct conflict with the Town zoning and
planning vision, and is attempting to bypass legal requirements. Many red flags have
been completely disregarded. Queensbury expended considerable effort generating a
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Master Plan with zoning appropriate to each area. Mr. Schermerhorn wants to build a
large office complex in an area zoned for Professional Office buildings. Apparently, the
intended tenant is Travelers Insurance. The offices will primarily accommodate clerical
personnel. By no stretch of the imagination can one define this as Professional Office
usage. How could the Planning Department interpret the wording of the Zoning
Ordinance to misconstrue the intent? It should not take a Supreme Court decision to
conclude that interpretation is severely flawed. Mr. Schermerhorn has requested a
variance to allow the number of parking places to exceed established limits. Not only
would parking directly infringe on a portion of a Critical Environmental Area, drainage
would potentially impact a much wider area of the CEA, an area which is especially
important to the Town. SEQRA law requires that a Full Environmental Assessment be
performed for a CEA, however, no such requirement has been imposed upon this
project, and a Full Environmental Impact Statement must be completed. Traffic is also a
major problem. The addition of over 500 cars arriving and departing in an already
congested area is unacceptable. Let us not forget that the eminent expansion of the
nearby Municipal Center, with its additional traffic, will impact this same location. The
Master Plan for Queensbury envisioned and zoned the area of the proposed project to
maintain a scenic area, intermixed with residential and appropriate professional
buildings. The proposed project completely disregards this plan. The proposed project
is not in keeping with our visions for the future, or in the best interest of the citizens. I
request this Board do the right thing and stop this project before any damage is done.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you, sir. Yes, ma’am, please. Good evening.
LINDA MC DOWELL
MS. MC DOWELL-Good evening. My name is Linda McDowell, and I live on Sara-Jen
Drive in Queensbury, and I’ve come to a few of the meetings, and as I’m sitting here
tonight, I appreciate the fact that you, Mr. Chairman, have reminded us to keep to the
objective or the part of what we’re supposed to be addressing, and I think we all have to
remember that what we’re about here is trying to decide if this building is appropriate on
this piece of land, okay. It has nothing to do with the potential, it’s not really about who
the potential, I’m sorry, I think I’m a little more nervous than I thought I’d be up here.
MR. ABBATE-I’m nervous, too, don’t feel bad.
MS. MC DOWELL-Okay.
MR. ABBATE-Take your time.
MS. MC DOWELL-It’s not about who the client is, it’s, and people and their lives, that
personal part of it should not be included here, and I think we really need to remember to
focus on is this building right for this piece of land. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, ma’am. All right. Yes, sir, please.
STEVE MEYER
MR. MEYER-My name is Steve Meyer. According to the zoning, this is for a
Professional Office building, and whether it’s appropriate for that site or not. The things
that they’re saying is that the people who work for Travelers are professionals, and this is
an office building. Under my definition that I have researched of what a professional is, it
is someone who is required to have continuing education requirements upon their thing.
As such, as a lawyer, who is required to have continuing education, as a doctor
continuing education, dentist, so on, accountants. I am familiar with Travelers quite
heavily. My wife was an employee of Travelers. She is now an employee of the Tribune
Corporation. Those jobs are very similar in what they do. They have different products,
granted. One is an insurance. One is a media services product, but they’re basically the
same type. So my question would be, if the Tribune Corporation put the name insurance
in their title, would they be allowed to be in this spot here? They are not insurance, but
it’s basically the same type of business. I’m very intimate with both of them. My wife
worked at both of them. My wife was recruited by Travelers to work for them after she
left there after five years of service. She was asked to come back and work for them. So
I’m very intimate in what Travelers does. As far as I know, most of those people in
Travelers are not required to go back to school and get continuing education
requirement, just as Mr. Lapper is required in order to maintain his professional
certificate, his license to practice as an attorney, as does an accountant. If I’m a CPA,
I’m required to maintain my license. Not a lot of people at Travelers are required to do
that. Not very many people at Tribune are required to do that. So we’ve got to make
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sure that we are talking truly what a professional is. No disrespect. I have no disrespect
for the Travelers people. They do a heck of a job. They do an excellent job, and when
my wife worked there, they were cited, back then, back in the early 80’s, for the quality of
work done by them, and I think that’s a testament to the people of this area, and I’d be
remiss to say that if anybody here, nobody in this room would like to see Travelers leave
the area. We respect what Travelers have done. They haven’t given to the community
as a corporation, but the individuals have done a lot to the community, but Travelers has
not reinvested into this community as the Tribune Corporation has, and I know that for a
fact. So we have to define, is it a Professional Office building. What is the definition of a
Professional? A lawyer is professional. Accountants are professional, and it says that in
there. No disrespect, but one of the jobs I have is, you have an accounting clerk, or a
senior accounting clerk, and we always say, well, you’re just an accounting clerk. I don’t
mean that in a derogatory sense. That’s the definition, but they are well respected
people within their field and they do an excellent job, but under the definition of
Professional, Travelers is not a Professional Office building, and we have to consider if
we would allow the Travelers to go there, would we have allowed the Tribune
Corporation to go in there? There are other spots. I have been familiar that Travelers
has looked at other spots within this community. This is not the only spot that they have
looked at. They are looking at spots at Exit 12, too, as we speak. They are looking at a
spot down at Exit 12. So this is not the only thing that they are looking at. So, the
question is, it is it appropriate, and the second thing that we’re going to be discussing, or
the next thing we’re going to be discussing is whether or not there should be a variance
for parking. We have to, because of the size of this project, do we need to have a
variance?
MR. ABBATE-We’re not going to discuss that at this time. If you wish to remain for the
second.
MR. MEYER-That’s after this.
MR. ABBATE-Yes. It’s right after this.
MR. MEYER-So my question is, is this an appropriate building if we have to discuss
whether or not we have to have a variance to allow that number of cars to go into it.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Good question. I think that gentleman right there. Yes, sir.
DICK BEERS
MR. BEERS-I appreciate it. I wasn’t going to get up to speak, but from what I’ve been
hearing, and I just want to speak to the last comment that was made. My name is Dick
Beers, and I work for Travelers, and I just wanted the Board to know that anybody who
carries a New York agent’s license is required to continue education to hold their license.
So they must do it. So I just wanted to respond that these are professional workers that
we have in this building. So, thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you, sir. All right.
MICHELLE WOODS
MS. WOODS-Hi. My name is Michelle Woods and I work for Travelers. I’m here of my
own freewill. I’ve been listening to both sides. I’m very empathetic to the people that live
in Queensbury. I’ve been in this community all my life as well. It’s just, it’s hurting my
heart to hear them say that Travelers does not give to this community. We give on a
regular basis, a lot of our time, our money, our efforts gets put back into this community,
and I think when Mr. Kenyon was speaking, he wants us to say here, because this is
where our home is. We empathize with your traffic pattern. What we need to think about
is ways to change maybe the traffic patterns to keep it environmentally friendly, so that
we can all work together as a community to keep our money in our community. I mean,
a lot of people at Travelers have heart and soul. We empathize with your traffic pattern,
your parking lot dilemma. We want to help. We’re not here to hurt.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, ma’am. Yes, sir.
DAVID BRUNO
MR. BRUNO-David Bruno. Just a couple of points of clarification. The gentleman that
spoke previously that had some affiliation with Planning Boards gone by referred to the
building that’s going to be erected at the Municipal Center, which is on the other side of
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
the Northway, I-87, which I-87 draws a line in the sand between east and west,
commercial development and the west side of I-87, which is Rural Residential zoned
three acres, five acres, etc. So I don’t really get his connection between this building
being a transition, if you’re jumping across the Northway and calling that a transition to
Residential. I don’t buy that. Also my last conversation with an individual that is intimate
with the County Supervisors and their plans for the West Mount facility, at this point, at
the point of our conversation, they had not decided to put a 50,000 square foot building
there. They had decided to build over on the Municipal side, Municipal Center side. So
just a few points of clarity there.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you, sir. All right. Do we have any other members of the
public who wish to be heard? I see no other hands raised. In that event, the public
hearing is closed for Part II.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MR. ABBATE-I’m now going to ask members to offer their comments, and again, I
respectfully remind members that we concern ourselves with the evidence and testimony
appearing on the record, and the comments made by Board members are directed to the
Chairman and they will not be open to debate. Do we have anyone on the Board who
wishes to make any comments? Yes, sir, Mr. Bryant.
MR. BRYANT-The appellant hasn’t had the opportunity to rebut the public comment.
MR. ABBATE-That’s not a requirement. However, in an effort to be fair and provide due
process, you will have five minutes.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I just want to clarify that, in
spite of some of the disparaging comments in Mr. Linke’s letter, that really the appellants
really have no desire, we’re not interested in criticizing the employees of Travelers. We
understand they all have, or we assume most of them have fairly high education levels.
We really don’t dispute that some of them have insurance licenses. The important
distinction that we try to make is that in the Professional Office zone, what is appropriate
would be an office for an independent insurance agent. That would be an individual
working by him or herself or with a small group of colleagues in a similar setting as a
doctor, lawyer, accountant, financial advisor would be working, and those, of course, are
the other professions that are listed as allowable and desirable in the zone. The other
point that I want to make is that it is not for the project sponsor/developer or the Zoning
Administrator to pick and choose which words in the definition of Professional Office,
defining Professional Office, the Professional Office zone. It’s not their prerogative to
pick and choose which words they will abide by and which words they will ignore, and
specifically what I’m referring to is the fact that not only are the buildings and the uses
within Professional Office zone required to be compatible, they are supposed to be
offering professional services to the neighborhood. This is a major bone of contention
that we have in saying that this project is compatible with Professional Office zone.
There is no, we’ve heard no indication tonight that people can actually go to Travelers
and make an appointment and talk to someone about their insurance the way they can
with an independent insurance agent, and that is where we are puzzled that it’s been
determined that this is an allowable use within this zone, and yet this particular aspect of
the definition has been ignored.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you very much.
MRS. MONAHAN-I just want to say I heard myself misquoted many times by Mr. Lapper,
but that’s okay, and is the question is Travelers wanted, needed in Queensbury area, the
answer is, yes, but there are many places where it is an allowed use, and there is no
doubt that Travelers has professional people within that organization, people with
licenses, but a use has to meet every standard that’s in the Zoning Ordinance, and if
there’s one it can’t comply with, it can’t go there, and this is what it cannot comply with,
purposes and establishment of zoning districts, while providing convenient professional
services to residential neighborhoods, which is the purpose of the zone. Mr. Lapper was
questioned about the restaurant. He said it’ll have a cafeteria. Again, the question is, is
that cafeteria open to the public, so it becomes a quasi restaurant or is it for the
employees only, and as far Warren County, we all know that they’re exempt from zoning.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you. Okay. We’ll go, now, back to the Board members, and I’m
going to ask the Board members if they have any comments, and the comments, again,
are going to be directed to the Chairman and are not subject to debate. Ladies and
gentlemen of the Board, do you have any comments?
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MR. UNDERWOOD-You’re going to go through each one of us, right?
MR. ABBATE-Yes, by all means.
MR. BRYANT-What about Craig? He wants to talk.
MR. ABBATE-Go ahead, please.
MR. BROWN-Yes, if I could. This all boils back down to an appeal of a determination
that was made, and the determination that was made was that Office use is an allowable
use in the zoning district. There was no determination made as to the size, the function.
All those are Site Plan issues. I don’t disagree that there may be some things that need
to be addressed, but the use itself is allowed. How it functions, how it operates, what it
looks like, those are dealt with at Site Plan after the use, as the use is being reviewed.
So, again, just to focus on allowability, the Zoning Ordinance clearly says, and I think
probably many members of the appellant’s side here would agree that office use is
allowed. The question at hand is the size and the scope, Planning Board issues.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you, Mr. Zoning Administrator. I appreciate that. Now,
Board members, do we have any questions before I continue on?
MR. UNDERWOOD-Do you want comments? Do you want our opinion?
MR. ABBATE-Yes, comments from the Board members.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Are you polling us now? Is that what you’re?
MR. ABBATE-No. This is basically asking you for almost your position on this thing, and
if you wish to present commentary, you’re certainly entitled to. We can start with Mr.
Underwood, please.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. I think indeed what we have before us is a Professional
Office zone, which has been superimposed upon a Rural Residential area. In
considering the appropriateness for the development purposes, any proposed
Professional Office use must, as designated by the Codebook, minimize the
incompatibility of the new development with the character of the adjoining and nearby
land area. The Codebook goes on with the following general guidelines. Take into
account the existing and potential land uses in the vicinity of the project site in
determining what new land use activities are suitable for the project site. Avoid new,
intensive development in open space areas, and avoid substantially altering the existing
residential and other land use patterns. If we’re going to go back to the Definitions, I
think what we have to do and what we have to keep in mind here is what came first, the
chicken or the egg, and as we all know, Queensbury, up until recent times, was pretty
much a Rural Residential area. That whole side of the Northway is still primarily Rural
Residential in nature. If we’re looking at the Professional Office zone, the district
encompasses areas where Professional Offices are encouraged, and by Professional
Offices is very specific as to what they mean. These are located along arterials adjoining
Residential areas where compatibility with the Residential uses is important. If we’re
looking at a Rural Residential qualification, and most of that area up there is designated
Rural Residential Five acre or Rural Residential Three acre land, there is some Single
Family Residential One acre over in Lehland Estates to the south. The Rural Residential
districts are intended to enhance the natural open space and rural character of the Town
by limiting development to sparse densities. Steep slopes, wetlands, limiting soils and
marginal access to populated areas often characterize such areas, warranting such
densities as are allowed on those sites. For Professional Offices and Office use, again,
just to go back to the Definitions quickly, those offices are used to conduct professional
occupations, and as was pointed out by Mrs. Monahan, those services are included but
not limited to the fields of medicine, law, architecture, law, engineering, surveying,
accounting, insurance planning, and financial planning. The whole idea behind all these
is as follows. The Professional Office district encompasses areas where professional
offices are encouraged. They’re located along arterials adjoining residential areas where
compatibility with the residential use is important. The Town desires to see development
of high-quality offices where structures and facilities are constructed with particular
attention to detail, including but not limited to architecture, lighting, landscaping, signs,
streetscape, public amenities, and pedestrian connections. The Professional Office
District can function as a transition zone protecting residential zones from more intensive
commercial uses, while providing convenient professional services to residential
neighborhoods in which they reside. Office and residential facilities should be sited and
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
built to demonstrate compatibility with the adjoining uses and to minimize the negative
impacts on adjoining land uses. It is the intent of the Professional Office District to locate
residential uses set back a minimum of 1,000 feet from the roadways, as outlined in the
dimensional tables, and has been mentioned also. To finish up, if we’re looking at this
project as it’s been proposed here, and I think the important thing for us to remember is
that when Mr. Brown made his determination, the project was proposed as a single story,
85,000 square foot building. All right. It wasn’t proposed as it was changed to later on.
When we initially received the packet, I was a little bit taken aback by the size of it as a
single story building, and I think in the initial Planning Board meeting, they decided that
they were much more amenable to a two story building. Nonetheless, I think what we
have to do is we have to think about the future of what’s going to happen here on this
site. This building, as it’s been proposed here, and as a Professional Office would be, to
me, a bit of a stretch of the imagination, based upon the Codebook as it exists, and I
think in the Professional Office designation, specifically what we’re talking about is
serving the public so the public doesn’t have to get in their car and drive clear across
Town to get a professional service, whether that’s going to a stockbroker, whether it’s
going to an insurance agent to file a claim or something like that. I don’t believe, in this
instance here, that this office building as it’s proposed here, serves any purpose for that
neighborhood over there. I’m sorry to say that. I fully agree with Travelers that Travelers
needs a place in this community. I think that the best thing for Travelers to do is to seek
other means of finding a place for their office building, but to put it in this area over here
to me would be totally inappropriate. It’s not a Professional Office.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, Mr. Underwood. Mr. McNulty, please?
MR. MC NULTY-Sure. Well, trying to stay focused on the decision that we’re supposed
to be making at the moment, I think I have to agree with the Zoning Administrator, that,
one, the name of the zoning district is Professional Office. It’s not exclusive to
Professional Offices as I think Mr. Lapper mentioned, or somebody did anyway.
Cemeteries are allowed there. There’s other things, and office buildings are allowed
there. I think there may be some justification for arguing maybe this is a Professional
Office building with the number of college degrees that the employees have, and some
of the professional licenses they have, but I think that’s almost a moot point at this point.
It’s an office building. It seems to be allowed there. Therefore, whether it’s appropriate
or not, even at this point in this decision that we’re making right now is not germane. It’s
a question of whether or not an office building is allowed in this zone, and, as far as I can
see, it is. One thought I had, thinking about this is, okay, Professional Office, architects.
There’s nothing in the Code that says one architect or hundred and fifty architects.
Likewise doctors, lawyers, whatever. There is no limit in the Code. It may be an
oversight, but I think a lot of us are looking at Professional Office and reading in what we
would like to see in Professional Office, but that’s not what’s in the Code, and we don’t
get to change the Code. We get to interpret it. So, on that basis, I have to agree that
Office is an allowed use, and I would support the Zoning Administrator.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you, Mr. McNulty. Mr. Urrico, please.
MR. URRICO-Yes. I’m going to keep it short and sweet. I know people have been here
a long time tonight, and we still have maybe another issue to get to. There have been
passionate arguments made on both sides, and I appreciate everybody turning out and
giving their viewpoints, because I think it’s important the public be involved. I’m going to
agree with Mr. McNulty. I believe we have to stay focused. I believe the Zoning
Administrator made the right interpretation in this case, that the use is allowed under our
current Zoning Code, that the Definitions, while they may be subject to some
interpretation, I believe what he worked with is correct, and so I would look for this, any
additional interpretation to come up in a Site Plan Review, but for our purposes I would
support his decision.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you, Mr. Urrico. Mr. Garrand, please.
MR. GARRAND-Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m going to keep it short and sweet also. I
think in the most literal interpretation of the Code, the Zoning Administrator’s
interpretation is correct. Professional Office is an allowed use. So at this point I can
concur with the Zoning Administrator.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you. Mrs. Hunt, please.
MRS. HUNT-Yes, thank you. Yes, I’ll keep it short and sweet, too. As I look at Page
18079 Table 2, an office is an acceptable use under the Professional Office zoning. It
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
doesn’t say Professional Office, it just says Office, and, I mean, office is an office is an
office, and so I would be in favor of upholding the Zoning Administrator.
MR. ABBATE-Okay, and, Mr. Bryant, please.
MR. BRYANT-Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I think both sides of the argument
are flawed. I think that, Mr. Lapper, you trying to pass off this complex as a Professional
Office doesn’t wash, and the appellant’s trying to say that only a Professional Office is
allowed in a Professional Office zone doesn’t wash either. In reality, the Zoning
Administrator is correct. Both a Professional Office and an Office are allowed. So
Travelers is an office and meets that definition. There are two items, though, that I do
want to talk about, okay, that have been mentioned a couple of times tonight, but in
previous meetings, we’ve talked about intent of the Code. Again, it’s very important in
this review. I think Mr. Strough has come before us and talked about the Comprehensive
Land Use Plan and how we’ve got to look to that for the intent of the Code, and then I
th
look in the September 25 minutes, and we go section by section in the Comprehensive
Land Use Plan and this is the Comprehensive Land Use Plan of 1998. Curiously
enough, the Comprehensive Land Use Plan in 2007 mentions Professional Office once.
It mentions it relative to the Bay Road stretch. The only thing that really applies to this
area, is, and I quote from the 2000, approved by the Town Board, Comprehensive Plan
goals, develop an economic program that reflects the community’s land use goals, while
keeping up its tax base and job opportunities. That’s the recommendation of the
Comprehensive Land Use, and that is the only thing that relates to this project. So, when
you speak to intent, and I think the other individual that spoke to intent was Mr. Salvador,
and Mr. Salvador mentions that, well, office building is no longer in the Code because
the Town Board didn’t want these giant, big box offices in the Town. Well, if that’s the
case, why isn’t it stated in the Code? The Code is ambiguous. We’re trying to split hairs
and say, well, this is what a Professional Office, this is what an Office, but this is not a
big box office, and it’s too complicated. Okay. If the intent of the Town Board was not to
have these complexes, it should have stated that. So, we have to assume that the
intent, the real intent, as stated in the Code, is that Office is allowed in the Commercial
Professional Office zone. So I’m going to side with the Zoning Administrator.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you very much. I believe I covered everyone. Okay. This is a very
difficult decision for me, because if you heard at the beginning, I gave a long dissertation
on due process, and I truly believe that the process is flawed, I truly do. However, we
have to address what Mr. Bryant focused on, and that’s the fact of the Zoning
Administrator’s decision, and while I’m not too happy with it, I’m going to have to support
the Zoning Administrator. I believe his interpretation is correct. Now, having said that,
I’m going to ask the Board for a motion, but I caution the Board members that we only
have two decisions to decide. There may only be one motion, and that motion is either
to, A, support the appellant’s challenge to the Zoning Administrator’s decision, or, to
uphold the Zoning Administrator’s decision. Do I have a motion for Appeal No. 9-2007 to
either support the appellant’s challenge to the Zoning Administrator’s decision or to
uphold the Zoning Administrator’s decision? I need a motion, guys.
MR. MC NULTY-Mr. Chairman, I’ll make a motion.
MR. ABBATE-Yes, sir, please.
MOTION REGARDING NOTICE OF APPEAL NO. 9-2007 MACKINTOSH AND LINKE,
ETAL. THAT THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS SUPPORT THE ZONING
ADMINISTRATOR’S DECISION IN THIS MATTER, Introduced by Charles McNulty who
moved for its adoption, seconded by Allan Bryant:
I think in general we agree that, according to the Code, Office Building is an allowed use
in the Professional Office zone, and that is what is proposed here. So in that case we
support the Zoning Administrator.
th
Duly adopted this 12 day of December, 2007, by the following vote:
MR. MC NULTY-What I would like to do, I guess, is reference the comments that the
Board has just made, rather than try to repeat them all.
MR. ABBATE-Okay.
AYES: Mr. Bryant, Mr. McNulty, Mr. Garrand, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Urrico, Mr. Abbate
NOES: Mr. Underwood
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
MR. ABBATE-In a six yes, one no vote, this Board has decided to uphold the Zoning
Administrator’s decision. This case is closed.
AREA VARIANCE NO. 59-2007 SEQRA TYPE: UNLISTED SCHERMERHORN
RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, L.P. AGENT(S): J. LAPPER, ESQ. BPSR/MILLER &
ASSOCIATES/NACE ENGINEERING OWNER(S): SCHERMERHORN RESIDENTIAL
HOLDINGS, L.P. ZONING: PO LOCATION: SOUTHEAST CORNER OF GURNEY
LANE & WEST. MT. ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 2-
STORY OFFICE (85,340 SQ. FT.) OFFICE BUILDING. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM
PARKING REQUIREMENTS. CROSS REF.: SITE PLAN NO. 48-2007 WARREN
COUNTY PLANNING: SEPTEMBER 12, 2007 LOT SIZE: 0.90 AC.; 16.12 ACRES
TAX MAP NO. 288.00-1-63 AND 64 SECTION: 179-4-040
JON LAPPER, TOM NACE, & JIM MILLER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
STAFF INPUT
Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 59-2007, Schermerhorn Residential Holdings, L.P.,
Meeting Date: December 12, 2007 “Project Location: southeast corner of Gurney Lane
& West Mt. Road Description of Proposed Project: Applicant proposes construction of
an 85,340 sf two-story office building and associated site improvements.
Relief Required:
Applicant requests relief from the Parking and Loading Regulations; §179-4-040 for the
construction of 537 parking spaces where 285 are allowed. Upon approval by the
Planning Board, the allowable number of spaces (285) may be increased by up to 20%
for a total of 341 without the need for a variance. This request in for spaces in excess of
the allowable “bonus.”
Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law:
1. Benefit to the applicant:
Applicant would be permitted to construct the desired parking spaces.
2. Feasible alternatives:
Feasible alternatives appear to be limited. The parking space requirements are driven
by the building square footage.
3. Is this relief substantial relative to the ordinance?:
The request for 88% relief above the requirement may be interpreted as substantial
relative to the code.
4. Effects on the neighborhood or community:
An Archeological Study along with a Traffic Impact Study both prepared for the benefit of
the applicant has been submitted with the application.
5. Is this difficulty self-created?
The difficulty may be interpreted as self created.
Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.):
Site Plan Review 85,340 sf office building -- pending
AV 2-2006 92 Townhouse units Withdrawn by applicant
Site Plan 72-2005 92 Townhouse units Withdrawn by applicant
Pet. for Zone Change 6-2003 approved per TB res 271-2004 SFR-1A to PO 5/17/04
Staff comments:
The proposal calls for the use of two parcels for this project. Parcel consolidation will be
necessary and should be a condition of approval. Limited information has been
submitted with the application regarding the rationale for the excessive parking request.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
Are all employees on one shift? If not, how many shifts are there? The current submittal
references a new, two-story building which replaces the original 1 story plan. This
revision results in 57,000 sf less of impermeable surfaces when compared to the original
layout. Consideration may be given to a Coordinated SEQR review given the proposed
NYS DOT involvement, PB Site Plan Review and the sewer line construction through the
Northway ROW.
SEQR Status:
Type Unlisted”
MR. ABBATE-We have, as of a couple of weeks ago, decided to hold a special hearing
for Area Variance No. 59-2007 and also the Appeal to the Zoning Administrator decision.
At that particular time, I believe I left the public hearing open, and so I see now that
Counselor and his client are at the table. Counselor, would you be kind enough to speak
into the microphone and tell us your relationship to the Appeal, please.
MR. LAPPER-Attorney Jon Lapper, attorney for the project application.
RICH SCHERMERHORN
MR. SCHERMERHORN-And Rich Schermerhorn, the developer.
MR. ABBATE-All right. Now, before you folks begin, I wish to advise Counselor and the
public of the procedures we will be following for this special hearing. The public hearing,
as I indicated, has been left open and the public will be given an opportunity to comment
with a five minute limitation, the same restrictions that I indicated earlier. Then the
appellant will be given an opportunity to address public comment, and the Chairman will
move to ask Board members if they wish to ask questions of the applicant, and then we
will move on and continue and hopefully come to a conclusion prior to midnight.
Counselor, are you ready?
MR. LAPPER-Yes, sir.
MR. ABBATE-Please proceed.
MR. LAPPER-Okay. I guess Rich has asked me to start off with a statement that, you
know, we understand that this is now an emotional issue and we didn’t anticipate, when
we started this process, that it was going to be an emotional issue because we’d been to
the Town, years past, and we’d proposed an apartment project and when that was
voluntarily withdrawn in light of, you know, major opposition from the neighbors, Rich
clearly said this was going to be, the only thing left to come back with is an office
building, and actually since that time, as you know, the Town changed the zoning, so
that Residential can only be 1,000 feet off the road, which would leave a very small, you
know, almost useless part of this site. So pretty much the only thing you can do on this
site is office, and, you know, while, so when we came back with office, people came up
and said, okay, well, we’d like you to do a different kind of office. The practical answer is
that by doing what we’ve proposed here, we’re cocooning this site as much as possible,
by putting this building in the center and keeping all these trees. So when the neighbors
talk about these residential rural roads, we’re leaving almost all of the road the way it is.
I mean, we have designed this site to try and be sensitive to the neighbors, and I wish
that they would acknowledge that, because if the goal is just to have this site not
developed, somebody’s got to buy it from Rich, but in terms of what we’re proposing,
we’ve gone out of our way to change the design since the process started, and to be as
sensitive as possible to the neighborhood, at the same time accommodating Travelers,
which is a very important employer in Town, at 130 employees who are residents of the
Town, and all, approximately 500, are residents of our community, and the various
towns. So, you know, we’re trying to balance the interest of the neighbors and the
interest of the tenant here, and obviously Rich has a piece of property which he
purchased which is allowed to be developed. We’re trying to do it right, and if the
neighbors would work with us, they would see that that’s the case, but in any case, we’re
here tonight to talk about the parking variance.
MR. ABBATE-And before you start, Counselor, do me a favor, please. Did I hear you
mention the number of folks who are employed by Travelers?
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
MR. ABBATE-What was that number?
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
MR. LAPPER-Approximately 500.
MR. ABBATE-Five hundred, okay. Thank you. I’m sorry.
MR. LAPPER-And this site is designed with 537 spaces because the lease requires that
they can add more.
MR. ABBATE-All right. Proceed. Thank you.
MR. LAPPER-So we are asking for six and a half per thousand, which is the lease
requirement, so that they have one space for each employee. It was mentioned in the
Staff Notes, I mean, they need to have the space so everybody can be in the building at
some point during the afternoon, even though the shifts are split so that some people
start earlier and some people stay later, but they do need to have a space for everybody.
We’re just doing what the tenant has required. With that said, when Mr. Linke goes into
this thing about six acres of pavement, we are starting with a 17 acre site, I’ll have the
engineers go through that quickly, and we’re leaving it as green as we can. We’ve
changed it, as was mentioned, to be a two story building to minimize the disturbance.
We’ve taken photographs from the Northway, from all of the different roads, to show how
well buffered this is going to be, and we’ve designed the stormwater so that while there’s
a very little bit of parking that’s still in the CEA, all of the stormwater drainage from that
small area of parking in the CEA drains outside of the CEA where it’s treated and
infiltrated outside of the CEA. We’ve done everything we can to minimize impacts. So
since we were here last, what we’ve tried to do, because one of the prongs of the Area
Variance is the impact on the neighborhood, we’ve tried to be quicker than we usually
would be in terms of getting our applications out to the other agencies so we can prove
the point that this is well designed, and for that reason, we’ve now submitted to you in
the interim, since the last meeting, I told you that we would submit the traffic information.
So we now have a signoff from DOT. The traffic engineers are here from Creighton
Manning to talk about it. Our engineers have posed the traffic light at the southbound
ramps, which is in order to make the situation even better after development than it is
right now, and DOT came back and said we’d like you to do a right turning lane when
you’re getting off the south ramp, so that there’s a bypass lane if people are making left
turns towards the Municipal Center, someone who wants to go to West Mountain Road
isn’t going to have to wait until the light changes. So now there’ll be a turning lane
coming off the south ramp. That was what it took to get DOT’s signoff, and at the same
time, we have letters from Warren County DPW, the traffic engineers from the County,
the State, and local, Adirondack/Glens Falls Transportation Council met, went through
this, since we were here last time. They asked the traffic engineers to go and check the
intersection south of here, Bonner Drive, Aviation Road, and Mountain View. All of that
was done. There was no other mitigation that was required, but all the work that was
required by the reviewing agencies on all these intersections was done, and we’ve
submitted to you those three signoff letters that are part of the records. I have copies
here, but I believe you already have them in your packages. Is that, true, Mr. Chairman,
that you’ve got the?
MR. ABBATE-Yes, I do believe we have everything, Mr. Lapper, we do, Mr. Lapper.
MR. LAPPER-All right. So that’s on the issue of traffic, and then the next issue is the
issue of stormwater, and Tom Nace and Jim Miller are here and can answer any
questions on stormwater, but what we did, this has all been designed to avoid impacts to
stormwater at all, to infiltrate as much, so that we’re not increasing the pre-development
runoff off of the site, and we then went to, after the last meeting where the neighbors
were raising issues of stormwater, we went to the Warren County Soil and Water
Conservation District, which is completely independent, submitted our stuff, and said, tell
us if there’s some other mitigation that you think we need, and we have a letter from
them that we’ve submitted that says that we more than exceed all of the requirements,
and that, based upon the soils and based upon the design, there is not going to be any
negative impact on either Rush Pond or on Glen Lake, and we would have made
changes, like we did with traffic, if we were asked to, but we weren’t asked to. Let me
just, Rich just reminded me that this is part of the Planning Board process, but we had a
series of correspondences with the Town Engineer raising questions, asking for changes
to the plan, and as of today, we did get a signoff letter from the Engineer. I’ll just read it
while Rich hands it to you, from Vision Engineering, the Town’s Consulting Engineer,
regarding Site Plan SP 48-2007 Schermerhorn Holdings, Westbook Office Park, to Craig
Brown, Zoning Administrator. As requested, I have reviewed the revised documentation
you forwarded to me regarding the above referenced project. Included in the documents
recently submitted to VISION were: Drawings SP-2, 5 and 7, SWPPP dated November
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
2007, cover letter from Nace Engineering dated November 15, 2007, Site Visual Analysis
Photographs, and Creighton Manning Engineering response letter dated November 16,
2007. Based on my subsequent review, I offer the following comments: I have reviewed
all of the previous and most recently submitted documentation. The Applicant has
propose some minor changes to the stormwater design, lighting, and provided further
clarification of the traffic study and analysis. The Applicant has satisfactorily addressed
all of my previous engineering comments and no further review will be necessary unless
additional project changes occur. As I stated in my October comment letter, a copy of
the sewage design drawings, calculations, and specifications should be submitted for
review upon approval from DEC and completion of such documents by The Chazen
Companies. Thank you, and please do not hesitate to call if you have any questions,
comments, or require additional information. Sincerely, Daniel W. Ryan, P.E. VISION
Engineering, LLC”
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, Counselor, for reading that into the record for us. We really
appreciate that. Counselor, one other thing, now. You know that the introduction of
Eleventh Hour evidence is kind of frowned upon. We have to accept it, of course. I see
th
that it has been dated December the 12.
MR. LAPPER-Yes, that just came in today.
MR. ABBATE-Okay.
MR. LAPPER-And the purpose of doing this is to show that, in terms of the
environmental impact, that we have gone farther than usual at the zoning process to
make sure that we have approval from all the review agencies on this project. This letter
addressed the sewer issue, which is something else. When we’re talking about impact
on the neighborhood, everything we’re doing here is merely stormwater infiltration. Most
projects, including Lehland Estates, which is in the CEA, you have septic systems. Here,
what Rich is proposing for this project, at great expense, is to bore underneath the
Northway and connect this to the sewer line on Route 9 which goes to the Glens Falls
Treatment Plant. So the main groundwater contamination you have to worry about in
these projects is sewer, and in this case, at great expense, sewer is being taken care of
off site. So the only thing we’re talking about is treating and infiltrating stormwater into
the ground here, and then we have a signoff on that.
th
MR. ABBATE-I have a question for you. In your letter of the 12 of December, which you
just passed out to us, you refer to an October letter, referring to sewage. Do we have a
copy of that?
MR. LAPPER-That was delivered to the Planning Board. That was his prior review letter
that listed a whole bunch of issues that he wanted reviewed, and I do have that with me,
and if you don’t have that, and you may not.
MR. ABBATE-I don’t believe, ladies and gentlemen, I don’t believe we have that. Do you
have it?
MR. LAPPER-I do. It’s in my folder. Tom will grab it. We’ll submit that.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Please.
MR. LAPPER-Okay. Let me just, at this point, ask Jim Miller to just remind everybody for
the public and the Travelers people and the Board just to walk through the Site Plan and
show you what we’ve done.
MR. MILLER-Good evening. My name is Jim Miller. I’m a Landscape Architect working
with Rich Schermerhorn on the project. To start off with, we’ve been through a few
renditions with the Planning Board. Mr. Underwood held up an earlier plan, the original
submission was a one story building, and the Planning Board, their initial comments to
us was that they felt that the facility was too spread out. It lacked a buffer, and they
recommended we went to a two story building, which got us to where we are here, but
the basic project design, we’re bordered on the west side by West Mountain Road, the
north, Gurney Lane, and along the east side is the southbound lane to the Northway.
The site’s 17.8 acres, and the proposal is to centrally locate the building in the upper
portion of the property. The property slopes from the east side down to a low point that
the west side, West Mountain Road, previously a borrow pit on that lower area of the
site, and the proposal is to utilize the upper area of the site, staying closer to the
intersection, developing a new access off of West Mountain Road, and developing a
circulation pattern around the building, basically a loop road system, with an emphasis
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
on the very professional office, divided boulevard entrance, and this loop road facilitates
services, emergency access to the building, and those other necessary uses, but it also
allows us to take that parking lot design and divide it into several smaller lots to
overcome a single expansion of pavement. We meet the Town’s requirements. The
Town requires that within a parking area, 10% of the parking area has to be islands. Our
plan has in excess of 13% islands. We tried to locate the bulk of those islands in the
front along the ends, along the access where you come off West Mountain Road. By
berming in those islands we could maximize the screening and maximize some visual
mitigation to the parking areas, but the front entry will be a design, it will be a tree lined
entry to the main entry of the building. One of the comments we got from the Planning
Board was to try and increase the buffer. The site is wooded. Try to maintain as many
trees around the perimeter of the site as possible, and by, I think we reduced the amount
of disturbance by about an acre and a half from the original plan, and that allowed us to
maintain approximately eight acres of undisturbed trees around the perimeter. In most
areas, like the Northway ramps, the ramps were, the existing woods are a minimum of
about 50%, or 50 feet, I’m sorry, and in some areas, like along West Mountain Road,
where there would be less than 50 feet, additional planting, lower planting, will be used
to supplement the existing trees that will be saved. One of the other things we tried to do
is, since the site slopes from the east to the west, obviously to grade the site and balance
the cut and fills so we’re not removing or bringing material to the site. The upper area of
the site will be cut approximately four feet, and what this, it does for us is it essentially
creates a buffer, or a berm, an earth berm, that would extend from a point at about the
entry road around to about the southeast corner of the parking lot, essentially recessing
that area of the parking three to four feet below the surrounding grade, which will also
help to add perimeter buffer into the site. The other item that was discussed was storm
drainage. The building roofs, all that water is collected into infiltrators beneath the
parking lots. Per DEC requirements, the drainage from the parking lot has to have a dual
basin type of system. One’s a pre-treatment and one’s a detention. The original design
utilized the whole borrow area as our detention basin, and based on some of the
comments that we had received, this basin was re-designed to remove all that
stormwater basin from within the CEA line, which you see runs across the property right
through this point. The other item that deals specifically with the parking is that one tree
for every fifteen cars is required, which would be thirty-six cars. Our plan proposes 66
trees to be planted within the parking lot, and with that I think that is the summary of the
redesign of the project.
MR. ABBATE-Okay.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I just want to mention one thing. The stormwater, where the
parking lot is in the CEA, it was mentioned by some of the people in the public that we’re
draining into the Rush Pond corridor. I just want to point out that the portion of the
parking lot that’s in the CEA drains towards the building then into the stormwater. So
nothing is being, directly going into the watershed property.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you for pointing that out. Counselor?
MR. LAPPER-All right. Now to get to the parking variance itself. What we’re requesting
here is 6.5 spaces per thousand, to meet their immediate needs and some small future
growth, to get to 537 spaces, and that has to be looked at in terms of the Code, and
we’ve had a number of discussions about this recently for other projects, but also in
terms of the site design, most importantly, and if this were the case, like most
developers, where you’re trying to max out the site, build as much building as you can,
and certainly there’s other areas outside of the CEA where we could have gone to the
minimum buffer, the minimum setbacks required. We could have taken down a lot more
trees and maxed this site out, and we certainly didn’t. So the fact that, at the end of the
day, the whole site will be 64.9%, I think is justification that what we’re doing is we’re
putting parking where we otherwise could put building, and what’s most important about
that is that we’re meeting every other area requirement, bulk and area requirement, more
than meeting it, because we have to have 30% green space and we’re providing just shy
of 64.9%. So as a mitigating factor, even though we need some more parking, we’re not
overdeveloping the site by any means, and as Jim said, we’re leaving eight acres
undisturbed buffer, plus doing more than what’s required in terms of landscaping in the
parking lot, and this is a very attractive building with a lot of brick that’s well buffered, well
hidden. In terms of the parking variance and what we’re asking for, it’s very unique what
Queensbury has, where you’ve got the building, one space per three hundred, and you
can get 20% more from the Town, which is, there’s been a lot of discussion at the PORC
meetings, and we can go through that later, that that is a very low standard compared to
other communities. I’ve been before this Board probably a half a dozen times in the last
two years, seeking variances for this. Three specific ones that we’ll talk about soon were
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
for similar office buildings. This particular standard doesn’t meet most modern offices. It
wasn’t sufficient for Tribune. It wasn’t sufficient for Angio Dynamics, and it wasn’t
sufficient for Adirondack Cardiology. Those were the three most recent, most significant,
and in each case, and I did send a chart that Tom Nace prepared to the Board’s attention
previously. In those three cases, Tribune, after you add the 20% that’s allowed by the
Planning Board, Tribune variance was for 61% over that. Angio Dynamics was 65%.
Adirondack Cardiology was 62%, and this request is for 57%. The distinction is, when
Craig ran the numbers, he did it without the 20%, but when we looked at all the Board
resolutions, you always included the 20% in your resolutions in how you granted the
relief. So those three numbers, 61, 65, and 62, compared to 57% relief, which is what
we’re looking for here, but then even more important than that, the three numbers on site
permeability for those three, 40.9, 46.8, and 51.5, and we’re at 64.9. So we’re asking for
less relief and we’re providing more green space.
MR. ABBATE-But, Counselor, is it not a fact that, at the present time, the applicant is
seeking an 88% increase? Yes or no?
MR. LAPPER-Well, the 88% is the number you come up with if you don’t include the.
MR. ABBATE-I didn’t come up with the number. The Zoning Administrator did.
MR. LAPPER-And that’s what I just explained. If you don’t include the 20% that the
Planning Board is allowed to grant you, but if you ran these same numbers, these
numbers would be higher than 88%, because they’re higher with the 20%. I mean, in
any case, it’s six of one, half dozen of another. Our variance is less than three that
you’ve recently given, and in all three of those, you acknowledged that, in order to
provide spaces for the employees, it was necessary, but the big question here is, in
granting that variance, are we compromising the site, and that’s why we’ve gone to such
trouble to show you that, in terms of site buffering, stormwater, traffic, if we were creating
a traffic problem because we’re adding 537 cars to the neighborhood, well, that would be
a problem, but instead, by proposing the turn lane that DOT has required and the traffic
light, we’re going to be making the situation better. An intersection which currently
operates at an “F” will be at a “C”. So by Rich spending the money on the off site
mitigation, he’s making the traffic situation for the neighborhood better. So when the
neighbors are, you know, as a generic matter, worried about cars, we’re saying we’ve
hired the engineer, done the work, and it’s not our say so. It’s DOT and DPW and
A/GFTC which say that after this mitigation is done you’re fixing your problem and you’re
fixing a pre-existing problem. So we’re trying to do it right. So when you compare these
variances to the prior ones, it’s less and we’re fixing the neighborhood in terms of that
particular traffic issue.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. So I just put a huge asterisk in front of that 88% to take into
consideration your argument. Fair enough?
MR. LAPPER-Okay. Thank you. Can the benefit be achieved by some other method
feasible to the applicant, and, you know, the answer is simply no, that the Travelers
employees are well paid, but they don’t get big spaces. So people don’t get 300 square
foot, you know, and that number would include lobbies and cafeterias, but when you take
it altogether, they’re nowhere near there, and neither were the three that I just mentioned
that I just mentioned. It’s just, in terms of these types of offices, you know, and maybe if
you had other kinds of offices it would be different, but for Travelers, this is what they
need.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I just want to point something out. Jon, I’m not sure if you hit on
this, but any site that I would choose, or Travelers would choose in the community, the
way the zoning is now, it wouldn’t allow for the parking spaces that are required for them.
It’s kind of a, I don’t want to say unique situation, but under the Site Plan Review, under
the chart again, and I brought this up last time, there’s actually, it says parking facility or
parking garage. Now parking facility is very vague, as far as the terminology of it, but
under Site Plan Review, I guess a parking facility would be another way to get the
required parking spaces that we need. I don’t know if you know how I’m trying to explain
this, Mr. Abbate, but the variance is something that was requested of us, from the
Planning Board, of course, to get to this level, but there is, it’s important to point it out
that under Site Plan Review under the chart you can do parking facility or/parking
garage. So I guess it would be a separate Site Plan issue, but the procedural way that
everyone has gone about this is to do the variance process, to go through it like we’ve
been doing it.
MR. ABBATE-Rest easy, Mr. Schermerhorn, I follow you.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
MR. LAPPER-Let me just follow up on Rich’s point, because when I read before that one
of the principal permitted uses in the zone is a parking facility, the definition of parking
facility is a public parking garage or parking area. So we could have a separate site,
there’s already a one acre subdivided site that’ll get combined for this project. We could
do a separate parking facility. The reason why we’re not proposing it is because
Travelers wants a private parking lot, not a public parking lot, but if we were to open to
the public, it wouldn’t need the variance. So we do need the variance, but it just shows
you that in a PO zone you’re allowed to have a parking facility.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Now, I’m going to ask the Board members, before I open up the
public hearing, do they have any questions for Counselor or Mr. Schermerhorn?
MR. URRICO-I do.
MR. ABBATE-Mr. Urrico, please.
MR. URRICO-Thank you. Have you considered a green parking lot where permeable
paving would be used, rather than the typical blacktop?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Years ago, when I did the complex seven years ago on
Meadowbrook Road, the Hiland Springs, Betty Monahan actually I think brought that up,
and we looked into it, and the only way to get it green is you have to go to someone like
Copeland Coating, which they do tennis courts. There’s not a product that I’m aware of,
you’re talking about just making the parking lot green, right?
MR. URRICO-Well, there’s a lot of systems. There’s pavers. There’s grid systems,
porous asphalt that can be used. I’m not talking about the color.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Okay. I’m sorry.
MR. NACE-For the record, Tom Nace, Nace Engineering. I think what you’re referring to
is a porous asphalt or a pervious surface, and in effect we’re doing the same thing.
We’re taking the stormwater that’s generated on the parking lot and putting it back into
the ground, very similar to what would happen with the porous pavement. Just in a
different place, instead of right under the pavement. It’s down on the old gravel pit that
that’s happening. What we’re doing for treatment of that water, we’re doing several
things. One we’re doing much larger than normal catch basins. So there’s a sump in
there that will collect all the settilables. The immediate heavy settilables. Then that gets
piped down to a pre-treatment basin where we’ve actually will be importing soil for the
top layer in that first basin that has a slower permeability rate than the existing soils that
will help filter the stormwater for the small storms, the initial surge of the stormwater that
comes in and brings most of the pollutants off the asphalt.
MR. URRICO-But rather than just filtering straight down through, it’s going to be
collected.
MR. NACE-It’ll be collected and treated in this pre-treatment basin, and then after the
pre-treatment basin, any overflow from the goes into the larger basin, but approximately
90% of all the rainfall that occurs will get treated in that pre-treatment basin, just simply
because 90% of your rainfall is from the smaller storms that it will contain.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you very much. Do we have any other Board members?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I just wanted to apologize for that. I didn’t understand the
question, but I have been asked to do my parking lots and sealcoat them in green. That
was a request of some applicants at the Planning Board at one time, to try and
camouflage them, I guess.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. That’s okay, Mr. Schermerhorn, at this hour we need some humor.
There’s no problem with that.
MR. URRICO-I have another question of Mr. Lapper.
MR. ABBATE-Please, Mr. Urrico.
MR. URRICO-How will the turn lanes help traffic exiting the Northway heading north, and
traffic heading north on Route 9 making a left onto Gurney Lane? How will the turn lanes
help there?
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
MR. LAPPER-Let me ask Creighton Manning to answer that.
MR. URRICO-Okay.
KEN WERSTED
MR. WERSTED-Ken Wersted, Creighton Manning Engineering, the traffic consultant for
the project. The turn lanes won’t help that area specifically. It’ll help the area of Exit 20
on the southbound off ramp. The issue right now is that you have an unsignalized
condition. You have traffic on the off ramp backing up towards the Northway, because
they must yield to traffic that is on Gurney Lane. The traffic signal will help that in the
sense that it will stop traffic on Gurney Lane to allow a break for traffic coming off the
ramp to turn onto Gurney Lane, and the additional turn lane will allow the intersection to
process much more traffic at any single time than if you had a single lane. Obviously if
we had a single door exiting here and we all had to file out in single file, it would take
much longer than if we could have two doorways open and people could file out two at a
time. So it would help in that sense at that intersection.
MR. URRICO-So you’re presuming basically all the traffic is going to be coming south on
the Northway and exiting south, entering south on the Northway?
MR. WERSTED-No, incorrect. We’ve got traffic arriving from the north, arriving from the
south. In terms of where the traffic has the most impact, it’s at the southbound off ramp
intersection. At the intersection of Gurney Lane and Route 9, there’s less of an impact
from this project, and other measures of mitigation are being proposed to resolve those
impacts.
MR. URRICO-Like what?
MR. WERSTED-The only specific improvement at that intersection would be signal
timing adjustments and coordinating that signal with the new signal at the southbound off
ramp.
MR. URRICO-When you did the study, did you look at cars heading from Point A to Point
B? How do you count cars? How do you count interactions with an intersection?
MR. WERSTED-We actually go out and we count all the cars that are going through the
intersection, which direction their turning. If they’re turning left we count them through
right turning movements, on each approach, during the peak times that traffic is flowing
through the intersection.
MR. URRICO-So if cars enter the Gurney Lane through Route 149, it does not count the
number of times cars exit and enter from a, say, outlet parking lot going 50 feet and
coming back onto the road and then entering Route 9 again and heading back up into
another outlet parking lot. There’s a lot of movement in that area that may not get
registered because they’re not going anywhere. I mean, they’re basically going in
circles. How is that measured? How do you count that?
MR. WERSTED-It’s measured by counting each of the driveways along the outlet area,
and so you would count, conceivably, a car turning right out of one driveway, and then
you would count it again turning right into the next driveway down.
MR. URRICO-Okay, and one more question.
MR. ABBATE-Sure, by all means.
MR. URRICO-In speaking of DOT, any plans to replace that bridge over the Northway?
MR. WERSTED-We’re not aware of any plans at this point.
MR. URRICO-Okay.
MR. WERSTED-But obviously the project is improving the ramp intersection, but we
don’t know of any plans to improve the bridge.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you. Any other Board members have any questions? No
other questions? Do you have anything else you wish to add at this time before I open
the public hearing?
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
MR. LAPPER-I think we’ll just wait and come back after the public hearing.
MR. ABBATE-You will have a chance to respond. All right.
MR. BRYANT-Mr. Chairman, a point which is kind of important. Mr. Kenyon from
Travelers came up before, and I have some pertinent questions that I would like to ask
him, if you could call him next.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. The key word that Mr. Bryant used was pertinent. Okay. Let’s just
see how pertinent the questions are going to be. Sir, would you come back up again,
please. One of our Board members has pertinent questions to ask of you.
MR. BRYANT-Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. BRYANT-Identify yourself one more time, please.
MR. KENYON-Yes, sir. Phil Kenyon from Travelers.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thanks.
MR. BRYANT-First of all, I just want to say I appreciate you traveling the distance that
you have to be with us tonight and hope you enjoy our little community. We received this
letter from Mr. Blocker stating that basically at this facility you have approximately 500
employees, and you verified that in your earlier statement where you said you have 499.
Close enough. Are these 500 employees desk bound? Are they people that are going to
work in that building? I think Tribune Media has been mentioned a couple of times.
They’ve got X number of employees. They all work at a desk. They have a desk that
they report to every day, so forth and so on, or maybe 300 work at a desk and maybe
200 are agents, or appraisers that work in the field. Can you characterize the types of
employees that actually physically work at that building?
MR. KENYON-Sure. We do have 500, and all 500, to the best of my knowledge, have a
desk, and have a work space. Most have a telephone. Most have a computer, but all
have a workspace, and we have shifts that run between roughly 6:30 and 9:00 a.m. So
not everybody arrives at once. Most of our employees are off their shift by about 6 p.m.
at night. Our core business hours are Monday through Friday. We have a small group
of maybe 30 or 40 people that work on a Saturday. Does that answer your question?
MR. BRYANT-I can see how you became the Vice President. No, it doesn’t, because
they all have workspaces, but I want to be specific about that. For example, a real estate
broker, he has a workspace and an office, but he goes out in the field and he does his
duty or whatever he’s got to do, selling property, showing property, whatever. An
insurance agent, he goes out in the field and he sells his insurance. He visits with his
clients, or he’s an appraiser or something. They have a workspace, but they don’t
necessarily work there from six o’clock in the morning until three o’clock in the afternoon.
Do you follow my drift? So I want you to clarify, and be very specific, do the 500 plus
employees just have a workspace or do they physically work in that building every day,
five days a week?
MR. KENYON-All of our employees physically work in the building five days a week for
roughly nine hours a day, including their break and lunchtime. Does that answer your
question?
MR. BRYANT-Okay. That answers my question. I have another question, Mr.
Chairman.
MR. ABBATE-By all means, go ahead.
MR. KENYON-I would just like to point out that I’ve been working with the group up here
for 14 years. I’m no stranger to this area. I probably spend, you know, eight or ten days
a month up here, and I get a Christmas card from the Holiday Inn down at Lake George
every year. So I’m up here a lot, even though I don’t live in the area.
MR. BRYANT-I’m just wondering why you haven’t moved here yet from Hartford.
MR. KENYON-I know. Maybe one of these days.
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MR. BRYANT-Another question relative, this is very important, because Travelers has
been silent for all these hearings. We haven’t seen anybody from Travelers. This is this
first time, and so your answers are indeed pertinent. If you have 500 employees now
currently at your Queensbury facility, which is over there at Northway Plaza, I don’t think
that building’s 30,000 square feet. Where do you put them all?
MR. KENYON-Yes. We actually have close to 70,000 square feet under rent.
MR. BRYANT-Really?
MR. KENYON-Yes. So we do. We have 500 employees in the building.
MR. BRYANT-They’re the same employees that are going to go over to Gurney Lane?
MR. KENYON-Yes, and we actually want to, you know, we’re working with Mr.
Schermerhorn for a bigger facility because we want to hire more people and expand. So
if you see the parking spaces greater than what we currently have, our goal is to hire
more people here.
MR. BRYANT-Okay, so you’re only going to expand 38 people?
MR. KENYON-No. Because not everybody comes to work every day. So we have up to
10% of our workforce that may take a vacation day, okay, they may get sick. So not
every employee comes to work every day. So we don’t get a parking space per every
employee, okay, we factor in that allowance there, but we are, you know, looking to stay
in this building for a long time and we want to grow and add more employees to the
building. Like I said, we love Queensbury and the group here has been tremendous.
MR. BRYANT-I certainly do appreciate that.
MR. GARRAND-Just one question. Is Mr. Schermerhorn the only contractor you’re
considering in this area right now?
MR. KENYON-Yes. Yes, he is.
MR. GARRAND-Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?
MR. KENYON-And that’s not to say we’ve done an extensive search, and we’ve looked
at a lot of different options, but he is the only one that we are working with now. Okay.
MR. GARRAND-All right.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you very much. Do we have any members of the public who would
like to address Area Variance No. 59-2007? If you would be kind enough to raise your
hand and come forward.
PUBLIC HEARING OPEN
SAM BUTTO
MR. BUTTO-Good evening. My name is Sam Butto and I live on Gurney Lane. I’ve
spoken to you before. I think before this whole proceeding began I asked if you were
going to be reading something into the record that we had delivered to you at the Town
in the form of a petition, and I believe you said you were going to do that, or are you just
going to consider that as part of what was submitted?
MR. LAPPER-No, we always read them in at the end anyway.
MR. BUTTO-I see. Then I just have one, or several points that I wanted to make to the
Board. First of all, Mr. Lapper has done his job. He’s a really good spin-doctor. He has
characterized our neighborhood as being emotional about this project. I want to say that
I think Mr. Lapper owes the many people who have talked extensively about the real
critical issues that face this project, he’s demeaned them, and I think that it’s high time
that Mr. Lapper stop talking about how emotional things were and started to try to deal
with the real critical issues that were brought up.
MR. KREBS-Talk about the parking spaces.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
MR. ABBATE-Excuse me. If that happens again, I’m going to ask you to recuse yourself.
I won’t tolerate that. Do you understand? Thank you. Continue.
MR. BUTTO-Mr. Schermerhorn has mentioned a number of times as well that wherever
he goes in this community, anywhere in Queensbury, he’s going to need the same kind
of a variance that he would need right here. So why not do it here is the implication. In
fact, other places may be more appropriate a place for him to build this type of a project
out. The traffic numbers that you received, or that you may receive, I think it’s important
to note when these traffic numbers were generated. Perhaps the different control
agencies have approved the plans that Mr. Schermerhorn has put forward. However,
when did those traffic numbers, when were they gathered, and was the authorizations
that they received, that they procured, based on those numbers or based on the
numbers which should have been taken in July and August around here, around peak
times? Those are the issues I wanted to bring to your attention. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you very much. Do we have, yes, sir, in the back of the room, on
this side. Thank you.
PAUL FOLEY
MR. FOLEY-My name is Paul Foley. I’m the attorney for Northway Plaza Associates,
and the interests of the Northway Plaza Associates have obviously been imputed tonight,
and are relevant, particularly because discussion has been at hand in terms of Travelers
being the tenant. Until now, Travelers did not come forward as the tenant. In fact, there
were previous Planning Board meetings in which the Planning Board Chair said that
discussion of who the tenant was was inappropriate, and the reason I bring this up is
because we are now having an incomplete record before us. What would be appropriate
under these circumstances is for the tenant, Travelers, who has now represented itself in
its official capacity, to be the co-applicants here and unless that’s the case, it’s an
incomplete record. Some of the other questions that we’ve had just now are also
reflective of the incomplete record that’s at hand, and I should remind the Zoning Board
of Appeals that SEQRA requires that a hard look be taken at a complete record before
us, a complete record that does not confuse one employee for one parking space with,
well, maybe that’s not the case, a record that does not confuse a representation without
any empirical evidence made the first time tonight of a certain expansion that’s planned
without some real evidence that can be vetted, both by the public and the Planning
Board, and, once again, now that we know, finally, who the tenant is, and now that the
tenant has represented itself in this official capacity, we can answer some of these traffic
questions which have clearly been implicated throughout this proceeding, where are the
employees coming from, what proportion are coming south, what proportion are coming
north, and so I think it somewhat goes without saying that that needs to be incorporated
into a traffic study and it hasn’t been done yet. I should also note that traffic has been
flagged as a major issue throughout this proceedings. The consideration of traffic
impacts and secondary impacts is a legitimate consideration under SEQRA, and that has
not been done to the extent that’s required. Another consideration under SEQRA are
secondary economic impacts. We had representations here that Travelers is only
considering this site, and we have no representations about its current site, which is
perfectly appropriate for Travelers to remain, and regardless of whether it is or is not, we
have nothing on the record to determine that. So clearly this needs to be tabled, and I’d
also like to add that, under SEQRA, to the extent that any decision takes place today,
which I’d highly recommend not occur, under SEQRA there’s a requirement, an
independent obligation that the Zoning Board of Appeals has, irrespective of whether or
not the Planning Board will be serving as Lead Agency, and under that independent
obligation, I would recommend, besides having a complete record before us to make
these very essential determinations, that a traffic study, an actual traffic study, be
independently commissioned which is really the traditional mechanism by which these
large projects are vetted, and I’m not sure why only one real traffic study has been done
when we’re dealing with “F” Levels of Service here. I should also not that there are other
environmental issues that have not been adequately addressed. We’re dealing with a
Critical Environmental Area. The regulations, the Part 617 regulations under SEQRA
require that the reason for the initial classification of a Critical Environmental Area, which
I believe in this case was 1987, and is not on the record, has to be vetted. I will say that,
to the extent that I’ve looked into this issue, it’s clear that there are also some national
wetland inventory wetlands on site. SEQRA litigation and case law makes it very clear
that Federal Wetlands, under the Army Corps of Engineers jurisdiction, have to be
analyzed, and there’s clear evidence that some kind of jurisdictional determination from
the Army Corps needs to be obtained. In sum, we have a host of environmental issues,
dealing with a Critical Environmental Area, dealing with wetlands, dealing with traffic,
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and I think it’s been clearly established that at this late stage, it’s not appropriate to enter
a decision about Travelers when there are things about Travelers on the record, and
about the economic impact of Travelers, but that decision has not been made.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Your time is up, sir.
MR. BRYANT-Mr. Chairman, I do have a question.
MR. ABBATE-Yes, okay. Before we begin, I have a question, too, to ask Staff. Am I not
mistaken, Counselor, you raise an excellent point. Isn’t this classified as Unlisted, Mr.
Brown?
MR. BROWN-That’s correct.
MR. FOLEY-I would disagree with that classification, given the importance of the
wetlands, given the fact that no wetlands delineation has been occurring.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Your disagreement is noted.
MR. FOLEY-I should note it’s a legal disagreement.
MR. BRYANT-You’re the attorney for Northway Plaza, which is the landlord for Travelers
now. Is that correct?
MR. FOLEY-That’s correct, and as an interest, obviously it’s an interest in terms of the
secondary economic impacts, but it’s also an interest in terms of the environmental
impacts, which traffic clearly is a part of, and the impacts of traffic on Northway Plaza in
this have not been fully vetted.
MR. BRYANT-Why do you think Travelers is leaving Northway Plaza?
MR. FOLEY-I honestly don’t know, and that’s really the point. We need to get a full
record of Travelers being identified as the actual tenant, and all that implies, rather than
the representation of who the tenant is only being made tonight. It’s clear that we have
outstanding questions that need to be addressed, and it’s completely inappropriate for a
final decision to be made with such an incomplete record.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you very much.
MR. BRYANT-Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Do we have any other members of the public who wish to be heard? Yes,
sir, please.
RICHARD LINKE
MR. LINKE-My name is Richard Linke, I live on Gurney Lane, and I do have another
magic trick, and that is, I don’t know if I can really do it, but I’d like to make Mr.
Schermerhorn disappear, so maybe when I turn around he won’t be there. We’ll see. I
would like to remind the Board that, last time I did give a presentation and that I
submitted the still frames of that presentation to the Board. I hope they’re part of the
record.
MR. ABBATE-Yes.
MR. LINKE-They are readable for you to review. They’re also available on the Internet at
www.queensburyzoning.com. So someone can review that. I also have hand delivered
a large photograph here.
MR. ABBATE-We have those.
MR. LINKE-I hope this is part of the record.
MR. ABBATE-Yes.
MR. LINKE-And this should be the showstopper right here. This represents, and, well, I
guess it’s a little different now that I hear that they’re going to have an internal cafeteria,
but basically you’ve got about 2,000 cars dumped onto two lane roads and a two lane
internet overpass bridge, and Mr. Lapper just said that, no, we’re not going to touch your
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
roads. We’re not going to do anything to your roads. Well, then it’s totally irresponsible
to be putting this kind of traffic on an infrastructure that can’t take it. Now, other
comments. Mr. Schermerhorn likes the word bulletproof, and I don’t believe much of the
stories that we’ve been getting. I did contact someone, and I’m just going to throw this
number. It could be challenged, and I would love their engineers to challenge it, but salt
on this six acre parking lot, over the next 10 years, 100,000 tons of salt is going to be put
on this parking lot. Now, go ahead and deny that if you want to, but that is an enormous
amount. You can’t mitigate this. You can’t make it go away, nor can you make this
traffic go away in front of the two Queensbury schools, which is already a mess every
morning, in front of the Prospect School as well, Mountain View, none of these traffic
impacts have been talked about. The traffic report doesn’t mention all of the new trucks
coming down the highway, getting off, and I have had photographs of that. As far as
Travelers goes, I just want to say, I did say with due respect, when I talked about the
data processing, but I cannot believe that these 537 people that are working here are
what we would call professional. That’s what I meant, and I’m also kind of curious, do
you folks punch time clocks? Professionals do not. I hope that you don’t. Okay. Very
nice. The traffic studies that Schermerhorn says that, you know, he’s been getting
approval by the State and the County and this and that. They’re based on the November
thth
5 and 6 and whatever. Again, the public is asking that a traffic study be done, you’re
supposed to, I believe, consider worst case scenario, in all of these things, and you’re
not supposed to be talking about the current tenant because the worst case scenario is,
indeed. Remember Glens Falls Insurance. They built a huge building, and they’re no
longer here. We’re going to end up with a commercial huge, mega office building, and if
they, for some reason, two, five years down the line, we’re going to be stuck with a huge,
huge office building. You’re not going to be able to fill it with professionals, with
professional office building. It’s too big. So what are we going to have then? Just a
decline of Queensbury once again. One of the reasons why I’m so frustrated and
passionate or emotional, whatever, is that I talk (lost word) including the Post Star. The
last time when I did the popsicle sticks on the floor, the Post Star claims, okay, there
were 537 popsicles, it even just said sticks for each parking space. That’s not what I did.
I had 2,000 representing the number of cars on these two lane roads on a daily basis,
and the Post Star can’t even get it right, and it’s very frustrating, night after night after
night, talking and it’s a very complex issue, and it’s getting very, very discouraging, and I
hope at some point Queensbury wakes up. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-You’re welcome. Yes, okay, sir, please.
STEVE MEYER
MR. MEYER-Steve Meyer. I’m going to mention a couple of things here. At the last
Planning Board meeting, it was said there was going to be a traffic study, and Mr. Lapper
tonight said that the traffic study was done regarding the intersection of Bonner, West
Mountain, Mountain View, that intersection there, but at the Planning Board meeting, and
my question is, was supposed to also look at the intersection of Aviation Road and West
Mountain Road, and I want to know if that study was done, and it was also supposed to
look at the impact in front of the schools, and what that would be, and I would also like to
throw out the question, what will the impact be, at the intersection of Potter Road and
Aviation? We all know that’s a very dangerous intersection, and also the intersection of
Aviation Road and Mountain View Road by the Prospect School, which is also a very
dangerous intersection, and my wife and I sat down and figured out how we were going
to be getting to this site, and one other intersection, too, would be Aviation and Dixon
Road, trying to get through all that traffic amongst all the buses and everything. How
would we come? That would be the more logical direction to get to this site, coming from
Glens Falls, that part of Queensbury, coming up to that exit, and has that actually been
done? That was not mentioned here tonight. Also at the Planning Board they said they
were going to have 60 foot setbacks and trees around. Tonight it was mentioned it was
50 feet. The question is, what is the number of feet? If you’re going to be putting all this
parking in there, how much of a buffer are you going to put on there? Mr. Lapper said
they took pictures. They took balloon tests. Yes, you can’t see balloons from the
Northway, but once you start cutting and taking down all these trees, and with the types
of trees, my wife has the camera and I couldn’t bring the pictures tonight, but you can
see 60, 70 feet into the trees there. That road is going to be, that building is going to be
completely obvious from the road. There is no buffer. It’ll be completely striped out.
You’ll see that building from West Mountain Road, from the entrance onto the Northway.
So this thing about it being buffered is not a reality. The truth is it’s not. It was also
mentioned tonight they changed the drainage. According to the map that we have over
here, that they were pointing to, and to the maps that I was given at the last Planning
Board meeting, the drainage is in a Critical Environmental Area, and it’s still in a Critical
Environmental Area. Unless those Critical Environmental lines have changed since
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then, we are dumping all the runoff from the parking lot into a Critical Environmental
Area. So that, to me, is a concern. At the Planning Board meeting, they said it was over
a 50 foot drop from that to the stream that runs right next to it. It is more like 35 feet, and
I’m assuming that they’re not, that’s from where they’re planning it to the water level. We
also have to consider, I’m assuming that they’re not going to put it right on top. They’re
going to dig the drainage into it so it aquifers out. So it’s going to be actually less than
that. Now I’m very concerned about how many tons of salt, runoff from that road going
into that stream. That stream runs into Rush Pond, which runs into Rush Meadows,
which runs into Glen Lake. Have we had the proper environmental study done to have
that whole effect? Because I don’t think everything that was being said here tonight and
at the last Planning Board meeting is correct. Also, what is the impact of these additional
employees? We’re talking 500. How many more employees? I don’t think this Board
here has enough information to really make, as I’m sitting in the back here tonight, there
are more and more questions that I’m getting that obviously you must be getting,
because the information here is changing, and to me, what is the impact? What is the
environmental impact? There should be a, once you’re dumping into a Critical
Environmental Area, which the parking lot itself infringes upon, and which they’re
dumping into, you must have a full impact study. I didn’t say it as eloquently as Paul did,
but I think my points are exactly the same thing that he was trying to say also. Thank
you.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you very much. Yes, ma’am, please.
GAIL BUTTO
MS. BUTTO-Good evening. My name is Gail Butto, and I have several things to say,
primarily about the traffic caused by these 537 parking spaces. In addition to the
diverse, legitimate concerns presented this evening regarding this variance, my
paramount concern pertains to the obvious dangers it would impose on the local
stakeholders, due to the traffic safety needs it would disrupt. I would urge you, the
members of the Zoning Board of Appeals, to request an emergency services
assessment of the consequences and compromises that we will surely face if a traffic
burden of this monumental magnitude is inflicted upon this area. I have previously made
this request for the assessment to the Town Planning Board, but it has not yet been
acted upon to my knowledge. The proposed site of the project borders the intersection
of no fewer, and this was your question, sir, two County facility driveways, three rural
roads, two interstate ramps, a County vehicle depot, and a major conduit to Vermont.
The already choked bottleneck is exacerbated by a double bridge overpass spanning the
Northway. These bridges are only two lanes wide, with a mere 30 inch shoulder on
either side, bordered by concrete abutments and guardrails. They are devoid of
sidewalks, bike lanes or turning lanes. Should emergency vehicles need to cross this
area to address a fire, medical emergency or police matter during one of the peak
gridlock hours, their paths may be hopelessly blocked. I have personally witnessed this
frightening impediment a number of times when all lanes were full with stationary cars.
Ambulances and fire trucks have been forced to agonizingly thread their paths through a
parking lot of cars which could only spare them inches of clearance. This I witnessed
near the northbound exit of Exit 20, where cars conceivably could have jumped curbing
to accommodate the emergency vehicles. That is not an option on the dangerously
narrow two lane Northway overpasses. On a personal note, this year I have experienced
firsthand the perils of this intersection. My husband and I were crossing the Northway
overpass when we were hit broadside by a car leaving the southbound exit ramp. The
driver knocked our car into the bridge guardrails, totaling our vehicle. Therefore, I voice
my grave concerns for the stakeholders, the residents of Old West Mountain Road, West
Mountain Road, Goggins Road, Gurney Lane, the West Mount Health Facility, the
employees of the Warren County Municipal Center and its Annexes on Gurney Lane,
those families using the Gurney Lane Recreation Area, and the future tenants of the
project Mr. Schermerhorn proposes on this site, which we now know to be Travelers,
they are endanger, too, and the souls occupying all those vehicles trapped in this
predictable traffic quagmire, a real debacle. I appeal to your experience to use this
opportunity to prevent a foreseeable series of disasters, by ensuring that a
comprehensive emergency services assessment, by highway safety professionals, not
people who are counting cars and falling asleep in their chairs on Gurney Lane. This
assessment should include law enforcement and the emergency service providers. This
should be undertaken as it must play an integral role in the decision whether this project
fits the zoning requirement of Professional Office, and thereby fits the intended use of
this site, with its already restricted traffic flow. The addition of a traffic light, as proposed
by Mr. Schermerhorn, I fear, is an overly simplistic solution, not a realistic preventative
measure. I implore you, I entreat you, before reaching a decision on this request for a
variance, please, please take this opportunity to make a serious analysis as a tool that
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would prevent the development of a new hazardous location to protect those in peril, all
of us. Please give us the assurance that we will not be left unprotected by preserving an
already constricted corridor of access for emergency vehicles. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-You’re very welcome. Thank you. Yes, sir, please.
PAUL DERBY
MR. DERBY-Good evening, Paul Derby, 86 Ash Drive. President of the Glen Lake
Protective Association, and I am here representing the Association this evening. First,
regarding Mr. Lapper’s comparison of this parking variance with Angio Dynamics, etc.
The difference here is that this large development is within a very environmentally
sensitive area, and much more sensitive than those, and I want to start by saying I do
appreciate the changes that the applicant has made. They’ve made and effort, they’ve
made some changes and I appreciate that, and I hope, also, that they appreciate my
advocacy for our community at the same time. I have three and a half questions and just
two quick comments. The first question is, has the applicant, do they have a plan for the
management of snow and ice and salts, and, if so, how is that accounted for in the
stormwater system? The second question, do they have a management program for that
stormwater system, for example an annual clean out of sediment or an inspection of
that? The third question is about what they mean by treatment of the stormwater in pre-
treatment basins? I believe that equals retention time before it goes into a larger basin,
but I’m unsure, and one of my comments is that I think they can do better, and we’ve had
those comments before about stormwater systems that would be better, and parking that
would be environmentally green. Those options are out there, and I think, given the
situation in an environmental area, it would be better if they could be, you know,
environmentally greener about it. My last comment has to do with the request to have
this Board table this variance, and here’s the reasoning. I’ve requested that the Planning
Board require the applicant to do a Full Environmental Impact Statement, because of
where this sits, and if they didn’t require that, that they provide in writing to the Glen Lake
Protective Association the reasoning why they don’t require that. To my knowledge to
this point that has not been given to the GLPA or to the public, and that has been tabled
with the Planning Board at this time. So until, really, that SEQRA Declaration has been
finalized, or they satisfy that request for a Full Environmental Impact Statement, it seems
like you’re going to have to wait until that’s done before you can deal with this variance.
That’s my request. Okay. Thanks.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you very much sir. Yes, ma’am, please.
KIM SCOTT
MRS. SCOTT-Hello. Kim Scott. I live in Lehland Estates, and I apologize. I’m new to
these proceedings. I was looking for an answer on the map over there. Basically, in
Lehland with my family we have seen deer eat my raspberry bushes and my hosta,
which aggravates me. I’ve seen snapping turtles in my pool, which is aggravating and
dangerous. I have seen the nature and our children interact, and that part makes it all
forgivable. I know for a fact that these grounds that we live on are not in coordination or
in harmony with this much traffic, nor this much blacktop, and I don’t mean to sound coy,
but when Mr. Schermerhorn said that he was questioning whether or not it was green or
not, and was thinking about painting it green, I made a mockery of it, under my breath, I
apologize, and said is this actually our developer? And the Human Resource woman I
believe beside me said, yes, it is, she said, and we all make mistakes, and I just have to
say that, down to my toes, I know this is a big mistake, and I’m asking all of you not to
table this tonight, but just to recognize the mistake that it is, and to say this just does not
fit here with our population. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you very much. Okay. The lady in the back of the room. Please.
KAREN O’CARROLL
MRS. O’CARROLL-Hi. My name is Karen O’Carroll, and I’m also from Lehland Estates,
and I would have to agree with the previous speaker about not tabling this tonight, and
my reasons for that are actually quite simple. I think in order for you to grant this
variance, you understand that it has to meet a certain criteria in order to grant that, and
there are five things that you have to consider, and one is will an undesirable change be
produced in the character of the neighborhood or a detriment to nearby properties
created by granting of the Area Variance, and I would have to say absolutely yes. With
all of the comments that have been made tonight, I don’t know how anyone could say no.
Over 100 residents, taxpayers signed a petition against this project due to that, and the
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increased traffic safety concerns, negative environmental impacts, etc., to say a few, are
the reasons. The second one, can the benefit sought by the applicant be achieved by
some method feasible for the applicant to pursue other than an Area Variance? Yes,
reduce the size of the building, less parking is needed. Problem solved. Number Three,
is the requested Area Variance substantial? I think just having 285 parking spaces at
that location is excessive. Add an additional 252, for a total of 537 or 88% relief, I don’t
know how anyone can argue that that is substantial. Will the proposed variance have an
adverse effect or impact on the physical or environmental conditions in the neighborhood
or district? Absolutely. It has been argued that this approval would have significant and
negative impacts on not only the physical visual appearance of that area, but the
detrimental effects to Rush Pond, Glen Lake and that may not even be revealed until
years down the road, and the fifth one, is the alleged difficulty self-created? Yes. The
applicant has created this difficulty with his decision to construct this project at this
location, and I think you have to ask yourselves, does the granting of this variance
benefit the applicant over the detriment to the health, safety and welfare of the
neighborhood, and I’m not sure how anyone could say that the applicant doesn’t benefit
over our loss. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you very much. Yes, ma’am, in the back of the room. Please.
KIM ROBERTS
MRS. ROBERTS-I’m Kim Roberts, and I’m a resident of Queensbury. I live on
Centennial Drive. If you’re not familiar with where it is, it’s very close to this project. It’s
just the other side of Aviation. My husband has lived in Queensbury for 25 years. I
wasn’t too happy when the homes were being built for Lehland Estates. I remember
driving by there and thinking about the woods and the deer and all the animals whose
homes were going to be invaded by residents of Queensbury, but because it was
neighbors for me, and good for the community, I never spoke out against it. My home
was already established there. It was a beautiful place to live. Why deny that to anyone
else. I actually have my own petition. I was curious at work, because I’ve been a 10
year employee of Travelers, obviously I was living in Queensbury before I became an
employee of Travelers, but I was curious about how many employees would be impacted
if we had to leave Queensbury, and I collected 277 signatures from employees on my
own time, just from the last couple of days. Many of them are residents of Queensbury.
I think there’s a bit of a misconception that this space would stay green and be beautiful
Queensbury. It won’t. Someone will be develop that. It will be fit for some office building
at some point in time. The issue here is the variance we’re asking for parking, and the
amenities that we’re putting forth to try to please the residents of Queensbury, that
represents jobs and it represents my livelihood. The reason I settled in Queensbury to
begin with was for opportunity, and the first thing that happened to me when I became
employed at Travelers was opportunity. From Day One, my benefits kicked in. I
immediately enrolled, the first semester available, at Adirondack Community College to
Continuing Education, became licensed. I’ve been promoted several times since I
worked there. This was an opportunity for me, a resident of Queensbury already, and to
see this go away over parking spaces hurts me, and if anyone’s interested, I have copies
of the signatures that I collected from people who believe they would be adversely
impacted, daycare, doctors, banking, children at the Y. All of the people that signed this
feel that they’re putting into Queensbury their paychecks and to pull away from
Queensbury, their lifestyle revolves around their job and where they work is where
they’re spending those paychecks, and these people would be taking that portion of the
payroll that you’re seeing from this mega company, it is a mega company. It’s an
awesome company to work for, and these people are my neighbors on the other side of
Aviation Road. It hurts me that they don’t want to allow parking for an awesome place to
work. If anyone’s interested, I have copies.
MR. ABBATE-That’s okay, unless, if you wish to submit it into the record, we’ll certainly
accept it, but it’s not necessary.
MRS. ROBERTS-Okay.
MR. ABBATE-All right. Thank you, ma’am.
MRS. ROBERTS-Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-You’re welcome. Yes, please.
TANYA BRUNO
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MRS. BRUNO-Hello again. My name is Tanya Bruno. As I stated earlier, I am a current
member of the Planning Board. However, just to explain to those who haven’t been
here at some of the previous meetings, I have recused myself from the Planning Board
on this application. I’ve made it known at every meeting, because I’ve lived on Gurney
Lane for 12 years with my husband and my two children. I understand the fervor that the
Travelers employees have about staying in the area. Not only economically but on a
personal level, I could never trade my husband’s commute to Albany with my commute
to Downtown Glens Falls, but what has happened here is ironically opposite of Mr.
Lapper’s statement about I didn’t think it was going to be an emotional issue. I am sure
that he and the other powers that be have known it was going to become emotional, and
by cultivating the fears about Travelers moving out of the County. Also, Mr.
Schermerhorn was quoted as saying, if this project isn’t passed, a lawsuit will ensue.
That was stated in the Chronicle a few weeks ago. This is what I call instigation of
accelerating emotions. I use it between my two children when they’re starting to argue.
It’s certainly a tactic that is working here. Travelers employees, there are more sites in
this area that are more appropriate to your needs, regardless of what information is
being made public by Mr. Kenyon and Len Fosbrook of the Economic Development and
others, each investigation has only been cursory, as was just admitted by Mr. Kenyon
this evening. I have spoken with involved parties in neighboring towns to research
possible sites, and I encourage the Travelers employees to also research beyond what
you are being told. Don’t panic yet, and along those lines, I don’t want the ZBA to feel
pressured that this is the last proposal for this property in a long line of proposals, as has
been stated in some of the previous meetings that the neighbors have fought. The first
proposal for this property, prior to Mr. Schermerhorn’s ownership, had only four
members of the public making comments and asking questions. I have copies of those
meeting minutes, but they are by far what was made mentioned by Mr. Metivier in the
Chronicle as well. We haven’t been an overly emotional neighborhood. We’ve been
very fact driven, and finally, I’m going to get back to my comments made at a previous
meeting, specifically regarding the CEA, and thus this extremely intrusive parking lot. I
have right here some meeting minutes from 1997 Subdivision No. 10 Preliminary Stage,
Final Stage. Applicant proposes to subdivide a 51.7 acre lot into two lots of one acre and
50.7. Now these numbers don’t jive with this evening’s. This was the original lot that this
evening’s lot was then, after this, taken out of. So in other words this evening’s lot is
included in the 50.7. Bear with me, it’s getting late, and at the end, the motion to
approve the Final Stage subdivision by Phyllis Holtz, Introduced by Catherine
LaBombard who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Stark, with the fact that
both parcels are to be used for single family dwellings, which is a less intrusive
development. That there be no clearing or grading within the CEA, and any further land
use on the adjacent parcel, which is 50.7 acres, will require Planning Board approval.
So I would like you to consider, when you’re thinking about allowing these extra parking
spaces to actually encroach upon the CEA, which I meant to bring up my plan, it’s a nice
little moon shape cutting pretty close to the building, that it’s already in the meeting
minutes from a previous Planning Board’s statement that there be no clearing or grading
within the CEA.
MR. ABBATE-What is the date of that, please?
MRS. BRUNO-10/97.
MR. ABBATE-October ’97.
MRS. BRUNO-No, the subdivision number is 10-97. I’m just looking.
MR. ABBATE-The resolution date should be on the top somewhere.
th
MRS. BRUNO-Duly adopted this 16 day of December 1997.
MR. ABBATE-1997. Okay. Thank you very much.
MRS. BRUNO-Not a problem.
MR. ABBATE-Okay, and let’s see. I did promise this young lady over there. Yes,
ma’am.
LINDA MC DOWELL
MRS. MC DOWELL-My name is Linda McDowell, and I’m here tonight, and I’m staying
here this evening because this is my neighborhood. I live here, and unlike the
gentleman who lives in Hartford, Connecticut, or near Hartford, Connecticut, I will be
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driving by there every day, and to say that this project won’t greatly impact that area, I
really don’t understand how anyone can say that. I’m also a little confused. I thought
that this was about, I understand that Mr. Schermerhorn owns the property, and thus he
is the one who can decide or who can propose what he would like to build there. I’m
really confused, though, as to why Travelers is here. Do they own the property and do
they have a, I don’t understand why they’re getting so impassioned about a building, and
I thought that the goal was to make sure that what was built on that property was in
harmony was everything that went there, which I understand why Mr. Schermerhorn
would want to do that since he’s the owner of the property, but there are other places in
Queensbury. It seems like now all of a sudden this has become a discussion as to, well,
if I can’t have it there then I’m taking my toys and I’ll go play elsewhere kind of thing, and
I couldn’t not say something tonight, because, like I said earlier, that’s my neighborhood.
I live there, and having this huge project and this large parking lot would definitely
change what it’s like there now. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, ma’am. Okay. Do we have any other folks on this side of the
aisle that would like to speak? How about that young lady right there, please. Yes,
ma’am, you.
JANE MACKINTOSH
MACKINTOSH-I’m Jane Mackintosh, and I want to start by urging the members of the
ZBA, in fact I plead with you to read the traffic study and the additional traffic information
that’s been supplied by the applicant for yourselves and not rely on Mr. Lapper’s
comments. I didn’t actually prepare comments about this tonight because I didn’t know
that we would be allowed to speak about anything other than parking, but the traffic study
is essentially a lot of traffic data collected from other traffic studies. The applicant has
made very few original measurements of traffic, and those were done during week days
in early November this year, on three different days. There was a speaker earlier who
asked about whether or not the additional traffic study was done for Aviation Road and in
front of the two schools, and what the applicant has done has basically supplied data
from the Aviation Road corridor study which was done, I believe, in 2004. So the
applicant, the traffic study for the most part includes information that was culled from
other sources. There’s been very little traffic, new traffic information actually studied.
One of the things that is claimed in the traffic study, for example, is that traffic on the
Route 9 corridor has actually decreased 30% since 1999, and that statement is made
based on a DOT study. I’ve forgotten the date of that, but what, I can’t really challenge
the 30% decrease figure. It doesn’t sound right to me, but I can say with some
assurance that the only way they could arrive at that figure is by averaging traffic counts
and traffic data, that that figure says nothing about traffic on Route 9 on a high summer
day at The Great Escape, or during the Christmas shopping season at the outlet stores.
We all know that on any given day, in that quadrant of Queensbury, traffic can be a
nightmare currently. I would also suggest that Mr. Lapper time and again has repeated
his belief that putting a traffic light at the Exit 20 intersection, southbound Exit 20, excuse
me, will be enough to mitigate the traffic situation that is going to be created by this
project, and it just simply cannot be true. We all know that that intersection is a problem
right now, and that that intersection really could use a traffic light right now, without an
additional 500 cars traveling through that area. So I plead with you to look at the traffic
study yourselves and do not rely on Mr. Lapper for his interpretation of what the traffic
study says. Also, he’s claiming that the three interested agencies, New York State DOT
and DPW and the Adirondack/Glens Falls Transportation Council have signed off on this.
In fact, the applicant did provide some response to questions from those three agencies.
Those questions were very limited, and I believe two of those agencies only actually
asked one question, and when the applicant provided the response, that response was
basically to pull data from the existing traffic study. To me, that says that those agencies
did not read the traffic study, if they’re asking these questions and they are satisfied by
answers that simply come out of the traffic study. That tells me that maybe they haven’t
had the time to study it themselves which is totally understandable, but to say that those
three agencies have signed off on traffic problems, while it may be technically true that
the applicant has received letters from those three agencies, I think you need to look at
what the questions those agencies asked before you fully agree with Mr. Lapper.
Thanks.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, ma’am, appreciate it. Do we have anyone else on this side?
Yes, ma’am, please.
CHRISTINE BODETTE
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MS. BODETTE-Christine Bodette. I’m a resident of Queensbury. I have been for the
past nine years. I moved here nine years ago with my daughter, Lindsay. I moved to
Queensbury because of what the district offers for children with learning disabilities.
With her hard work and what the school has offered, she will graduate with a Regents
Diploma. She also dances for a local dance company, and with that local dance
company she performs in a specialty group, and she does different things in the area for
charity events, Festival of Trees, Kiss a Pig for Literacy. I do work for Travelers. I’ve
been at Travelers for 10 years and I’m a Quality Assurance Manager. I have a total of 17
employees that report to me. I have staggered people coming in to work for my
department. They start at six thirty in the morning, seven o’clock, seven thirty, seven
forty-five and eight thirty. I also have some people that work a compressed work week.
So I have four people on my team that work four days a week. The things that Travelers
has offered for me personally, I started out as an Insurance Service Representative. I
honestly didn’t know anything about insurance, other than what I have my car insurance.
They put us through an extensive training of 12 to 14 weeks so that we would learn the
product, learn the different systems and things like that, and through what Travelers has
offered me personally, I’ve been able to go from an insurance rep to the Quality
Assurance team to a Senior Quality Specialist, and then finally to the Quality Manager.
Prior to working at Travelers, I worked as an Office Manager for Hannaford Brothers,
which is also, they have local offices here, local stores, but in order to be in
management, I had to travel one hour one way, and being a single mom, doing that for
over four years, it didn’t work for me anymore. Coming to Travelers, they actually have a
more competitive pay range. So when I came to Travelers, I was actually making more
money starting there than when I was leaving Hannaford. The benefits package that we
have is excellent for our employees. I will be having another three days of vacation next
year, which puts me up to probably seven weeks of vacation. So our vacation package
is excellent. The benefits package that we have is excellent. Living and working locally
for me, as a single mom, allows me to be there for Lindsay. If I need to leave because
she’s ill or if I need to leave for an appointment, Travelers is very family oriented. They
allow us to have some flexible scheduling. If I need to leave to bring her to the doctors, I
can do that and then come back or make up my time later in the work. For me,
personally, I feel that Travelers is a great company to work for, and if I were to have to
make the decision that we can’t move up to Gurney Lane, and if the company has to say
move out of State, which I’m not saying that it’s going to happen, it won’t be something
that I can consider. It would be very difficult to near impossible for me to actually move
out of the area. Other things that, for me, it’s really shown Lindsay that I’m a great role
model for her, with what Travelers has to offer and how I have personally grown with the
company. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you very much. All right. I’ll move over to the right. Do we have
anyone over here? Yes, ma’am.
PATTY FRANKLIN
MRS. FRANKLIN-Hi. I’m Kathy Franklin, and I’m an adjoining neighbor on this project.
Thank you for being here and doing this job. I wouldn’t want it for all the tea in China. I
just want to say we make the place we live in. It doesn’t just happen. It reflects our
priorities, all of our priorities, and those include making a living, taking care of our kids,
being safe and healthy, having aesthetic experiences, enjoying nature. What makes
Queensbury different than any other place like say Clifton Park? When you get on the
Northway and you come north, and you get on the top of the hill looking north to Exit 20,
it has a huge expanse. There’s hills. There’s the bog, Rush Pond, and you have a
sense of expansion that you don’t get other places. That’s just the casual driver by.
Then there’s the rest of us who actually live here, and before we ended up at each
other’s throats, there was also this rather beautiful sense of community in this area. I
work at Stewarts. I serve maybe 300 people a day, all sorts of different kinds of people,
and they are, in this area universally kind, even on a bad day, and I really resent the bad
feelings that are being generated between people who work at Travelers and people who
live in the neighborhood that surrounds this particular project. I feel like somebody’s
putting two people who should be together apart for a particular reason, and I think that
reason is financial gain. There are other places where Travelers can go. If you read the
papers, I think Glens Falls was one of the ones, recently, that was cited, was it Bruce
Lavinsky, I think, was interested in maybe even making a parking garage down there.
Now, I know that’s not the same thing as being in Queensbury, but I work both at
Queensbury and at Broad Street, and it takes me ten minutes to go to one and five
minutes to go to the other. So you don’t have to take your kids to a different daycare.
You don’t have to move to Exit 12. We don’t have to lose these jobs. None of this has to
happen, and in fact if what your employer says about your incredibly good service record
is true, they’d have to be absolutely insane to discomfort you by moving you that far
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away. There’s another, but why pick this place? Well, let’s see. Lake George School
District taxes are a lot lower than in Glens Falls and in Queensbury. Well, that’s kind of
cheaper, isn’t it? And this is actually a fairly inexpensive site to build on. So somebody’s
going to make out here, and I think it’s Travelers, but I don’t think it’s the people who
work at Travelers. So, what have we got to lose, as a community, other than good
feeling, and I really apologize if we lost good feeling, because that’s probably more
important than any of the rest of this. What have we got to lose? We cannot put back
Rush Pond. We cannot put back that view shed for people who live here and people
who drive by here. We cannot put back that Critical Environmental Area. Well, you can,
you know, look what we’re trying to do. We’re dredging the PCB’s out of Fort Edward.
So I suppose we can actually go backwards, but if we took some time to think about what
we’re doing and what irreparable harm can be done, and what irreparable harm can be
avoided, we’d all be doing a whole lot ourselves, a huge favor. There are lots of negative
economic ramifications to this thing going through, which is nobody’s going to want to go
up to the Outlet Center when they can’t get over Route 9. Nobody’s going to want to be,
do you want to come visit the great North Country and sit on the Interstate and look at
Exit 20’s new office building, 85,000 square foot office building? You’ll have plenty of
time to see it because you’ll be sitting on the northbound lane waiting to get off Exit 20 on
the right. So, what does this 537 parking spaces really come down to? Okay. It comes
down to the fact that it doesn’t fit this site. Maybe where the Tribune is and the variances
that you needed to have for the Tribune or Angio Dynamics. What was the other one?
I’m sorry. What was the other one? There were three. All of those are in places that are
appropriate. They have infrastructure. They have roads. You go to Northway Plaza,
there are lights. There are lanes. There are established traffic patterns. Why re-invent
the wheel in order to desecrate a basically gorgeous area that serves us all, financially
and emotionally, and spiritually. I mean, okay, so I shouldn’t be saying these things. I’m
not in a place where we’re supposed to be talking about that kind of thing, and that’s very
emotional, but we have, and I do, I’ve also got to say that this project has gotten
progressively better as we’ve been going through this incredible process here, but
there’s some things you just cannot improve enough. No matter how hard you try and no
matter how much goodwill you’ve got. That’s it. Thanks.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you very much. This side, anyone else left here? Yes, sir, the
gentleman in the back of the room.
JOHN STROUGH
MR. STROUGH-John Strough. I know many of the workers at Travelers, and some are
my friends, and they are great people and they are good quality workers, and Travelers
is a great company, and certainly we want to keep Travelers here, and I think Travelers
wants to stay in Queensbury because we offer a great quality of life that we try and
maintain. Now, never has Travelers come to the Town Board, though, and asked us
where would you like us to locate. Well, that would be an interesting conversation,
because there are parts of the Town that we would like them to locate in. It would be
better for the community and better for them, such as near Exit 18, and there’s another
area in South Queensbury, I think that is a lot owned by Forest Development, kind of an
oxymoron, but, in any event, something like this that has 500 employees and wants to
grow, 600 employees, 700 employees, that’s great, because it tends to encourage
economic development adjacent to it, too. I mean, Panera is going to miss these people,
but you know what, Panera is within walking distance, and so’s Home Depot and so’s
the Post Office, and so’s many other things, and that’s all good because that is a
symbiotic relationship that works well. Now, if we got them to locate let’s say over by
Exit 18, that symbiotic development would also encourage economic development
adjacent to it, for the Main Street corridor, and we are trying to develop, re-develop that.
So there are other areas, and I’ve talked to economic development czars in the area, and
they said, yes, you’re right, John, there are better areas for them to go. We don’t know
why they’re picking this one. Okay. Well, that set aside, and we love Travelers and we
want them to stay. I’m also the Third Ward Representative, and this proposal is in my
Ward, and I’m the conduit, kind of, for the e-mails and the phone calls and the
community meetings and everything. So I hear everything that’s going on. So what I just
gave you was the shortened version of what, the concerns, the concerns I’m hearing
from people in my Ward. Now, I’m going to summarize, and I’m not going to go into
detail because I handed you the document that goes into detail, okay. So we don’t want
to belabor that, but it talks about the Town Zoning Code. That’s one of the issues, the
Town’s Land Use Plan, and the Open Space Vision Plan, which everyone seems to have
forgotten about, best economic and community planning practices, best interests of the
employees, then it goes on to say, well, this hasn’t been addressed in a worst case
scenario, maximum impact, which is what we’re supposed to do as a Planning Board
and Zoning Board, because I was on the Planning Board for four years. I understand
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that’s the way we’re supposed to look at it. We’re not supposed to look at it as Travelers.
We’re not supposed to personalize it like that. We’re supposed to look at it, is this the
right thing for the location, is this what the community needs or wants in this area, is this
going to have a detriment to this area? Those are the kinds of questions we have to look
at. It’s not Travelers, and Travelers shouldn’t take it personally. Also, so, looking at
worst case scenarios, hasn’t been done, in terms of traffic impacts, impacts on the
natural environment, the native flora and fauna, quality of life and adjacent land values,
ability to be serviced by emergency services, sewer capacities and priorities. I’ve got
this all in detail for you to peruse when you get a chance. Because I think you have to
look at the big picture. You can’t just look at the parking allotment or the parking
variance without looking at, how is it going to impact our community. So you do have to
look at the big picture. So your scope is broader than some people would like you to
think it is. It’s not so narrow as some people would like you to think of it. Now, in
addition to that, do we have a copy of the floor plan? Do you have a copy of the floor
plan?
MR. UNDERWOOD-We just have a schematic of the building. That’s it.
MR. STROUGH-You don’t have the floor plan. All right. The reason why I ask is
according to our Code, 179-4-040, Section B, Paragraph Four. Can I read the Town
Code?
MR. ABBATE-How long will it take?
MR. STROUGH-It’ll take one minute.
MR. ABBATE-You have one minute, Mr. Strough.
MR. STROUGH-Floor Areas, for the purposes of computing parking requirements shall
be the sum of the horizontal area within the exterior walls of the several floors of a
building, excluding floor area occupied by HVAC equipment, excluding the basement, if
there is any, excluding cellar, excluding attic excluding storage including service areas.
So your floor area and your parking requirements are based on leasable floor area. Has
made a determination on the leasable floor area?
MR. ABBATE-That will be a question I’m going to ask the Zoning Administrator.
MR. STROUGH-Well, you can’t do that unless you have a floor plan.
MR. ABBATE-Raise the question one more time. Has anybody?
MR. STROUGH-Has anybody calculated the leasable floor area? Because according to
our Town Code, you have to subtract any rooms that are used for HVAC equipment,
basement, cellar, attic areas, storage, service areas, all that has to be subtracted, and
then you get your leasable floor area, and that’s where you determine your number of
parking spaces, which is one car per every 300 square feet of leasable floor area. Okay.
One other thing that concerns me is, are we putting the cart before the horse? Should
we be so presumptuous that the Planning Board is going to give an added 20% increase
to their parking allowance? I mean, it’s entirely possible that when this gets to the
Planning Board, they may not need any parking area increases because the planning
area won’t allow it. So the request for a variance would be moot. So I’m saying what are
we doing? What should come first? I mean, shouldn’t the Planning Board determine if
they’re going to give a 20% increase and see if the project’s okay, and then it comes to
you for the additional car parking area? I mean, it just seems to me to be presumptuous
to assume that the Planning Board is going to give them a 20% increase. They’re here
for the full 88%. Let’s not presume that the Planning Board is going to give them a 20%
increase. That’s not right. What’s wrong with that? There’s something wrong with that,
and that’s it.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Well, thank you, thank you very much.
MR. STROUGH-Okay. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Do we have anybody else in the public who wishes to? Yes, in the back of
the room I see a hand raised. Would you be kind enough to come forward, ma’am,
please.
CONNIE LANGFORD
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MRS. LANGFORD-Connie Langford, Lehland Drive. I hate to keep harping on a full,
Long EIS, but as Mr. Strough said, are we putting the cart before the horse? Now this
action was listed as Unlisted. If I get, as far as I know the Town of Queensbury purports,
and all their Boards, Town Boards, Planning Boards, Zoning Board of Appeals and so
forth, to be very helpful and responsive to the residents and citizens in their municipality.
So if I give you my phone number, would you please tell me why this was allowed to be
listed as an Unlisted Action when every threshold is being violated, and it is supposed to
have become a full blown EIS, and if it had been, we would not be sitting here now
talking about this project on that particular piece of land. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you. Do we have anyone else? Yes, sir, in the back of the room.
DAVID BRUNO
MR. BRUNO-A couple of points. You like to have solid footing, Mr. McNulty, to base
your opinions on, 88% relief from variance is certainly solid footing to deny this variance.
That’s just straightforward. I don’t think you really need much more said. The idea that
this Professional Office is a transition, again, it’s not. We’re not transitioning from 500
parking spaces to three and five acre Rural Residential. The fact that any portion of this
parking is within a CEA automatically should be grounds for you to deny this variance.
The idea of, Mr. Schermerhorn said previously in one of the meetings that if they can’t
get this going fast enough, then Travelers may look somewhere else, and people have
stated that that would be an absurd thing to do for Travelers for many different reasons,
but on the sewer aspect of this project, I’ve talked to engineers and professionals in
waste treatment. Physical boring will take, and using as some of these engineers some
really slick methods that they have nowadays to horizontally bore underneath the
Northway, or in other areas, is going to take minimum of two months, or an average of
six weeks, and that’s after all of his ducks are put in a row in regards to the State. The
State is very particular about people boring under their jurisdictional highways, and if this
project hasn’t already been started down that path, my information is that, at best, it
would be late Fall of ’08 if it was started right now, if he had all his ducks in a row. If he
doesn’t have all the ducks in a row by February, you’re talking 2009. Is Travelers, and
the implied, I don’t want to call them threats, but the implications have been that if
Travelers doesn’t get this thing done, here and now, today, that they’re going to go
somewhere else. The physical process of the sewer line will cause this project to be
months long, if not a year. So that, in my mind, makes me think, are there better places
suited for this project to be turned around quicker. I know Mr. Schermerhorn was looking
at the 17 acres off of Exit 18, in back of McDonalds. Perhaps that’s a better suited area.
Certainly there are more amenities there to support the growth of Travelers, which the
CEO has, or gentleman from Hartford has stated already. They’re already looking to
expand. So now you’re thinking 500 plus parking spaces are enough for what they’ve
got now. When are they going to come back and ask you for a variance for the next 100
parking spaces? We’re already in the CEA. They’re already 88% over variance, or of
the variance that they’re asking, and now they’re going to ask for more. So you want
solid ground to deny things. I think you have plenty to deny this request for variance
tonight.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Yes, sir, in the back of the room.
BOB FALLMAN
MR. FALLMAN-Good evening. Bob Fallman, Gurney Lane. I just want to make a couple
of comments on the traffic again. I’ve lived in that area for 30 years, and the roadways in
this neighborhood were really not designed to accommodate a large volume of traffic,
especially from a very large office building such as is being proposed. The bridge over
the Northway here is only two lanes with no room for even a sidewalk. It was
constructed, I believe, in the 1960’s, primarily to service the rural areas west of the
Northway and to allow access to the southbound lanes of the Northway. That was 40
years ago. Things have changed a lot since then. Tourism in our area, as well as
access to Vermont and the ski areas, has exploded. Residential areas along West
Mountain Road have also been developed. I don’t want to go into too many details on
this, because if you live here you know what I’m talking about. The point being that
traffic is already too heavy in this area. During the summer months it is often at gridlock
trying to handle the current number of vehicles. I have come down that hill on several
occasions and not even been able to make it to the southbound ramp. I’ve had to divert
my way and go down to West Mountain Road to get Downtown. The same thing coming
back. I come back Aviation Road and back across West Mountain Road because you
just can’t get through there. Gurney Lane, where I live, is really nothing more than a
paved over wagon path. It is 22 feet wide and it is a road by use, which means a right of
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way ends at the edge of the pavement. It’s a winding mountain road intended primarily
to serve the residents of the area. It is also used by employees of the West Mount
complex for walking and exercise during their breaks and lunch hour. Bicyclists frequent
it usually in the late afternoon and in the evening. It was never meant to be a
thoroughfare, however, if this complex is built, I will guarantee you that anyone living
north of this complex will use it to escape the traffic on the Northway bridge and Route 9.
No one will sit through three traffic lights to get on the Northway going north when they
can scoot over Gurney Lane and get on the Northway at Exit 21. This will undoubtedly
lead to some very serious accidents as people hurry to get to work and to get home from
work. We’ve had a lot on there already. Now, you’ve all gotten copies, I’m not going to
read this whole letter, but Mr. Abbate and members of the Board got a copy from Mr.
rd
Lapper, on December 3, regarding the DOT letters and the DOT and I guess it’s the
Warren County DPW and Adirondack/Glens Falls Council. I’m not going to read the
whole letter. I just want to read the first paragraph of this, and it’s address to Mr.
Wersted. We have completed our review of the information provided in your November
21, 2007 letter which was submitted in response to our November 9, 2007 comments.
We agree with your conclusion that for an average weekday traffic volume, queuing and
delay data, as collected on November 7, 8, and 13, does not warrant the installation of a
traffic signal at the intersection of the I-87 Exit 20 southbound ramps with Gurney Lane.
The point I want to make, this survey was done in November. This is not worst case
scenario. It’s best case scenario. I also want you to note that the traffic survey was done
ththth
on the 7, which is a Wednesday, the 8, which is a Thursday, and the 13, which is a
Tuesday. What happened to Friday and Monday? They’re the worst travel days in the
week. I think you should really consider that a traffic study be done by an outside
consultant, somebody paid by the Town and not by the applicant. I think you have to
remember that you have to consider the worst case scenario in this, and so far I don’t
see where you have gotten that information. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you very much, sir. All right. No one will speak twice. Mr. Linke
has come up here twice. He will not come up here again. All right. Anyone else in the
public wish to make any response? If not, then I’m going to ask the appellant and his
client to please come back to the table, and if you wish to address any of the comments
made by the public, please do so.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I just want to start off by saying there’s certain things I can
speak about and certain things I can’t speak about, but, you know, the things I keep
hearing, meeting after meeting, again, is traffic, which is very, very important. Again, I
rely on professional engineers. I hired Creighton Manning, very well respected. I can tell
the audience firsthand that Mr. Kennedy from New York State DOT, which I’ve never met
personally, has thoroughly reviewed this with Aaron Frankenfeld from Glens Falls
Transportation, and Jeff Tennison from Warren County. Now these are three all
independent agencies. Have nothing to do with me. As a matter of fact, I’ve never met
any of them. I’m following procedures, and they reviewed all the traffic information.
They reviewed all the concerns that the public, Planning Board from a couple of
meetings put a lot of emphasis on this project, as well as the public. They have signed
off on the traffic. I can’t talk anymore about that tonight myself personally. The traffic
consultants probably could answer some questions, but the State, which I think is a
priority in this, and the County, they’re all important, but they have signed off. The same
goes for the stormwater. I just want to bring up to everyone’s attention that the
application’s been changed a little bit every time to try and accommodate the Planning
Board and the audience. I’ve had this application in twice, before this one, within the last
three months, and within the last three months, the Town Engineer has signed off on
both times that I submitted the application for the engineering part of it, for the
stormwater, and again we received a letter today, which makes the third time he’s signed
off on the stormwater of this application. Now, I asked my engineer, Tom Nace, what
can we do more about addressing stormwater concerns, because that’s a, it’s been
emphasized over and over and over, and we heard it again tonight over and over. So at
the last meeting, outside I talked to my engineer, Tom, and I said, gee, how about that
independent outfit in Warrensburg Dave Wick was his name. Again, I’ve never met the
individual, but I know he does a very thorough job. He’s very well respected by the
community. I know a lot of people use him. In fact, the Glen Lake Association uses him.
In fact, there was a letter that went to the Town from the Town Supervisor that was sent
to Dave Wick, with Paul Derby from the Glen Lake Association, very extremely upset at
the last meeting that he wasn’t notified by Dave Wick why the Glen Lake Association
wasn’t notified, and everyone has these copies of this letter, but he was insinuating to
Mr. Wick that he should have notified the Glen Lake Association. This gentleman, Dave
Wick, did an independent thorough investigation, not on my behalf, not on anybody’s
behalf, other than my engineer saying we asked what could we do to improve this
project, so that I would look like I’m putting that much more effort to please the audience,
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the public, I mean, and the Planning Board. So stormwater has been signed off by a
couple of different agencies. Now, the last thing I want to bring up, and I’ve struggled
with this one and I’ve gone to dictionaries, I’ve Googled on line, and I’m trying to figure
out the definition of neighborhood, and I’m just trying to figure out, because I know that
the, this is the first project I’ve ever done where it hasn’t been where it’s visible to
somebody. This project will be visible, the entrance way, when these people drive by,
but the facts don’t lie. There’s nine residents within a quarter mile of this project, only
nine within a quarter mile. If I was to bet, and I’ve driven up and down that road, there’s
one person that could probably see this project, maybe, from their house, but I highly
doubt it, is the Franklins. They’re the first house heading west, and there’s a big
embankment, because it used to be a gravel pit, this property. Now I’d like to ask the
people that are here tonight to raise their hands if they will see this building, first of all,
from their house, not driving by it, but will they see this? A lot of them live on Gurney
Lane a mile, half a mile, three quarters of a mile. Lehland Estates is very well protected
in the community when you drive in there. With all the leaves off the trees right now, I’ve
been up and down the road. There’s nobody, I mean, nobody, other than maybe the
Northway traffic going on the southbound ramp, that could possibly see this building, and
even then it’s going to be buffered quite a bit. They may not or it’s going to be very hard
to see it, but what I’m getting at is I keep hearing all this, it’s like it’s in their back yard.
Now, I don’t know where you classify backyard, if it’s a half mile, if it’s a mile, and that’s
one thing, I won’t be outspoken, but the thing that concerns me is the people that are
talking about this cannot visually, it’s not close to their homes. Across the street, Mr.
Strough does own a piece of property. He said it on the record, and he says there’s a
stream that runs through it and it’s going to be a tough piece to develop. Now you never
say never, but it’ll be a tough one to develop, which means all those woods are going to
remain. What I’m getting at here is this property is surrounded by the Northway on the
back side and, down where the Franklins are, there’s a big huge embankment that will
probably never be removed because there’s a stream at the base of it that’s probably 50,
60 feet, I’d have to look at the topos. So what I’m saying is, I can’t make this building
invisible, but as far as the people seeing this from their houses, they’re in the back yards,
it’s a long ways away, and the only ones that I know of, I can appreciate their concerns
because they’re the closest ones to it, but all these people on Buckbee Lane, Gurney
Lane, Old West Mountain Road, Lehland, Mountain View, John Strough’s neighborhood,
I can’t think of the neighborhood, they’re quite a distance away from this project. Now,
I’m not saying the traffic’s working. I’m just hiring a consultant to see if it’ll work,
following procedure, the State, the County, Glens Falls Transportation says it will work. I
mean, you know, they keep going back to this coordinated review. Don’t forget we
started this process two years ago, when I came in with the multi families. I’ve done
Phase I Environmentals, architecturals on this, wetlands, Karner blue butterfly. DEC has
already reviewed the sewer plans for under the Northway, and I can tell people that
technology today has changed. Going under the Northway is not a problem, because
let’s not forget, two years ago we put a two foot round, 24 inch main underneath the
Northway for Queensbury, they put a water main underneath the Northway. It’s not
impossible. It’s a little expensive, but with technology, it keeps getting less and less. So,
I am way ahead on my review process, because we were here two years ago when I had
the multi family. I think it was 90 units, I can’t remember, 90, 120 units, it was very low
impact. They were town homes. They were going to be rentals, but they didn’t want
them. I withdrew it. Before me was a developer that wanted to do single family
residence. They didn’t want that. The consequences, which I can’t help. If I sold this
property, and I made this clear two years ago. I don’t know the outcome of that property.
If I was to sell it, somebody else could come in and develop it. It’s just, I guess I’m the
unfortunate one that’s here that’s trying to get an approval, but the visual thing is what’s
really getting to me, because I’ve done apartment complex housing development in a lot
of locations in Queensbury, and I’ve got to tell you, these apartment complexes
sometimes are right up next to houses, and I want to make one more point before I let
Jon take it over. Hiland Estates is a new development where I’m building homes right
now. My home is the one that’s kind of up on the hill. You drive in, it’s like the fourth one
on the left. Well, my view, and I know this going in, the College is building a brand new
office building that I’m going to see out the back of my house. I have beautiful views of
the mountains, but I’m going to see an office building, but I also know that there’s going
to possibly be a fire tower that’s been talked about, but I know that those are my
consequences that that could possibly happen. The Town of Queensbury owns all the
land they bought recreation before Harry Hansen retired. They wanted to do this big
enclosed pool area. Well I know what my surroundings are, all right. The property has
been vacant for quite some years. It’s been for sale for quite some years on the corner.
Nobody that I know of has had any interest in the property on the corner. So I guess my
point being is, if this property has been such a concern to everyone, I know, two years
ago, we sat here in front of the Planning Board. Planning Board members highly
encouraged the public to get involved with forming the new Comprehensive Land Use,
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the new Draft Proposal which I brought with me tonight. Well, I’ve searched the minutes,
and I’ll bet you there’s probably one or two people in this whole audience that showed up
to review and to see what they could do different with this property. Unfortunately,
sometimes things happen when it’s too late. Speed limits are too fast. When are things
done about it? When somebody’s killed. I mean, I didn’t write the zoning. I’m just
following the zoning, and I’m following the rules and regulations. That’s all I’ve ever
done, and for people to say that I’m politically putting pressure or bullying people,
anybody that knows me for the last 20 years, I’ve never done that to any Board. So I
guess I’ll end it there.
MR. ABBATE-Mr. Lapper?
MR. LAPPER-In order to avoid this variance, and just be at the Planning Board to deal
with Site Plan issues, we’d have to add a third floor to the building, and add, in my
calculations, 2500 square feet to the footprint, which would be, on each of the three
floors, would have to be 45,547 square feet, versus roughly 42,500 square feet. So the
whole thing with this parking variance is that the site can accommodate it. We could add
one more story to the building without changing the Site Plan at all, or excuse me, by
changing it 2500 square feet, which is probably going about five feet out on the long side
of the building. What we’re doing here is not building enough building, because they
don’t need that much room per employee, but asking you to grant the variance for the
parking is the same thing you’ve done in the other zones because you’ve recognized that
offices often need more space. We’re under developing the site, and what Rich just said,
what we hear from the neighbors is that whatever is proposed they don’t want anything
to be developed on this site, and what we’ve got here is to hide the site. We’re not going
to create traffic problems because Rich is going to put in the traffic light and the turn
lane. We’ve certainly taken care of by putting the sewer under the Northway. We’re only
talking about stormwater. The stormwater’s going to be treated. We’re nowhere near
Rush Pond. We’re nowhere near nowhere near Glen Lake, and nothing’s going to go
into the CEA. We’re trying to do everything right. There were some questions on the
record that bear mentioning. Tom Nace will speak about the fact that there’s no
wetlands on the site, and I’d like the traffic engineers to just talk about why what they did
was appropriate, why what they did was what DOT asked for, and you don’t get DOT to
sign off on it without doing it right. So, let me just ask for those comments.
MR. NACE-Real quick. The only place that there’s any water on the site at all is the
stream which cuts across the very corner of the property up here, and there’s no
disturbance proposed that could possibly have any water or wetlands involved with it.
So, I don’t know, there might be some wetland right at the stream corridor, but our
disturbance is well away from it.
MR. LAPPER-How far, Tom?
MR. NACE-At least 250 feet, 250, 300 feet. One other question that came up was the
distance or the depth to groundwater from the site, from the stormwater basins. I was
quoted as having said that it was 50 feet at the Planning Board. What I said at the
Planning Board meeting in actuality was that we did a boring up here at the building site
that went 50 feet deep and did not hit groundwater. If you interpolate that down to the
level of the ponds, it means that groundwater’s at least 27 feet below the bottom of our
pond. I think that’s it in a nutshell.
ED WOODS
MR. WOODS-Hi. I’m Ed Woods. I’m a principal at Creighton Manning Engineering. I
just wanted to take a few minutes before, I know Ken’s chomping at the bit to take the
next two hours to teach everybody traffic engineering, but we are paid by Rich
Schermerhorn, but we work for Federal Highway, and we work for DOT. We work for
Warren County, and A/GFTC. Creighton Manning’s workload, we probably do 80% of
our work for the Federal government and for New York State DOT that are all qualified to
critique our work. If we make a mistake for Rich, we’re going to discredit ourselves for
the majority of the work that we do. We did the roundabout in Downtown Glens Falls
with New York State DOT. That’s the bulk of our work. We’ve done, over the last two
months, numerous workshops with Region I DOT, with Warren County, with Aaron and
A/GFTC, with the Town Engineering and Planning group. So it hasn’t been just doing
the studies. We’ve actually sat down with these groups of people and did workshops. At
the end of all that, we kind of stood behind our recommendation, which was to mitigate
this site with a traffic signal at Gurney and the southbound off ramp. New York State
DOT felt that a right turn lane would benefit even more. We went back and told our client
that we don’t disagree with that. That right turn lane would benefit the overall
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intersection operation. However, the mitigation as a result of this site, the signal would
take care of that. Rich said, well, I’m trying to do the right thing here. We’ll put the right
turn lane if that’s what DOT wants. So now we had an intersection that was an “F” minus
up to an “F” plus with just a signal. The installation of the right turn lane brings it up to a
Level of “C”, making the overall intersection operate even better than Rich’s project does
the impacts for. Having worked through all that, we did get letters of approval that I know
the Board has from New York State DOT. We got letters of approval from Warren
County and A/GFTC. I know Ken is anxious to explain all the details. We can answer
the questions about where the traffic’s coming from 149. We could answer the questions
about what does it mean to have traffic counts done in November versus the peak
seasons in July and August. We have answers for all those. We analyzed all the
intersections along West Mountain Road. We’ve reached out to A/GFTC to talk about
the impacts in front of Queensbury School on Aviation Road. I mean, we have all the
answers, and to be perfectly honest it’s going to take hours to go through all those, and
we’ve done that with the professionals at DOT. We’ve done that with Bill Lamy and Jeff
Tennison with Warren County. We’ve done that with the Town and we’ve done that with
Aaron Frankenfeld of A/GFTC who’s going to be initiating a corridor study through that
section. However, if anybody wants us to get into detail about that or answer any
specific questions tonight.
MR. URRICO-I have a question. You mentioned you were in on the roundabout project
in Glens Falls. Were you also in on the roundabout projects in Malta?
MR. WOODS-We were not. We actually were the consultant for the roundabout, for
roundabout projects in the Town of Bethlehem for New York State DOT which are
currently open.
MR. URRICO-Well, my question is, can you foresee a time when a roundabout becomes
the sensible solution to that corridor, that area we’re talking about?
MR. WOODS-A roundabout today will always be analyzed as a possible solution at any
intersection when DOT is involved. When Aaron considers initiating that corridor study,
I’m certain that roundabouts will be considered down through there.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Have you concluded, Counselor?
MR. LAPPER-The only last point I want to make is that in reviewing all of the minutes of
the PORC Committee, I know that Councilman Strough has spoken, it was last
November, December, January, there were a bunch of meetings where they were
looking at the parking requirement for offices, and he said on the record that he’s looked
at 30 different communities, Queensbury has the lowest with one per three hundred for
the office zone, because this is an issue that has come up. The Town Board hasn’t done
anything yet. There aren’t any new Zoning Code amendments yet to address it, but he
talked about four per thousand, five per thousand, six per thousand. He said he’s seen a
community that had nine per thousand. We have it all right here, the minutes, but I
mean, this Board has always acknowledged that there are offices that need more
parking. We’re not asking for anything different than anybody else here, and we’re still
leaving the site 64.9% vacant. Rich is trying to do the right thing for this site, and any
other community in New York State would love to have an employer like Travelers with a
something like $18 million payroll and 500 jobs. When they went to look for a site, they
just said, where are the zones, where can we build this building? They wanted a building
designed for themselves, and it’s not unusual that you have an office right next to a
Northway or an Interstate exit ramp. If you think about Malta at Exit 12, that’s a much
larger facility, but when you’re right next to the Northway, most of your traffic hops right
on and off the Northway or Route 9. It’s a great location for them and it minimizes any
impact on the neighborhood because it’s right next to the Northway. The neighbors are
concerned about traffic, but we’ve done the science, and Rich is spending the money to
make the mitigation. So it’s going to work. It’s going to work better than it does now. I
understand, we went through the public hearing, neighbors are not happy. It doesn’t
sound like they’re going to be happy with anything, but we’re still trying to do the right
thing. We’re asking you for the variance, and the rest of the issues would get worked out
with the Planning Board in Site Plan Review.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you very much. I’m going to now ask Board members if they
have any questions they wish to ask of the applicant.
MR. UNDERWOOD-I have one.
MR. ABBATE-Yes, please do.
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MR. UNDERWOOD-This morning, at ten o’clock in the morning, I had to go down to the
Post Office, and so while I was there I said, just for the heck of it, I’ll go around and just
see how many cars are parked surrounding the present facility that Travelers is located
in. Now it’s been intimated to us that there’s 499 employees there, and just to be sure, I
called McKesson down below in the back there to see how many employees they had.
They told me they had 150 employees there. So if you add those two up together, the
total number of employees on site is 649 possible automobiles, I suppose, or any kind of
vehicle you want. So what I did was I just walked around out front at 10 o’clock in the
morning and what I found was that out in front and along the side, and even over onto,
over where Monroe Muffler used to be on the south side there, I found 288 cars. Then I
went to the back lane in the back and I counted the cars there, and I had 120 back there,
which gave me a total of 408 cars total on site there. So I’m a little bit taken aback. In
other words, if there’s two employees there, two employers there, who have a total of
649 employees, I’m wondering why at the time of day that everybody should be at work,
10 o’clock in the morning, and they’ve already said their employees come at six, seven,
and eight and nine, or whatever, why there were only 408 cars there, because if you
subtract the McKesson, I said, and they told me they had 150 employees that worked
there today, that that would leave only 258 parking places, with cars on them, that could
be attributed to Travelers. So I’m a little bit curious as to where that number comes from,
the 500 and some number. Either a lot of people are on vacation or studying or
something like that. I don’t know.
MR. ABBATE-If you wish to respond, you will come to the table and you will speak into
the microphone so we have it on the record, please. Thank you, ma’am.
TRAVELERS EMPLOYEE-One of the reasons that you wouldn’t have seen all the
parking spots in front is because we also park up in the Home Depot area that we
referred to. I have 130 employees that work for me, and I know someone else had
referenced that it didn’t look the building was that big, but we’re actually three locations
in the building, the former TV Data, which was 20,000, our local business center, the
main part, and then the annex that we refer to, which is above the McKesson folks, and
all of those folks, primarily all of them, park up in the Home Depot and we just kind of
walk down and go in the back door. So it is a little deceiving. It’s actually, when the
traffic study was done, we actually made sure that they knew that we had folks that
parked up there as well. I would say 100 or more, and then you also have to factor in,
we have a percentage of folks that are on PTO, which is our Paid Time Off. It’s a busy
holiday season. I know a lot of us are off next week. Sick time, and it’s possible there
were some people that were out on break at that time as well. So, I’m very comfortable
in telling you that, if I could give you a tour, I could probably conjure up most of the cars
that you were looking for.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Thanks.
TRAVELERS EMPLOYEE-Okay. Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you. Do we have any other Board members who have any
questions for the applicant? Mr. Urrico, please.
MR. URRICO-I have some questions about the time people come in and out. We talked
earlier, at the previous meeting, that there were various shifts. Now, is there currently a
cafeteria on the premises, and do people stay on the premises? I would imagine they go
to Panera Bread and other places.
TRAVELERS EMPLOYEE-In the building currently we have two full lunchrooms. Those
lunchrooms are complete with refrigerators and microwaves, as well as vending
machines. We also have what we call a bridge or connecting area that’s also a lunch
area as well, connects our two buildings, and in that area we also have lunch tables as
well as vending machines and microwaves and two refrigerators. I would tell you, and I
can speak personally about this, that most of the folks order in lunch, and you could ask
anyone from Angelina’s to Noon Whistle, you name it. We order in lunch. I would never
have to leave the building, on any given day of the week, because there is some team
that orders, and we don’t order individually. We order by 20 people on a team, 17
people, 10. Ask any of us that have put on a few pounds the last couple of years, we will
verify that we order in lunch. The refrigerators are capable of accommodating most of
the folks’ lunches and breaks as well. So we don’t actually have like a working
lunchroom or a cafeteria where somebody would cook for us, but we have the
capabilities of staying within the building.
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MR. ABBATE-Okay. Roy, does that answer your question?
MR. URRICO-Yes.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Do we have any other questions from members of the Board? Yes.
Rick, please.
MR. GARRAND-Going back to this traffic study. Your own study here cites that there are
apparent problems, existing safety and circulation concerns, as well as future growth
pressures. The study hasn’t even been done yet. It’s expected to be done next year.
MR. WERSTED-Ken Wersted, Creighton Manning Engineering. Are you speaking
towards the Route 9 Corridor Study of the Outlet area?
MR. GARRAND-Yes. It says the A/GFTC study. It says expected to commence next
year.
MR. WERSTED-Correct. That’s a traffic study, corridor study being sponsored by the
Adirondack/Glens Falls Transportation Council, and that’s set to commence next year.
The purpose of our study was to analyze this project, and not to also look at all the
potential different changes that could occur throughout the whole corridor study. That’s
something that A/GFTC is going to look at, and I believe they’re going to commence with
that, probably do their traffic counts next summer, and similar with the Aviation Road
Corridor Study. It’s a long term planning study.
MR. GARRAND-Wouldn’t it be better, though, if we could get this information and then
proceed with a project like this?
MR. WERSTED-It’s not a requirement of DOT or the process of analyzing the impact f
this project.
MR. WOODS-We addressed the traffic that would result from mitigation from this project,
that that project is going to look at the whole, I’ll say, you know, northern part of Route 9
from Great Escape and Great Escape north. Even once that study’s completed, there’s
no mechanism at this time to fund any improvements. It’s just a study. By the time
something gets built, you know, your guess is as good as mine.
MR. GARRAND-Okay. Hypothetically this gets built and it’s a disaster up there. Who’s
going to pay to fix it?
MR. WOODS-This project isn’t going to make that corridor any worse. We’ve completed
the studies to put this signal and the right turn lane to mitigate the traffic impacts from
this project, and that’s not Creighton Manning. That’s New York State DOT. That’s
Federal Highway, and that’s Warren County, that’s A/GFTC concurring with that, and
working with us to address that.
MR. GARRAND-Okay. The problems with the Outlets are existing safety and circulation
concerns. These Outlets back up all over the place. They cause traffic problems for
several different areas. I don’t think a traffic light next to the Northway overpass is going
to mitigate that. I think it’s going to be exacerbated when these people want to get out of
work.
MR. WOODS-Ken, do you want to talk to the details of that?
MR. WERSTED-It’s not a responsibility of this applicant to fix the existing problems that
are occurring because of the Outlets. This applicant is required to mitigate this project.
They were doing that with the installation of a traffic signal. DOT is requiring that we go
beyond mitigating the project, with the installation of a southbound right turn lane that’s
going to improve the intersection above what’s there today. So it’ll accommodate the
project, and it’ll also improve those existing conditions. The corridor study will likely look
at those existing problems of the Outlets and proposed solutions to fix those problems.
Those problems are likely going to, or those solutions will likely require that some of
those Outlet landowners participate in some type of program. I don’t know what it is,
perhaps it’s closing a driveway and making an interconnect, something to that effect.
We don’t know those answers yet, but that’s something that that study will probably look
at.
MR. GARRAND-All right. Thank you.
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MR. ABBATE-Okay. Any other members, questions from the members of the Board?
MR. URRICO-I have a question for Mr. Lapper.
MR. ABBATE-Yes, please.
MR. URRICO-What’s the compromise?
MR. LAPPER-I guess the only thing that we could really put on the table now is to say
that we could build 499 spaces now with the ability to go up to the 537 when they need
them, which maybe will be in a year, and maybe it will be in five years, I don’t know, but
they have 499 employees now. So we need to be able to build those.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you very much. All right. I’m going to move on, now, and
I’m going to ask members of the Board to offer their comments and I’d like to inform the
public that the comments that are going to be offered by members of the Board are
directed to the Chairman, and those comments expressed by the Board members to the
Chairman are not open to debate. Would anyone like to volunteer to go first? Please,
Mr. Bryant.
MR. BRYANT-Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. ABBATE-You’re welcome, Mr. Bryant.
MR. BRYANT-There’s a lot of questions, a lot of talk about traffic, and water sheds and
the economics of keeping Travelers as a employer in the Town, but these are all issues
that the Planning Board is going to deal with, and I want to talk about the project as I see
it, okay. First off, Mr. Schermerhorn, you should be commended. I mean, most of your
projects are excellent projects, and I’ve said it publicly and privately before that you’re
one of the only developers that deals with the issue of affordable housing in the Town.
So, that being said, up until tonight, frankly, I was totally opposed to this project. There
was a missing ingredient to the whole formula in this project that I think came to fruition
tonight. Mr. Lapper, you know, that each of us has our own pet peeve, and mine is
feasible alternatives, and many times I say a feasible alternative is not to build, and I
would have probably been looking for a reduction in parking and so forth and so on, but
think having Travelers here, the Vice President of Operations, that he could actually
verify that these people, they have 499 employees. This is a need to keep this particular
employer, you know, in the Town, and he made that clear, and, you know, we’re charged
with granting the least amount of acceptable relief, and so Travelers expressed that this
is the least that they can deal with. I go back to the issues of feasible alternatives, and
you, I know you offered them as an aside, but they cause the hair on the back of my neck
to stand up. One of the issues is you could extend the building. I mean, you could build
a third story. It’s already clear that an office building is allowed in that zone. Now do we
want a three story office building that’s, you know 125,000 square feet, just to make up
for the parking? I don’t know that that’s a feasible alternative. Do we want a parking
garage to house the, you know, nobody from the public is going to park there. So you
could open it up to the public and it means absolutely nothing, but the reality is, do we
want a parking garage there, besides the office building? I don’t know that, these are the
kinds of alternatives that everybody’s talking about, and they don’t sit well with me. Mr.
Chairman, that being said, and I’m sorry I’ve been so long winded, but it’s late, probably
the latest we’ve been here in the last two or three years. I’m going to be somewhat in
favor of this project, but I’d like to hear what the other Board members have to say.
MR. ABBATE-All right. Thank you very much. All right. Let me move on to Mr.
Underwood, please.
MR. UNDERWOOD-I think that, you know, we have to think about the rationale for what
we’re doing here to begin with, and that is that this project has been presented as a last
ditch effort for Travelers that, you know, if they don’t get it here, that it’s the end of the
game and they’re heading for Exit 12 or something to that effect. I would really think that
at this point in time, you know, it’s, you know, this site is not an ideal site for something
that’s proposed as large as this is here, and I think, realistically speaking, I don’t think it’s
ever too late to go back to the drawing board and go back and talk to the other people
that have made offers to you about other sites in Town that might be more appropriate
than this one it seems to me to be, but I truly believe, you know, I think Mr.
Schermerhorn has put a good effort forth in this project. I mean, I don’t think he’s trying
to put anything over on us. The reason I called Travelers up and wanted corporate to
come up here was because I didn’t know if we were just getting a line played out to us
about the numbers and things like that, and I wanted to hear it, you know, and have an
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explanation made to that effect because it just seemed a bit of a stretch of the
imagination as far as that goes, but I think at t his point in time, I’m still not committed to,
you know, this site. I think that you can look at other places in Town, and it’s been
intimated that there are other places that are available. I think if you go back to the EDC,
they will work with you, too. I think that this site here has a track record of having a failed
roadway system. It’s kind of like making a batch of macaroni on top of the stove and
you’ve got two packages in a pan that’s this big, and you dump 500, you dump three
more packages in with it, and it just tends to boil over all over the top of the stove make a
mess. I can’t believe that any traffic study is going to buy into the fact that if you put one
more light up there it’s going to make traffic better. It’s going to help definitely, because I
live over on that side of Town, and when I come from the north, it’s a pain when you’re
trying to get across traffic on a busy day, but at the same time, it’s not going to help the
traffic coming from Vermont and a lot of days it backs all the way up to Bay Road, some
days, you know, on busy weekends and busy holidays and things like that. I think that
there’s an outlet, there’s a pressure relief valve in the community for us to think about
other places that this could go, and so I’m not going to be in favor of it.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Mr. Garrand, please.
MR. GARRAND-Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ve got a couple of issues with this. You
can drive down Bay Road and you look at like 536 Bay Road, that’s one of the most
beautiful buildings on the road. Obviously the contractor builds outstanding buildings,
maintains them very well, but I have to ask myself, is this the right place for that building?
Getting to restaurants and other facilities from there is going to be nightmarish,
especially in the summertime when people want to leave for lunch. Environmentally, I
mean, their own report, the project area is situated along a drainage just north of Rush
Pond and a series of small wetlands drain eastward to Glen Lake, things like that. Then
you go to the balancing test. Will this produce an undesirable change in neighborhood
or the character of nearby properties? I have to say yes to that. The increase in traffic
alone is going to change the character of the neighborhood when, instead of biking up
and down the road, you really can’t do that anymore. The building, granted it’s going to
be a beautiful building there, but it’s still going to be a building there. Eighty-eight
percent relief, that’s definitely substantial. I can’t say unequivocally it’s going to add
adverse environmental effects, but with all this hard surfacing and material draining
eastward to Glen Lake, I can’t say for sure. If I look at it, whether it’s self-created or not, I
have to say it’s probably created by the people who want the facility there to begin with.
So it is self-created. Can the benefits be achieved by other means feasible to the
applicant? Once again, I’m not sure about that. It’s possible that other sites are
available. At this point, I just don’t know. Given the fact that it is a significant request
with respect to the amount of relief they’re asking for, I would have felt a lot more
comfortable if they’d have come to us and said, look, we want 360 parking spaces, built it
with the 360 parking spaces, and come back and said, look, this isn’t enough, we need
more. Look at what we have. I’d feel a lot more comfortable with something like that.
This is a Critical Environmental Area. We can’t just say it’s going to have no impact,
whether it be physical, through chemicals, road salts or anything like that, or whether it
just be visual. So at this point I wouldn’t be in favor of this application.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Mr. Abbate, am I allowed to say anything?
MR. ABBATE-No.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Okay.
MR. ABBATE-You’re not. Mrs. Hunt, please.
MRS. HUNT-Thank you.
MR. ABBATE-You’re welcome.
MRS. HUNT-I’m just going to address the parking issue. I have a question for Craig.
The 88% was based on the extra?
MR. BROWN-No, the 88% is based on the base number that’s allowed by the Code.
MRS. HUNT-Not plus the 20%?
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MR. BROWN-No. The variance required from, above the 20% that the Planning Board
could give, that percentage, and it’s difficult when you do percentages because you
make the numbers look different, but the percentage above what the Planning Board
could give, they’re requesting is 57%. That’s what they’re requesting. It’s 57% above
what the Planning Board could give them.
MRS. HUNT-Right. Okay. All right. That was my point.
MR. BROWN-Okay.
MRS. HUNT-Because if I do it the other way, when I look at the Tribune Media, Angio
Dynamics, and the Adirondack Cardiology, we gave them between 95 and 100% relief.
It’s a 17.8 acre site, which will have 64.9% green space, which is double what is needed.
So the site could be developed and have half as much green space. The site will be well
buffered from West Mountain Road and Gurney Lane, except for the entrance and exit,
and from the Northway, and I think that the traffic signal and right lanes on the exit and
entrance lanes are going to be a great benefit. I mean, I come from the north, and that’s
a tough left turn to make. So I would be in favor.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you very much. I think we’ll go next to Mr. McNulty, please.
MR. MC NULTY-Okay. It’s always kind of tough in situations like this, trying to focus on
what we’re really supposed to be looking at, especially when there’s, one of the criteria is
something to the effect of impact of the neighborhood or will it change the character of
the neighborhood or whatever, but in this case we’re actually not being asked to approve
the office building. That’s a given. It’s allowed in the area, and it’s allowed with at least
285 parking places, and if the Planning Board is kind, it’s allowed with 341. So really all
we’re being asked now is to pass whether or not we would approve a variance for
roughly 200 parking spaces, and to my mind, even though I can see this other impacts
which will be addressed by the Planning Board process, really, what I’m looking at, is will
that additional 200 spaces make a significant difference, and I think when you go through
all the criteria that’s already been listed here, and benefit to the applicant, detriment to
the community and so on, I think for me the balance comes out in favor of the applicant,
that I know there’s concerns for the local community, and I can’t give an absolute
guarantee that there won’t be some impact. I don’t think there’s going to be great
impact, but I think, balancing that against the benefit, and, as I’ve done sometimes
before, put trust in the applicant, I think this is a company, like some of the other
companies that we’ve had before us before, that has a pretty good handle on what they
need in the way of parking spaces. I don’t think this is a frivolous request. If they can
calculate from all their businesses of what they need, I think we’ve got to trust them in
what they say. So I think it’s something that’s needed, and it’s a tough decision, but I’m
going to be in favor.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Thank you very much. Mr. Urrico, please.
MR. URRICO-It’s easy to get sidetracked here. We are dealing with a major project that
will obviously have a major impact on the community and the neighborhood centering
around Gurney Lane and West Mountain Road. However, as it’s been pointed out, our
focus here is on Area Variance No. 59-2007. That is a request for the construction of
537 parking spaces where 285 are allowed. In determining whether to allow the
variance, we are asked by State law to provide the minimum relief necessary and to
come to this conclusion using five factors. The first factor, benefit to the applicant, has
been clearly described by Mr. Lapper and Mr. Schermerhorn. The second factor,
whether there are feasible alternatives, has not been fully explored in my opinion.
Feasible alternatives could be a compromise between 285 and 537 spaces, or no
variance at all, in other words, just the number of spaces prescribed by the Zoning Code,
with an additional 20% possible from the Planning Board decision. The third factor is
whether the relief is substantial, and relative to the Ordinance, 88% would appear to be a
substantial relief, no matter how you look at it. It is substantial. I’ve not heard
justification for the amount of relief. I’ve heard a want, but I wonder, again, if there’s a
compromise there. The effects on the neighborhood and community is another factor.
It’s been pointed out that a similar situation exists off of Exit 12 in Malta where State
Farm now resides. That parking lot cannot be seen from the Northway or the road it
spills out onto. However, in order to make traffic work there, one of multiple roundabouts
had to be constructed in front of the building, or the complex there. In addition, the
Northway exits and entrances there are typical on and off entrances. They are not what
we have at Exit 20, which is atypical. It has also been pointed out that we have granted
similar relief to other office complexes. Well, that’s true. It is also true that each
application rests on its own merits, and I’m sure you know that, Mr. Lapper. The Tribune
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building, for instance, is also adjacent to the Northway, but it’s a typical highway
interchange where on and off entrances north and south are situated close together, not
set apart. It also spills out onto an established arterial road with plenty of amenities
surrounding it. I also made the point, at that time, that Queensbury should not sell it’s
environmental soul for someone’s economic advantage. I think we have to be very, very
careful when we’re dealing with expanding parking lots in this area or other areas, and I
have not been convinced that all of these spaces are necessary, and that a
concentration of traffic won’t contribute to an already pretty pitiful situation up there. By
limiting parking, it forces cars to be spread out a little bit more, staggered time, perhaps.
Maybe alternative, greener alternatives, greener means of transportation, alternative
means of transportation, and then the fifth factor, is this difficulty self-created, I think
without a doubt the difficulty is self-created based on the current Zoning Code, and I
would be against this application.
MR. ABBATE-All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Urrico. I had a question mark to my
Board member sitting on my left. I don’t believe you came through with a final decision,
or am I wrong?
MR. BRYANT-No. I think, I appreciate all the comments of the Board members. I just
want to particularly reiterate something that Mr. McNulty said, and that is, without a
variance you can build an office building with 300, whatever it is, parking spaces. I know
you tried the condos or the townhouses before, and the neighbors weren’t happy, and
now it’s a Professional Office area and an office is allowed, so I think I’m going to have to
fall down in favor of this thing. McNulty makes a very good point that, regardless, without
a variance, he can build an office complex with whatever, 300, whatever the number is,
and frankly, everybody would like to have all that green space around their neighborhood
to walk their dog and jog once in a while, but the reality is somebody owns that property,
and we cannot deny them the right to build, especially if it’s in the Code. So, I’m going to
fall in favor of it.
MR. ABBATE-I tried to prepare myself in the event that this actually happened, and
when I was at home at all hours of the morning thinking what am I going to do if it’s three
to three, and I listen intently, which I did. I listened intently to every word that everyone
spoke this evening, not only from the public but from the applicant and members of the
Board, and with a three to three vote, it’s clear that my vote will be the deciding factor,
and there’s no doubt in my mind that the final decision will have an effect on both parties
as well as the Town of Queensbury, and I find that, after the testimony this evening,
which I found compelling, in order for me to arrive at a fair and unbiased decision, I’m
going to require additional time to carefully review the minutes of the meeting and review
all the additional information that was submitted into the record, and after a careful
review of the minutes and all the additional evidence that was submitted into the record, I
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will then, on the 19 of December 2007, at a public hearing of the Zoning Board of
Appeals, render my vote. Now, does the applicant raise any objections to delaying my
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vote until the 19? Now, before you answer the question, if I recuse myself, it is a
defacto no.
MR. MC NULTY-Mr. Chairman, before you even proceed that far, this is an Unlisted
action.
MR. ABBATE-That’s correct.
MR. MC NULTY-So we need to deal with SEQRA, or leave it for the Planning Board to
deal with as a coordinated review.
MR. ABBATE-Good question. As a matter of fact, thank you, Mr. McNulty. I mentioned
that to the Secretary and I forgot to pursue it. It is an Unlisted action. You’re absolutely
correct, and perhaps that’ll give me a little reprieve, if you will. What does the Board
desire to do? We could do a number of things. We could have the Secretary go through
the Environmental Assessment Form, or we can move it to the Planning Board, whatever
the desire of the members are. What do you wish to do, guys? Let me go down the line.
Chuck?
MR. MC NULTY-I could go either way. One argument is this project, in total, involves us.
It obviously involves decisions the Planning Board’s going to make. It involves things
that the Department of Transportation is involved in. So, for a total comprehensive
review, you could very easily argue that it should go over to the Planning Board and let
them decide whether they even want to kick it to DOT to be Lead Agency. On the other
hand, we could argue that the only thing we’re deciding is whether or not we add 200
parking spaces, in which case we could probably do a short review, you know, from an
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environmental viewpoint, probably the proper answer, in my opinion, would be to kick it
to Planning Board and see whether they want to be Lead Agency or whether they want
to see if DOT wants to be a Lead Agency.
MR. ABBATE-Rick, help me out?
MR. GARRAND-I’d rather see the Planning Board, at this point, as Lead Agency.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Mr. Bryant?
MR. BRYANT-I agree.
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Jim?
MR. UNDERWOOD-Planning Board.
MRS. HUNT-Planning Board.
MR. ABBATE-Roy?
MR. URRICO-I’m a nay on that.
MR. ABBATE-He’s a no on that. Well, it would appear that the majority of the Board, at
least six to one, believes that the review should be conducted by the Planning Board,
and we’ll need a motion on that, and I still haven’t made a.
MR. LAPPER-Well, you can’t make a decision until there’s a SEQRA decision. So if
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you’re going to ask the Town Planning Board to be Lead Agency, they meet on the 20.
MR. ABBATE-You know what, Counselor, you’re absolutely correct. You’re absolutely
correct. What is the Board’s pleasure? If the majority of the Board, six to one, indicates
they wish to move the SEQRA Lead Agency review to the Planning Board, I’ll entertain
that. Just provide me with a motion. I’ll need a motion, folks.
MR. BROWN-Could we just discuss it for a quick second, just procedurally so we have
everything straight.
MR. ABBATE-By all means.
MR. BROWN-Mr. Lapper’s correct. If this Board is going to request, and this is, I guess,
how it boils down. This Board would be requesting that a coordinated SEQRA review be
performed.
MR. ABBATE-That’s correct.
MR. BROWN-And it would be your request that the Planning Board be Lead Agency.
MR. ABBATE-Lead Agency, correct.
MR. BROWN-They have to accept that. They also have to put notice out to any other
agency that’s considered an involved agency. I think, for all practical purposes, you’re
going to be looking at the DOT. I don’t know, is this a sewer district extension with this or
out of district user?
MR. LAPPER-No, out of district user.
MR. BROWN-Okay. So there’s no sewer district extension that the Town Board would
have to deal with. So any comment that you’re going to get from an involved agency,
which is going to be the DOT, I think they’ve already given you.
MR. ABBATE-Okay.
MR. BROWN-So I think the process would be such that the Planning Board, if they
chose to accept to be Lead Agency, they could perform their SEQRA review the next
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time that they meet, which is I think on the 20.
MR. ABBATE-Yes, that’s fine.
MR. BROWN-But you guys can’t act until that SEQRA review has been done.
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MR. ABBATE-You’re absolutely correct and that’s just the point I was making, and that’s
why I’m glad I held off.
MR. BROWN-Yes, I’m not done, and when you and if you make the determination that
you want the Planning Board to be Lead Agency for SEQRA in this, you can certainly ask
them to focus on anything specifically that you have a concern over, and it sounds like
there’s one big thing that everybody’s concerned about tonight.
MR. ABBATE-Traffic.
MR. BROWN-And that’s the traffic. So you can certainly request that they do that. Just
so there’s not this circular back and forth, what do you want us to look at stuff.
MR. ABBATE-We have to be specific, and I concur with you. You’re absolutely correct.
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MR. URRICO-We’re talking about the 26?
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MR. BROWN-Well, the 20 is the next time that the Planning Board, actually, they meet
ththth
on the 18 and the 20, but this one is on for the 20. So you guys couldn’t hear it until
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the 26.
MR. ABBATE-Correct.
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MR. URRICO-What if we have a different make up of the Board then, on the 26?
MR. ABBATE-What Board?
MR. URRICO-This Board.
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MR. ABBATE-There’s no reason there should be a different make up on the 26 of
December.
MR. URRICO-Some of us might not be here.
MR. ABBATE-You mean in the event that some of you may be on vacation and what
have you?
MR. URRICO-Yes.
MR. ABBATE-Well, if that’s the case, then, I will have to charge both the alternates with
the duties and responsibilities to ensure that they not only have been present this
evening, but they have intelligently assimilated all the information and then sit in place of
any member that’s absent, and then they will, by sitting in place, have the same rights
and duties and responsibilities to vote.
MR. BRYANT-I’m misunderstanding what you’re talking about. Six of us have already
voted.
MR. ABBATE-I haven’t.
MR. BROWN-No, there’s no vote.
MR. BRYANT-We haven’t done the motion, okay. It’s getting late.
MR. ABBATE-That’s correct. Okay. In the event any of you folks on the Board are going
to be on vacation or have other personal commitments, that’s really not a problem. It’s a
procedural thing that I can take care of, and that law is quite clear. When a permanent
member of the Board is absent, I can then ask an alternate, who has the duty and
responsibility squarely on their shoulders to let me know that they have reviewed and
have attended and have assimilated all the information, and having done that, then they
may sit here and they have all the same duties and responsibilities and the authority of
the member of the Board who’s absent.
MR. UNDERWOOD-And they’re only going to be voting on the SEQRA status.
MR. ABBATE-Right.
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MR. LAPPER-No, no. You would be voting on, if the SEQRA is done by the Planning
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Board, you would be voting on the approval or the denial of the variance on the 26.
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MR. ABBATE-On the 26.
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MR. MC NULTY-On the 26, but tonight we’d be voting on the SEQRA referral.
MR. ABBATE-That’s right. So what Chuck McNulty has done, he’s made a motion, and
the Zoning Administrator is quite correct. We should be quite specific in our motion to
the Planning Board and say to them exactly what we are looking for, so that there is no
misinterpretation and what have you. Now there’ll be a stipulation. When do you think
they’ll have it back to us?
MR. BROWN-Well, the presumption is that they’re going to get through SEQRA that
night and have a determination for you. They may not make a SEQRA finding that night.
MR. ABBATE-Okay.
MR. BROWN-In that case, you get it when they do it.
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MR. ABBATE-Well, we’ll have to move it to the 16 of January, then, if that’s the case.
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MR. BROWN-The best case scenario would be the 26.
MR. ABBATE-I’m going to request that Mr. Brown please ask the Planning Board to give
this priority, only to be fair to all parties concerned. If they get through the SEQRA for us
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on the 20, then we can make a decision on the 26 of December. Please. Hopefully
they’ll be able to do that. Okay. Now, let’s go back to the motion to move the SEQRA to
the Planning Board as Lead Agency, Mr. McNulty. Do you want to go through that again
for me one more time, please.
MR. MC NULTY-Okay.
MR. ABBATE-Thank you.
MOTION REGARDING AREA VARIANCE NO. 59-2007 SCHERMERHORN
RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, L.P. THAT THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS ASK THE
PLANNING BOARD TO BE LEAD AGENCY FOR SEQRA ON THIS PROJECT, AND
EXPRESS TO THEM THAT ONE MAJOR CONCERN THAT WE’VE HEARD AND WE
HAVE IS THE EFFECT ON TRANSPORTATION AND TRAFFIC THAT THIS OVERALL
PROJECT WILL HAVE, Introduced by Charles McNulty who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Joyce Hunt:
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Duly adopted this 12 day of December, 2007, by the following vote:
MR. ABBATE-Okay. Are there any other concerns you want the Planning Board to
address? Okay.
MR. BROWN-Just to be clear, they’re going to address everything under SEQRA.
MR. ABBATE-Yes, I understand that.
MR. BROWN-If you want them to focus on something specific, that’s what you want to do
in this request.
MR. ABBATE-Yes. We want them to focus on any effect on the transportation or traffic,
specifically. Correct, Mr. McNulty?
MR. MC NULTY-Yes.
MR. ABBATE-All right.
MS. GAGLIARDI-And you still have the public hearing open, too.
MR. ABBATE-I closed the public hearing? I didn’t? Well, the public hearing is closed.
There you go. Thank you.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
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AYES: Mrs. Hunt, Mr. McNulty, Mr. Garrand, Mr. Bryant, Mr. Underwood, Mr. Abbate
NOES: Mr. Urrico
MR. ABBATE-Okay. The vote is six yes, one no, to request that the Planning Board be
the Lead Agency for SEQRA, and specifically to focus on any effects on the
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transportation and traffic within that area. We will hope, then, that by the 26 of
December, when this Board resumes again, we will be able to make a decision.
MR. BROWN-So I think we want to make a motion to table this until that date.
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MR. ABBATE-Yes. Mr. Lapper, you have asked me officially to table this until the 26,
have you not?
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
MR. ABBATE-So I’m going to move a motion.
MOTION TO TABLE AREA VARIANCE NO. 59-2007 SCHERMERHORN
RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, L.P., Introduced by Charles Abbate who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Allan Bryant:
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Tabled until the December 26 hearing.
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Duly adopted this 12 day of December, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Bryant, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Garrand, Mr. McNulty, Mr. Underwood,
Mr. Abbate
NOES: NONE
MR. ABBATE-The vote is seven yes, zero no to table Area Variance No. 59-2007. All
right. Here we go. Are you ready, folks? In accordance with the provisions of New York
State Town Law, this Board is required to nominate, for the Town Board, a Chairman for
the Year 2008.
MOTION TO NOMINATE ALLAN BRYANT FOR CHAIRMAN OF THE ZONING BOARD
OF APPEALS FOR THE YEAR 2008, Introduced by Charles Abbate who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Joyce Hunt:
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Duly adopted this 12 day of December, 2007, by the following vote:
MR. ABBATE-Are there any other nominations? Hearing no other nominations, is there
a second?
MRS. HUNT-Second.
AYES: Mr. Urrico, Mr. Bryant, Mr. Underwood, Mr. Garrand, Mr. McNulty, Mrs. Hunt,
Mr. Abbate
NOES: NONE
MR. ABBATE-The vote is seven yes, zero no. The vote to nominate Mr. Bryant to the
Town Board as Chairman is seven yes, zero no. By a vote of seven yes to zero, no, Mr.
Bryant’s name is submitted to the Town Board as Chairman for 2008. However, this
Board may elect its own Vice Chairman and its own Secretary, and we will require a
resolution on that. Is there a motion to elect a Vice Chairman?
MR. UNDERWOOD-I’ll nominate Chuck Abbate.
MR. ABBATE-All right. Mr. Underwood has nominated Mr. Charles Abbate as Vice
Chairman for 2008. Is there a second?
MR. BRYANT-Second.
MOTION TO NOMINATE CHARLES ABBATE AS VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE ZONING
BOARD OF APPEALS, Introduced by James Underwood whom moved for its adoption,
seconded by Allan Bryant:
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 12/12/07)
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Duly adopted this 12 day of December, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Bryant, Mr. Garrand, Mr. McNulty, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Urrico, Mr. Underwood,
Mr. Abbate
NOES: NONE
MR. ABBATE-The vote for Mr. Abbate as Vice Chairman is seven yes, zero no. Now, I’ll
need a motion to elect a Secretary for the Year 2008, and I nominate Mr. Underwood. Is
there a second?
MRS. HUNT-Second.
MOTION TO NOMINATE JAMES UNDERWOOD AS SECRETARY OF THE ZONING
BOARD OF APPEALS, Introduced by Charles Abbate whom moved for its adoption,
seconded by Joyce Hunt:
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Duly adopted this 12 day of December, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Underwood, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Garrand, Mr. McNulty, Mr. Urrico, Mr. Bryant,
Mr. Abbate
NOES: NONE
MR. ABBATE-All right, now, we’re not done, Be It Resolved, this is a resolution, Be It
Resolved, the following Board members have been elected to Vice Chairman. Mr.
Charles Abbate, Vice Chairman, and Mr. Jim Underwood, Secretary. Thank you very
much, ladies and gentlemen, and have a good evening, and I think, by the way, you guys
did an outstanding job.
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Charles Abbate, Chairman
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