2002-03-26
Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/26/02)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SECOND REGULAR MEETING
MARCH 26, 2002
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
CRAIG MAC EWAN, CHAIRMAN
CATHERINE LA BOMBARD, SECRETARY
ROBERT VOLLARO
CHRIS HUNSINGER
JOHN STROUGH
ANTHONY METIVIER
RICHARD SANFORD, ALTERNATE
ZONING ADMINISTRATOR-CRAIG BROWN
TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX, SCHACHNER & HAFNER-CATHI RADNER
STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI
MRS. LA BOMBARD-We have two items that are not on the agenda tonight, and that is Maschewski and
Nizolek, Site Plan 11-2002, and Site Plan Review No. 41-2001, respectively.
MR. MAC EWAN-We’re not going to open up the public hearing. If they come back, they’ll be new
applications. Okay. First item on the agenda.
OLD BUSINESS:
SITE PLAN NO. 51-2000 MODIFICATION GARDEN TIME PROPERTY OWNER: GARDEN
WORLD ASSOC., LLC ZONE: HC-1A LOCATION: 652 QUAKER ROAD APPLICANT
PROPOSES MODIFICATION TO AN APPROVED SITE PLAN. MODIFICATION REQUEST
IS TO COMBINE THE “SEASONAL PARKING” AREA WITH CURRENT PARKING;
CLARIFY LIMITS OF PROPOSED FENCING; AND INSTALLATION OF AN
“OFFICE/SHED”. ANY MODIFICATION TO AN APPROVED SITE PLAN REQUIRES
PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. TAX MAP NO: 109-4-11 LOT SIZE: 1.58
ACRES SECTION: 179-23
FRED TROELSTRA, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MRS. LA BOMBARD-And the public hearing back on the 26 of February was tabled.
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STAFF INPUT
Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 51-2001, Modification, Garden Time, Meeting Date: March 26, 2002
“Project Description:
The applicant proposes to modify an approved site plan. The applicant intends to combine the seasonal
parking with current parking, operation of an office on the site, and clarification of fencing around the display
items.
Criteria for considering a Site Plan according to Section 179-38 of the Town of Queensbury
Zoning Ordinance:
1. Does the proposed project comply with the requirements of the Zoning Ordinance?
The proposed modification is an allowed use in the highway commercial zone.
2. Will the proposed use be in harmony with the intent of the ordinance, specifically, could the
location, character and size of the proposed use increase the burden on the supporting
public services and facilities?
There will be minimal impact on public services and facilities.
3. Will the proposed use create public hazards with regards to traffic, traffic congestion or the
parking of vehicles and/or equipment or be otherwise detrimental to the health, safety or
general welfare of the persons residing or working in the neighborhood or the general
welfare of the town?
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Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/26/02)
The original proposal had a separate parking area for the display business and the garden business.
The new proposal is to combine these parking areas into one large lot. The new proposal appears to
facilitate good traffic flow on the property.
4. While considering any benefits that might be derived from the project; Will the project have
any undue adverse impact on the natural, scenic, aesthetic, ecological, wildlife, historic,
recreational or open space resource of the town or Adirondack Park or upon the ability of the
public to provide supporting facilities and services made necessary by the project?
Not applicable
The following general standards were considered in the staff review of this project:
The location, arrangement, size, design and general site compatibility of buildings, lighting and signs.
The area designated for display has not changed. The information booth has been changed to an office use.
The adequacy and arrangement of vehicular traffic access and circulation, including intersections, road widths,
pavement surfaces, dividers and traffic controls.
The display path has not changed. The modification removes the Quaker Road shared curb cut. The
applicant still has access from the Garden Center curb cut and from Barrett Road (noted as asphalt road on
plans)
The location, arrangement, appearance and sufficiency of off-street parking and loading.
The original parking area for Garden Time display was 51 spaces. The new arrangement increases the
number of parking spaces to 74.
The adequacy and arrangement of pedestrian traffic access and circulation, walkway structures, control of
intersections with vehicular traffic and overall pedestrian convenience.
There are no defined pedestrian paths, but the nature of business selling garden items and gazebo items
indicate pedestrian traffic.
The adequacy of stormwater drainage facilities.
No changes proposed.
The adequacy of water supply and sewage disposal facilities.
No changes proposed
The adequacy, type and arrangement of trees, shrubs and other suitable plantings, landscaping and screening
constituting a visual and/or noise buffer between the applicants and adjoining lands, including the maximum
retention of existing vegetation and maintenance, including replacement of dead or deceased plants.
The plan identifies 10 maple trees and 14 assorted shrubs to be planted along the Quaker Road property line.
The plan also identifies the area to be seeded (grass). During a site visit it does not appear that the
landscaping has been installed.
The adequacy of fire lanes and other emergency zones and the provision of fire hydrants.
The applicant will need to address items from the Building Dept and the Fire Marshals office. See letter
dated February 11, 2002.
The adequacy and impact of structures, roadways and landscaping in areas with susceptibility to ponding,
flooding and/or erosion.
No changes are proposed.
Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.):
Site Plan 51-2000 11/21/2000, Site Plan 51-2000 extension 11/20/2001
Staff comments:
The applicant was requested to revise the site development data sheet for the file, as, apparently, the parcel
utilized for the original site plan ( Barrett/Troelstra ) has been divided between both uses and such lands have
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been incorporated into the adjoining parcels. No revised data sheet has been submitted as yet. Consideration
should be given to reaffirming all conditions of the previous approval of this site plan as well as the extension
thereto granted by the Board in November of 2001.
SEQR Status:
Determination of Significance; the board must decided if the modification as proposed warrants additional
SEQR review.
Site Statistic Confirmation:
The site development data information needs to be revised
Land Use Plan:
The project is located in Neighborhood 10.”
MR. BROWN-The proposed site modification appears to facilitate improved traffic flow on the site. Re-
orientation of the parking appears to work. I guess consideration may be given to reaffirming the conditions
that you placed on previous approvals and the extension that you granted to it. So that’s about all we have for
Staff notes.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s it? Everything else is in order?
MR. BROWN-It seems to be. We’ve got, the revised data sheet came today, and it appears to be in order.
MR. MAC EWAN-Good evening.
MR. TROELSTRA-Good evening. Fred Troelstra from Garden Time.
MR. MAC EWAN-The floor is yours, Fred.
MR. TROELSTRA-Well, I think Craig pretty much summed it up, that we have revised the parking from the
current configuration to the proposed of making it align parallel with, the drive lanes parallel with Quaker
Road. This is something that was discussed last, a year ago fall, and if you recall, the reason why we didn’t do
it is we didn’t own the property at that point. So we have procured it, closed on a year ago last month, and
there has been some discussion about an office shed versus an information booth. We are in front of the
Board tonight to have the plan revised, to have it read office, and if there’s anything that needs to be
discussed further on that, I’d like to answer it tonight hopefully, and I see from the notes here a clarification
on the fencing. Quite simply, we’re putting a split rail fence across the front of the property, nothing above
and beyond that.
MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? John, we’ll start with you.
MR. STROUGH-Hi, Fred. I see Barrett’s is going to put their RV’s, and they’re going to put that over on the
west side, right?
MR. TROELSTRA-Correct.
MR. STROUGH-And that’ll probably relieve a lot of the burden that he has been experiencing in the past, as
far as storing his RV’s around his garage area, and give enough parking for people that want to look at the
RV’s, I assume. Correct?
MR. TROELSTRA-I can’t quite answer for Jim and Bill, but that’s what it’s intended to do.
MR. STROUGH-I like your new plan. I think it’s improved a whole lot. Step by step.
MR. TROELSTRA-Above and beyond the plan, what do you think it looks like over there? How do you like
that?
MR. STROUGH-I think it’s coming along. I think once you get the landscaping in, are you going to do that
this spring or summer?
MR. TROELSTRA-Yes. By the close of this application.
MR. STROUGH-Okay, and Staff notes say that the new proposal appears to facilitate a good traffic flow, and
Staff says you need to address concerns with the Building Department and Fire Marshal on this office thing,
and is there going to be somebody out there manning it?
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Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/26/02)
MR. TROELSTRA-Yes.
MR. STROUGH-So, and that’s up to the Building and Codes Department.
MR. STROUGH-The applicant was requested to revise the Site Development Data sheet. I suppose you’re
going to do that.
MR. TROELSTRA-It’s done.
MR. STROUGH-It’s done. Good.
MR. BROWN-You have a copy of that.
MR. STROUGH-Okay. Well, some of these are my old notes from when he didn’t show, and that answers
all my questions that I seem to see, Fred. It looks like a good plan.
MR. TROELSTRA-Thanks.
MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it, John?
MR. STROUGH-Yes.
MR. MAC EWAN-Rich?
MR. SANFORD-No real questions, but I’m familiar with Garden Time from the past, and outside you used
to have sort of a booth where sometimes you could go pay for your plants and what have you. Is that the
office that you’re kind of referencing?
MR. TROELSTRA-Negative.
MR. SANFORD-Could you take a minute and sort of explain what it is, then?
MR. TROELSTRA-This office on this particular plan, office/information booth, is a place where a customer
could pick up information regarding the sheds, gazebos and other play systems that we have. It’s not
intended to cash people out. It’s not going to have a cash register in it. It won’t have a credit card machine.
MR. SANFORD-Okay. I see where it’s located. Okay. Fine. I have no further questions.
MR. MAC EWAN-Cathy?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-I’m okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-Bob?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Does that description negate what the Fire Marshal had to say, that that kind of wipes
his letter out, pretty much?
MR. TROELSTRA-His particular letter is pertaining to a couple of different items.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m talking to the one that talks about a nonconforming space. That’s no longer applicable,
I guess. Is that what you’re telling me?
MR. TROELSTRA-Well, could you be more specific on his particular notes? He’s got three items on here.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s correct, and it’s Number One, the site plan includes the use of the storage shed
which is converted to an office space. If Planning Board chooses to allow this, please inform the applicant he
will be subject to the provisions of the New York State Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code, and the
current nonconforming office space must successfully pass several inspections from the Building
Department, the Fire Marshal’s Office. All of that is negated by what you just said. Is that true?
MR. TROELSTRA-Well, yes, that is correct. A shed that has been, it’s come under scrutiny, and between the
Building Department and myself, we’ve worked it out that I need to have a handicapped ramp and levered
door handles only.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’m just trying to find out whether all of these restrictions that are being talked about
in here are applicable to this box that we’re talking about. You’re not going to be using this for anything?
You have no cash in it, no cash register, no nothing? What have you got it there for? Why don’t you just
remove it?
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MR. TROELSTRA-I have a desk in it.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So I just don’t know where the Fire Marshal is coming from when he talks about.
MR. TROELSTRA-There is a heater in there.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, he goes on to talk about the heater as well.
MR. TROELSTRA-So he’s going to come back by and take a look at that heater after the Board has
approved this application.
MR. BROWN-If I could, Mr. Vollaro, maybe I could shed some light on it.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Would you?
MR. BROWN-My understanding is that since the space is going to be occupied, and it’s going to offer limited
services to the public, you’re going to have, you know, the public in and out of there, it’s going to be required
to meet the standards of the building code.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay, and that will be done, it’s not something that we have to enforce, talk about at this
meeting, or is it?
MR. BROWN-Well, if you want to know about what’s going to go in there, sure, you can talk about it in your
deliberations, but the requirements of the building code are handled during the building permit process.
MR. VOLLARO-Sure. I’m just wondering, in my own mind, what status this letter has, in terms of this
Board even discussing this letter, if it’s going to be something that’s handled by Code Enforcement.
MR. TROELSTRA-I would agree. I don’t know either.
MR. MAC EWAN-I mean, it would make sense if we were going to consider approving this modification
that, under the discretion of the Building and Codes and the Fire Marshal that this office/information booth
has to comply with whatever codes are applicable. It’s that simple.
MR. TROELSTRA-I’m just identifying with this Board what has been discussed.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else, Bob?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. We’re talking about this split rail fence that goes across the front. Is that, I’m just
looking at your legend. That is a split rail fence across the front of the property?
MR. TROELSTRA-That’s correct. I think there was a little confusion at one point, just going back in time.
We had originally proposed a curb cut that divided the two properties. We eliminated that. That was going
to be delineated more with the split rail fence at that point. So I think that was just a carry on from that, but
at this point the application is just for a split rail fence across this new site plan, parallel to the road.
MR. VOLLARO-Just one other question, on the lanes that separate the RV display sections, is there any way
of making those lanes uniform, in other words, one is very wide. I’m not sure how wide it is. I haven’t got
my scale. One is about 40 foot wide and the other looks to be maybe about 20 foot wide.
MR. TROELSTRA-That’s something that I can’t answer.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s on somebody else, that’s not your property any longer?
MR. TROELSTRA-No longer.
MR. VOLLARO-I see. Okay. So that has to do with Barrett. Other than that, I don’t think I have any other
questions.
MR. MAC EWAN-Chris?
MR. HUNSINGER-I really didn’t have any questions. I just thought the plan looked a lot nicer, and I
thought you did a good job with it.
MR. TROELSTRA-Thanks.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think it does everything we had hoped, and maybe even a little more, and I have no
problem with the office where it’s located. I mean, I didn’t go in it or anything like that, but I certainly don’t
have a problem with it.
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MR. MAC EWAN-Tony?
MR. METIVIER-I have nothing additional. I will commend you, however, I think the place looks a lot
better now. It looks nice. It never looked bad before, but it looks very nice now.
MR. VOLLARO-I’d like to just ask Staff one question. Under the notes, this round, Number Two stone to
be used on all display areas, are we agreeing that Number Two stone is permeable in this case?
MR. BROWN-Yes, I think in this case it’s not a driving area. It’s display.
MR. TROELSTRA-It’s demonstrated on weather occasions like this. You can take a look. It is.
MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? Any other questions from Board members? I notice our agenda says there’s a
public hearing scheduled. Why are we scheduling a public hearing for a modification?
MR. BROWN-That’s a good question.
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t believe there was one the first time around either.
MR. STROUGH-You can just go through the routine. I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.
MR. MAC EWAN-Typically we don’t have public hearings for modifications.
MR. BROWN-Was it opened on February 26?
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MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t recall. That’s why I’m asking. On that note, I don’t think it’s that big of an issue.
So, I’ll entertain a motion if someone wants to put one up.
MOTION TO APPROVE MODIFICATION TO SITE PLAN NO. 51-2000 GARDEN TIME,
Introduced by John Strough who moved for its adoption, seconded by Chris Hunsinger:
WHEREAS, the Town Planning Board is in receipt of a modification request to Site Plan Review No. 51-
2000 Applicant: Garden Time. MODIFICATION. Property Owner: Garden World Assoc., LLC.
Zone: HC-1A. Location: 652 Quaker Road. Applicant proposes modification to an approved site plan.
Modification request is to combine the “seasonal parking” area with current parking; clarify limits of
proposed fencing; and installation of an “office/shed”. Any modification to an approved site plan requires
Planning Board review and approval. Tax Map No.: 109-4-11. Lot size: 1.58 acres / Section: 179-23, and
WHEREAS, the application was received 1/30/02; and
WHEREAS, the above is supported with the following documentation and inclusive of all newly received
information, not included in this listing as of 3/22/02:
3/26 Staff Notes
2/26 Planning Board resolution – tabled
2/26 Staff Notes
2/19 Notice of Public Hearing sent
2/14 Fax from L. Moore to F. Troelstra – Site Dev. Data sheet
2/11 C. Jones, Fire Marshal to C. Brown
12/6 F. Troelstra, J. Barrett from CB
WHEREAS, public hearing was held on 2/26/02, 3/26/02 concerning the above project; and
WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the Site Plan requirements
of the Code of the Town Queensbury (Zoning); and
WHEREAS, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of
Queensbury (Zoning); and
WHEREAS, approval of the application means that the applicant can now apply for a Building Permit unless
the lands are Adirondack Park Jurisdictional or other approvals are necessary.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED, that
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We find the following: The application for modification is approved in accordance with the resolution as
prepared by Staff on March 26, 2002. We have to delete the SEQRA paragraph, the Whereas SEQRA
paragraph from the resolution.
Duly adopted this 26 day of March, 2002, by the following vote:
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AYES: Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Metivier, Mr. Strough, Mr. Sanford, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Vollaro,
Mr. MacEwan
NOES: NONE
MR. MAC EWAN-You’re all set, Fred. Good luck.
MR. TROELSTRA-Thank you.
NEW BUSINESS:
SITE PLAN NO. 10-2002 TYPE: UNLISTED MARY CAROL WHITE PROPERTY OWNER:
SAME AGENT: AMERI-LOG CONSTRUCTION ZONE: WR-3A LOCATION: ROCKY
SHORE ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES OPEN SIDED BOATHOUSE WITH SUNDECK.
PRIVATE BOATHOUSE AND COVERED DOCK REQUIRE PLANNING BOARD REVIEW
AND APPROVAL IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 179-60. APA, CEA, LGPC CROSS
REFERENCE: SP 1-92, AV 6-1990, BP 2002-068 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 3/13/02 TAX MAP
NO. 3-1-4 LOT SIZE: N/A SECTION: 179-16, 179-60
ROBERT SUTLIFF & KEVIN SUTLIFF, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
STAFF INPUT
Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 10-2002, Mary Carol White, Meeting Date: March 26, 2002 “Project
Description:
Applicant proposes construction of an open sided boathouse with sundeck.
Criteria for considering a Site Plan according to Section 179-38 of the Town of Queensbury
Zoning Ordinance:
1. Does the proposed project comply with the requirements of the Zoning Ordinance?
A boathouse is an allowable use in the Waterfront Residential zone*.
2. Will the proposed use be in harmony with the intent of the ordinance, specifically, could the
location, character and size of the proposed use increase the burden on the supporting
public services and facilities?
It is not anticipated that the proposed use will present a significant increase to the burden on the
supporting public services*.
3. Will the proposed use create public hazards with regards to traffic, traffic congestion or the
parking of vehicles and/or equipment or be otherwise detrimental to the health, safety or
general welfare of the persons residing or working in the neighborhood or the general
welfare of the town?
The proposed structure should not present any public hazards related to traffic or the
parking of vehicles.
4. While considering any benefits that might be derived from the project; Will the project have
any undue adverse impact on the natural, scenic, aesthetic, ecological, wildlife, historic,
recreational or open space resource of the town or Adirondack Park or upon the ability of the
public to provide supporting facilities and services made necessary by the project?
The proposed structure will present a further visual impact to the area as no structure, other than the
dock exists in this location.
* A review of the Town of Queensbury records relative to this property do not reveal a building permit for
any dock other than a recent permit for work on the dock. The dock, as shown in the plans, is in excess of
the allowable 700 sf for docks. Such a structure, unless properly “grandfathered,” would require an Area
Variance from the current Zoning Ordinance.
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The following general standards were considered in the staff review of this project:
The location, arrangement, size, design and general site compatibility of buildings, lighting and signs.
The proposed location of the boathouse appears to be the most feasible.
The adequacy and arrangement of vehicular traffic access and circulation, including intersections, road widths,
pavement surfaces, dividers and traffic controls.
Vehicular traffic should not be impacted by this project.
The location, arrangement, appearance and sufficiency of off-street parking and loading.
The off street parking on this site should not be affected by this project.
The adequacy and arrangement of pedestrian traffic access and circulation, walkway structures, control of
intersections with vehicular traffic and overall pedestrian convenience.
Pedestrian traffic for this project is not an issue.
The adequacy of stormwater drainage facilities.
The stormwater drainage for this site is not an issue.
The adequacy of water supply and sewage disposal facilities.
The water supply and sewage disposal systems are not at issue with this application.
The adequacy, type and arrangement of trees, shrubs and other suitable plantings, landscaping and screening
constituting a visual and/or noise buffer between the applicants and adjoining lands, including the maximum
retention of existing vegetation and maintenance, including replacement of dead or deceased plants.
This project does not propose the removal of any vegetation.
The adequacy of fire lanes and other emergency zones and the provision of fire hydrants.
Not applicable to this project.
The adequacy and impact of structures, roadways and landscaping in areas with susceptibility to ponding,
flooding and/or erosion.
Not applicable to this project.
Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.):
AV-6-1990 res. Tabled 1/17/90 not resolved, 16x16 addition – shoreline setback relief
SP-1-1992 res. 1/8/92, second floor addition and lakeside deck
BP 8548 issued 6/7/84, two car detached garage, reapplied for in 1988, BP 8824
BP 92-068 issued 3/5/92, second floor addition
Staff comments:
A review of the Town of Queensbury records relative to this property do not reveal a building permit for any
dock other than a recent permit for work on the dock. The dock, as shown in the plans, is in excess of the
allowable 700 sf for docks. Such a structure, unless properly “grandfathered,” would require an Area
Variance from the current Zoning Ordinance. Consideration may be given to a further review of the history
of the dock on this parcel, prior to acting on this request. Previous site plan and building permit files reveal a
1990 survey map that depicts a single pier dock on the site. Clarification of this matter is necessary.
SEQR Status:
Type: Unlisted. A Short Environmental Assessment Form has been submitted.
Site Statistic Confirmation:
The mean water levels appear to have been determined using the suggested LGPC method.”
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MR. BROWN-A sundeck and boathouse is an allowable use in the Waterfront Residential zone, subject to
site plan review. The limit on single docks is 700 square feet. I’ve had a conversation with the applicant, and
a review of the records, the Town records anyway, don’t reveal any building permits for the construction of
the dock at the, I think, whatever the total square footage is now, which is over 700 square feet. What I did
find in some of the files for building permits for other projects on the site not associated with the dock was a
1990 survey that showed a different configuration of the dock, different than what’s there now, and I haven’t
had any luck in finding any, or tracking any building permits that show the change in configuration of the
dock. So that’s kind of outstanding in my mind.
MR. MAC EWAN-How do we address it?
MR. BROWN-I think maybe we could ask the applicant for some more information.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I noticed on the agenda it’s listed as an Unlisted Action. Isn’t that typically a Type
II?
MR. BROWN-No, it’s Unlisted.
MR. MAC EWAN-Are you sure?
MR. BROWN-Yes.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Good evening.
MR. R. SUTLIFF-Robert Sutliff, Ameri-Log Construction.
MR. K. SUTLIFF-Kevin Sutliff from Ameri-Log Construction.
MR. MAC EWAN-Let’s clarify the past history before we go too far with this thing.
MR. K. SUTLIFF-According to the Park Commission’s review, which, Molly Gallagher released a letter on
March 14 to Mr. and Mrs. White, indicating that based on their review, and after the public comment period
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was over, that they intended to issue the permit, and that was even in conjunction with the fact that there was
some comments about the dock, or about the boathouse, and the height. So we have that, and based on their
records, there’s a 1981 permit that indicates, which is the original permit for the dock, and then it was
modified in 1988 to a U-Shaped dock. Apparently there were some discrepancies, minor at that, in the
dimensions of the dock. We came along, in January of this year, and put back the existing dock with new
cribs and decking, and so the dimensions that existed in ’88 exist today, and so do the mean low water line
and those applicable portions of the dock.
MR. MAC EWAN-So you’re saying the way it’s configured right now is the way it was originally?
MR. K. SUTLIFF-Absolutely.
MR. MAC EWAN-How does that fit in with getting any Town permits?
MR. BROWN-Well, the change from the 1990 survey map that I have is, the 1990 survey map shows a single
finger dock, just one straight pier. The configuration now, as you guys have seen, is a U-Shaped dock. So, I
don’t find any record that shows it went from a single pier dock to a U-Shaped dock. There’s no building
permits that have been issued by the Town that show that, and if there was a building permit application
submitted to the Town, that requested a change from a single dock to a U-Shaped dock, we would have
informed them that 700 square feet was the limit, and there would have been a variance that needed to be
issued.
MR. K. SUTLIFF-Well, I have the Park Commission document, if the committee wishes to look at it, which
is the U-Shaped.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s just only one part of the permitting process. I mean, ultimately the one that’s
carrying the weight here is the Town permit, or approvals to build this thing.
MR. R. SUTLIFF-We’re approved to build it.
MR. MAC EWAN-By who?
MR. R. SUTLIFF-We were issued a permit to build that dock.
MR. BROWN-You were issued a permit to reconstruct the dock that was there. What we got, subsequent to
that, was a letter from a neighbor, from Mrs. Jones, I think, that raised some questions about the history of
the dock. Having found that, I did some further research, I guess I shouldn’t have assumed that the dock
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that was there was grandfathered and had always been there and had been permitted to be there by the Town,
because the research found that there were no building permits issued.
MR. K. SUTLIFF-Sir, we’re here to propose the building of a boathouse on an existing dock, and we’re
talking about, now we’re talking about docks. I mean, is that the quintessential point here is we’ve got a
problem with the dock, the dock size?
MR. BROWN-The size of the dock, right.
MR. K. SUTLIFF-The issue here that summarizes it, from the Town’s history, and their records indicate the
dock was for only, it was just, I don’t know how you want to phrase it.
MR. BROWN-A single pier dock.
MR. MAC EWAN-A single pier dock. Now you have a double pier dock. Although you say you put it back
to its original configuration, but all the Town records indicate that it was just a single pier dock.
MR. R. SUTLIFF-I came to Craig Brown with this issue, and I showed him pictures and stuff of the dock as
it was, and it was taken down, and I took pictures of the dock, and we were aware that there was no permit
given, and you had researched that, and I had gotten pictures to Molly Gallagher of the existing dock and so
forth, and I came to you and showed you and you had no history of that application, but there was a letter
sent in 1988 to you people. There was an application given from the Park Commission to Queensbury.
MR. BROWN-From the Park Commission to Queensbury?
MR. R. SUTLIFF-Yes.
MR. BROWN-Okay. That’s not a building permit. A building permit for the construction of a dock, even
for a dock that meets the requirements of 700 square feet still requires a building permit to make sure that the
construction is done the right way.
MR. MAC EWAN-And I think you’re kind of confused because you have some sort of a permitting
application or permitting approval from the Park Agency does not supercede any kind of reviews or
approvals from this Board.
MR. R. SUTLIFF-Excuse me, sir. We did get an application from Queensbury to build this dock. It was
approved.
MR. MAC EWAN-To replace an existing dock.
MR. R. SUTLIFF-Yes.
MR. MAC EWAN-And the issue here is the existing dock that the Town is concerned that you have is a
single pier dock, not a double pier dock or a double slip dock. Right?
MR. BROWN-Yes. The history of the dock that’s there is clouded, I guess we could say. We don’t know
exactly how it got to be in the configuration that it’s in right now. We know how it got to be in the condition
that it’s in. We just recently, I don’t know, a couple of months ago, gave them a building permit to resurface
it, but how it got to that point before that, my assumption, when we issued that permit, was it had always
been that way. So a building permit to resurface it and repair some of the timbers isn’t a big deal, but now
what compounds the issue now is.
MR. MAC EWAN-And what compounds the issue now is the dock is bigger than what’s allowed.
MR. BROWN-That’s correct.
MR. K. SUTLIFF-We have a contradiction in the record. I mean, the Town’s record is incomplete, Number
One.
MR. BROWN-That’s correct.
MR. K. SUTLIFF-And Number Two, the single leg dock survey map that you have, what’s the date on that?
MR. BROWN-1990.
MR. K. SUTLIFF-1990, and we’re talking about an L-Shaped dock being in existence in 1988, according to
the Park Commission.
MR. BROWN-Which never received a building permit from the Town to be constructed.
10
Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/26/02)
MR. K. SUTLIFF-Okay, and so where does that leave us in terms of the fact that we come out and resurface
an existing U-Shaped dock in 2002?
MR. BROWN-Well, I think if we find the size of that dock is over the 700 square foot limit, it requires you
get a variance from the Zoning Board.
MR. R. SUTLIFF-Why wasn’t that issue brought up when we went to the, I better not say anything.
MR. BROWN-I know what the question is. I know what you’re talking about, but what I found, and what I
tried to explain a couple of minutes ago, was the assumption that I made for the permit to resurface the dock
was that the dock had always been there.
MR. MAC EWAN-A single pier dock.
MR. BROWN-No, the dock that we issued the permit for, the U-Shaped dock The assumption was that that
dock had always been there. So we gave them the permit to resurface it. Further investigation shows that
there weren’t any permits to configure the dock to be this way, much less, I mean, to resurface it would have
been okay if we had issued a permit to put it in this configuration, but that was never done. If they’d gone
through that permitting process, the Town would have said, wait a minute, you’re over 700 square feet. You
need a variance. You can’t go any further. You can’t just automatically get a building permit for, what is it, 9
something 800 and something.
MR. VOLLARO-938.
MR. BROWN-938. So it’s well over the 700 square foot that’s allowable.
MR. R. SUTLIFF-That’s what was there.
MR. BROWN-And I don’t doubt that that’s what was there when you applied for the building permit. I
don’t doubt that that was there when you went onto the site. How it got there before you got.
MR. R. SUTLIFF-It’s been there many years. You can tell. It was falling down, falling apart.
MR. BROWN-No question. The question is, is it a legal, permitted structure.
MR. R. SUTLIFF-Well, you permitted me to build that. I said, can I do this, Craig, and you said, you
researched it and you said, yes, you can, here’s your permit. So I went out and built this, and you issued me a
permit.
MR. BROWN-Right, but whoever built it before you is the one who caused the problem.
MR. K. SUTLIFF-Well, that would be, according to the record, a Joe Roulier, as agent.
MR. MAC EWAN-Joe Roulier.
MR. K. SUTLIFF-He apparently is the agent contact for the permitee. So where does the onus lie, on the
homeowner?
MR. BROWN-Yes, the property owner.
MR. K. SUTLIFF-Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think, you know, I don’t want to get bogged down in this application. Obviously your
course of action, you need to make a submission and an application to the ZBA to try to get a variance on
what you have here now.
MR. BROWN-Unless there’s some information that the owner has that I can’t find. If they were issued a
building permit, if that’s the case, we’ll certainly honor those permits that have been issued for this size and
configuration, other than the 2000 one for the resurfacing. If there was one in ’88 or ’92 that says, build it at
938, we’ll certainly honor that one.
MR. MAC EWAN-What you’re looking for is a Town building permit.
MR. BROWN-Exactly.
MR. R. SUTLIFF-Okay. Understood.
11
Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/26/02)
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I think what I’ll do is we’ll just open up the public hearing. We’ll table this
application, and we can table it until the second meeting of next month, and that should give you a little bit of
time to research this from the homeowner’s standpoint, and if, for some reason you don’t have that
information available, and we indeed did find out that this dock was built without the appropriate permits and
applications, then you’d be, your next course of action is going to the ZBA and trying to get a variance on it.
Okay. I mean, that’ll give you 30 days to try to figure this out. Okay. On that note, I’ll open up the public
hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. BROWN-I have one piece of correspondence if you’d like to hear that.
MR. MAC EWAN-You do?
MR. BROWN-Yes.
MR. MAC EWAN-Do you want to read it in?
MR. BROWN-Sure. It’s from Conrad T. Brickman, to the Planning Board, dated March 22. “Gentlemen:
nd
We have received a notice referring to the hearing requested by Mary Carol White. Please note that we have
no objection to the construction of this dock/boathouse. We are sure that whatever Mary Carol White elects
to build will be in compliance with the existing zoning laws as might be modified by certain conditions
applicable to her site, and will be done in the best interest and good taste. Very truly yours, Conrad
Brickman”
MR. STROUGH-(Lost words) that letter from Mrs. Jones.
MR. BROWN-That wasn’t, I don’t know if it was submitted to the record or if it was supplied to me by the
applicant. I don’t know if it made it into the file.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Bob’s going to do a motion to table this.
MR. BROWN-Okay. I can get you a copy of that.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ll make a motion to table Site Plan 10-2002 for Mary Carol White.
MR. MAC EWAN-I’m sorry. Come right on up. I overlooked you. I apologize.
DON JONES
MR. JONES-My name is Don Jones, and I’m the abutting landowner to the White’s property. I don’t have
any real strong feelings against the boathouse. That’s not the issue. I didn’t issue, I did raise a point with the
Lake George Park Commission. I did have a concern on the existing height, although it did fall into the
regulations or the plan of not exceeding 16 feet, I believe, I think I was concerned about the height being 12
foot 6 from the high water mark, but on further examination and with all due respect to planning committees
and so on, in reviewing the records, I did notice that the dock did start out at, in 1981 or ’82, registered at 430
odd feet. It has since grown from that period to 900 and some odd feet. Now I also am a landowner and
have faced this Board before and had to get variances, and I certainly applied for those variances before I did
any construction. I think that’s one of the reasons we have a public body such as yourself, and so I’m just
wondering, when you have regulations, how these regulations apply. Do they apply after something is built
or do you apply it beforehand? So in principle, I question how we can grow from a, as I said, 430 feet to 950.
I do question, with all due respect, if you do go back into the history, even from the previous existing dock, it
hasn’t grown. Now that may be questionable, but with all due respect, we’re talking 1988 drawings. We’re
not talking light years away here. That wasn’t that long ago. Computers existed then. So for a contractor
who can measure six foot ten, and then now it’s eight foot, and have it shown not only one drawing, but
several. I just question these things. So, in principle, with all due respect, again, to the Planning Board, I ask
you, do you have these regulations for a reason, or do we modify them when it’s too late That’s my only
comments. Again, it has nothing to do with, you know, I respect the landowner for applying for a
boathouse. It has nothing to do with that. It really is in principle, regarding variances and respecting your
codes.
MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? Again, I’ll leave the public hearing open. Motion, Bob.
,
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 10-2002 MARY CAROL WHITEIntroduced by Robert
Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by John Strough:
Until the 23 of April which is the second meeting of the Planning Board in April.
rd
Duly adopted this 26 day of March 2002 by the following vote:
th
12
Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/26/02)
AYES: Mr. Strough, Mr. Sanford, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Metivier,
Mr. MacEwan
NOES: NONE
SITE PLAN NO. 12-2002 TYPE: UNLISTED HOME DEPOT PROPERTY OWNER:
GERTRUDE STONE, NORTHWAY PLAZA ASSOC., LLC, ALEXANDER POTENZA AND
FRANK BORK AGENT: JONATHAN LAPPER ZONE: SFR-1A/PC-1A LOCATION: SOUTH
EAST SIDE OF MONTRAY ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES DEMOLITION OF
APPROXIMATELY 85,000 SQ. FT. OF EXISTING COMMERCIAL SPACE AND
CONSTRUCTION OFA 116,000 SQ. FT. HOME DEPOT HOME IMPROVEMENT STORE.
THE PLANNING BOARD IS THE LEAD AGENCY FOR THE PURPOSE OF SEQRA
REVIEW. THE BOARD WILL COMMENCE SITE PLAN/ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW OF
THE PROJECT AND ISSUE A SEQRA DETERMINATION OF SIGNIFICANCE. CROSS
REFERENCE: PZ 1-2002 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 2/13/02 TAX MAP NO. 72-7-2-3, 4 LOT
SIZE: 5.32 AC., 25.22 AC., 4.13 AC. SECTION: 179-22, 179-20
JON LAPPER, DAVE CARR & SHELLY JOHNSTON, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
STAFF INPUT
Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 12-2002, Home Depot, Meeting Date: March 26, 2002 “I have reviewed the
following materials in preparing these notes:
??
Site Plan Application and Long EAF
??
Project plans for The Home Depot NYS Route 9 including Cover Sheet, Sheet S-1, Sheets L-1
through L12 as prepared by the LA Group, dated January 30, 2002
??
Phase IA Literature Review and Archeological Sensitivity Assessment prepared by Hartgen
Archeological Associates, Inc., dated February 2002
??
End of Field Work Report prepared by Hartgen Archeological Associates, Inc., dated March 18,
2002
??
Traffic Impact Study Home Depot Northway Plaza Prepared by CME, dated February 15, 2002
??
Engineering Report for Stormwater Management System The Home Depot Home Improvement
Warehouse Prepared by The LA Group, dated January 30, 2002
The following notes are provided to the Planning Board to assist in the environmental (SEQRA) review of
the proposed project. In our judgment many of the impacts are consistent with short term impacts associated
with construction of facilities of this scale. However, there are a sufficient number of questions generated by
staff review and engineering review to preclude the board from reaching a SEQRA determination of
significance at this time. Additionally, the Long EAF submitted with the plans contains a number of
inconsistencies/conflicts with the project plans and associated materials. A corrected Long EAF should be
prepared by the applicant and submitted to the Board for review.
We have identified the following areas for discussion at this time.
Water
Municipal water services are available. Project plans will require the review by the Water Department. It is
anticipated adequate capacity/facilities are available.
Wastewater
It is propose that the project will be connected to municipal sewer. Correspondence from Mike Shaw,
Deputy Director of Wastewater confirms that a sewer district expansion is required. It is anticipated adequate
capacity is available.
Stormwater
The project plans provide for improvements to existing on site collection systems as well as the addition of
collection and treatment for the expansion of the site. The Stormwater Management Plan has been reviewed
by C.T. Male Associates. Their comments are provided under separate cover.
Traffic
A Traffic Impact Study has been prepared for the project: “Traffic Impact Study Home Depot at Northway
Plaza Town of Queensbury, NY” Prepared by Creighton Manning Engineering, LLP dated February 15,
2002. C.T. Male Associates has reviewed the traffic impact study (TIS) and provided preliminary comment in
correspondence dated March 22, 2002 (attached). Additionally, NYS DOT has review the TIS and provided
comment in correspondence dated March 19, 2002 (attached).
13
Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/26/02)
Briefly, the TIS concludes there will be minor impacts to operations and LOS of affected intersection that
can be mitigated with minor improvements (lane striping, signal timings) to the highway system. The plans
propose closure of a access point on Route 9 and conversion of an entrance to a right in right out only.
Parking/On Site Circulation
The plans identify a total of 322,283 sq. ft. commercial space less 12,800 storage space netting 309,483 sq. ft.
This is categorized as 149,500 sq. ft. office with the balance (159,983 sq. ft.) retail. The (proposed) parking
schedule calls for 5 spaces /1000 sq. ft. for the first 150,000 sq. ft. retail space (750 spaces), 4.5 spaces for that
area in excess of 150 K (45 spaces) and 1 space/300 sq. ft. of office (498) for a total of 1293 parking spaces
required. There are currently 1164 spaces (Part I EAF). The plans propose 1575.
We understand that as a practical measure the office tenant (Travelers) requires 6.0 spaces per 1000 sq. ft. of
office space. However, we believe a reduction in the parking fields is achievable and would lessen the hard
surface areas and construction impacts to adjacent wetlands and reduce resultant stormwater discharges.
Several parking locations are not consistent with generally accepted design principles. For instance, parking
identified along the Route 9 portion of the site as well as that at the building face of the existing office
building (pull in parking perpendicular to the road/office) is located so as to cause a conflict with the internal
circulation road. Consideration to eliminate these parking areas as other locations should be evaluated when
considering a reduction of the parking requirements.
Lighting
No illumination plans were presented. We utilize IESNA standards as guidance to the appropriate lighting
levels.
Cultural/Historic/Archeological
A Phase I A Literature Search and Archeological Sensitivity Analysis as well as a Phase IB Archeological
Reconnaissance (shovel test pits) have been performed for the proposed disturbed areas. The Phase IB
report has not yet been received at the time of this writing, however a letter report from Hartgen indicates no
artifacts have been identified on the project site.
Temporary/Construction Impacts
No cut/fill calculations have been provided to allow for an evaluation of these impacts including truck traffic
impacts that may be associated with filling activities. How will employees of the Traveler’s be accommodated
during demolition/construction activities.
Environmental/Ecological
The Long EAF submitted with the project noted that letter inquiries have been forwarded to NYS Natural
Heritage Inventory Program as well as US Fish and Wildlife. This office has not received a response from
these agencies at the time of writing.
Wetlands
Project plans identify US ACOE wetlands that may be impacted by construction activities. No filling of
wetlands is proposed, however the proposed retaining wall is located within approximately 20 feet of the
wetland. Additionally, stormwater discharges are directed to this wetland complex. Comments regarding the
stormwater discharges have been noted in CTM comments.”
MR. MAC EWAN-Staff notes.
MR. BROWN-I didn’t prepare these. Let me try and paraphrase them for you, unless you want to kind of
sum it for them a little bit.
MR. ROUND-As you know, this project requires a Petition for Rezoning. The Planning Board’s already
acted positively in that fashion, and you do have a site plan submission in front of you, and the Planning
Board is the lead agency for SEQRA review purposes. So you have to look at the project both from a site
plan review aspect as well as the Petition for Rezoning, before the Town Board can actually act on the
rezoning, and I know some members struggled with this, but we actually, you basically get 75% or 50%
through the site plan review process, you’re not going to be issuing a site plan review, but you’ve digested the
project from the aspect of the potential environmental impacts that are associated with the land development
proposal itself. So we’re looking at traffic, stormwater, lighting, parking, water, wastewater disposal are
typically the things you look at, the physical impacts of a project, and you’re also looking at the impacts
associated with the addition, with allowing the addition of commercial zoning in the Town. So this site plan,
and we struggled with one just last week, that we didn’t have a project attached to this. In this case we do
have a petition for rezoning and a site plan application that one might argue that this particular site plan
application really demonstrates the potential, the most significant potential environmental impacts associated
with land development within the context of the allowed zoning. So what we’ve tried to do for you is the
applicant’s going to make a presentation. The Town’s engineer has reviewed it. Jim Houston is here from
C.T. Male Associates. I think Jim Edwards is going to be here also. Jim Houston’s our noted expert in
stormwater, and other issues, and so Jim’s here to talk about that, and maybe just kind of have an open
14
Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/26/02)
discussion on that, and Jim Edwards will talk about some of the other elements, but our Staff notes that we
did forward to you and just, I’m sorry, to finish that thought, I think what the applicant is looking for is
closure of the SEQRA review process. So they’re looking for a SEQRA Negative Declaration. That would
allow the Town Board to move forward with the rezoning process and allow you to reach a conclusion, once
the property is rezoned, in the event it’s rezoned, to reach closure on the site plan review process. In our
notes, we’ve identified categorically those things that we’re looking at. Not looking down at a site plan detail
level, but in some instances, you really have to get down to the site plan level of detail in order to get your
hands on the impact. So with the water system we know this is going to be on municipal water. Wastewater,
the project is going to require an extension of the wastewater disposal district. So it’s called a sewer district
extension. We haven’t yet received those project plans, but we know, categorically and physically, what the
impacts are associated with that, and those are readily quantifiable. Stormwater. As you know, they propose
an on-site collection system, and actually propose to split the system that’s on site and retain an existing
discharge location for the southern portion of the property, and require a new collection and discharge
system for the northern portion of the property that they’re disturbing. Just generally paraphrasing some of
this information. So there are some technical issues about size of the system, retention rates, have we, but I
think we probably could reach the conclusion that they are able to manage stormwater successfully on this
site, but there are still some technical issues to get through. Traffic. They did provide a traffic impact
analysis, and I think we don’t contend with the findings, but there are some issues in regards to how the
analysis was performed, and it’s basically, we need to get through a discussion about some of these elements
to reach a conclusion on that. One of the impacts that we are concerned with is parking and on-site
circulation. We think they are all manageable, but there’s some questions to be asked and answered on that,
and our questions revolve around the quantity of parking required, the tenant for the plaza, not the project
applicant but the tenant for the plaza, Travelers has certain demands, based on their lease with the project,
with the property owner, and those are at six per thousand. Our new standards are going to require four and
a half per thousand, for the proposed use that’s in front of you, and together we think that the parking
proposed is slightly excessive, and so we’d like to see a reduction in parking. Reduction in parking relates to
additional green space, relates to reduction in stormwater impacts, relates to improvements in aesthetics. So
that’s an issue that maybe we’d like to talk about tonight. Lighting, there is no illumination plan, but we’ve
had confirmation from the applicant that they are going to conform to our proposed standards, in regards to
luminance levels, fixture heights, etc., so we don’t have a problem, conceptually, with those issues. Cultural,
historic, archeological impacts. I’ve had so many conversations about so many projects just recently, I don’t
know when we spoke about this last, but you have heard that a Phase IB, and that’s an actual on-site physical
investigation, has been conducted. We received a letter report. I don’t know. Have we received the IB
itself? So we have the letter report from the consultant who’s done the on-site investigation. They haven’t
identified any artifacts on the site. With archeological investigations and some of the other environmental
investigations, you generally, before you issue an approval, a site plan approval, you will require confirmation
letters. In the case of an archeological investigation, you would quire it from SHIPO, and that’s the State
Historic Preservation Office. In the case of environmental and ecological impacts, they have made the typical
solicitations to the regulatory agencies, in this case US Fish and Wildlife and the Natural Heritage programs,
are there any endangered species on the site that you might potentially impact? They’ve made those inquires.
They have not yet received responses from all the parties involved, and the applicant’s going to clarify some
of these issues. So, that’s out there. Wetlands. They propose not to impact any wetlands. They have done a
delineation by the Corps, and that relates to the stormwater system, and so there’s some interaction between
stormwater management and the wetlands, and also as construction impacts that might be associated with
wetlands. The plans present a project that doesn’t impact wetlands, but given that there are some elements of
concern about stormwater management, about constructability of the parking and retaining walls, that when
we get to the final end of the day, and the details are out there, can they still maintain a site plan that does still
present a project that doesn’t have those impacts, and I think the applicant’s confident that they can do that.
Our technical staff has looked at it and has some questions. So they need to answer some questions in front
of you tonight. The last one, temporary construction impacts, a project of this magnitude takes a significant
amount of time to construct. They are going to displace an existing parking area. So those questions that,
when you see a large magnitude project, what are you going to do about parking, how are you going to handle
circulation, how many trucks, what is their truck route, so on and so forth. So that’s, in a nutshell, those are
kind of the scope of the issues that we see that are in front of us. Jim Edwards from C.T. Male just walked
in, and I think what we’d like you to do is have the applicant present the project, because there has been
additional detail presented to us, that the Planning Board hasn’t seen, and then maybe before we go into this
responding to the comments, the applicant has responded to technical comments, but we received those just
this afternoon. The Planning Board does have them in hand. We haven’t had time to review those and digest
those, so, at that time, maybe I’ll invite the two engineers up, and we can have a discussion with the applicant,
and I think that might be the most productive way to handle tonight’s meeting. I’m open to suggestions,
Chairman MacEwan.
MR. MAC EWAN-I’ll turn it over to you.
MR. LAPPER-Thank you. For the record, Jon Lapper. With me is Dave Carr from the LA Group, the
project landscape architect; Shelly Johnston, from Creighton Manning Engineering, traffic engineer; behind
us Kevin Hastings, the project engineer from the LA Group, and Rich Lamont, from Greenberg Farrell
Architecture, and the architect for the site owner, Jim Hagan is here also, in case we have any questions on
any of the pre-existing buildings, and Roger Hershorn, who’s our client, who is representative of Home
15
Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/26/02)
Depot is here as well. I think Chris summed it up very well. What we are hopeful is that we can get to the
level of detail tonight to give you the comfort level that a negative declaration under SEQRA is appropriate at
this point. We feel that it is. Obviously, we just received the C.T. Male review comments yesterday, and
we’ve spent two days turning them around, and we think that some of those issues are site plan review issues
that we would deal with after the Town Board makes a, takes a vote on the rezoning, and we think that, in
terms of the impact issues, whether or not we can deal with stormwater, whether or not we can deal with
traffic impacts, that those issues are clear at this point. Part of the way it works in Queensbury is that the
engineers review and then send back a review letter, which I think has worked very well, but we’re fortunate,
tonight, to have the two Jims here. So that they can answer your questions, and I think that that will be
helpful. If we don’t get to the point where the Board is ready to issue a neg dec, I’ll ask at the end of the
night if we could be on your agenda, perhaps just for a resolution, next Tuesday, when you have a special
meeting, and the only reason that we’re asking for that is, One, because we think we have the issues
addressed, in terms of SEQRA, but also because it’s going to take time to schedule the public hearing and the
rezoning vote, at the Town Board, before we can get back to the Planning Board to look at the detailed site
plan issues, and Home Depot really has this on their agenda to start construction in June, and to be open by
the end of January, and the site is, not tricky or complicated, but because there are some grade issues with the
retaining walls, it’s just going to take a little longer than if it was a flat site, and there’s demolition of the
existing buildings as well. So they would like to get started because we don’t see this as overly complicated, in
terms of the impacts, but that, obviously, is the call of the Board. I guess what Chris suggested is we start
out with what’s changed since we were here last time, and the most significant change, in terms of the plan, is
that we’ve met twice with Staff and refined the architecture. The Board mentioned that that was an
important aspect of review, and even though the design guidelines are part of the proposed rather than the
current zoning, I’ve always presented, in the last few years, when the Board has asked, that we’ve presented
elevation drawings for your comment, and in this case, the issue is, as always, breaking up the façade of a
large building, so that it doesn’t seem so imposing. Based upon the two meetings with Chris, we started with
the prototype Home Depot, and I think, as you’ll acknowledge, it’s very different from the prototype now.
So I’d like to turn the microphone over to Rich Lamont and have him walk you through where we started,
and where we are, and then we can get into the comment letters and our responses.
RICH LAMONT
MR. LAMONT-Rich Lamont with Greenberg Farrell Architecture. My firm provides land development and
architectural consulting services to Home Depot, and I’m happy to say that we’re comfortable enough to
show you this plan tonight for the first time after, as Chris mentioned, we’ve been through a couple of
rounds of reviews with this Planning Staff, trying to understand the Town’s, what the Ordinance will be from
the Town for architectural guidelines. I’ve prepared this exhibit of the floor elevations to try to explain that
process that we’ve gone through. At the bottom, what you’ll see is what we refer to affectionately is Home
Depot’s Northeast Region Prototype, and absent any guidelines or any particular concerns from the Town,
this would be Home Depot’s preferred construction. It’s very consistent with Home Depot’s no frills kind of
warehouse utilitarian style store, and you’ve seen these in places as close as Amsterdam, Albany, Wilton, I
believe, is very similar to that as well. We heard that the Town was in the process of adopting some
architectural guidelines. So what we did, on our initial presentation to Chris and the Planning Staff, was to
provide what we consider to be a mild upgrade to that base building, and you can see that we’ve increased the
articulation of the front of the building, trying to break down the mass of the building, added scoring details
and things to try to provide a higher level of refinement, a higher level of detail. So this second elevation
from the bottom is actually the first elevation that we presented to Staff, and their comments were, we
basically weren’t capturing what the Town was after with your, with the new Ordinance, provided some
specific comments regarding pedestrian scale and breaking up of the mass and further articulation beyond
what we had attempted to do with this first upgrade. So that lead to a second presentation, which is the next
elevation above. You can see that we’ve introduced, in an effort to try to capture pedestrian scale, we’ve
provided a canopy across the front of the entire building, increasing the use of columns and things, which try
to create a pedestrian scale space along the front of the store, more conducive to pedestrian access and the
type of thing you might see in a downtown environment. So the other comments on the aesthetic aspects of
the building, there was discouraging comments about the use of orange, I’ll say. So we’ve minimized the use
of orange, and we presented this. Comments that we’ve received from Chris in particular were that, despite
the fact that we had attempted to do that, unfortunately, the length of the green canopy still provides the
illusion of this, or the effect of this appearing as a very big building, which we all know it is. Also, Chris was
not particularly pleased with how the garden center appeared to kind of not be included and integrated into
the design of the scheme of the building. We had taken out the orange from the canopies, in what we call the
poli houses, which are shade structures in the garden center, but have really done little more than that to jazz
that up, if you will. That’s lead to something that I think we’re actually very proud of, in that we’ve been able
to come up with something that Home Depot can live with, which seems to be a huge step to the intent of
the Ordinance. I think the most helpful comment that Chris made to us was I think in terms of storefronts,
and in an effort to break up that large canopy, you can see that we’ve increased or we’ve broken up the
building into five or six distinct segments with a slightly different style, although there’s a continuous
vocabulary of architecture through it. We’ve used, we’ve elaborated a little bit on the canopies. We’ve
introduced some ornamental ironwork with the canopies, and we’ve created distinct sections that are slightly
contrasting colors, and we’ve also alternated the base background of the building with a light and a dark tan
color, again, to try to break up that illusion, that appearance of a massive building. We’ve taken some
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masonry elements and put them across the front of the garden center, and we’ve increased, or we’ve
incorporated a tan fence in the garden center area and dark green canopies to try to bring the appearance of
the garden center into that architectural scheme, rather than just having it be a fenced area off to the side, and
with Chris’ helpful comments, I think that we’ve gotten to where the Ordinance is trying to break this up and
make it a little more pleasant for the pedestrians, and we certainly hope that you agree.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s quite an evolution from the first drawing that you went with.
MR. SANFORD-Have you done this elsewhere, this type of a?
MR. LAMONT-No. As you might expect, we get this comment about the building looking so large all the
time, and, like I said, I think Chris’ comment in particular saying think storefronts, gave us a little bit of a
different approach from other things that we’ve done in the past, where, instead of looking at it as one big
structure, you actually focus on smaller segments of it and break it up, and it works.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Is the height of the front on the final drawing the same as the height on the first
drawing?
MR. LAMONT-Yes. It’s approximately the same. It’s about 35 feet, I’m sorry 38 feet here, the top of that.
It was 32 on this one but 36 on that one. So it varies slightly.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Do you need that, that’s alright, I’ll ask it later.
MR. LAMONT-The thing is to try to get a variation of heights, you know, we can’t go any lower than the
roof. So we have to bring things up.
MR. VOLLARO-What are you going to do about accent lighting? Have you got any ideas in that area at all,
as far as lighting the front facades are concerned?
MR. LAMONT-Well, one thing that they do is they have, on the first couple of light poles in the front of the
parking lot, the first couple of light poles across the front of the store, they would have a spotlight that shines
down toward the front of the store to try to, you know, brighten it up a little bit. Aside from that, there’s
very simple lighting underneath the canopies and the parking lot lighting. The lighting is really very minimal.
MR. VOLLARO-I guess want to direct my question to Mr. Round, since he’s helped you so much on this
architecture. The lighting across the front, are we going to put any sort of architectural light poles in there,
similar to a streetscape? Is that, do you have that idea?
MR. ROUND-We haven’t suggested any, I think, we didn’t want to go too far in front of the Planning Board
in this regard, and give too much direction to the applicant without your buy in. So we’re open, and those are
the kind of things you can talk about as you see a lighting plan. It is still a plaza. We did talk, and we
commented elsewhere in our notes about pedestrian connections. These types of facilities are really
automotive oriented though. No matter how much pedestrian friendly you want to get, it’s still, you know,
it’s a cash and carry kind of place. You pull your vehicle up, and so trying to get real Main Street type of
theme is really not the most appropriate means to go.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s what I was driving at, were you heading in that direction?
MR. ROUND-No. We really weren’t. We’re just trying to break up building mass, and not necessarily, we
said think pedestrian scale, but when you first look at it, down below, it looks like O’Hara Airport. It looks
like an airport terminal, and then we’ve gotten it, and it’s probably won an architectural award some time ago,
but it’s not appropriate in a commercial shopping plaza. So that’s what we’re trying to get away from.
MR. VOLLARO-Maybe should define, this term “pedestrian scale” has been, I’ve started to read it, hear it.
Can you give me a small definition of pedestrian scale? What are we talking about when we say that?
MR. LAMONT-Well, it’s one of those touchy feely kind of design concepts where it relates to the experience
that you feel as you go through a space, and pedestrian scale is, it’s difficult to describe. The first thing, in the
context of something like this, or a streetscape that I think of immediately is canopies, because canopies bring
the ceiling down close to your head and starts to define spaces that you’re comfortable when you’re in them.
You’re familiar with your surroundings. There’s an enclosure more or less, as opposed to being along the
side of a building that is say, you know, 50 feet tall with no breaks or a skyscraper or something, where you’ve
got this wind and this sense of things falling on your head and stuff. It’s not a very, conducive to being
comfortable as a pedestrian.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s like being in the inside of a 747 hangar, where the airplane looks smaller.
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MR. LAMONT-Correct. When you think about the places that you like to be, it’s under the umbrella on
your back porch, or in your back yard. It’s on your back porch, it’s under the tree. It’s a space that’s defined
and enclosed. That makes people feel comfortable to be in, as opposed to a hangar.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. LAMONT-So immediately in this context, when we say pedestrian scale, the first thing I think of is
canopies, and that was a big part of what we did.
MR. VOLLARO-Thank you.
MR. STROUGH-Rich and Chris, I’ve got to give you credit. I think you did a great job of breaking up that
building and getting some nice looking architectural features to it. I mean, that’s nice.
MR. ROUND-Thanks. That’s a lot coming from you, John. I mean that earnestly. I think John is one of the
people who’s sensitive to design issues, and I think that does, coming from Bob, I don’t know. It flows
downhill, it’s quantifiable.
MR. MAC EWAN-You do realize this is all on the record.
MR. ROUND-I don’t have any problem with the comments I’ve made so far.
MR. STROUGH-I’m not easy to make happy. I like that.
MR. MAC EWAN-These are one set of minutes I will really scrutinize, too. Anything else?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Back to the canopy. When I look at the third rendering, it looks like the canopy is,
and the walkway goes almost the entire length. Where does it go in the fourth rendering?
MR. LAMONT-Well, what we did was, to help with that, breaking up, we actually did break it up, and from a
functional perspective, we don’t really expect that too many people are going to be walking from one end to
the other. So there is actually a section of canopy standing here alone, almost an ornament in itself. Then it
repeats again here in like a triple section.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. So I wanted to know, those little gables are those three, they come out a little
bit.
MR. LAMONT-Yes. They’re about 16 feet out from the building, and they basically cover the entire
sidewalk.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-All right. Then they’re not just like a dormer effect on the roof. They actually are
functional.
MR. LAMONT-No. Like said, they are literally broken now. We’re trying to chase the storefront look.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-And then the section to the far left, the bigger section on my left, right there. Is that
the drive through place?
MR. LAMONT-Yes. That’s the lumber canopy, and in this particular view, I actually have a drawing, I could
show you that explains that a little bit, but that does come out about 45 feet or so from the building, and that
does help, it has a big effect on the appearance of the front of the building, as far as the articulation, because
you have a section that’s way out, and anybody that has shopped at Home Depot is familiar with how that
functions. It’s great on a day like today, when you’re buying plywood or something, you have an area where
you can park your car under a roof, and load your car. So this area does come out, and then this is the actual
entry vestibule. So that comes out 16 feet, and the canopy above that is similar to the other sections that
cover the sidewalk.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-I’m impressed. It’s nice.
MR. LAMONT-Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-What else have you got for us?
MR. LAPPER-Well, now that we’re off to a good start, we told you that we would come up with something
that you would like for the architecture. We’d like to get into the Staff comments and then the traffic and
stormwater C.T. Male comments one by one, with the intention of making you comfortable that you could
pass a negative declaration, because we’ve dealt with the impact issues, and leave the detailed site plan issues
for the site plan discussion. I guess we’ll start off with the response to the Staff comments and then go into
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the engineering comments. So I’m going to ask Dave Carr from the LA Group to walk us through our
responses, two pages, a page and a half of responses to the Staff comments.
MR. CARR-My name is Dave Carr with the LA Group. I’m a landscape architect. I think what I’ll do is I’ll
just read our responses, and if you have any questions, you can obviously interrupt me, but the first item is
cultural, historic, and archeological, under the Staff notes, and our response to that is the close of field work,
as described in the Hartgen March 18, 2002 letter completes the required consultation process. The IB
testing was carried out in accordance with the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation
requirements to adequately test the property to assure potential buried cultural resources would not be at risk
during project development, and basically what that means is Hartgen’s office has issued what’s called an end
of field letter, which has been given to the Town and also sent to Parks, and the IB report follows that. So
that’s where we are at this point.
MR. LAPPER-They did 40 shovel tests on site, which is similar to what we did when we had that unfortunate
situation at the CVS Plaza with the cemetery, where they do a grid pattern and they come into the field and
do shovel tests, and the report describes the shovel tests and the location and there’s a chart or a layout
showing where those tests were, and they came up with nothing historical. They found some recent disposal
area and that was it. So that’s been documented.
MR. MAC EWAN-When do you expect to get this IB report?
MR. LAPPER-Well, the IB report is, all that is is a summary of what I just said and what was in the letter.
It’s just going to say they did the report and they came up with nothing, and that’s what the letter says.
MR. CARR-Basically the report will also include all 40 of those shovel tests and, you know, their locations
and document what they found, which was nothing.
MR. MAC EWAN-And when do you expect to get the report?
MR. CARR-I would assume the report would be done possibly by the end of this week or the beginning of
next week, and that goes to Parks for their signoff.
MR. MAC EWAN-How long does that take?
MR. CARR-It could take a while. I mean, we just received a letter from Parks this week on the IA, or the end
of last week on the IA, which was completed probably a month ago.
MR. MAC EWAN-So they’re running 30 to 40 days behind?
MR. CARR-Probably at the least, yes.
MR. LAPPER-But in terms of SEQRA, you can make mention that we’ve done the work, we’ve covered it,
and certainly when, you know, if the letter comes in before site plan review, if there was a problem, we could
address it then, but there’s not going to be a problem because the work was done.
MR. MAC EWAN-Well, part of doing SEQRA, too, is having a neg dec so that you don’t have a problem
once you get into site plan.
MR. LAPPER-Right, but we did the shovel tests. We hired a respected archeological firm that the Town
Historian has worked with and they’ve communicated with her about their methodology. So, I mean, I think
we’ve covered it, just in terms with a State agency, you know, if we need another agency permit, like a DOT
permit, you get that after the fact. You don’t always, the State agency’s operate at their own speed. So we
can’t control that, but we did what was asked, and fortunately it came up negative, obviously, there could
have been artifacts, and then we would be in a different process.
MR. CARR-The next item is environmental and ecological. Attached is the United States Fish & Wildlife
data search indicating no federally endangered or threatened species are known to exist at the site, which we
did submit to the Town. The National Heritage letter has not been received, but would not present any new
information, and would recommend an on-site inspection. This site has already been developed and has been
examined by qualified biologists from the LA Group. Based on these inspections and prior consultation with
the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, it can be concluded that rare, threatened, and endangered species
are not at risk, as a result of development of this property.
MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Carr, when you go through this, could you kind of tell us what document you’re talking
to? We have a stack of documents here.
MR. CARR-Right. I’m sorry. These are the Town Staff notes, the last page.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
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MR. CARR-Yes. These are the Staff notes from the Town, and it’s the last page. It’s Page Three, second to
the last paragraph, environmental/ecological.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. CARR-The next item is wetlands, and if you’d like, I could read the Staff comment. The Staff comment
states “Project plans identify US Army Corps of Engineer Wetlands that may be impacted by construction
activities. No filling of wetlands is proposed. However, the proposed retaining wall is located within
approximately 20 feet of the wetlands. Additionally, stormwater discharges are directed to the wetland
complex. Comments regarding the stormwater discharges have been noted in the C.T. Male comments”, and
I think we’ll discuss those later, but our response to the wetland issues are, the project does not propose any
fills of federally regulated areas. The project does not involve discharge of dredge or fill materials into
federally regulated areas in excess of the 4,000 square feet, the current nation-wide permit limit, above which
pre-construction notice is required. The nation-wide permit program does not require notification when a
project does not involve disturbances to waters of the United States. The nation-wide permit are a means to
focus the resources of the Army Corps of Engineers as stated in the Background section of the nation-wide
permit, which specifically states, and I quote “The nation-wide permit program allows the Corps to maintain
protection of the aquatic environment while allowing the Corps to focus limited resources towards more
extensive evaluation of projects with the potential for causing environmentally damaging adverse effects”.
The requirements of the federal rules have been met. The wetland delineation was completed in accordance
with the current method. Basically, what the long and short of that is the wetlands were flagged by LA
Group biologists, and the flags were picked up and surveyed by our surveyor. Basically, under the nation-
wide permit process, the Corps is not involved unless there are any impacts over 4,000 square feet, and we are
not proposing any impact.
MR. STROUGH-Mr. Carr, when do you want to get into a serious discussion of stormwater review? Do
you want to do that later?
MR. CARR-Yes, and that’s, as Jon mentioned, Kevin Hastings from our office is here to discuss those details.
MR. MAC EWAN-And before Board members ask any questions, I want to hear from C.T. Male and their
perspective, and maybe that’ll alleviate a lot of questions we may have.
MR. CARR-Okay. Now I’d like to jump to EAF Revisions. I believe on the first page of the comments, the
Staff notes prepared by Chris, there’s a paragraph in the middle that states some inconsistencies with the
EAF, and I believe this was probably from the fact that the EAF was submitted in December, I believe, with
the original submission, and there was a question whether there would be some inaccuracies or some changes
from that point to now, and we did look at that, and basically our statement is, in this letter, a review of the
EAF has been completed in order to identify any critical inconsistencies. A revised page 4 is included to
address the issues described below. One of the inconsistencies is the number of parking spaces has been
revised to accommodate lease requirements of Travelers Insurance. The EAF originally reported 1,485
spaces to be provided and the actual number will be 1,575 spaces. So that number has been revised.
Secondly, the number of vehicle trips is correct at 402 trips on Saturday. The total expected vehicle trips are
515 with 113 already existing due to the operation of the existing retail facilities. Using a bypass credit of
25% reduces the 402 to 302 vehicles per hour which are the new trips, and the reason why that came up is,
the EAF, the original EAF, was submitted before the traffic, the detailed traffic study was submitted, but
Shelly had given these those numbers, and they are still accurate, and those are our responses, as far as the
Town’s Staff notes.
MR. ROUND-Could I just make a couple of comments here? This is the best way to do this. I think, under
Cultural, Historic, Archeological, we can confirm that that’s an appropriate process to follow, without
confirmation from ORP’s, we can give you that kind of response. Environmental and ecological, and that
relates to the inconsistencies on the EAF, the EAF indicates that you haven’t received responses from those
regulatory agencies. So if we revise the EAF to say that we’ve received those, there are no impacts, or there
are no threatened or endangered species to be on the site, and then wetlands is something that I’m going to
let Jim handle because we’re well aware what that nation-wide permit process is, and I guess the conversation
we had prior to the meeting was that we’re showing a retaining wall within 20, I said 20 feet, Jim’s told me
that in some instances it’s within three feet, and so, again, is the stormwater basin appropriately sized? And
we’ve had conversations, the applicant thinks it is. We need confirmation that it is, and if it is adequately
sized, then, you know, is the retaining wall going to be far enough away to be sure that we aren’t going to
have an impact to wetlands? So that’s the kind of, you know, it’s kind of the nuts and bolts aspect that we’re
trying to get down to, but you can go into the C.T. Male.
MR. LAPPER-Just to explain that, once we flag the wetlands, Dave designed the site so that we would stay
the heck away from them, because we didn’t want to have to ask for a permit. So, I mean, that was the way
the process went was to delineate them and then to do the design, and there was a question that we’ll get to,
C.T. Male how do we build the retaining wall in that section and not build it from the wetland, and we’ve
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now checked with the contractors and we built from the non-wetland side. So we’re keenly aware of not
having to go ask for another permit or approval, just by staying away from the wetlands, and that’s the plan.
MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Chairman, I’d like to ask just a simple question, if we may, on this side of the table here.
The Page Number Four that’s replacing Page Number Four in the previously submitted EAF, is that the only
change to this EAF that brings this up to final revision?
MR. LAPPER-That was all we said, but Chris just said that we should also reference that we got the letter
from Fish and Wildlife now.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So there is more than just Page Four that has to be revised. Chris, is that correct?
MR. ROUND-I think that’s what we’re talking about right now.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Thank you.
MR. LAPPER-I think that’s the only other change, just that we have that letter.
MR. STROUGH-Well, the drainage flow is into the Champlain drainage basin, not Halfway Brook drainage,
not, yes, okay.
MR. LAPPER-Halfway Brook is in the Champlain drainage basin.
MR. STROUGH-Right.
MR. ROUND-You can go ahead to your next section, Dave.
JIM HOUSTON
MR. HOUSTON-Jim Houston with C.T. Male. Could I just add one thing? I just want to add one point of
clarification on the wetlands issue. They’ve indicated they’ve gone out and they have identified the limits of
the wetlands and have flagged those boundaries and then sent surveyors out to delineate where that wetland
is, which typically is done whatever is, and they’ve indicated, based on that, there’s no intrusion into that
wetlands, and that’s rightfully said that there’s no permits or required notification at that time, but usually the
Corps checks or makes a jurisdictional determination that that boundary that was delineated is proper and
agrees with what was flagged. Now, I know they have wetland biologists that can identify those things, and I
don’t know if there’d be much difference between what the Corps would arrive at and what their wetlands
experts have arrived at, but there is, their determination that there is no impact is dependent on their
delineation, and it has not been backed up or, you know, reviewed by the Corps of Engineers, and that’s just
a point I wanted to make about that.
MR. LAPPER-And we have to make an important point here, that the law does not require that if you’re not
doing a, if you’re not doing a disturbance, you don’t have to go get the Corps. If you’re doing a disturbance,
and you want to prove that it’s only a half acre, so you need one level of a permit rather than another, you’re
always going to go to the Corps, so that you know what permit you’re in. Obviously, we could ask them, but
we’re not required to, and under the circumstances, if there’s a disturbance that is unpermitted, that’s a
violation and the Corps will come after you and that would be a problem. It’s something that the project
applicant is allowed to take the risk. We’re not doing a disturbance, but to get into that whole thing with the
Corps and to take two months to have them come verify it is not necessary when we have hired a licensed
company, the LA Group, and their biologists have said that we’re not.
MR. STROUGH-Well, if I could interject, Mr. Chairman, for just a minute.
MR. MAC EWAN-Is that accurate, that statement?
MR. ROUND-Yes, I don’t know. It’s not uncommon to ask for verifications, in my experience. You can do
it with or without it, and I guess where we’re at is we’re relying that there’s not an impact, and I think the
error for margin, in this case, isn’t very large. If this was a wetland on site and we’re 100 feet away from it,
there’s a larger error for margin in that case.
MR. LAPPER-Well, there’s a tenth of an acre margin for error that we’re not even using because you can do
a tenth of an acre without getting a permit.
MR. MAC EWAN-But typically doesn’t the Corps just say it’s nonjurisdictional and we have no interest?
MR. ROUND-You won’t get those kind of responses. I think we’re each correct. You don’t go and say, the
purpose of the nation-wide permit process is so you don’t need to have correspondence with the Corps.
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MR. MAC EWAN-I guess what I’m trying to do, in the interest of trying to move things along here, is Staff
comfortable with their position on this, that we don’t need to pursue this any farther? That’s what I’m
looking for.
MR. ROUND-Let’s go to C.T. Male comments and stormwater, and maybe we can confirm that.
MR. MAC EWAN-Let’s let them finish up with their presentation here, then.
MR. CARR-On the same point, there’s also, if you go out in the field, I’m not a wetland biologist, but this
wetland here happens to be very well defined because of the ravine and the slope, and it does happen to
follow the toe of the slope in this situation. It doesn’t always do that, but in this situation it does, and I’m not
saying that we feel more comfortable with our location because of that fact, because we’ve been working with
the Army Corps of Engineers for years. We’ve done wetland work all over the State. I have no question that
the line is the line, and as Jon mentioned, it is the law. Normally the Corps doesn’t want to get involved if it’s
not their jurisdiction because basically they just don’t have the time.
MR. ROUND-I guess, we can confirm that. Jim’s not a wetland biologist. They do have, on staff at C.T.
Male, it’s the same level of expertise that’s available, and we can get confirmation so that we are comfortable
with the approach that’s being taken.
MR. STROUGH-Well, can I ask a quick question?
MR. ROUND-Yes.
MR. STROUGH-Would the Army Corps of Engineers be concerned about the impact of the potential
development, such as stormwater runoff?
MR. ROUND-As long as you’re compliant with the nation-wide permit, and there’s a number of nation-wide
permits that are available and one relates to disturbance, one relates to discharge, and as long as they’re in
compliance with that, it’s not necessary to go and seek their permission.
MR. STROUGH-Well, my concern was this, and, Jim, you’ve been up on the site?
MR. HOUSTON-Yes, I have.
MR. STROUGH-And I was up on the site yesterday, and I ran into Kevin, and so I spent the afternoon
tromping around in the woods. There’s two artesian streams that I identified, one is north of the site, and the
other one is near the parking area that’s currently used as the rear area parking area for Travelers Insurance,
and from that artesian stream was a brown, oily residue type of color on the surface of the stream in a
significantly heavy dose, and that drains into the wetland, of course, and that drains into the pond that’s the
Pineview Cemetery pond which directly drains into Halfway Brook which is a Class A stream. So, you know,
backing up the trail, and I think these, and I said to Kevin, I think these problems can be resolved, but I think
the stormwater of the site is probably contributing to what appears to be some pollution. So, that’s why I’m
asking, because that’s contributing to those wetlands, which contributes to the whole system, of why the
Army Corps of Engineers might have an interest in this, to make sure that the stormwater plan is efficient.
MR. HOUSTON-Yes. To just respond to that, the Corps of Engineers would be concerned about
permanent damage to the wetlands, either filling or erosion potential that could occur in the wetlands, and
with a couple of the point of discharges that are currently shown on there, I think there could be some
damage to that, but I think it can be designed around, and so we can talk about that or try to come up with a
solution or what we’ve done in other places in similar type circumstances.
MR. STROUGH-Okay. Thank you.
MR. LAPPER-Okay. Moving along. Shelly, why don’t you give your traffic responses next.
MS. JOHNSTON-Sure.
MR. ROUND-Shelly, before you start, did you receive, Scott Sopczyk had forwarded to me, just this
afternoon, some comments, and they’re more of practical application of some of the physical design, in
regards to driveway closure, the right in driveway, some signal phase, and I’ll pass it along to you.
MR. LAPPER-We would view it as site plan issues.
MR. ROUND-Okay.
MS. JOHNSTON-Thank you.
MR. ROUND-You’re very good for getting that on the record, Jon.
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MR. LAPPER-Just because we design, the geometry is what we look at site plan rather than (lost words).
MS. JOHNSTON-We actually received a couple of comment letters, one from the Department of
Transportation, and the Town of Queensbury Staff notes had no specific comments as a related to the traffic
impact study. The comments are from C.T. Male Associates, that we can address. I can go through the
DOT letter also, if the Board would like.
MR. MAC EWAN-It would probably be more appropriate if you just want to summarize.
MS. JOHNSTON-Sure.
MR. MAC EWAN-If any specific questions come up, you can answer them.
MS. JOHNSTON-Sure. It was, what I consider generally a favorable letter. They agreed with our trip
generation and distribution. They agreed with what we presented as a potential impact to the signalized
intersections along Route 9, starting at Wal-Mart, the site driveways, and 9 and 254. They asked for some
more detail that you would expect during the permit process with DOT, more detail about the design of the
driveways, and similar to a Staff comment about pedestrian accommodations, and again, we envision that that
would come through during the site plan review process. I think that’s a good summary. C.T. Male’s
comments, they had about 10 comments. I’m just going to go through those, summarize the comment
briefly, and then what our response is. They commented that there were two driveways on Route 9, south of
the signalized driveway, and they asked if they were both taken into account, and both of those driveways
were taken into account in both our traffic counts and our analysis, but during the peak hours, we found that
those two unsignalized driveways, by Monroe Muffler, on the southwest corner of the site, they’re used very
minimally during the peak hours. As you can imagine, it’s difficult to get in and out, particularly for left turns.
So we analyzed them as one intersection, because the operation is essentially the same for both of them. So
we have taken into account the traffic generated, or using that driveway and what the operation is. The
proposal, as you may recall, is to consolidate those driveways, eliminate left turns at unsignalized locations,
and just create one right in/right out only driveway. The next comment had to do with the use of the ITE
Trip Generation rates, versus, essentially doing traffic counts at existing Home Depots, and what we did was
use the ITE Trip Generation for home improvement superstores, because that’s generally the methodology
that New York State DOT requires. DOT’s comment letter specifically addressed the trip generation and
they concurred that it looked reasonable. We have limited information from other home improvement
stores, only one that’s in the general area that’s consistent with ITE Trip Generation rates. There are others
that we have that are a little varying. If anything I think our trip generation estimate is a little high, which
would give us more conservative results.
MR. ROUND-Can I comment on that?
MS. JOHNSTON-You certainly may.
MR. ROUND-I’m going to throw you a bone on this one. The A/GFTC, I don’t know if this is the
numbers that you consulted, in your comment you indicated that trip generation rates are generally 40 to 50%
less than ITE published figures, and we’ve confirmed that locally, with Lowe’s Home Improvement Center,
that the trip generation rates are generally 50% lower during the week day and 40% lower during the Saturday
peak hours. They’re lower than the published rate. So, you know, we had some concerns. I think that’s one
of our major concerns in this whole quadrant, the 9 and 254 area, is traffic, and so, granted, DOT is looking
at it and C.T. Male’s looking at it, but we’ve had conversations that DOT really doesn’t look too much further
north than Saratoga. We respect Creighton Manning’s ability, but Creighton Manning is working for a project
applicant, and so, you know, we have strong reservations about trip generation rates and the geometry, but
given that these numbers are, you know, we validate them locally, we’ve got a greater comfort level with that.
MR. HUNSINGER-You mentioned the Saturday, it was the Saturday trip rates that are, what caused the
concern.
MS. JOHNSTON-Basically, if we took those lower volumes, we took a more conservative route, because if
we took those lower volumes, we’d actually be coming up with a, now that he’s opened the door, I’ll just
elaborate a little bit, we’d end up with lower volumes than what would be generated if the shopping plaza
were fully occupied right now. So, to present somewhat of a net increase. We present it in a more
conservative way. The next question has to do with the garden center and why the trip generation rate was
not applied to the garden center area itself, and again, we are following the New York State DOT Region I
methodology. We’ve done several Home Depots in Region I and several Lowe’s in Region I and other
projects, and basically we do what we’re told to do. That’s what DOT’s asked us to do.
MR. MAC EWAN-Hereafter that referred to as the blue store.
MS. JOHNSTON-Thank you. I appreciate that. I was struggling for words. DOT did sign off on the trip
generation. The next comment had to do with seasonal traffic fluctuations along Route 9. We do know that
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the area of Route 9 does fluctuation, the traffic volumes do fluctuate seasonally, not only in the summer, but
also during the Christmas shopping season. We did our traffic counts during what we consider our more
average condition and looked at trip generation on an average condition, recognizing that there are
fluctuations in both trip generation and background traffic. We presented an average operating condition in
the analysis.
MR. HUNSINGER-At what point would seasonal traffic become a large enough concern so that it would
skew your averages? I’m thinking, for example, summer. If, you know, the tourist season, you know, they
always talk about extending the shoulder seasons, you know, into the fall and earlier in the spring. If that
were to start to grow, at what point would the seasonal traffic become significant enough to warrant further
investigation?
MS. JOHNSTON-Generally what happens, if I were doing, for example, a shopping center, traffic impact
study for a shopping center, you design to accommodate those peak demands, like your turning lanes are long
enough to accommodate the trip, the traffic during the Christmas shopping season. If your averages start
getting up higher, you would account for that in your background traffic, when you counted the traffic.
There is less seasonal variability with a home improvement store than there is a shopping center, for example,
but it comes out in the design, right. The next comment from C.T. Male, the background traffic volume
increase considers 150,000 square foot mall expansion, and has the Town commented on the status of the
expansion with respect to the square footage. The traffic impact study included the approved expansion at
Aviation Mall and the proposed or future 150,000 square foot expansion. We worked with Chris’ office and
got copies of the traffic impact studies that were a part of the record for the Aviation Mall analysis, the EIS.
So we did include both of those numbers, and it did come from the Town. A significant percentage of the
existing traffic in the plaza can be attributed to the Travelers office. When estimating existing trip rates, the
mix of office and existing retail space should be considered. We did consider the specific trip generation
characteristic of this plaza, which it is different because there is the office mix in there, but you can tell, one
of the characteristics that you can tell that we’ve accounted for that is the PM peak hour traffic at that mall
now, Northway Plaza, is about 200 trips higher in the PM peak hour, versus the Saturday peak hour. When
we took a credit, if you will, or accounted for some of the occupied retail space that was going to be
demolished, we only took a trip generation credit for retail space. We always recognized that the office space
was not being reduced. We weren’t changing the office trip generation. So any kind of adjustments to the
traffic volumes that we’ve done there to account for demolition space or reoccupied space at the plaza all had
to do with the retail area.
MR. METIVIER-So you did take into account that Travelers doesn’t work on Saturdays?
MS. JOHNSTON-Definitely. That’s why the existing volumes are higher in the PM peak hours versus the
Saturday. The next comment had to do with Traveler’s main entrance being in close proximity to Quaker
Road, and at the same time, the traffic volumes that were presented on the figure for the driveway near
Quaker Road were relatively low, and they asked us to confirm those existing traffic volumes, and we did go
back and look at the actual traffic turning movement count that was done at that driveway. We sent a
technician out and actually counts traffic coming in and out of the plaza driveway, and it is low during those
peak hours. As you know, you cannot turn left out of the driveway, and during the peak hours, the driveway
essentially becomes a right in/right out only. It’s difficult to get in and out at that location, and the on-site
vehicles go up to the traffic signal onto Route 9 to make a left turn out of there. So we did confirm those
volumes. C.T. Male’s comment, it appears, from review of the site plans, that additional retail space will be
added to the outbuildings adjacent to the Post Office. Was this space accounted for, and what additional
traffic could be expected from this space? We looked at the net change in retail area, what was occupied,
what was being demolished. Of that demolished area, what was occupied, what was vacant. So we did take
into account the new space that would be built, but only in net numbers, not actual buildings and where they
were with regard to, you know, next to the Post Office or not next to the Post Office. We looked at net retail
numbers. So it was included in the traffic impact study. The comment, the traffic report and site plans do
not address the existing and proposed pedestrian access to the Plaza, I guess we touched on that just briefly,
that we will look at that in more detail. I expect we’ll probably make some pedestrian accommodations at the
signalized intersection, but we’ll work with the Board and the Department to try and incorporate those
comments, and the next comment is just a statement of fact that some of the work that Dave’s office has
done with regard to cleaning up the driveway and the throat of the main entrance, consolidating curb cuts and
it helps to improve the operation of the signalized driveway access to Route 9, and we just noted that
comment. There’s no response necessary.
MR. LAPPER-Questions on traffic?
MR. HUNSINGER-I just found that whole analysis quite interesting, about what the traffic would be if the
Plaza were again to be fully occupied with retail uses, as opposed to a home improvement store, because the
home improvement store generates less traffic, and, you know, your conclusion that there would actually be
less traffic with this project as opposed to the existing Plaza being full I found quite interesting, and I just
wondered if there was any quantitative data that might back that up, but then of course you realize that
there’s been other development in the area since the Plaza was full. So you probably couldn’t gain any insight
from any historical numbers, but, I don’t know, were any looked at, though?
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MS. JOHNSTON-Not historic numbers. What we looked at, the basis of my statement is trip generation
data, and specific trip generation characteristics of this Plaza plus the ITE Trip Generation for a shopping
center.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MS. JOHNSTON-And the bottom line is home improvement superstores generate fewer trips per square
foot of retail area.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MS. JOHNSTON-And that’s the basis of our trip generation is we look at the size of a building to come up
with the trip generation, and that’s because so much of it is used for warehouse and storage and bigger
walking aisles and things like that. So, you have not much of a change in square footage of the Plaza to
accommodate the Home Depot. So when you compare retail trip generation to a home improvement store,
the retail is higher per square foot. It’s just based on ITE Trip Generation data for shopping centers.
MR. SANFORD-Just one quick question on trip generation. In this area here you have a large competitor,
one could say they’re very similar type of stores. When you come up with your basic, core number, is that
factored in versus, let’s say Lowe’s, where there wasn’t a Home Depot? Did they have a higher trip
generation number to begin with than you’re going in with, so you’re basically not factoring that into the
algorithm at all?
MS. JOHNSTON-That’s right. There is inherent variability in the data that we use. We take, it’s based on
traffic counts done at a variety of stores, and then come up with a composite trip generation rate. So there is
variability, just by doing traffic counts of various uses, and inherently you’re going to have some places where
you have competition and some places where you don’t. The same argument could be made for example the
volume of traffic passing the site. Some retailers think that their volume, their trip generation’s going to be
higher if there’s more traffic on the adjacent street. There is inherent variability. It’s just an average.
MR. SANFORD-I guess going into that Plaza, maybe your numbers are perhaps overstated because you’re
not factoring in the fact that some people might just go right by and go down to the competitor.
MS. JOHNSTON-Definitely.
MR. SANFORD-So, I just figure it is relevant. I’m surprised that it’s not factored at all.
MS. JOHNSTON-It’s difficult to quantify, just because of, it depends on your access for your study, how
convenient it is to get in and out, where your predominant traffic flow is, whether you’re near side or far side
from the predominant flow of traffic during the peak hours. There’s so many variabilities. Again, we just
look at an average condition.
MR. LAPPER-But it’s a good point, and Roger wouldn’t want to consider it because it’s his competitor, but
it’s a good point.
MR. SANFORD-Okay. Thanks.
MS. JOHNSTON-I’d like to think it’s an exact science, but it’s really not.
MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it?
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
JIM EDWARDS
MR. EDWARDS-I guess if I could add something quickly, sorry to interrupt. Jim Edwards, C.T. Male
Associates. It appears the responses to our comments have been addressed adequately, and the project is
being served by two State roads. So let’s face it, DOT has a lot of say as to how this thing gets developed and
approved and what mitigation efforts get put into place, but as far as our comments are concerned, we have
confidence they’ve been addressed adequately at this point.
MR. LAPPER-Thanks, Jim.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else you wanted to add?
MR. EDWARDS-Regarding traffic at this point? No.
MR. MAC EWAN-Any part of the project? Because I think your fairly well done.
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MR. LAPPER-We could now talk about stormwater.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Let’s do that. Then I want to hear, I basically would like you guys to summarize
on all their comments. Then we’ll go to our public hearing, and take it from there.
KEVIN HASTINGS
MR. HASTINGS-Kevin Hastings for the LA Group. Response to C.T. Male’s comments, I guess we’ll start
with Number One. Basically, their first comment questions the quality, water quality, and discharge rate to
the cemetery property, which is where the wetland that’s in question is located. Our basic, to paraphrase our
response, the new basin will actually treat 12 acres of additional parking area that previously discharged
untreated to the wetland. So that’s the key to our response is that the basin will actually improve what’s
already going on now by putting in a basin.
MR. STROUGH-Can I ask you some questions about that particular basin?
MR. MAC EWAN-John, let’s let him go through. What I want to do is I want to let these guys go through. I
want to hear the summary from our engineers before I open it up to the Planning Board members.
MR. STROUGH-Okay. Well, I didn’t know if you wanted to do that or discuss things as they came up.
MR. MAC EWAN-No, that’s the way I’d like to do it, because maybe some of these responses, our questions
would be moot.
MR. STROUGH-Well, I’ve read C.T. Male, not the new stuff, but there’s some stuff they didn’t address.
MR. CARR-I would just like to jump in and just show you a quick graphic, just so you can understand maybe
what Kevin is saying. This black line represents the area that drains directly to the wetlands, either through
the pipe system that exists or over land, untreated today. It totals approximately 26 acres, includes the
building, the parking at the Subway area, the intersection, and basically what Kevin is saying is that the system
that he has designed has taken this area here out of the equation and brought it through this treatment facility,
which it totals approximately 12 acres. That’s the 12 acres he’s stating. So, in other words, the proposed
drainage system associated with the Home Depot picks up a portion of the existing site and brings it through
this basin, treats it and releases it before it goes through the wetlands. This area here is the area that we are
not picking up, and I think Kevin can explain it in more detail, but basically, it’s more of a grade related issue.
This parking lot is picked up by catch basins. A pipe actually runs underneath the building and out, and
outlets right into this wetland at this point. So, once again, this area here, which once drained directly to the
wetland, will be picked up by the system. This area here represents additional area that’s being added. So I
just wanted to, sometimes a picture helps explain what we’re talking about.
MR. HASTINGS-Thanks, Dave. The remaining portion of our response to Comment Number One is just
that. The existing outfall that we’re not changing as part of the proposed plan is deep in the ground. It’s
down 23 feet. So just based on grades and ground elevation, there’s physically not much we can construct
that would improve the water quality that’s exiting at that point into the wetlands. Moving on to Comment
Number Two, the general comment is regarding soil and groundwater conditions to which we have a draft
soils report underway, and it should be updated with additional soil borings, and we expect to have a final
document available for the Town’s use for site plan review. As far as the first flush, that’s accommodated in
the detention basin with bottom storage, which is equal to or greater than what we calculated as the first flush
runoff volume.
MR. VOLLARO-That first flush is for a 25 year event, Kevin, is that what you’ve used?
MR. HASTINGS-That is correct, and again, that’s already been presented in the engineering report.
Comment Number Three, the comparison of the pre-development/post-development analysis of the
individual discharge points, the report took a combination or the total discharge from the site as a point of
comparison, but if you broke down and looked at every one of the subcatchments and the outfalls, item by
item, they were still comparable. So we still met the design criteria, even though I chose to put it as a
combined site discharge, rather than to present it as an individual comparison of the point discharges.
Runoff from the Home Depot roof, we still feel that that’s a beneficial aspect of the design. There are
thermal quality issues and I think we can address those in site plan review, and the last issue is the Montray
Road culvert. When I was up there yesterday, looking around on the site, it didn’t appear to be a condition
where there’s overflow from the stormwater of the upland areas, going toward Blind Rock. If there is a
condition there, I’m sure we would work through that, again, as part of site plan review, if there were culvert
improvements required.
MR. LAPPER-That culvert is underneath the Town road on Town property, for our site.
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MR. HASTINGS-Okay. Thank you, and as far as the soil erosion, it appeared to me like it was something
that has been going on for a long time. It’s not something that appeared to be from a massive flooding, you
know, a single incident or two, but more something that has been going on for probably 10 or 15 years or
more, and that’s it.
MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it?
MR. HASTINGS-That’s it.
MR. MAC EWAN-It’s up to you now.
MR. HOUSTON-I did get a chance to review that response letter today, and jotted down a couple of my
comments, maybe just to clarify my review or just to give a little more information about these items. Just on
that first item, I do agree that the plan improves the conditions at the existing outlet, which is behind the
Travelers building. Like he was saying, a good chunk of that developed property now goes down to that
discharge point and there’s no doubt that the actual peak rate of discharge at that location will be reduced as a
result of taking a lot of this over to that detention basin. As far as the color of the water that’s coming out of
there, I haven’t got a clear definition of what’s causing that, and I’m not sure whether that’s coming from rust
or iron particles in the soil, or whether that’s coming from rusted pipes are the two key sources that I would
think, but I don’t know what the source of that is and how you could attempt to remedy that. I don’t think
it’s coming from off the pavement surface itself.
MR. STROUGH-Well, it’s quite obvious, and there’s a considerable amount of it. I would think that if it was
a rust source, that it wouldn’t be that significant.
MR. ROUND-Sometimes those can be biological as well.
MR. STROUGH-Well, the thing about it is, is this.
MR. MAC EWAN-John, let’s let them go through, and then we’ll open it up for questions.
MR. STROUGH-Okay.
MR. HOUSTON-All right. So, basically there’s a transfer from that existing pipe over to the new detention
basin, which therefore will improve the rate of flow that’s being discharged out to that point, setting aside the
quality at this time. As we transfer that over into the new basin, there’s detail that, additional detail that’s got
to be presented, showing the grading within the basin. There’s a very high level of detail of the grading on
the site, but as you get into the basin area itself, that level of detail goes down dramatically, and it shows
basically a bottom elevation they’re shooting for in the basin, and it’s not clear from looking at the plans that
first flush would be accommodated. Kevin has indicated it’s in the report, and there’s just got to be some
more clarification to make sure that information appears on the plan. The concept of putting it over into that
basin is a step, in my opinion, in the right direction. To take that into a place where you can control the rate
and potentially leave extended period of detention where you can get some removals out of the basin and
have the basin work for you is a step in the right direction. It’s just the details of whether that basin is large
enough to do that for the area that’s coming to it is something that’s not clear to me, based on the plans that
I’ve seen so far. The first flush feature, as Kevin had indicated, is indicated in the report, but it’s not clear on
the plans. Basically, the detention basin has two pipes exiting from there that would show a clear discharge
right out into the wetlands and there’s no trapping or hoods or anything that would prevent floatables or
anything that would get into that basin from going right down into the wetlands. That’s something that we
can add to or work with. The other thing that was talked about is geo-technical, the need for additional soil
boring data. The environmental assessment form identifies that there’s no bedrock within five feet of the
ground surface, but at this particular detention basin, there’s removal or excavation of over 40 feet required at
certain locations. So the soil boring information I think is a critical issue. Right now I don’t have any reason
to believe that it doesn’t continue sands or non-rock conditions, but I don’t know that until you actually do a
boring, and due to the size of the excavation, it is critical what those borings indicate.
MR. CARR-Jim, I can expand a little on what Kevin said. We actually do have, and maybe he wasn’t clear on
this, we have an existing draft that the geo-technical engineer did, and the draft was based on a plan, a
concept plan that was done a few months ago, and what they’re doing now is they’re updating that. Because
of the wetlands that were found, and a few of the other issues, the building moved. So they went out and
they did approximately maybe another 20 or 30 more holes, but we do have a few holes that were done in
that area, and they are, they did go down in excess of 40 feet, and some of them were part of the way down
the slope. So the bottom of the holes are below the elevation of that pond, and we, I think what Kevin was
mentioning is that we were going to wait to give you that until we got the final one, because it didn’t make
any sense, which I believe we expect to get early next week, maybe even the end of this week, but, yes, there
was absolutely, they did about 40 or 50 holes. There was no rock, and the water was pretty deep below the
elevation shown on the plan, but obviously when we get that final report we’ll give it, we’ll transmit it to you.
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MR. EDWARDS-Those are the kinds of questions that we had, as far as, without borings, where is the
groundwater table and can you design this thing to your bottom elevation without knowing the groundwater
table elevation. So constructability issues came up frequently in review of this project, and that was definitely
a big consideration.
MR. HOUSTON-Just as far as what the EAF indicates is no greater than five feet, because that was the
information that was available at that time, and now what Dave’s saying is they’ve been able to supplement
that, but that has not been entered into the EAF, as far as I know.
MR. CARR-Well, it’s not, you know, I guess the EAF says greater than five feet, or greater than six feet, and
it is indeed greater than, it’s much greater. I mean, we could actually give the elevation, you know, as far as
the EAF doesn’t really require that specific of information, but we can definitely add that to it, or we can
attach the summary of the report to the EAF.
MR. HOUSTON-Normally it wouldn’t be a concern because you’re going down only maybe five feet with
building foundations, but where you’ve got a 40 foot excavation, the soil boring information becomes a
critical point, but it sounds like, based on the findings that he’s got so far, it seems like it’s been addressed,
and it’s something that’s a workable condition.
MR. VOLLARO-Excuse me. Can we assume on Question Number Two that borings are going to be
required, that you would like to see the results of borings? I mean, that’s, I’m trying to get this in my mind as
to what really has to be done with Question Number Two. Additional borings are going to be required, in
order to satisfy the below 40 foot depth.
MR. EDWARDS-We’d also like to look at the geo-tech report for the retaining wall design as well. This area
is flanked by retaining walls, and that’s a critical design element as well is what the boring information.
MR. CARR-And that was also the request we made to the geo-technical engineer, because Ryan & Biggs is
doing the wall design, and they asked for some additional information, and that was part of the additional
work that they’re doing.
MR. LAPPER-We looked at that as a how it gets done rather than a whether it can get done, again, in terms
of SEQRA. I mean, you guys, of course, will review the engineering design when we get to site plan, but.
MR. MAC EWAN-I’ll tell you, from what I’m hearing right now, I don’t see us doing SEQRA tonight. I just
see that there’s too many little loose ends that have got to be tied up.
MR. LAPPER-I guess, in terms of those loose ends, the SEQRA is talking about the environmental impacts
on the site and whether or not we can handle it, and I think we’ve got that covered.
MR. MAC EWAN-To me, conversation going back and forth, Jon, is not covering it. Data is what they’re
looking for, to support that.
MR. LAPPER-Okay, but is that data site plan issues?
MR. MAC EWAN-To me it’s SEQRA issues, because one of the big issues we’re dealing with is stormwater,
and can this site handle it, and when you ask that question about stormwater, if we can’t intelligently answer
the SEQRA question, whether it’s going to have a small to moderate impact or a large impact, without having
the documentation to support that.
MR. LAPPER-Well, I think what Jim said is that the design, that we’re definitely treating the site better than
what it was.
MR. MAC EWAN-No one’s arguing that. What we’re saying is that we’re lacking the data for us, in my mind
right now, for us to advance to do a SEQRA, to go through that SEQRA tonight.
MR. LAPPER-I guess what I heard, in terms of that, just in terms of the borings, is that if there was a
bedrock issue, that might affect how the basin gets designed.
MR. MAC EWAN-I’m hearing other things as well. We can sit here and banter this back and forth all night.
MR. HOUSTON-In addition to the bedrock, the issue of how wet it is, and whether there’s moisture and
whether that slope is going to be stable, once you excavate it, but that will all show up in a boring log.
MR. STROUGH-All right. So just when can I start asking some questions?
MR. MAC EWAN-I know everybody’s chaffing at the bit here.
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MR. ROUND-I think Jim’s got a couple of more comments in regards to the stormwater, and I think that
will wrap up our discussion, and we can give it back to the Board.
MR. HOUSTON-All right. Just going down to Item Three, there, you talked about design discharge points
at various locations, and no doubt there’s a concentrated flow coming off of the roof of the Home Depot,
proposed Home Depot, that goes directly into the wetlands, and although the flow into the wetlands on
overall was matched or assumed not to, or calculated not to increase, once they have that introduction off of
a pipe, it’s a much, very concentrated discharge at that location, and they’re going to put some rock riprap,
proposed rock riprap, at the outlet itself, but very quickly after that, it goes into the wetlands which will be
unprotected from erosion potential, and as a result of that, there is erosion potential in the wetlands that
could adversely effect the wetlands that exist there, and there’s, like I’ve said before, there’s other ways you
can get around that and try to defuse that flow out so it’s not as concentrated and will not do as much
damage, and maybe we can talk about that. The last thing commented on was the flow coming off of
Montray Road. There is that pipe under there. Montray Road, just for a little bit of background, Montray
Road at that location is immediately uphill from the detention basin, and the detention basin, at the top of
that hill is a culvert pipe that comes under Montray Road, that discharges down the hill right into where this
basin is at this time, proposed, and they’re trying to take, the plans show for the collection of the water that’s
coming through that pipe, and routing that around the detention basin, which would address the off site pipe
flows that would come onto the site. Montray Road, at that location, is reversely pitched back to the other
side. So it’s not like a crowned road where some of that road is coming off down to the detention basin. It’s
all pitched back to that culvert pipe. The only thing that I caution about is that that pipe, and it is designed
only for a particular year storm event, and when you get a more intense rainfall event or like we had probably
in December of 2000, it could easily exceed that pipe’s capacity, and then it comes up and spills over the road
and comes down that hillside, right to where the basin is proposed, and if that is the case, we’ve got to look at
the impacts of that on that detention basin, whether it’s adequately sized to handle that flow, or should we try
to change the plan to revise and also divert those flows around the detention basin? And if it does get into
the basin, are there outfall protections on the basin that can handle that kind of a flow? Not only from the
project site but also from off site. So the pipe flow is one aspect of it that they’ve addressed. My only
concern is, flows above and beyond what the pipe can handle, how are they going to come in and impact the
facilities that are being designed. I guess that’s all the comments that I had based on the most recent
responses that I’ve heard.
MR. EDWARDS-I guess those are the responses to the traffic and stormwater comments. We had a few
more comments, I guess, that were being deferred to site plan review. It looks like we had a few more
comments pertaining to utility conflicts and layout and parking layout and different scale plans, making it
clearer to understand the project. Apparently, by not seeing a response here, it’s being deferred to a later
point in the project.
MR. CARR-Well, yes, I mean, the comments about possible utility conflicts and the change in scale, yes,
those will obviously all be submitted to you, which are detail items.
MR. EDWARDS-I guess our review was focused really on traffic and stormwater and some overall site kind
of generic issues at this point. The traffic, in my mind, was very complete, and it can be signed off on, as far
as impacts or no impacts. Stormwater still has some issues, in our mind, to review more carefully, when
information comes in, and the same thing with site plan issue. When they come in to our office, we’ll
definitely look at those more carefully, but I guess in a nutshell, I consider the traffic report to be complete at
this juncture, and that’s probably about the extent of our signing off on a particular issue on this project.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Cathy, we’ll start with you.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-I don’t have anything right now. I’ve just been taking notes pretty frantically here,
and I just feel that we really need to address those last two issues, the stormwater and the site plan issue, and
then when everything is met, our engineer feels that everything is okay, then we’ll do the SEQRA.
MR. LAPPER-No one’s suggesting that the site plan issues need to get addressed before SEQRA.
MR. MAC EWAN-It seems like the overwhelming issue here is the stormwater.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-The stormwater.
MR. MAC EWAN-Depending on what other questions come up here.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-But wait a minute, when you talk about site plan issues, Jim, be a little more specific.
Everything is a site plan issue, obviously, but you use that as number, you said, okay, we’ll sign off on the
traffic issue, then on the stormwater issue, we still have to go a little bit further, and then you said, and also
the site plan issue.
MR. EDWARDS-I guess site plan issues relate to specific design elements, that I guess the issue here is will
the project work as presented. I think anything can work if enough money is thrown at it and enough
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ingenuity is taken into account, but I guess site plan issues, in is a site plan issue, obviously, but you use that
as number, you said, okay, we’ll sign off on the traffic issue, then on the stormwater issue, we still have to go
a little bit further, and then you said, and also the site plan issue.
MR. EDWARDS-I guess site plan issues relate to specific design elements, that I guess the issue here is will
the project work as presented. I think anything can work if enough money is thrown at it and enough
ingenuity is taken into account, but I guess site plan issues, in our mind, is parking layout, does it meet code,
lighting, does it have a lighting plan that meets code. Utilities. Sewer extension issues, things like that, are
more site plan related.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay, but that’s all been addressed in the final plans.
MR. EDWARDS-It will be addressed in the final plans. These plans are very preliminary, as far as level of
detail.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-All right. We haven’t seen those final drawings yet?
MR. EDWARDS-No.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay.
MR. EDWARDS-For example, there’s a retaining wall detail shown on the back of the plans. It’s a 10 foot
retaining wall detail, and again, this project consists of probably 1,000 feet of retaining wall, anywhere from
three feet to thirty feet in height. So there’s a lot of details that have to be looked at, in a lot more detail.
MR. LAPPER-But just for clarification, we weren’t planning on submitting that until after we get through the
SEQRA, because that wouldn’t be SEQRA level design details.
MR. EDWARDS-I guess that’s confusing in our minds, too. If we get a set of plans to look at for technical
review, we’ve got to provide the Town with what we have in front of us, as far as review comments. That
could apply to SEQRA, you know, detailing, code review, and that was basically what our comments at this
point were contained. Everything that was in front of us to look at we did, we had comments.
MR. MAC EWAN-Because of the unusualness of this application, what we’re trying to do a rezoning
contingent upon us doing a SEQRA, contingent upon a site plan, we’re trying to take pieces out of this, I
guess, to say in order for us to get over this hurdle, we need to know that all the information you’re supplying
us is going to be adequately able to be designed and handled in the site plan. So it seems like the issue where
you’re talking about in level of detail and some cases that are relative to site plan, whether it be parking, you
know, lighting and that sort of thing, but when we’re dealing with things like this stormwater issue, I mean,
that’s the hurdle we need to get over with to be able to do a SEQRA review, and it sounds to me like we’ve
got some unfinished business to satisfy our engineers before we get to that stage. While other aspects of the
project, certainly they can wait down the road, when we get to site plan.
MR. LAPPER-That’s fine.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-And I just want to make a comment, it’s not relevant to what we’ve gone through, as
far as all the issues, but back to the architecture, could you just do that final rendering, and put, just to see
what it would look like, instead of having the plain glass on the windows, could you put some grids in, just so
we can see if that just makes it a little bit more homier, or whatever?
MR. SANFORD-Isn’t that the site plan?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes, I know, but I mean, as long as we’re not going to see them for a little bit. I just
wanted to ask you that.
MR. LAPPER-We’ll talk to them about that.
MR. MAC EWAN-Robert?
MR. VOLLARO-I’m just going to go through my notes, because what I tried to do is look at this entire thing
for the first time and try to get my arms around the whole thing, and I can see where you fellows had a
similar problem. So I’ll just go down through my notes real quick. First there’s the letter from Mr. Shaw that
concerns doing a map plan and report to get a sewer extension here, and I wanted to just discuss where is
that in the cycle?
MR. LAPPER-We can’t apply for that until after the rezoning, because it’s not, to extend the district. We’ve
got to get it as commercial.
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MR. VOLLARO-But having some experience with map plan and reports, and Kevin knows what I’m talking
about, I’d like to see that document, very definitely. That’s something that I have a concern with taking a
look at.
MR. LAPPER-We weren’t planning on submitting that to the Planning Board, frankly.
MR. VOLLARO-Really?
MR. LAPPER-Yes, because that would be an additional approval that would be required, outside of site plan.
I mean, I look at that as fairly administerial in terms of meeting the requirements for map plan and report to
show.
MR. VOLLARO-Map plan and report is a lot of detail and it tells me a lot about what the sewer extension
looks like.
MR. LAPPER-The sewer department, the Wastewater Department has told us that the capacity exists, and
Chris referred to that in his notes. So I mean, we’re not trying to hide anything from you. We just figured it
wasn’t necessary at this stage.
MR. MAC EWAN-I just don’t know what kind of level of detail we need to get into with that aspect, as long
as we’ve got a sign off from the sewer and water saying it’s adequate.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, that’s fine. I’ll agree with that, but Mr. Shaw’s kind of saying that he wants to see a
map plan and report, and I think that this Board has to know that that map plan and report is complete
before we sign off on it, that it’s acceptable to the.
MR. LAPPER-It sounds like we will have a draft of that report before we’re through with site plan. So we
certainly can get it to you because there’s no reason not to.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I just wanted to bring that up because that’s something I was sensitive to. I read
through all of the things that you folks went through, traffic, stormwater, EAF and site plan, the seven
questions on the site plan, just looking at it. Now, I guess I have a basic question in my mind on the
stormwater report, on Page Seven of the stormwater report itself, and I guess my question probably is going
to be directed to Mr. Hastings. There seems to be generally, in the discussion, a lot of water that bypasses
retention basins. I see a lot of bypass information in the report.
MR. LAPPER-But, Bob, some of that is coming from off site to the north.
MR. VOLLARO-Wait a second, let me go through this. What is the basic design criteria being used for
bypassing the retention basins? In other words, is there a design criteria that you’re using for this bypass? Is
there a reason why we get to the bypass at all, and not being collected in the retention basin?
MR. HASTINGS-What are you referring to as the bypass?
MR. VOLLARO-Well, it says, for example, on Page Seven, it talks about the model stormwater facilities
within the drainage study area to exclude the base inflow through Montray Road culvert, as it will be re-
routed to bypass the proposed retention basin, and that jumped out at me to try to get a handle on what we’re
really talking about here. I see that there’s a 12 inch minimum freeboard that you’re designing to. In other
words, the fundamental design talks about a 12 inch freeboard in the collection basin. So that’s something
you’re designing to to maintain at least that 12 inches.
MR. HASTINGS-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-And now I guess I just wrote some things down. Does this whole bypass design
philosophy, and there must be some design bypass philosophy in the engineering itself. I’m trying to get an
idea whether that, how that figures into the capture of the first flush on a 25 year event. In other words, is
this a tradeoff in design between the capacity of detention basins versus allowing an X percentage of bypass,
and I guess that’s a question I’m trying to get to.
MR. HASTINGS-The bypass that you’re referring to, I explicitly excluded that because it’s not something
that we could quantify, and we have no intention of bringing that through the detention basin as a flow. So
by bypassing it, it’s totally eliminated one unknown from our stormwater modeling and analysis, so that that
flow will go around the detention basin, as it exists.
MR. LAPPER-You’re asking why.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I guess the, to get back to where I started my question off, and I said, where does it
go. When I was reviewing this I said, okay, that’s good. We’re going to be bypassing retention basins. What
happens to the water? And what happens to whatever contaminants may be carried through that pipe inflow?
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MR. HOUSTON-Could I try to shed a little light on that? The reason, from an engineering design, why you
want to try to bypass those flows is because the volume in the basin is very precious, and you want to use that
to be able to treat the contaminants that may come off of the site. So there’s very strong incentive to try to, I
don’t know if bypass is the right word, but to avoid putting that into the basin to use up that volume that you
have, that’s critically related to the pollutants that you’re going to generate from the parking lot. So,
therefore, the concept of a bypass around a basin is good and warranted, I guess in my mind. The only two
key concerns I have about that is now it takes that pipe discharge, what used to be up on the hill near
Montray Road and pipes that all the way down very close to the wetlands, and has the potential for erosion
into the wetlands, something that we’re trying to protect.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re talking about the velocity of that water?
MR. HOUSTON-That’s correct. Before it used to come out and had the ravine to go down and could
spread out before it got to the edge of the wetlands. Now it’s being piped around there and comes right up
to the edge of wetlands and discharges in a very concentrated fashion.
MR. LAPPER-Isn’t that a design issue that you may suggest more riprap or a greater distance? A way to treat
it to avoid erosion?
MR. HOUSTON-That’s correct. The key thing there, more from that Montray Road, is when that pipe’s full
and you get a storm that’s in greater capacity than what that pipe can handle, and you’ve got weir flow
coming over that road, and it’s coming right down the side wall and it comes into that basin, how do you
handle that and should that flow be bypassed or somehow address that overflow of the pipe condition? Is a
more pressing issue from a SEQRA standpoint. Because that may jeopardize or have concerns about the
volume of the basin proposed.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, that pretty much summarizes my concern about the bypassing itself. I mean, I’m
trying to understand where does the water we’re not capturing go, and what does it contain, and where does it
wind up. Those are the three evolutionary questions I had in my mind.
MR. LAPPER-I guess we’re saying we shouldn’t be asked to treat it because it’s coming from offsite, on the
other side of Montray Road. We have to account for it, to make sure it gets across our site to where it’s going
now, but it’s sort of a pre-existing condition that it’s coming from on the other side of Montray Road.
MR. VOLLARO-I realize it’s pre-existing, but now that we’re into this major operation here, it seems like we
should be taking that into account as well, not just saying, well, it’s a pre-existing condition, and therefore, we
won’t deal with it.
MR. LAPPER-Well, I think we are saying that, that we can’t be asked to design a system that will not only
treat our site, but would treat sites like the Ponderosa or wherever it’s coming from, Wal-Mart or across
Route 9, that we just don’t have the capacity on the site, but also that we shouldn’t be asked to do that, to
treat another site.
MR. ROUND-That’s typical, Bob, what Jon’s indicating. It’s typical that you don’t treat somebody else’s
stormwater. I guess Jon’s correct, I think, in one regard, that the level of detail is not, may not be a SEQRA
issue, but given that there’s concerns about the depth to groundwater and adequacy of the volume. I mean, I
think they’re very comfortable with it. We just don’t have the documentation to verify that comfort level.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, you know, we have to be comfortable with it, too, to do the SEQRA.
MR. ROUND-That’s right. That’s what, part of this is about, you have to have adequate information in
order to reach a judgment, and the applicant has adequate information. We don’t, yet, have that in our hands,
and we have to make sure, what our Staff’s trying to do is make sure that it’s accurate, and so we’re trying to
validate, and I think we’re going to get there. It’s just a matter of timing. I think we addressed your
stormwater question.
MR. VOLLARO-I think that one other thing I had, I looked into C.T. Male’s comment on the proposed wall
around the Depot being built over some, basically either stream or water, and how that’s going to be handled,
and that probably is a site plan issue more than it is a SEQRA issue, but it’s something I looked at it in my
overall look at this thing.
MR. EDWARDS-Again, in my mind, that’s a constructability issue, and there are several of those issues
within this project. If groundwater enters into the foundation design of the retaining walls, then obviously
they hopefully have experts that can design to those conditions. It’s a tricky site, in terms of the retaining
walls and the excavation and the detention basin design, but those are design issues that we’ll have to review
carefully when they come in front of us.
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MR. VOLLARO-Then we don’t have to, what we’re trying to do is get to a point where we can honestly
answer the SEQRA questions, as they come up, because I know what those questions are, and, you know,
you can’t just go, no, just like that. Because things are going to pass through our minds that are going to
force us to think these issues out. So that’s what I’m trying to get at myself.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else?
MR. VOLLARO-No, that’s all I’ve got right now.
MR. MAC EWAN-Chris?
MR. HUNSINGER-The things I had questions on have already been addressed. So I’m all set for now.
MR. MAC EWAN-Tony?
MR. METIVIER-I’m fine. I’m interested in the comments that John has, and questions, and particularly one.
So I’m going to wait for right now, before I ask anything, to see what John has to say. I might have some
comments to some of his questions.
MR. MAC EWAN-John, your turn.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, well, a little history as to why I’m concerned, because I grew up in that area, and when
I was a kid, I used to fish in the Pineview Cemetery pond. They got so tired of kicking me out they didn’t
bother me, and that used to be crystal clear. I mean, you could see the bottom. You could see the mud. You
could see the timbers and such. Now it’s green. Now that’s not your fault, but it’s certainly a problem that
we might be able to address with this project, which I think is a good project. I’ve said that before, but I
think it’s this project that’s contributing to the contamination of that pond, because now the pond is opaque.
It’s green, and you can’t see an inch in depth. So something’s contributing to the pollution of that pond. I
suspect it’s the runoff, and your plan, of course, appears to be an improvement, and that’s good, but I think
we can work on it, and my concerns are, Number One, and I tried to follow the terrain there and I have
trouble, you know, following this, but, Jim, where I saw that first and northern most artesian stream, come
right out of this hillside, wasn’t that in the ravine that’s being proposed as the detention basin?
MR. HOUSTON-If memory serves me right, that’s in a basin, or in a ravine, just south of that. The main
basin is still further up towards Montray Road. In that area where the springs are is where the roof discharge
at this time is fairly close to that location.
MR. STROUGH-Well, I’ll have to go back, because there was one ravine, and I had got down to the bottom
of the ravine, I’m trying to check my plans to see what ravine I’m in, and it’s not real clear, and right there,
coming out of the hillside, is water coming out of the hillside. I assume that I’m using the correct term,
artesian stream?
MR. HOUSTON-Yes, it’s referred to as a spring on the plans, and that’s fine, either one.
MR. STROUGH-Okay, so that’s not the ravine that the detention basin is proposed to be in? Because my
concern is, if it is, what’s the depth to groundwater, and then my concern is, what would be the infiltration
quality of a detention basin if it’s sitting on top of groundwater?
MR. EDWARDS-Right. By the time you excavate down to the proposed depth, you’re into the water, I think
he’s right. I think it’s in a different location, but we should pin that down.
MR. STROUGH-Right, and we still should determine what is the depth to groundwater with the.
MR. HOUSTON-That’s, hopefully, what these borings would show, and that’s why I’m saying it’s a little
premature to assess the constructability and usefulness of this pond without having that information.
MR. STROUGH-Yes.
MR. CARR-Actually, those springs are located, they were picked up by the surveyor. They’re in these two
locations right here, and actually the wall is built west of that or behind, you know, up gradient of that,
actually, but those are the two locations right here, and the pond is back here.
MR. STROUGH-Well, then what is that discharge, put your pen on the map some place and I’ll direct it.
Now go east, or go west, rather, west, not north, west.
MR. CARR-Back in here?
MR. STROUGH-Yes. Right there. What is that discharge?
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MR. CARR-That is the discharge that I mentioned earlier of the existing system. There’s a culvert that
outlets right here that’s the existing drainage system for the center.
MR. STROUGH-All right. There’s actually a flowing stream right there.
MR. CARR-Yes, and we’re not proposing to do anything anywhere near there.
MR. STROUGH-And that’s the site where I noticed the, appeared to be the brownish water.
MR. CARR-Yes, right, and that’s what we were, Kevin and Jim kind of jumped in. That’s what we’re trying
to do is to relieve as much of the flow that’s coming out of that as we can. That’s this location here.
MR. STROUGH-Well, all right. Let’s stay with that thought. Let’s continue with the thought, actually. Now
there’s an area there that’s marked a gravel area, and it’s where they did the snow dumping, and they dumped
the snow right into the wetlands, and the snow is contaminated with all the ingredients that’s in a parking lot,
and, yes, I was thinking out loud, couldn’t that be made into a detention basin, that area, and if it was a, if we
had vegetative fencing around it, it would prevent or deter snow removal dumping there.
MR. CARR-That actually, that gravel area that you’re mentioning I believe is now, becomes the actual rear
ring road would be built on that area, to make room for parking for the Post Office. So I believe if you kind
of flip these, here’s the gravel. If you flip up, you’re basically talking this area here.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, well, I’m glad you brought up parking, because, I mean, in my mind, you’ve got way
more parking than what you need. I don’t want another K-Mart. I think that there’s a lot of the space that
we could use for better purposes such as drainage basins, re-route your road, put a drainage basin in there.
There’s another spot that might be a possible detention basin, too, and that is, again, south of there.
MR. LAPPER-I just have to talk about parking, real quick. The issue here is that Travelers’ parking need is
based on actual historical use, and that’s what their lease calls for, which is six spaces per thousand, which is
more than we like to do in the Town, and more than the Code requires, but that’s there because they need it,
and the rest of the site we’re just trying to comply with the 4.5. I mean, that’s what the difference is.
MR. STROUGH-And I’ve also been to the site several times, and in the back area, there’s nobody parking
over near the rear of that parking (lost words).
MR. LAPPER-Currently, there is Travelers’ space that they have an option on that is not, that is vacant, that’s
part of it, but also there’ll be some spaces removed in the front to do the new plan that they’re using now that
they’re going to have to park in the back
MR. STROUGH-Well, I’m just trying to suggest ways that we can resolve some of these stormwater
problems, and now who is the Plaza owner?
MR. LAPPER-The Plaza owner is a company out of Syracuse called Kelly & Dutch.
MR. STROUGH-Now, would they be willing to work with us to develop a comprehensive stormwater plan
for this, and they would pay for their share?
MR. LAPPER-Probably not, because the existing Plaza is technically grandfathered as something that doesn’t
comply with current standards, but it was built whenever it was built, in the 60’s, and what we’re doing here,
and what the C.T. Male guys have been talking about, is that Kevin’s design takes 12 acres that are currently
untreated and puts it into our new system, but because of the elevations, you can’t get the water uphill. We
don’t have, where it is now, it flows down. It’s 23 feet below ground where it comes out, and there’s no
practical way of treating what’s there. So the best that we’re doing is making the situation better, treating
everything to the north of that, but we’re not completely putting a new system on the whole Plaza.
MR. STROUGH-All right. Well, that’s your opinion. Of course you’re going to try and argue this away. I
just wanted, and I just continue to believe that that is a possible mode that we could move in, and it’s not
something that would hold me up from approving you on SEQRA, but I’m just saying it would be nice if we
could get the landowner in on this and solve this problem, and, Chris, maybe you, if that’s contributing to the
pollution of the Halfway Brook drainage basin, is there anything we can do about that?
MR. ROUND-I missed the first part of your.
MR. STROUGH-Well, that one spot that is, that comes out, it’s a drainage area obviously, and it’s an
indented area in the building, it also happens to be the parking area, the rear access area for Travelers.
There’s a drainage under there that was pointed out, and it appears to me to be polluting.
MR. ROUND-Yes. I think your intentions are noble. I think it comes down to what you can require of an
applicant when you’re causing an increase in impervious areas, and I think the applicant’s demonstrated that
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they’re accommodating their contribution to additional stormwater. They’re managing it. They’re improving
the quality of the discharge, and so I think that’s, from a practical level, that’s as much as we can ask of an
applicant. I think you can, they’ve indicated there’s some practical difficulties with providing additional
treatment for the existing site. I think we can ask them to look closer at that, is there some other treatment
that you can provide to that, and you may be familiar with, there is something downstream of this area,
actually, there’s actually an area upstream. Hovey Pond, there’s a wetlands restoration project that’s taking
place. Adjacent to Hovey Pond there’s that wetland that is just west of the Hovey Pond site. It’s basically
filled with fragmities and purple lew stife, etc. Actually, there’s a grant that the Soil and Water Conservation
Service has received, and they’re going to do some harvesting of those nuisance species, and so that’s going to
provide some improvement to Halfway Brook, and I think the LA Group’s seen the Warren County Soil and
Water Conservation Service recommendation on how to improve the impacts of the Plaza overall, and I don’t
know that, I was just talking to Jim, I don’t that their proposed improvement is actually constructable, and I t
think that was some kind of treatment basin within the wetland area, and that might not be a practical
solution.
MR. STROUGH-Well, that’s not really my question. My question was, Chris, was.
MR. ROUND-Did I answer any of the questions, though, through that long dialogue?
MR. STROUGH-If you have an occasion, and it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the application,
it’s kind of an aside, and you’ve identified a point source of pollution. I mean, the route is to probably get
that identification or to get that inspected by DEC or somebody.
MR. ROUND-Right. I think we can identify and relate to DEC that, hey, we suspect that there’s, you know,
and they’re going to look upstream and (lost words).
MR. STROUGH-If that’s the case, and they say, we don’t like this, then we could develop, right now’s the
time to develop (lost words).
MR. ROUND-Is there a floor drain in the existing facility that’s being discharged (lost words).
MR. STROUGH-And now is the time to do it comprehensively.
MR. MAC EWAN-Along those lines, can I chime in here for a second? I’m kind of uncomfortable with your
response, and I’m uncomfortable with your response, that I view this thing as a site plan as one whole unit.
Because you’re only developing a portion of it, it makes this whole thing open as fair game. I mean, if we
have an opportunity to correct some bad engineering that was done years ago, now’s the time to do it.
Whether it’s specifically impacting a portion of the project you’re doing for Home Depot or not. I mean, this
whole thing is open. Home Depot is not purchasing this property. We don’t have a subdivision here.
MR. LAPPER-Right.
MR. MAC EWAN-We’re talking one contiguous piece here.
MR. LAPPER-And I’m not disputing that this is the whole site, and we’re going to work with the Board, and
we’re going to talk about the landscape issues on the other side of the Plaza, and the parking issues on the
other side of the Plaza, and work it out the best of our ability.
MR. MAC EWAN-We have the potential for some stormwater, but when you guys had that other map up
there, and you had split that in two, and when you said early on in your presentation you guys were going to
deal with everything on this side of the site, but that side of the site you weren’t going to do anything with, I
was bothered by that.
MR. LAPPER-But that’s just a practical consideration that we can’t get the water from where it is. There’s
no where to treat it between that part of the site and the wetland.
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t buy it, because I think what you’re doing is just a cursory look at this point. I
think maybe it needs to be looked at a little bit harder and what can be done to try to alleviate that
stormwater dumping into that wetlands the way it does now. There’s got to be a better fix than what’s there
now.
MR. HOUSTON-If I could add something to that. The classic approach to treating stormwater is an open
detention basin, as Jon had mentioned, and the key limitation on this site for that is the space for that basin,
and so in order to offset that there’s either in-pipe or buried systems that you can put in the ground, and they
can be fairly elaborate to fairly simple, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. One of the easiest to
put on is a hood on the outlet of the pipes or of the structures that go down and drain to that area, that
would keep floatable Styrofoam cups, oils and greases trapped back in a structure in the parking lot that
would have to periodically be pumped out. So I just, I know everybody’s looked at it and, gee, there’s no
space for a detention basin and all that type of thing, and one of the key limitations of that is the property line
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Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/26/02)
is right at the edge of where this pipe comes out. So we haven’t got the space for a basin, but we’ve got other
alternative technologies that can be looked at, in trying to help or improve that situation.
MR. LAPPER-We will look into those.
MR. SANFORD-Are those design issues, though, what you just mentioned? Would that be something that
we would be able to consider later on, post-SEQRA?
MR. HOUSTON-Yes, it could. The critical thing, I guess, and how this all ties in to SEQRA issues is there’s
so much water going over to this basin, and the volume of that basin, and whether it’s constructable at the
geometry that they’ve proposed is the big issue. That basin may not.
MR. LAPPER-We will get that information to you.
MR. HOUSTON-Yes. They’ve indicated they’re going to get that information.
MR. STROUGH-And that gets me back to, also, that gravel area. It might make a good detention area,
detention basin area, and also if you put the landscaped fencing around it, vegetative fencing around it, it’s
going to deter the dumping of the snow, and I think that’s another issue that we’ve got to get in here is the
owner of the Plaza currently is dumping all the snow, when they do the snow removal, directly into the
wetland. Directly into the wetland. So if there was a detention basin there, with vegetative fencing, that
would deter that from occurring.
MR. EDWARDS-John, you mean the bottom of the gravel area, currently? That’s, I think, an existing
wetland, is it not, at the bottom of the parking?
MR. STROUGH-No, I’m talking about the top of the parking lot that’s gravel area.
Okay. I thought you meant the bottom of hill, where the gravel is, because that is wetland currently down
below that.
MR. STROUGH-No, I’m talking about the top. I’ll dig it out here.
MR. HOUSTON-Yes, and if you look at the plans, it does show a loop road, as Dave indicated, in that area,
and therefore I don’t know if there’s curbing in there. I haven’t looked at it as far as curbing and/or guardrail
and fencing.
MR. CARR-Guardrail fencing.
MR. HOUSTON-That would preclude the ability to push snow off of that area, although it would preclude
that there, then it raises the issue of the snow’s not going there, where would it go? We have a lot of walls
around the Home Depot building per se, whatever, and that sort of precludes that area from being a
discharge point, then it just raises the issue of where snow removal would be anticipated.
MR. CARR-Normally, and you can see that, not necessarily this winter, because it’s been a bad winter for
that, but normally, and you do see some piles, we tend to store the snow within the parking area. We find
areas, there’s designated areas away from where the traffic is heaviest that we pile the snow, and as it melts, it
melts through the storm drainage system and is treated as it melts. That’s what we try to do with most of
these centers. It’s kind of a hindrance at times, because you see these large mountains of snow, but there is a
method to that madness in that it will be treated as it melts, and that’s why it’s done in that fashion and not
just, as you said, dumped on that gravel area or thrown off the site.
MR. STROUGH-That’s right over the gravel area.
MR. CARR-Right.
MR. STROUGH-As a matter of fact, it’s classic. I was thinking yesterday, boy, that’s a picture. They had
one of their dump trucks backed up, and the dump part of the truck, I don’t know what you call that.
MR. MAC EWAN-The box.
MR. STROUGH-The box was right up in the air as it was dumping snow into the wetland. I mean, it was a
picture I thought, and that’s exactly what they do, and I thought that’s got to be contributing to the pollution
of that system. So, again, I saw that as an area of a potential detention basin, if that seems to be a problem. I
mean, I’m willing to give up parking space for environmental protection, and another reason for the
detention basin, or an additional detention basin, would be, I, too, am concerned about the thermal
contribution of roof drainage.
MR. LAPPER-We think we can deal with that.
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MR. STROUGH-But if you had another detention basin, this answers your problem. Because you didn’t
have enough volume in the previous one.
MR. CARR-Well, with respect to the roof drainage, and maybe Kevin can talk to this in more detail, I looked
at it real quick, and the time of concentration, or the time it would take for the water to get off that roof into
the system is about three minutes. Normally, when we deal with thermal issues, which we do a lot, especially
discharging in the wetlands, it normally involves detention areas that are in sunny areas where the water is
stored for long periods of time, and obviously it heats up, and it discharges. As far as the roof is concerned,
yes, it’s probably a dark material, and, yes, in the summer it’ll probably get hot, but the concept to drain the
roof is to get the water off as quickly as possible. Obviously, we have no intention of doing any storage on
the roof, but again, the time of concentration that we calculated was about three minutes, and I think it would
be an issue if we were planning on storing water on the roof, and that is done, but in this situation, we’re not
doing that.
MR. STROUGH-Well, I leave that as an issue, and I just think that if we had a drainage basin, it wouldn’t be
an issue. If we had an additional drainage to direct that, it wouldn’t be an issue, and it might not be an issue.
You might be right, but it’s a concern that’s out there. Also, as for the detention basin, well, these are site
plan things. I can skip that. The only other thing that I see, I see in the stormwater report, a 25 year event.
Don’t you usually use a 50 year event, the 4.7 inches per, in a 24 hour period?
MR. HOUSTON-Fifty year event is for the detention basin sizing to make sure there’s adequate volume in
that, and I’m pretty sure that was addressed. I’m not sure where the 25 was.
MR. STROUGH-I noticed that one was on Page Seven, first flush runoff. So, that’s okay, though, Jim?
MR. HOUSTON-Yes.
MR. STROUGH-Okay. All right.
MR. VOLLARO-John, I think in the paragraph above that they talk about the detention basin will be
analyzed for the 50 year design storm to verify adequate detention volume. I think they’ve addressed that
issue.
MR. STROUGH-Okay. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Jim, and thank you applicants, and now the
stormwater plan, because of where it’s located, and it’s nobody’s fault, but it’s located in a kind of
environmentally sensitive strategic area, and so I think they are solvable problems. I do.
MR. LAPPER-The water’s going in there now untreated, into the wetland.
MR. STROUGH-I know it’s going to be better. I want it to be better than better.
MR. LAPPER-Okay.
MR. STROUGH-Okay, but thank you.
MR. LAPPER-We’ll come back with some more plans and some more information.
MR. MAC EWAN-Maybe to follow up on John’s comment, better for the whole site, not half the site.
MR. LAPPER-We’ll look into alternative methods, underneath the parking lot.
MR. MAC EWAN-Rich?
MR. SANFORD-Yes. It’s been a good experience for me. I like the way Chris Round presented the issue to
us, which if I understand it, we need to walk a certain direction, a certain amount until we feel comfortable
enough that the project is environmentally sound, then it goes back to the Town, then it comes back to us for
site plan. So I’ve been wrestling with design issues versus the question of, can it be done in a satisfactory
manner, and I’m not sure exactly what degree we a have to be comfortable. What are we really adopting at
this point in time, and I guess it’s, we have to feel comfortable enough so that we can get through SEQRA,
and I guess I’d like to ask Staff, what’s your opinion? Do we need more on stormwater at this particular
point in time?
MR. ROUND-To answer the first part of your question, I think, what do you need, there’s no litmus test.
There’s no standard out there for you. I think you need to have enough information in your hands to make a
judgment that there’s not a potential for significant negative environmental impacts. You’re issuing a
SEQRA Negative Declaration, I mean that there’s not a potential for that. So some of these things that we
talk about are design issues, and it’s helpful for the applicant to hear the design issues because they need to
present, they don’t want to have two iterations of a design. They’d like to present something to you that’s
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Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/26/02)
going to be completely acceptable. I think, in our summary, I think Jim Edwards, you know you could
conclude that there’s probably not a significant traffic impact. We can conclude that the pedestrian issues are
likely, bike and pedestrian issues are going to be addressed, aesthetic issues you saw. I think they relate to the
building architecture, and I heard positive feedback, and it’s not the position of Staff to displace your
judgment either. We can certainly give you direction. We talked, I think I mentioned lighting. I think there
are some concerns.
MR. SANFORD-Chris, I’m concerned with stormwater, really.
MR. ROUND-I think, when you get down to stormwater, I think we’re going to get there, but I don’t think
we’re at the confidence level that we have to be to say to you that there’s, yes, that we’re there yet.
MR. MAC EWAN-We’ve already had the Town Engineers say tonight they’re not ready to sign off on it.
They’re looking for more information.
MR. ROUND-Yes. Well, there’s two things that (lost words) sign off on. We’re looking to sign off on the
design of the storm systems itself. We think that the techniques that they’re proposing, the analysis that
they’ve done are all sound. I think probably there’s some design elements missing, but given that Jim’s, I
think both Jim’s have mentioned that there’s some constructability issues, that we’ve got to make sure that
even though it’s soundly designed, that it can be constructed, and I think there’s just a couple of small
questions. So I think, without a lot of work, I think the applicant can come back to us with the test boring
information, some other issues, some soils and slopes information, stability, that we can give you a
recommendation and once we receive that information, that you should be able to entertain that.
MR. SANFORD-Okay. I appreciate it. It’s not an exact science, but I think I have a feeling for it. Basically,
I just would like to say that I echo pretty much what the Chairman had to say, regarding looking at the whole
site, and I understand, you know, before he made that comment I was kind of looking at it, well, you know,
it’s not their property and they can’t really be held responsible, but as he pointed out, they’re a tenant, and
we’re looking at a whole site plan. So if there’s a way in which some of these other areas can be addressed,
I’m sure this Board would greatly appreciate it.
MR. MAC EWAN-Just jump back to engineering for a minute. Jim, you made some comments earlier
regarding that retaining wall. Was the retaining wall designed relevant to stormwater capabilities, or was that
just a site plan issue, as far as, well, how well the wall could be designed without falling over down the future
or whatever?
MR. CARR-More of a constructability issue, than stormwater related.
MR. MAC EWAN-It didn’t relate to any of your concerns with stormwater?
MR. CARR-No.
MR. SANFORD-I’m all done. I think it’s a great project. I think, I want to move it along as quick as we can,
but I guess we do a little bit more information. Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions? Comments? Anything Staff wanted to add? Jon, anything you guys
wanted to add?
MR. LAPPER-No. We would just want to get you the additional information as soon as possible, and if
there’s any possibility of a special meeting before the meetings, just because we’d like to, because we’ve got
this whole other procedure with the Town Board.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think the procedure we should take here is we’ll table this thing tonight and you supply
the information that the Town Engineers are looking for. When we understand that they’re satisfied that
your responses are adequately addressed, we’ll set up a meting for you.
MR. LAPPER-Okay. That would be terrific.
MR. MAC EWAN-Is that fair enough?
MR. LAPPER-Very much.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think it’s fair to say there’s a good number of us up here that are concerned with the
existing site that you don’t propose on having any impacts on, and what we can do to remedy that stormwater
that’s somehow, some way, treat that, because I’ll tell you, that’s going to fit into the SEQRA review.
MR. LAPPER-That’ll be part of our submission to the Town Engineer.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s an important issue. Okay. Cathy’s done a quick laundry list.
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Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/26/02)
MRS. LA BOMBARD-I’m not so sure I’ve caught everything, but I think I hit some salient points here.
MR. MAC EWAN-Basically what she’s got on here is per the comments that were made by both Jim and Jim
tonight, that you need to respond to their concerns, primarily supplying the data to support your findings, and
the one additional thing is to come up with a response on how you’re going to handle this one stormwater
drainage that has not had any attention paid to it at this point. Is there anything else that anybody is looking
for?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Does this sound really totally, you know, it can’t be done, bizarre maybe? You know
how John said the pond used to be clear and now it’s obviously all filled with algae, is there any way that that
pond could be dredged, and all that algae taken out and then allowed to be filled up again, and then we’d have
a real check.
MR. HOUSTON-My response to that would be, once you remove the algae out of there, there’s something
in the water that’s causing the algae to grow. So even if you pulled out that out.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Well, there’s nutrients, obviously, in there.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, if you take care of the pollution, eventually it’ll take care of itself, right?
MR. HOUSTON-It’ll clean itself.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-There was a lot of nitrates and stuff flowing through into there, but, I mean, when
you say you dredge it, that’s probably taking off so many inches of the soil underneath it, too.
MR. MAC EWAN-We do have a public hearing scheduled tonight. I’ll open up the public hearing. Does
anyone want to comment?
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. MAC EWAN-I’ll leave it open. For the record, Shelly gets an A tonight.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-You don’t need to come back, does she?
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, she’ll still want to come back. Okay. I’ll introduce a motion to table, pending
further response to engineering comments made by C.T. Male.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 12-2002 HOME DEPOT, Introduced by Craig MacEwan who
moved for its adoption, seconded by John Strough:
Pending further response to engineering comments made by C.T. Male.
Duly adopted this 26 day of March, 2002, by the following vote:
th
AYES: Mr. Strough, Mr. Sanford, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Metivier,
Mr. MacEwan
NOES: NONE
MR. LAPPER-Thank you all very much.
MR. MAC EWAN-Just let the Staff know and then let me know, and we’ll set up something.
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Craig MacEwan, Chairman
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