2003-12-11 SP
(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SPECIAL MEETING
DECEMBER 11, 2003
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
CRAIG MAC EWAN, CHAIRMAN
JOHN STROUGH
ROBERT VOLLARO
LARRY RINGER
CHRIS HUNSINGER
THOMAS SEGULJIC, ALTERNATE
MEMBERS ABSENT
ANTHONY METIVIER
PLANNER-GEORGE HILTON
STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI
OLD BUSINESS
SITE PLAN NO. 25-2003 SEQRA TYPE I WAL-MART STORES PROPERTY OWNER:
WAL-MART STORES, INC. & NAT. REALTY AGENT: NEAL MADDEN, ESQ.; JOHN
SPEER ZONE: HC-INTENSIVE LOCATION: ROUTE 9 AND WEEKS ROAD
APPLICANT PROPOSES EXPANSION OF EXISTING WAL-MART STORE BY
CONSTRUCTING A 95,217 SQ. FT. BUILDING ADDITION FOR A TOTAL BUILDING
SQUARE FOOTAGE OF 216,080. PLANNING BOARD MAY ISSUE A SEQR
DETERMINATION AT THIS MEETING. CROSS REFERENCE: PZ 5-90, SV 49-95, UV 32-
92, SV 55-94, SV 57, 58-93, AV 11-93, SB 3-93, SP 31-93, AV 38-2003 WARREN CO.
PLANNING: 5/14/03 TAX MAP NO. 296.17-1-36, 37 LOT SIZE: 11.29 ACRES, 6.46 ACRES
SECTION: 179-4-020
JOHN SPEER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. MAC EWAN-George, Staff notes?
MR. HILTON-I guess I’ve just included a summary in the Staff notes of what the applicant has
provided. It appears to address the items that the Planning Board was looking for at the last
tabling. Just a couple of additional comments. We’ve included, Staff has included a copy of
the approved Home Depot lighting plan for your review. The applicant’s provided a copy of
the 1994 Wal-Mart lighting plan for your review. As I mentioned, one thing is that the lighting
plan has been revised so that it meets the 2.5 foot candle average, and one, I guess in looking at
the plan a little bit more, consideration, we feel, should be given to reducing the angle of the
floodlights below 80 degrees, and just a question about the visors. Are they the type that were
identified on the cut sheets. This would better accent or light the front of the building and
would not produce any glare that may go over the face of the building, that is lowering the
angle. In noticing the landscaped area where the Queen Diner is, there’s a light pole there, and
it appears that it’ll function only to light the landscaping, and our question is, is it necessary,
and can it be removed, and in terms of landscaping, the landscaping plan should be updated to
accommodate the Ray Supply vehicular intersection which is shown on the plan. We do have
some public comment this evening, and that’s all I have at this time.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Gentlemen? Anyone?
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. SPEER-Good evening Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, John Speer from Langan
Engineering, accompanied by Girard Fitamant from Langan, Peter Hentschke and B.J. Phillips.
Referring to your tabling motion from the November 20 meeting, our latest revision, we
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showed the pedestrian crosswalk and a sign for pedestrian crossings. They’re opposite the hole
in the fence that’s a pathway out to the Greenway neighborhood. We had a meeting in the field,
that Monday the 24, with Jim Houston, and representatives from Ray Supply discussing the
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location of a possible interconnect. I believe all parties seem to favor this location opposite this
parking bay here. It has a one way coming out onto Wal-Mart property. We revised the data
sheets and supplied those to show the changes in permeability and parking. We received a
signoff from Mike Shaw of the Wastewater Department, regarding the sizing of our grease
traps. On the site plans themselves, we have added notes at the grocery loading dock, the
general merchandise loading dock and the general merchandise compactor, showing that we’re
going to be adding the sound attenuating panels. Mr. Phillips will address the rooftop
mechanical screening. Note Six and Seven from the lighting plan, those refer to 1,000 watt
fixtures on 39 foot poles. Those have been removed from Lighting Plan 25.01. In addition,
Lighting Plan 25.01 has been revised to achieve a precise 2.5 foot candle average. Remove Note
11 from Plan 20.01, our site plan. That’s your, in your tabling resolution, your Note Nine.
That’s also connected to Notes 13 and 14. We revised this note to state that the shaded area is a
land bank parking area with 39 cars. It’ll initially be planted as shown in the landscaping plan.
If at a future date Wal-Mart identifies the need to convert this area into parking, application
must be made to the Town of Queensbury Planning Board and approval granted by the Board
for a Site Plan modification. Your Point Ten was defer for comment to C.T. Male on the
interconnect on the interconnect option location. I believe you should have a memo in your file
from Jim Houston, memorializing the meeting we had on site, and giving his thoughts on that
interconnect location, and Notes Eleven and Twelve refer to the Home Depot Lighting Plan,
which I believe we’ve been copied on, and the Planning Board has been copied on, and our
Lighting Plan has been revised to meet that 2.5 foot candle average, and I think that is just about
all the revisions we’ve done to satisfy the Board this last time around.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Anything else?
MR. SPEER-Not at this time, sir.
MR. MAC EWAN-We seem to have things pretty well wrapped up. Any questions from Board
members? We’ll start with John.
MR. STROUGH-Nothing at this time.
MR. MAC EWAN-Robert?
MR. VOLLARO-I’ve just got a couple. I’ll just read from notes. I think with the reduction to
2.5, they’ve also met the four to one ratio. They’re no lower than .625. So they’re at a minimum
of one. So that makes the spread okay. One of the things I couldn’t locate when I was doing,
looking at the lighting drawing, the max level on your lighting drawing is 28.3 foot candles.
Where does this come from?
MR. SPEER-There’s a point by the TLE, it’s right in here. This is the existing Tire and Lube
Express, and there’s a kiosk for where there’s a greeter located, and there’s a one man door and
maybe four feet away from it is an overhead rolling door, and both of those doors have these
wall sconces on them. So at the point, it just happened to have a point value there, and at that
point, right in the middle of those two sconces, there’s a 28.3.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s included in your overall minimum of 1.1.
MR. SPEER-Yes. The overall minimum of 1.1 is found someplace else on the site, but that’s
included in the averages.
MR. VOLLARO-And that 1.1 also includes those floods?
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. SPEER-Yes, the floods are accurately portrayed on this plan.
MR. VOLLARO-Now, those floodlights are mounted at 33 feet, three feet above the mounting of
the regular lights in the parking lot. I think Mr. Hilton had talked about that in his introduction
to it. What’s the position on that, as far as its tilt is concerned?
MR. SPEER-We can look at the tilt. The thing is that we would be concerned about where that
light hits the building, that the 80 degree angle is a Wal-Mart standard, but if there are concerns
about light spillage over the building, we can definitely address that.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I just noticed, in looking at, the Staff supplied us the Home Depot figures,
and I noticed that they’ve got four floodlights in front of their place.
MR. SPEER-I did note some floodlights. I didn’t count them.
MR. VOLLARO-There’s four of them, according to drawing (lost words) there’s four
floodlights. I’m just wondering if we’re over spotting the building there at all. That’s a concern
I have about, in fact you’ve got nine of them. That’s a lot of lights, at 33 feet, and I’m not sure
what the angle of depression is. I think we’re going to be below 83.
MR. SPEER-Well, they will have the visors, as George had mentioned, in the Staff notes. Those
visors that are included on the cut sheets will be supplied with these floodlights, and that
should help alleviate any type of spillage over the top of the building, and we can go back and
make sure that that, we can bring that down, a better angle to make sure that there’s no light
spillage from that building.
MR. VOLLARO-There’s two things I’m concerned with, spillage over the top and whatever
vertical escape there may be, you know, sort of lighting up the sky if you will.
MR. SPEER-The visor should address that well.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I noticed the luminair now matches the drawing 25.01. We mentioned
the light in the diner area. I see no need for that. That’s got to come out, I would believe.
There’s a JV MOD FC light in the diner area right in the middle.
MR. SPEER-Yes, sir.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s got to go, I would think.
MR. SPEER-If that would please the Board, we can remove that.
MR. VOLLARO-And I guess we’re in the business of having to grant waivers on the 30 foot
poles. Is that right, Mr. Chairman?
MR. MAC EWAN-That would be correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. In looking at the drawings that were supplied, I think we’ve got here a
lighting plan that’s almost a one to one ratio between a Home Depot and this, based on the
numbers that I see. Very, very similar. I see that we have Home Depot was 2.77 is their overall
average, versus your 1.1. That’s kind of an interesting number, and yours is 2.5.
MR. SPEER-Yes. It’s 2.5 in the parking field itself.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. Now the Home Depot does not make that differentiation in their, they
don’t break it down as to overall site versus parking. They give you one number and that one
number is 2.77, but looking at everything and trying to, I’d essentially say there’s a one to one
relationship in the parking between the two, just looking at the numbers and not going out on a
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field survey to see what my eyeball says, but looking at the numbers, it looks like that 1 to 1. So
that’s about all I have on the parking, Mr. Chairman. I’m sorry, on lighting, not parking.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else? Let’s just cover them all right now. I don’t think there’s very
many left out there to deal with.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I have a question about Mr. B.J. Phillips’ letter of 12/01. What
essentially that letter says, we can’t do anything with the back of the building. What I don’t
understand about that. I understand, you know, your memo in terms of snow drift, ending up
in snow load into dead load. I understand dead load, what I don’t understand is you have a
building design with four sides to it, and one side can’t stand the dead load, but the other three
sides can. It just doesn’t make good sense to me, from a design point of view, I mean, the
building, the guy that designed the building didn’t sit down and say I’m going to make the
west wall of this building less able to stand the dead load than the other three sides. I mean,
that argument just didn’t, I couldn’t buy that.
MR. PHILLIPS-Well, the problem comes in that the roof slopes to the west. It runs off the back
of the building. All the water and the snow is able to fall off the rear of the building, and if we
go in and try to raise that rear wall, this snow will now have no way to get off the building at
that rear wall. It all slopes that direction. So what we would, in essence, have to do is go in and
reinforce that wall, quite possibly tear it down and rebuild it, and we run into a problem with
the structure not being able to support that weight at that point. On the other three sides of the
building, the snow is not going to be, in essence, as large a load because it’s intended to slide off
to the rear of the building.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, it depends on the wind and what you’ve got. The fronts could take a
tremendous dead load if you got a heavy snow, a tremendous dead load, and if the snow is
going to melt, what happens is it’s not going to hang up behind that partition we want to put
up there. It’s going to spill off the back of the building. It seems to me that what we want to do
is get something up there, just like your, the information you submitted, it looked to me like
those panels were very light, don’t have to be erected directly to the building itself. There can
be a path under those panels for water to drain off. The panels definitely, I just can’t see why
we can’t block all of that from that western side of the building. It just doesn’t make sense to
me at all that that’s what we’ve got here.
MR. PHILLIPS-That panel system actually mounts directly to each unit. It’s not a system that’ll
mount parallel to that rear wall. It’s a system that mounts on the units to disguise the unit,
which, in essence.
MR. VOLLARO-No, no, no. I’m not talking about those. The panels that I’m looking at that
you supplied is from Empire Acoustical Systems.
MR. PHILLIPS-Yes. The ones that we’re mounting to the screen walls for the truck docks and
the compactors.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Now, they have a drawing in here that does talk about that, bottom steel
member it looks like. It just looks like to me that that could be, that they could be designed or
put on the building with some mountings on the bottom that don’t have to be secured directly
to the bottom. I’d certainly like to explore that. I think that from two points of view, from, you
know, shielding the building in the back from those, from the mechanicals and also shielding it
from noise. This part of the letter just didn’t make good sense to me. Let’s get off that for a
minute. What is the difference in the acoustical performance of rock will versus fiberglass. Do
you know what that is?
MR. PHILLIPS-I do not know.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I don’t know how the rest of the Board feels about this. I’d have to defer
to the Chairman to possibly poll the Board on this, but I really see a need for two things on the
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back of that building, one is an acoustical barrier, and secondly a visual barrier for the
mechanicals from the people looking to the east from the western side of the buildings, from the
neighbors in the back. So I don’t think, it’s not doable.
MR. MAC EWAN-What’s your reason why you just can’t put an extended false wall, at the top
of the roofline, go up three feet or whatever?
MR. PHILLIPS-Because it will create extra dead load from snow not being able to blow off the
rear of the building.
MR. MAC EWAN-Something that’s just a lightweight material that’s just for architectural and
aesthetic looks?
MR. PHILLIPS-I don’t know. There’s, sure, something, I imagine, could be mounted up there.
We haven’t looked into it. It’s not something we would prefer to do. We would prefer to do.
We would prefer to paint the units or cover them with some screening material on each
individual unit, but running a wall along that or mounting some type of screen façade. It’s not
something.
MR. RINGER-You aren’t saying it’s the weight of the wall you’re going to put up, it’s the
weight of the snow that may be there because it can’t go anywhere else?
MR. PHILLIPS-Exactly.
MR. RINGER-Okay. It’s not the weight of the wall. It’s the weight of the snow accumulating
on the roof.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s true, Larry, but the other three sides are apparently able to carry this
dead load, and the western side cannot. It just doesn’t make good design sense, to me, that that
building can’t carry a dead load in the back equal to the other three sides. It makes no sense at
all.
MR. MAC EWAN-Especially when you say that the building’s designed for the snow to go to
the back of the building.
MR. PHILLIPS-That would be where the heaviest load would be, but it won’t accumulate
because there’s no wall to hold it in. It’s going to blow off the rear of the building.
MR. MAC EWAN-Certainly you could probably design something that would have, for lack of
a better way to put it, a hole in the back of the wall for the water to come off.
MR. VOLLARO-You could extend these panels above the top of the wall slightly with a
structure that allowed water or snow to go through it but still the panel would be there to
reflect acoustical noise and to hide the mechanicals. I think it can be done. I don’t think this is
a, you know, it certainly isn’t rocket science to put that up. I know that for sure.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else?
MR. VOLLARO-I guess, in the back of your Empire Acoustical Systems, you come up with a
term called sabins. Now sabins is really a unit of reverberation, and I don’t know how to
convert, you know, sabins into db. I looked through my own books on that, and there’s no
conversion factor that I can find.
MR. PHILLIPS-That information was supplied directly from the manufacturer. I’m not sure
what sabin is either.
MR. VOLLARO-See what I wanted to do is to see, what I would have liked to have seen is what
the db performance of the mechanicals are and what they would be after these units are erected.
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What’s the difference in acoustical performance is what I was looking for there, and I couldn’t
get it from this chart. I see that the center frequency we’re looking at is 1250 hertz, but that
doesn’t tell me much because I don’t know what the frequency of the mechanicals are. So I
don’t know how to evaluate that curve that you gave me there. I guess in the landscaping we
talked about the tree in the center of Ray Supply. Did you mention that?
MR. HILTON-I did in my notes. I may have missed it in my summary.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Yes, there’s a tree sitting right in the middle of the interconnect. I think
that ought to be removed from Drawing 24.01, just scratch it.
MR. SPEER-It will be done.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Now the last three on lighting and engineering’s letter, your site
development data sheet is in the file? We didn’t get a copy of it.
MR. HILTON-No. We do have an updated site development data sheet which is in the file.
MR. VOLLARO-And it shows permeability and parking, and that’s what they’ve got to go
before the ZBA for is a variance?
MR. HILTON-Yes, for variances.
MR. VOLLARO-Those two. Okay. The Jim Houston memorandum, that’s also in the file?
MR. HILTON-Yes. I have it right here. If you’d care for me to read it at some point, I certainly
can.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I would care to read Jim Houston’s letter into, unless you don’t want to
read it into the record.
MR. MAC EWAN-No, that’s fine.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I’d like to hear what he has to say.
MR. HILTON-Sure. I can read it to you right now.
MR. VOLLARO-Is it too long to read?
MR. HILTON-No. It’s one page, and I’ll try to go pretty quick here. It’s dated November 25,
2003, from Jim Houston. It says “This memorandum documents a site visit that I made on
November 24, 2003 to determine the best location to make an interconnection between Ray
Supply and Wal-Mart. I arrived on-site at 12:45 PM and met with John Speer and Bill Lothian
representing Langan Engineering. We first examined access in an east-west direction extending
from the Wal-Mart loop road that runs along the south property line. An interconnect road at
this location would require vehicle maneuvers in a limited space behind Ray Supply, hinder the
use of the existing installation garage and it would not be visible to customers parking in front
of the store. A better alternative appears to construct the interconnect road across from the first
aisle north of the southern loop road. A interconnect road at this location would be located
north of the Ray Supply building and be visible to customers utilizing the front parking lot at
Ray Supply. It is recommended that this interconnect only allow one-way traffic from Ray
Supply to Wal-Mart. The installation of a two-way road has the potential for Wal-Mart patrons
to exit through Ray Supply during periods of peak exiting traffic. The elevation difference
between the Wal-Mart site and the parking surface at Ray Supply does not appear to be
significant. The differential is made to appear greater than it actually is because there is an earth
berm between the two pavement surfaces. We also examined the possibility of constructing an
interconnect road that would tie into the main intersection on Wal-Mart property. This
alternative was deemed counterproductive to improving traffic flow at this intersection and
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would require Ray Supply users to make a right turn to access the interconnect ramp. We
discussed all three alternatives with Keith Zoll (Vice President of Ray Supply) and later I met
with George Goetz (President of Ray Supply). Everyone was in agreement that the east-west
alternative lining up with the parking aisle versus lining up with the loop road was the best. It
was further discussed that the interconnect road should be posted “one-way”/”do not enter”
from the Wal-Mart side and at this time be limited to one approximately 15 feet wide lane. This
road would be constructed in the southern portion of an easement large enough to support a
future road widening (to a 2 lane road) if desired. Drainage from the road surface should be
collected in a catch basin and piped to a drywell installed on the Ray Supply site.” And that’s
the extent of the memo.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. The only thing I saw on the drawing was where it was. Now there’s a
couple of things that Mr. Houston mentioned in there, that it should be one way from Ray
Supply out, and do you have that? I don’t have my drawing? I can break it out, but what?
MR. SPEER-Yes, sir. I put a note on Drawing 20.01 site plan. The location of 15 foot wide one
way driveway from Ray Supply property to Wal-Mart property. Wal-Mart (lost word) pay for
construction of this portion of the driveway upon commencement of construction by adjoining
property owner.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. All right. Now does that mean that Ray Supply has to start the
construction and then you jump into it, or how does that?
MR. SPEER-That’s still up in the air, sir, but we would like to have one continuous road built,
you know, as opposed to having a, this is about 15 foot from our curb line to our property line.
Just to have that dead end road there doesn’t seem sensible at this time.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. As long as that’s been covered, I’m satisfied with Jim’s analysis of that,
and I guess that, Mr. Chairman, I think I am finished from my notes, sir. Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Tom?
MR. SEGULJIC-Just a couple of quick things. Within the diner green space, why did you put a
light there? Why did you think there was a need for a light there?
MR. SPEER-Any darkened spot on this might be a liability issue. We’re just thinking along
those lines, but if this is going to be landscaped, that light can be removed. If it offends the
Board. The only reason would be liability issues, having a darkened grove on the property.
MR. SEGULJC-Now, with regard to the architectural designs, colors and materials, is that
something you’ll discuss later then?
MR. SPEER-Yes. I believe those were submitted at the last meeting.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. It was just in the notes here. All right, and then with regards to the
panels on the back of the building, I mean I would think that it would seem reasonable that you
could put something there. Some lightweight material of some type, to deaden the sound and
reduce the visible impact.
MR. SPEER-That’s not my area.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-Back to, you, B.J.
MR. PHILLIPS-Yes, back to me. Again, I’m not a structural engineer, and as far as mounting
that to the CMU wall, trying to devise some system to put a lightweight panel up there, I don’t
know, structurally for wind loads, I don’t know how that would be able to, I don’t know how it
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would mount. There are just issues with that, I mean, I’m not efficient enough to answer for
you. I’m not efficient enough to answer for you. I can go back and look at that, if that became a
condition of the approval, we can certainly go back and, you know, we’ll figure something out.
MR. SEGULJIC-I don’t know, but I have a feeling that’s going to become an issue, and I would
think that you could put slots, vertical slots, horizontal slots in there or something like that.
Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Larry?
MR. RINGER-I have nothing to add. I would be concerned on the roof if they did put
something up there that did increase the load. I’ve seen so many times, you see where
buildings collapse because of the weight of snow and stuff. If they were going to do something,
I’d really like to see an expert, so to speak, on roof construction and stuff come in. I’d hate to
push an applicant to put something up there that the applicant doesn’t feel confident about, that
the weight might be too heavy. So I’d really like to see someone, an expert come in before we
insist that they do something.
MR. MAC EWAN-You have structural engineers on staff?
MR. PHILLIPS-Not with our office, but, yes, of course we do. We hire, we subcontract our
structural engineers.
MR. RINGER-It would just be a concern of mine that if we insisted on something that the
applicant felt, you know, the roof couldn’t handle. We’re talking a big roof. I’ve seen it so
many times happen where snow weight does collapse buildings. I don’t have anything else to
add right now, Craig.
MR. MAC EWAN-Chris?
MR. HUNSINGER-I really didn’t have anything else to add either. I would just reiterate Larry’s
comments about the roof issue. I feel the same way. I kind of thought the thought of painting
the fixtures to match the roof might be a pretty reasonable solution.
MR. PHILLIPS-And it’s something we’d definitely, I mean, we’d love to do that. That would be
the simplest solution for us and it would reduce the visual impairment from those neighbors.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, I couldn’t, since I didn’t go up into the apartment building, I didn’t
get to see the visual impact myself. So it’s hard to understand.
MR. PHILLIPS-Sure. We haven’t had any access to the second story of the apartments either,
but I know that from ground level I’ve been back behind there, and as far as the Wal-Mart side,
there are a couple of larger units that are on the Ames that will be removed, but the Wall-Mart
units are not that obtrusive. I mean, they’re not.
MR. HUNSINGER-I didn’t have anything else, Mr. Chairman.
MR. MAC EWAN-One last time. Any other questions, comments?
MR. STROUGH-Just about that interconnect going to Ray Supply. Now, you’re agreeing that
when and if Ray Supply’s ready to make their part of that interconnect, you’ll be ready to do
your part?
MR. SPEER-Yes, sir.
MR. STROUGH-And who’s responsibility will it be to put up the signage saying no entrance?
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MR. SPEER-I haven’t really worked out any kind of agreement yet. We do have an agreement
on the location, and it took us since, I guess April, but an agreement for the actual details of
how that could work, that’s going to have to be handled by attorneys and.
MR. STROUGH-Okay. Well, basically that agreement, that one way is for exiting traffic in Ray
Supply, right?
MR. SPEER-Well, we would sign our side no enter, do not enter. I think Wal-Mart would not
have an objection to putting a do not enter sign there.
MR. STROUGH-Okay, and we did delete the Tire and Lube Express freestanding sign.
MR. SPEER-Yes.
MR. STROUGH-And so why don’t we just delete it from the details and Plan 28.04, too, because
we don’t need it, just to make sure.
MR. SPEER-Thank you, sir.
MR. STROUGH-Okay. That’s all I have for right now.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else you gentlemen wanted to add?
MR. SPEER-Not at this time, if the Board has no further questions.
MR. MAC EWAN-George?
MR. HILTON-No.
MR. MAC EWAN-All right. We have a public hearing we left open. We’ll take comment. Jon?
JON LAPPER
MR. LAPPER-Good evening. For the record, Jon Lapper, Dave Valenti and Jim Valenti on
behalf of Whispering Pine apartments, which is immediately adjacent and to the west of the
Wal-Mart property, and again, the Valenti’s are not opposed to an expansion of Wal-Mart.
They just think that an expansion has to be done more sensitively to the residential neighbors in
the back. Every time we have proposed a mitigation or it seems the Board has proposed a
mitigation, the Wal-Mart representatives are indicating that it’s too expensive for Wal-Mart to
be bothered, and I just want to remind the Board that that wasn’t the position of Home Depot,
another national company across the street that I think was a lot more sensitive to the
neighbors. After the last meeting, we asked engineer Tom Nace to review the plans and to
provide us a detailed letter that, it’s only two pages so I’m going to read it, and it gets into the
issues that we’re concerned about. “Dear Chairman MacEwan and Planning Board members:
I’ve been retained by the owners of the Whispering Pines Apartments to review the plans for
the proposed Wal-Mart expansion, specifically with regard to their concerns about the impact
the expansion may have on their existing apartment complex which abuts the west side of the
Wal-Mart property. After reviewing the various materials submitted for this application I have
several concerns which I believe should be addressed. These concerns fall into the general
categories of traffic circulation, noise and visual impacts. However, all of the concerns have a
common thread in that I believe they are all the result of a site that is too small for the proposed
project. The applicant is requesting that it be allowed to have only 16.2% permeability. The
Zoning Code requires 30% which is in fact fairly minimal (many communities require more).
The net result is that the building, parking, circulation, roads, etc. are crammed onto the site in a
manner that prevents good design of traffic circulation, landscaping and buffering. There just is
not enough room to properly lay things out. Furthermore, I understand that the applicant is
requesting a variance to provide only 3.3 parking spaces per 1,000 square feet instead of the 4.5
required by the Zoning Code. I seriously doubt that the proposed number of parking spaces
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will be sufficient and suggest that, at a minimum, the applicant be asked to provide examples of
existing store locations where they have successfully used this parking ratio for a Super Wal-
Mart. As a point of reference the Wilton Wal-Mart site has a parking ratio of 4.9. The specific
issues which I would like to have addressed for the benefit of the owners of the Whispering
Pines Apartments are: TRAFFIC & CIRCULATION 1. It is my understanding that the
applicant has stated that the access to Weeks Road will not be used by trucks. However, the
plans show that the access to Weeks Road is perfectly aligned with the truck exit from the
loading docks, is a heavy duty concrete pavement, and has a large exit radius specifically
designed for truck traffic. If this access is only to be used by cars, it would be more
appropriately placed at the eastern end of the northerly parking lot and not in front of the truck
docks to avoid conflicts between automobiles and trucks. 2. The proposed truck route from the
Route 9 entrances (as noted by the areas of heavy duty pavement as shown on Drawing 20.02) is
very contorted and takes trucks through the main customer access routes. This will certainly
create problems as trucks maneuver through the tight turns, probably requiring both traffic
lanes in order to make the required maneuvers. 3. Of more specific concern is the fact that the
entry drives off of Route 9 are relatively short up to the point that traffic has to make a 90
degree turn into the main circulation loop. If a truck entering the site has difficulty making this
turn, it could back up entering traffic into the Route 9 intersection. NOISE 4. The latest
submission includes concrete walls with sound attenuating panels around the truck loading
docks. Data sheets for the sound attenuating panels were included with the submission.
However, there were no details to show the height of the walls or the location of the sound
panels relative to the location of the truck engine, exhaust or trailer mounted refrigeration units.
Without this information there is no way to even guess at the effectiveness of this proposal. I
would suggest that the applicant provide the Board with an analysis of the actual noise
generated at the truck dock area as measured at the rear property line late at night when there is
little or no ambient noise to mask this sound. 5. There are currently tractor trailer boxes parked
at the rear of the site to provide additional warehouse space for the store. With the addition of
the supermarket, will there be tractor trailers with refrigeration units parked anywhere on the
rear of the site other than at the proposed truck docks? If so, noise from these refrigeration
units needs to be addressed and if necessary mitigated. 6. Noise from the trash compactors
should be included in the analysis requested above. Additionally, due to its proximity to the
apartments, odor should be addressed if the compactor is to handle any food wastes from the
supermarket. 7. The 12/1/03 letter from Perry L. Butcher & Associates, Architects states that
noise generated by the rooftop HVAC units is negligible and should therefore not require
screening. However, there is no actual data provided to support this statement. VISUAL 8.
The 12/1/03 letter from the architect states that “only 14 rooftop units would be visible from the
second story of the neighboring apartments”. The letter further explains that screening by way
of raising the parapet is impractical due to structural considerations and screening of the units
themselves is expensive and ineffective. I would simply submit that a wider, beefier landscape
buffer at the rear of the site could effectively mitigate this issue. 9. The 16.2% permeable area
on this site is inadequate to provide effective visual buffers, whether it is from my client’s
apartment complex or from Route 9. From any vantage point this site will look just like what it
really is, a commercial site maxed out to the nth degree. Thank you for the opportunity to
comment on this proposed site plan. I believe that the SEQR review for this project is
inadequate without the additional information requested above. Sincerely, Thomas W. Nace,
P.E.” What we’ve been after all along is to really address just a couple of concerns of the
apartments, and the Valenti’s feel that their interests haven’t really been take into account so far,
but they are appreciative of the Board’s discussion tonight about the parapet walls because that
could go a fair amount in terms of the 14 units on the roof, the visual and the noise issue, and
they would request that the Board require that. It doesn’t seem a far stretch that lightweight
noise attenuating panels can be designed or purchased, I’m sure they exist, that could let the
snow and water exit from underneath them and still provide the buffering and that is
important, and they’re hopeful that the Board would require that as a mitigation measure. I
think what’s wrong with the site is that they just are trying to get too much building on, and
that’s shown by having 16.2% permeable area. If there’s more green space, all we’d asked for
was another 10 feet in the back to saw cut the pavement, provide a fence with vegetative
buffering on both sides, so that the apartments don’t seem like they’re at the back of, it’s one
thing now when it’s a Wal-Mart department store, but a supermarket with tractor trailers,
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refrigerated tractor trailer units that are noisy, that are there idling at night, waiting to be
unloaded, that’s a big difference from what’s there now. We also have to address the fact that
there are some 31 odd container units shown in the back. It’s not shown on the site plan. I
think that that is a deficiency in terms of the SEQRA review, because the impact of that isn’t
considered in terms of whether that’s subject to parking requirements or green space
requirements because that’s more storage space, and what is does is that it forces the truck
traffic even closer to the apartments because you have all these containers along the building. If
they would agree, as a condition, to put up a real buffer in the back, that would go a long way
to alleviating the concerns of the apartment complex. Previously, the Board did, at our request,
ask the applicant to mitigate the traffic on Weeks Road by requiring that the trucks would not
enter or exit on Weeks Road at all, but the design belies that agreement, because as Tom pointed
out in his letter, to have the only entrance for trucks or for cars, excuse me, immediately in front
of the truck docks, for one, automobiles aren’t going to want to drive there on Weeks Road
because they’re going to be driving right into the trucks and the truck docks. That doesn’t seem
real safe, but for the applicant’s representatives have said at the last meeting that they’re going
to put up a sign so that when the truck is facing right out to Weeks Road to get out to Route 9,
that there’s going to be a sign saying go back the other way. I don’t think that’s anywhere near
as effective as moving the entrance so it’s not in conflict with the truck dock, moving it all the
way to the east side of the parking lot, and then it won’t be incentive for trucks to pull out over
there. There’s a lot of kids that are in the two apartment complexes there that are waiting for
school buses that walk to Route 9, that walk to the school bus, and it seems important to just
keep all these trucks away from Weeks Road, and that would be an easy way to do it. We’re
really just looking for the Board to be as sensitive to the impacts on the apartment complex as
the Board usually is to neighbors of commercial projects, and we don’t have to complain about
the 16.2% green space as long as a little bit more green space is added in the back that would
protect this residential project. Just because the Code provides a buffer of 10 feet, that doesn’t
mean that that should be the maximum buffer. That’s really a minimum buffer and in this case,
under the SEQR review, we’re saying that we’re going to have some real noise issues because of
all the operations that are going to happen in the back of the building.
DAVID VALENTI
MR. D. VALENTI-Thank you, Jon. Good evening, Board. My name is David Valenti. I’m here
with my brother Jim, owners of Whispering Pines. I just have a few general comments to make,
concerning the process that we’ve experienced over the last three months with regard to the
Wal-Mart expansion, and not having lived here my entire life, I’ve had an opportunity to see,
you know, in the last couple of years, the growth of this area. The growth coming north from
Albany, and now Queensbury is certainly expanding in what I consider to be a very commercial
direction, and with that being said, my initial thoughts on that whole process, that whole
direction was that this Township should at least maintain some sort of a comprehensive plan
that would relate to the quality of life issues that are neighboring some of our residential
communities. The Town of Queensbury should also have an opportunity to look at some sort of
an economic impact report that would be critiqued by an independent economic analysis that
would include current projected sales market capacity, impact on property taxes and sales
revenue of other businesses, impact on community services such as police, water, sewer, and
fire protection. I’ve reviewed a few excerpts from various areas within New York State and
across the country from Planning Commissions that involved issues pertaining to Wal-Mart
expansions where, for example, in Nassau, New York it was read that the Planning Commission
were sort of playing deaf, dumb and blind when confronted with neighbor’s complaints about
idling trucks in the parking lot and placing the burden on the truckers, does this fit with any
kind of master plan? Is it possible that our decision could form a legal basis for a challenge to
the Planning and Zoning Board decisions? I don’t know. I’m very concerned that the noise that
we’re going to have to endure at this property, particularly with 52 apartment units that are
adjacent to this property are going to have to deal with issues where within a township we
don’t even have an Ordinance concerning noise, nor is there a procedure that would police it. I
certainly would like to have some sort of a response from this Board that I initiated back several
months ago concerning how this was going to be policed, should noise become a real problem
for us and affect the quiet and enjoyment that they’re entitled to as residents residing in this
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property. These are quality of life issues. It’s apparent to me that this Planning Board’s view on
apartments is much different, and inconsistent, when compared to the issues on noise and other
buffer zones within this Township whereby residential areas were adjacent to these buffer
zones, whereby homeowners had voiced out their opinions in objection, and this Board listened
attendedly to the concerns of those homeowners and has thus made changes to zoning,
particularly on the east side of Route 9, making it a better living environment for those
residential areas. I haven’t heard this Board once concern themselves with the issues pertaining
to these trucks and these refrigeration units going all night long and the concern that that might
have to the 52 apartment units situated within 50 feet from this. Not once has this Board
addressed that. You have the responsibility as Board members to the Town and to the
taxpayers, and your responsibility is to maintain all the necessary information as required to go
forward with decisions such as this Wal-Mart expansion. If it’s meant to be that we have to
evaluate in other Wal-Mart expansions the noise that might be the result of this equipment and
these trucks running all night long to verify for a fact what this, the decibel levels are, to see
how uncomfortable it is, I would think that this Board would make those recommendations. As
an owner of the property adjacent to the property, I would be willing to provide that
information, given the appropriate time. Time is what we’re asking for. We’re moving along
too quickly on this project. Some of these projects take, with Wal-Mart expansions that I’ve
reviewed and investigated, I’ve seen and have gone on well beyond a year, maybe up to as long
as two years before these things are thoroughly thought out. I’m asking for this Board to be
consistent. The Route 9 corridor, in the commercial strip, consisting of big box retail, is
changing the whole environment of this Township, and what we’re dealing with are very
serious matters that I think this Board can look back on and quite possibly determine their
decisions to be reckless and very regrettable. I’m asking this Board to take more time. We’re
asking for a sound barrier between the rear side of this project. We want an engineered spec
wall that would extend up approximately 10 feet on a four foot berm that would keep the noise
on their side. That’s all we’re asking for. This Board has not posed that question to the Wal-
Mart people. Why hasn’t this Board simply asked the question, will you put the wall up? To
make 52 apartment units and those residents more comfortable, which affects their quality of
life and would certainly eliminate or quite possibly reduce the exposure to issues concerning
who’s going to police this problem. I ask this Board tonight to carefully evaluate their final
decision with regard to noise. Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you.
JIM VALENTI
MR. J. VALENTI-Jim Valenti, brother of Dave, Whispering Pines. A couple of days ago I read
an article in the paper that the Town is looking to put an ordinance on garbage pickup on the
corridor of Route 9, which is a noise related issue, through Twicwood, a couple of residents on
Twicwood, and the Courthouse Estates. What I’m saying is, it’s, here they’re looking to put this
through in 90 days, to make these neighborhoods more quiet for, and I agree that a truck goes in
there maybe twice a week, to Suttons, it was quoted, there for five minutes. Wal-Mart is
running 24/7, 50 feet from my property line, with the trucks, and all we’re looking for is like my
brother said, is a berm with a sound barrier, an engineered barrier to keep the sound on their
property. That’s it. Again, that’s all I’m talking about is the noise. Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-I had a question, before you leave the table. Did Tom Nace give you any
indication of what type of landscaping would create the buffer that he references in Item A?
He’s talking about a buffer to isolate the rooftop units and he says that a wider, beefier
landscape buffer could effectively mitigate this issue. They would have to be pretty tall trees.
MR. LAPPER-Well, we talked to Tom about, well, what Jim just referenced, or Dave, a 10 foot
buffer, on top of a four foot berm, and then the berm could be landscaped with evergreens that
initially might not be that big, but that would grow. That’s what we were talking about, cedars
or other evergreens that could go a long way visually, and in terms of noise impact and it
would just separate the two projects, so that these people wouldn’t have to worry so much and
their tenants wouldn’t have to worry so much about what was going on on the neighboring
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
property. Tom didn’t get into doing a design because we just didn’t get that far. We just
wanted to see if the Board would consider it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I mean, one of the things, in talking about a wall that would sort of
isolate the noise, what we have kind of focused on is a wall by the loading docks, and I was the
one that brought it up at the very first meeting when we met with Wal-Mart.
MR. LAPPER-Yes, and that’s important, because a lot of noise will be generated with pallets
being loaded and unloaded, but there’s also the problem of the trucks, especially the
refrigeration trucks, idling at night in that area behind the supermarket which is right next to
the apartment complex waiting to get to the dock, waiting to get loaded, and the fact that they
have all these containers back there, too, which would be shown on the plan that just pushes the
trucks closer to the property line, or driving around.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I mean, I’ve driven back through there several times since we’ve started
this review and I know what you’re talking about.
MR. LAPPER-Sure.
MR. HUNSINGER-But I just wanted you to be assured that, you know, we didn’t ignore those
concerns and comments. We tried to focus on a specific area and specific solution.
MR. LAPPER-And that’s important, but it’s not enough. Because you’ve got the apartments
right there. the Wal-Mart representatives said, because of the slope, grade, and the depth of the
buffer that exists now, that there’s not enough room to do any kind of significant wall and
planting like we had asked for, and our response is that there’s a lot of pavement back there,
especially a lot of pavement being taken up by these containers, and that if you just sawed off 10
feet of that, that plus what’s there now would be plenty to build a nice berm, a nice wall,
landscape it and we’d be done and out of here and that would be that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-That seems to be your major concern is making sure that there’s a buffer
between the apartments and the back of Wal-Mart.
MR. LAPPER-That, and just Weeks Road, that it doesn’t seem that that’s the appropriate place
for the one entrance, just where the truck dock is, but, you know, the Valenti’s feel that the
buffer issue was so important, in terms of the SEQR mitigation issue, that, you know, that we’re
going to pursue this to the Zoning Board, if we’re not successful here, in terms of the green
space area, that the impact of letting them have the 16% is that there’s not enough of a buffer,
not enough green space, you know, and they’re prepared to litigated if they have to, and that’s
not what we’re looking for. We’re just looking to get a compromise.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay.
MR. LAPPER-Okay. Thank you.
MR. J. VALENTI-Thank you very much.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anyone else?
KEVIN BRENNAN
MR. BRENNAN-Good evening. My name’s Kevin Brennan. I live in Queensbury, have all my
life. I have some comments that I wanted to make just to clarify a couple of the points made at
the last meeting.
MR. MAC EWAN-Excuse me for a moment. George, what’s cooking?
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MR. HILTON-This gentleman has some pictures he’d like to, I guess, display on the overhead.
MR. MAC EWAN-We’ll take public comment tonight. That’s all we’re going to do.
MR. HILTON-Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-Go ahead.
MR. BRENNAN-Okay. One of the things that frustrates me lately in the Town of Queensbury,
as I mentioned in the last meeting, is the out of control lighting, and I mentioned that I was
pleased that the Board was taking it up as an issue and at least trying to make some headway
on it. What I would like to see is a little bit more. I understand a lot of it’s a lack of knowledge,
and that’s what we’re going to try to provide is a little bit more knowledge base, a little bit more
facts, and some figures to help the Board understand what you’re facing and what you’re
looking at.
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t mean to cut you off, here, but are you referring to your letter that was
sent to us?
MR. BRENNAN-No, that’s not mine.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I’d ask you, if you could, to keep your comments as brief as possible
and not to get into too much in-depth stuff.
MR. BRENNAN-Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay.
MR. BRENNAN-The first thing that I want to comment is the letter that was put into the file
that was from the engineering group back to the Planning Board regarding the lighting
standard in the Town of Queensbury. Basically, the two and a half foot candles I will profess
has been fudged. They basically took out one. The letter indicates they took out one pole in the
corner of the property near the part that brings it level within two and a half foot candles. I
don’t think that’s in the spirit of what you had in mind, what the Board had in mind, and I
certainly don’t think it is in the spirit of what’s in the Queensbury Town Code, and I do want to
refer to a couple of points on the Code as well. Citing from 179-6-020 for lighting, it says the
purpose of the Code, it’s the intent of these regulations to minimize glare and to provide the
minimum amount of lighting on commercial sites necessary to provide for safe use of property,
again stressing the minimum amount required for safety. The site itself now is brighter than
many others within the Town of Queensbury business sites. Are we saying now that those
other sites are not safe and that they shouldn’t be visited? No. They’re plenty safe. We haven’t
had any accidents and so on and so forth. Now with regards to Wal-Mart’s claim on liability,
and that’s been spewed here a couple of times both tonight and last week. It’s right within the,
Wal-Mart’s available information and documentation around their own standards that they
will, they find anything between one and 3.3 foot candles to be acceptable. So I’ll lay that on the
Board, as far as what might be able to be feasible, but again, citing from the Code, the Code also
says that all exterior lights and illuminated signs shall be designed and located in such a
manner as to prevent objectionable light and glare from spilling across property lines. I don’t
know how it can be said that the light that’s going to be put on particularly some of the wall
packs and floodlights, are not going to spill across property lines. That’s hogwash to think that,
and it also says that the Planning Board may vary these standards making them more or less
restrictive where it finds it’s in the best interest of the Town, and the Town may vary standards
with reference to the brightness and the uses of surrounding environments. So that means that
two and a half foot candles is just a guideline. It’s not even a requirement that you can’t even
lower with regards to the project, and one of the things that I thought should be pointed out is,
yes, it came within two and a half foot candles versus 2.7, but there’s several other points that
don’t meet Code yet. Thirty foot poles versus the 20 foot required in the Town Code. So that’s
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
not to Code. Also, the Code calls for a ratio of four to one. The applicant’s own paperwork
indicates a ratio of two and a half to one, and I would dispute taking out that pole in the back
corner and a couple of lights on the back of the lot are going to bring the uniformity ratio within
four to one, which is basically, if you’ve got a pole there and a pole there, what’s the brightness
underneath the light versus between the two lights. That’s the uniformity ratio, and another
thing that’s important for the Board to understand is you can model, I mean, all this stuff is
developed by computer models and stuff like that, and by manipulating little placements here
and there, and different things, you can change what the computer kicks out as an average.
One in particular is the area that you plug into the computer program that generates the
averages. In other words, if you go out beyond the lighting area a certain way, then the further
you go out beyond the lighted area then the overall average foot candles drops, for instance,
and that’s why when one pole was taken out, then it fell within what the Board was looking for,
which was two and a half. Now the last item that does not meet Code is the Code calls or
recommends the high pressure sodium. The applicant’s requesting metal halides. I, personally,
find metal halide lighting, which is the kind you see at K-Mart, the kind you see at Staples, the
kind that everybody hates, is the exact kind that’s being proposed, and I simply think it’s too
bright. Also floodlights are against the Code, and I don’t see where it’s real productive of
debating how high they’re going to shine and where they’re going to shine. It’s not part of the
Code. So why approve it, and as far as the, I heard a comment tonight that I want to point out,
too, is that Wal-Mart literature or Wal-Mart standards call for floodlighting. It’s interesting to
note that the Wal-Mart in Wilton does not have a floodlight on it. You might want to take a
drive down and actually look at it, and I already mentioned that the Wal-Mart standards,
internal standards, call for one foot candle to 3.3. So they find one acceptable. What I would
like to propose is 25 foot poles, a balance between the 20 foot Code of the Town, and the 30 foot
that is being requested, and 150 watt bulbs versus 250 watt, or I’m sorry, 400, and leave them in
their current location. Yes, you’re going to lose some of the uniformity, but the uniformity is
already above Code. It will probably drop down into the range that is Code, and, yes, the foot
candles in the overall model would be reduced, but it still would be within Wal-Mart’s internal
standards, a lot more to the community’s liking, and yes it would be less than the maximum
allowed by Town Code, but who says we always have to raise the bar to the Code? That’s all I
have to say. I appreciate the Board’s time.
MR. MAC EWAN-Let me ask you a question. You keep referring to Wal-Mart’s internal
standards on lighting. Do you have some sort of documentation to support that?
MR. BRENNAN-Yes, it was included in our documentation to the Board.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. Did you want to make some comments?
STEVE DAVIS
MR. DAVIS-My name is Steve Davis. I wrote the letter, actually. I’d like to amplify a couple of
things there. Wal-Mart’s standard is 1 to 3.3 with 2.7 being proposed. So there’s plenty of room
to maneuver in there, and going back to how they took the one light out in the corner, I’d like to
point out that that really doesn’t make that much difference, when most of the activity in the
parking lot is going to be up front or in the middle, not way off in the northeast corner. Now if
you want to play the numbers game, which is kind of cheating, or ENRON economics, when
you’re calculating the average, subtract out the area that was the park area where that light is,
so you’ve got a smaller area. You’ll see that 2.5 raise right back up to 2.7. I’d also like to say
that really these numbers have little meaning by themselves because most people, including
myself, have a very hard time trying to relate to them. You’ve got to let your eyes be the judge,
and I would propose that you compare Wal-Mart’s present lighting to that of K-Mart and also
to what’s being proposed for Wal-Mart. I think you’ll find that, from what I was able to
calculate, Wal-Mart’s proposed lighting is going to be very, very close to K-Mart’s, slightly less.
So close that you really can’t tell the difference, and everybody is complaining about K-Mart
being too bright. So you’re going to wind up with another bright shopping center. I did
provide some numbers here. I realize they’re kind of hard to interpret, but I don’t, in the
interest of time, I won’t get into all of the details on it. The other thing, too, if you go over to
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
Wal-Mart now and measure the lighting level, you’ll see it’s like .6 in the middle, right in the
middle, dead center of the parking lot between four poles. That’s far less than what’s being
proposed, and everybody is having no problem navigating with .6. So, why can’t the wattage
be dropped down from 400 to at least 250, and probably even go down to 150, particularly if
you’re going to use metal halide. Earlier somebody made the comment of comparing Wal-Mart
to a Home Depot. You can’t. One’s 30 feet. One’s full cut off. The other one’s a dropped
refractor. One’s high pressure sodium. The other one’s metal halide. It’s like comparing apples
and peanut butter almost. It’s that much of a difference. Mounting height. I don’t think you
really want the poles much higher than the building. Otherwise you’re going to get light
shining right over the roof. I had some fixtures here to show you, but I guess I’m not being
allowed to demonstrate these points I want to talk about. You can probably, the poles are going
to move from what the present location is. That’s on the plan. They’re proposing a uniformity
of two and a half to one, versus the Code allowing up to four to one, and that leaves a lot of
room for maneuvering. Now I feel that you can lower the pole heights from 30 feet down to 25
feet, or that range, maybe even down to 20 feet, drop the wattage, still maintain a good
uniformity in the range of four to one. I would suggest that you go down to Wilton and take a
look at their lights, and also other stores in the area. Wall packs. I had a very nice picture of
behind T.J. Maxx, where the lighting from the wall packs is bouncing off the walls right into a
guy’s windows. The glare off there is horrendous. I don’t think anybody in their right mind
would want that. There are some very good options of low wattage shielded wall packs that
will do the job and be far less bothering. Behind Wal-Mart there’s far less activity than there is
out front, in terms of people moving around and trucks moving around. Going off on a little bit
of a tangent from the lighting aspect, noise. Wilton down there, they had a problem with noise.
When they put that Wilton’s Farms in there where T. J. Maxx is, and the other stores, there was
a 150 foot setback requirement. That got waived. The back of the store is like, I believe, 30 feet
from the property line, and then there’s like another foot to the trailer court and the buildings in
the trailer court. There’s only a 60 foot buffer there. They did put in a wall, which you can’t
look over unless you stand up on a high box, then you can get your head up over the wall, it
still wasn’t enough. They still had glare from the wall packs. They still had a lot of noise from
trucks, garbage trucks, trucks parked out there all night idling their motors, and this wasn’t
even the grocery store. This is just a place that shuts down probably like nine or ten o’clock at
night. Some of the problems were resolved, after a lot of frustration. No trucks are allowed to
park out there at any time during the night. The lights are off, not all the lights out back, but the
ones that were causing problems, the people that were complaining the most, no lights at all,
turned right off. I think, if you take a look at the energy usage that’s being consumed, the
numbers are quite surprising. I did some calculations. I will say that removing that one 400
watt light in the corner would drop the average down to 2.5, you’re saving $3800 over a 20 year
lifespan of the light. I don’t think any Wal-Mart manager would pass up that savings. Now if
you take a look at all the lights, which there are typically 400 watts, and add up all the wattage,
figure it out, over the cost of a year, Wal-Mart’s paying $15,670 a year, just in energy alone, or
about $313,000 over 20 years. If drop down to 250 watts, you’re going to save 48%. If you drop
down to 150 watts, you’re going to save 67%, and I don’t think anybody, any of the customers
walking in and out of there are going to be complaining about the lights being overly, or not
overly bright. They’re going to find it perfectly acceptable. To kind of conclude, I think
Queensbury should take a closer look at it’s outdoor lighting code, fix areas that are
troublesome or lacking, other communities are doing this. Queensbury is sort of in the lead in
the aspect that they’ve got more than other communities, but I think they can do a lot more. I
also think, too, that an idea of regional planning, rather than just local planning will help out a
lot. You’re creating problems for other communities. You’re creating problems for yourself.
You’re trying to put too much in too tight of an area. It needs to be spread out. I think that’s
about all that I care to comment on at this time.
MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Davis, can I ask you a question?
MR. DAVIS-Yes.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. MAC EWAN-In reference to your letter here dated, well, it was received by the Town on
the 8, your first punch-line footnote, it says, Wal-Mart site lighting electrical design and
th
coordination process.
MR. DAVIS-Right.
MR. MAC EWAN-Where did you obtain that information regarding Wal-Mart? I mean, do you
have something you can provide the Town?
MR. DAVIS-That was attached to the very end of that package. The last three pages. There’s
double sided.
MR. MAC EWAN-Where is this from, though?
MR. DAVIS-This is from Wal-Mart headquarters.
MR. MAC EWAN-I mean, Wal-Mart.com? Is that where you went and got it or what?
MR. DAVIS-No. It was not available on line. I got it from a former consultant to Wal-Mart
who’s done lighting design for them. Probably other things, too.
MR. MAC EWAN-Do you have any idea how old this documentation is? Just curious.
MR. DAVIS-No, I imagine it’s not terribly old. I would say probably not over a year old.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you.
MR. BRENNAN-A couple of last comments that I wanted to make.
MR. MAC EWAN-Briefly, please.
MR. BRENNAN-Yes. I also reviewed New York State Statute for Town laws, and I don’t think
what’s being requested is a hardship, and New York State Statute dictates that if it’s not a
hardship, then towns shall not grant variances, and what’s being requested, if it’s not
considered a hardship or undue hardship.
MR. MAC EWAN-That would be an issue you’d have to take up with the Zoning Board of
Appeals.
MR. BRENNAN-Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. You’re welcome. Anyone else?
MR. LAPPER-Jon Lapper and George Goetz on behalf of Ray Supply. George is appreciative of
the Board requiring Wal-Mart to allow for the interconnect. Simply, we view that as a
mitigation of the traffic problems that are going to be created by the super Wal-Mart because
more people are going to be stacking to make left turns in coming up Route 9 and it’s going to
be harder for people to exit on the northern entrance/exit for Ray Supply because of the slope of
their southern entrance, especially during the winter with icy pavement or wet weather, their
northern drive is what’s most utilized. So it’s real important that that be available. The
interconnect goes a long way to at least allowing the cars to exit by the traffic light, which is
important, but I guess because we view this as impacts created by Wal-Mart. We think that
Wal-Mart should be required to mitigate it. So it should be at their expense that the paving is
done on the Ray Supply property as well, and we’re requesting the Board to impose that as a
condition.
GEORGE GOETZ
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. GOETZ-Thank you, Jon. I’m George Goetz, President of Ray Supply, also owner of the
property. To follow me, it would be the new wave of Ray Supply would like to express a few
things that they have on their minds. Just to correct one little thing, I think Jon before
mentioned that we hadn’t been able to get together since April. I just want you to know it
wasn’t on our part. We’ve been there all along, and they didn’t come over to look at our
property, even talk to us until after your last meeting where you very gracefully suggested that
an interconnect be made, and we appreciate that very much. However, 95% of the expense of
that, if we have to split it, will be ours, because like on our north side of our property, they also
infringe on the west side of our property, and if you go through the woods, where this
interconnect would go, it goes right to the back of their parking lot. So all they have to do is put
in a little bulldozer or something, put on their little spur and they’re there. Despite what they
said, there’s a considerable grade. Now I’m not an engineer, but it was very obvious to me that
it would be a big expense, too big for us to take care of. So, yes, we would have an easement,
but we still wouldn’t have an exit for the safety of our people, for the safety of our customers. I
feel it’s not a self-imposed hardship. It’s a definite hardship that’s imposed upon us by
somebody else. We shouldn’t have to pay the price. We pay enough price in business. I did
prepare something I’d like to read. I know the first time I brought out something to read was at
the end of a very long meeting that Larry was running, and you were very kind to let me go
through with it, but I do have to read this, because it’s for the record. We have all been on a
slow ride since the first meeting in May. I haven’t forgotten the very beginning, and I’m sure
you haven’t, either. I am sure you remember the original Wal-Mart study, traffic study, that
was presented in this room by representatives for Wal-Mart. An individual was trying to
convince all of us that the proposed new addition will not result in additional traffic count for
Route 9 or in their parking lot. In fact he pointed out that the traffic count might even be less.
He also pointed out that the State had already signed off on the project. We hired Jon Lapper
who retained Edwards & Kelsey to study the information that Wal-Mart presented to the State.
The findings showed that DOT was given old and useless information. After that the State
changed their mind, until they could get a new study, or new information from Wal-Mart.
Well, Wal-Mart did come up with new information, and once again, DOT signed off on the
project. What we don’t know is what kind of information they made their decision on. Was it
useless information again? Were they studies that were done on Monday or on Tuesday of the
week? Or at eight or nine in the morning? Who knows? I don’t think we’ll ever know, and did
the State come up and look at the actual site? There’s a big slope on that road? Have any of you
ever been on it on a wet, snowy day? It can be pretty dangerous. During the second meeting,
the Wal-Mart representative gave a second presentation that offered even more detail. Once
again, however, we were assured that the traffic flow will be fine, and there will probably be a
smaller traffic count in their parking lot to set a second time. Therefore, they wouldn’t need as
many spaces as they have at the present time. I would like to say that despite that the people
that we hired said the traffic flow would not be good, and also an independent, the Glens Falls
Transit I think you said at the last meeting Craig submitted a study, and they said that the
traffic would not be okay. We did not hire them. I just want everybody to know that. Since
there are two different opinions, let’s look at common senses. Imagine if you are in the Price
Chopper or Hannaford parking lot, on a normal Friday, or Saturday, or better yet on a Friday
through Sunday, from Memorial Day through Labor Day. What about Thanksgiving or
Christmastime? Traffic is a mess, isn’t it. I was at Price Chopper today, and it was lined up
from the very front of Price Chopper all the way to the back of the parking lot. Now let’s say a
third of the traffic, of these customers, from these two stores, plus say Sokol’s Market, and a few
other markets that are in the area, a lot of these people decide to go to Wal-Mart, and trust me
they will. What is going to happen? You are going to have one great big mess up on that hill,
and that mess is going to be one big safety problem. It’s also going to affect the business for my
company. That’s been a family company that we’ve worked on for years and years. We try to
keep people employed. We have 25 full-time people there now. There won’t be enough
parking spaces for all the people to park and as I said, it’s going to be a jamming mess. Now, if
this project goes through, without a change in the overall traffic flow and control, someone’s
going to get killed. At least I won’t have it on my conscience. Because I’ve stated from the very
beginning that there is a problem. Some of you may think that as the owner of the Ray Supply
property, I may benefit, that the value of our property may go up, particularly with an
interconnect there, but, you know, that’s nice, but I’m not going to feel very good if somebody
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
gets killed because the real correct action isn’t taken, and the correct action is to come up with a
way to solve the traffic flow. Again, I appreciate the traffic interconnect, if they pay for it, but
that’s not the total solution. That may save my life and a few of our employees’, but it’s not
going to take care of the real safety issue, and that’s pretty much what I have in my statement.
Thank you for your indulgence.
MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else?
KEITH ZOLL
MR. ZOLL-Good evening. My name is Keith Zoll and sitting next to me is Craig Goetz. We are
the future principals of Ray Supply, and I’ve been sitting here thinking about what I could come
up with to tell you, what to talk about that wouldn’t be redundant with something that you’ve
already heard, and repeating what you’ve heard on the same issue for the past months, and I’ll
keep it very brief and just say that anyone who goes out there, as I have over the past few
weeks, and looks at the traffic patterns, will notice that anywhere from three to five times as
many cars enter and exit from the exit on the southern section next to our building than enter
and exit at the light. Now, if anyone was to look at that and noticed those statistics and that
number, I don’t see how you could have any other thoughts than we have a traffic problem
here, okay. If the traffic was entering and exiting through the light in a larger quantity, even a
similar quantity, I could understand your reluctance to make it an issue, but from my
observations, and I welcome any of you to go up and observe it, even for a few moments. You
don’t have to stand there for hours, you will see that there’s no comparison between the amount
of traffic at the two exits, and when this super center opens, it will only increase, and now we
may have five or six times the traffic entering and exiting from that exit that has no light. As
George stated, the interconnect is really not the answer to the problem. It may help our
customers get out of there, because we won’t be able to get out at the light, the road that we
have there at the northern section of our property now. So, I would hope that you could take a
stronger look at the traffic flow problem. We appreciate the interconnect, and if it’s the only
thing that we can get, beggars can be choosers, but the real issue and the real problem is the
traffic flow out onto Route 9 and the way the cars back up trying to get in and out from both
directions into an entrance and exit that has no light. The people roll through that stop sign
heading back to Queensbury, because as we all know, that is the direction they’re coming from,
not from the north. There are people that come from the north, but nowhere near the quantities
of the people that come from Queensbury, and that area.
GREG GOETZ
MR. GOETZ-Thank you. Again, I’m Greg Goetz, and the reason I’m here tonight is I am going
to be a new investor in the business, along with Keith, and what you’re looking at at this table is
the future of Ray Supply, and it’ll be the third generation of management of that company,
which has been operating in this Town since the early 1950’s. I think I provide a fresh set of
eyes to this problem because I have just relocated to Queensbury from the State of New
Hampshire in the past week, and I will be setting up my life here, and investing my life in this
business, and to me there’s three questions that you as a Board have to address, when you take
a look at a plan like this, safety, heritage, and Town. The primary problem here, again, is safety,
the safety of those traveling on Route 9 and the traffic flow on this, and I heard a statement
earlier from the Wal-Mart representatives on the interconnect that pointed out that their
engineer or whoever did the study stated that this can only be a one way flow out of the Ray
Supply parking lot into the Wal-Mart parking lot, because they believed people were going to
cut off the lights, cut off the south exit, and exit through Ray Supply. That statement alone right
there, in my eyes, as a fresh set of ears, suggested safety problems with the current traffic flow.
Heritage. I’m making an investment in a business that’s been in this Town since the early
1950’s. Why? Because I believe in the heritage and I want to continue the heritage of the family
business. As an individual, as somebody who votes, I’m in favor of corporate America or a
Wal-Mart being set up in a Town such as Queensbury. It can be very positive and favorable,
provides jobs, provides a good tax base, but we shouldn’t do it at the jeopardy of the heritage of
the Town. Now let’s talk about Town. To me that’s synonymous with the word “neighbor”,
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
and this is the first meeting I have attended, but my understanding is this is not the first.
There’s been several, and quite frankly, it takes time away from your families and everybody
else’s, and it’s tiring. If Wal-Mart is to act as a neighbor, they should resolve these issues with
the abutting properties in advance, before they waste your time and everybody else’s time
sitting in this room, and all we are asking, and all I would be asking, as a future investor in this
business, is that Wal-Mart approach Ray Supply, as Ray Supply would, and believe me, as we
would act in terms of approaching them as a neighbor. The interconnect is not the answer.
Should there be an interconnect? My belief is yes, but one way, I don’t believe acceptable.
Certainly the way the plan is presented now, you know, again, 95% of the cost would be
absorbed by Ray Supply. We’re not a billion dollar company. That would wash out my
investment and Keith’s investment right there, and that’s not fair. All because we’re trying to
band-aid a safety problem. So if you don’t address safety, you jeopardize heritage, and you
jeopardize the quality of life in the Town, and those three areas are my biggest concern, as a set
of fresh eyes looking upon this situation. Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you.
MR. ZOLL-Thank you very much.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anyone else? All right. I’ll leave the public hearing open. Discussion?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, a couple of things I guess. One of the things we’re faced with, as a Board,
is trying to use professional advice that comes from different areas. Now, once we get a DOT
approval, Department of Transportation for the State of New York, approval, on traffic, I don’t
know as there’s a member of this Board who could, you know, logically challenge what DOT
has to say. I, for one, could not challenge that. Now, the question I guess is, and I think it was
mentioned from the audience, did DOT get reasonably good data on the second time around?
Well, I would assume that the people at DOT would have to ask that question themselves to the
applicant. Is this data satisfactory, has DOT reviewed it and seen if it’s satisfactory to them? I
don’t know where else this Board would go in terms of traffic issues to open up the entire traffic
problem once more. I think we’ve covered it. We’ve got a DOT signoff. I don’t know what else
I, as a Board member, could ask us to do, other than pull back and get a completely outside
source of information, and I do know that Glens Falls Transportation and the firm that these
folks hired both said there was something wrong with that, something wrong with the traffic
study. I don’t know whether that was ever brought to DOT’s attention. It should have been,
and DOT should have probably looked at some of those. I mean, the Glens Falls Transportation
Council’s report was, I felt, an independent report, and was probably worth quite a bit in
weighting from an independent source, but I think DOT is the overriding input here, at least it
was for me.
MR. RINGER-I see traffic as a little different here with the new store coming in, too. I think that
the people who are going to go and enter the food store are going to use the entrance further up
north, and not the south entrance, which is closer to Ray Supply. Before, when that was a
Zayre’s and P & C or Safeway, when the grocery was there, the people that were going to the P
& C or Safeway used the south entrance. The people that were going to the Zayre’s that was up
above, or the Ames, went up above and used the further entrance up north. So I don’t
necessarily see that there’s going to be more traffic going into the southern entrance to that
property. I do believe that at certain times there is a problem there. There is a little bit of a back
up on that southern entrance, but I haven’t experienced, myself, a tremendous problem, but I
don’t think the food store is going to create any more of a problem than currently exists there at
the southern entrance.
MR. VOLLARO-I tend to agree with that, Larry. My concern, initially, back up in April of this
year when this plan first came before us, was that that would be a truck entrance, and then I
saw the trucks beginning to interface with automobiles and with pedestrians as well, and that’s
why we drove the design to go to the, the trucks to go to the northern end of the site, because a
lot of the folks here haven’t been, I think, some, I think a lot of them have, but a lot of them
haven’t been here since April. I think this is our sixth meeting, sixth or seventh meeting, where
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
we’ve slowly been in an iterative process here, going forward with trying to make these
corrections. One thing I would like to comment is the uniformity ratio in our Code to the two
gentlemen here who know something about lighting obviously, but the uniformity ratio as it
reads now, in our Code, it’s defined as the average level of illumination in relation to the lowest
illumination for any area. That’s one. For example, an illumination ratio of four to one would
mean that the lowest level of illumination should be no less than four times less than the
average. Now there’s a lot of words there. It’s very simple. You take the average and divide by
four and see what that number is, and that number is the maximum separation between
average and low. Anything higher than that falls within the four to one ratio. No place does it
say here it must be four to one. It just establishes that the lowest level of illumination should be
no less than four times less than the average, and that’s what we have to go on. That’s what I
have to go on. There’s no hard and fast rule that says four to one here. I see a hand in the back,
Mr. Chairman.
MR. MAC EWAN-No, it’s discussion amongst the Board members.
MR. VOLLARO-But that’s how I read it. I don’t know if any other Board members here have
looked at it, but that’s how I read our uniformity code.
MR. MAC EWAN-John, did you want to add something?
MR. STROUGH-Do you want to talk about this, Mr. Chairman, subject by subject?
MR. MAC EWAN-You can talk about anything you want. I feel there are some issues that are
cropping up here.
MR. STROUGH-Well, I’d certainly be comfortable with lower lighting. I’d be comfortable with
something that’s comparable to what’s there now.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, if I looked at what’s there now, in the information they gave us a spread
sheet. They couldn’t do the analysis from the 1994 drawing. So they did, I guess, a pencil
exercise, is what it looks like to me, and the existing Wal-Mart average lighting is 2.32, and their
min is 1.33. That also achieves the intent of the four to one ratio, as far as I’m concerned. So,
you know, 2.32 to 2.5, 1.33 to a minimum of 1, to me, turns out to be almost a one to one ratio. I
don’t see any great difference between what they gave us as a spread sheet, and what they’re
proposing in this to be a great amount of difference. I agree with the gentleman in the back.
The only way to know, the only way to know is for these two mark two eyeballs to get put on
the target, but we don’t deal with that. We deal with numbers here, unfortunately, and maybe
we should change that. I don’t know, but from what I see as numbers, in here, I don’t see a
great disparity between what’s at Wal-Mart today and what they’re proposing for the future. I
really don’t see a difference.
MR. STROUGH-So are you saying, Bob, that they’re proposed lighting plan is about the same
magnitude as what they currently have?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. RINGER-That’s what they said in their response was basically that.
MR. VOLLARO-If you look at the numbers, I know they’ll say what they want to say. I’ve
examined the numbers and what they say seems to be supported by the numbers that they’ve
supplied. I must say that. It’s their spreadsheet. It’s all their data. Whenever you analyze any
of this stuff, unless you’ve got an outside lighting engineer that comes in and looks at this, you
have to operate on the data that they give you, and you have to feel that that data is coming
from an engineering source, this gentleman right here I suppose, both of those, their
engineering reputation sits on these numbers. I suspect you’re both P.E.’s. Your stamps is
where you live. So when you overstate or understate an item, you’re putting your stamp on the
line, most of the time.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. STROUGH-How will eliminating one more light affect the overall project? They have
agreed to eliminate the light that they proposed for the Queen Diner area, which is going to be
taken down and replaced with landscaping. So is that going to reduce the lighting? Well, it is a
little bit, but.
MR. RINGER-They said they’d look at it, and liability wise if they thought they could do it.
They didn’t agree to it, but the tentatively, they didn’t say they were going to do it.
MR. STROUGH-I thought they did agree to it.
MR. FITAMENT-Yes, we’ll eliminate that light.
MR. MAC EWAN-I’d like to keep the discussion just to the Board here for a couple of more
minutes.
MR. RINGER-I think the applicant, you know, listened to the comments, too, and they should
have an opportunity to answer them before we get into a huge discussion ourselves.
MR. MAC EWAN-I just want to see where, I’m trying to get a handle on where people’s
concerns are up here.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, one of the things I noticed on the old lighting plan, the existing
lighting plan, is the spillage into the residential neighborhoods, and I’m kind of surprised that
we didn’t hear more complaints.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I noticed that, too. You mean the light spill around the old plan?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, where this is contained at zero around the perimeter.
MR. STROUGH-Well, you remember we had one neighbor that wanted more lighting.
MR. RINGER-Just in that walkway there. Just in that pathway.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, well, you’re right, Larry, that area.
MR. VOLLARO-Unfortunately, lighting is very subject. I feel it’s a subjective subject, and very
hard to pin down anyway.
MR. STROUGH-Well, other issues, how does, you know, I personally would like to see Wal-
Mart investigate if they could berm that back area, and it wasn’t clear to me as to whether
fencing or vegetation would be the best attenuator to keep noise from moving over, but it’s a
low area right behind that western parking area, that access area. There’d have to be a lot of fill
brought in to bring it up four foot above the current parking area, but if they could do that, and
add the fence, on top of that, or fence and additional landscaping on top of that, that might
reduce a lot of the light spilling over. That might reduce some of the noise spilling over into
that residential area. I wouldn’t mind seeing an investigation of that, speaking as one Planning
Board member.
MR. MAC EWAN-I agree with you. We’ve asked for it before.
MR. VOLLARO-I would go along with that as well, if there’s a way to do that. I would like to
see an engineering proposal, you know, they talked about a 10 foot fence, well, it may be an 8
foot fence, but I’d like to see a proposal that says, you know, about 90% of the noise would be
eliminated by doing this, whatever this is.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. MAC EWAN-I’m not convinced that the top of the building can’t have some sort of parapet
put up there, to not only screen the units up there but act as a sound deadening.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t think that you have to reinvent the wheel to put something like that
up there.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. That I think is, you know, buildings are not designed, they don’t do a
building design and say, okay, we’re going to design for this load. They’ll do an engineering
design that says we’ll do this plus 25%.
MR. STROUGH-But, you know, if we’re looking for compromise for the applicant, to me, I
don’t think those are major noise generators.
MR. VOLLARO-You mean those 14 mechanicals up at the top?
MR. STROUGH-Yes, I mean, I could be wrong. I don’t have any empirical data. I’m just going
by the seat of the pants here.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, there’s two things that the barrier gives us, John. It gives us a visual
restraint.
MR. RINGER-It’s an aesthetic look.
MR. VOLLARO-An aesthetic look, and it gives us, whatever noise reduction there is would add
to that.
MR. STROUGH-Well, going along with that, Bob, your idea of having some kind of a lattice or I
think Tom mentioned vertical slatting. That would be a foot or eighteen inches above the roof,
would answer, I think, maybe a lot of the problems that the applicant has suggested with the
mounding of snow and/or being able to release the water that does accumulate on that roof, that
if they lifted it up 12 or 18 inches and then had it, it might accomplish a visual screen and some
noise baffling, attenuation. So, yes, I would go along with an investigation of that, but I also
have a couple of other things, too. I was just, you know, remembering, was it the Town of
Moriah versus Wal-Mart, or was it a Lake Placid case?
MR. LAPPER-Lake Placid.
MR. STROUGH-Where, you know, Wal-Mart was denied the right to locate in Lake Placid
because of the impact on local business.
MR. RINGER-No, because of the Comprehensive Land Use program that Lake Placid had in
effect that said that they wanted that small community type. It wasn’t that local business could
continue.
MR. STROUGH-It may have been both. I remember reading about the impact on small
business, Larry, and, you know, so, and I know that Wal-Mart’s run into that problem before.
I’m just wondering if, and we’re not going to solve all of Mr. Goetz’s problems. I’m wondering
if, as part of Wal-Mart’s good neighbor, and to help a small business out that’s adjacent to it, if
they’d be willing to put that interconnect road in if they got an easement from Mr. Goetz to do
so? I’m just thinking out loud.
MR. RINGER-We could ask.
MR. VOLLARO-I had that as a note myself, John. I would agree with that. I would support
that idea.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. RINGER-It would be difficult to insist on something like that, since you’ve got a signoff by
DOT, but, you know, I’m just saying, we could always ask, but, you know, I’m just saying, we
can always ask, but.
MR. MAC EWAN-The interconnect’s in the Ordinance.
MR. STROUGH-Moving on, I’m just wondering if we, I know that you’ve expressed to me, at
least the Chairman has, of the enforcement of some of the things that Wal-Mart has admitted
they’d be willing to do, such as reducing their automotive hours. I think they’re currently
opened at six or seven, but they’re willing to open at eight a.m. instead. They’ve said that they
would do that. If maybe they could add something like that to their good neighbor plan,
because we’ve got neighbors on the southern side of the building we’re trying to appease as
well, so if they could add that to their good neighbor plan, maybe that’s one potential remedy.
Also, maybe they could add to their good neighbor plan that an announcement that they would
not allow idling trucks or the placement of containers other than what’s already been identified
in the current plan, in that western parking area, or access area.
MR. RINGER-I thought that Craig Brown was looking into that storage of containers there, and
if it was acceptable or legal or not, George? Was there a resolution on that?
MR. HILTON-Well, I had a conversation with him, and I guess they’re viewed as storage
spaces, certainly. They’re not structures. In my conversation with Craig, they’re not something
that you’d have to apply a parking ratio to or anything like that, but yes they are considered
storage areas that would either have to be approved by the Planning Board, represented on the
plan and approved by the Board, and if not, they are not allowed.
MR. RINGER-So, has he instructed them to come for a site plan for those storage containers, or
has he just said?
MR. HILTON-Well, there hasn’t been any real direction to the applicant. As I mentioned at the
last meeting of my conversation with Craig. Certainly when this comes back to you for final
approval, they’d have to represent it, but if you felt there was an issue, and you wanted to have
some, have it represented on the plan, you could ask for it.
MR. RINGER-I don’t necessarily think it’s an issue. I just thought I’d remembered some
previous data that had come through that Craig was looking into it and Craig had determined
that they shouldn’t be there, and they needed to get approval for it.
MR. HILTON-And there’s no written determination. I can tell you I spoke, like I said, I spoke
with him.
MR. RINGER-That’s what I was asking, and he hasn’t had anything written up himself. He
hasn’t made any?
MR. HILTON-No.
MR. RINGER-Okay. I’m sorry to interrupt you, John, but I knew that was something that we
had talked about, about those trailers.
MR. STROUGH-No, that’s good. Thank you, Larry. Well, moving on to some other thoughts,
too. My understanding of the Empire Acoustical Panels which will be surfaced on the western
CMU walls containing the unloading, well, primarily unloading of the trucks, I assumed, but I
don’t know, and I’m going to ask the applicant this, that those acoustical panels surface the
entire CMU wall, and I also asked previously, so I didn’t ask again, but I heard one of the
neighbors say we never asked about it, and we certainly did ask about it, how high were those
walls, and we were assured that the walls were higher than the refrigeration units on the truck.
So we have addressed that, but I would like to get a verification of that again from the applicant
for the purpose of the concerns of the owners of the apartments next door.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. MAC EWAN-What got me thinking along that line, when that question was asked, I
remember we had asked that question. Hypothetically, suppose you have one refrigerated
truck at the dock, unloading, 11 o’clock at night, another refrigerated truck pulls in with
another load, and he’s going to wait, you know, two hours or so before he’s able to get his truck
backed into the dock, where is he going to sit while he’s running his refrigeration unit? He’s
going to be sitting along that edge of the property line between the apartment complex and
Wal-Mart while he’s waiting.
MR. STROUGH-Well, he could, and I think we’ve talked about this before, I’ve seen them. It
looks like they’re waiting in the parking area next to Route 9 to be unloaded while they’re
idling, which was acceptable to me, and I think it gets it away from the residential areas. So if
they could develop a plan where trucks awaiting to be unloaded or maybe for other reasons
they have to wait, I don’t know everything about this business, will do their awaiting, if you
will, in the parking lot adjacent to Route 9.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s a nice idea, but I think what we have to be in the position where we
have to assume the worst case scenario because if we make it a condition of approval, as part of
this, that any truck that’s waiting to unload has to be parked out near Route 9 in that parking
area out there, before he’s allowed to go back, who’s going to police that at two o’clock in the
morning or eleven o’clock at night? I mean I think we need to look at it from a standpoint of
the worst case scenario, suppose their refrigerated truck does pull up out back, he waits out
back, and he’s parked right along that back property line. What are we going to do to help
buffer that from the neighboring property?
MR. STROUGH-Well, that’s one reason why I said maybe they could include in their good
neighbor plan that no awaiting idling trucks would be located in that western access area.
MR. MAC EWAN-But my comment is, if they put that in there, and it happens, what do you
do?
MR. STROUGH-Well, the good neighbor plan is part of our code.
MR. MAC EWAN-Right, but who are you going to call? Are you going to call Bruce Frank to
go up there at two o’clock in the morning and tell the guy to move the truck?
MR. RINGER-It doesn’t seem likely that they’re going to get two or three trucks at one o’clock
in the morning.
MR. STROUGH-Well, okay.
MR. RINGER-They may get one truck.
MR. STROUGH-That’s what we’ve always had an enforcement issue with this, but, you know,
at least if they had it written in their good neighbor plan, there’s some teeth there. I don’t know
where we could go with this, but there seems to be that if it was written in their good neighbor
plan that they would not have idling trucks on the western access area of the spot, I mean, it just
seems that there must be some substance to this. Maybe I’m wrong, but if nothing else, I think
it’s better than doing nothing.
MR. MAC EWAN-I’d rather see the buffer between the apartment complex and the back
property line increased.
MR. STROUGH-Well, I would like to see that as well.
MR. MAC EWAN-That would go a long ways toward resolving my concerns.
MR. STROUGH-Okay.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. VOLLARO-You wouldn’t even need that in the good neighbor plan, if we had the buffer,
that would take care of it.
MR. STROUGH-So you’re saying if they went with a sufficient buffer, that it might take care of
it.
MR. VOLLARO-That would do it. You don’t have to have anything in the good neighbor plan.
In looking at the drawing here where it says walls to be surfaced with sound attenuating panels,
that’s here and a couple of other places on it, here and here.
MR. STROUGH-Do we have a detail of the height of those walls?
MR. VOLLARO-That’s the question, but my interpretation of that, when they say walls to be
surfaced, means, all walls, not part of the wall, not the bottom of the wall, not the top of the
wall, but the entire wall.
MR. STROUGH-That’s what I assumed, too.
MR. VOLLARO-I assume that when I see that drawing. I wouldn’t say that, they’d come up
and say, okay, we have one line of panels and we did what we said. I don’t think that’s what’s
on your mind. Hopefully.
MR. MAC EWAN-Right. Do you want me to get these guys back up here now?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I think so.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Gentlemen, why don’t you come back up.
MR. STROUGH-I’ve got one other thing before, so that the applicant can answer that. Thinking
out loud, I was just wondering if that north s access curb cut could be redesigned. I know that
they need more room than that median strip which is currently going in that direction. If you
continue that down, that’s going to prevent the trucks from nosing out there, but could you
redesign that to eliminate that curb cut in that location and maybe move the curb cut east and
redesign it so your trucks could nose out there, but there might be some kind of curbing there,
and the sidewalk could become part of the pavement and just strip the pavement so that would
be a continuation of the sidewalk?
MR. FITAMENT-Is that for the purpose of preventing trucks from possibly using Weeks Road?
There again, the good neighbor plan, if you prefer, Wal-Mart trucks are strictly enforced as far
as delivery times and schedules. They have control over the truck drivers. If they’re told they
don’t drive on Weeks Road, they will not drive on Weeks Road. That will be, you know,
written in their delivery requirements.
MR. MAC EWAN-Commonsense, though, says whatever you guys agree to, as far as approvals
here, the produce manager at the store here on the nightshift isn’t going to know what the rules
are. The guy who’s driving the truck who just came in from out near Johnstown from the
distribution center doesn’t know what the rules are.
MR. FITAMENT-They do. They have actually computers on board and they’re told what
entrance, where to go, at what time. So all that is strictly enforced. It truly is an enforced
policy.
MR. MAC EWAN-What’s the problem with redoing that curb cut and moving it, so that there’s
absolutely no potential for access onto Weeks Road.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. FITAMENT-The bus route was coincided with the truck route and that was the benefit of
that particular layout, any other entrance will eliminate additional parking, and that’s the
concern. Because it’s the most efficient use of the site at this point.
MR. RINGER-You had also said before that it was there because sometimes, in order for the
trucks to come in and then had to back in they needed that space there.
MR. FITAMENT-To nose out, yes, as Mr. Strough had indicated.
MR. HENTSCHKE-I just wanted to bring up one further comment on that. The trucks going
out Weeks Road, the engineer that was here from Langan before, you guys recognize that
Weeks Road is a narrow road, and that in fact trucks have difficult getting out of that road onto
Route 9 as it is. I think there’s just a practical reason that trucks wouldn’t want to go out that
way if they can help it any other way. They’re going to go to the signal and take that, get their
turn to go out. Right now from, you know, it’s a tight road. It’s tough turns for a truck driver
to make. You have to be good at doing it, from what I understand. I just wanted to bring that
out, because I heard that before from an engineer, from a practical standpoint.
MR. RINGER-You could possibly make that tighter for trucks, a tighter turn for the trucks to
discourage them even more, I suppose.
MR. STROUGH-All right. Well, I think we’re getting close here. What’s Wal-Mart willing to do
after you’ve seen and heard everything?
MR. FITAMENT-Well, I’ve heard discussion regarding a barrier wall on the west side of the
site, and from a cost perspective, we would have to, there are mature trees, so from a design
point, initially, you talk about a four foot berm and then adding a wall on top of that, and that
would go on a three to one slope back onto the adjacent property, and there are mature pine
trees back there. So, I’m not sure how the design would work, but if we were to investigate that
and analyze that, that obviously is a considerable expense that we would have to talk to Wal-
Mart.
MR. STROUGH-I’m talking Wal-Mart.
MR. FITAMENT-And see what their decision is, as to whether that’s a viable option. There’s
also an electric pole line there that would definitely need to be relocated to the height of that
wall, probably coming in to proximity to the higher voltage wires back there.
MR. MAC EWAN-Come back to us with a plan that shows buffering bermed up, with the fence
on it.
MR. FITAMENT-Well, I would at least point out that what we have done thus far is we have
added significant landscaping to the back, and if you look on the plan here, if you do just look
at the screen up here and you see the existing structure and you see that narrow strip and you
see the vegetated pine trees all along here, these arborvitaes are pruned back, and we’re
proposing to put significant landscaping back there. So we’ve improved that existing condition,
we feel, to a tremendous degree at this point. Now, putting a wall up, I don’t know what that
distance is, possibly up to 1,000 feet, if that’s 1,000 feet and that’s a 10 foot high wall, that’s
10,000 square feet, at $20, to $30 a foot, so that’s $300,000 without a foundation. I’m just
throwing some numbers out.
MR. STROUGH-Well, we’ll save you that in your light bill.
MR. FITAMENT-Well, additional fixtures are about $5,000 a pop, but those.
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t mean to sound disrespectful. All of a sudden at this stage of the
game, is money an issue now? I mean, when we sit up here as a Planning Board, our duties as a
Town, economics don’t play a role in what we’re doing. We’re looking at it from the health,
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
safety, and welfare of the community, and in order for us to get through SEQRA, which I was
hoping we were going to do tonight, but I don’t see us doing it tonight, I see lighting, traffic,
and noise as still being three issues that would hang us up on SEQRA not getting through
tonight.
MR. FITAMENT-As far as economics, obviously that plays a role. Wal-Mart is here. Wal-
Mart’s looking to expand. It’s obviously an economic benefit to expand in its existing location
as opposed to looking at a new site and just starting from scratch, but obviously economics
plays a role. You look at another site and, you know, build a Wal-Mart for $10 million there, or
$12 million here, that is definitely a factor, but aside from that, the process that we’ve taken all
along has been responsive to the Board’s request. We’ve added the landscaping. We’ve added
the sound attenuation. At this late stage, we’re getting other suggestions, although I do believe
you did have a berm mentioned in, at your last meeting.
MR. MAC EWAN-Two or three meetings ago.
MR. FITAMENT-Two meetings ago.
MR. MAC EWAN-Can you talk about that wall that separates the loading dock and grocery
store end of it from?
MR. FITAMENT-That wall will cover the refrigerant units on top of the truck.
MR. MAC EWAN-Will it cover the truck cab?
MR. FITAMENT-Yes.
MR. MAC EWAN-It’ll extend beyond the truck cab?
MR. FITAMENT-Yes.
MR. MAC EWAN-Do you have a detail for that?
MR. SPEER-It was submitted along with the noise memorandum, I think back in August.
There’s a cross section of the truck, and as it sits in the well, that’s all drawn to scale. Also the
similar treatment was done with the general merchandise compactor pad, showing that the
compactor pad is going to be, I think four feet below the top of the sound wall that’s to be
erected around it.
MR. MAC EWAN-How tall is the building in front, if you’re standing looking at the main
entrance of the building, the overall height of the building?
MR. PHILLIPS-It varies. I believe 26 feet 8 inches. It’s on the elevations. I’d have to get one out
real quick.
MR. MAC EWAN-Twenty-six feet, eight inches, at say like the grocery store end?
MR. PHILLIPS-As far as, yes, as the overall height, that’s about what it is. The peaks are
obviously a little higher than that.
MR. MAC EWAN-Why would you want your light poles higher than the building elevation?
MR. FITAMENT-That’s a function of the wattage and the height. There again, we’ve provided
analyses of the various wattages at different heights, and we’ve proven, at least I thought at this
point, up until the remarks from other entities that have come up here regarding the lighting,
that we’ve met the 2.5 foot candle requirement with 30 foot poles. We’ve provided multiple
analyses with 20 foot, 25 foot, 30 foot, 35 foot poles, and the building height is 28 feet average,
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
with higher elevations at the peaks of up to 34 feet 34 feet 8 inches, and these fixtures are not
right against the building. They’re out in the parking field along Route 9 for the most part.
MR. MAC EWAN-Any questions from Board members?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I think the basis of the 30 foot high poles were to get less poles then they
would need 20 foot high poles, and what we’re trying to do there is to take a look at things like
snow removal, access around the parking. I, personally, don’t have a huge problem with the 30
foot pole. As far as wattage is concerned, we could talk about that. In the numbers that have
been presented, in the numbers I’ve looked at, I don’t think this is a bad lighting plan. I may be
dead wrong. I’ve been dead wrong many times before in the past, but I don’t see this as terribly
divergent from, for example, from the Home Depot. If the Home Depot has an overall average
of 2.77, and a min of 1, we’ve got a Wal-Mart with a 1.1 foot candle with a minimum of 1.
MR. STROUGH-So they’re comparable, right?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I think this is a comparable lighting plan, and if we just want to say, okay,
you’ve got to lower it because we want to see it lower, I don’t know if I could go along with
that. I can’t justify it with the numbers that I see. Somebody else may come up here and show
me where I’m wrong. I’d be only too glad and happy to sit down with somebody and talk
about it, but from what I see on the numbers we’ve got a reasonable lighting plan here. I’m not
happy with the floodlights. Never been happy with those. I’ve even got a note on my, why do
we need them on.
MR. STROUGH-Well, we can just eliminate them. The Wal-Mart down in Wilton doesn’t have
them. I guess we don’t need them.
MR. VOLLARO-Now if you eliminate those floodlights, you’ll get a tremendous reduction in
this overall lighting plan, because there’s nine of them at 33 feet high.
MR. STROUGH-Would the Board feel more comfortable if we got, you know, left the lighting
plan as it is and get rid of the floodlights?
MR. RINGER-I’d like to hear why they would feel they’d need the floodlights before we, you
know, I think we should hear from them.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, they want to light up the front of the store, Larry. I think that’s what
they’re trying to do. We are Wal-Mart and we are here, and there’s nothing wrong with
advertising. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
MR. STROUGH-Well, I don’t think anybody’s going to have any problem finding the new Wal-
Mart, okay.
MR. FITAMENT-It’s an attractive building. We’re proud to, you know, to light it up, but that is
their standard. We’ll look and see if we can possibly make, reduce at least the angle, if not, and
certainly eliminate any overthrow over the roof.
MR. MAC EWAN-You’ve got nine lights. I’ll bet you if you went and eliminated half of them,
you’d go a long ways at pleasing the Board.
MR. VOLLARO-And supposing you looked at another method of illumination, as opposed to
putting them on poles, you brought them to the bottom and just had them up, much like with
shields on the top so you don’t light the sky? That might work.
MR. SPEER-I’m not sure that up lighting is really what you’d want to do, to shine line, you
know, up from the horizontal. The other alternative would be wall sconces which I think B.J.
would have some objections to me putting wall sconces on his building. The building is
gorgeous. We’re trying to light it up. The floodlights also give us a little bit of light on the
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
horizontal plane of the parking field, right in front of the entrance vestibules, and that’s where
it’s most important. We want to have those entrances lit up because that’s where all the traffic’s
coming in and out, pedestrians.
MR. MAC EWAN-I’ve never noticed it before. Are they up there now? Do they have
floodlights up there now for the existing Wal-Mart?
MR. SPEER-No, sir.
MR. MAC EWAN-You don’t have them now?
MR. SPEER-With the 42 foot mounting heights that are currently out there, they don’t require a
floodlight, because the cone of the light from a 42 foot pole will come out and give you lighting
out towards that front of the building and along there. That also might be the reason why the
Wilton super store does not have the floodlighting. I don’t know what their light pole heights
are. I didn’t visit that store, but if there are 39 foot poles, 42 mounting heights, they wouldn’t be
getting floodlights.
MR. STROUGH-Well, some of the wall sconces can be attractive, though. I think B.J. would
agree. I mean, they’re not necessarily going to be ugly. Wall sconces generally are attractive.
MR. SPEER-We could look into it.
MR. STROUGH-All right. Well, if anybody can do it, B.J. can do it.
MR. SPEER-He’s done wonders thus far.
MR. HILTON-Mr. Chairman, if I may, in terms of the floodlighting, our comment before about
lowering the angle and making sure that there are visors to kind of shield the light and not have
any glare, as you’ve heard, I think the fixtures are going to be above the building, and that’s
that much more of a concern, hearing those numbers, that we reduce those angles, and provide
visors. One solution may also be, if you look at the plan, there are four poles with two
floodlights on them each, and then there’s one sitting out there with just one floodlight, perhaps
the one, the poles that have two could be brought down to one, and you’d lower your, the foot
candle levels at the building exterior, which appear to me to be potentially above our codes
averages that hasn’t been identified in the statistics. Yes, the building entrance themselves meet
code, but there’s also a separate line in the lighting standards for building exterior. Just a
suggestion, if you go down to one floodlight, one pole, as opposed to the two, perhaps you’d
achieve the goal of illuminating the face of the building, but not having too much light, and
with the proper angle, you’re doing what’s intended to do, light the building, and not have it go
over the top.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s certainly worthwhile to look at.
MR. STROUGH-I could probably live with that.
MR. SPEER-We certainly have no interest in lighting our roof. That’s not the intent of the
floodlights. The floodlights are intended to light the front of the building and to shed some
light on that driveway and the vestibules right in front.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think George has a good suggestion.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I would go along with taking.
MR. MAC EWAN-Cut the quantities down. Wall sconces are out, cut the quantities of lights
down, lower them. I think that’s what we’re looking for.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. STROUGH-Say eliminating a light fixture on the poles that have a double light, eliminate
one of the lights, keep the wattage.
MR. VOLLARO-Where does that put us? That puts us at five, instead of nine, is that where we
would be?
MR. HILTON-Five, yes, and that’s just a suggestion. I’d have to see the plan.
MR. STROUGH-What’s the wattage of those lights, George?
MR. HILTON-I believe they’re 400 as well.
MR. STROUGH-You take one 400 light off of those double fixtures.
MR. SPEER-Well, the problem that I see arising there is that you’ll have bright spots on the
building and then dark spots and bright spots. You want a sense of uniformity across the front
elevation.
MR. STROUGH-So we’re back to the wall sconces.
MR. MAC EWAN-Wall sconces. That sounds like a plan.
MR. SPEER-I think the concerns by the Board is overthrow, and we’ve provided, at least that’s
what I’m hearing, and correct me if I’m wrong. We’ve provided the necessary deflectors to
keep it from going over the roof, and we’ll look at the angle. We’ll even angle them down
further. I don’t see eliminating every other fixture as being the solution in this case.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, why don’t you do a tradeoff study between wall sconces and eliminating
of fixtures and see where that comes out.
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t think we’re in a position we want to do that. We want to give
direction. We want them to come back with an answer. We don’t want to come back next
month or the month afterwards and sit here and debate this issue another 25, 30 minutes and
then send them back to revise it.
MR. STROUGH-Keep everything like it is, but go to 250 watts. That way you keep the spread
of light, but now it’s going to be less light.
MR. HILTON-That was going to be my suggestion. Perhaps you could reduce the wattage.
MR. FITAMENT-That sounds like a reasonable approach, and we’ll look at that.
MR. MAC EWAN-Are we okay on lighting, then, now? Is lighting resolved?
MR. VOLLARO-So we go from 400 to 250 on floods.
MR. FITAMENT-On floods.
MR. MAC EWAN-Traffic. Any issues, comments, concerns?
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t have a problem. I have to rely on what DOT had to say. I can’t, I’m not
a traffic engineer so I don’t know squat about that stuff.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, well, you’ve also got to look at worst case scenarios, and even at that, I just
want Mr. Goetz, any traffic visiting his store to be able to exit his store in a worst case scenario.
So I’d like to see the interconnect made. Is Wal-Mart willing to do that? I mean, you’re going to
have the machinery and everything there anyhow. I don’t think that’s going to be a big deal, is
it? I mean, if you get the easement right from the owner?
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. FITAMENT-Wal-Mart had indicated that they wanted be treated as other businesses are in
the area, and if that’s how, if they’re required, as the developer, making changes to their site, to
provide that, then they certainly.
MR. STROUGH-Well, this is new territory. I mean, I’ve been on here four years.
MR. MAC EWAN-Let me assure you, from my own personal experience, regarding another
major operator in this Town several years ago who was asked to put an interconnect in, or to
give the easement, and they absolutely refused to. I think Wal-Mart would be setting a
standard that we would be making everybody go by in the future. As one person on this Board,
I was perturbed that they wouldn’t allow the easement because they were a competitor, a
pharmacy versus a major chain, and all we were looking for was the easement as was required
in the Ordinance. If you guys would go this extra mile, I’m sure that it will be something that I
will use as a case in the future, for future applicants saying, Wal-Mart did it, you can do it.
MR. FITAMENT-I’ll bring that to Wal-Mart’s attention.
MR. HENTSCHKE-Just one thing that makes it really tough for Wal-Mart, I believe, to accept
that, paving the whole thing, of the interconnect, is DOT’s position. We went back, after the
concerns about the traffic study, specifically looked at the traffic impact on Ray Supply, queuing
analysis, gap analysis, at Ray Supply, supplied that information to DOT because the concerns
were brought to us and to DOT and to you, and DOT looked at the stuff and said, there’s not
going to be an impact on Ray Supply, okay. If there was data, the DOT and if there was traffic
data, hard data showing that Wal-Mart’s, you know, traffic from the proposed expansion is
going to impact Ray Supply, that would be a different story, but right now there’s just not that
in the record. There’s just not that kind of hard, empirical data in the record.
MR. MAC EWAN-I have two comments on that. One, our Ordinance says that we should have
an interconnect whenever possible. Two, I’d have to say that, being the local level, we’re the
people dealing with it, and not DOT in Albany. I think our local interests would prevail at this
point.
MR. STROUGH-Well, and three, super Wal-Mart’s have proved to be very popular and we
have to look at it in worst case scenario. The traffic counts could be much higher than what’s
expected.
MR. HENTSCHKE-I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I would ask you to refer to
your Counsel to consider just the legal foundation for doing that, for a project like this without
empirical data in the record.
MR. MAC EWAN-Obviously, that’s something you’d have to get a letter of intent from Ray
Supply.
MR. HENTSCHKE-I mean, we’re ready to do an easement, an access easement right now, but in
terms of making Wal-Mart pay for a drive down into their property when there’s not DOT or
other traffic data showing it, you know, the traffic counts. They’ve got some letters saying we
think there’s concerns. More analysis should be done. We’ve done that, but there’s not traffic
counts on their side saying this is, you know, that’s all I’m saying.
MR. MAC EWAN-It’s not an issue dealing with traffic counts, traffic concerns. It’s an issue
dealing with a requirement of the Ordinance to have an interconnect between commercial
properties to avoid traffic going out onto main corridors and arteries. So if we have an
opportunity to do it, let’s do it. It’s not an issue of what DOT says is a problem or not a
problem. The issue is, it’s part of the Town Ordinance to do an interconnect, and if we have an
opportunity to do it and we can bring it to fruition here, let’s do it.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. RINGER-I think Town Ordinance says show an interconnect. It doesn’t say do the
interconnect.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s correct. I’m asking them to go a step farther, that’s all.
MR. RINGER-Right, but you just didn’t say that. I mean, you said.
MR. HENTSCHKE-Mr. Chairman, if this becomes the ultimate issue, deal breaker as you’ve put
in the past, that certainly could be a condition of approval, if need be, that the payment of that.
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t necessarily think it’s a deal breaker. I just think it would be, I think it
would be a great thing to do.
MR. RINGER-I just find it difficult telling somebody they’ve got to do something. We can
request it. The way you presented it to him, Craig, I didn’t take it that way. The way I took the
way you presented it to him was, hey, you’re going to do it, and I don’t think that’s what the
Code says. It’s perfectly within our prerogative to say, hey, we’d like to see it, how about doing
it. That’s the way we should approach it
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, well, I think Craig approached it that way.
MR. RINGER-I didn’t quite take it the way he said that.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t think he was (lost word) to be honest with you. I really don’t. I think
the thing that caught me in the whole discussion was, you know, the amount of, and I know
this Board, we’re not supposed to talk about financial impact, it’s out of our purview, but
unfortunately it sneaks in all the time, it does with me. So I’ll say it anyway. The 95/5 kind of
bothers me. I mean, if they’ve got to put in 95% of the dollars to do that, a small business, that
isn’t even a 50/50 split. That’s like 100 to 0 almost. You know. So I would definitely, in a good
neighbor situation say, look, we’ll put that interconnect in for them. I don’t see why, I mean,
you’re going to have your equipment there. You’re going to have your backhoes. It’s going to
take you a minimum amount of time to put that in. It’s going to cost them really their starting
cost, of getting everything together, getting equipment on the site and all of that is going to be
huge, compared to the fact that you’ve already got your equipment there. It makes sense for
you guys to do it.
MR. STROUGH-As a matter of fact in the bids I don’t think it would even show up.
MR. VOLLARO-Probably not. Probably not. I mean, it would be a wash in the bids, I would
guess.
MR. FITAMENT-There again, I’ll bring that to Wal-Mart’s attention.
MR. MAC EWAN-Any other issues?
MR. STROUGH-Well, are we ready for our list? I mean, getting back to that western buffer
area. I mean, it is a kind of narrow area, and you mentioned the slope might exceed 30%, but
not if we built retaining walls.
MR. FITAMENT-There’s still the relocation of a major electric line.
MR. STROUGH-That’s not a huge expense I think, getting NiMo to do that for you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Is it that the fence line, are you suggesting the fence line or the new hedge
line would run right down that utility?
MR. FITAMENT-Yes.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. MAC EWAN-When we do site visits Saturday, let’s go back up there, and take a look at
that again. Is there anything else you gentlemen wanted to add?
MR. FITAMENT-When we’re doing our economic analysis of the wall and our proposal of that,
if we decide that, yes, in our analysis we’re putting up the wall, can we also then eliminate the
walls that we’ve added, the sound barriers in the truck well, since they won’t be necessary with
this other wall at that point?
MR. STROUGH-Is it going to be a sound barrier wall?
MR. FITAMENT-I don’t know. What is it that?
MR. STROUGH-Well, I would go along with it, because you can go with a wood sound barrier
wall. I mean, I thought you were going to reuse the same fence or something, and save some
money.
MR. FITAMENT-A wood fence 10 feet high, is that what the Board is?
MR. MAC EWAN-You need to come back to us with a design that’s going to act as a good noise
buffer.
MR. STROUGH-But wood fences by themselves are not necessarily sound attenuators, because
that’s what they would put up along these freeways. They put up wood walls, they look like
they’re, you know, rather substantial wood walls that become sound attenuators, and if that’s
what you’re proposing, then maybe we could make that tradeoff.
MR. FITAMENT-Well, from what I’m hearing is that they’re not only concerned about trucks in
the truck well, but the potential of the trucks idling outside the truck well.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s one of my concerns I have, yes.
MR. STROUGH-Well, as the Chairman pointed out, if you did this berm and this soundproof
fence, it might help solve a lot of those problems, and maybe we won’t have to deal with them.
MR. FITAMENT-Their typical operation is no more than two trucks are in that three truck bay
at any given time. So there’s always ample space for trucks to back in. You should not see any
idling outside of the truck wells.
MR. SEGULJIC-And the last issue would be the rooftop.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think one of the comments that was made here earlier was that, and this is
one of the reasons why I want to go back up there on Saturday and take another look, is that
some of those rooftop units, even if you just screened the units off themselves, with some
lightweight material, would be beneficial and would solve that problem, although someone
made a comment that the rooftop units don’t put out that much noise to begin with. It seems
the bigger potential problems we have here with noise is regarding truck traffic, deliveries
between the back property line and the apartment complex. I mean, that seems to be where the
thrust of the issue is. If we can resolve that issue, I think we’ve pretty much taken care of any
potential for noise problems on the site.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else?
MR. STROUGH-How about adding to the good neighbor plan the hours of the automotive
service area, for lack of anything better to do.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. RINGER-I think the store manager made the note that he was going to do it, but it
wouldn’t hurt to put it in the plan.
MR. VOLLARO-I think it’s in the minutes that they would do that.
MR. RINGER-Yes, he sod he would do it, but it wouldn’t hurt to put it in the plan.
MR. HENTSCHKE-Could I just make a comment to respond to that question? Because I had
talked to the store manager after our last meeting, and he said that as of December 1 they’ve
st
changed the hours that they allow the people in that area to do tire changes. It used to be seven,
from what he told me, and now it’s eight o’clock. He’s already made that change, and also just
to let you know everything that he told me, there was some concerns about garbage between,
Mrs. Olson had some concerns about garbage. They went out and took care of that, and also
we, just for whatever, the good neighbor plan, he set up the filing system. This is part of the
concerns that you had before about, you know, having any teeth whatsoever in the good
neighbor plan. The concerns about that, one thing that you would have is you’d have a record,
if things got out of hand, there’s going to be a record of it. If there’s lots of complaints, if there’s
lots of problems, there’s going to be a place to find that and document it and bring it to
whoever’s attention who can do something about it. If nobody else, a court’s attention. So, just
for what it’s worth.
MR. MAC EWAN-John, Bob, take five minutes and pen up a resolution to table.
MR. VOLLARO-Sure. I don’t think we have that many issues, do we?
MR. STROUGH-No, I’ve got some.
MR. MAC EWAN-Why don’t you take five minutes and do it.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 25-2003 WAL-MART STORES, Introduced by John
Strough, who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro:
With the following conditions:
1. Along the western property line, building a four foot berm;
2. A fence designed to attenuate noise, height of fence would depend on an engineering
design;
3. Applicant will investigate constructing the interconnect between Wal-Mart & Ray
Supply;
4. Reduce the floodlights from 400 watt to 250 watt;
5. Investigate some kind of screening/panels on the western roof to attenuate noise and visually
screen mechanicals;
6. Eliminate light fixture JV MOD FC in the Queen Diner area; and
7. Eliminate the tire and lube express freestanding sign detail on Plan 28.04.
Duly adopted this 11 day of December, 2003, by the following vote:
th
AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Strough, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. MacEwan
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger
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(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. HILTON-(Lost words) notification so I can tell everybody and we can try to plan
accordingly. If this information gets in on the 19, and we have all their variance applications
th
as well, what we’d be looking at is back before this Board on January 20 for the SEQRA review.
th
Potentially if everything went well that night, the following night, the 21, you’d be before the
st
ZBA, the applicant would, to hear the variances, and then back before this Board on the 27 for
th
potentially finally action. So just to clarify that and let the public know that that would be the
schedule if the information is received by the 19.
th
MR. VOLLARO-But we have to do a SEQRA before public action.
MR. HILTON-Absolutely, and that would be on the 20, like I said.
th
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. RINGER-But if we get the SEQRA done and they get their variance, then it should be an
automatic on the 27.
th
MR. MAC EWAN-Once we see what our submissions are for January, I may be still inclined to
keep these guys on a separate meeting.
MR. HILTON-Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-Depending on what our load is, and we’ll see what their submission is.
Because we’re not going to do our sit down and look at that stuff until after they submit.
MR. HILTON-And if that’s the case, because the public hearing is still left open, I’d suggest that
somehow notification be sent out.
MR. RINGER-Advertisement.
MR. MAC EWAN-We’ll do something.
MR. HILTON-Yes. Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. My only concern is our agendas have been very much loaded the last,
it seems like 20 years, and if I feel that there’s probably going to be a lot of discussion regarding
buffering and stuff like that, that’s just going to bog us down, we’ve been here, what, two hours
here, two and a half hours here on this one, just tonight, which I thought we were going to
make some headway on. All right. We’ll let you know. If we end up putting it on a special
meeting, we’ll certainly let you know. We’ll let the folks at Ray Supply know, the folks at the
apartment complex know.
MR. RINGER-The regular meeting would be the 20 and the 27, and the special would
thth
probably be the 15. The 15 is really a guess.
thth
MR. HENTSCHKE-And the submission is December 19. Thank you.
th
MR. MAC EWAN-Four thirty.
MR. HENTSCHKE-Four thirty.
MR. MAC EWAN-The next item on the agenda is the Open Space Committee. Do I have a
volunteer?
MR. STROUGH-I’ll suggest Tony Metivier and Mr. Sanford. I’ll make a nomination.
36
(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
MR. MAC EWAN-I can’t throw them in like that. He’s going to call Marilyn tomorrow. He’s
interested in doing it, depending on what the time is. All right. I’ll tell her no action taken on
that. Poor Marilyn. Do you want to do your officers now?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Hunsinger says he’s interested in doing the Secretary’s position. So I’ll
nominate him.
MR. VOLLARO-And I would second that. I want to make the nomination of yourself for
Chairman for the next year, as a recommendation to the Town Board.
MOTION TO NOMINATE CRAIG MAC EWAN FOR CHAIRMAN OF THE QUEENSBURY
PLANNING BOARD, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by
John Strough:
Duly adopted this 11 day of December, 2003, by the following vote:
th
MR. STROUGH-Well, I think it’s a good idea, and I’ll be approving that on the Town Board, but
I don’t know if I should be saying anything at this point.
MR. MAC EWAN-You’re still a member of this Board.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re still a member of this Board.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, well, I’ll second that.
AYES: Mr. Strough, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Vollaro
NOES: NONE
ABSTAINED: Mr. MacEwan
ABSENT: Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger
MOTION TO NOMINATE LARRY RINGER FOR VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD, Introduced by John Strough who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro:
Duly adopted this 11 day of December, 2003, by the following vote:
th
AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Strough, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. MacEwan
NOES: NONE
ABSTAINED: Mr. Ringer
ABSENT: Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger
MOTION TO NOMINATE CHRIS HUNSINGER FOR SECRETARY OF THE
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD, Introduced by Craig MacEwan who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro:
Duly adopted this 11 day of December, 2003, by the following vote:
th
AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Strough, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. MacEwan
NOES: NONE
37
(Queensbury Planning Board 12/11/03)
ABSENT: Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger
MR. STROUGH-You got my letter of resignation, Mr. Chairman?
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, I did.
MR. RINGER-I didn’t get it, John.
MR. STROUGH-Well, I only needed to send it to the Chairman.
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Craig MacEwan, Chairman
38