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2004-02-17 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING FIRST REGULAR MEETING FEBRUARY 17, 2004 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT CRAIG MAC EWAN, CHAIRMAN CHRIS HUNSINGER, SECRETARY ANTHONY METIVIER RICHARD SANFORD THOMAS SEGULJIC ROBERT VOLLARO MEMBERS ABSENT LARRY RINGER PLANNER-GEORGE HILTON TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX,SCHACHNER, AND HAFNER-CATHI RADNER STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI MR. MAC EWAN-First item on the agenda is approval of minutes. CORRECTION OF MINUTES December 11, 2003: NONE December 16, 2003: NONE December 23, 2003: NONE MOTION TO APPROVE THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF DECEMBER 11, 2003, DECEMBER 16, 2003 & DECEMBER 23, 2003, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: Duly adopted this 17 day of February, 2004, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ringer EXPEDITED REVIEW: SITE PLAN NO. 5-2004 SEQR TYPE II DOCK & DESIGN CONSULTING/STEVE MOFFITT PROPERTY OWNER: PAUL LOTTERS ZONE: WR-1A LOCATION: LAKE PARKWAY ON ASSEMBLY POINT APPLICANT PROPOSES THE CONSTRUCTION OF A 1,152 SQ. FT. BOATHOUSE. BOATHOUSES IN THE WR-1A ZONE REQUIRE SITE PLAN REVIEW AND APPROVAL FROM THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE: BP 03-621, 02-946, 02-942, 93-050 LGPC, CEA WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: 2/11/04 TAX MAP NO. 226.15-1-9 LOT SIZE: 0.41 ACRES SECTION: 179-4-020 MR. MAC EWAN-Is someone here representing the applicant? Okay. The next item on the agenda. 1 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) OLD BUSINESS: [SPECIAL USE PERMIT]: SPECIAL USE PERMIT SUP 1-2004 SEQR TYPE: UNLISTED MARIE LAURSEN AGENT: ROBERT KELLY ZONE: WR-1A LOCATION: 167 ASSEMBLY POINT ROAD APPLICANT IS SEEKING PLANNING BOARD RECOGNITION AS A PRE-EXISTING CLASS A MARINA SPECIAL USE PERMIT. CROSS REFERENCE: UV 1417 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 1/14/04 LGPC, APA TAX MAP NO. 239.7-1-32 LOT SIZE: 0.88 ACRES SECTION: 179-4-020 ROBERT KELLY, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. MAC EWAN-Any updates for us, George? MR. HILTON-Just a quick summary of what the applicant has submitted since we last met. As I mentioned in my notes, what appears to have been submitted is a dock registration from 1982, along with a site plan and an undated photo showing the docks from the lake. This is, that’s really all that’s new, all that’s been provided, and we’re back to where we were last month with this, and again, just as a reminder, should the Planning Board not approve a pre-existing, nonconforming Special Use Permit, this application would be subject to a comprehensive review as a Class A Marina, and that’s all I have at this time. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I’d open it up to anybody on the Board, any questions regarding the new information that was provided? MR. VOLLARO-I have just a couple of questions, Mr. Chairman. Getting back to the 179-10- 035, it says, in the absence of a current permit, the applicant shall submit a demonstration that, One, the building permit was issued. Now, the building permit number 805 was issued on 6/9/70, likely to have been destroyed by DEC. This is per Mrs. Gallagher over at the Lake George Park Commission, and they also received a protection of water permit number GR-32- 70, which is also not available. A DEC registration of wharf was submitted on September 8, 1981, and issued on April 1, 1982. Now the only criteria of concern is the continuous use without interruption since 1981 as a marina. If continuous use as a marina can be substantiated, I would approve of this application. So substantiation would consist of a rental receipt, arrangement for pump out services, receipts for such services and so on. So I think everything would be in order if we could substantiate continuous use since 1981. I think that’s the only thing that’s missing from this application that I can see. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions or comments? MR. HUNSINGER-I had a couple of questions. With respect to the photograph and the drawings that were attached, it appeared to me as though they were attached to the registration of existing wharf from September of ’81. Is that true? MR. KELLY-That is correct. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Kelly, could I get you to identify yourself for the record, please. MR. KELLY-Robert E. Kelly, representing the applicant, Marie Laursen, here. The document, supplemental documentation filed consists of my FOIL’d application and the pages actually supplied by the Department of Environmental Conservation, as supplied to me. I have the originals here with the signature certifying those, but there is actually a registration of an existing wharf, and it’s important to note that that is of an existing wharf, as opposed to a new registration. A wharf could be built. It does document in that registration number 682, if you’re looking at the new submissions, somewhat of a history of the dock as well, the building 2 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) permits, etc. This is what I expected the Board would require here tonight, and that’s what I submitted. MR. HUNSINGER-The reason why I raised the question is because there was no dates or anything on the drawings. So I wanted to make sure that my assumption was indeed correct, that it was part of that registration of existing wharf. MR. KELLY-They came from the same packet, all from the Park Commission archives, their file on this particular matter, and it’s submitted as a packet as I received it. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Great. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions? MR. HUNSINGER-Not from me. MR. MAC EWAN-Anything you wanted to add? MR. KELLY-Mr. Vollaro referenced that he wanted a document from us indicating that there was a rental agreement or a pump out agreement, existing in 1982. I’m afraid we cannot provide that, because I don’t believe that would be the fact. MR. VOLLARO-Well, the Code requires that, if you’ve got everything else, the only area of concern, as I said before, is the continuous use without interruption since 1981 as a marina, and if continuous use as a marina can be substantiated, I would approve the application, and then of course substantiation consists of receipts and pump out and so on. You’ve got to sort of substantiate that you were operating as a marina, with continuous use from 1981 on, and continuous use means probably just through the summer months. It doesn’t mean all year with it. MR. SANFORD-But they have an agreement to go to the Lake George. MR. MAC EWAN-The local marina up there. Isn’t that in your original application? MR. KELLY-Yes. That was in the original application, but that was as of the date of the application. MR. MAC EWAN-Right. MR. KELLY-As to the existing tenants. That does not relate to 1981 or 1982, if that’s what you’re looking for. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. I don’t know if you could necessarily document, you know, in the early years, continued use, that pump out facilities are part of what criteria we’re looking for. MR. VOLLARO-Well, you know, we can go vote on that if we want, but 179-10, and I’ll just read it right out of here, Mr. Chairman, if you’d like, just one time, exactly what it says in 035, if I can get it out of my, yes, here it is. It says that the use of the property and associated structures has to be continuous to date without interruption since prior to 1981, for marinas, and prior to 1967 for all other uses. Consistent seasonal use may qualify as continuous use. MR. SANFORD-But, Bob, that’s only relevant if A1 is inapplicable here. A1, I think, is what they’re now saying they’re going in at, not B 1, 2, and 3. If you do 1A, you don’t have to do any B items. MR. VOLLARO-Substantiate pre-existing shall exempt from a Comprehensive Plan review. You’re saying that. 3 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. SANFORD-If you do 1A, then B doesn’t apply. I think we need to, as a Board, understand, ought to have common ground on this item. Basically they’re saying if you do A1, you don’t have to do that, but the big question with A1 is what really constitutes a current permit, because I believe it was Mr. Salvador, last time, talked of this issue, and I’m unclear as to what is appropriate to constitute a permit, but if we could come to terms with what a current permit issued prior to April 1, 2002 is, and if we could also establish what another involved agency is, I think that would be very important for this Board, but I think they’re coming in now, Bob, and they’re saying we want to be grandfathered in because of A subsection 1, and that’s all they have to do, then if that’s the case, we don’t have to deal with any of the items under B., because it says if you don’t qualify for exemption above, which is in Section A, then you must submit information demonstrating one, two and three under B. That’s as clear as can be. The question is, did they satisfy A1. MR. HILTON-My understanding is, and I don’t mean to speak for the applicant, but my understanding is that the applicant does not have a prior permit from an involved agency, be it the Lake George Park Commission, DEC, in terms of operating a marina, a permit that allows them to operate a marina, and that’s what brings them to this point where they’re before this Board seeking. MR. SANFORD-But that’s up for debate here, because the idea of, if we could sort of just clear our minds out for a second, the intent here is to grandfather in people who have, in this case, obviously been renting out a couple of docks. They never really represented themselves as a marina as many of us think of a marina. They rented out docks, and what we want to do is we want to draw a line and say, okay, the people who rented docks in the past, we’re going to kind of grandfather you in, but new people who want to start doing that, if you can’t demonstrate that you were doing it before, we’re going to take a hard look to make sure that you qualify in terms of an application for a Special Use Permit. So the intent here is to look back. Now, obviously, if they had a permit to operate as a marina, it’s moot. So I think what we’re looking, you know, I mean, that’s a moot point. Then they were a marina. I mean, this whole issue is irrelevant. I think what we want to do here is we want to say, look it, what is a permit? Is a permit that the docks are registered, that they were, in fact, in existence, that they were there in the water, way back when, and could just a dock registration constitute a permit, and it certainly is as vague as can be here. It doesn’t specify what the hell a permit is. MR. HILTON-I guess all I can offer is a permit to operate the use. MR. SANFORD-Now, I’ve asked the Counsel to weigh in on it last time and they respectfully refused to commit. Same answer this time around? MS. RADNER-I think your analysis is valid. I think that the way you just read it, it’s definitely defensible under the. MR. SANFORD-So a dock registration may be interpreted as a permit? MR. VOLLARO-Well, that means that all docks on Lake George could apply for this and get it. MR. SANFORD-Unless they didn’t have a registration, I guess. MR. MAC EWAN-Where does that chime in to you with your thought on having the accessibility to a pumping station? Because that’s where this whole thing started, and I don’t see anything in here referencing that. MR. VOLLARO-There isn’t. The only thing that is in there that would reference that by inference is the fact that if you were operating a marina, you know, like we’ve had other people before us that had agreement with pump out stations, because that’s what they were doing. Here I don’t see any substantiation that this was operating as a marina since 1981, other than what Mr. Sanford says, you know, the DEC registration of the wharf was submitted in 1981, so he makes that. 4 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. SANFORD-That might be a permit. MR. VOLLARO-That might constitute a permit. I don’t know. MR. SANFORD-I don’t know. MR. VOLLARO-Counsel seems to weigh in on the fact that if you satisfy that, you’ve done it, and see I don’t understand that. I always looked at this as somehow or other you’ve got to substantiate two things. One, wharf registration and, two, continuous use, and if that’s not the case. MR. SANFORD-I don’t believe that’s clearly the case. I think the question is more, is wharf registration enough, or do they have to come in here and prove that a current permit means that they were issued some kind of a permit saying you are, in fact, a marina. MR. VOLLARO-Or was. MR. SANFORD-Or were a marina, and if they do that, I mean, I don’t know why we’re even talking about grandfathering them because that’s the fact. Again, I don’t know, are we going to get any public comment on this tonight? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, there’s a public hearing left open. MR. SANFORD-Yes. I’d be interested in hearing maybe what someone from the public has to say. MR. MAC EWAN-Does everyone feel comfortable moving forward with it? MR. VOLLARO-I think we ought to open the public hearing and see what some other people have to say. I see Mr. Salvador sitting in the audience and he’ll certainly weigh in on this I’m sure. MR. HUNSINGER-I guess I just want to, you know, add, in light of Richard’s comments, when we were debating the language that we wanted to see in the final legislation, we were vague on purpose because said, you know, one applicant will come in with this kind of a permit. Another may come in with that kind of a permit. So we really, we left it open on purpose, so that we would have that flexibility, so that if you didn’t have, you know, A, B, and C, then you could still qualify somehow, but, you know, the burden of proof is on the applicant to give us what we need. So, then it’s up to us to decide if it’s enough. MR. VOLLARO-Well, they’ve certainly proved that they’ve had a DEC registration of the wharf submitted since 1981. That’s a fact. MR. HUNSINGER-Exactly. MR. VOLLARO-I was just looking for substantiated continuous use, as the other element to go along with that. MR. HUNSINGER-And I know when one of our former colleagues was on the Board, he always differentiated between proving that they had a legal dock, and proving that they were leasing one of those slips, and if you look back at some of the resolutions that were made, we would specify how many slips they could rent out, out of the total. So I don’t know if that’s where you were going with those comments, but that would certainly be consistent with what was done before. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. See, I guess I just don’t feel comfortable in issuing a permit just because the wharf has been registered. I mean, almost every wharf on Lake George has probably got 5 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) some registration capability, either with the DEC previously, or with the Lake George Park Commission currently. MR. SANFORD-Well, certainly not a new dock being constructed today, Bob. If a person constructed a dock subsequent to April 1, 2002, and we see them all the time, a new dock construction, if they came in, then they would not be able to be grandfathered, clear and simple, which may be what the whole intent of this whole thing was all about. I certainly can’t read the minds of the people who came up with this, and you and I are both on record as not feeling comfortable with it, but obviously what we want to do is we want to say, look it, moving forward, we don’t want everybody who has a dock on Lake George or plans on having a future dock to just be able to go ahead and rent them out for the season because we’re concerned about all kinds of impact issues, BUT, I think the intent might have, for those who have been doing it. MR. VOLLARO-True. MR. SANFORD-Those people who have been doing it, then maybe we should, you know, grandfather them in and let them continue to do it. Almost all the people that rent out a dock slip for something like that, never were legitimately a Class A Marina, I would go on, I would assume that to be the case. MR. VOLLARO-I think that’s pretty safe ground. MR. SANFORD-But then the question is, what criteria are we interested in? Well, I guess if the dock was there, and that they had registered the dock, and the presumption is they were renting it. I don’t know. MR. VOLLARO-Well, we’d have to ask the applicant that question and go on the good faith that the answer, has the applicant rented out these docks previously? MR. KELLY-We can document that back to 1988, and I think there are some affidavits submitted as a separate, ’88, I think is the applicant. MR. VOLLARO-I think you don’t even have to go to a date. If you can substantiate that you were renting out these docks, I think that that might satisfy my mind as the continuous use, but it says without interruption since 1981. Those are the words that bother me the most. MR. SANFORD-But then you keep on going, you’re then going on to B, which is basically that they can’t demonstrate that they had a permit. If we’re considering dock registration a permit, then forget that B is even in there. It doesn’t even exist. MR. VOLLARO-Well, that’s a question I have. You’re saying if there’s a permit we go to A, and we stop at A. If there’s a dock registration, we stop at A. MR. SANFORD-Well, whatever we consider a permit to be, and that it was prior to April 2002, and that it came from an involved agency, whatever that is. If those three things, if we’re comfortable with the fact that whatever it is they have is a permit, and that it’s prior to April 2002, and it came from an involved agency, then they’re under A1, and it’s fine. MS. RADNER-Don’t forget that the A1 determination says Special Use Permit by the Zoning Administrator. If the information that they’ve already submitted, that they’ve submitted now tonight has already been reviewed by the Zoning Administrator, and he didn’t issue a permit, you folks can’t step in his shoes to issue that for him. If that information hasn’t been, and you’re suggesting to the applicant that they’ve got enough and they should be visiting your Zoning Administrator again. MR. VOLLARO-I talked to the Zoning Administrator about this application. I said, now that this new information has been submitted, can this shift over to you? His answer was no. 6 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. SANFORD-Yes, but again, that’s an administrative decision he’s made. It’s a procedural thing. MR. MAC EWAN-It’s a procedural thing. Once it’s in our hands, it just can’t bounce back to him, just because that’s what we’d like to do. MR. VOLLARO-No, he could have taken this on new information, and moved it in to his realm. If the information that they submit subsequent to our last meeting satisfied all the requirements, he could have taken that in on an administrative, because he’s got about four or five sitting on his desk now, maybe more than that. MR. KELLY-If I might be heard, I’ve noted in the affidavits that have been submitted here that actually usage or rentals can be documented back to 1984. MR. VOLLARO-That’s pretty close. MR. METIVIER-I have to say this is the first application we’ve had of this sort that this was not an intended commercial use, and I think that’s why we’re running in to such a problem. If you look back at the other applications we had, all of those docks were considered commercial use. In this particular case, it’s residential. Because she rents out two sides of her dock, you know, there’s no documentation, and if you look back as to how the DEC, or I’m sorry the Park Commission registers docks for residential use, they’ll take a look at the one dock that she has, and it’s one dock. Whereas, if you remember the other applications, they were all separate docks. So she’s not going to have the documentation that we’ve seen in the past. There’s no way, because they didn’t document it like that. So residential use, residential area. It’s one dock. Think of Hopper, Smith, Mr. Salvador, they all had each dock registered. They could prove it. She has one dock, which is unlike the others that we’ve seen. Whether she rents out one side or the other, there’s no way, there’s nowhere on an application to the Park Commission that states, do you use, you know, the size of the docks, or just underneath for boats? So in that case, she can’t prove anything to us that there was existing use there, because it never asked. If she can go back, and I can attest to the fact that they’ve rented out their boat slips. I’ve said this before about Mr. Salvador, I drive by that every day. I see the boats. I could tell you the boats that she has there, for years going back, you know, whether or not they’re hers, I know exactly which boats are there, you know, I never would have considered or thought for a second that they wouldn’t be hers, they would be hers or what, but the fact remains, the boats have been there, continually since, I mean, as far back as I can remember. So, can she prove it, maybe not, but the fact remains that she has had the boats there. I mean, I showed you the dock. I know the dock. I know the home. So, the fact remains, my point to this, is that because this is residential, there’s not going to be any documentation going back to state that this was a commercial use, she rented them out, because nobody ever asked, and as far as the pump out station, thank goodness she doesn’t have one. There’s a lot of marinas on the lake that don’t have pump out stations. I mean, you have to, the rules for pump out alone, you know, it has to be so many feet back. It has to have special tanks, special pumps. So, you know, I don’t know where that’s coming from, as far as the pump out, but you have the ability to go anywhere on the lake that offers a pump out station and pump your boat out. MR. VOLLARO-Well, under the, Tony, I agree with you, but under the situation you have here, that we have, anybody that comes to us now with a residential dock that can prove that it was registered by DEC or anybody else, registered permit, we’d have to go with that. Based on what we would do here, on an approval, we would set the pace for the rest of the, for the rest of the lake. MR. METIVIER-Keep in mind, we talked about this, too. Residential docks that are registered have a placard. You could only get them at one time. They’re orange. It coincides with her little number in the corner of that application. They have to be posted on the dock. We should probably start taking a look at those, when we do our site reviews, because if they’re not there, she doesn’t have one. If you tear your dock down, and you rebuild it, the placards are plastic, screwed in. You take it off and you put it back on. I mean, that’s like a taxi cab placard in New 7 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) York City. It’s the same thing. If you get it, you hold on to it forever because you can’t get one again, and she shows that, back to ’81. MR. VOLLARO-I see that. MR. METIVIER-That dock existed. Pictures are attached, and I’ve stated before, too, Molly Gallagher does a great job documenting everything. She’ll pull that file, and the picture’s there for every dock. They’re all documented, because that’s what you needed in order to get a placard. So, you know, the fact is the matter is she had this dock back to ’81, hasn’t made any changes to it. Didn’t add on to it. It’s the same exact dock, and that’s what we should take as gospel in this case. Because it was there. MR. VOLLARO-So you’re really saying that the DEC registration or the wharf. MR. METIVIER-The wharf registration is valid enough. MR. VOLLARO-Is valid enough to do this. MR. METIVIER-Absolutely. MR. VOLLARO-Well, I’d have to see how the vote goes down, because, you know, the problem is, Tony, I’d love to give everybody one of these. I mean, give them out for Christmas time. The problem is I’ve got to deal with the words that are on this piece of paper. MR. METIVIER-I understand. MR. VOLLARO-And I’ve got a problem with that. MR. METIVIER-But, you know, you have to also understand that, you know, she technically hasn’t done anything wrong here. Like I said before, there’s never been a car on the street. MR. VOLLARO-And you showed us where the parking would be. MR. METIVIER-They park in the driveway. They go out in the boat. They come back. They leave. There’s no problems. There’s no excess use, and, you know, there’s just not, and, yes, you’re going to find a lot more of these because people need to rent dock space to pay the taxes. That’s all it’s about. MR. VOLLARO-I know what it’s about. I understand that. MR. METIVIER-I mean, you’re looking at, if you have any clue what the taxes are up there, you’d understand, and it’s unfortunate it’s come down to that, but, you know, I’m sure that there’s lots of people that would love to have open docks for swimming, but you just can’t do it any more. I mean, you’re looking at $10,000 tax bills. That’s almost $1,000 a month you have to put away for taxes, and if you’ve owned the property long enough, you don’t have that kind of money. The new money that comes in to Town, sure they have that money. That’s fine. They have more money to spend. They take these beautiful houses, buy them for a million dollars, and tear them down. It’s completely different. If you’ve had the property long enough, you can’t hold on to it because of the tax base, and it’s only getting worse. So I feel for her. I truly do. I feel for me. I do. MR. VOLLARO-I’ve got the same problem on Schroon Lake. So things aren’t too much different up north than they are here. MR. METIVIER-It’s gotten to the point, what are you going to do? MR. MAC EWAN-All right. Anything you wanted to add, Mr. Kelly? 8 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. KELLY-I think you have all our paperwork, and as I said in the original application, we are willing to stipulate any reasonable conditions upon the issuance of the permit, including that it shall not be transferable, that the tenants will agree to utilize publicly available pump out stations, dispose of their own trash, and that this shall be a life permit and go no further than that. We are certainly willing to accommodate any needs that this situation that has existed might turn into something totally different in the future. We understand that that may be a concern. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I’d ask you to give up the table for a few minutes. We’ll open up the public hearing. Does anyone want to comment to this application? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED JOHN SALVADOR MR. SALVADOR-Good evening. My name is John Salvador. I think I was invited to the table here tonight. MR. VOLLARO-Almost. MR. SALVADOR-Okay. Again, it’s unfortunate that these folks are in this dilemma they’re in, but the 1981 Regulatory Program, promulgated by the DEC, I repeat, was a two-pronged program. It required you to register docks, didn’t care how you used them, private, rent, friends, whatever, baskets of fruit, it didn’t make any difference. You had to register the dock, the physical presence of the dock, and on that inquiry form, they asked you what permits did you have for installation of these docks? Who were they granted by and the dates and all that sort of thing, and the numbers. The other aspect of the program was if you had engaged in any of the following, you were to get a marina permit, and the definition of the marina was the sale of marine products or services, the sale, lease, rental or charter of vessels of any type, or the sale, lease, rental or any other provision of storage, wharf or mooring for vessels, not registered to the owner of the facilities. As of January 1, 1982, if you were engage in any of those, you had to make application for a marina. That’s the use. Separate from the registration. The applicant has said they didn’t start renting until 1984. There was no requirement for them to get this permit in 1981, ’82. They weren’t doing it. Now I can tell you, after this program went into place and they registered a few marinas and all, the DEC just about forgot about enforcing this. They collected a lot of data, and it’s still on file, but very little was done to enforce this. I can tell you I have a neighbor, big marina, one of the biggest marinas on the lake, never got a marina permit. Never registered the docks until 1985. They’re still in business today. They have a Class A Marina permit. So it’s unfortunate. I think there’s a simple solution to the problem these people have. Why don’t they make application to the ZBA for a variance to conduct commercial activity in a residential zone, and then, with that permit, get an application to run a home occupation. That’s essentially what they’re doing, out of their home, they’re renting a dock. That would solve, take care of everything. They don’t need pump out and all this other stuff that you talk about, but it was a two pronged program, and the registration didn’t necessarily allow the use, okay. The registration didn’t not allow the use. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thanks. Anyone else? I’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. MAC EWAN-We need to do a SEQRA, Chris. MR. HUNSINGER-Is this Long or Short? MR. MAC EWAN-It’s listed as Unlisted. MR. HUNSINGER-Short Form. 9 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. SANFORD-Chris, I’m sorry to interrupt you. I’m not sure this should have a SEQRA. Because if they’re coming in to be grandfathered as a pre-existing, Class A Marina, we’re really not reviewing it as a site plan or as a Special Use Permit. So why are we doing an environmental analysis? MR. MAC EWAN-Because the criteria that launches it in front of this Board requires us to do a SEQRA environmental assessment form. MR. SANFORD-I don’t know if we did it on the other applications that we had in front of us. I don’t believe we did SEQRAs on those other ones. MR. MAC EWAN-That was before this Ordinance was redefined. I believe we did it for Hopper, and we did it also for, I believe we did. MR. SANFORD-Did we? MR. VOLLARO-I believe so. MR. MAC EWAN-I think we did them for both Hopper and Smith. Let’s continue on. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 1-2004, Introduced by Chris Hunsinger who moved for its adoption, seconded by Anthony Metivier: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: MARIE LAURSEN, and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. 10 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) Duly adopted this 17 day of February, 2004, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. MAC EWAN-Does someone want to move it? MOTION TO APPROVE SPECIAL USE PERMIT NO 1-2004 MARIE LAURSEN, Introduced by Anthony Metivier who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: WHEREAS, an application has been made to this Board for the following: Special Use Permit SUP 1-2004 Applicant/Property Owner: Marie Laursen SEQR Type: Unlisted Agent: Robert Kelly Zone: WR-1A Location: 167 Assembly Point Road Applicant is seeking Planning Board recognition as a pre-existing Class A Marina Special Use Permit. Cross Reference: UV 1417 Warren Co. Planning: 1/14/04 LGPC, APA Tax Map No. 239.7-1-32 Lot size: 0.88 acres / Section: 179-4-020 Public Hearing: January 27, 2004 WHEREAS, the application was received on December 15, 2003; and WHEREAS, the above is supported with the following documentation and inclusive of all newly received information, not included in this listing as of 1/23/04; and 1/30 Additional info provided by agent 1/27 Planning Board resolution: Tabled 1/27 Staff Notes 1/20 Notice of Public Hearing sent 1/14 Warren Co. Planning: NCI w/stipulation 1/3 Meeting Notice sent w/project ID courtesy marker WHEREAS, pursuant to Art. 10 of the Zoning Ordinance of the Code of the Town of Queensbury a public hearing was advertised and was held on January 27, 2004; and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the Special Use Permit application requirements of the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the requirements of the State Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and/or if application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and the proposed modification(s) do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and WHEREAS, this approval does not relieve the applicant from obtaining all necessary permits whether Federal, State or Local, and 11 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal meets/does not meet the requirements of Section 179-10-035, and, as such, shall/shall not be considered a Pre-Existing Use. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that We find the following: The application is hereby approved in accordance with the resolution prepared by Staff and is subject to the following condition which shall be listed on the final plans submitted to the Zoning Administrator: 1. Upon approval, the Special Use Permit cannot be transferred upon transfer of ownership of the property. Duly adopted this 17 day of February, 2004, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. MacEwan NOES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. MAC EWAN-You’re all set. Is anyone here representing Site Plan 5-2004 for Steve Moffitt? Okay. NEW BUSINESS [SUBDIVISIONS]: SUBDIVISION NO. 4-2004 PRELIMINARY STAGE FINAL STAGE SEQR TYPE: UNLISTED RICHARD & KELLY IRVINE AGENT: MICHAEL J. O’CONNOR ZONE: RR-3A LOCATION: 9 VERANDA LANE APPLICANT PROPOSES SUBDIVISION OF A 3.09 ACRE PARCEL INTO TWO LOTS OF 1.66 ACRES AND 1.43 ACRES CROSS REFERENCE: AV 4-2004, SB 10-1991 TAX MAP NO. 295.00-1-1.2 LOT SIZE: 3.09 ACRES SECTION: SUBDIVISION REGULATIONS MICHAEL O’CONNOR, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Subdivision No. 4-2004, Preliminary Stage/Final Stage, Richard & Kelly Irvine, Meeting Date: February 17, 2004, “APPLICATION: Subdivision 4-2004 (Preliminary & Final Stage) APPLICANT: Richard & Kelly Irvine are the applicants for this request. REQUESTED ACTION: Applicant proposes to subdivide a 3.07-acre property into two lots of 1.64 and 1.43 acres. LOCATION: The subject property is located at 9 Veranda Lane (The Vistas) EXISTING ZONING: This property is zoned RR-3A, Rural Residential Three Acre. SEQRA STATUS: This action is a SEQRA Unlisted action. The applicant has included a Full Environmental Assessment Form with the subdivision application. PARCEL HISTORY: The ZBA approved an Area Variance on January 21, 2004 in order to allow lots less than 3 acres and to create a parcel without the required street frontage. The most recent Planning Board action involving this property was SB 10-2001, resolved on 12/18/2001, which originally created this lot. 12 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The applicant proposes to subdivide a 3.04-acre property into two lots of 1.64 and 1.43 acres. STAFF COMMENTS: The applicant has requested the following waivers: Stormwater Management Plan - Grading Plan - Landscaping Plan - Sketch Plan Approval - As part of the ZBA approval of the Area Variance for this site, conditions were offered by the applicant concerning the 1.43-acre property to be created as part of this subdivision. These conditions have been presented to Town Counsel for review. The proposed conditions are similar to what have been presented in the approving resolution from the ZBA. Subject to Town Counsel’s review of such conditions, Staff recommends including these conditions in any resolution for approval of this subdivision by the Planning Board.” MR. MAC EWAN-Staff notes. MR. HILTON-Really quickly, the applicant proposes to subdivide a three acre property into two lots of 1.64 and 1.43 acres. The Zoning Board of Appeals approved an Area Variance in order to allow lots less three acres and to create a parcel without the required street frontage. This was approved on January 21, 2004. As I’ve mentioned in my notes, there were some conditions offered by the applicant at the ZBA meeting that have been presented to Town Counsel for their review. Town Counsel has replied, and subject to including these conditions in any approval that you might have, I guess that’s our suggestion, that you include any conditions from the most recent Town Counsel correspondence. Beyond that, I don’t have any additional comment at this time. MR. VOLLARO-Do we have that correspondence? MR. HILTON-Yes, you should. I did hand it to you this evening. MR. MAC EWAN-He gave it to you tonight. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Someplace in my stack, I guess, here. MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. O’Connor, the floor is yours. MR. O'CONNOR-Mr. Chairman, I’m Michael O’Connor from the firm of Little & O’Connor, representing Richard & Kelly Irvine. Mr. Irvine is here with me, and I understand some of the neighbors are here also, in support of Mr. Irvine’s application. Basically, this is, in my opinion, a simple subdivision of a pre-existing. I thought we were going to approach this some time ago as a modification of an existing subdivision approval, and that’s the way we started this off. We went away from that. We went to the Zoning Board of Appeals and obtained variances, so that we would have two freestanding substandard lots in a three acre zone. We obtained that variance. We obtained a variance because one of the lots would not have sufficient frontage on a Town highway. In doing all that, we said, which was our intent, that the lot that we are dividing off, the southerly portion, a 1.43 acre parcel, would be a no build lot. We’re not trying to create a separate lot for building purposes. What we’re trying to do is free, if you will, the northern portion of the property, so that Mr. Irvine can obtain financing, and finish the house that’s on the site. If you’ve been up to the site, there’s a house up there that’s about a 30%, maybe in that area 30% completed. There’s a dispute between Mr. Irvine and his builder. We have written a letter of default, litigation has been commenced between the builder/developer and Mr. Irvine, as to who’s in default under the construction contract. We believe that he is. He believes that Mr. Irvine is. We need to be able to free up the lot so that we can go forward with the construction, and I don’t know how much you want to get into this, but this started, I think, 13 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) in 2000, 2001, and at the closing, Mr. Irvine executed an option for the builder, developer, which gave the builder/the developer the right to buy the portion that we’re saying is the no build lot. We’re not trying to interfere with that option. We’re just trying to separate it. The contract provided also, the option provided that the builder would subordinate his option to any financing that Mr. Irvine obtained to have the house constructed, with the understanding that a bank won’t approve a mortgage on something that is not a legitimate lot. Mortgage companies, or banks now days, when you describe a lot, want to know that it’s an entity in and of itself, that if they were to foreclose, they would have the right to foreclose against that parcel. You’ve kind of been through this a little bit with, I think, back when Wal-Mart and Ames were subdividing their parcels, even though there wasn’t necessarily the subdivision, you recognize internal boundaries. I think you did the same thing with Home Depot. You’ve done it more on commercial sites than you have on residential sites. That’s basically it. We sent in to the Town a proposal, as to the deed, and offered language we thought was in compliance with the presentation that we made to the Zoning Board of Appeals saying that the southerly portion is not to be built on until, and there are two conditions, the option expires in March of 2007. If that option expires, without being exercised by the builder/developer, we have said that this piece that you’re saying is now a separate lot, will be remerged, and Lot 9 will be like it was when you approved this subdivision a couple of years ago. We’re saying, though, that the builder, as is provided in the option, as the right to come in here, and combine this separate piece with this other 35 acres that he adjoins, and make an application to you under their cluster subdivision and include that as part of another lot, or maybe even then as a freestanding lot under the cluster provisions, and we have said in the option agreement, or they said in the option agreement, that he has to show us at that time that he does not affect the legitimacy of our lot. So basically your Phase II, or Phase III of this subdivision, whatever he brings in to you, will have our house probably as Lot One, and this other piece will be combined with something else or maybe by itself as Lot Two, but you will then get a full review of that at that time. So, what we’re trying to do is separate, if we can, this particular portion, so that we can go out, get a mortgage which will allow us to finish this house, which is, right now, subject to weathering and everything else. It’s not a good circumstance. It certainly is not someplace that Mr. Irvine enjoys being or wishes that he had gotten himself into, but he’s there, and we don’t really have an alternative. Now, I submitted, a week or so, or ten days ago, a copy of a proposed deed. We’ve had a lot of correspondence with Town Counsel today. Basically I have revised the deed to include provisions one and two of the suggestions. I have not included, or am not in a position to offer the consent of the builder/developer to this, which is something that was suggested. I have the proposed deed. I don’t know if that’s part of your package, but what we’ve put in here is a restrictive covenant, which I think is sufficient, that says that nobody can build on this 1.43 acre parcel, and I’ll read it for you because I don’t think you have it. MR. VOLLARO-Is this the, I’m sorry, Mr. O’Connor. Is this the piece that, our Counsel has handed us some information, and they have in there that this subdivision approval be conditioned upon deed language as proposed by Attorney O’Connor with additional language adding and stating that the condition must be included, and they have your language in here, I believe. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-If you want to go ahead, I just wanted to try to follow you along in that. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. The language which we had was basically said lot was created pursuant to Planning Board approval granted February 17, 2004, and an Area Variance granted by the Queensbury Zoning Board of Appeals dated January 21, 2004, and said parcel is subject to the terms and conditions of that variance. In particular, the, or this 1.43 acre lot will remain an unbuilt upon lot for a period up to March 21, 2007. If, in the interim, this lot has not been merged with other adjoining lands and approved as a lot or a portion of a lot by the Queensbury Planning Board, under a cluster subdivision application, with that cluster subdivision application, treating the remaining portion, a 1.64 acre parcel, of Lot 9, as a standalone lot of that application. If such Planning Board approval has not been obtained by March 21, 2007, it is agreed that the above described portion, which is the 1.43 acre portion of 14 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) Lot 9 will be merged with the remaining portion of Lot 9, so as to constitute one lot, Lot 9, with the same configuration as shown on the above referred to map entitled the Vistas of West Mountain. The language which I have added since I saw that memo today, was a paragraph that said the above condition will be included in any and all subsequent deeds of whatever nature, up to and including March 21, 2007. Said conditions is intended to bind the heirs, successors, and assigns of Richard G. & Kelly A. Irvine. We also added the mylar map reflecting the above referred to Planning Board approval will have printed thereon the following language. The 1.43 acre lot is not a building lot and must either, well, it should say merge with additional lands or Irvine or with contiguous lands of Raven, and that it will cease to exist as a separate lot on or after March 21, 2007, and we did have a mylar prepared today, and that notation is on the mylar. We further added, I think, Richard G. Irvine and Kelly A. Irvine further Covent that they will not convey this 1.43 acre parcel to any third person until they are presented with approval of said conveyance by the Queensbury Town Planning Board, dated subsequent to the date of this deed. This restriction will terminate if the 1.43 acre parcel is merged with the 1.64 acre parcel, as that Lot 9 is reconfigured as same was originally approved. I don’t know if we added this before or after. We had this before. The parties of the first part are the owners of the remaining portion of Lot 9 and are signing this deed and are signing this deed in that capacity as well as conveying the premises for the purposes of subjecting the remainder of Lot 9 to the above merger provision. Now, the last paragraph I added after our last conversation and I don’t know if that satisfied the latest concern, or satisfied the concern that Cathi Radner had. MS. RADNER-Can you read that one more time, please? MR. O'CONNOR-Why don’t I give it to you to read. The question was, and our intent was to make this thing a, this isn’t smoke and mirrors. We were trying to make it enforceable, and I think Cathi asked the question whether it was enforceable. MS. RADNER-My concern, as your Counsel, of course, is that you want to end up with a condition that’s enforceable by the Town, and a deed is in effect a contract between the parties to that deed, and in this case, the deed is a deed from Irvine to Irvine, and while that can certainly serve as a record, it goes on record in the courthouse, anybody who would purchase this property would be aware of that condition. We, as an outsider, can’t go to court and say, hey, look, you’re violating our approval because you’re not in compliance with the deed. The deed isn’t enforceable as a standalone document, by this Board. So what we’re trying to do is get a condition that’s going to serve your purposes, that is enforceable. The condition placed on the mylar that it not be a buildable lot would be an enforceable condition of subdivision approval. The problem is is that the pre-existing option agreement arguably creates rights in party who’s not here before you and what I’m hoping to avoid is embroiling you in litigation between these two adjoining lot owners. I believe it was everybody’s intention that we’re going to have this option lot, this 1.43 acre lot, which could not be a standalone lot, which is going to eventually either merge with other contiguous lands of this applicant or of Raven, the adjoining landowner. What we want to do is end up with a condition, though, that’s enforceable that accomplishes that goal, and that’s why I recommended we get, if a possible, best case scenario, a signoff from Mr. Raven saying, yes, I agree, this is a separate, as built lot, unless it’s merged with other lands, than otherwise approved. Yes, the deed does go steps in that direction to create a record and to create a document that’s enforceable, but it’s not necessarily enforceable by you folks. MR. SANFORD-Cathi, wouldn’t you think that’s an impractical suggestion on your part, given, you might just as well ask him to give up the option, than to signoff on it not being built upon. I mean, I don’t see there really being any probability of success for the applicant to go to, is it Mr. Raven? MS. RADNER-Yes. MR. SANFORD-And successfully get that kind of a signoff. 15 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. O'CONNOR-I have no objection, and we have done in prior conditions, say that a particular condition of approval, which appears as a covenant, is enforceable by the Town as well as other lot owners. I’ve done that in the past, and I don’t have a problem with that. If that’s language that you think, I don’t think, practically speaking, anybody who sees the map, sees the restriction on the map, who looks at the title, and sees the restriction in the title isn’t going to touch this thing unless you’ve approved it. MR. SANFORD-I understand the financing issue, but from a practical point of view, the deed, as you mentioned, is really between the two parties, and it really doesn’t involve us, as a third party, but, if he was to exercise that option, let’s say this isn’t in front of us, but Mr. Raven exercises the option in the deed. It’s against public policy, in that it’s a subdivision of a lot that’s supposed to be three acres. So he would have to, in order to successfully purchase the property, get a variance, right? MS. RADNER-What you’re doing tonight is granting that subdivision. You are turning the 3.09 acres into two pieces. MR. SANFORD-No, I’m saying, if it wasn’t here in front of us, and Mr. Raven wants to exercise the option, it’s stopped between those two parties to decide whether or not that’s plausible, because it would be subdividing a three acre plus parcel into two less than that, which is really inappropriate, so in order for that to take place would have to get the Town’s blessing through the ZBA. Right? MS. RADNER-Right. Now you’re on the flip side of that. Instead of it being Mr. Raven coming saying I want to split this up so I can exercise my option, it’s the applicant here saying, I want to split it up now, so that I can finance just the portion that’s not hindered by the option. I want to move forward. So they’re asking you to give that same approval now to create two lots out of that single parcel. By granting that subdivision approval, you’re creating two lots. The argument then comes, have you created two buildable lots, or have you created one buildable lot, and one lot that’s not a buildable lot because of this condition, and how do you enforce that condition, the condition that it’s not going to be built upon unless it’s added to other contiguous lands. MR. SANFORD-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-I also have a question, Counsel. I noticed on the front of our, this is a confidential, attorney client privilege communication, but I’d like to have permission from Counsel to read one piece out of it. MS. RADNER-You folks always have the ability to waive attorney client privilege and to make it public. I don’t have that ability, but you folks do. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. All right. There’s a sentence in here which bothers me. I think the rest of it I pretty much can understand, but the sentence states “It is equally foreseeable that Raven would challenge the no build condition, asserting that the Planning Board had no authority to encumber his property with such condition without his approval.” MS. RADNER-That’s exactly my concern. That because the option agreement pre-dates this agreement, that Mr. Raven would come forward and say, look, you impeded my contractual rights. You’ve now added a condition to my contract, and that’s why I suggested that you might wish to have a signoff from Mr. Raven. MR. VOLLARO-Does that connect with your last, next paragraph, saying how Mr. Raven may be more interested or inclined to amend the option agreement, rather than to offer the substantiation agreement which would allow the Irvine’s to obtain financing with a mortgage on the full, undivided piece of property? 16 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MS. RADNER-I believe you might have misread that. I believe it was subordination agreement. My understanding was that the reason we had arrived at this point was that originally the applicant had requested what’s called a subordination agreement, and it’s an agreement saying that, bank, if you give a mortgage to Mr. Irvine, any rights I have, I’ll put in second place, so that if Mr. Irvine didn’t meet his obligations to the bank, the bank would be first in line to foreclose or to take action to get its money, and they ask Mr. Raven to basically step back and let the bank to be ahead of them in line, and Mr. Raven, my understanding is, would not do that. What I’m suggesting here would be something less than that, and so though Mr. Raven in the past was not inclined to offer the subordination agreement, potentially the simple, yes I agree to the no separate building lot provision would be more palatable to him, and I don’t know that to be the case or not. I do know that Counsel is here, and might weigh in on that. MR. MAC EWAN-As it stands now, nothing was done with this parcel. The option that Mr. Raven is hopefully going to want to exercise by 2007, he can’t do anything with anyways because it doesn’t have road frontage. So in the long run we’re actually helping the guy out by creating this two lot subdivision, which would give him the frontage to develop the remaining portion, should he ever want to do that and exercise that right. Am I correct on that? As the parcel stands right now, because this is not a legal subdivision, we’re talking this acreage right now with one house on it, if Mr. Raven said to Mr. Irvine, in two years, okay, I’m going to take that other remaining parcel and develop it, he can’t. It doesn’t have road frontage on a Town road. MR. HILTON-Well, I don’t know if that’s necessarily true, because the variance has been granted. MR. MAC EWAN-The variance has been granted for who? MR. HILTON-For this parcel. MR. O'CONNOR-There’s still a piece. There’s a connector piece, Mr. MacEwan. He owns that road. MR. MAC EWAN-There is no road there. As it stands right now, if we don’t approve this subdivision, he does not have frontage for the remaining portion of the property to develop. MR. O'CONNOR-He owns the area that was set aside for the future extension of the road. MR. VOLLARO-He granted that as an easement, if I read this correctly. MR. O'CONNOR-We have an easement over part of it. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MR. O'CONNOR-We have an easement to the north, but there’s also an extension to the south that goes into his 35 acres that’s not shown on this map. MR. MAC EWAN-Which would cut through, basically, where the 153.33 feet is? Or is it somewhere else in the subdivision? MR. O'CONNOR-It would come along, let me see if I can do it this way. You’d come up Veranda Drive, and instead of going to the right, to our driveway, you’d go to the left, and I think that’s his land in there. I have the subdivision map. MR. VOLLARO-Now, is it planned that that Veranda Drive has an extension that follows that radius of 325? MR. O'CONNOR-We presume that. He’s got to come forth with, I mean, this is an option that was signed March 1, 2002, and even to this date, we haven’t seen, it’s almost a year. We haven’t 17 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) seen any activity by him to pursue the subdivision. Now his Counsel is here, I believe. I did send to them the final draft of language today, asking that they consented, it would be nice. I didn’t expect that they would consent. If I’m wrong, they could interrupt me right now and we wouldn’t have all this discussion. MR. MAC EWAN-Is someone here representing Mr. Raven? Could I ask you to give up the table for just a second, Mike, and we’ll chat with Stephanie and see if we can come to some sort of resolution on this thing. Can it be done or can’t it be done? STEPHANIE DI LLALO BITTER MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-By consent? Unfortunately not at this time. There’s outlying issues here. Obviously, this is now in litigation, and parties have a different interpretation of how this has all proceeded to front at this point. Just a brief background. It’s my understanding, and I wasn’t personally representing Mr. Raven at the time that this property was coming for the closing, but it’s my understanding that financing was about to be obtained, subordination was requested, and essentially the house had started construction, and Mr. Raven was looking for a payment on the construction to subordinate the property, and there was a dispute as to how much was constructed and how much should be paid, which resulted in financing not occurring. So there’s been continuous disputes between the parties, and at this time, I was present for the Zoning Board application and I identified that. Although we weren’t objecting to the variances, you know, we would object to the conditions, due to the fact that it is Mr. Raven’s intent to move forward and exercise his option. This option contract was signed, given a date of 2007, you know, he proceeded to sign that contract with that date, and the intent that he wasn’t going to proceed immediately, you know, Mr. O’Connor had identified that a year has passed. I mean, it wasn’t his intent to do this immediately. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, when that language was put in the deed, how could anyone foresee you’d be able to obtain a mortgage if the property wasn’t subdivided? MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-Well, it was my understanding that Mr. Irvine had purchased this property, knowing full well that this option contract was going to be signed, and in purchasing the property, I would believe that he should have reviewed whether or not financing could be obtained for the construction of the house in the future, before making that purchase. MR. MAC EWAN-So where are the parties right now, in trying to negotiate this thing out? MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-Well, it’s my understanding that litigation has been commenced. I’m not sure if the service has been completed, but that there was discussions on possibly purchasing the property back, and there was some discussions, but I’m not sure of the exact details. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thanks. MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-Yes. MR. O'CONNOR-What we’re asking you to do doesn’t interfere with Mr. Raven’s option in any manner. It doesn’t put the burden on him at all. He still has the same magic date that he can exercise his option, and the document that he signed, back in March, I think is actually a consent that Cathi is looking for now, because in there provides that the exercise of this option is contingent on buyer, being Raven, obtaining, at his sole cost and expense, all necessary approvals from government authorities for further subdivision and development of all or a portion of buyer’s remaining 39 acres adjacent to the property. This approval will include authorization from governmental authorities to subdivide Lot 9. The seller agrees to cooperate in the approval process and agrees to execute all necessary documents to include his property in the approval process, seller being Mr. Irvine. The buyer agrees that under no circumstances will he obtain subdivision approval that will result in Mr. Irvine’s remaining 1.64 acre lot to be in violation of any governmental regulations. Seller and buyer agree that before this option can 18 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) be exercised, buyer, which was Irvine, or buyer, it should say seller, I guess, will be provided with proof that his remaining 1.64 acre lot is a legal lot. So they kind of contemplated that they were going to come back to you. In fact, I’ve never represented Raven, that I’m aware of. I didn’t represent Mr. Irvine at the time that these documents were executed, but I understand that some time in the past actually this configuration is something that Irvine had before you, or Raven had before you when he did that section of the subdivision. So I think he’s already consented to it. He had the obligation to cooperate, and obviously we’re not having that cooperation. Unfortunately, I would report that the settlement does not appear to be something that is going to be easy, and that it is going to be after we get into the court discovery and all the junk that goes with it, and I say junk. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m just having a really hard time trying to understand how we got to where we are, because this lot was just created a couple of years ago. I mean, I know it wasn’t you. I mean, I remember when this lot was created they came before this Board, we said that we didn’t want to break off just one lot. We wanted to see a whole subdivision plan for that whole, you know, 30 plus acres. MR. MAC EWAN-We didn’t do that. We didn’t do that subdivision. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I know. We separated off the one lot. I guess the thing that I find very confusing is why the seller would have an option remaining on what they knew to be a substandard lot, that, you know, you wouldn’t be able to build on. MR. O'CONNOR-I think he was trying to have his cake and eat it, too. He was selling us Lot 9, but required at date of closing that an option be given to the southerly portion. That was not part of their discussions beforehand Mr. Irvine tells me. That was part of the hard negotiations that apparently took place the day of that closing. We’ll give you the piece of Lot 9 where you want your house located, and we will go in and get the approvals after the fact, basically, so that that’s legitimate. In the mean time, if necessary, we will sign a subordination agreement with your bank because we know that your bank won’t take less than the whole cake, which was refused, or was put up, put forth on terms that were totally unacceptable, and we will cooperate with you, which is not also happening. So Mr. Irvine is, unfortunately, whether he got himself here or not, is the victim of this. We presently now do have a variance that says that you can do what you’re doing, and I don’t know of any impact on the community at all. MR. SANFORD-With this possible exception. I think what our Counsel is telling us is that the applicant has gotten himself into a financing difficulty because of a deed restriction that he agreed to. It seems like we might be putting ourselves, the Town, at some risk, to basically assist the applicant, which is really, even though we feel for him, it’s really none of our business. This is an issue between the applicant and Mr. Raven and we might, by putting some kind of a restriction in here, be dragged into some kind of a legal action which, if nothing else, would cost us some legal expense, on a matter that’s really not our issue. MR. O'CONNOR-You’re never going to have every guarantee that everything is going to be 100%. I understand Counsel’s position saying wouldn’t it be nice if we have that. As you started in your first comment, it really isn’t practical, and sometimes you have to be practical. What is the burden that we’re putting on Raven? Who is the fellow who has the option to buy this 1.43 acres. We are not saying anything to violate his option. It’s still a valid option. If anything, as Craig indicated, we perhaps have helped them a little bit because we got the variance. We set that up. Every time you make a decision it’s subject to maybe somebody suing the Town. I think we’ve got a building here that’s 30% completed. It’s not weathering well. We would like to be able to complete it. MR. VOLLARO-Would Mr. Raven buy that piece back, or, you know, just plain buy the 1.43 acres? So that it doesn’t revert back, in 2007 at all, it becomes Mr. Raven’s property and we have a 1.64 acre plot for Mr. Raven, and that’s the end of it. MR. O'CONNOR-That’s one of the possibilities down the road. 19 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. SANFORD-But then a house could get put right here, and it basically disrupts, or it’s contrary to three acre lot size. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, true. MR. O'CONNOR-But it’s permissible within clustering. MR. METIVIER-Is this clustered now? MR. VOLLARO-No. MR. METIVIER-Couldn’t we entertain approving this with a condition, not that he couldn’t build on it, but that any future building? MR. MAC EWAN-See, the problem here is we’re approving a subdivision that, in reality, isn’t owned by the applicant, it’s owned by Raven. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes, it is. MR. METIVIER-It is owned by. The deed states that it’s owned by him. MR. O'CONNOR-Lot 9 is owned by, both portions are owned by the Irvines. MR. MAC EWAN-But what throws the monkey wrench in this thing it’s exercising his option on further development of the remaining parcel. MR. O'CONNOR-He only is entitled to exercise his option if, in fact, he has gotten your approval. MR. VOLLARO-He has to come in for Phase II on that approval. MR. O'CONNOR-He has to come in for Phase II before he can exercise the option. I mean, that’s the belt and suspenders. MR. MAC EWAN-Are there other issues going on with this whole mess, other than just the subdivision thing? I mean, there’s contractor disputes and stuff like that? MR. O'CONNOR-Well, there’s charges of time performance. There’s charges of. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that the issue that’s going to court at this point or in litigation? MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. There’s a question of overpayment. You asked whether or not he could buy it, you know, if we laid out what we thought is the appropriate value that, and we also laid out what we think are the payments that would be made. He’d be paying a lot for that lot. That’s not going to happen. We’re going to have a judge either refer to a referee and a referee is going to make the determination, or the judge is going to make the determination between the two of them. MR. VOLLARO-But can this Board operate within that context? MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. Okay. There’s two, we want to complete the structure before it deteriorates. MR. VOLLARO-That’s understandable, certainly. MR. O'CONNOR-And in order to do that, we’ve got to be in a position where we can put financing in on this portion. That is the course that we are going to proceed on. We are not 20 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) asking you to approve, under no circumstances are we asking you to approve the separate piece that you’re cutting off here as a building lot. This is why I thought we’d come in as a subdivision modification, of a pre-existing approved lot. MR. VOLLARO-You were looking at a lot line adjustment back a month ago. MR. O'CONNOR-No, three months ago. I think three months ago, by the time you get done the filing dates and everything else. MR. VOLLARO-I’m inclined to go along and help this guy, I guess. I don’t know. MR. O'CONNOR-Do you want to hear other people? MR. MAC EWAN-Obviously you’ve sat down and tried to talk with Mr. Raven about this? MR. O’CONNOR-Yes, we have. MR. MAC EWAN-To no success. MR. O'CONNOR-I, personally, have been involved in at least one, if not two. MR. MAC EWAN-Stephanie, is Mr. Raven amenable to sit down and want to talk about this a little bit? MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-It’s my understanding that, not personally, but Benjamin Pratt, has been speaking to Mr. O’Connor about this. MR. O'CONNOR-And we have had this meeting with clients also. MR. VOLLARO-Is it possible, Mr. Chairman, that we give these folks a chance to talk this thing out and come back to us with a position? MR. MAC EWAN-Well, that’s part of the problem. What I was thinking here was maybe I’ll sit down with Counsel, Staff and both parties, table this thing for one week and see if we can’t move this along and hear from all sides of the parties. I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. We want to try to do the right thing here. MR. O'CONNOR-Let me ask this, Mr. Chairman. In the past, where you have had a condition that you were concerned about the enforcement of, you have put in your provision, or in your approval authority for the Town to enforce that condition, and I think that that is Ms. Radner’s concern that this restrictive covenant is good for what it says, but she’s not sure the Town can enforce that. We’re willing to accept, and typically in a set of restrictive covenants, you put at the end of the restrictive covenants may be enforced by any lot owner within the subdivision, or, and we can put in there, may be enforced by any lot owner within the subdivision, that there be a no build, and by the Town of Queensbury. MR. MAC EWAN-We have done that in the past. MS. RADNER-Yes. You’ve typically done it with a homeowners association type of deal where you’ve got the applicant representing a number of homeowners and have put it as a condition of the, I’m trying to think of the examples that you did it with. MR. O'CONNOR-That seems to be the only thing we haven’t covered is, is this truly enforceable, I guess. MR. SANFORD-Does the option carry a price? For instance, if he exercises the option, is it defined what the price would be? 21 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. O'CONNOR-There’s zero dollars. All he has to do is give us your approval. MR. SANFORD-No, no. I think you’re missing something. I’m talking about Mr. Raven. If he was to exercise his option in the deed, what’s the consideration that the applicant would receive? MR. O'CONNOR-Zero dollars. He takes it. This is where I said he actually was trying to have his cake and eat it, too. MR. SANFORD-He just takes it. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, that’s what it looks like, to me. MR. HUNSINGER-And if we approve this, it almost guarantees that he would. MR. O'CONNOR-It would leave him in the same position as he is now, doesn’t necessarily mean it. I mean, he’s got to come forth and follow through and get Phase II approved. MR. METIVIER-I just can’t understand why, how we’re in jeopardy if we approve this. Somebody has to help me with that. Because basically what they said, Mr. Irvine owns the property. We draw a line. He can get his financing. Get his house built, which really, I mean, the guy bought the land. MS. RADNER-This definitely achieves the applicant’s purpose, what they’re asking to do. MR. METIVIER-Right, obviously. So, you know, we cut the line, cut the lot, and everybody could possibly win. We wouldn’t set any modification or condition that the lot couldn’t be built on. MR. SANFORD-Well, if we put the condition that it couldn’t be built on, Mr. Raven could make an argument that we’ve lowered the value of his option. MR. METIVIER-That’s why I said that we wouldn’t do that. Any future building would be conditioned to site plan review or whatever, which it has to be anyway because it’s part of Phase II. Where are we going wrong? What am I missing? MR. O'CONNOR-Well, how are you lowering its value? Right now it can’t be built on as a separate entity. MR. SANFORD-Well, the location of where a home may want to be placed could come into play here, and if we put a no build in, we’re obviously saying it couldn’t be built within that 1.46, I think it is, acres, or 1.43. MR. O'CONNOR-But that would go away, with your approval of that. MR. SANFORD-See, I think what I’m just trying to talk to my fellow Board member about is he’s saying this appears to be, he didn’t use the word “no-brainer”, but it seems like we could work with this, but I’m looking at it is, if it wasn’t for the applicant’s financial difficulty, which I have a sense of appreciation for, but it’s really not the Town’s business, we would not be entertaining a subdivision of this property. We do not like to encourage smaller lots than three acres up in that area, and I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable, if it wasn’t for this extraordinary circumstance, to approve the subdivision. By approving the subdivision, we’re ensuring the option will be exercised, because we’re granting the approval which is probably, if there wasn’t a financing issue here, Mr. Raven would probably not be able to exercise that option because he probably wouldn’t be able to get the approvals. So what we’re saying is we’ll give you the approvals without having to even go through the process. 22 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. METIVIER-But has that second lot been approved to be built on? I keep saying second lot, but the potential second lot. Could that be built on? MR. VOLLARO-Is it a buildable lot, Tony, is that what you’re asking? MR. METIVIER-Well, anything can be built on. You know what I’m saying. Is that a buildable lot? MS. RADNER-And that’s exactly the argument that I’m trying to avoid. So that, typically, almost by definition, when you take one piece of land and you divide it into two lots, you’ve now created two potentially buildable lots, and in this case you’re kind of going forward creating two lots, but with the intention that only one buildable lot is created, and the question is how you prevent somebody from coming forward and claiming the right to build on that 1.43 acre lot, that second lot that you’d be creating today, and where you run into problems is that here you know who’s going to exercise that option. So you’ve got a potential face to go with it, and you’ve also got the potential for the unknown. I mean, how many times do you have applicants who come before this Board saying this isn’t our intention. We’re not going to do this. This is what we’re going to do with it. Three years later it’s changed hands two different times and what they’re intention was is completely irrelevant to what you’ve granted, if you didn’t have the foresight to issue the appropriate conditions. MR. O'CONNOR-We’re accepting the conditions that it not be built on. The other lots that are below this, towards West Mountain, are .76 acres, 1.62 acres, 2.19, 1.25, 2.93, 2.12. I mean, it’s even not out of character with the other built out lots. MR. VOLLARO-Those are all in the three acre zone? MR. O'CONNOR-I don’t truthfully know that, Mr. Vollaro. I don’t know, and the approval probably was given some time before the ’88 change of zone. Some of that is still in an SFR-1 Acre. This piece is probably 160 feet away from an SFR-1 Acre zone. MR. SANFORD-I’m just a little confused, why the bank would entertain a loan based on the presumption that the lot is going to get subdivided and therefore Mr. Irvine’s property will be something less than the three acres. It still has value. So what is the bank’s problem, I guess is my question. MR. O'CONNOR-It doesn’t have a package with a bow on it that says it goes from default to foreclosure. They aren’t in total control of it. It’s not a mortgage that they can sell. It requires a third party to do something that they don’t have control over. I mean, you just won’t, you won’t find somebody that will do that. The title policy that was written for the closing said that title was marketable, except that the southerly portion of the lot was subject to an option by Harold Raven. So the question, you either subordinate that option, or you come in and change the configuration of the lot so that the option doesn’t affect it. MR. VOLLARO-If we were to approve this tonight, it looks like Mr. Raven, he gets this, if we were to approve a Phase II subdivision, he would get this lot at no cost, this 1.43 acres. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. Right. He already owns the adjoining land. MR. VOLLARO-He already owns the adjoining land. I understand that. MR. O'CONNOR-I think he takes the position that he loaned this piece of land to us. MR. VOLLARO-It certainly sounds something like that to me. I would be, I guess I’m going to go along with Tony on this one, and I’d be inclined to, in my mind, to approve this, because I see extenuating circumstances here. I just, the thing that bothers me the most is Ms. Radner’s statement that Raven would challenge the no build condition, and I would, I don’t know, we 23 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) might just leave that off. Again, I think Tony has a point. We just leave it off. Don’t get contentious in that area. Mr. Irvine’s got 1.64 acres to enjoy, and that’s it. MR. SANFORD-Bob, I mean, we just subdivided a three acre lot, a parcel of land that’s supposed to be zoned for three acres into two. We’ve had other recent applications in front of us. MR. VOLLARO-The problem there that I see is the extenuating circumstances that present itself in this application didn’t exist in the others, and, you know, I think it’s a purview of this Board to have some concern for a condition. I recognize it’s not a condition that we normally deal with. It’s a condition that has a financial aspect to it, and it’s not something we normally handle, but in this particular case, looking at all the, everything around, taking the chance that the Board has no authority to encumber his property, by that, Cathi, I think you meant to put the no build on it. MS. RADNER-That would be, that that’s a potential contention that he could raise, that’s something out of your control. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, and if we left the no build off that, then he would not have, be able to raise that issue. MS. RADNER-Well, he could still raise the challenge that he now has a buildable lot. MR. METIVIER-You know what, with all the things we’ve approved through the years, some of them very questionable, I can’t believe that we’re spending an hour on this one. I mean, come on, let him build a house on it. Give the guy a lot. MR. SANFORD-Mr. Raven’s attorney’s here. We could ask the question of Mr. Raven’s attorney if they would have a problem with it. MR. METIVIER-Well, I mean, here the guy’s stuck. I mean, what’s, this is no-brainer. You said it a half an hour ago. I mean, you know, so what if we have a 1.64 acre lot that the guy built on. Who cares? This guy has a house that’s partially framed that’s rotting away, and we’re going to spend another hour on this. This is stupid. MR. MAC EWAN-Not necessarily, Tony. MR. SANFORD-Not necessarily. What we’re doing here, Tony, from my position, I’m uncomfortable with, is what we’re doing is we’re basically empathizing with the financial situation of an applicant. MR. METIVIER-Agreed. MR. SANFORD-And it’s really none of our business, if you want to know the truth. For us to say, it’s too bad the bank’s aren’t playing ball with him, but the bank’s aren’t empathizing with them. MR. METIVIER-Go and approve another lot that the Zoning Board screwed up on and just let it go, but in this case, we’re going to take a stand no? I mean, this is just ridiculous. I mean, let’s go back through the years and see, I mean, come on. MR. VOLLARO-Well, a whole bunch of wrongs don’t make a right. MR. METIVIER-All right. We’re going to set the example here? I can think of some other ones we should have set the example on. 24 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t think anybody’s trying to set an example, Tony. We’re just trying to wrestle with what’s the best course of action with this thing, and unfortunately it’s the one or two sentences that are in the bottom of that deed that’s created this problem. MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Chairman, I’d be inclined to go along with this, removing the stipulation for no build on the 1.43 acre lot, and let this gentleman get on with building his home. If he would agree to that, that we remove the no build. MR. O'CONNOR-We would accept that. Let me just offer this, though. That would be, your resolution doesn’t need to include a no build. Because of the condition of the ZBA, I will continue to keep it in my own deed, or in Mr. Irvine’s deed, which is unrelated to Board action, but it absolves the Board from being challenged as to putting it on. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. That even lessens my mental burden as to what to do here. MR. MAC EWAN-I’d ask you to give up the table for a couple of minutes. We’ll open up the public hearing. Does anyone want to comment on this application? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. HILTON-Mr. Chairman? MR. MAC EWAN-A letter? MR. HILTON-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Go. I’m going to have to have you come up on the mic. RICH RODRIGUEZ MR. RODRIGUEZ-My name is Rich Rodriquez. I’m the owner at 49 Veranda Lane. My concern would be, would this set precedent for clustering on the further development behind the Irvine home? MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t know that it would necessarily set precedent, but any further subdivision of the land up there would require this Board’s review and we take them as we see them on each individual merit. MR. RODRIGUEZ-So, right now what’s going on behind that property is based on that three acre zone? MR. MAC EWAN-The application in question tonight? MR. RODRIGUEZ-Not the application in question tonight, all the Phase II of the Vistas. MR. MAC EWAN-Supposedly Phase II is in the three acre zone. MR. RODRIGUEZ-It is? MR. MAC EWAN-Supposedly, yes. MR. RODRIGUEZ-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-But we don’t have an application in front of us for that. So I can’t really tell you. MR. RODRIGUEZ-So that’s on an individual case, then. 25 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. MAC EWAN-It would be, if the owner of that remaining parcel wanted to subdivide that, they’d have to make application, come in front of us, and the Board would review it. MR. RODRIGUEZ-Okay, but, you know, we have one home there already that hasn’t been built and it’s really an eyesore, and I would hate to see two homes up there undeveloped. It wouldn’t be fair to us as an investor, as a homeowner at the Vistas, but I do have a concern, and my concern that I also do not want to see cluster home building behind me. There’s only one way in the property and one way out the property, and so for the record, I just wanted to say that I have a concern with that, in this situation. MR. VOLLARO-So you’d want to see that retained as a three acre lot, three acre build out in Phase II? MR. RODRIGUEZ-Yes. That’s my concern. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? STEPHANIE DI LALLO BITTER MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-I’m not sure the exact direction the Board’s going to go, but in the event that you’re leaning towards approving this, the one thing that I identified in the letter that I had written to the Chairman was it’s my understanding that there’s certain drainage problems with this property, that if this litigation moves forward, and a new contractor goes on to this property, that it would need to be addressed by Mr. Irvine directly that Mr. Raven wouldn’t have anymore control over this certain lot, and the drainage from this lot is also affecting his neighboring properties as well as the neighboring properties in the neighborhood that already exists. So it would be my request that a stormwater plan be something that be requested by the applicant before approving this subdivision. MR. VOLLARO-On which lot, the 1.64 acre lot? MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-On the whole lot that he owns at this point. MR. VOLLARO-The whole 3.07? MR. METIVIER-Yes. Wait a minute. Let me ask you a question on that. Who’s responsibility is that? Why are you putting that responsibility on him if Raven’s the one that did this? MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-Well, the construction contract that exists, and the placement of the proposed structure was due to Mr. Irvine’s request. The structure was placed there. It’s resulted in litigation that is currently commenced, but right now everything’s stopped, and if this subdivision is approved, Mr. Irvine could find a new contractor and finish the house as he wishes, and the grading won’t be completed. MR. MAC EWAN-We’ll take it under consideration. MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Anyone else? RICK ZIMMERMAN MR. ZIMMERMAN-Good evening. My name is Rick Zimmerman. I live at 27 Veranda Lane, just below Mr. Irvine, and seeing the difficulties that I went through in dealing with Mr. Raven, I’m not going to say anything to get myself in trouble at this time, but he’s a very difficult man to deal with. I’ve watched Rick suffer building this house with Mr. Irvine. I’ve had personal comments from Mr. Raven about Mr. Irvine to myself, which I’ll keep to myself, and I just want you guys to realize, all he wants to do is get that house built. You get that house on the tax 26 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) rolls. The longer you hold that up, you’re losing thousands of dollars from the tax base of Queensbury. We want to finish that up for part of the property, and hopefully get Mr. Raven to finish the house that’s been built for ten years up there. It’s an eyesore. When I bought, I was told that that house was going to be finished. The same thing with Mr. Irvine. That house sits as an eyesore up there. It’s a kid trap, party house. Right now it’s used as a warehouse, all against the zoning of that area there. Now anything you hold back from Mr. Irvine to complete his project, is basically aiding Mr. Raven, and he’s using this as a vendetta, maybe, against Mr. Irvine. So if you give him the opportunity to finish his house, I think it’s going to be in the best interest of all parties here. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. MR. ZIMMERMAN-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Anyone else? You have a letter. MR. HILTON-Actually, it was from Stephanie concerning, when she spoke about stormwater. So I guess I just want to reference the comments that Stephanie made. They’re contained in a letter that is in the file. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. O'CONNOR-As to the comments that were made, if there is any stormwater device or any stormwater construction that was approved as part of this subdivision that’s on the Irvine lot, Mr. Irvine has no problem with you conditioning your approval upon him completing that on his lot, or seeing that others on his behalf do that. As to reference to the house that’s been under construction for 10 years, it’s not Mr. Irvine’s house. It’s another house in the subdivision that Mr. Raven has been working on. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions or comments from Board members? MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Chairman, I’m inclined to make a resolution on this application. MR. MAC EWAN-We need to do a SEQRA first. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Let’s get on with the SEQRA then. I think it was a Long Form submitted, I believe. Yes, it was a Long Form. MR. HILTON-Before you go ahead and do that, I just want to clear up one thing. As far as the, it is a Long Form. Long Forms are required for any Unlisted Action. However, if you feel that you can conduct this review with a Short Form, by all means go ahead and do a Short one. MR. MAC EWAN-Do a Short one. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 4-2004, Introduced by Chris Hunsinger who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: RICHARD & KELLY IRVINE, and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT 27 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. Duly adopted this 17 day of February, 2004, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. METIVIER-Does the Planning Board have the authority to waive the Rec fees on this subdivision? MR. O’CONNOR-They’re not due unless we were to apply for a building permit. So they should have been paid already on his existing house. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. That would have been done on that portion of the parcel already. MR. METIVIER-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-It’s in the motion. Recreation fees in the amount per lot are applicable to this subdivision, but they’ve already been paid out, I guess. MR. METIVIER-What my thought was, if we subdivide this, is he going to have to pay $500? MR. MAC EWAN-Just leave it in. If they’re applicable, they’re applicable. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MOTION TO APPROVE PRELIMINARY STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 4-2004 RICHARD & KELLY IRVINE, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Anthony Metivier: WHEREAS, an application has been make to this board for the following: Subdivision No. 4-2004 Applicant: Richard & Kelly Irvine PRELIMINARY STAGE Agent: Michael J. O’Connor 28 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) FINAL STAGE Zone: RR-3A SEQR Type: Unlisted Location: 9 Veranda Lane Applicant proposes subdivision of a 3.09 acre parcel into two lots of 1.66 acres and 1.43 acres. Cross Reference: AV 4-2004, SB 10-1991 Tax Map No. 295.-1-1.2 Lot size: 3.09 acres / Section: Subdivision Regulations Public Hearing: February 17, 2004 WHEREAS, the application was received 1/04, and WHEREAS, the above is supported with the following documentation, and inclusive of all newly received information, not included is this listing as of 2/13/04, and 2/17 Staff Notes 2/19 Notice of Public Hearing 2/2 Meeting Notice 1/04 ZBA resolution WHEREAS, pursuant to Chapter A183, Subdivision of Land, Section A183-9J and A183-10C, D of the Code of the Town of Queensbury a public hearing was advertised and was held on February 17, 2004; and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the Subdivision application requirements of the Code of the Town Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and/or if application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and the proposed modification(s) do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that We find the following: The application for Preliminary Stage is hereby granted in accordance with the resolution prepared by Staff and is subject to the following conditions which shall be listed on the final plat submitted for Planning Board Chairman’s signature and filing: 1. The stormwater management requirements must be met to the original subdivision for Lot 9. 2. Recreation Fees in the amount of $ 500.00 per lot are applicable to this subdivision. 3. Waiver request(s) are granted: Sketch plan, Stormwater, Grading and Landscaping Plan. 4. All necessary outside agency approvals have been received by the applicant, with a copy sent to and received by Planning Department Staff within 180 days. 5. The plat must be filed with the County Clerk within 60 days of receipt by Planning Department Staff of outside agency approvals noted. Duly adopted this 17th day of February, 2004, by the following vote: 29 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) AYES: Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. MacEwan NOES: Mr. Sanford ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 4-2004 RICHARD & KELLY IRVINE, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Anthony Metivier: WHEREAS, an application has been make to this board for the following: Subdivision No. 4-2004 Applicant: Richard & Kelly Irvine PRELIMINARY STAGE Agent: Michael J. O’Connor FINAL STAGE Zone: RR-3A SEQR Type: Unlisted Location: 9 Veranda Lane Applicant proposes subdivision of a 3.09 acre parcel into two lots of 1.66 acres and 1.43 acres. Cross Reference: AV 4-2004, SB 10-1991 Tax Map No. 295.-1-1.2 Lot size: 3.09 acres / Section: Subdivision Regulations Public Hearing: February 17, 2004 WHEREAS, the application was received 1/04, and WHEREAS, the above is supported with the following documentation, and inclusive of all newly received information, not included is this listing as of 2/13/04, and 2/17 Staff Notes 2/19 Notice of Public Hearing 2/2 Meeting Notice 1/04 ZBA resolution WHEREAS, pursuant to Chapter A183, Subdivision of Land, Section A183-9J and A183-10C, D of the Code of the Town of Queensbury a public hearing was advertised and was held on February 17, 2004; and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the Subdivision application requirements of the Code of the Town Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and/or if application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and the proposed modification(s) do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that We find the following: The application for Final Stage is hereby granted in accordance with the resolution prepared by Staff and is subject to the following conditions which shall be listed on the final plat submitted for Planning Board Chairman’s signature and filing: 30 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) 1. Per conditions as shown on Final Plat submitted by Michael J. O’Connor at meeting. 2. The stormwater management requirements must be met to the original subdivision for Lot 9. 3. Recreation Fees in the amount of $ 500.00 per lot are applicable to this subdivision. 4. Waiver request(s) are granted: Sketch plan, Stormwater, Grading and Landscaping Plan. 5. All necessary outside agency approvals have been received by the applicant, with a copy sent to and received by Planning Department Staff within 180 days. 6. The plat must be filed with the County Clerk within 60 days of receipt by Planning Department Staff of outside agency approvals noted. Duly adopted this 17th day of February, 2004, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. MacEwan NOES: Mr. Sanford ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. O'CONNOR-Thank you for your patience. MR. MAC EWAN-You’re all set. I hope things work out for you. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. I have the mylar there. George, do you want, if we can get it signed tonight, I’ll pick it up tomorrow. Okay. NEW BUSINESS: [SITE PLANS]: SITE PLAN NO. 6-2004 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED JOSEPH GROSS PROPERTY OWNER: FRANK KINEKE AGENT: JAMES MILLER, MILLER ASSOCIATES ZONE: LI-1A LOCATION: SILVER CIRCLE, OFF BIG BAY ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES THE CONSTRUCTION OF A 7,200 SQ. FT. OFFICE BUILDING, AND A 25,000 SQ. FT. STORAGE BUILDING, ALONG WITH PARKING, LANDSCAPING AND LIGHTING. WAREHOUSE USES IN THE LI ZONE REQUIRE SITE PLAN REVIEW AND APPROVAL FROM THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE: SUB. 12-1999, SP 44-99 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 2/11/04 TAX MAP NO. 309.17-1-17.2 LOT SIZE: 3.42 ACRES SECTION: 179-4-020 JIM MILLER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT; JOE GROSS, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 6-2004, Joseph Gross, Meeting Date: February 17, 2004 “APPLICATION: Site Plan 6-2004 “APPLICANT: Joseph Gross is the applicant for this request. REQUESTED ACTION: The applicant proposes the construction of a 25,000 sq. ft. warehouse building, a 7,200 sq. ft. office building, along with vehicular parking, lighting and landscaping. LOCATION: The subject property is a vacant property located on Silver Circle (off of Big Bay Rd.) EXISTING ZONING: The property is zoned LI, Light Industry. 31 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) SEQRA STATUS: This application is a SEQRA Unlisted action. The applicant has submitted a short environmental assessment form. PARCEL HISTORY: Subdivision 12-1999, resolved 9/21/1999, original subdivision that created this lot PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The applicant proposes to construct a 25,000 sq. ft warehouse building along with a 7,200 sq. ft. office building and associated parking, lighting and landscaping. The applicant has submitted a stormwater management plan and report, which has been submitted to CT Male for their review. STAFF COMMENTS: The landscaping plan appears consistent with the landscaping requirements listed in the Zoning Ordinance. The lighting plan indicates several wall-mounted fixtures and three freestanding lights to be used to light the site. The applicant should specify the type (metal halide or high pressure sodium) and the wattage of the proposed wall mounted lights. Although the freestanding fixtures do not appear to be cut-off lights, the decorative shields shown, should help direct some of the light to the ground. Any comments from CT Male should be addressed during the review of this application.” MR. HILTON-Really quickly here, I’ll just give you a summary. The applicant proposes to construct a 25,000 square foot building, along with a 7,000 plus or minus office building with associated parking, lighting and landscaping. The landscaping appears consistent with landscaping requirements of the Zoning Code. The lighting plan indicates several wall mounted fixtures and freestanding poles, freestanding light poles. The applicant should specify, however, whether the wall packs are metal halide or high pressure sodium and what the wattage is, and although the freestanding fixtures do not appear to be cut offs, the decorative shields should direct some of the light or a good portion of the light to the ground. I guess the only outstanding issue would be any C.T. Male comments, and they should be addressed during the review of this application. That’s all I have at this time. MR. VOLLARO-Which one are we on, George? MR. HILTON-Gross. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Good evening. MR. MILLER-Good evening. My name is Jim Miller, Landscape Architect. I’m here with the applicant, Joe Gross. The project is, it’s currently on an undeveloped lot that’s off Silver Circle to the west of Big Bay Road. This is a light industrial subdivision that was done two years ago. Mr. Gross operates Gross Electric. He’s an electrical contractor. He’s looking to develop a new facility for his business which would include an office building to the front of 7200 square feet, with associated parking to that building, and to the rear have a warehouse storage building of 25,000 square feet which would include a loading dock and to the rear it would be several grade doors. In addition, to the rear of the storage building is a gravel storage area for storage of trucks, equipment, and that type of thing that don’t have to be inside the building. The project meets all of the setbacks, the green space, and the parking requirements. There is existing municipal water which will be brought in from Silver Circle to feed both buildings. An on-site septic system will be developed to the east of the office building. All drainage will be contained on site. The soils in the area are sand, although there’s some areas in the middle of the property that were disturbed and were filled. So that there’ll be detention basins and drywells adjacent to the paved area, and eaves trenches adjacent to the building. Site lighting that George talked about, there will be decorative pole mounted lights along the front of the building and at the 32 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) entry. Lighting. There’ll be no lighting in the back storage area. There will be wall mounted lights at the loading dock on the side and to the rear of the building, primarily for security. I talked to George about those lights, and we are adding on the plan that they will be 100 watt high pressure sodium cut off wall packs. That’ll be added to the detail. In addition, there’s landscaping to the front of the property. There’ll be buffer planting and tree planting along the parking lot along Silver Circle, including some planting of some evergreens to the east side. There’ll be some decorative landscaping along the front of the office. The rest of the area around the storage building and the outside storage area will be just lawn. One outstanding item we have is the comments of C.T. Male. We received those comments on Wednesday afternoon last week. We responded on Thursday. Late in the day, there was a phone call to my office that C.T. Male did not, Jim Houston, who normally does the review, was on vacation, and that Jim Edwards was going to do it, and I got a note Friday afternoon. He didn’t get one of the pages of the fax. I sent it back to him Monday morning. Apparently he’s out of town at a seminar, and there was nobody at C.T. Male who could respond because the two people who normally do this were both out. There was eight issues, I believe, which we responded to all of them. I feel they’re fairly minor. If you’d like me to address them, I would. MR. MAC EWAN-Why don’t you. I mean, they just seem to be just, you know, crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s on the engineering on the drawing. MR. MILLER-They are, and that’s essentially what it was. Do you want me to go through them, Mr. Chairman? MR. MAC EWAN-I mean, have you had any correspondence back from C.T. Male relative to conversations with Jim? MR. MILLER-No. Only that, you know, apparently when we faxed the responses down, they didn’t receive the first page of my letter which addressed five of the eight, and then they apparently are out this week. MR. MAC EWAN-These are all relatively minor changes that need to be made on the drawing. MR. MILLER-And we’ve made them all. As a matter of fact, we faxed a copy to the Town, the letter that was sent to C.T. Male shows all those changes have been done. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. We can take that into consideration as a condition of approval. We’ll just make sure that that signoff from C.T. Male, which I don’t think is that big of an issue. MR. MILLER-I don’t, either. I appreciate that. That’s it. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s it? All right. Has anybody got any questions relative to design standards? MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I do. MR. MAC EWAN-Go. MR. VOLLARO-On the parking field design, we have 24 plus two company vehicles. That gives us our 26, but then it has 12 company vehicles parked in the lay down area. Where is the lay down area? MR. MILLER-Well, you know, I noticed that, and originally we were referring to the storage area behind the building as the lay down area, then we changed the note on that, and that’s the area. These are typically trucks that are used for deliveries. Some of them will be parked inside the building if they’re loaded with materials. MR. VOLLARO-So there’s no lay down area on the drawing that I have to look at? 33 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. MILLER-No. That will be, I will change that note to storage area. So it’s consistent with the drawing. MR. VOLLARO-Go ahead, Mr. Chairman. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions regarding design standards, site development design? Stormwater/sewage? MR. VOLLARO-I’ve got a sewage thing. MR. MAC EWAN-Go. MR. VOLLARO-Now this is in reference to C.T. Male’s comment on Test Pit Two, where the material is fill containing wood. Then there’s a note on the drawing, I believe, that states that existing mixed fill under around the septic system to be replaced with sandy loam having a perc rate of, etc., etc. MR. MILLER-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Now, if you go into the 136 Code, 136-10, Paragraph 4, they talk about if you do that, then you have to have a stabilization period of a minimum of 60 days. He put that in, so that soil can stabilize over a 60 day period. You get into 136, Paragraph 4. So you have a reference to go on. Okay. MR. MILLER-Okay. I think what happened with C.T. Male’s response there is that note appeared on one of the drawings, and it wasn’t on the same drawing as the septic design and I don’t think they correlated the two. So I clarified that. MR. VOLLARO-Well, as long as you’re going to, you’re going to put fill in there. You’re going to get some of this material containing wood out of that. Apparently you recognize that that’s not a good infiltration bed. MR. MILLER-Yes. We did. MR. VOLLARO-So, and I’m just saying, if you bring fill in, it’s got to stabilize. That’s it for that one. Go ahead, Mr. Chairman. MR. MAC EWAN-Lighting? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. You’ve got to add an “F” to SP-4. It’s missing on SP-4. MR. SANFORD-What have you got to add? MR. VOLLARO-SP-4, down in here. This is supposed to be “F”, I would assume. Is that correct? Just take a look at it. I believe “F” is missing off the drawing. Just because it says see Detail F, and you get up here and if you get up on SP-1. Just go to SP-1, start off on SP-1, I’ll guide you through. Go up to where the walkways are, where the driving spaces are. It has “walk”. It has “F”. See that, showing a light? MR. MILLER-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Now that “F” detail is, I think, the “F” detail is what you’re looking at on the lighting layout. MR. MILLER-No. The “F” is the sidewalk detail. MR. VOLLARO-No, it points to the light. 34 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. MILLER-No. The lights are SP-4, and it shows Detail S. MR. VOLLARO-No, I don’t think so. MR. MILLER-Here. Right here. It’s got a detail, Site Light S. Okay. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. MILLER-That’s the last page, correct. It’s right there. MR. VOLLARO-Site light S. All right. Okay. MR. SANFORD-Good observation, though, Bob. MR. VOLLARO-I’d like to identify the light on the cut sheet. We have a cut sheet, but it doesn’t say which light we’re using. If you look at the cut sheet, it doesn’t have any comment on it at all. MR. MILLER-Well, that was the thing that George talked about. What we’re going to use is the 100 watt high pressure sodium. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. This is, you’re on, this would be 35 S-1? MR. MILLER-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-120 watts, 120 volt operation, and it’s, where do I get the 100 watts at? MR. MILLER-It may not be on that cut sheet, but that’s what we’re going to add to the detail. MR. VOLLARO-High pressure sodium or metal halide? MR. MILLER-High pressure sodium. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-The detail says high pressure sodium. MR. MILLER-I think he’s referring to the wall pack. Not on the site lighting. MR. VOLLARO-I’m looking at this wall pack. Because the wall, usually when they present a wall pack they have a note on it that says which wall pack they’re going to use. I guess the number of pole lights along the walk looked like the number is two. Is that correct? MR. MILLER-There’s four of them in front of the building, and then there’s one at the entry driveway. MR. VOLLARO-So there’s five. MR. MILLER-There’s five total. MR. VOLLARO-And that’s the drawing on Page Five. Okay. MR. MILLER-That’s right, the detail on five. MR. VOLLARO-That’s it on the lighting, Mr. Chairman. That’s all I have. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions about lighting? Let me guess, Bob, landscaping? 35 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. VOLLARO-No, no. I’m out. I’m done. MR. SEGULJIC-I like the landscaping. The landscaping looked good. MR. VOLLARO-I liked the landscaping. MR. MAC EWAN-Environmental? MR. VOLLARO-No. I had nothing on environmental. MR. MAC EWAN-Neighborhood character? MR. VOLLARO-No. MR. MAC EWAN-Other involved agencies? Anything I may have missed? MR. VOLLARO-Just one. I think that, and I don’t know that it’s important. Probably not important, but the drawings that we got as elevation drawings really aren’t elevation drawings. They’re just, I think if you sit this on the lot, you can determine what elevations these are, but the drawings themselves are not elevation drawings as we normally understand them. They’re right side view, front view, and left side view. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. Those are elevations. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but usually we have a north. MR. MAC EWAN-You’re just going to have to orient yourself to the drawing. He’s a landscape architect. Okay. Anything else? MR. VOLLARO-That’s it. MR. HUNSINGER-I just had a general question. I mean, it’s really sort of unrelated to your site plan review, but what are you going to do with the building where your business is occupied now? Is this expansion space or? MR. GROSS-Yes. We’re going to expand into the warehouse. I’ve been in front of the Board before. I’m using a smaller sized warehouse for the company, and you guys were out there looking, the tractor trailers. I want to eliminate tractor trailer use for storage. I want to be able to rack everything inside. Get the trucks inside. Really it’s going to eliminate quite a bit outside, and hopefully eventually get approval to rent out what I have now, rent that out, you know, and create some rental property, additional rental property. Because there is rental on that property now. MR. HUNSINGER-Right, yes, I knew that. That’s what I thought the answer was, but, you know, like I said, it really has no bearing on the site plan review. It’s just a curiosity question. MR. GROSS-That would be my goal to rent it out, obviously. It wouldn’t make sense to have two offices, one there and, you know, one a football field away. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions? I’ll open up the public hearing. Does anybody want to comment on this application? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED NO COMMENT PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED 36 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. HUNSINGER-Short Form, right? MR. MAC EWAN-It’s your discretion. MR. VOLLARO-The Short Form was submitted. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I’d prefer the Short Form. MR. MAC EWAN-Go. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 6-2004, Introduced by Chris Hunsinger who moved for its adoption, seconded by Anthony Metivier: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: JOSEPH GROSS, and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. Duly adopted this 17 day of February, 2004, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 6-2004 JOSEPH GROSS, Introduced by Chris Hunsinger who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro: WHEREAS, an application has been made to this Board for the following: 37 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) Site Plan No. 6-2004 Applicant: Joseph Gross SEQR Type Unlisted Property Owner: Frank Kineke Agent: James Miller, Miller Associates Zone: LI-1A Location: Silver Circle, off Big Bay Road Applicant proposes the construction of a 7,200 sq. ft. office building, and a 25,000 sq. ft. storage building, along with parking, landscaping and lighting. Warehouse uses in the LI zone require Site Plan review and approval from the Planning Board. Cross Reference: Sub. 12-1999, SP 44-99 Warren Co. Planning: 2/11/04 Tax Map No. 309.17-1-17.2 Lot size: 3.42 acres / Section: 179-4-020 Public Hearing: February 17, 2004 WHEREAS, the application was received on 1/15/04 and WHEREAS, the above is supported with the following documentation and inclusive of all newly received information, not included in this listing as of 2/13/04, and 2/17 Staff Notes 2/11 CT Male engineering comments 2/11 Warren Co. Planning 2/10 Notice of Public Hearing 2/2 Meeting Notice WHEREAS, pursuant to Art. 9 of the Zoning Ordinance of the Code of the Town of Queensbury a public hearing was advertised and was held on February 17, 2004; and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the Site Plan application requirements of the Code of the Town Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and/or if application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and the proposed modification(s) do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and WHEREAS, this approval does not relieve the applicant from obtaining all necessary permits whether Federal, State or Local, and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that We find the following: The application is hereby approved in accordance with the resolution prepared by Staff and is subject to the following conditions which shall be listed on the final plans submitted to the Zoning Administrator: 1. The applicant is to obtain a final signoff from C. T. Male, and 2. The plat will be revised to indicate 100 watt high pressure sodium lights, wall pack. Duly adopted this 17th day of February, 2004, by the following vote: 38 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. MILLER-Thank you very much. MR. GROSS-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-You’re all set. Thank you. NEW BUSINESS [SUBDIVISIONS]: SUBDIVISION NO. 1-2004 PRELIMINARY STAGE FINAL STAGE SEQR TYPE: UNLISTED MICHAEL DICKINSON PROPERTY OWNER: JANE LOWELL AGENT: WILLIAM ROURKE ZONE: SFR-1A LOCATION: WEST SIDE COUNTY LINE ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES SUBDIVISION OF A 68.8 ACRE PARCEL INTO 2 LOTS OF 54.2 ACRES AND 14.6 ACRES. CROSS REFERENCE: SUB. 4-1996 TAX MAP NO. 290-1-22.22 LOT SIZE: 68.8 ACRES SECTION: SUBDIVISION REGULATIONS BILL ROURKE, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT; M. DICKINSON, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Subdivision No. 1-2004, Preliminary Stage, Final Stage, Meeting Date: February 17, 2004 “APPLICATION: Subdivision 1-2004 (Preliminary & Final Stage) APPLICANT: Michael Dickinson is the applicant for this request. REQUESTED ACTION: Applicant proposes to subdivide a 68.8-acre property into two lots of 54.2 acres and 14.6 acres. LOCATION: The subject property is located between Chestnut Ridge Rd. and County Line Rd. EXISTING ZONING: This property is zoned SR-1A, Suburban Residential One Acre. SEQRA STATUS: This action is a SEQRA Unlisted action. The applicant has included a Full Environmental Assessment Form with the subdivision application. PARCEL HISTORY: Previous Planning Board activity for this property includes SB 2-1997, resolved 2/25/1997; and SB 4-1996, resolved 6/25/1996. PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The applicant proposes to subdivide a 68.8-acre vacant property into two lots of 54.2 acres and 14.6 acres. Site topography is generally level with some areas of slope just east of Chestnut Ridge Rd. USGS maps show an intermittent stream in the center of the property, which runs to the south of this site. The subdivision plat submitted with this application indicates private water and wastewater systems to be used for both lots. STAFF COMMENTS: The applicant has requested the following waivers: Stormwater Management Plan - Grading Plan - Landscaping Plan - Sketch Plan Approval - 39 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) A review of data available to the Town of Queensbury indicates that there may be some ACOE wetlands on this property. However, there appears to be enough buildable area on this property to support density of two residential dwellings as proposed on the subdivision plat for SB 1-2004. Any future subdivision of this property or development plan for either property will be subject to the density requirements of the Town Code. Consideration should be given to stipulating that the stonewall identified on the plat not be destroyed or removed from the site.” MR. MAC EWAN-Staff notes. MR. HILTON-The applicant proposes to subdivide a 68.8 acre property into two lots, 54.2 and 14.6 acres. The subject property is vacant and located between Chestnut Ridge and County Line Road. The property is zoned Suburban Residential One Acre. The topography of the site is relatively level with some slopes to the west, up towards Chestnut Ridge. As I’ve indicated USGS maps show an intermittent stream on the property, in the center and southern portion of the property. The applicant’s requested waivers from stormwater management, grading, landscaping, and sketch plan. A review of some of the data available to the Town indicates that the potential exists for some Army Corp wetlands on this property. However, as proposed, as the subdivision is proposed, there appears to be enough buildable area to support the density of two residential dwellings, as shown on the lot. Any future subdivision, however, or development, would be subject to the density requirements of the Town Code, and as is past practice with this Board, consideration should be given to stipulating that the stone wall shown on the plat not be destroyed or removed from this site. With that, that’s the only comment we have at this time. That’s all. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? Good evening. MR. ROURKE-Hello. My name is Bill Rourke. I’m a surveyor from South Glens Falls, and the property is owned by Jane Lowell, and Michael Dickinson is buying the southern 54 acres of the total of 68 acres, and Jane Lowell is retaining the northerly portion, which would be 14 acres. We were asked to put a proposed residence on each of the lot. However, Michael really doesn’t have any intention, right now, of building, I don’t believe. MR. DICKINSON-Correct. MR. ROURKE-And we’re just asking. MR. MAC EWAN-He’s going to retain 54 plus acres as a single residential lot with no further subdivision of the property? MR. DICKINSON-At this time, I have no plans for it. MR. MAC EWAN-At this time. Okay. I’m suspect of that, honestly. That kind of acreage, I mean, the potential, I don’t know how many lots you could end up putting in there, but. MR. ROURKE-Right now we just want to subdivide the parcel into two lots. MR. MAC EWAN-What happens five, ten years down the road? Will you be coming in with a 30 lot subdivision, a 40 lot subdivision? MR. DICKINSON-Like I said, at this time I have no plans to. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Anything else you want to add? MR. ROURKE-No. MR. MAC EWAN-I’ll open it up to questions from the Board. 40 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. METIVIER-I only had one, but you just asked it. MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Chairman, I don’t know whether we are going to be able to go by your site plan? MR. MAC EWAN-No, you can’t use the site plan one. MR. VOLLARO-So we’ll be using the subdivision rules on this. MR. MAC EWAN-The subdivision one. MR. VOLLARO-The CLUP addresses the Big Cedar Swamp area, about 900 acres, and Open Space Plan opportunity on Page 12 talks about a collaborative effort by the Town and the County to develop a management plan for this area. MR. MAC EWAN-But this isn’t anywhere near the Big Cedar Swamp. As the crow flies it’s probably two miles away. MR. VOLLARO-Well, it seems to me, when you look at the map, it is in there. I’m trying to look it over. It seems that it borders on the Big Cedar Swamp, in that area. MR. MAC EWAN-No. The Big Cedar Swamp, Hicks Road would be the northern boundary to Big Cedar Swamp if you really pushed it. MR. HILTON-Just to let you know where this property is, as I mentioned, it’s between Chestnut Ridge and County Line, but it is north of Hicks Road, north of the Airport. MR. MAC EWAN-Right. MR. VOLLARO-Getting into the Airport thing, I see this letter by Mr. Tessier. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. I see them all here tonight. I’m sure they’re going to want to comment. MR. VOLLARO-What I did is I did take a look at the FAA requirements, and I plotted that 100 to 1 horizontal distance in Mr. Tessier’s letter, and what that means is that for every 100 feet of the 2000, which is 3.78 miles from the end of the runway, the elevation rises at one foot. So that the end of the 20,000 feet, the imaginary surface is at an elevation of 200. I think this 200 keeps cropping up a lot. However, to get a good feel for this imaginary area, and I know what they’re talking about, the plan view of the arc is not defined. We really ought to know not only just the elevation arc, but the width arc, so we have a volumetric arc to look at, and really they’re looking about taking trees down in there and so on. Now, I think what, in Mr. Tessier’s letter, what I really got out of that, more than the FAA, I don’t think that building private houses is going to get into that FAA routine. I looked over their form, their 7460-1, and it looks like you’d have to get over 200 feet for that form to become, but I think what Mr. Tessier said was a fact in his letter that he talks about the new homeowners may not be as tolerant of aircraft noise as existing property owners in the area. You’re right in the flight path, I think, of one of the main runways there, and so if you’re thinking about developing that, keep that in mind, and I think you might have to fill out this 7460-1 in any event, because they talk about materials in there, and the new microwave (lost words) are pertivated by metal. You’re getting into my area of expertise, now. So I can speak in that area a little bit. So I’m just saying that, you know, pay attention to that if you’re going to do any developing on this at all. I don’t think subdividing this, Mr. Chairman, bothers that in any way. I think we need a wetland delineation on this. I don’t see any area on this chart that has been delineated for wetlands. MR. ROURKE-It’s not delineated as Army Corps of Engineers on this particular piece of property. It may be, but it’s not delineated on the map. 41 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. VOLLARO-Well, normally when we get a subdivision like this, there’s some delineation on the subdivision, there should be, of the wetland situation on it, but we can deal with that if you get into site plan review. MR. MAC EWAN-We don’t do site plan review on these subdivisions. MR. VOLLARO-No, I’m saying if we ever got into site plan, we would get into the. MR. MAC EWAN-We don’t do site plan on subdivisions. MR. HILTON-I think what he’s saying is that there’s future development that requires site plan or future development that requires subdivision. MR. VOLLARO-I know we don’t do it on subdivisions, Craig. I’m just saying that if he gets into a site plan at a later date, he’s got to keep the stormwater thing in mind, for the wetland delineation. MR. ROURKE-Yes, but for today I don’t think any of it matters. MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t see it in my package. Did you make a request for waivers on subdivision requirements? MR. ROURKE-Yes. We made requests for waivers of the stormwater management plan, grading plan, landscaping plan, and sketch plan. MR. MAC EWAN-Do you have a copy of that? See the part that’s concerning me with this application is we’re talking almost 55 acres, 54, 55 acres that at this time he’s got no plans for future subdivision. What concerns me is the possibility of having, you know, a 30, 40 lot subdivision up there with residential homes, you know, we’re talking, now, the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. We’re talking Open Space Plan. We’re talking potentially cluster planning. To me, I think I would want to have a better look at what the potential was for this property, other than just placing a house dead smack in the middle of it, which I don’t think that’s what the intention is here. Call it a gut feeling, and considering we’re also on the glide path of the Airport. I think that’s what we need to look at is the cumulative impacts. MR. VOLLARO-That’s one we have to look at. There’s a safety issue there. MR. SANFORD-Well, provision for when a plan comes in, I mean, we have to look at all that, but right now, I don’t see there’s too much controversy about subdivision. There’s not even an intended use at this point. MR. VOLLARO-You’re talking about future build out. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m talking potential maximum build out for this 54 plus acres. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s what I’m talking about. MR. VOLLARO-But that build out eventually gets into a site plan review. Eventually. MR. HILTON-It could, under the current zoning. There are uses that require site plan review that are allowed in the SR-1A zone, or it could mean a future subdivision. If it were a single family, if there were a single family subdivision, a re-subdivision of this land, if you will. So I guess what I’m saying is at some point in the future, yes, you may look at this at site plan and you may look at it as another subdivision. 42 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. ROURKE-Right now, I mean, the sole purpose is to buy this property and subdivide it into two lots. MR. MAC EWAN-Are there immediate plans to build a home on the property? MR. DICKINSON-Not at this time, no. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Anything else you wanted to add? MR. VOLLARO-I just have one other thing on the SEQRA. They defined the bedrock at six feet, and they defined the water table at sixty feet. How was that determined? MR. ROURKE-This was determined by an adjoining subdivision. We couldn’t do any percolation tests at this time of the year. So I got a copy, and I think I made copies of the subdivision to the north. MR. VOLLARO-I saw that, but that’s not on this piece. That’s not on this piece of property. MR. ROURKE-No. Right. MR. VOLLARO-That’s the one to the north. MR. ROURKE-To the north, right. MR. VOLLARO-I was just wondering how you got to it, the sixty feet of the water table, the depth of the water sixty feet down in that area. I would think that it would be much higher than that. That’s just my feeling, Mr. Chairman. Have you got any feeling for that, since you know that area pretty well? MR. MAC EWAN-Not for that particular issue. Any other questions? MR. VOLLARO-No. I don’t have anymore. MR. MAC EWAN-How do you feel about creating a flag shaped lot? MR. ROURKE-Well, there’s frontage on both ends. It’s west of County Line Road and it also fronts on Chestnut Ridge. MR. METIVIER-I mean, typically we’ve never seen a lot that extends that long as two roads. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions? I’d ask you to give up the table for a few minutes, we’ll open up the public hearing. Does anyone want to comment on this application? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED NICK CAIMANO MR. CAIMANO-Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m Nick Caimano from Queensbury. Supervisor at Large from the Town of Queensbury. Marshal Stevens, Assistant Airport Manager. To present, not a protest at all, but simply a cautionary, precautionary note. I know that Mr. Vollaro talked about properly so the cone. It does not show on that photo and really ought to, I suspect, the cone of the flight path, and he also characterized it as the main runway, and it is. It’s 1 and 19, which is our longest runway, and it is the back end of the takeoff, if you’re on an ILS takeoff and approach if you miss. So most of the planes who are using an ILS takeoff or an ILS approach would approach from the south, landing into the north. If there’s a missed approach obviously they’re coming off, and if they’re taking off they’re coming off the north. So we ask you, as you get into this, to keep in mind that we’re not, we don’t object to the subdivision at all. Actually, we want to buy this property, and we have made offers to buy the 43 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) property, simply to keep it the way it is, because, no, Mr. Vollaro, there’s not any problem right now with the FAA, but we’re not looking at the problems today. We’re looking at the problems down the road, and we’d like to have that solved before we get into something. Marshal? MARSHAL STEVENS MR. STEVENS-Regarding the discussion of the 7460, you’d asked a question about the way that qualification surface spreads out. The qualification surface spreads out 20,000 feet from the nearest point of the nearest runway in all directions. That is the qualification surface for the filing of the 7460 form. Any object that would potentially penetrate that 100 to 1 qualification surface in any direction requires the filing of this form with the FAA. MR. VOLLARO-Right. MR. STEVENS-So there’s a good chance that any development proposed would indeed require the filing of the 7460. MR. VOLLARO-It looks to me like if houses are built close to the runway, if you plot that, if you take a plot of the 200,000, 20,000 feet, that’s 3.78 miles out, and you plot for every 100 feet it goes up a foot until it gets to the end, it’s 200 feet. MR. STEVENS-Correct. MR. VOLLARO-So if there was houses at this end, they may penetrate that elevation line. MR. STEVENS-Correct. They would be much lower than that 200 foot outer surface they might penetrate it. That’s correct. MR. VOLLARO-Right. So we need that cone in order to determine if and when, Mr. Chairman, this ever comes up to a subdivision of any kind, then we’d have to look at that very carefully. MR. STEVENS-Right. I will work with County Staff, and we will provide Town Staff with a graphic depiction of that. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. CAIMANO-It would be interesting for you to take a, if it does come to that, to take a flight and land in that direction and see what that, and have somebody take you on an approach from that direction, and see what that does and what you’re affecting. If you’d like to do that, I could get you a ride. MR. VOLLARO-For those of us who have done a little bit of that, Nick, what I’d be concerned about there, with houses there, is the missed approach. MR. CAIMANO-Coming the other way, yes. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MR. CAIMANO-That’s exactly right. MR. VOLLARO-The missed approach maneuver is sometimes, if you’ve got a pilot that’s not on the stick on a missed approach, and I see Mr. Strough smiling back there, so he knows, that, you know, you could get into stall problems and all kinds of stuff on missed approaches. MR. CAIMANO-And the other thing to realize is that there are lessons given there. This is a small plane practice airport and landing into the north on 19 people don’t go way out and make an approach. They come right over that ridge and make the base and then final, and you have a problem there, too, with student pilots. So we’d just like to avoid any problems there if we 44 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) could. By the way, if there were no plans, I wonder why they tested it. I really question whether sixty feet of water table, we find water pretty near the surface there. So, in fact, that’s where a lot of wetlands there. So I wonder about that. Anyway, anything more? We have these maps, if you would like them at any time, FAA maps, which are pretty detailed. In fact, it takes, we’d probably have to hire John Strough back to help you read them, but they are very good for you and for the future. Once again, we are not protesting any kind of a subdivision here. We’re not protesting that at all. What we’re asking is that we think beyond what’s on that picture because it’s, I won’t say disingenuous, but it doesn’t show the whole picture of what’s really there. Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. CAIMANO-Thank you, sir. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MR. CAIMANO-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Anyone else? SANDY AUSTIN MRS. AUSTIN-Good evening. I’m Sandy Austin, and I’m Michael Dickinson’s realtor. I found him this property, and my question to you, if we weren’t subdividing, this was there, if we weren’t subdividing this property, Jane had decided that she wanted to retain some for her children in the future, if we weren’t subdividing this parcel, would there be a problem about building one house there? It’s just a question that I have. In other words, if she just wanted to get approval to build a house, and we didn’t go into subdivision, would there be any issue? MR. VOLLARO-I don’t think so. MRS. AUSTIN-Because I was just a little confused what the issue was. Is it because of the subdivision? Do you see what I’m saying? MR. MAC EWAN-My concern is the 54 acres and the potential of subdividing that further into a lot more residential lots. MRS. AUSTIN-Okay. So I am correct in saying that if Jane Lowell’s son Dan, and he’d like to just build a house here, and she didn’t want to subdivide it at all, he could have done that? MR. VOLLARO-Sure. MRS. AUSTIN-Without a problem. So it really isn’t the house there. It’s the future subdivision that you’re thinking might go in, and it might. MR. MAC EWAN-My concerns are the future potential maximum build out of that 54 acres. MRS. AUSTIN-Okay. Being a realtor, I like to be educated, too, and I know that you don’t mind helping me. One other question I have, to the north of Jane Lowell’s property, I went past there yesterday and again today, there is a new build there. It’s a two story, A-frame type home. It borders Jane Lowell’s property. I don’t know if you know the owner of that. AUDIENCE MEMBER-It’s mine. MRS. AUSTIN-Okay. It’s hers. It’s directly north, directly north, of this property, and do you know how many feet north it is? Maybe 400 feet, not even, right, north of Jane Lowell’s property? And my question is, they didn’t have a problem building a house there. 45 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. MAC EWAN-They might not have done a subdivision. I mean, they might have owned the parcel and just got a building permit. MRS. AUSTIN-Okay. So that’s, I’m asking more than anything. So it’s really, if we didn’t, if Jane just sold all this to Michael, he wouldn’t have a problem. MR. VOLLARO-No. MRS. AUSTIN-All right. One other question, so your concern is really about the future of what he might do with it. MR. MAC EWAN-Right. MRS. AUSTIN-Okay. Projection of the future. MR. MAC EWAN-Right. Trying to think of the big picture. MRS. AUSTIN-And it is SR-1A, right? It’s one acre lots. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. So there is a potential of 54 acres roughly, 35 houses, by the time you build roads and cut roads and stuff through, infrastructure. MRS. AUSTIN-I understand that. I was just confused because of the. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. No problem. Anyone else? MR. HILTON-Mr. Chairman, we actually have a letter. MR. MAC EWAN-Read the letter. MR. HILTON-The letter reads as follows. “The sole purpose of this hearing is the proposed subdivision of 68.8 acres into 2 lots of 54.2 and 14.6 acres. For this particular issue, it is the difficult to foresee neither a positive nor negative impact at this particular time. The final impact, however, lies in the question, ‘What next?’ It is our understanding Mr. Dickinson has no plans right now for this land. But, in a subdivision of this size, it is reasonable to assume there is a long-term project in mind of either a housing development or a commercial development, depending upon further subdivision regulations and zoning. Even if Mr. Dickinson is not the “developer” himself, he will be in a position to sell off to another developer. Chestnut Ridge Road is widely known as the part of town that is “in the country”. Clearly one of the principal reasons for living here is the enjoyment of the property, including the wildlife habitat in the back. The deer, turkey, fox, etc. are frequent visitors to the back yard, coming across that proposed subdivision. The future affect of overdevelopment of this space is something to think about. We personally take great pleasure in the country-like atmosphere and have great concern it someday, not so long in the future, will disappear. Will destruction of a wildlife habitat render these and other plant or animal species extinct? Probably not, they’ll just find another place to live and thrive over in Washington County. In considering this proposal, it is essential to look to the future and consider the impact to residents along Chestnut Ridge Rd. With little imagination, it is not difficult to foresee an intensively developed residential area just around the corner. Economic growth in the town is a worthy endeavor, but permitting natural resources to remain and flourish is also a worthy endeavor. As the town motto declares: “Home of Natural Beauty….A Good Place to Live.” Thank you for the opportunity to comment. The Harvey Family 92 Chestnut Ridge Rd. Queensbury, NY 12804 February 15, 2004” That’s it. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other letters? Feel comfortable having enough information to move forward on a SEQRA? 46 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. VOLLARO-Well, as I said, Mr. Chairman, there are things that are on the SEQRA form that I don’t know how they got there, but if you want to accept the 60 foot to the table that’s fine, but. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s what I’m asking you. That’s the conclusion you need to come to under SEQRA. MR. METIVIER-Certainly that land is wet, I mean, a lot of the time. I mean, you drive down that road. So I don’t know enough about groundwater and depth of water to know what you’re looking at, but the fact remains, that land is very wet. MR. VOLLARO-I think that subject has to be, should be addressed. MR. MAC EWAN-I’ll ask the question again, is there enough information for you to move forward on a SEQRA tonight? MR. SANFORD-On the subdivision, yes. I mean, you don’t know what the future will hold. They’ll have to come in front of us for any build out. MR. VOLLARO-On Part Two I guess we could get through it, yes. MR. METIVIER-I mean, looking at what we have here, it’s just a subdivision of land. MS. RADNER-Remember, your job here on SEQRA is the maximum development that would be allowed if you gave your approval. So, by creating these two lots, what could they build, think in your minds what they could build on these two lots without coming back for further approvals, two single family residences, on that line. MR. MAC EWAN-Do you feel comfortable moving forward? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MR. SANFORD-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-All right. I’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. VOLLARO-Do you want to go for the Short Form? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, the Short Form. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 1-2004, Introduced by Chris Hunsinger who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: MICHAEL DICKINSON, and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 47 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. Duly adopted this 17 day of February, 2004, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic NOES: NONE ABSTAINED: Mr. MacEwan ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. MAC EWAN-Does somebody want to introduce a motion? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the only condition that we talked about was that the stone wall not be destroyed or removed from this site. MR. VOLLARO-I think they had that on the print. I believe it’s on the drawing. I thought I saw it on the drawing, but I can’t find it now. I thought it was on here. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I was going to say, I didn’t see it on the drawing. MR. MAC EWAN-Make it a condition. MR. VOLLARO-Then make it a condition. MR. MAC EWAN-Somebody move Preliminary, then. MOTION TO APPROVE PRELIMINARY STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 1-2004 MICHAEL DICKINSON, Introduced by Chris Hunsinger who moved for its adoption, seconded by Richard Sanford: WHEREAS, an application has been make to this board for the following: Subdivision No. 1-2004 Applicant: Michael Dickinson PRELIMINARY STAGE Property Owner: Jane Lowell FINAL STAGE Agent: William Rourke SEQR Type: Unlisted Zone: SFR-1A Location: West side County Line Road Applicant proposes subdivision of a 68.8 acre parcel into 2 lots of 54.2 acres and 14.6 acres. Cross Reference: Sub. 4-1996 48 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) Tax Map No. 290-1-22.22 Lot size: 68.8 acres / Section: Subdivision Regulations Public Hearing: February 17, 2004 WHEREAS, the application was received 1/15/04, and WHEREAS, the above is supported with the following documentation, and inclusive of all newly received information, not included is this listing as of 2/13/04, and 2/17 Staff Notes 2/10 C. MacEwan from L. Tessier & M. Stevens, Warren Co. DPW 2/10 Notice of Public Hearing sent 2/2 Meeting Notice WHEREAS, pursuant to Chapter A183, Subdivision of Land, Section A183-9J and A183-10C, D of the Code of the Town of Queensbury a public hearing was advertised and was held on February 17, 2004; and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the Subdivision application requirements of the Code of the Town Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and/or if application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and the proposed modification(s) do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that We find the following: The application for Preliminary Stage is hereby granted in accordance with the resolution prepared by Staff. Duly adopted this 17 day of February, 2004, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Sanford, Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Vollaro NOES: NONE ABSTAINED: Mr. MacEwan ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. MAC EWAN-Would somebody introduce Final. MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO 1-2004 MICHAEL DICKINSON, Introduced by Chris Hunsinger who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro: WHEREAS, an application has been make to this board for the following: Subdivision No. 1-2004 Applicant: Michael Dickinson PRELIMINARY STAGE Property Owner: Jane Lowell 49 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) FINAL STAGE Agent: William Rourke SEQR Type: Unlisted Zone: SFR-1A Location: West side County Line Road Applicant proposes subdivision of a 68.8 acre parcel into 2 lots of 54.2 acres and 14.6 acres. Cross Reference: Sub. 4-1996 Tax Map No. 290-1-22.22 Lot size: 68.8 acres / Section: Subdivision Regulations Public Hearing: February 17, 2004 WHEREAS, the application was received 1/15/04, and WHEREAS, the above is supported with the following documentation, and inclusive of all newly received information, not included is this listing as of 2/13/04, and 2/17 Staff Notes 2/10 C. MacEwan from L. Tessier & M. Stevens, Warren Co. DPW 2/10 Notice of Public Hearing sent 2/2 Meeting Notice WHEREAS, pursuant to Chapter A183, Subdivision of Land, Section A183-9J and A183-10C, D of the Code of the Town of Queensbury a public hearing was advertised and was held on February 17, 2004; and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the Subdivision application requirements of the Code of the Town Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and/or if application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and the proposed modification(s) do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that We find the following: The application for Final Stage is hereby granted in accordance with the resolution prepared by Staff and is subject to the following condition which shall be listed on the final plat submitted for Planning Board Chairman signature and filing: 1. That the following notation be added to the plat: That the stone wall shown not be destroyed or removed from the site. 2. Recreation Fees in the amount of $ 500.00 per lot are applicable to this subdivision. 3. Waiver request(s) are granted: Sketch plan, Stormwater, Grading, and Landscaping Plan. 4. All necessary outside agency approvals have been received by the applicant, with a copy sent to and received by Planning Department Staff within 180 days. 5. The plat must be filed with the County Clerk within 60 days of receipt by Planning Department Staff of outside agency approvals noted. 50 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) Duly adopted this 17th day of February, 2004, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Metivier, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic NOES: NONE ABSTAINED: Mr. MacEwan ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. MAC EWAN-You’re all set, gentlemen. MR. ROURKE-Pardon me, that’s the stone wall over toward Chestnut Ridge? MR. HUNSINGER-It’s the one that’s shown on your plot plan. MR. MAC EWAN-Shown on your plat. MR. DICKINSON-Thank you. MR. ROURKE-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Is there anyone here representing Paul Lotter’s application, Site Plan 5-2004? Make a note. We’ll see him next month, maybe. OLD BUSINESS [SITE PLAN]: 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. 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 31-93M 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 PETER HENTSCHKE, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 25-2003, Wal-Mart Stores, Meeting Date: February 17, 2004 “APPLICATION: Site Plan 25-2003 APPLICANT: Wal-Mart Stores is the applicant for this request STAFF COMMENTS: The applicant has submitted additional information since the Planning Board tabled this item on November 20, 2003. The additional information includes data on the sound wall to be constructed at the west property line, comments on the feasibility of constructing rooftop screening, along with a cover letter from the applicants attorney 51 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) NOISE IMPACTS The site plan has been revised to show a berm and sound wall at the western property line. Along with the site plan, the applicant has submitted a noise evaluation, which presents expected sound levels from the rooftop units, compactor and truck passbys, based on the use of the berm and sound wall. The analysis provided states that the decibel (dB) at the adjacent residences to the west are as follows: 67 dB from truck passbys - 50 dB from existing and proposed roof top units - 40 dB from a trash compactor - What dB reading can be expected from idling trucks using the loading dock? Have the noise impacts from idling trucks been considered as part of the applicant’s noise analysis? What impact will the removal of noise mitigation material from the loading dock have on noise levels? What is the cumulative dB reading from all noise sources identified, including idling trucks, and how does this compare to the current ambient noise levels in this area of the site? Additionally, the applicant has stated that based on the design of the current building, the maximum height that any rooftop screening on the western side of the building can be is 2 ft. 6 inches. The applicant has submitted a line of site analysis to demonstrate what the visual impacts such a screen will have on the properties to the west. It appears that the noise impacts of a 2’ 6” screen have been considered as part of the applicant’s noise evaluation. LANDSCAPING / SCREENING As a result of the sound wall and berm being constructed the landscaping at the western property line has been revised. A row of arborvitae is now shown along the western property line. All other aspects of the landscaping plan appear to be consistent with what was presented to the Planning Board on November 20, 2003. TRAFFIC/ACCESS MANAGMENT Based on the letter of January 14, 2004 from the applicant’s attorney, it appears that the applicant proposes to construct only the portion of the Ray’s Supply interconnect on the Wal- Mart property only. Details of the proposed interconnect, such as grading, drainage, etc. should be submitted and presented to CT Male for their review prior to any construction. LIGHTING The applicant’s lighting plan has not been revised to reduce the wattage of the proposed floodlights from 400 watts to 250 watts per the most recent tabling resolution. The lighting plan indicates that the floodlights will be mounted at a height of 25 ft. and will be aimed at the building from an 80-degree angle from the horizontal. As part of a letter provided by the applicant’s attorney (dated January 14, 2004), the applicant has indicated that the Town of Queensbury does not regulate floodlights and that the lights are necessary for safety. The lighting requirements of the Zoning Ordinance listed in § 179-6-020 do regulate floodlights in that the code calls for lighting that directs light directly to the ground and light does not shine above the horizontal. Additionally, the lighting requirements state that the maximum foot- candle level for building exteriors is 1 foot-candle. The light levels shown at the building exterior in front of the floodlights more than exceeds Zoning Ordinance requirements for building exterior lighting. It appears that the proposed 80-degree angle will produce glare that will go over the front of the building, even with the proposed shields. A reduction of the wattage and the angle of the proposed fixtures would reduce any glare and would bring building exterior light levels closer to the 1 foot-candle average called for in the Zoning Ordinance. 52 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) FOLLOW UP Should the Planning Board feel that there is enough information to conduct a SEQRA review and potentially vote on a SEQRA resolution at this meeting, the applicant would then be required to appear before the ZBA for variances from the parking and permeability requirements of the Zoning Ordinance. Should the ZBA grant such relief, the application would then appear before the Planning Board once again, at which time the Planning Board could decide to vote on the proposed site plan.” MR. MAC EWAN-Staff notes. MR. HILTON-Okay. Really quickly here, just to recap, the applicant has submitted new information. Under Noise Impact, what I’ve touched upon is that the applicant has included a berm and sound wall at the western property line in place of sound mitigating materials on the loading dock. They’ve also presented an analysis of which provides the following decibel readings at the adjacent residences to the west. Sixty-seven decibels from truck bypasses. Fifty from existing and proposed rooftop units and forty from a trash compactor, and I guess in looking at the analysis, what decibels readings could be expected from idling trucks using loading dock, and have the noise impacts from idling trucks been considered as a part of this analysis. Additionally, what impact will the removal of the noise mitigation material from the loading dock have on noise levels at the adjacent residences. Finally, in terms of noise, what is the cumulative decibel reading from all noise sources identified, either by the applicant or, in the case of staff, the trucks using the loading dock, and how does this compare to current ambient noise levels in this area. In terms of landscaping, the only changes appear to be at the western property line, some arborvitae have been proposed for this bermed area and some screening from the western property. In terms of traffic, it appears, based on a letter dated January 14, that the applicant intends to construct the Ray Supply interconnect to the property th line only. Details of the proposed interconnect, such as grading, drainage, etc., would need to be presented, submitted and presented, to C.T. Male for approval of any final design before construction. As far as lighting goes, the applicant has not revised the plan to show the floodlights going from 400 watts to 250 watts, and further they’ve stated that, the Town Code doesn’t address floodlights, but in reality the Town Code does, the lighting requirements in the Code call for downcast lighting, not to arise above horizontal. The lighting requirements also call for a maximum foot candle level at the building exterior of one foot candle. With the floodlights, this building exterior lighting goes a little bit above and beyond that, quite a bit, actually, and the 80 degree angle will produce some glare, although not direct, over the front of the building, and even with the shields, a reduction in the wattage in the angle would reduce glare and would bring the exterior lighting closer to the one foot candle average. As we go on through the discussion of lighting, I may have some additional comment, but that’s all I have right now, and just as a follow up, if the Board is comfortable and feels that they can conduct a SEQRA review this evening, the application would proceed to the Zoning Board tomorrow evening, and then potentially back in front of you next week for final approval. Again, that’s all I have right now. If you have any questions, let me know. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. Good evening. MR. HENTSCHKE-Good evening. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, it seems like we’re, in my mind, we’re down to two issues, noise and the lighting. Let’s do lighting first, which I think is the lesser of the two evils at this point. MR. HENTSCHKE-Okay. If the Board is amenable, I’d like to just introduce a couple of people. We’ve got some new faces here. We’ve got a noise consultant, and just for everybody’s sake, the Board and the public, I thought that I could introduce who we have here tonight with us. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s fine. 53 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. HENTSCHKE-My name is Peter Hentschke. I’m from the firm of Harter, Seacrest and Emery. We’re representing Wal-Mart with relation to the approvals for the project., and tonight we have with us two gentlemen from Langan. Well, first of all, let me introduce Paul Silvestri. He’s also from Harter, Seacrest, and Emery. We’ve got John Speer and Girard Fitamant from Langan Engineering Environmental Services. We’ve got Doug Hurly from the firm that did the, responsible for the architecture, Perry Butcher and Associates. Doug Hurly is here as well, and we also have Lewis Goodfriend, right here, who is from Louis Goodfriend and Associates, an engineering firm that specializes in acoustical engineering issues. If you would allow me to, I’d like to just tell you we’re here, as you know, as the agenda says, we’re here to seek a completion of the SEQRA process tonight. We’d like to get a SEQRA neg dec and move on to try to get some variances, and if there’s a preliminary site plan approval involved with this Board we’d like to get that as well tonight, too, if the Board does that. I know all Boards are different in that regard. We’ve been here for the past 10 months about with this project. There’s been a lot of give and take, a lot of good comments have been incorporated into the site plan we think, suggestions from this Board and from the public that have been addressed, and a lot of changes made in that regard. I just wanted to address a couple of quick things about those two remaining issues that Chairman MacEwan highlighted. The noise impacts at the western property line, that were, some concerns were raised at the December 11 meeting, in th particularly by Whispering Pines about the apartments and concerns about noise to them, and they specifically said that we want a wall, we want a berm, we want a sound barrier, and we came back and Wal-Mart decided to give them what they asked for, and to provide them that sound barrier along the entire western property line. It’s a pretty expensive proposition, given the topography back there, as I think we all understand what the topography is back there, the drop off, what’s existing conditions back there in terms of the land on both sides, but I wanted to just, you know, highlight what we’re proposing and that we also, the Board asked for some noise analysis to document what mitigation that would propose. So a noise analysis was submitted by Matt Boralo of the Goodfriend Acoustical firm, noise memo, documenting what mitigation that would provide, and I just wanted two quick things about, I’m not sure if the Board is aware yet, but there was a noise memo that was submitted by, I don’t know if you want to, you’ve got that again, I supplied copies, but on behalf of the Valente’s, I understand there’s a new noise memo that was submitted today, trying to raise some noise issues. George, do you want to? MR. HILTON-Yes, if you’d like, Craig, I can hand it out to you. MR. MAC EWAN-Hold off and give it to us afterwards. We’re not going to take a look at them now. MR. HILTON-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-I mean, typically our procedure is we do not accept new information the night of a meeting and expect us to digest it, review it, and make a decision on it that night. MR. HENTSCHKE-Okay. We’re little bit concerned, if there’s anything, we’ve looked at this. We’ve had our noise expert look at this memo that was submitted, you know, this afternoon, and we believe they’re trying to raise a lot of noise issues here that are not real valid issues, but attached to this document is a DEC policy document that we have actually provided to this Board in the past. They’re trying to raise issues with this document. One thing that they don’t highlight that I wanted to highlight for you is a section of that policy that talks about existing zoning, and when you need to look at a noise analysis. We’ve provided noise analysis. We’ve provided a noise analysis with the first mitigation proposed. We’ve provided noise analysis with the new retaining wall barrier in the back of the property line, and now we’re bringing a noise expert to address this. If you look at that DEC policy document, what it says is that, when certain criteria are satisfied, this is on Page 16 of this document that George is going to hand you, stuff that we’ve already submitted again, it says that, when certain criteria are satisfied, the need for undertaking a noise impact analysis at any level is eliminated. These criteria are as follows: The site is contained in an area which local zoning provides for the intended use as a right of use. Does not apply to activities that are permissible only after an applicant is granted a 54 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) Special Use Permit by the local government, and, two, the applicant’s operational plan incorporates appropriate best management practices for noise control for all facets of the operation, and when activities may be undertaken as a right of use it is presumed that noise has been addressed in establishing the zoning. Any residual noise that is present following best management practices implementation should be considered an inherent component of the acidity that has been found acceptable in consideration of the zoning designation of the site, and we believe, and we’re here to highlight, that we have met the best management practice aspects and that we have fully mitigated. There’s no significant noise impacts from this project that is proposed by the applicant now. Just to highlight, we’ve rerouted traffic to avoid the southern property line. We’re now proposing to build a retaining wall, earthen berm, eight foot high noise barrier that’s designed to dampen noise. We’re also proposing to extend the parapet on the proposed new portion of the Wal-Mart Super Center to completely screen the rooftop units, and again, on the existing building, there’s rooftop units on the existing building. We’re proposing to raise the parapets on the existing building as far as we can possibly do it, given the structural integrity of the roof and the walls, and as was previously documented in the letters from Perry Butcher and Associates, there’s a very small amount of these RTU units that will be visible, and also as documented in the noise memo, there’s going to be further mitigation of any possible noise from these RTU’s based on this parapet screening as well. The other issue that you touched upon is the other predominant issue that came up at the other meeting on the 11, th that was the light, the floodlights. We’ve, the applicant is now proposing a 250 watt floodlights. We’ve gone down, there’s been a reconsideration there, and they are now proposing, and we’ve got plans tonight, I believe, that show that 250 watt fixtures instead of the 400 watts that we had previously proposed, and also we’d have John Speer address the, there was a concern about glare and the angle of where these lights would be pointing. So with the Planning Board’s permission, I’d like to turn it over to John Speer, just to address that issue briefly, as you wanted to address lighting. If that’s okay. JOHN SPEER MR. SPEER-Good evening. John Speer, Langan Engineering. We’ve always understood the Board’s concern about the floodlights. We did not receive authorization from our client, up until this afternoon, to make the modification and change the 400 watt floodlights that are Wal- Mart standard issue to 250 watt floodlights. We received that authorization today, and proceeded to put forth, create a set of plans which I’ve brought with me, and I hope, despite what the Chairman just mentioned about not accepting documents on the day of a hearing, the only change that this really does, in the overall lighting scheme, is along the building entrance where we were at 5.6 foot candles, which was the 400 watt floodlight, we’ve now gone down to 4.1 foot candles average across the building entrance, and 5.0 is allowed per Code. We did not do any analysis regarding what the Staff notes called out the one foot candle building exterior requirement. That had never been mentioned earlier, and we did not do that analysis and I’ll request some clarification on that. What exactly were you looking for there? Is that to be measured in the vertical sense? That’s not been made clear to me. That’s not been mentioned prior to this date. Also regarding the angle of the floodlights, we submitted a drawing, I think it was No. 37.01. It was a section view across the proposed Wal-Mart site showing the, it would show the parking field, a typical light stanchion, the building face, the length/depth of the building, trucks, the proposed wall in the rear, and it goes out to the first set of apartments in the rear, and on that drawing we show that the floodlight is aimed at a point that’s 15.7 feet above the grade at that building. With every five degrees we change it, we’re going to be moving that about 5.7 feet. If we click it down a notch to 75 degrees, we’re at 10 feet. We’re shining within the doors of the store itself. So we’re requesting, if we shine it any lower, we will be getting into the roadway itself. We’ll also be making the lighting levels at that building entrance that we measured higher. So we request the Board look favorably upon our plan with the 250 watt floodlights at the 80 degree angle, as we show on this new lighting plan I have here tonight, 25.02. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? MR. SPEER-Yes, sir. 55 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. MAC EWAN-That’s the whole thing? MR. SPEER-Yes. MR. HENTSCHKE-As far as lighting. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. HENTSCHKE-Should we talk about noise a little bit? MR. MAC EWAN-While we’re on the subject of lighting, has anybody got any questions relative to lighting? MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I do. MR. MAC EWAN-Go ahead. MR. VOLLARO-Just a little look into the lighting. The driveway and the roadway approach shows it at 3.4 foot candles where the Queensbury Code is at two. Now I’m not saying that what we want to do is match the Code right now. It’s up to the Board to make that decision, but you’re in at 3.4 foot candles at the driveway and road approaches, where the Code is two. The fixture heights are set at Queensbury Code at 20. You’re in at 30 in the parking area. Now, you just mentioned something, but I’ll use my own notes. The building entrance, the average foot candle at the building entrance is 5.6, and you just mentioned that. MR. SPEER-Yes, sir. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. The max is 9.4. The min is .8, and so what we’ve got is a uniformity ratio of seven to one. Now, the uniformity ratio was designed so that you and I, with our human eyes, can quickly discern what’s going on in the lighting situation without being totally blinded, and that’s why we sat the four to one, and you’re running, at the building entrance, at seven to one, which I think is a far cry from four to one. Now, in the parking lot, we’ve got 2.5. You used the 2.5 to meet our 2.5 foot candles in the lot. Parking Lot Number One. The average is 2.5 in Parking Lot Number One, and that was to match our 2.5 in the Code. MR. SPEER-Correct. MR. VOLLARO-I believe you made a little computer adjustment and got to that. MR. SPEER-No, sir. No, sir. MR. VOLLARO-No, I’m saying. MR. SPEER-No, we physically moved the design. There was some information about something like that at the last meeting, which I did respond to, but that is far from the case, and I specifically called out, when we made this change, the last change in the lighting plan to get from a 2.7 average across the parking field to 2.5. I specifically, in the letter covering this, I described how we turned some of the fixtures, and I believe we changed them from BV’s that were on the side adjoining the Flower Drum Song Restaurant, we changed them to GV’s, and rotated them. It wasn’t computer gimmickry. It was actually physical model of the. MR. VOLLARO-No, I didn’t say it was, but you had to, you know, you had to put that information into something to get it to come out. Anyway, but you got the 2.5, and then your min is 3, .3, in the Parking Lot Number One, and that gives me a uniformity ratio of eight to one, versus four to one. So that’s another one that we, you know, that I’m looking at. What I’m slowly driving at here is if I take a look at the front of the building, the average foot candles, what I did is took a look at all of the, along the front of the building, took a look at all the foot 56 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) candle representation on your drawing, and added them together and divided by I think it’s 18 or 19, and I get about a 30 foot candle on the face of the building, not 30, three, three foot candles, an average of three on the face of the building, versus the one that’s implied in our Code. Now there’s another analysis from Mr. Davis that I read. Mr. Davis, I know, is in the audience here, that states a little higher number at 5.3 foot candles average on the face, and I looked at his analysis, and mine was strictly taken off the drawing. His comes off a little different way. MR. SANFORD-How would this be altered with the reduction in the intensity of the bulbs? MR. VOLLARO-Well, that’s a good question. I guess where I’m at, in looking at the overall lighting on that site, I’ll answer your question this way. Based on the foregoing, I’m of the opinion that the floodlights are unnecessary from a safety standpoint, and I would recommend that they be eliminated, based on the fact that they greatly exceed a one foot candle specification for building illumination. Now how they get to, from 400 to 250 and deal with that question, I have to ask the applicant. MR. SANFORD-Let’s ask the applicant. Do they know? Do you know the answer to that? In other words, a reduction from 400 to 250, how will that influence some of Mr. Vollaro’s calculations in terms of reducing what is it the three foot candle closer to the one? MR. VOLLARO-Closer to the one, correct, either the three foot candle on my analysis, or the 5.3 on Mr. Davis’ analysis. We got to those numbers differently. I can tell you that. MR. SPEER-And you derive those numbers using 400 watt floodlights. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MR. SPEER-We are going to reduce the wattage of the bulbs. They will be significantly less intense. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but what I’m trying to say is when you get to 250 watts, how does that affect the three foot candle average that’s on the face of the building now? MR. SPEER-Well, we calculated, we used a different area, possibly, for building entrance. We did not use the point values, necessarily, as published. That’s also an offshoot of the computer program that’s used to lay these out. So we’re delineating an area that’s, I think it’s a little a bit out where the striping is in that first roadway, and going back toward the building, and that’s the area that we’ve called building entrance, because that’s the area where you’re going to have your pedestrian and vehicular conflicts is right there. MR. VOLLARO-Well, that’s why I talked about that 7.1 uniformity ratio at that point. MR. SPEER-And the problem there is that the general merchandise vestibule, which would be the one to the south, and right there the building jogs in, I think it’s something on the order of 40 feet. In that back corner we’re getting a .7 foot candle reading. Okay. That’s what we’re expecting, and that’s the minimum value that the computer is using to spit out the max to min ratio. So, if you take a look at just what’s across the curb line from the building, you’ll have a much better uniformity ratio using those values, than trying to, because that’s an area of interest. What’s going on after that building cut out there, that corner’s going to be a little bit darker than otherwise, than the other portions of the building. MR. VOLLARO-It depends. You can pick whatever number you want off that. You might have a point. I don’t know. I used your numbers, which was your min at the building entrance of .8 and your average of five foot candles at the building entrance. I used your numbers to do that calculation. 57 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. SPEER-Okay. The .8 is, on our plans, let me see if I can direct you to it, but it’s in the cut out there. So if you look at where the existing building, which is not colored, not shaded, there’s a jog in, there. Coming out to the east, to the expanded part of the building, there is a couple of .8’s right at that location. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. SPEER-And that’s that minimum value that we’re showing for along the building entrance. MR. VOLLARO-And that’s the one I used. MR. SPEER-Yes, and that’s what our program is showing you, as max to min and average to min. MR. VOLLARO-That’s how I got the 7.1, just using those two numbers. MR. SPEER-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I guess the question is now, I know that your computer program, if I were to put those floodlights, and I were to plug in 250 watts into those lights, it would tell me what the face of that building looked like, foot candle wise. MR. SPEER-What I have here is a projection in the horizontal plane right along the ground, is what we’re presenting to the Town. We don’t have an analysis showing what’s going on in the vertical. MR. VOLLARO-Your computer program won’t show you that? MR. SPEER-I’m certain it would, but that was never broached. MR. VOLLARO-Well, what I’m looking at is creating a big sign, a sign that’s maybe 40 foot tall and 600 foot wide by all these floodlights. See, I just don’t see where these lights, where the floodlights are adding to the safety issue at all. We all know where Wal-Mart is in Queensbury. We don’t need to have it lit up. MR. SANFORD-The question I’m interesting in knowing is, you’re looking at a plane which is at a ground level. When you had the 400 bulbs in there, what was the number that we had at that point, seven? MR. SPEER-The number. MR. VOLLARO-The building entrance was 5.6 foot candles, with that 400 watts. MR. SANFORD-Five point six. What is it now? Apparently you’ve done that calculation. MR. SPEER-Yes. MR. SANFORD-Okay. So it goes from 5.6 down to what? MR. SPEER-Four point one. MR. SANFORD-Four point one. And what’s our range that you’re comfortable with on that? MR. VOLLARO-Well, you’ve got to divide 4.1 by .8. MR. SPEER-We have now a minimum of .6. MR. VOLLARO-As opposed to .8? 58 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. SPEER-As opposed to the former .8, and the maximum value is. MR. VOLLARO-So you’re at five to one. You’re getting fairly close. MR. SPEER-Average to min, yes, it’s approximately 6.8 to 1. MR. MAC EWAN-John, would you go over, again, what is the purpose of the floodlights in the front of the building? What are your intentions for them? MR. VOLLARO-Safety. MR. SPEER-They’re intended. They’re a part of the standard Wal-Mart package. The floodlights would not come into effect unless the height of the poles is less than the 39 feet, which is their standard. They generally wouldn’t do floodlights if they get their poles, which are the kind of poles that are out there now. When they do get this low, though, they’re looking to shed light on the building at the place where pedestrians and vehicles are going to be coming. The main drive right in front of our building is the most critical place for us to have a good intensity of light? MR. SEGULJIC-Are there floodlights out there now? MR. SPEER-No, no. The lights there are 39 feet high, right now. So that wouldn’t call for floodlights. MR. MAC EWAN-Can you achieve some sort of safety measure by having like wall packs or something, downcast wall packs to light up that walkway area, crossing walk area, without having to have so many floods? MR. SPEER-I don’t think that would serve the same effect at all. The wall packs are, they’re not as effective as the floodlights are. MR. VOLLARO-But you’ve got nine lights across that whole building. MR. SPEER-Yes, sir. MR. VOLLARO-And they’re now set at twenty. MR. SPEER-They’re at 25 feet high. MR. VOLLARO-Twenty-five? MR. SPEER-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Well, looking at the overall light on that site, it just looks to me that the light is satisfactory, and I just don’t see the value of those floods. I just can’t, in my mind. I’m just one member of this Board, and I’ve just looked at the numbers, and what I got was, particularly across the face of the building. Now I’m looking to see what your 250 watts looks like with respect to my three foot candle analysis. MR. MAC EWAN-Has C.T. Male reviewed any of this stuff? MR. HILTON-This most recent submission, there’s a comment letter in the packet. MR. VOLLARO-I don’t think he mentions anything on lights. He talks about noise. MR. HILTON-Right. They may not have, I’m not sure what they did with the lighting. 59 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. SEGULJIC-As far as the lighting vertically, you don’t have a feel for what that would be, then, on the storefront, foot candle wise? MR. SPEER-No. No. I mean, we would start with the values that are published on the plan where for what is at the ground. We know that because of the geometry of the floodlights pointing down at a point 15 feet above the ground, might be the brightest point, if a floodlight’s pointing directly at it. If it’s in between two floodlights, that wouldn’t necessarily be the case, and then from there it would be getting dimmer from that point on. MR. SEGULJIC-But you don’t have a feel for it at this point? MR. SPEER-That’s as close as my feel I could get for you. I could give you, sketch you a curve of what the relative intensities would be, starting with a point on the ground, but we didn’t extend the analysis into the vertical plane, which gets very difficult. The building is articulated all over the place. We would have to really simplify the model to get accurate numbers. It would be quite a trick. I wouldn’t want to undertake it. MR. HILTON-In terms of our Code, the Code calls for one foot candle, and this is horizontal illuminants, at building entrances, and it calls for five at the building exterior. There’s nothing that says you could find a building exterior such, or building entrance as such, but in looking at this plan, once you go beyond the immediate entrance, and you get out a ways from the doors, if you will, you know, the values do appear to go above that one foot candle per building exterior. Again, I’m not going to sit here and tell you how you’re going to define our how we’re going to define building exterior, but the Code does say, building exterior, one foot candle. We touched upon this on December 11. It’s in the minutes, when we first saw the floodlights that th were added in the middle of the whole review process. It’s not like we’re springing this on you tonight. MR. SPEER-Right. With that building exterior, what foot candle number, would I be able to use the 700 feet along the back of my building which is primarily well below one foot candle, or the sides of the building, which also are only lit, well, in the rear it’s only lit with wall packs, and along the sides there is some light spillage from our parking field lighting, but I would. MR. HILTON-And you may have some light coming from inside the store to the front of the store. I’m assuming that the wall sign is going to be internally illuminated. I mean, I just, and there are other factors I guess you could add to the building exterior, as you just mentioned. Again, I’m simply looking at the Code. MR. MAC EWAN-What I’m hearing here, and it kind of concerns me, is this whole evolution of these floodlights came kind of like in the middle of the review here, and when Wal-Mart caught wind that we weren’t going to allow 37 foot high poles, they immediately came into Plan B and said, well, if we can’t have those, we want the floodlights in the front of the building and I guess I’m at a loss as to, what’s the real purpose of the floodlights, other than to make the thing look like you’re in the middle of a landing strip? MR. VOLLARO-It says in their literature safety. I mean, I looked at that. MR. MAC EWAN-Lighting has proven, time and time again, in many, many studies across this country, lighting does not prohibit crime or enhance safety. Lighting doesn’t do it. MR. VOLLARO-I agree. I’m just telling you what they said they wanted it for. MR. HILTON-Furthermore, I guess my last comment was going to be, I’d be interested to see the revised plan that they have tonight. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions relative to lighting? 60 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. VOLLARO-That’s really all I have. I guess based on what I did, I think they’re unnecessary to this site plan. So that’s where I sit. MR. SEGULJIC-So it appears as if we’re all set with the lighting, other than the floodlights? MR. MAC EWAN-For the time being we are. I mean, it’s not like we’re going to rubber stamp anything. MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, right. MR. MAC EWAN-There’s no more issues with it right now. I would like, I don’t know where we need to go with that, I guess, at this point. MR. SPEER-Mr. Chairman, could I just clarify? It was not that that once Wal-Mart caught wind of not having 39 foot high lights here that they decided to apply floodlights to the particular Queensbury project. MR. MAC EWAN-No, you told me it was standard. You said it was standard. MR. SPEER-It’s universal, sir. MR. MAC EWAN-Your standard is 39 foot tall. When they don’t get the 39 foot tall, they include whatever the pole is for floodlights. MR. SPEER-Then floodlights are used for the additional lighting at the building entrance. MR. MAC EWAN-I understood that. MR. SPEER-Okay. It’s not personal, it’s not directed, it’s not Queensbury specific. MR. MAC EWAN-No. I understood it to be if they can’t have their 39 foot tall lights, and it drops any lower than that, then their mission is Plan B, to have floodlights shine out in front of the building. MR. SPEER-They do have that flexibility. MR. MAC EWAN-We may not. I don’t know where it’s going to go. All right. Noise, which seems to be the big topic of interest tonight. MR. HENTSCHKE-At this time I’d like to introduce Louis S. Goodfriend of Goodfriend and Associates, Louis S. Goodfriend and Associates. MR. MAC EWAN-Just to kind of recap where we left off when we tabled this the last time, one of the questions that was asked, I believe, if I remember it well enough, was, when we asked for sound deadening fence to be built between the Wal-Mart property line and the adjacent property line at the back of the building, the full length of the property line I think what we’re talking to the southwest corner, the question was asked, if we provide that soundproofing fence, could we eliminate the sound deadening on the loading dock walls? And our response to that was if you could provide that you were going to have enough sound deadening material to provide that measure of safety, and the Board kind of gave a consensus they didn’t think they’d have a problem with it. I guess I’m just raising that issue now because looking at what information I have here in front of me, as one member, I’m kind of having a struggle as to whether that fence can do the job that it’s going to do, and I notice that the last set of resubmission plans showed that sound deadening was removed from the loading dock wall. Have I got that right? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. 61 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I just wanted to get that out in front of everybody. Proceed. MR. HENTSCHKE-I just wanted to have Mr. Goodfriend talk a little bit about himself and his background briefly, just to give you an idea of what his qualifications are to discuss these issues with you tonight. LOUIS GOODFRIEND MR. GOODFRIEND-Good evening. I’m a resident of New York State. I have offices in Whippany, New Jersey. I’m a licensed professional engineer in New York. I’m Board Certified in Noise Control Engineering by the Institute of Noise Control Engineering. I’m both a mechanical and electrical engineer. I’ve got 50 years as a consulting engineer specializing in acoustics. I’m a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America. I’m a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society, and I’m past President of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering. Just a couple of my former clients are the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States, and United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. I’ve worked for numerous towns in New Jersey. I’ve worked for Scenic Hudson. I’ve worked for the Hudson Valley Preservation Coalition and a citizens group in Hartford, New York, and that’s briefly my background. MR. HENTSCHKE-And at this point, I wanted to ask Mr. Goodfriend just to discuss the noise sources that are proposed as a part of this project, and the mitigation that has been proposed to mitigate those, to lessen the potential possible noise impacts. As Mr. Chairman MacEwan brought up, right now what’s being proposed is, again, that berm and sound wall along the western property line, and we wanted Mr. Goodfriend to address how much, you know, what’s going to happen. What is that going to do? What’s going to happen to the noise with that wall there? Is that going to be sufficient? MR. GOODFRIEND-The noise barrier, as it’s proposed, will reduce the sound level of semi- tractor trailer trucks and other trucks by about 10 decibels. Box trucks even more, actually, by about 12 decibels. It’ll reduce the noise of refrigeration units on the trucks by about 12 decibels, and it will reduce the backup alarm sound level at the nearest houses by about 14 decibels, and will reduce the compactor noise at the nearest houses by about 12 decibels and it will reduce the back up alarm to about 44 decibels which is quite low. Yes, it is total, but it only occurs very briefly, and with the few trucks that are scheduled for this site, it will only be for a very short period. This is noise mitigation for the sounds that are occurring now. So that the sounds that are mitigated by 10 decibels sound about half as loud. So that the sounds with the noise barrier in place will be about half as loud at the nearest residence. The Staff asked a couple of questions, and the answer to those questions is that with everything operating except, not including a truck pass by, with the trucks idling, the rooftop units, all of the rooftop units operating, and the compactor operating, which doesn’t operate all the time, and the air handling units of which there are two large air handling units which will be on the new roof, the sound level at the nearest residences would be 58 decibels, and that will be in the daytime. At nighttime the rooftop units, there are 49 of them, and under the Energy Management Plan, they are cut back. So the sound level will drop. Without the truck idling and without the refrigeration unit, the sound level would drop to 50 decibels at the nearest residence, and as I said earlier, with the backup alarm by itself, you would have 44 decibels. This is mitigation beyond what’s there now. So as I say, it will be roughly half as loud at the neighboring locations. MR. MAC EWAN-You just said that the 58 dba is the total cumulative, everything operating during the daytime hours, right? MR. GOODFRIEND-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-What is the cumulative of everything operating in nighttime hours, based on your energy conservation scenario? 62 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. GOODFRIEND-I can’t give you a figure for that. I didn’t calculate that because I don’t know what their energy management plan does to the rooftop units. It does reduce them, but I can’t tell you by how much. MR. MAC EWAN-How did you figure in truck noise, refrigerator carrier noises? MR. GOODFRIEND-We have data on, we have a lot of data on refrigerated trucks, and we took worst case refrigerated truck noise levels. MR. MAC EWAN-What’s the worst case scenario you used for this calculation? MR. GOODFRIEND-At 69 decibels with the truck idling with the refrigeration unit operating, and that’s without the barrier, 69. With the barrier in place it’s 57. MR. MAC EWAN-With the barrier in place, truck dba’s drop to 57. Is that what you said? MR. GOODFRIEND-With the truck idling, yes, sir. MR. MAC EWAN-The truck idling. Is that assuming it’s a refrigerated truck, or just a standard? MR. GOODFRIEND-It’s a semi-tractor trailer truck with a refrigeration unit. MR. MAC EWAN-So during daytime, the maximum cumulative noise level from everything running, whether it be trucks, compactor, rooftop units, AC units, etc., is 58 db’s? MR. GOODFRIEND-Fifty-seven. MR. MAC EWAN-Fifty-eight is what you said. MR. GOODFRIEND-I’m sorry, fifty-eight, with everything, yes. MR. MAC EWAN-And at night, with a refrigerated truck at the loading dock, assuming that the mechanical systems are on energy saving so they’re toned down, they’re not running as hard at night. MR. GOODFRIEND-Without the truck idling, and without the refrigeration unit, I said 50. MR. MAC EWAN-You said 69, then you said it was 57. So that’s what I’m trying to get clarified. MR. GOODFRIEND-Sixty-nine is without the barrier. MR. MAC EWAN-Without the barrier. With the barrier in place, a refrigerated truck would be at 57? MR. GOODFRIEND-Yes, sir. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-From the data I got, Mr. Chairman, out of Mr. Goodfriend’s memorandum of 14 January, I’m picking up 67 dba from trucks, after the noise reduction of 10 db, and that’s with respect to 77 dba before mitigation. That’s what I get from the data that I’m looking at. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. I see that. MR. GOODFRIEND- That’s a truck in motion. That’s a truck pass by, which is a very brief occurrence. 63 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. VOLLARO-So what I’m trying to, when you’re talking the dba numbers, I’m trying to determine whether you’re at L-90 or leq? Which of those two are you? MR. GOODFRIEND-It’s neither of those. MR. VOLLARO-It’s neither of those. MR. GOODFRIEND-It’s the maximum instantaneous sound level, is what we’re talking about. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So this 67 is a pass by? MR. GOODFRIEND-Sixty-seven is a pass by. The others are continuous, so that that would be equivalent to the leq. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’m looking at your tractor trailer only, due to tractor trailer pass by. I’m looking at the curves that I guess go along with your memorandum, and I’m assuming that we’re operating, the truck frequencies we’re talking about are somewhere between 31.5 and 1,000 hertz. I’m making that assumption because I don’t know what the frequency spectrum is for that truck. So I’m assuming that it doesn’t go much above 1,000 hertz. MR. GOODFRIEND-I’m not sure I understand what the question is. MR. VOLLARO-Well, what I’m looking at, the curve before mitigation and the curve after mitigation, and the curve after mitigation, and the curve after mitigation is from 31 and a half to 1,000 cycles, hertz, 1,000 hertz. MR. GOODFRIEND-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Everything is above the 60 db. Now the reason I’m asking that question is that we’ve done some sound studies with The Great Escape, and I’m looking at some of the data that we took there. All neighborhoods there were measured, and this was leq or average were below 60 db, and using the octave band of 31 and a half to 8,000 hertz, also at l-90, also measured well below 60 db, yet I see that from 31 and a half hertz to 1,000 hertz, which I’m making an assumption that that’s the radiated frequency from the truck. I don’t know that. I’m making an assumption of that. I don’t know whether I’m close or not, at 1,000 cycles, 1,000 hertz. MR. GOODFRIEND-We’re talking about two different things. The sound level that I’ve been talking about are the A-weighted sound levels. A-weighting on the sound level meter and A- weighting as used by the Federal Government and the State of New York, in assessing noise, tends to, or has a reduction at the lower frequencies because the human ear is less sensitive at the lower frequencies. MR. VOLLARO-I understand that. MR. GOODFRIEND-So the A-weighting sound level is the sound level that’s talked about in our report, and the higher levels at lower frequencies, as shown on this chart would be reduced when you convert them to an A-weighted sound level. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So I can’t rely on this chart to tell me that frequencies between 31 and a half and 1,000 hertz are over 60 db? MR. GOODFRIEND-They are over 60 db, but in terms of their effect on people, they have less contribution to the impact, which is why the State and Federal government use the A-weighted sound level. MR. VOLLARO-What level does the State and Federal government think is non-disturbing to the human, in terms of dba’s at the A-weighted scale? 64 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. GOODFRIEND-Well, there are several criteria. The worst hour, Federal Highway Administration sound level, energy average sound level is 70 decibels. The A-weighted. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development says that a day/night level, which creates a penalty at night of 10 decibels, their limit is 65 decibels, which is, again, an energy average. The State of New Jersey has several criteria, but the A-weighted sound level during the day that’s permitted is 65, if it’s continuous from stationary equipment, and is 50 at night, from stationary equipment. So those are some criteria. MR. SANFORD-A-weighted is average weighted, is that what that means? MR. GOODFRIEND-No. A-weighted suppresses the effect of the lower frequencies. The ear is less sensitive for low pitched sounds. So the sounds, sound levels at low frequencies are adjusted downward, and then you add the energy in each octave band to get the A-weighted sound level after those adjustments. MR. SANFORD-Okay. Because we don’t have a chart of that, in this packet here, obviously. MR. GOODFRIEND-I haven’t shown what the reductions are to achieve the A-weighted sound level, no, but it happens that I know them, and the 31.5 hertz band, there’s a 39 decibel reduction. MR. SANFORD-At 31.5 it would be? MR. GOODFRIEND-Minus 39, and in the 63 hertz band it would be minus 26. MR. SANFORD-Minus 26? MR. GOODFRIEND-Yes, and the 125 hertz band it would be minus 16. MR. SANFORD-So if we took these values on this chart, for before and after mitigation, we would subtract 16 at the 125 level, to come up with the A-weighted value. MR. GOODFRIEND-That’s correct. MR. SANFORD-Okay. Thank you. That makes sense. What would it be at the 1,000 level? MR. GOODFRIEND-At 1,000, there is zero adjustment. MR. VOLLARO-So then at 1,000 we’d still be over 60 db. MR. SANFORD-At 1,000. MR. VOLLARO-At 1,000. MR. SANFORD-You might as well give us the rest at 250 and 500, because. MR. GOODFRIEND-At 250 it’s minus nine. At 500 it’s minus three. At 1,000, as I said, it’s zero. At 2,000 it’s plus one. Four thousand it’s plus one, and 8,000 it’s minus one. MR. SANFORD-Why does it drop off at higher hertz, after 4,000 to 8,000? The progression was going the other direction. MR. GOODFRIEND-The ear is slightly more sensitive at the higher, at the 2,000 and 4,000 hertz frequencies, and then it’s, again, less sensitive at 8,000. MR. SANFORD-Okay. 65 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. SANFORD-The current store that’s there now, what would be those levels? I mean, would they be comparable to the unmitigated? MR. GOODFRIEND-Absolutely. MR. SANFORD-Chart that you have right now. MR. GOODFRIEND-Exactly. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions relative to noise? MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I guess, just for my edification, just so I can understand what relatively, like,60 db is, is that like normal conversation? What is that? MR. GOODFRIEND-It’s in the range of normal conversation across a table at conference room speech, not relaxed, not coffee table or dining table talk, but conference room speech across the table about three feet would be 65, something a little. MR. MAC EWAN-What are we at right now, roughly, would you think? We’re not conference. We’re not coffee table. We’re somewhere in between. I know there’s people who’d like this to be coffee table, but we’re not going that way. MR. GOODFRIEND-Probably in the 50’s. MR. SEGULJIC-And it’s a logarithmic scale, as you said. So down at 50 is quite a bit less than. MR. GOODFRIEND-Fifty-five would be half as loud as sixty-five, and forty-five would be again half as loud at fifty-five. MR. VOLLARO-So a 10 db reduction is equal to about half of a given noise. MR. GOODFRIEND-Ten db reduction is perceived as half as loud. MR. MAC EWAN-In your January 14 letter, on the second page, referencing, you come up th with some database sources for determining your dba’s. You reference in there, I’m just trying to educate myself here, Ford Aero Max L-8,000. MR. GOODFRIEND-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that a diesel or a gasoline truck, tractor? And what you had in your database, part two of my question, is that 53 foot tractor trailer that you used out of your database to calculate the sound readings, was that a refrigerated truck that you used? MR. GOODFRIEND-I’m going to have to check, and I can’t tell you whether it was gasoline or diesel. It is the, it was not, the Ford Aero Max was not refrigerated, but its levels are higher than the levels of the 48 foot refrigerated truck that we used for a refrigerated truck. So we used the highest level truck. MR. MAC EWAN-Wouldn’t a diesel truck put out more db’s than a gasoline? More constant db’s because in the wintertime you’re going to run a diesel truck, while you’re unloading, while you’re idling, while you’re waiting to receive or ship, versus a gasoline truck which you typically would turn off? MR. GOODFRIEND-I can’t tell you what the Wal-Mart experience is, but from the people we’ve dealt with at other, at shopping centers, food stores, diesel engines are now able to be shut off. 66 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) They don’t have to be left running in order to have, to start them. I don’t know what the reasons are, but that’s what we’ve been told. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. SANFORD-I have one more question. In terms of the types of noises that are going to take place at this site, it seems like what would be of some value would be to know where the majority of the devices that would make the noise would fall within the octave band frequency. In other words, you have a range that’s adjusted for this A-weighted, but within this hertz of 31.5 to 8,000, where would you think, if you did a histogram, that the vast majority of the noise elements would reside in terms of hertz? Would they reside toward the lower end or the 8,000 end, or smack right in the middle? In other words, is it a normally distributed noise pattern that we can expect, or is it emphasized more over to one end or the other? Is that a logical question or no? MR. GOODFRIEND-I think I understand what you’re asking. It’s pretty constant. The relationship between the low pitched sound and the medium pitched sounds at around 1,000 hertz stays about the same for low speed truck operations. At high speeds, things change. There is an increase in the 500 and 1,000 hertz sound levels because of the tire noise on pavement at 50 to 70 miles an hour. The low frequency energy doesn’t increase as much. So that’s as much as I can tell you. MR. SANFORD-Yes, no. I think I understand. MR. HENTSCHKE-If I could, just one additional comment on the issue about tractor trailer idling noise. We understand, from an operational standpoint, when a tractor trailer comes in, it would typically drop off the trailer and drive off with an empty trailer. It’s the way that they perform things, so there wouldn’t be that concern of these giant tractor trailers idling a long time at the docks. It would be a drop off and pick up and get out of there. MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Goodfriend, can I ask you, in your professional opinion, do you think that this ply wall, sound wall solution is adequate or should be beefed up, or is it overkill, what do you think? MR. GOODFRIEND-I think it’s the appropriate noise control. Increasing the height is not really cost effective. Once you cut the line of sight, you don’t get a lot more attenuation by going up another few feet. You have to go up great numbers of feet. You have to maybe increase the height by 50%, 75% before you get any considerable additional noise reduction. MR. MAC EWAN-How much do you think your numbers would change on your sound analysis if the sound deadening wall on the loading dock area had been left in place? How much more would that have dropped it? MR. GOODFRIEND-Probably about three decibels. I ran that calculation. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that something you could provide the Board? MR. GOODFRIEND-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re saying that the wall’s much more effective? MR. GOODFRIEND-Once you have one wall, a second wall is not generally likely to add a great deal more sound attenuation. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, see where I’m thinking in this line of thinking is that if what they’re saying that they drop off a trailer, a truck picks up another one, he goes, but the trailer that happens to be left there is a refrigerated trailer. Left at the loading dock, it’s running. However while they’re unloading that, it could take them an hour, an hour and a half, two hours to 67 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) unload the truck, two more trucks come in, and there’s not area in the loading dock for them to be. They’re sitting there on the back side of the building, along that wall. I’m just trying to get a handle on all these different analysis that are being thrown at us. MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Chairman, I think that this wall serves two purposes. MR. MAC EWAN-Which wall are you referring to? MR. VOLLARO-The wall that has the acoustical panels on it, that we were talking about. MR. MAC EWAN-The loading dock wall? MR. VOLLARO-No. The wall that, the berm wall that they’re going to do now. MR. MAC EWAN-The fence, okay, yes. MR. VOLLARO-The fence. With acoustical panels tied to the fence, serves two purposes. One, it’s an acoustical barrier, and second it provides a video barrier to the mechanicals up on the roof as well. If you take a look at this site section 37.01, their drawing shows that they’ve given you line of sights from the first floor and from the second floor showing that the new parapet, the 2.6 foot parapet, they are not going to be able to see some of those roof mechanicals. So I think that’s serving two purposes, and to go back to the one just on the loading docks, which I think is where you’re going with this. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m just asking the question. I just want to know how much of an impact it makes. If it mitigates it any further, if it’s a waste of time and money and materials. I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. MR. VOLLARO-Well, what he’s said was, I think, I don’t want to put any words in Mr. Goodfriend’s mouth. MR. MAC EWAN-A difference of three decibels. MR. VOLLARO-Down three db. MR. SANFORD-Which is not particularly material, I don’t think. MR. VOLLARO-Well, three db can be fairly significant, but I don’t know from a cost effective point of view whether it makes sense to have double barriers. I don’t know. That’s something, I think the Chairman is asking that question, should we install those barriers in the loading docks as we’ve had them previously, or will this wall do an effective job. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s the question I’m asking. MR. GOODFRIEND-Three decibels is, in the laboratory, is a noticeable difference. Three decibels in the field, two different occasions, you probably aren’t going to notice it. To answer Mr. MacEwan’s question about the number of trucks, it’s my understanding that the traffic management does not have more trucks coming in there than are able to, they put them in the loading dock and they’re scheduled to be removed before other trucks arrive. This is my understanding how their operations work. MR. HENTSCHKE-If I could just add on to that. There was a submission July 24, 2003, where we submitted the existing schedule of truck deliveries to the site, and Mr. Goodfriend is exactly right that the way they’ve got computers on these trucks these days from what we’re told, and they’re not going to have trucks idling around, and there’s, this site, proposed project is going to have four grocery docks and two general merchandise docks. They’re not going to have trucks idling around. They’re designed to come in. 68 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. MAC EWAN-I only asked the question, and I’m not trying to be combative. I was up there last week and there were two trucks out in the front of the store. The lower end of the parking lot down closest to Route 9, two of them sitting there, both of them idling, when I went in and when I came out. I mean, the potential is there. It could happen. I’m trying to think of worst case scenario’s all the time. Is that it? Any other questions relative to noise? MR. HUNSINGER-I just wanted to add that the noise analysis, I thought, was real useful I think that’s what I had been looking for when I asked the questions, you know, a couple of months ago, and I personally found it to be really valuable and useful for the analysis that we needed to perform. MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else? Any other questions on something other than noise and lighting? MR. VOLLARO-I can go down the list, Craig. I followed your list. I started off with Design Standards. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, I wasn’t going to go rehash the whole thing because it seemed to me that we were boiling down to these two issues. MR. VOLLARO-Well, I just give you my take on, I think the visual screening of the roof mechanicals, adding this two foot, six inch parapet to the western edge of the building, does an acceptable job considering the snow load amounts as provided. Okay. So I’m buying that 2.6. MR. HUNSINGER-I just wanted to ask sort of a related question on the parapet wall. The analysis that you provided, you indicate that 2.6 feet is the highest that you could add the parapet wall because of snow loading, and everything else. Aren’t you getting really close to what Building Code requires, and is that really the safe height? Is the safe height really two feet, or, you know, two feet three inches or some other number. MR. HENTSCHKE-I’d like to turn that over to Doug Hurly to address. He’s with Perry Butcher Architects. DOUG HURLY MR. HURLY-My name’s Doug Hurly. I’m with Perry Butcher Architects. We’re the architects of record for the project. To answer your question, the two foot six is the maximum by Code that we can go and still stay within the existing structure, having to modify. Anything under two foot six is that much better. So we’re maxed out at two foot six. So we’re at the highest point, the highest threshold we can go. So anything less than that, our engineers would like us better. MR. HUNSINGER-I guess, let me just sort of elaborate on where I was coming from. The most recent snowfalls, the snow’s been very, very light. So there’s a lot of variables in the weight of snow. I mean, depth is not a measure of weight. MR. HURLY-Correct. MR. HUNSINGER-So, I’m just, you know, I just raise the question. Are you cutting that calculation too close to the limit. MR. HURLY-And you’re right. You can’t predict a snow that happens today, then it would be the same thing that happens in two weeks or two or two months, because of the different factors in weather, but the numbers that we use to determine two foot six as being the max is based on based on the current New York State Building Code, which is averaged out. So there’s going to be highs and lows above and below what the Code calls for, but based on the current Building Code, that’s where the two foot six came from. 69 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. HUNSINGER-The other thing that came to mind was, you know, the ice storm from a few years ago. Where, you know, all the power lines were designed for two inches of ice and instead they got four inches of ice, so they couldn’t handle that extra weight, and, you know, that was one of the other things that was running through my mind, because, you know, cutting it that close, are you creating a situation that none of us want to see happen. MR. HURLY-Correct. The Building Code doesn’t speak to ice, per se. It’s strictly snow drift and wind and certain wind velocities and things of that nature. So, like I said earlier, we’re at the maximum we can be. So anything under two foot six, we would lower than threshold down, but two foot six, we’re at the very, we’re at the maximum we can possibly be and hypothetically, I mean, you could go worst case scenario, and you could get a snow a week after the parapet’s up and it could push it over or it could be twice what the Building Code says it is, and still withstand it. It’s an unknown factor, but based on the Building Code, that’s the best we can estimate is that high. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. HENTSCHKE-I don’t want to take too much more of your time, but there is one more practical issue related to the sound wall, if there was no other questions. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, actually I’d like to get Mr. Goodfriend back. I have two more questions for him, relative to the snow. You go ahead with yours first. MR. HENTSCHKE-Okay. This is basically, when it comes down to practically putting that sound barrier in, at the western property line, putting it in really close to the property line, all of our discussion about how much mitigation there’s going to be is pretty much academic if we don’t get permission to go on to the neighboring property owner’s property to build and maintain this wall. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m aware of that and I was going to ask that question tonight during the public hearing. MR. HENTSCHKE-Okay. As long as you’re aware of it. We’ve already, just for your information, we’ve contacted Mr. Lapper, who we understand is representing Whispering Pines and the Valente brothers, and I think we cc’d the Town Staff as well. So we’ve made the effort to contact them and ask them to give us this easement to put up the sound wall that’s going to benefit their property, and they haven’t gotten back to us yet. We’re hoping that maybe tonight they will agree to do that. We think it should be a gratuitous easement. We’re putting it there for their benefit, and just to maintain that thing. So I just wanted to put that on the record. MR. MAC EWAN-I’ll ask the question. Two questions I have for you relative to OSHA. Are there OSHA standards that we should be concerned with as far as the dba’s, in and around that loading dock area with the trash compactors and loading and unloading of trucks, etc. MR. GOODFRIEND-There’s shouldn’t be. I don’t believe that anybody is exposed out at that compactor. There is not going to be anybody standing outside by the truck. I don’t think there’s any OSHA related matters. Levels, anywhere else than within a few feet of the truck, are going to be, not going to be beyond the OSHA limits. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay, and the second question, I guess this would be more toward Wal- Mart, does Wal-Mart have a policy regarding noise protection for employees that may be in or around compactors, loading and unloading? MR. HENTSCHKE-Not that we’re aware of. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. That’s all I had. MR. HENTSCHKE-Yes. We’d obviously comply with any State or OSHA requirements. 70 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else? MR. VOLLARO-Are you talking about us? MR. MAC EWAN-If you’ve got something. MR. VOLLARO-I’m just going down the site development and design, following your outline here. Anyway, if you go down to Drawing 20.01, which is your top drawing, it shows, on that drawing, a clear representation of a Ray Supply connection with a note that implies detail design will follow topographic survey. However, I know that in your letter, Mr. Hentschke, you clearly state that Wal-Mart will not construct this. MR. HENTSCHKE-Not construct the portion on Ray Supply’s property. Wal-Mart is prepared to give these easement for that access future interconnection. We’re prepared to build the road on Wal-Mart property, but we’re not prepared to go on to somebody else’s property and build a road for them. As the note from C.T. Male, the Town Engineer’s, also noted, we don’t have survey’s of their property. We don’t have grading information of their property, drainage. MR. VOLLARO-I think your note on the drawing says following a topographic survey, but if you look at that drawing, it looks to me like, the uninitiated who hasn’t been through how many months we’ve been doing this, if you look at the drawing on that, it looks to me, if you take a look at that, to the uninitiated, it says I’m going to do that. The drawing is, you know, confusing in that respect. Do you see what I’m driving at? MR. HENTSCHKE-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-It does have the note, however, you know, it says 15 foot five, one way driveway from Ray Supply property to Wal-Mart property, topographic survey is required prior to the detailed design. Now, if I wasn’t sitting in this room and heard all the chatter, I’d say, gee, they’re going to build that. MR. HENTSCHKE-Right. MR. VOLLARO-So something’s got to be done with that piece. MR. HENTSCHKE-Change the note. We’d be happy to do that. MR. MAC EWAN-Give me the $64,000 answer here. Why isn’t Wal-Mart willing to do that, when the equipment will be there, the manpower will be there, the materials will be there, and, you know, not being a degreed engineer here, I’m saying it’s going to take a half a day’s worth of work. MR. HENTSCHKE-There’s a lot of answers, but a big one of them is whenever you’re going on to somebody else’s property to build something for them, you’re faced with liability exposure for conditions you don’t, can’t foresee. Environmental conditions could be there. Another big reason is the legal authority to do that. We just haven’t been shown that there’s going to be traffic impacts from the expansion that are going to impact and make that interconnection necessary. It just doesn’t seem like it’s reasonable. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, you tied legal authority and traffic impacts all into one sentence there. MR. HENTSCHKE-Two separate reasons. MR. MAC EWAN-Legal authority from what standpoint? MR. HENTSCHKE-Well, there’s no demonstration of any traffic impacts from our expansion, that’s going to cause there to need to be an interconnect, and if that is all that you need to, you 71 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) know, get Wal-Mart to do something for you, then we’re going to be doing a lot of things for a lot of different people that aren’t needed. There’s certain impacts that you recognize that are impacts and you build mitigation into a project for, but then there’s other ones like the interconnect with Ray Supply that DOT’s got jurisdiction over the issue. They, there’s letters from DOT saying that there’s, you know, this interconnect is not needed for traffic to mitigate traffic. It’s just going to benefit Ray Supply’s property. Recognizing that the Town Code, you know. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s pretty much paraphrasing the last letter that we received, but it’s along the same thing. I’ve got to tell you I’m disappointed. I’m very disappointed. I thought you guys would rise to the occasion and do this, you know, as your “Good Neighbor Policy”. MR. HENTSCHKE-We just want to be treated like other applicants. MR. MAC EWAN-We certainly are. We’re showing you no less treatment than we’ve done anybody else that’s walked through those doors. MR. HENTSCHKE-Right, except my understanding is that the Town Board does not require an applicant to build an applicant to build an interconnection on to somebody else’s property. It would have that jurisdiction perhaps if there was documented traffic impacts. There aren’t here. So you’ve never required anybody else to do that. Why are you asking us to do that? We just would request that you consider, take a vote or whatever you have to do, if you really need that. Poll the Board to see if everybody’s going to go there. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m not going to go that route. MR. VOLLARO-It looks like, Mr. Chairman, on January 29, 2004, New York State Department of Transportation reiterated, and so they support the idea that no adverse traffic conditions are going to be. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m just going back to the conversations we had last fall on this. That’s all. All right. Any other questions? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I can continue to go along with just looking at it. On the stormwater and sewage design, is a variance going to be required, that’s not part of ours, but I’m just stating it, that Wal-Mart’s at 16.2 on the permeability, and the Code is 30. So that’s one of your variance issues, I believe. We’ve been through the noise. I find that the 50 dba noise reduction from the roof mechanicals is, based on the 2.6 addition, is acceptable. I do have a problem with 67 db which is what I picked up out of Mr. Goodfriend’s memorandum. I think it’s high. Even though it’s reduced from 77 db by 10. There is a letter, I guess other criteria, there’s a letter from a Paul Silvestri, which is an attorney, asking for the sound barrier concerning an easement construct the sound barrier and retaining wall. There’s the C.T. Male letter of 2/13 that still has to be answered. I think there needs to be a response to the C.T. Male letter. MR. MAC EWAN-Forward all this to C.T. Male for their comments. I’d ask Staff, when we get to that point, what they have or haven’t received since this letter. MR. VOLLARO-And I guess there’s also ZBA variances required on parking and permeability. I do have a question on one of the drawings, however, that I want to get cleared up for myself. On Drawing 37.01, I notice that there are, there’s Section BB and Section AA listed on those drawings, and the drawings are intended to show how people in the first and second floor at eye level will be looking at that 20.50 height of the building, and that height now includes that two foot six inch parapet, I believe, but I notice that the crossing lines are different, and I couldn’t figure out why. If you look at your drawing, does anybody have it in front of them, 37.01? If you look at Section AA, and you’ll see that the crossing lines are just a little way from the symbol of the truck, and yet when I look at Section BB, the crossing lines are exactly at the top of the building, and they look like the exact same representation. 72 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. SPEER-Yes, sir. The difference there is that in Section BB, that’s the existing portion of the Wal-Mart, that portion of the building is closer to the property line than at Section AA, the proposed expanded portion of the Wal-Mart. So then when you see it at Section BB, the critical point would be at the proposed two and a half foot high parapet. That is the, at AA, the critical point for the person on the first floor is the wall. That’s the point where their view is intercepted. MR. VOLLARO-How do you get the building to move away from? MR. SPEER-The building is, if you see the top portion of it in the plan view, where we have denoted the Sections, AA and BB. The building at BB, near the compactor, is closer than the building is to the property line at AA. MR. VOLLARO-All right. You answered my questions. MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else? George? MR. HILTON-Just to answer your question, C.T. Male has received all application materials up to this date, including the noise information, the most recent site plan. They’ve submitted their comment letter, but I can tell you that they’ve seen all the materials that have been submitted. MR. MAC EWAN-So they still have questions based on what they had received on the sound. MR. HILTON-Well, whatever their comments, and I’d have to go back and look at them, but those comments were made, and I know that they’ve had all information up until today. MR. MAC EWAN-Specifically Items Two and Three are relative to the sound, noise. MR. HENTSCHKE-I think, if I could just jump in, I think we’ve addressed those. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think we. MR. MAC EWAN-You’ve addressed them to who, to us tonight? MR. HENTSCHKE-To the Board, yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, I know, but our in town engineers would need to have this responded to to them. That’s typically how we any review. I mean, I’m not trying to surprise anybody here, but that’s how it’s been done in the 12 years I’ve been here. Do you have any other information that you want to provide tonight, relative to your sound study and analysis? MR. HENTSCHKE-I think that’s everything. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. All right. I’ll ask you to give up the table for a few minutes and we’ll open up the public hearing. Stephanie, why don’t you come up here first, please. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED STEPHANIE DI LALLO BITTER MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. MR. MAC EWAN-Keep in mind our new policies that we enacted for 2004, four minutes per speaker during public hearing. I will give some latitude tonight. MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-I’d appreciate that. I’d first like to thank their Board for their thorough review of this application thus far. Listening to the neighbor’s concerns and dealing with the issues that have been presented. This evening tonight on behalf of Whispering Pines, I’d like to first introduce their noise engineer by the name of Kenneth Galiski from Resource 73 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) Systems Group. He’s had an opportunity to review the study that was presented by Mr. Goodfriend, and unfortunately it’s my understanding that his conclusions weren’t presented to you this evening, due to the fact that it was submitted today. We’d request that this would be presented to you. The reason for this late submission is due to the fact that we only recently obtained the Wal-Mart study, and as you know that we’ve been seeking that information for some time. That was the reason for the delay. We would have made it in a timely manner, and we would really like to present the conclusions that he had reached with the data that he had reviewed from Wal-Mart. After Mr. Galiski presents, I’m going to turn it over to Mr. Tom Nace to present some issues with the truck route, the Weeks Road access as well, some site issues that he’d like to see addressed, and then Mr. Valente would like to also discuss some issues with truck traffic, signage and the sound barrier. We would really appreciate the latitude that you’d provide for the four minute limitation. This project’s been going on since May, and the Valente’s have proceeded to put in a lot of expense and to make sure that the noise that would be generated from this expansion is mitigated in the most effective fashion. MR. MAC EWAN-Before you turn it over, answer me the $64,000 question. Is there going to be an easement provided so that they can put up the fence? MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-I’m aware that Wal-Mart did make contact with Jon Lapper and he identified to me that he was going to be presenting that to the client directly and discussing it with him. He hasn’t indicated that the easement wouldn’t be, but it still needs to have a thorough review with the client. MR. MAC EWAN-Are you, at this point, receptive to the idea of giving the easement to put up the sound barrier wall? Just work out the details kind of thing? MR. VALENTE-I’m receptive. Just work out the details. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. All right. That’s all I needed to know. KENNETH GALISKI MR. GALISKI-Thank you. My name is Kenneth Galiski. I’m Director of Environmental Services at Resource Systems Group. I did prepare a report, and I’m wondering if that could be passed out, because I’ll be going through the conclusions, and it would be easier for you to follow along. MR. MAC EWAN-What I would ask you to do is basically give us a summary of where you are. I realize that, you know, for all practical purposes you’re an opponent to this. However, we are in receipt of your report. We are in receipt of more information from Wal-Mart tonight. It’ll be passed out to the Board for us to review. I don’t see us moving forward with this thing tonight until we’ve had an opportunity to look at all this new information, as well as our Town Engineer’s review of the new information that was submitted tonight. So, if you could just summarize, that would be the best way to tackle it. MR. GALISKI-Okay. I do have one graphic that I could show to the Board. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s fine. MR. GALISKI-Okay. Just to summarize my qualifications. I’m a licensed professional in Vermont and New Hampshire, a licensed Professional Engineer in Vermont in New Hampshire, Board certified Noise Control Engineer through the Institute of Noise Control Engineering. I’m a member of the Acoustical Society of America. I’m also a member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, qualified environmental professional as certified through the Institute of Professional Environmental Practice, and also a member of the Heron Waste Management Association. I just wanted to talk about standards to start, noise standards, and the applicant’s consultant mentioned a few. The DEC noise policy, which I’ve included in the package that I’m submitting to you, specifies or discusses some standards. One of the 74 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) standards they discuss is a six decibel increase above the ambient level. They also discuss the New York State Part 360 Standards which applies to solid waste facilities. Those standards are 57 decibels, averaged over an hour, leq, during the day, 47 decibels, during the night for rural areas, and a five decibel increase for suburban areas. I think what’s really important here is to look at the nighttime levels, because I don’t think there’s really any excuse for creating sound levels that exceed sleep disturbance. You shouldn’t be waking anybody up with increased activity at the Wal-Mart site. The most recent compilation of data on sleep disturbance levels was conducted by the World Health Organization, and they put together community noise guidelines, and their sleep disturbance levels that they’ve found is 60 decibels, instantaneous, fast response maximum. So that’s the instantaneous level that would create a sleep disturbance, and an average level of 45 decibels, averaged over the night. That would be the leq. The Lewis S. Goodfriend and Associates report, my, the one I got is dated January 14, and I’m assuming th that’s the same one as yours. Because there was some discussion of additional reporting that I didn’t have. I just wanted to confirm that, specifically with reference to the refrigeration units that aren’t mentioned in that report and the back up alarms that aren’t mentioned in that report. In any event, it appears that, in that report, they evaluated nine of the fifty-one air handling units. I believe, from what’s said in the report, they only looked at the HVAC units that are within 50 feet of the edge of the building. They looked at the truck pass by and the compactor motor, and they found the 67 decibel truck pass by level at the ground floor apartments of 67 decibels. That exceeds the World Health Organization’s sleep disturbance standard, and they found that the HVAC units would be 50 decibels. As a continuous source, that would also exceed the 45 decibel World Health Organization guideline level. The compactor motor, 40 decibels would be well under both standards. The New York State DEC Noise Policy is intended to provide direction to you for the evaluation of sound. I’ll let the lawyers fight over the meaning of the wording on Page 16. In this case, I don’t believe this is a right of use. The applicant is asking for two variances, essentially to put a store that’s too large for what the zoning allows, given the limitations on parking and permeability. So, at this point, this is, in my opinion, not a right of use. In any event, the DEC guidelines serve as a good, common sense approach to what you should be seeing in a noise study, and that DEC policy asks you to look at the ambient noise level, in this case no ambient level, no ambient noise measurements were taken. They looked for the applicant to provide future noise levels. In this case there was no information on other sources of noise, such as the compressors. In the report there was no information on the refrigeration units. There’s no information on loading and unloading of the compactor. There’s no information on general loading and unloading bangs that you’d find from loading and unloading the tractor trailers, and there’s no information on truck air brakes, and if you’ve ever been sleeping behind the Wal-Mart, not necessarily outside, but the thing that you notice is when the truck stops, you hear the ssssh. That’s very noticeable at night, and that air brake noise was not considered in the analysis. Other factors considered are the increase in sound pressure levels, and if we don’t know the ambient levels, we can’t assess the increase in level. Other factors to consider are sharp and startling noises, again, those loading bangs, compactor loading bangs, and the air brakes were not considered. This is especially important, again, when you’re evaluating an operation that’s going to essentially be going all night. There’s no evaluation of frequency and tone, especially pure tones like backup alarms. There’s no evaluation of percentile noise levels like the L-90’s you mentioned. How much of the noise is going to be occurring at night, how much is going to be occurring during the day, what the frequency of the noises will be. There’s information on truck pass by levels, but how often is that going to occur and how’s that going to affect the overall noise levels? There’s no expression of the overall noise level. The average over the day, average over the night. None of those leq’s are given in the report, and then there’s talk in the DEC guidelines about appropriate receptor locations. The DEC guidelines state that appropriate receptor locations are at the property line of the parcel on which the facility is located, or at the location of the use or inhabitants on adjacent property, and in this case, there’s use in the back of the apartments, or the part of the lawn that’s facing the Wal-Mart store. The only evaluation that was done in the report was on the first, the ground floor apartments, and on the second floor apartments, which essentially it’s close, whether they look over the wall or not, whether that barrier’s going to mitigate noise from them or not. It’s on the margin. They talk about, in the DEC guidelines, about your non-industrial settings, the SPL, which is the Sound Pressure Level, should probably not exceed ambient noise by more than six decibels at the receptor. An increase of six decibels 75 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) may cause complaints. Again, ambient noise was not evaluated, so it’s impossible to establish that. The initial evaluation for most facilities should determine the maximum amount of sound created at a single point in time by multiple activities for the proposed project. Again, all we know is the instantaneous levels for certain activities. All facets of the construction and operation phase that produce noise should be included, and we only have noise for part of the operation phase. MR. MAC EWAN-All this text is incorporated in your report to us? MR. GALISKI-Yes, it is. MR. MAC EWAN-Could I ask you to summarize, please. MR. GALISKI-Sure, and in terms of the best mitigation practices, again, we don’t have any mitigation for the compressors. We don’t have, we have a 50 foot gap in the wall. We have a wall that’s not high enough to protect the second floor residences, and all of these reasons, and we don’t have any restrictions on nighttime operations, any restrictions at all. There’s no restrictions on the parking of refrigeration units in the back, for example. There’s no description of replacing the compressor fans with quieter models, or whether the HVAC units that have been chosen are the quietest available. So with respect to best management practices, there’s a lot more that should be provided by the applicant. We tried to fill in some of these holes to do some modeling on our own. We had requested information about the delivery schedules, about the rooftop units, and the compressors, and frankly we weren’t able to get the data we needed to do a full modeling run, but we did model the truck air brakes, since we did have information in our library on that. This is a bird’s eye view of the Wal-Mart and the apartments adjacent to it. These are the garages. The sound barriers as proposed by the applicant, you see the brake in this area. We have an idling truck with an air brake, and then we put HVAC units on the roof. Again, we didn’t know the source levels of the HVAC units. So we used something that was in our file. Five foot parapet, the two and a half foot parapet, all of the noise sources, well, not all of the noise sources, just a selection of them. The modeling results are shown in colors. Blue, density over 70 decibel. The reds are in the 60 decibel range, and then they go down to light green, for example, in the back, which is very low. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that included in your report as well? MR. GALISKI-For the most part. MR. MAC EWAN-The depiction? MR. GALISKI-Yes, it’s slightly different from this depiction, but it’s included. The maximum sound levels from the truck air brake are 65 decibels at the second floor apartment. Again, well over the WHO standard, and 50 decibels at the property line. We’re recommending that the applicant go back, look at background sound level monitoring, a more thorough analysis to include the maximum sound levels from all operating equipment, including the percentiles and so forth. The modeling of future noise should include both the second and first floor apartments, as well as areas of frequent given use. The mitigation should consider constructing a taller barrier, having no interruption in the barrier wall, this should look at the effect of acoustical paneling around the loading docks, adjusting delivery schedules at night, designing a holding pattern so that trucks aren’t queuing and waiting for loading dock space in the back, creating better mitigation for the compressors. MR. MAC EWAN-All that’s in your report as well? MR. GALISKI-All that’s in my report. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I’d ask you to close off, now. I’ve been letting you go 15 minutes now. 76 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. GALISKI-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-I appreciate it. MR. GALISKI-Let me just say that also in the report are suggested mitigation, not suggested mitigation, but suggested permit conditions to put in a finding, if one is so done. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Do you have an extra copy of your report to give to the applicant? Because we’re certainly probably going to ask them to respond to it. If not, you can give him my copy, George, and make me a copy. I have one question for you. I don’t know if any of the Board members have a question for you, I’d ask them, if they do, keep it to a minimum. The simple question I’ve got for you is how widely accepted is the World Health Organization’s sound standards? MR. GALISKI-The standards are based on the most recent research, so on sound levels that create sleep disturbance. So they’re relatively new. They’re, the guidelines came out in the Year 2000. So I don’t know if any towns have adopted it. MR. MAC EWAN-Most towns, most states, most government agencies use federal and state standards, depending on what state they’re in, but most of them rely on federal standards. So my question is, why did you pick the World Health Organization’s sound standards when you should have been basing your criteria on federal and state standards? MR. GALISKI-Well, there’s no federal and state standards that apply to this project. The federal standard that the applicant’s consultant mentioned, the Federal Highway Administration standard, for example, at 70 decibels, first of all, is applied to commercial areas. This is obviously a residential area. So the criteria level is 67 decibels. That is during the peak hour of traffic. Obviously, that doesn’t apply to a facility that’s operating their trucks at night, and creating sleep disturbance problems. The EPA has guideline levels, when they had their Office of Noise Control. That’s a 55 decibel, day/night average, which is essentially 45 decibels at night, 55 decibels during the day. The day night average weights, or penalizes nighttime levels by ten decibels. So that’s very consistent with the World Health Organization’s standards, which has a 45 decibel nighttime standard, but again, there are no federal and state standards that apply to this project. The most recent data that we have that suggests that sleep disturbance is created at 60 decibels, instantaneous maximum, 45 decibels continuous, and at least that’s somewhat consistent with the EPA standards. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thanks. MR. VOLLARO-I just have one question for him, and then I’ll let you go. Can you give me some idea of what the octave band center frequencies are for trucks and for the kind of mechanicals we’re looking at here? Are we above or below 1,000 cycles, generally speaking? Do you have some feel for that? MR. GALISKI-Generally truck noise centers about 500 hertz. MR. VOLLARO-Five hundred hertz. I keep going cycles, that’s going back a way. Okay. MR. GALISKI-I don’t know, offhand, what the rooftop mechanicals would be. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. Mr. Nace? MR. NACE-Okay. For the record, Tom Nace of Nace Engineering. Tonight, so far, you’ve dealt with noise and light issues. I think there’s one other issue, I know, that you’ve struggled with, in the early stages of this, but I still think needs some additional clarification addressing, and that is the general site circulation and truck access. I know that the, or understand that the applicant has stated, through the review process, that the Weeks Road entry would not be used for truck access. However, we still see an entry point on Weeks Road that is directly opposite 77 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) the truck docks, is done with heavy truck pavement, and has turning radii specifically designed for truck access. If this were truly a customer access point, the logical place for it would be opposite the main circulation aisle through the parking, where entering cars can access either the parking lot here or the parking lot here, directly. This is not a logical place for car access. Assuming that there’s going to be a traffic policeman there saying no trucks, and stopping every truck that wants to come in, then the other issue with site circulation becomes the fact that trucks have a very circuitous route to the truck dock, around the outside of the site, leaving this way. That creates some real problems, in my opinion, because of the tight turns. You’ll notice that all the turns have painted islands and curbing cut back to a wider radius. MR. MAC EWAN-And that was done, Tom, that was done several meetings ago, when we came up with that solution. MR. NACE-I realize that, but one of the issues becomes that making these tight turns, if traffic, for instance here, if traffic doesn’t honor that stop bar and pulls further out into the intersection to be able to see, where they’re normally used to stopping opposite the access lane, and a truck comes up here, can’t make that turn because the car is pulled out too far, then traffic starts to back up into the access, okay. We’re working with a site that they’re asking for a variance from parking from, I believe the requirement is 4.5 per 1,000, and they’re asking for more than a 75%, or less than 75% of that, at 3.3 per 1,000, and they’re asking for a permeability variance of about half of the required permeability. It means the site is really crammed in, and you create these circulation issues that shouldn’t be, and have the potential to create problems with the site. So those are my concerns. I think that the access point on Weeks Road really is for trucks, the way it’s designed, and if trucks have to go through the rest of the site, that it will create some problems. Thank you. MR. VALENTE-Thank you, Tom, and thank you, Ken. I would like to comment briefly, so that this Board could move on with other business, I’m sure you’d like to get to it here in the Town of Queensbury, and we certainly appreciate, Whispering Pines appreciates the time and effort that you’ve given us, particularly for the benefit of our residents relating to this issue on noise. The important thing here tonight is coming to a decision that really needs to be made on this sound barrier wall, and we have to commend Wal-Mart for at least coming forward with a barrier wall that they originally didn’t have on the table. However, we want to make sure that this barrier wall does, in fact, do the job, and looking at various evaluations on noise, I’ve learned that there’s contrary opinions to what’s adequate or appropriate in this regard. So I would hope that this Board would take the time to look at our evaluation and our study to show you that we think that the sound barrier wall that’s being proposed gets reconsidered and constructed in a manner that would be appropriate and get the job done. The other issue is that of the truck traffic, and the Good Neighbor Policy that Wal-Mart has indicated they would be maintaining for this expansion. The one thing that we fear, as property owners and residents residing at Whispering Pines, is that we’ve got trucks and refrigerated trucks going back in and out of Wal-Mart all night long. Not only is the traffic pattern somewhat congested and confusing as Mr. Nace has just indicated, but at the same time that there are holding patterns that aren’t really understood, and our feeling is that if we’re going to move forward on a sound barrier wall and this particular expansion, that we have to also consider where to put all these trucks and the management of this traffic pattern and this holding pattern and this Good Neighbor Policy remains to be seen, and I would think that at some point that we would work into the final resolution to this so called SEQRA that we have special conditions put forth that would make sure that all of the issues that we’ve tried to address, concerning, you know, this traffic and this noise and lighting and everything else, that somewhere we can come back to these items and point out that these things aren’t being followed, and that there’s a mechanism in place for us to see to it that these things get satisfied and I would think that the Board here, being that this noise issue is becoming a very critical issue for about 50 some odd residents residing at Whispering Pines, that they pay very close attention to the wall that they’re trying to build. Thank you for your time. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Stephanie, will the Town get cc’d on your correspondence to Wal-Mart regarding the easement? 78 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-Yes, we can arrange that. MR. MAC EWAN-When do you expect that will take place, do you know? MRS. DI LALLO BITTER-Probably within the week. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thanks. Anyone else? BRAD BENJAMIN MR. BENJAMIN-Hi. My name’s Brad Benjamin. I live here in Queensbury. I could put a little bit of light on the delivery schedule. I’ve been a grocery driver for Wal-Mart for two years. So I have a good insight on our delivery policies there, and your refrigerated trailers are not left at stores. The only time you’ll find a refrigerated trailer at a store running left is a cooler breaks down, they have a power outage, you know, something to the extreme circumstances that they’re trying to save their product. Your general merchandise deliveries are usually during the day. They are drop and hook like the gentleman said, you know, a guy will come in, drop his load or grab the empty. They’re in and out in 10 minutes flat, you know. Refrigerated trailers are usually done during the day. You’ll have one night delivery, generally every other day, takes about twenty minutes to deliver. New York State law says you can’t idle a truck more than five minutes in the State of New York. So that shouldn’t be an issue. MR. MAC EWAN-A lot of times it is because unfortunately a lot of truckers don’t pay attention to the law. MR. BENJAMIN-Unless it gets extremely cold, like it is now, the law’s not in effect, you know, in the wintertime I think it’s below 40 degrees the law gets out of effect. Wal-Mart’s pretty strict and most of the stores I’ve ever delivered at, you shut your truck off. The trailers run 20 below zero inside in one of the zones, our three zone trailers. So one zone’s 20 below. I’ll tell you from personal experience, we shut the refer’s off when we get to the store. Nobody wants to go in a 20 degree below trailer. It’s not something you want to do. So the sound of the refer trailers is generally not an issue, except for coming and going after you’ve turned it on. All their refer’s, probably unlike the studies that these guys had, you know, using, Wal-Mart buys top of the line equipment for their trailers. Wal-Mart owns all their refrigerated trailers. They’re all Thermal King Whisper editions. They’re all brand new, a year old is probably the oldest trailer you’ll find, and they’re extremely quiet. I can sleep in my sleeper with that refer running and barely hear it, through the sleeper wall, and you’re only talking, you know, it’s two and a half feet away from my head. Wal-Mart’s trucks, you know, they’re getting all new trucks, the new EGR Valve trucks, much quieter than anything that’s been on the market before. The new EPA law states our trucks have to be so much quieter now. The emissions are a lot lower. This other gentleman was talking about all the tight turns and stuff. Wal-Mart usually does a pretty good job accessing these roads so that we can maneuver our trucks around pretty good. I mean, we run 53 foot trailers and pretty long tractors. We’re 72 feet long, and they do a good job with their parking lot, making sure that we can get in and out safely. As far as entering off Weeks Road, in the back there, like I said, we’re 72 feet long. A driver’s only going to enter that parking lot on Weeks Road one time, because there isn’t going to be enough room to turn around in there. They aren’t going to do it twice, you know, you’re going to get back in there and you’re not going to have enough room to make a U-turn with that truck to get in those loading docks. So entering on that, I believe it’s called Weeks Road, should never be an issue, because once you turn in to their parking lot, you’re going to be SOL. I mean, you’re not going to be able to get it turned around. So, that’s about all I’ve got for it. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. Mr. Goetz? MR. BENJAMIN-Mr. Chairman, you said you saw the trucks idling out there the other night, when you went in and when you went out. A lot of times that’s because they probably ran out of hours that they need to (lost words). They tried to go out by the main road. (Lost words) 79 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. GEORGE GOETZ MR. GOETZ-We know it’s late. We’ll try to be brief. While you’re looking at some of those, I’d just like to comment to a couple of things that were just said by the Wal-Mart representatives. My name is George Goetz, Ray Supply. First of all, to the best of my knowledge, we did get the topographical map to the Wal-Mart people, at least I remember pulling it out and instructing somebody to give it to them. They also have no expense for an interconnect, because their property goes right up to the edge of our woods. So, they don’t have to do anything. All the expense would be ours. Actually they infringe upon our property back there. They can come on to our property anytime. They’re invited. All they have to do is get from their insurance company additional insured, and they don’t have to pay any money for that, from their insurance policy, and they’re covered. Finally, they didn’t mind coming on to our property when they first built their store here. We gave them an easement. The easement was to come through our parking lot, so that they could put their building up, so they didn’t have to spend thousands of dollars going up the other side of Route 9 to be able to put the sewer system in, which I believe was a requirement for them to build that structure. So, yes, we’ve been helpful to you. MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Goetz, their sewer easement runs through your property? MR. GOETZ-Yes, sir. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m trying to recall, going back, I was on the Board when that did that, and I remember part of it was cutting through The Great Escape sign area property, I think, and as you recall your property as well. MR. GOETZ-It comes right up the middle of our front lot. We didn’t charge them for it. What you’re looking at are pictures of Wal-Mart on December 13, Saturday, December 13. There’s thth really four month, there, presently, is four months of the year where they really hurt us big time, the ability of our customers to get in and out of our facility, and that’s July through the end of December. Now, if you notice on those pictures, it takes up probably 95% of the parking lot. It even goes right up, the cars even go up to where the diner is. Now, it also the cars went all in front of Ames, and it’s true, that happens on holidays. It happens in August, during race season. It happens in July. It happens the rest of the time of year. That’s now. Their traffic study did not include December. It did not include holidays, and who knows what time of day it did include. Now let’s get to the next point. Our interest isn’t to try to stop Wal-Mart. They’re a good company, and these seem like good guys. The problem is we’re looking for the protection of the people in the Town of Queensbury, plus the protection of our company. Now, we can survive the way it is now. Even though those four months are a struggle. I would like to show you something. Those are two pictures of two different aisles going down Price Chopper. These were done just on a regular day. It was done at 1:30, when I happened to be going there for some soup. I pulled out the camera, because I was amazed how full the parking lot was. Now what am I getting to? Guess who is the largest supermarket in the United States? Wal-Mart. Now that’s good for them. I don’t begrudge that, but what I begrudge is the fact the State, and other people, have been doing figures that don’t realize how much additional parking, and how many more additional cars, are going to be coming through. Now, if we can just barely survive now, what’s going to happen, what’s going to happen in August and December? We don’t make any money. We lose money as a company, January through the end of May. What if our customers can’t get in to us? We’ve been in the Town of Queensbury since 1955. Now, if all of those cars, now you have to say if Wal-Mart’s the biggest supermarket, then obviously they’re going to have more cars at their supermarket than Price Chopper would have. So what’s going to happen if you add all those cars to what’s already in their parking lot? Now, I know their engineer gave some sort of formula which accounts for cars going here and there, people buying from here and there, and so let’s discount those figures maybe 20% of what you see in Price Chopper parking lot, but there’s still going to be that many more cars. I don’t think 80 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) it’s fair. It’s not fair to the people of Queensbury because they’re going to have a traffic problem. There’s going to be a safety issue. There’s a safety issue now for our people, and there’s even going to be a larger safety issue, and I will shut up for now, and Keith Zoll, our company Vice President, will speak. KEITH ZOLL MR. ZOLL-Yes, my name is Keith Zoll, and I just wanted to make a comment on a statement made at a previous meeting. I’m sorry, there’s been quite a few of them, so I couldn’t tell you which meeting that was, but the statement made was a comment based upon a decision made on a previous project on Quaker Road, where a decision was able to be made, again, you would have required that applicant to make the interconnect, and you regretted that not happening. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, I’m the guilty party. MR. ZOLL-We thank you for your position up to this point, and we do hope that you can take that into consideration and re-open the conversation about our traffic situation, because it seems that it’s getting closed quickly. The mere fact that this building is being considered and that Wal-Mart is moving in to this situation and asking for this to be put before you, would tell any business person that they are expecting a significant increase in traffic and business. It was mentioned at this table earlier this evening there’s been no documentation proving that this would take place. I rebut that by saying there have been two studies that have been presented. One was anonymous. We still don’t know, I believe, who presented that, but they were both by professional organizations, and they were contrary to what the State was saying. I do hope that you can take that back into consideration, think about it again before you make your decision, and at the very least, if you agree that there’s been nothing that’s been proven, put some type of stipulation into it in that if we can prove in the future that this is creating a traffic problem, that they would have to come back on to this site and create that interconnect. Thank you. GREG GOETZ MR. G. GOETZ-Greg Goetz, Vice President, Ray Supply. I would like to address a comment made earlier by legal counsel for Wal-Mart stating that they did not want to build the interconnect because it was not required by the State of New York Department of Transportation. Well, I have a letter dated January 29 from the Department of Transportation, th addressed to George Goetz at Ray Supply, and in this letter is a sentence. The Department of Transportation cannot require this interconnect, because they do not have jurisdiction over it. They go on to say that we have suggest it be considered, and I say they have suggested it be considered by the Town of Queensbury and Wal-Mart because they see it as the only viable means, in the short term, to address concern for traffic exiting the northern exit of Ray Supply. What this is saying is it isn’t a Department of Transportation issue. It’s an issue of the Board and of the Town. Secondly, and this is an opinion of mine based on what we’ve seen tonight. We spent a lot of time talking about floodlights on a building because the claim from Wal-Mart is it’s for safety reasons. When I think all of us in this room, at least to some degree, believe it’s all about brand recognition. Recognizing the color of paint on the building at night, and I find it offensive that they will sit here and fight over floodlights, claiming safety, yet brush off a traffic issue, which in my opinion is a much greater safety concern and as a person who exits this parking lot four to five times a day, it’s almost impossible today to make a left hand turn. Three times today we had to use the center median, in a van, to make a delivery because of traffic flow. So I would ask the Board to consider safety before brand recognition. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MR. GEORGE GOETZ-Thank you very much for your time and for your patience. NICK CAIMANO 81 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. CAIMANO-My name is Nick Caimano, and I live at 36 Surrey Field Drive in Queensbury, and for the record, I am also obviously a Warren County Supervisor at Large from the Town of Queensbury, and I don’t want to take any more of your time. I’ve been over there. I know how late this gets and how terribly boring it gets, but I want to have you focus on something, especially after George and his Vice Presidents have left the table. One of the shots that’s taken at the big box is that they put the little guy out of business, and no one does it better than Wal- Mart, and they should be congratulated. They are one of the largest corporations in this world, maybe, and that’s fine, but the people at Ray Supply decided, when they first built it, first built Wal-Mart, that they were going to change their ways. Because one of the ways to stay in business, if you’re the little guy, is to focus on what you do best, and never mind what the big guys do. So they did that, and they didn’t come and complain about Wal-Mart being here. Now Wal-Mart is going to expand. Once again, George, Keith, they come up here and say, we’re not complaining about that. What we’re asking for is a little help here, Mr. Wal-Mart. Peter says we don’t want to be treated differently, but, yes, they do. They’re one of the largest corporations in the world, who should be treated differently, by you, and by the townspeople of this Town. By the Ray Supply’s. He’s still in business. They still do their things for the small people of this Town, and if you’ve ever shopped in Ray Supply, you know how God damn hard it is to come in and out of there in that traffic, and anybody who denies there’s a traffic problem probably has never been in there. Ray Supply did what all small retailers are told to do when the big boxes come here. Pick your niche, stay with it, survive and grow. That’s what they’ve done. I find the Wal-Mart attitude about this unbelievably unconscionable. You would think that just because they get the bad rap, they would go out of their way. You would think they would have known that to use Ray Supply to help build their first big store, the first store, and that now they’re complaining that they can’t go on Ray Supply’s property to build a connector road. What nonsense. It’s arrogance, and I would hope that when we get through with all, I know it’s going to come to pass, and we’re going to have the right sound and the right lighting and all that kind of stuff, but let’s reward the local retailer who does the job right. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? STEVE DAVIS MR. DAVIS-Steve Davis. I’m here to talk about lighting, everybody’s favorite topic. I would like to add some clarifications to the diagrams that were enclosed in my letter. First, the floodlights. The diagram is drawn to scale with a length of each light ray corresponding to its intensity and spaced at 10 degree intervals. I did it originally for a 33 foot mounting height and then modified it for the 25 feet by raising the ground and the building up, as shown by the dotted line in the diagram. As you can see, there’s considerably up light, which produces white nights. This isn’t particularly pleasing when sitting out on the balcony at Whispering Pines and requires the use of shades to sleep at night. In fact, there have been studies showing both the physical and psychological damage to humans from improper lighting. The red lines are the light rays, and the dotted line I referred to is the green dashes. The lower portion of the beam just adds to the parking lot which is already two and a half times above nationally recognized standards. As for the primary target, the building, it’s five times greater than what is allowed by Code. The diagram on your sheet, the lower right shows the addition of a visor. It does little, unless the light is aimed down at least 45 degrees. Again, the red lines represent the light rays. This diagram to the right of that one on your sheet shows the mounting position and beam spread for the left light of each pair of floodlights mounted on a pole. Just flip it over for the other floodlight. Below that diagram on your sheet is the combined pattern of each pair of floodlights. The center part is the overlap, and the sides show the spill path 90 degrees on each side of center. The diagram on the other side of your sheet of paper shows the effect of pole spacing on the parking lot. Too much overlap is not effective use of beam spread when one light already provides enough light. You don’t need uniformity in outdoor lighting. You need just enough to get from the store to the car. The problem with the parking lot starts with too high a minimum level chosen for the design. As for the wall packs, which haven’t been addressed by the Board, they’re four times brighter than present and create safety issues with too much light underneath and very dark areas behind the storage containers out back. With all this in mind, and after reading the two pages of Chapter 22, exterior lighting in the IES 82 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) handbook, which I copied and added to the back of my letter, I can’t see where the lighting is community responsive, addresses light pollution and light trespass, or saves energy. All of which are the main thrusts of the Queensbury Code. Fixing the problems is easy. Also, Queensbury is not New Jersey, but it’s starting to look that way. Unless there are any questions, that’s all I have for the moment. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. KEVIN BRENNAN MR. BRENNAN-My name’s Kevin Brennan, long term resident of this area in Queensbury. I had a couple of comments regarding some re-reviews of the plan that’s before you, just some missions that I would request the Board look into, or at least address in some way, and they’re mostly in regard to lighting. One of the things I noticed is that the lighting under the awnings is not addressed in the applicant’s site plan, and I haven’t really heard it being addressed by the Board, but that’s part of the overall lighting that you’re going to see around the facility. Also, I didn’t recall seeing anything in the site plan or reviewed here about lighting the sign out front. The sign of which is also a subject, I believe, of the applicant’s variance request. The reasoning given in the applicant’s response letters for a sign twice the size allowed is also a subject, in my opinion. I don’t think it’s in keeping with the character of Queensbury and moving forward from here as far as what we’re doing as far as our development. Another question is, why can’t the high pressure sodium code be met, or the implied code? If not, here’s an option, according to the IES handbook and guidelines. Metal halide lighting allows for greater visibility, with lower lumen wattages. So why can’t the fixtures that are in place be reduced as far as wattage? And I’m talking about the fixtures on the 30 foot poles? After the many meetings that have been held on this, 5/22, 7/17, 9/18, 11/20 and 12/11, I haven’t really seen, up until tonight, any significant progress whatsoever made out of lighting. The only progress to this point had been the removal of one light pole, and reducing the height of the floodlights. The floodlights of which the whole idea of floodlights, I think, is a bad idea, but at least some progress has been made, and somebody else echoed my last comment, but based on the comments of a previous meeting, I felt that the Board recognized that all of the issues around lighting were really about advertising, and wrapping up all the requests for the variances under the premise of safety really makes me ill, and also the applicant’s unwillingness to meet the spirit of the Code I also find displeasing. That’s all I had. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? We’ll leave the public hearing open. Mr. Hentschke, do you want to come back up, please. Anything you want to add? MR. HENTSCHKE-Are there any specific questions? There’s a lot of comments about various things, a lot of which have been, we believe, covered before. Various issues are coming back. Some people have been here for the first time bringing up stuff that we’ve gone over with the Board before, and I’m not sure if there’s anything specifically that the Board wants us to respond to. MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t know if that, you know, whether new or old issues, otherwise, or whatever, but there’s still, I think there’s still some issues that obviously have been hanging out there for some time now that we need to bring some sort of closure to, and my concern, as Chairman, is that we have all the answers that we’re looking for, at least enough of an information for us to review in order for us to make an informed decision when it comes to SEQRA, and I’ve talked about it before for several meetings now, and the two major concerns I have when we do the SEQRA is both noise and lighting. I think we’re close. I honestly think we’re close in coming up with what we’re looking for here, and I guess I’ll put it to the Board, what I’d like to do tonight is table this again tonight. I’d like to give you guys an opportunity to respond the consultants, the neighbor’s sound consultant’s report, make sure you get a copy of that to take with you tonight, and in turn I want that report to go to our Town Engineer along with the data that you’ve provided. I’m also going to ask, for me, I’d like to get the cut sheets on all the rooftop units, s we can know what the decibels are on those, for the new addition. I honestly think that next month we can come to some closure on this thing. I really do. 83 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. SANFORD-Mr. Chairman, Bob had talked to me just briefly and had a suggestion, I think it’s not a bad one, and that is, you’re scheduled to come back here again, what is it, next week. MR. HENTSCHKE-Tomorrow night for the ZBA, but the idea was to come back before you next week. MR. SANFORD-Okay. His idea was, you heard what was discussed tonight about the lighting, noise, and that kind of thing. Wouldn’t it be, why don’t you come back with your bottom line presentation on what you’re willing to do and we’ll vote it up or down. MR. MAC EWAN-Rich, it’s not that simple. We need to get through SEQRA first. You need to do that Environmental Assessment Form. MR. SANFORD-Well, I don’t know if we’re ever going to make too much progress the way we’re going on these items now, but, you know, maybe if the applicant recognized the fact that we’re looking for their final presentation regarding lowering the lights and doing what they can with the noise, they might make some progress on the direction we’re looking to obtain and we might get closure on this. I think by shifting paper back and forth, to all the engineers is fine. It’s just going to be taking a lengthy process and making it lengthier. I’m just weighing in. I think that’s my opinion on it. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, the way I look at it, too, we could have been done and over with this application probably three, possibly four meetings ago had we gotten the information we required several months ago. So the delay in getting any kind of approvals or consideration of approvals, I don’t think, is incumbent upon this Board. We asked for information. Sometimes we didn’t get the information. Sometimes we got half the information, and I don’t think there’s any, with any application that ever comes through that door, there’s never a rush to judgment on anything that we’re considering for approval. MR. SANFORD-That’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m suggesting, at this particular point in time, I think it’s pretty clear what the couple of remaining items are, and we’re not seeing eye to eye. I’d like them to come back and see what kind of progress they can make in moving more in the direction that I think that the public has talked about. MR. MAC EWAN-When are you going to have that, the night of a meeting you’re going to have someone walk in here and give you a whole bunch of submittals the night of a meeting, take five minutes out and try to digest it and come up with a decision? MR. SANFORD-If it’s not next week, as soon as they can come back with a revised, revisions if they’re willing to do them. If they’re not willing to do them, that’s their position, and we have to deal with it. MR. VOLLARO-I think, Craig, if they’re not willing to do some of the things, what you said is correct, we’re going to have to go through the SEQRA. If we know what they’ve got when we do the SEQRA, we can consider whether or not it’s a high impact or low impact and whether there’s any mitigation that they can provide to help us, but we need to know, eventually to do a SEQRA we’ve got to know where they are. Otherwise we can’t talk to the SEQRA. If this thing is constantly in motion, we’d never talk to the SEQRA. You know when you’ve got to answer those questions, it’s very difficult to do. MR. SANFORD-And I’m sure the applicant wants closure on this. MR. SILVESTRI-Yes, we do, and as a matter of fact, Paul Silvestri for Harter, Seacrest, we think we’re there tonight. If we go through the tabling resolution from the last meeting, we talked about noise data to go along with the sound wall at the western property line. We have provided that. This project is about 10 months now, and it wasn’t until today that a neighbor brings in a noise expert and hits your table with the report to try to counteract the studies that 84 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) we’ve provided, and again, he’s relying on, and I’ll go through each of these points very quickly, but he’s relying on a DEC guidance, which the same guidance says that, with the right of use, which we do have, it’s a currently existing Wal-Mart, in a commercially zoned property. That’s a right of use. The variances we’re looking for aren’t related to sound generating issues. We’re willing to build this very expensive sound wall. We’re willing to build the parapets, as we’ve discussed. That’s the mitigation, and we have an expert here to say that’s best management practice mitigation. If you have that sound wall and the parapets up, you don’t need to start looking for the quietest compressor. We’re not impacting on the ambient noise level. Our expert tonight just said the sound barrier and the parapets is going to make it better, sound wise, than it is currently today. I don’t know what more we can do there. Update on the status of noise mitigation materials on the loading dock wall. Well, we’ve clarified that the loading dock wall would go. Our expert says that he doesn’t see that that’s much of an appreciable difference when we have the large sound wall there. the floodlights, we’re willing to go to the 250 watts that we discussed tonight. Verification on construction for the interconnect. We’ve caucused with Wal-Mart, after hearing the Ray Supply. We’re willing to provide that interconnect, and we’ve talked about the parapet screening. MS. RADNER-I’m sorry. Can you clarify what you mean by willing to supply? MR. SILVESTRI-We’ve already said we’d do the easement. We’d pay for the interconnect as well, including on Ray Supply property. MS. RADNER-Okay. MR. SILVESTRI-And as you were saying, I mean, it’s been a lengthy process, and our concern is we come again, in another month, and we’re going to be hit with a whole other round of experts on a whole bunch of other issues, and it may be never ending. MR. SANFORD-I know, but I think we can make some progress on your lighting. I think that that’s something that (lost words). I’d just like to hear your bottom line on this, and then take a look at SEQRA. MR. MAC EWAN-That gives C.T. Male enough time to look at both these reports and give us their informed decision. Because there isn’t one of us up here who’s a noise expert. All right. So what kind of information are you looking for them to additional provide to help you make up your minds? The way I see it we’re down to two issues. We’re down to noise, and we’re down to lighting. I think everything else that we have concerns about is based on a condition of approval, whether it be the interconnect, whether it be eliminating or reducing wattage on floodlights, whether it’s having no truck access on Weeks Road, whether it’s, you know, the sign is out by Route 9 which we talked about literally months ago, the Board wasn’t in favor of having that huge sign. We wanted the standard, what was allowed by the zone. So, I guess, what do we need to do here? What do we need to have them provide more? MR. HUNSINGER-I think, personally, I think we can get through SEQRA, for the reasons that they just gave, because the proposed build out is quieter than what is there now, and I think that was some of the things that got lost in some of the discussion. I’m not discounting the engineering report that was just submitted tonight, but the evidence that they have provided I think clearly shows the noise levels will be less if they build the wall than they are now. So I don’t know what else we would need in order to get through SEQRA on that issue. That’s just my feeling. MR. METIVIER-I can go along with that. I would feel comfortable with that. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Rich? MR. SANFORD-I would like to see them take another stab at coming closer to where we are on the lighting and, I mean, there were a couple of questions on the noise. I’m not sure why (lost 85 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) word) wall, but there’s a reason for that, but, you know, when the public commented on that, I said I’m not sure why there’s that hole in the wall. GIRARD FITAMANT MR. FITAMANT-It’s an existing transformer. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, there was a NiMo mini substation back there, right? Which would cost humungous amounts of dollars to have NiMo move the thing. MR. HENTSCHKE-It’s also at the southern end, right? So there’s going to be very few trucks passing by that open gap location. MR. MAC EWAN-Hopefully none. MR. HENTSCHKE-Right. MR. SANFORD-I mean, what I’d like to do, Craig, is have them come back, and if they come back in and say, look it, we’re not going to move on the noise because we feel we’ve adequately addressed it, I mean, I’ll take that for what it’s worth, but I think that they might be able to do more on the lighting and I’m here to, I’m glad to hear what they had to say about connect to Ray Supply. MR. MAC EWAN-It pleases me. MR. HUNSINGER-But, you know, the comment that I did want to make a couple of minutes ago, though, just to give you some reference. We approved a hotel expansion recently, the Econo Lodge right at Exit 19, and we made them provide us cut sheets of the HVAC units that were going in, because the wall of that hotel was so close to the neighborhood and there were concerns about noise. So I do think it is still relevant to talk about the noise levels of some of the roof mounted units, and to make sure that we’re doing the best that we can, you know, even though I already said I understand it’s going to be quieter now, you know, after the project than it is now, that doesn’t mean that we don’t look at some of those additional, you know, minor mitigation issues. MR. SILVESTRI-And as you indicated, that could be done as part of the site plan approval process, separate from the SEQRA determination, and I guess I would also ask the Board, in the discussion of lighting, we want to have further discussion of lighting, are you at the point now where you’re saying if we’re saying a 250 watt floodlight in the front of the building, does that rise to the level of a significant impact, or is it more of a detail for code compliance that can be worked out during the site plan approval process? Again, I think tonight we’re at a point where we could, and Wal-Mart would like to see us move on with a negative declaration of environmental significance, given what’s being proposed at this point in time and then if need be some additional changes could be made during the site plan review and approval process, such as, you know, the cut out review, the review of additional lighting scheme. MR. VOLLARO-Normally when you go through your SEQRA and you come up with a negative declaration, you answer certain questions. Then when you get to the site plan review, typically their response is, well, it passed SEQRA in that area, why are you asking for any further mitigation? That goes to play on both ends, and I’ve seen that happen on this Board. MR. SANFORD-I would like to hear from you, see if we can get a consensus on a comfort level, then do the SEQRA, for the reasons that I think Bob hit upon. Then that becomes sort of an argument on why there shouldn’t be further reduction on lights because it wasn’t an issue in SEQRA. I think you said it well, Bob, but I’d like to get to that particular point, and again, I’m not trying to force anything on the applicant here. What I’m saying is, let’s stop fooling around with this. Come back and give us basically your final presentation on what you’re willing to do and then we’ll deal with it. 86 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. VOLLARO-At least we’ll know what to say on SEQRA. MR. MAC EWAN-I want you to be very specific about what you’re asking these gentlemen to do. Because next month I want this thing to come to some conclusion. When you say that you want them to get closer to the lighting. MR. SANFORD-I want to see them come up with a final lighting plan. MR. MAC EWAN-In their opinion, you’ve got it. That’s their opinion right now. MR. SILVESTRI-You’ve got it. MR. SANFORD-And I’m saying that’s fine. If they want to come back and say, we’ve got it, then we’ll make a determination whether or not it’s a major impact or not on SEQRA, but give them the opportunity to incorporate into their thinking process what they heard tonight, and maybe they’ll come back with something slightly different than that, maybe a little bit lower intensity in terms of lighting. MR. FITAMANT-Commissioner Sanford, what we’ve heard tonight is no different than what we’ve been hearing, and we’ve brought the lighting plan down to the most reasonable lighting that we see fit. If this floodlight, and that seemed to be the only focus tonight was the floodlight, 400 watts versus 250. We brought it down to 250. MR. MAC EWAN-Versus not having them at all. MR. FITAMANT-Or versus not having them at all. Now that could be a consideration in the detailed review of the site plan. I don’t see that as a SEQRA issue, in going, moving forward with the SEQRA determination tonight, and I submit to you that these plans, as you see them tonight, I haven’t heard anything tonight that would warrant any changes to the plans that you have before you. MR. SANFORD-Well, no, if that’s your position, that’s your position. I mean, you know, again, I thought it would be appropriate to give you the opportunity to think about what you’ve heard tonight and maybe come a little bit closer to what some of these people in the audience and the Board has talked about. I think it’s clear what we would like to see. We would like to see lower light intensity, and, I’m not sure what you can do, but it would be preferred if that noise level could come down a little bit. Now if you’re saying you can’t do it, and you’re willing to let the vote go with what you have here, then fine, I think we do want to have, as the Chairman pointed out, we do want to have our engineers look at some of these studies as well, and then maybe we could just go with it, but I thought it would, as a courtesy, it would be a good idea to give you an opportunity to come a little bit closer to where I think you’ve heard tonight. MR. FITAMANT-We appreciate that opportunity. As I’ve mentioned, the lighting plans, we’ve raised them. We’ve lowered them. We’ve tweaked them to the point where we’ve met the Wal- Mart criteria. We’ve met, as much as possible, the Town criteria, and, having said that, we’ve been basically addressing all of these issues, and have been for 10 months. We’re to the point where we’ve gotten this plan down and tweaked it to the point where we’re not, I don’t see any direction. MR. SANFORD-I appreciate that, but then, you know, your attorney, at the 12 hour here, th threw a bone in regarding the interconnect. Now there was a movement from your position, it took place sort of as an effort to maybe, you know, to get rid of a hot spot. So, you know, I hear you talking, but maybe you are willing to give a little bit. MR. FITAMANT-Well, I see where you’re coming from, and if you think there’s anymore bones in pile, there aren’t any. 87 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. MAC EWAN-The issue boils down to the responsibility of this Board. Bound by the Town Ordinances, State SEQRA law, and it’s us who’s going to have to have the final position. It’s us who’s going to have to bear the decision making, whether it’s the right decision or the wrong decision, or how be it. Based on the fact, in my opinion, that we’ve got this letter from C.T. Male we received the other day. They have two significant questions regarding noise. Based on the fact that the presentation that was made to us tonight and the information that was provided in the report, I’m not 100% a noise expert. I’m not even 50% a noise expert, and I doubt I’m 30% a noise expert. Given the fact that you’ve got neighbors who supplied a document tonight that they would want us to review. In my mind, you take in all the information, pros and cons, and you try to sift through it and digest it. I would want, at the very least, an opportunity for our Town Engineers to review the noise analysis and give us their opinion. They’re asking questions here that they don’t have answers to, and for us to get through SEQRA, I need to know, in my mind, that we can mitigate every one of these issues, whether it’s relative to noise, lighting, stormwater, or traffic. In order to get to that, you need to have all the information that you can possibly get your hands on to make an informed decision. MR. FITAMANT-Addressing the mitigation of noise, a $300,000 sound wall, if that is. MR. MAC EWAN-If you don’t get an easement from the neighbors, we can’t mitigate it, can we? MR. FITAMANT-Correct. MR. MAC EWAN-So that’s an open issue right now. Based on that, I mean, if we started SEQRA tonight, and we started going through that EAF, and the question is, can the noise be mitigated, my answer would be, as I know it today, as you’re trying to push the issue, the answer is no, because you don’t have an easement from the neighbor to allow you to build a sound wall that will allow you to do the mitigation you’re looking to do. We’re pretty much 99% sure it’s going to happen, but I’d rather have all my ducks in a row legally, and from a State SEQRA law to make sure that we’re going to be doing the right thing. MR. HENTSCHKE-But it’s a mitigation to the most practicable extent. I mean, if they don’t grant the easement, that’s not the most practicable mitigation that we can do. I mean, it’s under the circumstances that you can do, best management practices under the conditions. MR. MAC EWAN-But if the impacts far exceed the mitigations that you can provide to this Board, the next step that would throw you into is an Environmental Impact Statement, and I don’t think anybody wants to go down that route. Do you? MR. HENTSCHKE-Agreed. MR. MAC EWAN-I’ve had experience with that, and it’s not fun. So if we can’t just put this off just one more month so we can get everything that we need to have to make an informed decision, I will guarantee you that we’ll come up with a decision on SEQRA next month. MR. FITAMANT-If we had quantified values that you were looking for, we don’t know what it is that will happen between now and next month that would make our submission any different. MR. MAC EWAN-In my mind, what I want to see happen is I want our Town Engineers to get a hold of both those noise reports and give us their analysis of what their conclusion is and what that shows, and in conjunction with that, I would ask you to provide, as soon as possible, the cut sheets for all the rooftop units that we know what the dba’s are on that. MR. SANFORD-Craig, could we maybe have a special meeting? MR. MAC EWAN-Well, I’m just trying to think, you know, what’s our schedule next month? I know we’ve got the 2 for Great Escape. That literally could take two hours all by itself. I’m nd 88 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) willing to give some consideration here, but by the same token, it’s frustrating when, you know, it’s kind of like being put on us that, you know, we’re holding up the whole ball of wax here, when we haven’t been. MR. HILTON-Well, you still have to consider that the Zoning Board of Appeals has to grant some variances before this plan can be finally approved. MR. MAC EWAN-Right. We need to get through SEQRA. So we’ll do the SEQRA step. MR. HILTON-Right. So even if you have a special meeting, you’re still looking at the first ZBA meeting and the second Planning Board meeting. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m confident we can get through the EAF and come to some conclusion, based on, I would feel very comfortable getting C.T. Male’s response to this thing. We’re looking for both reports. MR. HILTON-When you say both, I’m sorry? MR. MAC EWAN-I’m talking about the one that came from the neighbors tonight and the additional information regarding the cut sheets, because they asked for it here in their letter, on the cut sheets of the rooftop units. MR. HILTON-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. So we can come to some conclusion, and I stress and I urge the Board members, is there anything else that you need to have to make a decision. These two guys seem to be set down there. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, no, I want to sort of step back. I agree with you. I don’t see how we can say that noise has been mitigated until we know that they will grant the easement. I think that would be enough to postpone that. MR. MAC EWAN-We need you to get on that post haste, so we have a decision on that, on getting that easement. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, I don’t think you need to have anything signed, but, you know, something. MR. MAC EWAN-Just a letter of agreement or something. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. A letter of intent, maybe. MS. RADNER-The applicant already provided it. They’re just waiting for a yes or no. MR. HENTSCHKE-We’re waiting for a response back. MR. MAC EWAN-And Stephanie indicated earlier tonight that they were looking like within a week you were going to have some sort of agreement for you to review. MR. HENTSCHKE-And I guess we certainly will hope we will receive that, because of course the fear would be that the project gets held up in arguments over what should be a very simple just construction, temporary construction easement with a permanent easement for maintenance and repair only. MR. MAC EWAN-This Board has all the confidence in your legal abilities to pull it off. 89 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. HENTSCHKE-May I also, in light of what you were saying, request, also given the fact that there’s been ample opportunity for public comment, that you at least close the public hearing aspect of this. MR. MAC EWAN-I won’t do that until after we get right the point where we do SEQRA. Procedurally, I’ll do that every time. When I get to the point where I know we’re going to do SEQRA, then that’s when I’ll close the public hearing. MR. HENTSCHKE-Because of course our concern is we’ll hear something more, again. MR. MAC EWAN-We’ll take it under consideration. At this point I think people have had enough of an opportunity to say their piece and provide what data, documents, reports, what they want to provide. I think we need to be clear on this from a the noise standpoint before we move farther with this. I’m only looking at it from the legal issue. I honestly am. MR. VOLLARO-One thing I’d like to look at real hard is floodlights versus no floodlights. MR. MAC EWAN-I’ll go on the record right now, I won’t support the floodlights at all. Don’t need them. It’s not going to help safety. It’s not going to be a crime deterrent. It’s not needed. MR. VOLLARO-I think there’s enough light out there to do what you’ve got to do, and I just don’t see those lights adding one iota to the safety of that site. That’s where I am on that. I guess I’m with the Chairman on that one. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Anything else? No? No other information anybody needs? George? MR. HILTON-Just from a schedule, I just want to nail this down so we all know what we’re doing next month, when we’re meeting. MR. SILVESTRI-You do want cut sheets on the roof mounted? MR. MAC EWAN-Cut sheets for the rooftop units. MR. SILVESTRI-In a way that’s related to the parapet issue. MR. MAC EWAN-Right. MR. VOLLARO-The parapet issue sets with New York State Building Code. I mean, you’re maxed out to what you can do. I’m happy with it. MR. HUNSINGER-I did have one other comment on the rooftop units. The ones that are visible, I think we would like to see painted the same color as the roof. That was something we had talked about before. MR. MAC EWAN-The ZBA’s first meeting of the month, is that our first meeting of the month, right? They’re on the first, the third Wednesday of the month? MR. HILTON-March 17 and 24 will be the ZBA. March 16 and 23, the Planning Board. As thththrd you mentioned, Tuesday the 2 is the special meeting for The Great Escape. nd MR. MAC EWAN-Potentially we’re also talking another date in March for The Great Escape, too. If I remember right, because we have the public comment period goes 12 days from the 10, or from the 2, which brings that up to the, I think that comment period’s going to extend thnd anyway. MR. HILTON-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-What’s our agenda look like for March already? Is it pretty well loaded up? 90 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. HILTON-It’s bigger than this month, let’s say. MR. MAC EWAN-Are we going to have three meetings next month? MR. HILTON-We may. It’s too early to say. MR. FITAMANT-Mr. Chairman, just to clarify our submission, we will, we have no direction for revisions to the plans at this point, other than the cut sheet information. MR. MAC EWAN-If it got down to the point where, you know, under site plan issue, the way I foresee it, if the floodlights were an issue that the Board didn’t support it would be a condition of approval. Elimination of floodlights altogether. That’s the way I look at it right now. I don’t see a necessary. MS. RADNER-Remember that for SEQRA, Craig, you can’t do a conditional for a Type I. MR. MAC EWAN-No, I wasn’t talking a conditional SEQRA. I was talking site plan. That if we got to that point, that’s what I see as a condition of approval. I don’t see that you need to, at this time, revise the lighting plan to show the elimination, or the lower wattage of the floodlights. The only things I can think that we need to have, and I would request them as soon as possible. Stephanie says a week to do your easement thing between your legal aspect. So, a week from today, so by Friday, what’s a week from this Friday? MR. HILTON-The 27. th MR. MAC EWAN-The 27, the close of business on Friday the 27, February 27, a copy of the ththth proposed easement agreement between the property owners and all the cut sheets for the rooftop units. MR. SEGULJIC-The trash compactor. MR. FITAMANT-Cut sheets? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Dba’s is what we’re looking for, if they have it on there. And in turn, directing Staff to forward all the related noise reports to C.T. Male for their review, and their report back to us prior to our March meeting with the applicant. I don’t want it coming in the day of the meeting. MR. FITAMANT-Could I ask one question? Does C.T. Male have a noise expert on Staff, or is that something that? MR. MAC EWAN-They do have sound engineers on Staff, yes. MR. FITAMANT-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m pretty sure they do. It’s a full service engineering firm. MR. FITAMANT-Okay. So we’re not looking at any revisions to the plans, just additional data to substantiate what we’ve provided in testimony and in submissions thus far? MR. MAC EWAN-If it gets to the point where we’re considering site plan and conditional things I’m thinking of is no truck access on Weeks Road. So we need to put a note on the plat that says that. MR. FITAMANT-Are we looking for the Ray Supply interconnect easement as well? 91 (Queensbury Planning Board 2/17/04) MR. MAC EWAN-You’ve already got that on there. Mr. Lapper’s firm still representing you, as far as the easement issue goes, Mr. Goetz? MR. GOETZ-As far as I know. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Peter, I’ll let you take care of that. That’s the other easement that needs to be taken care of, although I see that one more easily obtainable than this one here, because he’s been willing to do that all along and I think it can be done. I see both of these, Stephanie, will you relay that to Mr. Lapper tomorrow, please. MR. FITAMANT-Mr. Chairman, regarding the compactor, I was just informed that on August 14, our August 14 submission indicated a Marathon MC-2 Trash Compactor and provided thth the data that you’re looking for. MR. MAC EWAN-I’ve got it right here in this file. MR. FITAMANT-Okay. If you’d like, I can resubmit that again. MR. MAC EWAN-We have it. We’ll dig through it and pull it back out. MR. SILVESTRI-It wasn’t clear when we are returning in March. MR. MAC EWAN-The third week, the first meeting of the month. MR. HILTON-If we were looking at regularly scheduled meetings. MR. MAC EWAN-We are, because like you said, it wouldn’t do them any good to move them up the calendar because you’re still going to have to wait for the ZBA, and the ZBA holds their first meeting of the month on Wednesday nights. MR. HILTON-March 16. th MR. SILVESTRI-So we’ll be on the 16 ? th MR. HILTON-Yes. MR. SILVESTRI-And then the ZBA’s the 17. th MR. HILTON-The 17, and then you’d be back again for the 23, potentially. thrd MR. MAC EWAN-I will guarantee you we will come to some sort of conclusion that night regarding SEQRA. Okay. I’m leaving the public hearing open. MR. HENTSCHKE-Thank you. MR. FITAMANT-Thank you for your consideration. MR. MAC EWAN-We’re going to get there. We are. Trust me. We’re going to get there. On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Craig MacEwan, Chairman 92