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2008.09.24 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS SECOND REGULAR MEETING SEPTEMBER 24, 2008 INDEX Area Variance No. 57-2008 Robert W. Spath Tax Map No. 240.5-1-10 1. Area Variance No. 58-2008 Steve Cardona Tax Map No. 239.07-1-34 9. Area Variance No. 59-2008 Richard & Amy Molloy Tax Map No. 301.6-1-10 17. Area Variance No. 64-2008 David R. Miner Tax Map No. 308.06-1-1 24. THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO BOARD AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING MONTHS MINUTES (IF ANY) AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL OF SAID MINUTES. o (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS SECOND REGULAR MEETING SEPTEMBER 24, 2008 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT RICHARD GARRAND, ACTING CHAIRMAN JOYCE HUNT ROY URRICO JOAN JENKIN GEORGE DRELLOS BRIAN CLEMENTS MEMBERS ABSENT JAMES UNDERWOOD LAND USE PLANNER-KEITH OBORNE STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI MR. GARRAND- I'll call the September 24th meeting of the Queensbury Zoning Board of Appeals to order, and starting out I want to quickly go through our procedures once again for anybody who is perhaps is new here. As we handle each application I'll call the applicant by name and number. The secretary will read the pertinent parts of the application, Staff Notes and Warren County Planning Board decision if applicable into the record. Then we'll ask the applicant to present any information they wish to present to the Board. The Board will then ask questions of the applicant. Then we'll open the public hearing. The public hearing is intended to help us gather information and understand the issue at hand. It functions to help the Board members make a wise decision. It does not make the decision for the Board members. There will be a five minute limit on all speakers. We will allow speakers to speak again after everybody's had a chance to speak, but not for more than three minutes, and only if after listening to the other speakers, a speaker believes that they have new information to present, and, Board members, I'd suggest that because we have the five minute limit that we not interrupt the speaker with questions while they're speaking. Rather we should wait until the speaker has finished his five minute period and then ask the questions. Following all the speakers, we'll read any correspondence into the record, and then the applicant will have an opportunity to react and respond to the public comment. Board members will then discuss the variance request with the applicant. Following that, the Board members will have a chance to explain their positions on the application, and then the public hearing will be closed or left open depending upon the situation, and finally, if appropriate a motion to approve or disapprove will follow. First on the agenda, is there anybody here for Use Variance No. 61-2008 or Area Variance No. 63-2008 Pyramid Company of Glens Falls? MR. OBORNE-No, sir. Mr. Chairman, they were tabled, last night, until December to pursue different locations for their cell tower at this point. So you might see them as the same as you saw previously or a different application altogether. MR. GARRAND-Okay. Thank you very much. So we will not be hearing 61-2008 or 63- 2008, Cellco Partners d/b/a Verizon Wireless, or the Pyramid Company of Glens Falls as a decision has already been rendered on that one. Moving on. We'll start with Area Variance No. 57-2008, Robert Spath. AREA VARIANCE NO. 57-2008 SEQRA TYPE: II ROBERT W. SPATH OWNER(S): ROBERT W. SPATH ZONING: WR-1A LOCATION: 60 RUSSELL HARRIS ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES A 70.5 SQ. FT. EXPANSION OF THE SECOND FLOOR BY BUILDING A DORMER TO AN EXISTING NONCONFORMING STRUCTURE. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM SIDELINE SETBACKS AND FOR EXPANSION OF A NONCONFORMING STRUCTURE. CROSS REF.: BP 2006-599 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: 9/10/08 ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY: YES LOT SIZE: 0.23 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 240.5-1-10 SECTION: 179-4-030; 179-13-010 ROBERT & JENNIFER SPATH, PRESENT STAFF INPUT 1 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 57-2008, Robert W. Spath, Meeting Date: September 24, 2008 "Project Location: 60 Russell Harris Road Description of Proposed Project: The applicant proposes a 70.5 square foot expansion of the second floor of an existing non-conforming structure by building a dormer. I Relief Required: I Relief of 8.7 feet of the 12 foot sideline setback per ~179-4-030 requested. Further, relief requested for the expansion of a non-conforming structure per ~ 179-13-010. I Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law: I In making a determination, the board shall consider: 1. Whether an undesirable change will be produced in the character of the neighborhood or a detriment to nearby properties will be created by the granting of this area variance. Minimal change will be associated with this project concerning the character to the neighborhood as there is no change to the footprint of the structure. 2. Whether the benefit sought by the applicant can be achieved by some method, feasible for the applicant to pursue, other than an area variance. The location of the house relative to the side property line appears to leave little room for a feasible alternative. Some form of relief will be required for the proposal as submitted. 3. Whether the requested area variance is substantial. The request for 8.7 feet or 72.5 percent of relief may be considered severe relative to the ordinance. However, the structure is an existing structure and the distance to the side property line will not change. 4. Whether the proposed variance will have an adverse effect or impact on the physical or environmental conditions in the neighborhood or district. Minor impacts to the neighborhood concerning physical and environmental conditions may be anticipated as a result of this proposal. 5. Whether the alleged difficulty was self created. proposal may be interpreted as self created. I ParcelHIstory (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): I P2007-0232 Dock Repair, Boathouse 5/17/07 I Staff comments: I The location of this house is at the dead end of Russell Harris Road, a private road. The applicant has stated that gutters will be installed and water will be directed to a catch basin. Clarification of the location of the catch basin will be needed. The applicant has also stated that the septic is an open pit leach system. Clarification of this type of septic system may be needed as most seepage pits are covered. The difficulty concerning this I SEQR Status: I Type II" "Warren County Planning Board Project Review and Referral Form September 10, 2008 Project Name: Spath, Robert W. Owner(s): Robert W. Spath ID Number: QBY-AV- 08-57 County Project#: Sep08-25 Current Zoning: WR-1A Community: Queensbury Project Description: Applicant proposes a 70.5 sq. ft. expansion of a second floor by building a dormer to an existing nonconforming structure. Relief requested from sideline setbacks and for expansion of a nonconforming structure. Site Location: 60 Russell Harris Road Tax Map Number(s): 240.5-1-10 Staff Notes: Area Variance: The applicant proposes a 70.5 sq. ft. expansion of a second floor by building a dormer to an existing nonconforming structure. Relief requested from sideline setbacks and for expansion of a nonconforming structure. The new construction will be located 3.3 ft. from the side property line where a 15 ft. setback is required; the new construction is no closer to the property line than the existing home. The information submitted shows the location of the addition and elevation drawing. The applicant indicates the rafters are rotting and the roof requires repair. The information under GIS real property information 2 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) indicates there is an existing septic system on the site. Staff recommends no county impact with the stipulation the septic system is compatible with the new construction. this is based on the information submitted and according to the suggested review criteria of NYS General Municipal Law Section 239 L applied to the proposed project. Warren County Planning Board Recommendation: No County Impact with Stipulation The Warren County Planning Board recommends No County Impact with the stipulation the septic system is compatible with the new construction." MR. GARRAND-Okay. For the purpose of the record, please identify yourself and explain to us why you believe we should grant you this Area Variance. MR. SPATH-Okay. My name is Robert W. Spath. I am the property owner. MRS. SPATH-I'm Jennifer Spath. MR. SPATH-We just believe that the modification to the house is pretty modest. It's not a fairly substantial increase in square footage. It is, I would like to do it because the house is very, very small. The one bedroom that we do have in the upstairs location is not so much limited by square footage of floor space, but by head space, headroom, and that's what we're seeking to gain by the addition of this dormer. The knee wall is moving out. It's just necessary due to the nature of the project. That's about all we have to say. MRS. JENKIN-Could you explain this, would you explain the septic question? MR. SPATH-Certainly. Yes. I asked my father what it was. He said it was an open pit leach system. It is, in fact, a covered pit. The property was originally owned by Curt Harris, who was a mason, and as best we know, it is essentially a concrete, well, it's a mortar and rock tank structure that's designed to leach. MRS. JENKIN-And that's behind the house? MR. SPATH-Yes, it's behind the house. MR. DRELLOS-Could you address where that catch basin is going to be located? MR. SPATH-Yes. The catch basin is pre-existing. It is approximately 55 feet from the shoreline, and just in front of the house. It was actually looked at by Lake George Water Keeper and Dave Wick from the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District. When he did an assessment of the stormwater runoff for the entire area, he looked at what we had there. It's actually, we have a series of catch basins that manage stormwater across our property. He was rather impressed with its capabilities, its size, and he suggested, at this point, it dead ends in this particular catch basin that we're going to route gutters to. A suggestion was made by Dave Wick to actually go from there directly into the lake, because of its efficiency. Whether or not I'll do that I'm not entirely sure, but. MR. GARRAND-Are gutters and downspouts, are they all going to be directed towards the lake or away from the lake? MR. SPATH-They'll be directed into that particular catch basin, which is 55 feet from the lake. MR. GARRAND-Okay. Your father, on the public record, once mentioned about the severe flooding problems you have down there. MR. SPATH-Yes, we do. They've pretty much been taken care of with a few other minor modifications. At a point approximately eight years ago, the drainage, well for decades since probably the 40's the drainage has always proceeded south with the topography. One of our, the prior owner to the camp to the south removed the portion of the drainage that proceeded that way, which was then, subsequently caused a problem for the new neighbors. Their solution was to replace it with a smaller pipe that was incorrectly placed and a driveway which essentially acts like a dam, so that during very bad melt water and rain situations it will occasionally come back and go into our stormwater runoff system. I wouldn't necessarily, it is a problem, but there's really nothing we can do about it. MR. GARRAND-How many bedrooms do you plan to have total? MR. SPATH-It's not going to change. There is one downstairs that we utilize, and the one upstairs. 3 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) MR. GARRAND-And you're using this for a year round residence? MR. SPATH-Yes. It is our home, yes. MR. GARRAND-Okay. Thank you. Board members, questions? MR. SPATH-We actually have a child on the way, and this is why we want to, we just need a little more room up there. MRS. JENKIN-How about wintertime? Do you have trouble getting in there in the winter sometimes? MR. SPATH-No, actually, to the Town's credit, we actually have excellent, excellent snow removal. In fact, Russell Harris Road is scraped clean before 9L is sometimes. MRS. JENKIN-That's great. MR. GARRAND-Is there anybody from the public that would like to comment on Area Variance No. 57-2008? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED WENDY DEMBOSKI MRS. DEMBOSKI-Hi. Wendy Demboski. I am the owner of the house that they're asking for the setback from. The addition will be on our side. We're not opposed to it. We just want to just clarify a few things. One of the things I just realized is when we bought the property 15 years ago, Robert's father was good enough to put cement posts at the end of the road to make the road narrower, if anyone's familiar with that. My concern would be, during this project that, you know, it's a very narrow opening. We've had issues before with that, and that obviously has to be a guarantee that it's kept open because we are the last house. We're the last ones on the dead end. Other than that, we just really were looking for more clarification on the timeline of the project. They are obviously very close to that property line. Again, if it's done in a timely nature and cleaned and neatly done, I can say we're not opposing of that. We're just looking for clarification on that, and we're getting most of that. So I just wanted to go on record to say those are some concerns that we have. We share a common drywell for our sinks, but I understand the addition doesn't include any changes to any bathrooms or sinks. So I'm satisfied with that. I understand the catch basin will, the gutters will take care of the runoff which obviously would be an issue for us on our side. I think that's it. I just wanted to make sure. MR. GARRAND-Okay. Thank you. MS. DEMBOSKI-Okay. Thank you. MR. GARRAND-Would you like to step back up, or anybody else from the public that would like to comment on 57-2008? NANCY WHITE MS. WHITE-I would. Thanks. My name is Nancy White. I have a camp at 52 and a half Russell Harris Road, and I just wanted to make sure, with the runoff, I know when we did our project, we had to have the shallow basin in the front and in the back. We have a much bigger house, but I'd also like, you know, when we were doing our project, the neighbors were very concerned about our septic and that, you know, that really was a big issue, and I'd like to make sure that because everybody's so close to the lake, that the septic is checked out. I know it's said that those guys use about 25 gallons of water a day, which is very minimal, and, you know, that would be my concern, the septic, I would like that, and also, you know, if the Water Keeper came and looked at the shallow basin in the front, that was before something was built, you know, the roof was raised. So I just think that possibly they should have something in the back also, a shallow water basin, as was explained to us with ours. So they would be my two concerns. Okay. MR. GARRAND-Thank you. Anybodyelse? Okay. Would you like to step back up to the microphone and address these issues? The first one was guaranteed right of way to the property. 4 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) MR. SPATH-Yes. That's fine. That won't ever change. I can't see how we could deny the right of way. MR. URRICO-I think the question was, during the construction, would there be any blockage of that right of way? MR. SPATH-No, not at all. The road's set quiet a ways away from the house. All the construction will be done via the driveway and the backyard and such. MR. GARRAND-I think part of what she's looking for is a least amount of encumbrances from contractors and such. MR. SPATH-We're doing the work ourselves. MR. GARRAND-Okay. Also the timeline. MR. SPATH-The timeline should be very short. If I start it this Fall, we'd like to have it done before it gets too incredibly cold. I'm actually thinking about three weeks to have it framed, sheeted, roofed, sided. MR. GARRAND-The next issue raised was also septic for which I have to ask Staff about. Is the septic going to be checked during any of the inspection process on this? MR. OBORNE-No, just what the applicant is asking for at this point. Code Enforcement or Code Compliance will go out and check it, once this is approved, if it's approved. So no, is your answer to your question. MR. GARRAND-Okay. The neighbor, is there any way we can check the efficiency or if it's up to par for the area? MR. OBORNE-You possibly could make it a condition of approval. It is an existing system, for good or for worse, and the proposed action is not going to affect it in my mind. However, you could make it a condition of approval that the septic is functioning properly. MR. URRICO-How would we get that, how would we know that it's functioning properly? Who's going to go check it? MR. OBORNE-Well, unfortunately you'd probably have to put the burden on the applicant in order for that to happen, and the applicant would have to hire either an engineer or a specialist that is familiar with that, and I would think an engineer would be the answer to that. So you would be adding extra burden on him for that. MR. URRICO-Okay. MR. SPATH-If I may say, we do have plans to upgrade the septic substantially at some point. However, this project is essentially an emergency project at this point, due to the existing condition of the roof. It needs to be done soon, which, you know, we have no problem with upgrading the septic. In fact, we're planning on it. We've already purchased two sewage pumps for a system that will be hopefully put into place in years to come, but at this point we do kind of need to get this done. MR. GARRAND-Okay, and basin for the water in the back? MR. SPATH-In the back, for runoff from the house, the house? Well, there's a catch basin located immediately to the north of the house, which catches all runoff from the north side of the house, gutters from the north side of the house, actually are also going to be routed to that catch basin as well because the roof on the north side of the house was re-done a couple of years ago. I haven't installed the gutters yet, but I was planning on running those also into that catch basin. So essentially all of the runoff from the house will go into that one catch basin. For the back of the house, there's no hard surface there so there's most non-permeable, or it's permeable area. MRS. JENKIN-This map here, would you mind showing me exactly where the catch basins are? I'm not getting it here. MR. SPATH-Sure. Yes. There's one up here. MRS. JENKIN-You said to the north of the house. 5 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) MR. SPATH-Yes. There's one right here, which goes down to here, and it is fed by one, basically it comes out to here and it has a sort of a receiving area here. So it takes all the stormwater, it comes this way, which is not much, because there's a couple of other things here, and there's also a stormwater, two catch basins here, actually, I'm sorry, three catch basins right here, and this ties into the catch basin here, which then proceeds south. MRS. JENKIN-So these are the community catch basins? MR. SPATH-No, those are our private. MRS. JENKIN-All these are? MR. SPATH-Yes. That's all, we were told by the Town that each individual property owner was responsible for managing stormwater runoff. So that was our solution to that. MRS. JENKIN-So you have put these in yourself? MR. SPATH-Yes. A lot of digging by hand, a lot of money invested in the grates and basins and. MRS. JENKIN-Does anyone else want to see this? MR. SPATH-It's very effective. It could pretty much handle the most extreme torrent you can imagine, and the catch basins are monstrous. They catch a tremendous amount of sediment that comes from the north, heading south. MRS. JENKIN-But the question was that could you have them front and back. They are more or less front and back now. MR. SPATH-Yes, they are. MRS. JENKIN-Okay. MR. SPATH-They are front and back and all around. MRS. JENKIN-All around. MR. SPATH-Yes, very thorough. MR. GARRAND-Board members, questions? Okay. At this time, I'd like to poll the other Board members. MR. URRICO-There's some letters. MR. GARRAND-There's correspondence? MR. URRICO-Yes. The first one is addressed to us. It's, "We regret we're unable to attend this evening's public hearing regarding Robert Spath's application for a building permit for his property at 60 Russell Harris Road. We reside at 66 Russell Harris Road. These are our concerns regarding his building application. What is the timing of this project? Will it be complete by Memorial Day and not continue through the summer season? Is there an ordinance to maintain the removal of debris from this project or will it be 'dumped' on their property which is right in front of the entrance to our lake house and garage? Does the town monitor and inspect such removal and is there a determined time for it? As homeowners, we take pride in the appearance of our property and want it to look neat and tidy upon arrival. Having assorted project debris piled up in front of our property is unsightly. Thank you for your time and prompt attention. Sincerely, Sameh and Melanie Ghobrial 66 Russell Harris Road Queensbury, NY" And the second letter, "Dear Members of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Board of Appeals: I am writing in support of the variance request submitted by Robert W. Spath, whose hearing is scheduled for tomorrow evening, September 24th. My brother, Kenneth D. White, and I own the property at 50 Russell Harris Rd. and are neighbors of Robert and Jen Spath, but we are both out of state right now (I in Maryland and Ken in Germany), so are unable to attend the meeting. We strongly support Robert's request for variance, which will enhance both his home's appearance and its livability. Since living in their home, the Spaths have improved every aspect of the property. The modification they propose doesn't increase the footprint of their house, nor does it increase the non-permeable 6 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) square footage. You should be aware that the Spaths are mindful in everything they do of the impact on the lake, and their efforts in the area of stormwater management were lauded by Chris Navitsky, the Lake George Water Keeper, when we asked him for advance on the subject along our shared shoreline three years ago. Those of us who, like the Spaths, have grown up on Harris Bay, and whose families are long-time residents there (mine since the early 1930's), view with amazement the building projects those with money and influence are permitted to undertake on the lake. The Spaths are requesting simply to be able to install a dormer roof with a window, providing more sunlight and more usable floor space on their modest second story. I fully support them and sincerely hope you will grant them their request. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or if I can be of any further assistance. Thank you. Sincerely, Heidi W. Taflan 182 Tam Glade Severna Park, MD 21146." MR. GARRAND-Thank you, Mr. Urrico. Would you like to address the debris removal? MR. SPATH-Debris removal? It's not C & D, but it's right down the road, 149, I love them. They're great. They'll take it all right there, and very promptly, too. MR. GARRAND-Thank you. MR. SPATH-Yes, thank you. MR. GARRAND-Board members, no more questions? MR. OBORNE-Mr. Chairman, can I add, may I be permitted to add an addendum to what I said about the septic? If you are going to make a condition of that, I would suggest that you would ask the applicant to contact Building and Codes, Dave Hatin's office, and they would be able to give them the proper direction. MR. GARRAND-Thank you. I'll close the public hearing now. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. GARRAND-I'm going to poll the Board members and see how they feel about this. I'd like to start with Mr. Urrico. MR. URRICO-I think the applicants have made a good faith effort here to comply with the variance conditions, the criteria. I believe, as stated by the Staff Notes, there's minimal changes that are going to be associated with the footprint of this project. The setback is just a continuation of something that's been there before, and in return, we're getting an improved property. I think they don't really have many alternatives, in terms of relocating this project in some place else that wouldn't require a variance. Yes, it's 72.5 percent, but again we're not talking about increasing the footprint anymore than it is right now. I don't think it's going to have an adverse effect. I think maybe if we need to condition it to have the septic looked at, that might be something we might want to add onto it, and the difficulty self-created? To the extent that they need to fix this soon. I'm convinced of that. So, I'd be in favor of it. MR. GARRAND-Okay. Joyce, would you like to add? MRS. HUNT-I agree with Mr. Urrico. I think this is a modest project, and while the variance is substantial, it's really no more than you have now, and I don't think it will have any impact on the physical or environmental conditions of the neighborhood. I'd be in favor. MR. GARRAND-Okay. George? MR. DRELLOS-Yes. I also would be in favor, too. I think it's just, it's a modest improvement to the lot, your house. So, I don't think there's substantial, you know, a substantial change to your lot here, but I guess more than the septic, maybe, I would think maybe the timeline, maybe, I think that's what more people are concerned about is if maybe there's something we could do with the clean up or the timeline to make sure that's done, something that's not left out for a year or two, you know, sitting our there debris, or you're working on your house for a year or two at the same time. You know what I'm saying? MRS. JENKIN-I think the project is a good one. It certainly will add a little bit to your home, but it's not overdone or anything. I think that I think that it, you definitely need it with one bedroom and more to come. I agree with Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt, and also 7 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) George that they made good points about that, so maybe we should put a couple of conditions on this, but I would be in favor. MR. CLEMENTS-I think this is a very modest expansion. I feel that, with the same footprint, there would be no difference in the amount of runoff. It's really not an additional bedroom. There's a bedroom there. It's just, you know, raising the height of the ceiling there, and I think that the Spaths have answered all the concerns of their neighbors. So I'd be in favor of this project. MR. GARRAND-I'd also have to agree with the other Board members. I don't see this change as significant to the neighborhood. It's adding on a little to what's already there. The Spaths have been traditionally good stewards of the lake. So I'd also be in favor of this project. Would somebody like to make a motion, and if you would like, you can add conditions. MRS. HUNT-Could I make a comment? MR. GARRAND-Certainly. MRS. HUNT-All right. The condition about the septic system, I mean, there's one bedroom now, or there's going to be two bedrooms now and there's going to be two bedrooms later. I don't see that that's a factor, and we've never had people follow some kind of timeline to get a variance. I don't know that it's ever been done, that I recall, in my six years here. MR. CLEMENTS-I would tend to agree with that, too. MR. GARRAND-Okay. MR. URRICO-They have a year to use their variance, basically. MR. GARRAND-Yes. You have a year in which this has to be completed, and by their own admission, they've stated that they will have the project completed before winter. So I don't feel it's necessary for a condition as far as timeline goes on this project. They will, in all sensibilities, have to have this done by winter, to have the house closed up. So would somebody like to make a motion? MRS. HUNT-I'll make a motion. MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 57-2008 ROBERT W. SPATH, Introduced by Joyce Hunt who moved for its adoption, seconded by Brian Clements: 60 Russell Harris Road. The applicant proposes a 70.5 square foot expansion of the second floor of an existing nonconforming structure by building a dormer. The relief required, relief of 8.7 feet of the 12 foot side line setback per Section 179-4-030 requested. Further, relief requested for the expansion of a nonconforming structure per Section 179-13-010. Whether the benefits could be achieved by any other means feasible to the applicant. I think this is a very modest variance and I think that the applicant has shown that he couldn't do anything else. I don't think there will be an undesirable change in the neighborhood character or to nearby properties. While the request is substantial, it might even be considered severe, it is no more than exists at this point. The request will not have adverse physical or environmental effects on the neighborhood, and it can be considered self-created only because the Spaths want to improve their home. Duly adopted this 24th day of September, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Clements, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Drellos, Mr. Garrand NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Underwood MR. GARRAND-The motion's been approved. MR. SPATH-Okay. Thank you very much. MR. GARRAND-You're welcome. 8 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) AREA VARIANCE NO. 58-2008 SEQRA TYPE: II STEVE CARDONA AGENT(S): KEVIN MASCHEWSKI OWNER(S): STEVE CARDONA ZONING: WR-1A LOCATION: 175 ASSEMBLY POINT ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES DEMOLITION OF 2 EXISTING CABINS AND CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW 4,046 SQ. FT. SINGLE- FAMILY DWELLING. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM SHORELINE SETBACK REQUIREMENTS AND FOR THE INSTALLATION OF AN INFILTRATION DEVICE WITHIN 100 FT. OF A SHORELINE. CROSS REF.: SPR 37-08 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 9/10/08 ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY: YES LOT SIZE: 0.81 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 239.07-1-34 SECTION: 179-4-030, CHAPTER 147 KEVIN MASCHEWSKI, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 58-2008, Steve Cardona, Meeting Date: September 24,2008 "Project Location: 175 Assembly Point Road Description of Proposed Project: Applicant proposes to raze a 780 square foot year round single family home and two guest cabins totaling 1583 square feet. Further, the proposal calls for the construction of a +/- 4046 square foot single family home with associated site work. I Relief Required: I Relief of 19 ft from the 127.5 foot average shoreline setback of the two adjoining principal structures per 179-4-030. Further, relief requested for the installation of an infiltration device within 100 feet of a shoreline per Chapter 147. I Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law: I In making a determination, the board shall consider: 1. Whether an undesirable change will be produced in the character of the neighborhood or a detriment to nearby properties will be created by the granting of this area variance. The proposal appears to be in harmony with the existing homes in the immediate area and as such minor changes will be produced in the character of the neighborhood. 2. Whether the benefit sought by the applicant can be achieved by some method, feasible for the applicant to pursue, other than an area variance. The applicant could build in a compliant location. 3. Whether the requested area variance is substantial. The request for 19 feet or 14.9 percent of relief from the 127.5 foot shoreline setback per ~179-4-030 may be considered minimal in relation to the ordinance. Further, the request for 47 feet or 47 percent of relief from the 100 foot shoreline setback requirement for infiltration devices may be considered moderate. 4. Whether the proposed variance will have an adverse effect or impact on the physical or environmental conditions in the neighborhood or district. Relatively minor impacts on the physical or environmental conditions of the neighborhood may be anticipated as a result of this proposal. 5. Whether the alleged difficulty was self created. The difficulty may be interpreted as self created. IParcelI-lIstory(construction/siteplan/variance, etc.): I P93-164 Replace dock Approved 5/4/93 P2005 0657 Demo Boathouse Approved 8/24/2005 P2005 0689 Dock Approved 10/04/05 P2005 0899 Boathouse Approved 12/09/05 I Staff comments: I The requirement that the house be located at the average setback can be found at the bottom of the Dimensional and Bulk Requirements table under note four. The resulting setback is derived as the average shoreline setback of the north neighbor and the average shoreline setback of the south neighbor. The result is the127.5 foot shoreline setback requirement. 9 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) Concerning the infiltration device, the applicant proposes a rain garden that will act as an infiltration device. With the infiltration device proposed location at 53 feet from the shoreline, the Zoning Board of Appeals may consider a recommendation from the Planning Board prior to issuing a decision. I SEQR Status: I Type II" "Warren County Planning Board Project Review and Referral Form September 10, 2008 Project Name: Cardona, Steve Owner(s): Steve Cardona ID Number: QBY- 08-AV-58 County Project#: Sep08-19 Current Zoning: WR-1A Community: Queensbury Project Description: Applicant proposes demolition of 2 existing cabins and construction of a new 4,046 sq ft single-family dwelling. Relief requested from shoreline setback requirements and the installation of an infiltration device within 100 ft of a shoreline. Site Location: 175 Assembly Point Road Tax Map Number(s): 239.07-1- 34 Staff Notes: Area Variance: The applicant proposes demolition of 2 existing cabins and construction of a new 4,046 sq ft single-family dwelling. Relief requested from shoreline setback requirements and the installation of an infiltration device within 100 ft. of a shoreline. The information submitted shows the cabins to be removed and the location of the new home. The information included a stormwater control report and drawing detailing the lot development. Staff recommends no county impact based upon the information submitted according to the suggested review criteria of NYS General Municipal Law Section 239 L applied to the proposed project. Warren County Planning Board Recommendation: No County Impact" Signed by Richard C. Merrill, Warren County Planning Board 9/12/08. MR. GARRAND-AII right. Thank you. Mr. Maschewski. MR. MASCHEWSKI-Good evening. My name is Kevin Maschewski, and I'm the architect for the project. To the right of me is Steve Cardona, the property owner. In looking both variances, I think it's, I guess part of my presentation is going to be looking at individually each one on its own entity. I think there was a little bit of difference on the Staff Notes. The project does entail demolition of all three existing structures, the existing house and two camps on the property. I think Staff Notes did indicate at one point two camps were to be demo'd, but at this point that was incorrect. It's all three. Again, I'd like to kind of go through each one of these variances on its own merit. Here on the easel I did tack up the existing conditions of the property up on the top. Below is the proposed conditions with the new house plotted. What I think should be noticed here is the tan brown color is the structures, each existing and proposed. The black color would be the pavement. Right now presently the owners live in this camp closest to Assembly Point Road, and actually it's a residence. This camp back here and this camp are going to be demolished. That camp will be demolished, their residence, and the new home installed up the slope of the property, drawn back from the lake, drawn back from Assembly Point Road, with one main central driveway coming up, coming in, and a three car garage for the cars. I didn't do any other coloring on here. I though it, just looking at this, and the numbers, and I'll go back to the application, the numbers for impermeable area remain pretty much constant, for existing and proposed conditions. The tan structures impervious remain very constant, similar to the new home. The pavement, if you look, remains very similar, very constant to the new home. This pavement down along Assembly Point Road, the parking area, gets taken out of there. This parking area gets taken out and pretty much moved up the property to the garage. So, looking at that, and looking at Sheet Number Two of the variance application, I'd like to bring your attention to the Site Development Data, top page of Two, existing square footage non- permeable area, which is Letter G. Existing conditions non-permeable is 8513 square feet. Proposed conditions for non-permeable is 8609 square feet, a total added of 96 square feet of non-permeable area. We spent, the Cardonas and myself, spent a lot of time designing the new home and trying to correlate that non-permeable area relative to existing conditions and try to keep it close. There was no intent, here, to create more pavement, no intent to create more rooflines. In doing so, the Lake George Park Commission regulations do not require stormwater management to be completed on the site unless you increase by over 1,000 square feet. We have not increased, but in turn, we are providing stormwater management for the entire site. The entire non-permeable is going to be retained. There's retention detention devices incorporated in the site work, which brings on the variance setback requirement for the stormwater management within 100 feet of Lake George. The driveway is remaining constant coming off of Assembly Point Road, but providing stormwater management as the driveway slopes down, we had to install some form of a device, retention device, to handle the runoff off the driveway. If you will call it new technology came this rain garden concept. Basically it's 10 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) a landscaped bed depressed in the ground, so that the runoff goes in. It will settle out in this landscaped bed, rain garden, and slowly dissipate into the ground, assuming, in theory, that the plant roots will also absorb some of the water and allow some of the rain runoff to percolate and some to be taken in for the plant roots. That is the device that's being installed for the driveway runoff. Assuming it's also going to be a landscaped bed, aesthetically from the lake, aesthetically from Assembly Point Road, it provides a buffer zone for the house, for the new residence, as well as a little privacy from the road for the homeowners in the house. So that would be the variance requested for the stormwater management device. The second request, I'd have to ask to have you look down at the setback requirements table on Sheet Two. It's the bottom table, and there's three numbers. One is your required setbacks. The middle column is your existing, and the farthest to the right column is your proposed. Front setback from the road requirement is 30 feet. Your existing is 21. The existing home that the Cardonas live in is 21 feet set back from Assembly Point Road. Proposed is 77. So we are drawing the house back considerably away from the front yard setback. Shoreline setback. Requirement 50 feet. The present house is 49, nonconforming. We are pulling the new residence back 108 feet, getting it up to slope, creating more privacy, let the landscaping down along Assembly Point Road be a buffer zone. The adjacent property to the north is 107 feet, keeping relatively in line with that new home, which I believe was built within five years ago, five to six years ago. So we are improving the shoreline setback. The side yard setback requirement is 20 feet. The existing camp, closest to the north property line, is approximately five feet. The new home is going to be 21 feet, improving it and making it Code compliant. Side yard setback Two, again, 20 feet. The other camp on the southern property line is 12 feet. We are making the house 28 feet from that property line. The rear yard, we are increasing it. The present camps are in conformance, but we are increasing it. So looking at the setback variance, all setbacks on this property are being improved into compliant form. There is a, I guess an addendum or an addition to the lakefront shoreline setback to be the average of the two neighbors adjoining you. Knowing that this is 50 feet, we are certainly well more farther back than 50, and even in addition to twice that. I think asking to go back 127 feet is just putting a very hard burden on the property owner, certainly being that view of Lake George brings a lot of value to the home. So those are two variances we're requesting. I think all in conclusion, we're improving, the septic system is being, new four bedroom septic system is being installed, compliant. The existing septic systems to the three structures there, there's no known documentation of them. There's no known calculations for clarification if they're adequate. There are seven bedrooms in the three structures right now. We are reducing the main house to four. At that point, the four bedroom septic system will be designed and installed, or is designed, will be installed. So, on the septic end, we're improving the property. On the setbacks, we're certainly improving the property. On the stormwater runoff, we're improving the property. We have no issues on the height restrictions. We meet well within the 28 foot height restriction. Floor Area Ratio, it's a very, I guess for the lakefront properties it's a good sized piece of property. We're well within our metes and bounds on the Floor Area Ratio. I think just in conclusion, it's a good project. It will fit well within the neighborhood. The house has the Adirondack rustic theme to it. I think it just fits well, and that's pretty much it. MR. GARRAND-AII right. Thank you, sir. Board members, any questions for the applicants? MR. URRICO-On the rain garden, it's a new concept. In terms of what it can handle, if we have 100 year rains like we had this past Spring and Summer, and you saw what happened in Rensselaer, what it can sustain, what can this rain garden sustain, in terms of heavy stormwater? MR. MASCHEWSKI-I did not engineer it. The Environmental Design Partnership engineering firm did design it, and it was designed under the Major Stormwater Management guidelines. Maybe Staff can answer. What is the guideline for a Major? Is it a 50 or a 100 year? MR. OBORNE-I believe it's a 50 year storm. Don't quote me. I can get that for you. MR. MASCHEWSKI-But it was designed, knowing that we didn't have to provide stormwater management because of the impervious, Craig Brown and the Staff in zoning actually turned this into a Major stormwater management project. So any design work, and again, I didn't design it, but was in compliance with the Major requirements. MR. URRICO-Okay. 11 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) MR. DRELLOS-You mentioned hardship by not putting the house back farther. What's the hardship. MR. MASCHEWSKI-Well, in looking at the property, the grade rolls, it goes down. So I'm not quite sure a septic system, the septic now that's installed, that's designed is designed back in this area. It's still at the high point of the property. The high point of the property is kind of right in this general upper area here. The gradient starts to roll back here, and it's very wet back here. It's just the way, the nature of the grading is, and I believe all this area here also you're at 348 contour on the back end of the property, tapers into this low area. So, I think pushing the house back, you know the septic system can only go back here. We can't install it in the front yard because of the setback to Lake George. So I would say that is one hardship. The second would be just having this neighbor, which is a new home, at 107 feet. These camps, these are camps here, you know, the view is looking north, northeast. So really, in forcing this to come back another 20 feet, I think, would impair a lot of the view, but, you know, I think more important is the septic system, putting it in that low-lying area. MRS. JENKIN-What is the Floor Area Ratio now? It wasn't on this. You said it's within, but the existing houses are 2397, the new one is 4,000. MR. MASCHEWSKI-4,046. MRS. JENKIN-Right. MR. MASCHEWSKI-The existing area, let's call it Line C of the table, down below, Existing Floor Area Ratio, the total existing is 2603 square feet. Proposed is 4286, primarily because there's a second floor on the new home. It's a two story residence. MRS. JENKIN-Right. Does that, I guess I'm questioning, does that, because I did not calculate it, but does it fit the 22% that's the requirement? MR. MASCHEWSKI-Yes, and I don't have a calculator on me. MRS. JENKIN-Because it's .8 acres of land. MR. MASCHEWSKI-I'm sorry, you're allowed, the item off, the next line up, this parcel at .81 acres is allowed to have a 7,773. MRS. JENKIN-It is? Okay. Thank you. MR. MASCHEWSKI-Yes, and that's at 22%. So I'm going to say that this residence is probably in the 14%. MRS. JENKIN-Right. Okay. That's good. I didn't see that. The other question I had was in the winter, you have plants in the summer that are going to absorb some of this runoff, but what happens in the winter when it's frozen? Is there a depression in there, will it hold the water? MR. MASCHEWSKI-Yes, it is a depression. Basically, on any other stormwater management basin, so to speak, it's a depressed area in the land. So it is depressed. It is concave. Water will collect. MRS. JENKIN-Because sometimes we get these ice storms, and then it melts and then you get rain and it's a mess. MR. MASCHEWSKI-Yes. MR. MASCHEWSKI-And again, just understanding that this detention device is solely for the driveway. There are additional ones on the property for the house and the parking area up top, or the K turnaround for the garage, but this is a depressed area in the ground. My understanding, in talking to the engineers and the landscape architects now, that you have extra topsoil depth there. Topsoil will slow the percolation rate down a little bit so that it doesn't infiltrate dramatically into the ground. So there's a little bit of time delay, allowing the roots to absorb the water, but there is a depression in it, and it showed on a grading plan. MRS. JENKIN-And then the driveway itself will be sloped down that way, will it? MR. MASCHEWSKI-Yes. 12 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) MRS. JENKIN-Okay. MR. MASCHEWSKI-And actually, to even further that, the driveway does slope towards that front yard. It's graded that way, and on the low side of the graded driveway there's a swale. The water collects in the swale and then runs down the slope of the, you know, along the driveway, and then it'll turn into the detention device, the rain garden. MRS. JENKIN-Because you have your steepest slope right near the road. That's quite a steep slope, and then it comes up and it levels off, but this filtration is not really at the steepest. It's up above the steepest slope. So the water on the steepest slope is still going to run down in the road. MR. MASCHEWSKI-Yes. Well, at that point, that driveway down below, we're not changing the grades of that driveway along the road. You have to tie into the road. We start adjusting the grades as we get up that driveway, 50 feet, not at 50 feet. I'm sorry, probably about 20 feet. So, in adjusting the grades, we put that detention device so we could get about 90%, 95% of the driveway runoff. Other than that, we're going to be right on top of Assembly Point Road with something. MRS. JENKIN-Trees. There's a row of trees there, they don't belong to you, or are they the neighbor's trees that are beside the driveway and they will remain, will they? STEVE CARDONA MR. CARDONA-Yes. The trees that are there now, they're actually, I think they're both of those, because the pin's, where the property line is, kind of meanders in and out of those trees. Some of them are saplings, small pine, and there are also some nice hardwoods mixed in there. Some of those trees, whether we like it or not, are probably going to be taken out, only because of the reconstruction of the driveway. When I spoke with the neighbor who just put the house in, five, six years ago, even with the most care, any excavation next to some of these smaller trees ends up in result of them getting damaged or dying. Right now that row of trees that you see are up along the, they're located right along this high bank right here, and a lot of those, what he had kept in there was to shield his view of this house, which was fairly pretty ugly when I purchased it. Now, by moving back, and like the whole variance is to keep the house symmetrical with his, that will open up his field of view in each way so we're looking at weeding out some of those, and because it's a dense thicket, and it's constantly killing itself, with no sun and it's dead halfway up, and it also is a hazard. With the high winds we get off the lake, we're getting a lot of branches coming off, and we constantly have to prune, so in weeding some of those out, which are probably going to get damaged in the root when you go to straight this driveway. You see there's a slight little buffer zone here, but when we go to straighten that driveway and in excavation, probably some will get damaged, and start to die. So we will take the good ones and weed out some of the others, and then they'll start to flourish and grow more, because right now it's too thick and everything's just killing itself off, but in answer to your question, I think. MRS. JENKIN-Okay. MR. CLEMENTS-I had a question for Staff. You have a 127.5, which is an average of the setbacks of how many of the houses along there? Because the one right next door, as it shows on the map, is 107 feet back from the lake. MR. OBORNE-Correct, and the one next to it is 140 is it? MR. DRELLOS-148. MR. OBORNE-148. MR. CLEMENTS-Okay. MR. OBORNE-And I do want to add, as far as the infiltration devices are concerned, they're not designed for storm events, per se. This is a Major Stormwater Project, and there'll be other obvious stormwater control devices. This is, I think as Steve said, was to help any overflow that was coming out of the design devices that are there, and it's down slope of those devices. MR. GARRAND-A lot of this will be covered in Site Plan Review with the Planning Board. 13 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) MR. OBORNE-And it has, yes. MR. GARRAND-Okay. Any questions from the Board members? Okay. At this time I'd like to open up the public hearing. Anybody from the public like to comment on this project? Seeing no hands. MR. URRICO-There is some, there is a letter. MR. GAR RAND-Correspondence? MR. URRICO-Yes. MR. GARRAND-Please. MR. URRICO-I also want to point out that Warren County looked at it and stated there's no county impact, but this is a letter. "Dear Mr. Underwood: The Lake George Waterkeeper has reviewed the submission for the above referenced variance application. I will be unable to attend the September 24 meeting due to a conflict but would like to submit the following comments for the record: In general, the Waterkeeper supports the proposal or the installation of stormwater at the referenced property even if the proposed stormwater infiltration controls will be located within 100 feet of Lake George. Currently, it appears there are no stormwater management controls so this would be an improvement. However, there are some technical concerns which could impact the effectiveness of the infiltration controls proposed and should be addressed prior to the granting of the variance: 1. Stormwater Management Area # 1 where the variance is requested is located where a cabin currently exists. The subsurface soils are very important for stormwater infiltration to function properly. What soils and to what depths will soils be replaced in this area? Will there be compaction which would affect the soil's ability to infiltrate? More information should be provided to determine if the proposed infiltration control will function considering the demolition proposed. 2. A rain garden is proposed to be installed in SWMA#1. Rain gardens require amended soils for the top 12" for stormwater treatment. More information should be required regarding the soils proposed. More information should be provided on the soils proposed. 3. An infiltration trench is proposed along the driveway at grades exceeding 10%. This slope exceeds the recommended slopes for infiltration. A stormwater management report was not available for review in the file. Also, it should be clarified how the trench with a depth of 2-3' will convey stormwater to the surface of the infiltration control/rain garden. Thank you for your consideration of these comments and I look forward to working with the Town of Queensbury Zoning Board of Appeals in defending the natural resources of Lake George and its basin. Sincerely, Christopher Navitsky, PE Lake George Waterkeeper" MR. GARRAND-Would you like to address those concerns? MR. MASCHEWSKI-Certainly. The first one, I guess with the soils, the existing structures are going to be removed. There's only one with a full basement, and that is the one down along Assembly Point. It's the primary residence. That's going to be removed. Simultaneously the foundation hole for the new home will be dug. It's anticipated and it always ends up being that there's excess soil. The soil coming out of the existing, or out of the proposed foundation hole, is going to be moved down to where the existing house is going to be removed. So it's basically taking the existing soils, moving it down slope, filling in the void where the old residence was, and I'm not sure if that's answering it or not, but the soils that are filling in the location of the existing foundation are coming from the new excavation. MR. GARRAND-Okay. So you're just going to use indigenous soil? MR. MASCHEWSKI-Exactly. MR. GARRAND-Okay, and depth, soil depth, one of our concerns was compaction. Normally when you backfill indigenous soil, you don't necessarily compact it. You basically backfill it and grade it. MR. MASCHEWSKI-Well, Steve is going to be doing the excavation, the demolition, and he can kind of explain what his compaction equipment he has. MR. CARDONA-Yes. I'm actually, I own Cardona and Sons, CSI, it's a highway construction company. We do the guardrails and sign structures and stuff like that. So we're very accustomed to compaction and backfilling of holes, and what we will do in 14 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) something like this is probably in one to two foot lifts we will compact it, as we backfill it, and even in then sometimes removing anything like stumps or something that may be in there that could cause a sinkhole or pothole later on. Reinforcing this bank along this lake is very important. So we won't cut any corners in the backfilling or in any of the retaining walls that, along the perimeter of this property, but again, like I say, you'll have a lot of that material coming out of the hole from the new foundation that we plan on using in that other, screening any big boulders or anything out of it, and then maybe even having to add some suitable fill, as we tamp our lifts coming up. MR. GARRAND-Yes. I don't imagine anybody's going to be out there with a (lost words) checking densities out there. MR. CARDONA-No. MRS. JENKIN-Do you know what soil it is, what kind of soil it is? MR. CARDONA-It's almost, even in digging the test holes, believe it or not it's kind of a sandy loam. As you start to get down, it comes into become more hardpan, but that first six feet, seven feet is very easily diggable, and it's almost a sandy type loam, which is found a lot in the Adirondacks here, but it's pretty good digging. It's pretty good digging, and it percs pretty well. Even, like you said earlier with the runoff when it's frozen and during the wintertime and some of these crazy Spring thaws, the property has retained the water pretty well. There's a pretty good sized, about a 48 inch retaining wall along the Assembly Point Road, the property, then the house foundation itself acted as a retaining wall, and even though I would get some water seeping into the existing home, it really does retain the water very well, except for the driveway which can become a log flume, so that's why we're addressing that, to get some of that water off the driveway, but the property is perking very well. I have lived there now for three years, and undergone some crazy thaws, and some of these, seems we get these heavy rains right during the middle of Spring thaw, and you don't see anything flowing over the top of that wall, or a little bit coming through that basement, but it does retain it pretty well, through there, and it is perking pretty well. MRS. JENKIN-But you were just mentioning retaining walls, you're putting in retaining walls, where? MR. CARDONA-Some of the retaining walls that are proposed in the stormwater management are, some of them are to direct some of the stormwater. There's an existing retaining wall along the road now, which we may just continue that just a little bit. Once we remove the existing home, it's going to leave a large gap, so to speak, a big cut out into the property. We're proposing to just continue that retaining wall, just up to the driveway and kind of bury it into the slope, just to act as what the retaining wall that's there now is doing is holding everything back, the soil, the water. Once we remove that foundation, it could leave us open to erosion and stuff like that. So we need to retain that land back. MRS. JENKIN-So you're going to change the slope of the land then, are you, or no? MR. CARDONA-No. Not really. Well, the slope may flatten a little bit. We may step it. When I say retaining walls, they're only small, maybe landscape walls, a foot, a foot and a half, and kind of level the property out, step it more than just a slope, kind of step it up a little bit like that, flatten it out as we go. If you look along that shoreline, many of the other neighbors have stone walls, different things holding their property back. Assembly Point Road is moving. It's sliding into the lake very slowly, but it is moving. They've done some studies with the PK nails and watched them move. I know that that road is moving pretty good in front of my property line right now. So, it's, you know, my obligation to keep my property from sliding down the hill. What Queensbury decides to do with that road is coming up, but again, the road, I feel, is my obligation as well, too, because it is an easement. It is part of my property. I pay taxes on that road, and it's just an easement for the people of Assembly Point Road, you know, and that retaining wall is definitely an asset to the problem of the land sliding into the lake there, but it is holding pretty well, the property itself. The road is seeming to move some. MRS. JENKIN-Thank you. MR. GARRAND-Anymore questions from the Board? Okay. At this time I'd like to ask the Board members to offer their opinion on. MR. URRICO-Close the public hearing. 15 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) MR. GARRAND-At this time I'd like to close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. GARRAND-And ask the Board members their opinion on this proposal. I'll start with Mr. Clements. MR. CLEMENTS-Sure. I'd be happy to. I see this project as a huge improvement over the current configuration. I think you've done your due diligence to try to help with stormwater runoff, setbacks. It looks like a nice project and I'd be in favor of it. MR. GARRAND-Mrs. Jenkin? MRS. JENKIN-Yes. I was concerned about the size of the home at first, because it just seems that everything is bigger and better all the time, and it has to be bigger and bigger, but taking into consideration the size of the homes around you, I don't think it's oversized. It will be a very large home, and it will be a beautiful home, too. Nice lots of windows and exposure to the lake and everything. Moving it back, you probably won't get the view that you get now from your home, but you certainly will get a good view. It's a good project. I think you're going to improve the property with all the septic and drainage and the, it's very, very important. I was concerned about the property and the retaining walls, but I think you've answered my questions well on that, and I would be in favor of this project. MR. DRELLOS-I also would agree. I'd be in favor of the project. I'm glad the setback is back farther than the original house. I would have liked to have seen it back a little bit more of the average of 127, I think it was, I mean, you took the least amount, which is zero, and I was kind of hoping maybe you'd set it back another 10 feet maybe. I was just concerned about the neighbor to the other side of you. You're talking your view, but I'm looking at his view, you know, what's he going to see, maybe, out his house, which would be your house on that corner, but I would be in favor of the project. MR. GARRAND-Okay. Mrs. Hunt? MRS. HUNT-Thank you. Considering the requested Area Variance, the 19 feet or 14.9% of relief is really minimal, and the request for 47% for the 100 foot shoreline setback for the infiltration devices may be considered moderate, but the infiltration is really a rain garden, part of the landscaping. So I would have no problem with this. MR. GARRAND-And Mr. Urrico. MR. URRICO-Yes. I'm basically in agreement with everybody else. I did have some concerns about the filtration device and whether we should pass this on to the Planning Board for their recommendation prior to ruling on this, but I think I'm convinced that this will work and I think I like what they're doing here. So I'd be in favor of it. MR. GARRAND-Okay. I, too, would agree with the other Board members. Having been on this property several times, I think what you're doing here, environmentally, is an improvement. There haven't been septic issues. Those two back cabins, traditionally, have been used seasonally. The one house closest to the road is the one that was more or less a full time residence, but at several points it was a seasonal residence only. By building this new house, you're going to have an up to date stormwater control management plan in place. You're going to have an updated septic. I can only see positive things coming out of this. So I'd also be in favor of it. Would anybody like to make a motion? MRS. JENKIN-I can make a motion. MR. GARRAND-Okay. MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 58-2008 STEVE CARDONA, Introduced by Joan Jenkin who moved for its adoption, seconded by Brian Clements: 175 Assembly Point Road. The applicant proposes to raze a 780 square foot year round single family home and two guest cabins totaling 1,583 square feet. Further, the proposal calls for the construction of a plus or minus 4,046 square foot single family home with associated site work. The relief required is 19 feet from the 127.5 foot average shoreline setback of the two adjoining principal structures per 179-4-030. 16 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) Further relief is requested for the installation of an infiltration device within 100 feet of a shoreline per Chapter 147. In making the determination, the Board considers five criteria that we have to decide on, whether an undesirable change will be produced in the character of the neighborhood or a detriment to nearby properties will be created by the granting of this Area Variance. The proposal appears to be in harmony with the existing homes in the immediate area, and as such, minor changes will be produced in the character of the neighborhood. Whether the benefit sought by the applicant can be achieved by some method feasible for the applicant to pursue other than an Area Variance. It could be built in a compliant location, but as you mentioned, putting the house farther back it would be in a lower area which would probably not be a good solution for your problem. You're building at the high point, which is the most desirable location. Whether the requested Area Variance is substantial. The request for 19 feet or 14.9% of relief from the 127.5 foot shoreline setback may be considered minimal in relation to the Ordinance. Further, the request for 47 feet or 47% of relief from the 100 foot shoreline setback requirement for infiltration devices may be considered moderate. Since this rain garden infiltration, it's really to take care of the runoff from the driveway, and it seems to be adequate for that purpose. So that would probably be all right. It's not terribly substantial. Whether the proposed variance will have an adverse effect or impact on the physical or environmental conditions in the neighborhood or district. It really will probably improve the district. It will make your home more in line with the other homes in your area. You're certainly going to improve the septic system and all the filtration devices, and that's an important environmental condition that we have to consider. Whether the alleged difficulty was self-created. It's probably self-created because you wanted to have a new better home. So I move to approve Area Variance No. 58-2008. Duly adopted this 24th day of September, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Clements, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Urrico, Mr. Drellos, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Garrand NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Underwood MR. MASCHEWSKI-Thank you very much. MR. GARRAND-Thank you. AREA VARIANCE NO. 59-2008 SEQRA TYPE: II RICHARD & AMY MOLLOY OWNER(S): RICHARD AND AMY MOLLOY OWNER(S): RICHARD AND AMY MOLLOY LOCATION: 5 VAN COURT APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 1,368 SQ. FT. TWO-STORY RESIDENTIAL ADDITION. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM THE 75 FT. SHORELINE SETBACK REQUIREMENTS. CROSS REF.: BP 2008-195; FWW 8-2008 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: N/A LOT SIZE: 1.14 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 301.6-1-10 SECTION: 179-4-030 RICHARD MOLLOY, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 59-2008, Richard & Amy Molloy, Meeting Date: September 24, 2008 "Project Location: 5 Van Court Description of Proposed Project: Applicant proposes the construction of a 1,374 square foot two story residential addition. I Relief Required: I The applicant requests 7.5 feet of relief from the 75 foot shoreline setback per 179-4- 030. I Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law: I In making a determination, the board shall consider: 1. Whether an undesirable change will be produced in the character of the neighborhood or a detriment to nearby properties will be created by the granting of this area variance. Minimal change to the character of the neighborhood may be anticipated as a result of this proposal. 17 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) 2. Whether the benefit sought by the applicant can be achieved by some method, feasible for the applicant to pursue, other than an area variance. A reduction in the size of the project or constructing in a compliant location would alleviate the need for an area variance. 3. Whether the requested area variance is substantial. The request for 7.5 feet or 10 percent of relief may be considered minimal relative to the ordinance. 4. Whether the proposed variance will have an adverse effect or impact on the physical or environmental conditions in the neighborhood or district. Minor changes on the physical and environmental conditions in the neighborhood may be anticipated. However, some clarification concerning stormwater runoff in the direction of the wetlands will need to be clarified. 5. Whether the alleged difficulty was self created. The difficulty may be interpreted as self created. I Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): I P86-403 Single family dwelling Approved 7/14/86 P88-360 Addition/Sunroom Approved 6/9/88 I Staff comments: I The applicant has stated in the application that three bedrooms are to be built. Upon further review, it is noted that two bedrooms are proposed and the third bedroom was actually an office/den. However, clarification on the size of the wastewater system will need to be forthcoming as the result of the increase in bedrooms. Concerning the proposed setback to the wetlands, staff suggests that some form of wetland protection be accomplished. Are the applicants proposing gutters for the proposed addition? What is the path of stormwater currently existing and proposed? Clarification may be needed concerning stormwater management. I SEQR Status: I Type II" MR. GARRAND-Would you like to begin, sir? MR. MOLLOY-Yes. My name is Rich Molloy. I'm going to present a couple of PowerPoint slides that walk through what we're proposing to do and address some of the concerns of the Board. So why we're here requesting an Area Variance for my wife and I for 5 Van Court, Queensbury, NY. A 1370 square foot addition has been proposed. It encroaches seven and a half feet on that seventy-five foot shoreline setback. What I'm going to talk about today is an overview of the existing and the proposed plot, the floor plans, overview of the property and shoreline setback distances, and an explanation I'll go into on the reason why we've chosen to do this addition and our reason for choosing the location, and then I want to talk a little bit about some stormwater management considerations that we've been working through, and then provide some supporting letters from adjacent property owners that probably were not sent in to you also. I've got a copy of these here. MR. GARRAND-Okay. If you'd like you can give them to Mr. Urrico and he can read those into the record. MR. MOLLOY-All right. The first slide describes the location of the property. We've got a map from the DEC that shows exactly where this property is, 5 Van Court, Queensbury, New York. Okay. This is basically West Mountain Road, Aviation Road goes this way, and here's Potter Road. This is the Van Howe subdivision. Here's Pinion Pine Road and Van Court is the street that I live on. This orange outline shows the property. It's basically 1.14 acres. The house was built in 1986, and Lot 25, I'll refer to the adjacent Lots 24 and 26 throughout this, and again, 1.14 acres. Okay. Here's a look at the existing plot plan that was provided from a survey several months ago by Van Dusen and Steves. For the 1.14 acres, the lot size is 50,000 square foot. The existing house footprint is shown by the dark black line. Here's the existing footprint, including the garage, the existing house, and that is 1670 square foot. The impermeable footprint, 18 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) including the pool area with concrete walkways, 120 square foot shed, porch, , and driveway, 5760 square foot. That's 11 % impermeable area. The existing floor area, total of both floors is 2900 square foot. That's a Floor Area Ratio of 5.7%. Now this shows the proposed addition. Really all we're, what we're trying to do here it build an addition over the garage, and close off from the back of the garage to the back of the house. 1369 square foot, it increases the proposed house footprint by 28 and a half by 18, that's 505 feet, square foot. It increases the impermeable square foot by the same amount and that's, it increases it by one percent to 12% of the total plot. The existing floor area goes up to 4274 square foot, including all the shed and the porches. That goes up a little less than three percent, eight and a half percent is the new Floor Area Ratio. So it's within the 22% Town requirement. Here's a look at the elevation drawings. This is just to take a look at what the house is going to look like. We're trying to blend it in with the rest of the existing home. The existing home is shown from the street with a solarium, a sunroom. The garage roof basically is this area. What we're proposing to do is build up above the garage and connect into the house, and from the side view from, basically from the north, this is what we'll see. The existing garage comes to here, and that's the garage roof. We're going to extend off the back and build a second floor. We're not going to exceed the existing ridge line. All right. Here's the floor plan. The first floor we're going to add a master bedroom, closet and bathroom, again, behind the house. The grade area is the existing house. On the second floor we want to add two bedrooms. I realize that the plot plan that I submitted with the application or the floor plans showed that as an office den and bedroom one. That is actually a bedroom. What we are converting from a bedroom, an existing bedroom of the house and the second floor, removing the closet and making that into a working office. So we're starting with two bedrooms in the house, removing this bedroom, and we'll add one, two, bedrooms on the second floor and the master bedroom on the first floor. So we'll have a total of four bedrooms. All right. Here's the setbacks that we're talking about. Here's a look at the plot plan, again, with the proposed addition. So here's Lot 24, Lot 26, and we're Lot 25. Here's the shoreline at the back of the property. A-1 and A-2, A-1 is from the back corner of the garage to the adjacent property line. That's 26 feet. A-2 is 24 feet. So no issue there. The setbacks to Lot 26 from the corner of the shed, 44 feet, and from the corner of the house where the kitchen is, that is 56 feet. So here's the back corner of the house where we'll be adjoining the proposed addition, C-1 back to this wetlands boundary that's been marked out by the surveyor and by the Army Corps of Engineers. That's 76 and a half feet. So that's okay. C-2, though, is the back corner of the addition. That's the 67 feet which encroaches by seven and a half feet on the setback requirement. We'll note that the back corner of the pool area is 55 feet from the wetland. So that's a 20 foot encroachment. That was approved by the Town in 1990. So it may be grandfathered in. I'm not sure. So the reason for the location of this addition, I've got on this map showing three options that we've looked at. Option One, thought about coming off of the side of the house toward Lot 26. There's a kitchen, living room and a sunroom. Well, the advantage of that option was we had no setback issues, but what we would have to do to build there is knock out the solarium. There's a cathedral ceiling in the living room. So we'd have to either come out quite a bit toward this property line, or we'd have to do some major structural changes to the cathedral ceiling on the inside, and we felt that was, it was a costly way to go, and there's a lot of disruption to the interior living space during the activities. We also would have to move gas and electric lines that are currently coming into this side of the house. So we felt that was a bad option. Option Two, come off the front of the house. The issue is, again, we have electric and water lines, moving the septic, and we have a kitchen here. So there'd be a lot of major plumbing changes, and we felt Option Three, coming off the back of the corner of the house, is the least disruption, was the best, kind of cost value option for us. Now, I didn't mention that the existing house has two bedrooms. We bought it in 2005. It was sold as three bedrooms. So we moved the kids upstairs and we moved down to the basement, and later found out that it's not a valid basement because it doesn't have an egress through the basement. So we found this out in early 2007. So that was, really triggered our thoughts to start adding on to the house. Now we've got five living in the house in two bedrooms. Okay. So that, where are we, basically that finishes Bullet Point Three. Bullet Point Four is the stormwater management considerations. All right. The existing roof drainage is shown here. Here's looking from, basically, the north. Existing garage, which is set out 28 and a half feet from the main house. Here's the ridgeline of the garage going back into the house. We looked at the roofing area before and after the addition to try to figure out the best way to route the water. Basically the way this looks, the water from the existing house and the garage would drain off to the front, through this gutter system, and we calculated that's 520 some square foot. Off the back we've got this whole volume of roof draining into the gutters that goes off the back of the house to that corner of that's about 76 feet from the wetlands, or from the shoreline, and then the water off this roof comes off to this area, to this corner. So it's 900 some square foot. So, you know, almost 2/3rds of the water is going to the back of the house, and we have 19 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) this permeable ground available now behind the garage. We're proposing to build over that. So here's the look at the new addition, looking at the same direction. What we're doing is removing some roof area by building the second floor and tying it into the house. We've got less drainage to the front from the garage roof. Total to the front of the house, 220 foot from the garage, 520 foot from the addition on the second floor, and 89 square foot from the house. Now, from the back, the back of the house, what we propose to do is put gutters on this fascia, take this portion of the roof runoff, run it into the gutters, route the gutters toward the front of the house. So basically we're going to divert most of the water toward the front of the house. Now that's 1712 square foot, about a factor of three greater than what we had before. What we propose to do is take the existing gutters that carried the runoff from this front side and move the downspout to the southern corner of the property. So now we're distributing water from the back of the house where we've lost the drainage footprint, moving it toward the front corner, and taking that existing drainage that was in the front of the house, moving it back to the other corner of the house. So, this is to answer your question about how we're dealing with the drainage of the water. So we're basically going to triple the amount of drainage to the front of the property, and knock off the drainage toward the back of the property by a factor of three. So we'll have actually less drainage towards the wetlands than we did before. All right. Just to summarize, the proposed addition is, we've got a growing family and limited bedroom space. We feel we need additional bedrooms. We talked about a couple of options for this. The other option we considered was to move out of the neighborhood, but there's a lot of kids in the neighborhood. It's an excellent family environment. So we want to stay. We think the location of the proposed addition is the best balance of cost and limited disruption to living space. I didn't mention, but going off the back of the garage and above the garage really, we can do a lot of the construction before we actually have to knock a hole in the house. So a lot of work can be done without disrupting our living area, and for the shoreline setback, seven and a half feet, 10% of your, of the Town requirement, we have existing structures over that, and whether they're grandfathered or not, we think what we're proposing to do here, the stormwater runoff, we'll be directing that in another way, so as not to cause any environmental issues there. The last thing I have is just the three letters from adjacent property owners. One of the owners across the back of the stream, butting up to our backyard, and then the owners of Lot 24 and 26 have all written letters in support of this project. Thank you. MR. GARRAND-Mr. Urrico, would you like to read those in? MR. URRICO-Sure. "I am writing to you in reference to two Public Hearing Notices announcing a proposed addition requested by Richard and Amy Molloy, located at 5 Van Court, Queensbury, NY. I have had an opportunity to discuss this project with the applicants and would like to submit my comments for consideration. My property is immediately adjacent to the Molloy's and also borders the seasonal stream of interest. It is my understanding that the proposed project will result in only a small encroachment within the Town's 75 foot shoreline setback requirement and will not alter the stream bank and wetlands area by construction or other activities in any way. The Molloys are also planning to redirect water run-off from the addition roof to the front of their home using gutters, and therefore no increase in water drainage towards the stream would be expected. Thus, the Molloy's project should not result in a negative impact on the environment. Instead, the proposed addition should improve the Molloy's property value and therefore should also have a positive impact on the neighborhood. I request that the Town of Queensbury Planning and Zoning Boards approve Rich and Amy Molloy's applications for an area variance and a Freshwater Wetlands Permit. Sincerely, Joseph Phillips" "We are writing to you today in support of the requested Area Variance and Freshwater Wetlands Permit for Richard and Amy Molloy's proposed addition, located at 5 Van Court, Queensbury, NY. Our property borders the Halfway Creek wetlands area to the west, and the Molloy's property to the south. As neighbors of the Molloy's, we believe the addition they have proposed will not result in alteration to the wetlands/stream bank at the rear of the property, and consequently will have no negative impact on the environment. Furthermore, the proposed project will improve their property value and the property values of others located in the neighborhood. We ask the Town of Queensbury Planning and Zoning Boards to approve the Molloy's applications. Sincerely, Charles and Karen Pound 10 Van Court Queensbury, NY 12804. "Our property abuts, to the west, the Molloy's property. Halfway brook serves as the property line between our properties. 'It is declared to be the public policy of the Town of Queensbury to preserve, protect and conserve freshwater wetlands and the benefits derived there from, to prevent any despoliation and destruction of freshwater wetlands and to regulate the development of such wetlands in order to secure the natural benefits of freshwater wetlands, consistent with the general welfare and beneficial economic, social and agricultural development of the Town.' While their proposed 20 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) addition may be within 75 feet of the shoreline, it will not disturb the flow of the brook or otherwise adversely impact the brook. Their house appears to be 15 to 20 feet above the high water mark of the brook. Improvements to dwellings within our neighborhood serves to improve the character and appeal of our neighborhood. We would ask the Board to approve their application. Sincerely, Irene and Tom Jurek 6 Bishop Court Queensbury, NY 12804" MR. GARRAND-Thank you, Mr. Urrico. At this time I'm going to open up the public hearing. Is there anybody in? Apparently not. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. GARRAND-So for now I'll ask Board members, you know, if they have any questions. Any questions for the applicant? MR. DRELLOS-I just have to say he's really done his homework. He's done a fantastic job. I wish everybody that came in here had a PowerPoint, and plans like this. Very nice. MRS. JENKIN-I have a question about the runoff into the front yard. That's where your septic system is. Is this going to affect, because you're going to have more bedrooms, now, and more bathrooms. So that you, are you adjusting the septic at all or are you increasing the septic system at all? That's not our purview, but will you be changing this at all, in order to? MR. MOLLOY-I've spoken to the Building Department on two occasions, most recently today, and I think it's likely that I will have to upgrade the septic system to a 150 gallon tank. On our first pass, we thought the 1,000 gallon was okay, but it's, I think we're going to have to upgrade that system in order to accommodate the fourth bedroom, and we're prepared to do that. MRS. JENKIN-But you have a leach field as well. What kind of soil do you have? MR. MOLLOY-Well, based on the, I guess the calculations that, I guess they use to determine the length, I think we've probably got, we're in the highest ranking in terms of percolation. It's very fast runoff. We can barely keep the, keep any water in the lines on the lawn sprinkling. So it's a very sandy soil. MRS. JENKIN-It is sandy. MR. MOLLOY-And just based on the size of the house, the three bedroom and the size of the existing 200 foot total length, if you look at those numbers, it would have to be in the highest category of drainage, of percolation, in other words, the fastest percolation. MRS. JENKIN-So putting the runoff into the front yard, as well as having a septic there, that's not too much or it wouldn't affect septic with the runoff, too. MR. MOLLOY-Well, I'd probably have to consult with the Board on the, or the Town Building Department on this question. I mean, we're prepared to run the water off the back, you know, if we ran the water off the front, and did not divert all that drainage to the back, based on the changes in the rooflines, we would still have less square footage of roofline draining into the backyard, then prior to the addition, based on the numbers I've gone through, and I think that has to do with the fact that you're eating into, you're moving the ridgeline of the new structure toward the back, which automatically takes more of the house drainage and pushes it to the front. So there's some re-distribution there, and the other thing is that we're taking roofline and cutting it into the house roof. So you're taking away more square footage there as well. So as it turns out, I think it's 850 square foot if I take all the back runoff and leave it in the back. What I had proposed to do is move it all to the front, because we had lost 500 foot of square footage of lawn area to drain, but I think we have two options here, and I think I have to consult probably with the Building Department on the best way to go, but I'm prepared to do the gutters or the drainage. MRS. JENKIN-If you have very sandy soil, you have a fair amount of room behind your house as well. MR. MOLLOY-I think so. MRS. JENKIN-Now your lot line is the stream? 21 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) MR. MOLLOY-It actually goes beyond the wetlands area. I can put that slide back up. MRS. JENKIN-Because it's not clear, here, where the end of your property is. MR. MOLLOY-Well, here's one look at it. The stream is actually the boundary of the property. The wetlands crosses in front. MRS. JENKIN-So where your pointer is is the boundary of your property there? MR. MOLLOY-This is the boundary of the stream, and our setback is, here's the bank, essentially, of the stream, and that's what the Army Corps of Engineers designated the border of the wetlands. MRS. JENKIN-That's the back of your property? MR. MOLLOY-That's the back of the property, yes. That's the closest distance at that corner, C-2, that C-2 distance. MR. CLEMENTS-Excuse me. As you look at that slide, your septic system is off to the bottom, or the south side. Where's the drainage going to go in the front yard? Is it going to go on the side where the septic system is or the opposite side of the house, near the garage? MR. MOLLOY-When I showed the drawing before, this roofline would come down, and load onto this roof, and then drain either into this corner or that corner. This is a hip roof. That'll take the flow from the side and the flow from the front of the garage, sorry, the flow from the back and the side, re-direct it to this corner. The flow from the front of the roof, and there's a porch roof that goes along, would go into this corner. That's one way I propose we can do it. The septic system is here. I'm not sure, I mean, that's one option we're thinking of. Whether that's acceptable or not, I think we have to talk to the Building Department, but I'm not entirely sure that the backyard isn't an okay option. Because, I mean, we're only changing the impermeable area of the property by one percent, by adding it to the small, 500 square foot addition, and again, the amount of runoff to the backyard is now less than it was with the existing structure, if I let the gutters catch and carry everything to the back of the house. MRS. JENKIN-There's quite a bit of wooded area to the north, too, to the side of the existing garage now. Are you going to change that wooded area at all? MR. MOLLOY-No. The wood start of this fence, no, we have a birch tree here. The top's falling off. I have to move that. We plan to plant more trees low in the back of the property. Our proposal is four trees replaced for everyone we take out, and we have to take out, one, two, three, four. Some small trees to get the cement truck to the back, but no change to this bank. In fact, this is so overgrown with trees, you can really, it's tough to get back there. MRS. JENKIN-Because that absorbs a lot of water, too. MR. MOLLOY-Yes. I would think there'd be a lot of drainage here, but I'm not an expert on exactly what's required. MRS. JENKIN-It doesn't seem as if it would be a problem. MR. OBORNE-If I may alleviate some of your fears, the big concern as far as water coming off the house, is a real flow, or concentrated flow down to the wetland. He seems to be concentrating it towards the front for the most part, and the rear is not precluded from having drainage there. It's fine. It's just, my general question was what are you doing, basically, and again, my concern is with the real and maybe massive sheet flow going down that way, but it doesn't seem that that would be a result of this. MRS. JENKIN-Well, I was just thinking that if everything is directed to the front, and when you've got these gutters coming around and everything is coming down, if there's a huge rainstorm then you're going to have a lot of water coming off the front of the house, but if you had part of it from the front, part of it to the back, it's going to even it out a little bit, and when there's isn't a real problem anyway with drainage, I don't know why you would push it all to the front. That's all. That's just my own observation. That's all. MR. GARRAND-Okay. Brian? 22 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) MR. CLEMENTS-Is this questions? MR. GAR RAND-Questions. MR. CLEMENTS-No, no more questions. MR. GARRAND-Board members? Okay. At this time, I'd like to close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. GARRAND-I'd like to ask the Board members to offer their opinion, with regard to Area Variance No. 59-2008, and I'll start with Mr. Clements. MR. CLEMENTS-Okay. I'd be happy to. This looks like a reasonable place to build an addition, and it seems like you've done your homework on this project very well. I would be in favor of the project. MRS. JENKIN-Okay. I think the option you chose is a good one. It certainly will, I don't think there's any other means to putting your addition on than what you've decided. It's a good solution. There certainly isn't an undesirable change in the neighborhood. It will enhance the neighborhood. It'll improve their property values. It'll give you more room, which you need in your house. I don't think the request is substantial. I don't think you have a problem with the water drainage. We've discussed that at length. So I would be in favor of this. MR. DRELLOS-I would tend to agree. I think it's a good project. It's the best place for this addition and best solution, and I would be in favor. MR. MOLLOY-Thank you. MRS. HUNT-I want to congratulate you, Mr. Molloy. Your presentation, you answered any questions that I might have had, and I think the 7.5 feet, 10% relief, is minimal, and I would be in favor. MR. GARRAND-Mr. Urrico? MR. URRICO-I agree with everybody else. I'd be in favor of the project. MR. GARRAND-I, too, would have to agree with my other Board members. I think the applicant has addressed all of Staff's concerns and done a pretty good job with the presentation. At this point, I'll make a motion that we approve Area Variance No. 59- 2008. MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 59-2008 RICHARD & AMY MOLLOY, Introduced by Richard Garrand who moved for its adoption, seconded by Joyce Hunt: 5 Van Court. The applicant proposes the construction of a 1,374 square foot two story residential addition. The applicant is requesting 7.5 feet of relief from the 75 foot shoreline setback per 179-4-030. On the balancing test, whether the benefit can be achieved by other means feasible to the applicant. Other means feasible seem to be cost prohibitive as was expressed by the applicant in his presentation. Will this produce an undesirable change in the character of the neighborhood or nearby properties? No, I do not believe it will produce any undesirable change in the neighborhood. It will probably enhance the neighborhood. Is the request substantial? Quite the contrary. It's minimal. Will this have adverse physical or environmental effects on the neighborhood? I think the applicant has done a good job with this plan for directing stormwater, so it will not have any adverse physical or environmental impact, and this may be deemed as self-created since it is the applicant who has come before us proposing this variance. So I move that we approve Area Variance No. 59-2008. Duly adopted this 24th day of September, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Clements, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Drellos, Mr. Garrand NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Underwood 23 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) MR. GARRAND-The motion is approved. MR. MOLLOY-Thank you very much. AREA VARIANCE NO. 64-2008 SEQRA TYPE: I DAVID R. MINER AGENT(S): KRISTINE WHEELER OWNER(S): DAVID R. MINER ZONING: SR-1A LOCATION: NORTH SIDE OF LUZERNE ROAD, WEST OF INTERSECTION WITH BURCH ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A SINGLE-FAMILY DWELLING ON A PROPOSED 2-LOT SUBDIVISION. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM MINIMUM LOT WIDTH REQUIREMENT FOR LOTS FRONTING ON ARTERIAL OR COLLECTOR ROAD. CROSS REF.: SUBDIVISION NO. 7-2008; AD 4-07 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: N/A LOT SIZE: 1.04 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 308.06-1-1 SECTION: 179- 19-020C KRISTINE WHEELER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 64-2008, David R. Miner, Meeting Date: September 24, 2008 "Project Location: North side of Luzerne Road, west of the intersection with Burch Road Description of Proposed Project: Applicant proposes to construct a single family home on a proposed 9.16 acre two lot subdivision. The proposed lot will be 1.04 acres in size. I Relief Required: I Applicant requests 108.43 feet of relief from Section 179-19-020(C) which requires all lots created that front on an arterial or collector road to have either double the minimum lot width or a shared driveway. The proposed lot does not meet the minimum 300 ft. lot width requirement nor does it share a driveway with an adjoining lot. I Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law: I In making a determination, the board shall consider: 1. Whether an undesirable change will be produced in the character of the neighborhood or a detriment to nearby properties will be created by the granting of this area variance. Minimal change to the character of the neighborhood may be anticipated as a result of this proposal. 2. Whether the benefit sought by the applicant can be achieved by some method, feasible for the applicant to pursue, other than an area variance. The applicant could have frontage on Burch Road, thus eliminating the need for double the lot width. However, some form of relief will be required for the application as submitted. 3. Whether the requested area variance is substantial. The request for 108.43 feet or 36.14 percent of relief per 179-19-020C may be considered moderate relative to the ordinance. 4. Whether the proposed variance will have an adverse effect or impact on the physical or environmental conditions in the neighborhood or district. Minor impacts on the physical or environmental conditions of the neighborhood may be anticipated. 5. Whether the alleged difficulty was self created. The difficulty may be interpreted as self created. I Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): I P2007-0276 Single Family Dwelling Approved 6/7/07 I Staff comments: I The purpose for the double lot width requirement is for safe and efficient movement of traffic. The applicant has stated in the proposal that the driveway will be located approximately 250 feet from the driveway to the west and approximately 160 feet 24 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) from the driveway to the east. There are minimal site line issues concerning this proposal as submitted. Per NYS Town Law 277, subdivisions requiring variances must be referred to the Planning Board for recommendation prior to deciding on the variance application. The proposed lot in question is 1.04 acres in size and was subdivided from a larger 9.16 acre lot. The larger lot has an existing house with a shared driveway. I SEQR Status: I Type II" MR. GARRAND-Please state your name for the record and explain to us why we should grant you this Area Variance. One quick question for Staff. Has this gone to the Planning Board yet? MR. OBORNE-No, it hasn't. They're up for tomorrow, I believe. MR. GARRAND-AII right. Thank you very much. You may begin. DAVE MINER MR. MINER-Okay. Good evening, everybody. My address is 590 Luzerne Road, and with me tonight is my engineer/agent/daughter who will be the recipient of this lot if we're able to get the variance approved. The lot is going to be used for her to build a home on. It's not a multiple dwelling subdivision or anything like that. I'm trying to give my daughter a building lot. The proposed variance here will, it mentioned in your notes that it would have minimal impact in the area, and for anybody that's familiar with that area up there, you can see that the road is straight in both directions from there, and the safety issue should be minimal, and with that, any questions that you have regarding the project, I'd like you to direct them to Krissy. MR. GARRAND-Okay. Do you have a presentation you'd like to give? MRS. WHEELER-No. We don't have a formal presentation. We're just prepared to answer questions that the Board may have. Okay. At this time, I'll open the public hearing. No response. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. GARRAND-Any Board members have any questions? MR. URRICO-Just for the record, have you considered having the house front on Burch Road? MRS. WHEELER-We would like to keep the house frontage on Luzerne Road, based on, due to the character of the neighborhood, the character of the houses in the surrounding neighborhood. The lots on Burch Road are probably best used for something that is more appropriate. We'd also like to not be in a subdivision anymore. We lived in a subdivision of 1,000 units in Clifton Park, and we'd really look forward to being on a main road again, for once. So we would prefer to keep the house on Luzerne Road. MRS. JENKIN-Would you explain this property? You own all of the nine acres here? MR. MINER-Originally it was an 11.2 acre parcel. There was one home on the parcel. That was my own private home. MRS. JENKIN-And that was which one of these, the middle one? MR. MINER-It was the one furthest to the left on your print. MRS. JENKIN-Okay, with the pool. MR. MINER-That's correct. MRS. JENKIN-Okay. MR. MINER-That was my home until a week ago. In the center of your drawing, that's the new home that I built over the past year. I moved in just a week ago. I've turned over the, myoid home to my daughter and son-in-law. They moved in, and we're in the 25 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) process of trying to get this lot approved so that they can build a new home and then we'll have to figure out what we're going to do with the original home. So the three parcels, or the three properties are mine. They're in my name now, and I'm trying to get one lot turned over to my daughter and my son-in-law. MRS. JENKIN-So this is why the middle one includes the nine acre of the back. This is still yours. MR. MINER-That's correct. MRS. JENKIN-Are you planning to develop that? MR. MINER-At this point, I don't have any plans to develop it. At some point in time, someone may develop it. My daughter may, at some point in time, but we don't have any current plans. MRS. JENKIN-But that's one of the reasons why you want to keep this third property fronting on and access to Luzerne Road, because you want to keep this one for your. MR. MINER-Well, naturally I wouldn't want to do anything that would affect the value of the property, but the value of the property for us right now is the fact that there's nothing on it. That is the value of the property. That's what we're concerned with, and that's the way we'd like to see it kept for some time, but I think my daughter mentioned that she's coming out of a subdivision of 1,000 homes, and that's not what we're after. We're not trying to maximize the density on any piece of property. We're trying to live in the country. MR. GARRAND-Any other Board members have questions? MRS. HUNT-I have a question for Staff. You said that subdivisions requiring variances must be referred to the Planning Board for recommendation? MR. OBORNE-That is correct, ma'am. MRS. HUNT-So we couldn't make the variance, couldn't pass the variance today, then. MR. OBORNE-That is correct. MRS. HUNT-Thank you. MR. OBORNE-And the Planning Board, I'll prod them to make a recommendation tomorrow night. MRS. HUNT-Okay. MR. GARRAND-Okay, and that'll be rescheduled for us to make a formal vote on it. MR. OBORNE-Right, and get the applicant back into October as soon as possible, which I guess would be the 15th. MR. CLEMENTS-I see you have the driveways of the two houses that are there now are coming in together and coming out as one driveway? MR. MINER-That's correct. That situation, the fact that I'm here, that situation grew out of a misunderstanding that I apparently had with the Zoning Administrator. When I went in to get the administrative two lot subdivision last year, to put the new home on, my understanding was that I had an option of sharing a driveway with the third lot on that frontage. MR. CLEMENTS-Which is the one you're talking about tonight. MR. MINER-That's correct, or sharing a driveway with the existing home, which still left 300 feet of frontage with only one additional curb cut. So I opted to go with the, by sharing it with the existing home, so that when we developed the third lot, that we could put a driveway on Luzerne Road and 300 feet. I find out this Spring, and the reason that I'm here, that wasn't exactly true, that the lot was supposed to have 300 feet of frontage, or a shared driveway. Had I known that, or had I understood that, I would have put a driveway from Luzerne Road to the new property and shared it with the lot that I want to turn over to my daughter. So I'd still, it's one curb cut. It's not any additional curb cuts. 26 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) It's exactly the same except the driveway that we're requesting on Luzerne Road will only serve one property rather than two. MRS. JENKIN-And you can't change it now because the leach field's in the way. MR. MINER-That's correct. MR. URRICO-There is one letter in here. I would recommend reading it in before we table it. MR. GARRAND-By all means. MRS. JENKIN-So we have to table it? MR. GARRAND-Yes. MR. URRICO-"This letter is in regard to applicant David R. Miner, # 64-2008 area variance. We strongly oppose this variance; zoning laws protect the rural beauty and serenity of this scenic area. When lots keep getting sub-divided it creates an urban environment. We moved up here to get away from that. We are sure that Mr. Miner and his family are good people and are welcome here, but there are plenty of areas that do not need a variance. If you do it for one, you have to do it for all. Sincerely, Richard Backes Mary Ann Backes" That's it. MR. GARRAND-AII right. Thank you, Mr. Urrico. At this time, would you like to offer your opinions? MR. URRICO-I'd just as soon wait for the Planning Board. MR. GARRAND-Okay. Wait for the Planning Board recommendations. MR. URRICO-Yes. MR. GARRAND-AII right. Kind of one of those situations where the cart is a little bit before the horse. We have to await Planning Board recommendations as per 277, at which time we can come back. You said October 15th. MR. OBORNE-I think that would be judicial. Absolutely. MR. GARRAND-Okay. How does the schedule look for that night? MR. OBORNE-It's getting a little tight, but considering the subject matter, this is, again my recommendation is that it does get tabled to there, so then they can come back in the month of October to the Zoning Board, obviously, the first Zoning Board meeting to wrap this up. MR. GARRAND-Okay, because I don't want to get into another situation where we have like eight in a night. MR. OBORNE-Well, it is a full meeting at this point. MR. GARRAND-Okay. MR. URRICO-When you say "full", what do you mean by "full"? MR. OBORNE-Fulll mean by six at this point. MR. GARRAND-Okay. I don't want to put any more than six on there. MR. URRICO-We did vote on this not too long ago, that we would limit the number of applications per night to five. MR. OBORNE-That is true. Usually what happens when you have more, and this is irrespective of your application, is that the Chairman of the Zoning Board of Appeals would come in and say that's okay, and say, he would look over the applications and say that should be quick or that should be long, and he'd, you know, have them moved around. 27 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) MR. GARRAND-Yes. I just want to be safe. How are we looking on the second meeting in October? MR. OBORNE-If that is your wish, absolutely. MR. GARRAND-Yes. I'd much rather push it to the second meeting, than congest the first meeting. MR. OBORNE-That's fine. I'm just recommending, sir. That would be the 22nd of October. MR. GARRAND-Okay. What we're going to do is await the Planning Board recommendation. Digest that for roughly a month and we'll come back on the 22nd and we'll offer our opinions and our decision at that time. So, motion to table. MOTION TO TABLE AREA VARIANCE NO. 64-2008 DAVID R. MINER, Introduced by Joyce Hunt who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Drellos: North side of Luzerne Road, west of the intersection with Burch Road. Until the 22nd of October. Duly adopted this 24th day of September, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Drellos, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Clements, Mr. Garrand NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Underwood MR. GARRAND-We'lI see you second meeting in October. MR. MINER-Thank you. MR. GARRAND-Thank you. MRS. WHEELER-Thank you very much. MR. GARRAND-We have some administrative items we've got to get done real quick. Okay. We have to approve some minutes here. APPROVAL OF MINUTES July 16,2008 MOTION TO APPROVE THE QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS MEETING MINUTES OF JULY 16, 2008, Introduced by George Drellos who moved for its adoption, seconded by Richard Garrand: Duly adopted this 24th day of September 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Clements, Mr. Drellos, Mr. Garrand NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Underwood August 20, 2008 MOTION TO APPROVE THE QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS MEETING MINUTES OF AUGUST 20, 2008, Introduced by Richard Garrand who moved for its adoption, seconded by Brian Clements: Duly adopted this 24th day of September, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Clements, Mr. Drellos, Mr. Garrand NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Underwood 28 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 09/24/08) July 23,2008 MOTION TO APPROVE THE QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS MEETING MINUTES OF JULY 23, 2008, Introduced by Richard Garrand who moved for its adoption, seconded by Brian Clements: Duly adopted this 24th day of September, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Clements, Mr. Drellos, Mr. Garrand NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Underwood On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Richard Garrand, Acting Chairman 29