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1997-01-15 i '\ --./ ( \_~ 0 RIG I N A L QUEENS BURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FIRST REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 15, 1997 INDEX Area Variance No. 1-1997 Tax Map No. 107-2-5 Kubricky Construction 1. Use Variance No. 2-1997 Tax Map No. 117-11-2 117-10-6 Michael & Sarah Hayes 3. Area Variance No. 3-1997 Tax Map No. 117-11-2 117-10-6 Michael & Sarah Hayes 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. '_____A' '-..,/ (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) QUEENS BURY ZONING BOARD FIRST REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 15, 1997 7:00 P.M. OF APPEALS MEMBERS PRESENT CHRIS THOMAS, CHAIRMAN BONNIE LAPHAM, SECRETARY ROBERT KARPELES DONALD 0' LEARY LEWIS STONE PLANNER-GEORGE HILTON STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI MR. THOMAS-And the first on the agenda has been scratched, for John & Kathleen Salvador, at their request, until next month. The next thing on the agenda is Kubricky Construction Corporation. NEW BUSINESS: AREA VARIANCE NO. 1-1997 TYPE II LI-1A KUBRICKY CONSTRUCTION CORP. OWNER: SAME AS ABOVE EAST SIDE OF BAY ROAD, 1/2 MILE SOUTH OF QUAKER ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES TO CONSTRUCT A 2,400 SQ. FT. ADDITION TO AN EXISTING OFFICE BUILDING WHICH WILL NOT MEET THE SIDE YARD SETBACK FOR THE LI-1A ZONE. RELIEF IS BEING REQUESTED FROM THE SETBACKS LISTED IN SECTION 179-26, LIGHT INDUSTRIAL ZONE. WARREN COUNTY PLANNING 1/8/97 TAX MAP NO. 107-2-5 LOT SIZE: 1.74 ACRES SECTION 179-26 RICHARD MILES, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MRS. LAPHAM-Warren County Planning Board, January 8, 1997, RE: Queensbury 1-1997 Kubricky Construction, Bay Road. "At a meeting of the Warren County Planning Board, held on the 8th day of January, the above application for an Area Variance to construct a 2400 sqft addition onto the back of the existing office building. was reviewed and the following action was taken. Recommendation to: No County Impact" Signed by Tracey M. Clothier, Chairperson" STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 1-1997, Kubricky Construction Corp., Meeting Date: January 15, 1997 "APPLICANT: Kubricky Construction Corp. PROJECT LOCATION: 238 Bay Rd. Proposed Proj ect and Conformance with the Ordinance: The applicant is proposing to construct an addition to an existing office building on Bay Rd. The new addition will not meet the side yard setback requirements for the LI-IA zone. Criteria for considering an Area Variance, according to Chapter 267, Town Law. 1. Benefit to the applicant: Relief would allow the applicant to build an addition to an existing office building. 2. Feasible alternatives: The location of on site parking and the floor plan of the existing building limits any alternatives. 3. Is this relief substantial relative to the ordinance? The applicant is seeking 7.17 feet of side setback relief. 4. Effects on the neighborhood or community? No negative impacts are expected with this application for relief. 5. Is this difficulty self created? The location of the existing building and parking make it difficult to locate this addition elsewhere on the site. Staff Comments & Concerns: Staff believes this request would benefit the applicant and at the same time not present any major threat to the health, safety and welfare of the surrounding neighborhood . SEQR: Type II, no further action required. " MR. THOMAS-Is a representative from Kubricky Construction here? IS - 1 - (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) there anything else you want to add to the application? MR. MILES-No additions. MR. THOMAS-Okay. Any questions from the Board? This addition, is it going to be as high as the existing building? MR. MILES-It's going to be attached to the existing building. MR. THOMAS-I mean, it'll be attached to it, but will it be any higher than the existing building? MR. MILES-No, it will not. MR. THOMAS-Is there a basement to it, just a slab foundation? MR. MILES-Just a slab. MR. THOMAS-Is there any plumbing in it, like bathroom sinks? MR. MILES-No, it'll be just offices, no toilets. MR. THOMAS-Okay. Has anyone got any questions before I open the public hearing? MR. KARPELES-Yes. You say the location of on site parking in the floor plan of the existing building limits any alternatives. Could you go into that a little bit? Why couldn't it be somewhere else? MR. MILES-Okay. Obviously, it could not be on the front of the building. The síde of the building to the north is adjacent to the substation. So there would be no room there. We're already close to the side property line. On the right side of the building in the back is a shop operation, involving overhead doors where we pull equipment in. So it's impossible to connect it on that side of the building. MR. KARPELES-You say the riqht side of the building? MR. MILES-It would be the south side in the back. MR. KARPELES-What I'm wondering is why couldn't it just be moved back seven feet or whatever from the property line? All you're looking for is seven feet of relief. MR. MILES-That would impinge on the shop operation. The building diverges from the property line. The closest part of the building to the property line is the existing back side of the building. So this addition will be actually diverging from the property line going a greater distance from what the existing building is now. MR. STONE-That area is a driveway, currently? MR. MILES-It's currently paved, yes. MR. THOMAS-Anymore questions? I'll open the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. THOMAS-Any correspondence? MRS. LAPHAM-Yes. No objection from M.E. Scoville, 51 Garrison Road, 12804, 1/9/97. MR. THOMAS-Is that it? MRS. LAPHAM-That's it. - 2 - (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) FRANK IMBIMBO MR. IMBIMBO-My name is Frank Imbimbo. We live at 230 Bay, across the street from Kubricky Construction, and it wouldn' t be any problem on our part, as long as we don't see anything or new extension, that would actually be fine. MR. THOMAS-Okay. Thank you. Would anyone else like to speak? I'll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. THOMAS-Does anyone else have anymore questions? All right. We're waiting for a motion, I guess. MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 1-1997 KUBRICKY CONSTRUCTION CORP., Introduced by Lewis Stone who moved for its adoption, seconded by Bonnie Lapham: Applicant proposing to construct an addition to an existing office building on Bay Road. The new addition will not meet the side yard setback requirements for the LI-IA zone. The applicant is seeking 5.12 to 7.17 feet of relief from one corner of the building to the back corner of the building. The back corner would be 5.12 feet, and the other would be, it's going from 5.12 to 7.17. This variance would enable the applicant to build an addition to an existing office building. The location of the outside parking in the floor plan of the existing building limits any alternatives, this due in part to the fact that there are garage doors on one end of the building where material is brought in and out on a daily basis. Is this relief substantial relative to the Ordinance? As noted above, the applicant is seeking 5.12 to 7.17 feet of relief. No negative impacts are expected with this application in terms of the neighborhood or the community. As far as the difficulty being self created, the location of the existing building and parking make it difficult to locate this addition elsewhere on the site. It would appear that this request would benefit the applicant and at the same time not present any major threat to the health, safety and welfare of the surrounding neighbors. Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Stone, Mr. O'Leary, Mr. Karpeles, Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Thomas NOES: NONE MR. THOMAS-The application is granted. USE VARIANCE NO. 2-1997 TYPE: UNLISTED LI-1A MICHAEL« SARAH HAYES OWNER: SAME AS ABOVE 8 SOUTH WESTERN AVENUE, OPPOSITE SHOP N' SAVE PLAZA APPLICANTS PROPOSE THE CONSTRUCTION OF A COMMERCIAL SHOPPING CENTER ON PROPERTY CURRENTLY ZONED LI-IA, LIGHT INDUSTRIAL. PROPOSED USES INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO RETAIL, LIQUOR STORE, DRY CLEANING STORE, BEAUTY SHOP, AND UNKNOWN TENANTS FOR A 3,840 SQ. FT. ADDITION. APPLICANTS ARE SEEKING RELIEF FROM THE USES LISTED IN SECTION 179-26, LIGHT INDUSTRIAL ZONE. WARREN COUNTY PLANNING 1/8/97 TAX MAP NO. 117-11-2 TAX MAP NO. 117-10-6 LOT SIZE: 0.30, AND 0.24 ACRES SECTION 179-26 MICHAEL O'CONNOR, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Use Variance No. 2-1997, Michael & Sarah Hayes, Meeting Date: January 15, 1997 "APPLICANT: Michael & Sarah Hayes PROJECT LOCATION: Western Avenue PROPOSED PROJECT AND CONFORMANCE WITH THE ORDINANCE: The applicant is proposing to construct a - 3 - (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) commercial shopping center on property currently zoned LI-IA. The uses which the applicant propose include but are not limited to, retail, liquor store, dry cleaning store, beauty shop, and other commercial uses. The proposed uses do not conform to the allowed uses in the LI-IA, Light Industrial, zone. REVIEW CRITERIA, BASED ON SECTION 267-b OF TOWN LAW: 1. IS A REASONABLE RETURN POSSIBLE IF THE LAND IS USED AS ZONED? The applicant should address this issue by providing adequate information, including financial evidence which indicates that a reasonable return is not possible at this location. 2. IS THIS ALLEGED HARDSHIP RELATING TO THIS PROPERTY UNIQUE, OR DOES IT ALSO APPLY TO A SUBSTANTIAL PORTION OF THE DISTRICT OR NEIGHBORHOOD? This property, located on Western Avenue, is located south of an area of residential zoning (UR-I0) and north of a commercial residential (CR-15) zone. Development under the current zoning in this area may conflict with existing land uses surrounding this property. 3 . IS THERE AN ADVERSE EFFECT ON THE ESSENTIAL CHARACTER OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD? The uses which are proposed by the applicant would appear to be consistent with existing land uses to the south and east and would not have an adverse impact on the character of the neighborhood. 4. IS THIS THE MINIMUM VARIANCE NECESSARY TO ADDRESS THE UNNECESSARY HARDSHIP PROVEN BY THE APPLICANT AND AT THE SAME TIME PROTECT THE CHARACTER OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND THE HEALTH, SAFETY, AND WELFARE OF THE COMMUNITY? It appears that the proposed uses would address the stated hardship and would not have a negative impact on the character of the neighborhood. STAFF COMMENTS AND CONCERNS: The ZBA should determine if all criteria for a Use Variance have been met by the applicant. Staff believes this property which is located between Urban Residential and Commercial Residential property is not suitable for Industrial development. If the board chooses to grant relief, a list of appropriate uses which would be allowed at this location should also be approved. The board may wish to do this by choosing commercial zones which may be appropriate at this location. SEQR: Type Unlisted, short EAF attached" MRS. LAPHAM-January 8, 1997, Queensbury Use Variance No. 2-1997, Michael and Sarah Hayes, 8 Southwestern Avenue. "At a meeting of the Warren County Planning Board, held on the 8th day of January, the above application for a Use Variance for the construction of a strip mall/plaza on the west side of Western Avenue. was reviewed, and the following action was taken. Recommendation to: Approve. Signed by Tracey M. Clothier, Chairperson. MR. O'CONNOR-Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Board, I'm Michael O'Connor from the law firm of Little & O'Connor, and I'm here representing the applicant on this application. With me is Jaime Hayes, and I think we expect Micky Hayes shortly. Also with me is Mark Levack who will testify as a realtor, and Paul Dowen who has done a financial analysis of the actual return on the property and will testify as a CPA. Let me set the scene, if I might. I think you're familiar with the property. This is Shop N' Save Plaza on the south side of Western Avenue. Immediately to the south of the property is the Cool Beans property, and then you have Luzerne Road. Immediately to the north of the property you have Curtis Lumber Company, and what we're talking about is the block of land between Cool Beans and Curtis Lumber Company that fronts on Western Avenue. The ownership of that is varied right now, but we've put together a plan so that we could combine the lots that are shown here and put it all together as one particular project. We've talked to Staff about the project and tried to come up with a plan that would be reasonable and would improve the site, and as part of that, we have agreed to demolish or remove two existing buildings that are on the property and concentrate the actual development around or with the main building that's on the property. There is an office building on the south end of the site which we would demolish and remove, and we'll show you on the next plan as to how we develop a traffic pattern and parking after we - 4 - "--- ' (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) demolish that office building. The building to the north of the site was a former church property or church building. We always seem to refer to it as the church building. It was used as part of a warehouse operation. Recently, there was a site plan that was approved for a church to come in to it, and I'll speak to that in a little bit, but they couldn't get together the funding to do the renovations that would be necessary to reconvert the building back to a church. That's the existing site. On this map and on the other maps you will see some indication of Paul Street, or if you've looked at a Tax Map for the area you will see Paul Street. That is a roadway which was abandoned by the Town. The south half of the roadways was abandoned to the owner of this property, the block building. The north half of the roadway was abandoned to the owner of the church property. That is now in private ownership. It is not a public roadway. It is part of this site. In fact, I think there are four different pieces of property here. This is church property, half of the Paul Street and half of the Paul Street, the Daggetts Building. I call it the Daggetts Building. That's what it was for many years, and then the Daggetts office building. That's basically the existing site as it now stands. MR. STONE-Do I understand that there's multiple owners right now? MR. O'CONNOR-It will all be one development, and it'll be a shared development by these multiple owners. I'm not exactly sure how we're going to work that out. They're all family, family or family controlled corporations, and they are related. It's Hayes, the Hayes family, and we aren't exactly sure what the ownership will be of the whole site when we get done, but it'll be in one of the corporations or probably some of the individual names. It depends on how we do it. We might even do a separate company for just this site. This is what is proposed, and this is proposed in sketch plan, so that you have an idea of what we're talking about. Anything on this site will have to go through s~te plan approval with the Planning Board and the County, but we've tried to give you an idea of what we're going to do. We've said that we're going to demolish the building which is on the south end of the site. We're going to demolish the building which is on the north end of the site, and create parking areas in those two areas. This is the existing building and this is the addition that we propose. This sketch, we found out afterwards, is not, well, the sketch is correct. There is an existing overhang of this building. It should show the projection of the existing building here, another four feet toward the roadway. When you get into the measurements that are here, as to proposed, and I'll wait until we get to the Area Variance, this proposed covered walkway is actually seven feet. So there would be an encroachment up to three feet, as we talk about. One of the nice parts about this proposal is, if you're familiar with the site, the entire site right now is like an open driveway, and in the prior use, the warehousing that was done by Daggetts Vending that was there, they backed trucks in and out of it along the entire site. What we're going to do is put in controlled accesses and access in and exit controlled entrance on the south side with the traffic coming in on the south end of the property going around behind the back of the building and coming out on the north end. We did one redesign of this to change that. You had three entrance ways at one time to coincidence, actually, with the traffic that's created across the street by Shop N' Save. We also, as another part of the niceties of the site, are going to put some green space in where it's wall to wall pavement. If you go by the site right now, all you see is pavement from the road into the building. We will, along the front of it, take up the p~vement and put in green space. Now, in our calculations, again, I don't mean to get confusing, but our calculations are to our property line. Our actual intention will be to come out and take up some of the pavement that is within the street line, which is within the City ownership. This, by coincidence, is a City/Town boundary. The Hayes' already did develop Cool Beans, and when they - 5 - \ ) -/ (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) did Cool Beans, if you go by there, you will see that some of that, if you look at the map, some of that green space was put out into the City right-of-way, with the permission of the City. They had no objection to it, and we intend to do the same thing right here. So it really should green up this area. It's a nice way to recycle these three buildings. If you take a look at the buildings, it's very hard to anticipate something else other than this, particularly the church property, and I've tried to go back in my memory. I still think that the church building, when it was first built, was occupied as a basement church, and they built it three feet above the ground, and then afterwards put the story above that, so that it kind of sticks up out of the air, and is kind of difficult to use when you get into handicap access and everything else that comes along with any type of modern rejuvenation or recycling of a building. Basically, that's what we want to do. This will be our proposal to the Planning Board. We're at Step One. We've got to ask for a Use Variance first so that we can put in uses here that will justify this type of investment, that will allow us to make this type of investment, and we also have to ask for Area Variances because we know that we will encroach on the front setback to some degree and we would not meet the permeability requirement of a Light Industrial zone. If you do as we request and allow us to use Plaza Commercial as the type of uses that we will put in here, we actually would meet that. That is 20%. Light Industrial is 30%, and again I'm getting ahead of myself. I think that's more in the Area Variance area, but we're talking, I think, right now it exists as 27.1, and we're proposing 27.5. A slight increase, but still we wouldn't qualify for the 30. So, if you allow me, I guess first I'd like to have Mark participate. MARK LEVACK MR. LEVACK-Good evening everyone. Mark Levack from Levack Real Estate. To me, this proj ect epitomizes proper urban renewal. You're taking down unwanted and unleasable structures and creating a much improved streetscape by really not seeking a major relief from zoning. We've been the exclusive relator on the project now for approximate~y a year. We signed the properties up 12/13/96, and we've been marketing them in all the conventional ways, and we have not, to date, been able to secure a tenant, short of the church deal that was not able to get funding, as Mike said. I've provided for you this evening a list of the inquiries that we've received, fish market, beauty salon, engineering office, graphic design office, insurance agency, liquor store, dry cleaner with retail drop, church, accountant, lawyer, and a retail sale outlet. To me, this has demonstrated a trend and a precedent that the users of this location have been commercial in orientation. Now whether that's a neighborhood commercial or plaza commercial or highway commercial or all of the above, we've really not been able to find any tenants under the Town Ordinance that would be light industrial approved. I'm not going to take the time to go down through all these permitted uses, but the very inherent nature of these buildings, as Mike said, haven't really lent themselves all that well to light industrial users. The buildings are, some of them have reached functional obselence, and for these light manufacturing permitted uses, they just aren' t adequate facilities. So I'm certainly here this evening to speak to the fact that we've been trying to solicit tenants. The property has been marketed with an eye toward some sort of remodeling to the facilities, but short of that, we have not been able to produce a light manufacturing tenant for this space. MR. O'CONNOR-Do you have any questions of Mark, or do you want to wait? MR. THOMAS-No. I think we'll wait until the whole thing is done. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. Part of the site that you're looking at, and - 6 - '''-~ (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) you've got to look at the site, it's .79 acres of land, and you try to compare that to other available light industrial property, it just is not something that is readily marketable. We also have a cost, which Paul Dowen will get to address, of about $225,000 in that site. So if we're going to market less than an acre for $225,000 or try to get that type of return, light industrial land would have to turn to gold before we actually would be able to get a fair return on it. There are just too many other sites that are available. A couple of other general things. Part of our site plan approval that would allow this type of development is we are going to tie into the City sewer district or the City sewer system. That's one reason that we're able to develop it in the manner that we have with the parking and the drives that we have. Recently, I think it's CVS, which is on the opposite side of Luzerne Road, brought a sewer line across Western Avenue and they also further extended it, I guess when it went up to the West Glens Falls Fire Department. So there is sewer that's available at the corner of Western and Luzerne, and we've been told that we can hook into that. We can get agreements that will allow us to hook into that. Another thing that you might want to have in your background thought process, also, is that there is pending before the Town a petition to rezone that area. I presented that petition to the Town and in fact went from Western Avenue back, I think, two and a half blocks in a westerly direction and went as far north as Columbia Avenue. Part of the Town Board reaction was, the area should probably rezoned other than Light Industrial. They wanted more information. They were not convinced that it should go as deep as what we've proposed it to go, and we've had VanDusen and Steves doing some of the work that the Town has asked us to do, and we plan on continuing that. They wanted the lot sizes. They wanted an itemization of the ownerships and itemization of the existing owners. We presented this application because I came to the realization that the only way that this property is going to be able to get a reasonable return, rezoned or not, is to get the variances that we're requesting. There's too much invested in that particular property to try and do those three pieces together as separate pieces. So we had to put together a plaza type presentation to you. Paul, do you want to come up. This is Paul Dowen. Paul is a CPA, and the applicant here has supplied Paul certain information as to his cost, and what Paul has denoted as being the office property, the warehouse property, and the church property, and he has made some calculations on that, and I think the last time Paul was before this Board, the Board seemed to accept, and I think as a rule of thumb, a 15% return on investment for this type of property. So he used that as a guideline and has a presentation to make. PAUL DOWEN MR. DOWEN-Good evening. My name is Paul Dowen. I'm a CPA here in Queensbury. As Mike said, we have a packet, have a cover letter to Mike. If you want to turn to the second page, we've tried to highlight what a reasonable rate of return, or what the rate of return on this property really is, using the original cost basis which was derived from their tax returns, whereas before we said with the property being owned by several owners, different various tax returns we were able to extract that information off of. If you go down to the middle of that page, if we have the square footages of the existing buildings, a total of 8324 square feet, and we were using a current rental rate of four dollars on a net/net basis. Mark supplied me with a percentage of occupancy of roughly 70% for Light Industrial, which brings down a, before expenses, a rate of 23,307, minus depreciation on the building, which basically covers repairs and maintenance that they would be required to do on the building, lease agreements and legal fees associated with signing up the tenants, and a minor amount of accounting fees. The net return comes out to 16,214, which gives them a rate of return of 7.2 percent. The last time I was here, we - 7 - ~ (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) went through the calculation of rate of return, and my rate of return is based upon, really, a cash basis rate of return, and not regarding any debt that's on the building. In my opinion, that's not an issue as far as what debt would be incurred. So you have a net rate of return of 7.2 percent before taxes, which certainly is less than, as we talked about earlier, 15 percent rate of return. The next page after that just gives you the breakdown of where I derived the original costs and then the third page, which we can, do you want me to talk about that now? MR. O'CONNOR-I would make a couple of comments on the second page, too, and basically I would say that we are very conservative, erring, if anything, to the side of being generous, as to what the present buildings conceivably could give you as a rate of return. You have to take a look at this in conjunction with what testimony Mark Levack has given you as to what one year's activity of marketing has generated. We use four dollars a square foot net/net as a comparable warehouse type operation for the Daggett building, and although we've had it out there for that time of period, we have not had any realistic offers at that. So it's nice to say, on paper, that this would produce that type of return, but in fact in actuality it really hasn't. The church property, you take a look at what we actually entered into agreement for, it turns out to be $3.59 a square foot, and that's with us making a $10,000 investment for immediate improvements for that term of lease, which I think was three years, was it, a three year lease, initial term of three year lease, which you'd have to discount the $3.59, actually doing it from an accounting point of view. The office building, by itself, probably would get better than four dollars a square foot. So there's a little bit of averaging there, but the point I'm trying to make to you is we think that we're more than conservative saying that, on paper, this is a nice return, in fact, the return has been near zero. I think somebody's been in there for a little bit of storage, paying a month to month basis a lot less than four dollars a square foot. So this is conservative, and it's no place near the $15 a square foot, or 15% return which I would ask the Board to consider as being a fair rate of return. MR. DOWEN-On the last page, what we did is a projection. Under the existing structures and the improvements, including the demolition of the two buildings, which would now increase the cost to $535,000, which -at a 15% rate we expect should, at that point, return $80,000 plus dollars as a rate of return. The new square footage of the new building would be 8100. Our current average rental rate, again being averaged, is eight dollars, using a 90% occupancy and showing the expenses that we have listed there gives us a rate of return of about $45,000 or an 8.4% rate of return, which is still substantially less than the 15%, but as I pointed out in my letter on the first page, you know, the 8.4% is certainly lower than the 15%. As I was getting involved in this scenario, I certainly asked them why would they even look at considering doing it at eight percent, versus trying to look at investing it somewhere else to get a higher rate of return? Certainly this is a project that they wanted to do. It's not giving them an overly large rate of return, but it was pointed out in my letter, the 8.4% rate of return is better than what they're getting now, which is zero. So certainly from their point of view it certainly was a very worthwhile project. MR. 0' CONNOR-Basically on that same line, they have $200,000 investment, and the only way they're going to protect it is by recycling the property and making a further investment and down the road they will get some better return on it. Right now, there's not a great deal of return on it. That's the presentation we would make as far as being able to obtain a reasonable rate of return. Do you have any questions of us on that, the cost figures or whatever? - 8 - '-- (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MR. STONE-I have a question. Describe this leasing fee. Is that a one time thing? That's an annual fee? It's presented here as an annual fee. Is it? MR. 0' CONNOR-Typically it will be, for the first terms of the lease, yes, and the leasing fee included leasing realtor fee projected, legal fee and other type of expenses during that first year's term. We did not put in anything in this basically for management. I think we decided that we would put that in as part of that process, that six percent. MR. STONE-Well, you have it in on the new buildings, though, you have management? MR. O'CONNOR-Yes, but we didn't do it on trying to do it on the three separate properties. MR. STONE-But it would seem to me if you could lease this building for more than one year, that that number might get less. MR. O'CONNOR-Well, I'd like to think we could do that, but I think the fellow behind me is going to tell me, he isn't going to agree to that. MR. STONE-Okay. That's fine. MR. 0' CONNOR-Sometimes it's declining. Sometimes we negotiate real hard. We'll start out at that, and we take a percent off each year, or something of that nature. MR. THOMAS-Is that it? MR. O'CONNOR-I would address the other points, also, that I think we need to address as far as the Use Variance, and, Mark, maybe if I could get you back as to, I would make the statement based upon what we think is a reasonable rate of, reasonable investment and what not. This is the minimum variance that we could get by with, and I'd ask Mark point blank, as a realtor, his opinion as to whether or not this would have a negative impact on the surrounding properties. MR. LEVACK-Certainly I don't think you'd have a negative impact on the surrounding properties. As I said before, this is an improvement to the street scape. I think the Hayes have done a wonderful job remodeling the Cool Beans structure, and I can see that style and architecture and exterior materials qualities, landscaping qualities just tie in right down the street, and the greenery that they're proposing here will clearly be an asset to any other commercial buildings in this area. More importantly, the church, as Mike said, is a multi layer building. It has a huge functional obsolence today. So out of the four criteria that we're here to convince you of this evening, I think these structures are particularly not good structures for Light Industrial use, and I think that speaks specifically to that section of the Use Variance and the hardship that's created. They're going to take this and turn it into a commercial building where apparently the current market pool is looking to lease right now. MR. O'CONNOR-And if you drive by the property today and you look at what's to the north and to the south, and I don't think we've really changed the character. If anything, we may improve the nature of the character, and we have indicated to Staff and the applicants have indicated to me that they do intend to carry on the same architectural scheme that they developed with Cool Beans. MR. STONE-The overall height is going to be less when you take out that church building? - 9 - '--..-/ (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MR. O'CONNOR-Probably, because I don't think we anticipate anything above the existing Daggett building. I'm not sure the architecture of that enclosed porch. MICKY HAYES MR. HAYES-It's going to be much lower than the church, but they, with Staff we talked, they didn't want a flat roof designed plaza, which we're working with them to come up with something that's a little more attractive, a little more countryish than some of the recent plazas, not like Blockbuster, for example. MR. LEVACK-It should also be pointed out that, you're aware Curtis is moving over to Big Bay Road, and they have, currently, a Light Industrial building, Light Industrial use, permitted use, and it's been determined that that location doesn't work for their Light Industrial use right now. So it just seems that the neighborhood is going through a transition. I think this is very nice urban renewal, and I think we can all be part of a project that the end result is going to be an asset to the community and to the property owners and certainly to the neighborhood. MR. THOMAS-I have one question for Mr. O'Connor. You said you presented a petition to the Town Board for a zoning change. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. MR. THOMAS-To change to what kind of zone? MR. O'CONNOR-It was not really determined. It was talking about changing it to Commercial Residential or Plaza. I think the actual terminology was Commercial Residential, and then when we got through the second meeting, we were talking about basically office retail, pretty much what we have proposed here. We have already tried to pre-market the property, and maybe you should be aware of that, and we pretty well have lined up somebody that would have a liquor store there, somebody that would have a dry cleaning operation there, and somebody that would have a beauty salon or shop, but that's the type of use that we are proposing. We understand that we've got to have tenants that are going to be happy, that are going to have customers that are going to be happy, and we have some limitations on the site, and we'll try to keep those in mind when we do see people that will come into it. MR. STONE-Would ÿou be willing to agree to a list of businesses, if we get that far? MR. O'CONNOR-Yes, we would. I did bring with me and did look at Plaza Commercial. I don't know if there's anything on even that, the Type II uses of Plaza Commercial. They seem to be the type of uses that would fall under, and again, everything we do will have to have site plan approval. So I would ask you to give us some room to make, we don't know what part of the space would go to, and give us some options so that we can make the presentation to the Planning Board and prove a case to them that the site would accommodate that type of use. MR. THOMAS-AnYmore questions for the applicant? MRS. LAPHAM-I just have one for Mark. Mark, are these inquiries, have any of them been turned into, or have you done any marketing toward the idea of getting them to be serious prospective tenants? MR. LEVACK-Yes. I think Mike just spoke to that, that we have had a few come to the front burner, and that's primarily the liquor store, the dry cleaner and beauty salon. MRS. LAPHAM-Okay. I guess I didn't understand that. - 10 - ~ (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MR. LEVACK-It's a neighborhood center, I think is the focus of what we want here. I think that we have to, as Mike also said, be sensitive to the needs of the tenants, and if we can concentrate it on pick up, drop off, quick in, quick out, you know, certainly not someone that's going to have a large office there with 15 employees working nine to five. I think we're looking more of neighborhood convenience, consumer convenience. MR. 0' CONNOR-Probably a good comparable would be Sokol's area. That's of the same nature, and I think those uses that are in there would be comparable to this. I don't see anybody going to a grocery store like they have there, though, which is probably their chain, probably their anchor occupancy in that strip mall. So it would be other than that type of use, I can see people coming in to this thing. MR. THOMAS-Any more questions of the applicant? I'll open up the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED DEL MULDER MR. MULDER-My name's Del Mulder, and I am a part owner of property directly behind the Shop N' Save mall where I have a law office with three other individuals. I also own most of the property on the block bordered by Columbia on one side, Western on the other, Nathan on the other side and Holden on the other side. My office is on the corner of Nathan, or it's a former office, but it's on the corner of Nathan and Western, and then the rest of the vacant land on that block I own, and what I'd like to indicate anyway to the Board is that I do have some concerns about the proposed project, which is why I'm here. I tried to address these with the attorney for the applicant and wasn't able to do that. So I'm here, but the concerns that I have, I want to make sure that the Board understands that these are concerns that I'm very much in favor of a proposed strip mall or small mall in this area. I do think it would improve the area and it certainly would improve the appearance of the area, but there are a couple of concerns that I still have, and first of all, I have a question in terms of the determination of the percentages of green area or permeable area as to black topped area, and I guess the first question is, to make those determinations, did the applicant include the green area within the street easement? LEON STEVES MR. STEVES-No. MR. MULDER-It's not. Okay. So if excluded out the green area in the Western Avenue right-of-way, if you will, that has nothing to do with your figures? They don't change at all? Okay. I didn't know, but in a minute you'll see why I was concerned about that. The second issue that concerns me is this so called Paul Street. Mike O'Connor indicated that this is an abandoned road. I don't know if this is an abandoned road or not, but again, I wanted to address this issue with them. There are certain questions that need to be answered to determine whether or not this is a public road, a Town road, an abandoned road, a qualified abandoned road, an easement, a right -of -way. There are all kinds of legal terminologies and legal rights that the public may have acquired into this area. There is, even though the survey map doesn't show it, or it does but it doesn't, there's actually a road going between the church building and the Daggett building. It's paved. It goes from Western Avenue right straight through to Holden Avenue. It is used as a public road, in my opinion. I've used it as a public road. I didn't realize until this afternoon that it was not a public road. A couple of the issues, additionally, as to - 11 - (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) that particular road, to determine whether or not there's any public right to the use of that road, questions or legal issues that need to be looked at, and maybe these will all turn out that it's not a public road or a public right-of-way, but one of my questions is, is this part of the Sunset Park subdivision? Is this a road indicated on that subdivision, if it's part of the subdivision? Has this road ever been dedicated to the Town? And if so when and how? Has the Town ever abandoned this road? If so, when and how? How are the abutting properties described. Whether or not ownership would go to the middle of a road in a subdivision is somewhat determined by the nature of the way the properties are described, and is that right-of-way the street used as a road by the public today, and I think that the Board should look at the issue, and I think that the applicant should address the issue as well. If it is actually still a road then the next question, again, is are the areas determined in terms of permeability? How do those numbers change, how are they effected if this is a road or if something needs to be done to further abandon this road. So I'd just bring that to your attention, and again, I'd like to see this mall go in here, but I still have some concerns. The next one, and this is the one that concerns me most of all, is the issue of drainage, which is why I brought up the prior questions as to whether or not the numbers being used included the green area wi thin the Western Avenue right -of -way. There's a maj or problem in this area with water. These roads, in the winter time, not so much this winter but in particular last winter, they're flooded. They are continuously flooded. They were flooded from Cool Beans, literally, down to Sherman Avenue and my property is adversely effected by the water problems there, and if you look at the map that Leon has provided to this Board, you'll see that, on the Shop N' Save property, you've got catch basins, two or three shown simply directly across the street from this proposed mall, and yet they show none, and my question is, where is the water going to go from here. What I don't want to see if for the water to go down to the next person, to Curtis, and then Curtis doing something, and then the next thing I know the water's coming down to the only property left, which is mine. So, I really would like something done or at least the issue addressed as to how you can get the water out of the area, because there's a problem through the whole area. There's a problem, Curtis Lumber also, their parking lot, their entrance way if I recall, last year was constantly flooded, and I don't recall about the Daggett Vending area, but I seem to recall a lot of water in the front of that, their area as well. So my main concern is this drainage issue, and it's probably more appropriately addressed at a site plan review. My fear was if I didn't bring it up here and I went there, somebody would say, well, you should have brought it up before the Zoning Board. So I'm here and then I'll bring up the issue again if I have to later on. So, anyway, those are my concerns, and I hope that it doesn't defeat what's being proposed, but I do hope that somebody takes a look at the issues that I've presented. MR. THOMAS-Any questions of Mr. Mulder? MR. KARPELES-Yes. You're concerned about Paul Street. What is it exactly you're concerned? You're afraid that maybe this will be developed and then you'll find out that this is a street, a viable street? MR. MULDER-Yes. My concern is this, we'll get all these plans, and maybe something will go up, and in the event, five years or ten years from now, when the Hayes try to sell this and some title company comes and says, well, you've got a real title issue, now we're going to end up with an abandoned and a nobody using kind of store front there. If title isn't any good, you're not going to get any kind of long term tenant coming in, because he'll be afraid that, in a week or two or a month or two I may be dispossessed. - 12 - ---',' (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MR. KARPELES-You're not saying that you see any need for Paul Street or anything like that? You're just saying that this ought to be resolved before. MR. MULDER-No. I'm just saying that, I just want to make sure that they have good title, so that I'm not looking at empty store fronts which are directly across from my office, and I'm sure Mike O'Connor can take care of it. MR. THOMAS-Anything else? MR. MULDER-No, that's it. MR. THOMAS-Anymore questions? Okay. Thank you. MR. MULDER-Okay. MR. THOMAS-Do you want to see if you can touch on that Paul Street thing there, George? MR. HILTON-I have it right here. Actually, it was a resolution, Resolution No. 192, Introduced in 1990, on the 19th day of March. It was for the discontinuance of Paul Street, and I'll go ahead and just read the entire resolution. It says "Whereas the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury, having read the applic~tion of Daggett's Vending, Inc. asking for the discontinuance of Paul Street, a highway in the Town of Queensbury, as described in said application, and it appearing that said signed releases have been received from adjoining land owners, and it appearing that there are no other persons or corporations other than these applicants owning any premises through which said highway sought to be discontinued passes or to which it being adjacent, and it further appearing that the said highway sought to be discontinued has become unnecessary and useless, now therefore be it resolved that after due deliberation the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury does, pursuant to Section 171 of Highway Law of the State of New York, hereby consent that said highway sought to be discontinued and described in the application, be discontinued, and be it further resolved that the annexed written consent is hereby adopted and the members of the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury shall execute the same, and be it further resolved that the Town Clerk of the Town of Queensbury is hereby directed to file and record this resolution and the consent which has been presented at this meeting. Duly adopted the 19th day of March, 1990." There's a resolution to discontinue the road, and any, where the property goes from there is really a civil matter, between adjoining land owners and land owners that took that property, and if it's in your deed of record that you own the land, then we have to assume that it's their property. MR. MULDER-I'd like to just add to that, that a Town can abandon a road, and all that that means is that the Town is giving up any rights that it may have in a road. That does not automatically terminate the public's rights to the road. So what you may have is no longer a Town road, but you may still have a ?ublic road. So it's okay for the Town to say, we don't have any interest in it, fine. The Town is out of the picture. That still doesn't clear up the whole title issue, however, in my opinion. It may be a public road. It may still be a right-of-way. The lot owners in the Sunset Park subdivision may still have an easement through there by the fact that the road was created by the filing of a subdivision map. See, I don't know the history of the title. I just am concerned that if certain criteria are not met, that may still be a public access way, and somebody may come forward. I'm not going to come forward and say X want to use it, but in case somebody else does, like I say, I'm really concerned that there's going to be empty buildings, and I want buildings that are occupied. - 13 - ---' (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MR. THOMAS-Does anybody plow that, do you know, as a street, public, private? MR. MULDER-I have no idea. See, I tried to get some information before tonight. So I'm just coming here with questions more than answers. JAIME HAYES MR. J. HAYES-Just what we plow. MR. M. HAYES-And it has been blocked off periodically off and on and knocked down for the last, since 1990. MR. THOMAS-Okay. As far as the drainage, who would you like to have answer that, Mr. O'Connor? MR. O'CONNOR-I'll answer all four, if you want, in the same order they were presented. MR. THOMAS-Okay. MR. O'CONNOR-That green space, just for your record, was not, that lies within the bounds of Western Avenue, was not included. If it were included, we'd be far past the 30%, because it's almost equal to what's outside, if not better than what the, the outside part is almost better than what's on the inside part. As to the road, the road did go through an abandonment process by the Town Board, by the Town Superintendent of Highways. We have recorded, in the County Clerk's Office, all the necessary papers to actually convey the road to each adjoining owner to the center line. There were descriptions that were accompanying that resolution which vested title to the road on each side of the center line to each of the adj oining owners, Curtis Lumber on the front part, Adirondack Coffee got some to go with the church property. Daggetts got some to go with that Daggetts building, and then behind us Curtis got some and the private owner got some, and I think the private owner actually has fenced his property in. I'm not 100% sure of that. As to drainage, the use of the property really is not going to effect the drainage. Right now, we're proposing on site to have 27.5% permeable area, which is non paved area green space, and presently right now, there's 27.1. It's a small increase but it's not a decrease. We realize that when we go through the site plan process we will have to present a drainage plan, certified by a licensed engineer, which will show that we contain on site the drainage that we have, that we not have any more flow off site than what we had prior to development, and that's a standard site plan review process, -and we have noted those catch basins. I think they're on the opposite side of the road. I don't know if they're in the Town right-of-way, or, I mean, if they're in the City right- of-way or not. We have also, we will be exploring whether or not, if it's available, if there is stormwater drainage in the City of Glens Falls and we can hook up to some, hook up to it, we may attempt to do that as opposed to doing on site drainage, but there's a difficulty there, that our property's in the Town, and that's a utility of the City. So we probably will be forced to design our own drainage on site, but we will do that as part of the site plan review. MR. THOMAS-Okay. MR. HILTON-Just briefly I wanted to also add that, yes, I mean, drainage is something that's typically reviewed at site plan review, and it will be, should this application go to a site plan review, at which time any member of the public will be able to speak at another public hearing concerning that issue. MR. THOMAS-Okay. - 14 - ~ (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MR. STEVES-Additionally, the area that's green area along the road will act as a retention area as well. Right now it's just sheeting right off of that, and continuing along the road. This will interrupt that flow. MR. STONE-That will be dug out? What is there now will be dug out to put a green area in so it will be permeable? MR. O'CONNOR-They allowed us to do it with the Cool Bean property. We anticipate that they will allow us to do it with this piece of property. I can't guarantee you, as I sit here, that it will, but I think Leon's point is that I suppose then we increase the permeable area in the area, if not on our lot, and we'll also set up something that would interrupt the drainage. MR. THOMAS-All right. Would anyone else like to speak in favor of this variance? Anyone opposed to this variance? TAMMY HERMANCE MRS. HERMANCE-Hi. My name is Tammy Hermance. I'm not even sure if I'm here to oppose it. My concern is that, I live in the surrounding area and I don't want to see this be re-zoned to commercial property. My concern is because" the commercial property, we are under an acre on each, we own several properties in this area, several houses, myself and my mother and father-in- law, and we're all under an acre of land, and if we were to try and even re-sell this for residential use or commercial use, it's going to hurt us either way. So I don't mind a store going, a plaza going in, but I don't want it to be re-zoned commercial. If it stays Light Industrial, that's fine with me. MR. THOMAS-Okay. We can't re-zone as a Zoning Board of Appeals. The only ones that can re-zone is the Town Board. All we can do is offer relief from the law. That's all we can do. So, if we grant this variance, it'll be a variance just for this property here. It won't be re-zoning for the entire district. MRS. HERMANCE-It won't be re-zoning for the entire? MR. THOMAS-It won't be re-zoning for the entire district. It'll be Light Industrial to Plaza Commercial or Residential Commercial. It'll be just for this one piece of property here that the applicant has before us. MRS. HERMANCE-So the surrounding areas? MR. THOMAS-The surrounding areas would not be re-zoned. still remain Light Industrial or whatever they are now. this .79 acre piece of property. They'd It's just MRS. HERMANCE-Okay. Then I don't have any problems, thank you. MR. THOMAS-Okay. Like I said, the Town Board is the only one that can re-zone. MRS. HERMANCE-Okay. Thank you. MR. THOMAS-You're welcome, but on the same hand, Mr. O'Connor has said he has put a petition in to the Town Board to re-zone. So, you know, keep an eye on that to see if and when that comes up before the Town Board. MRS. HERMANCE-Okay. MR. THOMAS-Anyone else opposed? Anyone else like to speak on this variance? Any correspondence? - 15 - "- (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MRS. LAPHAM-No. MR. THOMAS-No correspondence. I'll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. THOMAS-Anymore questions for Mr. O'Connor? MR. STONE-I have a question. Is that existing so called office building being used, the little house? MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. There's still some activity in there. MR. M. HAYES-Closing out of the old business records, and my father watches t.v. in there. MR. STONE-Okay. So you're willing, it seems looking at these numbers, to invest $310,000 and get a rate of return of that of 14% on that $310,000, assuming you're not getting any return on what you have now. Taking that $44,000 over the $310,000. It's about 14%. MR. THOMAS-No. I think it's more like 8.4. MR. STONE-No, no, no, the $310,000 that they're going to put in new money, I'm talking about, they're only going to get 14% on the new money. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. MR. STONE-So what I'm getting at, it's not even the 15% that Mark was saying he'd like to get on the total piece of property. MR. M. HAYES-To recapture what we have in there now as an investment, we've got to sort of throw good money after bad to get it back. Because those buildings are going to continue to get worse and worse in structure and kind of run their course, I think you know if you're familiar with the area. MR. THOMAS-AnYmore questions for the applicant? All right. What do you think, Bonnie, you're the resident expert in real estate. MRS. LAPHAM-I think it's great. I think it's a wonderful idea. It's going to be a huge improvement, and those buildings are in a very deteriorated condition. I had high hopes, we'll talk about the church, just so that somethinq would go there and it would stop being an eye sore. The only question I might have would be possible traffic, but the planned entrances and exits hopefully would take care of the traffic, because that is horrible spot for traffic. MR. O'CONNOR-There was a letter, too, by the traffic people. MR. THOMAS-Yes, that's right, too. Do you want to read that in, Glens Falls Transportation. MRS. LAPHAM-That was the one I asked you about, because it's very long. MR. THOMAS-No. There's only a part that applies to, the second part of it goes up to Warrensburg. MRS. LAPHAM-Right here, the matter of Sarah and Michael Hayes? MR. THOMAS-Yes, just read the date on it. MRS. LAPHAM-All right. RE: Warren County Planning Board meeting, January 8, 1997, "Dear Ms. Woodell: Thank you for sending the - 16 - '-- ,~. (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) minutes and agenda items of this evening's Planning Board meeting.....On the matter of Michael and Sarah Hayes' application for a use variance to construct a strip mall/plaza on the west side of Western Avenue our staff performed trip generation calculations based upon the square footage of proposed buildings. We find that the traffic generated by this proposed development is not large enough to warrant a traffic impact study by the developers. However, we are concerned about its impact on the existing traffic at the intersection of Western Avenue and Luzerne Road. As a result, we have decided to take traffic counts and perform intersection analyses in that area in the spring after the threat of snow has passed. We will inform the appropriate jurisdictions if and where we feel improvements, such as the installation of traffic signals or the construction of turn lanes, need to be made." MR. THOMAS-All right, and who signed that? MRS. LAPHAM-Who signed that? I'm sorry. Joanne Brunso, GFTC Staff Director, Glens Falls Transportation Council. MR. THOMAS-Okay. She just says they're going to do a count just to see if a problem does exist. MRS. LAPHAM-Right, and we already know it does. MR. 0' CONNOR-It basically also says that based upon our trip generation, we will not be adding to it. MR. STONE-There is a whole table that goes along with that, that you should at least note for the record. MR. THOMAS-Yes. MR. 0' CONNOR-Daggetts also, operation, they had up to warehouse operation. recently, when they were in 70 employees working out of full that MRS. LAPHAM-I suppose if it were Light Industrial you'd have to deal with huge trucks and employees and their cars, and what have you like Curtis Lumber had next door. MR. O'CONNOR-The elimination of the backing on to the street is a very significant improvement of even just traffic, let alone the aesthetic improvement of it. MR. STONE-Speaking of that, Mike, is this going to be, I know in front of these buildings there will be no parking. The Cool Beans property, I understand it's supposed to be parallel parked, and there are a lot of perpendicular parking goes on in there. MR. O'CONNOR-It's marked for parallel parking. It's an enforcement type thing. It really hasn't created a problem as much as the perception of a problem. We do think, though, that this is going to alleviate even some of that, because this is going to give better designated parking right immediate to, right immediately next to the Cool Bean property. MR. STONE-And there will be signage to indicate that, hopefully? MR. O'CONNOR-We hope that the Cool Bean traffic is going to draw people to the stores that are in this little strip, and vice versa, so that it's going to be kind of a flow between both, and probably Cool Bean, some of their peak period is when the stores won't be full. MR. THOMAS-What do you think, Lou? - 17 - -' (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MR. STONE-Well, I congratulate the applicants, this being the Use Variance, for the information, financial information, that was supplied at this time, and certainly it's very helpful to be able to look at numbers that address the issue of what a Use Variance makes us address. I agree with Bonnie. I don't live in that part of Town. I don't go by there that often, but I go enough to know that anything like this is going to be a big improvement, and certainly tie in with the City property across Western Avenue, and it's going to make a very attractive neighborhood. MR. THOMAS-Don? MR. 0' LEARY-I agree. improvement. I think it appears to be a substantial MR. THOMAS-Bob? MR. KARPELES-Yes. I agree, too. I think that that section of the neighborhood could use some beautification and I think they did a good job with Cool Beans and I assume they're going to do a good job with this, and I think they went through all the hoops on this Use Variance. I think they did a much better job than the last one. So I think it's a good idea. MR. THOMAS-I'll have to agree with the rest of the Board. I was going down through the list of permitted uses in Light Industrial, and I didn't see anything in there that would fit into this very small lot, being less than an acre. I do believe, though, that some of the uses in the Plaza Commercial district would apply to this, because most of that is just small stores and offices, and I do believe that the applicant has presented very good financial backing for his claim for a Use Variance. So, having said that, I need a motion to either approve, deny or table or whatever. MR. STONE-Mr. Chairman, a question, are we going to specify in this motion, in the Use Variance, which of these uses would? MR. THOMAS-Well, if you want to talk about that, yes. We'll talk about that before the motion's made. MR. HILTON-I think you should, just because we don't want to run into a situation where, lets say for instance hypothetically a video store were going to go into the property and that wasn't an approved use under this Use Variance, then they would have to come back again for an entirely new Use Variance, and we'd like to avoid that. So, if you can specify some uses. MR. O'CONNOR-Well, I would ask for approval of those uses that are allowed under the Type II Site Plan Review for a Plaza Commercial zone, and some o~ those we actually don't need. If you wanted to eliminate them, it's not something that's going to happen. Number One is public parking garage. We're not going to build a public parking garage on the property. Number Two is commercial greenhouse or nursery. That's not something that I s going to happen. Planned Unit Development. As we now have it defined, that's not going to happen. Day care center, perhaps you could do that in one part of the building, Pharmacy or drugstore you could. Stationary store you could. Hardware store you could. Meat or food store you could. I would think it would have to be some type of specialty type of thing. You're not going to go into competition with Shop N' Save which is right across the street. you saw Price Chopper which was on the other side of Shop N' Save just go out of business, or just close their operation. Barber or beauty shop, clothing, you could. Clothing apparel store you could. Musical instrument and record store you could. Multi function department store, I don't really know even what that means. - 18 - "'--' (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MRS. LAPHAM-Like a Sears or something of that nature, Mark, where all kinds of, it would be a little cramped there. MR. O'CONNOR-I don't think you're going to, but if, let me think. I would say I don't think you're going to. I don't think you'd need that classification. Sports equipment store you could. Jewelry store you could. Travel agency you could. Professional office you could. Office building you could. Restaurant, possibly. It would have to be a specialty type thing. It would have to be a very, you know, I don' t know what type, shopping mall/plaza, which I thought was inclusive of all those things. That's what we were actually talking about. That's what we're asking for, actually. We're not going to do a television or radio station, I don't think, and retail business we could, if there's a retail business that's not mentioned above. Again, we've got 28 proposed parking spots on this site. We've got to keep those tenants happy with those 28 spots, and if you get into a real high volume thing like you're talking about a big chain video store, they aren't going to come there. What amazed m~, and I probably shouldn't make comparisons, but what amazed me when I did Wal-Mart, most applicants come in and fight the Ordinance as to parking required, and I think we required five per thousand square feet for that. They insisted upon designing and building six something per thousand square feet. You're not going to get a real heavy generator to come into that site. They just aren't going to do it. So I'd like to leave retail businesses in there. It's a broad thing, but common sense is going to prevail as much as anything. MR. STONE-George, what does shopping mall/plaza mean when you have all these other stores there? It's a catch all, but you've already caught them all it seems. MR. O'CONNOR-Well, it might mean a combination of those, which is basically what we're doing. MR. HILTON-Well, the definition in the Ordinance states IIShopping Mall/Plaza - A building or buildings, located on one (I) lot, containing numerous businesses, services and/or restaurants and accessory uses related to those businesses. II So it would appear to me, at least, that it's a little redundant, and all the other uses would make up a shopping plaza. MR. O'CONNOR-The last one is seasonal produce business. I don't anticipate that, but you may have something. We had two housewives that sold Christmas trees from the site this Christmas. MR. STONE-What are you looking at? MR. O'CONNOR-I'm looking at Type II, it's on Page 17974. MR. STONE-I don't see it. MR. O'CONNOR-Number 22. MR. THOMAS-I don't have a 22 in mY book. MR. STONE-I don't either. MR. HILTON-That's a recent update to the Zoning Ordinance. MR. O'CONNOR-There's also, in the beginning of Plaza Commercial, there's a repeat of almost everything I said, except for 18 there is different. Eighteen there is post office and mailing services, which is conceivable, you know, some type of package delivery type thing, like Ship Shape over here on Glenwood Avenue. A small service type use is conceivable. MR. THOMAS-Does anyone have a problem with the list that Mr. - 19 - ~ J/__ (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) O'Connor went down through? MRS. LAPHAM-No. I think we need to leave the applicant enough freedom to conduct their business, and common sense, I think, will prevail there, because the space is too small for anything that's going to generate. MR. THOMAS-That shopping mall/plaza is redundant, really, like George said. I'd leave that out, because that's what this is. So why add it, add more confusion to this? MR. STONE-So we're saying that 21 out of the 22 things under Plaza Commercial, under the '94 version that Mr. O'Connor has. MR. THOMAS-Well, he's leaving out the multi function department store, the television and radio station, shopping mall/plaza, public parking garage, commercial greenhouse or nursery, and Planned Unit Development. MR. O'CONNOR-No. I didn't leave out shopping mall/plaza. I'm thinking that that may be interpreted as being a group of all of the individually listed ones, which is what we're asking for. That's the heart of our application. MR. THOMAS-Well, wouldn't you say retail businesses would compensate for that? MR. O'CONNOR-Probably. I'd just as soon not get that close. MR. STONE-I would leave it in, Mr. Chairman. I mean, if you read it. MR. O'CONNOR-I would ask for permission to allow all uses in a Plaza Commercial zone except for the public parking garage, commercial greenhouse or nursery, Planned Unit Development, multi function department store, television and radio station. MR. THOMAS-We'll forget about this list that Mark gave us. MR. O'CONNOR-Is there somebody else on there? MR. THOMAS-No, not really. Well, Mark's got church on there, but I don't think so. MR. O'CONNOR-They couldn't afford $3.59. MR. STONE-Okay. MR. THOMAS-All right. Would anyone like to make a motion? MRS. HERMANCE-Excuse me. If they're asking for relief from this, and they get this Plaza Commercial, how is this going to effect the surrounding residents that live in this area? MR. THOMAS-The only thing that it will effect is there will be a small shopping plaza there. MRS. HERMANCE-There'll be a small shopping plaza, but say, it seems to me they're seeking relief for this, maybe some day down in the future that somebody will buy this property for a bigger use. Maybe that's not the case, but if that is the case, then how's that going to effect the residents? MR. THOMAS-As far as changing anything in there, if we grant relief from this, if anybody goes in there and buys that property and wants to change it, they're going to have to come back before us, if they can't put anything in there as it is zoned right now, Light Industrial. Because once this use becomes null and void, once they - 20 - (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) don't use that as a Plaza Commercial anYmore, it goes back to a Light Industrial One Acre zoning, okay, but as long as it sits as a Plaza Commercial, if the Hayes company or whatever the name of it is sells it to the X, Y, Z company for the same thing as a Plaza Commercial. MRS. HERMANCE-What if they sell it, say for example, (lost word) Blockbuster. I mean, Video World is right there. MR. THOMAS-Yes, across the street, but if they came in, I don't know, is video, well, videos would be in that retail businesses, wouldn't it? MR. HILTON-I'm not the Zoning Administrator, but my initial guess is that it would be. . MR. THOMAS-Yes, it would be allowed to go in there. As long as they use it for something we gave them in this one list of Plaza Commercial is what they can use for this .79 acre piece of property. MRS. HERMANCE-Okay. So, when he applies to re-zone this commercial highway, or commercial residential, it would be much easier for him to get this approved. MR. THOMAS-Because of this variance. MRS. HERMANCE-That's my concern. I don't care about any plaza, because I know that's going to make the place look nicer, but we live in this area and it's going to depreciate our property, or it could make it harder for us to sell our properties, if we need to do that. MR. O'CONNOR-I think we're talking about speculation, to a degree, part of which I might be able to answer, that we have made a commitment to somebody on a long term basis for a liquor store, if we get the appropriate approvals, which would sit right in the midst of this whole thing, which kind of blocks the idea that somebody else is going to be able to develop it for something entirely different. MR. THOMAS-As far as changing the zoning here, that Mr. O'Connor's put in to the Town Board, will it help it? I would say it wouldn't hurt it, but as far as helping it? I don't know, because you've got that new commercial, you've got that new drug store over there across the street between, over there, you've got the Shop N' Save Plaza right there, but I imagine if and when it comes before the Town Boards, if all the residents went up there and voiced their opposition. MRS. HERMANCE-Most of the residents in that area, I would assume they don't probably understand what's happening. So I think they should be at least notified of this, to let them know exactly what is being done, because I don't think they quite understand. MR. THOMAS-Yes. I don't know how I would explain to each and every one of them. I can't go knocking door to door and tell them what's going to happen. MRS. HERMANCE-It would be nice if some type of letter could be sent stating that if this is zoned commercial highway, that basically your property is going to be depreciated because in order for you to sell it, in order for another piece of property to go on there, say if somebody wanted to buy my house and use it for commercial use, well my house sits on less than an acre of land, and they need more than an acre of land for commercial use, and nobody's going to want to buy it for residential use. - 21 - (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MR. THOMAS-You're getting over my head now. I really can't answer that. MRS. HERMANCE-We'd just like it residential. We don't want to have mall and have cars driving by the windows. MR. THOMAS-Like I say, if the Town considers the re-zoning on it, from the Light Industrial One Acre to something else, you know, residential commercial 15,000 square foot or whatever, you know, if and when they do that, that's the time to speak up and say, no, we don't want it, as residents of the area. Mr. O'Connor has stated that he wants to go back two and a half blocks, and the Town Board has said, that's too far. So the Town Board has stated they don't want to go back two and a half blocks. So, I imagine if the residents got up there, all those from behind here and back got up there and said, no, we don't want it, the Town Board's got to listen to those people. I imagine there's more of them than there is of Mr. O'Connor. MRS. HERMANCE-And everybody in that surrounding area, as far as residents, will be notified when this will take place so we can oppose it? MR. THOMAS-They don't notify for Town Board meetings, do they? MR. HILTON-Well, in the case of re-zonings, they do set a public hearing, and property owners within 500 feet would receive a notice in the mail, and that would be of the entire re-zoning boundary, not just this individual piece of property. MR. O'CONNOR-We're completely out in right field here, but I've done at least two mailings, if not threemailings.to 31 tax payers in that property, and I think I've covered, some people have multiple lots, and I think you folks have gotten letters from me. Every time we do something, we use the whole tax map listing of all those property owners in that entire area and give them personal notice. NEIGHBOR-There were several people that didn't receive notices. They did not attend the meeting. MRS. HERMANCE-We live on Feld Avenue. They live on Holden. They received a notice, we didn't. The only reason we knew about it is because they received notice. MR. O'CONNOR-Again, I don't mean to duck the issue, but I think you're off in right field. MR. THOMAS-Yes. Well, yes, we're getting away from the variance here. MR. O'CONNOR-I can show you how the list that I did, and I can show you the map that we used. I'm not sure where these people are. If they're that far away, then they're far away from this property, a long ways away from this property. MR. THOMAS-But if they take in to consideration the re-zoning of the entire area, like George says, anybody within 500 feet, and Mr. O'Connor's talking two and a half blocks back, so anybody within that two and a half blocks, plus anybody within 500 feet of those two and a half blocks would be notified. MR. O'CONNOR-I've not gone outside of the two and a half blocks. MR. THOMAS-You aren't, but the Town. MR. O'CONNOR-But my notices have gone within those two and a half blocks. - 22 - --- (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MR. THOMAS-The Town notices would be, would go outside those two and a half blocks, 500 feet from every point. MRS. HERMANCE-That's fine, but I wasn't notified, and I within that two and a half blocks. My mother-in-law was notified. That's the only reason I knew of this is because she was, but I wasn't, and then I do know of other neighbors in this area that did receive and then didn't receive, so not everybody. MR. THOMAS-Okay. Well, that's Mr. O'Connor, that's a private mailing by Mr. O'Connor. That's not by the Town of Queensbury. So, you know, he can really send whoever he wants. We can't control what Mr. O'Connor sends out, but if the Town has a public hearing, everyone on the tax roll, on the tax map will be sent a letter, you know, every property owner according to the tax map will be sent a letter within the area that Mr. O'Connor is asking to have changed, plus 500 feet around that. MRS. HERMANCE-But I was just concerned because he's asking for commercial plaza. MR. THOMAS-All right. We're looking for a motion. Does anyone want to make a motion? MR. KARPELES-Well, I'll make a motion, but I'm going to need some help when we get into these things of what's included and what isn't included. MR. THOMAS-Yes, we'll help you right along. MOTION THAT A REVIEW OF THE SHORT ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT FORM SHOWS THAT THERE WILL BE NO NEGATIVE IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT, Introduced by Chris Thomas who moved for its adoption, seconded by Lewis Stone: Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. O'Leary, Mr. Karpeles, Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Stone, Mr. Thomas NOES: NONE MOTION TO APPROVE USE VARIANCE NO. 2-1997 MICHAEL« SARAH HAYES, Introduced by Robert Karpeles who moved for its adoption, seconded by Lewis Stone: The applicant is proposing to construct a commercial shopping center on property currently zoned LI-1A. Is a reasonable return possible if the land is used as zoned? The applicant has addressed this issue and he has provided adequate information including financial evidence which indicates that a reasonable return is not possible at this location. Is the alleged hardship relating to this property unique or does it also apply to a substantial portion of the district or neighborhood? This property is located south of an area of residential zoning, UR-I0, and north of a commercial residential CR-15 zone. Development under the current zoning in this area may conflict with existing land uses surrounding this property. Is there an adverse effect on the essential character of the neighborhood? It's been the opinion of every member of this Board that the proposed uses would improve the character of the neighborhood. Is this the minimum variance necessary to address the unnecessary hardship proven by the applicant, at the same time protect the character of the neighborhood and the health, safety and welfare of the community? It appears that the proposed uses would address the stated hardship and would not have a negative effect, an negative impact on the character of the neighborhood. We're also going to include a list of uses that come off the Plaza Commercial Type II under Site Plan Review uses, and they include a - 23 - (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) day care center, pharmacy or drug store, stationary store, hardware store, meat or food market, beauty and barber shop, clothing apparel store, musical instrument and record store, sports equipment store, jewelry store, travel agency, professional office (singular), office building, restaurant, shopping mall/plaza, retail businesses, seasonal produce businesses from a stand not to exceed 200 square feet in area and a canopy not to exceed 8 feet in height, and also a post office and mailing service. Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1997, by the following vote: MR. STONE-The only question I had was under Number Two, Bob read the statement in the Staff notes, which is that we acknowledge that, we recognize that it might have a change. I think we have to address that. MR. THOMAS-No, because the property already has commercial buildings on it. So, you know, really, they're updating the existing commercial buildings that pre-dated zoning, because those buildings were there long before the Light Industrial One Acre zoning came into effect. So they're really not changing what's there. They're improving what's there. Okay. AYES: Mr. Karpeles, Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Stone, Mr. O'Leary, Mr. Thomas NOES: NONE MR. THOMAS-Okay. So we have the Use Variance done. AREA VARIANCE NÓ. 3-1997 TYPE II LI-1A MICHAEL & SARAH HAYES OWNERS: SAME AS ABOVE 8 SOUTH WESTERN AVENUE, OPPOSITE SHOP N' SAVE PLAZA APPLICANTS PROPOSE THE CONSTRUCTION OF A COMMERCIAL SHOPPING CENTER ON PROPERTY LOCATED ON WESTERN AVENUE. THE NEW CONSTRUCTION WILL NOT MEET THE FRONT YARD SETBACK OF THE LI -lA ZONE. RELIEF IS BEING REQUESTED FROM THE SETBACKS LISTED IN SECTION 179 - 2 6 , LIGHT INDUSTRIAL ZONE. WARREN COUNTY PLANNING 1/8/97 TAX MAP NO. 117-11-2 TAX MAP NO. 117-10-6 LOT SIZE: 0.30, AND 0.24 ACRES SECTION 179-26 MICHAEL O'CONNOR, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MRS. LAPHAM-January 8, 1997, "At a meeting of the Warren County Planning Board, held on the 8th day of January, the above application for an Area Variance to demolish two buildinqs, renovate main buildinq with addition and established parkinq lot. was reviewed, and the following action was taken. Recommendation to: Approve" Signed by Tracey M. Clothier, Chairperson. STAPF INPUT Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 3-1997, Michael & Sarah Hayes, Meeting Date: January 15, 1997 "APPLICANT: Michael & Sarah Hayes PROJECT LOCATION: Western Avenue Proposed Project and Conformance wi th the Ordinance: The applicant is proposing to construct a commercial shopping center on Western Avenue. The proposed construction will not meet the required front yard setback for the LI-1A zone. Criteria for considering an Area Variance, according to Chapter 267, Town Law. 1. Benefit to the applicant: Relief would allow the applicant to build a commercial building which would not meet the required front yard setback. 2. Feasible alternatives: Due to the location of an existing building at this location, alternatives are limited. 3. Is this relief substantial relative to the ordinance? The applicant proposes to build a new building and covered walkway which requires 35.8 feet of front yard setback relief. 4. Effects on the neighborhood or community? No negative impacts are expected with this application for relief. 5. Is this difficulty self created? The location of an existing - 24 - -- (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) building and the depth of this lot make it difficult to construct a building which would meet the required front yard setback. Staff Comments & Concerns: Staff believes this request would benefit the applicant and at the same time not present any major threat to the health, safety and welfare of the surrounding neighborhood. SEQR: Type II, no further action required. II MR. THOMAS-All right. MR. STONE-Mr. Chairman, I have a question. We have all the applicants, I mean, I see Michael and Sarah Hayes, and Adirondack, are those all the owners? MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. MR. STONE-Even though they're not, it's not one owner. Okay. MR. THOMAS-Well, they're all represented by Mr. O'Connor, as the agent. MR. STONE-That's true. MR. THOMAS-So whatever Mr. O'Connor says is like those people talking themselves. MR. O'CONNOR-If I can be brief, there are two things that we're looking for. One is for a setback variance from the front property line, and when this was prepared, the figures are different than what we talked about with George, and we have amended everything to be in accordance to what we understand the actual setback to be. The building itself is existing. I mean, this church building that we're going to demolish, which you don't see on this map up here, is where we get the existing 16.3. The church building is actually closer to the property line than the Daggett's building. The Daggett's building, the building itself right now is 21.2, and we're not changing that. We're just extending the building itself, but in addition to the actual building, there's an overhang of a canopy right now of four feet. So that probably should sit, well, it says existing, which is related to the churcn that we're going to tear down. We have a four foot canopy on the existing building. What we want to do is make that a seven foot canopy. The reason that we want to do that is that we want to try and utilize both parking lots for all operations on this site. We want the people to feel comfortable in walking from one end of the building to the other end of the building, and it'll be tough to do that with the existing four foot overhang. We could come in and just say we want to have just what we presently have, and extend it to the new addition, but what we're trvinq to do is dress it up a little bit and make it functional, so that the people can get from one end to the other. So basically we're looking for relief, and I think George has it correct, of 35.8 feet from the front setback for the building and canopy. MR. STONE-Okay. So that's the 21.2, take off seven, comes down to 14.2. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. MR. STONE-On the closest point. MR. 0' CONNOR-Yes. Okay. The other Area Variance that we're asking for is because we don't meet the Light Industrial permeability 30%. I thought we ought to ask for the variance for it. We actually are increasing permeability by part of a fraction. Presently right now we're showing 27.1% permeable. When we're done with this design, we will have 27.5, not including the piece of permeable that we hope to create out in the City property, but that 27.5 still requires relief of two and a half percent from the 30, neither of - 25 - ,--' (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) which are very significant. for doing it. This gives us layout for the parking, and can get. Any questions? We think there's a practical ground a good layout for the traffic, a good it's about as much green space as we MR. THOMAS-That rear setback looks like 22 feet, and according to the Ordinance the rear setback is 30 feet. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay, but we're not changing the existing building. That's there already. MR. THOMAS-And the new addition is at least 30, yes it is. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. MR. HILTON-Yes. They're not planning on doing anything on the back end of that existing building. So no relief is necessary. With the front of it they're going to be constructing the canopy. So they need front yard relief for that portion. MR. THOMAS-Okay. MR. O'CONNOR-And we also are putting an addition parallel to the existing. We think we've covered everything that doesn't qualify, statistically. MR. STONE-The green space, on the City street, there is space for that? MR. O'CONNOR-Yes, outside of the travel lane. If you take a look at the Cool Beans, that parallel parking is basically this green space, and there's a space outside that parallel parking before you get to the travel lanes. That parallel parking isn't right on the travel lanes. P~ople over the course of the years have just paved everything from the center line of the road right back to the buildings which I think, in part, has created some of the drainage problems that we spoke of earlier. MR. THOMAS-Do you know what the green space is within the City limits? MR. O'CONNOR-I just asked Leon that. We haven't calculated that. MR. THOMAS-I'm just curious on that. MR. O'CONNOR-We will know that at site plan, because I will try and take credit for it. MR. STONE-How many stores are you considering? I see three. MR. O'CONNOR-We don't know the true break up of the 3800, but we're talking probably another three. MICKY HAYES MR. M. HAYES-That would be the max, probably. MR. STONE-Well, what's in the back of the existing lot? MR. O'CONNOR-That is going to be the dry cleaning processing area. MR. THOMAS-Which store does that go with, B? MR. O'CONNOR-I think it goes with B. MR. M. HAYES-The front portion right here would be their retail pick up. My name is Micky Hayes, by the way, and the back area would be like what you could say is their manufacturing or - 26 - ) '"'-..- --" (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) processing, and that's where the service area to take the truck so it doesn't interfere with the parking with the people. MR. STONE-You said it's going to be a dry cleaning? MR. M. HAYES-Yes. MR. STONE-I know we don't involved in that, environmentally, but who would look at the environmental? MR. O'CONNOR-I don't think you use formaldehydes anYmore. Is that your question? MR. STONE-Well, trichlor. MR. M. HAYES-Department of Health has to get a permit. MR. STONE-Okay. MR. 0' CONNOR-I went to a seminar and they spent three hours talking about the generic environmental approval of dry cleaning permits, and I don't know how many, I'm not sure who does that, but it's not something we're going to do, I don't think, but apparently they do have to jump through all the hoops. MR. STONE-OSHA gets involved, too, with (lost words) and everything else. MR. KARPELES-This is 35.8 feet of front yard setback? MR. THOMAS-Relief. They want relief, so they're going to be 14.2 off the property line. MR. KARPELES-Boy, that's a long way. Why couldn't you move that back, that new building back, over to the west? MR. O'CONNOR-Because the existing building's right here. So what would you gain by offsetting this building back? MR. KARPELES-Well, you wouldn't need as much relief. MR. O'CONNOR-You'd end up with a problem in the back having an area, a loading dock for this back part of the building which we're going to need for waste removal and for other purposes, and also some type of walkway back there. If you take the configurations of the site, you really don't have enough room, practically, to do that. Leon, how much space do you have back there, in this jog? MR. STONE-Actually the relief, the 35.8, that's of the old building. So we're talking, it increases, right, that's a little diagonal there, isn't it? That's not perfectly parallel. LEON STEVES MR. STEVES-No, it's not. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. It runs away. On this end of the building, it's like 14.2, and on this end of the building, it would be 18.2, something like that. It would be another three feet. MR. THOMAS-What about where the two buildings meet? That's the closest point, that we would need to give. MR. O'CONNOR-Except, Mr. Thomas, we're also talking about extending this canopy, so that we've got a seven foot canopy to cover the walk. MR. THOMAS-All right. So that covers the whole thing from, right - 27 - - J (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) down through there. So that's why it would be, the greatest setback relief would be 35.8 feet. MR. HILTON-On the north end of the building, it appears that approximately, the covered walkway will be 19 feet from the property line, on the north end of the site, with the new building, but 14.2 is the maximum relief they're seeking. MR. O'CONNOR-You try to make it look symmetrical, try to make some type of common design. MR. KARPELES-Well, I think green space in front of there would look better than just a straight line down there. Where is the loading dock? MR. O'CONNOR-It's in the back, in the service area. MR. KARPELES-So you would block that off if you went back? MR. O'CONNOR-If you moved the building back, you'd be blocking it off. MR. THOMAS-What's this sidewalk in the back for? MR. O'CONNOR-That's for entrances to the back of those. MR. THOMAS-Is that for Store C, the back entrance to Store C? MR. O'CONNOR-Part of it will probably be an exit from Store C, but you're also going to have exits that you've got to have from this other part of the building in the back, and you don't want them to go right onto the drive. You want to have them a little bit of safety area, I take it. MR. THOMAS-How about parking? How many parking spaces do they need per square foot? MR. HILTON-The parking would be based on whatever uses go in there, and it would be ~ased on gross leasable area. We did a preliminary run through with Micky. Jim and I sat down with him and determined that the parking requirements would be met. MR. THOMAS-Okay. MR. STONE-Even giving away the three, the Cool Beans? MR. HILTON-Yes. MR. THOMAS-Does anyone else have any questions for the applicant? If not, I'll open the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED NO COMMENT PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. THOMAS-Any correspondence? MRS. LAPHAM - No . MR. THOMAS-Does anyone else have any questions for the applicant? All right. What do you think, Lou? MR. STONE-Having granted the Use Variance, I think that this is a project that would be a positive contribution to the Town of Queensbury, and I'm all in favor of it. - 28 - '-' ,~ (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MR. THOMAS-Don? MR. O'LEARY-I agree. I think that we've determined that it was a good project in the Use Variance discussion, and I think we ought to go ahead with the Area Variance. MR. THOMAS-Bob? MR. KARPELES-Well, I don't like all that relief, but I don't see any way around it, so I guess I'd go along with it. MR. THOMAS-Bonnie? MRS. LAPHAM-The other Board members have given the same opinion I would give. I think it's a great project. MR. THOMAS-I think it's a viable project for the area. Like Bob says, I'm not really thrilled with the setbacks, but you really can't do anything about that. The applicant did make a good point about the sidewalk being covered so that all the going from store front to store front across the front of the building would be covered to protect the patrons from the elements. The parking, according to Staff, appears to be enough. Most of the other questions that will be brought up will be brought up at site plan review, as far as drainage, traffic patterns, noise, lights. One thing I forgot to ask about is the sign. Signage would have to be held in conformance with the Ordinance or else they'll be back for a sign. MR. HILTON-Exactly. MR. O'CONNOR-Let me ask that. Are we in conformance with the Use Variance, which is Plaza Commercial? MR. HILTON - No, the conformance with the industrial zoning, industrial, but I commercial. signage requirements would have to be in Sign Ordinance and the Town Code, based on the because the underlying zoning still is believe they're the same requirements as MR. O'CONNOR-Our intention would be to have a separate sign like the Plaza Commercial people do for each occupant. MR. HILTON-Well, in any event. MR. O'CONNOR-I'll tell you that up front. If I have to come back for a variance, I'll come back. MR. HILTON-In any event, if you do, we'd have to have time to advertise it. MR. THOMAS-Yes. MR. O'CONNOR-I'll come back to you if that's a problem. That's the difficulty between a re-zoning and a variance. You gave us a variance to do Plaza Commercial use, understanding that we're going to have multiple tenants in there. MR. THOMAS-Yes, but any Sign Variance would have to go with the Light Industrial One Acre. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. I'll come back. If we can't end up having one wall sign on each piece, then I'll come back. We've already talked about having a plaza sign out front, and we're not going to meet the setbacks. We're going to try to get away without it. I can't guarantee you that we won't come back to you and ask for some type of small sign out front, but there's no way we can meet setbacks, but I don't know if they call this to be a Level Three type site. - 29 - - (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) The people aren't going to get attracted to it simply by a sign that's out front. They're going to be on their way by it, for the most part. It's going to be a service type operation. MR. THOMAS-Yes. Well, you and Mr. Martin bang heads on that, and we'll see who comes out the winner on that one. We'll probably see you back here. MR. O'CONNOR-I just want you to know our thought process. We did talk about it. MR. THOMAS-Okay. So, having said that, would anyone care to make a motion? MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 3-1997 MICHAEL« SARAH HAYES, Introduced by Donald O'Leary who moved for its adoption, seconded by Bonnie Lapham: The applicant is proposing to construct a commercial shopping center on Western Avenue. The proposed construction will not meet the required front yard setback for Light Industrial 1A zone. The benefit to the applicant, relief would allow the applicant to build a commercial building which would not meet the required front yard setback. Feasible alternatives, due to the location of an existing building at this location, alternatives are limited. Is the relief substantial? The applicant proposes to build a new building and covered walkway which requires 35.8 feet of front yard setback relief. Effects on the neighborhood or community, no negative impacts are expected with this application for relief. Is this difficulty self created? The location of an existing building and depth of this lot make it difficult to construct a building which would meet the required front yard setback. Additional relief granted for two and a half percent permeability, 27.5 versus 30 percent. Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Stone, Mr. O'Leary, Mr. Karpeles, Mr. Thomas NOES: NONE MR. THOMAS-So you have all your variances. Now you have to go talk to the Planning Board. MR. O'CONNOR-Thank you very much. MR. THOMAS-You're quite welcome, and we'll see you back for your Sign Variance. MR. HILTON-The next order of business tonight, the Appeal from John Schriner, has been continued. Mr. Schriner has some health problems and he's asked, through Staff, to have the item continued. My guess is that it will be on in February. So that is continued, and I think the only other item of business we have is the approval of minutes, which is listed on the agenda, which you can go ahead and do at any time. MR. THOMAS-Another thing, too, I'd like to have you take back to Staff is, come next meeting, Mr. Salvador's application will be heard, whether he's here or not. Whether anybody's here or not, Mr. Salvador will be heard. No more continuations, or whatever fancy words he comes up with. MR. STONE-The only thing I would add, Mr. Chairman, that if we have two meetings next month, and we probably won't, that it be the second one, because I'll be back. I will not be here for the first meeting. - 30 - ',--- "--" (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MR. THOMAS - Okay. Make sure, if we're onl y going to have one meeting, make it the fourth Wednesday. That way we'll ensure to have all the members. Okay. MR. HILTON-I can only say that if we're going to have only one meeting next month, we would have to have that meeting on a date when the majority of the members can make it. If that's the first, then it has to be the first, but we will certainly do everything we can to accommodate. MR. THOMAS-Well, does anybody else have any conflict? February? What's MR. STONE-The 19th. MR. THOMAS-The 19th would be the first one and the 26th would be the second one. MR. STONE-Right. MR. THOMAS-Does anybody have any problems with any of those dates? The 26th we know we'll have five here. If we have it on the 19th, we know Lou won't be here, but we will have one more Board member, hopefully, but I'd rather have more Board members here. I'd rather have six or seven than five or six. One other thing, too, is I received a letter from John Hodgkins questioning the length of time for appeals at Jack Cushing on two of those, and I've asked Mark Schachner, the Town Counsel, to draft a letter, and I was hoping that letter would be here tonight, but apparently it isn't, but before I send it out, each of you will have a coþy of it, look it over. We'll talk about it the next meeting. Any changes to it or deletions required on back. Mr. Hodgkins is not happy with the fact that there was a, he says a 150 day time period between, on the first application, which was for a garage, back in 1993, and the second one was for the fence that we heard last month. MR. STONE-And I specifically asked into the record last month whether it was timely. MR. THOMAS-Yes, that one was timely, but it's the first one he has a problem with. So, I've asked Jim Martin to make a time line for Mr. Schachner so that he could draft some sort of letter, and after that, minutes. CORRECTION OF MINUTES July 24, 1996: ? MR. THOMAS-Does anyone have any additions or deletions to the July 24, 1996 Zoning Board of Appeals minutes? If not, I'll make a motion we approve July 24, 1996 Zoning Board of Appeals minutes. MOTION TO APPROVE JULY 24, 1996 ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS MINUTES, Introduced by Chris Thomas who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Karpeles: Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Karpeles, Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Thomas NOES: NONE ABSTAINED: Mr. Stone, Mr. O'Leary MR. KARPELES-Is this going to be enough to carry this, with only three votes? MR. HILTON-It's not even a majority of the Board. - 31 - ~ (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MR. THOMAS-No. MR. KARPELES-Do they have to abstain just because they weren't here? MR. STONE-I don't know. We weren't here. MR. THOMAS-If you weren't here, usually they abstain. MR. HILTON-Usually you do. MR. KARPELES-You do, usually. MR. STONE-Yes, okay. MR. THOMAS-Well, we aren't going to see any of the Board members that were here. MR. HILTON-Well, you can exclude, if the 24th is the only one you have a problem with, you can exclude that one, I think. MR. KARPELES-You weren't here the 31st, either. MR. STONE-Not of July. MR. KARPELES-How about August, were you here in August? MR. STONE-No. MR. O'LEARY-The 28th I was here. MR. KARPELES-Okay. I don't know what you're going to do if you don't have enough Board members. MR. THOMAS-They'll just have to go unapproved. That's all. MR. HILTON-Well, lets just sit tight on this then. We can take care of this, if need be we'll bring it back. MR. THOMAS-Lets do the other ones, then. MR. O'LEARY-How many minutes have you got after August? MR. THOMAS-We've got right up to the 21st of November. Okay. How about the August 28th. August 28, 1996: NONE MOTION TO APPROVE THE AUGUST 28, 1996 QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS MINUTES, Introduced by Chris Thomas who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Karpeles: Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. O'Leary, NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Stone Mr. Karpeles, Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Thomas September 18, 1996: NONE MOTION TO APPROVE THE QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS MINUTES FOR SEPTEMBER 18, 1996, Introduced by Chris Thomas who moved for its adoption, seconded by Donald O'Leary: Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1997, by the following vote: - 32 - ~ ~ (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) AYES: Mr. O'Leary, Mr. Karpeles, Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Stone, Mr. Thomas NOES: NONE October 16, 1996: NONE MOTION TO THE MINUTES FOR THE QUEENS BURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FOR OCTOBER 16, 1996, Introduced by Chris Thomas who moved for its adoption, seconded by Lewis Stone: Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Stone, Mr. O'Leary, Mr. Karpeles, Mr. Thomas NOES: NONE October 23, 1996: NONE MOTION TO APPROVE THE MINUTES FOR THE QUE ENS BURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FOR OCTOBER 23, 1996, Introduced by Chris Thomas who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Karpeles: Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1996, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Stone, Mr. O'Leary, Mr. Karpeles, Mr. Thomas NOES: NONE MR. STONE-Chris, minutes. These "minutes". I've got a question. are transcripts. Technically these are not I guess we use the word MR. THOMAS-Well, what's the definition of "minutes"? MR. STONE-Well, under Roberts Rules, minutes are highlights. These are really transcripts, technically. MR. THOMAS-Well, the whole thing is a highlight. Every word we utter is a highlight. November 6, 1996: NONE MOTION TO APPROVE QUEENS BURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS MEETING ON NOVEMBER 6, 1996, Introduced by Chris Thomas who moved for its adoption, seconded by Lewis Stone: Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Karpeles, Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Stone, Mr. O'Leary, Mr. Thomas NOES: NONE November 20, .1996: NONE MOTION TO APPROVE QUEENS BURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS NOVEMBER 20, 1996 MINUTES, Introduced by Chris Thomas who moved for its adoption, seconded by Bonnie Lapham: Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Stone, Mr. O'Leary, Mr. Karpeles, Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Thomas NOES: NONE - 33 - --./ (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) November 21, 1996: MOTION TO APPROVE QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS MINUTES FOR NOVEMBER 21, 1996, Introduced by Chris Thomas who moved for its adoption, seconded by Lewis Stone: Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Karpeles, Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Stone, Mr. O'Leary, Mr. Thomas NOES: NONE MR. THOMAS-So we just have to talk about these other ones, plus September 4th when they come bee bopping along. Does anyone else have anything? MRS. LAPHAM-Well, how are we going to discuss the other ones because? MR. HILTON-Well, lets just put those to the side, and I'll sit down and talk to Mark and see what the procedures are. MRS. LAPHAM-Because they aren't going to come up with any more people. MR. KARPELES-No, not that were here. MR. O'LEARY-Can we talk about membership in general? aware that Bill had left. I wasn't MR. THOMAS-I wasn't aware either until I came in tonight. MR. STONE-I heard yesterday when I was in the office. I stopped by the office the other day and I was told that apparently it interfered with his Scouting activities, primarily. MR. O'LEARY-But somebody also said his term was up. MR. THOMAS-Yes. MR. HILTON-His term was up, but he chose not to renew it or ask for are-appointment. MR. O'LEARY-Whe~ is his term up? MR. HILTON-It was at the end of 1996. MR. KARPELES-Somebody ought to review these things. MR. THOMAS-Yes. MR. O'LEARY-So that means we have two vacancies, right? MR. THOMAS-Well, one vacancy is supposed to be, Lou Stone's term expires 12/31 in the year 2001. Donald 0' Leary's expires 12/31/98. Bonnie's expires 12/31 the year 2000. Mr. Green is gone. Mr. Karpeles expires 12/31/97. MR. KARPELES-And then I'm not going to renew it. You know now. MR. STONE-I understand that this Mister, whatever his name is, that he only wanted two years, and there was some concern. MR. THOMAS-Well, he's going to, his term would be for David Menter, okay, and Dave's expires 12/31/99. Well, if he starts now, it would be three years. - 34 - n '''-~ ') v (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 1/15/97) MR. STONE-It would be three years. That's what I heard yesterday. MR. THOMAS-Bill's already expired, and mine expires 12/31/99, the same as Dave's. We also need to elect a Secretary. Bonnie has been the acting Secretary, which isn't quite right. MOTION TO APPOINT BONNIE M. LAPHAM AS THE SECRETARY TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FOR THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY, Introduced by Chris Thomas who moved for its adoption, seconded by Lewis Stone: Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1997, by the following vote: MR. STONE-Let the record reflect that it's not because she's a woman. MR. STONE-Well, Chris was. MRS. LAPHAM-Actually, now days men can be secretaries, too. AYES: Mr. O'Leary, Mr. Karpeles, Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Stone, Mr. Thomas NOES: NONE MR. THOMAS-So we take the "Acting" off in front of Bonnie's title. Does anyone else have anything else for the good of the Board or the Town? MR. HILTON-Are we doing Vice Chairman and voting on it? MR. THOMAS-Yes, we'll also do a Vice Chairman, here. Does anyone want to nominate someone, other than Bonnie or myself? MR. O'LEARY-I'll nominate Mr. Stone. MR. THOMAS-Any discussion on the nomination and second? MR. O'LEARY-In the many years that I've served with Mr. Stone in his capacity as member, I have been impressed with his quick grasp of the proceedings. MOTION TO NOMINATE LEWIS STONE FOR VICE CHAIRMAN, Introduced by Donald 0' Leary who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Karpeles: Duly adopted this 15th day of January, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. O'Leary, Mr. Karpeles, Mrs. Lapham, Mr. Stone, Mr. Thomas NOES: NONE MRS. LAPHAM-It's a little late to ask this, but does Mr. Stone accept the nomination? MR. STONE-Yes. On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Chris Thomas, Chairman - 35 -