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1995-03-22 ---- QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS SECOND REGULAR MEETING MARCH 22, 1995 INDEX Notice of Appeal No. 4-94 Margaret Bleibtrey Use Variance No. 9-1995 (Cont'd Pg. 76) Robert E. Orban, Jr. Notice of Appeal No. 3-95 John P. Cushing Area Variance No. 12-1995 Dorothy B. Hod9~;ns , ' Use Variance No. 11-1995 Jeffry D. Morrison 1. 6. 17. 37. 57. THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TdBOARD AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING MONTHS MINUTES (IF ANY) AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL :OF SAID MINUTES. -;"1 "ì ( . , I Ii! ¡ t~;:' ¡; , . " .! -! ~ t< , ; , " , ' J' ' ,'1" ! " I '"oJ, , ;--/ -./ QUEENSBURY ZONIN§~OARD OF APP~A~S SECOND REGULAR MEETING, , MARCH 22, 1995" , 7 : 00 P. M . "" MEMBERS PRESENT FRED CARVIN, CHAIRMAN CHRIS THOMAS, SECRETARY ANTHONY MARESCO DAVID MENTER ROBERT KARPELES THOMAS FORD EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR-JAMES MARTIN '. l· PLANNER-SUSAN CIPPERLY TOWN ATTORNEY-PAUL DUSEK STENOGRAPHER~MAR¡A GAGLIARDI O~D BUSINESS: NOTICE QF APPEAL NO. 4-94. MARGARET BLEIBTREY APPEAL BY MARGARET E. BLEIBTREY FROM A DECISION OF THE ZONING ADMINISTRATOR STATING THAT A FISHING GUIDE SERVICE INCIDENTAL TO THE PERMITTED BED AND BREAKFAST WOULD BE AN ALLOWED USE UNDER SECTION 179-13, LAND CONSERVATION ZONES. ACCORDINGLY, AN INTERPRETATION BY THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS IS REQUESTED. PROPERTY IS LOCATED ON UPPER RIDGE ROAD, QUEENSBURY, DESIGNATED ON THE TAX MAP AS PARCEL NUMBER: 20-1-2. MARGARET BLEIBTREY, PRESENT MR. THOMAS-I'd like to first read the tabling motion, "The Queensbu1-y Zoning Board of Appeals has reviewed the following request at the below stated meeting and has resolved the following: Meeting Date: February 22, 1995, Notice of Appeal No. 4-94, Motion to Table Notice of Appeal No. 4-94 Margaret Bleibtrey, Introduced by Fred Carvin who moved for its adoption seconded by Anthony Maresco" MR. CARVIN-Okay. The public hearing on this particular situation is closed. I understand we have received some letters since the last meeting, which I will have read into the minutes, and then I will open it up for discussion among the Board hel-e, if there is any, and ask if any of the Board members have any questions of the applicant, and it will remain in the format of a question. It will not be open to a public hearing. So lets read the letters. MR. THOMAS-The first letter is a letter dated March 15, 1995 "Dear Mr. Chairman: In matters concerning the above mentioned Notice of Appeal, first let me state that I am in support of Mr. Martin's original interpretation of a fishing guide service incidental to the permitted bed and breakfast as being allowed under Section 179-13, Land Conservation zones. However, whether I or anyone else agrees or disagrees is of no real consequence at this point in time. The fact is that Mr. Martin's position on the matter was considered at the time of Mr. diPalma's application and approval of Site Plan No. 1-94 on January 25, 1994. According to Section 13, Chapter 179 of the Code of the Town of Queensbury, section 179-98, stating as follows "The zoning administrator shall have the power and duty to administer and enforce the provisions of this chapter. The Zoning Administrator shall be appointed and may be removed at the pleasure of the Town Board. An appeal from an action, omission, decision or rule by him regarding a requirement of this chapter may be made only to the Zoning Board of Appeals within sixty - 1 - '~ ./ (60) d~ys of such decision or action. In compliance with this provision, anyone desiring to appeal the decision would have had done so by March 26, 1994. Upon reviewing the Notice of Appeal you'll notice that Mrs. Bleibtrey uses the statement of Mr. Martin to the Lake George Park Commission on July 11, 1994, in which he only restates his position on the matter, as the date of the interpretation thus openi ng the door, for an appeal. This position is totally erroneous, Once again, according to the aforementioned regulation, an appeal must be made within sixty (60) days of the action, not every time it is restated to answer someone's question on the matter. ,In summary, it is my position that the Zoning Board of Appeals has no jurisdiction over the matter at this point, as long as Mr. diPalma is in compliance with the agreed upon provisions of his Site Plan approval. To the best of my knowledge Mr. diPalma has done all that he can to keep his side of this agreement. Furthermore if the Zoning Boa,-d of Appeals attempts to take action on this appeal, it will, without a doubt, be in violation of its own regulations and subject to any consequences s~emming there from. Taking action on this appeal can also be interpreted as an attempt to legislate regulations, which the Zoning Board of Appeals does not have the authority to do so. Very truly yours, Stephen F. Lynn" A letter dated February 27, 1995 "To Whom It May Concern: I am writing this letter as I have done several times over the last couple of years about Michael DiPalma's fishing Business & Guide Business. és I have informed the different town planning & zoning board before. ! can find no reason why he can not finally after all these years be able to run the fishing & guide business. Mr. DiPalma is a neighbor of ours also his right-of- way and dock is next to our right-of-way & dock (which we share with other residents). I have known Mr. DiPalma over 10 years now. I have found him a good citizen and a plus to our neighborhood. He has met all the requirements he was asked to make over the years to his home and land so he could run his small fishing business. As I understand it was told he had to get a charter license to run his fishing and guide business. I do believe that the word charter makes some people think this is a bigger operating business than it is. Because of the location of his dock, he is limited as the size of his boat because he has to go under the bridge on 9L which of course would make this a very small business. I have been on our dock when Mr. DiPalma has been on his dock. Never have I heard any more noise and any more strangers, than on any other docks, in the area (and there are quite a few docks there). I feel as far as the effect his fishing and guide business and also his Bed & Breakfast business has on Lake George water are far less than the effect that other people's private docks that rent out space on their docks to three and four more outside boats. M,-. DiPalma has made all the changes that was asked to, to his home and land. So he would not effect traffic on 9L which cost him extra money to do. I feel this has gone on way too long. I understand from former meetings that an okay was given for this business. I feel he has shown good faith in trying to do the right thing. Once again, I see no reason why Mr. DiPalma can't have a final closing on this! So the neighborhood and Mr. DiPalma can get on with their own business. Thank you. Jane Peltier" A letter dated March 2, 1995 "Dear Mr. Martin: I am writing a letter of support for the permit of Mike DiPalma to bea fishing guide and to be allowed to take fishing clients off his dock located south of RT 9L at the end of Warner Bay. I've known Mike DePalma as a neighbor ever since he moved to Lake George. As a retired police officer he clearly has great respect for the law, rules and regulations, is a regular church attendee and has great respect for Lake George and its environment~, I have been fishing with Mike on a few occasions and have observed nothing but total compliance with all laws and regulations, as well as being neighborly and pleasant to other persons. I understand that his neighbors the Blabtrees and Grace Hanneford have written to object to Mike's application. It is well known that Mike and the Blabtrees have not, been neighborly for years. Most likely their objection to the fishing - 2 - -' --" guide/dock issue is based on this ,personal animosity. Grace Hanneford, never uses the water and even if she were a regular µser, would not be negatively impacted. I have lived next door to Grace for 16 years and she has yet to speak to me in a civil way so the credibility of her comments on the details of this issue can be seriously questioned. In summary, I strongly "suppor,t Mi ke DePalma's appl ication to be, af ishi ng guide and to take çlients from his private dock. I've known Mike as a neighbor for several years and have observed what you·d expect from a retired police officer -- a highly respected law abiding c1 tizen. It is my Judgement that this would have no impact whatsoever on neighbors and any objections are based on other factors. Accordingly, I urge the Town of Queensbury to avoid consideration of negative correspondence based on unrelated issues between neighbors and to render a decision on the facts and merits of Mr. DePalma's request. Sincerely, John H. Shafer" A letter dated February 26, 1995, "Gentlemen: This letter is written on behalf of a closely situated neighbor, Mike DiPalma. Recently it came to my attention that one or more property owners on Hanneford Road, and I am sorry to say that one who doesn't reside either in the neighborhood or in !lQ. way would be affected by any actions undertaken by Mr. DiPalma, have submitted written objections pertaining to the use and operation of a bed & breakfast establishment operated by the aforementioned Mr. DiPalma and the use of his,dock to take guests out on Lake George to,fish. My house looks toward Mr. DiPalma's home. Since he has been in residence I have neither witnessed, overheard, any conduct that could possibly be deemed objectionable. I find him a good neighbor who takes pride in the appearance of his buildings and grounds and conducts himself in a most exemplary manner. In conclusion; 1 feel that at least one of those who has objected should look to her own probléms of noise and clean up her own acts before criticizing those of others. John Alden Beals"' A letter dated February 28, 1995 "Dear Sir: I have been . resident of Queensbury for over 48 years. Mike DiPalma bought his home here in 1979, and has been a good friend and neighbor since that time. I have seen friends and guests at Mike's house on some occasions. Some of his guests and friends go fishing with him from his dock. I have never heard or witnessed anything out of the ordinary when it comes to Mike's fishing activities. I know that Mike has recently retired. To prevent him from continuing with his fishing activities would be an injustice to his interests. I repeat that I have no objections to Mike's 'fishing activities; his fishing expertise is welcomed in our '~eighborhood. Sincerely, Ronald W. William~" A letter dated February 25, 1995 "Dear Mr. Martin: I have written before and have attended a hearing regularly regarding Michael DiPalma's fi*hing guide business.' The size of his business is the same as it 'has been for several years. From two to four anglers come to his home, stay one or two nights, and are taken out to fish either in Lake George or nearby rivers. The season extends from spring through summer. I am a close neighbor and do not find the noise level of people talking or walking down to the dock to be annoying. Michael's guests are no louder than any other passers- by. It seems incongruous to refer to Mr. di Palma's business as a 'charter' or 'bed and breakfast' when his home is small, his dock is short, and his guests are only a handful. I believe it's a small business which should be allowed to continue. Yours truly, (Ms.) Jane L. Crannell" MR. CARVIN-Okay. I will entertain any questions of the applicant by the Soard. Does anyone on the Board have any questions of the applièant? Okay. Hearing none, then I will entertain any discussion, feeiings or comments with regard to this application. I think we've had sufficient input on this. So, does anybody have any comments? MR. FORD....Is there 'any question about the timeliness of that? Could we review that? - 3 - '--' , --/ MR. CARVIN~I .think Mr. Dusek h~s addressed the t.imeliness issue at the last meeting, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think that my impression is that the timeliness is not an issue at this particular case. Is that essentially correct? MR. DUSEK-I think that that was the impression I had when the Board last reviewed the issue. MR. FORD-I was not at that meeting, by the way. I've read the comment, but I wanted to make sure I was accurate. MR. DUSEK-Sure. I think that, first of all, all decisions, of course, reside with the Board. I mean, it's up to you folks to make these determinations on these issues. I can help you, in terms of giving you some guidelines as to what I have seen. First of all, I think that the law refers to a 30 day time period, but it refers to a 30 day time period from when the issue develops or from the decision, and I think Step Number One is to determine when did the Zoning Administrator ,make a decision, or did he make a decision at all, and I think at the last meeting, I said som~thing to the effect that I believe there was a possibility that YOU could interpret the situation to be that no decision has even been ,made to this date, but that wouldn't be, probably, in anybody's best interest because then it would be a matter of still having to come back again, because I'm sure everybody would then understand, well, then we've got to object. So then you'd be back here again anyway. So the other possibility is to determine that the decision that was rendered in connection with that letter to the Lake George Park Commission constituted a decision of sorts. The applicant has tried to argue to you that the. decision actually pre-dated that, as you heard again tonight in the letters, back to a Planning Board meeting. As ~looked through there, I couldn't find what ~ saw was a decision~ but that's up to yoU folks to decide whether or not you agree or disagree with me. You've looked over those minutes yourself, as well. I think that what was at issue before the, Planning Board was whether to grant a bed and breakfast. That seemed to be what they were trying to determine at that time, and also that Board doesn't have jurisdiction, obviously, to make decisions as to what's allowed, or not allowed in a particular zone in any event. So I think you have to look at those issues and you have to look at it from the perspective of whether or not Mrs. Bleibtrey, who's the appellant in this case, would have had, you know, I guess look at it from a reasonable person's standpoint of each member of the Board. Do you think the decision was made then? Do you thin,k she had notice of a decision at that point, that this issue was something that, you know, at that time, it was definitely going to be allowed, and that this was a Zoning Administrator decision by virtue of this bed and breakfast being approved. If you feel that there ~ a decision and it was clear at that time, well then I think you could say, well, all right. We'll count the days from then, but if you feel that the decision was not clear and that she did not have sufficient notice until she had that first inkling from the letter that came out of ~im Martin's Office, then you would calculate the day from there, or if you feel, as I mentioned earlier, that the other possibility is that, even now he hasn't made a decision, in response to a complaint from an jndividual. I think what it is, it's the issue, and has that been formally addressed at some point by Jim Martin, and hopefully everything I just said will help a little bit, instead of confusing, but, you know, I'm trying to just give you all the things that I'm looking at, and I think that you do have some discretion, here, in terms of how you make this decision. MR. FORD-Thank you. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Any other questions, Gentlemen? Okay. Then I have a statement or a comment that I think I'd like to address. - 4 - -. --- MOTION TO APPROVE NOTICE OF APPEA~ NO. 4-94 MARGARETBLE~BTREY, Introdu~ed by Fred Carvin who moved for' its adoption, seconded by Robert Karpeles: The Zoning Administrator has determined that a fishing guide service would be allowed as an incidental use under the þermitted use of a bed and breakfast as outlined in Section 179-13. I disagree with this interpretation. Mr. DiPalma indicated that the fishing guide s.rvice is only available to people staying at the bed and breakfast, as part of a package or at an additional cost, but he has also indicated a fishing charter business, which is headquartered from his home is available to other people who may not be staying at his bed and breakfast facility. Although he 'may not be conducting the nonresident chartered fishing business from his home, it appears that the resultant activities is the same. The definition of bed and breakfast is very clear. A bed and breakfast facility. A bed and breakfast facility which is ftot a I hotel or a motel, but rather is a dwelling in which overnight accommodations for a maximum stay of one week:and breakfast only are provided or offered for transient guests for compensation. Such use is secondary to the occupancy of the dwelling by a family. I think the key words in this particular definition are "and breakfast only, are provided or offered for transient guests for compensation". Any advertised or offered activity other than breakfast or lodging', whether compensated or not, is not permitted as ~n .cc~ssory use under the definition of Bed and Breakfast. Please note that the use Bed and Breakfast is secondary to the occupancy of the dwelling by a family. Only tho~e 'uées as outlined by' Section 179-130(1) and D(2) would be allowed the Bed and Breakfast. Any uses beyond those would require either site plan review or additional use variances, if not covered by the Type I or Type II definitions. This Board has dealt with similar sitùations, most notably those dealing with amusement parks, where new rides or attractions as proposed were referred either to site plan review, or new use variances, and were not considered automatically granted under the broad term like amusement park. The issue of the free access by persons other than Mr. DiPalma via the right-of-way across the Bliebtrey property is a matter for civil court and need not and should not be addr~ssed by this Board. To summarize, a fishing guide service is not and 'cannot be a permitted incidental use to a bed and breakfast without propet use variances or site plan review. So that I would move to .pprove Appeal No. 4-1994, Margaret Bleibtrey, overturning the Zoning Administrator's decision and interpretation with regard to the accessory use of a fishing and guide service in conjunction with a bed and breakfast.' Duly adopted 22nd day of March, 1995, by the following vote: MR. CARVIN~Okay. I don't know if you want to read that back, Maria, but that would be my motion, or my interpretation. MR. DUSEK~Unless a member of the Board wants it read back, you're not required, by any law thatl know of;' to have it read back. It's a matter of discretion, I think, to the Board. MR. CARVIN~Okay. Does anybody want me to,read that again, or any questions on the motion? Okay. Maria, vote. AYES: Mr. Maresco, Mr. Menter, Mr. Karpeles, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Carvin NOES: Mr. Ford MR. CARVIN-The Appeal is upheld. The next item of business is, I think it's an unlisted, are we hearing the Orban tonight? MS. CIPPERLY-Right. That should be second. The public heating was also closed. · - 5 - """",,-- ---- MR. CARVIN-The public hearing was closed on that was it. USE VARIANCE NO. 9-1995 ROBERT E. ORBAN, JR. ROBERT ORBAN, PRESENT MR. CARVIN-Okay. The next is an unlisted agenda item. This is a Use Variance No. 9-1995~ Robert Orban, and I believe we tabled this for some input from the Board Attorney with regard to the Orban, again, and this is a situation where the public hearing has been closed, and only questions can be entertained from the Board. Okay. I think the issue that we tabled, we wanted clarification, is rather self-evident. I guess the first issue that I think the Board would like somewhat clarification here is, whether a Use Variance, once granted, goes with the applicant, the land or what the time frame, or what our abilities to modify or define a Use Variance. MR. DUSEK-First of all, as a matter of law, a Use Variance will run with the land, meaning that if you award a variance in this case, the gentleman to whom you award it to will be, able to, when he sells the property, give that variance, so to speak, to the next owner, and so forth, down the line. So it'll always, and it'll be there, forever and ever. It doesn't go away, because you've authorized, basically, that use, even though it's not allowed under the Zoning Ordinance. The issue as to the nature of a variance, it's really up ,to you folks to determine exactly what that variance will be. I, think you have to take into consideration a few things. You have to take in the character of the community, or that area, the nature of that area. I believe this is a residential zone, and you have to take into consider ation, I thi nk , proper 1 y the bui ldi ng that's, and the property that's the subject of your variance, and then I think you should keep in mind that if, as I understanQ it, a business use here. So it's obviously not part of the overall zoning scheme for the Town. , I mean, this was an area that was resid.ntial, and as I understand it, the use of this property, there is no grandfathering rights. or anything. So the applicant's basically coming before you and saying, look, I've got this property. I've got this building. I really can't use it as a residence, and I want to do something with it, and I think it's up,to the Board to decide exactly how much, first of all, I think you have to, decide, first of all, wl1ether he proved his case to you, and there's criteria set forth in the Ordinance as to what he has to show you, in terms of hardship and all of those types of things. If you should determine that he has shown you that, th.n I think you can move ahead into perfective of, what do we do with this variance. HQw much of a variance do we give him, and what limitations do we put on it, and as long as you have a rational basis for whatever it is you're doing, in terms of limitations of uses, etc., I think you're free to do, you know, just about anything that you want, as long as it's related, as I first started off with, the property that he has and the neighborhood. As long as you tie in all of your concerns there, and you're reasonable, then I think, you know, the Board is pretty much free to tackle this as it sees fit. I don't know, is there anything else I can add on that? Does that answer the question, Fred? MR. CARVIN-I don't know. It's been clear in ~ mind right along. MR. MENTER-I think that's the direction we were going. MR. MARESCO-And I think the question you had, Fred, was, does the variance revert back to it being a residential? If it doesn't, that variance will carryon. MR. DUSEK-No. Right. So you want to be very precise as to what you authorize in a variance, because in thinking that it will go on and on and it'll pass on to new owners and yoU want to make - 6 - ~ ---- sure that they know what they can use the property for. MR. MARESCO-Right. 'I, , ....} , , : MR. CARVIN-Yes, only the use, the approved use. In other words, I think the argument, or the issue is that if we allow a de~tist's office in there, does that allow the dentist, at some future point, to allow, if that's not þart of the variance? In other words, if we allow Dr. Orban a dentist's office, does that allow him to put an accountant in there or an unrelated business, if he decides to sell it, and ~ argument is that that is not the situation. In other words, we are granting either him or a specific profession. MR. ÐUSEK~I would say that it would turn on the wording of your variance. For instance, if your varL~nce said that we'~·e'only going to allow dentist's offices there, and y6u have a rea~on for doing that, related to, you know, the effects of this thing in the community, then he would be limited to dentist's office, and the only thing that he could do with it is sell it to a'nother dentist, but it's really going to turn on what you allow as to the uses, when you describe it. For instance, if you said, professional office, well that would change the whole character of the variance. I mean, that would allow all the uses that are allowed under the Ordinance. So I think it's up, you know, and you may have reasons going either way, depending upon what you feel the effects are of what you're allowing. In other words, if you can draw a distinction between a lawyer's office and dentist office, for instance, and you feel that the lawyer's office is either not as bad or, in terms of its impact on the neighborhood, or worse, then if you said, you know, if it's not as bad, you're goihg to say~ okay, you could use a lawyer·s office there, too, or if you f~lt it would be worse, then you're going to say, well, no, you can't have a lawyer's offIce, but you can have an accouhtant's office and a dentist offIce or, you know what I'm saying? I think you folks have to make all of these, consider all of these things, consider the natures of the offices, and make a decision as to what it is you want to allow there, and I think that yoU have a lot of leeway, because this is your, you know, you're varyi~g the Ordinance for this person, and you have a right to add any conditions that you think are appropriate, so long as they're rationally related to protecting and preserving the neighborhood, and considering the fact that you're varying that area. MR. MENTER-r thihk that where we're at is we've, if I recall, we've polled and it seems to me that we determined that he did prove his case, you know, that consideration is deserved here, and we were sort of trying to protect the future of that property with wording, trying to limit the future with the wording. We were going back a~d forth on that. Does this letter have to be read in, that Dr. Orban submitted? MR. CARVIN-Yes. I think we should probably put that in. Yes. MR. MENTER-Before we discuss it. MR. CARVIN-Okay. T he~· e is a letter received from Dr. Orban. Do you have it? Why don't you read it in. MR. THOMAS-A letter dated March 21, 1995, regarding Variance file # 9-1995 ÌOGentlemen: Enclosed please find a list of professions and occupations to be included in the granting of a Use Variance for the property at 93 Dixon Road. I feel that these professions all keep the spirit of respect for a residential area, that is, they are quiet and generate little traffic flow. I did not submit a list of 'professional occupations licensed by the State of New York' for two reasons. This list would exclude certain desirable occupations such as attorneys who are governed by the State Bar Association and not by the Division of Licensing - 7 - --- Services. Second, many 'licenseq occupations' may be considered undesirable for this location, sea attached list of "Disciplines Regulated by the Division of Licensing Services'. It should be noted that this is only one of many lists showing licensed disciplines by the State of New Yo)-k. Sincerely, Robert E. Orban Jr., D.M.D." And attached are a list of occupations and a table entitled "Disciplines Regulated by the Division of Licensing Services" . MR. CARVIN-Okay. I think I'd ask you to read in those lists. MR. THOMAS-The first list is, an accountant, an actuary, adjuster, answering service, architect/landscape architect, Attorney/Lawyer, Audiologist, Billing Service, Business Consultant, Counselor marriage, family, child, individual, chiropractor, computer sy~tems designer/consultant, dentist, dental hygienist/dental technician, dietitian, draftsman, engineer, financial planner, foundation offices, graphics designer, hypnotherapist, literary agent, marketing consultant, notary public, occupational therapist, physical therapist, physician M.D., D.O., Patent Agent, Podiatrist/Chiropodist, Psychologist, Public Relations Counselor, Resume Service, Speech Pathologist, Transcription Service, Translator/Interpreter, Tutor. MR. CARVIN-Again, my position on this still remains that I have absolutely no problem granting a variance to Dr. Orban. I think that he has met all the criteria to allow him to go into there, with the exception of some of his caveats. I think that he has proved, now we've got to remember. Number One, he does not own this property. So he is proving a case for another land owner. That's Number One. MR. MARESCO-But he is looking to purchase it. MR. CARVIN-He does not own it at this point. All right. So, I mean, the reasonable return does not necessarily, at this point, affect him. Now it could affect him in the future, if he were to buy the property and, at some point, wish to sell it, but I think it's very important that, at this point, he does not own the property. I think that his situation is unique, that he would not alter the essential character of the neighborhood, and most of the alleged hardship is not self-created, with the exception of what he is asking us, which I do believe goes beyond the granting of minimum relief. It is not a situation of the Ordinance that indicates or mandates that he has to rent the additional space to make his mortgage payments. That's not a problem of the Town. Number Two, I don't think we could ever come up with a tight enough definition that, at some point, wouldn't come into conflict, would, at the same time, preserve and protect the character of the neighborhood, the health, safety and welfare of the community, beç4use anyone of these are so broad in their terminology that in essence what we are doing is we are giving him what we, as a Zoning Board, shQuld be looking at, and what the residents in that area should be looking at. In other words, he, in essence, is saying, these are the folks that I will review, and if they meet ~ criteria, then I will put them in there, and it removes them from the neighborhood. Now that is not to say that if he buys this property at some point, that a reasonable return could be returned by him, by selling that property as a residence. ,We don't know what the future will bring. So I think that by going beyond that that we are, in essence, turning our job over to him, and taking it out of the preview of the community, and I think that that is going beyond the pail of granting minimum relief. Now, as I said, I want to emphasize that I am not opposed to putting Dr. Orban in there, but it's that little caveat A that I have a hard time with, and that's pretty much my position. So I guess my feeling is that, this point, Dr. Orban really has, we have, I think, four choices. One, he can obviously pull his application, if he feels that this - 8 - --- -.-/ Board is not moving in a direction that is satisfactory to him. Two, we can grant Dr. Orban a variance and limit it just to him. Three, we can grant Dr. Orban a varianc~ allowing dentist's offices, or, Four, yoúcan create all sorts of criteria and addendum to that variance, and as I said, I don't have a problem with the first three. It's that fourth one I think, where you're going to build a very largel mouse trap, and the only people that are going to get caught in it are us, so, I think thöse'are the four, unless somebody else has got another option here. MR. DUSEK-Mr. Chairman, if I may. I heard one of your options was to grant a variance to the Doctor? MR. CARVIN-Or dentist's offices. MR. DUSEK-Okay. Did you mean that in the sense of, not to him personally, but rather for the usé of dentistry? MR. CARVIN-Yes. MR. DUSEK-That would be one of the optio~s, because whatever you do, you're not 'going to want to grant it to the Doctor. You're going t6 want tó grant it to, you know, to the Doctor. You're going to want to grant it for purposes of running with the land. So you're going to want to describe what you're going to allow on the land, and 'then it will run to whoever gets the property, in the end. MR. CARVIN-Or we can limit it just to wörds, if he should 'sell the practice revert back. his practice. at some point, In other it could MR. DUSEK-No. That's what I'm a use on the property, his dentistry, or oral surgery. choices, if you say that you. saying. If you're going to allow practice, as I understand i~~ is Okay. Dentistry. So I think your MR. CARVIN-So we only have three choices, is what you're saying? MR. DUSEK-Right. MR. CARVIN-Dr. Orban, Dentistry, Office. MR. DUSEK-Right. MR. THOMAS-What about the other little piece, the 1250 foot building or room out back? MR. CARVIN'"'"Well, that's what I'm saying. I have ,a hard time. If he finds somébody, and then I think they have to come back through for the same use variance, just the sam~ as ihe Doctor, and they would have to prove their case, that they meet the criteria that's set forth by the community, and again, I don't know. I mean, he's clai~ing a hardship that he wants to be able to go out and 'find these folks, and I'm just saying that, maybe there is other uses besides professional that might meet that criteria, that is acceptable to the community. So by limiting it you als6 are excluding other potential uses that may also fit in there. . MS. CIPPERLY-You askéd for other options. One other option would be, as commercial properties are handled, if a d1fferent commercial use goes into' a building, significantly different than it was there, say you went from an antique shop to a tire store, that could require site plan review by the Planning Board. So that is one way of maybe addressing the~' if he couldn't' find anothér dentist to buy the building, but he could find a similar use that fell into the professional category, it could go to site pIa n review. - 9 - MR. CARVIN-Well, that still falls in the third or fourth category, depending on how you want to start your count. MS. CIPPERLY-Well, you asked for other options. MR. MENTER7But if it wasn't tied to the property, then, I guess I'm saying the real issue is the fact of this type of property, and we're trying to maintain some control over that property down the road, if Dr. Orban decides to turn it over, apd, yoU know, you've got a commercial use sitting there, potentially. It seems to me that this is a fairly limited list. I think there is a real unique problem with that building in that location, as it currently sits. I think I, personally, would be for workin~out some wording that would limit it. As I see these, none of these seem to me to fall outside of what, certainly I would look for in, or see as an appropriate use of that building. I guess I don't see the big, I don't see the real trap in this, and I do see a problem with the building aslt sits now. MR. CARVIN-Okay. I'm just s~ying that even these definitions, financial planner. I mean, I'm a financial planner, and I can bring about 12 of my cohorts, and we can set up a financial planning office there, and I can tell yoU that our traffic is going to be more intensive than what the dentist's office is. So, I mean, how ~re yoU going to define, I mean, obviously, a notary public is probably not as intensive, but it could be. I suppose there could be a run on notari~s. MR. MENTER-By the same token, we don;t have to adhere, strictly, to this list. MR. CARVIN-That's what ~ saying, but lets just say that there are other professions that might be amenable, at some point in the future. You're limiting yourself both ways, is what I'm saying, and I think you still bump into the minimum variance. You're giving him a responsibility that rightfully, remember, it's a residential zone and we're changing a use in that residential zone, and I think that this deserves the highest scrutiny that we can give it. MR. MENTER-I agre~ with you. MR. CARVIN-And I think that when we start giving away review processes, then we are doing a disservice to the community. MR. KARPELES-Can I ask a question of Dr. Orban? MR. CARVIN-Sure. MR. KARPELEß-Drp Orban, I don't think it came out last week. Are you planning on just having one other office on the, 0)" one other renter in this facility, or could it be multiple? DR. ORBAN-At this point, I' would,see no more than two, probably one. I have not ruled out two (16stword) bac~ space. MR. MENTER-What's the size of that? DR. ORBAN-1250 square feet. there, two small business. one. There's the potential for two rooms My preference would be to have it as MR. CARVIN-But I still will maintain that that is a $elf-created situation. In othe~words, that's not a fault,of the Ordinance, that he has to rent out that space, and I have no problem, if he finds somebody who he finds appeals, is willing to come through the test of fire, if I can use that term, that this Board can look at it, and we allow the public to look at the activity. Now he may find somebody on this list or somebody that ma~,not be on this list, and they apply for the vari~nce, the same as the - 10 - '- -- Doctor has, and they go through with flying colors, but on the other hand, I mean, he may find somebody that the community finds objectionable. MR., FORD-But aren't we looking at this parcel, this ~roÞeriy. We're not looking at Dr. Orban's portion ,str'ucture and the other's separately. Xt's all together. piece of of the MR. CARVI~-Well, no. We're granting the variance to the Doctor. MR. FORD-No, to the property. MR. CARVIN-To the property. MR. FORD-So in our definition, we define the type of professions that can go in there. MR. CARVIN-I'm saying it should be his dental practice, which is, he's the only one that's proven his caSe, at least to me, and he~s proven his case very successfully, that he'dese:rves to go in there, and what he's basically' saying is he Wants to go o\,:J,tand f1nd another person, and lli2. will make that determination. , " MR. FORD-Well, he will make that deter~ination according to the guidelines that we put in our motion, in the variance. MR. CARVIN-Yes, and what I'm saying is, the guidelines in our motion are not going to be, you just won't be able to cover all of the things, because we have a lot of time struggle just coming to a consensus here. MR. KARPELES-I don't know as I understand exactly what you're proposing. You're proposing that we grant a variance to the Dóctor, and that if anyone Wants to rent the other part of the building, they have to come backhére? ' , MR. CARVIN-They have to come back hete, and I don't think that that's an unreasoriable request. MR. MARESCO-Dr. Orban, I have a question also. This list that you submitted to us, this is the extent of the professionals that you would consider, basically, all of this here? DR. ORBAN-torrect. MR. MARESCO-Okay. DR. ORBAN-And could I make a point of clarification, with regard to the previous discussion? The issue of what would be allowed in there does apply fot me for the entire building, n'ot, Just for that posterior one,thirdof the building. The reason being that, if I need to sell the building, the entire building, for e~amþle, lets just say, five years from now, we sell it. I can't wait around fdt a dentist to buy it. I need tò have a specific se~ of criteria as to who els8 might buy that building, without s~~ding them back, and go through the process. Once again, it would be unsalable. MR. CAR'VIN-And that's the part that I'm object¡ rig to'. Because he may be able to sell that, I don't know, five years from now, maybe that property is now usable for a residential area, and what ~ saying is that he wants to have a wide open field, essentially, so thát he has a guarantèed market, so that he doesn't necessarily get stuck with the property, and I use the term "stuck" vefY mildly or loosely, like 'the current owner. Rémember. He doesn't own the property, at thl$ point. MR. MARESCO-I think there's a difference, though, between the current owner and what Dr. Orban is proposing. It's only going to be a professional building. There will be no commercial - 11 - entities going in there. It'll be strictly professional, and if we word it in such a way that we can control the type of professionals that will be using that building, I think we'd have some control over '~. MR. CARVIN-I'm waiting for somebody to take a shot at wording it. I mean, if you ,have the wording, lets hear it, because my argument rides on how you write this particular variance. MR. FORD-Well, without recommending a motion, I find that even this lengthy list may, in fact, be too confining. We're going with a number of recommended job titles that, and our appeal, here, and our jurisdiction will carryon for decades to come. MR. CARVIN-That's correct. MR. FORD-And, you know, at some point, there may not be such a thing as someone engaged in billing service, or some of these other ~reas. I think that we ought to go back t6 the broader interpretation as indicated in the professional occupations definitions and exclude those that we have previously agreed to. MR. CARVIN-Yes, and I'm saying the simplest way to address this is to grant Dr. Orban his variance and leave it at that. In other words, don't try to complicate the situation, and as those other uses come to the surface, let them come before this Board and the community and prove their merit to go into a residential zone, and that's âll I'm saying. MR. FORD-In other words, you're recommending designated professional for as long as the. that it be MR. MARESCO-No, not professional, strictly dentistry, nothing else. MR. CARVIN-I'm saying that I'm more than willing to grant Dr. I Orban a Use Varlanqeon that particular piece of property for his dental practice. " MR. MENTER-We're all talking about limiting a variance. We're talking about limiting either whåt he is additionally allowed to put in there with that use, or limiting it strictly to dentistry, but it's a limit either way. ' MR. MARESCO-We could be limiting to just this here on this list. MR. CARVIN-Yes, and what I'm saying is that it's a residential, and that's the whole reason for variances, and I'm not arguing the fact that he doesn't, he meets all the criteria for a ,Use Variance, but he's just asking us for maximum relief because wants a scuttle hole, five years down the line, if he should happen to decide to sell the property, and I'm saying that we can't build that scuttle hole' into this particular variance. MR. FORD-Without going that far, I think we are also pretty much confining that property to its current use for years to come, possibly, by not coming up with some sort of an accommodation. MR. CARVIN-That's not 0,". Orban's problem. That is the owner's problem. He does not own this property. What Dr. Orban is trying to do is eliminate this problem that the current owner has if he should happen to buy the property, and, I mean, that's not a problem of the variance. MR. FORD-It's within our purview to address that~ though. MR. CARVIN~Yes, and I'm saying that we have to address minimum st~ndpoint, and what you're trying to do is maximum relief. it from a give him - 12 - --.-/ MR. FORD-No. I'm not trying to do that. MR. CARVIN-I'm just sayi~g, the impression that I'mgetti~g is that we're trying to give him a maximum relief. MR. FORD-I'm trying to loOk at the c~rrent µse and give some sort of structure by defi~ition, 'as to what would be an appropriate use for that. MR. CARVIN-And unless we see them actuallyco~e before us, we can't ever addréss that. We, can't answer it. We can't anticipate all the uses that may come UP in t~e next five, ten or twenty yea'"s. MR. MENTER-I agree that the uses are, wouldn't be fafr t6the neighbors as they're written, or professional builder, p~ofessiónal services, as they're in théCode. I thin~ th~t's way too general. I agree. So, you know,fatling back on that would, certainly wouldn't work for me. MR. KARPELE$-Well, D'". Orban didn't 'go along with that anyway. That wasn't agreeable, to him, if 1 remember right. DR. ORBAN:"'What was not agreeable to me was to limit it tó these önes that are specifically listed in 'that Code. What was óbjeètiona.ble to the Board was the o~en ended nature of the Code. Mr. Ford brought up, will ì accept any licensed professional in the State of New York, and I said I would conditionally accept that, ,based on further review. I hadn't looked into that. I can s~e that there are ~any things that I ~ouldn't even want to see go in there, with appropriate respect to the neighborhood, that would be considered licensed under the State of New York. I also limit mysélf to, onè example is an attorney, ;who I think would be an appropriate use for that, that are not licensed. So under those, under that wording, from both of our points of view, I thought would not be appropr~ate. So we' were really trying, to define a list, where .it ended the làsttime. I have done that for you. I'll stand on my letter and my list. The neighborhood objection was to retail and commercial and industrial use. We've narrowed'it far, far dòWn from that. MR. CARVIN-So I guess we still come back'to the same spot. MR. FORD-Fred, would you please address any on this list that you have difficulty with, as bein~ included, ten o~ fifteen y~ars down the road. ,MR. CÞ,tRvìN-I don't know any of the individual businesses., I'm looking at professio~s. Do you know what I'm saying? Now he says Accounta~t. Well, you could have ~n,Accountant that has 35 sub people. You don't know the traffic imþact of an accountant is. I'm just saying, you could have èn ,ccountant that has 35 or 40 people working for him, that has a negative impact. You could have, I don't know, like I said, you could probably put a brokerage firm under the definition of financial planner. You could proba.bly have 35 brokers and all their assundries folks in and out. I don't know if any of these take on: an odious factor in the future, Maybe all of a sudden accountants are worse,than builders. DR. ORBAN-Could I address the numbers that are being mentioned? MR. CARVIN-No. This is discussion on the Board. So I'm not entertaining any public comment. I'm just saying that, if I know what accountant, or if I kno~ what financial planner, then at least it puts it to the public scrutiny, and they may be abl~ to piove their case as outlined by our criteria. It may be a unique situ.ation. They may not be able to realize an adequate return. They just have to go through the same things that Dr. Orban went through, and that's all I'm saying. '- 13 - -..../ MR. FORD-I believe that it is coming under public scrutiny right now, and we need to make that determination. MR. CARVIN-~ is. MR. FORD-The property is. MR. CARVIN-Yes, but what ~ saying is, he's just asking that he be the guy that does the job five years from now, and not the community. MS. CIPPERLY-Another approach to this would be to limit things to something where there would be no increase in need for parking spaces or, you seem to be looking at the intensity of the site. , , MR. CARVíN-I don't~now what the issues are five years from now. I mean, maybe there's no cars five years from now. MS. CIPPERLY-And that's something the Planning Board could address under site plan review. MR. CARVI~-Yes. Again, I'm just saying that, I still come down to, as Mr. Dusek ha~ aptly pointed out, three alternativ.shere. Either Dr. Orban can pull his appliçation because he,doesn't.feel that he's going to get the latitude that he needs to close ori the property, and that certainly is his prerogative.. Number Two, we can grant Dr. Orban a variance for his use, or, Three, you gentlemen can come up with the Rue Goldberg solution. In other words, you can, you know, adapt, mend, stretch this thing in any direction you care to, and if it's option number three, I will entertain a motion to give you the definitions. I don't know, Dr. Orban, do you have any thought of pulling your application, I mean, through the process of elimination? DR. ORBAN-No. I don't have any thought of pulling my application. I would like to address the issue of 35 cars, and as Ms. Cipperly brought up, that (lost word) possible situation. The cars disappear five years from now, then that issue is (lost wor d) . MR. CARVIN-You have no intent of pulling your application" at this point. DR. ORBAN-At this time, no, I don't. I will suggest a wording, if you want. MR. CARVIN-That's what I'm asking this Board to do. That's ~ job. So, I'm leaving it to your discretion, Geritlemen. MR. FORD-I would l¡ke to ask Dr. Orban to come up with a recommendation, in as much as he has already submitted a list. DR. ORBAN-If we could refer to my letter of March 5, third paragraph, with the wording that I had proposed, under the term "Professional Use ,Occupation". I would seek a Use Variance for Professional Use Occupancy, incl~ding this list. TYpe it right in. Any other consideratibns be brought ba6k to this Board for regular appeal process. MR. MENTER-Bob, whåt do ~ think? MR. KARPELES-I can see both sides, here, but'I feel the same way that I felt last time we met, that we've got to come up with something to keep that b4ilding from deteriorating any farther than it is, and I think he's come up with a fairly reasonable list. I think there are a few categories that I would question. I'd question 'an Adjustor, just' becáuse I think it's too broad a category. A billing service, again, I think is too broad, and business consultant's too broad. Foundation offices, I can see a Woodsman of ,the World, or som~thing in there. Marketing - 14 - ----- -.../' ¢ónsultant's too broad. Notary public, might have a lot of tráffic, a notary people in and out all the while. The satisfactory to me. I would think public. You rest of them that that could have a'"e pretty DR. ORBAN-Could you repeat those, plea~e? MRi. KARPELES-Adjustór, billing s~rvi¢e, business' ¿ónsultant, foundation offices, marketin9 consultant, and notary public. DR. ORBA~-Billing service was the allowed use with the last owner. MR. KARPELES-Well, I just don't know, rea'lly, what a billing, that could be a collection agency or something l.ike 1;.hat. DR. ORBAN-That's a collection agency. 1 isted he'"e. Thât would have been MR. KARPELES-Well, I don't know, I thirik that maybe it could be, and this gets back to what Fred is saying is t,hat, you could interpret that. as being a collection agency. MR. ¿ARVIN-I M~an\~is a book~eeper anaccountânt, or an actuary? SÜpposé I'm running 'a bookkeeping service? '1 mean, bookkeeping is' not cov'ered under e1 ther one of those' deflni tions. DR.' ORBAN-I have bodkkeeper on here a~ ,~ separate item. willing to strike ~btary public, foundation offices, service. I'd be bi 11 i ng ~R. CA~0IN-I don't seé a þoókkeéper~ actuary. I $ee an accountant or MR. FORD-You'd like to keep on adjustor, business consultant? Q~. ORBAN-I'm still ¿o'nsider ing. MR. FORD-Okay. DR. ORBAN-I'd like to add bookkeeper. MR. KARPELES-You missed it? MR. CARVIN-Well, see, others have we missed or that the community use? I mean, that's what I'm sayinþ. How many that might be $u¡table, or that might be, might find a better use, or more acceptable " bR. QRBAN-We can define that right now. Iican strike adjustor. ¡ MS. CIPPER~Y-So they can come in again, if they,want something that's not on the, ¡ist. MR. CARVIN-But if you don't have a lIst, they all ha0e to come in. Then my argument right a16ng is that, onceyeu give a list, you're giving him the ability that other people don't have. DR. ORBAN-The considerations for business consultant and marketing consultant really are 'consulting agencies. What could you possibly stick in there, but they are consulting services, how to set up a b~~iness, get financing for a busiriess. That's what that is. That's w~atthat refers to. I don't look ~t that ås that open ended. Those are consulting services with an öffice a~d ~omebody, discus~ion goes back and'fórth, phone calls go out, and ,correspondencé goes out,' and that ~s what's i \"Jvolved in those services. MR, CARVIN-Tom, if you're n the process of formatting a'motion, or you want to thrash th s out, because this was really an I i _ 15 _ --./ - unlisted item, and because of the length of our agenda, I don't think we need to do this at this point. We should put this to the end, if we're going to be formatting a situation here. I mean, you know, maybe Dr. Orban, if he wants to write the variance, while we go on to other business matters here, maybe he can structure that, instead of getting involved with this. MR. FORD-I think that's a good idea. MR. KARPELES-Yes. That's a good idea. MR. FORD-Certainly would be glad to entertain that. MR. CARVIN-8ecau~e I, think you've got to get your straight, and I think that this is going to re~uire time. definitions a lot more MR. FORD-I agree with that. MR. MARTIN-Fred, as a suggestion, maybe a five minute break, so Tom's not distracted while he's hearing the next application, and Dr. Orban doesn't have to wait around until the end of the ro.~~~ i ng., " ,,!'1 I :i'l: ,', 'l~bR: 0~BAN:-.-¡'~:¡bé\.Jiì'lifl9 ¡ tò:~~1If';:4Ptil th~,e9d¡t:Ó"! get 'i1:.'1:.6, the ,:f'¡¡n~l , '.' , ¡:, , " ':,':',:-':"''''': 'r;' ~ .:,. :.-,i'J·' ,-:> ,.'1"1,." -:j",' r,' MR';., CA~V1N-t think'\f ,1/.fE?'r8(golng"tÇ>, èaveatt;.his motioT)~ we want to make sure that òur boat's pretty' fight, that no water leaking in this. , I I think t;.'here's '. MR. MARTIN-That's what I thought. Tom would not be distracted by the next application. He could sit without any distract.ions. MR. CARVIN-I'm just pointing out that Dr. Orban seems to be writing the motion, and he's saying what he can'and doesn't ~ant, so maybe he can get that, and we can dovetail this a little bit later, because I think we do have quite a bit of oth~r business to go on here. I don't;. want to get boggeq down in semantics of what this is or what that is at thié pòint. I me~n, if we're writing a motion, either he writes it or we 'write it, and if we're writing it, 'we should have had it written by ~oW, because that was the whole intent here. MR. MARTIN-Okay. MR. FORD-I would like to put it off, and I agree, whether he writes it or we write it, ánd I think we need to have ample discussion on it, so we truly underst~nd what we're getting ourselves and the community and Dr. Orban into. MR. CARVIN-This is just not a bandaid situation, here. So, if there's no problem, what we'll do is we'll put this to the end of the agenda and move on. Is thete any problem with that, Paul? MR. DUSEK-No, not at all. ;..j' :',JC' ;;'¡ ,j MR. CARVIN-Okay. All right, before we do go on to the next item of business, I think we havi two, basically, I think almost interrelated items here, with the Dorothy Hodgkins Area Variance and the John P. Cushing Notice of Appeal. I've Qiven this a lot of thought, as to which one we should hear first, because I think either way we go we have a. choice between the lady or the tiger, and I'm going to, I gUess, entirtain some thoughts as to which the Board would prefer to hear first. Is there any thoughts? I mean, you all knþw the issues here. I'm assuming everybody's read the minutes, visited thi site and is familiar with this particular situation., . MR. MARE$CO-I think we should go with Cushing first. , - 16 - '"--' -.' " MR. KARPELES-I agree. MR: .~ARESCO-Find out wha~ we're doinéw~th that. 'even get to the other one. We 'might not MR. CARVIN-Okay. Is tha~ the Board's opinion? MR. KARPELES-That's my opinion. MR. THOMAS-Yes. MR. FORD-I, too, ODe or more of Var Hmcé, might with that first, have given it a lot of thought, and I think that the possible ~olutions, as we address the Area address Mr. tushi ngs ~ Appeal, but I ' mi 1îd 90i ng I really don't. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Is that the general opinion, then, 4hat w~'ll hear the Cushing Appeal first? All right. Then we will hear'the O¡d Busine~$, N04ice of Appeal No. ~-95, John P. Cushing~ OLQ BUSINESS: NOTICE OF APPEAL NO. 3-95 JOHN P. CUSHING APPEAL BY JOHN P. CU$HING REGARDING PROPERTY OWNED BY DOROTHY HODGKINS, CL.E;VERDALE, A$SERTING THAT tÙRRENT'$ITUATION VIOLATES $e:CTION 179~12C,~HICH STATES THAT THERE SHALL BE NO MORE THAN ONE (1) PRINCIPAL BUI~DING IN A RESIDENTIAL ZONE ON ANY SI~GLE LOT L.E~$ THAN TWO (2). ACRE$ IN SIZE. LOCATION:' TAX MAþ NO. 13-1-10, 'CLEVERDALE ROAD JOHN CUSHING, PRESENT " , MR. THOMAS-It's just the decision, that's all. M~. CARVIN-Is it just the de¿ision? ',' :;,::.t MR. THOMAS-Yes. We already heard the Aþpeal. MR. CARVIN-Okåy. I think I left the pUblic hearing open on this, ,if memory serves correct. I don't remember. I vagu~lý remember 1eavingthe ,pUblic ~eàring ¿pen. Okay. The public he~ring is 6pen. 'Well, ~e were originally going to hear this ,March 7th, at which point, we will render a decision. The public heãring is open. So I will entertain public comment at that point. Qkay. Then the public hearing is open. We tabled this for a decision, but because the public hearing is still open, I will ,entertain any public" comment. Are there any letters that have been feceived since ~hat meeting? MR. THOMAS-No. Nó'new correspondence. MR. CARVIN~OkaY., Th. public h~aring is open, So I will entertain any ,comments f+o~ anyone wishing to speak in favor of the àpÞlicant. PUBLIC HEARING OPEN MR. CARYIN-AIl right. to the appliçant? Anyone wish1~g to be heard in opposition JOHN HODGKIN5, III M,R. HODGKINS-My name is John Hodg!<i ns. My mother owns the property up on Cleverdale that's bei n9 disçussed here. '. I do have quite a few things I'd like to discuss'tonight, as far as this application that John Cushing has Py1;. in. I'd liké to start off with some of the comments that ~r. Cu~hing made at the prévious meeting. I guess before I'll do, that, the meeting the last.time was quite long. I know ~ temper got a little bit strong, and I do apologize for that at this time. To continue on here, I went - 17 - '",--,," down through his comments, and a few of them I want you to note. Mr. Cus~ing took the opportunity to note some çomments that were made by our family, and some activities that have tak~n place, and I just wanted to refer back to some comments that "he has made now. As we look bac~ through the minutes, you'll find out that, in going to the Town, 'the Town Planning Department, they found out all the activities that we're undertaking on our garage were, in fact, legal, that we had properly gotten our permits in place, that we are, it's a conforming structure, that there's two separate constructions o,n this garagE;!, and the first one was a garage wIth storage. That was all done properly. The second was a seco~d permit, as' required, and that ~erm¡t was also, as required by the law, and I think Jim woUld attest to that. A few of the conversation, he does mention tight in this thing, everything was legal. He also, let me back up a little. He also mentionêd a numb~r òf things. He said a number of other rules have been broken in this area, but when the residents do not follow the rules, and the governing bodies let them slide through, then we'll have unregulated growth and it's detrimental to all the residents. Jim Martin, are you a~are of any other things that are undertaken in our community that's been brought to your attention that's breaking the rules? MR. MARTIN-We, make compliance with the Codes " every effort to make lòcalCodes as well as sure things the State are in BUilding MR. HODGKIN$-I haven't heard of anything else that's come up. It also says that we, and I mean most ,of the resident~ of Cleverdale, have been'de6elvedbY my family. I've talked' to a number of the residents, and some of the residents don't know Jack Cushing. Other ones, say he does not represent them, and I think there's a number of people that have come forward to us and said this is a, truly, it's just not true. Again, he says he went to the Zoning Offic~ and looked at the þlans, 'and all was in order, and these are his words, insofar as the Code was concerned. He also makes sli'ght comme,nts as, it's all legal the Town, so we watched in dismay, and our neighbors watched in comment, and we cried silently. I might add, never a word from the Hodgkins'. Conv~rsation is a two way street, Gentlemen. If someone, I don't know what was expected from mi parents at the time. They had talked to them about, they were going to put construction at different times. A'simple W~lk over and say, hey, what are you doing. I guess nobody knew anything was proposed here. I also have to take notice here that he started quoting my father, and I think it's i~ poor taste to quote someone that cannot sit here and defend their quote, and not complete th~ir quote. We're getting into the original variance, when you request that Mr. Turner asked, I would like to have one comment on the remarks made by the,Staff about your garage. Is there intent that that is going tò bE;! made into sleeping quarters upstairs? Mr. Cushing only (lost word) a little bit of a half truth here, and decided to stop ,this quote at thE;! most appropriate moment. It's ver9 difficult when someone here cannot continue their conversatio~. I think it's in very poor taste, and aéain, I will read that again, andth,is is how far he went. At the present time, it coUld be u$éd, at the present time. It was puti~ for storage in a ~arage. You've got two cars and it's also a great place to store a boat and I might add, right here, that the, year and a half that the building has been there, there's never been a car seen inside. Now, he stopped at "a great place for a boat". Lets continue. "But that is not the intent at the moment. At some point, if our,kids come up, they mi~ht sleep up there, but at the present time, there are no bath facilities in there. I believe the general thing of it is, up here, as long as there is no kitchen, anq if there is no intent of ever having a kitchen, this would not be m~de into a second residence". And I do have the tape here of that night. Mr. Turner also repeats, second residen~e, as my father issáying those words. 'I would assume that m~~ns that he was¿leat of what - 18 - -..-- '- my father was saYlflg, that'it, would Dotoe made into a second Yesidence. Thät was only thebne t1~~~that,this Bþard has heard th~ 'term "se¿ond ~~side"6e", ~nd'that ihe kit6hen, if there"~ no ki t¢hen., YOU, do not have a second residence. He goes on,' I'll continue his last quote; ¡tsays, "t' might ~dd right here in'the yéarand a half the bullding'sbeen up, th~~e's neVer been a car iriside~. Well, the last two wintef§~ 'there has been a boat in~ide, and I think three me~bers were wit~ me the other day and saw th~ ,boats inside that garage. The garage was built in the winter. It Was completed lri t~e ~inter. "~y mother lives in Lå:th~m. She çloesn' t keep her car 50 mi les away from her home. The boat,w~sk~Ptin there.' This past year, the garage was under cÖnstruction. there was no room for' a car to be put ,in' the'"e ,while you're und.~ con~trUc£ion. On jul~ 2~th thep~rmitfor the CO was issued. The othe~ house was starting ,to be, emptied out, arid'that's what,~ou Sa~ in the garage. 'I thf~k you saw t~~t out 'there the other day. "r think that's: very important. So there oas been, just, as my father said. 'it's '~ 'great place for a boat. J~nd I'think yoµ Saw that there.wa~ a bo~t inside that garage, and he also said, the only thin~s í want to quote. Well, th.t's very convenient. There's a fe~ other things I'll quote. He confirms a few things for us here. "The dictionary states that a house is a structure serving as a dwelling." Well, house is not a defined term~in our Cod~ book, but "Dwelling" is, a "bwelling Unit" is. H~ålso confirms that there's not a stove in there. It may not have a stove yet, and I don't think anyone in there saw a stove or & kitchen area that wal~ed through that building. ,He, çonfirms , . . . . .'" ;, I' , . . ' . . !;. I.. ! . . that he knows there's 50 amp fuses. Well I'll tell you rlght pow, ,that 50,' amp fU$e~go do~n to a fuse. That 50 amp breaker that is in th~re i~ the main power line that goes down to the other ho~ée, 'and yoúc~n confirm that. He cont1nµál1~ uses the word 'iresidence", a '¡riesidence". Residence is nota defined te~m hefe: Residence is a~are~, Waterfrorit'Residential.' .There is' no defined term "residence'i, and the term "residencè" is not u~~d i~ there. to continue on, Waterfront Residential, ~rincipal ,'bu¡lding, a single family dwelling, dwelling unit, a building or 'por,tion thereof providi'ng compl~te housekeeping facilities for one family. Does any member of the Board. here not have aki'tçhen in thel r hòuse? Does any member of the audience he'"e not have a kitchen in their house~ Does any~ne know ariyone who doesn't have a'kitchen in theirhouse¿ I'm sorr~.' I think the definition is very clear of what á dwelling unit is. It ~as a kitchen. Also, , ,',' ,¡ under Waterfront Residential, all our zoning areas are divided 'into certain sections, an4 we have uses, and accessorY, uses. ~Accessory Use", under Definition in our zoning b06~, "A use '6~stomaril~ incidental and subordinate 'to the character' of ' the permitted principal use 'or a principal building. Customary, commonl y pr acficed as ' a matter of course. Gentlemef), this is Cleverdale. Everyone of those red maiks is a separate building. It has a main house, a dwelling unit'~and a second building, be it a garage, be it a totally sepa'"ate building, be it á "boat housethet' has bedr90ms ,in a bath in them. 'I think that's customarily endvery'cQn~istent with Waterfrònt Residential 'as an ,Accessory Use. Jim' Martin said on Dvmerous occasion~ that this '~a~ acceptable. If we go back t~ ~Qvember 12, 1993._~ow this letter wasi'ri the Hodgkins' fil,e before the variance wa$ issued for the house. A letter from Jim Martin £0 John Hodgkjf)s, Sr., my 'father, advised him that in~tallation of bathiooms, bedrooms, etc., is okay with proper ~~+mits, b0t a kitchen is not allowed Inth'e structure as it w,ould constitute a second dwelling unit on t.be property. That's, right. from the professional that tl)e Town hires to dec,ide 'on these things. Again, on Mar¿h 16, 1994, Varianc~ approval by the ZBA for my pare~ts vari~nce. During that approval, the question was asked, in front of you gentle~en, would there ever be use of the upstairs for sleeping quarters? Not at that time, bvt the answer was yes, if our kids~ at some point, if our kids com~ up here. Well, you know, I don't know what anyone calls present. but my father i$ n'6t present anymore. So time has g,one on, and things do change, ånd at that point they were saying, at some point if our kids come up, they might sleep - 19 - -- up there. I believe the general thing is, up there, and I, obviously, gotten a ruling from this Town, I believe the general thing is, up the~e, as long as there is no kitchen, and if there is no intent of ever having a kitchen, this would not be made into a second residence. A specifIc question by a member of this Board, which ~ou all heard, no objection from this Board, that this would not be ,proper use of that facility. I thi~k if we (lost word) a f~w of you have seen it, I do know that I think four of you have been in the building to see what's in there. This structure has not changed at all since the CO was issued, in Julyof the ~ast year, ~jx month~ ,go, s~ven months ago. This house has not been occupied since the end of October, Gentlemen. The water gets turned off. This is a su~mef residence. The timeliness of this meeting is also in concern. I think you'll agree that this is the original plan that wa~ submitted to the Building Department, which they accepted, which they went through and did all their checking to make sure the insulation was proper, tne wall board was proper, the electrical was proper, comments come out that there's wall plugs in the upper. Of course there's wall plugs. The wiring is proþer. It's Pl,lt in properly. There's a telephone jack in every room. I don't know if anyone's done any modern construction, but it's awful cheap to throw in wires eve~ywhere.' In the bathroom thete's a telephone jack. Everything goes all the way across the Board. It's exactly what' we said 'thiè would be. There's no difference. There is no kitchen. I haven't found anybody that buys a home that has a hot plat~, sitting in the middle of their laundry room and calls that their kitchen or a full living system. This is a, it's kind of ludicrous. Anyone can find anyone that has a home without a kitchen, they would be the rare exception. I think it's caused, this whole turn of events here, has .caused us a lot of trouble. We have one mo'"e time that this whole thing was decided that this is not a problem, that this does conform with our zoning laws. Jim Martin's letter confirms, in writing to Jack Cushing, that the structure's consistent with co issued. Jim Martin had a member of his Staff go up there and lóok through this building. They saw the original plans. They knew it had gone in that building originally, They decided ,that this was exactly what was put In, exactly (lost word). My question to everyone is, who do we come to as a community to say what can be built, what can't be bUilt? It's getting mighty confusing around here right now. We walk in. We read the laws. I think I interpreted that law, as well as anyone can, been through this book at least 20 times over here in the last three days. It's up to date. I bought it on Monday and just kept on going through it. I decided that I better not take a chance on the pages I've gotten copied in different locations (lost word) from everywhere. At the last meeti~g, people were bringing up housekeeping facilities, tourist attractions. I'm sorry. We're talking about Waterfront Residential. That goes for less than a page and a half of information that comes up there. Not one of those terms is located in there. It's very specific about what Waterfront Residential, it's not for rental units. It's not for transi~nts. It's not ¿ommercial property. It's just how we're l,Ising it, and I'll leave you with this. I've been OD Cleverdale all my life. My grandparents bought two places onCleverdale ,back in the early 1950's. My grandfather and my grandmother bou~htone house over on the east side ,of the Point, just pa~t the church, which in fact has a main house, a garage, and it also has a þoathouse with the two bedrooms and a bathroom above them. As we gr~w up, a9d I was born in 1958. we would ~o up there as a family. My uncle, who was much young~r, would use the boathouse. I understand, as a party room, and when I was two years old, my grandfather passed on. We go through the 60's, as I was growing up, my family would go on the boat. My grandmothe~ used the upper house. My uncle and his family woulci share part óf that, and my. family wOl,lld go down ihtothe boathouse. It was a weekend type thing. This is how it was used. When I got in m~ teens, all of a sudden my brother and I took over the boathouse and we'd have our friends up and enjoy it. At breakfast, you'd all go up to the main hpuse - 20 - ----- ..-- to eat. At dinner'time, you'd all eat in the main house. You'd 'i~are the dock together.You~d share all the privileges of the property. You ,were .all the~e together as a family. When I got older, when I fir~t got married, my wife. and I came up and we would stay, up fòr- part of' the summer. We'd gO into the boathouse. A young married couple has their privacy. We'd go up and shàre meals, share the dock, share the boat, enjoy ourselves. These are summer places. TheY are not year' round use. It,'s a typi6al' use that comes u~' in this area. More recently, everything comes in cycles~ and a few Years back~ my grandmother died. My uncle and my father owned the,two ,pieces of property together. Time J;,o split them UP , because løgall)( you're going to get into a mess if someOne else passe¿away, My mother and father toqk the piece of property with all the land, and no house, ver~ $mall, a dock and a 600 square foot house. The thoGghtwas, we will enlar~e the house, g~t ourselves" put our garage in and use this as our summer place, as we gO th~ough our retirement years, with the same thoughts in mind that their fami ly wi I r come up. My §ister's out in' Georgia". She has two children. My brother lives in Clifton Park. ~e has two children. I live here in Oueensbuiy with a child. They put up the garage. As,my father stated, they have room to store things, room to sleep.' '~h~t g~rage is in fro~t of you, Gentlemen, ~bviously, ju~t like it lo~ks~ow, from~heoutside, when you gave us the last variance. My son was four years old when my father ,died. He còm'es up in the fall. When my mother decided to put the· garage up, obvíously', she couldnjt complete the house. It was foQr days from ~owJ This was'the last meeting, March 22nd,was the" last meeting my f¡ither came toto the Planning Board for site plån revièw. Four days later he passed' on. My mother was, obviously, in no position to take a big undertaking and decide what's goi ng to ~appeÎ1 with the other house, but a couple of months later she said, 1 need room to put this ~ogether. I can't be under 60nstruction all summer. She went to the TQwn again and said, can t, what can í do? Can I Rut this up? ,rhe answer is, yes. You can't have a kitchen. There's no kitchèn up there. She constructed the house. She 60nstructed that,;P4t 1t together, and this fall she decided, I think I will continue to put the house up, so we have ,room for everYone. My son and I, over September, while the hoµse was open, yes, we came l,lP. . Typically, after Labor Day, we would close down the othe)' house. There was no insulation. The heat was just the i950's base board. It's really not a winterized place to stay. Of course. we went' up to the garage. It's brand new. It's got electric heat, it's insulated and it~s in great ~hape. We took åll the furnishings out of the other house, stored them in the garage, and continue on. We started construction. The ~ycle continues. As I think I've proved, this is '. typical use up here. It's an accessory use, a~d that's by Code accessory use. It's customary, and there's a number of people in this audience right now, I know, that have these places on their residence. and their residential area. I think one other consideration you have to' look at, we got our CQ back on July 29th. That ba6k dates how many months? Are you ,going to back date everyoneèlse?' How far are goi ng I to' go back. ' 1975 0)' whatever, ,when zoni ng started? Consider everybody's?, I mean, you're! askin9. a lot,. You' gQ back wben CO's have already been i~sue~. I t~irik itis the proper deciiion by Jim Martin. I think he made the proper choice. I " alsok"now that, previous to Jim Martin, for the number of years b~fore that, the exact same choice' was made, because it's always been around that if you put a kitchen, you're in violation, and if the Assessor finds'out you put a kitchen,' you're in trouble. ,There's 2b some odd places on this lake shore. I MRS. HODGkINS-I'm Dorothy Hodgkins. I'm very upset.' I know you all realize that. I wrote a letter t6 Mr. Paul Ousek, and if YOU'p like me to, I'm sure you've seen a copy of it, if you haven't. I was waiting for an answer. Did,you answer my letter? MR. DUSEK-No, I did not. I have not had an opportunity yet. In - 21 - fact, to be honest with you, I haven't even had a chance to study it carefully, except that I do know that it relates to a question of some advice I guess I gave to the Board at the la$t meeting. MRS. HODGKINS-Well, may I read it to them? MR. DUSEK-It's up to the Board. MR. CARVIN-Sure. MRS. HODGKINS-"Dear Mr. Dusek: I understand you made a detcirmination as to the timeliness of the Cushirigs' Appeal No. 3- 95 regarding my property, Tax Map ID #13-1-10 on Mason Road that is not in compliance with Zoning Ordinance 179-19D~ I would like written confirmation as to this fact. I would like to add that my family has worked ~ery hard to comply with the rules and regulations as regulated by Mr. James M. Martin whom we feel follows the (lost word) Zoning Ordinance to the letter of the law. Attached is a letter sent to my deceased husband by Mr. Martin, written November 12, 1993." And you have that from the last meeting. "A building permit for alterations to the second floor of a garage' was approved 5/23/94. A CO was issued on 7/29/94. Du~ to . an inquiry from Mr. Cushi~~ on 12/13/94, this facility was re-inspected on 12/15 by Sue Cipperly of Mr. Martin's office, and it was determined to be the same as of the date of appeal, 7/29/94'.' Since Zoning Ordinançe 179-98 states that an appeal may be made within 60 days of decision, we cannot understand how the above appeal was allowable. Mr. Cushing first questioned Mr. Martin 137 days after the CO, and filed the appeal 181 days after the CO, not to mention that it was 248 days after the permit was issUed. I sent a COþy of that to Mrs. Betty Monahan, Mr. Frederick Champagne, and Mr. James Martin." Do you have questions you'd like to ask me? MR. CARVIN-I just have a question. there prior to this garage? Was there another garage MRS. HODGKINS-No. MR. CARVIN-So this was all new construction. Is that correct? MRS. HODGKINS-The house is the only building on the Point that is according to Code from beginning to end, because no variance was required. MR. CARVIN~Okay, but there was no existing garage prior. So you didn't teat anything down? MRS. HODGKINS-No. We .didn't tear anything down, and trere was no variance reqÜired' because it met all setbacks,. MR. CARVIN~Okay, and, originally, you applied for a two story garage, is that correct? MRS. HODGKINS-Yes, that's right. MR. CARVIN-Okay. MRS. HODGKINS-Any other questions? MR. CARVIN-No, not at this point" 1 don't h~ve any. MRS. HODGKINS-I have somebody else I would like to have speak. MR. HODGKINS-I'd like to make one mote comment on this garage. Jim, do you know of any other conforming, I mean, this is one thing on the zoning. This is the only, as far as I know, the only conformin!;J structure that's" up 'there, and this conforms, as far as the structure of the garage for setbacks from the lake, from the side lines, from the road, everything. This is probably - 22 - -- --../ the only'one on the P¿int~ on the lake side, on the lake front on this Point, and if YOU go up and down the street, and you look at every buildini th~t's on there nonconforms. This is probably one of the only ones that does conform on the, lake side. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Anyone else w.ishing to be heard in opposition to the application? JIM MEYER MR. 'HEYER-My name is Jim Meyer, and I happen to be John Hodgkins' busi ness' partné,"" We' have an operation in the >'Town' of Queensbury. It pains me to no end to see what they've gone through with,this particular building. Ai a . business owner, a manufacturing' Q'p,eration owner, it concerns ~ that decisions can be made, permits a,nd CO's iS$ued,i n fact, issued, and then, potentially, revoked 'or revised or mod.ifi,ed. We ,have a gro",Jing business, a growing concern. We love the Town of Queensbury. We want to stay here. ' We're committed to'the area, but these '~inds of things, and maybe this is a little different perspective, but these are the kinds of things that drive businesses crazy. We're a manufacturing operation. We have no reason to be here. We can :be in South Car01ina. We could be in Florida. We could be in Alaska, if UPS will get to us. Eight exi~llng Jobs, high payjng, good' futures. My conc.ern is that this be handled fairly. .That the Hodgkins ha~e d6ne ev~rything by the book. They're the only thi ns¡¡ up' there, as far as 'r can tell, that ,conforms., It's custo~ary for thes~ places to. exist, obviously, and to make a change or. modification at this late date, frankly, shakes my 60rifidence in the Zoning' Board and tha potential future for the Town of Queensbury. I lIve here,as wel~. " MR. CARVIN-Okay. Anyone else wishing to be heard? Mr. Cushing? MR. CUSHING-And I really wasn't go~ng to say anything this evening, but in view of the fact that we went over the 'minutes a little bit, Just f01" the sake of letting you know that,.I want to set the record straight. I agree with the last speaker. It pains all of us that we're here, the Hodgkins, myself. my wife and other people, too, and I also would say th~t,yes,we want to be dealtwithfai1-ly,. ~ want to be dealt with fairly, and I'm sur, it's in th~ proper hands right now, ~here you've 90t a board of learned gentlemen who can make the proper evaluations on this thing and come up fairly. I've heard several times this evening that there's absolutely no violations anywhere along the line, and I agree, in m~ original statem¿nts, that there wera no violations, so far as the garage was concerned, yes, and I said that the violati,?ns were as a residen?~ ,and w,hen, ¡ "=rhe ,residence was built, it no longer was a garage and, it was not conforming to a residence. So I have no objection to them saying that everything conformed. to the garage, and I also said that, I had asked the Town about it, and I didn't say any laws were broken. I said that the Town itself said that, from the Town's point of view, it was legal, and I said that in , the minutes a.t the last meeting. So I don't think I've' said anything wrong. Now, John has stated that I used poor taste. I would hope that I did not. I have never said anything derogatory on the part of his dad, and I neve1- wi 11, because Iii ked Jack Hodgki os very, much, and the day that we went over, that I was asked to go over, act~ally, in the minutes, and I'll say that very sincerely, in the minutes, I supported Jack. I supported Mr. Hodgkins on that. I never said at¡1ything, that was outside, and anything that I sai,d wa~", in support of his wanting to expand the current house 20 more 'feet toward our place. I knew the house was small. aod Iknew.that they needed more room. an~ a~ he had said~o me, w~'re not going to be any closer to the láke, and in the miriutes that we looked . t ""! ¡ at, there, I said that both my wife and I viewed positively the actions that they were taking. That was long before I knew anything about' the g~rag~, and anything else that I' said regarding Jack Hodgkins, John Hodgkins, was in the minutes of'the - 23 - "-'" previous meeting, and I just quoted the minutes. So, how I can be held in poor taste on that score is something else again. I would never act in poor taste, so far as the gentleman's concerned. When he referred to a car and a boat, they're two different animals. I still maintain that there was no car in there. There' was opportunities as far as the year before, but that's very, very minor, and very immaterial. Probably I shouldn't have even mentioned it as an afterthought when it 'was going through my head. One thing that was said, I made one comment in there, and I have never been in the house it$elf. I'Ve never been upstairs. I've never been in the house. So I am relying on other information that other people have given to me that had been in the house, and some of the people that were invited into that house mentioned these things to me. I asked about a 50 amp outlet in the last meeting, and you gentlemen over here remember me saying that there was a 50 amp outlet, and the way I put it, what is a 50 amþ outlet used for~ if not a stove or welding unit, and I didn't think that it was going to be a welding unit. It was emphatically denied at the last meeting by Mr. Hornirig that there was no 50 amp outlet in th~t house, and I let it go at that. I had to believe him, but that's in the minutes, and it's right there on Page 29, and if you want to look in the minutes on Page 29, you'll see where Mr.(e~ Horning said there was absolutely no 50 amp outlet. Now that's, again, is a very minor matter, but the point is, tonight John said there i.§. a 50 amp in,there. $0 I was absolutely correct. He did add that it was going to be used for another P4rpose, but, nevertheless, I was told that I was wrong, and I just want to set the record straight. I ,was not wrong. There was a 50 amp outlet in there. Now, all the arguments that John's making at this particular point was on the garage before the renovations were made in the spring of 1994. At that particular time, it changed everything. It changed everything, because that no longer, as-far as I was concerned and many other people, it now became a residence, and again, I would only say to you the intent, intent, intent. What is 'the intent' on this thing? ' So, I would also agree when john looked over at Jim Martin and said, do you know of any violations in this Town anywhere along the line or up on the lak. in Cleverdale, however he phrased that, a~d Jim said he tries to conform to 'the State and the mandat'ès all the way through, but later on, I felt that John countered his own argument when he said there's nothing but confu.ion in this whole area. Nothing but confusion àll over the Cleverdale properties, because, and I would agree right down the line on that statement, that it is very confusing, and the thing that we've got to have in the very near future is continuity and things that we can know clearly before we build, or what we're going to do as to what they are. SO I'm not going to dig and find anything else. I just wanted to say, those:Þoints there, and I know I'm the fall guy. I know I'm coming od heavy, and I've said, I don't suspect the Hodgkins will ever speðk tome agàin, but so be it. At this particular point in time, I wanted to try to set \I!X. record straight, and I'm not on a vendetta. I'm trying very hard, as a matter of fact, at the last meeting, we chatted outside and I was asked whether or not I would withdraw the Appeal if the proper things could be worked out, and I said, possibly. I really don't want to carry this on to the ultimate 'degree. The lawyer, at that time, said, I wi 11 be back in, touch with you tomorro~ ot the next day, some time in the next few days, and we'll see if you can't work something out. I said, fine. that's great. I never heard from anybody and so that's why we're here tonight. Because I would have entertained something. The thing that I'm worriè~ about, more than anything else, future intent, rerttal properties, and having hundreds of people up there during,the course of time, reryting it out. (lost word) something to the effect th~t 'it wo~ld not be a rental property in the future, maybe it could've been worked out. It's gone beyond that. It's up to the Board t6 make the decision at this particular point in time. so that's all I wa~ted to say. Thank you. - 24 - -...- ----' MR. KARPELES-Could '1 ask you a quest ion, 'Mr. Cushi n9,? MR. CUSHING~Sure. MR. KARPELES-I wasn't here at the last meeting when you were here', and I read the minutes. Supposing this Board did decide that th.is was a principal bui1"ding and agreed with you, wbat's your proposed solution to tha,t? ,¡ MR. CUSHING-I think that that is fully up to ~he Zoning Board of Appeals. I'm not an expert. , .' ! ' MR. KARPELES-You accomplish. must ,have something that, yoy intend to MR. CUSHING-Well, the thi ng that ~."ould be the major thi ng ~ that it could never be used as,a rerital property. We~ve got eight grandchildren, and they 'come in: We even have one of them that comes in regular ly from Alaf?ka. Tha't.'s how muçh they l'i,ke Lake George, and we would love, to have the grandchildren next door. We love, children arid we would love to know the~ and be able to do things, ;ou kno~~as neighbors. We have no ,obJection of, and as Dorothy said last time, gee whiz, can I have my gir~friend~ . come over. ' Of course you can, I mean, we wouldn't object to anything 1 i kè that. The major objection ,that we have is that the, ,~hi ng is bui 1 t for a long term intent, that probabl y it wou¡d be, rented o~t somewhere along the line, and we would have a lot of different peopl~ co~ing up there, the bathroom facilities and kitchen facilities. they said, and that w,s another point th4t I would make. John made the comment that I cut it off on purpose. Absolutèly I cui it off on purpose, at the point inifme during the minutes, for the simple reason, and I explained then, that my wif~,was going ~o speak on the particulars of the ~itcben, and I ;didn '1;.. ,want to get¡ ¡¡¡to any further discuss,ion on i 1;.. myself beca4êe she was ,the expert on that, not me~ but, qgain,!I think it's in good hands~ and the only thing I can comment, what you've heard is my majo~' concern., Thè building ,isn't going ,io come down. I know that. The bui Idi ng is, going to , stay there, but I hope, that it 's raisecf enou~h gues1;..ions that at some, future date, buildings like, that can't be built,. That there;ll be enough ,consistency and consideration and fairne~s that this is more than a garage. I don't know if I've answered the question, Mr. Karpeles. ' ' MR.KARPELES-Yes. MR. CARVIN-Qkay. Any other questions, Gentlem~n?Ok~y. Anyone else wishing to be heard? , 1 'm going to kind of put some ground rules. here, because we'll have rebuttal all evening long. I would like to ~imit that to just rebut~lng or ' ¿ompleiely new i~sues. So we don't have th~s counter activity all evening. MRS. HODGKINS-I understand. For one thjng, I just want to remind M~. Cushing of one thing'. I spoke to him when he came in tonight. 1 did feelyou're attacking my integrity when you say I'm probably ~o¡ng to' 'rent this thing. I hope~ ~pparentlY'J he doe::¡m't- know mew,ell. I understand that, but. I don't intend to. I never intende~ to. So that's the thing. The other thing I'd like ~o,~ay is,althou~h Mr. Cushing h~sn't been i~our garage, I çan tell YOu why he hasn't been in. He, hasn't been invited, becau~~ his son w.s in with Building ~nspeciors.He hounded'my buiider all the time the garagè was being bùilt, and I got 'sick and tired of it, and that's the bottom line right t~e~e,;and the other thing is there our 17 steps, I believe, maybe 18, ~rom the first floor to the second, 17. No way am I carrying food, preparing food down stairs, and carting it upstairs, bringing dishes back down, stairs or ever thinking of having a kitche~ in that kind of set up. I couldn'i handle it, and I don't'think anybody could, unless they have a servant, and servants aren't around these days. That was back in my mother-In-laws and my - 25 - -/ great grandmother's day, not our days. So I guess, that's, you saw a t.V. up there. The t.V. is from the house. I'm just trying to answer questions ahead of time. The television, I mean, if the kids àre gòing to play'tMere, they may want a t.v., but that one happens to be from my house, and the dining room table was myoId dining room table from home, which we didn't sell~ fort~nàtely, and I didn't have room in the house for it here, but it's (lost word) the new house. It's being sort of stored in my garage at home. It's now up there. I haven't had a car in a garage, I don't think it's been there. I have a two car garage at home. My car is outside. I never would think of putting~ I just don't think of it. Maybe in the winter, if I have room in my:garage at home, and I have a tWo car garage, I might, but it's full. I didn't want to dirty the garage because the furniture was going in it, frqm the otherhouse~ So I saw no point, when I þut my lawnmówer in, I put it in on 6ardboard, because I didn't want my garage floor dirtied with the furniture coming in, and ,I guess that's all I have to say. MR. HODGKINS-I've just got to correct a couple of things, because you said I could rebut. Lee corrected me, I did not sayan outlet, on the 50 am~ butlet. I said a circuit breaker, and there's a 100a~p circuit breaker, and the only reason' there's a 100 amp circuit bt~aker is because it takes the power. This is a, under AccessorYVse, it says, subordinate use, and they're all interconnected. These two buildin~s are dependent on each other. The power comes into the garage.' The breaker box is in the garage. It se~ds a line. The line feeds down to the other house, and it did right from the start. It goes down to the other house. The' other house sends the water up to the garage. There is no water in this facility without the other facilities. So that 100 amp, what I was referring to there, there is no, there are no plugs in that place for a stove. There are no 220 lines that go in for any stove, and there is no intent on any stove. Also, on the question of rental, this is Waterfront Residential, and my ,understanding of how, the only way you can rent out your reside~ce, as a whole unit. The Cushings rented out their home as a, their dwelling unit or whatever you want to call it as, as a whole unit, and I understand that yOU could only rent out the residence as an entire unit, meaning the principal building, and the accessory building all at once. You're not allowed that by the Zoning Ordinanoe, and that's the only way you can do it by our zoning. So I think all these issues are already handled, and the use is proper by our zoning. $0 there shouldn't be any question that comes up. My question is, are you going to violate the zoning at some time. · Well, I think if we had a traffic officer in here, he could probably write a ticket to everyone of us here on assuming that we are going to speed in the future, but we are not, this is not a simple issue of speeding. We have no intentions of violating the is~~e, and I hope that we're not being prosecuted before any items have been violated. MR. CARVIN-Okay. original house, remember? I just have what kind of a couple of questions. service was in that? In the Do you MR. HODGKINS~The original house? MR. CARVIN-Yes. MR. HODGKINS-Sixty amp was in the original house. You're talking about down there at the lake? MR. CARVIN~Down at the bottom, down toward the lake. MR. HODGKINS-Okay. That was a 60 amp vertical service. MR. CARVIN~Okay, and that never ran through a garage, is that correct? - 26 - ......... ---' MR. HODGKINS~No. The only structures that were on, let me Rut up a plÇ>t plan.' Okay. Eliminate the gar agß . 'Eliminate the (lost word). The only thinQ that"was on that house from, 1952. until 1993. So the only, this ,,'1i ttle box of I g~een right here" and t\1ere is a,little s~oíage:,~þedíight there,., That's the;only tbingthat's been on that property. My family,bought it in 1952. So w~at was added in 1993 was the, 'st~~ted\60ns~íuction on the g.rage in September 9th or so, I think a building , peím~t was issued.' ' , ' '" ',./' .. MR. CARVIN-Okay, but let me ask you thi~. Wh~n your or1~inal g.r age was b,u i It, what was the s¡erv ice at that poi nt?, ' ' MR. HODGKINS-The original garage was built, all the power ,was brou~ht into that gaíage. The new circuit bí~ake~ was,what~ 15.0 amp service. New wires, the old wires u~ed to be down t~ a pole in the middle of theyaíd, and the poles (lost wOíd) wires went down through that area here, and now theservi6e went into the gaíage, undeígíound, to. the old camp. MR. CARVIN-Okay, but would it have made more sense to hook the old house up directly, as opposed to going thíou~h the gar~ge? Is theíe any practical reason to run thatth~ough the garage? , , MR.THOMAS-Y~s, a second meter on t~e property would be considered commercial. They'd be pharged a çommercial rate, which,is aboµt ¿5 percen~ higher than a resid~ntial rate. MR. CARVIN-Okay. So the most logical way would be to g~ ihrough? MR. THOMAS-Yes. One mater, one Píemise. MR. CARVIN-Okay. That's all I wanted to find out. ~nyone else have questions? , I Okay. Does MR. FORD-I have a ~uestion. acceSSOíY structuíe? What I is the living space in this MR. HODGKINS-In th~ accessory, it's approximately 930 square feet of living space. That includes the, laundry, and this is by, we took all these numbers fr'om, your Ass.essors and we ~askedthem how ~ would add them UP1 okay. So it's, not œx. vision, of, hç~ to add these things up, okay. This whole a~ea is. 72~ squaíe feet, and this area right he~e is. cons.idered living S.Pace, okay, and that's. how I'm adding it up. . MR. FORD-And that's. a total of? MR. ~ODGKINS-93.o sqµare feet. MR. FORD-93.o. Okay. That was an acces.s.ory building to a S.tíuctuíe of how many squaíe feet of living space? MR. HODGKINS-The original s.tructure was 6.0.0 square feet. MRS. HODGKINS-There's. still going to be, our plan is, there are only going to be two bedrooms in the new structure. MR. FORD-That isn't my point. MR. HODGKINS-Yes.. Acces.s.ory buildings, though, if you go up and down and look at acceSSOíY buildings, it's. going to bemuch larger than the principal purpos.e .building. You could have a greenhouse on this property. There's. other items that come under access.ory use, including greenhouses. and boat hous.es.. .our boat dock alone is. larger than the otheí hous.e, and thos.e are all accessory, so it's not unusual to have s.ometþing that ,large. MR. CARVIN-Anything else, anyone, Gentlemen? No? Okay. Anyone els.e care to be heard? Okay. Hearing no other public comment, I - 27 - , will move to close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. CARVIN-Okay. MR. THOMAS-l would just like to make one comment, Mr. Chairman. I did visit the prdpe~ty on or about February 15. 1995, and I did inspect the property both first and secbnd floor, for the record. MR. CARVIN-I've been to thé property. I have I've been to th~ property probably twice, maybe Iknow~ I'm assuming, Dave, you've been to the not been inside. Okay. I guess we have all Gentlemen. Any comments, discussion? not been in it. three times, and property. I've the information, MR. MARESCO-Well, I have been in the property also. I really went around there with a fine tooth comb and they certainly got all their permits in order, and th'eycertainly went throughall the legal aspects of it, and I don't think it constitutes a second residence. I didn't see any kitchen fac1lities or anything that indicated that there would be a kitchen, per se, in there. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Anyone else? MR. KARPELES-Well, I guess it boils down to whether we agree with Jim Martin's interpretation of a principal building or not. That's really the issue, isn't it? MR. CARVIN-That's the issue. I think the issue is even more finely tuned to the housekeeping, in other words, 'what is a dwelling unit, and that's the best that I've been able to come up with, is, I can read what I have and you gentlemen, and we can start, if you want, picking that apart, or, okay. The Zoning Administrator has determined that an approved two story garage is not being used as a second principal building and, therefore, is not in violation of Section 179-12C(5). In the way of background, the construction of a two story garage and storage space was approved in September of 1993. During testimony in another unrelated variance request, in March of 1994, it was, again, emphasized that the principal use of this structure was going to be a garage and storage area. 'It was also mentioned that occasional use as a sleeping facility for grandchildren might be considered. However, the clear indication was that the building was going to be an accessory use and structure to the principal residence. However, in 1994, additional modifications and alterations were made to the accessory structure, raising the issue of what will be the ultimate principal use of this structure and accompanying space. Pe1'haps the best way to address this issue is to determine what the structure is and is not. Because of the total size of the structure, to the actual size of the garage area, it does appear it's use as a garage will be secondary to the overall use of the structure. The remaining usa,ble space of approximately 900 to 1,000 square feet has been modified more for human occupancY than ~he storage of materials or small equipment, which would normally support the use of a principal structure, as outlined by our definitions for storage sheds. The construction of the bedroom areas, the addition of bath and septic facilities, the modification of (lost word) portals, the upgrading of electrical service and the carpeting of floors and the actual use by the Hodgkins as living space would indicate and confirm that the structure is fully capable of providing complete housekeeping facilities for human occupancy. Now we could argue the semantics as to what constitutes a kitchen, or that the electrical units placed at counter level out of concern for the safety of small children, or that the bath and septic facilities are normal accessories to storage sheds, but when taken in total, this structure is fully capable of providing complete housekeeping facilities, and that the pptentiðl use and - 28 - !..../ -.-' proven use as a dwelling unit is far greàter than the índlcated use as a storage shed or garage. It is m:><~Ðp¡niq!q; ,t;.,~a;t;. t;.ri§ does represent, and I'm using the (lost word) second, because I can't really say it's a second principal use, because at ,this point I also feel that there is no p1-incipal structure on the property, ,but I do feel.. that this is a pr i ncipal building and, ,therefore, would be invioiation of Section 179-12C(5). I think that a kitchen, is more than just the term "kitchen". I think that it is capable of providing, I think we have to take the whole thirig in the total. I mean, originally, ther. was no garage there. If we go back to the original building pe'rmit, they ask for a two story gara~e and'storage area, and from there I do have definitions of whatstora~e sheds and storage areas are. I do have definitions of what gar~ges and so foith are, and this building does not ~eet either one of those criteria. It d6es meet, I think, the criteria for full housekeeping facilities. M,R,. MARTIN-So just so I.:m. clea)-, for future reference,' you're $ayi~g that a structure with a living area, a bedroom and a bath~oom has enough components to, adeqyately keep a house for a family? MR. CARVIN-I think that there's more to it, Jim. I think, that's not a definition that ~ know, but I think that you have to also take into consideration things like heating and insulation and is it fit and usable for ongoing? MR. MARTIN-I'm talking about keeping a house, a dwelling, unit, for a family. Preparation of meals is fundamental to that. . ~ ' MR. CARVIN-I, don't think that the definition pf kit~henis enough to preclude it as . living area. Believe me, I've looked through about 9,000 different dictionaries. MR. MARTIN-Yes, but that's not what the definit~on call$" it doesn't spea~ t6 living area. It speaks to complet~ set of~ M,R. CARVIN-Complete housekeeping faci l,i ties. MR. MARTIN-Right. MR. CARVIN-And that structure is fully capable, and has been prove~, to support ~omplete housekeeping facilities. MRS. HODGKINS-How? When? MR. HODGkINS-Housekeeping facilities, are not in your book, eÙ:.her. '" MR. CARVIN-That's no~ open to,public discG~sion at this point. MR. THOMAS-I've got to disagree with you, Fred, on this one. If it doesn't have a kitchen, it can't support a full ,housekeeping facility, and that's th, definition, and you'll probably find it in every other Zoning Ordinance in the State, that it states that if it doesn't have a kitchen, it's not a dwelling unit,even if, just because it's not in ours, if this goes ~o court, they could fi~d it the,other W~y. So, I've got to disagree with you o~this one, and it's not like I don't disagree with you much. MR. CARVIN-No, that's,true. MR. THOMAS~No,way is that a dwelling unit. MR. FORD-Fred, I ,before us, then, ,logic. would ask what your would be, following resolution to the issue your position and your 'MR. that CA~VIN-Well, I'm in support of the Cushings, in other words, this does represent a principal structure, or i~ the - 29 - -- ultimate, you know, a second principal use, that designed, I mean, it's got all the amenities, concerned, ful~ housekeeping facilities. this is, it's as far as l..:.m. MR. THOMAS-Were you inside the building, did you say? MR. CARVIN-No. MR. THOMAS-You weren't inside? You didn't go upstairs and look around? You weren't downstairs to look around? ' MR. CARVIN-No, but I looked in the windows. MR. THOMAS-Did downstairs? you see anything, looked like a kitchen MR. CARVIN-Yes. I saw a counter, I saw that the addition of a ~tove is the only thing that's lacking.' MR. THOMAS-You didn't go i~ there. refrigerator wasn't plugged in. You didn't see the MR. CARVIN-But that doesn't mean that you can't plug it in. MR. THOMAS-You can't plug it in. Did you see an outlet for a, did you see a 50 amp outlet for a stove in there, even though it was all sheetrocked? MR. CARVIN-Is that an insurmountable, is that available if they so chose, to put a plug in there for a stove? MR. THOMAS-It còuld be done. MR. CARVIN-It could be done. situation? Is that a great, difficult MR. THOMAS-Once it's sheetrocked, yes, it is. MR. CARVIN-Okay, but I still think you have to come:back to what did they originally apply for? I mean, they applied for a storage shed and a garage. MR. THOMAS-They applied for a garage, and they also applied for and received a building permit for two bedrooms a~d a bathroom on the second floor, and they went through planning, and they got exactly what'they á~ked for. MR. CARVIN~And I'm not saying that, that's what Jim is saying is that, has he been interpreting housekeeping facilities incorrect up to this point, and my definition is yes, that he's used the criteria of bedroom, septic and kitchen, and I'm saying that it can be either more or less, that I think t~at's really, just because one of those is excluded does not mean 'that it can't be used as a full housekeeping residence. MS. CIPPERLY-One reason that' Staff would like this, somehow, addressed is, it seems like every other day, now, we're getting a request for either detached, there was another one on Assembly Point, a woman would like to Put a detached dwelling for a disabled child who can live independently,· to sóme extent, can I put, you know, a bedroom, a living aréaand a bathroom in there, if they can come in the house 'for cooking, and we get just, almost daily, it seems like, since this came up. MR. MARTIN-And it's not just on the lake either. It's happening more and more as we see more and more retired people, more and more grandparents wishing to live in the homes with their sons and daughters and grand kids, the so called mother-in-law apartment. It's happening mo~e and more and more, and I think you're going to see it more as the retired population increases - 30 - '- ~ in size. MR. KARPELES-Well, you've got the answer for that though, right? I mean, you think you have the answer for that. MR. MARTIN-It's not what, my answer is what I read out of the Code, and that. " MR. KARPELES-No, no, but I mean, we, ' r e saying something has to change, right? MR. MARTIN-Right. MR. KARPELES-And you're saying you think you know how to change the Code to solve this problem. MR. MARTIN-Well, I think ihere's many issues that come into play, especially on the lakesh6re areas of the Town, or the shoreline areas of the Town, even the HU,dson River or what,. hav,e you. These are very environmentally sensitive areas. There's ~reat concern about the carrying capacity of the land and so on and' so forth. So what,we're looking to do, and we, as Staff, ha~~ sent up to the Town Board, and I hope to take it up with them this Monday, at tbeir workshop, is a change to the Code that will speak ~o a ratio of living area to area of the lot, as an overall consideration, and we set up a number of 10 percent, and that's really up to the Board, as to how they, what number they want to set. but we sent tl1at up as our best shot, ~iven ou)" analysis of the lakeshore lots that, we've seen, bot,.h on this lake and Glen Lake, as being a reasonable number. So, in other words, if you have a 20,000 square foot lot, you're entitled to 2,,000 square feet of living space. ' MS. CIPPERLY-Building space. MR . MARTIN-Habitable space. I keep living space, but that 's .what we thought was reasonable, and how people decide to dice that up, then, if they use 600 in t~eir garage, then they onl~ have 1400, ,~he~, available in the primary house. MR. KARPELES-Yes. I think that makes a lot of sense. , , MR. ,MARTIN-,And ,we're also, give\) the concern over building height, at the'same time we suggested lowering the maximum building height from 35 f~et to 28 feet ~or primary.structures, and to 16 feet for secondary structures. So, just by lowering that, it's g9ing to be very difficult to get a full, habit;able second story on ,n ac~e~sory ~tructure. .' MR. CARVIN-Unfortunately, that's the future~ and I think we. just, at this point, we're grappling with housekeeping unit, dw~lling unit. I think ~þat that's w~eTe the definition r~ally co~es to roost. MR. ,KARPE~ES-Just like Chris says he doesn't disagrss with you very often, I ,~on'tagree with you/very often, but I do a~ree with you in this'case. I think that it would be relatively easy to~ change. 'to convert that place so, that it had a kitchen; I ihink it would be a lot easier to db that than it 'was to c6nvert it from a storage place to two bedrooms and a bath, and I consider that a prineipal building. MR. MENTER-Well, I certainly think that this is another one of those that, obviously, needs to be addressed, and it just c,omes dowq to tGe issue of, 'wbere do you draw the line, where do you make the change, because to me, not only what I.. wou,ld have as the intent, but what I believe was the intent of whatever ordinances apply 'to this, are not being followed. I think there's a lot of caS?es in the immediate vicinity tha,t, as John showed us, where things have happened that were not following the intent of what - 31 - this Ordinance is supposed to do. So, to me, what the question boils down to is, do we change the ptecedent right now? Do we wait for a new wording that mOre clearly defines what we're going to do, and it seems to me that we don't change the precedents. I think it's been the interpretation to this point that a kitchen is crucial to whether it's a living, to whether it's a complete housekeeping situation or not, and I think that, pending wording that more cl~arly defines or changes how we look at that, that this would be determined as not being a residence, although, personally, I strongly hope that something happens to change that, because I think that there's a lot of things going on, particularly in this area, that are just not good for the community~ not good for the neighbors, not good for a lot of things out there. MR. MARTIN-No one hopes that more than me, believe me. MR. MENTER-To keep it brief, I guess I would say that, in this case, this would not be considered as a residenèe. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Tom? MR. FORD-I'm glad that the issue is going to be, or is being and will continue to be addressed up front, so that hopefully in the future we don't have to revisit this issue. The permits were in place. CO's were issued. Right from the outset, when the original application went in for the garage, according to the minutes, it was indicated that eventually there would be a modifi6ation in the structure requested for living spðce. I have also been in the structure, and it's darn nice in there, in terms of a place in which to enjoy the lake. About the only thing that I could see that would be lacking would be something of the nature of a microwave, sOMe modification in the sink facilities, and you would have a structure that would be truly inhabitable and could be, in fact, year round. I'm not sure, however, that at this time, with all of the approvals that have been granted to date, in good faith, that I could bring some sort, vote to bring some sort of sanction against these people or this particular structure. I am concerned that we have an auxiliary structure where the defined living space wéll exceeds the initial dwelling area, and at the time of its constru6tion, that was the case. MS. CIPPERLY-Would anyone on the Board care to address the issue of renting these units separately from the principal structure, because I think that's really, in this case and others, that's what comes down to bei~g the problem, bécause in other neighborhoods' in Town, they don't want to see a rental unit, in what they perceived as a single family. MR. MARTIN-We, time and again here, like in the case of a mother- in-law apartment or something, certainly no, I've never heard of a neighbor holding against a future neighbor that, no, we don't want you to be able to have your grandparents live with you, or your 'parents, but the concern always arises over, should that structure ever change hands, and now there's, you know, facilities there that could be easily modified or considered as a second apartment, then we have a rental transient situation. MS. CIPPERLY-They'll say, what happens when the in-law dies, can they rent that out, and that seems to be germane here also. MR. FORD-I think John at least addressed that to some degree, as he looked at the principal dwelling and this structure as well, but I would be interested in asking the question of them, this particular building, is it your intention of having that as a rental property? MR. HODGKINS-No, it is not. In fact, isn't that another item coming up later? You can attach that right to that, I think that's appropriate. - 32 - '-' --./ MR. FORD-Perhaps £heappropriate time would be right now, in as much as tha~,is, this is:the buil~ing w~'!& referring to. MRS. HODGKINS~That's not a problem. , " MR'~ HODGK,INS-Ýes. That's not a problem. I thi nk the law already specifies you ca~'~ do it. That's ho~ ~ interpret it anyway~ MR. MÄRTIN-That's somet~lng,that's easily enforced by the part of the enforce~ent staff~ " MS. CIPPERLY-And maybe that shouldibe generalized a little bit, other' than just this particular property. MR. MARTIN-I think if we have an appeal here, this is precedent setting for all ~uturec~ses inv~lving. MR. CARVIN-But, who says you can't rent a garage or shed, because that's what we're defining this t~ be. living unit. It's not a dwelling unit, and who says my garage? a storage It's not a I can't rent MR. FORDTFor ,residential purposes. .¡..: MR. CARVIN-But it's not a residence. It's not a dwelling unit. You're ~stablishing the fact that, it's not a'dwelling unit. MR~ FORD-Well, if we stipulate that ¡t can't be rented for residential use, then that reinfqrces your point. MR'. CARVIN-I'm just saying that I think you have a hard: time, A., en~orcin~ ~t and, B., it's not a dw.~ling unit. MR. MARTIN-I'm saying as a. bo:arding how~etype of a use, not necessarjlY it's a~ apar~ment~ ~ fu~l ser~ice apartment, but as a boardin~house type of a thing~ MR. CARVIN-Well, suppose they want to re~t the garage to somebody? She says she hasn't used the garage ,in year~,'but maybe the next door nei~hbor wants to. Is ,that ,going to preclude them from renting th~ir garage? MR. FORD-They:re agreeing to that, Fr:ed. ,MR. ÇARVIN-I mean, Jt's'~ither a dwelling unit or it's not. It's either a storage shed or g:arage or it's a dw~lling un~t. MR. FORD-They're agreeing to non rental of th~t strJctu~e. MR. HODGKINS:"'This is a, residential a~e,Çt.· , . MR. CARV,IN-But it was not applied for, it was applied f9r a garage and storage area, anq I'm just saying that I think, í know what you're trying to do, Tom, and,I applaud your effort~, but I think you're trying to make,an elephant sound like a giraffe. MR. FORD-No. I'm listening to Mr. Cushing, and what is aþput, and what would be a satisfactory solution ,to find that'theHodgkins family is' willing to ~ccept, solution. It seems appropriate. MR. KARPELES~Yes, but I don't think you ,part of his was that thi$ shouldn't happen'again, anda~ soon as you create this sitüation,' it's going to happen again. We're going to have flood of people coming in wanting to do the same thing.' , his Appeal him, and I that¡ same MR. GARVIN-We're going to have 12,000 two thousand square 'iifoot storage sheds. MR. FORD-I don't understand that. - 33 - '--' MR. CARV1N-1 mean, I think we have to look a~ this case here. I mean, the rest if it may be enforcement problems, and I think Jim is enti rely correct. .1 mean, up until this poi nt, maybe that has been th~ interpretation, and it's this Board's prerogativ~ to change that interpre~ation. I think that maybe it's been wrong up to that point. I don't know. I'm just saying that I think that the three criteria are probably not broad enough, because I think that just because it doesn't have a kitchen doesn't mean that it can't be used as a dwelling unit, and that it can't support full housekeeping facilities, but when you take and put all the aggregate together, I mean, that it's got insulation. It's got electricity. I mean, I don't see too many storage sheds with johns, and I'm not saying that you can't have that, but I'm just saying that when ~ou make a cumulative situation, here, that the probable and potential use is more residential and not as defined under our Ordinances for garage and storage shed, which was the original intent of that structure, because remember, this is not a replacement. This was a brand new structure that they built in 1993, and therefore, when they came in, they said they wanted a garage with a second' story storage area, and it has evolved to this current situ~t16n. MR. FORD-But to no 'One's surprise. MR. CARVIN-Well, to the cushings' surprise, and I think that's what the Cushings are saying. MR. KARPELES-I believed them when they said it was a storage area over the top 'Of that garage. MR. CARVIN-Yes. MR. FORD-Did Y'OU also believe them back, when they said that at some point, that they intended to use it for living space, or for sleeping purposes? MR. CARVIN-No~ The only time we had public scrutiny on that was in February or March, and all the told us was that maybe occasionally the grandkids would come up and sleep over. At that point, it had no sewage facilities. MR. KARPELES-There might be some cots up there, and they might sleep in their sleeping bags. MR. CARVIN-Sleeping bags, things like that. I mean, that's what ~ believed, and this thing' is just n'Ow sn'Owballed to the P'Oint that, as far as ~ concerned, it is fully capable as a dwelling unit, and as I said, I know what it is and what it isn't. It isn't a garage. It isn't a st'Orage shed, and it is a dwelling unit, because I think it is capable, at least under ~ interpretati'On of what h'Ousekeeping units are, and I think that that test, up t'O this point, may have to be modified in the future, and I think Jim is on the right track, and maybe the correction, and I think the T'Own is acknowledging that maybe those tests ~ inc'Orrect, because they are I'Ooking to change that, and that's not to say that we support that, and then later 'On that they change the variance, and then they can c'Ome back and they would be in compliance at that point, and they wouldn't necessarily have t'O put a kitchen in, but I don't think that under our current guidelines I can support that. So this is definitely not an easy issue, Gentlemen. I mean, it'g probably one of the hardest issues that we have to confront, but that's what we get paid the big bucks f'Or, is just to make these determinations. MR. MARTIN-My only question, thóugh, is, if you were to tåke this structure and put it out in the middle of a field, as it's currently configured, would anyone of you take your family there and live 365 days a year? - 34 - ',--, -./ MR. CARVIN-I think the better question is, would it be able to support it, and I think fhe answer there 'is yes. I~m Just saying that it provides warmth and shelter ånd you could prov¡de eating .facilities, wheth~r it's a ki~chen, ~~~in, Ist{ll~on't know whaf a definitiòn of a kitchen is. Is a kitchen a table? Is it an area? Is it. a stove? Is it a stove and a refrlgerator? Is it a stove, a refriger~tor and a, sink? I mean, I don't kBpw what your criteria is.J mean, it has a sin~. It has a refrigerator, whether it's plugged in or not. I suppose it could be¡plµgged in. , .MR. MARTIN-Well, because ,the other issues that's raised in ,these type of things are, at what point ,does someone's wet, bar, ¡with a refrigerator and ~ sink, constitute a kitch~n or a wet bar in a home? .. MR. CARVIN-I think if they~re saying ,that it's a stoiage shed or a garage, and the wet bar is fully insulated and could have cooking facilities ,and has sewa.ge disposal" :then I think we have to question the validity of, whethe~ it's a storage shed or a dwelling unit. MR. MARTIN-Yes. If somebody has a house, and in their basement they have a bar with a below counter refrigerator and, they have a bar sink. MR. CARVIN-But that's a dwelling unit. shed, garage. That's not a storage MR. MARTIN-No. structure? Is that a duplex? Two dwelling unit~ with one MR. CARVIN-Like the, grandmother. MR. MARTIN-These are the things that I grapple with day to day. MR. CARVIN-! suppose it could be. I suppose it' could be. I meaJ1, you know, you'd have to look ' at it.. MR. FORD-Jim, let me ask you what modifications you recommend if you were to refer to 'his as a dwelling? modi fications would be needed?> ' , " wòuld What MR. MARTIN-If I saw the presence of a fixedst9ve "with a fixed putlet, that would be a violation, and this would constitute a second dwelling, ~nd violate the density o~ this lot~ MR. FORD-A microwave would meet that criteria? MR. MARTIN-No. : I MR. CARVIN-Or a hot plate, or a convection or ,reflec~ion o~en. 1 . i MR. MARTIN~I've got to draw the line som~where, and the line I've dr a~m traditionally in the past, I think this is ir.lkeepi ng with previous Zoning Admini~trators, isa fixed cooking facili~y. MR. CARVIN-And I don't have that deflnition. MR. MARTIN-I'm just sayiDg that's what. MR. CARVIN-I know. I'm just saying that the only definitiqn that i have to go by is housekeeping facility. ' - MR. MARTIN-And has, again, a of people do, that, and it's what's brought that bar, something like with,a pool table like a family room. about is this idea of'somebody th~t, i~ their home, and a lot downstairs or something like MR. CARVIN-Because, again, the questions that I would come up and - 35 - ask, obviously, js it insulated, does it have a separate commode or flushing system? I mean, just a sink does not necessarily constitute a second residence, or living area, but when you aggregately put all these things together. MR. MARTIN~Well, whåt we see, from time to time, is you'll see a bedroom and a basement, 'and then they have this family room. At one end they have a bar and a refrigerator and a sink. These are types of configurations you see. Now is that a duplex then? MR. CARVIN-Okay, but again, I'm going to say that the multitude of sheds that have come in, I mean, who converts a shed and then all of a sudden turns it into a rental unit? Some of these guys come in for these 900 or 1,000 or 1100 square foot garages, because they've got three cars, and now somebody else comes by and just starts to convert thàt, and does the exact same thing. I mean, where do we cross the line from what it was originally intendedtó what it's actually turning into, and that's what Oll:. point is here is that, I still have to come ba¿k that this was applied and approved and proceeded with the understanding that it was a garage, storage area, and it has evolved into something else, and I'm just saying, it looks like an elephant, ~mells like an elephant, tastes like an elephant, but it's actually a giraffe, and I'm saying, no, that's not the case. Just because it doesn't have a trunk or a tail doesn't mean that it's something else. So, again, we stand at the crossroads of indecision, Gentlemen. As far as I can tell, we've got, I know where Bob and I stand, I guess,. I mean, and Tom, I'm not sure where you ~ stand. Tqny, I know where you stand, pretty much, and Chris. Then I will entertain a motion and see what happens. MOTION THAT WE UPHOLD THE ZONING ADMINISTRATOR'S DECISION CONCERNING NOTICE OF APPEAL NO. 3-95 JOHN P. CUSHING, Introduced by Chris Thomas who moved for its adoption, second~d by Anthony Maresco: Duly adopted this 22nd day of March, 1995, by the following vote: MR. CARVIN-I just have one question, before we get to the motion. Bedrooms, what are the ramifications of bedrooms? If he has, or they have two bedrooms in the principal residence, does that affect taxes or sewage? What is the criteria for the count on bedrooms? If there are two bedrooms in this storage shed that are not counted, does that have any affect on tax rolls or sewage? I mean, if we move to the next one and we have two bedrooms there and we've got two bedrooms in this, do we have four bedrooms now, and should it be taxed, or determined? MR. MARTIN-I think they have been taxed for the number of bedrooms that exist in this structure. It's considered an improved garage or whatever, and they are taxed for that living space in that garage. It has a greater value, I believe. I think, in terms of the septic, the septic system is not failing, exists and works properly, so therefore, it does not'have to be replaced, even if additional bedrooms are added, and in this case, I believe the payticular septic system is actually one of the better ones in that area. ~R. ~AR~IN~Ok4Y, but,b~drooms would have to be consid,re~? .. . .. ,<>._ ...", .. .. , .' ; _: '.." ," : _.' .. '., f>: ~ --, I; \:"' , MFr.' MARTIN~BêdroomSi:ha1iew'cdnst'Y'uctidii, for' example, do dictªtè septic :~:Ùzê,:bìJt ':¡'in~ ~h~¡¿~~~ wliêre'\'bu have 'an 'ex is~i ng "sŸstem, and it's fUrictioninS"Þfop'erlY. ' !: ' ,.. . ,'" .'. I ! i ' .' .. 'I,. - "! I,', I d, MR. eARVÎN-:-Well, I guess" rrty qU~stio1i' is then, this was new cdnstruQtiQn, and :lnow'we' have\'á~droor1'ls~ - I mèarl';wa-sthatever a consideration?' rme\ãn~' 'was' th~'$~pfic Teall y,:rèv ièw~d'wi th the new construction here? ' ,', , MR. MARTIN-Yes. - 36 - - -- MR. CARVIN-Okay, and your understanding would be that they would be,taxed on four bedrooms and not necessarIly the two which were in the existing camp? MR. MARTIN-Yes. I believe they probably ~aw an adJust~en~, in their taxes when,th~ g~rage was, because the Assessor ~as, up to look at It. MR. DUSEK-I can say, with a reasonable degree of certainty, because I do represent the Town in Assessment cas.s, that the practice is to assess the particula~ bu~ldings as they exist, in addition to the land." So if t.here were just- a garage, it would be assessed asa garage. If there was a garag~ and a storage " .., ",' .. .,.> ,,:. ., . facility, it would b~ßssessed as tha~., If the"e was.~,ga1·age and other improvements. I n other w9~ds, they ass.ss the! value of,the structure, or Qf every structure 6n the property, and they d6,',:~t' independently. "Everyone 'sassessed independently, and then they come up with ~ value for the land, they come up ,with a,value for the total. So that is all aS$essed as far as taxation is concerned. ' , " MR. CARVIN-Okay. MR. FORD-Can I ask Jim a question? MR. CARVIN-Sure. I, MR. FORD-Jim, woùld there need to be any appeal to the Town to add a stove, 'as you deser ibed 'i t. to this, ,structure? i! MI;L.',MART~N"1'"'Yes, ,and" if one ,pèrmlt, tMÄt:wpuld',cQnsti'tute a ,second dwelling unit and density. we~~lto~ ,,aR~~ar~~it~04t a~þ~i~~ing a viol.tion,~~s itTw9U¡~pØh~t~tute it 'would' b~in violai16~~o~the ,.. , i':" '. , MR. FORD-Thank you. MR. MARTIN-And it would have to be, removed,. MR. CARVIN-Okay. We have a motion'that's çeen made and seconded. MR. KARPELES-I want to make sure that when I vote, that ,I'm voti 09' the way I want to, vote. MR. THOMAS-A yes vote means that you uphold Jill'l",Ma:rtin's decision. that that building is not a second residence. A No vote means that it i.§. a second residence. ' " AYES: Mr. Ford, Mr. Maresco, Mr. Menter, Mr. Thomas, NOES: Mr. Karpeles, Mr. Carvin MR. CARVIN-I guess the Administrator's po~ition, is supported, and. the,'efore" the appl icat¡on is denied. Okay. So ,we do not h~vea second prirycipal residence on that lot. Okay. NEW BUSINESS: AREA VARIANCE NO. 12-1995 TYPE II WR-1A DOROTHY B. HODGKINS OWNER:, SAME AS ABOVE MASON ROAD, CLEVERDALE f\PPLICANT...PROPOSES , TO CONSTRUCT A NEW RE:~HDENCE TO REPLACE A NONCONFORMINp. ,PRE- EXISTING HOUSE. APPLICANT,PROPOSES TO CþNSTRUCT THE NE~ HOUSE UTILIZING AND EXPANDING ON THE FOOTPRINT OF THE ORIGINAL HOUSE, SO SJ,:EKS ~ELIEF FROM THE¡: SEVENTY-FIVE (75) FOOT SHORELINE SETBACK REQU¡RED BY SECTION 179-60. NEW STRUCTUR~ WILL NOT BE ANY CLOSER TO THE SHORELINE THAN THE HOUSE BEING REPLACED. (WARREN COUNTY PLANNING) 3/8/95 TAX MAP NO. 13-1-10 LOT SIZE: 0.44 ACRES SECTION 179-60 DOROTHY HODGKINS, JOHN HODGKINS, III, PRESENT - 37 - MR. CARVIN-Okay. Do we have any Staff Notes on this? MS. CIPPERLY-No. I consider this to have, basically, the same characteristics as it did last year. MR. CARVIN-I think I disagree with that 100 percent. MS. CIPPERLY-As far aS,constraints of the site, as far as topography. It's going in the same place as the house was before. It underwent more scrutiny last year as an expansion than it would have if they had said they were taking the house down. As far as putting an addition onto the existing structure, the garage, whatever, it's impossible to do that and maintain the separation distances required to the septic system. I mean, there's a 75 foot line bàck from the shore, and there's about 18 feet between the garage and that 7S foot line, and there's also a drop of several feet. Septic system, as you have on your diagram, is right there also. You have to be at least 10 feet from the house to the septic tank, and 20 from the house to the leachfield, and that just seemed like an impossible thing to do. I think Ted Turner summed it up pretty well in the resolution from last year, that there's physical constraints, here, with the size of the lot and the topography, that dictate where you would put a house. MR. THOMAS-I still have the Warren County Pianning Board to read. "At a meeting of the Warren County Planning Board held on the 8th day of March, 1995, the above application for an Area Variance to enlarge house from 608 sq. ft. of living space and 210 sq. ft. covered porch to 1,408 ~q. ft. of living space, 260 Sq. ft. of screened in porch, and 168 sq. ft. open covered porch, was reviewed and the following action was takéh. Recommendation to: Approve Comments: Previous approval of this application stands." Signed by Thomas Haley, Chairperson. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Before we begin, I want to get ~ome clarification from Mr. Dusek, if possible. In the way of background, we approved a variance, back in March of 1994, which indicated an addition'to an existing structure. Upon further review, it was determined that there were or was misinformation. In other words, there were differences as to what actually happened out there. In other words, the building was torn down, and then there was some question as to the actual setback. In other words, the application that we looked at in March had indicated, ,and don't hold me to this, but I think it indicated a 25 foot setback, and in reality it may have only been 18 or 19 feet setback. I guess ,my question is, it was discussed and determined that a new variance should be applied, in other words, that the var iance that, was granted in March was not appropr iate and was not being complied with, and I ~uess I just need to know whether that would fall under Section 179-111, Number One, because I really need to get a clear idea of whether I have a situation where we have, you kno~, even though it's not there at this point, an existing structure that can be, theoretically, added to, or whether we have a vacant lot with a garage at this point. In other words, by the fact that there was some material misrepresentation, null and void that application, and therefore it was the applicant's decision to tear down the house, and therefore create, basically, a vacant lot, in which case, I think it throws a whole new light on this particular request, and I just need to get some feeling as to where we should be, how we should be looking at this particular application. MR. DUSEK-Well, I think, I had some involvement on this, because Jim came to me, when the issue of the premises, or that part of the building that was thought, that was still going to be there was not there, and I counseled Jim at that time, because it seemed to me that the Board's variance that was granted the last time was apÞarently granted, as,You just mentioned, or based on two assumptions which, and I'Ve got to be kind of careful here. - 38 - ........ '-"" This is m.z. assumption that this is the way you based it. It's up to YOU folks to detefmi ne which way you reall y did it, but what I gathered from the minutes of the meeting, as well as the actual variance decision, was that your assumptions were that there was going to be part of a building left there, and that there was going to be, that there was a certain distance in existence from the lake, and, based on what I've heard, is that those two assumptions did not come about, that the building, in fact, was not' retained. It was" instead, taken down, and, secondly, the distance from the lake was not as indicated, pr as at least assumed by the Board. If that is true, I think that the Board, then, can take that ,Section that you just referred to. and utilize that to consider the prev ious one void, although, I.. don't thi nk you need to do that,'because the application before the Board now is new, because, inoiher words, the st~ucturethat was ,there is not there, and the variance, and this is why jfm issued, or in the, end, he reached and agreement with the applicant not to continue with the project, but the reason why he decided that he needed to address the situation was because the var~ance itself just didn't operate under th~ facts that then existed and, therefore, you need a new variance. So"'I think no matter how, I g~ess what I'm trying to say to you is that no matter how you get there, this is like a new application. Does that help? MR. CARVIN-Well, I think it's important, because 1. think the applicant is arguing, and will argue, that they had a 908 square foot build~ng that was' only 18 or 19 feet fromth~ lake, and, therefore, as a matter of right, should be allowed, certainly, no less than that, as a.setback, and I just warit to know whether I'm dealing with a sit~~~lon, ,here, as, I said, whether we s~qul~ take that into consider_tion, or if, in effect,I ~ean, if they can meet all the setbacks, and all the other criteiia, that we have, basically, a vacant lot. In other words, that the destruction of the building, in essence, has just created a whole entirely new building lot. I realize we have a new application, but do we have a vacant lot, or do we still have? MR. DVSEK-I guess m.z. thought is, what iT the applicant cameln to you with the building that was there'still there, and said to you, we~d like a vaiiance to build a new building, and we're going to tear down the old building. How would You respond to that new application? MR. CAR0IN-I think if that had happened in Mar~h, it would have probably put'a qifferent spin on it, but that's whqt I'm saying. That did not "happen, and now, we have, basically, a si tuation wh~re, you know, they cou¡d, conceivably, be asked for maximum relief by putti,ng, yotj know, just because they have a foundation poured there, and evem though that found~,tion does fit within'the parameters of the o~d house, is that enough to constitute a hardship? MR. DUSEK-I guess the, question is, parameters of the old house, and I Ordinance that says you are. are you confined to don't see anything in the the MR. CARVIN-Ókay. establish. MR,~ DUŠE~-Becau~e this is new relief_ They're asking for something dif~e~ent ihan what wa~ there1 and it's j~st as if they, I see it as comparable to a situation where an applicant ,comes,~l') and says, you know, if an applicant says to you, I'm go¡ng to keep what I have there, and I want'to add on ,to it" it just seems to me ,~hat there's a lot of different conslderat~ons that probably go through members on,the Board, you know, in your mind. In other words, well, cost, he's keeping what he's got there, and what you configure or what you~ork with the applicant, or condition to allow, is, obviou~ly, bepause of what you have to work with. On the other hand, when an applicant Well, that's, I guess, wh~t I'm trying to - 39 - '- -- comes in and says, I'm tearing down the house, I mean, the applicant as well as the Board, I would imagine, has a lot more options available to it. MR. CARVIN"';Well, because one of or brought up, because of the preclude moving I think that it's a very important point, the issues that's going to be addressed I think, is the 'fact of sewer, and Sue has 'indicated that present location of the sewer system, that it may the house some place else, and I'm not sure. MR. MARTIN-Have you read Dest)'uctions' 179-83 Area Nonconformity? MR. CARVIN-Probably. What was it again? MR. MARTIN-179-83 Area Nonconformity. I think that speaks directly to the situation, here, is that this is not, the old house was not removed as a result of fire, flóod, wind, hurricane, tornado, or other acts beyond the ~ontrol of man. So those are the only cases where yoU maintain your rights to an area nonconformity. This has been removed by, you know, volunteered, you know, or the applicant's deçision to do so. So the area nonconformity is lost, rights to it. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Well, that's what I wanted to establish, is that that area conformity, or nonconformity, is lost. MR. MARTIN-That would be ~ view. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Well, that's ~ view also. MS. CIPPERLY-Yes. In fairness to the applicant, though, I think it ought to also be mentioned that, last year, or whenever it was, at thè time that they came in originally and got the permits and the variance, the policy of the Department and the interpretation was that you could rebuild on yoUr footprint, if you took your building down. It's only been this past winter that that has changed, mainly because of things with the Mooring Post situation. So, if they had come in at the time they applied for the variance and said, we want to tear our building down, can we rebuild right here, we would have said, yes. MR. CARVIN-Yes, well, again, if they had done that, r wouldn't have this argument. MS. CIPPERLY-Right. MR. CARVIN-But that was not what was done in March. MS. CIPPERLY-But our policy now is that people have a vacant lot. MR. MARTIN-I see what you're trying to say. MR. CARVIN-Yes. I'm just saying that they applied for a garage before, anq I'm not crying sour grapes here, and it's evolved into something else, but they applied for an addition, and that was what was granted, and by the fact of them not comÞlying with the Ordinance, plus, and I'm not saying that it was done deliberate, or that there was material misrepresentation, but there Was flawed information in the application, and therefore we are, in essen~e,looking at an entirely new situation here. That there is no pre-existing, nonconformins guidelines that we'd have to adhere to. ' MR. MARTIN-Yes. As I say, the rights for area nonconformity to be maintained are laid out in that Section, and if you don't fall in that criteria, then it's a new application. MR. CARVIN-Okay. I'm going in? Does the Board understand the direction that - 40 - ---' MR. MARESCO-I'm a U:,tt'le unclear. Are we viewing this as an ~mpty lot now? Is ~hat wh~t we're doing? " MR. CARVIN-That is f.!:!Z interpretation, that at this~point, we have a vacant lot, and 'that they do not have a pre-ordained right. by nonconformity, where the old structure was. ' MR. MARESCO-Where the old structure was. MR. CARV,IN-So ~ust because they:, have poured a foundat ion in that general area does not necessarily mean that that was as of right. MR. HODGKINS-My question is, I went to the Building Department, and I went to the Building, Department and asked them what constitutes existing, okay, because we are operating under, still ope,'ating under.. right now, a buildingpennit from the Town, The Bui ldi 'Og Department' said, "go to the Zoni ng Department. I had di~cussed this with Jim, but I have reviewed, thiough the Zoning Chapter 179~ a~d there, is nothing in here which refers to what percentage of ~ buildi~gmust still be existing, and consider it still existing, while YÓLqre reconstrùcting" it, i.e., if we were putting, reconstructing this buildlng, which was accurate, how we pr ese nted it, it does not say in her e you ha ve, to keep thr ee walls. It does not say in here yOU' h~ve to kee~' one wall. It doesn't say in here how much you have to keep. It doesnit even say, you know, it doesn't say anything, as far as ,how much you have to keep. My comment here is we do have a small portion of this foundation left. It's approximately 6.5 percent, the foundation that's left. I did indicate that to Jim. I showed him a picture of it, and he also, you could see if ,it you were there. What I'm asking here is, and again, we still are qpera~i~g under a variance, because 1t hasn't been taken away. We're operating under a building permit that hasn't been taken away. Sothat;s a conti~uation. We haven't stopped with either onÇl of thos,e,items, and where I'm; looking, :for leeway. or I shouldn;t.ca~l it leeway, but there isn't anything that60mes out here that specif.ically says, you've got to keep a wall up, or you've got to ke~p the flo~r up, or you~ve got to k~ep the block up. MR. CARVIN-What is the question? This is a commentary. MR. HODGKINS-The question is, what percentage of the existing building do you have to keep when you're remodeling? MR. CARVIN-O~ay,and I'm going to defer to Mr. Dusek, if he wants to, if he cares to answer that or not. MR. DUSEK-Well, I think the answe1' is not what the percentage is under the Ordinance, but rather the answer is, what, was it that the Soard granted a variance against? In other words, what was represented to you at the. time, that wou¡dsurvive, becausecyour decision to grant the variance, correct me if I,'m wrong~ was based upon' a given set of fa¿ts, a~d ~~ ~ unders~and it, those facts no 10ngerexis1;:.. ?O, now you're faced with a Dmiset of facts. In other words, ~efore, YOU were f~ced ,with ~ set of facts that there was an existing buildin~. It was' going to be saved. I would pi~sume, you would have taken that into consideration, ~he f~ct th~t that couldn~t be mRved, obviously, because it was on a foundation. There was a value to it, and you looked at the addition that was going on to that, and you took into consideration, well, obviously, if you're adding an addition, you don't have any other flexibility. It's"got to be attached to the building, and t~ere's a'ce~tain amount of where you're going to put it type of thing on the lqt. However, now you're faced with a set of facts that there is no addition, and the question now is, where is the appropriate spot for the building in light of, that there is no addition. So I see these as two different issues that are now before the éoard, in terms of where you go, Does that make sense, in terms of, do you know - 41 - -' what I'm saying? So I don't know that you look to the Ordinance to say, well, this X percentage has to survive. I think it's a question of, they needed a variance to build. They said, this is the variance that we want. They no longer can comply with the variance that they originally requested. Now they need a new variance, and now they're saying to you, well, we have a clean slate. We need a variance. So now you would look at that, taking everything into consideration, and when ydu grant Area Variances you ~ consider everything. You consider the applicant's needs, and their circumstances, but you'd balance those against that of ,the community and the Zoning Ordinance, and you come up with a solution, but I think that, I guess, maybe this goes back to th~ original question, but you are on a clean slate, to that extent, that you're now looking at this fresh, because they have a lot more flexibility, and so do you. MR. HODGKINS-I'm more than willing just to start, you know, from a clean slate. I think, in answering my own question, how 1 would interpret it, I would interpret it that it is the Zoning Administrator's prerogative to make that decision, and he's made a decision because he indicated to us that he did ask us to stop because of what did occur, and I guess at this point, what I would, I'd just as soon we get started and put the presentation of what we've got going here together, so that you can make a decision based on that, and I've presented, I think. MR. CARVIN-Yes. We're going to get to that. ¡ just sure that we all understand what field we'ré on. everybody understand what we're dealing with here? before we proceed? Okay. You've r~ad everything. open it up to the applicant, if you have anything add. want to make Okay. Does Any questions I guess I'll you'd care to MR. HODGKINS-All right. I am going to add a little bit. The one thing that does make it a little easier on this application, is that we are trying to continue a project that we started under an old variance. Obviously, mistakes were made, and I'm not going to deny that, and I don't think they're all, briefly, I don't think they're all ours, but all in all, I think it's a good project, and it should continue. I have made some modifications to the project, and there's one thing that makes this project easier to 'lo¿k at, I think you might have all had an opportunity to see the blueprints in the Building Department. I'm not positive if you have, but. MR. CARVIN-Do we have copies of those, by the way? Excuse me. Do we have a complete set? I don't want 12,000 square feet of storage space, like what was happening before. MR. HOQGKINS-Right. Jim has made modifications to it, and I have a couple of modifications, verbally, I'm going to make to it. Now this is originally what we presented. There's some graphics here. In reading the Zoning Code here, as far as Waterfront Residential, the purpose of Waterfront Residential is to protect the delicate ecological balance of all lakes and the Hudson River, while providing adequate opportunity for development that would not be detrimental to the visual character of the shoreline. I guess I added in, I think anyone who's visited up there, and if you've looked at it, those trees are very, very accurate, where I've put those over the top, just to show the visual characteristics of the shoreline. I do have some modi f ications, if you're looki ng at the pr i nts. The new front porch, and please allow me to refer to new, versus the old. The new front porches that will be shrunk from those drawings approximately two feet. One of these trees right here actually touch the old house, okay. The old house was, came out to around here. The porch came out this way, and we've cut off that portion of the porch. There was a tree here and a tree here that the house leaned on. After excavation, we started putting things together, Lee, our builder, determined that, we're not going to - 42 - --- -- get this porch in and not disturb that tree. So thi. porch here has been cut back approximately two feet, okay, ~ndthat's. MR. FORD-But the covered wood deck is still as close to the deck as it shows here? MR. HODGKINS-No,' Th,is deck will com~ back right here. This one here, in fact, this is ~xactly where the old cov~red wood deck was before, and it'& ve~~accurately m~rked up there by trees, and where it leaned against, b~t that's exactly where it was before. This new section, and again, bear with me when I say new, will be cut back. It's significant', because the closest point to the lake, on th~ old house, was right here; and as these get farther I think Jim even, your measurement was accurate when you came up with 19, some odd inches, because you measured over farther, and the closest point we show is about 17, feet there, or was. So, it c~ts it back A little bit farth~r over here. What happens with the plan is that the next portion happens, is the attic space back through this section here has also been el imi nated, a yaul ted eei 1 i ng wi 11 be, put in he,-e, so there wi 11 be no,att1c space in this area. This attic s~ace here is frumped becau~e this roof lin~ comes back. We;ve established to put in a se\jen foot collar beam wh~ch would make that, you can't legally put that. That was a concern this Board brought up on F,bruary 22nd, when you met with us that evening, that that attic space up there could be utilized for real living space. We've shrunk that attic space. The collar beam'goe~ across' at seven foot. You can't legally put ,a living space anything below seven foot six inche~. One thing everybody said to m~, put all' your wis,h list in, and actually, I'm showing exactly,what we had before. So there's no bi'g wish iist here, "with the exception of" we originally wanted to be able to go upstairs through pe~manent stairs, up into the attic. I'd like to be able to keep those, PUt in permanent stairs here to travel up. I don't think I want to, have my mother ,going up and down stairs, and I think"that's a reasonable request. If sqmeone, a basement is, not a living area, and you always allow steps to go dO\.Þ:In¡ ,to a: basement, p~rmanent steps go down to'a basem~nt., This house ha~ no basement. .The only storage area in this hoùse will be above this area. As you can see,' the' rest of the area is utilized by the living space. The actu~l living space, ~ased on wh~t Helen Otte, over at the Assessor's Office'calls it, she measures thi~ u~ as 1400 square feet. So I'm not adding it up. I'm not putt~ng it together. She's the one who looked it over and said, this is what you have as living space, 1400 square feet. MRS. HODGKINS-Always say plu~ or minus, for an Assessor. MR. HODGKINS-Okay, plus or minus, as an Assessor, butthp~'s what she came up with~ okay, as far as that goes. I think, bå~ically, that's the changes that you're going ,to see, as far as that. I mean, ihis is an advantage, I think, over any other variance you're,asking for. Normally, you just ~et apiot 'plan. Well, you've go,t the entire plan here. This is the exact same,'buildi ng we were going to structure last year at the var iance. ' ,Just to rea.ssure that there hasn't been anything" that's change,d, apd that was apprQved last year. This is what you looked at last year, as far as the' exact piece of paper y~u looked, you h~d in;~our hands. This is, on the back page, of ,this, is drawn by the architect for the new structure. As you can see there, the roof lines and, everything else are identical to what we ,have presented here and what we ,have on this building. There's one more modification. This is a whole bath. My father wrote i~, three quarter bath on the application, and ~his is ~ full bath, from the second hand, it.does come up, I'm trying to think if there's a~y other inconsist~ncies, because I'm going to try to eliminate any inconsistency when you're looking at here. If there's any questions on that, go ahead. We go to the plpt plan, an~ I'll refer, I'll have to refer to the surveyor's plan when you get to the other plan, because that is the accurate measurement. That - 43 - -- --../ gives you the most accurate, obviously, because the surveyor's, at that last meeting, the 22nd, you said, lets get a survey together so we know exactly where we're looking at. MR. FORD-They're different than the ones we have on here? MR. HODGKINS-No. survey. That's it. That's the survey. You have the MR. KARPELES-What is this 156 foot dimension? MR. HODGKINS-All the way to the shorel i ne , to the outer yes. MR. KARPELES-And this is just from this post to this post? post, MR. HODGKINS-Yes. The shorter distance is from post, the tie lines they call them, I guess. They go between tie lines. The shoreline does, you know, (lost word) varied oveY the years, as they've indicated to me. Distance back, I'm not going to even guess where the number came from. That's something my father has taken with him, but he had indicated he got it somewhere from a document. MR. CARVIN-Do you have the original survey map of this. MR. HODGKINS-There's no original survey map. MR. CARVIN-Well, this is just from, in other words, it doesn't have a stamp'or seal. MR. HODGKINS-I've got one. There's the Cushing property to the north, (lost word) property to the south'. I'm staying with some of the theme, to protect the visual impáct from the lake. I've got some pictures here that are pretty accurate, as far as showing what this lot looks like, and people that have been up there are aware, this is a very heavily wooded lot. In fact, I hesitate to say it's probably the most heavily wooded lot, one way up and down on that point, and it's a double lot. It's not the traditional 60 foot lot that you're seeing going up there. In fact, originally, when it was cutup on the Ripley Point deed, it was two lots, and it was combined almost from the start. If you look over to the, I know some people are, but if you look over the one I've modified, I h~ve taken one of the surveys and I have modified it to show where some other parts are. MR. CARVIN-Do you know if this is an actual, do they actually go out and measure this, or is this from a scale, is this a scale map? MR. HODGKINS-It's a survey. it. I don't know how the surveyors do MR. THOMAS-I think the 'surveyor probably went out and shot it wit hat l' a ns it. MR. HODGKINS-The survey pinned it,. It's all pinned. MR. THOMAS-He was there that's survey accurate. with a transit. So that was shot. It's not measured off another map. So MR. CARVIN-It's not a scale. Okay. MR. HODGKINS-Yes. He did go out and shoot it for us. MR. THOMAS-The only thing is, this doesn't show the porches. MR. CARVIN-Yes, this doesn't show the porches. MR. HODGKINS-Right. If you go to the next page on the one, I've - 44 - '-' --../ added the porches, and I've tried to b~ accurate. Obviously, I'm not a, you know, as far as putt~~g in~ I'ye, tried to be pretty accurate in putting them in. We do have a solid piece to mèasure from now, and the surveyor's given us that, so we can, we'll be measuring, that is the actuai foundatio~ of the building, and the porches do sit on pier;s, as they did previously., MR. CARVIN-Okay, but how wide is this? MR. HODGKINS-That's eight foot. MR. CARVIN-It's eight. MR. HODGKINS-This sits on piers, and you can see the original foundation b~ck here~ where they were sitting before. Again, that's the existing. As I was indicating, there's still existing foundation. That's it right there. It comes up, and that's where that porch was sitting. So there is a piece of the existing foundation out there, which we.'ll~be taking. .' .' '.j" MR. CARVIN-Okay. Any questions, gentlemen? MR. MENTER-Not at the moment. CARVIN-Anything " add? MR. you care to MR. HODGKINS-Sure. I've got lots to add. In comparison to the neighborhood, and how it does stack up, what w~'re looking.at, please bear with me. This is, obviously, visuallY looking from the lake, and I think everyone will agree, that was there, this is fairly heavily wooded, fairly well buried into trees.. A,lso, compared to the neighbor,s, there's a, I know they were,wor'king on, the Zoning Department is working on a new way ,of trying to limit growth in the area, that being the percentage of living space to lot area. .If we go up and ,down the point,' these are the same that were, actually the same people that w~represe~t~d,last year. (los1:. word) going from 13.7, 23,24, 20.4, goin~ south to 13.4, 1~.3, our entire lot, all the living space" on that lot, including the garage, will add up to 12.4 percent. áo it would b be the smallest of 'the lots north and south of us,. the utilization of the land itself. I also did a little study on my own. It's also the most heavily wooded lot on a per ac~e basis or a per unit b~s¡s. There;s more large trees on this lot than three north and two south. That's what I'm trying tQ present from this picture here. I would like to show you a few ph<;>togrp.phs, that we're coming through.. Again, trying to stay, to continue with the fact that under the definition of Waterfront property, we tried to 'keep, the lake view is the mostimpòrtant view that we're coming up with. These are pictures of thB land, how it looks, and how it would probably continue tp look, because the, as anyone saw it up here is aware, all those trees were saved. Trees in diameter up to 32 inches, right in front of the structure. There's some in the back ¡there, too. In fact, there's one here in· the back that shows, you cannot see the structure from the next door neighbor's house to the north: You can barely see their house in there, it.'s. a little white spot, because of that (lost word). One of the reasons, ¿bviously there's some hardships and reasons we need to continue here., It continues from the original variance, or should I say this new variance, the topography is' the difficulty. This shows where the new foundation, as you're sitting 100kin9 up. It is, in fairly deep down the hill, and the hill goes straight up. If you go to your second page of the, that I put together for your survey, you'll see that where I tried to outline where the leachfield was at the top of the hill. That leachfield is the limiting factor of how far off we can go. We cannot, I think we've got, on the leachfield side, we've got aÞout five to eight footQf working space to hit the 75 foot, and that is on the steepest p~rt of the hill. I think one of our largest hardships, at this point, is the fact that we have made a large investment in putting the - 45 - -......- --./ foundation in. The foundation, again, is exactly what I described in the former variance, and it is now, it's three quarters complete, and it's complete under, it's complete. The footing's are inspected by the Town, and the permit, as of today, still stands. I will put some comment in why the house was torn down, because I think that's important for you to know. The intentions were to' enlarge this house. We have made changes since my fathe~ passed on. The original house, the modification was going to be we put on the 800 square feet.' There was going to be a full baseme~t in that section. Cost comes into a factor when looking at all these things. The first thing we eliminated was the full basement, and actually the first thing we eliminated was the stone fireplace and went to a metal asbestos. The second thing we looked at, we did eliminate the full basement. In reconstructing it, as was noted in the original variance, there was going to be a completely new roof on top. The original variance håd indicated that the roof line would be higher. There would be cathedral ceilings, that all the interior will also be removed, ãnd replaced with new intetior walls because the bedrooms would be transported to another area (lost word). So that was a known fact as to the original variance. Other facts that come up, that run into, and these are a little bit contradicting to the, there's contradicting laws here a little bit. Number One, yqu do have to meet, when you increase a building by over 50 percent, you have to meet the New York State Energy Conservation Construction Code, and that construction code, if you replace different components of the house, over 50 percent, you have to bring them up to the new Code. The new Code includes six inch walls, includes an insulated foundation, frost line insulation. It also includes all of the windows have to be brought up to the proper R, the glazing R value has to come up properly. ,The roof and ceiling has to come up to the appropriate ones. The original house was built in the 1940's. There were no energy concer~s at that time. It had a zero insulation. It had four inch stud walls. There was not a frost wall. The foundation itself was not down to the frost line. It was not an insulated foundation. It did' not have the drain piles or anything else that are met to Code. There are possibilities. I have to admit. There's a possibility you could rebuild. Part of that rebuilding would be to jack up the house, put pilings in or something down to the frost line, insulate underneath the deck. You could remove everything, probably, but the deck. You could shim walls if YQU wanted to shim walls. All of this said, it seems to our architect and to myself, anyway, I don't see many practical solutions to meeting the Energy Code. It would be much less costly, again, to take down the shelf and put up a brand new shelf. ¡, again, will take, right from the get go, and the old variance as it was issued, we were taking out all brand new rooms. That was said. They were removing some, putting in others. A new roof was going on. $0 I think it was known that the interior was being taken out. At least one wall was coming out, because you're putting in an addition to the other side. So we're down to, you know, three walls and a deck, is what, realistically, and that would have been stripped and shimmed out, what would have been left of this structure. The front pilings for the porch, were only down a foot. They have to be down to the four' foot level, as you can see from the holes, when you were out there, and see the holes dug, they are down properly and support the house properly. So, I did to talk to some other people about how these things are done in other communities, and I talked to one gentleman in Long Island, and in Long Island, what they do is they build shell around it and throw everything out the window afterward. Now maybe that'~ the proper way of doing it. I didn't think it was a practical way. You'll have to excuse'me on that. We tried to build this house to what we said we would b~ild it, and when Jim Martin a~ked us to make modifications, we made modifications. He looked at it and didn't like something, we changed it. When Dave Hatin looked at the foundation wall, he asked us to make sure the insulation was on properly. I've insulated the interior, and he needed, it's a - 46 - ',- ~ crawl space, and he wanted that ~heetroc~ed. so we decided to insulate on the outside, to make him, to satisfy his needs. So, these items were looked at and these were ~djusted. ,I don't think we'ye walked in here m~liciously pr' trying to sneak something by. I don't think tearing a hole down in the middl(:¡) of Cleverdale, it's possible ,to' snea k ' a nythi ng by. So I $i¡luess my comment is here, yes, ",je did 'take the structure down.,. Yes. There is a small; port¡on left, just because it's underneath the front porch~ we don't have t6 have a froê~.wall, and it is a footing. We ~id explain that to Jim. I ðo~'t think our ~roject that we're aSking. for is ,a bad project .' 11;:.',s smaller than most of the projects that you have approved on Cleverdale. We're ask, we only need one vari~n~., and it ~as something that, there was something there before. The visual im~act is minor, becau~e if you take the, we're expanding to'thenorth, and there,'s still Dv~r 55 feet betw~en,~¿tually the outside wall, our north wall, , _~ ..' . . ; I ,', , and,the next property Ilne, which is larger than most lots ,that are en the point. I think my' point here is that 12.4 percent, I think you submitted 8, 1¡..~rget of 10 pet"cent, as far as perceT\tage of living space to the gross, the ~ot size, and I think ones that have been accepted and promoted, basically, with setback relief on the lake setback and side setback are closer to the 30 percent marker or bettet" right now. I th'ink'it's 8 very reasonable project. I don't think we're asking the relief that's substantial for us ~nd our fam~ly. It's a nice living quarters and our attention's are to hav. a nice summer ,home for a long time, as we have since 1952. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Any questions of the applicant? MR. ,KARPELES-Yes.. I,~ve !;Jot a, quest ion. You did a compar isol') of square feet. Did you do a comparison of setback with the neighbors? It looked to me,like your '6ther neighbors on 'the south side had met the side setback rules. MR. HODGKINS-The south or? The south side people, I did not, do a comparison, but they do set back farther. The one two south from us, I know, is 50 foot back. The one right next to us, I think, is pretty close to 50 foot. It's somewhere r¡gh~ in the 40 t6 50 foot mark. You have to remember' all of us that have owned these houses, we"ve watched the setback go from 0 to 20 to 30 to 50 to 75 over recent Years. ,So there has been some changes as far as that goes. To the north, the setback on the ~ouse north of ~s is 43 feet. The next one north I don't know. I haven't seen the survey. It's probably p~etty close to that, because they line up somewhere in that area. I also ~.Jould like to mention that at our last variance there was no one out here that did speak in concern of that. That do(:¡)sn't mean that the~e won't be anybody tonight, but at that time there was no one that spoke in ,concern. MR. KARPELES-When was this? MR. HODGKINS~Last year, a variance was received. MR. KARPELES-Well, it was an existing structure then. Once you rip it down, that's when you correct the variance, or the setb~ck . MR. CARVIN-Okay. Anything else? MR. HODGKINS-I don't h~ve anything, but my mother does. MRS. HODGKINS-I have made copies of several things from time to time here ~t th~ office, signing my little letter saying I can, and one thing that seemed to be of great concern from one neighbor was that the neighbors next door, on either side "would have a problem with view, because of our hous~, an~ I gues~ ~hat I really want to point out to you, that our house isn't going to have any effect on that view whatsoever. It's 60 size trees that are existing, that have always blocked their view. It's 'not - 47 - going to change any, because we have worked very hard to maintain those. We're keeping all those trees, and so they're not going to have any different views than they had before. The greenery's there, and that~s what cuts their view. MR. KARPELE$-Yes, well, I think I asked that question. MRS. HODGKINS-No, no. I didn't come from you. It actually came in a letter to the Town. MR. KARPELES-And nobody objected at that meeting. I remember that. I was surprised that no neighbor did object at that time. MRS. HODGKINS-Well, no, what I'm saying is that there was a letter of concern, not from the next door neighbor, but from another neighbor saying, you're ru~nlng the view for your neighbor, but, literally, we're not. The trees are there. I'm going to, keep those trees. We ~orked very hard to keep them. They're gorgeous trees and I think they're (lost word) to the lake, and the whole lot, now we had to take down three birches behind the house, behind the foundation, because they, although they might have survived the immediate construction, three people told me I'd be taking them down in a year or two, they'd die, because the roots would be disrupted, and there's nothing you could do about it. I also have the neighbor to the south, I spoke with her on the telephone, and she said, I understand you took trees down between our houses. I'm sending her pictures. We did not take any trees down between the Grays house and our house. So that was another concern. Monetarily, I'm caught. I've got too much money invested and we did it on a go ahead from the Town. If it had been stopped originally, when the questions were asked, this other money wouldn't have been spent, but a tremendous amount has been spent, and 1 really have a problem. Also, it's not just house problems, it's what do you do with what's there, what do you do with a septic system that's a good septic system, when there's no way" no room to get around it. That's another problem. I guess I'd ask if you gentlemen have any questions for me? MR. CARVIN-Gentlemen? Okay. Hearing none, then I'll open up the public hearing. Anyone wishing to be heard in support of the application please come forward? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED JIM MEYER MR. MEYER-Jim Meyer, for the record. I spend a lot of time on the lake. I have a boat that I keep. Unfortunately, I don't live on the lake yet. I hope to some day. The name of my company even reflects that. I spend a lot of time on the lake, and as I look around through the Bay, one thing strikes my, there seem to be ," I can't quote you numbers, but there seem to be a lot of newer homes that are too big for the lots. They're oversized. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but they certainly don't appeal to me. What we have here is a chance to put up a 1400 square foot building that really fits the lot, that has fit the lot. It's the only break when you go by in your boat. If you look to the north, there's, immediately, two boathouses right in there. It's really the only break all the way around that point that's qf any size. Again, I hope to live on the lake some day. It appears that if this doesn't happen, the next person with a million dollars could come through, it's a double lot, and he could conceivably, different Codes, if needed the septic system out and put in mound systems, you could conceivably ~nd up with 5,000 square feet of a massive house on that lot, because it is a double lot. It's the biggest lot. I thi nk what you have , if you've seen the pictures, it's a nicely done building. It's understated. It fits the land. He has a chance to lock this thing in at 1400 square feet and keep it small. If that doesn't - 48 - ;,.-- ---' happen, if the lot. changes hands, perhaps, and then who knows what's going to bappen. So I think what we have is a unique opportunity to maintain the character of the lake and not run the risk of putting up another massive dwelling that probably will meet current setbacks because of the size of the lot. I think you ought to take the opportunity to keep this structure, effectively as it was, and maintain the beauty of the lake and lock that other 50 feet up, so that the trees don't ~et mowed down. DAVID HODGKINS MR. D. HODGKINS-I'm David Hodgkins, t~e unheard from, son. The only points that I wanted to, I gue$s, drive home on this is I think the evidence of the percenta~e or use of this lot is very important to it, Number One. It keeps it smaller than any surrounding property in that, under one of your guidelines, conforming with the neighborhood, makes it the smallest property 'trhat would be 'there, and Number Two, in pushing this. house back, my father considered that when he got, this property, when my I, . ,,' , '. .: " . ' ' , . uncle and him separated the two properties, and the slope of the ·,t" ". " . land does not allow for any good use, pushing it back, even if you were to say 40 feet or 50 f~et similar to the neighbors, and lined it up. I'm not even considering the septic. Obviously, you run into that at the 75 foot line, but if you go b.ackbe.hind the house, and if you gentlemen have been out, and I guess 6ther people have actually been to the site noticed as you get to the middle, of that lot, that's where the slope is. You would have a hous~i~hat would st~nd with a full walk out basement on one end, and ~till be buried into the ,ground on the first f~oor on the other. So it's physically impossible to move it back 30, 40, or the 50 foot line without some major, major landscaping problems and, once again, trying to preserve and protect the lake is one of. the features that we're trying to do here. So the house ~itting down in its original site is the best use for the land and protecting runoff and such. That's"it. ·Thankyou. MR. CARVIN-Thank you. Anyone else in support? opposition to the applicant? Anyone in MR. J. HODGKINS-I just want to also note that another good feature here is that, and I forgot all about this. I sat down with Jim Martin, and if you look at the sEfcqnq. page,pf;¡¡the ¡sur:vey there where he made some modifications, one of th~ thinòs that are improved on this property is the runoff control; and off to the north, there was some discussion from different people, from neighbors who thought that, there was concern over some of the runoff off the property~ ,and ,that has been address~d ,on this formal document to you, in putting in a berm in an area, and again, Jim Martin and myself discussed it~ We also discussed how the water coming off the roof line would be handled. W~'re not discussing handling it with gutters, , but he recommènded that we consider a trench around the side. We're considering both options, at this point, and also bringing it ~ver to the drywell. ,So this is going to be an improvement to the-property over how it was before. Before the water basically just ran down and through. So it is an improvement. The other improvement is simple things like going to moderate constructio~. You're going from a five. ,gallon flush toilet to one and a halt' gallon flush toilet. . There's a~tual1y less fluid (lost word) going into your septic tank and such. So those are improvements that you get with the new plan. MR. CARVIN-A~y let~ers? MR . THOMAS-Yes" we have one. A let'ter dated Mar~~ 20, 1995, "Dear Sir or Madame: Regarding Area Variance No. 12-1995, Dorothy B. Hodgkins, Mason Road, Clev~rdale~ New 'York, seeks relief from 75 foot shoreline setback required',by, Section 179-60. We are near neighbors to the Hodgkins' property -- two camps - 49 - ..- ---,' north. The already poured concrete pad and foundation walls for the planned new cottage are approximately 17 feet from the shoreline. This is unacceptable to us and we request the board to deny the variance. The preservation of the Lake is of primary concern but also being that close to the lake will block north and south views of those neighboring cottages that are in compliance with the required setbacks. Also, since the 'garage' on the property, which has an apartment upstairs, represents a 'second dWelling' on ø single property which is in violation of section 179-12C, we feel that set back requirements should be followed to the letter. The continuing insistence of Ms. Hodgkins to push to get what wants -- zoning be damned-- violates the public trust and those institutions which serve it. Please deny the variance request! Thank you. Sincerely, Donald Billings Wheeler Sarah W. Wheeler" And it was faxed to the Town. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Last call for the public. JACK CUSHING MR. CUSHING-I have to clear the air for myself. From the very first time that Jack Hodgkins, Sr. talked to me, I had no feeling against the structure. Their old structure was very poor, and I did not think it was going to affect us. The only concern that I had, from an environmental point of view, not from my own point of view, was that the new structure was closer to the lake than the old one. That was the feeling that I was getting as I looked. Other than that, I wish them well, and as far as the variance on the structure, I think it will enhance the lake. I just wanted to clear the air to that extent, but I have not, at this particular point, said anything against, except that I just didn't want it too close to the lake. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Seeing no other indications from the public, I will close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. CARVIN-I will open it up for questions from the Board. Do you have any questions, gentlemen? MR. FORD-I don't have a question, but I do have some comments. When it comes time and you ask for comments, then I've got some comments. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Any other questions first, I guess? Then I guess we'll open it up for comments then, Tom. Okay. MR. FORD-I'm sorry for the inconvenience and the expense that has already been incurred, but this whole proceeding could have been avoided at several stages, and plenty of mistakes have been made, as you've already indicated, and I think we have a golden opportunity to correct sóme of them. The original appeal stating the intent to build an addition rather than a totally new residence is kind of carried into this appeal. I've got real concerns about that. I think that the area nonconformity was lost by razing this structure without permission or permit, starting construction without written approval is a concern of mine, not appealing to the ZBA or waiting for the Zoning Board of Appeals to act before construction began is a concern. In this most recent document we received, I note some misleading statements, and I don't know whether they're intentional or unintentional, but when we refer to adding 800 square feet, I don't find this an addition. They talked about addition of 800 square feet to the present structure. I wonder if there is a present structure.' I don't beliève there is. When we talked a little bit further down in the paragraph, the space given up by the existing bedrooms and bath will be opened up as a great room, an enlarged kitchen ànd much needed closet space, well, it's a - 50 - '- ---- great room all right. I mean, and it~s really large, Number Two under the reason for requesting also referred to the additipn as requested, and unde,- lot and green space, at the present' time there's about 88 percent gr~en space and after the addition, again referring to the addition. MR. CARVIN-Yes. Tom, I information, I believe, is app¡ication. I think he's last couple of pages. MR. THOMAS-Yes, that comes from Area Variance 10-1994. might want to in reference to referring to the comment that that the M~rch of '94 information on the MR. FORD-Well, it's stapled to the same informàtion that I have regarding the new structure, and along with the chronologically sequence of events, and then it leads into reasons for requesting the variance. MR. CARVIN-Yes. I believe when that was read in, I think if you take a look up at the top, it says that that was Area Variance No, 10-1994, up in the upper. MR. FORD-Okay. I can't read it on my copy. I'm sorry. MR. THOMAS-It was after it was read No. 10-1994, and hearing today. stated before it was read and it was stated that all those items referred to A~ea Variance not Area Variance No. 12-1995, which you're MR. CARVIN-Well, I think that this information is all iIrelevant, as far as the new application is concerned. MR. FORD-Okay. Thank you. The basic issue I have is with the quality of the lake and w.ith a new strueture coming" before us, I believe that this is the opportunity for ,us to address appropriate setbacks. ." ¡ i' . ( .. ; I ::' ~. ¡ MR. CARVIN-Okay. Any other comments, Gentlemin? Ari~ que~tions? MR. MENTER-I would 'make a comment, í t~ink, reiative to what Tom just said. I think just for the record, from ~ standpoint, the premise is that we have anew application on" not an unimproved lot, but a lot that doesn't have a residence on it, and we don't f - d', ' - , ", ;. ;, I have anything to work off, based on the fact that, as has been said before, all existing nonconformities have been lost. So, given that premise, without going into it, I intend to look at this asa new variance, and all that that means in terms of criteria for such. I Jusl wanted to say that. ' MR. CARVIN-Okay. Tony, do you have any questions? MR. MARESCO-Basically, looking at it as a new application, we have to look at it and see if the setback could be met or not. That!s the big issue. We have the opportunity to see if it can be met, and that's what,we've got to look at. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Do you feel that he's met the '¿riteria for a variance at this point, or are you not satisfied with his plan as presented? Do you think that it could be brought into compl ia nce? MR. MARESCO-I'm not sure. MR. CARVIN~Any questions, Bob? MR. KARPEL~S~No. I don't have any questions. I agree with, pretty much, everything that's been said. I think that the intent of zoning is n'ót only to maintain the status quo, but it's to, improve the sitµation, and I think that once a building is destroyed, that's our opportunity to 'improve the setbacks, and if - 51 - ~ --: that foundation is poured immediately, we lose that opportunity. I feel I've been cheated out of that, or if I accept the premise that we have to use that foundation, and so, I agree, I think we're starting from scratch. MR. CARVIN~Chris? MR. THOMAS-I agree with Bob that once the old house was taken down, that that was the time to conförm, to make a new building conform with ihe setbacks, but in this case, there's two over shadowing circumstances to that fact, and Number One's the topography of the land, since that land goes up at a pretty good angle in the back, it would be difficult to move the house back to where it should be, 75 feet from the lake, and, Number Two, the existing septic system, which is a good septic system, and really doesn't need to be disturbed. It's not the system itself. It's the leachfield up on top, and it's those two things right there that lead me to believe that that house could be re-built right where it was, and another thing, too, is the sequence of events here. On February 14th, Jim Martin, Queensbury Zoning Administrator questions removal of house and accepts the fact that part of the foundation remains. That is "I will take one block". Do you remembe~ saying that, Jim? MR. MARTIN-No. I don't remember saying that. I remember talked about it. We were at the drafting table in th. building office, and there was a piece of the wall saved, and I was trying to refer back to other instances where there's been buildings saved on the lot, and the old rights stayed with ,that, and I had heard there have been instances with past determinations that if there were even small sections of the foundation left, that constituted the old structure~ MR. THOMAS-And then to continue on. Dave Hatin, Town of Queensbury Building Insþector; Lee Horning, Contractor;, and John Hodgkins, III are present. Work continues based on Jim Martin's approval. Did you tell them it was all right to keep going? MR. MARTIN-Yes, I did, based on what I heard that morning, I did. MR. THOMAS-The 14th, and then here we go, on the 20th, Jim Martin on his day off visits property in response to a call from Jack Cushing, distance from the lake is questioned. Jim Martin and Lee Horning make measurement and question placement of original house. The same day, John Hodgkins, III meets with Jim Martin at his office. After showing Jim Martin pictures of the old camp, he agrees that the new structure is in exact location as the old one. Jim advises, again, that work can continue. So, you know, this is may be error on both sides. MR. CARVIN-I think that we have to really maybe look at this issue. I think that just because Jim Martin says something can proceed or'that a building permit is issued is not, point blank, authorization, or does not necessarily make, a wrong or right, and I think that once Jim realized that there were conflicts he,-e, I think that, as I understand it, the stop order is sitting on this desk, and that the applicant voluntarily ceased construction. MR. MARTIN-That was the next day. MR. CARVIN-So, I 'think that all the procedural aspects involved here are correct, because I think once you, you know, he examined, and again, I'm not putting words in his mouth, but I think once all the pertinent facts were developed, and that it was found that the variance that was issued back in March actually was null and void, I think the situation has evolved to where that's why it's here. In other words, that's what this Board is ali about. I mean, it is a check and balance situatIon. Just because a building permit is issued, and I think, and maybe - 52 - -- --' Paul can verify this, I think that that, in many necessarily constitute that a wrong situation because a building permit is issued~ ' cases, does not is now correct MR. DUSEK-I have to say that the law is clear that Estoppel, o}' preventing a municipality from enforcing its Ordinances, is something that is not there. The municipality can always enforce it's Zoning Ordinance. There's the clas~ic case down in New York City where they built the skyscraper' andth~y forced, the skyscraper was not built consistent with the Ordinance. It was given a búilding permit, by the way, and they still had to tear off, I think it was something like six stories off the building, and the courts have clearly upheld the right of the municipality to enforce its Zoning Ordinances in all situations. ,I have to say that's pretty clear law. MR. CARVIN-Yes. So, I mean, we are on firm groynd here, and I agree that it probably does cause ~ lot of hardship, and that's why we're here, to untangle these misinterpretations, and to give the Zoning Departmentspme clear guidelines. MR. MARTIN-I have to say, that chronology is correct, but, I mean, you're talking about a ver~ small window of time here. In a week's time, or ten days ti~e, the house was torn, down.' The new foundation had begun :to go in. Things were happening very rapidly here, and I admit~ Several days did pass where construction had continued under things that I had said, but it was stopped, and three o~ four days passed, or five days of w6rk, but it was stopped '" . . MR. CARVIN-Yes. Sol think, you know, 'the applicant has referred that he has a building permit, and I suspect that if he starts building, that Jim will slap an Estoppel on that particular situation. So, again, I want to emphasize that I think the procedyral, chronological situa~ion is in order here. 1 also agree with'most of the Soard ~embers here. I think that ~e have a brand new situation here. I think maybe some of our judgments may be, as far a¿ the topography of, the land, maybe somewhat obscured because there is a big hole there, and I'm assuming that you didn't have any problem exqavati ng that, and I do¥)'t know if a plan can be developed where, if the house was,moved back, that that couldn't be flattened and still bring everything into conformance. I mean, it didn't look like that that was bedrock, if they had to uSe blasting or dynamite to dig 6~t any rocks. It looked like it was pretty lo'se gravel. ~Q I think we have to be careful. 'I think we do have an opportunity here to bring this, maybe, into compliance. MR. MENTER-Beyond opportunities, I think we have, from my perspective, as a new applicat~on for this typ,e of ,variance, we do have an obligation to grant the, least relief~ ~the minimum relief. So, just for your benefit, that's the viewpoint that certainly ~ need to look at this from. We're discussing a lot philosophically here, I think. MR. CARVIN-Well, I was going to say, it bo¡ls down to either we can, A., table this application pending further review as far as alternatives, whether a plan, and if that entails creating a whole new septic system, I guess that's t~e w~y the cards fall. MR. THOMAS-Well, you know, septic systems can be replaced, but what about the slope of the ,land? That'~,a hardship. MR. CARVIN-Well, I'm just saying that I slope ,pf the land mayor may not. I remember, they dug out abig hole th~re. worse than what it really is. don't think that the do n ' t' know, because I mean, ,it may look MR. KARPELES-Well, I dqn't think they've explpred it with this possibility. I mean, t~eY're being told now that this is a new situation. They've been thinking, in the past, that they could - 53 - ----/ ~ use that foundation. So I think they've got to, that the onus is on them to come back and see what can be done with that land. I wonder, Sue says you can't add on to the existing garage. I wonder why you couldn't just add on to the existing garage? MR. FORD-I'd raise the same question. MR. J. HODGKINS-We have looked at it, okay. After the 'February 22nd meeting, the marathon, to be honest with you, we reviewed the options, anq I even came out and told Jim Martin, I said, look, Jim, I dón't know if we're going to even try, because I don't think that, to be honest with you, I wasn't real enthusiastic after I left here, but' we did look at it, and we looked at all the options, to see what we could come up with, and we reviewed it. We added up where we could put things. We do have a few obstacles, and there's more obstacles than what I've put up there. Obviously, we have an excellent septic system, and I think it would be a shame to tear it out and put a brand new one in. In fact, you still only have a certain distance back you can go. We have some limitations from a neighbor across the street, a well was put in one year ago. I dqn't know if you're aware of it, but it takes a permit to put in a septic system. You have to be 100 feet from a well. It doesn't take a permit to put in a well, and you don't have to be 100 feet from the septic system. So for uè to move back, we do have a restriction on our road side. MR. CARVIN-Is this your well, is it? MR. J. HODGKINS-No, it's the neighbor's well. MR. CARVIN-On your property? MR. HODGKINS-No. It's across the street. I have to be 100 feet. MR. CARVIN-Okay. MR. J. HODGKINS-The 100 feet line goes across. MR. CARVIN-Is that 100 feet from your well or ~ well? MR. 'MARTIN-Arty well. MR. J. HODGKINS~Any well. I don't know of any other wells. I haven't searched it out. There could be other wells there, too, but to go to the garage, we cannot go, the garage is close to the septic system as it is, going south. The garage is within four feet, four and a half feet of the north boundary. So we have four and a half feet there that we're looking at. Going toward the lake, we would have 18 feet, but there's a question, we might have some other'restriçtions there, as far as neighboring septic systems. We have to be 20 feet away from them. We've got, so there are some limitations, and we did look at them. We added it up, and we thought, in practical terms there's other things we have to look at, too. A 15 foot wide building is not a practical width on a building. Most of our complaints, if you read the letters from before, indicated about trees coming down and all that, and we'd have to suddenly ta,ke out, another groupi ng of trees have to come out. That means we're eliminating what, as I read the purpose of the Zoning Ordinance is, to keep the beauty of the lake. So we would have to do that. You're asking us to dig more up. You're also talking about impermeable soil, land now. We do have a patio down there, which we're, that house where we're putting it, there's an existing patio right next to it. That's always been existing, and it still stands, and we're still going to be next to it. Well, that patio will still exist and part of that foundation still is going to be down there, unless there's remedies for that. So now you're worsening the situation. I think what we, we looked it up and added it up, I came back after a long weekend of looking what we have. We have, - 54 - '--- --/ I think, a minimal project here. We are not consuming a lot of the ~and. I think that's the one thing I'm looking at heTe. So we have some options. We're looking at one variance, as it comes up. The question is, are we going to have to get two or three then? And then what are our chances, because I think your , ' ;,' , ',I' important factors are stuff, things on the lake, runoff, which, you start clearing more trees, you've got more runoff. You might be making a worse situat~on. Plus, wecan't,meet the 75 foot. So it looks like we'll have to come back. We would have to come back and come somewh~re in between, and still haye a worse situation. That's part of the options we're lOQki~g at here, wher~ is'it acceptable. We've got 50 foot from the ~ide, 55 foot from the side line, and a fairly reasonable structure~ So:we did look at it. We did look at the options. We added the options up, and defined what's good, and I think the key' here is we've got a good septic sy~tem in, a good location, beyond the 100 foot mark. Hopefully, we can work from there. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Any ,other comments or questions? MR. FORD"..John, what .is your reason fo," , not wishi ng to go fur ther to the north on 'your lot? MR. J. HODGKINS-Well, we were trying to maybe minimize the impact across the front of t~e lake. The difficulty with goi~g up, we thought originally when we were looking at expanding the house, was you could go up and back. ,Well, ,if you gO up and back, you block, visually, the people on your south side and also block, visually, the people from the road. So we stayed down and we stepped over one and moved back and below there. It would have been less costly to turn that whole thing and go, 5R' foot across the front of the lake, but that seems like we're asking a lot to clear a ,(lost word) another 30 feet across the front of ,the lake there. You're staying the same distance back. So, on~ of the things people always told us is, if you want to have a path with view down from the lake, people as they're walking down the road, who want to go see that, and we do have an area on this lake which is kind of unique on the point. There's, aga{n, the 55 foot of undisturbed property çJ,own near the fW4ter" a~<:f if you go anywhere on (lost word) it happens to be a very well screened area, and if you step back a little bit, you're going to clear it out and, frankly, you're going to have to take more trees down. It's goi ng to be a thi nner lot that way. I gue~s ,!' m: 100 ki ng at all those, and the restrictions that we ha0e ~s far as the building and of course, obviously, I'm cqncerned with our hard~hips and fhe expense (lost word) but Ithink~ from the numbers, you can see it's a very small project. I think it's a ve~y minor request, ¿¿mpared to, and I have to compare it to other items that you've approved as a Board, ,setbacks, setbacks from the lake. We might not be offering a largeim~rovement from the lake, 'but we're also not asking'f.or!é¡l, we're not trying to grab a large chunk anywhere else, and I think that's significant. M~. MARESCO-Do you recal¡, John, what was the height of the h9use? MR. J. HODGKINS-If you stand down in front of the house, which means you're at, you're down below the basement, the floor level of the basement, which you go to 24 feet high, and those two marks that you saw, I told you on the trees, that's the point it angles up from. Those points are approximately 13 feet high from there on the side, and then it goes up. So you don't have a block that's 24 foot. You come to a peak there, and those are, I think, pretty clearly marked, those trees. ' MR. MARESCO-Yes. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Any other questions OF, comments, Gentlemen? Okay. I would refer us to our criteria for the Area Variance, and, obviously, there's five or six situations that have'to be - 55 - addressed. wi 11 . Does anyone care to make a motion? Okay. Then I MOTION TO DENY AREA VARIANCE NO. 12-1995 DOROTHY B. HODGKINS, Introduced by Fred Carvin who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford: The apþlicant is proposing to construct a new constructed house of approximately 1400 square feet on a .44 acre parcel in a Waterfront Residential One Acre zone. The applicant is seeking relief from Section 179-60, which requires a minimum of 75 feet shoreline setback. If we were to grant this variance, we could create an undesirable change in the neighborhood, or could possibly have detriment to the nearby properties. The applicant has not demonstrated that the benefits being sought cannot be achieved by another feasible method. The applicant is seeking approximately 57 and a half feet relief, which would be substantial, considering that there may be other alternatives whereby the house could be set back closer to compliance. If we were to grant this variance, we could, again, have an adverse impact and effect on the physical and environmental conditions in the neighborhood and the district, and that this request is self created, in that, at this point, we do have a vacant lot with a garage, and as I said, I think that there may be other feasible methods that should be sought by the applicant and, obviously, this is not a minimum variance, if we were to grant it. Duly adopted this 22nd day of March, 1995, by the following vote: MR. DUSEK-If I may interrupt, Mr. Chairman, the applicant has made an inquiry of me if it's still, at this point, ablé :to get a tabling of this app~ication, as oppose9 to having the Board render a v6tS. , MR. J. HODG,.áNS-YÔu sàld you:' didn 't1have enoúgl"\ information on ¡ . " ''''; ,-" ¡,.. '.~" " " ,'-;'" ' '. :, -' --', ,,"", " --.'c'~! _'. .. : ,! the feasi:bi:lfty:oT';' going ina dif!fêrent direcefon. Maybe we co~ld Pti~:tRàt ~o;e~Her 'and o*f~r tH~i t6'this Bbard. ';~, '. ¡' :.', ,; ':>"'~" ;..; , ¡.,~/:! MR. 'tARVIN-clkay. Does thè Board have any' problem tabling this for further information? MR. MARESCO-I have no objection. MR. CARVIN-I don't have a problem with that. I think you understand where we're coming from. I mean, you can't have the mindset that just becau~e you have a foundation, you have a vacant lot, and wh~t~~e~ 'is going to work is going to work. ùkåy. Baseð'd~ön< that information, I wi 11 withdraw 'my motion. MR. FORD-I'll withdraw the second. appeal be withdrªw~, ,then?, Tabled. , :. ;.. ¡ , ~.' ." .'- ¡ , Are you requesting that that ; I MR. CARVIN~Okay, and then I will move that we table. Introduce' ¡'by Thomas Ford: To allow the applicant an opportunity. to present other feasible methods which \'wôUld''re~ul tin a mOTe mtnimum'var iancèbeing neces'sary?irhåt Will 6é tabled' for up 1:.0'1:60 days. ' / Duly adopted this 22nd day of March, 1995, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. F'Órd ,Mr. M~résco' " Mr.; Mehter , Mr. Kðh:hHes, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Carvin NOES: NONE MR. CARVIN-Our normally tabling is, if we table, it's tabled for - 56 - '-"' ---- up to 60 days. Is that sufficient enough time? "MRS".;,,!HODGKIN,s":J,I:f we have thf;:!'i: i nfo¡r¡,rI)a~Jon Rfi~or, t,~ that¡~ ca,D we reqúeèt' ea)"lie)"? MR. CARVIN-Yes. Again, you'd have to check with the office there, as far ,as schedulinQ, þut if We don't hear anything back in 60 days, the application is automatically taken¡out. MRS. HODGKINS~Removed. " MR. CARVIN-Right~ " MS. CIPPERL Y-To be on the Apr il agenda" the, information would have to be in by the 29th., MR. MARTIN-A week from today. MR. CARVIN-Did you hear that?, To make the April meeting, it would have to be in by the 29th, otherwise it probably would be put off until the May meeting. MR. J. HODGKINS-Are there forms?' MR. MARTIN-No. Just what they're asking for, more information as to why it can't be setback further. MR. CARVIN-Other feasible alter~atives. NEW BU$IN{::SS: USE VARIANCE NO. 11-1995 TYPE: UNLISTED S~~IA JEFFRY D. MORRISON OWNER: ELSIE DUTRA 268 BIG BOOM ROAD APPLICANT SEEKS TO USE PART OF AI. 73 ACRE RESIDEI'HIALL)' ZONED PARCEL ON BIG 'BOOM ROAD AS A BABE RUTH BASEBALL FIELD. REMAINDER OF PARCEL CONTAINS A HOUSE AND ACCESSO~Y STRUCTURES. SECTION 179-190 DOES NOT LIST BASEBALL FIELD AS AN ALLOWED USE. (WARREN COUNTY PLANNING) 3/8/95 TAX MAP NO. 141-1-1 LOT SIZE: 1.73 ACRES",$ECTION 179- 19D ,', ,¡' JEFFRY MORRISON, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Nptes from Staff" Use Variance No. 1~-1995, Jeffry,Q. Morrison, Me.eti ng Date: March 22, 1995 "APPLICANT,: Jeffry D. ,Morrison ADDRESS OF PROPERTY: Big Boom Road 'SUMMAR~ OF PROJECT: Applicant pro~oses to u~e pa~t ofa 1.73 acre residentially zoned parcel on Big Boom Road to construct a ßab~ Ruth leaQue baseþall field. Remainder of field contains a "house and aCcessory structures. CONFORMANCE WITH USE/AREA REGULATIONS: Section 179- 19D does not list a public baseball field as an allowed use. It does list outdoor athletic court/facility as an accessory use to '~i:r,~~~dence." R;VIEW. Ç~ITff:RIA!. BApIf:9,QN Se¡Ç;;r:IO~::1(,~67"\'"b¡,~PF. ;,10WN LAW: 1. IS A REASONABLE RETURN PqSSIBLE IF THE LAND IS, ,USED AS ZONED? Yes. This lot already contains a residence. At 1.73 acre, it is a conforming lot in this one acre zone, but is not large enough to be subdi,v ided furthe)~. ? IS THE, ALLEGED HARDSHIP RELATING, T9 THIS PROPERTY, UN;IQUE. ,OR DOES ,IT ALSO AþPL Y TO A SUBSTANTIAL PORTION OF THE DISTRICT OR NEIGHBORHOOD? The existing use of this lot is in keeping ~iththe surrounding neighbqrhood, which is re~idential in nature. There is no apparent physical, economic, or other hardship involved. 3. IS THERE AN ADVERSE EFFECT. ON THE ES$ENT¡AL CHARACTER OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD? In discussion with staff~ the applicant desc)"ibed this as a regional facility, not limited to GlensÞ~lls or Queensbury residents. The insertion of such a facility into this residential neighborhood would have a number of impacts: 1. Traffic - No specific informatiqn.was prQvided regarding the number of cars, number of games and practices per week, the - 57 - ------ length of the season, etc., but this use appears to be similar to Little League in terms of traffic. 2. Parking - Again, no specific numbers are available. The applicant has stated that all surrounding neighbors have agreed that their property can be used for parking, but there is no documentation of this. The application indicates parking on Proux Road, which is a 16.5 x 400 ft. strip which used to be a road, before the Northway was built, and riow belongs to the neighbor to the south. This strip, even with the neighbor's permission, would not be wide enough to provide parking plus emergency vehicle access to the field. 3. Noise - Any activity that brings a considerable number of people into an area for a sports activity is likely to generate additional noise. In what appears to be a quiet residential neighborhood, the proposed ball field could be a problem. 4. Safety In addition to the issues of traffic and emergency access already mentioned, the safety of the neighbors immediately to the north should be considered, especially since this field does not appear to meet the criteria for distance for a Babe Ruth league field. As stated above, there is also a residence on the subject parcél. Fe~ce height in residential zo~es is restricted to 6 feet. 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? Allowing a baseball field would be the minimum relief necessary to allow the applicant to create a baseball field on this property. It does not appear that there is an unnecessary hardship proven by the applicant, or that the character of the neighborhood or the health, safety and welfare of the community would be served by allowing this use at this location. PARCEL HISTORY: The existing house was built on this property in 1955 and modified in 1958. It appears Mrs. Dutra has been the owner of the proþerty since that time. STAFF COMMENTS AND CONCERNS: Additional information is attached, regarding the dimensions required for a Babe Ruth baseball field. This information was provided by Mr. Harold Hansen, Director of Parks and Recreation for the Town of Queensbury. Also attached is the tax map section for this area, showing the 16.5 foot wide strips on the neighbor's property. SEQR: The Short Form EAF should be reviewed by the Board, as this is an unlisted action." MR. THOMAS-"At a meeting of the Warren County Planning Board held on the 8th day of March, 1995, the above application for a Use Variance to construct a ballpark was reviewed, and the following action tak~n: Recommendation to: No County Impact" Signed by Thomas Haley, Chairperson. A letter from the Queensbury Department of Parks and Recreation, dated 3/16/95, to Sue Cipperly "As per your note concerning Mr. Morrison's request to use the property belonging to E. Dutra (tax map #141-1-1), on the north side of Big Boom Road to construct a baseball field for Babe Ruth (BR) league plaY, I would only point out the following: a. that the road/parking area shown as Proux Road on the diagram attached to the application is in fact, not a Town road and/or public area, but a 17 ft. x 400 ft. strip of property (tax map # 141-1-20), owned by T. & A. Hayes since 1978. b. according to available BR rules/information, the distance from home plate to the outfield fence for a BR league field is shown as 310 ft. Therefore, the diagram submitted with Mr. Morrison's application and depicting a ball field within the boundaries of the subject parcel would not because of shorter dimensions qualify as a BR league field. c. The Queensbury Little League organization offers organized league play for approximately the same age participants that Mr. Morrison intends to serve. A few years ago the Little League created a major/senior league field with outfield dimensions and fences (300 ft. +), specifically dedicated to this older age group (10-15 yrs. of age). Inasmuch as a major portion of BR league play occurs in the summer months when the little league season has concluded, it would seem that Mr. Morrison and the Queensbury Little League might, therefore, work cooperatively, so as not to duplicate facilities. Respectfully, Harold R. Hansen Director of Parks & Recreation" - 58 - --../ MR. CARVIN-Okay. Mr. Morrison. MR. MORRISON-I've gone to both school districts, and I talked to Mr. Modd. There's nothing for us to use in this area at all. We can't use Crandall Park. We can't use ' Queensbury Migh School baseball field. We can't use the Queensbury Little Lßague complex. This is on pr ivate property. I jl;.lst want, to give the kids a chance to play baseball. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Maybe you can, the property is owned by Mrs. MR. MORRISON-My mother has it, Mrs. Dutra. MR. CARVIN-Okay. She's your mother. MR. MORRISON-Yes. MR. CARVIN-Okay. You're indicating that she has ~o intention, I guess you can comfortably speak for her, that she has no ,in1;,ention of sel,~in~:1.h.(è!,r:"il?rpP~r,tty,:fqr, 2,0, ~ear!>? ; "¡ ¡ ! I . -' ' 1 !', ] ; I ~: : I I I,!; I,!, ": f , MR.: ,.MORRISÔN-Y~~!~ ¡';(~:;jRfin:gu~r:antee 1:;h~~~, ':: . , " ; L·'t;' . , , ~ -"I .'J ¡ ~ , , . ~ \ j.." . -it ¡:, ~ ~~...j ,:1-1 :'" ,;','. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Can you give us a little bit ~ore insight into exactly what kind of league you're t,"ying to form here? MR. MORRISON-Okay. It's Babe Ruth baseball, and the only thing, as far as the requirements of the fences,~ they don't have to be 315, ·feet. The only requiremen~~you:nee~)~~e major le~gue bases. They've got to be 90 feet between home, and first ~nd home and ! third. The pitching mound must be 60 feet 6 inches. Therø is " , no, you can have fences as short as 200fee.t:,~ YQµ can;þa~e.·them as deep as 400 fe~t. This is a rough skeich of the ballpark, and I've got it facing from the west to nor~hea~t. ~e can easily f¡ip it right around, because the mound and the bases ~aven't been set yet. ,") MR. MENTER-Jeff, how come you have it,set:that way? Wou~dn't it be better to have the short field in right, rather th~n left? MR. MORRISON-Yes, it would. It would þe,a hitter's park for right handed batters. Yes. It would be, , When I originally set this up, it wa~ in, the fall and I was lOÇ)king at, the way the sun was setting, I:>ec~use we plan on playi'n~ the game, if we',"e allowed to play the game, the games would ,be played roughly from five thirty in the evening to no later than nine o'clock at night, that's in the summer. Usually they're over by eight thirty. It takes about two hours to t~ô and a half houí<s for a game. As far as, I couldn;t give any answers as far as how many games a week, we could play, or parking, because we can~t have a registration unless we have a place to play. W~'ve had everything in place since last November;: and I've been pushed back, pushed back, pushed back by these peop~e until I finally had to confront them, and then I was stonewalled, because they said, we're not going to let you use the school field. They would rather let the school field sit d9~mant than let somebody use it. Now I talked to Mr. Martin. Mr. Martin got OD ,the phone and talked to Mr. Modd. I typed up a proposal and I got it to Coach, Mara, who's the Varsity Baseball Coach. Mr. Marél., had no problem with it, the programs we had designed. There was a two and' a half week time frame where Queensbury' Little League continued, ,Babe Ruth Baseball started up. This is a summer baseball league. Conventional Little League ends the third week ~n June, unless a pl,yer's picked to ~o, participate in All Stars. The rest of ,the players are dismissed at the end of the season. We plan on playing the last two weeks in June, all of July, the first two weeks in August. So we play right through the sum~er. If you drive around now, you don't see kids using the baseball fields during the summer because, basically, Little League's over.' There are kids that want to play ba~eball during - 59 - -- -/ the summer, and that's the opportunity. We have an opportunity to provide this for these kids. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Well, I guess my question is, what would you anticipate the use? In other words, you've got to have some kind of numbers, I assume, to make this thing feasible or viable. MR. MORRISON-Yes. I don't think the League will get any bigger than four teams. The one thing that, in the Babe Ruth Charter, is you can't turn away a participant. If somebody wants to participète, you havé to, you know, if they want to register, you've got to let them play. So you can't turn anybody away, and that's not our intention anyway, to turn anybody away, based on their skill level. If they want to play, they've, got to play. The size of Queensbury's Little League Senior program, right now, I believe at last year's draft they had six teams. Some teams have 11, and I think the most they had on a team was 12. So you're talking Queensbury's program is-72 kids that play in the spring and early summer. Some of those kids go on to play Legion baseball, but that is a tryout type situation, which means if you don't make a squad, you don't play baseball. There's a TriCounty Middle League, but I've inquired about getting in T,-iCounty Middle League, and at this time, they're not planning on expanding at all. So there's no opportunity for these kids to play. If they can't make the Legion team; there is no Middle League team in Queensbury. MR. CARVIN-No, but, again, I guess what L:m saying, to make this thing a viable, functioning situation here, what would be the minimum number of teams that you would require? I mean, if you have one team, I mean, it seems kind of silly for us to go through all of this for nine kids. MR. MORRISON-No, no. At least three teams, three or four teams. MR. CARVIN-Okay. So, I mean, that's what L:m asking, is that you would need at least four teams, minimum, and you would have the potential of having a greater number than that, obviously, if more kids sign up, but if you had, what's a baseball team, ten or twelve kids, normally? MR. MORRISON-Yes. MR. CARVIN-So we're talking maybe 50 kids. MR. MORRISON-Yes. MR. CARVIN-Okay, and was this number given to some of the other powers to be, and what was their objection to 50 kids, I guess? MR. MORRISON-From the school, Mr. problem with the Maintenance and don't want to tie the fields up. the semi-pro team the Colonials. committing to us, you know, letting Modd, said that he would have a Grounds people up there, they Plus the fields were used by He had a problem as far as us come in. MR. FORD-What about the other fields? 'You mentioned Crandall? MR. MORRISON-That's used by American Legion Baseball teams. MR. CARVIN-Well, it seems to me, like, isn't there three or four baseball fields in Queensbury? And I know that when I drive by there on a summer's evening, I know there's, I call them the beer leagues. I ,mean, there's no way you can schedule in and around those, or is that a separate arrangement? I don't know. MR. MORRISON-Their answer was, they'd rather let the fields lay dormant than let us use them, because it would create a problem, an unnecessary headache as far as (lost word) with maintenance people, the high school fields. - 60 - ~ --- MR. MENTER-That's the one you'd have to use, the field or the senior field within the complex, right? the two options, right, in Queensþury? hiSh school Those are MR. MORRISON-Yes. MR. FORD-What is ,th~ frequency of use of aDY of the other fields, going back to Crandall, as an example? MR. MORRISON-Crandall Park, I believe the Legion teams playa 60 game schedule, anywhere, fr~m 40 to 60 games. I think it's usually three or four times ~ week, by the Legion team.. If they're not playing, they practice on that' facility. I even inquired about East Field, but ~e don't have any money, and it costs $500 to use that facility, for anything at all. MR. KARPELES~What do you want to put on this field that you don't have on their now? MR. CARVIN-Grass, I hope. MR. MORRISON-There's grass that's already been planted. MR. KARPELES-I mean, are you going to ,put bleachers or? MR. MORRISON-Just fences. MR. MARESCO-Now this is regional, too? You'll have other teams from other par~s of the State? MR. MORRISON-This isn't going to be a regional site. MR. MARESCO-It's not? MR. MORRISON-No. When I had a discussion with Mr. 'Martin, I said I would not excluqe anybody from the Warren County area. It didn't matter what school district they were from. MR. MARESCO-So they'll be playing other teams from other parts of the County? MR. MORRISON-No, no, no. This will be inclusive, there'll be a travel team. They'll have to go, like we had to do last fall. We went travelling all last fall, but we only had one team last fall, and we wound up traveling for a 10 game schedule. MRS. MORRISON MRS. MORRISON-I'm his wife. I'm also president of the Babe Ruth League, if we Qet it started. What ,it will be p¡~y~ng, on the field is just our Babe Ruth League, and like he was saying, he's not going to exclude anybody. Any chjld within ~he area can choose to join the Babe Ruth League and play in our League, okay. It'll only be our teams playing on that field. It won't be teams from Saratoga or anywhere else. It'll be just our three, four teams playing on that field, period. If we get into tournament action, the end of the season, it'll be a travel team. We will travel elsewhere to do that. Does that help? MR. MARESCO-Yes, it does. MRS. MORRISON-I mean, it's not a public field. It's private. MR. CARVIN-Okay, but you have no plans f¿r bleachers? How about dugouts for the kids? MRS. MORRISON-Event~ally, maybe, but they'd need ;benches to sit on. They don't need any of that. MR. MORRISON-The benches behind the fences are the only safety - 61 - -- , .~ factor that we have to consider. MRS. MORRISON-An old fashioned ball field where they can come and watch the kids play games and have a good time. MR. FORD-Could you address the parking issue, please? MR. MORRISON-Okay. From what waS read earlier, they say Proux Road's not on a Town map anymore. I talked to Mr. Hayes, and he showed me his property line, and I walked my mother's property line, and I pulled'out all the deeds, and Proux Road's listed on all the deeds. As a matter of fact, there's a bunch of junk we've got to clear off this road that the Town has dumped up there on that road. (lost word) like a ton and a half of blacktop that they didn't have use for. MR. MENTER-Excuse me, where does that road end? It just goes. MR. CARVIN-Straight back to the Northway. MR. MORRISON-The house that is on this property right now used to sit down this road. This house used to set right in the middle of the Northway. New York State moved this house from the middle of the Northway to this lot. It was a brand new, the house has just been (lost word) but the State moved it down to the corner lot. My mother bought from this corner all the way back to the Northway (lost word). MR. CARVIN-Okay. Jim, would you care to comment? Is this an abandoned road, or is this an official road, or is this just part of somebody's property at this point? MR. MARTIN-My understanding, it was a road by use, up until the time that the Northway was built, and then at that point, it went out of use as any sort of public right-of-way, and I think after a certain number of years, a road by use that is no longer used by the public reverts back to the underlying owner. A road by use is strictly that. It's not a road by deed. In other words, the Town does not own the property the road sits on. A road by use means that the Town has the right to continue to use it as a road, but should that use stop, then after a certain number of years, it reverts back to the underlying property owner, and I think that's the case with this road. MR. MENTER-W~ic~ would be Mr. Hayes. MR. MARTIN-I believe so, in this case. I haven't looked at the deeds or anything. MS. CIPPERLY-It has it's own tax map number, and that, it is registered to, that's what the last page of your notes is. MR. CARVIN-Yes. Do you know if Mr. Naylor has made a comment on this? I mean, does he plow this? He used it, do you know? MS. CIPPERLY-No, he doesn't plow it. MR. MARTIN-That's what I mean. If the Town stops maintaining it, and the public stops using it, then. MR. CARVIN-I've got to admit. I drove by it. In fact, I had a hard time finding it, several times, I ended up way down at by the river, as a matter of fact. MS. CIPPERLY-I've researched it through the Town Clerk's Office a few times, now, and thére's no record of it currently being a Town road. So, I'm just going on what I can find out. MR. MARTIN-The indication at this time is it's not a Town road. - 62 - .....- --- MR. CARVIN-Okay. All right. More to the no right~of-way over that road, then, is words, your only access to that field is this gentleman's say so? point, I mean, you have that, correc~?In other by the grace of God and MR. MORRISON-Yes. Well, I thought I had half of this road. I thought half of this road reverted bac~ to this property, because that's where it was originally taken fr9m (lost word) property. MS. CIPPERLY-We've also had this discussion a few times, Mr. Morrison and I, and he just insists that it's his way and not the way the ~apers are. MR. MORRISON-He had his property surveyed, and,he showed me the stakes the other day. MR. CARVIN-Well, the other problem I have, I mean, obviously, there may be an ownership issue, if it is a Town road. i I mean, I would certainly want to see it closer to the, we have a 50 foot road requirement, or a minimum, I guess of 40 f09t, right? MR. MENTER-Fifty feet. MR. CARVIN-Fifty issue, as far as things like that. feet Jor access, and I th,i nk it's a very good emergency equipment, ambulances, fire trucks, I mean, how would you addres.those concerns? MR. MORRISON-Well, like I said Mr. Hayes has already given us permission to go through there. MR. CARVIN-Okay. not? MR. MORRISON-No. I did~'t get it in writ~ng from him, but I had discussions with every neighbor around there,. Mr, Nolin has said that we can park cars Qn his property. ' ." Do you have that in writing by any chance or MR. CARVIN-Okay. Well,.~ have a problem y.si1;.h t.!:!ät., too, wi thout really being nailed down. Would you have any ,concept or idea of, on ,this property, because, really, this is the only thing that we Can address, and not what the neighbors mayor may not be willing to allow. Do you have any feel for what you would be able to comfortably accommodate, as far as parking? I mea~, if we're talking 50 kids, and we assume that even half of them have parents that show up at these games, we're probably talking. MR. MORRISON-There wouldn't be any more than 24 kids up there at a time. So if you get 20 cars, that's saying something right there. MR. CARVIN-Okay. MR. MORRISON-I don't know, ten, fifteen cars on th~re easy. MRS. MORRISON-And we never have more ~han one game ata time out there. We never have more than two teams at a time on the field, playing baseball. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Any provisions for lighting, or electricity out through th~1'e? MR. MORRISON-No. It's not necessary. We're only pl~ying games during the day. MR. CARVIN-So, there will be no lighting? MR. MORRISON-No. MR. CARVIN-Okay. How about a concession or food stand or restrooms, rest facilities? - 63 - ~ --' MR. MORRISON-No. Rest rooms are going to be portable bathrooms from AmeriCan in Saratoga. Service contract, they come and service it twice a week. I MR. CARVIN-N6 food or rlo concessions, things like that? MR. MORRISON-No. MRS. MORRISON-What people bring with them. MR. MORRISON-There'll be water there available. MR. CARVIN--Okay. Any other questions, Gentlemen? None at this point? In view of that, then I'd like to open up the public hearing for anyone wishing to be heard in support of the application? Anyone wishing to be heard in opposition? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED LOIS HUNTLEY MRS. HUNTLEY-I'm Lois Huntley, and I live on Arberger Drive, which, if you go down 8ig Boom, we're the second left, and Big Boom sets up in back of us. So the noise that we get, we can hear the cars on the Northway, and we're wondering what noise is going to filter down to us, between five thirty and eight thirty at night, when we eat dinner outside or have company or outside enjoying our own property, from up there, and I really didn't understand, I had a question for Mr. Morrison about the Queensbury Little League said that they may be able to work something out. I didn't really understand or. MR. MORRISON-No. Their season overlaps our season. Their site is a regional site for Little League baseball. They have the Regional Championships there through July and August. That's why that's not available. MRS. HUNTLEY-Because it was my understanding that they said that you may be able to work something out. Isn't that what you read in your letter, Mr. Carvin? Didn't you read in the letter that the Commissioner of Parks said that Queensbury Little League would be able to work something out, possibly, with them? MR. CARVIN-Yes. I think that that's a fair assessment. I think that Harry had indicated, says, "It would seem that Mr. Morrison and the Queensbury Little League might, therefore, work cooperatively so as not to duplicate facilities". So it would appear that, at least in Mr. Hansen's opinion, and this was as of March the 16th. MR. MENTER-He's not a representative of the Little League, Mr. Hansen. So he's just stating that he would hope that they could work this out, as a third party. MRS. HUNTLEY-I had a question about, there's a field over by West Glens Falls Fire'Department, which is not used. I was wondering why that field could not be used? MR. MORRISON-I already checked both, the field on one side belongs to the City of Glens Falls, and that's used by the City of Glens Falls for the summer softball league. I checked out the West Glens Falls Fire Department. That field's set up for softball, and there's no way it could conform to major league baseball. The bases are only 60 feet. MRS. HUNTLEY-Well, my objection, I guess, really, is that it is a quite residential area, and we're going to have a lot of traffic with a park at the end of Big Boom Road, and I would really like to keep it, at a minimum, adding any more traffic and people and noise in that area. - 64 - ',-, -...../ MR. CARVIN-:-Okay. MS. CIPPERLY-Another point about the park at the end of Big Boom Road, a baseball field was something that was proposed for that park, the Town Board currently doesn'i think that's a necessity down there. Maybe this would be a good indicator to them that there's a need for a baseball field in this area. MR. MORRISON-I already asked Mr. Hansen about that, in front of Mr. Martin, and he said it wasn't economically feasibl~ for the Town to build us a ball park down there. He said, why would I want to do that, when I could throw down bases dow~ there and have soft ball? Why would I want to build a, ball park for Babe Ruth baseball? MS. CIPPERLY-Well, his 'conversation with me was he wbuldn't mind if you brought your own bases and put ~h~RJqow¡n ~.'1d,¡! u~ed, ;,that area. MR. CARVIN-Is there a requirement in your League to have a fence o~ some sort, or does it have to be? MR. MORRISON-You necessary, to have not have a fence. dea,l wi th. can have an open field outfield~ It's not a fence. As a matter of fact, they'd rather It's an additional safety issue you have to MR. .cARVIN,-I mean, I don't know the plans on this park at the end of Big Boom. I mean, ~s there sufficient enough? MR. MARTIN-Well, when we talked, Harry did indicate that it was going to be for softball, but I don't know that. ¡thin~I,Sue,and Harry have talked since ,that time. Maybe it could be a dual usage type of a thing, where you could have movable þasesand that type of thi ng, ~<l/here it could be moved back. " MR. MARESCO-So you could modify it from one game to another game. It's just a matter of moving bases to different feet. MR. MARTIN-There's a pitcher's mound required. The bases are a different distance. I don't know if both those things coyld be accommodated on one field or not. MR. CARVIN-There's also another par,k, I thi nk, just side of the Northway, out Luzerne Road. I know basketball court. the other there's a MR. MARTIN-No. There's no ball field there, because ,there's power lines over head. MS. CIPPERL Y-Another, ,poi nt is this piece of pr'operty, why this piece of property is the only one in Town that YOU can consider putting a baseball field on? MR. CARVIN-Okay. Lets conti nue, with the public hear i ng, I guess. Yes. sir. MR. DEMARS MR. DEMARS-My name is Mr. DeMars, and I live down' by Elsie Dutra, and Mr. Morrison did come by my residence, and he and I talked about the project, and I had asked him how much have you done prior to going, how much cleaning of the area or anything of preparation of the area for a ball park have you done without going ahead of the Board or asking the Town if that's permissible in that'SR-1A area? And I think he said to me that he's alT~ady cleared the land. MR. MORRISON-Yes. The land's all cleared. - 65 - MR. DEMARS-Did he have any documentation, like pictures or anything like that? 'We're really not familiar with that lot being back there like that. I was just wondering if he had anything to present to the Board, as far as the area? I see a lot of hazards. MR. CARVIN-The visitation. vacant lot. only thing we have is a sketch, and a I suspect everybody's visited the lot. There's no vegetation that L can see. personal It's a MR. MARESCO-Nothing there. MR. FORD-But it has been planted, apparently. MR. DEMARS-Okay. It had been clear cut? You have to clear cut it to make the ball diamond, right? MR. MORRISON-It's cleared and leveled. MR. DEMARS-The entire lot is clear? MR. KARPELES-Yes. MR. CARVIN-I'm assuming that if his dimensions are correct, I mean, whatever he's got here would appear to be clear. MR. DEMARS-My question is, is clear cutting still allowed in the Town of Queensbury? MR. CARVIN-I don't know if this is. MR. MARTIN-Yes. beyond that of subdivide for a clear cut. There are no clearing restrictions above and a restriction on a subdivision. You can't period of four years on property that's been MR. DEMARS-Okay. That was one of my questions that I had. I just want to go on record that I do, and I told Jeffry, when he came to my house, that I would object to it. It seems that this particular area hás been gifted by several different projects that sometimes the Town of Queensbury doesn't want any other place. We've been given three towers. We've been given an abundance of every, a batch plant, and we've been given, excuse my French, holy Hell as far as the small community area. I think the saturation point is there. I would want to go on record that you deny this particular use and this variance in the SR-1A area. I see a lot of hazards in the layout. I got a freedom of information thing to where I could get the layout, etc., and stuff like that. I see a lot of the hazards. If this 16 and a half feet, I just don't see how any fire vehicles or anything like that could get in there. That would be one of the things I'd want to stress. I'd also want to stress whether or not this is a business, would he be deriving an income from this? MR. MORRISON-No. MR. DEMARS-There is no income? MR. MORRISON-No. I don't get paid anything. MR. DEMARS-Okay. So, in other words, responsibility wise, what are we talking about, insurances, etc.? Do you have to float a bond or something to have teams play there? Lastly, other teams come into the area. I see a tremendous amount of traffic. Our road is really not built for high traffic. It's a basic, country, little country type road. It isn't built for a lot of traffic, and there has been accidents on that. My daughter was hit at 10 years old, on that road. Today she limps from being hit with a truck on that road. I'd really fear of that. I have grandchildren that live with me now, and I fear for them also, on - 66 - -../ a day to day basi~. I f~el that the parties haven't ieally s~own sufficient hardship, as far as the application submitted. After hearing you gentlemen, as well as ladies, tonight go ,over some of these applications, it's like putting it to the wringe~~' I ~hink this thing could be digested pretty easy, in and out. This is an SR-1A area. I would just, want to go on record as opposing everything about it. We will have a park at the end of that road, whether it's going to be a ball d~amond in it or wþatever, and it's a flood zone area, and if the Town wants to put in $100 to $200,000 to rebuild that area up, it's a basic floQd zone area, I just think it's a waste of mon¿y. ~ think the' l~unch site would be applicable to that particular area. It would be great to have a boat launch, and that's about all I would say. Thank you. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Anyone else wishing to be heard in opposition? Any letters? MR. THOMAS-No, no letters. MR. CARVIN-All right. Any other public comment? MR. NOLIN MR. NOLIN-Yes, I'd like to say someihing. My name's Mr. Nolin, and I own the property north of where Mr. ,Morrison would like to put this ball park, and I think he is really going out on a limb to do something for these kids, and I donated my property for the parking, and there's also plenty of rigþt-of-way, for the emergency vehicles to pass through there at any time, ~nd I think it's unfair if you turn this man down for this. There's no place else for these kids to go. MR. CARVIN-Okay. How far, is this for a proposed park? How far is it from this particular site, do you know, right off hand, wh~re this new park is going in? MR. MARTIN-Right down at the very end of Big Bopm Ro~d. It's on the shores of the Hudson River. It's that area that you :can see from the Northway as you're heading in the north b04n~ lane. I don't know if you've been around here long enough to. 'remember the mud racing that used to go on in that area. MR. CARVIN-I think I was part of it the other day, if you really want to know the truth. ~R. FORD-Jim, when is it expected that that'll ~o in? MR. MARTIN-It's really up in the air at this point. The Recreation Commission's taking it up. They're looking at the budget of it now, and the detailed configuration of it, whether or not a ball field is in or out, whether it's repl~c~d by a tennis court. Those are the types of things they're looking at now. As a matter of fact, there's a public informatiç)f\~limeeting scheduled for April 12th at 7 o'clock. I think it's in this room, and that's the next thing I know that's coming with it. So I really can't answer you. I know, I think the most ~~iid thing is going to have to be the boat launch. If yOU were to take out the boat launch, you would clearly lose the State grant. So I think that's, and that may, and what configuration that takes, in terms of limited horse power, potentially, limited boat sizes, no motors. I don't know. MR. CARVIN-Okay. I have a couple of questions of Mr. Nol~n. I think some of the major concerns that ¡,know 1. have deal with, obviously, the parking and the access for emergency vehicles, and, certainly, if this was granted, I would only hope that your League would be successful and that you'd probably have ten or twelve teams. At what point would you be uncomfortable having 25 or 35 or 40 cars parked on your property? - 67 - -- MR. NOLIN-I wouldn't be. wouldn't bother me at all. I have almost two acres, and it MR. CARVIN-Okay, and then my subsidiary question, I guess, would be, would you be willing to grant right-of-ways or deed variances in your deed to allow that to happen, should you decide to sell the property at some point in the future, because what l have is that you may be very willing to support his endeavor, but your situation may change, and all of a sudden, we now have a use here and no parking or emergency facilities. So I guess, YOU know, I'm asking, how far are you willing? MR. NOLIN-I'd be willing to deed right-of-way for emergency vehicles, yes. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Well, how about the parking? 1 mean, it's easy to support the issue, but it's tougher, sometimes, to write the check, and this is what I'm driving at, and I honor your intent here, but me sitting here looking at this, I mean, I could only go by the property, in other words, and if I was to move, I would need a lot more information on this, as far as the parking, confine it tight to this, because this is the only thing that he, technically, has. I mean, your well intentions are very admirable. MR. NOLIN-I have no intentions of selling the property, but, I mean, you know, if I was to do somethi ng (lost WOYd). ' MR. CARVIN-Nobody ever does, but we had an applicant here who owned a property for eight and a half years, and he kind of sublet some to a bank, and never was going to sell it, but guess what happened, and boy what a mess that was. So I realize where you're coming from, but I live in the real world, and I know things will change, and unfortunately, when we grant a use variance on something like this, it goes with the land. as has been aptly pointed out. So, I mean, you know, our situations may change, but that use stays there, and I want to make sure that if we put a use in there, that we don't have these problems crop up in the future. MR. NOLIN-Well, (lost word) I'm willing to do my part while I'm there. I'll put that on paper. MR. CARVIN-Okay. I appreciate it. That answers my question. MR. FORD-Mr. Nolin, I have a question. Could you address the issue of being so close, about the noise? MR. NOLIN-The noise would not bother me. How going to get from a ball park with 10 kids? street with (lost word) vehicles make more else. l probably make more noise than they noise is any issue at all. much noise are yoU People go down the noise than anything did. I don't think MR. CARVIN-Well, I don't know the noise, but the traffic. MR. FORD-Yes. What about the, yoU don't think an increase in traffic is going to be an issue? MR. NOLIN-No. When they have parties down at the end of the road, down there, that involves more traffic than anything else does. MR. KARPELES-How about insurance? How about if one of those cars that's parked on your lot gets a baseball through the window or something and they SUè you? MR. MORRISON-That's covered by Sabe Ruth. MRè. MORRISON-That's covered by Babe Ruth Insurance. - 68 - --- ---- MR. NOLIN-Everybody that owns an automobile has insurance. MR. CARVIN-Okay, but suppose somebody's coming out o.f,:the ,parking lot and runs over a child on your pro~erty? I mean, will your homeowner's cover that? You see, that·s a fine line. I'm just saying, you know, somebody has a fender bender there, and you could be held negligent. MR. NOLIN-This is true, but I mean, if we stop doing 4hings because we're afraid to do it, nothing will ever get done. ,MR. ÇARVIN~Well, there's a everythirig, and that's what is the proper time and the other questions, Gentlemen? proper t~me and a proPer place for we've got to determine, whether this proper place for this. Okay. Any MR. MENTER-Yes, a quick question. What's the. access from your property? It ~ppeared to me as though that fence, the fence went all the way down. MR. NOLIN-There's a 12 foot section of fence that's on a hinge that does open, right behind that garage. MR. MENTER-That's toward the front of the property? MR. NOLIN-Toward the rea)" of the property . MR. MENTER-The big building in back, that garage.. MR. CARVIN-I guess there's a d60r gate here some place. MR. MENTER-Okay, and that would be the access this side? " from parking on MR. NOLIN-You could open that gate and you could easily get a fire truck through there. MR. MENTER-That's on the other side o~ your? MR. ,NOLIN-That's on the back side of the garage. MR. MENTER-Okay. MR. NOLIN-Between my garage and the fence (lost word). MR. MENTER-Because that garage, boy, th.at thing,? that's just a few feet from the fence, right? That garage is just a few feet from the fence?, MR. NOLIN~It's probably eight'foot from the fence. MR. MENTER-All I could think of is, boy, that sucker's going to get pummeled with baseballs. MR. NOLIN-Solid wood, can't hurt it. in it. It hasn't got any windows ,,' , MR. CARVIN-Okay. Any ,other questions of Mr. Nolin? Again, thank you. Anyone else from the Public wishing to þe heard? MR. DEMARS-I Just want to go on record, I'm not opposing what Jeffry's trying to do, as a good, it's good intentions behind what he's trying to do;. I just feel that. for that ,location. for him to try., to do that, ,,~ith the hopes. that it would be successful. Maybe he would draw four teams there, so I'm looking at 48 kids, I just feel that there's going to be an open door for a lot of problems, and, I thi nk he, will run up against a no recourse type of action. I mean, there's going to be problems there, and there's just no way we can get away from them. I feel that the cars are'actuaily going to park on the road, and the - 69 - '-- boys will walk in. I feel for that, and you can see how narrow that road is, and it's surprising. It comes up over knolls and stuff like that. It's hilly, but I just want to gO on record. I'm not opposed to his thinking, for what he's doing. I'm just opposed to the location, to the area. I think if the Town of Queensbury, and he could get together with Mr. Hansen and work something out to where he could get a locale, other than that particular lot, I think it would be for the betterment of everyone, and I c~mmend him for ~hat he's trying to do. I don't want to go on record a$ being opposed to Mr. Nolin. Mr. Nolin's bèen my neighbor for years, and Mrs. Dutra has been even longer than Mr. Nölin. I just want to go on record as being oPþosed to the project, in general, not being opposed to Mr. Morrison, and I told him that when he came to my house, asking my opinion about it,' and I immediately said, I would oppose it, because I know the problems only through our problem that we had with our daughter there, that there is a traffic problem. Nobody will want to admit it. There is a traffic problem. Thank you. MR. CARVIN-Again, thank you.' Okay. Anyone else? MRS. MORRISON-The reason we got into this was to have a place for kids to go and play baseball. There is nothing available in the Town of Queensbury. We've exhausted every option. Every field available is used. This is a very small League. Hopefully it will become successful and down the road, maybe the Town of Queensbury will get together and build a field somewhere else. Whether this is approved or not as a public use, we will play baseball in the field, even privately. This is our field of dreams. The traffic, you're not going to have more than ten, twelve cars at a time down there. You're only having ~wo teams at a time on the field. I don't feel that's an issue. The parking, there's not that many cars. If it's a real issue, we'll have them park some place else, car pool down the road. It can all be worked out. Any problems can be worked out, if you want to do it. We want to build this. We want to have it for the kids, to be there. All I'm saying is that, we can, there are oþtions. We can work this out. So we can have the field. That's all I've got to say. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Seeing no other indications from the public, I will close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. CARVIN-I will open it up for any questions from the Board, or comments. MR. MENTER-I have a comment. I know Jeff, somewhat. My son has played some baseball with him, and I was at a clinic with him a few weeks ago, actually, a coaching clinic. He was giving it. I was receiving it, and I was pretty excited when he told me about the thing. I thought it was just a super idea, and, in fact, I'm sure that my son would get as much use out of it as any kid, but when I went over and saw Jeff, I immediately had some real concerns, and I understand what you're saying, that struck me, saying that we can work it 04t, but, from our standpoint as a Board, you have to realize that there's only so many things we can do. I mean, we have pretty strict parameters within which we have to work, and OUY feelings are one thing, and our decisions are another thing. As far as the use variance goes, the very first thing ihat we need to consider is whether or not there's reasonable return possible on that piece of property without granting the variance. MRS. MORRISON-What do you mean by, reasonable return? MR. MENTER-Financial return, that you're going to suffer a financial loss because of the Zoning Ordinance on that piece of property, okay. If you can't show that then ~ understanding of - 70 - '- ---I the Ordinance is that we can't consider giving you a variance. I don't know if that's everybody else's exact interpretation, but it certai nly is mi ne. If that is shown, then we consider whether it affects th~ safety, health and welfare of the commun1ty, ~nd, from my standpoint~ to that point, I think it would. I think I < ',' .. ' '.' I " there are safety issues that would need to be, you ,know, would , .. '.' ',.... , .' ._._/ .;. " I "., need to be in-depth discussed. Parking, I think, i., an ' ~ssue that needs to be developed more, in order to get an approval on this, and hear what the oth~r Board members have to say, and it kills me, but it, just doesn't fit in my unqerstandil")g o,f what, of how much we can work with it. That's where 1 am on it" MR. MARESCO-I'll go next. I think it's a great idea, and I admi re what both of you are tryi ng to do here. ,Li ~e Dave was saying, we do have a certai~~riteria th~t has to be met~ and unfortunately, you haven't really met any of that crite~i~, and I think some of the issues are very important. I think noise, I think there will be a lot of noise, when you have two teams and parents and everybody else screaming and )(elling. ,Parking'~ a problem. Traffic's a major problem. ~ost of all, the issue 1 wou~d be concerned about would be the, safety aspecto! it. I think there's a real bi9 safety issue here. MRS.,MORRISON-As in what, safety of what? MR. MARESCO-As in safety of gettinge,mer.gency vehicle~, in ,there, if you have to get an ambulance in there, get a fire truck in t/:'1ere, the safety issue of who's goi ng to be responsible if, -God forbid there's, like Fred was saying. Supposing he's on a gentleman's property, and some other kids happen to get hit QY a car there? The traffic that this is going to generate, there's gping to be a lot of traffic. I ;:; MRS. MORRISON-It's not going to generate that much traffic. MR. MARESCO-Sure it will. to thirty extra cars there. You're going to have at leas{twenty I've been to little league fi,lds. MRS. MORRISON-Yes, with more than one field, and more than one game, going on at a time. You're right. We're goin~ to have one game at a tIme, two teams. MR. MARESCO-Right. So that's, you 're gO'~J1,g 'tj-o haw~. '''t0I~::tl~.1.qren there. MRS. MORRISON-Right. MR. MARESCO-The children have to get there somehow. , , MRS. ~ORRISON-And they always car pool. , MR. ,MARESCO-Right. You're goi ng to have grandparents. , going to have other spectators going there, watching. I think it's a great idea, but, unfortunately, personally, it's'great, but unfortunately we do have to,loo~ ai other You're mea n, I I think issues. MR. CARVIN-Tom~ comments, thoughts? MR. FORD-I'm SUppo}'tive of the effort being made on behalf of the youth of our community'. I, share the aforementioned concerns relative to safety and noise in the neighborhood and the potential for working with the Recreation Direct6r for the development of an appropriate facility at the end of the road,. MS. CIPPERLY-Or somewhere else in Town. MR. FORD-I also have one other question, relative to your comment, you will play baseball on that field ,reg,ardless of what our action is.' . . - 71 - -- MRS. MORRISON-We won't have a league. We'll just have kids out there playing baseball. There won't be a league. There won't be any games, but we'll have kids up there practicing, playing on the field. I mean, that's what they're for. We want to have a league. We want to have an organization. We want to have something so a lot of kids can be able to come and play ball. If it's denied, then we'll have (lost word) will have kids coming to play ball. MR. MORRISON-If seven or eight kids show up there and want to play baseball, they're going to be able to play baseball there. MRS. MORRISON-It won't be a league, but there'll be baseball on the field, and I guess our dream (lost word) organized to have the insurance, to have a league, to have the regulations, to be able to teach the kids the right way, and we don't have any other place to go. MR. MORRISON-This wasn't something that was done, every opportunity there was. Jim and I spent over fifteen minutes one day in his office, and I said, back unless I have no other options. Well, about six I came back. I've got no other options. I exhausted an hour and I won't be weeks later MRS. MORRISON-We'll have no other place to do it. MR. MARESCO-Queensbury's not willing to work with you? You've explored that? MR. MORRISON-I sat there and I talked with Mr. Modd for almost an hour, and he told me that they would not let us, use the field. Basically, it (lost word) two games on a Saturday. MR. MARESCO-Is there an insurance reason why they won't let you? MR. MORRISON-No. We've got our insurance. We've got the best insurance of any youth organization in the world. Babe Ruth Baseball's a primary insurance carrier. They're not a secondary insutance carrier like Little League. So the kid gets hurt, Babe Ruth's the one that foots the bill, not the parents' insurance, Babe Ruth Baseball, and that insurance covers that kid from the minute he leaves his house, through the game, from the minute he leaves the game, back to his house, be it a game or practice. It not only covers the kids, it covers the parents. It covers the spectators. It cover~ the umpir~s. It covers all the coaches. Insurance wasn't the issue. The issue was that they had a working agreemertt with the Glens Falls Colonials, and they didn't want to tie up the other field. The varsity field was totally out of the question. There was no way anybody, was going to get on that field at all. No one, and I even askéd to use the old varsity basebàll field, which is as ha1-d as a rock. The proposal I wrote up, we were going to come up and do all the grounds work. We wére going to provide all the bases. I even offered to mow it, and, you know, he said insurance wasn't the problem. He told me the problem would be within the maintenance part itself. MR. MENTER-How about the field up by us, up at Lake George? MRS. MORRISON~They have softball. MR. MENTER-No, no, no. The new field. MR. MORRISON-That's used for the TriCounty Middle League, isn't it? MR. MENTER-I don't think so. MR. MARTIN-They also have one at the grade school. two. They have - 72 - --- MR. MENTER-Yes. The new one out by the grad~school, out b~ck. Do you know the one I mean~ Jim, UP behind the elementary school? MRS. MORRISON-In Lake George? MR. MENTER-Yes. MR. MARTIN-There's two of them back there. I don't know. One may not be big enough. I , MR. MENTER-One's a 90 foot field. The high school uses it. It's a 90 foot field, just two years ago they built"they put it in. MR. MORRISON-The only field I thought was up there was the, one, the (lost word) complex itself. MR. MENTER-You know Beth? MR. MORRISON-Yes. MR. MENTER-I was talking to Beth abbut it the other day. MR. CARVIN-Is there any zones for an approval for baseball fields, or is it just athletic, recreation? MR. MARTIN-We have recreation commercial zones, limited, really, to the West Mountain area and ~he and then we have, obviously, the municipal parks. the extent of it. but they're Great Escape, That;s really MR. CARVIN-Okay. MR. MARTIN-I mean, thi.s is a conti nui ng problE;!m. I mean t ,I would like to, some day, look at the idea of actually purchasing some property in th~ States Avenues over there, where the central population is for W~st Glens Falls, and put a facility in there, ~ith a playground and a ball fiE;!ld,that's within walking distance to the center of the population th~r~. I think that would be well received. MR. CARVIN-Okay. All righty. Anyone else? Chris?, MR. THOMAS-I'd Just like to say that the Morrison's have a real good idea, and heaven knows that an~body in the age group thirteen and on up needs something to do.' You can seE! ,it in the news every day. They're always in some ,kind 'of trouble, but, here again, there's just too many proþlems with the traffic, the noise, parking and the safety issue, the traffiç with 1;he new park going at the end of the road dow~ there is going to generate more traffic, and with this there's, goJng to be traffic. The npise, when you get 20, kids together, they're always screami ng. There's no way to stop it, and you can't keep them quiet~ The parents are the same way. When my son played, I scream~Ø just as loud, if not louder than them. ., MRS. MORRISON-Usually the parents are the loudest. MR. THOMAS-Yes, and some of us get kicked out, too.. Saf,ety, there again, everybody's mentioned the fire apparatus. I don't see where fire apparatus would be ¡needed, but I co¥~d see an ambulance in there. Parking, that's another big thing, right along the road, and that's a very narrow road9 and also~there's a nice rise right to the south of that field there, because when I was pulling out of that Proux Road there today, I had to look twice, because I wasn't sure what I was seeing, and, like I said, this is a great idea, but it's the wrong place for such a great idea. MR. CARVIN-Yes. I just have a question. How close to the Northway is that back? In other words, when I was out the1-e, I - 73 - '-~ ,~' didn't dare drive out all the way, but it looks. MR. MORRISON-Good thing you didn't, you would have gotten stuck. MR. CARVIN-Yes, well, that's why I didn't, but trucks and traffic on the northbound side there. feet? I could see the Is it about 50 MR. MORRISON-150 feet. MR. CARVIN-From the back of the property line? MR. MORRISON-Äbout 100 at least. MR. THOMAS-There's a row of trees in there. You can't see the Northway. MR. CARVIN-Yes, I know, well, no. You can see it. MR. MORRISON-There's a big gap between the Northway. MR. CARVIN-You can see the traffic, and I was sitting up in here some place. MR. THOMAS-Yes. MR. CARVIN-And I could see traffic going by up here. MR. THOMAS-There's a row of trees back in there. MR. CARVIN~Yes, but I still could see traffic on the Northway. Absolutely, and that's why I thought it was closer. I was tempted to drive out there, but I looked at the mud situation, and I don't have a four wheel, and I didn't want to put the emergency equipment to the test there~ So, I thought discretion is the better part of valor. Okay. Bob, any comments? MR. KARPELES-No. I agree with everything that's been said. I have nothing new to add. MR. CARVIN-Yes. I have not a whole lot to add. I think that, you know, I applaud your efforts, but the plan a. presented, I think, has some major flaws, and I really would not be comfortable granting a use variance. As has beén stated before, a use variance goes with the land, and even though the neighbors may not have the, Mr. Nolin may not have a problem, I would really want all of those loose ends tied up before I could even consider granting a variance here. I'mean, I would want to know, the trouble is, if you've got four téams, that that's really not a big eDough league to make it worthwhile to change a zoning out there, or to grant a variance, and on ,the other hand, if you have twenty or twentY7five teams, then you have a whole lot more of the traffic and safety issues that we've broU!i;lhtup,'and I just have a hard time with it as it is presented. So I would ask for a motion, if there's no other comments or questions. Does anybody want to make it? MOTION TO DENY USE VARIANCE NO. 11-1995 JEFFRY D. MORRISON, Introduced by Fred Carvin who moved for its adoption, seconded by Chris Thomas: The applicant is proposing to construct a Babe Ruth Baseball Park in a single residence one acre lot, which is not an approved use as outlined under Section 179-19D. The applicant has not provided or proved. MR. MORRISON-Could I table this for 60 days, if I can work something out.:i~r far as'parkins and"'stuf'f goes dòwn thèr~?: MR. CARVIN-I'll leave it to the Board. - 74 - '- -";..,.! MR. MARESCO-I don't think parking is the major, it's the safety factor. MR. KARPELES-I think there are just too many factors. MR. MARESCO-It's too much. MR. THOMAS-Give him the benefit of the doubt. Let him go for the 60 days, I would say. That's!J!.:i.. opinion. If they want to table for 60 days, if they can find something else to do, give them the chance to do it. They've got a great idea here, but very limited resources to do it, and if they can come up with something else, I say give them the chance. MR. FORD-They may even be able to come up with this alternate site, the Lake George one, or another one. MR. THOMAS-With the Recreation Committee, There's a good chance your two cents in. meeting on April 12th with the Town is that what it was?,.Something like that. r~ght there to jump right in there, put MR. CARVIN-All right. Table it until the April meeting? MR. MORRISON-Yes. MR. THOMAS-And there's also, like Dave said, the Lake George, those parks up there, right off 9L, just beyond the, railroad overpass. You know where the bike path crosses? Just beyond that. Right there. There's those new fields in there. You can e'xplore that. MR. CARVIN-And I would also maybe stress getting a hold of Mr. Hansen to see if you can, maybe you can co-dev,elop this with him. MR. MORRISON-I've already talked to him about that. MR. CARVIN-Yes, but go back to him. change all the time. Maybe, ,you know, things MR. THOMAS~Try a different avenue. Try gping throu~h the Town CQuncilman, whoever's the councilman out in that area. Carol Pulver, I think, is the. MR. CARVIN-Because realistically, if the Town can develop that down there for you and work in conjunction with you, I mean, you get your cake and eat it too. I mean, because, you know, we're not critical of what you're trying to do. I'm just critiçal that it's not really a good ¡dea. There's an awfuJ lot of problems with that particular site, but I guess, i don't know, "does anybody else have a problem tabling it, and see if he can work out [ê$¡: more amen&ble solution? Remember, after 60 days. if we don'~ hear anything back, it is automatically canceled. MR. MORRISON-Okay. ,MR~~~,¡;:.oRD1So·we ~ re looki ng ?t Mr?1Y ': íeiaf ~X' rather, tha;f¡ Apr,i 1. MR. CARVIN-Well, 60 days is our normal time frame. MR. FORD-Yes, but someone had mentioned the April meeting. MR., CARVIN-Okay. Yes, we could actually go out until May. Yes. I think if you want to make the April meeting, it has to be filed within the next week or ten days. MOTION TO TABLE US~ VAR¡ANC~ NO. 11-1995 ,JEFFRY D. ~ORRISON, Introduced by Fred Carvin who moved for its adoption, seconded by Chris Thomas: - 75 - '- To allow the applicant an opportunity to explore other alternatives or to provide this Board with a more concise and comprehensive plan addressing traffic, safety, access and all the related issues that have been brought up tonight. Duly adopted this 22nd day of March, 1995, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Maresco, Mr. Menter, Mr. Karpeles, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Ford, Mr. Carvin NOES: NONE MR. CARVIN-Okay. It's tabled for a maximum of 60 days. MR. MORRISON-Okay. Thank you. USE VARIANCE NO~ 9-1995 ROBERT E. ORBAN, JR. CONT'D DR. ORBAN-I just made an official letter, signed and dated by myself, essentially, requesting for you to make the same thing, couched in the same terms. So review it and do as you like. I also have a list of what the offers to buy the building in the last two to three years have been, so that you can really take a look and compare the list of the kind of concerns that would like to buy the building, compared to the list that I've drawn up. That'll be self-explanatory. I have one comment if 1 may. MR. CARVIN-I'm not going to entertain any comments, other than a motion, to be very honest with you. We're at a motion stage. So I will entertain a motion, and that's all. We hav~ heard all the dialogue that I think we have at this point. So, pending the arrival of Sue, somebody can make a motion, or you can start to contemplate a motion here, unless som~body has a motion already written. MR. KARPELES-I want to take a look at what he's got. MR. MARESCO-Yes. Lets see what ~ got. DR. ORBAN-I have mentioned shortly billing service, added bookkeeper, stricken from my original list the items that I before we broke. I have stricken adjustor, foundation office, and notary public. I have in an effort to compromise. MR. KARPELES-What did you have in mind for a business consulting? DR. ORBAN-Once again, if somebody is hoping to éstablish a business or set up a business, and he's looking through the costs of doing it, financing it, what needs to be done~ how much it costs to set up the equipment for it, a bu~iness consultant, and while that may be somewhat open ended, it would seem to me that there would be rec6urse for the community, that tf there was something in there ~håt they felt was not appropriate, they could come back and say, look, this guy says, you know, here's his list. We don't think this falls under anything on this list. MR. CARVIN-Okay. I'm not going to entertain that. I think the Board is aware of that particular land mine, and I am going to disagree with that comment, and that's why I don't want to have any other, I don't think the public does have that input, and that's a comment that I'm making. DR. ORBAN-The lists on these two different sheets identical. The one with my signature is the request. one was just what I thought would be the closèst to would want to see. should be The othe," what you MR. CARVIN-Okay. I'm going to make a motion. MOTION TO APPROVE USE YARIANÇE NO. 9-1995 ROBERT E. ORBAN. JR., - 76 - ~ -....r Introduced by Fred Carvin who moved for its adoption, seconded by DavidMente)~ :' The applicant is seeking to utilize an existing structure for a denta! office, and is seeking relief from Section 179-20, which refers to a single family residential zone. A dental office is not an approved use in that zone~ under the current Ordinance. However, the applicant has demonstrated that a reasonable return cannot be expected and has demonstrated by competent financial evidence that by allowing a dentist's office in this s,ite, that a reasonable return could be expected. By allowing Dr. Orban to establish his dental practice at this location, we will not have a material affect on the essential character of the neighborhood. The alleged hardship relating to this property is unique due to the character of the structure and the fact that it was used as a commercia.l st,r4ctU'f\e b~;f,'or.,e zonin~_ .was .J.,nfõtj.tut,.~d, ~fn~thatr,,!this would be the minimum variance necessary to address thlS hardship as proven by the applicant and at the same :1::ime protect. the charact~r of the neighborhood and the health, safety ~nd welfare of trlecomr;nunity '~ Dr. Orban has also indicated that he is agreeable to make all efforts to have minimum sign.age and has d~veloped adequ~te plans addresslngaccess and egre~s, parking and landscaping, and has agreed, and it should be noted that this particular variance will be submitted to the Planning Board for site p¡an review. I feel that Dr. Orban has competently proven his right, and I emphasize his right, to be granted this Use Va}"iance, and <?gain, I .would like to emphasize, that by granting this variance to Dr. Orban, that this is the minimum variance ,necessary and, ad~quate to add'"ess the ha}"dship that has been proven by the applicant. Duly a~opted this 22nd day of March, 1995, by the followjng vote: MR. THOMAS-So you're not going to include anything on this list in your motion, or any other statement? MR. CARVIN-No. I feel .that that's maximum relief. MR. THOMAS-Okay AYES: Mr. Maresco, Mr. Menter, Mr. Carvin NOES: Mr. Ford, Mr. Karpeles, Mr. Thomas MR. CARVIN-It's three to three. therefore, it's, denied. It's a no action. So, MRS. CIPPERLY-Your motion is denied. MR. CARVIN-The applicatJon is denied. So I will entertain a denial, bl:.lt I thi ok that' this is what Paul was referr i ng 'to, is that it's a no açtion~~d, therefore, it,is denied, because it's not approved. s6~ therefore, it's denied, but í would request that we continue our efforts until we reach some kind of consensus. 'Either we can have a discussion on my motion, or I will entertain a new motion, addressing the issues. So which would you prefer? I .¡:, MR. THOMAS-I would li~e to talk about your motion, as is, and add the condition to the list that Dr. Orban provided us. MR. CARVIN-Okay. I do not find, as the maker of that motion,the amendment to be acceptable, because of the obvious and stated reasons as, I have said before, and I think my ~otion cove~s my feeling, as best as I can determine, ihat I have no hard problem granting Dr. Orban the variance. I think that we have to be guided by our guideline;:;, and I think that he has proven that, beyond a shadow of a'doubt, that financial return cannot be :1~0o/'lfLC;)fí~¡8bl'>5 r,e.tµ{ned,ornd al1;!ì049Þ ., ,¡ t..h~nk h,~ ',s''prqyiiq~i~¡:for the owner and not necessarily himself, because he is not the - 77 - ,- owner, but I think that, by surrogate, he is proving the point that that property, he does have a right and will do a good job in there, that it is a unique situation, because it was a, at one time in history, it has been more a commercial or business venture. By allowing him to go in with the site plan review, he's addressed all the issues that we have brought up, in a very satisfactory manner. So I do not feel that he will alter or have an essential, you know, change the essential character of the neighborhood, which is one of our criteria. The alleged hardship is not self created. I think by granting ~ the variance, that's not a self created situation. He's dealing with an existing situation that he did not create. However, by adding some of these things, I think that his desire to have the say as to, or the decision making capabilities of determining who else joins him in that site is a self created situation, and again, I emphasize that that is not a criteria for granting a variance, because he needs somebody else to help support or defray the expenses. DR. ORBAN-That's not true. That is not a factual statement. MR. CARVIN-I'm granting you the variance, but the fact that he wants some latitude above and beyond, for the future, is a self created situation. It may not be a problem of a variance in five years, if he has to sell the property as it is currently zoned, and I think the biggest issue is that by putting these addendum on, that we would be granting a maximum relief, and not the minimum relief, which is what we are obligated to do, and that has been my position right from the get go, and that's the way I have structured my motion, and that's the way I feel. MR. KARPELES-Well, yes, the rest of us have opinions, too. MR. CARVIN-Well, we're deadlocked. MR. KARPELES-Maybe we çªn resolve it. l would go along with this list that he's got here, and I'd go along with what ~ have. MR. MENTER-Someone has to propose a new motion. MR. MARTIN-I will say, as a matter of order, if you do not amend that existing motion, then you should make a motion to rescind that, because right now, technically, we have a denied application. I think YOU need to rescind the denial, and then entertain a different motion. MR. CARVIN-Well, I'm not quite sure how we get untangled from the rescind, because I think we would need a unanimous vote in that, to rescind. MR. MENTER-I'm not sure about that, Jim. MR. THOMAS-I think, if you withdraw your motion. MR. MARTIN-It has to be voted on. MR. THOMAS-Well, can't someone else amend his motion? MR. MARTIN-Yes. It can be amended. MR. FORD-So that we can hopefully get to another motion that might pass, I would move that we rescind the previous denial. MOTION TO RESCIND THE PREVIOUS DEN¡AL, Introduced by Thomas Ford who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Karpeles: Duly adopted this 22nd day of March, 1995, by the following vote: MR. CARVIN-I think we ought to get clarification whether we need a unanimous vote to rescind. - 78 - .--' -.¡ MR. THOMAS-Try it and see if we do. MR. CARVIN-Okay. AYES: Mr. Maresco, Mr. Menter. Mr. Karpeles, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Ford, Mr. Carvin NOES: NONE MR. CARVIN-We'll rescind the motion. MR. KARPELES-Are you going to make a motion? MR. THOMAS-I 'would use Mr. Carvin's words, and with the following condition. that professional occupations in the building be defined by thee following list: Accountant, Actuary, Answering Service, Architect, Landscape Archit~ct, Attorney, Lawyer, Audiologist, Bookkeeper, Business Consultant, Counselor Marriage, Family, Child, Individual. Chiropractor, Computer Assistant, Designer/Consultant, Dentist, De~tal Hygienist/Dental Technician, Dietitian. Draftsman, Engineer. Financial Planner, Graphics Designer, Hypnoiherapist, literary agent, marketing consultant~ occupational therapists, physical therapists, physician M.D., D.O., Patent Agent, podiatrist, chiropodist, psychologist, public ,"elations counselor, resume service, speech pathologist, transcription service, translator/interpreter, tutor. MR. ~ARVIN-All right. Before there's a second" I ~ant you to be very careful with this. because if Dr. Orban backs away from this transaction, you are ~iving a variance to that owner over there for all of these situations. Now I'm not saying that he is or isn't, but I'm saying that YOU are granting a varianc~ to the land. MS. CIPPERLY-We need, also, you discussed putting a site plan app,"oval in. MR. MARTIN-I think that's still in there. MR. THOMAS-Yes. I said use Fred's exact word~ and with the following condition. MR. KARPELES-Wouldn't you also like to restrict how many principal businesses can be in that building? MR. THOMAS-Do you think we need to? MR. KARPELES-I do, yes, because you could have all these in there. MR. THOMAS-Well, you've got 1250 square feet left. MR. CARVIN-This time. MR. KARPELES-I think that you should say no mOTe. ~han, two principal buildings. MR. THOMAS-All right. We'll add'to the motion that there be no more than two principal businesses in the building at anyone time, 'as part, of th,e condi tion. Anythi ng else?',' MR. MENTER-Does that whole ffiQtion ,tie¡,toge,ther? Ii', . - - ". .: '-, --, i 1 , , . ¡J "f ~~ MR. CARVIN-I don't think so. MR. MENTER-I don't, either. MR. FORD-Could we hear the motion, before we ask for the second? - 79 - MR. MENTER-Fred was going on a totally different premise. MR. THOMAS-No. All I did was add conditions to it. I used Fred's motion for approval and just added conditions to it. MR. CARVIN-But I'm just saying that my that this is not, I mean, if you feel relief. motion still addresses that this is minimum MR. THOMAS-Well, read it back. There's a part out of there that I'd want to maybe whack out. Strike out the part there that refers to that this variance would only go to Dr. Orban. MR. CARVIN-I'm just saying that you're granting a blanket approval. I think you're trying to adapt ~ motion to your motion, and it isn't coming out right. MR. THOMAS-Yes. It isn't coming out right. MR. CARVIN-It's not going to work. It's a bad motion. My motion addresses these issues on the minimum variance, and you guys are throwing it far afield. MR. THOMAS-I'm going to withdraw my motion. MR. KARPELES-I'll try it. MOTION TO APPROVE USE VARIANCE NO. 9-1995 ROBERT E. ORBAN. JR., Introduced by Robert Karpeles who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford: With the following restrictions: That no more than two principal occupants at anyone time in the building, and that it be granted for a professional occupation only, and professional occupation is defined by the following list: Accountant, Actuary, Answering Service, Architect/Landscape Architect, Attorney/Lawyer, Audiologist, Bookkeeper, Business Consultant, Counselor Marriage, Family Child, Individual, Chiropractor, Computer Systems Designer/Consultant, Dentist, Dental Hygienist, Dental Assistant, Dietitian, Draftsman, Engineer, Financial Planner, Graphics Designer, Hypnotherapist; Literary Agent, Marketing Consultant, Occupational Therapist, Physical Therapist, Physician, M.D., D.O., Patent Agent, Podiatrist/Chiropodist, Psychologist, Public Relations Counselor, Resume Service, Speech Pathologist, Transcription Service, Translator/Interpreter, Tutor. The issues of hardship, reasonable return, and marketability as a residential property have been addressed and resolved with appropriate documentation. The Board is of the opinion that the character of the neighborhood is not adversely affected, and will probably be improved. Circumstances are unique because of the nature of the business. Any of these uses will be subject to site plan review. Duly adopted this 22nd day of March, 1995, by the following vote: MR. FORD-Jim, does this 1-aise any red flags for you, any concerns for you that you want to bring to our attention before we vote? MR. MARTIN-Actually, this is a pretty detailed list. I mean, this is a lot more detail than what we're used to in our use schedules out of the zoning districts. I mean, I clearly now know if a dance instructor comes in for an office in that building, she's not going to be permitted, or he would not be permitted. This is, it's not on the list. MR. THOMAS-I don't think Dr. Orban would offer it to. MR. MARTIN-I'm just saying, as an example of something that's not on the list. It has to be on this list. - 80 - ~, (- ", ~ ........ MR. CARVIN-I would like to caveat that this only applies if Dr. Orban buys the property" because I don't just want to leave a land mine out there, because remember, if we grant this, this is to Di. Orban, and baied upon the premise thath~ buys the property.., MR. KARPELES-I don't see where there's any difference whether it's Dr. Orban or anybody else that buys the property. MR. CARVIN-Then lets, just for argument's sake, that"Dr. Orban steps away, and now you've got a whole marketing situation. MR. KARPELES-I can't think of anybody I'd rather market it to than these people, these professions. MR. FORD-I'm ready to vote. MS. CIPPERLY-You really shouldn't base your variance on who the applicant is, ~ince it goes with the property. MR. CARVIN-It goes with the property, and that's my point exactly. MS. CIPPERLY-And I'm not saying that you are or you aren;t. MR. MENTER-Perhaps we should vote. "AYES"; , ;"J) ¡ . '-1~i ..':C':: Mr. Karpeles, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Ford, Mr. Maresco NOES: Mr. Menter, Mr. Carvin MR. CARVIN-Approved, with conditions. DR. ORBAN-I appreciate your deliberatíon. MR. CARVIN-Any other business before the Spard? ~djourn, then. I'd move to On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Fred Carvin, Chairman - 81 -