2010.02.16
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
FIRST REGULAR MEETING
FEBRUARY 16, 2010
INDEX
Site Plan No. 53-2007 Provident Batavia, LLC 1.
ADMINISTRATIVE ITEM Tax Map No. 239.7-1-14
Site Plan No. 36-2009 Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless 2.
ADMINISTRATIVE ITEM Tax Map No. 307.-1-31
Site Plan No. 8-2010 Steve & Debbie Seaboyer 4.
RECOMMENDATION TO ZBA Tax Map No. 227.13-2-36
Site Plan No. 9-2010 Jamie Walther for Tim & Lucy Moriarty 19.
RECOMMENDATION TO ZBA Tax Map No. 226.19-2-34
Site Plan No. 1-2010 G.A. Bove & Sons, Inc. 22.
Freshwater Wetlands 1-2010 Tax Map No. 303.19-1-47
Subdivision No. 3-2010 Babajani & Mama, LLC 30.
PRELIMINARY STAGE Tax Map No. 296.13-1-17
Site Plan No. 10-2010 Babajani & Mama, LLC 38.
Tax Map No. 296.13-1-17
THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO BOARD
AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING
MONTHS MINUTES (IF ANY) AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL OF SAID
MINUTES.
0
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
FIRST REGULAR MEETING
FEBRUARY 16, 2010
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
CHRIS HUNSINGER, CHAIRMAN
GRETCHEN STEFFAN, SECRETARY
DONALD SIPP
PAUL SCHONEWOLF
STEPHEN TRAVER
DONALD KREBS
MEMBERS ABSENT
THOMAS FORD
MR. HUNSINGER-I’d like to welcome everyone to the Town of Queensbury Planning
Board meeting on Tuesday, February 16, 2010. On the back table is a copy of this
evening’s agenda, and if you are here for a public hearing, there’s also a handout on
public hearing information. I would ask that you take a look at that if you plan to speak
during one of the public hearings scheduled this evening. Our first item on the agenda is
thth
approval of minutes from December 15 and December 17 of 2009.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
December 15, 2009
December 17, 2009
MOTION TO APPROVE THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING MINUTES
THTH
OF DECEMBER 15 AND DECEMBER 17, 2009, Introduced by Donald Krebs who
moved for its adoption, seconded by Gretchen Steffan:
th
Duly adopted this 16 day of February, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Krebs, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Ford
MR. HUNSINGER-The first item on the agenda under Administrative Items is Provident
Batavia, , LLC.
ADMINISTRATIVE ITEMS:
SITE PLAN 53-2007 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED PROVIDENT BATAVIA, LLC
AGENT(S) BARTLETT PONTIFF STEWART & RHODES OWNER(S) SAME
ZONING WR LOCATION 67 KNOX ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES
CONSTRUCTION OF A 2,711 +/- SQ. FT. SINGLE FAMILY DWELLING WITH A 414 +/-
SQUARE FOOT ATTACHED GARAGE. THIS PROPOSAL HAS BEEN CLASSIFIED
AS A MAJOR STORMWATER PROJECT; PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND
APPROVAL IS REQUIRED. AN ARTICLE 78 RELATIVE TO A 12/16/09 ZBA
DECISION WAS FILED ON 1/15/2010 BY B P S R, THE SITE PLAN TO BE TABLED
PENDING A DECISION. CROSS REFERENCE NOA 11-07, NOA 4-09 WARREN
CO. PLANNING N/A APA, CEA, OTHER APA, L G CEA LOT SIZE 0.43 +/- ACRES
TAX MAP NO. 239.7-1-14 SECTION 179-9-010
MR. HUNSINGER-Is there anyone here from the applicant?
MR. OBORNE-I would doubt it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. In our package, well, I’ll let you.
MR. OBORNE-Well, basically what happened is the Zoning Board of Appeals overturned
the Zoning Administrator’s determination and as such the applicant has filed an Article
78 against the Zoning Board of Appeals that is currently in litigation. I guess the long
1
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
and short of it is, the reason is the Zoning Board of Appeals felt that the applicant should
be viewed and reviewed under the new Code and not the old Code.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-And the applicant thinks they should be viewed under the old Code.
MR. OBORNE-As does the Zoning Administrator. Correct.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. All right. Then I’ll make a motion to table.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 53-2007 PROVIDENT BATAVIA, LLC, Introduced
by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Donald Krebs:
1)A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the
following: Applicant proposes construction of a 2,503 sq. ft. single family dwelling
with a 406 square foot attached garage. This proposal has been classified as a
Major Stormwater project; Planning Board review and approval is required. An
Article 78 relative to a 12/16/09 ZBA decision was filed on 1/15/2010 by Bartlett
Pontiff Stewart & Rhodes; the site plan to be tabled pending a decision; and
2)A public hearing was advertised and held on 10/23/07, 7/28/09, 9/22/09 &
11/17/09 and tabled to 2/23/2010; and
3)MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 53-2007 PROVIDENT BATAVIA, LLC,
Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Donald
Krebs:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. This is tabled to the April 27, 2010
Planning Board meeting.
th
Duly adopted this 16 day of February, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Traver, Mr. Krebs, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Ford
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. The next item is a similar issue with Cellco Partnership, d/b/a
Verizon Wireless.
SITE PLAN 36-2009 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED CELLCO PARTNERSHIP d/b/a
VERIZON WIRELESS AGENT(S) JARED LUSK, NIXON PEABODY LLP OWNER(S)
ARTHUR L. HULL, CHRISTINE D. HULL ZONING MDR; LC-10A LOCATION 311
WEST MT. RD. APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 120 +/- SQUARE
FOOT TALL WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS FACILITY. NEW
TELECOMMUNICATION TOWERS ARE SUBJECT TO SITE PLAN REVIEW AND
APPROVAL. THE PLANNING BOARD TO PROVIDE A WRITTEN
RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS PER SECTION 179-9-
070 J 2 b. APPLICANT HAS REQUESTED TO BE TABLED TO A MARCH 2010
AGENDA – SEE LETTER FROM J. LUSK. CROSS REFERENCE UV 66-09 WARREN
CO. PLANNING 11/10/09 APA, CEA, DEC, ACOE, OTHER APA WETLANDS LOT
SIZE 147.23 +/- TAX MAP NO. 307.-1-31 SECTION 179-5-130
MR. HUNSINGER-Did they specify a date in March?
MR. OBORNE-They have submitted at this point. You had tabled them, or we are
preparing a tabling to the second meeting in March, and that would be for a
recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals. They have met the requirements of
the application at this point. They submitted today, and we anticipate them having
placement on the agenda in March.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-The Zoning Board agenda or the Planning Board agenda?
2
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. OBORNE-The Planning Board agenda at this point.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. OBORNE-Yes, and I do want to, just a quick side, is that we probably have 20
applications in for March.
MR. HUNSINGER-So we had a nice light month in February, but not again in March.
MR. OBORNE-And it’s all come back to haunt us.
MR. HUNSINGER-Wow.
MRS. STEFFAN-So should this be tabled to March or April?
MR. OBORNE-Yes, ma’am.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-The second meeting, right?
MR. OBORNE-The second meeting in March.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Which is the?
rd
MRS. STEFFAN-23.
rd
MR. SCHONEWOLF-23.
MR. OBORNE-That is correct.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Then I’ll make a motion to table.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 36-2009 CELLCO PARTNERSHIP d/b/a
VERIZON WIRELESS, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Stephen Traver:
1)A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the
following: Applicant proposes construction of a 120+/- foot tall wireless
telecommunications facility. New Telecommunication Towers are subject to Site
Plan Review and approval. The Planning Board to provide a written
recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals per Section 179-9-070 J 2 b.
Applicant has requested to be tabled to a March 2010 agenda.
2)A public hearing was advertised and held on 12/17/09 and tabled to 2/23/2010;
and
3)MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 36-2009 CELLCO PARTNERSHIP d/b/a
VERIZON WIRELESS, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver:
rd
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. This is tabled to the March 23
Planning Board meeting.
th
Duly adopted this 16 day of February, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Krebs, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Ford
MR. HUNSINGER-We have two items on the agenda this evening for Recommendations
to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
RECOMMENDATION TO ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS:
AV 6-2010/SP 8-10: STEVE & DEBBIE SEABOYER APPLICANT PROPOSES
CHANGES TO PREVIOUSLY APPROVED STORMWATER PLAN. RELIEF
3
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
REQUESTED FROM FLOOR AREA RATIO REQUIREMENT AND THE
REQUIREMENT THAT INFILTRATION DEVICES BE LOCATED A MINIMUM OF 100
FT. FROM THE SHORELINE OF LAKE GEORGE.
DEAN HOWLAND, REPRESENTING APPLICANTS, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you’re ready to summarize Staff Notes.
MR. OBORNE-This is Area Variance 6-2010, Site Plan 8-2010. The applicant is Steven
and Debbie Seaboyer. Requested action recommendation to the Zoning Board of
Appeals concerning the relief requested in the variance application, as well as the
potential impacts of this project on the neighborhood and surrounding community. The
location is 83 Rockhurst Road. Zoning is Waterfront Residential, or WR. This is a Type
II SEQRA for Site Plan and for Area Variance. You see the Parcel History. Project
Description: Applicant requires approval after the fact for changes to previously
approved stormwater plan. Further, applicant requires approval after the fact for filling
within 50 feet of shoreline and hard surfacing within 100 feet of a shoreline. The
Planning Board to briefly review and discuss this application and recommend to the ZBA
any potential impacts the relief requested would have on the overall project,
neighborhood and/or surrounding community. I’ll quickly go through the nature of the
variances. One is Infiltration devices located within 100 ft of shoreline: Project requires
97 feet or 97% relief for north infiltration device and 95 feet or 95% relief for the south
infiltration device. Project requires 55 feet or 55% relief for the crush stone and
perforated pipe infiltration system installed below grade along the eastern and northern
portion of the property. The second nature of the variance is Floor Area Ratio relief.
Area Variance 81-2005 approved a 2,756 square foot single family dwelling with
attached garage. According to the applicant, the project now requires 601 square feet.
Staff did run the numbers, and we came up with 547 square feet, a little bit less. What
happened is explained below that in bold. I’m assming that the Planning Board has
reviewed that. Staff comments, again, this parcel is located in the Rockhurst adjacent to
Lake George. It’s characterized by densely packed single family homes with some
seasonal camps on parcels ranging in size from 0.06 acres to 0.80 acres with an
average lot size is approximately 0.25 acres. Soils are listed also. What I have done for
the Site Plan Review, I accomplished that by reviewing and responding to the responses
of the Zoning Administrator’s letter. The site is already developed and stabilized at this
point. Additional Comments, Paragon Engineering comments are attached, and the
Planning Board, as a condition of approval, may direct the applicant to have the plans
sealed by a professional engineer, but I really wouldn’t bring that up until Site Plan
Review at this point, and with that I’d turn it over to the Board.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Great. Thank you. Good evening.
MR. HOWLAND-Good evening.
MR. HUNSINGER-If you could identify yourself for the record.
MR. HOWLAND-My name is Dean Howland. I’m the agent for the owners. They’re out
of town with an illness in the family, and I guess I can start to explain part of it.
MR. HUNSINGER-That would be great. Thanks.
MR. HOWLAND-Well, let’s take the Floor Area Ratio. There’s no difference to the plan
that was built than to the plan that you approved, or started to approve maybe four years
ago. It’s just the way that you calculate it. The patios were done as non-permeable
areas on the lot and everything. Well, now since there’s a deck above it you count it as
Floor Area Ratio. The mechanical room was always there. Still there, but now you count
it as the Floor Area Ratio. The front entry overhang you approved, but now you count it
as a Floor Area Ratio. So there’s really no difference. This is just the semantics of your
new zoning law as compared to your old zoning law. That’s how I take it. There was
originally, since this started, 2004 I think we did the drawings, and if you notice, I brought
the pictures of the old house. It would be the lower, well, the one that’s on the left hand
side just above the approved site plan, on the very left upper one, and if you look at it,
you’re going to see that there was an overhang over what is the master bedroom. The
master bedroom’s actually below the garage, and either, and again, this went on for so
long the first time, was only involved in the first three months. I came back once the
second year, and then I never, then it was lawyers and I think just lawyers at that time,
but there was a three foot overhang, and it was always there, I just, I didn’t put it on the
drawing way back when, but there’s a structural, there’s a garage above the master
bedroom and it has structural slabs on them and they actually stick out about three
4
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
inches past the edge of the house, and that’s what that overhang varied. When I put the
drawings in for the, I’m sorry, when I put the stamped drawings in to get a building
permit, that roof system was shown on there, only except for the one foot overhang
which I’ll explain later on, and that was approved by everybody including, Craig Brown
had (lost words), so, I mean, what we built, other than a one foot overhang on the very
south side, which I’ll explain why I put it there, everything else was there, and the lattice
underneath the deck. I didn’t have that. I have other pictures to show you on that. So I
really don’t know how to address the Floor Area Ratio, other than what I just said. It’s
just, that’s what your new zoning law is stating now, so we figured it out that way. The
crushed stone, I’m just going to explain. This soil, you have it down as a fine, sandy
loam. This soil will be, the existing soil didn’t drain anything. It could not drain anything.
If you walked in it when it was wet, you had to take a scrub brush to get the mud off your
feet. You couldn’t wash it off. You couldn’t stand in a puddle or a snow bank. It’s a
much heavier soil. I assume that’s just the generic areas, because we have built other
houses on Rockhurst, and we have been into that sandy loam soil. This is a very thick
soil. I’m going to go ahead a little bit, but when you, Keith, can you go back to the
overhead view of Rockhurst Road? You see on Rockhurst Road, on the upper right
hand side, you see two things happen. One was after the first application for this project
was made, there was a house that was built across the street, a very pretty house, and
it’s on, if you look in the upper right hand corner, the red, you’re going to see right across
the street you’re going to see, it’s a parking area. Previously to this, there was a parking
area in that area, but it was perpendicular to the road, and it pitched away from the road.
So it took a lot of water off the road and down around that house. Now that has a
curbing now and that curbing pushes all the water that’s coming down the road back into
the road. Can I go up there and just point out something, what happens now, and this,
you have to be there during the big rainstorms.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure, go ahead.
MR. HOWLAND-But you have this parking area here now. This is the only, this lot here
is below the road. The Seaboyer’s house is below the road. The Seaboyer’s takes
about, the runoff from about 12 homes up and down this road, on either the north side of
the property or the south side of the property. Originally there was a driveway here, and
when that rained, the Seaboyers said when it rained, it would take anywhere from two
inches to four inches of water for the width of the driveway, which was 12 feet. This area
over on the south side would quite obviously take some water because the owner next
door had crushed stones and they had it terraced and a little bit of a stone there to help
slow down the water, but what the water would do, it would run down and go right in the
lake. This would run down, over shoot the wall, and go right into the lake. What
happened when this was built, now the water, this water didn’t go out this way. This
water came out here, comes down right about here, and makes a U’y and comes back to
here. That was the first thing that happened that added more water, since, again, the
project was first brought to your attention. The second one that happened was new
customers bought the house to the north, and it was approved for a leach field, and they
excavated eight feet, filled it in, and it came approximately about three feet above the
existing, the old grade, and what happened, the water used to come this way, because
we were there, we watched it, we were building over the years. We could see, it would
come this way, and some of it would come down and go down on their property, and
then a lot of it would come down here and, again, add to that water at a later date. What
happens now, this was, you had to watch this when it rained, it happened. Now the
water gets, comes out, it gets pushed out, it actually goes across the street, a lot of it. I’d
say more than half from when you watch it coming, and so that goes over here. So when
it rains, this side, the house was getting four inches to ten inches deep of water, about
six feet wide, just screaming down here. So, watching this, and again, you know the big
summer storms that we have and everything. You know the storm we had a week ago
Monday or two weeks ago Monday. That kind of rainstorm is when you see this water
coming down here. Well, we originally had started out, and again, on the stormwater
plan, which I’ll turn my plan over, the engineers did about, I think it was 300 plus feet on
one side of the house, which would have been this roof, this roof plane here, and they
did about 250 feet on this roof plane. That’s what those little retention ponds were for,
and the first approved retention pond was right about here. Well, I’m talking, it wasn’t
even 30 seconds and all we had gotten was that one in. It was totally filled up with
water, and just went by, and we didn’t have any gutters up yet. This was why we were
under construction. So we were watching the water come and saying, we’ve got to do
something about it. When this was done, this house has been here over 50 years, and
Jeff Clark, he’s on crutches, I’m not sure why, but we had to go and divert the water so
that it wouldn’t go into his garage. There’s a room below it, and that’s never happened
before. That’s just, this water it could sort of take, but that water, throwing all that water
out in the road, it just couldn’t take it on this side of the property. We had, there’s
5
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
another thing, there was a little two foot wide, three foot deep, six foot long trench that
was supposed to catch the water coming off this driveway coming this way.
Unfortunately the pitch of the driveway went to the south, so I mean the water never
made it to it. It was sort of a look good on paper, but it wasn’t ever going to get there. It
wasn’t going to run uphill. So when this happened, we had to do something about the
water. I mean, it just would scream into the water, and if you remember, you approved
all the natural Lake George plants along the water’s edge, and I have pictures of what
was approved for putting in. I mean, the only thing that was there was heavy low (lost
words) yews with huge root systems, because anything else, it was just going to take it
with it. I mean, when that water comes, it’s going to take it with it. So we were, we had
to, we had done this area and backfilled this area here, and then we had come around
on this area because that’s our only way in, our only way out. So we had to start our
finished site work going this way. Now it said in the plans that we filled in the area. Well,
we’ve removed much more fill than what we brought back in. When you have a heavy
clay based soil, the reason that they were doing this, they were elevating their basement
floor, which was approved, and the same thing underneath the (lost word), because they
always had water in it. Well, we knew why the had water. I mean, they just took so
much water on this piece of property. So we backfilled, when we excavated, we left the
garage excavation. We took this out, and we took the soil out that was underneath it and
we backfilled. We put down a filter fabric and we put in crushed stone underneath the
slab, which I would do anyway in any clay base area, any rock base area, whenever I do
that, that’s what I would do it, and so we filled that up with crushed stone, poured our
footings on top of it, and when we backfilled, I always backfill with crushed stone, but
that’s part of stormwater infiltration systems within 100 feet of the lake. I’ve been doing
this, I’ve been in business 39 years. I’ve been doing stormwater on every house we built
since 1985, whether we re-model it at all, and we’re pretty good at doing stormwater,
figuring out things. So we had to sort of watch these constant rainstorms, which were on
a pretty much every two or three day basis as we were starting to do our grade out. I’m
going to flip over to the other side because I have different pictures. So we had to figure
out, how do we slow down the water. Let me just say one other thing. Our leach field’s
right along this road here, and theirs is right along the road, too, and up by the road, you
had to, both of us had to excavate the existing soil and put in a sandy loam soil that
would meet the perc test per the engineer, which we did. Unfortunately, the road had
such a crown in it that when it’s not frozen out, and you’ve got that much water, you
really sort of force the water into whatever you dug and put in new fresh fill, i.e. sand.
So, you can’t have the road water, the water running along the edge of the road,
because it’s just going to fill up your leach field and you’re not going to be able to use it
for a couple of days. So, when we saw this problem here, the owner next door goes,
geez, what do I do. They have DEC up, and so we met with the DEC person, engineer
on site, and he goes, what are you going to do? That’s when we came up with the idea
of putting in a manhole, and it was a couple of other things to catch the water. I already
knew from calculations I had a ton of crushed stone in there, and that we could probably
take most of it, but we have a lot of little relief things, so I might as well tell you what
happened at that point. These owners here, they were adamant about, we weren’t going
to put water on their property. Well, we really weren’t putting water on their property, as
DEC could see when he came up there because of the lay of the land. Even though this
driveway pitched this way, there’s, between the two pieces of property, right where the
property line, it’s pretty much of a “V” where the water comes from, and we would go
down there. So I made the recommendation. I said well, geez, we’re taking all this water
here, besides the water that’s coming back around, I can probably catch this water here,
and we put in a huge, a six inch PVC pipe, and we came all the way around the part
here. I said, I could probably pick up a lot of that water, especially winter water, this time
of year when there’s snow banks. You’ve got to, that’s the water I really worry about,
and I go, I can’t let this water go down this way because I’ve got all these shrubs. It’s
going to wipe, I mean, it’s a waterfall. So, we called the Town Highway Department and
said, look, you’ve got a problem here, which they’ve known about for years. I said, we
have an idea. Can I cut your blacktop road here, and we went all the way up to here and
cut it and put in a curb so that we can take the water further down. Rather than down
here, we’ll take most of it here. During the big rains, when we get two inches of water in
the gutter, we put this one one inch lower, and we released some water on their property,
because they’re supposed to have a stormwater pond somewhere. They don’t have it in
yet, but we can’t take all their water because we didn’t take it before, but now, as of this
point, we’re taking it, and we’ll release a little bit of water here. We go six feet further,
we’re one inch higher, and then we’re going to release, this is during a heavy rain. A
normal rain we take. Then during the normal rains we come down here and we hit this
manhole. So we said, well, we had this little trench right here. We’ll take the overflow, a
manhole always has an overflow, you always have to have an overflow. So we took the
overflow over to the trench, and then when we backfilled this way, that overflow goes into
our crush stone down here, and then we pipe that back around the house. So we’re
6
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
piping the water on a long journey. If the manhole overflows, which is going to happen, if
you get more than a 45 minute rain, I think it’s probably going to overflow, then
everything is pitched this way, for somehow they say we didn’t grade it, well, we flattened
out the grade. Everything grades this way, and we send all that water up to the north
and around the house. We get very, very little water in that retention pond because
we’ve spread the water out over 15, 20 feet, rather than having it go down a gully that’s
two feet wide that you just can’t do that when you have that much water. When we got
over here, I’ll go back to that side, that’s the side we were working on, we could see what
was happening. You’ll see on some of the prints that we ended up putting a little stone
wall here, and what we did is we put stone wall, with crushed stone behind it. We did
anything we could to slow down the water so it wouldn’t go into the lake. You can see on
the plan we have a bunch of orange, they’re the impervious areas that were allowed to
stay. We ended up removing them, one, because they were in the wrong space, either
pitched the wrong way. The one that was in the front of the garage, there wasn’t a frost
wall in the garage. We had to fix that and everything. So, and we aren’t going to put
them back, so we ended up that we could get all this water, and we bring it over and we
sort of stop it into the (lost word). We removed all the decks and the patios as you go
down the dock, because that was always the lowest point, and before we did this, this
water used to come around here. A lot of it went, we split the water. Some goes this
way. A lot would come, this water would come around here and just go and just dump in
around the dock, and just go. So, we did it, well, because we had to do something. We
just had water everywhere.
MR. HUNSINGER-So when did you finish installing the new stormwater controls that you
just outlined?
MR. HOWLAND-We had done, we had worked on it, we did our final grading was in
August, but we started this basically end of June when we started to do some grading. I
mean, we knew that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Of last year.
MR. HOWLAND-Yes, this past summer. We knew that we had water from just watching
a normal rain as we were building it, but we had, you know, two layers of silt fence, and
we had all sorts of straw hay bales pegged into the ground, because, I mean, we were
taking a lot of it. The owner said, I just had never seen it. Before the leach field to the
north was built, if you stood, during those 45 minute thunder boomers we get every
summer, if you stood in the middle of the road, it would be about two inches up on my
sneakers. This was right in the middle of Rockhurst Road. I’m not talking the edge.
When they put the leach field in to the north, it came over my sneakers. That’s how
much more water it put out into there, and came to us. I mean, it just came to us. I have
a bunch of pictures, this is with snow. I have a bunch of pictures over here I’ll show you
that I have with grass. You can see the grass and green and sort of what we did. Now
let me move over there. That might be the easiest thing. Now, these are, this is the
concrete patio that they wanted to add. It goes underneath the deck, and they wanted
to, it was always there. We put it back. The only thing we did when we took the patio
out, the retaining walls fell over. They didn’t even have the frost walls, so we rebuilt
those, but we made them a foot shorter, and we didn’t go any further than the deck. We
turned them because then we could wrap our earth around it and stuff like that, and I’m
only showing you some of this. This shows you that this had a roof in it before. This is
this original patio, and this shows the roof above the master bedroom. Okay. This is the
front lawn that we didn’t pitch correctly, but we did pitch it correctly. Everything pitches
here. We just, rather than directing everything to one two foot area, we spread it out.
We did not get anything, this is our leach field right here. Everything goes over that, so,
and we left that old clay muck between that and our crushed stone, because I’m telling
you nothing goes through it, nothing at all, and these are the retaining walls. We brought
them out straight when they fell over and we just returned them four feet. One was 13
feet long, one was 12. They’re still 12 feet long. They’re just not quite as high as they
were before. We still have the patio, we have a roof underneath here. Now, this deck,
this just has a rubber membrane underneath the decking. We run it to a gutter, and we
ran that into stormwater management, all right. This is the roof area that you approved
here at the Planning Board for us for stormwater. That’s what the retention ponds are
that shows here and here, okay. We pick up every bit of the roof, and what I did is, I
think I’ve got a better picture here somewhere of it, no, I don’t, but we put this crushed
stone in here, in the patios, which is actually less than, we have less than we want, but
we dry stacked the stone, because what we did is we put the largest area of roof, which
is this side of the garage, all the center and the other side, and the south side of the
living room. We poured it into crushed stone underneath there. Just to stop it. So what
we do is we sort of stop it and it filters out through our stone here. Again, I’ve been doing
7
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
this, I know it works, for a long time. We have, you can’t really see it, but this, on the
approved drawings that we turned it, it had like a little short gable on this two foot
overhang that’s here, and we ended up putting a hip on it, because believe it or not, we
just couldn’t take anymore, we couldn’t take the water off of here. We just, I mean, it
gets really spongy, and what happens now is, again, on the north side, we filter the water
and we catch, we really catch all, on the worst rains, we get very, very little bit of it in the
bottom of these ponds now, but on the south side, I put a return on there, and again, I
took the downspout in it, and I sent it all the way back around the back of the garage and
all the way back around the house. I just couldn’t, this is the side I can’t take anymore
water, and we ended up putting the stepping stones, we had approved sidewalks, but we
took all that out, because they were all pitched the wrong, they were old, and we weren’t
going to put any stepping stones in, but what happens, as the water goes into the
crushed stone, it goes underneath the house, and it flows out here and comes out here,
and from two to five days on those big rainstorms, only the big rainstorms, it’s, you’re
going to squish in about six inches. So we ended up putting the stepping stones in down
here. Now we also took out, well, I’m trying to think, this is our south retention pond, and
we ended up, we couldn’t stop the water coming here, so we ended up putting this stone
wall here. This mulch is slightly higher, so we catch the mulch. It goes right in, we have
about that much crushed stone behind that wall. It makes it work though, it really makes
it work. The north side, and we took out all the concrete and decking, we did the same
thing here. We catch the water, and we took out, these are just paving stones and
crushed stone, because the last line of defense is, it always comes to the lowest spot. It
always comes down here, and we stopped all the water here. It’s only about that deep,
but it stops the flow of the water into the lake. I showed you some of these pictures,
because we’ve put some crushed stone in here, and what happened, this is this next
door stormwater that they have, and all the sand came down their stone, and before they
built the stone wall, we were getting, on a big rainstorm, out of this pond, we were taking
seven yards of sand and bringing it back to them. We’d get three yards. I mean, there
was no stormwater thing. So we knew where, at one time it overflowed, but it overflowed
there. So what we did is we put the crushed stone in the bottom of it, and again, we
watched it, and you’ll see we have a little inlet. We know where the water comes off the
grass. So rather than having a mulch there, we have the mulch. The mulch has to
disappear in a couple of years, once the plants are taken, but we were floating mulch in
there before we put that, whatever you call it, manhole in. We weren’t letting any water
go in. So we were taking a lot of water, then we get a little water in here, and we noticed
the mulch was floating. So on the bottom we just put crushed stone so we’d have
something solid and clean. The, I’m trying to think, I have one area here for the
neighbors, I’ll look where it is on here, but, I know I’ve got it here somewhere. I can’t
quite see it, but there was a thing in there that we ended up putting crushed stone, this
would be on the south side of the house, we did it on the neighbor’s property. He had
had like Number Two stones, and what happened, when that water comes down with the
thing, it just digs a hole, and the mud just goes in the lake. So we added, we took that
stone out, we put silt fence in. It’s probably two feet wide and eight feet long, and we put
a river rock in there, just to keep the water clean, because again, he still takes some of
the water. We don’t take it all on the south side, because, well, we can’t, so that’s how
we got to it, and all this was, we probably spent an extra $20 grand doing this, trying to
stop the water, and again, last, or a week ago Monday with that huge rain, nothing in the
ponds. We caught every bit of it. So no sand goes in the lake, and before it just dumped
into it. So, they also asked me why I didn’t come back to the Planning Board. Well,
again, I’ve been doing this 39 years, but stormwater since, actually my first stormwater
job was the early 80’s, and it was the first Park Commission development on Lake
George, and so I had to have the Park Commission come over to inspect the stormwater.
Since then, I’ve had one that was mandated in the Town of Lake George, and the Town
of Bolton now, as of a year ago, they have, Mitzi was their Zoning Administrator,
Assistant Zoning Administrator. She inspects stormwater. According to Craig, he came
out in late August and said that now his Department’s going to do it. I probably have built
35 to 40 homes on the lake in that time and I’ve had four inspections. I mean, I can go
across the street and all over the place where there’s supposed to be stormwater. We
put it in, you know, I mean, I grew up on the water and we make sure, and we overdo it,
but this one was, this was four weeks of watching where the water’s coming from and
what we did, did it work, so, yes, we tweaked it, we kept on tweaking it. We know it
works now, and, I mean, I’ve gotten up in the summer at 4:30 in the morning and gone
over there, just making sure that it works, and seeing where the water’s coming from. So
that’s 90% of the variances, and the problem that we had.
MR. HUNSINGER-So you mentioned earlier that DEC was there because they were
inspecting the septic system next door.
8
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. HOWLAND-No, DEC was there at the request of the next door neighbor owners
because they thought we were putting a lot more water on them when it actually was the
leach field to the north all of a sudden added a new dimension. I mean, they’ve never,
we had a stand with, we had plywood made up, and if we knew it was raining, we would
sandbag the front of this garage door, and put the plywood up to divert the water. They
never, ever, ever had to do that before. That’s only because the water’s not going where
it used to go. It used to , again, come to either my customer’s property on the north side,
and they took a lot of the stormwater. They only take runoff now during that very big rain
when I release them, when it’s just above, and then I’ve released the Seaboyers when
it’s above them on the north side. That’s only when you’re getting, you know, when the
rain gutters, the gutters on the road are six inches tall.
MR. HUNSINGER-So when DEC came out, though, did they inspect what you have
installed?
MR. HOWLAND-Yes. They thought what we did was great. Yes, it was all there.
MR. HUNSINGER-Did they give you anything in writing, because there was nothing in
record.
MR. HOWLAND-No. I can get it in writing. I mean, I’ve had Park Commission over
there. Again, we do this all the time on the other side of the lake, a lot of times in a lot of
the areas now they’re having us berm by the shore, making a pond right by the shore.
Well, we can’t do this on a sloped area. You have to have something flat. That’s why
we’ve removed fill. Because everything, I mean, you can see some of it, some of it was
quite a big slope, we just couldn’t deal with it. We had to flatten the slope out. We had to
remove fill, just so that we could spread the water out rather than, as I said before, it
came right down the side yards and it never went in. I do have, they said part of the
seawall, I have pictures of the seawall, and if you look at the weep holes, there’s no
effervescent on the stonework. There’s no staining on the stonework before. The
th
owners of, this is their 10 year there. They have never seen anything come out of the
weep holes. I just don’t think it, if they aren’t sealed, it just can’t get through that soil. I
mean, it is, we had a place right to the right of that, the deck that’s underneath there that
just got added there. When we, we hadn’t removed anything for the, we had left, we had
excavated around it, but we didn’t remove this little patch, and we took one shovelful on
this little track hoe, three foot wide bucket, and we had water come at us for 24 hours,
one foot deep, three foot wide. We had no idea, we just assumed it was trapped
underneath the garage, because their garage floor is two feet higher than the house now.
It used to be three feet higher than the house, the lower level of the house floor. So we,
it’s just trapping water. So we relieved all that water, and once you relieve it and you
catch up with it, it doesn’t become a problem because we have enough storage in there,
but it’s just our normal backfill. All we did is we didn’t add anything. We just did what we
would backfill a house with. So that’s really what we did.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Questions, comments from members of the Board?
MR. KREBS-Well, my comment is, and members of the Board know I feel this way
anyway, that we need government paid for storm sewers in areas like this because
there’s no way, you could actually put a berm around the edge of the property and solve
your problem, but create worse problems down the road, and so, you know, I think it
certainly sounds to me like you’ve maximized the ability to absorb the moisture that’s
there, and somebody’s got to be responsible for that road which I have friends that live
on that road and I’ve driven up that, when it was like a lake, you know, you’re going
through a couple of inches of water.
MR. HOWLAND-I know I’ve said this, but we thought we did a good thing, and the owner
paid for it. I mean, that’s a lot of money, I mean, we put a lot of, those stone walls,
stacking them are, they’re expensive to do, but that’s our, you still have to release the
water somehow. It’s got to, we just slow it down and then it comes out. That’s all.
MR. KREBS-But, I mean, if everybody bermed from the high point on Rockhurst, you’d
end up dumping it in the yards, the last two or three yards.
MR. HOWLAND-It would just go further down, it would just go further down the road.
That’s all.
MRS. STEFFAN-One of the, Mr. Howland, I don’t doubt that you’ve been doing this kind
of thing on the lake for many years, but in the Town, you know, we’ve got process. The
Zoning Board’s got a process. The Planning Board’s got a process, and then once the
9
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
approvals are made, then it’s a reasonable expectation that any agent that works for an
applicant that’s gotten an approved, whether it’s a subdivision or a site plan, that it’s
going to be developed according to the plan, and if there are changes that occur, the
normal protocol is you go to the Town and you get a modification, and I know, based on
the scenario that you just laid out, that you were fighting fires through this whole time,
and you were trying to fight the water, and I understand that part, but then there’s the
administrative part. How is the Town supposed to be satisfied that the stormwater
controls that you have put in place are in the best interest of the lake and are meeting the
codes and requirements? And I think that that’s some of what Craig’s letter talks about.
If we allow all of the lakefront development to act as you have acted, you know, over the
last couple of years, then why do we exist? I mean, why do we have approvals, why do
we have stormwater management plans, you know, why do we go through Site Plan
Review? And so, you know, I’ve got concerns on a couple of fronts. Another issue
regarding the, you know, we’re here tonight for a recommendation to the Zoning Board
of Appeals, and one is for 97%, I think it’s relief, for the rain garden and infiltration, you
know, 95% relief, and you’re putting something within 10 feet of the lake. I mean, last
year we had a decision that we made here on the Planning Board reversed by a judge,
late last year, because there was a rain garden within, I think it was 25 or 30 feet of the
lake, and the judge made us re-open the Site Plan Review and have the applicant modify
the plan, and so, the approvals that you are asking for with this modification or for the
Area Variance, is something that the court told us that we weren’t allowed to do last year.
MR. HOWLAND-I find that strange because we have to do that in other parts of the lake,
Lake George, Bolton, we’re up in Hague. They do the same thing. Now you have to
realize, as I said, you only had stormwater management for 800 square feet of flat area.
That’s it. That’s it. I picked that up further around. You’ve got to realize that every
house is, 99% of the houses on Lake George are within 100 feet of the lake, 99% of
them. We do stormwater management on every one so we’re in violation, I guess, on
every one of them, but, on this problem, what it is, is we solved the problem that, I’m just
saying that somebody, either this Board or the variance Board, gave us a 10 times worse
problem than what we had before by approving things next door and not letting them.
They shifted their water to us. We’re the low man on the property. What do you do with
it? The only alternative of doing it is just letting it run right in the lake. I just can’t do that,
and I know you don’t want to do that, but that’s the only other option is to let it go in the
water and pollute the lake and you just can’t do that.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, and that’s what Site Plan Review is supposed to do, and that’s
what the stormwater management plans are supposed to do. They’re supposed to
prevent any infiltration into the lake or anything running off into the lake, and, yes, there’s
a problem on Rockhurst Road, but we’re supposed to be making a recommendation to
the Zoning Board, and I really don’t know what kind of recommendation to make,
because based on the information that we have, you know, there was a long period of
time where, either you or the owner of the property should have come to the Town and
said, hey, we have a lot of problems and we need to make some changes to the plan.
MR. HOWLAND-Well, this was May or June and we’re trying to be, we’re pretty well
done with the house. We’re just doing site work, and then it got worse, and I’m going to
tell you, next door I had your Town employees come up, because they were dumping
seven yards of fill on me, six yards of fill, three yards going to the lake, no silt fence, no
stormwater management, and the answer was the DEC was, well, he’s the professional.
So we did it. We went out and put silt fence and stormwater on their fence, and they’re
causing me a problem, I’ve got to fix it, and it, you don’t come to this Board quickly. I
mean, it was four years. Whatever happened, I know it got politics, a whole bunch of
other things came up on this little project and again, I just, after, they just told me there
was no reason for me to come anymore. My original stormwater management plan, I
had already tried to pick up all this stuff. Now I know Tom Center did not know about the
parking lot across the way because this system was designed before that parking lot
across the street was done. He had nothing to do with the leach field to the north, but
we’re talking a considerable amount of water. You always took a lot of water, but, and
we could have left the ponds, and again, you’re only picking up 500 square feet of roof,
doing nothing, but you had to do something about this road runoff. You had to do
something about it, and again, I think it’s 12 other people’s water that we’re taking. So I
know what your concerns were, but this is like, you do something. I mean, we didn’t
have, on the south side, retention pond. Again, we don’t even put any water at all in that
one anymore. We catch it all before it gets there, and the north one, at the worst you
might get a foot in the bottom of it. That’s the most we’ve ever seen, a foot diameter, not
even a foot, not talking a foot high. We just slow it down and filter it out and let it filter
into the ground, but we’ve got equipment there, you’ve got people moving back in
Cleverdale. Everything we brought in we backed up the road. We cleaned the road
10
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
every night, and then we drove out and poured. We parked on Rockhurst Road down by
the big hill because we had to have the site work excavation machine and the
landscapers. I mean, we had to get it, we had to get it done. That was our problem, and
the third thing was I’ve never been inspected by the Town of Queensbury, and I can say
I’ve got at least 20 homes on that shoreline. I can say on Rockhurst I’ve got three that
I’ve put it in. Over where I grew up down on the southern part of the basin, I built three
homes. No one ever came out. There wasn’t anybody to inspect, ever. That’s part of
the problem. People, I’m glad that you’re doing it because there are a lot of homes that
come and get the approval and then nothing’s ever put in. That’s been myself and a
couple of other builders major complaint is that, you know, we put it in. Do we do a little
bit more? Yes, because we’ve watched Mother Nature and I just try to stop it all. I
mean, that’s the object is not to let any water go into that lake any time, but I understand
what you’re saying. I’m just telling you how I feel about it, and, I mean, it wasn’t any time
for us to stop, and one day we tried something. I mean, we’ve sat there in the pouring
rain, you’ve got to watch it. It’s not an engineering thing, it’s because you’re not dealing
with, it’s really, I’ve always done my own stormwater. When it comes off a roof, that’s the
simplest thing to calculate, but to watch water come down at you, that’s something a little
different.
MR. HUNSINGER-That was part of the reason why I was asking who had been up to the
site because you said DEC was out. You said the Town Highway crew was out, and I’m
just shocked that nobody directed you to, you know, contact anybody, someone in the
Building Department to make sure that what you were doing was going to be okay.
There seems like there was no check in the system.
MR. HOWLAND-Well, DEC loved what we did. He walked the whole thing afterwards
and said I wish everybody would do that. The Town Highway, we came and said, Tom
Vanness came and I said, Tom, you’ve got a problem here, and I think we can help you,
and he was thrilled that we could help him because he’s out there all the time getting
complaints when it rains, and I’m going, but I said, now we’re taking, I mean, when I saw
the 10 inches of water, I mean, if there was a little kid standing on the south side of the
property, they’d be down the lake. I mean, that’s how much water comes to that side
when it really rains. You just can’t imagine the amount of water that comes down there,
and we’ve stopped it all, collected it all, and we thought we might overflow.
MR. HUNSINGER-And I guess for the Board, the lesson here is, you know, you can
design a nice site plan in a vacuum, but when you put it in the real world, you know, the
stormwater plan that was designed for this project in the vacuum, in the laboratory, didn’t
work in the real world, because in the real world, you’re getting inundated with water
from other properties.
MR. HOWLAND-Right. There was no concern about off site water taken into plan, and
that was, when we first started there we were sort of amazed by that because that’s
always been a problem. I kept on asking, well, how are you going to keep these flowers
here? There’s no way when four inches of water, 12 foot wide, are coming at it, that
you‘re going to hold flowers there. It’s just going to take it. It’s just going to take it with it.
So that’s why we spread everything out. The grading plan is the same. It’s just gentler.
Instead of having a gully like this, we purposely spread the water out into the grass the
best that we could. It works. It really works good. So, I’m not sure what else to tell you,
other than it was, we’ve got to fix it. We’re on our way out, you know. We’re getting
down here. It was either that or we would have had to leave it a mucky mess for the
whole summer.
MR. OBORNE-Could I make a comment?
MR. HOWLAND-Yes, go ahead.
MR. OBORNE-When you typically design a stormwater plan, you have what are called
sub catchments that should be included in any quality stormwater plan, and that includes
off site, it all has to be accounted for. I believe that the way this was designed, and
correct me if I’m wrong, Dean, they were more concerned about the roof water coming
off than what was, where that was going, and the raising of the property to the north’s
septic system.
MR. HOWLAND-Right. We came with the proposal that we were going to put
stormwater management and a new leach field, and technically they had one that
worked, but I always say, you’ve got to upgrade when you do it, and then it got into, after
the second meeting, it just evolved into something more than what, I was involved, so
they had to get all, you know, then it turned into more lawyers and more engineers.
11
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. OBORNE-It certainly was the most convoluted site plan I have ever seen.
MR. HOWLAND-Right, and if I had been involved at that time, I would have, because I
had seen a little bit, but I never saw it like I did when we had those thunder boomers. I
mean, it’s amazing the amount of water that comes there.
MR. OBORNE-The history of this whole project is a case study in zoning and planning.
Honestly. It should be at one of the planning conferences, of what not to do.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-What not to do.
MR. HOWLAND-Well, I had five meetings before we even submitted anything just, I said,
there’s no sense in me submitting something that’s not going to be, I mean, everything’s
the same size, we just brought the property up, but we had the five meetings beforehand,
and then it came to the preliminary meeting, and then what you’re going to ask for, and
they asked for more stormwater management, and then, as I said, I think I only came two
other times because, something, politics happened on, somebody higher up said you’ve
got to just stop, and it got waylaid. I think it was four, five years to get through, but
everything was based on the original plan, even though things adjacent had changed. I
mean, that’s my big point. Things had changed.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, that’s also one of the difficulties in my mind. I’ve been on the
Board I guess five years now, but I’ve seen this application, I saw it many times and
there’s been lots of discussion about it, and when an application like this gets such
scrutiny and then gets approved, and then it’s built and then it’s back for a modification
because of all these changes.
MR. HOWLAND-But really we moved the two retention ponds, and they’re generically
located on the approved plan. We just moved them, we moved them for the waterway.
The water didn’t go there, and then we put the, we did put the manhole in, but that was,
what do we do with all the water, and that’s a Town problem. So I went to the Highway
Department because it’s a Highway Department. It’s a highway problem, so I went to the
people that you deal with the problem with. I didn’t realize that it was all getting, you
know, I really thought it was a great idea. I thought it was a neat thing to do. Again, they
didn’t have to do it. They could have just let the water run.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-It may have been, but the only difference in your problem than a
couple of others we’ve had up there is one of magnitude. Yours was worse, but the
Town’s got stormwater problems where you are. They had them over at Takundewide.
Nothing was ever done until they finally put drainage in them. We’ve got them on
Assembly Point. Two weeks ago we couldn’t drive down the street the water was so
deep.
MR. HOWLAND-You have the end of Mason Road, too.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Right.
MR. HOWLAND-And Cleverdale.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-They’re all over the place. So who do we take it out on, one or two
homeowners? I don’t think so.
MR. HOWLAND-Well, I had one at the end of Mason Road was there for 10 years, and
all of a sudden I had a lake on that corner three feet deep and it was coming to my front
door. I mean, I’ve never had, you know.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-My point is the problem is bigger than you and a couple of
homeowners. The problem is a Town wide problem and I know the Town is attacking it,
but I’m an impatient person.
MR. HOWLAND-That’s why I went to the Town Highway Department. I thought this is a
highway problem, that’s who I go to.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, it makes sense. The runoff’s coming off the road.
MR. HOWLAND-It’s not our water.
12
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. HOWLAND-It’s not the homeowner’s water.
MRS. STEFFAN-But from an outsider, you would think that the Highway Department and
the Community Development Department Building and Codes all work together, but
that’s not always the case.
MR. HUNSINGER-Or DEC.
MR. HOWLAND-I’ve learned that, yes. I’ve learned that.
MR. OBORNE-We are endeavoring to change that, but I will say, from a planning
perspective, from cabanas to year round single family homes, I mean, that’s the real
issue here, to be honest. It’s too dense there, but it’s what it is. You deal with it, and we
shall continue to deal with it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Any other questions, comments from the Board?
MR. SIPP-Yes. What’s going to happen with the stormwater set up that you have after
maybe 10 years. Because that water brings down soil and debris from.
MR. HOWLAND-Okay. I’ve had them in for 25 years. Okay. The only thing we have to
worry about on our gutters is pine needles. We don’t have that problem here. We
actually have a gutter topper. It’s taken me about 30 tries to find one that keeps pine
needles out. It’s just, it costs us six bucks a foot. We can take, you have to have, what
you do is, you have to have a drainage pipe around your house and run it to daylight by
the Building Code. We just put one up higher, but you can also take just a power washer
and put it down the pipe and blow it out, but I’ve got 25 years, and I haven’t had a
problem. In Bolton Landing, remember all those people lost their property? Well, people
on either side of me lost their property, and the house I built, we didn’t disturb the mulch,
and I said, we’ve been doing it, we service everybody. We’re servicing some homes,
sold two or three times, we still do all the service work on them. We still clean, we clean
the roofs in November, if it’s in a problem area. My son’s coming in taking over the
business. So it’s going to continue on for a lot more years. It just works. It’s a system
that works. We’ve tried everything. We have tried, just, you name it, I have tried
everything. We have done more, we know retention ponds. I’ll just recommend, never
put a retention pond where a family is likely to walk. It’s going to get filled in as soon as
we leave. I’ve seen it happen. You have to put it over, you’ve got to put it up where they
don’t walk. So, I mean, it’s just simple little things like that, but the system we do, we put
the silt fence, I’m sorry, we put the filter fabric in, which separates that heavy, heavy
mucky soil from the crushed stone, and we build on terrible sites all the time so we just
do a lot of crushed stone. Crushed stone helps a lot for water problems. I’ve never had
a call back on a gutter or anything that we’ve put in.
MR. SIPP-I’d like to see a plot plan with the, that stormwater system on it, to where it’s
located.
MR. HOWLAND-The Town actually has one that I drew up. Craig Brown asked for the
engineers to verify what I did. Well, quite obviously we couldn’t dig it up. So I drew a
drawing of what we did. I believe it’s in your packet, and we know how much crushed
stone we delivered, and again, you can just sort of do the simple math.
MR. SIPP-Well, we come to a point here now where I don’t know what we can say to the
Zoning Board, in the fact that this is not a problem caused by you, or the owner. It’s a
problem that the Town needs to rectify.
MR. HOWLAND-But at the moment we’re solving the problem for the Town.
MR. SIPP-Well, I’ll agree with that, if that’s the way to work.
MR. HOWLAND-Well, it’s been working.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-You’re solving it in a small area. We’ve still got them all over the
place.
MR. HOWLAND-Yes, but again, we’re taking 10, 12 homes worth of water there. Once it
gets down beyond, halfway down the property to the south, it goes over another crest,
13
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
but all that water comes back to us. Would you like me to get the DEC engineer? I can
have him send you a note, too.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, what do we want to tell the Zoning Board?
MR. TRAVER-Well, they’re asking for the relief for the, basically the existing stormwater
system, which Paragon seems to think is functioning, but they lack the engineering to
substantiate it.
MRS. STEFFAN-Right, and Tom Nace’s letter said they think it’ll work.
MR. TRAVER-Yes, exactly, but we don’t have the documentation that approves it.
MR. HOWLAND-But it is working. It’s worked through the worst rainstorms you can
have. It’s worked for every one of them. That, last Monday you would have dumped
every bit of water off that road, well, you probably, you would have flooded out the
neighbor’s garage first, and then you would have just dumped all that water right in the
lake, and as I said, if you walked down to the retention ponds, which has basically got
plenty of area, you won’t see the water in there at all.
MR. TRAVER-Well, I think the difficulty for us is that when you start talking about the
science, the engineering of the stormwater management, it’s really not something that
we can be subjective about, particularly since we are not engineers.
MR. HOWLAND-Correct.
MR. TRAVER-So I guess my concern is, and quite honestly I’ve had the advantage of
having the Town engineer or some engineer basically give me something that says this
is working, and I understand that you’re saying that it appears to be working, and, you
know, your subjective observations from existing conditions would make it appear that
it’s working, but we don’t have the science to support that, and apparently that’s the
Town engineer’s concern as well.
MR. HOWLAND-But Tom Nace did send a letter to Craig Brown. I mean, we knew how
much crushed stone we did. I’ve got receipts for it, and did all the calculations and said,
yes, it works for the 100 year storm. Did he see it put in? But, I mean, I explained
exactly what, there’s just a six inch PVC pipe, you know, Schedule 40 PVC pipe.
MR. KREBS-Yes, but we don’t see, and the Town doesn’t see, half of the construction
work that’s done, that’s required. They don’t have an inspector there every day looking
at what you’re doing.
MR. HOWLAND-No. As I said, I’ve never had anybody there for stormwater.
MR. TRAVER-No, what we have is a plan supported by the engineering, and we have to
take the applicant’s word that they’re going to follow the plan.
MR. KREBS-Why can’t we take the applicant’s word that he has corrected the problem,
which I believe he has, and not only has he corrected the problem, but he’s helping to
correct other problems.
MRS. STEFFAN-But if we hold this applicant to that standard, what about every other
applicant that comes here and says, you know, just take my word for it. The plan’s really
going to work. You don’t really need that big, expensive stormwater plan because I got
it.
MR. TRAVER-It sure looks like it’s working.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, and so we’re setting a very bad precedent.
MR. HOWLAND-Yes, but your stormwater management plan was for 500 square feet of
roof only, 500 square feet. Here, let me show you. Your stormwater, that was approved
by this Board, only took into account that part of the roof. That’s it. This roof, that roof.
That’s all the stormwater that you took in. What I did was pick up something that had
nothing really to do with it. I took up rain water, but 500 square feet of flat area. All the
main water that goes right in the lake never got taken care of.
MR. OBORNE-I don’t know, if Dean’s saying it is, then I have no belief that it’s any
different from that. I mean, I didn’t do the review on it.
14
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. HOWLAND-Well, it shows on the one drawing. I have the drawing here. It shows
you on there.
MR. OBORNE-There were extenuating circumstances on top of that, and that leads me
back, full circle, to the sub catchments when you design a stormwater plan. You have to
allow for offsite water, no if’s, ands or buts, and it doesn’t seem, back in ’04, that that was
accounted for, by either the applicant’s engineer. It wasn’t picked up by the Town
Engineer.
MR. HOWLAND-Keith, when it did start again, and again I’m not sure if it was the first
meeting or the second meeting because we said we wanted to do stormwater, and then
we had to go back with it, but at that time, it was a pre-existing roof that we weren’t
making any larger, and it’s not required by the Park Commission to put stormwater, but
you were starting, at that point, starting to say we wanted stormwater. We had already
come and said we were going to do stormwater management, but then it came, well,
then we would like stormwater management, and you came up with this little tiny bit. We
picked that up. That’s not a problem. That’s, I mean, that’s not a problem at all. You
take 500 square feet and times it by 1.5 gallons, and you need 800 gallons of storage.
That’s it.
MRS. STEFFAN-I’m trying to remember back, and it was a long time ago, and I don’t
have the minutes, and I don’t have any of the materials, but we didn’t do a Site Plan
Review initially when this project started to be built. If I recall correctly, it was after
construction was started that we got involved in the process.
MR. HOWLAND-No, you started, this was, we didn’t do construction until 2008. It started
here in 2004, and the Site Plan was all brought, we went in, we took out, it just went back
and forth, because originally you would take all the square footage of the building, and
then you took out the, I mean, it went back and forth on how big is the building, when you
were counting both floors anyway, for certain things, but then you wouldn’t count the
mechanical room for something, and all stuff, but the Site Plan went in, and then we
removed, then they got into how many square feet of removals were we going to do, and
we’re going to remove it all, and we actually removed more, more, because, it was just, it
was causing us a problem.
MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to say, you can thank the Seaboyers, but I will thank the
Seaboyers, because all of that discussion is what lead us to make it very clear in the new
Code, and it was because of that project and others like it where we had these
discussions, well, it is a crawl space or is it livable space, you know, and we said, hey,
look, you know, so the new Code corrects all of those deficiencies finally, which is, you
pointed out at the beginning of the meeting. I guess what I wanted to point out for the
rest of the Board is Mr. Nace does say in his letter, our model shows that the stone
storage has sufficient capacity to store the entire volume of the 100 year storm, as you
had pointed out. I think what we’re struggling with is if his letter was stronger, or if our
engineer felt more comfortable with what was done, then it would be easier for us to, you
know, signoff on it.
MR. HOWLAND-He was asked to certify it by, he was asked to do something that he
couldn’t do.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. HOWLAND-I was asked to do something that we couldn’t do, and this was in
August, and it just delayed the inevitable, that we knew we had to come back here, okay,
and we were going to come back here, no matter what, but, well, if you do this, we’ll sign
off, but if you, you know, but it was something that they can’t do because they didn’t see
it. Actually the only thing they really inspected was the leach field. We were told it had
to be up there for the leach field. Again, stormwater, no one’s ever inspected it.
MR. KREBS-And if you look at the revisions on Nace’s new septic system, they say
changed, revised per Town Engineer on 8/6/06, 9/11/06, 9/21/06, 10/20/06, 3/16/08. All
those revisions were per the Town Engineer’s comments. So they have been making
the changes to the drawings based on the Town Engineer’s comments.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, but that was when it was going through Site Plan Review. That
isn’t post.
MR. OBORNE-That was also the first Eljen system up on, in Queensbury also.
15
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. KREBS-Right, and I’m pointing out that it’s also the new septic system, not the
stormwater plan.
MR. HOWLAND-Right. Well, that’s a nice system. We like that. We’ve never.
MR. HUNSINGER-Going back to Mr. Nace’s letter, even if he had said, at the bottom of
the first page, he says, it is our opinion that the stormwater management facilities as built
meets the intent of the approved stormwater plan. If he had said meets the requirements
of the Town stormwater plans, you know, you hate to make it into a semantics issue, but,
you know, he’s not really certifying, you know, if we can get someone to certify that, you
know, it meets the Code, and then if, of course our, I don’t know if there’s any way for the
Town Engineer to review it and say, yes, I reviewed it, I think it meets the Code, too.
MR. OBORNE-I don’t think Clark would do that. In fact, Clark’s in the audience right
now, and, you know, short of digging everything up, again, I don’t want to speak for
Clark, but I don’t think he would speak for this without seeing things installed, etc.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. So I just wonder if there’s something else that we can get from
the engineers that would give us something to hang our hat on.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, at this point we’re making a recommendation to, because we’ll do
Site Plan next week, but right now we’re trying to make a recommendation the Zoning
Board. As far as the Floor Area Ratio relief, certainly the explanation seems satisfactory
that, you know, we just have a difference of how it is calculated from then until now. The
bigger issue is the infiltration devices. The applicant is requesting 97% relief for the
north infiltration device/rain garden, and 95% relief for the south infiltration device/rain
garden, plus 55% relief for the crushed stone and perforated pipe infiltration system
installed below grade along the eastern and northern portions of the property. So
obviously the Zoning Board was looking to us for an opinion because 97% relief, 95%
relief and 55% relief is significant. So what do we want to tell them?
MR. TRAVER-Well, you know, I’m looking at the Staff Notes, in terms of requested
action, and it’s talking about, we’re basically making a recommendation to the Zoning
Board concerning the relief requested and the potential impacts on the project, the
neighborhood and the surrounding community, and I think the relief requested is really
reflective of the property, it’s location, and the fact that this property is dealing with this
stormwater above and beyond the water generated by the property in itself, and the, as
the applicant’s representative states, the closeness of the lake, because of the nature of
the property. So, I mean, my own feeling is the relief requested, although it is a,
obviously severe at 97%, I think it’s sort of the nature of the beast. My concern really is
with the second part, which is the potential impacts of the project on the neighborhood
and the surrounding community. Again, in that, we, I don’t feel we have a strong enough
engineering, as you indicated, Mr. Chairman, regarding the functioning of the system,
and if that’s the case, then I’m concerned about the impact on other applications and the
possibility that this may be a precedent of some kind.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, well, I was going to comment, and I think you summarized it
well, too, the comments by the Board have not been so much to the relief as to the
functionality of the system.
MR. TRAVER-Right.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, the concern is the functionality, not the relief requested.
MR. TRAVER-Right.
MR. HUNSINGER-So I would feel, speaking for myself, I would certainly feel comfortable
making a recommendation to the Zoning Board that the relief be granted, and then we
can deal with the functionality as a Site Plan issue. Because I’m really not hearing
anyone say, well, we’re concerned about the stormwater management system because
it’s too close to the lake. What I’m hearing is we’re concerned it’s not going to work well
enough, not that the relief.
MRS. STEFFAN-But the relief, you know, one of the big reasons I have a problem with
the relief is because of the court decision last Fall on Knox Road when we were told to
re-open a Site Plan and amend it because a rain garden is an infiltration device and it
was not allowed that close to the lake.
16
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. HUNSINGER-Without a variance.
MR. OBORNE-Without a variance.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Without a variance, yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we can’t grant that. Only the Zoning Board can.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-But if there was a variance, then we wouldn’t have been in that
pickle. Right?
MRS. STEFFAN-In that situation.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-That’s right, and so what we’re saying is let them address that first,
and we’re coming back on a Site Plan for this.
MRS. STEFFAN-If the variance is granted, then we’re the ones who have to be vigilante
to make sure that we ensure that (lost words) functionality.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-The system works.
MR. TRAVER-The engineering follows, yes.
MR. HOWLAND-Could I ask just a question? Now the original pods, let’s say, were
moved. Isn’t that, I mean, they were already given a relief. So wouldn’t the relief be from
that point forward? If we moved them like 20 feet?
MR. OBORNE-It’s greater relief you’re asking for. If you had moved the infiltration
device farther away from the shore, we wouldn’t be here discussing that.
MR. HOWLAND-Back. Okay. That’s what I didn’t understand, but I’d like to come back
with what you want from me, so I can try to get it. I mean, we’ve been trying to do this
with the engineers, but, I can tell you you can just go up during a monster rain storm and
watch it work.
MR. HUNSINGER-And that’s great, but the thing is, as we know, you know, okay. Well,
was last night’s storm a 50 year storm or was it a 100 year storm? And you’ve got to
design it to the specifications.
MR. HOWLAND-Yes, well, no. You have to take those (lost words). Well, we have the
overflow for it, which would have, rather than dumping it directly from the north side, if it
doesn’t work, it just overflows and filters around more. I mean, we put, we’ve (lost word)
back up after back up on this stuff. We’ve been putting these in and maintaining them,
servicing them for a long time, whether it’s been commercial or whatever, used to do a
lot of commercial work. So, you know, we’ve done it. I’m not an engineer, but it’s just a
matter of, again, this was just watching the water, just seeing where it went.
MR. KREBS-I would think that between now and when it goes to the Zoning Board and
comes back to this Board, that if Dean got together with Keith and our Town Engineer,
they could come up with a satisfactory definition of what’s being done, so that we could
approve it with some legitimacy.
MR. OBORNE-Well, I think that there is a satisfactory explanation of what has been
done, absolutely, and it’s been vetted to the amount that Tom Center can vet it. I think a
seal would certainly help us along that way from Nace, but again, short of digging
anything up and looking at what’s going on, I don’t know what else we can do. Obviously
if you direct us to do that, we’ll do that, but, again, I think the seal from the applicant’s
engineer would go a long way, at least for me.
MR. HOWLAND-Well, we wouldn’t dig anything up. We’d just close it off and let you deal
with your problem, because we can certainly move the ponds back. I mean, that’s
nothing, they won’t do anything, but we can move it back.
MR. OBORNE-I’d be loathe to disturb anymore ground.
MR. HUNSINGER-Would anyone like to put forward a resolution? We do have a sample
that was provided by Staff. Again, it seems like the significant area of concern is the
functionality of the stormwater system, and that’s a Site Plan issue.
17
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. OBORNE-That is correct.
MR. HOWLAND-Could I ask one more question? When I go tomorrow night, it’s just a
97% relief, even though, because I put the ponds closer to the water and that catch
basin.
MR. OBORNE-Correct.
MR. HOWLAND-Okay. Those two items. I just wanted to make sure I was doing the
correct thing.
MR. OBORNE-And Floor Area Ratio relief.
MR. HOWLAND-Yes, that was sort of simple and I thought, explanation.
MR. HUNSINGER-Is the applicant’s explanation correct?
MR. OBORNE-For Floor Area Ratio?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. OBORNE-Actually.
MR. HUNSINGER-Because, I mean, we don’t have the benefit of having reviewed the.
MR. OBORNE-The timelines and all that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. OBORNE-It appears that the Floor Area Ratio calculations were erroneously
calculated by the applicant and by Staff, back in ’05 I think it is, and what happened was,
in my explanation, I kind of break it out for you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. OBORNE-And with that said, the mechanical room is now counted when back then
it wasn’t. The patio below the north deck should have been counted. The front porch
should have been counted, it was not, and the roof overhang, which is a three foot
overhang running 20 feet, well that was added, and the applicant is acknowledging that.
I think the applicant that is before us right now, again, I haven’t looked through all the
notes that are involved with this application. I feel that there’s no malfeasance or any
way of trying to trick anything. I just think that that’s the way it was presented to the
Board at the time, by Staff, as a result of the application that was submitted.
MR. HUNSINGER-And I do remember all those discussions about, well, should this be
counted, should that be counted, and, I mean, I remember, and I don’t know if it was this
project specifically, but I do remember on a couple of projects near the lake where we
got into the Floor Area debate where there was discussion from the Planning Board
members about asking the Zoning Administrator for an opinion on whether or not it
should be counted or not counted, because it wasn’t clear in the old zone.
MR. OBORNE-Right. No, I agree, and I think a lot of it was, is this new building or is this
an expansion. That was a whole, I think that was about four meetings.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. OBORNE-Regardless, Floor Area Ratio for either of those actions would have
counted anyway.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-So do we endorse the relief?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Yes.
MR. OBORNE-I hope that was clear enough, Mr. Chairman.
18
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. I’ll make a motion.
MOTION TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
FOR AREA VARIANCE NO. 6-2010 AND SITE PLAN NO. 8-2010 FOR STEVE AND
DEBBIE SEABOYER, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Stephen Traver:
Whereas, the Town of Queensbury Zoning Ordinance, per Section 179-9-070 J 2 b.
requires the Planning Board to provide a written recommendation to the Zoning Board of
Appeals for projects that require both Zoning Board of Appeals & Planning Board
approval; and
Whereas, this project does require both Zoning Board of Appeals & Planning Board
approval, the following recommendation is hereby provided to the Zoning Board of
Appeals; and
Whereas, the Planning Board has briefly reviewed and discussed this application, the
relief request in the variance application as well as the potential impacts of this project on
the neighborhood and surrounding community, and found that:
MOTION TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
FOR AREA VARIANCE NO. 6-2010 AND SITE PLAN NO. 8-2010 FOR STEVE AND
DEBBIE SEABOYER, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Stephen Traver:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. We will pick Option Two. The Planning
Board, based on limited review, has identified the following areas of concern:
1.Regarding the Floor Area Ratio relief, the applicant has identified a difference
in the calculation methods and the Planning Board concurs, i.e. the old Code
versus the new Code, and so we would be in favor of granting the Floor Area
Ratio relief.
2.Regarding Item Two, the infiltration devices within 100 feet of the shoreline,
the applicant’s requesting 97% relief for the north infiltration device/rain
garden and 95% relief for the south infiltration device/rain garden. Plus the
applicant is also seeking 55% relief for the crushed stone and perforated pipe
infiltration system installed below grade along the eastern and northern
portion of the property.
The Planning Board feels that we do not have a strong enough documentation on the
functionality of the stormwater system to be completely comfortable. However, even
though the relief requested is severe, we realize that the nature of the site invites request
for significant relief. The majority of the Planning Board beliefs that relief should be
granted by the Zoning Board of Appeals.
th
Duly adopted this 16 day of February, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Ford
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you.
MRS. STEFFAN-So you’ll be at the ZBA tomorrow night, and we’ll see you next week.
MR. HOWLAND-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Nice job, Gretchen. Good resolution. Our next item on the agenda is
also a recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals.
AV 8-2010/SP 9-10: JAMIE WALTHER FOR TIM & LUCY MORIARTY APPLICANT
PROPOSES AN 880 SQ. FT. BASEMENT EXPANSION TO INCLUDE A 12 SQ. FT.
OUTSIDE ACCESS. APPLICANT REQUESTS RELIEF FROM FLOOR AREA RATIO &
19
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
SIDE SETBACK REQUIREMENTS AND EXPANSION OF A NONCONFORMING
STRUCTURE IN A CEA.
JEFF MEYER & JAMIE WALTHER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you’re ready to summarize Staff Notes.
MR. OBORNE-Sure. Requested action is recommendation to the Zoning Board of
Appeals concerning the relief requested in the variance application as well as the
potential impacts of this project on the neighborhood and surrounding community.
Location is 12 Honeysuckle Lane. Existing zoning is Waterfront Residential. SEQR
Status is Type II for both actions here. The project history is a lot less involved for this
one. Project Description: Applicant proposes an 880 sq. ft. basement expansion with a
12 sq. ft. outside access. Applicant requests relief from Floor Area Ratio and side
setback requirements. Further, relief requested for the expansion of a nonconforming
structure in a CEA. Again, the Planning Board to briefly review and discuss this
application and recommend to the ZBA any potential impacts the relief requested would
have on the overall project, neighborhood and/or surrounding community. The nature of
the variance is Floor Area Ratio relief: The existing FAR is 0.24 or 158 square feet over
the allowable floor area for this zone. The applicant proposes an additional 892 square
feet of expansion for a proposed FAR of 0.39 percent. Note: Total allowable FAR in the
WR Zone is 0.22 percent. What follows is an explanation on how it is calculated.
Second nature of variance is side setback relief: Project requires 8 ft 10 in. north side
setback relief as calculated and denoted on survey from sideline to side of house. Side
setback requirement is 20 feet for this project. Project requires 6.0 ft. south side setback
relief as calculated by staff on survey from sideline to dwelling entrance. Side setback
requirement is 20 feet for this project. I will add that these are existing conditions, and
the last one is relief for the expansion of nonconforming structure. A couple of more
things. The applicant has submitted a building permit for an 880 square foot expansion
below grade for the purpose of creating space for utilities and storage. Currently, the
house has an area for mechanical equipment located in a crawl space below the
dwelling. The existing crawl space will not be enlarged as a part of this project; however,
a 90 square foot portion will be backfilled. Soils are the same, Charlton Fine Sandy
Loam. What follows is Site Plan Review which you will be picking up on next Tuesday. I
would like to say that, again, just keep in mind that this is an expansion below ground,
which requires FAR calculations, to be part of the FAR calculations, due to the new
Code, and with that said, I’d turn it over to the Board.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Good evening.
MR. MEYER-Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board. My name is Jeff
Meyer. I’m an attorney with Fitzgerald, Morris, Baker, Firth. I’m here with Tim Moriarty,
the property owner, and Jamie Walther, the builder. We’re here to present our
application and hopefully get a positive recommendation. Keith essentially summed it up
perfectly. It’s an expansion below grade. The building height’s not going to be raised.
The way it’s set up now is kind of piecemeal. There is an area in the basement that has
above a five foot clearance, and then there’s a portion that it is essentially just a crawl
space, and then there’s another portion that’s just a slab. What we’re proposing is just
clearing out underneath where the crawl space is, so it becomes basement, so the
utilities can be stored there to shore up the foundation to make the house safer, and, you
know, to clean up and enhance the energy efficiency of the building, and maintain the
heating and cooling system in the house. As it is now, you kind of have to crawl
underneath and the ducts are more or less sitting on dirt. We’re attempting to remedy all
that, and the new clearer version of Floor Area Ratio wraps us in nicely. It’s six feet four
inches, which is essentially tall enough for a normal person to walk through, but if you
add the duct work and everything else, it takes it below actual living space. This isn’t a
situation where there’s a walkout basement or anything like that. It’s, you know, strictly
to keep the furnace, the hot water heater, you know, all those items in good repair.
There are Bilco doors that are proposed, and that’ll just enable easier access. Where
the Bilco doors are proposed to be constructed, it doesn’t, it is an encroachment, but the
property actually extends. There’s a deck and a porch that actually extend further
beyond the encroachment. So it’s not enhancing any existing encroachment. It’s
essentially just modifying what’s there, where the placement of the doors would be. That
is the brief summary. I’m happy to answer any questions you guys may have.
MR. HUNSINGER-Questions, comments from members of the Board?
MR. SCHONEWOLF-I was in this house before this previous owner. I hate to make this
comment because it’ll make all you youngsters versus me, but what they’ve got down
20
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
there is what used to be known as a fruit cellar. I don’t know if any of you remember that,
or are old enough to remember that, but what it is is where you would put bushels of fruit
and stuff store it until it was canned, and what this application says is they want to
remove some of that dirt so they can store things down there. The other thing that, and
the Fire Marshal and I have talked about this, too, is that when we have applications
come before us for improvements in house. If we can encourage people to put in Bilco
doors, it makes a huge amount of difference on what we can do, if they’ve got their
heating in the basement. If there’s a fire and we can get to it, we just had one last year.
If it wasn’t a Bilco door, the house wouldn’t be there, but that is a tremendous help to us,
and it’s a lot safer than trying to snake your way through the house and find the
downstairs and then, you know, pull a line down there. You just open the Bilco door and
there you are, and I see more and more of those now, and if you can encourage people
to do that.
MR. HUNSINGER-So why are you, the big question I had is the section kind of in the
middle of the basement where you’re going to backfill it, what’s?
MR. WALTHER-Are you looking at one of the prints?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. WALTHER-Basically, there’s, part of the house is on an addition, and it’s slab on
grade and then built from there. We don’t want to undermine that. So what we’ll do is
we’ll stay three or four feet away from that area, and pour a wall to retain that backfill and
then cap that off. That way we don’t undermine the slab on grade.
MR. HUNSINGER-So where is the actual slab on grade?
MR. WALTHER-If you’re looking at the print with A-2?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. WALTHER-On the back part here where it says crawl space, that actually is slab on
grade.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Okay.
MR. WALTHER-So the architect actually just wrote that down. This is where it’s built
right on the slab, and we’re just trying to stay away from it a little bit, so we don’t
undermine it. We’ll put a four foot wall to retain it there, and then backfill that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, when I saw crawl space, I’m thinking, you know, there’s three or
four feet of crawl space.
MR. WALTHER-Yes, the rest of it is crawl space, and that actually is slab on grade.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. WALTHER-There’s nothing underneath it. I’ve poked at it, and it’s basically a
monolithic slab that’s holding up that area.
MR. HUNSINGER-I makes sense. Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, when I was reading the plan, I wasn’t getting it, and I thought, you
know, we read plans all the time, and I just wasn’t understanding it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions, comments, concerns from members of the
Board?
MR. OBORNE-I do want to ask Jeff to come and sign the application when you’re done,
because you’re not on the application. We want to be on the up and up.
MR. MEYER-All right.
MR. OBORNE-Thank you, sir.
MR. HUNSINGER-Would anyone like to put forward a recommendation?
21
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MRS. STEFFAN-So we don’t have any adverse impacts identified. So do we have any
statements that we want to make? Because otherwise we can just go with Option One.
MR. OBORNE-That is correct.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Go with Option One.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Then I’ll make a resolution.
MOTION TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
FOR AREA VARIANCE NO. 8-2010 AND SITE PLAN NO. 9-2010 JAMIE WALTHER
FOR TIM & LUCY MORIARTY, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver:
Whereas, the Town of Queensbury Zoning Ordinance, per Section 179-9-070 J 2 b.
requires the Planning Board to provide a written recommendation to the Zoning Board of
Appeals for projects that require both Zoning Board of Appeals & Planning Board
approval; and
Whereas, this project does require both Zoning Board of Appeals & Planning Board
approval, the following recommendation is hereby provided to the Zoning Board of
Appeals; and
Whereas, the Planning Board has briefly reviewed and discussed this application, the
relief request in the variance application as well as the potential impacts of this project on
the neighborhood and surrounding community, and found that:
MOTION TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
FOR AREA VARIANCE NO. 8-2010 AND SITE PLAN NO. 9-2010 JAMIE WALTHER
FOR TIM & LUCY MORIARTY, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. We pick Option One. The Planning
Board, based on limited review, has not identified any significant adverse impacts that
cannot be mitigated with current project proposal.
th
Duly adopted this 16 day of February, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Schonewolf, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Traver, Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Ford
MRS. STEFFAN-We’ll see you next week.
MR. MEYER-Thank you very much.
MR. HUNSINGER-You’re all set. Thank you.
SITE PLAN NO. 1-2010 FRESHWATER WETLANDS 1-2010 SEQR TYPE II G.A.
BOVE & SONS, INC. AGENT(S) HARLAN-MC GEE OF NO. AMERICA OWNER(S)
TAYLOR WELDING SUPPLY, INC. ZONING CLI LOCATION 22 LOWER WARREN
ST. APPLICANT PROPOSES MODIFICATION TO AN APPROVED SITE PLAN TO
INCLUDE AN ADDITIONAL 5,000 SQUARE FEET OF IMPERMEABLE AREA
ASSOCIATED WITH CONSTRUCTION OF THE 30,000 GALLON LIQUID PROPANE
TANK AND FENCE. SITE PLAN: MODIFICATIONS TO AN APPROVED PLAN IN THE
CLI ZONE REQUIRE PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. FRESHWATER
WETLANDS REVIEW FOR HARD SURFACING WITHIN 100 FEET OF AN ACOE
WETLAND. CROSS REFERENCE SP 56-09 WARREN CO. PLANNING 2/10/2010
APA, CEA, OTHER NWI WETLANDS LOT SIZE 1.20 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO.
303.19-1-47 SECTION 179-4; CHAPTER 94
WAYNE CLAREMONT & JOHN BOVE, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you’re ready to summarize Staff Notes.
MR. OBORNE-Yes, give me one second, please. Site Plan 1-2010, Freshwater
Wetlands 1-2010, Applicant G.A. Bove and Sons, Inc. Site Plan, modification to an
22
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
approved Site Plan in the CLI zone requires Planning Board review and approval.
Freshwater Wetland review for hard surfacing within 100 feet of the Army Corps of
Engineers wetland is required. Location is 22 Lower Warren Street. I’m pretty sure that
the Planning Board is familiar with this application. We had just reviewed it a couple of
months ago. Basically the applicant is seeking approval for as built conditions.
Diversion from previously approved Site Plan, specifically 5,000 square feet of additional
hard surfacing and gravel, asphalt and concrete have been installed or will be installed in
the Spring. Additionally the applicant has installed a second gate on the southern
portion of the enclosure to ostensibly help with snow removal efforts on site. Further, the
project calls for a 12 by 16 foot equipment shed on concrete pad to be placed behind the
existing 1 story concrete block building. I think all the issues that I have deal with the
Freshwater Wetlands and the fact that our mapping shows that there is Army Corps of
Engineer wetlands within 100 feet of the now new hard surfacing, that’s why it wasn’t
really an issue on the previous Site Plan, and again, with that said, I’m going to turn it
over to the Board. One more thing is that there is a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy
th
with this that expires on April 29 of this year. The Fire Marshal has inspected it, post
increase and post completion, and has no issues with the site.
MR. HUNSINGER-Great. Thank you. Good evening.
MR. CLAREMONT-Good evening.
MR. BOVE-Good evening.
MR. HUNSINGER-If you could identify yourselves for the record.
MR. CLAREMONT-Yes. Wayne Claremont with Harlan-McGee.
MR. BOVE-John Bove, with G.A. Bove Fuels.
MR. HUNSINGER-Did you have anything else to add?
MR. CLAREMONT-Well, you know, as he just stated, we’re re-applying because we’ve
added some concrete which was initially, well, we would like to add some concrete which
was initially going to be gravel. That threw us over the 1,000, I believe it was 1,000 foot
threshold of impervious. So we had to do a stormwater plan, and that’s the primary
reason for the re-submittal. The wetland issue, I have not, you know, I’ve identified, and
I believe I submitted the map, of some fish and wildlife wetlands. I did not see any Corps
of Engineer wetlands, but from my determinations, we’re about 150 feet from that
wetland. So that may be an issue we need to work out.
MRS. STEFFAN-Keith, how do you go about determining that, the wetland? I mean,
what’s the source? Is it DEC?
MR. OBORNE-The source would be a wetland delineation by the applicant, or in lieu of
that, approval of this project based upon the knowledge that there is a wetland within a
certain amount based on our mapping. They’re not filling the wetlands. So, I mean, is
that an issue? No. We have a Freshwater Wetland chapter in our Code that needs to be
followed, hence why I brought it up at this point, but the long and short of it is wetland
delineation. I will say that there are.
MRS. STEFFAN-So that’s like an engineering company has to do that?
MR. OBORNE-Yes, somebody, a wildlife biologist or something along those lines.
There’s flagging in this picture back there. I don’t know if that is by the applicant or not,
but I do know that is the general area that our mapping shows where it is, and we’re
talking about 75 to 80 feet. So it’s within the 100 feet, yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-We had this conversation when we did the Site Plan Review initially,
didn’t we?
MR. OBORNE-I believe we did, yes, and again, I didn’t have the concern that I do now
because there wasn’t hard surfacing proposed underneath the tank at that point. There
was just saddles, and then the hard surfacing had to deal with the trucks moving around
and all that. So again, this isn’t going to the Zoning Board. This is just a Site Plan
modification, basically.
MRS. STEFFAN-Right.
23
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. HUNSINGER-Questions, comments, concerns from members of the Board?
MR. TRAVER-Sir, you stated that you felt, that your own opinion was that any wetlands
on this parcel were approximately 100 feet away from the disturbance reflected in this
latest application?
MR. CLAREMONT-Well, how I measured that was, if you go to the Fish and Wildlife
mapping, they do indicate a wetland back there, and in their mapping, you can overlay a
Google map, which shows the buildings, the streets in it, and you can clearly see where
our site is, and you can measure, on the Google map you have a measuring device, and
that’s what we use, that’s what I use to measure the distance.
MR. TRAVER-As someone who uses Google a lot, may I say I was not surprised to see
that the Town does not recognize Google as the standard by which we make judgments
on wetlands and environmental concern, but I understand the process that you went
through.
MR. CLAREMONT-Well, my experience is that on the Google mapping, it’s fairly, pretty
accurate, but I do understand that it may not be an acceptable practice, but I’ve used it
on numerous occasions.
MR. OBORNE-Sure, and I will add to that, also, that our mapping is a generalized map,
you know, it’s not perfect. It’s close. It’s based, again, on national wetland inventory
mapping, which is basically the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Army Corps of Engineers, and
when I see that there is an indication of it on the property, it’s a red flag to me. How does
this affect the applicant in this application? That’s for you, that’s for the Planning Board
to determine that.
MR. TRAVER-Sure. Based upon what the Town GIS system reflected, you’d estimate
that it was perhaps 75 or 80 feet from the disturbance?
MR. OBORNE-Yes, and that’s, again, the same measuring tool that is being used by the
applicant. It’s not exactly rocket science to use it, and it’s not all that accurate, to be
honest with you.
MR. CLAREMONT-I can give you the map if you’d like to see it.
MR. OBORNE-I think they got one.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. We have the package.
MR. CLAREMONT-Can I just pass this up? Maybe you can pass it around. It’s actually
two maps here, both from the Fish and Wildlife website.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, why don’t you start down at that end. Did you get the comment,
Keith? The comment that Paul was making is he is showing Fish and Wildlife wetlands,
and maybe they’re different than what.
MR. OBORNE-They would be still considered Army Corps of Engineer wetlands.
They’re wetlands of the United States.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Yes, because Army Corps is the most restrictive.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Of course these wetlands were created by the parking lots that we
approved at some point as a Town, okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Absolutely.
MR. OBORNE-They have wetlands running through the parking lot. So I understand
that.
MR. CLAREMONT-Also typically there is no setback to a Federal wetland, but I believe
in this case it’s the Town of Queensbury’s law.
MR. OBORNE-Chapter 136, yes.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-You originally had gravel in there, then you went to a hard surface?
MR. CLAREMONT-Well, we haven’t gone to a hard surface yet.
24
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. SCHONEWOLF-But that’s your thinking.
MR. CLAREMONT-That’s what the owner would like to do, yes.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-And I was going to ask, my question was why.
MR. CLAREMONT-John, do you want to speak to that?
MR. BOVE-Because of the loading and unloading of the trucks.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-That’s a good answer. The Fire Marshal suggested that option.
MRS. STEFFAN-Didn’t we talk, we talked about that during your Site Plan Review, that
we thought that that area should be paved actually.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Well, he’s putting a pad in, isn’t he?
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. So it makes sense.
MR. HUNSINGER-So, Keith, how do we cover ourselves if there’s a suspicion?
MR. OBORNE-Well, I think the site is built out, and again, I don’t want to put words in the
Planning Board’s mouth.
MR. HUNSINGER-No, I’m not asking you to.
MR. OBORNE-How does this action effect this wetland? If it’s 80 feet away, what real
action or what real concern is there? I mean, they have stormwater controls in place,
and there’s vegetation all through here.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. OBORNE-I mean, from a personal point of view, I don’t think it’s that big of an issue.
From a bureaucratic point of view, you’re approving it and it goes away. They have an
approved freshwater wetland. If you don’t approve it, you’d ask for them to do a
delineation.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. TRAVER-It’s a Type II action.
MR. OBORNE-It is a Type II action.
MR. HUNSINGER-And of course as we’ve often talked about, there are varying degrees
of wetlands. There are different quality of wetlands, and is a wetland in the middle of an
industrial region going to be a quality wetland? Those are all things that have to be
considered as well.
MR. OBORNE-I think that probably the most important wetlands would be wetlands that
are in industrial areas. So, I mean, you have to juxtapose that logic against certain other
conditions.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MRS. STEFFAN-I’m sure that the wetland that’s there is coated with a lot of fine, gray
dust.
MR. OBORNE-Yes, clinker dust.
MRS. STEFFAN-As most things are on that side of Town.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, we do have a public hearing this evening. Is there anyone in
the audience who wants to address the Board on this application? I will open the public
hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. HUNSINGER-Are there any written comments, Keith?
25
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. OBORNE-No, sir.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Let the record show that there are no commentors. I will close
the public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. We have a couple of engineering issues that were, just need to
be addressed.
MR. SIPP-One thing. Is there going to be any cutting of trees on this, removal of trees?
MR. CLAREMONT-No, there is not, no.
MR. SIPP-But you show a treed area over the northern end of the site, and then on that
Map C-2, C-4 it disappears. In other words, the overhang of the trees I assume is going
to be either trimmed back, the tree line.
MR. CLAREMONT-Well, on C-2, I’m showing the trees that have already, they’ve
actually already been removed for the, some of this has been built, the previously
approved.
MR. OBORNE-This is a previously approved.
MR. SIPP-All right.
MR. CLAREMONT-And on C-4, on C-4 it’s showing it as if the tree has already been
removed. So, they actually match. I believe they actually match. It’s just, I’m just not
showing the same thing on Sheet C-4 as I’m showing on C-2, but the tree line, we’re not
going to remove anymore trees than have already been removed.
MR. SIPP-All right.
MR. BOVE-That previous, the one you had up there earlier, right there, I think that that
little cluster right there, those three that are shown in that particular illustration, behind
the existing pole.
MR. CLAREMONT-I stand corrected. There’s a little corner, a few more trees will be
removed.
MR. SIPP-Is the Niagara Mohawk, the National Grid going to remove that pole?
MR. BOVE-They’re going to re-locate it.
MR. SIPP-Re-locate it.
MR. BOVE-Correct.
MR. SIPP-To where?
MR. BOVE-It’s going to go, instead of in the rear, right now it’s to the northwest of the
fence. Now it’s going to be on the south, southwest of the fence. It’s going to be behind
the tank.
MR. CLAREMONT-Yes. It’s shown on C-2. Up near the street there’s a note, up in the
street there’s a note that says proposed re-located National Grid pole.
MR. OBORNE-Are you going to install a light on that one? Are they going to allow you to
do that, or were you planning on installing a light?
MR. BOVE-No, we weren’t planning on putting any light on that pole.
MR. OBORNE-Okay.
MR. SIPP-Have you given any thought to landscaping?
MR. BOVE-Well, any land that was disturbed during the construction we’re going to
replace it back to it’s natural state when it’s completed, other than the inside fenced area.
26
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MRS. STEFFAN-Right, and we told them that they needed to put the green slats in the
fence when we approved it.
MR. BOVE-It’s going to be all grass around the fence except where the existing
pavement was before we started the project.
MR. SIPP-You have no plans to put any shrubs or trees?
MR. CLAREMONT-No, we didn’t.
MRS. STEFFAN-The questions that I have are the Paragon Engineering has some
comments, and I thought we had given them a waiver for contours, but it’s not on the last
resolution that we approved, but I thought because the property was flat, we’d given
them waivers.
MR. OBORNE-I don’t recollect. I don’t think we have the resolution for approval here.
MRS. STEFFAN-Actually it is here, from October of ’09, but it doesn’t say that we gave
them, I thought I remembered giving them one, or at least we talked about it.
MR. TRAVER-I remember discussing it. I’m just not sure if it was this application.
MRS. STEFFAN-And I thought it was this application, for some reason, because it was
flat, you know, that area is dead flat.
MR. TRAVER-And the comments regarding DOT, I think that the changes they’re
proposing to the Site Plan, access to the highway I don’t think has changed from what
was previously approved.
MR. OBORNE-Well, we had discussed that, and as always, I am always keen to
vehicular safety. I had brought that up last time, and the Board didn’t feel too concerned
with it. We could re-visit that if you’d like.
MR. CLAREMONT-There is no change in, there’s no new access points being created,
and on the contour issue, we’re lucky if we could even get one contour on the sheet,
because it’s flat.
MR. TRAVER-Yes, it’s pretty flat there.
MR. SIPP-No curb cut there?
MR. OBORNE-It’s all curb cut.
MR. CLAREMONT-It’s all one big curb cut.
MRS. STEFFAN-It’s just blacktop.
MR. HUNSINGER-We’re just looking at the engineering comments, here, on Page Two.
There’s several comments.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, on Page Two, Sheet C-2, which is revised, it identified, Number
One, the contours are not shown, but, Number Two, the test pit data does not give a date
of the test pits. In addition, the infiltration rate provided does not reference the depth the
data was obtained. Do you have that information that you could add to the plan?
MR. CLAREMONT-Yes. I do have the information. You’re right, the date’s not on there.
Which, C-2?
MRS. STEFFAN-C-2.
MR. OBORNE-C-2 Paragon.
MR. CLAREMONT-Yes, I do have the information.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. So we’ll just put it in the motion that you can add that to the plan.
Now the stormwater management, on Sheet C-4, it says stormwater management
design does not conform to 179-9-050 J. A stormwater report was not submitted, nor
27
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
was an analysis done as required. I’m assuming, Keith, that that was done when we
reviewed it the last time?
MR. OBORNE-They weren’t proposing any stormwater management last time.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. OBORNE-They’re putting an infiltration trench around. You gave them a waiver
from stormwater.
MRS. STEFFAN-We did.
MR. OBORNE-That’s my understanding.
MR. CLAREMONT-We did submit a stormwater. I don’t know what happened to it, but
we did submit it.
MR. OBORNE-Well, I’m sure that we got it. Are you sure you submitted it?
MR. HUNSINGER-I guess we didn’t pass it along to the Town Engineer.
MR. OBORNE-No, we would have sent it if we got it. It’s right here. Yes. I can’t speak
for what Clark got, but he does have a catalogue on the front of his notes. If they’re not
there, then he did not receive it, and that would be an issue that I’ll have to take up with
Staff.
MR. TRAVER-It’s not there.
MR. OBORNE-It’s not on there?
MR. TRAVER-No.
MR. OBORNE-Let’s submit that for final approval.
MRS. STEFFAN-All right, and then, what are we missing here? The contour thing again.
We’re not going to go there. Site stabilization to be shown and detail provided. The site
is flat.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-That would be identified in the stormwater plan.
MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t know how necessary that is, being that the stabilization has
already pretty much been done. Typically you have a stabilization entrance for new
construction, but I believe there’s already an entrance there. It probably should have
been, because for sedimentation control you should have that. It would be after the fact,
though.
MRS. STEFFAN-And then that Item Four, the infiltration trench shown should specify
washed stone. Would that be part of the stormwater management plan, I’m assuming?
MR. OBORNE-That should be part of a note on the trench itself, that stone should be
washed prior to being placed. That’s pretty typical practice.
MR. CLAREMONT-It says stone fill. It doesn’t say, yes, I’m showing washed bank run
gravel filter layer on top. It’ll be crushed stone fill in the trench, which is 40% void where
the water’s going to be stored.
MR. OBORNE-I think his concern, obviously, is that it’ll eventually cement itself and not
do a good job with infiltration.
MR. CLAREMONT-Right. He doesn’t want pressure run in there.
MR. OBORNE-Well, that, and he wants the stone washed, I mean, prior to it being done.
MR. CLAREMONT-I can make that correction.
MR. HUNSINGER-So it wasn’t done yet, the stone wasn’t laid yet, then.
28
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. CLAREMONT-Right, but I can indicate it on the final drawing.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-And then the condition of approval indicates that a blaze orange
construction fence is to be installed to delineate no cut buffer zones. You already cut
the, I’m assuming that’s already done, isn’t it?
MR. CLAREMONT-Correct.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, that was already done.
MR. OBORNE-Yes, that’s boilerplate on our resolutions also. Every resolution now has
that.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-So that part was already done. All right. So I’ve got a couple of things
to add to the resolution.
MR. OBORNE-That’s something Bruce does in the field, too, he goes out and verifies
that those are up.
MRS. STEFFAN-What about on Sheet C-1, the existing water supply and septic systems
are not shown as required?
MR. OBORNE-They’re on water and sewer, I believe.
MRS. STEFFAN-So they don’t have to.
MR. OBORNE-Right.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. OBORNE-We’ll get that on the plan, where the location of the sewer is, and water,
the lines coming in to the building.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, just label the plan.
MR. CLAREMONT-It’s not on the original survey.
MR. HUNSINGER-Is it adequate to just say on the plan that the site is served by Town
water and sewer?
MR. OBORNE-I think the location of where the pipes are would be a good thing for
potential additional, in the future expansion, to know where that is.
MRS. STEFFAN-All right. Then I’ll make a motion.
MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 1-2010 AND FRESHWATER WETLANDS 1-
2010 G.A. BOVE & SONS, INC., Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver:
1)A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the
following: Applicant proposes modification to an approved site plan to include an
additional 5,000 square feet of impermeable area associated with construction of
the 30,000 gallon liquid propane tank and fence. Site Plan: Modifications to an
approved plan in the CLI zone require Planning Board review and approval.
Freshwater Wetlands review for hard surfacing within 100 feet of an ACOE
wetland.
2)A public hearing was advertised and held on 2/16/2010; and
3)This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and
application material in the file of record;
29
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
4)MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 1-2010 AND FRESHWATER
WETLANDS 1-2010 G.A. BOVE & SONS, INC., Introduced by Gretchen Steffan
who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. Paragraph Four A complies.
a)Pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code
[Chapter 179], the Planning Board has determined that this proposal
complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and
b)Type II, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and
c)Final approved plans, in compliance with the Site Plan, must be submitted
to the Community Development Department before any further review by
the Zoning Administrator or Building and Codes personnel. The applicant
must meet with Staff after approval and prior to issuance of Building
Permit and/or the beginning of any site work. Subsequent issuance of
further permits, including building permits is dependent on compliance
with this and all other conditions of this resolution; and
d)As-built plans to certify that the site plan is developed according to the
approved plans to be provided prior to issuance of the certificate of
occupancy; and
e)The limits of clearing will constitute a no-cut buffer zone, orange
construction fencing shall be installed around these areas and field
verified by Community Development staff.
f)Engineering sign-off required prior to signature of Zoning Administrator.
g)This is approved with the following conditions:
1)That on Drawing Sheet C-1, that the applicant will add the water
supply and the sewer connections and a note that public utilities serve
the site.
2)The applicant will add to Sheet C-2 the date that the test pits were
dug, and in addition the infiltration rate reference data.
3)On Sheet C-4, the applicant will put a note on the plan that the
infiltration trench shown should specify washed number two stone.
4)The applicant will need to obtain a signoff by Paragon Engineering on
the stormwater management plan which they were not able to review.
th
Duly adopted this 16 day of February, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Ford
MR. HUNSINGER-You’re all set.
MR. CLAREMONT-Thank you.
MR. BOVE-Thank you.
SUBDIVISION NO. 3-2010 PRELIMINARY STAGE SEQR TYPE UNLISTED
BABAJANI & MAMA, LLC AGENT(S) PARAGON ENGINEERING OWNER(S) SAME
ZONING CI LOCATION 925 & 931 STATE ROUTE 9 APPLICANT PROPOSES
SUBDIVISION OF A 3.48 +/- ACRE PARCEL INTO TWO COMMERCIAL LOTS OF 1.13
AND 2.35 +/- ACRES [RED ROOF INN & OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE]. SUBDIVISION
OF LAND REQUIRES PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. APPLICANT IS
REQUESTING A WAIVER FROM SKETCH PLAN REVIEW. THE PLANNING BOARD
MAY CONDUCT SEQR REVIEW AND PROVIDE A WRITTEN RECOMMENDATION
TO THE ZBA PER SECTION 277 OF TOWN LAW.
30
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
CLARK WILKINSON, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you’re ready to summarize Staff Notes, please.
MR. OBORNE-Okay. Area Variance 7-2010, Subdivision 3-2010, and Site Plan 10-2010
is before the Planning Board. Babajani and Mama, LLC is the applicant. Requested
action Planning Board to conduct SEQRA review and provide recommendation to the
Zoning Board of Appeals concerning the relief requested in the variance application as
well as the potential impacts on the neighborhood and surrounding community. The
location is 925 & 931 State Route 9. It’s in the Commercial Intensive zone. This is an
Unlisted for Site Plan, and Unlisted for Area Variance SEQRA. Project Description:
Applicant proposes to subdivide a 3.48 acre parcel into two parcels of 2.35 acres and
1.13 acres. Relief requested from the 30 percent permeability requirement for proposed
lot 2 only. The nature of the variance, as discussed before, is permeability relief.
Proposal requires 4,180 square feet or 8.5% relief from the 30% permeability
reuqirement for the Highway Commercial zone for Lot Two. Staff Comments: The
parcel in question has a site plan approval for both the Red Roof Inn and Outback
Steakhouse. Outback Steakhouse owns the structure but not the parcel that it is located
on. The applicant wishes to subdivide the Outback parcel from the larger parcel for the
purposes of settling banking issues (see narrative). Site Plan Review does follow, just a
few things in there. Subdivision review, let it be noted to the Planning Board that the
applicant has requested a waiver from Sketch Plan Review. Again, application protocol,
real quickly, decision on request for waiver from Sketch Plan, Open public hearing,
Conduct SEQR review, and then a Recommendation to ZBA. That’s what’s going on
tonight.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you.
MR. OBORNE-Tomorrow Zoning Board of Appeals review, and then upon approval, if
approved, back for Preliminary and Final next Tuesday, and with that I’d turn it over.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Good evening.
MR. WILKINSON-For the record, my name is Clark Wilkinson with Paragon Engineering,
representing Babajani and Mama, LLC, on this subdivision, site plan proposal before
you. Not much to add to what Keith has. He went over all my bullets and highlights, or
practically all of them, and again, the biggest thing that I’d like to let you guys know as a
Board is that this proposal for the two lot subdivision is to settle a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
proceeding that’s currently in progress with the bank. We’re proposing the subdivision,
and as part of that agreement, the bank will take ownership of Outback parcel and
Babajani and Mama, LLC will retain ownership of the Red Roof Inn. Also as part of that,
we are proposing cross access and parking easements and agreements that are going to
be in place and filed with the deed. I do not have a copy of them at this point in time.
They’re in process of being prepared by an attorney, but that will also be a part of the
application and a part of what I feel should be a condition of approval on this particular
parcel. As Keith said, both lots conform to zoning, with the exception of proposed Lot
Two that does have the inadequate green space. We looked into trying to subdivide this
a number of different ways, and it came up with zigzag lines and thin lines and such a
creation of a badly configured lot that we may end up having to come back to the ZBA for
a variance on the lot width, because it goes by average lot width, and if you start cutting
thin pieces, the average lot width is affected greatly. So, again, we don’t feel that with
the, and the other thing I’d like to add, also, is that, through this whole process, there will
be no physical change to the actual site. This is really a basically paper that separates
the two, creates two different ownerships, with no change, physical change, on the site
whatsoever, and with that I’d like to turn it over to the Board for questions and comments.
MR. HUNSINGER-Questions, comments from the Board?
MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t have any problem with providing a waiver for Sketch Plan
review.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone have a problem with the Sketch Plan Review request?
MR. TRAVER-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Let’s dispose of that. I’ll make a motion.
31
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MOTION TO APPROVE THE REQUEST FOR A WAIVER FROM SKETCH PLAN
REVIEW FOR SUBDIVISION NO. 3-2010 BABAJANI & MAMA, LLC, Introduced by
Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Donald Krebs:
1. A subdivision application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for
the following: Applicant proposes subdivision of a 3.48 +/- acre parcel into two
commercial lots of 1.13 and 2.35+/- acres [Red Roof Inn & Outback
Steakhouse]. Subdivision of land requires Planning Board review and approval.
Applicant is requesting a waiver from Sketch Plan review; and
2. MOTION TO APPROVE THE REQUEST FOR A WAIVER FROM SKETCH
PLAN REVIEW FOR SUBDIVISION NO. 3-2010 BABAJANI & MAMA, LLC,
Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Donald
Krebs:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff.
th
Duly adopted this 16 day of February, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Traver, Mr. Krebs, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Ford
MR. HUNSINGER-There’s one formality out of the way for you.
MR. WILKINSON-That’s good, and a number of them.
MR. HUNSINGER-Questions, comments or concerns from members? Okay. Well, we
do have a public hearing scheduled. So I will open the public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. HUNSINGER-Let the record show that there was no one left in the audience. Were
there any written comments?
MR. OBORNE-No, sir.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I always get confused, because in order to do SEQRA, we
need to close the public hearing. Would we then re-open the public hearing for Site Plan
Review?
MR. OBORNE-You’re opening the public hearing for the Site Plan itself, at this point.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-Actually we’re talking about the subdivision right now.
MR. OBORNE-Well, that is true. So we open the public hearing for the Preliminary
subdivision that you’re doing.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. OBORNE-With that said, you would conduct your SEQRA review, and then
obviously you can’t approve the Preliminary subdivision until you have your Area
Variance completed.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. OBORNE-So leave the public hearing open so they’re not charged, and you’ll see
them back here on Tuesday.
MR. HUNSINGER-Next week. Okay. That makes sense. I just want to make sure we
do it in the proper sequence. Okay. So we will open the public hearing and we will table
the public hearing until next week. SEQRA. It’s an Unlisted action.
MRS. STEFFAN-And it’s a Long Form.
32
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. HUNSINGER-And it’s a Long Form.
MR. OBORNE-Are you sure you want to table the public hearing? You probably should
leave it open at this point.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I’ll leave it open.
MR. OBORNE-Okay.
MR. WILKINSON-Okay. Because that’s technically two different things.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Yes, we’ll leave the public hearing open until next week.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. So, SEQRA, this is a Long Form.
MR. HUNSINGER-Long Form. Unlisted. Subdivision is always a Long Form.
MR. OBORNE-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Will the proposed action result in a physical change to the
project site?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN- Will there be an effect to any unique or unusual land forms found
on the site?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect any water body designated as
protected?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. KREBS-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect any non-protected existing or new body
of water?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. KREBS-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect surface or groundwater quality or
quantity?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action alter drainage flow or patterns, or surface
water runoff?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. KREBS-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect air quality?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect any threatened or endangered species?
33
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. KREBS-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action substantially affect non-threatened or non-
endangered species?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. KREBS-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect agricultural land resources?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. KREBS-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect aesthetic resources?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. KREBS-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action impact any site or structure of historic, pre-
historic or paleontological importance?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect the quantity or quality of existing or
future open spaces or recreational opportunities?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action impact the exceptional or unique
characteristics of a critical environmental area?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will there be an effect to existing transportation systems?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will proposed action affect the community’s sources of fuel or energy
supply?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. TRAVER-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will there be objectionable odors, noise, or vibration as a result of
the proposed action?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect public health and safety?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
34
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect the character of the existing community?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-And is there, or is there likely to be, public controversy related to
potential adverse environmental impacts?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. TRAVER-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Then I’ll make a motion for a Negative SEQRA declaration.
RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE
RESOLUTION NO. 3-2010, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Paul Schonewolf:
WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for:
BABAJANI & MAMA, LLC, and
WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning
Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT
RESOLVED:
1. No Federal agency appears to be involved.
2. The following agencies are involved:
NONE
3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of
Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental
Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury.
4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant.
5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental
concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has
a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of
the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New
York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will
have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board
is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a
statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by
law.
th
Duly adopted this 16 day of, February, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Schonewolf, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Ford
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Is just this restaurant going through bankruptcy?
MR. WILKINSON-The owner of both parcels, Babajani and Mama own the whole thing
and Outback is actually leased to Outback Steakhouse. That’s the actual site, and so
the whole thing is tied up in the bank. So for the bank to resolve the issues and re-
mortgage and do whatever they need to do and get everything to work, they’re taking the
piece of land that the Outback is on, as part of the agreement, and they’ll probably sell it
to somebody. That’s why we’re, I was adamant, up front, with the bank when I talked to
35
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
their officials, that we have to have the agreements in place and the cross easements in
place before the subdivision is approved because we don’t know where it’s going to trail
down the line and who it’s going to be sold to. I want it in place now.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. It needs to be.
MR. WILKINSON-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-And the question I have for the Board is, would we want the Town
Attorney to review those?
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Because that’s certainly not something we look at very often.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-The Town Attorney or the Attorney for the Planning Board? It’s two
different people, isn’t it, sometimes?
MR. SIPP-Not really.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-You want the Town Attorney to look at it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Aren’t they one in the same?
MR. OBORNE-Yes, it’s the same firm.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-It’s the same firm, but it’s two different people.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. OBORNE-It can be, but Cathi’s been here.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I thought maybe something changed.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Not that I know of, but it could be.
MRS. STEFFAN-No, only when the Town Board changes.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, we could always make it a condition of approval.
MR. WILKINSON-Again, I don’t think it’s a big deal, because if their attorneys agree,
then I don’t see why the Planning Board attorney would have a problem.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right, well, I mean, you know, the obvious concerns from the
Planning Board are Site Plan related. Transportation access, vehicle access, pedestrian
access, stormwater, snowplowing, you know, those items that Staff has outlined for us.
MR. WILKINSON-And as part of the Site Plan modification, you have to ensure that both
parcels have adequate parking and access.
MR. HUNSINGER-Absolutely.
MR. WILKINSON-Which leads to, no problem, and again, if both of the attorneys, the
attorney for the owner and the attorney for the bank, are in agreement with the
easements, I don’t see that the attorney for the Planning Board’s going to have any
issues, just basically making sure that it’s in effect and that it gets filed.
MR. HUNSINGER-The only other time we ran across something like this was, I think it
was with Target, it was with the Mall, where we did subdivision, so that they could, was it
the Target store?
MR. OBORNE-Yes, it’s because the Mall wanted a subdivision, no, Target wanted a
subdivision, right.
MR. WILKINSON-No, Target wanted the subdivision. Yes. I was at LA Group at the
time and did that.
36
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. OBORNE-They also had that at NPA also, they had lease lines currently.
MR. KREBS-Home Depot was like that, too.
MR. OBORNE-Exactly.
MR. WILKINSON-And their lease lines actually clearly delineate to make sure that they
have the adequate parking within their lease line.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. WILKINSON-That’s all part of those agreements, too.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure. Okay. So the next step is to make a recommendation to the
Zoning Board.
MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t really have any issues. Certainly the Zoning Board granted a
variance way back so that, you know, they would only pave a certain number of spaces
and there was overflow parking.
MR. WILKINSON-It was actually a variance for more.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes.
MR. WILKINSON-Because we asked 20% above.
MRS. STEFFAN-Right.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-So there’s more than adequate parking that exists currently, and there’s
certainly lots of places to put snow.
MR. WILKINSON-Yes, there is.
MRS. STEFFAN-And as I remember, we were all surprised when there was no public
controversy from the people at Regency Park apartments.
MR. WILKINSON-Robert Gardens.
MRS. STEFFAN-Robert Gardens, rather, because during the public hearing, the only
comments we got were supportive.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. So would anyone like to make a recommendation to the
Zoning Board?
MRS. STEFFAN-I will make a resolution.
MOTION TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
FOR AREA VARIANCE NO. 7-2010, SUBDIVISION NO. 3-2010, AND SITE PLAN NO.
10-2010 BABAJANI & MAMA, LLC, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Donald Krebs:
Whereas, the Town Law requires the Planning Board to provide a written
recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals for projects that require both Zoning
Board of Appeals & Planning Board subdivision & site plan review approval; and
Whereas, this project does require both Zoning Board of Appeals & Planning Board
approval; and
Whereas, the Planning Board has briefly reviewed and discussed this application, the
relief request in the variance application as well as the potential impacts of this project on
the neighborhood and surrounding community, and found that:
MOTION TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
FOR AREA VARIANCE NO. 7-2010, SUBDIVISION NO. 3-2010, AND SITE PLAN NO.
37
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
10-2010 BABAJANI & MAMA, LLC, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Donald Krebs:
According to the resolution put forth by Staff. The Planning Board, based on limited
review, has not identified any significant adverse impacts that cannot be mitigated with
the current project proposal.
th
Duly adopted this 16 day of February, 2010, by the following vote:
MRS. STEFFAN-This also says for Site Plan.
MR. WILKINSON-Modification for Site Plan.
MR. OBORNE-It will cover both.
MRS. STEFFAN-It will cover both?
MR. OBORNE-Yes, absolutely.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Well, I just want to make sure, because the Site Plan is the next
item on the agenda.
MR. OBORNE-Yes, right. The recommendation is specifically for the Area Variance
itself.
MR. WILKINSON-Correct.
MR. OBORNE-Regardless of whether it’s the subdivision or the site plan.
MRS. STEFFAN-All right. Sorry, I just wanted to make sure that we weren’t doing
something wrong. Okay.
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Krebs, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Ford
SITE PLAN 10-2010 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED BABAJANI & MAMA, LLC AGENT(S)
PARAGON ENGINEERING OWNER(S) SAME ZONING CI LOCATION 925 & 931
STATE ROUTE 9 APPLICANT PROPOSES A MODIFICATION TO AN APPROVED
SITE PLAN WITH A CHANGE TO LOT CONFIGURATION. CHANGES TO AN
APPROVED SITE PLAN REQUIRE PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL.
CROSS REFERENCE AV 7-2010, SP 4-05, SP 61-07, SUB 3-2010 WARREN CO.
PLANNING 2/10/2010 LOT SIZE 3.48 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 296.13-1-17
SECTION 179-9-010
CLARK WILKINSON, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-So in terms of the Site Plan, do we need to do anything other than to
make sure the record is clear that the public hearing was opened and will be left open
until next Tuesday?
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. OBORNE-Correct.
MR. HUNSINGER-When we will deliberate the Site Plan. Assuming the Zoning Board
acts.
MR. OBORNE-You have to wait for the Zoning Board before you can do anything.
MR. WILKINSON-Right. Correct.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-So we will see you next week.
38
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. WILKINSON-Yes, you will. There was a positive recommendation from Warren
County Planning, too, correct?
MR. HUNSINGER-No County Impact, yes.
MR. OBORNE-Yes. I don’t believe they actually met. Municipal law states if they don’t
meet, it’s a de facto approval. No County Impact.
MR. WILKINSON-It’s a 30 day thing?
MR. OBORNE-Exactly.
MR. WILKINSON-Yes. Okay. Thank you very much.
MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. Good luck. Regarding next month, I think everyone
saw the e-mail about.
MRS. STEFFAN-Fedorowicz.
MR. HUNSINGER-Fedorowicz, yes.
MR. OBORNE-Fedorowicz.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do we have a date for that one?
MR. OBORNE-We do not have a date for that one.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the court sent it back to us.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Did they?
MR. HUNSINGER-They didn’t tell us to approve it, but they sent it back to us, and the
applicant has requested to be heard.
MRS. STEFFAN-Even though the property has been sold?
MR. HUNSINGER-Even though the property has been sold.
MR. OBORNE-I’m not sure what the terms of the sale was. I don’t know what the
language is.
MR. HUNSINGER-But it will be coming back before the Board, and if not March,
certainly in April.
MR. OBORNE-Yes. I do have a couple of things, when you guys are done, that I’d like to
discuss.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Go ahead.
MR. OBORNE-Okay. First of all, I sent out an e-mail on impending changes to
stormwater that New York State is going to approving. There is some green, what they
call green stormwater practices. Those are going to be required for a certain
percentage, and having designed and installed them in my past life as a conservationist,
I know they do work, and with that said, just keep in mind that I’d like to probably have
some type of workshop with those, if we can do that, I guess. It’s called green
infrastructure.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-When did you send them out?
MR. OBORNE-I sent them out last week, I sent them out on Thursday, I believe it was.
MR. HUNSINGER-I saw that e-mail, but I didn’t realize.
MR. OBORNE-I put a whole bunch of links on it.
39
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. KREBS-One of the problems I always have with the system, or many times I have
with the system, is I want to go in and I want to open the document and look at the
document and determine whether I want to print it or I want to save it to my disk, and that
particular document forced you to save it to your disk.
MR. OBORNE-Yes, I see.
MR. KREBS-And oftentimes what I would prefer to do is, if it’s a 10 page document, is
just print it, because I don’t want to sit there and try and read it on my computer.
MR. OBORNE-Right. I mean, if you want me to print that, that’s fine. I know, and maybe
Dan will read this. He’s got us under strict orders to reduce our printing. So if Dan reads
this, I’m doing my part for that. I have no issue with that whatsoever, absolutely.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-The same goes for the minutes, though. I don’t want to sit in front
of the computer and read all those minutes. I used to like to take them and read them at
my leisure.
MR. OBORNE-I hear you.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-And if I don’t read them, I can’t vote on them.
MR. KREBS-Yes, and I’ve got a stack of them like that at home, and sometimes I go
back, four months, five months, go back and read what we did.
MRS. STEFFAN-I have five years worth, but I have, you know, every once in a while
something will come up that we heard three years ago, and I flip through, and it’s right
there in date order, and I’ve got it.
MR. KREBS-To be perfectly honest with you, not to be negative, but, Keith, if we want to
save paper, all these extra papers on the top. The fact that we get two sets. We get,
when you deliver it, you give us the agendas, and then when you deliver the engineering
comments, the Staff comments, we get another set of agendas, and there’s a piece of
paper that says minutes approval, and then behind it is the actual document. I don’t
think we need all these extra. I mean, it’s nice for me, because I’m cheap and I save
them all and I put them in my, my printer and re-use them and print on this side, but, you
know.
MR. OBORNE-That’s fine. The reduction of paperwork is an ongoing battle in municipal
government.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-And if you want to make a comment, I haven’t had a chance yet,
but my water bill came on probably the most expensive paper I’ve touched in years.
MR. OBORNE-Well, that would be a whole other entity in the Town.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Yes, they changed the paper.
MR. HUNSINGER-The comment that I have about the minutes, the comment that I have,
the format on the minutes on line is difficult to use. The older format was a lot better, and
I know there had to be a reason for why it was changed and switched.
MR. OBORNE-Yes, because you’ve got to click each page, right?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. It takes forever.
MR. OBORNE-We could send you the word document instead so it’s all one thing.
MR. HUNSINGER-That would help.
MR. OBORNE-That shouldn’t be an issue.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Just mail it to me.
MR. OBORNE-My other issue is I do implore other members of the Board to execute, on
resolutions and recommendations, because if the secretary is not here, it’s going to
sound pretty funny on tape, if you don’t have some practice with it. So I implore that the
Board do that, just to get cross trained, for lack of a better, and one last issue is we are
40
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
very, very busy. We’re very busy with some very juicy projects coming in, four very juicy
projects coming in.
MR. SIPP-Is Schermerhorn?
MR. OBORNE-Schermerhorn’s one of them, that’s going to be contentious, most likely.
MR. KREBS-Keith, maybe we ought to rotate through the organization. The only reason
I say that is then while it’s happening, if I’m the one who’s going to do the resolution this
time, I’ll know and I’ll make the notes, and then everybody gets an opportunity to do it.
MRS. STEFFAN-That works for me.
MR. OBORNE-I guess implore is too strong of a word. I do suggest that the Planning
Board do that.
MR. HUNSINGER-So what are the other big projects?
MR. OBORNE-We have a KFC coming in, at the current location. That’s going to be a
Site Plan change in there. We have, obviously, the apartments, the senior apartments
that are coming in. I wish I had this list in front of me. We have like 20 site plans coming
in. I can’t, off the top of my head, remember what the other two are. I just know that
they’re big ones.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-Now, with next months agendas, do we have six and six, or?
MR. OBORNE-We have, well, Chris and I had decided a while ago when we started
doing these recommendations that they would be counted as a half. We might want to
re-visit that after tonight’s Seaboyer, to be honest with you, and again, I’ll look through
that when I’m developing the agenda, and again, if Seaboyer was to come up again, or
an issue like that, I probably would just leave that as one item.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I think it depends on the project.
MR. OBORNE-And then of course on the flipside, with Walther, I mean, that was 10
minutes. So I’d be loathe to move a spot off for somebody for that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. OBORNE-But we’ll work through that, I guess, but we literally have 20 site plan
applications in right now, and we have a full Zoning Board this month.
MRS. STEFFAN-One of the things that we will remain vigilant on, I mean, yes, we’ve had
short agenda the last couple of months, but I don’t know about anybody else, but I’ve
enjoyed getting out at a reasonable time, and so even if we’ve got busy months coming
up, we’re going to stick to the agenda, but if folks don’t have their completed packages,
they will get tabled, and I know that you talk with folks and you let them know that they
come to the Planning Board at their own peril, but if there’s an applicant who hasn’t done
their homework, they will be tabled, because we won’t spend time on them if we’re not
going to be able to resolve the issue.
MR. OBORNE-That’s fine. I can assure you that if the application is not complete, they
will not be on the agenda.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. OBORNE-We’ve kicked off many. G. A. Bove wasn’t complete. They should have
been in last month, and they didn’t have a stormwater plan, and then come to find out,
Clark didn’t get his stormwater plan, but they got their approval. So we’ll take care of
them. The other one is Cellco. That’s another one.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. OBORNE-Now that is a Type II SEQRA. That’s not an Unlisted because it is within
the APA. So, based on SEQRA law, APA has jurisdiction over that.
MRS. STEFFAN-We learned that the last meeting, I think, November, December.
41
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. OBORNE-Okay. I mentioned that to all of you.
MR. HUNSINGER-So it’s a Type II action for us?
MR. OBORNE-It is a Type II action for you, yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. OBORNE-So it makes it a little easier. That doesn’t absolve you from Site Plan
review. There are quite a few issues with the site, to be honest with you.
MR. HUNSINGER-No, right.
MR. OBORNE-There’s a long access road leading up to it.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Is it just one company?
MR. OBORNE-Just one tower going up right now.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-One tower, just one company on?
MR. OBORNE-Right now, right.
MR. HUNSINGER-By Town ordinance they have to allow others to use it. Is it four or
more?
MR. OBORNE-I’m not sure what it is.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’ll have to re-visit the Code.
MR. OBORNE-It all depends. The co-location rule is, you know, you go through a tier of
what the priority is, and co-location is obviously the Number One priority.
MR. SCHONEWOLF-Right.
MR. OBORNE-Co-location on water towers, co-location on existing towers. Sometimes
that’s not possible because these cell phones are line of sight. So, hence why you’re
going to see more and more cell towers going up.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else, Keith?
MR. OBORNE-That’s all I have. Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anything from members of the Board? Anyone want to make a
motion to adjourn?
MOTION TO ADJOURN THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING OF
FEBRUARY 16, 2010, Introduced by Paul Schonewolf who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Donald Sipp:
th
Duly adopted this 16 day of February, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Krebs, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Ford
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Chris Hunsinger, Chairman
42
(Queensbury Planning Board 02/16/10)
43