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2011.03.24 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SPECIAL MEETING MARCH 24, 2011 INDEX Site Plan No. 20-2011 Lawrence Unrein 1. Tax Map No. 226.16-1-16 Site Plan No. 23-2011 Northeast Power Systems, Inc. 10. Tax Map No. 308.20-1-6, 3.4 Site Plan No. 21-2011 Wal-Mart R.E.B.T. 21. Tax Map No. 296.17-1-36 Subdivision No. 3-2011 Dawn Hlavaty-Starratt 29. SKETCH PLAN Tax Map No. 288.16-1-87.1 Site Plan No. 5-2011 Douglas & Muriel Cherry 39. Tax Map No. 289.14-1-7 Site Plan No. 24-2011 Bay Ridge Rescue Squad 44. Tax Map No. 290.6-1-3 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 03/24/2011) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SPECIAL MEETING MARCH 24, 2011 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT CHRIS HUNSINGER, CHAIRMAN GRETCHEN STEFFAN, SECRETARY STEPHEN TRAVER BRAD MAGOWAN, ALTERNATE MEMBERS ABSENT PAUL SCHONEWOLF THOMAS FORD DONALD SIPP LAND USE PLANNER-KEITH OBORNE STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI MR. HUNSINGER-I’d like to welcome everyone to the Special Meeting of the Town of Queensbury Planning Board on Thursday, March 24, 2011. I’ll call the meeting to order. SITE PLAN NO. 20-2011 SEQR TYPE II LAWRENCE UNREIN AGENT(S) BAKER LANDSCAPING & IRRIGATION, INC. OWNER(S) SAME AS APPLICATION ZONING WR LOCATION 37 MASON ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES TO REMOVE EXISTING HARD SURFACING [PATIO, RETAINING WALLS AND WALKWAYS] ALONG THE SHORELINE AND REPLACE WITH PERMEABLE SURFACING, PLANTINGS AND NEW RETAINING WALLS. REPLACEMENT OF AN UPLAND RETAINING WALL AND HARD SURFACING WITHIN 50 FEET OF SHORELINE IN A WR ZONE REQUIRES PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE BP 2010-465; SP 5-90 WARREN CO. PLANNING 3/9/2011 APA, CEA, OTHER APA WETLANDS, L G CEA LOT SIZE 0.37 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 226.16-1-16 SECTION 179-9, 179-6-050 MIKE BAKER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you’re ready to summarize Staff Notes. MR. OBORNE-Yes. Site Plan 20-2011. Lawrence Unrein is the applicant. The requested action is site plan review for replacement of retaining walls along the shoreline and hard surfacing within 50 feet of the shoreline. 37 Mason Road is the location. Waterfront Residential is the zoning. This is a Type II SEQRA. Warren County issued a No County Impact back on th March 9. Engineering review is before the Planning Board at this moment. Project Description: Applicant proposes to remove existing hard surfacing, patio, retaining walls and walkways along the shoreline and replace with permeable surfacing, plantings, and new upland retaining walls. Staff comments: The applicant has stated that site permeability will be increased from the existing 46% to 76%. The replacement of hard surfacing is also proposed for the upland portions of the property outside of the 50 foot setback that includes permeable paver installation on the asphalt driveway and parking areas after the wastewater upgrade is complete. A phased approach to this project has been offered with work adjacent to the shoreline and inland to commence in the Spring and wastewater upgrade with driveway conversion to permeable pavers on a yet to be determined timeframe. What follows is Site Plan Review. I’ll go through my comments here. Just keep in mind, the applicant is requesting waivers for grading, formal stormwater plan and lighting. The Planning Board may wish to discuss timeframes for all phases of the project. The proposal calls for no changes to existing structures, existing Floor Area Ratio is 34%. Please confirm, I’ve talked to Bob here, please confirm if weep holes are necessary to relieve water build up behind retaining walls. I believe the applicant will discuss that, and just for clarity, although the applicant states that site permeability will increase from 46 to 76% with the introduction of permeable materials, this claim must be substantiated by industry data and vetted by the Town Engineer. Simply adding permeable pavers is not an even one to one exchange from an impermeable condition. I will note that the use of permeable pavers on site is advocated by the Town and should not be dissuaded and with that, I’d turn it over to the Board. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Good evening. 1 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. BAKER-My name is Mike Baker. I own Baker Landscape, and we’re here representing Mr. Unrein. Basically we’d like to replace a patio that exists on the shoreline, and you have pictures there of it? MR. HUNSINGER-We do. MR. BAKER-Okay. Turn to the third page. The patio with the picnic table, that’s what we’d like to replace, along with some asphalt that’s behind the boathouse there. That first page. The seawall is to remain. The sidewalk to the north is going to be removed, and the retaining walls re-built. The two staircases are going to be removed and a wall just placed there, and it’s going to be replaced with a permeable system that the water will pass through, and Keith recommended that it be pitched slightly back, which we could do. The sidewalk that comes from the house down, that’s going to be permeable pavers, too, and that’s basically it, and that falls in the 50 foot setback, and then we’re going to create a buffer plants in and amongst all those pine trees, with some rain gardens, and perhaps some swales depending on where the water’s going to flow down, but it’s all, I mean, it’s pretty stable now, but it’s like a conduit for the water to come down to those sidewalks, and hopefully by replacing it all with permeable, it’s going to help. Mr. Unrein wants to re-do the driveway, too, which will happen in the Fall, and the septic would be upgraded sometime in the Fall, too, and we talked to Dennis MacElroy, and he’s going to design the septic system. The septic’s in working order now, but he wants to re-do the driveway because it’s falling apart, and he really needs to do the septic upgrade before he does the driveway because if the septic was to fail, it would ruin the driveway. MR. HUNSINGER-So is the septic underneath the driveway now? MR. BAKER-No, no. The septic’s between the two houses, but since the driveway’s going to be a permeable paver system, once that’s all installed, you can’t have the big trucks driving over it. If the septic was to fail, you know, three years from now or four years, but basically the gist of it is we would like to replace that patio on the lakeside. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Questions, comments from the Board? MRS. STEFFAN-Well, this is a huge project from, you know, from the point of view of the impact of right around the lake, and so you’re certainly trying to mitigate some of the stormwater issues with the replanting and the permeable paver. The engineering comments, which unfortunately all of us didn’t get until tonight, are quite detailed. There’s 15 items there. I don’t know if you’ve gotten a chance to look at those. MR. BAKER-Yes, I did. MRS. STEFFAN-And also we just, we got a note, we got a letter from the Lake George Water Keeper, and I’m looking at the algae blooms, the pictures of the algae blooms on the back of their presentation, and it’s startling. MR. BAKER-It is, and what’s interesting is the lawn, really, if you look at it, isn’t really in that great of shape. It’s not like he’s applying a lot of fertilizer. MRS. STEFFAN-Right, but something’s obviously running across and down. MR. BAKER-Yes, but those could be, I think it’s all along the shore there, those blooms. MRS. STEFFAN-Now when the walkways come up, you’ve obviously got blacktop, now do you just rip those up? How far down do you have to go to put in the permeable pavers? MR. BAKER-Well, for the patio you’ll see it’ll be just built approximately the eighteen inches and two feet that it is right now, the raised planter. Behind it, the boathouse will probably be down a foot. Okay. There’s different layers of gravel and fabric. So right now the water, whenever it rains, it just pours right over it. Actually it’s kind of cracked. It falls in the middle, and that’s what I think that, if you look at the pictures there’s a hole opposite the picnic table. I think that’s the wall falling down, but there’s a pipe, and I think there’s a drain in the middle of that patio, and that’s what that pipe is. So the patio’s pitched down, and it’s just a direct tube going down, and I also think it’s hollow underneath that patio. Because if you look on the north sides, you can kind of look inside, there’s really nothing holding it up. It’s just a slab poured on top of something. MR. TRAVER-Well, and of course our concern with this site, like all of the shoreline sites, is stormwater, and I know you’re looking for a waiver for stormwater, but I think this level of intervention on the site, I think, and both up at the driveway and down at the waterline, I think it’s worthy of doing the engineering necessary to make sure that we, if we’re going to do it, let’s do it 2 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) right. That’s my first comment, and then, as Gretchen points out, there are a number of engineering issues that. MR. BAKER-Well, I think a lot of them can be addressed. MR. TRAVER-Right. MR. BAKER-Which are, and I reviewed a bunch of them, you know. With the driveway, it’s about 87 feet to the end of that driveway. So it’s about 12, 13 feet into the, I guess the Town Code there. The walkway dimensions, the pavers, I mean, it’s roughly a 12 by 50 patio, and the walkway is about four by forty. Okay. Number Three, the storage volumes of the rain water. We really didn’t put those in there, because with the tree roots and with a rain garden, you’re going to dig down and install some stone and fabric, and the depression, we have to be a little cautious with these tree roots because a lot of them are at the surface, and you wouldn’t want to disturb all that. MRS. STEFFAN-That’s why I asked the question about how far down, because once you take up that asphalt. MR. BAKER-Well, the asphalt walks, they’re really nothing , that’s only about an inch thick. MRS. STEFFAN-Between the trees. MR. BAKER-We’re not going to replace the north one, and the one coming off of the house, that’s somewhat close, but I don’t think, it’s far enough away from that tree that I don’t think it’s going to be a hazard. I thought you meant the asphalt behind the boathouse. As for detail on the dimensions and specs of the proposed rain garden, I mean, we’re just going to do what a typical rain garden is. We have the drawing from the Fund For Lake George, and we would just copy that. MRS. STEFFAN-We had a discussion the other night about rain gardens. This is the third rain garden we’ve seen in this month’s cycle, and so, you know, it’s really another infiltration device right next to the lake, and we had the discussion about modifying the soils or not. So we’re kind of in a gray spot there. MR. HUNSINGER-And it sounds like you’re planning to modify the soils with rain gardens installed? MR. BAKER-We would, yes. Yes. We would, you know, add some organic matter and allow the plants to grow. The engineering comments, I don’t see any, the silt fence detail. I mean, all these proposed improvements, it’s, basically, I think if we didn’t want to do anything along the shore and wanted to replace the patio by the house or the driveway, we may not be here to do a site plan, correct? So that’s kind of like a throw in, you know, that he wants to do all that. He realizes there’s a lot going on on this property and he wants to make it look a lot better, and he’s willing to invest in the new septic into the driveway. He could theoretically just put a blacktop driveway back there. So he’s trying to do everything the right way. But the place to start, really, is along the shore, so we could work our way out. MRS. STEFFAN-Do you have any idea what, you mentioned that there’s drainage where that hole is. Do you have any idea where that comes from? I mean, is there a source? MR. BAKER-I think the hole was just, I think that hole is just the rocks falling out of there. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. You don’t think there’s a drainage? MR. BAKER-I don’t think there’s a drain opposite that picnic table. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MR. BAKER-There is a little drain pipe, if you look at. MR. MAGOWAN-Out by the steps. MR. BAKER-By the steps, and I think that’s from a little drain that’s in that concrete patio. MRS. STEFFAN-See, and I look at this. MR. BAKER-I think those rocks on the patio are just falling out from that hole. If you look further back from the pictures, you’ll see the driveway is cracked and old. The patio area is going to be 3 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) a little smaller, probably about 100,125 square feet than what it is now. The area between the house and the boathouse, which is grass and plants, now that’s all going to become bed. So he’s kind of removing some of the lawn, too, quite a bit of the lawn, and creating a buffer for whatever falls in that area. It’s not a very large lot with those two houses on it. MR. HUNSINGER-So you’re only going to put back one sidewalk? MR. BAKER-Yes. The other sidewalk really doesn’t serve any purpose. Those evergreen trees, you can’t even walk through it. I guess the previous owner. MR. MAGOWAN-I was going to say, it looks like they grew up right through it. Didn’t they? MR. BAKER-Yes, and in reality under those trees you don’t get much lawn anyway. So it’s probably, quite a bit of that’s going to become landscaping planted. What other questions, comments do members of the Board have? MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t really have any right now. I’m trying to get through the note here. Maybe if we could do the public comment. MR. TRAVER-What do you expect the time line to be between the different phases from beginning to completion of the final phase? MR. BAKER-Depending on what happens this evening, if we have to come back, we would do the patio lakeside and the planting this Spring. Then he’d have a septic designed and go through that process and do that, you know, in September after the summer. This way he won’t disrupt the neighbors and there’s use of the house, and do the driveway in the Fall. So he’d want it all completed this year. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions, comments before I open the public hearing? MRS. STEFFAN-Not right now. MR. HUNSINGER-On this project and on all but one of the other applications this evening we do have public hearings scheduled. Do we have copies of the agenda and stuff in the back, Keith? MR. OBORNE-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. On the back table is a copy of the agenda as well as a handout for the public hearing process. Is there anyone in the audience who wants to address the Board on this project? Anyone wishing to address the Board, I would ask that you state your name for the record, and speak clearly into the microphone. We do tape the meeting, and then the tape is used to transcribe minutes. Good evening. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED KATHY BOZONY MS. BOZONY-Good evening. The first thing that I want to say is we definitely support the use of these permeable pavers. I think this is a really good project that we are looking forward to happening. There are a lot of issues that are on this site that do need to be addressed as well, and this is a good time to do it. Basically I was called to this site this summer three different times. I actually swam this entire shoreline and photographed what was going on. We’ve got some neighbors that are very concerned about the massive alga blooms, and I did, I brought that up. That could be expanded. It’s not a very good photograph, but there, basically in the letter that I submitted, you can see I was in the water, took the photograph in the water. So I’m taking what’s on the shore of where I am in the water. So you can actually see that this entire area is a massive alga bloom. Also, one of the photographs that was submitted with the application, you can see the algae on the shoreline, or so it appears, on those rocks, right next to the seawall. We’ve got, one of the issues, and I don’t know if the applicant is applying fertilizer to this property, but if you don’t have really healthy lawn, which almost looks like, I don’t know when those trees were limbed up the way they were, but there may not have been a lot of sun on that lawn, and lawns aren’t really healthy in our environment unless we feed them and we make sure that they grow. So whether or not this applicant uses it, I know the neighbors do. I‘ve been told that they are using it. So, again, these alga blooms are not related to one home. It’s a problem throughout. So I’m not pinpointing this home, but one of the thoughts that we were just talking about, not disturbing those tree roots, the way that the planting plan is right underneath those pine trees, maybe a thought would be put small perennials under those pine trees, so you can dig in little tiny holes, and save your majority of your big to put behind the pine trees and behind the roots, the big shrubbery that will develop some nice roots and really utilize 4 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) a lot of the nutrients that are on the property. A couple of the issues that I’ve addressed in the letter that was submitted, one being the stormwater. It is a great opportunity to look at what kind of stormwater is on this property, and whether or not the use of bio retention or rain gardens could be used surrounding, you know, the houses, the two single family dwellings or the driveway or the walkways up above. Again, rain gardens on the shoreline are not, they are infiltration within 100 feet. So we have kind of a Catch-22 there, where, you know, you don’t really want it, but again, we’re looking at permeable pavers on the shoreline as well. So, we do need to get the water into the ground, and we need to get it, the nutrients utilized by vegetation. We’re asking for the calculation of that 24% reduction from 46%. I did some research on these perma techo block pavers, and I spoke to the company in Canada, and they do have the two type of pavers that they currently sell which are permeable. The rest of their pavers are not, and I don’t know, some of the locations in the application it indicated permeable. I just want to make sure that, most of the products that Techo Block actually sells are not permeable. They are pavers, but they’re not permeable, and permeable paver, at least in their installation guide, it says the sub base is probably going to be about eighteen inches, and you need to do some test pits to see what kind of soils you have in order to actually identify. I didn’t see any test pit data and I don’t know if Mike has done any of that. Use of rain gardens, again, are definitely supported, even though they’re within 100 feet of the lake, and I would look at the rest of the site up above, in front of the actual shoreline buffer, to do rain gardens in. Two of the chosen plants on the plant list are very good, but two of them are not native and actually invasive plants. You’ve got one of the grasses that’s invasive and you’ve got the Spirea that’s very invasive. So I think that those should be substituted. The on-site wastewater treatment system. It says it’s going to be replaced, but in the job sequence the six different items that are going to be installed, it begins with installing the lakeside patio and wall, and ends with replacing the driveway and walks around the upper house, but it doesn’t include any mention of the on-site wastewater treatment system, and I think at this point, these houses are pre-existing, non- conforming , and not only would the applicant be concerned if the septic system failed and it ruined the driveway, we’re very concerned that it might, you know, ruin the lake, and I did not take any algae samples in front of this property. Again, I didn’t know this property was even coming up. I just happened to have these photographs in my collection, and we did not do any sampling to see if this is an organic type of algae growth. So we don’t know, but that’s just a thought. That may be a good opportunity to actually look at that. The Floor Area Ratio is 34%, which is quite a bit on a small lot like this, but I don’t see any detail of how that was calculated and whether or not that’s accurate. Again, I like the old forms that used to be in the file, so that I could actually review and see whether or not those FAR calculations were correct. An issue that came up last year was this structures over 100 square feet needing variances, and I couldn’t really hear Mike and I wasn’t sure if he said 125 square feet was being taken off that patio on the shoreline. I don’t know if this might need a variance of some sort for structures within the setback, both with APA and with 179-5-020 of Accessory Structures in the Queensbury Code, and again, I would encourage the Board to restrict fertilizer and pesticide use on this property, based on what we’re seeing on the shoreline of all these homes as well. With all these things that I would like to have discussed by the Board, again, very much supporting the use of these permeable pavers, I think that some of the plans that they’ve got here are very supportive. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Great. Thank you. MS. BOZONY-And I would like to give a copy of this book and the letter to Mr. Unrein. MR. HUNSINGER-Sure. Is there anyone else that wants to address the Board on this project? Okay. Did you have any written comments, other than what was (lost words)? Okay. Well, we just saw the comments from the Water Keeper this evening for the first time, as well as from the Town Engineer for the first time this evening. MR. BAKER-Yes, I just saw it this afternoon. MR. HUNSINGER-But, I mean, I certainly, you know, second the comments that have been made by others as well that, you know, I commend you for trying to be innovative and use the porous pavers. We’ve really had very limited application of those so far, which kind of surprises me, and of course the use of the rain garden. It is a requirement of the Code, but it’s still fairly new. So, you know, we’re only starting to see a lot of applications just now. So we’re kind of struggling through some of this ourselves. MR. OBORNE-If I can clarify for the Board. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, go ahead, Keith. MR. OBORNE-On the infiltration devices within 100 feet of a shoreline, that only comes into play when you’re dealing with a major stormwater project. Under no circumstances can you take an 5 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) infiltration device and to infiltrate water that’s coming off roads. Okay, in this case, I guess you would think that a driveway would be an infiltration device. So that would be fair game, but at this point we’re talking about along the shoreline. The rain garden, regardless of whether it’s an infiltration device or not, this is not a major stormwater project. So just keep that in mind. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-So no variance is necessary, is what you’re saying. MR. OBORNE-Not for the infiltration device. That is correct. MRS. STEFFAN-Now what about the issue of the patio? Did you verify? MR. OBORNE-Craig has reviewed this and did not make a determination that it needed a variance. MRS. STEFFAN-A variance, okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Well, what’s the will of the Board? I don’t know if I can see us getting through to a conditional approval. MRS. STEFFAN-No. I don’t, we certainly can’t do a conditional approval if there’s too many outstanding issues, but we have to identify what issue are important. I mean, the things that I’ve heard so far, well, obviously the VISION Engineering comments are primary. All pavers in the project must be permeable pavers. MR. TRAVER-And if that’s the applicant’s intent, as you stated, it should be documented somewhere that, of the products offered by this firm, that they’re using them. MR. BAKER-Yes, they are. The Mista and the Victorien are two other permeable pavers that they just came out with this year. So there are three that Techo Block makes. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. BAKER-And the Permea is most for the driveway, and the Mista and Victorien are more for patios or walkways. The Permea we used at Twin Birches in Lake George. We did a parking lot in 2006 along the lake, and it’s held up very well. MRS. STEFFAN-Certainly based on the algae blooms that we’re seeing in the area, we need to put a notation on the plan regarding the fertilizer. MR. TRAVER-Right. MRS. STEFFAN-And the other issue is the landscaping plan has to be modified to eliminate invasive species. Do we want the plan fortified in any way? Is it sufficient? MR. BAKER-I mean, the invasive species is an ornamental grass that you might plant at your home, and a Spirea which is pink flowers, and they’re kind of pretty common in everyone’s landscape. I don’t know how invasive they are. They’re not like the purple loosestrife that just grows everywhere. I mean, these are plants that are trimmed. The grasses are cut back, and they’ll grow five to six feet tall and a couple of feet wide, but they’re not spreading along the shoreline, you know. We could replace them, but it’s not a. MRS. STEFFAN-They’re not on our list, though, are they? The Town has the list in the Zoning Code of. MR. BAKER-We can put in whatever, whatever you want. We’re a contractor, we’ll do, you know. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. What other things do we have to put in the conditions? MR. BAKER-Also, too, I don’t think he really uses fertilizers. We don’t maintain the lawn. I think Mead’s does, and by the condition of it, I really don’t think that there’s any fertilizer there. MR. TRAVER-So then they won’t be impacted by putting a note on the plan? MR. BAKER-No, I don’t think so at all. 6 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MRS. STEFFAN-You mentioned the plan is at some point to re-do the septic system? MR. BAKER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-That’s not part of this project. MR. BAKER-It is in that he wants to improve the whole property. So, he wants to do it, he’s going to get it designed, but I mean, this, I guess if were just, if we weren’t doing the shoreline, really none of this would matter. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, wouldn’t be triggered. MR. BAKER-Yes, it wouldn’t trigger anything, but, yes, of course, I mean, no one wants a septic to fail and to leak into the lake. I mean, that’s commonsense, but the reason he wants to do the septic is if it was to be, need to be replaced, the driveway’s pretty expensive. He’s not going to, you know, destroy that to, so that’s why he is going to invest in the septic. MR. TRAVER-Right. MRS. STEFFAN-Which would make sense and considering there’s two houses on the lot, I mean, it would be reasonable to think that it needs to be done. MR. BAKER-As far as I know, there’s nothing wrong with the septic now. MRS. STEFFAN-That’s one of the biggest issues that we face when we’re doing site plan review on any of the lake properties, because if anybody’s got a, you know, a system that is not documented, not on any plans that they have, we don’t know how it functions. It’s very difficult to get those test results, then, you know, we’re usually asking folks, you have to tell us whether it works or you have to replace it, but in these situations when you’ve got those algae blooms in the vicinity, you know, it does raise the question, is it fertilizer or is it another matter, and septic would be candidate number two. MR. BAKER-And we did have Dennis MacElroy there last year, and he kind of did a rough, and I think it needs to have an Eljen or a Peat system, I guess, installed. It can’t be a standard, but I guess there’s some variance and setback issues he’s got to deal with, but it’s not going to be a standard. Whatever’s in there now is not what it’s going to be. MRS. STEFFAN-Right, but fortunately we all have, not we, but the engineers have a lot more experience with the Eljen systems, and we look to them to do the approvals and tell us if it’s acceptable or not. MR. TRAVER-Right. Yes, those are the main points. MRS. STEFFAN-Now, the applicant has requested waivers for grading, formal stormwater plan and lighting. Even though we’re not granting those tonight, are we comfortable with that, or do we want to give the applicant different direction on the stormwater plan? MR. TRAVER-I mean, that’s my main area of concern, I guess, is the, because of the proximity to the lake and the amount of work being done, it seems like planning a wastewater system is a good investment at this point, and it looks as though the engineering is going in that direction as well with the comments. MRS. STEFFAN-There was a question on the Staff comments, please confirm if weep holes are necessary to relieve water build up behind retaining walls. MR. BAKER-It’s a segmental retaining wall, so the six inch blocks about that wide, and, you know, they just butt together, and they’re only going to be roughly three to four, five high, and there’s going to be gravel behind them. So if water was to build up, it could weep through the wall. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MR. BAKER-Typically that doesn’t happen, though. MR. MAGOWAN-You’ve got a fair amount of stone behind those walls. MR. BAKER-Yes, and it’s all clean, three quarter stone behind the wall. 7 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. HUNSINGER-Going back to the lighting waiver, I did notice several of those little globals. MR. BAKER-Globes, yes, they’re gone. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, I’m sure they’re gone, but are you going to put something back in their place? MR. BAKER-That hasn’t been discussed, probably not. I mean, I think they just came with the house. I don’t even know if they work. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. I mean, we certainly wouldn’t be opposed to some, I shouldn’t say we. I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to any, you know, any low wattage, landscape lighting. MR. BAKER-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-If they want to do something like that, just, you know, let us know. What else? I mean, it really comes down to engineering and, well. MRS. STEFFAN-But, the engineer is looking at this according to 147. So he’s looking at this as a major project. MR. HUNSINGER-Right, which it’s not. MRS. STEFFAN-But Keith said not. So do we want a stormwater plan or not? MR. BAKER-I mean, nothing’s going to really remain on site when we take the patio apart. It’s going away right away. I mean, it’s going to go pretty quick. He suggested some ways to, you know, protect the site, tarping everything every night and, you know, the silt fences and the waddles and, you know, we kind of discussed a little bit about putting some in the water if we had to, but. MR. OBORNE-I’m not wild about that. MR. BAKER-Yes. MR. OBORNE-Turbidity curtain? MR. BAKER-Yes. MR. OBORNE-You could probably make more turbidity than what would actually go in there by installing that. MR. BAKER-Hopefully. I mean, I think it’s a lot of stone underneath that patio, which is going to come in and new stone go in, and the wall’s going to be built, and then the pavers. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. MAGOWAN-And you’re leaving that front concrete buffer along the shore anyway, correct? MR. BAKER-Yes, the front concrete stays. All that stays. The only thing that’s removed is the two staircases. That’s going to be a straight wall, raised wall where the picnic table is. MR. MAGOWAN-So you can put some kind of catch along the, on that concrete. MR. BAKER-Yes, we could put hay bales. MR. MAGOWAN-Hay bales, you know, in case there happens to be a major storm while you’re under construction. As for the planting, that’s going to be quick, too, so, you know, the grass will be removed, plants installed and mulched. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, it is a pretty, those mitigation practices during construction, they’re pretty standard. MR. BAKER-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Maybe you could just submit those, so it’s part of the record. MRS. STEFFAN-Right, and then Code Enforcement would be there to check to make sure they’re there. 8 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. BAKER-Okay. Correct. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I’d feel comfortable with that, instead of a formal stormwater plan. MRS. STEFFAN-So that’s mentioned in VISION Engineering. So if he addresses that, if he addresses VISION Engineering comments, then he’ll satisfy our needs. MR. OBORNE-That’s fine. MRS. STEFFAN-All right. So no formal stormwater plan. MR. OBORNE-Mike, when do you start planting, in May, May is pretty much when you start, late April. MR. BAKER-Yes. MR. OBORNE-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-All right. MR. HUNSINGER-I meant to look and see how many projects we had tabled to what dates, but I didn’t. th MR. OBORNE-Yes. The 17 is, let me just check this out. MRS. STEFFAN-I remember six things that we. th MR. OBORNE-I think the 19 is where you want to go to now. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MR. OBORNE-We have some room. I think it’s three and two, or two and two, actually I think thth it’s two and two. Two on the 17 and two on the 19 at this point. So you can actually choose which one you want. MR. TRAVER-You’re probably thinking of the number of meetings, not the number of applications. MR. OBORNE-Right, and we’re talking May. MRS. STEFFAN-All right. So, well really it’s five conditions, but it’s VISION Engineering, it’s Staff Notes. It’s making sure the permeable pavers are permeable. To modify the landscaping plan to eliminate invasive species and fortify the plan so as to add a little more plantings to it, and to denote the use of no fertilizer on the plan. So if those things are covered. MR. OBORNE-Well, certainly no P, no Phosphorus. I mean, Kathy, that’s what you pretty much are concerned about is phosphorus? MS. BOZONY-No, all the chemicals that are used. Nitrogen (lost words) the lake just as much as the Phosphorus does. Most of the products that are used are a combination of the pesticide to kill all the weeds. We support the towns that say no phosphorous, but we really need to look at the entire spectrum. MRS. STEFFAN-All right. We left the public hearing open? MR. HUNSINGER-We left the public hearing open, yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Then I’ll make a motion to table. RESOLUTION TABLING SP 20-2011 LAWRENCE UNREIN A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes to remove existing hard surfacing [patio, retaining walls and walkways] along the shoreline and replace with permeable surfacing, plantings and new retaining walls. Replacement of an upland retaining wall and Hard surfacing within 50 feet of shoreline in a WR zone requires Planning Board review and approval. A public hearing was advertised and held on 3/24/2011; and 9 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 20-2011 LAWRENCE UNREIN , Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: We’re going to table this to the May 17th Planning Board meeting. So that the applicant can meet the following conditions: 1. That the applicant will address the VISION Engineering comments, comment letter of March 23rd. 2. So that the applicant can address the open items in Staff Notes. 3. So that the applicant can ensure that all pavers used in the project will be permeable pavers. 4. That the applicant will have the opportunity to modify the landscaping plan to eliminate invasive species and to fortify the plan with additional plants. 5. The applicant will denote on the plan that the use of fertilizers on this property will be prohibited. Duly adopted this 24th day of March, 2011, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Magowan, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp MR. HUNSINGER-We’ll see you in a couple of months. MR. BAKER-Okay. Thanks. th MRS. STEFFAN-And the application deadline is April 15 for any new materials. MR. BAKER-Okay. No problem. MRS. STEFFAN-Along with your taxes. MR. HUNSINGER-Although we have nothing to do with that. MRS. STEFFAN-Right. That’s correct. MR. TRAVER-Right. Not so far anyway. SITE PLAN NO. 23-2011 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED NORTHEAST POWER SYSTEMS, INC. AGENT(S) HUTCHINS ENGINEERING BARTLETT PONTIFF STEWART & RHODES OWNER(S) SAME AS APPLICANT ZONING CLI LOCATION 58 & 66 CAREY ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES A 12,000 SQ. FT. EXPANSION TO EXISTING 13,230 SQ. FT. INDUSTRIAL BUILDING TO INCLUDE ACCESS DRIVES, ON-SITE WASTEWATER, STORMWATER MANAGEMENT AND STORAGE CONTAINERS IN THE CAREY INDUSTRIAL PARK. EXPANSION OF AN EXISTING USE IN A CLI ZONE REQUIRES PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE SP 43-03, SP 29-00, SP 66-98 WARREN CO. PLANNING 3/9/2011 LOT SIZE 2.40 +/- ACRES; 2.18 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 308.20- 1-6, 3, 4 SECTION 179-9 JON LAPPER & TOM HUTCHINS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you’re ready to summarize Staff Notes. MR. OBORNE-Yes. Site Plan 23-2011, Northeast Power Systems Incorporated. Requested action is site plan review for expansion of existing use. Location is 58 and 66 Carey Road. This is in the Carey Industrial Park. Commercial Light Industrial is the zoning. This is an Unlisted SEQRA. On 3/9/2011 a No County Impact was determined by Warren County Planning Board. You have received engineering comments. Project Description: Applicant proposes a 12,000 square foot expansion to existing 13,230 square foot industrial building to include access drives, on site wastewater, stormwater management, and storage containers in the Carey Industrial Park. Subject lots to be combined upon approval and prior to construction as per narrative. Staff comments: The applicant proposes a phased approach to the project with the building slated for Lot Three and a portion of Lot Two to be constructed with the majority of the on-site 10 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) work to be accomplished. Access to Carey Road, the configuration of parking to the east and additional stormwater measures to be incorporated at a later date, and what follows is site plan review with some considerations possibly should be considered. Additional Comments: Again, Lots Three and Four will need to be combined in order to avoid area variances. As a Board, you may want to condition that on approval. Clarification on the timeframe of the Phase Two proposal should be ascertained. Although it is stated in the narrative that the second phase will be added when necessary, any potential timeframe should be discussed. The applicant also is requesting the approval of eleven existing shipping containers on site. If approval is forthcoming. The Planning Board, as a condition of approval, may require that any alternative location proposed by the applicant for these containers after approval first be reviewed and consent given by the Zoning Administrator, and also, Number Four, Lot Three has been cleared and vegetation removed. Clarification and inquiry as to why this occurred without Site Plan approval may need to be forthcoming, and with that, I’d turn it over to the Board. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Good evening. MR. LAPPER-Good evening, everyone. For the record, Jon Lapper with Tom Hutchins, project engineer, and Pete Steciuk, one of the owners of the company with his brothers. Just to put this in perspective, we were here about 10 years ago when they bought the first lot and built the first building and business has been good. They subsequently purchased the lot next door. Lot Eight was the original lot at the corner, and then they purchased Lot Three with the intention that if they needed to expand, they better buy it while it was available, and now they’re in the process of readying for an expansion. It’s a pretty straightforward site. It’s all sand out there. Tom will get into that, plenty big site, but when we sat down to conceptualize this, it gave them some opportunities. Staff Notes were simple and very fair, but the issue with the four curb cuts, for example, this allows truck traffic to go around the back and not have to back in and back out to make deliveries. They get about 10 trucks which is, you know, not a lot in the industrial park, but important to them. So this is just a way to make everything work better. The front area for visitors and employees, now it’s just a little bit tight turning around, and this’ll just, the expansion just will make everything work better. One thing that I want to mention, when we put the application together, they had contemplated that they would put that driveway in later, that they would have the option to do that and the extra parking spaces, but at this point, they’re just prepared to do the whole site plan as it’s presented, and that really makes it a little easier in terms of the engineering comments as well, that just do it in one phase and get it done. So, with that, let me have Tom walk you through the site plan and then we can answer the questions. MR. HUTCHINS-Good evening, Board, Tom Hutchins. What we have, this is Carey Road. The existing lot is this corner lot. This is Native Drive. The very large Native Textiles building is right here and it borders immediately to the west, I guess. Existing building is shown in orange. This is existing loading/unloading, truck access, access only. This is their access for employees and visitors. It’s the type of business that gets very little local traffic besides employees and their people. Most of the product they produce is shipped out of the area and most of the components come from out of the area. There’s very little local, day to day traffic. The proposed expansion is shown in red. It’s 100 by 120, steel frame building, colors and trims and such would match the existing building. There is a 20 foot wide corridor that connects the building. The operations will be largely separate, but they do need interconnection, and out here is primarily assembly, right, Peter? Yes. Assembly of the component. If you were over there lately, there’s a piece of electrical equipment sitting right there that’s the product they manufacture here. Parking, we’ve shown addition of, not quite doubling the existing parking. Initially they don’t believe this is going to generate significantly more jobs, but it could in the future. We’ve designed for that, and we’ve shown the small parking expansion out here. The loop, the loop is quite important when you think about the truck traffic. Right now their deliveries come in Carey Road either way, head down Native Textile drive and back in to their loading/unloading area. This, the loop allows circular truck traffic which obviously, or to me obviously makes sense. Wastewater, we’ve shown a small wastewater system to accommodate just facilities for employees. There’s no locker rooms. There’s no showers. There’s none of that. It’s just a small, or two small wash rooms in this area of the new building to serve employees that are in here so they’re not trucking through here. Stormwater, again, it’s a predominantly sand site. I did not do the normal test holes at the time we did this, we decided that we would be spending several hours moving snow. It was late January when we were putting this together, and you may recall last Fall I just did Parker and Hammond, which was in the other industrial park, but it’s 1,000 feet away or so, the soils are similar. They’re sand, they’re deep, they’re well drained. I don’t think that’s any secret. I have no problem going and doing the test holes, but at the time, it would have been difficult. I think that stormwater design is conservative, utilizes infiltration entirely on-site. There’s no real outfall from this site. This site, it’s high here, it’s high here, it’s high here, and everything just kind of infiltrates on the site. We have designed to modify DEC design manual. We believe it’s a compliant design, and with that, I’ll turn it over to the Board. Anything to add? 11 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. LAPPER-Tom, just a couple of more comments. Of course we just got the engineering comments this morning, and while they’re numerous, they’re mostly clarification and really pretty simple on this site. They would like to have this under construction in May, and so we’re hoping that because it’s an easy site, the Board would consider approving this subject to engineering review. We don’t see that that would be any big deal to satisfy VISION Engineering on these comments. A couple of more things I want to mention from Keith’s letter. The shipping containers in the back, they would like to keep it. It’s an industrial park. We don’t think it bothers anybody. If the Board felt strongly that they wanted that knocked down, you know, we could accommodate that, but that’s where their raw materials sit, and they’d rather not fill up the new building with that. It just works really well to put their electrical components in those, but if the Board feels strongly about it, we’ll certainly talk about that, and the one thing that Keith pointed out, that one pole light in the front parking lot, there was a 5.6. If you looked at the lighting plan, right underneath the light it immediately dropped to three, and then everything else to one and it’s zero at the property line. So that’s just what happens when you have a reading right underneath the light, but it works pretty well, a simple way to light up the new parking lot, you know, and again, if it’s something that is important to the Board, of course we’ll change it. MR. OBORNE-But, Jon, you’re only proposing one light, is that correct? MR. LAPPER-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else? MR. LAPPER-No. MR. HUNSINGER-Questions, comments from the Board? MR. TRAVER-What is that your company manufactures? PETER STECIUK MR. STECIUK-We manufacture metal enclosed electrical equipment. So we build the enclosure, and then we populate it with components. MR. LAPPER-Explain what the components come from. MR. STECIUK-The components, some of the components come from GE, General Electric in Fort Edward, and they do (lost words). We do it at the medium voltage, you know, you can do it at low voltage or medium voltage. So that’s why we don’t see many jobs locally. We really don’t build anything locally. We’ve done one for Gore Mountain, one for Union College. Encore Paper, whatever that is, I don’t know what it’s called now, and that’s it. The next closest one is probably Syracuse, and then basically all over North America and South America. MR. TRAVER-Do you have any idea how many new employees you might hire as a result of this expansion? MR. STECIUK-I think probably a max of 10. Right now we have 17. We’ve probably just brought on maybe four employees in the last four months or so. We try to be conservative because when we bring someone on, we don’t want to have to let them go. So we usually offer overtime first, and if we really need to bring more on, we bring more on, but I don’t see more than 10 in the next five years, ten years. MRS. STEFFAN-Are they like warehouse and distribution, or assemblers? MR. STECIUK-They’re assemblers. They’re more, I guess you could call them like garage mechanics. They’re nuts and bolts. We buy components, and the components may 100 pounds and you bolt them in with nuts and bolts, and then there’s guys that are electrical wiring people. They wire components, and we have a sheet metal location, too, where they build the enclosures with the sheet metal, and so we have some welding. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. So all the storage units are just for component parts, to keep them dry and out of the way of assembly? MR. STECIUK-Yes. The components, some of the components take 30 months to get. So we store those components so that if somebody calls up and says, hey, I need something next week, we actually can build it for next week because we have all the parts, and those are really just components that are in there. 12 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. TRAVER-I was looking through the engineering comments to see how difficult they would be to address, and one question is, I believe it’s Number Twenty-Eight, talks about the proposed septic absorption system being. MR. LAPPER-Yes, that was one that jumped out at us, too. That 20 feet is when you have a basement, and this is on a slab. So we think it’s fine the way it is. MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, it’s shown about 14 feet and it’s not uncommon to be within 20 feet when you don’t have a basement. I’m comfortable with it. It’s been done numerous times. MR. LAPPER-We’ve done that in Queensbury on other plans. MR. HUTCHINS-Technically I think the book does say 20 feet, but the book says 20 feet from a dwelling, and it’s been done. Garages and slab on grades, typically don’t. MR. HUNSINGER-Are you concerned about the soils being too well drained? MR. HUTCHINS-In terms of the septic system, I’ve shown amended soils for the septic system. I’m not concerned about it per the stormwater system. What tends to happen, the problem with the fast draining soils with stormwater systems, with infiltration basins typically you have a four bay for some pre-treatment and then an overflow into the actual infiltration basin, and what’s happening, a lot of the time, is water’s never getting out of the four bay. MR. HUNSINGER-Right, yes. MR. HUTCHINS-The design manual doesn’t allow us to design to what the real infiltration rate is in these soils. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, there’s really no issue created by it draining too quickly. MR. HUTCHINS-There’s no real issue created. MR. HUNSINGER-Because I mean the issue is to keep the stormwater on site, which you’re obviously going to be able to do. MR. HUTCHINS-Right, which it does. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. HUTCHINS-In fact the concern, I have shown amended soils for the septic system, which would. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I mean, I did have some questions on the lighting plan. There were some, and I don’t think these are the same spots that were commented on earlier. They’re really on the back side of the new building, as well as the existing building. You’ve got some readings of eight and a half and 10.2 and in the sevens. MR. HUTCHINS-We’ve shown all building mount on the rear of the building. MR. HUNSINGER-You see the numbers I’m referencing? On the new building there’s a reading there of 10.2. On the existing building there’s a reading there of 8.5. MR. HUTCHINS-And again, it’s right under a fixture in a loading dock area, and I think the standard is higher for loading and unloading areas. MR. HUNSINGER-It is. Yes. MR. HUTCHINS-But could we soften that? Yes, we could probably soften that. We could soften that. MR. LAPPER-But you’re right at the back of the Native Textiles building. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I was just going to say that. No one’s going to see it, but I still, the concern still remains, though, is the driver of the rig, will their eyes adjust quickly enough, you know, if they’re right there under the light and driving away. I mean, I don’t have real strong feelings about it because of where it’s located, but I just want to make sure we’re not creating a situation there that could be avoided. MR. TRAVER-And would you anticipate a lot of loading dock activity after dark? 13 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. LAPPER-The issue is probably in the winter just when it gets dark so early. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, it’s dark at four. Especially there in the trees. MR. STECIUK-Well, we only load until 4:30. So there’s that half hour window. MR. HUNSINGER-Are all of the specs on the fixtures the same? MR. HUTCHINS-The wall packs are, yes, there’s two different wall packs. There’s 100, the ones in the front are 100 watters. These are 250 in the rear. That’s why they’re brighter. MR. LAPPER-And a lot softer in the front when people drive by. MR. HUNSINGER-Is there a lower wattage that could be used that would still be enough? MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, we could reduce the wattage of the 250’s. MR. LAPPER-In the back. How much? MR. HUTCHINS-We could reduce it to 100. It may not be as bright. You could go to 150. It’s the same fixture. Just a different lamp. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Is 150 going to be enough? MR. HUTCHINS-It won’t be as much as 250, but for a limited use, probably, yes. MR. LAPPER-Are you okay with that, if it’s a little bit darker in the back? MR. STECIUK-Yes. It’s not a problem. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, I’m kind of leaning on you to tell me if that’s going to be okay or not. MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, and I can’t tell what it’s going to do to the numbers. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. LAPPER-Well, we know which way it’ll go. MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, they’re going to go down. We can do that. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. LAPPER-Pete said he can live with 150. MR. STECIUK-I don’t have a problem with 150. We very rarely do loading in the dark, and the truck’s got lights on it anyway. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s true. Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-So reduce wattage of the new lighting. MR. LAPPER-Just in the rear of the building. MR. HUNSINGER-In the rear to 150 watts. MR. HUTCHINS-It’s Fixture L-3 if you want to call it that. MR. HUNSINGER-How do members feel about the shipping containers? MR. STEFFAN-There was another site plan for an electrical company, and we had a similar situation. There were a lot of containers on site and we approved that. It’s almost like a storage unit. MR. TRAVER-Yes, well, which is really what it is. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, they’re just portable, they could be. MR. HUNSINGER-Do they ever get moved? 14 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. STECIUK-No. Not yet. MR. LAPPER-We certainly would stipulate that it would never be more than 11, if that does anything. MR. MAGOWAN-Well, the only way you could go is probably up, so. MRS. STEFFAN-Did you consider with the new building, using part of the new building for storing this kind of stuff or? MR. STECIUK-I’ve got to say it’s a possibility that stuff that’s in there may end up along one of the walls inside the building, that’s a possibility, yes, because then the guys don’t have to go as far to get what they’re looking for. MR. HUNSINGER-Are they all full? MR. STECIUK-Yes. MR. MAGOWAN-I mean, could you go with a racking system inside, I mean, the height of the building? MR. STECIUK-We plan to put racks in there and take the stuff that’s in there out, but I’m not certain that we’re, I don’t want to take the whole building up with storage and then repeat what we’re, we want it to be assembly space. MR. TRAVER-Right. MRS. STEFFAN-You need it for assembly. MR. MAGOWAN-Yes, I mean they’ve been there how long now? MR. STECIUK-Maybe five years, seven years, I’m going to take a guess, five years. MR. MAGOWAN-Yes. I’ve driven by there. They haven’t, it is pretty wooded area in an industrial park. It doesn’t bother me. MR. TRAVER-Right. MR. MAGOWAN-How about the access points. You have four. Do you need four? MR. LAPPER-Well, we were talking about that after we saw the comment, and three of them are there now. So we’re only adding one and really, you know, you’ve got the truck traffic separated from the car traffic. So you certainly need the two for the truck traffic, and because they’re on a corner lot, it works out really nicely with the car lot that they have the two. I don’t know that it would make a difference if we took one out because. MR. MAGOWAN-Well, if you took one out on Carey Road, you could come in and use the parking lot with the trucks. I mean, like you said, there’s not a line of trucks down the road coming off the Northway, waiting to pull in. You said how many trucks come in a day? MR. LAPPER-Ten. MR. MAGOWAN-About ten, and they usually come in after your employees are there. MR. STECIUK-The problem is the FedEx truck comes in on the one lot, right, and he can’t back out of there. He delivers stuff to the front, and we could take that out of there, but they’ll still go right across the lawn. That’s my guess. I know they will. They’ll go straight through, the FedEx trucks. MR. MAGOWAN-The FedEx trucks? MR. STECIUK-Yes. I mean, I’ll take it out. It’s not a big deal. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, you know, I know we have access management issues in a lot of areas, but this is an industrial area, and to me it makes sense for traffic flow to have an in and an out. There are things coming and going and moving, and the idea is to get them in and get them out, and it’s not, you know, I don’t believe, in the years that this industrial park has existed, that 15 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) there’s ever been heavy traffic in here. So I, and I can’t foresee it because it’s not a thoroughfare to anywhere. MR. TRAVER-Yes, it’s not like we’re worried about sight distances or something. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. I don’t know how anybody else feels, but it’s not a heavily travelled area, but it just makes sense to me. I mean, the grocery stores have it. You come in one way, you put the truck in, and then you drive out another driveway. MR. TRAVER-Right. That’s an added expense for you. MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t know. That’s what I think. MR. TRAVER-Looking at the engineering, it looks as though most everything is fairly straightforward. MRS. STEFFAN-So are we changing this single pole lighting, it’s not to Code? We addressed the issue on the wall packs, I mean, the lighting, we haven’t addressed that pole. MR. HUNSINGER-Is the L-1, is that one of the 100 watt fixtures? MR. LAPPER-That’s the one pole light in the front, but if you look at that, it’s just that one spot right underneath the light, and then it. MR. HUTCHINS-It’s like a hot spot. MR. LAPPER-Yes, because it’s just right down. MRS. STEFFAN-That’s at the front entrance of the building. MR. LAPPER-The new parking area. MRS. STEFFAN-Of the new parking area. MR. HUTCHINS-It’s a shielded, down lit fixture, but. MR. HUNSINGER-And what’s the wattage on that? MR. HUTCHINS-That data point is directly underneath the. MR. HUNSINGER-Is that one of the 100 watt fixtures? MR. HUTCHINS-That’s a 150. MR. LAPPER-But that’s for that employee parking lot. So it’s the only light there. They probably need that. Because it also, it covers all of those spaces from, you know, the width of all those spaces in front. MR. HUTCHINS-Obviously the problem is, if you reduce, we’re trying to get reasonable light at the outer limit that the fixture is serving, and the grid point you’re seeing is directly underneath the fixture, and when we’re trying to get coverage out a ways, it’s always brighter under the fixture, and that point happens to be directly underneath it. MR. MAGOWAN-And if you go with two lamps, then you’re creating a larger span of light. So I don’t have a problem with the ten directly underneath. Especially in there, you know, it’s so wooded and dark, I’d feel safer for an employee parking lot. I mean, it drops away pretty quick. MR. LAPPER-It does. MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, it does. MR. MAGOWAN-The same in the back, too, it drops off pretty quick, but that’s awfully close to the other buildings, you know. MRS. STEFFAN-So was there a change to that? MR. HUNSINGER-I guess not. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. 16 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else from the Board? We do have a public hearing scheduled on this project. Is there anyone that wants to address the Board? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. HUNSINGER-Do we have any written comments, Keith? MR. OBORNE-No. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I will open the public hearing and let the record show that there were no comments received. MR. OBORNE-If I could ask a question, Mr. Chairman. MR. HUNSINGER-Sure. MR. OBORNE-With the cleared area that is shown up there, it’s what it is. I think we understand that. What are you doing as far as stabilizing that area that’s already been cleared that won’t be part of your site plan? MRS. STEFFAN-That’s right, and why was that cleared? MR. HUTCHINS-The vast majority of that area will be utilized as part of the site plan. There are some areas that aren’t, and it’ll get stabilized. It’ll get stabilized as we normal stabilize, seeded and mulch. MRS. STEFFAN-Why was it cleared? Isn’t there a mention here that it was cleared before permit or whatever? MR. STECIUK-I didn’t know you needed to get approval to clear it. MR. TRAVER-I mean, what was the reason behind clearing? MR. STECIUK-Just to get an eyeball on what we’re going to do here, get the ball rolling. MR. LAPPER-That was last Fall. Before he came to talk to us. But they left the perimeter trees, that from the road will shield it. MR. HUNSINGER-And I meant to ask that question, are the clearing limits as shown on the plan, do they match what was done? MR. HUTCHINS-The clearing limits, yes, the survey was late last Fall. So, yes, the clearing limits match what’s on site now. MR. LAPPER-We had to get a new survey and topo before starting the project. MR. HUNSINGER-So I guess the only real issue is this northern corner here where it looks like maybe you went into your neighbor’s property a little bit. MR. LAPPER-I think that was the existing tree line. MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, I don’t know. I’ve never seen it without snow. MR. LAPPER-What he’s talking about is this. MR. STECIUK-The property was logged just a few years ago, and the property’s, basically everywhere else that was owned by, I guess maybe it was the Careys back then, yes it was all logged. So that might have been an existing little patch there, I guess. I mean, the place was pretty devastated after they got done with it. MR. OBORNE-Yes. You can see the logging. This is a 2008 flyover. You can see they did some logging, but I mean, obviously this area you went into a little bit. MR. LAPPER-I think it’s actually right there where you can see right. MR. OBORNE-Well, this is the area that shows on the survey that’s cleared . MR. LAPPER-Yes, that’s just to the right of where your thing is, yes. That looks like where it is. 17 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, that’s reasonable. Yes. Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-Will the access road, in the Staff Notes it says future access road proposed for Phase Two will be gravel or macadam. Obviously it’s all going to be one phase now. MR. LAPPER-It’ll be macadam. They’re just going to do it, and that wasn’t, even when we sat down with Keith for a pre-ap, they hadn’t made that decision. MR. OBORNE-So the Fire Marshal comments obviously are not really an issue at this point. Because he was looking for compaction on the gravel. MR. LAPPER-Yes, and we’ll do it all for paving. MR. HUNSINGER-So new parking area, it’s actually the loading dock area on this colored in plan, it’s hatched. Is there a reason why it’s hatched? MR. HUTCHINS-Back here, just to show that’s the new area. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Is the Board inclined to move forward? MR. TRAVER-I think so. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Then I will close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. HUNSINGER-This is an Unlisted action. I don’t know if they submitted a Short Form or a Long Form. MR. LAPPER-A Short Form. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. “Does the action exceed any Type I threshold in 6 NYCRR Part 617.4?” MR. HUNSINGER-No. MRS. STEFFAN-“Will the action receive coordinated review as provided for Unlisted Actions in 6 NYCRR, Part 617.6?” MR. HUNSINGER-No. MR. TRAVER-No. MRS. STEFFAN-“Could the action result in any adverse effects associated with the following: C1. Existing air quality, surface or ground water quality or quantity, noise levels, existing traffic patterns, solid waste production or disposal, potential for erosion, drainage or flooding problems?” MR. HUNSINGER-No. MR. TRAVER-No. MRS. STEFFAN-“C2. Aesthetic, agricultural, historic, or other natural or cultural resources; or community or neighborhood character?” MR. HUNSINGER-No. MRS. STEFFAN-“C3. Vegetation, fauna, fish, shellfish or wildlife species, significant habitats, or threatened or endangered species?” MR. HUNSINGER-No. MR. TRAVER-No. MRS. STEFFAN-“C4. A community’s existing plans or goals as officially adopted, or a change in use or intensity of use of land or other natural resources?” MR. HUNSINGER-No. 18 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. TRAVER-No. MRS. STEFFAN-“C5. Growth, subsequent development or related activities likely to be induced by the proposed action?” MR. HUNSINGER-No. MR. TRAVER-No. MRS. STEFFAN-“C6. Long term, short term, cumulative or other effects not identified above?” MR. HUNSINGER-No. MRS. STEFFAN-“C7. Other impacts (including changes in use of either quantity or energy)?” MR. TRAVER-No. MR. HUNSINGER-No. MRS. STEFFAN-“Will the project have an impact on the environmental characteristics that caused the establishment of a Critical Environmental Area?” MR. HUNSINGER-No. MR. TRAVER-No. MRS. STEFFAN-“Is there or is there likely to be controversy related to potential adverse environmental impacts?” MR. HUNSINGER-No. MR. TRAVER-No. MRS. STEFFAN-Then I’ll make a motion for a Negative Declaration. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 23-2011, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: NORTHEAST POWER SYSTEMS, INC., 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. 19 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) Duly adopted this day of, February, 2011, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Traver, Mr. Magowan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp MR. OBORNE-Mrs. Secretary, if you can add, as a condition of approval, that the applicant submit a Short Form signed, because there was not one here, and I’ll take care of that and get your signature on that at a later date, Mr. Chairman. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. LAPPER-We have a signed one. MR. OBORNE-If you have one there, I’ll take it. MR. LAPPER-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. My copy was, I mean, it’s a copy. MR. OBORNE-So is the one here. MRS. STEFFAN-So I don’t need to add that on. Are you good then, Keith? MR. OBORNE-Yes, we are good. MRS. STEFFAN-And so we don’t need anything with the Fire Marshal, because since they surfaced it. Okay. I’ll make a motion to approve. RESOLUTION APPROVE SP 23-2011 NORTHEAST POWER SYSTEMS, INC. A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes a 12,000 sq. ft. expansion to existing 13,230 sq. ft. industrial building to include access drives, on-site wastewater, stormwater management and storage containers in the Carey Industrial Park. Expansion of an existing use in a CLI zone requires Planning Board review and approval; and A public hearing was advertised and held on 3/24/2011; and This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 23-2011 NORTHEAST POWER SYSTEMS, INC., Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: According to the resolution prepared by Staff. 1)Pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179-9-080]], the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and 2)The requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and 3)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 4)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 5)The Sanitary Sewer connection plan must be submitted to the Wastewater Department for its review, approval, permitting and inspection; and 20 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) 6)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; and 7)Engineering sign-off required prior to signature of Zoning Administrator; and 8)If curb cuts are being added or changed a driveway permit is required. A building permit will not be issued until the approved driveway permit has been provided to the Planning Office; and 9)The applicant must submit a copy of the following to the Town: a)The project NOI (Notice of Intent) for coverage under the current NYSDEC SPDES General Permit or for coverage under an individual SPDES prior to the start of any site work. b)The project NOT (Notice of Termination) upon completion of the project; and 10) The applicant must maintain on their project site, for review by staff: a)The approved final plans that have been stamped by the Town Zoning Administrator. These plans must include the project SWPPP (Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan) when such a plan was prepared and approved; and b)The project NOI and proof of coverage under the current NYSDEC SPDES General Permit, or an individual SPDES permit issued for the project. 11)This is approved with the following conditions: a)That the applicant will address VISION Engineering comments and obtain a signoff. b)That the applicant will reduce the wattage of new lighting fixture L-3 to 150 watts at the rear of the building. c)That the applicant will eliminate phasing language on the plan, since this has been reduced to one phase. d)Lot Three and Four must be combined prior to the issuance of building permits. e)The Planning Board approves the 11 existing shipping containers on site. However, if any alternate locations are proposed, they must be reviewed and approved by the Zoning Administrator. f)The access road proposed will be macadam. Duly adopted this 24th day of March 2011, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Traver, Mr. Magowan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp MR. LAPPER-Thanks, everybody. It will be really helpful to get this in the ground. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome, good luck. MRS. STEFFAN-Good luck. MR. LAPPER-Really appreciate it. SITE PLAN 21-2011 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED WALMART R.E.B.T. AGENT(S) BRUCE CARLSON OWNER(S) SAME AS APPLICANT ZONING CI LOCATION 891 STATE ROUTE 9 APPLICANT PROPOSES EXTERIOR COLOR CHANGES. MODIFICATION TO AN APPROVED SITE PLAN IN A CI ZONE REQUIRES PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE SV 71-03, SP 25-03, AV 38-03, SP 31-93 WARREN CO. PLANNING 3/9/2011 LOT SIZE 17.74 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 296.17-1-36 SECTION 179-9 MATTHEW GREEN, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you’re ready to summarize Staff Notes. MR. OBORNE-Absolutely. Site Plan 21-2011, Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust. This is a modification to an approved Site Plan, and as such it needs Site Plan Review. This is the 21 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) existing Wal-Mart off of 891 State Route 9. Commercial Intensive is the zoning. This is an Unlisted SEQRA. The Planning Board, for Warren County, they issued a No County Impact on this. Project Description: Applicant proposes exterior color change as well as general maintenance on site. General maintenance and activities to improve roof upgrades, sidewalk joint replacement, cart corral replacement, fire lane painting, etc. Please see notes on SP-1 for complete list of maintenance proposed. Staff comments: The applicant has stated that the color changes are in keeping with the new corporate branding strategy. There’s a copy change to the signage and it has been determined by the Zoning Administrator to be compliant with previous approvals. As far as my additional comments go, the review, as far as Site Plan Review, there’s really no issues from the Department of Community Development, but my additional comment, the Planning Board, as a condition of approval and prior to the commencing of the above project should require the applicant to acknowledge and allow the pre-approved interconnect with the parcel to the northeast, Tax ID Number 296.17-1-38, to move forward. Please see attached copy of interconnect language from approved Site Plan dated 5/18/04. The applicant has not requested waivers. This is the second additional comment, the applicant has not requested any waivers from site plan requirements. However, Staff recommends waivers for stormwater, grading, landscaping and lighting, as all these requirements have been previously approved. Further the applicant has commented upon these issues, answering the A through O questions of Page Five of the application through a formal request, although a formal request is not in hand. Just a quick elaboration, though. There was a Site Plan before you for the old Flower Drum Song for Monty Liu, and that was conditioned upon approval to have that interconnect taken care of. That language was put in there because it was on the Site Plan for Wal-Mart, and with that I’d turn it over to the Board. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Good evening. MR. GREEN-Good evening. MR. HUNSINGER-If you could identify yourself for the record. MR. GREEN-Yes. I am Matthew Green. I am representing CM Architecture. We are the architect of record for the general re-model for Wal-Mart for this project. Basically he summed it up quite nicely that a little bit of a back story here is that obviously in the past, you’ve probably all noticed in the past two construction seasons that Wal-Mart has re-vamped their corporate logo, and also re-vamped their corporate branding colors for all of their new projects. Ground up new stores are all getting this same color palette and signage palette that you’re seeing. You guys all have the color elevations of this? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we do. MR. GREEN-Okay. They did extensive community testing and screening of these new colors, and this palette in contrast to color schemes they’ve used in the past, and this has tested very well with communities around the country. I think especially in contrast with some of the other color schemes they’ve had in the past. So they are trying to bring all of their existing stores, as much as possible, into kind of a cohesive language with what the new projects are getting in the ground up as well, and this store was scheduled to be re-modeled, interior and exterior general re-modeling this season, and when they get that opportunity obviously they want to bring this color palette forward. MRS. STEFFAN-So I would just like to clarify, because I have one drawing where it’s dated December 3, 2010, the exterior elevations, and it said that the roof colors would be Theater Red, and then in this palette, in this drawing, which is a January drawing, then the change, the roof changed to dark zinc. MR. GREEN-Red, red must have been a misprint. I apologize for that. Let me check and make sure I have that on my plan as well. Theater Red, I think I see the, let me clarify this. I think I see the issue. The P-4 is a paint color, Sherwin Williams 1602 Theater Red. PF-4 is a finish color of the lead coat metallic, also referred to as the dark zinc, and the canopies, the roofing canopies, should all be tagged with the PF-4 tag. If they’re tagged with P-4 in any place, it’s a mistake, and I don’t believe they are, but I’ll double check here. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, because the, you know, I have to tell you, I’m not opposed to the look it has right now, and I know that, before I was on the Planning Board, the Planning Board at the time went through extensive deliberations on the color of the building, and I know they wanted it earth tones and those kinds of things, and so the thought of having red metal roofs on the Wal- Mart was not going to be okay with me. So that’s why I needed you to clarify that. MR. GREEN-They are definitely not P-4, they are PF-4, and it is a dark zinc that actually works really well with this, the neutral tone palette. 22 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. TRAVER-Although at some point during the painting they would be red, between coats it sounds like, right? The red, is it like a primer or like an under? MR. GREEN-I don’t believe so. I think that the PF-4 finish has a sort of built in primer base that actually handles the weather tight issues that the canopy needs. Like I said, I’m not even sure why the P-4 finish, the paint finish, is specified on this elevation, because I don’t even think we use it anywhere on the exterior. I’m pretty sure we don’t. It may have just been part of the schedule, but I don’t believe we have it tagged anywhere. If you see one, please let me know. Because I’d like to make sure we get that crossed off our next revision. MR. TRAVER-So that can just be removed. MR. GREEN-Trust me. Wal-Mart would be more irritated with us than you are if we paint that building red in any way, shape or form. MR. TRAVER-So this will match the Quaker Road facility as well? MR. GREEN-I don’t know that that was the intention, but I think the color palettes are similar. I drove by that store today on my way over here, and I know you guys have the light beige and green palette right now, and I actually think this color scheme, just in the surrounding retail corridor, actually works better with some of the surrounding tenants than the one they currently have. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, and this one looks like the other one we approved on the other side of Town. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, it’s very similar, yes. So the only changes that you’re really making are the paint scheme? MR. GREEN-Color and the signage, yes. The signage has already been approved. I think it’s actually a reduction in overall square footage. They’re trying to lean out the number of signs and the size of the signs that they’re branding each store with. MR. OBORNE-Yes, they’re also doing general maintenance, based on the plan. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. OBORNE-You know, which is not an issue. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. GREEN-The lion’s share of that is all on the interior of the store. Anything exterior is improving what’s already there, new bollards, painting parking stripes, but no reduction or change in parking. MR. TRAVER-What timeframe is this? When do you plan on doing this? MR. GREEN-The construction is scheduled to start as early as the first week in April. ththth Obviously, pending this approval, none of the painting occurs until the 6 or 7 or even 8 week of that construction process. It’s normally a two and a half to three month re-model on site. So they’ll probably be finishing the construction and painting mid to late July. MR. OBORNE-Now can I ask, what construction is it, on the interior? MR. GREEN-Interior only, yes. MR. OBORNE-Okay. I couldn’t care less. That’s Building and Codes. MR. HUNSINGER-At the rate Spring’s coming, you’re not going to be doing much painting for a while. MR. TRAVER-Yes. MR. GREEN-Right, exactly. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. We do have a public hearing scheduled this evening. Is there anyone in the audience that wants to address the Board on this project? Good evening. 23 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MELISSA LESCAULT MS. LESCAULT-Good evening. Melissa Lescault. I’m an attorney with McPhillips, Fitzgerald and Cullum, and with me is my client, Monty Liu, who is the sole shareholder, president of 9099 Corporation. 9099 Corporation, as you know, is the leaseholder in the property that is adjacent to Wal-Mart, and we were here before you back in November to get a Site Plan approval with respect to a liquor store that we were changing the use of the property, so thus we had to get a Site Plan approval for that. Considering that the application that is before you tonight is to modify a current Site Plan that Wal-Mart has, we would strongly ask this Board to enforce what Wal-Mart had already agreed to before you approve the current application that’s before you this evening. In 2004, as part of this Board’s Site Plan approval for the Wal-Mart Super Center, a condition was made on that approval, and it was read as follows: Wal-Mart agrees to allow for future interconnection with adjacent landowner. Wal-Mart did, in fact, sign an easement agreement with Ray Supply, shortly after their Site Plan was approved back in 2004. I do have a copy of that easement agreement if the Board would like it. My client, as I’m sure you recall, received Site Plan approval back in November, and upon the condition that their approval was conditioned, his approval was conditioned upon the fact that Wal-Mart would provide a letter indicating their intent to complete or allow the completion of the portion of that interconnect prior to any construction. So my client obviously has a condition on his Site Plan approval that Wal- Mart comply with this interconnect as well. On various occasions since November, we’ve reached out to Wal-Mart to sign an easement agreement, and it’s been quite unsuccessful. In fact, the easement that Wal-Mart had proposed at one point asked for a $2500 annual maintenance fee with a two percent increase annually, and then it also had a prohibition on the use of my client’s property, and it prohibited the sale of alcohol. So obviously that would be completely against the use of what we received Site Plan approval for. Wal-Mart made an agreement in 2004 that they should, and they should honor that, and this Board certainly has relied on that condition. I know it’s the Board’s intention to keep the traffic flow away from the highway to keep it so that it is interconnected between the parcels. My client would like two things done tonight if possible by this Board. One, we’d like it that the Board recognize that Wal- Mart is in violation of their original 2004 Site Plan approval by not allowing for our interconnect, and then, Two, we ask that the Board not grant any approval on this application until Wal-Mart signs an easement with 9099 Corporation, and that’s it. Thank you very much for your time. MR. HUNSINGER-Thanks. Any questions? Thank you. MRS. STEFFAN-Thank you. Well, Keith, you propose language in your Staff Notes. Will that be sufficient to meet the needs of our prior approval? Because what I had just taken off of your notes, the condition I wrote down was prior to commencing this project, the pre-approved interconnect with the project to the northeast, Tax ID such and such, will be established. Is that sufficient? MR. OBORNE-Yes, I would think it would be. I think it’s obvious what’s going on here, and my concern is that parcel with that condition of approval which is integral, I mean, absolutely integral for ingress and egress and pedestrian and vehicular safety, be accomplished. I don’t think that you would have approved that without that interconnect, to be honest with you, but I can’t speak for the Board. MRS. STEFFAN-And there are conditions. MR. HUNSINGER-No, there was lengthy discussion. I mean, basically the, well, it’s easy to get into the old Flower Drum Song site, but it’s difficult to get out, especially to turn left, and that was the intent, was that, with that interconnect, people could come out, use the light to take a left turn to go north on Route 9. MR. OBORNE-It’s a safety valve, because you restricted the left out on there, and as such, you know, the Planning Department is definitely looking for that interconnect to become a reality. How that happens is between the two entities. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, in the condition, it just says Wal-Mart agrees to allow for future interconnect with adjacent landowner. There’s no conditions on that. I mean, it’s very plain and simple language. MR. OBORNE-Pretty straightforward. MR. GREEN-And I did broach the subject with my contacts at store planning in Wal-Mart’s design department, because we were not, as architect of record for this re-model, we were not aware of those previous conditions. This is the first time we’ve worked with this project site. 24 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) They came back to me, after doing their own digging, and gave me the impression that they were fine with the interconnect and that they were under the impression that the interconnect was the other tenant’s responsibility, that they were going to establish that interconnect and they had no problems with that being established. MR. OBORNE-And that is what I believe the client that was up here during public comment proposes to do is to install that interconnect. They’re not asking Wal-Mart to foot the bill for that. They will install it, and they’re just looking for easement language. MR. TRAVER-What about the part of the public comment where the commenter talked about Wal-Mart wanting a several thousand dollar fee and the prohibition of sales of alcohol. Is that something’s typically involved in an interconnect? MR. OBORNE-No. Well, the maintenance easement, yes, that could be something that’s typical, but as far as prohibition on use, not typically. No. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, but the language here is very simple, and it doesn’t talk about an annual fee or. MR. OBORNE-Right. If that was an issue in ’04 it should have been brought up. MRS. STEFFAN-That’s correct, considering how many months it took to approve the Site Plan in the first place. If that was a big issue back then, it should have been on the table. MR. TRAVER-Who would approve, if there was a change in language from what’s on the plan from 2004, is that something that the Planning Office would address, or? MR. OBORNE-Well, it’s something we’d certainly have counsel look at to make sure that it’s solid easement agreement, but it’s certainly something that Wal-Mart and Melissa and Monty would have to work through also with Wal-Mart first. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. OBORNE-Now, if you require that counsel look at that and approve it, that’s one thing. If you don’t, then it would be a simple agreement between the two entities. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I don’t know if we need to have the Town Counsel do it. MR. OBORNE-I agree. MR. TRAVER-It’s not really a Town. MRS. STEFFAN-No. MR. HUNSINGER-As long as they’re in agreement, what do we care. Did you want to say something? I’ll need to get you on the microphone. MRS. STEFFAN-Because I would think that with the amount of debate, the number of meetings, public comment, that the record would be clear, if that language was ever brought up before. MR. TRAVER-Right. MR. OBORNE-And I have researched the minutes. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, and I would doubt that it was. MR. OBORNE-It wasn’t. MS. LESCAULT-If I can just, we did read the minutes from the meetings that took place in 2004, and it’s my understanding that what had happened was that in the original plans that Wal-Mart had submitted, they actually voluntarily put this interconnect between Flower Drum Song. I don’t know if they actually voluntarily did that with Ray Supply. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MS. LESCAULT-Now Ray Supply was present in all of those meetings, and certainly, you know, advocated for that interconnect, and it happened during the process of the Site Plan. So they were already negotiating it through the entire process of Site Plan approval. In that agreement, there’s no maintenance fee, and there’s certainly no prohibition on the use of their parcel. So all 25 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) we are asking for is that we have an exact easement that they extended to Ray Supply and we’ll foot the bill, my client will certainly pay for the cost for that. Whereas Ray Supply had asked that Wal-Mart pay for it. So all we are asking is that the Board just, you know, certainly recognize that with Wal-Mart and hopefully push them forward, because we’ve been trying, and we’re just not getting anywhere. MRS. STEFFAN-I think that’s reasonable, if you’re going to do that at your cost. MR. TRAVER-So could we, in our condition, could we say language similar to the easement granted Ray Supply? MR. OBORNE-Sure. MRS. STEFFAN-But at the same time, yes, that was a different situation, because then they would pay for it, but. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. The owner of Ray Supply came to all the public hearings, and, I mean, they almost really negotiated the easement here at the Planning Board meetings, and at times it was fairly contentious. Whereas this one was just offered. There really, I mean, compared to the record that there is with Ray Supply, there was very little record about this one. MR. TRAVER-And obviously that was before my involvement with the Planning Board. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, so I don’t know if you can really compare the two. MR. OBORNE-Yes, and I think the general question could the language be put in there that it’s similar to Ray Supply, and I don’t see why it couldn’t be, but if you’re uncomfortable with that, absolutely not, it’s something that the applicant, that the landowners have to work out. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, and I can certainly see from Wal-Mart’s point of view, I’m sure that they’re nervous. When they got their approval, that was a restaurant that had a bar in it, and it wasn’t competitive in any way, but now, New York State has on the table that they’re thinking about having wine sales in grocery stores, and so if there’s a liquor store with a cut through right to their lot, then they’re potentially shooting themselves in the foot by having that there. So I can understand from their point of view why they want to go back and re-negotiate the deal, but the deal, in my mind, is the deal. Circumstances have changed, however, you know, it seems unreasonable to me. MR. TRAVER-That’s a good point, and that being the case, our language should be as simple as possible. MRS. STEFFAN-There’s enough for everybody I think. MR. TRAVER-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MRS. STEFFAN-All right. MR. HUNSINGER-And it is interesting that on the note it says that the interconnection is by others. MR. TRAVER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, and this language is very plain. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-All right. So, we’re okay with the color palette. MR. HUNSINGER-But thank you, Keith, for putting the copy in our, that helped a lot. MR. OBORNE-Sure. MRS. STEFFAN-So we really, you’re recommending waivers, Keith, even though the applicant has not asked for waivers. 26 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. OBORNE-Yes, I mean, it sounds logical to me. This was done through correspondence from Bentonville. We didn’t have an actual face to face sit down. So, you know, I wasn’t able to bring up those issues face to face. Craig handled most of that aspect of it, and then obviously I’m handling this before the Board with the Site Plan Review. I do want to remind the Board that this is an Unlisted SEQRA. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. What did they submit? MRS. STEFFAN-Short Form. MR. HUNSINGER-They submitted a Short Form. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-It’s Unlisted. They submitted a Short Form. Do we need to complete another Short Form, or can we just re-affirm the previous SEQRA Findings? MR. OBORNE-You can re-affirm the SEQRA Findings if you feel that there’s no environmental impact as result of this proposal. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, they’re painting the façade. MR. OBORNE-That’s fine. MR. TRAVER-Right. MRS. STEFFAN-I think that’s reasonable. MR. HUNSINGER-And hopefully opening an interconnect with the neighbor. MR. TRAVER-Right. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. We’re comfortable moving forward then, right? MR. TRAVER-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Were there any written comments, Keith? MR. OBORNE-There were not. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Then I will close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. HUNSINGER-Did you have anything else that you wanted to add? MR. GREEN-No, I think we’ve covered it. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. MR. GREEN-If you have any questions for me, I’m happy to answer them. MR. HUNSINGER-I think the only outstanding issue is the interconnect. MR. TRAVER-Yes. MR. GREEN-Like I said, the people that corresponded back with me may not have had the full seven year history on this subject and the change of tenants or the change of the use of the space, but if it’s a conditional approval on this change to their color palette, I’m sure they will do their due diligence and come to the right decision. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, it’s really a condition on the original Site Plan approval. MR. GREEN-Right. MR. HUNSINGER-So what’s the thought for our language here, just to affirm the? MRS. STEFFAN-I have, prior to commencing this project, so they can’t do any of the renovation, they can’t do any of the color changes, until the pre-approved interconnect with the project to the 27 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) northeast, Tax ID such and such, will be established. So they’ve got to have the, established means contract language, and. MR. OBORNE-I think easement language would be pretty strong, you know, get that final easement agreement in before we cut loose the building permit. MR. TRAVER-Final easement agreement, there we go. MRS. STEFFAN-So we want to call it a final easement? MR. OBORNE-Or approved easement agreement between the two parties, however you want to word it. th MR. HUNSINGER-And this date here of June 30, was that the day of the Planning Board approval? MR. OBORNE-Is that Craig’s signature on that? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. OBORNE-That would be the date that he signed off on it. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. OBORNE-It should be on the Staff Notes when that was approved. MR. HUNSINGER-5/18, I’m sorry. I don’t know if you even want to reference that, Gretchen, the 5/18/04 Site Plan approval. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-So have any nearby Wal-Marts, have any of them changed their color schemes yet? MR. GREEN-We are only doing a few stores in New York, in the State of New York. Most of ours are in Texas and New Mexico and some of the south, but we do have another one in Rome, NY scheduled for this year. MR. TRAVER-The same or similar color patterns? MR. GREEN-Yes. I mean, the branding colors that they’re using really only vary in as much as the exterior elevation of the store varies. Some of the stores have the standing seam canopies, some of them don’t. Some of them have, your store is rather unique with the arched glazing over the entry vestibules, and so, in terms of that, they’re different, but most of the color palettes and where they land on the building façade are the same. MR. OBORNE-Just a quick question. Those interior modifications, is that to become more energy efficient, has that got a lot to do with it? I know they’re going for the green. MR. GREEN-A lot of it is. A lot of it is. They replace a lot of their older refrigeration equipment. They do LED lighting in their dairy cases that saves a lot of heat and energy. They re-build some of their back house offices and training rooms that are in poor condition, and it brings in new signage and graphics on the interior of the store as well, to mark all of the different retail zones. So it makes the store look almost like a new store. MR. OBORNE-It’s time for a change. MR. GREEN-Right. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. I will make a motion to approve. RESOLUTION APPROVING SP 21-2011 A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes exterior color changes. Modification to an approved site plan in a CI zone requires Planning Board review and approval. A public hearing was advertised and held on 3/24/2011; and 28 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 21-2011 WALMART R.E.B.T., Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: According to the resolution prepared by Staff. Pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179-9-080]], 1) the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and 2)The requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and 3)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 4)Waiver requests granted: stormwater mgmt., grading, landscaping & lighting plans; and 5)This is approved with two conditions: a)That prior to commencing this project, the pre-approved interconnect, specifically the final approved easement language, will be completed with the project to the northeast, Tax ID Number 296.17-1-38. That language will be completed, again, before the commencement of this project. Please refer back to the May 18, 2004 Site Plan approval. b)That the applicant will remove the color P-4, Theater Red, from the color legend on Drawing Sheet A-2 Exterior Elevation and Details. Duly adopted this 24th day of March, 2011, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Magowan, Mr. Traver, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp MR. HUNSINGER-You’re all set. Good luck. MR. GREEN-Thank you very much. I appreciate it. SUBDIVISION NO. 3-2011 SKETCH PLAN SEQR TYPE UNLISTED DAWN HLAVATY- STARRATT AGENT(S) HUTCHINS ENGINEERING OWNER(S) SAME AS APPLICANT ZONING RR-3A LOCATION GLEN LAKE ROAD, ACROSS FROM ASH DRIVE APPLICANT PROPOSES SUBDIVISION OF A 14.67 +/- ACRE PARCEL INTO FOUR LOTS RANGING IN SIZE FROM 2.16 +/- ACRES TO 5.10 +/- ACRES. SUBDIVISION OF LAND REQUIRES PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. WARREN CO. PLANNING N/A APA, CEA, OTHER GLEN LK. CEA LOT SIZE 14.67 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 288.16-1-87.1 SECTION CHAPTER A-183 TOM HUTCHINS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. OBORNE-Subdivision 3-2011 Sketch Plan Review. Dawn Hlavaty-Starratt is the applicant. Subdivision of land requires Planning Board review and approval. This is Glen Lake Road across from Ash Drive is the location. This is in the RR-3A, Rural Residential Three Acres. This is an Unlisted SEQRA, but not at this point because you are at Sketch Plan. Project Description: Applicant proposes subdivision of a 14.67 acre parcel into four lots ranging in size from 2.16 acres to 5.10 acres. Staff comments: The Sketch Plan, as presented, will require relief for the following. Lot One would require lot width and lot size relief. Lot Two would require lot width, road frontage and road access relief. Lot Three would require lot width, road frontage, and road access relief. Lot Four would require lot width, road frontage and road access relief, and all would require, the whole project would require density relief as proposed. Additional considerations, in your deliberations tonight should be the knowledge that the access drives for Lot Two, Three, and Four are greater than 10%. There are excessive drive slopes along the 29 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) drive, 48% slopes and greater in some locations. Now those are the cut slopes that is associated with the drive itself, not, the drive isn’t at 48%. I just want to make sure you know that, okay. Emergency access issues along the proposed drive as per the Fire Marshal comments, and Site Plan Review for those lots with 15% slopes within 50 feet of proposed single family dwellings would be required. Also additional comments: Proposed Lot One does have an existing single family dwelling on it, and as this project moves forward, we would ask that the applicant contact Queensbury Central Fire Chief to consult on any fire and emergency issues. With that, I’d turn it over to the Board. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Good evening. MR. HUTCHINS-Good evening, Board. My name is Tom Hutchins, Hutchins Engineering. With me are Greg and Dawn Starratt. The Staretts own the 14.6 acre parcel on Glen Lake Road as discussed, and as a landmark it’s just west of where the bike path crosses. They have a vision to create a four lot subdivision, and we’re here with a Sketch to get an opinion from the Board because there are a number of variances involved, and we thought we’d show you what our plan is and get your opinion. Their reasoning for a four lot subdivision, there is one house presently located that’s really geographically separate from the other areas, and that’s pretty obvious. It’s down in that half arrowhead shaped area to the, down on that picture shown on the plan, and the bulk of the parcel, there’s a land hook connection. The bulk of the parcel is to the north. It is vacant. There is an area there that at one point there was some material extracted from, but the parcel is presently vacant. They have a vision to create three lots in that northern section, and their purpose would be, one, for their own residence, and then two additional lots that they would hold in the event that their young children eventually want to reside in the area. It’s not that we’re creating lots to sell off. That’s not the intention. I know that doesn’t always matter, but that isn’t the intention here. The revised RR-3 Acre zoning presents some challenges here, a lot width of 400 feet with 400 feet of road frontage. That’s a challenge with lot layout unless you can layout square lots, and in this case we can’t. So there are a number of variances that we would need to see this project through fruition, and we’ve outlined those on my Sheet S-3. Density, although on paper the density is there, if we subtract slopes over 20%, we’re slightly under on density. We’ve got 9.3 usable acres with the slopes subtracted. So we’d need some density relief in order to make this happen. We’d also need some relief on road frontage and lot width. It would be proposed to access the three northerly houses from one shared driveway. The shared driveway is probably the biggest challenge of this, but it certainly isn’t insurmountable. We’ve shown a widened driveway that largely follows the existing path of an access road that is there. It’s a little bit vertically challenging, although I think it’s manageable. I’ve shown this graded out to a 10% drive slope, and in order to get it to 10%, it requires a fair amount of cut, which is why you see the cut slope. If this could be built at a 12% drive slope, which is certainly not out of the norm in some of the areas, much of this cut slope goes away, if this could be constructed at 12%, and we feel, there’s plenty of room. The material’s workable. We feel that a safe drive could be built and have a short section that would be 12%, which would eliminate a bunch of this cut. Otherwise we’ve laid out the houses to meet all the setbacks, and again in this three acre zone we’ve got 100 foot rear setbacks, 75 foot side setbacks, and we have shown all the proposed houses to meet those, and the actual areas where the houses are are flat. They’re beautiful. We walked up there today and there’s plenty of room. There’s plenty of usable space for three residences, and the areas that the houses are proposed are flat and slopes are not an issue. The issue with slopes is getting from here. MRS. STEFFAN-How long is the driveway, the longest driveway to the proposed house, to the house on Lot Four? MR. HUTCHINS-One thousand feet. MRS. STEFFAN-One thousand feet. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s a long driveway. GREG STARRATT MR. STARRATT-It winds up through the woods. We actually tried to follow the contours. There’s an old road up there that they used to pull logs down, the family. The property’s been in the family for years. DAWN STARRATT MRS. STARRATT-Eighty years. MR. STARRATT-So since the depression they would go up and pull some logs down in there. So we cleaned it up a bit, just to get, so we could make sure it was doable, you know, we want 30 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) to make sure that anything can get up there, emergency trucks, I need cement trucks to go up there. So it’s, I don’t feel, I drive up it all the time with my truck, and it’s really not too much of a problem, but a 12% would be, we wouldn’t have to disturb much. What we want to do is just have a wooded lot, leave the contours of the land, we don’t want to destroy anything. We want to just put our house in the middle of the woods, quiet, nice, and just not have to disturb anything or really create anything. It’s a beautiful canopy up there of large oaks with, that, you know, once they’ve got their leaves on it, it shades it well, and there’s some beautiful pines and hemlocks up there, and there are the slopes, but the way we got the slopes, and we found the flat spots that are usable, use those, and it sort of gives little bits of contour to the land, which is really nice, you know, for the houses, you can literally look out. MR. HUNSINGER-So the house you want to build is the one, the furthest up? MR. STARRATT-The one furthest in the back. MR. TRAVER-It certainly is an interesting piece of property. It looks like it’s trying to be a flagged lot, but didn’t quite make it. MR. HUTCHINS-Well, it was all one piece, and the two in the middle were pulled out. MR. STARRATT-The family, over the years, had inherited two sections of it, and you see that’s the cut in now, and we also own the swamp. MRS. STARRATT-I own that. MR. STARRATT-On the other side. MRS. STARRATT-I own 12.6 acres on the other side, which has two houses, and nine acres of that is swamp. It’s not swamp. What is it considered? MRS. STEFFAN-Wetlands? MRS. STARRATT-Wetlands, thank you. MR. STARRATT-Well, it’s beautiful birds. We’ve got all sorts of birds and everything. It goes, probably if you’ve gone between the bike path between Ash Drive and Glen Lake and stuff like that, you can see there’s a ton, it’s a beautiful spot. MR. MAGOWAN-Yes, you’re right on the corner of Ash Drive now. MR. STARRATT-Yes. MR. MAGOWAN-I’ve seen the truck there many a times. MRS. STARRATT-I’ve been there 24 years. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I mean, really the lot that you need the most relief, well, I shouldn’t say the most relief, the most relief from acreage, is the lot that already has a house on it. MR. TRAVER-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-There’s really not much else you’re going to do there. MRS. STARRATT-No. MR. STARRATT-No. MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, it really separates that one off, but that’s really separate to their plan. MRS. STARRATT-It’s a rental house. I rent it out. It’s actually the family dwelling. MR. STARRATT-We’re in the midst of cleaning it up and fixing it up. MRS. STEFFAN-That’s on Lot One? MRS. STARRATT-Yes. MR. STARRATT-It was built during the depression, and that was the original family house, where how many kids did they raise? 31 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MRS. STARRATT-Five. MR. STARRATT-Five kids there. MR. HUTCHINS-So I guess the question we’re trying to answer is, before we go through, it’s a fair process to put together subdivision plans for this, and can we expect some support from the Planning Board, I guess, if we were to take a concept such as this toward the Zoning Board looking for necessary relief? Because I believe we would be at the Planning Board first, is that correct? MR. OBORNE-Yes, upon your Preliminary submittal, then you’d start the process MR. HUTCHINS-I mean, on paper it sounds like we might be asking for a lot. If you go up there and walk it, it kind of comes together. MRS. STARRATT-And I’m not in the APA. I don’t know who wrote that, but we are not in the Adirondack Park Agency. I’m out before that. MR. HUNSINGER-What is your property boundary at the north? Does that border right up to the bike trail? MRS. STARRATT-Yes. MR. STARRATT-No, no. There’s that red log cabin down at the corner of the bike trail. MRS. STARRATT-Yes. MR. STARRATT-He owns a swath that goes from there. MRS. STARRATT-Ten acres. MR. STARRATT-Yes. He owns from there over to the back there, but this is, this goes downhill, and then there’s the stream that runs by that. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. OBORNE-No, you’re not in the APA, but you are in the Glen Lake CEA. There is no mention of you being in the APA, at least not on the agenda. MRS. STARRATT-I thought that’s what that says, APA on the bottom. MR. OBORNE-No, it says Glen Lake CEA. MR. STARRATT-If you could walk it, you’d see where, like I said, it makes sense, that’s how I got it to there, I was just constantly walking it, trying to figure out where you would put a house, and where the best spot, because we were like, where do we want to put it, and I came up with the three spots, and those were the three there, and then the survey and everybody else says it looks good from that point, but there are those slopes, but we actually enjoy the slopes. MR. HUNSINGER-How long ago was it that you took gravel out? MR. STARRATT-Years. MRS. STARRATT-You mean in the pit there? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, or was it topsoil? What did you take out of there? MR. STARRATT-It was 70’s. Her uncle. MR. HUTCHINS-It’s been a while. It’s grown up. MRS. STARRATT-I could ask him. MR. HUNSINGER-It’s been a long time. That’s what I was getting at. MR. STARRATT-Yes. There’s a bunch of, right now, it’s, actually, with the road, we’d like to fill it in a little bit with excess material, we could fill it back in, but on the slope where it is, where you see it right up along that spot there, there’s a lot of poplars growing up through there now, and it 32 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) seems to, you know, and the poplars are a plant that keeps growing up from one to the other to the other. It seems to be holding that hill together real nice. MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, it’s stable. MR. HUNSINGER-It’s amazing how many little gravel and sand pits there were around Glen Lake, just everywhere. I mean, there were two on my road, and there was that big one up on 149 not far from here. MR. STARRATT-It’s all sand and gravel. I mean, it’s beautiful stuff for draining and everything else there. So it looks we can contain most everything onto the site, actually everything on the site, I believe. MR. OBORNE-Is there any concerns that you may have, as a Board? MRS. STEFFAN-Well, you know, I’ve got a couple of things in my mind. It’s their land, and it’s slopy and you want to build your house there. The driveway is substantial, and it will cost a fortune to put it in, but, I mean, if you can do that, but the other thing is just, it’s not the driveway as much as it will require the drainage, and, I mean, I have a significant driveway. We ended up, after the fact, putting in French drains along the side of it. We paved it because it was so difficult to deal with gravel and the mud season, and, you know, so a driveway of this length, of that pitch, is phenomenal in the wintertime. MR. STARRATT-We have equipment, we have heavy equipment, actually. So we’re not too worried about the. MRS. STEFFAN-I have a friend who has a driveway like this, but he has an excavating business, and so he owns all the equipment that he needs to handle it, but for somebody who doesn’t have access to those kinds of things, this kind of slope is kind of too formidable, and would require. MR. STARRATT-Well, the 12% grade, though, there’s a lot of places that have even more than that, all along this area and stuff like that. Twelve percent we can really do, I mean, I think it’s pretty easy to drive up and down. I didn’t have a problem. MR. OBORNE-What you have to, you have to deal with emergency vehicles, too, that’s probably the biggest concern. MR. MAGOWAN-That would be my concern is, you know, what do you do in an emergency? You, you can understand that. MR. STARRATT-We’ve had turnarounds. I put in turnarounds and things and stuff like that. So actually we did consider, can we get something up there, and I have no problem, right now, I know a cement truck could get up there very easily and a fire truck could probably get up there, and turnaround, and have a couple of trucks get up there. I really would love you to go see it and just. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we’d obviously want to do it. MR. STARRATT-On paper it’s so different than. MRS. STARRATT-I also had a fireman who looked at it who said it was very doable, and wide enough for emergency vehicles. MR. OBORNE-Get that in writing. MR. STARRATT-We’d be glad to have them come look at it, too. We’re all for any, you know. MRS. STARRATT-I mean, I’m fine with having the Fire Marshal come up and. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, it’s just that, from your own perspective, if you don’t have a sign off on something like that, you won’t be able to get fire insurance or it’ll be so expensive that, you know, it may be cost prohibitive. So there’s, you know, there’s other things that kind of go into play. So you might want to check with your insurance agent about what you might need. Tom, if this were 12% instead of the 10% grade on the driveway, where might it, I mean, would you have to have the same access point or would you use a different access point? MR. HUTCHINS-No, you’d use the same access point. See what’s happened is we’re kind of cutting a little bit all the way up to hit 10%. Right now it’s 13, and it sits it’s about 13%. Okay, and to cut it to 10, obviously you start cutting, shaving a little bit as you get up, and you get up to 33 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) where it flattens off, and you’re down in a valley. To take it to 12, it diminishes that significantly, and it would still follow the same alignment. That’s the logical alignment for a three lot configuration up here. MR. OBORNE-And with a lot less grading, a lot less clearing. MR. HUTCHINS-A lot less grading, a lot less clearing. MR. HUNSINGER-So how deep is the cut? It looks like it’s about five feet. MR. HUTCHINS-Well, as shown it’s deeper than that. MR. HUNSINGER-Is it? MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, it’s over 10 up in this area. MR. HUNSINGER-Wow. Okay. There you go. MR. HUTCHINS-There’s my sketch profile. It’s, solid line is existing grade, along the alignment. The 10% slope line is labeled and the 12%. So it more than cuts the cut in half, okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Wow. The thought process that I have is some of the conditions that we had on Fedorowicz on that subdivision, very similar kind of road. We required that they pave it, some of the things that Gretchen just mentioned. MR. OBORNE-Yes. You were also dealing with blasting on that road. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, there was a lot, there was cut and fill. In fact, I think the fill was even greater than the cut, because there were going to be banks that were going to be 10 feet tall. MR. TRAVER-They had view shed issues, too. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, there were view shed issues. So I guess it is different. MR. OBORNE-And the ubiquitous no further subdivision, but. MR. HUNSINGER-Now that we’ve talked about it a little bit, I guess it was, on paper, it looked similar, but I guess really it was very different. MRS. STEFFAN-And the other thing, I mean, they’re all over Town, you know, because we have a lot of mountains in Queensbury, and so for somebody who builds a single family residence they don’t have to come before the Planning Board to do Site Plan Review, and so there are a lot of folks that have driveways that are impossible. I mean, they can’t even get to their houses in the wintertime, but, and that’s their choosing because they could get the building permit and they could build it, but when it comes to a subdivision, then we have to look at, you know, services and things like that. MRS. STARRATT-And actually the only reason I’m here, right, is because there’s an existing house. MR. STARRATT-Yes, and we have to subdivide because we have an existing house onto it. So we have to at least get that off the thing. MRS. STARRATT-The (lost words) are five and three. So I’m looking at a good 25, 30 years before they could even. MR. STARRATT-We sort of like being back in the woods, if they decide to stay with us or they don’t hate us by then or whatever. We might never ever build on it. That’s the thing. MRS. STARRATT-That’s the other option. Mine’s not selling it. MR. HUNSINGER-The only other thought that I had, you know, first blush is where Lots Two and Three meet, is there any way that you can adjust the road frontage so that you have fewer lots that require variances on road frontage? MR. HUTCHINS-Well, the requirement’s 400 feet for road frontage. So we’re not going to get that. MR. HUNSINGER-You can’t get two complying lots. 34 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. HUTCHINS-I could adjust, we could adjust that parcel line, no, no, he’s just talking about the parcel line, so that we split the frontage. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, is there any value in doing that? That was my only thought. MR. HUTCHINS-I don’t see that there’s any reason we couldn’t do that. I believe the reason we, well, we ran it up the driveway for a ways, but, no, we could do that, we could split that, could split the frontage we have into those two lots. The drive would run at the parcel line, but. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. HUTCHINS-But it’s going to be a cross easement for everybody anyway. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Yes. MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, that could be done. MR. HUNSINGER-That was my only other initial thought. MRS. STEFFAN-But that would change the grade. MR. HUTCHINS-No, you’re just talking about the property line. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay, but the driveway would be in exactly the same place. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. HUTCHINS-If we’re going to get access up here, that’s pretty much the alignment it ought to be. I mean, I could shift it a little bit up top, but right here is where it ought to be. MR. HUNSINGER-Really? MR. HUTCHINS-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-What’s the slope of the driveway where it meets Glen Lake Road? MR. HUTCHINS-No, it’s less. I’ve got like a three percent for 40 feet. I don’t know if I’ve got it profiled out here. We try to hold a three percent for at least 50 feet, and I can’t tell you exactly the way this one’s laid out, but that would be the way. We wouldn’t come down it at 10 there. We’d come off three percent with a vertical curve in it. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. STARRATT-And it’s sort of a nice spot right there, because you see how the road curves this way. So when you’re at there, you can see both sides and traffic coming at you. It’s not like a round corner where you’re trying to have people. MR. HUTCHINS-No, you can see it. MR. STARRATT-And you know how people like to come down Glen Lake, they sort of fly down there. So it’s actually pretty nice pulling out of that, and we could open up the bottom half a little bit, too, to just give it a little bit more safety, as far as coming in there. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m not sure we’ve given you a lot of feedback. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. MR. TRAVER-Well, it’s pretty restrictive along the lake. MRS. STEFFAN-I’m nervous for you because this is Sketch Plan, and I just have to tell you that I think that the amount of money that you’re going to spend on the infrastructure to get the subdivision that you want is going to be really expensive. Like, if you came back to us for Site Plan right now, and with this particular driveway, I think the Board, because I’ve been on the Board for five years, so I think what you’re going to hear is the driveway’s going to be expensive, but then we’re going to have you put stormwater controls along the driveway, because it’s a formidable driveway. So that’s going to be expensive, very expensive, and then I guess with all the other things we will require, the process will be expensive. 35 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. STARRATT-Well, like we said, we have machinery and things. MRS. STARRATT-My husband is a plumber, by the way. MR. STARRATT-So as far as getting the stormwater where it needs to go, and putting things in place. MRS. STARRATT-This has honestly been a dream of mine for years. I’m 43 years old. I really want to get off Glen Lake Road, and I would have paid to go through John McCormack, but that was not an option. MR. STARRATT-We tried. There is like an access that we tried to get through the McCormack estates and stuff like that. That would have been so much easier, and I might have been able to get electricity in and gas. MRS. STARRATT-So this is where I’m at, so this is what I have to work with, and I really want to have my Adirondack log home in the woods. So if you guys can help me reach my dream, I would appreciate. MRS. STEFFAN-Certainly it looks very slopy from the picture, but we won’t know it until we walk it. MRS. STARRATT-I would love for you to walk it. I think you’d really be surprised. MR. STARRATT-Once you get up there, it sort of winds, it follows the contour of the land. Like we said, we don’t want to destroy the land. We want to actually really have that Adirondack. We have beautiful hemlocks and everything else up there that you just get the feel that you're in the middle of a beautiful wooded acreage, and, I mean, we have to go crazy with stuff, then we’re tearing stuff down, then we ruin the wooded acreage that we have. So it’s. MRS. STEFFAN-But in your mind, you know, you’ve got 20% slopes in a lot of these spots, but the other thing is that, in each one of these lots that you’ve got, there will be substantial trees that will be coming down for you to put in houses and septics and leachfields. I mean, all the trees have to come out, and if they don’t come out from your open area, those trees will be dead in five years, you know, if you try and dig around them for a leach or those kinds of things. MR. STARRATT-They’re about 80 feet tall, these oaks out there. I mean, there’s a high canopy. So, I mean, even if I cut down something that’s 40 feet away, I’ve still got another 40 feet of shade, you know, the way the sun’s doing. I mean, I’ve sat up there on the shortest day of the year and I’ve pinpointed where the sun’s going to be because I want to face my house solar south. I mean, I’ve done the heating calculations and everything. I want to come in the kitchen in the morning on the east side. I have thought this house through to the Nth degree, and then with everything to that, and I want to use the land, work with the land instead of against it. A lot of houses in cul de sacs they put them any direction, driveway’s on the north side, roof load puts the snow right onto the front door so they can’t get out, you know, I’ve thought this house through to the Nth degree, and it’s a perfect spot for it where it is, and the trees around it are awesome. I even have, on the north side, a buffer of hemlocks that are toward French Mountain that will take some of the north wind out of it, too. So it’s like the old salt boxes and the way the farmers used to put their houses, they used the land. So that’s where I’m coming from on this, and I’ve sold her on a lot of ideas. MRS. STARRATT-And I think some of you know I’ve written some letters to the Town regarding Glen Lake Road. MRS. STEFFAN-So do we have any other input for the applicants? MR. HUTCHINS-Can I ask a general question? MR. HUNSINGER-Sure. MR. HUTCHINS-Does the concept of three lots in this area concern you, the fact that there’s three versus if there were two or one? I mean, or is it the driveway that’s the concern and then you need the driveway to, I mean, we need the driveway to get to One. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. TRAVER-Yes, the biggest problem really is the access. MR. HUNSINGER-Is the access. Yes. 36 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. TRAVER-I mean, as you can see from the map, it’s a beautiful location in terms of being away from, it certainly would be a big change from being right on Glen Lake Road. MR. STARRATT-Yes, we’re right at the corner on the other side there. So it’s just. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, you know, again, it’s three, three proposed houses, the infrastructure that you have to put in, the stormwater controls that you will have to put in, we’ll take down trees, we’ll change the topography. MR. STARRATT-Well, we’re not really going to build the other two houses at this point. MRS. STARRATT-Do I have to do that if I’m not building the other two? MRS. STEFFAN-Well, no, but that’s what’s approved. MR. HUTCHINS-Well, for the driveway you would. MR. STARRATT-For the drive we will, yes, and the stormwater for that, but right now we just want to get to the back and get that, and then as the future arrives, you know, we. MRS. STEFFAN-But you will have to do all the infrastructure stuff to get your driveway to your home. MR. STARRATT-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-So the largest part of the infrastructure will have to be done. MR. STARRATT-And electrical up there, too, it’s going to be expensive. MR. OBORNE-Have you thought about maybe just a two lot subdivision and then maybe come back in the future? MR. STARRATT-Well, see, in the future you guys are going to change your rules and laws and everything else, and it’s not going to be approved at that point. MRS. STARRATT-I won’t have the money to do that. I mean, I’m here now because. MR. STARRATT-Because it might go to five acre lots after that, and then we’re never going to get to that point. MRS. STARRATT-I want it done now when I’m doing it already subdivide it. MR. OBORNE-The reason I asked is that you wouldn’t be required to go through subdivision. It would be strictly a Site Plan Review issue for the driveway, based on the amount of clearing that’s going on, if you only had a two lot subdivision. So what I’m hearing, and I’m just throwing this out there, is you want four lots, this is a four lot subdivision is what this is, okay, it’s one lot to four. Okay. There is an administrative action that could happen with just a two lot, and I’m hearing that you’re not going to sell the other two anyway at this point, but, you know, eventually you want to have the option. I understand why you’re going forward with it, but you may want to consider doing that, and that’s all I have to say on that. MR. STARRATT-And then we wouldn’t have to, what’s the process, what would it be? MR. OBORNE-You’d have to talk to the Zoning Administrator. MRS. STARRATT-In 20 years, there’s going to be a lot of difference, and I don’t want my kids to have to go through, I just don’t, it’s a gift from me to them. My mother did it to me. I’m doing it to them, and I want it done now. MR. OBORNE-If you’re dead set on bequeathing those parcels to them. MRS. STARRATT-I am. MR. OBORNE-Then absolutely move forward, then what I just said, just totally disregard. MRS. STARRATT-That’s what I want to do. MR. OBORNE-You’ve got it. 37 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MRS. STARRATT-It’s 80 years in my family, and it’s going to the fifth generation. MR. OBORNE-Not the first time people have disregarded what I’ve said. So it’s fine. MRS. STARRATT-Yes, so, you know, it’s been four generations in my family. So I really want it to go to my children who are the fifth generation. MR. OBORNE-That’s fine. MRS. STARRATT-And I’m certainly, nor my children will be hopefully the losers to sell anything. MR. OBORNE-No explanation required. You’re fine. It’s your land. MR. TRAVER-Yes, I mean, it certainly can be done, but as Gretchen points out, it’s going to be challenging in a number of ways. MR. HUTCHINS-And it’s going to be a fair process. I mean, there’s a number of steps. A subdivision that involves variances, I mean, there’s a whole lot of back and forth with you folks, and there’s multiple steps in the subdivision. MR. HUNSINGER-You’ll know us well. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, you’ll be in front of us and you’ll be in front of the Zoning Board, too. MR. OBORNE-It’s all about due diligence. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. TRAVER-I think other than Chris’ good idea about the adjustment of the line. I don’t know, at this point, if there’s anything else we can really offer. MR. HUTCHINS-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s it. Thank you. MRS. STARRATT-So you think it’s okay? Am I understanding this right, for four? MR. OBORNE-Well, there’s only four members. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, we’re saying we’ll look at it to the next level. Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-You’ll probably, based on what you’ve heard, your agent will probably put two scenarios together where now we’ve got the 10% pitched driveway and then probably propose a 12% pitch driveway so we can look at that, but, you know, when it comes down to Site Plan Review, you really have to have options available, and there are things for us to consider as well as well as things for you to consider about how much clearing you want, what kind of infrastructure you’re going to have for either a 10% sloped driveway or a 12% sloped driveway, and so those are all variables. I think you heard, you know, that ideally it would be great if it wasn’t three lots that you’re looking for, but, you know, you’ve got a purpose for that, and so, you know, it’s about your needs, too. MR. STARRATT-What about two lot, what about dividing it into a three, we’d still have to go through the same process. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, for three. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, you would, because you’re going to need a variance on Lot One. So you’re going to have to go through the Zoning Board anyway. MR. STARRATT-Okay. All right. MR. HUTCHINS-And, before we go to the Zoning Board, we’re going to be at this Board for recommendation. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. 38 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. HUTCHINS-Do you see issues with, or do you have concerns with the variance issues which are the density and the road frontage? Would we expect support on the, the variance issues don’t really involve the driveway. MR. HUNSINGER-No, they don’t. MR. HUTCHINS-They involve density. They involve road frontage, and they don’t involve setbacks either. So it’s density and road frontage, and lot width. MR. TRAVER-Well, we’ve already addressed, potentially addressed some of the road frontage issues, right? MR. HUTCHINS-Right, but we’re still going to have it, because 400 foot of frontage is a lot. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-And I did not hike this site, and once we visit this site, we may have a very different perspective on your plan. MR. TRAVER-Right, and at some point we will be doing that. MR. HUNSINGER-Most of the density relief is on Lot One, which. MR. TRAVER-Has got an existing house. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, for all intents and purposes, it’s already there. So, I think, when you really analyze it, I don’t think we’re going to have issues with the variances that you’re looking for. MR. HUTCHINS-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-We’re going to have issues with the Site Plan. Site Plan issues. MR. HUTCHINS-Rise over the run, there’s only so much you can do with the slope. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s right. MR. HUTCHINS-Okay. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Sure, you’re welcome. MR. STARRATT-Thank you very much. SITE PLAN NO. 5-2011 SEQR TYPE II DOUGLAS & MURIEL CHERRY AGENT(S) DAN RYAN, VISION ENGINEERING OWNER(S) SAME ZONING WR [WATERFRONT RESIDENTIAL] LOCATION FITZGERALD ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A SINGLE FAMILY HOME. CONSTRUCTION ON OR WITHIN 50 FEET OF SLOPES EQUAL TO OR GREATER THAN 15% REQUIRES PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE BOH SEPTIC VARIANCE, BP 2010-519 WARREN CO. PLANNING N/A APA, CEA OTHER GLEN LK. CEA, 100 YR. FLOODPLAIN LOT SIZE 0.44 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 289.14-1-7 SECTION 179-9, 179-6-060 DAN RYAN, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. OBORNE-Site Plan 5-2011, Douglas & Muriel Cherry. Requested action is Site Plan Review for construction on or within 50 feet of slopes greater than 15%. Fitzgerald Road, Glen Lake is the location. Waterfront Residential is the existing zoning. This is a Type II SEQRA. Project Description: Applicant proposes construction of a 1368 square foot seasonal single family home within 50 feet of slopes equal to or greater than 15%. Proposed footprint of structure to be 684 square feet with a total disturbance approaching 5,000 square feet, of which 3300 square feet of said disturbance will be converted to permeable conditions. It should be noted that site permeability will increase by approximately 700 square feet when reviewed against existing conditions. Staff comments: The applicant has requested Board of Health approval for the replacement of a wastewater system within 200 feet upslope from an existing well, but was denied. The Board of Health directed the applicant to design a holding tank system and as a result the area variance for side setback relief was unnecessary and withdrawn. The location of the proposed single family dwelling has slopes in excess of 40%. This is noted as it is imperative that stabilization of all disturbed areas be accomplished as soon as practicable. Further, there has been concerns raised by an adjoining property owner that has 39 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) a driveway easement down slope of the proposed single family dwelling. I have as a condition of approval, or this should be considered while deliberating this, the Planning Board may wish to condition this application on the requirement that consulting engineer sign off is a prerequisite prior to final sign-off or consider tabling to such time that engineering sign off is obtained. And with that, I’d turn it over to the Board. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Good evening. MR. RYAN-Dan Ryan with VISION Engineering on behalf of Doug Cherry. I also have with me Brian Barteau who’s the contractor for the project, and has been involved in the project since it’s conception. He will be the one handling the site and constructing the building. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. RYAN-What I’d like to do is walk through a brief description of the project. We have been here once before when we had a planned variance for an overall overview of the project. We have no need for the variance at this point. So we’re back in front of you for Site Plan approval. So I’ll go through the details of the project. I’ll try not to oversimplify it, but I would like to put it in a nutshell here and hopefully get to the core issues you might have questions about. I guess to start, it is a vacant lot on Fitzgerald Road. The lot does have an existing well on the property. If you had a chance to review Drawing C-2, that kind of goes through some of the existing conditions. You’ll notice that there are some site constraints here, both related to slopes and steepness of the site, as well as two separate easements for neighboring access. So that is limiting the possibilities significantly on this property as to where a house could be located. So with those challenges, we worked with the owner of the property to try to strategize on a location for a somewhat small, modest home. It will be used seasonally. As Keith mentioned, the house that is proposed is a two story home, approximately 684 square foot footprint. So it’s relatively small in footprint, and the preference of the owner, for a multitude of reasons which I’ll go through, the owner has selected, rather than building this in the one area down on the shoreline, is preferring to build it closest to Fitzgerald Road. His reasoning for that is basically, Number One, privacy. There are two adjoining neighbors with existing homes. They are both built very near the shore, and the neighbor to the northeast is also very close to his property line. So to build in that clearing, down in the lower part of the property, would entail having a relatively close neighbor. Additionally, building the house on the lower part of this parcel would require constant use of a shared driveway. So this particular owner is, has a preference of having his own driveway, his own access, without having the need for that shared service. Although it will always be there for the neighbor to access his property, the maintenance gets a little bit cleaner knowing he doesn’t have to utilize that. In addition, this owner doesn’t have a need to have beachfront and cleared shoreline for direct access to the lake. He’s not proposing any docks or anything at this point. His preference is to have, be up on a higher elevation with a little bit better view, rather than being down on the shore with boat traffic and a little bit more activity. So this is a little bit more private location that we’re proposing, and does present some challenges. On the existing drawings, you’ll notice we did a multitude of test pits. We also did inventory of all the existing trees in the area that we’re planning to disturb and construct the home. So I hope you’ve had a chance to review those. We have designed this parcel with pretty minimal clearing required. As Keith mentioned, we are proposing about a 5,000 square foot total disturbance. Perhaps 3,000 or so of that is just disturbance of the lower flat existing gravel parking lot. We’re planning to remove that parking lot down by the shore, to re-vegetate it and turn it into a grass area. So ultimately to construct a home, you’re only looking at about a 2,000 square foot disturbance area. I guess I’ll try to summarize what is required of the house. The house, again, is 684 square feet. There’s only two or three other tasks that really have to occur for this project to get completed. That’s to install a holding tank, which was approved by the Town Board, install a driveway and a couple of retaining walls. Aside from that, that’s predominantly the only activity that’s going to occur for this project, and like I did say previously, we’re re-vegetating that lower parking lot. There is no need for that, and they’d prefer that to be green space. So, that’s approximately 3,000 square feet down there. We have asked for three waivers. We’ve asked for a waiver from lighting requirement because we are planning just some minor wall mounted residential style lighting. We’ve also asked for a waiver from stormwater. We don’t really necessarily have a compliance issue with stormwater related because there is such a minor project, but we did provide stormwater mitigation for the project. You’ll notice that each, the house and the driveway both have stormwater measures provided, which will be through infiltration trenches. The capacity of those trenches will store 100% of the 25 year storm. So the 25 year storm is being captured 100% of that and stored for infiltration. So we think that’s certainly adequate for residential style construction activity. As Keith mentioned, we are reducing impervious on this site by approximately three percent. The retaining walls are proposed to be segmental style retaining walls so they can be built into the existing grades with reinforcing, and they are pretty minor, ranging from three to probably five or six feet in height total, and the predominant use of those are to provide some small level areas for use of the property and the owner, and aside from that, again, there is not much else going on because we aren’t proposing a septic system and we’re utilizing an existing well. I guess with that I really 40 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) would like to turn it over to the Board for any questions you have, any concerns that we can discuss, and we can go from there. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Questions, comments from the Board? MR. TRAVER-Well, I remember when we looked at this before, when it came through for our recommendation. It was kind of unusual seeing someone wanting to build a house up slope away from. MR. RYAN-Away from the lake, yes. MR. TRAVER-But it’s certainly clear, the privacy issue is certainly evident in that. I didn’t really, nothing really struck me as being a problem, providing the engineering holds up. MR. HUNSINGER-So you’re still only proposing a one bedroom house? MR. RYAN-We’ve designed it as a two bedroom holding tank. There is an upper level for a bedroom, and then the main level would not have a bedroom. That would be the living space, and then the lower level which has a walkout basement situation we’ve designed as a bedroom. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. RYAN-But because the footprint and the dimensions of the building are so small, you really, there’s only one or two rooms per floor. So it’s pretty minimal use. BRIAN BARTEAU MR. BARTEAU-If I can add, too. The homeowner lives in South Africa, and he married a gal from there a number of years ago. He’s now retired, in the oil business, and has, he just, his kids are grown and gone, but he still has family, in fact he has family over in Hadley. His brother lives over there and sister-in-law. So his intent for the place is just to have a place to come and, you know, mostly in the summertime and so forth. So he just didn’t see the need for a lot of space, and he did confer with the neighbors as well, you know, to see what, kind of what their, that was part of the privacy issue. It wasn’t just his own decision. He talked to the neighbors and they agreed they didn’t want to be looking in each other’s bedrooms from the upper level there. So anyway, that’s how he decided to try to maybe move it up the hill, and he also thought, quite honestly, that, you know, it would probably be more appealing to you folks here at the Planning Board, as well as some of the neighbors around the lake, to not be, to not add another set of lights, you know, right down on the water, so to speak. Carving another hole in the landscape. MR. RYAN-There’s almost 50 feet of buffer there now, which would be maintained. So it’s pretty significant. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions, comments? We do have a public hearing scheduled this evening. Is there anyone in the audience that wants to address the Board on this project? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. HUNSINGER-I see two heads shaking no. Do we have any written comments, Keith? MR. OBORNE-Not recent ones. No. MRS. STEFFAN-The Staff Note, there’s been concern raised by an adjoining property owner that the driveway easement down slope of the proposed single family dwelling. MR. OBORNE-Well, specifically that’s the property owner to the south, I believe, and he has an access easement to go down there, and during construction I think his comment was that he didn’t want boulders coming down hitting his car as he’s going down the driveway. That’s the concern I’m raising. MR. TRAVER-That’s a reasonable concern. MR. RYAN-Yes. That was at the zoning meeting. It’s actually the neighbor to the northeast that was here and said that. His driveway access is off that bottom right hand corner. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. 41 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. RYAN-And it didn’t quite make sense because he’s not down gradient of the project. It would make more sense for it to be. MR. OBORNE-That’s why I assumed it was the guy to the south. MR. RYAN- Yes. It wasn’t, but certainly understanding that concern, we’re not going to let boulders roll down the hill. Obviously we’ve got. MR. BARTEAU-I think we’d have to throw them to hit his car. MR. RYAN-Yes, we would. There’s some cobblestone on the property. We haven’t run into anything large. The test pits, we’ve done four or five test pits. They’re all maximum eight inch cobbles that we’ve seen so far. Certainly that’ll be controlled on site with management measures. We will be basically seeing this project through construction as the engineer of record, and ensure things going on on site are occurring properly. We do have, we’re also designing the structure, foundation, specialized foundation for this building, too. MR. BARTEAU-And we called in, too. I actually had an excavator that I’ll use, a fairly well seasoned excavator come and look at the site because, you know, it’s a challenging site, it’s steep there, and he’s looked it over, walked it over very thoroughly. We spent a couple of hours out there and he expressed no deep concerns. He certainly, he’s been down that road in this country before he said. MR. HUNSINGER-So you’re probably going to take cut off site, right? MR. BARTEAU-Yes, the trees and so forth. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I’m thinking of the earth. MR. BARTEAU-Yes. Any material that’s basically going to be managed will have to be removed to a temporary site and maybe re-utilized and brought back in. The clearing will all be probably craned and worked from the top, and picked and logged from that perspective. We’ve minimized the clearing from that perspective, though, so it’s not a lot of work to do that. So, we’ve taken quite a bit of thought in actually how it’s going to be done, and being careful obviously to protect the joint property owners. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Are there any outstanding concerns from the Board? MRS. STEFFAN-No, it seems like a very reasonable plan. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I think so, too. MR. RYAN-It’s not your classic ten pounds of, you know, in a small lot. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, there is concern about the slope of the site, but that’s where your foundation’s going. MR. RYAN-Right. It’ll be stabilized relatively quickly. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, and you’re putting it, you know, the front of the house is going to open up and you’re going to use the slope well. MR. OBORNE-Does that retaining wall get built after the foundation? MR. RYAN-The foundation and retaining wall will probably be happening, they coincide with each other. As the fill and excavation’s occurring, they’ll be throwing in the reinforcing matting and doing that wall at the same time. MR. HUNSINGER-And it’s a Type II Action so no SEQR’s required. MRS. STEFFAN-And so we’ve got waivers, Keith. It says here landscaping, lighting, and stormwater according to your notes. MR. OBORNE-Yes. One of these days we’re going to get this one application size fits all taken care of, but the same application for a 400,000 foot industrial building as opposed to a 600 square foot footprint house. So, I’ll probably get in trouble for this. Yes, lighting for residential shouldn’t even be a consideration in my view. 42 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. OBORNE-Landscaping also. It’s not a requirement. MR. HUNSINGER-Not unless you’re going to put a big spot light somewhere. MR. OBORNE-Right. Well, nothing precludes you from doing that. MR. HUNSINGER-You can buy them. You can buy them and install them. MRS. STEFFAN-Now the note down here about the consulting engineer, because the situation, we can just condition this on Town Engineer signoff. Is that sufficient? MR. OBORNE-Yes, that’s fine. MR. RYAN-When will we be able to expect, probably? MR. OBORNE-We’ll give him the packet tomorrow. MR. RYAN-Okay. So that’s something that could happen relatively soon. MR. OBORNE-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Good. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. I’ll make a motion to approve. RESOLUTION APPROVING SP 5-2011 DOUGLAS & MURIEL CHERRY A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes construction of a 1,368 sq. ft. seasonal single family dwelling. Construction on or within 50 feet of slopes equal to or greater than 15% requires Planning Board review and approval; and A public hearing was advertised and held on 3/24/2011; and This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 5-2011 DOUGLAS & MURIEL CHERRY, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: According to the resolution prepared by Staff. Pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179-9-080]], 1) the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and 2)Type II-no further SEQRA review is necessary; and 3)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 4)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 5)The Sanitary Sewer connection plan must be submitted to the Wastewater Department for its review, approval, permitting and inspection; and 6)Waiver requests granted: landscaping, lighting plans & stormwater; and 7)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; and 43 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) 8)Engineering sign-off required prior to signature of Zoning Administrator; and If curb cuts are being added or changed a driveway permit is required. A building permit will 9) not be issued until the approved driveway permit has been provided to the Planning Office; and 10)This is approved with the following conditions: a)That the natural shoreline buffer will remain undisturbed. b)That the compacted surfaces proposed for re-vegetation should be scarified to a depth of 12 inches in order to promote growth. Please place on Page C-3 or Detail Page C-5. c) That it’s imperative that stabilization of all disturbed areas be accomplished as soon as practicable. d)That the applicant will obtain a Town Engineering signoff. Duly adopted this 24th day of March 2011, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Magowan, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Traver, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp MR. HUNSINGER-You’re all set. MR. RYAN-Thank you very much, folks. Appreciate your time. SITE PLAN NO. 24-2011 SEQR TYPE II BAY RIDGE RESCUE SQUAD SEQR TYPE II AGENT(S) VISION ENGINEERING, LLC OWNER(S) SAME AS APPLICANT ZONING MDR LOCATION 1103 RIDGE ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 2,080 SQ. FT. ADDITION TO RESCUE SQUAD BUILDING TO INCLUDE ADDITIONAL PARKING AND ASSOCIATED LANDSCAPING, STORMWATER AND GRADING. PUBLIC OR SEMI-PUBLIC BUILDING IN THE MDR ZONE REQUIRES PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE BP 93-334, 94-731, 09-353, 09-399 WARREN CO. PLANNING 3/9/2011 LOT SIZE 2.11 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 290.6-1-3 SECTION 179-9 DAN RYAN, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Keith? MR. OBORNE-Site Plan 24-2011, Bay Ridge Rescue Squad. This is Site Plan Review for a public or semi-public building in the MDR zone. Location is 1103 Ridge Road. This is in the MDR district. It’s a Type II SEQRA. No issues there. Warren County issued, I believe, an approve for this project. The Project Description: Applicant proposes construction of a 2,080 square foot addition to the Rescue Squad building to include additional parking, associated landscaping and stormwater and grading. The applicant is looking for approval for potential additional parking to the rear of the parcel, 10 spaces total. It appears these spaces will remain as overflow parking an exist in a permeable state. I ask you to do the same thing that we did on the previous application as far as the Town Engineer goes. The only thing that we see here are some invasive species in the plan, and also there seems to be a very large spruce that they’re going to take down, which I feel could be saved, but it’s up to them to obviously prove me wrong, or satisfy the Planning Board, I should say, and with that, I’d turn it over to the Board. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Good evening. MR. RYAN-Okay. Dan Ryan with VISION Engineering. I’m here with Ralph Porter. He’s President of the Bay Ridge Rescue Squad. I guess I’d like to walk through the project briefly. I’m sure you’re probably familiar with the site. I’ll go through what the plans are for the project overall, and then we can kind of review some of the details. We are asking for waivers because we do feel this project is relatively simple, and we’re not providing an expansion that’s too large and is really only the purpose to accommodate the existing members of the Squad. So, as such, we’ve asked for landscape and buffer requirement waiver, lighting waiver, stormwater waiver, and a waiver of the expansion of the sewage system, which I will describe all those in detail. We have provided some mitigation for all of those, but rather than provide multiple drawings and technical specifications for those, we’re trying to provide a more generalized plan 44 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) for some of those aspects. As Keith mentioned, the site does, the project does propose to add an expansion of the existing building, one story structure, slab on grade. It would be to the north of the existing Rescue Squad building. The existing building is a pre-engineered metal building and has relatively little space, really available interior of the space for the existing uses and needs of the Squad. There’s a couple of offices, a very small day room, and a small meeting room. They do have approximately 40 to 50 members that are current. That has been the ongoing number, with every year a few leaving and a few joining. They do not anticipate that number to be exceeded. So we’re basically designing an addition which would accommodate the needs of those 50 members that are planned, and are in existence now, and utilizing space that has been needed and providing a little more room for their meetings and every day activities. So we did provide a floor plan in with your package there, which does kind of show what’s on the existing conditions side, and then also showed a little bit about the plan addition. You’ll notice in the addition, if you want to open up to the 11 by 17 floor plan. Basically the day room is being expanded. That’s an area where there’s lounging activities happening, t.v. This is for the Squad personnel that are active each day. Just basically generalized space for them to hang around while waiting for calls. The meeting room is also being expanded into the addition, and this is where they would have a nightly meeting for their members. As you can see the existing space is relatively small, considering 40 to 50 members would be present at that time. The only other thing, the addition is really intended to serve are a couple of sleeping rooms and a small training room. Spaces that they need but do not have now for their existing personnel. So some of the existing building will be, there’s some minor modifications to enlarging one office, join, basically two offices into one, but ultimately the addition is really just meant to serve the existing needs. By adding the addition, we do require some site changes. Predominantly affecting the existing parking. There’s existing parking to the north of the existing building. So since the addition’s going to be placed there, we’re re-locating some of that parking, as you’ll see, to the north of the addition, and then also to the rear of the existing building. So we’re trying to maintain a parking count similar to what exists now, with an added, as you’ll see, an added overflow lawn parking area towards the rear of the building, and that is only because of the fact that every day uses we don’t need a large amount of parking because there’s usually only a handful of people on Staff. So the overflow parking is really for when they have a meeting or a conference or something that’s related to the activities of the Squad, and there would be a little bit more space for that. We are proposing some minor stormwater mitigation measures, utilizing some of the existing swales and existing drywells. We are also providing some additional safety lighting, basically building mounted downcast fixtures. We did provide a spec sheet on that in the plan set, so that we wouldn’t have any glare and we’re trying to minimize the impact on the neighbors. So we are providing some safety lighting, although we didn’t provide a full photometric plan, and landscaping, again, we are providing some landscaping. I see Keith’s note about the invasive species. We were trying to stay, match existing conditions with some of the existing plantings, but we’d be happy to change that to something native. That’s not a problem. There is a small amount of grading required on that northeast corner, and we are proposing some re-vegetation of areas that are disturbed, and some asphalt pavement replacement where we’re proposing new parking. There’s one caveat on this site is that we’ve got, you’ll see a whole bunch of existing shrubs which are blueberry bushes. As part of the covenants of this parcel, we’re not allowed to touch those or ever remove those, so, because of who donated the land. So we’re kind of restricted on this site for anything to happen in the future. So this was really probably going to maximize the use of this property for this Squad, unless they decide to re-locate, but this should serve their needs for quite a long time from now, and the only other thing that really, because of the sewage system, because we are expanding floor space, the existing system, from a calculation standpoint, it would require additional leach field to be installed. We’ve reviewed the existing system. It was an engineered fill system that was installed. I’ve got the permits pulled for that and the inspections. Because we’re utilizing the same number of members, and we’re not expanding the facility and adding members, and the existing system has been sufficient and adequate in the past, we feel that replacement or expansion of that system now would just be redundant and a waste of resources. We have committed, on this plan, to provide a 100% reserve area, so that if something were to happen, it could be expanded by 100% in size. We just don’t have the funds right now available to spend another $20,000 into the septic system when it really is deemed unnecessary at this point. So, I guess with that, I guess I’d turn it over to you. I’ve done plenty of talking. I’d like to hear any questions you have. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Questions, comments from the Board? MR. TRAVER-In the spirit of the Rescue Squad, would it be possible to spare the life of the 18 inch spruce that’s at risk there? MR. RYAN-I have overlaid the spruce on the revised plan. It’s pretty close to the driveway. We have to cut about a foot and a half. The spruce has a small foot and a half to two foot retaining wall around it. 45 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. TRAVER-Right. MR. RYAN-And we’re trying to cut that grade flush back and that would get into the roots. So we did want, obviously, to keep that. It is a mature tree. If you felt better, we would plant a couple of more spruces out there or something, you know, as an offset to the existing tree being removed. At this point, it would. MR. TRAVER-It’s about the only tree around, as I recall now. MR. RYAN-Kind of, there’s some shrubs and some small bushes there behind it, but we’re trying to carry the pavement about to where the tree is. So we would obviously be in the roots at that point. MR. TRAVER-Yes. MR. RYAN-So we’re concerned that if we even attempt to salvage it, it’s going to end up dying. Again, if the preference is to plant a couple of more trees, we’d be happy to do that. MR. HUNSINGER-Spruce grow pretty quick, don’t they? MR. TRAVER-Yes. MR. RYAN-Yes. RALPH PORTER MR. PORTER-They’re shallow rooted anyway. MR. TRAVER-Other than that. MR. HUNSINGER-What bushes would you propose, other than the burning bush? MR. RYAN-We could pick some off the Adirondack Park native list, if you wanted. We would just go with a native species. We’re not, we’re basically looking for something to add some vegetation out there, you know, for aesthetics and the neighbor. We were planting some arborvitaes. We could continue that, or we could pick another native species. MR. HUNSINGER-Do you have any arborvitaes there now? MR. RYAN-There are several along the southern property line. We’re going to continue that buffer. MR. HUNSINGER-And they’re not getting eaten up by the deer? MR. RYAN-There’s plenty of deer out there. They do enjoy that. MR. TRAVER-It’s like candy to deer. MR. HUNSINGER-I used to have a shrub, and you could tell exactly how tall the deer could reach. MR. MAGOWAN-I sprayed the repellant around mine this year. They never even came in my yard. They saved them. MR. RYAN-We could work with Keith to find some replacement for that one species. That’s not a problem. MRS. STEFFAN-What about, you didn’t depict the horizontal illuminants. Is that something that you can put on the plan? MR. RYAN-I mean, again, we didn’t provide a full photometric plan. Our goal was to provide one foot candle for every area of the parking lot, as a maximum around the perimeter. All we’ve done is provide a couple of building mounted lights to provide safety lighting at a minimum level. We could do a photometric plan. It just seems to me, at this point, to add three or four lights to the whole parcel, and they’re all downcast, building mounted lights, it seemed unnecessary to provide a full photometric plan. If that’s the desire of the Board, we would do that. MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t remember seeing, did you give us a cut sheet on this? 46 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. RYAN-It might be on one of the last pages. Let me check here, yes, C-6. It’s a full cut off mini wall pack, on C-6. MR. MAGOWAN-It’s pretty much what you have up there now, isn’t it? MR. RYAN-It’s similar to what’s there now. Actually it’ll be more of a cut off fixture than what’s on there, and actually replacing a couple of the ones that are there because they’re more of a glare fixture. So we’re going to try to get all cut off fixtures, anything that would glare towards the neighbor, towards the road, we’re going to provide a cut off, this cut off fixture for. MR. MAGOWAN-Yes, because it’s not overly bright. MR. RYAN-It’s a dark area. There are no real immediate residents. The north resident, he’s actually a member, but that’s the closest resident we have. MR. MAGOWAN-How many ambulances do you have now? MR. PORTER-We have two and a fly car. Plus we have a motor home. It’s an MCI trailer or truck. MR. MAGOWAN-And you are able to house them all in the garage? MR. PORTER-There’s a garage out back, other than the MCI, the ambulances are all in our main building. MR. MAGOWAN-Now with this addition here, say our area calls for a use of another ambulance. MR. PORTER-No, we don’t need another ambulance. MR. MAGOWAN-Well, not now, but say 10 years from now, with all the senior citizen homes that we have. MR. PORTER-You’d have to put an expansion on to get it in. MR. MAGOWAN-Okay. MR. RYAN-Yes, and like I said, this lot is pretty constrained now, because of the parking, the septic field. It’s really difficult to add much more on this parcel without sacrificing, and having no parking essentially at that point. You have all building. It really wouldn’t be functional, once you got to that point. MR. PORTER-We’ve got 49 members right now. My building is supposed to hold 42, in our meeting room. We get a full forum, we’ve got an overload. We’ve got to get the space somehow. There are no bedrooms. We’ve got one bedroom for men and women. That’s no good. MR. HUNSINGER-No. Any other questions, comments from the Board? MRS. STEFFAN-No, we’re good. MR. HUNSINGER-We have a public hearing scheduled. Let the record show that there’s no one in the audience. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. HUNSINGER-Are there any written comments, Keith? MR. OBORNE-I see none. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m actually a little surprised that we don’t have any neighbors here. We typically do. MR. OBORNE-Well, the one neighbor to the north is a member. MR. HUNSINGER-All right. I’ll open the public hearing and let the record show there were no public comments received. I will close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED 47 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MRS. STEFFAN-Then I will put forth a motion to approve. RESOLUTION APPROVING SP 24-2011 BAY RIDGE RESCUE SQUAD A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes construction of a 2,080 sq. ft. addition to Rescue Squad building to include additional parking and associated landscaping, stormwater and grading. Public or Semi-public building in the MDR zone requires Planning Board review and approval. and A public hearing was advertised and held on 3/24/2011; and This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 24-2011 BAY RIDGE RESCUE SQUAD, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: According to the resolution prepared by Staff. 1)Pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179-9-080]], the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and 2)Type II-no further review required; and 3)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 4)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 5)The Sanitary Sewer connection plan must be submitted to the Wastewater Department for its review, approval, permitting and inspection; and 6)Waiver requests granted: stormwater mgmt., landscaping, lighting plans, expansion of sewage and the buffer; and 7)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; and 8)Engineering sign-off required prior to signature of Zoning Administrator; and 9)If curb cuts are being added or changed a driveway permit is required. A building permit will not be issued until the approved driveway permit has been provided to the Planning Office; and 10)The applicant must submit a copy of the following to the Town: 1. The project NOI (Notice of Intent) for coverage under the current NYSDEC SPDES General Permit or for coverage under an individual SPDES prior to the start of any site work. 2. The project NOT (Notice of Termination) upon completion of the project; and 11) The applicant must maintain on their project site, for review by staff: a)The approved final plans that have been stamped by the Town Zoning Administrator. These plans must include the project SWPPP (Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan) when such a plan was prepared and approved; and b)The project NOI and proof of coverage under the current NYSDEC SPDES General Permit, or an individual SPDES permit issued for the project. 12This is approved with the following conditions: 48 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) a.That the applicants will replace the large spruce taken down with three smaller like species of three inch basal width each. b.That the euonymus and the dwarf burning bush which are considered invasive species will be replaced with compliant and native selections. c.That all lighting will be downcast and compliant. d.That the applicants will obtain a Town Engineering signoff. Duly adopted this 24th day of March, 2011, by the following vote: MR. OBORNE-Can I just add one comment, size of the three smaller like species. Are you looking for maybe three inch dbh after the removal of the spruce, as opposed to seedlings? MR. RYAN-Yes, we would provide a three. MR. TRAVER-Three inch would be good. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, let me clarify that the replacement of the spruce taken down with three smaller like species will be three inch basal width each. MR. OBORNE-Thank you. AYES: Mr. Magowan, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp MR. RYAN-Thank you very much. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Do we have anything else to bring before the Board? MRS. STEFFAN-Well, to be honest, I didn’t have time to, tomorrow’s meeting, the Community Development Department is going to be meeting tomorrow with the Chazen group and so, you know, if we had any recommendations, we’d put them forth, but I didn’t have any time between then and now. MR. OBORNE-Yes. I spoke to Craig about this, and, you know, batting it back and forth, and I guess it’s whatever the Planning Board wants to do. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. OBORNE-We certainly want to bring them to the first meeting. MR. HUNSINGER-Sure, yes. MR. OBORNE-And certainly can discuss some issues that you would want to direct them to look at and the like. What we’re doing is pretty much the same thing we did with VISION, and that is stormwater and E & S, and other issues as they come up like with VMJR, we could have them look at traffic. Okay. That’s coming up here soon. If there’s a large community wastewater system, then, you know, it is specific to the plan, but we certainly do plan on having them come on in in that first meeting in April. You’ll have a full Board also, presumably. MR. TRAVER-Yes, I think timeliness of the analysis and making them aware of the discussions and the beginnings of the practices we’ve had, where we’ve had certain projects work with engineering after a preliminary review on our part. They should be aware of that probably. MR. OBORNE-Absolutely. Absolutely. I think we need to get that into the Policies and Procedures, but certainly we are managing existing plans right now with that in mind, get the engineering flat and then come back. Schermerhorn is one that is going through that process. MRS. STEFFAN-I guess I just want to make sure that the engineer, and I know that these folks are the new consultants for the Town and hopefully they’ll be thinking like Town employees, like they were the Town Engineer, because, you know, we need them, as a Planning Board, to be thinking about all things engineering that we would ask if we were educated in that discipline, you know, so I’m looking for somebody to look at a plan that comes before us, for example, something on Lake George, and I want them to look at, you know, how it applies to the Code, but then what are the other questions to ask that we’re not asking. MR. TRAVER-Yes, they should be our advocates really. 49 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MRS. STEFFAN-And it’s not just what we, you know, tell them, okay, we need you to do these seven things. We want them to look at what else needs to be addressed that we’re not even smart enough to ask. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. OBORNE-Right. Well, there’s no guarantee that they are either. They are engineers, and they are a different breed, so to speak. I think that we should rely on you, as a Planning Board, to ask those questions. Now if there’s a technical issue, obviously that’s why the engineers are on board. So I’m not quite sure what questions you’re thinking of. I mean, alga blooms? I don’t think you want an engineer on that, but. MR. TRAVER-Well, I’m just wondering if there might be circumstances where they would look at some aspect of the engineering of a project which could unmask a planning implication that we might not pick up on. MR. OBORNE-Okay. Sure. I think that that is something that will certainly be looked at by the engineer. They will comment on it if need be. MRS. STEFFAN-Right, and those are the kind of things, you know, in your Staff Notes, Keith, those are the things that you’re doing for us. You’re raising questions that we might want to ask, you know, and sometimes we look at those and so, no, we get that because we talked about that the last time, and we go through it. MR. OBORNE-Right. MRS. STEFFAN-But those are the kinds of things that we want the engineer to be doing. Have you considered, Planning Board, have you considered this, or the applicant might consider this, so that we can ask the question instead of just letting it go and accepting what the applicant’s giving as the only solution to a potential problem. These rain gardens, for example, the fact that when VISION Engineering looked at those rain gardens, one of the applications was for a 147 Stormwater project, and so he told us that we had to have the soils remediated, but in another project it wasn’t 147. They differentiated we didn’t have to worry about that. MR. OBORNE-Was that the one where I was silent? There’s a reason why. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. So, those are the kinds of things we need to know the differentiation between those things. I don’t think any of us know 147 like the back of our hand. We had one member who did, but he’s gone. So, you know, it’s like we have to have the engineer as our advocate on those kinds of things because I can’t. MR. HUNSINGER-Are there going to be places where the new State requirements conflict with our Code? MR. OBORNE-They’re required to, if you clear more than an acre, they’re required to use and justify these green infrastructure practices. Regardless. They have to. If it’s less than that, they don’t. So, as far as 147 goes, the State trumps that. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. OBORNE-You have, because the State is the minimum standards. These go above. Because of Lake George, but it will need to reflect the green infrastructure that they’re talking about needs to be in here. MR. HUNSINGER-So have you looked at it enough, though, to know if there’s going to be, are there going to be areas where there’s going to be a conflict between the Town Code and the State Code? MR. OBORNE-I don’t think so. Not at this point. I really don’t. I mean, they’re totally promoting rain gardens. That’s part of it. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. OBORNE-This whole infiltration with rain gardens, it’s a little nutty, if you ask me. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, we all feel that way. 50 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. OBORNE-It has to be kicked into a major, and that’s 147, and if it’s a minor, they could put it right up on the shoreline. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. OBORNE-And then you have to differentiate, is this water that’s coming off site from roads or driveways, then you cannot have that within 100 feet. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I guess sort of my thought, if you kind of follow that whole discussion through to the next logical step, if a rain garden is considered an infiltration device, then any planting that you put near the waterfront is going to be considered an infiltration device. MR. TRAVER-Yes. Our whole shoreline buffer could be an infiltration device. MR. OBORNE-That determination was made by a judge, which. MR. HUNSINGER-Which is why I’m saying, if you take it to the next logical step. MR. OBORNE-It makes absolutely no sense. MR. HUNSINGER-Exactly. MR. TRAVER-And the judge was probably not an engineer, nor probably even a land use planner. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. OBORNE-No, not at all. He was arbitrating between two neighbors that said, okay, is it filtrating or infiltrating, but it’s infiltrating. It’s a device. It’s not a device. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. OBORNE-It’s a means to an end. We’ve been scratching our head with that one ever since it happened. MR. HUNSINGER-I hope the judge realizes the implications of what that has meant. MR. OBORNE-I don’t think he cares. MR. HUNSINGER-No, that’s what I’m saying. Yes. I’m sure he doesn’t. MR. OBORNE-We have to follow that. MR. HUNSINGER-But here we are, every meeting now, juggling that ruling. MR. OBORNE-And I think that we need to have, all of us need to be briefed by the engineers on the green infrastructure that’s going on. I was in Moreau, as a courtesy. The Highway Department, everybody was, we had a briefing with the town engineer. MR. TRAVER-It sounds like a workshop. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, it does. It sounds like a workshop. MR. TRAVER-Maybe even one that we could get training credits for. MR. MAGOWAN-Which rain retention were we taking to court or something, was that before me/ MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, up on, it was Knox Road. MR. OBORNE-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-The one on the corner with the big white house. MR. HUNSINGER-The neighbor took them to, the neighbor took them to court, did an Article 78. MRS. STEFFAN-And we went through a rigorous process to review that thing. 51 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/24/2011) MR. HUNSINGER-What was it, eight meetings? MR. OBORNE-At least. MR. HUNSINGER-Over the course of a year. That single project got more scrutiny than another other project that I’ve ever reviewed in 10 years on the Planning Board. I mean, more scrutiny than any of the big box projects, and so the neighbor took them to court, and the only thing the judge really did say anything about was this infiltration device. MR. OBORNE-Infiltration device, exactly. MR. HUNSINGER-They had to come back for site plan amendment because of the ruling of the judge. MR. OBORNE-They removed it. MR. HUNSINGER-It was like the best part of the project. MR. OBORNE-Yes, and the person that brought the Article 78 was dumbfounded. I mean, she wanted that. So, at the very least, she wanted that, and that’s the one thing that got removed. It’s a total lose, lose. MR. TRAVER-I’ll make a motion to adjourn. MRS. STEFFAN-Second. MOTION TO ADJOURN THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING OF MARCH 24, 2011, Introduced by Stephen Traver who moved for its adoption, seconded by Gretchen Steffan: th Duly adopted this 24 day of March, 2011, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Magowan, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Traver, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Schonewolf, Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Chris Hunsinger, Chairman 52