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1993-02-09 SP -/ QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SPECIAL MEETING FEBRUARY 9TH, 1993 INDEX Special Meeting with residents of Greenway North and Planning. Zoning, and Town Boards RE: Property surrounding Greenway North and Aviation Road 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. "--' ~...-."".-- QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SPECIAL MEETING FEBRUARY 9TH. 1993 7:30 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT TIMOTHY BREWER, ACTING CHAIRMAN CORINNE TAR ANA KATHLEEN ROWE MEMBERS ABSENT CAROL PULVER ROGER RUEL EDWARD LAPOINT CRAIG MACEWAN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR-JAMES MARTIN PLANNER-SCOTT HARLICKER STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI MR. MARTIN-Thank you all for coming, and apparently there was a mix up in the times. I apologize for that. The specific notices that went out to the residents were 7:30 and I understand it was in the paper as 7: 00. It was, in fact, 7: 30, and I'm sorry for those people that got here at 7:00 and were made to sit. In case any of you don't know me, you may recognize me from the Planning Board. Now I'm working for the Town as Executive Director of Planning. My name is Jim Martin, and I've got Scott Harlicker here who is also with the Town as a Planner, and the focus of the meeting tonight, and I want to dispel any rumors or any misconceptions. This is not about the Red Lobster Restaurant. This is not about the Red Lobster re-zoning, okay. Although that may have been the reason why a look at this area was initiated, that's not the focus of the meeting tonight. The focus of the meeting tonight is what I see has been raised as a concern out of the review of the Red Lobster re-zoning is that we have an established neighborhood here, and I'll familiarize you with what we're looking at here. This is the best we could do with what we have. This is a tax map for the area along Route 9, primarily the intersection with Aviation Road and Route 9 as shown here. You have new Aviation Road here. The Northway is a boundary over here, the Mall as a southern boundary here, Route 9 as an eastern boundary, and the Ames Plaza as a northern boundary here, and sort of in the center of this is what's been commonly referred to as the Greenway North neighborhood here, of which many of you are residents, and as a Planner, we've gone through what we've gone through with this Red Lobster re-zoning, and there's obviously problems here, from three major standpoints that I can see, and that's land use patterns, zoning patterns, and traffic patterns, and what I'd like to do is, okay, we've heard enough of the negative. We've heard all the problems. We've heard all the bad things, what do you people want to see happen in this area as residents? And if that can be accommodated, fine. I'm not coming here with any preconceived notions. I have no secret agenda. I just want to get your input and see if there is something that can be done to make those three topics. those three areas, better, land use, zoning, and traffic, and I'm not saying that we're going to come out of this with any miracle cure or any solution, but I think it's incumbent upon this Town, especially the amount of money and amount of investment that's been made in planning, here, to try and come up with a solution. We should at least make the attempt, and lets try and be constructive. Lets try and plan for the short term and the long term as best we can, and lets try together, and that may sound ideal istic. It may sound unrealistic, but I think it's at least worth a try and certainly worth two hours of our time tonight, given all the hours we've put into this from the negative side. So, with that said, I'll have 1 "'--- -..' Scott come up and he'll do a little rundown on what we've found, in terms of the history of development in this area, and zoning, and what the current status is today, so we have an accurate understanding. Some of you may know more accurately than us. So. we'll start out with that, and then I'd like to just toss out some questions, and see what you're reaction is and what you see as solutions, and we'll see what we can come to a consensus. here. and hopefully a solution, but it's at least worth a try. WALT HAGEN MR. HAGEN-Just one question. What is short term, in your mind, and what is long term? Are we talking about two years and ten years, or are we talking about two years and twenty years? MR. MARTIN-I would say short term, within the next two years, or even sooner, what can be done immediately. or what is realistic immediately, and then I would say long term is ten, fifteen, even twenty years. MR. HAGEN-Thank you. MR. MARTIN-Okay. That's what I So, with that introduction, I'll then we'll hopefully initiate discussion. would see as time frames there. let Scott take it away here, and a very active and interesting MR. HARLICKER-Good evening. Like Jim said, most of you probably know the history of the area much better than I do. What we did is took an overlay of three different zoning maps that the Town has gone through. They went through a zoning in 1967, 1982, and 1988, and what we did is, we've got a base map here of the area, like Jim pointed out. Initially, we came down and did it with the 1967 zoning districts. It was primarily, the Greenway North area was residential, and the rest of it was commercial, as you can see. C3, which is a commercial, and C2. During this time, the new Aviation Road, I guess you could call it, probably didn't really exist at the time. It was just a straight shot right through here. In 1982 came the next re-zoning. The area stayed primarily the same. Along Route 9 was still commercial. South of Aviation Road was still commercial. the Greenway North area was still residential. The one major change was, this area here went from commercial to residential, and at this time, they also put in. the bypass was in there, for the new Aviation Road. This green line here follows Aviation Road and the re-alignment down here. Old Aviation Road, I know it's difficult for everybody to see. but Old Aviation Road cuts right through here. Route 9 comes right down through here. Quaker Road goes off this way. With the 1988 re-zoning, it stayed pretty much the same, commercial, highway commercial and plaza commercial along Route 9, the Aviation Mall right here, shopping center commercial. highway commercial going off to the west with a slight intrusion of highway commercial here. where the Econo Lodge, Silo, and the Sunoco Station are. As you can see overall. Route 9 has stayed primarily commercial, ever since they started zoning back in 1967. The area south of Aviation Road has always been commercial, and the area up in here has pretty much always been residential. The two main changes, the areas in flux, I guess you could call them, has been this area here in between Old Aviation Road and the re-alignment, and this little section here. DANIEL OLSON MR. OLSON-Question. you're referring to. What was the date this map was done, the one The one you're just pointing to? MR. HARLICKER-This one here? '88. MR. OLSON-You're saying that the Silo, and the Sunoco gas station and the Econo Lodge are new? 2 '-- '-"'" MR. HARLICKER-No. I'm not saying they're new. I'm saying the zoning that, the properties on which they're located are newly zoned, in 1988. MR. MARTIN-What probably happened was, they were established prior to the new zoning going in. When the new zoning, the new master plan was reviewed, they were simply acknowledging the uses present there with the Highway Commercial district. MR. OLSON-I'm aware of that. MR. MARTIN-Okay. MR. HARLICKER-What we did also, just to get some sort of feel of the development along here, we did a check of the Tax Assessor's Office. We checked the tax cards for Northway Plaza, Northgate Plaza, Queensbury Plaza, and Aviation Mall, to find out the dates, at least as far as the Tax Assessor's are, as when they were completed construction, and it turns out the Northway Plaza, which would be right in here, was completed in 1964, and the Northgate Plaza, which is right in here, was '64. The Queensbury Plaza, which is right in here, was 1962, and I believe the Aviation Mall was listed as 1977, ' 75, ' 77. Like I said, most of you probably have a better feeling for the dates than I do. So, that's what we have, as far as zoning in the area. If you have anything else to add on this, insights? SANDRA ALLEN MS. ALLEN-I just forgot. What was the date that the Northway exit came and the re-alignment, the new Aviation Road? MR. MARTIN-I think the Northway came through in ' 64 to ' 67. I think it was a three year time frame in there, and I believe the re-alignment happened shortly thereafter, where Old Aviation Road was essentially abandoned for new Aviation Road, and that was probably, I would say, '67 in there as well. MR. HARLICKER-Does anybody else have anything else to add? WOMAN IN THE AUDIENCE-I just want to say, Aviation Mall was not '75. I bought my house November '75. There were trees over there. There was no mall at that time. It had to be '76 to '77. LOU GAGLIANO MR. GAGLIANO-We opened in October 1975. That's when we opened. MR. MARTIN-There's been an expansion since then. WOMAN IN THE AUDIENCE-There were trees. There were beautiful pine trees over there. I bought my house in '75. MR. MARTIN-Okay. So I think the history is interesting in that what we're seeing is that it's, you saw a very tight time frame in there as to when these major intersections developed. Most of which came in '64, '62, the three major intersections developed, and then the Mall came, approximately 10 to 15 years thereafter, and typical of what we're seeing with development now, as a general rule, is it's very heavily tied to traffic and where people are going to move and how easily they can be moved. So, not long after the Northway came through, and not long after this re-alignment, or shortly before the re-alignment, bam, this started to happen, and this got caught, and that's what we're left with today. This neighborhood is surrounded by multifamily residential and commercial to the north, commercial to the east, highway immediately to the west, and commercial to the south. So, this is a very difficult situation, and it's been made worse by the fact of this re-alignment. Old Aviation Road was just left. It just doesn't work, and now with other factors coming into play, 3 ~ ---. McDonalds, the cut through, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, the traffic isn't working, and this parcel here, what is now the Wood parcel, is really a sore spot. It's a hot spot in the community, and this is typical when you see this kind of haphazard development occur. So, what can be done, now, to try and salvage this or correct, as best we can, what's happened there, and what can be done to do that, and also accommodate the feelings of this neighborhood up here, this significant block of single family homes here. Scott and I drove through this again today so I'd have it fresh in my mind, coming in to the meeting tonight, and you get back in there, and you close your eyes and then open them when you come on any of these streets in here, and boy that's the nicest little suburban neighborhood you could ever imagine, and you have no feeling for that, gee you could throw a baseball over here and hit the roof of the Silo. You have no idea that it's even there, and that's a very, very difficult situation, and I'd just like to now toss a question out as to what would you like to see happen with your neighborhood, and to the extent that we can accommodate that, we'll try and come up with a plan and also what can be done in these very important areas around your neighborhood that are still left undeveloped, meaning the Wood parcel down in here and Birch Lane. All this area in here, what can be done, and that's my first question to you is, have you thought this out? Have you got any ideas? MS. ALLEN-When we came to discuss the Red Lobster, proposal in front of this Board, which I know we're trying not to focus on tonight, I got a consensus from the neighbors that there was at least some consideration of some kind of a, more of what would be considered a transitional zone, or what I'll call that lower chunk there, or the Wood property. Some of the ideas that were suggested to me are things more like multifamily, office use, nursing home use. Some of the items that were suggested at previous meetings, and I'm sure some of the other neighbors might have some other ones, was in consideration, particularly with the Wood property, that it be considered as somewhat of a transitional zone, including ei ther a multifamily use, the nursing home use, some kind of a transitional zone in that sense. I'm trying to think of some of the other ones that came up, professional office building. In other words, the Planners that I've spoken to, and I know this is a grey area, but some of the thoughts were that that was considered less offensive to the existing residential parcels than a restaurant would be. The reasons, for instance, a professional office, usually that's used from nine to five, but then not used at night. A nursing home would be more of a residential type of use. Multifamily would be more of a residential type of use. MR. MARTIN-Okay. I see. Now, okay. Lets pursue that a little further. With that thought in mind, okay, we have something, some potentially acceptable uses, office, multi family. Is there anything else in a commercial vein that might be acceptable there, like general retail? What's the thought on that? Generally no? WOMAN IN AUDIENCE-No commercial period. MR. MARTIN-No commercial period. Okay. TOM PHILO MR. PHILO-I think, I lived up on the end of Greenway Drive, and it was 1960 when I lived in there, and I saw lots of malls come in, and if I had that piece of property of Mr. Wood's, I would not want to build a house there, Number One. You mentioned, Number Two, putting senior citizens or a nursing home, but I don't see how it's going to be available. I think the first thing you've got to do is solve the traffic problem. If that traffic problem's taken care of and the right barrier's in there, that was commercial back when I was around there, all the way from the airport. Now they've re- zoned it two or three times. The man owns a piece of property in there, I think he should be able to use it the way it is, but not 4 '~ -- until the solve the traffic. MR. MARTIN-Well, but as we look through the problems here, and what I want to try and do is have you open your mind and really, I want to throw a lot of things out on the table here. For example, and then this may be in the long term vein that we talked about, okay. We've got old Aviation Road here which is essentially a cul-de-sac, coming up here like this. GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-As it stands now, it's a major highway. MR. MARTIN-Right. GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-I'll bet you that if you could approach the McDonalds so that they would charge every car that goes through there both ways a dollar, they wouldn't have to sell any hamburgers. There's only five houses on Old Aviation Road, and it compounds the problem to have a traffic light on Greenway. MR. MARTIN-Well, there's been some indication from McDonalds already that they are considering shutting this down to one way in only, in other words, coming down the street, no traffic would be allowed to drive through the restaurant and go up the hill towards the Mall, and we're not talking about just signage. We're talking about a physical change to the rear of the restaurant that would make an acute angle and a curb going in. So cars could only come down through. It would be almost physically impossible for the car to drive and make the turn up through the lane. MR. HAGEN-In the long term, I would think that at one point or another you're going to get a request from Wal-Mart or a representative, to have a car wash, from Aviation Road, in some places near the exit, right through, possibly by Tom's. MR. MARTIN-That's true. There exists a right-of-way that buts right up against the Wal-Mart property, I think, right there. MR. HAGEN-I realize that. I'm not trying to, what I'm trying to tell you is what I think will happen, some time in the next 15 years. Now if we made that one way, and we made the other street which comes out by the Silo one way the other way, I think it would solve an awful lot of problems for Wal-Mart. It might solve some problems for the property owners, except for those that are on the street, and the only people I can think of that will argue with you would be the Mall. MRS. ROWE-Well, I certainly would agree to something like that, because we already have too much traffic going down Old Aviation Road to even consider having traffic down that Greenway area. MR. HAGEN-That's not going down Old Aviation at all. MR. MARTIN-What I thought might be a good idea is we have a traffic signal here, near the Friendly entrance to the Mall, near the Friendly's Restaurant, and we have one which is right about here, this is the lower entrance to the Mall, it comes in like that, okay? Now, I'm talking about the long term out here, and major shifts in property ownership and that type of thing. This is in the ideal planning world, here, but lets follow this through. What if we had an internalization of the traffic in through this area here, something where both of these signals are utilized and we do away with this cul-de-sac completely. That can be deeded off to private ownership, but we have a roadway that runs right up through here, and that creates viable property, and a better traffic pattern, but now I want to know, are there any people here from the Birch Lane area? This is a radical approach we're talking about, over time, some sort of commercial re-zoning of this area, and I'm not saying a blank check here in Highway Commercial. That could be explored, but something to accommodate, make thi s more viable, because I think in all honesty, today, even today, these are not 5 '---- -../ viable homes in the single family market. I think it's very unfair to these people what's happened to them, and now they're left with a situation they have. MRS. ROWE-And then you're just making it unfair for the rest of us. You're just bringing all of that closer into our neighborhood. You're not eliminating anything, you're not alleviating anything. You're just bringing the problem closer to the rest of us. MR. MARTIN-All right. Well, what's the solution, then? GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-Leave it alone. MR. OLSON-You're making a problem, and I don't mean to criticize you, but Planners sometimes make bigger problems then we've got. You talk about zoning and land use, nobody is arguing about the zoning or the land use of Carl ton, Greenway Drive, June Drive, School House Road. We live there because we're happy there. That's why we're there. Our problem is the traffic. Don't try to correct a problem that's not a problem. Don't try to reinvent the wheel, in other words, or fix something that's not broken. MR. MARTIN-Yes, but what's the, the traffic problem is out here on Aviation Road. There is no traffic problem back in here. Is there? Am I wrong? What I'm saying is, here is the traffic problem. MR. OLSON-It will be if you try to change this over here, zoning, because then you're going to sell off property in the front. MR. MARTIN-All right. So, I thought ,about this today. I was tossing it around, and I said. well, what if we cut off this curb cut completely, but you can't do that, because people back in this area, then they have to go all the way down to here to get out, and they'd have to weave down through. MR. OLSON-Trying to get a fire truck down through here. MR. MARTIN-Right, and you can't do that, emergency access. emergency vehicle access, so you can't do that. You can't shut that off, but the problem with that there is, it's too close to the interstate, and that bridge is going to be widened in this decade. I can assure you of that. Well, I'm telling you, it's coming. MR. OLSON-Kathy and I, myself and some other neighbors in the neighborhood, we met with the Wal-Mart developer. There's no question about opening up Greenway North, Greenway Drive extension to get out into that parking lot. We've discussed this with them. There's a fence there. Do you realize what would happen to the neighborhood, with streets? If you had two cars parked, now, you can't get, every tractor trailer coming off of the Northway would be coming through here up Route 9. MR. MARTIN-Sure. I know. MRS. ROWE-Right now we have traffic that comes in here, and uses this as a turn around because they missed the exi t for the Northway. Right now we have people that do their unloading and loading at the Silo and use that to turn around and go back out wherever they're going to go. Right now, I have Brown Sunoco uses this as his race course to test cars that he has repaired, because this is a viable alternative for him. He doesn't have to go on the main roads. He can test somebody's muffler and brakes right there in our neighborhood, against our children. MR. OLSON-I get very nervous, and I think the neighbors here in the neighborhood get very nervous when you start talking about a zoning or a land use problem, because we've got a problem here. Yes, there is a problem here, but don't try to change this to make this look good. 6 '-- --- MR. MARTIN-No, I'm not talking about changing that. MR. PHILO-Could I say something on that? I lived right across the street from Danny. I don't know who this lady is here. MRS. ROWE-My name is Kathy Rowe. I live at 17 June Drive, and I'm also a member of the Planning Board. MR. PHILO-Thank you very much. My name's Tom Philo, okay. I'm on the Zoning Board. LADY IN THE AUDIENCE-Do you live there now? MR. PHILO-No. I've moved. LADY IN THE AUDIENCE-That was 1960. This is 1993. Obviously you don't know the neighborhood anymore. MR. PHILO-I moved out two years ago, three years ago, okay. What I said to Jimmy, and everybody seems to get upset here, and they worry about the neighborhood. It was a beautiful spot when I lived there. LADY IN THE AUDIENCE-Why did you move? MR. PHILO-Why did I move? Because I was very fortunate. I have a much bigger house now. LADY IN THE AUDIENCE-You didn't like the old neighborhood? MR. PHILO-I loved it. I still love it, but what I say is we've got to do something with the traffic. That area was never planned right in the first place. In other words, the people are bitching and complaining they've got a problem, but everybody in this neighborhood brought it on themselves. You didn't look at the future. You had a chance to change that traffic before that shopping center went in there. If they take, this is my idea, there's four thousand cars coming into that hub on the Aviation Road. What do you think that four thousand is? An hour. So, we're up on the shopping center of Sears. You've got to deviate that traffic and get it off the Aviation Road. Number One. There's a good possibility, there's a right-of-way at the back side of Sears Shopping Center. If you come down there to the City, this is my idea of one area, and move that traffic down past Foster Avenue and the City Limits, you can take everything on the back side of that Mall, that's going to take a big percentage of that traffic away. Do you understand what I'm saying? MR. BREWER-What's the percentage of that traffic, of that four thousand cars, going to the Mall? MR. PHILO-Twenty one hundred. MR. BREWER-Half of those cars are going to the Mall? MR. PHILO-Are going to the Mall, and they're going right Aviation Road, okay. The people that just mentioned this, right here, on the, for north traffic and south traffic. read that, Mr. Caimano. up that on this I just NICK CAIMANO MR. CAIMANO-Fifty percent of the traffic that goes up that road does not go to the Mall. It's more like fifteen or twenty. MR. PHILO-I'll say it's going up Aviation Road. MR. BREWER-Yes, but what you're saying is it's going from the. MR. MARTIN-I think about 600 cars of that are actually going to the 7 --. Mall. MR. PHILO-And 2,000 was the total figure for? MR. MARTIN-Yes. Aviation Road. Northway. You may get 2,000 coming out, going on further up A lot of that also is getting off probably at the MR. PHILO-Well, I'm saying, these people right here, June Drive, Greenway Drive, they're subject to that much traffic. So, if it's planned right, just getting rid of that traffic, if there was something on the north side, or the east side alld. the west sidehof that Aviation Road, something to take the tratf1c away from t at side, both sides, you could eliminate a big percentage coming down and back of the Mall, and then over here where they're going to put Wal-Mart, they're talking about building there, have something. How would you say, Jimmy, to come out of here? MR. MARTIN-You mean, an eastern route here? MR. PHILO-Yes. Something to eliminate, you could get on to Route 9. MR. MARTIN-Well, there is an opportunity. MR. OLSON-There's already a traffic plan for that, getting out of Wal-Mart, just the way you get out of there now, except there's a new intersection, a new light. MR. PHILO-No, but I'm saying, take some of this traffic away from this back side of this area, on one side of that, and on this side of the Mall. MR. OLSON-Where are you going to send it, through Carlton and out Greenway and make a bigger problem for the neighborhood? MR. PHILO-No, no. MR. OLSON-Unless you built a road along side the Northway, to parallel the Northway. MR. PHILO-Come out that way. MR. OLSON-I don't think the Town's got that kind of money. The County hasn't got that kind of money to spend. MR. PHILO-I can see two ways out. MR. MARTIN-Lets build on what we've got so far. Okay, what we've got so far is we're saying, this here is a single family neighborhood. Done. All right. We can assume that is the consensus here tonight, okay. First of all, there's deed restrictions, as a practical matter, and a lot of these homes here they're very tight, I understand, and it certainly is the consensus of the neighbors that are here tonight that this remain a single family. Agreed? Okay. Lets work on that basis, then. Okay. Now, traffic, all right, again, this intersection here, it appears to me that it's awful narrow, all right, and the State owns that little triangular portion. that lies just to the west, I believe. of that street. What about the idea of maybe improving that intersection, widening it, upgrading the light, that type of thing, making it like a, maybe a three or four lane, two lanes in, two lanes out type of an affair. Greenway North and Aviation. I'm just talking about in the immediate few feet back from Aviation Road, widening that to better accommodate traffic moving in and out of there. LADY IN THE AUDIENCE-Why would you want more traffic there? MR. MARTIN-No. I'm not saying more, I'm just saying traffic is a 8 '-" --- problem, to try and deal with it easier. GENTLEMAN IN THE AUDIENCE-May I say something? Speaking about alleviating the problem of the people who live in the June Drive, Greenway North area, they're not the problem. They don't do that much. MR. MARTIN-I know they're not. GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-The problem is Aviation Road. Eventually it's got to be done as a four lane road with a four lane bridge, and as far as I can understand, it's controlled by the State. MR. MARTIN-Yes. It is. GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-So what can you do, unless the State says it's okay to do it? MR. MARTIN-Well, I'm saying, we have to ask the State to, if there's any improvements we can make in this stretch, we can ask. GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-Do you realize, I live on June Drive, and there's one way in and the same way out. I come out behind Brown's service station onto Carlton Drive, and when I want to come out onto Aviation Road, there's a yield sign, not a stop sign, and if I want to go south against both lanes of traffic, forget it. If I want to go north, I have to work my way into the left hand lane because the right hand lane is designed for you to go north on the Northway. It's become impossible and it's a traffic problem that's out of this world. That's the big problem. MR. HAGEN-I've had a thought about that for quite a while, and I mentioned to a few people, but I haven't really surfaced with it, and that was the whole, some sort of a householders association, which would have a few very simple rules, I think, Number One, they have first refusal on any property that's sold in the area. I believe there's 108 houses in there, or thereabouts, and in that way when, eventually, we're talking 20 to 30 years down the road, someone wanted to put a mall in there, they could deal with one person and sell it all, the profit of that being divided amongst the group, as to the way you were assessed, we'd all get out of there at once. and it would make it a hell of a lot simpler for everybody. MR. MARTIN-Well, I think I'm hearing here tonight, though, there's a consensus, even in the long term, that this is a single family neighborhood. GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-Mr. Martin, if I make an improvements to my property, I've got to do it within the zone I live in. Why can't the owner of this property in question, while we're all here, build what it's zoned for, and that would stop a lot of confusion. MR. MARTIN-Well, I don't feel, in all honesty, that a piece of property that has, on the one side of it, two or three thousand cars crossing down one side of it is single family residential property. I think, to be fair, this whole area along here is not a single family use. It's just not. I mean, it doesn't have any value as that. MIKE BRANDT MR. BRANDT-I think, first of all, we're in an exercise, here, that this Town has never done. We're honestly telling you, we're your government. We're going to have to do what you want it, as a Town as a whole. That doesn't mean we can't tell your neighborhood that we're going to change it, we can, but that takes a lot of political will, and nobody's going to d.o that if you're really upset. I think there are things that I see, and I'm looking at it from a distance. I'm on the, because I'm the Supervisor, I'm your 9 --- representative on the counsel that looks at major traffic in this whole area, and that counsel has said, this is one of the problems, and the federal, we guide the federal monies, and the federal monies are to make a four way bridge. or four lane bridge, and what's going to happen with that Northway, probably, a lane will come out here instead of doing this, but you'll have more traffic developing here, and the other thing, you're seeing 200 homes a year being built in this Town, and where are they being built? Mostly over here. So, what's going to happen? You're going to put more and more traffic through here. So, what's the answer to it? You say, okay, lets shut off the traffic coming through here right now at McDonalds. Well, that means you're going to shove more of it here. That doesn't solve it. In the long run, you've got a couple of solutions. One is to make some total redesign here, where you can either have layered traffic one over another. or under another, and that takes a lot of property and we need to do an assessment of that. I don't know whether that's practical or if it's cost effective or if it can, but there's starting to be federal money. We're going to have to look at federal money. We're going to have to look at State money. We have to look at an answer. There's another answer, the cheaper answer to doing that is to build a road all the way around here. Well, of course you don't want a road through here, to come out. That threatens you. What you really have, though, because the traffic is growing, is you've got a neighborhood, this whole area, that's changing, and it's hell to admit that it's changing, but it is. It's changed all your life time. It has in the 30 years I've been here, and it continues to change, and what you're really trying to do, in planning, is to look at how to get from where you are to where it's going to go, and you come out with money in your pocket, and not lose your life savings, that's the key. You own a home. If you can't upgrade it and sell it, you're not going to keep up to the market. and if you can't get someone to come in and buy it at a good price, you're stuck with it. So, what we have to do is we have to admit what's happening, first of all. We have to be pragmatic about it and realistic about it. and then we've got to find a method to service all to make it work. I look at this thing, and I say, okay, that's an answer. That's an answer if this goes commercial. There has to be some kind of buffering here to protect that. Is this an answer to come up through here? Boy, if you do that, you'd better change everything at once, when you do that, not to say it can't be done, but it should be done at a given time when it works for everyone, and you say to somebody, okay. you want to do a major development here, you do a major development, but you buy the whole damn thing at once. I don't think that's going to happen, you know. Can you do something in here? Can you take this piece of road and cut in here, and instead of just having this, have this? Is that a possibility? DOT's got to go along with this. What's the other half of this, the other half is you're coming up here to the Mall, and then this other idea of coming down here like this with a road. So now this little loop becomes this loop. I think that's important. Now if you look at this intersection, you've got a road around here, you've got a cut across here. You're starting to solve it. Probably you need this here, in the long run, to make it work, and at some time you need a transition so this moves from what it's present use is to a better and higher use. Is that a possibility that if you've got a commercial it's going to develop here, and I'm saying in the long run it'll happen. I'm not saying it's going to happen, and I'm not telling you where my vote is on Red Lobster. That's immaterial. I don't think Red Lobster's the issue at all. I think the issue is proper land use. If you go commercial here, you have commercial here. You have commercial here, and you have commercial here. Another possible use for that is high density senior housing, where you do a total Mall, and these people, who as it changes over, are in walking distance to commercial places. That's a possibility. I don't know if that'll work. I'm not trying to tell you the answer. I don't know the answer, but as a group, we have to find the answer, and I don't think anyone's going to impose an answer. I think we have to all get constructive and think it through. and 10 '--' -....; I don't live there. I don't know the answer. I know you do, and you'll know the answers better than I do, but what we're trying to do is a think session here, and we're not name calling one another, it isn't one guy against another. It's what's the good of the whole community, and what's going to work for everybody, and we're going to do this in this neighborhood, we're going to do it in this neighborhood. We're going to do it over here and over there, and the whole damn Town wide, and we're going to get used to doing it for the rest of our lives. because that's what planning is about, and we've all been afraid to do it, because you've got to stick your neck way out when you do it, but we're going to learn how to do it, and I give you that as an opening, and go from there. MR. PHILO-Could we ask you one question while you're up there? How would you get the traffic, basically, you're on the same target as the highway. I said that, Mr. Caimano kind of looked at me, what I'm saying is, I looked at the traffic, they said four thousand cars in that hump is coming up, and two thousand is going up that Aviation Road past the Mall onto that bridge. Are my figures anywhere near? MR. BRANDT-I don't know those figures. I didn't not study that. MR. PHILO-How would you get the traffic out onto Route 9, then? MR. MARTIN-Well, what I would suggest is, you have a natural intersection here right now, and I think it's viable, given the amount of open land that's back there, as it exists today, that you could run a road right off of that intersection, through those entry lanes of the Mall, through that open property, and connect into Foster Avenue, or maybe even go further behind the Price Chopper, and connect onto Route 9 there. MR. PHILO-There's a right-of-way already in there, isn't there? MR. CAIMANO-The answer to that question, though, is if those numbers are real, you can't, because that's 35 cars a minute. It can't happen. That's why I think those numbers are not correct. That's why numbers are not correct. That's why I smiled. There is something else. I think you drew an incorrect conclusion. I think Mike is moving in the right direction. You drew a conclusion for, that the consensus was we wanted to keep this single family residence. I don't think you went far enough. I think we've gone off into another area, here, the people who own these homes understand, they want to keep it single family residential. I want to help them do that, but the reality of it is we have to do something else with that neighborhood, to get each individual homeowner, as you said, the opportunity to make the most out of that piece of property, and that that's not staying single family residence the rest of our lives. That can't be, because that's going to decline, and the reason it's going to decline is because you can't build there. You can't build there. MRS. ROWE-We can't even improve on our homes, because we can't get the money back out of the home, if we want to build a home. I can't even put another bathroom in my house because several realtors have cautioned me against over improving for what I can get for the house. MR. BRANDT-I think these are pressures that you see, and you've got a free market, you've got a free society, and we've got to learn to work within it, in government, and it's a tough problem. MR. CAIMANO-Kathleen, if your home was still a single family home, as Bob's was, if they're still single family homes, but the zoning is different, where each of you had an opportunity to do something different with that. that's a possibility. I'm not saying you should do that, I'm saying that that is a possibility of increasing the net worth that you have. 11 '''--' -../ MR. BRANDT-And maybe you take it out in blocks. You're the Town Board. You've got the Zoning Board. You've got the Planning Board, all three. MRS. ROWE-All that's going to do is chip away little bits and pieces when you change the zoning in different areas, that people are going to sellout to the next guy. MR. BRANDT-There's no question that's true, but is there a use and a way of doing, that so that you don't damage the neighbors when you do that, and I don't know that there is. I don't know that there is at all, and I don't know that the answer is to put it off and keep it this way as long as possible, and let the pressures grow. and then at some other point, see if there's a money trigger where someone comes in and says, gee, I want to do something else, and they've got the money to do it. In the end, it's a matter of coming out with the equity you have, and a fair growth with the rest of society's growth, with inflation, and have a transition, and transitions, in planning, are not simple. I certainly don't know the answer to them. I know we talked about transition zones. What are they, really, and do they really work? MR. MARTIN-It sounds like a very nice word, transition, and the whole concept is easily dismissed by saying that word, but it's not going to be easily accomplished. LOU GAGLIANO MR. GAGLIANO-Mike touched on something that I just wanted to embellish upon a little bit. If traffic is the issue with this Town and this neighborhood, and business owners and everybody else feel it's important, you need a much bigger map. The Mall hasn't changed in 17 years. You said the strip center has been there for 30 years almost. That isn't what's changed. What's changed is the 200 homes a year that Mike referred to, and what's happening down on Quaker Road. and the amount of traffic that we're now trying to take from this end of Town to this end of Town. The expansion of the bridge over the Northway, that's a positive direction and what you're trying to do is move traffic through there quicker, but that's not going to change the pressure in the area, and you take a look at what's happening on either end. MR. BRANDT-It's going to increase the pressure as you get more traffic, and you're going to get more traffic. I'll tell you my own gut feeling is that this Town is going to change a whole lot, and it's going to change because the nation has changed from a war economy. The Cold War is over. What the hell are you going to do with all this industry? You've got all these guys that have been making bombers and rockets and whatever the hell. Do you know what you're going to make, high speed rail, and when you make high speed rail, you're going to bring a corridor right up the Albany area, and you're going to tie into northern Jersey and Washington D.C.. and you think you aren't going to see growth here? You're going to see a hell of a growth here, and you'd better think about it, because it's coming, and it's coming faster than anybody realizes. I'll bet you in Washington they're already talking about that kind of project, and you're going see growth, and we can't stop it. I don't think we can. We've never been able to. Two hundred homes a year here, and in Long Island, in the prettiest places in Long Island, that's about the growth they're seeing in some maj or communities there. You've got major growth happening. So, what's the answer? I'm just saying, keep an open mind. I don't think you're going to find an answer tonight, and we're not here to lobby for or against Red Lobster. I'll be damned, I don't care what happens there. I told that to Mr. Wood. I'm not looking at this for Mr. Wood. I'm looking at this for a community, and we've got to all look at it for a community, and we've got a responsibility here to treat each other with respect and a little tenderness, and look at what's good for everybody, and lets go on that vein and see what you can do. 12 "---" - MR. MARTIN-Yes. MR. OLSON-I had a question for Mike, or a suggestion. Mike, there's a lot of people here this evening that come from different streets in that neighborhood, and I think this has been a good meeting and a good start, but we're not, as you said, we're not going to solve anything this evening. I would recommend to you Mike, as the Supervisor, pass on to the Town Board, I would like to see the Town Board set up a committee, a committee of individuals that live in the immediate area, the representative in the back that's here from the Aviation Mall, I'm sure a representative from the Northgate Plaza area, and the residents that live in the area set up a committee so we could sit down, an advisory committee so we could sit down, and I'd like to volunteer for the committee, to be honesty with you, sit down and start reviewing this. MR. BRANDT-I'll tell you something. One of the things I did in my last election was, in the old days I went door to door on the whole damn Town. The Town is too big. You can't do that anymore. So I started doing neighborhood meetings, and one thing I told neighborhoods is you better organize, and your neighborhood better organize, and you better find representation within yourselves and create discussions within yourself, and I think you're going to have a democracy grow here, over these kinds of issues, where people learn to talk to one another and think things through, and look to their community. MR. OLSON-Well, we could do it, because we have an organization together right now. MR. BRANDT-We have to do it. We have to, as a Town, learn how to do it. MR. OLSON-But I'm looking at a constructive way that we could work with your Planning Department if the data from the County Traffic Safety Committee, the Glens Falls Area Transportation Council, which I don't know if they do anything. They have all kinds of studies, and they have plans. MR. BRANDT-All they do is rubber stamp what's coming, but we can change what's coming to them, and they are very interested in this property. This and 149 are one of the big problems. Those are the two big problems in Queensbury. MR. MARTIN-This is the busiest intersection north of Albany, in New York State. GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-Mike, you're talking about the long range picture, do you see Exit 19 as being the biggest exit on the Northway? From Exit 15, which they've redesigned, all the way to Plattsburgh? MR. BRANDT-It could be. MR. MARTIN-I think it already is. MR. BRANDT-It probably is. going on If you look at the commercial that's GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-If you're talking about redesign, you better be thinking about that. It could be a hot spot again a few years from now. MR. BRANDT-Right, and Route 9 is becoming very commercial now, and will it stay, get more and more commercial up to 149, probably, but one thing, if we take this area and we say, okay, this region in here is going to be our commercial area, then we don't have to have commercial allover this whole Town, and maybe that's what we ought to do, but you've got to make traffic work. I mean, I still. it bothers me. Maybe it doesn't bother anyone else, but every time I 13 '-- -../ come down these roads and I stop at every damn intersection waiting for the light, I have private words I say. I don't know, how do we coordinate them, and everybody thinks that's simple except each one of these is computerized. They each run on their own computer, and somebody told me, you can go get a computer system and tie them all together, but you better get a genius that knows how to program it. LADY IN THE AUDIENCE-To change the subject, do you know when we're going to have the decision on the re-zoning, when we're going to hear if they're going to, when they're going to re-zone it? MR. BRANDT-As far as Red Lobster? LADY IN AUDIENCE-Yes. MR. BRANDT-Well, I think it's coming fast. MR. CAIMANO-The first meeting in March? MR. BRANDT-Yes. We're ready. We're ready to move with it, but I think the real question is far bigger than that. The real question is the whole traffic question. Until you solve the traffic question, it doesn't make any sense to make it tougher. You've got to solve it, and I'll tell you one thing this Board is committed to solving. We've gone to these people and said, help us come up with some answers. We started out, we stuck our neck out. We've gone, we've walked all through these areas. We walk through the woods, and you say, hey Mr. So and So, Mrs. So and So, you own this, what if? I don't know. That's not too good. Well, maybe it is. We're going to all go through this exercise. Would it make sense to put a road from here back in here. I personally think it would. Okay, but now exactly where would you put it. If that's one, when push comes to shove, gee, don't go through here, I've got this problem. or I've got that problem, and you have to respect those problems. The people that live there know those problems, so we've got to do a lot of listening and a lot of thinking, and we've got to slowly put some kind of a plan together. We know it's changing. I think we all know it's changing. We know it's not the best situation. You know damn well it's not easy to back in there. You know very well it's not easy to grow in there. So you've got to do something about it. That's just nothing but a realization that there's a change taking place, what can we do to make it better? To me, one thing that works there, first of all, you've got beautiful views off. If you do eventually concentrated senior citizens housing, look at your seniors market. That's what's growing. That's the section of the population that's growing, so as a society we've got to deal with it. If you concentrate it in here, you've got a sewer system right here. You don't have that anywhere else. That's very important. That's a tremendous asset. MR. MARTIN-It's right next door. It's right here. MR. BRANDT-It's there. You've got the pipes there. It's easy to extend in. You can't do that on this side of the Northway. It costs so much money to cross that Northway with a pipe. You can't imagine the cost. So, this is a zone that could be changed in that direction. I'm not saying that's the right answer. I don't know. LADY IN THE AUDIENCE-Let some rich man buy us all out. MR. BRANDT-But the problem is, that's got to be a very rich man. The problem is, it's a free market. People won't come in and buy that many homes all at once. MR. MARTIN-Well, lets pursue that reaction a little further, now. In the long term, okay, is there some interest in a transition here? BETTY MONAHAN 14 ',,--- MRS. MONAHAN-Jim, what are you going to do about the neighboring areas? MR. MARTIN-That's the thing. You've got to have a consensus of the neighborhood. MRS. MONAHAN-Let's talk about probabilities that are really possible. MR. BRANDT-Well, somebody's got to research the deeds. know what the. I don't MR. MARTIN-I've seen a couple of them. MR. BRANDT-Do you know what those restrictions mean and what they? MS. ALLEN-Yes. They're serious problems, they're going to be a serious hurdle to any type of development besides single family residential, with those additional restrictions, in any of that area, and I would include, these are serious deed restrictions that are placed on, from my understanding, I have not researched every lot in the subdivisions, but my understanding is that on most of the lots in those subdivisions, and they can be upheld by the grantor or anybody else who has similar deed restrictions in that area. MR. BRANDT-So everyone would have to agree, then? MS. ALLEN-Yes. Everybody would have to agree. MR. BRANDT-So one hold out stops everything? MS. ALLEN-Absolutely. As a matter of fact, there's been litigation in that area for previous attempts at trying to use some of those lots as commercial, and the judges. upheld it. So, that's a serious, serious problem, and I even have a deed that is a reference to Mr. Wood's property, with those restrictions. MR. BRANDT-Well, that's a big hurdle, that's a tough one. MR. OLSON-That's property was sold by Tom Rogers, or Tom Rogers Real Estate, which that area was owned and is subdivided by Tom Rogers, and the restrictions. MR. MARTIN-So, in all honesty, that's a very tough hurdle to get over. I mean, one neighbor can throw a wrench in the whole works. MRS. MONAHAN-Jim, lets get back to some basic planning, okay. We're talking about a four lane bridge over the Northway. MR. MARTIN-Right. I think under construction by 1997. MRS. MONAHAN-Now we have to look at the Aviation Road. going up the hill, coming into that bridge, peel off for Greenway North, peel off where the Adirondack Northway, going north. How much of the land that is left vacant, going up Aviation Road hill, is going to have to go into that consideration? And we really have to start with something basic like that before we start bringing something right up to the edge of this road that may have to be changed, because now we can't move it. MR. MARTIN-I don't even know what, there's been no designs for that yet. The preliminary designs, I believe, are going to start in the next couple of months. I'm not even sure of that, but I'm. MRS. MONAHAN-This is a very basic question, because you don't want some big huge structure that somebody's got to buy in order to put the road in. MR. BRANDT-And maybe you've got to start looking at federal grants 15 .------ - and Town planning where the Town has to get involved in the planning, that is the financing and becoming the vehicle for financing, and that could be long, long, range. MRS. MONAHAN-But if you're dOing good planning, you need a plan where you're roads are going first. MR. MARTIN-Right. MRS. MONAHAN-That's a basic first step. If you don't do that first step, you're going to make a mess of everything. MR. PHILO-Look what's happened in the past, right Betty? MRS. MONAHAN-So lets not do it in the future. MR. BRANDT-Right. So, you're going to have, this study is just about finished, and it should be out fairly soon, so when that comes out, that's the beginning of it, and we go from there. MRS. ROWE-Well, what happens to property like Brown's Sunoco, and the Silo, and Howard Johnson's, that all are resting along that section of the road now which barely have any frontage on them, when this widens to four lanes? MR. MARTIN-I don't know how that's undertaken, eminent domain, I would imagine. They just take it. I don't know that that is going to change that much. Where I see it changing is on the other side, Elaine's Beauty Boutique and things like that. I think that's going to change. MR. BRANDT-Lets wait. That's only a matter of a month or you're going to see the traffic engineers for the State give us that. I don't know what it is, but it's coming up, and soon. have to go find out. I don't remember. but it's coming out. share that with you. so, all I'd We'll MR. MARTIN-I'd like to get that preliminary design as soon as it's done. MR. BRANDT-I think Dan's idea of an association, some kind of representatives, some people that are willing to work, nothing but work, dig all this stuff out, and then talk to one another a lot. That's what we're going to have to do. That's just the beginning of the process. MR. BREWER-Mike, you talked understand in my mind, where Avenue is it? earlier, and I'm just trying to Jim suggested a road from, Foster MR. MARTIN-Right. It's not shown. This is Foster. Foster is shown a little bit here. You'd see something of this nature here. MR. BREWER-Right. I see the idea of the loops being made, but where's the idea of all the traffic going to go to? Isn't the traffic coming right back to the hub of the loop? MR. MARTIN-No. MR. PHILO-No. The way I look at it, it would take all that traffic, it would take 50 percent of it off. Say, back to the Grand Union, Wheels, and down through there. MR. BREWER-Where are the cars going to go, is what I'm asking. MR. PHILO-They can go out into this road. MR. MARTIN-Well, I think there is a significant block of the traffic, I would say three to five hundred cars in that peak hour are in fact going to the Mall, out of the 4800 that go in every direction in this hub, all right, and that is still significant. 16 -- MR. BRANDT-The other thing we've all committed to. we've got to internalize. If you're going to do this, then these properties have to internalize to this. This property's got to internalize to this. We can't all go back out onto the highway. MR. BREWER-I understand what you're saying. Why couldn't we somehow off of 9, build an internalized road like they do on Quaker Road? MR. MARTIN-You mean an interior service road? MR. BREWER-An interior service road. MR. MARTIN-Across the front. MR. BREWER-For both pieces of the road. MR. BRANDT-We've got to look at that. things happen, if we can. We've got to make those MR. BREWER-I'm not saying that's what you should do, but rather than going back behind Foster Avenue. MR. BRANDT-Yes, Mr. Chairman, you're going to get to help do that. MR. BREWER-I'm more than willing to help do that. suggestion to think about. That's just a MR. PHILO-Jim, do you have any traffic count on that area? MR. MARTIN-On here? MR. PHILO-Yes. MR. MARTIN-Yes. We have the Mall study that was done in, I believe, what, Lou? MR. GAGLIANO-'90. MR. MARTIN-'90, that's the most recent information I believe we have. and also we're going to have the traffic corridor studies that are supposed to be done. That was authorized by the County. That's supposed to be done this April. MR. PHILO-I read that article, and they said 4,000 cars in that hub, am I right? MR. MARTIN-4800. MR. PHILO-4800? That's more than I thought, then. MR. MARTIN-That's not all going to the Mall. You have 4800 cars coming through this intersection at peak hour, and three of the four intersections are what is classified as Level of Service D. I believe it was these three intersections here, and this is a Level of Service C, Aviation Road going east, all right. Now, as I recall, approximately 2100 cars are making this trip up Aviation Road, and the reason for that is most of them are going either to the Northway or to those homes that are building in the west side of the Town. That's where most of it's happening, and the reason why this was thought to be a good idea is that it does reduce the Level of Service D, what results in a Level of Service is the amount of delay that a car has to go through in order to pass through the intersection, and I believe a Level of Service D is anywhere from 25 to 40 seconds. Beyond 40 seconds is a Level of Service F. and that's considered Failure. MR. PHILO-So I was right when I said 2,000 cars going up that Aviation Road. MR. MARTIN-Yes, but to do this, then you reduce the wait here. it's 17 -.-" been estimated, by as much as five seconds, which is a significant amount of time, given the way it is now, and then you get into calculations of savings in gas and all that, and I've seen calculations that say that there's a $200,000 savings in gas alone, from the cars not sitting there idling, being able to pass through, as the result of a road like this, $200,000 per year. MR. PHILO-That's exactly, when you put that hub in there, that's exactly what I was talking about. LADY IN AUDIENCE-Okay. So now they come all the way up, and then they don't go to the intersection. I mean, they keep going up the other way. MR. MARTIN-Well, no. They go directly, you have the Mall situated here. There would be intersections coming in for direct access to the Mall, and they would not be coming up Aviation Road. MR. BRANDT-We'll look at all that quietly and peacefully, and give you all the chance you want to shoot at it. I think that's going to come up where the Town Board is going to have to put up some seed money to design this sort of thing, and we're going to have to look at it carefully. GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-In all honesty, do you think somebody is going to go out of their way to get to the Mall, in other words, instead of going up the straight way to get in? MR. MARTIN-I live in the north side of the Town, and I typically come down Bay Road, if I want to do any shopping in here, and if I was to drive to the Mall and this type of thing was available, I would come down Bay, go to Quaker, down Glenwood, and across this like this, and avoid this completely. MR. PHILO-Exactly. Jim, you're a planner. How much traffic would it take off that Aviation Road, with that? MR. MARTIN-I would say it would pull, at peak hour, as much as five or six hundred cars out of there at peak hour. MR. BRANDT-This is a piece of it. The real question is, what are you going to do here. I think you want to keep your focus on what you're going to do here. That's your neighborhood. That's your investment. That's your money. What can work there, and I sure don't have an answer, and I don't think anyone has an answer, but together we've got to find one. GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-What's there now. MR. BRANDT-That's fine, and what's going to happen five years from now, well, if it isn't broken, but it is broken for somebody. I think it is. I think if you're honest about it, it's not working for everybody. MR. MARTIN-Ted wants a question to be asked. How do you people get out of this neighborhood when you want to leave this neighborhood? McDonalds? LADY IN AUDIENCE-No. Out Greenway North to the light, because I'm afraid to go out on Route 9. MRS. ROWE-Ginny, that won't protect you. That's where I had $2,000 worth of damage happen, going out at the light. LADY IN AUDIENCE-Why don't they keep the lights going all night like they do at the big intersection? MR. BRANDT-Well, when you re-build the intersection, maybe that's what you've got to do. Maybe what he said about making this bigger and putting a full time light here will help, or maybe it belongs 18 -... here. MR. MARTIN-Not a four lane highway, I'm just talking about a wider entrance that can better accommodate, like if someone's sitting there, they want to go straight on through the Mall or turn left, or if someone comes up and wants to make the right hand turn, they can immediately make the right hand turn and you don't get the wait. LADY IN AUDIENCE-But it's working okay now, coming up that way. MR. MARTIN-It is working all right? It was my impression that was a problem. LADY IN AUDIENCE-No. MRS. MONAHAN-Jim, it's my understanding that during the school year, during bad weather, when the school buses are using that hill, those lights have got to be on blinking so they don't have to put their brakes on. MR. MARTIN-Right. MS. ALLEN-I'd just like to make a suggestion, and that is, just bringing this out in the open and trying to get us to all discuss it tonight, we've had kind of a free for all, and that's good, because I've got some ideas that way, but I think everybody's got to go home and think about this more. What I would suggest is that we set up some sort of a meeting, and that we get together with the neighbors and they address, list their specific concerns to us, and if they have some proposals, what those are, we put that on an agenda with what you're proposals are, and we have another meeting, where we're more focused and have more specific agendas in mind than what we're experiencing tonight. I think it would be a lot more productive. MR. MARTIN-Yes. Well, I certainly hear one thing coming out of this, is I think that it would be useful for the neighborhood if there could be a neighborhood committee, or a volunteer commission or whatever you want to call it, that's representative of the whole group, and that will facilitate an easier meeting and maybe a more productive flow of information. I would certainly be all for that, and I would meet with that group as many times as the group would want to meet, evening, afternoon, whatever is most convenient. MR. BRANDT-I would suggest that you have a neighborhood group, that you also write down, decide between yourselves, is there a problem today, or isn't there, if there are problems, what are they, are they traffic, are they the ability to borrow money in that area to keep homes up, whatever, are there resale problems, be honest about it. Think about it, and decide between yourselves, is there a problem or isn't there a problem? If there is, identify it, so we can start to address each problem. That's what we've got to do. We've got to put it down into writing. MR. MARTIN-And what I'd like to avoid happening is have the people in this neighborhood stick their heads further into the sand and have time pass you by further, and then the problem just seems to grow, and you're more isolated with each passing year. MR. BRANDT-How many homes are in there that are rental homes? Where people have moved out? MR. ROWE-Over in the June drive area, there are several rental income properties. I think there are five. GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-What are you going to do with the traffic in the summer time, to try and alleviate that, right from, say, June. right through September? 19 "-- -' MR. MARTIN-You mean the summer tourist traffic? Right. All right. So, I think if we can come to a consensus, I didn't want to make this another five hour meeting on this issue, but could we at least come to that ending conclusion tonight, a representative group of people from the neighborhood, to come back again and I think the suggestion was very good, that if you could list a definitive set of problems, and then any proposals or solutions you might have, and we'll see what we can do. I'm not saying that anything can be accomplished, but as I initiated the meeting. I think we should at least try. We owe that much. You drive down Old Aviation Road and back, you have abutting properties here. Nothing works. You have fences across properties shutting off access all the way through. It's just a mess, and I think a lot of that could be cleaned up and worked better. I'm not talking about the restaurant. GENTLEMAN IN THE AUDIENCE-But isn't it the restaurant that brought us all here in the first place? MR. MARTIN-That's right, and in that aspect, the restaurant was good I think, but the restaurant, that issue will be over with in the beginning of March, apparently, one way or the other, we'll be by that, but this, my problem is, when I looked at this, that is one issue to be sure. Fine. It has it's defined process to deal wi th that. It's going to come to a conclusion, but whatever conclusion that reaches, this is still going to all remain, and it could potentially be worse. LADY IN AUDIENCE-What happens if they do decide they want the Red Lobster there? MR. MARTIN-Well, then I think I know what's going to be at the top of that committee's list, but I don't know. We're going to know about that, apparently, very soon. LADY IN AUDIENCE-I have a question about what the categories are for zoning, like the next step up for the single family? What other transitional type, what are the categories? MR. MARTIN-Okay. Well, right now, you have single family one acre there, I believe. Correct? I'm sorry, SFR-10. Okay. Moving up the scale, you have UR-10, which is Urban Residential, which is essentially the same thing. I believe there are some differences, in that offices and that thing, that type of thing is allowed, office incidental to residential use, okay. Then there are, there is a Neighborhood Commercial zone that permits things like a neighborhood market, barber shops, beauty shops, things like that, and then there's Plaza Commercial, Recreation Commercial, and then you get into your full blown Highway Commercial, which is the catch-all, used car lots, the whole shooting match, and MR-5. MR-5 is in there, which is our most dense residential zone. It permits office and one dwelling unit per every five thousand square feet of lot area, with a 10,000 square foot area minimum, lot minimum. LADY IN AUDIENCE-And what about the speed limit on Aviation Road? Who sets that, and how can we, I've never seen any kind of a speed trap. I mean, like they come up from Route 9, and they're trying to make all of those lights. I've never seen any control of that at all. MR. MARTIN-It's a State highway. MR. BREWER-Call the sheriff. That's all you can do. MRS. ROWE-My husband has gone up to the sheriff's car parked along the side of the road and told them, and they just say to him, we don't have any control over that. That's a State road. MR. BREWER-Well, what about on Quaker Road if they give you a ticket, or Route 9? 20 '-- -- MRS. ROWE-I'm just telling you what he said. MR. BREWER-Well, that's baloney, because they do have control. MRS. TARANA-I'm just wondering, Jim, and I know you won't take this the wrong way. Is there any plan to bring in some honcho experts in this field, I mean, people who look at a whole Town and maybe do computer programs, whatever, do overlays, that can come in and help you? I know cities have been redone. Back when I was in college they redid the whole middle. The town that I came from, they did a whole big renovation. They changed the whole structure of the road. Are there people that can come in and advise you, because I think this problem is bigger than the Town, and I think we might come up with a lot of ideas. MR. MARTIN-Well, consultants are always available for that type of study. You can focus it, define it how you want, and there's all sorts of capability out there, but that's really a Town Board decision. It's a policy decision. I think to a great extent, local input and knowledge of local community is very important, but that is always an option. MRS. TARANA-I agree, but it seems to me to really come up with some solutions, you would need some outside advice, not traffic engineers. MR. MARTIN-The only problem I've typically found with them, and that was the big thing to do back in the early 60's, or in planning in the 70's, and what you found, like if somebody wants to read something very interesting, they ought to read the Glens Falls master plan, which is currently still in force today. It's dated in 1963, and if you look at the renderings of the City in that master plan, they make it look like something out of Buck Rogers. I mean, there was a geometric dome called for on the corner of Warren and Ridge Street, and things like that, and I think another example in recent history, and people may know very well, is the Ri verview Square proposal in the City, very nice idea, great, $60,000,000 investment into the City of Glens Falls for a multi-use shopping retail hotel parking garages, all that, in the ideal world that's all great, and that's the danger, they spent $155,000 on that study, and went to a great effort to raise the money privately and all that, and they put all that into that, and where is it? It's on the shelf, and they had a guarantee from that consultant that they would provide them a direct link to developers who would come into the City and build that development. They said they guaranteed at least two deve lopers. Now, I'm not saying that that's bad, I'm citing bad examples, but I think it requires a very, very well defined written workscope, and you've really got to hold their feet to the fire, but it's difficult to do. MRS. TARANA-I'm not thinking so much of somebody coming in here analyzing our problems and all that sort of thing. I'm thinking of all these kinds of meetings, you get all your ideas together, you know what you want to do, but you don't know how to get there, and that's the point where you might be able to use some other, outside people. I think these meetings are good, because they get everybody involved, but I just wonder if the Town ever gets the chance to know what's available to be done. I know all about the traffic engineers. MR. PHILO-Let me expand on that, Jimmy, just a little bit. Of all the money they spent in Glens Falls, $100 and some thousand dollars, they ended up with vertis loop, and what did they do, they drove all the business out of the City of Glens Falls. they come up with this urban renewal and HUD, and they demolished Park Street, South Street, with the recommendation of these engineers. What did they end up with? I think this meeting tonight, the Planning Board was very nice to invite you people in here. We found out what the problem is. The Board itself, Mr. Brandt, Mr. Caimano, and the rest of them see that they have problems, as far as I can see it, 21 '-- "'--' with the people in the Greenway Drive area, and it's, what they're saying to you, the way I read it, the Planning Board has got to. MR. BREWER-The Planning Department. MR. PHILO-They're trying to get some answers to this, because they know there's too much traffic for that area, and it isn't going to go unless everybody's agreeable, and like he said, we're going to have some kind of neighborhood group, did Dan Olson say. What you've got to do is get all the problems together, instead of having this fighting back and forth. Help each other out of this problem. GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-The reason we're here right now is they've never had a plan. They've never had a plan in the Town of Queensbury. I mean, that's why we're here today is because there's never been a plan. MR. MARTIN-Well, that's the ultimate end that I hope we can achieve. GENTLEMAN IN AUDIENCE-Well, right now, to create this plan, I mean, you've got a lot more hurdles than if you'd started years and years ago. back in the 40's, and had the plan. Now you've got all this commercialization and the Northway, and now you've got to try to find a plan with all this, and it just seems like, we're really up against a wall, here. You keep saying the traffic, the traffic. You're getting traffic from different points. You've got four points it's coming from. Somewhere along the line, you've got to go above those points and divert that traffic someplace else. I mean, they're not all going to the Mall. MR. MARTIN-Well, what maybe the best answer is, then, it may be a choice between the lesser of evils. I don't know. Maybe we're going to go down a list of choices and we're going to get to a point at which, gee, none of these things are really preferred, but that's all we've got left. Now what's the best one of these? I don't know, but I'd like to end this soon. It's nine o'clock, and everybody wants to go home. MRS. ROWE-I just want you to take a quick look around this audience and see what the preferred is here. Look at the age of the people that's represented here. I mean, you're talking about senior citizen housing, this ~ senior citizen housing already. MR. MARTIN-Well, could we end this by, I think maybe Kathy and Dan, as point people that I can contact, we can get, you can organize a committee or a group of people that we can get back together with. All right. What kind of time frame can we look at? I'll just ask you for that much. MR. OLSON-Probably 30 days, maybe. We're going to have to start a meeting with the neighbors, sit down with them, and then come back again. MRS. ROWE-Well, we basically have a committee already, though, Dan. MR. MARTIN-Thank you all for coming. On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Timothy Brewer, Acting Chairman 22