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05-23-2024 (Queensbury Planning Board 05/23/2024) Q UEENSBUR Y PTA NNING BOARD MEETING THIRD REGULAR MEETING MAY23RD12024 INDEX Planned Unit Development 1-2024 Apex Capital,LLC/Mountain Top Ventures,LLC 1. Petition of Zone Change 1-2024 Tax Map No. 307.-1-29 THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO BOARD AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING MONTH'S MINUTES(IF ANY)AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL OF SAID MINUTES. 1 (Queensbury Planning Board 05/23/2024) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING THIRD REGULAR MEETING MAY 23RD,2024 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT STEPHEN TRAVER,CHAIRMAN ELLEN MC DEVITT,VICE CHAIRMAN DAVID DEEB WARREN LONGACKER BRADY STARK TOM UNCHER,ALTERNATE MEMBERS ABSENT BRAD MAGOWAN FRITZ STEFANZICK LAND USE PLANNER-LAURA MOORE STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI MRS. MOORE-So I'll just do a quick overview. MR. TRAVER-Sure. NEW BUSINESS: PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT 1-2024 PETITION OF ZONE CHANGE 1-2024 SEQR TYPE: TYPE 1. APEX CAPITAL, LLC/MOUNTAIN TOP VENTURES LLC. AGENT(S): STUDIO A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE. ZONING: RC. LOCATION: 59 WEST MOUNTAIN ROAD. APPLICANT PROPOSES A PLANNED RESORT DEVELOPMENT OF AN EXISTING 365.43 AC PARCEL THAT CURRENTLY CONTAINS WEST MOUNTAIN, A MULTI-SEASON RECREATIONAL FACILITY INCLUDING WINTER SPORTS, SUMMER CAMPS, MOUNTAIN BIKING, VARIETY OF FESTIVALS, AND FACILITY SITE EVENT RENTALS. THE PROPOSAL INCLUDES RE-ZONING THE PARCEL FROM RECREATIONAL COMMERCIAL ZONE TO A PLANNED RESORT DEVELOPMENT. THE PROJECT INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING MAJOR COMPONENTS "BASE AREA ALPINE VILLAGE" — MIXED USED RESIDENTIAL USE, TOWN HOUSE DEVELOPMENT—56 UNITS,"HOTEL/BANQUET/SPA COMPLEX/ATHLETIC CLUB" _ 90 ROOM HOTEL AND AMENITIES, "DAY-USE LODGE AREA" — EXISTING NORTHWEST MOUNTAIN LODGE TO BE RENOVATED AND SITE AMENITIES INCLUDE AN OUTDOOR AMPHITHEATER, AND "SINGLE FAMILY HOME DEVELOPMENT — 65 SINGLE FAMILY HOMES. PURSUANT TO ARTICLE 179-1213-050 PLANNING BOARD RECEIVED REFERRAL FROM THE TOWN BOARD AND TOWN BOARD SEEKS LEAD AGENCY, ARTICLE 179-12B- 050(A)(3)PLANNING BOARD TO SETUP REVIEW AND PROGRESSION. CROSS REFERENCE: SP 65-96,SP 67-96,SP 3-97,SP 4-97,AV 92-2002,SP 22-2008,SP 34-2011,SP 61-2011,SUP 72-2012, SUP 11-2013, SUP 63-2014, SP 60-2018, SP 53-2019, SP 49-2022, SUP 3-2022. WARREN CO. REFERRAL: N/A. SITE INFORMATION: SLOPES. LOT SIZE: 365.43 ACRES. TAX MAP NO. 307.-1-29. SECTION: 179-3-060,179-12-050. JON ZAPPER&JEFF ANTHONY,REPRESENTING APPLICANT,PRESENT MRS. MOORE-This is a project for a Planned Resort Development that involves a change of zone. The parcel is 365 acres and this project occurs on approximately 254 acres. This is a multi-seasonal recreational facility including winter sports,summer camps,etc. The project includes residential development,retail development,and assorted other items in reference to that,and for tonight's meeting I did go through some of the information that the Planning Board will go through,called criteria for evaluation. I was thinking that the applicant could give a quick overview again, and then if the Board members had any questions about the LaBella engineering comments or the Fire Marshal's comments we could sort of top those first and then go through some of the information. MR. TRAVER-Yes. Good. Okay. Well, we'll formally open the meeting for the Planning Board for Thursday, May 23rd,2024. This is our third meeting for the month of May,our 12th meeting thus far for 2024. As usual please take note of the emergency exits. If we do have an emergency that is the way out. If you have an electronic device, a cell phone or other electronic device,if you would either turn it off or turn the ringer off so as not to interfere with the recording of the minutes of the meeting we'd appreciate that. Though we won't be taking any action tonight,we are continuing our review of the Planned Resort 2 (Queensbury Planning Board 05/23/2024) Development as Laura said. This is a large,complex project that we want to proceed accurately and in an organized fashion. So this is the way we're going to go about it. So welcome back to the meeting tonight. We did,I think it was in March,that we had a pretty extensive,like an hour,hour and a half presentation on the whole project. I think tonight, as Laura said,we might begin to drill down a little bit on some of the things that we will have to address going forward,but I'll let you begin and then we'll come back. MR.ZAPPER-Sure. Thanks,Steve. For the record,Jon Lapper with Jeff Anthony from Studio A Landscape Architecture and Engineering, and Spencer Montgomery on behalf of the ownership group. First of all, we appreciate a special meeting because this is a detailed project. We think it's an important project for Queensbury because West Mountain is an important asset to the Town, and this is a way to make sure that West Mountain stays economically healthy and viable and also an opportunity to create a little town center and enhance the Mountain. We did a detailed presentation in March, as you said, and so Jeff will spend a few minutes just going through the phases and the uses, Spencer will make some comments, and then we're hereto just answer questions. I've been talking to Laura about her list of questions,which we'll get into some details, and we appreciate that LaBella got back to us so quickly. To summarize, they recognize that a lot of the engineering will happen site plan phase and we're in the big picture PRD phase, and so they listed everything that didn't surprise us that we'd have to get into for the engineering design of each phase and they've, you know, pretty much signed off on the traffic, which is great, but we understand this needs to be a detailed review and we're here to answer questions and supplement this as we need to. With that I'll ask Jeff to start. MR. ANTHONY-So as we spoke before a month or two ago,this is a destination resort, and it's meant to be a stay and ski resort where people come, drop their keys, never have to leave, if they want to, for a weekend,a week or whatever. It's also a year round resort and it's also designed to accommodate residents of Queensbury and the community and the northeast here. So it's a multi-phased project with multi-assets in it that should be considered a year round facility. The most important part of the project is Phase I, which is the area down at the lower flats down here. That's where we have the Alpine Village. The Alpine Village will have a brand new ski lodge for Northwest. That's the building right here. Surrounding these complexes will be some retail on the first floor, apartments on the second floor, and it'll surround like an outdoor atrium for pedestrians, and that will be that lower level. Attached to that, on this arena, is a concourse basically at level with parking underneath and then that will support four apartment buildings which will rise off the surface of that parking deck MR.TRAVER-So you see all of that as the first section of the development,the first part of the project that you imagine beginning. MR.ANTHONY-Yes,the first phase is right up to about here. MR. TRAVER-Okay. Yes. MR. ANTHONY-And it will include three apartment buildings, probably three condominium buildings also and that basically is Phase One which will also include a new high speed lift going up the mountain, which is right here,and this is the existing Northwest lodge right now. We're going to extend the ski trail down to the Village and then get rid of the parking lot that's there now for Northwest and there's a few twin townhouses in Phase One,and that's basically the Phase One project. Parking,general parking out in front, but most of the parking for the residential units are within the buildings or at the buildings or below the buildings and the garages. So this parking over here is pretty much for day traffic and people using the Village as a day use type thing. Phase Two is going to extend the project up into the next level up. So basically it's twin townhomes,an SO,S5 room hotel building,boutique hotel and then a conference center with a banquet facility and recreation, indoor recreation facility. Phase Three takes us up the mountain and it gets us into single family development,and Phase Four and Five basically get us up,Phase Four are some single family homes at the very top of Phase Three,which are pretty much four homes for the owners and the developers as their private residences. Phase Five is a very future Phase Five. It's way up at the top of the mountain. It has its own access, not through the project, but from the Luzern Mountain Road I believe and that will be single family development in that area. With the exception of this Phase,all the other is on municipal water and it will have its own wastewater treatment facility which will discharge into the Hudson River. We'll have a tertiary plant on site which will then discharge into the Hudson River at just below the water facility,Queensbury water plant. MR. TRAVER-That was one of the things I wanted to try to get into a little bit. I recognize this is early in the project,but you say on-site treatment. Exactly how do you plan on getting the wastewater treated and to the Hudson River? How are you going to conduct it to the Hudson River? MR. ANTHONY-Well we have plans in the book that we showed you which show the route that it will follow. It will basically follow,go through West Mountain property,up to a point where it can't go any further toward the river and down through County road, and then it'll discharge,Jon,who operates the dam? MR. ZAPPER-Brookfield. 3 (Queensbury Planning Board 05/23/2024) MR. ANTHONY-Brookfield. We've had discussions with Brookfield where they've said they will let us enter into the River on their property. MR. TRAVER-Okay. MR.ANTHONY-And this facility up here,Phase Five,which is way into the future,this is a 10 year project, so think of this as 10 years away, that's on-site water and on-site wastewater. Other than that, there's other amenities in the project. There's nice things for people to do. We call these the beaches right here. This is an area right in front of the new lodge which will have fire pits,you know,a place for people to sit and take their shoes off and do all that kind of nice stuff after waiting to go back on the lift,get a sandwich or something. This is another beach, but it's for the apartments and condos, and it'll be a lot more developed and a lot more expensively developed with swimming pool,ice skating rink,hot tubs,you know, a little bit of food service and things like that. So that's basically the project at this point,and I guess if you have any more questions,we can get into more detail. MR. TRAVER-Well one of the things,relatively early on,once we have the full engineering analysis,is the SEQR review,and a project of this scope,because of the concern about segmentation,I'm thinking in the long run, we're probably going to need an Environmental Impact Statement. I know that that's not a popular option, but we've had, most notably, I think, The Great Escape went that route, and I think, looking back on it,although at the time they were not happy to have to do that,I think in the long run they feel that they've benefited from doing that because of future things on the site, modifications to what's there and so on. So that's not in our purview. The Town Board is Lead Agency,but have you thought about that? MR. ZAPPER-Yes. So we of course recognize that that is a possibility. To us,it doesn't change the level of scrutiny,it's sort of more procedural and it does drag it out a little bit. So what we tried to do with our Long Form is to enhance it with the traffic report,the soils report,everything,archeology we took care of, the utility studies. So we think that we've provided the data that would be necessary for an Environmental Impact Statement, and we're hopeful,just in terms of timing,that we don't need to do that procedurally, but every item of scrutiny that we haven't already provided we expect to be asked to,you know,wherever this goes in terms of the level. So,you know,whether that's necessary,procedurally, that'll be up to the Town Board,and either way,of course,we're here to work with them. MR. TRAVER-Okay. The other concern is, and we received tonight, some initial response from the Fire Marshal. I don't know if you've had a chance to look at that,but there are some concerns with access and that type of thing. MR. ZAPPER-I didn't see that. MR. TRAVER-I can provide you with,and I'm not expecting you to come up with the answers tonight. MR. ZAPPER-It's sort of early in the project where whatever the Fire Marshal needs for us to make changes,you know,we can do that,a turning radius and pull offs,whatever. Certainly there's going to be hydrants,sprinklers. MR. TRAVER-Yes,understood. So I'll provide you with that,the Fire Marshal. MR. ZAPPER-Thank you. MR. TRAVER-And then,let's see. Well,we're not doing public hearing at this very,very early stage,but I'd like to ask other members of the Planning Board if they have questions,comments for the applicant at this stage? I think the applicant would like to hear potential concerns. I mean it's so early I think what would be most helpful for them is kind of the directions we might be going with concerns as the project gets more sharply defined and what they need to prepare for in terms of answers to the questions that are likely to come up. MR. LONGACKER-For your wastewater treatment plant,just to let you know,I worked for DEC design construction. I don't do permitting. I do design for a lot of the campgrounds. We have a facility, I was actually down there this week,we have a campground that actually has an on-site wastewater treatment plant and we do discharge to a receiving body of water, and we have a contractor that we have a five year term with and we just re-upped it with somebody different. Do you plan on having somebody on there? I mean are you aware that you're going to have to have somebody? MR. ZAPPER-Yes,we're going to have to have an operator,licensed. MR. LONGACKER-A licensed operator to be on site like that. Okay. Just for those systems, any idea what you guys are planning? I'm just curious what type of treatment? 4 (Queensbury Planning Board 05/23/2024) SPENCER MONTGOMERY MR. MONTGOMERY-Well,initially it was going to be a, from what I was told, and this is talking with Peter Luizzi's firm was that it was going to be basically a 90 foot long underground delta plant was what it was called, approximately 30 feet in length,90 feet long. It would be underground. It would also have a building over it. MR. LONGACKER-Okay. That's our problem, too,is we have an above ground. It's the same type of system. It's above ground. It has all sorts of problems with it. So that's good that you're at least looking at that. It controls odor and it controls weeds. MR. MONTGOMERY-Yes. Was to not appear,that no one would know what it was,basically. It would be a nice looking building. It would be covered. It would be contained,and we would directionally drill a four inch main to the hydropower canal which is,it's just below the treatment plant,and there's a canal there. Now technically you could go further and go to the Hudson, but there's a spillway off the Queensbury sediment ponds which I don't think's ever been used,but should they ever have an overflow, there's a spillway, and they said, well if you were going to spill there, we're not going to be putting a structure there,right,because that's Queensbury's right of way, and we could come down there and spill to the hydro canal. John Strough asked if we also have a Plan B,just in case for some reason this didn't workout. The Plan B,well initially we were looking at hooking to the sewer line,but that couldn't happen because there was an eight inch bottleneck down by Hannaford. So it's a ten inch main at the pipefitter's union. Eventually if it gets,you know, stormwater sewer separated,you know,just wasn't feasible. The other solution was although the ski area's 365 acres of land,we actually,we have about 1500 acres of total land. The top of the mountain is, again, a very loamy soil area. I went up and looked at it with Jeff's engineer and the backup plan,which didn't involve any right of ways,didn't involve any approvals,which may be better, was to treat it, like we'd planned, but take the clean effluent, pump it to the top of the mountain, and like I said,there's 1200 acres up there. There was some extensive studies done for the old Mount Luzern project years ago,but soil that would be conducive to that, and we could have basically a large leach field system up there that maybe went to a tertiary stream or something. So that was the Plan B, and initially we felt we would go to the canal. So we do think we have two ways it would work. The second one we kind of control. Obviously we'd have to work with DEC and make sure it's approved,but we don't need any right of ways, any variances because we're going straight up on our own property. So there's been a little lean towards the recently. MR. TRAVER-Leaning toward Plan B? MR. MONTGOMERY-Yes. I mean it just, the simplest solution is to go to the canal because it's directionally drilled so you're not actually doing any excavation. It's a four inch pipe. Now some ski areas reclaim this water,brown water is what it's called, to use in snowmaking. Killington does it. It's a very miniscule amount of water. West Mountain's water issue we're thankful we get 3,000 gallons a minute from the Town. We have,we use about 110 million gallons over the course of the season. We've put in about 40,000 feet of water main on the mountain. We've put in 200 mounted fixed guns,half of which are fan,the larger guns with the propulsion system,and the other ones are the sticks which use less water and they act on water pressure. So where am I going with all this? Well,we get 3,000 gallons a minute. We've met with Chris Harrington and we've talked about maybe having our own main to the Hudson. MR. TRAVER-You'd like to have about 6,000,right? MR. MONTGOMERY-Six to nine would be good, just because honestly the snowmaking window is getting smaller. I mean this year was hopefully not the rule. Hopefully it was the exception,but it's very difficult, and we still have enough time to make snow. It's just we're only able to run about 200/0 of our guns. So we're limping along towards the north side and we're up against ski centers,competing against ski centers that have 15,20,000 GPM. They're getting all their terrain open early as where Christmas week this year I was only able to get one trail open top to bottom. Not very conducive to doing a ski area. Not very conducive to doing a ski and stay resort. So we had looked into maybe going to the River and using the line with both but it would all be directionally drilled. So we've looked into what the intake would be,which would be off the Town 24 inch main, and we would grab that before it went into the filtering plant. A 24 inch main would provide enough to make snow on,you know,Whiteface. MR. TRAVER-You don't need it treated,right? MR. MONTGOMERY-No,you don't want it treated. It is treated now,but you want some particulate in the water,and that's what the snowflake forms around. MR. TRAVER-Condensation nuclei,right? MR. MONTGOMERY-Yes,exactly. So they have nucleators on each gun that injects it with these little water droplets. So very clean water is not great for snowmaking, and we have drinkable water. I mean you could drink out of the snow gun,obviously. So that's a little different,and it's also a huge plus because 5 (Queensbury Planning Board 05/23/2024) most places do not have a municipality like us. They're coming out of a stream or a river,or a pond. Some places you can exhaust those,and so anyway. So the first thought was it's very simple to go to the Hudson. It's a four inch directionally drilled. There's no excavation. It's along a County Road, West Mountain Road, and then it's right before you get to the water plant you take a hard left,but I think we answered John's concerns in that,if for some reason,let's say,Brookfield said,we've changed our mind,we at least that doesn't shut down the development. In fact,in the Mike Brandt days when they were doing the 2400 homes or whatever at the top of Mount Luzern, at the top of the mountain, which we're not, they had done,with Delaware Engineering,extensive studies on treating up to 2400 homes up there,and the soil,I mean it's a very rural, very wooded area. So that may end up being a decent alternative for us, maybe quicker. MR. DEEB-You'd need a pretty big leach field. MR. MONTGOMERY-Yes, you know, I guess you can discharge to, and you would know, so there's a stream up there. It's not a stream. I'm using the wrong terminology. So a big,large, flat area that was never deemed for development. It's sort of woodsy and it's got sort of a sandy soil, and you can see like a ditch,and it's completely dry in the summer,but it's where heavy rains would runoff or whatever. It isn't an active stream, but you could put that there and the overflow is acceptable, I guess, to go. It's called tertiary stream or something like that. MR. DEEB-You have a decision that you need to make. MR. MONTGOMERY-Yes,I think that decision will be made by cost and by,you know, speed. I mean the easiest way is to go straight to the canal. There's no pumping involved,but I mean let's face it we know how to pump water,go to the top of the mountain. It's not a big deal. MR. TRAVER-What about the electric flow? Are you going to have like on-site generation? What do you anticipate? MR. MONTGOMERY-So right now what we did a few years ago,we had,we're an end user. We're like one of the paper mills,is a good example. So we own all the power structure,once it leaves the pole out front, and we're responsible for all of it. So like if something breaks at West Mountain, you can't call National Grid. So we have some on-site people who are experts or we'll call our electric, somebody,but it's all, it's very high voltage. It's 13,200 volts that comes off the pole, and we've had a 65 amp service, which we started,it was very limited,and we would blow fuses occasionally and that would freeze all the snowmaking lines. So we got together with National Grid a couple of years ago and we increased that to 125 amps at 13,000 volts. You've got to remember,our pumps draw,you know,13,000 volts,can they run at 500 amps,which is like a small city,because just take one pump for instance,1,000 gallons per minute pump,eight pounds a gallon,you know,you've got 5,000 pounds of water going up the hill every minute which is four tons. Soto answer your question we've already upgraded the power pretty immensely. To pull off that power for a resort which would be a much smaller usage than what we currently draw. We also have 13,200 at the Northwest side. That would need to have an amperage up increase. We use it for snowmaking there. We use it to light the trails,but our goal was to have a pump house on that side of the mountain adjacent to the pond,with the pond as sort of an auxiliary water supply so if it gets real cold we can go up with more water than we have coming out of the pipe, and let us get all the trails open for the consumer early season like most ski areas do,and that might need to be upgraded,amperage wise,to handle that pump house,and the pump houses are small. They sound like this is an enormous thing. I think our pump house is like 16 feet by IS. You'd never even know it was there. It's not loud. It's all enclosed,but the horsepower is enormous that these pumps use. MR. TRAVER-And what about backup generation? MR. MONTGOMERY-You can't with that. I mean there are some people like Killington that will bring outside generators and stuff,but the amount of power draw, it would be like those generators that they bring in like in the Middle East to power a city or something. MR.TRAVER-Yes,I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking so much of the snowmaking and that part of it,but you're going to have all these residential facilities. MR. MONTGOMERY-Well we'll be directly connected to National Grid. So we would only lose power if that went down. So we'd just be like a regular person. We still are on their grid, and they'll come and fix everything up to the pole. Once you head up the hill,yes,we could have some redundant generators or something in there. The game plan was,with Peter,was that,you know,he's a road builder. That's a large part of his business, and then he got into the development. He's doing 146 at Malta, River's Ledge in Niskayuna. He did Starbuck Island. He's done projects of this scale,and,you know,he would be building all the roads,and we,as a development team,would be paying for that. That would not bean expense to the Town, handling all the sewer internally, all the water internally, all the electric. So we will not be adding any type of,we'll be increasing tax revenues,obviously,but we won't be adding a burden, and we will be doing all the maintaining of those roads,plowing, salting, and it's backed up with the HOA. So 6 (Queensbury Planning Board 05/23/2024) that made Peter a very ideal developer for us because he's a one-stop shop. He's got a paving company. He's got a development company. He's reclaimed large brownfield projects down in,well in Troy they're the first one,Starbuck Island used to be a foundry and then it was an oil depot. So as you can imagine it had incredible contamination, and it's in the Hudson River, and he excavated about four football fields, about 30 feet deep and they used hydrostatic pressure to push all the contaminants to the middle. They extracted it. They got all the rubble from the Tappan Zee bridge that went down. They re-built all the shorelines on the Hudson there across from RPI restaurant,Dinosaur restaurant,RPI college,and so when I present this project to him,we're sitting in 30 feet of sand over there,and as John Strough said it's the old shorelines of the Albany lake that used to be a land bridge. MR. TRAVER-It's all moraine,I think. It's all glacial moraine. MR. MONTGOMERY-Yes, it is, and the mountain itself has a lot of ledge. Like up top there's a lot of ledge,but fortunately this area we did six test pits all the way up to where the houses were. We were digging down 15 feet in sandy, rocky soil. Only one hole we even hit water. So this would, from his perspective it's not a difficult engineering marvel,after,you know,the Starbuck Island is probably,because that's literally in the Hudson River,and it was a dicey project,but he's done a lot of brownfield reclamation. Watervliet. That's a dead spot that he's done. So I think he's pretty environmentally conscientious. So this,to him,is clean soil. So it would be probably refreshing. MR. LONGACKER-Do you have sand all the way up to Phase Five,too,at the top? MR. MONTGOMERY-Up top there's a lot of ledge, but there is sand. There's areas that you could definitely treat a house for a septic system,but it is bony once you get up there? MR. LONGACKER-How about water up there? I know you said you were going to tie in for water. MR. MONTGOMERY-I think we would probably use Town water. MR. LONGACKER-Would the Town go that far up? MR. MONTGOMERY-So you need half a pound of pressure to lift water one foot, and so you need 500 PSI. West Mountain is 1,000 vertical drop. Our parking lot's 400. The top's 1400. So you could come up with a 500 GPM pump,low volume,a high pressure,low volume pump,and you could feed those homes very easily,but Cormus Road which is the same,you know,it's linear with us. If you go right across to the north you've hit Cormus. We have an easement off Cormus and an easement off of,they're all drilled wells about 700 feet. So I asked the guy,Rossling I brought up there. I just asked him and he said probably $16 to $20,000 per well. So maybe you do that or,oddly enough,all of our,we wouldn't do this,but all of our,still need a pipeline,it's drinking water certified. We get it epoxy coated. It's all steel,sched 40 pipe out of a,we get a really good deal out of Missouri. So you could do that. So the water is really no issue, and the treatment's not really,the water issue for me is getting more water to make snow. MR. TRAVER-Yes. Other questions,comments from members of the Board? MRS. MC DEVITT-So the houses that will be built farther up,are they going to be built on spec? I mean, are those houses to be owned? MR. MONTGOMERY-Yes. MRS. MC DEVITT-And so would you build them before they,like the plots of land would be bought? MR. MONTGOMERY-I don't know. I mean there's 46 homes. There's the four homes,which we call Stage Four,that was sort of an afterthought by me which would be maybe partner houses,at some point, you know, God willing, but the 46 homes. Peter builds commercial. So he'd do the hotels. He's do apartments. The condo apartment mix may be changing. We don't know what's going to be most popular. For someone locally maybe an apartment's good for them,working at the chip plant. Someone downsizing locally might want a condo. We may have specific condo buildings that are not,I mean we're short term rental by design, and I think we'd take a lot of that pressure off the surrounding community, that we may have designated buildings within there that say hey listen I want to downsize from my single family home and I know the school district. I've talked to them about it. It's a big upsell to them because it may free up some homes in the area,increase enrollment again,and so you could come in there and make those like longer term units. The houses, Peter, and we probably would, Peter would be a builder of the hotel,athletic club,Village,commercial space,maybe Toll Brothers would do the homes. Maybe we would just carve off that block to the home, but he, his suggestion was to put those out to bid. So it could be Marini Homes or people that he's, he works with home builders currently. He just doesn't do custom homes. MR. ZAPPER-They'd probably be done on spec. They'd probably be by contract. 7 (Queensbury Planning Board 05/23/2024) MR. MONTGOMERY-Yes. So someone would come in and buy the dirt from us basically. MR. TRAVER-And that's like 10 years down the road anyway. Right? MR. MONTGOMERY-The top would be 10,but the lower section is estimated three to six years. I'd like to see Phase I and II done in three years and the single family homes would come after that, those four partner homes,but the top of the mountain is further down the road,for sure a ways out there,and it would be,we've talked to Mr.Baker about it,and it would not be anything that would obscure the ridgeline. For instance,they'd be below the ridge. There might be a couple on the front,a couple on the back,but as you stood in Queensbury, I mean obviously the mountain's lit with lights with snowing, skiing,but it would not be anything,and I know it's a touchy point. It is with me,too,where we watch the top of the mountain and then all of a sudden all the trees disappear. So no scarring of the ridgeline. There'd be a no cut zone up here, as long as it's below the ridge. Like the houses on the back,what people don't realize is the top of West Mountain's basically a plateau. It doesn't drop off,but there's that little roll. So anything on the back of that up there,depending on where,they would have a view of the Adirondack Park,they'd look at Hadley Mountain. And then the one or two on the front would be toward Queensbury. MR. DEEB-Is the back Luzern? MR. MONTGOMERY-Yes,the Queensbury line is basically,if you were to go up,not this project. So it's where that line comes across the back of that Phase Five,if you were to follow that right along the ridge,a little deeper,that's Queensbury Town line. So like Mike Brandt was trying to do Mount Luzerne in Lake Luzerne. MR. ZAPPER-Everything we're doing is in Queensbury. MR. MONTGOMERY-Everything's going to be in Queensbury. MR. TRAVER-Okay. So,let's see,you have the Fire Marshal comments. I didn't see anything in them that couldn't be accommodated,but I'll let you study that. Laura,I know you provided us with an initial timeline. Do you want to talk a little bit about what you envision as how the project progresses through the various phases. MRS. MOORE-So I anticipate going through tonight's information in reference to the Town Code,giving guidance to this Board about what you should be considering to make your recommendation to the Town Board. So in terms of what the next,after this discussion,is maybe in July either incorporating it into the regularly scheduled meetings or come up with a different, another separate meeting. The Board can determine if there's enough information to move forward or if you need additional information. MR. ZAPPER-To make a recommendation to the Town Board. MRS. MOORE-To make your recommendation to the Town Board. Either in July or August you would be holding your public hearing. So what I'm hoping is in July the Board maybe able to move forward with a recommendation to the Town Board and hold a public hearing. I'm not certain of that in totality,but between July and August I think the Board may be able to get to that point,and it really depends on if this Board feels that they need either if they have enough information to move forward or if they need additional information. At this point I think we have quite a bit of information to go through,and I'll just quickly go through some of the information in the sense that one of the criteria that you're going to do for evaluation is you're going to go through intent and the objectives, things such as does the Planning Board find the project as proposed a flexible land use with year round activity. Some of these questions are fairly simple to answer,but I think you're going to have to put them in words that have more depth to it, so that you, the Board,understand the totality of the project. MR. TRAVER-Right. MRS. MOORE-And that needs to be in writing basically. One of the questions that's going to come up, and I think this is an important question,it talks about the applicant's actually amending the zoning,in the sense that typically when you do a density calc you're supposed to take out anything that's 200/o slope or greater than the applicant is requesting. Does the Board find the removal of slopes or greater from density calcs a reasonable request, and so if you look at the PRD in any planned development there's this flexibility that the Board and the applicant, the applicant can propose setbacks and other conditions as part of their project. Then the Board should be evaluating that,but there's that definite flexibility that the applicant can ask those questions of the Board. The Board can say,yes, that's reasonable or maybe we need to modify this a little bit. MR. ZAPPER-If I could just jump in on that one point, just what we've asked is that, you know, as compared to like Hiland Park behind us, a golf course development, we've asked that for a Planned Recreational Development and resort development, that's a ski mountain development because of the nature of a ski mountain,that the 200/o,we wouldn't get nicked for that for density because the whole point S (Queensbury Planning Board 05/23/2024) is that it's being built on a mountain and the Town Board was comfortable with that,but obviously you have to make a recommendation. MR. TRAVER-Sure. I'm sorry. Go ahead,Laura. MRS. MOORE-So in regards to, there's approximately 12 objectives that you would be going through. Some of the ones that you've already started discussing is in reference to, does the project provide an adequate water supply, sewage disposal facilities, drainage facilities and pre-development off-site runoff. You've sort of already started talking about those things this evening. So I won't go through those in depth, but in turn,you know, to make a recommendation, you need to find that the proposal meets the general requirements, and that recommendation goes back to the Town Board and you should be giving them some guidance of,you know,yes,we think the 200/o removal of density is a positive one,based on the proposal. It's a ski mountain. It's not a golf course. So it's definitely distinct. MR.TRAVER-Is it possible,going forward,at least for some of these early phases,where we have all these discussions and issues to review,especially public hearing,that we have special meetings for that purpose? MRS. MC DEVITT-You mean by phase kind of? MRS. MOORE-No,I would say overall. MR. TRAVER-Like this. Where we have just this on the agenda. So it would be like a third meeting in the month,which I know is an inconvenience,but I think that it would allow the Board and the applicant and the public when they're involved an adequate time to review and allow us to sort of process this quicker in the long run,as opposed to putting it on an agenda with other items. MRS. MOORE-I don't mind doing that. I was going to look at the next upcoming meeting schedule for July and August and see if I could propose that. So in June this Board could potentially make a special meeting date. MR. TRAVER-And we'd have to do a resolution for that. Correct? MRS. MOORE-Correct. MR. ZAPPER-We'd certainly appreciate that,if the Board has the time. MR. TRAVER-Yes, I mean, I think the long run it is an inconvenience to do another meeting in a month, but I think in the long run it's going to be better for us and for you,and obviously for the Town to get this sort of processed if you will. I mean,it's not a,but essentially that's what we're doing. MR.DEEB Just for expedience sake,I really think that's the way to do it. I mean this is a pretty big project. MR. TRAVER-Yes. MRS.MOORE-So I was just going to round off and sort of end this with some of the suggestions from Staff at this point,and I talked to John about some of this,is in regards to a Homeowners Association,we know it's being conducted in phases,but the ultimate Homeowners Association will be at the end,but as we go through each phase is develop that Homeowners Association for each phase so that it's clear and concise to this Board before they move forward onto the next phase. My understanding that is happening. It just wasn't clear when I went through the documentation,but it sounds like that will be occurring. MR. TRAVER-Okay. MRS.MOORE-And then I also,this is kind of a tough question to answer,but I'm hoping that there's some feedback from the applicant in reference to the number of jobs that are being created so we have some value to that. This includes currently,you know,they have current employees for snow sports,but we're going to be generating hotel,restaurants,retail,services. MR. TRAVER-Yes,especially in Phase I. MRS. MOORE-Right,and I think that's the primary ones. There's some other comments in there,but I'm still,as I said,I had a difficult time drafting Staff Notes. MR. TRAVER-Understood,yes. It's pretty early. MRS. MOORE-Not that that is something that the Board can take into account and answer each question and come up with a good recommendation back to the Town Board. 9 (Queensbury Planning Board 05/23/2024) MR.TRAVER-I think for us,you know,one of the most helpful things,at least at this phase,is to have the sort of the timeline laid out to the degree that we can,in terms of when are we holding special meetings and what are the objectives. MRS. MOORE-For each meeting. MR. TRAVER-Yes,for each meeting so we have a clear understanding of what it is we need to achieve in advance of the meeting and we have additional materials from Staff and from the applicant so that we're prepared to do a checkmark at the end of that meeting so we can move forward. Questions regarding the schedule from members of the Board? Do you have questions for us? MR. ZAPPER-No. We just really appreciate the attention on a project like this. Special meetings would be great. MR. TRAVER-Yes. Okay. So one of the things that I wondered, some of the, I mean obviously there's a tremendous amount of detail involved in laying out the project, but some of the major things, I'm wondering,for example,when will do you think you'll be making a decision and can provide more detail and approvals and so on on things like wastewater. MR. ZAPPER-So in the big picture we have to get the PRD approved and then get into each of the phases in terms of the real engineering design for the building layout,and this is conceptual,but where the roads will be, and it will be very similar to what's here,but we're not at the engineering design phase. So some of the details,we'll be back to the Planning Board for site plan on everything,so this is conceptual until we get to the first phase, and then we design everything,but right now the way the application is written,as Spencer said,we have there's two alternatives,we go to the River or we go to the top of the mountain. For right now there are regulatory issues and the neighbor issue going into the River. So we have to continue to work that out,but we know that we can certainly,like Spencer said,pump it to the top of the mountain without,you know,just DEC. So I don't have an answer but we're working towards that and we want to keep it right now that it would be one or the other until we get that worked out. MR. TRAVER-Sure. MR. DEEB-That'll be on the site plan when you decide what you want to do. MR. ZAPPER-Certainly by the first site plan we have to know which alternative. MR. DEEB-I mean that's nuts and bolts stuff. MR. ZAPPER-And you know Spencer,he's going to want to,as soon as this is approved,he's going to want to come in with the first phase that Thursday. MR. DEEB-Well it's been there a lot of years. MR. MONTGOMERY-Well it's definitely important to West Mountain,even looking out past when I'm there or when anybody else is there,and it's not like looking for a sympathy vote,but it makes sense. It's the only ski and stay resort in New York State. We've been told the fact that,as I've repeated this before, that we sit at Exit 1S or Exit 20. Either of those are the only way to Vermont. You've got to connect to 4 if you're on 149 or through Hudson Falls. So we don't have to siphon off a ton of business that's going to Vermont, a tiny fraction. So let's say West Mountain does 100,000 skier visits. A skier visit is you buy a lift ticket or you buy a seasons pass,and that's 15 visits. So if you were going to look at like I was doing,if you were doing investments and you were looking at blue chips you would look at price to earnings ratio, as you look at pe's. So skier visits are basically the metric,the least common denominator in the ski world that everyone looks at. West Mountain starts making money at about 100,000 skier visits is a good year, We start getting into the red when we start getting down into the 55,000, 50,000 because our fixed costs are fixed. I mean our payroll's about two million. We've got 330 employees in the winter. We carry about 30 in the summer. We have obviously power usage is a big number. Liability insurance has become a very big number. Unfortunately not because of anything we've done. We have a good loss record,but it's just in general. People sue more than they used to, and so there's just a lot of fixed costs, and it's a double edged,the good news of having fixed costs is once you're above that watermark with skier visits,you know, .70 cents on the dollar is profit. The bad news is that if you don't hit that skier visit,it's the same number of people operating the chair lift. It's the same amount of snow you make. There are varying costs. Obviously there's hamburgers,there's hot dogs. There's soda. There's beer,but that's a very small portion. Most of our fixed costs are literally fixed. So if you look at our,if we fall below that skier visit mark,and we can only charge so much for a ticket. I'd like to charge less. We try to do a lot of deals now. We worked with Stewart's this year, 200 stores, doing bring your friend on Friday's, and we're trying everything. We're up against pretty stiff competition nearby and we can only do so much. So it really doesn't come down to margins. It's really skier visits and once you get over that hump in the road. So this resort does two things. One is it's a separate source of income for the Mountain, and a large source of income,and secondly it increases our skier visits and stabilizes our skier visits. Sothis year will probably 10 (Queensbury Planning Board 05/23/2024) 75, 50,000 skier visits and we will be in the red this season. We did SS,000 skier visits last year and we made a little in profits, $250,000. A couple of years before that were good. So if you can get to that 120 mark,and it's not like you're feeling it in the Town of Queensbury because we've done 120 before. It's just the parking lots are empty Christmas week as they were this year. Sothis really stabilizes West Mountain economically,and it provides an enormous source of income like skier visits. MR. TRAVER-And year round. MR.MONTGOMERY-Year round and,yes,it's a destination resort. So obviously we have a good location. Obviously we're right off I-ST We've got enough vertical to race internationally certified giant slalom races. So we've got Thomas Vaughn there now who's one of the Number One men's FIST program, and FIST stands for International Federation of Skiing. So we're competing now against all the academies, Burke, Proctor, Gould, Stratton Mountain School that are $65,000 a year. We're offering this for, you know,with scholarships, some kids around 10,16,but we're providing,with Thomas Vaughn, one of the best coaches in the United States at the same level,and we're one of the Number One ranked FIST teams. We don't have a women's team, but as you saw in the paper, we just hired Taracita Burkner and her daughter. She has three daughters. One's going to be her assistant coach. Now the women's team will start to build, and so there's a lot of really good things going on, but none of that exists without the ski center being stable, and you could talk to Mike Brandt. Like I said, I hate to quote people when they're not here,but he told me he tried everything. He tried a driving range. He tried soft ice cream. He tried a water slide. He tried to build a development in Lake Luzerne. They lumbered the top of the Mountain. They put in Northwest development. There's not much he didn't try to survive,and he always knew that this was sort of the key to it, although he was trying to do it,for whatever reason,in Lake Luzern. We're trying to do it in Queensbury. That seems like the low hanging fruit. We've got an international baccalaureate, internationally accredited school system, right next to Lake George, Saratoga Springs. I think the development climate is a little friendlier to this than it would have been to Mike,and so we'll see. MR. DEEB-Well,you can't lose sight of the fact that this could be a tremendous economic driver for the community. We've got to keep that in mind. MR. MONTGOMERY-I was told, and please don't quote me on this, I was told this by someone who's in the development business for over 10 years and he's done a lot of these construction jobs, created about 1,000 jobs,I know just from the economic in here,you know,it's expected to increase the school budget by roughly 100/o and it's about 2.5 million. So it's adding,I've actually talked to the school about this recently, administrators there, or as recently as yesterday, you know, we do think it would help bolster the enrollment at Queensbury. Queensbury's obviously a good school system, but it would be a draw for people moving here, even if they're getting into single family homes that are being vacated by people downsizing. So I get a lot of people from this,people that are in that income tax bracket,people joining West Mountain racing from out of the area that say,hey,we're accustomed to buying a house or a condo where our kids are doing their racing. We're a cheaper alternative,but we're putting out the same product. So we're affordable to locals. MR.TRAVER-I did want to mention to you this package that you put together for us is very helpful to get a preliminary look at the scope and some of the beginning details for what you have in mind. This has been very helpful,and I think it's available in digital format as well on the Town website. I would mention that to the audience as well if you're interested in this, it is on the Town website, if you look up the Planning Board, under Meeting Documents, something like. You can find it anyway or you can all the Planning Department and they can assist you, but this is down loadable. I have it here on an iPad you can scroll through it and it does have a lot of information. I would take some of it with a grain of salt because this is a project that's going to take a while to get fully developed, but it does give you a very good conceptual understanding of what is envisioned for this project. So I recommend that if you're interested in more detail. Any other questions,comments from members of the Board? Anything further for us this evening? MR. ZAPPER-No. Thank you very much. MR. TRAVER-Okay. Well then I guess,Laura,we will,onward and upward. Right? MRS. MOORE-So I would look forward to something in July,depending on the schedule available for this room and then we'll go from there. MR. TRAVER-Okay. MR. ZAPPER-Thanks,Laura. MR. MONTGOMERY-Thank you very much. MR.TRAVER-If there's no other business before the Board this evening,I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. 11 (Queensbury Planning Board 05/23/2024) MOTION TO ADJOURN THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING OF MAY 23RD,2024, Introduced by Stephen Traver who moved for its adoption,seconded by Ellen McDevitt:: Duly adopted this 23rd day of May,2024,by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. McDevitt,Mr. Longacker,Mr. Stark,Mr. Deeb,Mr. Uncher,Mr.Traver NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Magowan,Mr. Stefanzick MR. TRAVER-We stand adjourned. Thank you,everybody. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Stephen Traver,Chairman 12