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2006-03-21 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING FIRST REGULAR MEETING MARCH 21, 2006 INDEX DISCUSSION Great Escape Pedestrian Bridge 1. RECOMMENDATION To Town Board 2. RE: Temporary Moratorium – PO zone RESOLUTION Engineering Review 2. Freshwater Wetlands Permit Michaels Group & Bay Meadows Corp. 3. FWW No. 6-2005 Tax Map No. 296.16-1-2 Subdivision No. 26-2005 Michaels Group & Bay Meadows Corp. 3. Tax Map No. 296.16-1-2 Site Plan No. 5-2006 Stewarts Shops Corp. 33. MODIFICATION Tax Map No. 301.8-1-33 Site Plan No. 6-2006 Martin Dion 45. Tax Map No. 227.17-1-54 Site Plan No. 1-2006 1093 Group, LLC 49. Tax Map No. 302.6-1-55 THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO BOARD AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING MONTHS MINUTES, IF ANY, AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL OF SAID MINUTES. 0 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING FIRST REGULAR MEETING MARCH 21, 2006 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT ROBERT VOLLARO, CHAIRMAN GRETCHEN STEFFAN, SECRETARY THOMAS SEGULJIC CHRIS HUNSINGER TANYA BRUNO, ALTERNATE DONALD SIPP, ALTERNATE MEMBERS ABSENT GEORGE GOETZ TOWN ENGINEER-C.T. MALE-JIM HOUSTON TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX, SCHACHNER, & HAFNER-MARK SCHACHNER LAND USE PLANNER-SUSAN BARDEN STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI MR. VOLLARO-Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the Planning Board meeting for the month of 21 March. I’ve got a couple of announcements. There’s some housekeeping that we have to do before we start. It won’t take too long. The first thing we want to do is have the approval of minutes of January 17 and January 24, 2006. CORRECTION OF MINUTES January 17, 2006: NONE January 24, 2006: NONE MOTION TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF JANUARY 17 & JANUARY 24, 2006, THTH Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Donald Sipp: Duly adopted this 21 day of March, 2006, by the following vote: st AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Vollaro NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Goetz MR. VOLLARO-Is anybody here for Kenneth Ermiger? Okay. Just want to announce that it’s been re-advertised to 3/28/06, and there would be no tabling motion for that. DISCUSSION: GREAT ESCAPE PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE DISCUSSION There was a discussion on The Great Escape Pedestrian Bridge. Mr. Lemery had requested to be rescheduled to 18 April, as he will be out of Town. So I’ll make the motion dated March 21, 2006. 1 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MOTION TO TABLE DISCUSSION ON GREAT ESCAPE PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: Whereas, Mr. John Lemery has requested, on behalf of The Great Escape, to reschedule a discussion on The Great Escape pedestrian bridge, originally scheduled for this evening, March 21, 2006, to April 18, 2006. Now, Therefore Be It Resolved, That we agree to reschedule the meeting to that date. Duly adopted this 21 day of March, 2006, by the following vote: st AYES: Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Vollaro NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Goetz MR. VOLLARO-There’s another one, a couple of these tonight. So I’ll just go through them quickly. RECOMMENDATION: PZ 2-2006: RECOMMENDATION TO TOWN BOARD: TEMPORARY MORATORIUM REGARDING PO ZONE MOTION TO RECOMMEND TO THE TOWN BOARD A TEMPORARY MORATORIUM FOR PO ZONE PZ 2006, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Gretchen Steffan: Whereas, The Queensbury Planning Board has been asked to make a recommendation to the Queensbury Town Board regarding instituting a temporary moratorium in the Town’s PO zone. Whereas, this recommendation takes into account a memorandum from the Executive Director of Community Development to the Planning Board dated March 16, 2006. Now Therefore Be It Resolved, That we recommend to the Town Board approval of a temporary moratorium to the Professional Office zone. Duly adopted this 21 day of March, 2006, by the following vote: st AYES: Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Vollaro NOES: Mr. Hunsinger ABSENT: Mr. Goetz MR. VOLLARO-Okay. There is one more, and then we’re finished. This is a motion concerning engineering review. It was requested. MOTION CONCERNING ENGINEERING REVIEW, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Gretchen Steffan: Whereas the Town Planning Staff has requested that the Queensbury Town Planning Board prepare a resolution concerning engineering reviews by C.T. Male acting as the Town’s engineer. Now, Therefore Be It Resolved, 2 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) That any application requiring engineering review and possible subsequent follow up review will be transmitted to the Town’s engineer by the Planning Staff only. No information shall be accepted by the Town engineer unless it is accompanied by a letter of transmittal or similar document from the Town’s Planning Office. Duly adopted this 21 day of March, 2006, by the following vote: st AYES: Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Vollaro NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Goetz MR. VOLLARO-That’s it. That’s the end of housekeeping for today. The first applicant today would be The Michaels Group and the Bay Meadows Corp. FRESHWATER WETLANDS FWW 6-2005 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED MICHAELS GROUP & BAY MEADOWS CORP. AGENT(S): JONATHAN LAPPER OWNER(S): BAY MEADOWS CORP. ZONING PUD LOCATION NORTH SIDE CRONIN ROAD THE APPLICANT PROPOSES A 40 LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION ON A 23-ACRE PARCEL WITH WETLANDS. DEVELOPMENT WITHIN WETLANDS REQUIRES REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REF. SP 18-93, SP 38-93, SUB 21-93, SUB 12-93, PZ 6-91, PZ10-89, FW 5-03, PUD SP 8-2000 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING N/A LOT SIZE 6.88, 19.79, 4.0 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 296.16-1-2 SECTION CHAPTER 94 SUBDIVISION NO. 26-2005 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED MICHAELS GROUP & BAY MEADOWS CORP. AGENT(S): JONATHAN LAPPER OWNER(S): BAY MEADOWS CORP. ZONING PUD LOCATION NORTH SIDE CRONIN ROAD THE APPLICANT PROPOSES A 40 LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION ON A 23-ACRE PARCEL. SPECIFICALLY 39 TOWNHOUSE UNITS AND ONE OPEN SPACE LOT. ASSOCIATED SITE WORK IS ALSO PROPOSED. SUBDIVISION OF LAND REQUIRES REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REF. SP 18-93, SP 38-93, SUB 21-93, SUB 12-93, PZ 6-91, PZ10-89, FW 5-03, PUD SP 8-2000 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING N/A LOT SIZE 6.88, 19.79, 4.0 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 296.16-1-2 SECTION A-183 JON LAPPER, TOM NACE, & JIM MILLER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Just quickly on this, the public hearing on this application remains open from the January 24, 2006 meeting, and, gentlemen. MR. LAPPER-Good evening. For the record, Jon Lapper, John Michaels, Tom Nace and Jim Miller. I guess I’d just like to start out very briefly with sort of a recap for the new members. This project, or a project on this property, was originally approved a few years ago for a 97 unit senior rental project, based upon a Planned Unit Development for a mixed use which includes the golf driving range and the golf course. It’s the part of the Bay Meadows Golf Course that’s to the east of the Clubhouse along Cronin Road. That project never materialized, although it did receive all its approvals, and The Michaels Group got the property under contract, but with a much different vision, to construct 39 townhouse units, and at that point we went to the Town Board for modification of the Planned Unit Development, to change it from the 97 apartments to the 39 townhouses, and the owner of the Golf Course also sought approval at that time to build an office or commercial building which ultimately we agreed would be an office building, along the Bay Road frontage. We spent a number of months hammering out the details of the PUD amendment with the Town Board before we came here. The Planning Board issued a letter of recommendation of that PUD modification at that time, and we’ve now completed that. We’ve obtained the DEC and Army Corps wetlands permits that were needed for the project, and those are outside agency permits that don’t directly affect what the Planning Board does, but I did submit those to the Town, just so you have them in the file, and when we were here last time, we were talking about the traffic issue at the corner of Bay and Cronin, and John had agreed, at that meeting, that he would pay to construct a right turn lane in front of Stewarts so that it would allow people to have a designated left turn lane onto Bay and other people to have a bypass right turn lane. We’ve subsequently submitted that to Warren County DPW because they have jurisdiction over Bay Road, and we’ve received documentation that after we 3 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) increased the length of the taper to their satisfaction that that was acceptable. That pretty much left the issue on the table that some of the neighbors were here, who are directly in the floodway, who are concerned about the flood prone nature of their property, and for that reason we asked that Jim Houston be present because we know that he’s an expert on floodplains and floodway design, and here we are, and we’ve made submissions to the engineer and we’ve had dialogue back, and we’re here to answer any questions. MR. VOLLARO-Before this Board gets into any discussion on this, I think that since the public hearing is open, I see some people here that probably would like to speak to this application. So I’m going to open the public hearing, leave it open, and call anybody up here who would like to talk to this. PUBLIC HEARING OPEN GLENN RODE MR. RODE-Good evening. I’m Glen Rode of 51 Cronin Road. What I would like to know is at the last meeting I recommended that any of the engineering data that was submitted for the PUD senior housing which was, what was the year, ’97 that was all engineered? Be revisited as far as if any wetland permits were issued at the time and the Army Corps of Engineers study, that that engineering data may be out of date, since we’ve had significant construction and buildings constructed since those dates those studies were done, and I wondered if the Planning Board had thought about that issue, that, you know, I don’t know how long wetland permits are good for, if once you get the approval if it’s good forever, but I really believe that, as far as the floodplain and the hydrology of the area, it’s been changed significantly, and the studies that Mr. Vollaro is speaking of, speaks to that. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, it does. MR. RODE-That, you know, due to recent construction, that the hydrology of the area has changed, now take into account that those studies were done in 2000, and it was data collected prior to the Year 2000. So anything that was collected prior to that would only be amplified significantly if looked at again, I mean, with all the construction on Meadowbrook that we’ve seen. So it was my point to say, you know, re-engineer this project from current data and not allow the previous data that was submitted for approval back in, I don’t know what year it was, ’90 whatever, before a lot of that construction had taken place out on Meadowbrook and other areas, you know, that all fall into the Halfway Brook watershed, and I didn’t know what the Planning Board felt on that. Are you going to allow the old data to be introduced and re-issued as far as, you know, looking at this project, or is it going to be re- visited? MR. VOLLARO-We’ve re-visited some of it, and we’ll talk about that as we go on. We have some updated information on that. MR. RODE-Now the resolution you just passed on the Town engineer, would that apply to this project, as far as review from the Town engineer on? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. We have the Town engineer sitting here tonight, Mr. Houston. MR. RODE-Okay. Now, is that not the same engineer for the project, and I would say that that’s a conflict of interest. MR. VOLLARO-No. MR. RODE-No it’s not the same engineer? MR. VOLLARO-No, he’s our consulting engineer, C.T. Male. MR. RODE-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-The engineer for the project is Mr. Nace. MR. RODE-Okay. They didn’t use C.T. Male in their stormwater management plan or anything to that effect? 4 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. VOLLARO-No. Mr. Nace did his own stormwater management plan for this application. MR. RODE-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-No, Mr. Rode, the resolution that was just passed was really a procedural issue on how, the practices of the Planning Board and applicants. It really had nothing to do with this. MR. RODE-Okay. Another thing that I mentioned is that each project that is completed in that watershed area has its own independent study of what the hydrology and stormwater runoff effect are, but I don’t believe that anything has been done comprehensively, other than the studies that I submitted to Mr. Vollaro last meeting, and I really think that, as a Town, we should look at a comprehensive impact of what the hydrology and stormwater runoff has done, not only to the area, as far as handling that kind of hydraulics, but also on the environmental impact on Halfway Brook and its watershed, and that’s basically all I have to say on the issue. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Thank you very much. Anybody else? Mr. Sanford? RICHARD SANFORD MR. SANFORD-Richard Sanford, Queensbury. Perhaps you can give me a little bit of history regarding the SEQRA determinations on this project. I just learned from the prior speaker that the PUD apparently was first presented in ’97, is that correct? MR. VOLLARO-I’m not sure about the date. I don’t know the date, but what I do know is that we, this Board, on this particular application, had made a recommendation to the Town Board to approve this, as was said by Mr. Lapper a few minutes ago. MR. SANFORD-Well, for the record, I happen to agree with everything that the prior speaker said. At the Town level, we’re concerned because of some of the flooding that took place with the rainstorm we had, and we’re concerned about the cumulative effects of all Meadowbrook and the tributaries and how they’re, we’re trying to figure that all out at this particular point in time, but I believe we have to take another look at it, and I was wondering if you can give me some guidance regarding the SEQRA process. I believe the original SEQRA was probably done at the Town Board level, because it was a PUD. MR. VOLLARO-That is correct. MR. SANFORD-Okay. So my understanding is that if there was a need to revisit SEQRA because of what we’re now experiencing at the Town wide level, with some of the floodplain issues, that the appropriate entity for that would probably be the Town Board rather than the Planning Board. Is that a correct understanding? MR. VOLLARO-To my knowledge, after talking with Counsel, that is my understanding, that the proper Board to review this or to re-visit the SEQRA, would be the Town Board, yes. MR. SCHACHNER-My understanding is that the Town Board conducted SEQRA review as a result of coordinated review among the involved agencies, and if that’s correct, then your assertion is correct. MR. VOLLARO-That is correct. MR. SANFORD-Okay. Well, again, when we had that rainstorm, we had a terrible situation over at Homer, and at the time I met with a number of people, Warren County Soil people, and our Highway Superintendent, and others, and we were concerned that, you know, even if we could fix the problem that was happening there, it would create, perhaps, aggravated problems across Quaker Road, going down by the car dealerships, going up Meadowbrook, heading right to where this project really is located. So, you know, in my mind, it’s worthy of taking another look at it now, over time, when we’ve had more information and we’ve experienced some of these problems, and so I would encourage this Board to seriously consider referring this matter back to the Town Board to re-visit SEQRA in light of the new additional information based on stormwater management issues. 5 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I had prepared a motion in that direction, and I have it in front of me, because in addition to what you’ve said, Mr. Sanford, we’ve been given some new information that I feel is a good basis for re-opening the SEQRA and having it done by the Town Board. I could read it now, because I’ve prepared it. I wasn’t going to do this until we’d gone through a good deal of our reviews here, but I will read the motion, not that I’m making it, but I’ll read it. MR. SANFORD-Well, you could wait until the appropriate time, if you wanted. It’s not necessarily right now to do it, but my concern, and again, it needs more research. I mean, I’m not at a point to make a judgment, but one of my concerns is, as we have situations where we have severe storms, in the past when there was less dense development, the water would flow out and go into these various floodplains, but since we’ve approved so many projects close to these types of situations, they’ve filled it in and built it up and the water has no place to go, and the next thing you know it’s flooding out people’s homes and causing a lot of problems, and the proximity to this development, in relationship to Meadowbrook, is very, very, in close proximity. So again, I think that what might have sounded like a good idea, seven or eight, nine years ago, I think needs to be re-visited in light of the new information that we now know exists within the Town. So that’s really all I have to say. I would encourage the Board to consider moving in that direction. MR. VOLLARO-Thank you, Mr. Sanford. MR. SANFORD-You’re welcome. MR. VOLLARO-Anybody else? Yes. KIM KROLL MRS. KROLL-Good evening. My name is Kim Kroll, and I live at 68 Cronin Road. I don’t have any fancy figures or anything to show you this evening, except for I have my past 44 years in living in this neighborhood, and I have noticed a great, great change in everything around here because of all the building that has taken place. That includes the wildlife, where the water goes, the traffic. There’s a lot more kids in Regency Park, now, who are walking up and down these roads. As a matter of fact, last month, a little boy got hit on the corner of Meadowbrook and Cronin, because people don’t stop for the stop signs as it is, and if you go sit there on a daily basis, every one of you will see at least 15 to 20 cars go through without stopping, and it’s only going to get worse if they do this, and, no, we have had no major earthquakes in the last however many years you want to quote, but I know that what I’ve seen, what I’ve lived for 44 years, has changed drastically, and it’s unfair what they’re doing to our home town of Queensbury, and that’s all I have to say. MR. VOLLARO-Thank you. Anybody else? Yes, ma’am. LEIGH BEEMAN MRS. BEEMAN-I’m Leigh Beeman. I live on Overlook Drive in Queensbury, and I echo what Mr. Sanford has said and my daughter-in-law Kim. The stormwater runoff is of major significance. They pave over the area and the water has nowhere to go, and they suggested, when I was at the last meeting, that they would be drilling holes where the water would go somehow, but the water table is so high there. I question whether the water is going to be able to find a place to go. I’m concerned about the traffic as well, and the left turn onto Bay Road. I think there’s a need for a traffic light there now. At certain times of the day, it’s so hard to get out from Cronin and turn left onto Bay. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I know that. I think there was a warrant that was agreed to, but the light was never put in, but I think the DOT agreed to a warrant for that light, but it never installed it. I believe that’s what I read not too long ago. So I don’t know why they haven’t done it, but they haven’t. MRS. BEEMAN-All right. Thank you. MR. VOLLARO-You’re welcome. 6 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. RODE-I can somewhat answer Mrs. Kroll’s question on where the stormwater will go in this proposed development. An engineer will design a stormwater management system that will flow downhill, which means many, many thousands of yards of fill will have to be brought in in order for this property to stay high and dry. Now if this property is high and dry and we’re already experiencing hydraulic overloading issues in the surrounding areas, it’s only going to compound them immensely. As far as something I would like to share with Mr. Sanford is those reports, if he hasn’t seen them, on the stormwater runoff situation on the Halfway Brook, it’s actually a Lake Champlain Watershed. I’d like to share them with him, and also mention that previously I had mentioned that that site was one of the sites mentioned in the stormwater management improvement report as a stormwater improvement area, a potential stormwater improvement area, that whole lot. So I don’t know how viable it would be to say for the Town to purchase and acquire that property for that purpose but it would be better used that way than to build it up. MR. VOLLARO-Thank you. MRS. BRUNO-Mr. Rode, the documents that you’re mentioning that you turned in at the last meeting in January, is that something that ended up going through the Planning Board and dispersed, or was that? MR. VOLLARO-It was something that I had asked to read and I’ve read some of it. I haven’t read all of it. I have it home. I can certainly bring it in and share it with the rest of the Board, or share it with Mr. Sanford, if Mr. Sanford needs to look at it. MR. RODE-It was basically two studies, Halfway Brook Watershed and Halfway Brook stormwater management plan, and it was a study that was done on a grant through, I believe, EPA, to study just what we’re talking about, and the findings were all pre-2000. So we can see where that could have changed significantly since the studies were done. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. Thank you. MR. SCHACHNER-Bob, question. I’m a little confused about, the document that the speaker was referencing, and that Mrs. Bruno asked about, is that something that was submitted by a member of the public for this application? MR. VOLLARO-Yes, it was. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay, and that’s not been made available to the other Board members? MR. VOLLARO-It hasn’t been made available yet because I haven’t finished reading it. I plan to pass it around, but I haven’t finished with it yet. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. I don’t care much about the mechanics of it, but I think the process is generally to go through Staff so that all the members have the same access to it. One way or another, if it’s been submitted by a member of the public for this application, it’s a public document, and that means that all Board members, and, for that matter, anybody in the public, is entitled to see it any time they wish. So I don’t have any suggestions, but just anything that facilitates that is a good thing. That’s all I’m saying. MR. VOLLARO-I can bring it in to Staff, if they want to copy those documents. MR. SCHACHNER-The practicalities and nuts and bolts of it are up to others, but it sounds like we have at least one member who would like to see it, and it’s important that anyone who wants have access to it. That’s all I’m saying. MR. VOLLARO-Sure. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else who’d like to speak to this application? Okay. For the time being, then, I’m going to leave the public hearing open, and bring the applicant back up again. What I would like to do this evening with the Board members is really to go over a prepared document, which is really a subdivision review criteria document that we’re used to using. Most Board members here know of it. I think that some, that we all probably have. Does everybody have a copy of that with them? MR. LAPPER-Mr. Chairman, before you get started, we usually get the opportunity to respond to the public hearing. 7 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. LAPPER-We’ll be brief. On Leigh Beeman’s issue, I think she, I don’t know if she got here late, she might not have heard, but the issue about left turns on Cronin Road is something that we have addressed and we have the consent of the County that controls that road that we would be providing a left turn, which doesn’t exist now, and a bypass right turn lane, which would address that, and you are correct, in terms of the warrant for that intersection, but what happened was that the County Highway Department determined that it was too close to the signalized intersection at Lowe’s, at the Lowe’s driveway. So that it wasn’t suitable for a traffic light, and for that reason they agreed with our proposal to construct the right turn lane in front of Stewarts. So that’s the mitigation that the entity that controls that road asked for, and we’ve provided it, and that would be certainly an improvement over now, where there’s only one, it’s only a one lane intersection from when you’re heading west. So I think that’s pretty cut and dried. In terms of the floodplain, floodway, I think that, you know, certainly we understand Rich Sanford, as the Ward 2 Councilperson, that, you know, there are people that have had some pretty significant flooding in that area, and obviously it’s an area of concern for the Town, but I think that, in terms of this application, this should be judged on the science rather than anecdotal evidence from the neighbors. Some of these neighbors, I think that a number of the neighbors are, especially Mr. Rode, but others as well, are directly in the floodway, and I think that we would appreciate it to have C.T. Male comment on this. The idea of adding fill in the floodplain does not have the impact on them that it’s been alleged, just because we’re talking about layman, and it’s pretty clear that you can’t have lay testimony overriding engineering testimony, and we have submitted a detailed stormwater management plan. We have DEC and an Army Corps permit that have been issued that we’ve submitted, and this project isn’t going to exacerbate stormwater problems, and that’s what Tom Nace has generated the detailed science, and it’s up to the Town engineer to review it and to comment. In terms of SEQRA, I think there was some confusion. The project was approved in its present form by the Town Board only this past Fall, and they did a very exhaustive review, and the SEQRA review as Lead Agency, and the fact that there was flooding in the Meadowbrook corridor this year doesn’t change this project. I mean, my understand is it was a maintenance problem on the other side of Quaker Road, but regardless, we would just like to leave that to the science, to have that reviewed by the engineer, and so we’d like to ask you to have the Town engineer comment on our plan. JOHN MICHAELS MR. MICHAELS-We’d like to present our plan, so that we all understand what we’re proposing here, on stormwater. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I understand what you want to do. MR. MICHAELS-I’d like Tom to present it so we all understand it, and then have an opportunity to comment on it, so that we could at least get that out of the way tonight, because I think that, you know, I’m even interested to hear it. They tell me it’s going to work. I’d like to hear how it’s going to work. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. NACE-Sure. MR. VOLLARO-I think that’s an interesting comment. MR. MICHAELS-I’m not an engineer. MR. NACE-Okay. First comment that I would have is that what we’re doing is filling an area for the construction of the roads and houses that is in the very fringe of the floodplain, okay. One of the important things to consider and to remember is that there’s quite a bit of area, including a 200 foot wide buffer that is being deeded to the Town, but there’s quite a bit of area between the proposed development and the corridor of the actual stream. That brings up this floodway versus floodplain, okay. FEMA defines the floodway as that corridor adjacent to the stream that’s necessary to convey downstream flow of water so that it doesn’t, anything that’s placed in there doesn’t affect upstream flood levels, okay. If I were to come in within, let’s say the floodway, and it’s on a different map here, let me grab a map that has the floodway shown. 8 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. VOLLARO-It’s shown pretty light on the map you’re going to go to, Mr. Nace. You might want to, for people who can’t see that light line, you might want to trace it out. MR. NACE-Okay. I’ll trace it out right here. Here is Halfway Brook itself, and remember, we’re conveying 200 feet, which is approximately that much, to the Town. The actual floodway boundary comes close to following that 200 foot line. In one place it bumps out a little bit, but that’s not an area where we’re doing anything, but as you can see, this floodway boundary is a line that we’re a considerable distance back from, with any of our filling or development. In fact, the closest thing we have to the floodway is an area of wetland mitigation where we’re actually lowering the existing ground level, and providing more water conveyance, if you were, okay, if the floodway boundary were to ever come back that far. At any rate, FEMA defines that floodway boundary as what’s necessary to convey downstream flow, and they say that if you’re going to construct anything in the floodway boundary, that you’ve got to prove to them that you will not affect upstream flood levels during the flood. So, we’ve stayed out of that. We haven’t filled within it. We haven’t constructed any houses within it. We’re well back. We’re approximately 250, 300 feet back from that floodway boundary, with any earthwork operations at all. MR. VOLLARO-Tom, just real quick. I don’t want to interrupt, but the floodway boundary as defined on there is defined by FEMA’s data, which hasn’t been updated in a while. So we’re really, we’re taking that floodway from the existing FEMA data, is that correct? MR. NACE-That’s correct. That is what’s available, but again, there’s, given the fact that it is older data, there is still a goodly margin of error, if you will, available before you get to anything that we’re doing in this proposed project. Okay. Again, we’re well back beyond the floodway. We are within the floodplain, which is a line that’s shown here. We do have a very small area here within the floodplain where we are putting fill. MR. VOLLARO-It’s Building Two, Three and Four, I believe. MR. NACE-It’s Building, no, it’s only one of the buildings, and that would be Building. MR. VOLLARO-I think they’re labeled Two, Three, and Four. MR. NACE-It would be Building Three. MR. VOLLARO-Building Three. MR. NACE-Is actually within the floodplain, but it’s built higher than the flood elevation, but again, it’s only a very small area within the floodplain that we’re disturbing at all, and the regulations for that simply say that anything built in there has to be built above the flood level. What we’re doing with stormwater is we’re constructing small basins, split over the entire site, that are designed to come as close as we possibly can to mimicking the existing stormwater management system that nature has provided. Okay. Right now, there’s some low pockets on the site, but there is a drainage system that generally takes water down from the upland most portion of the site down through the site and eventually out into the wetland area. What we’re doing is, with all of our paved areas or roofs, we’re collecting those in small little basins. They’re scattered, I think, if I remember right, fifteen of them scattered throughout the site. Those basins will collect the water, and very slowly filter it out through a rock filled dam, so that it comes back in to this wetland corridor where it presently comes into the with existing drainage. Those basins also have a bottom that’s lowered a little bit below the outlet level, so that the first flush of stormwater will stay in the basin and gradually soak into the soil. It’s not, I mean, we’re not counting on a great deal of infiltration into the soil, because the groundwater is high. The soils are fairly permeable, but again, with the high groundwater, we’re only counting on, I think six inches in the bottom of each basin eventually, you know, soaking into the soil over a period of time, which is really what it does now. If you go out there and look after a storm, there are pockets of water. Go back a day later, and they’re gone. MR. HUNSINGER-That was going to be my question. Aren’t you afraid that there’d be standing water in those pockets? 9 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. NACE-There will be, for a day or so, but eventually it’ll soak into the ground. Again, if you go out there now, you’ll find pockets where, right after a storm, water is retained in a pocket, and go back a day later and it’s dry. MR. VOLLARO-Tom, just for one minute, I’ve gone out there almost every day, and I’ve sighted one large pocket of water. I go up the road where the dead subdivision is and park right there, where that cul de sac is now. MR. NACE-Yes, where Dreps subdivision is, yes. MR. VOLLARO-The Dreps subdivision, right. MR. NACE-That’s way over here. MR. VOLLARO-Right, and I view from that point down into here a pocket of water that I’ve been watching for about a week, and it’s still there, and it’s somewhere in that view shed right there. Because I’m where your hand is. MR. NACE-Right, exactly. Okay, and I think there is a low spot right in here, if you’ll see this 306 contour. The times I’ve been out there, there is water pocketed in there. That may be what you’re looking at. MR. VOLLARO-No, I’m looking down further. Down almost where you’re, in the middle of that. MR. NACE-No, this all naturally drains that way from in back here, and this is the area that it pockets, Bob. This is, when you come up into here, you’re up at the 308, 310 contour, and this is 306. It’s not going to stand up here. It’s going to gradually come down into that pocket. I think, realistically, I think that’s what you’re looking at. Because one of the things we did over the years is walk the remainder of the Golf Course to see what other areas might be appropriate for development, and this is pretty much it, because there are these kinds of pockets scattered all over the place. At any rate, our stormwater system is really aimed at trying to mimic what nature does now, to the best of our ability. We think it’s going to work fairly well. I guess at that point I’ll open it up for questions. MR. SEGULJIC-Has any test pit data been collected on the site, depth to groundwater? MR. NACE-We’ve done shovel test pits. Groundwater, again, in low spots. The soil is a loamy, fine sandy soil, the top layers of soil, and groundwater is pretty much. MR. VOLLARO-Tom, I’m sorry, I’m talking to Mr. Seguljic. I’m sorry. I just wanted to add. I would like, rather than to start independently asking questions, if we went on and to try to do this methodically, and go down through this checklist, and we’ll finally be getting to your question, by the way. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-So what I’d like to do is start with the subdivision review criteria and go down this list and just ask members who have comments in that area to make those comments. MRS. STEFFAN-Is Mr. Nace done? MR. NACE-I’m done with my presentation. I don’t know, Jim Houston might want to have an opportunity. MR. VOLLARO-It depends on what, Mr. Houston, would you like to comment on that now or would you like to listen to the Board deliberate a little bit on this subject? MR. HOUSTON-I guess I’d like to say a little bit of clarification on this floodway/floodplain issue. What Tom said about it was correct, but I want to clarify it a little bit more for residents that may be concerned about that. There’s a flood insurance study that was done for the Town, and that flood insurance study is published by FEMA, and in that document it provides maps of the areas that, what they call a detailed hydraulic study was done, and they came up with a flow rate that comes down through this. In this case, this part of Halfway 10 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) Brook had a detailed study done for it. So that means that water surface elevations were computed down through this stretch, and as any natural river, the water elevation will drop as you go downstream. On the map, Tom has indicated that it basically ranges between 306 and 305, give or take some, and that will give you the depth all the way through here. Now the key thing with this floodway is FEMA goes one step further to (lost word) down to the narrow portion of that river system that’s most critical to convey those flood flows, and that is defined as the floodway, as being the most critical component of the river system to convey the calculated floodwaters and that’s what line is shown on there, being outside. Now, by definition of floodway, that means that it gives the Town a mechanism to accept or grant permission to place fill up to that floodway for development, as it sees fit, and what is called between the floodway or that most protected area that is very difficult to place any fill or obstruct that flow in between there and the floodplain boundary is called a flood fringe, and it’s in that flood fringe that the FEMA regulations allow the placement of fill under the suspicion that it would not alter the most critical path required for the flood flows. I’m just trying to clarify this difference between the floodplain and floodway and what not. Now that’s a published document. I don’t know the exact date of that document, but as everyone’s alluded to, it may be preceding some of the changes in hydrology and the watershed and what not, but right now that’s a legitimate document that is enforceable, whatever you can use that, for floodplain development in the Town. If there is suspicion as to the accuracy of that map or something, that’s where I’ve (lost words) as to the accuracy, and the lines that you’ll see on the floodplain maps are quite smooth and they do not reflect the topography that’s out on the site, and that’s very common, because they don’t have the benefit of one foot contours over the entire areas that they were studying. So you’ll see, to do that right, basically that you’d be able to come up with a very defined line of where that floodplain boundary is. That’s not the case, because usually the study that was done was not detailed enough to get that much accuracy in those limits. So there’s some discrepancy or give and take on the actual floodplain boundary and the floodway boundary. This floodway boundary is just something that was mathematically derived from a computer program and it was in its best possibility placed onto this topographic map. Now that’s just some of the background of the give and takes of the system and how we’re at where we’re at. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Thanks a lot. MR. SEGULJIC-Jim, could I ask a quick question? MR. VOLLARO-Sure. MR. SEGULJIC-Just to clarify. So will development in the area impact the floodway and floodplain, potentially, if the study was done 20 years ago, let’s say, and there’s been development in the area, it has a potential to impact that study, then, and impact. MR. HOUSTON-I think the major impact that development would have, or impervious surfaces in the watershed would have is a change in the flow rate that’s being analyzed in the computer program, the computer program, for how much water is coming down this river. So as you get more and more impervious area, your flow rate’s going to change. There had to have been some assumptions on development in that watershed at the time that study was run. If there’s been substantial changes in that watershed, that may raise questions as to the accuracy of the flow rate that was used to come up with the (lost word), but that’s the technical merit of the, at the time it was prepared. MR. SEGULJIC-And then also it’s really a meso scale study, not a micro scale study. More of a whole basin study instead of a particular location study. MR. HOUSTON-In order to come up with that flow rate, they had to analyze the entire watershed tributary to that. So it is a very regional analysis, and some cases goes into a detailed study, as we are in this case, where they calculate the actual water surface elevations. So they have to go to a regional basis to come up with how much water is coming into this, and then they do a fairly finite study in that area of concern where the detailed study is, and that’s where they do this floodway. Not every floodplain study has a floodway. A lot of them have floodplains, but very few of them, detailed studies, have floodways, and those are usually done in areas that were likely to see development potentially, shortly or years after the flood study was prepared. MR. SEGULJIC-So that detailed study was not done here. 11 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. NACE-Was done. MR. HOUSTON-It was. It was done for the flows that were arrived at at the time the flood insurance study was done. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. HOUSTON-But it was. This has a floodway, and has a floodplain, so it has the detail of a detailed study that could be done at the time the flood insurance studies were prepared. Most of them were prepared late 70’s, early 80’s. I don’t know what the exact date of it is. Maybe Tom knows. MR. VOLLARO-It was 1986, that last chart that we looked at that was given to us, a little presentation was given to us by Mr. Hatin during the workshop that we had, and those charts were dated 1986 by my recollection. Does anybody on the Board remember the date any better than that? I think it was ’86. MR. SEGULJIC-That sounds about right. MR. HOUSTON-That’s the discussion of the floodplain, floodway. I want to go a little bit further, just for a second, on the stormwater basins. What Tom is saying, that he’s trying to mimic the existing drainage patterns, and with the new, and that’s good. That’s commendable effort and it should be done in that fashion. What I’ve commented on in my comment letters is that the basins are not in direct compliance with the design manual per the DEC stormwater management design manual. That manual, the key aspect of that is the removal of pollutants and treatment of the stormwater, and you can put in a permanent pond and shape a pond to get the removals that are required. You can have an open basin that’s dry, and there are several different methods that are identified in that design manual that are acceptable to meet the treatment approach. This particular one that’s being proposed here is sort of a hybrid of a couple of different ones and doesn’t, is not in strict compliance with any given treatment standard that’s in that design manual. Tom has agreed to that, as indicated, and therefore it’s subject to review by the Regional Office of DEC, and so that would be Bill Lupo would have to be looking at that and offer his concurrence or modifications to that plan. I’ve taken projects like that to Bill before. Just so you know what my experience has been on that, Bill tries, if at all possible, to get a system that meets that design manual. Try everything at all possible, and then, based on space limitations or depth to groundwater or some other thing, we cannot get that to work, then I’ll consider alternative methods. He may have do the same thing on this case here, but just so that everybody’s aware, what’s proposed there, although it’s in line with keeping the drainage patterns as they exist, it’s not in direct compliance with the stormwater design manual, and therefore the NOI that you submit to DEC has to indicate that, no, they’re not in direct compliance and therefore is subject to a review by the Regional Office of DEC, and Tom’s filled out the NOI consistent with that, and that’s just a statement I want to say about the stormwater basins. MR. HUNSINGER-Could I ask a question on that? MR. VOLLARO-Sure. Absolutely. MR. HUNSINGER-And I guess it’s both for the applicant as well as Mr. Houston. In your opinions, would it be possible to design a stormwater management system that would be in compliance? I mean, you just got done saying that the Regional Director would like you to do it, and he’s likely to come back and say can you restructure this so it would work? MR. HOUSTON-I think it could. I think it could. The depth to groundwater is the critical determining factor as to what system would be appropriate for this site. So it would require additional information on the groundwater elevation. If the groundwater’s up very, very high, a permanent pond is an acceptable practice, as long as it’s got plantings or an aquatic bench around it. So if we had high groundwater, we could get something to work here. Everybody’s talked about, well, it might be a permanent pool. There would definitely be a permanent pool if we went that alternative. It’s basically open up a window to the groundwater, that would allow that permanent pool to stay there, and that permanent pool or pond would give you the treatment that is one of the standard methodologies. If the groundwater is depressed and we can’t rely on water to keep that pond, permanent pool in there, then we have the alternative of going to a filtering system where you actually run the stormwater out onto a filter and have an under drain, very similar to a septic system, and 12 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) then that could drain out into the wetlands. So there’s techniques that are possible, but it would require essentially more investigation of the soils and the groundwater that’s present there to make a proper determination. MR. NACE-If I could address that. MR. HUNSINGER-Sure. MR. NACE-We did look at, obviously, at the standard methods first. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. NACE-We could, as Jim has suggested, use what’s called a pocket pond, which is dug into the groundwater. The problem, in this case, is that because we’re trying to keep the ponds as small as possible and keep the ponds as small as possible and keep them localized into a bunch of little pockets. Doing that would create a situation where you’ve got standing water and mosquito breeding, small ponds in very close proximity to the units, which we didn’t feel was really appropriate. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. NACE-So that’s the reason we ended up where we did. I’m fairly confident that we can convince Bill that it is a good system, and it will work. We’ve provided water quality storage so that that first flush of stormwater gets treated and doesn’t just flow out through the system. So I’m fairly confident we can convince DEC that it’s an appropriate system for the site. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-Do we want to start going down this? I think we can get through this pretty quickly, if we just proceed through the subdivision review criteria. Does everybody agree with that? Okay. Let’s start it right off on design standards, and underneath that is the conformance with the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, and conformance with the Open Space Plan, density calculations, clustering criteria, phasing schedule and requested waivers. Anybody have any questions on those items? I have one, if I can come up with it, on the phasing schedule. I think that there has to be a clarification on the construction phasing in the stormwater management report on Page Three, if you’ve got it. You might want to open it up. It’s under Construction Phasing on Page Three. I’ve labeled my pages. These weren’t labeled. MR. NACE-Okay. You’re looking at an older. MR. VOLLARO-I’m looking at, what I’ve got is January 2006. That’s the document I’m looking at. MR. NACE-Okay. That is not the current one. MR. VOLLARO-It’s not? MR. NACE-No. MR. VOLLARO-Does anybody have a more current stormwater management plan than I do? MR. NACE-I think I know what you’re referring to. It was one of the comments we answered that C.T. Male had, is that the Phase II is described the same way as Phase I. MR. VOLLARO-Phase I, yes. MR. NACE-Yes, that is a typo. It’s been corrected. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Because I looked at this for a while, and unfortunately I guess I was looking at the wrong information. 13 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. NACE-Well, actually, what I’m looking at is what we just corrected from the last comment letter from C.T. Male. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. NACE-So that went to Staff and it went to C.T. Male, but it hasn’t gotten to the Board. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So we haven’t seen this yet. You haven’t seen the new one yet. As long as you’ve corrected it, that’s fine. MR. NACE-Yes, we did. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Now, in conformance with the Open Space Plan, I’ve been in contact with Parks and Rec as early as yesterday afternoon about three o’clock, and they have looked at this piece of property several times. They claim that they’ll walk it one more time, but there doesn’t seem to be, in their view, a great acceptance of this for a piece of property. Now one of the things that they really need, they claim, this is me talking to the Rec Department, Steve Lovering. Spoke to him last night, and he said, one of their concerns is being able to have access off Cronin Road. MR. LAPPER-This was all addressed in the PUD with the Town. MR. VOLLARO-Apparently he has nothing in his file requesting that they even look at this property. I’ve checked with him several times, not just once, but I think three times that we’ve talked on the phone. He has nothing in his file that shows that they’re even looking at this property for purposes of. MR. LAPPER-Yes. What happened was that the Town Board decided that they wanted us to donate the property to the Town, but that we wouldn’t get a credit for the Park and Rec fee. So this project is paying the $500 per unit Park and Rec fee and also donating the land, because the Town Board wanted the land to be donated along Meadowbrook. So it’s a win/win for the Park and Rec. They can use it or not use it. MR. VOLLARO-That may be all true, but I’m just giving you my conversation with Parks and Rec. They have no record of this property whatsoever. MR. LAPPER-And the issue about, well, we had offered it to Parks and Rec and they didn’t want it, that’s what happened, but the Town Board decided, in the PUD, that they’d like to have it anyway because it’s in the Halfway Brook corridor. So the compromise was no credit. So the cash will be paid to the to the Parks and Rec Department, but the land would also be both given to the Town. MRS. STEFFAN-And I know we’ve had this discussion about that property before, because the discussion we had was that there’s no parking available to use it as a recreation destination. MR. LAPPER-Absolutely, and that was decided with the Town Board that the Town actually owns land on the other side of Cronin Road that could be utilized, the land on this side, all of the land, is wetland along Cronin on this side of the road, that’s being dedicated. So there wasn’t a place for parking here, but that the Town Board decided, as part of the PUD, that there was land across the street that if they wanted to do a parking area in the future, that was available. MR. VOLLARO-Well, I would like to see at least a comment letter from Parks and Rec that reflect what you just said, so that they know. Apparently this is not common knowledge. MR. LAPPER-All that is in the PUD agreement with the Town Board. MR. MILLER-I think some of those earlier conversations might have been with Harry Hansen, because this has been going on for years, and Steve, as you know, I mean, he’s worked there, but I think some of these earlier conversations might have been with Mr. Hansen. 14 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. VOLLARO-It could have been. The first time I talked with Steve, he said I’ll get back to you. He’s looked at all Mr. Hansen’s documentation and this is where, he said there’s nothing in there so far. MR. LAPPER-It’s a requirement, though. If you look at the PUD agreement, that you have a copy of it, it’s a requirement that that be dedicated to the Town, because the Town Board wanted it. Whether Parks and Rec wants it, the Town Board wants it. MR. VOLLARO-I see, so it’s not a Parks and Rec decision. MR. LAPPER-Right. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. All right. The next one is development criteria, site conditions, soils, geology, hydrology, slopes, etc. Anybody got any? Well, we’ve just been through that quite a bit. We’ve just gotten some commentary from both sides of the engineering table. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, which are you on, development criteria or stormwater? MR. VOLLARO-Development criteria says site conditions, and it talks about soils, geology, hydrology, etc., right up on Number One. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I see it. MRS. BRUNO-I have a quick question. In one of the documents, I believe it was from Tom, you had mentioned that the buildings two, three, and four would be raised as much as feasible to bring it up out of the flood area. Do you recall what that elevation is? MR. NACE-No, not offhand, but I can certainly look. MRS. BRUNO-Thank you. MR. NACE-The garage floor of Building Three is the lowest floor, and that’s 308.3. MR. VOLLARO-And I think there’s a statement just above that talks about the general flood area being 305 to 306. MR. NACE-305 to 306, that’s correct. So it’s a little better than two feet, the garage floor, not the house floor, but the garage floor is a little better than two feet above. MR. VOLLARO-Is that top of floor, finished floor? MR. NACE-That’s correct, that’s finished floor. MR. SIPP-I have a question. This may have been done before I came on board, but you mentioned something about the soil type being sandy loam. MR. NACE-The surface soils are, we’re in fine loamy sands. They grade as you get down into them, they grade to a silt, and then eventually to clay. MR. SIPP-And what’s the depth of that? MR. NACE-It depends on where you are, in the lower spot it grades to silt, if I remember right maybe a foot, foot and a half. Higher spots it’s a little lower. MR. SIPP-But in spots it’s much less than that? In spots there could be much less than that? MR. NACE-No, on the higher areas it’s more than the foot and a half. MR. SIPP-All right, now what’s the depth of the limestone rock? MR. NACE-We did not do any borings or do any deep test pits for that, because we’re building the site up. MR. SIPP-So that we do create ponds, not because of the soil type but because of what the underlying rock may be? You’re telling me that there’s ponds, after a storm there’s ponds. 15 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. NACE-That’s simply because of the flat topography. The topography’s pretty flat with dishes in it, and it’s not necessarily because of bedrock that that’s MR. SIPP-Well, what prevents the drainage? MR. NACE-What prevents it? The silty soils that grade to clay underneath. MR. SIPP-Yes, but then what’s the depth of the clay? MR. NACE-That depends on where you are on the site. MR. SIPP-I’ve played that golf course a lot of times, and there’s a drainage ditch that runs approximately from the edge of the woods on the north end of this to the clubhouse, and you have to have a pretty dry summer for that ever to be dry. MR. NACE-And I think that’s probably part of the area that Bob was looking at, looking across from Bay Road, that ditch right along the edge of the trees. MR. SIPP-Part of this Planned Development also takes in what was at one time the back nine of this golf course. MR. NACE-It takes in just the very fringe of it. It’s mostly on what they’ve been using as a driving range now. MR. SIPP-Yes, but that was abandoned because it was so wet. Never dried out. MR. NACE-And if you look at the mapping, the overall mapping, it shows that a lot of those old holes on the back nine were in what’s now classified as wetland. It’s not where we’re. MR. SIPP-It’s on the edge, you’re on the edge of it. MR. NACE-Yes. MR. SIPP-Nobody’s ever taken a boring to see how thick this limestone is? MR. NACE-How deep that bedrock is? We haven’t taken deep borings, no, because it really doesn’t impinge on what we’re doing. MR. SIPP-And nobody knows the depth to the water table? MR. NACE-Well, the depth to the water table, like you said, depending on where you go, is anywhere from zero to four, five feet. MR. SIPP-I don’t know where it’s four or five feet on that golf course. MR. NACE-There’s that much difference in elevation between the low spots and the high spot. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I’m just going to say, when we get down in here, I’m going to be asking for some test pit data, but I did have a conversation with Mr. Houston today about taking a look at the groundwater level, and he had an idea of putting a site pipe in, essentially dropping a PVC down into that area, in a couple of places, and taking a reading of the high water, of the water mark within the pipe, because water will find its own level, flat across there, and that way you’ll know just what the water level really is, the high water level. That’s a way to do it without trying to get a backhoe in there and get it stuck. MR. NACE-True, and that can be done with an auger. That’s no problem. MR. SEGULJIC-Excuse me. Mr. Nace, was that soil data, groundwater data you were referring to, was that submitted to the Board? MR. NACE-The soil data was. The groundwater elevations are just from my experience walking around and doing shovel tests there. 16 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. SEGULJIC-I guess I don’t recall seeing that, but that’s always possible. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, I don’t remember them. MR. SEGULJIC-He was referring to some soil data that I don’t recall seeing at all. MR. NACE-It’s just in the stormwater report under Existing Conditions. MR. SEGULJIC-In the stormwater report? MR. NACE-Yes, and it’s just generic. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. HOUSTON-I think that information comes from the County Soil Survey, right, Tom? MR. NACE-That is correct. MR. SEGULJIC-I thought you were talking about more detailed data. Sorry. MR. NACE-No. MR. SEGULJIC-If I could just also clarify, I think, Mr. Houston, you referred to that you need more groundwater site soil data to do a? MR. HOUSTON-To do a specific design for the basins. That would be what would be required, whether you select one type of system or another. MRS. STEFFAN-And I think that supports the discussion that we had last time, because we were, the last time that the applicants were in front of us, we had a lot of discussions about floodplains and floodways. We’ve since had a workshop about that, so some of this we’re hearing for the second or third time, so it’s not so foreign. MR. SEGULJIC-Which is good. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, absolutely, but as we’re talking about design standards and development criteria, I have some concerns about the overall project. We’ve got a lot of information. I understand this is an approved PUD that’s morphed, and the number of units that’s being proposed right now is much smaller than the original development as it was, but I still have a great deal of concerns about the development on this property, and some of it has to do with the soil hydrology, and we’re not really sure about the groundwater yet, but, you know, I’m looking at the Code, and it talks about standards for decisions in wetlands, and there’s still some information that I don’t feel comfortable with yet, you know, to want to proceed without getting more information, and part of that relates to the flooding issue. In our workshop that we had last month, we became very familiar with the FEMA data, how old it was, that it has not been updated, and some of the soil hydrology in the area has changed. As I looked at the Code, and I looked at the map that was provided by George Hilton our GIS person, the map regarding flood zones and hydric soils. I mean, this whole area has hydric soils, which contain considerable moisture. I went to the soil maps and I went through and, you know, identified the soils that were on the map with the map that George provided for us. These kinds of soils produce much more runoff. Most of them are very poorly drained, and then, you know, when you look at the FEMA flood zone on top of it, I just, elevations below water that rises based on the study of upstream areas. So, you know, we can anticipate that there’ll be some flooding in this area, and so I think we have to know what’s going on below the soil, so that we make better decisions. When I went to the SEQRA criteria, and I understand that the Town Board is responsible for doing the SEQRA on this, under the coordinated review, but if I were having to answer some of the questions on the SEQRA evaluation, I’m not really sure how I could answer all those. For example, will the proposed likely cause siltation or other discharge into an existing body of water to the extent that there will be an obvious visual contrast to natural conditions. Well, what happens when, I mean, this is a floodplain, and I understand that the water, as it runs off, is channeled, in the floodway when the water’s channeled, but what happens if there is silt, you know, if we build these units, there’s fill put in and then there’s silt that moves into this waterway, we can change the course of Halfway Brook. There’s some other data in SEQRA, a shift in 17 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) floodplain hydrology can degrade wetland and forest habitats. So, you know, from those points of view I’m concerned, and I think that I need more information. MR. LAPPER-Well, we certainly have been working on this for many, many months, and we are here to provide whatever information you need, and that’s not a problem. I guess we view this as kind of technical engineering, scientific issues. So we would ask, I mean, we feel very confident that there’s not going to be siltation in or change the course of Halfway Brook, but we would like you to raise the issues with us to provide you with all the information you want, but to rely on your Town engineer to review the information, to the extent that this is technical, and let them comment on it, because we’re confident, based upon the project engineer, that this won’t have those impacts, but obviously we’ve got to get you comfortable with it. So, I mean, we don’t see this as a SEQRA issue. The SEQRA issue, from our mind, was covered by the Town Board, as Lead Agency, and the fact that there was upstream flooding, we don’t think that that has anything to do with this project, but regardless of that, we would just like to keep working with you and provide the information and let the Town engineer review it and hopefully we can be successful and prove to you that it’s a good project. MR. VOLLARO-Thank you, Mr. Lapper. We’ll go down that, utilities, street design and layout. I think that might be more of a site plan issue than it is an issue for this subdivision. Traffic and pedestrian access and circulation, sight distances, and emergency access and services. Those are the things that are listed here. The next one is more in line with what we’re talking about. So I’ll skip to it right away. It’s called stormwater and sewage design. Stormwater report and management plan. I guess in looking at that, I guess what I did is I took Mr. Hilton’s aerial views, and did a coordination from that to the large map, and it worked out, so I got to place that corner building that way. What I did is I took Mr. Hilton’s drawing, and I took your drawing, scaled the two, dropped a perpendicular from the corner of the most, of that building, of the furthest right building, dropped a perpendicular down and measured that on the Hilton drawing. Converted that over to your drawing, took the angle from that, measured that angle, drew a line from the corner so I had a line that intersected the corner of your building, and then took a look at what Mr. Hilton’s floodplain looked like, and it coordinated with what you said, what most of that building, and I have the drawing here, most of that building is, I don’t know if you can see this, but what I did, that’s the line I projected. I developed the corner of your building to be here, and found out that Building Two, Three, and Four is about 90% in the floodplain, and I can show you whatever I did if you want to take a look at it, but that’s what I came up with. Now, granted what Hilton put on there is the old FEMA data. It isn’t any better than that. MR. NACE-Okay. It’s the same data that I scaled onto my map. Whether one’s right or the other’s wrong, I can’t argue here at this stage of the game. MR. LAPPER-There’s not a prohibition on constructing in a floodplain. MR. VOLLARO-I understand that, but let me read something out of our Code, A183-21 under Floodplain. I’ll read what it says. It says mapping. If any portion of the land within a subdivision is subject to inundation of flood or hazard by stormwater, such fact and portion shall be clearly indicated on the primary and subdivision plats, and prominent note be placed on each sheet of such map whereas such portions shall be shown. That’s the beginning. Then it says use. Land subject to flooding and land deemed by the Planning Board to be otherwise uninhabitable shall not be platted for residential occupancy, nor other uses may increase the danger of health, life or property or aggravate the flood hazard itself. So that’s a statement that comes right out of here, and it talks about, deemed by the Planning Board to be otherwise uninhabitable. Now I’m not going to quite go as far as saying it’s uninhabitable, because people played golf out there at one time, but that’s just a statement that comes out of A183. MR. NACE-But, okay, we are not, if you read the last sentence of that, it says, do you mind reading it again? MR. VOLLARO-It says, or otherwise use may increase danger, health, life or property or aggravate the flood hazard. MR. NACE-Which, if we follow the FEMA regulations, we are not. Okay. 18 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. VOLLARO-Well, my real concern is the distance from that corner property to the floodway line is about, what did you say about 200 foot, Tom? MR. NACE-Two hundred and fifty feet. MR. VOLLARO-Two fifty. We’re hoping that that floodway line hasn’t changed over time, and if I had to be, I would say that it probably favored going toward the project. MR. NACE-Well, maybe Jim can answer, can add to it, but one of the controlling factors when you’re analyzing a floodway is bridges, okay. Bridges create a natural barrier, and a demarcation point for starting your definition of the floodway because the bridge forms a channel, okay. We’re right adjacent to the road. The bridge is quite a ways a way. It’s 450 feet, approximately, away from where we’re developing, you know, unless you go in and remove Cronin Road, those buildings cannot, in any way, shape or form, in any sense of my imagination, impede the floodway. I mean, you could double the flows coming down, and the bridge there would be a control point, beyond which you start redefining your floodway downstream. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I guess we can continue on. Buffering and landscaping design. We’ve pretty much been through, the sewage disposal is another one that’s in that area. Now, does anybody have any comment on the sewage disposal itself? MRS. STEFFAN-The proposal is to hook in. MR. HUNSINGER-I had more questions on stormwater. MR. VOLLARO-Go right ahead. MR. HUNSINGER-The question that I had on the stormwater management design is, exactly, there’s a series of basins with check channels, for lack of a better term. MR. NACE-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-My concern is how those would operate over time. Would there be a propensity for the basins to fill in, whether it be from leaves or other sediments, and how you would maintain the proper depths, and the proper heights of the channels itself? MR. NACE-Well, this is going to be a homeowners association maintaining the grounds. So, you know, it would not be filled in with homeowners just throwing their leaves back there. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. NACE-So there certainly is the means for maintenance available because of the type of development. So, no, I don’t see them filling in over a period of time. There’s a fairly decent grass buffer strip between the edge of the road, which would have any sand in it, comes off the road from sanding operations in the winter. There’s a good natural grass buffer strip between there and the basin where that material would settle out before it ever got to the basin. So, I don’t see that as an issue. MR. HUNSINGER-And the basins themselves, it would basically be lawn, right? MR. NACE-Correct. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, you would mow it? You would treat it just like? MR. NACE-Realistically, they’re probably going to be a month or a month and a half or so in the Spring when it’s wet that you might not get in to mow it until things dry out a little in the Spring, or in the early summer, but, yes, from a maintenance standpoint, it is expected that they would periodically be mowed. MR. HUNSINGER-And then the check channel is made out of stone. Is there like a concrete pad or something? What maintains that height? MR. NACE-The filter fabric that supports the stone underneath, and keeps it from working its way into the soil. 19 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. HUNSINGER-So like kids that lived in the neighborhood couldn’t go monkey with it and change it? MR. NACE-I suppose they could, but again, there’s a maintenance, you know, arm of the homeowners association that can take care of that stuff, but I can’t imagine kids substantially altering, you know, it’s light stone filling. It’s not stuff that they’re going to throw around easily. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Okay. That was it. Thanks. MR. SEGULJIC-Continuing in that same vein, correct me if I’m wrong, so I understand this, it looks like some of the basins, you’re going to excavate down further below an existing grade. MR. NACE-Yes, where they’re a little higher, we are, okay. MR. SEGULJIC-How do you know if there’s groundwater there or not? MR. NACE-That’s based on what we’ve seen. Again, as Bob said, the groundwater is pretty much level, seeks a level course in there, and from what we’ve observed, in the low spots, we’ve kept the basins, the bottom of the basins above those low spots. The overflow from the basin still has to drain out, as a gravity pitch out to that wetland channel, that we show down through there, and that’s the low spot where occasionally you do see standing water. MR. SEGULJIC-But also you indicated that the site has silts and clay, which are going to act as acquitards and have lenses (lost words). MR. NACE-No. The lenses are simply surface pockets. The pockets on the surface that you see aren’t formed by having clay up at the surface, no. MR. SEGULJIC-I guess what I’m just getting at is that we don’t really know what’s happening there. You have to get information at that particular basin to see if that basin would work. MR. NACE-Okay. You’ve indicated you want additional soils information. We’ll certainly get that for you. What’s there is based on my observations. The design is based on my observations, from walking the site many times, and from taking a shovel around and digging some shallow holes. We will certainly get you detailed soils information to support that. MR. SEGULJIC-So you went to the areas where the basins were going to be and you did your own shovel tests, shall we say? MR. NACE-No, this was before we located the basins. We went through, I went through the site and picked the low spots to see what was happening. MR. HUNSINGER-Just to follow up on stormwater issues, I’m looking at the March 15 th letter from C.T. Male, and there are a number of comments, outstanding issues, and the vast majority of them were related to stormwater issues. MR. NACE-Right. MR. HUNSINGER-Have you provided a response to letter yet? MR. NACE-Again, it was too late. We got that the 15. I provided, I think it was Monday th morning I provided Staff and C.T. Male with responses to all those. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. So, Jim, have you reviewed that at all, the new information? MR. HOUSTON-Yes. I’ve read through the comment letter, but I didn’t have enough time to go through plan revisions that would address that, but I did go through the comments and his responses, and I agree pretty much, Tom hasn’t contested anything that I’ve said or wanted additional information on. One of my key things was item number three, which talks about this system as proposed as being not in direct conformance with that design manual. 20 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. HOUSTON-He’s concurred or agreed with that, and has submitted an NOI, a Notice Of Intent, indicating that the plan is not in conformance with that. So that was one of the major outstanding. The other items were technicalities in the calculations that he indicates that he’s addressed and has no real significant bearing on the results. So, I concur with that. MR. HUNSINGER-So would it be fair to say that you’re satisfied with the engineering, or is that premature? MR. HOUSTON-I’m satisfied, with the exception that the stormwater basins are not in strict compliance with the design manual. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. HOUSTON-That’s probably my only outstanding comment. MR. LAPPER-And that’s a DEC issue, too. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. I mean, we all agree that’s true. MR. HOUSTON-Yes, that’s right. It’s compliance with the DEC regulation. It’s not necessarily a Town regulation at this time. MR. LAPPER-Tom thinks it’s better this way and that he can convince DEC. MR. HUNSINGER-I guess the only concern that I would have with that is, you know, I mean, personally we do this quite often, is we allow the appropriate regulatory agency to review, and decide if they like the plan. The concern that I would have is if they require changes, then you’d have to come back to us for a modification. MR. NACE-Then we’d be back here. We understand that. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MR. VOLLARO-If I may make a comment on one thing. I’m just looking, piggybacking a little bit on Mr. Hunsinger’s comments on maintenance, and I’ve been through the Declaration of Protective Covenants and Conditions on the Bay Meadows Homeowners Association, and quickly going over this, I don’t see anything here that directly links in that to the maintenance that Mr. Hunsinger was requesting, in terms of the basin, keeping the basins clean. So I would think that, if this thing continues to go, that Section Six, I believe it is, under Article Six, Section Six, should address that specifically. MR. LAPPER-Bob, that’s done broadly, in terms of site maintenance, and if you wanted something specific on the basins, there’s nothing, no reason why that couldn’t be added. MR. VOLLARO-I just wanted to make sure, because I think Mr. Hunsinger is on to something there. I feel that maintenance, I know, having been a member of a homeowners association for a long time, and tried to also be its president at one time, I found that very, very difficult to get cohesion among owners as to what really should be done and what shouldn’t be done. So, it should be listed in there. Does any Board member have any other questions before we continue on? Okay. I said, I guess I stopped at sewage disposal the last time, and I think there is an e-mail from Mike Shaw to Susan Barden dated 3/6/06, which indicates that this project is, and I think we’ve known this, but we’ll just get it for the record, that this project is not in the sewer district, and a map plan and report must be submitted. MR. LAPPER-The sewer line runs along Cronin Road and this has to be added. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I realize, I know that, but a map plan and report has to be done to get a district extension. MR. NACE-Yes, it’s a district extension. MR. LAPPER-Yes. 21 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. VOLLARO-And a public hearing is required for that, and it has to go before the Town Board. MR. LAPPER-That’s a Town Board issue. MR. VOLLARO-That’s a Town Board issue. I just want the record to know that. MR. LAPPER-Yes. We’re aware of that. MR. MICHAELS-Either that, or we could possibly be a contractor user. MR. VOLLARO-A little conversation that I’ve had with Mr. Shaw indicates he’d like a map plan and report on this. MR. MICHAELS-Yes, I’m just saying, there are two options. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, there are. Potable water supply. I think there was some, Bruce Ostrander had made some comments on that, but I’ll let the rest of the Board comment on it before I do. Is there any comments on potable water supply from any member of the Board? MRS. STEFFAN-Well, the memo said that it was available, that Town water was available. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-And then Mike Shaw said that there was sewer available. So there’ll be water coming in and water going out, but not into the ground. MR. VOLLARO-Right. The only thing that Bruce Ostrander said in his letter of March 7 th was he needed irrigation details on the drawing and service pipe connection details and fire sprinkler system details, that’s one of the things he was looking for in his memorandum of March 7, 2006. MR. NACE-We can take care of those. We just received them when we stepped up to the table here. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-We’re down to buffering, landscaping and design. Anybody have any questions on the clearing plan associated with this application? How about no cut areas? Anybody have comments on the no cut areas? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I was going to say, I’m not sure at what point it comes up on this, but you show on the site plan, especially on the landscaping plan, the existing trees along Cronin Road. I don’t know if we need to go so far as to have a no cut area. I know the intent is to leave whatever existing vegetation is there in place. MR. MILLER-That was our intent all along Cronin Road there is to keep whatever trees that are there, keep them there, because it’s going to provide more privacy to the homeowners, so there’d be no interest to take them down. Most of this development is in the area, if you drive down there, it’s clear there was former golf course and driving range. So, you know, it’s very minor areas that have to be removed, and there’s a few scattered trees that would be removed, where trees existed in some of the wetland areas and things they would all remain. MR. SIPP-I would question the use of red maple in that kind of soil conditions, water conditions. MR. MILLER-Well, red maple, actually it’s a swamp susceptible tree. So it’s very tolerant of wet areas, and all the plant material we picked there, chad blow, pin oak, red maple, ash, they’re all varieties that will grow in areas where there’s a higher groundwater. MR. SIPP-Well, why isn’t there any growing there now? MR. MILLER-Well, because the golf course was there and they cut them down. 22 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. SIPP-No, if you go back into those woods, there’s no red maple in there. There’s no ash either. MR. MILLER-It’s a wetland tolerant species, and if you would prefer me to change it and plant something else, I’d be happy to. MR. SIPP-No. I’d just question whether they’re going to survive. The root depth, how deep can the roots get? MR. MILLER-Well, what happens, most plant species that, in wet areas, is the roots will tend, they won’t survive down in the water. So typically the types of plants that will survive are plants that are, they’re roots will be more of a surface root where they’ll establish near the surface of the water, and they’re also plants that absorb a lot of water, typically a willow, but they’re sort of messy to use in a project like this, but, you know, things like ash are very common, and plus a lot of areas that we’re doing landscaping, they’re in the higher portions of the site. We’re not landscaping down, you know, right in the low wet areas. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I really like the landscaping plan, especially in front of the buildings, and along the, between the buildings, like the use of the ash trees and, you know, the streetscape, I thought you did a good job. MR. MILLER-Thank you. MR. VOLLARO-Anybody else have question in that area? Before I get to my, give the Board a chance to talk? I have a question. On your SP-6, there’s a gray dotted line that surrounds the entire complex. What is that? MR. MILLER-That’s the grading limits. MR. VOLLARO-Do you want to explain that a little, please. MR. MILLER-Sure. Actually, that’s the area that DEC refers to as the area of disturbance. MR. VOLLARO-For the public, can you just trace the line, because it’s very light. I can’t see it from here either. MR. MILLER-Well, here’s where our driveway comes in. So this dashed line comes up, comes beyond, behind the backs of Units Two and Three, comes around, up beyond Unit Four, and then comes back very close to the road in this area where the drainage swale comes across, and then it goes back out and pretty much follows the rear of the buildings, comes back to the road in this area and then comes back, and what that means is anything that’s on the other side of that line, all of that wetland area, as well as all this area outside will remain as is. It will not be graded or cleared. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So that line kind of defines the wetland limits to the outside of the line, all the way around the perimeter. MR. MILLER-Yes. The wetlands will be within that area because we’re obviously not trying to disturb the wetlands. So a lot of the wetlands will be outside of that area. MR. VOLLARO-All right. So that defines the main project, right in there, where the filling has got to be done. MR. MILLER-That’s right. All the construction will be contained within there. Yes. MR. VOLLARO-All right. I guess that’s an opportune time for me to ask a question, but I’ll come back to that in a little bit. I want to give the Board a chance to continue. Neighborhood character. Neighborhood impacts. The HOA’s and public services. Now the homeowners association, I think we’ve talked a little bit about that. I’ll talk a little bit about it, but I’d like the Board to speak to it if they’d like to. The area of Rec fees is in there. We’ve had a discussion with their Counsel on Rec fees. Health safety and welfare of the community was talked about a little bit in our A183-24 under the floodplain area, and incidentally, there it says if deemed by the Planning Board to be otherwise uninhabitable, but deemed by the Planning Board, uninhabitable, I think, is a harsh word, but. 23 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MRS. BRUNO-I have a question regarding that. It perhaps is minor compared to some of the other issues. Just approaching it from, say a person who would like to move into this area. I’m not a golfer. I’ve never been in this property during the warm season. What is the insect infestation like? I mean, if I were to be a person, my initial reaction would be, I don’t want to go there. It seems like the yards would be much too wet, you know, can anyone address that ,what it’s been like? MR. MICHAELS-The land is going to be raised there. I think the neighbors are here. They’ve lived there 40 years. People do live there in that area, but it’s like, you know, after a storm, sure you’re going to get some mosquitoes, but a lot of people play golf there all the time and it’s fine. That’s just going to be higher there. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. Well, that actually touches upon one other thing that I just want to point out, in terms of it being higher, since we’re talking about neighborhood character. I haven’t seen any elevations on the building, and with my infancy on the Board here, perhaps it’s come through. I’ve done as much due diligence in the past week as I could with the box of information. My concern is the aesthetics of these buildings, brought out in this area, raised, as I was asking before, you know, what’s the elevation height, that does seem like you may end up needing to go even a bit higher. What’s that going to look like from the road, you know, the mounding of this neighborhood in the middle of this area, just from an aesthetic point of view. I think we need to start looking at that. It’s a little bit of a pet peeve of mine to see buildings that don’t meet the landscape or the ground formations, you know, looking like they were stuck there, rather than came from there. MR. MILLER-There were some elevations submitted early on. Unfortunately I don’t have them in my file. There was, The Michaels Group provided some elevations of the townhouse units, and they’re fairly low, fairly consistent with single family houses in the area, and, you know, the other thing, as far as the elevation and how they’re built up, it’s very gradual. If you look at the road grades, you know, they slope up very slightly. They’re like a two percent. This isn’t going to be something, a lot of times you’ll see a house where people, these are slabs on grades. A lot of times you’ll see homes where people want to have a basement, and they’ve got a high groundwater condition like this, they’ve got to build the house seven feet in the air to get the basement up out of the groundwater. This is not the case here. Here these are slab on grades. They’re not going to be basements. So they’re only going to be raised slightly. So as far as, when you perceive it from the site, you’re not going to see any steep grades. It’s going to be very subtle, and, you know, consistent with what’s there. MRS. BRUNO-You’re right, the foundation system does make a difference there. MR. MILLER-Yes, it does. Yes. I think that was the submission that was made. MR. VOLLARO-That’s all we have. There’s no elevation. I have a little note on here that says elevation after fill. What will the elevation be, not measured from the ground at less than 40, but what would the actual elevation be from some benchmark that exists perhaps on Bay Road. That’s what I’m really looking at. MRS. BRUNO-Actually, I was referring to this elevation, just in terms of how it would hug the ground. MR. MILLER-That’s what I thought. MRS. BRUNO-I know what Bob is asking for. If you were sitting on the road or from a worm’s eye view, you pretty much addressed that in terms of the slope. MR. MILLER-Well, I think if you go back to the grading plan and you look, there’s, for example, if you look at Building Two, which is right here, one of the closest ones to Cronin Road, the garage elevation is 310.3, and if you come over to Cronin Road, the elevation on the road is 308. So the garage floor is only 2.3 feet above Cronin Road there. So it’s not that high. MR. VOLLARO-I guess I don’t understand the problem. You’ve got to clear something up for me. We’re going to do slab on grade. This is what the design is, and we all know that slabs don’t support buildings. Foundations support buildings. So you’re going to have to get down to an area where you can compact it well enough to support the foundation itself, the footing. That means you’ve got to bring this land up high enough to do that. How high do 24 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) you have to go? That’s what I’m, you talk about, well, we’re going to fill it, and that’s why I asked about what that gray line was, because inside that gray line’s going to be, most of the filling is going to take place there. There’s got to be some mounding in there, in order to satisfy. MR. MILLER-It’s very slight. I mean, we’re only talking fills of two to three feet. We’re not talking six, eight feet. MR. VOLLARO-Well, how do you know that you’re not going to have to excavate a lot deeper than that to get down to compactable fill? You don’t want to put fill on top of slurry, because it won’t, you know, that’s not what you want to do. I’m not, this is not my field. I’m going to defer this to Mr. Houston. You know what I’m driving at here, and if you want to take the floor on that one, I’d be only too glad and happy to have you do it. MR. HOUSTON-I’m not a structural engineer myself, but I can talk to this, try to clarify it a little bit. What Jim’s indicated is that there’s only two to three feet of fill in the majority of the site, and that’s true. That coupled with the fact that the foundations are typically four feet deep or so to get down to below the frost level so that doesn’t move means that the bottom of the footings are going to be into the material that’s on site native. So again, the support is getting additional information about that soil for the storm basins, for the foundations or whatever, so we know exactly what’s required to do this construction. MR. VOLLARO-Well, just taking something that I watched is when The Great Escape was putting the bridge abutments in. I was up there and I watched that with DOT. DOT was on site at that point, and I watched how much they excavated out of that hole and couldn’t believe how much that backhoe was taking out of there until they got down to what they thought was halfway decent material. Then they began to put compactable material in. Somebody got in the hole itself, with a compactor, and DOT was taking compaction readings from up there, and this is exactly what I expect has to happen here. Something very similar to that. MR. NACE-We’ll certainly provide additional soils information to address the issues. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Where are we? We’re down to environmental, and it has wetland delineation. I think we’ve been through that to the satisfaction of most members of the Board. How about that? Are we okay with that? Noise? I don’t see anything there, unless any Board member has any questions on that. Air quality, aesthetics. We just touched on the aesthetics. We want to make sure this doesn’t look like something built on a hill. MR. HUNSINGER-I guess my questions come best under aesthetics. If we were looking at site plan review, it would come under design standards, but we did have the elevation, but one of the things we didn’t get were color schemes. MR. VOLLARO-Right. MR. HUNSINGER-Was there something that you had in mind? MR. MICHAELS-We could provide something. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. MICHAELS-Usually that’s a little farther along in the planning process. We can get that for you. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thanks. MR. VOLLARO-I’m glad you brought that up, Mr. Hunsinger. I had it down, but it’s something we should be really looking at. Is that more of a site plan issue? I just had a question on that myself, whether the color renditions would be a site plan issue or not. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, because site plan issue talks about building design and layout. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Historical factors, wildlife, including rare and endangered species. I don’t think there’s any Karner blue there, butterflies. Involved agencies in this particular 25 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) area would, I guess, be DEC and the Army Corps are the two agencies involved, and I think we’ve talked that over pretty well. MR. SANFORD-The Town Board for the sewer extension, would be an involved agency. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Well, what they have here was County, DEC and other agencies would be the Town Board, yes. MR. SANFORD-I believe the Town Board passed a resolution which stated that if we were to be an involved agency, again, we need the (lost words) SEQRA review. MR. VOLLARO-I’m going to be getting to that. Other criteria not reviewed. I’ve got some statements on that, but if anybody has anything on it, feel free to go ahead. Okay. On the original DPW letter of August 19, 2005, it said please note, and I can get into it, but the Earth Tech study of 2004 shows a warrant met, two years ago, I understand. Now Mr. Michaels statement in the minutes said I’m sure we could generate a traffic study that says we’re going to have no impact and spend a lot of money on that so we would like to put the money into the ground. However, Lisa Peniston never really answered the basic question that I had posed, and that was a question to the Board, and I had asked her, did this study really take a look at the traffic situation on Cronin. Now I find out that Cronin Road is really a Town road. This is not, I didn’t know that until I started looking into. MR. LAPPER-Bay is County. Cronin is Town. MR. VOLLARO-Is a Town road, and all of the corrections that you want to make on the Town road itself, I haven’t heard from Mr. Missita at all on this. I haven’t seen him comment on this, and this structural change to Cronin Road being a Town road, I thought Mr. Missita should weigh in on this, and he never has. MR. LAPPER-It’s a County intersection. The County controls the intersection. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. The County controls the intersection, that goes back quite a way. That lane is 100 feet deep. MR. LAPPER-They asked us to go 75 feet deep. The County asked us to go 75 feet deep as a taper for the intersection, to have enough stacking. MR. VOLLARO-The taper is 75 and then the rest of it is 100, isn’t it? Am I correct? MR. NACE-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-So it’s 175 feet back. That’s not really the intersection. That’s part of the Town road, it seems to me. I don’t know. I’d like Mr. Missita, I haven’t heard anything from our Highway Superintendent even talking about this. I don’t know whether, I think he was, I believe that the Staff had asked him some questions, but we haven’t gotten any comments from Mr. Missita at all, and I would like to at least have him comment on that. In Staff notes, it says that there are three corrected fax pages, and it has Nace 1/25. Is that something we should see? Because I didn’t see it. It says it right up in Staff notes, that there are three corrected fax pages. I look for them and I didn’t see it. It’s right up in the front in Staff notes. I didn’t know whether they were important or not important or what, so I just made a question out of them. MRS. BARDEN-I’ll see if I can find them. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. On C.T. Male’s March 16 letter, that’s the six supplemental th questions that needed to be answered, I think that Mr. Houston has said that everything was answered except the DEC requirement. Now, is that the 60 day, where DEC gets 60 days to review this? Is that? MR. HOUSTON-That’s correct, up to 60 business days, which would be about 84 calendar days. MR. VOLLARO-Okay, and that’s what Mr. Lupo would be looking at, that’s Mr. Lupo’s time, essentially? 26 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR HOUSTON-That’s correct. Once you get into that timeframe, the technical review is done by the Regional Office, which would be Bill Lupo and his office. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. SP-2 really talks to site lighting. I have a question mark here. I think this has got to be covered as part of site plan. Would you folks agree to that, Board, that when we get into site plan review, site lighting would be a topic? Okay. Now, there’s a new DEC permit dated May 14. The old permit is dated May 14. I understand there’s a thth new DEC permit? MR. LAPPER-We submitted both the new DEC and Army Corps permit, just so you’d have it in the file. MR. VOLLARO-We don’t have it as part of our documentation, but if it’s in the file, I guess it would be okay. MRS. BARDEN-Right. I just received one today. You do have an updated DEC Freshwater Wetlands Permit dated December 5 ’05. th MR. VOLLARO-And that’s a DEC permit? MRS. BARDEN-That’s the DEC Freshwater Wetlands Permit, yes. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. We don’t have it. The Board hasn’t seen that permit, or have we? Was it submitted with Staff notes? MR. LAPPER-No. We just submitted it to you, to the Staff. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. LAPPER-It’s an outside agency approval. We just wanted to make sure Staff had it in the record. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, well, that’s something we ought to be seeing as well, I believe. I would Staff and Board members like to see that, or just know that it’s in the record? MR. SEGULJIC-I’d like to see it. MR. LAPPER-There’s also the Army Corps Permit dated December 13. th MR. VOLLARO-We haven’t seen any of those. Have any of you? MR. HUNSINGER-I’m sorry, what was the date on that? MR. LAPPER-December 13. th MR. HUNSINGER-I think we did get that. MR. VOLLARO-I didn’t see it in my package. I looked through it. MR. HUNSINGER-Here’s the package of old information. MR. LAPPER-You previously had that. MRS. BARDEN-You had that before. MR. VOLLARO-The Army Corps, yes. I’m looking for the DEC permit, the new DEC. The Army Corps I’ve got. I understand that. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MRS. BARDEN-When they submitted, I thought that they provided copies for you, for the DEC Freshwater Wetlands Permit. MR. VOLLARO-No, we don’t have it. So at least I’d like to see it. I think other Board members might as well. I don’t know. 27 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. HUNSINGER-I wanted to clarify something that you said earlier, Mr. Chairman, where you made a comment that the lighting plan is something that should be done during site plan review. If you recall, when we first looked at this, and it’s in Staff notes, we really are doing site plan review. The only reason why it’s a subdivision is because these are townhouses. So if there’s questions that you feel are appropriate for site plan review, we should be talking about them now, not putting them off to some later date. MR. VOLLARO-Okay, because the site plan has got some, SP-2 talks to site lighting, and if we get into that. MR. MILLER-Mr. Chairman, I think if you look at the landscape plan, I don’t know the number off the top of my head, where we show the typical landscaping at the units, the intent of the lighting plan is that it would be very residential in character, where there’s not going to be tall street lights and what’s proposed is that there will be building mounted lights at the entrances to the homes, and at each driveway there’ll be a light, six to eight foot high, located at the end of the driveway, and the lighting essentially will basically similar to what you have on a single family lot. MR. VOLLARO-Well, what we would need, I’m reading the same thing, one residential light pole. This is what you’re talking about right here. MR. MILLER-Yes, well, there’s a plan. If you look at the landscape plan. MR. VOLLARO-What number are you at? MR. MILLER-SP-6. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. MILLER-You’ll see that, worked in with the landscaping, we’ve sort of, we like to show around the trees and things, so it shows where they are relative to each other, but you’ll see where that locates where the three post lights would be, at the end of each driveway, and then it also shows that there’ll be building mounted lights on the rear deck and at each entrance, and that was going to be the extent of the site lighting. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I would ask that the cut sheets that go along with those be provided, so that when Bruce Frank goes out to look at it, he knows what he’s looking at. I think we’ve covered my next one. I had elevation drawings did not show colors. I think Mr. Hunsinger covered that already. We have, in our packet, a Town of Queensbury Freshwater Wetlands Permit, and the old application is dated 3/05/04, and there’s some errors in there that I think we ought to take a look at, and that should be updated, and I can show you where the errors are. I won’t go through them now if you don’t want me to, but they’re on Page Two of that document. Okay. We’re through the subdivision review criteria now, and I’d like to throw the meeting open to the rest of the Board members for comments, in any area, before we go any further. So do any Board members have comments that have not been covered in this review, that they’d like to talk to? Okay. I guess we’re all set in that area. Anybody have any comments? Any comment at all that they’d like to make before I go any further here? I guess it’s pretty quiet. I guess everybody’s pretty satisfied, so far, with where we are. MRS. STEFFAN-We have a list of information that we need to go further. MR. VOLLARO-Exactly, yes, but before we get into that, I want to talk a little bit about the motion requesting the Queensbury Town Board to act as Lead Agency on the PUD and so on. Now I have a prepared motion here for that, because I looked into it and I really feel that this ought to be re-visited. I will read this motion, but I won’t read it into the record. I’ll read it so that my fellow Board members can understand the motion before I read it, and I’ll go ahead and read it, and, Maria, this is not for the record. So it’ll be said again. MRS. STEFFAN-It’ll be in the record. MR. VOLLARO-Well, it’ll be in the record twice, but not as a motion. I’ll make the official motion later on. The date is March 21, 2006, and I’ll make a motion requesting that the Queensbury Town Board, acting as Lead Agency on PUD SP 8-2000, re-open SEQRA, based on the availability of new information relating the locations of buildings being partially 28 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) located in the floodplain, and the small portion of the property being in the floodway, and where I refer to that is up near the golf course itself, up near the driving range. Part of that floodway goes right, it’s in your property. It doesn’t impact the buildings, however. Additionally, based on the amount of fill potentially required for this property, what will be the visual impacts of raised buildings, just a question. Further on this property, tax map number 296.16-1-2, is not located in the Queensbury Sewer District. The Wastewater Department requires a map plan and report to be generated, in order for this applicant to be granted a sewer district extension. This requires a public hearing and an approval of the Town Board. That’s what the motion says. Does anybody have any questions? Or let me ask a question. You know what the motion is purporting to do. What’s everybody’s feeling on this motion? Will it be supported or not supported? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I don’t think we’re re-opening SEQRA. MR. VOLLARO-I think it has to be re-visited. MR. MICHAELS-Excuse me, Bob. The buildings have not changed locations since 1996. Those buildings are in the exact location that the senior citizen buildings were, in the exact location that we submitted the revised PUD back in August. That’s never been changed. That motion represents that we’ve changed something on the buildings. MR. VOLLARO-No. MR. MICHAELS-It says new location of buildings. MR. VOLLARO-No, it says information relating to the location of buildings being partially in the floodplain. MR. MICHAELS-That’s always been the same. Nothing has changed there in 10 years. There’s no change there. All those buildings were exactly where the old buildings were. That’s why. MR. VOLLARO-Well, you see, one of the things that I’m looking at is the new information that we received here as a Board from our GIS capability, looking, before that, we had no real, good knowledge of exactly where the floodplain was located, with respect to those buildings, now we do. In my view, at least, that’s new information, and it’s information that we ought to have the Town Board look at. That’s my opinion as a Board member here. I think there’s new information been introduced here, and I would like it to be looked at again from the SEQRA point of view. MR. MICHAELS-Bob, that was the reason we took the 96 units and changed it to 39. We purposely kept the exact same site plan, so you wouldn’t have to go through all that. MR. VOLLARO-I’m not questioning the location of the building. MR. MICHAELS-The Town Board has looked at this. MR. VOLLARO-I’m not questioning the location of the building. I’m just saying that we’ve got new information here to show us, as a Board, where the floodplain really is. MR. LAPPER-That was on the plans all along. I mean, the floodplain, there are many houses built in the floodplain in Queensbury. There’s no rule that you can’t build in a floodplain. You just have to build it up to the floodplain elevation. MRS. STEFFAN-My opinion, Bob, is that, you know, I think I understand the motion, but based on the conversations this evening, we knew that the floodplain was there, and that’s where water spreads, and you can build in a floodplain, according to, you know, the workshop that we had and what we’ve talked about. However, in our discussions this evening, a couple of things that we will be asking for, like we need to know, we need some soil borings to determine where groundwater is, and we want some soil data, and I think, based on those results, I mean, the next time we get together and we get that data, that may change the body of knowledge regarding this project, and then that may trigger the Town Board to want to go back and look at SEQRA again, but I don’t think, based on what we have now, that, for example, the floodplain information has changed materially, to recommend the Town Board look at SEQRA now. That’s my opinion. 29 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. SEGULJIC-Well, how does the information with regards to the flooding down in the vicinity of Homer play into this? MRS. STEFFAN-Well, based on what we heard at the, based on our workshop, Craig Brown was at that workshop, and he said, based on the investigation that was being done, that that flooding was not related to this situation. It was a blocked culvert full of debris, and so, you know, that was the feedback that we got, that was the answer to that question, and so that’s the information that I’m basing some of my questions and decisions on. I don’t know if that’s an issue, that flooding issue. According to what Craig Brown told us, based on investigations between our Town and the County, was that it was a blocked culvert and not a result of this flooding, and it was an unusual storm event. You were at that workshop, too. I’m just trying to remind the Board of what we talked about. MR. SEGULJIC-There’s really no such thing as an unusual storm event because we have storm events like that, I mean, every winter we have a rain event where there’s ice covered ground, for example. I guess, why was the culvert blocked? Was it sediment? MRS. STEFFAN-There were tree limbs and all kinds of things in there, but the other thing that we learned in our workshop is that, you know, we haven’t had a 100 year storm event, and the history of the flooding in the Town is such that we don’t really have a basis to say that this area will flood based on that experience. MR. SEGULJIC-The other thing, I’m almost uncomfortable with the other development in the area now that has occurred, and how does that impact, to me that’s new information, also the new development. It has to all be looked at again. MR. LAPPER-Since the Town Board rendered a SEQRA decision there’s been new development? That SEQRA decision was in the Fall. MR. SEGULJIC-They reaffirmed it in the Fall. When was the SEQRA decision technically, was it ’98? MR. VOLLARO-No. Counsel is correct, it was done in the Fall, and the date of that was the 16 August 2005, I believe. MR. SEGULJIC-That was technically reaffirmed. MR. SCHACHNER-So I believe the date on that is November 28, 2005. MR. VOLLARO-I have a, well, it was our recommendation to the Town Board. MR. SCHACHNER-Correct. Staff has the minutes that reflect the Town Board’s SEQRA determination from November 28, 2005. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-And, you know, Tom, I agree with you that, yes, there’s been a lot of development in the area and we’ve got some high water issues that we’ve had before we’ve actually talked about this with other developments, but based on the information that we’ve been trying to get, and some of the science that we’re looking at, I don’t think the science can support our position on, you know, that there’s flooding in that area, and so I’m feeling like we have to go back and evaluate, obviously we have some things that we’re asking for, like we want the groundwater information and we want the soil data information, and I think that that’s the science that we can make better decisions on going forward. MR. VOLLARO-We also have to take a look at this DEC, what DEC says about the design. I mean, that 60 day operation that Lupo’s got to go through. So there’s a lot here, but that, see, just the fact that we have to submit something like that to DEC for a review, to me, is all borders on new information, and it’s something that I think the Town Board should be looking at. That’s one opinion. Mrs. Steffan has another. I think the Board now has to come to terms with whether or not they want to make this recommendation to re-open the SEQRA or not. I think each person has to try to determine that on their own. 30 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I had a question of Staff, actually, which is why I raised the comment that you made. In the Staff notes it says that the units are proposed to be serviced by, I’m just going to read them. The units are proposed to be served by municipal water and sewer (see Mike Shaw memo) indicating that the developer will have to extend the sewer district prior to the connection. With that, this project should be a coordinated SEQRA review with the Town Board. A SEQRA Long Form was submitted at the January meeting. Per a recent Town Board resolution, they may want to seek Lead Agency status for purposes of the SEQRA review. MR. VOLLARO-That’s right. MR. LAPPER-That’s already happened. They already were Lead Agency. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I know the Town Board confirmed the SEQRA findings in November. MR. LAPPER-Right, but what Richard is saying, we would also have to submit to the Town Board for the sewer extension, which is a separate action, or separate part of the action. I think that Mark Schachner could confirm that if you have a Lead Agency. The Town Board was Lead Agency. The Town reviewed this and if for some reason, which happened here, there’s an extra approval that you need later on, that doesn’t mean that you start all over with SEQRA. There’s a provision for that in SEQRA that deals with if you need an extra approval. MR. HUNSINGER-This is why I raised the question, because I was confused by Bob’s comments. MR. SCHACHNER-I want to make sure we’re all on the same page here. I think somebody just said something about the Town Board re-confirming its SEQRA determination in November. Reviewing the meeting minutes from the November 28 Town Board meeting, I th believe Staff, not to put words in Susan’s mouth, but my impression is, and I think she agrees, reviewing the Town Board meeting minutes, that what happened on November 28 th was that the Town Board re-visited the SEQRA review of the project as it was proposed to be modified, and didn’t just re-confirm their earlier determination, actually went through the Long Form EAF Part II, question by question, by question. They actually did identify some small to moderate impacts, but no potential large impacts, and then adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration. That’s what appears from the minutes of November 28 just a few th months ago this past year. MRS. STEFFAN-And, Mark, we had a SEQRA workshop a couple of months ago, and one of the things that you told us, I believe, is that unless there is a material change to the project, some information that was not known before, then you can’t go back and re-do SEQRA. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s basically correct. MR. VOLLARO-But I think that there’s some feeling on the Board that there has been some new information introduced since the last time this Board sat on the 24 of January this year. th MR. LAPPER-What information is that? MR. VOLLARO-The information is that I, personally, as one, didn’t have a good feel, until George Hilton put the aerial maps together and overlaid some of the FEMA data, to see exactly where the floodplain was. MR. LAPPER-That was always on our maps, that information. MR. VOLLARO-I might not have seen it on there. If it’s on the map. MR. HUNSINGER-I have a follow-up question for Counsel. Going along, based on your comments, and based on the applicant’s comments, so a SEQRA review for a sewer extension would be a separate SEQRA review? MR. SCHACHNER-Only if the sewer extension was not initially identified as part of the action. In a perfect SEQRA world, which I like to think we all live in, if at the time of the original action it’s envisioned that one of the components of the action is sewer district 31 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) formation or sewer district extension or water district formation or water district extension, whatever, municipal district extension or formation, then at least in theory that should all be encompassed in the overall SEQRA review as part of the project description, as part of the proposed action. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. SCHACHNER-I don’t know if that was done here, I don’t know when. MR. HUNSINGER-No, it was, because that was always a condition on this development, yes. Because we wouldn’t have looked at it if it didn’t have water or sewer. MR. SCHACHNER-Then, as we’ve said before, including at the workshop that Gretchen mentions, then the SEQRA review is for the entire action. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. LAPPER-It was always proposed that it was going to be public sewer. MR. HUNSINGER-No, I remember that very well from the original site plan. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. All of those discussions don’t obviate, in my mind, at least, if the Board feels there’s been new information, I guess, Mark, let me ask you a question. If the Board, in its infinite wisdom, thinks that there has been new information introduced that should be looked at, and we vote as Board to do that, to have the Town Board re-visit SEQRA, is that, can we do that or can we not? MR. SCHACHNER-You can’t vote, as a Board, to have the Town Board re-visit SEQRA. You can vote as a Board to ask the Town Board to do that. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, okay. MR. SCHACHNER-There’s a important legal distinction there. MR. VOLLARO-There is, and I agree with the last portion. We can ask the Town Board to do that. MR. SCHACHNER-You have the authority, if you wish, by majority, obviously, to request the Town Board to re-visit SEQRA review if you feel it’s appropriate to do so. Right. They’re not bound by that, the Town Board, but you have the authority to ask. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. SIPP-Bob, can we reach a compromise here by putting that kind of language into this motion, that if new information is brought forth that we feel changes the situation, we can ask the Town Board to re-visit, or recommend that they do. MR. SCHACHNER-Was the first word “if”? Did you say if new information? MR. SIPP-If new information changes the basic feeling of this Board on this project, the new information being introduced at the next meeting, changes our positions on some of the parts of this project, we would recommend to the Town Board that they re-visit this. MR. SCHACHNER-Right, and I think that’s consistent with what Gretchen said earlier. What I think Gretchen said earlier is I believe she thinks it might be premature to entertain a resolution now whether to ask the Town Board to re-visit the SEQRA review or not, pending receipt of all this additional information you’re asking of the applicant, and I will say, as your Counsel, that that makes, I’m more comfortable with that, from a legal perspective, than adopting a resolution now that says if we find, in the future. That to me is. MR. VOLLARO-No. I said if we found tonight, at this meeting. MR. SCHACHNER-I understand what you’re saying, Mr. Vollaro, but I understood Mr. Sipp to be proposing, if I understood him correctly, to adopt a resolution that says, if we find later that there’s additional new information that requires further SEQRA review we want the 32 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) Town Board to re-visit, and what I’m saying is, as your Counsel, I think that would be so speculative that I would not be comfortable with adopting that sort of a resolution this evening. MR. SIPP-I understand. I feel that that’s probably the way it should be done, that we should hold this in abeyance, but with the idea that we will have it available if new information does change our position or our thinking. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I understand that. Let me poll the Board and see how the Board feels about asking the Town Board to re-visit it now. I’ve got yours. How do you feel about that? MRS. BRUNO-I believe it needs to be re-visited. MR. VOLLARO-Now. In other words, the motion that I read, you feel you could support? By re-visiting it based on new information that we’ve received since the last meeting of 24 January? MRS. BRUNO-I’m not comfortable with it in terms of just strictly the overlay because it is, it comes down to a little bit of the interpretation of the data. I would like to see more as to how Gretchen had stated, in terms of some of the incoming information, how that I’m sure will actually end up affecting the need for another SEQRA review. I can’t imagine having gone through it, actually, without some of that water level information. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So you would really prefer us to hold off a motion for SEQRA until we’ve received the information that has been requested this evening? MRS. BRUNO-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I think that pretty much wraps it up. I know how Mr. Hunsinger’s going to vote. I don’t know. MR. HUNSINGER-No, you don’t. MR. VOLLARO-No, but from your commentary I think. MR. VOLLARO-Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-Let’s get more information. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. All right. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, asking to re-open SEQRA because we think the floodplain boundaries have moved in the last 20 years I don’t think is, I mean, because basically that’s what you were saying in your motion is that’s new information, but they’ve been there since 1986, by your own admission. MR. VOLLARO-That’s true, but being there from 1986 to having this Board well acquainted with it this evening are two different things, in my mind. MRS. BRUNO-I think, actually, the scientific evidence will end up coming out, once a little bit more is done, in terms of going in and taking specific samples, going in and perhaps trying some of the testing that Mr. Vollaro had mentioned, and then I do, I really do think it’s going to end up bringing about a need to look at that domino effect that some of the Board members have mentioned from a more recent, albeit it not since the SEQRA review, but that building in the Town. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. How about a tabling motion? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. In the tabling motion, I think what we want to do, you might want to hold the tabling motion off until we, you know, we’ve got some time to do the tabling motion. We don’t have to do it tonight, and we can incorporate, much like we did recently, all the requirements that we’d like the applicant to come back with. Because we haven’t documented them all that well. 33 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. LAPPER-If you wanted to give it to us next week, that’s totally acceptable. MRS. STEFFAN-I’ve been taking notes. What we need are answers to the unanswered issues in C.T. Male’s letter. We also need answers to the Wastewater Department letter from Bruce Ostrander. We need to have the applicant address wastewater issues, including the potential sewer connection, and the map plan and report, and consequent Town Board review. We’re looking for Rick Missita’s comments on the Bay/Cronin Road intersection improvements. We need lighting plan cut sheets. We need building color schemes. We need a copy of the new DEC Freshwater Wetlands Permit. We need a correction on the Freshwater Wetlands Permit for Town of Queensbury Page Two, because there are errors there. We need elevation drawings. We need groundwater data, and we need a detailed soil analysis. MR. VOLLARO-One other thing I think that we need is a comment from Parks and Rec on whether they’re going to, I guess we don’t. MRS. STEFFAN-No, because the Town Board accepted that. MR. HUNSINGER-The Town Board accepted that. MR. VOLLARO-The Town Board accepted that, okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Did we want to see, and I’ve got to be honest, I’m always confused. We asked for the homeowners association information, but then we don’t have it reviewed by legal counsel. So, I’m not sure what that exercise is all about, but we had talked about having that document address maintenance of the stormwater retention basins. MR. VOLLARO-And that was on their Article Six of the Declaration. MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t know if it matters where they put it. MR. LAPPER-We can beef it up. MRS. STEFFAN-Also in C.T. Male’s letter on Item Nine, they had questions specifically about the stormwater basin drainage. So our engineer is looking for that, and so that would be addressed before the homeowners association got it. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Did you mention cut sheets for the light poles? MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, lighting plan and cut sheets. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-Can anyone else think of anything that I missed? MR. SEGULJIC-I think that’s everything. MR. VOLLARO-One other thing I have to ask. I understand that the driving range is being brought back into this application. MR. LAPPER-It was always part of the PUD. MR. VOLLARO-I know. MR. NACE-In my last submission of plans, we had cut it out, before we realized that that would require modifying the PUD. MR. VOLLARO-Right. MR. NACE-So I had asked Staff to simply ignore that drawing. MR. VOLLARO-And stay with the old. MR. NACE-And stay with the old. 34 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Now, that means that the homeowners association is now responsible for maintenance of that? MR. LAPPER-No. MR. MICHAELS-They’re going to sign a lease. MR. LAPPER-Yes. It’s going to be leased to the golf course, as part of the agreement with Bay Meadows. So they’ll be totally the responsibility of the golf course. MR. VOLLARO-I see. Okay. All right. I understand that. As long as that’s covered and we know what’s happening there. I guess, based on the details you’ve come up with there, Gretchen, you can go ahead. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MOTION TO TABLE FWW 6-2005 & SUBDIVISION NO. 26-2005 MICHAELS GROUP & BAY MEADOWS CORP., Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: To come back with the following information: 1. Answers to the unanswered issues in the latest C.T. Male comment letter addressing the issues contained in the Water Department’s letter from Bruce Ostrander from March 7, th 2. To address wastewater issues from Mike Shaw’s letter, including addressing the potential sewer connection and the map plan and report and consequent Town Board review, 3. We’ll be looking for Rick Missita’s comments on the Bay and Cronin Road intersection improvements, 4. We’ll be looking for lighting plan cut sheets, 5. We’ll be looking for building color schemes, 6. We’ll be looking for a copy of the new DEC Freshwater Wetlands Permit, 7. We will be looking for corrections for the Town of Queensbury Freshwater Wetlands Permit on Page Two, some of the errors need to be corrected, 8. We’re looking for elevation drawings, and 9. We’re looking for groundwater data, and 10. We’re also looking for a detailed soil analysis. Duly adopted this 21 day of March, 2006, by the following vote: st MRS. BRUNO-Actually, I’m not quite sure at this point, maybe I should ask the Chairman, just because of my newness, because of the history, if I should be recusing myself, or if I can vote on this? MR. VOLLARO-I think I’ve had discussions with Counsel, and Counsel says if you feel comfortable that you’ve done due diligence, that you understand the project, that you can vote as a member of this Board. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. I think it should be tabled, yes. AYES: Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Vollaro NOES: NONE 35 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) ABSENT: Mr. Goetz MR. LAPPER-Okay. Thanks for working through this with us tonight. MRS. BARDEN-Do you want to just keep that open ended, then? MR. VOLLARO-The public hearing will stay open. I haven’t closed it. MRS. BARDEN-Okay, and you’ll just table it to some time in the future. MRS. STEFFAN-Once they get all the materials back. NEW BUSINESS: SITE PLAN MODIFICATION 5-2006 SEQR TYPE: UNLISTED STEWARTS SHOPS CORP. AGENT(S): CHAD FOWLER OWNER(S): SAME ZONING: NC-10 LOCATION: 347 AVIATION ROAD REMOVE EXISTING FUEL STORAGE TANKS AND REPLACE. INSTALL NEW CONCRETE ISLANDS AND PAD. INSTALL NEW CONCRETE DRIVE MAT, NEW CATCH BASIN, MOVE EXISTING DRYWELL, REPLACE CURB AT RIGHT ENTRANCE. PROPOSED CHANGES TO EXISTING SITE PLAN REQUIRE REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS. REF. SP 34-86, SP 40-86, SP 50-93, SP 20-94, SP 24-99, AV 92-93 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING N/A LOT SIZE 7+/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 301.8-1-33 SECTION 179-9-020 CHAD FOWLER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. VOLLARO-You are, for the record? MR. FOWLER-Yes. My name is Chad Fowler. I work for Stewarts Shops in Saratoga Springs. We are appearing before the Board today because we would like to gain permission to replace our gas tanks at our Aviation Road site. Currently the tanks are single wall with a liner as secondary containment. That was 1980’s technology, and we are, as a company, replacing all of our single wall tanks to double wall. So that’s why we’re here before the Board. During the project, we’d like to make some upgrades that we noticed need some work on the site, such as rebuilding one drywell, relocating one drywell, replacing some deteriorated curbing. We are not proposing to add any blacktop or take away any green space. We’d like to keep the parking as is and keep lighting as is. The capacity of the gas tanks is to remain the same, although we currently have three tanks. We’d like to have two, a 12,000 and a 6,000, with the same total capacity. Still have two dispensers in total, not add any dispensers, replace as existing, keep the same canopy, same location. Landscaping is, we feel, adequate. I did bring pictures with me of what it looked like last summer if you’d like to see that, but again, the reason we’re here is to replace our gas tanks to upgrade from single wall to double wall. The tanks are in compliance now because they do have secondary containment with a liner, but again, that’s old technology. We’d like to upgrade to double wall fiberglass tanks, and with that would go double wall piping, sumps under the dispensers, pretty much upgrade the whole system, as it exists, and I’m happy to answer any questions you may have. MR. VOLLARO-This seems like a relatively straightforward application to me. Do you think we have to go through site plan criteria review on this, or should we just take a look at the pertinent questions? Board members? MRS. STEFFAN-I just have one item highlighted about the, on the C.T. Male regarding the New York State DOT criteria. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MR. FOWLER-We did look into that, it is a Town road. It’s Town jurisdiction. We talked to the County and the State. We actually applied to the State. They returned our application, and as you know, look in the Town Staff comments, it does say local arterial road, if that means anything. So we realize that we will have to apply for a Highway Work Permit with the Town to replace that curbing that has deteriorated. MR. VOLLARO-As far as, I just have a couple of comments that I’m waiting for Board members to make their comments first, if they would, please. 36 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. HUNSINGER-I’ll jump in. First of all, I applaud you for being proactive to, you know, protect the environment. If everyone did that, we wouldn’t have had problems in the past. MR. FOWLER-We started this project, this process two years ago, where we had 30 sites that have liners. We have 12 left, which we intend to be done by middle of this year. MR. HUNSINGER-I had just a couple of questions. One is related to lighting, and I meant to drive over to the site in the evening when it was dark before the Board meeting. I didn’t get a chance to do that. So I don’t know what your existing lighting is, but I would tend to be of the opinion it probably doesn’t meet our latest lighting standards, which require a lot less intense lighting. I mean, maybe you can comment on that. I don’t know. MR. FOWLER-I can. These lights were installed back when the tanks were installed in the late 80’s, and they are 400 watt metal halide, and they do shine down. The bulb is actually up in a box shining down. We have the same on the building is the soffit lights. Those are 175 watt. The latest, when installing gas equipment, is to install 320 watt metal halide bulbs, but they are actually much brighter than the 400, to be frank. I mean, they are vertical. They are surrounded by a glass globe that is very visible. MR. HUNSINGER-Do you know, for example, what you used here on Bay? MR. FOWLER-Those are 320 watt. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. FOWLER-They’re called a Scottsdale Fixture. MR. HUNSINGER-So it would be your opinion, your comment that your existing lights on the Aviation Road side are dimmer than the ones on Bay? MR. FOWLER-Much dimmer, which is why I didn’t suggest making a change. It was brought up very early on in this process that lighting would be an issue. We’re happy with our lighting. Of course we want it brighter, but we’re happy to leave it as existing, just to make the process a little less complicated. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-I happen to frequent that store often, and the lighting is low, and it’s significantly lower than the one here on the corner of Cronin and Bay. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I happen to have to go to the one on Bay last night, because I had to put air in my tire, and, you know, if you step back and you look at, you say, this looks good. It’s not too bright, but when you try to do something, you know, small like that, it’s not bright enough. MR. FOWLER-Yes. They do have that fixture in a flat lens, which is what we installed at 149, which was approved. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I’ll defer to Gretchen on the lighting, then. MRS. BRUNO-The boxes that you refer to over those lightings are quite a thick opaque cover on it, and I think that’s what dims it. MR. HUNSINGER-Sure. MR. VOLLARO-I use that a lot, from where I am, and I use it in the evening as well, and I don’t see it as being obtrusive at all, in terms of lighting. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Good. The only other comment I had is on the interconnect. Staff made comments about an interconnect to the businesses on either the east or west, and I just want to explore that issue with you. MR. FOWLER-I have looked into that as well, after reading those comments. I think an interconnect would be possible, versus shared entrance, I mean, there’s two different. 37 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. FOWLER-But we would lose parking either way with the interconnect. Currently we have a Stewarts Shop, a rental unit, and our district office is to the rear, and the district office does have weekly meetings where they fill up the parking lot on that left side, which would probably be where the interconnect would be, and it could add traffic or some confusion. I mean, they’re set up now, the neighbor, where they have parking on one side of a buffer and we’re on the other. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. FOWLER-So I kind of wondered if the interconnect would actually complicate that. Because they seem satisfied. We have over 1,000 customers a week using our two entrances. So it seems like it works pretty good for what we have. We seem to have enough parking, and I’d hate to take any of that away. MRS. BRUNO-Has there been any inquiry with the neighbor? MR. FOWLER-None at all. I just received this within days, the comments from Staff. MRS. STEFFAN-I am of the opinion on that that there is an interconnect at the Bank, which is your next door neighbor, which goes through the Manor Drive, and, you know, I’ve used it myself, and so I’m not sure whether it is absolutely necessary in this situation. I mean, it will limit your parking, and it will also give somebody competing access. There’d be two access lanes, one right next to another. I don’t know if that’s necessary. MR. FOWLER-We have done interconnects in the past, and it’s typically, it typically works better if there’s a traffic light nearby, that seems to back up main traffic, and it gets some traffic off the road, to alleviate some congestion. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the concept of it isn’t so much for traffic to come in and out, but for patrons to go from one store to the other without going back out onto the highway. I mean, that’s really the concept, or pedestrians could walk, you know, across the interconnect from one store to the other. MR. FOWLER-We do have lawn. I mean, it’s not a large buffer or fences or anything like that. So it is easily accessible if one wanted to walk. MR. HUNSINGER-And I’m sure when the Bank went in that we made them put it in. So it’s at least there. It’s at least on a map. MR. VOLLARO-It is. Right now, you can go from Stewarts past the hairdresser, directly to the Bank property, via the parking lot and an opening in there for pedestrians. You walk straight across. MR. HUNSINGER-How about for vehicles, though. MR. VOLLARO-There’s no vehicle turnaround in there. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I know. MR. VOLLARO-There’s a pedestrian walkway. It seems to work well. I mean, I’ve watched that work now for a while. It seems to work okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, it is in our Ordinance. MR. SEGULJIC-Excuse me. The Bank is to east of the site? MR. VOLLARO-The Bank is to the west. MR. SEGULJIC-So the west. MRS. STEFFAN-There’s a medical complex behind the parking lot, that has it’s own parking lot, which is actually where one of the vehicle accesses is. 38 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. SEGULJIC-Well, we encourage interconnects, but our Ordinance says to show them. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m sure the Bank has one. MR. SEGULJIC-Right. MR. HUNSINGER-On their site plan. MR. SEGULJIC-Because over there it would make sense, but with the Church it would make no sense. MR. HUNSINGER-No. MR. SEGULJIC-But we would like an interconnect shown there, I believe, just in case if, in the future, the Church’s use changes, it makes sense to have an interconnect. MR. VOLLARO-You mean put a stub there? MR. SEGULJIC-Just show it on the map for the future. MR. VOLLARO-You certainly could do that. Putting an interconnect now, at its present usage, I noted on my notes that I didn’t think it was necessary, but if you think a stub should go there, by all means. MR. SEGULJIC-What do you mean by a stub? MR. VOLLARO-Well, showing on the map that there is a spot for an interconnection. MR. SEGULJIC-Right. Okay. MR. VOLLARO-That’s what I’m talking about. We can certainly ask them to modify the plan and make it a condition of approval, because I don’t see this as a very complicated application. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, it’s not a complicated application, but, you know, here’s an opportunity to do what we believe is the right thing to do. MR. VOLLARO-Sure. I’ve already said it’s okay. MR. HUNSINGER-No, I’m talking about the one to the west where there is an existing commercial operation, not the one to the east. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Into the west area, where would you want to put that? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I’m sure when the Bank came before us that we made the Bank at least put one on their drawing. MR. VOLLARO-Probably, I would think so. MR. HUNSINGER-Because that was only a couple, three years ago tops. MR. VOLLARO-Right. We’d have to look at that. I don’t recall that out of memory, but the chances are it is. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m sure we did. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, because at the back of the Bank parking lot, adjacent to this Stewarts, there is a connect between that parking lot and the parking lot of the health center. So you can drive right from Manor Drive through the health center right into the bank parking lot and go through the drive thru or go to the lobby. MR. FOWLER-When I was thinking interconnect, that’s what I was thinking, at the end of the row of parking, to the rear of our, to access, not the Bank, but to the doctor’s because that seemed to make more sense, to go straight through. 39 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I don’t know which. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. You might want to take that up to your, take a look at what you’re talking about. MR. FOWLER-We didn’t show the whole property, but actually I might have a plan that does. Yes. When I was thinking interconnect, I was thinking extending this blacktop through to the rear, more than on the side, to connect, because these parcels do connect already. MR. HUNSINGER-That would be fine. MRS. STEFFAN-That would be the logical place. MR. FOWLER-For future. We could agree to that for future, to agree now to have a possible interconnect. I don’t see any drainage problems with that or, might have some snow plowing issues, but we can resolve that as we go. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I mean, you understand the concept, you know, the ability to go from one business to the other without going back out onto the main road. MR. FOWLER-I do, and we’ve been approached by other towns for the same request. MR. HUNSINGER-Sure. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-There’s another issue in the Staff comments for a consolidation of curb cuts, allowing for one point of access to the site. I don’t know how the rest of the Board feels about that, but I think that that would make traffic flow very difficult on their site. MR. SIPP-True. MRS. STEFFAN-Right now they have, there are cars that come in and out of both entrances. However, you can see where the gas island is, and folks do seem to move around that. If there was only one point of entrance, I think that that would complicate the site, and make it very difficult for these folks to do business, personally. MR. VOLLARO-I have a written comment on that that says I would not move changing the curb cuts. The site works well with the site to the west and across Aviation Road with Sokols. That’s where I get my gas most of the time is right at this station, and it’s easy to get in, easy to get out, and the Sokol traffic seems to move relatively well across the street. So I wouldn’t, I’m agreeing with Gretchen. I don’t think I would move to change the entrances to one entrance. That’s just my comment. MR. HUNSINGER-I think if this was a new application, I’d insist on it, but I would agree as well. I mean, it seems to work, and one of the things, when we do site plan reviews, for gas stations in particular, you need that circular motion to get traffic in and out. Because there is so much traffic coming in and out. MRS. STEFFAN-This is a very busy site. MR. HUNSINGER-Absolutely. MRS. STEFFAN-All hours of the day and night. So I think we’d be causing a problem. MR. HUNSINGER-I do, too. MR. VOLLARO-We do have to get a C.T. Male signoff on this. There’s a C.T. Male letter. So you’ll have to get a C.T. Male signoff from C.T. Male Engineering. MR. FOWLER-We’ve already made the changes from their comments. We’re ready to submit. 40 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. HUNSINGER-That gives us an opportunity to see the revised plat with the interconnect. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MR. FOWLER-We’ll make that change. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. FOWLER-We’ll label it as future interconnect. MR. HUNSINGER-The question then is, when would we actually ask them to construct it? MR. FOWLER-I assume the neighbor would have some say. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-I think you can put it in. I don’t know about the actual construction of it. I haven’t opened the public hearing yet. We’ve gone through a good deal of exercise here. So I’d ask you to possibly leave the table and allow the public to speak. MR. FOWLER-Certainly. MR. VOLLARO-And I will open the public hearing, and if somebody wants to talk to this application, you can come on up now. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MIKE NICHOLS MR. NICHOLS-My name’s Mike Nichols. I live maybe 500 feet from the Stewarts store on Poplar Lane. I think everything they’re doing is great. My concern, being a recent kidney transplant and having no immune system, is air quality when they start digging, because I have to actually, until August of this year, my immune system is completely shot. I mean, I cannot mow a lawn. I can’t cut trees. I can’t even dig in my own yard. I mean, my poor wife has to mow the lawn, you know, and when we mow the lawn, I have to close all the windows to the house. So, I mean, I even know when my neighbor mows his lawn, and I have Girard’s who mows the doctor’s office right next door. I know he’s there every Saturday morning. So, you know, my concern, if it’s a nice day, these guys are digging at Stewarts. I’m only right down the road. What’s going to be the air quality in the air that can affect me. If nobody’s there to close the windows when they’re digging, you know, which I work during the day, and, you know, I’d like to leave the windows open if it’s a nice day. So that’s my concern is the air quality. I don’t know, you know, what it affects, but if I can’t dig in my own yard, and I’m only right around the corner from this. MR. HUNSINGER-So would you just need to be notified before they start construction, or do you think you’d need something more than that? MR. NICHOLS-Well, how long is it? MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, yes, we can ask him those questions. MR. SEGULJIC-One of the things they’re going to have to do, once they start digging up the tanks, at least they should be doing, is preparing a health and safety plan, that in the plan they’ll address these issues. I’m sure when the applicant comes back, we’ll ask him about that, and we’ll request that he’ll be sensitive to your needs. MR. NICHOLS-Soil containment, you know, when they dig it. MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. They’ll have to do continuous monitoring at the site, and if there’s any detection above a certain level, certain actions will be taken, like maybe close back in the hole so the odors don’t dissipate more until they can come in with a new plan of action, something of that order. 41 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. NICHOLS-Odors isn’t a big thing. It’s, you know, like molds and stuff like that that are, you know. MRS. STEFFAN-Particulate matter. MR. NICHOLS-Yes. MR. SIPP-Are you located west or east of the site? Which way? MR. NICHOLS-East. MRS. STEFFAN-What’s your number on Poplar? MR. NICHOLS-One. MRS. STEFFAN-One Poplar Lane? MR. NICHOLS-Yes. There’s only three houses there. MR. SIPP-West winds prevail. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. So he would be getting the winds. MR. SIPP-Down wind. MR. VOLLARO-It’s a new one for me, in terms of trying to digest something like that. I don’t exactly know. MR. NICHOLS-I frequent this. I walk there. So, I mean, it’s like, you know, so, but that’s, seeing that situation for me, is when they do start digging I won’t be able to frequent the store, or, that’s what I mean, you know, when winds blow, you know. MR. VOLLARO-Where do you work? MR. NICHOLS-I work in, right here on Warren Street. It used to be Valcour years ago. I’ve been there 25 years. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. How do you deal with the pollution on the site, on your job site? MR. NICHOLS-Actually right now I’m down in the lab, which is a very clean air situation. It’s relatively. It’s the same temperature. It’s got an air purifier and all that stuff. MR. SIPP-Would some kind of breathing apparatus, mask work at all? MR. NICHOLS-No. MRS. STEFFAN-All right, Mr. Nichols, we’ve got your comment written down. We have your address. We’ll let the applicant address some of those issues. MR. NICHOLS-Okay. Thanks. MRS. BRUNO-Continued good luck with your transplant. MR. NICHOLS-Thank you. MR. VOLLARO-Anybody else? Dr. Hoffman? MARK HOFFMAN DR. HOFFMAN-Mark Hoffman, Fox Hollow Lane. It seems that this might be an opportunity to put a sidewalk in front of this establishment. They do mention that they’re looking at replacing some curb and so forth. So it seems like now’s the time to try to do it. If not now, I don’t know when it would be done. There is sidewalk all the way from the Northway across the School, part way down Aviation, and then the new building where the accounts in is going to have a sidewalk. So this would be an opportunity to complete that 42 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) chain. It’s a high priority, it’s been, the PORC Committee, I think, has identified that, and the consultant for the Comprehensive Land Use Plan has identified that area as a high priority for sidewalks because of the proximity of the School and students that would be walking by. I also think it would be a great business move for Stewarts because the more pedestrian traffic you can generate there, I would think it’s the ideal type of establishment that would benefit from a sidewalk. So, it seems like a clear cut situation to me. Thank you. MRS. STEFFAN-Thank you. MR. VOLLARO-Anybody else like to speak to this application? Having no else, I think at this particular point I would close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. VOLLARO-And bring the applicant back up. We’ve got a couple of things. One is the health and safety that was just brought up, and the sidewalks. I think those are two things that were mentioned by the public. MR. FOWLER-Okay. With regard to health and safety, the total job duration is three weeks. The first week of the job is removing of the existing gas tanks, removing of the soils, both within the liner and outside the liner to provide space for the new tanks. Within the liner, we’ll go to ESMI. It’s a burn plant in Fort Edward. Those are impacted soils. Even if they’re questionable, we still take them to ESMI to be thermal destructed. There is a geologist on site during any digging, during that first week when the tanks come out and the new tanks go in. The new tanks go in the Thursday to Friday of the first week, and they’re backfilled up to the top of the tank. So the tank hole would be about three to four feet deep at that point, mostly majority backfilled. Second week of the project is piping to the island. Third week is the drainage, the drywells we would like to do, and the blacktop. So the whole project is about three weeks in duration. MR. VOLLARO-Can you give us, as a Board, a start and stop date? Do you have that scheduled out? MR. FOWLER-We’re hoping to start mid to late April at this point, depending on approvals and permits. MR. VOLLARO-So say May 1? MR. FOWLER-May 1 at the latest, to start. MR. VOLLARO-And three weeks from that point. MR. FOWLER-Three weeks to be completed. As well as the on-site geologist who is OSHA trained. The contractor, we use Dranipole Construction, been doing tank work for us for 25 plus years are also OSHA trained. DEC will be on-site as well during the initial, probably the first week of the work. They are aware of the project. We have sent a registration certificate or application, rather, for the new tanks, too, then. MR. VOLLARO-Okay, and I guess we need an answer on the sidewalk. MR. FOWLER-The sidewalk, I just referenced my pictures to look up and down the street. There are no sidewalks within site. So I could agree to sidewalks in the future, but to have a sidewalk that goes nowhere, right now, I mean. MR. VOLLARO-Well, I guess I would defer this comment to the Chairman of the PORC Committee, because right now I think Mr. Hunsinger knows more about that than I do at this point. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I don’t know why you’re deferring it to me. I mean, we required it of the neighbor, of the new medical building that’s going up just down the street. I am not clear in my own mind where it ends, coming from the School. MRS. STEFFAN-Is it in the Bank? I’m not sure whether it’s in front of the Bank. 43 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MRS. BRUNO-That would be two to the left. It would be, if you’re looking at Stewarts, the Bank doesn’t have one and then the new building to the left of that does. MR. FOWLER-The Church does not, I see that. MRS. BRUNO-The Church does not. I think it’s important that we do review it, because I’ve seen many times the students walking down the street. Really you only have not that much space. MRS. STEFFAN-I have to admit, the reason I didn’t recommend it was because I didn’t think the curb would change, and it’s all blacktop. I believe the rest is of the property is blacktop. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, it is. MR. FOWLER-We’re proposing to replace the curbing to the east only at this point. MRS. BRUNO-That’s probably really the only area coming out from there. MR. FOWLER-I do have photographs of the site if you’d like them. MR. VOLLARO-Do you have a photograph of it? I just don’t have it straight in my mind, either. Let me take a look at that. Okay. How does everybody feel about sidewalks down here, so we can get this moving along? MR. SEGULJIC-Well, how about we request sidewalks to the east and west of the island? Not across the island itself, but up to it, because you could walk across the asphalt and then on the other side. The island looks like it’s landscaped. MR. VOLLARO-It is landscaped, yes. MR. SEGULJIC-So I would say sidewalks on either side, and really, even on the west side, there’s not much room. So it’s just a strip. MR. VOLLARO-A strip in the front, yes. MR. SEGULJIC-All right. Especially because you’re going to have a cement truck there anyway at some point, right? MRS. BRUNO-That’s the only area that you’re replacing the curb on, I think, is that one. Is that what you’re talking about, right over on the right side, just that one little area? MR. SEGULJIC-I guess on either side of it, put the sidewalks, but not across the island. MRS. BRUNO-Right. MR. VOLLARO-How far do you want to extend those, just to the end of the property, probably. MR. FOWLER-We can go to the property line. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, so that sounds like a reasonable conclusion, to me. MR. SEGULJIC-We’d appreciate. MR. FOWLER-We’ll do it. MRS. BRUNO-It may give the neighbors some ideas, too. MR. VOLLARO-The answer is they will do it. DR. HOFFMAN-Well, if you’re not going to run it across the island, then there’s no point in putting it in. If you have to have a sidewalk that goes all the way across, otherwise, people would walk out into the road. 44 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. VOLLARO-Well, I think the sidewalk is going to be, if I see it right, you’re going to really have to go up to the mic, because I’ve closed the public hearing here. I don’t want to continue this on too long, if I don’t have to. DR. HOFFMAN-Where are we talking about a sidewalk? Okay. So once the person gets through here, where do they go? MR. SEGULJIC-On the asphalt towards the shop. DR. HOFFMAN-Yes. The problem with that is that, the purpose of a sidewalk is it says this is where I belong. I’m a pedestrian. I have a right to be here. If the pedestrian has to fight with cars that are booming in and out to get across the property, then you defeat the purpose of the sidewalk. MR. VOLLARO-Well, they’d have to do that anyway, because cars are going to traverse that sidewalk either way. DR. HOFFMAN-Well, if you have discreet driveways, then you just negotiate the driveway, but if the rest of the property has a sidewalk, than that’s a protected area, and I don’t see the problem with removing that current island, landscaping around the sidewalk, and having a sidewalk through it or on one side or the other of a new planted island. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. We’ve got your complaint. DR. HOFFMAN-I walk down that street all the time, and especially in winter, you can’t navigate that property. If you want pedestrians to be able to safely navigate the property, you have to have a sidewalk there. MR. VOLLARO-And it has to be shoveled in the winter. DR. HOFFMAN-Just like all the other sidewalks in Town. MR. VOLLARO-Sure. So where are we, Board? MR. SEGULJIC-I think I’m still sidewalks either side. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. I’m not in favor of moving that island. It’s the only green space there, and it is a traffic flow. MR. VOLLARO-Separation of traffic flow. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-The decision of the Board looks like it’s going to be a sidewalk on either end, like you described before. That’s what I get the sense of the Board. Tom, is that where you are? MR. SEGULJIC-That’s where I am. MR. VOLLARO-Chris? MR. HUNSINGER-No. I don’t see what the harm is in exploring a sidewalk across the island. If you pushed it to the north you wouldn’t be removing very much vegetation. MR. SIPP-Not quite half. MR. FOWLER-As far as what we own and what’s the right of way, it would have to be to the north, this is the property line. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Yes. MR. VOLLARO-You’d have to put it considerably to the north because from the property line back you’d have to allow space for the sidewalk. So that island has to be moved very, very close to the dispenser, it seems to me. 45 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. HUNSINGER-No. You wouldn’t have to move the island. Just put the sidewalk across the island. MRS. STEFFAN-So in the location that you’re talking about, with their property, you either have to take the shrubs out behind, and the sidewalk has to run behind the maple tree, or, you have to take the maple tree out. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the maple tree’s not shown on the site plan. MRS. STEFFAN-And I think that that would be a mistake. MR. HUNSINGER-Is the maple tree on the neighbor’s property or this one? MR. VOLLARO-No, it’s right here. MR. HUNSINGER-It’s in the middle of the island? MRS. STEFFAN-It’s in the middle of the island, and so the right of way, you look at where the right of way is. MR. HUNSINGER-I thought the maple tree was back on the, over in here. MR. VOLLARO-No, it’s on the island itself. MR. HUNSINGER-I thought the maple tree was like here. MRS. STEFFAN-No, it’s right in the middle, and plus it’s not all their property. MR. VOLLARO-Tom, what do you want to do? MR. SEGULJIC-Each side. MR. VOLLARO-Each side. Not through. MR. SEGULJIC-Not through. MR. VOLLARO-Chris? MR. HUNSINGER-Skip over me. MR. VOLLARO-Why? I want an opinion. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, I agree with Dr. Hoffman. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. You’d like it all the way through. Gretchen? MRS. STEFFAN-Each side and not through the island. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. We need a vote on this end. Either all the way through the island or just either side of it. MR. SIPP-Well, if you just take off two feet or three feet of that island, you’d have a slightly narrower sidewalk. MRS. STEFFAN-The front part is in the DOT right of way, and the back part is where the tree is. That’s where they own, is where the maple tree is and behind. MR. SIPP-Yes, well, according to this. MRS. BRUNO-I would say the maple tree is probably right about right there and right there. MR. VOLLARO-Well, let’s get a vote here. I don’t want this to go too long. Do we have a vote on what we’d like? Right now we’ve got, up and down the line here we’ve got. Okay. That’s either side, either side, either side, either side. The Board has voted to do either side. So I’m going to take that as a Board vote and move this thing along. If that has to be 46 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) corrected at some future date when we get sidewalks all along, you know, just to digress for a minute, it’s always been my opinion that if we’re going to put sidewalks in the Town, and it’s a good idea, that they don’t be done piecemeal. I’ve always had a problem with putting a patch here and a patch there because this deteriorates, then you’ve got to do that one. It makes no sense to do it. MR. NICHOLS-If you’re going to do it, then do it right. It should go from Queensbury School all the way up the road. DR. HOFFMAN-Because if you don’t plan for it, then when the time comes to do it, there’s going to be all kinds of planters and other things in the way. You’ve got to start somewhere. MRS. STEFFAN-But this is already here. MR. VOLLARO-We can’t have a debate this way. We’ve made a decision on the Board, we’re going to go with it, and that’s where we are. Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-One of the problems, unless we do a conditional approval, these folks will not be able to come back with a new plan until the application deadline for the next meeting is April 17. th MR. VOLLARO-That’s right. MRS. STEFFAN-For a Planning Board meeting either May 16 or May 23. thrd MR. VOLLARO-Right. Do you have a problem with that at all? MRS. STEFFAN-So their production schedule would be pushed back. MR. FOWLER-We would prefer, obviously, a conditional approval. We’ve agreed to the sidewalks. We’ve agreed to the future interconnect to be put on the plan, and we can submit that to your Planning Department. MR. VOLLARO-How does everybody feel about a conditional approval? Do you want to do that now? Do you feel comfortable with that, or would you rather have them come back? MR. SEGULJIC-I’m comfortable with it. MR. VOLLARO-Prescribed date. That date would be 3/15? Or it would be 4/17. MRS. STEFFAN-It would be a 4/17 application deadline. MR. VOLLARO-Right and 16 or 23 meeting. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, May. MR. HUNSINGER-The April meetings full? MR. VOLLARO-The April meeting is quite full, unless we want to push it in there. MRS. BARDEN-Yes. The deadline has passed for April. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I realize that. MR. SEGULJIC-I mean, what he has to do isn’t really that much. I’m comfortable either way having him, we squeeze him in next month at the first meeting so he can get his approvals. MR. FOWLER-Or it could be approved tonight, knowing that I would submit. MR. VOLLARO-You want to schedule for 4/25, is that what you’d like to do? Tell me what you want to do. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m just throwing it out as another option. 47 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MRS. STEFFAN-But can Staff accommodate that, Susan? MR. VOLLARO-The board’s pretty full. I was just in there looking at it the other day. It’s a full Board. MRS. BARDEN-I think we have 15 items right now. MR. VOLLARO-As a matter of fact, at completion review on Friday of last week, we did 19. We did 19 applications and five had to be pushed. Just so you know where we are. So I would recommend here that, to get it in by 4/17 and we’ll put you on for the meeting on 5/16. Okay. Let’s do that. That’s my recommendation. Because I want to move this along. I think we’ve gone far too long on a simple application here. MR. SEGULJIC-What were those dates again? MR. VOLLARO-4/17 they’ve got to have their stuff in to Staff. First meeting is 5/16. We’ll have them on for May 16. That would move their schedule a little bit, by 16 days. th MR. FOWLER-I was hoping to get approved tonight, obviously, and submit plans with changes and we’ll move on, but I will come back if that’s what the Chairman would like. MR. VOLLARO-Well, it’s the will of the Board, not the will of the Chairman. The Chairman is only one vote here. MR. HUNSINGER-To me the only outstanding issue, really, is the interconnect, and how that would work, you know, when it would be constructed, what conditions would have to be met before it would be triggered. It’s one thing to put it on paper, but then when does it become reality, and I don’t know what the neighbor had shown on their site plan, if you’re going to the rear for future interconnect. MR. VOLLARO-I don’t know, either. MRS. BARDEN-I can get the history for you on that. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, in terms of the sidewalk, I mean, it’s pretty simple. They could show, you know, build a four foot sidewalk on the property line. MR. VOLLARO-All the way across, we decided by poll it would be at either end. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Does somebody want to make a motion on this? I think we’ve got it fairly clear. We’re going to be tabling this to 5/16, with information to Staff on the changes by 4/17, and the changes would be. Gretchen, you want to read them off? MRS. STEFFAN-The interconnect, the sidewalks, C.T. Male signoff and if they would please to contact Mr. Nichols regarding when the project begins. Those are the four things that we want. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Does somebody want to make a motion on that? MRS. STEFFAN-Does that sound like everything? MRS. BARDEN-Mr. Chairman, could you re-open the public hearing, if you’re going to table. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I will. If we’re going to table, I will re-open the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING RE-OPENED MR. VOLLARO-And we are going to table, and, Gretchen, do you want to make the motion, since you’ve got everything there for tabling? MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN MODIFICATION 5-2006 STEWARTS SHOPS CORP., Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro: 48 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) So that the applicant can come back with the following: 1. Revised plans to identify an interconnect at the back of the property, and a plan on how those conditions will be met, 2. A plan that has the addition of the sidewalks discussed, 3. A C.T. Male signoff on the plans, and 4. The agreement to contact Mr. Mike Nichols at 1 Poplar Lane regarding a construction schedule. Duly adopted this 21 day of March, 2006, by the following vote: st AYES: Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Vollaro NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Goetz MR. FOWLER-Thank you. SITE PLAN NO. 6-2006 SEQRA TYPE: II MARTIN DION OWNER(S): MARTIN DION AND YVONNE KONIOWKA ZONING: WR-1A LOCATION: 131 SEELYE ROAD, CLEVERDALE APPLICANT PROPOSES A 310 SQ. FT. RESIDENTIAL ADDITION TO EXISTING RESIDENCE. EXPANSIONS OF NON-CONFORMING STRUCURES REQUIRE REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REF.: AV 13-06, BP 2006-023 RES. ALT; BP 2004-122 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: 3/8/06 ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY: YES LOT SIZE: 0.32 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 227.17-1-54 SECTION: 179-13-010 MARTIN DION, PRESENT MR. VOLLARO-This application is a Type II. No SEQRA required. Okay. You have the floor. For the record, your name, please. MR. DION-My name is Martin Dion. I’m one of the co-owners of the property. My sister, Yvonne Koniowka, is the other owner. I’m also an architect, so that’s why the drawings, such as they are, and that’s why I’m representing myself. This property has been in my family for 45 years or something, and the house that’s there now, and I know that someone from the Town of Queensbury was there on Saturday, but the house that’s there now was built in 1971. It’s about 1,040 square feet, two bedrooms, on the first floor level, and we’re presently doing, we’ve gotten a building permit to renovate the basement level, which faces out toward the lake, and I was just over there tonight, quite pleased to see it’s all glass now. It’s beautiful. At any rate, after my mother passed away, my niece has been living there with her husband. My sister and her husband come up during the summer. I’m there with my significant other, and I have another nephew. So you can kind of see 1,040 square feet doesn’t go very far. So we just decided something that we’ve been long looking at was to do that basement level. Now, part of that is that we wanted to re-do our septic system, which we re-did a couple of years ago, for two reasons. One is an ecology, for the ecology, I was very concerned about what was going on. I’m concerned about a lot of my neighbor’s properties, about what’s going on, but I have no control over that, but I do have control over my own, and hence we spent about almost $20,000 to correct what I consider to be a condition. It also helped us to allow us to get another bedroom in the property. So that’s why we have the building permit we have. Now, the reason I’m here is we want to put a little addition on the road side of the house. It’s some 160, 170 feet from the lake, and probably a good 100 feet from the road. I went to zoning last week, received approval from zoning for it. They’re quite complimentary, and that doesn’t mean much, I guess, sometimes, but I felt pretty good about it. Now, the reason we want the addition is to put, it’s going to be a stair addition. We’ll enter at the grade level, half a flight up, half a flight down. So it would be almost like a split level entry vestibule. It will be a cathedral. I think it will be quite nice, and the reason we did that was that the stairs presently, not present because we just took them out, presently are on the lakeside of the house. I consider that to be tremendously valuable property from an aesthetic viewpoint, and would be in the way of what we were trying to do downstairs. So, two things would result from the addition, well, three things I think, but the 49 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) first two, most important one, is to put the stair where it really does belong is on that other side of the house. The second thing is it’ll provide a vestibule for inclement conditions and so on, and then the third, I think, is that the aesthetics, I think, are quite nice. You will see that there are two elevations shown, and I’ll explain those in a second, but at the present moment, the residence looks like the one, down on the left, the picture. The proposal you see in front of you is the one on the right of that. The stair addition is kind of centered. We have some kayak storage and so on that goes down and alongside the house. The one above is an alternate to that. It’s less square footage, and more and more I look at it, it meets the needs of the property a little bit better and the circulation inside the house. So I was happy with either one. If I wasn’t going to get zoning, which was the one down below, then the one up above, I wouldn’t have to have zoning. MR. VOLLARO-You already got the zoning approval for that. MR. DION-I did get the Zoning Board approval, but I’m more inclined to go to the one up on top now, after I put myself in my own situation. MR. VOLLARO-The one on the bottom is the 310 square feet? MR. DION-Yes, sir, and the one on the top is 256 square feet. So it’s almost 60 square feet less. I think that’s somewhat significant, but it also, I don’t know if you even noticed, but it allows the storage shed to be a little bit higher. With the one below on the right hand side, it’s only about three and a half feet off the ground. The other one is a little more usable for us, for our purposes. The reason it’s, the one below is because of the kitchen window that’s up there. The kitchen window is now part of that top one. So I guess what I’m asking for is approval to do this, but I would really love to do the one up on top, and you’ll notice that I show a rendered stone on there, where, you know, that’s going to come in time, money’s always an object. So we figure we can do that over a period of time. MR. VOLLARO-If you want to move to a new drawing, to a new proposal, I think your site development data and your setback requirements and all that have to be changed. I mean, this would be a new application. MR. DION-But it’s significantly less. MR. VOLLARO-That doesn’t make any difference. The data has to be presented. MR. DION-Then I’ll stick with the other one. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. DION-I’m only trying to do something better, and I don’t want to be brought to bear on it because we’re, you know, we’d like to get this constructed. MR. VOLLARO-I understand, but the problem is, and I think, Staff, do you agree that there would have to be a new submission here to do this, if we’re going to do 260 square foot, versus 310? MRS. BARDEN-I think you want the application to reflect the project that you’re looking at, in any approvals. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, okay, either that, or resubmit for 260. Without a variance. MRS. STEFFAN-I think one of the reasons you have to be before us is because this is in a Critical Environmental Area, and so the plan absolutely has to reflect what you’re doing. MR. DION-But if it’s less than what I was showing and significantly the same, I fail to understand why I’m having to go through this, but I hear you, and I just don’t understand. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, if the plan that you are going to build ends up being different than the one on record, our Code Enforcement people and our Building Inspectors who come to inspect don’t have a valid document to inspect from. MR. DION-But I don’t have a building permit for it, and when Mr. Hatin said to me, we’ll go through this segment of it and then come back to me with the building permit, and, you 50 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) know, give me the drawings that you would need for the building permit, I suspected that, okay, well, when this is all approved and we figure out what we’re doing, then I’d go back to him with the proper drawings, then I’d go back to him with the proper drawings. Then I’d get my building permit. I knew that that process was going on, but I didn’t realize that, I was going to get a building permit if he said okay on that one, because he doesn’t really have it. I don’t think he has it. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the other issue is, you already have Zoning Board approval on one plan. So if we were to approve a different plan, then you would have two approvals, but not on the same project. MR. DION-But I wouldn’t need Zoning Board approval on the second plan. It meets the setbacks. MR. VOLLARO-No, you wouldn’t. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m sorry. I missed that point. Okay. MR. VOLLARO-He wouldn’t need it, but he still has to, to keep our records straight and to keep Staff sane and to keep the Building Inspectors sane, we need to have a set of drawings that reflects the project. There’s no question about that. MR. DION-That would be forthcoming. It’s just I’m trying to. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I mean, he can submit a revised plan. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Absolutely. No question about that, submit a revised plan and a revised set of sheets to go with. Absolutely. MR. DION-I hear that. I also hear the months floating away. MR. HUNSINGER-It would be May. It would be May before you could be back before us. MRS. BRUNO-Is that the first floor plan? MR. DION-That’s the existing first floor level, yes. MRS. BRUNO-Right. So it’s not the basement. MR. DION-Right. MR. VOLLARO-You’re only talking a difference of 50 square feet here. I mean, can it make that much difference? MR. DION-Right. It’s the logistics of how it works. Frankly I could do it and I could have a little storage. I could make it work with the 310 square feet. I’m just saying, why should I build it if I don’t need it, and I’m also saying to myself, well, I’m trying to prevent the zoning from happening. If I, I’m trying to be as sensitive to that whole place as I can possibly be, and that’s what I’m doing, and when I realized that, well, I can do this without zoning, then, okay, I’ll go to zoning because I’ve already got it placed and I already paid my money. I’ll just go and hear them. I mean, I go to these meetings a lot, not here, but, so I just feel that it’s a better plan the other way, but, dang it it’ll work this way if I need to. It’s just, you know, I’d like to do it the other way. MR. HUNSINGER-Conditional approval? MRS. BARDEN-Well, one suggestion, I guess, you could go ahead and decide on the plan that’s in front of you, and if Mr. Dion still wants to change his plan, he has the option to resubmit and have you look at that. MR. VOLLARO-I just had a couple of quick questions on this. I was not going to spend hardly any time on this at all. MR. DION-Sorry about that. It’s just that, you know, it’s the architect in me. It’s never perfection. 51 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. VOLLARO-I understand. We have one on the Board here, so she understands. MR. DION-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-Only questions I had was, when the building permit was issued for the septic alteration, did they know that you were going to put a bedroom and a bathroom downstairs? MR. DION-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. DION-It’s been approved for that. MR. VOLLARO-Okay, and that’s when you put the Eljen system in. MR. DION-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-And that’s the only questions I had. That was it. MR. SEGULJIC-Any excavation on site for your new stairway? MR. DION-Yes, of course. We have to have our foundation and what not. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-But that’s that new stairway in the front that we looked at. MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, but I don’t see any stormwater control plans. MR. DION-No. It’s a small thing. MR. SEGULJIC-I’d like to see stormwater control plans. MR. VOLLARO-On underneath the stairs? MR. SEGULJIC-Classic silt fences, I mean, if he’s doing excavation, handling soil. Right next to the lake in a Critical Environmental Area. MR. DION-Okay. You’re right, and by a stormwater control plan, you mean the silt fences and all that? That’s not a problem. That’s an easy thing to do, and actually some of the excavation, I’m going to help my neighbor because some of our water kind of goes off onto his property. I’m going to try to divert that so it doesn’t happen. So I’m going to use a little bit of the excavation for that. It’s not a big amount. It’s just swaling it on to my property, and that’s 160 some feet from the lake. Admittedly, water gets down there, but. MR. SEGULJIC-Everything ends up in the lake. MR. DION-Amen. Amen. Much to my chagrin. So stormwater, the silt fence would definitely be an item that I would put on the plan. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Tom, how do you feel about that? We can put the silt fence in as a subject of approval, condition. MR. SEGULJIC-Right. MR. VOLLARO-Would that help? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Now, to put the silt fence in, we’ve got to describe it’s location. Is that what you want to do? MR. SEGULJIC-Well, around areas of excavation or any soil handling. 52 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-And if he brings the soil pile outside, he has to have a silt fence around it, where soil is excavated or staged. MR. VOLLARO-Okay, around excavated or staged areas. MR. DION-I can easily show that on the plan when I finally go for the building permit. MR. HUNSINGER-You can even just do it as a note to the plan, as a note on the plan. MR. DION-Okay. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Would that be okay, Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-This would be a condition of approval, and it would be on the plan. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I have nothing else. My main thing is when we looked downstairs on Saturday we saw the bath and the bedroom, and I wanted to make sure that the Eljen system that you installed at that price was sized for both of those, for the bedroom and the bath. MR. DION-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Okay, and, other than that, I didn’t have a problem with this application. So, if somebody wants to make a motion to approve this with conditions, since there’s no SEQRA. MR. HUNSINGER-Public hearing? MR. VOLLARO-I haven’t opened the public hearing yet because I asked if anybody was going to be out there. I did not open it, unless somebody wants to speak, I can open it and close it. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED NO COMMENT PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. VOLLARO-Now would somebody like to make a motion for this, Site Plan No. 6-2006, for Martin Dion? MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN 6-2006 MARTIN DION, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Chris Hunsinger: With the following conditions: 1. That a note be placed on the site plan indicating that silt fences will be placed around any areas where soil is excavated or staged. Duly adopted this 21 day of March, 2006, by the following vote: st AYES: Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Vollaro NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Goetz MR. VOLLARO-You’ve got it. MR. DION-Thank you very much. I pity you your long night. 53 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) SITE PLAN NO. 1-2006 SEQR TYPE: UNLISTED 1093 GROUP, LLC AGENT(S): WILLIAM PALADINO OWNER(S): MARY JANE CANALE ZONING HC-INT. LOCATION 724 UPPER GLEN ST. DEMOLISH EXISTING TELEPHONE STORE AND CONSTRUCT A NEW RITE AID PHARMACY. NEW RETAIL USES REQUIRE SITE PLAN REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REF. SP 48-90 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING 3/8/06 LOT SIZE 2.88 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 302.6-1-55 SECTION 179-4-020 WILLIAM PALADINO, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. VOLLARO-Before we start this, I want to talk to the Board a little bit about this application. Was anybody on this Board as confused as I was for most of this? MR. SIPP-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-The answer is, yes, we were. MRS. STEFFAN-And I have to admit, Mr. Chairman, I was going to start with a tabling motion, because there’s so many outstanding issues. We’ve got Warren County Planning Board issues, C.T. Male letter unanswered, Staff comments, very large Staff comments, Wastewater Department issues, and we need a traffic impact study. So there’s so much information missing from this application that I deem it to be incomplete. MR. VOLLARO-What I did is I listed all 16 questions of my own on this. I can tell you this, when I reviewed this application, I almost have to apologize to this Board. When I reviewed this application in the pre-application conference, with Mr. Brown, there were a lot of concerns I had, and I said, look, this is not ready for presentation to the Board, it’s too convoluted at the present time, and he said let me get back to the applicant and see if I can’t get some of this stuff in. I said, okay, do that. He presumably did that. We got this application. I looked at it. I spent, I think, two hours trying to, first of all, it took me a while to figure out that a couple of your drawings were match line drawings. There was no statement on that at all, and I’ve got 16 questions on here, and I think the rest of the Board might feel the same way. I even said here, did you have a pre-application conference with the Planning Staff and why is the form blank? There’s nothing on that, I know that you did, but there’s no statements on there, at all. The Floor Area Ratio requirement is missing, not submitted. It’s blank. The permeability is shown at 16%. Thirty percent is required. I can go down. Traffic impact study is missing. There’s a 33 response from C.T. Male, as my colleague has just said. The application has been denied by the County Planning Board, requesting additional information, and it goes on and on. I just don’t see us getting started very heavily tonight, at the time it is now, because I intend to close this meeting at 11:00 o’clock, regardless, because that’s part of our rules, and I don’t see us even getting close to that, with the amount of discrepancy I see in this application. So I don’t know how the rest of the Board feels, but I’ve said my piece, and that’s it. Tom, what do you feel? MR. SEGULJIC-I’m with you on that. I have nothing more to add. MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Hunsinger? MR. HUNSINGER-I guess the only thing, I’m sorry I missed the beginning. MR. VOLLARO-That’s okay. MR. HUNSINGER-The only thing that I might add is that I didn’t see this plan being in conformance with the design guidelines for Route 9. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. That was one of the things I think that was mentioned in the denial by the County. Yes. I have a number of these questions, that I’ll just throw at you quickly. What is the proposed use of Parcel B? The elevation drawings are backwards. Take a good look at them, they don’t make sense at all. The lighting is not to our 179 requirements, and it’s got light spill. One of the drawings, LC-1, should be at a one to thirty. As you’ve got them on the drawing, it’s a one to forty, and it goes on and on. I don’t think it even pays to 54 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) even start on this. That’s my opinion. I’ll ask the other Board members. I’ve already asked two. I’ve got three. MR. SIPP-No. MR. VOLLARO-So, you know, we don’t even want to commence with this. It’s not ready for delivery before this Board, definitely not. You’re going to have to make some corrections. MR. PALADINO-We got Staff comments yesterday. I just wish somebody would have notified us maybe yesterday of the Board’s feelings before we came out, but I understand. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, Staff wouldn’t have known what our feelings were. MR. PALADINO-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-Because we do independent reviews of these applications at our homes, and then we come together as a Board, so we don’t talk about them ahead of time. MR. HUNSINGER-I also don’t want to leave you with the wrong impression. I think that there’s great potential for what you want to do on this site, you know, that site’s been underutilized for a long time, and I think there’s a great opportunity for you to do something that’s really done well for the community, and, you know, if we can get a nice building design that’s in conformance with the Route 9 corridors, you know, I think we could have a wonderful project here. So I don’t want you to feel totally discouraged because your application wasn’t complete, because I do want to encourage you to work through the process. MR. PALADINO-Looking at the one question that you had there, which I saw in the, I did go through Staff’s comments today, was the guideline they’d like the, the County Planning Board mentioned also, they’d like to see a total re-development plan for the entire property that entire property there, which there simply just isn’t one at this time, from Mr. Canale. He’s looking to sell the part that is currently developed now, and keep the remaining piece simply the way it is right now, because he does not have any other uses for that property. MR. VOLLARO-You’re talking about Parcel B? MR. PALADINO-Parcel B, correct. MRS. STEFFAN-Just for the record, can you please state your name. MR. PALADINO-I’m sorry. William Paladino with Elicant Development Company. We’re a development company and owner of 1093 Group is also our company, who is the project developer, per se, and will be owner of the site when it is complete, should this project be approved. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I would recommend that you probably get together with Staff. Susan, I can probably try to be available for a sit down with Staff on this, if you’d like. I’ve got a lot of questions now that I’ve taken probably four or five hours reviewing this. I mean, I’m not trying to say I spent more than any other Staff member here, but I had this all laid out on a large table trying to make sense of it, until I finally figured out what it was all about. I think Mr. Hunsinger is absolutely correct. I saw he had some photographs that are buried in my thing here that look much different than what you had presented as elevations. I like the looks of some of that. I think we’ve been through some pretty heavy stuff in this Town, Wal-Mart for one. They came in originally with a very minimal plan, but what you see out there now is a result of what this Board did over a period of probably 13 months. MRS. BRUNO-I had just glanced at some of the plans that Rite Aid had proposed up in Lake George, and although I’m not saying we necessarily want to go with the Adirondack style, I was under the impression that they really were quite easy to work with, in terms of going along with the design guidelines, and that was nice to see. MR. PALADINO-I mean, when you also look at the surrounding community and what’s there, not to say that, I mean Lake George is definitely a different looking community in many ways. 55 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MRS. BRUNO-Right. MR. PALADINO-And we feel, in all honesty, the building we’re presenting fits in well with what’s here already, and some of the stuff that has been presented. Unlike what we did in Lake George, we feel it fits in with that community. MRS. BRUNO-We’re looking at it as an opportunity, maybe, to start putting some of the previous work, the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, and the design guidelines, into play, where this is a great opportunity to start bringing some of those aspects that we’d like to see into that area, you know, almost a flagship building or whatever. MR. PALADINO-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I mean, we always see new development as an opportunity to do something better, and there’s a lot of bad building designs on Lower Glen Street. If you want to look for a good example of I think what’s referenced in the Route 9 corridor, the Glens Falls National Bank there on the corner, that was a year ago. They redesigned their façade to give that colonial look, and I think that was even referenced in Staff comments. MR. PALADINO-It was in there. MR. VOLLARO-I guess that’s it. MRS. BARDEN-You do need to open the public hearing. It was advertised. MR. VOLLARO-So be it, the public hearing is open, and the public hearing will stay open. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MRS. BARDEN-Do you want to table this and have Mr. Paladino come back after a certain amount of time for a list of items? MR. VOLLARO-I think it could be tabled to an unstated date, yes. I don’t know what that date would be. I think, really, he has to have the opportunity to meet with Staff, with you, possibly, and with Craig Brown. If you folks would like me to be there, I’ll be there if you need me. I have 16 questions I can submit to Staff of what I think is needed here, and then you can discuss that with Mr. Paladino. MR. HUNSINGER-Maybe you’d want to share those with the rest of the Board, in case we had anything to add. MRS. BARDEN-Right. MR. VOLLARO-I know. I’ll put it on an e-mail to everybody. MR. HUNSINGER-And when we could get the collective questions to Staff. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. If you folks have questions of your own, based on your reviews, that’s fine. Do you want to make this a comprehensive input to Staff, based on what we’ve seen collectively as a Board? MR. HUNSINGER-That would be the most effective way. MRS. BARDEN-I think in the past you’ve had the applicant come back for a list of items that you’re requesting he submit. So maybe that’s the way we should do things here. MR. VOLLARO-That would be fine. If every Board member wants to put their comments in, I will take those comments and amalgamate them into one statement to Staff. Is that satisfactory to everybody? MRS. STEFFAN-I think that’s a lot of work on your part, Bob, and I think some of that work’s already been done through the letters that are in this file. Let me put together a tabling motion and see if you guys agree. BOB SEARS 56 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. SEARS-I just had a question, that’s all. MR. VOLLARO-Well, speak into the mic, so that we know that you’ve been here. MR. SEARS-My name’s Bob Sears. I’m a real estate broker involved in the project, and, Robert, you had a suggestion that the Elicant Group meet with the Staff, as well as maybe yourself. Would they have those questions before they meet with you? MR. VOLLARO-Sure. That’s what Mr. Hunsinger just brought up. We’re going to do, each Board member will give me in e-mail their comments on this. I’ll amalgamate those with my comments, and those comments will go forward to Staff. Staff will make those comments available to Mr. Paladino. MR. SEARS-So that could all be done and then we’d sit down with you and just kind of rectify the application. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, as soon as, I think the gentleman here, Mr. Paladino, needs to know what’s on our collective minds in terms of what’s wrong with this package. MR. SEARS-Absolutely. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I think Gretchen wanted to work on a tabling motion, Bob, which would sort of eliminate the need for the e-mail. MRS. STEFFAN-See if this works. MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 1-2006 1093 GROUP, LLC, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro: For the following reasons: 1. We would like them to meet with Staff to address several issues; a. Including the Warren County Planning Board issues in their determination, b. The CT Male letter of 3/14, the 33 items contained within, c. To address the issues defined in Staff comments, d. To address the issues that were outlined in the Wastewater Dept. memorandum, e. To provide details for the Planning Board that they will need to consider on things like lighting, landscaping, stormwater management, parking, site layout and design, boundary issues and building design. Duly adopted this 21 day of March, 2006, by the following vote: st MR. VOLLARO-I think that’s pretty comprehensive. Did you want to state in there that we would try to get together any kind of a list of questions, or should we leave that be? MRS. STEFFAN-If you’re going to be at that meeting, Bob, you’re going to bring your questions, all of these documents. MR. VOLLARO-I think Chris’ comment is valid. MR. HUNSINGER-That was before we were going to make a tabling motion. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-And all of these documents have a whole list of questions that absolutely have to be answered. So there is a great deal of direction in all of these documents. 57 (Queensbury Planning Board 03/21/06) MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Then we’ll leave it at that, and I will attempt to attend the meeting with Staff as well. MRS. STEFFAN-So that’s my motion. AYES: Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Vollaro NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Goetz MR. VOLLARO-That’s it. MRS. STEFFAN-We will see you again. MR. VOLLARO-I’ll make a motion to adjourn this meeting. On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Robert Vollaro, Chairman 58