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2007-02-20 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING FIRST REGULAR MEETING FEBRUARY 20, 2007 INDEX Site Plan No. 53-2006 Joseph Leuci – Mountain Side Auto 1. Tax Map No. 296.9-1-7.2 Site Plan No. 50-2006 Craig Burrows 2. Tax Map No. 303.15-1-5 Special Use Permit No. 35-2006 Ferraro Entertainment 5. Tax Map No. 296.9-1-1 Site Plan No. 45-2006 Phillip Underwood 14. Tax Map No. 309.10-1-96 Site Plan No. 2-2007 The Michaels Group 20. Tax Map No. 296.8-1-8.1 Site Plan No. 4-2007 Thomas Kubricky 37. Tax Map No. 266.1-1-28 THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO BOARD AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING MONTHS MINUTES (IF ANY) AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL OF SAID MINUTES. 0 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING FIRST REGULAR MEETING FEBRUARY 20, 2007 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT CHRIS HUNSINGER, CHAIRMAN GRETCHEN STEFFAN, SECRETARY THOMAS SEGULJIC STEPHEN TRAVER BARBARA LAVIN, ALTERNATE MEMBERS ABSENT THOMAS FORD TANYA BRUNO LAND USE PLANNER-SUSAN BARDEN STENOGRAPHER-SUE HEMINGWAY MR. HUNSINGER-If everyone can just bear with me for just a second, we did have on the agenda Executive Session discussion if needed. That was discussed at our last meeting. That was put on there so that the Town Attorney could update the Board on litigation matters. Counsel is out of Town today. So they will not be with us this evening. We’re going to do that next Tuesday. The first item on the agenda is approval of minutes thth from December 19 and December 26. APPROVAL OF MINUTES December 19, 2006 December 26, 2006 THTH MOTION TO APPROVE THE MINUTES FOR DEMBER 19 AND DECEMBER 26, 2006, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: th Duly adopted this 20 day of February, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Lavin, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Traver, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp SITE PLAN 53-2006 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED JOSEPH LEUCI MOUNTAIN SIDE AUTO AGENT(S) BARLETT PONTIFF STEWART & RHODES OWNER(S) GUIDO PASSARELLI ZONING HC INTENSIVE LOCATION 1110 NYS ROUTE 9 APPLICANT IS PROPOSING TO ESTABLISH A PUBLIC PARKING FACILITY ON THE PROPERTY IN ADDITION TO THE EXISTING AUTO USE ON THE SITE. PARKING FACILITY USES REQUIRE SITE PLAN REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE N.O.A. 6-06, SP 55-98, SP 14-97 WARREN CO. PLANNING 12/13/06 LOT SIZE 5.82 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 296.9-1-7.2 SECTION 179-4-02 MR. HUNSINGER-We did receive correspondence from Counsel for Joe Leuci. They have requested that the application be tabled to our March meeting. There is a public hearing scheduled this evening. I will open the public hearing, and keep the public hearing open. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. HUNSINGER-Would anyone like to make a motion to table this item. MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 53-2006 JOSEPH LEUCI MOUNTAINSIDE AUTO, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: 1 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) th At the request of the applicant. We will table that until the March 27 meeting. th Duly adopted this 20 day of February, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Lavin, Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford, Mrs. Bruno OLD BUSINESS: SITE PLAN 50-2006 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED CRAIG BURROWS AGENT(S) BERNARD DUVAL OWNER(S) SAME ZONING HC INTENSIVE LOCATION 287 DIX AVENUE APPLICANT PROPOSES TO ENCLOSE 126 SQ. FT. PORCH FOR INTERIOR SHOWROOM, 50 SQ. FT. WILL REMAIN AS OPEN PORCH AREA. EXPANSIONS OF SITE PLAN REVIEW USES REQUIRE REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE SP 49-03 WARREN CO. PLANNING 12/13/06 LOT SIZE 1.11 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 303.15-1-5 SECTION 179-9-020 CRAIG BURROWS, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Susan, if you could summarize Staff Notes, please. MRS. BARDEN-Sure. Craig Burrows is the applicant for the request for Site Plan Review for expansion of an existing use. The location of the property is Glens Falls Tile and Supplies at 287 Dix Avenue. The project is described as a proposal to enclose 125 square feet of existing covered porch area to be used for additional interior showroom th space. Staff comments: This proposal was tabled at the December 19 meeting, for submission of a revised lighting plan. In response, the applicant provided cut sheets for the two light fixtures proposed, specifically, one recessed canopy light fixture at the entrance and two wall-mounted downcast fixtures to be located on the building exterior approximately 15-feet to either side of the entrance. The corresponding footcandle level is 5.0, which is the standard for building entrances, per §179-6-030. MR. HUNSINGER-Is there anyone here representing the applicant? Good evening. If you could identify yourself for the record. MR. BURROWS-Good evening. I’m Craig Burrows, the owner of Glens Falls Tile. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. You heard Staff Notes. Did you have anything else to add? MR. BURROWS-No. MR. HUNSINGER-I guess I’ll just open it up for questions or comments from the Board. MRS. STEFFAN-I didn’t have any questions on the plan. MR. TRAVER-It appears that he’s addressed the issues that were raised. MR. SEGULJIC-I guess just for clarification. We asked for a lighting plan. Weren’t we asking for a drawing with the Iso plus on it? But this particular one, I don’t have any problems with it because it’s so small, but just, that’s what I thought we were asking for. MRS. STEFFAN-I wasn’t at that meeting, but when I read the minutes, I just thought that you were looking for the plans that were, you know, anything that was on the building. I didn’t think we were looking for outside lights. MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, because this particular case I have no problems with it. You’re only talking three small lights, 60 watts maximum. MR. BURROWS-I think there might even 50 watts. MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, 65 watts maximum from what I understand. I’m fine with it. MRS. LAVIN-I don’t have any questions. 2 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. We do have a public hearing scheduled. Is there anyone here that had questions or comments on this application that they’d like to address to the Board? PUBLIC HEARING OPEN MR. HUNSINGER-I will open the public and then I will also close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. HUNSINGER-It is an Unlisted Action. Short Form. Are the members comfortable moving forward on SEQRA? MRS. LAVIN-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 50-2006, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Barbara Lavin: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: CRAIG BURROWS, and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. th Duly adopted this 20 day of February, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Lavin, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp MR. HUNSINGER-What we were talking about was the lighting plan and whether or not we would need to approve a waiver. He did give us specifications for the lamps and bulbs to show the illumination. It just doesn’t show the whole site. Anyone else have thoughts on that? Well, I think the concern is we don’t want to be setting a precedent. MR. SEGULJIC-We don’t want to set the precedent. Personally I think we should waiver the light plan. 3 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-We didn’t really specify. Well, we did say complete lighting plan. I guess we could go either way. I think we could say in the motion the lighting plan is sufficient for this site. MR. SEGULJIC-It’ll all work out for you. MR. HUNSINGER-Do we want to see as built drawings? Your site’s already connected to the sewer, right? MR. BURROWS-No, it’s septic. MR. HUNSINGER-Septic. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. I’ll make a motion to approve. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 50-2006 CRAIG BURROWS, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: 1. WHEREAS, a site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following; Applicant proposes to enclose 126 sq. ft. porch for interior showroom, 50 sq. ft. will remain as porch area. Expansions of site plan review uses require review by the Planning Board; and 2. WHEREAS, a public hearing was advertised and was held on 12/19/06, tabled to 1/23/07 and 2/20/07; and 3. WHEREAS, this application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; and 4. WHEREAS, pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179], the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and 5. WHEREAS, where appropriate, i.e. done at the completed review, and/or when required [either Type I or Unlisted] the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration and /or if the application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered, and the proposed modification[s] do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and 6. WHEREAS, final approved plans, in compliance with the Site Plan, must be submitted to the Community Development Department before any further review by the Zoning Administrator or Building and Codes personnel. Subsequent issuance of further permits, including building permits are dependent on receipt; and 7. WHEREAS, the applicant will provide as-built plans to certify that the site plan is developed according to the approved plans prior to issuance of the certificate of occupancy and, if applicable, to be combined with a letter of credit; and 8. WHEREAS, the Sanitary Sewer connection plan must be submitted to the Wastewater Department for its review, approval, permitting and inspection. 9. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that we find the following: MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 50-2006 CRAIG BURROWS, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: According to the resolution prepared by Staff. 1. Paragraph Four, complies. Whereas, pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code Chapter 179 the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code. 2. The Planning Board feels that the lighting plan is sufficient for this site. 3. Paragraph Five, negative SEQRA declaration. 4. Strike Paragraph Seven and Paragraph Eight. 4 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) th Duly adopted this 20 day of February, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Lavin, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford, Ms. Bruno MR. HUNSINGER-You’re all set. MR. BURROWS-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. SPECIAL USE PERMIT NO. 35-2006 SEQR TYPE: UNLISTED FERRARO ENTERTAINMENT AGENT(S): JONATHAN LAPPER, BPSR OWNER(S): ANTHONY & MARY SUE FERRARO ZONING: HC-INT. LOCATION: 1035 ROUTE 9 APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 20,856 SQ. FT. MINIATURE GOLF COURSE AND ASSOCIATED SITE WORK AT THE FUN SPOT. EXPANSIONS OF SPECIAL USE PERMITS REQUIRE REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. THE PLANNING BOARD MAY ISSUE SEQRA FINDINGS. CROSS REFERENCE: AV 42-06 WARREN CO. PLANNING 7/12/06: APPROVED LOT SIZE 3.51 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 296.9-1-1 SECTION 179-10-015 JON LAPPER & TOM JARRETT, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Susan, if you could summarize Staff Notes, please. MRS. BARDEN-Ferraro Entertainment is the applicant for the request for a Special Use Permit. The proposal is for construction of a 20,856 square foot miniature golf attraction and related site improvements at the Fun Spot on State Route 9. In addition to the Special Use Permit, the proposal requires Area Variances. As Lead Agency, the Board should conduct SEQRA if it is determined that sufficient information has been provided. Upon issuance of a SEQRA determination, a recommendation to the Zoning Board with regard to the variances would be appropriate. Subsequently, the Area Variances would be considered by the Zoning Board prior to returning to this Board for further review. A th February 13 comment letter from Vision Engineering was handed out to you today. MR. LAPPER-Good evening. For the record, Jon Lapper, Jim Miller, Tom Jarrett, and Keith Ferraro. When we were here last, and we’ve been here a number of times to discuss this project, mostly in terms of mitigating existing noise and trying to improve the site plan, the Board was very supportive, last time, of the parking variance and in fact we came up with a reduced request for parking after it was determined that we had asked for the number of spaces that we had asked for previously because we tried to get as close as possible to the combined use on the site, and after we went through the detail in December, the Board supported the recommendation of even a smaller request, which is all that we think is necessary, and we’re very appreciative of that. Procedurally, where we left it was that we had a C.T. Male letter that we had received right before that meeting, and the Board asked us to respond to that letter, to get our C.T. Male letter and then come back tonight. As you know, since that time, the Town has retained another engineer. So we just received a letter today, even though, as Susan said, it was dated a week ago, we just got it by fax this morning. We’re hopeful that the Board will review those items with us and determine that they’re really site plan issues. Some of the detail is the width of the space in between two handicap spaces. We don’t see any issue that we can’t address with the engineer or with the Planning Board, but we had hoped that after all the time we’ve been here, that the Board is comfortable giving us a SEQRA review and we anticipate a Neg Dec, so that we can get back to the Zoning Board, procedurally, get our parking variance, and then come back to iron out the final site plan issues, and admittedly we’ve hammered out most of the site plan issues, getting to this point with SEQRA, because they’re the same issues. So we’ll address any amount of detail that you’d like, but that’s our hope, that we could get through SEQRA, based upon what we’ve submitted, with the Staff comments and the engineer comments, and then come back and address the engineer comments under site plan after we get through the Zoning Board. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Were you going to go through the items one at a time? How did you want to approach this? 5 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. LAPPER-However the Board feels comfortable. We really view most of it as site plan related. We can just go through the nature of the comments and talk about them and explain why we think they’re site plan or, you know, anything, whatever the Board’s comfortable with. Obviously, we just got them today, but we’ve reviewed them all, and ready to talk about it if that’s what you want. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. We only just received the engineering comments this evening as well. So we’re at a little disadvantage as well. So it might be useful to walk through them. MR. LAPPER-Sure. Some of them are Jim Miller project architect responses and some Tom Jarrett, the project engineer. We’ll start with Tom. MR. JARRETT-Start with me, I guess, yes. Yes. I guess, I’ll start out with the abridged version and then we can dive into any additional detail that clarifies anything for the Board, but Item Number Seven, basically the engineer, Vision Engineering is disagreeing with our provision of drywells as catch basins in lieu of a closed structure. We don’t agree with that assessment. We’ve reviewed it with DEC, and we provided that explanation in our prior submission to the Board. We’re not sure where he’s coming from. We’ll be glad to discuss it with him at some point, but that’s a detail we think that is minor. A closed structure versus a drywell is not a major, major issue with regard to stormwater management, in our opinion. Item Number 11 he’s agreeing with. Twelve, Fourteen, he’s agreeing with basically. Item Fifteen, he feels that some additional grades are appropriate. We could certainly provide that at site plan review. I mean, I don’t see that being an issue that we would take issue with at this point. We can provide that at site plan. Sixteen and Twenty-one are completed. Thirty-six, there was a conflict, or a perceived discussion regarding possible conflict between stormwater and wastewater systems, and it was a gravity sewer line, a wastewater gravity line, connecting to the municipal system in potential conflict with the stormwater drywell, and we don’t believe there’s a conflict, and they’re to be installed at the same time. So there should be no damage to either system during installation. He’s raising the issue, he’s continuing to raise that issue. If we need to move it we will. It’s not as efficient in another location, and it’ll cost more money, but we can move it if we have to. Item Thirty- seven is completed. Item Thirty-eight, he’s saying that the straw bale inlet protection detail should be deleted from the plans. Those are approved New York State DEC details. I’m not sure why he’s suggesting that, but we can work that out. Item Thirty- nine, we didn’t use, all of our graphical symbols are standards that we’ve used for years, but several of them don’t match the DEC standards that have been recently published. He wants us to change our symbols which, if I have to, I will defer to him and change our symbols. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. JARRETT-Forty, Forty-one and Forty-two are completed. I guess he’s saying we left a detail on the drawings, even though we don’t plan to use it now, and I don’t have a problem dropping that from the drawing. Items Forty-four and Forty-five are completed. The additional Vision comments, maybe I should stop there and ask if there’s any clarification needed on my part, because I think we’re going to turn it over to Jim here. MR. SEGULJIC-All set. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. JARRETT-Maybe Jim can. JIM MILLER MR. MILLER-Okay. The additional comments are comments that were just received. Previous to this, there were not any comments on Drawing S-1. Everything had been resolved. V-1 talks about an eight foot minimum width in the aisle. They’re correct. We certainly can make that change. I took a quick look at this today. What it means is we lose one parking space by shuffling that row of handicapped and aisles down towards Route 9. V-2, we can provide those details for curb cuts, and the handicap ramp access. V-3, the link that we had 16 feet wide is what’s existing. If we were to make that 24 feet, we would just lose one space, easily done. V-4, we certainly can add the spot elevations. The site is essentially flat, but in terms of micro drainage, we certainly can add some additional information there. V-5, currently there’s an eight foot wide section alongside the north side of the existing skating rink. That’s what we have to deal with. What we show is an eight foot wide walkway going from the back lot towards the front. 6 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) We could make that a four foot wide walk and have four foot wide of green space to accommodate any water coming off the roof, but basically it’s the situation that’s there existing, but we’re certainly open to modifying our plan, but the real essence of it is that we only have eight feet to deal with. Okay. I guess I’ll give it back to Tom. MR. JARRETT-V-6 deals with the New York State DEC SWPPP, and I don’t believe the engineer has seen the original document that we submitted because I believe all of those items, or at least four of them that I was able to verify, are included in the original document that we’ve submitted. So it’s probably just a matter of showing him what was originally submitted and we’d have signoff on those issues. So it’s probably just the changing of the guard that lead to that confusion. V-7 is a suggestion that a construction fence be installed as a demarcation between construction and pedestrian access areas, and frankly we might want to suggest something other than an orange construction fence, but a demarcation I don’t think we would object to. V-8 deals with erosion and sediment control methods, and Mr. Ryan is basically suggesting that we design the erosion sediment control and the contractor merely implements it. Well, in reality it has to be a combination of both. We provide an original design. Contractor implements it, as long as he doesn’t change methods or construction sequencing doesn’t change, and if he’s forced to change that because of weather or other problems, then he has to implement a stormwater management system and erosion control system in compliance with DEC standards, and then we review it. So it’s really an iterative and a complimentary process. It’s not either/or. Note E-2 is too vague. I will defer to him on this, and we can be more specific on our seeding and mulching. It was a standard note that we have on the drawings regarding seed mixes and he’s suggesting a more specific seeding and mulching specification for this project. I don’t have a problem. We can do that. The silt fence drop inlet detail, he’s saying we should drop the one we’ve got on our plans and go with one Figure 5A 12 in the DEC Erosion and Sediment Control Standards. I’m baffled by this one because the detail we have on our plans is the next sheet in the Erosion Control book. So he didn’t turn the page apparently, but we could obviously work that out. MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, I would agree. They all appear to be minor, and they can all be addressed. Does anyone else have questions or comments? One of the questions that I have, again, we hadn’t seen the letter from Vision Engineering until this evening also. Item Number Seven, the whole issue about drywells, and you had addressed it in your response letter, and I thought I understood what was being proposed until now I read Vision Engineering’s comments. Can you just walk us through that again, what their concerns are and what your proposal was? MR. JARRETT-Essentially, the system we proposed is a drop inlet into a drywell structure, with holes in it, that then overflows into a series of plastic chambers, infiltration chambers, for the actual infiltration of stormwater. We did not count the drywell, at the beginning of the system, we did not count that in our infiltration calculations. So we didn’t take credit for that at all, but we feel it’s a better system, it’s a superior. It drains in between storms. Even if it silts up in future years, we’ve not counted it as part of the system. A closed basin, as he’s proposing, which is somewhat the standard, stays full of water, and it becomes a nuisance condition, and it, frankly, can overflow pollutants into the infiltration chambers more easily than I think the system we’ve proposed. Now, I don’t know if I’ve, have I helped there? MR. HUNSINGER-No, you did, because, you know, one of the comments that you made was that it allowed the potential for mosquito breeding and other things. MR. JARRETT-Yes. MR. LAPPER-We certainly feel we would get back to Mr. Ryan with our responses and we could work this out either way during site plan, that it’s not a SEQRA level issue, and however the cards fall, it’ll be fine. We’ll try and convince them and convince you and see where it goes. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. That’s why I wanted clarification on it, because in my mind, in the initial discussion, it could be a SEQRA issue. MR. LAPPER-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Which is why I was looking for clarification. MR. LAPPER-Sure. 7 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) th MR. JARRETT-Back when we provided this response to you on January 12, because it had become an issue and it was raised, I did contact the DEC regarding it, and you can see in our response that the DEC supports our system as an approved method for dealing with stormwater management. MR. HUNSINGER-Does everyone on the Board understand what we’re doing this evening? That all we’re looking at is the SEQRA and then it goes back to the Zoning Board and then it would come back to us for site plan. Okay. Are there any other questions or comments from members of the Board? MR. SEGULJIC-I’m comfortable going forward. MRS. STEFFAN-I just had a question on the Staff Notes in the lighting plan, and I know we’ll talk about this when you come back another time, but could you explain existing pole lights used around the go kart track are proposed to be modified to act light cut off style fixtures? MR. LAPPER-We had talked about that with the Board, about adding shields, so that they would reduce the spillage. Let me let Tom explain. MR. JARRETT-The pictures I’m passing along to the Board show in effect that one cluster head, in the one photo there, it shows the fixtures that are on the go kart track now, and you can see, when they get to you, you can see that they’re aimed up right now. They’re at approximately a 45 degree angle, and we’re going to turn them down to mimic a cut off fixture, and it greatly reduces the spillage off site. As you can see from our lighting plans that we submitted previously, it significantly reduces that off site spillage. There’s still a minor amount, but really on the commercial properties north and south, and only slightly on Route 9. So it really improves the situation, without having to change the fixtures out, which is a very expensive proposition and reduces safety on the track. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I thought the two revised lighting, well, one’s not revised, but the lighting plans that you submitted with your latest submission, you know, pretty clearly show the difference between the two. MR. JARRETT-It’s pretty dramatic. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, and it does bring it more into conformance with the Town requirements, in terms of the ratios also. MR. SEGULJIC-Do you want these back? MR. JARRETT-If you’d like to keep them for the record, that would be fine. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions or comments from members of the Board? If not, are we ready to move for the public hearing? MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-There is a public hearing scheduled. I imagine there are some people here that might have questions or comments on this proposal. Is there anyone here for this application? PUBLIC HEARING OPEN MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Since there is no one here for the public hearing, I will open the public hearing and I will close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. HUNSINGER-Any final questions or comments from the Board? MRS. STEFFAN-Chris, do we close the public hearing because they’ll be back, or do we keep it open? MR. HUNSINGER-We close it for SEQRA, but then we would have a, well, help me out, Susan, if you know. I think there would be a separate public hearing for the site plan. MR. SEGULJIC-Right, because it would get re-advertised, right? 8 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, it would be re-advertised. MRS. BARDEN-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t want to speak out of turn. That was my understanding. MRS. BARDEN-We’d have to re-advertise it. Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-I did have one question on the sign. It says, on the bottom, where the free admission part. It says a four by eight reader. Can you clarify what that means? Is that electronic or is it? KEITH FERRARO MR. FERRARO-It’s just an interchangeable letter sign. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MR. FERRARO-It’s not going to say those words. He just put some words in there. MRS. STEFFAN-That’s fine, but you put the plastic letters in there, it’s not electronic? MR. FERRARO-Yes. Electronic, like a flashing sign? No. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. MR. FERRARO-Yes, it’s just interchangeable letters, yes. MR. LAPPER-They always have events, like during the school vacation week, and so this is just a way to change it as their events change. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. The reason I brought that up is we’ve had some applications for electronic reader board and we are trying to discourage applicants from using those. They’re just not okay with us. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Are we ready to move forward? We do have a couple of corrections, though. MRS. STEFFAN-According to Staff Notes. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, there were a couple of corrections required to the SEQRA document. MRS. STEFFAN-On Page Five of Twenty-One, B-1, letter G., maximum vehicular trips generated per hour, 30 to 50, and then it says guess only. MR. LAPPER-So they need another number. I didn’t bring the whole file. Tom’s going to do some research and we can come back to that. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay, and then on B-25, it just needs, there needs to be a change on city, Town Zoning Board, you’ve checked no. It needed to be yes. MR. LAPPER-We’ll just take a look at that one. MRS. STEFFAN-And also on the bottom of that Page, this is Page Eight of Twenty-one. MR. LAPPER-Yes. Town Zoning Board certainly needs to say yes, parking variance, and setback. MRS. STEFFAN-And then on C, at the bottom of the Page Eight of Twenty-one, C-1, you have site plan checked. It should also be checked Zoning Variance and Special Use Permit. MR. LAPPER-Yes, that’s correct as well. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. So those are changes. Susan, are we looking for a number on Page Five of Twenty-One where we’re talking about the maximum vehicular trips generated, 30 to 50, are you looking for a more specific number? 9 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MRS. BARDEN-Right. MR. JARRETT-Based on the information that we contracted from Creighton Manning, we would refine that to 30. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. So for the record we’re deleting the guess only, and we’re going with the Creighton Manning report, that Tom Jarrett’s reading from, and that 30 to 50 number’s changed to 30. Okay, and I think the only thing else we have to do, according to the Staff Notes, is that the applicant needs to acknowledge Part I of the project information before we go into SEQRA. Is that a verbal acknowledgement? MRS. BARDEN-No, it was really just that the corrections that you walked them through they have acknowledged that those are the answers that have been revised on the Part I EAF. MR. LAPPER-Yes, and for the record, we are in agreement with all of those changes. MRS. BARDEN-Thank you. MRS. STEFFAN-So we can proceed. MR. HUNSINGER-Now we can proceed, yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 35-2006, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Barbara Lavin: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: FERRARO ENTERTAINMENT, and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. th Duly adopted this 20 day of February, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan, Mrs. Lavin, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp 10 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-You’re all set on that. MR. LAPPER-Thank you. I think that the Zoning Board was also looking for a recommendation on the variances, which we. MR. HUNSINGER-I was just going to ask Staff that. Yes. MR. LAPPER-Okay. We modified them last time, just to remind the Board, because you opted for more green space up front and fewer parking, and so we made those changes, and it probably should get acknowledged that this has been through your review, and changed to your satisfaction. It would certainly help us going to the Zoning Board if you recommended it. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s the only variance that you’re requesting, right, is the parking? MRS. BARDEN-Front setback as well. There’s a Travel Corridor Overlay. MR. LAPPER-Travel Corridor, front setback, but it’s not for a building. It’s for the golf course. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s right, Travel Corridor. Right. MR. LAPPER-And we removed that parking up front that you asked us to remove and replaced it with the green space. MR. HUNSINGER-Does anyone want to take a stab at that? Well, they’re within the Travel Corridor. MRS. STEFFAN-Right. MR. HUNSINGER-The miniature golf course is. MRS. STEFFAN-So do we have to do that in the form of a motion? How do we do that? MR. HUNSINGER-I think the easiest way is to do a motion. Wouldn’t you think so, Susan? MRS. BARDEN-A motion? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, a motion of recommendation. MRS. BARDEN-Sure, yes. That’s fine, so that you all agree. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. TRAVER-Specifically on those two. MR. HUNSINGER-Those are the only two issues before the Zoning Board. MRS. BARDEN-Well, there’s three. Two are the front setback. One is for the front setback for the Highway Commercial Intensive zone, and the other setback is Travel Corridor Overlay setback, one’s 50 and one’s 75 feet. MR. LAPPER-Yes, and then parking. MRS. BARDEN-And then parking, excuse me, minimum parking. MR. HUNSINGER-How would we want to word this without tying our hands? MR. LAPPER-Probably, last time we were here we said 120 spaces, and it’s probably 118 if we make it a two way connection between the property to the north, we lost a space, and then the handicap. MR. HUNSINGER-Plus you lost a space to the handicap. MR. LAPPER-Yes. So if that’s okay with the Board. MRS. STEFFAN-One hundred and eighteen. 11 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. LAPPER-One hundred and eighteen instead of one hundred and twenty. MR. HUNSINGER-I think we just would say that, I’m trying to think of how to word it, we recommend that they approve them subject to Site Plan Review. MR. LAPPER-Absolutely. We understand that. MR. HUNSINGER-And that doesn’t tie us. MR. LAPPER-We understand we’ve still got some engineering and design issues. MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t know if we need to specify a number. Is it a specific number of parking spaces going before the Zoning Board? MR. LAPPER-It is, and the only issue this time is it got reduced beyond what we submitted because through the course of the review with the Planning Board, you asked us to. So we’d like them to know it’s not that we’re asking for more, because we were trying to provide as many as possible. It’s just that now what we’re asking for is what everybody thinks we really need, rather than have more blacktop than necessary. MR. HUNSINGER-I was just thinking, you don’t want to get into a situation where the Zoning Board approves a specific number, and then through site plan review it gets changed, so then you have to go back to them. MR. LAPPER-Yes, of course they’re going to have to rule on a specific number next month when we’re before them. It’ll be that 118 rather than. MR. HUNSINGER-So they will need to rule on a specific number? MR. LAPPER-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. When is this before the Zoning Board, is it tomorrow? MR. LAPPER-No, it’s on for March. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. The question was on the specific number of spaces. What will be before the Zoning Board will be the 118 spaces, specifically? MR. LAPPER-One hundred and twenty is what we have now, but based upon your engineer’s comments, we’re going to reduce it by two. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. LAPPER-So it will be 118. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. So I think we do have to be specific. Do they have the same plans that we have? MR. LAPPER-They have, we’ve already submitted everything that’s before you, all the changes that we agreed to in the December meeting. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. LAPPER-It’ll just be, we’ll talk about the two spaces that came up tonight, but they have the new set of plans with all of the mitigation, the noise, everything we’ve done is before them. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay, but they’re only ruling on those two things. So if we make changes during site plan review it doesn’t have to go back to them. Do we need to say in the motion that their approval is subject to site plan review? MRS. BARDEN-You don’t have to. It’s already subject to site plan review. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Okay. MRS. BARDEN-You can. MR. HUNSINGER-It’s just a recommendation. So it’s not binding. 12 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MRS. STEFFAN-All right. I’ll make a motion. MOTION FOR A RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS REGARDING SPECIAL USE PERMIT NO. 35-2006 FERRARO ENTERTAINMENT, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: The recommendation from the Planning Board regarding variances:. 1.The minimum parking requirement of 118 spaces is reasonable. 2.The front setbacks for Highway Commercial zone and the Travel Corridor Overlays as presented are reasonable. th Duly adopted this 20 day of February, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Lavin, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford, Ms. Bruno MR. LAPPER-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. MR. LAPPER-We’re very appreciative of you handling it this way. We’re going to try and get back to you as soon as possible. Is there anything, I don’t know that we’re going to make another submission, other than that we’ll correspond with the engineer, just to try and settle those issues and come back and you will rule on them. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. LAPPER-So we’ll be back. MRS. STEFFAN-Certainly as you explained the responses to the engineer’s comments, it all made sense, and so I’m sure that if those changes are incorporated. MR. LAPPER-I guess just one question is what do you need to see in terms of a submittal of correspondence with the engineer on these issues to get us back on the agenda? MR. HUNSINGER-What do you mean? MRS. STEFFAN-What kind of response from Vision Engineering do we need. Because now they have to respond. MR. JARRETT-We would provide our standard response to Craig, I think, right, and then Mr. Ryan will give us signoff on it. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Yes, I mean, just your standard back and forth. Just make sure you run everything through Craig. MRS. BARDEN-Yes. You can just continue to move forward with that. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. LAPPER-We’re hopeful to get through the Zoning Board in one meeting and then be able to get right back before you to iron out the site plan. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I would imagine that would be the case. MR. LAPPER-Is your agenda already pretty set for March at this point? MRS. STEFFAN-We’re actually going to talk about that tonight. 13 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. LAPPER-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we all received a copy of the letter you had submitted, and it was, actually even before I got the letter I was going to address it with the Board. MR. LAPPER-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-I met with Craig, I think it was three weeks ago, and at that point there was a 10 item back log. So I think now it must be 15. MRS. BARDEN-Probably more so. Yesterday was deadline day. MR. HUNSINGER-And, you know, ask the Board how we want to deal with it. MR. LAPPER-Okay. Thank you very much. MR. HUNSINGER-So we’ll talk about it later this evening, if we have time. If not, we’ll do it next week, and we’ll let you know. MR. LAPPER-Okay. Thanks. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. NEW BUSINESS: SITE PLAN NO. 45-2006 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED PHILLIP UNDERWOOD OWNER(S) EDWARD MURRAY ZONING: MIXED USE LOCATION: 17 LUZERNE ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES RETAIL SALES AND DISPLAY AREA. RETAIL SALES IN THE MU ZONE REQUIRES REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE BP 06-643 WARREN CO. PLANNING 2/14/07 LOT SIZE 0.76 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 309.10-1-96 SECTION 179-4-020 PHILLIP UNDERWOOD, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Susan, if you could summarize Staff Notes, please. MRS. BARDEN-Phillip Underwood is the applicant for this request for Site Plan Review for a retail use. The location of the property is 17 Luzerne Road. The proposal is to utilize the existing 400 square foot shed as a sales office and for display of sheds and gazebos for sale on site. The only site improvement proposed at this time is the installation of a split rail fence along the front property line that will close the open curb cut and provide two access points. Therefore, waivers from the required stormwater management plan, grading plan, landscaping plan, and lighting plan are requested. The Board may consider limiting the number of display items for sale on the lot to a maximum number at any one time. Warren County Planning Board indicated No Action for this th project at their February 14 meeting. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Good evening. MR. UNDERWOOD-Good evening. MR. HUNSINGER-If you could identify yourself for the record, please. MR. UNDERWOOD-My name is Phillip Underwood. MR. HUNSINGER-And if you could summarize your project. MR. UNDERWOOD-What I have is a graveled lot which I wanted to put some Amish storage units on for retail sales. MR. HUNSINGER-It actually looked like, in reviewing the information package, that you were already doing that. MR. UNDERWOOD-I actually put the things on site, but I have not for sale signs on them. I’ve been moving them off as I could, but I was hoping to maybe get approval prior to paying have them all removed. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Did you have anything else to add? 14 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. UNDERWOOD-I think everything’s pretty in detail as far as, you know, we don’t have any plans to do any building, lighting, plumbing, etc. We’re just going to use the existing site and put the, you know, just for display purposes only. I mean, ultimately the business isn’t there forever. The property owner tends to sell the property. It’s just something that’s going to subsidize his taxes and stuff like that. So it’s not like it’s going to be a permanent structure, anything permanent on that site. So that’s why there’s kind of a limited, you know, plan, I mean, we can either do it or not do it. We’re trying to avoid having to do major repairs to the site. We just cleaned it up and made it a little bit more visually acceptable. So we just wanted to, I just wanted to get in front of the Planning Board to see if you had any suggestions for my plan. MR. HUNSINGER-So let me understand. The sheds that are displayed there just display models? MR. UNDERWOOD-That’s correct. MR. HUNSINGER-They’re not actually for sale? So if I wanted to buy one, you’d actually have it shipped from someplace else? MR. UNDERWOOD-Exactly. Yes, you can actually order them based on size, color, roof, etc. Right. I mean, yes, they would be for sale, but the main idea is to give people something to have a visual of. MR. HUNSINGER-And the existing building that’s there, that would be the office? MR. UNDERWOOD-That’s correct. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-So no lighting? MR. UNDERWOOD-No lighting. No lighting at this time. We plan on just operating it, it’ll be seasonal, in a sense, and then during normal light hours, daylight. MR. SEGULJIC-What’s the maximum number of sheds you will have on site? MR. UNDERWOOD-I mean, at this time just for financial things, I can limit it to almost anything. I’d like to have at least six, because that gives a variety of different styles, you know, any maximum doesn’t really concern me at this time. I mean, the main thing is just to have enough so that we have, there’s a couple of different styles like there’s the gazebo style which you see obviously a barn. There’s an A-frame, etc. They’re closer than I planned for where they had gotten dropped off. I proposed to push them back away from, off of Luzerne Road in kind of a half arch type situation. MR. TRAVER-When you sell a unit that has not been delivered to the end user yet, will you be storing those there as well? MR. UNDERWOOD-No. As soon as they’re ordered and produced they’ll be delivered directly to, yes. MR. TRAVER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-So if we said a maximum of 10, you’d be okay with that? MR. UNDERWOOD-That wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all. MR. SEGULJIC-Thank you. MRS. LAVIN-Has this site been used for anything else previously? Has it always just been vacant? MR. UNDERWOOD-No, it used to be Ledfoot Express. That building was razed I think either last year or the year before because it was in major disrepair, and then the actual, the red building that we painted, that was used for Didio’s Flowers, which was a retail flower place, and then a hair salon. I’m not sure that, we’re right out in front of Joe Podnorski’s nursery. So it’s kind of hand in hand in that aspect. MR. SEGULJIC-So when would you put up the fence? 15 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. UNDERWOOD-As soon as the ground allows. st MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. So if we said by May 1, that would be okay? MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure, anything within reason. I put a lot of detail, more so than I was actually planning on, to try to give it some basis, because I wasn’t really able to get any direct answers to what I needed to do to get in front of the Planning Board. I don’t have to put the fence up. It’s one solid curb cut. Again, it’s mostly based on your recommendation, but I did put that in the plan just to give us some basis to start from, because obviously as you can see it’s just a wide open gravel, and it’s very thinly graveled, too. It’s not like it’s a thick gravel. It’s like half an inch at most. So I just wanted to at least get a basis where we could start from. So the fence we can have in as soon as the ground, within reason, thaws, not that it’s that deep now. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, these pictures are really helpful, because when we were there Saturday, you know, there was giant piles of snow and you couldn’t tell that it was a continuous curb cut which, you know, the reason why you don’t want to continue this curb cut is because it creates all kinds of. MR. UNDERWOOD-Havoc for traffic. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, exactly. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. Makes sense. MR. HUNSINGER-So I would personally want to see access limited to what you had proposed, two access points with the split rail fence. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Because otherwise you’re going to have people just pulling off to the side of the road. MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes. It’s not a high traffic business, you know, in that sense, but I mean, I understand that and it makes perfect sense. So we’d move ahead with what we had on the plan. MR. HUNSINGER-Right, and even though you’re not generating a lot of traffic on your site, it is a busy road. MR. UNDERWOOD-And it’ll get busier. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Any other questions or comments from members of the Board? MR. SEGULJIC-Are you proposing any signs? MR. UNDERWOOD-Not at this time. MR. SEGULJIC-All right. I’m all set. MRS. STEFFAN-So, if we were to approve this, what kind of conditions, maximum units on site 10, and hours of operation. MR. HUNSINGER-Hours would have to be limited to daylight hours. MR. UNDERWOOD-To daylight hours. st MR. SEGULJIC-And then the fence installed by May 1. MR. UNDERWOOD-That’s reasonable, unless we get a blizzard. MRS. BARDEN-There is a public hearing as well. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I didn’t forget. One of the other comments I had is on your actual application submission on the site development data. Specifically it asks for setback requirements, required and existing, but then the proposed column wasn’t filled out. 16 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. UNDERWOOD-We’re not building anything, though. Maybe that’s where there’s some confusion. I’m not sure exactly what your point. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m trying to think of the easiest way to explain this. Specifically on setback requirements, you know, there are certain dimensions required. You can’t have a structure within so many feet of the neighbor’s property or within so many feet of the street. MR. UNDERWOOD-Well, we can make that to any interpretation that you guys, whatever you propose is absolutely fine, because nothing is permanent. I mean, you know, you move them with a trailer and a truck. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Well, you filled out the column for required, and you also filled out the column for existing, but then the column for proposed was left blank. MR. UNDERWOOD-I guess I was under the impression if we were to build something. There’s an existing building on site. That’s where the existing comes from. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. UNDERWOOD-I didn’t necessarily propose anything at this point. MR. HUNSINGER-So you left it blank because you’re not proposing any new building? MR. UNDERWOOD-That’s correct. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. So really the proposed, and I guess that was sort of my comment, is the proposed should at least mirror the existing. MR. UNDERWOOD-I think the existing is actually less than what would be required. The existing, I think, is less than, what does it say on there? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, according to this, it’s within five feet of the side yard. MR. UNDERWOOD-Exactly, right. That’s where the existing building is now. We would not be close to that. We’d be farther out from the sides. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re not moving the existing building? MR. UNDERWOOD-No, the existing building’s going to stay. So there’s no proposed for it. You’re losing me in the sense of I’m not sure what you want me to propose a setback for. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, you’re not proposing any changes. MR. UNDERWOOD-That’s correct. MR. HUNSINGER-So the proposed would be the same as the existing, is what I’m saying. MR. UNDERWOOD-Fair enough. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. UNDERWOOD-Fair enough. MR. HUNSINGER-So we would need to see that corrected. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. MRS. BARDEN-Mr. Chairman, in that same vein, I guess something that I didn’t think about at the time is, it might be appropriate to require a setback for the sheds. They’re pretty close to the road. You might say, you know, a minimum 20 feet from the edge of the road, something like that, not considered a structure for the site development data page setbacks, but just for traffic and access. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, and excuse me, on his proposed drawing they are set back quite a ways off the road and sort of, as he mentioned, a semi-circle horseshoe kind of shape. 17 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MRS. BARDEN-Right, but in reality they’re not there now. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MRS. STEFFAN-Do we want to identify 20 feet, or do we just want to say to Code? MR. HUNSINGER-I think we’d be safe in saying to Code, even though they’re not permanent structures. MR. UNDERWOOD-I believe there is a Code for these types of buildings in Queensbury that you have to have them off the property line by a certain code. I don’t know what that is exactly, but we could do that by Code, is fair enough. MR. HUNSINGER-Sure, okay. MRS. STEFFAN-And we would be okay granting waivers for stormwater management, grading, landscaping and lighting? MR. HUNSINGER-We would have to. MRS. STEFFAN-We still need to do a Short Form SEQRA. MR. HUNSINGER-We need to have a public hearing. We do have a public hearing scheduled for this evening. Is there anyone here that had comments or questions on this application? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. HUNSINGER-I will open the public hearing, and if there are no takers, I will close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. HUNSINGER-Any further discussion? Susan mentioned the waiver request, stormwater management, grading, landscaping and lighting. Any objections? MRS. LAVIN-No. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. We need to do a Short Form. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 45-2006, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Barbara Lavin: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: PHILLIP UNDERWOOD, and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 18 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. th Duly adopted this 20 day of February, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan, Mrs. Lavin, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Do you have a resolution ready? MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 45-2006 PHILLIP UNDERWOOD, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: 1. WHEREAS, a site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following; Applicant proposes retail sales and display area. Retail Sales in the MU zone requires review by the Planning Board and 2. WHEREAS, a public hearing was advertised and was held on 2/20/07; and 3. WHEREAS, this application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; and 4. WHEREAS, pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179], the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and 5. WHEREAS, where appropriate, i.e. done at the completed review, and/or when required [either Type I or Unlisted] the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration and /or if the application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered, and the proposed modification[s] do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and 6. WHEREAS, final approved plans, in compliance with the Site Plan, must be submitted to the Community Development Department before any further review by the Zoning Administrator or Building and Codes personnel. Subsequent issuance of further permits, including building permits are dependent on receipt; and 7. WHEREAS, the applicant will provide as-built plans to certify that the site plan is developed according to the approved plans prior to issuance of the certificate of occupancy and, if applicable, to be combined with a letter of credit; and 8. WHEREAS, the Sanitary Sewer connection plan must be submitted to the Wastewater Department for its review, approval, permitting and inspection. 9. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that we find the following: MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 45-2006 PHILLIP UNDERWOOD, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic: 19 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) According to the resolution prepared by Staff: Approved with the following conditions: 1. Paragraph Four complies. 2. Paragraph Five negative. 3. Paragraph Seven, we can strike that from the motion. 4. Paragraph Eight, we can also strike that from the motion. 5. That the shed setbacks from the road meet Code. 6. That the maximum units on the site are 10. 7. That the operation is limited to daylight hours. st 8. That the fencing proposed is installed by May 1. 9. The applicant correct site development data, specifically the setback requirements section. 10. That we would grant waivers for stormwater management, grading, landscaping, and lighting. th Duly adopted this 20 day of February, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Lavin, Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE MR. HUNSINGER-You’re all set. MR. UNDERWOOD-Thank you very much. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. SITE PLAN NO. 2-2007 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED THE MICHAELS GROUP AGENT(S) JAMES MILLER, MILLER ASSOCIATES OWNER(S): SAME ZONING P.U.D. LOCATION MEADOWBROOK ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES A 6,000 SQ. FT. OFFICE BUILDING AND ASSOCIATED SITE WORK. NEW USES IN THE PUD ZONE REQUIRE REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE PUD SP 44-2000 WARREN CO. PLANNING N/A LOT SIZE 13.85 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 296.8-1-8.1 SECTION 179-12 JIM MILLER & ERIC WILSON, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Susan, if you could summarize Staff Notes, please. MRS. BARDEN-The Michaels Group is the applicant for the requested action of Site Plan Review for an office use in the Hiland Park PUD. The property is located on Meadowbrook Road just south of Waverly Place. The proposal is for a 6,000 square foot office building and associated site work. The applicant has supplied documentation regarding consistency of this project with the PUD agreement with the Town. Parcel data indicates that the 1.58-acre site area is part of a larger 13.85-acre parcel. An application for subdivision will need to be submitted and approved prior to any site plan approval. The proposed orientation of the building and related parking should be discussed. Consideration should be given to having the building front the street with the majority of parking in the rear. The setback to the Army Corps wetlands should be discussed, it may be appropriate to request more than the 20-foot setback as shown on the plan. Vision Engineering review comment letter dated February 12, 2007 was handed out this evening. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Good evening. MR. MILLER-Good evening. My name is Jim Miller, Landscape Architect, and with me is Eric Wilson, with The Michaels Group. What I’d like to do, one of the things that Susan mentioned, I’d like to clarify that, and we’re not quite sure why there’s some confusion, but when the Waverly Place subdivision was filed, this is actually a copy of the filed map, and I thought this got submitted, and you can see this is actually the stamped map with all the signatures, and it clearly shows that the 1.58 acre parcel in this area was to be retained by The Michaels Group, as well as the larger piece and then there was another parcel in the back of 12 acres. So that subdivision basically identified three lots, and this 12 acre parcel was the one behind us was the one that was identified, there was some discussion it was going to be dedicated to the Town. I’m not sure if that did or didn’t, but the 1.58 acre piece is delineated, this is the LA Group map that was done for the Waverly Place subdivision. So I think, you know, I think that, this is the official subdivision map and that lot is identified. It’s not entirely clear but it’s a separate deed, and you can see the parcel and the notation there that it be retained by The Michaels 20 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) Group, and at the time it went before the Town Board for consistency with the Planned Unit Development, this parcel was specifically discussed and identified as an office use. The original PUD identified almost everything on the west side of Meadowbrook Road as office of some type, and with the housing that’s been happening in there, the Town Board just has some concern that they didn’t want to lose all the office. So this parcel was identified as an office parcel. So with that, hopefully we’re squared away with that. I mean, obviously it’s got to be a separate lot, you know, for us to have a site plan approval on it, and we think that, you know, it does not show on the tax map as a separate parcel, but that doesn’t necessarily mean, you know, what they may have done is since The Michaels Group the same, all the parcels, they may not have shown the separate lots, even though they are. I’m never quite sure. Sometimes the tax maps are very accurate, sometimes they’re not, but the proposal is for a one story, 6,000 square foot office building. This is the parcel in question with Meadowbrook Road here. There’s a parcel of about 80 feet I believe that goes back to the 12 acres in the rear that was the one that was talked about being dedicated to the Town, and then the balance of the parcel includes, is this Homeowners Association over here? This is the Homeowners Association land for Waverly Place, and it extends up and around the back of Waverly Place subdivision. The site has, there’s a sewer easement that runs diagonally across the property, and there’s also a sewer line that runs across the 12 acre parcel. This sewer line runs back to Adirondack Community College. This sewer line comes up and serves the Waverly Place subdivision. There’s also, to the back of the property, off the property, there’s a stream that flows southerly and there’s some DEC wetlands associated with that stream. The wetlands are not on our property, and the 100 foot DEC setback cuts the very back portion of the property, and there’s a couple of drainage areas that feed down towards that stream that have been identified as Army Corps of Engineers wetlands. As a matter of fact this area in here that you see is a detention basin for the Waverly Place subdivision. Their stormwater drains into this basin, which is released into that wetland. So all of this area here is detention basin and wetland. The proposal is for the one story, 6,000 square foot office building, which we were sort of constrained into the front portion of the site with the wetlands and the sewer easement, there would be a driveway that would enter. For 6,000 square feet we’re required to have 20 parking spaces. We’re allowed to have up to 24, so we have the 24 parking spaces. There will be a dumpster located to the rear of the parking area that will be fenced in, and will be enclosed. The grading of the site, if you’ve visited the site, there’s sort of a mound, and then it falls away to the wetland areas. So the area where the parking area is identified would be fairly close to grade, actually a little bit lower than grade in the area where the building is and the southerly portion of the site will get filled and raised. All of the drainage, we’re under an acre of disturbance. So we’re not subject to the DEC stormwater the DEC stormwater pollution prevention plan, but we are, we do have to have an erosion and sediment control plan which is provided, and we do have to meet the Town’s requirements, which is detention for a 50 year storm, and what we’ve proposed is there’ll be stone eaves trenches around the entire perimeter of the building to collect the runoff from the building and infiltrate the runoff into the soil. This area will be primarily fill. So we’ll be importing a well drained material to try to maximize that infiltration. Any runoff from those eaves trenches would simply flow across the grass areas towards the wetland. The parking lot is pitched towards the back. There’ll be a couple of catch basins will contain and collect the runoff from the parking lot, which will be directed to the rear of our property into a stormwater basin, which will have a controlled release, which would release the stormwater to the rear of the site as naturally occurs. There’ll be a freestanding sign in the front. It’s a professional office, so it will be a fairly modest sign, and we’ve shown that it meets all of the setbacks and requirements. We meet all of the DEC requirements for temporary erosion control, with the silt fence, the temporary detention basins and, you know, the gravel construction entry road, similar type practices to maintain the site during construction. The landscaping and lighting plan, being professional office, it’s not intended that there’ll be much night activity at this facility. Pretty typically, the lighting, the proposed is to accommodate those evening hours, especially this time of year, and the lights will probably be on some kind of a timer or manually shut off so there’ll only be like security level lighting during the evening close to the building. The lighting is limited to the parking area. The light fixtures that are proposed, I believe they’re 12 foot high, sort of a pedestrian style, a little bigger than a residential, but they’re not a big parking lot light. There’ll be six of them, located around the perimeter of the parking lot. There’ll be a high pressure sodium light, and it’ll be, in the covered canopy there’ll be recessed lighting to light that entryway in the covered canopy, and I would assume after normal business hours maybe some of the lights across the front of the building would remain. The rest would be shut off. The landscaping, what we’ve done with the parking configuration, we’ve tried to get the parking around to the side of the building to screen it as much as possible. We’ve got, you know, we looked at several layouts and configuration, given the constraints of the wetland and the sewer easements, and this was the most efficient that gave us the 21 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) maximum green space and infringed the least on the surrounding wetlands, and what we’ve done with the parking area is we’re proposing screened planting on the back side of the parking lot the grade will drop down towards the existing wetland area. This area will all be seeded, and we’re proposing planting groups of Norway Spruce across there that’ll provide a good dense screen across the back of parking lot. In addition, there’ll be several shade trees planted around that parking lot. The intent is to buffer from the residences to the north, to buffer the parking area and provide a fairly dense evergreen screening along the north side of the property, and what we’ve done is along the Meadowbrook Road is we’ve continued the shade trees along the parking lot and introduced, on the top of the mound area by the parking lot some shrub massing there. Again, something that’s going to be four feet high approximately to screen the cars along the roadway, the main emphasis being on the front of the building. There’ll be accent planting around the building with some flowering pears and flowering trees accenting the building and the entry areas. There’ll be ornamental planting around the signs, and we’ve introduced some planting along Meadowbrook Road to accent the elevation of the building along Meadowbrook Road. That’s pretty much the overall of the project. Unfortunately we just received today at noon time the engineering comments, and I wanted to get a handle on these. So we spent the afternoon, so we essentially have addressed all of their comments, and I have their response here, you know, ready to submit back. What I would say is that almost all of the comments asked for some additional detail or additional clarification. There was really nothing in any of these comments that really changed the plans you looked at, and, I mean, I’d be happy to address any of those comments if you wanted me to take the time to do so. MR. HUNSINGER-What’s the feeling of the Board? We didn’t see the comments until this evening either. So we’re playing catch up as well. MR. MILLER-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-So maybe in light of that, if you could go through them fairly quickly. MR. MILLER-I could go through them fairly quickly, sure. There were some comments on the stormwater report. Tom Nace addressed that in his revised stormwater report. Basically there was a series of comments. Some of them were some misunderstanding where the comments were directed as if this was required to be a DEC stormwater pollution prevention plan. Since we’re under an acre it’s not, but the gist of the discussion, the stormwater report was to provide more detailed breakdowns, because we mottled the site and we can take a certain area and we can break it down into as many components as we want to. So we were requested to provide some more detail. That was done and Tom Nace is in the process of refining the narrative of a report. It’s had no impact on our basin or anything. It’s just basically changed some of the calculations in the report. They asked for the electric and gas service to be indicated. We’ve shown that on the layout plan, and we typically don’t show that because wherever I put it, Niagara Mohawk is sure to put it somewhere else. The dumpster area, he asked for some clarification and we provided a detail for a wood screen fence around the dumpster area. It would be a cedar board type, six foot high enclosure. We’ve provided a detail. He asked for a detail for the emergency overflow spillway on the stormwater basin. It’s basically a riprap overflow in case the basin overflows, we’ve provided that detail. He asked for a detail of the orifice plates. What we do on the stormwater pond to control the release of the water, we will put a restrictor plate, it’ll be a 12 inch pipe, but a lot of times we’ll put a restrictor plate on where the outlet will be a six inch, and typically what we’ll do is basically do a pipe reducer, and that’s what we’ve done here. So we’ve provided a detail because the outlet on our storm pond was for a six inch outlet and we have a 12 inch pipe, and so we showed the detail of how that restriction would work. There was some question about the eaves trenches. Our storm report shows that for a 50 year rainstorm, which is probably 4.8 inches of rain, that we have two and a half foot wide by three foot deep stone trench around the building. So the runoff from the roof would go into that stone and collect and infiltrate, but what happens at a 50 year storm, we had like a half an inch of that storm with overflow, in which case it would basically flow across the grass towards the wetland and Mr. Ryan thought that we might want to consider adding a pipe, a perforated pipe inside that to direct that runoff into our basin, and the problem, we’d have to put some slope onto that pipe to make it work, and to run it from one side of the building to the other we would be losing the, you know, with the perforated pipe, the water wouldn’t be contained in the infiltration trench. So we’re trying to clarify, we’re going to clarify that with him, and we feel that the overflow from that trench is fairly minor and is not going to cause any kind of erosion problems or anything, and again, it only occurs at a 50 year or greater storm. I think that was the only one we really kind of disagreed with, fairly minor. We added a note to the grading plan about the fill. There’s some areas. At the low end of the site we have four foot of fill and typically when 22 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) contractors install fill they have to put it in in level layers of about 12 inches and then compact it, because if you dump it all at one time, you can’t compact it. So we added some notes defining that the fill material would be a granular well drained sand, and we added some notes about how that compaction would be required. On the erosion control plan, he asked for additional, as part of the erosion control plan, we have to provide a sequencing as to how the contractor comes in and develops the site. We want him to come in and do the silt fence and the temporary sediment basins and those kinds of things before he starts pushing dirt around, and Mr. Ryan asked that we put some additional information in there to clarify when and how the placement of the fill occurs in that sequencing. So we added that information. Also we had some sloped areas along the detention basin, and he’s asked for some clarification. We’ve added some details where, on any slopes that are over a three on one slope, that we would use an erosion control netting and fabric that’s stapled in place, so seed and the topsoil won’t wash. So we added that detail to the plans. He asked that we show a location for the topsoil that’s stripped from the site. Typically a site like this, we strip more topsoil than we’re going to need, because a lot of the site gets paved. We added a note saying that all the excess topsoil should be removed and not stored on the site, and only the topsoil that’s required for finishing the project would be stored on the site, and we’ve shown an area on the north side of the site within our sediment control fence for that topsoil stockpile. There was a question, Number 11, there was a question about, we showed two sediment basins in our temporary erosion control plan on the north side of the site. The reason there was two basins is because of the configuration of the wetland there. We couldn’t make it one large basin. So we have two basins where the easterly basin overflows into the westerly basin, which had a control outlet towards the wetland, and this is only the basins during construction, and we had to clarify that, you know, add some spot grades in there. There was a concern that the easterly of the two basins would drain into the wetland as opposed to into the lower basin. So we added some additional notes and elevations along that. He asked that a detail be shown for the rock filter dam outlet, for the temporary sediment trap. We added the detail. He asked that some additional silt fencing be added on the south side of the building. This is a filled slope which is typically more unstable than a natural slope. He asked that we add a second row of silt fence along the top of the bank, and we had one at the bottom of the bank. So we did add that second row, and then his item 14, he talked about considering adding some additional lighting along the front of the building and I didn’t think the Planning Board would necessarily want us to do that, and we don’t really feel it’s necessary since we’re not open at night. So we’re going to suggest we don’t do that, and those were all the comments, and all those are addressed are on the plans. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. All right. I’ll open it up for questions or comments from members of the Board. MR. SEGULJIC-How much fill are you bringing on site? It looks like you’re bringing it up four or five feet. MR. MILLER-Well, it is on the very south side, but I think, if you look at that, you know, most of that fill ends up being structural fill within the building. We had a couple of schemes we looked at here. One we tried to look at a building that was split level where we could access the basement, and it’s right at that elevation where we’ve only got like four or five feet of grade change where that was very hard to do. It got the building too high up out of the ground, because we had to be above the wetland with our lower level. So the building got too high. So, you know, we went back and forth and ended up that the best solution was going to be to try to keep a building that set relatively a foot or so above the road so it had a good presence on the road, and then because the site slopes to the south side, you know, we need to add some fill around there, but the parking area on the north side is pretty much at grade or a little bit beyond, and one of the questions that Mr. Ryan talked about, placing that fill, and what we’ve suggested is that they would come in, rough grade the site, where they would take the area where the parking area is and there’s probably going to be some fill material cut from there, put that on the other end of the site, and then from there we could determine where, you know, the exact extent of the fill at the lower end, but most of the fill I think is going to be a structural fill that’s going to occur within the building foundations. MR. SEGULJIC-So what is the depth to groundwater on the site. MR. MILLER-The groundwater is essentially about where the wetland is, in the back, on 302, somewhere around 302. MR. SEGULJIC-So right now you’re about a foot or two above groundwater? 23 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. MILLER-The existing site you’re talking about? MR. SEGULJIC-Correct. MR. MILLER-In the back, yes, because we’re right at the wetland, but the high portion of the site goes up to 310. MR. SEGULJIC-The post construction. MR. MILLER-No, I mean, the high portion of the site right now. MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re bringing in all the fill to level off the site? MR. WILSON-Yes. We’re going to be doing a slab on grade. So we’re only going down what’s necessary to do that. We’re really in that, on the southerly side, we’re really going to be scraping the surface and starting our footings right there, and then filling the building. That’s why he’s saying about fill. Most of it’s going to be contained within the walls, really. MR. MILLER-Here’s a photo that might be helpful. This is looking back at the Waverly Place, and you can see, this is the high portion of the site. You can just start to see it sort of drops away. So most all the development that’s happening is going to basically be at this elevation. So the fill we’re talking about happens, just on this photograph. MR. SEGULJIC-That’s my biggest concern. MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone else have questions? MR. TRAVER-I had a question about the entrance to your parking lot. Can that be lined up so that it matches the road across the street? MR. MILLER-Well, we looked at that, and no, it can’t. You look at the drawing, that the Hiland Springs, you can see this culvert here, that basically is on the north side of that. So that roadway is right here. So the roadway really is up near our northern property line. The other problem we have, if we try to access at that point, that end of the site is all wetland. So we looked at that, and as a matter of fact some of the schemes we looked at as to how to access the building, and what happens is, with this site, between the core wetlands and the sewer easement that comes through, we’re sort of limited. So we tried to come up with a scheme that was fairly compact. If we tried to extend that driveway one side or the other, we end up using up most of the usable space into driveway, as opposed to having it available for parking or for the building. I think we’re offset now like 220 feet from that existing driveway. So seeing we couldn’t get lined up on it, the other option is to get far enough away that it’s not a safety problem. MR. HUNSINGER-So, I’m sorry, how far away is it? MR. MILLER-I think we’re about 220 feet from that driveway. MRS. STEFFAN-I think that the Staff Notes had asked about orientation of the building. So the portion that’s facing the road has no door on it. That’s what the point was. MR. MILLER-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-I had the same comment before I saw the Staff Notes. MR. MILLER-You’re talking about that front elevation? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. MILLER-Well, what we did is the building is designed actually at that “L” shaped building entering into the center, so that there’s, it can be anywhere from one to three tenants within the building. So we could have a common entry with one tenant that took all the space, or you could have that common entry, could go into a hallway that could branch to three separate offices, depending on the size of the tenant. So that was part of the reason the configuration of the building. One of the things with that elevation, we have some samples here as to what the material is. Here’s, this is sort of small, but the base of the building is stone. The trim is a lighter color, and the siding is a darker color. So they’re all the tan colors. This is the stone material that’s at the base. 24 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-So it’s real stone. MR. MILLER-No, this is a cultured stone. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. MILLER-They’re getting good at it. They’re making it look real, and the trim will be a light colored painted wood, and the siding I believe is the textured vinyl. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I liked the aesthetics of the building, but I had the same comment, and what I wrote was on your right elevation I said, you know, that should be the front, the road front. MR. MILLER-Well, you know, this is always an interesting thing. We run into this all the time. MR. HUNSINGER-I know. MR. MILLER-All these towns now they want the parking the back. So we’ve got to have the door at the parking lot, and so then, you know, I mean, what we have done in some other cases where that’s been a concern, we’ve done some things, sometimes, to enhance that elevation, so it’s not necessarily a doorway, because we don’t want the people having to walk all the way around the side of the building to enter the building in the front, but there may be a way to put some articulation to that entrance, or that front side to add some more interest to it or something to sort of accommodate. I had the same thing down in Malta. We were on Route 9. The entrance to it was on the back. MR. HUNSINGER-They didn’t want a door on the front, or they did? MR. MILLER-Well, the problem gets to be is you start to, you know, it starts to get confusing. This building is designed, we’ve got to enter off the parking lot. We’ve got to have our handicapped access and everything. So we want it very convenient to the parking lot, and, you know, we don’t want to create a situation where, you know, we had a scheme where, quite honestly, we were parking in the front. As a matter of fact, we had a scheme we came in and tried to park on both sides and have a front, but the problem with that was, one is, the site wasn’t deep enough to really accommodate it very conveniently, and the other problem is your Code recommends we park to the side and to the rear. So I figured that that probably wasn’t going to be a good solution to have all the parking in the front of the building, but we couldn’t accommodate it anyway. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m glad you couldn’t. MR. MILLER-So, you know, I mean, from a practical point of view, I don’t think we want the entrance on the front, but the mid ground on some of this is maybe to do something different with those two windows in the middle or something that would create some more interest on that side. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I mean, a couple of thoughts come to mind. Certainly some of the professional office buildings along Bay Road, not the newer big ones, but the ones that are on the west side of Bay Road, you know, they have parking to the side and to the rear, but they still have what visually looks like a front door near, I always forget the name of road. MR. MILLER-Where Dr. Bannon’s is. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. MILLER-I don’t know, though, like you look at Dr. Bannon’s office, I mean, you’re looking at the back of his building, I mean, he enters off the parking lot which is on the other side. I just think you’re used to those. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. I don’t know, and then the other one that comes to mind is the professional office building, and I don’t even know if it’s opened yet, on Aviation Road, across from Sokol’s. When they first came to this Board, they didn’t have a front door on Aviation Road, and we sort of insisted that they have a front door off the, you know, on the street presence, because it’s actually two buildings on that site with parking in the middle, and they have the entrances off the parking lot, and we insisted they put a door on the Aviation Road side, mostly for aesthetics, because I guess the concern is, when you look at this building, I mean, and it’s a beautiful building, you have nice architectural 25 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) details, you have, you know, nice mix of materials, and the two of the three sides that face the public, you know, you look at your left elevation, there’s no door there, and then you look at the front elevation and there’s no door there. I mean, the rear of the building becomes more appealing than two of the three sides that face the public, and it doesn’t give you a welcoming appearance. It doesn’t, you know, it looks like, here’s a closed building. We can’t go there. So, I mean, it’s really more than aesthetic. I mean, it also becomes a psychological approach to building design, if you will. MR. MILLER-I’m not the architect. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, I would try and argue to put the parking in the back, except I think you’ve done a good job in screening the parking lot, and I think I would tend to agree that the constraints of the site make it so that the parking needs to be on the side, but I think there might be some compromise in terms of the public façade of the building being more visually inviting, if you will. MR. WILSON-So really what you would call a second entrance from the front. MR. MILLER-Well, I don’t think it necessarily has to be an entrance. I think where we show a window there that those window units could be a deeper unit that almost looks like a doorway, and we could have just a, I mean the thing we don’t want to do is create some confusion. I remember the old school in Glens Falls there they converted to offices. Remember they had the big entrance that went out to the street that was the entrance to the school for years. Well that became the conference room for the lawyers and they hired me one time to come and in try to help them figure out what to do because people kept walking through the front door into their conference room. So we don’t want that situation here. I don’t think we want to, you know, confuse this, what we do. We really make it look too much like an entrance where people try and come around and come into what’s probably going to be an office, but, you know, my suggestion would be maybe do something with some of those window units where they look more like a doorway and maybe just has a pad there that could open up, but, you know, not really make it a bonafide entrance. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, and I think the reality of this site, it’s not like you’re going to have people walking up to the building. They’re going to drive up in their cars. They’re going to park in the parking lot and the sidewalks and the parking are going to direct them to the side door, which is the front door. MR. MILLER-I used to believe that, but you’d be surprised. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. MILLER-No, but you’re right. I think you’re right, and, you know, but I mean, we could look at something like that. I’m spending my client’s money. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I’m only one person on the Board here. MRS. LAVIN-I was unable to make the site visit on Saturday, and I just want to understand, is primarily the existing buildings in this area are residential? MR. MILLER-Yes. MRS. LAVIN-Is it all residential? So there’s going to be one professional building amidst all of these homes? MR. MILLER-Well, but the original approval for this area, the original Hiland Park PUD, all the area on the east side was all going to be nursing home, congregate care. That’s how the Eddy ended up in there, and this side was going to be all professional office, and what’s happened over the time is the residential developers have come in and pleaded their case that there’s not a demand for what was in the master plan. So a lot of this has gone to residential, and the Town Board is kind of getting a little leery of this, because the Planned Unit Development is supposed to be a mixed use project and it’s now becoming a residential project, slowly but surely, so they held onto this piece as an office piece, and what they’ve done with Rich Schermerhorn’s subdivision further up the road on Meadowbrook at the intersection there, that’s actually commercial up there. So they’re trying to make this, you know, more of a mixed use, and I think with the design that we’ve proposed, it’s a 6,000 square foot office, which is essentially, you know, probably about the size of the footprints of the Waverly Place duplexes, if you look at the 26 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) two of them together, and it’s one story. So I think the scale of it is compatible with the residences. MRS. LAVIN-Well, I know just from being on this Board a short time there’s been talk about where you might want to put a Stewarts and how you might want it to look. There’s a standard Stewarts and then there’s the one that fits into the nice neighborhood down there on Exit 18, the one that kind of sits back, it’s a little cantered. Maybe a concern of the residents in the area is that this needs to look more like a home business, not just like a business and stick out like a sore thumb. So anything to make it look a bit more like a home might be a little less threatening or a little less not pleasing to the eye. MR. MILLER-I think that’s what you’re going to see here is I think what, you know, The Michaels Group has proposed here is a good mix of colors and material. I think with the use of the cultured stone and the way they’ve used the, they’ve broken up the different sidings as opposed to a lot of times in an office building you just get one big sheet of siding, you know, they’ve put some interest into their trim and they’ve used some different sidings and colors, and I think that that’s the kind of thing that’s going to add that interest, that’ll make it compatible in that area. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other comments or questions from the Board? We do have a public hearing scheduled, and I imagine a lot of the people that are here are here for the public hearing. So I will open the public hearing. If you would like to address the Board, please direct your questions and comments to the Board. The purpose of the public hearing is to provide an opportunity for the public to express their wishes, their comments and concerns about projects. If you have specific questions, address them to the Board and then we’ll ask the applicant. Before you start, I would ask if you could state your name for the record. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED PAUL PRICE MR. PRICE-Sure. I’m Paul Price and I live at 59 Waverly Place. Just a comment. The application lists 13.85 acres, and I think actually what we’re talking about is something that’s 1.57 acres, and the rest of it, I don’t know whether it’s been given to the Town, I guess it hasn’t been given to the Town, but it was scheduled to be given to the Town, and maybe the Town didn’t want it, but I just wanted to make that point. We’re not talking about 13 acres here. We’re talking about a very small plot, and I also have to say, as an aside, there’s a real nice professional office building, I think it’s on Round Pond Road, the physical therapy place there with the glass in the front and everything else, and actually the entrance is not in the front. It’s in the back. So it’s a very small plot of land, and making the best use of it is probably difficult. Three concerns. Two of them are probably connected, and it’s the runoff from the site and it’s the flood waters that we’ve had in that area. Last Spring, we had three events that have been documented and photographed and I think shared with, the Planning Board certainly shared with our Town representative, and every time somebody fills and raises the land, it just forces the water to go somewhere else, and I personally just hope that there’s an overall Town plan of how you’re going to deal with the water coming through those brooks. The brook that was referred to actually is a merger of two brooks. Up on our end of the property, Waverly Place common land, there are two brooks, and they join together just about where this property begins, and then it all feeds into Halfway Brook, and that whole area just gets saturated. One time this Spring, the only thing above ground was Meadowbrook Road itself. So concern with what are we going to do with all that water and stop the flooding. The second or third area is the lighting. I heard the word mercury vapor lamps or something like that. We’ve tried hard in our own neighborhood, and I think the architect, the same organization, The Michaels Group, tried hard. We have no street lighting. All the lighting is just house, front lamps and it works well to illuminate the street. It keeps us safe, but we like our night sky, and if you just want to see what the lighting does, coming over here tonight looking at the College, which has, I think, some sort of vapor lamps, you look at the clouds above the College and they’re all rosy, and from an economic point of view, the people come up here to the north woods, the edge of the Adirondacks, to get away from that, and I don’t think it helps any of us, either those who live here or those that want to vacation here. So concern with the wetlands, concern with the flooding, concern with the lighting are my issues. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Yes, ma’am. LOUISE SHOEMAKER 27 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MRS. SHOEMAKER-Thank you. I’m Louise Shoemaker and I also live on Waverly Place. I second what Mr. Price has said. Those are very serious issues for us and we’ve had experience as far as light pollution and water issues, and there’s concern about the retention pond that is right between the proposed project and homes there, and concern about water in basements. There have been some issues there. So I would say this is very, very serious. Now I’d like to take the camera and zoom out, and look at a big picture here. If it’s not appropriate for me to do this, tell me, but I’ve been attending the PORC meeting, and some of the issues, the concerns, rather, that people in the whole of Queensbury have raised are curb cuts, and light pollution, and pedestrian traffic. In this area, as Paul said, the night sky is wonderful, and that has been one of the great selling points, as far as The Michaels Group is concerned. I think they’ve been pioneers and ahead of their curve in their design and their siting, and I would hate to see this spoil it really. The road, Meadowbrook, as I understand, is going to be changed, and there’s going to be a curve on up to Hiland, where there will be commercial use. I would think it would be more appropriate for not a standalone business, but to have it as part of that because all businesses tend to promote businesses with other business. It would take care of the, you could better control the lighting problems, parking problems, curb cuts. Another safety issue is that across the street where the apartments are, you have school buses disgorging children. On Meadowbrook Road, since the Schermerhorn apartments have come up, and the people from The Glen, the people from our development and no doubt the people from the new developments, that road, at any given time, has dog walkers, joggers, baby carriages, kids on skateboards. It is a very heavy pedestrian traffic, and I would say anything you can do to mitigate curb cuts and traffic there in the long run is going to be a really good, smart safety thinking for this. Basically that’s all I have to say as far as the larger picture is concerned, but the plan that this, the original plan was based on the fact that there were not houses at Waverly Place. There were not apartments behind them. There were not apartments across from them. There were not new townhouses up in the corner, and I believe that the other parcel that The Michaels Group has is also designated for townhouses up facing Meadowbrook, I mean Haviland. So you have a tremendous change in this area, since the original concept was proposed. I would like to see The Michaels Group finding something to do, profitably, with this land, but I really feel with the water, safety, the bigger picture, this perhaps needs to be re- thought. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? SHERMAN WOOD MR. WOOD-I’m Sherman Wood, resident at Waverly Place. I happen to be the President at Waverly Place. Let me thank the Board and thank The Michaels Group for their comprehensive overview of their proposed plan. I have the utmost confidence in what The Michaels Group does. We’re very happy at Waverly Place. We actually have no opposition to being neighbors, and good neighbors, to The Michaels Group, and we would do anything we need to do to make sure this plays out the way it should. The issues have already been raised and addressed, or at least brought up about the water. The lighting is very important. The Michaels Group built Waverly Place with 33 plus acres that we actually own and share and enjoy. The building that they’re proposing to build, I wish it was a little different with some of the issues that’ll affect the homeowners on the south end, but I can’t speak for them. Some of them aren’t here tonight, but with the buffer that they’re proposing and the lighting. I’m hoping that that buffer will address some of that lighting to maintain and preserve the beauty of the sky that we do have. I actually have no concerns about the beauty of the building. I have some concerns about the traffic, the size of the parking lot, three tenants, with offering 24 parking spaces. There’s not one business that you could probably think about that accommodates every parking, every vehicle that wants to park at a building. So depending on the type of business that’s being operated from that building, that’s a question where that overspill would end up. I have questions about the buffer for the dumpsters, the lighting. There was a comment made that the lights would go off after the business, and the only lighting would be in the front. That really wasn’t clear, there would be security lighting and the rest of the lights would go off, which rest of the lightings? I don’t know what that means. Certainly I don’t want to take over expressing concerns for homeowners that live on that end. I live closer to the northern part, and also will be working with The Michaels Group when they decide to build on the north end, because we know there’ll be our neighbors on that side as well, and we’ll probably have the same concerns, water and lighting and when Amedore Homes or Schermerhorn, Mr. Schermerhorn was building the corner on the east side, on the north, heading north on Meadowbrook, he actually changed his lighting plan to take out the street lights and put in street, put in home pole lights that were lower. 28 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-That’s right. Yes. MR. WOOD-And he did that without blinking. He said not only will that be a nicer thing, but it will save me money. So I’m not concerned about what benefits them. We’re kind of concerned with what benefits Waverly, but we don’t want to take anything away, or block. We don’t want to be oppositional or defensive. We’d like to help in any way we can. So I’d like to see them keep the train moving and hopefully, you know, our concerns will be addressed, and thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MRS. LAVIN-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone else? JOHN SALVADOR MR. SALVADOR-Good evening. My name is John Salvador. A couple of comments. Everyone’s concerned about water. If I understood correctly, there’s some plan to do some filling and then build a building on top of the fill, and then rely on the water to drain into this fill. That is not a proper construction method if that’s what’s going to happen. Foundations have to be founded on a firm soil, and you can’t allow them to become saturated. They’d have no support. The other water issue that I’m concerned about is wastewater. I, too, attended the PORC Committee meetings as often as I can, and brought up the issue at this past meeting concerning the Glens Falls Sewage Treatment Plant. This project will send its wastewater to that plant, through Queensbury lines and pump stations. You read in the paper about that plant has been improperly operated. They’re not getting rid of their incinerator ash. They’re filling a lagoon. It’s become activated. I have no idea what the DEC is going to do about that. They could put them under a consent order to clean it up. They could fine them. The operations are guilty of deferred maintenance. They’re cannibalizing equipment, you read in the paper. All of those costs come back to Queensbury, as we share in the operation of that plant, okay, we share in the cost of the operation of that plant, and we have absolutely no representation on that sewer commission, we don’t. So that’s a concern I have, that we j just keep adding and adding and adding to that problem downtown. The plant is old. It’s antiquated. It doesn’t rely on State of the Art technology, and some day something major’s going to have to be done. We should probably, in this Town, go to our own sewage treatment facility. The land is available. The location is available, and we could do that and not be dependent on that plant, but in any case, that’s one type of water discharge that I’d be very concerned about, and we always, we add salami fashion. Today it’s a little project here. Tomorrow it’s a little project there. Pretty soon our pump stations are going to be under capacity. Some of the sewer lines are reaching the limit of their capacity, and we just keep adding on and not, you know, figuring the cumulative impact. The other comment I would have, and I just saw the sketches, the elevation drawing there, these large expanses of roof with no break up, no, some architectural treatment to break it up, a dormer or something like that, I think would help. You’ve got this single story building with a tremendous roof surface area, and I don’t think that that’s going to look very, I don’t care what sort of treatment you put on it. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? Ma’am? GAIL LANKENAU MRS. LANKENAU-My name is Gail Lankenau, and I’m part of the Waverly group, and we live on the southern part of the whole development. I live on Chelsea Place. There are about eight houses in this little cul de sac and our backyards face this whole development. Unfortunately when I sit in my backyard, I look at a parking lot instead of a wetland, and I’m not the only one. There was another person who had a home for sale and it took a little bit to sell because they weren’t sure of what the whole development was going to be, and in this case, the building looks lovely, but the entrance is in the back, and that’s where we are. We’re in the back, and we’re looking at a dumpster area, and that is not very desirable, and also I’m kind of nervous about the parking lot. I know it’s on higher ground and I know there’s going to be some plantings, but it is on higher ground, and it does slope down when you get, you know, down to that wetland area, and it would still be in our view. In other words, it’s not going to be screened that thoroughly, and if it is, it’s going to be a few years. Also we have, most of our houses have bedrooms in the back, and most of our back bedroom windows look out over the parking lot and the lighting, and that’s not a really good situation there either. I have another 29 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) concern. I really, I’m not a soil expert at all and I’m not a drainage expert, but I do know the soil is a very heavy clay type soil, and to me this is not good for drainage, and even my backyard I have problems with drainage with the clay, and that’s all I have to say. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. MRS. BARDEN-I have one public comment, written public comment. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, go ahead. MRS. BARDEN-This is dated February 17, 2007. “Dear Planning Board Members: My name is Douglas Coon, and my 16 acre property is immediately adjacent to the south of the proposed Office Bldg. on Meadowbrook Rd. Susan Barden reviewed the plans of the building being proposed by The Michaels Group. First, I want to say that I like what The Michaels Group has done with Waverly Place and am not opposed to this project. After reviewing the plans, I would like to recommend a few additions/changes that would help this project conform more closely to what already has been built on Meadowbrook Rd. 1. I’d like to see additional roof cuts and gables on the proposed office building. 2. The landscaping plan doesn’t fully include the western part of the south side of the proposed building facing me. It stops at the first corner. I believe the landscaping should continue to complete this side of the building. By extending the landscaping through the entire south side, it will give a more completed look, rather than looking unfinished. Since this south side will also be visible from the road, it will add to the ambience of the area. 3. I would hope that the landscape and parking lighting would be kept as dim as possible so as not to be obtrusive at night. 4. I’m not sure of the color, but it is important to keep this in tune with what is already in place. Hopefully, an earth tone color would be considered. 5. This area of Meadowbrook Rd. is very susceptible to flooding, especially after storms and long periods of rain. It does flood several times each year. I hope that you have studied this and that proper drainage plans will be in place. If The Planning Board incorporates these suggestions, I believe that they will continue the appeal they’ve created in the Meadowbrook area. Thank you. Sincerely, Douglas Coon” MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience that had comments? I guess if the applicant could come back up. MR. MILLER-I’d like to say I think we agree and we’ve tried to recognize all of those concerns, and I’d like to sort of reiterate some of the things that were commented on. The lighting is high pressure sodium, which is what the Town requires, or suggests and they’re on 10 foot poles. So it’s a very low level, and again, the intent is that we’re not a Wal-Mart. We’re not open until 11 o’clock. Most of the types of businesses that will be in there will be an accountant or it might be a medical office, a dentist or something, typically they’re gone six, seven o’clock, and sometimes they may have some hours a little bit later, but they’re gone, and there’s no reason to have the lights on, other than for security near the doorway. I’m not operating the building. I can’t tell you exactly what that is, but I would assume, you know, the back entrance on the west side will probably have some side incandescent bulb, and then some of the lights in the canopy, they may even be separately switched so that there would be a light in the canopy and a light in the back, probably none of the parking lot lights would be on, and these lights would be fitted with the fuses. One of the things I’d like to add with the lighting is if you’ve looked at the lighting, as a matter of fact, the Staff had some comments that they thought that some of the lighting in the parking lot was a little bright, even though it’s within the Town’s requirements, I went back and I checked that, and our consultant who does our lighting drawings for us, he used 150 watt high pressure sodium lights, and our detail shows 100 watt high pressure sodium. So we actually are going to stay with the 100 watts. So it’ll actually be less than what’s shown on the lighting plan. There was some concern about the traffic and the bedrooms and things. I lived, for years, next to a large medical office, and six o’clock they were out of there. They were gone. The lights were out, and I used to go out and, you know, we used to go out and throw a Frisbee around their parking lot. It was ghost town. Everybody left. So I suspect that this business, you know, the types of businesses that will be in here will be like that. People are going to finish their day. They’re going to want to go home and there’s not going to be traffic in and out. There’s not going to be lights in the parking lot late at night. So I think it’s a very compatible kind of a business, and from that point of view, I think it’s the intent of the Planned Unit Development to have mixes like this, that we could have our accounting office in there and things so that the people who live in this area, they don’t have to drive down to Quaker Road to go see their accountant. So it’s going to be the type of businesses that are a convenience to the residents in the area. Our office is up the street, and we’re out of there as soon as we can, except for Planning Board nights. So, you know, and I drive up Meadowbrook Road to and from work every day. So I know 30 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) exactly what they’re talking about. There’s a lot of pedestrians and we’re fortunate that’s it’s a fairly wide road with a wide shoulder. It doesn’t help that it’s a dead straight shot and people drive 60 miles an hour, but, you know, we agree with that, but this facility, you know, we’re talking about 24 parking spaces. It’s not going to be a high traffic kind of a facility. The other comments, or the dumpsters, again, you know, we’re talking about professional office. It’s not a kitchen so we’re not generating tremendous amounts of trash. We need a trash storage area. The dumpster area will be enclosed with a wood structure, a wood fence, so when it’s seen, you know, you’ll see a wood fence and then we have landscaping. We have shrubs all the way around it, in addition to the evergreens around the perimeter of the property. So I mean, the place, most of it will be our parking lot where we have to access to it. So I think we’ve tried to respond to some of the concerns that we’re hearing. As far as the drainage issues, everybody knows that the stream that comes through here and goes down to Halfway Brook, this area is all very low and very flat. So every time there’s a large storm, it’s a floodplain, and, you know, we have that water problem, and, you know, we probably will have it for a long time. This particular property, you know, we’re on a high ground. Even though we’re filling, we’re not filling out into the wetlands in areas. We’re on a high ground. Seventy- five percent of the site is staying permeable. So, you know, we’re impacting 25% of the site. The soils that are, existing soils that are there are not good. That’s correct. Our intent, with the stormwater runoff, is, you know, what Mr. Salvador says is true. We’re not building a building. The Michaels Group builds buildings. They’re not going to go building their footings on fill. Everybody knows you’re not supposed to do that. The footings are extended into natural earth, and so we have firm bearing, and then the fill is brought up around it. Where the stormwater detention happens is on the upper level, basically right around the perimeter to the building. Where this’ll be in an area that’s filled. So the soil will be an imported soil. It’s not the native soil, and the intent is that that water will collect in there and, you know, dissipate over a day or what it takes to dry out, but one of the main ways an infiltration trench like that works is the storage of the water and the stone is what’s collecting that water and creating the detention before it goes off site, and then the rest of the site, the parking lot, that basin is designed so that we collect the runoff from the parking lot and it’s released at a lesser rate than what occurs naturally now, which, basically a mounded site, it rains, water sheets right off of it. So basically what we’re required to do is detain that and release it gradually to basically mimic the natural conditions and that’s what we’ve proposed. Mr. Coon, who’s to the south of us, I’d like to just mention that he sits there and he sits pretty far back also, but the property, the 12 acres that was talked about being dedicated to the Town, there is like an 80 foot buffer along that south side of our buffer that that piece, and the reason we didn’t extend the planting and things around that side, that whole area and the wetlands and everything, that’s going to be left natural. The trees that are sprouting there are going to continue to grow. There’s trees between our property and his property. So our main emphasis was the buffering to the neighbors to the north, and screening along the parking lot Meadowbrook Road, and typically on these projects we have somewhat of a budget for landscaping. So I try to put it where it does the most good. So I don’t really try to add it around the back of the building. So that’s why we did those kinds of things. The sewer we’re tying in to, the sewer line runs right behind the building. We are tying right into that sewer, and I can’t speak for the condition of the sewer plant, but an office building like this produces a lot less wastewater than a home. You take 10 employees in an office. They produce the equivalent of one bedroom in a residence. So this is actually a low water use kind of a facility. The lighting, like I said, is not mercury vapor. It’s high pressure sodium. MR. HUNSINGER-How about the comment about the additional roof cuts and/or gables? We heard that a couple of times. MR. WILSON-Personally, I think we did that just by, you know, with the 2-D drawing like you’re seeing, it doesn’t represent as well as it does in three dimension, and I think that gable you’re seeing, which would be the front elevation towards Meadowbrook, juts out two feet, and I think creates that one gable that they’re talking about. On the southern entrance, which is where the comment came from, is where the building is at its narrowest. So it’s only 30 some feet wide in that back, or I may be wrong, is it 40 feet? So in essence it is a large hip that comes out towards that property, and of course on the right side, or the northern side is where we jut out with that entrance that has that design detail with the front door. It has some trim work. So I think we took that into account, and I think the other thing we did by using the shake detail and separating it with a trim board, just to kind of give it some flair and kind of keep the dimension, what I think is a proper dimension on the building. We’re going to be using an architectural shingle, which fits Waverly Place almost to a tee, what we’ve used there before, and again, I think the stone we tried to use on the two what we thought were the two most important elevations from that perspective to really kind of give it some pizzazz from the street. So 31 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) again, you know, even the little clip vents that we use to kind of give it that shape, I think we were trying to do just that, to separate some of that roof, but again, keeping it one story, I think, which is important to keep in tune, and like Jim said, when you look at the overall width of the building itself, at its widest point, it really isn’t much larger than a two unit building that we, existing at Waverly Place that we’ve built at 90 some feet. So it may be a tad larger. MR. MILLER-I think Eric’s right. One of the deceiving things with an elevation, I mean, that’s not a view you really see in real life. I mean, if you look at that “L” shape building, when you look at it in the elevation, it looks like one big long building, and in fact, you know, half of the building is set back substantially from the other. The other thing we were, while we were sitting in the back, Eric and I were talking, one of the things, and one of the buildings that was mentioned was the therapists on Bay Road. One of the things we took a look at is there’s actually a wall in here, but we could do something in that end elevation to do sort of a central window glass element that basically would be a corner window or door to each office in here with some smaller windows to create something that looked more like a doorway with some height to it, maybe with some transom glass up above. We’d have to work that siding a little bit, but that sounds like what I’m hearing, because I know the therapist. You drive by there and see all the people in there on the treadmills, right? So I think we could accomplish that kind of a treatment in there, if that was what you were looking for on that. MRS. STEFFAN-I personally think it would add visual interest and with the landscaping you’ve got planned for that, I think it could look very nice. It could be a nice conference room, or, you know, depending on what goes in there. MR. WILSON-We’ve also changed it in some sense, but there’s some more some rendering pictures that we were initially working with to give some dimension to the building. So you can see that, even along Meadowbrook, it is broken up somewhat as that gable juts out, just to kind of give you a feel. The color scheme is a little more. So maybe that helps. MR. HUNSINGER-That does help a lot, yes, thank you. MR. WILSON-I just didn’t want to show it because it shows black windows and it shows some things that we thought wouldn’t fit in the neighborhood, but it kind of gives some dimension. I have some other copies. MR. MILLER-Yes, the green and white kind of bothers me. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Yes. MR. MILLER-But that’s not the real color. MR. WILSON-Yes, that’s not really the color scheme, but just to give you an idea. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Final questions or comments? What’s the will of the Board? MRS. STEFFAN-Unfortunately we have a lot of engineering questions. To do a conditional approval would be too extensive. MR. HUNSINGER-Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-Overall I have no problems with the project. My only concern is there any way, you know, the Code says 20 parking spaces. You’re asking for 24. Why not just 20? MR. MILLER-The problem we were having everywhere with the Code is if you compare your Code to say Saratoga, City of Saratoga has one for 300 for professional office, and they have one per 200 for medical office, and Schermerhorn’s buildings down there, they’ve got problems where he’s had to build bridges to get to the other things. We’ve got clients that are going for, you know, constantly going for variances to try to get more parking, and, you know, the problem is we don’t feel that the parking requirement for an office is high enough, and the other side of it, I mean, we’ve got 75% green space on the site. So it’s not like we’re squeezing it down to that 30%. The problem is we don’t have if we don’t have enough parking, they’re going to be parking on Meadowbrook Road, and I think that’s a far worse problem than, I mean, we talked about this, and there was some discussion to actually go for a variance for some additional parking, but The Michaels Group decided that they didn’t want to do that, but to try to at least maximize what we 32 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) could have on site, so we don’t have a safety problem of cars out on Meadowbrook Road. MR. HUNSINGER-I meant to ask this earlier. Do you have tenants identified? MR. WILSON-No, not at this time. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. So you don’t know what specific uses would be there. MR. WILSON-Correct. MR. MILLER-It’s hard on smaller buildings like this to get pre-construction leases. People like to see the building before they come in. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, you know, I saw the sign up a few months ago that said build to suit. So, you know, it seemed like one plus one equaled two. I mean, the sign goes up and then a few months later we see the site plan review. MR. WILSON-We have interest in purchase of the building itself. That’s why we’re proceeding. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Do people feel comfortable in moving forward, or are people more comfortable with a tabling resolution at this time? I guess that’s a better question. MRS. LAVIN-And if you tabled it, it would prove, what, in the next step, or give us what kind of advantage in the next step? MRS. STEFFAN-They would come back with. MR. HUNSINGER-They would come back with more information. MRS. STEFFAN-The engineering issues addressed, which they addressed them verbally, but they would be incorporated into the plans, and so we’d be looking at a more complete document. Right now there’d have to be conditional approvals, it would be pretty lengthy. MR. MILLER-Well, you could just say that engineering signoff. MR. HUNSINGER-Tom, do you have strong feelings. MR. SEGULJIC-I’m just struggling with all the fill you’re going to bring on site. I mean, can’t we work with the natural grade more? Why are we always battling nature? MR. MILLER-There’s not that much fill. MR. SEGULJIC-You’re bringing it up six feet in the back. MR. MILLER-I think you’re looking at the one corner. That’s pretty common. MR. SEGULJIC-Still, to bring it up six feet. MR. MILLER-But that’s just in that one corner. The rest of the site is pretty much balanced. MR. SEGULJIC-So why not work with the natural grade, have it slope towards that way? MR. MILLER-But our site slopes at all ways. So what we’ve tried to do is take the longest pitch where the parking lot is, the parking lot pitches to the north, to follow that existing grade. So most of the grades for that whole parking lot area are very close to grade. So the only area you’re looking at is right around the building. So what we wanted to do was, you know, where the foundation, what’s going to be brought in is going to be fill which is going to be structural fill within the building. They’re going to be bringing gravel in and compacting it within the building. That’s not a fill that, I mean, that’s being done for financial. I mean, obviously they could put a crawl space in the building, but what happens in this type of a building, with the structure and everything, it’s cheaper to bring in gravel and compact it within that foundation than it is to leave a crawl space and build a floor, which would eliminate the fill, but it’s a lot more expensive and it’s a lot more construction. So it’s really a construction decision and a financial 33 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) decision, the cost of the building that’s driving that. I mean, the grading for the site itself is not substantial. MR. SEGULJIC-It just seems like a lot of fill you’re bringing on site. MR. MILLER-It’s not. If it was a lot, they wouldn’t do it. They holler at me all the time about that. MR. SEGULJIC-Do you worry about having the fill be compatible with the natural soils on site? Does the soil difference cause issues? MR. MILLER-No. What happens, as a matter of fact, that was one of the questions that Dan Ryan had was the biggest concern is how the fill is placed, because typically in natural soil conditions you look at test pit layers, soil occurs in natural layers. You can see anything where you’ll have a heavy clay will be overlain with a really well drained sand, and I’ve seen vice versa, you know, where you’d have a clay on the surface and you go down four foot deep and you’ve got well drained sand. So that occurs naturally where you’ll get a mix like that. The concern gets to be as to how you place the fill and how you compact it, and it’s one of the reasons, like in the parking lot area it’s better to be closer to natural grade in the parking lot area than it is like in some of the lawn areas where fill is going to be more prone to settling, but as long as it’s graded in layers and it’s compacted and placed correctly, it is no problem. Because then eventually the on site topsoil is spread and it’s landscaped and it basically is similar to natural condition. MR. SEGULJIC-Where I get caught up is that when you look at the Halfway Brook and everyone says there’s flooding there, more and more. The only difference is the development, and with the development comes the fill, and everyone says don’t worry about it. MR. MILLER-I think, well, I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder, you know, perceptions of what’s happening now always seems worse than before. I think it’s more because there’s more of us around now to see it. So it sounds like it’s a bigger problem than it used to be, because nobody saw it before, but that whole area is a low area, and that whole area drains down around it. I mean, we’re talking about a very small amount. We’re talking about a small amount of pavement and building here, for the size of the site. We have 1.6 acres and you still have 75% green space, and where we’re filling, we’re not filling down in the flood area. Basically we’re just trying to create a level portion of the site at the upper level. I mean, the water, you know, for the water to fill up into the portions of the site where we’re placing fill here would be two foot over Meadowbrook Road. So I mean, we’re not filling into the areas, I mean, the flooding comes up into those wetland areas, but it doesn’t come way up into this site, and the problems always are the greatest in the Springtime when there’s, you don’t have the permeability. When we see the heavy rains in the Springtime, that’s when we always have the greatest flooding because the water sheds, I mean, it’s like having most of the watershed paved because it’s all frozen. There’s no place for that water to go. So that’s why we always see the greatest problems in the Springtime. MR. SEGULJIC-Because on the northwest section of the site, you’re bringing the fill in right to the edge of the wetland, if I’m interpreting the drawing correctly. MR. MILLER-We’re coming close to the edge of it. Correct. MR. SEGULJIC-The slope. So what’s going to happen with the wetland as that gets hydraulically filled over overtime? Is it going to start rising up on the slope then? MR. MILLER-The wetland will not be modified. A lot of times wetland conditions like this are created by a groundwater, not necessarily runoff, and we’ve got a situation here. Here’s a combination of poorly drained soils in fairly high groundwater, and that’s what creates that wetland in there. So what happens on our site is the north portion of our site drains off to that wetland on the north, but most of that wetland is fed from further north on Meadowbrook Road that, you know, coming down into this site, and what used to be Waverly Place. As a matter of fact, their storm basin still feeds this wetland. The portion of our site outside of our parking lot will still continue to drain towards that. What we’re collecting is the increase runoff from the parking lot. So that wetland will remain essentially unchanged from where it is now. MR. SEGULJIC-But the wetland won’t be able to expand to the south anymore. It will have to expand to the north. 34 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. MILLER-Well, they don’t grow. Because what happens with a wetland condition, you know, something hydraulically would have to happen to change the whole watershed, because the wetland is a condition created from saturated soils, which produces certain type of wetland plants to grow because of that condition, and that’s the way they happen. They’re fairly stable from year to year. Granted, if somebody came in and diverted something, I mean, you see like when they build the Northway and block off a stream or something like that you’ll see where, hydraulically, things are changed, but typically on a small scale that wetland will be unaffected by this project. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I think we should table it for now. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Are you working on a tabling resolution? MR. SEGULJIC-I’m with you what you’re trying to achieve, but I’m just concerned about the flooding, the increased development there. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, and I think hearing from our engineers on, yes. MRS. STEFFAN-There is a note in Staff Notes about the developer will be responsible for future extension of the walkway to the adjacent north/south properties, as a condition of the Waverly Place PUD. MR. MILLER-That’s the first I’d seen that. You know the walkway that parallels Meadowbrook Road? The Staff is saying that there was an agreement that said that it would be extended to the north and south as you developed this, and I don’t know about that. MR. WILSON-I didn’t know that there was any non, well I guess, I’m trying to think if there’s HOA property that actually goes to the street at that area, on the southern side of what would be Waverly south entrance. MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t know. The Staff Notes, a condition of approval of the Waverly Place PUD, SP 44-2000, included, and this is quotes, “That the developer will be responsible for future extension of the walkway to adjacent north and south properties.” And then there’s a question, should this be incorporated into this plan? MR. MILLER-Okay. We could look into this and see. That’s the first I had heard about that. One of the problems we would have is if you looked at that wetland to the north of us, it extends from the culvert right at Meadowbrook Road, and heads west. So I guess we could put a boardwalk or something across it, but I mean, it would be an issue crossing that. I don’t know what the intent of that was. I could understand if it was additional residential development you’d want to link them together, but with it being an office, because I mean what would happen is we’d extend it down and dead end it and I’m not sure that that adds to that loop that they have up there, but we’ll look at that. MRS. BARDEN-Excuse me. Let me just clarify. Jim, this was in the packet that you submitted regarding the consistency with the PUD. MR. MILLER-I didn’t look at that part. I was only looking at the consistency part. MRS. BARDEN-It’s in the resolution approving Waverly Place. It’s one of the conditions of approval. MR. MILLER-Okay. MRS. BARDEN-So that’s where you can find that. It’s the first one that the developer will be responsible for future extension of the walkway to adjacent north and south properties. I’m not sure if that was identified on the Waverly Place subdivision, but really just a question. MR. MILLER-I think the maps I saw just showed the trail that was built. I never saw anything that showed it being extended, but we can look at that. MR. HUNSINGER-That was from the Planning Board resolution. MRS. BARDEN-Yes. MR. MILLER-That would be nice to have outside your office. You could go out at lunchtime and take a little jog. 35 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I think the concept, I was going to say, I think I was the only one on the Board at the time. I think the concept was to try to provide for the ability for people to walk to work or to, you know, go to the commercial establishments without having to drive. That was the intent, for what it’s worth, from the memory. MR. MILLER-Okay. That’s pretty good. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. So Gretchen has a tabling resolution, and we’ll see if other members have additional comments or items to add. MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 2-2007 THE MICHAELS GROUP, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Barbara Lavin: th To the March 27 meeting, to address the following issues. The applicant will need to: 1.Address the Vision Engineering letter of February 12, 2007. 2.To address Staff Notes, specifically the lighting, landscaping, and building design comments. In the lighting, landscaping, and building design, it was the lighting plan, trees, the roofline, proposed color scheme, and also the sign detail. 3.To add a plat notation about off hours lighting to minimal illumination. 4.To review the Waverly Place PUD regarding the walkway. 5.To consider the comments that were brought forth in the public hearing. There were some issues about lights and where they were pointing the back of folks’ property, whether the dumpsters were secluded. th 6.Information in by February 28. th Duly adopted this 20 day of February, 2007, by the following vote: MR. MILLER-For clarification, what was the landscaping comment? MRS. STEFFAN-It was just two of the trees, trees identified as WP One and Two are not included. MR. MILLER-I fixed that. Okay. That was labeled wrong. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. In the lighting, landscaping, and building design it was the lighting plan, trees, the roofline, proposed color scheme, which we’ve discussed, and is fine, and also the sign detail. MR. MILLER-Well, the sign is just going to be compatible with Code. We don’t really have a tenant. So I’m not sure exactly what the tenant’s going to want. I mean, typically something like this we’re looking at a wood carved tastefully done sign. We’re not looking for a Home Depot, but we can provide you something. MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to say, you just told us a lot more than what we had. MRS. BARDEN-Mrs. Steffan, can you clarify what you mean by addressing public comments? MRS. STEFFAN-Consider commentary that was brought forth in the public hearing. MRS. BARDEN-Such as? MRS. STEFFAN-There were some issues about lights and where they were pointing in the back of folks’ property, whether the dumpsters were secluded, you know, and there was a lot of comment that I know that you took notes and you addressed some of those, but I just wanted it to be in the resolution so that you were cognizant of some of those things that were brought up by the folks here. MRS. BARDEN-Thank you. 36 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) th MR. MILLER-Is there any way we could be back before you before the 27? The problem The Michaels Group has got is the construction schedule, and that’s pushing them back further than they were hoping to be. I know you have a very difficult backlog. th MRS. STEFFAN-Well, the first meeting of the month is March 20. The best we could do is a week. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. That doesn’t save you a lot of time. MR. MILLER-That’s not so bad then, is it? It just seems like a long way. Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-After the meeting’s over we’re going to talk about a third meeting because there’s a backlog and we are trying to help people get through the process. MR. MILLER-We appreciate that. MRS. BARDEN-Information in by when? The deadline’s past. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, what’s reasonable. MRS. STEFFAN-The deadline’s past. What’s reasonable, Susan? MRS. BARDEN-What’s reasonable, do you think? MR. MILLER-If we get everything, well, a lot of it we’ve got done. If we got everything in to you by the middle of next week, that Wednesday. th MRS. STEFFAN-February 28. th MRS. BARDEN-February 28. th MRS. STEFFAN-February 28 submission deadline. MR. MILLER-The engineering comments, we’re going to have the response to the engineer back up tomorrow. So, I mean, the elevation and some of the other things we talked about would be the other things that we would be submitting. AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Lavin, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford, Ms. Bruno MR. MILLER-Thanks very much. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MR. WILSON-Thanks. SITE PLAN NO. 4-2007 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED THOMAS KUBRICKY AGENT(S) BARTLETT PONTIFF, STEWART & RHODES OWNER(S) SAME ZONING 27 JENNIFER LANE APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 7,920 SQ. FOOT RIDING BARN. EXPANSION OF AGRICULTURAL USES IN THE LC ZONE REQUIRES REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE BP 2000- 070 HORSE BARN WARREN CO. PLANNING N/A ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY YES OTHER LG CEA, FLOOD ZONE X LOT SIZE 14 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 266.1- 1-28 SECTION 179-9-020 JON LAPPER & TOM HUTCHINS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-If you could summarize Staff Notes, please. MRS. BARDEN-Sure. Tom Kubricky is the applicant for this request of Site Plan Review for expansion of an existing agricultural use. The property is located at 27 Jennifer Lane. The proposal is for construction of a 7,920 square foot riding arena. Staff has questions regarding the site permeability as identified on the plan and the application. The applicant needs to provide an actual deep hole test pit. The plan states groundwater depth greater than eight feet at the as reported by owner on January 29, 2007. This is out of season and the property is in a CEA. Therefore the plan may require review by 37 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) the Town Board. A jurisdictional letter from the APA relative to the wetlands on site is also required, and a Vision Engineering comment letter was submitted to the Board this evening. MR. HUNSINGER-Good evening. MR. LAPPER-Good evening again. For the record, Jon Lapper, Tom Hutchins, and Tom Kubricky. Essentially we’re hoping that you will view this as a very simple project, as we’ve been trying to with the Staff, notwithstanding the Staff Notes and the engineering comments. Tom owns a total of approximately 25 acres with his wife. This is a 14 acre piece. I’m sure that you all went up and saw it, but it was probably all covered with snow. If it wasn’t all covered with snow, it would look all green with nice horse fences and as it was when I went up and met with Tom in the late fall. The building that’s proposed, the indoor riding stable, is essentially taking an area that is a field now and putting a roof over it. It would have a dirt floor. So it’s just a pole barn with footings for the poles to hold up the barn, and the entire site is in agriculture. It was all approved previously. It’s going to remain. It’s just for Tom and his family. He’s got three horses. Under the previous site plan he’s allowed to have up to seven horses. There’s no commercial use. This is not to stable horses. It’s just an indoor riding stable. It’s just, right now they’re riding on the grass, and when this is done they’ll be riding on the grass for most of the site and inside this building. It doesn’t have water because it doesn’t have stables, it doesn’t didn’t water. It would just be, one question was one question was electricity would be run from the existing barn underground to the new building, and in terms of the permeability, the Staff question was, are the paddocks impermeable and the paddocks are just a fenced in grass area. So they’re not impermeable. The only, we brought Tom Hutchins in to do a stormwater plan and a simple stormwater plan is when you have stormwater coming off a roof it’s clean water and it’s just being infiltrated in a series of six drywells. Tom Kubricky is an excavator by trade, and so he’s been all over the site and installed the building next door, the barn. This is, the floor of this building will be in excess of 10 feet above the wetland height and the stream. So it’s just on an elevated area of the site. So we viewed this very simply as there’s four foot drywells. There’s 10 feet to the wetland. He’s been in the soil. He knows there’s eight feet of soil before the water table. So, you know, we’re asking you to approve it as submitted because we’re hoping that you’ll see this as not a big deal, and we understand if you insist that we’ve got to go back and do more work, we will, but we’re hoping that you won’t find it appropriate to do any more under these circumstances. Let me ask Tom Hutchins to give you some more details from my general outline. MR. HUTCHINS-Thank you. Tom Hutchins. Basically the, I was involved primarily from the stormwater standpoint. What we’ve done is taken an extremely conservative approach to designing this using drywells for infiltration. You’ll note in the report we used an infiltration rate of one inch per hour, which is essentially almost no infiltration and basically allows the drywells to drain after the storm. There’s enough volume there to hold the entire storm within the drywells. We’re relying on Mr. Kubricky’s knowledge of the site on the soils and map soils criteria, and we’re comfortable with that because of the real conservative approach we’ve taken on the drywell design, and we have modeled an area on your stormwater drawing. There’s a dashed in area that we used for the mottle. We did not mottle the entire 14 acres. We mottled the disturbed area, and we’ve got significant reductions in both volumetric discharge and rate of discharge, and that’s really all I have to comment on. I can open it up for questions. MR. LAPPER-It would probably be good to ask Tom Kubricky to speak as well. TOM KUBRICKY MR. KUBRICKY-Yes. I just wanted to let everybody know that I’ve talked to like 18 of my neighbors. Actually I only have two that are next to me, and I’ve consulted with all of them, and they’ve all been over to my place and they’ve all seen what I’ve done and they asked me if I want them to write letters to the Town and stuff like that, and I told them that it’s not necessary to do, but I just wanted to let you guys know that all my neighbors are, they want to see this happen, basically, and nobody opposes it or anything like that, and I went well beyond the scope of the area to bring everybody over and show them what I’m doing, and they’re kind of all for it. I wanted to let you know that nobody opposes it. MR. LAPPER-Two of the neighbors gave Tom letters. MR. KUBRICKY-Yes. These are my two neighbors like right next door to me. They’re going to be seeing the most of it, Dave Kruzlnicky and Frank Rollo. 38 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. LAPPER-We’d like to submit these for the public hearing. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, if you could give them to Susan. MR. LAPPER-And I think the picture should have been included in your packet of the mark. th MR. HUNSINGER-Did you have any comments about either the February 13 letter from Vision Engineering or Staff comments? MR. LAPPER-We can comment on everything. MR. HUTCHINS-I can comment on the letter from Dan Ryan. Item by item, the first one is just saying the silt fence could be extended in one area. Yes, that could happen. I’ve got no issue with that. The second one is a modification to some notes that are on the drawing, regarding Erosion and Sediment Control, to provide some sequencing information. I would have no problem with that. Staging material as well. I can add that. They’re all relatively simple items. The fourth one addresses the fact that we didn’t do a field test pit on that, and that’s true, we did not do a field test pit on that. MR. HUNSINGER-Could we back up to Item Three for a second? I’m sorry. Would there be any stockpiled soil? MR. HUTCHINS-Temporarily. Just on a temporary basis and it would be right next to the footprint of the area, basically in the area of where we’re showing the asphalt to be removed . MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. HUTCHINS-Because, I don’t know, were you there? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. HUTCHINS-There’s a slope. The way the barn’s going to go, from the front of the barn to the back there’s a fair amount of slope. There’s probably six to eight feet, and there’ll be a cut in the back and some of that fill will be used underneath, and, yes, they’ll store some of that material right next to it temporarily. It’ll be reasonably well balanced. They’ll probably a net removal of material from the site, although it won’t be a tremendous amount, but there would be a little storage on the one side, and that would have to be protected from erosion and it would be if done as I’ve shown on the plan. I could be a little more specific with that. Item Four, the test hole. Yes, we did not indeed do a test hole. We relied on a very conservative design approach and Mr. Kubricky’s knowledge as well as soils mapping information. MR. KUBRICKY-Yes. We did one on the, right next to it, there’s a barn there, and back several years ago, you know, when I had to build the barn I had to do all that and it’s all like, you know, nothing has changed, the contour of the soil, nothing has changed in there. So, we did one for the barn, and you can dig down. My footings on my barn are, I went down six foot on those and we were into red dirt. It’s no different than, you know, we’re only going to be 28 feet away from the barn. It doesn’t change. We’re going to be higher actually. MR. LAPPER-It’s also 375 feet from the wetland. MR. KUBRICKY-It’s about 10 and a half feet, or where I’m building is going to be on the high. MR. HUTCHINS-Stormwater report requires certified and sealed by the engineer. I did not seal that. I am one of those engineers who tends to try to, if he can, wait until things are relatively finalized because sometimes people see documents that are sealed and they think it’s (lost words). I will seal that document as it is. Water electricity are not indicated on the plan, and now I’m commenting on the site plan and not necessarily my plan. We indicate we’re not going to provide water out there. There will be an electric line run from the existing barn underground probably 50 or 60 feet out to the new barn. It’s not clear which end of the sliding arena door is located and how it’s accessed, and I’m going to defer to this large door would be on the other side. MR. KUBRICKY-Where there’s a round pin right there, it’ll be facing that. 39 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. LAPPER-The paddock. So facing north. MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, the northern side. MR. LAPPER-Because that’s where the paved area is. MR. KUBRICKY-Right. MR. LAPPER-Okay. In terms of the Staff comments. Let’s see, precise use of the riding area should be discussed, and that’s just indoor riding area for their three horses that they have now and floor plan provided is a poor. Reproduction. It appears four stalls are provided, and they’re not stalls for. MR. KUBRICKY-No. They’re going to be pens, you know what I mean, that we come out when we rope or they’re like little places that we load them. MR. HUTCHINS-They’re not for overnight. MR. KUBRICKY-No. MR. LAPPER-Okay. Will additional horses be housed? And the answer is no. Previous Site Plan approval for the barn included the following conditions. The number of horses be limited to up to seven horses. Keeping of horses is for personal use. No stabling of horses belonging to other persons. No commercial venture with horses without site plan review, and so it’s not commercial. It’s just for their horses, up to seven. They have three. Stipulations put on the agricultural use are still binding and we agree. We understand that. The site development data sheet, 26,350 of paved area, gravel or other hard surface, what discrete areas does this include. Is the area of the tennis court included, are the paddocks considered impervious? This was done, the plan was done by Bill Rourke with Stefanie from my office, and none of the paddock areas were included as I mentioned in impervious, but all the other impervious was included, and the LC zone requires 95% site permeability. When they were doing this, they took out the macadam drive going down the hill to get to that no more than five percent impermeable, and the soils note on the stormwater management plan, my understanding is that the Town Board in the CEA, that you only need to have somebody verify if you’re doing a septic system, and I may be wrong, but I don’t believe that that applies to stormwater management for. MRS. BARDEN-It does. MR. LAPPER-Are you sure? MRS. BARDEN-I mean, I can certainly check, and it would be Dave Hatin that would suggest that this go to the Town Board, but I believe it’s for both. MR. LAPPER-My experience with the Town has been that it’s only been for septic systems, but I could be wrong. What that would mean would be having the Town Engineer certify the depth to groundwater here, which, you know, would be just a waste of time, as far as the applicant’s concerned, but if we have to do it, we have to do it. MR. KUBRICKY-There’s no footings on this building. It’s strictly just for exercising a horse in the winter. It’s not like building a footing for a house or anything like that. There’s six by sixes that are going to be going in. They’re going to be like four and a half feet with a pad on the bottom of them. It’s not, I didn’t want you to think we were we were going to pour walls or do anything like that. It’s not going to be insulated or heated or anything like that. It’s pretty basic, really, for a structure. MR. SEGULJIC-So with these drywells, the drywells are four feet by eight foot in diameter. So they have to go down about five feet. So if groundwater is at eight feet, there’s no issue. If groundwater is like at four feet, what are you going to do then? MR. KUBRICKY-The groundwater is about 10. MR. SEGULJIC-Ten. So I mean you could make a change in the field. MR. KUBRICKY-Yes. 40 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. HUTCHINS-If it is four feet, yes, we could make a change in the field. I would probably go to a longer (lost words) or I might go to an infiltrator section. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. HUTCHINS-I intentionally used only four foot deep drywell. We’ve built much shallower than that. If we found water at four feet in the field, I would want to revise that. MR. SEGULJIC-You could make that design change. All right. So I guess in my book all we have to do is determine depth to groundwater and make sure the stormwater works. MR. HUNSINGER-If something like that were to happen, how would the Town be alerted or notified? MRS. BARDEN-For a design change? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. BARDEN-I think, traditionally, a call comes in to the Zoning Administrator and he determines whether or not it needs to be a change that comes back to Board or if it’s something that they can approve or just authorize, rather. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MRS. BARDEN-And then request that it be signed off by the design engineer. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Any other questions or comments from the Board? MRS. STEFFAN-So the test has to be done. It’s just a matter of who verifies it. Is there a difference between verification and certification? Those are the two words that I wrote down, because we can condition this to have the Town Engineer verify the depth to groundwater. So if they do the test. MR. LAPPER-I think they would come with us. They would be there together. That would be fine. MRS. STEFFAN-You certify. They verify. MR. KUBRICKY-Just to let you know that, you know, that if there was groundwater like at four feet I wouldn’t even want to put this building there. I’ve moved a lot of dirt there actually. So, you know what I mean, I wouldn’t want to put a drywell in it. If had water at six feet, I wouldn’t even want to put my footings in it. So I’d give you my word that before I, if you didn’t believe what I’m telling you and you wanted to have somebody come and look at it, I have nothing to hide. MR. SEGULJIC-That’s all we’re asking. It’s just for procedure because we just have to verify it’s there and make sure it’s designed correct. MR. KUBRICKY-Yes. No problem. I’ll be happy to do it. MR. SEGULJIC-So I guess what we could do is approve this with that condition. That depth to groundwater be verified. MR. LAPPER-That’s perfectly acceptable. MRS. STEFFAN-So our Town Engineer would have to do that, then. MRS. BARDEN-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-And the APA jurisdictional letter. MR. LAPPER-Yes. I don’t think that we need a letter. Let me talk to Susan about that. I mean, if it’s jurisdictional, then he gets in trouble, but we’re not anywhere near the wetland. It’s 375 feet. So we don’t see anything that raises a jurisdictional issue. I mean, the wetland is so well defined there because of the grade change that it’s all the way at the bottom of the hill, and we’re nowhere near that. It’s the applicant’s risk if they violate the APA rules, you don’t have to get an APA determination. It’s just if you’re close you do, and here it’s not close. It’s just smart to if you’re close. So we wouldn’t be doing that as a matter of course on this project. 41 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MRS. STEFFAN-What do you think, Susan? MRS. BARDEN-Well, it was a condition of tabling the last time that the Board saw this, and that was just reiterated here. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. What does the rest of the Board think? MR. HUNSINGER-Actually, the question I was going to ask was the applicant is why they never came back five years ago. MR. KUBRICKY-What I did is I kind of ran out of money, basically. What I did is I came here the first time with my application to build a thing, and what I did is I came in here with the plans, and I showed them, and then what they said is they said, Tom, you’ve got a survey that’s like 10 years old, and they said we’ve really got to have a new survey of it. This was before, you know, they’re getting better downstairs where they’re kind of making sure all the prep work is done before we come in front of you people. So then what I did was I was going to, I had to have a survey done, it cost a lot of money, you know, for everything that the Board told me the last time I was here, they said, okay, we want to see this, this, and this and at that given point in time I had just gotten a job where I was going out of town. So I didn’t kind of pursue it, and then I put an addition on my house after that, and I was in no financial condition to even be thinking about doing this. I steered everything in another direction, and then the Board that was here the last time, they told me that they would table it, because I didn’t have an updated survey is basically why they tabled it, and now it’s five years later and I’ve spent. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I was actually on the Board then still. MR. KUBRICKY-Yes. They were pretty standup people about it. They just told me you came kind of unprepared and I was trying to hip shoot and do it myself and not knowing what the Town wanted. MR. HUNSINGER-It makes a big difference, having a survey, it really does. MR. KUBRICKY-They didn’t shoot up or down or say no or anything like that. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. We just needed more information. MR. KUBRICKY-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m sorry, Gretchen, you had asked a question? MRS. STEFFAN-I don’t remember. MR. HUNSINGER-I think you asked how the rest of the Board felt about. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. MR. TRAVER-About the letter? MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. Whether we want to require it or not. MR. KUBRICKY-When I built my barn and I did my ranch, we didn’t get one then. MR. SEGULJIC-The mapping of the wetlands on these drawings, where did that mapping come from? MR. KUBRICKY-The Adirondack Park Agency. MR. SEGULJIC-But I mean was that field verified? MR. KUBRICKY-Yes. That was done probably about nine, ten years ago. MR. SEGULJIC-It was mapped at that time? MR. KUBRICKY-Correct. It was mapped at that time, and Mike Muller, he has the map that this was off of, yes. The APA, this is going back probably like eight years ago. Before you could build you’ve got to have them come out and do their, you know what I mean, they tell you the designated wetlands. That was before I even decided to make it 42 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) into a horse farm and built my house and all that stuff. That was the real basic of getting it going, even to build a house and a barn and all that stuff, you have to do all that, and that’s where you’re getting the wetland area mapped in on there is they’re the ones that determine that, not me. MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else? We do have a public hearing scheduled. I will open the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MRS. BARDEN-I have two letters. MR. HUNSINGER-The two letters. This is from 32 Oak Valley Way, dated February 15, 2007, to Tom Kubricky. “Dear Tom: This letter is in follow up to our recent conversation about your interest in constructing a horse barn on your property. During that discussion, you showed me the location and dimensions of your anticipated building. Please note that we have no objections to this project. I hope that this commentary is helpful to you. Sincerely, David G. Kruczlnicki” Dr. and Mrs. Frank Rollo, 90 Oak Valley Way, February 17, 2007, to the members of the Queensbury Planning Board, “It has recently come to our attention that our neighbors, Tom and Terri Kubricky, would like to construct a 7,920 sq. foot Riding Barn on their property, which is adjacent to ours. We have seen the Kubrickys improve their property several times since we moved into the neighborhood more than 3 years ago. Each time we have seen a well thought out plan completed in a very timely fashion with great workmanship and results. We believe that their projects have enhanced our neighborhood. We therefore support their application to build a Riding Barn on their property. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Frank & Stephanie Rollo” MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. MR. LAPPER-I just want to point out on the map the Rollos are right next to the, or the closest lot to where the building’s going to be, and the Kruczlnickis are north of Tom’s house. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I will close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. HUNSINGER-Are we ready to move forward with SEQRA? MRS. STEFFAN-I think so. MR. HUNSINGER-Short Form. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 4-2007, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Barbara Lavin: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: THOMAS KUBRICKY, and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 43 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. th Duly adopted this 20 day of February, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan, Mrs. Lavin, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Do we have a motion for approval? MRS. STEFFAN-I just want to clarify a couple of things. We want a Vision Engineering signoff. We talked about the groundwater issue. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-And the previous approval are still binding. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. So even if Mr. Kubricky sells the property at some point, these will still be binding to a new owner. MR. LAPPER-Yes, but it’s good to put it in this resolution, too. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MR. KUBRICKY-Do you guys want me to get an engineer to do the groundwater? MR. LAPPER-Tom will coordinated it, yes, he’ll take care of it. MR. KUBRICKY-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-The comments on the number of horses, and only for personal use, that would only change if we changed it? MRS. BARDEN-That’s true. MR. HUNSINGER-So, I mean, if we didn’t say anything about that, it’s still. MRS. BARDEN-It should probably still be on their plan, just to keep it consistent, so that you don’t have to go way back in history to find that. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Understood. MR. LAPPER-We can add a note to the plan. That’s fine. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Okay. MRS. STEFFAN-So, should we mention that? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, maybe we should, a note be added to the site plan that the number of horses is limited to seven, and the keeping of horses is only for personal use. No stabling of horses belonging to other persons. It’s right here. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 4-2007 THOMAS KUBRICKY, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: 44 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) 1. WHEREAS, a site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following; Applicant proposes construction of a 7,920 sq. foot Riding Barn. Expansion of agricultural uses in the LC zone requires review by the Planning Board. 2. WHEREAS, a public hearing was advertised and held on 2/20/07; and 3. WHEREAS, this application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; and 4. WHEREAS, pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179], the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and 5. WHEREAS, where appropriate, i.e. done at the completed review, and/or when required [either Type I or Unlisted] the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration and /or if the application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered, and the proposed modification[s] do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and 6. WHEREAS, final approved plans, in compliance with the Site Plan, must be submitted to the Community Development Department before any further review by the Zoning Administrator or Building and Codes personnel. Subsequent issuance of further permits, including building permits are dependent on receipt; and 7. WHEREAS, the applicant will provide as-built plans to certify that the site plan is developed according to the approved plans prior to issuance of the certificate of occupancy and, if applicable, to be combined with a letter of credit; and 8. WHEREAS, the Sanitary Sewer connection plan must be submitted to the Wastewater Department for its review, approval, permitting and inspection. 9. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that we find the following: MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 4-2007 THOMAS KUBRICKY, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: According to the resolution prepared by Staff and Approved with the following conditions: 1. Paragraph Four complies. 2. Paragraph Five, negative. 3. We can strike Paragraph Seven and Paragraph Eight. 4. That the applicant receive a Vision Engineering signoff. 5. That the applicant will have the Town Engineer verify the depth to groundwater. 6. That the applicant will add to the site plan the following items: a. That the number of horses be limited up to seven horses. b. That keeping for horses is to be for personal use. c. No stabling of horses belonging to other persons. d. No commercial venture with horses without a site plan review or site plan amendment and approval from the Planning Board. th Duly adopted this 20 day of February, 2007, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Lavin, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Traver, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ford, Ms. Bruno MR. LAPPER-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re all set. MR. KUBRICKY-Thank you very much. MR. HUNSINGER-Before we adjourn, I did want to discuss with the Board the growing backlog of applications, and wanted to see if Board members had a preference for how 45 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) we should address that. Either add to the number of items at the next several meetings, or hold a third meeting in March or a combination of the two. MRS. STEFFAN-I say go with another meeting. MR. TRAVER-Yes. I think it’s better to keep the, I mean, the number of reviews that we conduct at each meeting seems about appropriate for the time involved, and if we have a growing backlog, then I think the idea of just having a catch up meeting, a third meeting, is a good way to do it. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MRS. LAVIN-How many meetings are we in store for to catch up on? Is there any idea? MR. HUNSINGER-Do you have an idea, Susan? I mean, if we did a third meeting in March and did six additional items, it seems like that would significantly cut into the backlog. MR. TRAVER-I thought I heard the backlog was 10. MRS. BARDEN-I’m sure. I haven’t seen what’s come in for March. It would considerably help, sure. I would think that one additional meeting would be enough. You might have to think about doing another one in April, but I would think four meetings would be. MR. TRAVER-Maybe quarterly or something we could do. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I mean, what we’ve done in the past is sort of a combination of the two things to manage the backlog. I can’t remember the last time we had three meetings in a month. I bet it’s been most of a year. It tends to be in the Spring, because people want to get approvals so they can do construction in the summer. MR. TRAVER-Well, that would be my only concern, and obviously being new on the Board, I don’t know how the flow of things go, but I understand people want to move ahead with their projects, but we talked about precedent earlier. Are we setting a precedent? If I bring a project in next week, I’m going to want it moved ahead, too. Are we going to end up having meetings every week? MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, and the reason I made the comment a little earlier, I was really opposed to extra meetings last year, just because we also used to have agenda limits. We’ve had 10 items. We’ve had as many as 12 items that were handled, and so the meetings went until one o’clock in the morning on a regular basis. So in order to prevent that, we’ve obviously limited the agenda items, but if you don’t do it now, you’re going to end up doing it later. Some time in the summer we’ll end up with a backlog. So, to be proactive and to maintain the six item agenda. MRS. BARDEN-Well, maybe it’s a combination where you add, you do an extra meeting and then you do seven items for each. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Do you know when the room might be available, this room? I know it’s always an issue. MRS. BARDEN-Yes, because we can find out tomorrow morning. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. So then maybe next week we could spend two minutes at the end of the meeting or at the beginning of the meeting and pick the date and finalize it. Okay. MRS. LAVIN-Has there ever been a time limit placed on the applicants presentations? MR. HUNSINGER-We never really have. There’s been some discussion about it, before. About the only thing that there’s really been significant about is limiting public comment to three or five minutes per person, and that’s always kind of a give and take of thing. There’s also been times when we’ve had a major project where we had a special meeting just for that project, where we expected a lot of public comment, like The Great Escape. That was probably the most extreme. In fact, we had a public hearing on The Great Escape in the High School auditorium, and we were there, and all we did was the public hearing. That was five or six years ago, and we were there until like 11:30, and just, you know, literally 150 people spoke, you know, about The Great Escape. So it 46 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) really depends on the complexity of the project. The only other thing that I had mentioned in that e-mail, I don’t know if everyone had a chance to read that, that I sent out yesterday, was the completeness review. In fact, one of the projects that we just approved this evening for Phillip Underwood, you probably gathered from the letters from Craig Brown, never really made it through completeness review and the applicant kind of got frustrated and said well I want to get it to the Board, and there’s always sort of this give and take between what’s deemed a complete application, and an applicant does have a right, you know, at a certain point, to have his application heard, and completeness review, since I’ve been on the Board, has been done at least three different ways, either by Staff, by a committee of the Board, or by the Chairman of the Board, and I sort of begged the question in the e-mail if people have a preference or thoughts about it, you know, let those be known and we can kind of go from there. MR. TRAVER-Well, I know in my orientation to the Board, which is still relatively fresh in my mind, it was pointed out that it’s very important that the review be conducted, not so much who’s doing it, but that it be conducted, so that people are not coming before this body with incomplete or, you know, and it ends up getting tabled over and over again and then you kind of lose focus, as a Board. It becomes harder to sort of track what the project is. So I think the, my understanding, the purpose of the exercise is to make sure that before the applicant comes before this Board, that all of the components of the application are correct and complete, and it seems to me that that’s the priority and not necessarily, you know, who does it. I know that, again, and it was only in my relatively recent orientation, but it traditionally was done by somebody on the Board. I guess with Bob it was the Chairman, but I know it’s an issue. I know that when I, again, when I had my orientation, it occurred to me that I would actually like to attend one or two of those, almost as a learning process if nothing else, but it’s very, very difficult having an office in Troy and working, you know, five days a week to accommodate that, and I don’t know, I know it’s got to be difficult for Planning Staff as well to go the other way, because obviously they want to have a normal day. So I don’t know what the answer is to that, but it would seem that, again, I get back to what my understanding of the whole purpose of the review is to ensure that we don’t have somebody wait for an opening on the agenda and then sit in front of us to find out that they need to go back and complete or change some component of their application, which wastes their time and ours. MR. HUNSINGER-Right, and part of that dilemma is they can always request a waiver. They can request a waiver to the lighting plan, for example, you know, and then they might come to the Board and we might say, well, we want to see a lighting plan. We’re not going to approve this until we see a lighting plan. So that’s always the dilemma, you know, at what level does something become necessary, or stormwater management, for example. MR. TRAVER-Well, how is that handled, for example, how in the way that these reviews were conducted before this point, like when Bob was meeting monthly and doing them, I guess, during the day some time. How would something like that be handled in that situation? If somebody said, well I would like to have a waiver from. MR. HUNSINGER-No, it was really kind of a case by case basis. MR. TRAVER-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-I think the one extreme would be the Underwood application tonight where, you know, he hand drew his site plan and tried to get that to be sufficient. Even the project that we just approved, I mean, we could have required them to submit a complete stormwater management plan if we wanted to. I mean, you know, you might take the position that that would be unreasonable, but there’s just a lot of gray area on any given project, and it kind of depends on the complexity of it, and after you’re on the Board for a while you can kind of get a sense for what’s a more complicated project that, you know, something may not be required or something should be required. In the past when completeness reviews were done by a committee of the Board, I know there was at least one point in time where the Board members sort of took turns, and that can become kind of unwieldy because you have people doing it that have never done it before, you know for at least the first time. So you kind of need to have someone there, and of course, you know, Craig and Susan can walk you through it. So it’s not like you’re sitting there blind, not knowing what you’re looking at or reviewing, but that got to be, you know, it’s like everybody did two a year kind of thing, and it is, as you just mentioned, it is useful to do that once in a while for yourself, but sometimes it’s not possible, and when individuals signed up to be on the Board, I think there’s a certain expectation for the hours and the times that would be required to put in. We all have jobs outside of the Planning Board. I work out of town, too. So it’s difficult for me. I know that in the past 47 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) Staff has been willing to meet at least early in the morning. I’ve met with Craig early in the morning, you know, at like 7:30 or even 7:00 o’clock once. MR. TRAVER-Well, would it be possible to further subdivide the applications so that they could be perhaps screened by Staff for the kinds of issues that don’t require approval of like a waiver or something. Those could be handled internally by Staff, and then if you have an application that says, well, I don’t have a lighting plan, but I want a waiver for a lighting plan, those would be the ones that would be reserved for some kind of review before they come before us, and that could either be, I don’t know, could that be something that we could discuss maybe at the end of a meeting in a few minutes? And then we would make a decision, or maybe we would have reviews, according to the more traditional method, but with a fewer number. MR. HUNSINGER-What are your thoughts? I mean, you guys pretty much. MR. TRAVER-Or, if somebody asks, using your example, Chris, if somebody says, well, I’d like to have a waiver for a lighting plan, would it be appropriate for them to come and make their presentation to all of us and then we would decide whether or not they would be tabled and come back with a plan? I mean, is that something that, for example, one of us could make a decision on anyway, even if we went to the completeness review? MRS. BARDEN-Any request for a waiver of any kind is a Board decision, not a Chairman decision or a one Board member decision or a Staff decision. MR. TRAVER-So that’s not a completeness review issue? MRS. BARDEN-Well, they have to have one or the other. MR. TRAVER-Right. MRS. BARDEN-And we discourage them when they want to request a waiver to something that we don’t think that they’re going to get a waiver from, but we can’t hold an application back, and Phil Underwood, again, is a good example, we can’t hold an application back that has, if not submitted it, asked for a waiver, because then the application is complete, and it’s up to the Board as a whole to decide whether or not it’s appropriate to grant that waiver. MR. TRAVER-Okay. MRS. BARDEN-And in Staff Notes you’ll see we’ll call out the waivers that are requested and whether or not we feel like it’s a good idea, that’s something that’s granted. We do have a checklist, and we go over the, certainly the requirements. We have a pre- application conference meeting. So each applicant knows what’s required of them, and we do review all the applications for completeness. MR. HUNSINGER-And then the other thing is the meeting with the applicant is held as well. MRS. BARDEN-Right, the pre-application meeting. MR. HUNSINGER-The pre-application meeting. Thank you. MRS. STEFFAN-I think that, in the situation that the Board’s in, that Staff would be the best folks to do a completeness review. If they’ve got some questions, they can always ask you. You could always delegate that to someone else, but for right now, I mean, we don’t have any retired, I mean, Don Sipp, he’s retired, but he’s in Florida right now, and so everybody else has got full-time regular jobs and very limited availability, and so, in the past, like Larry Ringer used to do it with Bob, and so we’ve always had retired folks who fulfilled that role. It’s just not, we just don’t have the horsepower at this point. MR. HUNSINGER-And you know why Larry was teamed up with Bob, because they were literally the opposite ends of the spectrum on the Board at the time. MR. SEGULJIC-I would agree with Gretchen. Let’s see how that works out for us. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-Because I think we’re all pressed for time. 48 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Right, and certainly the Staff can work with the applicants and say, I know what the Board’s going to expect. These are the things they’re going to want. MRS. BARDEN-We do. MR. HUNSINGER-And I think you guys are a pretty good judge of what we like or don’t like. The only other item that I had sent around in that e-mail was any comments or thoughts on Board training. We are required, by State law, to have a minimum of four hours of training a year, but the Town Board, which I find pretty interesting. The Town Board of each town gets to decide what’s appropriate for the Planning Board and for the Zoning Board. MRS. BARDEN-Really? I thought it had to be State authorized? MR. HUNSINGER-No. MR. SEGULJIC-As far as the hours or what the focus is? MR. HUNSINGER-What the content is and what the focus is. MR. SEGULJIC-Have the decided what the focus is? MR. HUNSINGER-No, and I don’t think they will, which is why I wanted to bring it up with our Board first, because I think it’s a lot more productive for us to say, you know, for this year or whatever, you know, these are the areas that we would like to have training in, you know, we would actually propose it to the Town Board. The Town Board would then say, I’m sure, unless they were feeling particularly unreasonable, they would say, sure, go ahead. We did have a workshop on SEQRA, was that last year, do you remember, Gretchen? MRS. STEFFAN-I think it was the year before. MR. HUNSINGER-The year before, which I think was pretty helpful. It was done by Town Counsel that came in, I think it was half an hour before a meeting one night I think and did a short workshop on SEQRA. We could do a Saturday morning workshop. We could do an evening workshop. We could do, you know, a couple of different short workshops, you know, tie them in to a meeting. I mean, it’s pretty wide open for what it can be. We could go to an existing training session. The Department of State does training. The counties periodically will do training, and usually Staff will tell us about them anyway. So there’s, it’s pretty wide open, which is why I thought, you know, if we all gave some thought to it, you know, we don’t have to decide now or even next week, but if we can just kind of kick around some thoughts and ideas to come up with a strategy. MRS. STEFFAN-I have a list, and I will commit it to an e-mail, but I think that with all the new Board members we have, one of the things that would be helpful is for the Staff to do kind of a dog and pony for folks so that we understand the delineation of responsibilities. Like we hear Dave Hatin’s name all the time, but we don’t know exactly what he does, and what is the difference between going through the building permit process versus, you know, a site plan review that we go through, you know, what kind of hoops does an individual have to go through versus what we put developers through? I think that that could be instructive. MRS. BARDEN-Well, that’s kind of like the one that I think Craig did, and maybe it was two years ago, a PowerPoint presentation. There was a joint workshop, if you’ll recall, and that, I know Dave was there and I know all the Planning Staff was there, and Bruce Frank was there. MRS. STEFFAN-It was very instructive, and we have a lot of new members. MRS. BARDEN-And so maybe it’s just another one where we go through that again as a refresher. MRS. STEFFAN-And I think some of the other things that came up as a result of that, I remember asking Dave Hatin a lot of questions about floodplains, and, you know, those kinds of things and to define those, and, you know, everybody was much smarter by the time we were done. 49 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Soils, I think, we talked about. There were a lot of things, but I think that that’s certainly one thing that would be very helpful for all the new members, and I think the other thing that helps is to actually understand the realm of our, or the scope of our responsibilities. Sometimes we ask questions that are outside of our area of responsibility. We’ve mandated things that we shouldn’t, or we’re talking about things we shouldn’t. MR. HUNSINGER-And I think that’s a good comment, too, and it’s almost a philosophical debate at some level, but, you know, when you speak to the public, a lot of them say, well, you know, you’re on the Planning Board. Why did you let them do that, and, you know, the short answer usually is, well, because it complies with the Zoning Code. I mean, our job is to review individual projects and to make sure they’re in compliance with the Zoning Code for that zone for that site, and, you know, very seldom do we really go beyond that into larger planning issues, and, you know, on a case by case basis. I mean, we heard a little of that tonight with The Michaels Group comments from the public, and, you know, we certainly have to take into account neighborhood character and impact on the neighborhood, but at the end of the day it’s that specific site plan that we have to rule on, not whether or not we think, you know, the neighborhood itself is getting congested or there’s more traffic or whatever the issue that might be brought up. It really comes back down to the site plan. MRS. LAVIN-Well, having said that just triggered a thought. Has somebody, did somebody review that part of the application before they came here, about traffic, about population? Did somebody look at that already? Was that already reviewed in a way somewhere? MRS. STEFFAN-The Planned Unit Development, which goes back many years now, was kind of a master plan for that area, and they look at what was going to be built there, traffic patterns, you know, all those things, and so within the PUD, now that we’re looking at it many years later, we can say, okay, well that was already looked at. I think you’ve been here for Great Escape Board meetings where they’ve talked about the EIS, the Environmental Impact Statement. Because they had filed that many years before, and it was accepted, they got what I’ll call swift approval on things, because we couldn’t go back and dredge that back up because it was already approved three years ago. MR. SEGULJIC-As long as they operate within the envelope of it. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MRS. STEFFAN-Exactly. MR. TRAVER-And that can be one of the problems with SEQRA. Right, if we find Negative early on? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. We’ve got to be careful with SEQRA. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, if we do it too soon. MRS. BARDEN-And, Barbara, that EIS that was done for the whole Hiland Park was at a density that was far greater than we’ve seen in Hiland Park, and with that, all of these areas were fleshed out at that time. So, initially when The Michaels Group, when we asked for additional information on whether or not this project was consistent with that PUD approval, inherent in that is the Negative Declaration for the EIS. So a lot of those have been kind of worked out. MR. HUNSINGER-And we may be looking, I mean, there’s lands to the north of Waverly Place to be developed still that was all designed for Professional Office and Commercial uses, and at some point that will come before us for site plan review, and it’ll be difficult to address traffic and wetlands and some of those other issues which have already been covered in the SEQRA process that was done, you know, years ago, and the other difficulty in a PUD specifically is that the SEQRA is done by the Town Board. So it’s not even within the realm of the Planning Board in that particular case, and I think that’s changed now, if I’m not mistaken, or is it case by case basis? 50 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MRS. BARDEN-It’s kind of, it’s still, the Planning Board gives a recommendation to the Town Board, but the Town Board does do the EIS and then it comes back for site plan. MR. HUNSINGER-Exactly, that’s what I was thinking. We made the recommendation. Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-That’s why when you talk about Lead Agency on something, if we’re Lead Agency on something, then we make the SEQRA determination, but if somebody else has Lead Agency, like the Town Board, then we can make the recommendation, but they are the ultimate decision makers. MR. HUNSINGER-And we have to accept theirs, yes. MRS. STEFFAN-It does get complicated. MRS. BARDEN-Chris, did you have any, you were talking about areas for Continuing Ed, I mean, something that we can focus when like Stuart when he sees these conferences or training sessions, other areas that we could look for you for some credit? MR. HUNSINGER-Well, that’s why I kind of put it open to the Board, to, you know, what people might think they would like to see some training in. MR. TRAVER-Well, it’s easy for me to respond to that as a new member. I mean, I’m open to any of the training. I mean, I would say certainly SEQRA. I mean, that’s obviously a big one. That’s something, but I know I like Gretchen’s idea, too, of just having Staff kind of review with us, I mean, we got what I think was an excellent overview when we did our initial, you know, orientation and training, but by nature it was relatively short and, you know, we were given an awful lot of information in a relatively short time. So I don’t think it would hurt to kind of review some of that and maybe spend a little more time going over some of the progressions of applications and the various issues that are involved, from the applicant point of view and also from the Town point of view, including our role. MRS. BARDEN-I think it would be fun to do some more technical training where you actually, you know, maybe have one of the building inspectors take us to a site, field site, to see one of these deep hole tests, or a perc test, or something that might be more, I don’t know, more in depth or more understanding than just seeing it on a plan or a demarcation on a plan. MR. SEGULJIC-See, I was going to say stormwater, because a lot of that stuff is voodoo, and we just take it for granted, and still don’t understand what happens when you put fill in somewhere, and of course the applicant is explaining it’s not a problem. MR. TRAVER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-But there’s problems developing. Riddle me that. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Yes. MRS. BARDEN-Stormwater. MRS. STEFFAN-Well, and there’s a question on your e-mail about stormwater reports, and, you know, when I first joined the Board I used to read those stormwater reports and it’s like voodoo. I’m not an engineer so I don’t really understand them. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, you know the part I was talking about is all the calculations. I mean, we get the half inch thick stormwater report, and there’s, you know, 10 pages of narrative discussion and then there’s, you know, 50 pages of calculations that, I mean, it’s a waste of paper, and at one point we had a discussion at the Board about whether or not we would require applicants to submit all that paper and, you know, save a few trees, and I thought we had decided, or said that, you know, certainly you need, you know, the file copy, but as individual members we don’t need all of that additional paperwork. MRS. BARDEN-And that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been asking for three, one for the Town Engineer, one for our file copy and one floater if any Board member wanted to review it, but an Executive Summary or the narrative up front, and not all the calculations. 51 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. HUNSINGER-Because I do read that. I always look to make sure that, you know, the post, you do, because you know, I mean, one of the pieces that I’ll often find missing in the application is sort of a narrative description of the project, and a lot of times you don’t really understand exactly what they’re doing until we come to the meeting, and they walk us through it. MRS. BARDEN-That’s right. MR. HUNSINGER-But a lot of times that narrative discussion is in the stormwater management report, where you don’t otherwise see it. MRS. BARDEN-True, true, and we always ask for a cover letter or a project narrative. I think it’s helpful because we as Staff have the benefit of sitting down with the applicant and going through the same discussion you have, so we understand it, but when you just, and to just tell them that, you know, if you’re sitting at home, I mean Bob used to say sitting at home in your basement and you have no idea what’s going on except for what’s in front of you, to make it very apparent what your project is, frame it in such a way that it makes sense to somebody that’s isolated looking at your application material. MR. HUNSINGER-Right, yes. MRS. STEFFAN-This attendance issue. Barbara has been attending the meetings when Don announced that he was going to Florida for a few months. She’s just arrived. Did you get a package of information? Did you get any plans? MRS. LAVIN-I’m not sure. I’m not sure this time. I know I got this just the other day. So, and I don’t know if I get all the e-mail announcements either. MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-That was part of the reason why I brought it up is, you know, because. MRS. BARDEN-Maybe it wasn’t apparent, Barbara, that you were going to fill in for, that it was going to be a continual filling in for Don while he was gone. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, it’s through April. MRS. LAVIN-Well, I figured it out the night that he said that he wasn’t going to be here. MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, right. MR. TRAVER-Well, and the alternates should probably get everything anyway. Right? Because we don’t know, for example, Tanya had a problem. MRS. STEFFAN-I always used to get it. MR. TRAVER-Yes, and I did, I believe. MRS. BARDEN-I don’t know. I know that the Zoning Board, Sue was saying, and she does packets for the Zoning Board, I know that all their alternates get everything. The Planning Board, I‘m not sure that Pam does it that way unless you know that you’re going to be sitting, but I’m not sure. I’ll just check. MR. TRAVER-I also noticed that the Town website has not been updated with the new Chairman and, it still shows that Bob Vollaro is Chairman. MRS. BARDEN-Okay. We can change that, too. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, what we talked about last month was Hoffman’s attorney asked our attorney if we would reconsider the site plan. I’m sorry, it wasn’t Hoffman, it was The Golden Corral. So I brought it, I said, and they called me that day. I said, we have a meeting tonight, I’ll ask the Board. I said, I was one of the dissenting votes. I probably don’t have the best opinion to answer that. I said I’ll bring it up to the Board. So I brought it up to the Board, and a lot of questions sort of came up, and so we said, you know what, why don’t we have the attorney come and brief us on the lawsuit, and then we can make that decision. So that was how it came up in discussion, and that was the intent, but there’s also other lawsuits, too. 52 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MR. SEGULJIC-So what was the decision? Was there one? Reconsideration of The Golden Corral. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, that’s why the attorney’s going to come to the meeting. MR. SEGULJIC-He’s going to come? MR. HUNSINGER-Our attorney, the Town Attorney’s going to come to the meeting next week, and tell us the status of the lawsuit, and then the Board can decide. MR. SEGULJIC-Is Hoffman also going to be discussed? MR. HUNSINGER-I think Hoffman’s going to come back for site plan. MRS. BARDEN-They need to. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, because they settled with the ZBA, and they’re going to be coming back before the Planning Board. MRS. STEFFAN-They’ve settled on? I thought the ZBA wasn’t going to? MRS. BARDEN-They did give them approval. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. The ZBA approved it. There was a compromise. MRS. BARDEN-It was remanded back to the Zoning Board, and they, it was a bit of a compromise. They did get the relief, but they had to make the sundeck smaller. MR. SEGULJIC-And I’m sure they went out and did that. Right? MRS. BARDEN-They don’t have to do anything until they get all their approvals. MR. SEGULJIC-And I’m sure even when that happens. MRS. BARDEN-Which includes yours. MR. SEGULJIC-They have a history of not listening. MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else? MRS. BARDEN-Will that be at the beginning of the meeting, just so I can tell Matt. MR. HUNSINGER-We were going to schedule it at the beginning of the meeting, yes. MRS. BARDEN-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Matt’s aware of it. In fact it was supposed to be tonight, which is why it was on the agenda, and then when I met with he and Craig, he said that he was going to be out of town. He’s at the Association of Towns meeting in New York. So he’ll be here next week. MR. TRAVER-Should we plan on being here early next week? MR. HUNSINGER-No, it will be still at seven o’clock. We’ll just have to kick everybody out, or else actually what we had talked about was the Board going into the craft room, as an option. I guess it depends. MRS. BARDEN-We can do that. MR. HUNSINGER-It might be easier just for us to leave for 15 minutes or whatever and then come back. MRS. BARDEN-That’s fine. Barbara, we’ll make sure you get your stuff. MRS. LAVIN-And I may, I probably have more stuff at home. I’m still in my organization process. MR. HUNSINGER-If there’s nothing else. 53 (Queensbury Planning Board 02/20/07) MRS. BARDEN-Just one thing, though, because we are doing the March agenda meeting. We’re going to do a third meeting, and I’m going to, maybe next week we can talk about when we can actually schedule, when the room is available. What about the number of items on those, on all meetings in March? MR. HUNSINGER-I think I’d like to talk to either you or Craig. MRS. BARDEN-About how many items we have? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. BARDEN-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-And then we can make that decision and talk about it again next Tuesday. MRS. BARDEN-That’s okay. MR. HUNSINGER-I think my preference in terms, I mean, what we tended to do in the past, when we had a third meeting, is we had it on a Thursday night. MRS. BARDEN-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-And it was always the same. MRS. BARDEN-During the same week? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MRS. STEFFAN-It was usually the first week, Tuesday and Thursday. MR. HUNSINGER-Generally, yes. MRS. BARDEN-Okay. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-I guess we’re adjourned. On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Chris Hunsinger, Chairman 54