2007-09-25
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SECOND REGULAR MEETING
SEPTEMBER 25, 2007
INDEX
Subdivision No. 10-2006 John Whalen 1.
PRELIMINARY STAGE Tax Map No. 279-1-57
Site Plan No. 20-2007 Agnus J. Vincze-Rosen 11.
Tax Map No. 226.16-1-49.1
Site Plan No. 4-2006 David R. Kelly MD & Sally N. Kelly 13.
Tax Map No. 239.15-1-3
Site Plan No. 47-2007 Hudson Headwaters Health Network 25.
Tax Map No. 308.16-2-2.3
Site Plan No. 45-2007 C.R. Bard, Inc. 31.
Tax Map No. 302.8-1-3
Site Plan No. 48-2007 Schermerhorn Residential Holdings, L.P. 47.
Tax Map No. 288-1-63, 64
Site Plan No. 49-2007 Matthew Emmens 72.
Tax Map No. 239.15-1-19
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.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SECOND REGULAR MEETING
SEPTEMBER 25, 2007
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
CHRIS HUNSINGER, CHAIRMAN
GRETCHEN STEFFAN, SECRETARY
STEPHEN TRAVER
THOMAS FORD
DONALD SIPP
THOMAS SEGULJIC
TANYA BRUNO
GIS SPECIALIST-GEORGE HILTON
TOWN COUNSEL-FITZGERALD, MORRIS, BAKER FIRTH-MARK NOORDSY
STENOGRAPHER-SUE HEMINGWAY
MR. HUNSINGER-Good evening. I’d like to welcome everyone to the Town of
Queensbury Planning Board meeting. It’s actually our second regular meeting, Tuesday,
th
September 25. We’re going to deviate slightly from the published and posted agenda.
First item on the agenda is we’re going to go into Executive Session for the purposes of
interviewing a potential law firm. Would someone like to make that motion?
MOTION TO GO INTO EXECUTIVE SESSION, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who
moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford:
th
Duly adopted this 25 day of September, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Ford,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. HUNSINGER-If the public can bear with us, we’ll be back in about 10 or 15 minutes.
We’ll actually go into the other room so you can stay here and be comfortable. I’d thank
the public for their patience. I’d entertain a motion to come out of Executive Session.
MOTION TO COME OUT OF EXECUTIVE SESSION, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan
who moved for its adoption, seconded by Tanya Bruno:
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Duly adopted this 25 day of September, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ford, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MOTION THAT THE PLANNING BOARD RECOMMEND TO THE TOWN BOARD OF
THE TOWN OF QUEENSBURY TO ENGAGE THE LAW FIRM OF YOUNG, SUMMER,
WARD, RITZENBERG, BAKER AND MOORE, LLC TO PROVIDE COUNSEL ON THE
IRISH BAY PROJECT, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Thomas Ford:
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Duly adopted this 25 day of September, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Ford,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you again.
SUBDIVISION NO. 10-2006 PRELIMINARY SEQR TYPE UNLISTED JOHN
WHALEN AGENT(S) NACE ENGINEER VAN DUSEN & STEVES ZONING RR-3A,
RR-5A APPLICANT PROPOSES SUBDIVISION OF A 40.37 +/- ACRE LOT INTO 5
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
LOTS RANGING IN SIZE FROM 3.5 TO 14.5 ACRES. SUBDIVISION OF LAND
REQUIRES REVIEW AND APPROVAL BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS
REFERENCE SKETCH: 9/19/06 AV 51-2007 WARREN CO. PLANNING N/A
ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY YES CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL AREA LG CEA
LOT SIZE 40 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 279-1-57 SECTION A-183
MIKE O’CONNOR & TOM NACE, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-George, if you could summarize Staff Notes, please.
MR. HILTON-This is the Preliminary phase of an application that has previously been
seen by this Board as a Sketch Plan. It’s Route 149. The applicant, as part of the
materials, has submitted a plan that shows a future taking, a future, I guess, widening of
Route 149, and the revised map has been configured to show wetlands on this property
being retained on one lot. The applicant has submitted a density calculation as well, and
I guess the question is are there any areas of slope greater than 25% on this property. In
looking at the topo and some information that we have, it appears that there are slopes.
Those areas would have to be calculated as part of the allowable residential density as
well. The applicant has indicated that they’ve sent a copy of this information, the
proposed curb cut information, to New York State DOT, and the question Staff has is has
the proposed driveway location for Lot One been considered and forward to New York
State DOT? As it appears that there may be limited sight distance, there could be limited
sight distance on that lot as well. The lot width of Lot’s Three and Four, that information
needs to be provided. If the lot width is less than 200 feet for either or both of those lots,
a variance would be required for these lots, and as of this time, an APA jurisdictional
determination has not been received, and that’s all I have for this at this time.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Good evening.
MR. O'CONNOR-Good evening, Mr. Chairman, Mike O’Connor from the law firm of Little
& O’Connor, representing the applicant, and with me at the table is the applicant. Also
Tom Nace from Nace Engineering who are the project engineers. Basically, when we
were before the Zoning Board of Appeals not too long ago, somebody raised the issue of
what effect would the widening or straightening of Route 149 have on the project, and
although at that time Mr. Whalen had not been actually contacted by DOT, we did obtain
from them their proposed taking maps, worked them into the plan so that you have the
property configuration after the taking. They’re in the process, now, of going out to
owner and notifying them and we’ll probably have the project underway some time next
year. We did get a variance that allowed us to have Lot One of the size and frontage that
we have, and since that time, we have amended this from a five lot subdivision to a two
lot subdivision, or four lot subdivision, and we have the two lots on the other end of the
project using a shared driveway. Tom can speak directly to the engineering comments
by Staff. I think we’ve satisfied them all. We do have a signoff letter from the Town
Engineer.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. NACE-Okay. Basically the plan has been submitted to DOT, as you see it with the
driveway on Lot Number One located and they’ve been asked to comment on both
driveways, both the shared driveway for Lot Three/Four and Lot One driveway. There is
a small area of land around Mr. Whalen’s house that is over 25%. We’ve looked at it.
The density calculation will be changed to reflect that, but we still are well within the
density of allowing four lots on the property. The width of Lot Three and Four, the
average width is existing, or the way it’s configured now is over 200 feet. I don’t know if
you can see from there, but to show you I’ve drawn in a red line here, and a red line here
that shows a 200 foot wide lot, and quite obviously the average lot width is well over 200
feet.
MR. O'CONNOR-The last comment was APA apparently has not responded to Planning
Staff. We had APA on the property. They did flag the wetlands, and the wetlands are
shown by survey as they were flagged, and we do not believe it’s APA jurisdictional. We
have sent the map with the surveys to them.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Questions, comments from the Board?
MRS. BRUNO-I have more of an administrative question for Staff, and that is, when the
applicant went in front of the Zoning Board, the project was for the five parcels, and
although Lot One is still the same configuration, is this still considered the same project
in terms of whether or not their variance is valid?
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. HILTON-Yes. In speaking with the Zoning Administrator, that lot, Number One, the
variance still stands.
MRS. BRUNO-Okay.
MR. HILTON-But again, my comment for Lots Three and Four is, since these are new
configurations, if you will, if those lot widths are below 200 feet, then those two lots would
require a variance.
MRS. BRUNO-Thank you.
MR. SEGULJIC-I apologize. Possibly the road’s going to be realigned? I wasn’t
listening at the time.
MR. O'CONNOR-This is the road, the property line as it’s shown adjacent to the highway
is as it will be realigned.
MR. NACE-There’s a line shown along the southern boundary of 149 that’s labeled
proposed future highway taking.
MR. SEGULJIC-So in the future potentially that’s where 149’s going to go through.
MR. NACE-Well, that’s, the road won’t be there. That’s how much property they’re
taking to do the grading that they’re talking about, okay, and we have calculated, we’ve
made sure that the setbacks to that property line for the septic are adequate, and that the
lot size after that taking is still meeting the zoning requirements.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. NACE-Okay. That line has some effect on Lots Three and Four. The major effect is
on the existing Lot, Lot Two, where it cuts that corner off considerably.
MR. SEGULJIC-Is it going to impact the grading for Lot Two, then, for the driveway?
MR. NACE-Well, Lot Two is an existing, that’s the existing house and existing driveway.
It will be DOT’s responsibility to re-establish that driveway as usable.
MR. SEGULJIC-So Lot Three and Four are going to share a driveway.
MR. NACE-Correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-What about having Lots One and Two share a driveway. Is that
possible?
MR. NACE-Not really, with the existing location of the house on Lot Two. It’s really not
feasible.
MR. SEGULJIC-And how are the lines of sight visibility?
MR. NACE-Excuse me?
MR. SEGULJIC-Because, you know, people drive down 149, you know, it’s the Vermont
interconnect, and people and trucks.
MR. NACE-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-I would refer to it as gasoline alley because of all of the trucks that drive
from Albany, cross 149, hit 22 up to Burlington. So I’d want to make sure there’s good
sight distance.
MR. O'CONNOR-The sight distances for the driveways on Three and Four are shown on
the second sheet, S-1, and it’s our belief, and those sight distances comply with DOT
requirements, and it’s our belief that the sight distances on Lot One would even be
greater than that.
MR. SEGULJIC-But I see it for Lots Three and Four, but I don’t see it for Lot One.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. NACE-When we looked at it originally, Lot Three and Four was the major concern.
Lot One, when you look at it in the field, it’s obviously got adequate sight distance. It
does. We can measure that and put it on the plans, but it does have adequate sight
distance.
MR. FORD-But in fact you don’t know on Lot One where the sight distance,
approximately where the driveway would be, right?
MR. NACE-We haven’t surveyed, on Lot One it’s shown where the driveway would be,
yes, on Sheet Two.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. NACE-Okay, and in fact when they realigned the road, the sight distance for Lot
One will even increase because of cutting the back of that curve off.
MR. SEGULJIC-Now, if I recall, these are pretty wooded lots.
MR. NACE-Correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-So one thing I’d like to see is maintaining that buffer along 149. Is that
something we can do, maintain that buffer along 149?
MR. NACE-On Lot One you mean?
MR. SEGULJIC-One each of the lots.
MR. O'CONNOR-I would think that we would want to show enough tree cutting so that
the people would have the opportunity, to be at the edge of the road or near the edge of
the road and have a good sight, even improve their sight. We don’t have a problem
coming back and showing cutting, in fact, I think that we’ve got proposed clearing on S-2.
You can see that it’s on Lot One and on Lot Three and Four. Lot Two we don’t propose
anything because it’s existing.
MR. SEGULJIC-But we’d like to see a no cut zone in there, a clearing limit.
MR. NACE-It’s already shown, on Sheet Two.
MR. SEGULJIC-On Lot Two?
MR. NACE-On Lot Two? It’s existing.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right, but we would want to show that no trees within 100 feet of 149
will be cut, for example, other than at the driveway entrance. Because one of the things
in the community plan I believe it says to maintain the rural character of 149, and if we
open it all up and make it look suburban.
MR. NACE-Well, I certainly don’t think it’s their intention to open it up, but I’m not sure
what.
MR. SEGULJIC-And the other thing is, this site, I believe a portion of it is in the Lake
George CEA.
MR. NACE-Correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-However, it’s outside the Lake George basin.
MR. NACE-Correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-But, Staff is checking in to something now.
MR. NACE-It was already addressed in the Staff Notes at one point along the way here.
MR. SEGULJIC-But we should put that on the plan, where the CEA is, so people are
aware of that.
MR. NACE-We can research that and do that, sure.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else from the Board? We do have a public hearing
scheduled this evening. Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to address the
Board on this application?
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
NO COMMENT
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MRS. BRUNO-I do have one more question.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, go ahead.
MRS. BRUNO-More for clarification. You’ve probably mentioned it, and I see the Staff
st
Notes that you were referring to from August 21, when we were talking about the
Critical Environmental Area. Did we end up determining that this was a major project
and you’ve designed to that or no?
MR. O'CONNOR-You mean for stormwater?
MR. SEGULJIC-If I could clarify that, it’s not in the Lake George basin. So 147 wouldn’t
apply.
MRS. BRUNO-It doesn’t.
MR. SEGULJIC-It’s in the Lake George CEA, but not in the Lake George basin.
Therefore 147 wouldn’t apply, but I need clarification, I’m putting pressure on George,
because there is a caveat on there, I believe.
MRS. BRUNO-I think we might be asking the same question. Sorry, Tom.
MR. HUNSINGER-If the APA determines that this is non-jurisdictional, will they actually
issue that to you, will they issue a letter saying that it’s not jurisdictional?
MR. O'CONNOR-Matt Steves has actually sent the map to him. So I don’t think he sent
a jurisdictional inquiry. He sent them a map to show that he surveyed the map as they
had it laid out, and I think that when they were here they said that it was not jurisdictional.
MR. HUNSINGER-So basically, unless they have a problem with it, you probably won’t
get anything back.
MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. My understanding is that we would not.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. O'CONNOR-Did you see the last comment from your Town Engineer on the CEA
business and the stormwater? It says the applicant has requested a waiver from
stormwater requirements. The effects of single family sized homes and related site work
are generally small. Considering the size of each lot and the surrounding buffer area,
the newly created impervious surfaces should not create an significant increase in runoff
from the site. No Action required.
MR. HILTON-I was just going to go back to the clarification that we discussed, and I think
it has to do with Chapter 147 and the applicability. There’s, I don’t know if confusion is
the word, but this property is shown within the Lake George CEA, however, is not within
the Lake George drainage basin. So I think if you look at Section 147-7 H, as this
property is outside of the basin, 147 would not apply.
MR. SEGULJIC-Correct.
MR. HILTON-And that’s my findings, I guess.
MR. SEGULJIC-I would agree with that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Anything else? People comfortable moving on to SEQRA?
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. SEGULJIC-I guess with regards to the engineer’s comments, with regard to
stormwater, I would say the stormwater requirements should apply because you’re in the
Lake George CEA, that 147 won’t apply.
MR. NACE-Okay. So what stormwater requirements are you applying?
MR. SEGULJIC-Wouldn’t they just be the typical Queensbury requirements?
MR. O'CONNOR-They’re in 147.
MR. NACE-I’m not sure for single family, what your Building Code says.
MR. O'CONNOR-Why don’t you ask us to review the Code, and we will show compliance
at time of Final, if there are provisions within the Code that need to be complied with,
even though 147 doesn’t apply.
MR. FORD-Good suggestion.
MR. HILTON-If I may, I just have a comment. With projects that have, that are not, I
guess, governed stormwater projects that aren’t governed by 147, Section 179-6-080
applies, and what that does is it actually references the procedures and the stormwater
requirements in the Subdivision Regulations, Chapter 183. So that’s what we’ve typically
done in the past where those requirements would apply to a project such as this.
MR. O'CONNOR-Most of those requirements have to do with construction of roads and
infrastructure, and we have no infrastructure here.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I guess just review that and verify that, then.
MR. NACE-Worst case, if we can’t resolve it, we’ll provide typical details for roof water
and driveway water.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Is everyone ready to move forward on SEQRA? Okay. Go
ahead.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Will the proposed action result in a physical change to the
project site?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will there be an effect to any unique or unusual land forms found
on the site?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MRS. BRUNO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect any water body designated as
protected?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, wait a second. We’re in a CEA.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think stormwater may apply, but.
MRS. STEFFAN-It’s not a water body.
MR. HUNSINGER-There’s no water body.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. All right.
MRS. STEFFAN-The qualifier is developable area of site contains a protected water
body. Dredging of more than 100 cubic yards of material from channel of a protected
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
stream. Extension of utility distribution facilities through a protected water body.
Construction in a designated freshwater or tidal wetland. Those are the qualifiers.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect any non-protected existing or new body
of water?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SEGULJIC-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect surface or groundwater quality or
or quantity?
MR. SEGULJIC-No.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action alter drainage flow or patterns, or surface
water runoff?
MR. SEGULJIC-No.
MR. SIPP-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect air quality?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. FORD-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect any threatened or endangered species?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SEGULJIC-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action substantially affect non-threatened or non-
endangered species?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SEGULJIC-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect agricultural land resources?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SEGULJIC-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect aesthetic resources?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SEGULJIC-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action impact any site or structure of historic, pre-
historic or paleontological importance?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MRS. BRUNO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect the quantity or quality of existing or
future open spaces or recreational opportunities?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MRS. BRUNO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action impact the exceptional or unique
characteristics of a critical environmental area?
MR. HUNSINGER-I think this is where we say yes, because the proposed action is
within a CEA.
MR. SEGULJIC-And then we can small to moderate.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right. It’s mitigated by stormwater controls.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. So on the proposed action impacting the CEA, it’s a small to
moderate impact.
MR. FORD-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will there be an effect to existing transportation systems?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SEGULJIC-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will proposed action affect the community’s sources of fuel or energy
supply?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MRS. BRUNO-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will there be objectionable odors, noise, or vibration as a result of
the proposed action?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SEGULJIC-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect public health and safety?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. FORD-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Will the proposed action affect the character of the existing community?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SEGULJIC-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-And is there, or is there likely to be, public controversy related to
potential adverse environmental impacts?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. SEGULJIC-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Then I’ll make a motion for a Negative SEQRA declaration.
RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE
RESOLUTION NO. 10-2006, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic:
WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for:
JOHN WHALEN, 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,
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
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.
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Duly adopted this 25 day of September, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Seguljic,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. HUNSINGER-Do we want to review the conditions before we put up a motion?
Well, in terms of submission of Final, you would just be on the regular schedule, right?
MR. NACE-Right.
MR. O'CONNOR-My understanding, what you would like to see, in addition to what you
have before you, is you would like to see the cutting area or the clearance area proposed
for Lot Two. You would like to have the CEA area designated on the map, and you
would like to have us comply with applicable stormwater rules if they are applicable, or
show how we’re going to comply, and the fourth one is that we will do a revised density
calculation.
MR. HILTON-I just have a quick question, a clarification for me, and I apologize. I was
busy following up on the stormwater question, but as far as the lot width for Three and
Four, I heard you talking about it. What was?
MR. NACE-It is more than the minimum. The red lines on the drawing over there are
200 foot wide lots, and you can see quite readily that the average is over 200.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. We’d like to see that noted.
MRS. STEFFAN-We would like to see that noted.
MR. HILTON-Okay.
MR. NACE-Okay.
MR. O'CONNOR-So we don’t put too much garbage on the map, why don’t we just give
you a calculation. We’ll show you on a side map what the calculation is.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure, that’s fine.
MR. O'CONNOR-That has no business being on a subdivision map, I don’t think.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure, okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-If you could show us the sight distance for Lot One, I believe it is.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. O'CONNOR-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Would you like to put forward the motion?
MRS. STEFFAN-I will make a motion.
MOTION TO APPROVE PRELIMINARY STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 10-2007 JOHN
WHALEN, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by
Stephen Traver:
1. A subdivision application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for
the following; Applicant proposes subdivision of a 40.37 +/- acre lot into 5 lots
ranging in size from 3.5 to 14.5 acres. Subdivision of land requires review and
approval by the Planning Board.
2. A public hearing was advertised and held on 8/21/07 tabled to 9/25/07; and
3. This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and
application material in the file of record; and
4. 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. The requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been
considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative
Declaration; and
6. 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
7. Final approved plans, in compliance with the Subdivision Plan, must be
submitted to the Community Development Department before any further
review by the Zoning Administrator or Building and Codes personnel. The
applicant must meet with Staff after approval and prior to issuance of
Building Permit and/or the beginning of any site work. Subsequent issuance of
further permits, including building permits is dependent on compliance with this
and all other conditions of this resolution.
8. The applicant will provide as-built plans to certify that the subdivision is
developed according to the approved plans prior to issuance of the certificate of
occupancy; and
10. MOTION TO APPROVE PRELIMINARY STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 10-2007
JOHN WHALEN, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Stephen Traver:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. Paragraph Four complies.
Paragraph Five Negative. Paragraph Nine does not apply. Paragraph Ten does
not apply. Approved with the following conditions:
1.That the applicant show the sight distance on Route 149 for Lot One.
2.That the applicant will show compliance with the applicable stormwater code
in the Town of Queensbury.
3.That the applicant will show the average lot widths on Lots Three and Four.
4.That the applicant will identify the CEA boundaries on the plat.
5.That the applicant will denote the clearing area on Lot Two.
6.That the applicant will provide revised density calculations.
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Duly adopted this 25 day of September, 2007, by the following vote:
MR. SEGULJIC-Clarification. It’s not 147, because 147 does not apply. They have to
review 179-6-080.
10
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MRS. STEFFAN-080, but didn’t the applicant say that 147 was more stringent? I know
that George read the Code Sections, 179-6-080, which refers us to the Subdivision Regs
on 183, but 147 is more stringent, and the applicant said he would review it against that
criteria. That’s why I left it.
MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. At that point I was saying we would look at 147. If it applies, we
would apply it. If George has already determined, then I think that it’s not. We will show
that we comply with the applicable stormwater requirements.
MR. FORD-Did we reference sight distance on Lot One?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
AYES: Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. O'CONNOR-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. Thank you.
SITE PLAN NO. 20-2007 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED AGNUS J. VINCZE-ROSEN
AGENT(S) CIFONE CONSTRUCTION; LITTLE & O’CONNOR OWNER(S) SAME
ZONING WR-1A LOCATION 262 CLEVERDALE ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES
REMOVAL OF 1250 SQ. FT. BOATHOUSE WITH 307 SQ. FT. SUNDECK AND
REPLACEMENT WITH 1220 SQ. FT. BOATHOUSE AND 745 SQ. FT. SUNDECK.
SUNDECK/BOATHOUSE REQUIRES SITE PLAN REVIEW BY THE PLANNING
BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE AV 24-07 WARREN CO. PLANNING 5/9/07
ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY YES LOT SIZE 0.84 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 226.16-
1-49.1 SECTION 179-5-050; 179-6-060
MICHAEL O’CONNOR, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-George, if you could do a quick summary.
MR. O'CONNOR-Mr. Chairman, may I interrupt?
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure, go ahead.
MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. For the purpose of your record, I’m Michael J. O’Connor from
the law firm of Little & O’Connor. I do represent the applicants. I wrote to the Zoning
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Administrator on the 18 asking that the matter be tabled while he provided some
clarification. I spoke with Staff this morning, and that clarification still has not been
provided. So I have nothing that I’ve filed. So there’s not much sense in going forward.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. We did table the public hearing until this evening. So I will
open the public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING OPEN
MR. HUNSINGER-And I will entertain a motion to table this application.
MR. FORD-So moved.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do we have a perspective date, any thoughts on when?
MR. O'CONNOR-It depends on when his response is. One of the questions that we
asked him is what will be the Town’s position on the material known as Flexi-Pave, is
that hard surfacing or not hard surfacing? That I asked for probably three or four weeks
ago, and I still haven’t gotten a response to that, and then I asked again, the question
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again on the 18 of this month and asked in addition to that for him to give me a
definition of the project, because your tabling motion and our application are in conflict
with each other, and I wanted that. I did get a response from the Town Engineer. He
apparently has, the Town Engineer has met with Mr. Brown, and they talked about Flexi-
Pave. They talked about a credit that the applicant should take because of the retention
characteristic of the material, which would greatly decrease the amount of stormwater
11
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
that you would have to provide for, but he didn’t indicate whether or not it was going to
be hard surfacing or not hard surfacing. I do know that representatives of the
manufacturer met with Mr. Brown and with the Town Engineer, either early this week or
late last week, and hopefully some resolution would come out of that. I did write to the
Lake George Park Commission and to the Lake George Association to ask them to
weigh in on this. The Lake George Park Commission has responded and is going to
participate in a meeting with the manufacturer. I’ve not heard anything from the Lake
George Association. So I was trying to put that together once we got all the players at
the table. So I don’t have anything firm to give to you. I do know that one of the requests
that you made last month was that something be done in the way of erosion control, and
the property was hydroseeded down by the lake, by the end of that week.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I appreciate that.
MR. O'CONNOR-My understanding is that some of that material, it rained immediately
after they hydroseeded. So they’ve got to go back and they’ve got to do some, but they
have pretty good growth on most of it, and I don’t want to, the other comment which I
took back to my client, Mr. Sipp made, as to showing some additional planting at the end
of the turnaround, the client just said they have no, it wasn’t intentional that they’re not
going to landscape. They’re going to landscape the entire lot, they think in a very
attractive, effective manner. They just haven’t gotten to that stage yet, but that’s
something we’ll discuss when I come back, I guess.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. SIPP-I visited the site this morning, and except for the driveway side, the seeding’s
coming in pretty strong. They need to re-seed that, the southern side, where the garage,
coming straight down from the road.
MR. O'CONNOR-Okay, apparently they’re still doing a lot of stonework and there’s a lot
of traffic on that.
MR. SIPP-Well, somebody, they poured a pad, approximately two feet by five feet, which
I found out was for the stairs for the sundeck, which shows a movement, it’s no big deal,
but that’s moved over from where it shows on the plan. I assume the to straighten out
the walkway, because the walkway, if it comes down the way it is on the plan, has a little
curve on the end of it where it meets up with the dock.
MR. O'CONNOR-Dock. Okay.
MR. SIPP-If the stairs were moved over approximately five feet, then you don’t have to
put the curve on the walkway, and it allows for an increased water, rain garden at the
end of that, because right now the stairs coming, the yellow outline here, come right
close, the walkway comes right close to that rain garden. If that’s moved over, which the
pad is right in here, it allows for more landscaping in that rain garden, which will soak up
more water.
MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. All right. My request still is that the matter be tabled. Mr. Brown
is away until the end of the week, as I understand it?
MR. HILTON-Next week, next Wednesday.
MR. O'CONNOR-Next Wednesday. I doubt that I’m going to get a response from him
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and reply by October 15. It looks like I’d probably more likely be responding by
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November 15 and then into whatever your agenda is, but I will try to respond as soon as
I get the responses.
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MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. December 18. Okay. Thank you, Mr. O’Connor. Do you
have a motion?
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 20-2007 AGNUS J. VINCZE-ROSEN, Introduced
by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic:
No new information has been received by the Community Development Department, and
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we’d like to table this to the December 18 meeting.
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Duly adopted this 25 day of September, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan,
12
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. O'CONNOR-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you.
SITE PLAN NO. 4-2006 SEQR TYPE II DAVID R. KELLY MD & SALLY N. KELLY
AGENT(S) STEFANIE BITTER OWNER(S) SAME ZONING WR-3A LOCATION 8
ROCKY SHORE DRIVE DEMOLISH EXISTING HOUSE AND CONSTRUCT A 2,662
SQ. FT. SINGLE FAMILY DWELLING. DEVELOPMENT WITHIN 50 FEET OF THE
SHORELINE REQUIRES SITE PLAN REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS
REFERENCE: AV 8-06, SP 9-03, AV 8-03, SP 57-02 WARREN CO. PLANNING
3/8/06 ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY YES CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL AREA LG
CEA LOT SIZE 0.89 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 239.15-1-3 SECTION 179-4-030
JON LAPPER & CURT DYBAS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MRS. BRUNO-Before you start, George. As in the past, I’d like to recuse myself
because of my professional relationship with the project architect.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Summarize Staff Notes, please.
MR. HILTON-Sure. Just a summary of what we received, as a follow up. We’ve
received a revised landscaping plan showing additional plantings that the Board had
requested. Areas of existing vegetation have been labeled, vegetative buffers. I guess
the comment is, from Staff, if the intent is to have these areas as no cut zones, the
Planning Board should stipulate as such, and the language should also address removal
of dead or dying vegetation in these areas in the future. Building elevations have also
been provided. The applicant has submitted comments on previous Vision Engineering
comments. That’s all I have at this time.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Good evening.
MR. LAPPER-Good evening. For the record, Jon Lapper with Dr. Kelly, Curt Dybas and
Tracey Clothier from the LA Group. When we were here last time, as George just said,
we were asked to add new plantings along the lake, which we did, and we were asked to
address the Vision Engineering comments, and we have a response letter from Vision to
our new submittal. If you’ll recall, this is a project that involves pumping the sewage to a
new septic system which is at the top of the hill, beyond 200 feet from the lake, and when
we were here a year ago, you had tabled the application asking us to actually supply a
septic permit. So we were surprised, and I think it’s just a miscommunication between
Staff and the Engineer. The Vision Engineering comments say that we need to see your
perc tests for the septic system, and in fact the perc tests are on the septic system plans,
which have actually been approved, because we didn’t get back on the agenda until we
provided you with a permit. So all of that was submitted to the Building Department and
approved. So when we came here last month we presented you with the actual permit.
So it doesn’t make sense for us, to us, for the engineer to be asking us to go back and
explain about the perc test, but all that stuff is, I mean, we do, we have the stamped
plans that go along with the permit that we submitted to you, and all the perc test
information is on there, and I don’t know why that wasn’t transmitted to the engineer.
MR. HUNSINGER-Are you talking about the test hole?
MR. LAPPER-Yes. The plans show that there are four test holes. The test data is here.
One of them is right in the location of the new septic system, and again, it shows the 200
foot line from the lake, and it is beyond that. So I think that there’s just some confusion
with the Town Engineer possibly not being in the loop about the process and how we got
here, but this was an issue from last November, and since we have the permit, we think
that’s set. The other question that he asked, this is a case where even though we’re
exempt from 147, we’re proposing to do a stormwater system because Dr. Kelly, Dr.
Kelly and Sally Kelly feel that it’s the right thing to do. He asked us about soil test
information for the stormwater system, and Curt Dybas did perform auger tests, which
are on the Site Plan, which we can give you the reference. Those were the two issues
where the Vision Engineering comments requested more, Drawing A-1, dated August
st
31 of ’07. Do you want to just explain that? Just read that.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. DYBAS-It’s on the drawing that’s in your packet. It’s A-1, as Jon mentioned the
date, and I did auger tests down by the lake, and unfortunately I cannot get a piece of
equipment down there, with that site, but there’s a perc of 3.5 inches, minutes per inch,
and I encountered no rock at five feet six inches, in the particular area down by the lake.
MR. LAPPER-Okay. If you recall, we also had a very positive letter from the LGA on this
project, and Kathy Bozony spoke at the public hearing at the last meeting as well. So the
Kellys are certainly going out of their way, recognizing that, because of the slope, that
this is a tricky site, but to do everything that they can to minimize disturbance, to get the
septic away from the lake. Right now the septic is going in right next to the lake, and to
seek the minimum variance possible to re-build the house, which we sought and
received from the Zoning Board. So we’re hopeful that we’re ready to go based upon
that information, but we’re here to answer any questions.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Questions, comments from the Board?
MR. SEGULJIC-Looking at Drawing A-1 and your test pits along the lake, or your hand
augers, I believe, if I’m understanding correctly, one of them reads roof stormwater
retention, to Coltech Model perc 6406 3.5 minutes, no rock detected. What was the
depth to groundwater there?
MR. DYBAS-Well, it would be lake level.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, that’s what we want to see is to make sure that your proposed
drainage system would work. We want to see a minimum of two foot, is that an
infiltration?
MR. DYBAS-Five foot six is no, there’s no rock and obviously no water encountered at
that point.
MR. SEGULJIC-It just says no rock. There’s no mention of where the water is.
MR. DYBAS-No, there is no mention where the water is, but there is no rock
encountered, no water encountered, at 5 foot 6 inches.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right. So there’s at least like three foot difference between the
bottom of the infiltration the water and rock. You should just state that on there, that
there’s no water.
MR. DYBAS-No problem.
MR. SEGULJIC-And I guess that’s true in all the areas where you’re going to have the
infiltration?
MR. DYBAS-The other area up by the parking, there’s going to be fill in that particular
area, and I have no way of knowing what we’re going to end up with at this juncture.
MR. SEGULJIC-But that drywell, there’s no information that that will, if I’m reading this
correctly.
MR. DYBAS-It’s in fill. It will be on fill.
MR. LAPPER-So that area doesn’t exist yet.
MR. SEGULJIC-Do you have a spec to say at what that has to be set at? I mean, how
do we know that the stormwater collection is going to work? You’re going to go through
all this great expense to install it. You have to have a differential between the bottom of
the drywell.
MR. DYBAS-I’m fully aware of that.
MR. SEGULJIC-And I don’t see it on, I mean, maybe I’m incorrect. I’m not seeing
anything, but I don’t see that differential on any of these plans.
MR. LAPPER-Right now the stormwater is going directly into the lake untreated.
MR. SEGULJIC-And that’s the past. If you’re going to go through all this expense, we
should make sure that these stormwater features are going to work.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. LAPPER-Right. I think Curt’s point is that because it’s going to be fill, you can’t test
any soil. There’s no soil to test there.
MR. SEGULJIC-It’s new soil. This is going to be placed in new soil.
MR. DYBAS-I believe what you’re looking for is a test, a depth test to rock or water, and
interpolate to where the new parking area will be, and see if there’s sufficient cover.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, for example, you’re going to put in a four foot precast drywell,
correct? Is there even four feet there to hold it? We need six feet of soil there, then, for
that to work. Is there six feet of soil there?
MR. DYBAS-I can’t say yes. I’m not sure at this point.
MR. SEGULJIC-So we’re going through this great expense to install a drywell that might
not work, as I look at it. Maybe I’m missing something.
MR. DYBAS-I think you’re probably correct, but I do believe we can make it work.
MR. SEGULJIC-So we should just put that on the plans, that there should be a minimum
of two foot differential between the bottom of the drywell and any groundwater aquifer.
MR. LAPPER-Curt, can you agree to that as a condition?
MR. DYBAS-Yes, I can agree to that.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. SIPP-On this, what would be the landscaping, on this one, this dock has been
removed, that you have on the original sketch. You have down here dock to be
removed.
DAVID KELLY
DR. KELLY-You’re referring to the bulkhead, the cement bulkhead? That’s to be, that’s
going to be removed.
MR. SIPP-All right. What will be in back of that? That’s just the one piece of concrete as
it is now. Right?
DR. KELLY-I’d love to keep it there, but there was a prior arrangement that I had an
agreement to take that out. It’s a stone rock ledge.
MR. SIPP-Is there a bulkhead behind that stone wall, retaining wall? Is there anything
on the land side?
MR. DYBAS-That existing bulkhead backs right up against the, it’s not really solid ledge.
It’s a pile of rocks and loose rocks, natural shoreline, and that bulkhead is abutted back
to the shoreline. There is no bulkhead behind that. If you’re looking for a manmade
reinforced structure, there isn’t one.
MR. SIPP-But you will have to put one in.
MR. DYBAS-The intent is no. We’re going to, part of the discussion at last meeting was
to let the natural shoreline be there.
MR. SIPP-Well, that’s pretty steep right in that area. I’m afraid you’re going to have
some wash right there, some erosion.
MR. DYBAS-It’s also pretty steep on the south end also.
MR. SIPP-Yes, but we have a stone wall along the edge there, for most of that, don’t
you?
MR. DYBAS-It’s a combination of loosely laid stone and ledge.
MR. SIPP-Yes. Now, right next to that is a set of stairs which go to the sundeck.
MR. DYBAS-The set of stairs next to that go down from the patio down to the dock.
15
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. SIPP-Now, right next to that is something that is nothing on this map, but on the
landscaping map, it says existing vegetative buffer. What is that, whatever that may be?
MR. DYBAS-It’s what’s there.
MR. SIPP-That one strip is a strip straight down?
MR. DYBAS-No, what you’re reading as a strip is the bridge that goes over from the
patio to the sundeck. That’s the indication of the bridge going over the top.
MR. SIPP-All right. Let’s go back. Right here is a stairway. These are marked out as
stairs.
MR. DYBAS-Those stairs go down from the patio down to the dock.
MR. SIPP-Go to the north. What’s this structure right here?
MR. DYBAS-You’re behind the water, but that structure is the bridge I believe you’re
pointing to. There’s two structures. There’s a stairs down to the dock and there’s a
bridge across to the sundeck.
MR. SIPP-This is off the ground?
MR. DYBAS-Yes, and then everything underneath that is all just natural vegetation.
MR. SIPP-Now that is similar to what is there right now?
MR. DYBAS-Yes, we’re not going to touch that.
MR. SIPP-Okay. Because I was there this morning, and I wondered why you were
having one and not the other set of stairs. Well, anyway, so this remains the same as it
has been.
MR. DYBAS-It’s just as it’s there. It doesn’t change.
MR. SIPP-Okay. I’m still concerned about the steepness here, that there’s a need for
something where that bulkhead was removed, because the natural shoreline is going to
erode with.
MR. LAPPER-You want to make sure there’s not going to be erosion. That’s your issue,
make sure there’s not going to be erosion in that area, that’s the issue?
MR. SIPP-Yes.
TRACEY CLOTHIER
MS. CLOTHIER-The LA Group would be happy to look at that shoreline issue and see
whether there could be, it could be re-stabilized with some larger boulders, just to keep it
natural, and I know what you’re saying with the wave action and what have you, the
bulkhead that protected it, and there are plenty of other natural options for the shoreline
that we could look at.
MR. SIPP-I didn’t get that far down because I didn’t want to end up in the lake because it
is that steep, but, you know, you’ve got a drop off there of maybe 30, 40 degrees. After
construction, you don’t have anything there. Once the silt fence goes, what’s going to
stop the water from rushing right down that area and carrying a lot of soil with it right into
the lake? So, if you do put a stone wall there, or something there at least to break the
force, preferably in back of that some plantings.
MS. CLOTHIER-Well, we’ll be happy to assess that as this process goes on. We’ll take
a look at the waterfront there and see if we can address your concerns specifically.
MR. SIPP-I think the rest of the landscaping looks great. I think you’ve done a good job
here. There’s a lot of trees that will remain which are also going to hold that soil.
MR. LAPPER-I got it wrong. I thought you were worrying about erosion caused by the
lake when the bulkhead’s removed. What you’re talking about is making sure the ground
is stable.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. SIPP-Well, both. You’re going to have ice in the wintertime eroding, pushing into
the soil.
MR. LAPPER-So you want to make sure that that slope is stabilized.
MR. SIPP-Right. Well, not the slope, well, the slope too, but particularly what would be
the seawall part of it. Across the front there is a seawall of stone, except in that spot
where you’re going to remove that concrete block. So the use of some stone or
something there to break the wave action and also to hold the soil from the rainfall
erosion.
MR. LAPPER-And we certainly can agree to stabilize the shoreline there.
MR. SEGULJIC-A question for Staff with regards to the engineering comments. The
engineer’s comment number one.
MR. HILTON-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-I guess, do you know what he’s getting at there? Because isn’t 147 the
same as 646?
MR. LAPPER-That is correct, Tom.
MR. SEGULJIC-646 is just the Lake George Park Commission.
MR. LAPPER-Yes. The Town has adopted those regulations. So it’s the Town that
enforces them, rather than the Park Commission.
MR. SEGULJIC-So it’s really a non-comment.
MR. LAPPER-So that’s an incorrect comment.
MR. HILTON-It’s my understanding that 147 is adopted based on 646.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s my understanding also.
MR. HILTON-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-One other thing, and maybe I’m missing, the no cut zones, were you
going to leave the trees above the house?
MR. DYBAS-At the last meeting, we were directed to put the cut zones on and the trees
that were going to be removed, and they are on the drawings, and it seems now that the
Vision comments want it in reverse. They want to put the no cut zones on.
MR. SEGULJIC-I thought that’s what I had asked for last time. Maybe I wasn’t clear.
They’re talking about the areas between what is 9L and the house.
MR. DYBAS-Yes, and they are on a drawing in your packet, and I did an actual survey
on the site of the area where we will be cutting, which, up on the top, where the septic
field is, noting the line, the cut line where I’m coming down to, and all the trees, the major
trees within that that are being cut. The other area that is going to be cut is down by the
house, where the steep bank exists, where we’re going to cut back into it, into the stone
wall, and the cut line is noted and also all the trees that are in that cut line are noted.
Now, I did not put the small two inch caliper trees on.
MR. SEGULJIC-See, on this plan you’re saying existing vegetative buffer.
MR. LAPPER-And what he means is that’s the no cut, to remain.
MR. SEGULJIC-Then it should say something like no cut zone.
MR. LAPPER-Curt did it. What he’s saying is that he pointed out exactly what trees are
coming down in both these areas, and what you’re saying is where it says existing
vegetative buffer, you’d like it to say no cut zone. That’s what’s his intention.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right. It’s just a matter of interpretation.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. DYBAS-And there are some trees up along the driveway which National Grid has
topped, and we don’t know the extent of their survival rate, and if they do survive,
National Grid I assume will also come back in and top them again, but when you stand
there and you look at them, you say why, and they’re noted on here, and I mean just
leveled.
MR. SEGULJIC-And you already have your septic system permit.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you for clarifying that. I was confused, too.
MR. DYBAS-I did it this way because we are removing so few trees.
MR. HUNSINGER-It makes sense, yes.
MR. DYBAS-I mean, there are over 100 trees on this site.
MR. SEGULJIC-And I’m very appreciative of you leaving a lot of them there, and the lake
is, too.
MR. HUNSINGER-What else do we have? Any final questions, comments from the
Board?
MR. SEGULJIC-How much fill do you think you’re bringing on site, roughly?
MR. DYBAS-I have absolutely no idea until we excavate what’s there, the house, until
we dig out the foundation. Obviously we’re going to have to put controlled fill back in for
drainage, but as far as grading, the only area of grading is the parking area, really, that’s
being raised. We’re not doing anything to the front. Because basically we’re sliding the
house back, but as we slide the house back, it comes up the slope.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Could I ask that the fill that’s brought on site be of similar or less
nutrient value than what’s there already? Because one of the things I see happening
around the lake is that people bring in fill, nothing grows around the lake except for pine
trees. Not much grows around the lake except for pine trees because it’s a very poor
soil. What I see is people bring in nutrient rich soil that then washes into the lake and
adds nutrients.
MR. DYBAS-No, what I’m saying, when it says soil onto, I’m thinking about fill around the
foundation wall which would be gravel.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right, but you also have indicated that near the drywell, and there’s
going to be some out in front, isn’t there?
MR. DYBAS-Hopefully, you know, we’re not looking at any planting. We’re going back to
natural. So whatever the soils that are there we’d like to leave.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right. So can I say any fill used will be of similar or less nutrient value
as defined by phosphorus?
MR. DYBAS-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else from the Board? We do have a public hearing
scheduled for this evening. Is there anyone in the audience that came to address the
Board on this application? Yes, sir. Good evening. If you could state your name for the
record.
PUBLIC HEARING OPEN
JOHN MATTHEWS
MR. MATTHEWS-Yes. My name is John Matthews. I live at 18 Cedar Point. I’m a
neighbor of the Kellys. I have had considerable experience with this piece of property. It
used to belong to my family. This particular retaining wall that you’re talking about on the
north side consists of very large pieces of ledge rock, and below it, underneath the
poured concrete, is a chunk of ledge that sticks out into the lake, and what we attempted
to do was build a seawall around the front of it and capped it with the concrete for a patio
back in the late 50’s, to act as a retaining wall and what not and back up for the dock
which used to be over several feet. Back then there weren’t any setbacks for docks
when they were built. Now, I like your observation, as far as that deck or patio is
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
concerned, and I think it would be a good idea to remove the concrete, and utilize that
area, perhaps build a new stone wall in the same place the other stone wall is or a sea
wall of some sort, and make a vegetated area right down at the bottom of the lake to add
to the, catch any runoff from the sidewalk and what not that comes down around that
corner of the lake, the house. I think their design and their plans fit the character of the
neighborhood. I’m a neighbor. I know what’s there. I know the nature of the hill coming
down into the house. It’s a difficult site to work with, but yet the property does have its
unique characteristics and view and what not and I feel that what they’ve done makes it
worthwhile and will be a nice spot for them in the future. There’s a lot of trees and what
not on the property which some are good, some are bad. You also have that pole line
that comes down through there, which Niagara Mohawk and what not continually will
come down and trim branches and what not. So any trees that are saved, I think it’s a
plus for the area, and I think they’ve done a good job at that. So, I’m in favor of whatever
they plan to do.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. If there’s no other members of the
public to comment, I will close the public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MR. HUNSINGER-Are we ready to move forward?
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. I think what we want to do is put together a motion to approve this
with conditions that I’d like to go through.
MR. HUNSINGER-Conditions. Is everybody comfortable with that? Okay.
MR. FORD-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-This is a Type II action.
MR. SEGULJIC-One is determine the depth to groundwater in areas of stormwater
controls, which you had indicated you did and I guess what we’re going to ask you to do
is meet with the Town Engineer and flesh that out. Provide minimum two foot differential
between the bottoms of infiltration into the groundwater bedrock. Provide temporary
erosion controls in accordance with 147-910, erosion control measures. Complete daily
inspections of temporary erosion controls and make available for inspection by Staff.
Because one of the things I noticed, and I think you’ve done a very good job with your
project, but a lot of projects I see on the lake is they put up these silt fences, Number
One, incorrectly, and, Number Two, they don’t maintain them. So I’m asking someone to
look at them and make sure they’re properly installed and they’re functioning. Soil
brought on site will be of similar or less nutrient value, as defined by phosphorus content,
and the last one is the no cut zones, and I guess what I need to do is find the drawing
that had the no cut zones.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think all they really need to do is where they labeled it as existing
vegetative buffer, just label it as no cut zone.
MR. LAPPER-It’s only on one drawing, existing vegetative buffer.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Change existing vegetative buffer to no cut zones.
MR. HUNSINGER-Or just add the comment no cut zones.
MR. SEGULJIC-Add the comment.
MR. SIPP-Stone wall on (lost word) edge replacing the dock that’s to be removed.
MR. LAPPER-Stabilize, what are you looking for?
MR. SIPP-A stone wall or some barrier to replace the concrete block which has been
used as a dock. Similar to what’s already there.
MR. FORD-To ensure stabilization of the shoreline and above.
MR. LAPPER-With Tom’s comment, that’s good, because it’s clear what the purpose is,
to stabilize it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else?
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MR. SEGULJIC-I believe that’s it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. You want to run with it, Tom?
MR. SEGULJIC-I’ll take a shot at it.
MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO.4-2006 DAVID R. KELLY, M.D. & SALLY N.
KELLY, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by
Thomas Ford:
1. A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the
following: Demolish existing house and construct a 2,662 sq. ft. single family dwelling.
Development within 50 feet of the shoreline requires Site Plan Review by the Planning
Board; and
2. A public hearing is scheduled for 3/28/06, 8/28/07 tabled to 9/25/07; and
3. This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application
material in the file of record; and
4. 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
6. Final approved plans, in compliance with the Site Plan, must be submitted to the
Community Development Department before any further review by the Zoning
Administrator or Building and Codes personnel. The applicant must meet with Staff
after approval and prior to issuance of Building Permit and/or the beginning of any
site work. Subsequent issuance of further permits, including building permits is
dependent on compliance with this and all other conditions of this resolution.
7. 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
9. The Sanitary Sewer connection plan must be submitted to the Wastewater
Department for its review, approval, permitting and inspection
10. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO.4-2006 DAVID R. KELLY, M.D. & SALLY
N. KELLY, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by
Thomas Ford:
In accordance with the resolution prepared by Staff. Paragraph Four complies.
Paragraph Five does not apply because it’s a Type II [removed]. Number Eight does not
apply [removed]. With the following conditions:
1.That the applicant determine the depth to groundwater in areas of stormwater
controls. Provide minimum two foot differential between the bottom of the
stormwater infiltration and groundwater and/or bedrock
2.Provide temporary erosion controls in accordance with 147-10, Erosion
Control Measures.
3.Complete daily inspections of temporary erosion controls that are made
available for inspection by Staff.
4.Add no cut zones to compliment existing vegetative buffer.
5.Soil brought on site will be of similar or less nutrient value as defined by
phosphorus content.
6.Stabilization of area where concrete dock is removed to prevent erosion.
th
Duly adopted this 25 day of September, 2007 by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ford, Mrs. Bruno,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
20
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. LAPPER-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-You’re all set. Thank you.
MR. SEGULJIC-Thank you so much.
MRS. STEFFAN-Good luck with your project.
MR. HUNSINGER-Under New Business, is there anyone here representing J & D
Marina?
SITE PLAN NO. 46-2007 DISCUSSION ITEM ONLY SEQR TYPE NOT APPLICABLE
J & D MARINA OWNER(S) SAME ZONING WR-1A LOCATION 2585 ST. RT. 9L
APPILCANT PROPOSES TO OPERATE A BOAT STORAGE BUSINESS ON
PROPERTY LOCATED OFF OF ROUTE 9L AND NEAR WARNER BAY. THIS ITEM IS
BEFORE THE PLANNING BOARD AS A DISCUSSION ITEM ONLY. ANY FUTURE
APPLICATION REQUIRES THE APPROVAL OF A SPECIAL USE PERMIT BY THE
PLANNING BOARD IN ORDER TO ALLOW A MARINA. LOT SIZE 13.48 +/- ACRES
TAX MAP NO. 240.5-1-31.2 SECTION N/A
JOHN MATTHEWS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-Good evening. If you could identify yourself for the record.
MR. MATTHEWS-John Matthews, 18 Cedar Point, Lake George.
MR. HUNSINGER-Could you just walk us through the project, what you’re looking to do?
MR. MATTHEWS-Yes. We recently purchased a piece of property across the road,
across Route 9L from Castaway Marina, which used to be the Scott McLaughlin
Construction Equipment property, and residence. It was quite dishelved. We’ve cleaned
up the property. We’ve painted the buildings. I’m in the process of doing some
remodeling work in the existing structure, and my proposal or what I came here to talk to
you about was to propose to utilize the acreage for storage of boats in the winter and
storage of trailers and unused trailers during the summer months. There’s a
considerable amount of land in the back and down behind the shop and what not, and I
believe I submitted some plans with a layout of how I thought we could buffer the area,
and to screen ay of the things that might be of objection to people from the highway, and
this would be a non-lighted situation. It would be basically storage. There’d be no repair
work done on site. It’s, with the increased traffic and utilization of the lake and marinas
closing due to one reason or another, we’ve found a very great demand for excess
parking for our transient boat trailers and what not, and during the summer months, and
storage for the winter months, and rather than have to go to another Town or go 20 miles
away to erect or buy a piece of land for storage, I elected to purchase a piece of property
adjacent to my marina, so that we can not have to haul equipment and boats over the
road, with today’s cost of fuel and what not. So that’s basically what my intent is at this
point in time, unless somebody tells me that it can’t be done, and then we’ll have to go
another avenue.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’ll open it up for questions, comments from the Board? I have to
admit that I did bring your materials with me last week, but I don’t have them with me
tonight.
MR. MATTHEWS-All right. Sorry that I wasn’t able to attend. I had a dealer meeting out
of town.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. SIPP-Is this going to require a special permit or a change in zoning?
MR. HUNSINGER-What it does require is approval of a Special Use Permit by the
Planning Board, that would allow the marina use.
MR. SIPP-What’s your plan for screening this area to the?
MR. MATTHEWS-Well, what I intended to do was along the northeastern area of 9L,
where it’s kind of like a ledge cropping with some large maple trees and some cedars,
and what not, they grow right alongside the road. Just behind those, behind the setback
21
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
of the road, I thought I would add some fill and make like a shallow low berm, and plant it
with some pines or something that would offer some site differential, and then down
behind the existing dwelling that’s there, do the same thing and go across that section
probably 75, 100 feet with the same type of natural planting, which wouldn’t take away
from the yard of the house, but it would kind of offer some protection and sheltering of
the stored boats and what not that would be behind the garage. My plan is to kind of
keep all of the activity in the area east or to the rear of the existing shop building that’s
there.
MR. SIPP-The western area is pretty well screened from the road, behind the house,
that’s screened, but, you know, as you’re traveling westward on 9L, you have a pretty
good shot look just past the house, of what’s there. So you need something to block off
the view, and you’ve also got to contend with those wetlands, stay away from.
MR. MATTHEWS-There are some wetlands on the plan, or they on the plans, or they
stipulated them as wetlands. Somehow the surveyor marked those on there because
someone who did something on the property years ago saw something that looked like
wetlands. Now I’ve had several conversations with the people from DEC and APA, and
they questioned me as to what this was, because it was nothing that APA had
designated. One of the wetlands that’s marked there is actually the remnants, or the
tailings, of a drainage pipe that comes across 9L and empties out behind the existing
dwelling and runs down through there. Now, they don’t consider a drainage ditch as
wetlands, but that area is indicated on there as a wetlands.
MR. FORD-Who made that determination for wetland designation?
MR. MATTHEWS-The APA, Adirondack Park, came in and flagged the wetlands to the
northeast of the property, but there’s two little patches in the middle of that lower field,
which I mowed this summer, and there’s, dry as a bone. It’s dirt and sand, but
somebody thought there was wetlands there, one of the surveyors or somebody that was
poking around in there, and they drew it on the map.
MR. FORD-When did that occur?
MR. MATTHEWS-Within the last couple of years. Recently.
MR. FORD-It may be a seasonal type of thing.
MR. MATTHEWS-Well, and that could very well be. I know it happened to appear on the
map when the environmental review or digging was done for a previous applicant, and
that’s when it showed up on the map, but I’ve talked to APA about it and asked them to
come down and re-flag and check those areas and they did and they said there’s nothing
that they would consider as a wetland.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do you know if it shows up on any Town maps, George?
MR. HILTON-There’s an indication that there are some APA wetlands out there, but
ultimately they’re flagging and I guess reaffirming their flagging and a jurisdictional
inquiry would go along with the marina which would verify the existence of wetlands.
MR. MATTHEWS-Yes. I mean, when I, after I get all of your comments, that’s why I tried
to schedule this session, rather than go through and have plans drawn and surveyors
maps done and everything right to the T, I kind of wanted your suggestions before I went
to that expense and now I’m willing to come back again in front of the whole Board.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. That’s the purpose of Sketch Plan Review.
MR. SEGULJIC-Excuse me. A question for Staff. With regards to the wetlands, there’s
a 100 foot buffer. Would boat storage be, if he stores boats within 100, can he store
boats within 100 feet of a wetland?
MR. HILTON-Well, there are certain shoreline setbacks for that zone, and they would
have to comply with those.
MR. SEGULJIC-And I guess while he’s looking that up, so your plan is to allow people
who launch at your site relatively across the street to be able to park over here to give
you more room, to increase your potential for parking of trailers and cars?
22
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. MATTHEWS-What we may do is, with our equipment, is move trailers and what not
off site to make more room. Right now people will launch their boat and leave their trailer
there and take their truck to their camp or whatever. So rather than have those vacant
trailers sitting around, which are taking up space for the summer, we would haul them
there.
MR. SEGULJIC-So your plan is not to have a quick launch?
MR. MATTHEWS-No. Well, we already have what we call a trailer launch or a launch
facility, and people come in on a daily basis and launch.
MR. SEGULJIC-And you obviously have the Lake George Park Commission permit.
MR. MATTHEWS-I have the permit for that, and I will have to get a permit for this to
increase my permit there.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. I was going to ask you. You have to get a permit to increase
your storage, I guess, of trailers.
MR. MATTHEWS-That’s correct, and boats.
MR. FORD-Do you anticipate any disruption of the current vegetation? In other words,
are you going to bring in gravel or stone or paving or anything of that sort?
MR. MATTHEWS-I have no plans to pave, and it’s, all of the land in the back where I
plan to use, where I have mowed, is all fresh gravel that they use to cover up all the
rocks and debris that was dumped in there over the last 40 years, and it’s basically, if I
do anything, it’ll be clearing some rocks that are still laying around that I hit with my
brush hog and just kind of graded up. I mean, it won’t be necessary to have any hard
surfacing in there at all.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MRS. BRUNO-George, do we have an aerial of that? Can you pull that up in GIS or?
MR. HILTON-Yes, I can work on something here, but to answer your question, I’m not
sure of the exact zone on this, if it’s WR-3A or 1-A, but the shoreline setback would
apply. For example in the WR-3A it’s 75 feet. In the WR-1A it’s 50 feet, and I think
you’re thinking of the proposed wetland regulation that would apply to 100 foot, but as of
right now, that applies only to DEC wetlands, as the proposed amendment, the wetland
amendment hasn’t been approved.
MR. SEGULJIC-So that means it’s, you’ve got to stay a minimum of 50 feet away from
the wetland?
MR. HILTON-Depending on the zone. If it’s WR-1A, it’s my understanding that there
would be a 50 foot setback for the storage, and if it’s 3-A it would be 75 feet.
MR. SEGULJIC-So that means he couldn’t park a store a trailer within 50 feet of the
wetlands, if it’s the 50 foot?
MR. HILTON-I would leave that up to the Zoning Administrator to decide. That’s a
building setback. It’s my understanding that you would apply that as well to any activity,
such as storing boats, but there hasn’t been a determination.
MR. SEGULJIC-So that’s a determination we’re going to need. Do you understand what
we’re discussing?
MR. MATTHEWS-Yes. No, I understand, and there really wouldn’t be any area closer
than 50 feet from any of the, I know the DEC wetlands is on my border in the back. Once
you go past the trees and over the bank and down in there, that’s all DEC wetlands.
MR. SEGULJIC-So, correct me if I’m wrong, but your intention is more for the people
who want to come up for the season, need a place to store their trailer. It’s not so much
for the, you know, the weekend user to store their trailer over there for the weekend.
MR. MATTHEWS-No. Right now we have enough room for the weekend user. Yes.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, and so your intention is not to store trailers there during the
winter, then?
MR. MATTHEWS-There probably won’t be any empty trailers there. The trailers will
have boats on them. I mean, there may be a few. I mean, we have another storage
location over in Fort Ann off of Barthel Lane, which is just a pole barn, and my Park
Commission permit doesn’t allow for any trailers stored yearly outside the building. So
what we’re doing now is we’re taking all of our, once the boats come out of the barn, we
haul all the trailers over and put them in the barn, which gets to be kind of a pain in the
neck this time of the year when you’re trying to pull boats out and put them in the barn,
but, I mean, that’s what I would like to use that for is those.
MR. SEGULJIC-So if I’m understanding you correctly, one of my concerns was, you
know, the increased traffic on 9L, people pulling trailers back and forth across this road
and people running back, but that’s not the case.
MR. MATTHEWS-No. It won’t be the case.
MR. SEGULJIC-If it’s a one time thing, or it’s going to be four years.
MR. MATTHEWS-It’ll actually be basically done by our people.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right. Well, that makes me feel a lot better then, all right.
MR. FORD-If we do have, get back to the wetland issue. If it, in fact, is seasonal, we
may be contributing to runoff. If there are shrink wrapped boats and so forth that are
being stored in this area through the summer, it would be there in the Spring during
meltdown and so forth and runoff and could be impacted. I have a concern about that.
MR. MATTHEWS-Well, I’m going to have those areas checked. I mean, if it’s a seasonal
thing, and we won’t, we just won’t be able to put them there. I mean, if it’s wet, there’s no
way that we can park something there and have it stay without sinking in, especially in
the Spring when the snow melts.
MR. FORD-Would you consider some sort of a vegetative buffer that would designate
that, whatever that limitation is, whether it’s 50 feet from the wetlands or 75 or whatever
it’s been determined that it is.
MR. MATTHEWS-There basically is now, and if we don’t use a vegetative buffer, I’ll put
some boulders or maybe even erect a fence. I’m not sure. I mean, it could be marked
off very easily.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. FORD-Not only marked off, but prevent anybody from backing down there. You
know where I’m going with it.
MR. MATTHEWS-I understand. I respect the lake. We’re doing quite a bit right now at
the Marina to move our existing shop, which is right on the lake, away from the lake. We
built a quite sophisticated boat washing area which drains into its own septic and
drainage field, away from the lake. So I’m working in that vein.
MR. FORD-We’re on the same page.
MRS. STEFFAN-Mr. Matthews, do you have any neighbors to this particular property?
MR. MATTHEWS-Sure.
MRS. STEFFAN-Have you talked to them about the project?
MR. MATTHEWS-Basically, yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-Any opposition?
MR. MATTHEWS-When I talked to them, there’s some opposition by a neighbor next
door, but I don’t think, I honestly think that it’s part of the character of the neighborhood.
We’re at the lake. There’s Marinas around. It’s zoned for marina use with Planning
Board or Site Plan review. I mean, you’ve got boats stored all around Cleverdale Store,
trailers stored all around Cleverdale Store, a Marina right down the road with boat stored.
24
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
I mean, it’s, I mean, you go to the lake, you anticipate seeing boat storage of some type,
and we run a nice, clean, neat ship, and I plan to keep it that way.
MRS. STEFFAN-I apologize, I didn’t look at your plan. I was on vacation last week. So I
don’t have your plan tonight and I didn’t look at it last week. So, I can’t give you any
input. I apologize.
MR. HUNSINGER-Any other comments from members of the Board? We look forward
to your Site Plan review.
MR. MATTHEWS-Thank you.
MR. SEGULJIC-Just a clarification. You have listed on the drawing CEA, and by looking
at the plan, it’s almost as if it’s on the other side of your boundary. Your whole site is in
the CEA.
MR. MATTHEWS-Yes, it is.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Just to clarify that.
MR. MATTHEWS-I mean, anything in that Lake George basin is part of the Critical
Environmental Area.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. MATTHEWS-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you.
SITE PLAN NO. 47-2007 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED HUDSON HEADWATERS
HEALTH NETWORK AGENT(S) RICHARD E. JONES ASSOCIATES OWNER(S)
SAME ZONING LI LOCATION LOT #7, CAREY RD. INDUSTRIAL PARK
APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 24,808 +/- SQ. FT. OFFICE
BUILDING. OFFICES IN THE LIGHT INDUSTRIAL ZONE REQUIRE PLANNING
BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE SUBDIV. 6-1987
WARREN CO. PLANNING 9/12/07 LOT SIZE 2.16 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 308.16-
2-2.3 SECTION 179-4-020, 179-9-020
RICHARD JONES & GEORGE PERDUE, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-George, if you could summarize Staff Notes, please.
MR. HILTON-Sure. As mentioned in my notes, the applicant proposes to construct a
24,000, almost 25,000 square foot medical office building. The property is on the corner
of Carey Road and Corinth Road. The property is zoned Light Industry. My comments
are based on a review of the landscaping plan. As you can see in my notes, the plan
does not appear to meet the exterior parking lot landscaping requirements listed in the
Zoning Code. Given the site’s location and the small area, land area proposed around
the exterior parking lot, my comment is perhaps additional street landscaping could be
provided with a berm around the parking area to shield it from surrounding properties.
The freestanding light fixtures proposed do not appear to be full cut off fixtures. The
lighting plan does show some light spill onto adjacent properties. As I’ve mentioned, it’s
difficult to determine what the foot candle averages are for, for instance, the parking lot,
building exterior, etc., and it’s difficult to tell if those are within the requirements of the
Zoning Code. As I’ve mentioned, in order to eliminate light spill onto adjacent properties,
full cut off fixtures, as required by Code, should be used, and if light spill continues to be
shown, shields could be used to direct that light away from surrounding properties.
There are comments from Vision Engineering, and you have a comment from the Fire
Marshal’s Office and a Warren County Project Referral form stating No County Impact,
and that’s all I have at this time.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Could you identify yourselves for the record.
MR. JONES-Good evening. For the record, Richard Jones, the architect for the project.
With me here to my left is George Perdue from Hudson Headwaters, and Jim
McCormack from the McCormack Group, the design build contractor for the project.
Basically what we’re proposing is construction of a new corporate headquarters,
25
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
professional office building for Hudson Headwaters. They currently rent space in Glens
Falls, and they would be looking to relocate their operation to this site on Corinth Road.
Basically, the building itself is a little over 25,000 square feet. We have designed it so
that we comply with all required setbacks, green space, those types of things. We did
receive the comments from Staff and thee review engineer yesterday. We have put
together a written response that we have not forwarded to the Town yet. Basically, I’d
like to comment on some of the comments that were made in reference to the exterior
parking lot landscaping. Basically it does conform to the Zoning Ordinance. We have
provided a 10 foot wide landscaped strip on two street sides of the property, as required,
and along with that, we have provided one three inch caliper shade tree for every 250
lineal feet of that landscape strip. As far as the proposed trees, they are located in the
appropriate distances from the intersection for sight distances, as well as the entrance
drive on to Carey Road. The three foot high, we have also provided a three foot high
evergreen hedge along the edge of the parking lot. I note there’s two options in the
Zoning Ordinance. One is for a raised berm. The other is for an evergreen hedge. We
opted to do the hedge because the 10 foot wide strip that we have has been swaled to
provide drainage and to be able to capture everything and keep it on site for our required
storm drainage requirements. The light fixtures, the cut is actually for a full cut off flat
lens fixture. If you look at the cut that was submitted, you have to look at the
determination of the letters and digits that are on there, but it is a full cutoff fixture with a
flat lens. We did not, at that point, provide external shields as an option. It is an option
that is available for those fixtures and could be provided, which would then alleviate
some of the wash off of the property that George was referring to. As far as the
Uniformity Ratio, it’s 4.2 to 1. The requirement of the Zoning Ordinance is actually 4 to 1.
So we’re a little bit over that. In reference to the comments from Mike Palmer, the Fire
Marshal, I did have a conversation with Mike this afternoon, in reference to the project.
He did not realize that the building is being proposed as being fully sprinklered. We’re
going to have a fire protection system in the building. He did not also know where the
fire hydrants were in relation to the property. There are actually three hydrants around
the property, two located on Corinth Road. One approximately 125 feet east of our back
property line, another that’s approximately 240 feet south of our property line on Carey
Road, and another on Corinth Road that’s approximately 200 feet west of the
intersection of Carey Road and Corinth Road. Based upon those locations, we’re within
the 600 foot radius for firefighting equipment to be around the back side of the building.
With reference to the comments from Vision Engineering, when we first started this
project, we were anticipating that construction could conceivably start the summer of ’07.
Obviously that has not happened. It took us longer to put together the design and the
program for the project and actually come up with the information for the Site Plan
Review. Subsequent to that, our stormwater drainage plan basically is maintaining all
stormwater runoff on site. Nothing it leaving the site. Anticipating a summer
construction schedule, because of that, we did not feel we needed, at that point, to do
the SWPPS permit. In lieu of the fact that we’re going to be into winter construction, we
have completed the SWPPS narrative and report and based upon that we have put
together all of the sequencing and construction activity requirements that Vision
Engineering was referring to in their report. Basically, we have looked at changing the
time of concentration as he requested, and changing that time of concentration has
actually a very insignificant effect or result on our storm drainage system, and basically
we’re still within the tolerances of accuracy that are required and allowed by the Town of
Queensbury, and basically everything is based upon a 100 year storm design. So we
have plenty of capacity, and basically by doing what we’re doing, as far as the
stormwater systems on the property, as I indicated, we’re maintaining everything on site.
Basically, the comments that we had gotten from Vision have all been addressed by our
civil engineer, Paragon Civil Engineering, and as I said, we have everything in a written
format for that. With reference to that, I’d be happy to answer any questions that anyone
may have.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Questions, comments from the Board?
MR. TRAVER-In the Vision Engineering letter, Number 14, talks about the Eljen sewage
system, and they’re asking for the specifications and details.
MR. JONES-Yes. We actually have a sewer and a, a storm sewer and water report that
has been completed for the project, which is available. The information for that was
actually listed on the drawings, and I think he was referring to the details which are
generic in nature for that system. I’m not sure if he’s looking for specific details which
indicate the Eljen system or not, but we have not had an opportunity to talk with them
yet.
MR. TRAVER-Okay. I see that.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. FORD-You indicated you had written something in response to the engineer’s
comments that you just received yesterday, Staff comments and engineer.
MR. JONES-Yes.
MR. FORD-Do you wish to present that at this time? Does it require revision or?
MR. JONES-If I can, that would be fine. I didn’t know that I could submit information,
additional information at the meeting. Would you like to see it?
MR. HUNSINGER-No, that’s okay. You can leave it with Staff, if you wish.
MR. JONES-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Other questions, comments from the Board? You gave us some
pretty well detailed elevations.
MR. JONES-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do you have color schemes?
MR. JONES-No. We have not selected color schemes yet. We’re still in the process of
actually selecting the manufacturer for the building materials that we’re looking at, and
we’re looking at several different options. The color scheme for the building is probably
going to be earth tone in nature. It is basically a large wood frame structure with gable
roofs. We’re looking at some stone veneer at the entry areas, and then a series of either
pre-finished or sidings that will be field finished for the remaining areas of the building
itself.
MR. HUNSINGER-So it’ll be painted?
MR. JONES-It would be probably a stained finish on some of the siding, or it could be
pre-finished. We’re not sure which option we’re going to go with. I think a lot of it has to
do with the time of year that it will be constructed.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do you think you’ll have that fleshed out maybe the next time you
com back?
MR. JONES-Yes, I would say. We were working on it today as far as the materials and
the colors, yes, we would definitely have something for that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Good.
MRS. STEFFAN-That’s something that I found deficient. I mean, the drawing, it looks
like an interesting building, but without some of the colors and the three dimensional
qualities that the materials will provide, it’s hard to make a decision.
MR. JONES-Yes.
MR. SIPP-To the east of you, where you have your proposed connector road, is there
anybody on that property?
MR. JONES-No, there is nobody currently on that property. It is still For Sale.
MR. SIPP-But you are leaving a space to connect with them?
MR. JONES-Yes. We indicated that as a potential future connector.
MR. SIPP-Snowplowing. You’re going to remove the snow from?
MR. JONES-We have limited storage areas on site. So at some point in time there
would be snow removed from the site. It would have to be something that would be a
requirement of maintaining the site itself.
MR. SIPP-Are you making a drainage system available to pick up the oil, the antifreeze,
the other materials that cars leak?
27
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. JONES-We have, the drainage is designed with a pre-treatment which would
actually be the grass areas where the swales are and the catch basins themselves, the
drywells actually have a raised rim on them, so the pre-treatment would allow the water
to pond in those areas and then seep into the drywells. So we would have pre-treatment
in the grass areas.
MR. SIPP-I notice on the corners there of Carey Road there is a catch basin. Is that the
Town’s drainage system?
MR. JONES-There is a drainage system that has been installed along Carey Road.
There’s a paved swale and drainage inlets, I believe, with collection catch basins. I don’t
know what there is along Corinth Road. I think it’s very limited along Corinth Road. I
think it’s basically a swale on the edge of the road that then goes up to the property lines,
and I believe that’s the only collection there is there.
MR. SIPP-You do have two maple trees on the south end of your property which may be
affected by salt that you may be using on your driveways. They’re back a ways, but
they’re still within the possibility that they could be damaged.
MR. JONES-Right.
MR. SIPP-Did you pick out any signage yet.
MR. JONES-No, we haven’t. We’d probably be proposing something, and at this point
we haven’t designed anything that would replicate some of the detail on the building.
Wherever the sign was, it would conform with setbacks and height requirements.
MR. SIPP-Would there be signs on the building?
MR. JONES-There would be general signage on the building, which would indicate
entrances into the various suites that will be a part of the building itself.
MR. SIPP-Obviously this meets the fire requirements. You only have two doors in and
two doors out in the same place.
MR. JONES-There’s actually, if you look at the floor plan, there’s major entrances into
the front side, and then there’s exiting out the wings on each end of the building, as well
as the center part of the building as well.
MRS. STEFFAN-That would have to meet State regulations anyway. That’s not a
negotiable item.
MR. JONES-Yes, and it’s a fully sprinklered building. So our exiting length is increased
by that fact as well.
MR. SIPP-Now, is this going to be a patient use?
MR. JONES-No, this is strictly corporate office. There is no patient interaction in this
building.
MR. SIPP-I see consultation offices there.
MR. JONES-No, strictly corporate office.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Tom, did you have something?
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. I guess my overall impression, I’m just concerned that we’re using,
we don’t have a lot of industrial land, and we’re using it for an office. There could be an
office in a lot of other places, but not industry in other places. I’m having trouble with
that. Any comments?
MR. JONES-It’s an allowed use within the zone, and it’s a location that they deemed to
be appropriate for their use, close to the Northway. It is centrally located within the area
that they serve for their network, and we felt it was an appropriate use of the site itself
and the space. We felt it was a good transition between what is actually there for
industrial use on the back side, which tends to be pre-engineered metal buildings, and
now we’re presenting something onto Corinth Road which I think is a very presentable
building, architecturally designed and very nice.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. SEGULJIC-And as far as the parking goes, I guess you’ve only got the one spot for
300 square foot, which is for an office, and then you’re adding an additional 20% to that,
if I’m understanding this correctly.
MR. JONES-That’s correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-Now, they’re allowed to do that?
MR. JONES-Yes, that is allowed based on the percentage.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, without a variance. That’s the limit without a variance.
MR. JONES-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Why do you think you need so many spaces?
MR. JONES-Because of staff and visitors that will come in to the building.
MRS. STEFFAN-What visitors are those?
MR. SEGULJIC-What type of visitors?
MR. JONES-There will be people coming in for corporate meetings, basically this will be
the corporate headquarters for Hudson Headwaters. They will have other functions
coming in to the building, for meetings and that type of thing.
MR. SEGULJIC-So they can, there’s no approvals required for that 20% additional?
MR. HUNSINGER-There’s no separate approval, other than what we can offer at the
Planning Board. They don’t need to go to the ZBA for a variance.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-If they went more than that, they would require a variance, but that’s
the limit within the Code, and the authority of this Board.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-George?
MR. HILTON-Just a couple of follow up comments on the lighting and landscaping
issues. If the lighting is proposed to be downcast, that could easily be just a stipulation
added saying that all lights be downcast cutoff fixtures, and as far as the review of the
landscaping section, I’m seeing the 10 foot width strip around the street. I guess what
I’m not finding is the exterior parking lot landscaping requirements of Subsection E being
applied. So that’s where my comment came from, saying that it didn’t meet that Section.
I think that, in my reading of this, those exterior parking lot landscaping requirements are
in addition to the street landscaping requirements as well. Obviously that’s something
the Board can apply as they see fit, but ultimately it’s Staff’s comment that the intent is to
try to present something attractive along the streetscape and shield that parking from
surrounding properties.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Did you understand that comment?
MR. JONES-I’m not sure which one he’s referring to.
MR. HILTON-The additional landscaping requirements, the exterior parking lot
landscaping requirements. It’s more than just the 10 foot buffer on the street frontage.
MR. JONES-Right. It’s a requirement of either a berm or a planting barrier, which would
be a hedge, and we have provided the hedge.
MR. HILTON-Well, and again, I’m reading a landscaping strip, in Subsection E, a
minimum of five feet surrounding the parking area which, you know, on the adjacent road
frontages I’m seeing a 10 foot strip that’s required for landscaping, the landscaping along
the streets. I guess I’m not seeing that additional area and number of species required
for the exterior parking, but again, as I said, I mean, that’s something this Board can
apply as you see fit, and again, my main comment is to just have something that’s going
to be attractive from the streetscape and shield the parking area.
29
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. JONES-Yes. I don’t think it says additional. I believe it says five feet, and then
when you go to the specific ones for the strips along streets, it says a 10 foot wide, which
is what we’ve complied with. I don’t think it says you need an additional five.
MR. HILTON-I can only tell you my read of it, but.
MRS. STEFFAN-I personally thought that the strip along Corinth Road could be beefed
up a little bit. That was my opinion. I supported the Staff comment. The rest of the plan
looked fine. It was just the Corinth Road side.
MR. HUNSINGER-How do other members of the Board feel?
MR. SEGULJIC-E, exterior parking lot landscaping.
MR. HILTON-Yes, and in that Subsection is specifies a five foot strip on the exterior of
the parking area with additional requirements above and beyond what are listed, and
that’s, I think, where the issue is here. I’m reading that as, in addition to what’s required
for landscaping strips along the street, and perhaps the applicant sees it different.
MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re going back to B, you’re saying?
MR. HILTON-I’m saying you’re including B and E on a site plan.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. JONES-I don’t read it as additional, but that’s.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else from the Board?
MR. FORD-My concerns have been addressed.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. We do have a public hearing scheduled for this evening. Is
there anyone here that wanted to address the Board on this application? I will open the
public hearing and I will leave the public hearing open.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. HUNSINGER-It sounds like the only hang up maybe is the landscaping issue. It
sounds like the other things we just need to get some details fleshed out.
MR. SEGULJIC-And after reading it further, I would agree with you. It does say 10 foot,
the landscape shall be a minimum of 10 feet.
MR. HILTON-Which is provided. Certainly that 10 foot strip has been shown.
MR. FORD-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-But then shall be provided one shade tree for every 250.
MR. JONES-Which is what we’ve done.
MR. HUNSINGER-They did show the shade trees.
MR. HILTON-Right, but I guess what I’m, and again, I guess what I’m seeing is in
addition to that, Subsection E talks about exterior parking lot landscaping requirements,
which my reading of it would be in addition.
MR. JONES-But they have a specific diagram indicating that it’s 10 feet. It doesn’t say
that it’s 15. I mean, if that was the intent, then they should have had 10 plus the 5.
MR. HUNSINGER-I know that this Board has pretty consistently said, you know, more is
better when it comes to landscaping.
MR. JONES-And I couldn’t agree more, but we tried to comply with what we thought was
the letter of the Zoning Ordinance.
30
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I mean, is there a way that you can beef it up a little bit without
having to?
MR. JONES-I don’t think we’ve got room to slide it back further.
MR. HUNSINGER-Without having to move your building or parking lot.
MR. JONES-No, and I don’t think we can move it to the south because we’re.
MR. HILTON-Yes, and ultimately my comment was, in lieu of, you know, something like
that, increased numbers along the street frontage and perhaps a berm to effectively
shield that parking area. That’s, I guess, what I’m ultimately talking about.
MR. JONES-Yes, and the berm is the difficult thing because we’re using it for swales into
the site drainage structures that we have in the corners.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MRS. STEFFAN-I also think that over time the berms get ugly because they become,
they evolve to a state of disrepair and they’re just messy, they’re full of weeds. You can’t
run a lawnmower over them, and so long term they really start to look ugly, and if that’s
the buffer between Corinth Road, we don’t want that.
MR. HUNSINGER-I guess I would just ask you if you could take a look at the
landscaping in general and see if there’s some additional ways that you could beef up
the landscaping, you know, maybe if it’s just in the corners or a two tiered kind of
approach.
MR. JONES-We might be able to go to the two tiered approach or the hedge that we’re
proposing.
MRS. STEFFAN-Something that’s attractive when you drive by. One of the things in a
lot of developments that we see is that, you know, they’ll cut down a forest and then we
go with a light landscaping, and yes, long term it’ll look very nice, but for the first 12 years
of the project you’ve got these skinny little trees and it looks pretty weak, and so that’s
why we usually ask for increased landscaping because we want it to look nice and
prosperous, and we want the development to look good, and a good reflection on the
Town. So that’s why we usually ask that it be beefed up, especially along the corridors.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else from the Board? Do you want to make a tabling
resolution?
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 47-2007 HUDSON HEADWATERS NETWORK,
Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Tanya Bruno:
thst
For a submission deadline of October 15 for the 1 meeting in November, which is
th
November 20. The applicant needs to come back and specifically address the Vision
Engineering comments that are outstanding. Two, to address the Staff Note comments
outstanding, particularly lighting and landscaping. To provide a color rendering of the
building elevation, along with samples of finished siding selections, and then the fourth
item is a signage detail.
th
Duly adopted this 25 day of September, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you very much.
MR. JONES-Thank you.
MRS. STEFFAN-See you in November.
SITE PLAN NO. 45-2007 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED C.R. BARD AGENT(S) WILLIAM
J. KELLER OWNER(S) SAME ZONING LI LOCATION 289 BAY ROAD APPLICANT
PROPOSES ADDITIONAL PARKING LOT LIGHTING AND INSTALLATION OF AN
EMERGENCY GENERATOR AT C.R. BARD, AN EXISTING MEDICAL DEVICE
31
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MANUFACTURING BUSINESS. EXPANSION OF USES IN THE LIGHT INDUSTRIAL
ZONE REQUIRES SITE PLAN REVIEW AND APPROVAL FROM THE PLANNING
BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE SP 36-02, AV 65-02, SP 4-91, AV 96-90, AV 55-07
WARREN CO. PLANNING 9/12/07 LOT SIZE 6.72 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 302.8-
1-3 SECTION 179-4-020, 179-9-020
BILL KELLER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-Good evening.
MR. KELLER-Good evening. I’m Bill Keller. I’m the Facilities Engineering Manager at
C.R. Bard representing C.R. Bard.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I guess we can skip Staff Notes for now. Do you want to just
tell us what you’re looking to do?
MR. KELLER-Okay. This proposal is to address a Notice of Violation for our parking lot
lighting that we basically replaced some existing parking lot lighting, which were more
like spotlights, with cut off fixtures that we have adjusted at a 45 degree cut off, not the
full cut off, and the majority of them are pointed inwards towards our property, to light our
parking lot. The second item on the plan is to install an emergency power generation
system that we’ll be locating next to our switchgear building, which is adjacent to the
Warren County Bike Trail. It would be on the east side of the bike trail adjacent to an
existing nonconforming structure.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else?
MR. KELLER-No. I guess I can address some of the, the first time I see the copy from
Vision Engineering. So Item Number One, we’ve requested a stormwater waiver for the
680 square foot sound attenuating enclosure that would be going around the generator
itself. This generator will sit on a complete containment slab. C.R. Bard requires
redundant systems in case you get a diesel fuel leak, for instance, from the fuel tank, we
will have a complete concrete containment slab around that whole, the whole footprint of
the generator. Double wall tank as typically is required in these installations, plus a
membrane that would go underneath the whole cement foundation, if you will, in case we
would have a failure of two of the other systems.
MR. HUNSINGER-So if you have essentially a catch basin around that, what happens to
the stormwater?
MR. KELLER-We would have to test it, see if there’s any oil leakage, and then see if we
would comply to any universal waste regulations or, you know, I don’t want to say
hazardous wastes. I believe oil is considered universal waste.
MR. HUNSINGER-So do you pump it out?
MR. KELLER-We would have to pump it out. We’d have to address that and either
container it or it would be allowable down the drain, but we’re not planning for any leaks.
So if you had a, you know, an earthquake or some major catastrophe and you had
damage to the double wall tank, you’d still have that cement catch basin, and that will
catch, you know, to your point, a lot of the rainwater, snow melt, etc., that we’ll have to
address on a case by case basis.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Okay. I’m sorry to interrupt.
MR. KELLER-That’s okay. The second item is the lighting levels proposed would
generally appear to comply with the Town. We believe they do. The other, any other
lights on the property were already there and they’re what we call wall lighters that would
be on the side of the building. These are all the new parking lots that were identified on
the two drawings, and we had some old parking lots that have been decommissioned,
parking lot lights that have been decommissioned since the installation of the new poles.
The old lights were on a, you know, an old telephone, 30 foot telephone pole with
basically a full floodlight effect. So I think we’ve actually reduced any light trespass on
surrounding properties, based on the next fixtures that we put in, with lower wattage.
MRS. BRUNO-So we can assume that the lighting plan that you submitted for the old
lighting, those are basically null and void?
MR. KELLER-Right. There’s no power to them now.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MRS. BRUNO-Okay. So that’s almost an irrelevant plan.
MR. KELLER-Right. We wanted to show the old lighting the way it was for 20 some
years. Those have now been deactivated and some time we’ll be taking down the poles,
etc., to spruce up the property.
MRS. BRUNO-That would explain why the numbers weren’t added into.
MR. KELLER-Right.
MRS. BRUNO-Right. Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Anything else?
MR. KELLER-No. I don’t have anything else.
MR. HUNSINGER-Questions, comments from the Board?
MR. SIPP-Do you have any idea of the decibel level of this generator?
MR. KELLER-Yes. At 15 meters, it was speced out to be 80 decibels, and if you use a
rule of thumb of approximately six decibel of reduction, if you double the distance away
from the equipment that’s generating the noise or the sound, you’ll get out, you know,
into the low 60’s at the closest property line at 200 feet I believe.
MR. TRAVER-The generator is designed to be used in the case of a power failure?
MR. KELLER-Right. It’s not going to be run to provide power to the plant. So if you had
a power failure, you know, you would run this generator. Plus the only other time it
would be run is for preventative maintenance purposes. Once a quarter you would fire it
up for approximately anywhere between a half hour to an hour to put the load into a load
bank and make sure.
MR. TRAVER-Once a quarter, that’s all?
MR. KELLER-Yes. That’s recommended by Caterpillar.
MR. HUNSINGER-Would that be during the day?
MR. KELLER-We could schedule it. More than likely it would be between, you know,
working hours, eight to five, and we could schedule it, basically, for anytime.
MR. SIPP-Is there any residents within, say, 4, 500 feet?
MR. KELLER-Let’s see. I don’t believe so. From the generator itself?
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. KELLER-Okay. I have 562 feet to the rear of our property line, that would be
heading west from the generator site. I have 200 feet to the side property line north,
which would be zoned Highway Commercial, I believe, and it’s the property of Frank
Collins warehouse and open space and a couple of other storage, you know, mini
storage type buildings. To the front of the property line, which would be east, it’s 562
and a half feet. To the side property line, which would be south, which would include
some of the, it would go up to our property line, it’s 450 feet.
MR. SIPP-I know the one at the Warren County jail at 200 feet is fairly loud.
MR. KELLER-Right, and I don’t believe they have the same enclosure, nor the same
muffler that we have specked out for this unit. We went up there. In fact, we included
pictures with our application of a similar generator which was the one at the Warren
County jail, and we went up there to listen to it run, did not take any sound
measurements from theirs.
MRS. BRUNO-The decibels that you’ve quoted is with this extra muffler system or no?
MR. KELLER-This is with the muffler system and the sound enclosure.
33
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MRS. BRUNO-So you’re saying the Warren County jail one is probably more like 120?
MR. KELLER-I don’t know what their decibel levels are, but it’s a different enclosure and
muffler system.
MR. SIPP-You’d approach 80 at 200 feet, I think, because if I walk down the street,
within 150 feet, it’s fairly loud.
MR. KELLER-At the Warren County?
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. FORD-I wonder if Mr. Sipp has checked the decibel level from inside the facility?
MR. SIPP-Inside the facility? Not recently.
rd
MR. FORD-One of the things I wanted to raise a question about was in your July 23
letter to us you talked about the 24 hour operation, 78% of your employees being female.
MR. KELLER-Yes.
MR. FORD-This was addressing a lot of the lighting requirements you thought you
needed there. What other security measures do you have in place, other than improved
lighting?
MR. KELLER-You have badge access. You cannot get into any of our buildings without
an access badge, card access. We have security guards on off hours that patrol the
property. We’ve seen an increase of what I’ll call minor vandalism because of the bike
trail cutting through the property, and, you know, occasionally a car will get broken into or
they leave it unlocked and they’ve gotten money stolen. We’ve had people come off the
bike trail and approach our employees. It kind of makes them a little nervous, especially
if they’re working on the second shift. I’ve received numerous complaints. In fact, we
brought up our Director of Corporate Security from Murray Hill, New Jersey to do a
security review of the whole plant. We’ve added security cameras. We have one
exterior security camera, and then the remainder of the security cameras are at our main
entrances. So that we can monitor that more closely, especially on off hours. So those
are some of the additional.
MR. FORD-There are security personnel available to accompany people going into the
parking lot?
MR. KELLER-Only on a weekend. From Friday at 6 p.m. until Sunday at approximately
11 p.m. when the third shift would come in for a third shift.
MR. HUNSINGER-Could you tell us what the status is of the Notice of Violation from
January?
MR. KELLER-Yes. Actually I’ve had conversations with the inspector, Bruce Frank,
about the stormwater runoff. The neighbor that complained has since hired an
engineering firm, and they got done installing a drywell to catch their water problems on
their property. I’ve talked to Craig Brown on numerous occasions, and I guess they’re
just waiting to clear this stormwater up.
MR. HUNSINGER-So you believe that it’s been resolved?
MR. KELLER-The problem is not from us. We had a pre-approved, Board approved,
engineering approved, from the Town Engineer, catch basins for our new building.
That’s, when he came in was during, you know, that late snow that we had, and I believe
in the Queensbury Town Law is you have up to 12 days, I think it is, for that water to
recede. We had some puddling approximately maybe 10 by 20 feet around these basins
on our parking lot. They subsided within days. The complaint coming from the neighbor
was really, he was saying the water was moving from east to west. We’ve had a
groundwater survey done back in the mid-80’s. The groundwater in that area moves
from west to east, and there was no way that our snowplow runoff or anything else would
go uphill onto his property. When, in fact, he has since installed a drywell with a pump
into it, pumps it in, the excess water from his backyard into his, he has a retention pond,
with an overflow pipe going off into the side yard, and eventually ending up in our
property, you know, just going through the woods and through our drainage for our
parking lot. We have an existing culvert pipe that cuts our Building Four parking lot,
34
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
which would be on the west side of the property, and empties into the ditch alongside the
Bike Trail.
MR. HUNSINGER-So stormwater is ending up onto your property?
MR. KELLER-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-Wow.
MR. KELLER-It always has been.
MR. SIPP-That whole area is wet in there.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I know. There’s high groundwater.
MR. KELLER-I mean, even now, in the drought, I look into our drywells and I can see
standing water in there.
MR. SIPP-People along Fort Amherst and the other street there have always had water
in the Spring in their cellars.
MR. KELLER-It’s an ancient lake bed. You’re not going to get away from it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-George, you have a comment?
MR. HILTON-Just, in speaking with our Staff concerning Notice of Violation, this is a still
active issue that, as far as they’re concerned, from what I’m hearing, it’s not been
changed.
MRS. STEFFAN-See, and I’m reluctant to grant a waiver for the stormwater
management plan, knowing that there’s an outstanding violation.
MR. KELLER-But the violation was two-fold, one for the lighting, and that’s what I’m
here for today, and the stormwater, which was verbally told to me that it wasn’t our issue,
by members of your Staff. So this Notice of Violation I would like to get cleared up, if at
all possible, and I’ll be happy to come down tomorrow morning, because he was saying
that it was a failure of our system. This was a Town approved, Town Engineering
approved system, and it meets everything, requirement. It was puddling on our property,
and the last I knew, water doesn’t run uphill unless it’s pumped, and his neighbor that
complained, his elevation is higher than ours. You can visually see that if you walk back
through and remember Staff went back there, and had that conversation, came back out
and said it’s not our issue. Your stuff is working fine.
MR. FORD-When was this Notice of Violation issued?
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MR. HUNSINGER-January 9.
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MRS. BRUNO-January 9 of ’07. The beginning of the year. Did you have a
maintenance agreement or write up when you had the 2002 Site Plan maintenance
agreement for the stormwater for your catch basins and everything?
MR. KELLER-No, we don’t have a maintenance.
MRS. BRUNO-What we’ve been dong with some of the other applicants that come
before us, if we think that there’s a potential that the silt might fill them in and that type of
thing, going in and actually giving us a schedule of perhaps when they’ll be maintained.
MR. KELLER-We went in, after we received the Notice of Violation, actually it was when
we talked to the investigator. We went in and inspected our systems, when the water
went down, and found that they were clear and operating properly. We brought in our
engineering firm, a local engineering firm, Rist-Frost, to review this, and they also
confirmed that they’re operating properly. So we would do any kind of maintenance
ourselves if we saw a silt build up in there, and we’ve dug out the area where the old
culvert goes under our pipe and put some stone around that to get a more free flowing
water to block some of that silt from getting into that pipe, but that was clear flow since
the complaint and the Notice of Violation was submitted.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MRS. BRUNO-Did they give you, did Rist-Frost give you any documentation that you
might be able to bring with you when you re-visit the Building Department?
MR. KELLER-Such as?
MRS. BRUNO-Such as to say that it was operating correctly. It just sounds like you’ve
got a bit of a pickle on your hands with one, with two different entities saying that?
MR. KELLER-I’m sure I could find that, but.
MRS. BRUNO-I just think it might help.
MR. KELLER-If the complaint came from a neighbor, and the neighbor now hires a
company to come and design a stormwater system for his property, which is a residential
property, I think he made concessions that the problem doesn’t lie on Bard’s property.
MR. SEGULJIC-These are really two separate issues.
MR. KELLER-I have the lighting.
MR. SEGULJIC-The application is just for the lighting and the emergency generator.
MR. KELLER-Right.
MR. SEGULJIC-The water issue is another issue.
MRS. BRUNO-But it’s also part of the same Site Plan.
MR. HILTON-Yes. I’m looking at the Notice of Violation that’s specific to this site and a
previous Site Plan on this property. Ultimately I guess I would suggest that, you know,
perhaps the applicant follow up with, on this Notice of Violation, perhaps try to resolve
that, but, I mean, I don’t know, it sounds to me like there’s potentially some issue with the
stormwater. Maybe there’s something else outside this property, but based on this letter,
I’m seeing that there’s potentially an issue on this property with stormwater, and
ultimately that should be addressed through a meeting with the Enforcement Officer.
MR. HUNSINGER-One of the things that we were just discussing is, you know, making,
addressing the Violation Notice a condition of approval, give them a certain period of
time to rectify the situation.
MR. KELLER-And that’s only in regard to the stormwater issue?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, to the Notice of Violation.
MR. KELLER-The Notice of Violation is the stormwater and the lighting.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. KELLER-So we’ve submitted our plans for the lighting. So would that note be only
in regard to the stormwater?
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. KELLER-Okay. In regards to the generator project, there’ll be no stormwater. It’ll
be caught in a containment (lost word).
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, the issue is that there’s an outstanding violation, and they’re
asking for, to do something else on your site before you’ve remedied something that
you’ve promised to do originally, and I know that sounds confusing, and I was going to
ask Counsel. The applicant has asked for stormwater management, grading and
landscaping waivers. I’m wondering how we can do a conditional approval with the
condition of resolving the enforcement issue and then granting the waivers. It seems
very convoluted to me.
MR. NOORDSY-It sounds like maybe it’s simple enough to accomplish, and then the
waiver would follow afterwards.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MRS. STEFFAN-If one, then the waivers would be granted. Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. We do have a public hearing scheduled this evening. Is there
anyone in the audience that wanted to address the Board on this application? If you
could just identify yourself for the record. Good evening.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
JOHN RUGGE
MR. RUGGE-Hello. I’m John Rugge. This is my wife, Victoria Palermo. We live at 44
Garrison Road, are neighbors just to the south of the property, and cannot claim to be
any expert on sound or lighting, but a concern that the residential quality of our
neighborhood be protected against any visual or sound pollution, and again, I’m not able
to translate 80 decibels and how far that goes. I do know that, especially during the
winter months, there’s a significant amount of light already coming from Bard, and so
whatever actions can be taken to shield that light, so that it doesn’t look like we’re in the
back of a prison yard, would be much appreciated. We’re really counting on this Board
to protect the neighboring properties.
VICTORIA PALERMO
MS. PALERMO-That’s true, and I read the application, and I understand the concern for
safety and security because on Garrison Road we have similar concerns. For instance,
what would the average foot candle power be on Garrison Road compared to what it is in
the parking lot of Bard now and what they’re going to up it to, and could, if they’re asking
for a waiver for landscaping, maybe there needs to be more of a buffer, more of a
landscaping buffer with evergreen trees that would help with the sound and the lighting.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. RUGGE-A row of cedar trees might be in order to have an evergreen barrier that
would, certainly in the summer we have a very different experience than we do in the
winter. With the leaves down, we’re very aware we’re at the edge of an industrial site,
and in the summer we have significant protection. So, any imagination that you could
apply to address those concerns, not only for us but our neighbors, who are also the
neighbors of Bard, would be very much appreciated.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you.
MR. RUGGE-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Is there anyone else that wanted to address the Board? Good
evening.
DAVID ABODEELY
MR. ABODEELY-I’m David Abodeely. I live at 29 North Road, the property that’s
adjacent to the property that we’re speaking of, the Bard property, and I just wanted to
express concern about the lighting. It’s been an issue for quite a bit of time now. The
lighting has affected the quality of the neighborhood. There’s a lot of lighting that’s seen
that wasn’t seen in the past. Some additional clear cutting has been done on North
Road, from a resident neighbor. So it’s pretty visible down in, when you’re coming down
North Road into the back parking lot of Bard. So we just wanted to ensure that the lights
were down facing lights and that anything could be done to kind of shield that residential
neighborhood from the commercial property, you would take into consideration.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. ABODEELY-As far as the stormwater runoff, we’re the actual property that put the
drain in, the drywell. It was done in an effort to combat the problems that we’re having,
not an admission of guilt that the problems are on the property. We’ve noticed that the
maintenance for the Bard parking lots in the wintertime especially is sometimes lacking.
The areas where the water does run under the parking lot is typically plowed over with
ice. By the Springtime the melting, it does re-freeze and there’s quite a bit of ice that
builds up in the culverts that are there. So, even though the property may be higher, it
does get backed up and it does run, eventually it will run back west if the water builds up
enough in the culverts. So just another concern in taking a look at the stormwater issues
that we have over in that area.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you.
MR. ABODEELY-All right. Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone else? Okay. I don’t know if you have anything to add, based
on the comments from the public.
MR. KELLER-Well, if the elevation of the neighborhood property is higher, I’ve never
seen the water go over that. There’s a stream that runs out of that pond runoff and goes
through our property. That’s where the water is. Now if that can’t flow as easily because
we have full culvert pipes, it’s going to back up in their pond and going to overflow.
That’s what I witnessed this Spring, when your Staff, your investigator went back out
there two or three different times. I’ve been watching this project all summer, because
we allow the neighbor to come across our property so they don’t disturb, you know, their
nicely landscaped property and our front yards, etc., to do this project. So I’m a little
concerned that we’re going to have additional water now being put into an existing
drainage system that’s probably been there for 40 years. This plant has been on that
site since the late 40’s, mid-40’s to late 40’s.
MR. HUNSINGER-Could you just comment, maybe for the benefit of the neighbors as
well as the Board, on the proposed changes in the lighting?
MR. KELLER-The lighting, actually we would reduce the foot candles out. They are cut
off fixtures. They’re adjustable, so to go from full cut off which would be pointed, you
know, down towards the ground or the parking lot. They’re set at a 45 degree angle.
Those are angled into our property, with the exception of one, which was the existing
fixture that was approved when we did the addition earlier, in 2000 and whatever, we did
an additional parking lot which was also approved. Those were full cut off fixtures.
Some of the light trespass is not only coming from C.R. Bard. A few years back I had to
go onto a piece of property, basically when the Shop N’ Save, now Hannaford was put in.
You could see the glow from that area on the North Road residents. So the majority of
the lighting that we put in is on our Building Four parking lot, which there’s anyway from
an 80 foot to less buffer as you go north, you know, through woodlands. Our neighbor
requested us to put a landscaping buffer in there. When I brought our landscaping
contractor in, he said evergreens would not grow underneath that tree canopy, you know,
they’re just going to die off, you know, if they were out in the open more they would grow,
but this is mostly hardwoods back there, a lot of oaks, etc., and a lot of brush that we’ve
left in the natural condition.
MRS. BRUNO-Those were the lights that you had put in after the 2002 Site Plan. My
question is, in the Notice of Violation, it indicated that it appears as though additional
pole lights have been installed in other parking areas that have not been reviewed and
approved. I’m assuming that you put those in because of security issues?
MR. KELLER-Right. Those are the ones in the Building Four. Those are going to
replace the ones that are still up on the pole that don’t have any. We have two drawings
that we submitted. One that was with old lighting, and one was with the new lighting
installed. So if you looked at the zone, what I’ll call, I don’t know, if you’re looking at the
properties that a resident was talking about, that parking lot behind Building Five and
Building Four was already approved. We replaced two of the fixtures that are now 45
degree angle towards the Building Four lot. So they’re angled away from the house, or
the property line. All the other lighting, except for those two poles. There was a third
one. It was existing lighting that was prior approved when we built that parking lot. The
other new lights on the west side of the Building Four parking lot, the larger parking lot,
you see there’s five new lights. They’re all angled 45 degrees towards the parking
spaces, or towards the Bike Trail. The two fixtures that are on the, I’ll call it the northeast
side of that parking lot, are angled 45 towards the back property line. So most of that
light would be dissipated. You’re looking at an average of .8 to 1 foot candles for that
lighting, which is the, I believe one is for the, that type of parking lot that’s required for the
Queensbury law.
MRS. BRUNO-I’m wondering if part of the issue is less the angle and more, as Staff
Notes indicate, the hot spots. You’ve got a real variety, or variance between where you
have these new fixtures and that other areas. So perhaps in the smaller areas it’s just
creating much more glow. I mean, specifically you’ve got, your maximums are 7.7. Now
granted you’ve got an average of .8, but there are some areas that have zero, and Staff
Notes it said maybe increasing the number of light poles, decreasing the output of each
one, making it much more uniform.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. KELLER-We decreased the output to 175 watts, if that’s what you’re talking, from
the existing lights were higher than that.
MRS. BRUNO-Nonetheless, they still are creating a problem, and I’m just trying to think
of how it could be rectified even more, since some of this was done post-site approval.
MR. KELLER-Right. We thought, and that was my error. I called the Town and asked if
there was a light ordinance. I was told yes. I was replacing, in my mind, existing
fixtures. So I didn’t realize we needed a Site Plan Review. I do now, but those other
fixtures were 400 watts, metal halide, much brighter, and there’s three of them that were
175. Those have now been decommissioned. I don’t think if we placed, the other issue
we have here is, you know, we place lights in the middle of the parking lot, they’re going
to illuminate just under that light, and that’ll make that a hot spot. So I’m at a loss, seeing
that these lights are now pointed away from the barrier, whereas before the old lights
were not cut off fixtures. They were just straight, big spotlights that pointed out towards
the parking lot.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, in fact, that’s what I was going to ask you to elaborate on. You
had said you were decommissioning these lights.
MR. KELLER-There’s no power to them today.
MR. HUNSINGER-You just said what the wattage was of them, which is significantly
greater than what’s proposed. What were the height of those poles? Were they 30 foot?
MR. KELLER-They were the 30 foot telephone poles.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, whereas the new ones are 20, actually 19.8, I think you showed.
So I think that really, I mean, I don’t live there, so I don’t know for sure, but I would
imagine that what you’ve proposed would alleviate the concerns that the neighbors have
raised.
MR. KELLER-Yes. I mean, we just installed these, you know, this year.
MR. SEGULJIC-So these new lights are in place already?
MR. KELLER-Yes. That was part of the violation.
MR. SEGULJIC-But when were they installed? The past couple of months, the past
year?
MR. KELLER-Earlier, you know, like after the, you know, the winter, early summer, late
Spring, somewhere in that timeframe.
MR. SEGULJIC-And you reduced the height, and you reduced the wattage.
MR. KELLER-We reduced the height and we reduced the wattage, from the existing
lights, and this, in the area, Building Four parking lot, that’s in contention. All the lights
are the same. They’ve all been reduced.
MR. SEGULJIC-And are these lights downcast now?
MR. KELLER-They are at a 45 degree angle. They’re not full cutoff. They are cutoff, full
cutoff fixtures with a design that you can use them at a partial cutoff or a full cutoff.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, and they’re all angled in at the parking lot?
MR. KELLER-They’re all angled in towards our property, with the exceptions of the
marked new lights Zone C, or there’s two poles that would be pointing in towards our
parking lot, away from the Bike Trail, but they’ll be pointing in a southwesterly direction.
MR. SEGULJIC-So the neighbors have not seen this new lighting during the wintertime?
MR. KELLER-I don’t believe so. I don’t know how they could have.
MR. SEGULJIC-And, looking at the lighting plan, you have pretty low lighting in the
parking.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. KELLER-Yes, I do.
MR. SEGULJIC-Which I like to see.
MRS. BRUNO-What’s the percentage of the parking lot that’s full? How full does it get?
I would assume that you have quite an overlap of cars as your shifts change.
MR. KELLER-Right. We have flex hours. So that will vary on the working schedule of
the people. So we have less parking spaces than we do employees. We employ about
970 employees now. We’re using some of Frank Collin’s property as an overflow, in
front of his warehouses there.
MRS. BRUNO-Is that 900 per shift, or in total?
MR. KELLER-No, that’s total, and it’s basically primarily the bulk of the population is on
the first shift. Then you have a three, four hundred person second shift, and then a, you
know, because of the flextime you might have a 100 person third shift.
MR. FORD-Would you look creatively at addressing the neighbor’s concerns relative to
the noise and the light and the impact of the facility on a residential neighborhood?
MR. KELLER-This is the facility as it exists, or just for the new lights and the generator?
MR. FORD-Well, it’s the totality of it that’s impacting the residential neighborhood, so,
but can that be addressed in any way that you see?
MR. KELLER-I don’t know if shrubbery would block, you know, on the Garrison Road
side, which would be the south end of the property, there is a 50 foot buffer that’s
required by the other property owners between our industrial zone and residential zone.
That’s wooded with some oaks and some taller white pines, which, you know, basically
you don’t, and quite a bit of undergrowth. That was cut out as recently mentioned and a
house was put back in there a few years ago. There is also buildings in the way, from the
noise generation that will help reflect some of that noise away from there. There’s our
Building Five complex that’s right on the property line, and that would help reflect some
of that noise. As far as the lighting spillover on that side, we have only accent lighting
along that line and the wall lighters that are on our various buildings. There’s no parking
lots, because there’s nothing in there.
MR. FORD-Are there any areas, not all areas, but are there any areas where a line of
cedars would work?
MR. KELLER-Well, when I brought in our landscaper he looked at the south end and
said, you know, that won’t grow under the canopy. So I would have to cut more, and we
have some areas that, around the parking lot, that was an old leach field years ago, that
we’d plow snow on. The rest of it is wooded, up to the property line. So I don’t know if a
row of cedars would block lighting. I don’t think it’ll block any lighting, if there’s any
lighting trespass, and I don’t know what it would do for noise. I think, the central location
of our generator, that noise is going to be reflected by Buildings Four, Five, Three, Two,
and Six, and Building Eight. It’s centrally located onto our property. We couldn’t get it
anymore centrally located. It’s adjacent to our existing switch. That’s where a power
generator would belong. So I don’t know if cedar trees would help.
MR. FORD-Don, you’re our expert on trees and vegetation.
MR. SIPP-It takes 100 feet of trees, mixed varieties, to drop the decibel level five
decibels. So if you had 80 on one side, 100 foot of trees, you’d have 75 on the other
side. We found this out with The Great Escape, that the tree buffers are nice, but sound
wise they don’t really work.
MR. KELLER-We’re not going to have 80 at our property line.
MR. SEGULJIC-But you had said 50.
MR. KELLER-Fifteen meters, right. I said lower 60’s.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Give me an example of that.
MR. KELLER-Okay. If you use the rule of thumb that there’s a six decibel drop, if you
doubled the distance from the noise, and that’s all I can refer to, I’m not a sound expert,
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
it’ll be somewhere around 62 decibel at our property line. You still have to the Garrison
Road side a 50 foot buffer and then you have a wood lot or whatever, and then you’re
going to get into back yards. So I don’t know, you know, I can’t, you know, I don’t know
what the distance is.
MR. SEGULJIC-But you know what 50 decibels represents, talking in a room, jet
engine?
MR. KELLER-I would say.
MR. SIPP-Television.
MR. KELLER-Television. Probably my voice right now.
MR. SEGULJIC-But once again, this generator is not used for peak shaving.
MR. KELLER-No.
MR. SEGULJIC-It’s only used for times of emergency.
MR. KELLER-Correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-And you’re going to test it once a quarter.
MR. KELLER-That’s what I was told, yes, and we would test it during, more than likely
during the day, otherwise you’re going to pay time and a half or double time for a
company to come up and do that. So it would be somewhere, to me, I would test it
somewhere in the morning or a Saturday, you know, perhaps, during the day.
MR. SEGULJIC-Maybe do it during the week day and avoid the weekends.
MR. KELLER-Sure.
MR. SEGULJIC-And the lighting, it looks like you’ve reduced the poles. You’ve reduced
the wattage.
MR. KELLER-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Looking at the lighting schematic, it’s below the one foot candle. I guess
the only issue I see is that the stormwater, which I, personally, don’t see as part of this.
MR. HUNSINGER-Other than the Violation Notice that they know they need to address.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right. So can’t we approve this with the condition that he addresses
this?
MR. HUNSINGER-I think we can.
MRS. STEFFAN-What about Staff’s comments about, that the Planning Board should
determine noise impacts? When we’re asked to do SEQRA, that’s one of the things we
have to consider. Do we know for sure the noise levels and we don’t have any input
from our Town Engineer on that.
MR. SEGULJIC-I know, but the applicant has stated it’s about 50 decibels.
MR. KELLER-Sixty-two decibels at the property line.
MR. SEGULJIC-Sixty-two. It’s enclosed. It has a muffler. It’s zoned industrial. I mean,
this is an industrial site.
MR. HUNSINGER-It’s emergency use only.
MR. SEGULJIC-It’s emergency use only.
MR. HUNSINGER-It’s not like it’s going to be running 24 hours a day.
MR. SEGULJIC-And it’s not going to be used for peak shaving.
MR. KELLER-I mean, if the power goes out for a week, yes, we’re going to run it.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. HUNSINGER-Right, but so is everybody else.
MR. KELLER-Yes, so is everybody else.
MR. SEGULJIC-He’s located it in the middle of the site.
MR. KELLER-And your standard generator that, you know, is pretty noisy that, you know,
I have at my house.
MR. SEGULJIC-And he’s located it in the middle of the site. It’s an industrial site. We
want to encourage industry, I think.
MR. FORD-I concur with that, but I fail to grasp the significance of, or the
appropriateness of making an approval when there’s an outstanding violation that’s not
been addressed in months.
MRS. STEFFAN-Correct.
MR. KELLER-I’ve addressed this violation with the people involved in this Town. We’ve
been trying to get to this Board for months, you know, for the lighting violation. We
submitted and, you know, submitted everything I was asked for the first time, re-
submitted and re-submitted. This violation should have been addressed back in June.
So I’m more than happy to come, first thing tomorrow morning, and sit with, you know,
and find out why it hasn’t been cleared. If I’m told verbally that the stormwater issue that
the complaint came on wasn’t Bard’s property by the Code Enforcement Officer that was
out at the site multiple times, and I don’t know why it’s not addressed. In fact, if my
memory is correct, he informed me that he was going to address it and put another letter
to file, and evidently that did not happen. I mean, we’ve been trying for, I mean, if you
look at my original application, we tried to.
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MR. HUNSINGER-It’s dated March 12.
MR. KELLER-Yes, we would try to address it immediately.
MR. SEGULJIC-So in your mind the stormwater issue has been addressed?
MR. KELLER-In my mind, I had somebody, you know, go into the Town and complain
that Bard’s water is running off on their property. Okay. That would be like me, I mean, I
could say that for anybody.
MR. FORD-Well, obviously somebody from the Town agreed with that.
MR. KELLER-No, they came in and said our catch basins were plugged.
MR. FORD-So they cited you.
MR. KELLER-Right. No conversations with us, you know, we got the letter. All right, but
came back onto our property. We inspected it. We brought Rist-Frost Engineering firm
in to inspect it. They’re working as designed. They’ve only been in for a year, for the
ones, and there’s an additional, and extra catch basin that wasn’t required that we left in
there to help with that. The water is being contained on Bard’s property. The water
coming from my neighbor’s property is flowing onto Bard’s property. It’ll be flowing more,
and I called Craig Brown up twice to advise him of this issue, and my comment was, I
don’t want to hear about it in the Spring when the land is not going to be able to take, you
know, if we have a heavy snowfall, that land is not going to be able to absorb that water.
In 10 to 12 days it’ll all be gone, but not immediately, and I believe in your Town laws,
you know, for a catch basin design like that, you have 12 to 13 days for that puddle to be
absorbed into the ground, and it has done that, otherwise I’d have a flooded parking lot.
MRS. BRUNO-George, did you say Craig is on vacation until next Wednesday?
MR. HILTON-Yes, next Wednesday.
MRS. BRUNO-Okay.
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MRS. STEFFAN-Is there any way we can add this as an extra item on the October 16
agenda? It’s the first meeting of the month, and if we gave the applicant until Friday,
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October 5 to resolve the issue, so that the Zoning Administrator will be back from
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
vacation? And the applicant will have five business days to deal with the enforcement
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issue, and then if we hear it again on October 16, we could render a decision.
MR. SEGULJIC-Why can’t we just approve it with the condition that he rectifies those
violations and not even get involved in it?
MRS. STEFFAN-Because we’d like to take the applicant’s word for the enforcement
issue, but we’ve been caught many times where we haven’t gotten the whole story.
MR. SEGULJIC-But if we conditioned it upon him getting approval, resolving the
stormwater issue we’re protecting ourselves. As a matter of fact, we’re saving ourselves
some work.
MRS. STEFFAN-But do we grant waivers on grading and landscaping?
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes.
MRS. BRUNO-On the other hand, if we don’t, if we wait, as you suggested, it kind of puts
a little bit of responsibility back on the Planning Department, not the responsibility, but
the time constraint where they need to answer back to, you know, so that you don’t
continue with this.
MR. KELLER-I’ll make sure they answer back to me, believe me. I mean, that’s fine with
me. We can make this a condition.
MR. FORD-We obviously don’t cite people, and I don’t think we’re in a position to remove
that citing. I think that needs to be addressed first and then we’ll take up the issues
before us.
MR. SEGULJIC-But what issues will change once he addresses the issue with the
zoning official, with regards to lighting and the generator?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, lighting only gets resolved through our action tonight. Yes. I
see your hands. We already had the public hearing. We’re trying to deliberate here.
MR. TRAVER-What about the issue of precedent with other applicants who may have
violations? Not questioning this applicant’s sincerity in addressing the issue, but if we
grant this conditional approval, with this outstanding violation, and we have another
applicant that has another outstanding violation that perhaps is not as clear, and possibly
not as perhaps as sincere, are we setting ourselves up, with regard to precedent?
MRS. BRUNO-I think so.
MR. SEGULJIC-It’s application by application.
MRS. BRUNO-I don’t know. We’ve been trying to set consistency more and more.
MR. FORD-And I would like to send a message that if there is a citation in place, that
that needs to be addressed first. Again, I’m not questioning your sincerity.
MR. KELLER-I have no problems with that.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’m hearing at least four members want to table this until October.
Well, I think the big issue between now and, well, the submission deadline would have to
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be October 5. The big issue between now and then is to address the enforcement
issue, the outstanding enforcement issue.
MR. KELLER-Regarding stormwater.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. KELLER-Because we have two, lighting, which this Board has to address, and
stormwater. So I’d be more than happy to address the stormwater.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. FORD-Whatever the citation is, that’s what needs to be addressed.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. KELLER-But I can’t address the lighting portion until you guys vote on it, Catch 22.
So that’s the citation.
MR. TRAVER-We can note that that’s been addressed by your application.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. George, is there any way that we can assure that Staff will look
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into this issue between now and our next Board meeting on the 16 of October?
MR. HILTON-The stormwater? Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. HILTON-Yes, I mean, we certainly will, but I guess I just, and I’m speaking here on
the side, I mean, ultimately, I mean, completely familiar with history the Notice of
Violation, but I guess my fear is that part of the reason why the applicant is here, or one
of the main reasons why the applicant is here tonight, is to seek approval for the lighting,
which was addressed in that Notice of Violation. Secondly that Notice of Violation also
references stormwater, and I guess if you send any applicant away, and say, okay, go
remedy that situation, the remedy may be in fact coming back before this Board and
seeking some kind of amended approval or some kind of approval for that previous site
plan that was cited, and I don’t know what the answer. I think it’s probably advisable, like
you said, to have the applicant meet with Staff, or have Staff address, you know, attempt
to address that issue. I just don’t know where that’s going to lead us? Is that going to
get us back here next time and there’s nothing on the plan that shows any kind of
change or anything that would address that stormwater? And then is it going to be back
before you in the future? I don’t know.
MR. TRAVER-That’s why it’s called outstanding.
MR. HUNSINGER-I guess what we’d be looking for from someone in the Code
Enforcement Office, really the only reference to the stormwater is that when he went out
he observed ponding.
MR. KELLER-In the parking lot there was a puddle. You’ve got them right out back.
MR. SEGULJIC-One of my big concerns now is if this is such an issue, how come this
even came before us without getting resolved beforehand? Because we’ve wasted an
hour.
MR. HUNSINGER-So is the solution for the Code Enforcement Officer to go out there,
you know, say tomorrow morning, not see a ponding of water and come back and say,
you know, it appears to be working.
MR. HILTON-And I guess I’m just wondering, more than anything, if let’s say he goes
back out there again, and says, yes, it’s still failing or whatever, does it get resolved with
a re-design of the system that ultimately needs this Board’s approval? I guess I’m afraid
that just some time in the future the same thing will happen, another Notice of Violation,
and then we’ll be back.
MR. HUNSINGER-Can I ask you a question? Did you get any documentation from Rist-
Frost when they went out after the Notice of Violation?
MR. KELLER-I’ll have to double check the file. Yes, I can get that documentation.
MR. HUNSINGER-Because if they gave you a report and said, your stormwater appears
to be working as designed, I mean, to me, that addresses the concern.
MRS. BRUNO-That’s what I had asked for earlier, too. Because I though it would help
your case.
MR. KELLER-If I don’t have it, I’ll get it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. KELLER-But I’m very confused. Our stormwater was approved by this Town. It
was approved by the Town Engineer. It’s two years old. It doesn’t fill up with silt that
fast, okay.
44
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. KELLER-What am I in violation of? Because my next door neighbor says water’s
going over there I’m in violation? That’s the hard part that I have. It’s an approved
system that’s already been approved. I paid good money, Bard paid good money for the
Town Engineering firm to review all that information and we got the stamp of approval.
It’s in their records. What am I in violation of, in the area of stormwater? I can
understand my mistake on the lighting, and I admit to that freely, and as far as the
stormwater, you know, because I have a letter of violation from Queensbury Staff, even
though verbally I’ve been told not, and I’ll clear that up next week or whenever people
come back from vacation. I will get a letter from Rist-Frost, but I’m confused. I have a
pre-approved stormwater plan that was approved by this Town, and now I’ve got to re-
approve it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I think I’m sharing your frustration, and I’m quite, to be quite
honest I’m confused as to what the actual violation was as well, which is why I think, you
know, but because he issued a notice of violation, I mean, maybe, you know, maybe he
could come to the meeting that evening and we can, you know, ask him the questions
and such.
MRS. STEFFAN-I think, Mr. Keller, you have an approved stormwater plan, and I
understand that, but one of the things that’s in our motion now that wasn’t in our motion a
year ago is that applicants will provide as built drawings. One of the reasons that
happens is that sometimes we have approved plans in the Town, and they’re not
executed according to plan, and so sometimes the stormwater plan doesn’t work
because it wasn’t installed correctly or building design doesn’t work, traffic flows, and
that’s one of Bruce Frank’s jobs. As a Code Enforcement Officer for the Town, he needs
to go and make sure that the plans that were provided to the Planning Board and got
approval are executed according to those plans, and sometimes that doesn’t work, and
I’m not here to judge that because I’m not an engineer.
MR. KELLER-I don’t know either, because he did that during the inspection process. So
I’m, again, confused.
MRS. STEFFAN-Right, and so I’m seeing that if your plan was approved and it was
installed and is working properly, you’ll have no problems here. Bruce is thorough. I
think all of us have a great deal of respect for Bruce Frank and the work that he does,
and so this may be very easily remedied.
MR. KELLER-I do, too. Yes, it will be.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Good.
MR. SEGULJIC-I just want to point out one thing. It says in the letter, with regards to the
stormwater, you informed me you would have the stormwater infrastructure problem
investigated and you would inform me when the problem was rectified. That’s all it says
he has to do. It goes on further to say he would submit as built plans for his lighting. Did
you tell Bruce that it was straightened out?
MR. KELLER-We had multiple conversations. He went over to the neighbor’s property
and discussed it with him. In fact, he’s the one that told me that the neighbor was putting
in drainage into his property, and my concern was the additional water now coming over
onto Bard’s property, which is going to pond, and, you know, not go anywhere for a
period of days.
MR. FORD-What is the normal procedure for removal of a citation? Compliance, is it
not?
MR. HILTON-Compliance, usually.
MR. FORD-All right, and the person issuing the citation is the one to remove it.
MR. HILTON-Compliance or, let me back up, compliance or in the case of the lighting,
for example, an approval from this Board to allow something that wasn’t installed per a
previous plan, a modification.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
45
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
MR. FORD-But getting back to Tom’s point, did you inform Mr. Frank that you had
addressed this as was specified in the citation?
MR. KELLER-Yes.
MR. FORD-And his response was?
MR. KELLER-The lighting, are you talking the lighting or the stormwater? The
stormwater? Yes. He was back on the site at least two other times since the original
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inspection. I mean, I have no problem delaying this until October 16 or whatever, and
I’ll get whatever letter removed or violation notice, Notice of Violation removed. I have
no problem with that.
MR. FORD-Great. Let’s do it.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. I think we should get this moving.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 45-2007 C.R. BARD, INC., Introduced by
Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford:
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Tabled with a submission deadline of October 5, which is a Friday, and this will be
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tabled to the first Planning Board meeting of October which will be October 16. It is
tabled with the following two conditions:
1.That the applicant resolve the enforcement issues with the Town of
Queensbury.
2.That the applicant submit the noise level generated by the proposed
generator. It was given verbally, but it needs to be in writing somewhere in
the applicant’s materials.
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Duly adopted this 25 day of September, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Ford, Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic
MR. HUNSINGER-Just two comments. For the benefit of the public, the public hearing
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was held open. We will take public comments again on the 16 of October. Secondly, in
tabling this, I just want the Board to understand that we will have an additional item on
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the 16 meeting, because we already had the agendas pretty much set for the month.
MRS. BRUNO-It sounds like it’ll go pretty quickly, though.
MR. KELLER-I guess thank you.
MRS. STEFFAN-So you’ll have all of next week, Monday through Friday, to have your
discussions and get your materials submitted.
MR. HUNSINGER-And to get with Mr. Frank.
MR. KELLER-Is that who I need, Craig’s on vacation.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, Mr. Brown. George can help you, but he’s not the Enforcement
Officer.
MR. KELLER-I’ll see Mr. Frank.
MRS. STEFFAN-Our Zoning Administrator and our Code Enforcement folks work
together. So you’ll see one or the other, and they do communicate with one another.
MR. KELLER-Sounds good. Sounds like a plan.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you.
46
(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
SITE PLAN NO. 48-2007 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED SCHERMERHORN
RESIDENTIAL HOLDINGS, L.P. AGENT(S) BARTLETT, PONTIFF, STEWART &
RHODES; JAMES MILLER, MILLER ASSOCIATES ZONING PO LOCATION SE
CORNER OF GURNEY LANE & WEST MT. RD. APPLICANT PROPOSES
CONSTRUCTION OF A 85,340 +/- SQ. FT. OFFICE BUILDING. OFFICE USES IN PO
ZONES REQUIRE PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS
REFERENCE PZ 6-03, SP 72-05, AV 2-06, AV 59-07 WARREN CO. PLANNING
9/12/07 CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL AREA RUSH POND CEA LOT SIZE 0.90 &
16.12 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 288-1-63, 64 SECTION 179-4-020, 179-9-020
JON LAPPER & JIM MILLER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MRS. BRUNO-Mr. Chairman, again I need to recuse myself. It seems to be my evening
for that, but last year when Mr. Schermerhorn came in front of the Board for another
project at the same site, I spoke as a public, and I spoke, just last week with our Town
Counsel regarding this and we’re in agreement that it would probably be better that I
remain as the public and not as a Board member this evening.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you. The floor is yours, gentlemen,
whenever you’re ready.
RICH SCHERMERHORN
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Hi. Rich Schermerhorn for the record, and I have Jon Lapper
with me and a few other people which we can introduce in a little bit. I think a lot of
people remember me from, it seems like it was just yesterday we were in front of
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everyone, but it was actually January 24 when I came in for the multi-family project. I
won’t be too long, just a brief history. I came in with a multi-family, under the zoning that
was in place, and I voluntarily withdrew the application, based on a lot of the public’s
being opposed to the project, and the property currently in as it was is PO zoned. I have
come back with a project which is a tenant, or not a tenant, a user for an office building.
They’re a local company in this area. They’re actually the third largest employer in
Warren County right now and we’re hoping that we can get through some of the
concerns and issues that I know are going to come up tonight, but I just want to mention,
the last time I was here it was a very sensitive subject, and I did say it’s possible, I didn’t
know what the future would hold, but the chances are I’d be back with some sort of office
proposal. I’ve already gotten some mixed reviews from Staff comments and just, you
know, suggestions and things, but all I want to say is I’m here to work with everyone, the
best that I can. I know that parking was one that came up by Staff, and I just want to say
another thing that for the 20 years I’ve been in front of all the Boards, Planning, Town,
ZBA, I’ve never had to lie on any of my applications. I could have presented this without
even asking for a variance for the parking. I could have submitted the Site Plan with the
required parking, built the building, because it will take about a year, then come back and
asked for the, you know, the extra parking that the tenant is requesting, but the parking
that we have on there is what’s requested. So I don’t want to talk too long because I
know there’s a lot to go over, but I’ll let Jon just say a few things.
MR. LAPPER-For the record, Jon Lapper. Just some preliminary comments and then
we’ll have Jim Miller walk you through the Site Plan, and what we were thinking is that
since there’s some public here, far less than the crowd that we had a year and a half
ago, perhaps we could listen to them talk next and then we can respond to their
comments, you know, depending upon how the Board wants to handle it, but just some
general comments about the Site Plan. What Rich is proposing provides 57% green
space when 30% is required. So in terms of what he’s proposing on the site, it’s a lot
less intense than what could be there. There was talk in the Staff Notes about whether
this should be a two story building or a one story building. It’s designed as a one story
building to reduce the visual impact which was something that the neighbors had
mentioned last time, but this site could easily support a two story building with the same
footprint, which would be double the square footage. We could still be within the 30%
green space, and just do much more development than what Rich is proposing, but by
doing it this way, this is what’s there. It’s only going to be a one story building. So he’s
certainly not overdeveloping the site. We looked through the minutes of the meeting last
time, and there was a lot of talk by the neighbors of rural character, and, you know, we
believe that, even though, going up Gurney Lane of course it’s beautiful and there’s rural
character, here we’re right next to an Interstate highway, next to the County office
building. It’s certainly very attractive, but it’s not rural character, and what we’re
proposing, as you’ll see when Jim goes through the Site Plan, is very well buffered from
the Northway, from West Mountain Road, and the only area of the site where it’s not
going to be naturally well buffered we’re proposing a lot of landscaping, and certainly
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
that’s stuff that we can talk about. We’ve submitted documentation from DEC that we’ve
addressed the endangered species issue, traffic report, and we have the traffic
consultant, traffic engineer here. As you know, Rich is proposing to add a traffic signal
at the southbound ramps, which is something that we all know needs to happen now,
and so he’s going to fix a pre-existing problem as well as make it so it can accommodate
this tenant and this project. He’s proposing to bring the sewer line underneath the
Northway and size it so it can accommodate the County buildings as well. So there’s no
septic impact. All of the stormwater is being infiltrated on the site, so there’s no impact
on the adjacent CEA. The lighting plan has been submitted. There was a little bit of spill
right at the entrance drive, which was done on purpose to make sure that that’s safe, but
everything that we’ve done, in terms of the engineering work we’ve done to comply with
the Code, and as Rich mentioned, the only thing that’s different about this is that we
need additional parking for this particular tenant, you know, in general for this particular
use, this type of office use, but even that said, since we’re at 57% green space, it’s not
like we’re doing anything that you shouldn’t do on the site. So, those are my general
comments. At this point, I’d like to ask Jim to walk you through the Site Plan.
MR. MILLER-Good evening. The project site is 17.8 acres. It’s bounded on the east
side by the southbound ramp. The existing site, it’s fairly flat on the upper side, on the
upper end, and it slopes from north to south, and if you look at the aerial photo, there’s a
large sand and gravel pit on the southern portion of the property. The proposal was to
do a low profile building, one story, 85,000 square feet. This gives us multiple entrances
around the building. The entire building would have a walkway and be landscaped
similar to the elevations and photos that were shown, that were submitted in the
package. This allows us to distribute the parking so there’s multiple access points. The
main circulation is developed off West Mountain Road, a boulevard entrance that comes
in to create a formal entrance to the central lobby where most visitors would arrive.
There’s very few visitors, actually, for this type of facility. Then there’ll be a loop road
around the building to provide access to all the parking as well as to provide emergency
access all the way around the building. The parking proposed is 537 spaces. The Town
Code requires that 10% of the parking lot is in islands. So we’ve put a heavy grouping of
islands especially on the front portion of the parking lot. We’ve calculated over 13%. So
they exceeded the 10% requirement. These islands, we’ve tried to do them where
they’re substantial, so that we could do some berming within the islands to help screen
and break up the parking lot even further. The grading of the site, part of the plan is to
reclaim the area that’s the sand and gravel pit and to accomplish that we’re actually
filling about half of the pit as part of the project, and in grading of the site, since the site
slopes from the north to the south, the site will be graded in a way that the northern end
of the project will actually be cut into grade, you know, resulting in recessing the parking
lot on the sides where it would otherwise be visible, acting as a berm. It will just be an
earth berm on the north and the south and the area along the west side there’ll be a four
foot retaining wall so the cars that are parked in that area will be behind that retaining
wall, and then there’s additional buffer planting above that. The area, there’ll be existing
vegetation that’ll be maintained. The parking is set back 50 feet from the property line at
the minimum along the Northway. So the vegetation around the perimeter outside that
grading area will be preserved. The planting, the landscaping that’s required in the
parking lot is, I believe it’s one tree for 15 cars, which was, I think 36 required. We have
66 trees, not counting the perimeter buffering that we have. The grading of the site, the
stormwater, the roof water, you know, being a sand and gravel pit, it’s very well drained
soils. The roof water will be collected in a series of I believe eight infiltrator beds which
will be underneath the parking lot. The parking lot water is collected and subject to DEC
Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan requirements. The southern portion of the sand
and gravel pit will be reclaimed and graded. We’re looking at two stage pond to provide
pre-treatment detention and infiltrator of the stormwater in that reclaimed pond. All this
old stormwater will be retained on site. There’ll be no point discharge off of the site. The
site lighting, one of the Staff comments was that some of the lights didn’t appear to be
cut off. I think that was a comment of the detail. The intent is that there’ll be cutoff lights,
it’ll be basically three styles of lights. As you can see from the building elevations, the
photos, there’ll be canopies at many of the entrances. So there’ll be recessed canned
lighting around the building. The second level of lights will be a cutoff pendant, a
decorative style light. I believe it is 16 feet high, and they’ll be used along the walkway
so there’d be more in scale with the lower building. So entirely around the building we’d
have the 16 foot high lights, and then down the boulevard, those lights are used again as
an accent and in that case there’ll be a double pane fixture to accent the landscaping in
the entrance to the front of the building. The larger parking areas in the perimeter road
will be 20 foot high, high pressure sodium cutoff lights. There’ll be one sign. There’ll be
a freestanding sign at the entrance. It will meet all the Code requirements and setbacks.
One other comment, it shows on the other plan, there’s also, we’ve recognized the desire
for the Town to have a bicycle connection. That would be provided for as an easement
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
across the property by the connection to Gurney Lane from the south. I guess with that,
I’ll turn it back to Jon.
MR. LAPPER-I guess that’s our summary at this point. So whatever the Board’s
pleasure is, whether you’d like to ask us questions or you’d like us to listen to the public
first.
MR. HUNSINGER-What’s the pleasure of the Board?
MR. FORD-The public.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, they’ve waited a long time.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Before we start taking comments from the public, I’ll just
remind the public, the purpose of the public hearing is for the public to comment on the
application. I would ask that you direct any comments or questions to the Board, and we
will try to get answers for you to the best of our ability. I would like to try to limit each
speaker to five minutes, if possible, because there are a number of people here, and I’d
like to give everyone an opportunity to speak. Just finally, you know, before you make
your comments, if you could identify yourself for the record. We do tape the meeting
minutes, and then minutes are published on the Town’s website and are available for
public review. So, having said that, who would like to be first? Yes, sir.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
DENNIS FRANKLIN
MR. FRANKLIN-Dennis Franklin, West Mountain Road. My property adjoins the one
property on West Mountain Road, and I’m a partner in the balance of the property. I
guess my first comment is, why did the Town do this, you know, we’re all wasting a lot of
time here. Mr. Schermerhorn certainly shouldn’t take offense. I’m pissed at the Town for
ever rezoning this, and I don’t like the threats that Mr. Schermerhorn says that, well, if
you didn’t like my houses, so now I’ll give you this. The Town needs to provide
ourselves, the staff, I mean, the general public, you need sections through these plans.
Do you know what I mean by sections?
MR. HUNSINGER-Elevations?
MR. FRANKLIN-A section which shows the existing grade, and then the proposed grade,
that’s very visual. Now, when they talk about reclaiming a gravel pit, I mean, it’s all
vegetated now, except for a few slopes. So, I mean, that word shouldn’t be in there.
They talk about filling for a parking lot. It’s 20 feet of fill. Does everybody know that? Do
you guys all know that?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we do.
MR. FRANKLIN-Okay. How does the public know that? How is that put across to the
public? How does the public go read a grading plan like that, even if you’re qualified,
and I do it all the time, and then you have to have the time. We need you to require that
you provide sections through the building and through the long and the sides of the,
wherever you change the grade more than two feet up or down, so that all the rest of us,
who don’t have all day to do it, and we certainly appreciate you taking your time, can look
at it and say, my God, they’re raising that point 20 feet, or they’re lowering it. The other
comment I would make, there’s no reason why all the stormwater on that site can’t be
recharged underneath the parking. There’s no reason for retention ponds there. That’s
cess pool technology. We don’t need it, and to say that all the stormwater is not going to
be affecting the CEA is insane. When you get those 547 cars dripping fluids onto the
blacktop, where is it going? Is it going to stay up there in that parking lot forever? No.
Recharge it under the parking lot. Put in a filter vault, filter the material out. I mean,
you’re intruding, you’re shoving this down a neighborhood, because Warren County or
whoever got greedy about it decided that we needed to move all those employees from
one place in Town to another, and just because it happens to be next to Warren County
property or across the street from the Northway, does that justify we just keep moving all
this into a residential neighborhood? I don’t think it does, but if it’s going to be done, it
needs to be done right. You don’t need to clear out an area to probably borrow fill to
raise the parking lot and call it recharge basin, and that’s old. That soil soaks up
material, soaks up water. That’s how the bank of that existing sand bank has stayed
there for 30 years like this. There is no runoff. So, I’ve just got to say that you need to
provide, for all of us, a way to analyze this. We need sections through this. We data up
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
on that Board that shows where the cuts, where the fills are. Building lighting, I know we
keep talking about the fixtures. What concerns me is how long are the lights going to be
on in the building? If there’s windows in the building, how late are they going to work?
How long are they going to be on? Are they going to turn them all on for the wow effect?
How long are they going to be on when the maintenance crew goes in there to clean
that? That’s a bigger consideration to me than the lights in the parking lot, and when we
talk about wattage, we just heard a guy say, well, we took out 400 watt lamps and we
replaced them with 175’s, but you all know that you can take a 100 watt incandescent
bulb and use a 30 watt fluorescent bulb and get the same lumens. So we can’t say, well,
they’re only going to be these small lights, because we have much more efficient lamps
today, and high pressure sodium, while it does save a lot of money, and they’re a great
fixture, I install them whenever I can, does not belong in that orange glow in a residential
neighborhood, that I don’t think anyone likes. We put up with it because we know it
saves energy, and where’s the snow going to go? A one foot snow on that site is going
to yield us roughly 8400 cubic yards of snow. Where is it going? I mean, we potentially
have seven months without leaves on the tree and snow. How does it get piled up.
Warren County already dumps it on the end of the road and it sits there for months and
months, all black and full of junk. Now we’re going to have five acres of it. We need to
see that in the sections. We are going to pile our snow up eight feet high before we haul
it away, and then if you do come to plow that lot after the one foot snow in a residential
area, how are you going to plow it? Are you going to have three or four front end loaders
going in there at four in the morning so when everybody shows up to go to work, and all
that noise is out there. When the plow goes by it’ll wake you up, but the plow goes by.
That’s going to stay there and plow five acres. That needs to be addressed. I want to
see that on a plan, where is that snow going? And if you do decide to haul it off, how
much commotion are you going to create with 8500 cubic yards of snow? Now I’m not
against this project. I’ve given up on the Town doing good planning, but now let’s see it
go in right. I don’t want to see another Warren Tire, or another Queensbury Tire. I don’t
want to see stuff all over lawns. We don’t police everything. I mean, you have one
person in a wheelchair file suit in this Town, you’d close every convenience store and
take all the wood off the front lawn, get the RV’s off the lawn. You need to tighten it up.
We’re all suspicious when anybody comes in here. Because there’s no follow through.
When you talk about berms aren’t maintained. You should make them bond them, and if
they don’t maintain them and keep them green and fresh, go to the insurance company.
Anyway, I’ve shot my wad. I’m sorry I’m emotional about it, but it’s an emotional subject.
You’re putting that in a neighborhood, and that’s all we get to see about it is a bunch of
grade lines. Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Who’s next? Yes, sir.
BOB FALLMAN
MR. FALLMAN-Bob Fallman. I live up on Gurney Lane, and I can’t say too much about
the project because I don’t know a whole lot about it so far. It’s just a bunch of lines on
there. I am a little bit disappointed that it’s such a massive project with 537 parking
spaces, which probably means 537 cars, and that leads to a problem. Right now, this
summer when The Great Escape’s open, you can’t even get across that bridge. I’ve
come down there in the morning several times and I have to go over across West
Mountain because it’s gridlocked. That light there in front of the Municipal Center,
everything gets caught in there. Cars are backed up trying to get off on the southbound
into the roadway on the Northway, a very dangerous situation. Same holds true on the
south side when they’re trying to get off at Exit 20. They’re backed up on the roadway.
There’s already gridlock here for 10 weeks of the year. I mean, and now we’re talking,
even 100 cars in a half an hour would be way too many. You can’t get, trying to get
through there now, it’s gridlocked. In the afternoon coming home, I have to go up on
Aviation Road. Several times I’ve had to turn around in either Martha’s or Suttons to go
home, because it’s backed up there at those lights. You’ve got like four lights in a row
there, and it’s just gridlock. People get caught in between the lights. They don’t move.
The traffic can’t go from the other direction. Nothing goes. It takes forever to get in. I
can’t understand why an employer would want to put his employees in an area where
they’re going to be late every morning because of traffic, where they’re going to have to
deal with a terrible traffic situation going home. This is lost money to an employer. I just
don’t see that, why he would want to do this. This is basically a residential area with
residential traffic lines in here, and I heard they were going to put a traffic light at the
southbound exit. That’s not going to help anything. Nothing’s moving there already.
People get so frustrated waiting to get off on that southbound line that they just pull out in
front of you. They don’t, I guess they figure, you know, I’ve been here for 10 minutes or
5 minutes, it’s my turn to get out and I’m going out come hell or high water. You just
can’t move on there. You’ve got the trucks coming from 149 that are trying to get down
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onto the southbound lane on there. The people are trying to get off to go over to the
County Center building on there. You can’t move, and now you want to put another 500
cars in there? And you’re not talking about 500 cars in the day. You’re talking about 500
cars 500 cars probably within a period of a half an hour when they’re all reporting to work
or when they’re leaving or when they’re going to lunch or when they’re coming back from
lunch. This area will not support that type of traffic. One last comment on it. I’m rather
disappointed that, you know, when you talk about leveling a whole area off like that,
you’re going to knock down every tree in sight, and I don’t know what they plan, I can’t
tell from what they’re planting on how big these trees are going to be, but from what I’ve
seen when they build another commercial building in here, you get a little stalk on there
when you’re replacing a tree that might have had a 12 or 14 inch diameter, something
that was, you know, more appropriate to the area. I would have much rather seen
something like what’s directly across from Mr. Schermerhorn’s office there, I think they
call it Bayview there where they’ve got a number of different doctor’s offices in there
where it’s all in there where they left most of the trees in there, where they made it look
basically like a residential area. Something like that would go in there well and there
would not be any opposition to it whatsoever, but this is really a massive project. Five
hundred cars trying to get in there, and now, the other thing they mentioned was that the
Bike Trail was supposed to go through that area. Now the County was talking, and I
don’t know where this stands right now, but they wanted to link that Bike Trail up at the
Bike Trail on the other side of the County office buildings. That bridge there, you can’t
even walk across there because it’s only a two lane bridge. There’s a space about that
far on each side of the roadway there to move across, and now you’re going to put more
traffic on there? It just doesn’t fit. It just doesn’t fit. That’s about all I’ve got to say. I
guess if I have to say anything positive about it, I’m glad he made it one story.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Who’d like to be next? Yes, ma’am.
JANE MACKINTOSH
MS. MACKINTOSH-My name is Jane Mackintosh, and I’m a resident and property owner
on Gurney Lane. I travel back and forth on West Mountain Road to do shopping and
banking, and I consider West Mountain Road part of my neighborhood as well as Gurney
Lane. I’m not really going to say much new, but I’m going to echo the comments of the
previous two speakers. For Mr. Schermerhorn’s agent to say that the character of the
neighborhood includes the Northway and the County office buildings is really a specious
argument. Certainly those features exist, but they do not define the character of that
neighborhood. In part, the character of the neighborhood is defined by the fact that there
are large stretches of undeveloped land, that there’s still woods, that there’s still, back,
you know, almost back roads. West Mountain Road is a nice road at this point in time,
almost on the verge of too much traffic as it is, but it’s still a pleasant road to drive on.
It’s a usable road. There’s no way that West Mountain Road can handle 500 more cars.
It’s absurd. The character, if you talk about a project such as this and what’s the impact
on the unique characteristics of the area, it’s obvious that the area is unique, and the
unique characteristic is that it does not have a project like this. That’s a plus for the area.
It’s a residential neighborhood. My only other comment, I assume that the client that is
being talked about is the Travelers Insurance Company. Is that true?
MR. HUNSINGER-It has not been identified to this Board, no.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Is that ever going to be identified?
MR. HUNSINGER-It is not necessarily a requirement of Site Plan Review to know who
the tenant is, other than the use of the tenant.
MS. MACKINTOSH-And what about sort of the larger planning issues? The reason I ask
is because if it is Travelers Insurance, then what does the Board or the Town propose to
do with the space that the Travelers Insurance Company now occupies? What kind of
planning is involved if you take a business that already is working within the Town in one
facility, one large facility, with what I would think is pretty ample parking, and, you know,
facilities and traffic issues already set and working, and take that business from that
space and move it into a rural area, or a more rural part of the Town. What happens in
the space that that business once occupied? I don’t know how you can call this
planning. I understand that your task is Site Plan Review, but the big picture is what’s
going on with the Town and who’s job is it to look at, you know, those kinds of impacts?
If it’s Traveler’s, what’s going to go in the Northway Plaza, and if it’s not Travelers, then
who is it? I think this is something that we deserve to know, and that’s the extent of my
comments. Thank you.
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MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Mr. Salvador?
JOHN SALVADOR
MR. SALVADOR-Good evening. My name is John Salvador. I’m a resident in North
Queensbury. To answer this lady’s question, what do we call this, what do we do when
we move one business from one side of Town to the other, we have frequently called it
economic development. I’d like to address the issue of wastewater. The proposal is to
connect to an existing municipal sewer service. That existing municipal sewer service
happens to be an extension of the Quaker Road Sewer District. I don’t know what
number it is, 9, 10 or 11, I can’t remember, but that’s what the Route 9 corridor was
developed as, an extension of the Quaker Road Sewer District. There have been many,
many extensions. None of the extensions have been the subject of a comprehensive
environmental review. They’ve all been treated as a segmented project. In any case,
the sewer district that exists on Route 9 has been laid out to accommodate the users
along that corridor. Most of them aren’t even tied in. They’ve gotten exemptions. I’m
sure the system is, at the present time, tremendously underutilized. However, space is
there for those people when they need it, those district users. I don’t know if this project
can be accommodated in this system. Downstream you’ve got line sizes, you’ve got
pumping stations, pumping capacity. Where is it all going? It’s all going to a bottleneck
in Quaker Road. So I think that has to be thoroughly analyzed and a Supplemental
Environmental Impact Statement should be performed on the Quaker Road Sewer
District, the original project, and I see really, myself, I see no need for this. The
wastewater discharge from a professional office building nowhere matches that from a
domestic use, a residential use. I should think they’d be able to somehow treat the
wastewater from this facility in an innovative way, recycle it, use it somehow for irrigation,
some use, before they have to bore under the Northway. This is why we have what we
call today urban sprawl. Make them live on the land that they’re developing. Maybe they
don’t have to do as much with the land. They have to conserve a little, but the issue of
wastewater, to me, is extremely important, and I think that a comprehensive look at what
we’re doing in this whole area of Town, with regard to wastewater, should be addressed.
Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Yes, sir.
RICHARD LINKE
MR. LINKE-Good evening. I’m Richard Linke. I live on Gurney Lane, and we’ve been
through this before. I have some comments that I would like to make, and I want to think
about the overview here, not the details, because this isn’t going to happen. So there’s
no need in talking about details. It’s my belief that the zoning and the planning laws are
supposed to protect the quality of our community, to control uses that are thought to be
incompatible, and to prevent new development from being harmful to existing residents
and businesses. Now that’s the general overview of what government is all about. This
is inappropriate overdevelopment for this site, and it seems to me that laws change a lot,
especially zoning laws, and I think we’ve witnessed tonight some pretty fuzzy
interpretation of laws, and this is the point that I’d like to make, that there are some laws
that change, and there are some people and corporations that use the law.
Schermerhorn is saying, well, I have my rights within the law. There are other laws I
want to get to in just a minute. Mr. Schermerhorn and his limited partners want to do
something that the people of this community do not want. We’ve already shown that
before, and that was just a small part of the kind of support that we can muster if we
need to do prevent this overdevelopment from happening. The original zoning, back
when the zoning first started, this was supposed to be, it was the Town Planners who
decided that it would be wise not to have this be heavy usage, and in fact to have it be
residential, for good reason, low impact, and not have the commercialism that we see on
Route 9 jump the Northway. I’ve talked about that before. It’s inappropriate for this
neighborhood. The people have spoken before, loud and clear. If Mr. Schermerhorn
had done his homework before he made this investment, he would have realized that the
community leaders don’t want this in the past, and the community itself right now doesn’t
want it in the future, the spread of development across the Northway. When this got
rezoned somehow into Professional Office space, I think that somebody was thinking,
well, Professional Office space is kind of low impact, and I think we all have a concept of
what Professional Office space is. This is a factory. This is a huge, huge, gross
overdevelopment. This rezoning of this land, which is a classic example of spot zoning,
which you’re not supposed to be doing, you’re not supposed to be condoning, and it
shouldn’t have happened, and I, for one, recommend, that we have some kind of a class
action suit and have some kind of court go back over the records and see if this zoning
change was indeed legal, because I know of no one who received notices in the
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neighborhood that this was going to happen. It was bad. It doesn’t seem to have been
following proper procedure, as far as I can see, and we could spend years in court, if you
would like to, to challenge the legality of that zoning change. Okay. Now, the
community has already rejected his past proposal, and when he decided to withdraw
that, notice that he tried to sell the property. It was For Sale. He couldn’t find a buyer,
apparently, because it’s a bad investment, and I believe that if he had done his
homework and realized the sensitive nature of this property, between the recreation
center and Rush Pond, this is not the place to sandwich in something like this. He
should have done his homework, and now he’s wanting the Town, he’s wanting you, to
sanction and wanting us to bail him out on a very bad investment. Now, I would love to
be bailed out on all my bad investments also, and I hear the Board talking about, well,
our citizens should have due pay back on their investments and whatever. I’m sorry, he
made a bad investment, and now look what he’s trying to do, get the big guns, intimidate
the Town, and try to make as much money as he can, and I’m saying that this really is a
rape on the land. It’s not right. Now, I’d like to get talking about laws just for a minute.
He can hide behind the law. You can interpret it. You can, we have lawyers. They love
this kind of thing, but what about the laws of commonsense? What about the laws of
density and overuse and the law of good stewardship toward the land. These are
universal laws, and they don’t change with politics and local developers. Even simple
birds know not to foul their own nest. Look what you’re doing. I ask Mr. Schermerhorn to
not ruin our community, not to rape the land, even if he thinks he has a legal right, and I
would like to say that just because something is lawful does not make it right, and I would
like to end with a very shocking statement here. Our government in Iraq, killing
thousands and thousands and thousands people, it’s legal, but it’s not right, and, Mr.
Schermerhorn, go somewhere else.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else?
JOHN SACORICK
MR. SACORICK-My name is John Sacorick. I live at 1161 West Mountain Road, which
is approximately a half a mile within this project. I think back and I think what kind of
businesses are on West Mountain Road, and as far as I can remember, all the way down
to the Ski area, there’s only four businesses, period. Two of them being landscaping
businesses and one of being a veterinary service and the other one being West
Mountain Road, or the Ski area, excuse me. I don’t understand why we have to have, on
our end of the road, a complex such as this. I’ve been here before. I’ve talked about this
project before. Mr. Schermerhorn has carved up Dix Avenue. He’s carved up
Meadowbrook. He’s carved up Bay Road, and now he wants to come into my
neighborhood and carve my neighborhood up. There is not a single street light on West
Mountain Road. I respect my privacy that I don’t have street lights where I live. I don’t
have large lights on my building. I have five and three quarter acres of land. I built on a
very small portion of my land. I left the rest natural, because that is the way that portion
of West Mountain Road is. Lehland Estates was built. It was built way back in. It was
built very tasteful and so forth. I wouldn’t have any problem having single family houses
in this area, but certainly not a commercial venture like Mr. Schermerhorn’s talking
about. I believe that we need to stop carving up our neighborhood, and this is really an
atrocity to me. Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, sir.
BUTCH REHM
MR. REHM-My name’s Butch Rehm. I live about a mile off Gurney Lane from this
location. I’ve lived there for 35 years, and I’ve been up before this Board, I don’t know,
six, eight, ten times with people that wanted to do the same thing. I feel just as strongly
now as I did before. I’d have to agree with Richard. If Mr. Schermerhorn was aware of
the history and how much the people care about this land, maybe he wouldn’t have
bought it in the first place and made this attempt. Whether it’s a housing development
which is the original proposal or an office proposal, it doesn’t make any difference to me,
and probably to the bulk of the people who are here. His attorney described this as not
really rural. Well, it may not be quite as rural as it is on the sides of Gurney Lane as
you’re going up, but it’s a heck of a lot more rural than it will be if that business complex
is built there, and that will just be the beginning, as far as I’m concerned, of a slippery
slope, so that that will then become another part of the Town of Queensbury that is
overdeveloped. I’m sure, and I agree with Richard, that if this continues to be a plausible
alternative, there’s going to be a lot of fighting going on, whether it’s a lawsuit or what it
is, it’s just not right. Leave this part of Queensbury alone. It’s been rural for all the 35
years I’ve lived there. We fought to keep it that way, and we’re going to keep fighting
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until we do away with the mentality that it has to be there. Take it someplace else.
Thanks.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else?
JOHN STROUGH
MR. STROUGH-John Strough. I’m the Town Board Councilman for Ward Three, and
this project’s in Ward Three. Well, let me just preface it by saying that we rezoned this
Professional Office because the Federal Highway System has asked communities to not
allow residential units ideally closer than 1,000 feet from an Interstate. Okay. It’s not a
good idea because of the pollution and the negative impacts that an Interstate has on a
residential development. Given that, it certainly wouldn’t fit for Light Industrial, and so as
you go through the commercial and the other types of zones, Professional Office
seemed to be the best fit. However, when we rezoned it Professional Office, we were
kind of in a turmoil over a project being proposed on Bay Road and it was kind of an
urgency to get our Professional Office matters out of the way quickly so that, you know,
we didn’t have something happen in the community that generally a community did not
want. So, one of the options was, and I wrote this up, was a Plan B, as a Professional
Office Zone B, designed for areas that have a rural nature to them and that might be
adjacent to sensitive environmental areas, and yet allow some development. Now
Professional Office Zone B was more along the line of what we see in Evergreen, what
we see on the west side of Bay Road. It’s the boulevard entrance. It’s fully mature trees
and it looks very residential. You wouldn’t even know that it was Professional Offices.
So it was kind of a low impact Professional Office that was being proposed here. We
never got around to accepting this, but there’s a lot of things we never got around to
doing. Unfortunately, this is just one of them. So, given that as a preamble, we have to
go to the background as well, and that is our two Comprehensive Land Use Plans, in ’98
and the one that we have today. I don’t know if you’ve gotten a copy of the new
Comprehensive Land Use Plan. Okay, and, you know, I’m not going to state this
project’s good or bad, and I don’t know what you’re going to do to make it fit, good luck,
but let’s get all the information out on the table. All right. The 1998 Comprehensive
Land Use Plan, and I’ll be referring to Goal One on Page Three, I’m going to summarize
these, but I’m going to give you the text, or where I got the origin of them. S1.5, which
you find on Page Three, S5.3, you’ll find on Page Five. Rush Pond will be discussed on
Page 27, and on Page 30 and on Page 40. You’ll also see references to this area and
recommendations ERI Page 41, ER-4, Page 41, ER-5, Page 41, Map 3-3,
Recommendation TR-2. I’ll summarize what you’re going to find if you refer to that in the
’98 Comprehensive Land Use Plan. That we protect and maintain the rural character
and visual quality of the Town. More specifically the lower third of the property east of
West Mountain Road and south of Gurney Lane is in the Rush Pond CEA. Then in
Section One in the Introduction, it says the challenge for the future is to accommodate
projected growth in a manner that will preserve the qualities which make people want to
live in Queensbury, protect open space, and sensitive ecological and land use areas,
and provide opportunities for increased tax revenues and employment, and that’s one
reason why we zoned this Professional Office. It did provide increased tax revenues and
employment, which is good, but the question here, I think ultimately is this too good for
this particular parcel. I don’t know. You’re going to have to wrestling with that, but I’ve
got more. Queensbury’s natural setting is one of its most attractive features. Natural
systems are important to air quality, surface and groundwater quality, providing habitat
for plant and animal species and recreational opportunities, along with being a visual
amenity. It’ll be increasingly important to remember this in coming years when the more
readily developed sites are used up and the more environmentally sensitive areas
become the next focal point for proposed development. Now, my five minutes is up, and
I can come back, Mr. Chairman, if that’s your preference.
MR. HUNSINGER-How much more do you have?
MR. STROUGH-Well, I’d like to make some references to the Open Space Plan which
has currently been adopted by the Town, and then I have some other references to the
Comprehensive Land Use Plan, but at large, I can summarize them.
MR. HUNSINGER-Please.
MR. STROUGH-At large, it describes this particular area of concern because it’s visual
asset, and Gurney Lane is recognized as one of the visual roads, and the treed
development, but its rural nature. I mean, it’s basically residential, but it’s also near the
Critical Environmental Area of Rush Pond, and our Open Space Plan talks at great
length about preserving and being concerned about the Rush Pond Critical
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Environmental Area. So that summarizes that, and I guess I also summarize, you know,
Professional Office B, which is, like I said, a clustered development, an orthodontist,
dentist, light medical, services that would provide the neighborhood. It would be
clustered, shared parking, treed, I mean, very residential looking. That’s, ideally, what
was planned for there, and, you know, I ran that by many of the neighbors who are here
tonight. They were comfortable with that. Now some didn’t want to see anything there,
but Mr. Schermerhorn has the right to develop it, and the community has a right to some
tax revenue and provide opportunities for professional services. So then sometimes you
have to balance all this, okay, and then I have several references that I can come back
later that talks about our newest Comprehensive Land Use Plan, but, you know what, it’s
going to kind of repeat what I just said in the ’98 Comprehensive Land Use Plan, but I
can make those references if you need them for the record, but if you get the gist, I can
sit down in a minute, but I’ve got one more little thing if I may.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure.
MR. STROUGH-If you find that this project can fit here, and it’s going to fit what you think
is the community sense of what they wanted for here, then I would ask that the light
poles not be commercial, that they be, and even the parking lot lighting be low,
decorative, Victorian, you know, something low that doesn’t stand above the trees. I’d
like to see a greater buffer, 75 or 100 feet of natural woods on the West Mountain and
Gurney Lane side. So that, you know, it would be, once secondary growth comes in,
once it’s exposed to the light, you allow some of this secondary growth, the ground
growth, to come in in the next five years, you will not even see this building, and possibly
a roundabout instead of a traffic light at that intersection. That would be something that
you’d have to work out with the State, but I think a roundabout would be more acceptable
than a traffic light, and some other things as we go. I don’t know if you’re going to close
the deal here tonight or not. That’s up to you. I probably doubt it, but that is up to you.
So, given that, and I’m not saying, you know, kill the deal. I’m saying that, you know,
you’ve got a difficult job of trying to make this fit, and good luck. Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you.
MR. SIPP-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, ma’am.
KATHY FRANKLIN
MRS. FRANKLIN-I’m Kathy Franklin. I live in the adjoining property, and have for the
last eight years. It’s really hard to follow John, and all of my neighbors. I think there’s
been an enormous amount of anger and fear expressed, and I think largely that’s
because we love where we live, and because of the way things are proposed and the
amount of, or the lack of information that we have to work with, and also because of the
history of this particular parcel. We have a fair amount of suspicion and lack of good will,
as neighbors, which is not a good way to start any project. Something is probably going t
go there at some point. I think, I don’t know what it is, but I don’t know that it should be
something large. I think if you drive up Bay Road and you look to your right, and you see
these giant, square, nice colored buildings that are fairly similar, in fact very similar to
one another, and then you look to your left, you’ll see one story, multiple buildings that
turn out to be Professional Office buildings, but who’d know that? You wouldn’t know
that necessarily, that sort of fit into the landscape and work fine. They’re not rural.
They’re not suburban. They’re something in between, which is sort of what that area is.
It’s not rural exactly, although I hear Bard Owls in the morning, and I have deer in my
backyard. So we’re not talking Quaker Road here, and we’re not suburban. So it’s hard
to know what that parcel is, but when you zoned it Professional Office building and
Professional Office building was a zone that incorporated everything, pretty much
everything from fruit stands to drycleaners. I mean, and John’s talked about that that’s
an unfinished piece of business, and that’s a very, you know, it’s a huge hole to have that
as an unfinished piece of business, and that’s what leads to people calling it spot zoning.
It’s not zoning yet. It doesn’t have any definition. Zoning is about definitions. Anyhow, I
think we just need to think about choosing, whether we want to look at the right or the left
hand side of Bay Road, and we’ve also got to think carefully about what happens when
you pull a sewer from one area to another. Because there’s an adjoining property on the
other side of West Mountain Road, which is also potentially, in fact, it is zoned
Professional Office building, and it abuts the cemetery and Old West Mountain Road,
which is a rural road. What happens is, you know, you get one large building and you
get another large building, you get another large building, and pretty soon, you know,
Target moves in. I don’t know if it’s, you know, the other thing is that you can do, again,
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John, you’re a hard act to follow, because if you’re going to go ahead and do something
like this, you might look at like what State Farm did. At least they put their building far
back from the road. Yes, they were near an interchange on the Interstate, but they didn’t
totally screw up Exit 12 doing it. So there are ways of doing it, and one of that is just to
hide what’s there. That’s not hidden. That’s it. Thanks.
MRS. STEFFAN-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? Yes.
LEN FOSBROOK
MR. FOSBROOK-My name’s Len Fosbrook. I’m with the Economic Development
Corporation here in Warren County. I understand this is a very emotional issue. I am
here on behalf of the Corporation to provide the Board, if you please, with a little
background on the client, or the customer. We’ve been working with them for a number
of months. They came to us and they said we need to relocate into another building.
We need about 80,000 square feet of office space. They are one of the largest
employers in the Town, in the County, with some four to five hundred employees. As we
always do, we said if you want to fit within our development plan, here’s some of the
choices, and we’d like to put them in priority of our development plan. First of all, we’re
trying to fill the CNA building in Downtown Glens Falls to provide a customer base for the
stores and the restaurants that we hope to fill Glen Street with, and that would be our first
choice. If you can make a deal of the owners of that building, we’d like to see you there.
They attempted to do that, but for some reason couldn’t come to an agreement on terms.
So we said our second choice would be to keep you in the City of Glens Falls, to add to
their tax base, because we think they need increased tax revenue, and our second
recommendation would be the Tech Meadows site, which is owned by the City, which
Queensbury allowed the City to annex that land into the City, just for that reason, but for
some reason, when an offer was made to the City’s LDC, they turned them down and
said we don’t want an office park there. We’re looking for tech jobs. So they passed up
a significant amount of revenue. When they came back, after that disappointment, our
next goal was to keep them in Warren County. You may know that we’re developing our
own industrial park out by the airport. So we recommended that to them, because the
infrastructure isn’t in, and because of the distances from the Northway. Because a lot of
their employees commute on the Northway, they ruled that out, but we would have
happily put them into that park if they so desired. So we’ve come down to our fourth or
fifth choice to keep them in Warren County, and that’s when we introduced them, didn’t
introduce personally, but gave them references to, here’s a developer that does a lot of
professional offices. We gave them a couple of developers. We also talked about the
Carey Industrial Park out, also, by Exit 18. That is the series of events that brought them
to this site. We didn’t know exactly what site they might show up on. It doesn’t have
Empire Zone designation. So there’s no benefit package that goes with this. I think this
client is just looking to stay in Warren County and find a suitable home within the County.
So that’s how this came about. I don’t think it was any intent to place them there, other
than the need to keep these jobs currently in the County. I understand how emotional
this is, but I would hope that mitigating some of these comments and finding a good
resolution to meet everybody’s needs could be done, because we certainly don’t want to
have to replace four or five hundred jobs that we currently have here. Thank you, and if
you have any questions for me I’d be happy to answer them.
MR. HUNSINGER-Any questions? Thank you.
MR. FOSBROOK-Thank you.
MR. FORD-Well, yes, I do have one. This is one of several sites. Obviously perhaps
you have other sites in mind.
MR. FOSBROOK-They have another site in mind which is not in Warren County, but
we’ve pretty much exhausted the sites that we have for a project this size. As you know,
about 80% of our County is inside the Blue Line. That leaves us about 20% of our land
mass to accommodate large businesses. I can’t think of another site in the County
currently that’s zoned for this.
MR. TRAVER-Other than the ones that you’ve mentioned that they’ve thus far been
unable to make work.
MR. FOSBROOK-Yes, other than the previous options.
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MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you.
MS. MACKINTOSH-I’m Jane Mackintosh again, and was the last gentleman’s name Len
Fosbrook?
MR. HUNSINGER-Fosbrook.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Fosbrook. I would ask him if tonight he’s been made aware of the
emotional nature of this project and the community feelings about it, and opposition to it,
is there any way that he, as an economic development officer, can use his influence to
perhaps convince the client to go back to the Downtown Glens Falls site, the insurance
building or the Tech Meadows site. I mean, he was vague. He did not give any details
obviously just now about why those two negotiations failed, but is there any way that the
public can find out the nature of those negotiations and can we have any input into that
process to influence those negotiations or to encourage the economic development
department to work harder to make one of those other sites more agreeable to the
client? Is that making sense?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think he heard the message.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Is there any way that he could respond to that, or that you could ask
him about that?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I mean, again, the purpose of a public hearing is for the public
to comment on a specific project. It’s really not to engage in a public dialogue or
discussion about other options, other opportunities.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Right. Is there any venue where that actually can take place that
you know of?
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, other than maybe the Town Board or, you know, to make a
personal appeal to, you know, the City of Glens Falls where those sites are located. I,
personally, don’t know of any other way to do that.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Or to the economic development.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MS. MACKINTOSH-Okay. Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’m sure his phone number is in the phone book. Is there anyone who
did not speak yet, that would like to have an opportunity to comment? Yes, ma’am.
TANYA BRUNO
MRS. BRUNO-Good evening. Tanya Bruno from Gurney Lane. I’m going to be very
careful this evening, for obvious reasons. Anyone could probably see me talking with
myself as I debate between property ownership and their rights and the importance of
the community and our neighbor’s rights. What I’d like to just ensure is that the
information that I have seen that is a public, that’s public knowledge. Correct?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MRS. BRUNO-I just wanted to clarify that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure. I mean, anyone that wants to come in, you know, anyone that
spoke this evening or anyone that has an interest in this project can come in to Town
Hall and has a right to review the case file, down in the Community Development office
and see the materials that we’ve all viewed for this evening.
MRS. BRUNO-Okay. Therefore, I’m not going to say very much this evening, because
we’ve had a lot of great comments this evening, but I am going to stick to what I am
comfortable and that which I have not noticed the applicant showing us and I think the
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neighbors would be very interested, and that is what’s been proposed for the
architectural design. All I can say is, are you kidding me? Challenge your architect. We
had talked to the applicant last year, as a community, and I believe the Board at that time
had stated that they wanted to stick to the Adirondack style because of where the
property is located, and we got something that is, could not even be considered
attractive for Albany, and that is a very commercial area, as we all know. I’d like to ask
permission to leave this on the board, or whatever, for the public to be able to see, the
photographs that Mr. Schermerhorn supplied to the application. I guess that’s it that I
want to say this evening.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you.
MRS. BRUNO-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone else that didn’t speak yet? Okay. Mr. Linke.
MR. LINKE-Just a couple of nice calm words here. I hope that the Queensbury officials
and people in charge of this don’t get too excited about the almost threat that, gee, these
jobs are going to leave Warren County or that somehow this is, you know, that you’ll be
heroes if, or the Town Board will be heroes if you’re able to keep this company in
Queensbury. I think we’re filled up, Queensbury is, and I think it’s a pretty good place to
be, and I think if you really look around, do we need more, more, more? Do we need
more? I think we’re pretty much filled up, just the fact that we’re talking about this as
being one of the last places on earth in Queensbury to build. We’re pretty good. Let’s
leave it the way that it is and let’s be neighborly. How about if this company needs more
space they go to the airport park or how about Fort Edward or Hudson Falls? Wouldn’t
they love to have some company like this move in? It doesn’t have to be in Queensbury,
and I just want to make sure that you’re not frightened, or that somebody’s not using this,
that, hey, you know, we’re going to be losing tax base and we’re going to be losing jobs,
because I think there’s enough money in Queensbury. There’s enough development.
There are enough jobs. There’s enough homes, and there’s not much more room. So
maybe we could share with some of the surrounding communities and that would be
wise planning, rather than what we’re facing here. Thanks.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, sir.
DAVID BRUNO
MR. BRUNO-Hi. David Bruno, resident of Gurney Lane. There’s just a few points I
wanted to make. One thing that keeps coming up and John said it and it was said
previously about Federal government wanting us to remove housing from the edge of
large highways. In my profession, I travel all over New York State and the east coast,
and much of it by air. They can’t sink a shovel fast enough near highways to build
houses. Just drive up and down the Northway and you can see that. That’s Number
One. So, either we’re the only ones that want to abide by that idea or, you know, we’ve
been fooled. Number Two, five hundred parking spaces seems to me to be a problem
for the developer, that he is taking that on himself and after sitting through several of the
meetings for the new development plan for Queensbury, one of the things that Saratoga
Associates stressed was that you should never grant exceptions to this plan once it’s in
place, except under really significant duress, and I see this as a problem that the
developer is creating for himself. So if he needs more parking spaces, he needs to
either find a different site or scale back his ideas. Granted we do need to have jobs in
the Town, but, you know, there are appropriate places, and if the Town has seen fit to
zone this area such that it accommodates a smaller space, well then he’s going to have
to live within that. It would seem to me that he would need to live within that zoning, if
that’s what the Town has put down, and the noise pollution from 500 cars, if you’ve ever
been stuck on the Northway, either coming north or going south during rush hour, around
the twin bridges, the idea of scale is lost here. Five hundred cars, you pack three lanes
of the Northway 500 cars, that’s a long stretch of vehicles, a lot of pollution, a lot of noise.
To jam that in this area, which, again, we’re not supposed to, if we’ve made a
Comprehensive Land Use Plan, we’re not supposed to be granting large waivers, seems
to be excessive. So that’s all I wanted to say.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? If you’d like to come back to the table. I’ll
open it up for questions, comments from the Board.
MR. TRAVER-Well, I’d be interested in knowing if the applicant has any responses. I
know it’s obviously very early on, since the public has just spoken, but do you have any
comments on any of the remarks that were made or suggestions?
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MR. LAPPER-I guess, in general, you know, we’ve sat through a much more negative
public hearing a year and a half ago, with many more neighbors present, and I guess just
a general comment is that, and I know that the Board is more familiar with looking at
obviously at Site Plans than the neighbors, but what Rich attempted to do on this site, I
mentioned it briefly before, is not to max this out. I mean, when he’s coming in with 57%
green space, he is sensitive to the neighborhood. He understands that although this is
zoned appropriately for what we’re proposing, that there are neighbors, not immediately
there, but that drive by. So what we tried to do was to come up with a Site Plan that did
not put as much building, I mean, he could build twice as big a building on this site, and
lease it out. He’s not trying to do that. This site is well buffered. If you look at the Site
Plan, if you look at West Mountain Road, a significant portion south of the entrance is all
green, staying the way it is, next to where that sand pit will be reclaimed, and I think that
you just have to keep in mind an office building is a very quite use, and a one story brick
office building is tastefully done, sort of a cocoon in the middle of this site, and the one
area of the site which is next to West Mountain Road will be well landscaped. This is,
people refer to this as a commercial use, and an office use is very different than a
commercial use. It’s not going to have a lot of people traveling here during the day, other
than the employees who are there. The 500 cars don’t all come at the same time. We
have the traffic engineer here. We’ve got all those numbers. We submitted that to the
Board, the detailed traffic report, and the traffic light will remedy the existing situation,
which Rich didn’t create. So we think that, because this is right next to the Northway,
many of the employees will be traveling to and from the site, from the Northway. It takes
traffic out of the residential area, out of the neighborhood. They go right to the Northway.
It’s really very efficient, and for all the things that could be done on this site, this is really
a project that is in scale. It is really small scale with what you could do under the Zoning
Code, on 17 acres, and that’s not what we’re here asking for.
MR. TRAVER-What do you anticipate the hours of operation of the proposed tenant?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Our traffic consultant actually has the hours of operation and
stuff.
KEN WIRSTEAD
MR. WIRSTEAD-Hello. I’m Ken Wirstead with Creighton Manning Engineering, and the
hours of operation would pretty much be similar to a very, to a normal office, in the sense
that most people are getting there between eight and nine, and leaving between five and
six. Similar to my office, our employees are allowed to have a flexible schedule. Similar
here, you know, you may have employees arriving at six o’clock in the morning, because
they want to get there early. They want to leave early in the afternoon. They work their
day and then they take off. Likewise in the afternoon, you’ll have people leaving the
office building anywhere from three o’clock and dwindling down in numbers until the
peak hour of five to six when a majority of them are going to be leaving and then you’ll
have some stragglers who are working late, and they leave six or seven o’clock up to
eight o’clock, but those numbers obviously dwindle down to 20 to 10 cars, you know,
later in the evening.
MR. TRAVER-So it sounds as though you would anticipate the bulk of the employees
would be arriving and leaving during the traditional rush hour periods?
MR. WIRSTEAD-Correct.
MR. TRAVER-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-In looking at your traffic study, on Page 15, I see a lot of E’s and F’s, and
D’s. I’m no traffic expert, but that’s not good. That’s even with the improvements.
MR. WIRSTEAD-With the improvements, well, there are a lot of E’s and F’s out there.
Part of that issue is with, obviously the summer traffic is going through there. We had
done through and updated some of our traffic counts, because originally we had counted
them in the winter, and we had to estimate what was happening in the summer and
factor everything up, you know, estimate what Great Escape was generating, factor that
in. So, a couple of the intersections we actually went out and recounted during the
summer, Great Escape was open. They have their new ring road completed, and the
results of that from our previous report to this report have actually gotten better, because
the factoring that we did in January to come up to summer overestimated a lot of that
information. Regardless, there are still some timing issues at Gurney Lane and Route 9.
Those can be corrected by modifying the signal timings. The one major issue is
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obviously the southbound off ramp of the Northway to Gurney Lane. It operates at a
Level of Service F in the morning, with about 116 seconds delay, and in the afternoon it
operates at a Level of Service F with about 600 seconds of volume. So that goes to the
gentleman’s comment about people were just pulling out because they’re frustrated that
they’ve been sitting there for so long. With the project and no improvements, obviously
that’s going to get worse. So, with the improvement, the improvement’s designed to
provide a gap in the Gurney Lane traffic, allow the people to come off the Northway and
reduce that queuing, reduce the frustration, and reduce the delay overall. In the
morning, with that improvement, you’re getting rid of that Level of Service F. In the
afternoon where you have a Level of Service F of 600 seconds, you’re improving that
operation by about four times, bringing that Level of Service of F of 600 seconds down to
still an F, but it’s only 116 seconds.
MR. SEGULJIC-But it’s still an F.
MR. WIRSTEAD-Correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-Which is failure, if I recall.
MR. WIRSTEAD-Correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s not a good thing.
MR. WIRSTEAD-No. It would be nice if we could get that down to a D.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s with the improvements.
MR. WIRSTEAD-Correct, and the improvements are mitigating and then some.
MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re saying even with the improvements you’re going to have
failures there?
MR. WIRSTEAD-Correct. The improvements are designed to mitigate the project, and
then some, and that’s what the improvement is doing.
MR. SEGULJIC-So this project is going to have significant impacts on the traffic.
MR. WIRSTEAD-Incorrect.
MR. SEGULJIC-You’re going to have F’s.
MR. WIRSTEAD-The Level of Service F that’s there now has a delay of 600 seconds.
With the project and with the improvement, that delay will go down to 116 seconds. So
it’s an improvement of about four times the amount of the existing delay, from 600 down
to 116.
MRS. STEFFAN-I live in that area, and I really, I read some of the some of the traffic
information, and I really questioned it. If you came and did the traffic study on a Friday,
that would probably be a better indicator than some of the statistics that you used. Yes,
the intersections all around that area are jammed on the weekend, but this is a Monday
through Friday use. However, on a Friday, most folks would probably have to take the
West Mountain access out of this area, or get on the Northway. They would not be able
to get, they could probably get to Gurney Lane, Gurney Lane and the intersection of 9,
but it would take them a very long time, and the queue would be enormous, and it would
affect the traffic patterns in the area. I’ve lived there for four years, and I’ve watched the
traffic patterns change over time, and it is absolutely jammed on Friday, and so that
would be a day of great question for me. So you might want to look at the statistics on a
Friday.
MR. WIRSTEAD-And that’s of particular issue, not just up in Queensbury, working down
in Wolfe Road. It’s the same issue down there, Friday afternoon in the summer, you
know, I personally, I’ll stay late. I’ll stay until six o’clock, you know, to avoid the traffic
there, but it’s from Exit 24 all the way up to Lake George, Saratoga.
MRS. STEFFAN-Now, we have a dysfunctional traffic element that was by design with
the Lake George Outlets. I mean, those Outlets were designed with that two lane strip
so that when people get fed up with the traffic queue, and pull in and shop for a while,
and we get a great deal of sales tax revenue as a result of that, but it doesn’t do much for
the traffic patterns in that area. It makes it extremely dysfunctional, and getting off of the
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(Queensbury Planning Board 09/25/07)
Northway, at Exit 20 is horrendous, you know, during long weekends, Fridays, and
certainly, again, it’s the weekend, not when this business would be utilizing, but, you
know, during that transition time, people going on Monday, when they stay over, and
you’ve got RV’s and tractor trailers and all those folks that are coming down through the
Outlets and 149 to get into that area, and then on Fridays when you have a
concentration of people coming up to the area, and I don’t know what it is about that
particular intersection, but people, they take a wrong turn or something, and then they
end up in that grassy spot, well it’s dirt, it’s across from the DPW garage I think it is.
There are people that are parked there in RV’s, tractor trailers, tow trucks. I don’t know
why they’re there, but they’re there very frequently. So I’m not really sure what’s up with
that, but it is a factor, you know, when you’re looking at building a very large complex like
this. So there’s some strange anomalies.
MR. HUNSINGER-Did you give any thought to a roundabout as opposed to a signal
light?
MR. FORD-Yes, I was just going to ask the same question.
MR. HUNSINGER-Because I know, you know, I think anyone that drives into the center
of Glens Falls, I mean, that’s a huge improvement, and certainly the ones down at Exit
12 work very well also.
MR. WIRSTEAD-Not specifically in this case, because one of the big issues is the
proximity of the bridge to that intersection. Because the bridge is right on top of that
intersection, it’s difficult to do any widening there without impacting the bridge, and that
particular section isn’t just one bridge. It’s one bridge that spans the southbound
direction of the Northway. It comes up to a berm and then there’s another bridge on the
other side. So, you know, obviously that’s a huge task to take on.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure.
MR. WIRSTEAD-And certainly I think, you know, although there isn’t anything on the
plans or on the books now I believe for DOT to replace that bridge, I would think that if
they do need to re-do that bridge, that they will look at providing some other
improvements to, you know, that area, perhaps a widening, even just to provide
pedestrian access across it might be appropriate. They did something similar, obviously,
when they did Exit 12. They needed to replace the bridge and, you know, they included
the intersections, the on and off ramps as part of that proposal. Mr. Lapper just
reminded me, obviously the applicant’s responsibility is to mitigate the project, and I think
we’re showing that with the traffic signal improvement, obviously that is falling under
DOT jurisdiction. We’ve submitted the traffic study and the reports to them, and then
we’ll go through that process with them reviewing the project, and reviewing the
mitigation and so forth.
MR. FORD-I’d like to raise a concern that I did with another applicant just last week. Did
you find any sources for your accident reports, other than DOT, which is substantially
outdated information?
MR. WIRSTEAD-DOT is our primary source, simply because all the information that
comes in to the local police all gets fed into the DOT system. Sometimes there are a
year or two behind. Obviously, you know, an applicant that came up maybe a week ago
isn’t going to be in the DOT system.
MR. FORD-What was the most recent DOT information that you secured, what years?
MR. WIRSTEAD-The information that we had available at the time was through, it was
1999 through 2002.
MR. FORD-So the most recent was five years old.
MR. WIRSTEAD-Correct.
MR. FORD-Okay. Did you make any effort to contact State Police, local sheriff’s, or any
of the emergency responders?
MR. WIRSTEAD-No, simply because the effort that goes into getting that information
from the State Police and the local police departments is very time intensive. They don’t
necessarily sort all their information by an accident that happened on this particular
intersection. It’s usually sorted by the date of when it happened. So you have years of
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accidents that you have to go through, on different corridors and so forth, and trying to
find an accident that may have happened on a particular date or in a particular section.
You know, there’s going to be reams and reams of volumes of that information, and in
terms of an effort to do that, it’s just not cost efficient. It’s not practical to go through that
process. So we’ve always gone to DOT and their safety management office to obtain all
that information.
MR. FORD-It may not be cost effective or efficient, but do you mean to say that the State
Police local do not have a record of the number and frequency accidents that have
occurred in 2003, 2004, 2005, ’06 and ’07 at that particular location?
MR. WIRSTEAD-Not that I’m aware of.
MR. FORD-How about the Sheriff’s Office?
MR. WIRSTEAD-Not that I’m aware of.
MR. FORD-Did you ask?
MR. WIRSTEAD-No.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Actually, the last time I was here, a year and a half ago, with the
multi-family, there was information that we did have to get from the County that was for
the placement of our driveway, and I do have information prior to this that I will find about
accidents at that intersection. Because someone brought that up a year and a half ago
when I was here, and I know I can provide that.
MR. TRAVER-Where did you get that information?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I want to say Penistan.
MR. LAPPER-Lisa Penistan at the DPW.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Yes, DPW, because there was concerns about the entrance to
the multi-family project, and they were specific where they wanted for sight distance to
put our entranceway, and that was a question that I rose, I remember that somebody had
asked, I don’t know if it was Staff, but that was something that was checked on, and to
my knowledge, if I remember, there’s not a lot of accidents at, very few that I recall, that
was mentioned at the West Mountain and Gurney Lane intersection. Now going over the
bridge on Route 9, that I don’t know, but we can ask.
MR. LAPPER-We can ask the County.
MR. SEGULJIC-Now, with regards to your traffic counts, if I’m understanding you
stnd
correctly, you did your traffic counts on August 1 and August 2, which were a
Wednesday and a Thursday. Now I don’t know, but I would think the highest traffic
volume data would be Friday.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right, but wouldn’t you, I’m just thinking out loud for
commonsense, the traffic, and I know, because I live in Lake George for the summer,
and I’m still up there right now. Friday afternoons are brutal, at every single exit,
because everyone’s coming pretty much, they’re all heading north. If you were to think
about this, when they’re leaving, I would think that the ones that live in sections of Town
are going to take a left out of the entrance of our project, or they’re simply probably going
to take a right, and easily be able to take a right and a right and get on the ramp. With
our traffic signal they’ll probably have to wait if they’re going to go north, but we also
have percentages that were given to us by the employer. They give us a percentage of
how many people do live north of the proposed project, and we could probably get that,
and I’m sure there’s a percentage that do live north. How many, I don’t know, but we
could probably get that information.
MRS. STEFFAN-That would be helpful, because I think, you know, when we did the
build out study, we were projecting a growth rate in the area of 20%. Certainly when we
look at the numbers of, you know, just our traffic impact of the area from 2002 to now, it’s
significantly greater than it was. I know that, even for me, you know, when I’m leaving
during the tourist season, I’m heading up to Exit 21 to get on the Northway, because I
don’t want to fight the Exit 20 stuff. So it is an issue for the folks in our area.
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MR. SCHERMERHORN-I won’t ever sit here and tell you that traffic’s not an issue at that
exit or at 19. I mean, I take the kids to school in the morning’s now and Exit 19’s brutal.
All of them are, but all I can say on the subject of this matter, with this property, we’re
making the situation better, not great, but it is better with the traffic light than it is now,
and that’s counting our new people in there. So, it’s still not a great situation, but it’s a
better situation that exists now, and that’s with the, you know, of course putting the traffic
signal light in. I know Bill Thomas because I spent a lot of time at the County with this
project. This is a project that was discussed openly. It was publicly advertised and I was
in the newspaper a couple of times for it with the County. They were going to propose
on my property 112,000 square foot building, three stories, with 525 parking spots. I
actually have the draft plan. It’s public record up at the County. It was definitely being
considered, but the project’s on hold right now for the simple fact that when the general
public found out it was $35 million to build this, they decided to put it on hold right now.
So, you know, this is, again, going back to the traffic, I agree with you. It’s a situation
that’s there, but I think we have it in a lot of different locations. I’m not saying it’s right or
wrong, but I’m willing to do what I have to do to do what we can.
MR. SIPP-Not to belabor the point, but I have a lot of sympathy for the residents. Having
lived through a subdivision which happens to be next to what is now known as the
County correctional facility. At that time we were told by the County we had no rights at
all, which we didn’t, and we listened to what they were going to do, or where they were
going to put this facility, and we did a little mitigation, very little, which we were able to
push through due to the work of the Sheriff at that time, and we did get the facility moved
back 50 feet. So instead of being 100 feet from a residence, it was now 150 feet. There
was some other things done, such as putting up a berm and doing a solid plantation of
arborvitae, which helped. We removed some of the lights, the lights on the facility to be
downward pointing and so forth. Just to say this, that I may have sympathy for you, but I
also know that Mr. Schermerhorn has a right to use his property. So can we work
together with some kind of mitigation, maybe some startling plans, such as why not a two
story building, hide it back in the woods as far as possible, or hide the parking. Can we
not eliminate the possibility of toxic fumes by sealing this building up and having a
filtration system that would work to prevent any toxic fumes from getting in there? Can
we not move it in such a way that it will not in any way endanger Rush Pond? Are there
things that can be done? If there aren’t, I fear that this project may be in trouble. Let’s
not be all totally negative here in the fact that there is jobs at stake, and if somebody who
is presently in the Town of Queensbury working for this company is now forced to leave
employment because this is going to go elsewhere, are we not impacting the Town of
Queensbury in that way? So let’s work on this together rather than setting up a rigid
stance on either side and say, no, we can’t have this or yes, we will. Let’s try to make it
in such a way that maybe we can solve some of these problems, and come out in the
best way for both sides.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I definitely am not taking a stance. I don’t think I ever have with
any of the Boards. I’ve always been, listened to the public. I’ve always listened to the
Town. Sometimes it’s not a 100% happy resolution for either side, but I certainly will
work. The two story building, and I did hear two, I wrote the names down, but there was
one gentleman that preferred to see it one story, and I do remember Mr. Fallman, the
one that was the Skidmore professor, I remember, rooftops were a concern with a lot of
the comments. For a developer, it’s always cheaper to go up than it is to spread out. I’m
not opposed to doing this two story building. Our tenant did prefer a one story building,
which I said, hey, great, they didn’t want tall buildings. I’m not opposed to a two story
building. Of course, the way the application is presented now doesn’t mean that there
can’t be change, but I hope there certainly can be between the public and the Board that
we can work something out. I’m more than willing, and I certainly want to apologize to
the audience if they ever thought I bullied anybody or have been threatening. That
comment was made earlier. I am more than willing to work to try and make this work.
So I’d like to start tonight if we could find some ways.
MR. FORD-That attitude is appreciated, as opposed to basically a take it or leave it
attitude.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right. That’s never been me.
MR. LAPPER-I wanted to just point out, Rich’s history with the Board is long, and look at
the Bay Road office park. I mean, John Strough was on the Board at the time, and in
terms of the design of the buildings, the landscaping, the setbacks. I mean, a lot of stuff
was negotiated and compromised, and Rich has always taken that position. So I
appreciate Don’s comments, too.
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MR. SCHERMERHORN-At that time, Bay Road, I just want to remind, bring back up.
When John was working on the Comprehensive Land Use for Bay Road, I actually did
the design that was envisioned before it was even enacted. It was two years after before
it was actually, the zoning went through. So I have done things that have been
envisioned to be done, even though they weren’t Code. I’ve never been stubborn, I’ve
always wanted to think I’m reasonable. So hopefully we can move on and figure
something out.
MR. HUNSINGER-I had the same comment as Mr. Sipp about, you know, looking at a
two story building. I mean, you save a whole acre of stormwater management, you
know, I mean, 85,000 square foot building, if you reduce that to, you know, a 42,000
square foot footprint or roughly there, but you’re right, you do increase the height of the
building and the potential for visual impact. I don’t know where the tradeoff is on this
particular site, but maybe there’s a way that we can address that through some visual
impact analysis to look at the tradeoff between the one and two story building.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-See right now from the Northway, with a one story, chances are
you’re not going to see the building because there is quite a buffer of natural trees, and
the Northway is quite a bit lower, because when you head south and go down that ramp,
you’re actually going downhill. So the chances are the Northway people are not going to
see this building. If it goes two story, there’s a possibility they could see it, but the one
story you definitely won’t see it. I shouldn’t say definitely. I don’t want to generalize, but
I’m pretty sure you’re not going to see it from the Northway. The other thing is it is kind
of built into this site. There’s actually, on the north side, on West Mountain Road, there’s
a split face block retaining wall, and actually that’s four foot above the parking lot, which
means any cars that pull in, SUV’s you’ll probably see the rooftops on, but we have kind
of lowered the site down, which only helps from the visual aspect from the Northway and
West Mountain. Can we make it better? Maybe, but I’m not opposed to a two story, but I
think that may be the tradeoff. We’re going to now see it from possibly the Northway.
MR. SEGULJIC-When we talk about visual impacts, what I’d also be interesting in seeing
is the visual impact from, when you’re traveling north on the Northway, and you crest that
hill, just after Exit 19, before you get to Great Escape and you can look across. Will we
be able to see it from there?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-As a one story, I don’t believe you will see it. because it’s pretty
heavily treed out there now.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I’d like to see that as a visual impact. I’d like to see that
determination and see what it’s going to look like.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Okay.
MR. SIPP-But you’ve got some 40 foot white pine in there that will screen quite a bit.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-As a matter of fact, I mentioned that when I came in with the
multi-family project. There are a lot of eastern white pines, and the nice thing about
eastern white pines is when the seasons change, it’s not like an oak tree where they lose
their leaves and they’re just sticks. They keep needles year round. So there is a
significant amount of coverage.
MR. SIPP-I think traffic is your biggest bugaboo here, traffic and probably lights, visual
impact. The lighting has to be subdued in such a way that it’s not going to be seen by
the neighbors. Staggering the traffic I think is a good idea, or maybe, of the 500 cars you
have 150 in one hour, and 150 in another, and another 150. So that’s it’s made so that
you don’t have the impact of the 500 cars going in one spot at one time. That’s not
saying I’m going to vote for you, but.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Well, I’m certainly going to try to.
MR. SEGULJIC-One of my big concerns is obviously the Critical Environmental Area.
We don’t have much direction on it, but under the definition of Critical Environmental
Areas it says, the reviewing entity will consider the impact of such actions on the specific
environmental characteristics contained in the designation of the CEA. What have you
done to address that?
MR. LAPPER-Well, we don’t believe that we have any impact on the CEA because it’s
stormwater and it’s stormwater and it’s visual here, and it’s buffered.
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MR. SEGULJIC-You built into it, though.
MR. LAPPER-Yes, but the CEA is 500 feet from the actual resource, which is Rush
Pond.
MR. SIPP-But a two story would pull you out of that.
MR. LAPPER-And Rich said he would consider a two story, and if we did a two story, it
would pull us north, and that’s also the site, the part of the site where he explained he’s
doing the cut. So it would be more down into the ground and into the CEA.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I’d like to see you out of the CEA.
MR. LAPPER-Well, there’s not a requirement. We can’t impact the CEA, but there’s not
a requirement that nothing can be done in the CEA. We are infiltrating all the stormwater
on site.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, once again, I’d like to see you minimize your impact on the CEA.
MR. LAPPER-Okay.
MR. FORD-I concur with that.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, we’re talking a lot about specific issues, and, you know, we’ve
dealt with both of you many times, and I think we’ve got a level of trust. We’ve asked you
to do lots of things, and you’ve changed your plans often, and I think of the Haviland
Road project which is coming along, but you know I took a look at this project from a
couple of different perspectives, and I’ve got a long list of concerns that I have about it.
Yes, I live in that area. That’s pretty common knowledge, but, you know, the zoning
exception for the parking concerns me. The traffic issues concern me. The size of the
building, the building design, the amount of parking that’s there, all that results in lost
green space. We’ve got a Critical Environmental Area right there. The visual impacts of
taking down all the green and putting in an office building, whether it’s one story or two.
It’s just, we’re taking that green space away. From my point of view, that area is the
gateway to the Adirondacks. We’ve developed 17, 18, 19, and once you drive down the
hill from Exit 19 and you’re almost to The Great Escape. You look out at the vast
expanse and you see the Adirondacks and you think, I’m here, and if you’re going on
vacation, you drive down that stretch of highway and you think, okay. I’m in the
Adirondacks, I’m in the mountains. If we shave off another piece, and we put an office
building there, we’ve spoiled that view. We’ll never be able to change that again, and I
just think that that’s important to bring up. Because we went through the whole exercise
with the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, and I’m thinking about that particular site, and
we want to bring sewer to it. That will, I’m thinking about today’s impact, and I
understand you want to build this office building, but I’m also thinking about the long term
consequences. I think that’s what we’re supposed to be doing on the Planning Board.
Once sewer goes across the Northway over there, even though it’s an extension, there
will be ancillary businesses that will want to be there.
MR. LAPPER-Don’t forget the rest of that is zoned residential, except right at that.
MRS. STEFFAN-For now. You know this parcel was rezoned once, and so that isn’t to
say that there won’t be future pressure to change the area around, and I’m not talking,
obviously the residential areas are already developed, but just as an example, if the
sewer comes across the road, when we were finishing up the Comprehensive Land Use
Plan, somebody who has a large piece of property on West Mountain, right down the
road from you,.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-John Strough.
MRS. STEFFAN-Was talking about a PUD, and so if, no, this was somebody, this wasn’t
John. This was someone else. It was a developer who came in with a plan. It was at
one of the very last meetings, and I can assure you that if sewer came across the
Northway, he would come back with a PUD that had twice as much density as he had
proposed and just showed us when we were finishing up the Comprehensive Land Use
Plan, and so I’m trying to think about future consequences of making some of these
infrastructure changes. We can’t go back. Once we change this we can’t go back, and
so I’m just, I want to be really careful, you know, as we consider what should be there. I
understand we don’t want to lose the jobs, and I’ve read the debate in the newspaper
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about the tech site and all that other stuff, but we need to weigh and consider what’s right
for the Town, and I’ve got some real concerns about, not just today’s development, but
future development and future consequences.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right, and I understand. I know that the County’s very
interested when I bring the sewers across. They’re definitely, it’s been sized, developed
for the County to use my sewers. Across the street, a large parcel is Mr. Strough’s. He
didn’t say he has any intentions of developing it, but he said himself tonight that there’s a
stream that runs through a good portion of it, and there’s a very small sliver. So it’s
highly unlikely that that’ll be developed into any large scale project. Going down Gurney
Lane, of course, is very mountainous. The zoning is, I think, it’s three or five acre zoning.
I’m not saying it couldn’t change in the future. I understand what you’re saying.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, there’s people clamoring to develop the watershed property, and
so if sewer came across the road, what’s next?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right, and I understand, but, and again, I’m just trying to defend
myself. I’m a developer. That’s what I do for a living, obviously, but your last comments
a year and a half ago, and this is just an example of, and I know where you’re going with
this, but you say very clearly, we’d really encourage everybody who’s here tonight to be
involved with the processes, so that we make sure our new Comprehensive Land Use
Plan and our revised Zoning Codes reflect the wants and needs of the community, bring
all the neighbors and friends. This is an opportunity for the entire community to review
some basic concepts and themes, revised Comprehensive Land Use Plans, thanks. My
point there is I went through and I FOIL requested, after that night when we had over 100
people in this room, and four out of the whole room, after it was stated, I even publicly
said when people have these concerns, where were the people when the zoning was
done? I didn’t place it there. I’m only going where I can do these things, but the public
involvement, I said it before, is important, and now here I am, and I’m supposed to make
sacrifices. I didn’t make a bad investment on that property, as stated I bought a
property that I felt that was zoned, and I thought it was, it’s a property that I know I can
meet all the requirements. That apartment project, at that time before they changed the
1,000 foot setback for the multi-family, I met all zoning requirements. I had an engineer
signoff letter from C.T. Male, but we never even got there because I pulled it because the
residents were really upset, and then we went on to the, like tonight for example. We
have a verbal from the Town Engineer on all the engineering concerns that were
addressed with my engineer. Done. It’s signed off. Archeology’s been done. Phase I
Environmental, DEC’s already reviewed our sewer, endangered species has been taken
care of. I’ve taken care of everything I can possibly think of. Traffic I knew, and I said
this tonight, I know is one that is a tough one. It’s making this situation better. It’s not
making it great, but it’s what I do for a living, but these other options for these people or
anybody else are getting limited. I know Queensbury’s filling up. I live here, but I don’t
feel that this is, yes, we have a handful of neighbors here. There’s, I’ve counted.
There’s probably ten that spoke, husband and wives, a couple are together. They
represent that neighborhood, but we also have, on the other hand, again, we go back to
the jobs. There’s a lot of people in this community, other than just this neighborhood,
that are probably concerned. Like I said, I want to continue to move forward, but I do
know this is probably going to be a tough one to address, but it is property that I’m
abiding by the rules and the regulations. I’m not breaking them. The variance, now you
brought that up about the parking, and for 20 years I’ve been coming in front of this
Board, I’ve never had to lie, fabricate, about any of the actions that I’ve taken in this
Town. I could have clearly submitted this with the required parking, that the zoning calls
for, built the building a year later, come back in front of the Board and say, hey, gee, by
the way, they need another 100 parking spots because of this, this, and this. It happens
all the time. I’m not sure, but was C.R. Bard here for additional parking spots tonight?
Maybe it was lighting and generator.
MRS. STEFFAN-We had the same conversation with Tribune.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-But it comes up all the time is what I’m saying, or office
buildings that I’ve personally built, ones that I don’t own. I drive by them. They’ve got
blacktoppers out there adding five, ten, fifteen spots to them. Sometimes it gets
overlooked, sometimes it doesn’t, but I’m just, the parking I know was going to raise an
issue, but I’d rather be honest with it so that a year from now if I come back you’re not
saying, well, are you going to do this to us again?
MRS. STEFFAN-And I don’t even know if it’s the parking spaces as much as it identifies
a dramatic impact of the area, and it’s just when you hear that many spaces, and you
think of that much impermeable surface.
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MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right, and I agree.
MR. LAPPER-But you have to look at it as 17 acres. It’s an appropriate site to have 500
spaces because it’s 57% green space, and that’s really the issue.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-And I know, because we sat here and we debated this a year
and a half ago and I said, gee, please understand that this is, and I said to the public, this
is very large parcel of land. I would love to do little office buildings like Dr. Bannon’s and
some of the smaller ones that John Strough recommended, but it’s 17 acres of land and
every bit of it’s usable. The soils are terrific. The water table’s, my God, it’s 90 feet in
the earth. You couldn’t ask for a more prime building spot for construction, but, I’m not
saying we don’t have some challenges, Gretchen, but it’s a, we are, if we don’t want
anymore growth, they don’t want Washington County. They don’t want Saratoga County.
Their people, it’s very important, their people live here. They don’t want to have to recruit
new people. Their home base is most of their majority of their people live in
Warren/Washington County. So it’s important to the people in this community I would
assume.
MRS. STEFFAN-And it’s right next to the Northway. I mean, there’s no doubt about it.
It’s a prime spot.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Yes, because if my office was located in Saratoga, it would not
even be convenient to all the business that I do in Queensbury. It’s so convenient for me
to leave my office, I can go in one big loop around and see everything, but if I was in
Saratoga, I’d eat up a lot of time, and when you take mothers that have children in
daycare at this particular business, it’s an important factor, and that was one of the
deciding factors with this company at all costs they want to stay here. So, I know we’ve
got challenges, but I still want to work with you guys.
MRS. STEFFAN-I just, I wanted to be honest and bring that up ahead of time. This is the
first time you’ve been here, and so I thought it was the right thing to do to come out with
my concerns. I’m one member of many.
MR. HUNSINGER-It’s after midnight and we have one more application. I mean, even if
we were to just list Staff comments, I mean, there’s some significant issues to address. I
know most of the comments from the Town Engineer were positive, but don’t have a
signoff letter yet. Where does the Board want to go with this tonight? I mean, we could
be here until two in the morning easily. Can we come up with a laundry list?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Is it possible to do it, do you do Special Meetings anymore? I
mean, is it possible to get on? Because this is a controversial, for that corridor, for the
Board, and the people here.
MR. SEGULJIC-Maybe that’s a good idea, because this is going to take a little while, I
think, to talk about all the issues.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, that’s what I’m saying. I mean, what does the Board want to
do? Do you want to do a Special Meeting in October?
MR. SEGULJIC-Why don’t we come up with a list of items, and we can set up a Special
Meeting.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do you want to do a Special Meeting in October?
MR. SEGULJIC-Is that going to give them enough time?
MR. FORD-Another approach would be that you and your team have listened. You’ve
had input, but you’ve also been listening to us and to the community, and perhaps you
would take the next X number of weeks and reflect upon that and come back to us.
That’s one approach. The other one is we can make a list of 25 or 30 items for you to
accomplish during that same period of time, but you’ve been listening. You know what
the issues are.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right. The items that we’re going to list are the items that
we’ve talking about tonight anyway.
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, and a couple of others. How much fill are you bringing on site?
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MR. SCHERMERHORN-We’re not bringing any fill. The fill, I think what was confused is
the gravel pit that’s there now, we’re actually dropping the site down and pushing fill from
the north end into that borrow pit, or gravel pit. That’s why we’re ending up with a four
foot retaining wall along West Mountain Road that I was talking about.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. There’s no material going off site then either?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-No. The only material coming in is blacktop and gravel for the
parking lot.
MRS. STEFFAN-There’s a big berm there, a big, sandy berm.
MR. HUNSINGER-So, can we see a more detailed cut and fill plan?
MR. LAPPER-Sure.
MR. SEGULJIC-And someone had brought up some sections across the site, which
would dovetail.
MR. LAPPER-Do you want to see that as one story and two story?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I heard one member in the audience said one story. The other
one’s, some, of course, would like not to see anything, but I guess we need a preference.
Do we want one or two? Because I’ve heard it at both ways.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I think there’s a tradeoff, and I think right now, I don’t know if we
have enough information, as a Board, to know which one might be preferable.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Well, let me be honest. Preferably to a builder, two story, it’s
cheaper. The drawback is, and I’m being honest, and I don’t want you to condition me
on this, but if I do a two story, that only means that the site allows for future development.
Right now this future development’s it. I mean, other than maybe you could add a couple
of thousand feet, but if I do two story, all that means is that 17 acres allows, because,
remember.
MR. FORD-That’s interesting, because one of the questions I had written, as I reviewed
the material, what else?
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Well, let me tell you. The County made it very clear. When I
was in front of the County, they’re building is three stories, 112,000 square feet. A
comment came, Rich, can you come back to us. We want to see, what can we add to
this for future expansion if we ever have to add on. Well, I came back. There was
another 50,000 square foot building. So 112,000 and 50,000, if you add that up, it’s
significant.
MR. HUNSINGER-It’s 160, yes, that’s twice the size of this.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-And they already had 500 parking spots. All this was public.
This was all talked about. Nobody showed up from the public. I was really shocked that
nobody from the West Mountain, Gurney Lane, that’s what surprises me the most.
MRS. STEFFAN-In the four years that I’ve been on the Planning Board now, the only
time you get a lot of public comment is when there’s an issue that’s very controversial.
We had 31 meetings, almost over three years when we were developing the new
Comprehensive Land Use Plan, and there were the same handful of people that were
there all the time.
MR. HUNSINGER-Actually, I think it was 52 meetings.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-They were proposing this building on my piece. I was in the
paper quoted, three stories. Why didn’t anybody show up then? Unless people thought
that the County, you can’t fight the County. They can do what they want.
MRS. STEFFAN-I think there’s the hope or the expectations that your elected officials
will take care of you, and there’s a misconception.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, I saw the stories in the paper, too. I don’t think the County, I
mean, you know, we publish a public notice. Notices go to the neighbor.
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MR. SCHERMERHORN-Now within 500 feet, I just want to answer that. I’ve got the list
here. Five hundred feet, there’s only nine people that are listed. Three are County
owned properties. So six people have been posted within my property.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, the neighbors spread the information.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right.
MR. HUNSINGER-The County didn’t have that same requirement. I mean, even though,
you’re right, it was a public meeting. It was open to the public. They really weren’t, you
know, as open.
MR. SEGULJIC-One other clarification. The stream that appears to be on site, or off
site, it’s right on the southern boundary.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Yes, the stream is actually, you can almost see it in the red, that
little line down the very corner. There is a stream that’s at the very base and the lowest
point of the project.
MR. SEGULJIC-And I don’t see it on your map. Is it off site or is it on your site? I realize
it’s close to the lines.
MR. NACE-It’s right at the very corner here. It’s just a real piece of it.
MR. LAPPER-We’re not touching it.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Chris, we’ve heard what you guys are looking for, unless
something else pops up, but the only consideration I guess I would need is we can do
more traffic analysis with the accident reports and that. I honestly, my belief is I don’t
know how much further I can go. A traffic light, like I said, I’m mitigating our situation.
We’re making it better than the situation that’s there. I know I can’t do a rotary. I can’t
change the size of the bridge at this point. Although the bridge has been recognized.
The County had an article three weeks about it. If I come back, I can address a good
percentage of the concerns, and the things we’ve discussed. Are we going to be able to
work through the traffic? I hate to go through this effort and then they just fail me on the
traffic.
MR. FORD-I can appreciate your concern, but I’m not going to make any guarantees.
MR. SEGULJIC-A lot of concern about the traffic.
MRS. STEFFAN-It’s a big issue.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-How about special consideration? If we can get back on a
meeting. The applicant is important. Every applicant is important, but this is a very large
applicant, or tenant. Time is of the essence. I mean, as it is, we’re going to be going
through the winter.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. No, I think what I’ve heard from the Board is we’d like to do a
Special Meeting.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Okay. Who would I contact? Would it be, go through George?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, you’d go through Staff.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-We’d probably have to do it in November, though.
MR. HILTON-Well, it sounds to me, if you’re talking about a, you know, view shed
analysis or a profile and cuts and fills and, you know, alternate stories and things like
that.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-We can be back in two weeks with this stuff.
MR. HILTON-You’ve got to get that information into us so we can get it off to you and our
consulting engineer. There’s kind of, you know, how long is it going to take them to turn
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that around, and then does it fit into our schedule to get things out to everybody that
needs to review it. If it’s going to be something where the information comes in, if they’re
thinking November, I mean, perhaps they could have it in for the October deadline and
we could see them in November.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I guess that’s what I was thinking .
MR. HILTON-If you’re thinking about a Special Meeting in October, I think another thing
you have to consider is we’ve got two full meetings. I think there’s another meeting
planned for discussion on CEA’s. Do you want four meetings next month?
MR. SEGULJIC-Can we have it in early November?
MR. FORD-Yes, before our normal meeting.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think that’s what we’re looking at. Have a submission deadline of
th
October 15 for an early November meeting. Have just this project, on a Thursday
evening maybe. Is the room available most Thursdays, or only certain Thursdays? Do
you know?
MR. HILTON-As far as I know most, but I would have to check. I don’t know for sure.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Okay.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I’d appreciate if we could do it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Okay. The difficulty is, you know, I did leave the public hearing
open. Typically we like to specify the date so that we don’t have to re-advertise.
MR. LAPPER-What if we said the first Thursday in November?
st
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, we don’t know if we’ll have the room first. November 1.
MRS. STEFFAN-That’s the first Thursday in November, and Election Day is that
Tuesday.
MR. HUNSINGER-It works for me. The only thing is I don’t know what we do if the
room’s not available. I mean, how do we get the word to the public? I guess we’d have
to re-advertise.
MR. HILTON-You’d have to re-advertise.
MR. HUNSINGER-So I guess that’s the risk we take, which really isn’t that big a deal.
Okay. I will entertain a tabling resolution. I guess if we just state for all of the issues
stth
discussed, and we’ll table this to November 1 with a submission date of October 15.
MRS. STEFFAN-So don’t want to be specific in your motion? Just all issues discussed
tonight?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, do you want to try? I mean, we’d be here until one o’clock doing
that.
MR. HILTON-Yes. I guess the best you could.
MR. HUNSINGER-We could be a little less vague. I mean, certainly we can say things,
engineering comments, Staff comments.
MRS. STEFFAN-Detail cut and fill plan with elevations reflecting topography. That’s the
best way I know how to say it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Visual impact analysis. Additional traffic information.
MR. SEGULJIC-Review methods to reduce impact on the CEA.
MR. FORD-Traffic, traffic, traffic.
MR. HUNSINGER-One of the questions that came up was the ability of the existing
sewer line to handle the project, the Route 9.
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MR. LAPPER-We already have stuff on that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-I sized it for the County, because Mike Shaw would make that a
requirement as soon as anything was submitted to him anyway.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-The only way to stop growth, Gretchen, is if I make that sewer
line just big enough for the County and me.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, even that. I mean, it could always be made larger.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Not when you’re directional boring under the Northway.
MR. HUNSINGER-No. I think that, you know, I’ve read lots of planning articles trying to
limit growth through infrastructure. Non-infrastructure development just doesn’t work.
People find a way around it. I think those were the big issues.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Is that specific enough, George?
MR. HILTON-Yes. I mean, it gives us something to be looking for in the packet, but
obviously any new information, you know, that doesn’t, I guess, prevent us from bringing
up new issues, just so everybody knows.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Right, I understand that.
MR. HUNSINGER-And that’s part of the reason to have a Special Meeting, so maybe we
can actually work through some of those.
MRS. STEFFAN-Is the existing sewer line, is that a map plan and report?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I was just talking about capacity.
MR. LAPPER-We’re only doing the engineering now. We won’t get to the map plan, it’s
not a district extension. It’s an outside district user. So it’s not a map plan and report.
It’s a contract user.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. LAPPER-But we have to have DEC’s approval and the Town wastewater, and we’re
working on that.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Which DEC already responded to us. They just wanted a letter
from Glens Falls saying they have adequate capacity, and Mike Shaw won’t signoff until
DEC actually says, stamp of approval. Then Mike says, okay, you’re fine.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do you want to make that resolution?
MRS. STEFFAN-I believe that sewer was in the Staff Notes, wasn’t it? Wastewater, yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, Staff asked about, have they filed that map plan and report, yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-It’s right in there. I’ll make a motion.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 48-2007 SCHERMERHORN RESIDENTIAL
HOLDINGS, L.P., Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded
by Thomas Seguljic:
st
This will be tabled to a special meeting to be held Thursday, November 1, with a
th
submission deadline for the applicant of October 15. It is tabled so that the applicant
can address the issues discussed this evening, more specifically to address some of the
Staff Note comments, the Vision Engineering comments, to provide detailed cut and fill
plans with elevations reflecting topography, to provide us with more detailed traffic
analysis, and also to demonstrate reduced impact on the Critical Environmental Area,
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stth
and to include a view shed analysis. If the 1 is not available, then it would be on the 8,
st
and if it’s not the 1, then the Town would have to re-advertise.
th
Duly adopted this 25 day of September, 2007, by the following vote:
st
MR. HUNSINGER-If I could just add, if the 1 is not available, then the next available
ththst
Thursday in November, the 8 or 15, and if it’s not the 1, then the Town would have to
re-advertise.
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Ford, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mrs. Bruno
MR. HUNSINGER-Before the public leaves, and before the applicant leaves, the public
hearing was held open. I have every expectation that we will have additional public
st
comments when we do re-hear this application, hopefully on November 1. So I would
encourage you to stay involved with the process.
MR. LAPPER-Thank you.
MR. SCHERMERHORN-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you.
SITE PLAN NO. 49-2007 SEQR TYPE II MATTHEW EMMENS AGENT(S)
JARRETT-MARTIN ENGINEERS CREATIVE CONSTRUCTION OWNER(S) SAME
APPLICANT PROPOSES THE DEMOLITION OF AN EXISTING HOME ALONG WITH
THE CONSTRUCTION OF AN ADDITION TO THE REMAINING STRUCTURE, ALONG
WITH SITE GRADING, AND STORMWATER CONTROLS. EXPANSION OF
NONCONFORMING STRUCTURES IN A CEA REQUIRES SITE PLAN REVIEW AND
APPROVAL FROM THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE AV 60-07
WARREN CO. PLANNING 9/12/07 ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY YES CRITICAL
ENVIRONMENTAL AREA LAKE GEORGE CEA LOT SIZE 0.97 +/- ACRES TAX MAP
NO. 239.15-1-19 ORDINANCE 179-4-020, 179-6-060, CHAP. 147
TOM JARRETT & BILL DEAN, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. JARRETT-Good morning.
MR. HUNSINGER-Good morning. The floor is yours, gentlemen.
MR. JARRETT-Tom Jarrett of Jarrett Martin Engineers. With me tonight is Gabriel
Hodge of Balzer, Hodge, & Tuck, and Bill Dean of Creative Construction. In the interest
of time, since it is very late, we will try to get to the meat of the matter. I’m presuming all
of you have been through our package. We’re proposing a residential project, which is
reconstruction of the north wing of an existing house owned by Matthew Emmens, the
owner and applicant. The south wing would be renovated to match the new construction,
and this is all dictated by severe water problems that infiltrate the northern portion of the
house. There’s pictures in your package that show very severe water impacts in the
basement, and we need to remove that portion of the house and rebuild it with a new
drainage system. Right now there’s a non-complaint wastewater system on the property,
and virtually no stormwater management whatsoever. The house is too close to the
lake. What we plan to do to support these house improvements is build a new
wastewater system that is compliant with Town standards, and put in a stormwater
system that closely matches or meets Town standards as possible, but as you can see
from your package, we do need some variances from the Town, namely setbacks to the
lake and setbacks to the domestic well. Our stormwater system proposes, it’s basically a
two fold system. There’s infiltration in the front of the house, which is for the roof runoff,
and then there’s infiltration on the southern portion of the house. In fact, if the Board
wouldn’t mind, we’ve got some overhead slides that will show the site and illustrate what
we’re talking about.
MR. HUNSINGER-I wanted to add, the pictures of the basement were really helpful as
well.
MR. JARRETT-Good. The southern portion of the site, which is the bottom portion of the
house, the lower wing of the house, below there is where we plan a terraced stormwater
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system. It would be a sand filter with a discharge from that sand filter into two terraced
rain gardens. It would then overflow into the swale going to the lake. So it basically gets
filtration and then bio retention infiltration before it flows to the lake. We would bypass
the existing well, which doesn’t happen right now. The drainage goes right next to and
over the, around the existing casing. We would protect that.
MR. SEGULJIC-Could I ask you a question?
MR. JARRETT-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-That stormwater control you mentioned, that’s Detail A on D-1, I
assume?
MR. JARRETT-A on D-1. Have you got D-1 there, George? Yes, A on D-1. In fact,
there’s a colored rendering here in front of you.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right.
MR. JARRETT-If you look at the upper left corner, that’s the sand filter. Basically all of
the driveway runoff, and a significant portion of the roof runoff in the rear of the house
would go into that sand filter, flow through that sand filter and get treated, as you would
wastewater through a sand filter. There’s an under drain at the bottom, and that would
spill into those two terraced rain gardens, and then eventually flow into the lake after it’s
treated.
MR. HUNSINGER-Does the sand filter become plugged? Does it begin to lose its
effectiveness over time?
MR. JARRETT-It would, but we have some peat material at the top which basically filters
it and would be cleaned with their normal landscaping maintenance.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. JARRETT-So we think we’ve gone a long way toward upgrading this site
environmentally, from a wastewater and stormwater perspective, and we do need
variances because of the proximity to the lake, but the treatment overcomes those
variance needs, we believe. So, I’ll let Gabe give you a brief overview of the structure
and what we’re doing with that, and then we’ll entertain questions.
MR. HUNSINGER-If you could take the mic with you, please.
GABRIEL HODGES
MR. HODGES-Okay. Basically what we’re doing is renovating the existing house,
replacing the north wing in kind, to almost the same footprint. On the lakeside of the
house, the lines don’t change. Where we have wood decks on the ground, we’re
changing the material to stone. We’re replacing an existing wood deck with a screened
porch. We’re extending the garage slightly, on the side away from the lake. Currently
there’s a very large two car garage, and by adding a little bit more, we can add another
door and get a three car garage, as part of the rebuild of the north wing. So this is, one
of our variance requests structurally is alterations to a nonconforming structure. Our
other two are slight adjustments to our distance from the lake, and those only occur
where we are extending the roofline. So, you know, we’re going one foot closer in the
corner of the roof, and the same thing here, this one is a matter of inches, I believe. So,
extremely minor changes on that side of the house, as far as building setback, and then
the entire building will be remodeled inside and out, and we think drastically upgrading
the look of the house. So this is existing, sort of an 80’s, very kind of plain, just chocolate
brown house. You’ve all seen this type. We’re cleaning up the rooflines, getting rid of
dormers and things that create really odd spaces inside, cleaning that up, re-cladding,
you know, adding and changing windows here and there, adding some timberwork to the
outside. This is the south side of the house. So we’re looking at the garage. Again, just
a total overhaul really. This is the lakeside. So the major changes on the lakeside are
the screening in of this existing deck on the second floor, the screening in on the north
side of the dining room, which is really kind of a dark, almost unusable deck, especially
in the evening when you’d like to be outside having dinner. We’re enclosing that. That’s
really, and the extension of the main roof to its logical gable end conclusion. We’re not
changing the height of the building. We’re re-capping the chimney with a slab of stone
instead of a flimsy steel piece, and then one more slide, and the north side. That’s the
dining room screen porch. So that’s really it. Another portion of the building project that
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we’ll bring before you with a later application will be the boathouse dock alterations. He
has an existing upper deck with sort of, I guess, a nonconforming wharf situation that
he’d like an enclosed boathouse. So we’re going to propose remodeling to match the
house and re-doing the wharf. So that’s really, structurally, that’s the project.
MR. JARRETT-One last component of the project is the landscaping, and you’ll note that
there’s significant lawn areas right now on the lakeside of the house, as well as on the
south side, and as part of our proposal, there’s significant new landscaping, on the south
side and the lake side, we’re removing basically most of that lawn area and replacing it
with native plants and shrubs and trees. We’re also adding trees around the wastewater
system. We think it’ll enhance the site significantly. So in the interest of time, also, we
received the engineering comments yesterday, and we’ve prepared a draft letter that we
will finalize after tonight’s meeting, basically wanted to hear your comments, but I think it
addresses the Town Engineer’s comments, and we don’t need to get into it in detail
tonight, depending on what questions you have for us.
MR. HODGES-If I could point out two more quick details. These will probably be
questions anyway. On our Site Development Data Sheet, you’ll notice that our
impervious surface area increases by 1.3% due to reduction in the size of the driveway,
offset slightly by the added bit of roof over the garage addition, and then on the next
page, our Floor Area Ratio, you’ll see that, and this was an issue at the Zoning Board
meeting. A big number that stands out is that the living area in the building goes from
6,000 to 7,000 square feet. It’s actually a very deceiving number, because what we’re
doing is we’re enclosing two existing decks. So we’re taking existing structure and
enclosing them in screens, which forces us to add that square footage to the livable area
of the house. We’re not really adding to the house, but our number of livable space goes
up. So, in fact, rather than a 6,000 square foot building going to a 7,000, we really have,
I think, 375 square feet of new addition, and that’s all on the end of the garage.
MR. TRAVER-So we can zero in on any questions or comments you have?
MR. SEGULJIC-Maybe I’m missing something, but where is your?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I don’t have the Floor Area Ratio.
MRS. BRUNO-I don’t know, either.
MR. HODGES-It’s on our Area Variance application, well, that would be in our Zoning
Board application.
MR. JARRETT-Well, I don’t see it.
MR. HODGES-Would you like my copy of it? I can pull it right out of here.
MR. HUNSINGER-Start it down at that end.
MR. SEGULJIC-Your septic system on site looks pretty big. What’s the flow rate design
there? What’s the design?
MR. JARRETT-The house intensity, the intensity of use is not changing. What we’re
doing is building a system that meets Code. It’s essentially the same size, maybe
slightly larger than what’s there. What doesn’t meet Code right now is that there’s not
enough vertical separation to groundwater. So we’re raising the system.
MR. SEGULJIC-What’s the anticipated flow rate to the system?
MR. JARRETT-We’ve designed it for five bedrooms.
MR. SEGULJIC-So it’s got to be on the order of.
MR. JARRETT-Five hundred fifty gallons a day is what the design flow is.
MR. SEGULJIC-Now, I don’t see a 50% reserve area. Is there any?
MR. JARRETT-No, we would not be able to expand this house.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, no, it’s not that.
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MR. JARRETT-We can rebuild in that same footprint. There’s technologies now to
rebuild in that same footprint.
MR. SEGULJIC-Now, if I’m correct, the red book says you have to show a 50% reserve
area.
MR. JARRETT-So are you telling us we have to reduce the house size? Right now it’s a
five bedroom house.
MR. SEGULJIC-I’m just saying the red book, I believe, states you have to have a 50%
reserve area.
MR. JARRETT-For new construction.
MR. SEGULJIC-That I’d have to clarify, but 136 throws you to the red book.
MR. JARRETT-For new construction, right. For existing you don’t have to. We just can’t
expand this house from what we’ve got now.
MR. SEGULJIC-So what happens if the system fails?
MR. JARRETT-We’d rebuild exactly the way we’re doing it right now.
MR. SEGULJIC-And then they would have to move out for a period of time?
MR. JARRETT-Like they’re doing right now. They’re going to be moving out for six
months or a year or whatever it takes.
MRS. STEFFAN-Is this a year round house?
MR. JARRETT-It would be capable of a year round house. They use it only weekends
and summer.
MRS. STEFFAN-Is it a rental property or is it single family?
MR. JARRETT-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Not a rental.
MR. SEGULJIC-Do you anticipate bringing fill on site?
MR. JARRETT-For the leaching system, yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-How about for any other areas?
MR. JARRETT-Probably some for the stormwater system on the side, but not very much
there. Mostly for the leaching system.
MR. SEGULJIC-So minimal.
MR. JARRETT-Minimal for the stormwater and there’d be significant amount for the
wastewater system. Because we have to raise that system by approximately two feet, I
believe.
MR. SEGULJIC-And it’s also unusual because you’re going parallel to the contour lines.
doesn’t the design standards go perpendicular?
MR. JARRETT-That area is very flat. If you visited the site, that’s where the boat was
stored. It’s a very flat area. So it’s essentially parallel to the contours, if you look at it in
the context of the overall topography.
MR. SEGULJIC-Are you using any advanced treatment, like one of the aeration and the
septic tank?
MR. JARRETT-No, it’s just a septic tank system going to a relatively conventional leach
field.
MR. SEGULJIC-Can we look at some aeration in the septic tank?
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MR. JARRETT-Would we?
MR. SEGULJIC-Could you?
MR. JARRETT-I could discuss that with the owner. I mean, we hadn’t anticipated that,
but we could discuss that with the owner.
MR. HODGES-What’s the advantage of that?
MR. SEGULJIC-I’m not an expert on septic systems, but from what I understand, you’ll
knock down a lot of the BOD demand.
MR. JARRETT-It improves the quality going to the leaching system.
MR. SEGULJIC-And you’re in a Critical Environmental Area. One of the other things I’d
like to see is what it looks like from the lake.
MR. HODGES-We have a rendering of that. I think the colors and the materials that
we’re using will make it recede into the trees a little bit more, and we’re not (lost words)
vegetation. There’s really one view that you can get a decent glimpse of the house from
the water, which is about here. If you move further to the south, the trees, the density of
the trees increases. Right now it’s a red/brown house. So the color compliments the
trees around it. So it sticks out a little bit more. Here we’re going to a green siding and
sort of a dark gray stone and a gray roof. So we think that it’ll recede into the trees a little
bit more and sort of feel more grounded into the land.
MR. SEGULJIC-It looks good.
MR. HODGES-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-You said earlier that the proposed changes to the docks and
boathouse would be submitted at a future date?
MR. HODGES-That’s right.
MR. JARRETT-We just wanted to show you that something is thought of. We don’t have
the details yet, but we’ll be back with another application.
MR. HODGES-We didn’t want to surprise you with another phase of the project. So we’ll
be submitting that next month, something like that, shortly.
MR. SEGULJIC-What about the, you talk about the stormwater control off the terraced
gardens on the south of the house, I believe. What about the rest of the stormwater
control?
MR. JARRETT-If we could go back to, maybe the first slide. Essentially, this driveway
and this apron area in front of the garage, as well as all this roof area here, will flow to
this sand filter system here on the south side of the house, and then terrace down
through the rain gardens, eventually go down through the existing drainage channel that
goes to the lake. Right now all the stormwater from this rear portion of the house and
this Joshua Rock property to the south flows down through an existing swale to the lake.
What we’re going to do is isolate that Joshua Rock drainage which is clean from our
drainage, and run our drainage through this treatment system before it goes to the lake.
The remainder of the house, the roof on the north side and on the east side, we plan to
go into infiltrators in front of the house here. This is where we need one of the variances,
because the house is close to the lake, and even though that’s roof water, it’s required,
because it’s a Major Project, to be 100 feet from the lake for infiltration. We need a
variance to be able to do this. If we don’t get the variance, we can’t treat that
stormwater, or at least treat it as effectively.
MR. SEGULJIC-Have you done test pits there to show the infiltrators will work?
MR. JARRETT-Yes, we have, actually. We have very deep soil here, plenty deep
enough to meet Code with this system. We have deep soil here to meet Code. Here we
have shallower soil. We think we have cobbles, and we may not have full depth here.
We may have to either ask you for a waiver from that or eliminate some of that infiltration
on that wing, that corner of the house, right here.
MR. SEGULJIC-Is that test pit data in our plans?
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MR. JARRETT-No. Actually it’s in that draft letter that I gave you, and then we’ll submit
details within a day or two.
MR. SEGULJIC-So what you need from us, or what you’re requesting from us, is a
waiver from 147 setback 100 foot?
MR. JARRETT-Actually what we need from you, in addition to Site Plan approval, we
need a recommendation to the Zoning Board for the stormwater variances.
MR. SEGULJIC-Is that what you need first, then you go back there and get your variance
and then you come back here?
MR. JARRETT-We have been tabled until October at the ZBA, and they would like an
opinion from you on the stormwater variances, and then we also need Site Plan Review,
Site Plan approval.
MR. SEGULJIC-But you have to go back to the Zoning Board first, then you come back
for Site Plan Review.
MR. JARRETT-That’s up to you, how you want to handle it, but we definitely have to go
back to the ZBA in October.
MR. HODGES-Is zoning approval, or is Site Plan approval contingent on Zoning Board
approval, or are they independent? I know both are required for building permit,
obviously, you know, to be able to go for a building permit.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right. Typically you get zoning and then planning.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, but this is a slightly different issue than what we usually deal
with. They’re related, but it’s like either one of us could approve it contingent upon the
other.
MR. HODGES-Yes. They didn’t feel that they were expert enough to approve the
stormwater variance without hearing which way you guys were.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. JARRETT-Mr. Sipp was at that meeting, and he can relate. I think we characterized
it fairly accurately.
MR. SIPP-That’s right. They shipped it right off on the Planning Board. They didn’t want
to touch it.
MR. SIPP-Have you explained the blasting that has to be done?
MR. JARRETT-To this Board?
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. JARRETT-No, that’s a good question.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, and that was something I had questions on. When I first read it,
I thought, well, they’re going to tear the house down and blast and rebuild, but you’re
really not. You’re only, so how do you blast and put in a new foundation without tearing
the house?
MR. HODGES-Yes. The north wing of the house is where the real problems occur.
When the cabin, the original cabin was built, it was placed right on the rock, and then
over time, you know, after two or three additions to this thing were performed, that was
all left there. Finished space went up in the basement around it, and because the rock
comes in through the foundation walls, over the foundation walls, they’re really just laid
on top of the rock. It creates numerous infiltration points for water to just flow into the
building and stagnant, cause rot, cause mold, and the mold is actually spreading from
that north wing all the way down to the southwest corner into the bedroom, which you’ll
see in those photographs. So we have to remove, demolish, the north wing of the house
in order to get the rock out and create a real foundation, a drainable foundation under
that portion of the house and re-build it, and the plan is to re-build it on the same
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footprint, aside from adding 12 feet to the garage on the west side. Of the rest of the
structure, the south is going to remain as is.
MR. FORD-The question that I kept coming back to, and I still have it in my mind, with all
of that that needs to be done on that wing, why wasn’t it simply moved back
appropriately away from the lake?
MR. HODGES-I don’t know if the site could handle that, for a number of years. You’re
getting into a smaller triangle, the further you go. So you’re going to be violating
setbacks. The wastewater.
MR. FORD-Nobody’s concerned about the setback from the lake.
MR. HODGES-No, no, I mean property line setbacks.
MR. FORD-I’d rather address that one than continue on that close to the lake.
MR. HODGES-I guess we’re trying to make a situation where the house becomes livable
again, without having to tear down the entire structure and re-develop the entire site, you
know, to far greater expense and possibly far greater disturbance in the process.
MR. FORD-Maybe. We talked about a greater disturbance, when we start blasting, and
reconfiguring the base of that house, I think there’s plenty of disruption.
MR. JARRETT-If we move the house to the north or to the west, it’s all rock. Every bit of
that would have to be blasted, then.
MR. SIPP-That’s why it is where it is because there’s rock back to the west.
MR. FORD-But rock is being blasted anyway.
MR. JARRETT-Only a portion of that north wing. The western portion of the north wing
is where the blasting is required, and then underneath the garage, but not any remainder
of the house requires blasting.
MR. SEGULJIC-Basements are overrated anyway. All you do is get water in them.
MR. JARRETT-Right now they’ve got significant mold and mildew problems in the house
and it’s a real mess right now.
MR. FORD-Hopefully adding another 1,000 square feet won’t add another 1,000 square
feet of mold and mildew.
MR. SIPP-My concern is you’ve got a noncompliant house that you’re going to make
more noncompliant.
MR. FORD-That’s where I was going with my comments.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s a good point.
MR. FORD-You had an opportunity to become compliant, and just became more non so.
MR. HODGES-I guess I wonder how we’re making it more noncompliant.
MR. SIPP-Well, you’re adding a bay on the garage, which gives you more roof area for
more stormwater. You’ve got another.
MR. HODGES-But we’ve subtracted stormwater area from the driveway to balance that
out, and that’s on the non-lakeside also.
MR. SIPP-More floor area by screening in those two areas. You’re not in compliance.
You can’t do much about the distance from the lake.
MR. HODGES-Which we haven’t really increased by more than a foot at two corners.
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MR. SIPP-Well, you haven’t increased, but it’s noncompliant now. So, I mean, you can’t
do much there. You’ve got to work with it, but it just gives me thought here that you go
from a 6,000 square foot house to now a 7,000 square foot house.
MR. HODGES-Again, that number is deceiving.
MR. SIPP-It’s not deceiving, because you’re going to make rules, you’re going to stick by
the rules. If you put a roof over that dining area, you make it noncompliant.
MR. FORD-We repeatedly have people come before this Board and we throw back to
them the opportunity that they have to bring this structure compliance, when it is out of
compliance, come in to us, and that is a standard that we like to hold up to people.
MR. SIPP-And now you’ve said tonight once you get this done you’re going to come in
with a noncompliant dock.
MR. HODGES-No, that actually will be compliant.
MR. TRAVER-It will be made compliant.
MR. SIPP-It will be?
MR. HODGES-Yes. That will require zero variances.
MR. SIPP-The boathouse?
MR. HODGES-The boathouse and docks, yes. Currently it’s noncompliant. We’re going
to bring it into compliance.
MR. SIPP-That’s one good thing. I do like your landscaping, and I do like the
stormwater, as far as it goes.
MR. HODGES-We think the stormwater is a huge benefit to the site.
MR. SIPP-It’s like six pounds of sugar in a five pound bag. You’ve just got too much in a
small space. Now we’ve got to work with it and we probably will, but it’s just, it doesn’t
make me happy to see people with money just do anything they want along this side of
the lake.
MR. SEGULJIC-So I guess we want, it sounds like we want to table this for some more
information.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. George?
MR. HILTON-There is a public hearing scheduled.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I didn’t forget.
MR. HILTON-And we’ve got a comment letter.
MR. HUNSINGER-You’ve got a comment letter. Okay. All right. Well, I will open the
public hearing so we can read the comment letter.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. HILTON-All right. It is from the Lake George Water Keeper, and it’s in regards to
this application. It says, “I have reviewed the submission for the above referenced
variance application and will be out of town the evening the public hearing is scheduled
for this application. However, I would like to submit the following comments regarding
the proposal: 1. The variance request states there will be an increase of 552 sf of
impervious cover for this proposal. According to the site plan, it appears the majority of
this increase is occurring within the shoreline setback consisting of the following:
expansion of the center of the building (370 sf) and additional sidewalk to docks and
boathouse (80 sf). It is the applicant’s right to apply for a variance to replace their home
to upgrade energy efficiency and/or correct water damage which might be occurring. It is
also the applicant’s right to attempt to make these improvements to a non-conforming
structure. However, the applicant should not be granted relief for setbacks which
increase impervious coverage within the shoreline setback. If any relief is granted, it
should be for the reduction of impervious coverage in the Critical Environmental Area
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along the shoreline of Lake George for the improvement of water quality. 2. The
applicant request relief for the installation of infiltrative stormwater management devices
with relief from the 100-foot separation requirement to Lake George. It is recognized
there are no stormwater management controls existing at the site and perhaps, the
installation of any stormwater management would be considered an improvement.
However, soil information should be provided in the area of the proposed infiltration
controls. The treatment capacity of the soils is based on the soil’s infiltration capabilities,
soil type and depth to bedrock. This information should be provided to determine if the
location proposed is the most optimum for stormwater treatment. Perhaps alternatives
exist such as locating the devices along the side of the structure and roof runoff directed
with leaders or utilizing rain gardens for all devices and incorporating vegetation instead
of the subsurface chambers. 3. What will happen to the existing retaining walls? It
appears they are non-compliant structures within the shoreline setback and would
require a variance based on the dimensions and locations, if impacted and/or
reconstructed. 4. The application states that re-vegetation is proposed along the
shoreline but it is unclear what will be provided. Vegetation should be provided to help in
stormwater management, shoreline stabilization and screening. 5. Will blasting be
required for the project? Blasting can significantly increase the overall disturbance of a
project resulting in water quality impacts. The complete limit of disturbance should
include blasting and estimates on the actual depth of blasting. Thank you for your
consideration of these comments and I look forward to working with the Town of
Queensbury Zoning Board of Appeals in defending the natural resources of Lake George
and its basin. Sincerely, Christopher Navitsky, PE Lake George Water Keeper” That’s
all we have.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. I will leave the public hearing open, and I guess I
will entertain a motion to table.
MR. SEGULJIC-As far as issues that I have, I have review advanced septic system
designs, test pit data for stormwater controls. You said you had that but it wasn’t
submitted to us. Correct?
MR. JARRETT-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Submission of FAR worksheet. Provide details on proposed fill and
topsoil. You had indicated that you were bringing some on site. I wasn’t exactly clear.
MR. JARRETT-That’s shown in our section of the wastewater system.
MR. SEGULJIC-Are there any other places you’re bringing topsoil on?
MR. JARRETT-A minor amount for the stormwater system on the side of the house, but
primarily it’s at the leaching system.
MR. SEGULJIC-If you could just detail that for us, then.
MR. JARRETT-We have detailed that in the package. It’s on D-2 I think it is, yes, D-2.
Section B at the top of the page on D-2.
MR. SEGULJIC-So as far as your plantings go, you’re not going to bring any soil on site,
as far as creating berms?
MR. JARRETT-We don’t need berms. We may need some organic material and topsoil
for the plantings. To be honest with I don’t know that that’s a significant quantity.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s what I’m getting at we don’t want organic soil. We want soil that
would match the existing soil on site. Because once again, Lake George soil is poor.
That’s why the quality is good because there’s no nutrients in the soil.
MR. JARRETT-Actually, we’ve got pretty good soil. They imported a lot of soil for the
lawn in the past. So we’ll be retrofitting that to native species.
MR. SEGULJIC-Address the Engineer’s letter and address the Lake George Water
Keeper’s letter. Did I miss anything?
MR. HUNSINGER-Sounds good, Tom.
MRS. STEFFAN-Tom’s got the motion.
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MR. JARRETT-Before you make that motion, are you comfortable recommending
anything to the ZBA tonight?
MR. SEGULJIC-No. I would think that timing is not an issue here also.
MR. JARRETT-It is an issue. Bill, do you want to address the time factor.
MR. DEAN-I guess that would go back to the fact that this homeowner was confident that
things would probably proceed ahead and has already moved his furniture out of the
house, in contemplation of us doing construction in the somewhere near future. He
retires in January and he was hoping to come back here next year to a house that still
sat where it does now, so he can still have the view that he originally purchased. When
he purchased the property, he was hoping to be able to renovate the house that he
originally purchased that had the view that looked up the lake, so that he would have a
nice retirement home. Other than that.
MR. JARRETT-Well, we understand your concerns overall. The technical issue, right
now we have to go to a November meeting with you. We go to the ZBA meeting next
month. They’re not going to have a recommendation from you. We’ll have to get on
another agenda with you to get a recommendation, then go to a further ZBA meeting in
November.
MR. FORD-I would like to have an additional consideration put forward in the motion,
and that would be to address successfully the issue of noncompliance as far as setback.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Well, when do we want to table this to?
MR. HUNSINGER-I was thinking the November meeting.
MR. SEGULJIC-Being a special one?
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MR. HUNSINGER-No, a regular meeting, which is the 20. The first November meeting
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is the 20.
MR. JARRETT-Is that because the October agendas are full?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 49-2007 MATTHEW EMMENS, Introduced by
Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Donald Sipp:
To the November 20, 2007 Planning Board meeting, requesting the following
information:
1.Review advanced septic system designs.
2.Test pit data for stormwater control areas.
3.Submission of FAR worksheet.
4.A review of bringing the house design into compliance, specifically setback
compliance.
5.Provide details on the proposed fill or topsoil to be brought on site.
6.Address engineer’s comment letter.
7.Address Lake George Water Keeper letter.
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Duly adopted this 25 day of September, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. JARRETT-Okay. Good morning.
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MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Yes, you, too. Appreciate your patience. Any other
business?
MR. TRAVER-Yes. I would like to, maybe it’s more of a comment, but I think we should
talk about the lateness of our meetings. I mean, in all seriousness, it seems that our
meetings are running later and later and later, and I think we’re doing a disservice to the
Town and to the applicants after we’ve been sitting and looking at this stuff for over four
hours. I really do.
MRS. BRUNO-Right now, it’s very difficult to.
MR. TRAVER-And I understand the difficulty of getting these things done, but I mean, I
would rather go to three meetings a month, and be done at 11, than to do two meetings a
month and get home at one thirty in the morning. I mean, this is not sustainable.
MR. SEGULJIC-I understand what you’re saying. My fear is that if we go to three
meetings a month, we’ll just have three meetings that go late, and I think a lot of it’s
because, believe you me, I think about it, it’s just that all the issues we deal with now are
nothing simple anymore.
MR. TRAVER-Right. Well, that’s fine. I just think we have to have less items on the
agenda. We have take it out of our hands somehow or just draw the line and say, look,
when it gets to be such and such an hour.
MR. SEGULJIC-We have tried that, but the problem is, do you want to pull the gun and
say you’ve waited all night, I’m sorry we’re not going to hear you?
MR. TRAVER-But they won’t have waited all night if it’s, I mean, sooner or later we’re
going to get to the point where we’re going to have to do it anyway. I mean, we’re going
to go until two o’clock in the morning, three o’clock in the morning?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. TRAVER-So, I mean, we’re going to have to take some action anyway. Why don’t
we do the responsible thing and say, look, we recognize that this is a building problem.
So we’re going to take some affirmative action now until it gets worse. Either limit the
items on the agenda, and I know that this has been done in the past, but I mean, it’s just
not sustainable, at least, you know, not for me. I can’t do this.
MR. HUNSINGER-No. I agree with you. I can’t either, and you know the difficulty is it’s
not really driven by the number of agenda items.
MR. TRAVER-Well, it’s a complicated, I mean, I understand that each item is different,
and we don’t always have a lot of control over the time that’s spent on each item
because we know that there’s public comment.
MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to say, yes, it’s a function of public comment. It’s a
function of how complete the application is. It’s a function of how complicated the project
is. So there’s a lot of different variables that come into play.
MR. TRAVER-So, that being the case, I think we should err on the short side of the
meetings and have more meetings, rather than the way it’s been working, because it’s
just not, I mean, and obviously I can’t speak for anybody else, but I’m not sure that I’m
very effective after about four hours of sitting here and looking at the stuff, after the time
that was put in to preparation for the meetings, and I would just repeat, I would rather
come, you know, I wouldn’t be looking forward to that particularly, either, but I would
rather come to three four hour meetings a month than to come to two seven hour
meetings a month, and I would feel much prouder of what we’re doing, you know, as a
Board, in terms of representing the Town and serving the applicants.
MR. NOORDSY-I think you make a good suggestion. The one comment I would have is
I would limit the number of applications versus the hour, which I realize is less precise,
but for the applicant, you know, you’ve said, okay, you’ve got so many people on the
agenda, and if you have the artificial time limit, now you’ve just cost that applicant and
his consultant sitting here for four or five hours racking up those hours. Now he’s going
to come back again.
MR. TRAVER-I would say that would be preferable, and perhaps the nature of, not even,
we might be able to come up with something even more sophisticated than just the
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number of reviews, but taking a look at, which we’ve done to some degree in the past.
What are the nature of the reviews, and roughly how long are these going to take, and at
least try to set a target of, you know, understanding that it’s not fully under our control,
but at least being in some reasonable, not going hours beyond what’s reasonable.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I’m certainly willing to try that for October, but I can tell you that
if we have three meetings in October, I’m going to miss at least one of them, if not two.
Because I’m going to be out of town the last two Thursdays of October, but we can try
that, you know, limit it to five items and schedule three meetings.
MR. TRAVER-Well, I understand that it’s an issue, but I’m wondering to what degree all
of us, I mean, if we’re sitting here for like seven hours per meeting, how many hours of
that 14 hours in a month are we effective? I mean, we’re all missing, in effect, meetings.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-How’s our backlog looking?
MR. HUNSINGER-There really isn’t one. I mean, we’re pretty caught up.
MRS. STEFFAN-Did we have any alternates apply yet?
MR. HUNSINGER-No, not that I’m aware of. I know there was an ad put in the paper.
Do you know if there was any update on that, George?
MR. HILTON-I don’t.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. HILTON-One thing I just want to add is consider this. You’ve got two regularly
scheduled October meetings. You’ve got what sounds like a workshop coming on a CEA
discussion. You’ve got a meeting the first week of November. If you throw another
Planning Board meeting in there, what’s that, like, four or five meetings? So, I mean, just
something to consider. I understand your frustration. Believe me, I’m tired, too, it’s late,
but.
MR. TRAVER-If it happens once in a while, I mean, that’s one of those things, but it’s a
creeping thing that it’s now regularly happening, and that brings it to kind of another
level, and that should be manageable I think, and I’m not trying to be critical of anybody.
I don’t think, there’s nobody who’s responsible. I mean, obviously we’re trying to
accommodate as many people as we can. I think it’s our responsibility, but I think if you
really look at it from a management standpoint, we’re really making things worse rather
than making things better, as we try to handle all these applications and do as many as
we can, and so on, but in reality, it’s like a bell curve. I think we’ve gone way over the.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’m glad you brought it up. Well, like I said, we can try it for October.
MR. TRAVER-Whatever. I think it’s something that we need to take some affirmative
action to address.
MR. SEGULJIC-And if I recall, one of the meetings we had that vote.
MRS. STEFFAN-Right, we added an item.
MR. HUNSINGER-We just did, yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-No, but I mean we left it up to the Chairman’s discretion.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, we did.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, so you can blame it all on me.
MR. TRAVER-Well, I know there’s something in there that the Chairman can end a
meeting at 11 or something like that, but I agree, you know, ringing a bell and saying,
okay, everybody, you know, you’re out of luck, that’s certainly one way to handle it, but I
think the ideal way would be to kind of plan our meetings by taking a look at realistically
what do we have in front of us, and that’s not easy either.
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MR. HUNSINGER-I guess we’ll do that for October, because the agenda’s not finalized
yet, right? Has it been published?
MR. HILTON-Well, they’re pretty close.
MR. HUNSINGER-Is it published yet?
MR. TRAVER-Well, and again, I just bring it up because if we don’t deal with it now, then
it’s going to be November, December, and we’re going to maybe have less members on
the Board or whatever and end up doing less than what we should be doing. I mean,
seriously, because it’s a health issue. It’s a safety issue. It’s just a whole variety of.
MRS. STEFFAN-I’m suffering having sat all this time.
MR. HUNSINGER-And you drive to Albany everyday, too.
MR. TRAVER-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, the next day I’m shot. I’m not effective with my real job.
MR. TRAVER-So I just think, you know, it’s not a crisis, I wouldn’t say. October, fine,
we’ll do what we’ve got to do, but maybe if we can do something with November or
December or whatever. I just brought it up because I just think, let’s not ignore it. Let’s
do something about it while we can.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’m glad you brought it up.
MOTION TO ADJOURN THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING OF
SEPTEMBER 25, 2007, Introduced by Tanya Bruno who moved for its adoption,
seconded by Thomas Ford:
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Duly adopted this 25 day of September, 2007, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ford, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Chris Hunsinger, Chairman
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