2008.04.29(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SPECIAL MEETING
APRIL 29, 2008
INDEX
Site Plan No. 61-2007 The VMJR Companies 1.
Freshwater Wetlands Permit No. 1-2008 Tax Map No. 303.15-1-25
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 04/29/08)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SPECIAL MEETING
APRIL 29, 2008
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
CHRIS HUNSINGER, CHAIRMAN
GRETCHEN STEFFAN, SECRETARY
TANYA BRUNO
DONALD SIPP
STEPHEN TRAVER
THOMAS SEGULJIC
THOMAS FORD
GIS ADMINISTRATOR-GEORGE HILTON
LAND USE PLANNER-KEITH OBORNE
STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I’ll call to order the Special Meeting of the Town of
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Queensbury Planning Board, Tuesday, April 29.
SITE PLAN NO. 61-2007 & FRESHWATER WETLANDS 1-2008 SEQR TYPE I THE
VMJR COMPANIES AGENT(S) BERGMANN ASSOCIATES OWNER(S) FOREST
ENTERPRISES MGMT. ZONING HC-INTENSIVE LOCATION RT. 254 NW
INTERSECTION AT QUAKER RIDGE BLVD. SITE PLAN: APPLICANT PROPOSES
CONSTRUCTION OF A 199,000 SQ. FT. RETAIL BUILDING WITH ASSOCIATED
PARKING AND UTILITIES. RETAIL USES IN HC ZONES REQUIRE PLANNING
BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. FRESHWATER WETLANDS: FILLING
WETLANDS TO PROVIDE PARKING AND STORM WATER MANAGEMENT
FACILITIES. THE PLANNING BOARD WILL COMMENCE SEQR REVIEW. CROSS
REFERENCE UV 27-93, AV 34-93 WARREN CO. PLANNING 1/9/08 4/9/08
APA/CEA/DEC/ACOE NWI WETLAND/ACOE LOT SIZE 37.55 ACRES TAX MAP
NO. 303.15-1-25 SECTION 179-4-020
MARK PETROSKI & BOB SWEENEY, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-And if the applicant could come up. George, I don’t know if you want
to summarize Staff Notes. They are fairly lengthy.
MR. HILTON-Yes. We could be here all night if I did that, but I was going to say that the
plan has been revised to reflect or it now proposes a 150,000 square foot retail store.
We do have many comments in response to the updated plan, and I guess if the
Planning Board has any questions about any items, I’d certainly be happy to answer
them, but as we go along, we may interject, and, you know, add to the discussion, but
I’m probably going to skip summarizing at this time.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Gentlemen, the floor is yours. Do you want to
identify yourself for the record.
MR. PETROSKI-Good evening, Mr. Chairman. For the record, my name is Mark
Petroski. I’m with Bergmann Associates. I’m here tonight representing the Queensbury
commercial project, Quaker Road retail that we’ve been discussing. With me this
evening is Bob Sweeney from Whiteman, Ossman, and Hannah, and also, of course, Vic
Macri, who is the applicant for the project. We asked for this workshop so that we can
really ferret out some of the issues that have been raised, and any questions that the
Board might have, but at this stage, I just wanted to verify for you that the plans you have
have been completely redesigned for a 150,200 square foot project, and the parking
required is 751 spaces, and that is the way the plans are currently represented. On
those plans, we have narrowed down the amount of wetland disturbance to 0.2 acres,
two tenths of an acre. The primary disturbance comes in a few different places. One,
there is a, there’s a drainage swale that cuts from the north end of Quaker Ridge
Boulevard, kind of south and east, into the wetland area. That, from our understanding,
is a manmade drainage swale that basically conveys the runoff from the west side of
Quaker Ridge Boulevard to the east side of Quaker Ridge Boulevard. Had that swale
not been constructed, the grade adjacent to Quaker Ridge Boulevard, at the north end,
would have been too high, and you couldn’t have gotten the water into the wetlands. So
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the primary purpose of that drainage swale is just to get the water from one spot to
another. Because it held water, and I’m sure helped convey seeds and other things that
help propagate wetlands, it became a, quote unquote, wetland area. So there’s that
area. There’s a little bit of area next to the highway improvements that were proposed at
the intersection of Quaker Ridge Boulevard and Quaker Road, and then there’s the two
stormwater outlets from the detention ponds. The pipes have to exit into the wetland
areas a short distance, and those areas would be part of that .2 acres. So that is the
sum total of our wetland disturbance. So, just for the record, I think we’ve done a great
job of really making this as minimal as possible, and the plans also represent areas
where we have about 1.55 acres available for creation of new wetlands. Okay. So, at
the end of the day, we’re looking to replace .2 with 1.55. We have not submitted an
application to the Corps of Engineers. We would certainly like some support from the
Town. If we’ve reached a point where we’ve minimized the amount of disturbance that’s
practical, for the project, we think we’re there. So we’d like some feedback on that
subject. I’ll keep going, just to cover the main topics, and then we can.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, go ahead.
MR. PETROSKI-Yesterday, after a lot of planning, we were able to get everybody that
needed to be involved to discuss traffic. We had the Warren County DPW, Warren
County Planning, the Adirondack/Glens Falls Transportation Council, New York State
DOT, members of the Town Staff, members of the Planning Board, and we had
everybody there that we were asked to have there. It was a very good meeting, I
thought. Mr. Ford and Mr. Sipp can speak to that as well. I think we walked away with
an understanding that the scope as, we have conducted the traffic study, was complete,
with the exception of a few items that we need to expand on, and there’s a short list of
those items, and what I’d like to do, if it’s okay with the Board, is circulate those items to
the members that were in attendance and make sure that we’re in agreement with those
items and then circulate it formally to the Board.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Just for your own edification, we did get a copy of meeting
notes that Staff prepared. Did you provide a copy to the applicant, George?
MR. HILTON-I can.
MR. HUNSINGER-I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I just wanted to make sure you were
aware of that.
MR. PETROSKI-No, that’s fine. It’s a workshop.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. PETROSKI-Thank you. So, there is some follow up that needs to be done, but I
think we walked away with the understanding that we were in general agreement with
the range and scope of the study that was completed. The County Planning Board is
looking forward to our next submittal. I understand the deadline is this Friday, for the
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May 14 meeting. I think we would like you to just hold off. I think with the need to
provide some more feedback on the traffic, and I think we’re expecting more comments
from Dan Ryan, the Town Engineer. We’ve got the Staff comments to address, that
were just submitted to us on Friday. I’m not sure what’s in this memo here, but with
those things, I think we’d rather make a more complete application to the County
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Planning Board. So we’re asking Staff to hold back, don’t submit anything for May 2 to
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the County planning, and then by May 30, it seems like it would be an appropriate time
to get in front of them at their June meeting.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. PETROSKI-So I did say, we have the Staff comments. I’ve already spent quite a bit
of time going through them. I think there’s some, there’s obviously some follow up. I’d
like to walk away from this meeting with a commitment from Staff, at the Planning
Board’s direction hopefully, to have a meeting, a sit down meeting, and go through some
of these comments. I think some conclusions were reached that were inadvertent.
There’s just some typos and line work that just needs to be discussed. So rather than
assume, I think it would be better to just talk about those things, and I think we can clean
up probably 50 to 75% of the comments that were offered up on the new set of plans, but
it leaves us with other items. There was a comment about the clear zones. We still want
to keep the clear zones in that we talked about. I brought the 3-D simulation with me
again, and what I’ve asked our graphic artist to do was to provide me a toggle that turns
the trees on and off, so that you can see what the difference is. So if we have time, and
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you want to see that, I can show that to you graphically again, but the plans need to be
updated to show those clear zone areas. We were asked to do some agency
coordination with the Transit Authority, as far as bus pickup, that kind of thing. We
haven’t done that yet, but we’d like to do that before the next time we get together. The
sidewalk issue, I don’t know how more clearly to say it. We’re willing to build a sidewalk
in front of the site. If nobody wants it, we won’t build it. So we’ll ask the County if they
will allow us to build it in the right of way, and if they say yes, then we’ll build it. If they
say no, we’re not going to build it. I know there’s some confusion in the Town Staff’s
comments about wetland numbers, about what one number means on one plan versus
another number means on another plan. I think, again, with the meeting we can
probably clarify a lot of that. It doesn’t affect the fact that we’re proposing .2 acres of
disturbance and 1.55 acres of potential mitigation.
MR. HUNSINGER-Can I ask a question on that? If you’re only impacting two tenths of
an acre of wetlands, why do you need approval from the Army Corps? Can’t they fall
under a nationwide permit? Or is it because you want to replace wetlands?
MR. PETROSKI-Well, the jurisdictional determination letter from December, this past
December, that the Corps issued, which we gave the Town a copy of, speaks to a
disturbance that occurred back in 1986.
MR. HUNSINGER-I thought that was the answer. I wanted to make sure.
MR. PETROSKI-Okay, and we want to just close the book on that issue and just get it,
you know, replace it and just deal with it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. PETROSKI-So otherwise, yes, we would be strictly filing a nationwide, and
depending on how the Corps wants to handle this, and depending on how the Corps
wants to handle this, it may end up being a nationwide permit, and the 1.06 acres may
just be mitigated, just because we’re offering up to get it taken care of.
MR. HUNSINGER-Wasn’t the property under different ownership in ’86 when the?
VIC MACRI
MR. MACRI-Yes, it was, but the Cease and Desist was put on the property when we
owned it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. So you took on that liability then, when you purchased the
property, for lack of a better word.
MR. MACRI-Yes. We unfortunately assumed the responsibility. We never argued the
point. We didn’t feel it was significant in order to resolve, because it was such a minor
disturbance, and, you know, I’ve been working with the County and the Airport trying to
develop a bank that we could use for future mitigation, and the Corps of Engineers
currently has changed their stance on how they want us to do mitigation, and they’re
Number One priority is that it go to a bank. Number Two is fee related, and Number
Three, is it’s on site mitigation. So they’re moving away from on site mitigation. So
because of that, I think we’ll be able to, once we meet with the Corps and deal with that
situation, we’ll be able to set that 1.6 acres of disturbance aside, but if they don’t want us
to set it aside, then we’re prepared to go ahead and mitigate it on site.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Do you have a timetable for when you might get that approval?
Because I know how slow they can be.
MR. MACRI-Yes, and basically we’ve been holding off until this meeting here to see
what your reaction to, you know, our now minimal disturbance of the wetlands, and
whether or not you feel fine with it, which we hope you will, and if, after that, after this
meeting, we have a concurrence from the Board that wetlands disturbance is not an
issue, and we don’t have to do anything else, we will go to the Corps.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. MACRI-And who knows how long it will take to get that resolved, but that will be an
issue as far as our ability to start construction more than anything.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Okay. Thank you.
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MR. PETROSKI-Just two other items, and we’d like to find out what kind of questions
that the Planning Board has. We’ve been wrestling with this issue of lighting. We
redesigned the lighting for the current Site Plan, and Town Staff pointed out that, in a few
areas, we did slightly exceed the minimum foot candle requirements set forth.
MR. FORD-The maximum.
MR. PETROSKI-Yes, maximum, and even exceeding the maximum in a few areas, our
average for the site is still 20% lower than the Town Code. We still very strongly that the
lighting levels that we’re being asked to provide are extremely deficient, and we’d like an
opportunity to prepare a plan that shows you what we think is more reasonable, and if
that’s something that you would take a look at, then we would go ahead and do that
design effort, and one other item, just a minor item, is I don’t think we’ve provided any
geotechnical information for the property, but we have a considerably detailed
geotechnical report, and I would offer up, just to answer questions about rock and what’s
underground to provide boring data for the Staff and the Town Planning Board to
consider. So, with that, you know, we’re here. Our consultants are with us, both Gordon
Stansbury and Barbara Beale, and just questions on traffic, wetlands, site design. We’re
here to hear what you have to say so we can answer your questions.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Questions, comments from the Board?
MR. TRAVER-I have a question that may help sort of put this in a little bit more context,
for planning purposes. I noticed on your wetland alternate plan, I believe it’s Sheet X
2.2. There’s reference to Wal-Mart, and as you know, since we have a Wal-Mart in the
Town, we have to wonder if this, in fact, is going to be the new location of the Wal-Mart
facility, what’s going to happen to the other one in Town? I wondered if you had any
comment on that?
MR. SWEENEY-I’ll tell you the company line on this and the company line is that I’m
under a confidentiality agreement as to who may be the eventual user of the facility, and
I’m not at liberty to reveal that information.
MR. TRAVER-Even though it’s on the plan?
MR. SWEENEY-Well, it may be something that got carried over from another job,
because Bergmann Associates does a lot of work for Wal-Mart. So I can’t speak to that.
MR. TRAVER-I see. Thank you.
MR. PETROSKI-I’m confused. I don’t see any reference on the plan.
MR. TRAVER-It’s on X 2.2.
MR. SIPP-Not the latest ones, but the previous one there was a reference to Wal-Mart
on the plan.
MR. MACRI-The problem with CAD drawings is notes get copied over and don’t get
edited. So I don’t know what it was, but I know it happens in our office all the time with
various clients getting various names and things.
MR. HUNSINGER-Tom, you had questions, comments?
MR. SEGULJIC-Procedurally, Freshwater Wetland Permit and a Site Plan, so we
approve the Freshwater Wetlands, then we do Site Plan Review?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-And SEQRA, how is SEQRA handled?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I mean, technically we always do two separate resolutions, but
we always, I shouldn’t say always. We typically review them at the same time. So we
would do SEQRA on, you know, the whole project, and that is one of the outstanding
items. There was that issue about not looking at the complete SEQRA, and their
attorney has provided an opinion, and the Town Attorney’s currently looking at that to
decide what their comfort level is with the position that their attorney took. I mean,
ultimately it’s up to this Board to make a determination, but we are waiting for comments
back from the Town Attorney on the whole segmentation issue of SEQRA.
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MR. SEGULJIC-So, we would do SEQRA and then we’d go back and do the Freshwater
Wetlands approval, and then the Site Plan approval?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, that would be the sequence.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-We also just received the engineering comments this evening. They
came through at like 6:30. I assume George made a copy, did you make a copy for
them, the applicant as well?
MR. HILTON-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-So you can at least walk out with those tonight.
MR. PETROSKI-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Other questions, comments from the Board? Don?
MR. SIPP-I don’t know if you can see this very well, but this is 2.2, X-2.2. Is this
disturbance marked out here compensate for cutting the parking lot off at that point?
MR. PETROSKI-That plan is the prior plan submitted. So the current roll of drawings
which I see on the table.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right. That drawing has now become 2.1 I believe, right?
MR. PETROSKI-There is a drawing 2.1 that shows the current present condition and
proposed conditions relative to the wetlands.
MR. SIPP-All right, but does basically 2.1 cut off the necessary?
MR. PETROSKI-Right. We no longer touch that area.
MR. SIPP-You no longer touch that.
MR. PETROSKI-Right.
MR. SIPP-Or this?
MR. PETROSKI-Correct.
MR. SIPP-All right. That’s what I wanted to know, and this area up here (lost word).
MR. PETROSKI-Correct.
MR. SIPP-So the only area of disturbance that you have is the .02.
MR. PETROSKI-.2. Just a tiny little nub right down there. If you look over here, you can
see this.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right here?
MR. PETROSKI-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-This section right here. Okay.
MR. PETROSKI-And then out of this pond, if you look on the utility plan, there’s a storm
pipe that comes out here, and there’s a storm pipe that comes out over here.
MR. FORD-And empties into the wetland. .
MR. SIPP-Now on one plan you show an exit off of here, going to the Feeder Canal,
which comes off of this end of this.
MR. PETROSKI-This is the low spot of the site. So that’s where we have (lost words).
MR. SIPP-And this actually flows to the Feeder Canal to the Hudson.
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MR. PETROSKI-It goes way north to the Airport and then back around again.
MR. SIPP-It goes way north to the Airport?
MR. PETROSKI-Yes. This drainage goes all the way up to the Airport and back down.
MR. FORD-Show me which one goes to the Airport.
MR. PETROSKI-The drainage from this side here ends up in a creek up here, and ends
up going all the way north to the Airport, goes all the way back around and comes back
down.
MR. SIPP-Okay. That’s along Queensbury.
MR. PETROSKI-That’s what we were showing at the presentation.
MR. SIPP-On the west side of Queensbury Avenue.
MR. PETROSKI-This creek does stay on the west side of Queensbury Avenue, then it
crosses at the Airport to the east side and goes back down. I have it on my slideshow. I
can pull that drawing.
MR. HUNSINGER-You say you have that drawing on your slideshow?
MR. PETROSKI-Yes. The question that we were talking about at the table had to do
with the drainage. The question was there’s a detention pond shown right about here on
the project site, and the question was, where does that drain, where does the outlet go?
There’s a pipe that exits the property right about here, and that water goes this direction.
There’s a drainage channel that starts right here, and goes all the way north, all the way
up to the Airport, connects into this stream, continues on up, and it heads back down,
and we lose the picture, but this is going back to the Hudson River.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do you have a blow up of the Site Plan on the overhead. No? Okay.
MRS. BRUNO-Does that have topo marks on it, the elevation heights of?
MR. PETROSKI-You’re asking about topo marks?
MRS. BRUNO-Yes, I’m just curious the difference in elevation between the site and
perhaps the most northerly area where the drainage turn around.
MR. TRAVER-It looks like they’re about 20 foot contour intervals.
MR. PETROSKI-Right here it’s about elevation 320, right there. This is elevation 310.
This is elevation 300, and, let’s see, I would count back, 290.
MRS. BRUNO-Okay. What about crossing here, the other side?
MR. PETROSKI-Right here?
MR. TRAVER-There’s Quaker right there.
MRS. BRUNO-There’s Quaker right there, yes.
MR. PETROSKI-There’s Quaker.
MRS. BRUNO-Yes, the other side of that, down by the route mark.
MR. PETROSKI-Right here?
MRS. BRUNO-Yes.
MR. PETROSKI-That, the elevation of this entire area in here is such that the drainage
comes around and connects into that spot.
MRS. BRUNO-Okay. Now going south of Quaker, south of the site, right, right through
there. Approximately what’s the elevation?
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MR. PETROSKI-About 330.
MRS. BRUNO-So we’re actually going up?
MR. PETROSKI-Yes, this spot is high, well, this side of the road is higher than this area
on the north side.
MRS. BRUNO-Thanks.
MR. FORD-When you traced that stream all the way to the Hudson, that is the current
configuration of that drainage?
MR. PETROSKI-That’s the way the drainage goes today, yes.
MR. FORD-Okay, and how will that be impacted by this project?
MR. PETROSKI-The way we do our drainage analysis and the way we manage
stormwater on site is that when we release our discharges from the detention ponds, we
don’t exceed the rate of flow under existing conditions, okay. So we hold back the water
so that the rate of flow coming off the site doesn’t exceed what’s out there today.
MRS. BRUNO-That’s the standard minimum as set forth by the major stormwater. Are
you asking about the quality, Mr. Ford, in terms of infiltration, and then when it comes
back out?
MR. FORD-Quality and quantity. Because both are impacts.
MR. PETROSKI-In our stormwater designs, we’re following the manual provided by the
New York State DEC for water quality. So the ponds are designed in a way that,
provided we follow the design standards set forth by the DEC, we’re in compliance with
their water quality requirements.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-What other questions do Board members have?
MR. FORD-I’ll have more after we hear from the public.
MRS. BRUNO-Do you have those aerial shots that you had shown us before? I think
you scanned over one of them quickly. I just wanted to look at some of the earlier ones.
MR. PETROSKI-These?
MRS. BRUNO-Yes.
MR. PETROSKI-You can look at them at your own pace here.
MRS. BRUNO-No, that’s okay. You can just walk us through, I can see. Thank you.
1948.
MR. PETROSKI-1966.
MRS. BRUNO-That’s when Quaker’s in.
MR. PETROSKI-Quaker Road is now constructed. 1982, and this (lost words) farming
has substantially been abandoned on the site. 1990. Further progression of the growth
of vegetation, and 2004. That’s the most recent aerial we have.
MRS. BRUNO-And was it that you pointed out that the wetlands had grown as the
development had changed?
MR. PETROSKI-Well, if you go back to 1948, all this land in here, it’s all farm fields. It’s
all an agricultural production.
MRS. BRUNO-So it’s well drained. Okay.
MR. PETROSKI-So once the road went in, and you can see a little gap right here, that’s
where the road came through, there was still some agricultural production in 1966. You
can still see the fields are being worked. On the south side, pretty much (lost word), and
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then by 1982 there was no more farming going on in that section, which is where all the
wetlands are that we’re talking about. Again, 1990, the progression, you can see from
1982 to 1990 when all the development occurred on the south side of Quaker, and that’s
by 2004 further progression, the same, no more farming.
MRS. BRUNO-Bear with me. I’m going to sound like a Devil’s advocate, but I’m just
trying to understand this. So you’re making the conclusion that because the farming,
they’ve stopped farming the land, it is actually more wetland, rather than thinking that
they’ve just stopped the farming as the economy has changed? It just sounds like the,
I’m perhaps hearing you wrong.
MR. PETROSKI-I think we’re trying to establish a couple of things. One, we’re trying to
identify drainage patterns for the site, which was a lot of those previous slides, arrows,
and this was trying to show you that the wetlands that are there are not, they’ve only
been there a short period of time. Now I don’t know what happened prior to 1948, but
what’s grown in there is relatively new, and I think that Barbara Beale, last time,
explained to the Board how, throughout New York State, you find that same thing
happening. So that’s what you see here is the progression, but it’s not wetlands that are
more than 50 years, 60 years old. So they’re going to progress to a certain stage of
vegetation or whatever, and what we’re saying in our mitigation plan is we want to be
able to restore the area that we (lost words) to something of a nature of an equivalent
nature of what’s there today.
MRS. BRUNO-I guess my direction of questioning was remembering a point that you
had made in the previous one, and I guess that isn’t fair without saying it this evening. I
was trying to understand if the wetland, last time you had stated that the wetland partially
developed due to the road going in, and I think I was just trying to get my mind around
whether it was due to the road going in or the growth that would indicate the wetlands
developing.
MR. PETROSKI-I think it’s probably a combination of factors, I mean, the fact that the
road is here, there’s definitely a physical barrier now, that water cannot flow across the
road, and when you go back here, there was a pond here. It was lower. I mean, the
water could go off the site and get into that pond. Well, obviously with the road there, it
couldn’t get across the road, and I think it’s forced the drainage to start taking that
pattern, which it naturally would have done (lost words) site anyway, but now there’s no
other outlet. That’s the only place it can go.
MRS. BRUNO-And that pond has dried up since then.
MR. PETROSKI-And lack of maintenance. I think the farm (lost words) farmers probably
had drainage along the perimeter went through there not contained.
MRS. BRUNO-All right. That answers my question. Thank you.
MR. FORD-Could you refresh our memory, please, as to how these aerial photographs
were generated by those years?
BARBARA BEALE
MS. BEALE-I’m Barbara Beale. I’m a wetland scientist. Generally, there was a program
of taking aerial photographs to document what was going on in the countryside. All lot of
times Department of Soil and Conservation Service for mapping of soils, for mapping of
soils, you know, for soil surveys, and also just for general knowledge about conditions of
the land in various areas of the country.
MRS. BRUNO-Okay . Thank you.
MR. FORD-So the source was?
MRS. BEALE-The source here is from, there’s a GIS database from New York State has
aerial photographs at different locations throughout New York State stored in a computer
down in Albany that you can access if you are a GIS computer programmer.
MR. SIPP-I’ve got a question on the soil type, soil series that is prevalent in the wetlands
and what is prevalent where you’re going to be putting your mitigation area. One is FR,
which I believe is, the other one, and I don’t know the boundaries of these soils. You just
have a mark, GA in the area closest to Quaker Road, up at the point, at that boundary
right to the point, there. We become an FR. Over on the site where the building is going
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to be we have an FA, which is Farmington, I believe, and to the west of that you’ve got a
GE. Now there’s different soil types, and will they, if you mitigate this, are these FE and
FR and GA, how close are they in soil type, soil structure? I know Farmington is a
shallow soil because it’s bedrock down there. I don’t know if FE is that shallow, but it’s
poorly drained.
MR. PETROSKI-We did the research, what happens, if you want soils, and this is what
this slide represents, and you are correct. There’s a Farmington loam predominantly on
the property. The Farmington actually is classified as a well drained soil, according to
the Soil Conservation Service, and despite that, all the wetlands that we’re talking about,
you can see the shadow in the background, the existing hedgerows and where the farm
fields were. You can see all this area. This is all where the wetlands are today, the
same soils.
MR. SIPP-Well, that’s not what your map says.
MR. PETROSKI-There’s a GAB soil that’s.
MR. SIPP-Well, I couldn’t find it either.
MR. PETROSKI-Those soils are all consist of the same type of silt loam on the property,
and all these areas here are where the wetlands are today.
MR. SIPP-Yes, but Freedon, the Freedon series, which is up in the area, FRC, is
classified as a saturated hydraulic conductivity is moderately high, and high, slopes of 10
to 8%, in the B horizon it is, A horizon is loam, darkish gray brown. It says nothing really
about the drainage possibility, but in the B horizon you get into problems with drainage,
and that’s at 15 to 25 inches. The C horizon, which goes 48 inches, more drainage
problem, ion accumulation. So what I’m saying is if you switch one for the other, are we
going to get the same drainage capacity, the same amount of ponding that we had
before? Can you change the water from one soil type to another soil type and have the
same result?
MR. PETROSKI-Well, I’d just like to point out that the wetlands that we’re talking about
disturbing, it’s a manmade drainage ditch. The majority of it’s a manmade drainage ditch
that comes through the site, okay. The other piece of wetland is a little corner by the
intersection, that’s the Farmington soils, and the other two areas actually are where the
detention pond outlet structures go out in the Farmington soils. So today there are
wetlands on those soils, today. So I don’t really understand why there would be any
reason to doubt that you can build (lost words) on the same soils.
MR. SIPP-Well, yes, but the Farmington, when you have.
MR. PETROSKI-If I understand your question, I think the answer to it is the two tenths of
an acre to be disturbed are in Farmington soils, and the 1.55 acres of replacement is
actually in Farmington soils. It’s the same soil. We’re not disturbing one type of soil and
replacing it with another, in an area of another type of soil.
MRS. STEFFAN-Can you please identify where the blasting will occur on the site?
MR. PETROSKI-This corner of the site here has the highest bedrock. One reason for
orienting the store as it is, square, facing Quaker Road, is to minimize how much we
touch that corner, but the rock, again, I’ll get you the boring information, but we’re
probably five feet below surface with rock here, and it gradually gets deeper as it gets
down towards Quaker Road. So that area in there is the most probably area for any kind
of rock.
MR. SIPP-Well, maybe that’s what I’m looking for is some borings in the different places
to tell me that we’ve got the same basic type of soil structure and drainage potential, so
that we’re not swapping eggs for olives. Because on your map you show nothing about
the boundaries of these soil types, soil series. You just plop a square with the soil type in
it, FR, FA, without any.
MR. PETROSKI-Which drawing are you looking at?
MR. SIPP-Number C 3.15. I’ve got so many sets of these things, down in the lower right
hand corner you’ve got a GA soil.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
MR. PETROSKI-I guess I can see your point. The lines from that to be transferred onto
this, it would be more clear.
MR. SIPP-Well, yes, but see there’s no boundaries, and you say that this whole area
through the southern end of this is all GA, it’s foolish. It’s not, and therefore I would like
to see if somebody has mapped this, what these boundaries are and if we trade one area
for another area, we’re coming up with the same, basically the same thing.
MR. PETROSKI-I understand. Well, the lines shown here would define the boundaries
of the soil areas. It just needs to be transferred onto that. Actually, this is in the booklet
right there on your table.
MR. SIPP-Which one?
MR. PETROSKI-I think the top one right there.
rd
MR. MACRI-The last submission dated April 3, in the back, all these slides are in there.
MRS. STEFFAN-Section Eight, Don.
MR. SIPP-This one is pretty tough to see.
MR. SWEENEY-Yes. We’ll transfer those lines onto the Site Plan. It’s this one right
here, right here, which does have the boundaries of the soils. You see the GAB runs
through there.
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. SWEENEY-And it (lost words) to there, and the Farmington right through here, and
we’re not disturbing anything down here. We’re only disturbing that corner there, okay,
which is for the turning lane, and we’re disturbing the drainage ditch that currently runs
through that.
MR. SIPP-All right. I’ll agree to that, but I just want to see, when you transfer from
Farmington to GAB, if that’s what’s coming across there, if we’re dealing with the same
soil.
MR. SWEENEY-But right here, it’s naturally, and we’re not disturbing it at all, and it’s not
disturbed at all.
MR. SIPP-Well, no, but the mitigation plot is right in here.
MR. SWEENEY-No, see, that’s right over here. This GAB basically runs right there.
We’re not disturbing that at all. This is Farmington and this is Farmington. That is
undisturbed.
MR. SIPP-All right. See, you don’t say that. See, you have the Farmington.
MR. SWEENEY-No, but we’ll transfer these lines onto this map.
MR. SIPP-Yes, thank you.
MR. SWEENEY-So that will show that that just comes right through here and does not
get disturbed, but these are all hydric soils. These are different from everything that’s
shown in the blue here, is really wetlands type soils, and these are drainable soils.
MR. SIPP-Yes, but see in Farmington soils, which I’ve dealt with for years, (lost words)
and things like that, it’s undulating, and therefore if it’s fairly well drained in one spot, it’s
not, ten feet away it could not be.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think the boring information will go a long way in answering a lot of
these questions on soil types and other soil issues. Did you have any other questions on
the soils, Don?
MR. SIPP-If we get this map delineated, so we know where one boundary is from the
other, plus borings.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
MRS. STEFFAN-I have two questions. The property is located in Zone C, is this whole
area Zone C? It identifies areas of minimal flooding. So I just wanted to know, can you
identify where Zone C is? Is it the whole picture that we’re looking at or part of the
picture?
MR. PETROSKI-My recollection is that everything on the site is the same. Otherwise we
would show a line. Zone C is typically above the 100 year floodplain. There’s no rivers
or lakes or water bodies (lost words) 100 year storm.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. HILTON-All the data I have shows that the entire site is in Zone C. So I would
concur.
MRS. STEFFAN-The reason that raised in my mind because, you know, we were talking
about wetlands and stormwater runoff and those kinds of things. So if it’s already been
identified as an area where there’s flooding, I just, the next question is what is the source
of the flooding? Is it runoff because of the Quaker Road, which was the case that you
made, or is that just inherent to the property, has it always been that way? I don’t know if
we have the answer to that. Obviously we’ve got pictures over time, but I don’t know if
we have the answer to that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Was that both questions?
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. It’s a question.
MR. MACRI-Your question is, is the flooding inherent to the property?
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, even when it was farmland, because you’ve shown the property
over time, but if it’s in Zone C, and Zone C, areas of minimal flooding, where’s the
flooding from? What’s the root cause of it?
MR. MACRI-The root cause of the swamp that’s there currently, is that the question?
MR. PETROSKI-No. I think the Federal Emergency Management Agency (lost words).
They have a strict methodology that they use for classifying the wetlands. Generally, if
you’re adjacent to some kind of water body, like a river or a lake, they do an analysis to
determine what would happen during a 100 year storm event or a 500 year storm event,
how far back is the water going. So when you have an area that doesn’t have a river or a
lake, they’re just going to broadly classify it as an area above the 100 year storm.
Sometimes they go further and say there are other areas that are above the 500 year
storm. We just happen to be Zone C, which is above the 100 year. Now, can a 100 year
storm still occur? Yes. Will it flood the property? No. Will we manage the rainfall event
from a 100 year storm? Yes. (Lost words) hold back that extra runoff during that rainfall
event and then releases it slowly.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. So if it was a floodway or a flood path, then it would be
classified, and folks would be eligible for Federal flood insurance, but, other than that, it’s
not classified. Okay. I have another question, on sanitary sewer. I asked the Chairman,
we weren’t sure, to clarify. Sometimes we ask folks for a map plan and report, and I
don’t know whether that’s just for a district extension, and so I’m wondering if
Queensbury has the capacity to accommodate your sewer. There was just an article in
the paper recently about that Queensbury is out of sewer capacity, and will need to buy
more, contract for more from the City of Glens Falls, and so, George, maybe you could
help me on that.
MR. HILTON-I guess I was going to check and see if it’s already in the district. I’m not
sure if it is or not. I’m assuming that it is.
MR. MACRI-We are.
MR. HILTON-And if that’s the case, I don’t think a map plan and report would be
necessary.
MRS. STEFFAN-Is that for an extension, George, just for clarification?
MR. HILTON-Yes, or a new district, but, and as far as capacity, I would defer to the
Wastewater Superintendent. I can’t provide any answers as far as capacity.
11
(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
MR. MACRI-(Lost words) that would run from the Warren/Washington County Industrial
Park down to the NiMo power lines, it ties into Dix Avenue. It picks up where Tribune
Media, the NiMo property (lost words). There is supposedly plenty of capacity (lost
words). I know there’s several pipes there.
MR. PETROSKI-I don’t think we’ve submitted any documentation, but I know we’ve sent
correspondence to the appropriate parties involved and that question has been
answered.
MR. MACRI-Mike Shaw.
MR. PETROSKI-I will grab those correspondences.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. I wouldn’t have even asked the question, but because of the
recent article that was in the paper about not having anymore capacity unless we
contract for it, it’s an issue now. So I believe the last contract took quite some time to
negotiate. So I’m not sure if it will take the same amount of time, but that could be an
issue going forward for you.
MR. FORD-I have a question that you probably have anticipated, but it begs to be asked.
It’s recognized that you’re down to two tenths of an acre of wetland disturbance. Have
you explored what it would take? Can this project go forward without any wetland
disturbance?
MR. PETROSKI-Mr. Ford, the simple answer is no. There’s land, as you can see,
behind the back of the store, and I know it could be argued could we put the parking
back there. To start to do things like that would require such an amount of earthwork,
and we’ve done, we’ve looked at these issues, that by the time we’re done, fill slopes are
going to start to enter into the wetland, on the south side, that we’re trying to avoid. So
by the time we’re done, we can’t reduce it anymore than we can, to make this project
work. We’re primarily asking for permission to fill in a drainage ditch. That’s what it
amounts to. Because quite frankly, the areas where there’s a drainage pipe entering the
wetland, they’re going to be restored back to wetlands. That’s the (lost words), yet we’re
still offering to mitigate even more for that impact. So it all comes down to filling a
drainage ditch.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MRS. BRUNO-I’m just curious, from what you’ve said, that if you put the parking in the
rear, that there’d be more earthwork. I was under the impression that the rock was back
there, and therefore you wouldn’t have to blast for footings. I would think that, what
you’ve stated sounds counterintuitive to me. Could you just explain it a little bit more?
MR. PETROSKI-Actually, if you take a look at the grading plan, you can see, it’s Drawing
C-3, the store footprint is at Elevation 330, and you can see that by the time you get (lost
word) on the site, we’re at elevation 355. So you essentially have a 25 foot change of
grade, from the store to the far north end of the property. We’re already showing 15 foot
change in elevation just behind the parking lot in the back (lost word). So that’s what we
have to deal with. To try to (lost words) or raise the store (lost words) access from
parking to the building (lost words).
MRS. BRUNO-That makes more sense, looking at this, I was thinking of the drop in
elevation that you had earlier described, but that’s a little more easterly. Thank you.
MRS. STEFFAN-Speaking of that, one of the questions identified in Staff Notes was that
there was no retaining wall detail. Is that in the plans?
MR. FORD-It’s all slope.
MR. PETROSKI-We’ve eliminated all the retaining walls in the back with this design.
The follow up question was, will that three on one slope be stable. We think it will be.
MRS. STEFFAN-At 33% I think was what the Staff Notes identified.
MR. PETROSKI-Right. Typically a slope of three on one or flatter is stable, once grass is
going on. Probably because of the surveys, we’ll probably add some kind of a mesh or
some kind of a fiber reinforcement to help hold things in place until (lost words). No
retaining walls.
12
(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
MRS. STEFFAN-I was just wondering, because I’m trying to visualize it. I’m asking a
question because in my mind I can’t visualize it, and I was wondering, in comparison to
the slope on The Great Escape property that is next to the Northway, if it would be
similar.
MR. PETROSKI-I’m not as familiar with that property as you are, probably. The Mall,
Aviation Mall, some of the slopes would be on the west side of the property, I would
place them probably about a three on one. They put a retaining wall on right on that
side.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. That makes more sense to me.
MR. SIPP-Where does the snow go?
MR. PETROSKI-We were asked to identify areas on the plan for snow storage. We
haven’t. That’s a comment (lost words).
MR. SIPP-If it’s pushed to the rear, down that slope, or.
MR. PETROSKI-In the rear it’s actually going, it goes uphill. It’s not uncommon for (lost
words) parking lot in the wintertime to use it for snow storage. I think the question was
asked about impacts to the vegetation out there (lost words) we’ll identify areas.
MR. SIPP-Well, the only thing I’m concerned with is if you get a rubber tired loader or a
track type vehicle, probably a rubber tired loader, if that goes off of that slope slightly,
and then backs up and leaves an indentation, it just leaves a channel for the water to
start up in, and plus the, if you uncover a lot of the vegetation, frost damage can occur
that way.
MR. TRAVER-The area of wetland, part of the, I should say the larger of the two
remaining pieces of wetland that are proposed to be disturbed, you point out likely
originated as a manmade drainage ditch. Understanding the history of the property, do
you know approximately when that was put in, and for what purpose?
MR. MACRI-I can only assume that when we put in the access road and the boulevard, it
was designed to drain (lost words) adjacent property, because there is a culvert there.
MR. TRAVER-Okay. That would have been in the 80’s?
MR. MACRI-’86.
MR. TRAVER-’86. Okay. Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else from the Board?
MRS. STEFFAN-I had a quick question. I’m trying to assimilate what you had worked on
yesterday at the traffic study meeting, compared to the engineering notes that we also
just received this evening. Perhaps you’ve already done this. It is not indicated if
Quaker Ridge Boulevard is currently a Town road. It states that you’ve agreed to
remedy any concerns with the Highway Department. Have you had a chance to speak
with the Highway Department regarding ownership of that road?
MR. PETROSKI-I think we responded to Staff comments the last time and indicated that
it is a Town road. I think Town Staff has confirmed.
MR. HILTON-Yes. I think the question is the extension that’s proposed. Is that proposed
as a Town road or a private drive?
MRS. BRUNO-Right.
MR. PETROSKI-We’re not presently proposing it (lost words).
MRS. BRUNO-Okay, but the current, the existing road you’ve said is in the Staff Notes
response somewhere. Okay. I’ll have to look for it. Thank you.
MR. HILTON-If you look at Sheet CO-1, I think Staff’s interpretation of the plan is where
there’s a line crossing Quaker Ridge Boulevard, to the north of that, there seems to be
some improvement to allow access to the site. I guess we’re seeing that as an extension
of this Quaker Ridge Boulevard.
13
(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
MRS. BRUNO-Okay.
MR. HILTON-And our question was is that extension proposed to be a Town road.
MRS. BRUNO-All right. Thank you.
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? Okay. I would ask anyone that addresses the Board to state
your name for the record, as we do tape the minutes, and I would ask that you try to keep
your comments to no more than five minutes, and with that. Sir? Good evening.
PUBLIC HEARING OPEN
JOHN CAFFRY
MR. CAFFRY-John Caffry on behalf of the Big Cedar Swamp Coalition. I’d like to say,
having spent most of last week with Bob Sweeney in Tupper Lake, it’s a pleasure to see
him here again tonight. I’m not sure if he’s following me around or I’m following him
around. With me here tonight are Joan Robertson and Linda White from Southern
Adirondack Audubon Society, which the Audubon is a member of the Coalition. We’re
very pleased at the revisions to the plan, and we’d like to congratulate the applicant on
their flexibility and their willingness to revise the plans to minimize the wetlands impacts
on the project. It’s come down quite a way. I think .2 acres is probably about as good as
you’re going to get it. We do have some remaining concerns and comments we’d like to
make, and hope that they can be dealt with. Regarding the drainage swale or whatever
it is that’s apparently going to be filled, my only concern about that would be that the
filling of that not affect the hydrology of the wetland, if that’s providing water to the
wetlands now, that that water continue to flow into the wetlands in order to provide water
to the wetland. The other concern was already mentioned by the Board, which has to do
with pollutants coming from the stormwater basins into the wetlands, and I hope the
Board and its engineer will review that carefully and make sure that everything possible
is being done to keep those basins from dumping salts and other pollutants, oil, gas from
cars into the wetlands. This wetland, and with the addition of another acre and a half,
will wind up being almost 12 acres, which is a reasonably good sized wetland, maybe not
quite up to the DEC jurisdictional level. Our concern about that is that, as Mr. Macri
continues to propose other developments behind this property, that this wetland will
essentially become an island of natural area surrounded by asphalt, and any future plans
for other developments around it should take that into account and preserve connections
between this wetland and other natural areas, so that it doesn’t become just an isolated
island of habitat, instead of being part of a larger system. There’s been some debate
before about whether this is technically part of the Big Cedar Swamp or not. I don’t think
that the Coalition has ever drawn a line around the DEC wetland and said this is the limit
of what we call the Big Cedar Swamp. Regardless of the hydrological connection, we
would consider it all to be one wetland eco system. It appears that the Niagara Mohawk
line, and I’ve just heard tonight that a sewer line has been run through there, is currently
the divide between this wetland and the DEC wetlands to the north and west. Who
knows what it was before Niagara Mohawk put the line through there, before the sewer
line was built. Maybe they were connected back then. Maybe not. If you go back even
farther, the Big Cedar Swamp, what’s now the DEC wetland to the north and west, was
once much larger, and then a lot of it was drained for farming. At one point there was
celery being grown in the muck soils area of it. Eventually that was abandoned for
various reasons, and the wetlands have restored themselves. If the whole area was just
left alone, the wetlands would probably continue to restore themselves and re-grow over
the years. So to get too hung up on what it was like in 1986 or even 1948 and say it was
just farmland, may not represent the original natural state of the wetlands, but having
said that, we are very encouraged that they’re minimizing the amount of wetlands that’s
being filled today. One other curiosity along those lines. When they built the access
road, Quaker Ridge Boulevard, which turned out to be an Army Corps violation back in
1986, and they filled an acre or so of wetlands there, if you take all the wetlands on this
property now and you add them together, and they were cut off from each other by
building that road. So originally this wetland area was over 12 and a half acres, what
would have been DEC jurisdictional but for the road that they built in 1986. At this point,
that’s probably neither here nor there, but you shouldn’t downplay this wetland just
because it’s not a DEC wetland, and I think the Staff Notes picked that up quite nicely
when they said that a wetland’s a wetland, regardless of how it was created or whatever
under your Town Code, they’re all protected.
14
(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
MR. HUNSINGER-Could you wrap it up, please?
MR. CAFFRY-Yes. Lastly with the lighting we would just encourage the Board to
minimize the lighting so it doesn’t look like Lowe’s. I don’t know what your Code
requires, versus what they’re recommending, whichever one results in the lowest level of
lighting we think would be best for the wildlife and the wetland in general, and again, we
would like to congratulate the applicant on their willingness to modify the project to
protect the wetlands.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Just for a point of reference, Lowe’s was probably the
last major commercial project before the Town adopted new lighting standards. So, you
know, the new Super Wal-Mart might be more appropriate to think about in terms of,
about where this is at.
MR. CAFFRY-Or Comstock.
MR. HUNSINGER-Is there anyone else that wanted to address the Board on this
application? Okay. Well, we’ll leave the public hearing open, but we will conclude the
public comments for this evening. Is there any written comments, George?
MR. HILTON-No, none that I’ve seen.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do you want to come back to the table. Any other thoughts,
comments from the Board? We really haven’t talked about lighting much this evening,
other than the applicant asking if we would entertain a revised lighting plan.
MR. SEGULJIC-Speaking of lighting, what are you proposing for lighting? What are your
thoughts?
MR. PETROSKI-Well, the current plan with the attempt to follow the Town’s guidelines,
we’re talking about 25 foot high poles. I believe we’re talking 400 watt fixtures. So there
ends up being probably three times as many as we’d like to have out there. We would
like to go to something that’s taller, something closer to a 40 foot height, which would be
about 15 foot higher than what’s out there, according to the current design, and then
change the fixtures to something like 1,000 watt. We can still achieve a uniform lighting
level at the ground surface, and we can still be dark sky compliant. We can also control
the perimeter lights with cutoffs to make sure that the spread doesn’t go beyond the site
limits, I mean, within reason. You’re still going to have some kind of light spillage, but
even with the photometrics, we’re showing like 0.1 foot candles at the outer reaches, the
same kind of thing could be achieved. The Town requires nothing above a 90 degree
angle to the pole, which can be achieved. So we can still meet all those requirements,
but by going to fewer poles and fewer light bulbs, we’re also looking at a lot less energy
consumption and a lot less maintenance. It is a lower cost to install it that way.
MR. HUNSINGER-What would that do to the minimum and maximum foot candles,
though? I mean, sort of intrinsically it sounds like, you know, 1,000 watt is certainly a lot
bigger than 400. So, I mean, it sort of seems like the foot candles would then increase.
MR. PETROSKI-I think we would probably propose something a little bit higher. I think
generally in the parking field we go up to around three. Near the building we might be
closer to five. At intersections we’re still around two, and then you’re going to have hot
spots right underneath the pole itself, like you would have, no matter what you did, but
we could still achieve a relatively uniform lighting level in the parking lot. Part of the
problem that we’re dealing with, and this may sound ridiculous, but, there have been
lawsuits because people, like if you look at the angle of the light, as it hits the parking lot
surface, and you look at the height between two light poles, and if the crossing point
between those light rays is lower than a person’s head, and they can’t be seen or
identified, that lawsuits have been lost because of those kinds of issues, and we are
trying to provide a safe environment where the lighting level on a person’s face is visible
within the parking lot, so that if something does happen, somebody can identify that
person, and I see Mr. Ford raising your eyebrows, but these are multimillion dollar
lawsuits, and we’re trying to do the right thing for, you know, everybody, and I think if we
can provide a lighting design as I described, and compare it between the two, and you
can see what the differences are.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I’d just like to jump in there. Our Code says 20 foot light poles. I
personally do not like 40 foot light poles.
15
(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
MR. PETROSKI-Twenty footers.
MR. SEGULJIC-I think your parking lot is over lit. Our Code says two and a half for
commercial parking lots, and you’re up to seven in some spots. I think you’ve got to
bring the light poles down, and you might need more of them. Pick energy efficient light
bulbs.
MR. PETROSKI-Well, 400 watts is still 400 watts. A thousand watts is still one thousand
watts. I can’t change the wattage. I mean, it’s still going to draw the same amount of
power.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right, but I mean, the Code says 20 foot.
MR. PETROSKI-And I misspoke. Twenty foot is what we designed it to. The design
provides a 2.06 foot candle average across the entire parking lot, and your Code says
2.5 is the max, and there’s a few spots where we were higher, I apologize, oversight.
We need to make some adjustments to be perfect, but we’re still saying it’s not enough.
We are very familiar with the Wal-Mart on Route 9, and I’m sorry but that place is too
dark, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s unsafe, but other people have different opinions. It
becomes subjective after a while, but it needs to be, and there may be a reason for that
lighting in that area. If there’s residential areas abutting it, and you need to have
consideration for the neighbors, then lower light levels are important. We don’t have any
residential neighbors. We do have concerns that were expressed about the wildlife, and
I think if we can address that with cutoffs and all the dark sky requirements, I think we
could have a good design.
MR. HILTON-Just a couple of points of clarification, I guess. In looking at the most
current lighting plan, the average that’s proposed, at least indicated on the plans, over
the entire parking lot, is shown as 3.46, whereas, as has been mentioned, the Town
standard is 2.5 as an average for the parking area. That’s with 400 watt fixtures. I can
only assume that if you increase that to 1,000, that 3.46 goes above and beyond the 2.5
that is the Town requirement. Maybe you think that Wal-Mart’s too dark, but this is the
standard that’s in the Town Code. The Planning Board has applied this to other
commercial projects, and I guess I just want to point to our lighting section of our Code.
Our lighting code is based on the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America
requirements. It’s, you know, these are lighting engineers that have developed these
standards and they’ve taken into consideration safety, functionality, and as has been
discussed before, excessive lighting doesn’t equal safety, and I just wanted to point that
out, and certainly if another plan is presented, we’ll review it, but, you know, currently we
have an average foot candle throughout the parking lot that’s above Town Code, and I
would only expect that to increase with 1,000 watt fixtures.
MR. HUNSINGER-Just for benefit of the Board, I spoke with Staff today and I had asked
them to prepare the handout that shows the Wal-Mart lighting scheme as well as the
Saturn Dealership, just to give you a basis of comparison between, you know, what’s
current in the real world and what had been proposed by the current applicant. So that
was to try to give us a point of reference, so that we could understand it a little better.
MR. MACRI-I think an important consideration is that I don’t think those standards take
into account, is the amount of energy that will be expended because of the sheer amount
of poles that are going to be there. You can do, but for four poles we can do it with one,
1,000 watts versus 1500 watts or whatever. So, I mean, we’re going to be cutting down
on the energy consumption. I think that’s something that we’re all aware of currently is a
concern that we need to address, and the Code is, at this point, from my perspective,
antiquated because of that, and maybe there’s a new study by the engineering concern
that the Town Code’s based on, but I don’t know that, but I’m just saying that you need to
take into account the amount of energy that will be consumed by the amount of poles
that you’re putting up.
MR. HILTON-I guess just to follow up, and I meant to mention this before, but I’m seeing,
according to the lighting plan, that metal halide fixtures are proposed, and our Code
refers to high pressure sodium, which are more energy efficient. That’s an option. I
know there’s probably some, I don’t know, concern with high pressure sodium, looking at
some of the other projects around Town, that they would be radiating into the sky, but
with complete downcast fixtures, that’s not the case, and I just wanted to point out that
high pressure sodium fixtures as called for in the Code are, I guess, a more energy
efficient alternative to the metal halide fixtures that are proposed.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
MRS. STEFFAN-I shop at the Wal-Mart, and I find the lighting to be adequate. I was out
in Iowa Falls, and there’s a Wal-Mart, a Super Wal-Mart out there, and the lighting is so
extreme that you actually squint when you go out of your car at night, and comparing,
you know, being able to compare my experience in Iowa with my experience here in
Queensbury, the Super Wal-Mart here, hands down, is much better, as far as the dark
sky, and that Iowa situation that I mentioned, you could see that for miles, you know, it
looked like an airport from a distance, and so with the predominantly dark sky over that
part of town, I would not be inclined to deviate from our Code.
MR. PETROSKI-I don’t know which store you’ve been to, so I don’t have a reference for
your comparison, but there’s nothing lost by us developing a plan, showing what we
have in mind. I will assure you that it will be dark sky compliant, and it will be energy
efficient, and it will meet all of the engineering Illuminating Society’s criteria. So if you
would be willing to entertain that, I would be happy to generate that plan for you and we
can just take a look at it, and we can even try to find something here locally that would be
the equivalent, so you can go out and look at it.
MRS. STEFFAN-That would be useful.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I mean, there’s certainly nothing lost on you providing an
alternate for us to consider. I’m just speaking for myself.
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. I mean, you’ve heard our opinion on lighting. Let’s see what you
have. The other issue now is you had mentioned you had the display of the trees and no
trees.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Thank you, Tom, I forgot about that.
MR. SEGULJIC-I like my trees.
MR. HUNSINGER-Just while he’s loading that up, is there anything else that the Board
wanted to bring up?
MR. SIPP-Just a little on the landscaping.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, and this certainly relates to the landscaping. Okay.
MRS. BRUNO-Which program did they use? Was it Sketch Up, do you know?
MR. PETROSKI-No. We use Sketch Up, but this is a program that animators use for like
cartoons and, you know, movie graphics and that kind of thing. So it’s not quite the
same.
MRS. BRUNO-Okay.
MR. PETROSKI-I’m trying to get ground level here, the street. So if I’m driving along the
street, you kind of get the idea of what you’d see. There’s our entrance to the site again,
right at Quaker Ridge Boulevard, and what we had talked about doing was cutting out
some trees. This is the entrance at Quaker Ridge Boulevard, and I can toggle trees on
and off. Now, this represents the lines that we drew before, which are not on the current
set of drawings, which we inadvertently left off, but the idea behind this is to try to create
some view sheds from the street to the store, because otherwise all you see is this.
MR. SEGULJIC-That looks very nice.
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-That’s what we like.
MR. SIPP-Keep it like that.
MR. PETROSKI-Well, the person who’s spending a lot of money on this property, they
like to have their building visible.
MRS. BRUNO-Those are mostly representative of what’s there now?
MR. SIPP-Give them a little sign at the road there.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to say, the problem with that is that then you’re going to
want a big sign.
MR. PETROSKI-We’ll work with you. We tried, we took aerial photographs, and we
placed trees on the locations of the trees on the aerial photograph, and we compared the
height of the trees, to photographs of trees on the property, and the species type, to try
to represent as close as we could something that you’d see basically during the
summertime with trees filled out with leaves on them. Okay.
MR. TRAVER-Can you tell us approximately how long after this landscaping is
completed that these images represent?
MR. PETROSKI-Well, all these trees in the front are what’s out there today. There’s no
time span difference, okay.
MR. TRAVER-Right.
MR. PETROSKI-So when you get onto the site, the trees you see here are generally
mature trees. They’re probably 15, 20 year old, in terms of the spread of the trees. I
mean, we’re proposing to plant them at the calipers that the Town requires as a
minimum, and the sizes and heights, I don’t think we’ve deviated from that. There’s a
question on a few species types, but.
MRS. BRUNO-Could you scan as if you were driving by again, please.
MR. PETROSKI-So here’s the gap that we’re proposing at the far end of the site. Trees
in, trees out. Trees in. Trees out. Trees in. Trees out. So we’re trying to create gaps.
We’ve responded to Town Staff comments saying, we’re happy to work with you, if
there’s significant trees in those areas that you want to save, it doesn’t have to be a
complete clear cut job, but we’re trying to just open up some gaps so that you can see
into the site, and have some visibility to the building, okay.
MR. TRAVER-Isn’t it rather the other way around. Don’t you, aren’t you required to leave
trees that are above a certain size?
MR. PETROSKI-The Code talks about 18 inch caliper. Is that your question?
MR. TRAVER-Right.
MR. PETROSKI-Yes. If there’s an 18 inch caliper tree out there, we’ll keep it. I don’t
have a problem with that. The tenant doesn’t have a problem with that. I think we
responded that way saying that if there are trees that you wanted to keep we’ll keep
them. I don’t think you’re going to find that many 18 inch caliper trees in those areas.
MRS. BRUNO-That’s a little bit of my suspicion is some of those trees I don’t think are
quite as full and mature and healthy as perhaps they’re shown here, and I think perhaps
some of the development, as it’s going on, may end up undermining a little bit, just with
the change of hydrology, and I’m almost wondering if the natural loss and/or responsible
cutting of trees would just end up filtering, maybe, across the entire site, but making it
look healthy rather than having some swaths going in.
MR. PETROSKI-I’m not averse to your suggestion. I don’t think that would be a bad
thing. I think if it was properly thinned it might have the same effect. We were just
looking to create gaps, just so he could have some visibility, but if the Board, as a
consensus, would like us to look at some kind of a thinning plan, then we can come back
with that.
MR. SIPP-I think you’ve got some maples listed here, (lost word) variety of maple, which
is fine. The Staff brings up the fact that at full growth you’re going to be growing them
out on the truck entrance way and they’re going to be, they’d have to be pruned on one
side or the trucks will prune them, period, and maybe you want to go to a different type of
tree, a more height than breadth, looking at something maybe in a conifer, so you don’t
have that problem with them branching out. The maximum on that maple is 20 feet, so
that means 10 feet on either side of the truck, and you’re hanging it out on the access
road. The other thing is, out front, what’s growing there now? What variety of trash tree
is in there now? I would suggest maybe there’s some hickories, poplars.
MR. PETROSKI-You know the plants better than I do.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
MS. BEALE-This is Barbara Beale, again. I am going to guess that the tree species
growing in the wetlands out there are green ash, American elm, and red maple, which
are your typical, and they’d be small diameter trees because they’re relative young
growing in wetlands. Those are going to be the wetland trees that you have growing out
there right now, and your understory is going to be a lot of dogwood species, silky
dogwood is probably your dominant dogwood species there.
MR. SIPP-I don’t know if you’re going to get elms to grow there. Maybe. Maybe the
blight has passed. There are varieties which are resistant. They’re awful expensive.
MS. BEALE-I would say you generally don’t landscape with wetland plants in uplands
when you are doing your landscape plan.
MR. SIPP-You’d also want to get some mixture in there of evergreens because come,
hardwoods, come October, they’re all, the cover, there’s no more cover. You’ve got sight
all the way through. So you want to have a mixture, I think, probably some hemlock in
there, to give you coverage during the wintertime.
MR. FORD-I was going to ask if you had those defoliated.
MR. HUNSINGER-That was going to be my question as well, what a winter scene would
look like, or Fall.
MR. PETROSKI-I think I could probably do that. I’d have to check with the animators to
see if the trees that they could put in defoliated are actually see through trees.
Sometimes what they do is they’ll fake a tree so it’s got, it’s almost like a, you know, a
cardboard stand up tree, you know, you’d have two slots that fit together and so
depending on which side you look at, it looks like a defoliated tree, but you can’t see
through it. So I just have to figure out if we can do that, and if we can then I could
probably change all these trees to non leaf trees.
MR. SEGULJIC-Overall I’m encouraged to see what you’ve tried to do there. I mean,
you could have come in and said you want to cut down all the trees.
MR. PETROSKI-That doesn’t make any sense.
MR. SEGULJIC-And, you know, just see if there’s anything else you can do. I personally
like trees. When I travel around the country, that’s the difference I see is you stand in
these hotel rooms and you look out there, it’s ugly as sin because there’s not a tree
around. I like to maintain trees, personally. So I think it’s something we can work on. I
like what you did with the wetlands. That was very good. I think we have to work on the
lighting.
MR. FORD-On the trees a combination of hardwood and softwood.
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. HILTON-Just, I guess, a comment, based on the presentation that we just saw.
These clearing areas, gaps if you will, appear to be, appear to involve removal of
vegetation within the wetlands in the front of the property, which should be shown, and
the clearing limits, as well, should be updated to show that proposed clearing.
MR. SEGULJIC-Is that subject to the waterfront, where you can’t clear within 35 feet?
MR. HILTON-Well, they’re in for Site Plan, and they’re also in, the applicant has applied
for a Freshwater Wetlands permit through the Town. So they could at least apply for
those, but my point is, is that has to be shown to the Board and it has to be shown on the
plan, as part of the review process.
MR. SIPP-And your grass seed for the slopes, I see you have 90% bluegrass. Bluegrass
is a high maintenance piece, chunk of grass, and fescue is a lot cheaper and a lot more
rugged, different kinds. I mean, if it’s up to you, you want to spend the money, but it’s, I
think you’d get better results.
MRS. BRUNO-Mr. Caffry had brought up a good point when he was speaking from the
public, in terms of the treatment of the stormwater. We tend to see a lot of very similar
designs in Town, and I know, I’m not an engineer, but I have, I know that there are some
best practices, better practices. I’ve requested, you know, some workshops from the
Town, but we’re just all so busy, in terms of learning more about that. I was wondering if
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you could walk us through the intent of how you have designed your stormwater basins
and the treatment, you know, is it filtering through sand or is it something more than that?
MR. PETROSKI-As you probably know, the State has a SPDES Permit process now, the
general permit for construction activities that disturb more than an acre of land, and that
is something that we have to comply with in this process. We have not made application
yet, but we will. Within that process, the New York State DEC has published various
guidance documents. There’s the permit language, but there’s also design guidelines
and design standards. There’s some minimum requirements that we have to comply
with. There’s nothing that you can do about that. You want the permit, you’ve got to
comply, but in the design standards manuals, they provide different types of designs to
manage stormwater, and the way they’ve set up the permit, they basically say that if you
comply with the standards, if you follow the standards, then you meet the regulatory
requirements for water quality. So the ponds that we’re showing on here are what we
call P-2 Ponds. They have a four bay and a micro pool. Four bay area is the front half of
the pond. If you see there’s like a dividing point in the pond, there’s a line that goes
across the middle of each one. So there’s an area where sediment can be deposited,
and then there’s an area beyond that where clean water is, again, filtered. It gives you
enough time for sedimentation to occur. That’s one of the things you want to maintain is
sedimentation time. What we find, I think what’s been found in parking lots is a lot of
your contaminants are carried off site with sediment. I don’t know, if you spill something
in your driveway, you throw down some sand or you throw down some sawdust or you
throw down something to absorb it, and that’s what happens. These products adhere to
the sediment and then the sediment washes off the site, and that’s where the
contaminants are going. So if you can control the sediments you can control the
contaminants.
MRS. BRUNO-It doesn’t leach back out from the sediment as it’s sitting there in pools of
water and then that water, again, carries it away?
MR. PETROSKI-You know, the chemistry, I’m sure there’s some things like that that
happen. You can’t stop 100% of what’s going on, but what you can do is through this
process you can comply with what the State is saying their minimum expectations are,
so that you do not compromise the receiving streams. Ultimately you’re not allowed to
exceed the quality of the receiving stream. That is actually the goal. That’s what we’re
supposed to be doing. So, the State is telling us that by following these design
requirements, that we are not exceeding the receiving stream standards. So our design
follows those objectives and those criteria.
MRS. BRUNO-Okay. Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-I was encouraged to see that you had a complete maintenance plan,
too, of the stormwater detention system that was included in the submission also. We
had a conversation about that last week, on another project. It’s a good thing. Is there
anything else that the Board wanted to bring up this evening?
MR. SIPP-I wanted to thank Mr. Stansbury who sat there doing nothing all this evening,
for yesterday. He did a good job on explaining the traffic, which is a complicated affair,
and the scope of which I didn’t realize he had taken in, but I think we came away feeling
that all the bases had been covered, and we understood, maybe not agreed on, what the
mitigation will have to be, but it was a good presentation.
MR. SEGULJIC-I guess, just for myself, where are we with traffic now?
MR. PETROSKI-I haven’t read the Staff’s report to know if we are 100% on the same
wavelength. I hope we are, but as Mr. Sipp said, and Mr. Ford was there as well, there
was a really good discussion. A lot of things were put on the table. We walked away
with about, I don’t know, eight different items that we need to address. A couple of
things have to do with looking at the accident history at Dix and Quaker and Dix and
Highland, looking at the queuing at Dix and Quaker, make sure that there’s enough
stacking right now and in the future for turning lanes. We need to look at, Mr. Ford
pointed out that we didn’t properly draw the left turn lane for the car dealership. We need
to add that to the drawings. We want to take a look at whether or not a roundabout is an
alternative to a traffic signal at Quaker Ridge Boulevard. There was questions about
coordination of signals. We agreed that we would put in our mitigation that we would
verify that the signals from Dix Avenue to Lower Warren Street would all be properly
coordinated at the time that any new signal would be put in to operation.
MR. FORD-Truck traffic was clarified.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
MR. PETROSKI-Okay.
MR. TRAVER-There was a question, too, I think in Staff Notes, or somewhere, about
public transportation vehicle buses and so on in the parking lot. Was that addressed or
would that not be in the scope of the traffic study outside the property?
MR. PETROSKI-It’s a traffic study concern from the standpoint of making sure that any
public transportation vehicle can navigate through the site. We have not approached the
agency that was referred to in the Staff comments, but we will do that because we would
like to make that accommodation.
MR. SEGULJIC-So does this mean another traffic study is going to be coming our way?
MR. PETROSKI-No, what we’re going to do is, we’re going to furnish an addendum,
basically addressing those specific questions that were asked.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. SIPP-The study was based on the bigger store size, so actually the actual figures
will be lower than what is seen in the report now.
MR. PETROSKI-Correct.
MR. SIPP-I assume almost by a quarter or a third difference in the amount of traffic.
MR. PETROSKI-Yes. Which reminds me, Mr. Sipp, we agreed to take a look at what we
call the warrant analysis for the smaller sized store, just to make sure that the signal is
still something that’s justified. A warrant analysis just means do you need a signal or
don’t you, and it has to pass certain criteria in order to justify putting in a signal. So we’ll
look at the smaller sized store to make sure it still meets that criteria.
MR. FORD-I’d like to make one further observation, and that is that yesterday’s meeting
was really a quality experience from my perspective, both in terms of who you had there,
but there also was an atmosphere that I appreciated because there was an acceptance
of a lot of different ideas and a brainstorming of possibilities, and there was an
acceptance of that, and I’ve seen it manifested in terms, tonight, of you listened to us
some months ago, and reacted in a very appropriate manner, and I just wanted to
compliment you on that.
MR. PETROSKI-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-That might be a good word to end on. Is there anything else from the
Board? Just in terms of where we are, you mentioned earlier that your hope is to get
before the County Planning Board at their June meeting?
MR. PETROSKI-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-So that would necessitate us to table our review until at least June as
ththth
well, the 24. June 24. Any new submission would be due by May 15. Does that give
you enough time?
MR. PETROSKI-Absolutely.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Good. A question of Staff. There’s a couple of members that
weren’t here when the latest drawings were passed out. Did those get collected?
MR. HILTON-When these plans were handed out?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I know you weren’t here.
MR. HILTON-Right. So I don’t know, but either way we’ll get the plans to them. We’ll
find out if they’ve been distributed, and if not we will get them to them.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. So if you don’t have the latest set, if you could let Staff know,
and we’ll make sure you get copies.
MR. PETROSKI-What would be most easy for the Board? The Staff had a comment on
a variety of drawings. Some of them just mean we have to change some text. Some we
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(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
have to add some lines. Do you want us to resubmit an entire new set, or do you want to
have just the sheets that changed?
MR. HUNSINGER-What’s the feeling of the Board?
MR. SIPP-Just the ones you’ve made changes on.
MR. SEGULJIC-I say just the ones that change.
MR. SIPP-I mean, I’ve got four sets of these things home.
MR. FORD-How many will there be?
MR. PETROSKI-It could end up being half the drawings, somewhere around that.
There’s probably a number right on the front cover that says.
MR. HUNSINGER-There’s 27.
MR. PETROSKI-Yes. So there could be half, a third to a half.
MRS. STEFFAN-Then I would vote for a new package.
MR. PETROSKI-It probably would be less confusing.
MR. FORD-Please. Yes. I would. I know it’s expensive and so forth, but.
MR. HUNSINGER-Then it resolves the problem for members that don’t have the most
current.
MR. TRAVER-You might also want to remind your CAD operator that the occupant is
classified.
MR. HUNSINGER-Can you bring colored renderings?
MR. PETROSKI-Sure.
MR. HUNSINGER-You don’t need to provide copies for everybody, but at least one.
MR. MACRI-They are in the back of the first book.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. MACRI-You want a large scale one, is that what you’re talking about?
MR. PETROSKI-You’re talking about building elevations, site plans, what do you want
for?
MR. SEGULJIC-Maybe one large scale you could just present to the Board.
MR. HUNSINGER-Building elevations.
MR. PETROSKI-Building elevations. Well, in light of the fact that the building is smaller,
and we actually flipped it on the site, so the side that used to face Quaker Ridge
Boulevard now faces the east. So it’s a mirror image. So we’ll get those new elevations
to you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. FORD-Good.
MR. PETROSKI-We didn’t supply the most current version. So that’s a fair question.
MR. HUNSINGER-That’s why there was another page to the old drawings.
MRS. STEFFAN-I will mention that I was recently in New Hampshire, I’m getting
confused with Kittery, Maine. I went by, they have a new comprehensive plan in North
Conway, and they have a Super Wal-Mart, not saying that this is a Super Wal-Mart, but
they have a beautifully designed Super Wal-Mart that is off white, rust color, and foe
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(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
stone on it that is the nicest looking Wal-Mart I’ve ever seen. So I’m just throwing that
out, from a design standard point of view, it’s very nice. I didn’t get pictures.
MR. PETROSKI-Well, would you like to see a palette of like materials and colors and
things like that for the next meeting?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I think that would be really helpful.
MR. FORD-Yes, that’s always helpful.
MR. HUNSINGER-So would anyone like to put forward a tabling resolution?
MRS. STEFFAN-Let me just read off some of the things I’ve identified. We’ve got Staff
Notes, VISION Engineering, revised lighting plan, a revised landscaping plan, to identify
the visual impacts on Quaker Road, and to be Code compliant using approved species,
to provide snow plans and contingencies for snow removal, to provide a detailed soil list
and identify delineation, to provide an updated traffic plan. So I have seven things.
MR. SEGULJIC-And address the Staff letter and engineering comments?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. That was first, yes.
MR. FORD-And when we talk about the visual impact on Quaker Road, we want both the
current one and the one with the defoliation.
MR. HUNSINGER-Is there anything else? I assume by then you’ll have an answer on
the sidewalk. Is that fair to say?
MR. PETROSKI-Well, I’m going t o take the issue to Jeff Tennyson at DPW and find out
what, you know, what their preference is, and that would be with the engineer’s
addendum that would go to him, because I’d really like to get an answer from him to put
in front of you and say, yes, he agrees with the design mitigation that we’re proposing.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. What about the sewer capacity issue?
MR. PETROSKI-We’ll get a letter out of Mike Shaw.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Anything else, George, that you can think of?
MR. HILTON-Not that I can think of.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. PETROSKI-We would just appreciate getting a copy of the final resolution. It
probably gets typed and, I don’t know what the process is, but as soon as we can.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure.
MR. PETROSKI-Just to make sure we don’t miss something. I took notes fast, but.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. How quickly are the minutes transcribed? I know they’re not
posted to the website until the following month.
MS. GAGLIARDI-I know I’ll have the resolution by tomorrow, but the probably the
minutes another week or two.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, they just need the resolution.
MS. GAGLIARDI-Yes, the resolution will be done tomorrow.
MR. HUNSINGER-So you can get that from Staff relatively quickly. Thanks, Maria.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Well, I’ll make a motion.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 61-2007 & FRESHWATER WETLANDS PERMIT
NO. 1-2008 THE VMJR COMPANIES, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for
its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford:
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(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
thth
To the June 24 Planning Board meeting, with an application deadline of May 15. This
is tabled so that the applicant can / will:
1. Satisfy the Staff Notes of April 29, 2008;
2. Satisfy the VISION Engineering comments of April 29, 2008;
3. Provide a revised lighting plan which is Code compliant;
4. Revise the landscaping plan to show the visual impacts on Quaker Road
and that would be with foliage and with defoliation, which would be a
winter view, and also that should be Code compliant using approved
species;
5. Provide snow plans and contingencies for snow removal;
6. Provide a detailed soil list and identify delineation;
7. Provide an updated traffic plan for review and consideration, including a
warrant analysis; and
8. Contact the Water Department to identify if adequate sewer capacity
exists.
th
Duly adopted this 29 day of April, 2008, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you very much.
MR. MACRI-Thank you.
MR. PETROSKI-Just one thing, from a timing standpoint, if we want to make the County
Planning Board meeting for mid-June, second Wednesday, second Thursday, we would
thth
have to submit by May 30, which is before this June 24 meeting. So, if we work with
Staff, would we be able to make that submission? I think we’re holding off based on our
own comfort level, to make sure that the County gets everything that they need at the
next meeting to make a decision, because they’ve just been deferring us each time
they’ve seen it, but if we’re comfortable, would you be comfortable so that Staff can
make that, forward the documents and then we could be on their agenda, and then we
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would have an answer before we come to this next meeting on the 24 of June.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, that’s the hope.
MR. PETROSKI-Okay.
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MR. HILTON-If we receive updated, new, whatever information by May 15, we would
treat it just as we would any other cycle where we would forward that information to the
County, and hopefully we would have, assuming they have a meeting, which there’d be
no reason why they wouldn’t, the County would give us a recommendation prior to this
Board’s next meeting.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. PETROSKI-Super. Thank you.
MR. MACRI-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Is there any other business that the Board has, old or new? Just for
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point of clarification to the Board, we do have site visits on May 17, and next month we
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have regular meetings on the 20, and then Thursday the 29, because of Grievance
Day. If there’s no other business, as motion to adjourn is in order.
MRS. STEFFAN-I make a motion to adjourn.
MOTION TO ADJOURN THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING OF APRIL
29, 2008, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by
Thomas Seguljic:
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Duly adopted this 29 day of April, 2008, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ford, Mrs. Steffan, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Traver, Mr. Sipp,
Mr. Hunsinger
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(Queensbury Planning Board 04/29/08)
NOES: NONE
On motion the meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Chris Hunsinger, Chairman
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