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2008.06.18 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FIRST REGULAR MEETING JUNE 18, 2008 INDEX Area Variance No. 52-2007 Larry Clute 2. Tax Map No. 301.20-1-11, 28, 29 Area Variance No. 19-2008 Ronald Ball 3. Tax Map No. 295.10-1-31.1 Area Variance No. 1-2008 Brian McCall 11. Tax Map No. 302.08-1-39, 38 Sign Variance No. 16-2008 Ken Ermiger d/b/a Adventure Racing 24. Tax Map No. 295.12-1-5.2 Area Variance No. 29-2008 Cifone Construction 29. Tax Map No. 308.8-1-21.2; 21.3, 21.4, 21.5, 21.6 Area Variance No. 28-2008 Donna Gagnon & Rachel Sloan 33. Tax Map No. 301.7-2-31.1 & 31.2 Area Variance No. 30-2008 Robert and Anne Clark 39. Tax Map No. 289.13-1-54 Area Variance No. 32-2008 Larry Clute 45. Tax Map No. 297.17-127 THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO BOARD AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING MONTHS MINUTES (IF ANY) AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL OF SAID MINUTES. 0 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FIRST REGULAR MEETING JUNE 18, 2008 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT JAMES UNDERWOOD, CHAIRMAN ROY URRICO, SECRETARY RICHARD GARRAND JOYCE HUNT JOAN JENKIN GEORGE DRELLOS RONALD KUHL, ALTERNATE ZONING ADMINISTRATOR-CRAIG BROWN LAND USE PLANNER-KEITH OBORNE STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI th MR. UNDERWOOD-I’ll call the June 18 meeting of the Queensbury Zoning Board of Appeals to order, and starting out I want to quickly go through our procedures once again for anybody that perhaps is new here. As we handle each application, I’ll call the application by name and number. The Secretary will read the pertinent parts of the application, the Staff Notes as well as the Warren County Planning Board decision if it’s applicable into the record. Then we’ll ask the applicant to present any information they wish to present to the Board. The Board will ask questions of the applicant, then we’ll open the public hearing. The public hearing’s intended to help us gather information and understand it about the issue at hand. It functions to help the Board members make a wise decision. It does not make the decision for the Board members. There will be a five minute limit on all speakers. We will allow speakers to speak again after everybody’s had a chance to speak, but not for more than three minutes, and only if, after listening to other speakers, a speaker believes that they have new information to present and, Board members, I’d suggest because we have the five minute limit that we not interrupt the speaker with questions while they’re speaking. Rather, we should wait until a speaker has finished his five minute period and then ask the questions. Following all the speakers, we’ll read any correspondence into the record, and then the applicant will have an opportunity react and respond to the public comment. The Board members will discuss the variance request with the applicant then. Following that, the Board members will have a chance to explain their positions on the application, and then the public hearing will be closed or left open, depending on the situation, and finally, if appropriate, a motion to approve or disapprove will follow. We do have some correspondence tonight that we’ll read in. Is there anybody here representing Subdivision No. 4-2008, and that’s Jane Lowell? Is there anybody here for that? Do you think I should read it in, Craig, or just not worry about it? MR. BROWN-Well, it could wait, maybe she’ll show up. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. I’ll do that later. MR. BROWN-That definitely needs to be tabled, though. MR. UNDERWOOD-We also are in receipt of a letter from Caffry and Flower, Attorneys at Law, and this is about an old item that has come back to see us once more. This letter was addressed to Craig Brown, Zoning Administrator, the Town of Queensbury. RE: The Ritano property at Assembly Point, and that’s Tax Map lot number 226.19-1-9, “Dear Mr. Brown: This firm represents Michael Kelly, an adjoining landowner, in connection with the illegal expansion of the Joseph Riitano house located at 16 Sunset Lane on Assembly Point, in the Town of Queensbury. We are writing to request that you take prompt action to enforce the decision of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Board of Appeals (“ZBA”) which found that Joseph Riitano had violated the Town Zoning Code by illegally expanding his house. At its meeting on August 25, 2004, the ZBA found that Mr. Riitano had violated the Town Zoning Code by expanding his house, in violation of the Code’s setback requirements and floor area ratio limitations and committing other violations of the Zoning Code. However, no action has been taken by the Town to enforce that ruling by the ZBA, apparently because Mr. Riitano had filed an Article 78 proceeding against the ZBA seeking to overturn that decision. On October 17, 2007, Justice Aulisi of Supreme Court dismissed the Article 78 proceeding. A copy of that 1 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) decision is enclosed. Mr. Riitano then filed a notice of appeal, but the appeal has now been dismissed by the Appellate Division because Mr. Riitano did not perfect the appeal by filing a brief and the record. The Court gave him until May 27, 2008 to do so, but he has not meet that deadline, and the appeal is now dismissed. A copy of that Court’s decision is also enclosed. Now that the Article 78 case has been dismissed, and the ZBA’s action can not be further challenged by Mr. Riitano, there appears to be no reason why the Town should not proceed with enforcement of the ZBA’s decision. On behalf of Mr. Kelly, we request that you do so promptly. Thank you for your consideration and your anticipated prompt action. Sincerely, John W. Caffry” I would just ask Craig, I don’t know what the dispensation of this is going to be, if they’re planning on coming back to us again, and if they are, I would ask that you make a determination as to whether they have standing to do that at this time, based upon the past record, you know, and I know you were talking to me briefly about some of the scenarios, but you might want to inform the other Board members, as to what procedures are going to be happening with this. MR. BROWN-Yes. Any decision of standing is not a decision that I can make. That’s only a decision that this Board can make, but, yes, if they proceed along the lines of coming back for a variance, we’ll keep you in the loop. MR. UNDERWOOD-It might be important to review, you know, the sequence of our last meeting that we had with the Board when we rendered our decision, because, you know, I don’t know what the Board members feel. Many of us probably have not held on to that stuff since that time. Some of us do, but, just to re-familiarize people with the situation and where we left off, you know, as far as the action goes, and where we’re going to head with that. MR. BROWN-Okay. MR. UNDERWOOD-All right. Other than that, is there anything else anybody else has? I don’t think there’s anything else we’re going to read in at this time. AREA VARIANCE NO. 52-2007 SEQRA TYPE: UNLISTED LARRY CLUTE AGENT(S): VAN DUSEN & STEVES OWNER(S): LARRY CLUTE ZONING: SR-20 LOCATION: HOWARD ST., GENEVA DR. APPLICANT PROPOSES A 20 LOT SUBDIVISION; EXTENSION OF GENEVA ESTATES. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM AREA/LOT WIDTH REQUIREMENTS. CROSS REF.: SB 7-92 GENEVA ESTATES WARREN COUNTY PLANNING N/A REFERRAL TO THE PLANNING BD. REQUIRED PER TOWN LAW 277.6 LOT SIZE: 6.3 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 301.20-1- 11, 28, 29 SECTION: 179-4-030 MR. UNDERWOOD-We do have one item on the agenda tonight, and I don’t know if anybody is here for Larry Clute’s project, and that was Area Variance No. 52-2007, and that’s, his agent is Van Dusen and Steves, and that project is located at Howard Street and Geneva Drive. It’s an SR-20 zone. It’s a 6.3 acre lot that they were proposing a 20 lot subdivision on, which is an extension of the Geneva Estates subdivision. They’re relief is requested from the area lot width and lot density requirements, and last night the Planning Board met, and the Planning Board assumed Lead Agency on that, at that time. This project, as Mr. Lapper has explained to me, is going to require some kind of variances from Department of Health, due to the fact that it’s septic tanks and it’s a subdivision that’s, you know, previously existing. I don’t know, because of the density, is that what the reason would be for that? MR. BROWN-It could be. I haven’t seen any Department of Health determination. MR. UNDERWOOD-So, before they can act on, before we can act on that, they’re going to have to do a full SEQRA review of the project and so until such time that the Planning Board meets and makes a determination, we’re going to have to put that on the back burner. So I think what I’ll do is just put it on, you know, make a, do you want to come up for a minute? MR. LAPPER-If you want to just consent to the Lead Agency status, pass that so that the Town Planning Board can get going on the SEQRA. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. MOTION TO CONSENT TO LEAD AGENCY STATUS FOR PURPOSES OF SEQRA REVIEW WITH REGARDS TO AREA VARIANCE NO. 52-2007 AND SUBDIVISION NO. 11-2007 LARRY CLUTE. FURTHER THIS APPLICATION WILL BE TABLED TO THE 2 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) JULY 23, 2008 ZONING BOARD MEETING OR UNTIL THE PLANNING BOARD COMPLETES THEIR SEQRA REVIEW, Introduced by James Underwood who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Drellos: Howard Street and Geneva Drive. th Duly adopted this 18 day of June, 2008, by the following vote: MR. UNDERWOOD-And I think we’ll postpone that until possibly the last meeting in July, and if need be we can push it up further into August, if they render a decision in that period of time. So anybody that was here for that, it’s not going to happen. MR. BROWN-That’s a motion to table until July? MR. UNDERWOOD-That’s a motion to table. AYES: Mr. Drellos, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Urrico, Mr. Garrand, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Kuhl, Mr. Underwood NOES: NONE OLD BUSINESS: AREA VARIANCE NO. 19-2008 SEQRA TYPE: II RONALD BALL AGENT(S): CHARLES SCUDDER, SCUDDER ASSOCIATES OWNER(S): RONALD & LINDA BALL ZONING: SFR-1A/RR-5A LOCATION: 1085 WEST MOUNTAIN ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES A 3-LOT RESIDENTIAL SUBDIVISION. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM MINIMUM LOT WIDTH AND DENSITY REQUIREMENTS. CROSS REF.: SUBD. NO. 3-2008 SKETCH PLAN WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: APRIL 9, 2008 LOT SIZE: 8.59 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 295.10-1-31.1 SECTION: 179- 19-020C; 179-4-090; 179-4-030 CHARLIE SCUDDER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. UNDERWOOD-We previously did have a hearing here and we had requested some information and possibly some guidance from the Planning Board regarding that. All the Board members should have received copies of the Planning Board minutes, and that’s what we’ll be dealing with tonight. So we’ll let you guys open up, if you have anything you want to add or if you want to give us a little synopsis. MR. SCUDDER-I would say, at the outset that the Zoning Board, the Planning Board, that is, did not discuss the substantive issues of this project, except with one point, they made one point, and that is that there be a single driveway, which we’ve provided for. They did not talk about steep slopes, or the effect on the neighborhood or road frontage or runoff. What they talked about mainly was the zoning issues which are the province of this Board. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. MR. SCUDDER-And the first meeting was adjourned to allow all of the members of the Board to go to the site and actually walk the site. By the way, did all of you, if I may, did all of you visit the site? MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes. MR. SCUDDER-So there were no issues discussed about the things that were in your memo to the Planning Board? MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Maybe what I’ll do is have Roy or, I’m a little out of order here, but why don’t you, do you want to read in the notes from the Zoning Administrator? STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 19-2008, Ronald Ball, Meeting Date: June 18, 2008 “Project Location: 1085 West Mountain Road The Planning Board was to recommend to the Zoning Board of Appeals to use the code for their determinations regarding slopes and lot densities. Regarding access, Planning Board recommends one (1) access point 3 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) for the two lots in question. Resolution dated May 29, 2008 .Description of Proposed Project: Applicant proposes development of a three lot subdivision. Relief Required: Applicant requests relief from the minimum lot width, road frontage and density requirements for the proposed subdivision. Specifically, the proposed subdivision does not meet the minimum density requirements for any additional lots after subtracting the required “undevelopable” lands where slopes exceed 25%, as such relief is needed for the two additional lots proposed. Also, as the road frontage for the property is on West Mountain Road, a Local Arterial Road, the minimum required lot width is 300 feet for all lots with their own, individual driveways, per 179-19-020, C. Further, per 179-4-090, each newly created lot must have a minimum of 40 feet of frontage on a public highway, which all proposed lots do, however, the key to having the road frontage is that the physical access to the property must be provided within each lots frontage. While Lot 3 has the necessary linear footage of frontage, access is proposed across Lot 2, as such relief is required. Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law: 1. Benefit to the applicant: Applicant would be able to subdivide and develop two additional lots. 2. Feasible alternatives: Feasible alternatives appear limited as any subdivision of this land will require some level of relief. 3. Is this relief substantial relative to the ordinance?: The cumulative requests for relief may be interpreted as moderate to substantial when compared to the ordinance. 4. Effects on the neighborhood or community: Minimal effects on the neighborhood are anticipated as a result of this action. 5. Is this difficulty self-created? The difficulty may be interpreted as self created. Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): Sketch Plan Sub pending Staff comments: Per NYS Town Law 277, subdivisions requiring variances must be referred to the Planning Board for recommendation prior to deciding on the variance application. SEQR Status: Type II” MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Board members, do you have any questions you would like to ask at this time? MR. URRICO-Well, the question is, did we get enough information back from the Planning Board? MR. UNDERWOOD-Well, it does not appear to me that our questions were answered, and I think they kind of, my interpretation of the Planning Board is that they threw it back to us saying we don’t want to do your job for you. Look at what you’ve got on the books and make the decision. Their only concern was the driveway, and they had requested the single drive, not multiple drives, but I think it was a single drive to begin with. So I don’t know why they’ve spent all this time with no answer. So, in essence, I think what we’re looking at is, just to summarize, last time, I think we were concerned with two 4 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) things, that is the upper reaches of the property is five acre zoning. The lower reaches down below is single acre. There’s really not a buildable lot down in that single acre zone. It doesn’t appear you can meet the setbacks from the arterial road, and whether that would be desirable to be that close to the road probably wouldn’t be a fit either. They’re proposing two building lots up on the mountain with a single access to both of those, and I think the thing that we need to key in on is the Staff Notes. Craig’s interpretation is that the property does not meet the minimum density for creation of any additional lots. So in your own minds, you ought to be saying to yourselves, and if you’ve visited the property and walked around up there, you’ve taken the time to see whether or not it’s a feasible thing to have two more houses on that property. That’s going to be at loggerheads with Craig’s determination. Last time I think a lot of the Board members were pretty much on board with maybe possibly allowing one house up there, and I had hoped at some point the Planning Board would have given us some direction as to whether they thought one or two, what was better and if one was going to work for you, then leave it up to us to make that decision. As far as the other request, I think the Planning Board in their notes, there were numerous Site Plan development issues but those are Planning Board issues, and the Town Engineer did identify that it had steep access points. So stormwater is going to be something that has to be controlled, and you explained to us last time that you were comfortable with what you would propose that the Planning Board would be able to deal with that. So as far as the Planning Board goes, they always have the ultimate authority to negate the project in its entirety, if they wish to. So if we give permission for a lot or two lots up there, that’s our purview to do that. As far as the issue of what the Planning Board prefers, as far as access, the single drive looks like that’s what they want, and I think everybody was pretty much on board with that. So do we want to open up the public hearing? Is there anybody from the public that wants to ask any questions on that? Nobody? PUBLIC HEARING OPEN MR. UNDERWOOD-Any correspondence? MR. URRICO-I don’t see any. Nothing new. MR. UNDERWOOD-Do you want to add anything or in summary? MR. SCUDDER-At the last meeting, Mr. Chairman, something was said about water getting down into that stream. What we’ve proposed is not going to add a single drop of water to the stream. The water is not going to flow to the stream. We’re going to dispose of it up on the hill, and we can show that. We can demonstrate that, and we’ll have to demonstrate all of these things. There were 12 items on the list prepared by the Town’s Engineer, and we have to address each one of those. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. MR. SCUDDER-And these are normal things. We expect to do that, but we’re in the very early stages here. MR. UNDERWOOD-Anything else you want to add? RON BALL MR. BALL-I’m afraid to say anything. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. MR. SCUDDER-I want to say this, that two of the men on the Planning Board expressed themselves almost better than I could as to the feasibility of the project as we propose it. The objections to the people on the Planning Board who did object were that it doesn’t meet the zoning, and they almost didn’t want to go beyond that, and our point was, we know that. We concede that. That’s why we’re in front of the Zoning Board. MR. UNDERWOOD-Well, I think what I was hoping for was some direction as to if they thought everything could be controlled as far as runoff on site. Then that would relieve my concerns about that, or some of the concerns of some of the other Board members. MR. SCUDDER-They weren’t concerned about that, and we’re not concerned about it either. We can deal with runoff. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. 5 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. SCUDDER-The runoff is going to be minor. MR. UNDERWOOD-All right. Anybody have any questions? MRS. JENKIN-Yes, I have a comment to make anyway. If you read the full minutes, there were a lot of things brought out about the property itself, and they did talk about the amount of clear cutting that would be needed with two homes versus one, and the fact that they didn’t want to make a determination was because it actually is a five acre zoned area, and they felt that it was in our purview to make a decision on whether we are going to grant a variance for the five acres, because the five acres was the big deal. It’s, that, there was a lot of discussion at that meeting about the properties across the street which are not in five acre areas. So that was a moot point and didn’t have anything to do with it, and the homes along West Mountain that are in the five acre area, and most of those homes do comply with that five acre building. Most of the properties have five acres that they are built on. MR. SCUDDER-Actually the properties to the south of this parcel are not five acre lots. MRS. JENKIN-But you are in a five acre zone. MR. SCUDDER-Yes, we are. MR. BALL-The Water Department’s tower, I don’t believe that’s five acres. MRS. JENKIN-And there’s a reason for that, too, because of the slope of the land and the amount of, the vegetation up there, that that’s what’s holding a lot of the, their won’t be runoff because the vegetation holds it. If you do a lot of clear cutting up there, it’s going to make a difference to what comes down, even if you put holding tanks, and holding ponds and things up on top here, that even means more clear cutting if you add that to it. If you’re putting holding ponds on, you can’t have the trees. MR. UNDERWOOD-I would assume that the Planning Board’s going to be very reluctant to allow anything other than minimal cutting to accommodate what you’re going to put up there. MR. SCUDDER-That’s right, and, you know, that’s in our interest, too. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. MR. SCUDDER-If you look at the route of the driveway, the route of the driveway follows an existing, what is it a logging road? MR. BALL-Somehow a farmer, years ago, there’s a barn right directly across the street from where the property is, and the guy had a tractor and he used to cross, it used to be called the sand road, I believe, West Mountain Road was called the road, and he crossed over there and he went up in there and he built all these stone walls that’s on the property, and someone put a well up there, and the person that put the well up there I believe was the previous owner’s son. He had intentions of building a house there, and it was used quite often, and right through the early 50’s, that’s when we believe the well was put in up there, some time in the 50’s, but I think the son had intentions of building a house up in there, possibly a farmhouse, and that’s what the stone walls were for, to hold the cattle in. That’s how they did it years ago, I believe, and so this existing driveway that’s already there is where I want the new driveway to be, but the road is just about already cleared for my intentions of a new driveway, a shared driveway for the two lots that I hope to get some time. MRS. JENKIN-But then the road’s up above to get to the homes, that would be all new road up there? MR. BALL-It goes all the way up through. That road goes all the way up through it. If you were up there you would see that. You would have seen where this road is. It goes all the way around the whole property. MRS. JENKIN-Did they farm up there, do you think? MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes. I would say definitely. The VanDusen’s, all that parcel, that was all, there’s pictures you can see old postcards showing the hillsides. There’s not a stick of wood up there. It was all sheep farms in the old days. 6 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. SCUDDER-One point that was raised at the Zoning Board is how do you prevent the owners from clear cutting all the way down to the road? I don’t have an answer for that. I suggested maybe you could do it by covenants in the deeds. MRS. JENKIN-Well, they said that you can’t do it by Code, and then after that, because I read that carefully, too, and they said that if you clear cut and put a garden in there, then that is against the Code, the Town Code, and you have to wait five to seven years to build after that, or to do anything with that property if you’ve clear cut it. That’s the way I understand that they said there. MR. SCUDDER-Our objective is to minimize the tree cutting. MRS. JENKIN-Yes, and I can’t imagine any property owner threatening to clear cut a piece of property just so that they could get some building in there. That’s not good stewardship of the land. MR. SCUDDER-Neither can we, but it’s possible, and we’re looking for a mechanism to prevent that, and to minimize the number of trees that are actually cut down. MR. BALL-If you see what Charlie prepared there, it shows the new route of the driveway that we’re proposing. It almost follows that existing driveway, or if you want to call it a logging road or farm road, it follows that, and the reason why it follows it is because I told Charlie I do not want to clear any of these trees away. I wanted to protect that area, and it’s a natural road that is there. It needs some work to meet the 10% grade I believe, is that right? MR. SCUDDER-That’s the maximum, right. MR. BALL-Yes, the maximum, but I’m not going to take anymore trees than what’s necessary to put the structure up. MRS. JENKIN-Well, there’s no problem with putting one house on it, correct? It’s trying to subdivide it and put two homes in is the problem. MR. UNDERWOOD-As these notes exist from the Zoning Administrator, any house up there would require relief because it doesn’t meet the minimum standards for the five acres because it’s up on that five acres, if you subtract out the unbuildable. MR. SCUDDER-We understand that, Mr. Chairman, that’s why we’re here. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. Craig, just a question for you. If we were to grant them relief for one lot up there, that one lot, the configuration of that one lot where it’s placed, could we leave that up to the Planning Board for their decision on that, as to where they think is better, further up or, I mean, it’s sort of a swap, right or left, when you get up there. MR. BROWN-Right. I suppose that you could. I think for probably better recordkeeping purposes, I’d suggest you get a copy of that proposed two lot subdivision as opposed to the three lot one now, so you know what you’re approving if you’re going to grant them that variance. So you could, but I wouldn’t suggest it. MR. UNDERWOOD-So could we approve it, could we tentatively approve it, you know, and just say, the placement of that home up there would be left, you know, you could decide where a single one would go, and then the Planning Board would have to signoff on that. That’s part of their purview. MR. SCUDDER-Well, it’s almost self-evident, where one would go. MR. UNDERWOOD-One or the other, yes. MR. SCUDDER-Obviously there was a driveway right straight up the hill from the curb cut, and you can drive your car right up there. MRS. JENKIN-But that’s not legal, right? It’s more than 10%? MR. SCUDDER-It’s not legal for an approved driveway. MRS. JENKIN-Right. 7 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. SCUDDER-But it is drivable. MRS. JENKIN-Right, but the thing is if you’re going to put homes up there, you have to change that road, and that’s the whole thing. MR. SCUDDER-Yes. MRS. JENKIN-And you do have to cut more if you’re changing the road. MR. SCUDDER-Yes, indeed. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Is everybody familiar with what we’re going to do here? I’m going to poll the Board. First I’m going to close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. UNDERWOOD-I’ll start with you, Roy, and try and give us some information whether you think one is appropriate or two is appropriate. I think that the driveway, what we’re being asked to approve on that is we’re going to, we would have to approve for frontage on a public highway that’s shared with a current drive up there. Is that what you’re, the one as proposed by you on the plan? You would just have a single drive going to the single house up on the hill. MR. SCUDDER-A single curb cut, and that’s what we’re proposing. MR. UNDERWOOD-Right. MR. SCUDDER-We’re proposing a single curb cut for two additional lots. I guess you’re talking about it as though it’s a three lot subdivision. MR. BROWN-Right. Yes, my understanding is approximately a one acre parcel for the existing house, and then, I don’t know if it’s exactly in half, but then a further subdivision of the remaining lands for two new lots. That’s what’s proposed. I think what I hear you offering is just the house lot, and then one up on top. MR. UNDERWOOD-And another house on the top. MR. BROWN-Which is not something that they’ve shown you yet, as far as what that map’s going to look like. MR. SCUDDER-That’s not what we want. MR. BROWN-I know that. So there’s two different thoughts here. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Let’s go through the Board and see what the Board members think as far as one or two, let’s do that first. Roy? MR. URRICO-As this stage I really need to see what we’re talking about. I’m not picturing it, and I think I need to see it. So I’m not ready to rule on it tonight or vote on it tonight. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joyce? MRS. HUNT-Yes. I have to agree. I’m kind of leaning to the existing house and then one on the remaining lot, but I really would like to see more information. MR. UNDERWOOD-Rich? MR. GARRAND-I’d agree with Joyce on this one. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with the two additional lots on this lot. I think the topography doesn’t support two lots on this. I’d be more inclined to vote in favor of one additional lot instead of two. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. George? MR. DRELLOS-Jim, we’re going through these Planning Board minutes, and you can pretty much see how they feel, even though they didn’t come right out and say it, that they would not want us to grant the variance, and I’m going to have to kind of lean to what they would say, since they’re going to have to look at this anyway with the Site Plan, and, which they’re calling for it, it’s kind of a headache. 8 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. UNDERWOOD-So you think no houses would be appropriate? MR. DRELLOS-I think one. Yes, I would go with one. MR. UNDERWOOD-All right. Okay. Joan? MRS. JENKIN-Yes. I agree. I think probably what we need to do right now is table it. We can’t make a decision, but we can certainly say that that’s what we would be leaning to, having one home up there only on that other property. You have the one that’s already the one acre, the existing home, and then have one other home up there. There was talk about, which I didn’t understand, that you could possibly put that other house down next to the road. That wouldn’t be possible, would it? MR. BALL-Isn’t that zoned one acre down near the road? MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes. MRS. JENKIN-Right. There still isn’t room to put another house down there, besides the existing house, is there? MR. BALL-Well, I’m not sure how it works. If it’s zoned one acre, and it’s zoned five acres on the one piece of property, how does that work? MRS. JENKIN-Well, the existing house is on the one acre property. MR. BALL-Right. MRS. JENKIN-Then there’s a little tiny piece that is one acre, but then there’s the others over there. MR. BALL-Okay. So what they’re saying is, if it’s zoned one acre, then I could build one house on one acre. Right? MRS. JENKIN-Yes. MR. BALL-Okay. So, now stop me if I’m wrong, because I’m not following, I don’t know why, so I’ve got one, zoned one acre near the West Mountain Road. So if I come to you and I said, okay, I want to put one house on that one acre, and then that’s going to leave six and a half acres up at the top, can I put one house on that six and a half acres? What you’re saying I could? So basically I could get two houses on that parcel? MR. UNDERWOOD-I think in general, if you look at Staff Notes, the Zoning Administrator, has made a determination that, as far as he’s concerned, if you take a strict read of the regulations, because of the steep slopes upslope, and that’s mostly on the five acre zone up there, you don’t have the minimum five acres of buildable land up there that would accommodate one single home up there. MR. BALL-I’m very close to it, though, right? MR. UNDERWOOD-You’re close. Down below you’ve got a little bit of land that’s one acre, but it’s too thin of a narrow swatch there, you know, for you to qualify. I don’t think you meet the setbacks. So you’d be partially into the five acre zone if you built into the hill there, I would assume. MR. BROWN-And certainly, you know, building a house that straddles the zoning line is not impossible to do. I think what we would likely do is, you know, obviously what we’d do if you site the house in the one acre zone, you use the one acre setbacks, which are slightly less than the five acre setbacks, but as far as the feasibility of a building site in the one acre zone, that’s up to the engineer. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. MRS. JENKIN-All right, and then if you did that, because that is appropriate to do that, they say here in the minutes 1.85 that’s usable in the one acre zone, 1.85, but then the rest of it is only 4.34, and if you decide to build in that one acre zone, then we certainly wouldn’t give you a variance for the 4., that which is the whole upper area. 9 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. UNDERWOOD-Well, I think what you have to keep in perspective, too, is the 1.84 includes where the current house is, so if you subtract the one acre from that, you’re only left with .84, so you don’t meet it. MRS. JENKIN-I see. So that’s not even enough. Okay. Thank you. So I would go with the one house perhaps way up there, but not two. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Ron? MR. KUHL-I’m too new to comment on this, in all fairness. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. To summarize, then, I think what we’re looking for from you is I think we’re going to have to table this based upon the fact that we don’t have a plot for a single house up on the hill as an alternative to your two lot subdivision. So maybe what we want to have you come back with is a single house sited somewhere up on the upper reaches. Either of those two places where I think you have it already I think might be appropriate, and at that point, the Board members would know where you were talking about. It seems to me that you probably do have support for a single house on the upper slopes there, but the addition of only one more house, not a total of three, giving you a total of two houses, if we allow you to build that one. So do you want to come back with a site plan for a single house? You wanted the two I know. MR. BALL-No, I don’t want to come back with a single house. I mean, you know, this, the five acre parcel is only 4. three quarters of an acre. We lack a quarter of an acre of having five acres up there. What’s wrong with me taking material from the cut and put it in there to give me the grade that I need? MR. UNDERWOOD-Would you like some time to talk it over? Do you guys want to go out and talk about the possibilities or do you just want to table it, or? MR. SCUDDER-Table it until next month? MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure, we can do that. Is he going to meet that submission if he comes in with possibilities, or he going to be two months into the future? MR. BROWN-Well, the submission deadline was Monday, but certainly if you want to establish a new one for him. MR. UNDERWOOD-I think we can accommodate that. MR. BROWN-I would suggest by next Wednesday, that’ll give us time to get it in and get it on an agenda which we’ll be finalizing next Thursday, if that’s what they want to do. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. Just to keep in mind that the Board seems to find that, you know, with your total acreage there, with one house already being built on site, that the possibilities for a single home only somewhere on that site exist for you, but it doesn’t look like you’re going to get two. So that’ll be up to you whether you want to pursue it with a single one. MR. BALL-When Charlie asked if you’ve been up there, you answered for everybody? Has everybody been up on the lot, or did you just drive by in a car? MR. UNDERWOOD-I don’t know. You’d have to ask them. MR. DRELLOS-I’ve been there. MR. BALL-You’ve been up on the property? MRS. JENKIN-I did not walk up the hill. MR. GARRAND-I was up there the first time this came through. MR. BALL-Did you actually walk the property over? MR. GARRAND-Not the entire property, but I walked up the hill. MR. BALL-Okay. Did you think it was too steep? 10 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. GARRAND-Actually, yes, I did. I thought it was about a 50 foot from the road to the top of the property. It seemed to me to be at least 50 feet difference in gradient from top to bottom. I had concerns when I was out there also because it was wet about what any stormwater would do to that area, post construction. MR. UNDERWOOD-Why don’t we do this. We’ll put you on for the second meeting next month. That’ll give you time to run through some possible ideas as to how you want to place it up there, and that’ll give us time to look at it. Try and get that in, what was the date you wanted it by? MR. BROWN-Next Wednesday. MR. UNDERWOOD-Next Wednesday. Is that going to work? th MR. BROWN-The 25. MR. BALL-Will that work for you, Charlie? MR. SCUDDER-Well, I think the house will be sited where the second house is, or I think of it as the first house. MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes, as you go up. MR. SCUDDER-As you go up. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. MR. SCUDDER-I can’t imagine any reason to move it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. MR. SCUDDER-Which means we’re going to erase a couple of lines. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. All right. MR. SCUDDER-But we have the sense of the Board. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. All right. MOTION TO TABLE AREA VARIANCE NO. 19-2008 RONALD BALL, Introduced by James Underwood who moved for its adoption, seconded by Richard Garrand: 1085 West Mountain Road. Tabled until the second meeting next month, and to have the drawings in by next Wednesday, so they can be distributed to the Board. th Duly adopted this 18 day of June, 2008, by the following vote: MR. UNDERWOOD-Board members, hang on to what you have so you can compare what was originally proposed to what you end up with here, and then we’ll hopefully deal with that next month for you. MR. SCUDDER-Thank you, Mr. Chairman. AYES: Mr. Garrand, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Drellos, Mr. Kuhl, Mr. Underwood NOES: NONE AREA VARIANCE NO. 1-2008 SEQRA TYPE: II BRIAN MC CALL AGENT(S): ALBERT S. MUGRACE OWNER(S): BRIAN MC CALL ZONING: HC-INT. LOCATION: 274 QUAKER ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF AN 2,550 SQ. FT. METAL ADDITION; 3 WORK BAYS AND STORAGE TO THE EXISTING TIRE REPLACEMENT FACILITY/OFFICE/STORAGE. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM SETBACK REQUIREMENTS AND FLOOR AREA RATIO REQUIREMENTS. WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: JANUARY 9, 2007 LOT SIZE: TAX MAP NO. 302.08-1-39, 38 SECTION: 179-4-030 AL MUGRACE & ROB MC CARTHY, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT 11 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. UNDERWOOD-I believe we left the public hearing open on this one and I think the Board members provided some guidance as to what they thought might be more reasonable than what was originally proposed here. Everybody should have received a set of plans that were different than the last set. Maybe I’ll let you summarize what the differences are between those plans, just basically setbacks brought in a little bit on the back. STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 1-2008, Brian McCall, Meeting Date: June 18, 2008 “Project Location: 274 Quaker Road The applicant has submitted modified plans showing the elimination for the need of total side setback relief and a reduction to the Floor Area Ratio relief. The Planning Board made a resolution with their recommendation. Description of Proposed Project: Applicant proposes construction of 1890 sf addition to the existing Auto Service Facility. Relief Required: Applicant requests 896 sf of relief from the maximum allowable Floor Area Ratio requirement for the Highway Commercial, (HC-Int) zoning district. Specifically, the applicant is proposing a 33% FAR for the site. Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law: 1. Benefit to the applicant: Applicant would be permitted to construct the structure in the preferred location. 2. Feasible alternatives: There appears to be ample area available for construction in conformance with the setback requirements, and, it would appear as though a smaller addition (994 sf) would meet the FAR requirements. 3. Is this relief substantial relative to the ordinance?: The proposed 33% FAR total may be interpreted as moderate. 4. Effects on the neighborhood or community: No letters of support were submitted with the application materials. Given the apparent sharing of access aisles with at least three adjacent properties, effects on such arrangements should be considered. 5. Is this difficulty self-created? The difficulty may be interpreted as self created. Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): SPR 64-2007 pending 2550 sf addition to Auto Use SV 59-2001 8/22/01 setback relief for sign in ROW SPR 44-1998 8/18/98 Auto Service Use (Tire Warehouse) Staff comments: It would appear as though the on site areas for Stormwater Control are limited and will be further tested with the addition to the building. SEQR Status: Type II” MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. MR. MUGRACE-Good evening. My name is Albert Mugrace. I’m the architect for Tire Warehouse. The new redesigned addition has been reduced, both in length and width. 12 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) The length got shrunk from 75 feet down to 63 feet. That’s a reduction of six feet on each side of the building, or a total of 12 feet. We also reduced the width of the building from an originally proposed 34 feet down to 30 feet. We feel that this has improved somewhat the circulation around the rear of the lot. Of course you know there’s some changes that were made to the general elevation of the building, and I did submit plans showing the actual floor plan and the elevations. I presume that you’ve gotten copies of this. We are in full satisfaction of the setback requirements of the two side setbacks. Obviously we don’t need any relief from setbacks. The FAR ratio, we’re still 860 square feet above the permitted 760 plus or minus square feet, and that’s mainly, I would say about the minimum that the Tire Warehouse requires there to make this project feasible, both from a functional point of view and a financial point of view. As you know, the building was originally designed to accommodate the needs and functions of a bakery, and this is a totally different occupancy here, and I think they’ve done pretty well for the last, how long has it been, 10 years you’ve been there? BRIAN MC CALL MR. MC CALL-Approximately. MR. MUGRACE-Yes. Although it’s been, they’ve encountered several practical difficulties because of the nature of the building. The green areas and parking have not changed unfortunately. We just can’t find anymore space there to accommodate the additional green space or parking, but I think that the new layout has alleviated some of the issues that we were encountering with the previous layout of interference of the parking spaces with the circulation patterns. So with that, I’d like to pass the microphone to Bob McCarthy, the attorney, and discuss some of these points further. MR. MC CARTHY-Thank you. The last time I was here the major issues that you had was the size, which we brought down I guess when Mrs. Jenkin had indicated that you wanted something smaller, which we have. The parking was another major issue, which we redesigned the parking so the parking’s in the front and in the back. It does, the parking spaces do meet what is required for a building of this size. The setback, as you’ve indicated, is no longer an issue. The economics of this project is this is about the smallest size that we would require to go forward on the project. We don’t necessarily know if we can go anything deeper. We can’t go higher because of the type of building it is and also the type of business that my client does, but I think we’ve addressed all of the concerns that the Board has had in the past, not only this Board, but also the Planning Board. Most of it was the parking and the setbacks of ingress and egress on the premises. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them. MR. UNDERWOOD-With bringing it in on the west side of the building there, that pinch point that we talked about last time on the corner there, that’s been alleviated? MR. MC CARTHY-Resolved. MR. UNDERWOOD-Even if you look at it with the hedgerows that are going to be, the hedges and bushes that are going to be planted, they’re going to stick out further into the road than the edge of the building. So that should keep anybody from clipping the building with an 18 wheeler, right? Hopefully. MR. MC CARTHY-Correct. MR. MUGRACE-That’s the idea. MR. UNDERWOOD-Any Board members have questions? MR. URRICO-Do you take deliveries on the west side of the building? Is that what’s being used? MR. UNDERWOOD-That’s the side towards Minogue’s. MR. MC CALL-No. No, we take them on the east side. MR. URRICO-You take them on the east side of the building. MR. MC CALL-Correct. MR. URRICO-So the opposite side of the bays you take your deliveries. 13 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. MC CALL-Correct. MR. URRICO-And how are the tractor trailers going to get through? What’s the access there? MR. MC CALL-They can access with any, either through the rear or the front. MR. URRICO-Coming around the building. MR. MC CALL-Right. MR. MC CARTHY-And there’s not a lot of tractor trailer service there. Most of it’s just a box truck. A tractor trailer comes once how often? MR. MC CALL-Maybe once a month. MR. MC CARTHY-Yes. It’s not a lot of service. MR. UNDERWOOD-So you’re going to have them back down that east side to those other bays, the old bays they used to load the trucks from on the east side? MR. MC CALL-Yes, they could back it down or they could just drive right down. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure, or drive straight in. MR. MC CALL-And actually the delivery company that does use the tractor trailer, to appease some of our neighbors, we’ve asked them to discontinue that and to use a smaller truck, and they’ve been accommodating us. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Any other questions from Board members? Joan? MRS. JENKIN-I have a question which I really don’t know, so I thought I would ask it. The infiltrators, you put the parking at the back which is really, I think, just very, very good because then your employees can sit at the back and then leave the front. So I was really happy to see that, but the infiltrators are underneath the parking, or what is it? Are they drains? MR. MC CARTHY-They’re usually about six to eight feet long. They look like a big hump. MR. MUGRACE-Yes. What they are, they’re pipes that service the storage area for runoff. MRS. JENKIN-Are they under the ground, then, so the cars just park on top of it? MR. MUGRACE-Exactly. MRS. JENKIN-And it doesn’t have any effect having the cars there on top of the infiltrator? MR. MUGRACE-No. MR. MC CARTHY-They’re DOT approved. There’s two types you can use. You can use it for a back yard service or this, and this would be something that would have a load of a car on top of it. MR. MUGRACE-Yes. It’s called an H-20 load, but they’re done all the time, and it’s a proven method of handling this. MRS. JENKIN-Because they’re there already, aren’t they? They’ve been there. MR. MUGRACE-No, they’re not there. MRS. JENKIN-They’re not there. You’d put those in? MR. MC CARTHY-Yes. MRS. JENKIN-Okay. 14 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. MC CARTHY-In conjunction with the master plan of the work that the Town’s doing with the drainage through the property. MRS. JENKIN-Okay. The other thing that I, just a comment, I was glad to see that you took away the parking on that side of the building and put it at the back, because that will ease up your transportation areas there. MR. MC CARTHY-We tried to make the ingress and egress as easy as possible. MRS. JENKIN-We asked for, I think it was another Board member, they asked for just one bay, but you decreased them to 10 feet, and so is that wide enough? Because they were from 12 to 10 feet. MR. MC CARTHY-The two bays will work fine. The function will be fine, as long as we’re allowed to have a width there of a minimum of 30 feet, that’s, you know, and we brought that down from originally 44 feet. MRS. JENKIN-Thank you. MR. UNDERWOOD-Any other questions from Board members? Okay. I’ll open up, re- open the public hearing again. Anybody from the public wishing to speak on this project? Raise your hand and I’ll have you come up one at a time. PUBLIC HEARING OPEN JEFF MEYER MR. MEYER-Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, my name is Jeff Meyer. I’m an attorney with Fitzgerald, Morris, Baker, Firth. I represent Rob Doin, the owner of the Adirondack Wine Merchants and now the property as well, and we’re here to reiterate our objections to the project. We have reviewed the revised plans. The proposal remains insufficient and detrimental to the health, safety and general welfare of not only the neighbors but the greater Town, since there is a lot of use along this corridor between Minogue’s and Cool Beans. The Planning Board was not able to recommend the project, and we feel it’s with good reason, and further there’s no justification for granting the variance that they requested. Under the variance test, the application is required to show an unnecessary hardship. He hasn’t made any showing of any hardship, and simply it’s a matter of I want to expand, the law limits and prohibits that, and that’s why we’re here. It’s our opinion that that’s insufficient grounds for granting a variance. Especially in light of the detrimental impacts that it will have. There are feasible alternatives and this Board has noted it. The Planning Board’s noted it. You can bring down the size of the addition and there are changes that can be made, and the way the building’s configured and the floor area ratio requirements, you know, has a dramatic impact on the circulation of vehicles and the ability to park and receive shipments, and those are the things that we’ve highlighted a number of times, and hopefully, even though it’s been revised, you’ll realize that it’s still insufficient. The parking requirements aren’t even met for the Town Code. The two handicap spots aren’t the requisite width, and none of the spots are the requisite length, the 18 feet that are required, and, you know, further the Code requires 20 feet for circulation, and there just isn’t 20 feet behind the rear of the building, the end of the parking spots and the end of their property line. The parking and the circulation more or less requires trespassing onto my client’s property and the property of Minogue’s. The aerial photo and the tax map is pretty deceiving. The boundary really is along that outer most container that you can see in white, and it doesn’t really, there isn’t that much room on the east side of the property, and, you know, granted the Code only says you are required to have 14 spots. It’s insufficient for the current use. There’s 12 spots, supposedly 12 spots now. They continually park on other folks’ property, and, you know, increasing the number of bays by two and only increasing two parking spots is only going to make things worse. The Code wants two spots for every bay, and they’re only really adding, you know, one spot for each bay. Further the application doesn’t meet the Town Code’s requirements for off street loading. They’re required to have one off street loading facility that’s 12 feet wide by 40 feet long. It’s not there. The applicant said that he uses the east side, which is my client’s side. He does, for some of the shipments, and in order to do so it requires trespassing on our property. If we were to reconfigure our building or our space or even attempt to put a more permanent fence or something along the boundary, it would severely restrict his ability to use his property, and make receiving shipments difficult if not impossible, and, you know, I know you guys have received a lot of photos from Minogue’s that do show the trucks coming and going, and not everything seems to be matching up with what they’re representing, and we’d just like to prevent the continual 15 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) sprawl and overflow that encroaches on our property. Another point, as to the storage and the storage containers, they presently have five on the property, which is about 1600 square feet of storage, and supposedly this will, by granting this variance, they can comply with the law that prohibits the use of these storage containers, and if you look at the storage capability of the addition, it’s only about 900 square feet when you take out the bays, and the numbers don’t seem to add up. The bottom line is they’ve outgrown the site and they need all these variances, and it’s a bad idea. It’s a small lot for what they want to do. Another thing, just a quick point on the stormwater management. I know the Town and the adjoining property owners along this corridor are trying to address that, but the applicant didn’t respond to the additional information requested by VISION Engineering, as to precisely what was discussed earlier, the infiltration devices. They haven’t seen the data that would support the groundwater percolation rates and the other factors that are going to go into whether or not this infiltration system will work and whether it will prevent untreated water from going into the AA stream, and lastly it’s our position that the application and the variances are an Unlisted action under SEQRA, because they’re expanding an existing structure and the plan presently doesn’t comply with the Town’s land use controls, and we’d just like that on the record. Just to wind up, there’s numerous detrimental impacts to the project, and we don’t feel they’ve shown any evidence or shown any kind of hardship to support the granting of the variance. MR. UNDERWOOD-Thank you. Anybody else from the public wishing to speak? ROBERT MINOGUE MR. MINOGUE-My name is Robert Minogue. I’m from Minogue’s Beverage, and I’d like to just hand some additional photos, just to try to put into perspective what we’re looking at. These photos were taken, these are different photos than what I had presented to the Board prior, and what they depict is basically the convenience, or the convenient use of my back parking lot to have the tractor trailer and the box truck pull in to the storage containers at the rear of the building, and I did show, you’ll see in the photos there, the actual tire tracks that come into my back parking lot, which were represented in the photos of tractor trailer that I had submitted previously. Now this is that box truck pulling out of the property in the rear of my building, so that it can back up to the existing trailers there to remove tires, and I think the question was to Brian earlier, does he get deliveries on the west side of the building. Well, it may not be a delivery, but it’s a pick up, and it’s still the use of my property by a vehicle that’s coming to service his business, indicating that there’s not enough room there. Also the photos in there that I’ve taken show a tractor trailer that was there on the fourth of June, and a car parked there that doesn’t belong to Minogue employee, myself, or anybody associated with my business. That’s parked right alongside the tractor trailer. You can’t even get through there. That’s coming in off of Everts Road. Now, the other photos here taken show a couple of trucks and a trailer parked right alongside my building, blocking my overhead door in the rear. Those are vehicles that are at the Tire Warehouse, and then there’s another set of photos there showing where there’s another truck parked alongside my building and they’re servicing a boat or the trailer that’s parked along the Tire Warehouse, and the bottom line is I think, you know, it’s been stated numerous times is that there’s just not enough room for what has been proposed, and I was sitting here thinking we’re talking about the square footage of the existing containers, which is 1600 square feet, and I’m thinking to myself, okay, well, what’s the square footage of the average automobile, and how many employees do you have? And we can, you know, that’s my terms, that’s the way I’m looking at, okay, well, we’ve got 1600 square feet there of existing storage containers, and this is totally not functional. Now we’re proposing the addition of this addition, and this is going to put just a permanent structure, it’s more than what’s existing there and where are the vehicles going to go? I mean, they use the west side of their building to park, and they can sit here and tell you until you’re blue in the face that we’re not going to be using that side of the building. Well, I’m there every day and as a matter of fact, after the last meeting that we had here, the following morning I couldn’t believe it, I pull in to work and there’s two cars that have, and I didn’t develop the photos of those. I have them, of customers of theirs that are parked in my parking lot. I went and I asked one of the guys that’s familiar with the situation, I said, is this a joke? And so I took a photo of it. It was 12 hours later. I couldn’t believe it, and so there is a limit of, and I got thinking about this, too, and it’s been questioned, well, it was said, well, being a good neighbor. Well, I believe that I’ve been an exceptionally good neighbor. They have use, they use the property in between the building, the property line. They come on to my property and pull their vehicles in and out of their bays from eight o’clock in the morning until six o’clock at night. I go out when there’s a problem and tell them, hey, guys, you know, this can’t be done or that can’t be done when it’s abused. There is a limit of being a good neighbor and then being walked on. Okay, and, you know, the line’s got to be drawn, and the addition isn’t going to work. I don’t know any better way of articulating it 16 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) and making it more clear. I think I’m pretty straightforward with my position on this, and that’s it. Are there any questions? MR. UNDERWOOD-No. Thank you. MR. MINOGUE-Okay. MR. UNDERWOOD-Anybody else wishing to speak? Okay. Then I guess I’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. UNDERWOOD-You guys want to come back up and make any comments? MR. MINOGUE-Could I say one more thing? MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. MR. MINOGUE-In the last meeting, there was something that was brought up about the fact of tractor trailers that were being pulled in and used on that property, and I think there was something of a turning radius or something that they were going to look into regarding that. I don’t know if that was done or presented. I would just like to footnote, if that was done now, it would be done so without the presence of snow, which obviously is going to limit the turning radius during the winter months. So, okay. MR. UNDERWOOD-Thank you. Okay. I guess we’ll leave it up to you to respond to the concerns of your two neighbors and businesses on either side. MR. MUGRACE-Okay. Regarding the parking spaces, we’ve gone over these things several times as part of the design of the site, and they are a 9 by 18. I don’t know what else we should do with those. Nine by eighteen is what’s acceptable and they’re shown correctly. In terms of backing up and out of the parking spaces, I believe that the 20 foot right of way there would also suffice, you know, also give additional area there for backing up in the eventuality that we cannot negotiate the turn, but we already checked, and we should be able to negotiate those turns within the property, and the stormwater management report has been submitted several months ago. It was prepared by Meyers Engineering. We haven’t heard anything regarding that particular report from anyone, as far as I know anyway. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. MR. MUGRACE-I don’t know, Bob, do you have anything else? MR. MC CARTHY-Just that the statements made by counsel are just factually incorrect. I mean, the numbers are there. You can look at it. You can go, the parking spots are what they’re supposed to be. They’re the size they’re supposed to be. The radius in the back, looking from the plans, they have enough room for the radius. Is it tight? Yes, no one’s disagreeing with that, and that we can bring as many pictures as they bring if you want us to. I was there over Memorial Day weekend and people from the beer distributor parked on my client’s property. It’s happened for years. Do we complain? No, we live with it. It happens. People walk in and park in the wrong spot, but we don’t tell our customers to park there. If there’s a problem, we obviously tell them to move their cars. It’s hypocritical to think that it’s just all one sided, because it isn’t. I mean, we’ve provided this Board and the other Board pictures of them with their forklift feet away from our bays, into our property. We’ve met the requirements of the parking. We’ve met the requirements of the turnarounds. We’ve shown the hardship that’s created. Counsel wasn’t here at the last meeting. I don’t know if he was here at the first meeting. We’ve done what we need to show to have this variance approved. We’ve cut back. We’ve scaled back. We need this variance to go forward in the business we’re in. In addition to that, and more importantly for the Town, we’re cleaning the place up. We showed you plans of what’s going to be done in the front of the building. It hasn’t been repaired, or actually remodeled in some time, and that’s going to be resolved while we’re doing this. It’s going to look at lot more pleasant for the community. MR. URRICO-Counsel, you said that you need the variance in what way? MR. MC CARTHY-What’s happening now is the trucks have gotten bigger. They’ve gotten heavier. The lifts that we have don’t support it. You need more size, more girth I guess if it’s the proper term, for the SUV’s, the bigger trucks. Albeit gas is more 17 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) expensive, but all those things are still on the road, and it makes it very difficult for us to compete with Wal-Mart, who the Town let in, who can put anything on their lifts and do breaks and do the tires and so forth. It makes it a lot more difficult to operate on what we have. MR. URRICO-So will this addition allow you to put bigger lifts in, expand the bays? MR. MC CARTHY-Yes, that’s the whole purpose. Well, you need the lifts and the bays. It’s more room to operate. MR. URRICO-So the bays are going to be widened? MR. MC CARTHY-The lifts are bigger. MR. URRICO-Okay, and a smaller variance would not allow you to do this? Because there is still a variance involved here. You’re still above the floor area ratio. MR. MC CARTHY-Correct. MR. URRICO-And you can’t live with a smaller? MR. MC CARTHY-Well, not with some of the size of the trucks that you’re dealing with now. MR. URRICO-But that’s what you said last time when you came back with something smaller. MR. MC CARTHY-No, we talked about storage last time. That was one of the issues, and we cut back the storage substantially. MR. URRICO-Okay. So this is not for storage. MR. MC CARTHY-Well, you can see from where the bays are, and the storage is in the back, a little bit further. MRS. JENKIN-Would you address the storage, please, because they said that it’s not the same, not as much as the existing storage units that you have at the back now. MR. MC CARTHY-To be honest with you, I couldn’t even tell you what he was saying. I don’t know what the question was to respond properly. MRS. JENKIN-Well, he said that there was 1600 square feet of existing storage now, with those containers you have at the back, and the addition will only provide about 950, and when I was looking at this, that’s probably true. Do you have two levels of storage now? MR. MC CARTHY-No, we’re just going to cut back on storage, because you actually asked us to make it smaller. I mean, we’d prefer more storage, and we’d prefer a bigger building for storage. MRS. JENKIN-Well, how are you going to deal with that, then if you have 1600 square feet now? MR. MUGRACE-Well, what’s happening is if you look at the plan, there is an existing area there. It’s shown dashed, right in here. That’s presently used for storage. This is basically, it’s going to be a floor for the new building. It’s going to be incorporated within the new building. So we’re not adding 1600 and so square feet of storage. We’re only adding a small percentage of storage. MRS. JENKIN-Right, but it’s those containers at the back that are so ugly and. MR. MC CARTHY-And they’re going to be gone. MR. MUGRACE-Those are going to be gone. MRS. JENKIN-They’ll be gone, but if they’re providing your storage now, will you have enough storage in the future? 18 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. MC CARTHY-These building are, the building is 18’ 7”. Storage unit is, what, six, seven feet, seven feet or something. So now you can go second and put tires on top, with racking systems. MRS. JENKIN-That’s what I’m asking you. You’ll have more than one level of storage. MR. MC CARTHY-Yes. It won’t be a second floor, but we can (lost words) and then store up on top with racks. The building’s 18’ 7”. MRS. JENKIN-But then the volume of storage is actually better than the square footage was before, or something like that. MR. MC CARTHY-I don’t know if it’s going to be exact or not, but you do what you can in the space that we’re looking for, but we’ve contemplated doing different levels. MRS. JENKIN-On these 10 foot doors, will they be wide enough for the larger vehicles? MR. MC CARTHY-Yes. We don’t do, just so you’re aware, it’s not a tractor trailer. It’s just the Escalades and the bigger, heavier trucks. MR. KUHL-You said that you weren’t going to have tractor trailers. When did you initiate that change? MR. MC CALL-We’ve already asked, the only company that ever comes in about once a month is a company that picks up our scrap tires, and we’ve already asked them to stop coming in with the tractor trailers and we’ve been coming in with smaller trucks. MR. KUHL-When was that? MR. MC CALL-A few weeks ago. MR. KUHL-And how are you going to maintain order in your property with what you have now? That’s been happening in the past. How are you going to make it any different in the future? MR. MC CALL-I believe there is order there now, and I don’t think that’s going to be, anything’s going to become out of order with that. MR. KUHL-Well, the trailer truck in here, is this your supplier, is this your waste tire supplier? MR. MC CARTHY-I have no idea. I haven’t seen the pictures. MR. KUHL-Well, here, take a look. This truck. Is this your waste tire supplier? MR. MC CALL-Actually it’s pretty funny that he submits these and says they’re on his property. These are actually on my property in the easement that goes through. MR. KUHL-I was just asking you about the identification of the vehicles. I’m not going to. MR. MC CALL-It looks like it could be. This one I’m not too sure about, but actually for him to say that they’re on his property, doesn’t look to be that way. MR. KUHL-So you can’t identify who’s trucks they are? MR. MC CALL-The first truck in the first two pictures, they do look familiar for the company that comes and picks up the tires, but like I said, they’re not on his property like he’s alleging. MR. MC CARTHY-We’re not trying to be difficult. They’re common carriers. They come in. The next one could be a blue truck or a green truck or a red truck. MR. MC CALL-And a lot of the tractor trailers that cross my property, that goes to service his location, they look like that. MR. KUHL-But my concern is if you asked your suppliers not to do something or to bring smaller trucks, and they’re still doing it, and they’re in this picture, you know, it’s not working. I mean, you have to have good neighbors, you know, to be successful. You don’t want to get crazy with the neighbors, and if you instructed your suppliers not to 19 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) bring trailer trucks and they still are, well, it’s not working, and I was just looking for are these the used tire trucks. MR. MC CARTHY-Okay. MR. KUHL-Okay. MR. MC CARTHY-Well, obviously anything, if there’s something in an order or approval that requires that they don’t be there, then you have a violation. MR. KUHL-I’m just stating a fact that the young man said, that he instructed his suppliers not to, and (lost words) pictures. MR. MC CARTHY-I don’t know when those are dated. MR. KUHL-Okay. They are. They’re dated on the bottom. MR. MC CARTHY-I said I don’t know when they’re dated. So I can’t respond to that. MR. KUHL-Well, they’re right here in red. MR. MC CARTHY-I don’t know when they’re dated, sir. I didn’t look at the date. MR. KUHL-Okay. All right. MR. UNDERWOOD-A question for Craig. The signage that’s proposed on there, Craig, did you scope that out to see if that was going to be anything that we needed to clear on? MR. MUGRACE-If I may, that’s existing signage. MR. UNDERWOOD-That’s actual on there now? MR. MUGRACE-Yes. MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes, okay. I didn’t know if that was something that was going to change or something new. MR. MUGRACE-(Lost words) elevation of the front, and that includes everything, yes. MR. UNDERWOOD-Just so you include everything. MR. MC CARTHY-But I think someone had asked, either this Board or the other Board, to change the sign, which we’d have no objection in doing something. I don’t remember exactly what they were looking for. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. If there’s no other questions from the Board, then I think what we’ll do is we’ll poll the Board and see what the Board’s feelings are on this, keeping in mind what we’re supposed to be granting relief for here. We’re only going to be granting relief for the 890 square feet of relief from the maximum allowable floor area ratio requirement for the Highway Commercial Intensive zoning district, and they’re asking for a 33% floor area ratio for the site. What’s the floor area ratio supposed to be, Craig? MR. BROWN-Thirty. MR. UNDERWOOD-So three percent over. MR. MC CARTHY-And could I just add one more thing? MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. MR. MC CARTHY-I mean, this is just for your approval. We still have to go back to the Board, and a lot of those concerns that the Board has addressed, we have addressed with them. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Does somebody want to start? MR. MEYER-Mr. Chairman, I know the public hearing portion is closed. I was just wondering if we could speak. 20 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. UNDERWOOD-If you want to add one more thing, sure. You can come up so we can get you on the record. MR. BROWN-So we’re going to re-open the public hearing? MR. UNDERWOOD-Well, you know, they had specific concerns. I’ll limit you to one minute, but we’ll re-open the public hearing for this, and I’m going to let them add on if you say something distinctly different from what you’ve told us so far, if you have something new to add. PUBLIC HEARING RE-OPENED JEFF MEYER MR. MEYER-I’ll stick to the point. Mainly that I have reviewed all the minutes. I can’t attend every meeting, and I apologize for that, and I know what’s happened. I know what they’ve provided. I’ve reviewed all the information, and I have a copy of the letter Dan Ryan sent at the end of February voicing his concerns about the stormwater, if anyone would like to see it, and I don’t have a ruler with me, either, but if you want to measure the width of the handicap spots, they’re not nine feet. They’re not eight and a half feet, and there’s a number of borderline personal attacks and just factual inaccuracies. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. I think we’ll cut you off there, because, you know, we’ll let the Board draw their own conclusions, all right. Thank you. ROB DOIN MR. DOIN-Could I add just one quick thing? MR. UNDERWOOD-Certainly. MR. DOIN-They spoke about the parking issues, and they can’t control where their customers would park, and I completely understand that. However, when they service every single one of their customer’s cars, an employee of the Tire Warehouse gets in that vehicle, drives it into the facility, and then takes the vehicle back out and parks it in a totally different place or in the very same place, the parking violations and the trespassing on both Minogue’s and my property are happening not by their customers, but by the employees of the Tire Warehouse. Thank you. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Thank you. All right. I’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. UNDERWOOD-Do you guys want to come back up. I don’t know if there’s anything you want to add? MR. MC CARTHY-It’s not worth it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. I’m going to poll the Board then. I guess we’ll start with you. Do you want to go first? George, do you want to go? MR. DRELLOS-Well, yes. I think whatever we do here is going to come under scrutiny. I mean, I like how they scaled it back, and I like how those other storage containers are going to be gone. I think it is an improvement to the property, as far as that goes. It’s just that it’s a tight spot, a tight spot. As far as wastewater, the Town, aren’t they going to do a lot of this, Craig, in there, alleviate a lot of the problems in that area? Aren’t they supposed to put a new line in or something here eventually? MR. BROWN-A quick answer because it’s a little bit off point, but the stream that runs from Homer Avenue north under Quaker Road and eventually gets to Halfway, Halfway Brook, runs through the Tire Warehouse property and the Minogue’s property underground, and there is a project in the works to replace that culvert. It’s not necessarily going to be designed where you can collect stormwater from your site and dump it into that tributary to Halfway Brook. It still has to be treated on site. So there is a stormwater plan, planned improvements for those two properties, but it’s not necessarily going to accept their new stormwater from the new addition. 21 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. DRELLOS-But as far as those infiltrators, that’s all, that’s part of the Planning Board, Site Plan. MR. BROWN-Yes, that’s correct. MR. UNDERWOOD-The only thing you’ve really got to worry about here is, having listened, is the floor area ratio relief, three percent. MR. DRELLOS-Like I said, I’m glad they cut it down, and I’m glad the storage containers are gone. I know it’s a tight spot, but I would be in favor of it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joan? MRS. JENKIN-Many of the problems that are being spoken about having nothing to do with the variance that’s being asked for, as has been said, and it’s a problem of a business that has outgrown the space that it’s in, but I think that there is a positive effect on the neighborhood by the addition. You’ve tried to scale it down. You’ve added the parking at the back. You’re going to get rid of those ugly storage containers at the back, and hopefully you’ll do the landscaping that you have done, that you have put down on here, and that will improve the whole, so I think right now I would be in favor of it, too, because the problems that everyone is talking about, the parking and all, and the trucks and everything, has really nothing to do with the zoning, it’s the planning. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. MR. KUHL-I can’t disagree with that. It looks like you’re having a problem with your neighbors and it’s got nothing to do with what you’re asking here. You should be policing that better. MRS. JENKIN-Find a new place. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Roy, do you want to go? MR. URRICO-Okay. First of all, I just want to say, it’s kind of distressing to hear the neighborly confrontations that are taking place because under the new Code that’s going to be taking place, shared driveways, shared property access is going to be one of the characters of the new Code they’re asking for. So that getting along is going to be a primary benefit to everybody if we all get along, but that has nothing to do with the variance that we’re looking at right here. The major balancing test as a Board of Appeals is that we shall balance the benefit to the applicant with the detriment to the health, safety and welfare of the community, and the five criteria that we are asked to judge this on is the benefit to the applicant and the applicant is allowed the construction of this structure in this preferred location. We’ve asked about feasible alternatives. They’ve scaled it back. I think they’ve made a vast improvement. Yes, it’s outgrowing the space in some respects, but I think they have a right to improve their business. As far as it being substantial relative to the Ordinance, we said it was three percent above the thirty, right? MR. UNDERWOOD-Right. MR. URRICO-Okay. I think that’s acceptable, and we’ve talked about the effect on the neighborhood and community. I think enough has been said about that, and I the difficulty is self-created, but I would be in favor of it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joyce? MRS. HUNT-Thank you. Yes, listening to the previous meetings, you really did listen to what we were saying, and scaled the building back, the addition back by 25%, and the south, no, northwest corner will, because the building is smaller, will make turning better, and I have no problem with the 33% FAR, and I would be in favor. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. To summarize, I think that, you know, we’re looking at accommodation, here, for three businesses in a very complicated, narrow shared access that exists, and those are all pre-existing issues that are not new to this site. I think that probably every since those three businesses have been there, there’ve been problems. I would imagine even dating back to the time when the bread delivery business was there, you know, prior to the tire business coming in here. Nonetheless, I think it’s important for us to look at the ergonomics of how things work. It looks to me like you’ve made an effort to make things work better, but at the same time, you know, when I go down there 22 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) and you’re doing tire inventory and there’s like Michelin men all over the parking lot with stacked up tires when you’re trying to figure out what’s what and what’s where. It’s one of those things that just comes with the business and a tire business is one of those things that it’s just bulky. You’ve got to move stuff around, and like you said, there’s a million different tire sizes now to accommodate that. The expansion of use on the site, with the addition of those two bays there, is probably going to allow you, is going to be a benefit to you. I don’t know if it’s going to be a benefit to your neighbors, because, I mean, everything is going to ingress and egress out the west side of the building there. Ideally, the site now as it exists is not good, you know, with all the storage containers and things in the back there, and I think that, as has been mentioned by other Board members, cleaning it up, putting everything into one building, is going to make a lot of sense. The parking in the back, it’s tight. I really don’t know, I’m sure there’s times of the year when you’re having a sale when people are coming in to take advantage of lower prices, that you’re going to have overload and you’re going to have to be out there policing it, but it’s sort of unfair to your neighbors, at times like that, too, you know, that they’re trying to run their businesses, too, and I think that there can be some give and take on both sides, as far as your keeping track of where things are, and just because somebody parks a car over on their side, I mean, when your guys take the car back out after it’s been, after the tires have been changed or something, that you can look for a site, or a place to put it on your own property. Try and be a little more inclusive of, you know, of your neighbors. I guess I’m going to reluctantly go along with this. I would have to agree with the points that have been made by the two businesses on either side of you, and I don’t think that this is something that is going to go away. It’s an ongoing thing. The three percent over on the floor area ratio is not really substantial. Probably it would be nice if this business didn’t exist on the site there. I’m sure you guys wish that you had purchased a building elsewhere, too, with all the constraints that you’ve had through the years with it at the same time, but I guess I’ll reluctantly go along with the other Board members. So does somebody want to make a resolution? MRS. HUNT-I’ll make a resolution. MR. URRICO-I don’t think you got Rich. MR. UNDERWOOD-Did I forget you, Rich? MR. GARRAND-Yes. That’s all right. I was just going to say on this one I’m going to choose to abstain on this. MR. UNDERWOOD-All right. Does somebody want to make a resolution? MRS. HUNT-I’ll make a resolution. MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 1-2008 BRIAN MC CALL, Introduced by Joyce Hunt who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Drellos: 274 Quaker Road. The applicant proposes construction of 1,890 square feet addition to the existing auto service facility. The applicant requests 896 square feet of relief from the maximum allowable Floor Area Ratio requirement for the Highway Commercial, HC- Int., zoning district. Specifically, the applicant is proposing a 33% FAR for the site. Whether this benefit could be achieved by other means, the applicant has made a good case that he needs this addition because of the change in the type of vehicles that are being serviced. Whether there would be an undesirable change in the neighborhood character or to nearby properties. I think some of the improvement is going to be positive, that the storage container is gone and the improvement to the building outside. Whether the request is substantial? I don’t think that a 33% FAR where 30% is required is substantial. Whether the request will have adverse physical or environmental effects. I don’t think that the addition is going to change whatever physical or environmental effects are in place right now, and the difficulty could be considered self-created only in that Brian McCall wishes to enlarge his building. So I request that we approve Area Variance No. 1-2008. th Duly adopted this 18 day of June, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Drellos, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Kuhl, Mr. Underwood NOES: NONE ABSTAINED: Mr. Garrand 23 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) SIGN VARIANCE NO. 16-2008 SEQRA TYPE: UNLISTED KEN ERMIGER d/b/a ADVENTURE RACING AGENT(S): STEFANIE BITTER, ESQ. BPSR OWNER(S): KEN ERMIGER ZONING: HC-INT. LOCATION: 1079 STATE ROUTE 9 APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 96 SQ. FT. FREESTANDING SIGN INCORPORATING A 32 SQ. FT. BLOCK LETTER MESSAGE BOARD. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM MAXIMUM SIZE REQUIREMENT FOR FREESTANDING SIGNS. CROSS REF.: BP 2008-053 SIGN; SUP 3-2006 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: APRIL 9, 2008 LOT SIZE: 5.60 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 295.12-1-5.2 SECTION: 140-6 JON LAPPER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Sign Variance No. 16-2008, Ken Ermiger d/b/a Adventure Racing, Meeting Date: June 18, 2008 “Project Location: 1079 State Route 9 Additional information received from applicants counsel on May 15, 2008. Specifically, the applicant disputes the finding of the Board on April 24, 2008. Description of Proposed Project: Applicant proposes construction of an 96 sf freestanding sign. Relief Required: Applicant requests 32 sf of relief from the 64 sf maximum allowable size for a freestanding sign per section 140-6 of the Sign Ordinance. Criteria for considering an Sign Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law: 1. Benefit to the applicant: Applicant would gain additional advertising signage. 2. Feasible alternatives: Feasible alternatives may include a smaller sign and/or an increased setback from the property lines. Perhaps relocation of the sign out of a parking space and into the landscaping area would be possible. 3. Is this relief substantial relative to the ordinance?: The requested 32 sf of relief from the 64 sf requirement equates to a 50% variance. 4. Effects on the neighborhood or community: Will the granting of the requested relief trigger other, surrounding commercial properties to request similar relief? 5. Is this difficulty self-created? The difficulty may be interpreted as self created. Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): Special Use Permit 3-2006 Amusement Center c/o issued 9/7/06 BP 2008-053 96 sf sign approved 3/28/06 Staff comments: Has the sign or a portion of the sign been constructed already? SEQR Status: Type: Unlisted” MR. LAPPER-Okay. For the record, Jon Lapper. At the last meeting, my partner Stefanie was here, I wasn’t, and I think there was just a little bit of confusion in the discussion. What happened was that over the winter the applicant relocated the existing sign. It used to be right up by the road, and as you can see from the survey map it’s now 41 feet back. The Town Code requires to be 64 square feet you have to be at least 25 24 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) feet back, but 25 feet wouldn’t work because you’d be in the middle of the drive aisle here. So that’s one advantage, and the Staff Notes talked about alternatives. So this is already proposed to be 41 feet back, which is more than the 25 feet that you would be anywhere else on the road to get that 64 square feet. The basic point for the applicant is that their building is all the way far in the back because they’ve got the track in the front, and they’re competing with the new Fun Spot that, you know, we had approved a year ago and now it’s under construction, and they have a reader board, and a big part of their business is birthday parties on the weekend, and events during school holidays. So it’s really important that they have a reader board. I certainly don’t think that every business in Town should have a reader board, and I understand why you’re always careful about that, but this is kind of a place for kids to go that’s safe when they’re not in school and it’s just, it’s a good use in Town. They built an indoor go kart track last year, which is popular in the winter, because there’s not a lot of that kind of activity in Town. So it’s really because of the advertising for, you know, it’s Johnny’s birthday kind of thing that they really want this for, but I also read the minutes and talked to Stephanie, and you had asked us to talk to the applicant and see if we could reduce it, and so my proposal tonight is to take off eight square feet, to reduce the reader board by a foot to make it three feet high, so instead of 32 square feet, it would be 24 square feet. That would drop the relief down. It was 96. So that would be 88 square feet. So that’s basically 25% of that reader board, and that’s certainly an attempt to compromise, but it’s really important for the nature of this business that because the building is so far from the road that they do get this additional signage, and I think that part of the justification is that they are 41 feet back from the road, beyond what the Town Code requires for this sign, and I think that was why there was some confusion, because it’s not that this part of the sign was put up, but it was that the sign was already relocated over the winter, last time, and I don’t know if Steph was completely familiar with that fact last time. MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes, I think part of it was, I mean, I could have sworn when I looked at it the first time that there was some white sign on the bottom, on the base of that sign that approximated what you were asking to do the last time, and I think that’s why everybody was kind of angry about it. MR. LAPPER-It may have been that when they did the construction, and I remember over the winter they had wire because they couldn’t put the wire underground, that they may not have had the panel up at first when they put up the box, when they moved it, and that may have been the issue. MR. UNDERWOOD-Maybe it was white underneath or something. MR. LAPPER-Yes, but I’ve seen this thing, it’s a piece of steel, you know, fabricated, and it’s sitting in the back in the garage. So I’ve seen it on the ground. It has to be welded on. It’s certainly not, it hasn’t been put up, but I mean, that was probably just that the sign was under construction at the time when people looked at it, but certainly it’s important to them, based upon their business and the fact that their competitor, but just somebody down the street in the same business has a reader board. They feel they need one for the same birthday party business, and we’re certainly here tonight with a compromise to reduce it by eight square feet. MR. UNDERWOOD-So they don’t own Pirates Cove next door, or they do? MR. LAPPER-They don’t. There’s shared parking, but it’s a totally separate business. MR. URRICO-Are there enough parking spaces there now? MR. LAPPER-Yes. MR. URRICO-Even with the space being used? MR. LAPPER-Yes, because this used to be in a space up front. So it just swapped. MR. URRICO-Okay. The basic problem I have with the reader signs, especially when they’re narrow like that, is they’re usually narrow type. It’s very hard, difficult to read, it has nothing to do with the variance, but from a consumer standpoint, I just have a difficult time reading those signs when they try to jam so much information into that. So that’s a reflection here. Can you go smaller on that sign? MR. LAPPER-No, for that just reason, I mean, because it has to be readable, that going down to that 24 square feet is not a huge sign. That was a real compromise that they didn’t expect, but I insisted. 25 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. UNDERWOOD-Is that size going to be bigger than the Agway one and the Fun Spot one down the road, or about the same? I don’t know. I didn’t go up and measure them. MR. LAPPER-Yes. I think it’s going to be smaller than those signs. MR. UNDERWOOD-It looks smaller. MR. LAPPER-Yes. MR. UNDERWOOD-Any other questions from Board members? MRS. JENKIN-So it’s actually eight by three, three feet high, eight feet wide? MR. LAPPER-Yes. Exactly. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Anybody from the public wishing to speak on this matter? PUBLIC HEARING OPEN MR. UNDERWOOD-I don’t see anybody. Okay. Then I guess we’ll close the public hearing and poll the Board. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. UNDERWOOD-And I’ll start with you, Rich. MR. GARRAND-Well, I was just thrown off a little bit by this. Originally when the sign was proposed, counsel was asked if there would be anymore signage here, and the response was no, and now here we are looking at more signage. I think the Town in their infinite wisdom designed the Code such that the signs wouldn’t be overly obtrusive along the Route 9 corridor, and I think they did that for a very good reason. They also had a lot of people take down signs at the same time. I think that by approving this, I think we’re going to see a flood of other businesses along Route 9 want to secure variances for larger signs. So at this point I wouldn’t be in favor of it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Roy, you want to go? MR. URRICO-I’m concerned about the sign scape as well, and what we’re seeing along Route 9 there, but I don’t think this sign board is going to have a big effect on the neighborhood there. I think if it fits in there like you say it does, and I’m going to believe you on this one here, then I think it will have minimal effect. I think we’ve seen it on other signs along Route 9 there. If it’s handled fairly tastefully, although I don’t know how readable they are, so I think I would be in favor of this. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joyce? MRS. HUNT-Thank you. Yes. I agree with Mr. Urrico. I think that reducing the size of the sign was a good idea, and I would be in favor of it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Joan? MRS. JENKIN-Yes. There was a suggestion at the last meeting that you could put signs somewhere else, that you could, when you’re advertising the events that are going on, you can put a sign up on the lawn. MR. URRICO-Sandwich boards? MRS. JENKIN-Yes. MR. URRICO-Like they’re doing down at the other restaurant, Sweet Basils. MRS. JENKIN-Right, and that’s approvable, you can do that if you’re going to be putting out? MR. BROWN-No, sandwich board signs are not allowed. 26 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MRS. JENKIN-They’re not allowed at all. So if they were going to put on what events are going to be happening, they absolutely, there was no where that they could put it on the building or put it somewhere else? MR. BROWN-Well, yes, I mean, there is a temporary sign permit process they could go through. MRS. JENKIN-They’d have to go through that each time. MR. BROWN-Yes. I can’t speak to how visible it would be if they put it on the building. MRS. JENKIN-Yes. I also feel that it’s not going to change the character of the neighborhood an awful lot. There’s all those fun things all along there and I think it’s important to the owners to be able to tell the community what’s going on inside. Twenty- four square feet isn’t huge. Eight feet wide is pretty good, but I think that I would be in favor of this. MR. LAPPER-Thank you. MR. UNDERWOOD-Go ahead. MR. DRELLOS-Jim, in our last meeting when this was brought up, I was in favor of it, so being it’s even smaller, I’d be in favor of it again. I don’t think it’s out of character. I know there’s other ones around, legal or illegal. So I would be in favor of it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Ron? MR. KUHL-Too new to comment. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Okay, I’ll offer this commentary. We went through the process with Great Escape when they were re-designing their whole exterior and trying to upgrade the area and things like that, with trying to minimize the amount of signage and, you know, still accommodate what they needed to advertise their businesses, and, you know, it’s understandable how they would want to have that sign on there. As far as the offensiveness, as Roy said, I don’t really think it would be that offensive to have it, but, you know, keep it crisp and clean and to the point. I mean, all the things that they were originally proposing, having their dot com on there and website and everything else, you know, I would like to see this sign be used primarily just for announcing special events and things like that. It shouldn’t be done as a secondary means of advertising, and as it’s been suggested, as it’s been pointed out by the Zoning Administrator, you know, we go to all this trouble to clean up the signage in Town, and now we kind of whittle away at it, you know, we’ve got those movable signs like down at the drug store at CVS, you know, where it tells you how many bottles of Coke you can put down for $10 and things like that, you know, and it reaches a point of silliness after a while, and you can see why everybody else, you know, the concerns about everybody else coming in and asking for the same thing are legitimate. I don’t think they’re off the wall things. Businesses of this type, you know, in the summertime, Pirates Cove next door, I mean, if you go down the street there, everybody could request one of these signs eventually, and it’s going to lead to the wrong direction that we’re headed here. As proposed, you’ve shrunk it down. I think you could even make it smaller if you had to, you know, if you were just going to announce special events in there, but it’s kind of redundant, and as I said before, the last time around, kids come to these things, you know, they don’t come every week, even though there might be a season pass available, or something like that, but at the same time, you know, people know this place is here. It’s primary business is in the summertime when we have maximum amount of traffic generated and all the people coming up here on vacation. So I don’t really see a need for this sign. I think that, you know, even though there’s two businesses down the road that have one, I don’t know when those signs came into being there at the Fun Spot and Agway, but as said before by other people, I think it’s just going to create a plethora of other requests for signs. Suttons across the road says, well, I want a sign to announce when I have my sales, you know, and you can see, you know, it’s a reasonable request, but it’s not a reasonable request in the grand scheme of things. MR. LAPPER-It’s the birthdays, to answer Rick’s question. I mean, that’s what’s changed since they did this last time. They put in these eight new birthday rooms, and that’s becoming a big part of the business, and that’s why they feel they need it. MR. UNDERWOOD-And I think you could do something out there on the lower portion of that sign, where you could do something with magnets, where you could have somebody 27 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) just stick it up there with a magnet on a, you know, a cloth banner or something like that. It would be just as easy, and consider that to be a temporary signage. MR. LAPPER-Then you have to have it made up all the time, different cloth banners, it’s expensive. MR. UNDERWOOD-Well, so say have ten different ones in the back room, you know, birthday. MR. LAPPER-It’s the kid’s names, and that’s really what they’re doing, Johnny’s birthday kind of thing. MR. UNDERWOOD-We’ve all grown to the point where I think, you know, everybody feels like their child is so special, but guess what, there’s a million kids out there. So I don’t think we need to go there. So I guess I’m going to be against it. So I don’t know what we came down to on, I didn’t write down. I wasn’t paying attention. MR. URRICO-I think it was four, two. MR. UNDERWOOD-Is it four to two? Okay. All right. So I guess we’ll need someone to make the resolution. MR. BROWN-Sign Variance is an Unlisted Action. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. So I guess we’ve got to go through the book there. I don’t have it in front of me. Do you have a copy of that around? MR. BROWN-Should be one in the application. MR. UNDERWOOD-Has somebody got the full application? MR. BROWN-And I think if everyone’s comfortable with the questions in the Short Form, you can certainly make an abbreviated motion that says, based upon review of the Short Form, we find no adverse environmental impacts, and just do a negative dec that way, without going through the whole thing. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Instead of going through that, then, I’ll do that. MOTION REGARDING SIGN VARIANCE NO. 16-2008 KEN ERMIGER d/b/a ADVENTURE RACING, THAT BASED UPON THE SHORT FORM REQUIREMENTS FOR THIS UNLISTED ACTION, I GUESS THE MAJORITY OF THE BOARD FINDS THAT THIS SIGN WILL NOT HAVE ANY KIND OF NEGATIVE USE ON THE AREA BASED UPON THE STATUTES, Introduced by James Underwood who moved for its adoption, seconded by Roy Urrico: th Duly adopted this 18 day of June, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Garrand, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Drellos, Mr. Underwood NOES: NONE ABSTAINED: Mr. Kuhl MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. So I’ll need a motion to approve this, and that will be at the size of 24 square feet of relief from the 64 square foot maximum allowable size for a freestanding sign. MR. LAPPER-Correct. MR. URRICO-I’ll move it. MOTION TO APPROVE SIGN VARIANCE NO. 16-2008 KEN ERMIGER d/b/a ADVENTURE RACING, Introduced by Roy Urrico who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Drellos: 1079 State Route 9. The applicant is proposing construction of an 88 square foot freestanding sign. The applicant’s request is for 24 square feet of relief from the 64 square foot maximum allowable sign, for a freestanding sign per Section 140-6 of the Sign Ordinance. The benefit to the applicant, the applicant would gain additional 28 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) advertising signage. Feasible alternatives may include a smaller sign and an increased setback to the property line, but the majority of the members of the Board feel that the request he made is reasonable. The relief substantial relative to the Ordinance? The requested relief of 24 square feet from the 64 square foot requirement equates to 24 feet of relief, and there has been some discussion about the effects on the neighborhood or community. Whereas there are other sign boards along that corridor stretching from I would say Quaker Road, Aviation Road, right up through the outlet centers. We don’t feel this is an abnormal request. Although it may trigger some other businesses to come forward, we are looking at this business as a unique property, and the difficulty is self- created. I move that we adopt this motion. th Duly adopted this 18 day of June, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Drellos, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt NOES: Mr. Garrand, Mr. Underwood ABSTAINED: Mr. Kuhl MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. It’s approved I guess. MR. LAPPER-Thanks very much everybody. MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes, sure thing. NEW BUSINESS: AREA VARIANCE NO. 29-2008 SEQRA TYPE: N/A CIFONE CONSTRUCTION AGENT(S): LITTLE AND O’CONNOR, ESQ. OWNER(S): JML PROPERTIES ZONING: SR-1A LOCATION: SMOKE RIDGE ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF FIVE 4,280 SQ. FT. DUPLEXES ON 10 EXISTING LOTS. RELIEF IS REQUESTED FROM THE MINIMUM SIDE AND MINIMUM SIDE TOTAL SETBACK REQUIREMENTS. CROSS REF.: AV 12-2004; AV 4-2006 APPROVAL EXPIRED WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: N/A ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY: N/A LOT SIZE: 6.20 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 29-2008 SECTION: 179-4-030 MICHAEL O’CONNOR, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. UNDERWOOD-Just a little bit of background on here, before Roy reads this in. We approved this project, I believe, two years ago, and they had one year, I think, to fill it in and for some reason it expired without redoing your building permit on it and so, in essence, because it wasn’t acted upon, you’ve got to come back and present it all over again completely? I’m not sure. MR. O'CONNOR-I hope not. MR. UNDERWOOD-I hope not. So I think what we’ll do, Roy, is we’ll read the Staff Notes on this one. STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 29-2008, Cifone Construction, Meeting Date: June 18, 2008 “Project Location: Smoke Ridge Road Description of Proposed Project: Applicant proposes construction of five 4280 sq. ft. duplexes on 10 existing lots. Relief Required: The applicant requests relief from the minimal total side setback per 179-4-030. The following table clarifies the total side setback issues: Lot Number Total side setback Proposed Side Relief Requested Setback 23A 30 ft 31.6 ft 0 ft 23B 30 ft 27.3 ft 2.7 ft. 22A 30 ft 24 .4 ft 5.6 ft 22B 30 ft 24.4 ft 5.6 ft 21A 30 ft 26.6 ft 3.4 ft 21B 30 ft 32 ft 0 ft 20A 30 ft 49 ft 0 ft 29 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) 20B 30 ft 54.9 ft 0 ft 19A 30 ft 35 ft 0 ft 19B 30 ft 28.5 ft 1.5 ft The applicant also requests 10 feet of relief from the 10 foot minimum side setback requirements for all five structures as each unit shares a common lot line. Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law: 1. Benefit to the applicant: Applicant would be permitted to construct 5 duplexes on 10 lots. 2. Feasible alternatives: Feasible alternatives appear to be limited. 3. Is this relief substantial relative to the ordinance?: The request for 10 feet or 100%of relief from the minimum 10 foot side setback for all five units could be considered moderate relative to the ordinance. Furthermore, four of the five units (proposed units on lots 19B, 21A, 22B, 22A, and 23B) have minimum total side setback issues. All these variances pertain to 179-4-030. 4. Effects on the neighborhood or community: Minor effects on the neighborhood may be anticipated as a result of this action. Most units in the immediate area are duplexes. 5. Is this difficulty self-created? The difficulty may be interpreted as self-created. Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): SUB 6-2006 Proposed further subdivision of 5 parcels to 10 lots, ranging in size from 0.51acres to 0.95 acres. Resolution approved 9/26/06 A.V. 4-2006 Proposed further subdivision of 5 lots. Proposal calls for the further subdivision of each of the existing lots approximately in half. Applicant proposed the construction of duplexes with zero lot line set back at the common property line. Resolution approved 2/22/06 S.P. 15-2004 Site Plan Review for the construction of 5 two family dwellings. Resolution approved 1/18/2005 A.V. 12-2004 Applicant proposes the construction on five duplexes on five lots and requests relief from the density requirements of the SR-1A zone for all five lots. Resolution approved 3/17/04 Staff comments: This proposal was previously approved in 2006. The applicant did not move forward in the allotted time frame (1 year per 179-14-090) and as such is reapplying for the variance. One change should be noted; apparently all the duplexes will be owner occupied and not rented. All lots are unimproved at the present time. SEQR Status: Type II” MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Mr. O’Connor, anything you want to add? MR. O'CONNOR-For the record, I’ll state I’m Michael O’Connor from the law firm of Little & O’Connor, and with me at the table is Matt Cifone, one of the principals of the applicant. Basically, we had an approval from this Board, and then subsequently from the Planning Board, and it expired, and that’s why we’re back here. It’s the same project, no different than what we had before. We would like to be able to sell each of the units individually and not sell them as duplexes, and that creates the zero lot line in the common boundary between the two properties. The side line setback sum total of 30 is at variance, I think, with five out of the ten lots in a minor way, not in a significant way. 30 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) Probably the more significant thing is eliminating the side line on the common boundary, but you can’t build a duplex unless you do that. We do believe, I’ll make one comment as to Staff’s comments, we are going to sell all of these as individual units. I can’t sit here, though, and guarantee to you or to Staff that somebody won’t buy it and rent it, but it probably is going to be priced in an area that people aren’t going to buy them as rentals. They will buy them for their own occupancy. The neighborhood is basically all duplexes if you went up there and you looked at it. I think there’s one single family home as you come in on one of the ends of the U’s, but everything else is duplexes. We think that this is going to be an improvement to the neighborhood. I think as part of the application Matt submitted to you some floor plans and some elevations that shows you the actual buildings. We will have to go from you to the Planning Board, we’re on their agenda for next week, and hopefully we’ll just go back the same way we did before. We’ve done stormwater, filed stormwater plans. I think we’ve taken care of all potential impacts. If you look at the plans, I think there’s a no cut zone in the back of it. That actually borders on Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation. Unless you have some questions, that’s my presentation. MR. URRICO-Wasn’t it approved twice? Isn’t this the third time? MR. O'CONNOR-You ask a good question. I tried to look through my file, so I would have some semblance of history on the history. We’ve had five or six different approvals on this thing. It’s been probably the most reviewed 10 lot subdivision that I can recall. Initially we were looking to get six duplex lots, and we came in for that, ended up changing it to five duplex lots, and then we went and got a Site Plan approval for the duplexes, with the idea that we would sell the entire duplex to one person and it would all be on one lot. There would be two units on one lot, and then we came back and started the process to do individual lots and ended up with 10 lots instead of five lots. We got approval of that, and then we got Site Plan approval of that. So, yes, it’s been before the Boards more than once. MR. GARRAND-It’s a dead horse. MR. O'CONNOR-It just, it wasn’t at the right time to do it then, and unconsciously the approvals expired. MRS. HUNT-I have a question, just as a matter of curiosity. Will there be an association, or will these be responsible for their own? MR. O'CONNOR-No. There’s no common ownership. So there would be no association. MR. UNDERWOOD-Would you anticipate, though, the vast majority are going to be bought by one person and they’ll rent out half and live in the other half or deals like that or something to that effect? MR. O'CONNOR-We’re going to offer them as single lots. It would be a little different than that. I think it’s a higher level of housing, although that’s hard to say because housing goes up and down. With the project that’s over by Peggy Ann Road, Dixon Heights is what this would be like. Peggy Ann Road and Elizabeth Lane and those places, they were sold as individual units, but attached. They fell in disfavor. Right now they’ve got a strong homeowners association, and they seem to be coming back big time. So, it’s a reasonable way of providing housing. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. I guess we’ll re-open the public hearing. Anybody in the public wishing to speak on this? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. UNDERWOOD-I guess not. Any correspondence? I don’t think we do. MR. URRICO-I don’t see anything here. MR. UNDERWOOD-All right. Any Board members have any closing questions they want to ask, or is everybody comfortable with this one? I don’t think we really need to poll everybody on this one. Do you want me to just read in the one I, the last one we approved? The only difference there’s going to be on that one is the fact that the units are all going to be sold now. So they’re not going to be rentals, although they possibly could be rentals, but we’re not going to concern ourselves with that. 31 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. O'CONNOR-I think, in this, and I compared this to the 2006 approval. The 2006 approval wasn’t really clear on the fact that you were allowing zero lot line setback on a common boundary, and relief on the side boundaries, away from the common boundary on five out of the six lots, as shown on the chart that Staff put together, five out of the ten. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. MR. O'CONNOR-And I think that covers the relief that we’re actually asking for. When I went back and looked at 2006, I guess we all just assumed that the common boundary, because that would be zero. We never actually mentioned it, and I’m not even sure then, all our applications in 2006 were 10 and 10 side setbacks. So maybe at that application, it wasn’t that issue. If you look at all the forms that we submitted, and this is for, I went back, as Mr. Urrico said, has it been here before. I went back and looked at them. It wasn’t a sum of 30 in 2006, or didn’t appear to be a sum of 30 in 2006. So the relief you grant to us is zero lot lines on all the common boundaries, and the side line relief on the lots as specified by Staff’s schedule, we would be happy. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Do we need to read all those numbers again, or can we just use the chart as provided by Staff, you’re comfortable that that’s accurate? I mean, Roy’s already read it in once. MR. GARRAND-You could just say the cumulative setback is 300 feet, the request is for 22.4 feet. MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes, okay. MR. BROWN-Yes, well, we can certainly attach this table to the resolution, if you’d like. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure, that’ll make it easier. Okay. I’ll close the public hearing, then. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. UNDERWOOD-Have we got to do the Short Environmental Assessment form on this one, again? MR. BROWN-No. MR. UNDERWOOD-We don’t need to, right? Okay. MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 29-2008 CIFONE CONSTRUCTION, Introduced by James Underwood who moved for its adoption, seconded by Richard Garrand: Smoke Ridge Road. This was a previously approved subdivision. These are duplex units that are proposed on site here. They’re proposing construction of five, 4,280 square foot duplexes on ten existing lots, with zero lot setback from each of the duplexes from each other. The lines are going to come right through the center of the building, in essence, and we’re not going to concern ourselves with whether they’re owner owned or rented. We’ll just leave that open to however the mix ends up in that zone I would believe, since they’re all duplexes down there in the area. As far as the amount of relief we’re going to accept, as proposed by the Zoning Administrator, his chart, which shows Lot Numbers 23A, 23B, 22A, 22B, 21A, 21B, 20A, and 20B as well as 19A and 19B. Those lots, the total side setbacks are all 30 feet on those. The proposed side setbacks are slightly different on each one of those, and so the applicant is also going to be requesting 10 feet of relief from the 10 foot minimum side setback relief because of the adjacent nature of the buildings, that is there’s zero side setbacks on those. It’s generally felt that there’s not going to be that much of a change with what was originally proposed here. It will allow for either dual ownership or single ownership, if someone purchases both units. So they will have possibly 10 separate owners on site in those units and any combination therein that fits. This is a revision of what was originally proposed several times previously and previously approved by both the Zoning Board and the Planning Board. So I would move for its approval. th Duly adopted this 18 day of June, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Garrand, Mr. Drellos, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Kuhl, Mr. Underwood NOES: NONE 32 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. O'CONNOR-For the third and final time, Mr. Urrico. We thank you. AREA VARIANCE NO. 28-2008 SEQRA TYPE: II DONNA GAGNON & RACHEL SLOAN AGENT(S): VAN DUSEN AND STEVES OWNER(S): DONNA GAGNON & RACHEL SLOAN ZONING: SFR-1A LOCATION: 234 AND 236 AVIATION ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES A LOT LINE ADJUSTMENT TO CREATE A PARCEL WHICH IS LESS THAN THE MINIMUM LOT SIZE REQUIREMENT FOR THE SFR-1A ZONING DISTRICT. CROSS REF.: AD 2-1995; BP 2004-970 768 SQ. FT. 2-CAR DET. GARAGE WITH 416 SQ. FT. COLD STORAGE ABOVE WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: N/A LOT SIZE: 0.98 ACRE; 1 ACRE TAX MAP NO. 301.7-2-31.1 & 31.2 SECTION: 179-4-030 MATT STEVES, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 28-2008, Donna Gagnon & Rachel Sloan, Meeting Date: June 18, 2008 “Project Location: 234 and 236 Aviation Road Description of Proposed Project: Applicant proposes lot line adjustment in order to change a 0.98 acre lot to a 0.46 acre lot and change a 1.00 acre lot to a 1.52 acre lot. Relief Required: The applicant requests 0.54 acres of relief from lot size requirement of 1 acre for the SFR-1A zone. Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law: 1. Benefit to the applicant: Applicant would be permitted to reduce the size of a non-conforming lot and increase the size of a conforming lot in the SFR-1A, Single Family Residential 1 acre Zone. 2. Feasible alternatives: Feasible alternatives include less of a lot line adjustment or no lot line adjustment. 3. Is this relief substantial relative to the ordinance? The zoning for this area is 1acre and as such the resulting 0.46 acre lot would be 0.54 acre or 54% less per the ordinance. In contrast, the 1.52 acre lot would be 0.52 acre or 52 % larger than the minimum acreage called for by the ordinance. 4. Effects on the neighborhood or community: Minor effects on the neighborhood may be anticipated as a result of this action. 5. Is this difficulty self-created? The difficulty may be interpreted as self-created. Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): One story ranch built 1994 AD 2 -1995 Administrative Subdivision. Approval dated 5/26/95 BP 2004-0970 Two car detached garage. Approval dated 1/13/05 AV 23-2005 Construction of a two car detached garage. Relief requested from minimum side yard setbacks. Approval dated 3/23/05 Staff comments: The property is part of a two lot subdivision created in 1995. The property in question is 0.98 acres in size and as such is a non-conforming lot for this zoning. The applicants wish to increase the size of the 1.00 acre lot and decrease the size of the 0.98 acre lot. The applicants have stated that increasing the 1.00 acre parcel will insure continued privacy for the house as the current lot line is 23 feet from said dwelling. The house 33 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) abutting Aviation Road is presently a 2 tenant rental owned by both parties concerned with this area variance. SEQR Status: Type II” MR. UNDERWOOD-Maybe you could give us a little background as to why this proposal, whether there’s a house proposed, or, I don’t know. We were trying to figure out ourselves, you know. Thank you. MR. STEVES-Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. Matt Steves of Van Dusen and Steves representing the applicants. They are both with me at the table. They currently occupy the residence in the back of the property, being the one acre parcel, and they own the front parcel. The purpose of this modification to the lot line, if you look on the plan where it says existing lot line, just to the west of their residence, that whole area in the corner is predominantly wooded area, and at some time in the future, when and if they ever have to sell the house in the front, they want to be able to maintain that wooded area as their own, and not have to rely on like a deed restriction for the sale of the front lot, which as you know, if you have ownership of the wooded area, it’s a lot easier for you to maintain and control what is cut or not cut, and it is the wishes of my client to maintain that wooded area on their property, that surrounds their residence. So therefore the adjustment of the lot line. When we looked at where to adjust that lot line, we just thought it would make sense to try to align it with some of the lots that abut our property on Sylvan Lane, and I’m sure, I’ve been doing this a number of years, and a lot of people have been on this Board for a number of years. When you start creating two and three and five foot jogs and angles, people get very confused. Everything in the world to people on houses, everything is parallel and perpendicular to the road. So trying to keep in that conformity, and not create issues with abutting property owners, that’s what we placed there, plus the fact of the matter is that the house on the front that fronts on Aviation Road, the usage, if you’ve been up to that property, is where the house is now, and nothing is changing with this application. When you worry about a change to the neighborhood, what we’re trying to do is prevent any change to the neighborhood by adjusting the lot line, therefore they can control the destiny of those trees, as to retain those. They want to be able to retain those. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Anybody have any questions? MRS. JENKIN-The concern that I have is if you make this lot, the front lot, .46 acres, then you are creating a 1.52 of your own. Well, in the future, then will you come back and ask to subdivide that property and build another house there? We can’t guarantee that, and then that’s, those are granting even less variance, because each of those lots would be three quarters of an acre, and it could be, in the future, it might not be the same Board, and then that might be granted, and then you’re getting a house out of that lot, which to me is. MR. STEVES-I can answer that. You have an issue with the lot lines and the widths on the road. You have that 40 foot on the Town road in order to be a viable lot in Queensbury without another variance, not only for size, but as far for lot width on the road, and there is no room left to do that. So there would be more than just one variance for area. There would also be lot width and it would be for road frontage. So there would be three variances, basically, for that to happen, and a subdivision approval, and I don’t, you know, I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I don’t think that that would ever be a possibility. MR. UNDERWOOD-It is one acre zoning, too. So, I mean, they’re going to be 1.52. It would still be deficient by almost half an acre. MRS. JENKIN-Right, but people have come for variances to make a three quarter acre lot. MR. STEVES-And we can’t prevent future owners from doing that, either, but the fact of the matter is there’s so many that would be needed that I don’t really think it would be. MRS. HUNT-Could we make it a condition, that it not be subdivided MR. UNDERWOOD-Well, I don’t know if we can do that. I guess we could. 34 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. DRELLOS-If it was left the way it was, what’s the difference? I mean, you could still put a house, right? There’s still one lot or the other has that piece. So I don’t see what the difference is, putting it over on this one or going with this one. MRS. JENKIN-All I’m saying is if you move the lot, make this front a little bit larger, then it’s going to be even harder to subdivide the second one. MR. DRELLOS-What’s the front piece, how many acres is that? MR. STEVES-It’s .98 now, and we were reducing it to .46, but the usage is where we’re proposing the lot line, and we have no problem stipulating that, you know, we will allow no further subdivision of this property. MRS. JENKIN-And it’s really nicely wooded back there. It’s actually quite surprising, when you go in there. It’s really, this is really, really nice and private, and it’s right on Aviation Road. So that’s a nice piece of property. MR. STEVES-And they want to keep it that way. That’s the reason for the lot line adjustment, so that they’re not saying they’re doing anything with the property at this time, but down the road, if they ever have to or decide to sell that property, then they don’t have to worry about trying to enforce it with an easement. They own it, and therefore they can maintain that wooded area and maintain their privacy. That’s the only reason for this. MRS. JENKIN-Now, do you have a, because the road goes into this property, the way the property line is, and do you have a right of way, then, through that property, or would you have to get one if you sold it? RACHEL SLOAN MS.SLOAN-Right now it is deeded. It is two separate parcels. MRS. JENKIN-Right. MS. SLOAN-So, to answer your question, no, I don’t need a right of way, because we occupy the back parcel, which is part of that one acre lot. So it’s already existing to access. MRS. JENKIN-Well, you’re the same owner now. So you don’t need one, but the thing is if you sold the front piece, the road goes a little bit into that property. MS. SLOAN-There is a, it does go into that property. Again, that is part of the parcel that was, it’s kind of a triangular connection to the road. That was to allow a 40 foot frontage to be able to access the back property originally. So nothing, to answer your question, no, nothing would be changed and nothing would be needed to be added. MR. DRELLOS-I guess if you sold that front piece, you could just move the road onto the deeded part. MR. STEVES-Well, the requirement, if I’m not mistaken, Craig, and I think, help me with that, is you’re required to have, utilize your frontage. So therefore it’s a requirement of a two lot subdivision, even back in ’95 when this was approved, to have a shared driveway. So anything you would convey the lot, you would obviously convey it with right of way to get back to the house, the way it existed. MRS. JENKIN-You’d need the right of way. Yes. Okay. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Any other questions. I guess we’ll open the public hearing, then. Anybody from the public wishing to speak on this matter? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED LAWRENCE IRVINE MR. IRVINE-My name’s Lawrence Irvine and I reside at 233 Aviation Road, across the street from this proposal. DAN COLOMBE 35 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. COLOMBE-I’m Dan Colombe. I live at 238 Aviation Road, directly parallel to the property. MR. IRVINE-I guess first of all we just want to make sure we’re fully apprised as to what they’re trying to propose here. I’m perplexed because they own both properties, why they would want to subdivide and put most of the property on the house in the back and reduce the value of the house that’s on Aviation Road. The original house that’s on Aviation Road is part of the original Ellsworth homestead, which all the properties in that part of Queensbury was all part of Ellsworth property, and that house was part of the original Ellsworth homestead. So it’s been there for a very long time, and that property line has been there for a very long time. The picture that we see up here, I’m not really sure exactly where they’re trying to propose the subdivision, and that picture appears to be probably three or four years old. It’s not very current, because they have since built, which is in the paperwork here that they had a very large garage with storage and some kind of apartment upstairs above it built, but it doesn’t show on that picture. MR. UNDERWOOD-Do you want to come up and look at the plot so you get an idea? Here’s the house in the back and the garage. So they want to move, this is the existing property line all the way back there, and this is all the woods that are there. They want to move their property line up to here, so no one ever cuts the woods. They were thinking that if they sold this property somebody might come in and like cut all the trees down and they want to preserve the forest back there, in essence. So, that seems to be the primary reason that they’re. MR. IRVINE-Is this to scale? I mean, because that garage is much bigger than that. MR. UNDERWOOD-Well, he’s got it on there as a licensed architect, you know, it’s done by Van Dusen and Steves. You can ask him. It would appear to be to scale. It’s just about the size of the house. That’s the way it looks, yes. MR. IRVINE-Now what they’re saying is dividing it right here? MR. UNDERWOOD-They’re going to divide it right here, just, and they’re going to put, they want to preserve that as uncut, you know, so if they ended up selling that front half, they didn’t want whoever bought that to come in there and clear cut all their trees. MR. IRVINE-Right, which obviously I wouldn’t either, and Dan, living here, certainly is not going to want to either. I guess our concern is that we’d like to see that the property stays intact also. Part of our concern would be that they would try to come back and subdivide that and stick another duplex in there, but even more so is by reducing the size of the lot of that front property, and it, in effect, reduces the value of that property, and if they go to sell it, then what happens to the home values of the rest of our homes on that street because they’ve taken a lot and reduced the size of it and made it less conforming, and being a duplex already, there have been issues with tenants there that have been noisy and rowdy. So by reducing the value of that house, leads to the possibility that we may have even less desirable tenants coming into that area, and I’m not sure what kind of protection we could have to stop that. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Do you want to say anything on the record? MR. COLOMBE-That pretty much said it all right there. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay, and, Mr. Colombe, you live right directly next door. MR. COLOMBE-Yes. MR. UNDERWOOD-So we understand your concerns with that, too. Okay. Do you guys want to come back up? MR. IRVINE-There have been ongoing issues with the property lines already. So, this just came on pretty quick. I mean, we had no idea, I had no idea where the proposed lines were. MR. UNDERWOOD-Well, I would assume, you know, the way it is now, not to add anything to, fuel to the fire, but as it exists now, if somebody bought the duplex and wanted to run their four wheelers in the woods back there and make a loop di loop course back there, they could that, and I think this would. MR. IRVINE-But that’s their prerogative if they own the property. 36 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes. Exactly. MR. IRVINE-That’s part of property ownership, to be able to do on your property what you want to do on your property. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure, but I’m just saying if their desire is to preserve that in the back and keep it intact as green space, then I would think that would be a plus, if that’s their intent. MR. IRVINE-But isn’t it already maintained as green space because of, it’s .98 so it’s nonconforming. They can’t build on it anyway. MR. UNDERWOOD-Right, but I think their concern was that they were looking at the possibility of somebody coming in and cutting it all down if they bought the property. MR. IRVINE-What protection do we have that they don’t cut it down to increase their driveway because they’re running a business in that garage? MR. UNDERWOOD-I have no idea. I wouldn’t be able to answer that. We’ll ask them when they come back up. Any other concerns you have? MR. IRVINE-No, I think that covers it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. MR. GARRAND-You’re saying there is a business in the garage? MR. IRVINE-That’s my understanding, yes. MR. GARRAND-What would the business be? MR. IRVINE-It’s some kind of event planning. They do event planning and coordination, because I’ve had FedEx packages delivered to me by mistake that were addressed to the business that was located on Aviation Road, and my understanding is that the garage is a storage and/or office space for the business. MR. GARRAND-Yes, because it’s a residential area. MRS. JENKIN-We’ll ask them. MR. COLOMBE-Actually, I would like to speak one more time. One of my other concerns about this proposed forever wild space is, I mean, we are in a residential neighborhood, and, I mean, forever wild is nice, but there’s also a certain amount of maintenance that should be done on a piece of property like that, as with downed trees, you know, dumping brush and stuff on the property, which creates a fire hazard. It brings in insects and rodents. There is a certain amount of maintenance, like parks, that should be done, to maintain it, not to just leave it as is, which is what the property is now, and I’ve seen it’s been a dumping ground for leaves and brush and stuff. It just adds to the bugs in my backyard, adds to the leaves that blow back onto my property, which I rake up and take off the property to our landfills, you know, the trees, the dead trees hanging over the property lines, you know, I’m all in favor of maintaining wood lots. I mean, on my property, I’ve taken trees down, but I also re-plant, you know, nice trees and stuff, sometimes you have to take them down, but I re-plant when I take them down. I’m not in favor of dead trees just hanging there, and like I said, it is a fire hazard, especially in a residential neighborhood. We don’t live in a park. We live in a residential neighborhood. MR. UNDERWOOD-Thank you. MR. COLOMBE-Thank you. MR. UNDERWOOD-Do you guys want to come back up. I guess we’ll ask you to give us a little background on their concerns. MR. STEVES-Okay. Again, Matt Steves, for the record. I just want to reiterate this is not a subdivision. We’re not creating any new lots. Just, I didn’t know if they were aware of that. We’re adjusting a lot line between two existing parcels. So we still end up with two parcels. So that’s the first comment. As far as their concern as to, you know, what is going to happen with the property, we’ve stated at the beginning we’re here to try to 37 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) maintain that buffer. This is actually the first time I think I’ve ever been in front of this Board, or any Board, where people had a concern about leaving a buffer. So, I’m kind of confused with that statement, but we are there to maintain the buffer that is there. The only reasoning for this lot line adjustment is to be able to maintain the wooded area that is there and to protect it from future clearing by a potential other owner. Bottom line, that’s what we’re here for. Rachel can, or Donna can answer any other questions that the Board may have. I also don’t think it’s a problem to have deliveries to your house. I have a FedEx truck and UPS come to my house quite frequently, but that’s irrelevant to what we’re here for. MR. UNDERWOOD-Anybody have any questions? MS. SLOAN-I just have a couple of copies of this. This is a description, essentially this whole, the reasoning for doing this is what Matt was saying, is to protect the green space. We do have a very wonderful and unique neighborhood, and in the last several years, with the neighborhood has changed, and new neighbors have come in, Mr. Colombe being one of them, and have done some adjustments to their property as they see fit, which they are in their right to do. What’s that done to this property has begun to effect it, and it’s begun to change the feeling of the back property. The first page shows, in 2006, what I used to look out on on Aviation Road, and below that picture is a lot that was clear cut that I had nothing, I couldn’t stop, there was nothing to do anything about that, and the owner of 246 came in and clear cut his back lot. So that changed. We now have a fence that we’ve had to put up to stop the view. MRS. JENKIN-That’s your fence? MS. SLOAN-That’s a, it’s owned by the gentleman at 246. We, as neighbors, agreed to split the price of it. He installed it. We split the price. You can see there’s a lot line, the line flag is shown in the lower portion of that, and the second page, this shows the driveway going in, and this is Mr. Colombe’s property, which comes onto our property, and, you know, again, it’s showing that he has changed his property line, which he certainly has the right to do, but we never saw the back of his yard. We never saw covered ATV’s, and we never saw an open yard before, and what’s happened since that time, he didn’t have consent because he didn’t, quite frankly, probably feel he needed the consent to take trees down. However, some of those trees were on our property, and when we went to have the lines re-set, it’s very evident that he’s removed some trees from this property. So, that being said, in trying to move forward to protect the integrity of this piece of property, I can’t tell you that somebody’s not going to come in, in five years, and want to put a plastic play setup in their backyard, or a dog kennel or an ATV track. If this isn’t allowed to do tonight, then there’s nothing I can do to stop that. The fact is that’s 23 feet from my front porch, and I don’t want to have to see it, and I don’t want to have to argue with if and when it should happen. I own 320 acres in Lake Luzerne, which is wild property. I do not intend to build on that property or overdevelop that property. Someday I may put a home on it, but my intent is to keep green space and to keep the integrity of the property. So, that’s the intent. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. All right. I guess I’ll close the public hearing, then, and we’ll poll the Board. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. UNDERWOOD-George, do you want to go? MR. DRELLOS-Yes, Jim, I can see their concerns, and I, quite frankly, can’t blame them. It’s a nice wooded little area, and if they do sell the front, they would keep that for themselves, and they could maintain it, and it would be a good buffer, and I’d be in favor of this. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joyce? MRS. HUNT-Yes. I have to agree. It seems to be a reasonable request, and I would be in favor of it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Rich? MR. GARRAND-I think this is a good effort to keep the green space in Queensbury. Although we’re going to be making a nonconforming lot more nonconforming, I think this is a good idea, not only to protect the property in back, but also, like I said, maintain the green space in Queensbury. So I’d be in favor of it. 38 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Ron? MR. KUHL-I believe that once you own it you’ll probably take better care of it. I don’t know, Mr. Colombe, whether or not you feel that they’re dumping their own waste there, but, you know, ownership is better than not, so I’m in favor of it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joan? MRS. JENKIN-Yes. I have a concern about the half an acre that this new one will be, because it is small, very small, and it might reduce the value of the property, but the thing is it’s Aviation Road, and probably the value isn’t huge anyway, and I respect the idea of keeping your green area. I think nature is great, and I think the more we have of it, the better it is. So I would be in favor. MR. UNDERWOOD-Roy? MR. URRICO-I would probably prefer a more equitable distribution of the line, but I understand why you’re doing it, and I would be in favor of it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes, I, too, am supportive of your request here this evening. I think it’s reasonable and I think it shows that you really do truly care about keeping things the way they are and not letting things go down in Queensbury. I think where the lot line has been, as Matt said, makes sense, too, keeping it in line with that other property line, and not making it some odd jog, or something, like you said. Those are all weird to deal with, and then everybody wonders why you did it. So I guess I’ll ask for someone to make the resolution here. Craig, has this got to go to Planning Board because they’re doing a lot line adjustment, or is this minor? MR. BROWN-It’s not required to go to the Planning Board. MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes. Okay. MR. GARRAND-I’ll make a motion. MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 28-2008 DONNA GAGNON & RACHEL SLOAN, Introduced by Richard Garrand who moved for its adoption, seconded by Joyce Hunt: 234 and 236 Aviation Road. The applicant proposes lot line adjustment in order to change a .98 acre lot to a .46 acre lot and change a 1 acre lot to a 1.52 acre lot. The applicant requests .54 acres of relief from a lot size requirement of one acre for the Single Family One Acre zone. The balancing test. Can the benefit be achieved by other means feasible to the applicant? For the purposes of what the applicant wants, I don’t believe the benefits can be achieved by any other means. Will this application produce an undesirable change in the neighborhood or to the character of the nearby properties? I do not believe it will. The request may be deemed substantial given the nature of the request for the variance. Will the request have adverse physical or environmental effects on the neighborhood? I do not believe it will have any adverse physical or environmental effects on the neighborhood, and this may be interpreted as self-created. So I move that we approve Area Variance No. 28-2008. th Duly adopted this 18 day of June, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Hunt, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Urrico, Mr. Garrand, Mr. Kuhl, Mr. Drellos, Mr. Underwood NOES: NONE MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. You’re all set. MR. STEVES-Thank you. AREA VARIANCE NO. 30-2008 SEQRA TYPE: II ROBERT AND ANNE CLARK OWNER(S): ROBERT AND ANNE CLARK ZONING: WR-1A LOCATION: 10 BENMOST BUR LANE APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 875 SQ. FT. ADDITION. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM MINIMUM SIDELINE SETBACKS. ADDITIONALLY, RELIEF IS NEEDED FOR EXPANSION OF A NONCONFORMING 39 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) STRUCTURE. CROSS REF.: SPR 28-2008 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: N/A LOT SIZE: 0.55 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 289.13-1-54 SECTION: 179-4-030 LINDA CLARK & BILL CLARK, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 30-2008, Robert and Anne Clark, Meeting Date: June 18, 2008 “Project Location: 10 Benmost Bur Lane Description of Proposed Project: Applicant proposes to construct an 875 sq. ft. addition on north side of existing house. Relief Required: The applicant requests 3.8 feet of relief from minimum 20 foot sideline setback and relief from expansion of a non-conforming structure. Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law: 1. Benefit to the applicant: Applicant would be permitted to construct a proposed 875sq. ft. addition to the non- conforming house. 2. Feasible alternatives: Build in a more compliant location such as toward the front of the house or more toward the center of the property. Another possibility is to reduce the size of the project in order to be more compliant. 3. Is this relief substantial relative to the ordinance?: The request for 3.8 feet or 19% of relief from the 20 ft side setback per 179-4-030 may be considered minimal relative to the ordinance. 4. Effects on the neighborhood or community: Minor effects on the neighborhood may be anticipated as a result of this action. 5. Is this difficulty self-created? The difficulty may be interpreted as self-created. Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): BP 1991-299: Repair of existing dock. BP 1997-241: Dock dated 5/27/99 BP 2005-0422: Septic alteration dated 6/13/05 SP 26-2008 Pending 6/24/08 Planning Board. Site Plan Review for an 875 sq. ft. addition to north side of existing house located partially in a CEA. Staff comments: The property is located adjacent to Glen Lake and as such partially resides in a CEA. Staff would request of applicant a building sequence for this project. In addition, any spoils emanating from this proposed project will need to be stabilized or removed. SEQR Status: Type II” MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Go ahead. MS. CLARK-Good evening. My name is Linda Clark, and this is my brother, Bill Clark. We are here on behalf of our parents. My father had a very serious heart attack about a month and a half ago, and suffers from some serious arthritis, and they did not know, but 40 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) they were called to Boston for a procedure tomorrow. So they asked us to be here to represent them. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. MS. CLARK-Basically we are here to ask for an extension onto the house. My dad is, as I mentioned, in failing health. He’s 78 years old, and they needs more downstairs space, basically, to operate in the house, continue to operate in the house, and I’m going to really turn most of all of this over to my brother, because he’s been instrumental in doing all the planning for them. MR. CLARK-I think that, when it comes to overall planning, I think it’s pretty self- explanatory. I’ve gotten all the paperwork in line. If you look at the plot plan, you can actually see, it’s just a triangle, it’s a very small triangle in the north corner of the proposed addition that we’re looking at getting a variance for. My sister kind of said it when it comes to the family. My folks are getting older. So we are trying to accommodate them, and set them up with an environment that’s a little more conducive, since the entire upstairs of their house is getting to the point where they’re not going to be able to use it. The part where talked about, I think it was a family room and an office area/art room, my mother likes to do a lot of artwork and my father has tons of books that he has in a bedroom that is not a bedroom upstairs because it’s full of his stuff, all of his office stuff. So we would like to kind of transfer that down, and shift some things around for the family’s sake. Are there any questions? MS. CLARK-My brother did a really cool scale over here, and you can see, with the extension, that really it’s only a four foot corner that we’re asking for a variance, not the whole structure, and he kind of put a pink stick there to give you an idea of what that variance sort of looks like. MR. CLARK-What you’re looking at on the structure, everything in cardboard is really the existing house, and then we’re looking at putting up the proposed addition, and this is kind of a small model of it. MRS. JENKIN-The addition is going to go and butt up to the berm that you have there at the edge? How are you going to get around the house then? MR. CLARK-You’ll still be able to walk around there. The berm is, they’re talking about a very, it’s maybe four feet high, five feet high, but, you know, a path can be put around there without a problem. MS. CLARK-We don’t intend to disturb the berm anymore than possible because, and we actually roped out the section so that we could see that there would be an adequate like walk area along in there, so that we don’t have to disrupt it, and that was one of the things that we were concerned about, in terms of the, when the house next door was being built, we wanted to make sure that that maintained its existence. It gives privacy, and it has some beautiful, beautiful trees in there that my mom wanted to maintain. MRS. JENKIN-Are those that row of trees on your property? MS. CLARK-Yes. MR. CLARK-Yes, they are. MS. CLARK-I also live in the house up behind my mom and dad’s house, so, on the hill, so I overlook this property, and as a neighbor, of course, I don’t object. MR. GARRAND-Quick question. Why didn’t you design a structure more compliant? MR. CLARK-Well, to be honest with you, if I design it more compliant, that way the house is placed on the property, which the house was built back in, you know, the 1900’s, and it really wasn’t placed very well on the property. If I would have made it compliant, I would have had to cut in on the back side of the, towards the driveway, because architecturally it wouldn’t look very nice if you kind of jut it in and then you went in and then you came back out where you could come back out on the property, closer to the property line, further down where it says 20.1 feet, you can actually jut out like that, and I don’t think, architecturally, it would look very nice with that. I mean, we could do that, but I don’t think that the neighbors are going to think that that’s really kind of nice looking. 41 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MS. CLARK-And to support that, there’s a driveway, a right of way driveway that goes out the back, and it kind of drops down. We talked about moving the whole thing back, so that that corner would be in compliance, but to do that, you would lose the ability to go through that driveway. So it’s kind of the worse of the two evils, I guess you might want to call it. MR. CLARK-I mean, ideally, it would be nice to just kind of move the whole structure and place it on there properly, but when they did that, and put the basement under the house, back when we were kids, they didn’t put the house really properly on the. MR. GARRAND-The house is kind of a behemoth given the size of the property. It’s a small parcel, and I’m not sure what the floor area ratio would be on this, once completed. MR. UNDERWOOD-They’re still under 22. MR. GARRAND-Still under 22. MR. BROWN-It should be in the application. There’s a form in there. MR. GARRAND-Okay. I didn’t see that calculation in there. MS. CLARK-When the square footage was done, it was also done according to the outside parameter, rather than the rooms. So it’s probably a little smaller than what we even anticipated. MR. GARRAND-Okay. Thank you. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Anymore questions? If not, I’ll open up the public hearing. Anybody from the public wishing to speak? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MARK PRENDEVILLE MR. PRENDEVILLE-Mark Prendeville, 102 Ash Drive is my property I own, which is next door to the Clarks. I have one question then maybe some comments. On the Zoning Board of Appeals, this thing, whatever you call it. It says under feasibility alternatives, build in a more compliant location such as towards the front of the house. Living on a lake, are you talking, we consider the front of the house the part that faces the lake. Are you talking the front of the house, the part that faces the driveway? MR. OBORNE-It would be facing the driveway. MR. PRENDEVILLE-Okay. MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes, so that would be the rear, actually. MR. PRENDEVILLE-Okay. Now some of my comments. I think that’s a better idea to put it there. Originally, there were two pieces of property. The one that’s left is .55 acres. I’m not sure what the other one was, but I think it was a little bit over one acre total, and that one was given to Linda, who lives on it now, and that house was constructed too close to the line and there was a variance given for that. That house is a nonconforming structure. It’s, I believe, 40 feet from the water, which, when it was built was fine, but now that’s nonconforming. The garage that was put on, if you’ve been to the site, that’s about, I believe, eight feet from the line on my side, and then, if you grant this variance, it will then be too close on the other side. So, I guess if everybody on the lake does that, all you’ll see is houses around, and you won’t see any trees or any green space at all. That’s my comment. Thank you. MR. UNDERWOOD-Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak? Okay. You can come back up, then. Do we have any correspondence at all, Roy? MR. URRICO-No. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Then I’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED 42 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. UNDERWOOD-Anything you want to close with? Do you want to give any commentary to his concerns? MR. CLARK-Yes, I would like to make a couple of comments. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. MR. CLARK-If you look at the plot plan itself, you’re going to notice that from the lake to the porch, the existing structure, you’re talking about 44 feet, and then if you add another nine feet onto that, you’re well over what we need to be from the lake. There are a lot of trees, there’s some trees. There are large, beautiful, gorgeous oak trees. Do not want to replace or take down any of those. I want to avoid, they’re beautiful, bring back a lot of memories. I have no desire to see any of the trees come down. The only trees that will come down are the ones that are resting up against the side of the house, and they should probably come down anyway, because they don’t belong that close to the house. That’s all I have to add. Did you want to add anything? MS. CLARK-Yes. Years ago when we were children, my parents, they were, they are very conscious about the lake, and concerned about what goes in. When they put the basement in the house they actually picked up the entire house, moved it back, so that it would be away from the lake. In addition to that, my mother is an avid gardener, and she made sure, if you look at the lakefront, that all runoff would be, would have to go through some kind of plant area, so that it would minimize any kind of runoff off the grass. She is very conscious of that, and I think has done a yeoman’s job of making sure that the lake was protected as much as possible. In terms of the property, the property that my mom and dad are on was original in its state. It was much later that they bought the back property where my house is, and that was considered a nonconforming building lot. So when I built my house, I had to go through the variance procedure to do that. So they’re kind of restricted to, it was never two properties, one property that was split. It was always two properties, and they’re kind of restricted to the area in which they have to work. MR. KUHL-I’ve got a question. Why not just make it 21 feet wide, and then you don’t need a variance? MS. CLARK-Well, we considered that, too, but it makes the rooms very, very small. MR. KUHL-You’re only putting two rooms, correct, a family room? MS. CLARK-Yes. MR. KUHL-Twenty-one versus twenty-five. MS. CLARK-Well, it’s not 25, it’s 24. Am I right, Bill? It’s only four feet over on the one corner. MR. CLARK-Right, and it’s just that small, it’s just that one. MS. CLARK-Otherwise it’s in total compliance. It’s just the one end, and it’s only. MR. KUHL-Sure. I mean, I’m just asking, why not just reduce it that much and you wouldn’t need a variance? MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. If there’s no more comments from the Board members, I guess I’ll poll the Board, and I guess we’ll start with you, Mr. Kuhl. MR. KUHL-Well, you know, for the four feet, my question is if it’s a no or no go, you’re going to reduce it by four feet, just to get it done. I don’t know why you need that four feet. If it’s that important to you, you know, that’s just my question to you. Would I be in favor of it? Yes, I would, but if it comes down to it, you could reduce it and you wouldn’t even need to be here. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joan? MRS. JENKIN-I feel, when I did go out and look at the property, that putting an addition this size on that side of the house, as well as being just five feet from the edge of the property on the other side, it makes it look like there’s just nothing but house there. I feel also that you could reduce it. A 21 foot room is certainly a nice wide room, and you’ve got the depth for it, too, and I don’t think I would be in favor of this. 43 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. UNDERWOOD-George? MR. DRELLOS-Yes. That’s the first thing I thought of is why not just go the 20 or 21 feet, whatever it is. I mean, you’re very close on the other side, as it is, and now you’re limiting the other side to, what is it, 16 feet. For the little bit of more of cutting off on that room, to be in compliance, I wouldn’t be in favor of this. I’d like to see them just cut it down a little bit. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Rich? MR. GARRAND-If this was in other areas, you know, I’d probably look differently upon it, but since it’s in a Critical Environmental Area, I’d have to agree with Joan on this one. I’d also not be in favor of it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Roy? MR. URRICO-Yes. Our charge is to provide minimum relief, and there is opportunity here to make this compliant without the variance, and I think that’s, so I can’t be in favor of what you’re trying to do. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joyce? MRS. HUNT-Well, I have to agree with my fellow Board members. Though it seems like a small amount of relief, because of the area, I could not accept it, I would not go along with it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. For me, I don’t really have a problem with it. I mean, it’s 3.8 feet of relief. I would agree with the other Board members that you could make it compliant, and I don’t know if that’s something you want to consider. It looks like you’re going to have to consider it at this point. I think that if you, before we go any further then, you know, the property itself is nicely landscaped. As you said, it’s going to be set back the footage from the lake is 53 feet. So it’s over the 50 foot minimum that’s necessary. I wouldn’t be concerned had we approved this, but since the Board seems disinclined, then I guess we’re looking at you making it 21 feet and not requiring any relief. So as long as you agree to do it at 21 feet and put that on your building permit, I guess then we’re done. Right? MR. BROWN-Well, that’s up to the applicant. I mean, they’ve got to. MR. UNDERWOOD-I mean, that’s up to the applicant whether you want to do that. I would assume that that would be the route that you would want to go at this point. MR. CLARK-That’s what we would, yes. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. Other than that, good luck with the project. It looks great. It’ll be a nice addition with all that renewal going on in your neck of the woods over there. Since I live across the lake, I paddle by and see it all the time. So, it looks great. MS. CLARK-Thank you. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure thing. MR. CLARK-Thank you. MR. BROWN-So we’ve got to have some closure here. One of two choices. They can withdraw the application or you guys can. MR. UNDERWOOD-I would, assume, at this point in time, we’re going to have a withdrawal of the application because the applicants, and that’s Robert and Anne Clark, at 10 Benmost Bur Lane, have decided to build it in a compliant manner, and just make sure you measure right so you don’t have to come back or the wrath of the Board will fall on your heads, I guess. So, measure twice, cut once. MR. BROWN-I think, for the record, we want to have the applicants make a statement that we withdraw our application. MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes, why don’t you just say you’re officially withdrawing it. 44 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. CLARK-We officially withdraw it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes, thank you. MS. CLARK-Thank you. MR. CLARK-Thank you. AREA VARIANCE NO. 32-2008 SEQRA TYPE: II LARRY CLUTE AGENT(S): DAVID HATIN OWNER(S): LARRY CLUTE ZONING: SFR-1A LOCATION: 35 MEADOW DRIVE APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 1,576 SQ. FT. SINGLE- FAMILY DWELLING. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM MINIMUM SHORELINE SETBACK REQUIREMENTS. ADDITIONALLY, RELIEF IS REQUESTED FOR A SECOND GARAGE. CROSS REF.: SPR 24-2008; FWW 7-2008 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: N/A LOT SIZE: 0.69 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 296.17-1-27 SECTION: 179-4-070; 179-5-020 D DAVID HATIN, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 32-2008, Larry Clute, Meeting Date: June 18, 2008 “Project Location: 35 Meadow Drive Description of Proposed Project: Applicant proposes construction of a 1,576 sq. ft. single family dwelling with two garages. Relief Required: The applicant requests relief of 38 feet from the minimum 75 foot shoreline setback per 179-4-070 and relief for second garage per 179-5-020(D). Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law: 1. Benefit to the applicant: Applicant would be permitted to construct the proposed 1,576 sq. ft. house within the 75ft. shoreline setback per 179-4-070 and construct a second garage. 2. Feasible alternatives: Feasible alternatives appear to be limited due to the configuration of the parcel relative to the wetlands. 3. Is this relief substantial relative to the ordinance?: The request for 38 feet or 50.7% of relief from the minimum 75 foot shoreline setback requirement could be considered moderate relative to the ordinance. The request for a second garage constitutes a 100% relief request. 4. Effects on the neighborhood or community: Minor effects on the neighborhood may be anticipated as a result of this action. 5. Is this difficulty self-created? The difficulty may be interpreted as self-created. Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): SPR 24-2008 Site Plan Review pending 6/24/08 Planning Board FWW 7-2008 Fresh Water Wetlands pending 6/24/08 Planning Board Septic Variance granted on 6/2/08 Staff comments: The back portion of the property is situated in wetlands. Care should be taken to stabilizing or removing any spoils associated with this project. Given the size and shape of the parcel and the existence of DEC wetlands on this site, any requests to develop the site would require some relief from the Zoning Board of Appeals. 45 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) SEQR Status: TYPE II” MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Go ahead, guys. MR. HATIN-Good evening. For the record, my name is Dave Hatin. I am the proposed purchaser of this property, should the project receive all the necessary approvals. With me is Larry Clute, the owner of the property, from Clute Enterprises. We’re here tonight to ask for relief, setback from the 75 foot mark to the corner of the garage. This project I put a lot of thought into after I found out it was for sale, trying to construct a single family dwelling for myself and my daughter. This house is basically a little over a 1,000 square foot house with a two car garage. The second variance that’s being sought for a second garage is actually a garage space within the basement of the garage at the opposite end of the house from the garage that’s shown on your plot plan. The reason for this is so that I don’t have to construct a shed or a request a variance for a separate structure. It will give me the ability to hopefully store my boat in it, and also typical things that you store in a garage and give me some extra garage room, given the limited development of this lot with the wetland placement by DEC. That’s pretty much the project in a nutshell. I don’t know if you have any specific questions, but that’s the simple version of it. MR. GARRAND-How are you going to make this look like a house that doesn’t have two garages? As you know this neighborhood, there aren’t a lot of houses with two garages. MR. HATIN-All right. Well, if you look at the elevations that were attached with your application, there actually is a rear view that shows what it will look like from the wetlands side of the structure. LARRY CLUTE MR. CLUTE-The second garage underneath is accessed via the back of the house. MR. HATIN-The back of the house, what you would cal the rear of the house. From the street side, it will actually look like a single story ranch with a garage on the lower side of it. From the rear it’ll look like a type two story structure. MRS. JENKIN-The north view is at the back of the house. MR. HATIN-Yes, the somewhat north view, depending on what you call the north, I guess, by the arrow. I would call it the west view, what’s actually the back of the house. If you consider Meadow Drive the front of the house, the rear view you see would be the true rear of the house. Because the front does parallel the road. Just so the Board is also aware, and I think it was in Staff comments, I did receive a variance, or I should say Mr. Clute did receive a variance for the septic system, which is the reason for the setback from the road. To fit the septic system in for at least a three bedroom home we needed to place the house that far back from the road. MR. KUHL-Where is that going to go, the septic? MR. HATIN-The septic is shown in the front yard, the Meadow Drive side of the house. You’ll see the tank and the four 50 foot lines. MR. KUHL-Okay. Gotcha. MR. DRELLOS-Seven instead of ten. MR. HATIN-Yes, it’s going to be actually seven feet from the front property line. Yes, we did request a variance for that. MRS. JENKIN-But is that, that’s the very steep part going down? MR. HATIN-Yes, if you look at the contour lines on the Meadow Drive side you’ll see they’re very close together because that does get very steep very quick. So, and we’re proposing not to disturb that along the road at all. Hopefully. MRS. JENKIN-So that’s the start of the flat part. Now what about, are you bringing fill in for the house itself? MR. HATIN-Yes. 46 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MRS. JENKIN-So that a garage on the west side, north side, the garage on the north side, yes, sort of north, that’ll be on the level that’s there now? MR. HATIN-Yes. MRS. JENKIN-And so the rest of the house you’re going to build up. MR. HATIN-Yes. The rear yard will pretty much stay at the level it is now, with some fill being brought in the rear yard. The majority of the fill would be placed in the front yard between the house and the house and the embankment that’s there now, and then it will also be tapered to the south side as well, so, to the property line. MRS. JENKIN-So then you’re bringing in fill and that’s going to include the septic area, where the fill will be? MR. HATIN-That’s correct. MRS. JENKIN-And how much are you bringing that up? MR. HATIN-It’s about six to seven feet, so, depending on the grade change. MR. KUHL-And that’s to accommodate your septic field? MR. HATIN-Accommodate the septic, and also give the house a single story look from the front. MR. KUHL-Sure. MRS. JENKIN-So then how much down, if you’re looking at the road, if you’re standing on the road. MR. HATIN-If you look at your drawings, there also is a front view of the house. MRS. JENKIN-How much depression will it be, or how far down will the house be from the road? MR. HATIN-If you look at this as the front view on the Meadow Drive side, and your, where it says front east view. The dotted line is actually the basement floor level, and that basement floor level in this corner is about three feet into the original grade that’s there now. So, and then you can see the finished grade will come across the front of the house and then it be tapered down to the entrance of the garage from the north side. MRS. JENKIN-Right, but I’m saying if you’re standing, or how far down are you going to be looking at the house? MR. HATIN-My guesstimation is the peak of the roof will be about at road level. So it’ll still be down there kind of in a hollow. Yes. It’s going to be very low in the lot, compared to the rest of the house. MRS. JENKIN-The other question I had is, there’s trees right on the road, and I notice your driveway. Are you going to leave those trees as a driveway going to the north side of those trees? MR. HATIN-Yes. MRS. JENKIN-And you, are you going to keep those trees there? Because there are some big trees that are going over the road. MR. HATIN-Right. The only trees that are proposed to be removed from the site are the white pines, only because of the nature of white pines having shallow roots. MRS. JENKIN-Right. MR. HATIN-There’s a tendency in a heavy windstorm for them to fall is increased dramatically. So my proposal is, and this is the same before the Planning Board, if this receives approval tonight, is to remove all the white pines from the property, and then just keep all the hardwoods. So, and hopefully the hardwoods would actually grow better. 47 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MRS. JENKIN-But these are hardwoods on the roadside here. MR. HATIN-Yes. Most of them along the road are hardwoods, yes. MR. HATIN-There are some, and I don’t know if it shows in the pictures up here, there are some that are right along the road, some white pines that are right along the road, within about 15 feet of the road, to 20 feet of the road. I think this view is showing what I would call the wetlands side of the property, close to the wetlands. If anybody walked out the lot, I did stake out the house and ribbon out where the house was going to go. So you saw the foundation footprint. MRS. JENKIN-So the driveway itself is going to be pretty close to the next door neighbors. MR. HATIN-Yes. That’s the only place in the road where it’s an acceptable turn radius, and there still is about a five foot drop from the road to the garage floor. MRS. JENKIN-Are you planning to put anything that’s kind of a buffer between the neighbor and yourself? MR. HATIN-Actually, the neighbor and I have talked. We’ve known each other for years. We will probably, within about 30 feet of the road, fill that in somewhat to match their lawn, and then we’ll taper down. There is a grading plan which I think was attached to your plan. I can’t remember if I submitted it with that application or not, but there is a grading plan, I have a copy of it here, for the Planning Board, that shows it tapering down to zero, and to the existing grade along the neighbor’s property line. I don’t know if was submitted with this application or not. I know it was submitted to the Planning Board. I have a copy of it here if you’d like to see it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. If there’s no more questions, then I think I’ll open up the public hearing. Anybody from the public wishing to speak on this project? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED BEN DAVIS MR. DAVIS-Hi. I’m Ben Davis, I’m 51 Meadow Drive. I own 50 and 51, by the pond, and 51, is 51 I guess. I had three questions. Two of them I think have been answered. One was the front elevation of the house, and from the picture which I got from the file today, it looked like the house was up on top, road level, and I couldn’t believe they were going to put that much fill in there to get it up that high. So that’s been answered. The second one was the application for the second garage, and that was answered as well. I have no problems with the house going there. My problem is that I’ve been at 51 Meadow Drive for about 32 years. We built the house there, and over the, probably the last seven years, eight years, and you are familiar, I’m sure, by going through that area, I have lost half of my backyard because of the water table coming up. His wetland, which runs behind there, there’s a tributary of Halfway Brook that runs through there, and 30 years ago, if you are, again, familiar with that piece of property, you could step across that in the summer. It was probably about a two foot brook and easily dried up. Now it’s probably 50, 60 foot, it’s not deep, but it’s like mud. It’s become a true wetland, and my backyard was a lowland at one time and half of it now is a wetland. It’s standing water, and it’s coming further and further, and I think a lot of that’s been because of the building in what I call the Meadowbrook basin, with the Schermerhorn projects and if you look at the cardiology place up here, it’s like a moat. There’s cattails growing by it and there’s water running around it, and we’re building everywhere, and I think the more fill that we put into this area, it does tend to bring all the tables up. I really do believe that, and I think those of us who have been there for a long time, with the septic systems that we have, we don’t have the Town system, it’s becoming a concern, because as the water keeps coming up, we’ll get to the point where I don’t know what we’re going to do. So even with this type of a project, my question is, will there be some type of an impact study that will be done with it? How is it going to affect, it’s built on wetlands, I’m sorry, lowlands, which borders wetlands, and I’m downstream of that. So if we put more fill in there, we put a driveway in there, that’s percolation that’s going to occur, and so on and so forth, and what will that impact my backyard, in a sense, and my property as well. So that’s the only question I have, and I don’t know if you can answer that, whether there is some type of a study which shows an impact on wetlands. More and more of our lowlands are becoming wetlands in that area, as I’m sure you’re all aware of, and I know there’s a lot of people up and down Meadowbrook that are having the same problems. 48 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Thank you. MR. GARRAND-Can you offer anything, Craig? MR. BROWN-Yes. I know, as part of this project, the gentlemen have to appear before our Planning Board for any filling and hard surfacing within 50 feet of the shoreline of the wetland. Part of that Planning Board review will require them to come up with some sort of a stormwater management plan that shows any stormwater that falls on that site is going to be back into the ground on that site, and it’s not going to runoff the site, surface water directly to the wetland. So it’s going to, you know, no more rain water is going to fall on that site. It’s just going to be more hard surface. So they have to make sure they collect that and get it back into the ground before it runs off the site. So that’s definitely required as part of their Site Plan approval. MR. UNDERWOOD-I would think the key to that, too, would be, I’m sure you’re going to use fill materials that are going to absorb. You’re not going to put clay in there, or some silly idea like that. You’re setting yourself up. I used to live in that neighborhood when I first moved to Town, and I know the part that got sewered, that’s why it got sewered because the septic tanks used to just bubble up like on the lawn. MR. DAVIS-That’s the other thing. The sewer stops right by his property, but obviously it’s up on top. So he’s going to be able to pump it up to across where the line stops there. MR. GARRAND-It’s probably rock down there. MR. DAVIS-It is. It’s all ledge. So they’re not going to come in there, and we asked them, one time, to do that, and they had to pump it up so they didn’t want to do that, but it’s rock, that’s all rock ledge, clay and rock. So there is something that will look at that? MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. The Planning Board will thoroughly review it to ensure, yes. Okay. Anybody else from the public wishing to speak? Okay. If not, any correspondence at all, Roy? MR. URRICO-No. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Then I guess we’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. UNDERWOOD-Do you guys want to come back up. Okay. Board members have any questions or any comments you want to make at this time? Otherwise I’ll run down through the ranks and people can put their two cents in here as to what they think. I guess I’ll start with you, Joyce. MRS. HUNT-Okay. Thank you. Well, I did have some concern with the two garages, but the questions were answered, and I’d have no problem with this project. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Rich? MR. GARRAND-That was my issue also, as Joyce said, the two garages. We don’t want anything that’s going to end up like that menagerie on Ridge Road, but at this point I’d be in favor of it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. George? MR. DRELLOS-Yes. I feel the same way. I think this project, if done correctly, it’ll be a fine looking house down there. So I’d be in favor of it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joan? MRS. JENKIN-Could I hear what Roy has to say, please. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. Roy, do you want to go. MR. URRICO-I guess I’m going to have to be the first negative vote on this, because I see two problems with it. I see too much shoreline setback. I think the house could 49 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) maybe be minimized, much more than it is, and I just definitely see a problem with the second garage. So I would be against it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Ron? MR. KUHL-I have no problem with it. Nothing further. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joan? MRS. JENKIN-I have the concern, because of the septic so close to that steep slope, and also because of the wetland and because of what Mr. Davis was saying, the whole area, it’s a real problem with the wetlands. More building is certainly not going to help the drainage. So I don’t think that I’m in favor of that. I would be opposed to it. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. To summarize, I think, you know, the septic plan has been approved. So, I mean, there’s not much we can do about that. I think they think it’s going to be built in a compliant manner. So, I would have to imagine that if you’re going to build anything there, you’re going to have an impact on water, because, you know, you’re going to create a certain volume each day that’s going to go into the ground, that has to be absorbed, and I think, cumulatively, if we look at the whole end of Town there, I mean, all the building that’s gone on, obviously there’s an effect, yes, it’s probably a negative effect, but it’s a pre-existing subdivision here that dates back for many years. It’s a really odd lot. That’s why it hasn’t been built on, and, you know, I think as we go around Town now, the few lots that we have left here, this lot, the way it’s sloped, I mean, the water naturally is going to run off there like off a duck’s back, as soon as it rains anyway, and I think what you’re doing here, by bringing in more fill, I don’t know if that’s going to help, it’s probably going to add to the perc, or, I mean, add to the capability of the soil to hold more moisture because you’re bringing in more fill. You’re not taking it away. You’re lessening the amount that’s there, so as far as that goes, I don’t think it’s a problem. The setback from the wetland is, you know, to a degree just because of what’s there and the topography is so odd it’s not like any other lot we normally see. The two garage thing, I think it should be a concern of us, the two garages, but, in essence, it’s not a garage, the under part in the back. No one’s going to see it. If you closed it off and had basement down there, it wouldn’t make any difference. I mean, that’s not going to impact the groundwater or anything like that anymore by having a garage there. Calling it a second garage, you know, technically it is a second garage, but for what you’re proposing to use it for, it’s not going to be like you’re going to be like you’re going to be parking 18 cars on the lot inside the house or something like that. So I think we can overlook that fact in this case here. There’s a vegetative plan that’s been proposed, and Bruce Frank reviewed that, you know, with pretty good arguments as to what you’re going to remove and what you’re going to leave behind on there, and I would think the Planning Board, if they have concerns about runoff, they’re probably going to make you do some plantings and stuff like that to alleviate that. MR. HATIN-That’s all proposed in the stormwater management plan. MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes, that all seems to be present there. So it’s a pretty thorough job, and I guess, in essence, we should be concerned, but, you know, when we get to these last lots that are left in Town, you know, you’re just going to have to live with it and either say, no, you can’t build anything there, but in most respects, the amount of relief from the wetland is not that great. So, I think I can approve it myself. So I guess, looking at the tally of the Board, we’ll need somebody to make a resolution, calling for approval. MR. GARRAND-Do we need to go through the Short Form on this? MR. UNDERWOOD-Are we Unlisted or II? MR. GARRAND-II? All right. MR. UNDERWOOD-We’re II. We don’t have to worry about it. MR. GARRAND-I’ll make a motion. MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 32-2008 LARRY CLUTE, Introduced by Richard Garrand who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Drellos: 35 Meadow Drive. The applicant proposes construction of a 1,576 square foot single family dwelling with two garages. The applicant is requesting relief of 38 feet from the minimum 75 foot shoreline setback as per 179-4-070, and the relief for a second garage 50 (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 06/18/08) as per 179-5-020. Can the benefits be achieved by other means feasible to the applicant? For placement of the house and placement of the septic, I don’t think they can get away with pushing the house more forward. I think it’s pretty much a requirement that they have the house in this position. Will this result in an undesirable change in the neighborhood or character to nearby properties? I do not believe it will. It’s an existing subdivision. The house should fit nicely in the neighborhood. This request may be deemed substantial, given the request for 100% relief for the second garage. Will this request have adverse physical or environmental impacts on the neighborhood? Offhand, with the re-planting of the trees and the leaving of the deciduous trees, there shouldn’t be any physical or environmental impacts that would adversely effect the neighborhood, and this may be interpreted as self-created. So I make a motion we approve Area Variance No. 32-2008. th Duly adopted this 18 day of June, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Drellos, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Garrand, Mr. Kuhl, Mr. Underwood NOES: Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Jenkin MR. HATIN-Thank you. MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. Okay. Anything else we have? MR. BROWN-Yes, just a bookkeeping on that Lowell subdivision application. You probably want to do a motion, since nobody showed up, motion to table it to the first July meeting. MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. MOTION TO TABLE AREA VARIANCE NO. 13-2008 JANE B. LOWELL, Introduced by James Underwood who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Drellos: Chestnut Ridge Road and County Line Road. Tabled to the first meeting in July. The Zoning Board has requested a recommendation from the Planning Board relative to the access of the lot. th Duly adopted this 18 day of June, 2008, by the following vote: MR. UNDERWOOD-That’s the one that’s over by the airport, right? MR. BROWN-Correct. MR. UNDERWOOD-The one we did before. AYES: Mr. Drellos, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Garrand, Mr. Kuhl, Mr. Underwood NOES: NONE MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. That’s it, then. On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, James Underwood, Chairman 51