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1997-11-18 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD FIRST REGULAR MEETING NOVEMBER 18, 1997 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT ROBERT PALING, CHAIRMAN CATHERINE LABOMBARD, SECRETARY LARRY RINGER TIMOTHY BREWER GEORGE STARK ROGER RUEL CRAIG MAC EWAN PLANNER -LAURA NOWICKI TOWN COUNSEL -MILLER, MANNIX & PRATT, MARK SCHACHNER STENOGRAPHER -MARIA GAGLIARDI CORRECTION OF MINUTES August 19, 1997: NONE August 26, 1997: NONE MOTION TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF 8/19 & 8/26 , Introduced by Roger Ruel who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Stark: th Duly adopted this 18 day of November, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ruel, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Paling NOES: NONE ABSTAINED: Mr. Brewer OLD BUSINESS: SITE PLAN NO. 41-97 TYPE: UNLISTED PHILLIP H. MORSE/SUSAN K. MORSE OWNERS: SAME ZONE: WR-1A, CEA LOCATION: ASSEMBLY POINT PROPOSAL IS DEMOLITION OF EXISTING RESIDENCE, REMODELING OF PORTION AND CONSTRUCTION OF ADDITION. PER SECTION 179-79 ANY EXPANSION OF A NONCONFORMING STRUCTURE IN A CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL AREA IS SUBJECT TO REVIEW AND APPROVAL BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE: AV 65-1997 TAX MAP NO. 9-1-19 LOT SIZE: 1.58475 ACRES SECTION: 179-16, 179-79 MICHAEL O’CONNOR, REPRESENTING APPLICANT th MRS. LABOMBARD-And the public hearing on October 28 was tabled. STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Phillip H. Morse/Susan K. Morse, Meeting Date: November 18, 1997 “The Planning Board requested that the applicant respond to 10/24/97 Rist Frost comments. The Planning Board indicated that a complete review would occur with the approval of Rist-Frost comments on Site Plan 41-97. Staff would recommend to the Planning Board that the following be included with the resolution: the removal of only dead vegetation and the replacement of such vegetation with equal or more dense vegetation, the project will use only earth tones, and the project will adhere exactly to the artists renditions of the project, with the exception of the boathouse. The applicant has indicated one change from the original application in regards to the boathouse. There will be no outside modifications (building or remodeling) to the boathouse. The 1 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) stairs that were to be put on the outside will be placed on the inside of the boathouse. The original application proposes to demolish and remodel a portion of the existing structure, and construct an addition to the existing structure. On November 6, 1997 Staff received a drainage report, site plan drawings, and a more detailed conceptual landscape plan. This information was given to Rist Frost Engineers for review and comment. The applicant has received the requested variances for Height restrictions - Section 179-16, Garage restrictions - Section 179-16, and greater than 50 expansion - Section 179-79. The applicant has received a septic variance from the Town for the use of holding tanks in a year round residence.” MR. PALING-Okay. So you’re all set and we’re all set with Rist-Frost comments. Would you identify yourself for the record, please. MR. O’CONNOR-Mr. Chairman, I’m Michael O’Connor from the law firm of Little & O’Connor. I represent the applicants. MR. PALING-Okay. The floor is yours, whatever you might want to tell us. MR. O’CONNOR-Okay. As I understand it, we closed the public hearing at the last meeting. So I will address, simply, the comments of Staff that I have here. MR. PALING-Excuse me. The public hearing was tabled. It’s still open. MR. O’CONNOR-Okay. I think it was closed. MS. NOWICKI-It was closed. MR. PALING-It says tabled. MS. NOWICKI-The applicant was tabled. MR. SCHACHNER-The application was tabled, but the public hearing was opened and closed, our records indicate. MR. PALING-Okay. I stand corrected. MR. O’CONNOR-So, unless you want me to go back to something, but I would just address the Staff comments. We have no problem with the suggested language for the conditional condition of approval for the vegetation, or for the use of earth tones. I would object to the requirement or the suggestion that we adhere exactly to the artist’s renditions. They are renditions, and to say that we’re going to adhere exactly to them doesn’t give credit to the fact that they are renditions. We’ve indicated that to you. We’re not going to change the footprint. We’re not going to change in any significant way, we’re not going to change the configuration at all. MR. PALING-And there’d be no height or setback problem? You’d adhere to that also? MR. O’CONNOR-Yes, but I don’t think there’s been a true choice yet of the covering material, if you will, or the exterior material, and that’s included in those renditions. Potential examples are set forth there. We will not have any more glass than is proportionately shown, if that’s an issue. I try to make it as clear as I can, but we’re not building what’s on those renditions. They’ve got to finalize those plans, the architect and the applicant. MR. RUEL-What if the wording was changed to “will resemble artists renditions”? MR. O’CONNOR-I have no problem with that. I have no problem with substantially the same. The word “exactly the same” is hard to comply with. MR. BREWER-What might you think be different, Mike? MR. O’CONNOR-There’s some rock shown that may not be the same. There may be some brick as opposed to rock. There may be siding differences. There may be differences in the windows. There may be mullions in the windows as opposed to clear panes in the windows. I’m not exactly sure all the differences. I haven’t been involved with the architectural part of it, on a day to day basis. I know that the applicant, with due respect, the applicant has taken two years to get here, to make some of the choices that they’ve made. They make their choices very carefully and with an idea that it would be pleasing to themselves and to others. 2 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. RUEL-I agree with that. I feel if it was an architectural drawing, than he should adhere to it, but an artist’s rendition, possibly the words “substantially resemble” would be better. MR. O’CONNOR-Yes. I just don’t want to have a problem down the road. MRS. LABOMBARD-And it also says that you’re going to stay with the earth tones for. MR. O’CONNOR-We’ve represented that. I have no objection to that. MR. MAC EWAN-I’ve got a question for Staff. You’re the guy who ultimately probably is going to be enforcing this should enforcement action come to light, if we try to stick to these certain perameters of a resolution. What kind of leeway do we have, and what do you need to have ironed out? MR. ROUND-If you have a particular concern over appearance, you’d have to be very careful what kind of language you use. I can’t enforce “substantially”. I can’t enforce “as close as possible”. Those are very gray areas. If you wanted to say the application is going to be “X” number of square feet of footprint or “X” number of square feet of building floor area, those are the kind of things that we can measure and then we can enforce, but I advise the Zoning Board, whenever they try to make a resolution, that you can’t utilize subjective language in a resolution. You have to be very concise. If there’s a concern that you want addressed, address that particular concern. Don’t try to cover it with a blanket statement like “as close as possible”. If you’d like assistance in drafting the resolution, if there’s something you want to discuss about a particular aspect of the project, we could. MR. PALING-Well, why couldn’t we use the second paragraph of the Staff Notes, up through the word “tones” and the comma, and beyond that just don’t use it because that’s where the artist’s rendition comes in? MR. SCHACHNER-Well, you can do that. I think what Chris is pointing out is that, as a Code Compliance Officer, and I think Mr. O’Connor’s point is well taken, and Chris’ is certainly well taken. It’s very difficult for a Code Compliance Officer or anyone else charged with enforcement to go and enforce things that are qualified by subjective adjectives. I think that’s all we’re saying. MR. RUEL-Why do we even say “artist’s rendition”? MR. SCHACHNER-Why does it say that? Because that’s what they’ve submitted, which is fine. That’s appropriate. MR. STARK-Like you said, why don’t we just include this in the motion. MR. SCHACHNER-Yes, that’s fine from Staff’s point of view. MR. PALING-Okay. Include the second paragraph up through “tones”, up through here, as part of the resolution. I think this is acceptable to the applicant, and it gives a little bit more specific language. MR. RUEL-Leave out the rest of it? MR. PALING-Yes. MR. O’CONNOR-Okay, and would you also include “with the exception of the boathouse”? The boathouse is and will be white. MR. PALING-Yes, right. We’re with you, and leave “with the exception of the boathouse”. MR. O’CONNOR-I’m not sure if white is an earthen tone or not. MR. PALING-I don’t think so. MR. O’CONNOR-White is not a tone, I’m told. It’s not a color. MR. PALING-Okay. Any other comments by the Board? 3 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. MAC EWAN-No. The big issue is the stormwater management plan, and Rist-Frost signed off on that. MR. PALING-That’s right. They have signed off on the whole, on all of it. Yes. We’re okay there. All right. The public hearing was held and closed, and this is Unlisted. We did not do a SEQRA. We have to do a SEQRA short form on this. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 41-97 , Introduced by Roger Ruel who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Stark: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: PHILLIP H. MORSE/SUSAN K. MORSE , and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. th Duly adopted this 18 day of November, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ruel, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Paling NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Brewer MR. PALING-Okay. If there’s no further comment or what not, we’ll go right to a motion. MR. RUEL-All right. I’ll make a motion to approve site plan no. 41-97 for Phillip H. Morse Susan K. Morse, to demolish a portion of existing residence, remodel a portion, and construction of addition, with the condition that the removal of only the dead vegetation and replacement of such vegetation with equal or more dense vegetation. The project will use only earth tones, with the exception of the boathouse. MR. O’CONNOR-Mr. Chairman, just so we’re clear, we’re also talking about the restriction on the removal of vegetation along the road frontage, because there are some live trees that are in the footprint of the new construction that would be removed. 4 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. RUEL-Wouldn’t you say that’s included in here? MR. O’CONNOR-I’m not 100% sure, Roger, but you’re speaking of a restriction on removal of vegetation along the roadway. MR. PALING-Would the Staff agree with that? MS. NOWICKI-The entire parcel, doesn’t that include the entire parcel. I mean, you didn’t indicate any removal of vegetation in the front. MR. O’CONNOR-No, okay, but in the area of construction, there are some trees, live trees, that are being removed. MS. NOWICKI-Okay. MR. O’CONNOR-And during all the discussion, during the public hearing, we talkd about visibility from the roadway only, and we talked about agreement that we would restrict removal along the pathway of the roadway, and I’ll also add, if you have a concern we’re talking about, we know of no other vegetation, other than the construction areas. MS. NOWICKI-Okay. Then you want to leave it to the construction areas? The areas of construction? MR. O’CONNOR-I’m concerned about enforcement. I’m concerned about coming back. The only thing we talked about having a concern with was visibility from the roadway. We’re still talking about a single family home, even though we’re talking about a large home. I don’t know of any other requirement, or any requirement, in any of our Ordinances, that actually says that your single family home can’t be visible from the road, but we’ve conceded to that, and agreed to it. MR. PALING-What is it you want to say where, in regard to removal of dead vegetation? MR. O’CONNOR-Along the roadway. MR. PALING-Along the roadway, and I think I got Staff’s agreement that that’s okay. MR. O’CONNOR-Okay. MR. PALING-Am I hearing correctly or not? MS. NOWICKI-Another concern is that, even in your zone, you can only remove so much vegetation. So that you understand. MR. MORSE-We will comply with that. MS. NOWICKI-Then I agree with what Mr. O’Connor said. MR. O’CONNOR-I’m sorry for the interruption. MR. PALING-All right. We’ll have a second. MR. RINGER-Do you want to read that over again, to make sure that it’s clear for Mike? I just want to make sure that it’s clear for Mike and Mike can live with it. MR. O’CONNOR-We’re saying along Bay Parkway, the removal of vegetation shall be only of dead vegetation, and that vegetation would be replaced with equal or more dense vegetation. MR. PALING-All right. That’s my understanding. MR. SCHACHNER-Is that the motion? I mean, a member has to make a motion. MR. PALING-Yes, well, I think the motion is already made. MR. SCHACHNER-Right. The question is, does a member wish to add, along Bay Parkway to the motion? 5 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. PALING-Okay. Can you add that, instead of along the road, make it along Bay Parkway. MR. RUEL-Do you want me to start all over again? MR. PALING-Go ahead. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 41-97 PHILLIP H. MORSE SUSAN K. MORSE , Introduced by Roger Ruel who moved for its adoption, seconded by Catherine LaBombard: To demolish portion of an existing residence and remodel a portion and construction of an addition, with the condition that the trees to be removed along Bay Parkway, removal of only dead vegetation and replacement of such vegetation along Bay Parkway, with equal or more dense vegetation. The project will use only earth tones, with the exception of the boathouse. th Duly adopted this 18 day of November, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ruel, Mr. Ringer, Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Stark, Mr. Paling NOES: NONE ABSTAINED: Mr. Brewer MR. PALING-Okay. Thank you. MR. O’CONNOR-Thank you very much. NEW BUSINESS: SITE PLAN NO. 48-97 TYPE: UNLISTED R.B. MOTORS, INC. D/B/A R.B.M TRUCK PARTS OWNER: RONALD DUFOUR ZONE: CR-15 LOCATION: LOWER DIX AVE., ACROSS FROM FIREHOUSE APPLICANT PROPOSES PARTS STORE. RETAIL BUSINESS IS A TYPE II SITE PLAN REVIEW USE AND IS SUBJECT TO REVIEW AND APPROVAL BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE: UV 112-1989, UV 76-1990 BEAUTIFICATION COMM.: 11/10/97 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 11/12/97 TAX MAP NO. 111-1-7, 10 LOT SIZE: .73 ACRES SECTION 179-24 JEFF BURNS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 48-97, R.B. Motors, Meeting Date: November 18, 1997 “Applicant proposes to operate an automotive parts store. A retail business use in CR-15 zone is subject to site plan review. Applicant’s site data is vague because the only changes being made are interior. Applicant has provided proof that enough parking is available. The applicant has been made aware that “repairs” is not an allowed use in this zone, and the applicant has concurred that no repairs will be made. The staff recommends to the Town Planning Board that the resolution should indicate no outside storage of materials or repairs of any type. A resident contacted Staff and had questions on traffic and storage at R.B. Motors. What street will the main entrance be on? What type of traffic is anticipated, cars, trucks, delivery trucks. How often would traffic occur (what type of clientele?). What would be stored outside (trucks, cars, materials)? Is this business similar to a NAPA? The resident concern was for the safety of the children and other residents on Phillips Avenue.” MR. PALING-Is the applicant here, or someone representing them? Would you come up and identify yourself, please. MR. BURNS-My name is Jeff Burns. I’m the Manager of the Glens Falls store right now, which is, we’re in the process of moving to Dix Avenue. Okay. There will be no changes. MR. PALING-There’s no County Impact on this, and we do have comments from the Beautification Committee. Is there anything else you have, Laura? 6 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MS. NOWICKI-No. Do you want me to read the Beautification comments? MR. PALING-Yes, please. MS. NOWICKI-I’m going to skip to the paragraph where it starts, “Jeff Burns and Tom French explained location of site (directly across from So. Queensbury firehouse) and planned use of building. Jeff informed Committee that owner Ron DuFour would remove all present equipment from site and they would mow overgrown grass, which would substantially improve appearance of property. Mr. Burns will operate an auto parts store at location. Mr. Burns plans to leave all bushes/planting as is and supplement them with seasonal flowers. Existing “Wishing Well” will be removed by Mr. DuFour per Mr. Burns. Mrs. Wetherbee asked Mr. Burns the location of the signage. Mr. Burns informed the Committee there will possibly be 2, one on the road and one on the building. Mrs. Wetherbee also asked about parking lot and location of parking spaces. Mr. Burns stated lot is not paved, but crushed red shale. Committee suggested addition of 3-4 small hemlock bushes be planted to screen parked cars from road. Mr. Burns agreed to suggestion. Location of dumpster sited on plan and type of fencing discussed to screen dumpster from road. Mr. Lorenz made motion to approve with addition of hemlock bush planting on road. Seconded by Mrs. Carpenter. In addition to the above Landscaping, Screening and Planting Provisions, the Committee wishes to go on record that it does not approve: 1. Non-conforming signs, and 2. Plastic or artificial trees, shrubs or flowers. In approving the above (or attached plans), the Committee has the expressed or implied agreement of the applicant to replace immediately dead trees, shrubs or plant, and to give proper maintenance to all plantings. All rubbish containers or dumpsters shall be screened, all plantings shall be mulched and trees shall be retained or planted, as agreed.” MR. PALING-Okay. You’re all set, Laura, now? Okay. Are you familiar with both the Beautification Committee as well as the Staff comments on this? Have you heard these before? MR. BURNS-Yes. MR. PALING-Okay. Go ahead. I’ll turn the floor over to you, then. MR. BURNS-Okay. What do you need, just a little bit about the business? MR. PALING-Well, you can tell us what you want, but we do want specific answers to the questions raised by Staff as well as, or comments by Staff and the Beautification Committee. MR. BURNS-In the Beautification Committee, the only thing that they required us to do is to plant some trees, four trees along the bank, right in front, and we agreed to do that in the spring. We really can’t do it right now. MR. PALING-It seems there were more than that. MR. RUEL-Along the entrance? MR. BURNS-No. If you’re going along Dix Avenue, you look over the bank toward the building, they required us to put four trees, fir trees or something right there. MR. BREWER-Right here? MR. BURNS-Right, right in there. MR. BREWER-In the area marked “grass”? MR. BURNS-Right. We agreed to do that in the spring. We are going to put a, where the dumpster will be a stockade fence around that, so it can’t be seen. MR. RUEL-Did you show these items on your plot plan? MR. BURNS-On that plan, there is a spot, it says, fenced in trash area. MR. RUEL-Yes, I see that, but there’s no indication on the type of fence. MR. BURNS-There’s not, but that’s where it’s going to be, right there. 7 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. RUEL-Yes, I see the location, but I don’t see the location of hemlocks or anything that the Beautification Committee asked. MR. BREWER-Well, we can add that in, Roger. He wants to put them right here where this grass area is. MR. RUEL-Yes, I see grass. MR. RINGER-And he drew that up before the Beautification Committee came, Roger. MR. RUEL-Well, I’m looking for the hemlocks. MR. BREWER-No. He just said he’ll put them right in that grass area. MR. PALING-They’re not in there, but he’s going to put them in. MR. RUEL-That’s where they belong? MR. PALING-Lets see how far, all right, the first paragraph talks about, would remove all present equipment from site and would mow overgrown grass. MR. BURNS-Right now he’s in the process of moving all that stuff to his new location in Vermont. MR. PALING-Okay. If this were part of the motion, or the resolution, you’re comfortable with that? MR. BURNS-Yes. MR. PALING-Okay. The second point, leave all bushes and plantings as is and supplement with seasonal flowers. MR. BURNS-Yes. MR. PALING-That’ll be part of the motion, too. MR. RUEL-Well, the motion, I guess, should pick up the Beautification comments. MR. PALING-All of it. I just want to make sure they understand, because he said there was one thing. There’s a lot more than one thing in here. The lot is not paved, okay, no, I understand that. Okay. We’ve talked about the hemlocks, location of the dumpster, and you will commit to screen that in, or it has been done? MR. BURNS-Yes. We will screen that in, yes. MR. PALING-Okay. That’s on the plot plan. Okay, hemlocks, okay, then if we make those part of the motion, then I think we’re covered, too. MR. RINGER-You had a question from the residents. A resident spoke up, wanted to know about where the main entrance was going to be, and what type of traffic you anticipated, in the Staff comments. He hasn’t answered those. MR. PALING-Yes, but that, though, I think would satisfy the Beautification Committee. MR. RINGER-I thought you were, okay, I’m sorry. MR. PALING-No. Okay, now we can move to the Staff comments. We’ve got quite a number of questions that were raised in their last paragraph. What street with the main entrance be on? MR. RUEL-Phillips, I guess? MR. BURNS-Yes, that’s what we figured on would be Phillips Avenue, to be a main entrance. MR. PALING-Okay, and that’s existing. 8 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. BURNS-Yes, it is. MR. PALING-Okay. So that’s Phillips, and it’s existing. MR. BURNS-There are two ways to get on the property, one off Dix Avenue and off Phillips. MR. PALING-Okay. MR. RUEL-The Staff asked about the main entrance. There’s no secondary, is there? MR. BREWER-Yes. MS. NOWICKI-There’s a secondary entrance. MR. RUEL-There’s another entrance? MR. RINGER-Yes. MRS. LABOMBARD-There’s the little drive that kind of goes down. MR. RUEL-All right. So there’s an entrance on Dix Avenue as well as Phillips? MR. BURNS-Yes, there is. MR. PALING-Well, we’re just asking what the main entrance will be, and I think that’s answered. All right. Now what type of traffic is anticipated? MR. BURNS-It’s really a pretty low key operation. The place we have in South Glens Falls right now, if we see two customers there at one time, then we’re busy. MR. PALING-Yes, okay. It’s a parts operation. MR. BURNS-Yes. MR. PALING-Okay. How often does traffic occur, I think you’ve answered that, too. What would be stored outside, trucks, cars materials, etc.? MR. BURNS-Right now, in South Glens Falls, there’ll be no vehicles stored outside. MR. PALING-Okay. No vehicles, how about liquid chemicals? MR. BURNS-No. The only thing we have in South Glens Falls right now, and if it’s a problem, we don’t have to have it, is on some of these single axle trucks, like a truck that maybe would deliver ice cubes, like maple wood ice, that type would back in. We have set, and we would screen that in, also, behind the fence, that we have for cold storage, such as speedy dry, and stuff like that, no chemicals. MR. PALING-Okay, no oils, chemicals, gases. MR. MAC EWAN-You mean using an old truck box as outside storage? MR. BURNS-Yes. MRS. LABOMBARD-Thank you. I didn’t understand that. MR. BREWER-Where would you be putting that? MR. BURNS-Well, probably right as close to the building as we could, toward the side of the Army/Navy store. MR. MAC EWAN-How big is the store that you have in South Glens Falls right now, square foot wise? MR. BURNS-I believe that’s right around 2200 square foot. 9 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. MAC EWAN-Is this an improvement, more square footage for you? MR. BREWER-No. MR. BURNS-It’s cut up different. The place we’re at right now is cut up really strange. This is an all open building, so it’s going to work out a lot better. MR. MAC EWAN-(lost words) to have outdoor storage? MR. BURNS-Like I say, it would be nice, but if it would be a problem, then we could do away with that, but it would be a lot handier. TOM FRENCH MR. FRENCH-It’s basically like an eight by ten box. MR. MAC EWAN-I would rather see something, if you need to have outdoor storage, I’d rather see you put like a shed type of addition on the building than see something like that in the middle of the yard. MR. BURNS-Okay. Well, we can do that. I can agree to that. MR. PALING-All right. If we agree to no outdoor storage, then you can return for a shed approval, but if you’ll commit to no outdoor storage, then I think we can go on. MR. BURNS-Yes. I can agree with you. MR. BREWER-You could even get an eight by ten shed and put it on the property. MR. PALING-That’s right, just truck it on. MR. BREWER-As long as it’s under 100 square feet, I think you can do that. MR. BURNS-Okay. MR. RUEL-The site plan review application, you indicated light repairs, but I guess you’re aware that repairs is not an allowed use in this zone? MR. BURNS-Yes. That was probably wrong wording on my part, and I apologize for that. What we meant for light repairs is sometimes, if somebody were to bring in a hydraulic hose, we have a hydraulic press. We just cut the hose, crimp on new ends. We’re kind of repairing a hose, something light, but I probably shouldn’t even put those. MR. BREWER-That just goes along with the business. MR. RUEL-The other item is that, maybe should correct this, you’ve indicated 20 parking spaces, but there are only 19. It’s a minor thing. I guess there are 19, right? MR. BURNS-Yes, and there’s room for a lot more. That’s just some that I’ve pointed out. MR. BREWER-I just have one other question. If you’re going to use your main entrance on Phillips, would you be willing to close Dix Avenue, and use that for emergency only? MR. BURNS-Yes, we could do that. The reason we chose Phillips Avenue, instead of Dix Avenue, is I just figured it would be safer for traffic, you know, at that light. The only thing is sometimes, if you have customers coming from, toward the Super K-Mart way, it would be real easy for them to just pull in, stop in one of those parking spots, then continue out onto Phillips Avenue. MR. BREWER-I’m just thinking, it’s easier to enter and exit at a street rather than between two streets, the curb cut. MR. BURNS-Okay. We could close that. MR. BREWER-You wouldn’t have a problem closing that? 10 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. BURNS-No. How would you suggest closing that? MR. STARK-I don’t think it would be a problem, and also I have a question about, well, do you want to finish this before I go on to the next one, about the curb cuts? MR. PALING-Well, okay, you’re willing to close that exit? MR. BURNS-Yes. How would I go about closing that and only using that for emergency? MRS. LABOMBARD-See, I think when you’re going east on Dix Avenue, just slipping in there is no problem at all. MR. BURNS-Right. MRS. LABOMBARD-Because that’s how we got in, and it was the most convenient for us because we were like, okay, where should we go. MR. MAC EWAN-Probably the easiest way to handle that is just taking the existing curb cuts and mark the Dix Avenue curb cut as an entrance only. MRS. LABOMBARD-Right. That’s what I was just going to say. MR. BURNS-Okay. So put a sign there or whatever that says entrance only? Okay. MR. RUEL-It’s just going to be entrance only? MR. PALING-Yes, on Dix. MR. STARK-Do you plan on painting the building? All it is, is raw concrete block now. MR. BURNS-It is colored concrete. I believe it’s kind of a brownish color, isn’t it? MRS. LABOMBARD-It’s fleshy color, wasn’t it? MR. FRENCH-The blocks were purchased that way so I guess apparently low maintenance. MR. STARK-Okay. MR. PALING-All right. Lets go to the public hearing. The public hearing on the R.B. Motors application is open. Does anyone care to comment? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED NO COMMENT PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. PALING-This is an Unlisted, so we need, here we go. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 48-97 , Introduced by Roger Ruel who moved for its adoption, seconded by Catherine LaBombard: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: R.B. MOTORS, INC. , and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 11 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. th Duly adopted this 18 day of November, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Ruel, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Brewer, Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Paling NOES: NONE MR. PALING-Okay. We’ve got to get a motion. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 48-97 R.B. MOTORS, INC. , Introduced by Roger Ruel who moved for its adoption, seconded by Timothy Brewer: For parts store, with the following conditions: One, the applicant will meet all of Beautification Committee comments. Two, that there will be no outdoor storage. Three, that the condition that the main entrance be on Phillips Avenue, and that the entrance on Dix Avenue be an entrance only, and Condition Four, that all debris and miscellaneous equipment would be removed from the premises. th Duly adopted this 18 day of November, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ruel, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Brewer, Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Paling NOES: NONE MR. PALING-Okay. Thank you. MR. BURNS-Thank you very much. SITE PLAN NO. 49-97 TYPE: UNLISTED PREMIER PARKS OWNER: SAME ZONE: RC-15 LOCATION: RT. 9 JUST NORTH OF ROUND POND ROAD PROPOSAL IS FOR ONE ADDITIONAL AMUSEMENT PARK RIDE CALLED “THE BOBSLED”, RELOCATION OF GROUP PICNIC AREA INCLUDING NEW PICNIC PAVILIONS. ONE NEW RESTROOM, NEW WAREHOUSE/STORAGE BUILDING AND NEW KITCHEN. WARREN CO. PLANNING: 11/12/97 TAX MAP NO. 36-2-3.1 LOT SIZE: 248.96 ACRES SECTION: 179-21 JOHN LEMERY & JOHN COLLINS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 49-97, Premier Parks, Meeting Date: November 18, 1997 “Applicant proposes to construct an amusement park ride and relocate group picnic facilities to 12 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) Great Escape. This area is zoned RC-15 and an amusement center requires a site plan review. Applicant has submitted a site plan application. A stormwater management was included in their report. The drawings include a topographic map; a removal plan, a layout plan, a grading, drainage and erosion control plan, grading, drainage, erosion and utilities plan, landscaping plan and site details for the amusement park ride and the picnic area. This information was delivered to Rist Frost for comments. The Bobsled ride is 65 feet in height and will not be seen from the Northway. The Ferris Wheel is the nearest ride to the Bobsled at a height of 96 feet and can be seen from the Northway.” MS. NOWICKI-For Rist-Frost comments, Bob, do you want me to read all of them, or just the last one, that says, just the last one? MR. PALING-Yes. MS. NOWICKI-Rist-Frost has indicated that the applicant has satisfied his questions. MR. PALING-Okay. Do you have anything else, Laura? We have the County, is approved by the Warren County Planning Board, “With the condition that any additional parking on the Animal Land property come back to this Board”, meaning the County Planning Board, “for site plan review”. MR. BREWER-I wonder why they’d do that, if there’s parking in Animal Land. MR. PALING-I can only tell you what I’m reading. I don’t know. Okay. Would you identify yourselves, please. MR. LEMERY-Good evening, Members of the Planning Board. My name is John Lemery of Lemery and Reid, Counsel to Premier Parks. John Collins, to my right, is the General Manager of the Great Escape, and to my left is Jim Martin of the LA Group, consultants to Premier Parks in connection with this application. MR. PALING-Okay. Gentlemen, the floor is yours. MR. LEMERY-This is an application for an additional ride called “The Bobsled”, and a relocation of the picnic area at the Great Escape to another site. Jim is going to go through the particulars with you, but just let me say that the renderings that we’ve got over here show the proposed location of the Bobsled ride, which is where the picnic pavilions used to be at The Great Escape and where the miniature golf course was located for those, both on the Board and in the audience familiar with the layout of the park. The relocated picnic area will be directly to what is the north of the Comet rollercoaster, in an area that has not been utilized before, but for some storage of some equipment from time to time. There are new pavilions being built for the picnic area, and there will be one centralized kitchen, as opposed to a number of different cooking areas that were the case before, one warehouse also. We have a rendering of that to show you. The ride is a dry ride. It’s a toboggan ride. It’s roughly a two minute ride. It’s a family ride, and there are some photographs there of an existing ride located in another park. The colors will be much different. That is known at the coral snake, in the park that it’s at, but that will be entirely a different color and a different look than what you see in the photographs, but at last the photographs give you a sense of what the ride looks like. It’s a free ride, to the extent that the toboggans go on the shoot and are free-wheeled back and forth. So it’s an interesting pleasant ride. The layout of the ride is over there to the left. As I said, it’s a two minute ride. The people cue up near where you used to cue up for the raging river. There will be no, we have provided you with an Environmental Impact Statement, a Short Form. There are no additional services or utilities that are required, other than those that are located within the park itself. There are no plans, at this point, to park any cars over on the Animal Land site. I think the County Planning Board mentioned Animal Land because, as an aside, we put in the application, because from time to time, people have, both on this Board and the County Planning Board, have wondered what would happen if the Great Escape got to a point where it needed additional parking. When it was owned by Storytown U.S.A., we always made the comment that if additional parking was needed, additional lots would be acquired and people would be brought in as necessary. When Premier bought the park, last December, the Animal Land parcel became available in February of 1997, and they acquired it for the purposes of having it, so that if the time came when the park was so busy that additional parking was necessary, the Management of the park would be able to state to your Board and to the County Board that there was parking provided for and there was a place where people could park. There is a parking lot there now. It has always been used as a parking lot, the existing lot over in Animal Land. So we were surprised that they put that proviso on it, because all we put it in there for, as I said, was to 13 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) point out that there is another site here that Premier Park owns. So I’m assuming that if the time comes when they want to turn it into a parking lot or do something with it, they obviously recognize they have to address the pedestrian crossing issues and all the other things that this Board would be concerned about, and that we pointed out to the County Planning Board. With that, I’d like to ask Jim Martin to go over some of the particulars with you, and then John Collins to tell you about what’s going on at the park and the ride and some of the other things they’re doing. JIM MARTIN MR. MARTIN-Thanks, John. Okay. You obviously had your site visit. How many people made it that day? Most people made it? For those of you who didn’t, the part, the action is located in the south central part of the park, in the area of the old picnic dome area. Several of these domes will be taken down and actually removed from the site, taken away, and of particular note, on the old site, and I think it was provided as notations on the side of your site plan, the pervious area will be substantially increased with the new project. I believe in the existing condition, the amount of paved area was some 71% of the site, where in the proposed condition it will be approximately 43%, which is a drastic improvement. Now, it was alluded to earlier that the ride would be some 64 feet in height at the highest point, which will probably be, here’s the cueing area here. People will enter through the walk, walk under the ride, enter on here, and I believe it’ll probably be somewhere in this area is the highest point, and then it’s a gravity situation from there on, and as John indicated, it is a dry ride. Now, to help mitigate the effect of that height on the landscape, there’s certain bermed areas or islands throughout the ride that you’ll note that will have the effect of lifting up the landscape and the plantings on them. I’m not saying it’s going to totally hide the ride, but it will serve to mitigate that appearance on the landscape. MR. PALING-Jim, I’ve got a question for you on the height. Did you say 60 something feet? MR. MARTIN-Sixty-four feet, yes. MR. PALING-Well, the Bobsled varies in height, but at its tallest is 46 feet. MR. MARTIN-That is a typographical error, I believe. Sixty-four is the correct number. MR. PALING-I see, okay. MR. MARTIN-Okay, and we have some pictures of the existing condition here. They’re rather small, but fortunately most of the Board members have been to the site, and this is on both sites, by the way. Here is basically the area of the domes that will be coming down the existing picnic area, and then here is a view of the existing condition back where the new picnic pavilion area is proposed, and as you can see, there is a lot of graveled areas which are typically viewed as impervious, compacted sand, and so on, and here is, I thought, a very good picture of the existing berm that exists there which has the effect of shielding the stormwater from the wetland off to the side. All right, and here’s a picture, as John indicated, of a very similar ride. You can see the highest point here, where the ride is pulled up, or the cars are pulled up, and then they proceed down from there, and here’s an indication of one of the breaking points that’s used, and in talking with John Collins, he even indicated that, in terms of the conditions in which this operates, it’s best on a completely dry day. I guess if it’s wet, you know, the cars can sway a little bit, so they’re looking to run this only on dry days. Okay, and here is a rendering of the new pavilion area. The central kitchen facility is located here. Warehouse here for storage of food goods and so on, and then the pavilion’s here, around the site. In terms of stormwater and septic treatments and grading plan, we have, I think it was also part of your package, renderings of that. There’s four drywells here intended to capture the stormwater, and there’s really a three fold protection here in terms of any stormwater, and it’s relationship to the wetland here. These drywells obviously act as an infiltration device to take care of the stormwater immediately, and they’re designed for a 50 year storm, per the Town Code. Should that need some overflow assistance, there’s a retention pond here, and then we have the effect of the natural berm, which exists in through this area that was in one of the previous pictures. We’ve gone over the sizing of these and of the septic system with Rist-Frost, and have come to agreement, and that’s basically the highlights of the project. If there were any questions from the Board or the public, we’ll be happy to answer those. MR. PALING-Okay. Any questions or comments at this point? I’m sorry. There will be a public hearing, but it will be in a few minutes. Okay. Any questions or comments by the Board? 14 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. RUEL-I think the Staff comments had indicated consistency with Comprehensive Plan objectives. I’ve got the wrong one. MR. PALING-Okay. If there are no further comments or questions, then we will open the public hearing. The public hearing on the Premier Parks application is open now, if anyone cares to come up. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. PALING-Now, some of you may not have been to the meetings that we have like this, and what we would like to pass on to you is that anyone that comes up is welcome to, and we ask you to identify yourself for record purposes, and address your questions to the Board, if you would, please. In other words, we don’t want you getting into a dialogue with the applicant or anyone, for that matter. The Board will do its best to answer any questions or comments that you have, but please come up, state your name and what your comments are, and we’ll take it from there. PETE BLACKBIRD MR. BLACKBIRD-Hi. My name’s Pete Blackbird, and I live in Twicwood, and I was just wondering if there would be any increased noise levels in that neighborhood because of the project or any of the neighboring areas, for that matter? MR. PALING-Okay. All right. We will find out for you. MR. BLACKBIRD-Okay. Thank you. MR. PALING-Okay. Thank you. MR. BLACKBIRD-All right. Have a good night. MR. PALING-Who’s next? Okay. If there are no other comments or questions from the public about Premier Park’s submittal, we will close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. PALING-If you gentlemen would come back, please. The only question, you may have heard, is in regard to noise, if you would care to comment, please. MR. COLLINS-The ride itself is located in the center of the park, and based on the topography, that should help, with any noise that the ride’s going to generate. This is a family thrill ride, if you will. It’s not a coaster. You don’t have that huge rush of screams that you do on a lot of rides. That’s not to say people won’t enjoy it, but in that manner, it will be less noisy than, say, a Comet or the Boomerang, but it is in the center of the park. MR. PALING-Okay. Thank you. MR. MARTIN-And I think the other contributing factor will be the particular design. Typically with so much hard surfacing that exists now, you do have, the noise will tend to bounce around, but in the case where we are establishing a lot of grassed areas, the berming, there is a rather extensive planting plan proposed. These are all things that will serve to muffle the noise. I’m not saying it’s going to be totally quiet, but it’ll help in that regard. MR. PALING-Okay. Thank you. MR. BREWER-How fast do you go on this, just out of curiosity? MR. COLLINS-Top speed about 25 miles an hour. MR. PALING-Slower than the Comet. MR. COLLINS-Yes. It’s a gradual downhill, side to side. It’s not a fast ride. It’s a great ride, though, don’t get me wrong. MR. PALING-Okay. Any other comments? 15 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. RUEL-What are your hours of operation for the Bobsled? MR. COLLINS-We’re going to operate under the same hours we did last year, eight o’clock close, weekends in June, six o’clock Monday through Friday, through the Fourth of July weekend, Friday night and Saturday ten o’clock, beginning Fourth of July, and then we’ll be open nine-thirty to eight, Sunday through Thursday. It should be added that we are going to add a couple of additional days where we close down, Monday, or Tuesday after Memorial Day, Tuesday and Wednesday we’ll be open then nine-thirty to six. The following weekend, Monday and Tuesday we were closed, we’ll be open then. So when we open Memorial Day weekend, we will be open, and we picked up additional days because of the falling of Labor Day. MR. RUEL-It’s no different than the other major rides? MR. COLLINS-That is correct, no different than any other major rides. MR. MAC EWAN-Will this particular ride be run at night? MR. COLLINS-Yes, it will be. MR. MAC EWAN-And will it have any additional lighting? MR. COLLINS-No. It’s a troughed ride. The breaking systems will have safety lighting and that’s it, in case of unexpected evacuation. MR. MAC EWAN-Under the “Utility” Section of your narrative here, it says there’ll be no night lighting other than the minimum security lights. MR. COLLINS-That is correct, safety lights. MR. MAC EWAN-For that particular ride? MR. COLLINS-I’m sorry, I don’t follow. MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t either, that’s why I’m asking. There’s no lighting proposed for this particular ride? MR. COLLINS-No. It’s the cue building and the safety lights you would need on the exits, emergency exits. MR. PALING-Okay. All right. We’ve got to go to a SEQRA then. Short Form. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 49-97 , Introduced by Roger Ruel who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Stark: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: PREMIER PARKS, INC. , and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 16 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. th Duly adopted this 18 day of November, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ruel, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Brewer, Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Stark, Mr. Paling NOES: NONE MR. PALING-Okay. Thank you. MR. LEMERY-Thank you. MR. COLLINS-Thank you. MR. RUEL-Do you want a motion. MR. PALING-I’m sorry, we’ve got to have a motion. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 49-97 PREMIER PARKS, INC. , Introduced by Roger Ruel who moved for its adoption, seconded by Timothy Brewer: For one additional amusement park ride called “The Bobsled”, relocation of group picnic area, including new picnic pavilions, and one new restroom, new warehouse storage building and new kitchen, with the condition indicated in the Warren County Planning comments dated 11/12/97, that’s parking in Animal Land. th Duly adopted this 18 day of November, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Ringer, Mr. Brewer, Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ruel, Mr. Paling NOES: NONE MR. PALING-Okay. Thanks. PETITION FOR ZONE CHANGE 1-97 RECOMMENDATION ONLY CRACKER BARREL OLD COUNTRY STORE OWNER: DOUBLE “H” HOLE IN THE WOODS RANCH, INC. /CHARLES R. WOOD LOCATION: CORNER AVIATION RD. & GREENWAY NO. CURRENT ZONE: SFR-10 PROPOSED ZONE: HC-1A APPLICANT REQUESTS REZONING OF A 4.377 ACRE PARCEL FOR A CRACKER BARREL RESTAURANT. TAX MAPNO. 98-2-1/98-3-1.5 LOT SIZE: 4.377 ACRES JIM MARTIN, JOHN LEMERY REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. PALING-Okay. I just want to add something for clarification. This is not a site plan review hearing. It’s our duty tonight to make a recommendation to the Town Board for rezoning, and I want you to understand clearly that anything we do or say here tonight is not within the site plan review process. We’re here to fulfill the requests of the Town Board. It is not a site plan review. So anything we said cannot be interpreted by anyone, pro or con, in regard to what may be the site plan review process in the future. Okay. Laura, would you please. STAFF INPUT 17 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) Notes from Staff, Petition for Zone Change P1-97, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Meeting Date: November 18, 1997 “The applicant, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc., proposes a zone change for approximately 4.4 acres of land located on Aviation Road, Greenway North and Old Aviation Road. The subject site consists of three (3) tax map parcels all owned by Double “H” Hole in The Woods Ranch, Inc. The request is for a zone change from Single family residential (SFR-10) to Highway Commercial (HC-1A). The Planning Board is reviewing the application/request for consistency with the overall planning objectives for the Town. The Planning Board will provide a recommendation to the Town Board, by resolution, for approval or denial of the proposed rezoning. The Town Board has requested lead agency status under the Consistency with Comprehensive Plan Objectives SEQR review process. Based on a review of the 1988 Comprehensive Plan (CP), either zone (HC-1A or SFR-10) is compatible with the objectives for this area of the Town. Below are some of the comparisons that can be made. Density Zone HC-1A allows one structure up to 12,000 square feet per acre. (Section 179-23) Zone SFR-10 allows one (1) single family dwelling per 10,000 sq. ft. of land (Section 179-20) For a 4.4 acre parcel the amount of allowable primary structures/dwellings is similar. Allowable Uses Zone HC-1A uses are commercial based and include restaurant. Zone SFR-10 primary use is Single Family dwelling. The obvious difference between the zones are the allowable uses. Consistency/Compatibility with Adjacent Zones Several properties along this portion of the Aviation Road corridor are zoned Highway Commercial (HC-1A). The Plaza Commercial (PC- 1A) zone is observed along portions of Route 9 east and north of the subject site. Permitted uses within the HC and PC zones are identical with minimal differences noted in the setback Staff Comments requirements. Based on a review of the previous rezone requests, concerns regarding the project(s) have centered around traffic, and compatibility with adjacent single family land use. The Planning Board should consider the following questions for evaluation of a rezoning: If the parcel was developed to the fullest extent for either zone, would the traffic impacts on surrounding developed zones be significantly different? If the site was developed to the fullest extent for either zone, would the site still fit with the character of other developed zones in the area? Are there any other alternatives to this rezone? Are there other areas in the Town that should be considered to be rezoned? (The Board may want to consider rezoning adjacent residential properties along the corridor in addition to the requested site for consistency purposes.) Site Plan vs. Rezone The Planning Board may consider the overall project (the proposed use as a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store) in making its recommendation to the Town Board. Although a site plan has been submitted with the application, site plan issues (i.e. curb cuts, buffer area, etc.) will be considered when it is submitted for site plan approval, not during the rezone application.” MR. PALING-Okay. Do you have any other, other than public comment, on this, Laura? Rist- Frost? MS. NOWICKI-No, I do not. MR. MARTIN-We have, Staff recommended a Long Form. We have that to submit for the Planning Board’s review. th MR. PALING-Okay. Let me put that aside for the moment. Laura, Rist-Frost November 18 letter. MS. NOWICKI-Okay. You have something I don’t have. MR. PALING-To John Goralski from Bill Levandowski. “We have reviewed the LA’s Group’s letter of, I think that’s November. MR. MARTIN-That’s for the previous, I believe, Bob. MS. NOWICKI-Yes. MR. MARTIN-That was on the Premier Parks. MS. NOWICKI-That’s for Premier Parks. MR. PALING-Wait a minute. Excuse me. Okay. You have nothing, then, on that. Okay. Then we’ll turn it over, would you identify yourselves for the record, please. MR. LEMERY-Good evening. My name is John Lemery, Counsel to the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. I have, to my right, Dennis Larson, I’m sorry, Tom Mangan who is Cracker Barrel’s representative here, Jim Martin and Jeff Anthony of the LA Group, and also with us 18 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) tonight is Max Yurenda who is the Executive Director, of The Hole in the Woods Ranch, the owner of this site. MR. PALING-Okay. Do you want to tell us about the project? MR. LEMERY-With your permission, this site has been a problem for the Town, for the residents of Greenway North and for the owner of this property for some time. This parcel of land was originally zoned commercial in 1967, when the first Zoning Ordinance was established by the Town. It was part of the commercial development that later became the Pyramid Mall, and it was cut when the road was built. The site is a 4.4 acre site. It was owned by Charles Woods from before the time of the Zoning Ordinance enactment in 1967, until last year when as part of his Estate Plan, he gave this and a number of other properties to the Ranch as part of its endowment. We were before this Board in 1993, and again last year. We were here in 1993 with a specific use for this site, as a restaurant, and we were here last year with no specific use but trying to get the site re-zoned from the SFR-10 zone, which is what it is zoned for now, which is Single Family residences. In the last, the 1993 hearings before this Board, we asked Joe Carusone, who was the Chairman of the Town’s Master Planning Committee back in 1988, to address this site, and his comments, which are part of the record before this Board, were that in effect they recognized that the site wasn’t residential, but they didn’t know what to do with it at the time, so they left it alone. The problem that has occurred with this site is that the residents of Greenway North have a legitimate issue in wondering how they’re going to be protected from this commercial area here to the south. The owner has a legitimate interest in trying to get something done with the land, and the residents of the Town have an interest in seeing that it is appropriately used in consistency with the Master Plan. I have what is a conceptual subdivision plan of this site, if it were developed, consistent with the way it’s zoned. If it were developed with the way it’s zoned, you could put 14 single family houses on this 4.4 acre site. My sense is, and I’m not a planner, but my sense is that those streets would exit on Old Aviation Road. There would be no exits on Aviation Road. I have seen a lot of the letters that the folks have written, the Planning Board and Town Board about this site from Greenway North, and they all have to do, principally, with the green space, what happens to the green space, what about noise, odors and traffic. The problem I’m having with it is that they’re claiming, the residents on the Greenway North area, are claiming that if this site is developed, other than as it’s left, it creates a problem for them buffering their homes from the commercial central districts of the Town, but the way the land is zoned, you’d be extending the residential zone that these folks are having trouble with, all the way to Aviation Road. I don’t think there’s anybody here that thinks this works, because it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for anybody. The way the land is zoned now, and I tried to make this, and we all tried to make this, pretty clear to everybody the last couple of times we were here. As a residential subdivision, there is no buffer required between the residential subdivision and the property to the north, the Greenway North property. So the way it’s zoned now, there is no protection afforded the Greenway North residents. A developer and owner could come in and take the trees down, put the lots together and sell them. This parcel has been on the Multiple Listing since 1992, single family residential, we haven’t had one offer. The only offers for this land have been for commercial use. So the question becomes, what’s the fairest thing to do with the property so that the owner is treated fairly, just like everyone in this room would like to be treated if this was their property. The residents are treated fairly so that they know that there’s some protection afforded them, and the Town, as a whole, deals with this site in a way that it fills in the commercial area and provides a reasonable and appropriate use. The Long Form Environmental Impact Statement that we filed with you this evening here provides for roughly 1.75 acres to be left in a natural state, and we’re not committed one way or the other to whether it be held by the owner, whether it be transferred to the Town, but it would be, and I tried to make sort of a rendering here. It’s not accurate. It’s not to scale or anything. In fact, I think it’s too far back, that would show the buffer. We’ve expanded the buffer from the application. The applicant has come back and said that they would provide a 100 foot buffer around the site to the rear, and a 75 foot buffer to the east of the parcel. What that means is that you basically are taking the site and dividing it in half, almost two acres dedicated to protecting the homeowners to the north, and two acres dedicated to allowing a development at the front of the site, so that in effect it transitions from one zone to the next and provides a substantial buffer that would be permanent, and would not be used by Cracker Barrel or anybody else. This land is not going to stay Single Family Residential. It just is not going to stay Single Family Residential. It can’t stay Single Family Residential. It can’t be sold. It can’t be utilized. Nothing can be done with it. I understand, and some of your letters suggest that it should be kept forever green, and that is a nice concept, but if you owned the property or if I owned the property, or if any folks back here owned the property, and it was sitting where it sits, they’d want to try to get it developed. So that’s where we are. We have a piece of land that’s been SFR-10 zoned. If you look at every SFR-10 zone in the Town, and this zone, there isn’t any other place in the Town that even remotely resembles what this zone looks like. There isn’t any other parcel of land, other than 19 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) this parcel here, this part of this SFR-10, along the entire Aviation Road corridor that is zoned anything but commercial. We tried to deal with it in a way. We tried to deal with it before in a way, and we tried to deal with it again in a way that takes everybody’s interests into account and is fair to everybody, by basically splitting the land right in half. In addition to the buffer that’s here, Old Aviation Road is here also. So it provides an additional buffer by way of the road. The last time we came before your Board and subsequently had some discussions with some Town Board members, we were asked if we would do a landscape mitigation plan and submit it, which we did. The Hole in the Woods retained, Jim Miller, Landscape Architect, to put a landscape plan together, which we’ve made part of this application, to fill in the area which is the buffer, so that it would be filled in with smaller trees, with smaller foliage to make sure that even though the big trees would stay, that there would be adequate cover so that this area would be screened from the residence. So we’ve submitted to you, as part of this application, a landscape plan, and again, this would be more particularly defined at site plan review, but the applicant is willing to provide the fill in, and burn if necessary and do the other things, again, to protect the residents to the north and to the east from the commercial development. The issue of traffic was addressed the last time, and that’s because a number of the residents have to get out at Greenway North. We engaged a very expensive traffic study the last time we were here, and the conclusion was that, and the traffic study indicated that most of the traffic that was causing the problem for Greenway North was that through traffic that was coming through McDonalds out here and back. So there was a lot of, cars were counted. It’s a very extensive study, part of the record, and there was this back and forth ingress and egress to this area from the McDonalds area. As a result, the Town mitigated that and closed off this area so that there is only one way traffic. So we believe that that was alleviated. The problem is that since that time, and there’s nothing that this site can do about it, but since that time, a Wal-Mart has been approved. A K-Mart has been approved. A 100,000 square foot addition to the Pyramid Mall has been approved. A Red Lobster restaurant has gone in. Other restaurants have gone in, other shops, so that the traffic on Aviation Road is continuing to increase. It’s the mostly heavily trafficked road in the Town. It’s basically the center of the community now. It’s the center of every community, including Glens Falls, actually. The other issue that we were asked to address the last time we were here had to do with, and some people were concerned about the traffic at the bridge, and said, well, you know, if you put something in here, it’s going to increase traffic and the bridge can’t handle it. Well, since that time, of course, the Department of Transportation has issued the contracts and the bridge work is going to start this next quarter to in effect widen the highway so that it’ll alleviate some of the traffic. The Glens Falls Transportation Committee has also together a plan which the Town hasn’t adopted, and certainly the residents, so far as I know, haven’t spoken about, which would provide for a roadway to connect from somewhere near the McDonalds site, come down Old Aviation, go along the edge of the buffer zone that we’re talking about, and connect here with Greenway North, so that traffic would come back and forth on Route 9, and would be able to basically short cut over to Aviation Road and ’87, and a lot of traffic now, by the way, is coming around, as I said, Wal-Mart and as certainly the so called Million Dollar Mile and all the other stores and attractions up and down Route 9. So there we have it. What’s the fair thing to do with this site so that everybody’s needs are met? I think that Charles Wood and the Hole in the Woods and The Cracker Barrel people have, as best they can, been, they’re very sensitive to what’s going on back here by trying to propose this buffer of the mature big trees which would not be taken down. We hope that that would suffice. We’ve tried to think of other uses. Some people have said, well, do whatever you want to do, but don’t put a restaurant in there, and our answer to that is, well, if you try that, you’re creating some sort of special zone within a Highway Commercial or a Highway Plaza, that basically says you can do all the other things that you’re allowed to do up and down Aviation Road, but don’t put a restaurant in there. We have not been willing to do that because we don’t think that’s fair. People have said, we don’t like the odor of a restaurant. We recognize and understand that, but we don’t think that is the case here, with the situation where there’s basically 200 feet or more from the nearest house, as opposed to what’s up here, including when the Wal-Mart went in and put the McDonalds Restaurant in there. The problem with Greenway North is that it got boxed in by the Northway to the west, Route 9 to the east, and Aviation Road to the south. If it could be kept forever green, the only way that would be done would be if the Town were to acquire, as a forever green space, and we’ve tried to have discussions with the Town about that and no one was interested in looking at it from that perspective. The Cracker Barrel restaurant is a national chain, and Tom Mangan’s going to tell you about it. We’ve provided the menus to you and some of the other descriptive literature. It’s a first rate company that is a very responsible corporate citizen. They employ 150 people, or will employ 150 approximately 150 people at this restaurant. Tom will tell you more about it, but they serve about 1500 meals a day. That equates to about 30 cars an hour, or one car every two minutes which is certainly not going to pose any traffic problem here. They’re open from six o’clock in the morning until 9:30 at night, and it is a destination. If this site is allowed to be developed in this fashion, it’s going to alleviate some of the very burdensome sewer taxes that these industries and companies are paying up and down Aviation 20 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) Road because it would hook up and obviously be assessed and pay its taxes in a way that helps everybody on that road. What we’re asking you to do tonight is to recommend the rezoning to the Town Board. Every single time we’ve been before the Planning Board, historically the Planning Board has recommended the rezoning. We have pulled the application twice from the Town Board, and it will either go back there or to another Board for resolution. We hope that you’ll look at it this way. We’ve had some of the comments from some of the neighbors have said use it for senior citizen housing, use it for some other purposes. We’ve never had any offer for that. We don’t think that senior citizens would want to wander around on this site, living here. Someone says, why don’t you put affordable houses in there? Why don’t you put Habitat for Humanity in there? One of the letters that came in today said why don’t you use it for Habitat for Humanity, they could use low cost, low income housing to go in here. That’s not a responsible land use, and that’s not something that Hole in the Woods would consider, nor should you as a Planning Staff. The Master Plan of the Town makes it very clear that this has to be rezoned. You didn’t cause it. The people who live here didn’t cause it. Charlie Wood didn’t cause it. The Cracker Barrel didn’t cause it. It’s there. It has to be dealt with. It isn’t going away. I’m sure these people are very tired of having to come back here, time after time, to deal with it, but we have to deal with it, and we have to try to get a resolution that’s fair to everyone. Thank you. MR. RINGER-John, you said that the hours of operation were 9:30 pm. However, the brochure and literature they sent out shows a little bit differently, 10 pm. MR. LEMERY-I may be wrong about that. I got that from Tom today. I thought it was six to nine thirty, was it? Six to ten? MR. RINGER-Right, and eleven on the weekends. That’s correct? MR. LEMERY-I’ll let him answer that, Larry. MR. RINGER-Okay. MR. RUEL-Laura, the question is, why was the land rezoned in 1988 from commercial to residential? Do you know why? And second, was the owner of the land asked for approval of this zone change at that time? MS. NOWICKI-Repeat? You want to know? MR. RUEL-I want to know why it was changed from commercial to residential back in 1988. MS. NOWICKI-’88, whatever the zoning change was? I don’t know. I’d have to research it. MR. LEMERY-I can just answer that, that Charles Wood was unaware of it, and is of record as saying that to this Board, that he was unaware that they changed the zone in ’88, and as I said, when Joe Carusone testified here, we asked him to come and speak and tell us what happened. He said, we didn’t know what to do with it. There was no use for it proposed at that time, that we knew of. It got cut and half. We didn’t know what to do with it. So we zoned it that way because we didn’t know what to do, but we believe that it’s not appropriate, and that’s what he said at the time. MR. RUEL-Was this with the owner’s approval? MR. LEMERY-No, it was not. The owner was not aware of it. MR. BREWER-It happened a lot of places in the Town when they changed zones. MR. PALING-Yes, it wasn’t just this one. MR. LEMERY-That’s right. Tim is right. The owner was unaware of it. MR. RUEL-You own a piece of property that’s zoned something and suddenly you find out it’s zoned something else? MR. BREWER-Exactly. MR. RUEL-And perhaps becomes useless and worthless? 21 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. LEMERY-Well, we’ve tried to sell it. We can’t sell it for what it’s zoned for. Nobody’s going to buy the house over there. MR. BREWER-I understand where the applicant is telling us what he wants to go there. If we recommend approval of rezoning this, what’s the guarantee that it’s going to be the Cracker Barrel and not something else that’s a listed use there? MR. LEMERY-I guess that’s a fair statement. I guess if it’s rezoned, ultimately, by the Town, it would be rezoned, and whatever the HC-1A zone would be what would be there. MR. BREWER-I guess what I’m trying to say, John, is you’re trying to lead us to believe that the Cracker Barrel is going to go there, and I’m not saying that they’re not, but the way I see it is if we rezone this or recommend to rezone it, if I were to go along with that, it would be with the proviso that Cracker Barrel go there. If it doesn’t, then don’t rezone it. I mean, it’s almost like a lost leader. MR. LEMERY-We have a contract signed with Cracker Barrel. I’ll let Cracker Barrel answer the question, but as far as I know, they’re going there. MR. PALING-I’m not even sure we should get that far into this at this point in time. We’re asked for a recommendation regarding rezoning, and if we want to make it a recommendation with conditions, fine, because that’s way at the end of. MR. LEMERY-I think what we are guaranteeing is the buffer. I mean, we’re guaranteeing to this Board and to these folks back here, this buffer will never change, if you rezone it. MR. BREWER-Well, that’s why I’m asking, because that’s incorporated with that site plan. MR. LEMERY-Right. This buffer would not change. This buffer would be permanently dedicated with this zone. We would not come back here, if they decide not to buy it, and say, okay, we’re prepared to say to you, if for some reason they don’t buy it or the contract falls apart or something, we’ve got 100 feet, 75 feet, and that’s it. That’s what we dedicate. MR. PALING-Okay. Go ahead. TOM MANGAN MR. MANGAN-Cracker Barrel is a publicly traded company. It was founded in 1969. We operate family style sit down restaurants. They have approximately 185 seats. The restaurant is 9500 square feet in total, about 4,000 of it’s kitchen, some 3500 or so is dining room and there’s a 2,000 square foot gift shop kind of area, more or less all the numbers are approximate. We employ approximately 150 people at a restaurant. Everyone in the restaurant, after meeting certain qualifications, is entitled to benefits, like 401K and that sort of thing. We have 330 restaurants at this point. We plan to expand at the rate of about 50 a year. If there’s anything else I can answer for you, I’d be glad to do that. MR. PALING-Okay. Any questions? Okay. MR. MARTIN-I just wanted to add a couple of additional comments about the land use planning and comprehensive planning nature of this request. It’s no secret that the Town is in a phase right now where they are updating the Comprehensive Plan. That work is substantially underway. A committee has been meeting for literally years on that effort. I have attended many of those meetings personally. I attended all of the eight neighborhood meetings that were held throughout the Town regarding the Comprehensive Plan and its update, and time and again the comment was made that Queensbury is thought of as a nice place, one of the aspects of it that was nice was it’s a nice place to shop. There’s a lot of convenience things here, but people wanted the commercial growth contained. They did not want to see it sprawl any more, and what you’re looking at here, this is one of several few instances where Queensbury can continue to have some commercial growth, but in a responsible and reasonable manner, through in-fill. This is not sprawling out into an area that has traditionally been something else. This is a traditionally commercially, commercial district of the Town. As John indicated, the central commercial district, maybe for the entire region. People come from as far as Vermont and in the Adirondacks to shop in Queensbury, being on the edge of the Adirondack Park. So this represents an opportunity for in-fill. All of the Town’s best infrastructure services exist in this location, four lane roadways, sewer, water. It is all here. We’re not asking for things to be extended or leaching the septic into the ground. All 22 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) these services can be provided here to this site very easily, and as a final point, this is comprehensive planning, and we’re looking at an intense commercial area here, and you don’t want to see this sprawl out again, and as a final point, on the buffering, there are many areas coming into conflict here. It’s a complex area. You’re talking about interests of a neighborhood, a well established neighborhood. It is one of the finest and nicest neighborhoods in the Town to live in, and you have the interests of a land owner here, for commercial property, and there are conflicts here that, this is a process by which it is mitigated, and that’s what planning is about. How can we have planned reasonable growth in these areas, and that is the challenge before you, and this is accomplished, in instances like this, through adequate buffering that protects that neighborhood. As everyone knows, those are deed restricted properties throughout that neighborhood, and that is not going to change. The deed restriction removal process is very, very complex, and almost impossible. So that neighborhood needs and deserves to be protected, but on the other hand, there’s a commercial use that is needed here, and I say needed because it is not good planning to hear all the problems with a residential house that you will hear in the public hearing about living in this location. We can’t get out. The traffic is bad. There’s odors. Why would you recreate that same problem by developing 14 houses on this property? That is not good planning. Commercial growth is a reasonable expectation on this site, but it should be done in a careful planned manner that’s respectful of the neighborhood as well as the owner. MR. PALING-Okay. Does the applicant have further comment? Would you identify yourself, please. MAX YURENDA MR. YURENDA-My name is Max Yurenda. I’m Executive Director of the Double “H” Hole in the Woods Ranch, here to speak on behalf of our Board of Directors and the Ranch, which Mr. Lemery has indicated that we are the owners of the property being discussed this evening. My words are basically to certainly reinforce the integrity of our Board of Directors. Since our inception five years ago, we’ve strived to create a relationship and partnership with the community. I would go as far as saying I could have half of the public in here this evening to speak in testimony to that, and I know that’s not the issue this evening, but I Board has reviewed the proposal at hand, and is very confident that it’s fair, and has certainly looked at it with sensitivity, so that we’re not just coming in here making recommendations that are going to hurt the community. The intent of the Double “H” is to hopefully be here forever, from the relationships with the hospitals and the schools and the civic groups. It goes on and on, and the beauty of the relationship is it’s a mutual benefit. The community has certainly benefited from our program being in existence, and we certainly have as well. For public record, as Mr. Lemery indicated as well, we directly benefit from any financial transaction which will be restricted into our endowment for the security of our future. That’s the reality, but I think what’s as important to that is to maintain that relationship with the community which I will always strive for. That’s not just Lake Luzerne. It’s certainly Queensbury, Glens Falls, Saratoga. We are a community supported program that will not exist without that support. So I’m here tonight to say that I very much appreciate that support to date, and again, that we have looked at this very closely, and with sensitivity. So hopefully a proposal that’s being presented tonight will not adversely effect anyone. It’s going to be a tough decision, but we certainly look for the consideration of you to make this recommendation happen. MR. PALING-Okay. Is the applicant completed for now? Okay. You’ll be back. Okay. Now we don’t want a SEQRA on this. It’s the Town Board’s responsibility to do that, but we do have a public hearing which is scheduled now, and we’re going to open it in a minute. Now, we want to hear from everyone, but there’s quite a number here, and we don’t know how many want to come up. So we’ll call it, for Round One, we’re going to limit everyone who wants to speak to five minutes, then after we’ve been around once, if you want to come back up, you haven’t had time enough, come on back up, so that we will give you a full hearing before the night’s over. We are going to start it perhaps a little different, after I open the hearing, in that we’re going to ask Laura Nowicki to read the public, the letters that we have in comment on this project, and we have run into the situation where there’s virtually a form letter that has been used by more than one person, and that’s okay. We have no quarrel with that, but we’re only going to read the letter involved once, and then cite the name of everyone that signed it, and the address of that individual, if it’s available. So I’ll now open the public hearing on this matter, but I’ll turn it over to Laura Nowicki to read the public comment, which is rather extensive. It’s going to take a few minutes. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MS. NOWICKI-Bob, I found 12 total. 23 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. PALING-Twelve total, on the one letter. MS. NOWICKI-Of all, I’m going to read 12 letters. MR. PALING-Twelve letters, but you’ll tell us about the multiple names. Right. Okay. MS. NOWICKI-Chris mentioned that if there’s someone here that would like to read their letter into the public, instead of having me read all these letters. MR. PALING-Sure. That’s fine, too. If you would care to just read your letter, instead of having Laura read it, that’s fine. Is there anybody that wants to do that? We’ll just give you your letter back and you can come up later. No takers? Okay. Go ahead, Laura. MS. NOWICKI-Okay. This is to Fred Champagne from Michael Moynihan “I urge you to vote no on the proposal to change the zoning of the four-acre parcel of land near Greenway North. There are many reasons for my opinion: First, why should a beautiful stand of trees be destroyed simply to make room for a restaurant/retail facility? Those trees are a symbol of what is good in Queensbury. Also, the citizens of this town have repeatedly told its elected officials repeatedly that they do not want this area developed. Their wishes should be honored. Besides, there are a number of deserted business places within a short distance of the proposed site. Why not use one of them? The parking lots are in place, and the developer would be spared the expense of clearing the land. Furthermore, the traffic on that end of Quaker Road is already horrific. The addition of yet another business would make it worse. Finally, there is Mr. Wood’s arrogance: He donated financially non-productive property to Double H Hole in the Woods Camp (a truly noble enterprise), knowing (and not caring) that the people who would be making the actual sacrifice would be the citizens of Queensbury. Why doesn’t he, instead, dedicate a portion of the net profits of one of his many businesses to the camp? I again urge you to vote no on this proposal. Respectfully, Michael F. Moynihan” Two, this is a form letter, and this is from Katharine Kelly, D. Kleeman, I. Seegmueller, V. McBgene “Dear Sir: I strongly oppose a restaurant and Country store at this location. This would create much more traffic in the area. A restaurant is likely to attract buses. Ever time Homeowners living in the area are faced with dangerous situations entering or leaving Aviation Road from our streets. A very serious problem for emergencies should there be a need. I urge all members of the Planning Board to consider the homeowners in this area and also their safety. Thank you. Sincerely, Katharine Kelly 13 Carlton Drive Queensbury, NY 12804 Dorothy Kleeman Irma Seegmueller Linda McBgene” Three, this is from Ruth Betz “Dear Board Members: I live on Carlton Dr., and I am asking your help on deciding the Petition for Zone Change P1-97, if it were changed to commercial the traffic this change would generate at the corner of Greenway No. and Aviation Road would be horrendous, the Cracker Barrel does a tremendous business, because of their prices. Also at the intersection of Greenway North and Old Aviation Road is a “School Bus stop” and with this kind of traffic is a danger to our children. Yours truly, Ruth Betz” Number Four, it’s a phone conversation, from Dorothy Hull, “owns a home at the corner of Old Aviation Rd. and Birch Ave. She is strongly against the proposal for the Cracker Barrel Rest. She would attend the meeting if she could but she’s on oxygen and can’t leave the house.” Five and Six are from Stecker. They’re two different letters. I can read them both. This is to “Dear Mr. Champagne: Another battle presents itself to this beleaguered section of Queensbury - over the Cracker Barrel! Again there will be arguments. The fact remains that we need your help (an understanding) in trying to keep the traffic down. Ingress and egress is the big problem here. Let’s not increase the chance of a fatality. Sincerely, Marjorie Stecker” Six, this is also from Stecker “Greetings: As you know, the residents in this neighborhood are greatly concerned about the increase in noise, pollution, and traffic that will occur here if a commercial or industrial enterprise is added along this corridor. Please help us prevent any further erosion of our privacy. Sincerely, Marjorie Stecker” Seven, this is a form letter. It’s from Janet and Harold Brothers, Lee Ann Brothers, and William Keech “To Whom It May Concern: We are writing regarding the proposed building of a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store on the corner of Aviation Road and Greenway North in Queensbury. As a resident of the area we object to any building on this piece of property, not only will it add noise, odors and most of all it will add traffic to an area that is already very difficult to get in and out of. This small area of trees is our neighborhood’s last barrier against the noise, traffic and odors of roads, restaurants, mall and gas stations we have left. I am strongly opposed to this construction and re-zoning. Not only would this devalue our homes but our quality of life in our neighborhood. We also have many elderly residents and young children in this area and the added traffic would not only be a nuisance but a hazard to their safety. Since we went through this five years ago with the proposed Red Lobster (who, as we said then, could and did find another piece of property to build on that was just as well placed). We have not changed our minds or altered our opinion on this matter and 24 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) hope that you will consider this as you review this proposal. The Town of Queensbury has many areas that are already zoned for this type of business and they are just as well placed. There is no reason for building on this small piece of property when there are this many already developed properties to choose from. Once again we must state our strong opposition to the proposed building of a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store on the corner of Aviation and Greenway North, Queensbury.” This is a form letter from Kathi Fraiser “When considering the re-zoning of Greenway North/Aviation Road site for a proposed Cracker Barrel Restaurant, please keep in mind what a business of this type will do to our neighborhood. We have a traffic bottleneck at that location now and any business that generates a significant traffic flow would lock us in completely. This is only one of the many problems that would affect us should this restaurant be allowed in this location. Please help us protect what quality of life we have left in our neighborhood as well as the value of our homes. Sincerely, Kathi Fraiser 22 Greenway North” Number Nine is from Marilyn Streeter “I am writing this to show my discern over a proposed “Cracker Barrel” restaurant, possibly built on the site of the wooded area at the corner of Greenway North, Old Aviation and Aviation Rd. This is a small residential area, but even now we have a great deal of traffic trying to get onto Aviation Rd. at the intersection across from the Mall. During the summer months and Holiday season it is even worse! Children getting on and off school buses would be hazardous with restaurant customers using our street intersection. Particularly the numbers of patrons associated with a Cracker Barrel Restaurant. As with the Red Lobster, there must be many more suitable sites. Actually, as a possible customer, I would rather go out of a congested area to have dinner. Our neighborhood for 45 years, doesn’t need the accelerated traffic, the odor, and the noise of delivery trucks and maintenance machines. We are already surrounded by Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonalds, Mr. B’s, and Pizza Hut. I’m sure you would feel the same way, “if you were in our position”. Granted, we realize things cannot stay the same forever, but please not anything as invasive as a large restaurant with all the negatives that go with it. Thank you for your consideration in this matter. Sincerely, Marilyn Streeter” Number Ten is from Glenn and Carolyn Lunt “My wife and I moved to Carlton Drive nearly three years ago. The location of the “Greenway Neighborhood” was one of the reasons for moving out of our prior neighborhood in Glens Falls. Here we found a pleasantly quiet neighborhood situated in the middle of a thriving community. However, a situation has developed which may threaten the quiet, and the sparsely traveled streets in our neighborhood. The threat of rezoning, which we thought we had previously denied, is again at our doorstep. Until we can resolve this zoning puzzle with respect to traffic, safety of our residents and their children; we urge you to deny this most recent application for rezoning. Why should the people of this neighborhood be constantly bombarded by the affluent land baron trying to change the flavor of our small community. We as landowners fear for the value of our property - our main life investment. We passionately urge you to say no to the th Cracker Barrel on Tuesday November 18 and deny their request to alter our neighborhood. Sincerely, Glenn & Carolyn Lunt” Eleven is from Thomas Nace “Dear Champagne, Town Board and Planning Board Members: The Board of Directors of The Queensbury Business Association would like to again voice their strong support for the rezoning of lands on the north side of Aviation Road opposite Aviation Mall presently owned by The Hole-in-the Woods Organization. This land is presently zoned Single Family Residential, however it fronts on Aviation Road (one of the busiest roads in our town) and is surrounded by commercial development. Due to its location this land does not have any potential for residential development. However, it is well situated for commercial use. As the Town of Queensbury continues to experience commercial growth, strong consideration should be given to utilizing areas like this which are substantially surrounded by existing commercial uses. This “infilling” of holes or gaps in the Town’s existing commercial development will help to keep the commercial areas more centralized and will also reduce commercial pressures on the less developed, outlying areas. The Queensbury Business Association believes that this land should be zoned for commercial use and respectfully asks that the Town Board give consideration to this rezoning request. Sincerely, Thomas W. Nace President” A letter, Twelve, is from Charles R. Wood “The undersigned is the Chairman of the Board of the Double “H” Hole in the Woods Ranch, Inc. (“Double H”). On June 12, 1997 the Double H signed an agreement with Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores, Inc. (“Cracker Barrel”) relating to the purchase of a parcel of land on Aviation Road by Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel has petitioned the Town of Queensbury for a change of zone and I write to confirm that the Double H supports the petition of the Cracker Barrel for the change of zone, and in fact Cracker Barrel has filed its petition with the consent of the Board of the Double H. The Board of the Double H hopes that you will earnestly consider this request for a change of zone and act favorably upon it.” MR. ROUND-This letter is from Robert Patch, 4 Carlton Drive, to Queensbury Planning Board “Dear Planning Board Members: For more than 30 years, I have owned my home at 4 Carlton Drive. This residential area has been a good place to live and raise a family. I am opposed to any rezoning of the lot owned by Double “H” Hole in the Woods Ranch to allow a Cracker Barrel 25 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) Restaurant and Old Country Store. The noise, odors, and lighting which would accompany such an enterprise would change the whole nature of our area. Traffic problems which now are frustrating and hazardous would become even worse. Even now in order to enter or exit from Aviation Road to our neighborhood we must use the traffic lights at Greenway North. I implore you not to make matters worse by a rezoning for such a purpose. Yours truly, Robert B. Patch” This letter is from Russ and Darlene Palmer 6 Carlton Drive “To Whom It May Concern: We are writing to express an objection to the rezoning of the parcel of land being considered for the New Cracker Barrel Restaurant. As we are not opposed to the restaurant itself, we are opposed to the location being considered. As residents of Carlton Drive, we are greatly concerned what could happen if this land is rezoned. The traffic issue is probably the biggest problem. At points it is almost impossible to cross Aviation Road to enter our street. What will it be like if a new business is started at this location? How many more accidents is this going to cause? We are told that this parcel will be rezoned eventually, and we should come up with a suitable suggestion for a business. Unfortunately, we can’t think of any business that won’t create more traffic, bright lights, trash dumpsters, and last of all, take away the only buffer that is left on Aviation Road. Russ and Darlene Palmer 6 Carlton Drive” This letter is from Vincent Lockwood, I believe. “To Whom It May Concern: As a property owner at Greenway Drive, Town of Queensbury, I wish to state my opposition to the placement of a cracker barrel restaurant, or any restaurant, on the property across from The Aviation Mall on Aviation Road. I would be opposed to any rezoning required to accomplish this.” From Alan West, 31 Hillcrest Avenue “To Whom It May Concern: As a property owner at 27 Carlton Drive, Town of Queensbury I wish to state my opposition to the placement of a cracker barrel restaurant, or any restaurant, on the property across from the Aviation Mall on Aviation Road. I would be opposed to any rezoning required to accomplish this. We faced this issue before regarding the Red Lobster and I ask how many times do we have to fight? My opposition is out of concern for maintaining the integrity of the residential neighborhood generally consisting of Carlton Drive, Greenway North, and Old Aviation Road. Alan G. West” This letter is from Ruth Paseo Goudella, 9 Schoolhouse Rd. “To Whom It May Concern: As a property owner at 9 Schoolhouse Road, Town of Queensbury, I wish to state my opposition to the placement of a cracker barrel restaurant, or any restaurant, on the property across from The Aviation Mall on Aviation Road. I would be opposed to any rezoning required to accomplish this.” MS. NOWICKI-And I have one more. This is from James A. Berg, Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce “Dear Mr. Goralski: Once again, we understand that the question of rezoning a piece of land from residential to commercial which is located on Aviation Road across from the Aviation Mall and approximately ¼ mile from one of the most economically viable intersections in the North Country, is on the table for action. The ARCC Board of Directors considered this question and communicated its position in July and September 1992 and again in July of 1996 and would like to reiterate its belief once again. It was the unanimous conclusion that this land is, in fact, commercial in nature and as such should be treated and zoned commercial. In addition, it is our understanding that questions of green space buffers, access and egress, as well as traffic control into the nearby residential area are being adequately addressed. It would appear that to continue to maintain the present zoning designation while expecting that the property would be used for the purpose for which it is currently zoned would appear highly unlikely and suspect. Maintaining the current zoning under present conditions could, in effect, be considered a “taking”, certainly not what anyone wants to deal with. Consequently, we urge the elected leaders to first assure adequate green space separation from the adjacent street and then approved the rezoning request as presented by the petitioner. Sincerely, James A. Berg President & CEO” I think that’s it. MR. PALING-Now, did you cover all eleven names on this list, Laura? And those were covered from them. So all of the written communications we’ve had, pro and con, has been covered? MS. NOWICKI-Yes. MR. PALING-Okay. All right. Now we’re going to open the public hearing, now, to you folks, and we would caution you to address your comments and questions to the Board. Please don’t try and engage in any kind of a dialogue with anyone else here except the Board, and we’re going to limit the first round, as I said, to five minutes, and the second round, come on back up if you didn’t have enough time, and we’ll try to accommodate you there. Please state your name, and in this case, if you don’t mind, state your street address. JODY MERRITHEW MRS. MERRITHEW-My name is Jody Merrithew. I live at 17 Greenway Drive. Our house is right in front of the dead end sign on Greenway Drive. There are only two roads accessing our 26 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) road, Greenway North and Carlton. Currently, in the month of August, there were five car accidents between Exit 19 and Aviation Mall. Those car accidents tied up traffic for 20 minutes where you couldn’t even get onto our streets. I have a four year old, a two year old, and a two month old. Twenty minutes to just even get on Greenway North to get to Greenway Drive was very complex. Number Two, Currently, traffic is so tied up that people will not drive around to go to Wal-Mart. They will park in front of My name is Jody Merrithew. I live at 17 Greenway Drive. Our house is right in front of the dead end sign on Greenway Drive. There are only two roads accessing our road, Greenway North and Carlton. Currently, in the month of August, there were five car accidents between Exit 19 and Aviation Mall. Those car accidents tied up traffic for 20 minutes where you couldn’t even get onto our streets. I have a four year old, a two year old, and a two month old. Twenty minutes to just even get on Greenway North to get to Greenway Drive was very complex. Number Two, Currently, traffic is so tied up that people will not drive around to go to Wal-Mart. They will park in front of our house, which there’s a dead end sign. They will park in front of our house, turn around in our driveways, to go to Wal-Mart. Because they will not deal with traffic. Number Three, having a restaurant go in there. These are tourists. I lived in Knoxville, Tennessee for three years. Cracker Barrel’s are fine, fine restaurants. They really are. High volume, very high volume. Constant turn. People are going to get lost. They’re going to get frustrated trying to get out in that traffic. So they’re going to, not knowing that it’s a dead end road, going to try to beat traffic and come up and around. That’s going to increase traffic in that area. In my vicinity, there are five families with children under the age of five, with two to three children in each home. That’s far too many people to be traveling those roads. That’s why you buy a house on a dead end street, a quiet street, because you are raising children. You don’t want them in the traffic. You don’t want that kind of hassle. You don’t want strangers wandering around. They won’t put up a sign saying Children at Play, because today with all the predators on children, you’re asking for trouble. So now you’ve got a lot of tourists coming in and out. You don’t know why they’re in Town. You don’t know where they’re going. You don’t know what they’re here for, but they’re going to stop there at that restaurant. They’re going to travel around there. There’s a lot of children in that area, very young children, and I don’t know if everybody understands a two year old, you’ve got your eye on them one second, the next second they’re gone, and you’re chasing after them. It’s a scary situation with high volume traffic. Number Three, in 1967, Mr. Lemery brought up an issue, they don’t know why it was changed, the rezoning, well if I’m not mistaken, even though I was five years old, Charlie Wood owned the property which is Howard Johnsons, was part of the rezoning, so he didn’t have competition put in across the street from him, is another idea, but I’m glad he made it a residential area. That’s all I have to say. MR. PALING-Okay. Thank you. Who’s next? MARK HOFFMAN DR. HOFFMAN-Hi. My name’s Mark Hoffman. I live on Fox Hollow Drive. I don’t live in this neighborhood. I have no personal interest in it. I think it’s important to the community for a number of reasons. It is, this Aviation Road corridor here, is the major entrance way to the Town of Queensbury. I think we need to think very carefully about what kind of image we want to present to people as they enter the Town, you know, whether the first thing we want them to look at it is a Cracker Barrel Restaurant as they’re getting off the highway. I think there are certain basic zoning principles here, protection of an established community. The issue has been brought up, well, we want commercial development. It helps the tax base and so forth, but if you threaten the community like this, such that the property values in that community drop, you’re going to see a loss of income in that respect that could far exceed any gain that you would get from this single restaurant that goes in there. In addition, again, it’s an impact on the community as a whole. You may, you put a restaurant in there, and although some of the houses are closer, some of the houses are further away, maybe only the houses that are right up next to it might lose their property value, but then you get a domino effect. Lets say those houses, you know, drop by 30, 40% in price, and then the people who live further down the street, you know, it has a tendency to move its way through the neighborhood. I just wanted to point out on this picture here, a simple point, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. There are different ways that people can make a point. There’s a point you can make cognitively in terms of presenting arguments pro and con. There’s another way you can make a point with a visual impression, which sometimes has a more lasting and more visceral effect on people, but when you’re looking at this picture, keep in mind that they’ve taken this picture purposely to show the location of this with all the parking lots and the commercial development. They could have just as easily taken the picture from the other angle, showing a beautiful residential neighborhood. So don’t get, you know, too swayed by that kind of a visceral pictorial presentation there. The other, Mr. Lemery made a number of points about how this is really, it’s a commercial property and they’re not being allowed to develop it, and he’s presenting it as an either or type of situation where it’s either got to be, you know, this current 27 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) single family residential, or it’s got to be Highway Commercial. I think, you know, nobody’s made any offers on it, I think part of the issue there is how aggressively has it been marketed, do they really want to market it as a single family residential when they could make more money as a Highway Commercial. I don’t think that that’s really a fair way to look at that. I think there are other options that could be considered. Rather than rezoning it Highway Commercial, you could consider Professional. You could consider, perhaps, multifamily residential. You could consider senior housing. I didn’t follow the argument there why this would not be a desirable senior housing location. I think there’s a lot of current zoning and planning theory now that states that residential areas should be located near major areas where services are available, particularly seniors who want to be close to shopping, who want those kinds of conveniences. Finally, the issue has been raised, I think it was raised in one of the letters, about, is this an illegal taking of land? I think the Board, the Planning Board and the Town Board should not be threatened by those kind of legal, you know, we’re going to come after you legally. The Town has an enormous amount of latitude in its zoning. The presumption is in favor of the Town, and the legal presumption is in favor of the current zoning. The burden is on the developer to show why the zoning should be changed. So don’t get too panicky about those kind of arguments. Finally, I just wanted to comment that this business about Charlie Wood was unaware about the rezoning, I wasn’t there in 1988, but I find it hard to believe that a sophisticated businessman like Charlie Wood would have let this happen and not have the slightest awareness of it, and there was a legal requirement for the Town to notice him. The time to challenge this was in 1988, not 10, 15 years later. Thank you. MR. PALING-Okay. DONNA HARRIS MRS. HARRIS-I’m having a problem getting my bearings on this picture. I hate public speaking but I really think this is very important to myself and to my neighborhood. My name is Donna Harris, and I live at 7 Birch Lane, and that would be this little street here that you can’t see. This would be my house. This is my backyard. This is where Cracker Barrel wants to go, and so on this drawing here, this is my house where I get 75 feet worth of buffer. There is a house right here on the corner, and there are people living in it. I don’t think that anybody was living in it when this plan was drawn. She needs more buffer than these little poofy bushes. You’re going to hear the traffic concern over and over and over again, and you’re going to hear it because it is real. The increased traffic flow is going to be much greater than the area can handle. Anybody living in that area knows that there’s a significant amount of traffic. I don’t know when the traffic counts were done, but you ought to come by the middle of July when it’s raining, or in August when nobody can get to the track because it’s going to be a mud day and they don’t know how to bet mudders. Everbody goes to the Mall, or come see us during Christmas time, because we can’t get into our homes. If we can’t get into our homes, that means fire trucks and ambulances can’t get to our homes either. I am the parent of a 10 year old child. I chose to live there because it was quiet, and she wasn’t going to be hit by a car. She’s very easily distracted. My neighbors moved in for the same reason. She doesn’t have distractible children. She has a deaf child, and there are deaf child area signs in the area. I think that we’re increasing a risk to his health a great deal by allowing a business like the Cracker Barrel there. As somebody else had stated, the corner of Old Aviation Road and Greenway North is a bus stop, and we have, the kids have to take the bus now. They have to walk to the bus stop, or we have to take them to school because there are no crossing guards at the Northway anymore. MR. PALING-What street does the bus stop on? You said it’s on the corner. MRS. HARRIS-It stops on Greenway North. MR. PALING-Greenway and then goes out onto Aviation? MRS. HARRIS-No. It comes in on Aviation Road, stops at Greenway North and Old Aviation, picks up children and continues on Greenway North to Greenway Drive, then goes up Greenway Drive to Carlton and then back out onto Aviation, if the bus can get back out on Aviation. Certainly the surrounding property values are going to decrease. I mean, do you want to live where I live? Do you want to buy a house with a Cracker Barrel in your back yard? And as somebody else said, if they can’t sell my house for any more than $55,000. Then the house next door’s not going to go for much more than $55,000, or the one up the street, and the one up the street, because market value is based upon how much houses have sold for in the area in the last three years. Commercial facility is going to subject us to increased noise and increased light. When you talk about vegetation for a buffer, I’d like to know specifically what it is that you’re going to plan, and how densely these bushes are going to be. We’re going to have increased noise and light. In 28 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) the winter, I get lights from Friendly’s, but that is a buffer zone. Take that away from me, I’m going to have Cracker Barrel in my bedroom window constantly. Right now it’s Fazoli’s. It glows red, the little peak on the top. It’s lovely. It’s also going to subject us to air borne and grease particles, trash odors, and the vermin associated with the food trash, and the food odors. I have nothing against fine cooked food like Cracker Barrel makes. Right now, I live with chicken or steak, depending on wind direction. If we smell chicken, there’s a storm coming. We also believe that there will be an increase in vandalism and/or crime. There are a lot of small children in the area. They’ve been raised in a very safe area, and they feel safe there, and they should have a reason to feel safe. Because they feel safe, they’re also gullible, and they will go with anybody and do anything, and all we need is one person saying they’ve lost a puppy and we’ve lost a child. You can’t see it in the picture too well, but there’s a hill. There’s a hill down Aviation Road this way, and there’s a, from Aviation Road toward Old Aviation Road there is a little incline. I’m concerned if you clear that property, what you’re going to do to my septic system, because I’m not on sewer. I’m glad they can get it. I couldn’t. I also have concerns about the wildlife. Being one of the people closest to that woodland, you’d be amazed what I see in my backyard. I adore living there. I’ll spare you most of the birds, because I could bore you for hours, but we have wild turkeys, Bard Owls, North and South (lost words) and Pileated Woodpeckers, the ones Woody Woodpecker was based off of. The big ones. Raccoons, possums, I’m sure everybody’s got them. I don’t even mind the skunks. Lately I’ve had deer. Now, if there’s deer in those woods, there’s a chance that they’re passing from the wood behind Crandall Park to that wooded area, to the wooded area that you see behind there, and that little patch of land might be passageway for them. Ring necked pheasants, geese, and if you’d like pictures, I will bring you pictures. I have not had reeses monkeys, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Also on that property, what I believe is still an endangered species is Lady slippers, thousands of them, and they’re orchids. Lady slippers are orchids that need acid soil to grow. They’re getting acid from the pine needles. Is there a use for this property? I do have a suggestion. I’m in touch with somebody from the open space institute. This is an organization which buys properties of land like this, deeds them forever wild, and donates them to the Town. They’re funded by Green Peace and National Audobon Society and big tree hugging organizations like that. I have attempted to do that. I just got the phone number yesterday. I will be in touch with them, and if that is a possible use for that site that does server everybody, except maybe the Town, because you’re not going to get tax revenue, but you’re not going to get it if Hole in the Woods Ranch owns it either. You could make this, this is a beautiful entrance to Queensbury. You should all go off the Northway at Exit 19, drive toward Aviation Road, and see the sign that says “Welcome to Queensbury”, backed up by all those pine trees. It’s awesome. The Mall is way far back. You don’t notice it so much. It’s peaceful and serene. It’s much better now than “Welcome to Queensbury” Cracker Barrel. I did have a note from somebody in the neighborhood did write this, and I was asked to read it, so if you could give me the one more minute it’ll take to read this. “In reading a letter to the editor a few days ago I realize the importance of the issue brought to the Board regarding the zoning of the land across from the Aviation Mall. As a resident of the outlying area of Queensbury, it’s always nice to be able to drive up to the Aviation Mall easily without too many problems with traffic.” I don’t know where they live or whether they’re shopping during 11 o’clock in the morning, apparently when the traffic counts were taken, “I feel that being able to easily access this area is crucial to its business. Rezoning that beautiful area across from the Mall would significantly increase traffic and decrease the nice quiet area that reminds us about where we all live, the Adirondacks. Also in retrospect to this subject is the area itself. I’m curious as to why the land has been donated to such a cause as Hole in the Woods. What purpose does this land have to this organization? I feel that it’s only a smart and safe way for a business man to get a tax break. The only way for the Hole in the Woods Ranch to benefit from the land is to have it rezoned commercial and sold to the highest bidder. In closing, I have nothing against inviting new companies to the community, but to destroy such a nice area to do so is wrong. There are plenty of open commercial areas to be filled.” I will be in touch with all of you regarding open space, because this is a way where Hole in the Woods Ranch gets their money, and they’ve done something charitable for us by letting us keep it green. Thank you. MR. PALING-Thank you. Who’s next? DANIEL OLSON MR. OLSON-My name is Daniel Olson. I live at 29 Carlton Drive. I’ve lived my entire life in the Town of Queensbury. I’ve lived at this location at the end of Carlton Drive for 33 years. I’m going to talk about a couple of issues, and I won’t use up the whole five minutes. The one issue that I want to talk about is the changing of the people that live in the area of Carlton Drive, Greenway, Greenway North, Greenway Circle, commonly called the Glen Acres development. When my wife and I first built our house there, we raised three children in the location. There were 29 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) a lot of other children, younger children, in the neighborhood, families with children bringing children up in the Queensbury school system. Over the years, some of those people have moved away. We have a mix of the community living in that area now. We have many retired people. We have semi retired people, and now we have younger people who are just newly married people who are just starting out buying their first home and starting to raise a family. A young lady, Jody, spoke a few minutes ago. She happens to be a neighbor of mine across the street. Probably in the last two or three years, we’ve seen 15 new children from babies to beginning kindergarten ages come in the neighborhood in a very close area. So that, the homes in the location have made it affordable for younger families that are starting out to purchase homes in that area, and plus it’s a good place to live. We enjoy it there. My point is that the problem in this area now, the problem in the future, the problem with any other commercial growth like this that will generate a lot of cars, a lot of traffic, will only add to the problems of the road constructions. The safety of the road, the health and safety of the people that live there, and pollution of noise, trucks, diesel fuel. To point out an example, the back of my house, my back yard, along with half a dozen other people, border the property line of Wal-Mart. We were sold a bill of goods by the Town Board, and the Town of Queensbury that they allowed Wal-Mart development to shorten up their buffer, in other words, reduce the buffer down in size, put in taller trees, put a wooden fence up, and this was going to make it more appealing, cut down the noise, cut down the pollution and everything. So we opposed it as long as we could, and we finally had to give up. The Town granted Wal-Mart a variance to extend the buffer closer to the residential area, not only the buffer but the building closer. No one told us at that time that we would have 24 hour deliver service of trucks, mainly coming in at night, around bed time, nine, ten, eleven o’clock at night is when the tractor trailers come in to unload. No one told us that the snow plows would be plowing all night long when the business is shut down. No one told us about the traffic, road sweepers that are employed to come in and sweep the parking lot at night, which starts around three or four o’clock in the morning. In the summer months, the residents that border that area now can’t even keep their windows open at night because of the traffic and the noise that goes on in the store with their PA systems and the noise that goes in the area of unloading tractor trailers, like things that go on in a commercial business, plus the high lights in the parking lot which reflect off the building into our back yards and bedrooms at night. So those are the things that you have to be thinking about, please, when you consider a re-zoning of property that’s only divided by a narrow road, Old Aviation Road, a smaller road. Those are the things that no one’s talked about this evening, the high lights in the parking lot, the tractor trailers that come in at night unloading supplies, that dumpsters that are dumped usually at night. They have to be dumped and cleaned up before business starts in the morning. Those are early morning activities, late night, early morning, and those all add to the problems of the neighborhood, problems that a mass business like this proposal would create for the neighbors that live in the area, plus traffic. The traffic is unbelievable right now. Just go over there, as the other speakers have said. Everybody’s saying the same thing. I don’t have to repeat it. Just go over there in the early morning hours when the people are going to Queensbury school back and forth to go over there at separate times, noon time, and you’ll see what traffic is. I don’t think there’s anyone who’s opposed to the restaurant that wants to come in to the Town of Queensbury. People weren’t opposed to Red Lobster and the Olive Garden a few years ago. They found other locations. They fit right into the neighborhood. They fit right into vacant spots down there. Now that whole complex is revitalized, every store in that little plaza down there is filled up. There’s expansion going on down there. Possibly they could get, possibly the business that wants this property re-zoned could look a little further up Route 9 maybe to the north of this, to the south. There’s already vacant areas and recycle some of those existing buildings or recycle some of the land that’s already been used for a building, instead of trying to tear something else down. Thank you for your time and consideration, and I hope you would take a long look at this proposal. Thank you. MR. PALING-Thank you. JACK HEWITT MR. HEWITT-Good evening. My name’s Jack Hewitt. I live at 2 June Drive. About 12 years ago I moved to Florida. I found out that’s not what I want to do. I like the Adirondacks. So I came back home. Ten years ago I bought a house, my house, for $65,000. Since then I’ve put probably $25,000 or more in it. Two and a half years ago I put it on the market. I can’t get what I paid for it originally already. What is a Cracker Barrel going to do to that? I mean, if Charlie Wood wants to make, or Hole in the Woods wants to make more money, I mean, they’re asking a bizillion dollars more than they paid for it 30, 40, 50 years ago. I can’t get what I paid for it 10 years ago. Somebody’s going to make a lot of money with that property. I have four kids that ride through that neighborhood on their bikes. Adding another 100, however many cars per hour going through there is not going to make my kids very safe. Again, there’s a lot of kids growing up in the 30 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) neighborhood. We’re concerned for all of their safety. Safety vehicles getting to our house. I was coming home today. I turned from upper Glen onto Aviation at the main intersection. I don’t think I got two car lengths onto Aviation Road and I’m staring an ambulance right in the face, in my lane. That’s five lanes wide. They’re in lane. That’s five lanes wide. They’re in my lane. Already there’s a problem today. We definitely are going to have problems with more traffic being there. That’s it for me. I don’t see the value of my house holding. Why should that property be worth anywhere near what it’s worth commercial as opposed to residential? That’s it. MR. PALING-Thank you. Who’s next JOHN STROUGH MR. STROUGH-I’m John Strough. I live at 7 Woodcrest Drive. It’s not part of that neighborhood. It’s up off of West Mountain Road. People are looking at whether to zone commercial or not commercial is a black and white issue. It can be re-zoned commercial with some limitations. The limitations should be included, if it should be re-zoned commercial, should provide some kind of a transition zone between the Mall, Aviation Road and the residents. Now the community is currently undergoing an operation of putting together a new Comprehensive Land Use Plan. Pieces of property like this and others are going to come before the public for public input. The public will have a voice in it. If you vote for recommendation to re-zone without restrictions, then you bypass the public input that will be going in to the new Comprehensive Land Use Plan which is not fair to the people. Currently, the 4.4 acres does not meet the Comprehensive Land Use Plan design. Re-zoning and making this Highway Commercial without restrictions would make that piece of property incompatible with the neighborhood adjacent to it. Re-zoning this property without restrictions would be breaking the faith that was established behind the reasons why it was zoned residential to begin with. The buffer zones that are being proposed are not nearly enough to protect those people from this type of industry, a high turn over sit down restaurant shop, just not appropriate. So I ask that you not put a nail in the coffin by recommending approval for re-zoning. Allow the people to have their input, when the new Comprehensive Land Use Plan comes to them, and let that be the deciding factor. Thank you. MR. PALING-Thank you. DOUG MILLER MR. MILLER-Doug Miller. I live at 4 Stone Pine Lane. The Hole in the Woods is an exceptional organization. My 10 year old daughter volunteers four to six hours every Saturday for that group. She goes up there with a friend of hers and they clean out stalls and other chores. However, the residents want to protect their property values, and that can best be done by leaving the zoning as it is. The property owner wants to maximize his value on the property, and, in their mind, that’s putting in a restaurant. Somehow there needs to be some compromise here, so this issue can be put to bed once and for all. One of the things that hasn’t been talked about at all by the applicants is any other possible uses. It continually comes up that this needs to be a restaurant. They say any other use is not good for that piece of land. The one thing that I heard when I came to the meetings last fall, the residents said the one thing they don’t want is a restaurant. Other things they could possibly look at, and I think we need to find some way to arbitrate or mediate this issue. Right now it is, looks like a black and white issue. One other comment that I want to make is regarding the 100 foot buffer on Old Aviation Road. When this was in front of the Town Board last year the comment was made regarding the potential widening of Aviation Road as a bypass to Route 9, that that would take an additional 75 feet. It hasn’t been discussed. It hasn’t been brought up. If you have a 100 foot buffer, and you’re going to take 75 feet of that buffer for a possible widening of Aviation Road, you’ve essentially destroyed the buffer. So either you should increase that buffer, if you’re going to re-zone this, or you should guarantee these people that there will not be a widening of Aviation Road. That’s all. MR. PALING-Thank you. MARK LEVACK MR. LEVACK-Good evening. My name is Mark Levack, the President and Broker/Owner of Levack Real Estate. Mr. Wood approached me in 1992 to list this property. He was very clear with me at the time when he listed the property, that it was zoned residential. We recognized that it was SFR-10, and that we should list the property in accordance with its zoning. We did that. The property was listed in the Multiple List under the land section, which is not that differentiate between a commercial parcel or a residential parcel, but in the listing, it was clearly stated that the 31 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) property was zoned Single Family Residential. We extensively marketed the property, not only as a residential property, but as a commercial property, expecting full well that the property would be put to its highest and best use under a commercial zoning. I can tell you without reservation that there has never been an interested residential party, a developer home builder. We’ve worked extensively and have worked extensively with congregate care centers, senior centers, and they’re all gravitating to the Bay Road corridor right now, in fact, two are under contract on property that we’ll be seeking site plan approvals from this Board in the near future, which seems to be where the seniors choose to gravitate. It’s been said here tonight that Mr. Wood should have contradicted or should have argued against the re-zoning when it took place. The Town process, as you well know, does not require notification in the event of a re-zoning. Mr. Wood’s property along with many other property owners that were rezoned under that Comprehensive Town re-zoning plan were not notified. I can tell you without question in personal conversations with Mr. Wood, that it was news to him, when he went to sell the property, the property was not zoned commercial. I’m a life resident of this area. I was born in Glens Falls. I’ve lived here my entire life, and I’d like to say that I think we’ve been responsible for a lot of very good development, a lot of very good projects that have been of economic benefit to the area and have put lands to their highest and best use. I think that this whole project, re-zoning this property has gone through extremely arduous, troublesome, trying, time consuming arguments, and I believe that my profession has shown me that properties should be used for its highest and best use, and that there are mitigating issues. There are concerns. I’ve listed and sold properties in Greenway North. I know people that live in that neighborhood and that development, and we all have to live together in this Town. We all have to work toward that common goal. I believe that, when we had Red Lobster originally proposed for, the property became a Red Lobster issue and not a commercial issue. The second buyer that we produced for the property was Barnes and Nobles book store. We didn’t receive the same type of opposition to a Barnes and Nobles book store. So it really has boiled down to a commercial restaurant problem, and as the applicant seeks to re-zone this property, they’re being lambasted due to the fact that it is a restaurant. I’d like to ask and urge that you take a look at the property as being in a commercial district that is clearly a commercial property, being the only residential zoned property on Route 254, and it is spot zoned as such right now. I’d also like to say that I believe that the applicant has mitigated the issues regarding the buffer zones and trying to do their best to mitigate the issues and to make for a cooperative situation there. I know of no other commercial endeavor that’s proposed an extensive commercial buffer to the degree that this has. I don’t think that this Cracker Barrel should be singled out as not being community sensitive and not putting forth a plan that works for both parties. If you have any questions, I’m certainly here to answer any questions on the marketing of the property. I’ve been involved with it. A lot of people might accuse me of just being a Realtor, objective, out here for self serving purposes, but all the people in this room and this Board should know that I do not stand to gain one red cent on the sale of this property to Cracker Barrel. I’m not involved with this sale. I didn’t put the deal together. Unfortunately, Mr. Wood put this deal together by himself, on his own, and all the years that I’ve put into my efforts in marketing this property, I will end up with zero. So my reasons for being here tonight and speaking at this moment are as a life resident of the area and as an expert in commercial real estate sales and marketing to say that I believe, without question, this applicant has proposed a more than mitigative proposal. MR. PALING-Okay. Thank you. CAROLYN LUNT MRS. LUNT-Hello. My name is Carolyn Lunt, and my husband and I did write a letter earlier, but I just have to respond to that. We are simple homeowners in your Town. We have one life investment in your Town. It’s our home. Please protect it. What they’re proposing to do is going to put it at jeopardy. Our safety, our way of living, but most of all our investment. The only thing we have. Please do something to do something for us. Thank you. MR. PALING-Thank you. Who’s next? HARRY TROELSTRA MR. TROELSTRA-I’m Harry Troelstra. I live at 2 Carlton Drive. The first thing I would like to ask the Board is that before you consider making a re-zoning recommendation, I would like to know where the entrances and exits are going to be. They promised a buffer zone. MR. PALING-Sir, that’s a site plan issue. It’s not, that will not be addressed tonight. We’re doing strictly should it be re-zoned or not. Sorry. 32 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. TROELSTRA-All right. If it’s going to be re-zoned, with a proposal of a buffer zone, and the buffer zones are going to be interrupted by exits, then I cannot call that a buffer zone. That’s a statement I would like to make, because the exits have to be somewhere, and if it’s in the face of one of the homes that are on Greenway North there, then I would say that is not a proposal for a buffer zone. As a homeowner on Carlton Drive, I am surprised we’re here again. Now the property owner is a non resident. All of us, in one way or another, have donated to or helped this organization, but do we have to do more than other people in Queensbury, such as live in a total commercialized neighborhood, give up our last little piece of natural beauty and natural protection, accept to be exposed to ever increasing traffic conditions, accept the stench of garbage containers, the glare of parking lot lights, the pollution of cars, etc., and I want to add to this that everybody says the buffer zone is there, but with the proposal of a Cracker Barrel restaurant there, there’ll be tour buses parked, and if you park a tour bus, they will never shut off the engine. You will be gobbling up the diesel engine fumes, whichever way the wind blows. Would all the other people in the Town of Queensbury be willing to give up their privileges for the sake of a donation? I am sure you want to protect your residential privileges of your neighborhood. So do we. Twice this issue was voted down. Will you, as Board members, be able to say now, enough is enough? We don’t say we don’t like the Cracker Barrel. All we want is to keep what is ours and what is given to us. Why should this be decided by those that don’t even live here? Don’t we count at all? Would you want your residential rights taken away by those that don’t live in your neighborhood? Does this make Queensbury a better place to live? Thank you. MR. PALING-Thank you. Okay. Who’s next? KATHRYN KELLY MRS. KELLY-I’m Kathryn Kelly. I live at 13 Carlton Drive. This is not the first time since I’ve lived at Carlton Drive that I’m in front of the Board. My main concern is the protection of our neighborhood. The traffic is horrendous. I know after the meeting for the Red Lobster there was traffic counts, but the traffic count was done when it was not busy. As homeowners, we know what goes on on Carlton Drive. Right now, people are cutting in with stereos blasting. The basses, they almost throw you out of bed, after midnight, okay. There is no protection for the neighbors, noise wise, and noise is a tremendous pollution. It’s also considered a health pollutant. So to keep the noise level down, I beg of you to consider the traffic in our neighborhood. Sometimes it feels like the tractor trailers from the Northway are right in our back yards, depending on how the wind goes. There’s a bump in the road. So if the wind comes this way, all of a sudden you hear this, boom, boom, you know, with the tractor trailers. We do not need more traffic pollution in the neighborhood, and please consider our safety and our health, and also the safety of our children that have to take the school bus, also the children that have to walk to school. We are also faced with the reconstruction of part of Aviation and the bridge. We’ll have to go, next year some time, go out of our way to either access or enter the Northway, should we need to. I beg of you please consider the neighbors in the area also. Thank you. MR. PALING-Thank you. BRAD PATCH MR. PATCH-My name’s Brad Patch. I live at 20 Greenway North, which is the bottom of the hill, and I can see straight down to this property. Right now I might see the light at the intersection of Old Aviation Road and Greenway. You take away the trees, I’ll see them Mall. I don’t want to see the Mall. I didn’t want to see Pizza Hut either. That’s my back yard, and I have a nice red roof that shines, reflects my back yard. I don’t need lights in the back yard. I don’t want them in the front yard. Mr. Lemery gave me the Pizza Hut back in 1974. Now I don’t want him to give me Cracker Barrel again. I also have a paper dated May 5, 1988, Sunday’s paper, right on the front, “Proceed with caution at these corners”, and I’ll read a little piece. “The worst intersection in the area for crashes is that of Aviation Road/Greenway North/ and the Aviation Mall’s west entrance.” It goes on to read a little bit more, but if you remember in 1988 it was busy. It’s busy now. This road going in is going to give you five lanes, not two, not three, not four but five lanes over the bridge, it will get more people in. Cracker Barrel does a business of $2.5 million a year. That’s a lot of people. Where is it coming from? Are you going to take away from the Silo? Friendly’s? Fazoli’s? Burger King? All the other restaurants we have now, you’re going to bring in this new company to take away from them? They’re going to leave, one of them will. In 1988, before the new re-zoning went in, Mr. Wood’s people tried to put a nine story high-rise on their property, but it didn’t float. So that never went. So he knew something was going on at that time, and right after Christmas, one of the Town Board members called me and gave me a plan, it’s not here now. It was a landscaping plan that Mr. Wood’s people gave the Town Board member and 33 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) wanted to know if we would accept the landscaping. It did not call for a restaurant. That was the stipulation. No restaurant. Now, here we are, a restaurant. So they did have something else in mind to go in there that wasn’t a restaurant. A restaurant doesn’t have to go there. We have enough traffic. Thank you. MR. PALING-Okay. Thank you. Who’s next? Okay, then, if no one else wants to speak. MRS. HARRIS-How about second turns, because I’ll take another shot at it. MR. PALING-Ma’am, we offered you five minutes, which you took. MRS. HARRIS-And then a second chance. MR. PALING-No. We said if you went over time, you could come back up again, all right. We’re not going to deny anybody to speak, but that wasn’t the agreement. MR. BREWER-Yes, it was. You said five minutes the first time, and then they could come up. MRS. HARRIS-I probably used a little bit more, and I appreciate your patience. The one way traffic that exists on Old Aviation Road is largely due to the traffic that exists on Aviation Road and people not wanting to deal with the intersection, and to put a commercial property on that four acre parcel would worsen that. Mr. Lemery mentioned, and that you for pointing it out, that it’s the center of our community, and it is. It’s where our welcome sign is, and the Cracker Barrel is not going to be a good welcome, although they are a great restaurant and we’re not against the Cracker Barrel. He also mentioned that tradition has always been that that’s always been a commercial area. I’ve got to remind you, the houses were there first, and then land was sold to develop the Mall, and then to cut the new road so it matches up with Quaker Road. I don’t know a lot about the history of the area because I wasn’t born here, but I can remember coming here, the day that I moved into Town, I got off at Exit 19, and I was born on Long Island in beach territory, where you never saw three pine trees at once, in one place, and getting off Exit 19, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, that there were all these trees together right on the main road. It makes an impact. I have two junior girl scout troops, two Brownie Troops, and I’m consultant for a Daisy Troop. I’m heavily involved in my community. The girl scouts, one of my junior troops, wants to adopt a highway. I asked them, where would you like to adopt. They want to adopt that spread of Aviation Road and keep it clean from all the trash that people are heaving out their windows. I mean, there’s little kids that care about this property, this is so important to our community, and the jobs, 150 or not, jobs that come to Town as a result of Cracker Barrel will be five to seven dollar an hour jobs, and I don’t think that that’s necessarily the kind of business that we want most strongly to encourage coming to Queensbury. It would be nice to encourage the more professional jobs that will pay us more money, to put more money into our economic system. We’ve got plenty of five to seven dollar an hour jobs, particularly in the summer, and I think that we’ve got to get over the belief that land exists solely for commercial development. I’ve heard it said over and over and over again this evening, the proper use of that land, and why do we have to use it all? Why can’t some of it be let be, that we can show that we care about the environment a little bit. I know, I sound like a tree hugger, and Mr. Lemery also pointed out that you will hear complaints that we already put up with the smell of the food, the lights, the noise and so forth, and he recognizes that. I don’t know why he fights so hard to bring in a business that’s greatly going to worsen that. That is the end of my list, and I appreciate your patience and your time. Thank you. MR. PALING-Okay. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would care to speak, pro or con? Okay. Then we’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. PALING-Okay. Would the applicants please come back. There’s been quite extensive comment and in various areas. I’ve got at least three, six, nine, ten basic areas, and I hope you people have been taking notes like we have. Would you care to comment on some of these issues that have been brought out? MR. LEMERY-I guess I’d start out by saying that there wasn’t one comment made by anybody that would suggest that this land should be developed as Single Family residences. It seems to me that the problems that the residents of Greenway North are concerned with, and they are legitimate, are the same problems that anybody who would want to come in and put a residential subdivision in there would have to deal with. So it’s pretty clear that this land ought not to be used the way it’s zoned. The problem, the other problem I haven’t heard anything about is what’s fair. I’ve heard 34 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) all the resident’s comments about all the issues they’re concerned about, and what goes through these discussions is really, we’d like to leave it green. We’d like to leave it as it is, and I understand and I appreciate that, but nobody talked about, well, lets deal with what’s fair. I’m troubled because there’s always and undercurrent, and I’ll put it in front of you, that all the land is owned by Charles Wood. So, because it’s owned by Charles Wood, and Mr. Wood made a success of his life, he can just, who cares, it’s okay, and that’s not fair either. That’s not fair either. What is fair is looking at the site and figuring out a way to sort of take care of everybody’s interests. The buffer that we have offered to the Town would not be changed with any other use. We would do what is necessary to preserve the 100 feet and the buffer on the side, if the property is re-zoned. We would not come back here to this Planning Board later and say, well, Red Lobster or rather Red Lobster didn’t buy it or Cracker Barrel didn’t buy it, somebody else didn’t buy it, so I wonder if I could make my comments without. Thank you. MR. PALING-Okay. Now everyone has listened to everyone speak, and the applicant has got the same rights as everyone else in the audience, so please refrain. That’s not going to get anybody anywhere, if you don’t mind. MR. LEMERY-So the 100 foot buffer would be preserved, irrespective of what the use of the land would be. We’ve tried to market it. We’ve tried to sell it. We’ve been unsuccessful. There was no contract reached with the people from the book company. They decided that this area couldn’t support a Barnes and Noble. No contract was ever agreed to, and never reached because they decided not to pursue it, although we tried to work something out that might be worked out, knowing full well that we’d have to come back and get it re-zoned, or get a variance, which is always a possibility. We felt that the path, the right path, initially, was re-zoning, because we felt that it was a parcel that was not zoned right, and the way you deal with it is not to try to go get a variance at the first instance, but was to try to deal with a comprehensive plan that would take care of both parties. Charles Wood did not know about this in 1988, when the Comprehensive Land Use program had got re-zoned. In 1967, the first Zoning Ordinance, it was zoned commercial and that’s how it remained. Whether he should have done something about it after or not, he didn’t have a buyer for it, until some time ago it surfaced that he had to do something with the site. The other problem that, in the last two hearings, and I’m going to ask Jim Martin to speak to this or Jeff Anthony, because maybe they can be more articulate than I am, as the developer’s lawyer, is that the way the property’s zoned now doesn’t protect the people in Greenway North. It doesn’t help them. It doesn’t do anything for them. It doesn’t protect their land. It doesn’t protect their property. It doesn’t provide any buffer. It doesn’t take into account the transition zone. It’s simply zoned the way it is, and if the developer came, wouldn’t even have to come here. He goes to you for site plan review for these single family residences. He could take every tree down. He could bulldoze the land and get it ready for subdivision. That doesn’t answer Brad Patch’s concern about, he likes to look down over the hill and see the trees. We understand it and we’re trying to deal with it in a way that’s fair and keeps the trees. One lady spoke about, last December one of the Town Board members going to her and talking to her about the landscape mitigation plan. We sat at a Town Board workshop, and we said we would give you a landscape mitigation plan, and somebody talked about, well, if you do that, that might work. Well, we did it. We put the landscape mitigation plan into effect, and we’ve agreed, and we still agree, and we will do it, and we would come back, and you would supervise it and manage it, and then somebody came back and said, well, we don’t want a restaurant, and we said we’re not going to do that. We’re not going to put in effect a piece of land here that doesn’t conform to any zoning plan. In fact, one of the Town Planners specifically said that doesn’t work. You can’t do that. That ends up as a spot zone. So you just can’t say what it is. We are very sensitive. We understand everybody’s concern here. We’re not trying to be the 100 pound gorilla running around saying that nobody’s sensitive to the people who live there and the community and the needs that they have. We’re trying to figure out a way that everybody wins. So if people would listen to that, and if somebody would come up here and talk about, well, that’s a fair, can we make sure the 100 foot buffer stays? If you went out there and you stood on Old Aviation Road and you walked 100 feet into the site, you would be amazed at how much land that is. How wide a buffer that is, and how much foliage and density there is to protect those people. When we get to site plan issues, if we ever get there, we understand the concerns with ingress, the traffic, the traffic going out, and there may be some plans put before the Board at that time that could deal with helping everybody out there, but it’s not the place here to re-zone. We’ve got to get through the re-zoning first. Jim? MR. MARTIN-All right. Just to address the one question as John discussed, as well as some other comments that came through the public comments. We heard a lot of comments about traffic, and the one thing I think that has to be borne in mind here is that you’re, all comments are obviously coming from either recent past or the past or the existing condition, and that is with a two land bridge that is separating a four lane highway and a three lane highway on the other side that was 35 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) recently widened by the Town in front of the school. The bridge is, in fact, a true bottleneck, or otherwise the State would not be investing some nearly $7 million in widening it to a five lane structure, and this is not supposition. This is not suspect. This is not an anticipated action that may not happen. The bridge is under contract. The contractor has been hired. Construction, nd under contract, is scheduled to begin January 2. The State, in planning for that bridge, has planned for a 30 year window or a 30 year growth projection on the capacity of that bridge, the service life of that bridge, and in doing so, they have made projections for capacity to service that bridge, trips across the bridge. The trips across the bridge from 1998 are at a level of just over 19,000 trips over that bridge. By the Year 2028, which is the planned life of the bridge, they’re expecting trips in excess of 36,000 cars across that bridge. So where is that going to come from? It’s naturally going to come from growth in the community and in the area of that bridge. Not just this area, but many other areas, and not just commercial growth, industrial growth, residential growth. Growth is occurring and it needs to be planned for, and that is significant. The number of trips are nearly going to double in that window of planned growth for the bridge. So I don’t think anyone here can know the feeling of what it’s going to be like to have that bridge adequately servicing the existing and planned level of demand for traffic. Now in terms of, we heard some comments about property values. I don’t think it’s fair to take an instance of property values in this current period of the Town of Queensbury or the Northeast, for that matter. It is no secret that property values in the Town and in this region peaked in the mid to late 1980’s, and your assessment records, your records of sales throughout the Town will document that, and for people to say that they’ve felt property values fall or stagnant in Greenway North neighborhood is not unique to that neighborhood, and it is not solely to be pinned on commercial growth in that area. It is experienced throughout the Town. I know. I, myself, who live in the Town, have gone for home equity loans, and you have to get an appraisal done of your home, and it’s fallen or flat at best in this 10 year period. There was a severe recession experienced by the Country and especially in this region of the Country in the early 1990’s, and the property values are now just starting to climb a little bit. So that is not a symptom that is unique to the Greenway North area. It is a symptom experienced by the whole Town and arguably the entire region. In terms of the entry way to the Town, there are several hundred feet that separate this from the ramps of the Northway. Now to pin this one site as the entry way to the Town I don’t think is entirely accurate. What do we have when somebody pulls off the Northway as a so called greeting to the Town of Queensbury, the entry? We see an AM/PM Market, a Seven Steers Restaurant, a Hess station, a Silo Restaurant, and a Mall, and a Friendlys. Two of these operations are open 24 hours a day. That is also part of the entry way in this part of the Town, as to what people see when they’re welcomed to the Town. That exists. In terms of delivery times, I had a chance to speak with a representative here from the Cracker Barrel. He indicated the delivery times are not during the evenings. They are obviously not going to happen when the restaurant is not open. Deliveries only occur during the opening hours of the restaurant, which are from six am to ten pm. They are usually done with a straight truck and not a tractor trailer truck, although that is not to say that it could not be a tractor trailer, but most often times it is a straight truck. In terms of access through the buffer, as my final comment, I think it’s been made very clear that the buffer is offered at 100 foot and 75 feet, and it will be a continuous buffer and there will be no access through that buffer. That would defeat its purpose, obviously. So it will be a continuous buffer without break for access. That’s basically it. MR. PALING-Okay. Does anyone have any questions? MR. BREWER-I just was looking on this map, Jim. It says Version A. Is there any other version? Or it’s the only one? MR. MARTIN-Is that the site plan here? MR. RUEL-The one that says Glens Falls. MR. BREWER-Is that just to denote what it is? MR. MARTIN-I don’t know what it refers to as Version A. Again, in terms of the actual specifics, in terms of parking placement, yes, that’s meant to be conceptual, but what is not conceptual on there is the dimension of the buffer. The dimension of the buffer is fixed. MR. PALING-Okay. Any other questions for the applicant? MR. RINGER-One of the people brought up concerns about lighting and stuff. What plans do you have for lighting? MR. BREWER-That’s site plan. 36 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. RINGER-Okay. MR. PALING-Yes. That can be site plan. MR. BREWER-Not that it’s not a valid question. MR. RINGER-Okay. I understand. MR. RUEL-I wonder if anyone can explain to me, there were many comments this evening about traffic in the Greenway area. I’m not familiar with the area, but what is all this traffic in that area? Isn’t that a kind of a landlocked area? They talked about dead end roads and so forth. What’s all this traffic inside that area? People were talking about present traffic. They weren’t only talking about future. They were talking about heavy traffic now that would be increased. I’d like to know what this heavy traffic is. MR. MARTIN-Right. Well, I’ve only been in the neighborhood several times, when I used to work for the Town and this was in for past applications, I drove up there to get an idea of the neighborhood, and they’ve obviously been up there many more times than I have, as living there. I do think that the traffic concern, though, in the first instance, in the very first application was, the McDonalds here. MR. RUEL-But that McDonalds was resolved, wasn’t it? MR. MARTIN-Anyhow, the McDonalds which is shown right here in the picture, and I think, yes, this is an old enough picture where it does show that this was a full service access point here, in other words, traffic did go in and out here, and I live in Town. Especially around Christmas time, I took that short cut. I drove through McDonalds in spite of the speed bumps or whatever. I drove through Town. I drove through that as a means to get to the Mall and avoid this intersection. Well, in the midst, I believe, or shortly thereafter, after the first proposal for re-zoning here, this McDonalds came in for a site plan to put the playground area in the front of the building, and at that time, at the Town’s request, it was certainly not offered by McDonalds, the Town had them shut that down to one way, and that was not an easy thing to do, but it was done, because in the traffic counts we had with the first re-zoning request, there were some 1300 trips being made up and down this street, basically as short cut, because in the details of that traffic study, the traffic engineer placed people through the route here to check license plates, and the license plates were not parking in the restaurant, obviously. The cars were not parking in the restaurant. It was through traffic through McDonalds. Those license plates were turning up in the Mall, on the Northway, or down here further down Route 9. So, I think the traffic concerns, at least in the first instance, the first application, a lot of it centered around this impact on Old Aviation, because the feeling was, at that time, that if a use went in here, people would continue to utilize this short cut through McDonalds to get to the restaurant and create a lot of undue traffic on Old Aviation Road. MR. PALING-Jim, okay, I understand what’s happened in the past, but I don’t think that’s the point that’s being made tonight. Traffic, very obviously, is the main concern, both for traffic and traffic safety, and I think that the primary objection to this is entrance and exit to the subdivision, regardless of what street you use, as it’s aggravated by the traffic on Aviation Road and the increase in traffic on Aviation Road that would result from a restaurant. MRS. LABOMBARD-Jim, for example, like you cannot get out of that area if you go on the street that’s between the Silo and the Hess Station. You cannot make a left hand turn. You can’t even make a right hand turn coming out of there, Carlton Drive, that’s the top one, above the Silo. All right, so the residents are using the street where the light is. So they’re all bottlenecking down in there. Well, that’s where I really have a problem with this, because. MR. MARTIN-You’re talking about this access point right here? MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes, the lower one, yes, where the light is. MR. MARTIN-I agree with you. MRS. LABOMBARD-Right there it’s adjacent to the property that we’re talking about. So we’re not supposed to talk about ingress or egress, because this isn’t a site plan review, but, boy, that’s going to come up and I mean, I just do not see where these people are going to make life any easier for them to get out of this development, out of where they live. 37 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. MARTIN-Okay. You’re talking about this access point right here. MR. RUEL-Isn’t there a traffic light there? MR. BREWER-There is a traffic light there, but it’s so close to the light, Roger. MRS. LABOMBARD-There is a traffic light there, but it’s still adjacent to the proposed property that we’re talking about. MR. MARTIN-Well, there are many options that could be explored in a site plan review for configuration of this access. I remember in a past application for a previous restaurant, there was a long throat or long driveway developed for the use on this parcel, so that any stacking that would occur of cars, you know, attempting to enter here or exit here would occur on their own property and be an issue within this traffic pattern, rather than in the public right-of-way. That’s one thing to look at. The other thing, as I recall, that did contribute to a lot, especially the unsafe nature of the intersection, and the fatalities or injuries that occurred was the approach, the physical layout of the approach of Greenway North as it comes up to Aviation Road. When you’re at certain points along Greenway North here, it doesn’t begin to rise until you’re almost right on Aviation Road. So the visual effect of that is you cannot see cars in Aviation Road until you’re right up in it. MRS. LABOMBARD-Right. MR. MARTIN-And that is part of the problem. That is something that could be explored in a site plan review issue, as to the potential for re-grading of that, and fixing that, making it potentially better than it was before the project. MRS. LABOMBARD-Okay, but, you know, you’ve been on this side of the table before. I also feel very strongly about our main concern, again, and I’ve said this before, and we’ve all said this before, is the safety of the residents around the proposed site here, and when you have young mothers up here, and you hear about all the little kids, and you hear about strangers and tourists coming in. I mean, some of those stories that were hypothetical situations could be true. I mean, okay, so I’m out looking for my dog, and there’s the end of the kid. I mean, those things I never thought of because I’m kind of naïve, and I don’t think people do those things, but they really do, and some of these things were brought up tonight, and I really have a lot of concern about that, and I think this safety issue, with the traffic and with the extra influx of all these strangers, tourists that are right adjacent to a heavily residential area is something that we’ve go to think about. MR. RUEL-Cathy, would a stranger be driving into Greenway North? What would they be doing in there? MRS. LABOMBARD-Well, that’s another that was brought up tonight. I’ve taken notes. People come in and they lose their bearings a little bit, so they go down to the end of the street to turn around and that just brings more of an impact on the neighborhood. MR. BREWER-Or not necessarily know where that road goes. MRS. LABOMBARD-Exactly. So they go down, that’s a dead end, or, I guess now we can come out around this way and come out Carlton on the upper end, and, I mean, I think that there’s a lot of issues that need to be dealt with here, and hopefully we can come to some kind of a mid way resolution. MR. PALING-I think the traffic is one of the issues that we’d have to face, probably in my mind the Number One issue in that regard. We might put that aside for the moment and discuss some of the other issues. Would you care to comment, perhaps from a Cracker Barrel standpoint, about the odor from a restaurant. Is there any new state of the art that's going to be in here? We get a whiff of, lets say, coming off Interstate 87, just the other day, I could smell western steer, and that’s okay for a few minutes, but if I had to live with it, you know, over a whole day, I wouldn’t like it. MR. MANGAN-Unfortunately, my expertise in this is in real estate and not in the operations of the restaurant, but the exhausts are filtered in some manner, and complaints about odor are not common to us. MR. PALING-Well, okay. 38 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. LEMERY-Yes. These issues that you raise, Cathy, you could pick those issues in any street in any area in the Town. Wincrest Drive coming in from the back, the Twicwood area, any one of the cul de sacs in the Town, of all the streets in the new areas, any one of those areas you run into the same problem. The problem with Greenway North, in the ingress and egress, is something that everybody understands on this side of the table, and we recognize it at the site plan review point, you have to deal with. You have to figure out how you’re going to stack your cars on this site. You have to figure out how, so you don’t cause a bottleneck at the light, but as far as getting into issues about whether somebody goes back in, in the area there, some stranger, nobody has the ability to control, you’re in the central part of the Town, the absolute center part of the Town. People drive over those bumps to McDonalds. It may be one way, but people are getting in and out of there, and that’s not the problem with this site. That’s a law enforcement issue, and an issue with regard to the proper grading of the road, for example, that Jim mentioned. That’s a Town Highway Department or State Highway Department issue to make the road safe. It’s not a site issue dealing with the zoning. Is it any safer if we put 14 houses in here? It’s not going to happen. MRS. LABOMBARD-Wait a minute, John, can I just stop you there? That’s another thing that I have to just talk about before we go on any further. Mark Levack said he’s been marketing that property. You have said that there is, nobody has been interested in using that for developing that property into the 14, 15 houses that were, you had on kind of an example of what it would look like. I really don’t think that you should use that as an alternative, because that’s not going to happen. What developer in his right mind is going to build 15 houses on a piece of property that’s in the middle of the busiest section in Town? MR. LEMERY-Then it has to be re-zoned. MR. BREWER-That’s his point, Cathy. That’s his point. MR. LEMERY-That’s the whole point. It has to be re-zoned. MRS. LABOMBARD-But then that’s what I’m saying then. Then you can’t say to these people here that this is the better of, the lesser of two evils. MR. LEMERY-No. I agree with you. It has to be re-zoned. MRS. LABOMBARD-Because nobody’s going to build, buy that land and clear cut it. Nobody’s going to buy that land and put up houses. So they don’t have to worry. Right now, the way things are, that land is not ever going to have houses on it. MR. LEMERY-That’s not true. They have no protection now. They have no protection now. So if you recognize that it has to be re-zoned, and you’ve got a chance, here, everybody to say to people, we’ll give you 100 feet, where it will never be touched, you can’t depend on who the owners of this property are. I will tell you it will not stay the way it is. It will not stay the way it is. MRS. LABOMBARD-So then lets say if the zoning stays the way it is, I’ve just got to get this understood. If the zoning stays the way it is, then you’re saying that it’s very likely that some developer’s going to come in there and put some single family residences in. MR. LEMERY-No. I’m just saying. MRS. LABOMBARD-That’s why I think if the zoning stays the way it is, that land’s going to stay the way it is for the next 20 or 30 years. MR. LEMERY-No. MR. BREWER-No, it won’t, Cathy. MRS. LABOMBARD-Well, then, it can only be used for Single Family houses. MR. PALING-All right. Then lets make our points and go on. MRS. LABOMBARD-That’s what I don’t understand. 39 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. PALING-Okay. We’re going to get to a, I would like you to maybe think of summarizing, because we’re going to get to a point where we’re going to close off the dialogue. So go ahead, make your points. JEFF ANTHONY MR. ANTHONY-One last point on the traffic. I reviewed the previous traffic study for the Red Lobster, and one of the faults that they found was the signalization at Greenway and Aviation Road, and they recommended re-timing it to be consistent with other lights on Aviation Mall. Whether that happened or not doesn’t matter, but signalization of that intersection properly will solve a lot of the access and circulation problems in that intersection, and what’s going to happen is that when the bridge gets re-widened, it’s not just a bridge re-widening project. They’re counting on traffic increasing from some 19 to 36,000 trips to be able to cross that bridge, and in order to make provisions for that to happen, they have to coordinate all the lights from the bridge right on in. Now that coordination of lighting, of traffic lights, will solve the turning movement problems at those intersections. They have to if they’re going to go to double, almost double the traffic volume on that road, capacity on that road. Now that is something that you do not see now, because it just hasn’t been done. MRS. LABOMBARD-Would there be a light coming out of Carlton Drive, too? MR. ANTHONY-I don’t know that question. MR. LEMERY-I just want to conclude by saying that to try to be more responsive to Cathy’s comments, regarding what to do with this land, if you leave it as it is, and you don’t re-zone it, and it stays Single Family Residential, and you know, at least you’ve been told it can’t be sold as Single Family Residential, it makes no sense, it’s not fair, and if it were your property, you would not want this to happen. You would want to find some way to utilize your property, whether it be your home and somebody came along and re-zoned your house so that you couldn’t sell it, or your business so that you couldn’t sell it. This land was zoned commercial, and somebody decided to zone it residential, because they didn’t know what to do with it. So what we’re talking about here is what’s fair to everybody, not only the people back here who’s concerns are very legitimate, but Charles Wood and the Double “H” Hole in the Woods. They have a right to be treated fairly, too, and to just say, we’ll put our heads in the sand and we’ll ignore it, we’ll be back time after time after time after time, not necessarily me or Jim or anybody at this table, but it’s not going to stay this way, because every time the Town turns around and puts some new business on Aviation Road or puts some new business on Route 9, you create more and more centralization and commercial activity, which means that something’s going to happen, and so we need to be fair to everybody, and what we think we’ve tried to give you here is a way that splits the property in half, keeps half of it forever wild and develops the front half which we think is a reasonable way, and we will deal with the site plan issues, the traffic, the lights, the ingress and egress, at the site plan, hope that you’ll have a lot of input, that the people here will have a lot of input and try to figure out a way to solve that. We understand that’s the issue. MR. MARTIN-Just one last point to make on the amount of so called green space. Remember the buffer area that’s created here is going to be created as a separate lot. It will carry a separate tax parcel number. It will be the product of a subdivision. So therefore you’d have one lot that’s, I believe it’s a little over two acres, or a little over two and a half acres in size, that will be total buffer area in its natural state. The remaining lot, the lot that would be scheduled for development, that has to remain, 30% of it has to remain green space under the zoning code for the Town. So there’s going to be a lot of area here left to pervious area, if not in a natural condition. MRS. LABOMBARD-I have one more question, to John, all right, then answer this for me, and I’m not being the Devil’s Advocate. I’m really being sincere about this. Then what you just said about fairness is the way I came in here tonight. Okay. Then I hear, from all these people, that their property values haven’t gone up, which, believe me, I couldn’t get out of my house what I built it for five, six years ago, all right. So I can buy that with no problem, but the disparity of that property that’s going to be sold for an exhorbinant amount of money which is far more than the purchase price, so then this person comes up, and says, Mr. Troelstra says, we’re going to give up the residents home for the sake of the donation. Now, you know, that’s their biggest investment that these people have made in their lives, and these homes by no means are the $350,000, $400,000 homes in other areas of Queensbury, and I’m thinking, well, you know, that’s a lot for these people to give up. 40 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. LEMERY-I don’t question any of that, but I don’t see the relevancy, I’m having trouble with the relevance. It’s not a legitimate zoning question. The idea that, see, that says leave it the way it is. That says, leave it forever the way it is, and that way, if you leave it that way, somehow that would have a positive effect on their property values. I don’t know whether it does or not. I don’t know whether people coming into the area look at everything else we’ve done here in the Town, at this area, and whether a 100,000 square foot addition to the Mall effects them, or whether a use of this site effects them or anything else. I don’t know how to answer that question, but I can tell you that if somebody goes in there, coming in to look, and they can say, yes, this is permanently protected here, this buffer that they’ve got here has been deeded for permanent and it can never be changed. You won’t see Aviation Mall from Greenway North. You won’t see, with the kind of buffer that this ample buffer is, and the way it is now, they’re at risk for the whole thing being taken down by somebody and doing something else with it, and that’s my point. MR. PALING-Okay. MRS. LABOMBARD-I thank you, John. I really appreciate your comments. MR. PALING-I think that the dialogue has really gone on to a good extent, and we can open again, if necessary. However, what I would like to do at this point in time is to cut off all input from either the public or from the applicants, and let the conversation now come up to the Board, and we will be asking you questions of various people, especially the applicant. That’s usually the way it works. Does everyone agree with that, for the moment? All right. Does anyone want to start off, or do you want me to pick someone and get some thoughts as to where we’re going or should be on this? MR. RINGER-I find it very difficult, certainly, and that’s why everyone’s here. I don’t feel that the SFR-10 is the proper zone for this property. However, I also don’t feel that the HC-1A is either, and I would have an extremely difficult time, since our only choice tonight appears to be to zone it, to recommend an HC-1A, I would have a lot of trouble with that, because I don’t feel that SFR-10 is right. I don’t feel the other one’s right, either. So I think we should come up with another plan, but we’re not able to do that tonight because that’s not our choices. MR. PALING-So what are you saying that you’d like to do? MR. RINGER-I’m saying I wish we could come up with another plan, but we don’t have that. The way I see this, we’ve only got two choices, either to say no, or to say yes, HC-1A is what it should be. MR. PALING-We can come up with a resolution which has conditions attached to it as a recommendation to the Board. MR. BREWER-We’ve done it in the past. We can make a recommendation to not re-zone it HC- 1A, and we feel that it should be re-zoned Plaza Commercial, for instance, or whatever we feel that we want it to be. I agree with you, and I don’t think HC-1A is the proper zone. I think there’s other options. He can get a variance. I don’t know. I just don’t like the idea of looking at a piece of property with a site plan on it. There’s too many issues that confused me, and maybe a lot of other people. I think if the Cracker Barrel wasn’t even brought out and you wanted to do the property, maybe you could toss around other arguments, but I couldn’t vote to approve it. MR. PALING-Well, what do you want to do? Do you just want to vote against it, or do you want to have a suggestion? MR. BREWER-No. It’s a tough decision to make. I mean, it’s not fair to Mr. Wood to have it be forever wild and still charge him taxes every year on it, but I also don’t think it’s fair to just go in and rip everything up and not offer these people any protection. So I don’t know. MR. PALING-All right. Roger, how about you? MR. RUEL-I don’t think anybody’s going to like what I have to say. I recognize that many residents oppose this re-zoning, which I’ve heard this evening. However, there are a lot more residents in the rest of Queensbury. So I believe in voting for something that’s beneficial to all of Queensbury. I’m not swayed, necessarily, by a small power group that wants something done in their area. These are some of the reasons I favor re-zoning. It will increase employment, as a ratable to increase tax revenues, and to help in cutting costs in the sewer district. All of these things are beneficial to all people in Queensbury. Re-zoning will provide a positive buffer. It was 41 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) mentioned over and over again that you don’t have a buffer, but you will have a buffer if this re- zoning goes through. Three, the property was re-zoned in 1988 from commercial to residential without the owner’s consent. If I owned a piece of land and suddenly it was re-zoned, and the zoning was such that it was now worthless, I think I would be very upset and I think I would ask for re-zoning, just as these people are doing. These applicants have a right, just as much a right as you have. The owners tried to sell the property for five years with no takers. Traffic studies, there were two of them. First we had one study, the last time the Red Lobster go around, and no one believed the first study, so we had a second study made, and it indicated no substantial traffic impact. So these are my reasons. I would definitely vote for re-zoning this property. MR. PALING-Okay. Cathy? MRS. LABOMBARD-I’ve already said too much right now. I’ve got to think a little more. MR. PALING-All right, George, how do you feel? MR. STARK-I kind of echo Roger’s sentiments. MR. PALING-Okay. Craig, how about you? MR. MAC EWAN-Well, I think everybody’s got some pretty good comments, and we’ve gotten a lot of comments from both sides that have a lot of stock to it. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not prepared to make a decision for myself tonight. I think there’s a lot of information that I’ve listened to tonight, a lot of points that were brought up, that I’d like to have a little bit more definitive answers to. I will tell you that I don’t believe that it will remain Single Family Residential. However, I don’t believe that it should be Highway Commercial either, and in looking at that corridor, I went through and I just kind of highlighted all the properties that are just on Aviation Road from the Quaker Road intersection up to the Northway. On that stretch of road, there are five parcels that are Plaza Commercial, two that have restaurants on them. There are seven parcels that are Highway Commercial, three with restaurants on them. There are three parcels that are known as Enclosed Shopping Centers, with one restaurant on them, and there are four single family residences. These are all parcels that actually face that portion of Aviation Road I think there’s an opportunity in here to set the record straight, so to speak, to do the right thing, but it’s a question as to what is the right thing. For my peace of mind, I want to know some specifics about the history of the property. One of these things that’s kind of hanging over my head right now is the situation when the property was originally re-zoned from 1967, and then to 1988. Was the property owner notified? I’d be real curious about that. I’d like to know that before I passed judgment or made a recommendation for re-zoning. I’d like to know what the traffic counts were the last two traffic studies that were done regarding the Greenway North intersection with that light, and if it indeed could be affected positively by synchronizing all these lights together. I want to know what the impact of the Aviation Road bridge is going to have on this. Will it definitely alleviate it? Will it create an overcrowding down the road? I want to know these answers before I would want to pass judgment on this, and more importantly, I would want to know, for my peace of mind, what would be appropriate uses for alternative zone changes that we could do. Instead of maybe necessarily a convenience store, maybe a professional office versus an insurance agency. I would like to know some different ideas that we could put together, and I think that these things are things that we need to do before we pass judgment on this thing. That’s where I’m coming from. MR. PALING-Okay. Cathy? MRS. LABOMBARD-I think Craig has said it really nicely. I’m not prepared to make a call on this right now. MR. PALING-All right. I have a similar feeling to both Cathy and to Craig, and I don’t think that we should dodge the issue. I think that we should somehow hopefully have another meeting with more input and make a decision at that time. I think that the primary concern is traffic, and what bothers me most about the traffic is the access in and out of the Greenway subdivision, whichever street you pick, and whether we like it or not, it’s a mess right now, and it’s not going to be cleared for two years, if the bridge has a positive impact. We’re talking that kind of thing, but, in the mean time, if you put a restaurant or anything there, it’s going to have an adverse effect on the biggest problem they’ve got, I think, going in and coming out of the subdivision, especially coming out trying to make a left turn, it’s kind of impossible there. I would like to see a review of the traffic study, and to Craig’s point, what effect that the opening of the bigger bridge will have on it, and I’d like to review what I think the traffic by itself is okay, the study, but I’d like to know more about 42 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) the bridge, and you said yourself the fantastic increase in volume that’s going to be using that bridge, well, hey, that’s going to aggravate the problem, also, and noise, I think, is solvable, I hope so, by our restrictions and things like that. I sold a home a couple of years ago in this Town at a loss. I know what the experience there is. I am concerned with air quality. I’d like some more on that. Most of this can be taken care of, I think, but traffic is my major problem. So what I propose is a re-visit to the traffic problem, and specifically the effect of a new bridge and that longer range plan where we have a short circuit, a buffer road, whatever you want to call it, going across to alleviate the problem of cars coming off the bridge and going north on Route 9, I refer to specifically, and I would be in favor of a list of specific questions that the Board has, and then convene at another meeting and make a final recommendation at that time. I’d like to see this re- zoned, but I don’t think we have got enough to make a firm recommendation yet. So that would be, and I’d like to get, is that generally what the Board would like to do is to get more information and reconvene? MR. BREWER-I’m set. I mean, if you want more information, fine, sure. MRS. LABOMBARD-Wait a minute. Remember, this is just a recommendation to the Town Board. MR. PALING-That’s right, but to make a good recommendation, I’d like a little more information. Can they make a decision without our recommendation? MR. BREWER-Yes, they can. MR. PALING-That is up to them. I don’t know. We can tell them that we didn’t make a decision tonight. If we choose to, it’s the consensus of the Board, we’d call for more information. We’ll have the meeting as soon as we, a special meeting or whatever, and then we’ll make a recommendation at that time. Does that seem to be okay? All right. Now I want to do two things. I want to hear from this gentleman on the buffer, okay. Would you care to come up and make your comments? I’ll re-open the public hearing for that purpose. PUBLIC HEARING RE-OPENED DOUG MILLER MR. MILLER-One question or concern that I still have is buffer. It’s continually said that the applicants will provide a buffer of 100 feet that will be a separate plot, a separate piece of land that will be detached from the rest of the business. When this was in front of the Town Board last year, that same comment was made, and Jim Martin, at that time said, Town Board members keep in mind that there is a plan that is being reviewed for putting a road through, or widening Old Aviation Road as a bypass, and we will have to take probably 75 feet. The Town will take it. So that shortens your buffer. That’s why I say, the buffer, keep saying that this gives them protection of 100 feet. It’s a bit of smoke and mirrors. MR. BREWER-Wasn’t that a conceptual plan that was thought up as an alternative? MR. MILLER-It’s not finalized yet, but that’s part of the planning that the Planning Board should be looking at. MR. PALING-Okay. Should be, it is conceptual. Now would you care to comment on the buffer, this gentleman’s question? MR. LEMERY-The 100 feet that we said we would provide would be provided. As I mentioned when I spoke earlier, the Glens Falls Transportation Council has looked at putting a road in from where True Value is over along Old Aviation Road, and taking the piece of the Hole in the Woods property along the Old Aviation Road as part of that, to. MR. PALING-That would be part of the buffer, right? MR. LEMERY-That would be part of the 100 feet, but the size of the road is 50 feet, not 75 feet. So, the reason we make this 100 feet as opposed to the last time when we were here at 75 feet, is to provide enough room so that if the Town, and this is where Roger Ruel’s point is well taken. If the Town decides it’s going to come in and do this, it’s going to have to take that land and buy it. We’re proposing that if it’s a permanent buffer and it’s deeded to the Town, then the Town already owns it to come in and put the road in. If that’s what the Town, the Transportation Council, and 43 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) everybody thinks is the appropriate way to deal with it. So we can’t answer that. We can’t do any more than say, here it is. If the Town takes it, it takes it. They’ll take it whether we’re here or not. MR. PALING-Okay. Well, that’s a condition, as you said, we had before on that. MR. LEMERY-Yes, right. MR. PALING-Okay. All right. Then the public hearing is re-closed. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. PALING-I think we’ve heard from everybody all your points, and I’ll just get a consensus, now, to see if we agree. I made a proposal. I haven’t made a motion yet. MR. LEMERY-I’d like to say one thing, and that is that we would not accept any designation that wasn’t commercial in nature and did not allow, we would be willing to take a highway, plaza designation, Plaza Commercial, or some other designation that allows the kinds of uses in a highway plaza. Any other would not be acceptable to the applicant. I’ll tell you this, because I try to speak frankly at these meetings. Traffic studies, to my way of thinking, you could go out and get traffic experts to tell you whatever you want to hear. We can drag traffic people through here and they’ll tell you that the bridge will do this in the year 2010 this will happen. In the year 2004, and all the rest of it, and that doesn’t answer the central question, which is, every time this Board and the Town Board or Zoning Board approves another project in the Town of Queensbury, it has a traffic affect, whether it’s this site or some other site. I don’t want this site to be pinned with some traffic issue. If there’s a site plan issue that we have to deal with because of the traffic on Greenway North, that’s fair, and we have to deal with it, but not on a re-zoning, and please don’t confuse a zoning request with a site plan. We understand that. We may come back with some very innovative things for you at the site plan process, but all we’re trying to do now is get it to the second stage, where the people can spend the money and do the work to try and come up with something that works. There’s no sense doing that if they’re not going to get anywhere. I ask you not to put your heads in the sand, because it’s not going to go away, and we can also talk about, I’d rather see this, I’d rather see that. I’d rather think about this. I’d rather think about that. We’re not going anywhere with it, because it is what it is what it is, and so I ask you to please re- think your statements here and deal with the re-zoning. We would accept a Plaza Commercial designation, which is less restrictive, but it still provides, really, for most of what we’re talking about, but it can’t be residential, and it can’t be, you know, and right now we have a contract for this. If this doesn’t work, maybe it’s a contract for something else, maybe it is a bookstore or something, but until it’s re-zoned, we can’t even deal with it. Thank you. MR. PALING-I think we’re to the point now we’re heard out. All right. It’s time for a resolution or a tabling or whatever. We seem to have had kind of a mixed bag all the way along. I would suggest that we need a little more information and another meeting, and then if the suggestion is bought, then we’re going to list what we want, and get a date for another meeting. MR. RUEL-Why don’t we face the issue now and stop postponing the inevitable. What are we going to do? Are we going to go over this exercise over and over and over again? MR. PALING-That’s why we’re here and everyone has their vote. MR. RUEL-It seems to me that we’ve got volumes of information here. What else do we need? MR. BREWER-A motion. Make a recommendation, if you feel the need to. MR. RUEL-People should make a decision. I mean, we had no decisions here. All I heard here is, well, maybe we should add this. Maybe we should add that, and no decision. It’s either yes or no. MRS. LABOMBARD-No, Roger, it’s not. You could feel that way. Okay. If you feel that way, that’s fine. Roger, if you feel strongly about something, I respect your opinion, but I just don’t. MS. NOWICKI-Bob, could I make a suggestion? My understanding is that each of you could make a recommendation to the Town Board, if you want to do it that way. MR. RUEL-Individually? MR. BREWER-Past history, we’ve always made a recommendation from the whole Board. 44 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MS. NOWICKI-I know. I’ll bring you another suggestion to consider. MR. PALING-Okay. Yes or no? Are you against another meeting? Craig? MR. MAC EWAN-No. MRS. LABOMBARD-I’m not against another meeting. MR. PALING-You’re not against it. Are you against another meeting, Tim? MR. BREWER-We’ve got another one next Tuesday. MR. RINGER-I’m not against another meeting. MR. PALING-The consensus is that we can have another meeting. MR. BREWER-Let me ask you this, Bob. What are you going to gain by another meeting? MR. PALING-What we’re going to gain is, I want to list, I have a couple of questions myself that I’d like to have more detail on. They’re minor concerns, mostly with traffic. MR. BREWER-But does the traffic have to do with re-zoning the property? You see, the whole thing that confuses me is you’re talking about traffic, which is fine, because we have a site plan in front of us, but we’re not separating the two issues. MR. PALING-I’m not talking about traffic circulation, traffic within the subdivision or within the restaurant, traffic in the area, the street. MR. BREWER-Bob, the point is, if they re-zone that property or don’t re-zone that property, the traffic is what it is right now, with nothing on the land. They still have to go for a site plan, which will address traffic at that time. MR. RUEL-He’s right. MR. MAC EWAN-Maybe we could put it this way. There are some of us up here who have some unanswered questions that we want to get answers to. There are some of you who feel that you have all the answers tonight to make a recommendation and introduce a resolution, but what I’m hearing is you guys not willing to introduce a resolution. If you feel that comfortable with it, and you feel that set in your mind about it, put it on the table and make a vote. MOTION TO RECOMMEND TO THE TOWN BOARD THAT WE DON’T RE-ZONE THE PROPERTY AS HC-1A. THERE’S OTHER AVENUES THAT THEY CAN EXPLORE , Introduced by Timothy Brewer who moved for its adoption, seconded by Catherine LaBombard: th Duly adopted this 18 day of November, 1997, by the following vote: MR. RUEL-I just wanted to mention that they will maintain a dedicated buffer zone, which is very important. MR. BREWER-I made my recommendation to not re-zone. MR. RUEL-Without it? MR. BREWER-Without it. MR. RUEL-Okay. AYES: Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Brewer NOES: Mr. Stark, Mr. Ruel, Mr. Paling ABSTAINED: Mr. MacEwan 45 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. BREWER-So that motion fails. So if somebody wants to make a motion to pass it, do so. If that fails, then you guys get your information and we do it again, or whatever you want to do, or we can have no action. MR. PALING-Well, my motion is that we poll the Board and get their specific questions. MR. STARK-Bob, what about Laura’s idea of an individual? MR. PALING-I don’t care for it, with all due respect. I think the Board should finally make a decision and pass it on to the Town Board, whatever it is. MRS. LABOMBARD-And won’t the Town Board go through this entire procedure again? Yes. So in other words, all these people are going to be there at the Town Board. MR. BREWER-Probably. Bob, if you want to do this, you and Craig get your information and maybe it’ll change somebody’s mind, or maybe it’ll satisfy somebody and we’ll do it again, we’ll vote next Tuesday, if that’s enough time, or have another meeting. MR. ROUND-The public hearing’s closed. You could meet without having a public hearing. I mean, this is a recommendation to the Town Board. You don’t necessarily have to meet. MR. BREWER-Yes, but that’s unfair. MR. PALING-We’re not meeting without a public hearing, Chris. MR. ROUND-That’s your prerogative, I guess. The other thing is, and I share the concern, is what additional information is going to help you resolve the issue at hand, or any issues that have not yet been addressed? MR. MAC EWAN-For me? As far as, a couple of things I need to have answered, just for my own peace of mind, is why was the zoning changed from what it was? If you can give me some minutes to those meetings back then, in 1967, and ’88. I want to know if the land owner was notified of those changes, like some say he was, some say he wasn’t. That’s for my own peace of mind. I want to know what this bridge widening for Aviation Road is going to show as traffic counts alleviating problems that are down there, specifically at the intersection of Greenway North and Aviation Road by the north end of the Mall. The reason why I’m looking for that information is that if there’s significant traffic count, to me, it would weigh on me as to what would be an appropriate use in a zone change. Some Highway Commercial uses which would be high volume traffic may not be appropriate, where some residential commercial or neighborhood commercial or professional commercial zones would have some uses in there that would be allowable and would fit in. That’s why I want that information. MR. ROUND-I understand the need. I guess I’m saying my guidance would be that there’s several commercial zones. There’s not a professional zone, per se on the books. MR. MAC EWAN-There are some uses in Plaza Commercial, Commercial Residential, and Neighborhood Commercial zones that are overlapping between those zones. MR. ROUND-Right. MR. MAC EWAN-I mean, some of those can be used for more than one zone. Some of those can be used for only one zone. By having that information to how these traffic counts work, especially, the comment was how it’s going to alleviate by synchronizing all these lights and traffic impacts on those intersections would weigh on me as far as what is going to be usable in those zones. Maybe a restaurant isn’t the ticket. MR. PALING-I think that is a legitimate point which is the way I think Craig and I feel, but I also say that it is a legitimate point, that if Cracker Barrel moved down and lets say built next to Red Lobster, they would probably create the same amount of traffic, and within the same street as they would if they moved in this where this lot is now, and we’ve got to bear that in mind when we try to blame the traffic all on one restaurant or one whatever. So I agree, essentially, with Craig. Those are my thoughts. Now I would like to make a motion that we do that. MRS. LABOMBARD-All right. Then make the motion. 46 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. PALING-Okay. Go ahead. MR. LEMERY-I wonder, if you come back to us, if we should table this, you come back to us with specific questions that perhaps we can answer relating to the site, a number of specific questions, and then if we could reconvene, as Tim said, next week or the week after, we will try and have these answers, and as best we can put them together relative to the issues that either the Planning Staff develops or you, the Planning Board, develop relating to the site. The problem with trying to figure out some special zone is it leaves us vulnerable to spot zoning, and we don’t want to get in that situation either, and either do you or the Planning Board. So the reason we’re looking at Plaza Commercial or Highway Commercial is because it’s consistent with the rest of Aviation Road, and to do something other than that puts us in a spot zone, and we don’t want to be there either. MR. MAC EWAN-I wasn’t inferring that we were, I was talking about spot zoning. In Plaza Commercial, there are a lot of Plaza Commercial. If it’s too much of a high traffic risk in there, maybe some uses within that Plaza Commercial zone wouldn’t be doable on this particular parcel. That’s what I’m getting at, and that’s how that information will help me make my decision. MR. PALING-That doesn’t violate the site plan kind of thing. MR. LUNT-Mr. Ruel mentioned something about the sewer district on Aviation Road. Is there a sewer district on Aviation Road for commercial? MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes. MR. PALING-Yes. MR. LUNT-Well, I want you to know that there is no sewer district for Greenway North. MR. PALING-That point was made previously. MR. LUNT-Well, I made it again. MR. PALING-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Whatever the rest of the Board wants to do, majority rules. MR. BREWER-Lets just get it over with. Whatever we’re going to do, lets do it. Lets not sit here until midnight and think about it. MR. PALING-Well, I propose a second meeting, that we poll the Board now and come up with specific questions that we have and we pass them on to the applicant. Hopefully we can have a final meeting a week from tonight. Tim, you have none? MR. BREWER-None. MR. PALING-Larry? MR. RINGER-My only questions he’s already answered, what he would accept for zones. MR. PALING-Okay. It’s got to be something commercial. I think we all understand that. Roger, what questions do you have? MR. RUEL-It’s crystal clear to me. I have no questions. MR. PALING-All right, Craig. MR. MAC EWAN-I already wrote them down. MR. PALING-You have your questions. George. MR. STARK-I have no questions. MRS. LABOMBARD-And I still have the question about getting the people out of that area easily, two years before the bridge is finally constructed, if something goes in there. 47 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. PALING-That has to do with the traffic. MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes, that there is an egress out of that development, in the two years before the bridge is, or the road is widened or the bridge is built, and then what kind of impact a commercial building going up there is going to do, as far as the traffic situation goes. MR. PALING-I think what we’re asking for is a review of the traffic study, to include the effect of the bridge. MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes, but the bridge, I want to know what’s going to happen in the two years before the bridge is built. Obviously, after the bridge is built, everything is going to be fine. MR. PALING-Okay. Gentlemen, can we have your attention. What we’re going to ask for is a review of the traffic study, and it’s got to include the effect that the bridge will have on it, and what effect the traffic will have as it increases between now and the completion of the bridge. Okay, and, Craig, you wanted a review of the zoning changes on this, dates and that, okay. Now, I’m not going to do this without a public hearing, okay, because we’re just not going to cut that off. Can we do this, legally, and have this meeting next week? If we table it, I think we can. MR. BREWER-How big of an agenda do we have next week? MR. RUEL-Do you think the applicant will have all this information? MR. PALING-I don’t know. Do you think you will have? MR. BREWER-The week after next. MR. PALING-Next week shouldn’t be too bad. MR. LEMERY-It’s Thanksgiving week. Some of us are out of Town next week. MR. PALING-Well, then we have to go through the notification process, then. MR. ROUND-You don’t have to. There’s not a public hearing required. So there’s not a public notification required. MR. PALING-But how do we let these people know the date? MR. BREWER-We’ll set a date right now. MR. ROUND-You can choose to publish that in the paper if you so choose. MR. PALING-Okay, advertise in the paper. Would you want to set a date now? MR. LEMERY-Sure, and we have no trouble at all with another public hearing and letting everybody say what they need to say. So that’s not an issue as far as we’re concerned. MR. PALING-All right. Why don’t you pick a date. Now the first meeting in December is on the th 16. MR. BREWER-We can do it before then, Bob. MR. PALING-Yes, that’s right. ndth MR. BREWER-Do it the 2 or the 9. MR. STARK-The second? MR. BREWER-The second’s fine. MR. PALING-Well, lets see what John said. nd MR. LEMERY-December 2? 48 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) nd MR. PALING-December 2 is all right? MR. LEMERY-Yes, sir. MR. PALING-All right. We’ll have a special meeting on December 2, 1997. Laura, you’re going to have to tell us where the meeting will be, well, we’ve got to have it here. We can’t, there’s no place big enough to have it otherwise. Could we have an alternate date, please, if the room is not available? John, could we have an alternate date if the room is not available? We need this room. The ninth? MR. LEMERY-Sure. MR. PALING-All right. Either the second or the ninth. Chris or Laura, what can Staff do to add to the information on this? MR. ROUND-I think there’s several questions that are easily answered as far as the historical zoning, whether there was public notification. MR. PALING-All right. Then you can take care of that part of Craig’s question. MR. ROUND-As far as traffic impacts, I don’t know, that’s beyond the scope of the Either the second or the ninth. Chris or Laura, what can Staff do to add to the information on this? MR. ROUND-I think there’s several questions that are easily answered as far as the historical zoning, whether there was public notification. MR. PALING-All right. Then you can take care of that part of Craig’s question. MR. ROUND-As far as traffic impacts, I don’t know, that’s beyond the scope of the Staff’s technical expertise. MR. PALING-That’s right. MR. ROUND-I don’t know what you’re looking for. I know there’s existing traffic studies of the corridor. You can get traffic counts. There’s level of service details, but what do you hope to extract from that in regard to this decision making process? We can give you what’s available, but we’re not going to provide any analysis. MR. PALING-No. You wouldn’t. MR. MARTIN-Just as a point, there’s going to be a lot of good data available, and it’s rare that you’re going to have such good data in the fact that DOT’s done extensive work on that bridge, and there’s going to be data about the trip generation in the area, traffic counts, levels of service. It’s going to be. MR. PALING-Is that available now? MR. MARTIN-Yes. That’s available. It was available with the environmental review of the bridge widening. MR. PALING-You could participate in that. The Staff could participate in that. MR. ROUND-Yes. I’m saying we could provide it to you, but. MR. MARTIN-What’s nice about that data is it’s not, you know, as one gentleman was intimating, that if we get it it’s going to be somehow poisoned, that’s from the State. MR. BREWER-It still might be poisoned. MR. PALING-Couldn’t we also get independent comment? MR. MAC EWAN-Bob, all I want Staff to do for me is just what they have in their files right now. I don’t want them to go out and hire consultants. 49 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) MR. MARTIN-Even, you know, call Mark Kennedy at DOT, George Hodges, the Project Manager on the bridge widening, either one of those two gentleman would have information that they could fax to you. MR. PALING-Am I the only one hung up on the traffic? MRS. LABOMBARD-No. I’m hung up on the traffic. MR. MAC EWAN-What I asked for for my peace of mind with the traffic they’ve got. MR. PALING-What is that? MR. BREWER-The traffic study. MR. MAC EWAN-The DOT study was part of, that’s what I’m really primarily looking for. MR. PALING-And I wonder if there’s some way we can get comment on the effect of the bridge. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s it. That’s the DOT study. MR. PALING-All right. Then you can provide that to us. MR. BREWER-Yes, that’s what they said. MR. ROUND-I’m saying we could provide that to you, but how is the re-zoning going to effect the traffic counts? I guess I’m not sure what you’re looking for. My interpretation was you were looking for some level of analysis there, and how the two relate to one another. You’re going to have a document that you can review. We can provide that to you. MR. MAC EWAN-You give me the document, I’ll do the analysis. MR. ROUND-All right. You’ve got it. MR. LEMERY-Mr. Chairman, we have a traffic study that we commissioned, which was done by Levine back in ’92 or ’93, which dealt with all these. We could get that updated and provide it. MR. PALING-It sounds tough to do that and have it real. MR. LEMERY-We can get that done. Because all the data, the other data, is there. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s not necessary. All I want is that DOT study. That’s all I’m interested in, along with the questions I was asking about the zone changes. MR. PALING-Okay. I can live with that. All right. We’re going to get both of these items from Staff, and then as optional, if the applicant wants to add data additional to it. Okay. nd MR. MARTIN-We’re shooting for December 2 as a first option? th MR. PALING-With the 9 as a fall back if we can’t make it. ndth MR. LEMERY-Who’s going to let us know? When do we know if it’s the 2 or the 9? MR. PALING-As soon as we know the availability of the room, that’s all. We’ll tell you tomorrow morning. MR. LEMERY-Great. MR. BREWER-All right. We’ve got to make a motion to table, though. MR. PALING-Okay. MOTION TO TABLE CRACKER BARREL OLD COUNTRY STORE PETITON FOR ZONE CHANGE 1-97 , Introduced by Robert Paling who moved for its adoption, seconded by Timothy Brewer: 50 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 11/18/97) ndth That this be tabled until December 2 or December 9, whichever date the meeting room’s available. We’re going to advertise it in the paper. th Duly adopted this 18 day of November, 1997, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Paling NOES: Mr. Ruel MR. PALING-Remember, the election of officers is next Tuesday night, and I wonder if there’s st any comments or questions about that? Whoever’s elected takes over the 1 of January. On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Robert Paling, Chairman 51