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1998-01-20 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING FIRST REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 20, 1998 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT CRAIG MAC EWAN, CHAIRMAN CATHERINE LABOMBARD, SECRETARY LARRY RINGER TIMOTHY BREWER ROBERT PALING MEMBERS ABSENT GEORGE STARK PLANNER-LAURA NOWICKI TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX & PRATT, MARK SCHACHNER STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI CORRECTION OF MINUTES October 21, 1997: NONE October 28, 1997: NONE MOTION TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF OCTOBER 21 AND 28, STTH Introduced by Robert Paling who moved for its adoption, seconded by Larry Ringer: Duly adopted this 20 day of January, 1998, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Paling, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Brewer, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Stark OLD BUSINESS: SUBDIVISION NO. 11-1997 PRELIMINARY STG. FINAL STAGE TYPE: UNLISTED BAY WEST ASSOCIATES, LLC OWNER: MICHAEL & RALPH WOODBURY ZONE: HC-1A LOCATION: WEST SIDE BAY ROAD, NORTH OF GLENWOOD & SOUTH OF CRONIN APPLICANT PROPOSES A CLUSTER SUBDIVISION OF 4.05 ACRES INTO 4 LOTS - 3 COMMERCIAL LOTS AND 1 COMMON AREA LOT. MATT STEVES & JIM MILLER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Subdivision 11-1997 Preliminary & Final Stage, Bay West Associates, L.L.C., Meeting Date: January 20, 1998 “The applicant proposes a subdivision under the cluster regulations of the Town. Sketch plan was discussed at the December 9 meeting. The applicant has provided the th required information for preliminary and final subdivision review. The Board was concerned that the applicant did not provide enough landscaping/plantings to the west/back of the parcel to screen the abutting lot from an office building. A landscape plan for lot one of the cluster subdivision was provided for the site plan review application.” 1 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. MAC EWAN-Is there any engineering? There was only, wasn’t there, from Rist-Frost? MS. NOWICKI-Yes. That’s for the site plan. So we’ll wait. MR. MAC EWAN-Nothing for the subdivision, then. Okay. Gentlemen. MR. MILLER-I’m Jim Miller from Miller Associates, and Matt Steves from Van Dusen & Steves. We were here last month at conceptual, and if you recall, the proposal is a three lot subdivision that would allow the construction of three office buildings. The project will utilize the existing driveway that’s there, updating that to a divided boulevard with a new entry sign. All the stormwater drainage from the site will be collected and tied into storm drainage on Bay Road, by way of the existing connection that’s there now. In addition, the storm drainage, we’d provide a storm water detention basin that would take the heaviest storms and release the water gradually into the system. All buildings are one story, brick professional office. All the entrances to the buildings will be off of the front parking area. There’ll be a common parking lot. The main entrances will be concrete sidewalk, low, historic type lights similar to the ones that are in Downtown Glens Falls, low level lighting to try to stay more residential in character, and not commercial type lighting, and all of the buildings will face, the backs of the buildings will face toward the adjoining properties. There’ll be no service roads or service areas or anything associated with the rears of the buildings. There’ll simply be windows and fire exits. Any activity to the rear of the building may be, some tenants may put a picnic table or something out there, but there’s no service or any activity around the perimeter of the building. All utilities, sewer, water, electrical, gas service will come in from Bay Road. There is one fire hydrant, the water line that comes in from Westwood, there’s an existing fire hydrant in the location of this building here. What we’ve proposed is to keep that hydrant, just for fire protection, be relocated to an island here. So it would serve not only this project, but it would also be available, the units of Westwood, which are situated right here. All water service for these buildings will be brought in new from Bay Road. The intent is that there’ll be three lots of each of the three buildings, and the rest of the land will be held in common, a homeowners association type agreement, which all maintenance and ownership and operation of that lot will be common with all three. As we explained last month, the primary reason for doing this is essentially for financing of the building so each building can be separately mortgaged on its own deeded property and share ownership with the common lot. MR. MAC EWAN-There’s some new faces in the audience tonight. Can you very quickly give an overview of what you mean by so called like a footprint type subdivision, so these people understand what you’re up against. MR. MILLER-Actually, the ownership of these office buildings is very similar to the ownership of the townhouses, is that the actual lot line will be the perimeter of the building, and all the land surrounding it will be commonly owned. So there will essentially be four lots, one for each building, and then the balance. By doing this, it’s not increasing the density or the amount of building or anything. It’s just simply that three buildings can stand on their own separate parcels. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Anything else? Has anybody got any questions up here? MR. BREWER-Yes, I’ve got one question, maybe. How big are each of the buildings? TOM NACE MR. NACE-About 10,000 square feet. 2 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. BREWER-I answered my own question. The cluster provides the area for the buildings to make up the lot. MR. NACE-That’s correct. MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else? MR. BREWER-No. I think I asked that last month, too. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. All right then if you guys want to give up the table, we’ll open up the public hearing. This is for the subdivision, this parcel, this public hearing. If it all goes according to plan, it would be a three step process, Preliminary and Final we are doing on the subdivision. If they are approved and Site Plan Review which will deal with the aesthetics of landscaping, the buildings themselves and so on and so forth. So if anyone wants to speak regarding the subdivision of this parcel, please come right on up to the microphone, identify yourself, please, and ask your question or give your comments. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED HOWARD KRANTZ MR. KRANTZ-Howard Krantz, representing the homes at Westwood, which is the property immediately to the west of the project site. I’ve had some very brief discussion with the principles for the project, and just very briefly, just want to express a couple of concerns that my clients have, and what I believe are resolutions to them. The first has to do with the water line. The existing water line comes from the Westwood property from the west. I believe it’s an existing line, comes into the property, and as I understand it, will be rerouted somewhat to the northeast and dead ending at a hydrant, and it will be used just for that purpose, for hydrant purposes, and there’s a separate line serving the project site for more domestic water purposes. MR. MAC EWAN-That existing water line that you’re referring to, that goes through the footprint for building one? MR. KRANTZ-That’s right. MR. MAC EWAN-Services just a fire hydrant? MR. KRANTZ-That’s my understanding of what they’re proposing, correct, and what apparently didn’t happen, at least we haven’t found it yet, in the original documentation, when Westwood was set up, in the Offering Plan, it was not clear the responsibility and the rights of Westwood with respect to that water line. My clients understand that they are responsible, and the owner of that water line, at least the portion that’s within their property, and John Goralski was of the same opinion, and that this water line is now going to come in and also serve a hydrant as well on this project site, and what we tried to do is clarify the respective responsibilities of the principles here on this project site as Westwood as to that line, and it’s my understanding that if any problem occurs on the Westwood property, they’ll take care of it, if there’s a break, and likewise the principles will do the same on their side. MR. MAC EWAN-Is the hydrant that’s on the Westwood side, now Westwood, all the roads in there are privately maintained? They’re not Town roads, per se? MR. KRANTZ-That’s correct. MR. MAC EWAN-They’re maintained by private contractors. So the hydrant is also maintained by private contractors on a yearly basis, whenever they flush them out or whatever? 3 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. KRANTZ-That’s right. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. KRANTZ-And what hopefully will happen when any flushing occurs, they can coordinate between the two, so there’s no problem with that. The second area of concern was lighting, as some of the homes in Westwood are somewhat close to the westerly property line of the project site. They just want to minimize the lighting that could impact upon the sleeping and other enjoyment of their homes, use of their homes, and as I understand it, there’s one light which would come off the southwest corner of proposed building number three. That’s an outside light, and I asked the principles if they could shield that. There’s really no need for lighting going to the west. That’s just spilling light over onto Westwood, and if my understanding is correct, they agreed that they would shield that light, if you can see where that is on the plan. MR. MAC EWAN-I see where there’s a freestanding one. MR. KRANTZ-That’s the one I’m referring to. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. KRANTZ-Right, and I didn’t see any other fixtures, lighting fixtures next to the west end of building number three. So I don’t think that would be a problem. Some of these are details that would be site plan, but we just thought if we could clear them up now very quickly. MR. MAC EWAN-Nothing wrong with that. MR. KRANTZ-And the third had to do with some screening. There are some existing trees running along the properties, along the common property line, but these are older trees. They’ve topped out. At the bottom, all you have is a trunk and not much screening at all, and I asked the principles if they’d be kind enough to plant some evergreen spruce type trees between these others at appropriate locations, just to provide mutual screening for both, and they agreed to do so. We don’t have any. MR. MAC EWAN-That was an item that was discussed at sketch plan, and I think will be covered in great detail at site plan, should we get there. MR. KRANTZ-Those are our areas of concern, which I believe we have agreement on. This is the President of Westwood. LOTHAR BACHEN MR. BACHEN-Yes. My name is Lothar Bachen. We had a few questions on the noise factor, where the new development would have garbage dumped, or dumpsters, and whether a way could be found to screen our little development from outside noise like that. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. We’ll address those issues. MR. BACHEN-And we had another question, also, about how high would these buildings be? MR. MAC EWAN-All right. We’ll get that one answered for you as well. MR. BACHEN-And would there ever be, in the future, a possibility that they would be made two story buildings? That that would be done? MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. 4 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. BACHEN-And that’s basically all I have. MR. MAC EWAN-We’ll get those questions answered for you. MR. BACHEN-Thank you. MR. KRANTZ-Thank you very much. MR. MAC EWAN-Anybody else? Okay. We’ll close the public hearing on this. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. MAC EWAN-And we need to do a SEQRA. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 11-1997, Introduced by Catherine LaBombard who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Paling: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: BAY WEST ASSOCIATES, L.L.C., 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. Duly adopted this 20 day of January, 1998, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Paling, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Brewer, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Stark 5 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I guess there were like five concerns that came up, and I think only one of them that I’m seeing on my list represents itself to subdivision. It’s regarding the existing water line that services that hydrant. MR. NACE-Okay. The existing water line coming into the back of the site is private. It was put in evidently at a time when Mike Woodbury was managing or controlled both projects, this site and the Westwood project. Therefore, we are not proposing to use it for domestic service, okay. For domestic service we will go ahead and tap off the line on Bay Street. However, the line on Bay Street is on the opposite side, and it would make it very expensive to bring a fire main across. We would have to put a boring under the road. With a smaller domestic service line, we can put it under the road with a mole, much less expensive. What we would like to do, we propose to leave a hydrant on site, served through the existing private line, which would just be for fire protection. It would serve not only this project, but it would be a second fire service that the fire companies could use to get at the back of some of the buildings on Westwood. So there is some purpose, we feel, for leaving it there. We will agree to maintain our portion of it, to pay the cost of any repairs, and flushing the line, and coordinate with Westwood to do that. MR. MAC EWAN-So basically what you’re going to do, then, you’re just going to tie into the existing line, reroute it per se, and put a hydrant in, and the line’s only going to be used for the two hydrants. MR. NACE-That’s correct. MR. MAC EWAN-And you’re going to put in separate service for water service to the buildings? MR. NACE-That is correct. MR. MILLER-There’s only going to be one hydrant. There’s one there now. We’re just relocating the one hydrant that’s there. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I thought there was a hydrant on their property? MR. NACE-Yes, right, we’re not touching that. We’re just re-locating the one on our property. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Anything else? MR. NACE-No. We can address the other issues now, or at site plan. Whenever you. MR. MAC EWAN-I think they’re more site plan issues. MR. NACE-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Does anybody on the Board have any questions? Staff? Would anybody like to make a motion? MOTION TO APPROVE PRELIMINARY STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 11-1997 BAY WEST ASSOCIATES, L.L.C., Introduced by Robert Paling who moved for its adoption, seconded by Catherine LaBombard: With the provision that the water lines be re-routed to accommodate two hydrants. One would have to be relocated, and that the water system for this subdivision will be accommodated by a new line to be installed separately. Duly adopted this 20 day of January, 1998, by the following vote: th AYES: Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Paling, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE 6 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) ABSENT: Mr. Stark MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Lets move on. MR. BREWER-We’ve got to do a motion for Final, don’t we? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. MRS. LABOMBARD-All right. Now we’re just going to continue on with Subdivision No. 11-1997 for the Final Stage for Bay West Associates. MR. MAC EWAN-Anything new to add? MR. NACE-No. MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t think we really have anything to discuss. I’m going to put it up for a motion, if anybody wants to put it up for a motion to approve Final subdivision. MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 11-1997 BAY WEST ASSOCIATES, L.L.C., Introduced by Timothy Brewer who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Paling: Duly adopted this 20 day of January, 1998, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Ringer, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Paling, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Stark NEW BUSINESS: SITE PLAN NO. 1-98 TYPE: UNLISTED BAY WEST ASSOCIATES, L.L.C. OWNER: MICHAEL & RALPH WOODBURY ZONE: HC-1A LOCATION: BAY ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES PROFESSIONAL OFFICES. PER SECTION 179-23 PROFESSIONAL OFFICES ARE A TYPE II SITE PLAN REVIEW USE WHICH IS SUBJECT TO REVIEW AND APPROVAL BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE: SUB. 11-1997 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 1/14/98 TAX MAP NO. 61-1-37.3 TOM NACE & JIM MILLER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 1-98, Bay West Associates, L.L.C., Meeting Date: January 20, 1998 “The applicant proposes to construct a building for office use. The building is located on one lot of the Bay West Associates Cluster subdivision. The applicant has provided all the requirement for site plan review.” MS. NOWICKI-Rist Frost comments. “We have received and reviewed Nace Engineering, P.C.’s letter of January 20, 1998, responding to our comment letter of January 15. The responses to our comments are satisfactory.” th MR. BREWER-There’s another letter after this, you mean? MS. NOWICKI-There’s a letter after that, which is in your packet of things. Beautification Committee, “Jim Miller presented site plan and proposed new building. This is phase one of improvements to property. 1) Entry sign by road will be brick and carved wood, naturalized with trees, bushes and accented with seasonal flowers. Sign up lite from below. 2) Light for parking 7 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) lot to be set as lower style lamps and attached building lamps. 3) Building and parking lot to be heavily planted with bushes and perennials. Use of existing site trees, accented by addition of trees, bushes and seasonal annuals. 4) No dumpster planned on site at this time. Mrs. Gosline asked future phases take into account addition of dumpster with care to screen dumpster appropriately at that time if added. Mrs. Carpenter made motion to accept plan as presented. Seconded by Mrs. Reese. 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 plants, 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. MAC EWAN-Is that it? Now your comments. MR. MILLER-Jim Miller. Phase One Site Plan is basically the construction of this building on the southerly side of the property, and it would include the parking directly in front of it, and all the site work facing onto Bay Road, including the driveway, the divided driveway and the sign, and also there’s a small parking lot and a two car garage on the east side of the building that will be part of that first phase. One of the questions that came up, you can see on this plan the construction ends right at the end of building one. So there’ll be nothing in the back here next to Westwood on lot three. Everything will be forward of that. One of the questions dealt with site lighting. You can see on this detail here that the lights that we’re proposing are a decorative traditional style light on a twelve foot high pole. These are similar to Downtown Glens Falls, Downtown Saratoga type lights. These will be located, there’s four of them located in front of the building. There’ll be a sidewalk paralleling the parking area. There’ll be four lights located along that sidewalk. There’s one additional light out, you know, the driveway, to light the entry drive, and in addition, there’ll be building mounted lights. Each, there’s three entrances to the building. Each one will be a covered entrance, and there’ll be lighting suspended, or in some fashion, on the under side of the ceilings on each of those entrances. The only lighting would be toward the back of the building. There’ll be three fire exit doors across the back, and there’ll probably be some small safety light, security light, but it would be no different than something that you would have at the back door of a residence or something like that, and these will be designed to just light the site and not shine out. This is fairly heavily treed along the property line here. There’ll probably be some lights at the entries to the garage. This first phase would include relocation of the hydrant that we talked about, bringing in the new water service. It would also include re-routing the storm line and construction of the stormwater detention basin, which would be constructed now and sized for the complete buildout of the project. In all of this, all parking and driveway areas will be paved with asphalt. If you’ve been down at the site, the area in the front, there’s quite a few birch trees that have been planted there, and our intent is to relocate those and transplanting them with a tree spade, increasing some of the trees between our entry and the dentist’s office. The parking lot for Evelyn’s Florist shop is here, and the intent here is to develop a cedar hedge around that parking lot, not only to buffer the parking area from our entry road, but also to provide some buffer for our project for their property. This garage is specifically for the use of one of the tenants. One of the tenants is a surveyor, and this is used to store materials and two trucks, business owned trucks. The intent is that this parking area would provide a service, or employee parking area, and the main entrance for customers would be the front entrances. They’re moving multiple tenants in this building, possibility of up to six tenants per building. This first building will more than likely have four, and each one would have no more than two tenants per entrance. So the idea is that this would function, any customers coming to these properties have direct parking immediately at the entrance to each of the businesses they want to come to. Landscaping we’re 8 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) proposing at this point in addition to the screening is tree planting down the entry to create a treed entry, and then the entire front of the property would be landscaped, ornamental trees and shrubs, to access the entrances we’re proposing a significant amount of annuals for summer color, and as you can see what we’ve started to do is introduce some shade trees in the parking lot. As the future phases are built out, these islands will end up in the parking lot breaking up some of the pavement area. So we’re starting some of the curbs and some of the tree planting at this time. One of the other questions that came up dealt with the height of the building. There’s an architectural elevation of the building. It’s brick. One story. I imagine the height probably somewhere around 20 feet. I don’t know exactly, but it’s one, we’re proposing one story. There was a question about whether or not any of the buildings in the future would be two story. Our intent is they will not, but we would like to withhold that, because this, like any other development, we don’t know what may come down the road. If a specific tenant comes in and has a request where they wanted to do a two story building, we’d obviously have to modify the site plan and come back. Our intent is to have three separate one story buildings, but we don’t know what the future holds. One of the things that’s for sure, if that part of a building became two story, we can’t build any more square footage because we’re limited to provide the parking and the green space. So it’s not like one of these buildings, it’s not like we can build all three of them and one would be two stories. If one became two stories, then the third building would probably be eliminated, but that’s our intent. The intent is to break ground in the spring on a one story building. MR. MAC EWAN-What is the time line for the phasing of these buildings? MR. MILLER-What we’d like to do is phase one a year, but we’re looking at the possibility of maybe every other year, the way the contract is set up on the property. MR. PALING-There will be no dumpster on site. MR. MILLER-The first phase, half of the users of the buildings, most of the waste is paper products. All the paper products are now recycled. So there’s very little trash. What our intention is, is that the manager of the property will collect the trash and dispose of it. The recycled paper will probably be stored in an area in the garage, and then when it needs to be picked up, it’ll be collected. So right now we don’t envision having a dumpster. If at some point in the future a dumpster is necessary, we would indicate that. We’d have a common dumpster for the entire project, and we’d bring that in at one of the next phases of site plan, but right now, we have no need for a dumpster. MR. MAC EWAN-Do you know, off hand, are janitorial services going to be provided by the owner himself or like an outside service? MR. MILLER-I’m not sure at this point. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Does anybody else have any questions? MR. PALING-I’m still not, you want to be able to put a dumpster out there in the future, is that what you’re telling us? MR. MILLER-We don’t anticipate we will because most of the waste is going to be paper. So the paper will all be recycled. We’ll probably have a single trash can now, besides the paper storage, which would be stored in the garage, but we don’t see enough waste for a dumpster at this point. MR. PALING-Well, I think it’s got to be part of the motion that there wouldn’t be a dumpster, then. Until it could be separately (lost words). MR. MILLER-That’s fine. 9 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. BREWER-The trees you’ve got on the islands, without looking at this real carefully, what kind of trees and how big are they? MR. MILLER-Those are Summit Ash, and I think they were a three inch caliper tree. MR. BREWER-And you’ve got, in the center, how many, four? MR. MILLER-Four. MR. BREWER-And how far apart, Jim, about? MR. MILLER-Well, they’re probably about 60, 70 feet apart. The intention with those, Tim, is that when we do the next phase, they’ll end up being islands. Okay. MR. BREWER-Then you’ll alternate them on the other side? MR. MILLER-Yes. MR. BREWER-Okay. MR. MILLER-One of the comments that came up from the neighbors, which really applied to Building Three, there was a concern about the freestanding light back here. We would certainly screen it, and we’d certainly address that at site plan. Right now the closest light is up in here on this corner of the parking area. It may be possible, what we may do when we get to that phase, we may find that we have more than enough parking, in which case may not develop all this parking and leave it as a set aside. In which case, we wouldn’t even need that light. So when we get to that phase we could address that light. We certainly would screen it. The other comment had to do with some additional planting. They’re absolutely right, and Tom has some photographs. These trees are high crown trees, and you can look underneath them, but you can see there’s a space between the property line and where these trees are, and there was a concern for some additional screen planting, and we certainly would agree to do that, plant some evergreens, plant some spruce trees, something in there. We would ask that we do that, as part of building three, instead of doing it right now, is all. MR. MAC EWAN-Building Three. MR. MILLER-Yes, this back building. MR. BREWER-When they put the third building in. MR. MAC EWAN-How does everybody feel about that? MR. PALING-Maintenance is the responsibility of the association, that is maintenance of the grounds? MR. MILLER-That’s correct. MR. BREWER-I don’t have a problem with it. MR. RINGER-No, not until they build Building Three. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. That’s fine. MR. BREWER-We should somehow note on this plan, though, that when Building Three comes in, it’s been noted that you will supply the trees and the landscaping for that phase, though. 10 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. NACE-We could maybe try to pick a couple of the main gaps in here that are visible into Building One, and do that with some evergreen planting, do some of that in Phase One that would help screen this building. Because if, I’ll show you a picture, but right in here there is a gap in the existing stream that we could fill in at the first phase. MR. MAC EWAN-That will certainly show that you want to be a good neighbor. That’s a good idea. Is there anything else? Does anybody up here have any other questions? Okay. Why don’t we open up the public hearing on this site plan. I think we’ve addressed a lot of the concerns, but if anybody wants to come up and address the Board with questions or comments, please come right on up. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED NO COMMENT PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. MAC EWAN-Mark, do you have anything you want to input? Laura, anything? Anybody else up here on the Board got anything? Does anybody want to put a motion up on the table? MR. NACE-Craig, do you need to do an EAF? MRS. LABOMBARD-Is this Unlisted? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, it is. MR. SCHACHNER-Laura and I were just discussing that, but SEQRA, ideally your SEQRA review that you performed a few minutes ago should have been for the entire project, subdivision and site plan. Did you answer the question, Laura and I were just discussing this on the side, but I was assuming you were answering all the questions with the entire project in mind. Is that the case? MRS. LABOMBARD-I was. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, we’re okay. MR SCHACHNER-Okay, and the SEQRA Long Form EAF should specify, under the project description, that the project consists of both the subdivision and the site plan approval, the entire project, in other words, construction of the project. MRS. LABOMBARD-Should we say that, or what you just said is on record. MR. SCHACHNER-As long as you answered the questions for the entire project, and for future reference, that’s the appropriate way to conduct a SEQRA review. You’re not supposed to separate it out or segment it, part of the project and another part of the project. SEQRA review should be for the entire project and that’s how I assumed you were answering those questions. MRS. LABOMBARD-We were. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Moving right along. Do I have a motion? MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 1-98 BAY WEST ASSOCIATES, L.L.C., Introduced by Larry Ringer who moved for its adoption, seconded by Catherine LaBombard: With the following stipulations: That no dumpster is to be put in, as part of this phase, and the applicant will be putting trees in directly behind Building Number One. 11 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) Duly adopted this 20 day of January, 1998, by the following vote: th MR. RINGER-And that trees will be planted along and behind Building Number Three. MR. NACE-Behind Building Number One. MR. RINGER-I thought it was Three that buffered? MR. BREWER-No. They’re going to do that in Phase Three. MRS. LABOMBARD-He said he was going to put some in now for Building Three. MR. NACE-Yes. I think what I offered to do and what I had in my mind, there is a significant gap in the existing hedgerow behind Building One, and we could certainly fill that in. It would make sense to fill that in now, with the construction. We don’t want to do too much behind Building Three right now because it might be damaged during construction of Building Three. MR. MAC EWAN-What you say on that is the southwest corner of proposed project site, okay. MRS. LABOMBARD-Just the whole southern part, the hedge row, for more. MR. MAC EWAN-Specifically talking about the gap, though, in the property line toward the Westwood Homeowners Association property. MR. BREWER-Directly behind Building One. MR. MAC EWAN-Right. MR. NACE-Directly west of Building One. MRS. LABOMBARD-Okay. MR. RINGER-Okay, and that the applicant will be putting trees in directly behind Building Number One. AYES: Mr. Brewer, Mr. Paling, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ringer, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Stark MR. NACE-Thank you. MRS. LABOMBARD-Site Plan No. 2-98, Raymond F. Mahoney, Sr., is off the agenda for this evening. SITE PLAN NO. 3-98 TYPE: UNLISTED TIMOTHY BARBER OWNER: MICHELLE BARBER ZONE: SR-1A LOCATION: 635 LUZERNE ROAD PROPOSAL TO CONVERT AN EXISTING BOAT STORAGE BUILDING INTO A HORSE BARN FOR PRIVATE USE. PER SECTION 179-19 - FARM, ALL CLASSES, IS A TYPE II SITE PLAN REVIEW USE AND IS SUBJECT TO REVIEW AND APPROVAL BY THE PLANNING BOARD. THIS IS A CLASS A FARM DESIGNATION. TAX MAP NO. 125-1-4.1 LOT SIZE: 12.73+ ACRES SECTION: 179-19, 179-63 MICHAEL O’CONNOR, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. MAC EWAN-Staff Notes, please. 12 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MS. NOWICKI-I do have some amendments to it. So I’ll tell you when my amendments are about, because you don’t have a copy of the amendments. STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 3-98, Timothy Barber, Meeting Date: January 20, 1998 “The applicant proposes to use an existing structure as a barn for horses. Site plan review is required for a farm (all classes) in this zone (SR-1A). The current site has an approved structure, a private boat storage building - BP #97-566 issued on 10/20/97. The applicant has also constructed a fence on either side of the structure. The applicant’s parcel is 12.73 acres. The use is a Class A farm per Section 179-63 (Agricultural uses) and the applicant can have a maximum of six horses. Staff made the applicant aware that the well on site could become contaminated depending on the stormwater drainage pattern. The applicant indicated that the well is in the front yard and does not appear to be threatened by run off from the horse barn. Staff requested that a map of the wetlands be submitted with the application for a visual reference to where the path from the house to the barn was located.” MS. NOWICKI-This is where my amendments come in. So I’m crossing out from “The path/driveway…”, all the way down to the end. Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-You’re crossing out from where, now, “The path/driveway”? MS. NOWICKI-Yes, because the applicant has submitted a map of the wetlands. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MS. NOWICKI-And my amendments, “Staff would recommend the Board consider the following conditions within the resolution: 1. The conversion of a boat storage building to a horse barn as a farm structure. 2. The horse barn contain only four stalls for four horses as requested in the application. 3. Horses would be the only permitted agricultural use allowed. 4. The horse barn would have security lighting in the rear and the front. 5. The stalls would be equipped with a misting system for odor and pest control. 6. Waste from the stalls and riding area would be stored in air tight containers and be removed off site for disposal. 7. The riding area will have no lighting.” That’s it. MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else? MS. NOWICKI-No. MR. MAC EWAN-Would you identify yourself for the record, please. MR. O’CONNOR-Okay. Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m Michael O’Connor from the law firm of Little & O’Connor, and I’m representing Michelle and Timothy Barber who are here at the table with me. Their request is for approval to utilize an existing structure as a horse barn for a private hobby type use, not for a commercial use. We have no problem with the Board including all of the conditions or suggestions of Staff in the approval. That, in fact, is perhaps a very good narrative of actually what our application is. The location of this property, and I’ll try and, for the purposes of the record, run through what we typically would, and then get to any questions that you might have. On the south side of Luzerne Road, it’s just west of what we know as Clendon Brook, and the dip as you go out toward West Mountain Road. It’s about 500 feet east of West Mountain Road, or the intersection of West Mountain Road and Lake Luzerne Road, and it’s on the south side of the Luzerne Road, as I said. You probably would have to have some pretty exact directions to find the property because the property and its use is not very visible from the road. I think the house that’s shown on the survey is back some 422 feet from the road, and it’s 13 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) a very heavily treed lot. During this period of the time, this season, you probably can see the house and the outbuildings that are behind the house as you go in a westerly direction, as you look across at what is Clendon Brook, or the wetland of Clendon Brook, and except for the season, and except for the open space that’s over the top of the Brook, you really can’t see the activities of Mr. and Mrs. Barber, either their house or their proposed horse area, if you will, which is immediately behind their house. We’ve got a couple of photos, and maybe this gives you a better idea than any of the site. This is Luzerne Road here, and this is the same place on the photo. This is the Barber residence. You can see in the photo they have a pool in their back yard, and now they have a barn, and they have some areas fenced off, immediately behind their pool and their one family residence. There are no residences immediately adjacent to the area of the lot that they have activities on. Probably the closest that there is is the Roop residence, which is this little residence right here. We have a letter from Chris and Bonnie Roop saying that they have no objection, and I’ll get to it later. If you were trying to locate different properties, this is looking across the wetland. I see Mr. Carvin here. That’s probably his property right there. MR. MAC EWAN-Who’s this down here by your hand, in the lower left? MR. BREWER-Is that the Hall property where the barn is there? TIMOTHY BARBER MR. BARBER-That’s Greeno. MR. O’CONNOR-Okay. That’s Mr. Greeno, and I think there’s a Mr. Dean that might be (lost words) that you can’t see here, right in here. There’s a small house in here that you can’t see, by the name of Dean. We have letters from both of those two families, indicating that they have been told what’s going on, and they have no objection to it. I’ve also seen in the file the Town’s letter from a Mrs. Ackner, and her residence, if you see it, is up in here. That’s about 1100 feet from the area of the barn across the wetland and through the woods, if you will. I’ve driven up in here. I didn’t go out in people’s back yards, but I would think that you probably can’t see any of the activities from up here that are on this property, and the only place that you might see some of the activities are on the second floor of this property over in here, and that’s because of the season. That would give you a pretty good idea of the site that we’re dealing with. This photograph will probably pretty much of the same viewpoint, same vantage point. It’s just a little different angle of the camera, but again, it gives you an idea of how heavily treed the lot is and the property is. The other photo which we have probably really doesn’t do justice to the seclusiveness of the site, as it was taken more directly overhead, but it would show you exactly the residence of Mr. Barber and the proximity of what we’re talking about. This is going to be right immediately in his back yard. So when we get into a question of care and concern, I think that’s something that you could actually take into consideration. I’ll leave these up here in case anyone wants to comment. It might be helpful to the Board, if people do speak, they might locate themselves where they are. It might be a good idea, based upon the photo, as to close proximity of where they might be or might not be. The site that we’re talking about that’s shown on the survey is a 12.73 acre parcel of land. It is zoned SR-1A. The use that we’re talking about is a permitted use, subject to site plan, Type II review. Unfortunately, perhaps, the classification of what’s permitted because the size of the site is misleading to someone. This is not an application for a commercial farm or a Type A Farm, even though the site would permit that. In the past, I think I’ve always indicated that we, and that’s the applicant, not necessarily I, are willing to be bound by the minutes of your meeting that this is our application, and this is what we propose to do, and if we vary from that in any way, or any substantial way or material way, you’re certainly welcome to do whatever you think is appropriate. This is an application for a barn, for four horses that will be used in conjunction with the residential use of Mrs. Barber and Mr. Barber and their children. It’s 14 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) misleading, I think, to indicate that your approval, and there’s a letter on file that says that we are looking for a commercial farm or might very well go forth with a commercial farm, based upon the approval we’re seeking tonight. This is, in essence something, except for the size of the lot, probably should be classified as a Class D Farm, a hobby farm, if you will. One, even though it’s for large animals, for horses, it’s for the personal use or pleasure, and it’s incidental to the Barber’s residential use. MR. PALING-Could I interrupt just a second. What Mike O’Connor’s saying there is right, and the description of this farm really isn’t covered here, if you separate commercial from hobby use and factor in the size of the lot. It would be much better in Item Four, a Class D, except it says five acres, and you’ve got more than that. MR. O’CONNOR-I think the classifications in the section that you’re talking about simply are saying what might be permitted, but that doesn’t mean that that’s what we’re applying for. MR. PALING-This is a non commercial use. MR. O’CONNOR-This is a non commercial use. MR. BREWER-So we could approve it with those restrictions, specifically some of the ones, I don’t agree with all of the ones that she said, but, I mean, limit it to four horses, or whatever number we come up with, no commercial activity. MR. PALING-Without calling it a particular class. MR. BREWER-Exactly. MRS. LABOMBARD-Well, I have a question. What about like, you can have a maximum of six horses, but right now you only want to put four on? MR. O’CONNOR-We plan to have four. We think that we can live with four. I think there are four children. MRS. LABOMBARD-What if I asked you if you would board my horse? MR. O’CONNOR-No. MRS. LABOMBARD-Would you ever take in a couple of horses? MICHELLE BARBER MRS. BARBER-No. MR. O’CONNOR-Okay. I don’t think this would even be permitted if we had four horses that we owned, and your application said we could have six horses. There’s another area in the zoning, under Type II zoning, I think it’s residential recreational, and there under Type II, you would apply for a stable or riding academy, which is basically what you’re saying, and honestly, I’ve told Mr. and Mrs. Barber that they’d have to get a variance, probably a Use Variance, to have that type facility in this zone on this property. So what they’re applying for is the use of themselves of the horses. So I don’t think there should be a fear, and apparently there’s some, I’m just saying that to the neighbors, that there’s a fear that this is going to be a commercial operation. That’s not the intent. MRS. LABOMBARD-And I was just saying, you had a friend that wanted to do them a favor. MR. O’CONNOR-That’s not the intent, and that’s not our application to you. 15 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. BREWER-Well, if we allow it a certain number, Cath, then he just can’t do it. MRS. LABOMBARD-I don’t know why you can’t allow it to the maximum of six. MR. BREWER-Because he said he only wants four. MRS. LABOMBARD-What if one has a foal? MR. BREWER-Well, then, within reason. You’ve got to give him time. MR. SCHACHNER-I think the Board should be leery of trying to modify an application beyond what an applicant seeks. The applicant, it seems to me, is putting their cards on the table and saying, this is what we’re applying for, and you can approve it, you can deny it, you can approve it with conditions. If you feel that for some reason the proposed use is too intense, obviously you know you have the authority to impose conditions that limit the intensity of the use, but I think where you’re coming at this is looking at the other side, as far as increasing the intensity. I think the Board should be very leery or reluctant to increase the intensity above what an applicant, him or herself, is stating. MRS. LABOMBARD-Okay. MR. O’CONNOR-Okay. Following through on the regulations, and I don’t mean to get too technical, I also see that we’re supposed to, or the Board’s supposed to do this in compliance with the standards of the Cornell Cooperative Extension service, and I’d called to find out, what are those standards, and what I found out was they are standards as to the size of the stall. I don’t have all the terminology down. They have standards as to the size of the stall. They also have standards as to riding areas, if you will, or corral areas, and I’ve gotten a copy of that. I’ve supplied it to Staff. We are in compliance with those standards. In fact, we probably exceed those standards. If you have a small riding area, it’s supposed to be 132 feet by 66 feet. Ours is 100 by 70, but it’s not the main area that we’re going to have for exercise. The larger area dimensions, and these are suggested dimensions. They aren’t, and I spoke to the people at the Cooperative Extension. The larger area was 99 by 66. Ours actually is 150 by 80. I just offer that to you. I gave you a copy of their drawings and everything else, and we are in compliance with them. I’ve talked about how we would, started to talk about how we will operate. We’re talking about four horses on site, and they’re dressage horses. They aren’t horses that are pastured, if you will. When they are taken out of their stalls, and their stalls are purposely big so that they can be in their stalls most of the time. When they’re taken out of their stalls, they are taken out gently with supervision, and they’re exercised to some degree and then put back in their stalls. The stalls that we’re talking about will be within the barn. There is a gravel surface that’s in the barn already. What will be put in place is rubber matting on top of that, and then there’s a light saw dust that’s there which kind of takes up any kind of refuse that you get from them, which we would then put into actual drums, barrels. We’d keep one barrel outside of each stall. When the stall is cleaned, the material goes from the stall into the barrel. There is, and I think we offered it, and this is maybe where Staff is picking up on it, and I haven’t seen this before, but we have an atomizer, if you will, or a misting operation that will be used in the warm months. It apparently is not used in very cold months because there is no insect problem, and there’s usually no odor problem. It’s something that’s automatic. It sprays on a regular periodic basis, something which retards any insects, particularly flies, and which has a scent to it, and the popular scent is pine scent. So it takes care of any odor problem, both of which issues may be very remote. I think the Barber residence is probably within 100 feet of this barn, and anybody else is going to be a lot further away than that, except for maybe Mr. Greeno or the Dean residence, which is to the west of the property, but other people that have spoken, at least to this point. It is a system that operates when the horses are right in the stalls. So it’s a system that is friendly to the animals, and Mr. 16 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) Barber tells me it’s also not harmful to humans, if they happen to be in the barn when the system goes off. It’s set up with that type of chemical, but there’s also information that we’ve given you in your packet that details that, and if you have any questions on that, and if you go through that, we’d be glad to try and answer those. We talked about the waste removal. We haven’t talked about fencing. The fencing, as I’m told, is approximately five feet in height at the post level, and probably a little bit less than that, four, four and a half feet, to the top rail that’s being put in place between the fencing. The fencing is in place. It was not put in as an affront to you. It was put in with an idea that there was no restrictions against fencing, if it were simply to be yard fencing, and with an idea that it would be put in before the frost was in the ground, so that there would be some use or hopefully be some use during the early part of this year for horses if we can get the approvals that are necessary, and we also didn’t necessarily know, or the applicant didn’t necessarily know, that there might be some opposition to this thing, basically because of how remote he is from anybody else. Staff comments, I think the only thing I would speak of directly, they spoke about well contamination, and the well, if you will look at it, and I’m not sure if it’s marked out on the maps that were given to you. The well is to the west of the property, almost opposite the front corner of the property, and the closest that is to any activity that we’re talking about is about 150 feet, and this area in here and back, if you went out and looked at the property, is probably about two feet to thirty inches lower than the actual elevation of most of the ground site at the house. So there’s going to be no transfer, or there is no drainage from the barn or corral area to the front of the lot or to the area of the well. We don’t think there’s any question of contamination, and I don’t know if Staff has any continuing worries about that. There was a question, too, as to wetland. I guess we’ve satisfied that. Wetland was marked in 1992 when the drive was put in, and that’s how that marking came about. It was done by DEC at that time. The wetland, as far as beyond the point it was marked, and it was marked I guess if you come from Luzerne Road down to the site, is right about here. If you take a look, too, if you will, here’s the creek, or Clendon Brook. It’s quite some (lost word). This again is a wetland that is based upon vegetation, not something that you couldn’t, in some areas actually drive down in there if you had the proper vehicle. MR. MAC EWAN-But isn’t it a DEC flagged wetland? MR. O’CONNOR-It was DEC flagged at our request, at Mr. Barber’s request, when he put in the driveway. I don’t believe it’s a State mapped wetland per se. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that the delineation? That line on there is the actual edge of the wetland? MR. O’CONNOR-Yes, it is. That’s what DEC flagged as a wetland. MR. MAC EWAN-Is there a setback requirement? MR. O’CONNOR-There are setback requirements within the Ordinance, but I don’t know if they’re applicable because we’re not talking about any new construction. We’re talking about conversion, converting an existing structure that’s already in place. This drive, and maybe we ought to follow that along. This drive was put in, in 1992, and right to the point where it comes out of the garages was paved in 1992 with concrete pressing. This driveway from this fence around the back of the (lost words) back to the back of the yard was put in, in 1992. In the fall of 1997, there was crushed stone put down on it. That drive is not in violation of any setback requirement, even in its location, regardless of when it was put in, an exemption from the wetland setbacks for private drives, not in excess of 15 feet in width. This wetland delineation, you see the fine line, where it stops, pretty much goes at a right angle at that point, going east of it. It does not follow along, it does not follow parallel to the drive as it comes in. I’ve got a map, you have the Cornell information and you have the misting information, right in your packets? 17 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t know about the Cornell, but we do have the misting information. MS. NOWICKI-Yes, you do. I handed out numerous amounts of information. MR. BREWER-On the barn construction, stalls and all that. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? MR. O’CONNOR-I was just going to give you some actual measurements. I think it’s in excess of 150 feet, the corral, to anything that we saw as a potential, I have it on this map where I scaled it out, potential area of wetland, actually might even be 200 feet. I did a circumference type thing, 150 feet from approximately the corner of the corral, and that was 150 feet, and there’s probably another 50 to 75 feet beyond that. So the corral activity that we’re talking about is probably at a minimum 200 feet from what might be the wetland area. The barn itself is probably 300 feet. The scale on this map that you have in front of you is one inch equals 100 feet. MR. BREWER-I have one more question before we get done. What happens to the boats? MR. O’CONNOR-That has already been taken out of there. MR. BREWER-So that use is no longer approved? MR. O’CONNOR-Yes. MR. BREWER-Okay. MR. O’CONNOR-And you say that use approved, if he discontinued the horse operation, he probably could put the boats back in there. MR. BREWER-Is that so, Mark? MS. NOWICKI-But under site plan approval, I believe. MR. BREWER-In other words, you’re asking us to discontinue one use and use the barn for another. MR. O’CONNOR-I don’t have any problem with that. MR. BREWER-I’m just curious. MR. O’CONNOR-Okay. I don’t mean to confuse it. MR. SCHACHNER-Boat storage is by site plan approval. Then that means you’re modifying the use, the current use for the horses, and that means if you wanted to further modify, you would need site plan approval. MR. MAC EWAN-I guess the question I asked, is this current use under site plan approval? MR. BREWER-Yes, it was. MR. MAC EWAN-The boathouse was? MR. BREWER-Dave Hatin’s letter said it is. MR. MAC EWAN-No. It says it gave him a building permit. It doesn’t say anything about any site plan approval for it. 18 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. BREWER-Yes. Well, I read somewhere in the information that it was. MR. O’CONNOR-No, there’s no site plan approval. There was no site plan approval for the boat storage. That’s a permitted use without site plan, based upon building permit. MR. BREWER-I thought I read in some of this information that there was a site plan for the boat storage use. MR. MAC EWAN-If it’s over 900 square feet. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. A quick look at the Zoning Ordinance looks like Private Boat Storage is a permitted accessory use as of right, and if that’s true, then that means that the applicant would retain the right to do private boat storage. MR. MAC EWAN-But what kicks it in, if the building becomes more than 900 square feet I think, right? That’s what kicks it into site plan, irregardless of whether it’s a boat storage or a garage or whatever, right, an accessory use in excess of 900 square feet? MR. O’CONNOR-Not that I’m aware of, Mr. MacEwan. MR. MAC EWAN-We did a garage up on, I want to say Tuthill Road. Is there where it was? MR. O’CONNOR-Garages specifically are limited to 900 square feet. MR. BREWER-Yes, we did one up there, too, but we did Nicky Cutro’s place up on. MR. MAC EWAN-No, that’s not the one I’m talking about. What has me thinking here, an accessory use, and there was a square footage on it, that if you make that threshold and get beyond that threshold and square footage, then it kicks it into a site plan review. We did that for an application, I think it was on Tuthill Road, where a guy put up a big cinder block garage. Remember, it was like 1200 square feet? MR. BREWER-It wasn’t on top of the Top of the World? MR. MAC EWAN-No. MR. BREWER-Tuthill goes up on Top of the World, doesn’t it? MRS. LABOMBARD-No. Tuthill is right opposite from where they, the other side of the road. MR. SCHACHNER-I think the confusion surrounds the definitions of Accessory Use do not limit the square footage, but the definition of Private Park garage does. The definition of Private Parking Garage ends with the statement “No business, occupations or service for profit shall be conducted, and such garage shall not exceed 900 square feet in area”. So if you have a private parking garage that’s over 900 square feet, that would probably kick in either a variance or site plan review or both. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s what I remembered. MR. BREWER-I think what my confusion is, it says it has an approved structure, and I just took in my mind. MR. SCHACHNER-Right. Dave Hatin’s memo says that, but that’s probably a reference to a building permit. 19 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. O’CONNOR-It was a building permit that was issued. It was not a site plan review by this Board or any other Board. MR. BREWER-No, because I don’t remember it. Not that I’ve been here forever, but. MR. O’CONNOR-I spoke before about, I think it’s misleading to think of the application as being commercial, and I have the statement here that it would allow the establishment of a full riding academy and riding stable and more. My understanding is that riding academy, livery stable is permitted only in RC zones. This is not an RC zone, and it’s not the application, in any event. People have talked about the potential increase in traffic. This is incidental to the residential use of Mr. and Mrs. Barber. It’s not where we’re going to invite other people in to either use the barn or participate in the barn activities. We don’t think that there’s going to be any additional traffic than what’s there presently, and what they use presently. They talk about additional potential increase of parking problems. There are going to be no vehicles except the Barber’s vehicles, and whatever ordinary additional vehicles that they might have, as regular guests at their residence. The unpleasant odors, we think that we’ve gone the extra step and put in the misting operation, even though it may not be necessary because of the remoteness of the building, and the same thing would go with any potential increase in insect population. The neighbors that are most affected, as I indicated, are neighbors that appear to be in support, and I don’t know if you have or don’t, but I’ve been given copies of letters from Christopher Roop and Bonnie Roop, which are the neighbors that are immediately to the east of the property on Luzerne Road, it’s that small house, not small house, that house that you see first, east of the wetland in the map. Have you got those letters? Okay, and you’ve got a letter from. MRS. LABOMBARD-Glen Greeno. MR. O’CONNOR-Mr. Dean, which apparently is a house that’s within the wooded area that you can’t see, but it’s his driveway that apparently if you went right instead of going to the left, you’d go in his driveway, if I’m correct, and the other neighbor immediately to Mr. Dean’s west is Mr. Greeno, and you have a letter from him. I’m not going to read the letters. You can read them, Mrs. LaBombard. It’s also something that’s not necessarily new to the neighborhood. If you went up to look at the site, there are at least two other people that use parts of their property for horses that are on the west, or north side of Luzerne Road, probably within a half mile of the driveway of Mr. and Mrs. Barber. I’m told there’s a third one there that’s not as visible. You can see the fencing at the road, but you don’t necessarily see the place where they keep a couple of horses that they have there. MR. MAC EWAN-Are those not all pre-existing, nonconforming uses? MR. O’CONNOR-I don’t know. I don’t know if they have continued. I don’t know of any of them that have ever actually formally sought permission like Mr. Barber and Mrs. Barber are doing. So they may be pre-existing, or they may be something that, for some reason or whatever have appeared there, but there’s nobody that has any enforcement actions against them, and my point is not necessarily introducing something new to that particular stretch of the road, and those areas, if you will, are much more visible than what we’re doing, and people still, even if they were pre-existing, have gone up that road and made investments and what not without an effect or without feeling an effect, on their property values. This is so remote and so invisible, I think it even speaks a lot less as to any potential impact on the neighborhood. MR. PALING-A question. The Barber property isn’t fenced, is it? MR. O’CONNOR-The exterior, no, it is not. 20 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. PALING-Then horses have to be in the barn or corral, I call it a corral, fencing. That property up there, and we did visit it, is as you have said many, many times, heavily treed. It’s very hilly, too. When I visualize horse acreage, I visualize something you referred to earlier, pasture land, but this just isn’t that. Will they keep the horses contained in either the barn or the corral? MRS. LABOMBARD-That’s what he just said. MR. BARBER-Tim Barber. The horses will be contained either in their stalls or during exercise periods they’ll be in one of the two corrals. At other intervals, we’ll be trailering them to other training facilities in Hudson Falls, usually Tuesdays and Thursdays, and one of the two weekend days we can get out. MR. PALING-They won’t be let loose on the property, in other words? MR. BARBER-No. MR. PALING-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Will there be any additional clearing of land to increase the corral or pasture area for the horses? MR. BARBER-No. We have no plans to do any more clearing. We’ve got what we need, as far as the corrals, and the size of the barn and all for what we need and what we want. So that’s basically not, no. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Has anybody else got any questions? Staff, anything else? Okay. Why don’t you folks give up the table, and we’ll open up the public hearing. If anybody would like to address this application, please feel free to come up, identify yourself for the record. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MS. NOWICKI-Craig, would you like me to read the public comments that I have? MR. MAC EWAN-How about we do it at the end. MS. NOWICKI-Okay. FRED CARVIN MR. CARVIN-Good evening. How is everybody tonight? MR. MAC EWAN-Very well, thank you. MR. CARVIN-My name is Fred Carvin, and I live in proximity to Mr. Barber’s property, and I would first like to thank the Board for the opportunity to address them on this very important issue, and to clarify some of concerns. Now I’m the first to say that many of our Zoning Ordinances are flawed and are in desperate need of revision, that there are many inconsistencies, and at times they are contradictory in nature and purpose. I am currently serving on the Town’s long range planning committee, which hopes to resolve some of these areas of confusion, but until then, that’s why we have this review process, to explore and determine the best actions which will benefit the applicant without being a deterrent or detriment to the health, safety and welfare of the community. Now Mr. Barber has indicated his only intent is to house a number of horses on his property for private use, which on the surface seems straight forward and uncontroversial. It’s his land and his argument is that it is a permitted use, as outlined in the ordinances. He has stated his intent is not commercial in nature, in that at least in a phone conversation with me on Friday, January 16, he wants to keep the horses for his children, so that they th won’t hang out at the Mall. Again, a desire most parents would likely agree 21 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) with. Again, he has stated here tonight that these horses will be primarily for his children’s use. However, lets take a little closer look at what this process is all about. What is the allowed use that Mr. Barber currently enjoys? Now this area is zoned, per Section 179-19, Suburban Residential SR-1A, and the overriding purpose of this zone, per Paragraph B of that Section, is to protect the character of Queensbury’s suburban neighborhoods, and to provide for future residential development opportunities. Now the key words here are “residential”. The primary and overall intended and permitted use in this zone is single family dwellings. You are allowed a number of accessory structures and uses related therein, and then there are a number of site plan uses. Now what exactly is a site plan use? Well, what these are are uses that might be compatible with a Suburban Residential use if they meet certain qualifications. It is not an automatic right by use. The Town always has the right and obligation to deny any of these uses if they in any way cause a detriment to the surrounding properties or cause issues with the general safety and health and welfare of the community. Now all this means is that these site plan review uses do not have to undergo the more stringent review aspects of a Use and Area Variance. That would be the case if Mr. Barber were to directly ask for the establishment of a stable, riding trails or livery facilities, because these are not listed actions under the SR-1A classification. He would need to seek a Use Variance, whereby he would have to prove among other things that he cannot get a reasonable return on his property as zoned. In all cases, these site plan uses alter the original intent of the single family permitted use. Mr. Barber does not currently have an approved and permitted Class A Farm, anymore than he has a funeral home or any other site plan listed use. What Mr. Barber is asking, in effect, is that he no longer wants his property to be considered residential first, but rather he wants to alter his residential suburban status to that of being a farm. Now he would have to undergo the same process if he wanted to establish a funeral home, a school, or even a day care center, if, after approval, these new uses would become the primary use of the land. So lets take a look at the farm classification that Mr. Barber, in essence, is applying for. Farm Class A, according to Section 179-63 Paragraph One, “Any parcel of land in excess of ten (10) acres used for the raising of agricultural products or the keeping of poultry, fowl, livestock, small mammals or domestic animals for commercial purposes, including the necessary farm structures and the storage of farm equipment.” Now what this paragraph allows is the establishment of a full fledged farm, not simply the stabling of a few horses, but a fully developed commercial venture in the middle of a residential zone. If this farm designation is approved, there is nothing to prevent Mr. Barber, and I’m sure that that is not his current intent, but there is nothing to prevent him from developing a fully commercial farm, if not now, then at some point later in time, he could board horses and develop other related ventures on a for profit or commercial basis, all under the guise of being a farm, which brings with it all the potential for increased traffic, parking, waste management, and a host of other problems that this Board has wrestled with countless other times. So I first suggest Mr. Barber’s application be corrected, in that it is erroneous because he’s indicated on Page Two no change in the current use, when in reality the proposed new use will be a farm, but even more important, Mr. Barber is asking the broadest definition of farm be used in his situation because it contains the word “livestock”. I don’t believe a horse can be considered a small mammal, nor can it be considered a domestic animal without a stretch of imagination. It also does not appear that he’s going to plow his back yard and grow agricultural products or raise fowl or poultry. What he wants is the granting of a supermarket so that he might have access to the corn section. When in reality, if he were only to apply for can corn, he would need a Use Variance. Horses, stables, riding academies, and such are not approved uses in a residential zone, and this is the reason for the site plan review. To the best of my knowledge, the only zones which allow what Mr. Barber is proposing are an LC- 42, per Section 179-13, Paragraph D(3)(b)(10), Section 179-14, Parkland Recreation, by Paragraph D(3)(b)(5), Section 179-15, Rural Residential, by Paragraph D(3)(b)(3), and Section 179-21, Recreational Commercial zone, by Paragraph D(3)(b)(10). Now you may know of others, but these sections all make references to horses, stables, etc., which according to Mr. Barber is what 22 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) he’s looking to develop. However, just horses or stables or any associated verbiage are not an approved use in this current zone. So I would propose to you that his attempt is to establish a farm, it’s only an attempt to avoid the need for a Use Variance and for those procedures. What he is proposing is not, and never has been, an accepted use or activity in the Suburban Residential zone. A farm is what Mr. Barber would have if you were to approve his application. Well, now you might say, well, we can condition his application to only horses or a certain number of horses, as Staff has indicated, which is a noble compromise, but this would become an almost unenforceable situation. The residential neighborhood would still be saddled with the horses and all the related health and safety issues. Now Mr. Barber does have a right to apply for this designation, for whatever his ultimate purposes are, which brings me to the area which you must look at before granting the site plan approval. Now I’m sure you’re as familiar with the criteria as I was when I served on the Zoning Board, but for the record and my own edification, I must continue. The very purpose of site plan review, according to Section 179-31 is to make sure that these uses and actions which require special considerations are properly located and planned with respect to their effect on the surrounding properties, and that the proposed use does not have an undue adverse effect on the Town and its citizens and tax payers and the protection of health, safety and welfare of the Town and its citizens. Per Section 179-34, Mr. Barber must submit, for the most part, a detailed description of his project, and I would maintain that Mr. Barber has not submitted a detailed description fully outlining his request for the farm designation. There are a number of NA designations on his application which may have relevancy to your decision, but these may be more technical in nature. The requirements for your approval, per Section 179-38, for both Types I and Type II site plan review indicate, in Paragraph C, that the Planning Board shall find the establishment, maintenance or operation of the proposed use would not create a public hazard from traffic, traffic congestion, or the parking of vehicles and/or equipment, and most significantly, I feel, or be otherwise detrimental to the health, safety and general welfare of persons residing or working in the neighborhood, or to the general welfare of the Town, and you are also guided by Section 179-39, by a list of developmental considerations, which must be factors when relating to the potential for adverse impact upon the natural, scenic, aesthetic, ecological, wildlife, historical, recreational or open spaces of the Town of Queensbury, which among, per Paragraph C, Subsection 2 Titled “Other Site Factors”, Part A, adjoining nearby land uses, which in this case is residential and emphasized as residential. Now I served on the ZBA. We were guided, like yourself, with the safety and health aspects to the community and its residents. Now I strongly feel that if you allow, even on a mitigated basis, any horses, in this predominantly residential area, you will increase the risk of creating a health and safety hazard which will fall directly on the shoulders of the neighbors. Now let me take a minute and examine some of these impacts. First, Mr. Barber may, on paper, have 12 plus acres, but that is misleading. Much, if not most of his property is forested and unusable, even for the most basic farming, and certainly is not suitable for horses, and again, they have re-emphasized this fact that they’ve indicated, per the record, that they may have one or two possible acres that is usable, in this particular situation. There are no large pasture areas for these horses to roam and graze when not in use, nor is there much potential to develop these areas without severe ecological destruction. A good portion of Mr. Barber’s land, as I understand it, has been declared as wetlands, created by Clendon Brook, which runs directly through his property. His only provision for these horses to exercise and roam are two small corral areas, comprised of a four board fence. Now Mr. Barber may argue that these corrals are sufficient for the horses, but at some point, two things will happen. One, the kids will get tired of riding the horses in the corral and they will proceed out onto Luzerne Road, one of the more trafficked areas in the Town, and the reason that we’re one of the more trafficked areas in Town, and I’m referring to not only the Luzerne Road, but Corinth, Sherman Ave., West Mountain Road, along with all the side streets, is that we are the most populous residential area in the Town. We have a lot of homes in the area. Now this certainly creates the potential for a horse/car accident caused under 23 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) any number of scenarios, a spooked horse, an inexperienced rider, a careless or surprised driver, and I would guess hitting a horse will have a greater impact than hitting a dog or a deer. The second problem is that as the horses proceed down the highway, they are not potty trained, and the net results of their digestive process are normally distributed along the highway and on the adjacent residential properties, and this certainly means the spread of offensive odors, insects and flies throughout a completely populated residential area of Queensbury. Now it’s true that there is a pre-existing riding academy located on Luzerne Road, and to the best of my knowledge, I understand that there may be others, but these are, again, per the Town Planning Department all pre- existing facilities, but I speak directly to the one on Luzerne Road. There are some significant differences between what occurs at that site and what Mr. Barber is proposing. First, there are no horses stabled there full time, and it is only used occasionally during the year. It is not in constant operation. So the pre-existing status, which we can’t do much about, and the low intensity of use have minimized the impact on the neighborhood, but make no mistake, there is an impact. The distribution of horse refuse is and has been a problem. I have had to deal with it, along with my neighbors. This is a very real situation and potential health hazard. We do not need to expand this exposure by adding Mr. Barber’s horses to the mix. The second thing that could occur on Mr. Barber’s property, because of its inadequacy for horses, is that they break out of the fence or somehow escape into the surrounding neighborhood. Now I’d hate to think what kind of havoc could result if that situation occurred. Animals, all animals, like people, can be and are unpredictable. I’m also concerned for the general welfare of the horses whose forced containment could be considered cruel. No matter what M. Barber does, he will be continually confronted with all the associated problems associated with horses, smells, manures, flies, rats, insects, silage, hay and all these problems will go beyond Mr. Barber’s property line to the rest of the neighborhood. Now I realize Mr. Barber has indicated the misting system would be installed in the barn along with the fly neutralizer for the stalls, but what happens when those systems fail or become inoffensive in their own right? More to the point, what will happen when the horses are in the corral or on other parts of the property? What happens to the unwanted deposits made by the horses while outdoors? Again, Mr. Barber has indicated he would containerize the horse dung in 55 gallon drums, and I assume that this would only be while they’re in the barns. It then would be transported off site, but let me ask you this. What happens if it’s not taken care of? What happens when it’s easier to dump horse manure into the stream than it is to transport it some place else? No matter what he does, the presence of silage, whether it’s oats, hay or any other feed used for horses, there will be a noted increase in the rat and mice population, which will spread out into the surrounding neighborhood. There will also be a noted increase in the fly and insect population. There’s a reason that they’re called horse flies. Now, this would probably not be a problem if we were a farming community, but we are not. The Town of Queensbury, and especially this area of Queensbury, is not and no longer is suitable for farming or farm activities, including the care and stabling of horses. Though I can’t necessarily substantiate the numbers, I know that public meeting notices were sent to residents within 500 feet of Mr. Barber’s property, and Mr. O’Connor has indicated a nice photograph of a tight picture of Mr. Barber’s property. Approximately 32 notices were sent out within 500 feet, which could represent an effect on upwards of more than 100 people, but I suspect that if you were to extend that range by a mere additional 500 feet, less than 20% of a mile, you would find that the number of notices would go up dramatically, because it now would include a larger number of residences in Clendon Ridge and Herald Square, and in all likelihood, a number of residences along West Mountain Road, with a cumulating effect on a population of now probably several hundred people. Now certainly if you were to notice folks within a half a mile of Mr. Barber’s property, you would be sending out hundreds of notices, potentially effecting thousands of residents. I cannot emphasize enough the overwhelmingly residential nature of this area. Now my goal is not to deprive Mr. Barber of any of his rights, because he has, for the most part, been a very good neighbor, but I have always felt that the residential zoning designation 24 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) should be and must be the most closely scrutinized and protected of all the zones, of all the zoning laws, and the hardest to change. The homeowners who buy property in residential zones must be protected from unwanted changes, and those changes, if allowed, must show a minimal impact on the zone, and at no time, should anything be granted which has an impact on the safety, health and general welfare of the community and its neighbors, and its neighborhoods. The granting of those changes should never be taken lightly, nor made for frivolous reasons. Now I appreciate Mr. Barber’s desire to keep his children entertained, and I admire his ability to take on the heavy financial obligations of maintaining a stable of horses for their use, and of his hiring of a respected lawyer to argue his case, but it seems that the unpleasant and dangerous safety and health issues which have been raised, that the rest of the community and his neighbors will have to deal with, far outweigh his need for personal gratification. This is the wrong use in the wrong neighborhood for the wrong reasons. So I would respectfully request that you deny this application in its entirety. Now I also have a signed petition by a number of neighbors who either cannot or could not attend tonight’s meeting, but want to be on the record as being opposed. I also have received a number of phone calls from other neighbors who have expressed concern about the horses but did not want to go on the record or were fearful of creating animosities, and I want, and I also understand that you should be in receipt of one letter, in any event, and I’m assuming that those letters will be read into the record, correct? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, they will. MR. CARVIN-Okay, because I do have a copy of Lynn Ackner, and I have an original copy of a letter from Robert and Diane Michelucci. MR. MAC EWAN-Did you give Staff a copy of that? MR. CARVIN-Yes, and I have a petition signed by the neighborhoods, and again, I only contacted approximately half the people that the notices were sent to, and as I said, I did talk to a number of residents who expressed verbally their concerns about this action tonight, but these folks did sign the petition, and there are a few other folks here that I’m hoping tonight will come to the microphone and speak. Are there any questions? MR. MAC EWAN-None right at the moment. Is that it, Mr. Carvin? MR. CARVIN-That’s it, unless you have some questions, and I hope you do. MR. MAC EWAN-Not at the moment I don’t. MR. CARVIN-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Does anybody have any questions? MR. PALING-Not right now. MR. CARVIN-Okay. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Does anybody else want to speak? GLEN GREENO MR. GREENO-My name is Glen Greeno, and I’ve lived in the Town of Queensbury most of my life. It was just a freak of nature, I guess, accident that I wasn’t born there. My family’s been back in the area since the 1920’s. I guess you could say I lived in Queensbury before Queensbury was cool. What I hear here is what I outlined in my letter. This kind of regulation sets neighbors, and allows neighbors to be pitted against one another. I think what I just heard was, gee, I really don’t like it that horses are allowed under the current system and I really wish it was changed. I believe the determinant 25 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) factor here should be, it is an allowed use. It’s a reasonable allowed use. It’s in the middle of nowhere. There’s a big swamp that, or wetland that buffers anybody that’s going to be impacted. There’s quite a number of existing horses in the neighborhood. We didn’t go out to report on every one specifically, but it’s been a use in that region for years and years. My father-in-law quartered horses on this property some years ago himself. It’s not strange, in our area, it’s nothing new, and frankly, I’m really disturbed with this kind of proceeding. It’s not healthy. It’s not good, and I don’t think you ought to do anything to encourage it. I think that this is beyond the pail, and I would like to tender my support for Mr. Barber’s request, and I would look very, very poorly upon it if it was turned down. I think it’s just amazing to hear some of this stuff. I lived in this area when you couldn’t get a loan from a bank to build a house up there, and we should have closed the door behind us, because we never had these kinds of problems. People got along with each other. People stayed out of each other’s way, and there was mutual respect. There is not mutual respect here, ladies and gentlemen. This is disturbing. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Any one else? MARY ANN BACKES MRS. BACKES-My name is Mary Ann Backes, and I live in Mabel Terrace, which is behind, I guess, this property, and I really just have, I’ve never been to a Board meeting before, and I just have some questions and concerns that maybe you could help me with. When I received the notice from the Town, I was a little concerned because any time that there is a change in zoning laws, it concerns me, because as you can tell from my accent, I am not from here. I moved here about five years ago from Long Island, and I moved here specifically because I really love the area here. I love the Adirondacks. We used to vacation here for some 20 years, and when we had the opportunity, my husband had the opportunity to retire, we decided the place we wanted to live was here in Queensbury. We left Long Island, I left my family, my friends, everything because of overcrowding, congestion, violence, and unfriendly neighbors, and I don’t know Mr. Barber. I don’t know the first gentleman that was here, and I don’t know the second gentleman that was here, but I agree with both. Mr. Barber has a right to his property and what he wants to do with it. The first gentleman and I seem to agree a little bit in the sense that we’re concerned about our residence around his property and the community, and unfortunately the third gentleman and I agree, because I don’t think neighbors should have problems. They should be friendly and we should be concerned about each other. The only thing I disagree with him is in the sense that I think it is important that we have these hearings and we all have the right to come and voice our opinion. Now, my first question is, the chemicals that he’ll be using to control the pests in the stalls, it might escape and go into the air and into the water, and there is a wetland, which we all know now, behind there, which my children occasionally go down there and fish and they don’t ever catch anything, but it’s just some place that they would play, and a lot of the kids in Herald Square, they all play back there. So that would be a concern of mine, that this chemical would be harmful to them, and it would contaminate the water there, and then the next question I have is, apparently it isn’t, I was under the assumption that this was going to be commercial use, okay, but it sounds like it isn’t, to me, but if he sold his home and his property and the next owner came in, would he be able to use it as commercial? I mean, I know I look for things down the road ahead, but I intend to stay here for a long time, and I like the neighborhood the way it is. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s an excellent question. MRS. BACKES-And then the first gentleman also mentioned about the other horses, and I don’t know how old their children are, but as a mother, I wouldn’t allow my children on horses on the road. Because it is very heavily driven, and I hope to God they never allow that, because I wouldn’t want to see that, but we do have horses that do come up and down that road, especially in the, not 26 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) so much now, but in the spring, in the summer you see it quite often, and they do leave droppings. I’m pretty far away from it, so I guess I’m not really that concerned about it. I don’t see it, but it is kind of a nuisance, I can see, if you live on that road, it would be. So that might be something that somebody would like to address. I don’t know how they would address it, but maybe have pooper scooper patrol or something. MR. MAC EWAN-A pretty big one. MRS. BACKES-And again, on that subject, I would be concerned, also, about the contamination of that wetland, again, with the refuse from the horses, and I know they said that they were going to be in containers and everything, but there’s always the possibility of accidents, and I know they’re called accidents, but that doesn’t help when you have a wetland that’s that close. I think the Board really should really look at this and study it. I wouldn’t want to be in your position. That’s all. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? JIM DAVIS MR. DAVIS-Hello. I’m Jim Davis. This is my wife, Lynette. We live on the west side of Tim Barber’s road. The log cabin, we’re about maybe 60 yards from his house, and we’ve been over to his home. He has a beautiful home, a large home. It’s clean. In my opinion, if anything, this would increase the assessment of the area that we’re in now. All he’s asking for is four horses, the corral and the barn. He’s made stipulations on the sanitation and the atomizer for the control of odor, and I think he has a right to do this. LYNETTE DAVIS MRS. DAVIS-I don’t know about anybody else, but it seems more political here than moral. I think this is kind of a moral issue. My family’s been here for over 100 years, and they were farmers, and, you know, they had their dairy farms and I can’t see where this makes an awful lot of difference in what’s been going on in this community. I’ve always been in Queensbury. There’s always been animals, and we’ve always had horses and horseback riding, and we had (lost word) races and right down on Luzerne Road. I can’t see what he’s asking for is going to make a big difference than what’s here already, and I, for one, don’t have any objections. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. MR. GREENO-This is Glen Greeno, again. I would love to get into the subject of contamination of the wetlands and the Brook, I really would. I detailed some of it in my letter, and I’d like to highlight it for you. The property in question along the Herald Square line was used by the toilet for the workman on that complete project. It still continues today. OSHA does no enforcing in that particular industry around this region, and that area was used as a toilet. If anybody would like to see the moving pictures of it, I can provide it for you. That area is contaminated. If anybody had round worm infection, it’s there, and the kids that are playing in Herald Square are playing in it, and that remains virulent for up to 20 years. That’s the kind of contamination people ought to be concerned about. They don’t get sick from horse dung. They get it from people. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? ANNE HECK MS. HECK-Hello. My name is Anne Heck, and I reside on the corner of Luzerne Road and Laurel Lane, 3 Laurel Lane. I didn’t come with any prepared speech. I didn’t even know whether I was going to get up here tonight. So I actually, a 27 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) couple of things come to mind. I realize that people who have lived here for many a year still think of it as being of a very rural nature out where we are, but it just isn’t so anymore, and when I purchased my home there, I, not that I have anything against horses or livestock in their place on a farm, on a real big farm, they are fine, but one thing I have always noticed about being anywhere near farm animals is the additional fly population, and that’s one reason I didn’t buy property anywhere near a farm because I can’t stand that. So I would not be too certain that what is going to take place there, if they have the horses, would necessarily keep the fly population down, and not to mention any other animals such as rodents, but I’ve heard a couple of people speak in favor of this project, and I just though perhaps it should be brought out that some of them are related to each other. I believe that the lady and man who got up a little while ago are related to Mr. Barber. MR. DAVIS-No, we’re not. MS. HECK-Or they’re tenants of his or something. MR. DAVIS-No, we’re not. MS. HECK-You’re not? Okay. Well, someone had told me they were related to each other, that they were renting from Mr. Barber. MR. MAC EWAN-Bad rumor. MS. HECK-Okay. So I withdraw that statement if that’s not true. I just had heard someone say that one time. So I just go on record as saying that I am opposed to making my residential property value, which I feel will, it won’t add to it, and I also haven’t appreciated the other horses that come traipsing by like Mr. Carvin said before, and having to clean up after them, on my property. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? JACK CUSHING MR. CUSHING-Jack Cushing, resident of Queensbury on Orchard Drive. A little bit different kind of situation. I have nothing to do with this particular area. I live on the other side of Town. I came here strictly tonight as an observer, and just to learn a little bit more about the whole situation. I know both of the parties, and certainly I’m not addressing any of the individuals that have spoken here. I’m simply saying that I’ve weighed all the things here this evening, and unfortunately this community was all farm at one time, and it’s gotten closer, and closer, and closer and compressed, and so that it’s mainly residential, and I think at this particular time you’ve got to recognize the growth in Queensbury, and we’ve got to take a hard look at what we are agreeing to, and I, personally, feel that it should remain residential for the simple reason that a lot of people put a lot of time and energy into this when they originally discussed it, and they have reasons for making it residential, and we have a hodge podge in this Town at the present time. It’s a terribly flawed system, our whole zoning in this Town, and a lot of people, including myself, by going to different meetings and belonging to different organizations, are trying to get some kind of semblance of sanity in the whole zoning system, and if we continually change it and allow other avenues to come in here, I think we’re going to be in trouble in the future. The only thing that I would say, I, too, was disappointed tonight on the individual that came up here and said he was individual. This is the American way, and everybody’s got a right to say what they want to say about zoning or planning or whatever it may be, and to have somebody say it’s asinine or foolish to do something like that, they’re not thinking as an American. They’re thinking of being a self serving individual. I feel strongly that it should remain residential at this point. That’s all I’d like to say. 28 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you very much. Anyone else? DONALD CLEMENTS MR. CLEMENTS-My name is Donald Clements. I’ve lived here around 50 years. When I first came up to Queensbury, I applied for loans at every lending institution in the area to build a house. I wanted approximately $5,000. I was turned down because there was no re-sale value, according to the banks, in this area. So I lived with it. I didn’t borrow money from the banks. I built my house block by block. I dug my cellar by hand. I paid for it as I could because I couldn’t get any credit. I think this whole business of this Board and this zoning business, I won’t tell you what I think of it. You’re asking the neighbors, now, of people that have lived here five, ten, twenty years to make a decision that you people, or the people who came before you, made the zoning laws. Maybe I should have been more concerned when this was going into effect. I didn’t believe that the people of Queensbury, who I had known and been neighbors of for 50 years would let this happen. What you’re doing is putting on to the neighbors of Mr. Barber or anyone else who happens to be living in the Town of Queensbury, and having to put up with your zoning laws and regulations, you’re putting it on their backs to make a decision whether or not they want a horse in the area for this particular instance. You’ve gone farther than that with Ordinances on dogs, you name it. I don’t believe, and I think I expressed this to another Town Board meeting, that I don’t believe these zoning actions were ever devised by the people on the Boards that have served Queensbury. I think they were handed down to you, maybe not in their entirety, and maybe you had a little bit of say about a wording here or a wording there, but on the whole, I believe these zoning regulations came about from other places. I haven’t had the time, or taken the time, to research it the way it should be, but my belief is that these regulations are not something that the people of the Town of Queensbury had much to do with. They were put in form and approved, and you people on the Boards were, I guess you were asked to serve, and you have served. From what I can gather, you have served the people of the area badly. As I understand it, after calling the Planning Board, some of the people who originally were making the decisions on what these zone regulations should be were lawyers, were developers, on other agencies of the Town or organizations within the Town who wanted to see, particularly, when I came up here, a rural area. Luzerne Road was a dirt road. We picked up our mail, what they call down at halfway hill there, halfway creek. There was no mail service up there. I’m not against progress, and I appreciate the fact that we’ve got mail service and we have electricity, and we have telephones. We have a water line, also, that comes out of the Hudson River, which they’re debating all the time whether that’s safe or not. I guess my only concern, really, is the fact that the people of Queensbury have lost a lot in approving, or not approving, or just disregarding the fact of this whole zoning/land use planning business, and I was told by a past Supervisor of the Town of Queensbury at one point, when I was arguing the budget, that if I had a problem with the Town of Queensbury, why didn’t I move? Well, I didn’t have the means to move, and I really didn’t want to. After the time I’ve spent here, I figured it wasn’t a matter of moving. I inquired in different areas of New York State, and a few of them out of State, as to the same problem we were having in the Town of Queensbury regarding land use planning and zoning and all the accompanying problems that come with it, and invariably the answer was that it pitted neighbor against neighbor and made for very bad relationships within the neighborhood. Up until a few years back, I guess, what was it, in the 80’s that this zoning came into effect? MR. MAC EWAN-1988 was the first major revision to the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. MR. CLEMENTS-Up until that point, I knew every car on the road, every person. I knew all my neighbors. I had no trouble with them. My own folks, my wife’s folks, had a farm adjacent to what is now called the wetlands, which was a created wetlands. Because I called the Department of Environmental 29 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) Conservation at the time the wetland map was made, which was called, and I have the copy of it, was called the Final Wetlands Map, and the area from the reservoir to the Hudson River was not on the map. They said, no, this was not going to be considered as wetlands, but fortunately, or unfortunately, the beaver came in, and we were told by DEC that beaver could not be moved because they were in their mating season, and that’s what has spread out the Clendon Brook into what they call now a wetlands. I got the copy of the wetlands review, and it stated that in order to be called wetlands it had to be twelve or thirteen acres. That was changed because they couldn’t find 13 acres of contiguous land within the area of Clendon Brook that they could declare wetlands, because there wasn’t a property owner, apparently, that had 13 acres on the Brook, but with the spreading out of the water from the beaver, it became a wetlands. Then they raised the road, the Luzerne Road, the old bridge that was there, which to my knowledge had never been inundated with water was now raised, I think, seven feet, and a culvert was put through, higher than the inlet from the northwest Clendon Brook, so that the water had to raise on that side of the Brook in order to get through the culvert, which spread Clendon Brook out into a wetlands, which is now a swamp, and the summers are horrible up there, with the mosquitoes that are bred in that swamp. It’s unsightly. There’s a rakish orange color to the water that’s backlogged from the Brook. I have pictures of the Brook when it was a Brook. You could walk down to the edge of it and throw a line in and fish, and, yes, there were fish in there. I guess to make it short, or shorter, this whole business of putting on the people of an area, pitting them against one another, is sheer foolishness. It’s not the American way, as some of you have spoken about the American way tonight. I don’t see where the quality of life in the Town of Queensbury has improved a lot, because of the, I guess there’s five housing developments surrounds me now. There’s Clendon Ridge, Herald Square. There’s Bedford Close, there’s The Glen over on West Mountain Road, which comes pretty close to Luzerne Road. There’s another one, Ambershire, I guess, over next to Bedford Close. That’s nice that people like to move in and enjoy the comforts of a rural community that Queensbury was once. As far as neighbors go, I knew more neighbors 40 years ago, with half or one tenth the people that live in Queensbury or in that immediate area today. I knew more people then than I do now. Most of the people I guess don’t even have much to do except sleep in Queensbury, and as I’ve heard from the Town Board members, this is what Queensbury is known as, the bedroom community. Fine, but what about those of us who have been there 50, 60, some maybe even longer than me. I know there’s people there longer than I’ve been. I don’t think we had much to say about the zoning laws that were put on to the Town of Queensbury’s population. I don’t know. I guess you people are volunteers. I don’t know what kind of expertise you have, as far as deciding my piece of property is only good for this, and Joe’s property next to me is good for that. Who’s decided this? MR. MAC EWAN-The Town Zoning Ordinances. MR. CLEMENTS-Where did the zones come from? MR. MAC EWAN-Adopted by the Town Board over the years. MR. CLEMENTS-Where did they get them? MR. MAC EWAN-That’s a good question. Some were written up by the Town Board. Some were amended by State Code or State Ordinances that were adopted. They come from all different areas. MR. CLEMENTS-Okay. Now we’re getting down to what I’m talking about. MR. MAC EWAN-What does that have to do with this application? MR. CLEMENTS-These Codes were not created by the Town Board or by you people or any previous members of the Planning Board. They were handed 30 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) down to you by someone else, either through the State, the Federal, or as we now have, as we now know, because of articles I’ve read in the paper, not because it’s been publicized too much, we have a regional planning board also. I don’t know how long that’s been in effect, but we have it. You probably all know of it. The average citizen doesn’t know of it. Some of the people in politics don’t know of it, because I’ve asked them, and I don’t know whether they have any, if they are involved in making these zoning laws or not, but what are they involved in? Regional planning board, what is a regional planning board involved in? Do they hand down some of these zoning regulations to you people? MR. MAC EWAN-Not to my knowledge, no. MR. CLEMENTS-But you do get them from the State. You said that some of this information comes from the State. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, no, not in the sense that you’re referring to it, no. MR. CLEMENTS-You mean that just the Planning Board and the Zoning Board people made up all this garbage that’s called a zoning regulations, with all the provisions of. MR. MAC EWAN-We’re getting off the path of the application here. Can we stick to the application and not the history of the zoning ordinances of the Town of Queensbury, please. MR. CLEMENTS-No, because I think this is applicable to what’s happening. You can tell me to shut up and sit down, if you want to. You’ve allowed everyone else to speak tonight what they please, whether it applied to the zoning. MR. MAC EWAN-You know what we’ve allowed? I’ve allowed people to speak with relevance to the application in front of us tonight. MR. CLEMENTS-In other words, you don’t think that the coding of these zones that you’re discussing is applicable to this? MR. MAC EWAN-No. What I don’t think is getting off into the history and the acceptance of the zoning ordinances as they’ve been accepted over the years by different Town Board members, and being used by either the Planning or the Zoning Boards is not relevant to this application, because we’re dealing with what’s in front of us tonight, not what was done 20, 30 or 10 years ago or 5 years ago. We have set criteria that encompass this Board’s actions tonight, and they’re set forth by the zoning ordinances and subdivision reg’s of the Town, and that’s what we’re doing. MR. CLEMENTS-That’s what I’m asking you. Did the Board or Planning Board or Town Board get their information for this zoning proposition from other sources, or did they set these up, as to what the people of Queensbury wanted them to be? MR. MAC EWAN-That would be a very good question for you to take to the Town Board and ask them, during their open comment portion of their Town Board meetings, and ask them how they duly adopted the Town Zoning Ordinances. MR. CLEMENTS-Would you or could you explain, then, why when I applied to different sections of New York State, and even out of the State, when I was told that I could move, that the zoning regulations of most places that I applied to were almost exactly the as the Zoning Ordinances of the Town of Queensbury? MR. MAC EWAN-I wouldn’t want to respond to that at all. 31 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. CLEMENTS-Thank you. MRS. LABOMBARD-Mr. Clements, I do want to thank you for expression of your sentiments and I appreciate people that have lived in this Town a long time, and I appreciate the wisdom that you’ve shown, and your ideas, and the way you feel about this application. I also would like to say I appreciate Mr. Cushing’s comments and Mr. Greeno’s and Mr. Carvin spent a tremendous amount of time and thought to put his presentation together, and I don’t know. I guess that we’re here as volunteers to listen to what the members of this community have to say, and it’s almost a little nostalgic, because I can see that, you know, that you love living here, and you’ve lived here a long time, and I think I feel the same way, but as far as, you know, getting back to, you know, you have to have parameters, and we have to have boundaries, and you have to have some kind of guidelines to run our government, and this type of thing effectively, and so we have our codes and we have our ordinances and everything else, and if they have to be amended, then there’s nothing wrong with that, and maybe you have to go through different channels. This isn’t the place to go through them, but we certainly appreciate your concern about it, and I just wanted to make that kind of a comment before you left tonight. MR. CLEMENTS-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? You have some letters you want to read in? MS. NOWICKI-Yes. Site Plan 3-98 for Timothy Barber, “I live at 10 Mabel Terrace, east of Mr. Barber’s property across from Clendon brook. The notice of public hearing on this application indicated that the horse barn is for “private use”. I therefore assume that Mr. Barber is requesting conversion to a horse barn for private use or hobby and not for commercial use. I realize that his property of over 12 acres warrants a Class A Farm designation. However, if the applicant does not intend to use this horse barn for commercial purposes, perhaps he would be willing to accept a condition in the Planning Board’s motion for “personal use as a hobby only”, and not for commercial use. Roger Ruel” “Gentlepersons: I am writing this letter to express my strong opposition to the Barber application. The Barbers’ neighbors made a commitment and investment in a residential area which could be largely undermined by the approval of this application because there would be the potential for other farm animals, such as pigs, cows, and other livestock in the future! There would be no effective way to monitor the Barbers’ maintenance of the property and as such the neighbors could very conceivably be subject to unwanted smells and increased insect population. In addition, the Barbers’ property includes wetlands under the control of the Department of Environmental Conservation (“DEC”). Having farm animals near wetlands raises serious environmental questions. Any failure of the Barbers to live up to their environmental obligations and promises will have detrimental and irreversible consequences to all. The Barbers are not without alternatives. If the recommended plan is indeed for “private use”, they can keep horses at other existing stables or purchase property which is already zoned commercial or agricultural and not near any wetlands. Moreover, any economic hardship claimed by the Barbers is disingenuous. It is inconceivable that the Barbers were unaware of the residential nature of this area and the existence of the wetlands on their property when they purchased it. Moreover, the Town of Queensbury and in turn the Department of Environmental Conservation were not aware of the Barbers’ plans until late Fall. The Town received its knowledge of this project after following up on a telephone call that I made after I heard many trees being “plowed down”, the parking of heavy machinery at the end of their driveway and the sounds of a structure being built (“existing boat storage building”). I can only speculate as to why the Barbers did not notify the Town and DEC when they first started their project. I vehemently oppose this application and respectfully request that the Board defeat it. Thank you for your attention and consideration in this matter. Very truly yours, Lynne E. Ackner 7 Mabel Terrace Queensbury, New York” “To Whom It May Concern: I 32 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) James L. Dean and wife Linette G. Dean, have gone over the site plan review 3- 98. Being the closest neighbor on the west side of Mr. Barber’s property, we have no objection to Mr. Barber’s said boat storage building being changed to a horse barn. Linette G. Dean James L. Dean” “Dear Members of the Planning Board: I was somewhat surprised to receive a communication from the town regarding an application by Mr. Barber to make use of his property for the quartering of horses, since the current “laws” lists this as an “allowed use”. I’ve since been made aware that the law is largely meaningless and each individual citizen must come before a governmental panel to get “permission” even for those uses identified as “allowed”. This being the case, let’s just be honest and tell the people of Queensbury that they have no specific property rights, and anything they wish to do will be overseen by their fellow citizens, some of whom may have their own agenda. Unfortunately, there are those among us who, if given the power, would radically change our lifestyle based on their personal likes and dislikes. The situation I now find Mr. and Mrs. Barber in (and others like them) is being made into a target at a divisive “hearing”, which is little more than an opportunity for any local “nattering nabobs of negativism” to lord it over their fellow citizens. But since this inquisition is to take place, I will submit all of the criterion others use to “judge” such “applications” and seek answer to them. “Possible change in traffic patterns”: This sounds legitimate, it is also ridiculous, there will be no additional measurable vehicle traffic. Besides that, what did we build the roads for? “This is a residential area”: This is a cover-all complaint, which conveniently leaves out the fact that the application is for an allowed use in the area, and multiple horses and horse- housing facilities already exist, and the complainer bought and moved into their abode under those circumstances. Obviously the existence of domestic livestock was not a problem until now. “This may impact my property value”: Our section of town used to be called “West Glens Falls” and was the place where anyone was welcome to live. You could have a trailer, a “ranch”, a tar- papered shack, or even your business, and we all got along just fine. Most of the housing in the area now has developed in the shadow of the homes of the original residents who made the mistake of not shutting the door behind them. Again, all of the supposed “negative impacts” on property values already exist in the area, in full view of the road that no one is supposed to travel on. The Barbers use of their property is hidden from view by hundreds of feet of their woods - unless you happen to be trespassing. “The presence of animals would cause unpleasant odors”: Well, odor does happen with animals, which is why the current law specifies a number of acres per animal, which the Barbers have. There are also common treatment practices which most horse farms now utilize. “The presence of the waste from the animals will be a health hazard”: Again, the acreage requirements of the law are used in part to mitigate such problems. However, I might expand on this further since I am in the waste hauling business. In general, those at risk from any pathogen in animal waste are animals, not people. What everyone should be very concerned about is the near total lack of sanitation for construction workers in the area. Waste from people carries “people diseases”, like Roundworm, Cholera, Typhus and all the other diseases common in areas of poor sanitation practices. Over ninety percent of the residential construction in areas adjacent to the Barbers, has taken place with no human sanitation, and it continues. In point of fact part of the Barbers current property is contaminated by such practices, along their border with Herald Square. This contamination, depending on the pathogens present, will not abate for up to 12 more years. Poor sanitation is a problem, but any horses in the area have nothing to do with it. In conclusion, as a resident of the town since 1961, with family connections back to the late 1700’s (just in case seniority comes into play here), I support the Barber’s utilization of their property as they see fit. Any other decision would, I believe, be an egregious abridgment of their rights. Yours Truly, Glenn G. Greeno” A letter addressed to “Dear Catherine: We are writing this letter in lieu of being able to attend the planning board meeting on Tuesday January 20, 1998. We are in full support of allowing Timothy and Michelle Barber to convert a boat storage building into a horse barn for private use. My family has lived next door to the Barbers for the last four years. During this time, they have made numerous additions and upgrades to their property. We have found all these 33 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) projects have been tastefully done, and have added value to the surrounding area. I am confident they will take the same painstaking care in the remodeling of this dwelling. We received a letter from Fred Carvin stating his concerns about the application. We have been assured from Mr. Barber that he has no intention of using this for any commercial use, so I don’t believe Mr. Carvin’s concerns are warranted. If you wish for any additional input, I can be reached at 792-1146. Christopher & Bonnie Roop 617 Luzerne Road Queensbury, NY 12804” “Regarding Timothy Barber’s proposal to convert an existing boat storage building into a horse barn, Robert and Diane Michelucci are strongly opposed. We are opposed for the following reasons: A Class A farm permit is not for private use but is typically issued for commercial use, which means the potential exists for the Barber’s to establish a business with this permit. If this is allowed, our residential neighborhood would be subject to the negative impact the excess noise, air and water pollution, traffic problems, etc. the “Horse Farm” operation would have on the surrounding community. The Barber’s have previously made significant changes to the landscape without prior planning board review or any discussion with the neighbors. For example, this past summer (1997), for approximately a two month period, there was a great deal of noise generated by heavy equipment operation on the Barber property. When we contacted the Planning Board inquiring about the noise, they were not aware of any permit request by the Barbers. What as the reason for the extensive construction on the Barber’s property? Was it to construct a “boat” storage building and then claim it as an existing structure? This type of behavior is not conducive to a harmonious neighborhood environment. Seven years ago when we purchased the property in Herald Square Village, we were told by the development’s owner that the property adjoining ours to the west would be association property and forever wild as it contained wetlands. The privacy provided by the adjoining “forever wild” property was one of the reasons we chose our lot. It was an unpleasant surprise to hear from Timothy Barber that the property had been sold to him and that he was planning to develop it. From the information we have regarding this proposal and the above reasons, we do not feel it is in the best interest of the neighboring community to approve this application. Sincerely, Robert and Diane Michelucci” I also had a phone conversation with George Gohn, and this took place this morning, and it’s in regard to the project. He had questions about SR-1 Acre and an explanation of the farm classes. His final indication was that he was not opposed to this project because it was a permitted use in SR-1 Acre, and I have one more comment. This is from June Harvey. “I am opposed to this plan - Do Not want a residential neighborhood turned into a commercial development.” MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? MS. NOWICKI-Yes, it is. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Any questions and comments, I guess. MR. O’CONNOR-I have a couple of comments, and then we’re prepared to answer whatever questions you have. I agree with a couple of speakers, and I think the Board is sensitive to the fact that it’s not the intention of the applicant to create disharmony within the neighborhood or doing it in an acrimonious way. We have, apparently here, a difference of opinion of a couple, and maybe a misunderstanding, and I think really a basic misunderstanding as to what your approval of our application will allow. It’s my understanding that we’re not talking about changing the property to a farm. The areas that we’re talking about simply, I think the site plan list, Type II List, says all farms as defined thereafter would be permitted, and then it gives definitions in that Section as to what “all farms” are, Class A, B, C, D. The telltale of the difference in the farms appears to be the acreage, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re using a parcel as large as the acreage is that would permit you to have a Class A Farm that you, in fact, are applying for Class A Farm permit. There seems to be a real basic misunderstanding. What we’re talking about here is storage or stabling of horses, incidental to the residence 34 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) of Mr. and Mrs. Barber. We’re not talking about a riding stable. We’re not talking about a commercial use. If you visit this site, and you take a look at even the proportion of the house to the barn, I think it’s clear that this is still a residential lot, and they simply have the ability and the desire to have the storage of horses that they’re going to use on that lot. I’ve asked, with regard to some comments, there’s no intention to have these horses leave the lot, if you will, in a pedestrian way. These are expensive Dressage horses. They’re not trail horses. They won’t be ridden off that site. They will be put in the trailer and taken off the site when it’s time to take them for show or for training some place else. They do that in Hudson Falls. Apparently, they also spend some even lengthy time during the summer at some place over in Lake Luzerne where they have actually more facilities for those type of horses, and that’s the application. I think, as Mr. Schachner said before, you’re kind of constrained to listen to the application, in the sense that you can’t maybe expand on it, even if you think it’s appropriate to expand on it, but you also can’t get into all presumptions of somebody else that we might turn this into a pig farm, as somebody in one of the references made. This is actually an application to use a building and two corrals for Dressage horses. There were a couple of comments made as to noise this summer. There was no activity on this site with regard to that barn until a building permit had been obtained from the Town, and that should be part of the record, just so there’s no issue to that. There was a building permit in hand when that activity began. The questions of contamination to the wetland I think at best are speculative. Even the corral is some 200 feet from the wetland. You could put a septic system within 100 feet of the wetland. So I just don’t know the basis for the concern, or that question. I understand the question, but if they understand the facts, the layout, physical and what not, they should be assured that there is no problem. There was a question of waste pick up, I guess, in the corral areas. The same proposal would pertain to the corral areas as will pertain to the entire barn. If there is waste in the corral, it will be picked up and put in air tight containers and be disposed of off site. This is within 60 feet or, within 100 feet of the back of the house. It’s within 50 feet of their swimming pool. This is part of their residence. It is not something that they’re going to, and again, if you take a look at the site, as some of the other neighbors have said, you will see, even I think Mr. Roop has indicated the condition of improvements that they’ve made over the years that they’ve owned it. I had asked speakers to identify maybe for your benefit where they lived, and my understanding is that the, this is, I guess Fred Carvin did not object to that. Behind this, if I understand right, behind his area here is where the Hecks live. Well, it’s the next house over from Carvins. I happen to know, I represented both of them when they bought or built their houses there. Something of that nature. The person that spoke up from Herald Square again is this house that you can’t see very well here, and then one party here. Both of them are very, very remote from what we’re talking about, and I don’t mean to be redundant, and I apologize if I’m just going over the same material that we went over before. I know from experience you listen to us. This is not a request for a supermarket approval. This is a request for a specific approval, and we’re willing to abide by conditions that Staff has recommended. I really have to call into question the validity of the petition that was given on the basis of a letter that I have that I think Mr. Carvin used for circulation with that petition. There he’s talking about a farm permit is a commercial use. This would allow the establishment of a full riding academy and boarding stable and more. If this site plan is allowed to stand, our residential neighbors would be subject to the ills associated with commercial development. There is potential for an increase in traffic, parking problems, unpleasant odors, increased insect population, pollution of natural waterways, to mention only a few. There’s no proof before you of any of that. I mean, what you’ve heard tonight of the application I think is all in the other direction. If there’s questions that you have, we’d be glad to try to answer them, and again, I don’t want to be redundant. So I’ll stop at this point. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Does anyone on the Board have any questions? 35 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. PALING-I have a question regarding the mist spray that’s going to be used, and the possible contamination of air borne or water borne, and that may be in the article, I don’t know. MR. BREWER-It is. MR. PALING-Did you want to comment on that? MR. O’CONNOR-It is EPA approved. It’s been used in other sites. Mr. Barber happens, as part of his construction, to construct this type of building for others, and it’s used in other sites in New York States. He has done about 10 different barns. They’re much bigger than this. They’re for commercial operations that utilize that mist, in fact, he is a dealer of that mist, and maybe he can answer directly. MR. PALING-So there’s no potential problem to animals or humans? MR. O’CONNOR-If you read the literature, it is friendly to both. MRS. LABOMBARD-Right. MR. MAC EWAN-Along those lines, does it require a permit to use? MR. BREWER-Third from the last page, Bob. MRS. LABOMBARD-There’s a whole package on it. MR. O’CONNOR-I asked that question and was told no, Mr. MacEwan. If it does, we would apply to DEC and get whatever it is. It apparently is a system that works out of a 48 gallon drum instead of a 55 gallon drum, and there isn’t a great deal of other than water that goes into that drum, but there is sufficient that takes care of any potential problem. MR. BREWER-It says the mixture here somewhere. MR. BARBER-All these type of systems are USDA approved also. They’re used in large commercial farms, beef farms, poultry farms, multi million dollar riding academies, right down to your little hobby farms. They’re very common. The majority of any farm that would be in the proximity of a home such as mine would have a system like this. It’s not a real expensive system, and it takes care of a lot of problems, and it makes it very pleasant to be out there. As Mike has said, this is right out my back door, and if you’ve been up to my site and have seen it, I’d have a big concern, and I should have the biggest concern because it is right outside my back door. MRS. LABOMBARD-I have a question that was brought up by Mrs. Heck as far as selling the property. I know that the applicant right now has no intention of using it for anything else but his own personal bordering of his own horses. MR. O’CONNOR-I was going to defer to Mr. Schachner, but he’s already got the mic, so I won’t defer to him. MRS. LABOMBARD-All right. You’re the specialist. MR. SCHACHNER-What is he the specialist in? MRS. LABOMBARD-On, as far as. MR. O’CONNOR-As I understand the approval process, it runs with the land, but it runs with the land for the use that you permit. MRS. LABOMBARD-So is that written into the deed? 36 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. O’CONNOR-No, but somebody else can’t come in and expand it. It’s the same thing if you buy some other building that’s used for something, and you change the use, somebody’s going to complain about it, and Planning and Zoning are then going to say, you need to do something, or discontinue it. MRS. LABOMBARD-So in other words, you’re saying that should the Barber’s decide to sell their property, that the people coming in could not turn it into a commercial riding academy or anything like that? MR. BREWER-Not without a variance or site plan. MR. O’CONNOR-Not without possibly a variance, very strongly without possibly a variance, but certainly even coming back here. MRS. LABOMBARD-Could I ask Mr. Carvin to make a comment? MR. MAC EWAN-No. The public hearing has been closed. MRS. LABOMBARD-Well, can’t we re-open it for him? MS. NOWICKI-You didn’t close it. MRS. LABOMBARD-No. We haven’t closed it. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, I did. Didn’t I? MS. NOWICKI-No, you did not. MR. SCHACHNER-First off, I’m not sure, but my impression was that the Chairman intended to close the public hearing. Typically the way you operate, you don’t come back to the applicant to have the applicant address all these things until the public hearing is closed. MR. MAC EWAN-I thought I closed it after she got done reading the letters. MR. SCHACHNER-It sounds to me like you thought you did. I don’t believe you said those words. So if you intended to close the public hearing, then first off I would recommend that you do so. MR. MAC EWAN-I’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MR. SCHACHNER-Now, I think, I’m not sure why there’s so much confusion about this, to be quite honest because we’ve faced this issue I think many times before, though perhaps not recently. I think the applicant’s attorney’s statements about the meaning of your approval are essentially accurate, and by way of example, if an allowed use in a particular zone, if a particular zone allowed commercial retail uses of lets say shopping, retail stores up to 25 stories high and up to 500,000 square feet, with parking up to 10,000 vehicles, okay, lets say that was the allowed limitations in a particular commercial zone, and an applicant came before you to put up a one story, 800 square foot bakery with parking for 10 cars, okay, and you granted approval for the one story, 800 square foot bakery with parking for 10 cars. This is not a re-zoning application, and this is not a variance application. This is not a lot of the things that people are saying it is. The application is for, as I understand it, a noncommercial boarding, if you will, or keeping of four horses in a residential context, and if that’s what you approve, and I’m not saying you should approve it or deny it. Obviously, that’s up to you, but if that’s what you approve, that’s 37 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) what you’ve approved. That’s the allowed use. It’s not this whole specter of other uses that some people seem to be afraid of, and it does run with the land, so that, again, using my bakery example, if Mary and Joe Smith build the 800 square foot bakery I referred to, one story, parking for 10 cars, the fact that this Board has issued site plan approval for that bakery does not mean that Mary and Joe Smith can sell it to Company X, Y, Z which can then come and, because it’s an allowed use, build a 500,000 square foot, 10,000 cars parked 25 story shopping center. I don’t know if that example helps or not, but it seems to me there’s an awful lot of confusion about our function here and our role here. Your role is limited to review of the application as presented. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Any other questions? MR. RINGER-Before we make any motion, I’d like to have Laura read the Staff recommendations again. MR. PALING-The amendments. I want to hear that, too. MR. RINGER-The amendments. That’s right. That’s what we didn’t have a copy of, okay. MRS. LABOMBARD-That’s a good point. MR. RINGER-I’d like to hear them again. MR. MAC EWAN-I’ve got a question or two first, before we go on. Getting back to the removal of waste. You said that it would be put in containers and hauled off. How regular of a basis, and where will it be hauled off to? MR. BARBER-That’ll be hauled off, Craig, at this point, we’re thinking possibly weekly, maybe a week and a half, depending on when they come about three quarters full. There’s several places that it’s going to go. Several people that have asked us for it, Hudson Falls and Kingsbury. The current stables that I keep the horses at, they sell their manure. They’ve asked if they could have ours so they could sell it. We’ve offered it to them first. We’re going to be dumping it there. It’s right, it’s not far from my location of my business. It’s very convenient. Several other people have come up to us and asked if they don’t want to take it any more, we’d love to have it for our gardens and so on. So that’s been not a problem to get rid of. These people are marketing it. They’re selling it, and there’ll be four drums, and like I said, I’m not sure if it’ll be a weekly process or every week and a half. They’ll fit nicely in the back of my pickup, which I drive, and on my way to work, I’ll take it over to the arena and stables that we train on. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay, and the storage containers for the mist, the auto mist system. There’s like a self contained storage unit, like illustrated in this brochure? MR. BARBER-Correct. MR. MAC EWAN-And do you order them like one at a time or do you have stockpiled three or four of them? MR. BARBER-No. That container that you’re referring to there, Craig. MR. MAC EWAN-The 55 gallon one is what I’m looking at, okay. MR. BARBER-Is that a drum of neutralizer, or is that the actual unit itself? MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t know. MR. BARBER-Could I take a look at it? That’s the actual drum itself. That’s a one time purchase item. That’s a tank that’s secured in the tack room, and 38 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) you buy, the most commonly bought products are a powder, and you mix them with water, and you mix them with a small concentrate of pine scent. MR. MAC EWAN-So you buy about four or five boxes of these things at a time, that kind of thing? MR. BARBER-Exactly, yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Will that barn have water out there? MR. BARBER-The barn will have one water line, yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Do you have Town water? MR. BARBER-No. MR. MAC EWAN-You have well water. MR. BARBER-Well water. MR. MAC EWAN-Of course you’ll have electricity as well? MR. BARBER-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Any other questions? MR. CARVIN-Might I have a point of order please? MR. MAC EWAN-I’m sorry, Fred, the public hearing has been closed. MR. CARVIN-I just wanted to know if my petition was read into the record. It was not. MS. NOWICKI-He read it. MR. CARVIN-No, I did not. MR. BREWER-No, he didn’t. MR. CARVIN-I just said I presented the petition, and I respectfully request that that be entered as part of the record. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. We’ll enter it. Would you, please. MS. NOWICKI-Yes. “We, the undersigned, do not want the establishment of a farm or the boarding and stable of any horses as proposed by a site plan application submitted by Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Barber. We feel if these horses or farm uses are allowed in a residential zone, that there will be a negative impact on the health, safety and welfare of our community. We would ask this application be denied in its entirety. Thank you. There’s 13 signatures. Do you want me to read them? MR. MAC EWAN-No. It’s not necessary. Okay. Anybody else? We need to do a SEQRA. Long Form? MS. NOWICKI-Short form MR. MAC EWAN-Short form. MR. BREWER-Can I ask one more question? MR. MAC EWAN-Go ahead. 39 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. BREWER-You said the name of the horses. What kind, just for my own satisfaction, what kind of horses are they? MR. BARBER-Dressage is kind of a broad term. Dressage, in French, means training. They’re show horses, if you will. They go to events, 4-H type material. Basically an oversized pet. MRS. LABOMBARD-I mean like Tennessee Walkers? MR. BARBER-No, a Tennessee Walker’s a type of horse. MRS. LABOMBARD-Like the kind they have in the Olympics? MR. BARBER-Yes, that’s Dressage. Dressage horses is a term, a Dressage can be a quarter horse, a Bavarian thoroughbred, an Appaloosa. It could be any type of horse. It’s just a style of horse and what you do with it. MR. BREWER-That’s the one that goes around in a circle and jumps the fences and? MR. BARBER-Yes. Somewhat to that nature. That’s what’s called three day eventing. We don’t actually jump. We don’t want the kids getting hurt, but that is part of a Dressage event, yes. MR. BREWER-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MRS. LABOMBARD-“Could action result in any adverse effects associated with the following: Existing air quality, surface or groundwater quality or quantity, noise levels, existing traffic patterns, solid waste production or disposal, potential for erosion, drainage or flooding problems?” MR. CARVIN-Excuse me, is there a public hearing on the SEQRA? MR. MAC EWAN-No. MR. CARVIN-Yes, there is. MR. MAC EWAN-No. MR. CARVIN-On the SEQRA, there is no public hearing? MR. MAC EWAN-Mark, would you clarify that, please. MR. SCHACHNER-I’m not sure what there is to clarify. There is no public hearing under SEQRA. There can be a public hearing in the event that a lead agency determines that a particular action requires an Environmental Impact Statement. Even then, it’s not mandatory, although I would certainly recommend it, but that’s the only context under SEQRA in which there’s a public hearing. Certainly not in the review of an Environmental Assessment Form. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Continue, please. MRS. LABOMBARD-Well, I didn’t get a yes or no on the “Could action result in any adverse effects associated with the following: Existing air quality, surface or groundwater quality or quantity, noise levels, existing traffic patterns, solid waste production or disposal, potential for erosion, drainage or flooding problems?” MR. BREWER-I’ll say, no. 40 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. PALING-Wouldn’t the be yes, but very minor. MR. MAC EWAN-I’d say yes, too. MRS. LABOMBARD-I’d say yes. MR. BREWER-Adverse effects with four horses? I mean, he’s showed that he’s going to take it out of there. MRS. LABOMBARD-There is some solid waste being produced, and being disposed of, but I think we’ve mitigated it, figured out how to solve the problem. MR. PALING-Yes. MS. NOWICKI-Is that a yes or a no? MR. BREWER-I would say no. MRS. LABOMBARD-I would say yes. MR. MAC EWAN-He said yes, but it can be mitigated. MS. NOWICKI-What is your mitigation? I have to explain it briefly. MRS. LABOMBARD-By disposing it in the 50 gallon drums. MS. NOWICKI-The conditions that you’re proposing. MRS. LABOMBARD-And they’re going to clean it up on a regular basis, take it away. It’s going to be confined to the main area. It’s not going to be all over the property. MR. SCHACHNER-All right. So just to clarify, so that the SEQRA form is filled out properly, in C1, the specific issue you’re referring to, I take it, is solid waste production or disposal. Is that true? MR. MAC EWAN-That’s correct. MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. MRS. LABOMBARD-“E. Is there or is there likely to be controversy related to potential adverse environmental impacts?” MR. BREWER-No. MR. SCHACHNER-I guess my advice, as Counsel to the Board, I’m not sure I would quickly check box “No” under Letter E. I think it’s up to the Board, it’s a discretionary determination, but we do have, what I would call, some significant public input indicating that at least there are members of the public that do seem to feel that there are potentially adverse environmental impacts, and if I could see that petition again, I don’t know if it mentioned any environmental impacts or not. Well, it doesn’t really specifically refer to any environmental impacts, but I guess I just want the Board to take a hard look at Question E and just consider your answer. It’s up to you how you answer it. MRS. LABOMBARD-But you know, Mark, I think maybe aesthetics can be, you know, an environmental concern. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, then that maybe a reason to look at your answer to Question E, is what I’m saying. 41 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes. So, I’d say, yes, there is controversy. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay, and if so, then we need to explain briefly, and you can do that however you wish. MRS. LABOMBARD-Well, it’s on record what occurred tonight. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. What are the words that our Staff should put in before you make your motion? I guess I would suggest something like, several members of the public expressed an opinion regarding potential adverse environmental impacts, including horse manure. MR. MAC EWAN-Waste removal, pesticides, possible contamination to the wetland area. MR. SCHACHNER-Good, and then before you make a motion, just backing up to C1, first of all, are we giving you enough time here? MS. NOWICKI-I can also get it from public record. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. Backing up to C1, I want to make sure that it’s clear, when the Environmental Assessment Form is completed and voted on, I’m not sure that horse manure is what’s typically considered solid waste production or disposal, but that’s the issue you focused on in your answer to C1. Am I correct? MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. That’s fine. I just wanted to clarify that. MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes. Okay. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 3-98, Introduced by Catherine LaBombard who moved for its adoption, seconded by Larry Ringer: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: TIMOTHY BARBER, 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 42 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) 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. Duly adopted this 21 day of January, 1998, by the following vote: st AYES: Mr. Ringer, Mr. Paling, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSTAINED: Mr. Brewer ABSENT: Mr. Stark MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Before we did any kind of motion, the Board wanted you to go over your conditions one more time. MS. NOWICKI-Number One, the conversion of a boat storage building to a horse barn as a farm structure. Two, the horse barn contain only four stalls for four horses as requested in the application. Three, horses would be the only permitted agricultural use allowed. Four, the horse barn would have security lighting in the rear and the front. Five, the stalls would be equipped with a misting system for odor and pest control. Six, waste from the stalls and riding area would be stored in air tight containers and be removed off site for disposal. Seven, the riding area will have no lighting. MR. PALING-Laura, go back to the one where you talk about agricultural use. I’m wondering if we should not limit it in that manner. MS. NOWICKI-I took this information simply because it was under the definition, and I’ll go back to the definition. MR. PALING-It’s around Number Four, I think. MS. NOWICKI-I’ll read it again. It says horses would be the only permitted agricultural use allowed. MR. PALING-Why can’t we say horses, not the only agricultural use, but would be the only. MRS. LABOMBARD-Permitted use. MR. PALING-Permitted use, yes. That’s better, permitted use, rather than agricultural use. MR. SCHACHNER-Except you’re not saying that single family residence would no longer be used. MR. PALING-No. I’m saying they can’t have horses on there for some other reason. MR. BREWER-How about we say that the only animals allowed be the four horses, rather than say that he can’t have a garden or something like that. 43 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. PALING-You can’t have pigs and you can’t have donkeys. MR. BREWER-Right. That’s what you’re asking for, Mike, if four horses. MR. O’CONNOR-No, no, not excluding that we don’t have a dog. MR. BREWER-No. That’s a domestic pet. I mean. MR. O’CONNOR-I’m listening. You’re saying the only animals, folks. I didn’t think you meant that. MR. PALING-No, no. I don’t mean dogs and cats. MR. BREWER-In reference to this application. MR. O’CONNOR-The barn and the two corrals will be used solely for the boarding of four horses utilized by the Barber family as their private. MR. CARVIN-You want to add fully owned by the Barber family. MR. BREWER-No, lets make our own motion. MR. PALING-Well, if it was limited to four horses, I think we’re okay. MR. BREWER-If we limit them just to the four horses, that’s what he’s applied for, and that’s what we’re granting. MR. O’CONNOR-Okay. Can I also make one explanation on the record, just so that we don’t have an issue? We are talking about four stables, which is basically the residences of the horses, within the barn, twelve foot by twenty foot. MR. PALING-Not four stables. MR. O’CONNOR-Four stalls, I apologize. There’s a tack room, 12 by 12. There’s three cross tie stalls, and basically you take the horses out of what they consider the resident stall of the horse to another part of the barn to groom the horse, but they will look like three stalls, without fronts, just the intention here is there’s four resident stalls, and then there’s a 16 foot hallway down the middle. MR. BREWER-How can we word it that if he has the barn, what do we care what he does with the inside of it, as long as he only has four horses in there? MR. PALING-I agree. MR. BREWER-I don’t care what you do with you. You could put a go kart track in there. I didn’t say that. I mean that sarcastically. MR. O’CONNOR-Okay. I just didn’t want the question on these, I’m not that familiar with these tie off stalls as opposed to resident stalls. MR. BREWER-I don’t think we should design it for him. That’s what I’m saying, I guess. MR. BARBER-Four horses would be in the barn. MRS. LABOMBARD-What about adding to that that the Barber horses will not be found riding on Luzerne Road or any other Town roads in Queensbury, just. I’m just saying somebody prepared, spent a lot of time and expressed a concern. I’m sure they’re not going to be, but. MR. BREWER-What do we do if they are caught, Cathy? 44 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MRS. LABOMBARD-Well, hey. MR. CARVIN-What do you do when (lost words) done that? How is this enforced? MR. BREWER-It’s enforced by the enforcement office. MRS. LABOMBARD-I’ve seen horses up and down. You can ride your horses down the road if you want. MR. MAC EWAN-Does someone want to put a motion up on the table, please. MRS. LABOMBARD-I see horses up on the road all the time. MR. BREWER-It’s not against the law. My idea is that, I don’t know how you could enforce that at all, Cathy. MRS. LABOMBARD-All right. MR. CARVIN-Well, it’s been suggested by the applicant that they would limit it to this property. MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes, it was. MR. PALING-I’d just like to make one comment to the applicant before we proceed, and if I’ve interpreted it wrong, you correct me. We were getting into a situation a little while ago where we were overturned because what we said wasn’t in the resolution. If I understood you, in the early part of your presentation, that you or the applicant would be committed to anything you said during the meeting tonight, and that would mean that if it wasn’t included in the resolution, if you then said it and it was part of the minutes, that you’d be committed to it. MRS. LABOMBARD-And one thing you did say is that you would confine your horses to their use either on your property or you would trailer them to another site where they would be trained or undergo other, for competition, and I’m telling you, we’ve been burned before, and I really would like to put that in the motion. MR. O’CONNOR-Let me have the applicant answer that question directly. I know what my intent was when I made the application, and I made my presentation to you. MR. PALING-You made the statement. MR. O’CONNOR-Okay. I made the statement. Lets have the applicant of record, which I think is how you got burned before, the representatives made the statement to you and the issue was whether or not the applicant agreed to it. MR. BARBER-Okay. No. We’re not going to ride on Luzerne Road. MR. O’CONNOR-Yes, are you going to abide by everything? MR. BARBER-Yes. MR. BREWER-Yes what? Tell us what you’re saying yes to. MR. BARBER-Okay. We’re going to abide by what was discussed at tonight’s meeting. 45 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. PALING-All right. So any statements that you or your attorney made, that you’re willing to abide by them? MR. BARBER-Correct. MR. PALING-Even though they’re not in the resolution? MR. BARBER-Correct. MR. PALING-Mark, am I on safe ground here? MR. SCHACHNER-I don’t have a problem with what you’re saying, Bob, but I think if the Board has a specific concern about a specific issue of riding off premises, then even though I’m sure that our Code Enforcement Officer will not enjoy enforcing this particular condition, I think you should include that as a specific condition, as I think Cathy is suggesting. MR. O’CONNOR-I don’t mean to be cute, and I know I’m not cute, but. MR. MAC EWAN-Don’t use the phrase, you’re putting the cart before the horse. MR. O’CONNOR-I don’t think the application, in any instance, goes beyond the perimeter of the property. If there’s other codes and regulations as to riding of horses that are applicable in the Town. I’m not trying to withdraw what I said. MR. BREWER-We have a concern from neighbors of droppings from the horse on their property. MR. SCHACHNER-Right, and we have several representations by the applicant’s Counsel and by the applicant himself that the horses will not be ridden off premises. MRS. LABOMBARD-Then just put that into the motion. MR. SCHACHNER-We have the applicant’s consent, three different ways. So I guess what I’m saying is if that’s a concern of the Board, then I urge you to incorporate it as an expressed condition and not just ride with the minutes and the applicant’s consent. As long as we’re on the topic of conditions, I also would recommend that the Board not delete Staff’s proposed condition, because I think Staff’s proposed condition is appropriate because it indicates that the other agricultural uses that could be allowed will not be allowed. I think that’s an appropriate condition. MRS. LABOMBARD-Okay. That’s true. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. With all that said, does someone want to offer a motion? MR. PALING-All right. I’ll make a motion. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 3-98 TIMOTHY BARBER, Introduced by Robert Paling who moved for its adoption, seconded by Larry Ringer: With the following conditions: Number One, that the conditions and amendments in the Staff recommendation be adopted completely. Number Two, that the horses be confined to the corral and barn area, except if they are being moved off site in a motorized vehicle or trailer, whatever you’d say. Duly adopted this 20 day of January, 1998, by the following vote: th MR. PALING-And that the applicant has committed to backing up, to going by any statements made by himself or his attorney. 46 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. SCHACHNER-I don’t think that’s an appropriate condition of approval. MR. PALING-Okay. Take that one out. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay, and before your vote, I would like to ask a question along those lines of the applicant and the applicant’s representative. MR. PALING-Okay. Those are the only things. We’ll forget the Staff remarks addendum. Does anybody else want to add to it? MR. MAC EWAN-Do you have the, all seven of the Staff’s concerns, and you’ve added two to it? MR. PALING-Right. MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes. It sounds okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Does anyone else want to add anything else to it? Do we have a second it? MR. RINGER-I’ll second it. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay, and I guess I want to state on the record that there’s been a motion made. The motion has been seconded. The motion includes a number of approximately nine conditions, and I want it clearly understood on the record that the applicant and the applicant’s counsel have stated that they have no problem with any of those proposed conditions. Is that correct? MR. BARBER-Correct. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s my only question. MRS. BARBER-Correct. MR. PALING-The applicant and the applicant’s counsel, did you say? MR. SCHACHNER-No, it doesn’t matter. The applicants have answered. MR. O’CONNOR-I’m just for the ride. Excuse the pun. AYES: Mr. Paling, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Brewer NOES: Mr. MacEwan ABSENT: Mr. Stark MR. MAC EWAN-With that, you got it four to one. MR. O’CONNOR-We thank you for your time. MR. BARBER-Thank you. MRS. BARBER-Thank you. SUBDIVISION NO. 1-1998 PRELIMINARY STAGE FINAL STAGE STAN RYMKEWICZ, JR. OWNER: SAME ZONE: SR-1A LOCATION: CHESTNUT RIDGE FARM, NORTHWEST LOT #2 PROPOSAL IS TO SUBDIVIDE A 19.17+ ACRE PARCEL INTO 2 LOTS OF 5 ACRES AND 14.17 ACRES. CROSS REFERENCE: SUB. 12-1997 TAX MAP NO. 54-2-7.1 LOT SIZE: 19.17 ACRES SECTION: SUBDIVISION REGULATIONS STAN RYMKEWICZ, PRESENT 47 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Laura, Staff Notes, please. STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Subdivision No. 1-1998, Stan Rymkewicz, Jr., Meeting Date: January 20, 1998 “The applicant proposes to subdivide 19.17 acres into a five acre lot and a 14.17 acre lot. The applicant is creating an opportunity for three new curb cuts on Chestnut Ridge Road, with a potential for more. Staff has requested the applicant provide information on the future development of the 19.17 acres. The applicant has indicated that the remaining acres are still for sale. Staff would request the Board consider the future development of the adjoining land. Staff is concerned that any future subdivisions on this lot will create an unbuildable lot (not able to provide septic, well, or a house). The concern arises that the 19.17 acres contains 15% or greater slopes. The Planning Board should request the applicant fill out a sketch plan application for any future subdivision on this lot, and all land holdings in this area.” Please note the applicant is missing page three of the Long Environmental Assessment form. Also, the notification letter the applicant sent out to neighbors is inconsistent with the Town advertisement. (Staff has provided a drawing of the property with USGS contour lines, this is not 100% accurate but will give you an idea of the slope issue)” MS. NOWICKI-And I’m going to amend it to cross out the next sentence. I’m going to cross out, “Please note the applicant is missing page three”, because that has been corrected. MR. PALING-I’m sorry. You’re going to cross out what? MS. NOWICKI-“Please note the applicant is missing page three”. That has been corrected. MR. PALING-Okay. MS. NOWICKI-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Engineering. None. MS. NOWICKI-None. It wasn’t sent. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Could you identify yourself for the record. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Yes. My name is Stan Rymkewicz, Jr., and I’m the owner and the applicant for the five acre subdivision. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Do you have a copy of the Staff Notes? Did you get a copy of them? MR. RYMKEWICZ-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-The last line of the third paragraph about the notification. MR. RYMKEWICZ-I don’t believe, that’s not on my copy. I did send out certified letters to people within 500 feet, and new owners, and I also sent out, and phone calls to people who didn’t return my letters the first subdivision. MR. MAC EWAN-Why is his letter not consistent with what you advertised? MR. RYMKEWICZ-You’re talking about the actual letter? MS. NOWICKI-The actual letter that you sent out referred to 27 acres, and. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Totally, there’s 74 acres. 48 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MS. NOWICKI-Okay. The letter that he sent to his, the people that were within 500 feet indicates, “Please take notice that Stan Rymkewicz, Jr. has applied for permission for a two lot subdivision of a 27 acre parcel. That’s what I have in question. Because on his application, he’s saying that he has, he’s subdividing 19.17 acres. MR. PALING-Why were two letters sent? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. I’m confused. Go back and do that again. Now you said the Staff advertisement in the paper was for 27 acres? MS. NOWICKI-No. The advertisement we, our legal notice that we’re responsible for? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. MS. NOWICKI-Indicates that it’s 19.17 acres. MR. PALING-Which is what the print says. MS. NOWICKI-Right. MR. MAC EWAN-And that’s what all the people within 500 feet were notified as it being? MS. NOWICKI-No. MR. RYMKEWICZ-All right. There is another eight acres on County Line Road. MR. MAC EWAN-But that’s not part of this application. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Yes, it is, because. I’ll show you. MR. MAC EWAN-Do we have an application in front of us for 19 acres, or 27 acres? MS. NOWICKI-It should be for 19 acres. MR. RYMKEWICZ-There’s 74 acres between here and here, 50 and 24. Behind here there’s another eight acres. We sold 42, Crayford and Higgs already have a subdivision, and it’s sold. We just haven’t gotten paid for it yet. So legally I still own it. This has been sold, paid for today. That’s five acres gone. So it’s confusing what to put on these letters that were sent out. This is the lot, five acres, that you’re worried about now, and now there’s going to be 14 acres left here. So I’ve got 14 acres here, and I’ve got 8 acres here actually left. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, if you’re here for a subdivision of 27 acres, stop me if I’m wrong, and your legal notice said we were going to do a plan tonight for 19 acres, this application is not good, because we’ve got to re-advertise it. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, or he has to re-notify, but correct. You have to get these two to agree, and my advice would be to not proceed until and unless the two agree. MR. RYMKEWICZ-All right. So there’s 14 acres and there’s 9 acres. So there’s 19 acres subject to the neighbors. Eight acres would be on another road. MR. MAC EWAN-If we’re going to pursue this thing tonight, as it was advertised in the paper for 19.17 acre parcel divided into two lots of five acres and one lot of 14.17 acres. We won’t consider anything else. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, no, more importantly, you can’t do that unless the notifications have stated that. 49 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. MAC EWAN-That’s correct. MR. SCHACHNER-Right. MR. MAC EWAN-Gee, I should have used that cart before the horse thing on this one. MR. PALING-I guess, back to my other question, why, are there two notifications being sent here for the same thing? MS. NOWICKI-No. Mr. Rymkewicz is responsible for 500 feet. We are responsible to put in the paper a notice that says that this application is being heard tonight. That is only our responsibility. MR. RYMKEWICZ-How many acres did I have in the letter? MS. NOWICKI-You had. MR. MAC EWAN-Twenty-seven acres. MS. NOWICKI-Twenty-seven acres. MR. RYMKEWICZ-So 19 and 8 is 27, right? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, but the legal advertisement in the paper. MR. RYMKEWICZ-I thought you just said that she didn’t put in the acreage in the paper? MR. BREWER-She has to. MS. NOWICKI-We have to. MR. RYMKEWICZ-So you put 19 instead of 27? MS. NOWICKI-Yes, because that was what you had originally advertised for, on your application. MR. RYMKEWICZ-On the application. MS. NOWICKI-Applied for. MR. MAC EWAN-So you need to either go back and do one of two things, either re-notify all of your neighbors that you’re going to want to do a subdivision of 19 acres or re-notify all your neighbors that you want to do a subdivision of 27 acres. Whichever acreage you want to do, you need to let Staff know so that they can put the proper legal ad in the paper, so that the two correspond with each other, and right now they aren’t doing that. MR. RYMKEWICZ-All right. Well, since the five acres has been sold today, I no longer owner it. So I am confused. MR. BREWER-Why don’t you come in and sit down with her, get your numbers straight. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Believe me, I’ve been in there just about every day with these people. MR. BREWER-Then how did it get screwed up? MR. SCHACHNER-Did you say that one of the lots has already been sold? 50 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. MAC EWAN-That was going to be my next question. MR. PALING-No. I think he means, you mean Lot A was sold, I think. MS. NOWICKI-It’s Mr. Friebergers. MR. RYMKEWICZ-I also, and 42 acres across the street has been sold, but I have not been paid for it. I still own it. As of right now, I own 42 acres there, eight acres next to it. So 50 acres across the street. MR. MAC EWAN-That was the subdivision that we did last month or the month before. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Right. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, but that’s okay, because that’s a subdivision this Board’s already approved. MR. RYMKEWICZ-So I don’t have to claim that, right, to my letters to my neighbors? MR. BREWER-Right. No, only the piece you’re subdividing. MR. MAC EWAN-No. You’re only going to claim what you want to subdivide now. Those have already been done. MS. NOWICKI-Mr. Rymkewicz, I’m sorry, is Lot One a separate tax map parcel, that 8.21 that you’re trying to include as 27 acres? Different? MR. RYMKEWICZ-It’s still part of the deed. MS. NOWICKI-It’s still part of the 19.17 acres? MR. RYMKEWICZ-It’s still part of the 74 acres. You take 42 out, that’s what I’m saying, and now take another five out. MS. NOWICKI-So it’s not part of the 19.71 acres that’s being divided. MR. RYMKEWICZ-No. MS. NOWICKI-Okay. MR. RYMKEWICZ-But I’ve notified my neighbors, in certified letters, that there was 27 acres, within 500 feet, and like I say, in the letter that came back, that the first application didn’t accept, I sent out regular mail. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Lets maybe clarify it this way. His application that he’s submitted to the Planning Department to be on this agenda was for how much? MS. NOWICKI-He has two different ones. He has one for 19 acres. That’s what I received. His letter indicates 27. MR. MAC EWAN-But the application he filled out to be on tonight’s agenda is for 19.17 acres? MS. NOWICKI-Correct. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Which is actually up on Chestnut Ridge that would be affected by those neighbors. The other part I still own, is still part of that deed, is on another road, almost in another town. 51 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. MAC EWAN-But that’s not what’s on the agenda tonight, though. That 19.17 acres is what’s on the agenda. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Right. That would affect my neighbors within 500 feet. MR. MAC EWAN-Even if that 27 acres, hypothetically, only affected one neighbor, you have to tell publicly in your legal ads exactly how much your subdivision’s going to be for, how much acreage you’re dealing with. I see where your rationale is. You figure, what the heck, I’m only going to be effecting X number of neighbors here, on this parcel. So those are the ones I’ll notify, but in effect, your letter should have stated you’re going to be dealing with 19 acres, not 27 acres, because that’s what’s on the agenda tonight. I’m getting confused by the minute. MS. NOWICKI-Craig, would you like to refer this as a sketch plan, address some of the issues that Staff brought up and any questions that you have, and have Mr. Rymkewicz re-notify for the 19.17 acres. MR. BREWER-I still think we could do it all in one night, if we just get the advertisement done. I mean, there’s not that many difficult questions, are there, or are there? MR. MAC EWAN-No. I mean, there was very little issue with the Crayford & Higgs subdivision, which is part of the land he sold. It just seems to be a cross your T and dot your I scenario here, and that’s what I want to be sure we do. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Crayford and Higgs, there’s going to be a line right here. There’s going to be eight acres left here, which is still part of this total deed. MR. MAC EWAN-Which should have been included in this application for tonight, but it wasn’t. MR. RYMKEWICZ-It was in my letter, not on the application, right, but I did notify the neighbors, by certified letters, of 27 acres. MR. MAC EWAN-That doesn’t do us any good, though, because it needs to be on the application. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Why do I bother sending the letter out if it doesn’t matter? MR. MAC EWAN-Well, you send the letter out because you’re notifying your neighbors that you’re going to subdivide 19 acres, not 27 acres. Just like Bob just said, you have to match what the legal ads were in the paper. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, and more importantly, you have to match what you told the Planning Office you’re applying for. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s correct. MR. SCHACHNER-The Planning Office put a legal ad in the paper that, based on my quick review, was appropriate for what you told them you were applying for, and now you’ve sort of changed the shape of it. MR. RYMKEWICZ-It changes every time I go in, because like I say, we have sold five acres. Today I got paid for it. I don’t own it any more. Every time you send out a letter, things change. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, they’re not supposed to, okay. You need to stop the clock at a certain point. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Well, when people buy lots that I don’t plan on, I’m not going to stop it. 52 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. SCHACHNER-They’re buying lots. MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t see how you can buy lots if you haven’t subdivided the property. MR. SCHACHNER-Yes. You’re talking about buying lots. MR. RYMKEWICZ-They give me a deposit. They want to buy the property. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, a deposit is a deposit, but they haven’t sold the property. You can’t deed them anything. MR. RYMKEWICZ-That’s what I’m telling you, but like I say, obviously there was a misunderstanding on whether I should put down for 19 acres or 27. MR. BREWER-You can’t legally sell them until you subdivide it. MR. SCHACHNER-And people putting down deposits is irrelevant. Okay. You need to take the amount of acreage you have that you wish to divide, whatever that number is, whether it’s 27, 19, 200 or 400, you need to take that amount of acreage and tell the Staff, here is the amount of acreage that I have that I wish to subdivide. We don’t care who’s putting down deposits for anything. That’s your private business, and it’s none of our business. Okay, as the Chairman indicates, it’s illegal for you to actually deed lots out before a subdivision is approved, and if that happens. MR. RYMKEWICZ-No, I’m not doing that. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. If that happens, the Town, the Town will likely take enforcement action against you, but you say you’re not doing that. That’s great, but we don’t care. It’s none of our business who’s putting down deposits for what. You need to take the acreage that you’ve got, that you wish to subdivide, and tell the Staff, here are those numbers, and then Staff will publish the legal notice in the Post Star, and your obligation as an applicant is to send out the notifications to the property owners within 500 feet, and if the notification doesn’t match the legal ad, then we can’t legally proceed to review your application. Am I making sense? MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes. MR. RYMKEWICZ-All right. So let me give you the acreage and you can tell me what I should put on here. I start off with 74 acres. I have 74 acres to start off with. Crayford and Higgs applied for 42 acres and got approved. MR. BREWER-Do they own that? MR. RYMKEWICZ-I still own it. MR. BREWER-Then it doesn’t matter what they were approved for. You still own that, correct? MR. RYMKEWICZ-This is where the confusion’s coming in. I can’t get a straight answer from anybody. MR. BREWER-But he still owns the acreage. MR. RYMKEWICZ-You don’t know what I’ve gone through for this, believe me. MR. MAC EWAN-Your 74 acres that you started out with, we did a subdivision for Crayford and Higgs for 42 acres. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Correct. 53 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. MAC EWAN-You’re down to 32 acres. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Wait a minute, now, I still own it. I haven’t been paid for it. MR. MAC EWAN-It doesn’t matter. It’s an approved subdivision MR. RYMKEWICZ-This is where we get confused. Okay. Take 42 off of that. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Lot A was five acres. I got approved and I got paid for it today. I no longer own it. MR. MAC EWAN-Stop there. Is that an approved subdivision? MR. PALING-It doesn’t make any difference to us. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Yes, an approved subdivision. MR. MAC EWAN-Right. MR. RYMKEWICZ-I sold it and got paid for it today. MRS. LABOMBARD-No, we don’t care about that. MR. RYMKEWICZ-So take five off from there. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. You’re down to 27. That’s where you are. Now you want to revise your application to reflect that you want to subdivide 27 acres. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Take five out of the 27. MR. MAC EWAN-Notify every land owner within 500 feet, no matter how that’s cut up. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Well, that’s what I’ve already done. So my letters are fine. MR. MAC EWAN-Your letters are going to have to be re-done, though. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Right, but I could still use that same letter, but now I’ve got to tell her, and then she’s got to re-do it. MR. SCHACHNER-Correct, a five and a 22. MR. BREWER-Yes, he wants to take five away from 27. MR. SCHACHNER-Right. So that creates two lots. MR. BREWER-Correct, a five and a 22. MR. SCHACHNER-A five acre lot and a twenty-two acre lot. Am I right? MR. RYMKEWICZ-Well, it’s going to be actually three lots. Because I’ve still got eight acres on another road. MR. BREWER-You’re right. If you take five away from twenty-seven, you’ve got twenty-two. MR. SCHACHNER-Right, but I’m hearing no, and I don’t care. MR. RYMKEWICZ-See, there’s eight acres not adjoining this property. MR. SCHACHNER-Part of the 74? 54 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. RYMKEWICZ-Yes, across the road. See, that’s where I got confused. MR. BREWER-Then you’ve got to add the eight to the74. MR. RINGER-I don’t think we’re going to settle this tonight. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s exactly right. The right way to do it is if the Staff and the applicant sit down and make sense of it. MR. RINGER-Right, and then come to us, because we’re just going to confuse it more. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s absolutely correct. I’m certainly getting more confused. MR. MAC EWAN-It sounds like an excellent plan. So, the next question is, are we going to table this thing or consider it an incomplete application, and/or both? MR. SCHACHNER-I think you’re looking at Choice Two. MR. MAC EWAN-Incomplete application. MR. PALING-Do you want to allow public comments? MR. MAC EWAN-No, we can’t because we can’t legally proceed. MR. RINGER-We’ve had these people waiting all night. MR. MAC EWAN-They got to see the process work tonight. Okay. So that’s where you’re at. Your application is incomplete. You need to go to Staff. MR. RYMKEWICZ-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Is there anything else? MR. SCHACHNER-Yes. I have a concern about the motion of approval for the Barber application. My concern is that I thought the Board handled the SEQRA process very well. I thought you handled the public hearing process very well. I sense that there are members of the public who are not happy with the Board’s approval, and who may take further action in that regard. My concern is that I did not hear much in the motion of approval about the Board’s feeling about compliance with the appropriate Section of the Zoning Ordinance that lists the criteria for consideration of site plan approval. Am I making sense? MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-So my suggestion would be, if the Board shares my concern, that the Board perhaps re-visit your motion for approval, and instead of just indicating its a motion for approval with these seven conditions, have some explanation as to why it is you’re moving for approval, tying that motion into the criteria in the Zoning Ordinance for site plan approval. MRS. LABOMBARD-All right. Get your book out to those Sections. MR. O’CONNOR-179-38. MR. BREWER-I don’t agree with that, because the other people aren’t here. MR. SCHACHNER-I did try to catch the other people, by the way, but they weren’t here. I guess what I would recommend is that the Board take a glance 55 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) through, and if you recall, we went through this, for example, when you denied the Newton’s Auto sales application, originally, I’m talking about, and we had a concern that members of the public seemed, for the applicant, rather, seemed very concerned about that and at that time, one member in particular went through Section 179-38 and listed some reasons, as part of the motion, and that was ultimately upheld in a Supreme Court Article 78 action, and I always encourage the Board, on contentious matters, to look at that Section, to look at the criteria, and to include discussion of those criteria in your motion, whether it’s to approve or deny, and that’s what I’m encouraging the Board to do now. If you agree with my recommendation, then what I would suggest people do is take a minute to look through the criteria in 179-38, and then whoever’s making the motion to approve make some reference to those criteria in what I would recommend be an amended motion of approval. I wouldn’t suggest changing anything about what you did say. I would merely suggest augmenting it. MR. MAC EWAN-You introduced the motion, correct, Bob? MR. PALING-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. So you need to amend it, I guess. MRS. LABOMBARD-See, I think where we could amend it, where it does fit the four A, B, C, and D, the four requirements, would be location, character and size, and I really believe that we’ve got enough land to deal with here, and even though it is a residential community, we’re still talking about almost 13 acres of land, and I think that that is fine to have four horses on, and I don’t think that we’re going to have any public hazards from traffic, because the horses aren’t going to be able to leave the property, and it’s not going to be for any commercial use, and I think because there’s so much land involved, when we went through the SEQRA, there is not going to be any adverse impact upon the natural, scenic, aesthetic, ecological, wildlife, historic,….resources of the Town. Because we found that as far as the solid waste, that we had talked about, we’re going to mitigate that because the applicant’s going to have that taken away on a regular basis, and I think that any concerns that the controversy that was brought up, they felt just the opposite, but I feel strongly that anything adverse that is in the nine stipulations that we put in the resolution, so, Bob, if you could just kind of put that together. MR. PALING-I don’t disagree with anything that Cathy’s saying, but I do want, you’ve got to put me at ease in the procedure that we’re following to get to this point. Because now we don’t have anybody out here, except the applicant and they’re attorney, and now I’d like to know why do I go forward under these conditions? And I’ll leave that up to you, Mark. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, and I’m not saying you have to. I did go out and try to get the public who were present for this application, to indicate to them that there might be further discussion of this application. I was unable to locate them. They had departed already. I did see the applicants and their attorney. So I told them there may be further discussion of the application, because if nothing else, I wanted to make my opinion known, and the answer to your question is you are not obligated, you are certainly not obligated to re-visit your motion. I merely am suggesting to the Board that, and I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but you know that I always tell you whenever decisions you’re making, try to refer to the criteria as much as possible, and I underline that advice whenever there’s a particularly controversial or contentious application, and all I’m stating is that I think that the Board, in making its motion, unless perhaps I missed some of it, didn’t make as much reference to the criteria, express reference to the criteria, as I would generally suggest. Having said that, your options, as I see it, are, do nothing, always the easiest option, re-visit your motion for approval, if you wish, and if you wish to consider amending it, do so. I’m not saying you have to do that. You can do that tonight, or you can do that some other time. You can further this 56 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) proceeding at your next meeting if you want, which unfortunately is not for quite some time, now. MRS. LABOMBARD-Well, Mark, it says right on the agenda, any further business that may come before the Board, and this is where I think we have all the right in the world to bring this back up. Fine. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, the public hearing is closed. MRS. LABOMBARD-That’s right, and they left, and before we leave, we’re talking about the course of the night’s events, and then, you know, we realized that maybe we should delve into this a little bit deeper and that’s where I feel comfortable about that. MR. SCHACHNER-Right, and, legally, I’m comfortable with that, if you wish to do that, and the applicant’s still here. MRS. LABOMBARD-And everybody else could have stayed here until the complete duration of the meeting tonight. MR. PALING-Okay. What you said in the last few words was what I was looking for. If you’re comfortable, legally, that we can do what we’re doing now, then I’m at ease. And that’s what you’re telling us? MR. SCHACHNER-Yes. MR. PALING-Okay. Then I have no objection, then. MR. MAC EWAN-So she just basically amended that resolution for you. MR. PALING-Yes. I’m willing to go along with (lost words). MR. MAC EWAN-Do we have a second on the amendment? MR. RINGER-Yes, I seconded it. So I’ll second that. MR. SCHACHNER-I didn’t hear that as a motion. I heard that as Cathy stating her reasons for her position. MRS. LABOMBARD-Right. No I said, is this what you would want in a motion? MR. MAC EWAN-No, no, no. It’s not what he would want. It’s what you would want. MRS. LABOMBARD-No. Is this what we. MR. SCHACHNER-I’m not a Planning Board member, and I don’t intend to be. MRS. LABOMBARD-Maybe after I’m on this Board for 10 years, I’ll really know what’s going on here. MR. BREWER-Do we have 60 days to make a decision? MR. MAC EWAN-Thirty. MR. BREWER-Thirty days? MR. SCHACHNER-No. I thought you had 62 days. I’m pretty sure you have 62 days from the close of the public hearing to make a decision, but you’ve already made a decision. MR. BREWER-Right. I mean to amend, if we decided to. 57 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MRS. LABOMBARD-Lets do it right now, while it’s fresh on our mind. MR. BREWER-Maybe you want to, Cathy. Maybe I don’t want to. MRS. LABOMBARD-Well, that’s true. MR. PALING-Why don’t you go ahead and make yours as an amendment, Cathy, just say what you said before. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, I mean, procedurally, it would be more appropriate if whoever made the motion originally. MRS. LABOMBARD-That was Bob. MR. SCHACHNER-Moved to amend the motion, if you feel appropriate to do so. If you don’t, don’t. MR. PALING-Well, there’s nothing that Cathy brought up I disagreed with. It’s only underlying, I feel it’s redundant, personally, but I don’t have any objection to redundancy, because we stay out of trouble that way many times. So I’ll amend the motion. Consideration was given to environmental conditions involved, such as traffic, containment of the animals on the property. MRS. LABOMBARD-Size of the proposed use. In other words, there’s almost 13 acres of land that we’re dealing with. MR. PALING-Right. MRS. LABOMBARD-We didn’t feel there was an adverse environmental impact, as far as aesthetic, ecological, natural resources of the Town. MR. PALING-That’s all in SEQRA. MR. SCHACHNER-No, but it’s also, she’s reading from Section 179-38D, and it’s very appropriate that she do that because that’s one of your specific criteria for site plan approval. You’re correct, Bob, it is in SEQRA, and you’re correct that it’s redundant, but it’s my suggestion that it would be appropriate for the Board, in any contentious matter of site plan review to make express reference to the criteria in Section 179-38, and refer to them, as I think some of your are starting to do, when you make your motions for approval or denial. That’s all I’m suggesting. There is some redundancy to it. No question about it. MRS. LABOMBARD-Right. MR. PALING-Okay. Then let me, I’ll start the amendment again. MOTION TO AMEND THE MOTION OF APPROVAL ON SITE PLAN NO. 3-98 TIMOTHY BARBER, Introduced by Robert Paling who moved for its adoption, seconded by Larry Ringer: Consideration was given to items in Article 179-38, specifically public hazards from traffic, of congestion, the parking of motor vehicles, anything that would be detrimental to the safety, health or general welfare of the people working or residing in the neighborhood, and to the general welfare of the Town, as well as to the size of the property, and the number of horses to be used. We’ve considered the scenic, aesthetic, ecological, wildlife, historic, recreational items, and felt there was no adverse effect on any of these issues. Duly adopted this 20 day of January, 1998, by the following vote: th MR. BREWER-We’re just voting on the amendment, correct? MR. MAC EWAN-That’s correct. 58 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 1/20/98) MR. BREWER-Does it effect the outcome of the motion if we vote no on the amendment? MR. SCHACHNER-If you vote no on the amendment, then the original motion stands as approved. MRS. LABOMBARD-Good point. ‘ AYES: Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Ringer, Mr. Paling NOES: Mr. Brewer, Mr. MacEwan ABSENT: Mr. Stark MR. SCHACHNER-All right. Then the motion stands as originally approved. The amendment fails, and the motion stands as originally approved. MRS. LABOMBARD-Right. MR. BREWER-Now, we have 62 days, what my contention is. MR. SCHACHNER-Wait, you don’t have 62 days. You’ve made your decision. MR. BREWER-No, we don’t. We have to stand. All right, then I just, I won’t say anymore then. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Any further business? Okay. Meeting adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Craig MacEwan, Chairman 59