1999-02-23
(Queensbury Planning/ZBA Joint Meeting 2/23/99)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD & ZBA MEETING
JOINT MEETING
FEBRUARY 23, 1999
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
CRAIG MAC EWAN, CHAIRMAN, PLANNING BOARD
CHRIS THOMAS, CHAIRMAN, ZBA
CATHERINE LA BOMBARD, SECRETARY, PLANNING BOARD
BONNIE LAPHAM, SECRETARY, ZBA
LARRY RINGER, PLANNING BOARD
CHARLES MC NULTY, ZBA
TIMOTHY BREWER, PLANNING BOARD
DANIEL STEC, ZBA
GEORGE STARK, PLANNING BOARD
ROBERT VOLLARO, PLANNING BOARD
ROBERT PALING, PLANNING BOARD
MEMBERS ABSENT
LEWIS STONE, ZBA
PAUL HAYES, ZBA
ROBERT MC NALLY, ZBA
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR-CHRIS ROUND
CODE COMPLIANCE OFFICER-CRAIG BROWN
SENIOR PLANNER-CHARLES VOSS
PLANNER-LAURA MOORE
TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX & PRATT-MARK SCHACHNER
STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI
MR. ROUND-One of the opportunities tonight is to get to know the other Board members. So if
you could tell how long you’ve been on the particular Board and what Board you’re on, and maybe a
little bit about your professional or educational background, and if you have a particular area of
interest or a pet peeve, to throw that out.
MR. PALING-I’m Bob Paling. I’m on the Planning Board, retired. Electrical engineer by education.
Marketing and sales by profession no longer.
MR. MC NULTY-I’m Chuck McNulty, Zoning Board of Appeals. This is the second meeting I’ve
been to. So, I’m brand new. Retired from New York State, working some with real estate now and
also working for Sawyers. My background, I trained as a Wildlife Biologist. My experience with
New York State has been a lot with local government, and I guess that’s it.
MR. SCHACHNER-Chris, why don’t you back up to Bob and have everybody say how long you’ve
been on whichever Board. I think that’s of interest.
MR. PALING-I just finished my fifth year on the Board.
MR. STARK-George Stark. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry. I’ve been on the Board seven
years, the Planning Board. I own two motels on Route 9 in Queensbury.
MR. THOMAS-My name is Chris Thomas, Zoning Board of Appeals. I’ve been on the Board for
six and a half years. I work for Niagara Mohawk.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m Bob Vollaro. I’ve been on the Board a year, on the Planning Board for a year.
My educational training is Electrical Engineering. I’ve worked for United Technology, ran my own
engineering business for about 10 years, and that’s about it for me, I guess.
MR. RINGER-Larry Ringer. I’ve been on the Planning Board for a little over two years now.
Retired. I spent 30 years as an Account Manager with Proctor and Gamble doing marketing and
sales, and no pet peeves. I just enjoy what I do here.
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MR. STEC-My name is Dan Stec. My background is I spent the last years as a Naval Officer, the last
eight years. I just moved back home from Rhode Island, actually, in August, and I was appointed to
the Zoning Board of Appeals in October. My education is I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical
Engineering, and a Masters in Business Administration.
MR. MAC EWAN-Craig MacEwan, Planning Board. I’ve been a member for seven years. I own my
own business in Town. It’s an employment service. I’ve been doing that for 12 years. Prior to that,
18 years I worked at Kaymr in the Engineering Department.
MR. BREWER-Tim Brewer, Planning Board. I’ve been a member since 1991. I’m a salesman for
NAPA here local in Town.
MRS. LAPHAM-Bonnie Lapham. I’ve been on the Board two years, the Zoning Board of Appeals
for two years. I have a Bachelor’s in History with a minor in Education, and I work as an
Independent Fee Appraiser for real estate.
MRS. MOORE-I’m Laura Moore. I’m the Assistant Planner with the Town, and I’m going on my
second year with the Town, and I provide guidance to the Planning Board.
MR. BROWN-I’m Craig Brown, the Town Code Compliance Officer. I’ve got several years
surveying/engineering background prior to working with the Town. I’ve been with the Town a year
in May, .and I do a lot of preparation, Staff review for the Zoning Board.
MR. VOSS-I’m Chuck Voss, the new Senior Planner here for the Town. Formally planning with the
City of Albany for about six years. I was hired to provide technical assistance for the Town and
work on some special projects.
MR. SCHACHNER-I’m Mark Schachner. I’m one of the attorneys for the Town or Town Counsel.
I’ve represented the Planning Board since 1994 and the Town as a whole since 1996.
MARK DELSIGNORE
MR. DELSIGNORE-I’m Mark DelSignore, and I work with Mark, and I will be appearing from
time to time, I guess to help you out.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-I’m Cathy LaBombard, and this is my fifth year on the Planning Board. I
have a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry and I teach Chemistry, and Biology and Math at
Hadley/Luzerne High School, and I’ve lived in this area all my life.
MR. ROUND-I, too, am a lifelong resident of this area. I graduated from Syracuse University, with a
Bachelor’s in Science and Environmental Science. I worked in the land development field, surveying
and engineering for about six years, and then moved on into Environmental Engineering with C.T.
Male Associates, most recently. I worked for them probably six or seven years, in solid waste issues,
solid landfill siting studies, moved on into the hazard waste and site investigations, and a lot of field
work, a lot of technical writing expertise, a lot of issues that have broad applications. So I feel that
there’s a nice mix, dealing with people, dealing with government agencies, so that there’s some cross
applications in my background. It’s a difficult position. I just want to let you know that. That’s one
of the reasons we wanted to bring you all here tonight, was one was the, what you see in front of
you, the Comprehensive Plan. That’s a four year that has been completed and accepted by the
Town, and that document, it’s not a document like the document from 10 years ago. It’s not a
zoning template. It’s not a land use plan for re-districting or re-zoning of the Town of Queensbury.
A lot of people have struggled with that document, including myself, and it’s not a typical, it’s not
something you would normally see, and it’s also not a really extremely clear vision of where
Queensbury wants to go, but it does present a consensus, of some sort, about issues that effect
Queensbury, and identifies issues that affect Queensbury, and it does identify some areas that we
want to improve on, and I just wanted to make that available to you tonight, to touch on some of
those key issues there, but the Number One priority tonight was to bring everybody together,
establish a dialogue. I know there’s a lot of issues that we talk about at the end of the meeting, or at
the beginning of the meeting, how can we do something this way or what are you doing to address
this situation. So that’s a large component of what’s going to happen tonight, and there’s a sheet in
front of you, you should have been mailed one, with just some suggestions for some topics of
discussion tonight. We have legal counsel here tonight, and we’ve got Staff that sit in front of you to
the Boards that will be participating so that we’re all hearing the same information, and we may not
resolve all the issues that are on this agenda tonight, but we’ll take away from tonight clarification of
what those issues are, provide you with some continuing education, providing you with additional
materials on issues that might come up tonight, as far as APA jurisdictional issue or whether it’s a
Health Department, whether it’s a procedural issue, whether it’s a substantial issue that we need more
research on, but back to the Comprehensive Plan. There are a lot of initiatives that have been
identified in this plan. We have summarized those initiatives. We will be preparing a summary
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document of the plan that we’ll be sharing with you that you can more readily reference, and
hopefully we’ll be doing that within six to eight weeks. We will also be utilizing our web connection.
I don’t know if you know that we all have a web page for the Town of Queensbury, and that’s
www.Queensbury.net. It’s limited functionality right now. It does have every Department on there.
It has our E-mail connection. It also has a description of the Department and what the Department
functions are. It describes some staffing. So it’s a resource that’s out there that we’re going to build
on, with the Comprehensive Plan. I’d like to utilize the Comprehensive Plan for an initiative I’m
going to be launching in the next month, it’s what I’m calling the Community 2002, and that initiative
is basically it’s a PR campaign. I’ll give that one to you. The press is not here, but it’s to build
consensus, further build consensus and provide initiative or propel some of those initiatives that are
identified in the Plan, whether it’s open space planning or whether it’s revision of our Zoning
Ordinance, whether it’s development of, a refining of our Buffer Ordinance, and this Community
2002 is just a series of public information tools that we’d be utilizing. One will be the web page.
One will be a newsletter that we’ll try to put out on a quarterly basis, to bring attention to the issues
that were identified in the Plan, and will also provide a form for feedback from the community to
our Department to the Town, and we’ll also let you know what meetings are associated with a
particular initiative, and with that, I’ll just touch on briefly before we go into our open agenda, is that
some of the things that we are working with. We do have budgeted this year money for revision of
our Zoning Ordinance. I’m not sure what form that’s going to take, whether we are going to look at
performance zoning or flexible zoning criteria versus a schedule of uses. A lot of communities are
utilizing the flexible zoning or performance zoning in place of a schedule of uses, and that’s
something I’d like to examine, but that’s going to be a big rock to push, and I won’t comment
anymore on that. So that money is budgeted. Something else we have initiated, Laura Moore and
Chuck Voss are working on examining establishment of an open space preservation organization for
the Town of Queensbury. Saratoga’s Conservancy, the Trust Republic Lands, several organizations
are going to be assisting us, and working with existing community groups to establish a stewardship.
Maybe some of the lands that will be in that trust will be lands that have been identified either in the
’88 Plan or the ’98 Plan. Some lands that are very sensitive to some citizens groups today, including
like the Citizens for Queensbury, there’s a piece of property that they’re interested in preserving.
We’ll also look at like the big cedar swamp. We’ll be looking at the property that the Town already
owns that it’s not currently actively managing, that’s on the Halfway Brook corridor. We own 70
acres right out here. It’s pulling all the pieces of land together, providing maybe establishment of a
not for profit organization that wouldn’t be under the Town’s jurisdiction, but we’re going to provide
the expertise and assistance to push that project forward, and that’s something that the Town’s been
examining for five years, and it was identified in the Plan. So that’s one issue. We’re also looking at
stormwater management regulations. The Town is moving forward with stormwater management
regulations. We’ve adopted a stormwater management plan, just within the last month. We will be
pushing forward with adoption of the Ordinance, working with some mandates that have been
placed on us by the Lake George Park Commission, and New York State. There will be opportunity
to participate in those, and for that I’ll see if maybe some of the Planning Board members or Zoning
Board members would like to participate in that particular initiative. We’re also looking at
development of impact fees. That’s something that’s really an emphasis is do we want to look at
traffic impact fees. We already charge an impact fee for recreation. Is that the biggest need that
there is? Is there a strong need for recreation facilities or is there a stronger need for improvement
of our traffic facilities? Chuck Voss, the first thing I gave Chuck when he came in, Chuck has been
charged with examining the development of a business improvement district for the Million Dollar
Half Mile. That’s seen a rise and fall in interest, and it’s something that we want to find out, well,
what was the final answer on that. There was some interest. The business owners thought, well, the
Town should be initiating, well, the Town thought the business owners should be initiating. We’re
going to bring that to a head and to a close, whether it’s positive or negative. So those are some of
the things, we are working on the plan. It’s not a dead document. So I want you to take it home,
review it, provide us with suggestions on what are particularly valuable things. What things need to
be improved on, and then open it up and give us some feedback on that. With that, we did identify,
there’s a list of issues, and I’ll just quickly breeze through them and then look for direction from my
other Staff members here on where we want to go with tonight’s meeting. Some of the issues that
we’ve struggled with over the last six months, twelve months, some of these things are “Modification
to previously approved subdivision & site plans”. There’s not a formal, it’s not formally addressed in
our Zoning Ordinance, our Subdivision Ordinance, our Site Plan Ordinance, when do you modify a
plan. What magnitude of modification requires it to come back in front of the Planning Board, and
we’ll talk that one around. Significance of the Comprehensive Plan. How does this Comprehensive
Plan play a role in the decision making of the Zoning Board and the Planning Board? That’s a big
subject, and that’s something I’d like to spend a little time on tonight. SEQRA Review. That’s
something we struggle with, and I have an issue for the Counsel. When the Zoning Board and the
Planning Board both are addressing a project, who is the lead agency? We have to go through a
formal notification process between the two Boards. Crafting resolutions. We’ve gone back to
providing written resolutions for site plan review and subdivisions, and it’s a written resolution that
identifies all the information of record in a file. It assists the Planning Board, and we want some
feedback on that, whether it’s a valuable exercise. When can a site plan be denied? We’ve had a
couple of site plans denied in the last year. Giving clear instructions to applicants in information
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requests. We have a difficult time, at times, providing clear and concise feedback, and Staff, and
that’s partially the fault of Staff, partially the fault of the Board members, is that we’ve got to clearly
communicate, what deficiencies are there in a particular application, and make sure that Staff
understands whatever the Board’s concerns are, and vice versa, so that we’re all coming back the next
meeting with everything that we need in the end. Explaining key provisions of the Ordinance, and
that was just a tickler to, Waterfront Residential is a specifically sensitive area of the Town that we
struggle with when granting variances and addressing septic variances. So that’s something that we
could talk about tonight. I threw on “Brief outline of Local Site Plan/Subdivision Law”, also. “APA
Jurisdictional Issues”. We’ve had a problem with a Town Board or Planning Board approval that
expired, and whether it had to come back in to the Planning Board before an APA permit was issued,
or vice versa. The Department of Health, when does the Department of Health get involved in a
project review? The Beautification Committee. The role of the Beautification Committee and what
is actually, what is their jurisdiction, their circle of influence, and is that the best mechanism to
address aesthetic concerns that the Town may have, and is the Planning Board capable of doing that
or the Beautification Committee expand on its roles. When is engineering review required? That’s a
decision that we make internally, application checklists and submissions, stormwater management
review. Traffic reports, when they’re required, and what the content of a traffic report should be.
Internal review are our internal processes, something the Board’s aren’t, individuals may be familiar
with, but the entire Board’s not familiar with, it’s what happens when an application comes into our
office, what do we do, what are we looking at, and why is considered complete when you don’t feel
it’s complete, or what are the time constraints that we operate in, so that you can better understand
how we’re doing our job. Fees and signatures, etc. So, with that, I’ll throw it back to the Planning
Board Chairman. Which issue would you like to discuss? I know one of the ones that isn’t on here
is, the Zoning Board Chairman is ZBA/Planning Board interaction and communication, and I don’t
think the two Boards know what each other does, and so maybe you could just either touch briefly
on how you operate. You both operate, and I’ll just bring this to the table also, then I’ll shut up, is
that the Board’s operate differently. They are charged with different functions, but they’re run
differently. There’s different personal dynamics and there’s different procedural processes, and so
maybe we could share that with each other in order to improve on ourselves. I’ll throw it back to
Craig MacEwan.
MR. MAC EWAN-Well, I think, you know, the two main functions that obviously our Planning
Board has, for the members of the ZBA, is we do site plan review and we do subdivision
applications, and site plan review in itself follows the different Zoning Ordinances within the Town.
For any project that’s impacted in that zone we have a set criteria that we go through in our review
process, not only SEQRA but as far as Beautification impacts, traffic impacts, everything that’s met
for, we don’t usually get involved with the Sign Ordinance, so to speak, but it’s usually impacted in
the application. So we review that very briefly. We deal with stormwater management plans,
setbacks a little bit, as far as the, you know, most of the, I guess you want to say the daily, the
application process itself, that it meets the Zoning Ordinances, as handled by Staff, prior to it coming
on to the agenda. Then we review all the engineering, the Beautification input, public hearing from
the neighboring property owners, and then come up with a determination whether we approve the
site plan or we approve it with modifications. It primarily runs the same way with subdivision review
as well. That’s usually a two step, sometimes a three step process with the first step in it being a
Sketch Plan where the applicant for the subdivision comes in in front of our Board and we review
the application or review his plan, his overall concept. We give, for lack of a better word, a blessing
to go ahead on to Preliminary Stage, and Preliminary Stage we identify maybe some outstanding
engineering issues or setbacks, whether there’s going to be impact on wetlands or something like
that. Then going on through that approval process, we move it on to Final. I think probably
speaking for the Board, and some of you may want to jump in from the Planning Board, but I think
our biggest worry is how do our two Boards cross paths and what you folks do impacts what us and
what we do, vice versa, impacts you, and we have had occasions in the past where we’ve done like
Lead for SEQRA review for applications that you have pending. We wanted to be more in tune, I
think, with what you guys do in your review process so that we aren’t upsetting the apple cart, and so
that you know where we’re going with a project when it comes back to us, after it’s gotten its
appropriate variances. Does that pretty much encapsulate it?
MR. SCHACHNER-And there’s a third function. The Planning Board does serve a third function,
not as commonly or as often as site plan review and subdivision review, but the Planning Board, and
the Planning Board alone, not the Zoning Board, also gets to be the agency or an agency to which
requests for re-zoning are referred for advisory recommendations. So anytime anybody in Town
seeks a re-zoning, the Town Board refers the re-zoning proposal to the Planning Board for an
advisory recommendation, and the Planning Board does that as well. They aren’t as common and
there aren’t as many as subdivision and site plan, but that’s a third function of the Planning Board.
MR. MAC EWAN-Thanks, I forgot.
MR. ROUND-And that’s something that you may want to consult your Comprehensive Plan for to
provide a recommendation for re-zoning. I’ll throw it over to Mr. Thomas.
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MR. THOMAS-The Zoning Board of Appeals, their function is to grant relief from the law, and
that’s all we do. We have Area Variances and Use Variances. Area Variances have to do with
building heights, setbacks, fences, outbuildings, number of buildings on a piece of property, things
like that. A Use Variance is can a use be used on this piece of property, and the applicant has to
prove to the Zoning Board of Appeals that this use that it’s zoned for cannot be used. So if
someone wants to put a house say in a Light Industrial area, they have to come to the Zoning Board
of Appeals for a Use Variance, and there’s a lot of land in the Town of Queensbury that’s zoned
Light Industrial One Acre, where there’s also a lot of houses in, and the applicant comes to us and
says, hey, you know, I’ve got this pre-existing, nonconforming lot. It’s in an LI-1 Acre zone, and
they’ll say, you know, it’s surrounding it. There’s other houses. Why can’t I put a house here? Well,
the applicant has to prove to us that none of the other uses listed for that zone could be used for that
piece of property. Each and every one, they have to show financial. Financial is the biggest one on a
Use Variance. They’d have to show us in dollars and cents why that piece of property can’t be used
as zoned, and the reason, I’ve been on here six and a half years, and there’s very few that have really
shown each and every use cannot be used as zoned. We have given some Use Variances, but I think
those days are going to come to an end here, depending on what the new Comprehensive Plan says.
MR. ROUND-The Zoning Board has a fixed test that they have to go through, and it’s spelled out.
The Planning Board doesn’t have that kind of, you know, one, two, three, four, and it’s probably a
more subjective decision making process than the Zoning Board, although there is some level of
subjectivity that’s involved in the decision making process of the Zoning Board. You have to make a
decision about whether they’re realizing a reasonable return. They have to make a judgement
whether there’s an impact on the community when granting relief from the Ordinance, but there’s
some contrasts.
MR. SCHACHNER-Yes, and again, similar to the Planning Board, there is a third function that the
Zoning Board of Appeals has, although again, it does not exercise this function as often as the Use
Variance and the Area Variance functions, but the Zoning Board of Appeals’ third function is that it
is the body to which somebody who disagrees with a determination of the Zoning Administrator can
appeal that determination. So if somebody goes to our Zoning Administrator, the gentleman sitting
at the table there, at the victims table do we call it? If somebody goes to that gentleman and gets a
ruling from him about a particular zoning issue, and disagrees with that ruling, they have the right to
appeal his determination, and that appeal goes to the Zoning Board of Appeals. That’s the ZBA’s
third function.
MR. ROUND-Just to touch on that issue is that we make zoning determinations every day, and
they’re not always a written record. I mean, if an application comes in for a building permit for a
house, we’re making, we do stamp off on a zoning verification form that implies that a house is
allowed in this particular zone. Certain determinations are made that are a little thinner, and there’s a
little less skin, thinner legs, and my question would be, should we, when there’s decision that may be
more highly subjective or more, that there’s less weight to rely on, should we provide a zoning
verification form to somehow publicize that that determination has been made, so we can then build
a basis for, say a particular use that’s not listed in our schedule of uses. Our Zoning Ordinance says,
if it’s not a listed use, then it’s prohibited.
MR. BREWER-I know where you’re going, Chris.
MR. ROUND-All right. No, I’m not going there, and it also says, listed uses are for illustrative
purposes only. So those could create a lot of conflict in my head, and a lot of times a use might be
very similar in character to a listed use, not identified in any other zone, and I’m making the
determination, well, yes, this generally is a retail use, and so we can make it a retail, retail is allowed.
Other times, that particular use may not fall into any pigeon hole. We’re dealing with a 10 year old
Ordinance, and we have businesses that never were contemplated 10 years ago, and should we
formalize that process, that determination process, or is it necessary. I’m looking for opinions.
MR. SCHACHNER-Yes. From our standpoint, the answer would be, you know, in a perfect world,
sure, you could document each and every single determination you make. One of the things that
most of you all here know us. I mean, we try to give advice that’s not just technically correct, but
also practical in the way we go through real life day to day. I mean, I think our sense would be that
the Staff, as a group, makes an enormous amount of judgements, literally, on a daily basis, and it
would probably be pretty cumbersome to suggest that all these judgements have to be codified in
some written document. To the extent you can, you should. To the extent that there are real tough
ones that are gray areas, it would be great to document them the way Chris is discussing, but the
easiest answer is, 90 something percent of your determinations, probably a very high number, maybe
ninety-nine point something percent of your determinations, are uncontroversial and go
unchallenged, and to that extent, those don’t really need to be documented, but when somebody is
aggrieved, is disturbed, is bothered or disagrees with a determination as the Staff level, it’s definitely
advisable to, even if you did not initially make that determination in writing, make the determination
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in writing, if for no other reason than, if the person does appeal to the Zoning Board of Appeals, it’s
helpful to the ZBA to not only have the determination, but a short reasoning, you know, statement
as to why you made the determination you made, and at the Staff level, remember that you’re not the
end, you’re not the bottom line, and people do have the right to appeal determinations, and especially
on close, gray area calls, that’s fine, and if people do that, and if the ZBA feels otherwise, that’s okay.
MR. ROUND-I ask that because there is a time clock that’s triggered by, there’s a time limit from
when you can appeal the Zoning Administrator’s determination. I think it’s 30 or 60 days. So, from
my viewpoint, the written determination starts the clock. If nobody knows about it, how are they
going to challenge it, and should we go the extra yard to make it controversial call public so that
somebody could then challenge it and then we could send it through the Zoning Board process and
we could get an affirmation or a challenge. I know one of the issues that we dealt with is septic
variances. There’s a provision of our Waterfront Residential zone that says, when expanding your
residential structure, and Craig’s going to back me up on this one, and I’m paraphrasing this. If you
expand the floor area of a structure in our WR-1A or WR-3A zone, then you must now bring your
septic system into compliance or upgrade your septic system so that it complies with our current
sewage and sewage disposal ordinance, Chapter 136, and the intent of that, what I read the intent of
that Ordinance is that if you are expanding a residential facility in that zone, the intent was to identify
those substandard systems. A lot of either seepage pits or cess pools, just raw discharge of the
sewage into a hole into the ground, nothing more advanced than that, is to identify those systems,
and then before we’ll entertain a building permit for that or entertain a site plan review for that
particular project, that they have to provide verification that they’re able to do that, and we’ve had a
problem in that we’ve advanced some of those applications to a Planning Board or to a Zoning
Board, say a case is, house expanding, needs relief from our Zoning Ordinance, needs setback relief,
so it has to go to the Zoning Board. It also has to go to the Planning Board because of an expansion
of a nonconforming structure in our Waterfront Residential zone. It also triggers our septic, that
portion of our septic ordinance. So we have, previously, advanced projects, made known to the
applicant that you have to upgrade your septic system, and they say, okay, okay, but when it comes
down to the practical implications of upgrading their septic system, maybe they’ve received relief and
they said they were going to receive relief from the Zoning Board. They’re going to the Planning
Board. We’re requesting additional verification. They’ve spent some effort, time, money, planning
effort, and now they find out that it’s going to cost them $8,000 to construct a septic system, they
don’t have room enough on their property, and now they need relief from the septic ordinance, and
they have to go to the Town Board. We’ve allowed individuals to go to the Zoning Board, because
there is a section of our Zoning Ordinance that requires them to upgrade their septic. So relief from
the Zoning Ordinance goes to the Zoning Board. That’s been the issue. I know there’s been some
controversy associated with that. We’ve implemented a new policy, internally, and we will codify
that, we will alter our Ordinances and stuff, is that prior to entertaining a building permit or prior to
entertaining a variance for one of those projects that that requires an upgraded septic, we would
require some level of verification, one, that they’ve (lost word) system, that they have sufficient area
on their property to site an upgraded system. They could provide some verification that their
existing system is indeed in compliance with our current standards. So, I’ll throw that one out there.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Very often I find it’s a conflict between whether the Planning Board has
jurisdiction over that, the septic system, or if it gets thrown over to the Building Inspector, and I’m
never quite sure, because a lot of times when you’re looking at the data, we may not have the
expertise to look at that, so people say, well, when they start to do it, the Building Inspector will
either approve or disapprove that septic installation, and there seems to be a fine line there, whether
it's the Building Inspector’s responsibility or the Planning Board’s responsibility to come up with
that.
MR. ROUND-Right. I think typically for a site plan approval, if they’re able to identify the area on
their property, and they, through the site plan process, they have to demonstrate that physical area,
soils, etc. They may not have to present an engineering detail to the Planning Board for review of
the project. Oftencases it’s subdivisions that that comes into play. So, okay, we have three lots.
They have to demonstrate the ability to site a house, site a septic system, and provide representative
information that they’re able to identify places for septic disposal. They have to provide access to the
highway, etc., etc. Typically, it’s not a marginal call. The Building Department is the administrator of
our sewage and sewage disposal ordinance, but they are responsible for making those kind of
judgements. When our septic systems, when you’ve got to engineer that system, when are perc rates
required, when are soil test pits required? So there is a gray area there, and I know when it is a
marginal issue, that we will require that information in advance of entertaining approvals. It’s a
judgement. So we’d have to make some judgements, and sometimes the Planning Board will
question a judgement or would like additional verification of how we reached that decision, and what
we try to do is bring that to you, get you that information.
MR. VOLLARO-Suppose the perc test is below the margin, for example. What do you do with that?
You know, instinctively, that the perc test doesn’t pass mustard, you know. I mean, where do we go
with that? Does that get formed into the motion so that the Building Inspector notes that when the
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Planning Board looked at this, they found that the perc test was below standards? But what does the
Building Inspector do with that? Does he look at our motions when?
MR. ROUND-He receives your motion, a copy of the approval process.
MR. BREWER-I don’t mean to interrupt, but if it falls below the standard, Bob, shouldn’t it be our
job to send it to an engineer to make sure that it meets the standard before we approve it?
MR. VOLLARO-I would think so, yes.
MR. BREWER-That would be my answer. I mean, if we see something that doesn’t meet the
standard, than absolutely we shouldn’t approve it.
MR. VOLLARO-In other words, the application would be stopped, in a sense? In other words, the
application could not go forward any further, once we said, look, we find the perc test is below
margin and therefore we’re going to return this for an engineering review.
MR. BREWER-In my mind, we would be justified to say, hey, lets get this to the engineer and you
prove to us that it can work, or we’re not going to approve it.
MR. ROUND-Say you’re doing a three lot subdivision, it has wetlands on the property. You know
you have shallow depth to bedrock, shallow depth to groundwater, and they may not be able to
demonstrate three standard systems on these lots, there’s a lot of site constraints. You can request,
we want to see perc test information. We want to see some level of certification from the engineer
that they’re able to site a conventional system. If they’re not able to site a conventional system, that
they’re going to have to provide engineering details for an alternative design system, and then you
can choose not to move forward with those approvals until you receive all that information, and then
if you identify that there’s a variance required from the Town Board of Health, say they can’t meet a
setback, you could certainly either condition your review upon receipt of that or postpone acting on
it until you receive that variance.
MR. MAC EWAN-So I’m clear on what you’re talking about doing, you’re talking about changing
some of your internal reviews before it gets to the ZBA for a variance application or it comes to the
Planning Board for a site plan review, you need to have the applicant demonstrate, should it get to
this point, you’re able to upgrade your system. My question to you would be, if they demonstrate
that they can do that, or they can’t do that. Lets use this analogy, they can’t demonstrate they can do
that, is there some sort of mechanism that kicks in that would prohibit them from going for a
variance application or is that avenue still open to them, or can they still come to the Planning Board
for site plan?
MR. ROUND-We will send them to the Town Board for relief from our sewage disposal ordinance,
and that’s a judgement the Town Board will have to make, whether they want to allow
nonconforming systems to be maintained. There’s two different issues out there.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think it would make a lot of sense going the route you’re proposing, which
would, sometimes it’s that air of obligation, well, gee, he has an applicant. I’ve gotten this far, why
would you turn me down after I’ve spent all this much money, all this review process, all this time
getting on an agenda and putting an application together? If there’s a problem that’s going to be
rearing it’s ugly head, you want to get it right from the starting block, rather than waiting until way
into the process.
MR. VOSS-I think along the line of what Chris was saying, what we want to try and do internally up
front is kind of weight an applicant’s initial application for a project, weight the issues as they come
in, as we see them. Is something going to require a Town Board approval, which will then trigger,
you know, release of other approvals. I think what Chris wants to do, it makes a lot of sense, and
like you just said, because you get an applicant so far through the process, and all of a sudden
something jumps up that may kill the whole deal, so to speak, say the Town Board doesn’t grant
approval to a septic system, well then it’s a moot point, because the whole project dies and the
applicant’s sitting there going, you guys brought me all the way through this, now what do I do?
Well, if we can head those issues off initially, it makes it easier for the applicant and for the two
Boards, because then it’s a smooth process through, versus kind of, you know, backing in to a
project and being retro-active about it.
MR. MAC EWAN-That makes a lot of sense.
MR. ROUND-APA jurisdiction. We refer all variances, generally, we send all our agendas to the
APA each month, to notify them, and on our agendas, for both Boards, we identify which are within
the Park. So that they know, up front they have a notice that, okay, these projects are being
entertained in the Park. We also send our variances applications, specific applications generally
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requiring APA review. They don’t always act on them, but they are entitled to review those
applications. Subdivisions that take place in the Park, there’s jurisdiction that the issue typically has
to issue a permit for. They involve wetlands, it involves subdivision of wetlands, that triggers the
issuance of a permit. We ran into the case, where the Town Planning Board approved the
subdivision and it had not yet received their APA permit for subdivision. The applicant was notified
that our approval is good for 60 days, but you have to file your subdivision plat within a 60 day time
frame, and the County Clerk would not file the subdivision because it did not have an APA permit.
So which comes first, the chicken or the egg? So, what I suggest we do is make our final, and this is
where it gets difficult dealing with the County. We make our final approval, that comes from the
Planning Board, it’s a conditional approval. It’s conditioned upon receipt of an APA permit.
Hopefully, through our subdivision process we’ve resolved all those issues and we’re through the
process. We’re communicating with the APA so that there’s not going to be a significant
modification to the plan, and have to come back to the Planning Board. If that does, it’ll have to
come back to the Planning Board, and if we issue a final approval conditioned upon receipt of a
permit, that that would allow our time frame to expand. I’ll defer to Mark on that one.
MR. SCHACHNER-That sounds appropriate, because if you condition the approval, then the
approval’s not valid until the condition is fulfilled.
MR. ROUND-If the condition is fulfilled.
MR. MAC EWAN-That was the tough sell we were having with the County.
MR. ROUND-Yes. That’s what we said. It’s a conditional approval, conditioned upon APA permit,
but we have to put specific reference to that into our subdivision resolutions, so that the Clerk at the
County will know that this is contingent upon receipt of the permit.
MR. MAC EWAN-Well, we had talked about that, and didn’t we send up a copy of the resolution to
her, so that she could see that it was contingent upon an APA approval?
MR. ROUND-It was, and she said, well, you should have filed the map. Well, it wasn’t legal, from
our standpoint, to file the map because the conditioned hadn’t been met. Well, she said you should
file the map anyway, and then our concern is that we file a map, sign a map and have it filed without
an APA permit, now people start issuing building permits on a project that all the conditions haven’t
been met.
MR. MAC EWAN-But more importantly, she wouldn’t have been allowed to have the map filed
unless it had an APA approval, right? How could we have filed it?
MR. ROUND-Yes, right, but the County will also argue that they’re not responsible for enforcing
land use regulations.
MR. SCHACHNER-And that’s true.
MR. ROUND-And that’s true. So, it’s a difficult.
MR. SCHACHNER-Right, but why does that map get signed? Why does Craig sign that mylar if the
condition hasn’t been fulfilled yet?
MR. ROUND-Well, that’s what we will not do. We will not sign it. So that’s what we did. We
signed it, with a new date, when that condition was met. So that we can issue a conditional approval.
MR. MAC EWAN-It actually came back in and we re-did the subdivision all over again.
MR. SCHACHNER-Right. As it happens, but hypothetically speaking, if it’s a conditional approval,
I thought he doesn’t sign the mylar until the condition’s fulfilled?
MR. ROUND-That’s what we will do.
MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. That’s definitely the better practice.
MR. ROUND-That’s the practice that we will follow. Traffic. Here’s a good one. Traffic reports.
When are they required? When should the Planning Board request them? It relates to variance
issues, and it should shoot over to the zoning issue, but that will be next. We’ve had instances where
we’ve required a traffic report of a residential subdivision. What should you weigh? Does the Board
have a standard by which something triggers that process? Is it because a citizen raised the issue? Is
it because the magnitude? Is it a road block? Is it a valid road block, a valid consideration?
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MR. MAC EWAN-For me it’s a gut instinct, seriously. I mean, you kind of look at a project and
you can see maybe potentially what the impact is going to be and whether it kicks in another review
process or additional information. That’s the way I look at them.
MR. ROUND-That’s what we’re looking for some better guidance on. It is pretty subjective, and
just at least give you something, you know, safety considerations, that’s something you should look
at, well, this driveway is too close and we have traffic. Internally, we don’t have the expertise. We
rely on the Transportation Council, Scott Sopczyk, for some guidance on that, and if it’s
questionable, we’ll issue that application. He’s been very cooperative. He’ll provide us with feedback
on either site design issues or traffic volume issues.
MR. BREWER-On that subject, didn’t we used to send a lot of stuff to the Glens Falls, Joanna
Brunso?
MR. ROUND-Yes. Scott Sopczyk is now the head. Joanna retired about nine months ago. Scott
Sopczyk is the new Director. It’s called the Adirondack Glens Falls Transportation Council now.
MR. BREWER-I thought we, at one time, were sending everything to those people?
MR. ROUND-We make a judgement internally.
MR. MAC EWAN-Everything within the corridors.
MR. BREWER-Yes, within the corridors or whatever.
MR. ROUND-Yes. We’ll submit things that are generally on the commercial corridors or something
that has.
MR. BREWER-Just something that comes to mind is the car dealership up on Route 9, and there
were a couple of other ones we talked about. Martha’s they talked about, and they talked about
Dunkin Donuts.
MR. ROUND-Those have been sent, and sometimes it may not be read as public record, but most
recently Garvey Volkswagen wants a new curb cut. The County comments on issues that are on
County right-of-ways. There’s a curb cut permit, but they don’t always look at all the issues. They’re
just looking at, is that a good location, you know, we’re concerned with our stormwater drainage, you
know, don’t disrupt our culvert, and they don’t look at the bigger issue. If we know in advance this
is coming on our agenda, we’ll make sure we identify it, that it does get sent to them, and maybe that
kind of feedback.
MR. BROWN-Chris, maybe just for discussion, maybe try and develop a schedule, a subdivision, say,
with X number of lots, fronting on a certain category road, maybe that would trigger a traffic review,
or a commercial site plan review with X number of parking spots, or so many square feet, that might
trigger a traffic review. I mean, just something to consider, rather than a subjective.
MR. ROUND-There are some guidances out there, and we’ll see if we can put our hands in those
and share those with the Board. Has anybody got a hot topic?
MR. STARK-I’ll be interested in the modification, the first one.
MR. MAC EWAN-Me, too.
MR. ROUND-The modification for approved subdivisions and site plans. Any subdivision that
comes in that requires a lot line, generally, you would look at a lot line adjustment, people who are
modifying lot lines on a pre-approved subdivision plat. Our Ordinance reads that it has to come
front of a, that can be an encumbrance. That could be, I guess I would like the ability to say, okay,
this is just a minor adjustment to a subdivision, sign off on it, and do an administrative approval
process, to see that change. We’d like to see that change. Other times, I mean, if it’s going from, we
had the Surrey Fields come in. It went from X number of lots down to X minus two, and it
consolidated some lots, changed some configurations. It was a simple enough project, but it was
significant enough that it should come back in front of the Planning Board, and we’d like some
flexibility in making that judgement, when should it come in front of you, back before the Planning
Board. Subdivisions are pretty simple deals. Site Plans. Somebody comes in and gets a site plan
approval, and now several of our zones say, okay, you can continue a use on particular plan, continue
a use on a piece of property, but if you expand in excess of five parking spaces or 10% of, increase
parking area by 10%, that comes back in front of the Planning Board for review. That was a nice
attempt at trying to establish some thresholds that should come back to the Planning Board. Is that
the best threshold? Should we be looking at that threshold again? What if a building is zoned, and a
particular site plan approval for a bank, drive through bank, and now somebody comes in and they
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want to put in a dry-cleaning facility. No parking areas are changed, but potentially there’s chemicals
used on the site, and maybe some noise and odor problems that are associated, a real change in use,
but it’s allowed under our Zoning Ordinance. Should that individual come back in? There’s no
traffic issues associated with it, but there might be some other issues. Should that project come back
in front of the Planning Board and receive another site plan approval?
MR. MAC EWAN-Sure, it should. It’s not a modification. A modification, to me, is a modification
of an existing use.
MR. BREWER-Could you go back and look at that use and say there was nothing there? And if that
use were to go there, it would have a site plan, absolutely, then, it should come back.
MR. ROUND-Right. Okay. That’s one thing. Lets go on to another one. Somebody comes in and
is approved for retail establishment. It’s a florist, and now they’re going to change it and it’s going to
be a candy store. Is that required that they come back in for a new site plan approval? What if
somebody comes in that has an industrial use? We’re faced with this issue out in the Warren County
Airport area. Those are industrial complexes. They’re like truck terminals, warehouse and
distribution. We’ve seen some occupancies of those that have been in violation of our Zoning
Ordinance, and we’ll bring them to the Zoning Board. It says, okay, our Light Industrial Ordinance
does not provide for inter-change of uses. You can’t just substitute a use in there, but that could be
an encumbrance to the public. What if it was a site approved for a manufacturing facility, it was
manufacturing computer chips, now they have changed, and now they’re assembling plastic parts?
There’s no real change in the character of the use. Truck traffic is the same. That’s a real change in
use. It’s gone from assembly of plastic materials to assembly of electronic components. So that
come back in front of the Planning Board.
MR. BREWER-If you’re going to make one change come back, then you have to make every change
come back. You have to be consistent.
MR. ROUND-That’s something we’ve struggled with, consistency. That’s a valid point. We try to
be as consistent as possible, but we’re trying to be as flexible as possible. This is my argument. I’m
trying to make an argument for performance standards for flexible zoning, okay. If we have
industrial property, and you should be able to come in, or if we have a zone that’s called mixed use,
maybe it’s going to be called Industrial, or Industrial Commercial, so that if you do not exceed a
threshold for noise, if you don’t exceed a threshold for light, if you don’t exceed a threshold for
traffic, if it falls within certain parameters, you don’t need, we worked on this with the Generic
Environmental Impact Statement, that you don’t need a Planning Board approval. If you can meet
this set of standards, and you can get an administerial or administrative approval.
MR. BREWER-I don’t agree with that.
MR. ROUND-I know there’s concerns out there, and that’s why, in order to make this successful,
we’re going to have to have a public involvement.
MR. BREWER-Suppose, hypothetically, it meets that criteria you set up, down the road, it exceeds
that threshold. Then where are you from there?
MR. ROUND-We’ll require some level of verification, certification that it is meeting that, a letter of
engineering certification that it is in compliance with our performance standards, and it doesn’t emit
noise above X decibels. That’s what we’re looking to go for, and that’s what we’re looking to bring
about, to simplify our, you know, it’s going to put additional burdens on us, but it’s going to simplify
the judgement process by which uses are allowed.
MR. BREWER-But would that give notification to neighborhoods?
MR. ROUND-Right, and that’s why I’ve offered this to the Town Board. Lets not go ahead with
our Generic Environmental Impact Statement, because this is, it’s so broad and will allow so many
different uses, it’s difficult to address the impacts of that mixed list of use. It’s difficult to not
involve the public in that planning process, that we’ve got to go back, maybe that will be the final
process that will come about, but first we’ve got to define what kind of industrial uses we want. I
think we’ve got to narrow the list down. So maybe there’s a mix of allowed uses and performance
standards. That’s something we’re going to be working on, but when do we require a modification
to, we’ll come back to the modification. There is no formal requirement, and I’ll ask Mark.
MR. SCHACHNER-No, there isn’t, and the examples Chris gave, I think the consensus was, well,
gee, those sound like material changes. The legal criteria, to the extent there are any, as to when
something is a modification and has to come back is, materiality of the change, but you know, lets
make up another example. There’s, I think he said, lets say somebody has a site plan approval to be a
florist, okay. The florist now starts selling balloon arrangements, also. I’m making up this example,
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but to my mind at least, if I were a Planning Board or a Zoning Board of Appeals member, if I’ve
just approved somebody to be a florist, it seems to me that the balloon arrangement thing is pretty
much the same idea, and to me, that’s not something that my gut reaction is, I need to see that again,
and at least Tim, for example, seems to agree with that. Now, all right, there’s an example where
some of us feel, no, I don’t have a problem with that, that doesn’t need to come back to me, but if
I’m changing from florist to selling gasoline on the site, or the dry-cleaner was the example, of course
I need to see that again. Well, okay, great, then like any other situation, you can bring these examples
closer together, so you will find gray area. You will find gray area no question about it, and ultimately
there will be discretionary judgement calls as to whether something is a material enough, not even a
material enough change, but whether it’s even a change that has to come back or not, and I don’t
think there is any magic legal standards, but I do think that the knee jerk reaction of any change
comes back when you really analyze that and focus on that. Probably nobody thinks that any change
has to come back, because you can, you know, I can make up ridiculous examples where you
approved something and the change is so infinitesimal, so minute that nobody would want to see it
again.
MR. ROUND-That’s typical, because the general public doesn’t always know that. Well, he’s always
operated a grocery store at this location, and I’m going to operate a video rental place now.
MR. BREWER-That could be a hot topic.
MR. ROUND-Bad example?
MR. BREWER-Bad example.
MR. ROUND-Why should I have to come back in? I’m not putting anymore parking spaces out.
It’s similar trip generation. There’s no noise associated with this, so that’s a judgement we have to
make, and you’re not always going to agree with me, and we could sit around the table, and well, you
know, is this going to be controversial. That’s something we take into consideration, because we’ve
got to sit by that judgement. A case in point, the facility on Bay Road that services vehicles, paints
vehicles, now would like to rent vehicles, now would like to sell vehicles. That requires Planning
Board review.
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, absolutely.
MR. ROUND-We felt that there was a significant change in the character of the use that now you
were going from servicing three to five vehicles a day, versus having people taxi cars to your facility.
Regardless of how much space you’re occupying on the site, that was something that was an easy
decision, but they were going to expand their facility, but now, well, they’re going to do the same
number of parking areas, same number of cars on the site. Is it a significant change, that’s a difficult
decision to make, and that’s where we said, well, there are, you know, we were considering a
modification, not require it, but just allow you to comment. A modification also allows us comments
on issues that maybe were never addressed. Maybe the street has changed. Maybe the character of
the neighborhood has changed since the initial approval was issued. So that allows the Planning
Board, allows the Zoning Board or whatever body it is, to comment, and now there’s a traffic
problem, the curb cuts in the wrong location. Maybe they have three curb cuts and now they want to
consolidate a curb cut. This will allow you the opportunity to address those issues. I need a Zoning
Board issue. I need a Zoning Board member to throw out an issue here so we can get you guys
involved.
MR. THOMAS-Go down to the “Application Checklists/Submissions”.
MR. ROUND-Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-Hey, it’s one of our favorites, too.
MR. ROUND-“Application Checklist/Submissions”. We have revised our Area Variance forms, and
generic to both the variance forms and to our site plan applications and checklists is the list of issues
that should be identified on your plot plan, okay, and in being generic, it’s very broad, and it
addresses and encompasses a lot of issues that may not be specific to a particular project. So, we
receive an application, Wednesday deadline date. Guess when all the applications come in?
Wednesday at four o’clock. We receive all those applications on Wednesday, and we have Thursday,
all day, Friday, all day, there’s 16 hours, and then four hours on Monday, and this process does not
happen in a vacuum. We are receiving people for inquiries. We are receiving phone call inquiries.
We’re dealing with the public and advancing our own projects that aren’t external projects, and we
have to make a judgement whether an application is complete, whether it requires Department of
Health approval, whether it requires, whether an application needs a variance. It may have received a
Planning Board application, does that need a variance. We’ve also received Zoning Board
applications, is that consistent, are those uses allowed in the zone? We’re making zoning
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determinations. We’re making determinations whether an application has to be submitted to the
County for approval, which is, all the determinations have to be made before noon on Monday so
that we can send all those applications out to the County. Those applications have to be complete.
We’ve instituted a policy that we would like pre-application meetings with applicants, and that was
formalized to the extent that we’ve put up posters around our office that says, we put on
applications, pre-application conference. Probably 75% of the applicants participate in that process
and realize that there’s a benefit to meeting with the planning staff in advance of a Zoning Board
application and in advance of a Planning Board application. There’s that percentage that does not.
We’re dealing with individuals that are sophisticated as the Pyramid Corporation, and I’ll use that
word “sophisticated” just as loosely as I can, and we’re dealing with individuals that are trying to
subdivide their grandmother’s property to get a lot on their property so they can build a house for
their son-in-law or daughter-in-law. So we’re dealing with a wide range of issues, and I’m not, this is
not a sob story. So there’s a lot of decisions to make. We do not have a formalized checklist where
we go through and say, okay, site plan one inch equals one fifty, contours one inch, one every ten
feet or one every one foot. It’s a pretty subjective process. We’d have to look at how much detail
that’s required for the Planning Board and for the Zoning Board to make a decision on that.
MR. BREWER-Didn’t we used to have a checklist, Chris?
MR. ROUND-They did. Some years ago, there is a checklist or there’s a guidance document that
basically our Site Plan Ordinance identifies all those issues and all those criteria by which you make a
judgement, and those are all out there, and again, those are all out there, again, those are very broad.
So does somebody need to show a septic system on their site plan for a variance application that
doesn’t involve a septic system? So there’s judgements to be made which are applicable, which are
not, and we try to go through a review process and consciously make those decisions. Sometimes we
miss the mark, and sometimes we hear about it, and sometimes we don’t hear about it. So if you can
tell us how we can improve on that system we’d be more than happy, you know, what is the bare
minimum that you’d want to see? What I’d like to see, I’d like to see a land surveyor’s, I’d like to see
a surveyed plot plan for variance relief, and we struggled with this. Do we require, we were talking
the foundation location issue. That would be nice to know firmly where the property line is, and
firmly know where the structure is, in order to grant relief from our Zoning Ordinance, but the
practical implications don’t always, I mean, that doesn’t always prevail. There’s practical implications
to the private property owner that doesn’t, I mean, I’ve got to pay $600 for a survey to build a 10 by
10 porch on the side of my house. So, we’ve had, that’s the environment that we’re working in. So,
that’s the extent, I don’t know if Staff can comment on our checklists or our review process.
MR. BROWN-I think unfortunately in the effort of trying to be flexible with the applicant, it’s come
at the expense of complete applications, and an actual A, B, C, checklist, is this here, is this here, is
this here. Somebody comes in for a garage height variance. Do they need water usage, septic
location, setbacks to all the other structures on the property? A lot of those things, while they’re on
the checklist, probably don’t pertain to the variance at hand. So I think what you’re trying to get at is
do we go through and make sure that everything that’s on the checklist is there? Well, sometimes we
don’t, because they don’t apply. Should we? If we did, we’d have one application per month per
Board, because nobody would come in with a complete application. So I guess also what you’re
trying to get at is, what the minimums, I guess, the Boards would really like to see. Do you want to
see a surveyed plot plan for each application? Do you want engineer’s reports on parking and
accessing curb cuts and septic systems and, you know, architect’s drawings with elevations and floor
plans, and all those things may be outlined in the checklist, but we don’t enforce them, I guess, as
much as we could, in an effort to be flexible and aid the applicant’s in their applications.
MR. BREWER-Here’s a hypothetical. Suppose you, in all faith, go through and accept an
application. We review a project, whether it be the Zoning Board or the Planning Board, on a
Tuesday night, and we say, hey, how come this isn’t here. Should we reject that application and tell
them to come back next week or next month? I’ve seen a lot, and I’m not trying to be critical, but
where we come into a meeting and get a fist full of information for us to digest at that night of the
meeting, and to me, I wouldn’t accept it. Only because it’s just not fair to the seven members of the
Board to try to sit there and go through an application. How can you make a reasonable decision?
MR. BROWN-I think what we’ve done, unfortunately, like I said, in trying to work with the
applicants and be flexible with additional information, we kind of allow them to bring in little bits of
information prior to the meeting, and like you said, sometimes they bring it in the day before the
meeting.
MR. BREWER-Then you should have a policy, the Board should make policy, and say, hey, if you
can’t get it to us a week before, then we don’t want to see it until next month. That’s just my
opinion. I don’t know how everybody else feels.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think Tim’s on to something.
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MR. BROWN-A lot of times, with the new application, we’ve advertised the public hearing. I mean,
you’re kind of obligated to hold the public hearing and at least hear the application, but table the
application until you get a chance to review the information.
MR. BREWER-To me, maybe that’s one of my pet peeves is if, regardless of whether you, if you
have to spend another $10 to advertise again, then it’s $10 well spent, because I would rather take an
extra week and review an application completely, then try to rush through it and save $10 on a
Tuesday night at 10 o’clock. That’s my own personal opinion.
MR. SCHACHNER-And for what it’s worth, you never actually have to spend the money to re-
advertise, because you can always open the public hearing and just don’t close it.
MR. BREWER-Right.
MR. MAC EWAN-And going along with that, and I would agree with Tim on that, and it seems like
the, I don’t know how you guys have this problem with last minute stuff being put on the table
during, prior to an application, but it seems like it’s those “sophisticated” ones who are habitually
bringing in new drawings and, well, here’s a new engineering report. Here’s this additional, and it
does. It puts the Board in an awkward position to review an application and then think that you’re
going to review completely and move on.
MR. BREWER-Because the engineer, the builder wants to get started next week, and if we don’t get
it done, it’s going to, well, that’s not our problem. You knew six months ago you were going to do
this. We get a lot of pressure.
MR. MAC EWAN-And I’ve started attending, on behalf of the Planning Board, the agenda meetings
with Staff. So hopefully we’ll be able to muddle through those things and kind of weed out, I think
Craig’s got a good point, as well, is that some things may not be applicable to a site plan we’re going
to be doing, but others may, and you want to try to catch it before we have a night of a meeting and
you realize that there may be a potential problem there during the review process.
MR. BREWER-In all fairness, though, we could always say no, but you get that pressure from, I
don’t know how much the Zoning Board gets from, maybe it’s not a good example, say a
development needs a sign up because they want to open Tuesday morning, or whatever the case
might be. You almost feel like, well, we’re probably going to approve it. Maybe we should sit here
and, I don’t, personally, like that.
MR. THOMAS-In most cases, if we don’t have all the information we want, we’ll tell the applicant,
I’ll open up the public hearing and I’ll leave it open, and I’ll tell the applicant, I need, this, this and
this. You can either come back next month or the month after, make your choice. So if we don’t
have the information, we take it just through the public hearing and that’s it. If there’s a lot of
information that they present to us that night, I do the same thing. If they hand us a book like this,
say, well, that’s what we want and there’s some changes in there, well, tell us what the changes are.
Well, they’re marked in there somewhere. I’m going to leave the public hearing open, and I’m going
to say, well, you come back next month or the month after, after we’ve read these things.
MR. ROUND-The Zoning Board is different. The Board does make that decision at the table, hey,
this is too much. If we’ve thrown too much at you, we’re not trying to make you look like the bad
guy, speaking to the Planning Board, hey, we don’t have enough information, but we’ll try to find
that balance.
MR. BREWER-I would say, if we don’t get the stuff a week in advance, it’s not fair to ask us to, if we
told them, I don’t know what kind of example to use. If we told an applicant, we need a report, and
it’s going to be this thick, and they know it’s going to be that thick, and they, and we need it by
tomorrow at two o’clock, do you think they’re going to do it? So therefore, I don’t think it’s fair for
us to get something, you know what I’m trying to say?
MR. ROUND-We try and make a judgement, do you have enough information to make a
judgement? A lot of times, we’ve seen this project three and four times. We’ve been dealing with an
applicant, so we’ve got a really good understanding of what the project is. You guys haven’t seen it.
All you’re seeing is what material you have. So what we have to do is, again, okay, well, lets think
like, wipe the slate clean, and what are we looking at and how do we make a judgement on that? So,
sometimes we’re benefiting from a larger knowledge base on a particular project. We might have
been dealing with it for six months, about a facility.
MR. MAC EWAN-And there’s an extra little safety net that you, as Staff, have available to you, too,
because when you deliver Staff notes on Friday, you can tell that applicant, look, you’re going to need
this. The Board’s going to be looking for this. You have until Friday morning, Friday noon to get
this stuff to us so we can deliver the Staff notes with that included in the packets when they go out.
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MR. ROUND-When we establish a deadline, we look for a complete application, that’s the
application materials, the authorizations, the plot plan, etc., the basic materials. A lot of times people
say, well, our stormwater management plan is not done. We’re going to get it Friday. Well, I need
that by Monday at noon or else it’s not coming. So, we do offer some amount of flexibility. Well,
Monday comes and it’s not here, now it’s Wednesday, I’m going to get it to you. We’re pulling it off
the agenda. We’ll, just give me one more day. So we’re dealing with people. So it’s difficult
sometimes. We have been saying no to people. We want to maintain that balance, though. We want
to, you know, we’re talking about economic development. One of the things to make the site shovel
ready, that’s the big buzz word, is a receptive Planning Board, professional Staff. Identifying issues,
showing some level of flexibility. So we want to maintain a positive environment. I think we do
have a positive environment here.
MR. BREWER-We do.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think the Planning Board has been more than flexible with any applicant.
MR. BREWER-We have, and I can’t stress enough for me that if they want us to be receptive, they
have to be receptive to us. I mean, it’s only fair, Chris. To ask any Board to review something, any
document that night, and make a decision on an approval or denial, is unreasonable to me. I mean, if
it’s two pages, okay, but then, I don’t know. Does anybody else feel the same way? Bob?
MR. VOLLARO-I certainly support that. I think that an example is the acoustic report that came in
on the Nightmare Ride. It came in on that night, you know, that they delivered it. There wasn’t even
an opportunity to look at the data and make a rationale judgement on it, and I think that night we
made a determination of non-significance, when that was on the table only about an hour, in front of
all of us.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Now that brings something up. I’m glad you mentioned that acoustic report.
I think that right there is one of the most difficult reports, I don’t care how long I’ve had that thing.
It means absolutely nothing to me because I’m not an expert on acoustics and decibels and all the
ramifications that go with it, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s probably the toughest type of report
that we’ve had to make a judgement on, and I mean, you can go to the site at different times of the
day, and you can, some people hear better than others.
MR. ROUND-Yes, but it is an extremely difficult, technical area.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-It is.
MR. PALING-I think if you go back over the last year, or even two years, every night of the meeting,
the Planning Board meeting, there’s a bunch of papers passed out to us beforehand, every time, and
there’s two and three and four page documents which we have no chance whatsoever of reviewing.
What happens is, we acknowledge the fact that it’s there, proceed anyway, and make a decision, and
what I think we should do,. and I totally agree with (lost word) is to cut it out. Don’t bring those
documents to us, and don’t let the applicant hand out documents at the meeting, a picture is okay,
and, Tim, maybe you can do two pages, I can’t. That’s too much.
MR. BREWER-No. I mean, reasonably, if we have a meeting on Tuesday, if we don’t have the stuff
by Friday, I don’t want to see it until next month.
MR. PALING-If I could have it at home for a couple of hours, I’m happy, but when they’re handed
to me at a meeting, no.
MR. BREWER-And probably, Bob, it’s as much our fault as it is the applicant’s, because we let them
do it.
MR. PALING-We take it. Because we accept it.
MR. BREWER-Absolutely. We should say, you know, you’ve got new information for us, okay,
great, we’ll leave the public hearing open and we’ll see you next week or next month.
MR. PALING-That’s right.
MR. BREWER-But then we’re going to get cast as the bad guys, but there has to be a line drawn.
MR. SCHACHNER-I don’t want to get off topic, but it’s going back to something Cathy mentioned.
I’m not referring specifically to acoustic studies, but one of the things, and this is something that I’ve
seen elsewhere used pretty effectively, and the only time it’s been tried by Staff, it did not work, in
my opinion, here in Queensbury, but, you know, you do have the authority, as Boards, Planning
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Board, Zoning Board of Appeals, you do have an ability to require independent analysis of issues that
you feel are too sophisticated or too complex or just not in your fields of expertise. Now, acoustics,
traffic comes to mind. I know that there are Planning Board members that feel that a traffic study is
worthless. I don’t even want to see a traffic study because any traffic engineer, you know, anybody
can get any traffic engineer to write what they want them to write. That may be, it may not be, but
my point only is that, you do have an ability, if you like, to seek independent engineering or
independent expert advice on various issues, and I will say that the one time that, and I don’t think
any of the Staff currently was the Staff in the specific incident that I have I my mind, but I will tell
you that the previous Staff members found it very frustrating when, on a particular application, they
recommended that an independent expert be consulted for the Board’s benefit on a specifically
technical, complex issue. An independent expert was consulted and the Board wasn’t really
interested in having the independent expert’s report. I’m not saying you should or you shouldn’t,
because this is not a legal issue. It’s a policy issue, but in reference to your comment, you’re
absolutely right. When we see sophisticated applications, using Chris’s word, we’re going to see
issues, from time to time, that are beyond anybody’s expertise in this room, and when that happens,
you do have options, other than just saying, well, it must be right because they have a Ph.D. You
have an ability, if you like, to get independent expert evaluations.
MR. MAC EWAN-We have done that, Mark.
MR. SCHACHNER-Yes, you have.
MR. MAC EWAN-Specifically, we did that with the go-karts.
MR. SCHACHNER-Well, be careful. That’s the one that you really, in my.
MR. MAC EWAN-Didn’t we have Rist-Frost or someone.
MR. SCHACHNER-Be real careful, Craig. What Rist-Frost did was recommend engagement of an
independent noise consultant from Cambridge, Massachusetts. This Board said, no, we don’t need
that, and Rist-Frost, by mistake, sent it out to this consultant anyway, and you got a report from
Cambridge, from these acoustic experts, and this Board said, we’re not interested in that report.
We’re disregarding it.
MR. MAC EWAN-Not all of us on this Board.
MR. SCHACHNER-Correct, but a majority of this Board held that way, and I can tell you that it
drove previous Staff members wild. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong. My only comment is you
do have an ability, there are sophisticated issues, Cathy’s absolutely correct, that are beyond
anybody’s expertise, and when that happens, you do have options, other than just remaining
mystified.
MR. VOSS-Yes. If I could just expand on that, with my own experience, working for the City of
Albany, a much larger municipal organization, and coming here, I’ve seen the difference in how the
two Boards operated. I was Staff to both the Planning Board and the Zoning Board for the City, and
in that capacity it was interesting because when a project would come in, that perhaps was technical
in nature or required stormwater management report, or traffic reports or noise reports, and a lot of
them did, we had the ability, as Staff, to recommend to the applicants that before the applications get
advanced, even to the Board level, they discuss their applications with the City’s Engineering
Department, the City’s Water Department, the City’s Traffic Safety Department, any of the other
Departments, but the City had the ability to have those Departments, technically perhaps, as
consultants. I think these Boards could do and perhaps request, in expanding upon what Mark was
saying, is use your ability as the authority of the Board to perhaps require those things of the
applicants. If you don’t understand it, from the applicant’s consultant, lets get our own consultants.
MR. SCHACHNER-And in fairness, you have done it. No question. I wasn’t suggesting you hadn’t.
I just wanted to make sure you were all aware of that, so that you keep it in mind, so, using that
example, when you do get something that is not fathomable by any of us, you can get independent,
expert advice.
MR. MAC EWAN-Chuck, let me ask you a couple of questions along that line. When an applicant
brought in their application and you deemed it complete, and you started doing its review, how long
before it actually got on to an agenda? On an average.
MR. VOSS-It’s interesting. Typically, we would cut off applications a month in advance of the
meetings. So, in other words, we wouldn’t accept any new applications for the Boards, but during
that time, right up until about a week before the meeting, we would still accept additional
information. I would assimilate that into a report for the Boards, similar to what Staff does here, and
that transfer that information to the Boards, say about a week, sometimes a little less depending on
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scheduling, so that the Board’s could digest that information prior to the meetings. Oftentimes the
applicants would show up at the meeting with a whole set of plans, and the Chairman of the Board
would simply say we’ll take this new information under advisement. We’ll keep the public hearing
open. We’ll advise it and we’ll come back in a month, and we’ll look at it
MR. BREWER-Absolutely.
MR. VOSS-A strong Chairmanship of the Board’s is very effective, and I don’t think the Board
should feel at all out of sorts or pressured by the applicants. I think we would require the Boards to
do just the opposite. If you’re feeling pressured by an applicant, typically that alarm bell should
probably go off in your heads, thinking, you know, maybe there’s a reason why this project is moving
too fast, or the applicant’s pushing it too hard.
MR. MAC EWAN-Well, for the Planning Board members, if everybody feels strongly about that,
we'll start enacting that policy next month.
MR. VOLLARO-I think it’s a good idea.
MR. ROUND-I’m just going to switch gears on you. The Planning Board and the Zoning Board are
representatives of the Town. We see the situation with the City of Glens Falls where that
representation, the Town of Warrensburg, where that representation was suspect, that it was not
presenting the best face for the municipality in question, and just that, you know, give yourselves
credit. That you’re the front line for people. People don’t see Queensbury. People come in and see
the Planning Board Chairman and the Zoning Board Chairman. So that’s, they’re passing judgement
on Queensbury with the way you guys conduct yourselves. Just to keep that in mind. I’m not saying
that in the negative, but, I know you know that, and I think that’s a very important issue to remind
yourselves of each time when you conduct your business, and for the most part everybody conducts
themselves very professionally.
MR. PALING-Lets go back on this issue we were talking about regarding information. Are we
saying now that there’s going to be a cut off that we’re going to respect?
MR. ROUND-There always has been, Bob, and there always is.
MR. PALING-That we’re going to respect?
MR. ROUND-Well, we will, it’s always subjective. There’s always a level of judgement. We hear
what you’re all saying tonight. I mean, I don’t want to argue with you, but we can’t guarantee that
you’re going to have everything you need to make a decision on every project that comes in front of
you can, as Board members, not act on a project, if you receive information late. We cannot tell
applicants not to bring information with you. We can instruct them that, hey, we can do two things.
We can deem an application incomplete, which we will do and which we have done, and we can
inform applicants that information received at the table will likely not be considered, and that if they
don’t have enough information to make a judgement without that information, that you’re going to
be delayed.
MR. PALING-Okay. Lets go back and be a little more specific on that. I think what everyone is
saying is that we’re getting too much casual information on a casual schedule, and we don’t want it,
and that applies to both the applicant and to Staff, the information being handed to us by Staff on
the night of the meeting. Now, am I saying it right or wrong?
MR. BREWER-Right. Not that anything is perfect, Chris, but years ago, before probably anybody
there was here, we used to get stuff Friday, period. We got nothing more. Friday we got our Staff
notes, that was it. If we got more information, we asked for it at the meeting. That’s the way it used
to be, and I’m not saying that was perfect.
MR. ROUND-I can tell you this. We will not give you any more information than what we have,
and we’ll give it to you on Friday. We’ll give you Staff notes and everything we have on Friday. If
you find an application is incomplete, I mean.
MR. BREWER-Certainly it’s got to be frustrating to you to have somebody come in Tuesday
morning and say, gee, here’s a report I forgot to give you.
MR. ROUND-We have an established deadline date. That’s the last Wednesday of the month. We
make judgements about the completeness of applications. The Planning Board Chairman
participates in our Friday agenda meetings, and he’ll give us insight on that, and we won’t give you
anymore information. We’ll do that. Friday is the last information that you’re going to receive, but
I’m just saying, there’s still going to be instances that you’re not going to have everything you need to
make a decision. That’s all I’m trying to say.
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MR. BREWER-Absolutely.
MR. ROUND-That, you know, we’re not going to say, well, yes, we’ve got a complete application,
but come on in with the building plans, the site plan, you know, Tuesday afternoon before the
meeting. That doesn’t happen, and it won’t happen.
MR. BREWER-And there’s still going to be people that are going to come into the meeting Tuesday
night and hand us stuff out.
MR. ROUND-There’s still people that abuse the system, and abuse flexibility, and what I’m saying is
we’ll tighten it up, but it’s not going to be perfect.
MR. VOSS-Tim, just to expand upon it, and what works nicely, and what’s been my experience that
works nicely, is if you do have a strong Board or a strong Chairmanship of the Board, you can work
in conjunction with the Staff, is we’ll say, the Board’s not going to consider any new information
after this date. Give us what you have, we’ll submit it to the Board. Applicants, like you know, are
human, and they’ll say, I’ve got this nice new drawing, it just came in. I want to bring it to the
meeting and give it to them anyway. It drives us crazy because we have no control over that, but at
the same time, you know, we want to see new information as well. So working in conjunction with
the Chairman of each Board, they can simply say, well, we’ll accept your new information now, but
we’re not going to render a decision. It’s simple, and what effectively happens, eventually, and most
people come to learn it, is, in Staff’s where, you know, is eventually hurt, because we’ll say, listen the
Board’s not going to, they’re not going to give you a decision if you dump new information on them
today, and eventually.
MR. BREWER-Then what the Board has to do is it has to stand by what you say.
MR. VOSS-Exactly, back each other up.
MR. SCHACHNER-Yes. The buck stops, ultimately, with both Boards.
MR. BREWER-Absolutely.
MR. MAC EWAN-And the thing to remember, too. It’s not usually the mom and pops who are the
abusers of the system. It’s those who practice in front of our Boards on a regular basis who abuse
the system.
MR. VOSS-Yes, because the mom and pops take Staff’s advice, because they haven’t been through
the process.
MR. BREWER-They’re in that 75% that go to the pre-application meeting.
MR. ROUND-Ten percent of the people cause 90 percent of the problems.
MR. MAC EWAN-There you go.
MR. PALING-I think we’re still overlooking one factor here, and that is that when these documents
are passed, what, four, five, six pages, they are not read. They’re not used. They’re just pushed aside
and you proceed anyway. We shouldn’t accept those.
MR. ROUND-We will advance that information to you, and if you don’t have the information to
make a decision, you have to come to that determination. You say, well, we can’t prevent people
from bringing information to you. That’s all I’m trying to say.
MR. PALING-Right.
MR. BROWN-I think if the applicant comes to the meeting with information other than what
they’ve submitted to Staff, of course you can accept it. I wouldn’t make a decision on it that night.
Is that what you’re saying? You don’t even want to accept it? I mean, you can accept it and review
it, but.
MR. PALING-They might give us a picture, a photograph, that’s fine, but when they give us a two or
three page document, which we cannot read and absorb, use, then we should either proceed without
it, or put it off for another meeting so we can review it.
MR. BROWN-Absolutely. Table it to another meeting.
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MRS. LA BOMBARD-Well, if that happens, Bob, then, I mean, there usually is definitely a majority
would say it on our Board, and it happens very regularly.
MR. PALING-We haven’t in the past.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-We haven’t? Well, maybe a few cases, but I think that in most of the time,
you know, we’ll say, well, we really need more time on this. Don’t you think we do?
MR. PALING-I think we’ve been too easy on them.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Well, that’s something we should all look at, and I’ll be more aware of
it.
MR. ROUND-SEQRA review.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes, wait a minute, before you go to that, I have something that I don’t
understand. When does the Department of Health get involved in a site plan review?
MR. ROUND-Okay. Generally it’s in excess of, or 10 or more lots in a residential subdivision, when
the Health Department gets to review. They review a subdivision approval. They require actual
Department of Health stamps on subdivisions.
MR. SCHACHNER-Now you asked about site plan. Is that what you meant to ask about?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes.
MR. SCHACHNER-She asked about site plan. When does Health Department get involved in site
plan?
MR. ROUND-The Health Department generally does not get involved with a site plan issue. The
Health Department regulates public water supply.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. So then Lake George, that’s a public water supply. So, if there’s Site
Plan Review on Lake George, can the Health Department get involved with that?
MR. SCHACHNER-You’re not using the words “public water supply” the same way.
MRS. LABOMBARD-I know we’re not, but that’s why, I guess I want to direct this conversation
more toward Lake George. Does the Health Department ever get involved with anything on the
lake?
MR. ROUND-No, they do not. The Health Department doesn’t have jurisdiction under, of site
plan. That’s a local jurisdiction issue. The Health Department, can you give me a particular instance
where they were consulted?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-No, not really. I just want to know if the Health Department was ever
involved with anything on Lake George?
MR. STARK-In ’92, I added six units. The DOH had to sign off on it.
MR. ROUND-But that’s not a site, I mean.
MR. STARK-They had to sign off on the septic system.
MR. ROUND-Yes, on the septic system. You have a, DEC has jurisdiction over sewage disposal
systems or community systems. So you’re operating a community system, and then you’re adding
additional capacity, or additional, Chuck, maybe you could help us out on this one.
MR. STARK-No, this was DOH.
MR. ROUND-DOH, all right. You’re operating a business as a public health concern. If you’re
operating a food service establishment, there’s a branch of the Health Department that wants to look
at how you provide.
MR. SCHACHNER-And with your pool, I think. With your swimming pool. I think that’s a Health
Department issue.
MR. STARK-I know. I’m just saying, though, this is in relation to the Site Plan Review.
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MR. ROUND-So, in that case where, yes, you’re going to build a hotel in Lake George, and you need
to get permits from DEC and Department of Health for your wastewater.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Then their engineers oversee it, not the Town Engineers?
MR. ROUND-Correct. All the standards are the same, typically. That’s a pretty broad thing, but the
standards are typically DEC or DOH design standards and we’re not going to impose our
restrictions. I mean, that’s more restrictive ordinances, and their jurisdiction, they have final
jurisdiction on that issue.
MR.. VOLLARO-Just one question. Supposing you’ve got, in a Site Plan Review, the septic system
has to go to a raised bed type system in order to get operational at all. Is that when the Town
convenes itself as the Department of Health and looks at that under 136?
MR. ROUND-An alternative system, an alternative design, is allowed under our Ordinance, and I’m
not sure if we need a, if that requires a variance to provide an alternative.
MR. VOLLARO-It depends on what 136 says. I’m not that familiar with it.
MR. ROUND-Yes. Our Building Department administers that. I’m familiar with it, but I’d have to
look at it in order to give you accurate feedback on that.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m trying to determine, in my mind, when does the Town Board have to convene
itself as the Department of Health to approve?
MR. ROUND-Generally grant relief from the Septic Ordinance.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. ROUND-They issue variances from that. Whether it’s an area restriction, whether it’s a design
issue, setback issue, separation to wells, adjacent wells.
MR. SCHACHNER-That’s the gist of it.
MR. ROUND-Bob drafted a letter to me, in response to request for information for this night. Do
you have the letter in front of you?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I do.
MR. ROUND-There’s a Zoning Board specific, and I’d just like to touch on, we have (lost words)
take advantage of maybe a SEQRA primer.
MR. VOLLARO-What do you want me to do?
MR. ROUND-Do you have something that’s specific to Zoning Board or that relies on the
interaction of the Zoning Board? I know one of the issues, maybe I could help you out with that
one, one was when the Zoning Board issues an approval for a project, and does that imply that the
Planning Board should act positively on that project? Relief from setback requirement in the
Waterfront Residential Zone requiring Site Plan Review. Now, could the Planning Board deny that,
even though the Zoning Board had issued approval for that project to move forward? There’s some
real interaction between the two Boards. That was a concern is that, who’s giving the blessing to a
project? If one Board gives a blessing to a project, does that mean the other Board has to give it’s
blessing to a project?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Well, and that, also, I think goes to the next level. If we make a
recommendation to approve a recommendation to go through with a project to the Town Board. I
mean, they have their own opinion. They have their own diverse individual personality on the Board,
and I just feel sometimes that over the five years that I’ve been on this Board, that lots and lots of
hours have been spent deliberating an issue, only to have it, our recommendation, I felt, really didn’t
mean anything.
MR. ROUND-Yes. I think the operative word is “recommendation”.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes, but why then spend so much time and energy, when we don’t have the
final say, we’re only making a recommendation, and then they can just take everything that we’ve
done and turn a deaf ear to it? And I mean, I’m not saying that they have to listen to everything that
we’ve done, but, boy, it almost seems like it’s a lot of time and energy that isn’t used efficiently.
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MR. ROUND There’s no simple answer for that, Cathy. I think, it is a recommendation, and they
can weigh that recommendation in the decision making process, and, you know, typically
recommendations that are handled by the Planning Board involve public input, involve public
hearings, involve much deliberation, and the Town Board should use that, if it’s public consensus or
just public process, and contemplate that in the decision making process, and not rely on the vocal
opponent or proponent, depending on how you pass your recommendation on, not rely on that
individual at that public process that they’re entertaining. There’s no simple answer. You can re-
affirm your recommendation. I mean, if the recommendations come in an extended period of time
before they’re acted on a particular project, you can re-affirm your recommendation to them through
a letter from the Chairman of the Planning Board.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think one of the things that we’ve done in the past, and, you know, interwoven
into the ZBA’s review of things, on occasion, and it hasn’t happened a lot in the last few years, what
where we’ve done a SEQRA review, your Board has sent it up to us to do the SEQRA. We say we’ll
do the SEQRA, and then it goes back to the ZBA for your review. That kind of, sometimes I feel
like I’m kind of in an awkward position, because I want to see the whole project, you know, as far as
doing a complete review, instead of having it bouncing back and forth between the Boards. Do you
know what I mean on that?
MR. ROUND-That segways nice into our SEQRA related. I know what you’re talking about.
MR. SCHACHNER-Yes. I can comment on that. I’m not sure what SEQRA related issue you want
me to.
MR. ROUND-Go ahead.
MR. SCHACHNER-That can be awkward, and it doesn’t have to be done that way, but there is no
perfect solution to that situation. There are a number of options for how SEQRA review is
conducted where both Boards have jurisdictions. The three obvious choices are, the ZBA could be
lead agency, and do the SEQRA review for both Boards. The Planning Board could be lead agency
and it could do the SEQRA review for both Boards, or you could have each Board separately do
SEQRA review. Now there’s no perfect answer. There’s no perfect path. Each of those choices as
advantages and each has disadvantage. The bounce back and forth thing does avoid the duplication
of effort of having both Boards separately doing SEQRA review, which most people feel is such an
obvious duplication of effort that it’s not appropriate. By the same token, many, I’m speaking
generically now, many municipal people, I don’t just mean in Queensbury, but in general, feel that
Planning Boards tend to deal more with environmental, hard core environmental issues than Zoning
Boards of Appeals. As Chris mentioned earlier, the Planning Board’s jurisdiction is a little more
broad and all encompassing, and doesn’t have the same specific criteria that the ZBA uses, like the
ones Chris Thomas was talking about. So there’s a general, in my experience at least, there’s a
general majority, at times, that Planning Board’s tend to function as SEQRA lead agencies, as
opposed to ZBA’s, but the three options of the ones that I just mentioned, none of them are perfect.
They each have advantages and they both have disadvantages, and one of the options is sometimes
not available, the option of having each Board separately do SEQRA review. That’s not available for
what are called SEQRA Type I Actions, which are generally the larger actions, and of course it’s a
larger action that often requires both variances and Planning Board approval, and if you have what’s
called a Type I or a larger action, we don’t even have the option of having each Board separately
conduct SEQRA review, because we must do what’s called coordinated review, which means that
one agency has to do the SEQRA review and no more than that one can do it. It doesn’t tell you
which one, but one of them has to do it, and there is no perfect answer. I think, generally speaking,
correct me if I’m wrong. You all know I go to all the Planning Board meetings, but very few ZBA
meetings. On issues or on cases that are being heard by both Boards, am I right that more often
than not the Planning Board will do the SEQRA Lead Agency function and not the ZBA?
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes.
MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. That’s been the subject of some discussion with myself and the Staff,
both the present Staff and the former Staff, and I think generally speaking, although it’s not a perfect
situation, I think it works about as well as any of the options. I don’t know, does the ZBA feel that
it’s been troublesome or that it’s been working?
MR. THOMAS-We really don’t have the expertise or the knowledge of the SEQRA law, because
we’re so narrow in what we can do, because we’re told what we can do, and can’t do.
MR. SCHACHNER-Right, and in addition, far fewer applications in front of the ZBA are even
subject to SEQRA than are in front of the Planning Board. Almost every Planning Board action is
subject to SEQRA. Many, many ZBA actions are not, including almost all Area Variances. So I
know what you’re saying, Craig, and I guess what I’m saying is, none of the options are perfect, but
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my own opinion or impression, for what it’s worth, subject to anybody violently disagreeing, is that
the way that we’re doing it right now is probably the best we can do.
MR. ROUND-We had a particular project where, there’s a lot of wait, there’s, when you make your
SEQRA determination, prior to making your SEQRA determination, there’s an opportunity, I think
we’re talking about the Nightmare Ride. We might as well, the Nightmare Ride, Staff made an
argument for cumulative impacts, to address those at the (lost word) segmentation of reviews. You
really have to look at this change of the project over the years, and as part of that, if you choose to
move forward with the negative declaration, prior to that, you could have imposed conditions, as a
part of that finding, or part of that negative declaration. The SEQRA review process gives you the
ability to identify issues, and that’s the whole process is identification of issues and make sure we’re
talking to all the parties involved, we’ve identified all the issues, and if you have a concern about a
particular issue, your SEQRA determination, that’s an opportunity to identify that and establish a
milestone or if you want to trigger something else to occur, that gives you additional weight. The
Board was concerned that, maybe the Planning Board, that we would like to require a Master Plan of
development prior to entertaining another project. They’re going to be coming back in front of us
with a go kart ride.
MR. PALING-You’re talking about traffic, I believe.
MR. ROUND-Well, yes, we are, but that was my concern, is that this facility has caused increasing
traffic pressures on our highway system, both Route 9 and Exit 20, and they’ll argue that there’s no
particular project that’s going to cause or generate additional traffic, and I made the argument that
continued improvements to the property, to maintain its attractiveness, could cause increased
attendance at the facility. So, I mean, if you look at the go kart track, or you look at the Nightmare
Ride, etc., well, how do we justify, how do we put a traffic generation number on that, and when do
we require mitigation of that traffic impact that’s associated with that? So there’s two big
opportunities, two big decisions to be made there. Well, it’s real difficult, when an applicant’s trying
to argue an issue every time, it’s real difficult to put a traffic number on a roller coaster ride. You
can’t do it. I mean, there’s no land use code in the ITE manuals that tells you how many cars are
going to come to your site because you’ve got a roller coaster on it, and then therefore, we don’t have
to mitigate the traffic impacts. So that’s where cumulative impacts come into place, and that’s the
opportunity to, you know, make a judgment to identify issues that may be not clear to you or may
not jump out at you, that are not really changeable, and maybe you could just touch on cumulative
impacts, Mark.
MR. SCHACHNER-I’m not sure how specific you want to get to the particular.
MR. ROUND-Yes. I really don’t want to. I don’t think, in fairness to the project, that it’s not fair to
have that discussion, but it just presented a really clear example.
MR. SCHACHNER-Yes, I agree.
MR. ROUND-So it’s difficult to do that, and I don’t want to prejudice the Board in advance of
another project coming in. I don’t think that’s fair.
MR. SCHACHNER-Well, maybe an important aspect of what Chris is saying is just that SEQRA,
and I’m sort of over-simplifying, but that SEQRA review gives you a tool to focus on issues that are
not necessarily the exact issues that appear in your list of site plan issues or subdivision issues, and
are certainly not the issues that appear on your list of variance criteria. SEQRA is State statute that is
super-imposed over the jurisdiction of both Boards, as well as all other discretionary approving
agencies in the State of New York, and it does give you a mandate to look at potential environmental
impacts, and it gives you leverage with which to do that, because obviously you have to make
SEQRA determinations as you go through your other chores, and if you have concerns about
environmental impacts, including cumulative impacts over time, including cumulative impacts over a
geographic area, or cumulative impacts of more than one particular action or particular project in the
same general area, it’s certainly the case that you have a State mandate that you’re supposed to
consider those cumulative impacts and not just look very narrowly at, okay, what impact does this
one additional ice cream stand have, or this one additional ride have, or this one additional car wash
bay have or whatever. I don’t know if that’s helpful or not.
MR. ROUND-It’s as close as I can get.
MR. MC NULTY-I think you’re hitting on something that is important, and not just from State
mandate, but maybe from the Citizens for Queensbury mandate. I was involved a lot with this last
thing with The Great Escape, since I live in the Twicwood area, but one thing that struck me in that
whole process was the fact that the Zoning Board was looking at an Area Variance. There was one
little thing, and it was only a little bit more in height, so, no big deal, we’ll pass it, and the Planning
Board was kind of dealing with traffic, and something else, and that was kind of a little thing, and we
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aren’t going to worry about it too much, but all these little things are still impacting on the residential
areas, in this case, and whether you’re doing it as a SEQRA review, to look at the overall
environmental thing, or whether you do it some other way, I think for the Citizens of Queensbury,
we need to find a way of picking all these little details that we’re kind of saying, well, that’s not too
much of a deal, so we’ll let it go through, and consider the overall impact. It’s important that we are
friendly with the business community, but it’s also important that we not let what we do for the
business community erode the residential character of our residential neighborhoods, and I don’t
know how you do that, because the Zoning Board does have specific things that they’re supposed to
take care of, and Planning Board has their specific things. So maybe it’s back to Staff.
MR. ROUND-That segways nice into the Comprehensive Plan, and that the Comprehensive Plan, in
making judgments about particular projects, making judgments about variance issues, is that, look to
your Comprehensive Plan. What are we trying to accomplish with a particular project? Do we want
a big box development to occur on Quaker Road? Is that what we want Queensbury to look like.
Now, can you deny a site plan application for a big box development on Quaker Road, if they can
address traffic impacts? Does our Comprehensive Plan spell out a clear enough vision for a
particular corridor, that says, we don’t want this land use in this particular area, even though it’s
allowed in our Zoning Ordinance. Those are some tough issues, and that’s where legal counsel gets
involved, but there is, not to give you legal advice, but there is opportunity to make judgements
based on what you want Queensbury to look like. There are aesthetic impacts to projects. Aesthetic
impacts can be addressed, as far as Site Plan Review. There’s not specific criteria. We don’t have
visual impact. If what we’re going to be looking to develop is commercial design guidelines, not
architectural review. Don’t get, I mean, we had, but commercial design guidelines with further
solidify the vision of what a corridor wants to look like. Maybe we want Bay Road corridor to be all
wood and brick, or maybe we want, you know, those opportunities or those mechanisms are out
there, to guide us in how a particular corridor looks, or on how a particular region of our community
looks, and we’ve got to be willing to entertain those ideas, if you have concerns that we’re looking,
we’ve got too much blue and gold, or we’ve got too much neon and glass, or too much steel, and you
don’t want to get involved with having a Board review your design, the design guidelines can help
shape and help soften some of those impacts of some of those areas that we’re really sensitive to.
Landscape design criteria can also provide guidance, you know, we want a particular corridor to look
lush, look primitive or look in a certain manner, we can do that through guidelines, and not through
further restrictions in our Zoning Ordinance, not through additional Board review, and I see Mr.
Stec pulling the mic closer to him.
MR. STEC-I have two questions. Actually, they’re really background related questions on the
Comprehensive Land Use Plan that I think both Boards might find useful in just trying to gain
perspective on the history of the Land Use Plan. What’s the intent, revise this, what, 2008?
MR. ROUND-Every five years is typically. Actually, you have to define a review period within your
Comprehensive Plan. That’s in the Town Law. I don’t know if the attorney knows that, but you
have to designate it, and five or ten years is typically designated. I think it says five years is the intent,
in this particular ordinance.
MR. STEC-That is included in the document?
MR. ROUND-Yes, it’s in there somewhere.
MR. STEC-And then the other question I had is, could you give us an idea of the development?
How long did this take to develop this? How many people worked on it? Man-hours involved?
Just, again, to understand the magnitude.
MR. ROUND-It was kicked off about four years ago. It involved, initially it was meeting on a
monthly basis. I don’t know, Mr. Salvador back here was part of the process. It involved Planning
Board members. That is required that you have a member of your Planning Board on your review
staff. Most recently it was Roger Ruel, who is now no longer with the Board, and prior to that, it
was.
MR. PALING-We didn’t have one.
MR. ROUND-We didn’t have a Planning Board member on there?
MR. STEC-Was it five people, ten people?
MR. ROUND-It was probably six to eight people. It involved, I can’t put man-hours to it, but it
was, it diminished. They met less frequently. A lot of the issues, there were neighborhood meetings.
A lot of the issues, my particular plan is that there was a lot of time spent on specific back yard
issues, versus community vision issues, and that’s my, I felt there’s a great deal of strength on
resolving neighborhood, back yard issues, and not a lot of strength and not a lot of vision developed
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to, you know, placed on what we want our community to be. Infrastructure improvement or build-
out analysis. So it’s not a perfect document.
MR. STEC-Where I’m going with this is that at some point somebody’s going to ask, why should we
follow the Comprehensive Land Use Plan? This is Chris Round’s personal vendetta, that this is how
he wants Queensbury to look, and it’s important, I think, for the Boards to have that silver bullet in
their hip pocket when they start making decisions, and they’re going to have to answer to somebody
at a public hearing, that, hey, you know, we recognize that this Plan was developed by several
members of the community, and hundreds of people, hundreds of man-hours, you know, because
that is going to carry a lot of weight when somebody says, well, what’s the Plan say? Why are you
going to deviate from the Plan? You have to be able to justify that, and I think it’s important for the
two Boards to have a firm understanding, which I didn’t know, which is why I asked the questions. I
knew there was a lot of people. I knew it was a lot of hours, but I didn’t have any idea that it was
that broad a scope, and I think that’s important to know, because it’s going to help both Boards out
when they have to answer to the public, why can’t I do this in my back yard? I own this land, and I
want to see a large restaurant go there. It’s the Land Use Plan. Is the ink dry yet?
MR. MAC EWAN-I think it’s also important to understand that that’s a guide tool for the Boards to
use. It’s not necessarily the Bible for the Boards to use. I mean, that’s to help us do, for our Board
anyway, site plan and subdivision review, but that’s not necessarily verbatim that we go by every
single neighborhood recommendation in that manual.
MR. ROUND-Yes. We will act on a large portion of those, whether they’re land use related or
whether they’re community improvement related.
MR. STARK-Dan, you weren’t here a few years ago, but Jim Martin started this, and they had
community meetings in the different firehouses. I don’t know whether you were aware of that, and
they were advertised and I think like one was up in Glen Lake Road, okay, and 50 or 60 of the
neighbors came and Jim kind of ran the meeting and, blah, blah, blah, and everybody, you’d stand up
and put your input in. I want this, I want that, then they had one over in West Glens Falls. They
had one in Queensbury Central. So if you were a Queensbury citizen, you had a chance to go to
these meetings and give your input, as to what you wanted in your neighborhood.
MR. STEC-I think that’s very important to know, because, true, this is not prescriptive by nature.
This is not law. This is not the Bible, but I would say that if I was going to start thinking about re-
zoning or changing the way that we’re doing business or the way that we want, that this is the first
book that I’d pick up, for those reasons. That this is a large collaboration, and it wasn’t just, you
know, two or three Staff members that were sitting down one Friday afternoon waiting for all the
addendum’s to the applications to come in, and they said, lets whip this up. This is what the Town
wants.
MR. ROUND-It is a guidance document. It’s just guidance for land use decisions. It doesn’t (lost
word) involve a great deal of public input. It is a consensus building tool. Generally, I mean, when
you get involved, I don’t want to get into any specific projects or specific details, but generally it has
to be consistent with that document, and that’s much as needs to be said.
MR. STEC-I would just say that this is a very easy way, or crutch, for Boards to use that is a very
valid, I mean, it’s not a cop out. This is a good thing to consult, to use this as the standard to deviate
from.
MR. ROUND-That’s true.
MR. STEC-That’s how I view it.
MR. ROUND-It’s approaching nine o’clock, and I’d hoped to get out of here by eight thirty, do you
want to continue for another ten minutes?
MR. STARK-Did we get enough on the SEQRA? I don’t think we did.
MR. ROUND-Before we go on to that, what I did want to touch on is we’ve come across some
excellent resources that we’re going to be sharing with you, and one of them is the Pace University
Law Center, and I’ll pass it on to Mark, and we’ll pass on that web page, and we just purchased three
documents from, three books called “Well Grounded” and they’re a desktop series on land use
issues, and it’s very accessible information, and they have a table of contents that we’ll share with
you. What we propose to do is each month share a particular segment of this web page, whether it’s
the Comprehensive Plan or whether it’s building moratorium, or whether it’s Area Variance criteria
or site plan issues. I feel it’s well written. It’s not too much information at once, and we’ll start
giving it to you, and maybe take the opportunity at each Board meeting, whether it’s Planning Board
or Zoning Board, and take maybe every other month take the opportunity to discuss a particular land
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use issue for the reading information and just talk it up, to keep us current, and then the local
government series that takes place every semester at ACC is one opportunity for continuing
education of Board members, and they’re pretty good, depending on who makes the presentations,
but this is just another tool that we like to utilize, and the Web is becoming, there’s some great
resources out on the World Wide Web, if you do have access, for land related issues and community
related issues. There’s some really good resources. We’re going to try to build some links into our
Community 2002 Web Page, our Town of Queensbury Web Page, to provide some guidance to get
to some of those links.
MR. VOLLARO-I would just like to have Mark comment a little bit on the term of segmentation in
the SEQRA.
MR. SCHACHNER-Yes, I can do that. While I’m doing that, George, is there something specific
that you have in mind, that I could try to add in also?
MR. STARK-Yes, that, in relationship to cumulative, meaning The Great Escape.
MR. VOLLARO-Exactly.
MR. SCHACHNER-Well, segmentation, I think, is pretty easy to describe, easier to describe than the
idea of cumulative impacts. I mean, segmentation is the word that basically stands for something
that SEQRA law and regulations frown upon, and the classic example of environmental review
segmentation actually came about in Federal law 20 years ago when the Federal Highway
Administration was going to build highways, and they’d say, we’re only going to build this five mile
segment of this road from Point A to Point B, and it’s only five miles. There’s no big, significant
environmental impact. So they did what they called, it had a different name, but they basically did a
negative declaration, and they built the five miles, and the next month they said, now we’re going to
build the next five miles, from Point B to Point C. It’s only five miles. It doesn’t have any big
environmental impact. So we’re going to declare a no significant impact, and we build from Point B
to Point C, etc., etc., and somebody said, wait a minute, that’s “segmentation”. They coined the
phrase. You can see where the phrase comes from, because you’re doing piecemeal environmental
review, and you’re basically giving it short shrift by not looking at the big picture, looking at the
entire project, looking at the entire action. So SEQRA law and regulations and a bunch of cases that
have been decided in SEQRA law have come to say that you’re supposed to consider the “action” to
be the entire scope of activities that’s associated with a given proposal. Not only what’s on the table
right at the moment, but things that are reasonably foreseeable as part of what’s on the table. Now I
emphasize reasonably foreseeable. If somebody comes in, you know, to build a gas station on a
relatively small lot, I don’t think it’s reasonably foreseeable to say to them, we can tell that what
you’re really building is a large Wal-Mart here, and we’re going to make you do an Environmental
Impact Statement on the entire Wal-Mart, but the point I’m trying to make, and I’m just grasping for
examples here of explaining segmentation, is you’re not supposed to conduct SEQRA review by
taking a look at one specific, narrow component of a multi-component project, and again, I don’t
have trouble calling a spade a spade in this context. The context in which this issue has arisen in the
Town is The Great Escape, and as I said at the Planning Board meeting that we talked about this,
and as Staff said, I believe in a memorandum, as a I recall, that was presented at that Planning Board
meeting, one could make a fairly good argument that the way the Planning Board has over the years
conducted environmental review of the various additions, improvements and components of The
Great Escape property is not so different from looking at the highway example where we’re building
a Highway from Point A to Point B this year. Then next year from Point B to Point C, and then the
following year from Point C to Point D. Am I helping at all, Bob?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes.
MR. SCHACHNER-Okay, and as far as cumulative impacts, I think that’s harder to describe.
MR. VOLLARO-I have just a follow-up question on that, and you just touched on it. You said the
cumulative effects were application specific. In other words, when we’re doing a SEQRA review, it’s
got to be against that application, but cumulative effects sometimes skip from one application to the
other.
MR. SCHACHNER-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-And you see the real planning effect.
MR. SCHACHNER-Yes, that’s correct. I don’t think I just said what you just said I said, but by way
of example, I mean, I’ve spent the better part of today at a Lake George Park Commission meeting
where the Lake George Park Commission was conducting SEQRA review over one particular project
in the southern basin that’s proposing to add a number of boat rental activities to a particular
property. The debate in front of the Lake George Park Commission, and the applicant, I was not
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representing the applicant in this particular thing. The applicant was saying, hey, we’re only a couple
of, you know, we’re only a dozen or so new boats. A dozen boats in Lake George is a drop in the
bucket. It’s no big deal. There’s no issue here. The Lake George Park Commission spent a couple
of hours wrestling with the issue of the fact that this is the southern basin. There’s already a lot of
boat traffic there, and, as we sit here today, they were saying, we’ve got four or five other applications
from other applicants to add additional activities in the same general, geographic area. Are we
supposed to just look at the applicant that happens to be sitting in front of us at this moment today,
or are we supposed to look at the whole area? SEQRA law is pretty clear that if there’s a bunch of
things happening in a particular geographic area, it’s not appropriate, when analyzing potential
environmental impacts, to effectively put on blinders and say we’re only going to look at this one
particular application, but not take into account or into context what else is going on in the area. In
fact, one of the origins of what are called Generic Environmental Impact Statements is exactly that
type of situation. I mean, Chris and I worked on a different type of Generic Environmental Impact
Statement, but a common use of what’s called Generic Environmental Impact Statements is when
you have, lets say, a particular corridor off in a commercial road, in which a number of applicants are
seeking approvals to do a number of commercial projects. This is just an example, but it happens a
lot. A lead agency, as SEQRA Lead Agency, will say, look, maybe this one commercial entity alone
wouldn’t be a big deal, but the fact is, you’ve got five or six of them champing at the bit to do
commercial things in this corridor, and together, they’re going to create a bunch of traffic. They’re
going to create a bunch of noise, pollution, whatever. We need to do a Generic Environmental
Impact Statement to look at the impacts of all five or six of whatever of these. So am I helping at all
on cumulative impacts?
MR. VOLLARO-Lets get specific about, when we get down to C6., and usually Cathy sets these up,
we say “Long term, short term, cumulative or other effects not identified in C1 through 5 above”.
MR. SCHACHNER-Right, and everybody understands he’s reading from an Environmental
Assessment Form?
MR. VOLLARO-Right, and most of us go, no.
MR. SCHACHNER-Right.
MR. VOLLARO-Most of us, and a lot of mumble no.
MR. SCHACHNER-Most of us don’t say anything.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Lately, it’s been mumble.
MR. VOLLARO-Mumble.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-In five years it’s gone from, no, to mmm, and that’s the truth.
MR. VOLLARO-And that may be very well why there are some mumbles, because this is a pretty
broad and encompassing statement, particularly when it talks about long term, short term, and
cumulative effects.
MR. SCHACHNER-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-And to burden this applicant, that’s why I talk about applicant specific. To burden
this applicant down and say, well, we’re going to give you a no on this, and then it says, explain
briefly, and the brief explanation may be, because there are many other similar projects like this
coming along or that we know about.
MR. SCHACHNER-Do you mean answering yes, when you’re saying no?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-You mean, yes.
MR. VOLLARO-I mean, yes. I’m sorry. Yes.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-I was just going to ask you the same thing, Mark. What are you going to do,
in other words, lets say you have six things that you know that are going to be in front of the Board
in the next couple of months, and they’re all of the same nature.
MR. SCHACHNER-And similar location.
MRS. LABOMBARD-Right. So cumulatively they will make a very big impact. One, eh. So what
do you do, deny all six? Or play favoritism?
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MR. SCHACHNER-Well, neither.
MRS. LABOMBARD-Or try to mitigate things?
MR. SCHACHNER-Well, the answer is, we certainly don’t deny all six necessarily, and you certainly
don’t play favoritism. You know that if the ball had started on my side of this horseshoe, with what’s
a pet peeve, playing favoritism, for sure, would be my pet peeve that I’d throw out on the table as
your Counsel, but the answer to your question is that there are a number, those are complex
situations. There’s not a simple answer to that situation, but there are techniques, under SEQRA law
and practice, that can deal with that. One, as I mentioned, is the Generic Environmental Impact
Statement. By definition, you’re talking about a situation where you’ve got a bunch of applicants in
the same general geographic area, and together, you’re saying, they’re going to have significant
environmental impacts. For example, lets say it’s a not very traveled corridor, right now, but if all
five or six applicants come forward, it’s going to become a very, very traffic intensive corridor. It’s
certainly appropriate to do some type of Environmental Impact Statement that takes into account all
those developments. There are a couple of ways of going about that. The Town can do one itself,
because your point is well taken, or somebody said, do you burden one applicant with the whole nine
yards, and often that would not be appropriate. I mean, it might depend on the applicant, but, and I
don’t say that by way of playing favoritism as much as a difference in resources. There is a difference
in resources, between the Pyramid Corporation and, you know, ma and pa Smith, but you can also
require, and I’ve actually participated in this, you can require applicants to, together, prepare
Environmental Impact Statements, and if they don’t want to do that, you can’t force them, but they
can get denied, and that’s your leverage.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes, but that would be Staff.
MR. SCHACHNER-No. Staff could make those suggestions, but the decisions under SEQRA, by
definition, cannot be made by Staff. They must be made by the SEQRA Lead Agency.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-That’s true.
MR. STARK-Mark, how can we require The Great Escape to say, okay, do an EIS again, when they
don’t even know what they’re going to do two years from now?
MR. SCHACHNER-Well, I guess the answer to that, and again, I don’t have a perfect answer, but
my answer is, there’s some speculation or some, I think there’s a credibility issue, quite honestly, for
an applicant of that type, to suggest that it has no long range plan. I am not sitting here with inside
knowledge. I cannot sit here and tell you that they do have a long range plan. All I can tell you is
that I’m lead to believe, by people in similar industries and in similar businesses, that businesses of
that type, of that magnitude, typically have some kind of long range plan. Now, do they typically
have a long range plan that says, we’re going to have a ride installed, three years from tomorrow, that
will be named the following, that will be X number of seats, you know, is it that specific? Perhaps
not, and I may be dead wrong. Quite honestly, you can’t force somebody, probably, to come up with
a plan out of thin air if they don’t have one.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-But what if they have a plan that says, we’re going to put a million and a half
people through there within the next year?
MR. SCHACHNER-Well, the people wouldn’t really be the issue, because that wouldn’t be a
physical alteration, but if their plan is to do this, this, this and this, and we expect that to put a million
and a half people, then one might take the view that that’s going to have a potentially significant
environmental impact because of the increase in traffic, and again, I think you need to not get hung
up on the notion that doing Environmental Impact Statements does not lead to project denial,
necessarily, and in fact, in the vast, vast, vast majority of instances, doing an Environmental Impact
Statement leads to project approval, but supposedly, and I hope this is true, it leads to project
approval that more carefully considers potential environmental impacts, that more carefully mitigates
environmental impacts, and that includes more conditions that are tailored to the potential
environmental impacts, down the road, big picture, cumulative, so that whatever it is that’s being
developed is developed in a more environmentally appropriate manner. I think, and I actually said
this almost twelve hours ago in front of the Lake George Park Commission, when the applicant was
yelling and screaming like a stuffed pig, you can’t possibly require me to do an Environmental Impact
Statement, then my project is dead. Environmental Impact Statements doesn’t mean a project gets
denied. I don’t know if I’m on target at all here, in terms of what you’re asking me to talk about.
MR. ROUND-To address impacts, you don’t need to know height. I mean, you make assumptions.
That’s why it’s called Generic. You make, well, you establish thresholds. You establish criteria to
make judgments. You don’t need to know if it’s a roller coaster or an amusement. That’s the
argument an applicant will make. Well, we don’t know the particular location. Well, you blend it.
You take it in a bubble and you say, well, we can anticipate over the next two years, increase in rider-
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(Queensbury Planning/ZBA Joint Meeting 2/23/99)
ship, increase in these activities, increase in impact on our visual scene, and through that we
anticipate increased traffic volumes. You can make some assumptions and make some judgments,
and it’s not, I know people argue. It’s not a roadblock. It’s not a tool to stop a project. There’s
citizen groups out there that like to say that it is and like to think that it is, but that’s only because it
causes careful consideration and involves the public input, and that’s what’s supposed to bring
everybody together, and make consensus judgments, bring a judgment about and make sure that
everybody’s concerns are addressed.
MR. PALING-The trouble that I have with that, and this is what happened at the Planning Board
meeting, and maybe I’m way off base, but we’re asking one applicant to do a very major study which
involves land and traffic lights and all, way beyond his immediate area. If this is the reasoning we
follow, and we don’t know who the other six are in this case or when they’re coming. Then if
another major applicant comes in, that applicant’s got to do the same thing, and run the same kind of
study.
MR. ROUND-It depends on the threshold, the magnitude of a project.
MR. PALING-Why can’t the Town do it, then, and establish thresholds that the Town?
MR. ROUND-Well, you can’t.
MR. PALING-Well, this is the argument we made last time is I’d be much happier with a Town done
study than I would be with one applicant doing it.
MR. SCHACHNER-You can.
MR. ROUND-You can do that, but then when we try to assess, okay, lets talk about this Corridor,
Route 9. For safety’s sake, 149 to Sweet Road, we’re going to look at that area, and the potential for
growth. Where is the potential for growth? Where is, during that impact statement, traffic’s going to
be one of the big issues, and maybe visual. Lets just concentrate on traffic. When you go to do a
trip generation, you’re going to look at it on a facility by facility basis, you’re going to make some
assumptions. Okay, here’s the traffic generation estimates.
MR. PALING-No. Wait a minute. I think that you’ve got to look at the capacity of what you’ve got
and what it can be.
MR. ROUND-Right.
MR. PALING-And then work from underneath that kind of a thing, not the other way.
MR. ROUND-Well, you’re going to have, okay, who’s contributing traffic to this corridor, and you’re
also going to say, well, what is the capacity of this corridor to handle traffic, and what is the future
growth of traffic in the corridor, all right, and there’s costs, okay. We go through, and we define,
here’s the existing traffic, background traffic. We’ve got 10,000 cars. Our road operates at a Level of
Service D when 5,000 cars are on the road during peak hour. We need to mitigate that issue. We’ve
got to build an additional lane for the highway. Who’s going to pay for the cost of that highway
improvement? Who's going to pay for the mitigation? Is the Town going to pay $10 million to build
a road?
MR. PALING-That’ll all be part of the study.
MR. ROUND-Well, right. So that’s what I’m saying. So, through that process, you’re going to
define, who contributes to traffic, who doesn’t contribute to traffic. You’re going to make an
assessment of, in order to distribute the impacts, you’re going to make an assessment. We’ve got five
property owners on here. Property Owner A contributes 80%, Property Owner B contributes 10%,
and so on and so on, and so that we distribute the cost of the Impact Statement, the cost of
addressing the impacts, or the cost of the mitigation, but that cost is eventually going to come back
to Property Owner A with 80% of the impacts. You’re not going to unequally, you’re not going to
distribute the cost of the impacts in a disproportionate manner than the contribution of the property.
MR. PALING-I think (lost words) of the study, and I’m just saying that I think that we’d be better
off with a total study by the Town rather than a narrow study by one applicant and then do it again
for another applicant.
MR. ROUND-The Town’s going to initiate this process. Common sense, logic is not going to come
out and say, the Trading Post restaurant contributes 10,000 vehicles to this corridor that’s causing
this problem. The problem is going to, the figure’s going to point to our major traffic generator in
Town. It’s going to be that facility that we’re talking about. It’s not going to be, you know, 1200
different traffic generators on the site.
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(Queensbury Planning/ZBA Joint Meeting 2/23/99)
MR. PALING-You keep coming back to the existing businesses, and I’m trying to put more of the
burden on the businesses that are going to come in.
MR. ROUND-Well, you can do that. You would also say, okay, 20% of the capacity, or 20% of the
land use on the corridor is not utilized, and in order to project traffic growth in the future, we’re
going to say those properties are responsible for this portion of the growth on the corridor, and they
will have to bear the burden of that, and that’s what you call a traffic impact fee.
MR. PALING-Okay.
MR. ROUND-But we’re not going to put the burden of improvements on a corridor on three
properties that have yet to be developed, and not look at the existing contributions to the traffic
problem.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think you also have to look at the probability of the corridor being able to
sustain new businesses coming in, all new, six new applicants. That corridor he’s referring to, just for
speaking purposes, is pretty well filled up already. The only thing that’s going to change is those
existing businesses that expand or enhance their current operations.
MR. PALING-New businesses come in, and if you start to strain an intersection because of one
business, let the business be responsible or not come in.
MR. MAC EWAN-Well, that’s what I’m saying. There’s not a lot of land up there that new
businesses would come in.
MR. ROUND-If you’ve got a traffic system that’s operating at a sub par level of service, and Joe’s
Gas Station comes in and is going to generate 10 cars, and that’ll trigger it into a Level of Service F.
You can have Joe’s Service Station pay for the cost of the mitigation. To put this in practice, the
Pyramid Corporation. Route 9, Aviation Road operates at a Level of Service D, E, and F, depending
on what hour of the day you’re driving that corridor. Pyramid is proposing a mitigation factor that’s
going to maintain it at that deteriorated Level of Service, and under the law, all they have to do,
they’ve got to maintain that Level of Service, whether it’s D or E, is a diminished Level of Service
good enough for us? Do we want to allow a development to occur that’s going to keep us status
quo? Well, the Town has an interest in seeing an improvement to the corridor, and seeing some
capacity enhancements, above and beyond what Pyramid is going to consume, that they’ve got to
address their existing deficiencies. They’ve contributed to the existing deficiency of the capacity of
the corridor. They’ve contributed to that Level D of Service. It just didn’t happen because of twelve
different land uses. Lets face the fact. This particular use is the major contributor to the degradation
of the Level of Service on the corridor. It’s not because of a Cracker Barrel. It’s not because of a
Howard Johnson’s restaurant or it’s not because of Hess Gas Station. This is the big guy. This is the
one. So if we’re willing to sacrifice our highway corridors to make sure the big guy can continue to
operate, and we’re going to distribute that burden disproportionately across the little guys, we’re
going to lose all the little guys. You can’t lay that burden on the little guy.
MR. MC NULTY-It sounds, to me, though, like you’ve got a couple of big problems. The Pyramid
Mall/Aviation Road is one. Route 9 up to 149 is another, and I think what we’re hearing I think is
we need to have the Town coordinate a couple of studies, and you’re both right. The Town’s got to
take responsibility, because there are a lot of various businesses along 149, and down through Route
9, that are going to be involved. Some of them are going to change hands. At the same time,
certainly a big player on Route 9 is The Great Escape. You’ve got to have them involved, and an
engineer say that, like you say, somewhere they do have some kind of an overall concept of what
they’re doing in the next five or ten years with The Great Escape. They wouldn’t be in business if
they weren’t. They’re one of the largest amusement park companies in the Country now, that owns
it, and the same thing is true with the Pyramid Mall.
MR. ROUND-All these project corridors are under examination. I mean, Quaker Road and Aviation
Road were studied, and those recommendations were made. There’s tough decisions to make to
improve those corridors, and that Town has not acted on some of those improvements. It’s not
going to go away. It’s only going to get worse. Exit 18, we’re looking at that one right now. That’s a
County road, and there’s some initiatives to improve that, and there’s Federal funding available for
that. There’s a matching portion, and that involves willful decision making. As citizens, as Board
members, you’ve got to keep on and make sure that those decisions are made and that they’re not
prolonged. Quaker Road, are there going to be Federal funds to resolve some traffic issues on Route
9 to resolve some traffic problems? Well, they just did a Planning study of Sweet Road from 9 to
149, and it’s not likely that’s going to be on the TIP to seek Federal funds. So it’s likely it’s going to
come out of the private property owner or the locality. So, there’s other boards that are doing that,
and we’ve just got to make sure that we’re keeping focused on those issues and getting involved in
those issues. I think this is a good stopping point. I hope tonight was useful.
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MR. MAC EWAN-Very useful.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Very, thank you.
MR. ROUND-And we’ll do it again in six months or a year.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Thank you, Chris.
MR. MAC EWAN-Thanks.
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED
Craig Mac Ewan, Chairman, Planning Board
Chris Thomas, Chairman, Zoning Board of Appeals
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