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1999-03-23 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SECOND REGULAR MEETING MARCH 23, 1999 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT CRAIG MAC EWAN, CHAIRMAN CATHERINE LA BOMBARD, SECRETARY TIMOTHY BREWER ROBERT PALING GEORGE STARK ROBERT VOLLARO MEMBERS ABSENT LARRY RINGER SENIOR PLANNER-CHUCK VOSS PLANNER-LAURA MOORE TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX & PRATT-MARK SCHACHNER STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI SITE PLAN NO. 5-99 TYPE: UNLISTED STEVEN & DONNA SUTTON OWNERS: SAME ZONE: HC-1A LOCATION: 1066 ROUTE 9 APPLICANT PROPOSES A 7,200 SQ. FT. WAREHOUSE AND A 1,600 SQ. FT. ADDITION TO THE “TOY COTTAGE” AND ASSOCIATED SITEWORK. PER § 179-23 RETAIL BUSINESSES AND CUSTOMARY ACCESSORY USES ARE ALLOWED USES IN THE HC-1A ZONE AND ARE SUBJECT TO PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE: AV 441, 490, SPEC. PERMIT 83, SP 49-89, UV 120- 1992, AV 119-1992, SP 52-92, 39-96, 18-97 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 3/10/99 TAX MAP NO. 68-1-15, 13.2 LOT SIZE: 6.86 ACRES SECTION: 179-23 MR. MAC EWAN-We're going to move the agenda around just a little bit. The first item on the agenda we’re going to move up, which is Suttons, Site Plan No. 5-1999. A sudden turn of events, late this afternoon. The Town was noticed, by one of the neighbors, that they are appealing the determination that was made by the Zoning Administrator, some of you may recall from last week, regarding the use of the warehouse in the HC-1A zone as an accessory use. The appeal process is one such that the Zoning Board of Appeals will hear this appeal process and make a determination as to whether the Zoning Administrator was correct or wrong in his determination. So what that does to this application is it very simply brings it to a grinding halt. Nothing will be done. Nothing will be reviewed. The process doesn’t go any farther than where we are right now, until we get a determination by the ZBA. So, on that note, we’re going to leave the application tabled. We're going to leave the public hearing left open until such time as the ZBA renders a determination. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. With that, lets move on with the rest of the agenda. OLD BUSINESS: SITE PLAN NO. 65-98 TYPE: UNLISTED STEWART’S ICE CREAM OWNER: ROGER & BARBARA BRASSEL ZONE: HC-1A LOCATION: CORNER OF BAY AND CRONIN ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A STEWART’S SHOP (CONVENIENCE STORE FOOD/GAS STATION) AND ATTACHED BANKING FACILITY WITH DRIVE-THROUGH SERVICES. HC ZONES ALLOW ALL USES PERMITTED IN PC ZONES. PROPOSAL REQUIRES SITE PLAN REVIEW PER § 179-23 AND ZONING ADMINISTRATOR’S DETERMINATION. CROSS REFERENCE: AV 3-1999, SUB. 12-1998 BEAUTIFICATION COMM.: 12/9/98 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 2/10/99 TAX MAP NO. 60-2-11.1 LOT SIZE: 1.327 ACRES SECTION: 179-22, 179-23 JIM GILLESPIE, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MRS. LA BOMBARD-And the public hearing on March 16 was tabled. th 1 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 65-98, Stewart’s Ice Cream, Meeting Date: March 23, 1999 “Description of Project: The application for a Stewart’s Store with an attached banking facility was tabled for additional information. The Board requested a detailed explanation of the Zoning Administrator’s determination. Staff Notes: Correspondence (dated February 19, 1999) to Tom Lewis of Stewart’s is the Zoning Administrator’s determination indicating banking facilities are an allowed use in the HC-1A zone. A copy of the letter is attached. Staff met with the Planning Board Chairman and member Bob Paling and presented the supporting information in satisfaction of the information requested. The Zoning Administrator will prepare a memo to the Board regarding zoning determinations at a later date.” MR. MAC EWAN-That’s it? No new information? Okay. I guess we basically left off waiting to get that determination. That’s where we were heading with this. Has anyone on the Board got any questions? MR. VOLLARO-I just have one, and it’s simple. I can’t locate the oil and water separator on the plan. I've looked. MR. GILLESPIE-Right. Jim Gillespie from Stewart’s. You probably don’t have an updated plan. MR. MAC EWAN-He had updated drawings. He did show them on there. They’re on the smaller version that he submitted to Staff, and Staff has copies of them. MR. VOLLARO-The other one is the Beautification Committee said that you would have a in- ground sprinkler system, and I couldn’t locate that on the drawing either. Is that on the drawing? MR. GILLESPIE-It’s on the building plan drawings. It’s not on the site plan, but we will have an in- ground sprinkler system. MR. VOLLARO-It’s in the Beautification letter. Is that good enough, that once the letter is submitted as part of the record, and that’s in the letter, that’ll suffice? MR. VOSS-Yes. Staff would accept that, as long as the Board was happy with that. MR. BREWER-When did zoning take effect in this Town? MR. STARK-I thought it was ’68, Tim. MR. MAC EWAN-Why do you ask? MR. BREWER-Just because I wanted to know. MR. MAC EWAN-Nothing else that went along with that question, like a follow up? MR. BREWER-No. MR. MAC EWAN-Does anyone else have anything? Okay. I left the public hearing. Does anyone want to come up and comment on this application? You’re more than welcome to do so. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED NO COMMENT PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. MAC EWAN-We need to do a SEQRA. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO., Introduced by Catherine LaBombard who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Stark: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: STEWART’S ICE CREAM, and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, 2 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. Duly adopted this 23 day of March, 1999, by the following vote: rd AYES: Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Paling, Mr. Stark, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. MAC EWAN-Does someone want to put a motion up? MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 65-98 STEWART’S ICE CREAM, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Stark: As written in the resolution by Staff. Whereas, the Town Planning Board is in receipt of Site Plan No. 65-98 to construct a Stewart’s Shop (convenience food/gas station) and attached banking facility with drive-through services. HC zones allow all uses permitted in PC zones. Proposal requires Site Plan Review per § 179-22, 179-23 and Zoning Administrator determination; and Whereas, the above mentioned application, received 11/23/98, consists of the following: 1. Application w/maps S-1 dated 11/2/98, S-2 dated 11/24/98, S-3 dated 11/2/98 Whereas, the above file is supported with the following documentation: 3/23/99 – Revised Staff Notes, faxed to T. Lewis 3/19/99 – Staff Notes faxed to T. Lewis 3/16/99 – Planning Board resolution 3/16/99 – Staff Notes 3/10/99 – Rist Frost comments 3/9/99 - Notice of Public Hearing 3/5/99 - L. Moore from M. Shaw 3/2/99 - W. Levandowski from J. Gillespie – revised info. 2/19/99 - T. Lewis from C. Round 2/17/99 - Zoning Board of Appeals resolution 2/16/99 - Warren Co. Planning Board resolution 2/16/99 - C. Round from S. Sopczyk 12/29/98 – T. Lewis from L. Moore 12/22/98 - Rec’d revised map, S-2 12/22/98 - Staff Notes 12/16/98 - C. Round from L. Penistan of Warren Co. DPW 3 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) 12/9/98 - Jennifer from L. Moore transmitting info. 12/8/98 - Beautification Committee comments 12/3/98 - Meeting notice letter 11/23/98 - J. Gillespie from L. Moore transmitting DPW letter 11/18/98 - J. Gillespie from L. Penistan Whereas, a public hearing was held on 3/16/99 concerning the above project; and Whereas, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the site plan requirements of the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and Whereas, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and Whereas, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and The Town Planning Board, after considering the above, hereby moves to approve Site Plan No. 65- 98 for Stewart’s Ice Cream. The applicant shall present three (3) copies of the above referenced approved plan to the Zoning Administrator for his signature. 3. The Zoning Administrator is hereby authorized to sign the above referenced plan. 4. The applicant agrees to the conditions set forth in this resolution. 5. The conditions shall be noted on the map. The issuance of permits is conditioned on compliance and continued compliance with the Zoning Ordinance and site plan approval process. Duly adopted this 23 day of March 1999, by the following vote: rd AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Paling, Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSTAINED: Mr. Brewer ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. MAC EWAN-You’re all set. Good luck. SITE PLAN NO. 6-99 TYPE: UNLISTED PREMIER PARKS, INC. OWNER: SAME ZONE: RC-15/LC-42A LOCATION: THE GREAT ESCAPE APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW AMUSEMENT RIDE CALLED THE “FORMULA ONE – GO KART TRACK” AND ASSOCIATED SITEWORK. AMUSEMENT CENTER IS AN ALLOWED USE, NEW FACILITIES AT THE SITE ARE SUBJECT TO PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE: AV 1403, 1404, 1447, 1449, UV 35-1989, AV 87-1998, SP 22-88, 34-88, 66-888, 68-88, 4-89, 13-90, 14-90, 10-93, 36-94, 57-96, 75-96, 49-97, 26-98, 62-98 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 3/10/99 TAX MAP NO. 36-2- 3.1/LOT SIZE: 248.96 +/- ACRES SECTION: 179-21 JOHN LEMERY & CRAIG TRIPP, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MRS. LA BOMBARD-And the public hearing last week on March 16 was tabled. th STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 6-99, Premier Parks, Inc., Meeting Date: March 23, 1999 “Description of Project: The application for the “Formula One-Go Cart Track” for Great Escape was tabled per the applicant’s request. The applicant proposes to construct a go-cart track within an existing recreational facility. Amusement Center is an allowed use, new facilities at the site are subject to Planning Board review and approval. Staff Notes: The applicant has supplied information regarding noise and type of go-carts for the track. There will be a total of twenty (20) go-carts with ten (10) go-carts running at any one time. The development of the site will allow fire access to the fuel storage area. The site appears to accommodate the proposed use, but consideration should be given to future rides/attractions for the entire commercial recreational 4 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) facility. The RC-15 zoning recommends long term planning for a facility such as Great Escape. Staff has no additional comments. The public hearing for the proposed project was opened at the March 16, 1999 meeting. The public requested supporting information for “No Parking” on the utility road near the fen. The Planning Board resolution for Site Plan No. 10-93 (attached) for two additional amusement attractions addresses the parking conditions on the utility road. A question was raised about the noise level of the go-carts themselves and if this noise would be amplified by the Bobsled ride. The noise information submitted was referred to Rist Frost.” MR. MAC EWAN-Do we have any responses from Rist-Frost? MRS. MOORE-Yes, we do. I’ll read a conversation between Chris Round and Bill Levandowski. “Bill Levandowski – As requested, I obtained a price from a consultant (Acentech) to review the acoustical analysis that was submitted as part of the Premier Parks Go Cart application. The consultant will review what was submitted and generate a letter report, identifying a list of items required to demonstrate the project will not contribute to off site impacts. This could be performed for about $1,000. They indicated the applicant may be required to measure ambient noise levels (off site). Chris Round – Could they utilize existing data – r.e. Comet – EIS data. Bill Levandowski – Possibly. Also, figure an additional $500 for them to review the applicant’s response – Total $1500.00 Chris Round – If the Planning Board requests this analysis – we have to inform the applicant in advance (in excess of $1000 per application disclosure) Bill Levandowski – Let me know” MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Is there anything else that needs to be read in? MRS. MOORE-No. MR. MAC EWAN-Good evening. MR. LEMERY-Good evening. My name is John Lemery, from the law firm of Lemery & McCrowl, attorneys for Premier Parks. With me Craig Tripp, of the L.A. Group, site consultants for Premier Parks, The Great Escape, and John Collins, Vice President of Premier Parks and General Manager of The Great Escape. We have an application filed for an additional attraction to go in to the interior of the Park, and as described in the site plan application, it consists of a new amusement the go cart track called “The Formula-One Go Cart Track”. It will be shown on the rendering, and Craig will point out on the rendering exactly where that will go within the Park. The new ride will consist of the installation of the track, the loading and unloading platforms, the cue area, the walkways, the fuel storage facility and the planting. The actual land area which will make up the new ride and improvements in connection is approximately 1.3 acres. The Great Escape parcel is zoned RC-15, Recreational Commercial, and the total continuous land area owned by the project sponsor within the 1.3 acre site, or where in the 1.3 acre site it will be located is approximately 270 acres. So with that, Mr. Chairman, I’d like to ask Craig Tripp to describe where, in the Park, the new attraction is located, and then we can discuss, if you will, some of the issues relating to it. MR. TRIPP-I just want to start off by turning in the revised grading plan, which reflects the changes Rist-Frost requested. Those are two very simple changes. They just wanted to see a detail for the retaining wall at the southern end of the track. MR. MAC EWAN-When did they request these changes? MR. TRIPP-This was in a letter dated March 12. th MR. MAC EWAN-March 12. Why are we getting them now? th MR. TRIPP-I received no request from the Town, as far as these changes go. This was just a letter that was passed on to me, as comments from Rist-Frost. Very simple changes. They just wanted to see a note on the plan stating that erosion control would be performed within the State requirements and all detail. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s the only change you made to the drawing is just putting that note for New York State? MR. TRIPP-Adding the note, and showing the location of the silt fence, as well as the wall detail. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. TRIPP-In addition to that, that reflects the issue which was addressed in the drainage report, which stated that, after doing the storm calculations for a 25 year storm, only two of the four drywells originally shown on the plan were required. So, the new plans show the two that are necessary. 5 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. VOLLARO-You’ll point those out to us, will you? MR. TRIPP-If you’d like. They’re the only ones still on the plan. MR. MAC EWAN-Could you put the drawing up on the easel, so that everyone in the audience can see it, too? MR. TRIPP-To start off, this proposed ride is located in the south central portion of the Park. It’s situated between the pirate ship ride and the bobsled ride. The southern end of the proposed track, which is the closest of this ride to the Park perimeter, is approximately 650 feet from the Round Pond Road, on the southern end of this site. Okay. This is an 817 linear foot proposed track, consisting of 26 feet in width for the track’s surface. Of that 26 feet, three feet on each side is taken up for a proposed tire rail bumper system, which reduces the total drive width to 20 feet. The track material will be concrete, for several reasons. It’s less wear on the tires. It’s 40 degrees cooler than asphalt, longer life span and so on. As was mentioned earlier, there will be 20 cars total, 10 running at any given time. There are two structures that go with this project. The first is the start building, which is located here, but on this plan south is to the bottom of the page, north is up. The start building is located basically centralized to the track itself. This is approximately a 32 by 50 foot building. There will also be a 24 by 24 foot maintenance building located in the northwest portion of the site. Both buildings will be approximately 15 to 20 feet in height. In addition, there’ll be two observation towers, one located at the north end and one located at the south end of the track, for observation while the ride is in use. These are small structures, three to four foot off the ground, just to give someone enough clearance to oversee the ride. In addition, the fuel storage will be located up near the maintenance building. This consists of a 300 gallon, above-ground fuel tank, placed on a concrete pad, which will meet the regulations, as far as DEC and fuel storage requirements. In addition to that, we have a 30 gallon portable refueling tank, which will be the actual tank used to re- fuel the cars, which would be then fueled from the larger tank. The cue entrance has been reconfigured before the pirate ship, to coincide with the cue entrance for this new track ride. There will be lighting for the track for safety reasons and for night use. Also, the retaining wall, which I had mentioned earlier, that Rist-Frost requested a detail for, is located on the southern portion of the site. This was to allow the track to come out closer to here, and accomplish the grading in a shorter span. This wall will have a maximum height of five feet, which is on the plans that you guys have already, with an average height of three feet. With that, I guess if there’s any questions, I’ll turn it over to you. MR. BREWER-Just one question to start. Do you know how similar the cars are to the ones across the street at the Pirates Cove, as in make and model? MR. COLLINS-Adventure Racing. Ours are J and J. I believe, to my knowledge, the ones they have at Gaslight Village are the same manufacturer. I’m not sure if the ones across the street. They’re the same size, the same style. I thought we had a photo, and we can show you what they look like. MR. MAC EWAN-We're talking about the ones across the street at Pirate’s Cove. MR. BREWER-Yes, but he said he’s not aware of what exactly they are, if they’re the same. MR. COLLINS-Yes. I thought they were Formula K. These are J and J. MR. BREWER-Just a different manufacturer? MR. COLLINS-Yes. They are gasoline powered. If you see the one insert with the Jeff Gordon NASCAR, they’re all NASCAR, painted. MR. MAC EWAN-That one’s the one that’s always out front, right? MR. COLLINS-It would be the most popular. MR. VOLLARO-What’s the retaining wall, construction material used in the retaining wall? What are you going to use to build it, concrete? MR. TRIPP-Modular concrete block. MR. VOLLARO-Modular concrete block. In line with what Tim was talking about, there’s a document that was submitted, and it says, part utilizing a study previously sent to you, “you” meaning I guess the Town, and then they say cart being purchased for your track, and then there’s a little asterisk that says “as you can see, the numbers are the same”, and in effect the numbers are not the same. The cart utilized is a GX180K1, and the cart being purchased is a GX240K1. So, there’s a little discrepancy in the data there. 6 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. COLLINS-As far as the decibel levels, I believe they’re both 78. MR. VOLLARO-The make of the car. This was a piece of information that looked like it was transmitted by you by fax. MR. TRIPP-I was responsible for that correspondence, and the reason for that is the original sound study, which was sent up to you guys earlier in the process utilized the GX160 car, and the piece of paper which I’m assuming is what you have in front of you, that showed the two different styles, the 240 and the 160, the comment. MR. VOLLARO-The thing I’m concerned about is that the information says “as you can see, the numbers are the same”. That would lead me to believe. MR. TRIPP-The decibel levels are what are the same. That was the reason for the comment. MR. VOLLARO-That was my only question concerning that. The last time that you came before this Board, I guess I discussed with you the need for some sort of long range plan or some sort of long range study, because we felt at that time that we were incrementally segmenting these rides, and we wanted to get some idea of what was going on, and I did a little research of my own, and I’ll tell you where it did it. I did it with Investor Relations in New York City, and just getting some information on the Park. There are 11 regional Parks, and you’re the second program behind the Disney Park. Just quickly going over here, I looked at the public, it traded since 1996 at $9 a share. You traded today at 62 and a half, which is not germane necessarily, but the people that I spoke to in New York City, when they talked, I said, do you have any projections for Premier Parks as an entity? And the comment back was, earnings estimated projection probably 10 to 15% a year to the Year 2005. I have the names of the individuals I talked to, but I’d rather not say who they were. I will if you want me to. Looking at some of the gross revenue numbers. MR. LEMERY-Can I ask how this is relevant to a site plan application? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. It’s relevant because I think that this data indicates that a corporation of this size does do planning, does do long range planning, and we want to have a little insight, here, as to what that plan’s going to look like down stream. MR. LEMERY-We're not able to do that. MR. VOLLARO-I don’t see why, and I don’t think I can accept that answer anymore. MR. LEMERY-Well, let me comment this way. We're talking about an attraction going into the Park here, a ride, a three acre ride. The Park has been owned by Premier for three years. They don’t quite know yet what the end result will be. It’s a 270 acre site, and they’re not able to determine a long range plan for this Park, until they get a better sense of what works and what doesn’t work within the Park. Now, if your issues are traffic related, for example, it’s a much bigger issue than Premier Parks and this Park. For one thing, it’s summertime in Queensbury, summertime in Lake George. We are a recreation area. There is going to be traffic. There is going to be generated traffic by the Park. There is going to be generated traffic by the so called Miracle Mile, the restaurants, the go cart track that Tim referred to across the road. All these kinds of things are going to impact whatever traffic there might be. So, at this point in time, The Great Escape is not able to sit down and do some sort of long range plan with respect to this Park. There are some plans in the works at some point to acquire some more parking spaces, which will alleviate some of the issues. They’ve already acquired Animal Land. We addressed that issue. Queensbury does not have a noise ordinance. We are not going to get involved in discussions about noise, and noise restrictions and those kind of things. There is no ordinance in the Town. MR. MAC EWAN-I’ll interrupt you and say that we will, if it inflicts on the SEQRA review, and where we’re going with this. MR. LEMERY-Well, that’s your right. You can do that. MR. MAC EWAN-Let me get my point across. Where we’re going with this is that we have concerns, as a Board, that as we see, every year you come in and add another little attraction, which fits into the big picture up there, and as far as SEQRA review, and segmentation of SEQRA review. MR. LEMERY-We don’t see it as a segmentation issue. MR. MAC EWAN-You don’t. We do. Unfortunately, we’re the ones with our heads on the chopping block, not you. So we’re going to do what we have to do to ensure that we do the right reviews and look out for the best interests of not only you folks but everyone else who lives in this 7 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) Town, and I think we all need to play on the same playing level. This is an issue that we need to investigate a little bit further, and we’re going to do that. MR. LEMERY-Well, we’re not going to get involved, quite frankly, with issues relating to decibel levels of a track within the middle of the Park. We got into decibel levels with respect to the issue of the building that houses the rollercoaster. It’s an amusement park, and it has been an amusement park since 1954. MR. MAC EWAN-And long before SEQRA law came into effect. Now we deal with SEQRA law, and there’s a difference. So you can’t say what you’re doing in the past, because you’ve been there as long as you have, can’t effect what SEQRA law provides for today. It’s not fair. MR. LEMERY-The issue that you’re probably struggling with is the fact that since Premier Parks bought the Park, they have invested a lot of money in marketing, and what you’re seeing is a result of that marketing, an increase in traffic and people coming to the Park, not so much because of the attractions which are in the Park, but as a result of the marketing effort that has gone on, which is part of the Premier Parks overall plan for their properties, and so you put an attraction in, take an attraction out, Mr. Chairman, is not what is generating the traffic. What’s generating the traffic is the marketing and the efforts that are made to attract people to the Town of Queensbury and to this Park. That’s what’s going on. MR. MAC EWAN-No one’s brought the issue of traffic into the conversation, only you. MR. BREWER-John, can I interject for a second? Can you tell us how many attractions you’ve taken out, roughly? MR. COLLINS-Three. MR. BREWER-How many have you put in in the last three years? MR. COLLINS-Four. This will be the fifth. We’ll actually lose a kiddie ride this year because of the expansion of the Mad Hatter and the Chicken Chalet Restaurant. So we’ll have lost four. I want to make a point that you were reading off the history of the company, and I’m sure you went further and they told you that Premier’s strength lies in the fact that they invest in their properties, and then they market them. We’ve proven that over the three years I've been here to come in and talk to you. So our problem is sitting here and saying, you know, we’re going to sit here and add such and such attractions. They think, the company presidents and the Chairman are very high on this Park. They like it. It’s got great family appeal. So they’ve invested in it. Every issue that you bring up we will look at. We talked traffic so we did additional parking area. We talked sound of the Bobsled. Well, I went through and I got a painting company getting me prices on foam insulation, sound absorbing foam insulation, and re-painting the ride. That’s not a cheap process. So we are addressing those. The problem is with 31 parks now, where each individual purchase goes really depends on the individual year. Believe me, all this information is passed on to our corporate people, and they’re trying to work some sort of plan as far as what each individual park is going to need, but the market conditions change so much in this industry that you’re really never sure, first of all, what’s going to be in the market, what’s hot, what’s popular, and then to forecast that would certainly, but the one thing you were talking about the growth of the company. Fifteen percent growth. That’s investment, and that’s marketing. MR. MAC EWAN-Are you telling us that they don’t have a plan to what’s going to happen here next year, two years from now, or five years from now as far as what’s going to happen as far as adding attractions or taking out attractions at The Great Escape? MR. COLLINS-If they do, I don’t know of it. MR. MAC EWAN-May I read something to you? MR. COLLINS-Go ahead. MR. MAC EWAN-This I pulled off, this came from Lehman Brothers, and it’s a prospectus for people who want to obviously invest in Premier Parks. One sentence in here says “230 and a half million dollars that Premier has announced in improvements so far covers 13 of its parks. Two more capital announcements are still pending.” Now you flip over a couple of pages and it just goes on to tell you where some of this money is going into some of these parks that Premier holds. They don’t list all the parks, but they certainly have a plan set forth as to what they want to do. Six Flags in Jackson, New Jersey, $42 million. That’s going to a Medusa floorless center type coaster. Six Flags of Fiesta Texas, San Antonio, $30 million. That’s going for a poltergeist coaster. Six Flags over Georgia, Atlanta, $10 million. That’s going toward a scorcher coaster. The list goes on and on. So they already have money earmarked, and they have plans what they want to do. 8 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. COLLINS-For ’99. You’re reading off everything that’s coming in this year. That is ’99 attractions. I will sit here and tell you I probably will know what we’ll have new for next year in July, and I've stressed with the Company that we need to speed up the process for the approvals, so that you people can look at them and get your questions in, and we can address those issues. Now the problem is, with 31 parks, if you have a $40 million expansion at Great Adventure, okay, that’s going to take priority, because they know that’s going to take longer. So, they’ve got to get those dollars committed. The same with Fiesta Texas, which is a coaster and all that, but we found all that out in November. Okay. The big show for the industry is held every week before Thanksgiving every year, and we buy probably 85% of our product the week of that show. Okay. So that’s what we’re always hear in December, because, at that point, we’ve got all the list of what rides were purchased for the year. Believe me, I've sat there and I've stressed to our president, we need to sit down and talk, and it’s just not this Board. It’s Massachusetts, and other facilities that we’re looking for, you know, would like to see long range planning, and they are addressing it, looking at it, but for right now, for today, we’re just not at that point, but you’re talking. MR. VOLLARO-John, my corporate experience goes back to a company called United Technologies. That’s where I was before I became where I am now. We always had financial bogeys from the corporation. Our division, they said what they wanted. This is what they were going to give you in terms of research and development money, the same thing for you, marketing and advertising and so on. For that gift that the corporation gave, they expect, and they set goals, financial goals, with us and with them, and we had to perform on those goals. They never told us, you’ve got to do this, this and this, but the bogey was always there, and you probably have a similar bogey. MR. COLLINS-Are we talking basic business here? MR. VOLLARO-I’m talking basic business. Take and translate that number into people. MR. LEMERY-Well, let me say that I have personally spoken with the Chairman and CEO of the Company, on a number of occasions, and asked him if he could give us a better sense of what the long range plan was, so we could come to the Board, at some point, sit down, have a workshop and talk to you about what’s going on. He’s not been able to do that. He said he can’t do that at this point, because he doesn’t know yet what is going to go on with this Park. So I, personally, have asked him, with regard to some of these issues. I know that the Company has met with transportation people. We talked about trying to look at whether an overhead bridge could go there, and it would take up way too much parking at that entrance. They’ve purchased Animal Land. There are some other things in the works at this point that I’m not free to disclose that could further alleviate parking issues that might come up in some of these things, but they’re not in a position yet to tell us what they expect the whole build-out of this 270 acres is going to be, where it’s going to be. They think, for example, that there’s too much congestion at the water area, and so they may have to, at some point, put some more water attractions in there in other places, so as to break up all that congestion at the water area. Now that just developed in the last year or so, when they were able to get a sense of where the people were going within the Park. A lot of what has gone on is sort of trying to see where the people are congregating, how to move them around the Park. That was one of the issues that surfaced when they put the ride, the new rollercoaster ride, and moved it up to the old Ghost Town area, was to get people out of that water area and move them into other areas in the Park, and that’s what’s going on within the Park. I mean, if there comes a point where they can’t expand the Park anymore within the Park, then they’ll have to look at putting their investments elsewhere, but at this point, they have determined that there’s still room within that Park to do some things, and they are not yet able to determine what that all might be, and I personally talked to the Chairman twice, and I talked to him again last week, in anticipation of this meeting. MR. VOLLARO-Well, I think you can understand where we’re coming from. We're trying to get a sense of the growth factor over the coming years, and how it’s going to effect the Route 9 traffic, and certainly you’re not the only contributor to Route 9 traffic. We understand that. MR. LEMERY-We think there could be substantial growth at the Park, and we think if that happens, that does create an issue on Route 9, but it’s part of a Town and regional problem. It’s not a Great Escape problem. MR. MAC EWAN-Are there any plans to have Great Escape become a Six Flags affiliated Park? MR. COLLINS-We are a member of the Six Flags family. MR. MAC EWAN-Being named a Six Flags? Like Six Flags of Atlanta, Six Flags of New Jersey, Six Flags of San Antonio, or Six Flags of Lake George. 9 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. COLLINS-Well, that’s a tough one because they turned around and changed some of the existing Six Flags to reflect their old name. There’s a lot that goes into that, brand recognition. For example, Fiesta Texas was Six Flags Fiesta Texas, but everyone called it Fiesta Texas. So it’s no Fiesta Texas, a Six Flags Theme Park. We are The Great Escape, a member of the Six Flags family of Theme Parks, okay. So we’re part of the Six Flags family, now. If you’re asking, you know, will we be ever called Six Flags The Great Escape, I can’t answer that. To get there, the Park would need additional product, okay, and all that that entails, the services to provide that. We're talking about power issues and things of that nature. MR. MAC EWAN-So there are certain criteria? MR. COLLINS-Yes. Right now it’s scope of product, I think, is the biggest issue. I mean, certainly the ambience is there, the facilities are the first rate facilities. It’s scope of product. What I presented to my president was that, could we give them anything, such as, here’s the map of the Park, and here’s where we envision a “major attraction” needs to go. A major attraction could be anything from a coaster to a free fall ride to whatever happens to be hot in the market. Here could be a minor attraction, which is a flat ride. When you say flat ride, those things are two million plus anyway, but they don’t require major site re-development, and I've asked him to do that. So, that’s on their table, but they’ve also got 31 other parks that my Vice President of Design is working on layouts right now for the two hundred million you’re talking about has already been spent. It’s a process that I've put on their table, and I’m not sure exactly how quickly that goes as far as priorities, but I can sit here and tell you that the intention is and has been that they invest in their parks and they market them, and you probably got that right off the description of the Company. MR. VOLLARO-You’ve got 270 acres that you’re working with right now, of property, is that about right? MR. LEMERY-Right. MR. VOLLARO-How does that fit in the general scheme of Premier? In other words, are you a large Park, medium Park? MR. COLLINS-It’s a lot of acres. Now, we have so much of it that is unusable wetlands, but as far as the usable land, it’s up there as far as the average Park. Will it ever be a three million person Park, no. This area won’t handle that. MR. VOLLARO-Where do you envision this Park being with respect, in three to five years? MR. COLLINS-I hope the area supports it, that it could be, you know, it could grow. I mean, that’s the biggest thing. If the tourism area does as well as it has the past two year, in the region, and the promotion of the region is such a key to the growth of this Park, and that’s why we’re doing a lot of things that, I don’t mean to bring Charlie into it, but a lot of things that Charlie wouldn’t have done. We are promoting a region, because if the region benefits from people coming to the area, we’re going to benefit from it. That’s why we’re working with Warren County to promote Warren County Tourism. That’s why we’re working with the Adirondack Tourism Council to promote the Adirondacks, and also Saratoga working with the Race Track because we all benefit from that. So if that continues to grow, the Park’s going to grow as well, but it’s got the potential to get larger than it is. Is it ever going to be a Six Flags Great Adventure, it just doesn’t have the metro area to support that. MR. BREWER-We always hear about the things you’re adding, adding, and I think this Board has a concern, like Craig said, about the SEQRA. You keep adding. Why don’t we make it a practice that you tell us what you’re taking out, and what the volume for those rides are, so that maybe that does balance out. I mean, me as a member sitting here, I just hear about the things that you’re adding, John, and to me in my mind, that that means you’re bringing more people. Well, if you’re taking things out and you’re not telling me about it, do you understand what I’m saying? There’s push and pull, and if the things you’re taking out are equal to the things you’re putting in, well then there is no segmentation, in my mind. Maybe I’m all crazy. MR. LEMERY-Well, I think the issue there has to do a lot with, again, when he speaks of the marketing, and what goes out and what goes in doesn’t necessarily reflect the marketing that in turn brings the customers in, but John can speak to the rides that have been disbanded and taken out of there. MR. BREWER-You can sit here and tell me the name of a ride, and specifically, if I haven’t been on that, I don’t know what it is, and maybe other Board members don’t, also, but I have a concern because I hear of the adding, adding, adding. To me, the SEQRA’s here, and if you keep putting on, putting on, putting on, you know, the SEQRA we did five years ago has got to be re-done. 10 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. COLLINS-Okay. Adding is also service. Okay. You mentioned Great Adventure. They’re spending $40 million because they are fighting a war on lines. They want to make the guests that are coming have a better experience than they’ve ever had, and how do you do that? You decrease the wait in lines, okay. So the addition of 25 new rides in itself won’t bring additional people. The new coaster probably will, but 25 new flat rides, what that’ll do is that’ll increase or decrease length of time they spend in line which is the biggest complaint. Now we didn’t know that when we bought the facility, but that’s one of the things you find out. So that’s a major investment there. They had it scheduled for, I believe, one or two coasters, and said, we need to address this line issue, that if anyone’s been at Great Adventure, I personally never have, I guess is a big issue when you get there. So they bought a lot of flat rides and are putting them in the Park, a lot of family oriented rides as well. So, you know, adding, it doesn’t mean we’ll absolutely take a ride out every time. At this point, we’ve been, we’ve had to, just due to the infrastructure of the Park, and the ride that’s getting mothballed, if you will, is the Sky Lab this year, which really didn’t run last year. It’s the Ferris wheel that stands up and lays down, but that’s a power issue, which I have to work with Niagara Mohawk on. MRS. LA BOMBARD-One thing that I've heard is that the volume, you want to increase the volume from about three quarters of a million people, which you’re getting through there now, to one and a half million people. I don’t know exactly specifically where that came from. It’s a figure that’s been thrown at me a couple of times. Now, I don’t even want to talk about the traffic, because we know that that’s an issue, but I’m thinking about the other environmental things that go on inside the Park. For example, you talk about more congestion inside the Park, talk about toilet facilities. I mean, you’re doubling this volume of people that is one of the goals that I've heard, and I’m thinking, my gosh, the toilet facilities, the septic, the garbage is going to be doubled, that comes out of there. The rodents, there could be a rodent problem. How about the bath houses where people change to go into the pools and the water? I mean, there’s got to be a sanitary issue addressed there. I mean, we’re talking about doubling the number. Safety. There’s a safety issue that could come about. More people in the water, more lifeguards are going to be needed, more chances for broken glass, of course you don’t have glass in the Park, but just other things that a volume of that many people is just going to bring more and double the problems that you might have, and then we’re talking longer hours of operation, during the summer and even extending the Park to the end of October, and now you’re talking the noise level again, if you’re going to double the number of people that are coming through. These are just issues that, or things that I hear, and as a member of this Board, it would be nice to have some kind of a short range plan, and like John, I think you just answered that. You said this coming November, or you’ll know in July, basically, what’s going to be planned for the Year 2000, and that’s a short range plan. MR. COLLINS-Just to let you know, when we put in a catering area, we put in a brand new restroom last year, okay. So we have, as Gary Story would say, some of the most restrooms of any Park you’ve seen in the Country. We do have a lot of restrooms. We went through an engineering study, just this past year with DEC, and spent a quarter of a million dollars upgrading all our septic systems, and that’s an ongoing process, and so we went in and we did that with DEC. As far as garbage, you’ve made good points, we’re going to spend $80 thousand on a new garbage truck. We don’t do this without thinking of these ancillary issues. When it comes to Staffing, that’s a big concern. Do we have the ability to draw the employees, that if the Park grows we’re able to Staff. Can you Staff it? Obviously, safety is the Number One issue, and we’re not going to do anything that’s going to compromise that. So, we do all that in planning, okay. The garbage truck is this year. Those are the type of investments that are, you know, you add them up that’s quite a big investment, outside of what you spend on the capital, the project itself. So we are doing that. I don’t think garbage has ever come up in a discussion, but how we get it to the dump is obviously very important. We have a truck that’s, I believe, a 1984 that’s going to see a couple of more years. So we’re being pro-active and we’re going out and purchasing a new one that can handle the volume of trash that’s being generated. It’s bigger. It’s new. It’s a ’99. So we do look at those issues, and the Building Department comes out and inspects our septic system that we put in when we upgraded because of the increased volume in the restaurants. We upgraded our septic systems in three of our restaurants. MR. STARK-I don’t have any questions about this, Craig, but I do have some questions about Board members, and this goes to Mark, too. In seven years, I've never heard a Board member ask about what stock is selling and trading at, Bob. I don’t think it’s any of our business, and this is going to be for the long plan and so on. I think we’re getting off the track here tremendously. They want to put a ride in. It’s a flat ride. The decibels, you’re not going to hear anymore noise outside the property. I don’t think the decibels here is going to create anymore noise outside that, if you’re on Route 9, you’re over on Ash Drive, anyplace, any of those streets, Birdsall, you’re not going to hear any more noise coming out of that Park as a result of this ride. MR. MAC EWAN-How do you know that? MR. STARK-Well, if you really think you are, I mean, you know. 11 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. MAC EWAN-I’m just asking, how do you know that? MR. STARK-Well, we’ll do a decibel study, you and I, then, okay, and I really don’t think so. MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t know enough about it to do it myself. MR. STARK-Well, it’s very simple. I do know how to do it. I've done them in the past. On Glen Lake, if a boat goes down the lake, you hear more noise than you would from the Park. There was some concern about the Bobsled ride. He’s addressing that by insulating it. Okay. They’re trying to quiet that up. This ride here appears to say, you know, if you’re out on Route 9, you’re not going to hear anymore noise because there’s a go cart track in the middle of this Park, I think that’s a real stretch. I do. I don’t have any concern at all about this ride going in. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Anything else? MR. STARK-No. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Bob? MR. PALING-Yes. I’d like to ask a couple of housekeeping related questions, and then maybe address the major issues on this. Clarify, for me, the cost of this ride. I think the newspaper article contradicts your own write-up on this, whether this new ride is something you pay for separately, or is it part of the general admission to the Park? MR. COLLINS-It is a separate admission. It doesn’t come with the admission to the Park. MR. PALING-So you can go into this ride by paying a separate admission and use that? MR. COLLINS-No, it’s an extra charge. It’s like playing a game. MR. PALING-Okay. You’ve got to be in the Park? MR. COLLINS-You won’t be able to go on it unless you pay. MR. PALING-Unless you’re in the Park. MR. COLLINS-Yes. MR. PALING-Unless you’ve paid your basic admission, and you have to pay extra for the ride. MR. COLLINS-That is correct. MR. PALING-Okay. MR. COLLINS-If you think of it as a game, it’s not included in your $25.99. MR. PALING-Okay. I’m just trying to straighten out the conflict. Also, it talks about 10 cars riding at one time of 20. Does that mean that you’ll never run more than 10 cars? MR. COLLINS-No, that’s the normal process. You run 10, you load 10. MR. PALING-But how about, will you ever run 15 cars, or 16, whatever the number? You’re not limiting yourself to 10 at a time. MR. COLLINS-The size of the track, 10 runs the best. MR. PALING-Okay, but you can run more. MR. COLLINS-If you have 12, you may run 12, but the normal process is, you run 10, and you load 10. MR. PALING-Okay. Now, at the last meeting, you committed to put a fence, just below the Coachman. Is that still? MR. COLLINS-Yes. We are going to do that, yes. MR. PALING-That will be done. MR. COLLINS-We just haven’t gotten around to it. 12 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. PALING-Okay. Would you be willing to release to this Board the volume figures for the last five years? MR. COLLINS-I don’t believe I can, but I’ll look into that. MR. BREWER-They’ve only owned it three years, Bob. MR. COLLINS-We know the figures. I’ll find out if I can release it to you. MR. PALING-We would like to see that, to see what the actual volume is, and I think what the trend is. I hope the trend is up, see what it is. MR. COLLINS-It is definitely up. We’ve had to record years in a row, if that’ll help you. MR. PALING-Okay. Now I think that when it comes to traffic, you only leave us one alternative. In analyzing the traffic situation, we’re going to have to put a factor of safety in there, because we don’t know exactly what’s going to come, or exactly what the effect is, and we’re going to have to somehow put a factor of safety in there so that we’re sure that the problem is being taken care of, and address the traffic at this specific issue, and I think also the noise has got to be addressed as a specific issue, and in both cases, I hope we have engineering help to aid us in that evaluation, and then in the parking will be my last question. How many parking spaces have you added in the last year, actually added, roughly? MR. COLLINS-About 300. MR. PALING-Where did you add them? MR. COLLINS-At the zoo. MR. PALING-Wow, but they were never really used. MR. COLLINS-Yes, they were. Okay, maybe six times out of the year. MR. PALING-Okay. MR. COLLINS-That includes the ones we agreed to put up with the Nightmare. So, that includes the one we haven’t used this year, I mean, until this year. MR. PALING-Will you be adding more this year? MR. COLLINS-We’ve developed what we can, without getting into culverts and things of that nature, and then we have to go, I guess, through the DEC, because there’s a creek that runs through the center of that property. MR. PALING-Are you saying you are going to add more? MR. COLLINS-No. Right now that’s all we can add without getting into that issue. MR. PALING-Okay. That’s all I have for now. MRS. LA BOMBARD-John and John, did I hear you say a little while ago that you can’t put a bridge over Route 9 because it would take too much out of the parking area? MR. COLLINS-The parking has always been a concern of this Board, okay, and Riverside is adding a bridge to get across their road, okay. So we’re looking at those plans, and because of the, you know, it’s got to be handicapped accessible, ADA accessible. It will take up a huge amount, almost the entire front parking lot, and certainly a good portion of the parking lot across the street because those ramps take up a lot of room. MRS. LA BOMBARD-I guess I’m thinking about the one at the gondola at Killington, but obviously you wouldn’t have to worry about a handicapped. MR. COLLINS-The gondola at Killington? MRS. LA BOMBARD-Across Route 4, as you go. MR. LEMERY-Yes. It’s not just up straight stairs across and down. 13 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes, it goes up and down like that. MR. COLLINS-Yes. The problem, I think you’re talking about, that goes under? MRS. LA BOMBARD-No, that doesn’t go under. MR. COLLINS-The one I’m thinking of is the road that you pass under at Rams Head. That’s not the one you’re talking about? MRS. LA BOMBARD-No, no. This is on Route 4 heading east toward Woodstock. MR. COLLINS-I don’t know where you’re talking about. MRS. LA BOMBARD-But I mean, I can’t imagine having a handicapped, I don’t know, would you? You’d have to have a handicapped access because people could still ride the gondola during the autumn, whether they’re going to ski or not, and that doesn’t seem to take up. MR. COLLINS-I’m sorry. You’re talking a gondola across? MRS. LA BOMBARD-No, the bridge, see, as you go on Route 4, through the, see, Killington, there’s a real fast gondola that comes down on Route 4, and there’s a parking lot on the other side of Route 4. MR. COLLINS-Yes. MRS. LA BOMBARD-And there’s an, it would kill people to walk beside that road because it’s so heavily trafficked. So there’s a bridge that goes over Route 4. MR. COLLINS-Yes. MRS. LA BOMBARD-And it doesn’t seem to take up much room at all. MR. COLLINS-Well, I believe the one side is level, it comes in at that level, if I remember correctly. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Maybe you’re right. MR. COLLINS-So the road is actually lower, and you’ve got to go up to come across. So it’s really only on one side that you lose all the distance. MRS. LA BOMBARD-But to me, when you said the whole parking lot, I thought. MR. COLLINS-No. You’re talking, George, in the last meeting, was concerned about how much space we’d lose by a sidewalk, how many spots would be lost by a sidewalk. Well, you can imagine what a ramp will do, and I will bring the plans, and I will have our engineer take a look at them. We got a low level, you know, groundwater is pretty high there because of where the parking lots are situated, and see if it’s even feasible to build on that, but this is an issue that we’re looking at and the County had asked us to look into, and we started a dialogue with Scott Sopczyk, and you know about traffic and pedestrian issues and things of that nature, but it would take up too much space, so that’s the major problem with it, and you can’t say, well, the handicap access is going across the road, which was suggested in that meeting. You can’t do that. That’s illegal. MRS. LA BOMBARD-No, you mean one without the other. MR. COLLINS-Right. It’s got to be both. Even though you have handicap parking on the side of the road that wouldn’t make them across the bridge. They still, it needs to be accessible. MRS. LA BOMBARD-But you know the sad thing is that whenever there’s an article in the paper, and I just come in contact with people that I work with or people that I run into, boy, there’s never anything positive said. It’s always, my God, one more thing. You can’t get up Route 9 now, and people are, I don’t want to use the “B” word, but they crab and complain all the time about it, and it’s like, you know, well, what are you guys going to do, let them pass something? You’re going to just let them have what they want and I’m like, that’s not the way we operate. We hear all the sides. We try to mitigate things. We try to make things run smoothly. We try to hear both sides and try to come to an amicable agreement here, but, boy, you’d be surprised the people out there don’t see it that way. MR. MAC EWAN-Hold that thought. Along the lines that we were talking, I’m hearing some discussion from the Board members, regarding a possible noise consultant being brought in. It’s a 14 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) question I would ask you, based on a telephone conversation, is how would a noise consultant do their survey or data collecting if the Park’s closed and the ride is not installed? MR. LEMERY-May I respond to that, Craig? MR. MAC EWAN-No, I’m asking Staff. MRS. MOORE-I’m not aware of how they would approach their study. MR. MAC EWAN-I mean, is it like traffic consultants? Are there certain manuals that they use? MRS. MOORE-I’m assuming there should be. MR. MAC EWAN-Could we find out some more information on that before we? MR. BREWER-Didn’t we for the other go cart track, Craig, get some sort of a study that was done at a different location, like we have here, and just have the, we talked about having somebody analyze the material that was sent. Didn’t we? MR. MAC EWAN-We did do that. We talked about having what was submitted by the applicant. MR. BREWER-By the applicant, reviewed by an independent person. If that’s where you’re going. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m not going anyplace right at this point. I’m just asking questions. MR. BREWER-No. I’m just saying, if that’s an issue, we could do the same, an option. The other thing that I, we talked at the last meeting about parking by the Fen. Were you aware of that motion? MR. LEMERY-Right. MR. BREWER-I just want it brought up when we start talking, the public brought it up, and we asked for a copy of the motion, and I don’t know if that was marked since you’ve owned the Park, but maybe it could be in the future. MR. COLLINS-I believe it’s somewhere in the environmental impact for the Comet, but I may have to get a copy of that marked, you know, there was a map, I believe. MR. BREWER-This was for Noah’s Sprayground and the raft ride. MR. LEMERY-Yes, the raft ride and Noah’s Sprayground were the two rides which were approved based on a 100 foot buffer that The Great Escape wouldn’t park within 100 feet of the wetland. MR. BREWER-Right. MR. LEMERY-As far as I know, that’s been observed. If it hasn’t, I’m unaware of it, but that was the resolution that was passed. MR. BREWER-Yes, in ’93. MR. LEMERY-Right. MR. COLLINS-We talked about that in the last meeting. MR. BREWER-I remember the public brought it up. MR. COLLINS-Right. MR. BREWER-We asked for a copy of the resolution and I thought it was 100 feet from the buffer, and I didn’t realize it had to be marked, and I don’t know if it is marked or not, but if it isn’t, I would like to see it done. MR. COLLINS-We’ve had caution tape up, but you know how long that lasts. So we’ll see what we can do. MR. BREWER-Believe me, if you want something to last, you can make it last. It just depends on how bad you want it to last. MR. COLLINS-Yes. 15 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. MAC EWAN-I think my concerns that I’m having, I’m still hung up on the segmentation of SEQRA review. I think that’s very important, and I don’t want to see this Board teeter on violating State SEQRA law. I’m sure you guys don’t either. As far as responding to some other issues that were brought up with other applications that this Board reviewed, whether it was the more recent rollercoaster or the one before that, where we’ve had issues dealing with noise of the Bobsled ride, or overflow parking and parking impacts, traffic impacts, these were things that you said that you were going to look into. The downside of it is nothing has been made as a condition of approval. So there’s really no tooth or any kind of enforcement action of the Town to ensure that these things are going to be done, and my personal feeling is that if this project is approved, I want to see something that’s going to mitigate the noise problems on the Bobsled. I want to see a definitive parking plan for across the street, a drawing made up and submitted, and made part of this application, so that we can ensure that we know how many parking spots we’re dealing with, so that we can be sure that additional guests coming to the Park, that there’s ample parking and overflow parking for them. I also want to consult with our attorney to find out where we’re standing in the SEQRA process, which I have real reservations about. Every year we add another little attraction, and although it’s an amusement park and it’s zoned for an amusement park, and that’s another attraction that’s going to enhance the amusement park, I’m all for it, but I’m not all for circumventing the SEQRA review process, and opening the doors for a possible lawsuit against the Town. I don’t think it’s right, and I just want to be sure that we’re crossing our T’s and dotting our I’s. MR. LEMERY-You can to take a realistic and practical approach to these things. When the Comet Rollercoaster, and I’m not suggesting that you’re not, but when the Comet Rollercoaster was the subject of an application, there was a hue and cry about noise, about the Comet Rollercoaster. The end result was that Charles Wood spent I think about $150,000 with engineers getting a Draft Environmental Impact Statement. He then sold the Park, and during the time that he didn’t own the Park, the rollercoaster languished out in Buffalo. When he bought the Park back, we resurrected the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, and we went through it again, and got the L.A. Group back involved, and we talked about, well, we’ve got to finish it and get it to the Town. There was an issue about noise at that point, and how you could, for example, determine whether there was any noise impact from the Coaster on a regular basis outside the Park, and some people came up and brought noise meters and all the rest of it, and it was impossible to determine. The only thing that could be determined was a car going by at the point where they put the meters and the voice machinery or whatever they use to determine whether there was a decibel issue. The roller coaster got approved. We said we’re not going to get involved in more studies regarding decibel levels and all that because they’re impossible to read. They can’t be read. You can’t get a decibel level outside the Park. You have to take it on an attraction by attraction basis, and that’s what Premier is trying to do. Now, with respect to the Bobsled run, it was clear that the Bobsled run could be heard on a regular basis well outside the Park. Now you can make an argument about, all right, it’s an amusement park, and it operates less than half the season, or less than half the year. It’s there. It’s the single largest attraction in the County. So, it’s there, and there is a certain level of tolerance has to be provided for this Park. It pre-existed and pre-dated most of the residences around there. MR. MAC EWAN-When do we exceed the threshold? MR. LEMERY-My point is that that was an issue that was clearly one that you could hear around the perimeter of the Park, and one that caused people some discomfort. The first thing we did was address that, and they retained a firm to go in and tell them what it would cost them to put foam around that and deal with it, and they’re in the process of dealing with that now, and so that was the response by Premier to that issue. It seems to me that you cannot, you know, you can go out and get engineering firms, and I've been around a long, long time, and you get the A Engineering Firm and then you get the B Engineering Firm, and the A Engineering Firm says this and then the B Engineering Firm responds, and then it becomes an engineering war, and at the end of the day, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s a book. You stick it on a shelf, and it goes away, and so the better way to deal with this is to say, well, you know what, that ride is causing people all over the area a problem. So we have to deal with it. Fair enough, and then the next time something comes along that becomes a problem for lots of people, that has to be dealt with also, but that seems to me the fairer way to deal with these issues, as opposed to going out, hiring, you know, Rist-Frost could come back and say, this is an engineering issue. That’s a lot of time and money that doesn’t go anywhere. It just doesn’t work. It never has worked. MR. MAC EWAN-What guarantees does this Company that you’re getting this quote from, as far as foaming the Bobsled, that it’ll mitigate the noise level? MR. COLLINS-There is no guarantee. MR. MAC EWAN-So, you could spend, and not have it work. MR. COLLINS-$125,000 and not have it, yes, exactly. So that’s the question. 16 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. MAC EWAN-Wouldn’t you want to know a plan is going to work before you go spend $125,000? That it’s going to work and work properly. MR. LEMERY-That’s the only thing they can do. That’s the only thing they can do with that ride. They’re looking at replacing the wheels, re-designing the wheels, doing something with the, so to cut the vibration, and that’s right in the works to fix. MR. COLLINS-You can’t mess with the mechanics of the ride. So, the only thing, I mean, that becomes a safety issue, and this undercoating of foam is what they use to cut vibration on machines, and they’re thinking that may help the process, but that’s a pretty hefty to spend $120,000, and then you come back next year and say, that didn’t work. You have to do something else. MR. LEMERY-If you get into a situation where somebody says, we want an environmental impact statement, all of us, I think, realize that Route 9, maybe at some point something at some point has to be done with Route 9, to deal with all of the traffic generated by all these attractions up and down Route 9, and we recognize that, and support that, but to get into noise issues relating to the Park and how this Park is operated internally, you can get a big environmental impact statement like that. You can spend $200,000. It becomes a feeding frenzy for lawyers, for engineers, and at the end of the day, it doesn’t mean anything. MR. MAC EWAN-No one’s suggesting that you do an environmental impact statement. MR. LEMERY-Well, that’s where it all ends up, and somebody wanted that the last time, and we said. MR. MAC EWAN-It doesn’t have to go that way, though. MR. LEMERY-Well, you’ve got to try to deal with it in a way that says, okay, this ride’s approved, lets see what’s next. Something else comes along, and if there’s another attraction that comes along and creates a noise problem that goes beyond what’s reasonable, given the fact that this is an amusement park, then you have to look at it, and ask the Park, all right, can you deal with it. Otherwise, if it’s a public nuisance, somebody can always deal with it on that basis, but we haven’t seen anything like that. MR. MAC EWAN-Based on that statement, you put this one in, you deal with it if it’s a problem down the road, you go back and fix the one that’s put in before. I’m saying it just keeps going on the way we are, and what I’m saying is our attorney has advised us that we could be dangerously teetering here with the SEQRA and segmentation review process. MR. LEMERY-We don’t see that, and we believe we’re every bit as experienced, but lawyers differ, and if someone wants to start a lawsuit, we can’t stop anybody from starting a lawsuit. MR. MAC EWAN-We're looking to see how we can mitigate this, to keep everybody happy all the way around here, and to ensure that the Park is able to grow, to ensure the best interests of the Town’s citizens, to ensure that everything is going to be done the way it should be done. MR. LEMERY-You can get into a form over substance problem. In the end of it, it doesn’t work. MR. MAC EWAN-So I guess what you’re saying is you’re digging in your heels? MR. LEMERY-No. No, we’re not. We want to be very cooperative. We don’t want to be adversarial. We want to try to make this work. It’s not Premier’s purpose to be adversarial or to deal with the Planning Board on that kind of basis. The problem we’ve had, for example, again, with the Comet. They wanted to expand the hours of the Park, and because an environmental impact statement had been filed, and there was a comment in the environmental impact statement that said, Charles Wood’s lawyers at the time said, or his consultants, we don’t have any present intention of expanding the hours, one of your lawyers said, well, we now, you have to file a supplemental impact statement to expand your hours. I can’t tell you how many discussions we had on this side about whether we were ready to take that to the courts or not. We finally resolved it, because the clear resolution and the answer was, well, I suppose, if they take a literally interpretation of that, it has to do with the roller coaster, and someone could say, you can’t expand the hours of the Comet Rollercoaster without filing a supplemental environmental impact statement, which is fine but at the end of it, it doesn’t mean anything. You can file the environmental impact statement, and you do it. So what? You could put it on the shelf, and we could talk about form over substance, but we really need to deal with is, as the Park expands, what’s a fair and reasonable and rational approach to everybody living with everybody else? And we think that these things have been addressed. They immediately went out and bought another parking lot, because you wanted them to do that. They provided the plans to the Animal Land parking lot. You already had the plans to the parking lot on the west side of Route 9, both of them. So they’re already here. The Great Escape knows that if 17 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) they’re going to expand further and add more people, they have to buy more land. Now, the good thing about it is it’s a very well capitalized and profitable and responsible company, and they will do the right thing, and they will buy the land, and they will do what’s necessary, and there are some discussions involving that. So that they can, and the reason is they heard, when you said, somebody on the Board said, well, what about Disney World, they seem to get the traffic off the road a lot quicker. Believe me, that was heard by these people and the response was, well, we have to deal with it and figure out, is there a better way to do it? Is there a better way to get them off the road? How do we do it? Do we get more land, do we bring them off the road at different points? John met with the DOT people and said, what can we do about Route 9. Is there anything we can do? So all these things are being done to try to respond, Mr. Chairman, to your issues and to your concerns. MR. MAC EWAN-Do you know, what did DOT say? MR. COLLINS-You should have talked to us three years before this when we were talking about the sidewalks. So, you know, at that point we didn’t own the Park. MR. LEMERY-That was our response. MR. COLLINS-Don’t get me wrong. They believe that a pedestrian sidewalk or a pedestrian overpass would help the situation, Scott Sopczyk, and, you know, whether it’s feasible or not, and then I would go to whatever division I was speaking with. I was speaking with the Real Estate Division, who was, at the time I was dealing with when they were taking over our land for the expansion of the bridge there, but we’re creating those things, but one of the things John mentioned was, it was mentioned, can you bring people in off the road sooner. So we’re going to switch how we bring people in and how we fill our lots. We're going to fill the south lot first, which is behind, you know, the one next to that A-Frame restaurant. We’ve, historically, filled the north lot first, okay. Most of the people are coming from the north. We fill that up, and then we go to the south lot and fill that up, but in the meantime, they have to snake their way through a full lot, and cross the bridge, and then get into the south lot. Well, we’re going to force them to go through an open lot to the south lot, fill that lot first, and then come backwards, from the back of the north lot, to the front of the lot, and see if that speeds up the process to get people off the road sooner. We're doing the things, and we’re meeting with Glens Falls Transit. We're sponsoring, you know, $4,000 worth of bus shelters. So that we can promote the use of public transportation for local people to get to the Park, and our employees can use public transportation. So we’re doing the things, besides the capital purchases, to help the situation, traffic. So, you know, we listen to what you’re saying, and I don’t want to sit here and say, well, gee, we’ll find out what’s wrong with the go cart track and we’ll fix it before next year, but we’re presenting you with information that says, you’re not going to hear this outside the perimeter of the Park. So, we’re presenting you with, yes, granted, it’s a study done by the manufacturer, but it’s an engineer. It’s a sound engineer. It’s a valid study that says this won’t be heard outside the perimeter of the Park, and we’re submitting that to you. MR. VOLLARO-One of the things that I think sums it up, and probably what the problem is for me, as a member of this Board, on 179-21, under Recreational Commercial zones, it says, “Large scale projects will be encouraged to produce long range planned unit development plan to find the uses, intensities and patterns”, and that kind of sums up what we’re trying to get at. I've heard, what I've heard tonight so far is the basis for a plan. I've heard you guys almost recite the plan. Put what you’ve said on paper and you’d have the start of a plan. You really would. You’d have the basis for, you could thresh it out later, but you’d certainly have the basis to feed the Town some information that we can take a look at. It doesn’t have to be competitively sensitive, if that’s what you’re worried about. MR. LEMERY-Well, part of the problem that Mrs. LaBombard raised was people driving up and down Route 9, and complaining about the traffic. There’s a traffic light at the center, and when the Miracle Mile gets all jammed up, people get jammed up and they get backed up, and The Great Escape can’t do anything about that. If you go by Martha’s in an evening, there are kids running all over the parking lot, people parked all over the place, people coming in, people slowing down to see whether their friends are in there. It’s back and forth. The Great Escape can’t do much about that, and that poses a pedestrian hazard and a traffic hazard, but there’s not much that they can do about that, except to say we’re trying to control our own environment. MR. VOLLARO-Well, that’s really true, but if you gave us just your piece, and then we looked at the Martha’s piece, and then we, we could integrate slowly and figure out what the traffic looked like and what percentage of it belonged to The Great Escape. Certainly it’s not 100%. I recognize that. There are other elements along 9 that contribute to traffic congestion. You’re part of it, but not all of it. MR. LEMERY-We don’t even think there’s much traffic congestion. If you have to wait 10 or 15 minutes in the middle of the summer, to drive some place along that corridor of Route 9, that’s part of the price you pay for living in a recreation area and for having a Park like that, as it would be if I’m 18 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) trying to get out of the Miracle Mile after going to a store in there and have to wait 10 minutes to get out on Route 9. I don’t run home and call Mrs. LaBombard and complain about it. It’s part of what life is all about when you live here, and thank God we have the traffic and the people. Drive around across most of New York State and you would be appalled at what’s going on. You would be absolutely appalled at the desecration and the deterioration in virtually every community mostly across the State. We're real lucky. Now, unfortunately where The Great Escape is, Route 9 is only so wide, and can only handle so much. So we’re trying to figure out a way to move the traffic and do some other things. There is an issue here that has to do with, you know, it is the way it is in the summer, and 15 Planning Boards can’t solve it. MR. COLLINS-I’m not a traffic engineer, but I just look at our situation, and I just, we’re blessed the fact that we have 87 sitting right there, with three exits that, if you’re from this community, you can get around that traffic if you desire to, okay. So, traffic is an issue for the people that are coming to the facility, okay, and that’s in our best interest to make sure that is speeded up that that’s addressed so, yes, you’re saying we have the foundations of a plan. We understand that, okay, because we have to think those things out. The question becomes, where do we go, how far do we go because each year things change so much. I mean, that’s the biggest issue, and John’s saying it, too. His biggest concern, and he’s relayed to our Chairman who agrees with him, that then you get caught in a trap that says you didn’t say you were going to do that, and then that becomes the big issue. Or you said you were going to do this, and the reference to that Comet comment is a perfect example. Our Chairman, we discussed it with him, and he said, you know, he’s a lawyer and he did SEQRA law as well, and he said that there’s a big issue here, but for the instances of this case, we’re not going to push it. Because the comment was made, there is no present intention, so it’s not an issue, and it then became that you stated you wouldn’t open the Park, and then it became an hours issue with the Comet, and that’s a big concern with the five year plan. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, we’ll start with you, Tim. Where do you want to go? MR. BREWER-Open the public hearing and lets hear what the public has to say. MR. VOLLARO-I've said my piece. I don’t think there’s much more to say. MR. STARK-Open the public hearing. Lets roll on. MR. MAC EWAN-All right. We’ll open up the public hearing. We’ll be more than happy to take comments regarding this application. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED PAUL DERBY MR. DERBY-My name is Paul Derby LORRAINE STEIN MS. STEIN-Lorraine Stein. MR. DERBY-We live on 86 Ash Drive. We're here. I’m concerned about the noise issue, again. With all due respect, Mr. Stark, the boats on Glen Lake is not the same noise as what we hear from the Bobsled run. The Bobsled run runs all day from 10 o’clock until 6 or until 8. I don’t know exactly what the hours are, and the only comparison I could make to that is if my neighbor with the jet ski got out and went up and down in front of my house all day long, which doesn’t happen. It’s a different kind of noise. It’s not comparatively as loud, but it’s there. It’s an annoyance. So I’m concerned about this new ride, the cumulative noise, and again, the growth of the Park, but mostly it’s just the noise of this ride. I am happy that they’re looking into trying to mitigate the noise, and I hope it works. My suggestion is that we see what happens with that one first, and then think about approving the next ride, with what happens, or at least write a stipulation there on the condition that if this ride is noisy, or if it’s a public nuisance, what recourse do we have? I don’t know. That’s something I’d like to find out. MS. STEIN-Yes. I mean, the problem is that we don’t have, once the ride’s approved and they put it in, there’s no, we can’t go back and say, okay, now take the ride out because this makes too much noise. So, unfortunately, we have no recourse. MR. DERBY-The only thing we can really do is come to this public hearing and say, we think it’s going to be a problem. Maybe we should do a study, or maybe we should look more at the data, or at least write some conditions into this, which has never been done. MS. STEIN-And I would like to see Queensbury get a noise ordinance, so how do we do that? 19 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. MAC EWAN-Approach your Town Board. MS. STEIN-Again, with the boats on Glen Lake, Paul was right. I mean, the Bobsled runs all day long. Okay, and every day, almost, during the summer. They might be shut down for a day or two or three, but we don’t, boats are not going on, I mean, sure, there are some days when it’s a problem, the boats. There’s a lot of traffic on the lake and what not, but it’s not constantly every day, all day long, in front of your house, and with that particular ride, you can hear it all day, and it sounds like thunder, and if anybody would like to come over to our house and listen to it, we’d have no problem letting you listen to it. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you very much. Anyone else? CHUCK MC NULTY MR. MC NULTY-I’m Chuck McNulty. I live at 14 Twicwood Lane. I suspect you might have had a few more people from Twicwood here, except they were planning to come for the Sutton’s matter, and since that was put off, they didn’t bother. I really don’t have an awful lot new to add. I would express my appreciation to the Board for your concern about the noise level and the cumulative impacts that everything is having on the residential areas around The Great Escape. I do have to agree that Premier Parks has been somewhat responsive. I called them last summer, had to wait on the phone for about 30 minutes before I got to somebody that would really speak to me about noise. They had a band there that weekend, and we could hear both the roller coaster and the band. They told me at the time they couldn’t do anything about the rollercoaster, but they could do something about the band, and indeed they did. Within a half hour, it was quieted down quite a bit. So they are making an effort. I guess the main things I’d support you and encourage you to continue to consider the cumulative impacts of all these things. People are going to be concerned because of all the go cart tracks that are in the area now. The old one that was at Skateland never was a problem. The one that went in at the Pirate’s Cove was a real problem the first year, as you probably know. It was loud. You could hear it all the time. Since then, they’ve quieted the cars down. Now if they’d shut their stinking loudspeakers off at about eight o’clock instead of using them until about midnight, we’d be happy with that operation. If, indeed, the go carts at The Great Escape are going to keep their noise within bounds, and they are careful with their loudspeakers and don’t add them like Pirate’s Cove did, then probably we won’t have a great problem with it. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Anyone else? No one else? I think for the time being I’ll leave the public hearing left open. Gentlemen, do you want to come back up. George, did you want to make a comment? MR. STARK-Just for the Board’s edification possibly, anybody that’s ever stayed at the Motel, tourists, has never complained about the traffic. The only traffic complaints I have heard is from people at the “Y” or local people. Most local people know that if they want to go up, you know, to Lake George, they take Bay Road, they take I-87, they take West Mountain Road off of Gurney Lane, up that way there. I have never heard one tourist complain about the traffic, and actually, I’m up and down that road more than anyone, and to go from say above 149, coming south, if I’m going to, say, True Value, it takes me anywhere from five to ten minutes, in the middle of the summer. In the winter it probably takes me three or four minutes. So, if I’m spending an extra five, ten minutes, fine. That’s the price we have to pay for the monetary increase of the sales tax for the Million Dollar Half Mile, and that’s where most of the traffic is. Since they’ve increased their hours at The Great Escape, you don’t have a great exflux, at night, at six o’clock. It’s more spread out, the egress from the Park, and there’s never a traffic problem as bad as there has been in the past, I mean, going up the hill past the Coachman, up toward the Trading Post. Before, when The Great Escape used to close at six, there used to be a tremendous amount of traffic up there, because everybody would stay right until the last minute. Now, I don’t see that anymore. Never do I see traffic backed up from the Trading Post all the way down past the Coachman going north. So that’s just for the Board’s edification. That’s all. MR. MAC EWAN-Do you have any other concerns about the project? MR. STARK-About this project? None whatsoever. MR. MAC EWAN-Bob? MR. PALING-No more right now. No. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Where do you want to go with this? How do you feel about things? I’m trying to get an overall sense of the Board. MR. STARK-I have one more thing. I’m sorry. 20 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. MAC EWAN-Go ahead, George. MR. STARK-A question was brought up from Mr. McNulty about loudspeakers. Did you plan on having loudspeakers on this go cart track? MR. COLLINS-The only speakers, I haven’t, personally, heard the speakers he’s referring to, would be directional, for safety purposes, to direct the drivers, but no more than would be required to do that. I think if they have music or something, this would just be to control the drivers, to tell them when to stop and when to depart. Things of that nature. MR. BREWER-Will they operate until ten o’clock at night? MR. COLLINS-The intention is to run this the hours of the Park, yes. MR. BREWER-Okay. MR. PALING-The only noise concerns expressed so far have been the Comet rollercoaster. I don’t think that’s an ongoing thing. MR. COLLINS-The Bobsled. MR. PALING-The Bobsled has been the one that’s been the one they’re talking about. That’s being mitigated, hopefully, and the loudspeakers do override everything. They’re tough. The ones they have at the go cart are, and I don’t care what the traffic is, you can hear, that’s a piercing sound, and I would hope any loudspeakers you use wouldn’t approach that kind of noise, even though you can still have loudspeakers. If this ride can go in, without any increase in noise level of the Park, I don’t see why it can’t be done. I have as much reservation about the gradual increase, because of marketing efforts and because of changes within the Park, that we’ll increase the traffic problem, and that’s where I think we have to introduce the factor of safety in anything we deal within, when we’re dealing with parking, that we’ve got to introduce a factor of safety in that, and maybe we tell you arbitrarily to make it 200 more cars, simply because we don’t know, and that’s where I’m at, and I don’t think anybody can really answer that question. So we’re going to have to be generous in what we do, but if we could get some fairly good comment from a source regarding noise, I think I could go along with that, but the traffic is where I. MR. MAC EWAN-What would you be looking for, for noise? MR. PALING-Well, the statement has been made that the noise level from the outside of the Park will not be increased. I believe I’m saying that accurately. That you may get, if you’re in the Park it may be a little noisy. We don’t care about that. All we care is the noise transmitted out of the Park, and if we can have confidence in that statement, then I don’t see anything, I don’t have a noise hang up. MR. VOLLARO-I, personally, don’t have a problem with this ride. I don’t have a problem with any individual ride in the Park, actually. That’s really not where I’m coming from. I’m really looking at the cumulative effects of each ride. I've looked at some of the data, and it looks pretty benign to me, in terms of 10 cars on the track, the Db radiation, looks like there isn’t going to be an awful lot of noise, but what I’m trying to gather here is what’s the overall, what’s the big picture going to look like two years from now. I’m not so much concerned with the noise. That’s a problem, but I am concerned with the traffic impact that the Park could generate in the area, and if we can mitigate that, you know, we could get some sort of an ad-hoc committee to talk about. What you’ve done tonight, for me, is told me that you’ve got enough data right here to sit down and outline a plan of operation for this Park for the next three years, generic. You don’t have to say, well, we’re going to put this ride in and that ride in, but in your mind, John, you already know, I know you know. You’ve got visions for where this business is going to go and how you’re going to get there, and we’d like to play, not a role to where you are dumping out competitive information and we’re spilling it to somebody else. Lord knows there’s nobody here that can use it in this area, that I know of, but this Town would like to know, at least I would, about where are we going in the next few years, and that’s where I’m really coming from. So I don’t have a problem with this go cart ride. MR. BREWER-One question. It says in your site plan application, John, 300 gallons of gas, you’re going to have a tank, 300 gallons of gas. How long is that going to last, a day, two days? How often is that, and how? MR. COLLINS-Three hundred gallon is the double wall tank that, it’s hard to tell. I believe they say that’ll last close to four or five operating days. I mean, these are very fuel efficient Honda engines. MR. BREWER-Okay. So that doesn’t create a concern to me. As far as the noise, I don’t know how we measure to where. Is the noise going to be at Mr. McNulty’s house? Is it going to be on Route 21 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) 9? Is it going to be on Glen Lake? How do we measure that it’s going to be noisy or not? We have a study, if we have a big concern, I think we could have somebody look at it and see if the information, to me, a noise study is like a traffic study. It doesn’t mean anything to me, because it gives you decibel numbers. I know that if I yell into that mic, you’re going to know. I mean, that’s my own personal opinion. I don’t know how to measure. I know if something’s loud and if something’s not. I don’t know how you can measure 10 go carts, outside of that Park, if it’s going to make that big of a difference, if the noise, I guess if the noise is irritating you now, and you put 10 go carts, it’s not going to make that much of a difference. They’ve got to do something with what they have there now, I think, and I don’t know how you do that. MR. STARK-Tim, I think everyone agrees that the go carts are not going to make noise in the middle of the Park, and this comes from my own son who lives in Twicwood. They hear the Bobsled. Everybody agrees that they hear the Bobsled, or whatever you call it, the Alpine Slide. They’re trying to mitigate that. They’re well aware of the noise there. You go down Glen Lake on the bike path, you can hear the Bobsled. You go up in Twicwood you can hear the Bobsled. They’re trying to accommodate that, to mitigate that. MR. BREWER-I didn’t say they weren’t, George. MR. STARK-I’m saying, they’re not like a business coming in and just doing things. They’re trying to do what’s right. I mean, the figure was $125,000 to put the foam insulation on and re-design a wheel and all this stuff, to try to quiet it up. They’re well aware that that’s a noisy ride, and they are trying to do what’s right. That’s all I had to say. MR. BREWER-Again, I didn’t say they weren’t. Okay. I do, like Bob said, I agree with what he said. You should have some kind of a plan. In July maybe you could come back, we could have a workshop and see where that’s going. MR. LEMERY-We think that’s a good idea. At some point, when we can get a better sense from the Chairman and everybody else, what he’s got in mind. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s just one of six people up here tonight. MR. LEMERY-Well, no, no. I mean, the Chairman of Premier. In terms of these attractions. We recognize two things. We need to come back and have a workshop session with you, and talk about, I think, mostly traffic. I think noise gets abated the way Mr. McNulty described it. If the thing is, something’s making noise, you know that it’s making noise outside the Park. The Park has a responsibility to do something about it. We won’t know, until they get this Bobsled fixed, whether it works or not. If it doesn’t, obviously, people will come back and say it doesn’t work, you’ve got to do something else, including possibly taking it out or doing something with it. They recognize that. With respect to the parking, I can only tell you that they’re vitally aware of the fact that if they’re going to bring more people to the Park, they have to acquire more land. There have been very serious discussions about that with John, his management about where and how, what form that would take. That’s very seriously the subject of discussions. So we’re mindful of that, and we’ll try to deal with that. The one problem we all have is that we can’t do much about Route 9. That’s a bigger issue. Now I think, Bob, you’re right about that, in terms of, at some point in time, that becomes a discussion among a whole lot of people, but what we’re trying to say here is, it’s not The Great Escape’s problem alone, Number One, and we don’t want to be put in a position where we get involved in some form, impact statements and things of that nature which do nothing more than cost money, don’t go anywhere, and don’t solve any real problem. I think that’s what we’re trying to say. MR. MAC EWAN-No one’s speaking about an environmental impact statement. MR. STARK-Craig, I have another comment. This is for Bob. I understand the need for a plan, you know, a long range plan, but even if they came in with a long range plan in July, that’s all subject to change, too, economic times and so on. MR. VOLLARO-I certainly understand that. I understand that business is subject to change today, more than it’s ever been before, and people like John have to deal with change every day, and I understand that. People like yourself have to deal with change. MR. STARK-Yes. I mean, whatever they say is not going to be cast in stone. MR. VOLLARO-I think that that’s something they’re afraid of. They’re afraid if they come in with a plan, and we cast it in stone, and if it doesn’t work out, then go, well, you said, and that’s not the objective of this exercise. It’s for this Board and this Town to gain some insight as to what planning we may have to be looking at three years from now. There’s other things on Route 9 that could contribute and do contribute to traffic, and it’s up to the Town Board, eventually, to take a look at 22 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) this kind of thing and see where it’s going. Our responsibility is really to see that we don’t constantly approve things that have a cumulative effect, that finally get to a point where then we can’t do anything about it. MR. COLLINS-In my discussions with Scott Sopczyk, and I can’t remember the name of his organization, traffic council. MR. MAC EWAN-Adirondack Glens Falls Transportation Council. MR. COLLINS-Transportation Council. He said that they were looking at doing an Exit 20 study in the near future, which obviously, we would be very involved with, because that’s a big issue, obviously, and we’ll see what we can do, as far as directing traffic. I know I talked to Scott about routing people through Exit 19, and that didn’t seem to go over very big, because there’s issues of traffic right there as it is. So, 20 was a better solution right now. MR. MAC EWAN-I have a couple of questions regarding the go cart track, and to follow up with Tim’s question regarding the gas tank storage. You said that you expected the 300 gallons to go roughly four or five operational days. When would that tank be re-filled? During Park hours? MR. COLLINS-No, nothing’s allowed on the midways. It would be before Park operation, in the morning. Trucks, all things have to be off the midway before nine o’clock. MR. MAC EWAN-The capacity for 10 cars on the track at once. Does the track have the capacity to hold more than 10 cars? MR. COLLINS-The track has the capacity to actually hold all 20 cars at a time. Actually, an 800 foot track has the capacity to hold about 36 cars. MR. MAC EWAN-Can you see yourself expanding that to 36 cars, 20 cars, 25 cars? MR. COLLINS-No, I don’t, because 20 is a good number. I just, since it’s an extra charge, I’m not sure of the demand at the present time. MR. MAC EWAN-Twenty is a good number, is that what you said? MR. COLLINS-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-So the maximum you would have on the track at any given time would be 20 cars? MR. COLLINS-No, no. You’re saying 20 total cars is what we would use. No, I couldn’t see, right now, you load half and you run half. That’s the way it’s going to operate. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I guess where I’m going with this is that, could you conceivably have 40 cars, 20 on the track and 20? MR. COLLINS-Not on an 800 foot track. No, you’d need about a 1500 foot track for that many cars. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I guess the only other comment or question that I have, just toward our attorney. Give me a review, again, on SEQRA segmentation and how this effects? You’ve been very quiet all night. MR. SCHACHNER-I haven’t been asked anything. The New York State Environmental Quality Review Act envisions large scale projects on large properties evolving over time. The New York State Environmental Quality Review Act has a mechanism in place for dealing with environmental concerns about large scale projects on large properties evolving over time. The name of that mechanism is an Environmental Impact Statement. If a SEQRA lead agency feels that there are environmental concerns about a large scale project on a large property, evolving over time, the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act indicates that that SEQRA lead agency should seriously consider requiring an Environmental Impact Statement, and requiring an applicant to create some sort of long range, generic plan for the large scale project on the large scale property. It’s the responsibility of the lead agency to make the decision as to whether or not the concerns are there, and as to whether or not the environmental impact statement is appropriate. The applicant’s position, which I would summarize, I would summarize the applicant’s position about what I've said so far as follows. The applicant’s representative essentially says, to heck with the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act, to heck with Environmental Impact Statements, to heck with traffic engineers, to heck with traffic engineering studies, to heck with noise engineers and to heck with noise engineering studies. Some of those views are shared by some members of our Planning 23 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) Board, and you’re entitled to your views, as is the applicant and the applicant’s representatives. The doctrine of segmentation, simply stated, says that lead agencies should not allow projects to add on a little bit at a time without taking an overall, big picture look at the cumulative environmental impacts of the little add-ons. That’s the simplest, most direct way I can state the doctrine of segmentation. The applicant’s representative made a statement that one of your attorneys made a determination to require a supplemental environmental impact statement at some point in the past, and that statement is false. Factually false. No attorney that works for the Queensbury Planning Board has ever made a determination to require a supplemental environmental impact statement, or any other environmental impact statement, for this applicant or any other applicant. Have I answered your question, Mr. Chairman? MR. MAC EWAN-You have, thank you. I’ll tell you what I think I want to see done. MR. LEMERY-May I respond to that? MR. MAC EWAN-No, there’s no point in that. I wanted to hear from our attorney. MR. LEMERY-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-In the interest of this application and trying to progress things on, I, myself, I would like Staff to contact Rist-Frost and get a little bit more definitive information from this noise consultant as to how they would go about obtaining the data to support this documentation, if they just review it as it is, or do they have a basis to draw their own, I’d like some information on that. For you guys, I’d like to see a definitive plan for noise reduction for the Bobsled ride, the Alpine ride. I would also like to know, and see a definitive plan for additional parking. I know that you have, we talked about 140 parking spots over in Animal Land? MR. BREWER-Three hundred. MR. MAC EWAN-Three hundred. I think at the time the drawing was given to us for the, which ride were we talking about, was it the Boomerang? That we were talking about 140. You had the potential to expand that. MR. COLLINS-Well, it was 140 below and 160 above, 140, I believe, was the original. MR. MAC EWAN-Were they definitive parking spaces, delineated on the drawing? I don’t recall. MR. COLLINS-Yes, I believe they were. MRS. MOORE-And the project was only approved for the bottom half. There has been no approval given for the second half. MR. COLLINS-Yes, the second half was for the Nightmare. MRS. MOORE-I don’t know if that’s been approved. MR. COLLINS-Yes, it was. That was part of the approval. MRS. MOORE-I’ll look into it. I’m not sure. MR. MAC EWAN-We’ll have Staff look into that, and if it wasn’t, then we’ll need to have the drawings, if you can, delineated, so we do know that we can absorb this extra attendance that we can expect is going to happen in the Park. I’m still hung up on the two to five year plan. I’m sorry. I’d like to see that. So that we know where we’re going. I’m very worried about SEQRA, and under the advice of our attorney, I've got to say that we’re teetering very dangerously in violation of that SEQRA law, and I don’t want to do that, and it would set my mind somewhat at ease if I knew where we were going. That’s my three hang ups I have. MR. PALING-Well, we’ve all got our opinions on this thing. Craig, I have a little trouble agreeing with you completely on the long range plan, having written a ton of those things. I also know that for them to be worth anything you have to update them at least every year, and there’s some major changes brought in, because of changes in whatever conditions you’re operating in, and any long range plan we get from anyone could only be very general in nature. It could not be very specific, and I don’t know how valuable that is. In regard to the noise, we can’t do anything to get rides operating so we can take decibel measurements and all of that, but I would still like to see someone examine the current data and give us a recommendation based on that. I don’t think we need to go further, because the only way you’re going to be able to do that is to erect the ride and start taking decibel measurements. 24 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. MAC EWAN-I guess where I was kind of going with that was Staff to ask Rist-Frost to just analyze that, and what do they do. MR. PALING-All right. Now, here we go again, with another piecemeal for this whole thing. So I think we ought to get a specific commitment on a, by a specific date, to hold this workshop we’re talking about in July, to emphasize traffic and parking, with a discussion about noise, and we ought to have a firm commitment, because you’re going to come back again, in six months, and another six months you’re going to have another ride and another this and another that. As you should, but I think until we get down and get some parameters on this thing, we’re not going to know, and I’ll come back to what I said last time. Unless the Town participates in this thing, and comes up with an overall study, we’re not ever going to really get to where we should be. MR. STARK-I’d like to go ahead with the application. You can have studies. You can have Rist- Frost. I think if you use your common sense, you’re going to realize that if you’re standing on Route 9, you’re not going to hear any more noise, whether this go cart track goes in or not. I would like the idea of a workshop, some time July or August or whenever, at their convenience, our convenience, and for a long range plan at that point. MRS. LA BOMBARD-I think everybody’s said a little bit of everything that I want to say, and again, I have no problem with the go carts per se, but again, the whole cumulative effect, and if the buck stops here, and we have to be accountable for any environmental impacts that the whole overall scenario is going to cause. MR. VOLLARO-I pretty much agree with everything that Bob has got to say, as far as the plan is concerned. I do think even though plans change, and we know they’re going to change, and they’re subject to change, a plan every six months, or plan update, which is a better word, to keep us pretty much control this. To keep us in focus as to where we’re going. You can’t write a plan, put it in a drawer, because then it’s not a living document anymore. You know that from writing them yourself, and that’s where I’m coming from. It’s going to take a little bit more effort, I think, to do what I think you and I are suggesting. I think it’s worthwhile, but the workshop will give us some insight as to how to get there, and I tend to agree with George, here. I think this, we ought to take this application under consideration. I don’t have a problem with the track. I've looked at some of the comparative data here, and it looks pretty benign to me, just right off the top of my head. So that’s where I’m coming from. MR. MAC EWAN-Do you want to proceed on with the application tonight? Is that what you’re saying? MR. VOLLARO-For this ride, with the contingency that says that we will pursue a workshop to take a look at such things as traffic, parking, and talk about noise. I think Bob put the thing down correctly there, but I think this workshop ought to be put in focus and it ought to be a commitment from you folks that we actually get to that point, that we sit down and we talk a little bit about what you plan to do and how you plan to get there, and what you see as impacts. Be frank with us and say, you know, we do see some impacts here. MR. PALING-Well, let me just ask the applicant one question. If this were approved, lets say tonight or whenever, when would the ride open up? When would you run it? MR. COLLINS-We would like to get it open when we open. MR. PALING-Okay, then we would have ample chance to get input and observe ourselves this ride, before we got together for any workshop. MR. COLLINS-Yes. MR. PALING-If we’re talking July or August, you’re going to open before then. MR. COLLINS-Yes. MR. PALING-Well, I think it’s important that we do have an opportunity to observe the effect of it, whether it’s noise or traffic or whatever, and then we can make it part of our workshop discussion. MR. VOLLARO-Let me ask a question. Do you have a specific time line on this? Is it tight, loose, where are we? MR. COLLINS-Well, it’s obviously tight when we open Memorial Day weekend. So, yes, we would like it for opening. 25 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. VOLLARO-I would also like to just take a look at some of the studies, or some of the comments that Rist-Frost make, myself, personally. I've looked at their data. I’m reasonably well convinced this is not going to be a noisy ride, and it’s not going to have an off site impact decibel wise, but I would also like to, I won’t use the word, bow to the Chairman’s wish that some of those studies be looked at. So I don’t know whether we can create a motion contingent upon, or would you, it’s the Chairman’s call as to how he sees that. MR. MAC EWAN-It’s not my call. It’s up to the consensus of the Board. MR. VOLLARO-Well, yes, but. MR. BREWER-I've got one crazy question. If you knew in July, August, September, why do you wait until March to come in here, if you want to open Memorial Day with this ride? MR. COLLINS-This one, we talked about, they come up. This one, you know, was one that came up. MR. BREWER-Just happened last month? MR. COLLINS-That we found out we were getting the cars, yes. MR. LEMERY-Believe me, we would have come in here at the time with the indoor rollercoaster and brought this in at the same time, but no, we agree. We would have brought this in at the same time if we’d known about it. It turned up that they were, said. MR. BREWER-Okay. I don’t have a problem for this application for this ride, but in a sense I do. I would like to see the parking plan. I would also like to make, again, this reinforced that this resolution be reinforced by our Enforcement Officer, and make sure that it is marked. That was a condition in ’93, and it was important then, it’s important now, and I think it should be done. MR. LEMERY-Yes. I mean, I think that you’re right about that, and that has to be complied with, and that 100 foot buffer absolutely has to be maintained, and they have to do it as it’s necessary to protect that. I think I agree with Bob Paling that if we have some sort of a workshop session this summer, we ought to get the Town Board in here at the same time. MR. PALING-I was just going to say that same thing. MR. LEMERY-And the Transportation, I mean, it’s a bigger issue here than The Great Escape. MR. PALING-The Town has two representatives on the Town Board that are liaison to the Planning Board, and I was just going to ask that they be included in the workshop, because we keep referring to this overall plan, and that involves the Town Board. MR. BREWER-But shouldn’t we take that one step further, though? I mean, if Great Escape has no control over Route 9, they have something to do with it. Why don’t we get the other businesses that do have something to do with it. MR. LEMERY-I think at that point we can talk about parking and what we might be able to do for additional parking. I think we can deal with that. I still don’t think noise is anything that can be monitored in any reasonable way, other than on a ride by ride or attraction by attraction basis. It simply doesn’t work. You’re not going to be able to get any study that means anything. I’m not suggesting by any long shot, I've been a lawyer 35 years, and I’m not suggesting by any long shot that we throw SEQRA out the window or anything else. So I respectfully disagree with your Counsel, with regard to my saying the heck with SEQRA. It’s not the point at all. The point is that you have to deal with realistic issues, and the practical realistic results of studies that you undertake, and things that you do to try to get to some resolution, and I don’t see noise being resolved, other than on an issue by issue basis. MR. STARK-Craig, I have a question, or not a question, just a statement. That I think we all agree that this ride is not really a big ride. It’s just a little flat ride, an add-on like. I don’t think it’s going to increase the attendance at the Park or anything else, and that’s why I don’t think that we need an environmental impact study. If they were to put a ride in, such as a free fall or a new coaster or something like that that is going to be a high profile ride, then I think it would be a different story. Then we might need an EIS or whatever, at that point, but for this ride, this is like, you know, suppose they put a little pumpkin ride in or something. MR. BREWER-Make a motion. MR. STARK-Well, we’ve got to do a SEQRA, I mean, but I would like to proceed. 26 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. BREWER-No, that’s the point, George, we’re not going to do a SEQRA. MR. STARK-Okay, then we’ll make a motion. I’m all for. MR. SCHACHNER-You’re confusing apples and oranges. The Chairman’s saying you need to do some type of SEQRA review, and I believe you have an Environmental Assessment Form before you, and you need to review at least that before you make a decision, or that’s flagrantly illegal, but you’re talking about an EIS that you’re not going to do, and if you don’t do that, that’s fine, but you do need to do something relative to SEQRA. MR. BREWER-We have to examine the effects of SEQRA on this. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s all the Chairman was saying. MR. BREWER-Right, and I agree with that. MR. STARK-Craig, I think most of you would agree with me that this ride is really a nothing ride, in the sense it’s not a free fall. It’s not a big Comet coaster. It’s not the Boomerang, that increases a tremendous amount of attendance at the Park. I don’t think this is going to increase the attendance at all at the Park. MR. MAC EWAN-I get the distinct sense from the Board that they want to proceed. So we’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. MAC EWAN-And we’ll need to do a SEQRA, Short Form. MRS. LA BOMBARD-“Could Action result in any adverse effects associated with the following. 1. Existing air quality, surface or groundwater quality or quantity, noise levels, existing traffic patterns, solid waste production or disposal, potential for erosion, drainage or flooding problems?” MR. STARK-No. MRS. LA BOMBARD-“Growth, subsequent development, or related activities likely to be induced by the proposed action”. MR. STARK-No. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Now, you see, that’s where I think that there’s an implication. Maybe putting in this ride isn’t, all right. It’s definitely going to make growth, and it’s obviously, all of these things that are going in are leading to development that’s going to follow, but it’s a way of interpretation, here. I mean, the ride itself isn’t going to be the cause of another ride going in, but I think that the growth is a factor here. MR. MAC EWAN-What kind of impact are you saying it’s going to have? MRS. LA BOMBARD-Well, it’s going to have a little bit. MR. MAC EWAN-Can it be mitigated? MRS. LA BOMBARD-No, I don’t think it can be mitigated, because in order for it not to be mitigated you’d have to not put it in. You wouldn’t be able to put it in, and that’s the whole thing that we’ve been discussing tonight, that every little thing that goes in is going to be fine, but then the overall general. MR. STARK-Yes, but this ride is such a, I mean, compared to the other rides, this ride is a nothing ride. I mean, it’s not going to mean 10 more people coming to the Park. Are you going to go there because they’ve got a go cart track? MRS. LABOMBARD-I’m not, but I know people that will. MR. STARK-Go there because there’s a go cart track? MRS. LABOMBARD-God yes, but I’m just saying that I think we can take this so literally, or we can just take it broad and general, because, you know. MR. VOLLARO-I think the next one’s the tough one. 27 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes, and the next one, too. MR. MAC EWAN-We’ve got to get by this one first. So where are you? Minimal impact? MR. BREWER-Minimal. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-I think it’s a minimal impact, on this one. MR. MAC EWAN-Can it be mitigated or not? MR. VOLLARO-The mitigation that I see on this is probably the greatest one is probably noise reduction on the cars, to make sure the decibel level is very low. That’s the only mitigation you can get on this particular ride. MR. BREWER-Even if they’re at the lowest point that they can be brought to, when they’re brand new, muffled and whatever? MR. VOLLARO-Cars have to be maintained so that they’re in peak condition, as far as noise radiation is concerned. MRS. LABOMBARD-Right. So you’re saying, see, this is why this whole thing, to me, is so difficult. Because the noise means nothing, as far as growth goes. MR. VOLLARO-That’s true, but I have to agree with George on this, that this particular ride would probably not add very many more people to this Park, I don’t believe. I hope it does for your sake, because some of your planning has got to say, you know, you didn’t put it in because. MR. COLLINS-It’s a revenue source. MR. BREWER-It’s a distraction, isn’t it? You want to get people to that part of the Park, to relieve some of the stress on the other parts of this Park. MRS. MOORE-What is your response? Is it no? MR. STARK-Minimal. MRS. MOORE-How are you going to mitigate your minimal? MR. VOLLARO-By maintaining noise reduction. MR. STARK-On the cars, they put a wall up around it. MR. VOLLARO-I asked about the wall, and that’s the reason I asked the question. If it’s fairly loose concrete, it’s got a lot of absorption quality, sound absorption quality. It may be something around that’s (lost words), but the radiation from those things is probably horizontal, most of it, I’m guessing. If you had a wall around it, you’d reduce that noise considerably. MR. BREWER-How does the noise have anything to do with growth? MR. VOLLARO-Well, they’re asking for mitigation, and the only answer I can come up with is to make sure. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. I think an answer on that is what John says. All right, maybe it’s because this ride isn’t that much of a major attraction that it’s going to cause people to buy a ticket. It’s just that added on, once you’re in there, it’s another service. Okay. So there you go. Lets go on. MR. BREWER-You’re not answering that question, though, Cathy. MR. MAC EWAN-You’re not responding to the question. MR. BREWER-We're asking a question, “Growth, subsequent development or related activities likely to be induced by the proposed action”. We're not talking about noise, are we? The noise shouldn’t come into the picture with this question. MR. VOLLARO-“Or related activities”, and that encompasses an awful lot. 28 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. BREWER-My answer would be no. MRS. LA BOMBARD-All right. MR. MAC EWAN-Next. MRS. LA BOMBARD-“Long term, short term, cumulative or other effects not identified in 1 through 5?” MR. VOLLARO-I’d have to put a yes after that. That’s my opinion on that one. And how do we mitigate that? We probably mitigate that by long term, short term or cumulative, by getting together and finding out how to reduce any long term, short term or cumulative effects, to the best of our ability. I don’t know whether we’re ever going to take them to zero from where we are now. We’ve got an installed facility that’s got the ability to create, just as it is, without this ride, you know, a critical mass of information, people and noise and whatever. The only thing we can do here is to say we’re going to try and help the cumulative long range effects by talking about how the Park and ourselves can discuss mitigation of that problem. Now, is that a satisfactory way to get around this, Mark? Because I’m struggling with this myself, on C6. MR. SCHACHNER-I have no comment. MR. MAC EWAN-How does the rest of the Board feel about that? MR. BREWER-Well, I think if we’re doing SEQRA now, we have to answer the question now, not, we can do it down the road. If we do it down the road, then lets do it now. MR. VOLLARO-Well, it says, explain briefly, and, you know, you could put an explanation in there that says the brief explanation is we’re going to get together. We recognize we’ve got long term and short term and cumulative effects. We're going to try to deal with that through a workshop, through a communication with the Park or whatever. MR. MAC EWAN-Correct me if I’m wrong, but SEQRA law says you’ve got to mitigate it now, not down the road. MR. VOLLARO-I don’t know. I’m not an expert on SEQRA law. MR. BREWER-To me, this particular issue we’re dealing with, this ride, doesn’t present enough significance to the SEQRA. I don’t know, maybe it puts that straw on the camel’s back, but. MRS. LA BOMBARD-See, I agree with you in that respect, but then when you start thinking in terms of segmentation, and then you start putting all the little pieces together, then it gets scary. MR. BREWER-So what’s the answer that we do, Cathy? MRS. LA BOMBARD-I don’t know. MR. VOLLARO-If we were to roll this back to the last time these folks were in front of us, with the Nightmare ride, it was a totally different discussion. What we’re hung up with is this tiny little incremental addition to the Park. That’s what we’re hung up, when in effect, what the Nightmare ride did was, had ten times more significance, when you talk about long term, short term, and cumulative effect. MR. STARK-I don’t think this ride has that much long term effect. It’s just a little flat ride. MR. VOLLARO-That’s what I’m saying, but if we had rolled the clock back to when we were talking about the Nightmare ride, if that was up tonight, and we were in the same mode of discussion, it would be an entirely different story than this, and that’s what the cumulative thing is all about. We're just taking on a little guy onto the Park. MR. MAC EWAN-You need to come up with a response, so we can move on. MR. STARK-No. MR. PALING-No. Excuse me. What was your question? MRS. LA BOMBARD-We're talking about C6. here. Do you think that there is an impact? MR. PALING-That was my answer, yes. 29 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. MAC EWAN-So we’ve got two noes. Cathy? Think it over, we’ll be back to you. Tim? MR. BREWER-No. MR. MAC EWAN-Bob? MR. VOLLARO-I have to go with yes. I just can’t satisfy myself. MR. MAC EWAN-Three noes, one yes. MR. STARK-We're talking about C6., correct? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MR. STARK-Okay. So say somebody said, yes. Okay. Long term, short term, cumulative or other effects not identified in C1 through 5. Okay, yes, but it’s so small. MR. BREWER-What are the other effects? MR. STARK-It does increase the noise, miniscually. MRS. LABOMBARD-It doesn’t say and other effects. You only need one in there to make the statement to say no, a long term effect, a short term effect, a cumulative effect, or another effect. So you don’t, it’s not an and there. It isn’t including all four of those impacts. As long as one of them can hold up, then it makes this whole statement true. MR. VOLLARO-Are you saying a yes on that, Cathy? MRS. LA BOMBARD-Well, yes, if I say yes, though, but then I feel like that ride, though, does seem insignificant right now, but when you put it in relevance to this statement, then it changes the whole. MR. BREWER-Okay. Think about this. The last time we did a SEQRA, we did a negative dec. I’m asking. I’m just putting this out. MR. VOLLARO-On the Nightmare ride. MR. BREWER-If we did a negative dec on the Nightmare ride. If these were two were together, would you answer no? Would it still have been a negative dec? I guess that would be my question. MRS. LABOMBARD-Before I answer that, here’s what got everybody thinking differently. Because now all of a sudden it’s like, bang, bang, bang. There’s things coming now, once, twice, three times a year, because before, okay, we’re going to put this thing in, and it didn’t bother me. It didn’t bother anybody, and this didn’t really bother me until we all started talking and thinking about what’s going to come two months from now. MR. BREWER-Answer whatever you feel is right, Cathy. I’m not trying to sway your decision either way. MRS. LA BOMBARD-No, I know. MR. STARK-The thing is that if you voted for a negative dec on the Nightmare or the Boomerang or anything, this thing here, compared to them, is a nothing ride. MR. BREWER-No, you have to add this to it, George. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Right. MR. STARK-We're talking about this ride right here, right now. You just said that, and this is not going to have an effect. MRS. LA BOMBARD-All right. I’m going to say no right now. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay, and move on to C7. MRS. LABOMBARD-I’m going to say no right now. All right. “Other impacts including changes in use of either quantity or type of energy? MR. PALING-No. 30 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 6-99, Introduced by Catherine LaBombard who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Stark: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: PREMIER PARKS, and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. Duly adopted this 23 day of March, 1999, by the following vote: rd AYES: Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Paling NOES: Mr. Vollaro ABSTAINED: Mr. Mac Ewan ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. MAC EWAN-We need to have a motion. MR. STARK-As written? MR. BREWER-If you’re making a motion as written, George, I would like this motion reinforced. MR. PALING-Could I make one comment, before you go ahead with that? I’d like to change my request to the applicant for volume figures for the past five years, to be made part of the workshop rather than to be made part of anything you’d give us as an individual feedback. MR. COLLINS-That’s fine. MR. MAC EWAN-Would someone put a motion up? MR. STARK-I’m sorry. What did you say? MR. PALING-I just said that I had previously asked for a five year volume at the Park. MR. STARK-Volume? MR. PALING-Well, the attendance, and they were going to consider it, and I asked them to change that request, and make it part of our July workshop. We’d bring the numbers in for that. 31 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. BREWER-That’s a condition of a previous approval. MR. STARK-I know, but you just want to reiterate it, is that what you’re saying? MR. BREWER-That’s all I want. MR. STARK-Okay. Where are we? MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 6-99 PREMIER PARKS, INC., Introduced by George Stark who moved for its adoption, seconded by Timothy Brewer: For construction of a new amusement park ride called the “Formula One Go Kart Track”. A note in that motion that it was part of a Site Plan No. 10-93, that a parking exclusion within 100 feet of the wetlands applies to the applicant’s use also. Applicants agree to delineate it with orange stakes. We’ll have a workshop meeting with The Great Escape and the Planning Board concerning their long range plans and other items that were discussed, by June 30, 1999. Whereas, the Town Planning Board is in receipt of Site Plan No. 6-99 – Premier Parks, Inc. to construct “Formula One – Go Kart Track” and associated site work; and Whereas, the above mentioned application, received 2/25/99, consists of the following: Application w/stormwater man. Report Map L-1, L-2, L-3 dated 2/24/99 w/cover map Whereas, the above file is supported with the following documentation: 1. 3/23/99 – Map L-3 revised 3/23/99 – Grading & Drainage Plan 2. 3/23/99 – Staff Notes 3. 3/23/99 – Faxed agenda to J. Lemery at his request 4. 3/22/99 – Record of Phone Conversation – C. Round w/Bill Levandowski 5. 3/19/99 – Faxed Staff notes to J. Lemery 6. 3/18/99 – Fax to B. Levandowski from C. Round – Noise report 7. 3/16/99 – Planning Board minutes 8. 3/16/99 – Planning Board resolution – Table 9. 3/16/99 – Staff Notes 10. 3/16/99 – C. Round to Planning Board transmitting additional information rec’d. 11. 3/15/99 – Warren Co. Planning Board resolution – Approval 12. 3/12/99 – C. Round from J. Lemery – requesting tabling to 3/23/99 13. 3/12./99 – Rist Frost comments 14. 3/11/99 – L. Moore from C. Tripp – Sound study/Fire access 15. 3/9/99 - Notice of Public Hearing 16. 3/8/99 - Record of Phone Conversation – C. Tripp & L. Moore, requesting more information 17. Rec’d 3/8/99 – Noise Amusement Study, Go Kart Activity (dated 7/10/91) 18. 3/15/99 – Meeting notice letter Whereas, a public hearing was held on 3/16/99 and 3/23/99 concerning the above project; and Whereas, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the site plan requirements of the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and Whereas, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and Whereas, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and The Town Planning Board, after considering the above, hereby moves to approve Site Plan No. 6-99 for Premier Parks, Inc. The applicant shall present three (3) copies of the above referenced site plan to the Zoning Administrator for his signature. 3. The Zoning Administrator is hereby authorized to sign the resolution. 4. The applicant agrees to the conditions set forth in this resolution. 5. The conditions shall be noted on the map. 32 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) The issuance of permits is conditioned on compliance and continued compliance with the Zoning Ordinance and site plan approval process. MR. STARK- For construction of a new amusement park ride called the “Formula One Go Kart Track”. A note in that motion that it was part of a Site Plan No. 10-93, that a parking exclusion within 100 feet of the wetlands applies to the applicant’s use also. Is that correct? MR. BREWER-That’s fine, just that it should, and you said you will mark that again, this spring. MR. MAC EWAN-How is he going to mark it? You need to be definitive, so that there’s something for Staff to go out and look at. MR. BREWER-Stake it. MR. COLLINS-We’ll stake it, orange stakes. MR. BREWER-Stake it. Is that fine that they stake it? MR. MAC EWAN-Staff, did the motion of ’93, does it say in there what they’re supposed to do? MR. BREWER-Yes. There was no parking within 100 feet of the. MR. VOLLARO-No, did they say how they were going to do that in the motion? MRS. MOORE-No, there’s not. MR. BREWER-I don’t remember if they did or not. MR. MAC EWAN-So the applicant’s agreed to delineate it with orange stakes. MR. COLLINS-Orange stakes. MR. BREWER-And it will be enforced internally. That’s fine with me. MR. COLLINS-Do you want to say something about the meeting? MR. STARK-Okay. In the middle of the motion, they said they wanted to come in for a workshop, July or August, you know, we can’t pin them down on a date right now. MR. BREWER-That’s informal. MR. STARK-It’s an informal. I don’t think it’s necessary. They say they’re going to do something, they’re going to do it. MR. LEMERY-It may be sooner. If we can get some better direction, we’ll do it sooner. MR. STARK-When they ask for it, we’ll have a meeting. I don’t think that’s necessary to go into the motion. MR. MAC EWAN-I wasn’t suggesting, I was just asking if there was anything else you were putting in. MR. STARK-Laura had a question, though. MRS. MOORE-You mentioned some items before. Do you want them to provide a confirmation of insulation for the Bobsled? That would be one. Two, letters of confirmation for discussion with A/GFTC, discussion for long range plan. I don’t know who that referred to, but there was a traffic issue that was issued with A/GFTC. MR. PALING-Laura? MR. STARK-I can’t hear a word she said. MRS. MOORE-I’ll repeat this. Would you like them to have a confirmation of insulation for the Bobsled ride? MR. STARK-They said they’re doing it. 33 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. BREWER-Yes, but that’s why we have a motion, George. MR. STARK-You want a confirmation that they’re insulating the Bobsled ride and re-designing the wheels? MR. COLLINS-The wheels, that’s an engineering thing with the safety of the ride. That one we were looking into. MR. BREWER-We’ve got a big concern about noise. If they’re going to do it. You say they’re going to do it, then there’s not a problem with a letter of confirmation. MR. STARK-A letter of confirmation? MR. BREWER-Or is there? MR. LEMERY-Well, that was already in agreement when the indoor rollercoaster was approved, that it would have to be looked at and done. MR. MAC EWAN-Nothing was ever put forth as a condition of approval, though. It was just a, yes, we’ll look into that thing. MR. STARK-They’ve looked into it. They’re going to insulate it. They’ve got an outfit that’s doing it. MR. LEMERY-Well, we can’t know what’s going to happen until it’s done and we test the ride and see if it works. MR. STARK-Do you want them to write a letter and say that we’re doing it? MRS. MOORE-I have some more items. I’ll go on. Do you want a letter of confirmation about traffic with A/GFTC? MR. BREWER-No, I don’t. MRS. MOORE-Okay. A letter of confirmation, a long range plan that they have confirmed with their chairman that was in discussion? MR. STARK-That’s going to be in the workshop. MRS. MOORE-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but I would like to see that put in the motion, so we don’t lose it. Unless, George, you have ultimate faith, and you might have, you may have good reason to. I see no harm in putting that in the motion whatsoever. MR. STARK-You can put it in the motion that by, at the latest date, by October 1, we will get st together, that’s giving them plenty of time for their corporate and everything, by September 1, that st we will have a workshop meeting. MR. MAC EWAN-How did we get into September? We're talking? MR. STARK-Well, I’m giving them, they said they’d have something maybe in July, maybe they will, maybe they won’t. So we’ll give them another month. MR. VOLLARO-Can you define a date? You know better than we do when you’ll be ready. So why don’t you define a date for this motion. MR. COLLINS-I’d prefer it sooner than July. I mean, July at the latest. That’s the peak summer season. June would be preferable. Mid June. MR. MAC EWAN-Lets give a target date of June 1. MR. COLLINS-Can we say mid June, June 15? th MR. MAC EWAN-June 15? th MR. PALING-No, I object to that. I’d like to have a few weeks of being able to experience the ride that they’ve put in. 34 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. BREWER-Okay. Say June 30. th MR. COLLINS-June 30, yes. That would be fine. th MR. BREWER-The 30 of June. th MR. VOLLARO-Put that in the motion, that the workshop will take place. MR. STARK-Fine. MRS. MOORE-June 30 is a Wednesday. I’ll have to double check with the room, if that’s where th we’re going to hold it. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s the date that we’re throwing out as a starting point. It may have to be revised. MRS. MOORE-Okay. That was all the comments I had. MR. MAC EWAN-We have two conditions of approval, right, there’s parking in the wetland area is now going to be delineated with orange stakes, and a June 30 workshop is tentatively set up. th MR. BREWER-I’ll second it. Duly adopted this 23 day of March 1999, by the following vote: rd AYES: Mr. Brewer, Mr. Paling, Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Vollaro NOES: Mr. MacEwan ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. MAC EWAN-Okay, gentlemen, you’re all set. MR. COLLINS-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-I just want to back up on the agenda just very briefly, back to the Site Plan No. 5-99. MICHAEL O’CONNOR MR. O’CONNOR-Mr. Chairman, from the firm of Little & O’Connor, and I've been retained to represent the applicant, Mr. & Mrs. Sutton, and I would like to, for purposes of the record, object to the tabling of the application of Mr. & Mrs. Sutton. I do not believe that there is an automatic stay in place, because it is my belief that there is no written determination of a Zoning Administrator which has been appealed. I think that the whole process that has been started by the adjoining owner is, in fact, in essence, a request for an interpretation, and she is entitled to that, and notwithstanding the fact that she’s entitled to that, there is no stay that goes with an interpretation. I understand that you’ve tabled it. I understand that you feel that because the public has been dismissed, that you couldn’t entertain it again, but I make that objection on record, so that you understand that the applicant has not waived it. I appreciate the fact that you have indicated that you will direct Staff to entertain an application that we provide tomorrow for just the addition to the building that’s in the front part of the project, and that you will attempt to set a separate hearing or meeting for a site plan for just that addition, so that we can proceed with that part of our project, while we figure out, legally, whether or not we have the stay that’s in effect, and if there is a stay, if it can be determined by the ZBA. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Okay. Lets move back on to our agenda. OLD BUSINESS: SUBDIVISION NO. 1-1999 PRELIMINARY STAGE FINAL STAGE TYPE: UNLISED STANLEY RYMKEWICZ, JR. OWNER: SAME ZONE: SR-1A LOCATION: CHESTNUT RIDGE ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES TO SUBDIVIDE A 14.17 ACRE PARCEL INTO 3 LOTS OF 5.00 AC., 5.00 AC., AND 4.17 ACRES. CROSS REFERENCE: SUB. 1-1998, 12-1997, 6-1997 TAX MAP NO. 54-2-7.5 LOT SIZE: 14.17 ACRES SECTION: SUBDIVISION REGULATIONS MATT STEVES, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT 35 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Subdivision No. 1-1999, Preliminary & Final, Stanley Rymkewicz, Jr., Meeting Date: March 23, 1999 “Description of Project: The applicant proposes to subdivide a 14-acre parcel into three lots. The area is zoned Suburban Residential One Acre (SR-1A). Subdivisions require Planning Board review per Chapter A183 of the Subdivision Regulations. Staff Notes: The applicant has provided a letter requesting waivers from certain requirements of the preliminary review. Staff recommends granting these waivers. The Comprehensive Plan recommends the Chestnut Ridge Road area be maintained as rural. The Plan encourages residential use only and lots to be greater than zoning requires. The subdivision design is consistent with the area along Chestnut Ridge, with larger lot sizes than the zoning requires. Certified Mail receipts were provided to Staff on 3/17/99.” MRS. MOORE-Would you like me to read the requested waivers? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, please. MRS. MOORE-It’s addressed to Chairman and Board Members, “Due to the size and length of these three lots, we are asking for waivers for the following requirements: (1) Map scale – required 1 inch = 50 feet, supplied 1 inch = 100 feet. (2) Topography – has been provided for the first 250 feet where improvements will take place, therefore we are asking for a waiver for the requirement of topography for the entire lot. (3) This site is overgrown fields, consisting of mostly brush, so we are asking for a waiver for a clearing plan. (4) Since development is for lots only along a town road, we are asking for a waiver for a grading and erosion control plan. (5) Waiver for a drainage report. We would be happy to discuss any or all of the above that may concern board members. Thank you. Sincerely, Matthew C. Steves, LLS” That’s it. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? Good evening. MR. STEVES-Good evening. My name is Matt Steves from Van Dusen and Steves Land Surveyors, and I represent Stan Rymkewicz in his application. Laura has noted the letter from Van Dusen and Steves dated February 22, 1999. Provided on the map is the topography, showing the location of the septic, the houses, the proposed wells, all three perc tests provided on each lot, and the applicant has no further comments at this time. MR. MAC EWAN-Any comments, questions? MR. BREWER-Is the perc test on lot, I don’t know what lot it is, if you’re looking at the map, the furthest one down, is that on the lot line or? MR. STEVES-Yes, basically, it’s just a little bit, well, that actual one was performed about 10 foot south of the property line, that’s correct. MR. BREWER-Okay. So it’s not actually on the lot? MR. STEVES-No, but we went along that gradient there, and you get a good consistent feel for what’s going on, four minute, six minute, seven and a half minute. It’s all four to ten minute. MR. BREWER-Pretty consistent. MR. STEVES-That’s correct. MR. BREWER-That’s the only question I had. MR. MAC EWAN-This is one of the easier ones tonight, by far. Anything you want to add? MR. STEVES-No. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Well, we’ll open up the public hearing. Anyone that wants to comment on this application, please come on up and address the Board. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED NO COMMENT PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. MAC EWAN-We need to do a SEQRA. 36 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 1-1999, Introduced by Catherine LaBombard who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Paling: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: STANLEY RYMKEWICZ, JR., and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. Duly adopted this 23 day of March, 1999, by the following vote: rd AYES: Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Paling, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MOTION TO APPROVE PRELIMINARY STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 1-1999 STANLEY RYMKEWICZ, JR., Introduced by Timothy Brewer who moved for its adoption, seconded by Catherine LaBombard: As in the prepared motion. Whereas, the Town Planning Board is in receipt of Subdivision No. 1-1999 for Stanley Rymkewicz, Jr. Preliminary Stage to subdivide a 14.17 acre parcel into three lots of 5.00 ac., 5.00 ac., and 4.17 acres; and Whereas, the above mentioned application, received 2/24/99, consists of the following: 1. Application w/map S-1 dated 7/29/98 Whereas, the above file is supported with the following documentation: 3/23/99 - Staff Notes 2/22/99 – Planning Bd. from M. Steves – Waiver Requests 3/5/99 - Meeting Notice Letter Whereas, a public hearing was held on 3/23/99 concerning the above project; and 37 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) Whereas, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the site plan requirements of the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and Whereas, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and Whereas, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and The Town Planning Board, after considering the above, hereby moves to approve Preliminary Stage for Subdivision No. 1-1999 for Stanley Rymkewicz, Jr. The applicant agrees to the conditions set forth in this resolution. The issuance of permits is conditioned on compliance and continued compliance with the Zoning Ordinance and site plan approval process. Duly adopted this 23 day of March, 1999, by the following vote: rd AYES: Mr. Paling, Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Brewer, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 1-1999 STANLEY RYMKEWICZ, JR., Introduced by Timothy Brewer who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro: As in the prepared motion. Whereas, the Town Planning Board is in receipt of Subdivision No. 1-1999 for Stanley Rymkewicz, Jr. Final Stage to subdivide a 14.17 acre parcel into three lots of 5.00 ac., 5.00 ac., and 4.17 acres; and Whereas, the above mentioned application, received 2/24/99, consists of the following: 1. Application w/map S-1 dated 7/29/98 Whereas, the above file is supported with the following documentation: 1. 3/23/99 - Staff Notes 2. 2/22/99 – Planning Bd. from M. Steves – Waiver Requests 3. 3/5/99 - Meeting Notice Letter Whereas, a public hearing was held on 3/23/99 concerning the above project; and Whereas, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the site plan requirements of the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and Whereas, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and Whereas, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and 1. The Town Planning Board, after considering the above, hereby moves to approve Final Stage for Subdivision No. 1-1999 for Stanley Rymkewicz, Jr. The applicant agrees to the conditions set forth in this resolution. The issuance of permits is conditioned on compliance and continued compliance with the Zoning Ordinance and site plan approval process. Duly adopted this 23 day of March, 1999, by the following vote: rd AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Paling, Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE 38 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. MAC EWAN-You’re all set, gentlemen. MR. STEVES-Thank you. NEW BUSINESS: SITE PLAN NO. 7-99 TYPE: II MELODY KEITH OWNER: MELODY & JAMES KEITH ZONE: MR-5, MOBILE HOME OVERLAY ZONE LOCATION: 37 WISCONSIN AVENUE APPLICANT PROPOSES A HAIR SALON IN HOME. PER § 179-18 PROFESSIONAL OFFICE IS A TYPE II SITE PLAN REVIEW USE AND IS SUBJECT TO PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. TAX MAP NO. 127-8- 1.3 LOT SIZE: 0.31 ACRES SECTION: 179-18 MELODY KEITH, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 7-99, Melody Keith, Meeting Date: March 23, 1999 “Description of Project: The applicant proposes to use a portion of her residence to operate a Hair Salon in her home. Site Plan Review is required for a professional office in the Multifamily Residential zone. The salon within the home is approximately 120 sq. ft. Staff Notes: The applicant met with Staff prior to submission of the application. Staff discussed access, parking, location and proposed use. The applicant has demonstrated available parking, customer access, and location within the house. Please refer to the Zoning Administrator’s Determination dated 2/3/99. The residential use surrounding this area may present a conflict with the proposed use. The applicant proposed removing an existing window and installing a door to the outside exit. Staff requested the Building Department comment on the application. Please see letter dated 3/2/99 from David Hatin. The applicant then spoke with Mr. Hatin and was told that she may not construct a new entrance and be in compliance with the Building Code. The existing entrance to the home will be utilized as the entrance to the home and to the business. Staff has no additional comments.” MR. BREWER-Do we have copies of these letters? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, I’d like you to read in the letter of 2/3. MR. BREWER-Do we have copies of these? MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t have a copy the letter of 2/3. MR. STARK-I've got the copy right here. Do you want that? MR. BREWER-I didn’t get copies of them, I don’t believe. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s not the one of 2/3, is it? MR. STARK-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Can you read that one from Dave Hatin. We're looking for one from the Zoning Administrator on February 3, and we’re looking for one from the Building Inspector on March 2. rdnd MRS. MOORE-Okay. This is from Chris Round, on February 3, 1999 “The application requests the siting of a Beauty Salon or Beautician facility in an existing single-family home. The property in question is zoned MR-5. The MR-5 district allows for professional offices and Beautician is a professional occupation as defined the Town Zoning Ordinance. A single-family home is not a conforming use in the MR-5 district. No density restrictions are set forth in the MR-5 district for professional offices. The siting of a conforming use within a non-conforming use is not interpreted as an expansion of a non-conforming use. Based on the application and information at hand, the proposal is an allowable use subject to Site Plan Review.” MR. BREWER-That was Chris’s letter? MRS. MOORE-That’s correct. This is from Dave Hatin, “Dear Staff: Regarding the application before you for placement of a hair salon within a dwelling at 37 Wisconsin Avenue, the following Code items must be addressed if the structure is altered to accommodate this hair salon. 1. There must be a one-hour tenant separation between the space in the home to be renovated for a hair salon and the existing dwelling. 2. Handicapped accessibility must be provided to the front entrance door to this area. 3. All interior spaces must be accessible by a person in a wheelchair. 4. One 39 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) handicapped parking space must be provided, as is required by the parking schedule. 5. The above items must be submitted under a building permit application and inspected according to the requirements for a building permit from this office. If the structure is not altered in any form, then the owner is allowed to conduct her business within the existing dwelling, provided no changes to the dwelling are undertaken, to provide this service. I would suggest you have the applicant contact us at their earliest convenience for any questions they may have.” MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? MRS. MOORE-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Nothing else. Good evening. MRS. KEITH-Good evening. My name is Melody Keith. MR. MAC EWAN-Could you tell us a little bit about your proposed project here. MRS. KEITH-I’d just like to take one room in my house and just put one station, chair. I’m not changing anything, anything existing. I’m going right with the doors that I have. MRS. LA BOMBARD-And you’re making a hair salon. MRS. KEITH-Right, an existing room. MR. MAC EWAN-You are in receipt of this letter dated March 2 from Dave Hatin, the Building nd Inspector for the Town? MRS. KEITH-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Are you prepared and capable of making these modifications to your house, that he’s looking for? MRS. KEITH-I’m not going to make any modifications to the house at all, or the structures. When I talked to him the first time, I misunderstood him that I had to do, change the structure of the house, to put the exit in, but I don’t have to do that. So I’m going to use the exits that I have now. MR. MAC EWAN-But you also need to retro-fit your house to make it handicap accessible. MRS. KEITH-He said I didn’t. MRS. MOORE-No, Craig. Read his last statement. It says “If the structure is not altered in any form, then the owner is allowed to conduct her business within the existing dwelling,” So she’s proposing, the only thing that she’s proposing. If she’s doing, you know the submitted drawing that she proposed, there are a lot of modifications to her house, okay. Talking with Dave Hatin, he indicated if the only thing that she does, doesn’t do any of those modifications, but she puts a sink, or a standing chair in one room, then she does not have to comply. She doesn’t have to provide an accessibility for handicapped or a one hour tenant separation, that sort of issue. She doesn’t have to do that. MR. MAC EWAN-I guess, I don’t understand. MRS. LA BOMBARD-I don’t understand, either. MR. MAC EWAN-Then what’s the point, what would she have to do to kick it in so that she’d have to do these renovations, then? MRS. MOORE-Put in an existing, a new entrance to her site, and she’s not proposing a new entrance. MRS. LA BOMBARD-I see, they’re going to come in through the front door of her house. MR. BREWER-So what’s the purpose of the site plan if she doesn’t make any modifications? MRS. MOORE-Professional Office incidental to home use is reviewable by the Board in the MR-5 zone. MR. MAC EWAN-And because she’s doing this as well, she doesn’t need to make this a handicapped accessible use? 40 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MRS. MOORE-According to Dave Hatin. The way she’s proposed it, she’s not making any modifications to the outside of her dwelling unit. The only thing that she’s putting in her house is a chair. MRS. LA BOMBARD-What about this emergency exit, right off your salon? MRS. KEITH-None of that’s going to be. MRS. LA BOMBARD-None of that’s going to be. MRS. KEITH-I’m not changing anything. MRS. LA BOMBARD-They’re going to walk right through the front door, go through your house, go to the back room, go get our hair done, or whatever, and come back out again. MRS. KEITH-Right. MRS. LA BOMBARD-And what about if I am handicapped and I want to get my hair done at your house? I still have to get through your front door somehow. MRS. KEITH-Well, any people that I have that are handicapped, I go to their houses. MRS. LA BOMBARD-I see. MR. BREWER-What’s the purpose of the Code to make it safe? If it’s a business, it ought to be safe, and I’m not indicating that it’s not safe in your home, but if it’s a business, it ought to have to meet the standards that every other business meets, doesn’t it? MR. STARK-Only if you change it. MR. MAC EWAN-It’s like a Catch-22 here. MR. BREWER-Yes. MR. STARK-Only if you change it. MR. BREWER-You are changing it. You’re changing it from a home to a business. MR. STARK-I meant change size wise. MR. BREWER-Physical. MR. VOSS-If I just may interject. Just in overhearing discussions with Staff, I believe the Code applies to any time you have to physically alter a structure, or alter an existing building, then it has to come into ADA compliance. The applicant was initially proposing to physically alter the structure by a new entranceway, I believe, and some interior modifications. After discussing those plans with the Building Inspector, Mr. Hatin, she’s backed off of that proposal to not physically alter the structure. Therefore, she does not need to comply with ADA requirements to have handicapped accessibility, and the other issues that go with that. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s an unusual twist. I've never heard that before. MR. VOSS-It’s fairly standard. It’s one of the ways to help existing structures comply with the ADA regulations and existing uses. MR. PALING-That has nothing to do with the furnishings, the sink or anything like that, it’s the structure that we’re talking about. MR. BREWER-How does that help them comply, if they don’t have to do anything. MR. VOSS-Basically what it does is it helps existing businesses or new small businesses who can’t, perhaps, meet the financial burden of the ADA compatibility still be allowed to become established. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Is the salon, I know this is a raised ranch, is it below grade or is it above? MRS. KEITH-It’s above. MRS. LA BOMBARD-It’s above. It’s on the main floor. 41 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MRS. KEITH-Which to put handicapped would be so expensive that there’s no sense of even doing it. It would be extremely expensive. MR. BREWER-What’s the maximum amount you’re probably going to have? I mean, if just yourself is going to do it, no more than one or two people there at a time anyway, right? MRS. KEITH-Right. MRS. LA BOMBARD-And does the parking have to comply with something like this, if you’re not changing the dwelling? MRS. MOORE-She’s provided adequate parking facilities. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Well, we saw the driveway. It looked ample. MRS. MOORE-Right. MR. MAC EWAN-She doesn’t need like a handicapped space or anything like that, then? MRS. MOORE-She has adequate room in her driveway to provide something to that effect, but she doesn’t have to have those marked, or anything like that. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s what I’m asking. Okay. Has anybody else got questions up here? Okay. I’ll open up the public hearing. Does anyone want to come up and comment to this application? You’re welcome to do so. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MRS. MOORE-Craig, I had a comment from a neighbor, and he had no objection to the facility. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? MRS. MOORE-Yes. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. MAC EWAN-We don’t need to do a SEQRA. So if someone wants to put a motion up. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 7-99 MELODY KEITH, Introduced by Timothy Brewer who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Stark: As written. Whereas, the Town Planning Board is in receipt of Site Plan No. 7-99 Melody Keith proposing a Hair Salon in her home. Per Section 179-18 Professional Office is a Type II Site Plan Review use and is subject to Planning Board review and approval; and Whereas, the above mentioned application, received 2/11/99, consists of the following: Application w/attached drawing and copy of deed. Whereas, the above file is supported with the following documentation: 3/23/99 - Staff Notes 3/5/99 - Meeting Notice Letter 3/4/99 - M. Keith from L. Moore – transmitting letter from D. Hatin 3/2/99 - D. Hatin to Planning Staff 2/3/99 - Note to File from C. Round – Zoning Determination Whereas, a public hearing was held on 3/23/99 concerning the above project; and Whereas, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the site plan requirements of the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and Whereas, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and Whereas, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and 42 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) The Town Planning Board, after considering the above, hereby moves to approve Site Plan No. 7-99 for Melody Keith. The applicant shall present three (3) copies of the above referenced site plan to the Zoning Administrator for his signature. The Zoning Administrator is hereby authorized to sign the resolution. The applicant agrees to the conditions set forth in this resolution. The conditions shall be noted on the map. The issuance of permits is conditioned on compliance and continued compliance with the Zoning Ordinance and site plan approval process. Duly adopted this 23 day of March, 1999, by the following vote: rd AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Paling, Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Ringer MR. MAC EWAN-You’re all set. Good luck. MRS. KEITH-Thank you. OFF PREMISES SIGN – 1-99 T.L. CANNON CORPORATION OWNER: AFTAB BHATTI ZONE: HC-1A LOCATION: NO. SIDE AVIATION RD., EAST OF EXIT 19 THE APPLICANT PROPOSES AN OFF PREMISES SIGN FOR THE APPLEBEE’S/LOWE’S SITE. THE SIGN IS PROPOSED WITHIN THE EXISTING LANSCAPED PLANTER ON THE SOUTHEASTERN CORNER OF THE ECONO LODGE PROPERTY ON AVIATION ROAD. CROSS REFERENCE: AV 16-1999 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 3/10/99 TAX MAP NO. 72-5-13 LOT SIZE: N/A SECTION: 140-6(B)(5) JON LAPPER & AL SMITH, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MRS. MOORE-Craig, I thought this was a discussion that the Area Variance was still pending, and that you were going to table this application? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, I forgot all about that. There’s an Area Variance that’s pending. I think maybe what the Board wants to do is not proceed with this until they do get an Area Variance or don’t get an Area Variance. MR. LAPPER-When I talked to Craig and suggested that maybe we should table it for that reason, he said that because it was already noticed, and we knew that there were some opponents who came to the Zoning Board, the reason why it was tabled by the Zoning Board is because there wasn’t a full Board, and there was an interpretation question, which has now been decided by Chris in my favor. So that went away, which I can explain, but I had talked to Craig on Monday and asked if this was going to be tabled, and he said that because it was already noticed, that. MR. MAC EWAN-Craig Brown, right? MR. LAPPER-Yes. That because this was already noticed, that it would be appropriate to have a discussion and then open the public hearing, and leave the public hearing open, but not have a vote. We knew that we wouldn’t have a vote. MR. MAC EWAN-Again, we’re kind of confused by something. You said that you talked to Chris Round and got a determination of some kind? MR. LAPPER-Well, Craig had incorrectly thought that, Craig Brown had thought, Chris and I had had some discussions, Chris and Craig had raised an issue about interpretation of the Sign Ordinance, and how it relates to signs on the property, if you have an existing business on the sign, and how you also have an Off Premises sign, and I had had discussions with Chris after that, and Craig thought that Chris was going to make a determination that we needed an additional variance that was not applied for, and so he mentioned that at the Zoning Board meeting, and I was surprised because there hadn’t been a formal letter of determination at the Zoning Board meeting last week. 43 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) Subsequent to that, Chris determined that he agreed with me that there wasn’t an additional variance that was required, and that’s why nothing’s been brought before you, so that was part of the reason for tabling it, to clarify that issue, and that issue went away. MR. MAC EWAN-You still, though, have one variance pending with the ZBA. MR. LAPPER-Which is a setback variance, yes. So that you can’t make a decision on this. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, we can make a decision on this. We really don’t need the ZBA determination. MR. BREWER-How can we allow it without a variance? MR. SCHACHNER-Yes. I mean, generally, this Board’s policy, consistent with the applicant’s Counsel is, and I think it’s a sound policy, if something requires a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals, then it’s not authorized. So we generally don’t review things and make decisions. MR. MAC EWAN-Right. I think in the interest, though, that the public is here, what I’d like to do is maybe proceed a little bit with this, and review the presentation, conduct the public hearing, take some comment, and we’ll leave it open until whatever the outcome of the ZBA is, which is historically what we do. MR. LAPPER-And that’s certainly fine with us. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. The floor is yours. MR. LAPPER-Okay. For the record, I’m Jon Lapper. With me tonight is Al Smith, Director of Operations for T.L. Cannon. To begin with, I am very aware, having represented many commercial businesses in this Town for Sign Variances, that it is the policy of both the Planning Board and the Zoning Board to minimize the number and the size of signs. An Off Premises sign application is a rarity. There are probably only about a dozen or so Off Premises signs that have been granted in the Town. The reason why this applicant has made this application is because of the location of the Applebee’s Restaurant, about a mile and a half from the interstate. What they’re trying to do is get some recognition so that when cars get off at Exit 19, the main entrance to the Town, that they know that there’s another commercial area of the Town, and that they will continue to travel down Quaker Road, which we think benefits not only Applebee’s, but other businesses as well, just to get people that they don’t think that the Friendly’s restaurant that’s right there is the only place to go, because that’s all that they see. So the intention is to put up a sign that is appropriate, that is small, and that just has an arrow saying that a mile and a half down the road, there is another commercial area. The application that’s pending is for a 20 square foot sign, because after the representatives of Applebee’s met with the Town Planning Department to start this off a couple of months ago, the Sign Ordinance provides that if you have two business names on the sign, you can have 10 square feet for each. So the sign mentions Lowe’s, and it mentions Applebee’s, and that’s why it was applied for at 20 square feet. After having preliminary discussions with the Zoning Board, it appears to us that the only way anyone’s going to consider approving this is if we have a smaller sign, and we’re willing to have a smaller sign. What we’d be comfortable with is just having their logo with an arrow, and that’s really what we’ll talk about, just something there that says that if you go down the street, there’s other businesses, there’s another restaurant, and so we’d be willing to amend the application, after we are at the Zoning Board, to reduce the size of the sign, just to have the Applebee’s logo and an arrow. MR. MAC EWAN-Do you have a rendering of what the proposed sign would look like? MR. LAPPER-You should have received that with your package. I do have a copy with me, and that is 20 square feet. Where this is proposed, on the Econo Lodge site, is one foot from the property line. The reason for the variance is because there’s 45 to 60 feet of Town owned property between the edge of pavement and this property line, because Aviation Road, Old Aviation Road, before the Mall was built, used to head right down to Monroe Muffler, behind where the McDonalds is, so that, on this site, this sign location would be 45 and 60, depending upon how you measure it, from the edge of pavement. What’s proposed is that this sign, which will be reduced from the 20 square feet that we’ve applied for would be in the planter that the Econo Lodge owners have built on their property. It’s a split faced, brick, raised planter that’s about 50 feet long. It’s on the survey, and it’s landscaped, and we would propose to put this sign in that planter with additional landscaping, so it’s going to be fairly unobtrusive. It will be internally lit, but it’s just going to have this arrow and say that there’s an Applebee’s down the street, and that’s all we’re looking for. MRS. LA BOMBARD-I don’t want to sound like a teetotaler or anything like this, but to have a sign that says “Neighborhood Grill and Bar”, when you’re just coming off the Northway, maybe we could just make it “Applebee’s Restaurant”. 44 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. LAPPER-Yes. To reduce the sign, we can just say the Applebee’s, without the Neighborhood Grill and Bar. MR. MAC EWAN-I have a question for you, two questions. There’s another sign that’s delineated to the west of your proposed sign. I’m trying to remember from the Econo Lodge there. MR. LAPPER-That’s the Econo Lodge pylon sign. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay, and I find it curious, too, that the Town of Queensbury sign is not on this map. MR. LAPPER-It is on the map. It’s just very far away from this. I’ll come up and show you. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thanks. MR. PALING-You’re saying this rectangle in the far, this is it here? Yes, okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else to add? MR. LAPPER-I don’t think so. Just that, whether or not to grant an Off Premises sign is the determination of this Board. The only reason why we’re before the Zoning Board is for the location, because of that one foot from the property line, and we think that’s justifiable because of the distance of the property line from the roadway. MR. VOLLARO-Well, taking a look at the latest Town of Queensbury Comprehensive Land Use Plan, under Sign Regulation, on Page Nine, it’s very short, but the first sentence that’s in there is, I think, pretty germane. “This is one topic where standards need to be upgraded. The current regulations do little to establish a quality appearance for the town. In specific areas, such as the proposed Rural Commercial overlay zones or coordinated business development areas, appropriate high quality signage should be part of the planning process. If the regulations and enforcement are uniform and fair, there should be little justification for variance from them.” And that kind of sets the tone, in my mind, for where, for this application. MR. LAPPER-I don’t disagree with that policy. I mean, I live in the Town. I don’t want to have too many signs, or too many big signs. We're willing to make the smallest possible sign that you can recognize as a logo, with an arrow, just to say that there’s other choices, and it really just has to do with the nature of the Town, with the Northway and these three entrances to the Town where all the traffic is. I mean, if Applebee’s could have gotten one of those tiny signs on the highway for the restaurants, that we wouldn’t be here, but those are all taken at that exit, and they’re given in a priority of, if you have three meals a day, that goes first, and there aren’t any vacancies anyway, but, and Applebee’s serves two meals a day and brunch on Sunday. So they don’t have priority, but I mean, that would be sufficient, and that’s why we’re now, after talking to the Planning Staff and the Zoning Board, suggesting something significantly smaller than what we applied for, but just something that would just say “Applebee’s”, not with the Neighborhood Grill and Bar and an arrow, just so that their logo and an arrow is there, and that’s just to disperse the traffic and obviously get customers to this location. So I don’t disagree with the policy. MR. BREWER-I agree with the policy, and I think you’re, I’m not going to comment. MR. PALING-Two questions. Have you asked for a sign, whenever there’s one available, on Interstate 87? MR. LAPPER-We’ve asked. Applebee’s has asked and has been denied, because that sign has all. MR. PALING-No, I understand that, but are you standing in line, so to speak, if one becomes available? MR. LAPPER-I don’t think so, because it’s not a full serve, a three meal a day restaurant. There are other restaurants that would be first in line, that would be earlier, that serve. MR. PALING-Okay, and you are saying that you have a sign with Applebee’s and an arrow. Does that mean you’d eliminate “In Lowe’s Plaza”? MR. LAPPER-We can talk about that. I don’t think there’s a determination. MR. PALING-That would reduce it to 200 square feet, then. Right, if you only advertise one business? 45 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. LAPPER-To 10 square feet. MR. PALING-I mean to 10 square feet. MR. LAPPER-That’s certainly a possibility, but in terms of, what both Bob and Ted said, this is, and the policy, the Ordinance does permit, this is not a variance situation, in terms of the granting of an Off Premises sign. That’s something like a site plan. You apply to the Planning Board for an Off Premises sign permit. That’s not a variance. So it’s not something that the Ordinance says you can’t have. It’s just at your discretion whether it’s appropriate in a particular case. MR. PALING-The other comment that I have is, we’ve tried several times to get into Applebee’s, but the wait has been too long, and we still haven’t eaten there. MR. MAC EWAN-Ditto. MR. LAPPER-And that’s the situation now, as a new restaurant, and that is from people in the community, but what Applebee’s wants to draw on travelers as well, and if they thought that that was going to be the case continually, they wouldn’t need any signs, but that. MR. BREWER-I think, in my mind, you start something with Applebee’s, and then the Heidelburg, and. MR. MAC EWAN-Olive Garden, Ponderosa. MR. BREWER-I mean, it snowballs. MR. STARK-You’re talking about restaurants. What about other businesses? MR. BREWER-Absolutely. I mean, Lowe’s. MR. STARK-Lets hear what the public has to say. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Jon, there’s two establishments on that Northway sign right now that no longer exist. Why can’t you, like there’s Howard Johnson’s on there, and there’s Seven Steers. I know they’re on there, and they’re not in operation anymore. So couldn’t you? MR. LAPPER-I know that discussion has happened with DOT, and I’ll get some more information on that when we’re back next time. If we could get that, we’d go away. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Because they’re not going to be there. MR. LAPPER-I think that there are other entities that have priority, but I will confirm that. MR. VOLLARO-Is there a way that they would waive that three meal a day requirement? Is there any precedent for that at all? MR. LAPPER-If there are restaurants that want to be on the sign that have three meals a day, they get the sign before somebody that only serves two. MR. MAC EWAN-My guess is that because there’s two signs on there from establishments that are no longer in business, no one seems to be running to grab those two spots. There may be a spot or two available. MR. LAPPER-Well, I see tonight and this whole process as starting a dialogue. I mean, we certainly will get to an application that’s for the smallest possible, most attractive, unobtrusive sign that we can, before we ask you for a vote, and we will look into the DOT situation first, and see if something’s changed, because of those restaurants closing. MR MAC EWAN-Okay. We’ll open up the public hearing. If anyone wants to come up and comment on this application, you’re welcome to do so. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED DAVID STRAINER MR. STRAINER-My name is David Strainer. I am opposed to these signs, and as Mr. Brewer spoke up, once you open that box, you can’t stop other people from putting them all the way down the strip, especially when you’re starting to look at what we’re going to do at the Exit 18 Corridor. All the businesses from Glens Falls, how can you stop these people, once you open that gate? I also 46 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) don’t buy into the fact that now they’re crying foul when they knew when they purchased their location what their possibility for businesses were going to be. How can you come now and say you need a sign to make it there, when I've been to the same place and I can’t get in either? Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. CAROLYN LUNT MRS. LUNT-Carolyn Lunt, 10 Carlton Drive. I agree. I’m opposed to this sign. It just seems like a very poor spot to put a sign. You get off of the Northway and you head down, and Econo Lodge has two signs on their building, which I guess is allowable, one on their building and the standing pylon. This planter where they propose this sign is merely 50 feet long. Not a very wide area to put another sign, whether it’s 20 square feet or 10 square feet. It isn’t going to look nice, and Queensbury does have the responsibility of keeping it looking nice, beautification is important, and I just think that it’s opening a whole can of worms, as far as everyone else wanting to put signs along that corridor, also. There’s not much else I can say. I hope that you’ll consider how terrible I think it will look. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? HARRY TROELSTRA MR. TROELSTRA-I’m Harry Troelstra from 2 Carlton Drive. I have a few comments on the sign, too. I disagree with what is proposed here. I’m a businessman. I have a business, much further than Applebee’s, down Quaker Road. Will that mean that I can propose to put a sign anywhere I’d like and do the same thing then maybe? We had, last week we had a gentleman who owns the Livingston’s Furniture store here. He said if we start this, we’d open a can of worms. He said if we vote yes on this, he said, then I have a big, wide wall facing the eastern side of my building, and he said, I would like to put a big sign that Lowe’s and Applebee’s is down the road. So he voted against this, too. I don’t like to hear some comment that is sometimes made also to make it sound better. One of the things that was mentioned here tonight, and they also say how nice the planter is, and I think the Motel makes a very nice sign, but one of the comments was made tonight by the representative that when they put this sign in there, they are planning to do additional landscaping. I think they’re going to ruin the landscaping that’s in this planter now. So what will additional landscaping buy? I don’t know. I don’t like the idea of having a lit sign there all night long. The other thing is that I have to agree with Dave here. They bought the property. They knew exactly where they were going. We all have the same means of advertising. Applebee’s has the ability to advertise on National t.v. The presentation was last week was that it would be a combination of Lowe’s and Applebee’s on this sign, and I think that has changed. I would otherwise make the comment that everybody gets in the newspaper always a flyer of Lowe’s and they know exactly where they are. They always say on the corner of Quaker Road and Bay. We have a means of advertising on t.v. what Applebee’s does. We have the means of advertising on radio. We all have the means of advertising in the newspaper, and Applebee’s is also fortunate enough to have word of mouth, and I think as one gentleman said, they try to get into the place, they’re well known. If they think that they want to push more people in there, I can understand that, but just because a tourist is going to come off the highway, looking for Applebee’s, I don’t believe tourists will come off the highway for that, and I do think that more freestanding signs, in this particular case, I mean, is going to make the Town of Queensbury look very bad. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? GLENN LUNT MR. LUNT-My name is Glenn Lunt. I live at 10 Carlton Drive, and just to reiterate what some of my friends and family have said, I think that we have noise pollution, we have air pollution, we don’t need sign pollution. You come off the Northway right now, you hit the Hess Station, it glares in your eyes. It’s bad, and it’s even worse when you live there, believe me. I look at it every day. Am I going to drive out of Carlton Drive and run into, the Econo Lodge has two signs on their property now, one that is attached to their building, and one that is a freestanding sign, and I was under the impression that you couldn’t have three signs on your property, but according to Mr. Lapper, that may be a possibility. I don’t know. I haven’t confirmed it with Mr. Round. I would suggest that maybe the Board do confirm it with Chris Round, that they can have three on their property. I think that you will be ahead of yourself. You’ll be covering up your own sign that says “Welcome to Queensbury”. It’s a beautiful sign, and I think that people should be able to see that sign, and I can’t guarantee you, but if that sign is there looking at you, and it says “Applebee’s”, you’re going to look at that sign. You’re not going to see, “Welcome to Queensbury”, and I think that we need something that welcomes people to Queensbury, just as I think we need the 4.3 acres that are just below it. Thank you. 47 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? MRS. MOORE-Craig, I have comments. MR. MAC EWAN-You have letters? MRS. MOORE-Yes. Well, first, I’ll start with the Staff Notes for the project. STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Off Premises Sign No. 1-99, T.L. Cannon Corporation, Meeting Date: March 23, 1999 “Description of Project: The applicant proposes to locate a directional sign for Applebee’s and Lowe’s on the Econo Lodge property – Tax Map No. 72-5-13 on Aviation Road. Planning Board review is required for an Off Premises directional sign per Section 140-6 B 5 of the Sign Ordinance. Staff Notes: The sign will have each establishment’s logo. A variance was requested for setback relief (3/17/99 ZBA resolution attached). Staff is concerned with the sign being located in a traffic congestion area. The sign meets the requirements of the code, however, this sign may be a distraction to vehicles. Staff would recommend permission be obtained from Lowe’s for the placement of their logo on the sign (see memo dated 3/11/99 to Mr. MacEwan). Staff has no additional comments.” MRS. MOORE-I’ll read Craig’s memo first. It says, “Dear Mr. MacEwan: In reference to the above described proposal, I would like to offer the following comments. The proposed Applebee’s OPDS, as shown on an undated drawing numbered 04250A appears to be a sign for one establishment, Applebee’s. The proposed size, (20 sf) is for two businesses, given the requirement for up to 10 square feet per establishment. It seems to me that if LOWE’S wanted to advertise on this sign that they would have their logo rather than the LOWE’S PLAZA reference and that they may wish to utilize area up to their 10 square feet on the sign. This proposed sign begs the questions, does T.L. Cannon have permission to advertise for LOWE’S on this sign? Is this truly an advertisement for LOWE’S? Should this Applebee’s sign be 10 square feet with the address 255 Quaker Road? Should you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me.” Public comment from Kathryn Peaslee, dated March 12, proposal for an Off Premises Directional Sign “The above th proposal will affect and directly impact “The above proposal will affect and directly impact on the marketing of adjacent property. Tax Map #72-5-12, which is owned by myself and my brother, Peter Liapes. Please consider the following: 1. Erection of a 20-square-foot sign on EconoLodge property will cause potential buyers of my property to consider the visibility of my property from Aviation Road to be severely encumbered, or blocked from view, as one travels down the Aviation Road from the Northway. The proposed off-site sign could reasonably hinder any future proposals for on-site signs or advertising by a new developer at my property site, therefore directly affecting the marketability of my property. 2. The proposed sign would cause confusion because of its proximity to the traffic light at Greenway North. The sign shows an arrow pointing…..where? I foresee confusion to motorists unfamiliar with a heavy-traffic area. Aesthetically, we are looking at a proposal to erect an unnecessary off-site sign in an area of Aviation Road which has a chance at a “new beginning” of sorts, with the changes in the Aviation Mall and hopefully, new businesses (aided by the sale of my property). Even if I did not have a vested interest in this proposal, I would have a negative reaction to yet another sign in an area that is in the process of being developed, and would have an impact on future businesses’ ability to advertise with their own on-site signs! All along the Northway are small signs advising travelers of where to exit for food, gas, motels, etc. Apparently, this is sufficient for other restaurants and businesses; why start a trend that could become overkill? I happen to live in an area with an Applebee’s – it is at Exit 9 of the Northway, and not visible from the highway or the main road off the Northway. Clifton Park does not allow this type of sign saturation; yet Applebee’s seem to be doing just fine without excessive billboarding.” I believe that’s it. MR. MAC EWAN-Who was that from? MRS. MOORE-This is from Kathryn Peaslee. This is addressed to Mr. Round. “It has come to my attention that the Planning Board will meet this evening to hear public comment on a proposed Applebee’s/Lowe’s sign to be located on Econo Lodge property on Aviation Road. Due to a previous engagement, I will not be able to attend, but I have the following concerns. This sign could create a safety issue. Assuming that local residents know where Applebee’s/Lowe’s is, this sign would target tourists. A curve in the road, change in grade and a stop light in combination with a new sign may be too much to comprehend to a newcomer. The results could be increased traffic accidents. The thought of having direct competitors to my merchants advertising their business across the street does not sit well with me. The success of the merchants drives lease renewals and new leasing activity. With a proposed expansion on the table, we need signed leases to secure financing for this project. Will we have the opportunity to erect a sign on Quaker Road across from Applebee’s/Lowe’s? Finally, I wish Applebee’s and Lowe’s much success. My hope is that they 48 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) would pursue more conventional ways to promote their business, like billboards or exit signage on the Northway. Sincerely, Robert Orlando General Manager Aviation Mall” That’s it. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Anyone else from the audience? MR. LUNT-Glenn Lunt, 10 Carlton Drive, again. I would suggest, if there’s a possibility that the Board could consider this tonight, and if you came through with a negative impact, then there would be no reason for the applicant to go back to the ZBA. I don’t understand why. MR. MAC EWAN-We won’t do that, just because the normal routine of this Board for years is that we won’t entertain a decision on an application with a pending ZBA action. It’s just a courtesy thing that we’ve done with all applicants over the years who were in that situation. So I don’t see changing it tonight. MR. LUNT-Okay. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-You’re welcome. Anyone else? Okay. MR. LAPPER-I just want to reiterate that we will come back with something that is considerably smaller, and talk about it next time, after looking into the DOT situation. MR. MAC EWAN-Also talk to DOT about obtaining one of those two which appear to be vacant sites on their sign. I have two questions for Staff of myself. Craig Brown’s memo’s, that’s basically like a determination, that they can’t advertise two businesses on one sign. Is that what I got out of that? MRS. MOORE-No, that is not. That’s a comment, directed toward you, to question, you know, who is able to advertise on a sign. (Lost words) does T.L. Cannon have permission to do so. I know he discussed it with Jon. I don’t know what. MR. LAPPER-That was what Chris made a determination on, but there’s nothing in the file. So we can get something. MRS. MOORE-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-What are we looking for, though? MRS. MOORE-Craig’s question is if T.L. Cannon has permission to advertise Lowe’s on the same sign as Applebee’s. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay, and we’ll get a written determination from the Zoning Administrator on that. That’s what you just said, right? MR. SCHACHNER-I think the Planning and Zoning Staff is looking for, correct me if I’m wrong, Laura, is looking for authority from Lowe’s and Applebee’s to have them jointly advertised. Am I correct? MRS. MOORE-Correct. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Now I’m with the program. MR. LAPPER-And we may be taking Lowe’s off, just in terms of the size, but we’ll look at the before we come back. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay, and the other question that I had was, as someone raised in the audience, I believe, how many signs are you allowed to have on one parcel? MR. LAPPER-That was the question I was answering a minute ago, and that was what they had raised. They had asked that question, too, and we all looked at the language in the Ordinance, Craig and Chris agreed that the Off Premises sign section is separate and apart from the section that allows you to have two signs for the business that’s on the site. MR. MAC EWAN-So in this case it would be possible that it would be as many as you could put on the site, that a variance would cover. MR. LAPPER-Not with a variance, with permission from this Board. MR. MAC EWAN-From the owner, but in this particular site, I think you’d have several variances. 49 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. LAPPER-You would only be granting a variance for, if you thought that there was a reason that the store that was asking to be advertised needed to have an Off Premises sign. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. BREWER-We wouldn’t be issuing any variances. MR. LAPPER-You would only be issuing a permit. MR. MAC EWAN-I didn’t mean by us. I meant by the ZBA. MR. STARK-I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think, Jon, if you contact the guy down on Holland Avenue at DOT, I have experience with this, you could have a sign on the Northway with no problem at all. MR. LAPPER-We will absolutely look into that, again. MR. VOLLARO-I just feel that Applebee’s is very adequately signed on the corner of Bay and Quaker, and I understand what you’re trying to do, coming off the Northway, but based on the amount of traffic that I see at Applebee’s, and the amount of customer flow, I just don’t see the need, myself, for the sign. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. With your blessing we’ll table this until the determination. When are they supposed to meet on this, does anyone know? MR. LAPPER-It’ll be next month. MR. MAC EWAN-It’ll be next month. MR. LAPPER-Thank you. Would you consider changing the order, since we have a five minute presentation on Evergreen for Sketch Plan? I know that I was at the Zoning Board, and the Garvey KIA application went for about an hour and 15 minutes. MRS. LA BOMBARD-If it’s okay with them. MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Garvey, you’re here. Would it be okay if these guys, if we moved the Evergreen application in front of you? I know you’ve been patiently sitting back there for it probably seems like about three days now. MR. GARVEY-I would not mind. I don’t think it went an hour and 15 minutes, though. MR. LAPPER-It seemed that way. Maybe it didn’t. Thank you. NEW BUSINESS: SUBDIVISION NO. 3-1999 SKETCH STAGE TYPE: UNLISTED EVERGREEN BANK OWNER: SAME ZONE: HC-1A LOCATION: CORNER OF EVERTS AVE. & QUAKER RD. APPLICANT PROPOSES TO SUBDIVIDE A 12.84 ACRE PARCEL INTO THREE LOTS OF 4.98 ACRES (LOT 1), 1.00 ACRES (LOT 2) AND 0.63 ACRES (LOT 3). CROSS REFERENCE: PZ4-98, AV 15-1999 TAX MAP NO. 108-1-27, 28, 31, 32, 33.1, 33.2, 34, 35 LOT SIZE: 12.84 ACRES SECTION: SUBDIVISION REGULATIONS JON LAPPER & MATT STEVES, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MRS. LA BOMBARD-And a public hearing is not required for Sketch. MR. LAPPER-Excuse me. There’s an error in what Cathy just read, because it has to add up to 12.98 acres. So the four acre parcel is wrong. MR. MAC EWAN-What’s the acreage? MR. STEVES-That was the area to be re-zoned. That was a misprint on the map. My name is Matt Steves with Van Dusen and Steves Land Surveyors. On the map here it was the area, it a misprint that has been taken off for the subdivision application. That was the area that was to be re-zoned, that was re-zoned, is the 4.98 acres, that is all the rest of the property that would be Lot 3. So out of the 12 minus the 1.6, you get, it’s around 10.5 acres. MR. PALING-Just re-do that who thing right in front of you. Lot One, what should it say? 50 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. STEVES-Lot One, the total property is, if I remember correctly, is 12. MR. PALING-.84. MR. STEVES-That’s correct. MR. PALING-All right. Now how much should Lot One be? MR. STEVES-11.21. MR. PALING-All right, 11.21, then you’re going to add to that 1.0 and .63. MR. STEVES-Correct. MR. PALING-Good. Okay. Fine. STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Subdivision No. 3-1999 – Sketch Plan, Evergreen Bank, Meeting Date: March 23, 1999 “Description of Project: The applicant proposes a three parcel subdivision: Lot 1 – 11.21 acres, Lot 2 – 1.00 acre, Lot 3 – 0.63 acres. The application is being reviewed under the Sketch Plan phase of subdivision review, Article III. Staff Notes: The applicant has met with Staff prior to review the proposed subdivision in relation to access, potential use, and lot configuration. The proposed subdivision is for commercial use on all three parcels. Lot 1 will contain a commercial business and two existing dwelling units. The dwelling units are considered a pre-existing non- conforming use on the site. Lots 2 and 3 will share one access with the elimination of one curb cut on Quaker Road. The applicant has complied with the Sketch Plan stage requirements. Staff has no additional comments. Please note: The applicant requested relief from the minimum lot width requirements – AV 15-1999, Zoning Board of Appeals resolution dated 3/17/99 (attached).” MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? MRS. MOORE-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else we need to add in? Just that. Okay. The floor is yours. MR. LAPPER-Jon Lapper, for the record, and Matt Steves with me. Just briefly, the parcel contains nine tax map lots right now, and three buildings. The parcel has been for sale. There was some interest. There was the possibility that this would have gone the way of a big box retailer, which would have pretty much maxed out the site. Instead, the Bank has accepted offers from these three separate purchasers. Hewitt’s Garden Center is going to be the primary user of the site. They’re going to take the showroom building, and we will be back next month with a site plan application. At the same time that we’re back for the Subdivision, Matt and I will be back with the Site Plan for the Hewitt’s Garden Center and the Site Plan for the middle use, which is the Northway Car Care business, which is right on Miller Hill now next to Subway. The third business, the third building on east side is Mac the Knife Auto Detailing, and he’s not making any changes to that site, and we’re doing that with a boundary line adjustment, because we’re actually taking a prior nonconforming site and making it less nonconforming by making it bigger, and he’s not doing anything to his site, but on the first two sites, what this is all about is taking out pavement and adding a lot of green space up along the road. This is a tired, 1960’s development which is all asphalt from the travel corridor. Matt has the Site Plan for the middle lot, which you don’t have in your packet, which was just done, and will be submitted for next month. MR. VOLLARO-We're talking Lot 2 there? MR. LAPPER-That’s Lot 2. Why don’t you just show them what we’re doing. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s the one where Northway Car Care? MR. STEVES-That’s where Northway Car Care will be moving into, is this building here, which was the old auto body shop. Just a real quick rundown. Right now it’s completely paved right out to Quaker Road, except for the small grass ditch line that is there. What is being proposed for this is to move the entrance that is currently there in between the two uses. It is right now farther to the east, only in front of the used car dealership, but to put it back into the middle, that both these uses would still access one drive. It would be centrally located, eliminating one drive down here, entrance way that’s closest to Everts Avenue, and then keeping the one that’s also here, on Lot One. As you can see, the proposed use, we would be creating a screened buffer between ourselves and it would be Hewitt’s Garden Center, but allowing an access drive that’s consistent with the Queensbury Code, and then we would also be providing a green area that would comply with the one third green space, 51 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) as well as incorporating a large area to be removed within the County right-of-way, which would, effectively, present a nice front to the property. MR. LAPPER-As part of the Hewitt’s site, we’re also going to be eliminating one of the curb cuts along Quaker Road, the one that’s right in front of the building, and that would be filled in with landscape and grass as well, but those are site plan issues, and we’ll be back to talk about that. MR. MAC EWAN-I guess, myself, I don’t have any problems with the subdivision at all, other than I want to see us abide by 179-66(1) for internalization of traffic. We’ve been stung by some other applications in the past, and this is an opportunity to make sure that we catch you at ground level, and I want to see it, for myself, accomplished. MR. LAPPER-What I’m proposing, which we’ll talk about next month, these two will have cross easements, I mean, they’re so close that they need to be, and with the circulation here, a joint curb cut, and there’ll be access around both, back and forth. So they’re linked. Between the Hewitt’s and the automotive uses, what we propose is that we show on a site plan, which we have here, on both sides, which would be an access, which would be dotted in, we’d like to put the trees right across it, because we don’t think it’s appropriate. You’re not going to come and buy shrubs and have your transmission fixed. I mean, these uses are not compatible. So we don’t think it’s necessary, but what we would agree, as a condition, is that at any time that the Planning Board, in the future, determined that they wanted us to connect it, we’ll open it up. MR. MAC EWAN-I've got to tell you, on that comment, I don’t feel comfortable with that at all. Because I would like to see it actually delineated on there, so that there is internalization. Who knows, three years from now maybe that automotive place isn’t going to be there. Who knows, maybe five years from now that garden center isn’t going to be there. MR. LAPPER-And we would say that at that point, we’ll change it. It’s just that, for these uses. MR. MAC EWAN-With all due respect, that’s the problem we’ve run into with Hannaford, and I don’t want to see us. MR. LAPPER-I disagree, because we would have it as a condition of the site plan, we would have it on the site plan, and we’d have it in the resolution. We're just saying that we would grant the rights, but that they won’t be used. MR. MAC EWAN-What’s the problem doing it now? MR. LAPPER-Because the Hewitt’s use doesn’t really, which is going to be much more intensive, in terms of traffic, they don’t want to have to have. MR. MAC EWAN-Does somebody not want to do it? MR. LAPPER-Yes, the Hewitt’s developer would rather not have to worry about cars coming, you know, people having their repair cars coming in. MR. MAC EWAN-Have you proposed this to them? MR. LAPPER-Yes, Staff has raised this, and what we came up with with Staff was that we would show it, and that it would be available in the future at any time. That’s not a deal killer issue. I mean, we would rather not have it because the automotive and the garden center uses are not really compatible. Obviously, if you guys insist, we’re going to do it. MR. MAC EWAN-I mean, to me, this is so frustrating. This is a requirement that we look for in the Zoning Ordinance, in the Subdivision Reg’s, that we try to strive for this with internalization of commercial traffic, especially as busy as Quaker Road. I would like to see it internalized only so people don’t have to go back on to Quaker Road to go back into that site, and you don’t know that they’re not going to. MR. LAPPER-But how many people would buy shrubs and have their car fixed? MR. MAC EWAN-That’s a question I can’t answer, and I don’t think it’s a question you can answer, either. MR. LAPPER-Okay. I’m only raising that as a practical concern. If the Board wants it, we’ll do it. I mean, it’s not a huge issue. It’s just, we didn’t think it was appropriate. So we came up with this compromise with the Planning Staff, but if you want it, we’ll do it. We’ll talk about it next month. MRS. LA BOMBARD-I think it’s nice that something’s going in there. 52 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. VOLLARO-I don’t see any problem with this. I’d go along with the internalization idea, but other than that, I don’t see anything that I want to add to this. MR. LAPPER-We’ll see you next month. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Good luck. MR. LAPPER-Thank you. MR. STARK-Craig, just as an aside, you know on Everts Avenue, on the entrance to that property, it’s just one big entrance. Do you know what I’m saying? I mean, a couple of hundred feet long, the entrance, just as an aside, don’t forget, next month. OLD BUSINESS: SITE PLAN NO. 54-98 TYPE: UNLISTED GARVEY KIA OWNER: GARVEY VOLKSWAGON, INC. ZONE: HC-1A LOCATION: 714 QUAKER ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES AUTOMOBILE SALES AND SERVICE AND TO CREATE A SECOND ENTRANCE TO THE SITE. THE PROPERTY PREVIOUSLY RECEIVED APPROVAL FOR AUTO BODY REPAIR AND DESIGN. AUTOMOBILE SALES AND SERVICE IS A TYPE II SITE PLAN REVIEW USE AND IS SUBJECT TO PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE: UV 1349, AV 73-1998, PZ 3-98 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 10/14/98 TAX MAP NO. 110-1-1.30 LOT SIZE: 1.377 ACRES SECTION: 179-23 SEAN GARVEY, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MRS. LA BOMBARD-And the public hearing on October 27, 1998 was tabled, and also on January 26, 1999. STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 54-98, Garvey KIA, Meeting Date: March 23, 1999 “Description of Project: The applicant proposes to operate an Automobile Sales and Service business in addition to an existing Auto Body Repair and Design business. A second curb cut is proposed to promote better traffic flow and address safety concerns. Construction of new facilities and to operate a new use on the site requires Planning Board review per Section 179-23. Staff Notes: The applicant has met with Staff to review the proposed use, access, parking and landscaping. The applicant has indicated that the site can accommodate the 50 vehicles required per the Code. Staff agrees with Rist Frost comments about parking. The applicant’s business on the site does not demand large amounts of parking. The display of vehicles can be limited to accommodate an adequate drive aisle per Rist Frost comments (57 are indicated on the drawing). The applicant has received a curb cut permit from Warren Co. DPW to Quaker Road and letters of support from the Fire Marshal in terms of fire access and neighboring commercial properties. Staff requested the applicant to consider widening the landscape area and to add street trees. The applicant was receptive and indicated some of the shrubs from the front will be planted along the northwest side. Attached is the Zoning Board of Appeals resolution dated 3/17/99 – applicant requested relief from the separation distance requirements for access points (179-66). Staff has no additional comments.” MRS. MOORE-Would you like me to read in the Area Variance? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, we probably should. MRS. MOORE-It says, “MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 73-1998 GARVEY KIA, Introduced by Daniel Stec who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert McNally: 714 Quaker Road. The applicant has proposed construction of a second access drive to an existing auto body repair business. The applicant requests relief for, and I move that we approve the request for relief, for minimum separation distance allowed between points of access, as required in Off Street Parking and Loading, Section 179-66B(4). The applicant has proposed separation distances of 17 and 60 feet. The minimum separation distance allowed is 150 feet. So we are granting 133 feet and 90 feet of relief. The benefit to the applicant would be the permission to construct an access drive in his desired location to improve the safety of his business. While there are some alternatives, this is the most feasible alternative. The Board recognizes that it might be a consideration to add two additional accesses, but that may be cost prohibitive, and it may not significantly improve safety anyway. So this is probably the best alternative. The relief is substantial to the Ordinance. However, we feel that the safety improvement overweighs the significance or the substantial nature of the relief, and we think that overall it will have a positive effect, in particular to the safety of the community, and again, the difficulty, while self-created, is also partially due to the 53 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) nature of the zoning law requiring a separation distance in this corridor, but all in all, the Board feels that the improvement in safety warrants approval of the relief sought. The applicant also recognizes the Board stipulates that the new easternmost exit nearest the car wash will have a, on the exit direction, western corner, a right turn only sign. The applicant is willing to prevent traffic around the entire outside of the building. The applicant agrees to barricade, either with cars or some other manner, the western end of the building, to prevent traffic from crossing between the two businesses entrances, and the applicant will also barricade, in some fashion, the rear of the building to prevent vehicular traffic behind the building. That the approval of this variance is contingent on site plan review approval by the Planning Board.” I’ll read in Rist-Frost’s comments. “We have reviewed the documents forwarded to us with the above referenced application and have the following comments. We recommend that the applicant rework the internal travel lanes to provide a minimum width of 24 ft. The added width will allow safer passing distances between vehicles and accounts for build-up of plowed snow. The applicant may need a variance from the Town for providing less than the required number of parking spaces. We recommend that the applicant address the area of the overhead door to provide delivery vehicles adequate space to turn around and exit PSM entrance/exit. The applicant does not clearly state what recommendations from Transportation Concepts that they plan to incorporate into the site plan. We reviewed the internal traffic flow and layout only. The Warren County Department of Public Works should review and comment on the new entrance curb cut.” I also have a note to file from Craig Brown. Do you want that read at this point, or do you want it read at the public comment? MR. MAC EWAN-No, put it in as Staff Notes. MRS. MOORE-Okay. “This project has been reviewed by and received comment from two independent consulting engineers. Mark Gregory, P.E. at Transportation Concepts, developed the first comments prepared. These comments include several recommendations to…”mitigate potential turning movement conflicts associated with this design.” Thomas R. Center, Jr. at Rist-Frost Associates, P.C., at the request of the Town of Queensbury planning staff, also supplied the Town with several comments. At this point, the applicant has not updated the pending application to reflect which, if any, of the several safety oriented comments are to be included in the project design. Both reports address the issue of widening the internal travel lanes to a minimum of 22 feet wide. The incorporation of these comments may, based on the drawing supplied with the application, cause several of the proposed parking spaces to become substandard. This decrease in the availability of compliant parking spaces may require the applicant to apply for an Area Variance for relief. Off Street Parking and Loading, §179-66, requires parking spaces to be at least 9 feet wide and 20 feet long and accessed by a drive at least 20 feet wide. Based on the Commercial classification, this project, with a 10,000 sf building requires 50 parking spaces. While the Planning Board shall have the authority, according to Off Street Parking and Loading §179-66, B.,(6), to require or permit fewer than the required parking spaces, the applicant must demonstrate an area capable of supporting the required spaces, should the need arise. This area cannot be utilized for any other requirement including permeability calculations. Additionally, the project site currently displays automobiles along the sides of the entrance road to the site, effectively narrowing the access drive by at least 15 feet. Perhaps accurate locations for vehicle display would eliminate the dangerous congestion at the entrance. Given the applicant’s concern for both the safety of the public and for the employees of both PSM and Garvey/KIA, careful consideration should be given to the accessibility of the site.” That’s it. MR. MAC EWAN-Good evening. MR. GARVEY-Good evening. My name is Sean Garvey. I’m one of the owners of PSM Auto Body and Garvey KIA. I appreciate the Board adjourning this application in the past. Specific issues that Laura Moore had with me in reference to the site plan effected my Area Variance which of course then again effected my site plan application. I appreciate you coming in tonight and listening to me. I believe that there’s a history on the site that I feel that you should be made aware of that might help you make a more informed decision, hopefully in my favor. A lot of what I’m going to say tonight is a repeat of what I said at the Zoning Board of Appeals. I’d like to supply the Board, if possible, some handouts. If you could take a look at the time line that I supplied you on Page One, primarily PSM Auto Lease and Sales does business as PSM Auto Body. PSM Auto Lease and Sales was incorporated in 1980. It moved to its present site in 1988, and it’s new location, in 1988, was zoned Plaza Commercial. It got a variance for auto body repair and design at that time. During that same year, it was rezoned when the Town did a rezoning, and the planning. It was rezoned to Light Industrial, which auto body repair was an allowable use, I believe. Basically, nine years after building the building at the PSM location, we applied to KIA for the auto franchise, and we received a favorable vote from KIA, and so we proceeded to get a sign permit for KIA at the PSM Auto Body location. KIA does not allow its cars to be sold with any other franchise. So that’s why we needed a new location to sell them. They don’t mind them being serviced or parts stocked, and the Hyundai Volkswagen location you might be familiar with on 483 Quaker Road. So in January of 1998 we started selling KIA’s without a showroom. After a few months, we realized it was going to be a viable franchise, and so we applied to Warren County for a curb cut. As you can see in November of 54 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) ’98, we were issued a building permit for the KIA showroom, and the showroom construction took about eight weeks. Halfway through the construction, Chris Round stopped in at the site, and we were standing outside in the far right hand corner there, and it was a beautiful day, and he said, Sean, we have a problem here. Auto sales here, we issued you a sign permit for auto sales for the KIA showroom, and auto sales are not an allowable use in a Light Industrial zone. He also said because they’re not an allowable use, we shouldn’t have issued you the building permit because auto sales are not allowable. So he said, you need a Use Variance, an Area Variance, and a Site Plan Review, but in the same breath he said, we’ll work with you, my Staff and I, we’ll see what we can do. Well, we continued construction and occupied the showroom, in November of ’98, and as you can see in December of ’98, the corridor was rezoned with the diligent work of Chris Round and the Community Development Staff and myself. So the whole corridor in that end of Quaker Road was rezoned to Highway Commercial, which meant I didn’t need to get a Use Variance. As I mentioned earlier, the corporation that repairs auto body, cars at that location is PSM Auto Lease and Sales. We occasionally sold vehicles out of the site, since 1988. Not realizing that it wasn’t an allowable use. So when we put the KIA auto showroom there, we did not realize that we were going to also need a Site Plan Review because it is a new use, okay, on the site, and also the curb cut required a site plan review. So basically I’m here for two reasons tonight, from what I understand from Community Development. I need to get permission to sell cars there, because it’s a new use on the site, and because I’m modifying the site, or I’d like to modify the site, with a separate entrance, I need a Site Plan Review for that. I already have, as you know, an Area Variance, which I got from the Zoning Board of Appeals last week. I’ll try to make this as short as possible because I know it’s late, but there’s a lot for me to tell you because I want to make sure you have all the facts. Soon after we opened up, soon after we started selling cars at the PSM site, there was an accident in front of the building. I need to point this out to you. The accident occurred right in front of the main entrance right here. So obviously it was a two car accident. There was an ambulance there, fire engine, police car, people pulled over from the side of the road that saw the accident that tried to help. What happened for a number of hours, the front site to PSM Auto Body and Garvey KIA was blocked, totally blocked, 100%. My employees had to leave by cutting across the back, and at that time I realized that, because I’m a very fire conscious, safety person, I realized that there was no way that fire equipment could even get to my site if that front entrance was blocked. I've worked with Kip Grant in the past about training my Staff at the Garvey Volkswagen, Hyundai, and PSM Auto Body, when it comes to fire safety. Actually, I was the first auto dealer in New York State to get an OSHA safety inspection, that was just within the last two years, and got zero fines. That’s unheard of. So you’re talking to someone that has fire extinguishers in every part of their house and is very safety and fire conscious, and also I said, heck, if I had a heart attack, (lost words) in front of me here blocking the front entrance, I wouldn’t even be able to get help, or if someone was injured. We have a lot of flammables, obviously, in the body shop. So it’s an environment where you have to constantly monitor the safety situation. That made me think, and that’s obviously one of the reasons why we applied for the curb cut. In the very beginning, my brothers and I started rotating who was going to be in charge of the KIA store. So our time down there was sliced in little bits and pieces, but soon after we started doing that, we realized that to make this franchise viable, we were going to have to have someone there full time, and that’s where I came in. I started spending all my time there, and I soon realized that the showing of cars, because I used to run the repair and the parts part of the business at the other location, wasn’t really conducive to the traffic that’s generated by a body shop, and I mentioned in my application what I was going to do to modify the site and the purpose of this, and I need to walk over to the, my proposal was, which you’ll see on one of the, on the last page of my application, was to put an extra drive in here. Now obviously just putting the drive in by itself would not really accomplish a lot, because traffic could go either way. There are laws that regulate how people travel here, but I need the control of the lot here. As you can see, I display cars here. Sometimes they’re on the side, and over here. I need to display the product for me to sell it, but these are the PSM offices right here, that I shared at one time, and now you can see on the last page of my application, the KIA showroom is actually over here now, on this part of the building, and that’s what the main entrance is to Garvey KIA. So the KIA showroom is here. So I tried to think of, what could I do here, because people that are delivering parts, zipping in and out of here, dropping off paint deliveries, they drive, as I commented in my application, like pizza delivery drivers, and I felt that was, and I could see that it was an unsafe environment. You have families walking around. You’ve got kids walking in between cars, and you’ve got large tow trucks coming in here, and large delivery trucks, tool trucks, and I didn’t feel it was really safe. So what I came up with, and my brothers, was putting a separate entrance here, and so I’d be losing four cars here that I could display, and I was going to park the cars here, facing this way, and basically barricade that, so traffic could not flow from either road, and I was going to block the back here with dumpsters or whatever, and by doing that, I was going to be able to control the flow of traffic, so the PSM traffic would come straight in, and they’d have to do a U-turn in the back of the lot, or K turn, leave the site by that same way, and I initially thought that the barricade maybe should be plants or a large planter or two by fours, and then I was thinking of like snow removal, what we do to remove snow, and we need to keep the piles of snow low in the front. So wed have to take most of the snow and bring it to the back of the lot. So I thought also I would like to display more cars. I was losing cars that I was going to display, and so by me barricading it with cars, basically I could remove them when I have to plow for snow. So I thought that was a good compromise, and I’d like to proceed with some 55 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) other issues. When I realized what a bind I was in, when Chris approached me that day, I started reading the ordinances, and on Page Two of my handout to you, or Page Three, I think it is, there are, this is a copy of an ordinance that I’m sure you’re well versed with, 77-66, and obviously what I need is a safe ingress into my business, and I need to guarantee access for emergency vehicles, and I need to guarantee safety for pedestrians on my lot. So, to guarantee access for emergency vehicle, I talked to Kip Grant, the Fire Marshal, and the Fire Chief of Queensbury, and in my application, there’s two supporting letters stating that they feel that they could fight a fire at this site better with a straight road. By driving in straight, you can fight on a fire on the front of the building, down the side, or access the back, and by me dividing the two roads, I can guarantee safety for pedestrians that are lounging around my lot looking at cars. Another reason why I’m here tonight is that my roads, my proposed roads, are less than 150 feet from each other. My site, if you look at the picture, is 200 feet wide, and I wanted you to read that last line in Paragraph Four there. It says, “Access points shall be separated from adjoining access points by at least 150 feet”, and the word “adjoining”, I thought I knew what it meant, and the Community Development interprets it this way. If you look at my Zoning Board of Appeals, adjoining means the distance from roads on either side of you. I want you to imagine three 200 foot lots, side by side. The guy on the right side puts two roads in, 150 feet apart. The guy on the left side puts two roads in, 150 feet apart. Now they’re together, okay. This guy that has the 200 foot lot can’t legally access his land, because if he puts a road in the middle of it, it’s less than 150 feet. That’s the Catch-22. My variance that I received, again, gave me like a 130 foot variance. So basically they interpret the law both ways, or the Ordinance both ways, that all roads have to be 150 feet apart from each other, and obviously, in many situations that’s impossible, and the staff for the Zoning Board of Appeals felt positive about my proposal here, but I don’t, personally, know a lot about traffic patterns. So I hired Transportation Concepts, Mark Gregory. You’ve probably seen him in front of the Board in the past, and he came up with some modifications to my site plan. I was originally going to ask for like a 30 foot wide road, and my initial application was like 30 feet wide, but he suggested that I reduce it to 22 feet wide. He wanted a right turn only sign on the exit, and so that’s in my application. If I could remind the Board that the car wash, in 1988 when they built their road next to my access road to PSM Auto Body, this is the exit road that you see from the car wash here. In 1988, they did not get an Area Variance to put that road in less than 150 feet from my access. Now, that’s been verified. In 1988, when the car wash built on their site, after I built on my site, they put an exit there less than 150 feet from mine, and they did not get an Area Variance for that. Okay. I have no problem with the road. I have no problem with my neighbor. I wanted to point that out. Obviously, as you know down the road, Hess has received variances. If you think about the hundreds of businesses, I understand what the, at least I believe I understand what the Board’s feelings are about reducing curb cuts. If you could think if the hundreds of businesses maybe on Route 9, north of Inside Edge, the Price Chopper entrance, the C & D auto across the way, the CVS you approved recently next to Hannaford, even the Town of Queensbury access roads on the side here. These are all less than 150 feet apart from each other. Like the Price Chopper main entrance is just a mass of, people can go in and out any way they want, but you don’t have cars piling up in front of these businesses. I don’t get cars towed into my body shop all the time. It’s not, so I guess my point that I’m trying to say, that I’m not creating a safety problem with this curb cut proposal, but I could also point out my body shop hours here. PSM primarily is in business only Monday through Friday. That’s when this road will get used, Monday through Friday, in and out. This is strictly an exit sign. The car wash is one of my supporting letters, and they support this curb cut. They do an average of 70 cars a day. Obviously, during the week, they do a lot less. Primarily people bring their cars to get washed on Saturday and Sunday. That’s when they actually do hundreds of cars a day. On Saturday and Sunday is when they do their high volume, when PSM Auto Body is closed. There’s no business at PSM Auto Body Saturday and Sunday. The doors are locked, but that’s when I do most of my business, is on Saturday, at Garvey KIA. These signs might be confusing, even though the KIA sign is here, the current sign is here, and PSM is over there. The hours from PSM Auto Body are eight to four thirty. The car wash hours, they open up later, and they stay open later normally, and they’re open, of course, Saturday and Sunday, and that’s strictly an exit road there. On my site plan, I wanted to put separate signs for both businesses, and a separate entrance sign for both the businesses on each road. That was one of the suggestions, also, of Transportation Concepts. So, basically what I’m saying is I believe that auto sales is an approved use in Highway Commercial, and I would presume that we are all in agreement that I can hopefully do that. There’s a need, and I can provide a safer environment for pedestrians on the site. There’s a need and I can provide a guaranteed access for emergency vehicles. This plan is supported by the Fire Marshal. This plan is supported by the Fire Chief. This plan is supported by the adjacent landowner. This plan is supported by the Zoning Board of Appeals, and this plan is supported by the Warren County DPW. I know this is not an ideal application. I know that you may have some, as my father used to say, druthers, about it. It’s not easy. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best plan, if you consider them all. Thank you. I could talk longer, but I’m sure you don’t want me to. MR. MAC EWAN-I guess a quick question for Staff. Are the signs that he’s talking about part of this application? MR. GARVEY-No. 56 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MRS. MOORE-No. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. GARVEY-There’s no reason for me to apply for them until I have a road to put it next to. MR. MAC EWAN-I just wanted to make sure of that. MR. PALING-Is there any opposition to the way this is being done? Is anyone commenting negatively? MRS. MOORE-I have no negative comments. MR. PALING-Okay. No, I don’t think I have any problem with it. I have no questions. MRS. LA BOMBARD-It sounds good to me. MR. VOLLARO-The only question I have, I’m cross referencing, really, the letter from Rist-Frost, dated March 17, with what your consultant’s proposed uses, and that’s Transportation Concepts. th Now, it seems that Rist-Frost says the applicant does not clearly state what recommendations from Transportation Concepts they plan to incorporate into the site plan. Are you planning to incorporate all of what Transportation Concepts, which was your consultant? MR. GARVEY-No. Primarily, I can’t recall all of his recommendations. Basically, I think primarily it was a right turn arrow. He wanted the road narrower. He wanted separate signs. MR. MAC EWAN-Lets, for a minute, take signs out of the equation. They wanted a right turn arrow. MR. GARVEY-They felt, and the Town feels, or Staff feels that on the PSM separate entrance, which is also used as an exit, that you have a right turn only allowed, or no left turn allowed. MR. MAC EWAN-Wouldn’t that be better delineated by a sign? MR. GARVEY-I figured I’d put a sign on the edge of my PSM sign, yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Versus pavement marking. MR. GARVEY-Definitely. It’s going to be a sign, not pavement. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-So anybody who wanted to go west on Quaker would have to find another way to do that. MR. GARVEY-Or they could go east, as you can see, for 50 feet, and take a left into that open access way that goes to the old Earl Town location. MR. MAC EWAN-How wide is this proposed opening going to be to the PSM side? MR. GARVEY-Twenty-two feet. MR. MAC EWAN-The map says 18. MR. GARVEY-No. The maps that you have, it should say 22 feet across the entrance. MR. MAC EWAN-Mine says new 18. MR. VOLLARO-It say 1 to 30 on the scale. I get 25. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m reading 18 inches. What’s the 18 inch thing? MR. GARVEY-Right above that. Let me just look. This is an updated map. I’m possibly confusing you. What you have there is an original map. Maybe the new application would have the proper map. MR. VOLLARO-I have September 28, the date on this map, September 28, 1998. What’s the date th on what you’re holding? 57 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. GARVEY-Yes, 1998. I’m just trying to clarify. This is the current application. MR. MAC EWAN-Has there been another map that’s been handed in that? MRS. MOORE-I've supplied Staff with a map that Mr. Garvey has supplied with us. MR. VOLLARO-It looks to me like he’s got the same map we do. It’s got the same color markings. MR. GARVEY-Okay. The only difference in the map, if I could, that map that you have in front of you has an opening, a driveway opening at 30 feet. MR. VOLLARO-I get 25 on my scale. MR. GARVEY-Okay. The original application, which I gave to the Town, was 30 feet, but that was tabled and modified, okay, and when I, after the meeting. MR. VOLLARO-We’ve got to have a plan, I’m speaking for myself, in front of me, that represents exactly what you’re proposing to do. If there’s another. MR. GARVEY-The map that I’m addressing is exactly the map that you have in front of you, dated the same way, but the entrance that’s in question is narrower, it’s 22 feet. MR. VOLLARO-Okay, and I get 25, with my scale. So what is in front of me for approval is not what’s going to be. MR. GARVEY-I’m asking for 22 feet. MR. MAC EWAN-The PSM entrance will be a 22 foot wide opening. MR. GARVEY-Yes. That was the recommendation of Transportation Concepts. Rist-Frost suggested 24 feet. They said I didn’t address issues. I applied five different recommendations in my application. MR. VOLLARO-I think what Rist-Frost is referring to is that Transportation Concepts made quite a few recommendations to you, as your consultant, and what Rist-Frost is saying is that the applicant does not really state what recommendations from Transportation Concepts they plan to incorporate. All they’re trying to do is to get from you what things you’re going to accept from your consultant. MR. GARVEY-Okay. My consultant, on the bottom of his letter, recommends separate business signs. I've asked for that. Transportation Concepts recommends a maximum separation between the driveways. I've made them as far apart as I can do it. Transportation Concepts recommends secondary driveway not to exceed 22 feet. I’m asking for 22 feet. They recommend posting either peak hour left turn movement restriction signs or right turn only signs for egress. I've addressed all four of his recommendations, and that’s all he’s recommended. MR. MAC EWAN-He’s recommended and you’re going to go with them? MR. GARVEY-Absolutely. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. GARVEY-What happened was, because I've sat down with Staff a few times. I was under the impression that when I modified this map to go with Transportation Concepts’ recommendations, I re-drew the map and made the PSM entrance only 22 feet wide. MR. MAC EWAN-I think, Bob, he’s going to go with the recommendations, as listed in the Transportation Concepts’ letter of February 16, we can make that as part of a motion. th MR. VOLLARO-And that is 22 feet. MR. MAC EWAN-And that ties it down, there. I have a question regarding Staff has suggested to the applicant regarding widening his landscaped area to add street trees. Was anything specific talked about, so that something could be nailed down in a motion, if one was put forth? MRS. MOORE-I would recommend that the applicant come back to Staff, and supply Staff with the street trees as designed on the plan that we submitted. I don’t know if we, I know I supplied. 58 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. GARVEY-I never saw anything from Staff, but we sat down and if you look on the map that I supplied to the Board, in pink are the current location of the trees that are in existence, and I was going to move them out. I was just going to pave seven and a half feet more there, and I was going to move the trees out to be at the base of the signs, and at the corner of the lot. Those are arborvitae. MR. MAC EWAN-Those are not trees. Those are shrubs. I want to get you guys together about what Staff is thinking, what you’re thinking, so that we have a meeting of the minds here, should you leave here tonight under one impression, I don’t want you getting back to Staff and having something totally like a bomb dropped in your lap. MR. GARVEY-I understand. MR. MAC EWAN-So I want to be sure where we’re going with that. I’d like to see some sort of streetscaping that’s something that this Board’s been a real proponent of with a lot of applications, and as we see development along Quaker Road, and we’ve seen it along Upper Glen Street. We’ve strived with those applications to try to get them to do some streetscaping. MR. GARVEY-What is streetscaping? MR. MAC EWAN-Mountain Ash, Honey Locust, things like that. Hearty trees that aren’t big trees, that add to. MR. GARVEY-We did discuss that. I remember writing the brands of the trees that she suggested. There were a couple of different types, and I said that I knew Bert Webber, the Horticulturist, from BOCES, as he’s a close friend of mine, and he would come up with something for me. MR. VOSS-Mr. Chairman, Staff did meet with the applicant, regarding inclusion of some street trees along the front property line. What you have before you is a tentative sketch plan. What we might recommend, if the Board was amenable, to have a final landscaping plan for those actual species, to be defined at the Staff level. The Board condition of approval with the inclusion of the green strip recommended. However, actual species, actually we’d leave up to the applicant and his landscaper. We did provide him with a list of acceptable species that would be pertinent. MR. MAC EWAN-What I want to be sure is that when you leave here tonight, like, I’m looking at, just my initial input, there’s eight trees, four on each side of the parcel, so to speak. MR. GARVEY-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-To me, I think that was kind of, would impact the display area, and I think that might be just a few too many trees, because people wouldn’t be able to see your cars, and you want to have your cars seen. MR. GARVEY-I think, remember Laura mentioned to me that there’s a species that they recommended, grows taller, so the bloom is higher. I don’t recall the names. MR. MAC EWAN-If we made as part of a motion that you work with Staff to come up with an agreeable planting schedule that both sides are going to agree to. That would be acceptable to the Board, I think. MR. GARVEY-That’s very acceptable for me. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Do you guys have anything else? MRS. LA BOMBARD-I think he did such a nice job presenting it. MR. VOLLARO-I just have one other question. It’s a minor one. The septic field out back, that was an existing septic field before the KIA showroom was constructed? MR. GARVEY-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Is that adequate for the new additional use? MR. GARVEY-Yes, there’s three salesmen and myself. Absolutely. Actually, we have the exact same septic at Garvey Volkswagen/Hyundai, and it probably has 100 times more use. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. If that’s it, no one else has any other comments, lets open up the public hearing. 59 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MRS. MOORE-This is addressed to Sean, “Regarding our conversation on site today, a new entrance to the KIA/PSM site in line with the west side of the building would, in my opinion, improve fire department access. The present entrance would necessitate one or more sharp turns for fire apparatus to reach the side or rear of the building. A new straight approach off Quaker Road, in line with the paved area along with west side of the building, would speed access to all sides of the property, providing of course, it is not congested with vehicles, usually not the case, recalling my inspection visits. I would recommend that you contact Chief David Jones of the South Queensbury Volunteer Fire Company for his opinion. As Chief, his input would be extremely valuable.” That’s from Kip Grant. This is addressed “To Whom It May Concern: As the adjoining property owner (to the west) of PSM Auto Body and Garvey KIA, I have no problem with the construction of an access drive adjacent to mine. On the average, we wash seventy (70) vehicles per day and cannot see how there would be any adverse effect to traffic flow or safety to this Quaker Road corridor.” And this is from Adirondack Car Wash. This is addressed to Sean “Dear Sean: This letter is in reference to your inquiry to Chief Dave Jones about accessing your property during an emergency situation. PSM Auto body building can be accessed by our Pumpers using the existing entrance to the building off Quaker Road, but is very difficult because vehicles are usually parked near the entrance. Under ideal circumstances there would be no vehicles in front of the building, but we know this is not feasible nor does it make any sense. The property is now shared by KIA Sales, which means more vehicles there now than have been there in the past. An entrance at either end of the property would greatly increase the access which in turn would enhance any firefighting operations if they were ever needed. The existing entrance located in the center of the property means at least two sharp turns and possibly backing up in order to gain access to the sides, and rear of the building. If it is needed, I would be more than happy to demonstrate accessing your property with one of our Pumpers. If I can be of any further assistance please feel free to contact me. Yours truly, William H. Duell 2 nd Ass’t. Chief/Secretary So. Queensbury Vol. Fire Co.” And that’s it. MR. MAC EWAN-Now, I’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. MAC EWAN-We need to do a SEQRA. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 54-98, Introduced by Catherine LaBombard who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Stark: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: GARVEY KIA, and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative 60 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) declaration that may be required by law. Duly adopted this 23 day of March, 1999, by the following vote: rd AYES: Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Paling, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Brewer, Mr. Ringer MR. MAC EWAN-Has someone got a motion ready to roll? MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 54-98 GARVEY KIA, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Stark: In accordance with the resolutions prepared by Staff, with the additional statement that a planting schedule, agreed to by Staff and the applicant, will be agreed to. The planting will be completed by August 31, 1999. The letter from Transportation Concepts, dated February 16, 1999, the four recommendations in that letter will be incorporated into this site plan. In addition to that, no more than 17 automobiles shall be displayed behind the two green areas that are in front of the building. Whereas, the Town Planning Board is in receipt of Site Plan No. 54-98 to include sales and service of KIA vehicles and addition of a second entrance; and Whereas, the above mentioned application, received 9/30/98, consists of the following: 1. Application 2. Map dated 9/28/98 3. Map F-1616 dated 8/4/89 Whereas, the above file is supported with the following documentation: 1. Undated – History of sit by Garvey KIA 2. 9/28/98 - Map by Hunt Companies, plantings 3. 3/23/99 - Note to File from Craig Brown, Code Compliance Officer 4. 3/23/99 - Staff Notes 5. 3/19/99 - Faxed Staff Notes to S. Garvey 6. 3/17/99 - Rist Frost comments 7. 3/17/99 - Zoning Board of Appeals resolution 8. 3/5/99 - Meeting notice letter 9. 2/16.99 - Transportation Concepts, M. Gregory to L. Moore re: secondary site driveway 10. 2/15/99 - New Information – Application, etc. 11. 1/26/99 - Staff Notes 12. 1/20/99 - Letter to C. Round from S. Garvey requesting tabling 13. 1/19/99 - L. Penistan (DPW) to L. Moore 14. 1/19/99 - Notice of Public Hearing 15. 1/15/99 - L. Penistan to L. Moore 16. 12/30/98 – Letter to S. Garvey from L. Moore – requesting more info. 17. 12/22/98 – S. Garvey from C. Grant – regarding new entrance 18. 11/17/98 - Planning Board resolution – tabling 19. 11/17/98 - Planning Board Staff notes 20. 11/6/98 - Record of Phone Conversation – S. Garvey – left message 21. 11/6/98 - Record of Phone Conversation – D. Hunt 22. 11/6/98 - Meeting notice letter 23. 10/27/98 - Planning Bd. resolution – tabling 24. 10/27/98 - Staff Notes 25. 10/20/98 - Notice of Public Hearing 26. 10/16/98 - C. Round from L. Penistan, Warren Co. DPW 27. 10/13/98 - L. Penistan from C. Round referring application 28. 10/8/98 - Warren Pl. Bd. resolution 29. 10/7/98 - Meeting notice letter 30. 10/6/98 - S. Garvey from C. Round 31. 10/5/98 - L. Moore from S. Garvey – re: Warren Co. DPW permit for construction of a 30 ft. wide driveway 32. 9/25/98 - C. Round from D. Hunt 61 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) Whereas, a public hearing was held on 10/20/98, 1/19/99, and 3/23/99 concerning the above project; and Whereas, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the site plan requirements of the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and Whereas, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and Whereas, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and 1. The Town Planning Board, after considering the above, hereby moves to approve Site Plan No. 54-98 for Garvey KIA. 2. The applicant shall present three (3) copies of the above referenced site plan to the Zoning Administrator for his signature. 3. The Zoning Administrator is hereby authorized to sign the resolution. 4. The applicant agrees to the conditions set forth in this resolution. 5. The conditions shall be noted on the map. 6. The issuance of permits is conditioned on compliance and continued compliance with the Zoning Ordinance and site plan approval process. Duly adopted this 23 day of March 1999, by the following vote: rd MRS. MOORE-Do you want a deadline on his landscape plan? I would prefer one. MR. VOLLARO-I’ll ask him to. MR. MAC EWAN-He’s going to put together a landscaping plan with Staff’s approval. MRS. MOORE-Well, Code Enforcement wise, I just want to know. MR. GARVEY-Could I ask for it after the driveway gets built and the signs are installed? MR. VOLLARO-Well, what’s your time line on that? What do you think? MR. GARVEY-Well, you can’t put roads in in the winter. So, I would think that this summer we should be able to put an access, and then we need to get signs, too. MR. MAC EWAN-By May 30. th MR. GARVEY-What if I can’t get signs by then? MRS. MOORE-Landscaping would be the only issue. His signs and other site requirements would be the year, would be the requirement of a year, to install all other site plan, that’s fine. It’s just, I want to know, landscaping is specific, because we do have a problem with enforcement. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. GARVEY-Okay. That’s great. That’s plenty of time. MR. VOLLARO-May 31st. MR. GARVEY-I thought the Staff said a year? MRS. LA BOMBARD-She said a year. MR. MAC EWAN-Are you saying, Laura, are you saying a year, or are you saying May 31? st MRS. MOORE-I’d like to have him install a planting plan of plants by May 31. st MR. VOLLARO-Okay. The plants. Now, what’s the year? 62 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MRS. MOORE-The year issue is in regard to installing your signs and other things. You can put a condition on making sure his signs are installed as per the condition of the approval, or that he’s complied with all the requirements of the Transportation Concepts requirements. MR. MAC EWAN-I think he was getting to that next. MRS. MOORE-Okay. MR. GARVEY-I’m not following this, I’m sorry. MR. MAC EWAN-Because it’s been a difficult task for this Board to enforce planting schedules with applications, we generally tie it down to a specific date, especially when we do one that’s in the middle of winter, when you can’t do plantings yet. MR. GARVEY-I understand. MR. MAC EWAN-So we generally give a time well into late spring, early summer, to make sure that you’ve got ample time to put the plantings in. MR. GARVEY-What I was concerned with is, obviously I’m going to be modifying the site with heavy equipment. I’ll be paving an area there, but what if I don’t get that done by May 31? It st would be foolish for me to invest in trees until that’s done. If I could have until the end of the summer or something. MR. MAC EWAN-If you can’t do it by May 31, then you can come back to this Board and just ask st for an extension, and we’ll grant one. MR. GARVEY-Okay. Could I get an extension from the Staff? MR. MAC EWAN-No. MR. PALING-Why can’t we just let him have July 31? st MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes. I don’t know why. MR. GARVEY-I just don’t know about how quick I can. MR. MAC EWAN-He’s saying he doesn’t know how long it will take. MRS. LA BOMBARD-It’s only two months from now. MR. PALING-What date can you live with? MR. GARVEY-I would like until the end of the year. Actually, in the fall. I mean, I don’t know how soon I’ll put this road in. I actually have other irons in the fire, also. MR. MAC EWAN-I’d prefer to leave it May 31. If you can’t do it, you can always come back and st ask for an extension. MR. GARVEY-I’m not going to let a lawyer go in front of me then, okay. MR. SCHACHNER-I know it’s a late hour and all that, but your minutes currently will reflect the Chairman’s statement that you can come back for an extension and you will get one. I mean, I don’t think that’s an appropriate statement for the Board to make. The applicant can seek an extension. MR. MAC EWAN-We’ll entertain one. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. Fair enough. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. It is getting late. MR. GARVEY-I like the previous statement, actually. Can I ask the Board to consider the end of the summer? August 31? st MRS. LA BOMBARD-I have no problem with the end of the summer, with August 31. st MR. PALING-I don’t, either. MRS. LA BOMBARD-But I think autumn might be a little late. 63 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. GARVEY-Okay. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Because if you’re going to put something in, you want it to grow, and you’re going to need the autumn to have it get rooted. MR. GARVEY-I just don’t know how long it will take me to modify the site, and only then would, I really would like to get the sign approval, because I’m not going to do this until I get the sign approval. MR. MAC EWAN-What do you guys want to do? MR. PALING-August 31. st MRS. LABOMBARD-August 31. st MR. VOLLARO-I’ll put it as the planting will be completed by August 31, 1999. MR. STARK-Fine. MR. GARVEY-Thank you. MRS. MOORE-I have three other issues. MR. MAC EWAN-Transportation Concepts letter, the recommendations proposed by Transportation Concepts will be incorporated into this site plan. . MR. VOLLARO-The letter from Transportation Concepts, dated February 16, 1999, the four recommendations in that letter will be incorporated into this site plan. MR. GARVEY-I agree. MR. MAC EWAN-Laura, do you have anything? MRS. MOORE-Okay. With the display vehicles, he’s indicated seven on each side. Can we get a clarification of how many display vehicles will be displayed in the front? MR. GARVEY-That was just an estimation here. Right now we have, I would say nine on this side. MRS. LA BOMBARD-You have 11 there. MR. GARVEY-Well, actually, these are on the, you’re talking, are you talking about just on the front here? MR. MAC EWAN-We're talking across the whole front of the parcel. MR. VOLLARO-You’re going to lose some from the curb cut. MR. GARVEY-I understand that. You mean across the whole parcel? Because I think the map shows per side. So I guess what I’ll ask for is, I’m going to ask for 12 on this side, because I’m going to be doing a U-turn here, with 12 on that side, I guess. MRS. LA BOMBARD-How are you going to get 12 there if you’ve got that new curb cut? MR. GARVEY-The curb will end here, and I will divide it here. So actually I’m going to have, you can see the space for three vehicles here, three plus three is six. Then they’ll be backed up along here. MR. VOLLARO-Along the front of the building? MR. GARVEY-Yes. I mean, I don’t know if you’re looking for the wording on the front of the building or under the canopy, or? MRS. LA BOMBARD-Well, will you be able to get a vehicle through there? MR. GARVEY-I don’t want a vehicle there. This is going to be blocked, with cars. I’m going to have cars backed up, or one turned sideways here or two turned sideways. So you cannot go through this way. People can’t cut through the car wash through here, like they do now, they cut through here, across the grass, and go out this way. I wanted to stop that. 64 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MRS. LA BOMBARD-So, when I come in, where am I going to turn in? MR. GARVEY-When you’re going to go into the body shop, there’s going to be like the sign here, that’s an exit sign. There’ll be an entrance sign for PSM here, with a PSM pole sign here, and then you go in that way, and if you wanted to leave, you’d have to leave that way, and for Garvey KIA, you could come in here. You might be able to go a little bit with your car, but it would block, it’s blocked off here, and you would park in the middle, or you’d park on the side here or underneath the canopy, or in the back, but it would be blocked here. MR. MAC EWAN-What do you do if you’ve got five or seven people coming in your lot on a Sunday afternoon to look at cars? MR. GARVEY-Some people just dump their cars, and some people drive them and find a spot. Sometimes we have to ask them to move. Sometimes we move them for them. Soon after the parked car comes in, I might appraise it. So I’ll start it up and I’ll move it normally. MR. MAC EWAN-Are you open on Sundays? MR. GARVEY-No. So Sundays people come in and they browse a lot, I guess. I don’t know. MR. GARVEY-I’ll add to the motion that no more than 10 autos shall be displayed in front of the building. I'll add that to the motion. MRS. LA BOMBARD-In the whole front? You can get 12 on that other side. MR. MAC EWAN-What have you got out there now? MR. GARVEY-There’s 12, there’s at least 3 there. That’s, yes. MR. MAC EWAN-Not counting the imaginary spaces where you want to put them? There’s 19 physical cars out there right now. Three of those cars are going to be (lost word) and moved around. MR. GARVEY-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-How about if we go with 15? Lets get a number. MR. GARVEY-How about 20? MR. PALING-I don’t see how you’re going to get, you’ve got at least two cars on the grass. That’s not allowed, is it? MR. GARVEY-It’s my land. I should be able to put them there. MR. PALING-I thought that was. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Garden Time puts those little sheds all over. MR. MAC EWAN-We're not talking about Garden Time. MRS. LABOMBARD-Wait a minute. We had a used car lot on Quaker Road, but they put them all on the grass on the front, that we okayed. MRS. MOORE-I’d say we discourage that, and his green area is used for his permeability and not for display. MR. VOLLARO-It seems to me, from a sales point of view, if I were going in to buy an automobile, I would like to see each car I’m looking at, sort of an individual car. MR. GARVEY-Well, it depends what my inventory is. Like right now, if you look at the site, there’s only like five cars on the left side, because I don’t have a lot of inventory, but sometimes when I get a lot, I've got to put them some place. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Don’t you just put them in the back and then people that come in, you just walk them around to the back? MR. GARVEY-Well, I have to display as much as I possibly can. I have to display used cars and new cars, used and new. 65 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. MAC EWAN-I’m going to throw a curve ball here. He’s made comments that he’s going to pave a portion of this now. MR. GARVEY-The purpose of the paving was to get the cars further away from the building. MR. MAC EWAN-Still meet the permeability? MR. GARVEY-Yes. That’s in the application. I have over 30% permeability. MR. MAC EWAN-Considering what you’ve got out there now, considering that we’ve tried not to have cars parked in your green space area, I’d be willing to go for 15 parking spots. MR. GARVEY-I think what the Staff was concerned with, and I have a letter stating that, that was sent to all automobile dealers, they don’t want cars blocking the front entrance. That’s their major concern, and I agree not to do that. MR. VOLLARO-I think the other concern, I think Laura just mentioned it, that we don’t want cars parked on what is considered green space and permeable areas. MR. GARVEY-How would that effect permeability? MR. VOLLARO-The good answer, at twenty minutes to twelve, is that it probably won’t, okay. MR. GARVEY-Okay. Now, I mean, I don’t normally put cars there in the winter time, of course, I don’t do that, but I would occasionally, like to display something like that. I move cars around so the lot doesn’t look boring, and I have a right to be able to put cars on my property anywhere I want to. As long as it doesn’t interfere with access of safety vehicles, as long as it doesn’t interfere with pedestrians. Sometimes I park the cars close. MR. MAC EWAN-You just said it. It’s going to interfere with access. It’s going to interfere with safety. It’s going to interfere with the movement of vehicles on the lot. Having 22 or 24 cars that you want out there. MR. GARVEY-If I park these cars three feet from each other, or six feet from each other, it does not change this distance from the back of the cars to the building. It does not change access for emergency vehicles. It doesn’t change permeability. It doesn’t change safety for pedestrians. I don’t like the idea of you telling me how many cars I can display. I mean, I think other businesses don’t have restrictions. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Looking at your plans right now, that one car on the far end is already sitting in a right of way. It's not your property. MR. GARVEY-Right here. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. That black car, right close to the road, that’s in the right-of-way. MR. GARVEY-Yes, that doesn’t belong there. MR. MAC EWAN-So you can take those two cars out of the equation, because you have no other place to put them. MR. GARVEY-Okay. What do you consider front of the building? Can I put cars along here, underneath the canopy? We are exceeding, right now, 30 cars, and you think how many cars are in the front of the canopy, underneath the canopy here, a U-turn here, around here, all across here, and up across the side. I mean, that’s viewable from the front. MRS. LABOMBARD-I think what scared everybody was when you kind of said you were going to put them here, kind of in there, and it just looked like it was going to just. MR. GARVEY-I was going to match this side like that side. It depends on what we have in stock. Maybe these two are out getting serviced. I don’t want to block the main entrance. That’s unsafe. The number is weird to me. MRS. LABOMBARD-I don’t think we should dictate to you how many cars you can display on your property. MR. GARVEY-Could he re-phrase it saying that I have to display them in a safe manner? MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes. I mean, you can’t tell him how many cars he can put on his property. 66 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. MAC EWAN-How do you enforce that? MRS. LA BOMBARD-Well, wait a minute. Do we tell all these other car dealerships how many cars they can put on their property? MR. MAC EWAN-We have done that with other applications. MR. SCHACHNER-Just by way of example, last week I believe you approved an application that you indicated where rental trucks, where certain types of rental trucks could be located, and how many, as well as how many rental cars were allowed. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m just worried about internalization on there. I mean, we’re sitting here trying to struggle through and get a motion complete, and here we are, I thought, close to resolving this issue, and now it seems to be contingent on how many cars. MR. STARK-You’re talking about just how many cars can be displayed in the front, not down the side, not under the canopy. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. I misunderstood you. When you said how many on your property, I’m saying, wait a minute, the guy can’t? MR. MAC EWAN-No, I’m talking about that green area. That’s what he was asking. He wants to put 24 cars out there. I’m saying that’s too much. MRS. LA BOMBARD-But he’s talking about putting them, not on the green area. He’s talking about also putting them back under that canopy, too. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s not what he said when he started talking about this. MRS. LABOMBARD-Okay. All right. MR. VOLLARO-The way the motion would read, no more than X number of autos shall be displayed in the green space area in front of the building. MR. GARVEY-Excuse me. MR. VOLLARO-You can do whatever you want around the building. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Then lets start from Square One again. How many do you want to put in the front of the building? MR. STARK-No, not in front of the building. MRS. LA BOMBARD-On the green space. MR. VOLLARO-On the green space in the front of the building. MR. MAC EWAN-You have to be careful that his green space, he does not own that, from his edge of the pavement to the road. MR. VOSS-I think what you want to know is how many vehicles you’re going to allow him to park here and here, not under the canopy or anywhere else. MRS. LA BOMBARD-And what about along the barricade? MR. PALING-No, no. We're not talking about that. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-The motion’s going to talk about exactly what Chuck was talking about. MR. STARK-They can’t get more than 15 in there. MR. VOSS-And remember, the new curb cut here, holds, as he said, three spaces. So currently he’s got. MRS. LABOMBARD-You could fit 10 there, and 7 on the other side. Seventeen on the green. 67 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. VOSS-Physically, he can’t fit anymore vehicles, no matter how close he put them, along that front edge, and clearly this red vehicle and this black vehicle are in the right-of-way, which is not his property. MRS. LABOMBARD-Right. So you could put 17 on the green. MR. GARVEY-I don’t think that’s right. I should be able to display as many vehicles as I can safely put in there. MRS. LA BOMBARD-On the green, though, are you talking about? MR. GARVEY-Just in front of the building. MR. MAC EWAN-We're talking green space area. We're not talking the macadam underneath your awning. We're not talking about on the parking area. We're not talking about on the side of the building. We're not talking about along the parallel side of the building. MR. GARVEY-Just on the green area. MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-We're talking the grass area. MR. GARVEY-Only. MR. MAC EWAN-Only. MR. GARVEY-Okay. If we’re talking about how many vehicles I can park in the green area. MR. MAC EWAN-Which is the grass area. MR. GARVEY-Which is grass area, and you were giving me a number of? MR. MAC EWAN-Seventeen. MRS. LABOMBARD-Seventeen, ten on the east side, and seven on the west side. MR. GARVEY-And what you consider green area is non macadam? MRS. LA BOMBARD-Is the grass. MR. VOSS-I would say you may want to define that to say, in the macadam area in front of the green space, along the front property line. You don’t want to actually have vehicles parked on the lawn, or under those new trees. MR. GARVEY-I’m sorry, but nowhere in Staff comments, nowhere from Transportation Concepts, Rist-Frost, or no one has recommended to you to limit how much product I can display in front of my business. MR. MAC EWAN-We’ve done it routinely. MR. GARVEY-What if I decide to layer my cars? What if I wanted to put my cars on top of each other, and have two rows of cars in the front? What if I, there are devices I can buy that I can drive cars up on a lift, to display the cars higher along the road. I can fit cars underneath that. I can double my display case, my display area. Not that I’m going to do that, because I think that’s tacky, but I have the ability to do that, and I should be able to display as much as I want, if it’s within, if it doesn’t go over 30 feet high or whatever, and you’re trying to tell that you’re going to limit how many cars I can display? How many businesses? MR. MAC EWAN-Is 17 cars not acceptable to you? MR. GARVEY-It is not acceptable. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay, then I would probably, at this point, encourage you to maybe go back to the drawing board and come up with a good plan that’s something that is maybe professionally put together so that we can see exactly what that space is going to accommodate. 68 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. STARK-Sean, we have limited other people in the past, as to number of cars that they have in front of their building. We're not saying down the side you can have 100 cars, you know, just in that front, the green areas. That’s all we’re talking about. I know you’re not going to double cars. MR. MAC EWAN-We did it two places down with Barretts, when they were in. MR. STARK-Barrett did the same thing. MR. GARVEY-Can we go with 20? I don’t know if I can. I don’t even know if I want to do it, but I just feel you’re limiting it, and right now I don’t have a limit, okay. I’m asking for a compromise. Will you go with 20? MR. MAC EWAN-We’ve compromised with you. You wanted 24, we compromised and said 17, when most of us wanted to go 15. So we’ve compromised. MR. GARVEY-Eighteen? MR. MAC EWAN-No, come on. MR. GARVEY-Seventeen then, okay. MR. MAC EWAN-I mean, at the point it becomes a real burden to your business, this Board certainly will be amenable to having you come back in and maybe ask for a modification to the site plan, and we’ll entertain it, if it becomes a real burden to you. MR. GARVEY-Catherine had a good point. Obviously, you have businesses that are, such as, that are just down the road from me, that can display, like Hertz/Barrett, as much as he can fit on the lot, her can display, because he has a right to display that. Down the road from there, the landscaping business, whatever it’s called. MR. MAC EWAN-I’ll put it on record right now, if Barretts Auto Sales is violating their site plan approvals. MR. GARVEY-No, I’m just saying that, I’m trying to think of the number of businesses, and my mind is obviously as tired as yours now, that they can display as much product as they want in their front. MR. MAC EWAN-But that’s not the case with Barretts, because they can’t display as much product in the front, because we gave them limitations on their site plan. MR. GARVEY-Yes. MRS. LABOMBARD-I will say this. When we were out driving around, a month or so ago, and we went back to Wilhelm’s, where Miss Marion’s little place was there, Newton’s, I was shocked to see all those cars, on the green, kind of down in the. MR. MAC EWAN-They’re violating their site plan review, you need to say something to somebody. MRS. LABOMBARD-But we saw that. We all were here, but what I’m saying is, I thought that looked terrible, just not very aesthetic, and the cars were all on the grass, and they were in the culvert like that. MR. VOLLARO-In addition to that, no more than 17 automobiles shall be displayed behind the green area, behind the two green areas, that are in front of the building. No more than 17 automobiles shall be displayed. MR. GARVEY-If I do the modifications on the site, once I modify the site. MR. VOLLARO-There’s no time certain on my statement about. MR. GARVEY-Well, what if something prevents me from putting the road in, but I want to continue displaying vehicles the way they are? MR. MAC EWAN-Why do you keep throwing these curve balls at us? MR. GARVEY-Because what you’re doing is limiting my business to sell stuff, and that’s not right. You think if people display, they can display as much as they want. 69 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. VOLLARO-There’s a couple of things that we have to look at on this Board. One of them is the aesthetics. I mean, you talked about if you wanted to, you could pile cars all over the place, it just wouldn’t look right. If you feel that competitors of yours or other people that are working in the same industry you are seem to have a greater right than you do, for some reason or another, then it’s up to us to take a look at that, but in the mean time, we’re trying to put a site plan, an approve a site plan for this application, not for anybody else but this application. MR. GARVEY-So what you’re saying is that if I go ahead with the site modifications, and you approve them, you’re conditioning the approval with 17 display cars? MR. VOLLARO-When you’re finished with your site plan as proposed, there’s 17 automobiles can be parked out front. MR. GARVEY-Okay. I’ll agree with that. MRS. LABOMBARD-But he didn’t say that you can’t have some under the canopy. MR. GARVEY-I understand that. MR. VOLLARO-No, we’re not talking about that. MR. GARVEY-Or on the side, we’re talking about just the display, the green area. MRS. LABOMBARD-Right. MR. VOLLARO-And I've made the motion. MR. MAC EWAN-Do we have a second on it? MR. STARK-Second. AYES: Mr. Stark, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Paling, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. Brewer, Mr. Ringer MR. MAC EWAN-You’re all set. MR. GARVEY-Thank you. MR. PALING-What’s next? MR. MAC EWAN-Site visits. When’s daylight savings time? MRS. LA BOMBARD-The first Sunday in April. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Do you guys want to stick with Saturday morning in April? Or do you want to try to go in the evening? MR. STARK-Thursday evening. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Thursday’s fine. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. So we’re going to go do site visits at four o’clock on the 15, and the th meetings are the 20 and the 27. thth MRS. LA BOMBARD-I’ll be gone the 20. th MR. VOLLARO-Site visits are on the 15 at four o’clock. th MR. MAC EWAN-Any other business? MRS. LABOMBARD-I just want to make the comment that if Suttons had been here, we’d still go going until one a.m. MR. STARK-Mark, what’s going on with Suttons now? Mike came in and made his little comment, but it has to go to the ZBA now, and the ZBA will say whether Chris did what he was supposed to do, or he over-stepped his bounds, or what? 70 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 3/23/99) MR. SCHACHNER-Right, which essentially amounts to a determination as to whether the proposed storage building is an allowed use, or not an allowed use on the property. MR. STARK-Who objected to what Chris said? MR. SCHACHNER-The last name is Sabo, Karen Sabo, one of the women who made one of the statements at the public hearing. MR. MAC EWAN-They have the house with the retaining wall. MR. PALING-Yes, with the pool going in. MR. SCHACHNER-Did they do the balloon exercise for you? MR. PALING-Yes. Saturday morning. MRS. LA BOMBARD-We were there. MR. SCHACHNER-Because I drove by Saturday afternoon, I didn’t see any balloons. They must have taken them down. MR. VOLLARO-They took them down. MR. STARK-The balloons never worked. MRS. LA BOMBARD-They didn’t. The balloon kept falling. MR. SCHACHNER-But just so they did it. Good. MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else? MRS. LA BOMBARD-No. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? I’ll make a motion to adjourn. On motion, meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Craig MacEwan, Chairman 71