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1999-10-19 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING FIRST REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 19, 1999 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT CRAIG MAC EWAN, CHAIRMAN CATHERINE LA BOMBARD, SECRETARY ROBERT PALING ROBERT VOLLARO TIMOTHY BREWER MEMBERS ABSENT ALAN ABBOTT LARRY RINGER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR-CHRIS ROUND PLANNER-LAURA MOORE TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX & PRATT-MARK SCHACHNER STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI CORRECTION OF MINUTES June 24, 1999: NONE July 20, 1999: NONE July 27, 1999: NONE August 17, 1999: NONE August 24, 1999: NONE MOTION TO APPROVE THE MINUTES OF JUNE 24, 1999, JULY 20, 1999, JULY 27, 1999, AUGUST 17, 1999 AND AUGUST 24, 1999, Introduced by Timothy Brewer who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro: Duly adopted this 19 day of October, 1999, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Brewer, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Paling NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Abbott, Mr. Ringer MR. BREWER-I would just like to apologize to everybody here. I was unaware that other members weren’t going to be here. This was a planned absence for me. That’s all. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Thanks, Tim. OLD BUSINESS: SITE PLAN NO. 71-96 GLENN BATEASE MODIFICATION OWNER: SAME ZONE: LI-1A LOCATION: BIG BOOM ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES TO MODIFY AN APPROVED SITE PLAN FOR ALTERATION TO THE SITE. THE ALTERATION INCLUDES PLACEMENT OF FILL MATERIAL ON THE SITE FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENT. THE BOARD HAS REQUESTED INFORMATION REGARDING LANDSCAPING TO STABILIZE THE FILLED AREA, AND A STORMWATER MANAGEMENT PLAN FOR THE EXISTING CONDITIONS OF THE SITE. TAX MAP NO. 135-2-2.2 MRS. LA BOMBARD-And there’s no public hearing scheduled. 1 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 71-96, Glenn Batease, Meeting Date: October 19, 1999 “Description of Project: The Planning Board had requested information by resolution at the September 23, 1999 meeting. The applicant was requested to submit stormwater management information on the existing conditions, a landscape plan and to delineate (in the field) the 370 foot contour. Staff Notes: The applicant did not submit the requested information by the deadline dates as identified in the September 23, 1999 resolution. The requested information was needed to provide a better understanding of the scope of the project. The field conditions potentially seem unstable, and not suitable for immediate development. The existing use of processing material does not appear to cause a detriment to the site or environmental concerns. However, the continuous dumping of fill could have a significant impact on the site. Currently, the unstable fill material has been eroding into a NYSDEC classified stream and determined to be a violation, see attached DEC letter. In addition, the type of fill material such as logs, concrete, miscellaneous garbage, and re-bar does not appear to be consistent with preparing an area for building. Recommendations: Staff would recommend denial of the modification because the proposed project could have an adverse effect on the environment with the condition that no additional fill be accepted or deposited on site, and all processed materials be limited to a distinct or readily identifiable area on the site. (The last map received in the Planning Office is dated 10/22/98 with a revision date of 6/11/99 prepared by Van Dusen and Steves Land Surveyors)” MR. PALING-Laura, do you want to read the memorandum in, or do you think that’s sufficient? MRS. MOORE-I can read the memo in. This is addressed to Craig MacEwan from Craig Brown, our Code Compliance Officer “In mid 1998, Mr. Batease was informed that his activities on the property located at 71 Big Boom Road were beyond the scope of previously issued approvals and that a further Site Plan modification along with an Area Variance would be necessary if he wished to continue. As of this date, neither this office nor the Planning Board has received information necessary for this project to be adequately reviewed. As you are aware, garnering information from Mr. Batease, even with several staff meetings and conversations, has been difficult at best. In light of Mr. Batease’s position with regards to his difficulty with the submission of information for his project, I would suggest that the Board consider the following: Area Variance 52-1998 and the conditions therein The unobserved June 29, 1998 Stop Work Order The (17 +) months afforded Mr. Batease to submit information The numerous staff meetings and phone conversations with Mr. Batease and his attorney Based on the lack of necessary information, I do not believe that approval of this project is warranted. Given that the majority of the fill on this site was placed without approval and in violation of a Stop Work Order, no further filling and remedial measures including re-grading of the existing fill area to be consistent with the ZBA approval as well as the August 12, 1999 letter from Tim Post, NYS DEC are reasonable.” MR. PALING-Is there anyone here representing the applicant? Okay. Evidently, there is no one here, and a public hearing is not scheduled, and I think it would be proper if we went right to a motion. MRS. MOORE-That would be correct. MOTION TO DENY THE APPLICANT, GLENN BATEASE, FOR SITE PLAN NO. 71- 96, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Timothy Brewer: The denial is based on the fact that Mr. Batease has not complied with any of the requirements that have been placed on him, and the deadline that was placed was September 29, 1999, and that has not been complied with. We were at the site on Saturday, and just to make sure that all things were complied with. Nothing was complied with at that point. So on that basis, I would make the motion to deny this application. Duly adopted this 19 day of October, 1999, by the following vote: th AYES: Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Paling NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Abbott, Mr. Ringer SITE PLAN NO. 22-98 GOLUB CORPORATION MODIFICATION OWNER: GLEN ST., LLC ZONE: PC-1A LOCATION: 677 GLEN STREET APPLICANT PROPOSES TO AMEND SITE PLAN APPROVAL TO INCLUDE THE ADDITION OF A 75 FEET OF FENCE BETWEEN THE NORTHWEST SIDE OF THE SUPERMARKET AND THE ADJOINING LANDS. THE PROPOSED FENCE WILL BE NO HIGHER THAN 2 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) EIGHT FEET. CROSS REFERENCE: BP 98-018 TAX MAP NO. 102-2-4 LOT SIZE: 18.86 ACRES SECTION: 179-22 TOM COMPO, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MRS. LA BOMBARD-And a public hearing is not necessary for a modification. STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 22-98, Golub Corporation, Meeting Date: October 19, 1999 “Description of Project: The applicant proposes to modify an approved site plan (SP 22-98) to add a 75 foot long by 8 foot high fence between the Northwest side of the supermarket and the lands of Gallagher. Planning Board review and approval is required for site plan modifications. Staff Notes: The information supplied for the modification provides enough detail for review. The fence appears to provide screening of the commercial use from the neighboring residents. Recommendations: Staff recommends approval of the site plan modification.” MR. COMPO-My name is Tom Compo, and I work for Clough Harbor, and I’m here on behalf of the applicant, Golub Corporation, and I don’t think I can explain it any better than what’s already been done. MR. PALING-Okay. Any questions or comments? MR. VOLLARO-I just want to confirm that fact that this fence will be the height that you said it would be. In other words, it will not be of a varying height. It will be a consistently high fence? MR. COMPO-Consistent. It will not be higher than eight feet. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. That’s all. MR. BREWER-I do have one question. Where you’re putting the fence, has there been access from neighborhoods walking to the store from the neighborhood adjacent to it? MR. COMPO-I’m not aware of any. MR. BREWER-In other words, there’s not any footpath that’s evident along this strip? MR. COMPO-Not a footpath. MR. BREWER-The reason I say that is because with the Wal-Mart project, they did a similar situation, and they left a space open if residents nearby wanted to, or if they were able to, if there were lands they could walk through and go to the market, and I don’t know if that’s evident here, but it was just a thought. MR. COMPO-There is a gravel drive. There’s an easement granted to Rudnick, that comes down adjacent. That easement will remain open and there will be no gate. MR. BREWER-So, in other words, what they did was just left a four foot section where people could walk through, if they wanted to. If they were close by, they could walk to the market. MR. COMPO-Absolutely. MR. BREWER-Is that something you ever considered, or not? MR. COMPO-It’s not, well, there is an easement that goes through the property right there. So we left it open so that it would be continued. MR. BREWER-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-Tim, when we were up on site review, I didn’t see any footpath through there at all. MR. PALING-Which side of the existing trees is the fence going to be on? MR. COMPO-I’m not sure where you’re speaking of existing trees. MR. PALING-On the back of the lot, there’s a row of trees between your building and the houses. Which side of the trees is the fence going on? MR. COMPO-It would be on the market side. 3 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. PALING-Okay. So the trees would be on the neighbor’s side. MR. COMPO-Right. MR. PALING-Okay. Is there anything else? If not, this is a modification. There is no public hearing, but if someone did want to talk, they can come up, about this. If not, there is no SEQRA. We can go, again, to a motion. MOTION TO APPROVE MODIFICATION TO SITE PLAN NO. 22-98, GOLUB CORPORATION, Introduced by Timothy Brewer who moved for its adoption, seconded by Catherine LaBombard: As prepared by Staff, where the SEQRA is not effected. Whereas, the Town Planning Board is in receipt of a modification tot Site Plan No. 22-98 – Golub Corp.; and Whereas, the above mentioned application, received 9/23/99, consists of the following: 1. 9/22/99 – T. Compo to L. Moore w/map 1 dated 4/98 Whereas, the above file is supported with the following documentation: 1. 9/27/99 – T. Compo to L. Moore re: height of fence 2. 10/7/99 - Meeting Notice 3. 10/19/99 – Staff Notes Whereas, a public hearing was not held 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 proposed modification(s) will not cause any potential environmental impacts significantly different from any impacts identified and considered during the initial approval process. Therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and Therefore, Let It Be Resolved, as follows: 1. The Town Planning Board, after considering the above, hereby moves to approve modification to Site Plan No. 22-98, Golub Corporation. 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 19 day of October, 1999, by the following vote: th AYES: Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Paling NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Abbott, Mr. Ringer MR. COMPO-Thank you. SITE PLAN NO. 35-95 MODIFICATION DAVE & CHRIS STEWART OWNER: SAME MODIFICATION ZONE: RR-5A LOCATION: CONE MOUNTAIN DRIVE THE 4 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) APPLICANT IS PROPOSING A MODIFICATION TO AN APPROVED SITE PLAN. THE ORIGINAL APPROVAL WAS FOR A DOG KENNEL FOR BREEDING/BOARDING. THE MODIFICATION IS THE ADDITION OF A 12’ X 24’ BARN AND A 24’ X 38’ AREA DENOTED AS EXERCISE YARD AS AN ADDITION TO THE EXISTING OPERATION OF THE FACILTY. CROSS REFERENCE: BP 96-127 TAX MAP NO. 123-1-37.2 LOT SIZE: 8.5 ACRES SECTION: 179-15 DAVE & CHRIS STEWART, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 35-95 Modification, Dave & Chris Stewart, Meeting Date: October 19, 1999 “Description of Project: The applicant proposes to modify an approved site plan to operate a dog kennel. The modification is to construct an additional area for dog runs and business operations. Staff Notes: The applicant was informed the construction of a barn structure was considered an expansion of the existing business and required a building permit and site plan review. The constructed barn meets the required setbacks for a building in the rural residential five acre zone. The expansion of the kennel/dog boarding use is consistent with the existing uses on the site. Based on review of the previous site plan, the applicant’s expansion does not appear to interfere visually with the neighboring properties. The expansion may increase the amount of noise generated, but cumulatively it may not be significant. The original site plan indicated that the proposed construction would be sound proof. Our office has no documentation that “sound proofing” construction techniques were utilized. Staff requests confirmation of material utilized, materials proposed for construction. Recommendations: Staff would recommend approval of the site plan with the condition that any proposed “sound proofing” techniques, (if required by the Board) are approved by a licensed architect or engineer.” MR. PALING-Okay. Is there anyone here representing the applicant? Would you come up, please. Would you identify yourself and tell us a little bit about your project. MR. STEWART-I’m Dave Stewart and this is my wife, Chris. The barn is actually an Amish barn, pre-built. We did not build it. We did have the floor fully insulated and I personally insulated the entire inside of the building, walls and ceiling, to sound proof it. The building is primarily for storage, and when the kennel is very busy, our personal dogs, that are not part of the business itself, are housed there. We do not house any borders in that building at all. MR. PALING-Okay. Cathy, we’ll start with you. Have you got any questions or comments? MRS. LA BOMBARD-Say that again? You don’t board any dogs in that building, but you built this big, huge building for your? MR. STEWART-No. The kennel itself, that was built a few years ago, is set up with indoor/outdoor runs, for the kennel business, for boarding. This barn that we’re talking about is an Amish barn that we had put off to the right hand side, I think your diagram shows. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes, and it’s dimensions are 12 by 24. MR. STEWART-Twelve by twenty-four, yes. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. MR. STEWART-It is used for storage and there’s no pens inside. We do use dog crates for our own dogs. My wife raises dogs, as well as boards them. MRS. LA BOMBARD-So what do you mean storage, like for dog food? MR. STEWART-Well, dog food, dog crates, that type of thing. MRS. LA BOMBARD-And then, but your dogs will stay in there sometimes? MR. STEWART-Our dogs are in there when the kennel’s busy. We do not charge to house any other dogs in that building. MRS. LA BOMBARD-So the part where, all right, so what you’ve built is nothing for any animals, as far as indoors, keeping animals indoors, and the other one is just the barn? MR. STEWART-Well, the barn that is in question, yes. On occasion, there are dogs housed in there. MRS. LA BOMBARD-But they’re yours? 5 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. STEWART-Our dogs, yes. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Right, and then the other part is the exercise track? MR. STEWART-That’s for boarders, yes. MRS. STEWART-No, the exercise yard is for our dogs. MRS. LA BOMBARD-The 24 by 38? And the other exercise. MRS. STEWART-The exercise yard between the kennel, the main kennel and the barn, that is for my own dogs. MRS. LA BOMBARD-That’s the new one? MRS. STEWART-Yes. MRS. LA BOMBARD-And the old exercise yard? MRS. STEWART-That’s for the boarders, on the far end of the kennel. MRS. LA BOMBARD-And could you refresh my memory. What were the dimensions of that, the original exercise yard for the dogs that you board? MR. STEWART-On the left side of the building, it’s probably 10 wide by probably 24. That’s off to the left side, and in the front of the building, there’s a small pad with indoor/outdoor runs. The runs are four by ten, I believe, and there’s five of them across the front. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. So basically, you really didn’t do this for your own business. You did most of it for your own dogs. MRS. STEWART-We did it for our own dogs. MR. STEWART-Well, it’s primarily for our dogs to keep them inside. MRS. STEWART-So if the boarders are filling up the main kennel, then we have a place to keep our dogs. MRS. LA BOMBARD-And how many dogs do you have? MRS. STEWART-Nineteen. MRS. LA BOMBARD-You have 19 dogs? MRS. STEWART-Yes. MR. BREWER-Of your own? MRS. STEWART-Yes. MR. STEWART-She raises collies. MRS. STEWART-I raise collies. MRS. LA BOMBARD-I see. They’re like puppies that you’re selling, a lot of them? MRS. STEWART-Some of them, yes. MR. BREWER-How many dogs do you board? MRS. STEWART-We have 12 runs inside the kennel. MR. BREWER-Thirty-one dogs? MR. STEWART-Total, if the kennel was full, yes. MR. VOLLARO-My basic question has nothing to do with the dogs at all. It’s really got to do with the fact that this structure is existing. We're sitting here trying to approve a site plan for an already 6 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) existing structure, and I’m going to go back to, I guess it’s 1995, when your site plan, which was 35- 95, at that time, there was an exchange between Mr. MacEwan and Mr. Martin, who at that time was I guess the acting director, or he was the director at that time. Now, Mr. MacEwan asked the question. He said, if we were to approve it, and you were at that meeting. MR. BREWER-What page are you on, Bob? MR. VOLLARO-I’m on Page 7, top of Page 7. It’s said there, Mr. MacEwan said it, if we were to approve this tonight, Jim, speaking to Jim Martin, and she thought that business was doing so well in a year or two she wanted to expand her kennel, does she come back in front of here for a modification to the site plan that was approved, or could she just, if she wanted to, add on to it, put on more kennels, or is this just a matter of going through the building permit process? Mr. Martin-If she were to physically add on to the structure, it would require further review by this Board, and then the other option is, in the past, like for car sales for example. You would set parameters on the numbers of cars present. If you were to set the parameter on the number of dogs at any one time, that would be another limitation that she would be bound to uphold. Then if she wanted to increase, she’d have to come back to this Board to do it. Now, you know, that was pretty clear, and if you hadn’t been at the meeting, I would say, well, you know, you could sort of say, I just didn’t understand or I don’t know or you could plead ignorance, but I've got a real problem with somebody that builds a structure, and then comes before this Board and says, would you please approve it on a site plan. I have a real problem buying that. MR. STEWART-Well, my problem is, I was not aware, you know, you can blame it on me, that I had to get a permit to buy an Amish barn. I’ll accept responsibility for that. I didn’t build this structure. I bought the thing. MR. VOLLARO-Well, it doesn’t make any difference, today, whether you built it or somebody else built it. Had you not been at this meeting, and had not heard these words, I would say, well, okay, you know, you could pretty much, you could be forgiven for not knowing, but you were at the meeting, and I just don’t understand, and this is not just yourself. I've been sitting in this seat where other people have come before this Board with a built structure, and then wants this Board to approve that structure. I really have a problem with that, and that, Mr. Chairman, is where I stand on this. MR. PALING-Okay. Tim? MR. BREWER-Are there plans, in the future, to expand again? MR. STEWART-No, not to my knowledge. MR. BREWER-Did you sound proof this whole thing? MR. STEWART-Yes. MR. BREWER-It is done? MR. STEWART-Yes. MR. BREWER-So everything is done to the discussions that we had in ’95 when you came? MR. STEWART-After it was delivered, yes, I sound proofed the inside. MR. BREWER-I’d like to see if there’s any neighbors here, Bob, to see if there’s any comments. MR. PALING-Yes. We’ll open the public hearing on this matter. Is there anyone here that would care to come up and talk? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED JEFF INGLEE MR. INGLEE-Members of the Board, Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m going to try to make this as brief as I can. Jeff Inglee from Tuthill Road. I own two residences on Tuthill Road, along with 60 acres on Tuthill Road. I have adjoining properties to the Stewarts. Again, I will try to make this very short, but I've waited a long time to speak my peace here. Back in 1995, you folks invited me to come to a public meeting, pertaining to an application to build a dog kennel. Now, correct me if I’m wrong. Dog kennel means the whole establishment, not just the structure, but the cages, the runs, everything. That’s the dog kennel. On this letter, it stipulates this kennel will be, in fact, sound proof. Now, prior to the application of this project, for several years, the Stewarts had up to 13, 14 7 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) dogs living in their basement. During the daytime they would be outside. Now you can just imagine what 13, 14 dogs must sound like, in a very idyllic mountain setting, as we have up on West Mountain, but the applicant did apply for a sound proof dog kennel. I came to this meeting, back in 1995, and some faces look very familiar. I voiced opposition in regard to a potential problem that we were going to have with the constant scenario of barking dogs. With this kind of investment, they have to justify the investment, in which case up to $30,000, $40,000 of money, they have to board in more dogs. More dogs means more barking. Consequently, contrary to my concerns and contrary to the statements in my minutes, a statement was made, how can we monitor this? I asked the Board to monitor a potential problem here. They stipulated, how can we monitor it unless we approve it. That’s, I was upset with that. I have a letter that amended this project. The Board amended this project with not one word mentioned of my concern pertaining to the possibility and the potential problem with sound. I have a copy of the Queensbury Town Code, which stipulates it is prohibited for any dog to “Engage in habitual loud howling, barking, crying or whining, or conduct itself in such a manner so as to unreasonably and habitually disturb the comfort or repose of any person other than the owner of such dog.” Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a problem here, and it needs to be corrected. They are applying for an addition to this problem. Consequently, I would like to see to it that you will not approve this, but the bottom line is, we have a problem here. It’s been an ongoing problem that I have kept quiet about, and it’s time to take this fight to the mat. I’m here to advise the Stewarts and the Town of Queensbury, I have filed several complaints with the Dog Warden, and with the Town of Queensbury about the barking, and my complaints have not even been entertained, and I’d like to know why. I’d like to know why my concerns with this problem, originally, when I came to this Board meeting, were ignored. We have other neighbors. We have filed a petition. We have filed it with Fred Champagne, of over twelve residents that live up on Tuthill Road. They applied for a sound proof kennel. We, as residents up there, and there’s numerous, would like to make sure that our investment that we are paying taxes on is protected. We would like our serenity back, please, and I guess my last statement is to let the Town of Queensbury know, and the Stewarts know, that I have obtained Counsel to further proceed with this problem, if we cannot get this problem rectified here and now. MR. PALING-Tell us a little bit about the barking noise, that is when does it occur and how long does it stay and so on? MR. INGLEE-The last couple of days, the Stewarts realized they were going to be under fire here at this meeting. The dogs have been relatively quiet. They say, well, they only let them out at six o’clock in the evening for a run. Well, that’s not true. The problem is, I do not want to be sitting on my 60 acres of land up there, entertaining family and friends on a summer picnic, and listen to the Stewarts’ dogs. At seven o’clock, at eight o’clock, ten o’clock, twelve o’clock. I don’t want to listen to them at all. In the minutes, I stipulated in this meeting, I don’t care if they raise elephants down there. I do not want to listen to them, and I should not have to listen to them at all. MR. PALING-Could you be a little more specific? Is it always in the morning? MR. INGLEE-It’s in the morning. It’s in the afternoon. It’s in the evening. It’s at dusk. It’s whenever they feel like letting the dogs out. So there’s not any specific time that I can put my finger on. It’s just that, whenever they let the dogs out. I have nothing against the Stewarts. They’ve got a nice little business down there, but the bottom line is, other people that live up there are suffering because of it. Now, I think in all fairness to Dennis Brower, who will no doubt be our next Queensbury Supervisor, that this problem is rectified prior to him coming into office. He is related to the Stewarts. So we need, I think, to address this problem, prior to his administration, in all fairness to him. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. Now I have a question. What good is the soundproofing, if the dogs make all the noise when they’re let out? MR. INGLEE-That’s my concern, and that’s why I attended this meeting back in 1995. How is anybody going to implicate a soundproof dog kennel when there’s outside runs? It’s virtually impossible. I don’t understand. MRS. LA BOMBARD-But when the dogs are inside, you don’t hear them? Is that true? MR. INGLEE-You can hear, there again, they applied for, in the minutes, they were going to house up to 12 dogs, and to their own statement, they are housing up to 30 dogs now, and I told the Board, back in 1995, that with this investment was going to bring more dogs, because more dogs mean more money. MR. BREWER-In all fairness, 13 of the dogs of theirs. They’re boarding 12, not 30. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Nineteen. 8 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. BREWER-Nineteen. MR. INGLEE-They are harboring up to 30 dogs at a time, and when you harbor 30 dogs, whether they’re theirs or they’re anybody else’s, we have a problem here, Tim. MR. BREWER-Understood, but, if we were to deny this, and they had 13 dogs or 19 dogs of their own, what can we do about it? MR. INGLEE-They asked to house dogs. Whether they were hiring them in or they were having them themselves, they asked to house up to 13 dogs, according to the minutes. They were granted permission to house up to 12 to 13 dogs, and by their own admission, they are housing up to 30 dogs now. Now you can just imagine what 30 dogs sound like. MRS. LA BOMBARD-See, I don’t remember. I've got to go over these minutes again more thoroughly, but you guys have read them. MR. VOLLARO-I have, yes. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Remember when we discussed, Tim, the breeding aspect of this, was this going to be a boarding kennel or a place to breed and raise dogs? And I think it was just for boarding kennels. MR. BREWER-Well, it says back here they’re only going to have two or three, to rent out. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes, I remember there was just a limited number. We had talked about that. MR. BREWER-Two or three, and they had thirteen dogs then. So that would have been 15, but whether it’s 15 or 30, it’s still there. MR. INGLEE-Tim, I have spoken to people that have been in this kennel that have seen dogs stacked on top of dogs, urinating and defecating on one another, with cats along, stacked on top of one another. They need to justify the expense, and with that expense comes more animals. MR. BREWER-All right. You know what I think I’d like to do? MRS. STEWART-I object. You are telling a big lie. MR. PALING-Excuse me. I’m sorry, you don’t have the floor now. MRS. STEWART-Okay. Well, can I have it later? MR. PALING-Yes. Do you want to continue with the public hearing first? MR. BREWER-Sure. That’s what I would like to do, and then I’d like to hear from the. MR. INGLEE-There’s other neighbors that would like to speak as well. MR. PALING-All right. Thank you. MR. INGLEE-Very good. MR. PALING-Who else would like to come up? CARA BEAMES MRS. BEAMES-My name is Cara Beames, and I live on Tuthill Road, right next to Jeff, and that was quite enlightening, to say the least. Chris has always had dogs as you know before from the last time. I was also here in ’95. She’s always raised collies, and always had a lot of dogs. I don’t think that’s the issue here anyway. The issue is a utility shed that they use for storage, and sometimes their own dogs. Back in ’95, they used their house for their own dogs. Now they use a storage shed, or they’d like to. I don’t see where the issue here is on going through the whole scenario with the sounding. If he wants to hire attorneys, obviously nobody’s listening to him because there’s no grip. I mean, if there was a problem, I’m sure that the Dog Warden would do something about it. We have to take their consideration and that they’re doing their job, and I think that’s not to be even heard here. As for sound or whatever, I don’t hear them, but then again, I have trees around my house. I live up in the woods, and I have trees, and there’s a boundary in there. So I don’t hear the dogs, as he does, and I’m not home all day to hear them. As to the fact of putting a shed to improve the situation, instead of having maybe tarps that are keeping things dry, and they’re trying to keep them enclosed, improving your land, your property by putting a utility shed to store your dog food and occasionally 9 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) your own dogs, are we going to limit dog houses now because that’s where we want to store our dogs, you know, if we have more than one or two? She’s always had a lot of them. This seems to be a waste of time for a lot of people, and I just hope that you can read through the lines of some people, well, I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry. MR. PALING-Thank you. Who’s next? KATHLEEN GOMES MRS. GOMES-Good evening. My name is Kathleen Gomes. I live at 91 Tuthill Road, which is the property formerly owned by Marilyn Smith who was in the minutes from the original meeting. I now own that property. We own 52 acres. We are further away from the kennel than Mr. Inglee’s property. We also have a heavily wooded lot, so there are plenty of trees there to be a noise barrier. Our acreage goes up over the mountain into Hadley, Luzerne, and I can attest to you that there is a noise problem. I can hear those dogs when I’m hiking the mountain and I’m on the other side in Hadley, Luzerne. It is disturbing. It does happen at all times of the day. I don’t even know the Stewarts. So it’s nothing personal between me and them. I haven’t lived in the neighborhood long enough to know them or to have anything personal against them, but there is an issue with noise. In the summer, it woke us up in the mornings. Our bedroom’s in the front of the house that faces toward the kennel. You hear it during the day. You hear it at night. Last weekend, I was halfway down my driveway on my way down there, because there was one dog that was howling and carrying on so much I was certain the dog was being injured or was hurt or was caught up or something, and I’m a dog lover. I have two dogs of my own, and I told my husband, I can’t take it. I’m going down there to see if this animal’s okay, and that stopped when I got to the bottom of my driveway. So I didn’t go down. I've heard the noise since 1997 when we bought the home, okay. I read through the minutes. It did speak to 12 to 13 dogs. I have dogs myself. I believe you have a right to have your dogs, but I also believe you have to be a responsible dog owner, and this isn’t speaking just to their own personal dogs. It’s also speaking to a business, which is housing, as they said, up to 31 dogs there at a time. I’m very concerned. I’m concerned with more space comes even more animals and more noise. I’m concerned that with more space and more animals comes more waste that needs to be disposed of. I do not believe the kennel is soundproof. If the kennel is, in fact, soundproof, then the dogs are not being housed in the kennel. I have seen the dogs outside in a fenced in area, for hours at a time. I have phoned the home when the dogs were barking and gotten no answer. I have gone down to the home when the dogs were barking and gotten no answer either at the kennel or at the residence. So I know the dogs are left there unattended at times, and they are left outside, not in the kennel. I've been down there. I've seen it. They can call me a liar if they want to. I have no reason to lie. I don’t even know them. When I first moved to the area, I visited numerous kennels, from Saratoga out to Greenwich, including this one, because as I said, I own two dogs. I didn’t own them when I moved in. Before I purchased the dogs, I looked for kennels, because I want to be able to travel and go about my business if I need to, and have a place to leave my dogs. I did visit this kennel. I did see more than 12 dogs being housed there. When I visited the kennel, some of the runs inside the building had two dogs in them. When you walk in the front door, there’s a counter, and an area where you would stand, like a reception area. To the back there were two or three of those little plastic animal carriers that did have cats in them. This was back in the summer or fall of ’97, so I don’t know if they still do that. Behind that counter, there is what looked like it used to be a grooming area. In that grooming area there were wire cages that were stacked on top of each other that had miniature collies in them. Every kennel in the building was full. Some of them with two dogs, and there were additional collies that were being housed in the outside runs. So the dogs that were inside could not even go outside into the fenced in area, without the dogs that were outside being moved elsewhere. There are a large number of dogs being housed there. Some of them are theirs, as they’ve said. Some of them are boarders, and obviously I don’t believe you should tell someone they have to get rid of their own dogs because I believe in their right to have dogs, since I have them myself. I would like to see the noise issue addressed. MR. PALING-Thank you. Who’s next? Come on up. DENNIS BROWER MR. BROWER-Dennis Brower, Queensbury. Believe it or not, I didn’t even know my sister and brother-in-law were on the program tonight. I came to listen to The Great Escape. So this was quite a surprise. Frankly, I own the eight and a half acres south of their, or adjoining their property. I lived there until about five years ago when I moved to Bedford Close. When I lived there, they had about 15 dogs, 15 to 18 dogs, and there used to be a fence that came right down to my back driveway, and the only time I ever noticed the dogs bark would be when cars would drive in the driveway, I would know someone was coming in the driveway, but typically, I never really heard the dogs. They never bothered me at all, and I’m not hard of hearing. However, I haven’t lived there in five years. I've leased the house for the past five years. So I really haven’t been there in the last five years, and I just thought I should mention my experience. I would think that a building that would be insulated and soundproofed would be an advantage, because if she had her dogs, if she were to 10 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) house her dogs in her cellar, which she could easily do, she would let them out and they would go back in the fenced in area, which is outside the kennel and, I would think, make more noise, but that’s my own opinion, and I just felt I should speak, because it never has bothered me. I know it’s always bothered Jeff. Jeff is a friend of mine, and he’s always complained about the dogs, as long as I've known him. So I think it is an annoyance to him, but that was before I think she even had a kennel. So, that’s when she just had her own dogs. So, it’s a tough situation, and I just thought I should speak my peace. Thank you. MR. PALING-Thank you. Is there anyone else? All right. If there’s no one else, then we’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. PALING-There’s been unexpected developments here. Tim, you were going to speak before? MR. BREWER-I wanted to listen to what the rest of the neighbors said, but I would also, I would like to table this, and I would like to go up there again, and see the conditions. I didn’t look in the kennels. Mr. Inglee’s made some pretty harsh statements, and I’d like to see if they’re true. MRS. STEWART-They’re not. MR. BREWER-I didn’t say they were, ma’am, I did not say that they were. MRS. STEWART-Okay. MR. BREWER-I would like to go up there, take a look, and maybe sit around for half an hour and listen, and I’m not going to tell you when I’m coming. MRS. STEWART-Well, can I just say something? We have certain hours at the kennel, and the dogs are inside until nine o’clock in the morning. They go out at nine and they come back in at noon, and we thought those were good hours for people because like that’s when they would be up, I would think. They go out again at five and they come back in at seven. I mean, the dogs have to go out and go to the bathroom, otherwise they make a terrible mess, which I clean up sometimes when they have accidents, and I would also like to say that my kennel is very clean. I clean it thoroughly twice a day. MR. BREWER-What is done with the waste? MR. STEWART-There’s a full blown septic system, which the County required us to put in, and it’s been pumped twice a year, since we’ve been there. MRS. STEWART-Also, the indoor/outdoor runs, they’re only used during those hours, so that the dogs can get outside a little bit and get some fresh air. They also go out to the outside exercise area to go to the bathroom, so that they don’t have to go in the cement. MR. STEWART-As far as the dogs being outside when there’s nobody there, I don’t believe. MRS. STEWART-They’re always in, whenever I leave. MR. STEWART-They’re in, but I will, I’m not going to call her a liar because people have come to the house. If she is inside the kennel, not in that front area where the office is, you can walk in there and say anything you want, but if she’s inside and the dogs are barking while she’s feeding them inside, she can’t hear you. MRS. STEWART-That goes for the phone, too. MR. STEWART-That goes for the phone, too. If you call the kennel, that’s why there’s an answering machine on the kennel. Because if you’re inside with the dogs in the confined area, you can’t hear the phone, but she is there, if the dogs are out. MRS. STEWART-Plus our runs inside are big enough for two dogs. We don’t put more than them in, unless they’re little. We sometimes have three little dogs in there. MR. BREWER-I don’t think two dogs in a kennel is such a bad thing because when I board our dogs when we go away, our dogs at home are always together, and when we put them at the kennel, we insist that they be put together. So I don’t think that’s an issue with me. MRS. STEWART-Yes, they like the company. 11 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. BREWER-Unless you’ve got 15 kennels with two dogs in them. Then that makes a difference to me, as far as the noise and what not. MRS. STEWART-Very rarely. Sometimes we have, like one side might have all, you know, doubles. MR. BREWER-But that’s what I would like to do, Bob, is table it, and I’d like to talk to the Animal Control Officer and I’d like to go up there again. MR. PALING-Okay. Bob? MR. VOLLARO-Well, I was up there Saturday for about a half an hour, maybe 20 minutes to a half hour, and it was about 11 o’clock, I guess, and the dogs were out at that time of day. MRS. STEWART-Yes. They’re out until 12. MR. VOLLARO-I know that there’s no noise ordinance up there, and it’s a very rural setting, and frankly, in my own opinion, I don’t have a problem with a dog kennel in that setting. There’s a lot of country up there, and I don’t have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is what this description of this project is. This project says to approve a site plan to operate a dog kennel, and the applicant was informed the construction of a barn was considered an expansion. I want to get back to the basic application, and the fact that this barn is up and built, and taking a look at the documentation that’s in the 1995 minutes, where it said that’s not what would happen. I see this as, in my mind, that’s the basic issue, not so much how many dogs they have or how they’re housed, or how much noise they make, because I think that’s setting up their warrants account. I mean, it can accept it. I just have a problem with conforming to the requirements of this Town. That’s my concern. When we say we have to come to site plan review, when we expand an area, that’s what I expect to be done. MR. BREWER-How big is the shed? MR. STEWART-Twelve by twenty-four. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Twelve by twenty-four. MR. VOLLARO-It’s 12 by 24. MR. BREWER-Yes, it’s over 100 square feet. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Well, what Bob is saying is absolutely correct. It is very annoying to have to approve something that’s already done, but again, you’re saying that the 12 by 24-foot barn is for storage. You’re not really using it to take on anymore dogs, and the exercise yard is for your own dogs. So I guess my question is, are you going to have anymore than 31 dogs up there? Does this make, in other words, now that you’re putting this in, and you’re saying it’s for your dogs or for storage, so you really haven’t added on anymore runs. You haven’t added on anymore big, general kennel for your boarders, then I would infer that you don’t have anymore room to have anymore dogs to board, that you already are maxed out. MRS. STEWART-Right. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Is that correct to assume that? MRS. STEWART-Yes, but to my knowledge, as far as the number of dogs that I own, I don’t think there’s a limit in Queensbury of how many dogs you’re allowed to have. MRS. LA BOMBARD-No, there isn’t, but again, I feel that we do have an obligation to hear and listen carefully to the people that say that their rights are being infringed upon. MRS. STEWART-Right. That’s why I have the certain hours that I let them out. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Now the dogs can hold it until nine in the morning? How come my neighbors dogs are out at six in the morning, waking me up all the time in the summer? MRS. STEWART-Sometimes they don’t. My dogs do, but I don’t let them out. If they have an accident, then I just have to clean it up. I would let them out earlier, but I don’t want to wake up my neighbors. MRS. LA BOMBARD-That’s very considerate of you, but to hear him. MRS. STEWART-Well, he thinks that I let them out any old hour, but I don’t. 12 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MRS. LA BOMBARD-Well, when I hear him talk, it sounds to me like they’re out at the crack of dawn. MRS. STEWART-They aren’t. MR. PALING-Okay. Then I think I agree with Tim on this, and I know there’s no noise ordinance in the Town of Queensbury, but we do have to consider if there is a bothersome situation in regard to noise, and we don’t have a dog density requirement either. Somewhere there’s got to be a limit on the number of dogs because of the bother and noise that they cause, and I’d like to know what happened, as I say, get the Animal Control Officer involved in this thing, before I’d want to do anything final, and get her comments on it, too. I think though, in so far as the timing of the construction, I don’t know what we can do about that, Bob. MR. VOLLARO-I understand that. I’m just voicing an opinion, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend taking it down, but I have a strong opinion when people, because this isn’t the first time that this has happened before this Board, where people come in and say, well, it’s already built, and here it is, and we’d like you to approve our site plan. It just crosses me big time that they don’t understand what the rules are when they do something like that. I believe they do understand. That’s the problem I have with it. MR. STEWART-If I had understood it, I would have been here. MR. VOLLARO-Sir, when you sat here at the last meeting, and this was said, I mean, it’s black and white. You must have remembered this, it seems to me. MRS. STEWART-Well, I remember if I have to build something onto that building, yes, or if I build something in addition to that building. We bought an Amish barn. I didn’t know I had to get a permit for a barn. MRS. LA BOMBARD-So you’re just saying because this doesn’t have a foundation, it’s a movable structure? MR. STEWART-Well, I didn’t realize when you bought something like that, that you had to get a permit anyway. MR. VOLLARO-I think what he’s saying is, he didn’t pound the nails on the site. He bought it and brought it there and sat it there, and therefore, he doesn’t come under these rules. If he didn’t build it from scratch. MR. STEWART-You can read into it the way you want. I’m telling you. MR. VOLLARO-Well, that’s what you’re telling me. MR. STEWART-No, I’m not telling you that. MR. BREWER-I could understand if somebody went down to Garden Time, bought a building and brought it to their home, I could almost understand that. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes, I could, too. MR. BREWER-I mean, not everybody in this Town is aware of all the Ordinances and the rules and. MR. STEWART-I mean, we did everything else that we had to do. MR. VOLLARO-Tim, I said that. I understand, if he wasn’t at that meeting, I could certainly say, he didn’t understand. The gentlemen was present at the meeting where this was said. Now I just can’t, you know, take a look at the interchange between Mr. MacEwan and Mr. Martin and say, well, what the devil, he just didn’t hear it. I don’t buy that in a heartbeat. Sorry. MR. PALING-Okay. What I’m going to do is re-open the public hearing, and leave it open. PUBLIC HEARING RE-OPENED MR. PALING-Now is there anything else we have to do on this now before we entertain a motion? MRS. LA BOMBARD-Wait a minute. Now, what is our, lets get it written down, what is our purpose for leaving this open? To have the Animal Control Officer, she’s going to go over and. 13 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. PALING-I think that we should have the Animal Control Officer go over and review the entire situation. MRS. MOORE-Mr. Paling, could I interrupt you? The Animal Control Officer is not available at this time. She’s out on maternity leave, and I suppose we could ask the SPCA to assist us with this, but I do not know how much assistance they could provide. MR. PALING-There are two things. One, I think, yes, we should ask for assistance so we could get some immediate help for this, but can we get into the Animal Control Officer’s records, also, and determine? Because it’s been testified that there were written complaints in this regard. I’d like to see those and what, if any, comments or actions were taken. MRS. MOORE-I can look into that. I don’t know how much information I can provide you. MR. BREWER-When do we anticipate? She’s going to be out for awhile, I take it. MS. GAGLIARDI-Until the end of November. MR. PALING-So we’ll have to make that part of the motion, then, but I think we ought to get their comments in regard to the number of dogs, the noise of dogs, and what’s happened in the past up there. MRS. MOORE-Okay. MR. BREWER-Well, I’d certainly like to table it, at least until next week. I mean, I’d like to go up there. I don’t know if it’s necessary, the SPCA. If you want, I suppose. MR. PALING-I’d like to hear some comments in regard to the number of dogs that we’re talking about, and potentially what kind of bother they are, in regard to noise at least, and I know that we’ve got mixed testimony here, as to when those dogs are out, and maybe they can shed some light on that, and if not, I don’t know what to do in that regard, because the applicant is saying that they will keep them housed, except for two relatively short periods during the day, one in the day, one in the evening. That seems reasonable, but if it doesn’t work that way, we should know it. MR. VOLLARO-Well, Bob, let me say that when were up there Saturday morning, the dogs were out, and they were barking. They started barking on our arrival. MR. PALING-What time was that? MR. VOLLARO-About 11 o’clock, plus or minus. MR. BREWER-They’re going to bark when you pull in. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, they will bark, but I didn’t see it as excessive barking, frankly, or as excessive noise, because I’m trying to take that in context of that neighborhood. It’s a lot of woods. It’s very open. It’s very rural. I mean, if that was a neighborhood of a half an acre or an acre, and there was that kind of a racket, then I would say that’s definitely a problem, but up where they are, I don’t see it as a problem. I don’t see the dogs as a problem at all up there, frankly. MR. PALING-I've been up there twice. I've never heard a dog bark. There were no people present and no dogs obvious. MR. BREWER-So why don’t we table this until next week. We’ll see what information we can get from the Animal Control office. I’d like to re-visit the site. I mean, if necessary, we can call the SPCA. Cathy Cloutier lives around the corner from me. I could ask her to go up there. MR. PALING-Lets ask Laura, as part of the motion, to do that, and try to get the SPCA involved and also the records. MR. BREWER-I’m uncomfortable in getting the SPCA involved. What are we going to ask them to do? MR. SCHACHNER-Tim, didn’t you just say something about getting Cathy Cloutier? MR. BREWER-I said we could. She lives around the corner from me. I know her. MR. SCHACHNER-She is the SPCA person. MR. BREWER-Yes, right. I understand that. I’m saying, if Bob wanted us to, I could contact her. 14 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. I thought you were suggesting that. Okay. MR. BREWER-No. I don’t know what that function would be, if we had them go up there. MR. PALING-Okay. What are you tabling it for, then? MR. BREWER-Because I would like to re-visit the site, see the written complaints, if there are any. I mean, I don’t think the 30 dogs is a, one of the neighbors said it’s not a problem. I've been up there. I've not heard dogs barking excessively. I’d like to go up there at different times during this week and see. MRS. LA BOMBARD-What are the choices going to be? Give me an example of, lets say we hear excessive barking. So then what route would we follow then? We're just being asked to approve a modification of a site plan, not to approve how many dogs are allowed. MR. BREWER-I didn’t say anything about how many dogs, but if this is here. MRS. LA BOMBARD-But where are we going with this? That’s what you’ve got to define for me. MR. BREWER-Whether we’re going to approve this modification or not, but if this application is opened, we have a right to change something, if it is wrong. I’m not saying it is wrong or it isn’t wrong, but if there’s problems up there, and they’re here for a modification, certainly I think we have the opportunity to correct them, don’t we, Mark? MR. SCHACHNER-It depends on what sort of problems you’re talking about and what sort of correction you’re talking about. I mean, the application, as I understand it, is for a modification. You can approve the modification. You can deny the modification, or you can approve the modification with conditions. As long as the conditions relate to the modification, if this is what you’re getting at, you do have the authority to look into some of these issues I think. MRS. LA BOMBARD-But I don’t think the number of dogs relates to the modification, because the modification is nothing to do with increasing the amount of dogs that they already have, and can we say, now that you have 31, you can’t have that many anymore. You can only have 20? See, this is what I’m, I don’t know where we’re going with this. I really don’t. MR. BREWER-Well, the reason I say that, Cathy, is because back in ’95, they said they had a certain number. Now the number has doubled, and that bothers me. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Where are you finding that? What was that number? MR. BREWER-Page Four. MR. VOLLARO-Page Four. It says, “I have 13 dogs, if that”, at the bottom. MR. BREWER-“Basically, I’m looking to get housing for them in the winter and make it soundproof, so that they don’t bother the neighbors”. MRS. LA BOMBARD-But there wasn’t any place that we said 13 dogs was your limit, was there? MR. STEWART-No. MRS. LA BOMBARD-See, that’s what I keep trying to find, and I can’t find it. I’ll be honest with you, I had a concern when somebody alluded to the fact that maybe the dogs weren’t being treated well up there, and maybe that’s where you get the SPCA in, but, I mean, Chris has said that’s not the truth at all. MR. STEWART-I know the dog she was referring to when she said the dog sounded like. MRS. STEWART-It’s a Siberian Husky, and it sounds like it’s getting killed. Like even when you walk by it makes this awful noise. MRS. LA BOMBARD-But then when the other gentleman said that dogs were stacked on top of each other and there was all kinds of waste all around. MRS. STEWART-No. Only if someone had an accident and I hadn’t cleaned it up yet. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Right, but the thing is. 15 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MRS. STEWART-In the front room, we have, the cats are in the front room. There’s four cat condos. The next room is the grooming room, and we have the bath tub and the grooming table, and there’s, well, we have like two pens where we could put little dogs, and then we have a few crates to put dogs in when they’re getting groomed. They have to get dry. So they may have been dogs that were getting groomed, what she was talking about. MR. PALING-Well, I do think we have to resolve the conflicting testimony. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Well, I think you’re right about that. MR. PALING-And I would still like to see some kind of a comment from the SPCA, in regard to the records that have been kept. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay. MR. BREWER-That’s fine with me. MR. PALING-Does somebody want to make a motion? MR. BREWER-What are we going to do with the SPCA, Bob? We're going to call them and ask them what? MR. PALING-Just ask them for comment. Tell them, get the records, the written complaint records. MR. BREWER-That would be here in the Town Office, though, not the SPCA. MRS. LA BOMBARD-We would have it, not the SPCA. MR. PALING-Well, then talk to the SPCA about them. That’s all. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Chris, is your kennel inspected regularly, like, because it’s a business that houses living things, like other businesses are? MRS. STEWART-No. MRS. LA BOMBARD-So there’s no control over your business? MRS. STEWART-No. Anybody can come and look at it if they want. We have hours, between 10 and 12 and 6 and 7. MRS. MOORE-Bob, what would you like me to ask the SPCA? What’s the question? MR. PALING-To comment on the written complaints, present their insights, unless you want to take it upon yourself to do that. MRS. MOORE-I’m not quite sure how the SPCA can comment on complaints that are given to the Control Officer. MR. PALING-Well, if we’ve got complaints sitting there that have never been acted upon, then I think we’ve got a problem that’s got to be addressed, and if we can’t refer it to the Animal Control Officer, who are we going to refer it to? MR. SCHACHNER-I think, Bob, we have to be careful not to confuse enforcement with site plan review. I mean, we have a very capable Animal Control Officer, who happens to be out on maternity leave at this moment, but I believe, correct me if I’m wrong, Laura, but currently by contractual arrangement, the SPCA is covering that function for the Town. If you’re asking the SPCA, because it’s covering the Animal Control Officer function, to do some sort of inspection or report on the premises, that would seem, you know, that’s appropriate, if that’s what you’re asking. That would seem to fall within their responsibility, but I tend to agree with Laura. I don’t think the SPCA, acting as our current Animal Control Officer, has any basis for commenting on things that happened before the SPCA was around, that exist in writing. Does that make sense? MR. VOLLARO-It makes sense to me. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-I also don’t think we should leap to any conclusion or assumption that we have a stack of complaints that have not been acted on. The Animal Control Officer is a very dutiful, very 16 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) responsible individual. We work with her very closely, and she generally does act on every single thing that’s brought to her attention, in some fashion or another. She may not have acted on something to the satisfaction of everybody. She’s got a pretty tough position in that regard. MR. PALING-All right. Then what you’re saying is that we can go with an examination of the records and any comments Staff would have and summarizing it? MR. SCHACHNER-It’s up to you. All I’m saying is, I think, I’m agreeing with Laura’s comment that it doesn’t seem reasonable to ask the SPCA to comment on a set of records that pre-date the SPCA’s current involvement as acting Animal Control Officer. MR. BREWER-Exactly, and have her give us a summary of the complaints, the responses, the action taken, if any, and then that would give us time to re-visit the site. MR. PALING-All right. MR. BREWER-That would be my motivation. MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 35-95 DAVE & CHRIS STEWART, Introduced by Timothy Brewer who moved for its adoption, seconded by Catherine LaBombard: We want to gather new information. We're asking Staff to summarize the complaints made about the applicant, and summarize the results of what the Animal Control Officer has done. We're tabling until the next meeting, which would be next Tuesday (Oct. 26, 1999). Duly adopted this 19 day of October, 1999, by the following vote: th MR. PALING-The public hearing has been re-opened and left open, and we’ll try to put this on the agenda for a week from tonight. MS. GAGLIARDI-Mr. Vollaro? MR. VOLLARO-No, and I’m voting no because I think that what we’ve been asked to do in this site plan is to approve or disapprove the action of establishing a new building on that site. We could take this up as a separate issue, but I feel that what we’re really talking about is whether or not we should approve a site that’s already constructed, and that’s the basis for my no vote. MRS. LA BOMBARD-I just feel that I can see where Dave is coming from, as far as the fact that there wasn’t any foundation under the building, that it was a movable structure, and that he inadvertently thought it was okay. AYES: Mr. Brewer, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Paling NOES: Mr. Vollaro ABSENT: Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Abbott, Mr. Ringer MR. PALING-Okay. Now we don’t have a quorum and we don’t have a, this didn’t pass. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s correct. MR. BREWER-So it’s no action, correct? MR. SCHACHNER-Correct. MR. PALING-So we’re back to Square One. MR. SCHACHNER-Keep in mind, you have no obligation to make this decision tonight, and you’re correct that three affirmative votes does not constitute an action, but you have no obligation to make a decision on this tonight anyway, and if a majority of those present want to ask Staff to develop that information, you could do that. MR. PALING-Okay. If a majority wanted it to be put in the next meeting, you’re saying, we could do it? MR. BREWER-We don’t have to make a decision on this application tonight. MR. PALING-Yes. We can schedule it for next meeting. 17 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. BREWER-Absolutely. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, you can’t do anything by motion unless all four of you agree. That’s the constraint we have tonight because only four of you are present. MRS. LA BOMBARD-Right. MR. SCHACHNER-But you’re not under any legal obligation to make any decision on the action at all. So if you want to just leave the public hearing open, which you can certainly do, and continue it to the next meeting, which happens to be next week, that’s fine. If a majority of you want to ask Staff for further information, I think you can do that, without a formal motion, and you can just leave it at that, if you like. If somebody wants to make a different motion, obviously, you can do that. MR. VOLLARO-I might want to make a different motion to approve the site plan. MR. SCHACHNER-You can certainly do that. MR. VOLLARO-And then let the dog issue itself, whether we have noise or not noise or whatever, be a separate issue, but I would make a motion to approve this site plan. My point is basically, and I wanted to just get it across to this Board and to everybody else, that I just don’t believe in people coming before the Board for a site plan approval when you already have the building in place. That was my position. However, I would make a motion to approve the modificaton to Site Plan No. 35- 95 for David and Chris Stewart, in accordance with the resolution as prepared by Staff, and in addition to that, if the noise issue wants to be examined by this Board, that it be examined as a separate issue. MR. PALING-Do we have a second? MRS. LA BOMBARD-Can I make a, where you said the noise issue to be examined by this Board, I wish we could just say, we would like the noise issue to be re-examined by our Animal Control Officer when she is back to work. MR. VOLLARO-That would be fine with me. MRS. LA BOMBARD-I mean, that’s going to be awhile, but I mean, at least it’s going to happen. MR. PALING-And I’m not comfortable with that at all. MR. BREWER-No, I’m not either. MR. PALING-You can approve something now and then have to withdraw your approval later on. MR. VOLLARO-I put the motion up and the motion didn’t get a second. So therefore it didn’t pass either. MR. BREWER-Lets just leave it as it is. We’ll come back next week. MR. PALING-I’ll make a motion that no action be taken on this matter tonight. MR. BREWER-We don’t even need a motion, Bob. MR. VOLLARO-You can’t make a motion, I don’t believe. MR. PALING-Mark said we did. MR. BREWER-No, we don’t have to make a motion. MR. SCHACHNER-No. I specifically said you don’t need to make any motion because you’re not obligated to take any action. MR. BREWER-So just leave it alone, we’ll come back next week. MR. PALING-Then can we just say we’ll put it on the agenda for next week, and we also request Staff to review the written complaint that we have, and get that information to the Planning Board. MR. BREWER-She knows that. MR. PALING-Okay. No action. 18 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. BREWER-So you’ll be back next week, and we’ll have our information, and we’ll be in touch with you before that. MRS. STEWART-Thank you. MR. BREWER-Thank you. SUBDIVISION NO. 12-73 EVERGREEN ESTATES, SECT. III MODIFICATION TYPE: UNLISTED OWNER: HELEN SLEIGHT ESTATE/V. SLEIGHT, EXECUTRIX ZONE: SFR-1A LOCATION: HEINRICK CIRCLE APPLICANT PROPOSES MODIFICATION TO PREVIOUSLY APPROVED SUBDIVISION. APPLICANT REQUESTS APPROVAL TO BUILD SINGLE FAMILY DWELLING ON LOT PREVIOUSLY DESIGNATED FOR PARK USE. CROSS REFERENCE: SUB. 7-66, 5-67, 5-77 TAX MAP NO. 90-4-999 LOT SIZE: 1.39 ACRES SECTION: SUBDIVISION REGULATIONS MICHAEL O’CONNOR, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MRS. LA BOMBARD-And there is a public hearing tonight. STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Subdivision No. 12-73, Evergreen Estates, Sect. III, Meeting Date: October 19, 1999 “Description of Project: The applicant proposes to modify Section III of the Evergreen Estates subdivision. Section III included a 1.32 acre area identified as park. The proposal is to modify the parcel identified as “Park” to allow construction of a single family dwelling. Planning Board review and approval is required for subdivision modification. Staff Notes: Parcel 90-4-999 designated as a park was proposed to be dedicated to the Town or developed as a park by a Homeowner’s Association (HOA). Apparently, the Town chose not to acquire the land and no HOA was formed. Upon review of the assessment records for this parcel, the property has historically been assessed as a park (reduced assessment). The information supplied with the application does not indicate that the property owners were notified of the designated park area. Staff is concerned that the property owners in Section III of the Evergreen Estates Subdivision may not be aware of the designated park area. The site does appear to provide enough space to accommodate a house, septic and access locations. The proposed use does not appear to cause a visual interference to surrounding neighbors. Staff would suggest a no-cut zone to provide screening. Recommendation: Staff would suggest the applicant or property owner confirm the Town Recreation Department has no interest in the land prior to issuance of any approval.” MR. PALING-Okay. There is a public hearing tonight. Okay. Would you introduce yourselves and tell us about the project, please. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. Thank you. I’m Michael O’Connor from the law firm of Little & O’Connor, and I’m here representing the applicant this evening. The applicant is sitting with me. The applicant is a proposed purchaser of this property, and in the audience is the owner of the property, who is also the proposed seller of the property. Basically, we’re talking about trying to build a single family, 1900 to 2,000 square foot house, on a 1.39 acre parcel, in a portion of Section III of Evergreen Subdivision. The area is shown on the map, and it’s on the end of the map closest to me, as I sit here, about halfway down in the Subdivision, on a portion of Helen Drive, and it’s labeled “Park”. This is a subdivision that began the process of approval apparently in 1969, this section, and it never did receive approval until 1973. There’s been an exhaustive search of the records of the Planning Board and the Town Board, to see exactly what the conditions were of approval, and it appears as though the subdivision, at a meeting of December 5, 1973, received preliminary approval. There does not appear to be any record of approval of the final approval. There is a letter later on that says the approval of the final approval was given December 19, 1973, but there does not appear to be any actual formal resolution of final approval of record, or at least one that we could find. The owner of the property now, the Sleight family, initially thought that the Town would take over ownership of this parcel, and dedicate it to a park for the neighborhood, or that a homeowners association would take over ownership of the parcel. That is not something that has happened, although there have been a number of inquiries by Henry Sleight, when he was alive, to see if the Town would do that from various Town Supervisors and Town Board members. We have a couple of letters, one which was written in 1984 to then Frances Walter, who was then the Town Supervisor, asking that the Town take this over, and in that letter, reciting that he had then talked to Murray Cuts, who was one of the residents of Helen Drive at that time, and he says, of the homeowners association, and he was advised then that then the homeowners association did not wish to take over ownership of this particular parcel. Apparently, this then became in an issue in 1987, again, with some correspondence by Mr. Sleight, and I guess I did have a letter December 6, again from Frances Walter, saying that his earlier letter would be taken up before the Town Board 19 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) the next time they meet. There’s a note on there that they called, and they did not wish to take it, and then there’s another note that they followed it up, it looks like in May of ’86, and again in August of ’86, and the Town did not wish to take over the property. So basically you have a piece of property that was going to be formally dedicated as a park. It has not been dedicated as a park to a homeowners association, or to the Town. Staff’s notes as to whether or not the Recreation Department would want it now or not, we have not explored. We did not see those notes until tonight, and I say that on behalf of Miss Sleight. In trying to see or show what we would do with the property, we have placed a prospective house on there, and it would be 80 feet back from the road. It would meet all the setbacks without any problem at all. This parcel, in fact, if you take a look at it on the map closely, as I said, has 60,500 square feet. The parcel to the immediate north of it has 20,300 square feet, and above that, you’ve got 16,500 square feet, and then if you go to the west of the parcel, you’re again talking about 20,000 square foot parcels. Probably the closest to the parcel in size is to the south, which is 23,000 square feet, as opposed to what’s 60,000 square feet in this particular parcel. In talking to the neighbors, or trying to find out, directly or indirectly, what some thoughts would be on that, we are told that the neighbors do use this, apparently, as a path to go to lands of Niagara Mohawk, which lie out behind there, and also some neighbors dispose of their leaves and brush on the property. I wouldn’t think that that’s a park use that’s within any realm of being preserved or not preserved. You will hear some discussion perhaps tonight as to whether or not because it’s labeled “Park” on a subdivision map it is then something that cannot be changed, simply by municipal designation or a municipal blessing. I think that’s in the realm of restrictive covenant type discussion, that that’s up for the landowner to decide, on a civil basis, outside of the Planning Board, and I don’t expect your blessing will give me any particular relief that way or not, but I would also like to have you not make that an issue, or a consideration of your giving of particular relief. That is as civil matter between the present owners and maybe those who think that they may have some land rights within that particular parcel. It’s my position that any of those are rights that would be abandoned, particularly where there has been an offer and a refusal to accept, but aside from that, we would like to see if we could do something that would be accommodating to everybody. I don’t think there’s a great number of people that use this, and Mr. O’Brien has indicated that he would be willing to accept as a condition the requirement that he set up an easement area so that those who have been using it in the past to pass through would still be able to do so, and I’ve suggested maybe a 15 foot wide easement. I’m not sure what the feelings of Niagara Mohawk is, as to people using their property in the back, but if they’ve been using it as a matter of course, maybe they don’t have a feeling about it, but we have no objection to having a formalized easement which would still allow people to traverse the property for access to that back land. That’s the only thing you can do. The piece of property is kind of pot shaped, if you will. It’s like a handle. We have no particular plans at all for the particular piece that goes down to Heinrick Circle. That could also be considered a separate easement area or whatever. So that’s basically what we’re trying to do. I think as part of the application Mr. O’Brien has submitted to you various copies of the letters that were written to the Town or to Virginia Sleight or to the Sleight family from the Town. If you have any questions, we’d be glad to try to answer them. MR. PALING-Did you say that the Rec Commission had not acted on this? Or do I remember that they did turn down the opportunity to have this parcel? MR. O'CONNOR-The Town Board, in ’84, ’86 and in ’73, did refuse to take it. Whether the current Town Recreation Commission would take it or not, I have no idea. We have not approached them. MR. PALING-Does anybody have any comments before we open the public hearing? MR. BREWER-I do. There’s nothing you can find, Mike, in any of the approvals from the Town that says that is a park or any deed records or anything? MR. O'CONNOR-No. MR. BREWER-How did that come about, I guess? Because if the taxes are being paid as a park, somehow that must have came. MR. O'CONNOR-There’s a designation on the map that says park. MR. BREWER-And that’s the only designation? MR. O'CONNOR-Yes, as far as I’m aware of. There is no actual final resolution saying approval, or final approval. In 1973, the resolution was a public hearing was opened on Evergreen Section III, as presented by Paul Pontiff, Attorney, and John B. Van Dusen. A motion made by Kirkpatrick, seconded by Roberts to recommend preliminary approval. Final approval withheld for further review of road design. It was noted that only 15 lots would be developed in 1974, pending completion of the water filtration plant. That whole section there is Section III, and apparently one stipulation for the approval was that they would say that that year until the water plant came on line, they’d only build out 15 lots. There is no resolution thereafter. 20 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. BREWER-I guess how does it get that designation? Does the Assessor just say that it’s a park? MR. VOLLARO-No. There’s a letter here that I think clarifies that, Mike. If you’d like me to, that clarifies his question, as to how it got the designation. It’s a letter dated February 14, you probably th have that, 1987. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-And it says, to go on, it says, “Following the death of my father, the property was appraised, and the pertinent portion of the report by Harold Veedy reads as follows: ‘Tax Map No. 90-4-999 property located in the Evergreen III Subdivision, Town of Queensbury, Warren County, New York, lot is 1.39 acres with 85 feet on Helen Drive and 30 feet on Heinrick Circle. Restrictions on lot by the Town of Queensbury states that this land has to be reserved for park purposes and cannot be sold for anything else. This greatly limits the value of this parcel. No comparable sale. Assessment on this parcel is $300. I estimate the appraised value of this property to be $100, due to the limited use.” And so I think that’s how it got its designation. I believe that’s how it came about, or not. MR. BREWER-Does that letter have any standing? MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. I would probably differ a little bit with that. That letter, if you’ll notice, was in 1987, okay, and that was to get the assessment lowered from $19,200, or whatever it was, 500, when the Town was reassessed at that particular time. The designation of the word “Park” went on in 1973 or some time prior to 1973. MR. VOLLARO-And this was by resolution of the Town Board? Is that how it got there? MR. O'CONNOR-No. The only place it shows up is on the map, the plat itself, and that was to make a case for the purposes of assessment. At that time, they were still trying to get the Town to accept it as a formal park, or as just a piece of land that they would own, or a homeowners association, and although nobody had stepped up when the Town was reassessed, they were assessed for a building lot. MR. VOLLARO-Can you expand a little bit on the comment you made where it says, offer and refusal to accept? In other words, by that you meant that the Town was offered the property and refused to accept it? MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Now what legal standing does that have? What’s the result of that? MR. O'CONNOR-Subject to probably further research on that issue. You can’t just let a piece of property stay in limbo forever. MR. VOLLARO-In limbo forever, right, that’s my point. MR. O'CONNOR-And I know that I’ve got documentation here that at least three times there was an offer. Now there was a deed from the Sleights to the Town, I think in 1973, and that was of the two spurs. This subdivision was approved, like a lot of other subdivisions, that required that there be connecting roadways to adjoining properties, even though that was the City of Glens Falls and still is the City of Glens Falls. Those two spurs, this one here, and this one here were actually deeded to the Town, Parcel One and Parcel Two of a deed that we have, but they did not have that on that deed at that time. These people that adjoin this have built side loading garages, and actually some of them, I think this one here particularly, has paved part of that, and it looks like a double driveway, but in fact it’s Town road. I’m not sure about this one up here. This is the land of Niagara Mohawk, that people like to have access to, and beyond that, of course, is the watershed here, on this side, and up in here. So the people have used this for access to come out to the Niagara Mohawk and go to the watershed, and whether that’s legitimate or not, I don’t know, but it’s not something we’re going to try and prohibit. MR. PALING-Why don’t we open the public hearing. Is there anyone here that would like to talk about this matter, would you please come up? KEVIN O’BRIEN MR. O’BRIEN-Could I just, a couple of things, in my research, in looking at all the adjoining properties to this park, going back in all the deed information, in looking at the particular deeds, 21 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) there is no mention of this plot of this park. Any restrictions to the original covenants to Section III, there is no mention at all on that. MR. PALING-Okay. MR. O'CONNOR-There’s also, in the restrictive covenants are extensive. There is no mention at all there is to be a common park, and I, personally, was involved with a lot of the first sales, and a good portion of that area, Marty Mosher, I’m trying to think of a couple of the other builders that were then popular builders at that time, and it wasn’t part of their sales pitch that I was aware of, because we never got into any documentation as to who would own it and how it would survive, and typically you’d have a homeowners association to own the lands in common. MR. VOLLARO-The only section that I have is in that 1987 letter that says, and I don’t know if this letter has any standing. Tim asked a few minutes ago, what standing does this letter have, and I don’t know, but Virginia Sleight, which was an attorney at law at the time, said restrictions on the lot by the Town of Queensbury state that this land has been reserved for park purposes and cannot be sold for anything else, and yet there’s no other place that documents those words apparently. MR. O'CONNOR-No, and Virginia’s in the back of the room, and she can correct me if I’m wrong, but what she was saying is that the designation of park on the subdivision plat was the restriction that they were then abiding by and were not trying to develop the property. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I understand. It would be nice for Virginia to be able to state why she stated these restrictions on the lot by the Town of Queensbury. MR. O'CONNOR-She wanted the assessment lowered. MR. VOLLARO-I understand that. MR. PALING-Okay. The public hearing is open to talk about this matter. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED KEVIN GALLANT MR. GALLANT-Good evening. My name is Kevin Gallant. I’m the property owner at 8 Helen Drive. First I want to let you know, I only received notice of this matter coming on due to property owners within a certain distance from the lot. So I haven’t had sufficient time to fully research this. It’s my understanding there are some property owners that are more familiar with the situation. This was a filed subdivision map, for all to take notice, and on that map, there is a marking park, and it was filed on December 28, 1973. So since that time, I would presume that anybody that purchased lots in that subdivision took with that understanding as a park. There’s been the letter of February 14, 1987, I believe it was said that Miss Sleight wrote that letter. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, Virginia Sleight, that’s correct. MR. GALLANT-I believe that may bind the estate. As a representative of the estate, she has taken the position that that is to remain as park land. That puts it in the position of a doctrine of inconsistent positions, which is not permitted under law. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that issue was coming up, so I do not have a cite to provide support for that issue, but that is a legal requirement that you cannot take two separate sides to benefit for yourself. Also, with respect to a subdivision, a subdivider who has made an offer of dedication of land for park purposes and has sold lots in the subdivision to which the dedication is related, cannot withdraw the offer, notwithstanding that the municipality has not accepted the offer. That is a case that came out of the Second Department in 1987. It’s for (lost word) Homes versus the Incorporated Village of Mutton Town, cited at 128 AD Second 585. Appeal was granted to the Court of Appeals, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision on the opinion below. Therefore, the fact the Town Board has not accepted this property does not mean that it’s open to do what they want. It must remain with that restriction. Now I understand that Miss Sleight hopes to close out the estate. I can feel for her. However, we have to realize, this is a subdivision in this community that a park was set up. Beyond our subdivision, there are other subdivisions in this community. I don’t know whether there are any similar situations, but I believe that this would set an improper precedent in this Town to allow this change. If the change were to be allowed, I believe that the change could only be allowed upon the written consent of all the homeowners in the subdivision, since they take pursuant to that map. Thank you. MR. PALING-Thank you. Is there anyone else? DEL MULDER 22 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. MULDER-My name is Del Mulder. On May 22, 1980, before probably the first lot to be sold in Phase III, I purchased. My lot is number 54. I live at 34 Helen Drive. When I went to purchase this property, I went directly to the Sleights and their office. At that time, they presented the subdivision map. There was nothing else. The road wasn’t there. No houses. Nothing was there. I picked the lot off the map. The sales pitch was not only that it was a nice subdivision, that it was going to, the phase that had been completed was done and done nicely. In addition, there was an area designated as a park area to be used and enjoyed by all of the lot owners. So, I can tell you from my own standpoint, this was a sales pitch. It was an inducement for me to buy in this particular subdivision. I picked this particular lot. I had the choice of any. I picked it because it was near the park area. I didn’t want to be next to it, but I wanted to be close to it, and I’ll show you which one is mine so you can get an idea. This is the park area, and I’m the third lot up, or actually the fourth lot up. There are three lots in between, where I have nice easy access to the park. Mike O’Connor indicated that to the best of his knowledge this is not being used as a park area. I have four kids. My kids have all used it there. The youngest is now 13, but those living at home at the time used this park, this area as a park area. My son has built forts in this park area, three of my four kids refer to the sledding hill, and I’ll get to that point in a few minutes. There’s actually a ravine on this property, and the children sled on this. I walk this property literally every day, if I’m not on vacation, because I have two dogs, and I’m always on it. In the morning and again in the afternoon. I think that if the subdivision was promoted, the lots promoted on a sales basis, as being a subdivision with a park for the use and benefit of the lot owners, that it would not be proper and would be wrong to make that change at this time. I’d like to give you some other general information about this lot, some of which has already been indicated to you. This lot is assessed at $200 at this time. The total taxes for this lot are less than $5 a year. That’s Town, County and School. It is certainly not a burden to the landowner. In view of the fact that this lot is assessed and has come up, and the point has been made, but the Town obviously has accepted or has treated or viewed this lot as a park and has made a concessions for the lot owner accordingly, and again, I see no reason why this Board or this Town should change that designation at this time. I’d like to point out also that this is not a pre-existing building lot, or a pre-existing subdivision lot. This is a pre-existing piece of property that has been designated as a park. The zoning of this particular parcel, if applied by today’s standard, would have a front line of, I’m not sure. I’m sure it has to be at least 100 feet, maybe 150 feet. This lot has 85 feet, and therefore would be a substandard lot to begin with, not meeting the current zoning for that particular area. What has not been brought up is the following. The developer designed and constructed in this particular area a surface water drainage system, and I’m talking about Helen Drive. I’m not sure about Heinrick Circle. There is a specific drainage system set in this particular area, and that drainage system consists of catch basins. Now, I have two in front of my house, one on my side of the street and one on the opposite side of the street. If you look at the topographical map, you’re going to see that the park area is actually the lowest lot in the subdivision, and so what the developer did was, he’s connected the catch basins by a, I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I’m going to just say a rubber pipe to maybe a foot in diameter. It leads from each catch basin to the next. It ends up at a catch basin directly across the street from this particular park lot. From there, it drains underneath the road, into a natural ravine that is located on this lot. Let me describe the ravine. Right on Helen Drive, and you can see it, because it’s shown on that subdivision map. If you look at it right on Helen Drive, it’s probably about maybe three feet across. As you proceed toward the back of this lot, it expands to 50 to 75 feet wide. This is what I refer to as the sledding hill. It is approximately 10 to 15 feet deep as you move back, and I think that if you designate any other use of this particular lot, what I was going to say is if you stand on this ravine and look toward Helen Drive, what you will see is a culvert, and there may be more. There was weeds when I went there today. This is where all of the surface water drains. As it comes down the hill at Helen Drive, and it collects, it flows under the road. Some of it doesn’t catch it. It flows over the road and into this ravine, and I suggest to you that if you permit this to become a building lot, what you are probably going to end up with, because of the low area of my house is some of the others there, is another Queensbury Forest, where there’s no longer any place for the drainage to go, and it’s going to end up seeping into cellars. The last comment that I have has been mentioned by Kevin, before me, and that has to do with the law of the subdivisions, with respect to easements, and I’m not sure just how familiar you are with easements, but when you think of easements, you normally think of access easements, the right to come across for ingress or egress, but there are different types of easements. I can give you an easement, which is the right to use and enjoy my property as a park. I can give you an easement, a grazing easement, which gives you the right to graze your cattle on my property. When you file a subdivision map that has on it streets and parks. There is an implied easement, an implied easement for the use of those roads, an applied easement for the use of that designated area as park area, and I’d like to quote to you from New York Jurist Prudence, Second Addition, and it says, “Any representation, whether by map,” as we have here, “ by advertising or by oral representation,” which is what I had when they promoted this particular lot that I bought as a lot with an adjoining or an additional right to use of a park, “made to a particular person, may give rise to an estoppel”, an estoppel to deny the existence of an easement, “where lots are purchased on the representation that the purchasers are to have certain easements in the grantor’s other property, it is the general rule that such easements will be implied. Indeed, it is said that this principal is well grounded in the law, and is equally applicable to streets, to parks and beaches. In such a case, the 23 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) grantor is esstopped to deny the easements”. In other words, the landowner, by filing the map and designating it as a park, has given me, as an individual lot owner, an implied easement for the use of that particular area as a park area. That’s my comments. MR. PALING-Okay. Thank you. Who’s next? NEIL IVERSON MR. IVERSON-Good evening. My name’s Neil Iverson. I live at 25 Helen Drive, in Queensbury. I live in the lot directly across from the lot that’s in question here. I’m a relative newcomer to the neighborhood. I only bought my house in 1987. I’ve been there for 12 years. One of the inducements for purchasing the home and the property that my family and I now live in was the fact that the lot across the street from my house was represented by everyone that I spoke to, my attorney, Dave Kroggman, the sales agent, agent for the sellers and everyone else as being a forever reserved park land that was never going to be developed, except insofar as the neighborhood association or the Town of Queensbury chose to put playground apparatus in it or something like that. That’s never been done. The piece of property in question is used frequently by people in the neighborhood, both as a place for the neighborhood children to play, and also as access to the Halfway Brook reservoir watershed, where a lot of people like to go jogging, take their dogs for walks, just take walks in the woods, and observe the wildlife. One of the things that concerns me is that, as has been mentioned by the two other people that have commented on this so far, is the precedent that would be set by allowing this lot to be developed and have a house built on it when, by intent, design and ripening into its ultimate use, it has always been represented as an open space that was not going to be developed. I notice that we’re going to have for discussion purposes the Indian Ridge Development, later on in this agenda, and part of this is that the three phase development involves open space and conservation area. What’s going to happen, 20 years from now, when Indian Ridge is built, and they decide they’d like to scrape a few more dollars out of this and put a couple of more houses up? They’ll come here and they’ll say, well, you know, people don’t seem to use it much, and we changed our minds. We’d like to build houses on it now. How about it? I don’t think that’s right, and while I sympathize with the intent of the people involved in trying to build a house here. I don’t think that’s fair to the people that have been there for 20 years, or people who moved in last week, with the understanding that that was going to be available to them as a place for their children to play, and for access to the woods on the other side of it, and so therefore, I would hope and request that you turn down this otherwise well meaning request for a variance. MR. PALING-Thank you. Who’s next? MIKE MULSHINE MR. MULSHINE-My name’s Mike Mulshine. I live at 48 Helen Drive, which is up around the corner, and I’ve got four kids who regularly go down there, tromp around, sled ride, as Del Mulder pointed out. I’ve never noticed any dumping in there. What you do notice in there are forts. Kids go down there, build forts there constantly, between all the pine trees. Women who go out exercising every morning, walk out through there because it’s really the only way you get into the trails behind the developments and stuff like that, and they use that as a right-of-way to walk through and it’s very nice in that respect. I know all the things Del Mulder had said about the drainage aspects, really especially noticeable in the spring, during the meltdown, or during any particular rainstorms or anything. It’s really quite a deep ravine. It gets 10 to 15 feet deep at some points, and extends for at least a couple hundred feet or so, back almost to where the NiMo property is, from this, you know, starts as a shallow ravine and keeps going, but I think the major, major issue is just essentially what everyone has said here, which is, you know, that it just doesn’t make sense, you know, 20 years later or whatever, whether it was two years after it happened, the original zoning types of issues, or 20 years later, to benefit from one side of the system, in terms of making a lot of money from the Evergreen Estates, selling all the properties. It’s one of the most successful developments over there, I think, and then to, 20 years later or whatever it is, be able to benefit again by coming back and saying the records are skimpy and such, when in fact I think the records are not skimpy, if you have basically default evidence of this map which was approved, and everyone that I know, well everyone I’ve ever talked to in our development, even when I bought my property up around the corner, the understanding, once again, was that, people use different phrases, park, forever wild, or whatever, but it wasn’t going to be built on. So I think one of my points is that I feel that the park, hopefully the Planning Board has an obligation to question whether, or actually examine whether a question even has a right to be asked, whether it’s actually a valid question or request. In this particular case, I think that because of that park evidence, etc., that this request is inappropriate, and the issue of putting a house there, at this point, is irrelevant, that there are other issues, like the status of the land, for example, whether it can be either in limbo, etc., forever, but that still is totally irrelevant from the fact that somebody wants to now put a house on it and buy the property. Can the property even be sold if it’s, it might be sold, but it’s still a park, in the eyes of the Town and in the eyes of the people who live there. I wanted to point out that if it’s on the map, I 24 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) feel very strongly that no one, commenting to Michael O’Connor’s comment about having made offers to people that were turned down by the Town or the homeowners association. There is a homeowners association. It’s a rather informal homeowners association in Evergreen Estates. We set up annual picnics and things of that nature, and elect people and stuff. No one on that homeowners association ever realized that there might occur a situation where they might have been required to potentially take conveyance or purchase this park, which was assumed was a park. So the fact that the Town, in my judgment, the fact that no one, the Town or the homeowners association has acted on an offer to buy this park, I think is another thing that’s irrelevant, because, really, how can you put this park for sale? I don’t know if you see my point there, but I don’t see how it can be put for sale if it was intended to be a park in the first place. So the fact that a homeowners association that which is not, back in those days I guess they weren’t as official as they are now. Perhaps if this were done now, it would be done very officially and we’d have a homeowners association that when you bought into your deed, you’d have it all set up in a deed, and you perhaps would have to do it more formally and pay dues for insurance on that property and all. I don’t know how that all works, but that’s my assumption, but ultimately it comes back to those various points, to the fact that I think that the Sleight family and the Town at the time obviously did have certain conversations, whether it’s just in the form of this and this letter from ’87, etc., that sort of confirms obvious discussions that must have occurred from Mr. Sleight at some point in this process, and maybe someone will find that some day, but I think they should stick to the original commitment, and as I said before, I don’t feel it’s fair to use the system one way to make money at some point, and then later, you know, just to get out of it, change the rules. So thank you. MR. PALING-Thank you. DANIEL STEC MR. STEC-Good evening. Dan Stec, 26 Heinrick Circle. We happened to have our homeowner’s picnic Sunday, and a lot of people were talking about this. So I want you to know that it is a concern in the neighborhood, by more than just a few. My take on this is for 12 years this property has enjoyed its tax status as being a park, and the last time, if I didn’t hear incorrectly, the last time an attempt to sell this property was 12 years ago. So, I would suggest that before anything be done, it should be looked into whether or not the Town or the Rec Commission or the homeowner’s association wants to take a look at this. I don’t think that the current owner should be burdened with ownership forever, but it’s clear to me that 26 years ago, this was the understanding, and sometimes a deal is a deal. I would just also suggest that, I get the vibe that most of the people are here for the last agenda item on the evening, and in the interest of the hour, the Board might consider changing its agenda to accommodate the many. Thank you. MR. PALING-Thank you. Anyone else? DON RICHARD MR. RICHARD-My name is Don Richard. I live at 22 Helen Drive. My property directly abuts the property that we’re discussing tonight. I’ve lived there 15 year now, a little over 15 years. As I think with everybody else that has spoken tonight, one of the things that happened when I was looking at the property and looking at the house was the real estate agent told me that the property next to you is designated as forever green. Designated as a park area, and that was one of the reasons I, one of the considerations I had when I purchased the house. It has always been my understanding that it could not be developed for anything else other than a park. Being the abutting owner of the property there, I see an awful lot of activity that takes place on that property. It’s not only people walking through there to get to the Niagara Mohawk properties. It’s also children playing, and it’s a fairly constant thing. In the winter they’re out there with their sleds. In the summer, like they’ve said before, they’re building forts, and it’s a place for children in the area to go and be with other children in the neighborhood, and it’s always been, you know, when my children were growing up, they used it for that same thing. The other issue that was brought up tonight, too, was drainage. When we have heavy downpours, a lot of water collects on the street in front of my house, to the point where it can be several inches deep at some times, and that water does go down through that drain underneath the road and onto this property that they’re talking about, and I would be very concerned about what might happen if that property were to be changed, that that condition could even get worse than it is currently. So, I’m not going to elaborate a lot more on this, other than to say that I’m very much against the change in the designation of this, and this property being sold for a single family dwelling. Thank you. MR. PALING-Thank you. Okay. Is there anyone else? LOIS ROWELL MRS. ROWELL-My name is Lois Rowell, and I live at 30 Helen Drive. I’ll be very brief. We bought our property in 1980, from Fitzgerald Realty, and at that time we were told, we live two doors 25 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) down, two lots down, that this was going to be the forever wild green area, and I just think, if we were told that, and most of the neighbors were, that this area should stay forever green. Thank you. MR. PALING-Thank you. Anyone else? MRS. MOORE-Bob, I do have a letter, if you want me to read that in. MR. PALING-Okay. MRS. MOORE-It’s addressed to Mr. MacEwan. “As a homeowner on Heinrick Circle, I recently received notice that changes had been requested regarding the status of property currently owned by the Estate of Helen Sleight. It is my understanding this property was originally intended to be a green space or park space within the current development, but such plans never came to fruition. Current intentions are to sell the property for use as a single family house. As a homeowner in the neighborhood, I have no basic issues with the variance, provided the home to be constructed is subject to the same constraints or covenants as homes in the neighborhood. Lew Biles” MR. PALING-Okay. Is that the only one? MRS. MOORE-Yes, it is. MR. PALING-Okay. I think we better leave the public hearing open on this one, until we see what’s going to happen. MR. O'CONNOR-I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that we probably table this, because there’s a lot of information that came up that’s not information that we necessarily were focused on prior to the meeting. I will say, as to the issue of drainage, we are aware of that and fully intended to leave drainage in place and not disturb it or not develop the lot in any manner that would interfere with the drainage. I asked Miss Sleight as to representations, again, as to her understanding of representations at the time of the initial lot sales, and she does not have personal knowledge of that, because she was not part of that. There are some people that are available that may be able to shed some light on it. I still think there is a legal issue here, and that is a separate issue from the planning issue, and that is the issue of an implied easement. I don’t think it’s clear what is the implied easement, if there is any at all, by putting the word “park” on a parcel of land on a map. There is no resolution, condition, or anything that we could find when we researched the records of the Planning Board. Maybe Staff would want to do their own search, so that you would have an independent understanding of that, as opposed to an applicant’s understanding of that, but I think we’re correct in what we’re saying, but I think at this time I would ask that the Board table the request. MR. PALING-I agree that it probably should be tabled. Mark, did you want to make a comment? MR. SCHACHNER-Well, I just want to make sure the Board understands that there is a very serious legal issue here, and that the records are certainly not crystal clear, but the general principles of law that those who are opposed to the application, the general principles of law, are valid. Those statements are generally true. Now, we have to look at the specific facts, obviously, and the specific facts here are not black/white. They are gray, because the records are somewhat sketchy and somewhat vague, but I just want to make sure the Board realizes that I think Mr. O’Connor has conceded there is a legal issue here. He has certain views about how much of that is this Board’s business, I think, and I understand that point, but I just want to make sure the Board realizes that that’s a very serious issue. Based on what we see before us right now, it’s not clear at all that the Planning Board has the authority to grant the application, even if you should wish to do so. I’m not saying you don’t. I’m just saying it’s not at all clear that you do. I mean, as far as tabling request, I’d certainly see it as fine. MR. PALING-Mark, is that something that you would comment on further? Are you saying that you would do some research on it, too? MR. SCHACHNER-Well, Staff has done a pretty thorough search of the records, as has the applicant, by the way, and I think that the records aren’t conclusive, the records alone, absent any of the other testimony we’ve heard or statements we’ve heard from the public, are not totally conclusive. My own legal opinion is that the letter from 1987 from Ms. Sleight, granted written for a very, very different purpose, but does seem to indicate that at least at that time the owners of the property felt that the property was constrained by the Town of Queensbury to be utilized for park purposes, and it says, and cannot be sold for anything else. Now, in fairness to M s. Sleight and that letter, actually, although everyone has ascribed those words to Ms. Sleight, actually, the letter is quoting from an appraisal report prepared by Harwood Beaty. Notwithstanding that fact, the point I’m making is that, it doesn’t matter, legally, necessarily, that this letter was written for a different purpose, namely to reduce the assessment, a purpose it seems to have achieved rather nicely, I might add. The fact is that, legally speaking, the applicant may be bound by that letter. Now that we’ve 26 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) heard the statements from the public to the extent that there were inducements, express inducements to buy these lots, based on designation of this land as park, I guess what I’m telling you is the evidence, or the records that we have before us now, it would be my legal opinion that you probably do not have the authority to grant the application. I can certainly review anything that the applicant wants to submit to convince me otherwise, but the general principles of law that the opponents have advocated are generally correct, and it is certainly true, and I want to make sure this point is clear, because this comes up a lot at this Town and other towns, the fact that something is offered for dedication to a municipality does not obligate the municipality to accept it, and if the records were crystal clear, if using, you know, somebody mentioned an Indian Ridge example, we have many subdivisions where your records are crystal clear. Something is approved with an express condition that something remain green, remain forever wild, remain park, whatever you want to call it. This case is not that clear, but I want to make sure the Board understands, even if the land is never donated to the Town, and even if the land is never donated to a homeowners association, the applicant is bound by those terms. So to the extent that one of the Board members, about 40 minutes ago, said something about, well, we recognize the land can’t stay in limbo, if “limbo” is being defined or described as not accepted for dedication, but not utilized for a building lot, land can stay in limbo, in perpetuity, forever. MR. PALING-Okay. That’s where I guess I’m a little puzzled. Who has been paying the taxes on this lot over the years? MR. BREWER-The landowner, I would guess. MR. SCHACHNER-I would presume that the owner’s been paying the taxes. MR. PALING-If the owner has been paying it, and this subdivision, I assume, is built out. MR. SCHACHNER-I have no idea. MR. PALING-Why would they keep paying taxes on it? MR. BREWER-Because they own it. MR. SCHACHNER-Because many people, when they get their tax bills, feel they should pay their taxes. If your next question is, why don’t they stop paying taxes, that often happens in these situations, and if nobody comes along to pick them up, then sometimes these are properties that are often gone through municipal foreclosure actions, and if that happens, then that happens. MR. O'CONNOR-I don’t necessarily say we’re going in that direction, but I think probably Miss Sleight would like to have this resolved, and be able to absolve herself of ownership, though even if we get back, when we get back to this thing, we may, she may at that point ask this Board for a strong recommendation for something that would help the Town move along in that direction, as opposed to leaving it in limbo. In 1979, they did the common areas different than they do them now, as Mark has indicated. I was involved, personally, with a subdivision where what we ended up doing is taking it off the assessment rolls and putting some assessment on each lot owner that was benefited from the parcel, and they do not have, I guess they all own 1/22 interest of that, though. nd The other issue that you have with common land, more so than the nickels and dimes of the taxes, is the liability issue. Somebody’s paying a liability policy on that parcel, and maybe that’s why the Town, in 1984 and 1986, 1987 didn’t want to take it. MR. PALING-Is it too far out to think that there might be a homeowner’s association formed that would buy it? MR. BREWER-There is a homeowner’s association there, Bob. MR. VOLLARO-Not a formal, they don’t have a formal HOA, no. MR. O'CONNOR-I understand their point of view, too, because that becomes a financial nightmare, although there’s a new process that the Attorney General will allow you to not re-file annually if you have a totally inactive association that owns a piece of property with no improvements on it. That may be an avenue, too. MR. SCHACHNER-I think, the bottom line, the only reason I expressed my comments was I didn’t want the applicant to go away or the Board to go away not understanding that there are some serious legal considerations here. I think, my own opinion, and the applicant has asked to be tabled to explore all these different ideas, I think that’s a reasonable request. MR. PALING-Right. I think it is, too. 27 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. BREWER-Let’s do it. Let’s table it. MR. SCHACHNER-And the various options that Mr. O’Connor is discussing are all certainly worth exploration. MR. PALING-Right. Okay. Do we have a motion? MOTION TO TABLE SUBDIVISION NO. 12-73 MODIFICATION, EVERGREEN ESTATES, SECT. III, Introduced by Timothy Brewer who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro: Until November 16, 1999. Duly adopted this 19 day of October, 1999, by the following vote: th MR. BREWER-Mike, do you want a date, next month? MR. O'CONNOR-No, we will reschedule with you, within 90 days. MR. SCHACHNER-So the only procedural issue is, what did you do with your public hearing? MR. PALING-The public hearing is left open. MR. SCHACHNER-You can’t leave a public hearing open to an undetermined date. MR. PALING-All right. Then can we leave it open until the date they’ll establish now? MR. SCHACHNER-Sure. MR. BREWER-Okay, but, Bob, is there any way that when we set, I see hands going up. They want to know when it is. MR. SCHACHNER-No, what I’m saying is you can’t leave a public hearing open to an indefinite date. MR. O'CONNOR-What’s your first meeting in November? MRS. LA BOMBARD-The third Tuesday. MR. O'CONNOR-How about the meeting in November. MR. PALING-The 16 and the 23. thrd MR. O'CONNOR-Say the 23 of November. rd MR. PALING-Okay, Tim, the 23 of November. rd AUDIENCE MEMBER-I object. Everyone goes on vacation the 23 of November. I won’t even rd be in Town. MR. O'CONNOR-What was the other date in November? MRS. LA BOMBARD-The 16. th MR. PALING-The 16 and the 23 of November. thrd MR. O'CONNOR-The 16 of November. th MR. BREWER-The 16 of November. th MR. PALING-Did everyone hear that? This will be continued or tabled until Tuesday, November 16. th AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Brewer, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Paling NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Abbott, Mr. Ringer 28 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) SUBDIVISION NO. 17-1999 PRELIMINARY STAGE FINAL STAGE TYPE: UNLISTED JOHN, JR. & KATHLEEN SALVADOR OWNER: SAME ZONE: RR- 3A/LC-42A LOCATION: RT. 9L & ALEXY LANE ON DUNHAM BAY APPLICANT PROPOSES SUBDIVISION OF A 135 ACRE PARCEL INTO THREE LOTS OF 13 ACRES, 116 ACRES AND 3.08 +/- ACRES. APA, CEA TAX MAP NO. 10-1-17.1 LOT SIZE: 135 +/- ACRES SECTION: SUBDIVISION REGULATIONS JOHN SALVADOR, JR. & KATHLEEN SALVADOR, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Subdivision No. 17-1999, John, Jr. & Kathleen Salvador, Meeting Date: October 19, 1999 “Description of Project: The applications for preliminary and final stage subdivision were tabled at the previous Planning Board meeting for additional information. The applicant was granted a waiver from sketch plan review. Subdivisions require Planning Board review and approval will also require APA approval. Staff Notes: The applicant has met with Staff to review some of the requested information. The applicant has provided an updated map and a letter addressing all of the requested information. Recommendation: Staff would recommend approval of the subdivision with the following conditions: Lot 2, No demonstration of a wastewater disposal area was presented, therefore, the use of the property be limited to its current status and Lot 3 be combined with tax parcel 4-1-11” MR. SALVADOR-Okay. I’m John Salvador, and I’m here tonight with my wife, Kathleen. I’d like to address the Staff recommendations, and in particular Lot Number Two. Realizing that we did not demonstrate that a wastewater disposal area could be provided on that lot, today, we prepared a revision to our preliminary plan, and I have three copies here with me tonight. MR. SCHACHNER-Bob, do you want to accept new maps on the night? MR. PALING-Yes. Please tell us in detail what we’ve got here, John. MR. SALVADOR-What we’ve done on this revision is to incorporate on Lot Number Two provision for wastewater facilities. Now, what we’ve done here, and I only have two copies of this. I’ll give one to the Board, okay, and one to Staff here. This is a copy of an O’Brien and Gere report, involving the investigation of this land for purposes of siting a municipal wastewater treatment facility there. This report was prepared in 1996, and the details of the report are there. Five test pits were opened, and Warren County opened these tests pits with their equipment, under the supervision of Fred Austin, and boring logs, the test pit log is there. You’ll see them. A (lost word) analysis was performed on two of the test pits, and it was determined that those two disposal areas of 3.5 acres each would be sufficient to accommodate about 60,000 gallons per day of subsurface wastewater discharge. So, I think we’ve fulfilled the requirement that we demonstrate that wastewater disposal is possible on this 116 acre lot. We have no objection to the requirement we combine tax parcel 4-1-11 with Lot Number Three. That’s been our intention all along. MR. PALING-Staff, is this enough time and enough detail for you to make a recommendation on this? MR. BREWER-How can it be, Bob? MRS. MOORE-I’ll just provide this information. The applicant has allowed, we requested the applicant to provide a proposed location of a septic, and this is what he’s done is provided a proposed location. MR. PALING-This is sufficient, then. All right. Any comments? MR. VOLLARO-No. I think everything’s in order on the application now. He’s done what we had asked him to do. MRS. LA BOMBARD-I agree. MR. PALING-Yes, I agree, too. I think the public hearing was left open. Is there anyone who would care to comment on this application? Okay, if not, then the public hearing is closed. PUBLIC HEARING OPEN NO COMMENT PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED 29 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. BREWER-Do we have notice receipts? MRS. MOORE-Yes. MR. BREWER-Okay. MR. PALING-We don’t need a SEQRA on this, I don’t believe. MR. SCHACHNER-Why not? MR. BREWER-It’s Unlisted. We need a SEQRA. MRS. LA BOMBARD-It’s Unlisted, we do. MR. SCHACHNER-Correct. MR. ROUND-Bob, can I interject, and maybe it’s contrary to what Laura just indicated to you. All I have here is, there’s two areas showing the subsurface disposal system. There’s no details whether it’s a conventional system. The plans, the O’Brien & Gere letter indicates, I mean, this analysis was done for collection systems, storage pond, tertiary wastewater treatment facility. MR. BREWER-All that does is indicate that they could put it there. It doesn’t tell you what they’re going to do or how they’re going to do it. MR. ROUND-Yes. I mean, it may very well be able to support a location, and again, it’s handed to us tonight. So I mean, we haven’t had the benefit to look at it. MR. PALING-So you want to take the time, then, to look at it further? MR. ROUND-Yes, I’d appreciate that. MR. PALING-All right, then if that’s the case, then we’re going to have to table this. MR. BREWER-Until next week? MR. PALING-Yes, I would think so until next week would be all right. MR. SALVADOR-Okay, and will you leave the public hearing open? MR. PALING-Yes, we will leave the public hearing open. PUBLIC HEARING RE-OPENED MR. PALING-We need a motion to table this. This is being tabled until a week from tonight. MR. SALVADOR-Thank you. MOTION TO TABLE PRELIMINARY STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 17-1999 JOHN, JR. & KATHLEEN SALVADOR, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Timothy Brewer: Until a week from tonight (October 26, 1999). Duly adopted this 19 day of October, 1999, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Brewer, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Paling NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Abbott, Mr. Ringer GREAT ESCAPE – APPLICANT PROPOSES DISCUSSION OF PROPOSED EXPANSION PROJECT TO INCLUDE NEW PARKING LOTS ON WEST SIDE OF ROUTE 9, ACCESS AND PEDESTRIAN IMPROVEMENTS. THE APPLICANT HAS REQUESTED FORUM TO DISCUSS PROPOSED ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT. TAX MAP NO. 73-1-3.2, 36-2-3.1, 3.2, 74-1-8, 9, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, 17, 19.2, 11 JOHN LEMERY & JOHN COLLINS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT 30 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. PALING-Before we begin, I’d like to make note that there is a public hearing tonight, but I’d also note that we are not here to vote on anything. This is a discussion item. We will allow public comment, but we’re going to ask you to keep them brief for tonight, and the hour is late, and we will not vote on anything tonight. This is just an exchange of information, a discussion. We want to hear from you, but please keep it brief, and if someone has said what you were going to say, maybe for tonight, you could let it go at that, but there will be a further public hearing, if there’s a site plan review or any kind of a vote to be taken. This is strictly discussion for tonight. If you want to introduce yourselves. MR. LEMERY-Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Board. My name is John Lemery, Counsel to the Great Escape. MR. COLLINS-John Collins, the General Manager of the Great Escape. JACK LEBOWITZ MR. LEBOWITZ-Jack Lebowitz, from Lemery & McKrell law firm. JEFF ANTHONY MR. ANTHONY-Jeff Anthony from the LA Group. MR. PALING-Okay. Laura, did you have any comments that you wanted to make? STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Great Escape, Discussion, Meeting Date: October 19, 1999 “Discussion Item: The applicant would like to discuss the Great Escape Theme Park future development. A letter dated October 1, 1999 was submitted addressing the expansion and the desired SEQR review and is summarized as follows: The applicant has proposed preparing a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for newly acquired lands west of Route 9. The applicant has expressed concerns over analysis or mitigation of noise generators in the park. The applicant has indicated that the addition or replacement of rides and attractions in the park may be considered cumulative, but the Planning Board has previously reviewed rides and attractions on an individual basis. The applicant has requested that the preparation of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement and the review of proposed rides for the year 2000 run concurrently.” MR. PALING-Okay. Is there anything else? MRS. MOORE-No. MR. PALING-All right. I’ll turn it over to you folks, then. MR. LEMERY-Good evening. Several months ago, the Great Escape appeared before the Planning Board, and filed applications relative to two attractions over there, one of which was the Nightmare Ride, which is the indoor coaster, and another one was the go cart attraction located in the middle of the Park, and at that time, the Planning Board expressed some concern about the plans for the Park, the ability to deal with traffic generated beyond what the Great Escape had acquired some time previous to those two applications, which was the so-called Animal Land parcel, and how traffic would be mitigated and how the pedestrian traffic could get taken care of, as it relates to the Route 9 access to the Great Escape, and there was some discussion, at that time, about whether the Great Escape would be willing to provide some sort of Master Plan to the Park. Nothing was resolved at that time, but subsequent to that, the Great Escape, in response to the season pass volume that was attracted as a result of the proposals that the Great Escape put forth to the public regarding the season pass attraction, the Great Escape acquired a number of parcels of land, on the west side of Route 9, amounting to the former Kay’s Motel, the Coachman property, which was vacant, the lease having run out between Meadow Run Development Corporation and DeSantis Enterprises, the Phyllis Holtz property, which is directly north of the Coachman, the David Kenny home, which was directly north of that, and the Samoset Motel, and the purpose at that time was to acquire that land so as to provide adequate parking for the Park, for the foreseeable future. Some discussion was had with the Planning Board regarding what was going to happen with that land over there and simultaneously with that, the applicant came in and proposed that the Animal Land parking be expanded and two new parking applications were subsequently submitted to the Planning Board. Your Board, at that time, then said we’d like to look at some sort of overall plan for the Park. Is that possible? Discussions went back and forth with members of the Planning Board and the Great Escape regarding, well, just what would an Impact Statement entail, so that it doesn’t end up on the shelf somewhere, so that it is a document that is both acceptable to the Planning Board, to the residents affected by the Great Escape, the neighbors to the Great Escape, and the Great Escape itself. Impact Statements cost a lot of money. They require a lot of consultants, a lot of time and 31 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) effort, and they’re useful if they’re a good product, and if the result is that it’s something that people can work with in terms of what’s necessary for proper planning, both from the Town’s perspective and the Great Escape’s perspective. We had a couple of meetings with some members of the Planning Board, the Chairman, some of the people on the Planning Staff, some other members of the Planning Board from time to time, trying to get a sense of what it was that you, as a Planning Board, really wanted from the Park, and what it was that the Park felt was appropriate and reasonable to provide, given the vested rights the Park has in the existing amusement park zoning, and given the west side of the highway, keeping in mind that the land is zoned, on the west side, HC-1A, which is Highway Commercial, and the land on the east side, where the Park is located, is already zoned for the amusement park. A discussion was had by the management of the Great Escape, regarding what would be the best way to approach this for the Town and the residents, and it was decided that we’d try to put everything on the table, tell you what is best, that could be provided, the overall possible use of the west side of the highway could entail, and how those impacts could be addressed which would address the issues that we’re mindful of, that the public has raised over the period of time with the various applications, and that you would find acceptable, and so the management said, well, we’ll talk about, in this impact statement, the possibility of a hotel. We’re not talking about some massive hotel, as was suggested in the newspaper, but a 180, 200 room hotel, located on the site by the Coachman, attached to the Coachman, is a possibility, and there was some discussion about the management of the Park said, well, look, if the County’s looking at doing a convention facility, if they have an interest, we would look at including all of that in the impact statement. That is not to say that that is where it would be located. That’s not to say that that would be acceptable to the County. It’s not even to say that the County is interested in building anything. The taxpayers may say that that’s not something that’s of interest to the taxpayers, and if not, that’s not an issue for the Great Escape. The Great Escape is not a proponent of that site. It is simply offering it as an accommodation, and we’ll include it in the impact statement. The purpose of tonight’s discussion with you was to try to get a sense of where do we go from here with the impact statement? We have two concerns about where we’re about. Number One, we’re prepared, the Great Escape is prepared, and I will tell you that, over the summer, the Great Escape engaged traffic consultants who have monitored the traffic flows from all kinds of different points, all summer long. Noise consultants were retained this summer. Noise studies have been made within the Park, outside the Park, the neighborhoods that have expressed a concern about the noise. Those studies have been done. Archeologists have been maintained and are looking at the parking lots, and those areas. So the archeological studies have been started. The Great Escape has engaged and engineering firm to do the feasibility studies for putting a pedestrian bridge over Route 9. Discussions have been held with DOT, and the traffic consultants and the other consultants that the Great Escape has retained, are starting to work on how the traffic could be mitigated, getting it off Route 9, and toward the back of the Park where we talked about it, where we discussed with your earlier. At the June 30 meeting, I th think we talked about the possibility of putting a road at the west end of the parking lot to take care of traffic within the Great Escape and getting it off Route 9 sooner and dealing with it on that basis. The Impact Statement will address noise. It will address traffic. It will address pedestrian movement on Route 9. It will address the issues that we know that the people who have come to these meetings have written the Town letters. The Town Planning Staff has provided us with copies of letters which they’ve received regarding people’s concerned about the noise issues, the traffic issues and the other issues. When I say we have two things to discuss with you tonight, one of which is that there will be a great effort made to provide an Impact Statement that will work for everybody, that will be a thoroughly prepared, responsible document that you can use and the Great Escape can use and the neighbors can feel comfortable about. The other issue that we want to put in front of you. We’ll need to try to get, in order to remain competitive for the 2000 season, there is a need to get one attraction approved very quickly, which is a water slide, which we don’t think has any noise impact. We don’t think it has any traffic impact, but it’s something that the management needs to get started right away. We want to file an application and get it on for the November meeting for that one attraction. Simultaneously with that, we will be working on the Draft Impact Statement, and we’ll get that to you as soon as you can. That’s a large document. So we’re asking that you consider that, if you will. There was a question raised about the segmentation issue. We think we can address that as it relates to this specific attraction, in a way that you’ll find acceptable. I’m going to ask my partner, Jack Lebowitz, to address that. We litigated this one time, the Planning Board, and I don’t know if, Tim, you were on the Planning Board at the time that we litigated the segmentation issue. It went to the Supreme Court. MR. BREWER-As a matter of fact, I was the one who got the papers presented to him. MR. LEMERY-And the Town won that. It was determined that these are not segmentation issues as it relates to these kinds of things. The one thing we’d like to, before I turn it over to John Collins and the other people, the one thing that we wanted to also make clear, at least to the people who are here who have not been familiar with what’s gone on. Over the past several years as the Great Escape changed management and came in with new attractions, this Board has looked at every single attraction very carefully. The site planning process has been very thorough. Stormwater management, which has been an issue, has always been addressed. Traffic has been addressed. Ingress and egress has been addressed. The one time that noise became and issue, which was after 32 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) the Bobsled ride went in, the Park has undergone a bunch of studies. They’re still undertaking those studies to mitigate that noise which they’re mindful of, and they have two or three ways that they’re going to try to fix. So each time that they’ve come before the Board, the Planning Board, in the process already, in the zoning statute, has dealt with the issue of the kinds of things that are of concern to the people who live near the Great Escape and the Town, and every one of those issues has been addressed, at this Planning Board level, by each time we came in here. The whole reason for buying parking lots was because you said at one point in your planning process, you have to decide how you’re going to deal with parking and what happens as you grow the Park, what are you going to do about parking? The whole issue of the pedestrian bridge came about because you said, at a meeting, we want you to deal with getting people off Route 9, as fast as you can, how can we deal with that? The noise issue, we think it’s sort of an item by item issue. We don’t think that the decibel levels of the noise, other than that one ride, are a problem beyond the confines of the Park, but in any event, all of that’s going to be addressed in the Impact Statement. So, that’s our request to you tonight. At the end of it, what we hope to achieve is that, when we finally get a complete Environmental Impact Statement, then it’ll provide an appropriate impact threshold so that future planning reviews can be streamlined and expedited, so long as future construction is under the generic threshold, and that’s what we hope comes out of this whole process, and the expense that this applicant is going to undertake. Thank you. MR. LEBOWITZ-John’s kind of stolen my thunder, here. I just wanted to address a couple of things that relate to the SEQRA aspect of the Environmental Impact Statement that we’re putting together. What’s driving this, in large part, and we put that in the letter that was submitted to you on October 1, is the timing issue. We feel that we can provide the quality of information that’s needed st for the Planning Board and for the public to understand the impacts from the expansion of the Park, and understand that those impacts can be mitigated, acceptably, but that, as you know, a lot of times SEQRA, when you go to an Environmental Impact Statement, can take a long time, and one of the problems that we’re facing here is that we would like this review to be conducted expeditiously. So we’re hoping that we can come up with a document that addresses all the concerns, in an appropriate way, but that that can be reviewed in a timeframe that’s closer to six months than to the year or year and a half that these things often take, and along those lines, as John said a few minutes ago, we’re faced with the issue that, unlike most projects, where it’s all new development and you’re coming to a project with a clean slate and a green field, this is a project that has, the existing Park has been there for 40 years. We’re talking about doing some infrastructure improvements, mostly in terms of Park, internal traffic circulation, pedestrian bridge, that we believe will allow us to substantially expand the patronage of the Park, while reducing overall impacts, while mitigating the level of existing impacts on Route 9, and certainly not adding to any of the other impacts that are of concern to people, such as visual, noise, water quality, and so forth, but again, we’d like, the way the project has been defined, for the purpose of the Impact Statement, is we are talking about the new development, primarily on the west side of Route 9, that includes the parking and infrastructure improvements, and considering how those improvements, and taking the Park from approximately 850,000 visitors and growing that number substantially will not, you know, how the existing Park will function. So we are going to be looking at the impacts of the existing Park today and in the future, but under the rubric of cumulative impacts. With the October 1 letter, we distributed a proposed table of contents for the document. st We think we’re covering all the impacts of concern. I mean, SEQRA, you go through a checklist, and you generally rule things out, once you can, with good scientific evidence, demonstrate that those things won’t be impacts. The rest you need to discuss. We intend to file this document around the beginning of November. We’re working on it now. As John said, a lot of the studies have been done, and we would like to be able to have the Board farm that out to its third party consultant, which we know you’re going to have to have for completeness review, as soon as possible, so that during the month of November, the Board and the Staff and members of the public and anybody who is concerned about the document can have at it and can, you know, will hopefully validate what we’re all about right now, which is this thing is complete, and you will have an opportunity to determine that. MR. LEMERY-I just want to add that the issue of stormwater management will be very thoroughly addressed in the Impact Statement . We’re aware of the Glen Lake Association’s concerns about the stormwater management and the water quality in Glen Lake. One of the things we’re going to look at, and one of the things we may approach the Town Board about, is running the sewer line from the Wal-Mart facility all the way up to the County Center. We think it would be a good thing for the Town. We think that the Town ought to look at that, that everybody ought to hook on, all of the activity on Route 9. The Great Escape is willing to commit that if the sewer line is run up Route 9 and the lifting stations are put in, that the Great Escape will undertake, at its own cost, the expense to tie into that line, which is not inconsiderable, in terms of what it would cost them internally to do. They have a very sophisticated septic system, as it is. We are also going to look at the possibility in the Environmental Impact, of (lost word) filter systems and other systems that could be put in there to even enhance the quality of what comes out, even beyond what people could even think about at this point, but one of the things we want to look at is running the sewer line up. There’s no reason why a Town of this kind of development and resources available to it can’t think that it’s not a good thing to run that sewer line up there. That, in and of itself, would address 99% of the kinds of things 33 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) that the Glen Lake Association presumably would be concerned about. So, we’re aware of that. The stormwater management on the west side will be addressed very thoroughly also. There’s no plan to extend the amusements to the west side of Route 9. The part that is zoned for amusements is zoned for amusements. That’s where the amusements are. There’s no plan that I know of, there’s no plan, I think, that the management knows of, to take and extend any of these amusements to the west side of Route 9. That is not going to happen. So people need to feel comfortable about that. The other thing that we will address in the Impact Statement is the issues that people have raised concerning the Northway and the noise from the Northway. To the extent borders the Northway, to that extent, that issue will be looked at, and will be addressed, and very thoroughly discussed, so that people will know where the Great Escape is coming from, in that. So as far as we know, we’re taking a look at every single thing that people have expressed a concern about, that you’ve expressed a concern about, and it will be dealt with. This is a very large entertainment company. I’d like John to talk about their commitment to this area, their commitment to the quality of life in Queensbury, their ability to direct the resources that they have to make sure that these things are done in an appropriate way, so as to do it right. They have the money to do it. They will do it. It will be responsible. It is a considerable economic engine for this Town and this County and this region. They’re mindful of that. They’re mindful of their role, and they’re mindful of their responsibility. So hopefully we can all get through this process in a fair way, and a responsible way, and one that’s reasonable, and that people deal with everybody fairly. So, if that can be done, they’re prepared to move ahead. I’d like John to address that, if you would, John, for a minute. MR. COLLINS-I don’t know how much I can add to that. They pretty much summarized it all. We’ve dealt with you the past three years on projects, and anything that you’ve asked for we’ve done, and in many cases gone above and beyond the call of duty, as far as some of your concerns. Is it a perfect process? No, but we learn from some of the things we do and hopefully do it better, but, you know, the Nightmare was an example where we got approval for 60, whatever, 60, 58 foot building, but there were concerns about the visual impact up against French Mountain. We lowered it eight feet, at a substantial cost. We’ve said that before. The septic systems, I’m upgrading those to the tune of $250,000 a year. Once again, that’s something that you didn’t mandate, and Ghost Town, we did that, because we knew there’d be more traffic up there. So we know we have impacts on our neighbors and on our County, and we do our best to go above and beyond that, and the purchase of land was another example of that, the concerns about parking and whether we had enough to accommodate that. So is it a perfect process? We try to get as close as we can, and solve everybody’s concern, but it’s also a feedback process, and that’s what’s here for. MR. PALING-Before we go ahead, I’d like to just clarify an item of information. In the October 1 st letter to Craig MacEwan, in your numbered paragraph one, you refer to three items, and one of them is the DGEIS primary study area which was distributed at the meeting was attached. We didn’t get that. MR. LEBOWITZ-There was a diagram. MR. COLLINS-A diagram map that breaks out the Park, the parking lots west of Route 9, and then the land we own on the west side of the Northway, which is the land that we offered up as an environmental easement area. That’s it. MR. PALING-Then the DGEIS project map and the primary, those are the same things? MR. COLLINS-Yes. MR. BREWER-It’s all their holdings, right? MR. COLLINS-Yes. MR. PALING-Yes, okay. All right. I would suggest we just go to the public hearing and keep it as brief as possible, and then come back to the Board for comment. Okay. We ask you again, please be brief. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED ROGER BOOR MR. BOOR-Good evening. My name’s Roger Boor, and I do like the way this is starting, in as much as I sense that they do, in fact, and I refer, obviously, to the applicant, want to do things right. I think they understand their role in this Town. They certainly provide a lot of economy. They boost our economy. They’ve been here a long time, as they’ve stated. They’re successful. I, personally, like the fact that they’re here. Having said that, I would be fool to say that I don’t have some concerns. A lot of times, apparently, they’ve already started the Environmental Impact Statement, or the draft work on it, which is great, except I’m not sure they’ve been asked any questions yet, and a 34 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) lot of times you can get great answers, but they’re not for the questions that you ask, and you are the Board, one of the boards, that should be asking the questions, and you’ve got a great benefit in this Comprehensive Lane Use Plan. You’ve only got to get to about Page 27 in it, and it tells you just about everything you would have to ask or know. It’s not complete. It’s not the best it could be, but it provides an excellent source for questions, and I could give you just a couple of examples. I won’t spend a long time, Page Four, for example, they talk about traffic, S-4.2, Maintain the viability of Routes 149 and 254 and Dix Avenue as truck routes. They are part of the Federal Highway System, and are important to the industrial development, as well as the ability to supply existing commercial entities. Limited access plans need to accompany development if it occurs, and zoning should reflect a need to keep these corridors functioning as major transportation routes. Now this, the Great Escape, is directly between 149 and 254. Trucks are going to have to get through here. I just hope, when you take something like Exit 20, which is only two lanes, that you take into account the fact that trucks have to use this, coming from Vermont, going south to Albany. It’s a major intersection. That has to be addressed. I think they’ll probably do that. MR. PALING-Yes, they sure will. MR. BOOR-I think it’s going to take a lot of money. I think it can be done right, but it’s going to take a lot of money to be done right. Stormwater runoff they’ve mentioned. I’m glad to hear that. I’m a little concerned on the preliminary aspects as they relate to sewer. I think John Salvador could probably talk to it better than anybody here, but this might be a great case where they put in their own sewer system. I have no problem with the Town extending it, as he has suggested, but I’m not sure that’s appropriate. I’m not sure that we, as taxpayers, should extend it that far if, in fact, the predominant use is going to be for the Great Escape. MR. PALING-That’s not a Planning Board question. MR. BOOR-Well, I’m just telling you the kinds of questions that an Environmental Impact Statement should ask, and if the questions aren’t asked, you’re not going to get the right answers, and I just want to make sure, like I say, you don’t have to go through this whole thing. I’m assuming you’ve at least seen it, and I’m hoping you’ve read it. You only have to get to about Page 30 to ask almost all of the important questions on a project like this, and I hope you do, and like I said, I think the project could be great. I just want to remind you that, in the paper where they had the article on the hotel, they talk about Darien Lake, and it boasts 165 rooms that sleep up to six each. So you extrapolate. Lets say we’ve got 200 rooms in a motel and it has six people in it. That’s 1200 people using showers and bathrooms. That’s a lot of people. You put a convention center there, it could be year round that it’s got a lot of use. You’ve got to take all these things into account, and I hope you do, and I think you will, and that’s all I have to say. MR. PALING-Thank you. Who’s next? CHRIS VACCO MRS. VACCO-Hi. I’m Chris Vacco. I live in the Twicwood area on Number 23. We moved in approximately a year ago, and probably I’m going to speak more from the heart. I think that they have some plans. They plan on addressing a lot of the issues that are of concern, but I think they need to rectify the problems as they exist now, before they go further. It’s difficult for me, as a mom, to tell my three year old son when he asks me, you know, when will that noise stop, when he’s referring to the Bobsled. He goes to bed, and it goes on and on and on. In the summertime it goes on until eight o’clock during the week and until ten o’clock on the weekends, and there were a few nights where it went on until eleven. These issues that we’re facing now should be hit before we go ahead and say, well go ahead and do this, and then we’ll deal with it if there’s a problem. We need to address the problems as they exist first. I’d like to see that happen before any kind of further development. Thank you. JOHN SALVADOR MR. SALVADOR-My name is John Salvador. I’m here tonight, again, with my wife Kathleen. We would hope that the Premier Parks, in this Generic Environmental Impact Statement, does a serious job of addressing economic impacts, that is part of an environmental review. If you recall, about three years ago, Mayor Blais made a proposal to the Warren County Board of Supervisors to the Tourism Committee that they allocate $50,000 in their next year’s budget to undertake a study for the location of a convention center in this County. It was clear at that time that the only way the County could support the study was that the convention center would have to be located somewhere in Warren County. We heard that and we went to work and on pretty short notice, we made our proposal to the County, and that was to locate on our property, and you saw this map before, earlier this evening, this parcel of land, proposed to locate on our property a convention center that we might entitle the “Adirondack Convention Center”. We would propose to do this by furnishing the land, and we could build this facility. We would accommodate, in this facility, all the conventions 35 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) that would come, we could compete and draw to our facility. The advantages are, it’s on Lake George. This is the jewel. This is the attraction. If you think about it, we’ve got six lanes of highway leading into this area, two from the south, two from the east, and two from the west, and conventioneers could come by water. We made this proposal to the County, and we asked them to put this into the mix of the study they were undertaking. Of course it all got forgotten and we were even bypassed when they made their presentation. We kind of watched the County Committee schedule, and are attentive to things like Tourism Committees and things like this, but they made a presentation in the Personnel and Finance Committee. So we missed that one, but in any case, we hear now that Premier Parks is proposing to donate some land on which to build a convention center, a County Convention Center. I can tell you something. We’ve been to conventions, my wife and I. We’ve bid to conventions. We’ve hosted conventions, and I’ll tell you something, it’s damn tough to sell a convention with a building located between two major highways. I just, I don’t know how they’re going to do it. I don’t know what the marketing plan would be. I don’t now how they’d get the people in there, and I heard tonight rooms housing six people. That’s not a hotel. That’s a barracks. We’re in the business. We know what people are looking for. We know what attracts them. We know what price they’ll pay. I’d like to read to you some excerpts from an article I have in front of me. It’s entitled “Stadium Socialism” Jesse Ventura, Governor of Minnesota, took a position that is extremely rare in State Government. He said that neither the state, nor the city, nor any other unit of government should spend any money on funding yet another municipal ballpark or providing a taxpayer subsidy to professional ball teams and their media flunkies. The taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for a new stadium said Ventura. What I’m getting at is the County is talking about building a convention center. That’s what they’re talking about. They’re going to use taxpayer’s money to build a convention center to attract people here to rent rooms, buy meals in restaurants, etc. They call this. MR. BREWER-We’re not here talking about a convention center, John. We’re talking about the Great Escape. MR. SALVADOR-Yes, we are, and my point is, the economic impact of the future development of that facility was what I think should be addressed. If the taxpayers are going to wind up paying for this, they should know it. Okay. MR. BREWER-Absolutely. MR. SALVADOR-That’s a sentiment that would have been common in America 100 years ago. Today, after decades of government entitlement programs for everyone, it now seems revolutionary. Imagine the gall of Ventura. He expects private businesses to, well, act like private businesses and not undertaken government handouts. MR. PALING-In keeping with the request we made of you, I think you’re off the subject and taking too long. So would you please make it brief. MR. SALVADOR-Yes, I will. In other words, Ventura, a pro-wrestler, presumed by many media elites to be a rube, doesn’t want to let the already overtaxed citizens of Minnesota get body slammed by bogus argument that a city’s economic development is improved when a city or a state spends tens of millions of taxpayers dollars building and running a ballpark, an arena, or a convention center. Market forces are distorted by these subsidies. Taxpayers, including those who could care less about sports, pay and pay as team owners, rather than showing the gratitude for taxpayer largess demand more and more like addicts. MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Salvador, could you get to your point real quick, please, so we can get on to another speaker. MR. SALVADOR-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Someone else? LINDA WHITTY MRS. WHITTY-Good evening. My name is Linda Whitty. I live on Ash Drive, Glen Lake. I think there’s a lot of confusion here tonight as to what this meeting is really all about. When I read the newspaper, I kind of planned for a discussion on exactly what we just heard, but when I listened to the presentation by the Great Escape, that’s not what we’re talking about. What we’re talking about, I think, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, is a new ride, and a request for the environmental impact study to be expedited. Is this true? Is this what I heard? MR. BREWER-He said that they want to make application for a new ride, next month, which would be a separate issue, and he asked for expedience for the GEIS. We haven’t gotten the application for the ride. So we don’t know what we’ll do with that. 36 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MRS. WHITTY-All right. So I think I kind of heard things correctly. A couple of comments, then. First of all, in regards to the comments about the studies. I’ve heard lots about studies, but I still haven’t seen any changes made, i.e. when it comes to that Bobsled ride. We have waited now two summers, maybe even three, I’ve lost track of time. One minute we hear about limited changes. The next minute we read in the newspaper about major changes. I’m confused. What is the plan? MR. BREWER-We haven’t got it yet. MRS. WHITTY-Okay. That’s what we’re waiting for. MR. BREWER-That’s what we’re waiting for. MRS. WHITTY-So we can’t make any decisions until that plan has been drawn up. To expedite, to rush this plan, I think is very dangerous. If it normally takes about two years to do a plan such as this, and they’re requesting it all be done in six months time, is that what I heard, what do we have to pay, both economically and environmentally, for expediting such an important plan? Carefully. JOANNE BRAMLEY MRS. BRAMLEY-My name is Joanne Bramley. I live at 38 Twicwood Lane, and I would like to say that, for the record, I would like to have entered the memo that we provided copies for at the beginning of the meeting. I will not read it. It’s from the neighborhoods of Twicwood, Glen Lake, and Courthouse Estates, regarding the letter that Mr. Lemery referred to, that the Town received on the first of October. That aside, I would like to say, my own personal opinion is that this timing issue that they speak to is really a very thinly veiled attempt to control the SEQRA process to their benefit, in the name of helping the community. I can’t think of an applicant that comes before you, and I would challenge you to tell me of one, that you think would not like the same expedience that this group wants. I do not understand the SEQRA process to the extent that the Board and Premier Parks and the professional people supporting them do, but I question this Board that if the issue here is to not segment development, then should not the process be to include not only what they are interested in developing on the west side, but the main part of the Park and the hotel, leaving out the exhibit center because that’s not a given. Apparently, the hotel is a given. To me, these are all of the development issues that they’re looking at for their corporation, and I do not understand how it can be addressed on one side of the road and not the other, up the road and not down the road. So I would ask the Board to please consider this very strongly. That’s all I have to say. MARK HOFFMAN MR. HOFFMAN-Mark Hoffman. I’m just a little bit confused about the process. If this is formally part of the SEQRA process, and someone’s shaking his head no, I kind of wanted to ask, has a scoping session been done, or is one planned to be done? I mean, it seems like this was just kind of tacked on at the end of an agenda without a whole lot of people knowing exactly what this is all about. MR. BREWER-This was just a presentation to tell us that they were going to do a GEIS. When we get the document I presume we will set up meetings to analyze it and take comment and go over it. That’s my guess. MR. HOFFMAN-What I heard was that they’re planning to submit their Draft Environmental Impact Statement within the next month, and I haven’t heard that there’s been a scoping session. MR. MAC EWAN-There hasn’t been. MR. HOFFMAN-As far as the, it seems to me somewhat arbitrary, this division of the project between the Route 9 as the dividing point between the east side and the west side, as if there’s something magical about that. There may be some differences between the usages on both sides, but I think that we shouldn’t overplay those distinctions, that both sides of the road will impact, each side will impact on the other side. If you bring more parking in, you’re going to have more people. If you have more people, you’ll probably have more rides. You’ll probably want to keep the Park open later. I think all these things interact with each other, and I just think it’s an arbitrary distinction to use Route 9 as a cut off for what’s included and what’s not included in the EIS. I guess those are my main concerns at this point. Thanks. DONALD MILNE MR. MILNE-I’ll try to be brief. Donald Milne. I’m representing the Glen Lake Protective Association. I’m the Vice President of that organization. Number One, we would ask that the GEIS not be segmented and separated with east and west, that an overall GEIS be developed for the entire 37 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) project, for the entire Park. Two, we talk about expedited action. We’ve seen the results of precipitous action. Great idea. Hand out $50 yearly passes. We saw what happened with traffic backed up on the Northway. We shouldn’t act precipitously. Was a SEQRA done before the Bobsled ride was put in? Were the noise impacts of that ride studied prior to, as part of Site Plan Review? MR. BREWER-Absolutely. MR. MILNE-It was? Okay. MR. VOLLARO-Well, it was done on an individual basis, and not on a cumulative basis. We looked at just that particular ride. MR. MILNE-Okay. Precipitous action. There’s been tree removal and grading on the Animal Land property, which I understand there was a Stop Work Order on, at some point. Is that true? Was that Stop Work Order followed? MR. ROUND-Yes. MR. MILNE-It was? Okay. When we act precipitously and we don’t plan carefully, the impacts can be serious, and we’ve seen the results of some of those impacts. Let’s move carefully, folks. I ask three things. I’m summarizing right now. Number One, a GEIS which is cumulative and deals with the entire property, Number Two, that a public scoping session for SEQRA be included in that SEQRA process. The public must be involved in the scoping. Three, that no additions or alterations be made to the Park until that SEQRA is completed. KATHLEEN GOWAN MRS. GOWAN-Good evening. My name is Kathleen Gowan and Glen Lake is my home. Sitting here tonight it seems to me that Premier Parks would like to dictate to the Board what the EIS should include, and I’m not quite sure that’s the correct process. Shouldn’t the Town be telling. MR. MAC EWAN-I can tell you that is not the process. MRS. GOWAN-Thank you. Shouldn’t the EIS incorporate Premier Parks’ Master Plan? Yes or no? MR. MAC EWAN-Incorporate their Master Plan? It could be something that could be involved in an Environmental Impact study and its review, yes. It’s not necessarily one of the components that’s required of doing an EIS, but it certainly would be helpful. MRS. GOWAN-At this point in time, rather than having them continually segment what they want to do, shouldn’t the Town ask them to provide a Master Plan? MR. MAC EWAN-We have. MR. VOLLARO-It’s been requested. MR. MAC EWAN-Several times. MRS. GOWAN-Sitting here this evening, it basically sounded like nothing more than informed consent from Premier Parks, and that scares me, quite honestly. I don’t want to see this area just go downhill. Yes, Premier Parks is part of our community, and we need to work together. We need to find some way to cooperate, and not pit each other against one another. Please don’t let them bully you into approving something prematurely. I beg you not to be bullied. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. JOHN STROUGH MR. STROUGH-John Strough, Queensbury. Is the Planning Board going to be the lead agency in this case? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. MR. STROUGH-Okay. MR. SCHACHNER-I think you should be careful. We cannot guarantee that this Planning Board will be lead agency. The best we can say in that regard is that this Planning Board may seek to be lead agency. If there are other involved agencies, then other agencies have the right to contest who 38 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) will be lead agency. I think we can safely say that we anticipate the Planning Board lead agency, but I think we need to be careful. I don’t want the public to leave with some sort of guarantee that we don’t have the legal authority to guarantee. MR. MAC EWAN-I stand corrected. MR. STROUGH-Fair enough. MR. SCHACHNER-Just to clarify. MR. STROUGH-Okay. So we don’t know at this time for sure. MR. SCHACHNER-Excuse me. I don’t want to throw you in the wrong direction on that, Mr. Strough. Nobody has suggested otherwise. No one has suggested otherwise. I’m not aware of any. MR. STROUGH-Well, all I said is we weren’t sure. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. MR. STROUGH-And on the correspondence sent to Craig MacEwan, October 1, on Page Two it st refers to the attachment. MR. MAC EWAN-Which correspondence are you referring to? MR. STROUGH-From Lemery & McKrell to Mr. Craig MacEwan, and I’m just a little confused. On Page Two of the attachment to the letter, which explains the proposed table of contents for the GEIS, it refers to Park Area C on the attachment, and it says the lands west of Interstate I-87, west of I-87. I’m a little confused. MR. VOLLARO-They’re transposed. MR. STROUGH-Then west of Route 9 should be the correct way of stating that, I guess, or east of I-87? Thank you. MR. VOLLARO-I think there’s an error in here. MR. STROUGH-Well, I was just a little confused. MR. VOLLARO-B and C have been transposed here, is what it amounts to. MR. STROUGH-Okay. Thank you. ANNA FOWLER MRS. FOWLER-Hi. I’m Anna Fowler from 96 Ash Drive on Glen Lake. I will speak very briefly. A quote that I heard was what’s driving this in large part is a timing issue. I don’t understand what that issue is, but in my opinion, a new waterslide is not and cannot be considered an emergency, which requires shortening the due process of an Environmental Impact Statement, and public input, archeological studies. I find it interesting that this new ride has come up, because it was not on the agenda at all, but I don’t feel that the timing issue could be possibly an emergency. As far as the sewer line addressing 90% of Glen Lake residents concerns, I don’t agree with that. That certainly would address some of them, but there are many concerns with runoff from parking lots, motor oil, heavy metals and other toxins, the cutting of trees, changing of topography, erosion, road building and so on, so that, truly, there are many other concerns that need to be addressed, and I would also ask that you look at the Watershed Management Plan, which the Town of Queensbury did adopt, and abide by that. Thank you. MR. PALING-Anyone else? Come on back up. It might be appropriate now to get comments from up here. MR. MAC EWAN-Go right ahead. MR. VOLLARO-I’ve got some. I’d just like to get some clarification, in the document that was attached to the October 1 letter, which is the document dated September 1999. First of all, let me st characterize how I understand the presentation, before I ask the question. You refer to the expansion project as that piece of expansion that you’re planning to do on the west side of Route 9. Is that the definition of the expansion project, as I understand it? More specifically characterized as Park Area C? 39 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. LEBOWITZ-Well, in part it is. MR. VOLLARO-Just yes or no. MR. COLLINS-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. That’s what I wanted to know. All right. Now, when I take a look at 3.2, which is your environmental setting of park holdings and project area, under 3.2.1, you talk about Park Area A. Now if one reads that description, it says, each of the environmental setting descriptions, and I’m not sure how you’re constituting environmental setting, but each of the environmental setting descriptions for several project areas to include discussions of existing and proposed development and future permissible land uses and development according to Town Zoning Plans. When I read that, my interpretation of that paragraph is that you intend to do a Generic Environmental Impact study on Section C and Section A. That’s how I review that. That’s what those words say to me. Now, if I’m wrong, correct me. MR. LEBOWITZ-Well, I’m sorry if it’s a little confusing. MR. VOLLARO-It’s not a little confusing. It’s very confusing to me. MR. LEBOWITZ-Okay. A is the existing Park. MR. VOLLARO-I got that. I understand that. MR. LEBOWITZ-C is pretty much the lands, the newly acquired lands west of Route 9, and the new construction that’s being proposed for those lands, and you see where the thing kind of juts out there? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I see that little hook. That’s what you mean? MR. LEBOWITZ-That is the project area. That’s where the other side of the pedestrian bridge is going to be built. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. That’s fine. Still in all, that doesn’t clarify 3.2.1 being referred to as Park Area A. MR. LEMERY-Let me try to answer it this way, because part of what has happened here is to try to get an understanding from both the Planning Board level, and the Great Escape, what this Environmental Impact Statement is supposed to include and deal with. First of all, the Park is zoned as an amusement park as it is. We think that the way to deal with what goes on within the confines of that amusement park which is zoned RC-15 amusement park, and has been zoned for that, we think that you have a process in place already, which deals with what attractions they either put in the Park or take out of the Park, the existing Park as it sits there. There’s no plan to expand that. So expansion’s probably not a good word to use, because there’s no plan to expand the existing amusement park beyond its present borders. MR. BREWER-That study area A, is it exempt from the Environmental Impact Statement? MR. LEMERY-Well, we think that the Impact Statement, as it relates to what goes on there, has to do with the traffic that is generated, as the Park grows. The issue is traffic. The issue is stormwater management, and if the parking lots are paved and how that’s dealt with to protect the kinds of issues this lady raised, which are legitimate and need to be responded to, and issues relating to noise abatement at either the perimeter of the Park, or what kind of noises can be heard beyond the perimeter of the Park, but there’s no way that the Impact Statement is going to be able to deal with what kind of rides you have in Year One. You might take out rides in Year Two, put other attractions in in Year Three. It’s not possible, and these are vested rights over there in that part of the Park. MR. MAC EWAN-What’s the definition of “vested rights”? MR. LEMERY-That it’s already there. They’re existing. We don’t go back and look at those again. MR. MAC EWAN-According to who? MR. LEMERY-According to the SEQRA Statute. MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t share that opinion with you. 40 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. LEMERY-Well, that’s fine, but that’s what we’re here, if everybody wants to try to be reasonable, we’ll get through a process that will work for everyone, and recognize what’s going on. MR. MAC EWAN-You know, John, I’ve got to tell you, I’m getting really frustrated here, because, first of all, I need to apologize to everyone in the audience, my fellow Board members, Staff, and you, the applicants, for being here late. Travel plans didn’t permit me to get here earlier. I will tell you that we have been trying to work with you and Premier Parks since February of this year, and trying to get the ball rolling, to get an Environmental Impact Statement done for that Park. Not the west side of the road, not the new holdings, but the Park itself and all of its holdings. You have been fighting that every step of the way for the last eight or nine months. We’re not going to get anywhere. We’re going to sit here and we’re going to continue to spin our wheels. We’re going to get no farther ahead than we are tonight, than what we back in October, than where we were in September, than where we were in June, and where we were in February, and if you want to progress and have the Park develop a little bit more and have the Town work with you, have the neighborhoods affected work with you, then we need to do an Impact Statement that’s going to cover the entire holdings of the Park, nothing less. I can’t see us beating around the bush about it anymore. MR. LEBOWITZ-I think that a lot of this is going to become clearer when we file this statement and you see how this thing is put together, and that it does address the concerns, when you try to apply SEQRA to a project that is not a clean slate, is not all new development, but consists of, as we’ve shown on the map, three separate areas that came into existence and development at different times, and have different developments proposed for them. I think that Mr. Schachner, if he would read the case of EFS Ventures against Foster, and advise the Board as to how SEQRA works in a multi phase project where development is added over a period of time, what that case says is that when you do an Impact Statement for the new development, you consider the phase, the new development that’s being proposed, and you do the Impact Statement about that, and you don’t go back to Square One and do an Impact Statement about stuff that’s been there for 40 years. Now that having been said, I think that the way we’re trying to balance this and put all this together is that we are asking the question of, what is the cumulative impact of this new development on the existing Park, and all the things that that entails. So we’re not just talking about parking lots. We’re talking about parking lots and traffic improvements that facilitate roughly a doubling of patronage of the Park. So I think that in terms of all this stuff about scoping and about timeframes and, I’ve done a lot of Impact Statements, and I’ve seen a lot of, you know, staring into the sun that takes a long time, that just, you know, confusion is produced. We think that we sat down with some members of the Planning Board, to hear their concerns about what should be in the Statement. We’ve seen the correspondence from the residents and we’ve talked informally with people. We’ve seen the entire checklist in SEQRA. We know what has to be in these Impact Statements. We know what questions are reasonable and need to be addressed to make a rational decision, and I think that when you see this Impact Statement filed, and you go through it, and Mr. Schachner takes a look at how that stacks up with the SEQRA Regulations and the case law about how you apply SEQRA to a multi phase project, Mr. Messinger reviews this Statement for the appropriateness of content, completeness for the purpose of commencing public review, and the people in the audience here who are concerned about the development, and legitimately so, look at this thing, the questions are going to be answered, okay, enough so that we may differ, ultimately, on some of the conclusions to some of the mitigations, or people may feel different about the balancing of economic benefits and impacts and so forth, which is what SEQRA is supposed to do, but I don’t think that people will be saying that we’ve misdefined the project, that we’re trying to hide something, or that we’re not addressing the impacts of what the Park is setting out to do now, to take this facility to the next stage. MR. MAC EWAN-I have three questions for you. This basis that you just discussed, is it your support of segmentation of SEQRA for this purpose? Is that what you’re referring to? Being able to segment SEQRA? MR. LEBOWITZ-Segmentation is one of these relative concepts, Mr. MacEwan. I think, you know, segmentation is the artificial division of a single project into smaller projects. So that the smaller projects appear not to have environmental significance. That’s not what we’re doing here. What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to segregate the new facilities that mostly happen to be on the west side of the road of Route 9, which is what triggered, I think in large part, the cry to do an Impact Statement in the first place, from the ongoing stuff that’s in the Park and has been there for 40 years, and the case that, you know, there was an instance, in the early 1990’s, when some neighbors did litigate the issue of whether, if you did one ride, water ride, in one part of the Park, and another water ride somewhere else, whether that was impermissible segmentation to divide the site plan reviews up like that, because what they were really trying to do is build a bigger project, and both the Board and the court ultimately concluded that that wasn’t segmentation, but I think you have to take segmentation on a case by case basis, and you have to look at how a project is being proposed to be divided for the purpose of review, and ask yourself the question, is the purpose here to artificially divide projects up so that they appear to be smaller in terms of their impact than they are, and I think 41 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) that what you’re going to conclude when you see what we’ve done is, no, that’s not what’s happening here. We’re drawing the line between the new stuff and the existing stuff, if you will, but it’s not an issue of, you know, whacking the new project up into three or four little projects. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m not sure if you answered my question or not. That was a long about way. I don’t know if you answered my question. Are you saying that your argument you just gave me is supporting your view that you can segment this review process, segment the SEQRA? MR. LEBOWITZ-I believe that doing the site plan for the new water ride in the existing Park, as you’ve done the site plans for the last six years, while considering the generic EIS of the Park expansion is not, is permissible segmentation, if you will. Considering those as two separate projects. MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Lebowitz, let me just say one thing. Back in March of this year, before Area C or the west side of Route 9 was even envisioned, this is before, Mark, we were talking to you. This was during the submission, I believe, of the go cart rides, we were talking, then, about an Environmental Impact Statement, way back there, before we ever talked about Area C. So, you know, this is not something that we just dreamt up this month. This has always been a request from this Board that a generic environmental impact statement be done essentially on Area A before we ever knew about Area C. MR. COLLINS-Let me interject this. We’re all saying the same thing. Okay. We’re saying the same thing. Our point is that the mitigating factors for everything that you guys have concerns about, we believe will be answered within the project Area C, okay, and the addition of individual rides, okay, will have individual impacts that we will review within the SEQRA process that we don’t believe is segmenting by doing that. However, within our EIS, we will discuss the impacts, such as noise and things of that, cumulative impacts that you’ll be happy with. However, that doesn’t disregard the fact that each of the individual rides, according to our zoning, will still have to be reviewed. I mean, unless you’re going to sit here and say, we’re going to give you a plan that says we have carte blanche for five years, and I don’t think that’s your intention. Your intention is still to have the right to review, if I come in and ask for a roller coaster, that you have the right to review it. Am I mistaken in that? See, I sit here, Craig, and you can sit here and tell me you say these things, and I’ll agree with you. However, we’re the ones that are coming up with the proposal. You say you want an EIS. Well, you don’t tell us what you want in it. We’re coming here with what we’re proposing. Whether or not people believe that’s enough, that’s fine. We’ll discuss that. We believe you’ll be happy with what we present in November, and if we don’t, we discuss it, okay. MR. BREWER-Exactly. MR. COLLINS-And I didn’t like that word, we want to rush, we’re not going to rush this through. Okay. Nothing’s going to get built. However, I still believe that we should look at individual projects within the scope of what that project is, because I have people that tell me, and you guys litigated it, that says it’s not segmentation when you add an attraction in an existing use, or the amusement park. Yes, there’s individual issues that need to be looked at for that ride, whether it be noise, whether it be runoff, just like you’ve done in the past, but we believe the EIS will be large enough in scope that you’ll be happy with it, and people are shooting it down already. It’s just that, we haven’t even submitted a draft yet. So there’s a lot of time for the input to say, gee, we need to have more information in it. MR. PALING-I’d like to kind of answer or comment on what you’re saying, and traffic and noise are very, very important, but I’m going to address noise, and I’m going to do it from two standpoints. If you look at Route 9, in the area you’re in, there are two go carts, there’s Knights of Columbus parties, there’s the Route 9 traffic, and there’s a loudspeaker from a car dealer down there. So noise is not your exclusive ownership, but if you move into the Park, and this is the part that concerns me most, while we move along with all of this, we’re overlooking, or not overlooking, but not doing anything about, immediately, the Bobsled noise, concert noise, which is a new factor we haven’t talked about, screaming from the rides and loudspeakers from your Park, and if we’re going to come in and authorize another ride while these hang in the balance, I don’t think we’re doing our job. I want to see the Bobsled noise corrected before we go on. I want to understand what you’re going to do about concerts in the future, before we go along, and then screaming, I don’t know, but the loudspeakers, that’s something you can do something about. All of those should be addressed before we approve any other rides. Now, the second point I want to make is that I’d like to see, and I’ve said this before a month ago. When I say a Full EIS, I mean from Exit 19 to 20, done by the Town, and Premier Parks paying their portion of it. That, to me, would be the final solution to this thing. The second thing would be a Full EIS involving the Park only on both sides of the road. Okay. So, that’s all I’ve got. MR. BREWER-I say lets get the document, examine it, if it’s not adequate, we give it back to them and tell them what we want. We’re sitting here arguing about what’s in it and we haven’t even seen it yet. 42 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. MAC EWAN-Staff’s been relatively quiet. I’d like to hear some comments from over there. MR. ROUND-It has been confusing because, Number One, this was originally envisioned as a discussion item. It was advertised as a public hearing because it’s the Board’s policy that discussion items be advertised as public hearings, and in my communication to the applicant, that wasn’t the case. Our Staff followed the Planning Board’s policy, and there’s confusion item number one. Number Two, I think the thing that we’re struggling with is actually, what is the action? Not having a document in front of us to comment on whether we both understand what we’re reviewing, it makes it very difficult, and I think Mr. Brewer’s comment on that, if we have a document that describes what the action is, that you can come to an agreement what the action, you know, you can come to some consensus, and I think that’s where there’s discrepancy between, well, were you looking at existing facilities and their impacts, or were you looking at cumulative impacts or were you looking at just new disturbance activities or new construction activities? So we have to, Number One, nail down the action, and then, Number Two, you have to make a decision on whether you’re going to receive a document and comment on a DEIS or go through a scoping session, and there’s a couple of alternatives that you have with that, and Stu Messinger is here and hasn’t been introduced, and we had anticipated, with a project of this magnitude, that we will seek third party review. Stu is with Chazen Engineers, and they have been contracted to revise our Zoning Ordinance, and given their familiarity with the area and with the Great Escape, and with current issues that are going on in the Town outside of the Great Escape, we had made a recommendation to the Planning Board that they be utilized, and I don’t know if Stu has maybe some further clarification. STU MESSINGER MR. MESSINGER-Thanks, Chris, members of the Board. A couple of comments. I think Mr. Collins understands the purpose of a GEIS very well as it relates to the existing Park. I think he attempted to explain it, and that is that a GEIS should set forth a series of thresholds, by which you then review future projects, and that’s really one of the things that you want to get out of this is a series of thresholds that you can use in your review of projects, okay, and I think that’s, that’s one of the ways in which the existing Park would be reviewed in a GEIS, and so, for example, if you did noise studies that looked at existing levels of noise, you would have a baseline, and then you would have some ability to look at impact of future events. Another comment I wanted to make was that you’re potentially doubling patronage through increase of parking. In fact, it’s the attractions at the Park that cause more people to come, and the parking accommodates them. Okay. So your interest in reviewing what goes on in the Park within that envelope is justified in that respect, because, although you may not be able to look at what happens, and they may not be able to tell you what mix of rides is going to be there in the future, they may well be able to, or you may well be interested in knowing what kind of patronage is likely to be attracted in the future, and what impacts are associated with it. So while you may not have specifics of what the rides are, you may be able to ask the question, well, what happens if there’s 100,000 increase in patronage, what happens if there’s a 200,000 increase in patronage, and so forth. So those are just some kind of technical comments about GEIS’s that I want you to bear in mind with the next couple of things I’m going to say to you, and those are these. There are two ways to get to this Impact Statement. The way that they are proposing to do it is perfectly acceptable. They, essentially, want to enter into an agreement, a verbal agreement with you as a Board, that they’re going to give you a document that studies things that are going to happen in the future, and you can agree with that approach, and you all go forward. They volunteered to do it, and you agree that that’s a good thing to do and you go forward. The other way of getting at an Impact Statement for the Park is to simply Positive Dec the next action, the next action in front of you, the next application in front of you, that comes along the pike, and then get at an Impact Statement that way, okay, and I presume from these folks point of view, the former is preferable, for lots of obvious reasons. Okay. So, now having gotten at the Impact Statement in one of those two ways, either agreeing with these folks that you’re going to look at a Generic EIS of some form, or you’re going to Pos Dec the next action that comes down the pike and get it that way, you’ve got to think about how you want to do the process. The process that’s been proposed to you is, we’re going to write a document according to this scope. We believe it’s a document that’ll be responsive to the concerns that you’ve heard and that you folks have, give us the opportunity to do that. If I were in their shoes that’s the process I would propose. It’s not normally how the process is done, as you’re all aware. Normally, the lead agency will go through a process of saying, these are the things that we want studied, and they do that in close cooperation or less than close cooperation, depending on the temperature of the entire review process. So that’s something to keep in mind. The scoping process can be brief. It can be lengthy, and you may have a couple of comments on what’s required in scoping with the revisions to the SEQRA Regulations that you’re more up on than I am, but typically, the Board would engage in some kind of scoping process, where they would say, these are the things that we want studied, and this is the manner in which they want them studied. That’s your choice. You can also choose to do it in this fashion that’s proposed to you, and there’s nothing not legal about it. So those are kind of my comments on what I’ve heard and where you folks are so far. 43 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. VOLLARO-I’d just like to ask a question. The third option, where we would provide, essentially, the outline, or a scope of a Generic Environmental Impact Statement. How is that done by the Board? Does the Board retrieve itself into a smaller unit to actually get down to working a scoping session among ourselves? MR. SCHACHNER-No, lets not get the cart ahead of the horse, here, Bob. Scoping is optional. It is not mandatory, okay. MR. VOLLARO-Mark, what I’m trying to get at is, it seems to me that one of the things that we have a problem with is we’re not leading quite well here on our own Board, perhaps. I would like to see us sit down and say what we would like to have studied in a Generic Environmental Impact Statement, even if it was just in outline form. MR. SCHACHNER-And that’s fine. There is no question you have the authority to do that. I think I heard you say something about a smaller group. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, because I’m not sure we can get the whole Board together, because this isn’t going to be done in five minutes. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, I think that would be a mistake. If scoping is going to be conducted, okay, if scoping is going to be conducted, which is the second manner of doing this, that Stu was referring to. It’s not the applicant’s preferred manner of doing it, but it’s certainly the Board’s prerogative to go through scoping. If scoping is going to happen, then the SEQRA Regulations require certain formality to it. Certain steps are required. One of those steps is the applicant has the opportunity to submit a Draft Scope, okay. You then, assuming you’re the lead agency, have the opportunity, not the opportunity but the responsibility to go through a scoping process if scoping is happening. The scoping process must take place as an agency, as a Board. I’m going to strongly advise you against having individual members do this. You can do anything you want, unofficially, individually, to come up with something as a group at a meeting. That’s fine, but the scoping process, if you go through it, also has a mandatory opportunity for public participation, and the public participation usually occurs in either of two ways, and those two ways are either, a Draft Scope is published and the public then has a certain amount of days in which to submit written comments on the Draft Scope, or there’s something convened, called a Scoping Session, a meeting not necessarily unlike this meeting, but one with a bit more structure to it, where there’s an actual Draft Scope that’s been prepared in advance, that’s been reviewed in advance, and been massaged in advance, usually, and the public then has an opportunity to comment on the Draft Scope, but I want to discourage you from doing anything in less than a full Board. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. The only reason I mentioned that is I wasn’t sure we could get a full Board together to do that. I would like to see us take the lead in at least outlining what the Draft Environmental Impact Statement would look like. MR. SCHACHNER-And what I think we’re telling you is that you certainly have the authority to do that if you wish, and again, just to echo Stu’s comments, their alternative proposal is not illegal. I want to make sure that’s clear. MR. VOLLARO-Absolutely not. I understand that. MR. BREWER-Bob, would it not be easier to construct our list, seeing what’s absent of theirs? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. We could take what they have now and turn it into a list of our own. Is that what you’re saying? MR. BREWER-That’s what I’m saying. MR. VOLLARO-Sure, just massage this and get it back. MR. BREWER-Exactly. Let them give us what they have. Lets analyze it. I don’t know, are we allowed a certain timeframe or whatever? MR. MESSINGER-There is no action in front of you. There are no clocks that have started. MR. BREWER-So we can take the document that they give us, and if we want A, B, C, D, E, F, they give us A, B, C, D, fellas, come back with E, F, or you aren’t going anywhere. That’s what we do. We’ve been beating our heads here for two hours. MR. COLLINS-Yes, and we’re basically saying the same thing. 44 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. BREWER-And if we say we don’t think this is inclusive of what we want as a Board, then say, see you later, come back with what we want or we’re not going to go anywhere. MR. VOLLARO-I’ll tell you, Tim, from my background, you’re not going to be able to take a document that they give you and adequately review it in a short period of time. MR. BREWER-Who says we have to have a short period of time? If we want to, take a month. He just said there’s no action in front of us. If we want to take a month, then we take a month. MR. VOLLARO-That’s fine. So long as the Board can get together, in public forum, and review that document among ourselves, and with the public. MR. BREWER-Right. We can have meetings and not take public comment. MR. VOLLARO-I think if you’re going to scope, I think the public has a right to scope. MR. BREWER-Well, I’m saying, that’s fine. If you want to do it once with us, however you want to do it, that’s the way to do it. MR. MAC EWAN-There’s several steps to achieve before you get to that point. MR. BREWER-Right. We’ve got to get the document first, and see what we think is lacking. MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else that Staff wanted to add? MR. ROUND-The way we’ve handled the process previously is to receive a DEIS, a Draft Environmental Impact Statement, whether generic or otherwise. We receive it. We review it, and identify. MR. SCHACHNER-Wait, you’re ahead of us. We’re talking about scope. MR. ROUND-A scoping document. Well, he was talking about receiving a DEIS. MR. SCHACHNER-Tim Brewer was, but the rest of the Board was talking about the scoping. MR. ROUND-Yes. We can, whether it’s a scoping document or a Draft Environmental Impact Statement, we can review that document, provide comment to the Board and advise you what we would include in a scope of the document. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, and also, before we get to that stage, and again, assuming the applicant is willing to do this, and they’re not obligated to do this, but I would recommend, and I think Stu would agree and I think Chris would, too, we would recommend that Staff be made available to the applicant’s consultants, to further the preparation of the scope in a manner that, to try to short circuit some of the ping pong ball, back and forth between applicant, Staff, applicant, Staff, applicant, Staff. I mean, our suggestion would be to have the Staff meet with the applicant’s consultant at people’s mutual convenience, and work on a scope together. MR. COLLINS-We have no problem with that. MR. PALING-That’s fine. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s fine. MR. VOLLARO-That makes sense. MR. LEBOWITZ-And then we can, in turn, say this is something that we all feel comfortable giving to you, have you go through the form. MR. LEMERY-Yes, and you can treat the Draft Environmental Impact Statement as a scoping document, and you can get back to us with respect to that. You can treat it as that document. MR. MESSINGER-I think that’s not what we’re suggesting, anyway, just to be clear to the Board. That’s not what we’re suggesting, but they can certainly do it that way. MR. VOLLARO-We’re not suggesting what Mr. Lemery just. MR. SCHACHNER-Mr. Lemery’s reference, and he’s correct, is you could, Staff could just take a Draft Environmental Impact Statement and essentially use that as a scope and reflect on that and 45 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) comment on that, and what Chris and Stu are saying is that’s not what they’re recommending. What they’re recommending is that the applicant’s consultants, or anybody. MR. COLLINS-We’re willing to do that. MR. SCHACHNER-Anybody from the applicant and Staff get together first to define the scope of the document, and I think the reason our Staff is recommending that is simply to try to enhance the efficiency of the process, so that the applicant doesn’t spend however much time they spend preparing stuff that’s not what the Staff, and ultimately the Planning Board, have in mind, and I do want to make one comment, in that regard, about expediting the process. As somebody who’s been involved in the preparation and review of dozens and dozens of Environmental Impact Statements, many timeframes are not cast in stone. There is a lot of flexibility to the timeframes of review, but the bottom line is that the place that the timing gets bogged down, in EIS review, typically is somewhat under the applicant’s control, by which I mean the applicant bears the burden or the brunt of the work, and most of the heavy lifting is done by the applicant, and if the applicant turns things around very quickly, then the process will end up being somewhat expedited. What I guess I’m saying is this Board has been involved in Positive Declaration EIS projects before, not many but some, and this Board always strives to be timely in its review of everything that’s before it. You’ve typically, even tonight, for applicant’s quick turnaround time, next week type meetings and all that, and I don’t want the Board to be too concerned about the process getting bogged down from your standpoint, because my experience with this Board is that generally you and your Staff have been very good at accomplishing timely review of things, and if the applicant also does things in a timely manner, then I don’t think the thing has to get bogged down. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. BREWER-So go get a document and bring it back to us. MR. COLLINS-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-I apologize for being late tonight, gentlemen. MR. COLLINS-No problem. DISCUSSION ITEM: SITE PLAN NO. 51-99 THOMAS J. FARONE & SON, INC./J. BUCKLEY BRYAN, JR. OWNER: SAME ZONE: PUD/SR-20, MR-5 & LC-42A LOCATION: END OF FARR LANE & FOX FARM ROADS APPLICANT PROPOSES A 75 LOT SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL AND MIXED USE DEVELOPMENT IN THREE (3) PHASES. PHASE I, 25 RESIDENTIAL LOTS, SENIOR HOUSING, COMMUNITY SERVICE AREA AND ACCESS TO OPEN SPACE/CONSERVATION AREA. PHASE II CONSISTING OF 25 RESIDENTIAL LOTS AND PHASE III, 25 RESIDENTIAL LOTS. PLANNING BOARD SITE PLAN APPROVAL IS REQUIRED FOR PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT. APPLICANT IS REQUESTING CONFIRMATION FROM PLANNING BOARD REGARDING SCOPE OF TRAFFIC ANALYSIS AND WELL LOCATIONS. CROSS REFERENCE: PUD 1-96/SP 1-97 TAX MAP NO. 73-1-21, 22.1, , 22.2, 22.3, 22.4 LOT SIZE: 135.15 +/- ACRES SECTION: 179-58 MATTHEW JONES, JIM MILLER, TOM NACE, REPRESENTING APPLICANTS, PRESENT MRS. LA BOMBARD-And the public hearing was back on September 23. rd MR. JONES-Mr. Chairman, for the purposes of your record, I’m Matthew J. Jones, of the Jones Firm in Saratoga Springs, on behalf of the applicant. With me tonight is Tom Nace, who is the project engineer, Jim Miller who is our Landscape Architect, and Mark Gregory, of Transportation Concepts, who is our Traffic Engineer. MR. PALING-Excuse me, I think you want to get Staff comments, first. MR. MAC EWAN-I apologize. It’s late. STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Indian Ridge, Site Plan No. 51-99, Meeting Date: October 19, 1999 “Description of Project: The applicant has requested a discussion for the development of Indian Ridge Staff Notes: The Planning Board reaffirmed the proposed Indian Ridge PUD of 1999 was consistent with the Indian Ridge PUD of 1996. The Planning Board provided some direction to the applicant in regards to additional information requested for the well monitoring locations and traffic 46 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) concerns. The preliminary review should address the following items: An explanation of the need for a one way road on a portion of Fox Farm Rd. Identifying turn around areas for each parcel’s driveway. Confirmation that there is no lighting plan proposed for the PUD, with the exception of the proposed senior facilities and the community area. The senior facilities and the community area will need to submit a lighting plan for Planning Board review. A rendering of the entrance sign as requested from Staff notes of February 20, 1997. A detailed drawing of the conservation lands, indicating parking areas and any associated structures. Recommendation: Staff would suggest the Board recommend the applicant continue to preliminary review.” MR. JONES-Mr. Chairman, there are actually three issues that I’m going to cover with you this evening, and actually I’m going to do that as briefly as I possibly can, first having to do with one of the discussion items from the last meeting. The access point between the school district, which is right on this thing, right in this area between the school district and the project, and we had a meeting, in that regard, with the school district, yesterday, as a matter of fact, and Larry Paltrowitz from the school district in order to try to work out some of those issues on the pedestrian access way. We did have some discussion, at the school district’s request, with regard to vehicular access for the project. We are not able to work that issue out with the school district at the present time. The school district has retained an engineer and have asked for a period of time and they will have that over the next several weeks, to submit some information to us, but at least with regard to the pedestrian access way, we are at the following stage. The area that is, a question, just to orient the Board. This is the area where the bus garage is, and you’re looking at the bus garage, at the top of the screen. This looks down from the bus garage, all the way back on line to the bus garage, I should say, and then this looks the other way, from the bus garage is about here, all the way down this. The reason that’s important is, the bus garage was not there at the time that our original plans were submitted, and at the time that the original access way was planned, in this area down here. What we have proposed, and you’ll see some of these pictures were taken recently, and some are in the wintertime. What we have proposed is a walkway that will connect from this area right here, the project, and lead us down into the ball field area, and that would be a walkway right along this path, and over and down, connecting on to the school property. You’ll see that coming back the other way, and this is from the school property, again, on back around the curve, over to the pedestrian access right here. That just simply moves up the curb, around this pathway, the sidewalk kind of a configuration here. That looks back toward it, and this area right here, if you’re looking at it, is about 30 feet wide, and that’s that area, the 30 foot wide easement, at the present time. That was one of the Staff comments that we received, that were before you about a month ago. That’s how we proposed to address it, and that’s how we’ve laid it out to the school district at the present time. In this path area here, the 30 foot wide area, not only, it’ll be primarily used for pedestrian access. That’ll be kids going from the subdivision onto the school property, but it’ll also have an emergency access vehicle component to it, and that we anticipate some kind of a breakaway or locked gate that will accommodate fire trucks, emergency vehicles, ambulances and so forth, probably about a 12 foot wide strip in there that will accommodate those vehicles, not be used for vehicular traffic, except an emergency. Larry’s been here all night long. Do you want to hear from the school district, in fairness to him, at the present time, on that one issue, because we’ve got two others to go. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s fine. LARRY PALTROWITZ MR. PALTROWITZ-Thank you. I’m Larry Paltrowitz. I’m representing the Queensbury Union Free School District. Just to take a very brief moment and comment on the traffic piece of it. When we were here before you last month, we indicated that the School Board was going to hire a traffic engineer. In fact, that did occur, and that’s Volmer Associates, out of Albany. Volmer is the entity that recently did the analysis on Quaker Road and dealt with the traffic lights on Quaker Road. So I know that the Board should be familiar with them, and the Town should be familiar with them. We did get them retained and on board and in fact had a preliminary, an initial meeting with Mr. Jones and with Chris Round and with the consultants from the developer, actually two representatives from Volmer Associates were with representatives of the School District, and at that meeting, we did discuss the concerns that the School District had, Number One, with regard to that pedestrian crossing, and although the School District still believes that it can have a pedestrian crossing going from the Indian Ridge site to the School District, we’re not certain, at this point, until the Volmer Associates can review the entire plan, whether or not the particular site located is the appropriate site for this pedestrian crossing. There are safety concerns dealing with the students that would be coming across there. There’s concerns about how those students would be directed onto the campus, and so although Mr. Jones indicated that there may be some agreement with regard to that pedestrian crossing, I just want to venture to say that from the School District’s perspective, there really isn’t an agreement with regard to it. The concept of having a pedestrian crossing is one that the District wants, and if it can be worked out within the overall plan, that is acceptable. Conceptually, as I understand it, it’s acceptable with the developer. The actual location and what has to be developed, including sidewalks and the ability to direct the students to the proper space on the School District property still is up in the air, and we don’t know that until we have our report from 47 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) Volmer Associates as to where that location is and how that’s going to be handled. The second piece of it is Mr. Jones has indicated that wherever this pedestrian access is going to be, it’s going to be wide enough to deal with emergency vehicle, and we did discuss that at our meeting. The School District does have concerns, to the extent that whatever that access is is going to be sufficient to allow that access, including things that would be wide enough to have fire trucks, even emergency exiting off the property, including buses, in an emergency situation, and we’re not sure of how that would be developed, again, until we get Volmer Associates’ approval and their recommendations. Along those lines as well, there is the whole issue of what the plan is going to be for that 30 foot site. As I understand it, the original plan was to just have gravel with this breakaway fence that Mr. Jones is talking about. Our concern is that that would have to be cleared in the wintertime. There’s going to be an ownership issue with regard to who’s going to own that site, how it’s going to be developed. Is it going to be developed with just a gravel road, or is it going to be maintained with some type of macadam or some type of pavement, and so there’s some real planning concerns with regard to that access, both for possibly pedestrian and/or emergency vehicles. Then the third issue that we discussed was the fact that the School District is still looking at the possibility of utilizing the Town roadway system within that subdivision for possible bus and/or vehicle traffic onto the site, and so, again, we believe that it’s necessary for us to get expert opinion from Volmer Associates as to what possibilities there could be, in order to see whether or not that’s going to be feasible and a sound plan that we would make a recommendation to the Town Board to accept. So, I guess our concern is that if there’s going to be a traffic analysis done, that the traffic analysis hasn’t been completed, and that one of the issues that’s going to be developed as part of this site plan is the traffic analysis, we would recommend that that analysis not be undertaken or completed until the School District’s expert, Volmer Associates, has the opportunity to put forth its input and provide that input to the Town Planning Board, so that that can be considered along with the entire site plan, and again, I apologize for the late evening and my presentation here that might have taken a bit longer than originally anticipated, but I appreciate the interest and consideration the Town Planning Board has. The School District is very interested in how the access is going to occur, both from a pedestrian as well as emergency vehicle, as well as possible regular traffic, and we’re moving in a very expeditious way to try to get that information, so that it can be presented to you in any site plan review, and we hopefully have you consider that seriously along with the information provided by the developer. MR. MAC EWAN-Two quick questions for you. What does the Volmer report, what’s it going to encompass, just the school property and traffic on school property, or is it going to encompass some of Aviation Road or what? MR. PALTROWITZ-It’s going to, as I understand it, what they’re going to do is to look at primarily the western boundary of the school property as it aligns with the eastern boundary of the Indian Ridge development, and to see where there could be access to the Town road. So it’s not going to just deal with what happens on school property, but actually an integration with the Indian Ridge site, as well as the fact that we all know that there’s going to be an impact out on Farr Lane and Aviation Road, regardless of the involvement of the School District, as well as emergency vehicles, as well as possible regular traffic going out that way. So as I understand it, Volmer is going to be looking at that whole arena. MR. MAC EWAN-When do you expect this report? MR. PALTROWITZ-They’ve started working on it already. We’ve had this preliminary, or initial meeting on Monday. They’re working on it. They felt that they would be able to pull this all together within a matter of weeks. So, again, we’re not looking at months, at this point, but it’s kind of speculative of me, at this juncture, to try to commit a particular timeframe. They are committed to working on it in an expeditious fashion. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. Any questions from Board members? Okay. Thank you. MR. PALTROWITZ-Thank you very much. MR. JONES-I think Larry’s characterization was more accurate than mine, with respect to the pedestrian easement. The concept seems agreeable to both parties, but if I meant to suggest the location was agreed to, that’s mistaken. We even talked to (lost words) today. There’s a path that already exists right here, right along this fence, that may end up being the pedestrian easement in some manner, but the location has not been agreed to. With regard to the possibility of vehicular traffic, particularly from buses exiting any place through the subdivision, the developer would oppose that, to say vigorously would be understated. We see no opportunity for vehicular traffic to come from the School District, from the buses, through what is a road system designed basically for this neighborhood. We could not envision a circumstance where bus traffic and other traffic, staff and teachers from the school district would in any way be involved in using this. It’s not designed for that, let alone the further impact on what are already intersections which this Board is well aware of, both at Fox Farm and Farr. So, we don’t envision that at all, under any circumstances, would not consent to it, under a circumstance that I could envision, and so we would discourage the Planning 48 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) Board from progressing down that road. Whether the School District chooses to do so with its own engineers or not is up to the School District. Soil is the second issue that we’ve asked the Board for input on. This is the area in which, believe it or not it’s not some place in outer Africa, it is the area where we have identified, in the northeasterly part of the site, right in here, and we actually walked it with Bill Levandowski, Tom Nace, and myself, about two or three weeks ago, and this is the area where we propose to put the test well, which would make the fourth test well on the site, and let me ask Tom to go over triangulation with you on the fourth test well. MR. NACE-Very briefly, as I understand it, we presently have three wells, one here, one here, and one here, and originally we and the Town’s consultant as well, had believed that these, the basis here, given the fact that there’s about seven feet of elevation difference or drop between the static water level here and the static water level here, and there’s about a foot of elevation drop between the static level in the wetland and the level here, felt that there was adequate information to say definitely that groundwater gradient was away from the wetland. However, there had been some concern about mounding. So to try to put that to rest, and in conformance with what the Board had voiced in previous meetings, we selected a spot up here that if we put a test well here and can show that there is sufficient gradient from here to here, should show, without a doubt, that there really is not any ridge of groundwater mounding in the middle here, that would actually have water flowing back into the wetland. MR. BREWER-How difficult would it be to put one between where you’ve selected and to the left of that, between the point you’ve selected and the point that there is one? MR. NACE-There’s one here. You’re talking between these two? MR. BREWER-Yes. MR. NACE-There is a road through here. You’re talking about putting two additional in? MR. BREWER-Yes. MR. NACE-Okay. One of the things you’ve got to realize, these things are about $5,000 a piece to put in. MR. BREWER-To dig an eight-foot hole? MR. NACE-No, no, no. These are test wells. These are monitoring wells that are a drilled well that’s 65, 70 feet deep, okay, a casing is put in the well, and the well then is bailed, to develop the aquifer around the screen. There’s a screen put in the bottom of the well, and it’s just like a small water supply well that you were to drill for your house. It’s developed to get free flowing water around in the soil around the screen, and then it’s let sit a little while, and the groundwater level’s monitored, but we have a proposal in hand for doing this one, and for re-testing or resounding these wells, to get the current level in all of them at the same time, and it’s a little over $5,000 to do that, and to put in another one. MR. MAC EWAN-Per well, or all four of them? MR. NACE-No, to drill this one, to do this one, and then simply measure these. Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Is five grand? MR. NACE-Is five grand. MR. MAC EWAN-If you added one more well, does it make it ten grand? MR. NACE-It makes it very close to ten, probably around eight-five or nine. MR. MAC EWAN-I look at it this way. We get one shot at doing this. You can’t go back and undo 75 or 80 homes. MR. BREWER-All right. Either that or, Craig, possibly can we get another opinion whether there’s another one needed where we suggested? MR. NACE-Who are you going to ask? Your Town Engineer has already. MR. BREWER-No, I didn’t say our Town Engineer, some other engineer. MR. ROUND-I think this is the same debate that occurred several years ago, and Rist-Frost Associates said that there’s not, that there wasn’t a need for this additional well that you’ve requested, 49 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) but they went out with you and with Tom and with Matt and determined an appropriate location. There is 60 feet separation to groundwater. It’s not a flat groundwater table. There is a significant hydraulic gradient there. There’s six feet, six or seven feet separation. MR. NACE-There’s eight feet from the wetland to the static level here is eight feet of difference. If we were talking about something where there was an existing difference over this baseline of maybe 1200, 1500 feet, if there were only a foot or two of difference, then, yes. There might be a possibility that there were some variations in that somewhere, but there’s seven feet, in a fairly open soil strata that groundwater moves fairly freely in. We didn’t, none of the borings encountered material that would tend to impede the flow of water or the downward movement of water, and to get some mounding, you either have to have an unusual source of water, to create that mounding, or you have to have some strata that impede the movement of the water, as it goes down through the soil, and there’s nothing we have seen anywhere in here that would indicate that that eight foot of groundwater elevation difference in here could possibly be influenced enough to make a localized area that actually flowed back toward the wetland. MR. VOLLARO-Tom, what was the philosophy you used to dig the new well, in other words, to establish the baseline. MR. NACE-Well, we have, okay, we have a baseline here. These are approximately the same level, okay. The water level in one is 420.3, and this one is 420.6, okay. The water level up here is 427.5, okay. So we have a triangulation here. We also have, back to the wetland. This was 427.5. The wetland is 428.27. So there’s a little bit of difference here. There’s a good bit of difference here, and we were simply trying to get out further away here somewhere to get another leg that was a little bit larger. Plus, when the Board had discussed it before, they had discussed putting it on one particular lot number that was, that the previous layout was up in here. MR. BREWER-I think one’s enough, then, I guess. MR. NACE-If there were only a foot or two of elevation difference, I would say, yes, there could be some variations in there that might mean something, but with seven feet of difference in an open soil strata, it’s almost impossible to envision something that would create a mound flowing back into the wetland. MR. BREWER-Okay. Do the one. MR. MILLER-One other thing is, you know, evidence in this well, this well here is fairly close to the wetland and it’s lower. So it’s fairly obvious that that’s going away. If there was a source of mounding, toward the back of these lots, and water was flowing toward that wetland, that proposed well would have to be higher than the wetland, and what we contend is that when we drill that well, it will be lower, which will evidence that it does continue across the entire site. So that one well would have to be higher than the wetland to be flowing that way. Correct? MR. NACE-Correct. So I feel fairly strongly that more than one additional well really isn’t going to add significant data. MR. BREWER-Okay. MR. JONES-Can we leave at that, Craig, with one well? MR. MAC EWAN-That’s fine. MR. JONES-Okay. The third and final issue that we want to discuss with you tonight is the traffic studies, and as a threshold question, the issue of whether, and to what extent, we need an updated traffic study, and I want to make three brief arguments as to why I think the Board ought not impose that burden on the applicant, at this point, and the emphasis on brief. First, and I know we’re going back two years, but in the 65 pages of minutes, when we sat here in February of 1997, at that time your Staff gave you a memorandum interpreting the Zoning Ordinance and what the scope and authority was of this Board, in a PUD site plan review, and a PUD site plan review, as Mr. Martin explained it to you that evening, is something different than a site plan review in a normal subdivision, and there is a section of your law which applies to PUD review, which does not apply in regular site plan, and it limits your ability toward review. It limits it to siting and dimensional details within the general use areas, and that’s unlike the other kinds of site plan review that you would do in other subdivisions. Mr. Paling went to great lengths, that evening, to advise the audience of the limitations of the Board’s authority to impose additional traffic impact studies on the applicant. At several points, and without reading the minutes, but I would commend you to the various pages, at several points members of the audience then asked, why is it we can’t have you address additional traffic studies, and the consistent answer given by the Chair at that point was because that was undertaken in a SEQRA review by the Town Board. It was the Town Board’s function to do that, 50 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) and as we all know that application, having been approved by the Town Board, was then challenged significantly in court, and one of the basic and essential themes of that attack was the traffic analysis that was done or not done in front of the Town Board. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court sustained the Town Board’s decision. The Appellate Division is the second highest court in the State. It sustained what the Town Board did in finding no significant impact, in the SEQRA review. So you came to that conclusion, I believe, in February of 1997, at least your Staff, your Chair and various of you who spoke spoke differently. Craig, you took a view that was different than that, as did Tim Brewer, but I think there was ample support in the record for the Staff’s conclusion that it is beyond the jurisdiction of the Board to do that. Secondly, the matter has been litigated. It has gone to the Appellate Division. Thirdly, at that time, you had an enormous outpouring of neighborhood support for additional studies, and no longer is that the case, and the reason that is not the case is because we did what you, well, you didn’t do it that night, what you as a Planning Board ask an applicant to do, which is to sit down and try to work out and resolve your differences with the neighbors, and we did that. Notwithstanding what the Appellate Division said to us in October, a year ago, of 1998, we sat down with a PUD of 129 single family homes and reduced it, in a negotiated agreement with two Town Board members and the Citizens for Queensbury, some 40%, to accommodate that very fact, the traffic. The record, in terms of the amounts of studies that’s available, the record indicates is literally voluminous. That’s the record that was before the Town Board in August of 1996. So, these are all here. The work has all been done. All that’s happened is we’ve reduced our project by 40%, and you have no more from the Citizens of Queensbury. No longer are they asking you for an updated traffic study, one which, within your own rules, I don’t think is called for. So I would ask you not to impose that burden on the applicant, two years hence, since your last meeting in February of 1997 on the issue. MR. MAC EWAN-I guess my only comment to that would be, we don’t know that they have or haven’t asked us to do additional traffic studies, because we haven’t had a public hearing yet where we can ask them that question, or hear that from them. So for that statement, I don’t think it’s accurate. What you’re asking us to give you, what kind of a response regarding traffic analysis, I’m not really sure. MR. JONES-Sure. We had discussed, the last time we were here, an indication from several members, though we didn’t poll the Board officially, as to whether an updated traffic analysis would be required for preliminary site plan review. I understood several members of the Planning Board to indicate affirmatively that they wanted an updated traffic analysis, and that’s at odds with, really, the position Staff took and the position the Chair took in February of 1997, which I think correctly interpreted your law to read that you are limited to siting and dimensional details within the general use area of the site plan. Elsewhere, it was, and I think, Craig, you make have cited at the time, that one of the things you may consider is the adequacy and arrangement of vehicular traffic access and circulation, the definition of access then coming into play, is Farr Lane an access to this particular subdivision, and some of the audience urged the Board to interpret access as to mean Farr Lane or Fox Farm. Candidly, I think that tortures the English language, to suggest that the access to this subdivision is anything other than the access to this subdivision as it’s depicted on the site plan. So I think it is beyond the scope and jurisdiction of this Board, unlike the soils, which is clearly an on-site issue, and clearly authorized by your Statute. To re-do a traffic analysis to determine impact on the subdivision, I think is beyond the jurisdiction and scope of the Board, and I think the Chair ruled that in 1997, though there was no vote taken, and I can cite you at length here, but I know you don’t want me to do that. MR. MAC EWAN-Does Staff have comments? MR. SCHACHNER-What’s the provision in the PUD Statute that you cited, Mr. Jones? I’m familiar with the one that talks about the Planning Board’s review can include adequacy and arrangement of vehicular traffic access. MR. JONES-Yes. It’s 179-58C(3), the second sentence, Mark. MR. SCHACHNER-“The Planning Board’s statement may include recommendations”? MR. JONES-Yes. As you’re looking at it, just, what your Staff told you in February of 1997, the preliminary site plan submitted is consistent with the project layout and design as reflected in the Master Plan dated June 28, 1996, and approved at Sketch Plan phase by the Town Board on August 19, 1996. Staff has reviewed the preliminary application, in accordance with the criteria set forth in 179-58, entitled “Site Plan Approval Process”. This Section sets forth criteria for site plan review which are unique to the PUD application process. The review of the application is governed by these criteria. Attention is called to Section 179-58C(3), the one I just cited to Mark, which states, in regards to recommendations for revisions to the final site plan, such recommendations shall be limited, however, to siting and dimensional details within general use areas and shall not significantly alter the Sketch Plan as it was approved in the zoning proceedings. 51 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Jones, what was that Section, again? MR. JONES-179-58C(3). MR. SCHACHNER-It’s on Page 18016, and Mr. Jones is certainly accurately reciting that particular Section. The Planning Board’s authority, as you all know, or as I think you all know, the Planning Board’s authority for PU D’s is slightly different, or is worded at least differently, in the PUD Section of our Zoning Ordinance. I think that Chris and I, at least, feel that that particular provision of our Code, the whole PUD Chapter, is very confusing, even not at 11 o’clock or 12 o’clock at night. I think Mr. Jones has accurately referenced two provisions of the PUD Chapter, and the one he’s just directed your attention to does, in fact, include the sentence that, in reference to your preliminary site plan review recommendations, that says, such recommendations shall be limited, however, to siting and dimensional details within general use areas, and shall not significantly alter the Sketch Plan as it was approved in the zoning proceedings. The other provision that he kindly directed your attention to is two pages back, on 18014, Section B(1)(a), which under factors for consideration, says that your review of a preliminary site plan shall include but is not limited to the following considerations, and Letter A is, the adequacy and arrangement of vehicular traffic access and circulation, including intersections, road widths, channelization structures and traffic controls. That would, on its face, seem to give you fairly broad authority to look at traffic issues, although, again, I don’t think we should look past, meaning, I think we should be mindful of the applicant’s position on that, which is that, as I understand it, correct me if I’m wrong, applicant, that the applicant feels that even that language really references within the project and its immediate access and not a more removed access. Is that a fair statement? MR. JONES-Yes, it is, Mark. I don’t think you can read those two provisions together, and give meaning to both, and come to a different conclusion. MR. SCHACHNER-Right, and, you know, I think there’s a lot of gray area here. I don’t think this particular Section of our Ordinance is very artfully written, and I don’t know anyone who does. Looking only at the language on 18014, I think one could argue that it’s not so limited. The applicant’s contention is if you read that together with the language on 18016, that we may be over reaching, to go beyond the immediate access and the immediate area. A fair statement? MR. JONES-Fair statement, but you would have to negate C(3). You would have to read that language out, in my judgement, of the Statute, if you did anything other than go simply within the subdivision. If you went to impacts, such as are appropriate during SEQRA. If you went to a full SEQRA review, you would end up negating language which is in your own Ordinance, because it would be beyond the subdivision itself. To give you an example of what you did, you may recall on Page 31 of your minutes, Mrs. Blank, at the public hearing on February 20, 1997, talking at great length about traffic, and Mr. Paling, at that time, telling her, thank you. I’d just point out that most of what you’re talking about, and this is traffic, is not within our jurisdiction or authority. You’re talking about things that have been done, but you can say what you want to, I won’t interrupt anymore. The next person’s back here, Mr. Paling went on, on four or five separate occasions, to make the same point, correctly so, that people were raising issues about traffic which have been resolved in the SEQRA process at the Town Board, and I don’t mean to quote you without. MR. PALING-No, that’s all right. I remember it, and I think that we were, the only thing I didn’t like being said was that the Chair “ruled”. I don’t think I ruled on anything. MR. SCHACHNER-In fairness to Mr. Jones, he did point out that there was no formal determination, and again, I don’t think, as your Counsel, that you are bound, first of all, there was no formal ruling or formal determination, either by the Chairman, who wouldn’t have had that authority anyway, or by the full Board, by any type of formal resolution. I do not believe, as your Counsel, that you are bound, legally, by how you reviewed this two or three years ago. I do think we should be mindful of the applicant’s contention, in terms of reading that language. Your site plan review authority, under the PUD Section of the Ordinance, is not identical to, and perhaps not quite as broad as, your site plan review authority under the general Zoning Ordinance for all the site plan review that we normally do. Now, we do have, you know, correspondence, I think this is where you were headed, actually, why don’t you go ahead. MR. ROUND-It’s correspondence directed to Mike Vasiliou, dated February 24, which is several th days after the last Planning Board meeting that was conducted, and it’s from, signed Bob Paling, Planning Board Chairman at the time, and I’ll just jump to the first paragraph, it’s access. “In consideration of 179-58B(1)(a). The Board needs further information relating to the adequacy of access through Farr Lane. You stated that the information will be provided which will provide details regarding your interpretation of the nature and extent of access to the project, and your position regarding the Board’s authority on this issue. The Board will then review the information as it relates to the internal access points within the project, as well as the access to Farr Lane and Fox Farm Road.” I don’t know if that triggers any memories on your part, Bob. I think it does speak to 52 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) the Board’s struggle with this issue, and whether they had the ability to look at Farr Lane, was that remote in relationship to the subdivision, or was the scope of your review limited to the internal circulation road itself. MR. SCHACHNER-Let me throw out another way to look at this, and maybe this avoids the legal gray area, again, correct me, Mr. Jones, if I’m incorrect, but I think the applicant’s contention, aside from the legality aspect, is that because of determinations that were made two and three years ago by this Board and the Town Board, and because of the reduction in the density of the proposed project, that there simply is not substantively, never mind the legality issue or the jurisdictional issue, there is simply not, substantively, the need for further traffic study. Is that a fair statement? MR. JONES-That’s certainly, yes. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s something you may want to consider. I’m not saying, you know, obviously, it’s not my position to comment on that, but if you feel that way, then we don’t need to get bogged down in the legalities of it. If you don’t feel that way. If you feel there is a need for further traffic study, I’m not uncomfortable if you take that position. I recognize the applicant’s contentions. I think some of the language is pretty vague, and if you feel strongly about it, you know, as your Staff and Counsel, I mean, we’ll try to back you up, but all I’m saying is if you agree that there isn’t the need for that, because of the reduction in intensity, we don’t need to get bogged down in the legalese stuff. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m not prepared, tonight, to agree or disagree to that. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, I mean, that’s fine, too. MR. ROUND-I think everybody’s thoroughly confused, with the citations. MR. MAC EWAN-It’s not that I’m thoroughly confused. I’m still holding on to my thoughts before, that we do have that jurisdiction to review that. My opinion hasn’t changed on that. MR. PALING-That wasn’t held up in court. MR. MAC EWAN-That issue was never in court. This is afterwards. MR. SCHACHNER-Right. In fairness, I don’t think that specific issue’s been litigated, and I don’t think that, I mean, it’s certainly factually correct that the Town Board SEQRA determination was exactly what was challenged in the litigation action, and it’s certainly true that that Town Board SEQRA determination was ultimately upheld, but I don’t believe that, and I haven’t looked at the case in quite some time, and if Mr. Jones feels that there’s specific language that I should look at, I’d be happy to do that, but I don’t believe that the issue of how Planning Board authority fit in here was part of that litigation. MR. JONES-Correct. In no sense was it. Just on the balancing end of things, on the issue of soils, which we’ve resolved, our engineer, your engineer, and I’ll cite you the provision in the minutes, did not think it engineeringly necessary. We understand that, in every project, there’s a given and take that needs to go on, and we’re going to spend the $5,000 to do that, notwithstanding the fact that, in the minutes, your engineer says there’s no engineering basis for it. On this one, the gut check, where we’re reducing the project by 40%. The Town Board found no significant impact. Here’s the volume of record that backs that up. There is no longer a call, and you’re right, they’re not here to speak yet, but Dr. Hoffman will be up in a second, if he’s still here, Mark is still here, and suffice it to say, you will not hear a call for a traffic study from the Citizens for Queensbury, and that is very different from two years ago. The whole idea of the compromise was, okay, let’s get a project that works for the neighborhood. We understand the traffic. We reviewed the traffic with the Town Board members and with the Citizens for Queensbury. Lets get a number that we can live with an go forward, and I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. I do not think you’ll hear that call this evening. MR. VOLLARO-Those documents you have at your right hand are the documents on traffic studies before the reduction. Is that correct? MR. JONES-No, sir. This is actually, this is the record on appeal. This is everything that the Town Board had in front of it, that it reviewed in the SEQRA process, and the zoning process, up to August 19, 1996, including all of those traffic studies. MR. VOLLARO-Which was the large of the projects. MR. JONES-Yes, it was. 53 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. SCHACHNER-Correct. That’s the entire SEQRA review record of the originally approved project. MR. VOLLARO-Okay, and now we have a 40% reduction of that. MR. JONES-Correct, and I don’t want to mince numbers. There is still the senior citizen facility. MR. VOLLARO-Nominally 40%. MR. JONES-Yes, 40% when you just deal with single family homes. So on a balancing act, that’s where we’re coming at, and believe me, if it was something we were afraid of, and Tim said it many times. He said, why don’t you get the test, and that way we’ll prove it, on the soils, and then we’ll know. If it were something we were afraid of, I might be arguing like crazy that, you know, but it’s a 40% reduction. Intuitively, we have to know. It’s simply an additional expense, an additional delay, and it triggers other things that simply delay the project and that we really can’t afford. We’ve been at it for almost four years now. MR. MAC EWAN-Two thoughts. When somebody starts talking to me about money that they do or don’t want to spend on a project, and delaying a project, there’s nothing in our Zoning Ordinance that says anything about saving money or quickening the pace to get a review through. MR. BREWER-It doesn’t say anything that we should waste money either. MR. MAC EWAN-No, and I’m not suggesting that anyone is wasting money. What I’m suggesting is that we’re going to do with this application like we do all applications, give it a fair review, and if it requires that we do something that we aren’t seeing in front of us, and it does take a consensus of the Board and a majority vote, that that’s what we’ll do. Do you have anything else that you want to add? MR. JONES-Not at this hour. MR. MAC EWAN-In the interest of the late hour, we don’t have a public hearing scheduled, but if someone wants to come up and address the Board regarding this application, you’re welcome to do so. I would just only ask that we keep it brief, considering the late hour. MARK HOFFMAN DR. HOFFMAN-Mark Hoffman. First of all, I just wanted to comment, I would like to get a copy of those Staff Notes, because I think there were a bunch of issues raised there that kind of flew by me quickly, but as far as the three issues that Mr. Jones addressed and Mr. Paltrowitz, on the school access, I would just say, you know, I think the school has made a major commitment here with this traffic study that they’re doing, and it would make sense to try to get that information as quickly as possible to avoid making potential long term mistakes that could be easily remedied with the proper information. As far as the test wells, I really have no opinion on that subject. Again, intuitively, one would think, since they have moved the project further away from the wetlands, that that would benefit, in terms of environmental impact as well as the reduction in the density, but I’m not a hydrologist, and I think you need to use your technical experts to tell you what to do on that. As far as the traffic situation, there are a lot of issues that were raised some of which I agree with, some of which I think were misstatements about the traffic situation, but I don’t want to get into sort of academic arguments about who’s right or wrong and who said this and who said that. I think from a practical standpoint, the negative dec was based on data that was collected, some of which we agree with, some of which we disagree with, the interpretation of which, some of which we agreed and disagreed with, but assuming that it was all done correctly and everything that was in the original neg dec and Environmental Assessment Form, assuming that was all done correctly, the Town, at some point, made a conclusion that it had to be mitigated, and they came up with a plan, a tentative plan, to try to mitigate it, using Harza as a consultant. It was a very elaborate, very expensive proposition. That has been abandoned. Now, regardless of what happens with Indian Ridge and who’s responsible for doing what, at some point somebody has to determine what is going to be done to mitigate the traffic at those two key intersections, Farr Lane and Fox Farm Road. Does it have to be the same massive project that had been discussed earlier, or could it be something less? The arguments that I had made a couple of years ago was even that massive project that was discussed, which was all done after the SEQRA determinations were made, that even that massive project, Harza itself said that it would not necessarily solve the problem. So somebody has to look, at some point, at how to handle the traffic situation that will be exacerbated by having more traffic there. It would seem to me that, obviously, having less units will create less traffic, and therefore less impact and hopefully less mitigation. How much less mitigation, nobody knows because we don’t have the traffic expert to tell us that a 40% reduction, assuming that the numbers are correct and that the traffic has not increased, which is debatable, but assuming that the original numbers could still be used., the traffic counts, I would think that a traffic professional, without a great deal of difficulty, 54 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) would be able to make a determination as to what the decrease in density that is involved with this new project, how that would effect the need for mitigation. Now whether that’s the Town’s responsibility, whether that’s the developer’s responsibility, I leave that up to you, I leave that up to the Town, but at some point, somebody has to look at those numbers, and apparently the School is doing is some kind of a study. Maybe you could use that information to try to make sense out of the whole thing, but somebody has to, at some point, sit down and figure out what to do with the situation. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? DOUG AUER MR. AUER-Doug Auer. I just have a question, really, for Tom. This test well over there, this one here, it’s showing an elevation higher than the other two. Correct, the water level? MR. NACE-That’s correct. MR. AUER-Do you have any explanation for why that might be? MR. NACE-It’s more in line with the wetland. We have four points. These two are about the same. Seven foot higher is this. Eight foot higher is the wetland. The gradient, groundwater gradient, is this direction, okay. If you look at an overall large scale picture, Halfway Brook coming down through provides groundwater outlets for this whole region. So, you know, it’s 70, 80, 90 feet below this area, and logic says there’s a foot difference here, there’s seven feet difference here. These are about the same. MR. AUER-But my question is, how is this elevation (lost words) it is so close. Was that, do you actually have a bench, an elevation bench there? MR. NACE-These are all surveyed. They’re all surveyed. The wells are sounded to get the distance to the top of the casing, and the top of the casing is surveyed. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? JOHN STROUGH MR. STROUGH-Just a couple of quick things, if Mr. Nace would consider. I do believe, if my memory serves me well, that they did run into an impermeable silt level. MR. NACE-No, that is incorrect. MR. STROUGH-Well, I’ll have to do my homework. The other thing is that, has anybody investigated the idea that at one time it was said that the water table to the adjacent Rush Pond area was artificially high because of the beaver dam? Has anybody considered that? MR. NACE-I don’t really think it’s relevant, regardless. Rush Pond Watershed is on down below here. This wetland flows into a little stream that flows into some other wetlands and around, okay, I don’t know if this will show it or not. No, it really doesn’t show, but Rush Pond’s way down here. This wetland we’re talking about flows into a little wetland that’s over here. This comes around with a stream around beneath the Northway twice, and I think what they were talking about is a dam somewhere on one of these culverts. It’s totally irrelevant, because the elevations of the wetland here and the monitoring well elevations were all taken at the same point in time, okay. So it really has no relevance. MR. STROUGH-And I disagree on that point, too. It does have relevance, because you’re using it as a baseline. So if it’s an artificially high water table, it’s a temporary thing, and we’re using it as a baseline, meaning that that is not the natural water level. I think we ought to at least consider that. Is that fair, Tom? MR. NACE-Not really, because the lower wetlands, there is a natural elevation drop between this wetland that we’re looking at here and the lower wetlands that are on down, and having walked around this many times during the project, I can guarantee you that there hasn’t been a five foot difference in the water elevation in there during that period, or a change that great. You would see evidence of it along the shore. MR. STROUGH-Well, again, you dismiss it too easily. You would have appeased me if you had said I would investigate it. MR. NACE-Okay. I will investigate it. 55 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. STROUGH-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Anyone else? LINDA MC NULTY MRS. MC NULTY-Linda McNulty, 14 Twicwood Lane. I’ve got a more basic question. Does this project still fall within the guidelines of a PUD? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. MRS. MC NULTY-Because of the senior housing proposed? MR. MAC EWAN-Because of a zone change the Town Board granted. MRS. MC NULTY-Have you looked up the definition of a PUD? MR. MAC EWAN-I know what it is, yes. MRS. MC NULTY-It isn’t what I was taught in real estate school. MR. MAC EWAN-Unfortunately, that’s what the Zoning Ordinance says it is, though. Anyone else? MR. JONES-Mark Hoffman, who I’ve gotten to spend much more time than I ever thought I would with, over the last six months, agrees on this. This intersection of Farr Lane is a problem now. It’ll be a problem after Indian Ridge is built, and that’s a fact of life, and the geometry of the intersection just makes the intersection difficulty. When I say a problem, obviously, that’s not a traffic engineering term, but our studies indicated that this intersection is less than ideal, and there’s no question about that. We agree that some action in the future that the Town had contemplated, they had various proposals to do something with the intersection. That’s probably going to be warranted, if not unrelated to Indian Ridge, simply the growth in traffic there, the growth in development at that end of the Town. So it is an intersection that has problems. Here’s the point, though, that’s what the Town Board considered in August of 1996, and what we’ve got before you is a project which is 40% smaller than that, and if at the end of the day, you made us go out and get a traffic study, and we brought the report to you, and then you took a look at the Statute, not with what you can require in order to get your application complete, but what you can do with your preliminary site plan, being limited to siting and dimensional details, at that point, suppose you got a traffic study that you were not completely happy with? Where would that put the applicant, given the limitations of the Board’s authority at that point, and I guess the long and short of that is, that decision, I think fairly reading the Statute, was made by the Town Board when it found no significant impact, and I don’t know that there’s anything we can do with an updated traffic study, except get more information that’s not going to be helpful to the Board in reaching a decision on the project, and I would really encourage you, on this one, to allow the record, as voluminous as it is, to stand on that issue. MR. MAC EWAN-I think probably the best course of action for our Board to take tonight, and I’d like to hear my fellow member’s opinions on this, is I certainly don’t have a problem with you proceeding ahead with that other test well location. We seem to have a consensus on the Board that that’s okay. I would ask you that, leave that copy of map here for Staff so that they can have it for the files. As far as coming up with any kind of direction for you, for what our position is, what our ambitions are for any kind of additional traffic analysis, I would like to hold off on that until we get some sort of research from Staff of what’s been done. I mean, I’m kind of curious about this, it was mentioned by Dr. Hoffman, the mitigation that was going to be done by the consultant, that traffic consultant that was dropped. I’d like to get a little bit of history. I mean, it’s been a couple of years since we’ve worked on this, and I’d just kind of like to get some history and some opinion from Staff. MR. ROUND-I can give you some of that right now. I don’t want to prolong the evening any more than is necessary. MR. BREWER-Do you want to look at the study, Craig, or do you want a summary? MR. MAC EWAN-No, that’s not what I want. I want a summary. That’s what I’m looking for. That’s just my opinion. I don’t know how the rest of the Board feels. MR. PALING-Chris was going to answer you. MR. BREWER-Yes, that’s fine. 56 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MRS. LA BOMBARD-In twenty words or less. MR. MAC EWAN-Go for it. You have a thousand word limit. MR. ROUND-Transportation Concepts, that’s who’s here tonight, Mark Gregory’s here from Transportation Concepts, did a study in November 16, 1995. They revised it May 8 of ’96, all prior th to your ’97 Planning Board meeting. Both of those studies indicated a degradation in the level of service to the intersections in questions, the Farr Lane/Aviation Road/Dixon Road intersection, and the Fox Farm/Potter Road intersections. Basically, they dropped from, I won’t give you all the details, but they did drop during peak periods, both a.m. and p.m. peak periods, from either D to E or, one level in level of service, basically. That all fell within acceptable levels, but Stetson Harza came along, in April of ’97, and this was during the litigation, and came up with some differing conclusions, and one of the major components of the reason the different conclusions were reached is that the Transportation Concepts used a 1985 Highway Capacity Manual. Harza used a ’94 Highway Capacity Manual, and I think Mark Gregory spoke at the last meeting, why those two different manuals were utilized in that accepted practice by DOT Region 1, which governs our area, was that ’85 was the accepted Manual at the time, ’94 was not yet accepted at the time Harza was utilizing it, but again, I guess I think that’s where Dr. Hoffman questioned, you know, there was differing methodologies or differing conclusions, but again, I guess it falls back to whether the Planning Board has the authority to look at those intersections and ask for mitigation to those intersections, under our PU D restrictions, and I think Matt, Mr. Jones and Mr. Schachner both agree that that authority is limited. The Stetson Harza study did go forward and evaluate alternatives and how they would improve the intersections, specifically the Dixon Road intersection. That considered a change in geometry. Instead of coming out at an angle to Aviation Road, they considered to try to make it a “T” intersection, to improve that intersection. A couple of different ways to do that, they also looked at some other alternatives, a connection to Dixon Road through some publicly owned lands, to bring it out to Potter Road. All those alternatives were expensive alternatives. None of those identified the Indian Ridge project as contributing to the mitigation, you know, seeking mitigation from Indian Ridge to contribute to the construction of those projects. Am I making sense to everybody, so far? The Town has chosen not to move forward with any of those projects. So it’s difficult for us here now to go back and say, okay, Indian Ridge, you bear X percentage of the responsibility for improvement of these intersections, because we’ve got two problems. Number One, we don’t have a project in front of us, a mitigation project, and Number Two, we don’t know whether we have that authority to ask that of this applicant. So in our Staff Notes previously, we indicated at least at a minimum time has elapsed since all these studies have occurred. I think Mr. Gregory spoke to his intuitive analysis that backs up Mr. Jones, that says 40% reduction in residential density is going to result in less traffic. We can’t present analysis of the level of service at those intersections without doing new counts, and we don’t feel that we have the responsibility to go through with those new counts. I don’t think we can disagree with anything that’s been. MR. BREWER-Why don’t we wait and see what the School comes up with? MR. JONES-Well, as you consider that issue, and let me just make a final argument, and then you can poll your Board. Here’s the difficulty for the applicant, the pickle that we’re in. When this Town Board approved this project on August 19, 1996, it was contingent upon execution of a development agreement by the Town Board. We all know what happened four months later, and that is, three new Town Board members came on, and shortly after they took office, they voted to rescind all of those three approvals. Now that was overturned in Supreme Court, and so the approvals ended up standing. We’re faced, as I understand it, with an election around here in three weeks. There’s going to be several new Board members who have not participated in this process, in the four years that we’ve been at it now, and the Committee that I was asked to negotiate with, that the Town Board appointed, and I was asked to negotiate with, and did negotiate with. As I understand it, neither of those Board members are going to be here. So the position you’ll put me in is you may very well do your job terrifically, and on December 15, grant me preliminary site plan th approval, send me off to the Town Board with, as many as I understand it, four faces who don’t know this project and have certainly made no commitment to it. So I could be back at Square One again, and in fairness, you know. MR. MAC EWAN-In fairness, we’re not going to put you in any position of predicament. I mean, the whole situation here, this is your project. This is your parcel of land. We’re only here to review it, and to put any kind of burden on this Board, I don’t think is fair. MRS. LA BOMBARD-I agree with you 100%. MR. JONES-On the traffic? MR. BREWER-On the traffic, I’m satisfied, personally, anyway. 57 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) MR. VOLLARO-Well, I didn’t have the opportunity, unfortunately, to participate in this originally. I wasn’t on the Board then, and I’m a little behind the power curve on a lot of the integrated discussions that we were doing. MR. MAC EWAN-Tim says he’s satisfied with the presentation on traffic, as far as he’s concerned. MR. BREWER-I would want to wait until I get the traffic from the School, the study that they have done. I don’t know what they include with it. I don’t have a problem with the wells. MR. VOLLARO-Tim, is it okay if I continue talking? Since I haven’t had a chance to look at this on the front edge, I’m not familiar with the program back in 1996 or ’97 either, as a matter of fact. So I guess I’d have to recuse myself from trying to answer any question, until I’ve had an opportunity to review some of the things that Chris was talking about, just to get a look at this, and try to put this in perspective, back in 1996, in my own mind. Other than that, I don’t think I can make a vote. I’d have to recuse myself at this point. Because the whole thing is not crystal clear in my mind. MR. SCHACHNER-Bob, can I ask you a question? Are you talking about not being able to vote tonight or recusing yourself from consideration of the Indian Ridge project? MR. VOLLARO-No, not being able to vote tonight. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay. All right. You scared me when you used that phrase “recuse” yourself. MR. VOLLARO-No, no, not being able to vote tonight. I don’t have this project in perspective at all. MR. SCHACHNER-I understand, but you’re suggesting that you could gain this information and then be able to vote some time in the future? MR. VOLLARO-Absolutely, with a chance to review some of this. MR. MAC EWAN-We’re really not voting on anything, really, to my understanding. We’re not passing a resolution of any kind. It’s a discussion item only, and he wants the consensus of this Board, how we felt about the location of that test well. We all gave our blessing, said that was fine. He wants the consensus of this Board about traffic, should we ask anymore traffic analysis of the applicant. That’s where we’re at. We’ve got one no, one not going to do anything. MRS. LA BOMBARD-I’d like to hear what the School study comes out to be, and I think that the rapport that Dr. Hoffman and Matt Jones have had and the dialogue that they’ve had seems to, they’re meeting each other pretty well, I think, over the course of time. It seems like things are becoming resolved and clearer between the two of you, and I would just like to just wait a little bit longer, but I think that we’re going in the right direction. MR. PALING-I’ll wait for the School thing, too. I don’t think we could make that decision tonight. I’d go along with the request from the applicant for traffic. MR. MAC EWAN-You can go along with the request of the applicant that you don’t think you need any additional information? MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes, and I feel the same way. I think that what we have there is a mess of an intersection anyhow, and way back three years ago, if you read the minutes, I’m the one, I mentioned the fact that, why can’t the Town kick in and help mitigate some of these problems. They want the growth and they want the new developments, but sometimes they’re not always willing to pay the price. MR. MAC EWAN-There’s your consensus. Don’t go to the bank with it, though. MR. JONES-I didn’t hear the Chair’s. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, you did. You heard mine earlier. I still want to leave the window of opportunity open for additional analysis if we so need it. MR. JONES-Thank you. Let’s go home. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. BREWER-All right. I’ll make a motion to adjourn. On motion meeting was adjourned. 58 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 10/19/99) RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Craig MacEwan, Chairman 59