2002-04-02 SP
(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 4/2/02)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SPECIAL MEETING
APRIL 2, 2002
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
CRAIG MAC EWAN, CHAIRMAN
CATHERINE LA BOMBARD, SECRETARY
ROBERT VOLLARO
JOHN STROUGH
CHRIS HUNSINGER
ANTHONY METIVIER
LARRY RINGER
PLANNER-MARILYN RYBA
STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI
WORKSHOP ITEM:
GREEN MOUNTAIN DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT PLAN REVIEW
MRS. RYBA-We’re here this evening to review a proposal for the Green Mountain Development Group, the
Cedar Senior Living Facility, off of Bay Road, and this is a concept plan review. So we do not have a formal
application in place. I think, as we’ve done in the past with concept plans, it’s more to give some feedback to
the potential applicant, and to let the applicants, potential applicants, know of any concerns or issues that you
might have, and this evening we do have Mike Shaw, who’s with the Queensbury Sewer Department, to
discuss a little bit some background about how the sewage process works for municipal sewer. This
particular application is being presented, or at least as far as we know, with an on-site system, but also with
the possibility that they could tie it into a municipal system, and the applicant will really have to discuss that
more thoroughly, or the potential applicant. I feel funny saying that because we’re used to saying applicant,
but with that said, I’ll just turn it over to the Chairman.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Mike, I know you’ve got some place else to be a little bit later. Do you want to
kind of brief us in as to what your position is on this?
MIKE SHAW
MR. SHAW-Sure. I guess everybody kind of wonders what’s going on with Bay Road and sewers, we have
for the last several years. The Town has made several attempts on their own to extend sewers up Bay Road,
three different times, and never did a good job at it. It was always too expensive. I’d say most recently, I
think June of 2000, the Baybridge Homeowners Association had a proposal, did a map plan and report, and
had a proposal to extend the sewers from Baybridge Homeowners Association to currently where there’s a
dance studio, and also the Town was going to buy extra capacity to (lost words) towards that project, to
upgrade the facilities so it could sewer the rest of Bay Road to the Town office building. The Baybridge
Homeowners Association has run into several snags along the way. So most recently Rich Schermerhorn has
come to us, also needing sewers on Bay Road. What he plans to do, he is now getting together a proposal,
which will come before the Town some time in the near future, to extend sewers on Bay Road. He’d be the
lead developer on this district extension. His engineer now, currently Tom Nace is drafting up some plans to
do that. I think in the near future he’ll meet with other two major players on Bay Road at this time, which
would be Baybridge Homeowners Association and Dan Valente, and make sure they agree with the mix, and
then come before the Town to decide how the plans will be handled. Just for your information, too, sewer
districts are special districts, and special districts have a lot of different rules applied to in New York State,
and a special district can be a water district, a sewer district, can be a sidewalk district, a lighting district, and
there’s several others that can have a special district, but basically what governs a special district is its borders.
The borders are set at a certain time with people interested in that service, and a special district has to support
itself. It has to pay for its bonding, the building of the infrastructure, and maintenance and maintaining of
that infrastructure. Generally, general funds cannot be used to subsidize that district. There is one way
possible of doing that, and certainly this Baybridge Homeowners Association, and certainly Schermerhorn is
trying to do the same thing, that the Town can use general funds monies to subsidize a district for future
growth, but the only thing is, they have to get the payback for that. It’s like an investment. Certainly, so if
the sewers are put in Bay Road now, according to what I think is going to be the plan, which will include
Baybridge, Dan Valente’s parcels, and Rich Schermerhorn’s parcels on the east side, that would be the district
extension at that time. The Town would be paying for infrastructure, (lost words) and force mains large
enough to be able to sewer Bay Road up to the Town office building, and as it creeps up Bay Road, people
have a buy-in to that infrastructure. That infrastructure will be based on exactly what the Town’s got invested
in it, and if you want X number of gallons, you will pay based on X number of dollars to buy up that portion
of that infrastructure. That’s kind of what I’m trying to do on Bay Road. Certainly this is not a Town
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project. This is a developer project. The Town is willing to put funds towards that, but certainly it’s
developer driven, and at this time, Rich Schermerhorn has a little more resources, familiar with the ropes as
far as far as development goes, and should have a little easier time getting through the hoops he has to create
that connection, and certainly he needs to sit down with the other players and make sure they’re on board and
they agree with his conceptual plan before he comes to the Town with that process. Once that process starts,
it’s, the map plan and report and public hearing with a Town Board. He has to go through certain steps, a 30
day referendum period. So there’s a number of hoops you have to go through, just like if the Town was
creating a district to buy those services.
MR. MAC EWAN-How far away do you think that is?
MR. SHAW-I knew you were going to ask that. Certainly guessing, once again, a private developer can move
faster than the Town, certainly, but still has the same hoops to jump through. Seeing that I think Tom Nace
is probably close to having a conceptual plan, I would think in a couple of weeks he’s going to sit down and
meet with Baybridge, and probably Dan Valente within the next couple of weeks, and I would think shortly
thereafter he would want to sit down with the Town, and assuming the Town invites that conceptual plan, he
would have to make a map plan and report, which he should have a lot of information already, develop that.
Have a public hearing, you’d have to have a resolution setting the public hearing. So that’s a month before
you can have a public hearing. So that’s probably, the public hearing’s probably two months away, I would
think.
MR. MAC EWAN-As this, you know, assuming all the hoops get jumped through and all the hurdles get
overcome, as it comes Bay Road, do you assume all the businesses along Bay Road, including the College, will
eventually hook in?
MR. SHAW-Well, the College is already connected. They had a problem.
MR. MAC EWAN-On the other side?
MR. SHAW-Yes, a few years ago, and that was another attempt for the Town to try to create a sewer district
up Bay Road, and create ACC in there. The problem is you have an expensive piece to do, and a lot of
vacant land, and it was just too expensive at that time to create the district, and (lost words) would have had
to pay way too much. So, eventually, the College was left to go through Meadowbrook Road, which was the
Hiland Park Sewer District. It was an easy connection for them. They did border the district. So it wasn’t a
huge problem. As the sewers do creep up Bay Road, the district extensions are done one after another up
Bay Road, okay, extending on that, the people along the way will be expected to connect to there. Now
we’ve done these district extensions before with the developers, doing the district extensions, probably done
about seven to date, and quite often the developer will go ask the parties along the way if they want to
connect or not connect, or be in the district. There’s certainly been areas where the pipe has gone right in
front of people’s houses, and they’ve elected not to be in the district. The bad part about that business or not
being in the district, if, at a later date, they decide they want to, although the pipe may be right in front of
their house, they still have to do a district extension. So, if a business or a homeowner wants to do this
extension, they’d have to go through the same process as a developer or the Town of Queensbury doing
district extensions, map plan and report, hire the engineer, public hearing. So, you know, if you have a
connection, maybe a few hundred bucks you can take that sewer, that’s fine, but you’re going to spend $4,000
in engineering fees and so on and so forth to be able to extend the district. So, in my opinion, most of the
time, it’s not a wise thing to do to opt out of the district, even though you don’t want to connect right now,
but people do that, but once they’re in the district, they’re paying, according to like the parent road Quaker
Road Sewer District, once you do the district extension to that, you’re liable for all the (lost words) in that
whole district. There are still bonds within Quaker Road Sewer District that are being paid. Even though
you’re a new user coming in, you’re liable for the bonds for the period that’s left, and any other upkeep for
that district. We don’t like to do individual districts (lost words) because we now have currently five different
districts and although sometimes you can’t make that marriage on a district extension to another district,
financially, you have to do different districts, and Route 9 is one. We would like to have that as a district
extension to Quaker Road (lost words), but the Town ends up with a bunch of different districts, and it’s like
a bunch of different management areas, you have to keep separate books for, as far as your payments and
maintenance and so on and so forth. It’s kind of a headache.
MR. HUNSINGER-So who keeps track of all that?
MR. SHAW-We do, at the Town.
MR. HUNSINGER-So if the Town were to participate in the Bay Road extension, would the original sewer
district extend all the way up to Town Hall?
MR. SHAW-No. What’s going to happen, the current idea is now that the district will extend just to
Baybridge, Mr. Valente and Rich Schermerhorn. That will be the new district borders.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
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MR. SHAW-The Town will put funds, monies in there, as you can imagine, to build the infrastructure to take
care of those, I say four parcels, but the three parcels, see the three players would be much less than what was
needed for up Bay Road. The Town will take extra dollars and put it toward their project to make sure that
infrastructure is sized so it can go up Bay Road.
MR. HUNSINGER-So you’re just paying for the incremental?
MR. SHAW-Right, and as those new players come in, they’d have to pay their fair share, whatever piece
they’re looking for, they’d have to pay that share.
MR. HUNSINGER-Back to the Town.
MR. SHAW-Right, the general funds gets the money returned.
MR. VOLLARO-Mike, I’ve got just a couple of questions real quick. Sewer Extension Number Seven was
passed by resolution of the Town Board establishing Sewer Extension Number Seven, and that was the
original Baybridge extension. Will that be canceled now?
MR. SHAW-Yes. They had a contract with Baybridge. It was supposed to be renewed in December, and
there was some problems going on. The Town has not renewed that, but the district extension, although
when they do that they establish it, but the final order to create the district is never ordered until the complete
infrastructure is in the ground. So you have to wait for your final order. So it’s actually not a district until the
final order is given.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So that whole agreement between Baybridge and the Town is now defunct in a
sense.
MR. SHAW-Right.
MR. VOLLARO-Now in that agreement, when I negotiated it, it was a $1.35 that I sat staring at the Mayor
for several days trying to get $1.35 for the buy-in. Now the new buy-in is .75 a gallon, I understand, under
the current arrangement. Will this new district of Schermerhorn, Baybridge and Mr. Valente be buying-in at
.75?
MR. SHAW-Okay. We’ll back up and we’ll talk about that agreement a little bit. I’m sure everybody wants to
know about that agreement. The agreement was signed, okay (lost words), but what’s interesting about that
agreement is it allows us to take all the districts we have now and compile them into one agreement, which
we had, all those five districts have five separate agreement also, with the City of Glens Falls, to complicate
the issue even more. So that makes it easy on our end to have all the districts paying at the same rate and
have one contract. What did allow us to do that now, but we are not allowed to buy additional capacities,
okay, for the future, until the annexation of Veterans Field is taken care of and the sales tax is agreement is
passed by the legislator, the New York State Legislation. Some months away, I’m sure, and I’m sure that
some of that stuff is not going to be uncontroversial. Veterans Road annexation, I think there will be some
discussion with that, but those two things have to happen before we can buy-in for .75 a gallon.
MR. VOLLARO-So the current rate is $1.35.
MR. SHAW-Well, when we did the MOU, okay, in our negotiations, the City at one time, I don’t know why,
but they offered us an extra 300,000 gallons at .50, and we just instantly bought it.
MR. VOLLARO-So you own that?
MR. SHAW-So we own the 300,000 gallons and the idea is we’ll have enough to start Bay Road. Certainly
South Queensbury, that everybody hears about, is a district that’s going to start to have shovel in the ground
this fall, okay, we’re going to have capacity to start that district and we’ll have capacity to start the Route 9
district, but as those districts extend, we hope this agreement gets settled because we will be able to buy-in for
.75 a gallon. If it does not, the contract is still honored, but the buy-in is not, and what happens is that we,
I’m sure that buy-in will be four times what it is now.
MR. HUNSINGER-What do the current districts pay?
MR. SHAW-The current districts, over the years, they pay all off the wall. They’ve paid all kinds of different
capacities. You have a one time buy-in to the treatment plant, is what Bob’s talking about, and if you want 10
more gallons tomorrow morning, you pay a buy-in based on something. All the years we’ve dealt with the
City, every time we’ve gone to them, sometimes they don’t even want to talk to us, and that’s what’s lead to
all this, but we’ve paid all kinds of different rates, and it was never negotiated in the old contract what rate
you would pay. So that’s what Bob’s question is leading to here I’m sure, that Baybridge agreed to pay the
$1.35, and the Town, when the Town signed the MOU, 300,000 gallons extra was one thing, but we had quite
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a list of other ones that we’ve tried to purchase for in the past, the district essentially did, that were never
secured. They agreed to take those, and every one of them were at a different rate. We purchased that and
that’s what we agreed upon at the time. I think Bob’s concern is that Baybridge is paying in at $1.35 now, as
agreed to. What will the other users or any of the other users up Bay Road pay for? Certainly that question, I
guess, has to be looked at, Bob. It’s certainly a good question, and it has to be discussed, I guess, with the
Town Board, but certainly it seems to be, if we’re trying to do something on Bay Road, and it’s X number of
dollars, and to provide that is X number of dollars for buy-in, then all those players pay that. In other words,
what I’m saying is we had those 300,000 gallons that we paid .50 for and we’re going to use 10 or 20,000
gallons of that, and we have the 10,000 gallons we bought for Baybridge at $1.35, we put that all in a pool,
and you pay in, and everybody’s paying somewhere between .50 and $1.35 is what I’m saying.
MR. VOLLARO-The only problem with that, Mike, and I don’t want to discuss that in here because it will
take a long time. Since the current agreement that I negotiated with the Town is now defunct, the $1.35 was
in that agreement, and if that agreement is defunct, that $1.35 is no longer valid.
MR. SHAW-But if the Town bought in for Baybridge at $1.35, the Town paid for that. Baybridge never paid
for that. The Town took all the general funds and bought that in, and does own that at $1.35, and I’m sure
the Town, any time you use general funds, the Town’s going to want to at least recoup what it put into the
project, and as the project gets older, I’m sure that buy-in will be higher, for the simple reason there’s more
cost attached to that.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Well, the Baybridge people will have paid the $10,000, $10,500 I think it was.
MR. SHAW-They haven’t yet.
MR. VOLLARO-We haven’t yet, but as far as the agreement is concerned, we owe the Town that money for
that buy-in.
MR. SHAW-Once that agreement is gone, I guess you don’t, really. I guess what the Town will say, you
know, has purchased X number of gallons here, some of it for $1.35, some for .50. This is the group of
50,000 gallons (lost words) and the price will be X.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, it seems to me that the district extension, and I’m going to stop, this is my last
question, but whatever the boundaries of the new district extension are, everybody within that extension
ought to be paying the same amount.
MR. SHAW-I think, that’s my opinion, too. What I’m trying to say is you have $1.35 and you have .50, you
take the average.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, that would be equitable. I’m finished, Mr. Chairman.
MR. SHAW-I think, that’s my opinion, but that’s certainly just my opinion at this time. Thanks.
MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions? Can I ask you to stick around for a few minutes to hear the
presentation, and maybe we might have another question or two crop up. Stu, I’ll turn it over to you.
STU MESSIGNER
MR. MESSIGNER-Okay. I want to introduce our project team. This is Joel Bianchi who’s the project
engineer from Chazen. This is Charlie Brush with Green Mountain Development and his partner John
Grebink with Green Mountain Development. I think Charlie’s going to give you a little overview of the
project, and I’ll just give you a little overview of the site plan, try to address some of the concerns that Staff
and your engineering consultant have raised in memorandum. Marilyn, I assume that these folks have seen
the review memorandum?
MRS. RYBA-The Planning Board does get copies of both the engineering notes and the Staff notes.
MR. MESSIGNER-Okay. So we’ll address a couple of those comments, then we’ll turn it over to you guys
for questions. Just a quick point in opening. We had submitted the application in the assumption that it was
a Sketch Plan application and I guess Staff administratively asked us to come through informationally, and I
assume it had to do with the sewage, and that’s fine. We don’t mind doing that. We will be filing a revised
application based on some of the comments that we’ve heard from Staff and the engineer, and one of the
things that, procedurally, we want to talk to you about is whether, once we’re formally in the process, we can
combine our Sketch and Preliminary review phases, since you will have had ample time to look at this in
Sketch. In essence we’re having a whole meeting tonight to do that, and also I’d like to talk with you a little
bit tonight about SEQRA process because we agree that it’s a Type I Action. There are some other agencies
involved, and we’ll need to begin a coordinated review. So a couple of things to put in the back of your mind
for discussion later, and I’ll turn it over to Charlie.
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CHARLIE BRUSH
MR. BRUSH-Good evening. My name is Charlie Brush. I think I was before this Board last winter on a very
snowy night to give you just an idea of what we’re doing, and I see a brochure that’s going out here which I
left with you, and maybe I’ll be repetitive, but we’ll just start from Ground Zero and build up from there. My
company, Green Mountain Development Group, John and I have been in business for 25 years, developed all
sorts of different kinds of housing projects condominiums, some light commercial, custom homes, and most
recently we got into affordable senior housing. Approximately six or seven years ago, we started a project in
South Burlington called The Pines, which is right here, which started off, which is an affordable senior
housing project in South Burlington, started off as 53 units, grew over three additional phases to 185 units,
and that was, and we’ve duplicated this project in different forms in Hanover, New Hampshire; Rutland,
Vermont. We currently have one in Bo, New Hampshire, and we did a historic rehab of the St. Johnsbury
Hotel into senior housing, not new construction. This project has been tremendously successful, was
awarded the best senior housing project in the country in 1998 by the National Association of Home
Builders, and has enjoyed 100% occupancy with a very large waiting list from its inception. All our projects
have been 100% leased, and in Rutland, in fact, we have a waiting list of over 100 people. So we have been
trying to get a project going in Queensbury for a number of years. We have a 25 acre parcel under agreement
with the Woodburys right next to the Church across from Adirondack Community College, which I’m sure
you’ve seen, for a two phase project of 114 apartment units. Now these apartment units are independent
living apartment units for seniors 55 and older, and they’re targeted to moderate income, low to moderate
income seniors, and that means between $50 and $25,000 a year income for seniors. We have secured some
funding through the New York State Department of Housing Community Renewal to make this possible
with rents, very competitive rents, which include all utilities. We also provide, on an informal basis, services
for seniors so they can age in place, but we are not an assisted living community and we’re not a real medical
type facility at all. It’s really independent living. We have one and two bedroom apartments, full kitchen in
the apartments, individually controlled heat. We have a lot of space in the building for recreational, social
activities. There’s a dining room with meals program and various other things. So we’re a fairly self-
contained operation, and we think it’ll be very successful. We’ve done it five other times, and we just plan on
doing the same thing that’s been working for us. So that’s kind of the big, broad stroke look at what we’re
doing. If you have any questions on some of that stuff you could stop me right now, otherwise.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think maybe what we’ll do is we’ll hear your whole presentation and I’m sure you’re
probably going to have at least a couple of questions.
MR. BRUSH-Okay. Well, I think the thing I’d like to do now, then, is let Stuart give you a briefing on the
site plan and some of the issues on what we’re doing with those issues, and he can react to the Staff
comments and what have you.
MR. MESSIGNER-Thanks. I think I’m going to stand up, maybe. Okay. I think you guys know where this
parcel is. Twenty-five acres, fronts on Bay Road, right next to the Church property that’s currently under
construction, almost directly opposite the northern driveway to Adirondack Community College. Two phase
project, two buildings, 114 total units. One item off the bat is, in early discussions with Staff at one time, we
contemplated a third phase of this project with some additional units. That’s no longer contemplated. This is
the full project that you see in front of you. The access onto Bay Road, these properties are located, or these
buildings are actually located about 720 feet off of Bay Road. They are substantially off of the roadway, and
in fact, they’re not going to be visible from Bay Road. So one of the issues that I wanted to address was the
Bay Road design guidelines in your new Zoning Ordinance, and we would suggest that those aren’t going to
apply here because these buildings aren’t visible from Bay Road. They’re not a part of the Bay Road corridor
as you see it, and as those guidelines were developed, although if you can look, if you look at the project,
there’s nothing to be a shamed of here. It’s a nice project, and I think it’ll fit in nicely with some of the other
things that we have on Bay Road. The access point, one of the comments that we’ve seen is both sight
distances to the north and the offset from the northern ACC driveway. With respect to the sight distance to
the north, we’ve gone out and measured it, and in fact we more than comply with the minimum sight distance
requirement for a 45 mile an hour road. So we’re okay there. With respect to the offset, there’s a very slight
offset there. There’s not much we can do about that, in terms of moving our road, because the parcel really
only has this frontage and it is what it is. What we have done is a little traffic study so that we could try to
understand our trip generation characteristics. The Green Mountain folks have done traffic studies at some
of their other facilities. We generate less than a fifth of a car per housing unit during the peak hour, which
amounts to, I think, 21 units over the course of this project during the peak PM hour. We’ve counted cars on
Bay Road. We would be around a three percent increase over the base on Bay. We don’t think that we have
a problem here because the traffic for the most part that we have is going to turn to the south, logically,
because that’s where the services are, and not to the north. I’ll note that you have the same offset here with
the Church property and the ACC parking lot, except that it works the other way with the left hand that’s
offset that’s coming out of the ACC driveway, and the conflict is theoretically larger there. The other point
to be made about traffic with this project is we are now in the PO zone, as of Monday, we were in the MR-5
zone. Uses are the same, office buildings, apartment type uses, multifamily type uses. This is a senior
housing facility I think has the least possible traffic generation characteristics of anything that we might put
on this property. If you go through your use list, I don’t think there’s anything that we could put on this that
would generate less traffic, and that gets me to parking. You’ll see that we have parking areas shown in the
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front, and in the rear here, this is actually our reserve area which I don’t think was shown well on our initial
plans, and there was a Staff comment. I think we’re still short about six spaces from the Town’s requirement,
counting in the reserve area.
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t mean to interrupt, is that the current Ordinance or the proposed Ordinance?
MR. MESSIGNER-That’s the proposed Ordinance, well, it’s now current. The proposed is now the current,
as I understand it.
MR. VOLLARO-As of Monday night.
MR. MESSIGNER-As of Monday night.
MR. MAC EWAN-As of Monday night, yes.
MR. MESSIGNER-Charlie and John have a lot of experience building these kinds of units and tell me that,
as a practical matter, the number of cars that occur at facilities like these are so far less than what the parking
codes require that you’re simply not going to have a problem, but nevertheless we do show the overflow
parking area. We would ask for consideration on just a couple of spaces there. Water comes from Town
lines in Bay Road. Sewer, as it’s been discussed, we propose to build an on-site system. It’ll be a raised bed
system. It’ll be in the rear of the property. We have permit applications in front of DEC and DOH for the
system right now. Mr. Shaw talked about the sewer system on Bay Road. Unfortunately the sewer district
extensions don’t get to our property. We don’t have the ability to tie in because we don’t have a sewer
coming to our property, nor is there a proposal for one at this time. So we’re really limited in our options to
an on-site option. We’re confident we can design this system to the State standards, and have a fully
functioning and working system. There’s a fair amount of area back here. The key issue on Bay Road in the
past, I think, has been reserve area. You need enough of a reserve area to avoid failure, and we think we have
it. You can see that there’s a pretty good area back here. Stormwater design is very simple, two retention
ponds on site. We will be revising your stormwater report because when we initially designed the project, we
had considered a third phase which is no longer going to occur. Road, very simple road in with a cul de sac,
emergency access in the rear of the buildings which provides us the loop for emergency purposes as well as
fire access in the rear of the buildings. We have some wetland areas on this site. Wetland areas are denoted
in this sort of olive color. We need to cross the wetlands in a couple of locations. We have a crossing here,
and we have a little bit of impact over in this part of the site here where we have to run our sewer lines back
to the sewage disposal system. The magnitude of this impact is under a tenth of an acre, which means it’s
allowed by the Army Corps of Engineers without need for notification or a permit. We will be inviting the
Army Corps of Engineers out to make a jurisdictional determination on the boundaries of the wetland. We
have flagged them and surveyed them they need to come out and give us their okay. We do have a stream
crossing here. That will require a stream crossing permit from the Department of Environmental
Conservation. It’s an attractive project. I think you can see from the buildings that these guys are building an
attractive and fairly good looking project. I think it’s going to be a credit to the community to have it here.
Recreation facilities, Staff had inquired about facilities like this have their own recreation facilities on site, for
the population. So if there’s a concern about that demand on Town facilities, I think that’s pretty well
addressed, and that’s the overview from a site planning point of view. I’ve prepared a memo that I’d like to
sort of just pass around for you guys to take home. This addresses both C.T. Male comments and the Staff
comments. Our intent would be to hear what you folks have to say tonight, revise the plans as appropriate.
We know we have to make some revisions with respect to stormwater drainage, get them in front of you for
your next meeting, have you do a preliminary review, set your hearing, do your SEQRA as lead agency
declaration. I assume you want to be SEQRA lead agency, and move the project forward.
MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it, Stu?
MR. MESSIGNER-That’s it.
MR. MAC EWAN-Specifically, why can’t that road line up to the ACC exit, if you put a jog in it or
something?
MR. MESSIGNER-We don’t own the property.
MR. MAC EWAN-Are you right at the property line now with your proposed road?
MR. MESSIGNER-Yes, we are.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Cathy, we’ll start with you.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Nothing right now.
MR. MAC EWAN-Robert?
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MR. VOLLARO-I’m just going to go through my notes, and so we’ll go on. Those of you that want to refer
to the drawings can, can get to SP-1, which is the lease parcel notes, called SP-1. I won’t take mine out
because I’ve been wrestling with them for two days. I think I know them.
MR. MESSIGNER-Yes, I’m glad you brought that up. We should talk about that. Go ahead with your
question.
MR. VOLLARO-My question is why is this subdivision different from our regular subdivision practice?
Usually each lot that we do on subdivisions meet the zone requirements, and these do not, and your
intentions are to, essentially, amalgamate these or put these together to one lot. Now I would prefer,
personally, as one person on the Board, that we look at this as one big lot of 25 plus or minus acres, as a
conforming lot to the present zone, which is the PO zone.
MR. MESSIGNER-The issue, Sheet SP-1 basically shows three lease parcels. The reason for the third lease
parcel being our intent when these were prepared to have a third phase. I’ll let Charlie talk about the reasons,
there’s a financing reason for separating the parcels. We have to go back and think as to whether or not we
made this two parcels, and they may conform. Our problem, in terms of conforming with zoning, is that we
only have this bit of frontage on Bay here, and so we need to make an interior lot, for reasons that Charlie’ll
explain to you. So that’s the reason for the subdivision plan you see. Do you want to talk about why we
want to do that?
MR. BRUSH-Well, it’s very simple, if you can see, there would be two separate phases. Those would
probably be financed separately. So each one has a standalone mortgage and deed to that particular building,
and they will be owned by us, but they will be in separate entities. So we need to have two separate
financable parcels for each building. That’s all it’s about.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m just kind of referring to our historical method of doing this, and I think I’ll revert to
Staff for just a second. Now what’s your off the top of your head opinion on this one?
MRS. RYBA-Well, they can certainly, I mean, the definition of subdivision is included for lease as well as
owned. So either way, if they were putting a dividing line in there, but typically, communities don’t have
merging aspects to their ordinances. So if they put together the merging and then say they want to divide it,
that’s fine. I would think that, you know, there might have to be some kind of (lost words) but that’s more of
a legal question.
MR. VOLLARO-I was just concerned about two nonconforming lots, is really my concern, in the present
PO zone, and we can wrestle with that, but that’s just a question I wanted to raise.
MR. MESSIGNER-Yes. I think her only nonconformance would be with respect to frontage on a public
road on the interior lot.
MRS. RYBA-Yes, and that’s just a question of road frontage, getting that agreement, and that’s been done
before in subdivisions.
MR. MESSIGNER-Right, and note we would have road frontage. It’s just, this is a private road. So, you
know, there would be a deeded access, and that’s how, it’s for financing reason they need to be separate
parcels because they’re separately financed, but it doesn’t seem like it should be a big problem to set it up that
way.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. On SP-3, now we don’t have to drag these drawings out. I’m just going to reference
them. On SP-3, what dates and month of the year were the soil investigations done?
MR. MESSIGNER-They were done during the summer, and I don’t have an exact date in front of you. I
don’t know, Joel, if you recall.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I couldn’t find the dates on the drawings at all. What I’m really driving at here is
some of the TP’s, the test points and so on, and the percolation data that I looked at, you know, we’re in sort
of a drought situation now. We’re looking at something like groundwater at three to six, according to your
data, and that was based on mottling conditions, and just taking a look at whether or not those are accurate or
they should be, in some way, a skewed to reflect the drought condition that we’ve got.
JOEL BIANCHI
MR. BIANCHI-Well, the evidence of mottling, in itself, is historical confirmation of where it was prior to
where it is when you actually identify where groundwater.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I’m familiar with the mottling techniques.
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 4/2/02)
MR. BIANCHI-Well, okay. I mean, the soil survey that we reviewed with USDA seemed to conform with
what we had found in the field, with slight variations of half a foot.
MR. MESSIGNER-And these were done in May?
MR. BIANCHI-Yes. They were done in May of last year.
MR. MESSIGNER-So that would be actually I think before the worst of the drought, if that’s a reassurance
to you. Clearly the Health Department’s going to look at this issue. These will be raised. We’re going to be
importing some material for these systems.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. It’s a question that I wanted to raise so you can think a little bit about it. Now the
next question I have is what was the groundwater depth condition at SP-2, on SP-3, on Drawing SP-3, when
we look at SP-2 there’s nothing noted on SP-2 for groundwater depth. Take a look at your SP-3 drawing.
MR. MAC EWAN-While he’s looking at it, have we got some other questions, Bob?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I do. It appears that all the test pits and perc data were done up in the area of the
proposed septic field. Now what about the depth to groundwater around building sites, for example, for
footings and things of that nature? I didn’t see anything other than the data you took up around the septic
field.
MR. BIANCHI-You guys can correct me if I’m wrong, but that something we’ll be advancing (lost words)
borings for that. That was not done, the design had not been advanced (lost words).
MR. VOLLARO-So you haven’t done that yet?
MR. BRUSH-Well, that would not be done for any kind of septic systems. That would obviously be done for
the bearing capacity.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but that’s what I’m interested in, basically, and I haven’t seen that data yet.
MR. BRUSH-That wouldn’t be done at this point at all.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. BRUSH-That would only be done when the structural plans for the building are done.
MR. VOLLARO-So that you’re saying, what I’m concerned about is where the buildings are going to go, will
they sustain load, will the soil take that there? We should know that, I mean, as far as a Planning Board is
concerned. It’s something that we like to know.
MR. MESSIGNER-You guys typically do a geo-tech investigation for structural as part of your site plan
reviews?
MR. VOLLARO-No, but usually when you get site plan review, you get test points and boring information at
least around where the buildings are going to be. We do look at that.
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t know that we necessarily typically require it. I think probably the best way to put
it is you take it on a case by case basis, given the property you plan on developing and whether it can sustain
that kind of development.
MRS. RYBA-And the Planning Board does have flexibility to ask for any additional information.
MR. MESSIGNER-No, no, I’m not arguing with you. I’m just trying to understand.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s okay. I’d just like to know what the sustainability of that soil is there. Next question
is concerning SP-4, and that’s, how is the roof runoff handled? I see no eaves drains or methods for getting
roof runoff to detention basins one or two. Are you planning to have eaves drains there or French drains
around the building?
MR. BRUSH-There are gutters on the eaves with downspouts which then come and disperse over ground
and then, you know, are collected with the on-site collection system into the detention basins.
MR. VOLLARO-The drawings don’t show that. I can’t follow the water from the roof to the detention
basins, and that’s what I was look for, because, you know, the perc data here isn’t all that great when you look
at your perc data. It’s marginal, I think. I have one question, and I got an answer, because I had asked for
the Staff to bring in the drawings for the Church. Now, detention basin one is at elevation 346, if you take a
look at the elevation center of detention basin number one, you’re about 346 right there. There is a septic
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 4/2/02)
field right north of that, the Church’s septic field, which sits up at 365, and I’m sort of looking at the
hydraulic load from the Church’s field would be to where your field is. There’s a fairly good head created
there. I want to make sure nothing leaks in from their septic into your detention basin one.
MR. MESSIGNER-Their septic is in back?
MR. VOLLARO-It’s right up front. I just looked at the drawing. It’s in front of the building, it’s right north
of your driveway.
MR. MESSIGNER-Okay. So my response would be that, to the extent that it drains, it’s likely to drain here
to the stream, and then to the south. I wouldn’t think that it would drain under the stream. The stream is
usually a low point in the drainage (lost word).
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but there is a hydraulic head there, okay.
MR. MESSIGNER-I understand, but it’s not likely to go under the stream and back out, the way the
hydrology’s likely to work.
MR. VOLLARO-I would just like that looked at, so that there isn’t any chance of effluent getting into your
detention pond. That was a concern that I had there.
MICHAEL O’CONNOR
MR. O'CONNOR-What’s the separation from their sideline for their septic?
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t know if the Chairman is going to, are you going to take information from the floor?
MR. MAC EWAN-Actually, what I’d like to do is just let us keep going with our questions, and if you want
to chime in.
MR. O'CONNOR-I represent the applicant, Bob.
MR. VOLLARO-You do? I’m sorry.
MRS. RYBA-Actually, I just want to make something clear. This is a concept plan review. So there isn’t
really an application in front of us. We’re doing this more to give some feedback.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m sorry, I thought you were just sitting in for your property. I’m sorry, Michael.
MR. O'CONNOR-Is that something that you have? Do you know what that is?
MR. VOLLARO-Could you state your question again, please.
MR. O'CONNOR-What is their separation, sideline separation of their septic?
MR. VOLLARO-Up at the Church?
MR. O'CONNOR-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that. I guess we could get it. We have the
drawings here.
MR. O'CONNOR-Marilyn, could we get a copy of that drawing?
MRS. RYBA-If you want to come in and ask support staff. I think you might have to fill out a FOIL request
to do that.
MR. MESSIGNER-All right. We will.
MR. VOLLARO-All right, I’m just going to quickly get into the EAF form for a minute, Environmental
Assessment Form. I’ll go through this pretty quickly. On Page Three of Twenty-One, and I’ve got some
other questions that I won’t get into too detailed on this, but on Number Four A, what is the depth to
bedrock. You’ve got four plus or minus feet, and this is really not in agreement with Table 3.2 on Page Two
of the Wastewater Report. You’ve used that Table 3.2 in your Wastewater Report and in your Water Report,
and the depth to bedrock at four plus or minus feet doesn’t really agree with that chart. You’d have to take a
look at that, I think, and what is the depth to water table, Question Eight, you’ve got greater than six plus or
minus feet, and that is not in agreement with the Table 3.2. Now, I think that we’ve talked about this
parking, the number of off-street parking spaces on Page Five of Twenty-one, you’ve got eighty-one, and I
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think the requirement is one eighty-three, I believe, against the present zone, if I calculated that right. Am I
right with that, Marilyn?
MRS. RYBA-Yes.
MR. MESSIGNER-I think we addressed that in the memo to you. That’s an error on the EAF. We didn’t
show you the overflow parking. We were short six spaces
MR. VOLLARO-And I think that that’s about the only questions I had in going through. On Page Nine of
Twenty-one, where it talks to what are the predominant land uses and zoning classifications within a quarter
mile, and I think you’ve got to use the adult nursing home, up there, Adirondack as well in there. That there
is a nursing home in the mix there. Okay. I won’t go through any more of those. I do have, I’m going to
just skip around my notes here for a minute. There’s two submissions of the general information, and one is,
they look the same, almost, but they’re not the same. Why do we have two, and why are they different?
MR. MESSIGNER-I don’t know I distributed a second one, to be honest with you. I think we submitted.
MR. VOLLARO-Did everybody get two?
MR. RINGER-I got one. I only have one.
MR. VOLLARO-I got this one, but then when you open this one up, and you open this one up, it’s different.
MR. MESSIGNER-I think that when we had our original meeting with Staff we brought that in, and then
based on that meeting we made some revisions. I can only assume that both were distributed to you. I’m not
sure why, but that’s got to be the answer to that.
MRS. RYBA-I don’t know, either. There are two listed in the file here.
MR. MESSIGNER-I think probably it’s just a mix up and the initial one was included.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. So when you do your regular submission, after this Sketch Plan, we’ll get one that’s
all encompassing, so that we can understand what we’re.
MR. MESSIGNER-Then you’ll have a third.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m just going to go quickly to the C.T. Male letter. Staff is going to determine, I guess,
who the involved agencies are for this Type I. Will you be doing that?
MR. MAC EWAN-Bob, could I interrupt for just a second? As we go around the table, does anyone have
questions for Mike regarding the sewer? We kind of all really touched on that before you got here, John, but
do you have any questions relative to sewer?
MR. STROUGH-Well, I did. I know there’s discussion of bringing sewer up Bay Road, but as of right now,
the only thing that seems to be a for sure thing, or a fairly for sure, is the extension to the Schermerhorn
property. Right?
MR. SHAW-I did a little presentation here before, you missed it.
MR. STROUGH-I’m sorry.
MR. SHAW-But anyway, the conceptual idea now is that Schermerhorn is taking the lead role in extending
sewers up Bay Road, and the parcels, I believe, that are going to be included, (lost words) is Baybridge, his
parcel on the east, and all the Baybridge properties. So it’s not going to extend up Bay Road at this time any
further until somebody else wants it. So we’re talking about Walkup Lane, I guess, south.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, because at one time there was a discussion of bringing it to Surrey Field.
MR. SHAW-Well, there is, the infrastructure is going to be designed and built to accommodate up to Surrey
Field.
MR. STROUGH-Okay.
MR. SHAW-The Town will take general fund monies and put it towards that. Now that was the concept
under the Baybridge plan, and I assume the Town Board will do the same thing under the concept for the
Schermerhorn plan. They should be similar.
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 4/2/02)
MR. VOLLARO-John, when we did that, we looked, for the plan that we did, we looked from Blind Rock
Road south and did not include Surrey Field, and we got 186,000 gallons from, in other words, this is general
usage on all those plots, including something like the Pines.
MR. STROUGH-In full build out.
MR. VOLLARO-Full build out, that the pump would have to handle 186,000 gallons of sewage.
MR. SHAW-And Tom Nace is looking at it now, and he’s taking from Surrey Field down.
MR. VOLLARO-He’s moved up a little bit, then, a little bit north of Blind Rock.
MR. STROUGH-So if they’re taking a look at it now, even the best case scenario, you’re looking at two,
three, four years anyway, probably, before.
MR. SHAW-Easily. It depends on who wants sewer and who wants to take the next jump and pay in for that
infrastructure that was already put in here. It’s hard to say how quick that will move.
MR. STROUGH-Now, just a question, I’m curious. Since we’re going to be getting waste treatment for .75 a
gallon.
MR. VOLLARO-That’s not necessarily true.
MR. STROUGH-Maybe.
MR. MAC EWAN-You should have been here earlier.
MR. VOLLARO-You should have been here earlier. This was all discussed then.
MR. STROUGH-Well, I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry. Does that mean like, for example, somebody that’s
already on the Quaker Road district is now going to get at least a reduced per gallon rate anyway?
MR. SHAW-The Quaker Road Sewer District, and the district’s already in place, they already bought in, at a
rate.
MR. STROUGH-So it’s just for the newer projects.
MR. SHAW-Right.
MR. STROUGH-For example the Great Escape will get it for, if it gets that, for .75 a gallon.
MR. SHAW-Well.
MR. VOLLARO-It’s all part of negotiations.
MR. SHAW-The Town, (lost words) the Town bought an extra 300,000 gallons. That was offered to us and
we bought it, at .50 a gallon.
MR. STROUGH-Okay.
MR. SHAW-So that will start some of these other projects, the Route 9 project, the South Queensbury
project, Main Street, and hopefully this project. If the other two contingencies, along with the agreement are
made, we will go by the additional capacity, the .75. Right now we cannot buy any additional capacities until
the annexation is completed and the State legislator approves this (lost words).
MR. STROUGH-Okay. Well, thanks, Mike.
MR. SHAW-If that doesn’t happen, then we’ll pay a lot more.
MR. VOLLARO-Just real quick, to stay on that topic for just a second, Mike, because I know you want to
leave, but I did a quick calculation all the way from Blind Rock Road to just south of Walker Lane and took a
look at the Church/ACC traffic only, on ACC, Adirondack Manor as a possible hookup, the doctor’s offices,
there’s 35 units roughly, 30 units at Adirondack Manor, Baybridge apartments, 35 units, the doctor’s office,
this is all within a one mile stretch, by the way, the doctor’s offices, there’s 10. Schermerhorn apartments, off
Walker Lane, 48, Baybridge Townhouses, 86, Schermerhorn’s new complex, 236, the Cedars, 117. I picked
up 562 in one mile, units, between Blind Rock and Walker Lane. Now, you know, that would be very
creative if we could make that into a sewer district. That’s my point here. Doing it by iteration, iterative
process, I don’t know that that’s really cost effective or not. I mean that’s something you folks have to.
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 4/2/02)
MR. SHAW-What happens when the Town, once again, tries to create a district, and each time it’s done it
three different times, twice with the same engineer, and it came out to be about, somewhere in the
neighborhood of $2 million, and at the time they looked at it, with the development along the road, it was just
too much vacant land and too much of a nut for the people along the corner.
MR. VOLLARO-So the iterative process is more economically feasible.
MR. SHAW-It is because what happens is, well, the developer in this case, Baybridge or Schermerhorn or
whoever it is, initially pays for that nut, okay. We’ve done it several other in the Town of Queensbury, Wal-
Mart we talk about quite often, but that did not cost any of the users along the way or the district any
additional funds. The developer paid for that nut and donated the infrastructure to the Town. Of course it’s
done to Town standards and so on and so forth, but it’s a easier kind of way to extend the district, because
when you extend a district, too, you’ve got to worry about the original district users, and you can’t
overburden them with any additional debt. If you start that then the State Comptroller’s Office won’t even, it
won’t pass their review. So it’s kind of a balancing act when you do these district extensions.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, no question about that.
MR. SHAW-As you know.
MR. STROUGH-Those numbers, Bob, don’t even include the 320 units in the Schermerhorn project.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, they do.
MR. STROUGH-They do.
MR. VOLLARO-Schermerhorn’s new complex is 236.
MR. STROUGH-Plus the 90 for senior housing, how many senior housing.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, the Cedars is 117.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, but you didn’t get the Schermerhorn senior housing in there. All you got were the
apartments. So there’s another 90 for the Omni Housing, and then there’s the offices. So there’s another
potential 20 or 30 of them.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I might have missed one, yes, but I thought 562 was rather an interesting number.
MR. STROUGH-Well, it’s going to be even higher.
MR. SHAW-But when you sell the sanitaries, you’re in the business of selling it, and if you aren’t competitive
within reason of the septic system, people don’t just want to buy into it.
MR. VOLLARO-Sure.
MR. SHAW-And we had this argument all along with the City trying to negotiate a contract with them, and
(lost words). That’s not it. We’re growing. We need to be competitive. Otherwise, guess what, the users
don’t want it. For the price, they just say, forget it, I don’t want it. I can put a septic in for half the price, or
something. So we are trying to sell a product, and we have to be competitive, otherwise it doesn’t sell.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I don’t have very far to go. I know I’ve got a long one this time.
MR. MAC EWAN-Mike, dismissed.
MR. SHAW-Okay. Thank you.
MR. VOLLARO-Thanks a lot for.
MR. SHAW-Anytime anybody has any questions, don’t be afraid to give me a call or e-mail me.
MR. VOLLARO-I do you like I always do. I e-mail you.
MR. SHAW-Right, and I’ll answer any questions you have. It’s good that the Planning Board does hear some
of this, understands some of this mix, you got a little bit of it tonight. Some of it’s pretty interesting.
MR. MAC EWAN-I appreciate you taking the time coming here tonight.
MR. SHAW-Okay. It helps us on our end, too, that you understand what’s going on.
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 4/2/02)
MR. MAC EWAN-I’m sure in the months to come we’ll be bugging your ear.
MR. SHAW-Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay.
MR. SHAW-Sure. Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Thanks an awful lot, Mike.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ll be in touch with you.
MR. MAC EWAN-All right, Robert.
MR. VOLLARO-In the stormwater report, I’ve taken a look at the stormwater report generally, particular in
the Hydro Cad area, and in looking at that, I’d like to make a request, that C.T. Male review the parameters
that were selected for insertion into Hydro Cad, because when I look at the areas that can be selected, it
significantly varies, what Hydro Cad has to say, as you fill in the squares, and I want to make sure that
another engineering entity gets a chance to do some oversight work on that. I’m just bringing it out to the
surface, because I looked at the way that works, and, you know, depending upon the parameters you insert,
that’s the answer you get out. So I can keep inserting things on the margin until I get the answer I want, and
I go, there, there it is. Now I’ve got it. So I just want to make sure that somebody else is looking at that. I
did have a note about getting confirmation from AOC on the wetlands. I think you already mentioned that.
Something that jumped out at me is Number Four on C.T. Male’s, when it says the soil test pit logs in the
area of proposed wastewater system indicate the native soils will perform marginally at best for the system.
Mottling was observed at 36 inches and so on. So we’ve got to pay some attention to that I think. I guess I
had just a basic question, and I need some education on this. The wetland impact for the project is a tenth of
an acre it says.
MR. MESSIGNER-Under a tenth.
MR. VOLLARO-Under a tenth of an acre. When does Army Corps of Engineer get real serious about that?
MR. MESSIGNER-It depends on what you mean by serious. The basic rule is under a tenth of an acre you
can proceed without a pre-discharge notification, which is simply a notification that you’re about to do this
work. In this case, because we’re crossing a stream with wetlands associated with it, we need to let them
know that we’re doing that, but there is no permit involved for activities under a tenth of an acre. Between a
tenth of an acre and a third of an acre, there is, again, not a permit involved. The activities are covered under
a nationwide permit. Nationwide permit is a permit written for activities nationwide that if you fall within
certain parameters, you’re allowed to undertake the activity. Mitigation may or may not be required
depending on what you’re going to do. Over a third of an acre, individual permit, need mitigation, prepared
to be tortured for a while.
MR. HUNSINGER-And it takes forever.
MR. MESSIGNER-That’s the torture part.
MR. VOLLARO-C.T. Male’s Number Five, where it says consideration should be given to using grinder
pumps versus effluent pumps. I’ve got a big yes on that, because we’re suffering from that now. Our system
is, the one I live in, is an effluent pump system. We are going to be turning into a sewage system, which
means our pumps are no longer valid. We’ve got to change them out. If you’re ever going to hook up, put a
set of grinder pumps in there and start off with, so you won’t have to do that again, and, Mr. Chairman, I
think that’s the limit of my discussion.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thanks. Chris?
MR. HUNSINGER-I really didn’t have any other questions, other than what were covered in either Staff
notes or C.T. Male’s report, and you address that in your most recent memo. So I really don’t have anything
else to add.
MR. MAC EWAN-Larry?
MR. RINGER-My question had more to do with the people that are coming in. You mentioned low to
moderate income. So I’m concerned about what stress this might put on the County Social Services system
and so forth, and can you answer that, in Burlington how you’re handling that, or if it is a problem?
MR. BRUSH-Well, most of the people that are going to be living here, we assume, are going to be from
Warren County to begin with, and we pretty much take care of whatever needs to be done within our
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 4/2/02)
complex. We’re not going to be asking to have a lot of County services to be, we’re not asking for any
County services at all to serve the community.
MR. RINGER-The rents are subsidized by the State or the Federal government?
MR. BRUSH-They are not subsidized, but there is some financing which requires us to put the rents at
certain levels, and it’s just a rent level which we have to charge, and that person has to fall within an income
range in order to live there.
MR. RINGER-I know that we’ve had several inquires about senior housing projects in the Town, and I know
that Social Services, County Social Services, has voiced some concern as to the number of people we’re going
to be bringing in, and what they may present to them, and that’s why I’m asking this question.
MR. BRUSH-Right. We had significant discussions with the County folks and Aging and what have you, and
we actually went and talked to the County Board of Supervisors regarding the project, and basically the
conclusion is the people that we’re going to have are going to make enough money to take care of
themselves, is what it comes down to, given these, the rent levels that we’re charging, and they will not be
taxing. I think it’s the Medicaid situation that I’ve heard before.
MR. RINGER-Public nursing and other things like that come from the County.
JOHN GREBINK
MR. GREBINK-Right, but to take those in, you have to be earning basically below about 30% of the median
income, and in our project, with the kind of funding is really at the 50 and 60% median income. So the levels
are higher than what people could use those Medicaid and those County health services.
MR. RINGER-The next question I had was, you made a distinction this is not assisted living, yet the
cafeteria, I didn’t understand what the cafeteria was going to be.
MR. GREBINK-Well, basically, we contract with a local catering company who provides meals in exchange
for running the kitchen, and the people just buy a book of tickets and they go down there and sign up for
meals one day in advance and they get whatever meals they want.
MR. RINGER-So it wouldn’t be continuous meals for 20% of the people only if they wanted to eat down at
the cafeteria?
MR. GREBINK-Exactly. If they want to eat there, they eat there. If they want to cook in their apartment,
they do that. If they want to go out, they do whatever they like.
MR. VOLLARO-Larry, I think one of the things you touched on I think is interesting. I’d just like to
comment on it. I think what Larry is trying to get at is even if somebody comes in that’s well above the
median, as they spend themselves down, and run out of money, then they go into the Medicaid roll, and I
think that’s the, isn’t that what we’re really driving at, that once they make application to Medicaid, it’s a
County requirement.
MR. RINGER-I don’t know exactly.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, it is.
MR. RINGER-I’m just concerned, when he said low to moderate income, I became, not necessarily
concerned, but interested in if we are going to bring in people from outside, that would, that could put more
of a strain on the Social Services and the County.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I can tell you this, from personal experience. My mother’s in a nursing home. When
she went in, she did not qualify for Medicaid. So, I wrote checks to the tune of $3500 a month to the
Terasion House Nursing Home in Albany County. When she finally got spent down to roughly $6,000, we
started to negotiate with the County of Albany, and she got on the Medicaid roll. Now, that’s, you know, and
no County has a limit, in other words, they can’t say, well, you came from, you know, from New York
County.
MR. RINGER-From Essex County.
MR. VOLLARO-Or wherever, and now you can’t come in here. They don’t have that kind of rule in the
County level. So I think, you know, Larry’s point is a valid point, from the standpoint of the ultimate impact
on Social Services downstream.
MR. MAC EWAN-We had that discussion with the proposed application over there off.
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MR. RINGER-Cronin Road.
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, Cronin Road it was a topic. It’s a serious dilemma that the County’s facing.
MR. RINGER-And the next question I have is emergency medical services. What kind of a strain is, you
know, how many times is the ambulance going to be there, with so many of these senior housing projects
going in, it’s putting a strain. I know The Eddy and The Landing, and Adirondack Manor, God, I would say
more than 50 times a month the squad is either The Eddy, The Landing or Adirondack Manor. Granted,
they’re assisted living, not senior housing, and there is a difference.
MR. BRUSH-There is a significant difference there. I mean, if you go back, to try to highlight over a couple
of items from your questions. I mean, from our other projects and surveys, because we actually do surveys of
people who come in and live at the other projects that we have. I mean, I would say eighty to ninety percent
of the people are within basically, you know, within the County within a ten mile plus radius. The marketing
studies that were done for this project over the past couple of years basically uses a ten mile radius of the
project, as where, you know, virtually all the people will be coming from. From an income standpoint, you
know, as we’re saying, the rent levels are basically set at levels which are affordable to people at fifty, sixty
percent of income level. This is not a subsidized housing project, as some people think of projects ten years
old and things like that as subsidized housing where people are very low income.
MR. RINGER-I’m thinking in this area we have Stitchman Towers and Robert Cronin, which are senior
housing projects, high rise types, that’s funded by HUD, I believe, or whatever.
MR. BRUSH-That’s correct. This is not that type of project. This is absolutely not that type of project. The
overlap of people from that in here might be one or two of the units, and this is experienced throughout our
other projects. We’ve got about 500 units, in various projects in other places. This is not set up for that
subsidized level, which then also sort of talks to the Medicaid. This is not an assisted living so people come
in here and live, you know. Their only obligation is to pay rent. I mean, they don’t have to pay the $2500 or
the $3500. Anything that they choose, from activities wise, total optional, total ala carte kind of basis. It’s
like walking into a restaurant, well, I only want the entrée, which would be the housing part. You know,
we’re talking a rent of about $500, which includes the utility. If they choose to have a meal once a week or
once a month. They pay for $55 for that meal. So it isn’t the kind of situation where I can understand you
talking about your mother. You know, you put them into a place, $2500, $3500 a month, you eat away pretty
fast, because you’re paying, lots of times, for all these services that the person never uses, and, you know,
that’s why we’ve been so successful with the projects is because it’s the person’s individual decision, either the
person renting or their families, as to, you know, what services they want to pay for or what they need. So,
really, you get into it, you pay $500 a month and that’s all you need to pay.
MR. VOLLARO-Save me a room.
MR. BRUSH-That’s why we have waiting lists.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-That was my question. Do you have to prove your income is between $15 and
$25,000 in order to be eligible to have a room? In other words, if you have a higher income, you’re not going
to let those people in.
MR. BRUSH-There is an income certification, which you have to comply with, which shows that they don’t
earn over a certain amount of income.
MRS. RYBA-Is that for 100% of the project?
MR. BRUSH-Yes, it is.
MRS. RYBA-It is.
MR. RINGER-So you mean that people of say $100,000 income there’d be no $100,000 income in here, but
there’d only be people under, say, $40,000?
MR. BRUSH-Let me back track for one thing. Because this is, it’s two buildings, I can only talk about the
Phase I building relative to that limitation right now. Because that’s what we have the funding for on that. It
could well be that the second building has a mix, and it could have some people with higher incomes. On the
first building, which is like 65 units.
MR. VOLLARO-So the funding gives you that limit?
MR. BRUSH-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-These are tax credits.
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MRS. LA BOMBARD-Right, but the rent that they’re paying you comes right out of their pocketbooks?
MR. BRUSH-Yes. Correct.
MR. RINGER-You don’t get subsidized by the rent, but you get subsidized by lower interest rates and all that
for building your project?
MR. BRUSH-It’s basically, it’s a complicated financing. I heard someone over here say low income housing
tax credits. That’s what it is. It’s low income housing tax credits, which basically go to the investor, which
are, you know, companies which buy those credits. They provide a bunch of equity money so you’re, the
amount that you’re borrowing is a smaller percentage of your cost, but it’s all private funding. It’s all private
equity. It’s all, I mean, the bank lending is probably going to be the Evergreens. It’s all, it’s not government
loans and subsidies and things like that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, it’s subsidized to the extent that the investors get tax breaks.
MR. BRUSH-Get the tax credits, which they then supply the equity, which means that the loan is only 50 or
60% of your costs rather than 80% of your costs.
MR. HUNSINGER-And that’s why they, then, fix the income, because there has to be a public benefit.
MR. RINGER-Obviously, you know how many of these we’ve had in the last two years. Now your market
research says that there’s still room for more like yours?
MR. BRUSH-Absolutely. Again, you know, what you’ve had, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, you
know, and as you talk about, in terms of the Towers, you know, deeply subsidized. There really aren’t that
number of units in the income band for what somebody is buying into. Again, it’s not an assisted living
facility where you have to pay $2500 because it has all these services sitting there whether you want them or
not.
MR. RINGER-I don’t have anything more.
MR. MAC EWAN-Can we jump back and explain, you made a comment here between Phase I and Phase II
that Phase I is going to be X number of dollars that you think, based on the funding you have, is what it takes
to get into this unit on an income, but you said that Phase II could potentially be more of an annual income
to get into that.
MR. BRUSH-I can’t tell you. I mean, the expectation is that Building Two, called Phase II or Building II,
would be, it would be basically the same thing as Building One, but I can’t sit here and tell you absolutely that
because we have the funding in place for Building One, and the expectation is the same type of funding
would be available for Phase, for Building Two.
MR. MAC EWAN-What’s the potential for getting that funding?
MR. BRUSH-It took us a couple of years to get the funding for Building One. I would think, you know, it’s
fairly good, but I can’t read the horoscope for tomorrow.
MR. MAC EWAN-I mean is it in all probability that the Phase II building would also be low income housing
as well, or is there potential that people could move in there with six figure salaries and take early retirement
or something?
MR. BRUSH-I would expect people with six figure salaries wouldn’t move into there, because we’re talking
about units which are one bedroom, 620 square feet, and that’s the predominant size. It’s mostly one
bedroom units. So it isn’t designed for somebody with a six figure income kind of situation. So, it’s designed
to fit the market niche which has been identified as a very strong demand in the area, and certainly can
support many more units than even what is on this project. I mean, in terms of going back to your question,
I mean, the market studies we’ve had done, as current as two and three months ago, you know, show a
significant demand for this kind of, you know, this income band.
MR. VOLLARO-In this area.
MR. RINGER-It seemed like when we did the Cronin Road thing, they had the same situation you had,
though, that they were getting this special funding or tax credits or whatever, and they had to get their project
approved because they do this on an annual and they had to get it approved in such a timeframe or they
couldn’t get their funding, and that’s why they were pushing us to get that approved.
MRS. RYBA-Well, there’s a couple of things here. With that particular development, it was under Planned
Unit Development, too, so you got to look more carefully at the market study, etc., and their marketing
studies showed that they were really addressing a much lower income level than I think we’ve seen for things.
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I mean, this particular proposal, it’s an allowed use and it’s a multifamily use here. So, other than what your
traffic impacts are going to be, or your community impacts, you don’t really need to know too many details
about the income levels. I appreciate the question, because it leads to the community facilities and that
discussion, which is important, but in terms of the income levels, I don’t know if you want a market study or
not to review.
MR. RINGER-I didn’t ask them for a market study. The only question I made was they must have made a
market study to indicate that there was a need for this in this area. My question was, with all of these
buildings going in, with all of these applications that are coming before us, and everybody’s doing these
market research studies, when are they going to reach this cap? What is the number of units that is the right
number for this area, is what I was getting at, Marilyn. Not that I was asking them to do that stuff.
MR. BRUSH-The big project that The Eddy Group did over here, you have to have a major bank account to
get into that place.
MR. RINGER-The Eddy is a big one, but the others.
MR. BRUSH-You’ve got to write some big checks to do that. The assisted living facility that the doctor’s
(lost words) that’s assisted living. That’s regulated, which, you know, that’s the first cousin of a nursing
home. That’s a medical deal.
MR. RINGER-That’s The Landing.
MR. BRUSH-And so that’s somebody who’s really not feeling too well and needs a lot, a lot of help. The
Eddy Group you’ve got to have a lot of money. Our thing is trying to take care of the retired fireman, the
retired teacher, you know, they’ve got a social security. They’ve got a small pension, and they may $24,000 a
year and maybe they’ve got a little money in the bank, but they sure don’t have enough money to go over to
The Eddy Group here. You’ve got to write a six figure check, at least, to get into that thing. So our thing is
try to emulate a bunch of these things, but it’s trying to be affordable for the average guy, that’s worked hard
all his life and can’t afford the big deal at the end.
MR. RINGER-I don’t have anymore questions.
MR. MAC EWAN-Tony?
MR. METIVIER-I just have a question on the funding. Is this guaranteed funding? And is there, at some
point, if you haven’t broken ground, that you would lose it?
MR. BRUSH-Yes, it is guaranteed funding, but we have some timeframes that we have to meet in order to
procure that funding and we have to move quickly in order to make it happen.
MR. METIVIER-I guess where I’m going with that, are you going to be able to present something to us, or
are we going to be under the wire type thing? Are we going to be pushed into something saying, well, we
need it, you know, approved tonight because if not we lose our funding type thing? Are we going to have
time?
MR. BRUSH-If we move through the process in an orderly fashion, I think it’s going to be fine. If we get
into all sorts of other stuff, the time runs out, then it’s going to be a problem.
MR. MAC EWAN-The short answer, from the Town’s standpoint, we’ll take as much time as we need to
review any and all applications.
MR. METIVIER-That’s exactly where I’m going with that.
MR. BRUSH-We want you guys to look at this thing totally, you know, I think a lot of times the Planning
Board’s come up with, I heard a lot of comments right here which are great comments. Remember, we’ve
got to live with this thing. So if somebody helps us to get a better product, we’re happy to take the input, and
we’re not afraid of it at all. So we wanted to take all the time, answer all the questions. In the end, we get a
better project for it.
MR. O'CONNOR-We’d like to take all your comments, all the Staff comments, and we appreciate your
giving us the comments in the informal manner that you have, and file before the end of this month so that
we will be on next month’s, and hopefully be in a position where we might even be on file with Preliminary.
MRS. RYBA-I think one of the important things that did not happen last time, I wasn’t at the last Staff
meeting with, I think it was Chris and the Zoning Administrator that met with these folks, but they had ask
that information come forward before being submitted, so that we could do this kind of review in-house, so
that we could make sure there was a complete application. So that you could move forward, and just really
make sure everything was complete, all of the questions were answered. So we’re doing that now, but before
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you come in with a proposal again, come in a few days before it’s due, and then we can go over it, before you
make all your copies. We might find something that needs to be addressed.
MR. O'CONNOR-We have no problem with that. We appreciate the opportunity. We actually thought that
we were a little bit ahead of that, but we take and accept your comments, and we will incorporate them and
try and flush out the information we need to satisfy them. I think what we’ve got directly to the question as
to timetable, we’d like to be able to come in here and file for next month and ask for Preliminary approval,
then get the actual construction drawings and some of the engineering that gets flushed out between
Preliminary and Final, and get that in as soon as you can. I think then the burden of time passes to us.
Because we know what we need to do from that step to the next step, and presuming that we can get
everything necessary that you want for the Preliminary part.
MR. MAC EWAN-Just bear in mind that the fact that we’re dealing with two separate applications, so to
speak, with a subdivision and a site plan, the SEQRA’s going to go hand in hand with them, and I’m hearing
a lot of concerns regarding stormwater, a lot of concerns with the viability of the proposed septic systems and
those questions are going to have to be answered at the time you do your subdivision.
MR. O'CONNOR-We understand that.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Anything else, Tony?
MR. METIVIER-My only other point is the driveway, and we could argue about this all night, but I get very
nervous especially with the comment was made in one of the Staff notes about seniors generally driving a
little bit slower. When you leave the driveway, you’re going to have people trying to get out, cutting across
Bay Road from the College at the same time, and right now you have an offset, which I particularly like, but
I’m wondering if there should even be more of an offset, because if you have somebody, you know, a kid
pulling out of the College at Bay Road, they’re going to ram somebody coming out of there. I don’t know.
MR. MAC EWAN-A good practice in road design is always have your intersections line up.
MR. METIVIER-Yes, but I disagree with that. I absolutely disagree with that.
MR. VOLLARO-But that’s so you can put a light there.
MR. METIVIER-Well, yes, but you’re not going to get a light there
MR. VOLLARO-It depends if there’s a warrant from the County or not. The County has to determine a
warrant for the light.
MR. MESSIGNER-This won’t come close to warrant.
MR. METIVIER-And we could go back and forth on this all day long, but I totally disagree with the fact that
if you’re staring at somebody, and they’re staring at you, you’re going to argue a half an hour about who’s
going to go. In the meantime, you’ve forgotten that there’s a car coming up the road. You flag him. He
goes, and you have an accident. So if you offset it, you know, you’re not arguing the fact, somebody pulls
out, if somebody pulls on to Bay Road, if it’s far enough away, you each have equal distances to get out of
each other’s way, but Second and Moon Hill is a perfect example of that. You have two people staring at
each other, one tells the other one to go, they go and they forget the fact that there’s a car coming the other
way, and that’s why you have all those accidents there. It’s a perfect example.
MR. MESSIGNER-Our problem, just as we talked about earlier, we don’t have room to move it. We really
don’t have room to move it to the south either. We have a limited amount of frontage, and the road pretty
much as to be where it is. I think what’s working in our favor here the very low volume of traffic that we
have coming out of here, and to the extent that we have traffic, I feel safe in saying that most of it, virtually all
of it is going to head south.
MR. MAC EWAN-Along those lines, my request, I would like you to explore the potential with the adjoining
property owner, see if you can get an easement or purchase part of their property to line up the roads. That’s
just my own personal feelings.
MR. O'CONNOR-To the north I think the problem is their septic system that’s already there.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. It’s right on the border.
MR. MAC EWAN-How close is it to the property line, though? It’s got to be off the property line.
MR. VOLLARO-It looks on the chart, when I looked at it a little bit before.
MR. MAC EWAN-It’s something to explore. I mean, if it can’t be done, it can’t be done.
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MR. BRUSH-It would probably be a good thing, if you drive by, you can see with the improvements that the
Church has done with their grading, they elevated the grade substantially over what was, you know, pre-
existing there. So really to get from this level up to that level is a jump of about 20 feet.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, if we could get them to move their septic system, we’d solve two problems, one is buy
that property, and secondly get that septic system away from Detention Pond Number One. You’d kill two
birds with one stone. You’ve got to investigate that stuff.
MR. MAC EWAN-John?
MR. STROUGH-Well, just continuing with Tony’s thought, I mean, you could bring that south. I mean, if
you flip that building and put, where the corner is to the northwest, in other words, just flip the building to
the northwest corner, put your finger, Stu, on the northwest corner. I misspoke, I meant southeast corner.
All right. Now if you took that building and just flipped it over so that the southeast corner becomes a
northeast, a northwest corner, and then you could route the road so it hit more towards the southern part.
MR. MESSIGNER-This is a match line here.
MR. STROUGH-So that’s someone else’s property to the south of that.
MR. GREBINK-Right. I think that’s what is a misnomer with this, with this plan the way it’s drawn, there’s
650 feet from here to here. Bay Road is way out here. Okay. All there is is a 60 foot strip of land for 650
feet, for access.
MR. STROUGH-I see you’ve got some serious constraints.
MR. GREBINK-So it really, as Stu was saying, there’s one place, with the current land, to be able to come
out.
MR. STROUGH-I understand. Now the parking that you’re proposing, without the alternate parking, in
your experience in this area, that’s going to be ample? Because I see we have, I counted 44 non-handicap
spots. I didn’t count the handicap, 44 non-handicap for 62 units. Is that ample?
MR. BRUSH-It’s more than ample. I mean, a survey of our other projects, I mean, generally, you know, two-
thirds to three-quarters of the people have a car and half of those people use (lost words).
MR. STROUGH-Well, it’s incredible to me, because I’m familiar with Solomon Heights. I teach next to it. I
live not far from it, and the impact is relatively low. You’d hardly know it was there. So, I can buy that.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-John, where’s that, Solomon Heights?
MR. STROUGH-Exactly.
MR. MAC EWAN-Farr Lane.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, it’s off of Farr Lane, in back of Stewart’s and that area, over near my area.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes, I’ve got you. Sure. All right. You don’t live near there.
MR. VOLLARO-He said he teaches near there.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-You teach there.
MR. VOLLARO-The requirements for parking, under the new zoning law, under that is 183 for parking, that
would be 62 units times 1.5 is 93, plus 6 employees is six is ninety-nine. Fifty-two units at one and a half is
seventy-eight, plus six employees is eighty-four. The eighty-four and the ninety-nine is one eighty three. I
think that’s how you get there.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, I know that, but that code was made up for a general purpose use, and you have to
consider each project on its own merits.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, that’s exactly right. They’re saying that they only need 81.
MR. STROUGH-And I can believe that.
MRS. RYBA-But there’s some in reserve.
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MR. MESSIGNER-We have all but six in reserve, and those weren’t shown clearly on the plans that you
have. We’ve inked them in on this plan, but they’re basically in the rear along the emergency access roads.
MR. O'CONNOR-I think there’s a section now specifically in the new Ordinance that says that you can
waive it as long as we have reserve area required parking. I haven’t read the Ordinance often enough yet to
figure out exactly what.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m delinquent like you. I don’t even have a copy yet.
MRS. RYBA-It just got approved last night.
MR. O'CONNOR-I actually got a copy today. I’m not sure if it’s the final copy.
MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to say, my draft is pretty old.
MR. VOLLARO-Mine, too.
MRS. RYBA-You’ll have to ask Chris.
MR. MAC EWAN-Will you make sure that we get copies for site visits. So that we can hit the pavement
running.
MR. O'CONNOR-There’s no grandfathering for applications pending.
MR. MAC EWAN-We have a lot of grandfathers who’ve asked for applications. Is that your question?
MR. O'CONNOR-What about these poor people that filed the applications?
MR. MAC EWAN-You snooze, you lose.
MR. O'CONNOR-Under the old Ordinance. They didn’t even know what the new was.
MR. MAC EWAN-We don’t either yet.
MR. O'CONNOR-You’re going to have a fun meeting. Maybe I’m glad I’m not on the agenda.
MRS. RYBA-There’s usually a time period. I mean, it has to have a notice, to be put as a notice in the paper.
MR. MAC EWAN-If it was adopted in April, I’m told applications in May will fall under the new Ordinance.
MR. O'CONNOR-That has to be published. That hasn’t been published, or published or filed with the
Secretary of State.
MRS. RYBA-Right.
MR. O'CONNOR-Ten days after, date of publication, I think it becomes effective, or 10 days after filing with
the Secretary of State.
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, that’s what Chris had told me last week. So that may change. It may not take effect
until June, but we’re figuring it’s going to be May. What else have you got, John?
MR. STROUGH-Marilyn and I talked about this this afternoon. It’s not likely, but, and I didn’t get a chance
to go through, but has this site been inspected for any Karner blue habitat?
MR. MESSIGNER-We had our field biologist out there, and they made, they didn’t notice any. We have our,
we’ve sent letters to the Fish and Wildlife and a few people, and we didn’t get anything back. I know the
Town has a survey of it, and we can certainly check that. It seems unlikely because you need a dry, sandy
spot.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, I know, I agree with you, but just to be on the safe side. It’s not likely that it exists
there, and the sidewalk, I like the plan, I like the location. I think it’s going to be an attractive building, and I
like the idea you did include sidewalks in your plan, but why didn’t you extend the sidewalk to Bay Road?
MR. MESSIGNER-Well, there’s no sidewalks on Bay Road.
MR. STROUGH-Not yet, but the Bay Road plan conceptually, I think you had something to do with that,
but these are going to be relatively mobile people, right? I assume some of them are, and so they may want to
walk over to an event over at ACC, which is, that’s reinforcing, this is a nice position, and ACC has a lot of
nice cultural activities going on, and it’s really a pleasant walk from here to there.
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 4/2/02)
MR. O'CONNOR-There’s not going to be that much traffic on that road, to be honest with you though,
John.
MR. STROUGH-I know, just. No, but the theme is to make things pedestrian friendly.
MR. VOLLARO-What you need there, John, is a light for people to cross Bay Road, though. I mean, getting
off the property’s one thing. Getting across Bay Road’s a whole other story.
MR. MAC EWAN-I’m kind of siding with John on the idea about the sidewalks. Consider extending the
sidewalks right down your drive.
MR. STROUGH-So would there be a problem considering extending the sidewalk to Bay Road?
MR. BRUSH-I think we can take a look at that.
MR. STROUGH-Okay.
MR. MESSIGNER-You might do better with sort of a pathway interior, because we’ve got a 20 foot
landscape strip on either side, and I’m thinking not a formal sidewalk, but you know, like a little pathway
might be the way to do it.
MRS. RYBA-Well, that’s what Waverly Place.
MR. STROUGH-All right. Well, at least that will give some public access established that would be non-
road, pedestrian friendly. A lot of the other questions I had have been brought up previously. Just that, I
was trying to think, is there any public space out there for, you know, summertime seating or, I mean, you
know, do people do outside activities?
MR. BRUSH-By public, you mean for the residents who will be living here? Yes.
MR. STROUGH-I meant for the residents.
MR. BRUSH-The details on landscaping haven’t been shown, but generally what happens, these are designed
with this (lost word) so you get a courtyard feeling out in front, and this’ll have a walkway and some sitting
areas, and some heavier landscaping, you know, islands, trees, flowers, you know, getting back into how
people live at our different projects, I mean, there’s gardening clubs and movie clubs. There’s a lot of, you
know, the recreation is really within, not just within the building, but within the residence, you know, the
gardening club for example we have up at this project in South Burlington called The Pines, which has been
around for I think eight or nine years, there’s a resident committee, you know, it’s called The Gardening Club,
and it’s 15 people and we bring our, the person who’s going to supply flowers and landscaping in to meet
with these people, you know, the first of April, right about now. These people put together their whole plant
list (lost words) with the availability of support, but to try to keep people living independently as long as
possible, and you do that by having these clubs, outdoor walking paths, benches outside, you know, all of
those kind of things.
MR. STROUGH-Well, I think that’s great. Now could you show those kind of details on the final plan when
we see them?
MR. BRUSH-We can show more details.
MR. STROUGH-Okay, in reference to that, that would be great. Thank you. The only other concern I had
is has emergency services reviewed the entryway to this? I mean, if this gets blocked, then we’re in trouble.
MR. MAC EWAN-That was a big concern for us with the development on Cronin. We ended up going to a
boulevard style to alleviate that potential. I don’t know, do you have the room here to go to boulevard style?
MR. MESSIGNER-We would prefer not to because of the wetlands issue.
MR. MAC EWAN-Well, what do you do if that access gets blocked off and you have to get in there? How
do you get in?
MR. MESSIGNER-There an awful lot of projects that have a single access.
MR. MAC EWAN-But not an awful lot of projects in front of us now asking for our approval. Good answer
wasn’t it.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Like with the driveway out, you said you have the 20 feet of landscaping on each side.
Couldn’t you just put the island in the middle and then have a passageway on both sides?
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MR. MAC EWAN-I can only tell you from when we did the one over on Cronin, we didn’t budge from it. It
was an important issue, especially when you’re dealing with the potential, like Larry said, of having ambulance
service there, and actually that ended up even getting widened over there because there wasn’t enough turning
radius for fire trucks.
MR. RINGER-For the truck, for the ladder, the tower. We couldn’t get the tower in without.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s something serious that needs to be looked at, and how we’re going to alleviate that,
whether you have provisions with another egress in there or something, or if you have to redesign that to get
a point where you’ve got a boulevard.
MR. MESSIGNER-Yes, we’re really limited for another egress. A boulevard is feasible. What I would ask is
that we can end the boulevard right before the wetland area, which gives you, you know, very, very little area
where you’re not boulevarded.
MR. MAC EWAN-You’ve got 650 feet there to work with, I think that’s about what we worked with over on
Cronin, wasn’t it, right around 600 feet, and then they split it out. So that’s doable.
MR. RINGER-Stuart, why don’t you get with the Fire Marshal and see what..
MR. MESSIGNER-Well, we actually did give the preliminary plans to the Fire Marshal and he had no
comments on it for whatever that’s worth.
MR. RINGER-He didn’t send us a letter, though?
MR. MESSIGNER-There is, I believe, a letter in the file. I don’t know that.
MR. RINGER-We didn’t get it. We normally get everything. So it would be nice if we had it, because if we
do go up there, we’re going to have to get the tower in there, and the tower, we’ll need some radius to get that
tower in there.
MR. STROUGH-Speaking of that, there will be some service trucks that go in, I’m not expecting big semi’s,
but some kind of service trucks for service, especially the cafeteria. I see the turning radii is only 10. I’m just
wondering if that should, if that’s going to present a problem.
MR. MESSIGNER-Where are you talking about now?
MR. STROUGH-The turning radii on any of the parking lot entrances from that is only 10 feet. So, you
know, and we make it 32 feet for semi’s, but I’m thinking maybe 20, 25 might be a more accommodating
turning radius for the truck traffic and for possibly emergency vehicles.
MR. BRUSH-Absolutely, agreed.
MR. STROUGH-Okay. All right. Well, that generally went through my list here. Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Tom, I bet you we whittled your list down to next to nothing, didn’t we?
TOM SEGULJIC, ALTERNATE
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, just a couple of questions. I think before you alluded to 55 was going to be the starting
age on this?
MR. BRUSH-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-By requirements, you have to be at least 55 to get in there?
MR. BRUSH-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Why no Phase III, because it looks like you (lost words).
MR. MESSIGNER-Right. We can’t make your density. We can meet the density requirements, once you
subtract out wetlands and steep slopes and roads, we don’t have significant density for a third phase. That’s
the Town’s fault. It’s the new Zoning Ordinance’s fault. That’s what I meant to say.
MR. SEGULJIC-What happens if the septic system fails? Is that redundant then?
MR. VOLLARO-He has a redundant spot, two of them.
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 4/2/02)
MR. MESSIGNER-You have to build them with reserve capacity is the short answer.
MR. BIANCHI-Also, because of the system and the size, New York State requires that you have 100%
expansion of whatever you’ve built. So whatever your size is for, you have reserved area for the exact same
system right adjacent to it.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Did you speak of recreational facilities before?
MR. MESSIGNER-I think in my presentation I touched on them, and do you want to expand on that?
MR. BRUSH-Well, the recreational facilities to the extent that we have a dining room, library, exercise
room/area, other community rooms for crafts and whatever else you want to do like that.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, not like tennis courts?
MR. BRUSH-There’s no tennis courts. There’s no pool. It’s not that kind of thing. There’s a walking path.
MR. SEGULJIC-And is this sort of what the building’s going to look like?
MR. BRUSH-It’ll look identical. Two floors on the front side, and because of the grade, how it slopes off
here, there’s a portion in here which is three floors.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, and you said you wouldn’t be able to see it from the road, mainly because of the
grading, I guess?
MR. BRUSH-Right. I mean, this is higher out here, and this is lower, and then it goes back up here.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right. That should do it, then.
MR. MAC EWAN-Could you briefly wrap up, but just touch on your architectural styling that you anticipate,
give us a flavor for that?
MR. BRUSH-Basically, it’s a grand hotel. It’s traditional New England with white clapboards, green shutters,
asphalt shingled roof, steep pitched roofs, some shingles up in here. It’s a very attractive, you know, you see
this kind of building all over New England and it’s.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Where the buildings come together at a right angle, is that door cut at an angle, or are
there two at each, at the (lost words).
MR. BRUSH-See, this portico that comes out, okay.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes, I know, but the double door that goes in.
MR. BRUSH-Goes in one side.
MR. GREBINK-Goes in one side of the right angle, if you will. You maintain a right angle there.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-You do? So it’s not, you didn’t cut it off like that?
MR. BRUSH-No.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-So you’ve got one door here and one door here.
MR. BRUSH-No, you’ve got a double door going.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-On just one of the sides.
MR. GREBINK-The lobby goes through one side, and then you’ve got a mail place and some sitting areas
and all that around in through that front lobby area.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-I understand where you’re coming from with the New England effect there with the
white with the green shutters, is it like the Equinox Hotel or some of the big hotels in Vermont are like there,
but it still makes me think of The Barracks, not to a degree because they’re white with green shutters, too.
MR. MAC EWAN-Over massive solid color.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-But the roofline isn’t broken with the gables, which is nice there, and I understand,
and it doesn’t have the landscaping. It doesn’t have the portico, the entranceway right there.
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 4/2/02)
MR. MAC EWAN-With your application, would you submit architectural renderings.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-But do you know where I’m coming from a little bit?
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, I do.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-But again, I like that effect.
MR. RINGER-They won’t even be visible from the road, though.
MR. MESSIGNER-You won’t see it from the road.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-And are those gables, is there like a gingerbread on there or something, or shingles?
Okay.
MR. BRUSH-Again, it’s a small bit of a travel, and we bring you pictures, over in Rutland, you know, we
completed two years ago, which will look virtually identical to this. I mean, it’s two story in the front with a
little parking area around the back side, you know, gives you the feel of exactly what that is with a landscaped
island out in front for the parking.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. We would request, if you would, when your application, when you submit your
application, submit some architecturals and some color schemes you plan on using. Any other questions?
MR. SEGULJIC-When you walk in the front, so it’s going to be an open area when you walk in the front, so
you’ll have a little community area in there?
MR. BRUSH-There’s the one on the first left down. That’s what you see when you walk in, when you walk
in the front door, there’s a staircase going down. This is actually the dining and the living area back over
here. This gives you an idea. This is actually the living area, basically community area kind of thing with a
fireplace people can sit by. Again, it’s not a nursing home, assisted living. It’s more, it’s an independent
living. It’s people’s home. They have the ability to have these other common areas.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Now that rendering looks like it’s not blacktop. It looks like it’s maybe a different
type of, more of a permeable type of.
MR. BRUSH-That’s blacktop. It’s just a computer thing that coloring is not perfect.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Well, I know, I like that coloring. It’s pretty.
MR. BRUSH-Universally, these things have been very well accepted in the communizes around, and they
look.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-And you’ll put in sprinkler systems.
MR. BRUSH-We’re very proud of them. I think when you see it done you’ll think it’s pretty good.
MR. SEGULJIC-And what’s going to happen with the balance of the land? That’s just going to be left wild,
shall we say?
MR. VOLLARO-Well, if it’s wetlands, they don’t want to get into the disturbance.
MR. SEGULJIC-They really only allow, the roadway is going to be the extent of the development there, other
than a septic system?
MR. BRUSH-Yes. We’re using all the density on the property for what we’re going to build in those two
buildings, unless the density changes or something changes down the road, we’re, this is what, all we’re going
to do.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-And you said you allow one and a half parking spots for each unit, is that what it was?
MR. VOLLARO-That’s what the new zoning law says.
MR. BRUSH-That’s for a multifamily project.
MR. MAC EWAN-Are you going to be seeking any variances?
MR. O'CONNOR-We haven’t identified any.
MR. BRUSH-We don’t think so.
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MR. MAC EWAN-Just one other thing that just hit me, I just thought of, as far as lighting plans, submit
something, I don’t know what you’re planning on doing along that, now we’re talking about a boulevard,
some sort of accent lighting in there.
MR. BRUSH-Yes, we can (lost words) details on that.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s not overwhelming. Keep in mind with our new Ordinance, too.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-And all of that, that whole road is going to be privately owned? It’s not going to be
turned over to the Town at all for maintenance?
MR. BRUSH-It’s a private road.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-So you’re going to upkeep it right from Bay Road right through to the cul de sac?
MR. BRUSH-Yes.
MR. O'CONNOR-Let me ask a question, in response, in part, to your question are there any variances. My
understanding of how we do height is still from finished grade to, in a vertical plane, to that portion of the
building above that finished grade, and the drawing in the new Zoning Ordinance isn’t any better than the old
drawing, guys. If you have, say you have a building down like here, and the roof slopes away, at this point, it’s
your 40 feet, and the slope goes up, and at this point, you maintain the 40 feet. That’s my understanding of
our interpretation of this new drawing.
MR. RINGER-Why don’t you ask Chris Round? I mean, we shouldn’t really be able to answer that question.
MRS. RYBA-That’s the Zoning Administrator is the one.
MR. MAC EWAN-If you’ve got some concerns about that, Mike, talk to Craig Brown about it.
MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. You asked if we were going to have any variances.
MR. MAC EWAN-I’m just curious.
MR. O'CONNOR-I don’t know, and did we distinguish on this architecture is in compliance with your new,
if we’re going to fall into this overlay?
MR. MAC EWAN-Well, you know, I guess my only comment would be that we have been reviewing projects
in the last year and a half or so that haven’t fall under the new Zoning Ordinances, and they’ve been more
than willing to want to comply with some architectural ideas and such, and I’d just like to keep that theme
going, I think, and I think that, you know, what I’m understanding is that the new Zoning Ordinance will take
effect in the beginning of May. If that timetable doesn’t allow that and it ends up in June, is it an issue that
we can’t talk about architecture?
MR. O'CONNOR-I anticipate that we will get our final approval under the final Ordinance. So we want to
work within that framework, even if it’s not presently there, if the final decision is going to come down to the
final Ordinance.
MR. MAC EWAN-My first impression, I think the concept is great. I like what you guys have got proposed.
I think there’s some engineering hurdles that we need to get over, and I think we can get there. Anything
else?
MR. O'CONNOR-Do you have a problem, did I understand correctly, do you have a problem, if we can get
our filing in place, and we meet ahead of time filing, and we go in hopefully for filing for the end of the
month and Preliminary the next month, if everything is in order? Which means, I would like to also do some
Staff meetings our staff with the engineering staff, and not just trade letters back and forth on the day before
the meeting.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s one of the most frustrating things I see sitting on this Board is responses that come
in the night of the meeting and it’s really frustrating. If we cross that and get those hurdles done before the
night of a meeting, that’s going to make things run a lot smoother.
MR. O'CONNOR-And we’d be willing to pay. It’s to our benefit in the long run if we can even have a
couple of meetings with them so we understand their concerns, as opposed to getting a three page letter the
day before the meeting and try and scramble with everybody to respond to it.
MRS. RYBA-Well, you know they reviewed it at our request. Since we don’t have an application, we don’t
have a fee. They didn’t even get paid to do that.
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 4/2/02)
MR. O'CONNOR-You’ve said that 17 times. Somebody deemed it wasn’t an application. I don’t know who
yet.
MRS. RYBA-Somebody at the very beginning mentioned that, well, this was submitted as a sketch plan
review and the determination was made by the Zoning Administrator that it wasn’t a complete application.
So that’s why I’m making that distinction.
MR. MESSIGNER-I’ve said this at the onset, I think we filed an application.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay, but along those lines, if you want to get together with Staff and stuff, I’ll, should
that come about, let me know, and I will designate someone from the Planning Board to be there at that
meeting.
MRS. RYBA-Okay, yes, because we have to also get the fee worked out as well. I mean, there was some
question about fee, but like I said, because it was, you decided to go ahead as a concept plan. There’s a new
fee schedule. That schedule’s been in place for a while.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you, gentlemen.
MR. MESSIGNER-Thank you very much.
MR. O'CONNOR-I apologize to you for being late. I had a public hearing in Lake George.
MR. MAC EWAN-Don’t worry about it.
MRS. RYBA-This other stuff, do you want to do it next week?
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. Now, next week, which is next Thursday, we’re doing two resolutions seeking lead
agency status alone.
MRS. RYBA-Right.
MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Lapper is not looking for a neg dec on that SEQRA, is he?
MRS. RYBA-I don’t think all the information has been submitted to make that determination.
MR. MAC EWAN-Very good. I just want to know that. I don’t want him walking in the door thinking we’re
going to do something other than what we’re going to be doing, because our original statement to him was
you get that information to us, satisfy the engineers that the SEQRA is, everything is in order with that, and
we will proceed on doing that. So, and he was pushing the envelope to get this done, and I don’t want him
coming in here with the presumption.
MRS. RYBA-As far as I know, we don’t have the information in place to do that.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s all we’re going to be doing is the Lead Agency status. It’s going to take five
minutes.
MRS. RYBA-Correct.
MR. MAC EWAN-And we’ll spend the rest of the night doing the other stuff.
MRS. RYBA-So I would say bring your packets with you next week for the Expedited Reviews and Petitions
for Zone Change, because I’m not going to have the Staff mail out.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay.
MRS. RYBA-Okay.
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Craig MacEwan, Chairman
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