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2002-06-25 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SECOND REGULAR MEETING JUNE 25, 2002 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT CRAIG MAC EWAN, CHAIRMAN ROBERT VOLLARO JOHN STROUGH LARRY RINGER CHRIS HUNSINGER RICHARD SANFORD, ALTERNATE THOMAS SEGULJIC, ALTERNATE PLANNER-GEORGE HILTON TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX, SCHACHNER & HAFNER-CATHI RADNER STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI NEW BUSINESS: FRESHWATER WETLANDS PERMIT – FW 1-2002 GIRL SCOUTS OF THE ADIRONDACK COUNCIL, INC. PROPERTY OWNER: SAME WETLAND AFFECTED: HALFWAY BROOK AND ASSOCIATED WETLAND ZONE: SFR-1A LOCATION: 213 MEADOWBROOK ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 2,800 SQ. FT. ADDITION TO THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES ON THE SITE. PORTIONS OF THE SITE IMPROVEMENTS ARE WITHIN THE ADJACENT WETLAND SETBACK AS WELL AS WITHIN THE WETLAND. CROSS REFERENCE: UV 12-02, UV 44-92, FW2-92, UV 1226, OPS 21 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 6/12/02 TAX MAP NO. 296.16-1-10/60-2-6 LOT SIZE: 13.38 ACRES SECTION: 179-6-100 SITE PLAN NO. 30-2002 TYPE: UNLISTED GIRL SCOUTS OF THE ADIRONDACK COUNCIL, INC. PROPERTY OWNER: SAME AGENT: JONATHAN LAPPER ZONE: SFR- 1A LOCATION: 213 MEADOWBROOK ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 2,800 SQ. FT. ADDITION TO THE ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES ON THE SITE. ALSO, THE APPLICANT PROPOSES A PARKING LOT EXPANSION AS WELL AS A FOOTBRIDGE ACROSS HALFWAY BROOK. CROSS REFERENCE: UV 12-02, UV 44-92, FW2-92, UV 1226, OPS 21 DEC WARREN CO. PLANNING: 6/12/02 TAX MAP NO. 296.16-1-10/60-2-6 LOT SIZE: 13.38 ACRES SECTION: 179-4-020 JON LAPPER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HILTON-The first item on the agenda is the Freshwater Wetlands permit. However, before we get to the actual discussion of the Freshwater Wetlands, the Zoning Board of Appeals has made a motion at their June 19 meeting that the Area Variance No. 47-2002 be referred to the Planning Board for comment. It th was an Area Variance concerning setbacks, wetland setbacks for the Girl Scouts property. So this evening I guess we should start with discussing that Area Variance that was referred to you. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Any other comments? MS. RADNER-This is another one where we’ve got several different things all going with the same applicant. You’re going to have a Freshwater permit. You’re going to have site plan. You’re getting an Area Variance. So you’re also going to need to do a combined SEQRA, and I was talking today with Chris Round, and this agency, you’ll be Lead Agency for SEQRA purposes. So you might want to get just a general overview of the entire project as well. MR. LAPPER-Good evening. For the record, Jon Lapper on behalf of the Girl Scouts. I have representatives from the LA Group and Joy, McCoola and Zilch as well. I guess perhaps briefly we’ll just walk you through the site plan and the architecture of the building to familiarize yourselves with it, and then we can talk about the Zoning Board issue and then about the site plan and the Freshwater Wetlands permit. So, Holly, why don’t you just give a brief overview of the site plan. HOLLY ELMER MS. ELMER-Let’s see. You have a copy of these drawings and photographs in your packets. This is the whole parcel which consists of 13.5 acres, and approximately 7 acres of it consists of Halfway Brook and its wetlands. This line was flagged by Al Koechlein of the DEC, and it’s shown on all the plans. You can see 1 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) the existing offices, and the existing Friendship Lodge, Nature Lodge, Winter Lodge, and the general program area for the site. The other environmental constriction that occurs on the site is the bedrock ledge, but you can see the outcrop of it on the eastern side, the northeast corner, and as you go across the site, it comes out at grade, the bedrock. So you can see the issues that lie before us. This site has been serving the Girl Scouts and the Adirondack Council since the 1940’s, when the site was purchased. The two lodges, the bigger lodges were built in 1962 and 1963, and the office, where we’d like to build the expansion onto the back here, this office was built in 1967. The camp was established, like I said, in the early 40’s, long before zoning or wetland regs came along, and it’s been serving them pretty well to have administration isolated from the program activity. It keeps the traffic away from the children. Now this project, the Adirondack Council serves five counties, and there’s over 3500 girls that utilize the facility. These five counties include Warren County, Washington County, Lower Essex, Northern Saratoga and Hamilton County. I will let, Corrine Green is here from Joy, McCoola, Zilch, and she can speak to the alternatives that were looked at for the building itself and where the expansion should occur. This is a copy of a site plan that you also have in your packets. This is at 20 scale, and you can see the existing offices consists of about 2800 square feet, and the new addition is to double that. It’s also about 2800 square feet. One major improvement that we see as a result of this is that the traffic that comes along Meadowbrook Road now and accesses the office will no longer be able to back out directly onto Meadowbrook or into the shoulder of the road. We’re going to keep parking away from the front of the building where it’s narrower, and use some parking in front of the garage and along the south side of the building. The Scouts are really crammed into this space here, and we feel that this would give them a good usable space, well into the future, then next several decades anyway. The new access is proposed, as you can see on the plans, there was a grassed island shown. It does occur in the Meadowbrook right of way. The Staff, at a meeting with us, did mention that it would be better not to curve that island, and just leave it grass. It would be easier to plow it, and for us to maintain it. Stormwater is handled on site. We did review C.T. Male’s comments, and we have spoken with them about the site itself and that’s more detail we can get into any time you’d like to. There’s two handicap spaces. A walkway toward the back, and they would like to replace the bridge over Halfway Brook that has been here before. That would give them a nice offsite connection to the main program area and keep people off the road again. As you can see on the northern part of this site, in the northeast corner, is some area that has been cleared for parking. The canopy here extends out a bit. There is parking underneath this canopy as well, but this is used for leaders and girls coming to meetings or for crafts or badge work, and seminars. Also during the summer parents come on Thursday nights to watch their kids do their skits and other programs. So that’s where the people park now instead of on Meadowbrook. It just seems to make a lot of sense. There’s a path through the woods here that leads into the main body of the site or they can climb up the, you can walk up the bedrock here and over into the program area. I think that’s pretty much it. There is some parking. When you come in the access road toward the camp itself, there is some limited parking toward, in the back here, but in general they’d prefer to keep traffic away from where the children are actually enjoying their programs. I think that’s it for now, and I’ll let Corrine do her thing here. MR. MAC EWAN-For the record, could we get your name, please. MS. ELMER-Holly Elmer, LA Group. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you, Holly. CORRINE GREEN MS. GREEN-Hi. I’m Corrine Kilborn-Green, and I’m with Joy, McCoola and Zilch, and I’ve been working as a project architect with Bob Zilch, the partner in charge of our firm, and been working with the Girl Scouts since November of 2000. I’m not sure if this is in your packets, but just so you can see what the existing building is, I took some photos, this was in the winter, of the existing building, which looks a lot like a single story ranch residential house on Meadowbrook, and you can see, currently, how the parking works in those photos, and in the photo below you can see how it relates to Meadowbrook right here, and the apartments across the way. We were hired to do a feasibility study for the Girl Scouts to look at the existing office space, because as we got to go through the building and work with the Girl Scouts, it became very clear that for a long time they’ve really been making due with the building that they have, and it’s bursting at the seams in terms of the programs, the Staff and so on that’s currently housed in the building. Just to give you a brief overview, what we first did was meet with Kit and her staff, listen to everybody’s, where they are currently, how they work in the space they are and how they currently use the building, evaluate the building for the current square footage for how staff is placed in that square footage and come up with a program for what they really should have for the space. I think this is in your packet. It’s EX-1. It’s the existing floor plan, and basically you can see how narrow the existing building, this the long face on Meadowbrook, and there’s an entry here into a very small reception area that doubles as their store for all their Girl Scout badges, uniforms and so on. There’s a reception area with a couple of staff that work here, and then there’s a shared kitchen and staff room that doubles as a meeting room that doubles as a lunch room that doubles as a break room for the staff. There’s offices that are here and here, and I think there’s even one in the corner here that some storage space was carved out as the office. These are often shared by at least two people, sometimes three people, and most of them are probably about 10 by 10, 10 by 12, really designed for one person or maybe one full time one part time person could adequately fit in that space. There’s also a secondary entry that doubles as the library, where different members of the Girl Scouts can come, sign books in and out. 2 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) Again, because of the space, they’ve been very limited about what they’ve been able to offer, and then this conference room here is used for Staff meetings, Staff conference rooms, also used for year round training for Girl Scout leaders. It’s, when the camp is not available in the summer for some of the larger meetings, this is the space that’s available year round. You can see that if the conference room is occupied people in these offices here have to either cut through meetings or cut through each other’s offices to get from one space to the other. Over on this end, this corner has been made into the office. This area here is storage for the Girl Scout archives. They have historic uniforms and other historic items throughout their history in the area, and this is a garage and a cookie storage area here in the existing building. Basically, when we looked at the building, it looks like they have about half the space they really need for the number of staff they currently have, for their storage, for their programs, and the building is really limited what they’ve been able to do, larger educational programs, that if the camp is not available, this really isn’t a suitable space for more than maybe 10 people. They can’t really do a larger, 20, 25 group kind of a CPR training, all those kind of things that they do to train the counselors and the Girl Scouts and so on. So those were some of the things we looked at with preparing a program just for the office space, to make that adequate, to give them a good size multipurpose meeting room that could be used for meetings and so on, and to also give them adequate space for their library, adequate space for their store that they serve so many counties as Holly pointed out earlier. So those were some of the things we looked at in our study, and looked at a way to re-use part of the structure and expand it. Since it was already on the site, it was located away from the camp, and it seemed to make sense, in some ways, to try to recycle this old building and re-use part of it. There’s an A-1 in your packet. That’s a proposed floor plan for the offices and the program. What we tried to do is keep everybody on the same level for the number of staff we were looking at. It didn’t make sense. We looked at trying to go two stories in order not to enlarge the footprint of the building, but we would have had to have an elevator and we would have had to have two fire stairs. So that was one thing that seemed very costly, didn’t seem like a good option, given how narrow the existing building is. It was going to be hard to even fit stairs and elevator into that. So it made some sense to look at a one story scheme, and we tried to keep it as compact as possible. So what you’re looking at is almost a double footprint. This front rectangle is the existing building. What you see in the back is a new addition. I think you also have the elevation. What we would do, when we’re improving the building by adding the addition, would be to improve the elevation, improve the roofline, since we’re going to be adding on to this building, expanding, we’re using the foundations, trying to re-use some of the mechanical systems and so on. What we were looking at is kind of using the foundation, expanding back, creating a new roofline, and creating a new façade onto Meadowbrook. So that’s what you see here. The existing building is from about here to here. This is the existing garage storage, which is here, and we were, instead of having two entries, looking at creating one main entry here that would feed off of the parking that’s here and here. This would bring you into the reception area. We’ve expanded the library, the store. There’s a smaller conference room, and all the offices, they’re more generously sized. We still sized them so many people do share offices. There’s a number of offices that are shared by two people, which you’ll see back here. There’s a few offices that are private offices, but we tried to economize by figuring out which functions could still be shared. We’re also looking at creating this multipurpose space about 600 square feet. It’s a little smaller than a standard elementary class room, which is usually about 750 square feet, just to give you an idea of size, but this would work for board meetings. This would work for their larger educational programs, and could function, when the camp is not available, people could park here, directly access, not have to park at the camp, come back and around. So those were some of the things we looked at. At the same time we did also look at an area currently used for camp parking, to compare what would a new balding involve, and we were looking at this area here, which is further north on the site. First of all, from a cost standpoint, it is more economical to recycle the existing building, even though the Girl Scouts have made due with it for a while, and it’s not ideal, it’s a structure that we felt was worth saving the foundation, working with the existing mechanical systems, trying to work with the footprint the best we could to enlarge it for the Girl Scouts in an economical way. So this option, when we took a look at budget pricing, was less expensive by about $150,000. We also looked at the camp functions, and for the larger functions at camp, that area is used for overflow parking to keep traffic off of Meadowbrook, and developing that site for this building, with the associated parking, appeared to limit, quite a bit, the flexibility of the camp for the camp functions. So that was another thing we considered. The other thing we’re not sure about is how expensive it would be to connect to the utilities on Meadowbrook. We know that there’s a lot of bedrock on the site. We would have to probably do test bores and see what the bedrock was like, what would be involved in connecting there. So those are some of the things we looked at. MR. LAPPER-Just to follow up on that last point, because Staff has mentioned it as an obvious inquiry, why the building can’t be re-located to that parking lot on the north side on Meadowbrook, on the north side of the lot. Before that was constructed within the last two years. As Holly mentioned Thursday in the summers, the parents come before the kids (lost words) the girls stay over one night, and Meadowbrook obviously, as you guys all know, has gotten a lot busier as the residential area north of this site has been developed. Previously, all the parents would be parking on Meadowbrook, which was a traffic concern then, and it would certainly be a concern now with the extra traffic. So creating that parking lot is really important to have a place for the parents to park on that night when it’s very busy in the summer, and if the building were located there, it wouldn’t be possible to put the parking and all of those cars in the close proximity to the wetland. It’s really safer to do the wetland impact where we’re proposing it, because there wouldn’t be any continuing impact. There’s no septic, sewer, Town sewer and Town water. So once the disturbance is done and there’s a small amount of wetland that we’ll talk about shortly is impact, that’s it, in the location of the building. It doesn’t make sense to put parking there which could have an impact if you had a lot of cars 3 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) there, versus what we’re proposing. So that plus the cost is the reason why, although we looked at it, it just didn’t make sense to flip it and put the building in the other location. I think where we have to start is the recommendation that the Zoning Board has asked you for. We were in the unfortunate situation, the other night, of being the first applicant in the history of Queensbury to ask for a wetland setback variance, because in the new Ordinance, the Town has changed the definition of shoreline to not only include lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, but also to include wetlands. So there’s now a 75 foot building setback, and that’s what we were at the Zoning Board to ask for. We went to the Zoning Board in February for a Use Variance for the site, which was approved on the basis that this is a not-for-profit, community minded organization that has been there since the 40’s, and that was approved, and we were working on the site plan application for the Planning Board when the Town changed the zoning law and we were told by Planning Staff that we then had to seek the variance for the shoreline setback from the wetland. So although the building, which it hasn’t changed from the proposal, the proposal is the same, that we’re required to now ask for a variance within that 75 feet. It is our position that this has been designed to look at avoiding and look at minimizing the impact, but what we’re proposing now, 3800 square feet of impact, is very minimal, and usually when this Board has looked at other projects in the past that have had wetland impacts, and you’ve approved them. You’ve approved them conditioned upon DEC and Army Corps permits, because it was only the jurisdiction of the State and Federal agencies to regulate wetlands. Now we have this setback from the Town as well, and it’s not an enviable position to be the first ones explaining it to the Zoning Board, and that’s why they felt it was appropriate to ask the Planning Board for recommendation, and we felt it was appropriate because you guys are used to site planning and used to the wetland issues more than they are, but beyond that, you also have C.T. Male as your engineers, and by way of example, when I did the Lowe’s project, that had significant wetland permits, both from the Army Corps and the DEC, and on that project, C.T. Male was my consulting engineers. So they were the ones that applied for those permits, and we were able to satisfy both of those reviewing agencies and get all of our permits. The Army Corps standards, currently, if you’re doing less than a tenth of an acre of fill, which is less than 4400 square feet, you don’t even need to apply for a permit. That’s under the Nationwide permit, you’re allowed to do less than a tenth of an acre, and what we’re talking about here is 3800 square feet. So this doesn’t even rise to the threshold for impact for even making a filing with the Army Corps. It would require a DEC permit, and DEC was out at the site a week ago Monday and looked at that and indicated that this is permittable, what we’re proposing. So we feel comfortable that we don’t need a Federal permit, and it should not be a problem getting the State permit at 3800 square foot, under a tenth of an acre fill. Putting this in perspective, in terms of the Area Variance standards that the Zoning Board has to apply, it’s the benefit to the applicant versus the detriment to the neighborhood, and the benefit to the applicant is obviously that they’ve got this existing site and need to expand and the site is constrained because of the stream, the stream corridor, the wetlands and the bedrock, and the area in the back, which is the program area for the girls. They can’t move their administration building there because they have just enough room to run their programs in the grassy field where the lodges are in the back. So that’s what the constraint is. At the same time, as Holly said, we have traffic problems now because everyone’s backing out onto Meadowbrook. So this location solves that problem, and architecturally the building is certainly nothing special now for the residential neighbors, and with the Joy McCoola design, it’s going to be substantially improved, but just getting back to the wetland impact, we have a map that shows that the downstream wetlands associated with the Halfway Brook corridor total 396.7 acres, and so what we’re proposing is less than a tenth of an acre of disturbance in this associated wetland of 396, almost 400 acres, which comes out to .0022%. So 22 one thousandths of a percent of that whole wetland corridor, and when you talk about wetlands, it’s the function of the wetland to cleanse the surface water and recycle it, versus when you have a setback from a river or a lake like Lake George, you’re talking about visual impacts. There’s nobody in the wetland here that’s looking at the building. You’re talking about the function of the wetland, and in terms of the function of the wetland, the site plan, as you’ve seen, has a detention basin, which serves that purpose of recharging the stormwater, cleansing it before it goes into the wetland. So we’re covering the function of what we’re proposing to disturb by creating this detention basin, and it’s just a very minimal and, you know, obviously wetlands are an important resource, and a large scale disturbance of a wetland is something that could be a major impact, but this less than a tenth of an acre on this site, with all the other wetlands on this site that are being undisturbed, and all the wetlands in the corridor, we feel that this is extremely minimal. It’s been designed to minimize it. It’s been designed so we don’t have to go get an Army Corps permit. So, on that basis, we’re asking you to recognize that this is minimal and recommend to the Zoning Board that the balance weighs in favor of the Girl Scouts doing this minimal fill, versus any disturbance of this less than a tenth of an acre on this whole corridor, and that’s the story for why we’re here to begin with, before we get to the Freshwater Wetlands permit and the site plan. I want to just, this is the only copy we have with us, but I’d like to just hand this to you. MS. RADNER-Craig, just to clarify one point. The definition of shoreline has changed, but the definition of shoreline building setback has not changed. To the extent that in the past a shoreline setback did go from NYS DEC classified wetlands. So we’ve corrected the new zoning so that now it’s clear, in both the definition of shoreline and shoreline setbacks that we’re talking about wetlands, but your role hasn’t changed from what it was in the Zoning Ordinance before the change. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Anything else? MR. LAPPER-Not at this time. 4 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. John, we’ll start with you. MR. STROUGH-Okay. The Girl Scout camp is well located. It’s not that far from a major arterial, Quaker Road. At the same time, it’s in an area that up here is rustic, not characteristic of the rest of the heart of Queensbury. It’s kind of a unique spot in that it is rustic and it’s also safe, and it’s unlikely that an errant explorer would get lost. So, as far as location goes, I think it’s an ideal spot, with the exception of mosquitoes, since I was there for about 45 minutes earlier today, giving it a second good, thorough look. My daughter was a scout, some years back, and of course I was a boy scout, and the organization that’s applying for this proposal, of course, tends to be and has a history of being environmentally friendly. I know I’ve earned several merit badges, and I know the Girl Scouts work in the same directions, and even nationally they’re working with the EPA right now on several environmental programs. So I say that because, in many respects, this is kind of an outdoor classroom, and as I walked around, I got to see what a Black Maple was. I didn’t know there were Black Maples, but now I do, and other educational activities I’m sure go on there as far as the environment. Now, I say this as an outdoor classroom because the State, even in doing and developing its outdoor programs, has allow itself more leeway than otherwise, than, for example and most certainly commercial development, more leeway in impinging on wetland areas, docks and decks and walkways and everything else, so that a person might more conveniently get educated. Also, I tend to look at the project as an application that, for the most part, and for most of its impacts will be seasonal. While the offices might be used year round, the rest of the campus is mostly a seasonal use. Now, I’m trying to point that out to fellow Planning Board members in that when we look at the impacts, I don’t think we should necessarily look at it the same way as we might a commercial impacts, with all the impacts that that would entail. This use is limited. I mean, I don’t think there would be the trash. There wouldn’t be the traffic, etc., that would come with a commercial use. So I think most of its impacts, on this piece of property, would be negligible. Especially when you compare it to a 24 inch stormwater drain that goes directly into Halfway Brook from the development along Lafayette Street. This is, well, a mosquito bite. MR. LAPPER-We actually have brochures, Kit, the President, was just showing, Executive Director, was just showing me, that they do do wetland programs right there to teach the girls about the plant an animal life. So what you’re saying is absolutely true. MR. STROUGH-Okay. So, now having said that, let’s work out some of the finer details, and I’d like to start on L-1, Site Plan L-1. This may seem trite or trivial, but it’s going to add up. MR. LAPPER-Okay. MR. STROUGH-The property line, as shows in the legend, is dotted. MR. LAPPER-Dotted. MS. ELMER-Yes, I know what he means. Yes, this solid line should be dotted, yes. MR. STROUGH-Okay. I said, taking one might be trivial, but there isn’t just one. Then you have the limit of construction line shown as a lighter dotted. MS. ELMER-I think I carried the legend over from the other sheets. This is the existing plan, so you wouldn’t see a limit of construction. MR. LAPPER-Yes, that’s L-2. MR. STROUGH-There’s inconsistencies. MS. ELMER-Yes, I understand. You’re right. MR. STROUGH-And there’s unreadable parts. For example, near Friendship Lodge, just to the north, I can read the 3.90 porch, but under that, I can’t read a thing. MS. ELMER-That’s coverage from the surveyor, technical data, yes. MR. STROUGH-But it doesn’t help me at all, and there’s several spots like that where it’s just, it’s not readable, over by the Nature Lodge, same thing, all right, and a couple of things I’m going to ask you, while I’m on the page, is the acronyms I’m not familiar with. The SCOR? That you’ll see here and there. Can you tell me what SCOR means? MS. ELMER-Where do you see that? MR. STROUGH-Well, you can look near the little shed, right about in the center of the property, just above shed? 5 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MS. ELMER-Those are corners. Those are notes that the surveyor left for himself. He’s got, I think he’s got blue corner, and S corner I think is color or some kind of a symbol for his stationing work for picking up elevations. They’re all relative to a station on the road itself. MR. STROUGH-All right. MR. LAPPER-Conveniently the surveyor is here. John’s asking about SCOR. MR. STROUGH-And while you’re at it BCOR. MS. ELMER-I think it’s like blue corner and south corner. Shed corner, Matt says. Shed corner, SCOR is shed corner. Those are his shorthand for while he’s out in the field. MR. STROUGH-All right, well, that’s, and the BCOR? MS. ELMER-Back corner, probably. MR. STROUGH-Back corner. I’ve just never seen that. Thank you. MS. ELMER-Yes. This is his own sheet. MR. STROUGH-Okay, and the box near Meadowbrook Road, towards the northern center of the plan, I’m still on L-1. MS. ELMER-Yes. I’m looking for something that might be more readable, but. MR. LAPPER-I think that’s an electrical box. MS. ELMER-Electrical box. MR. STROUGH-Okay. Well, it helps if things are readable. All right. Let’s go over to L-2. Okay. All right. Now, I see the blue flagged line, and I’ve highlighted that in blue, okay, and I take it that’s the, is that the DEC? MS. ELMER-That’s right. MR. STROUGH-Designation for the wetlands. MS. ELMER-Blue flagged line is Al Koechline’s line, that’s right. MR. STROUGH-Okay. So what are the other lines? MS. ELMER-The limit of construction line is dashed on this plan. MR. STROUGH-Yes, I’ve got that, but there’s, I’ve got the yellow, the pink, the other lines that I just don’t know what they mean. They’re not identified. MS. ELMER-Floodplain line setback. MR. STROUGH-Well, it would be nice to have them identified. Okay. Yes, I take it there probably is, there could be Army Corps of Engineer designated wetlands, it could be floodplain. I don’t know. There’s one, too. It says in the notation on the south side, in the southeast corner, clear and grub existing. I’m on the, near the south. MS. ELMER-Clear and grub existing vegetation. MR. STROUGH-And what’s grub mean? MS. ELMER-To pull the bushes out. MR. STROUGH-Okay. I’ve never seen that. So that’s why I asked. MS. ELMER-Clear and grub existing vegetation. Yes. MR. STROUGH-Okay. Now, down below it says remove existing bituminous concrete pavement, down in the east part, in the current what’s blacktop part. MS. ELMER-Yes sheet in general is called the demolition and removals plan. So they’re showing a replacement. 6 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. STROUGH-Well, I’m just trying to understand bituminous, which is asphalt. MR. LAPPER-Right. MR. STROUGH-And concrete, which is sand and gravel and cement. It’s not both. MR. LAPPER-Asphalt is called bituminous concrete. MR. STROUGH-It is? MR. LAPPER-A concrete batch plant. MR. STROUGH-Okay. Well, if I’ve got a question, that’s why I ask. MR. LAPPER-Okay. MR. STROUGH-Okay. Let me go through this. All right. Let’s go to L-3, and again, those little lines aren’t identified, except for the blue line. All right. There’s some things I’m going to save for L-5 I noticed on this, but I’ll save it, and again, L-4, and the legend’s gone. MR. MAC EWAN-John, could I ask you to cut to the chase, relative to what the ZBA’s looking for, as to a recommendation? MR. STROUGH-Well, I had trouble figuring out the plans, Mr. Chairman. MR. MAC EWAN-We can get all that down the road a little bit, but let’s deal with what the ZBA is looking for. MR. STROUGH-Well, first of all I’ve just got to get clarified the plans which I don’t think were clarified. Now this one here, in particular, deals with stormwater. I mean, I can try and use this to determine the stormwater, and I’ve got the other stormwater sheets as well that shows the catch basins, but this one here I see we have a catch basin in the parking lot. MS. ELMER-That’s right. MR. STROUGH-And it’s being directed to a detention basin. MS. ELMER-In the southwest corner. MR. STROUGH-But none of the contour lines around the detention basin are identified, so I don’t know, you know, the elevation of them. MS. ELMER-Well they do, the invert of the pipe coming in from under the parking area is shown at 300.2, and then they go up in one foot intervals. MR. STROUGH-All right. So the bottom of the catch basin is 303? MS. ELMER-No, that’s, that lighter dashed line underneath is the existing grade. It’s 303 there now, and it will be down at 300.2. MR. LAPPER-Flared in, invert out, 300.2, on the right side. MR. STROUGH-All right. Well, usually the contour lines are identified so I can see that. All right. Well, we’ll come back to stormwater. Well, no, we won’t. While we’re on stormwater, why don’t we talk about it. Now that catch basin or detention basin, rather, I mean, I briefly read C.T. Male’s comments, but when I reviewed this, I had a problem with that, because, considering the type of soil in that general area, it looked very silty, and not likely to have great absorption abilities. MS. ELMER-That’s right. MR. STROUGH-Why didn’t you direct all the stormwater from the parking area down to that rather large drainage ditch on Meadowbrook Road? I mean, that’s a huge drainage ditch, and it drains north, I understand. MS. ELMER-Yes. We’re trying to take care of any increase in stormwater on the site itself. We don’t want to pass any issues on to other properties. 7 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. STROUGH-Well, the thing about it is that drainage ditch is quite a distance from where Meadowbrook, where Halfway Brook crosses Meadowbrook Road. MS. ELMER-Yes, well, what the plan is is to maintain the pre-discharge rates of runoff on the site, and that basin allows the stormwater time to slow down. MR. STROUGH-And that’s all well and good when you can do it. MS. ELMER-And re-enter the (lost words). MR. STROUGH-I just have my doubts about that detention basin being able to function the way it looks like it might function on paper, whereas I know the drainage ditch would work, and we’re not talking about a huge area here. MS. ELMER-Yes, there is some detention for the front of the building itself, and the roof drainage, in the grassed area you can see, toward Meadowbrook, it’s 301.5 and 301. MR. STROUGH-Right. MS. ELMER-That’s also used as detention. MR. STROUGH-Well, I’m just asking as a question, and something to consider, if it might be more ecologically sound to direct the stormwater into the drainage ditch on Meadowbrook Road. MR. VOLLARO-John, I’d like to, excuse me, Mr. Lapper, I would just like to comment on that, to John. I think one of the basic precepts of stormwater management is to try to retain the runoff on the property we’re talking about. MR. STROUGH-And I’m all for that, and I usually try for it, too, but we’re in kind of a tight situation here. MR. VOLLARO-Well, I know, but I don’t know whether we can just arbitrarily deviate from that control point. MR. STROUGH-Generally speaking, half of this is draining into the drainage basin anyway. All I’m saying is why don’t you take that little part of the parking lot and add it to that. MS. ELMER-That would increase the offsite impact, though. MR. LAPPER-If that’s what the Board wants, we can do it either way. MR. VOLLARO-Well, it’s not what the Board wants, I don’t believe. One member of the Board is speaking against that way. MR. LAPPER-If that’s what the Board wants, we would certainly do it that way. MR. STROUGH-Well, I just put it out there as an idea to consider, because I have my doubts as to whether that detention basin’s going to work. MR. VOLLARO-Well, I have my doubts, too, you know. I’ll get to that when I get my turn, if I get my turn. MR. STROUGH-Well, and my other point would be that it would take some of the impact of the stormwater flow away from Halfway Brook, and allow more treatment before it finally gets its way back into Halfway Brook. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I understand what you’re trying to do, John. I get it, you know, but I just feel that one of the basic precepts that we’ve been following over the years on stormwater management is retention of stormwater on site and not deliver it offsite, and I have a difficult time getting by that. MS. ELMER-And one of the important things to look at, in terms of stormwater is you compare the existing condition to the proposed condition, and the existing condition, it’s full drained soils, and there’s a high water table seasonally, and in the after condition, you know, there’s some impervious here, but the difference between the two is not that great, so that a small basin can accommodate onsite an increase in runoff, which we would prefer to do. MR. VOLLARO-Well, I think in C.T. Male’s comment they talked about that detention pond. I don’t want to et into John’s time here, but they claim that you would have to get a good deal of excavation into that in order to get it to run as a detention basin, and then you’re down into the water table. MR. LAPPER-So we replace the pipes with culverts, as they have, with swales that they had suggested. 8 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. VOLLARO-Is this in the response to the C.T. Male letter that we just got this evening? MS. ELMER-That’s right. MR. LAPPER-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-I obviously haven’t had a chance to read your response to C.T. Male because it was just put on this table about roughly an hour ago. MS. ELMER-One thing, if you notice in the site plan is that the house to the south, the Coangelo residence, the property line has an elevation along there of 303, and, you know, we want to stay below that. We don’t want to add fill to the site to increase runoff to any other properties. MR. VOLLARO-I think that’s a smart thing to do, personally. MS. ELMER-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-From this chair anyway. MS. ELMER-Yes. Code would require us to meet the 10 year floodway which is 303.5, and that would raise us, that would raise the elevation, which is not going to help. So we would prefer to manage it on the site. I mean, everything, you can see the 303.9 covers everything here, the houses, the road, everything is within that 10 year floodway. MR. MAC EWAN-What else have you got, John? MR. STROUGH-All right. One last thing, and it’s on Plan L-5, the planting plan. I see we’ve got some white pines and some, and I’m looking between the buffer area between the parking lot and the house. White pines I don’t think are going to provide much of a buffer. I’m thinking maybe a fence, maybe something more dense, that the white pines are going to grow up and offer no buffer, especially when the headlights of the cars would be shining right into the house. I’d like to see something there that would be more buffering, in terms of a vegetative plan, than what’s there, and possibly a fence. MS. ELMER-Yes. We did think a denser row of something like hemlocks would work. We had gotten into these comments from C.T. Male and Staff in more detail today. A staggered row of hemlocks we thought would be in keeping with the dominant conifers that are existing in the area. MR. STROUGH-All right. So, anyhow, those are my notations for right now. Generally speak, I like the plan. I know it encroaches in the wetland to a small extent, but keeping in mind the seasonal and very limited impacts of this proposal, I don’t think it’s too bad, although I do have concerns about the drainage basin, and I’ve made my notes about the plans being a little bit less than professional. Thank you. MS. ELMER-All right. Sorry. MR. MAC EWAN-Rich? MR. SANFORD-Thanks for the presentation. I thought it was helpful. Just a couple of items, and I’ll be a lot briefer than Mr. Strough. It does seem like there are still outstanding stormwater issues. I’m looking at a June 21 letter from C.T. Male where, yes, some outstanding items are listed, and I guess there might have been some correspondence after that that I’m not totally up to date, but it’s not as important for me to have a real intimate understanding of these, but it’s more important for me to feel comfortable that the experts are comfortable, and I’m not there at this point in time. That’s not to say that they can’t be resolved. MR. LAPPER-In terms of just the site plan engineering review, we got their letter on the 21. The LA st Group sent our response letter back. We’ve agreed to most of the changes with a few explanations. So we understand that the Board just got that and you’re not up to speed on that. So we’re primarily focusing on the fact that we first have to go back to the Zoning Board anyway to deal with the variance issue and we understand, like what John suggested on making some changes to the plans, that we can come back with some of these answers. MR. SANFORD-Yes, well, so, again, I’ll leave that behind for now. I think there’s still some outstanding issues that I think we probably all need to have a better comfort level. One issue, in looking at the zoning ordinances on wetlands, it states that a permit can’t, or shouldn’t be issued unless the Planning Board finds that there’s not a reasonable alternative to the kind of proposed construction that you’re talking about, and you did a nice presentation showing the existing building and what you’re looking to do, and you did make a representation that there was better cost efficiencies in the way you’re doing it, but I certainly would feel better if I had more specific details on what the different alternatives might be, versus your proposal. Because if there’s a way in which this could be done to accommodate your need, which I think was articulated 9 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) nicely, without the wetland impact, then I’m all for it, and just your statement that it’s not cost feasible, I think I need a little bit more there to understand why. I’m familiar with that building as it currently exists. It looks like a modest building. When you start bringing the architects in, you start doing all this work, you know, you can’t help but think that you’re putting an awful lot of cost up front into renovating something that’s rather modest to begin with, and perhaps that money could have been better spent through a demolition and rebuild. So, again, I would also feel more comfortable if we had a better understanding of what some of the alternatives could be and to understand why they wouldn’t me for a better option. MR. LAPPER-We can get specific about the cost. The renovation budget is $735,000, while constructing a new building in another location would be $910,000. MR. SANFORD-What’s the current appraised value of the existing building? MR. MAC EWAN-Rich, what’s that got to do with the variance? MR. SANFORD-Again, I’m just trying to get a handle on. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m just trying to keep our train on the track here. We’re dealing with a tenth of an acre disturbance of the wetlands that they’re going to need to get a variance from the ZBA. The ZBA is asking for a recommendation, positive or negative, how much of an impact it will have on the overall project. MR. SANFORD-Well, the relevance is simply that there seems to be an argument, I’m not sure how compelling it is, that the existing building is of some kind of importance or paramount importance, and to use that as a point of departure, but my point is that in the scheme of what is material from an expenditure point of view it might not be, and that other alternatives may make more sense. That’s the only relevance. MS. ELMER-One of the important things to the Girl Scouts, and from a site design standpoint, is that they need to keep the program area that they do have, and you put that building anywhere else on that site, you’re using up program area, and you’re starting to mix vehicles with children, and that’s really more important than dollars. MR. SANFORD-No, we heard you. That was nicely stated. Again, maybe not tonight, but at some point in time, I certainly would like to have a little bit better understanding of the exercise that the architects went through to come up with their conclusion that we need to add an addition to this building rather than to tear it down and build something new that would have been a little bit more environmentally friendly. MR. LAPPER-We’ll get you a more detailed explanation, but just in general, the site is limited because we’ve got the stream corridor, the wetland corridor, the bedrock outcroppings, and then the area in the back that we went to keep for the girls, and the parking area to the north, and so that really, just in a nutshell, leaves this as an area that can’t be really used for anything else, as the best place to expand this and to have the parking for this away from where the girls are going to be. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. SANFORD-And the two story versus one story was referenced, but without detail, and again, that would. MS. GREEN-From a cost standpoint, an elevator, a one-stop elevator is about $50,000. So to construct an elevator, while you’re saving, you know, you have the floor plate. You put another floor plate above, there’s an added cost right there. Having two means of egress from the second floor means two fire stairs. It would have to, we’d somehow have to enlarge the existing footprint to accommodate the two fire stairs. We’d probably have to evaluate the foundation to see if it even could carry two loads. We might, it’s all things that we looked at in the very early stages to look at if there was a way to minimize the footprint by going up, rather than keeping everybody on one story, and not knowing if the existing foundations could even support the added load, and knowing the cost implications right up front, with the not-for-profit that has to raise money to construct this project, we tried to do the most economical layout we could. We also considered function as the Staff interacts with each other. They really interact daily, and the kind of interaction of being on one floor versus two, not that it’s impossible, but there was a program adjacency that we looked at. MR. SANFORD-Thank you. I don’t want to belabor the point, but I guess my point really is I’m not saying it would be less costly, but considering the environmental impact differentials, it would have been nice, or I would feel better having a little bit more detail on knowing what that spread is. If there’s a greater cost but it’s a better or a friendlier impact, maybe it’s worth it, that’s all. MS. GREEN-Okay. MR. SANFORD-Thanks. That’s all I had. MS. GREEN-Sure. 10 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. MAC EWAN-Bob? MR. VOLLARO-I’d like to talk directly to the ZBA requirement. What exactly is the Zoning Board of Appeals asking us for a recommendation on? I haven’t seen that. Are they asking for our favorable recommendation to apply into the wetlands itself? In other words, to encroach into the 75 foot setback from the so called shoreline, wetland shoreline? MR. LAPPER-They weren’t specific about that but that was my interpretation of what they said. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. Because in order for us to make a recommendation on something, I think this Board has to understand what we’re recommending, either favorably or unfavorably, and I’m trying to determine what that is, so that this Board has an understanding of what their recommendation has to be. MR. LAPPER-Bob, and this is only my read, but they’re looking for, from a Planning perspective, their balancing test is the benefit to the applicant versus the burden on the neighborhood, the detriment to the neighborhood, and they want to know how you guys, as planners, feel about that detriment, about how we’re telling them that this 3800 square feet, while it would be better if we wouldn’t have to do it at all, we’re saying that that’s a minimal impact, given the nature of this wetland and this area, and they wanted some verification, some read of that from you. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-George, did you want to add anything to that? MR. HILTON-I think the Zoning Board referred the application to you for some direction as to whether you like the plan, whether you see other alternatives, modifications, to get your input on that, before they go back and reconsider the Area Variance. I think that’s really the main reason why they referred it to you. Not having attended the Zoning Board meeting, I can’t speak for them, but certainly I think that’s their intent. MS. ELMER-Yes. I think they’re unfamiliar with wetlands issues, and they felt you had more experience with them, and could put it into perspective better than they could. The building itself is 15 square feet in the wetland, and there’s 158 square foot of a wooden deck, but that’s just piers, post piles. It’s not impervious. It’s just a wooden deck. MR. VOLLARO-The wetland disturbance is 3,880 feet. Is that correct? MS. ELMER-That’s right, when you look at grading and the parking that goes into the wetlands. MR. LAPPER-But only 15 of that is the building. MS. ELMER-Fifteen is building going in. MR. VOLLARO-I struggled over these plans for a long time. So I’m fairly familiar with what that’s about. Now, in order to answer Staff’s question and Staff’s interpretation of what perhaps the Zoning Board is asking us to do, I have an opening statement that I’ll make here, and I’ve written down, and it’s short, and it says, to myself, in reading this and studying this application, that this is a prime example of trying to develop an area already approaching environmental limits. I mean, I’ve been looking at this as objectively as I can, and I do have an alternative. Because when I take a look at 179-6-100 and the wetland regulations, and as my fellow Board member has mentioned here, it talks about standards for our decision, as Planning Board, and it says no permit shall be issued, and he’s already told you that, unless there’s a reasonable alternative for the proposed regulation activity on the site which is not freshwater wetland or adjacent area. Now, in looking at the things that I picked up out of reviewing this, the building itself, as you say, is within 15 feet of the wetlands. The wetland disturbance, however, is 3,880 feet. The total project is within the 75 foot setback. The new project. The entire new building is in the 100 year floodplain. The groundwater is at 0 to 1 and a half feet. That’s below the surface. MS. ELMER-Yes, the whole Meadowbrook Road is in the floodplain. MR. VOLLARO-Really? I understand that. That’s basically a problem. Before you responded to the 21 June 2002 C.T. Male letter, I looked at the letter as being relatively unfavorable to this, and all of their comments. I haven’t had a chance to digest the LA Group response to the C.T. Male letter yet because I just got it tonight, and then the project does not totally meet the requirements of 179-6-100 wetlands permit. Now, it’s been suggested by Staff that there may be an alternative, and I looked at that, and I actually scaled out, made a model, and I don’t have it here, but it was a piece of cardboard that I moved around, just the size of the new building, to scale of that map. MS. ELMER-Yes, we did the same exercise. 11 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. VOLLARO-Right. Now, the new building could be moved to the proposed parking lot area. It could be. MR. LAPPER-Right. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MS. ELMER-You mean the proposed parking in the south end? MR. VOLLARO-The proposed parking area that sits to the south of the existing building. Now, parking area could be provided behind the existing building, which is 88 feet. MS. ELMER-It would still be in the buffer, though, the 75 foot buffer would still be, you’d still need an Area Variance. MR. VOLLARO-Not if you took, if you took the new building away totally, and parked behind the existing building. MS. ELMER-Without any new building? MR. LAPPER-You’d be flipping the building and the parking. MR. VOLLARO-See, what I’m going to do is I’m going to take the building and I’m going to move it into the parking lot. MS. ELMER-Yes. I don’t see what you gain by that, really. You still need an Area Variance for parking in the buffer and/or the wetland. You’ve got parking behind the building. MR. VOLLARO-Well, the new building is 94 feet by 38 feet. It could easily be moved far enough north, I looked at being able to get nine spaces behind the existing building, and I arrived at a scheme where you can get your 30 spaces. MS. ELMER-So are you looking at like an L-shaped building? MR. VOLLARO-No, take your building, exactly on the floor plan that’s in the back of the existing building, move it up into the parking lot, move it far enough west to allow for five parking spaces on the east side of the building. That would give you nine spaces behind the existing building, sixteen out front. Now I know the out front is a tradeoff because of Meadowbrook Road. I understand that. MS. ELMER-Yes, with the proposed plan we feel that we meet the Queensbury zoning code permit criteria, you know, that the proposed activity is compatible with public health and welfare, and that’s really the first issue when you look at the traffic situation the way it is now. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, well, I’m kind of balancing that against trying to relieve some of these environmental issues a little bit if we possibly can. MS. ELMER-See, we don’t, you know, we get wetland permits for all kinds of projects, and to us, this is a minimal impact. We don’t, there’s a certain point, for instance, with the Army Corps or with DEC where you have to mitigate and create wetlands, such as some what larger parcel projects. MR. VOLLARO-I realize that, but what the standards for the decision are is that there is no reasonable alternative. That’s one of the things that I have to look at when I digest this piece of paper. MS. ELMER-Yes, while preserving the public health and welfare. MR. LAPPER-With all due respect, Bob, you seem to be taking sort of a zero tolerance approach to any wetland disturbance, and what we want to just educate you about is that the State and Federal government don’t look at that, and as Holly just said, we would not have to be creating any wetlands, in terms of mitigating impact, because they view this as such a small amount of disturbance. MR. VOLLARO-You’re saying that the 3,880 feet is a small amount. What I’m saying, we could eliminate that disturbance by moving the building. So your point is it’s small enough as not to have any impact in terms of how other people look at it. Now, that’s a tradeoff decision that I think this Board probably has to make. I’m trying to satisfy the requirements of the Ordinance by not giving you that much wetlands disturbance by moving the building in the manner which I have described. MS. GREEN-Moving the addition to the building south? So, it’s a long rectangle? 12 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. VOLLARO-No, no, no. Essentially moving the, if you take the parking lot that sits south of the existing building now. MS. GREEN-So you’re talking about building a new building? MR. VOLLARO-Yes, not adding, I know that there’s some benefits you’d like to derive from coupling these two buildings together. I realize that, and I understand that there’s benefits derived from that. MR. STROUGH-Yes, but, Bob, if I may interject, aesthetically, and I think we’ve got to balance everything here. Aesthetically, your proposal might work better as far as less infringement on the wetland, but the proposal as they have it here is aesthetically more pleasing. I’ll explain why. The scene, the scene from Meadowbrook, is shared. The parking, the landscaping, the building. They share the visual scene. Your plan, I think by moving the house, turning it this way, I think the scene automatically becomes dominated by a parking lot, and I don’t find that the most aesthetically pleasing, in balancing everything. MR. VOLLARO-My answer to that is the parking lot, it’s functioned that way for quite a while. Now, how many accidents have occurred because you were backing, so called backing into the Meadowbrook Road? MS. ELMER-We would like to see no accidents. MR. VOLLARO-I know, but has here been a historical background of accidents because of that? MR. LAPPER-We view that as a significant potential problem. I drive down that road every day, going to work, and people backing onto Meadowbrook Road now, which is nothing compared to what it’s going to be when all those residential projects get built out, there’s a lot of traffic. It’s a narrow road. It’s really not a safe situation the way it is now, and we view that, not just for the Girl Scouts but for the residents, as a major improvement to avoid that, and we thought that we would get substantial credit from the Planning Board for eliminating that, too, but we know that you’re very sensitive to the wetland issue. MR. VOLLARO-Well, I’m just, you know, this is the first time we tread into this wetland issue ourselves. I mean, it sounds like the Zoning Board of Appeals has had the same problem and said let’s see what the Planning Board has to say about it, because they’ve got more experience. Actually, this is the first time we’ve treaded into this wetland permit area. MR. MAC EWAN-Under this Ordinance. MR. VOLLARO-Under this Ordinance. MR. MAC EWAN-The new Ordinance, but, you know, keep in mind, and I’m thinking here, this Meadowbrook corridor, we’ve probably reviewed, in the past five years, I can think of no less than three projects that have been before us, that have all been within the 75 foot setback of the wetlands, and also within the 100 year floodplain. Never have any of us batted an eyelash about them before. MR. VOLLARO-I realize that, but I’m operating under a new document now, and I’m trying to give the document some credit here. MR. MAC EWAN-While I appreciate we’re operating under a new Ordinance, I think we’ve got to keep our on the ball here, and how much of an impact is this really going to create, and how much are we gaining by having a new project address other concerns such as, you know, the driving in and out of the parking lot, just now. I think Jon’s point is well taken. We’re only going to see Meadowbrook Road corridor greatly improve, as far as the amount of traffic involved. It’s going to be more intensive in the years to come, and this is an opportunity for one of those sites along there to improve the quality of their ingress and egress on there. I mean, that, to me, is a plus. I mean, I’m looking at us impacting a tenth of an acre of wetlands here. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, but rather than a tenth of an acre, that’s a very dramatic way to put it, but I’m looking at 3800 square feet as, I think what we’re saying here is we’re trying to balance the aesthetic look, I think John’s got a point, the aesthetic look of how that looks against a wetland disturbance of 3,880 square feet. I think that’s where this pivots right now, is against those two things. Because that’s what they want to know, and I think the Zoning Board of Appeals wanted to know did we have any recommendations that we could make, such that there was a reasonable alternative to look at, and I think there’s a reasonable alternative. It may not be the best. This is not an easy site to work because of the wetlands and because of the level of the water and there were stormwater problems and so on, but it doesn’t say you must have an alternative. It says a reasonable alternative, and I’m saying what I’m proposing before here is a reasonable alternative, certainly not the best because it’s not an easy site to work. So, I’ll let the rest of my Planning Board members kind of think about that for a minute, as they go through their deliberations. MR. MAC EWAN-Are you done? MR. VOLLARO-Yes, for now anyway. 13 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MS. ELMER-We just would hope that some consideration would be given to the service that this building and this organization gives to the five county area, and the 4,000 girls, since 1942. MR. VOLLARO-My daughter is a Girl Scout, or until she was 16 years old or 17 years old. So I’ve got some feeling for that. I don’t want to be the Grinch here. I’m just trying to do the job that this requires me to do. MR. MAC EWAN-Larry? MR. RINGER-Okay. Jon started out by saying what a wonderful organization the Girl Scouts were, and I think everybody here agrees with that. My daughter was also a Girl Scout, and my wife was a Girl Scout leader. It ends there. I think that this is a great location for a Girl Scout camp, or any type of a camp. I don’t necessarily think that this is a good location for the office, or to expand that office operation to the size you’re looking at, and Richard started talking about alternate locations, perhaps another place, and I think that would be better. MR. LAPPER-With all due respect, if you just look at the site, we don’t see that there’s another alternative that works. MR. RINGER-Perhaps not on this site, but some place else in the Town or in the City or some place else, you know, we’re expanding a building that’s already in the setback where it shouldn’t be, and we’re expanding that, we’re going 3300 square foot into the. MR. LAPPER-See, that’s why you have an Area Variance test where you have to balance, and you guys are taking the position, not everyone, some of you seem to be taking the position that this 3800 square feet that we’re asking for a lot, and we look at that as we’re asking for a really little bit, but that’s an extremely minor disturbance compared to other projects in this Town that have been approved with wetland disturbance. 3800 square feet is very small. MR. RINGER-I just have difficulty with that there, Jon, and the other thing we have to look at is, you know, John Strough’s mentioned also, you know, how much traffic is going to be there from the Girl Scouts and so forth, but we don’t know, in ten years, or five years or twenty years if that’s still going to be a Girl Scout building. I’m sure the Mohican Council, when they were on Pearl Street, the Boy Scouts said they were going to be there for 50 years, too, and now they’re part of Albany and no longer there on Pearl Street. MR. LAPPER-Well, they’re making about a million dollar investment. MR. RINGER-So we have to look at stuff, not only what it is today, but what it may be ten, fifteen or twenty years from now, so I have to put the Girl Scouts aside when I’m looking at the project, as to what it is and what it’s going to do. MR. LAPPER-They have been here since 1942, before there were wetland regulations. MR. RINGER-But that’s where I have some difficulties with this, and I’m passing it out for what it’s worth. I’m just not sure that that’s the place to expand an office for the Girl Scouts, or for anyone else for that matter. I don’t have anything else. MR. MAC EWAN-Tom? MS. GREEN-Can I (lost words)? MR. MAC EWAN-Sure. MS. GREEN-I just wanted to speak about moving their administrative offices off campus. There is a lot of interaction between the office and the camp, when the camp is in session, and they do go back and forth on a daily basis, and I know that the Staff, they do training at the camp. They come back over. There really is a lot of interaction. So to totally separate them. MR. RINGER-There may be alternatives. Looking at the Boy Scouts, the same thing with Wacapomany. I’m sure they would love to have the camp at their building over there, too, when they were, I’m just having some difficulty with the office there. MS. GREEN-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-I don’t think anyone would like to see the wetlands disturbed. I’m speaking for myself, but, given everything, I don’t have a problem with it because I think the stormwater issues can be worked out. I 14 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) think we’ve looked at a lot of different opportunities. You’ve got a nice working unit there. My only concern is what’s going to happen next to the lot (lost words), but that’s about it. MS. ELMER-We’ve really designed this with a lot of input from the architects, and looking well into the future, to their program. They’ve been using this building since, well, 1967 this building was put in. Before that they used the lodge spaces between 1942 and 1967. So I think this will serve them well into the future. MR. SEGULJIC-I don’t have a problem with it. MR. VOLLARO-I’ve got a comment I wanted to make. MR. MAC EWAN-Sure. MR. VOLLARO-There’s another alternative, perhaps. I mean, you know, we’re trying to look at what that might be. You’re sitting on 13 acres of ground here, roughly. I assume that’s what you call the campus. Is that correct? MS. ELMER-13.5 acres. MR. VOLLARO-13.53, as I read off your chart. MS. ELMER-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-And there’s a section up there, and I know there’s some rock outcrop and some test borings would have to be done to ensure that you could put something up there. I understand that that would have to be done, but I’d certainly like to take a look, in an effort to keep everything on campus, and not move it offsite some place else, to see whether test borings would show what the depth to bedrock, or the depth to rock was, if there’s rock ledge up there, and if that’s a buildable area. MS. ELMER-Where are you talking about, in the northern part? MR. VOLLARO-I’m talking where you currently have your future lodge, I guess it’s called. Is that what that is? I’m on L-1. MS. ELMER-Yes, Nature Lodge. It’s an existing building that was built in 1962. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, the Nature Lodge. Now, up in here, up in this section here. MS. ELMER-Yes, that’s right in the middle of the play space, yes. MR. LAPPER-That’s what we call the program area. MR. VOLLARO-That’s a play space up there? So that’s also off limits. MS. ELMER-This is the camp. This is where 4,000 girls camp. MR. LAPPER-Not all at the same time. MS. ELMER-Yes, not all at the same time. MR. VOLLARO-Hopefully, yes. MS. ELMER-That’s where the programs take place. It’s about five acres all together. MR. LAPPER-We’re treating that as off limits. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. That’s off limits. You’re saying that doesn’t work either. MS. ELMER-Yes, that’s very tight as it is. I am some photos of that area, if you’d like to see them. MR. VOLLARO-It’s not necessary. I’m just trying to, right now, come up with whatever reasonable alternatives there are to putting the building where it is. MS. ELMER-We’ve gone through this whole thought process. We’d love to run through it with you. MR. VOLLARO-I spend enough time doing this stuff during the week, believe me. The tenth of an acre, is that where your 3800 square feet is against the 13? MS. ELMER-3880 is behind the building. 15 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. VOLLARO-No. The tenth of an acre that you’re. MR. LAPPER-It’s not a percentage. It’s a tenth. MS. ELMER-That’s the Army’s threshold. MR. LAPPER-One tenth. MR. VOLLARO-Okay, but is that against the whole 13.53 acres? What’s it against? MS. ELMER-That has nothing to do with that. MR. VOLLARO-That has nothing to do with that at all? MS. ELMER-No, the tenth of an acre is the Army Corps of Engineers threshold for having to notify them and get a formal individual permit. MR. LAPPER-That would be 4356 square feet. MS. ELMER-4,356 square feet, and we’re at 3880, which they feel is diminimus. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MS. ELMER-And the DEC looks at it similarly. MR. VOLLARO-You’ve discussed this with the DEC as well? MS. ELMER-That’s right. MR. LAPPER-They were onsite a week ago Monday. MR. VOLLARO-So I guess what we’re saying here is that there’s no reasonable alternative. MR. LAPPER-We seriously studied that, and we wouldn’t be here, having to ask for this permit, if we felt that there was a reasonable alternative, because we certainly try to avoid variances every time. MS. ELMER-I just want to show you this (lost words) the program area that they’re trying to preserve. Here’s the. MR. LAPPER-The top of the rock outcropping. MS. ELMER-The Friendship Lodge would be north. MR. SEGULJIC-You use those areas for camping? MS. ELMER-Camping, programs, service night. MR. RINGER-When parents come up on Thursdays, this is the area that, do they park in this area, or do they park down here? MR. LAPPER-That’s the parking. MS. ELMER-It’s cleared but it’s not paved, because it’s never used in the winter. We just want a little more space for some of the programs and to serve all the counties and the girls. MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else? I’ll ask you to give up the table for a couple of minutes. We’ll open up the public hearing. Does anyone want to comment on this application? You’re more than welcome to come up and address the Board. Please just state your name and address. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED JIM PIPER MR. PIPER-My name is Jim Piper. I live at 206 Meadowbrook Road, which is diagonally across the street, and I’m here probably in a dual role. Not only am I a neighbor, and been a neighbor of the Girl Scout camp since 1956, I am also a member of the Board of Directors of the Girl Scouts. I feel that, with this particular project, the Girl Scouts have explored every opportunity, or every alternative that they have to move this building or to go some other place with this building, without taking it offsite. I realize that we’re dealing 16 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) with a wetlands issue. Nobody knows that area better than I do, as far as how wet it is, being in the floodplain, having to have flood insurance and everything else. I realize that. I’ve lived there since ’56, but I think that they have done their homework, and really this is the only viable site that they have open to them at this point, and I have a copy of a petition that I had sent to the neighbors, that we used during the Use Variance when we appeared in front of the Zoning Board of Appeals in February, and you will see that the majority of these people were in support of the Use Variance. They thought that whatever permitting process that we had to go through, to try to meet the qualifications that we needed to put this type of addition on here, these people were in support. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MR. PIPER-Like I say, that was for the Use Variance, and I have not gone back to these people. They have known that we have appeared in front of the Zoning Board last week. They knew we were coming in front of the Planning Board tonight, and finally I would just say that, my wife and I, we support the project wholeheartedly. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? MR. VOLLARO-I’d just like to make a statement for the record that the Use Variance was, that’s the one that was done in 1987? MR. PIPER-No, no. This one was the one that we appeared in February of this year, for this project. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-It’s marked on the plat they have submitted. MR. VOLLARO-Okay, 2/27, okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Do you want to come up, ma’am. KIT HUGGARD MRS. HUGGARD-I’m Kit Huggard. I’m the Director of the Adirondack Girl Scout Council, and I’ve been employed by them for about 20 years. So I’ve been on that site for a long time, and I know it well. Over that period of time, the neighborhood has really changed, and the changes that are coming have really forced us to look at the property very thoroughly. One of the things we did was a dot matrix map of all of our members, and it’s so obvious to us, just as Mr. Strough said, and I guess a couple of others of you have said, it is the most accessible site to the greatest number of our members, as well as being a site where the greatest number of our members is congregated. We have looked at all kinds of thoughts as we looked at this project. It’s been in the planning stages for, as you’ve heard, well over a year. It’s become obvious to us that with Meadowbrook as busy as it’s getting, we need to make a campus to enclose the property for the safety of our girls. Part of the plan is a bridge that we’ll put from the back of the new building over to camp, so that people can come in, park, and walk and do whatever they need to do without getting on Meadowbrook. Currently we walk Meadowbrook, and it’s just not safe anymore. You asked about accidents. It was 10 days ago a member of our Archives Committee was coming in, Edith Bowman. There was a screech so loud of brakes that three of our staffers ran out to the road and there wasn’t an accident, but it was so close. It’s just getting very dangerous. It’s the main corridor to ACC now, because there are fewer lights if you come out Meadowbrook than if you come out Bay, and you can get in the parking lot in the back off Haviland, and we have now lots of new neighbors at the north end of Meadowbrook Road. So it is a plan we’ve thought out carefully. We care very much about the property. We have thousands of people who have a very proprietary feel about the property. This is where they grew up. This is property that they love. We would not treat it rudely or roughly. We do need to expand and we do need to enclose. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. We’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. MAC EWAN-Any ideas, thoughts, comments? MR. VOLLARO-I think if somebody wants to put a motion up. MR. STROUGH-I just think that there’s minimum impact, given the nature of the application. I think the stormwater management issues can be managed, and the screening and buffering landscape improvements can be worked out, between their property and the Coangelos. So I would put forward a motion. MOTION TO SUPPORT A FAVORABLE RECOMMENDATION TO APPROVE THE APPLICANT’S, THE APPLICANT BEING THE GIRL SCOUTS OF THE ADIRONDACK 17 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) COUNCIL, INC., AREA VARIANCE REQUEST, Introduced by John Strough who moved for its adoption, seconded by Richard Sanford: Duly adopted this 25 day of June, 2002, by the following vote: th MR. SANFORD-Mr. Chairman, site plan still has to take place, right? MR. MAC EWAN-That’s correct, as well as the Freshwater Wetlands permit. MR. SANFORD-Okay. MS. RADNER-And you need SEQRA. I mean, the resolution to recommend doesn’t require SEQRA, but any actual action does require SEQRA. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. AYES: Mr. Strough, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. MacEwan NOES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Ringer ABSENT: Mr. Hunsinger MR. MAC EWAN-You’re all set. Now, should you get your variance from the ZBA, you know the concerns the Board has relative to the drawings themselves, and comments relative to the beautification, working out the stormwater issues. MR. LAPPER-We’ll work out the stormwater issues with C.T. Male and make whatever changes we have to make. We’ll make changes to the buffering, and we’ll come back with new plans that answer John’s questions, that label the guidelines, etc. Thank you. MS. RADNER-Craig, do you want a tabling motion on the Freshwater Wetlands permit and the Site Plan? MR. MAC EWAN-We didn’t even entertain them MS. RADNER-Okay. I wasn’t sure if you discussed it. MR. MAC EWAN-No, I mean, we didn’t get to that point. MS. RADNER-All right. SUBDIVISION NO. 10-2002 TYPE: UNLISTED SKETCH PLAN SUBDIVISION NO. 10-2002 DANIEL A. & PAMELA VALENTE PROPERTY OWNERS: DANIEL & ELIZABETH VALENTE AGENT: CHARLES SCUDDER, PE ZONE: PO LOCATION: SW CORNER BAY RD. @ WALKER LANE APPLICANT PROPOSES SUBDIVISION OF A 14.05 +/- ACRE PARCEL INTO 15 LOTS FOR A PROFESSIONAL OFFICE PARK. TAX MAP NO. 296.11-1- 21.1/61-1-47 LOT SIZE: 14.05 +/- ACRES SECTION: SUBDIVISION REGULATIONS DON PIGEON, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT; DAN VALENTE, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Subdivision No. 10-2002, Sketch Plan, Daniel A. & Pamela Valente, Meeting Date: June 25, 2002 “Project Description: Applicant proposes 15 lots to be used as Professional Offices. The proposed subdivision also includes a new section of roadway, which will connect the existing Baybridge Drive to Bay Rd. The property is located in the Professional Office (PO) zoning district. Study of plat: Lot arrangement: The proposed subdivision would create 15 lots with frontage on either Walker Lane or a new extension of Baybridge Drive. Topography: The proposed sketch plan shows current topography at a 2-foot interval. Water supply Sewage Disposal: The proposed lots have access to the municipal water system. A proposed Bay Road Sewer District will also serve the lots. 18 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) Drainage: The sketch plan does not show proposed grading or drainage for this site, and the applicant has not submitted a letter requesting a waiver. Although proposed grading and drainage are required to be shown, the Planning Board can review these items at the time of Preliminary and Final Plat review. Lot sizes: The proposed lots range in size from approximately .63 acres to approximately 1.3 acres. All proposed lot sizes are within Zoning Ordinance requirements. Future development: The applicant has indicated that the site will be developed as Professional Office, however no site-specific development is outlined in this request. State Environmental Quality Review Act: Type is Unlisted, the applicant has submitted a short form. Land Use Plan: The project is located in Neighborhood eight. Professional office is a recommended land use for this area of Queensbury according to the Land Use Plan. Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): According to Town records, this property has no previous site plan or subdivision approvals. Staff comments: The proposed subdivision would create 15 lots in a Professional Office District. The lots will have vehicular access from Walker Lane and the extension of the existing Baybridge Drive. The Zoning Ordinance calls for shared drives in the Bay Rd. Office Corridor in order to manage traffic flow in the Bay Rd. corridor. As a result, any proposed development should provide limited, shared access along Walker and Baybridge for the lots in this proposed subdivision. The Planning Board may wish to condition any future subdivision approval with stipulations providing for no vehicular access to Bay Rd., and that driveways using Walker Lane or Baybridge Road in this subdivision share access drives. The sketch plan shows sanitary sewer lines that will tie into the proposed Bay Rd. Sanitary Sewer District. The creation of this district is still under discussion at this time. Any future connections to the proposed sanitary sewer district for this site will be discussed in more detail during Preliminary and Final Plat review. All landscaping, lighting and Bay Road Corridor Design Guidelines will be addressed during the Site Plan Review for each office building to be built on the proposed lots. The Town of Queensbury Highway Department has submitted comments for consideration by the Planning Board.” MR. MAC EWAN-Good evening. MR. VALENTE-Good evening. Dan Valente, President of Valente Homes, Inc. I’m here, obviously, proposing this 15 lot subdivision. There’s a few questions I know I’ve received from the Highway Department, which I can address for you, if you’d like, at this point. MR. MAC EWAN-Go ahead. MR. VALENTE-One of the questions that the Superintendent had was the existing dirt road that is in place at this point, whether that was deeded to the Town as of yet. That is a private road. That has not been deeded over to the Town. We are fully prepared, also, to design the newer road to current specifications, with the wings and the storm drainage necessary. Another issue was the stream crossing, which we are not moving the location of the stream crossing as we have proposed at this point. That pretty much addresses his concerns. Other than that, I guess I’ll field questions. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Rich? Something else you wanted to add? MR. VALENTE-I also requested that we had aligned the road with Schermerhorn’s development directly across the street, the traffic issue onto Bay Road that was, I know, a concern, prior, by Boards, but that had been done, and we’d like to obviously see that stay. MR. SANFORD-Okay. Hi, and good evening. Could you give me some kind of idea, I see you have these various phases. What’s your estimated time line for seeing this project through to completion? MR. VALENTE-Well, first of all, I mean, that’s definitely going to hinge upon what happens with our sewer extension, or if that sewer extension happens at this point, but obviously I can’t do any development until that sewer is viable. 19 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. SANFORD-Okay. MR. VALENTE-Once that becomes available to us, then I would obviously like to run the sewer that I propose, obviously with more detail down the road, get the infrastructure in as necessary and get that road paved, the extension of Baybridge Drive, out to Bay Road. MR. SANFORD-Okay, and what kind of professional practices or offices are you anticipating construction, or for what purposes? MR. VALENTE-I would expect to see maybe a chiropractor or maybe a physical therapist of some sort. Maybe an accountant, that type of an office. MR. SANFORD-Okay, because there’s going to be 15 of them, right? MR. VALENTE-That’s what’s proposed, yes. MR. SANFORD-All right. That’s it for now. I don’t have anything further right now. MR. MAC EWAN-Bob? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. The section of the gravel road, Mr. Valente, you want to take the paved surface, where it says paved surface, there’s a section in there that is between the paved surface and the property line. You plan to tie that in right to the Baybridge Drive paved road. That was the question Mr. Missita had asked, and you want to couple that right up. MR. VALENTE-Absolutely. The road would be one continuous road with no dirt in between at all. Eventually it would be turned over to the Town with their acceptance. MR. VOLLARO-One of the things Mr. Missita talked about, too, was putting some drainage in on the road. I mean, this is only a sketch plan so it doesn’t have to be here, but in addressing his comments, I think we want to, you want to look at whatever drainage, taking a look at this property, it’s relatively flat. So I don’t see an awful lot of drainage problems or an awful lot of problems trying to keep water on your site with the proper amount of retention and possibly drywells put in at the proper places. So I don’t see anything wrong with that. You talked about the creation of a sewer district, and I agree that that district still has to be created, and you have an area here reserved for a pumping station. Now, how do you intend to use that pumping station? MR. VALENTE-Well, until I see what is proposed, I believe everybody knows that Mr. Schermerhorn’s involved in designing or proposing a sewer extension of some sort. I’ve yet to see what he’s proposed. So, I mean, that may come into play. It may not. I can’t honestly tell you at this point. More and more as time goes on, I’m sure. MR. VOLLARO-Now, I just want to make some suggestions that are going to help you out, I think, past this Sketch Plan. We have a requirement in our zoning law, of course a lot of this is kind of new to us, as well as it’s probably new to you, but just heading you in the right direction here for a second, there’s a Section, 179- 7-040, called the Bay Road corridor, and it talks about how they want these professional offices to look in the Bay Road corridor, and I looked at your sketch plan and did a little thinking about it to make it work as best as it could work, and I just don’t know if you’re going to be able to keep 13 lots and meet all the interconnection requirements that are called for in that reference I just gave you. So what I did, and this is just me playing around with the sketch plan. It doesn’t mean a thing. In your Lot Number Three, what I’ve proposed in my thinking was to have a curb cut along Walker Lane to come in on Lot Number Three, and have that almost as a complete road right down to your proposed road, and have offshoots from it getting into the other lot, so the people come in and get to Lot Two and Lot One, and Lot Two and One would have to be connected. Four and Five would have to be connected. So that, and then coming down onto the road, Lot 13 would have to give access to Fourteen, Fifteen, Twelve and Eleven. You’d have to do some way to have people come in and be able to have access to all of, if you’re going to put all of these in. The Ordinance gives you some pretty neat ideas as to how to do that, by the way. It’s got some views in it that show you how that might look, different proposals for how you might do that. For example, on the entrance coming in off of Bay Road, you might want to consider doing what’s called in the Ordinance a boulevard street. What I mean by that is probably having a small area in the middle that’s planted with lights on it, so that, you know, it really looks pretty professional when you pull in there. These are all ideas to help you develop a good looking subdivision out front there. As far as the sewer thing is concerned, you’re right. I don’t have any good feel for what the, when the sewer district will be created, when it would be approved and where you would tie into it, and how you would tie in. So I think that’s all stuff that’s got to be looked at once that sewer district gets proposed, and I think that, have you heard from anybody on that at all? Have you gotten any correspondence from Mr. Schermerhorn at all on that? MR. VALENTE-I have one brief, or actually two brief letters, just about a week ago I received one. It was the first one I received, just requesting some information as far as flows, I’m sure flow rates and what have 20 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) you for the parcels that were intended to be into the sewer extension, which I responded to, and then again another brief letter explaining, because I had talked, when I responded to him, I referred back to the engineering report that Mr. Hastings had done from the original proposal, and that’s where our data was based on, and I’m sure he had that at his disposal. So I referred to that, and he responded more or less saying that that sewer extension is no longer valid, nor is that information. So I’m just, I guess I really haven’t been kept up to speed with anything. Nobody’s contacted me. I’ve tried to get some more information. It’s been hard to get. So, I mean, I am intending that it was still going to head the way it was originally proposed. I would still like to see it go that way, but I guess we’ll see. MR. VOLLARO-You should be able to, just as a point, you should be able to make an appointment with Mike Shaw up at Wastewater, and sit down with Mike and say where does he think this is going, so that you have some way to plan what you’re doing. MR. VALENTE-We’ve talked to Mike Shaw a number of times, and a lot of times he really didn’t seem like h he cared to get too much involved with it at this point. I don’t know. MR. VOLLARO-Well, he has a letter in here that expresses his view, I think, essentially in the letter saying that he’s reserving any comments on this until the new sewer district is formed. He can’t really make a statement to any of this about his feeling on that, and just for the record, I’ll read his letter in. It says, “It appears that each one of these proposed projects”, and he’s talking to your project which we have before you now, and Mr. Schermerhorn’s project on Bay Road for the medical arts building. “It appears that each of these proposed projects are discharging their sanitary sewage to Town owned sewer mains. Currently, there are no sanitary sewer mains or districts in this area of Bay Road. We do believe that a Schermerhorn proposal is being prepared for a possible sanitary sewer district extension to serve this area.”, and I believe that is ongoing. “Until a sanitary district has been formed to serve this area, my review of any connections would be premature.” So he’s really saying he’s got no view of this at all until he knows what’s the sewer district going to look like. MR. VALENTE-Yes. That’s pretty much what I got from him, from our brief discussions we had the past few months. Also, I want to make you aware that we’re not proposing just to sewer this front parcel . There’s a continuation of that sewer line to also, I don’t know if you’re concerned about this at this point, obviously not with this subdivision, but there’s a back parcel that was also originally included in the sewer district extension that we need to service also. I’m prepared, obviously, to design that and put that infrastructure in too. MR. VOLLARO-So that parcel up in, that’s not something we’re talking about at this site plan, but I know what you’re talking about, since I’m somewhat familiar with this. MR. VALENTE-Correct. MR. VOLLARO-But, yes, that parcel would tie into the sewer district extension, but I think what has to happen is you’ve got to notify Mr. Schermerhorn or Mr. Nace that you would like to have the following tax maps included in the sewer district, and then they’ll draw you in. That’s my understanding, but I think you’ve really got to talk to them, since I’m not qualified, on this Board, to speak to that. MR. VALENTE-I’ve made him aware of that, at this point. That he knows that both parcels were supposed to be included into that sewer extension. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. That’s all I have on this, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have anything else. MR. MAC EWAN-Larry? MR. RINGER-I have nothing on the Sketch Plan, no. MR. MAC EWAN-Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-How will this appear? All I see is you want to have 15 buildings sitting there? MR. VALENTE-Well, I mean, depending on clients that come in and their needs, obviously, it will depend on the size of the buildings that they are required. MR. SEGULJIC-So you’ll build them as needed? MR. VALENTE-Yes, absolutely. I’ll try to keep a more residential style homes, you know, not a box office. When we get further along, I would propose to bring in an idea of what we would expect the types of buildings to be there or look like. I’m sure you’ll need that. 21 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. PIGEON-Don Pigeon, 16 Michael Road, land surveyor. Rather than to lose lots, as one person had mentioned here, in this subdivision, by cutting a road between Walker and the newly proposed road, would it be feasible, along Walker, to have shared common drives for two lots? MR. MAC EWAN-The short answer for you is get a hold of the new Zoning Ordinances, and in there they have design guidelines, which will help you design, you know, any kind of development that’s going up through Bay Road as far as professional office space is concerned. You can see where the Town’s envisioning for this corridor and help you redesign that. That’s the short answer. MR. VOLLARO-If you get to the Zoning Ordinance adopted on the 1 of May 2002, you can get a copy of st this from the Town Clerk, and I think I gave it to Mr. Valente, it’s 179-7-040, is the Bay Road corridor design criteria, and if you look at that, it’s a big help as to how you put this together. Because they want it to look as a professional park. MR. VALENTE-Right, well, we had sat with Craig Brown, my engineer and I, Mr. Charles Scudder, who couldn’t be here because of personal reasons, but we had sat with Craig and we had looked through that. Obviously, we’ve tried to get as close as we can to that. The only existing problem I had was Baybridge Drive, and we would want to make sure that we get that extended out, because otherwise we could have clustered this a whole other way, if I didn’t have that extension of that road coming out and making that an additional entrance onto Bay or exit off of Bay. So, I mean, I have the existing circumstances that we do have to deal with, and, you know, we’ll address it. MR. VOLLARO-Well, something like, when you’re coming in off Bay, to make sort of a boulevard approach. MR. VALENTE-Sure. MR. VOLLARO-That adds a lot of aesthetics to it, and I think it would help a lot. MR. VALENTE-Everything we do I like to look nice and appealing. MR. VOLLARO-I know. MR. MAC EWAN-John? MR. STROUGH-Professional offices. I love professional offices. It’s a good spot. So, my concerns, let me see. I don’t know if you’ve done a market analysis for lot size. We’ve had a few offices come through. Some of these look a little smallish. I don’t want to tell you your business, but I’m just saying, you might want to look into it, okay. Because sometimes you get the office building, you’ve got the landscaping, you have accessory structures. You have a more than, you know, a parking area, you know, more than residential, usually, five, six, seven spots. Right? MR. VALENTE-Sure. MR. RINGER-John, because you have two lots there, you could put one. MR. VALENTE-We’re not opposed to them buying more than one lot. MR. RINGER-Right. That’s what I’m trying to get at, John, so a small lot could be two lots with one building on it. MR. STROUGH-Well, I’m just saying, to make it more attractive, once you get done, because you’ve got two lots, and chances are very good, in my mind, they’re going to buy both lots, because by the time you get done with the setbacks and everything, you don’t have a whole lot left, I mean, for professional office. All right. I’m just thinking out loud here. Okay. MR. VALENTE-That’s why we’re here. MR. STROUGH-Okay. Well, that’s the sketch plan. Now sidewalks. I’m going to come from two directions. One direction is sidewalks possibly linking the residential area, Baybridge, Phase III, Phase II, with Bay Road. Okay. Sidewalks. So maybe, I’d have a give and take, personally, there, but where I feel more strongly, and it is part of the overall design program for Bay Road, are showing where sidewalks potentially could go along Bay Road to continue what’s already there, albeit it’s a little a south of you, where it terminates. MR. VALENTE-Right, up by the Ballet Center. MR. STROUGH-The idea is, as applicants come our way, as we did with Schermerhorn, we continue this sidewalk concept. Okay. Something to throw into the mix, and another thing to keep in mind, now they’ve probably already done this, but I don’t know that. I’ll just go through it quick. I like the idea of the offices 22 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) here, but the offices next to Bay Road, okay, you’ve got the sidewalk theoretically, maybe. Then landscaping, your building, and the parking’s going to be out back, okay. Now, did you take time to put like model that in there to see if those lots are big enough to accommodate that? MR. VALENTE-Yes. All those lots are well oversized. MR. STROUGH-Okay. MR. VALENTE-I mean, they’re all very ample space. I mean, for instance, you know, if you look, with the setbacks, we have the dimensions of the interior without, you know, without the setbacks. So for Lot Six you’re almost 120 feet by 163 feet, or better, which is, off the top of my head, well over 10,000 square feet. MR. STROUGH-Like I said, I’m just thinking out loud. MR. VALENTE-So, you know, to put a building there that’s even half that size, and you have 5,000 square feet for additional parking, whatever, I know we can go into setbacks as far as parking areas, other than towards Bay Road. So I feel the lots are all ample size. We definitely didn’t try to cram everything we could into this, well over the minimums that (lost words). MR. STROUGH-Well, I support the plan. I think it’s idea for professional offices, and if you get sewer, this would be just wonderful. MR. VALENTE-Thank you. MR. STROUGH-Okay. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-My comments would be that I’d like to see you look into redesigning it to meet the corridor design theme, and I’ll push very hard for you to tie into the sewer extension. I would encourage you to get a hold of Mr. Schermerhorn and become part of his venture here, so that, should you come back for subdivision, down the road, I would hope that by that time you’ve got your plans well underway to become part of the sewer district, because it’s certainly going to be needed. MR. VALENTE-I’m anxious, too. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Any other comments from Board members? Staff? Okay. You’ve got our feelings. Good luck to you. MR. VALENTE-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thanks. SITE PLAN NO. 31-2002 TYPE: UNLISTED DR. KEITH CAVAYERO PROPERTY OWNER: SAME AGENT: JONATHAN LAPPER, JAMES MILLER ZONE: MU LOCATION: 13 MAIN STREET APPLICANT PROPOSES TO ESTABLISH A VETERINARY CLINIC, SPECIFICALLY A CAT HOSPITAL. PROFESSIONAL OFFICES REQUIRE SITE PLAN REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE: SP 5-97, BP 97-058 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 6/12/02 TAX MAP NO. 130-3-22, 23 LOT SIZE: 0.21 ACRES SECTION: 179- 4-020 JIM MILLER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 31-2002, Dr. Keith Cavayero, Meeting Date: June 25, 2002 “Project Description: Applicant proposes to use this property as a veterinary clinic for the care of cats only. The Zoning Administrator has classified this use as a professional office use, which requires Site Plan Review in the Mixed Use (MU) zoning district. Criteria for considering a Site Plan according to Section 179-9-080 of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Ordinance: 1. Does the proposed project comply with the requirements of the Zoning Ordinance? A professional office is a use that requires Site Plan Approval in the MU zone. 23 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) 2. Will the proposed use be in harmony with the intent of the ordinance, specifically, could the location, character and size of the proposed use increase the burden on the supporting public services and facilities? The proposed cat hospital will be located in an existing building. It is not anticipated that this proposal will increase the burden on the supporting public services. 3. Will the proposed use create public hazards with regards to traffic, traffic congestion or the parking of vehicles and/or equipment or be otherwise detrimental to the health, safety or general welfare of the persons residing or working in the neighborhood or the general welfare of the town? It appears that traffic impacts will not change in the neighborhood as a result of this proposed use. The site has enough parking spaces as required by the Zoning Ordinance. 4. While considering any benefits that might be derived from the project; Will the project have any undue adverse impact on the natural, scenic, aesthetic, ecological, wildlife, historic, recreational or open space resource of the town or Adirondack Park or upon the ability of the public to provide supporting facilities and services made necessary by the project? Impacts of this type are not anticipated with this new use of an existing building. The following general standards were considered in the staff review of this project: The location, arrangement, size, design and general site compatibility of buildings, lighting and signs. Site design has already been determined by previous development. The adequacy and arrangement of vehicular traffic access and circulation, including intersections, road widths, pavement surfaces, dividers and traffic controls. Having been previously developed, the site appears to be able to manage vehicular circulation and access. The location, arrangement, appearance and sufficiency of off-street parking and loading. The number of parking spaces at this location conforms to Zoning Ordinance requirements. The adequacy and arrangement of pedestrian traffic access and circulation, walkway structures, control of intersections with vehicular traffic and overall pedestrian convenience. As part of this site plan, a new concrete walk will be built to connect to the existing sidewalk on Main Street. The new sidewalk will allow for greater pedestrian movement at this site as called for in the recently approved Main Street Plan. The adequacy of stormwater drainage facilities. It appears that stormwater drainage for this site is not an issue. The adequacy of water supply and sewage disposal facilities. The water supply and sewage disposal systems are not at issue with this application. The adequacy, type and arrangement of trees, shrubs and other suitable plantings, landscaping and screening constituting a visual and/or noise buffer between the applicants and adjoining lands, including the maximum retention of existing vegetation and maintenance, including replacement of dead or deceased plants. This project does not propose the removal of any vegetation. The adequacy of fire lanes and other emergency zones and the provision of fire hydrants. Emergency services will be provided in the same way as when previous businesses operated at this location. The adequacy and impact of structures, roadways and landscaping in areas with susceptibility to ponding, flooding and/or erosion. Not applicable to this project. Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): 24 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) SP 5-97 resolved 2/18/1997 Professional Office BP 97-058 building permit required after approval of SP 5-97 Staff comments: The proposed reuse of this site should not have any significant impacts on the site. The applicant has proposed a sidewalk connection from the building to the existing Main Street sidewalk as called for in the Main Street Plan. The Site Plan also provides for the interconnection of driveways with parcels to the east and west when they are developed in the future. The Planning Board may wish to stipulate that the proposed connection to the adjoining parcels be built at the time of redevelopment of the sites adjoining this location. The Site Plan also indicates an entry light and some wall mounted lighting to be used at this location. The Planning Board may wish to discuss details of the lighting at this location as it applies to section 179-6-020 of the Zoning Ordinance. It should be noted that an existing freestanding sign is shown on the Site Plan. The reuse of this sign will require a sign permit. This sign may be a non-conforming sign that may require a variance. A determination will be made at the time the applicant applies for a sign permit. SEQR Status: Type: Unlisted. A Short Environmental Assessment Form has been submitted. Site Statistic Confirmation: The number of parking spaces provided meet Zoning Ordinance requirements. Building setbacks and site permeability requirements also meet Zoning requirements.” MR. MAC EWAN-Good evening. MR. MILLER-Good evening. My name is Jim Miller. I’m a landscape architect, representing Dr. Cavayero. This site plan was before you back in 1997. This was a conversion of a small single family home to an office building with an insurance office, an All State office was in this building at the time, and it was constructed substantially according to the plan. Right now the building is vacant and Dr. Evans is looking to purchase the building for a veterinary office. We’re here purely for a site plan for a change of use. The owner, and the new owner is not proposing any improvements, since the site was recently constructed, the lighting that George mentioned, there’s two building mounted lights at each of the doors, and there’s a floodlight at the end of the building. It’s not a business that’s operated at night. So those are just lights the are just used during twilight hours and, you know, for security. They’re not left on. Looking at the plans, we’ve made indications on the plans to go on record that if the properties adjacent to this were developed that cross connections could be made, and also, in meeting with Staff, when the new Main Street improvements are done, at that time it would make the most sense to make the sidewalk connection from the front entrance to that new sidewalk, since at this point there’s no clear plan as to where that will be. So, with that, you know, just a change of use. Hopefully very simple. MR. MAC EWAN-Bob, we’ll start with you. MR. VOLLARO-I don’t have any objections to this plan whatsoever. I think it’s pretty straightforward. I don’t see any, other than the freestanding sign, which we’ll be tackling at another time, this looks like a perfectly valid conversion of one use to another. That’s all I have, Mr. Chairman. MR. MAC EWAN-Larry. MR. RINGER-As Jim said and Bob said, I just see this as a change of use. I don’t have anything. MR. MAC EWAN-Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-No problem. MR. MAC EWAN-The new guy on the end? MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t have anything. MR. MAC EWAN-John? 25 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. STROUGH-Just one question. It all looks good. Okay. The 20 foot proposed interconnecting connection. Why are they so, where are we, south, in other words, this is what I’m thinking, you’ve got the plan right in front of you, right? MR. MILLER-Yes. MR. STROUGH-The connections where it’s proposed are kind of close to the pedestrian access. MR. MILLER-Excuse me. I think the intent was just to indicate that we agree with it and at the time it was an adjacent plan. If it made sense, obviously we’d have to look at our parking and circulation. I don’t think we were trying to nail it down, because we have no idea what may happen in the future. We just want to recognize that requirement. That’s all. MR. STROUGH-All right. I didn’t know if that’s the case or not. Okay. They’re not nailing anything down. MR. HILTON-No, and lot depends on the properties to the east and west. MR. STROUGH-Right. MR. HILTON-When they come in, and that’s subject to change. MR. STROUGH-Because I would suggest that it would be away from the pedestrian, rear pedestrian, access. MR. MILLER-The only reason I think I showed it there, you know, that allowed some space in the back. The parking could be turned along the back and back into that driveway, so it would have the minimum amount of impact on reducing the available parking for this owner. That’s all. MR. STROUGH-Okay, and just from Staff notes, you know, do we have to condition that the, it says here in Staff notes, “The Planning Board may wish to stipulate that the proposed connection to the adjoining parcels be built at the time of redevelopment of the sites adjoining this location.” But it says that on the plan. So we don’t have to condition that. MR. HILTON-You’re probably right. It seems to say that it’s going to be executed at the time of future development. So, that doesn’t have to be a condition. MR. STROUGH-Okay. No, I think this is excellent. I’m done. MR. MAC EWAN-Rich? MR. SANFORD-It looks p-u-r-r-fect to me. I’m fine with it. MR. MAC EWAN-You’ve been waiting all night to say that, too, haven’t you? Anything else you wanted to add, Jim? MR. MILLER-No. MR. MAC EWAN-I’ll open up the public hearing. Does anyone want to comment on this application? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED PATRICIA EVANS DR. EVANS-I’m Patricia Evans. I’m hoping to buy this property and move my Cat Hospital, which is now at 108 Main, to the new location. We’d like to have better parking, because the building I’m in right now has very poor parking, and this is a little bit bigger than the office I’m in now. I could use some extra space. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thanks. DR. EVANS-Okay. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Anyone else? MR. HILTON-I have a letter to be read into the record. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. MR. HILTON-It’s from a Harold Robillard, 1 Thomas Street, Queensbury. It says, “I received your notice of Public Hearing regarding the application for a veterinary cat hospital at 13 Main Street, Queensbury. My only concern is that sometime in the future the owner or owners may want to include caring for dogs. Some 26 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) kennels house dogs outside and this could become a nightmare for residents of the area to be awakened by barking dogs. If the Planning Board gives permission for the cat hospital I hope that the membership would take into the consideration the neighbors and mandate that if dogs are cared for now or in the future that they be kept in a soundproof area in the hospital and not outside. I have a previous commitment and I’m unable to attend tonight’s meeting of the Planning Board. Would you please read this letter into the record of the meeting. Thanks for any consideration given to my concerns.” MR. MILLER-Well, I would believe that if Dr. Evans was looking to put outside kennels in, that we would be back here to discuss that with you, and there’s no plans to do that at this time. MR. STROUGH-So felines only. MR. MILLER-That’s right. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. MAC EWAN-We need to do a SEQRA, John. MR. STROUGH-Okay, and this is going to be Unlisted. Short Form. Okay. SEQRA. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 31-2002, Introduced by John Strough who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: KEITH CAVAYERO, and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. Duly adopted this 25 day of June, 2002, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ringer, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE MR. MAC EWAN-Would someone like to introduce a motion, please. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 31-2002 KEITH CAVAYERO, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Larry Ringer: WHEREAS, an application has been made to this Board for the following: 27 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) Site Plan Review No. 31-2002 Applicant: Dr. Keith Cavayero Type: Unlisted Property Owner: Same Agent: Jonathan Lapper, James Miller Zone: MU Location: 13 Main Street Applicant proposes to establish a Veterinary Clinic, specifically a Cat Hospital. Professional Offices require Site Plan Review by the Planning Board. Cross Reference: SP 5-97, BP 97-058 Warren Co. Planning: 6/12/02 Tax Map No. 130-3-22, 23 Lot size: 0.21 acres / Section: 179-4-020 Public Hearing: June 25, 2002 WHEREAS, the application was received on 5/30/02; and WHEREAS, the above is supported with the following documentation and inclusive of all newly received information, not included in this listing as of 6/21/02; and 6/25 Staff Notes 6/18 Notice of Public Hearing 6/12 Warren Co. Planning 6/5 Meeting Notice 5/29 SP-1: covers the need for developing parking when the future calls for it. 5/2 K. Cavayero from C. Brown – SPR needed WHEREAS, pursuant to Art. 9, Zoning Ordinance of the Code of the Town of Queensbury a public hearing was advertised and was held on June25, 2002; and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the Site Plan requirements of the Code of the Town Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and/or if application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and the proposed modification(s) do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and WHEREAS, approval of the application means that the applicant can now apply for a Building Permit unless the lands are Adirondack Park Jurisdictional or other approvals are necessary. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that We find the following: The application is hereby approved in accordance with the resolution as prepared by Staff and is subject to the following conditions: 1. That the resolution includes Site Plan No. 1 dated 5/29/2002 and that covers the need for developing parking when the future calls for it, and 2. All conditions are to be noted on the final approved plans submitted for the Zoning Administrator’s signature in a form to read as follows: Plans have been approved under authority of a resolution adopted 6/25/02 by the Planning Board of the Town of Queensbury, New York with the following conditions: 1. Duly adopted this 25th day of June, 2002, by the following vote: MR. MAC EWAN-Quick question. Shouldn’t the applicant be Dr. Patricia Evans? MR. VOLLARO-I had that question as well. 28 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. MILLER-Well, it’s submitted, Dr. Cavayero is still the owner of record. So he submitted the application for approval. It’s a condition of the purchase of the property. Usually, it usually is the purchaser, but. MR. MAC EWAN-All right. That’s fine. I just wanted to ask. Better to be safe than sorry. AYES: Mr. Ringer, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE MR. MAC EWAN-You’re all set. MR. MILLER-Thanks very much. SUBDIVISION NO. 11-2002 PRELIMINARY STAGE FINAL STAGE TYPE: UNLISTED FRANK KINEKE PROPERTY OWNER: SAME AGENT: VAN DUSEN & STEVES ZONE: LI-1A LOCATION: 415 BIG BAY ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES TWO LOT INDUSTRIAL SUBDIVISION. CROSS REFERENCE: 309.17-1-17/137-2-3.4 LOT SIZE: 5.15 ACRES SECTION: SUBDIVISION REGULATIONS MATT STEVES, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Subdivision No. 11-2002, Preliminary Stage Final Stage, Frank Kineke, Meeting Date: June 25, 2002 “Project Description: Applicant proposes a 2-lot subdivision in a Light Industrial One Acre (LI-1A) zone. The property is located at the SW corner of Big Bay Road and Silver Springs Road. Study of plat: Lot arrangement: The proposed subdivision would split an existing lot resulting in 2 lots. One lot will have frontage on Silver Springs Road, the other will have frontage on both Silver Springs and Big Bay Road. Topography: The property is located on a relatively flat piece of land. Topography at a 2 foot contour interval is shown on the proposed plat. Water supply Sewage Disposal: Both lots have access to the municipal water system. Lot A is currently served by an on site sewage disposal system. Drainage: A drainage plan or report was not submitted with the plat. The applicant is seeking a waiver from this requirement. Lot sizes: The subdivision would result in a 3.43 acre lot and a 1.72 acre lot. Future development: An existing business is located on the proposed Lot A. No development plans have been submitted for Lot B. State Environmental Quality Review Act: Type is Unlisted, the applicant has submitted a short form. Land Use Plan: The project is located in an area of Light Industrial uses in Neighborhood 13. Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): SP 27-89; res 6/20/89 – approval for temporary storage of wood debris SP 68-99; res 12/28/99 – approval for a truck and equipment repair business Staff comments: The applicant has submitted a letter with the application seeking the following waivers: - Sketch Plan - Construction Details - Landscape Plan - Clearing Plan - Grading and Erosion Control Plan - Drainage Report 29 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) Access for the business located on the proposed Lot A is currently off of Big Bay Road. Accessing this property from Silver Springs Road. would meet access management requirements of the Zoning Ordinance. As a condition of subdivision approval, The Planning Board may wish to require that future access from Lot A will be off of Silver Springs Road.” MR. MAC EWAN-Quick question for you. We have a revised Draft resolution tonight. What’s changed from the original to this new one? MR. HILTON-The original resolution, I believe, is a typo, which mentioned cat hospital. I think it was something that carried over, but this corrects that. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. STEVES-Good evening. My name is Matt Steves with VanDusen and Steves Land Surveyors. I represent the applicant. It’s an existing building there. It’s on Big Bay Road, that’s correct, and the new subdivision just to the north of it, Silver Circle, I think is the name of the road now. The road has changed a couple of times, but I believe it is now officially Silver Circle. So we’ll change that on the map, and the L- shaped lot that was owned by Mr. Kineke, or still is owned by Mr. Kineke, bordered the entire length of Silver Circle Road to the cul de sac, and Mr. Gross, who is in the audience with me also tonight owns property, and he is the contract purchaser of this property, which would be Lot B, and at this time there is no proposal for either lot. The existing building remains as it is. There is no proposed development plan. He is purchasing it for any possible expansion of his property in the future to have some kind of area for expansion. The reason for the asking of the waivers is because there isn’t any proposed development at this time, and anything in this Light Industrial zone is subject to a site plan review, and as far as the Staff comments for the existing building to enter off the new Silver Road, that’s not a problem at all. We would say that it would probably be a much safer location to enter off of, especially if there were larger trucks, and if anything was to be left on the existing asphalt, the throat back out onto Big Bay Road would be made as an exit only. That would allow for sight distance both north and south pulling back out, and so use it as like a loop that parking lot, come in off of the new subdivision road, which is better access for tractor trailers and larger trucks, and exit out on the existing curb cut. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? MR. STEVES-That’s it. MR. MAC EWAN-Larry? MR. RINGER-I don’t have anything. MR. MAC EWAN-Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-I don’t have anything. MR. MAC EWAN-Chris? MR. HUNSINGER-No. MR. MAC EWAN-John? MR. STROUGH-We did a site visit. It was a bad day. Is Silver Circle Road paved? MR. STEVES-Yes, it is. MR. STROUGH-Okay. So that’s all done. So that’s going to be the access to the site? MR. STEVES-That’s correct. That’s a dedicated Town road. MR. STROUGH-Okay. Was there proposed an alternate access to this site at one time? Because I see a 50 foot strip going between the Lands of Cook and the Lands of Gross over here on this overview map. JOE GROSS MR. GROSS-I own that. MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Gross, if you’re going to address the Board, I need you up here on the record. 30 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. STEVES-That’s a separate tax parcel that’s also owned by Mr. Gross. The reason it doesn’t show up on my survey but shows up on the tax map is because it is all inclusive of Mr. Gross’s holdings. It’s just a strip that he had purchased. It’s not for access to that back property whatsoever. MR. STROUGH-Okay. I was just wondering. Because 50 foot’s usually kind of standard for an access strip. MR. STEVES-It actually sits right about where his buildings are. MR. STROUGH-Well, I was just wondering, because I saw it here, and I didn’t see it there. MR. STEVES-I understand. I’m just explaining the situation. It was two tax parcels. It is now one that Mr. Gross owns. MR. STROUGH-Now that you’re so understanding, why is that, that Bay, you see where it’s drawn, just west of this site it says Bay, and a couple of arrows, it’s Bay, it’s upside down for me. You see what I’m talking about? MR. STEVES-Yes, it’s the lighting district or water district or fire district. It’s district lines that are on the tax map. I use the tax map as a location map, and that’s probably the, one of the water districts I would believe, lighting or water district line. MR. STROUGH-Well, thanks for explaining that to me. All right. That’s it. MR. MAC EWAN-Rich? MR. SANFORD-I’m fine. MR. MAC EWAN-Bob? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I want to just start off, be clear in my mind on something. I don’t have too much problem with the subdivision right now, but there’s a letter dated December 29, 1999, and the applicant, at that time, was a Mr. Swinton. This goes back a ways, and it was (lost word) to approve his site plan of 68-99 for this property, and it said, prior to applying for building permit, copies of the approved site plan to the Zoning Administrator for signature, all conditions and modifications set forth in the attached resolution must be satisfied or replaced prior to submitting for the Zoning Administrator’s signature, and that motion was introduced by Catherine LaBombard and as seconded by myself, as submitted with this marked up drawing dated March 27, 1989. Has everything on that drawing been brought up to speed? I don’t know what that drawing even said, but, I know what this motion said, but I’m trying to get in my mind whether that was cleared, so that at least I know that prior motions were satisfied on that property. MR. STEVES-The only answer I can give for you, Bob, is I have no idea on that. I didn’t develop that site plan for Mr. Swinton. I don’t know who did, but the Staff, I’m sure, would have been able to review that, once they got this application, knowing it’s the same parcel. I would hope that Staff would have reviewed that and if there was a concern that it wasn’t brought up to the standards of that application, that Staff would have noted so in this application. MR. VOLLARO-I hadn’t seen anything. Staff supplied us with this information, and in looking at it, it’s just a question that I had was, was the motion that was made on the 28 of December 1999, were the th requirements of that motion complied with by the applicant at that time. MR. HILTON-I would have to do some research on that. I can tell you that with this motion, that approved a site plan, calling for marked up revisions, the letter that you referred to, December 29, 1999, states that the time period is coming up for the validity of that site plan. If that time has come and gone, they have an invalid site plan, they’d have to reapply for a site plan. Personally, I guess I don’t see where, this subdivision here is a separate issue. Anything that comes before you at a later date on this lot would be either subject to an approved site plan or if the time has elapsed on that, a new site plan process. MR. MAC EWAN-What it’s doing is bringing it to our attention. Because when we site visits, we went around in back of the Swinton property and I think one of the conditions of approval for that site plan was cleaning up that lot of the junk cars and the bunch of crap that was out in back. MR. HILTON-Right. MR. MAC EWAN-And there is still a large holding of junk vehicles, miscellaneous car parts, truck parts, along those lines. MR. HILTON-I can certainly look into the conditions of this approval and try to follow up on it. 31 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. VOLLARO-George, following your logic, I guess, and I do follow it. It seems valid to me. What I would question is why something like that would be in the packet that we would have to review. MR. HILTON-I think to give you some history of the property, just a general land use history, approvals history, but I’ll look into this and try to find out something. MR. STEVES-And it is also my understanding, Bob, and I know what you’re asking, but it is also my understanding that that Swinton truck repair is no longer at this location. MR. VOLLARO-I realize that. MR. MAC EWAN-It’s not? Well, I was going to wait and make my comment after the meeting, but I’ll make it right now. When we did site visits the other day, there was a dog out back that was chained up in a doghouse with no food or water. So I’d ask Animal Control to go up there and take a look tomorrow. Seeing as they’re no longer in operation up there. Okay. Ask him to go tomorrow. MR. HILTON-Sure. MR. MAC EWAN-Thanks. Anything else, Bob? MR. VOLLARO-No, that’s about all I had. I think the subdivision looks pretty straightforward to me. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. I’ll open up the public hearing. Does anyone want to comment on this application? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED NO COMMENT PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. MAC EWAN-We need to do a SEQRA, please. MR. STROUGH-SEQRA. RESOLUTION WHEN DETERMINATION OF NO SIGNIFICANCE IS MADE RESOLUTION NO. 11-2002, Introduced by John Strough who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro: WHEREAS, there is presently before the Planning Board an application for: FRANK KINEKE, and WHEREAS, this Planning Board has determined that the proposed project and Planning Board action is subject to review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: 1. No Federal agency appears to be involved. 2. The following agencies are involved: NONE 3. The proposed action considered by this Board is Unlisted in the Department of Environmental Conservation Regulations implementing the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the regulations of the Town of Queensbury. 4. An Environmental Assessment Form has been completed by the applicant. 5. Having considered and thoroughly analyzed the relevant areas of environmental concern and having considered the criteria for determining whether a project has a significant environmental impact as the same is set forth in Section 617.11 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations for the State of New York, this Board finds that the action about to be undertaken by this Board will have no significant environmental effect and the Chairman of the Planning Board is hereby authorized to execute and sign and file as may be necessary a statement of non-significance or a negative declaration that may be required by law. 32 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) Duly adopted this 25 day of June, 2002, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ringer, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE MR. MAC EWAN-Does someone want to introduce a motion for Preliminary, please. MOTION TO APPROVE PRELIMINARY STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 11-2002 FRANK KINEKE, Introduced by John Strough who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro: WHEREAS, an application has been make to this board for the following: Subdivision No. 11-2002 Applicant: Frank Kineke PRELIMINARY STAGE Property Owner: Same FINAL STAGE Agent: Van Dusen & Steves Type: Unlisted Zone: LI-1A Location: 415 Big Bay Road Applicant proposes a two lot industrial subdivision. Cross Reference: SP 27-89, SP 68-99 Tax Map No. 309.17-1-17 / 137-2-3.4 Lot size: 5.15 acres / Section: Subdivision Regulations Public Hearing: June 25, 2002 WHEREAS, the application was received 5/23/02, and WHEREAS, the above is supported with the following documentation, and inclusive of all newly received information, not included is this listing as of 6/21/02; and 6/25 Staff Notes 6/18 Notice of Public Hearing 6/5 Meeting Notice 5/21 PB from M. Steves – request for waivers WHEREAS, pursuant to Chapter A183, Subdivision of Land, Section A183--9J and A183-10C, D of the Code of the Town of Queensbury a public hearing was advertised and was held on June 25, 2002; and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the Subdivision requirements of the Code of the Town Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and/or if application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and the proposed modification(s) do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that We find the following: The application for Preliminary Stage is hereby granted in accordance with resolution as prepared by Staff with the following comment: 1. The Planning Board does grant the waivers requested as listed in Mr. Steves May 21, 2002 letter to the Town of Queensbury Planning Board, and Duly adopted this 25 day of June, 2002, by the following vote: th AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ringer, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE 33 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. MAC EWAN-Would someone like to introduce a motion for Final? MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 11-2002 FRANK KINEKE, Introduced by John Strough who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro: WHEREAS, an application has been make to this board for the following: Subdivision No. 11-2002 Applicant: Frank Kineke PRELIMINARY STAGE Property Owner: Same FINAL STAGE Agent: Van Dusen & Steves Type: Unlisted Zone: LI-1A Location: 415 Big Bay Road Applicant proposes a two lot industrial subdivision. Cross Reference: SP 27-89, SP 68-99 Tax Map No. 309.17-1-17 / 137-2-3.4 Lot size: 5.15 acres / Section: Subdivision Regulations Public Hearing: June 25, 2002 WHEREAS, the application was received 5/23/02, and WHEREAS, the above is supported with the following documentation, and inclusive of all newly received information, not included is this listing as of 6/21/02; and 6/25 Staff Notes 6/18 Notice of Public Hearing 6/5 Meeting Notice 5/21 PB from M. Steves – request for waivers WHEREAS, pursuant to Chapter A183, Subdivision of Land, Section A183--9J and A183-10C, D of the Code of the Town of Queensbury a public hearing was advertised and was held on June 25, 2002; and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the Subdivision requirements of the Code of the Town Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and/or if application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and the proposed modification(s) do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that We find the following: The application for Final Stage is hereby granted in accordance with resolution as prepared by Staff and is subject to the following conditions: 1. All necessary outside agency approvals have been received by the applicant, with a copy sent to and received by Planning Department Staff within 180 days. 2. The plat must be filed with the County Clerk within 60 days of receipt by Planning Department Staff of outside agency approvals noted. Duly adopted this 25th day of June, 2002, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ringer, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE MR. MAC EWAN-You’re all set. MR. STEVES-Thank you. 34 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. MAC EWAN-Good luck. SITE PLAN NO. 28-2002 TYPE II MIKE & GAIL DAWSON PROPERTY OWNER: SAME AGENT: TIMOTHY BOLEN ZONE: WR-1A LOCATION: 115 ASSEMBLY PT. RD. APPLICANT PROPOSES A 200 SQ. FT. STONE WALKWAY FROM THE ROAD TO THE LAKE DOCK. FILLING/HARD SURFACING WITHIN 50 FEET OF THE SHORELINE REQUIRES SITE PLAN REVIEW BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE: AV 8-2000, SP 19-2000, BP 2000-081 APA, CEA WARREN CO. PLANNING: 6/12/02 TAX MAP NO. 239.7-1-21.2/7-1-16.14 LOT SIZE: 1.00 ACRE SECTION: 179-4-020 TIM BOLEN, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 28-2002, Mike & Gail Dawson, Meeting Date: June 25, 2002 “Project Description: Applicant proposes to construct a +/- 200 sq. ft. walkway from the road to a dock on their property along Assembly Point Road. Hard surfacing within 50 feet of the shoreline requires Site Plan approval. Criteria for considering a Site Plan according to Section 179-9-080 of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Ordinance: 1. Does the proposed project comply with the requirements of the Zoning Ordinance? Hard surfacing within 50 feet of a shoreline requires Site Plan approval. 2. Will the proposed use be in harmony with the intent of the ordinance, specifically, could the location, character and size of the proposed use increase the burden on the supporting public services and facilities? Not applicable to this project. 3. Will the proposed use create public hazards with regards to traffic, traffic congestion or the parking of vehicles and/or equipment or be otherwise detrimental to the health, safety or general welfare of the persons residing or working in the neighborhood or the general welfare of the town? Not applicable to this project. 4. While considering any benefits that might be derived from the project; Will the project have any undue adverse impact on the natural, scenic, aesthetic, ecological, wildlife, historic, recreational or open space resource of the town or Adirondack Park or upon the ability of the public to provide supporting facilities and services made necessary by the project? Impacts of this type are not anticipated with this proposal. The following general standards were considered in the staff review of this project: The location, arrangement, size, design and general site compatibility of buildings, lighting and signs. Site design issues do not apply to this project. The adequacy and arrangement of vehicular traffic access and circulation, including intersections, road widths, pavement surfaces, dividers and traffic controls. Vehicular access will not be impacted by this proposal. The location, arrangement, appearance and sufficiency of off-street parking and loading. Not an issue with this site plan application. The adequacy and arrangement of pedestrian traffic access and circulation, walkway structures, control of intersections with vehicular traffic and overall pedestrian convenience. 35 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) Pedestrian circulation is not an issue. The adequacy of stormwater drainage facilities. The applicant proposes stone trenches along the pathway to help with stormwater management. The adequacy of water supply and sewage disposal facilities. The water supply and sewage disposal systems are not at issue with this application. The adequacy, type and arrangement of trees, shrubs and other suitable plantings, landscaping and screening constituting a visual and/or noise buffer between the applicants and adjoining lands, including the maximum retention of existing vegetation and maintenance, including replacement of dead or deceased plants. Landscaping/buffering issues do not apply to this application. The adequacy of fire lanes and other emergency zones and the provision of fire hydrants. Not applicable. The adequacy and impact of structures, roadways and landscaping in areas with susceptibility to ponding, flooding and/or erosion. Not applicable to this project. Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.): AV 8-2000; res. 2/16/2000 setback, height and garage size relief SP 19-2000; res. 3/23/2000 approval of 946 sq. ft. sundeck Staff comments: The proposed +/- 200 sq. ft. walkway requires Site Plan approval by the Planning Board per Section 179-6- 060D2e(4). Impacts on the surrounding neighborhood appear limited. The applicant has addressed stormwater management by including a series of stone lined trenches to distribute stormwater coming from the new path. Overall impacts appear to be limited. SEQR Status: Type: II; no further environmental review required. Site Statistic Confirmation: Permeability at this location remains within the requirements as a result of this application.” MR. MAC EWAN-Good evening. MR. BOLEN-Hello. MR. MAC EWAN-Would you identify yourself for the record. MR. BOLEN-Yes. My name is Tim Bolen from Pilot Knob. I’m a landscape contractor and consultant, hired by the applicant, and I’m here, the Dawsons are proposing to put a 200 square foot walkway from the road to their dock, and I fall within the hard surfacing regulations of within 50 feet of the lake, which requires a site plan approval. MR. MAC EWAN-Seems pretty simple and straightforward. Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-It looks good. The stormwater control is good. I’m satisfied with it. MR. MAC EWAN-Chris? MR. HUNSINGER-I am, too. MR. MAC EWAN-John? 36 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. STROUGH-I’m very happy the applicant provided the stormwater management for this, and we don’t have to go through all that. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Rich? MR. SANFORD-Yes, Craig, I’m fine with it, but I believe you pointed out a while back we were going to try to. MR. MAC EWAN-We’re still working on it. MR. SANFORD-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Administrative review. MR. SANFORD-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-We’re getting closer to that goal. MR. SANFORD-Okay. You read my mind. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, I did. Bob? MR. VOLLARO-No comment. MR. MAC EWAN-Larry? MR. RINGER-Nothing. MR. MAC EWAN-I’ll open up the public hearing. Does anyone want to comment? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. HILTON-I have two letters. MR. MAC EWAN-Two letters. Go. MR. HILTON-Mary Trello, 1351 Assembly Point Road. The letter reads, “Sorry that I won’t be able to attend the meeting that will be held on Tuesday, June 25, 2002 at 7 O’clock p.m. at the Queensbury Activities Center, 742 Bay Road, Queensbury, NY 12804. It would be just great for Mike and Gail Dawson to put a walkway from the road to the Lake dock as described on the permit. It will be beautiful. Thank you. Sincerely, Mary Trello” The other letter is from Joseph Tornabene, 141 Assembly Point Road. It reads, “Dear Planning Board Members: This letter is in support of Mike and Gail Dawson’s application for a stone walkway from the road to their lake dock. The Dawson’s have the utmost respect for the lake and any project they embark upon only results in the increase of the natural beauty. Instead of clearing greenery, they add trees and shrubbery improving the overall look of the area. As a neighbor, I am very impressed with the Dawson’s work and wish them continued success. As I cannot attend this meeting in person, please accept this letter as testimony of my full support of this project. Very truly yours, Joseph Tornabene 141 Assembly Point Road Lake George, NY” And that’s all we have. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other comment? I’ll close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. MAC EWAN-We do not need to do a SEQRA. Would someone like to introduce a motion, please. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 28-2002 MIKE & GAIL DAWSON, Introduced by Robert Vollaro who moved for its adoption, seconded by Larry Ringer: WHEREAS, an application has been made to this Board for the following, Site Plan Review No. 28-2002 Applicant: Mike & Gail Dawson Type II Property Owner: Same Agent: Timothy Bolen Zone: WR-1A Location: 115 Assembly Pt. Rd. Applicant proposes a 200 sq. ft. stone walkway from the road to the lake dock. Filling/hard surfacing within 50 feet of the shoreline requires Site Plan Review by the Planning Board. Cross Reference: AV 8-2000, SP 19-2000, BP 2000-081 APA, CEA 37 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) Warren Co. Planning: 6/12/02 Tax Map No. 239.7-1-21.2 / 7-1-16.14 Lot size: 1.00 acre / Section: 179-4-020 Public Hearing: June 25, 2002 WHEREAS, the application was received on 5/29/02; and WHEREAS, the above is supported with the following documentation and inclusive of all newly received information, not included in this listing as of 6/21/02; and 6/25 Staff Notes 6/13 Notice of Public Hearing 6/12 Warren Co. Planning 6/5 Meeting Notice WHEREAS, pursuant to Art. 9, Zoning Ordinance of the Code of the Town of Queensbury a public hearing was advertised and was held on June 25, 2002; and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has determined that the proposal complies with the Site Plan requirements of the Code of the Town Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the Planning Board has considered the environmental factors found in the Code of the Town of Queensbury (Zoning); and WHEREAS, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and/or if application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered; and the proposed modification(s) do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and WHEREAS, approval of the application means that the applicant can now apply for a Building Permit unless the lands are Adirondack Park Jurisdictional or other approvals are necessary. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that We find the following: The application is hereby approved in accordance with the resolution prepared by Staff and is subject to the following conditions: 1. No further modifications, and 2. All conditions are to be noted on the final approved plans submitted for the Zoning Administrator’s signature in a form to read as follows: Plans have been approved under authority of a resolution adopted 6/25/02 by the Planning Board of the Town of Queensbury, New York with the following conditions: 1. Duly adopted this 25th day of June, 2002, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Ringer, Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Sanford, Mr. Strough, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. MacEwan NOES: NONE MR. MAC EWAN-You’re all set. MR. BOLEN-Thank you very much. MR. MAC EWAN-Good luck. Easy and painless. Mr. Salvador asked if he could address the Board for five minutes. I was so generous, I said I’d give him seven. JOHN SALVADOR MR. SALVADOR-Good evening, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. You make me sorry I didn’t ask for seven. Then you would have given me ten. 38 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. VOLLARO-Give them an inch, they take a mile. There’s a little story that goes with that. MR. SALVADOR-I’ve asked for this time tonight because of your Tuesday night meeting wherein there seemed to be a lot of misunderstanding, confusion as to this new approach we’re taking as the result of the recently adopted Zoning Ordinance with regard to site plan approval of marina activities on Lake George. I’ve even heard, you know, flippant statements like they ought to get the Town Board to take that out of the Zoning Ordinance. Well, I don’t think it’s that easy, and what I’d like to do tonight is just give you a little bit of history of how we got where we are, where we were, and how we got where we are now I can’t explain, but let me just let you know what had gone on in the past. Back in 1979, there was a lot of concern about the fact that anyone that wanted to do anything on the waterfront of Lake George had to go to all these agencies to get a permit. It was the DEC. It was the OGS. It was the Town. It was, Warren County was getting into it. We had the Park Commission, you know, where do you go. Who has jurisdiction. We had all these overlapping, and so the process put together a program, if you will, and brought forth the first Part 646 regulations dealing with wharfs, docks and moorings and marinas, and public hearings were held before these regulations were adopted, and I’d just like to read some of the comments at these public hearings. MR. VOLLARO-Whose regulations were they, John? MR. SALVADOR-DEC regulations. There was a public hearing held on December 8, 1979. It was held in Lake George, and it dealt with the Lake George Park recreational zone regulations. “I am Mal A. Coutant, Counsel to the Lake George Park Commission, and regional attorney for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation assigned to Region V in Raybrook, which includes the counties that encompass the Lake George Park and Lake George. My role today, at this hearing, is to aid in the development of proposed rules and regulations and I will be, and am wearing two hats, that of being counsel to the Commission, and an attorney for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. I have basically three purposes in being present here at the hearing today. One, I am the legal technician involved in drafting of these rules and regulations, and these were drafted based on input from the Lake George Park Commission, the Lake George Association, and members of the DEC Staff who are assigned to the various programs relating to the topics which will be discussed here today.” I can skip some of this. “I must admit that a significant effort to date has been made to try to get these rules in a form that at least there should be some common basis or understanding or reasoning behind, but that they are not cast in concrete. Several years ago, records and reports indicated that there has been an unprecedented increase in the use of Lake George and its shoreline. This increase has resulted in many specific problems which both the Lake George Park Commission and the Department of Environmental Conservation recognize as needed to be addressed. Early in the development of this control program, both the Lake George Park Commission and the Department recognized that Lake George and its shoreline require lake wide treatment as a whole, as opposed to the patchwork effort of individual towns, groups, counties and so forth. With that as a basis, on October 10 they created that zone.” Okay. After that meeting was held, the Town of Queensbury th submitted a memorandum, submitted this on January the 7. “The Queensbury Town Planning Board finds th that, One, there is an increased water quality problem in Lake George. That to solve this problem, every known source of pollution must be addressed and reasonable measures must be taken to correct each identified source. That boats and boaters must assume an undetermined amount of responsibility for the water quality deterioration for the following examples of real or potential contamination, and that talk about petroleum contaminants, human waste, (lost word), cleaning material, foreign matter, etc. MR. MAC EWAN-What year was that, John? MR. SALVADOR-This was 1980. January 7, 1980. Right after that, the public hearing was left open for comments to be submitted, and this memorandum was submitted. “The Planning Board also finds that shear numbers of boats, coupled with greater speed, are beginning to create a safety problem, that certain boats are violating reasonable noise levels, that the spirit and perhaps the letter of the Queensbury Zoning Ordinance is being increasingly violated by renting dock and mooring space on private lots, commercial establishments in a residential zone. That the residents and the ecology of Sandy Bay deserve greater consideration. The Queensbury Planning Board therefore suggests that a lake wide ordinance, administered by a State organization, is best equipped to solve these and future problems.” This was written by Dick Roberts who was Chairman of the Queensbury Town Planning Board at that time. “That such an expansion of the Lake George Park Commission powers as suggested at the public hearing in Lake George on December 8 be an th accepted vehicle by which to solve some of the current and future problems. That the present ordinance as proposed on December 8 needs numerous alterations to accomplish the necessary goals in a fair manner. th The Queensbury Planning Board therefore suggests further that the following changes and/or additions be made to the present proposal. That all power boats and boaters coming onto the lake come under inspection and control. Controlling the number of docks that can be built and rented will not control the number and kind of boats and ability of their operators if there is no control over commercial quick launch and other launching facilities.” By the way, you should know that Dick Roberts had a 30 foot sailboat at the Harris Bay Yacht Club where he purchased a dock. I mean, you can see his writing in here. “That existing docks be grandfathered unless they do not comply with the side line setbacks, etc. That the number of moorings be placed in Sandy Bay to be approximately 50. That the Sheriff’s patrol patrol later than eight p.m. Do to the worthy suggestions made during the December 8, 1979 public hearing, the Queensbury Planning Board 39 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) recommends a second public hearing, to be held prior to enactment and enforcement of this ordinance.” That was not held. The ordinance went ahead. I have a copy of it here. “We also suggest that the State develop additional picnicking, camping, and perhaps mooring areas elsewhere around the lake. That certain types of boats found to be improperly muffled, too polluting, or with excessive wake be forbidden on the lake. That a moratorium, 10 years, be established by which time existing boats of this type must be removed from the lake. That a lake wide speed limit of 30 miles an hour be established, further indicating to prospective boat buyers what type of boat purchase makes sense well ahead of purchase.” So much for that. Now what I’m trying to show you here that there was a lot of work went in to an effort to have one agency on the lake, and I’m not defending them. I’m trying to point out that there was a thought process that went into the Lake George Park Commission we have today. This is a copy of their regulatory program, okay. It’s fine print. That’s very fine print. MR. VOLLARO-Lots of paper. MR. SALVADOR-Lots, okay. In any case, I know you’re concerned about this, and well you should be. As far as I know the Lake George Park Commission has permitted, to date, about 80 Class A Marinas on the lake. I don’t know how many Class B. Not very many. I heard less than a dozen, and so you can see the work that has to be done. They tend not to want to wear the black hat. Go out and ferret out these Class B Marinas, which are essentially just dock. They are just dock and wharf permits, but they’ve been categorized as commercial. Now that had its beginning in this first 646. This is the first Part 646, and this is an outgrowth of it. MR. VOLLARO-Excuse me, but prior to us reviewing these Class A Marina permits, the Lake George Park Association was doing the permitting on Lake George, and we were not in it. MR. SALVADOR-I’ll answer your question, but first, there is a Lake George Park Commission. That is a State agency. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. SALVADOR-Okay. There is a Lake George Association. That’s a private club. MR. VOLLARO-I got indoctrinated into that the other night. Yes. MR. SALVADOR-Okay. All right. Now, to answer your question, since 1981, when these went into effect, we had, everyone had to by, I think it was January 1 of ’81, had to register, you had to register with them in this program, and we got a permit to operate, but it’s in here that the seeds of our problem are planted. They define in here a marina, a marina, and it’s a four step, four categories of definition. The sale of marine products or services. No argument. The sale, lease, rental or charter of vessels of any type. No argument. The sale, lease, rental or any other provision of storage, wharf space or mooring for vessels not registered to the owner. I believe that’s where we have crossed the line. You’re not a marina if you rent out a boat dock that you have extra at your waterfront or two, or even ten, eight, as the case was. That’s where the seed of our problem was planted. You’ve become a marina because you do something, in a very small way. Isn’t that like saying a little kid that has an orange crate on the front lawn, is selling lemonade for five cents a glass, is in the soft drink bottling business? It’s not the same, but from this, in 1981, we’ve come to this Class A and Class B, and this problem we have today. MR. VOLLARO-But the Lake George Park Commission, prior to what we’re doing today, was the permitting agency, and I’ve struggled with this problem of what benefit does the Town of Queensbury get out of permitting, when that agency essentially collects all the dollars and, you know, what is the Town getting out of this permitting process, and I haven’t been able to come up with a good answer for that yes, myself, personally. MR. SALVADOR-Well, I think the Town has an obligation, the Town has an obligation to regulate land use, in the Town, within the borders of this Town, that’s your obligation. The difficulty is that these marina operations take place on the land as well as on the water, and we don’t have a clear demarcation. If we had a clear demarcation, you stay on your side and he stays on his side, but we have allowed, we, the community, have allowed the Park Commission to get into the land use business, and that’s it. They’re in the land stormwater regulations, wastewater regulations, stream corridor management, tree cutting. That’s all land use. It has nothing to do with the water. MR. STROUGH-Well, it actually goes through both, doesn’t it? It still goes through the Lake George Park Commission, as well as the now Town of Queensbury Planning Board. MR. SALVADOR-What does? MR. STROUGH-An application for a Class A Marina. Doesn’t it still have to go through the Lake George Park Commission? 40 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. SALVADOR-Absolutely, but they’re saying, now all of a sudden they’re saying, before we address this, your application, you’ve got to get a site plan approval from the Town. Now that’s new as a result of your Ordinance here, and by the way, when it comes to that subject of site plan, there’s an outline of the site plan requirements in here that does not match your site plan requirements of your Subdivision ordinance. MR. STROUGH-Doesn’t it say in there that we will follow the site plan review procedures that we use? MR. SALVADOR-In here. MR. STROUGH-Yes. MR. SALVADOR-You’re empowered by the same State law to do site plan work in this as you are in that. Why can’t they be the same program. MR. STROUGH-Well, they are. MR. VOLLARO-You’re talking 179 versus 183. MR. SALVADOR-Yes, this is a different outline. Now what this doesn’t address, as it relates to the marinas, is a very clear delineation of property boundaries, easements, access, that sort of thing. MR. MAC EWAN-John, you’ve asked for five. I gave you seven. We’re at 20 minutes. Would you wrap up, please. MR. SALVADOR-All right. Let me just, one more. In, I don’t know, it was 1994, I think when Governor Pataki came to power in Albany, and he came, he came into office on the wave of regulatory reform. You remember that. I mean, the Cuomo administration had us in this quagmire of regulations. Nobody could move. Nobody could do anything. Governor Pataki set up an office called the acronym is GORE. Governor’s Office of Regulatory Reform. He set that up, and that office went to work and they developed this joint application kit for wetland and waterfront development permits. Okay. Joint application. Where does this permit kick in? Where does it kick in, okay? When do I need OGS approval for my project. Where does OGS managed State land begin? OGS managed State land. The boundary between State owned underwater lands and the upland of private owner is determined by the last known location, prior to the placement of any fill, of the mean low water line for navigable lakes. A list of navigable lakes in the State, Warren County, Lake George. So here we have the joint application. Here it is, and everybody’s on here, from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Lake George Park Commission is here. The APA is here. This is, the DEC, this is one application you fill out to get a waterfront permit, whether it’s a dock, a dam, whatever you’re doing in a wetland, whatever, it’s one application you fill out, and everybody has input. Now, I’ve distributed these to our Town Board, to the Park Commission. I’ve made application according to this. I have my easements and my permits to occupy the public land. Nobody else on Lake George does. Okay. They don’t participate in this. They don’t pay any attention to this, but that dock that’s out there, below the mean low water mark, is on State owned land, and I maintain you don’t have any jurisdiction. So, anyway, but we’re not paying any attention to the Governor’s program. It’s all here. MR. VOLLARO-John, did that comment you made there define, I think it did. I think it defined, essentially, the mean low water mark as the line of demarcation between one person’s control, or one agency’s controlling the other. Is that a fair statement? MR. SALVADOR-Yes. The boundary between State owned underwater lands and the upland of private owner. Now, State owned, not State regulated only, State owned. There’s an ownership interest in that. The Park Commission has no ownership interest in anything. The DEC, unless they happen to have title to (lost word) have very little ownership interest, but. MR. STROUGH-Read the rest of that again. You started reading it and you didn’t finish. MR. SALVADOR-Finish what? MR. STROUGH-Well, Bob asked you. MR. SALVADOR-Do you want me to read the paragraph again? MR. STROUGH-Yes. MR. SALVADOR-Where does OGS managed State land begin? The boundary between State owned underwater lands and the upland of a private owner is determined by the last known location, prior to the placement of any fill, of the mean low water line for navigable lakes. MR. STROUGH-Well, thank you. 41 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. SALVADOR-This has been in the law since the beginning of time. This isn’t newly, just in 1998. We have a section of the State statutes called Public Lands Law. It’s all in there, but we don’t want to recognize it. MR. STROUGH-So anybody’s dock that extends beyond the mean low water mark is actually in State owned land. MR. SALVADOR-On State owned land. MR. STROUGH-And therefore has to get permits from the State. MR. SALVADOR-That’s right. MR. STROUGH-And isn’t Lake George Park Commission and Lake George Park Association, aren’t they State agencies? MR. VOLLARO-The Lake George Park Association isn’t a State agency. The Commission is, but the Association isn’t. MR. STROUGH-Well, wasn’t there a Lake George Park Association? MR. MAC EWAN-No, There’s a Lake George Park Commission. MR. VOLLARO-Commission, period. MR. MAC EWAN-And then there’s the Lake George Association. MR. STROUGH-And there’s a Lake George Park. MR. VOLLARO-No. MR. MAC EWAN-Just remember Commission is a State bureaucracy. Association is a club. MR. STROUGH-Okay. MR. SALVADOR-Well, anyway, I have tons, if you’re interested. Talking about site plans, I just want to show you what you’re going to have to clean up. By the way, in closing, the Lake George Park Commission issues Class A and Class B Marina permits. They have a five year life. After five years the permit’s gone, and you’ve got to go through the exercise again. Now these, all these marinas that have gotten their Class A, they’re going to be expiring soon. I know a couple of them in the next year or two. They’re going to be expiring. MR. VOLLARO-So we’re going to see those as well? MR. SALVADOR-I don’t know what the Commission will say to them on renewal. I have no idea, but they could very well say, well, before we renew, Queensbury has this requirement now. You’ll have to get a, this is a site plan of a marina in North Queensbury, to demonstrate that they have 42 parking places. MR. STROUGH-You mean Dunham’s Bay. MR. SALVADOR-What’s that? MR. STROUGH-Dunham’s Bay. MR. SALVADOR-How so. MR. VOLLARO-Yes, John, I’ve seen this before. MR. SALVADOR-Forty-two parking places. MR. MAC EWAN-Cathy, would the Lake George Park Commission get some sort of notification from the Town regarding our new Zoning Ordinances and our role in reviewing. MS. RADNER-Yes, they were notified. MR. MAC EWAN-They were. So they have a copy of our new Zoning Ordinance? Would that, typically, if someone went to the Park Commission to get a permit that fell within the Queensbury Town lines, would the Park Commission say, go see these guys and get your approvals from them first? 42 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MS. RADNER-Yes, and that’s what they’ve been doing, which is why you got the ones you did last time. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. VOLLARO-See, I guess my, I don’t know if this hearing is still open, or if the Chairman has closed the public hearing, but what I’m trying to derive out of this is what benefit is there to Queensbury to do this, if we already have an agency that’s regulating docks, and if get down to John’s point where there’s a line of demarcation between the land which we definitely are required to put a site plan on and the docks that extend into the lake, and I’m having a problem, because I know. MS. RADNER-There are two-fold, actually. As Mr. Salvador suggested, there’s more that’s involved, which includes land use issues, and when we weren’t regulating marinas and we didn’t have any opportunity to look at it, we couldn’t consider things like is there enough parking, is there, are our roads protected, issues that have more impact in the Town of Queensbury than some of the other communities that also share Lake George. The Lake George Park Commission may not be particularly interested in parking issues in general in the lake and may not be focusing on that, and yet it may be a concern to us here in this Town, and by having this process, it gives us the opportunity to look at those things. The other side of the coin is that we have no enforcement jurisdiction over the Lake George Park Commission permit. So even if we know that somebody’s violating their Lake George Park Commission regulations, our people can’t go out there and issue a citation, bring them before Town Justice court for violating those regulations, but if we know that our permit has certain conditions and that they are being violated and it’s creating a problem within the Town or we’re getting complaints from neighbors, then we do have that enforcement authority and we’re not enforcing what Lake George Park Commission has issued, but we then have the same mechanisms as with any other site plan that we’ve approved, where if they’re not following the conditions that they agreed to, that were part of their approvals, we’ve got some teeth. We can go after them and we can try to make sure that we’re maintaining that quality of life for their neighbors. MR. SALVADOR-Well taken, but, for example, this is what you’re faced with. You’re faced with cleaning up a mess that has been allowed to mature, some of it our fault, some of it their fault, ergo the Smith property. That whole Hannaford Road area cannot sustain what you’re trying to do. I don’t care if it’s a wastewater, parking, docks. It can’t sustain it, but it has grown, salami fashion, over the years, a variance here, a variance there, you know, setback relief here, and that’s what you have. They get a road access, and then it’s just grown, and to put a stop to it or to change it is going to be painful. It’s going to be very, very painful for the people, for our Board, for the Town. That’s as I see it, but that you should do it is well taken. Take back our Town. MR. RINGER-I think we’ve determined, too, that it’s very painful for everybody. MR. SALVADOR-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-Well, particularly if we’ve got to clean up, not clean up, but if we’ve got to take a look at permits that expire, this is going to be a huge load, and if the Commission says, on expiration of your permit, you must go to the Town of Queensbury now, all of a sudden I can see a whole bunch of people sitting in front of us on these Class A Marina permits, and I just don’t know what the total benefit is. I guess I, it’s a dilemma to me. I mean, it’s almost, you know, you get into these unsolvable problem areas, and they can drive you crazy, and I think this is like one of them. MR. SALVADOR-Well, the very concept of site plan review has put a tremendous burden on the Planning Board. The Planning Board’s supposed to be thinking about the big picture, you know. MR. VOLLARO-This Board knows what I think about that, that we should be a site plan approval Board, and of course I’m, I’ve stated this openly to this Board. That’s how I feel about it. You’re absolutely right. I don’t do anything concerning real planning. We got into a little bit of it tonight, with the Valente application, being able to plan out how that subdivision might look in the PO zone. That was something that was interesting to do. John is probably one of the better ones on this Board that talks about that kind of thing. MR. SALVADOR-But it’s serious in North Queensbury because that’s the new frontier. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you, John. MR. SALVADOR-Thank you. I have all kinds of, you know. There was a process we went through. So. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. MR. VOLLARO-Thanks a lot, John. I appreciate the input. 43 (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 6/25/02) MR. MAC EWAN-Any other business? Meeting adjourned. On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Craig MacEwan, Chairman 44