2003-07-17 SP
(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 7/17/03)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
SPECIAL MEETING
JULY 17, 2003
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
CRAIG MAC EWAN, CHAIRMAN
CATHERINE LA BOMBARD, SECRETARY
ROBERT VOLLARO
JOHN STROUGH
CHRIS HUNSINGER
LARRY RINGER
MEMBERS ABSENT
ANTHONY METIVIER
PLANNER-GEORGE HILTON
TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX, SCHACHNER & HAFNER-MARK SCHACHNER
STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI
OLD BUSINESS:
SITE PLAN NO. 25-2003 SEQRA TYPE I WAL-MART STORES PROPERTY OWNER:
WAL-MART STORES, INC. & NAT. REALTY AGENT: NEAL MADDEN, ESQ. ZONE:
HC-INT. LOCATION: ROUTE 9 AND WEEKS ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES
EXPANSION OF EXISTING WAL-MART STORE BY CONSTRUCTING A 95.217 SQ. FT.
BUILDING ADDITION FOR A TOTAL BUILDING SQUARE FOOTAGE OF 216,080.
CROSS REFERENCE: PZ 5-90, SV 49-95, UV 32-92, SV 55-94, SV 57, 58-93, AV 11-93, SB 3-93,
SP 31-93, AV 38-2003, SV 71-03 WARREN CO. PLANNING: 5/14/03 TAX MAP NO. 296.17-1-
36, 37 LOT SIZE: 11.29 AC., 6.46 AC. SECTION: 179-4-030
PETER HENTSCHKE, GERARD FITAMANT, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MRS. LA BOMBARD-The public hearing on May 22 and there is one this evening.
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STAFF INPUT
Notes from Staff, Site Plan No. 25-2003, Wal-Mart Stores, Meeting Date: July 17, 2003
“APPLICATION: Site Plan 25-2003
APPLICANT: Wal-Mart Stores is the applicant for this request
STAFF COMMENTS: In response to Staff’s initial comments of 5/22/2003, the applicant has
submitted revised plans along with a comment letter dated June 16, 2003. Planning Staff has the
following comments as a response to the applicant’s letter of 6/16/2003, and as a follow up to
previous Planning Board Staff comments.
NOISE IMPACTS: Previous Staff comments discussed idling of vehicles during loading and
unloading, landscaping and snowplowing activities as sources of noise produced at this
location that may impact surrounding residential areas. As a response, the revised site plan
contains additional landscaping on the western and southern property lines. The applicant has
also indicated that coordination of maintenance activities will be discussed before the board.
The applicant proposes to maintain an existing 23 ft. buffer from the adjacent residential
properties to the west and a 50 ft. buffer from the residential properties to the south. The
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expected increase in truck traffic and maintenance activities at this site could additionally
impact surrounding properties. As a result, a denser vegetative buffer from the adjacent
properties may be required, especially in the proposed western and southern buffer areas.
Additionally, the use of auxiliary power for trucks loading and unloading, previously
mentioned by Staff, should be explored. Any possibility of relocating loading/unloading areas
farther away from adjacent residential properties should also be considered.
LANDSCAPING / SCREENING
In response to Staff’s previous landscaping comments, the site plan has been revised to include
additional landscaping/screening at the western and southern property lines, as well as along
the Route 9 and Weeks Rd. frontage areas. Previous Staff comments also discussed providing
three landscaped areas within the interior parking area near the Route 9 road frontage, as
required by the Zoning Ordinance.
As previously mentioned in these notes, adequate screening and buffering should be provided
in the 50 ft. buffer area from the southern properties and the 23 ft. buffer from the adjacent
residential properties to the west.
The new landscaping along Rte 9 and Weeks Rd. appears to meet the street landscaping
requirements of § 179-8-040 B of the Zoning Ordinance. Staff recommends that the deciduous
shade trees proposed along Route 9 be a species cited in the Zoning Ordinance as a preferred
shade tree. Specifically, red maples are shade tree species from the recommended list that are
more tolerant of salt used for snow and ice removal.
As mentioned in previous Staff notes, 10 % of the interior parking area is required to be
landscaped. Shade trees are required within the interior parking area at an average density of 1
shade tree per 15 parking spaces. The grading plan that is part of the site plan indicates the
parking area will be re-graded and resurfaced with existing vegetation in the parking area to be
re-planted. Re-grading and reconstruction of the parking area would allow additional
landscaped islands to be constructed within the parking area where the required landscaping
and shade trees could be placed.
TRAFFIC
The applicant previously submitted a traffic impact study, which was reviewed by NYSDOT.
Since the previous Staff notes of 5/22/03, Adirondack Glens Falls Transportation Council
(AGFTC) has reviewed the applicant’s traffic impact study and has provided their own
comments on the applicants traffic impact study.
In order to better quantify potential future traffic volumes as a result of this proposal, and
assess potential area traffic impacts, current traffic counts from similar Wal-Mart facilities such
as the Wal-Mart Super Center in Wilton may be necessary.
As described by the applicant at the Planning Board meeting of 5/22/2003, truck traffic from this
site would enter from the southern entrance on Route 9 and would exit onto Weeks Rd., and
eventually onto Route 9. Staff has concerns about the ability of trucks to safely negotiate the
narrow Weeks Rd. roadway and to negotiate the skewed intersection with Route 9.
Additionally, increased vehicle trips at this location could negatively impact the Weeks Rd. /
Route 9 intersection. The applicant should demonstrate the ability of Weeks Rd. to handle truck
traffic and any increase in automobile traffic, and that the geometry of the Weeks Rd. / Route 9
intersection will support large truck turning movements.
ACCESS MANAGEMENT / ON-SITE CIRCULATION
In response to previous staff comments, the applicant has provided an updated site plan
showing revised drive aisles and internal intersections. A new bus bump out area has been
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provided as part of the revised plans.
Although the internal intersection at the southern end of the property has been redesigned, the
alignment still appears to be awkward and could result in vehicle conflicts and less than
desirable internal traffic conditions.
In order to further improve vehicular access north of the proposed building addition and south
of Weeks Rd., Staff continues to recommend the elimination of the 11 parking spaces now
labeled as ‘Associate Parking’. Staff has concerns about these spaces being built and used in a
main drive aisle where GGFT buses and other vehicles will enter and exit the site.
Concerns have been raised over the existing and future impacts that traffic from the Wal-Mart
site and the general area have on the property to the south of this site (Ray Supply). Specific
concerns are that traffic exiting the Wal-Mart site from the southern access point on Route 9
combined with overall traffic heading south on Route 9 make it difficult for customers of Ray
Supply to enter or exit the Ray Supply site. Consideration should be given to providing a
vehicular interconnection between this site and the property to the south. Such an
interconnection would allow vehicles entering and exiting Ray Supply to use the traffic signal at
the Wal-Mart / Pizzeria Uno intersection as opposed to entering and exiting the Ray Supply site
south of the light and past the point where exiting Wal-Mart traffic empties onto Route 9.
PEDESTRIAN ACCESS
As a follow up to previous Staff comments, the site plan has been revised to include sidewalks
along Weeks Rd. The sidewalk along Route 9 has been relocated closer to the curb and crossing
indicators have been provided for pedestrians crossing the Wal-Mart entrance drive as well as
Route 9.
PARKING
Previous Staff comments have been supportive of a parking ratio as low as 3.5 parking spaces
per 1000 sq. ft. GLA. Generally the parking areas for both Wal-Mart and Ames have been
observed as not being filled to capacity most times of the year. Staff continues to support a
reduction in parking spaces that would allow for better internal traffic circulation along with
increased interior parking lot landscaping.
Staff continues to believe that the 11 parking spaces shown just north of the building and south
of Weeks Rd. may present a conflict with traffic entering and exiting the site. As previously
mentioned in these notes, Staff continues to recommend that these parking spaces be removed
and this area be converted to green space.
LIGHTING
The applicant’s lighting plan calls for replacing existing 400-watt fixtures with 1000-watt
fixtures. The plan proposes twenty five (25) forty two (42) ft. high poles, containing a total of
fifty three (53) 1000-watt light fixtures. The Zoning Ordinance requires pole mounted lighting
be mounted at a height of 20 feet. Cut sheets for proposed pole mounted and building mounted
lights have not been provided. Pole mounted lights are required to be cut-off type fixtures with
light being directed to the ground. The lighting that is proposed as part of this site plan does
not appear to be cut-off type lighting that is being directed to the ground. The lighting plan
proposes light levels at this site, which exceed current Zoning Ordinance requirements. Staff
has concerns about the impact that the proposed light intensity would have on the surrounding
residential properties and the character of this part of Queensbury.
As a comparison, the lighting plan for Lowe’s on Quaker Road shows 17 poles at a mounting
height of 42 feet containing forty one (41) 1000-watt fixtures. The recently approved Home
Depot plans (located to the south of this site on Route 9) provides pole mounted lighting at 250
watts with 20 ft. mounting heights, using high pressure sodium lights versus metal halide
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lighting.
The grading plan submitted as part of this application shows the parking area to be regarded
with existing light fixtures to be removed and existing landscaping to be replaced. As part of
this site work, new poles could be added which meet the 20 ft. Zoning Ordinance requirements.
Currently this site appears to be adequately lit and Staff is unaware of any security issues that
warrant changing the exiting 400-watt fixtures to 1000-watt fixtures.
The applicant has provided an alternate lighting plan (sheet 25.01 Ex. A) which indicates 80
light poles at a mounting height of 20 ft. with 250-watt fixtures indicated. This plan is similar to
the recently approved Home Depot lighting plan, which contains 104 light poles with a 20 ft.
mounting height with 250-watt fixtures. Staff believes this alternate lighting plan submitted by
the applicant would provide adequate site lighting with light poles that would be more in scale
with the building and the patrons of this site, and would have less of an impact on the
surrounding residential properties than using 1000-watt fixtures at 42 ft. high would.
BUILDING DESIGN / ROUTE 9 DESIGN GUIDELINES
As a follow up to previous Staff comments concerning building architecture and the Route 9
Design Guidelines, the applicant has submitted revised building elevations that provide a new
beige/light brown color scheme with some changes to the building façade. The building
elevations show new parapets to the north and south of the buildings main entrances, with
some new building peaks.
Rooftop equipment should be screened from view as called for in § 179-7-050 C (1) of the
Zoning Ordinance.
STORMWATER MANAGEMENT
Any comments from CT Male regarding stormwater management should be addressed during
the Planning Board review of this application.”
MR. MAC EWAN-Staff notes.
MR. HILTON-Okay. At this time, actually, let me back up. As a follow-up to the May 22
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meeting, the initial meeting we had for this application, we have issued additional Staff
comments. The applicant has responded to those comments as well. We have before you this
evening an outline for the meeting, summarizing the Staff issues, the issues we’ve raised in Staff
notes. Rather than go through every Staff comment, I think everybody’s aware, or should be
aware, of what Staff’s position is and the applicant’s response, we’ll just try to follow the
outline, and, you know, along the way, if anyone has any specific questions, we’ll just have an
open discussion I guess.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Has representatives of the applicant gotten this outline as well?
MR. HILTON-I’m not sure.
MR. MAC EWAN-We want to follow it tonight. I think what we will let you do is make a brief
presentation. Then we can just go into this format and we can kind of cover all the areas that
we have concerns with from that point. So you gentlemen want to come on up.
MR. HENTSCHKE-Good evening, Planning Board and members of the public. My name is
Peter Hentschke. I’m with the firm of Harter, Seacrest and Emery. We’re here tonight to
basically address any questions we can, help clarify what our project is, and get your feedback,
and the Planning Board’s and the public, on the project that we have proposed to expand the
Wal-Mart, re-develop that site, getting rid of the vacant Ames store that’s there now. I wanted
to introduce the engineers and architects we have here tonight. We’ve got three gentlemen
from Langan Engineering Environmental Services. They are Gerard Fitamant, John Speer, and
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the traffic expert, Bill Lothian. We also have BJ Phillips from Perry Butcher Architects sitting
behind them, and with that, I guess we’re going to turn it back to you, if that’s.
MR. MAC EWAN-If you want to make a brief presentation about where you are right now, and
then we can go to this outline, and we’ll start our areas at that point.
MR. HENTSCHKE-Sounds good. Here’s Gerard Fitamant.
MR. FITAMANT-I’ll use this. I don’t know if everyone can see back here. We have a landscape
plan of the proposed Wal-Mart expansion. In this area here, we have the Ames which is going
to be demolished, and there’s also a proposed demolition of a diner. Total square footage of
demolition is roughly equal to about 70,000 square feet. We’re proposing just over 90,000
square feet. So there is a net increase of 20,000 square feet to the site. We are proposing a Super
Center, which consists of a dry goods and also a grocery section. The truck routing that is
currently out at the site today will continue on the same fashion where trucks enter through the
southbound, drive around, back in, and leave the site. Currently the trucks leave the site
through Weeks Road. The improvements that we’re proposing, aside from the addition, we’ve
heard complaints from the residents about noise and lights. We’ve mitigated some of those
issues with landscaping. We’ve put landscaping along the south side, as well as the western
side of the site, where there were gaps in the existing landscaping. We’re also proposing to put
up a concrete masonry unit wall at the loading docks to prevent the noise from the compressors
from getting off the site. So we’re doing those things to mitigate the concerns of the local
residents. There’s an issue regarding lighting and light pole heights. Currently the site has 40
foot high poles, light fixtures. We’re proposing to continue that. That’s been an issue that we’d
like to discuss in a little more detail as far as 20 foot fixtures versus 40 foot fixtures, and other
issues were noise, noise complaints, relative to operations at the Garden Center. We’ve spoken
to the store manager. We’ve been told that the loud music that occasionally has been playing in
the Garden Center has stopped, or should have stopped. I’d be curious as to whether that is
continuing at present day, but all in all, the noise issues, if they’re operational issues, we’d like
to hear the specific complaint so that we can address each and every one of them. Aside from
that, that’s it in a nutshell. We’re expanding, we propose to expand the existing Wal-Mart, and
make the empty Ames store an expansion, if you will, with an overall increase of only 20,000
square feet. We do have a traffic expert tonight to discuss the traffic issues as they relate to this
expansion. So if there’s any questions from this point forward, feel free to ask.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Well, why don’t you come right on up to the table. Chris, why don’t
we start with you, and we can go by our outline. I guess the first bullet item we’ve got it
relative to noise. Have you got any questions relative to the noise issues?
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I just wasn’t sure how you wanted to.
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. I think that would make it more efficient for us to go that way.
MR. HUNSINGER-I missed the May meeting when you were here. So a lot of this I just want to
sort of hear some of the testimony and some of the comments, but I obviously have a number of
questions as well. I wasn’t here to hear the complaints from the neighbors, but obviously the
noise issue is certainly a concern, from reading the minutes. Do you have any empirical
information that would show the kind of decibel reduction that the proposed concrete wall
would have?
MR. FITAMANT-We have not prepared any empirical calculations on that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do you have any existing stores where you’ve done anything similar, as a
result of any neighborhood concerns?
MR. FITAMANT-I haven’t investigated that, but if it pleases the Board, I could find out and get
that information.
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MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I think there’s probably going to be a lot of comments on some of the
landscaping and screening, particularly with the internal parking areas, because you are asking
for a waiver of our overall, you know, requirements.
MR. MAC EWAN-Chris, what I’d like to do is just let the whole Board go down and just
relative to each topic and then we’ll move on to the next topic.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’m sorry.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s okay. I mean, is that it with you?
MR. HUNSINGER-That’s all I had on the noise issue.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Larry?
MR. RINGER-In regards to the number of trucks currently using the facility, when you move to
a super center, what increase in truck traffic is there?
MR. FITAMANT-Currently the truck traffic is seven trucks per day, and we would expect that
to increase to between 10 and 12 trucks per day.
MR. RINGER-The seven trucks per day, that’s Wal-Mart trucks, or is that all vendors?
MR. FITAMANT-That’s all the trucks, the box cars, soda and the Wal-Mart trucks themselves.
MR. RINGER-How many of those trucks will be refrigerated, new trucks will be refrigerated
that aren’t refrigerated now? And will any of those refrigerated trucks be left overnight?
MR. FITAMANT-Obviously there will be an increase. I recall two to three trucks per day would
be the grocery end. I’m not sure how many would be left operational overnight.
MR. RINGER-You don’t know if there’d be any refrigerated trucks overnight left there with the
refrigerator units going, air conditioning?
MR. FITAMANT-There most likely will be.
MR. RINGER-Are there any there now, refrigerated trucks left overnight?
MR. FITAMANT-On occasion, yes.
MR. RINGER-Other than that on noise, I don’t, you told Chris you don’t have any idea as to the
plans, the changes that you’ve made to the wall and stuff, what percent noise reduction that
will.
MR. FITAMANT-I don’t know at this point, but I can provide the calculations to show what
affects would, what that would do, if that would help.
MR. RINGER-I have nothing else on noise. Thank you very much.
MR. MAC EWAN-Cathy?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-When I went through all of the Staff notes, I highlighted the little
controversies, okay, in other words, the things that you want, but we don’t, the things that we
want but you don’t. So I’m not going to get into everything right now. I’m just going to listen
and hear and I want to just listen and see what comes up as far as, you know, the issues as we
go through the outline.
MR. MAC EWAN-Robert?
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MR. VOLLARO-Yes. Since we’re on noise, I would just like you to do a typical run of a truck to
the bays, and a run from, for trucks that go to the Garden Center. I’d like to see the path those
trucks are taking, and then their ability to back themselves in, and I assume they have to back
themselves in to those five bays on the northwest corner of the site. They’re going to come in
on.
MR. FITAMANT-They’re going to come in from the southern entrance. They’re going to wrap
around as they do today, as they do today they travel along the back of the building, and then
they back in to this truck loading area. This is an existing truck loading area today.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. FITAMANT-There’s another truck loading area right here. So these trucks then would
continue, pull up here, and back in.
MR. VOLLARO-Now, are they pulling on to Weeks Road to make that back in?
MR. FITAMANT-No. They’re pulling in to the striped area but not pulling out onto Weeks
Road, and they back in from that point. So we have two truck docks, one here and one there.
MR. VOLLARO-I’ve looked up at my own scaling and taken a look at both trucks’ ability to get
themselves backed in there, no, not that one, the five bays, yes, the one on the northeast corner.
There’s five bays.
MR. FITAMANT-Four bays.
MR. VOLLARO-Is it four? And I’m just concerned about their ability to back in to that without,
you know, I think they may have to get off onto Weeks Road to do it. It just looks that way to
me. Maybe not.
MR. FITAMANT-We have a truck turning program that we ran on this, and I will present that
evidence to the Board. I could provide the truck turning templates.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MR. FITAMANT-And show you how the trucks maneuver in that case.
MR. VOLLARO-Now those trucks coming out of those northeast bays, the northwest bay there,
they’re going to, will they be provided with auxiliary power units in order to run the
compressors, or are they going to run off their own engines?
MR. FITAMANT-They run off of compressor’s auxiliary power, and BJ Phillips can answer to
that.
BJ PHILLIPS
MR. PHILLIPS-The refrigeration trucks do not actually run off the tractor trailer. They have
their own compressors that are mounted to the front end of the trailer box, and that is what’s
running. The tractor trailer does not have to run, and that is up to the store manager to be sure
that he goes out and tells the trucks, if they’re sitting there, that they need to turn off and shut
down, but the compressor on the back of the trailer will be running to keep it cool, but it’s not
the tractor trailer that’s running.
MR. VOLLARO-There’s some sort of an auxiliary power unit that keeps those compressors
running, isn’t there?
MR. PHILLIPS-Yes. It’s an individually housed unit that is mounted on the trailer itself, but it
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is not powered through the tractor.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. The diesel engine is shut off up front?
MR. PHILLIPS-Yes. The diesel engine will be shut off.
MR. VOLLARO-All right. Now, the trucks going to the Garden Center are going to be coming
in on the same entrance up there, and running to the Garden Center. Now what do they do.
Do they, after they unload, do they come around and exit Weeks Road as well?
MR. PHILLIPS-Yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I guess we have another question in the noise area as far as the PA
system and the auto service center are concerned. What’s the story with that? That would be
on the other end of the site, the auto service center?
MR. FITAMANT-That’s right here.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. Now are there PA systems in there that are normally used?
MR. FITAMANT-That’s a building function that BJ might know a little bit more about.
MR. PHILLIPS-I actually don’t know whether they use a PA system. They use a PA system
within the store to tell customers that their car, their vehicle is ready, but I don’t know if that is
external as well. I’m not sure. I can check into that.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. When I get down to traffic access management I’ll have a couple of
more questions, Mr. Chairman. That’s all I have as far as the routing of the trucks are
concerned. Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-John?
MR. STROUGH-Yes, hi. To stay on the trucks, now I think the trucks, I may be wrong, but I
think that is the major contributor to this noise impact, the adjacent residential neighborhood,
and part of that is because of the truck routing. It goes to the south, and then ends up being in
the northern, northeastern, north western corner of the building. Is there any chance that we
could rout those trucks using the northern entrance, and keep most of your trucking to the
northern side of the building and rearrange the way the truck docking areas are arranged, so
that, you know, we could avoid going to that side of the building, with the exception of, you
know, maybe automotive parts supply, deliveries, and landscaping stuff to that corner of the
store, but for your every day deliveries, couldn’t we arrange something where we use the
northern entrance and the northern side of the building, and keep that traffic away from that
residential area?
MR. PHILLIPS-Well, the benefit of routing the traffic, the trucks through this routing is to
prevent them from entering the parking field with cars.
MR. STROUGH-Why don’t we just shift the whole parking field over, and then put the truck
routing over on your north side?
MR. FITAMANT-Well, the Center, as it exists today, has its truck entrance here. It’s got the
geometry and size and the width and the throat that’s been approved by DOT, and it’s, the site
lends itself now, because that being the main entrance, to keep the trucks out of the parking
field, this is the most preferable truck route, from that perspective, from a safety, on-site
perspective.
MR. STROUGH-It also, it seems to be the source of our negative impact on the residential
neighborhood, so I’m just making a suggestion. Maybe it’s something we ought to look at, take
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a harder look at. Because the vegetative buffer, now, as a general rule, we’ve been through a lot
of noise issues on this Board, and as a general rule, vegetation is not a great buffer to noise.
Trees are practically nothing. Now a heavy, low, dense vegetation can have an impact over
distance, but, you know, 50 feet or less is not significant, especially, where this noise orientation
is coming from, the truck entrance, for the most part, I imagine, and they’re up above the thick
dense vegetation. So that’s why I’m suggesting that, you know, maybe you wouldn’t have to
go to the expense of all the vegetation over there because, well, the net effect of reducing the
noise, at least, is rather moot. So, again, that brings me to trying to keep this truck traffic on the
north side of the building if we could. So, now, where your bays are located, you’ve got six
bays now, I mean, in the proposal, and you only had two before?
MR. FITAMANT-Well, two on the existing, and then there were, I’m not sure how many. I
believe there were two on the existing Ames, two to three.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, but two bays served the Wal-Mart store as it is now.
MR. FITAMANT-Correct.
MR. STROUGH-And so we’re tripling the number of bays. I’m wondering if we need to do
that. Okay, just something to think about, when we possibly go to re-designing this. What’s the
height of those concrete walls in the truck bays?
MR. FITAMANT-Twelve feet.
MR. STROUGH-Twelve feet, and what height are the compressors that sit on these trucks?
MR. FITAMANT-About twelve.
MR. PHILLIPS-The compressor housing on the trailer is mounted to the front end behind the
cab, behind the tractor of the truck. So it won’t be mounted higher than the trailer box itself.
They’re mounted on the front end of the trailer, opposite the doors.
MR. STROUGH-Well, I’ve seen some of them located that way. I’ve seen some of them located
near the top of the box area. Right?
MR. PHILLIPS-I haven’t seen any like that because, that may be the case. I haven’t seen too
many like, I don’t know if they do that. I don’t think Wal-Mart trucks do that because of height
of the truck itself. I mean, they get too much higher and they’ll run into stuff. I mean, it’s.
MR. STROUGH-So what you’re telling me is that for the most part the compressors will be
within the protection of that wall?
MR. PHILLIPS-Yes.
MR. STROUGH-Okay.
MR. PHILLIPS-Yes, they will.
MR. STROUGH-All right. So that’s good news. Okay. Well, you know, I don’t know, Mr.
Chairman, do we want to let the public come in on this noise issue and then let them go?
MR. MAC EWAN-No. I’ll open up the public hearing and the public can comment to any one
of these topics they want.
MR. STROUGH-Okay. Because then we’re going to be coming back to some of these topics
after the public hearing maybe?
MR. MAC EWAN-I’m sure we will.
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MR. STROUGH-Okay. Well, thank you. I’m finished.
MR. MAC EWAN-I have a couple of questions relative to the noise. Do you anticipate when
this grocery store portion of the Wal-Mart opens up you’ll go to a 24/7 operation?
MR. FITAMANT-Yes.
MR. MAC EWAN-Do you anticipate that you’ll have deliveries coming in 24/7?
MR. FITAMANT-No.
MR. MAC EWAN-How will you schedule deliveries at certain times, and enforce that, to
alleviate noise at eleven o’clock, midnight, three in the morning?
MR. FITAMANT-There is a distribution schedule that Wal-Mart has that I am not, did not
prepare for this meeting.
MR. MAC EWAN-Could you provide that for us? The reason why I ask that is typically
grocery stores, the swing shifts, midnight to seven or five a.m. shifts are your stocking your
shelves shifts, that’s when your trucks come in, that’s when the deliveries come in, and
particularly I’m thinking in the dead of winter, and the guy’s got a diesel truck running. He
doesn’t want to have the diesel fuel have a chance of coagulating up in his tank so he’ll run his
truck while he’s waiting to unload for two and a half, three hours. That’s a major concern I
have, especially with the residential area, that’s both in the Greenway North, but you’ve got
Roberts Garden on both sides, in the back side of that building.
MR. FITAMANT-Okay. I’ve just been given this from BJ. The deliveries are scheduled to occur
between the hours of eight and four p.m., six p.m., eight p.m. and ten p.m. for each day for a
total of five trucks per day for the general merchandise for dry stock, and the groceries shall
have two deliveries per day, at eight a.m. and eight p.m.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. So your ten p.m. deliveries would they be grocery deliveries?
MR. FITAMANT-No. Eight p.m., eight a.m. for grocery, the ten a.m. was the dry goods.
MR. MAC EWAN-And the latest delivery of the day would be scheduled when?
MR. FITAMANT-Ten p.m.
MR. MAC EWAN-And what deliveries would those be?
MR. FITAMANT-General merchandise.
MR. MAC EWAN-General merchandise, and that still would apply to the store, though, in the
dead of winter, if someone wants to keep their truck running so that, you know.
MR. FITAMANT-Well, that’s something that needs to be enforced, and.
MR. MAC EWAN-I’m curious if you could provide some sort of plan that store management
has on how they would enforce that.
MR. FITAMANT-I will see that I can get that information to you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Chris, do you want to move on to landscaping and screening.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure. I guess I had a comment back on the noise, though, in regards to the
wall. I mean, I had asked the question about how much noise reduction, you know, if I’m the
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only one that had that question, or if other people had the question as well. I’d just leave it at
that.
MR. RINGER-I think we asked him. He’s going to go back and get some data he said.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I guess I’d assume that you’ve seen the Staff notes that were
provided to us?
MR. FITAMANT-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Did you have a problem with a different species of shade trees along the
Route 9 corridor?
MR. FITAMANT-Yes. We would prefer to have a species that doesn’t get as tall as what’s in
your ordinance.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. FITAMANT-Only for the simple fact that the pylon sign be visible from a difference.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think that was the only real question I had, Mr. Chairman, on landscaping.
MR. MAC EWAN-Larry?
MR. RINGER-I have nothing on landscaping.
MR. MAC EWAN-Cathy?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-I’m okay right now.
MR. MAC EWAN-Robert?
MR. VOLLARO-As far as landscaping is concerned, no, I think John’s going to get into that
pretty heavy I know. So I’m not going to get into the landscaping thing. I will ask one thing.
What do you plan to do on the streetscaping for Weeks Road, basically from Weeks Road?
Route 9 I understand, and that’ll be discussed, and the type of trees, but what’s the story on
Weeks Road? Is that what I see up there to the north?
MR. FITAMANT-Yes, it is. We’ve even provided a berm along Weeks Road, so that the
landscaping here is also bermed up, which adds to shielding the parking field from the road,
but there are a variety of trees in here. I could rattle them off.
MR. VOLLARO-I’m not a tree man. The tree man sits to my right.
MR. FITAMANT-Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-Basically, I’d just ask one question that’s going to lead into a later talk on
traffic, but have you had any discussions with our Highway and Sewer Department concerning
anything to do with Weeks Road at all?
MR. FITAMANT-No.
MR. VOLLARO-No. That’s my only question, Mr. Chairman.
MR. MAC EWAN-John?
MR. STROUGH-Did you have any problem with the suggestion that we replace the honey
locusts in the front by the Route 9 area with red maples?
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MR. FITAMANT-The red maples, I believe, are 30 foot mature growth?
MR. STROUGH-Yes, they probably are.
MR. FITAMANT-Which would conflict with the pylon sign, in certain locations, not for the
entire length. We’d like to come up with some compromise, if possible.
MR. STROUGH-Well, you know, yes, a skyrocket oak, possibly, which is a slender, narrow oak,
but it’s deciduous. It’s not as pretty as a red maple, but you’re right. We could come to some
compromise, and that’s just a suggestion. Yes, I’d like to see a little bit more landscaping, and
this is tied into something else that I’m going to talk about later with the whole comprehensive
concept here, but I’ll wait, but, I do have another question. That one east/west aisle, running
towards the northern entrance of the store, landscaping with Zelokovas.
MR. FITAMANT-Which island?
MR. STROUGH-No, the one closer to the store. It’s running east and west.
MR. FITAMANT-This island?
MR. STROUGH-Yes.
MR. FITAMANT-Okay.
MR. STROUGH-Okay, and that’s got the Zelkova trees, which I’m not crazy about, but they
don’t get that big. So I can understand why you put them there. Now one thing is, we have
that one area, and if we could add another area, just opposite this other entrance, it would give
you a little symmetry and balance as you’re going in to the store, having two of those rows.
Plus I think that you probably have heard from Staff notes and you’re going to hear a little bit
more, that we’d like to see a little bit more vegetation in the parking area, but, you know, we’ll
push and pull and see what we can get, and that would be one suggestion that I would like to
make, is running another aisle opposite that southern entrance, and giving it a symmetrical
entry way, okay, but like I said, this’ll come, I’ve got more ideas, but they’re comprehensive as
the big picture here.
MR. FITAMANT-If I could just respond to that one. We certainly would like to accommodate
the additional landscaping, internal to the parking field. However, the down side to that is that
the parking ratio will suffer. By adding a little sliver in through here, we have to widen this
parking field somehow, and as you can see, we’re, all the way across, we are filled up with aisle,
parking, aisle, parking. So a long, narrow entrance that’s symmetrical to this, I mean, the only
way we could possibly accommodate that without losing parking would be to reduce this one
and equalize it.
MR. STROUGH-Well, I’m just giving you a thought, and there’s going to be more thoughts, and
I think we’re a little bit closer than we were before, and I think eventually we’re going to get
there, to a mutual satisfaction of everybody, and we’re going to get our Super Wal-Mart, and
that’s good, but I think we are going to have to do a little something, but then again, we may be
jockeying things around, but you know what we’re looking for, and if you’re asking me to
weigh aesthetics with asphalt, you know what’s going to win in my book. So, especially when
I’ve never ever seen that parking lot full, even in Christmas. It’s pretty full, but I’ve never seen
it maxed out, and that’s the only time I really see it close to being maxed out is Christmas time.
I mean, the rest of the year it’s basically empty, open asphalt. The ones that everyone uses are,
you know, I don’t know if anyone’s ever going to use the parking area that’s close to Route 9. I
don’t know if anyone’s ever going to use that. So, you know, I would like to see more
landscaping done internally, and especially, which reminds me, when I was in West Palm Beach
last year, there was a Wal-Mart there, and we went to it, and you had palm trees. I mean, it was
beautifully vegetated. As a matter of fact, you could hardly see the store from the road. That’s
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why I drove by it, so I can see your point. You want to have.
MR. FITAMANT-Some visibility.
MR. STROUGH-You want to have some visibility, but I also know that you have, in the past,
vegetated your parking areas to a pretty great degree. Now I don’t expect us to get a West Palm
Beach.
MR. FITAMANT-If this were a new site in West Palm Beach, I’m sure we would be under
different circumstances, but this is a re-development of an existing parking field that.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, and like I said, I’m going to talk about the whole project as a concept later,
but I think we can do something magical here, and I’ll talk to that later. Thank you.
MR. FITAMANT-We’re open to suggestions.
MR. MAC EWAN-Just maybe to respond to your comment, I consider this a whole new
application, a whole new site, so anything’s up for grabs, as far as I’m concerned. Relative to
the Route 9 corridor streetscaping, my position is going to be to see you adhere to our Town
Code and our Ordinance for what we specify as species in that area. I mean, our Town took an
awful lot of time developing these new Ordinances, and we do hold applicants accountable that
the provide what we designate into our Ordinances, and I really want to see you change that
around to meet what the criteria is for the corridor. As far as adding internal landscaping into
the parking field area, a couple of comments that I would have is that, it’s kind of like jumping
off the ship here into the parking area, but do you still anticipate, in the area near the Garden
Center, to have seasonal displays there?
MR. FITAMANT-Yes.
MR. MAC EWAN-Why can’t you, then, designate a portion of that parking lot for strictly
seasonal display and screen it? Do they still meet the parking requirements with the square
footage versus cars if they use seasonal display?
MR. FITAMANT-We still, we need a variance. We’re requesting a variance, as you see it now.
So any further reduction is going to still require a variance.
MR. HILTON-Yes. I think that’s the case, you know, however, I think, as you’ve seen in our
Staff comments, we’re supportive of, you know, a lesser parking ratio, if you will, out here. As
Mr. Strough stated, it’s rare that this site is packed, and in the interest of, in keeping with the
guidelines.
MR. MAC EWAN-Well, I’m thinking if they use that seasonal display as often as they do every
year, is to designate an area in the parking lot for seasonal display and provide some
landscaping buffer there to enhance the parking field a little bit. The other issue I’ve got,
relative to wanting to have that screening on Route 9, which also flows over into the parking
issue, is that Wal-Mart seems to have a history of allowing RV’s to stay there overnight,
regularly. Tell me about that. Is that like an unwritten welcome policy from Wal-Mart
Corporation that they allow RV’s to overnight in their parking lots?
MR. FITAMANT-Well, they certainly don’t discourage customers, and RV’s and.
MR. MAC EWAN-I’m not talking about someone parking there to go shopping. I’m talking
someone parking there, staying overnight, the next morning getting up and driving off the site.
Avoiding them having to go to an RV park to hook up for the night, they stay there.
MR. FITAMANT-I’m not aware of any policy regarding that.
MR. MAC EWAN-Could you ask the store manager what their policy is in that regard? Because
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that’s something that’s just one of those little thorns in my side that I see very regularly.
MR. FITAMANT-Sure.
MR. MAC EWAN-At any given time on a weekend I can count six to seven RV’s up there all the
time. They pull in late Friday night, and some of them don’t leave until Sunday. So I’d be
really curious about what Wal-Mart’s company policy is relative to that.
MR. FITAMANT-Okay. I’ll see if I can find out.
MR. MAC EWAN-I guess that’s all I’ve got relative to the landscaping. Chris, traffic access
management.
MR. HUNSINGER-I haven’t had a chance to read the new letter that was given to us this
evening.
MR. MAC EWAN-I wouldn’t expect any of us would have had time to read that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, which addresses traffic, but there is, as you are well aware, some
controversy regarding the findings of the traffic study, and I just would like you to go on the
record and comment on those, if you could.
MR. FITAMANT-Sure. I have Bill Lothian that’ll respond to that.
WILLIAM LOTHIAN
MR. LOTHIAN-Yes. My name is William Lothian. I’m with the firm of Langan Engineering
Environmental Services. I think what I can do is give you a summary of some of the responses
to some of the issues that we’ve seen and some of the Staff comments and some of the letters
that we’ve come across.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Great.
MR. LOTHIAN-The Langan traffic assessment, we’ve prepared that assessment. It was dated 3
April 2003. It was called Traffic Impact Study. That assessment was based on a comparison of
trips generated by a fully occupied shopping center, consisting of the existing buildings, the
Ames, the Wal-Mart, and the restaurant, the diner that’s out on Route 9, versus the proposed
freestanding single super discount store, using standard Institute of Transportation Engineers
trip generation rates.
MR. HUNSINGER-So those were projections, not actuals?
MR. LOTHIAN-They’re projections based on standard nationwide statistics of that type of use,
but some of the comments that I saw, some of the comments appeared that they didn’t
understand that when we called out the existing store in our comparison, the existing was
based on the 200 plus thousand square feet three building shopping center that was generating
the trips, by right, it was already approved. The traffic, the accesses were all built and
constructed to support a 200,000 square foot shopping center. Now what’s happening is we’re
tearing down 70,000 square foot of that shopping center, putting back 90 plus thousand square
feet, and putting in the single combined use, but it’s really a two use, it’s adding in the
supermarket section. So, to give you an idea of some of the trips to the shopping center that
were attracted by similar uses, the Ames and the Wal-Mart had some similar uses. The
restaurant was another type of use which generated peak hour traffic. The internal trip making
for that existing shopping center, fully occupied. Again, anything we’re doing with our
comparison was based on the assumed fully occupied shopping center, and that’s a comparison
that we want to make. So, internal trip making is already included in the category for shopping
center. If we used individual trips for a discount store, which is Wal-Mart, individual trips for a
shopping center, which would be the Ames, and a separate trip for the restaurant, if we added
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all those individual trips instead of treating it as a shopping center, the actual existing or
allowable no build volume for a fully occupied shopping center would actually be greater than
what we showed in our report. Trips to that discount super store, which is what the Wal-Mart
will be, that includes combining trips to both a retail and a supermarket without being a
separate, new trip on the surround roadway system. These shared trips now result in some
benefits to some of the off site intersections. The supermarket use at the site is not really a new
attraction to the area. If this was a different type of retail store, it could be a new attraction
because it’s something that’s not already up and down the Route 9 corridor, another type of
retail opportunity, but supermarkets, all residents of Queensbury and surrounding towns all
shop at a supermarket today. Somewhere, they shop at some type of food store. So the use
that’s going in to the site, replacing this 90,000 square feet, is not a new use to the area. There’s
going to be trips that are going to be re-directed. They’re going to an existing supermarket
today, they may be re-directed to come to this store. Some of the trips may be short. Take, for
instance, people that live to the north on Route 9 that are coming down. Today they’d have to
go past the Wal-Mart site, possibly going through the 9 and 254 intersection, going through that
more congested area and they would now have the ability to stop at Route 9, turn in by Wal-
Mart, and then continue back up in a northerly direction. It’s just one of the re-directed possible
trips. So it could potentially take some additional trips out of some of the more congested area.
Again, it’s what I call the non-scientific ice cream factor. People that are going to go to a
supermarket because of the frozen foods, they don’t want their ice cream to melt by the time
they get home. So we’re not generating trips to this Wal-Mart Super Store from miles and miles
around. You look at the frozen food factor. Eight to ten miles, by the time you load your
groceries and get them back, they’re melted. So people tend to go shopping at their
supermarket more locally. So when we take away the Ames store, which could have drawn
from a greater distance, people from a greater distance, because there might not have been
another Ames store around, but you’re putting in a supermarket, you’re generating from a
more communal, more local area.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think that discussion would be appropriate to ask a related question.
When you look at market demographics, before you put a new store into an area, when you
look at a super center like this one, what’s the radius that you consider? For example, when
Lowe’s came to town, one of the comments that their pre-site selection people indicated is that
they typically look at about a 25 mile radius, and the reason why they came to Queensbury
before Saratoga is because if they located in Queensbury, they would draw people from
Saratoga, but if they put it in Saratoga, they would not draw people from Albany. So I think it’s
a very relevant question to traffic.
MR. LOTHIAN-Well, with the Wal-Mart store, would generate from a larger area around if it’s
the only Wal-Mart store, but when you’re talking about the Super Center addition to the Wal-
Mart store that’s already there, you don’t look at increasing the radius. You’re actually
decreasing the radius for that additional type of use, and it’s also the shared use that’s coming
in that now has the opportunity to shop both types of shopping supermarket and retail at the
same location, rather than going back onto the roadway system to shop at another location.
MR. MAC EWAN-Do you have data to back that up?
MR. LOTHIAN-There is data that’s, typical data. It all depends on whether you’re in a more
downtown area, versus a more suburban area. So it depends on whether there’s other stores,
other competing stores in the area how far of a distance you draw. Typically the stores may
draw 10 to 12 miles radius, depending upon where the next store is. For the super centers with
the food, again, they’re drawing from a closer in radius because of the frozen food factor.
MR. RINGER-You must have data, though, on the number of trips into a non super center and
super center store. I mean, you know what the number of trips are now into the Wal-Mart, and
you know, say at Wilton, if that’s a comparable volume store, the number of trips to the Super
Center.
MR. LOTHIAN-Well, the Super Center numbers are typically all based on the ITE trip
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generation numbers. That’s the numbers that New York State DOT uses. That’s the number
that’s used as a basis for comparison of that type of use on the roadway system.
MR. RINGER-But you should be able to, it seems to me, I’m sorry, Chris.
MR. HUNSINGER-That’s okay. No, you’re getting at some of the comments I wanted to make,
too.
MR. RINGER-It seems to me that if you know that the number of trips at the say, let’s use
Wilton as an example, the Wilton Super Center, is 1,000 cars per day, or 2,000 cars per day, and
you know that the Glens Falls store without a Super Center is 800 cars a day, that’s a 200 car
increase. It seems to me you should have that data some place, or know what that data is.
MR. LOTHIAN-Well, the estimated data we do have, and we have noted that difference based
on the types of stores, but not specific data. We didn’t go out and count the Wilton store. We
don’t have specific data going in and out of the driveways of that individual store, but we do
have it based on the typical comparison based on the ITE data for the standard discount store
versus the super discount store.
MR. RINGER-Well, you know how many customer transactions you’ve got at the Wilton store,
and you know how many customer transactions you’ve got at the Glens Falls store, and if the
stores are comparable, you say the customer transactions would give you a number of cars,
roughly, and that would give you your number of trips in and out of the stores, I would think. I
mean, there must be a way to do it.
MR. LOTHIAN-Well, I am Wal-Mart’s consultant. I don’t work for Wal-Mart. So I don’t have
the transaction data. That’s proprietary information that they don’t like to hand out that type of
thing.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I mean, maybe they can massage it so that we wouldn’t know that
that’s how it came from.
MR. RINGER-Yes. We don’t have to know what store it came from, but you could say a super
store does this, and a non super store does this.
MR. HUNSINGER-And I guess that was my sort of comment on the traffic analysis. When I
first read the conclusions that you expected that the after development traffic to actually be a
little less than what the full volume was when Ames was open and the diner was open, I sort of
intrinsically thought that that made sense, and then when I started to get into the reports, to
find out that there were no actual counts, t that really kind of disturbed me because.
MR. LOTHIAN-No actual driveway counts, but it is counts, trip generation projections based
on that type of store, both the discount store.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, if I could just kind of finish my thought process here, the site plan for
the existing store was approved based on projections, and I guess it would be useful to us, as a
Planning Board, particularly where we know we have an intersection that’s failing, you know, a
fairly significant portion of the time, at 254 and Route 9, it would be useful to us to know if
indeed those projections that were presented to us way back when actually turned out to be
true, and then that would give validity to your argument that you’re making now, by saying,
well, we expect that the trip generations to be actually a little less than it was when Ames and
the diner were open. I guess that’s our, the only argument that I’m trying to, or the question
that I’m trying to make.
MR. LOTHIAN-Understood.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
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MR. LOTHIAN-A couple of other things. I mentioned the fact that some of these surrounding
intersections could be less impacted because of the combination of the store, and you had just
brought up one point, the intersection of 254 and Route 9. We understand that DOT has, in
their TIP Program, projected improvements to that intersection. They might be put off for a
certain period of time. They’re working on their design, but that is in the works, to study and
address that congestion at that intersection.
MR. HUNSINGER-And again, I think I could tend to agree with that comment, and you made
the comment earlier, traffic driving south on Route 9, they may go to your Super Center instead
of continuing south through that intersection to go to Price Chopper or turn left and go down to
Hanneford. I mean, that just makes sense to me that that could happen, and that will happen
actually.
MR. LOTHIAN-And it could, and another thing, we did get a letter from the New York State
DOT. They sent us a letter dated May 2. They did concur with the conclusions in our traffic
nd
assessment and our traffic comparison that no additional traffic would be generated by the site
re-development, and it’s all based on the acceptable traffic engineering methodology. So the
DOT understood exactly what we did. They looked at our numbers, and let me get into one
point here, and it’s based on the trip generation discrepancy that was identified in the Aaron
Frankenfeld letter. I think that’s come up with this transportation, and I think that maybe I
should have hit that first. Because they identified it as a potential discrepancy and that you
might look at all the numbers a little askew, but that discrepancy that Mr. Frankenfeld had
brought up, it’s based, because he used the ITE trip generation average rates for the shopping
center as a base condition, instead of using the ITE equation rates. The equation rates are
typically used for larger sized shopping centers, you know, in excess of 100,000 square feet. The
equation rates give you more trips per 1,000 square feet, but they give you a more realistic trip,
more realistic relationship, because it’s based on a closer representation of the actual square
footage of the store based on the number of trips for that store. So what Mr. Frankenfeld did is
he was looking at numbers based on the average rates, which is just a straight line diagram on a
graph, and we utilized the equations, which are more typically used on any one of the analysis,
and the equations come out with a higher ratio. The equations we used for the no build
condition or the essentially the full build out of the existing shopping center and also the
equations were used for the Wal-Mart Super Store. So we’re talking apples to apples. In effect
what Mr. Frankenfeld was doing was he was talking oranges to apples, comparing an average
rate versus an equation rate, and we believe the equation rates are more accurate and more
representative of the type of size of store that we’re talking about here. These equation rates are
also recognized by New York State DOT and just about every other State that we deal with.
After reviewing of some of the access roads and the roadway conditions throughout several
days and during the peak hours, we noted some of the following issues, and some of these
might help address some of the questions that some of you might have. We looked at the left
turn entry at both the north and south driveways on Route 9. They work pretty well in relation
to the gaps that are created by the Sweet Road signal, the signal at the northerly site driveway,
and also coming in the opposite direction, the signal that was placed that the Home Depot
driveway coming in the other direction. So the northbound traffic has its own northbound left
turn lane, can enter at the southerly access point or the central access point, and southbound
traffic can typically enter Weeks Road, or it can enter either one of the two site driveways,
coming further through the signal at the site drive. So entering traffic is split to the three rows,
and then if you come in Weeks you can make the first left hand turn in to the middle of the
shopping center. The exiting traffic, and this is one of the things that we noticed from
observations of the existing conditions also, the shopping center traffic that’s exiting the site, if
you’re going to turn left out of this site, you’re going to come out the central located area, you’re
going to come out this driveway here, because you’re coming out at a traffic signal, and you can
conveniently make the left hand turn. If you’re coming out, if you’re parked anywhere in the
parking lot today, and today you’re really only using this part of the parking lot around the
front of the Wal-Mart store, there’s not a lot of parking going on in front of the Ames, but if
you’re going to be making a right hand turn in out of the store, you either filter through the
parking lot and go out the southerly access or you can get out the signalized access and make
the right. Nowhere in the parking lot would you want to go out of your way to make a right
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hand turn onto Weeks and make a right hand turn coming out of there. The only traffic that’s
really utilizing Weeks Road is the truck traffic, existing truck traffic that goes around the store,
pulls into the dock, and then they leave, they come out, make the right hand turn, and go down
Weeks, and they make a right turn. All of the Wal-Mart trucks, at this point, are really making a
right hand turn coming out of Weeks. They don’t have to go further north on 9. So it’s only
that right hand turn. Now, any of the projected traffic from the proposed Super Store, again, we
don’t see that traffic, any additional traffic wanting to come out Weeks, other than the trucks,
and you’re probably going to be looking at an increase from maybe three trucks a day of the
semi tractor trailer types to maybe six or seven tops, coming out with the Wal-Mart Super Store,
seven trucks scattered throughout the day. Typically when I was observing it, even last night
there was a 5:30 truck and then there was an 8:15 truck that was exiting the site. So they’re
spread out by several hours, and the gaps that are created by the traffic signal at Sweet Road
and also the signal at the site entry drive provide gaps in the north and south bound streams of
traffic on Route 9 that do allow that truck to exit. Again, it’s a narrow roadway, but the trucks
physically do make that turn onto Route 9 southbound. Some of the other things we observed,
and it came up in comments in some of the, not only Staff comments, but also comments that
we heard at the meeting, was some of the access in and around Ray Supply just to the south, the
fact that the driveway access is in relatively close proximity, but Ray Supply does have the, has
the two accesses, one is in very close proximity. It’s a full movement driveway here, but at the
opposite side of Ray Supply, there’s another full movement driveway, and typically, all
movements, if you’re coming in a northbound direction, some traffic does make that left hand
turn and go into Ray Supply from here. Others go in to the left turn slot that also services the
Wal-Mart driveway, but they turn and go into Ray Supply there. So they also have the access or
the ability to get into the site, and also out of the site at two locations. Does traffic sometimes
queue up along Route 9? Not typically for a long period of time, and some of that traffic, some
of the vehicles may be Ray’s traffic trying to turn into their site. So the traffic pretty much
queue’s out very quickly entering the Wal-Mart site. If there’s any indication of a potential back
up for any short distance of time, or short period of time, the cars have the ability to go to the
northerly access point and wait and make the left turn at the traffic signal. So there is multiple
positions and points to make the turns created in the gaps along that system.
MR. RINGER-Is there any possibility you could connect with Ray’s Supply?
MR. LOTHIAN-We took a look at that, again, based on some of the comments we heard, but
there’s two things. One, any point in the back, the grade separation is too difficult, and that’s
not where their parking is, and in on the side over here, I think by any type of connection at this
location, where we would go into the driveway, it would probably add to more congestion at
that point than it would try and improve. Based on the typical operations of several bays, just
watching the traffic all around the entire site, again, it was during the week, but I didn’t notice
any significant backups. There were no problems getting in or out of Ray’s Supply at this point,
and I think by any type of connection at this location into the Wal-Mart site would just add too
much congestion at a spot where we’re trying to eliminate a four way movement. Right now
we’re proposing to island off this area right here, so we’re getting rid of a chance to go straight
through into the site, and make a right hand turn, or make a left hand turn. By us canoeing this
off, now it’s a more typical entry movement. You come in and you make either the right or left
turn. If you have another movement in there, it’ll just add to the congestion.
MR. HUNSINGER-I always go straight.
MR. LOTHIAN-Now you’re going to have to go right or left, but that.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I don’t want to monopolize the questions.
MR. MAC EWAN-You’re not monopolizing.
MR. HUNSINGER-No, that’s all right.
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MRS. LA BOMBARD-No, keep going, Chris.
MR. MAC EWAN-Have you got anymore?
MR. HUNSINGER-No, that’s all right.
MR. MAC EWAN-Larry?
MR. RINGER-No, nothing more.
MR. MAC EWAN-Cathy?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-No. I’m just listening. I’m learning a lot here.
MR. MAC EWAN-Robert?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I just want to make a comment, just real quickly, and then I’ll get into my,
I notice that in the letter that we got from Mr. Frankenfeld, that in his second page, he says, and
this is his closing paragraph, he says in order to address to concerns related to how much traffic
the existing facility generates, and analysis that uses trip generation rates derived from actual
Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart Super Store facilities may be warranted, and I have some sympathy
with that remark, I believe.
MR. LOTHIAN-We focus on the may in that, and we believe that utilizing this comparison with
the ITE trip rates, which are based on nationwide statistics of, not only Wal-Marts, all types of
stores, but Wal-Marts included, we believe that those are representative of what this
comparison is that we’re talking about.
MR. VOLLARO-I don’t like to totally just discount the idea of taking a look at trip rates derived
from actual data. I play around, myself, with a lot of that kind of stuff, not traffic stuff, but did
enough work with things like generated data to know that people who use it can skew it. I
would much rather take a look at, I would be very happy to see some related trip generation
rates from other stores. That’s just a comment I’ll make on that, without getting into that. I
have a note that I will make to some of the people at Staff, that I think this whole traffic thing,
you’re an employee of Wal-Mart, and I understand that.
MR. LOTHIAN-No.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re not. You’re a consultant to Wal-Mart.
MR. LOTHIAN-I’m a consultant, yes.
MR. VOLLARO-But that consultant fee is paid to you. I certainly would like to see another
source to take a look at this traffic, whether it be the people from C.T. Male’s traffic department
or Creighton Manning, perhaps, or any other outside source to take a look at some of this.
That’s my comment. I don’t want to get in and banter around on the traffic thing, because I
think that that, unless you really get down to nuts and bolts, you have a very tough time doing
that.
MR. LOTHIAN-Okay. The Department of Transportation did already do that.
MR. VOLLARO-I saw their letter, but there is some question here, and I see it as a letter in our
file from somebody else who has some questions, that may come up during the public hearing, I
assume. Sticking with the outline of traffic access management, I would just like to, I guess I’m
going to put something out on the table that I’ve been thinking on for a while. It happens to be
in here. It’s called the adequacy of the Weeks Road geometry. I went up to Weeks Road and
measured the driving lanes up there, and taking a page out of Mr. Strough’s book a little bit ago
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when he said let’s keep all that traffic as far north of the site as we can, I would certainly like to
at least explore the widening of Weeks Road so that all trucks come in on Weeks Road and
depart on Weeks Road. That’s roughly a 19 foot driving, by my tape anyway, about 19 foot of
driving surface there. Now, there are other concerns on the whole Weeks Road corridor. There
are sewer concerns that are going on there at the present time. That’s why I asked the question
before, have you had any contact with our Highway or our Sewer Department, because there is
a bid already out right now, as we speak today, and I guess Mr. Round probably knows more
about this than I do, but the bids are out for the Route 9 corridor. The driving force for that is
really the prison that’s up a little bit further north. They have to have their sewer in by a certain
date. In any event, I would like to at least explore that whole Weeks Road idea of widening it
and now your truck traffic, because if you take a look at that southern traffic, the southernmost
exit there, there’s a pedestrian crosswalk there. You’re going to have a mix of traffic and private
vehicles in that area as well. You’ve got the Ray’s Supply problem that’s been talked about.
That southern entrance is going to be very, very busy, I feel, and from a safety point of view, I
would like the trucks not to go in there, from the standpoint of noise impacts on the
surrounding, both the residential areas to the back, to the west of that site, and to the south of
that site, all of this noise problem and truck idling stuff would all go away. All of it, by taking
and focusing a little bit on how to get the trucks right up Weeks Road. Now I, on my map I’ve
drawn a 40 foot wide driving surface on Weeks Road. There may be a slight impact to the
Flower Drum Song, the Chinese restaurant there getting pretty close to their line, but all of these
things can be worked out if we put our minds to it and get that truck traffic out of that site and
off to the north. Now that’s just something I’ve laid down. I’m throwing it out on the table. It’s
not something that’s approved by Staff. It’s not something that this Board has probably even
heard of before. Maybe a couple of people that I’ve banged it up against, but I do know there’s
some, there are some constrictions, there are time constrictions on doing this. I had talked a
little bit to some people today about possibly putting the sewer pipe into that road before or
while it’s being modified, if we modify it. They’re going to put the sewer lines in there in any
event, and you’re going to have manholes in there, and I’ve looked at where those manholes are
going to go. There is a way to do this, if we sit down and really examine it, that Weeks Road
could be widened to accommodate all that truck traffic. It’s an idea. I wanted to throw it out to
your planners, your engineering folks, and see what the feasibility of that is, but you’d have to
do some discussion with our Highway and Sewer people, too, in terms of schedule and
planning. So that’s one thing I just wanted to get that out on the table. Now there are two
interconnections, and I’m still on traffic access management. There are two possible
connections, interconnections with the Flower Drum Song, and you make that comment, I
think, on your drawing, it says to be done by others. There’s two places on Flower Drum
where you could make that interconnection, and you make that statement on your drawings in
two places, and I think that ought to be looked at now, as opposed to by others. I think that that
discussion, that, you know, getting that access to that site ought to be looked at today, as
opposed to some place in the future. When you talk about other impacts on other adjacent
properties, of course the big impact that I see on the adjacent streets is not just the impact that
Wal-Mart’s going to have, but now I look at a projection coming up at the Mall for a Target
store. There’s an opening of a major Home Depot going on. Now there’s Ames and the thing
that takes the hit there is 254 and 9, big time in my mind, and that concerns me as much as this
specific site. We on this Board generally have a very difficult time backing away and looking at,
you know, it’s hard for us to say, okay, now what’s going to happen with all of this? So we tend
to focus on a site by site by site basis, but the incremental impact here is something that I’m
concerned with, particularly on Route 9. So, I think that’s about all I have, Mr. Chairman, on
access management. I’ve taken enough time talking about it, but I wanted to get this whole
Weeks Road thing out on the table. I know I’ve talked to Mr. Round about it. I think Chris
cautioned me not to be a designer. I’m not going to design your site, but I wanted to throw that
on the table for you, as something for you to think about. Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-John?
MR. STROUGH-Well, I’m going to be on your side a little bit. I mean, after considering the trip
generations that the current Wal-Mart generates, what Ames potentially could be generating if
it were open, and a viable business, and the restaurant, and the trip generation there, if you
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considered the whole picture and the maximum impact, I don’t think your figures are that far
off. So, you know, yes, are we going to have more traffic with a Super Wal-Mart than we do
with just the Wal-Mart? Yes, but, I mean, when you look at Ames, and Ames is going to be
gone, the restaurant’s going to be gone, and maybe a 20% increase, but that 20% increase still, I
don’t think, accounted for the restaurant.
MR. LOTHIAN-That’s correct.
MR. STROUGH-So if you take that out of the picture, so I don’t think you’re that far off. So I
didn’t find much I disagreed with on your traffic analysis, to tell you the truth. I would like to
take a harder look at the Ray’s Supply interconnect, and like Bob said, I’d like to see these
interconnects, it’s part of our Town Code that we always try and get everybody to interconnect
whenever possible because, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of our Million Dollar Half Mile,
but that was, you know, we’ve learned from our mistakes, and if we had interconnects there,
it’s, well, we’re slowly getting there, but, you know, it’s led to a lot of headaches. So, yes, I
would like to take a harder look at the interconnect ideas, but overall, I thought your figures
were reasonable, and so I didn’t have a problem with that. Only just that my wife really likes
the Super Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart, in Wilton. So subtract one car from Wilton’s and add it
down here. Okay. Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-George, I guess this one’s for you. Can you contact the Wilton Planning
Department and see if there’s any data available from the original Wal-Mart application for
traffic analysis and also from the application when they enlarged it to a grocery center, and see
what they can supply us.
MR. RINGER-You might try Malta, too, which is on Route 9 just a little ways down. It’s got a
Super Center that just opened.
MR. MAC EWAN-Try them as well, the Town of Malta.
MR. RINGER-Malta opened one not too long ago, also on Route 9. So it doesn’t have as much
traffic.
MR. MAC EWAN-While you’re at it, while you’re on that phone, try the Town of Half Moon,
too. They have one. Access management, site circulation.
MR. HUNSINGER-I didn’t really have any questions on that. I do agree with Mr. Strough,
though, on the connect to Ray’s Supply store. I guess that kind of came under both traffic and
access management. Because as he pointed out, it is something in the Code. We ask almost
every applicant to at least show us the potential for one, you know, even if it isn’t practical
today. So we would like you to take a look at that, I guess.
MR. STROUGH-Geography may be a problem, but nothing a bull dozer wouldn’t fix.
MR. MAC EWAN-Truism.
MR. FITAMANT-Is it your suggestion to, what, knock down the Ray’s Supply or?
MR. STROUGH-No, I don’t know. We might be able to work out something, but like I said, I
think we ought to take a little bit harder look at it, but, in the end, we may agree with you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else?
MR. HUNSINGER-I guess I did have one question. There’s some discussion about the bus
traffic. I mean, it’s good to see the bump out area for the bus. Do you know how the bus traffic
will enter and exit the site? Would it be similar to the tractor trailer traffic, or would it be
coming up Weeks Road?
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MR. LOTHIAN-Well, today the bus comes up Weeks Road.
MR. HUNSINGER-That’s what I thought, yes.
MR. LOTHIAN-So I think it’s going to come past where the existing bus stop is and then enter
the site.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. LOTHIAN-Because then that’ll put it on the correct side of the road for the bus stop.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Great. I didn’t have any other questions.
MR. MAC EWAN-Larry?
MR. RINGER-I think that what they’re showing is an improvement over what’s there in the
parking and circulation. I think it’s better than you currently have there.
MR. MAC EWAN-Cathy?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Would you compare for me, or contrast, the parking lot here with the one
in Wilton? I’ve been to the one in Wilton a couple of times, and I would like you to know, the
reason I went was not to go shopping, but the first time I went was they gave me a grant for
some research that I did with my students, and I thought that was very generous of them, and
then I went back and I spent my money at the store, which was good, too, but when I pulled in
to park for the first time, to be quite honest with you, it was very accessible, and, you know, you
come in from the first time off Route 50, and then you take the turn, and then down that,
whatever that road is, Gick Road, and then you go into the, and I thought, wow, this really
works nice, I’m thinking, and then when I pulled in to the parking lot, I didn’t really know
which door to go in, so I kind of parked away, and I have a little bit farther to walk than I would
have liked, but that was okay, and then when I came out, it worked very nicely, too. Now, were
there more, was there just one way to come out from the Wilton store or, I mean, what’s the
difference in going in and, it seems to me like there’s more ways to get lost in this plan than
there was in the other plan.
MR. LOTHIAN-No. They don’t have a direct access out to the State highway. They’ve got to
go in Gick, and then you go on to Lowe’s Road. It should be Wal-Mart Road, but you have to
go on Lowe’s Road in order to get into their entry road.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Right. You have to go on that little access road.
MR. LOTHIAN-So you can either go to the back of their store, and enter off of Gick Road, or
then go in Lowe’s Road and then cut in to the parking lot, and then there’s also an
interconnection between Wal-Mart and Lowe’s on there. So there’s like three ways to get there,
but none of them are directly out to the State highway.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Right.
MR. LOTHIAN-This is, has the two accesses directly out to the State highway and then the
accesses along Weeks, which is the local road. They’re two dissimilar stores. One is set back off
the highway and this is right on the highway, but this one works pretty well in that there is long
enough throats to get off of Route 9, comes in. You don’t have a turning decision until you get,
you know, a couple of hundred feet, or 150 feet into the site. That’s what we really look for.
They don’t really need that at the Wilton store because they’re already set so far back off the
highway.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes. Well, first of all, like that, the southeast entrance there next to Ray’s
Supply, I’m glad that you’re going to take the decision making process out of there, like what
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way should we go, right, left, straight, you know, or whatever, because I really start worrying
there, is somebody going to come? Am I going to get clipped? Because years ago, I totaled my
Volkswagen in the Ames parking lot. Well, somebody hit my broadside, and when I look at the
parking, for some reason right now that parking looks like, heavens, I’m going to come around
the corner, I’m going to get nailed again, but, in reality, I know that’s not going to happen
because I go to the Wal-Mart here a lot, but it just looks like, right now, that it’s a maze.
MR. LOTHIAN-Well, this system there is very typical. You come in the throats at the two
access points and you essentially come to a canoe end. So if you’re going in the northerly
access, you hit an island in front of you, so you either have to make a left or a right, and the
entering traffic is the one with the free flow. The entering traffic doesn’t stop because that way
you don’t back it up out onto the State highway, but typically it’s, both access points are very
similar now with the proposed condition, at the southerly access point where you’re going to
separate the traffic, either go left or right, and then it could filter in the parking lot through any
one of the aisles. That’s pretty typical to most parking lot arrangements. You try and disperse
the traffic, rather than shooting it straight up to the front of the store where you’re mixing it
with the pedestrians. We don’t really want to do that.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Now, are you going to try to encourage an egress out onto Weeks Road?
MR. LOTHIAN-The only people who use Weeks Road are the residential customers that would
be further back along a dead end side of Weeks.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Well, the people that would be using that, the upper parking lot.
MR. LOTHIAN-Even those people, if they want to go toward the 9 and 254 intersection, they
wouldn’t want to go towards Weeks Road to go out and maybe sit behind one car because
there’s an unsignalized intersection. Weeks is unsignalized. Sweet is signalized but Weeks is
unsignalized.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-That’s right, when you come out of there.
MR. LOTHIAN-So when the Sweet Road change, that signal changes, you can get gaps in the
traffic to get out at Weeks, but still, if I’m even parked up in that upper right hand corner
parking lot, I’m going to come out, down to either the signalized access and make the right, or
I’d come all the way down to the southerly access point and make the right. There’s no sense in
going north to come back south.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-And I just wanted to make one comment about the traffic generation
study that, well, it hasn’t really been a study, but from your data, as far as people shopping
from eight to ten miles, and, you know, they don’t want their frozen foods to melt before they
get home, they come from far away, trust me, they do. My mother thinks nothing, and she’s 80
years old, she and her girlfriends getting in the car and doing their monthly shopping and
spending the bucks, and I don’t know if they even bring a big cooler and stick all their frozen
stuff into it, but I’m going to tell you that people will come down from points north,
Warrensburg, Chestertown, Pottersville, Schroon Lake, trust me. They will bypass Ticonderoga
and they will come here. Because there is a big K-Mart in Ticonderoga, a Super K-Mart, but
they will. They will.
MR. RINGER-Those people are doing that now, though, and they’re going to Price Chopper
and Hanneford.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-They are. Yes.
MR. RINGER-So they aren’t going to get an increase in that, Cathy. It’s going to be the same
people.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-It will be. That’s true. It will be the same people, but I just wanted to let
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you know that, and if it melts a little bit, they’ll just stick it back in the freezer and re-freeze it.
MR. LOTHIAN-It never tastes as good.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-I know. I agree. I don’t buy frozen food. Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-Robert?
MR. VOLLARO-Are we on parking site circulation now?
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, access management, site circulation, yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. I think I said my piece on traffic access management. My big thing is,
you heard what I had to say on it, and I’m just really concerned about the fact that we’ve got a
walkway in front of going, a sidewalk going in the front of that store, and that sidewalk has
pedestrian crosswalks on it that go through what I consider to be probably one of the major
ingress/egress for that lot, and that’s the southern lot, the southern side. Maybe not so much an
ingress, but I think a good deal of the people come out of that southern exit, and that’s what is
concerning Ray’s Supply, I’m sure, in looking at their letters, and they’ll have their turn up at
this table as well. I just strive, I saw two good things from where I was talking, the noise
impacts to the people to the south and the people to west would totally go away if we could
bring that truck traffic to the north side of this site. It would totally go away. Wouldn’t have
any more. They wouldn’t hear it. They wouldn’t hear anything, and I think that that’s
something we really ought to take a look at. That’s my opinion, and there’s a lot of if’s and
but’s that go along with that, and I think there are some people in this room who probably
understand what that is, as well as I do, people who have interfaced with our Sewer
Department and our Highway Department, but that’s something that has to be, I think that it
would behoove somebody from Wal-Mart to probably pay a visit to a Mr. Michael Shaw, up at
the Sewer Department, to talk a little bit about that, because if that road is going to get a sewer
laid in it, we very well may be able to widen it, and that’s about all I’ve got, Mr. Chairman, on
that one.
MR. MAC EWAN-John?
MR. STROUGH-Yes, well, first of all, I want to agree with Cathy in that, you know, this is, I’m
speaking as a customer, a regular customer to Wal-Mart with two teenagers, and we’re a Wal-
Mart family. So I’m there, I’m embarrassed to tell you how many times a week. So I approach
it, I come from the north most of the time, and then I swing right, it’s at the light. I swing right
and in, and I see you bumped that back a little bit, but when snow mounding gets in there, I
mean, the way that you’re making me maneuver my vehicle, sometimes I have to wait for the
other person to move, or they have to wait for me to move. It’s not easy. It may look good on
paper, but then again, all might be moot, because, well, along with Bob’s suggesting, and I’ll
second that, getting the truck traffic routed over to the right, either on your parking area or on
Weeks Road or somehow doing that seems to be an effort that I’d really like you to look at. It
may change the whole configuration of the parking lot. Adding a little bit more landscaping,
and maybe putting in some more pedestrian amenities, etc. may change this configuration. So
talking about the current proposed configuration might be a moot point, and I think in my
mind it is, because I think it’s going to significantly change, and get better, as we progress here.
So, you know, that’s all I have. I think we do have to keep snow mounding in mind when we
design these parking areas, but that’s it for me, on that issue.
MR. MAC EWAN-Chris, pedestrian access?
MR. HUNSINGER-I didn’t have any questions or comments. I saw the sidewalks that were
included on the new site plan. I thought it looked good. I didn’t have anything else to add.
MR. MAC EWAN-Larry?
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MR. RINGER-I have nothing.
MR. MAC EWAN-Cathy?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-No.
MR. MAC EWAN-Robert?
MR. VOLLARO-No. I think they’re adequate. I looked at all the signage that’s on the, if you
take a look at all the little circles and all of the, you know, the notations on their drawing, if you
look at the legends, there’s a couple of things in there that I could, one of the signs are
backwards, I think. It shows the truck traffic going in a different direction. I can break it out,
but there’s no sense in getting it all, take a look at all your little circles and all your little arrows
and you’ll find that one of those arrows are going in the wrong direction. Trust me. You’ll find
it if you look at it. That’s about it. I don’t have any, pedestrian access looks reasonable to me.
MR. MAC EWAN-John?
MR. STROUGH-Well, looking at it from the pedestrian point of view, this is, like I said, it’s, it
invites vehicles, but it doesn’t invite pedestrians. The way it’s designed, it doesn’t encourage
pedestrian activity. I think a lot of times that’s what we want to encourage, pedestrian activity.
It doesn’t present any pedestrian amenities, and I might get into this discussion later. I mean,
your bus stop area, okay, I like the bump out. That’s good, and that encourages some kind of a
pedestrian presence, but it’s not a pleasant one. I mean, if there was more landscaping or
maybe it was a gazebo rather than that metal box, you know, it looks so, well, retail, I mean, in a
traditional sense, but this aesthetic discussion, I’m going to have a little bit more to say later. So
I’m going to save it.
MR. MAC EWAN-Trust me, you won’t be alone on that.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Me, too.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. So I guess we’re agreed that bullet item there’s not many issues with
it I guess. Chris, on parking in general?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I think, like everyone else on the Board, I’d prefer to see less parking
rather than more parking. I didn’t have particularly strong feelings about the Staff’s suggestion
to remove those 11 spots, but, again, you know, I’d prefer to see green space over parking any
time. There were comments made earlier about the parking area closest to Route 9. I agree, it’ll
probably never be full, not even close, most of the time that’s used only when there’s some
special event or, you know, things that are held during the summer months, but I think overall
it’s okay. Again, if there’s some ways to decrease it a little bit, I’d always be in favor of that.
MR. MAC EWAN-Larry?
MR. RINGER-I have nothing more to add on parking. If they could reduce it, great.
MR. MAC EWAN-Cathy?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-No, I was just a little bit in conflict here that Staff would like it to be,
we’re talking about three and a half, and then you would like it four parking spaces per one
thousand square feet, and I’m just wondering where that’s going to go. So have we really
addressed that?
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t think we really have at this point.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay.
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MR. MAC EWAN-Anything you wanted to add, George?
MR. HILTON-No. I mean, we’ve made the comment and you’ve heard it this evening that
we’re supportive of a lower parking ratio.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think we all are.
MR. HILTON-To accommodate interior parking lot landscaping. As far as the 11 spaces, I
mean, that’s a different kind of concern. I mean, that’s a drive aisle, and the use of those spaces
may conflict with vehicles coming in to the site and exiting the site and so that’s our concern
with those 11 spaces.
MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t disagree with that comment. I just don’t have real strong feelings.
MR. RINGER-If you took those 11 spaces out that you say is going to be employee parking, why
couldn’t you put the employee parking down closer to Route 9, which isn’t going to be used
most of the time, or ever.
MR. LOTHIAN-Well, that can be done, and there again, we’re looking to, the applicant is Wal-
Mart. Wal-Mart prefers their 4.0 ratio per 1,000 feet of gross leasable area. If there are issues
such as the entrance, those 11 spots and that’s something that we can look, and if we modify
that, we looked at that based on these comments, we looked at some alternatives, and found
that we could pick up actually, closing that off, pick up three or four spots, so we probably can
recoup some of those 11 that we lost, and that’s something that we could work with and we see
some alternatives to that.
MR. RINGER-We got burned a little bit, because we have a Super K-Mart where we have a
parking lot that is just enormous and vacant quite a bit. So we feel we’ve been burned a little bit
with so much pavement that’s not necessary.
MR. MAC EWAN-It was almost about eight years ago when I heard an agent for K-Mart say
almost the same words you just did, about what corporate needs to have for parking and they
have never even come close to it.
MR. LOTHIAN-What is their parking ratio?
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t remember what the ratio was that they needed to have for that size
store. They don’t even fill up a third of the lot.
MR. FITAMANT-Probably five. Four is getting tight. Three and a half is, that’s probably the
minimum that.
MR. MAC EWAN-But experience dictates. I mean, we’ve seen this store in operation for several
years now and I think any one of us will attest that that parking lot has never achieved a
maximum parking capacity for more than maybe two days or three days out of the entire year.
MR. STROUGH-You could put your Super Wal-Mart there and still have parking left over.
MR. VOLLARO-I think the same thing would apply to Lowe’s. That Lowe’s lot is never
completely full.
MR. MAC EWAN-The same way.
MR. VOLLARO-Even with the restaurant that’s almost on the site today.
MR. RINGER-It’s just we’ve gotten burnt, and we’re pretty tight on the parking.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else, Larry?
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MR. RINGER-No. I didn’t mean to interrupt.
MR. MAC EWAN-Cathy?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-No. I’d almost like to see something where we didn’t have as much
parking and then if you ever needed it down the line, then maybe you could put it in.
MR. RINGER-They could come back for a modification.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-That would be a modification. Right.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s doable. I mean, show that you can maintain the capacity by
preserving some green space. That’s definitely a possibility. Robert?
MR. VOLLARO-No. With two, the internal geometry doesn’t look, I think as the gentleman
said here, this is pretty typical of most parking lots in the way that it runs and the way that it
operates. I just, when you get down to parking and conflict with traffic circulation, I think one
of the big things, and I’m going to keep driving this point, one of the big things that’s going to
give you conflict is a time when one of those 18 wheelers is going to start pulling in into that lot.
That’s conflict with that traffic pattern on that southern end, I think.
MR. RINGER-The 18’s are going to go up and make a left and go around the building. They
aren’t going to really connect with the cars. The deliveries are going to come in and go left all
the way around. I don’t see where they’re going to get in the way of the cars.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, they’re going to be using the same entrance as an automobile is using.
MR. RINGER-But it’s going to be in and out. There’s only 12 of them a day.
MR. VOLLARO-They’re sharing the same ingress.
MR. RINGER-But only 12 a day.
MR. VOLLARO-I know, but during the 1/12 period per day, I could see a good deal of conflict
th
just getting in there. I see no reason why we can’t take a good hard look at getting that off to
the north side.
MR. MAC EWAN-I support you on that, Bob.
MR. VOLLARO-You’re going to hear that drumbeat from me for a while.
MR. RINGER-I just wonder if you’ve taken into consideration all the apartments up on Weeks
Road, Robert Gardens and the other developments up there, and what impact putting all those
trucks on Weeks Road might have on them.
MR. VOLLARO-But they will never get up that far.
MR. RINGER-No, but they’re going to use that road both ways, in and out.
MR. STROUGH-But there’s six trucks a day. There’s two for food deliveries and four for
merchandise. Is that going to be a major impact?
MR. VOLLARO-The people who are being impacted the most, it seems to me, by truck traffic
and truck noise, are the people that are sitting to the south of this store. That’s the folks that are
going to get impacted the most.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-And the old Robert Gardens.
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MR. MAC EWAN-I would support exploring that possibility.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Yes, me, too.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else, Robert?
MR. VOLLARO-No, that’s it, sir.
MR. MAC EWAN-John?
MR. STROUGH-No, I’m fine.
MR. MAC EWAN-I would support Staff’s comments in removing those 11 parking areas that
are adjacent to that drive aisle. Further extend that to say that to say that to tie those two
landscaping islands together and make it one long landscaping aisle, and putting more
plantings in there.
MR. STROUGH-Well, and another thing, too, Mr. Chairman, is that if we’re going to take a
serious look at these interconnects, one of the interconnects proposed is at the western end of
the Flower Drum Song, which is, you know, if we take that parking out, it doesn’t act as an
encumbrance to the proposed interconnect.
MR. MAC EWAN-True. It’s something to look at. How did everybody feel about my comment
about the seasonal area, that they utilize the parking area and just designating that as a seasonal
display area and curbing it off and landscaping it off?
MR. VOLLARO-I think that makes a certain amount of sense. I think that it adds a little
ambience to it during the seasons.
MR. RINGER-You’re talking 47 parking spots over there?
MR. MAC EWAN-Well, I don’t how many parking spots say like in those two more southerly
area, you know, where it curbs around.
MR. RINGER-Forty-seven of them over there.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, well, I’ll support any idea that’s more internal landscaping on the parking
area.
MR. MAC EWAN-It kind of meets halfway, I guess, a little bit. It helps alleviate some pressure
of more parking than what I think the Board feels they need. It also gives us a little bit more
opportunity to landscape and break up the parking lot a little bit more.
MR. RINGER-If you did that, though, they’d want the summer space. So you’d have to put
something there, other than, and it would have to be some kind of macadam. I don’t know
what we’d be gaining.
MR. MAC EWAN-Well, the reality is that that parking area is probably lost.
MR. RINGER-Most of the year.
MR. MAC EWAN-Most of the year, yes. I mean, you’re pretty much talking like January to
March, when that area is not used for seasonal display, because they even sell Christmas trees
up there during the holiday season. So I don’t think it would be a huge loss for them if they lost
those two aisles of parking.
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MR. RINGER-I don’t, either, but my concern is they still need the room for their seasonal, and if
they put seasonal there, you’d still, you’re not going to get in.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-He’s saying that you’re still going to have to pave it, even for the seasonal
because you’re going to still have to put your.
MR. RINGER-Yes, you’re going to put stuff on there.
MR. MAC EWAN-What I’m envisioning is that area kind of like totally bordered and
landscaping, so it’s just a pedestrian like area, and that’s where people go. I mean, pedestrians
walk out there and they pick out whatever they’re looking for.
MR. RINGER-Like say a Lowe’s, you mean, would have something like Lowe’s has.
MR. STROUGH-Well, you know what, going along with what you’re thinking, Mr. Chairman, I
mean, and what I referred to before, providing some amenities for the pedestrians, and going
along with Wal-Mart, we could put some pedestrian seating out there, I mean, maybe even a
water feature. There’s all kinds of possibilities with things that Wal-Mart could do with this. So
it would be good for Wal-Mart and good for the community.
MR. MAC EWAN-Kind of get the idea of what we’re shooting for here, come back with some
ideas on that.
MR. FITAMANT-Yes. We’ll explore those. See what we can come up with.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. How does the Board feel about eliminating those 11 parking spots?
MR. VOLLARO-I think I would certainly go along with that, because I think what John has just
said, it really enhances the connection with Flower Drum Song. Right now it impedes that. If
they were gone they would be able to make that connection rather easily.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think John’s observation sort of tips the scale, definitely.
MR. RINGER-I think they should go.
MR. FITAMANT-Actually the interconnect that we would prefer would be here. This is the
existing parking field for Flower Drum Song. This is all wooded area, but right in through here.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. That’s where you have it designated on your drawing now. That’s one
of the two spots you’ve got.
MR. FITAMANT-That would be the preferred, though, of the two.
MR. STROUGH-Well, I’ll concur with that. That would be a better spot, but you do have it
addressed as a potential to the west, too.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else, John?
MR. STROUGH-No. The lighting?
MR. MAC EWAN-Everybody’s favorite topic, lighting. I’ll start with you, Chris.
MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t really have much to say, other than I certainly prefer the alternative
lighting plan, which shows the 20 foot poles versus the 42 foot poles.
MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it?
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MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. MAC EWAN-Larry?
MR. RINGER-I’d like to hear more of what they’ve got to say on the lighting.
MR. FITAMANT-Well, we’ve provided an analysis of the lighting fixtures. Twenty foot fixtures
versus forty foot fixtures. Forty foot fixtures, and this shopping center currently has forty foot
fixtures, if we maintain the forty foot fixtures on this site, we would have nineteen fixtures in
total, nineteen. If we have twenty foot fixtures, we’d be up to eighty fixtures on this site, to
provide the same, or even slightly reduced level of lumens. The forty foot poles, and the
reduction from eighty to twenty, has got benefits to it. The benefits are snowplowing issues,
and snowplowing around all those additional fixtures. The aesthetics of looking at a parking
field scattered with eighty lighting fixtures as opposed to twenty larger ones. The parking field
in the front of the building is a fairly large parking field. Putting in forty foot fixtures, or
certainly much larger than twenty foot is, lends itself to that size parking field, I agree the
smaller parking fields, twenty foot fixtures are a reasonable requirement, but for larger parking
fields, the larger the parking field, and especially given the fact that the front of this field is
adjacent to Route 9 lends itself to larger and taller fixtures. We’ve discussed this in the office,
and we’ve discussed if we could make concessions, we would be able to make them in the
perimeter of the site, at the rear and at the side of the store, which would hopefully and possibly
lessen the concerns of the adjacent residents with respect to the lighting issues that some of the
residents have indicated that they’re concerned with. So those are the issues that we have in
support of maintaining the forty foot fixtures at the site.
MR. MAC EWAN-Could you respond to the amount of light spillage off the site? Significantly
you have it all over the site where you have spillage off the site onto other property or on your
road.
MR. FITAMANT-We would provide cutoffs on the proposed light fixtures. So that would
prevent the spillage.
MR. MAC EWAN-This lighting plan that you submitted is existing, as the site is now?
MR. FITAMANT-The lighting plan that contains the proposed lights.
MR. MAC EWAN-With the cutoffs? Because if that’s the case, you’ve got some serious issues.
MR. FITAMANT-No. The cutoffs are not shown on this.
MR. MAC EWAN-Can you provide us a lighting plan that shows what the lighting spillage
would be like on the property, aligns with the cutoffs?
MR. FITAMANT-Yes. With forty foot poles, with twenty foot poles?
MR. MAC EWAN-I’m not there yet.
MR. FITAMANT-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to say, is there maybe another option, say 30 foot poles, where?
MR. FITAMANT-Yes, there is. There’s something in between and we would have to, there
again, we’ve run the analysis on twenty foot poles, eighty fixtures. We’d like to spend a little
more effort in determining if we had thirty-five foot poles, if we had thirty foot poles, and do
that analysis and determine how many fixtures and come to some reasonable middle ground, if
you will.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
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MR. MAC EWAN-What I would ask you to do, on behalf of the Board, is to supply us with a
couple of different lighting plan scenarios. I’d like to see one that’s got your forty foot fixtures
with the cutoffs so we can see what the spillage is, show us one with thirty foot fixtures, and
show us one with twenty. To get accurate with what they have now, forty foot fixtures. The
plan they have now is not accurate.
MR. RINGER-They show us twenty, and they’ve got eighty poles. I don’t know whether I want
to see eighty poles or not.
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t know whether they’re going to need eighty poles or not, though. My
position is I want to see us adhere to the Town standards. I mean, the Town spent a lot of time
and a lot of effort developing these design standards, and we’re holding other applicants to the
same. It should be no different for this application, unless you can really persuade us that.
MR. FITAMANT-I’m sure we can, and I’ll provide the different plans, and hopefully we can
convince you that some middle ground is the way to go.
MR. HUNSINGER-One of the arguments that we hear a lot from like convenient stores and gas
stations is that they have to have a certain luminaire level because of security and safety issues.
Are there any similar type of issues that have occurred at this store, because Staff said in their
Staff notes that they weren’t aware of any.
MR. FITAMANT-Well, at a minimum, and depending if you’re in high traffic areas, but at a
minimum we want, we’re looking for one foot candle, preferably two, but the one would be
absolute minimum.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-Cathy, do you have anything on lighting?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-No. Just to adhere as close as we can to our Ordinance.
MR. MAC EWAN-Robert?
MR. VOLLARO-Well, yes. I’m just looking at the difference between your proposal and our
requirements, and in most cases here it’s three to one, here it’s two to one, and almost two to
one on the other, commercial parking, building entrance and driveway. It seems to me that we
certainly could come to some agreement there. You’re looking to replace the average lighting
with 1,000 watt bulbs?
MR. FITAMANT-That’s correct.
MR. VOLLARO-And these are going to be halite bulbs?
MR. FITAMANT-Metal halite.
MR. VOLLARO-Metal halite.
MR. FITAMANT-Not the sodium.
MR. VOLLARO-Not the sodium, but the sodium is preferred in our Code at least, for a softer
light. I know that metal halite is supposed to give you truer light.
MR. FITAMANT-Correct.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I have to go along with the rest of the Board, I think that this is a little
excessive in the lighting. I think we’ve got to look at that against our Code. I’d certainly like to
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see you take a peek at that, even take, is there a need or absolute requirement for the metal
halite as opposed to the sodium, other than the metal halite gives you a truer light. I’ve seen
that.
MR. FITAMANT-That’s the major benefit of metal halite. I’m not so sure if there’s a hazardous
aspect to the high pressure sodium’s, but I could find out, and I’ll see if I can come up with the
additional information as to why metal halite is preferred.
MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I’d like to see some rationale there, and certainly some reduction in the
overall average lighting. You are able to get to the four to one ratio, but that’s because it’s easy
to get a ratio when you’re high.
MR. FITAMANT-When they’re high, and that’s why you need so much more lights when
they’re low. So many more to keep them into max ratios, reasonable.
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I think Mr. Strough’s got something to say about that. I won’t steal his
thunder on that. We’ve been talking on that. When he gets to you, he’ll give you his opinion
on some of that as well, but that’s all I have.
MR. MAC EWAN-John, it’s time for your thunder.
MR. STROUGH-Well, I’m probably the wrong person to ask here. If you asked me my
preferences, I’d say 10 foot, 12 foot tulip styled Victorian antique lighting. That’s the way I’d
want to go.
MR. FITAMANT-They’d last about two days after the first truck runs underneath them and
figured out it couldn’t run underneath them.
MR. STROUGH-Yes, well, they go in landscaped aisles, see. So anyway, so we’re going to be
getting to aesthetics in a minute, and those cobra style lights I think are unaesthetic. I don’t
think that’s a word, I’m doing a George Bush and making up one, but I don’t like the cobra style
lighting, but that’s probably the rout will end up going, but, you know, my preference is that,
but when I was doing research on Wal-Mart, and I’ll get to my research when we talk about
building design, okay. While I was doing my research on Wal-Mart, and you know how you do
these searches on line, you come across Wal-Mart issues. Time and time again, even though
that’s not where I was planning on going, I came across light pollution issues, and the Number
One example, the Number One example, whether you went to Oregon and you read what
people in Oregon were saying, or California or Arkansas, or Maine, or Massachusetts, the
Number One example of what not to do, of your biggest polluter of light, if you will, was Wal-
Mart. So, again, I probably am not going to get my 12 foot Victorian tulip lights, but I do think
that we ought to do something to stick to the Town Code. Now, you give us Plan B, and you
try and scare us with saying eighty fixtures. Well, there’s eighty poles, yes, it’s going to look
like it has hair, yes, and we don’t want that. That’s way too many, but, you know, they were
single light fixtures. How about multiple light fixtures at twenty foot heights? I’d like to look
at that. Yes, I would like to stay closer to the Town Code and not become an example of,
another example of Wal-Mart’s light pollution. So that’s where I stand on that.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. So we’re all in agreement want to see alternate plans on lighting.
MR. HILTON-Mr. Chairman, if I may, I just want to kind of reiterate and summarize my
comments regarding lighting. As I mentioned, the recently approved Home Depot, just down
the road on Route 9, this Board approved 250 watt fixtures, with actually 104 poles, and I think
that doesn’t look unattractive, if you’ve driven by the site. So one thing to consider is certainly
the number of poles, but also I think I’ve made mention in the notes that they’re going from 400
watt fixtures to 1,000 watt fixtures, which is what’s currently in place in places like Lowe’s and I
think we all agree that those seem excessively lit. Again, I have a concern, what is the need to
go to 1,000 watt fixtures. Not only the height, certainly that’s something to consider, but the
intensity of light that a 1,000 watt fixtures, multiple 1,000 watt fixtures, would have, and the
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impact it would have on this area of Route 9, which is a little more residential than Home
Depot, which, again, was approved with 250 watt fixtures. That’s something that we
considered when we wrote our comments, and just to make you aware.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think the entire Board agrees with you. Okay. Next topic.
MR. HUNSINGER-Why don’t you let John go first on this one.
MR. MAC EWAN-No, let’s keep it going right with you.
MR. HUNSINGER-All right. On your building design, I certainly think that the submission is
an improvement over the existing store, but I also think that there’s a ways that we can go
further, and one of my colleagues here I think has some specific concepts and thoughts on some
ideas that he has obtained from other Wal-Mart stores. So I won’t go into any detail, but, you
know, again, I think what you have shown is an improvement over what’s there now, but I still
think there’s a long way to go before we’re going to be happy with the building design.
MR. MAC EWAN-Larry?
MR. RINGER-I don’t have too much to add to what Chris, and apparently John has some stuff
that he wants to go over, which I may or may not agree with, depending upon how deep he’s
going to go into it, but I think what you have submitted here is a little better than the original
one, but I know John’s got a lot of stuff that he wants to go into. I might want to hear what he
has to say.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-I know what I want it to look like.
MR. RINGER-What do you want it to look like, Cathy?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-The Maine store.
MR. STROUGH-I’ll get to the Maine store.
MR. MAC EWAN-Robert?
MR. VOLLARO-Well, I looked at the new proposal, I’m going to leave a lot of this building
design stuff to John since he does a lot of research on this area and takes a look at a lot of stuff
on the Internet, which I don’t have the time to do. So I didn’t have any great concern over the
design element. I thought it was pretty good. John’s got stuff that’ll probably trump it, I guess,
or people will think it’s much more appealing, but I thought the design was reasonable.
MR. MAC EWAN-Do you want me to go before you, John?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, you might as well, Mr. Chairman.
MR. STROUGH-You might as well.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think your architecture could go leaps and bounds in a different direction. I
think that what you’ve proposed is a basic prototype store as we’ve seen before come in here,
and I will only suggest to you that with a lot of work with the representatives of Home Depot,
it’s probably the nicest Home Depot you’ll ever see in the country, and I think this Board’s
really proud of it, as well as the Town is, and I think that Wal-Mart needs to rise to those
standards, and I think there’s plenty of architectural opportunities out there to really enhance
that building, to make it look nice. With that, I’ll give it to you, John.
MR. STROUGH-You’re right, this is my most important. I can give ground other places, but let
me preface where I’m going with some text here, and I wrote out some ideas, and because I
think it’s the direction that we wanted to head in, we certainly did it with the Home Depot, as
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our Chairman pointed out, and that was a four step process. Mr. Round took the handle on that
pretty well. We can skip Step Three and go right to Step Four, but I think that an attractive
store is very important to our community, because an attractive community is made so because
it has attractive architecture, and a lot of times, when I was doing my research on Wal-Mart
architecture, I came across a lot of communities promoting themselves, promoting their
architecture, and showing examples of they demand up-scale architecture, and they get it, and
that’s why other businesses should locate there, and a lot of them was the Wal-Mart
architecture, to your benefit. They had pictures of their Wal-Mart, and they were proud of it,
and we’ll get there, but I think that, you know, a community that promotes good architecture is
promoting itself well, and I think that will lead to other economic benefits as well as aesthetic
benefits, and I think the people of Queensbury want to be distinctive. They don’t want to be in
anywhere USA, and they want buildings that will remain a community asset and buildings that
they’re proud of, you know, with Dunkin Donuts, you know, sometimes it’s not easy, but
they’ll end up eventually giving us a good quality item, and I think that’s where we’ll go as well
here. What we want to do is we want to break up the monotonous, standardized building
facades, okay, and we don’t want the strip mall architecture with its off the shelf, faceless,
nondescript building, set in a sea of asphalt. That’s what we don’t want. We can break up the
monotony with interesting roof lines. I think more dramatic than what’s even proposed,
parapets, overhanging eaves, multi planed roof slopes, architectural details, recesses,
projections, windows, canopies, porticos, arcades, arches, wing walls, vegetation, integral
planters, foundation beds, vegetation beds, and avoid over repeating the elements. So, let’s take
a look at some of our Wal-Mart’s around the country. First of all, I do have a picture of our
Home Depot, and I think that you’ve seen that.
MR. FITAMANT-We have seen the Home Depot.
MR. STROUGH-But, now this is a Wal-Mart from China, and I’ll pass this down for my other
Planning Board members, and everyone who’s on line, except for Larry, has seen these. Wal-
Mart will go to the extremes to accommodate a particular community, and I don’t know if
you’re familiar with the Chinese Wal-Mart.
MR. PHILLIPS-No, I’m not, not at all.
MR. STROUGH-And you can take a look at this, too. You’re welcome to.
MR. PHILLIPS-I would like to take a look at your research there.
MR. STROUGH-But there’s one in Hawaii. That’s nice. Now here’s a community, okay, it’s
outside of LA, Paramont. They’re promoting their community giving examples of the
architecture they demand, and guess what, one of them’s a Wal-Mart.
MR. PHILLIPS-You do keep using the word that these cities demand that the architecture is up
to a certain standard, and I guarantee if you looked in those cities, it would all be ordinance
driven. All of those amenities, all those features, the porticos, the canopies, I guarantee all those
ordinances said that the building has to have these features.
MR. STROUGH-Well, we can or cannot get into that discussion later, but here’s another
community, actually, this is a real estate agency trying to sell its subdivision, and, guess what,
it’s next to a Wal-Mart and it’s proud of it. It shows the Wal-Mart building in its promotion of
selling the real estate because it’s proud of the architecture, and if you see the building, you can
see why, and then here’s one in Bakers Field, California. Somebody said that was their favorite,
because I shared some of these on-line with some of these. Here’s one in Palm Dale, California.
That’s nice. I couldn’t find out where this was, and it’s a black and white picture, but that’s an
interesting looking building. Like I said, I’ll give you a chance to look at these, and again,
there’s more. There’s Poco Rivera, there’s Serritos. Even that’s nice with the palm trees and
everything. Now, everyone’s favorite, though, was the one that is done by, in Maine and
Massachusetts, Alliance Construction Incorporated, okay, and architect was Perry Butcher. Are
you familiar with him?
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MR. PHILLIPS-That is the firm I work for.
MR. STROUGH-Well, just take the design you’ve got and bring it home. I’ll live with Maine’s
version. It’s not uniquely Queensbury, but close enough, and I’ve got a picture of it, and so I’m
going to pass this down.
MR. MAC EWAN-Boy, I’d hate to be in your office tomorrow morning.
MR. STROUGH-And allow other Planning Board members, and, Chris, if you will, give it to BJ,
and have BJ look through it.
MR. MAC EWAN-We pretty much know where we want to go with this.
MR. STROUGH-Yes. Well, we want, you know, I like everything themed. I like to see it look,
you know, I like the lighting, the signage, the building to be incorporated, to be themed, you
know, altogether. I want to see a nice product when we get said and done. You’re heading in
the right direction, but I think we’ve got some distance to go, and I think that when you come
before us next time, you’ll show me something that, man oh man, okay, all right, well, I can give
you this, and I can stretch a little bit on other issues if you give us a fine looking building. Like I
said, the Maine architecture is the one that some of us like best, but, and your signage, matching
the architecture of the building, things like that, and then our Chairman brought up an idea of
sectioning off, using landscaping and sectioning off an area, and I added to that to make the
area pedestrian friendly, possibly adding water features to it. I mean, we could make this look
like something everyone’s proud of, you are, we are, and that’s where I want to go, you know, if
you want to put an Adirondack theme to it, I know where there’s a stagecoach for sale, but, you
know, I looked at this and I said, you know, it doesn’t look much different than Wilton. It looks
more like a strip mall. It doesn’t look broken up well enough. It’s not there. It’s not really even
close. So, I wish you would consider something like that. So, BJ, it looks like you’re pretty
excited about doing something there.
MR. PHILLIPS-Absolutely. I’m ready to get back on this thing.
MR. STROUGH-Okay. Well, thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Chris, stormwater. I don’t think there’s going to be a whole heck of a lot of
issues to be ironed out with this.
MR. HUNSINGER-I didn’t have anything to add.
MR. MAC EWAN-Larry?
MR. RINGER-No, Male’s got.
MR. MAC EWAN-Cathy?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-The engineer was good, whatever he wants, whatever he signs off on is
fine with me.
MR. MAC EWAN-Robert?
MR. VOLLARO-I haven’t taken the time to really look at the stormwater issues on this, not in
any kind of depth. I took a look at some of the grading and so on. I don’t have an awful lot to
say about that.
MR. MAC EWAN-John?
MR. STROUGH-Yes. Well, how much of this site is the stormwater staying on site? How much
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of the stormwater is being infiltrated by the ground underneath the site, and not being directed
to Route 9 which eventually ends up in Halfway Brook untreated?
MR. FITAMANT-I’d have to look at the calculations. I don’t have that value in front of me, but
I may be able to sift that out from the stormwater report.
MR. STROUGH-Well, we have a stormwater expert with us.
MR. FITAMANT-Okay.
MR. STROUGH-And I don’t know if Jim wants to speak on that.
JIM HOUSTON
MR. HOUSTON-Yes. I think it would be helpful, I’m Jim Houston, the Town review engineer
with C.T. Male, and just a little bit of an overview of the stormwater system. They do, the
system as it currently stands, which they plan on utilizing employees buried storage and with
perforations in the pipe to allow it to percolate back in to the ground, and that was accepted at
the time when, I guess it was 1992, that that system went in, and I had raised some concerns
about that, and one of the key differences between that system and what the current DEC
regulations say is that any place where you try to infiltrate into the ground like that, you want
to clean that water as much as possible, so you don’t plug up the pores in that system. My
concern with the system at this time is that that may have already occurred, and that water is
just sitting there, and so whatever comes in just goes right out the other side, and I don’t know
if we can modify or look closer at that system. I did indicate in my letter that when I was up
there, during my site visit, I did see water ponded in that system. It rained the prior day, and I
wasn’t sure if, the fact that that system is not being able to exfiltrate as good as it did at one time
or what was causing that, but the inherent feature of the design is that whatever, once that does
get, if it is plugged, whatever, and nothing gets going in to the ground, then water can shoot
right through this system and continue out to Route 9, and according to the new regulations,
you want to have your, and again I will say these are DEC regulations which aren’t Town
regulations, but at least something where the stormwater community’s trying to go, and you
can take that as you may, and they’ve commented back in that regard. These are the Phase II
Stormwater Regulations, but the current thinking on that is that you want to take this and
basically send your dirtiest water, that first flush, treat that as much as you can with a
sedimentation basin, send that out into your percolation, whatever you put back into the
ground, and when the high flows come, it bypasses that whole infiltration system, so that you
don’t transfer your pollutants into that system that you’re trying to perc into the ground. That
is an inherent difference between what is out there now versus what the regulations are saying,
and like I’m saying, it’s also unclear how the regulations are dealing with site re-development
versus new development, and these things would be all required for sure, if it was a brand new
development. What credit is given to that for re-developing an existing site is a nebulous issue,
but I just want to make sure everybody’s clear on if it was a new site, what the design
requirements would require, and so, anyway, that system is in there. They’ve planned to fully
utilize that system, and have done some sizing calculations to confirm that basically the size
that’s allocated for that is consistent with what the new reg’s are, and I don’t take any major
exceptions to that, it’s the whole theory of whether this is off line or on line, is the big difference
between what’s out there and where the reg’s want to go.
MR. STROUGH-So you’re saying the original design did allow for some infiltration of the
water, untreated, but it did allow for some infiltration. Would replacing some of the catch
basins with infiltration systems, or catch basins be better, with that infiltration catch basin as
opposed to one that’s connected that eventually goes to a Route 9 drainage system?
MR. HOUSTON-I guess it wouldn’t matter in my mind one way or the other is fine. Most
critically is the sediments, whatever are separated out of that flow before it goes to that
infiltration system, as opposed to just putting a drywell where it can go in and potentially plug
that up. My preference is to have something that would go in that would separate out
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 7/17/03)
sediments so it doesn’t plug that infiltration ability of that system that you’re putting in.
MR. MAC EWAN-Similar to what we did at Home Depot.
MR. STROUGH-Well, we used a CDS technologies, built a vortex, put in the vortex system
there. I don’t know if that would be applicable here.
MR. HOUSTON-That’s a sediment trap, and that’s definitely something that would be useful to
keep sediments out, from getting in to this infiltration system. So, it is basically a good
substitute for the sedimentation or taking that sediment out before you try to infiltrate it. So
that’s where, and right there we had a concern about the sediments going out into the pond,
then the cemetery, or pollutants going out into, very visual impacts, and that would trap all that
in behind baffles. Now that I’m seeing here is that, during high flows, that stuff could basically
shoot through there and come out the other side, and it’s not, and there may be some
attachments, or baffles, whatever they can add to this to prevent that from happening and get
better trapping of pollutants on the site.
MR. MAC EWAN-Is there a simple test that can be done to show whether this system is
currently functioning correctly or not? How would you determine whether that system has
failed?
MR. HOUSTON-The only thing I would say is you would have a five or a ten day, I think it’s
supposed to be dewatered within two to three days. So regardless of what storm that you’ve
had, if you’ve had a week of dry weather, by ten days with no measurable rainfall, that thing
should be bone dry, and that would be the easiest way to test whether that system is, you know,
exfiltrating or working as designed.
MR. MAC EWAN-Who would take on the responsibility to do that, to make that observation?
Is that something C.T. Male would do? Is that something we would direct the applicant to do?
MR. HOUSTON-Well, we could do that. That would be no problem. We could, we’ll try to just
watch the weather for measurable rain, whatever, and make an observation on that, and we can
record that.
MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to say, the big issue there, you said ten days without rain, that’s
a near impossibility.
MR. STROUGH-But is there one, I didn’t look at it that close, I was so busy with other things,
but is there one connection to the Route 9 drainage system, or is there multiple connections?
There’s just one. So there is a chance, if this system’s failing and not working like it should, of
putting in a vortex between the drainage system and its main connection on Route 9.
MR. FITAMANT-Except that would be after the detention system. The underground detention
system has multiple pipes leading to the detention system. So, in order to typically, if you were
dealing with a new site, starting from scratch, yes, you would provide for your treatment
facilities upstream of your detention system.
MR. MAC EWAN-We are starting with a new site, from scratch, as far as we’re concerned.
MR. FITAMANT-Well, I need to recognize, and the DEC also recognizes, and I had a
conversation with the DEC, I forget the gentleman’s name, and I indicated to him that we are
preparing an SWPP plan, submitted it to the township. We’ve prepared stormwater
calculations, indicated to him that this is a re-development that we will do what we can to, and
the Phase II regulations are there to improve water quality, to improve the existing water
quality. This is an existing facility, and as an existing facility, pre to post conditions, they’re
looked at, that’s how you look at a system, and what we’re proposing here in the post condition
is that we will attempt, wherever we can, and we have identified four catch basins that we
would put water quality inserts, spoke to the DEC, he indicated that he would look favorably
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 7/17/03)
on that, with, given the fact that this is an existing site, and it’s getting re-developed, but in
order to, what you might be suggesting, to take this thing to the Nth degree would be to just
completely, you’d basically have to rip up the entire parking lot, dig down about 10 to 12 feet,
and reinstall underground detention system that would, in the end, be.
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t know that we’re suggesting that we go to that degree, but obviously,
our engineer is telling us that there could be a potential problem with the current system. The
current system isn’t working. Something needs to be done to ensure that it’ll work in the future
and for many years to come. So, whatever data you can supply our engineer to support what
remedies you have proposed for this site, without totally renovating the entire stormwater
system on the site, supply it to him and we’ll wait for his comments, his feedback.
MR. FITAMANT-I’d like to add that we are proposing water quality improvements, and catch
basins at this site. We also did a field investigation and lifted some of these lids, and this wasn’t
immediately after a rain event, it may have been four or five days after a rain event, and the
infiltration pipes were empty, so the system was working and we don’t anticipate why that
would change today. That was only a few weeks ago that we had done this. So, in addition to
the water quality devices that we’re proposing, we are also reducing the overall impervious of
the site, which also improves water quality. You’re decreasing your parking area, and that’s
going to have a positive impact, more water is soaking and infiltrating into the ground.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything you wanted to add, Jim?
MR. HOUSTON-No. That’s fine.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Anything Staff wanted to add?
MR. HILTON-No.
MR. MAC EWAN-All right. I’d ask you gentlemen to give up the table for a few minutes. We’ll
open up the public hearing. Does anyone want to comment on this application? Mrs. Olson,
did you want to come up?
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
NANCY OLSON
MRS. OLSON-May we take this microphone and go over to the map? But before we do, for
those of you who don’t know us, I’m Nancy Olson and Dan. We have lived at 29 Carlton Drive
for 38 years. Zayre’s, P & C grocery, they all were wonderful neighbors, Wal-Mart, no, and we
have our two concerns are noise and lighting, and I’d like to first go with the noise, which is the
first item on the agenda, and I have a question, first, for the gentleman from Wal-Mart.
MR. MAC EWAN-What I’d ask you to do, Mrs. Olson, if you could just, any questions that you
have, direct them to the Board, and we’ll have the applicant answer all the questions
afterwards.
MRS. OLSON-All right. Fine. Is this the existing building right here, this pink square, or, you
know, pink?
MR. MAC EWAN-It is.
MRS. OLSON-Okay. Is this the proposed, this pale pink “L”, a proposed addition to the
existing building?
MR. MAC EWAN-If you want to answer that for her, you can.
MR. FITAMANT-Partly.
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MR. MAC EWAN-Partly.
MRS. OLSON-Partly. Okay. Which part, this long part?
MR. FITAMANT-The curbed line, immediately adjacent to the Garden Center, will not change.
That will stay in the same place. So that’s just going to be re-done, with some new fence.
MRS. OLSON-All right. It’s not going to extend over?
MR. FITAMANT-No, ma’am.
MRS. OLSON-Into the road.
MR. MAC EWAN-See, this is why I don’t want to do this, because we do record our meetings.
So, you know, any conversations got to go back and forth, it’s going to have to be put on the
microphone.
MRS. OLSON-Okay. All right. We live here, Carlton Drive is along here, and we live right near
a small opening for pedestrians to walk to Carlton Drive, or walk to Wal-Mart. We have two
issues with the noise. One certainly is the truck traffic that come here or comes here, because
our home is right here. We have many, many trees there, but still we hear the noise throughout
the night. The second issue with the noise is Wal-Mart, it was stated at this meeting, the last
previous meeting, that Wal-Mart is a 24 hour operation. What we hear, intermittently, through
the night, which makes sleeping very difficult, is the parking lot sweeper, like a street sweeper,
cleaning at night. It starts in about 12:30, 1:30, and goes until 2:30, 3:00, we hear that. We hear
when they’re unloading trucks here and at night they’re working, they’re putting things into
their Garden Center or they’re stocking the lube part for cars. We hear that. We hear the beep,
beep, beep of the forklift backing up, unloading, and this goes on intermittently throughout the
night. We have called and complained several times to different managers, night managers,
this manager, and the answer is either, well, that’s contracted out, or, I didn’t know that was
going on, I’ll look into it, but it continues. It’s very, very frustrating. I would hope, I’m
jumping around, I know, I would hope this access road would be put over here some place.
That would certainly eliminate the trucks coming in and night, the ten o’clock one at night that
comes in and unloads, also the diesel fuel that we smell during the day and at night. That
would be a wonderful solution. That would be half of the solution for us for the nighttime
noise. The other half would be somehow, if they have to work at 12 o’clock, 12:30, 1:00, 2:00,
3:00 in the morning, do it quietly. So far they haven’t. We still hear everything we’ve always
heard, music, you know, instructions to different work crew throughout the store we can hear.
Since Wal-Mart, because of the noise, we felt forced to buy an air conditioner about three or four
years ago, and we’ve lived here now 38 years, and in the 38 years time, we were very
comfortable in the bedrooms upstairs with stands and our windows open, but because of the
noise, we’ve had to close our windows, so we went for an air conditioner, and we hear that
noise. So we have two issues, the work that goes on 24 hours, and I’m sure people at Robert
Gardens can hear it also, because they’re very close. The people who can’t hear it are the people
who are way over here, the other side of Weeks Road, but all of the people here, there were
neighbors here, the LaPierres who live along here, and other people who weren’t able to be here
tonight because of other commitments, but they are suffering as we have suffered because of the
noise element. So I appreciate some of your comments about looking into changing this road
over here some place, that would be wonderful. Also it struck me when I looked at this about
the noise, we have, it appears like thick vegetation here in front, and here on the roads, and look
at the very thin vegetation here, and for Robert Gardens. It doesn’t make sense to me, this plan,
at all, and I certainly, and I know my husband will have things to add, would appreciate any
help you can give us. We like our neighborhood, we want to be there. We have seen
Queensbury grow. We shop at the stores, but it certainly, as you all have said, hasn’t always
been the best planning, and I am glad to hear that some of you are now looking into that, to
have a better plan, and also be more concerned about the residents. I appreciate that. Thank
you.
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MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you.
DAN OLSON
MR. OLSON-I would like to continue with what my wife was talking about and just make
maybe a stronger case or emphasize more. I’m encouraged that some members of the Board are
at least leaning towards and thinking about doing away with this entrance and making it
coming off of here. It doesn’t even have to come in off of Weeks Road. I would think the
company would consider the liability, the accident rates of trucks driving off from Route 9,
through their parking lot, when you have people, customers coming in to that store who aren’t
familiar with maybe with tractor trailer driving. You would eliminate all the traffic on this side
through here, this truck traffic, all the way around the building, that’s quite a ways. If you only
came in to here, if you move this piece of property here, the land here, and substituted that over
here, there would be actually the store would gain more property here. If you just picked it up,
put it over here. You don’t even have to use Weeks Road. Weeks Road would be the ideal
location for all trucks to come in, back in, pull out, one straight shot. You’ve got, there’s plenty
of land right here to take what they’re using right now in their parking lot, reconstruct it over
here, on their own property. You don’t even have to go to Weeks Road. They can use it on
their own property. Weeks Road would be the more ideal location. There’s a lot of money
going to be spent in this project. When Zayre’s, and I don’t imagine any of these gentlemen
worked for Wal-Mart when Wal-Mart first came in here. I speak of Zayre’s because some of us
remember when this was Zayre’s, or P & C foods and Pickway Shoes and stuff like that. When
the Town decreased the buffer zone, which usually was 100 feet from the residential to the
commercial, they decreased it to 50 feet, they did a real harm, disservice to the residents up
there. Wal-Mart came in on a postage stamp, and they built on a postage stamp, and
fortunately their business has increased. You can’t knock them for that. They’re the Number
One retailer in the world, or at least the United States. I think it is the world. Now they wish to
expand on that same postage stamp, but probably close to 40 or 50% increase in the size of the
store. The conditions haven’t changed any. They haven’t got anymore buffer area. Actually,
the Town, instead of decreasing the buffer, should have increased the buffer area between the
commercial and the residential area. Where they built in Wilton, and I’m a little familiar with
the store in Ticonderoga also, and other places, usually it’s not next to a residential area. That’s
where the problem comes in. Please consider, you know, it’s not a question of could they do
this or can they do this, they can do it. There’s no reason why the driving distance can’t be
eliminated and put over here, and make a shorter run, put the trucks in and out, eliminate all
the noise. I think the estimates of the truck traffic coming in are low estimates. I haven’t really
counted them myself, but I hear a lot more and see a lot more than six or seven Wal-Mart and
Super Sam Club trucks come in, it says Sam’s Club on the, and these are big tractor trailers.
There’s Pepsi Cola, there’s Coca Cola. There’s other delivery, private delivery companies, but
the soda companies come in there, you have to count those trucks. I think you made a low
estimate on the deliveries, and a low estimate on the expectations to make the project look
better. I would say you’re going to have more truck traffic coming in, and it’s going to be a lot
of refrigeration trucks. These trucks right now in the summer don’t shut off at night when they
unload. When they come in between, 11:00 to 1:00 in the morning, the delivery trucks, they let
their engines idle. They may be there two to three hours idling. It was brought up that truckers
don’t like to shut an engine off in the winter when it’s cold because they may not be able to
restart that engine again. That’s common knowledge, but when you’ve got a truck idling this
time of the year when the air’s heavy and there’s moisture in the air and condensation, you can
start picking up those diesel fumes, it’s not a comfortable situation. I just want to point out
again, most of the problems would go away, if the trucks, if all deliveries came in here, this side
of the complex in, back out again. The question came up about drainage, which is over in here,
and I couldn’t quite hear everything the engineer was saying. The question came up about
drainage, and there is a drainage pipe in there. I couldn’t hear whether he said that or made
that clear or not, because I know they dug up the land here, and the ground, during the winter
months, when the jackhammers were working and the construction equipment was shaking all
the houses in our neighborhood because the frost was deep in the ground, but there was a, I
would say 24 to 36 inch drain pipe installed down this side here to Route 9, because I watched
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 7/17/03)
the men working with a laser there to, that’s the first opportunity I had to see a laser in
operation when they were leveling the pipe and putting it in the ground. It’s down quite deep,
there’s no question about that, but I think it’s in the dirt area where the trees are growing now
and not in the blacktop out in here, if I remember right, and that drain pipe I would think
would be working. I think there’s even some culverts in it or some manholes to get in for
examinations of the pipe, there should be anyways, to look at that. I think that answers my
concerns and the questions I wanted to bring to you, and thanks again for considering our
proposals and hearing our complaints, and I am encouraged that there is some good support
from the Board on eliminating some of these problems that we have.
MR. HUNSINGER-Can I ask one question, Mr. Chairman?
MR. MAC EWAN-Go ahead, Chris.
MR. HUNSINGER-Mrs. Olson, at the beginning of your comments, you said that you had a
concern with lighting, but you didn’t elaborate on what that concern was.
MRS. OLSON-Yes. All right. The concern is, again, for 38 years, I enjoy looking at the trees
outside. So I have not had curtains, other than just halfway, at our upstairs bedroom windows.
We really are forced to buy blinds because we cannot sleep throughout the night.
MR. HUNSINGER-The light comes into your house?
MRS. OLSON-The light is unbelievable. We don’t even need to turn a light on. When my
grandchildren spend a night at our house, they get up very early in the morning and they wake
up in the night because of the light coming in. So I am going to have to buy blinds. I mean, it’s
not a great expense, but after 38 years, again, it impacts on how we would like to live in our
home, and it’s the light, and I did mention the intercom.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you very much.
MRS. OLSON-You’re welcome.
MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Mr. Lapper?
JON LAPPER
MR. LAPPER-Good evening everyone. For the record, my name is Jon Lapper. I’m here tonight
with two separate clients, two separate adjacent owners, George Goetz, who’s next to me, who’s
the owner of Ray Supply, and also Dave and Jim Valenti who own the apartment complex,
which everyone still refers to as Robert Gardens, but it’s now Whispering Pines. So I’d like to
start off, on behalf of Ray’s Supply. George’s issues are primarily traffic related. We
commissioned a traffic engineering firm, Edwards & Kelcey from Saratoga, to review the Wal-
Mart traffic study, because George is concerned about his northern driveway, as has been
previously mentioned. He had sent some correspondence and spoke at one of the previous
public hearings. I submitted to Chris today the review letter, the preliminary review letter that
we got from Peter Faith of Edwards and Kelcey. I don’t know if you received it.
MR. MAC EWAN-We received it tonight, Jon. We haven’t had an opportunity to review it.
MR. LAPPER-Okay. I’d like to just quickly read it into the record. I think that it’s important.
What it basically shows is that there’s very serious deficiencies, that he couldn’t really review it
because we do need to have traffic counts, and the idea that the traffic engineer is saying tonight
that we just look at the ITE manual without looking at what’s happening on the ground here, it
just sounds like that if they actually take counts there might be problems and there might not,
and we’ll have our engineer review it, but we think that you need to gather the data to be able
to tell. So, very quickly, the letter was addressed to me. “We are pleased to provide our
findings regarding the potential traffic impacts of the expansion of the Queensbury Wal-Mart,
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 7/17/03)
specifically the impact on the access to Ray Supply Audio-Video. Wal-Mart is proposing to
expand its operations from their existing 126,709 square feet of floor space to 216,000 square feet
by expanding into the area of site occupied by a vacant Ames store. As part of our review we
have completed the following tasks:
• Visited the site to review existing traffic and access conditions
• Review the traffic information provided by Wal-mart
• Discussed project implications with the Town of Queensbury and the New York State
Department
of Transportation
We reviewed the traffic study for the project, produced by Langan Engineering and
Environmental Services. In General, we found that the “Traffic Impact Study” dated April 3,
2003 is not typical of other traffic impact studies that we have prepared, reviewed or are
familiar with. We are concerned that the study, as prepared, does not adequately measure the
impact of the proposed Wal-Mart expansion on the existing roadway system and surrounding
area, and we believe that the conclusions of the study are based on questionable arguments.
The following is a summary of our findings. 1. Langan Engineering and Environmental
Services Traffic Study This traffic impact study differs from a typical study, as it does not
provide information regarding the existing traffic in the vicinity of the proposed development.
The closest the study comes to providing existing background data is turning movement
projections from 1992 traffic study for the original Wal-Mart construction, which are included in
the appendix. No analysis was performed using this data in the current traffic study. The
study only projects trips for the proposed expanded Wal-Mart and three different methods of
calculating the trips generated for the existing Wal-Mart and the other two land uses which
occupied the proposed expansion site in the past. The study seemed to present two arguments:
A. The trip generation estimated for the proposed Wal-Mart is less than the trip generation
estimated for the existing Wal-Mart, and the adjacent Ames Department Store and
Glens Falls Queen Diner, when those businesses were in operation.
B. The estimated trip generation for the proposed expanded Wal-Mart is less than the trip
generation estimated for the Wal-Mart in the 1992 traffic study. This is only true if
traffic estimates for the Ames Department Store and the Glens Falls Queen Diner, which
were both active in 1992, are added to the 1992 Wal-Mart Traffic estimate.
The study then assumes that, based on these two arguments, traffic after construction of the
proposed expanded Wal-Mart will be an improvement over existing conditions (with the
assumption that traffic from the Ames Department Store and the Glens Falls Queen Diner are
included in existing conditions). Based on these assumptions, the study concludes that “the
roadway improvements that were made based on the original traffic study in 1993 are sufficient
and the proposed redevelopment of the site does not require any further off-site roadway
mitigation.” However, there was no current traffic data collected for the traffic study to support
these conclusions. The study presents traffic projections for 1993 (now 10 years old) including
estimated Wal-Mart traffic in the appendix of the report. No counts of existing traffic on Route
9 or at the existing Wal-Mart driveways were provided. 2. Edwards and Kelcey, Inc. Analysis
of Traffic Study We believe that the 2003 traffic study, as prepared, does not adequately
measure the potential impacts that the proposed Wal-Mart expansion would have on the
adjacent roadway system. While it is not clear that the expansion would have a significant
negative impact on Route 9 and the surrounding area, the study does not provide enough
information to determine what impact the expansion will have. The current study does not
meet the requirements identified by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) for a traffic
impact study. The ITE identifies the following aspects of a traffic impact study:
• Study Framework
? Time Period Analyzed
? Study Area
? Project Description
? Data Needs
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(Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 7/17/03)
? Traffic Forecast Assumptions
• Impact Analysis
? Roadway Operations
? Site Access and On-Site Circulation
? Safety
? Neighborhood Impacts
• Mitigation Measures
? Goals of Mitigation
? Mitigation Strategies
The Wal-Mart expansion traffic impact study does not identify the data collected beyond an
estimate of trip generation does not provide any impact analysis and declines to offer any
mitigation for project impacts. It is unclear what connection the former Ames Department Store
and the Glens Falls Queen Diner have to the proposed Wal-Mart expansion other than
occupying the same site, and why traffic from these former land uses on the site was included
in the traffic study. Both were closed before the traffic study was completed. The traffic study
attempts to “take credit” for the trips which were removed from the roadway when these
businesses were closed. The closing of the businesses was not related to the Wal-Mart
expansion, and credit for removing the trips is not appropriate. The study also points out that
the 1992 traffic study includes trips from the two land uses in the background traffic. Since
these trips along with the estimated Wal-Mart trips were included, the current study concludes
that the 1992 traffic study represents a conservative analysis in comparison to the impact of the
expanded Wal-Mart. While the 1992 study adequately measures traffic generated by the site at
that time, background conditions have significantly changed in the area in the 11 years since the
previous traffic study. Many of the land uses along Route 9 have changed or expanded since
the 1992 study. The 1992 study no longer reflects current traffic conditions on Route 9 in
Queensbury. In the opinion of Edwards and Kelcey, Inc., a complete traffic study should be
provided for the proposed Wal-Mart expansion. The study should include new traffic counts,
background condition analysis, no-build conditions for year of opening, and build conditions
for year of opening. Traffic volumes should reflect the seasonal traffic characteristics of the area
in addition to typical weekday PM hour and Saturday peak hour analysis. In addition, the
traffic study should provide a description of site access and on-site circulation, an accident
analysis on Route 9 in the vicinity of the site, and a description of neighborhood impacts. 3.
Potential Impact on Ray Supply Audio-Video The traffic impact study prepared for the
proposed Wal-Mart expansion is not sufficient to measure its impact on the access to Ray
Supply Audio-Video. Based on field observations, it is clear that the south access to the Wal-
Mart has an impact on the access to Ray Supply Audio-Video. It appears that most traffic
entering and exiting the Wal-Mart to and from the south uses this south entrance, despite a
dedicated left turn phase at the signal at the northern Wal-Mart entrance. It appears likely that
traffic queuing to enter the Wal-Mart blocks access to Ray Supply Audio-Video for some
portions of the day. Queues at this entrance should be analyzed to determine existing and
potential impacts to the access of Ray Supply Audio-Video. Also, right turns existing Ray
Supply are delayed by traffic exiting Wal-Mart driveway and turning south on Route 9. Due to
the close proximity of the south Wal-Mart access and the north Ray Supply Audio-Video access,
consideration should be given to combining these into a single access point serving both
properties. The evaluation of the Wal-Mart access should also consider installing a traffic signal
at the southern driveway. 4. Conclusion Edwards & Kelcey, Inc. recommends that the
applicant conduct a full traffic study, consistent with ITE guidance, which would include;
• Existing and proposed traffic conditions for the afternoon and Saturday
peak periods
• The traffic analysis should reflect the seasonal nature of traffic flows in the
area
• The study should analyze queuing impacts on adjacent businesses
• An accident analysis should be included
• Other impacts on neighboring properties should be analyzed
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Call me if you have any questions regarding our review. Sincerely, Peter Faith, P.E. Senior
Project Manager” We would just ask that the Board require that, as you have of every other
large project that I’m aware of in this Town in recent memory, then you can have your traffic
engineer look at it, which will probably be sufficient, but we would do the same. The Board has
indicated that they recognize that Ray Supply may have some impacts of this, and neither of my
clients are opposed to the project, the replacement of the Ames with a Super Center. It just has
to be done right, and I know that all my experience with this Board, I assume that it will be. I’d
just like to ask George to make some comments.
GEORGE GOETZ
MR. GOETZ-Hi. I’m George Goetz, President of Ray Supply, also co-owner of the property.
We’ve been there since 1956. We have 28 employees. We’ve seen a lot come and go during
that period of time. This is the first time I’ve ever had to come to the Planning Board to seek
protection because I fear that the increase in the business that Wal-Mart will do through this
addition will really make it impossible for our customers to get in or out of our facility. As it is
now, it’s very, very difficult, on a busy afternoon, to get out of our north exit to head north, or
even to head south. It’s almost impossible for somebody heading south to get into our north
exit. Our south entrance is on a hill. In the wintertime, we have to salt it all day long. So we try
to encourage our own people to use the north exit as a well as customers, whenever we can.
Sometimes they can’t get out. You can be there for five, ten, fifteen minutes, because the
customers come out of Wal-Mart like ants, the cars one after another. Zoom zoom. They don’t
stop at the stoplight or at the stop sign. They just keep on chugging. If you look up at their
north entrance, the cars come quite rapidly to try to beat the light up there, heading from north
to south, and there’s going to be a really, there’s been a lot of accidents, but there’s going to be a
very serious one at some time in the future. So I’m here not just to try to protect Ray Supply,
protect the jobs of the people that work at Ray Supply, protect my lifetime worth of experience,
but also the safety of people from this area. I heard the engineer, traffic engineer, talk about the
traffic count. I took enough statistics in college to realize you can do anything with figures, and
as this study just pointed out determines what figures you use to come to whatever conclusion
you do, but having observed what’s been going on, the new supermarket is going to bring more
trips than Ames or the Diner or the present Wal-Mart ever even thought would happen. It’s
going to be big time. I know a vendor in the Albany area who sells grocery products to the
Wal-Mart, and he said the amount of volume that they do, the number of people going to those
supermarkets, is tremendous, compared to Price Chopper and the other biggies that are down
in that area. His equation rate is a little silly. He said you may get some more shoppers coming
from the north that will not go down to Price Chopper or go to Hanneford because they’ll just
stop before they get through that busy corridor. I ask what’s going to happen to all the cars that
are headed from the south, headed from Price Chopper, K-Mart, Hanneford, going north? They
must count, too. What about all the people coming from Washington County, they have to
count, too. It’s, I think you have to take into consideration the information you’re receiving. In
my report that I made to you, I made this as a point. I made it as an observation, and I know
you’re saying to yourself, well, gee, you have a lot to gain, or a lot to lose, you’re right. So that’s
why I paid to have this study, preliminary study done, by the outfit that Jon contacted. I would
also like to remind the Board here that our property line has been infringed upon, over and over
through the years, so that now the Wal-Mart south entrance is only 44 feet from our northern
entrance. I don’t know how they got away with it. Finally, in my report to you, I made some
suggestions for ways to help solve this problem. I had hoped that after that meeting, that these
gentlemen would come and visit me, say, gee, your our neighbor, maybe we can work
something out. We don’t want to put you out of business, but unfortunately I don’t think that’s
the way they think. They put us out of business, then they can come, buy the property, and tear
down all the trees and tear down the store, so all you see is a big opening. I think that’s where, I
honestly feel that’s where they’re coming from. The reason why I hired Jon is I realized I was
over my head. When I showed up at the last meeting and saw five personnel from Wal-Mart
and Keith Sewell back there, who’s Vice President of Ray Supply, and myself, we felt over
matched, because our expertise is not in attending Planning Board meetings or in talking, but to
try to run a good business, and we feel, over the years, we’ve really been a good citizen of the
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Town of Queensbury, always paying our taxes, and trying to do what’s right for the
community. So, just like the Olsons, we’re here asking for your help.
MR. LAPPER-I just have one more comment on the traffic study. The Board discussed the
traffic counts from the Wilton store, which is, I think, very analogous, in terms of size. It’s a
Wal-Mart plus the supermarket. The gentleman who’s the traffic engineer said that if you look
at the register receipts for the number of patrons, that would be proprietary, but if they just
conducted a traffic count, as you would do for any other traffic study, of just what the peak
hours are at the Wilton store, we can at least get some comparison as that compares to the
numbers that they used from ITE. I just don’t think that the ITE numbers contemplate a Wal-
Mart Super Center, which is sort of a different animal, and we need to know if expanding it to
this size is really going to create traffic problems or not, and if there are, there may be some
simple solutions like combining the two entrances in Route 9 into one signalized entrance. I
mean, there may be a fix that can be done, but it just may be a little more imaginative than what
they’ve proposed.
MR. GOETZ-Any questions?
MR. MAC EWAN-No. Thank you very much, Mr. Goetz.
MR. GOETZ-Thank you very much.
MR. LAPPER-I’m going to ask Dave Valenti to join me. Dave and Jim Valenti, who’s also here,
as I mentioned, are the owners of the Whispering Pines apartment complex, which is
immediately to the west of Wal-Mart on Weeks Road. It contains 186 units. So it’s a pretty
sizeable apartment complex. They have a number of impact concerns that they hope can be
mitigated through changes in the project. I’ll let Dave speak mostly about this, but just to tick
off a couple of issues. I sent a letter in about a month ago, before the SEQRA process started,
and one of the issues was a sidewalk along Weeks Road. I don’t know if that was added. I
heard some discussion about a sidewalk that had been added. Is that on Weeks Road?
MR. MAC EWAN-It’s shown on the plan, yes.
MR. LAPPER-Okay. That is appreciated because there are, as I mentioned, the residents of their
apartment complex, and there’s also another 200 units across the street owned by somebody
else. So we think that those neighbors will probably walk, and a sidewalk can go a long way to
helping the pedestrians. The other major issue is noise and visual impacts on the back. The
buffer that’s been proposed is pretty minimal in our estimate. We would be looking for an
earth berm, fairly sizeable, with significant plantings and probably some sort of fencing that
would help attenuate noise, as well as mitigate visual issues. Truck delivery and just the
increase in activity back there, that’s right behind the apartments, and that’s going to be a big
deal. In general, my only comment to sum up, before I turn it over to Dave, is we all spent six
months doing the Home Depot project together, and I think that the standards that this Board
held Home Depot to, in terms of 20 foot lights, the islands in the parking lot, the size and type
of trees, signage, I think that that was an example, and especially architecture, that was an
example of a process that this Board was very comfortable with. Home Depot was another
national company that came in, and obviously they start with their prototype, and if the
community let’s them go with the prototype, that’s fine, but if you have a community that has
higher standards, these are big boys, and they’re used to doing what they have to do to get it
approved, and I think you can be just as successful with Wal-Mart as you were with Home
Depot, although in my estimate, what they’ve proposed so far is still pretty minimal in all these
respects.
DAVID VALENTI
MR. VALENTI-Thank you, Jon. Once again, my name is David Valenti, and I represent our
family. We’re a family owned and operated business at Whispering Pines Apartments and
Townhouses, formerly known as Robert Gardens South, for some of you that don’t know that,
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but we’ve been there about two years now.
MR. RINGER-It’ll probably always be Robert Gardens. It’s generic of there.
MR. VALENTI-I understand that.
MR. STROUGH-Just up the road from Story Town.
MR. VALENTI-And we’ve got some fine neighbors just to the right of us at Robert Gardens
North, but I’m here, and appreciate this Board’s time, allowing us to comment on this proposed
expansion of Wal-Mart. We’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last two years making many
improvements at Whispering Pines. So I certainly know what’s involved with, you know,
trying to do the right thing, and that involves, you know, architecture and the landscaping and
the parking and all the things that we’ve been talking about here tonight, but I’m going to keep
it short and limit my comments to primarily that of noise, the traffic, resident safety, and I’ll
address a couple of issues concerning landscaping. I’d like to start out with the issue of noise.
The west side of the property being, representing approximately one third of our units, in the
neighborhood of about 60 apartment units, will back up to the west end of the Wal-Mart
expansion, at which time I’m somewhat concerned with this business relating to the traffic flow
and the trucks that was addressed by the Wal-Mart people, and I have some confusion with
regard to the number of bays or loading docks that are presented in their drawings, and coming
up with numbers like going from seven trucks a day to twelve. Maybe someone can help me
understand, you know, the number of bays being around six as I see it, whether that number is
adequate or appropriate for, you know, twelve, maybe twelve trucks a day. Can somebody
comment on that?
MR. RINGER-They’ll probably comment, but it’s probably they drop trailers, is what it is.
They’ll comment on it.
MR. VALENTI-Okay. I guess I need to know the number of bays, being in the neighborhood of
around six or seven bays, and the number that I’m hearing coming in and out of there on a daily
basis is somewhere in the neighborhood of around twelve. It just doesn’t seem reasonable to
me, and I’m kind of lost there.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’m sorry, I don’t understand your concern. Do you think the number of
bays is too few for the number of trucks, or the other way around?
MR. VALENTI-Yes. It just seems like there’s too many bays to assume that there are only going
to be twelve trucks coming in and out of there.
MR. HUNSINGER-I’ve got you. I understand.
MR. LAPPER-The other issue is the location of those bays right by your apartments, because
they’re in the back of the building.
MR. VALENTI-Yes, and that’s where I was going with the, you know, the concern, in that, I’ve
got a photograph here of some of the boxes that are kind of left behind there. This has been
here for, well, I think maybe three months now, hasn’t moved, and I get a little concerned about
people telling me that they’re going to have trucks coming in and out and they’re not going to
idle. They’re not going to sit there all night. They’re not going to, you know, be coming in at
certain times of the night. So I think we really need to understand this a little bit more
thoroughly, on what we might expect from the Wal-Mart expansion as it relates to these trucks
coming in and out and the impact of noise that this will have on our apartment community. Is
there a reason for any of these trucks to be there all night long? Have there been sound barriers
utilized at any of the other super stores whereby fences are constructed in such a way and
situated up on berms to help alleviate some of this noise that will certainly impact our residents
on the west end of this property. I’d be interested in knowing if any of the super stores have
done any of this type of thing to help improve that situation, and I think one of the Board
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members here had indicated that they would like a study, or would like to see if there was any
other types of studies done on noise at any of their super stores, because I think that that would
be important for this Board to consider going forward with an expansion of this type, to address
a real sound study on noise, because I guess I’m a little concerned about who really polices the
noise in this township. I mean, I don’t know if they want to get the phone calls from our
residents at all hours of the night, but I’m certainly going to tell my residents to contact
someone, if noise becomes an issue, and I would like to know who does address noise and who
polices that problem.
MR. MAC EWAN-We’ll get some information on that for you.
MR. VALENTI-Okay. No one brought up the issue of trash, as it relates to these compactors,
and where this might be situated should one exist, but I certainly know they make noise.
MR. MAC EWAN-Location of compactors you’re concerned with?
MR. VALENTI-Yes, I am. I’m addressing the location of compactors, and whether the trash
compactors that are being considered with be expanded, increased in size, relocated, and what
that proximity might be in relationship to our property, and the times that they are utilized and
used, and are they particularly used at hours of the night that would be inappropriate, and
what do they do when the trash is not disposed of properly. Is it situated out around the
facility. Is it in an area of concern, and what the overall appearance might be from the
expanded store. So those are essentially my issues relating to noise. I’d like to make just a
couple of comments on traffic, and of course that being one of resident’s safety. Along Weeks
Road, there exists the egress and ingress which was certainly reviewed at one time prior to now,
of course when Wal-Mart probably came forward with their store several years ago. There
exists, though, the egress and ingress onto Weeks Road, and I’m wondering if this new
application is one of which considers whether that becomes adaptable or even retractable. In
other words, is this Board going to look at that egress in such a way from the standpoint of this
traffic that we’ve been talking about where this application will be viewed in such a way where
maybe that application may not work for this size of store, and whether those egresses and
ingresses are even applicable.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay.
MR. VALENTI-And I’d like that to be considered. The idea of, and I’ve heard many different,
several comments on the traffic on to Weeks Road, and I’m sure these are all ideas that
everybody’s expressing just for the sake of expressing, and I certainly appreciate everyone’s
view on these kinds of things, but, you know, my concern of taking the traffic onto Weeks Road
and moving it maybe away from another residential neighborhood to another residential
neighborhood may not be the answer, and of course we’re looking at our 189 unit property and
then across the road Robert Gardens North is roughly around 200 apartment units, and then
we’ve got Kingswood condominiums. I’m not so sure that the density in this particular area is
comparable in any other area of the Town of Queensbury, and with that being said, bringing
that traffic out onto Weeks Road, particularly with some of these trucks, in my view would be a
disaster, and one of which I don’t believe is an option. My feeling and my belief is that this
project should stand on its own, in such a way where traffic bringing their customers and their
trucks into their facility should be done on their own parcel. Why is it that their traffic flow
implicates, you know, the concerns of others in the area, such as our neighborhoods, and
whether the existing parking lot that they’re using, that shows a tremendous amount of parking
spots, whether that has been evaluated and studied well enough to look at other options like
other retail outlets that I’ve seen, particularly the newer ones that are being constructed today,
that allow for the traffic pattern to be within their own parcel, and whether this should be
studied a little further, and then the traffic out onto Route 9 off of Weeks Road is a real concern.
I have residents that I speak to all the time, most of which are elderly, that are scared to death to
leave their property. They stay home a lot. Certain times of the day they can’t go out. When
they’re leaving this property, heading toward Route 9, they’re scared to death, and I can’t
imagine one’s view indicating that people would be more apt to circumvent the egress and
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ingress out onto Weeks Road and go out to the southerly entrance to the property for the sake
of getting out onto Route 9 a little bit easier. People are going to come in and out of this
expansion as quickly as they possibly can, and if they’re parking on the north end of this
property, they’re going out onto Weeks Road, and that’s going to make things that much more
difficult for people coming on to Route 9 and just imaging going north at certain times of the
day, coming out of Weeks Road is impossible. So I believe that Mr. Lapper’s updated request,
pertaining to the traffic studies, is certainly one that I believe would be well worth this Board’s
time, and I certainly appreciate the idea of the pedestrian walkway, down Weeks Road. Our
residents just love to walk to Wal-Mart. I mean, driving is really not the way to go, if they can
walk down a nice walkway, and I certainly appreciate their effort to accommodate the
pedestrian walkway. Just a couple of other comments concerning landscape and lighting. The
existing landscaping that’s identified in their drawings, on the west end, the back end of the
property, adjacent to ours, I’m wondering if any of that landscape is, in fact, existing landscape,
and maybe they could help me understand and define exactly what it is they are planning to do
with landscape, and what they are planning to do with the existing landscape, and of course I
had commented earlier on this fencing which, at the present time, we do have a fence back
there, but it serves no barrier for noise, nor is it aesthetically pleasing, and therefore, you know,
the real issue becomes that of, you know, beautifying the area, this Board seems to support, we
also are very supportive of that, and would like to see that this area in the back become bermed
in such a way where that elevation rises, at which time some sort of a barrier, fencing barrier
that would retract noise, with a mix of landscape would be the right way to go, and nobody’s
ever talked about green area within this whole site, this whole development, or expansion. I
don’t see one green area space, outside of maybe the landscaping islands that people are talking
about, but I’m really looking for green area. I’d like a place for some of the employees to go and
sit outside the store during lunch to have a drink or have a smoke or whatever it is they do, like
some of the newer expansions are doing. They’re giving their people a place to go and sit and
enjoy. There’s picnic tables. I’ve actually brought a couple of photographs of a Wegman’s up in
Syracuse, what they do with their employees, they make a nice little green area with picnic
tables and little overhead shelters and things of that sort, just to get their people out of the store,
and, you know, and some of their customers, for that matter, because they’re doing different
types of deli’s and selling, you know, fast food or what have you in these super stores. It gives
them a place to go and eat, and I would think that maybe a little bit more consideration is given
to the green area, and the lighting. I don’t want my residents to be up all night over lighting,
and when they get upset, the contact us and let us know, and if they haven’t slept, that’s even
worse. So I would certainly appreciate the, and I do appreciate the comments of the Olsons, as
it relates to the lighting, because we do have residents that complain about lighting coming in to
their units, and these lights that are high up off the ground, and I don’t know, and I don’t
understand these, what do they call them, these cutoffs or whatever they’re called.
MR. MAC EWAN-Cutoff boxes, shoebox cutoffs.
MR. VALENTI-Okay. Well, I don’t understand those. I don’t know what that impact is as they
get higher up off the ground. The one thing I am concerned about, and I haven’t seen any
lighting detail, but I certainly would appreciate knowing more about the lighting on the west
end of the property. That’s not to mention that maybe some of these trucks coming in at night
are going to have their lights coming on and those lights going through whatever non-barrier
that might exist, you know, and that sort of impact on our residents at night. We do get these
calls. We do get these comments from our residents, and they are beginning to come in and talk
to us about these things, and they are asking some hard questions, and this does have an impact
on our marketability, and this does affect our business, and these are all things that I’m sure
that this Board will consider as I’ve had the opportunity to sit here tonight and listen to all of
the issues that are important to you people, and I really felt good about what I heard tonight,
and once again, I appreciate the effort this Board has taken on this expansion and I appreciate
any help that you can give to our concerns. Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you.
MR. LAPPER-I just have one more question. I’m looking at the picture that Dave supplied, and
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I’m just wondering, it looks to me like there might be room for another 10 feet of green space
along the boundary that could be landscaped. I know that trucks have to pass each other.
There’s going to be some storage for snow, but this just seems like an awful lot of space, and
there might be room for even another 10 feet which could be bermed and planted. So you could
have a more significant buffer, and again, we’re not here to say that the project can’t happen.
We just want to make sure it’s done right.
MR. PHILLIPS-Mr. Lapper, where was that picture taken from?
MR. MAC EWAN-That would be your, it looks like your back is at Weeks Road.
MR. LAPPER-From Weeks Road.
MR. PHILLIPS-Okay.
MR. LAPPER-Thank you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Thanks. Anyone else?
PAUL LING
MR. LING-Hi. How are you doing? My name is Paul Ling, and this is John Ellis. We’re both
from the Flower Drum Song. Our main concern is with traffic, that Mr. Valenti and Mr. Goetz
and Mr. Lapper have said. Right now it’s very hard for our customers and for ourselves to get
in and out of our business, during peak hour, and with the new super center they’re proposing,
it’s going to get even harder. One good solution is you should put a light, a traffic light at
Weeks Road that will somewhat coincide with the light at Sweet Road, just like the one they
have in front of Crandall Park. That’ll, you know, make exiting, ingress and egress a lot easier.
MR. MAC EWAN-Would an interconnect between the Wal-Mart parcel and your parcel be a
help to you?
MR. LING-I don’t like that idea, because right now we get people traveling through our parking
lot to get to Wal-Mart.
JOHN ELLIS
MR. ELLIS-Once daily.
MR. LING-A lot.
MR. ELLIS-They’ve even driven over the lawn.
MR. LING-Yes, just a little cut through. I’m afraid if we put an exit there, we’re going to get
cars going, just, you know, going through there all the time. That’s going to, could cause a
problem with our customers, you know, just walking from the parking lot to our restaurant.
MR. ELLIS-They fly in there. They don’t go slow. They fly right in thinking they can go right
through the parking lot to Wal-Mart.
MR. LING-Right.
MR. ELLIS-And customers leaving the parking lot, it’s very hard for them to get onto the
highway, even if they’re making a right hand turn, because the way the traffic is coming from
one light to the other light, they are speeding up trying to make that light, and then if they don’t
make it, those cars are bumper to bumper.
MR. LING-Yes, it’s backed up.
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MR. ELLIS-Blocking our entrance. So nobody can get in or get out until that light changes
again, and when that light changes again, and when that light changes again, the next line of
traffic is speeding up trying to make that light. So it’s a very difficult situation and we would
like the Board to try to have us, you know, some consideration for us when you make any
recommendations.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you.
MR. ELLIS-Okay. That’s basically it. Thank you very much.
MR. MAC EWAN-Mrs. Olson, did you want to come back up one more time?
MRS. OLSON-Yes. See, I’m agreeing with them, with Flower Drum Song, because at the
entrance of Carlton Drive, we have Hess gas station, and that’s used as an egress and ingress to
Hess. There are times I’ve had to stop outside on Aviation Road, going, to get into my street,
waiting for huge trucks to pull in to, the gas delivery trucks, to pull in to Hess gas station, and I
know exactly what he means. They come out of Hess onto Carlton Drive. They don’t stop.
They don’t look. They just zoom right out. So sometimes I use Hess’s parking, or drive area to
get onto Aviation Road to get on to the Northway. Because it’s so crowded by cars coming out
of Hess in and out. So I know exactly what he’s talking about. The same thing is happening
there at Flower Drum Song. I just wanted to let you know about that.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? We’ll leave the public hearing open.
Would you gentlemen come back up. I mean, a lot of the comments that were made by the
public, I think that we’ve already touched on that we’re looking for additional information
from. I think you need to provide us some more information on your scheduled delivery hours.
We’re hearing conflicting information from what reality shows and what is proposed and what
you know the store hours or the store personnel to be telling you. Also relative to those
operations with deliveries and such is information relative to outside maintenance that they
use, maintenance programs, what hours of the day they do those, with the tenant sweeper that
they’re talking about, with the parking lot. Forklifts, unloading trucks. Obviously in the wee
small hours of the morning. I think for the concerns of both residents, both sides, both the
Carlton Drive area and the apartment complex behind, I think I can speak for the Board and say
we’re going to be looking for you to enhance that landscaping buffer significantly on both sides.
There was a comment relative to the possibility of an earthen berm along Weeks Road. I don’t
know that I necessarily support that concept.
MR. FITAMANT-We’re proposing that.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think what he was looking for was enhancing it a little bit more than what it
is. I think what’s there is probably adequate. I mean, that’s just one person’s opinion. The
trash compactors, are you going to increase the number of them based on the size of the store,
as it’s now going to increase? Are you going to have more trash compactors, recycling
programs? Another thing, what time of day do you plan on having your garbage removal
done? I mean, typically we see somebody like Waste Management or someone like that, not to
pick any one hauler, but they like to do their garbage removal of their dumpsters at about five
o’clock in the morning, and it beats an alarm clock at times, which isn’t always a good idea. The
ingress, egress of the viability of truck traffic on Weeks Road, I think Mr. Vollaro’s comments
relative to exploring the opportunities to increase the width of Weeks Road, and I suppose with
an application of this sort, you can’t totally satisfy everyone who surrounds the proposed
project. You try to do the best you can, as planners, to do determine which would be the best
design that can make peace with most everybody surrounding, but you’re not going to please
everybody all the time, but you try to please most everybody as best you can, to a certain
comfort level. I still like the viability of exploring the opportunity of widening Weeks Road and
using that as your truck entrance for deliveries, and I do support that. Given that, is there
anymore comments, questions from Board members before we kind of wrap up here?
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MR. VOLLARO-I just have one, Mr. Chairman. I’ve been doodling here on the sheet with some
ideas. In the event that the Weeks Road will not or cannot be done, or whatever, they may be
another alternate to keeping the traffic to the north side of that lot, and that would be to use the
northernmost exit and entrance there, the one that’s light controlled, and bring your trucks in
there, as a truck entrance only. Take all the signage from the southern entrance, move it over,
and then have those trucks make a turn and come up along the northernmost property line, and
try to get a way to move in to those loading docks that would be turned 90 degrees. They
would then be facing east, as opposed to the way they face north now, and see if we could get
some turnaround capability. You’ve constantly got to know what the turnaround capability of
these big trucks are, in order for them to back in to those loading docks, because that’s what
they’re going to want to do. They’ll want their back ends in. So that’s an alternate, possibly, to
the Weeks Road thing.
MR. MAC EWAN-I think the message they’re getting from us, Bob, is we’re looking for them to
come up with a solution to route truck traffic through that site, that’s not going to pose an
adverse impact on the neighboring properties.
MR. VOLLARO-True.
MR. MAC EWAN-How we get there, how they get there, that’s their mission statement.
MR. VOLLARO-I know I’m not supposed to be a designer. I’m trying not to be, okay. I’m just
trying to throw out some ideas.
MR. MAC EWAN-No. I certainly don’t have a problem with anybody throwing out ideas,
suggestions or whatever. I mean, we don’t want to design their project for them. We just want
to let them know what our feelings are, what our thoughts are, and hopefully they’ll be able to
resolve it.
MR. VOLLARO-Right. Exactly.
MR. MAC EWAN-We’ll get there. It’s going to take a few meetings to get there, but I think we
can get there, and satisfy everyone. I’ve got a long list of things that I’ve been jotting as the
night’s gone on. Do you want to hear them?
MR. FITAMANT-Yes.
MR. MAC EWAN-What we’ll do is I’m just going to go over these with you, what I have. I’d
ask anybody on the Board to jump in and say, no, we don’t need it, or whatever, and then what
we’ll do is we’ll take just about a 15 minute recess here while we formally pen a resolution to
table this. Okay. Under noise, a concrete wall buffer. The question was asked by one of the
Planning Board members, supply us some data that supports that that wall height will reduce
the decibels. Okay. Also on noise was we were looking to provide truck turning info for the
grocery, but that’s not really relative to the noise, but we were looking for deliveries, delivery
schedules. We wanted to verify the external PA systems, whether it’s existing, whatever the
case is for the auto repair center.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-I thought he gave us the distribution schedule for the truck deliveries for
the deliveries for the general merchandise.
MR. MAC EWAN-Well, that’s my next question I’m going to ask. A plan from the store, or
from Wal-Mart officials, delivery schedules, enforcement polices, long term storage containers
out back, what the deal is with that, and your trash compactor plans, whether you’re going to
increase your trash compactors, as well as the garbage haulers.
MR. PHILLIPS-I can answer the questions on the compactors right now.
MR. MAC EWAN-We’d like it all supplied to us. That’s what we’d prefer you to do. Anything
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else under noise that I may have overlooked?
MR. VOLLARO-Did you cover the PA systems?
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, I did.
MR. HUNSINGER-Did you cover parking lot maintenance?
MR. RINGER-Yes, he did the.
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, I did.
MR. FITAMANT-Just the general operations, I think, of noise.
MR. MAC EWAN-What we’re hearing, the reason we ask this, we’re hearing conflicting
information here. Landscaping and screening, I think the Board is pretty much on the same
page, we want to see you adhere to the design corridor standards. I think that we have the
support for the seasonal display area, and I’ve also noted down under the parking section, but
the permanent seasonal display area curbed off from the parking lot and landscaped. More
landscaping in the parking aisles. Did I hear that from Board members as well, they want that
enhanced as well?
MR. STROUGH-Yes.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. The earthen berm along Weeks Road, we’ve already discussed that,
and enhanced landscaping along the residential areas for both aesthetics and a noise buffering.
MR. RINGER-Take out the 11 parking spots for the.
MR. MAC EWAN-I’ve got that down under parking.
MR. RINGER-Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-Traffic and access management, provide data supporting your traffic
designation, or your traffic destination versus its decrease, as your traffic engineer talked about.
For our Staff is to supply us with any information you can from the Wilton, Half Moon, and
Malta Planning Departments, relative to Wal-Mart applications on traffic. You might just as
well throw it in while we’re on the topic of noise as well, if there’s been any noise issues. I think
the Board kind of gave the direction we’d like to get an independent traffic analysis, whether
C.T. Male wants to do that. We’re looking for counts, trip generations, whether we want to get
Creighton Manning to do that. I don’t know how we will go about doing that, but based on the
information that I heard from the neighboring property owners who’ve hired their traffic
engineer, based on the information that I’ve been hearing tonight from the applicant’s traffic
engineer, I’d want to get someone independent who doesn’t have an interest either way, just
supplying the data.
MR. HOUSTON-Yes. The key person to answer that would be Jim Edwards, and what comfort
level he’d have with that and what not, but he’d be the key person.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Relay that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Are you just looking for traffic counts? Because doing traffic counts, I mean,
literally anybody could do traffic counts.
MR. MAC EWAN-What is it that you’re looking for? What would you want to hear, or see?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, my comment, and I think it was reiterated by some of the neighbors as
well, is just to get some actual numbers that verify the estimates that you were showing from
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the ’92 site plan, and, you know, that would give, I think, credibility to the projected numbers
for project completion.
MR. MAC EWAN-Could we ask Staff to work that out with the consultant and knowing what
we’re looking for? Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, if other people are looking for something different, that’s a different
issue.
MR. MAC EWAN-I guess this one would go both toward the applicant and the Staff, is to
explore the potential for widening of Weeks Road. The issues with land acquisitions,
probabilities of sewer issues. We discussed the interconnect with adjacent businesses. I don’t
know that there seems to be support there now from the neighbors. We can scratch that off the
list?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Scratch it, yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I guess, do we still want to see it as an option on the plan, though?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-No.
MR. MAC EWAN-I would like to show, well, typically for future we do show them on the
plans. So that, you know, ten years from now maybe Flower Drum Song decides to sell the
restaurant, retire and move to Hawaii or something and someone else wants to move in there
and wants the interconnect. We do show, our Code does say that you have to show it.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-This is for Staff. If you can get an accident history from Warren County
Sheriff, on Route 9. Under Access Management/Site Circulation, I think we’ve pretty much
covered that in the Traffic Access Management area. Pedestrian Access, there didn’t seem to be
too many issues with that, in general. Parking, I think the Board feels comfortable we want to
eliminate those 11 parking spaces, and replace them with a landscaping island. The permanent
seasonal display areas, as previously mentioned up in the beginning of this, curbed off in the
parking lot and landscaped. Mr. Strough had some ideas about maybe accenting it a little bit
more. Under lighting, we’re looking for three plans to be submitted, lighting plans which will
show your light spillage, for forty foot lights, thirty foot lights, twenty foot lights in height, and
the wattage that’s proposed for each one of these. I will emphatically tell you that I will support
the Town Code. I don’t want to deviate from that. That’s my position. I don’t want to deviate
from that. I mean, there was a lot of time and effort spent just for incidents like this. That’s
why that Code was developed and brought to fruition. So that’s my position on that.
Stormwater, C.T. Male’s going to determine the effectiveness of the current drainage system.
The applicant’s going to supply additional data on stormwater and the water quality system,
and you’re going to supply that to our Town Engineer. That you talked about, the system you
were talking about as part of your renovation. Okay. Last but not least, building design.
Enough said. You know what we’re looking for. Anything anybody wants to add?
MR. RINGER-They’ve still got some other comments from C.T. Male they’ve got to answer, too.
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, plus the general C.T. Male comments they have to respond to.
Anything else?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Did you address the Weeks Road buffer where Jon Lapper said there
might be room for?
MR. MAC EWAN-Under landscaping, I said enhance the landscaping along the residential
areas, fence for noise and/or berming with fencing.
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MRS. LA BOMBARD-Gotcha.
MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-What about the workers that worked all night?
MR. MAC EWAN-Asked about, plans for delivery schedules, enforcement policies, long term
storage, trash compactor, plans for garbage maintenance and everything else relative to that.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Is that going to address the fact that they have their boom boxes on?
MR. MAC EWAN-We need to determine that. I mean, the reality, Cathy, is some things that
they’re supplying us, because of lack of a noise ordinance in Town, is totally unenforceable. All
we can try to do is implore the applicant that we’re looking for some sort of cooperation here to
appease the neighbors who have been struggling with this site for going on 10 years now. What
we can do to be good neighbors and make things work.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Did that also include the RV’s that?
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, I’d like an answer to that one. That’s a personal one for me.
MR. PHILLIPS-We’ll get you one. I do believe that it is Wal-Mart’s policy that they are not
supposed to park on our lot overnight, and that’s only enforceable by the store manager. I
mean, there’s nothing, as architects and engineers, we can do to enforce that ourselves.
MR. MAC EWAN-The store must have a policy, Wal-Mart must have written policies that you
can supply us.
MR. PHILLIPS-We will supply you.
MR. MAC EWAN-Because I will tell you that’s one of those little things that’s a craw in my side.
MR. PHILLIPS-Sure.
MR. MAC EWAN-Every Sunday I will ride up by there and I will see five or six RV’s up there
that have been there all night.
MR. RINGER-There was an article in our local paper here a year or so ago, on Wal-Mart policy
regarding RV’s and stuff, where Wal-Mart allowed them, as Wal-Mart policy, to park overnight.
I’m only repeating what was in our local paper a couple of years ago, and they contacted the
local Wal-Mart people before that article. I don’t know if it’s true or not.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Anything else that Planning Board members want to add?
MR. VOLLARO-It sounds like you covered just about everything.
MR. MAC EWAN-Really? We don’t even need to take a recess?
MR. STROUGH-No. We’ll just use what you just said.
MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, but we’ve got to do it formally.
MR. SCHACHNER-Not exactly. We’ve talked about this in the context of other applications,
but remember that you are not obligated to make any formal motion because you’re not under
obligation to take any action.
MR. MAC EWAN-It saves me having to go through it all over again.
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MR. SCHACHNER-That’s certainly true. I think you’ve given the applicant a pretty good
thorough laundry list. The Board seems to have reached consensus that those are the additional
items you would need. What I would suggest you do is, and you can do this by formal
resolution if you like, simply pass a resolution indicating that the application review will
continue, that the application, that in order for that review to continue, that the applicant and
Staff have to supply the additional information that’s been requested, and that the public
hearing will remain open, and you don’t need to do anything more formal than that.
MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to say, I think we’ve, in the past, passed resolutions that said,
basically, for all the reasons just stated.
MR. MAC EWAN-Is there anything you gentlemen wanted to ask, request?
MR. FITAMANT-The lighting, would a hybrid of 20/30, we’ll do the 20, we’ll do the 30, do the
40, would a hybrid of 20 foot perimeter? That’s something if we need to, we’ll show.
MR. MAC EWAN-Show it to us.
MRS. LA BOMBARD-Show it to us.
MR. FITAMANT-Okay.
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s one more lighting plan you’d have to do.
MR. FITAMANT-And a truck maneuvering template I think we discussed, and we’ll provide to
you as well.
MR. HUNSINGER-That’s right.
MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Does someone want to introduce a motion, then, just to table?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-I know, but.
MR. RINGER-Can we do it with just moving the application?
MRS. LA BOMBARD-No, no.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 25-2003 WAL-MART STORES, Introduced by
Catherine LaBombard who moved for its adoption, seconded by Robert Vollaro:
So that the application review will continue, and that the applicant and the Staff will supply the
information that was just given from Chairman Craig MacEwan.
Duly adopted this 17th day of July, 2003, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Vollaro, Mr. Strough, Mr. Hunsinger, Mr. Ringer, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. MacEwan
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Metivier
MR. MAC EWAN-George?
MR. HILTON-Just to be clear with the scheduling, this item is scheduled, I guess, to be heard
before the Zoning Board of Appeals next week, and obviously that’s not going to take place.
MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t think that they’ll be there.
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MR. HILTON-Yes, and in terms of coming back before this Board, the next deadline is August
15, to be heard in September.
th
MR. MAC EWAN-That’s why I’m expecting we’ll see you in September. That’s what I’m
expecting.
MR. HILTON-Yes. I just wanted to clarify that.
MR. FITAMANT-Can I just ask one question? Is there any way to get a little extension of the
deadline for submitting, to make the August meeting?
MR. MAC EWAN-It hasn’t been done, it was done in the past, but the problem we have here is
our agendas are so overloaded that we’ve gone to this deadline day, the drop dead deadline
day is August the 15. I mean, if it’s minor things, we have considered giving you an extension,
th
say instead of the 15, bring it in Friday by the close of business. Considering this laundry list,
th
you’re going to be hard pressed to make the August 15 deadline.
th
MR. RINGER-What we could do, if they were in a bind, we could have another separate
meeting just for Wal-Mart.
MR. MAC EWAN-I plan on having this Wal-Mart on a separate meeting.
MR. RINGER-Then we possibly could extend, if they feel they can get that information in.
MR. MAC EWAN-I would rather do it, because if you grant extensions, because part of the
problem, Larry, is we have to give C.T. Male time to review things, Staff internally time to
review things. That’s why we established this 15 of the month deadline.
th
MR. RINGER-I understand that.
MR. MAC EWAN-I want to stick to it. Okay.
MR. RINGER-We should stick to it for everybody then.
MR. MAC EWAN-We are, Larry, we are. Okay.
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Craig MacEwan, Chairman
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