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2004-03-25 SP (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SPECIAL MEETING MARCH 25, 2004 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT CRAIG MAC EWAN, CHAIRMAN CHRIS HUNSINGER, SECRETARY ANTHONY METIVIER ROBERT VOLLARO RICHARD SANFORD MEMBERS ABSENT THOMAS SEGULJIC LARRY RINGER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR-CHRIS ROUND TOWN COUNSEL-MILLER, MANNIX,SCHACHNER, AND HAFNER-MARK SCHACHNER STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI OLD BUSINESS: SDGEIS SITE PLAN NO. 4-2004 SPECIAL USE PERMIT GREAT ESCAPE AGENT: LEMERY GREISLER ZONE: HC-1 LOCATION: 1213 ST. RT. 9, 1227 ST. RT. 9 THE APPLICANT IS SEEKING PLANNING BOARD APPROVALS FOR THE SITE PLAN FOR THE PLANNED FACILITIES, A SPECIAL USE PERMIT TO OPERATE AN AMUSEMENT FACILITY IN THE HC-I ZONE, AND WAIVERS FROM THE I-87/ROUTE 9 DESIGN GUIDELINES. AN AREA VARIANCE IS SOUGHT FROM THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FOR CONSTRUCTION OF FACILITIES IN EXCESS OF THE 40-FOOT HEIGHT LIMIT. THE PLANNING BOARD IS THE LEAD AGENCY FOR SEQRA REVIEW AND A SEQRA DETERMINATION HAS NOT YET BEEN ISSUED. COPIES OF THE APPLICATION MATERIALS AND THE SDGEIS ARE AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW AT THE TOWN’S PLANNING OFFICE. CROSS REFERENCE: MANY WARREN CO. PLANNING: 3/10/04 TAX MAP NO. 295.8-1-5, 4 LOT SIZE: 6.40 AC., 4.06 ACRES SECTION: 179-4-020 JOHN LEMERY & JOHN COLLINS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. MAC EWAN-Chris, do you want to give us an update on where we are right now, or Stu, either one? STUART MESINGER MR. MESINGER-Okay. Members of the Planning Board got a review letter we put together. I know it seems quite long. Most it is just very, very technical stormwater related material, and if there are specific questions, I have my engineer, Pete Romano, here tonight. Pete actually did the technical review. Yesterday, Pete met with the LA Group to go through the comments and based on that, it’s our sense that we’re actually fairly close to having a project and a design that works. You all are aware of the Phase II stormwater requirements. They’ve been around for a year, and even among us consulting engineers there’s questions and so forth in how they are implemented and what they mean, and so a lot of what they were able to do at the meeting was to sort of clarify intent, so that we were able to understand what, in fact, is proposed. So we feel actually they’re fairly close to having an approvable design. They’re going to go back and go through one more iteration of the stormwater report and plans. We would look at it, and then, if need be, generate further comments or signoff on it. So, I haven’t talked to the applicant 1 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) about a schedule on that yet, but I am pretty confident that there are no unresolvable issues here. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? Anything else? Gentlemen? MR. LEMERY-Mr. Chairman, my name is John Lemery. I’m counsel to The Great Escape. With me here is John Collins, Vice President and General Manager. I’d like to start out, if I could, by just addressing the inquiries made by the Glen Lake Association, basically provide some further emphasis and perhaps resolve some of the issues that were mentioned in the notice that went out to the members of the Association concerning the Glen Lake area. The first comment from the Glen Lake Association had to do with the stormwater management. We, as a result of the last meeting, directed our engineers to work with, obviously with Stu Mesinger and his group, but also to what the County, and to make sure that the County Planning staff had adequate information and that everything was coordinated on the form by us, the Chazen Group, that has been done, and as Stu mentioned tonight, the technical issues are all getting worked out, and they should be flattened to everyone’s satisfaction, including, hopefully, the Glen Lake residents. Their next concern had to do with wastewater and septic disposal. There’s never been any attempt here by the theme park to develop septic fields or anything. The wastewater is going to be disposed of by the Warren County municipal sewer system. The facility will be served by Town of Queensbury sewer, and by the Town of Queensbury water system. So there’s no disposal, other than through the sewer system. The visual impact, it was done very scientifically, but the Great Escape has agreed with the Town Planning Staff to do another visual analysis, this coming Saturday morning. That has been noticed, I believe. It has been given to the Post Star and whoever else might be interested, and we encourage members of the Glen Lake group, if they so desire, to go out. I think it’s scheduled for 8:30 in the morning on Saturday morning, but if I’m wrong about that, somebody will correct me, and I think we provided the intersect points this afternoon. It is our position that, and we worked very hard to make sure there were no visual impacts to any of the receptor neighborhoods. We’re comfortable with that, that this hotel and indoor facility cannot be seen from any of the receptor neighborhoods, including the Glen Lake area. This is our third fly over with the balloons for this project. The traffic. Since our last meeting, we have had a meeting with the Town Supervisor, with Chris from the Planning staff, and with DOT, regarding a light at the northern end of the Park at the Glen Lake Road. The Great Escape is willing to put the light in. We’re now all asking, the Town is asking, we’re asking, everyone’s asking DOT to issue the, I guess it’s called issue the warrant, to justify putting the light, and to re-sequencing the light, a light at the Glen Lake Road, which would all be part of the, a pedestrian bridge, moving the two lights which are in front of the Park now, one to the southern end, at the Round Pond Road, and one at the northern end, to the Glen Lake Road. So I’d like to assure the residents of the Glen Lake area that that is in our plan. We can’t control it, unfortunately, but the Supervisor met with, and we had our traffic consultants also at that meeting. So we’re hopeful that they’ll agree to it, and that the light will be put in, which will be paid for by The Great Escape. The pedestrian bridge. The pedestrian bridge contract has been signed to have it engineered by Ryan Biggs in Troy. The contract was signed. They’re now designing doing the final design plans for the bridge, so that the contract can be let. The contract will be let, and the bridge will be part of this overall project. The Glen Lake Association is asking that no Certificate of Occupancy be granted before the bridge is completed. I want to point that out for a moment, that in the Impact Study, I brought a copy of it with me, which costs, as this Town Board, Planning Board knows, well over a million dollars to do back in 2000/2001 when the Town required it. Required that the pedestrian bridge be built within two years of the approval, or the Planning Board could withhold approval of further attractions on the east side. It had nothing to do with the development of the hotel, and at that point the convention center on the west side. So the pedestrian bridge was never part of the Impact Statement which was approved and the SEQRA Findings were made, and in fact it’s in the Findings, that it has to do with the east side. We’re more than happy to get the pedestrian bridge started, and try to get it built in time, for the opening of the hotel. We’d simply like to have a force (lost words) provision in the Findings, that if something happens beyond our control, i.e. DOT, something with that regard, that it’s not going to hold up the opening of the hotel. However, it will be in construction or it will be, certainly it will certainly be visual proof that it’s being constructed and being built as fast as it 2 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) can be built, subject to the exigencies of the DOT and the sewer. By the way, the Town is basically using The Great Escape parking lots as a construction site, and a staging site, and that’s fine with the Park. So everyone is working as hard as they can to get the sewer line done, but we’re going to ask for that accommodation, but we want to assure the people at Glen Lake that that will be, it will be built. I think with that, we’ve answered everybody’s concern, hopefully to their satisfaction. It addresses every single issue. The Town is committed to making it happen, or rather the Park is committed to making it happen, and to try to accommodate everybody’s needs and concerns. With that, Mr. Chairman, I think, we don’t have anything to add at this point, with the right to maybe respond to any public comments. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-We’ll open it up and throw a few questions at you. We’ll do this the same procedure that we’ve been doing with all our other site plan reviews. So, does anybody have any questions regarding design standards, conformance with Comprehensive Land Use Plan, corridor standards? Building design and layout? Site development criteria, site conditions, vehicle access, pedestrian access? MR. SANFORD-I guess related, I have a question, but I mean, it’s hard to classify it, but at the last meeting you may recall, I think it was Mr. Vollaro, requested a, I think he referred to it as a PERT chart. I would have called it just a timeline, where in that timeline all of the construction phase events are listed sort of in a tree diagram so we could, at any particular point in time, look at where the stage of construction will be for the things like that you just mentioned, the bridge and the roads and the attractions and all of that. Have you started that process, or are you going to provide that? Because I would assume that that would be a very important tool for you, and also for us. MR. LEMERY-The answer is yes. MR. COLLINS-Yes. MEG O’LEARY MS. O’LEARY-I know the process was started, and I’m just looking back to our construction guys, the BBL guys, to see where it is in that process. Do you guys have any idea if that’s been completed? Okay. Well, I know that it was started, and I will find out, I’ll make sure that it gets submitted to the Town. I would hope by the beginning of next week. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. COLLINS-Yes. It is completed. The only thing that really needs to change is just the dates, based on the re-sequencing of the public comment period. It was done before. Trevor Harrison, from Harrison Bridges, who’s not here today. Does Trevor have that updated? Okay. So we’re waiting on your dates, I guess, but we’ll get you what we have. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. COLLINS-And we can just adjust the dates based on the hearing timeframes. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s good. MR. VOLLARO-I just have one question, Mr. Chairman. MR. MAC EWAN-Go ahead. Sure. MR. VOLLARO-What entrances are going to be shut off on Route 9, or what entrances to the Park are going to be closed? It was a comment that was in Chazen’s 19 March letter, and I noticed it in there. I also had that question myself. 3 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. COLLINS-Right. Once the project is completed, for the 2005 season. Is that what you’re asking? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. MR. COLLINS-Okay. There’s two existing, actually, three existing entrances into what we call our main parking lot, which is the two lots that are south of the Coach House. Meadowbrook Run runs right between the two of them. Those, one has the traffic light on the south end. There’s a traffic light on the north end, and then there’s an entry lane, is the third one, which is on the north lot that we call Lot Number Two, closest to the Coach House. Those three will be closed off. There’ll be a fence put up. The access will be by the pedestrian bridge, and the entrance into those parking lots will be the northern portion of the ring road which will come in from, across from Glen Lake Road, basically through the existing Samoset strip of motel. The office will remain there, in the interim, and then the cabins along the back will be removed, and then so it’ll feed and empty and enter through that entrance. MR. VOLLARO-Now if the light, for some reason or another, we don’t get a warrant for either of those two intersections. MR. COLLINS-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-We might want to consider having that an entrance only, and not an exit, to prevent any interface at that intersection. MR. COLLINS-Yes. No question. No question, and I think the Impact Statement does say that. If we can’t get the light moved, it would be an entrance only, and then they would exit the way they are now. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-Anything else, Robert? Any other questions relative to either site conditions, soil, geology, hydrology? MR. VOLLARO-No. I think that’s so well covered in Chazen’s 19 March letter, I would want to get into that. I think they’re doing the job there, and I don’t see anything that I could add to what they’ve done, certainly. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions relative to vehicle access, traffic patterns, or pedestrian access, parking fields, emergency access? MR. SANFORD-Yes. Just for my benefit, and maybe for some people in the audience, I was wondering if you could go over all of the parking lots. Because I remember in the Chazen letter, there’s some question about a brown parking lot, and there’s so many damn colors here, I’d like to sort of understand what we’ve got for parking lots. RUSS PITTENGER MR. PITTENGER-Thank you. The confusion resulted from the fact that although it was labeled in some of our, in our Impact Statement, it wasn’t, the name fell off in our plans. This is the brown lot. It’s the large lot that’s immediately to the south of the wetland and stream that runs through the middle of the site. So this is, I think, the green lot, the brown lot. As we work through, there’s two lots up here through Samoset that were called red and yellow that we’re not anticipating developing at this time, although we’re looking at opportunities to size our stormwater basin to accommodate that runoff when they are constructed. The hotel lot is really just what it is, but there’s a large brown lot here. I think this was white, beige, there were some odd names and numbers, but there’s a main north lot and a main south lot that we’re dealing with, and these are basically the ones that we’re constructing. John was accurate in the entrances that we have. I just wanted to point out that there’s an existing entrance here to the 4 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) Holtz Real Estate building where we will be flying one of our viewpoints on Saturday we will be flying a balloon from is really right behind the main lobby right about here. That will be maintained as an emergency access only and not used for hotel guests or staff, but if a fire truck or a fire vehicle, so that would be maintained, but will not be an access. This plan shows, this access road here will be closed. This is really representative of an interim plan, but this will be closed with the pedestrian bridge. There will be a turnaround here. So this will be completely closed off. We have an existing paved drive here that will also be used as a construction entrance with the Holtz driveway, as the project phases back. They are paved. They will provide access, and this will be closed off upon completion of the project, but this is the brown lot, if that answers your question. MR. SANFORD-Yes. I guess you clarified it. MR. PITTENGER-Okay. MR. LEMERY-There are color renderings of these in the Impact Statement, the 2001 Statement that was filed. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions relative to vehicle access, traffic patterns? MR. SANFORD-Well, just during the construction phase. The last meeting, I had some concerns about bringing a lot of those trucks in on that slope that you’ve just pointed out, and I was hoping that you might be able to phase this project, now that’s why I was kind of interested in seeing the timeline. Because I would like to see a lot of the construction maybe take place closer to the Northway exit, rather than go up Route 9 and go in close to the restaurant area, because that’s quite a steep slope there, and I think it’s going to have some visibility problems as well. I know when the project is complete, you probably plan on having that ring road constructed and operational, but, have you given any further thought to constructing that road prior to and utilize it during the construction phase? MR. COLLINS-Yes, we have, and the intention is not to do that because we want to operate the Samoset for as long as possible, and the ring road runs right through the middle of one of our buildings there. So the intention is to use the Kenny, which we believe will have sufficient, you know, we’ll make sure the grade is correct. So there’s not an issue of steepness, but it’s sufficiently off the road that it shouldn’t create an issue for construction traffic. Once again, the main reason being we want to use the Samoset property for this year, and, you know, it’s possible at the end of the season we could make the switch over, but during the prime season, at least through October, first part of October, Columbus Day, we want to book those cabins up. MR. PITTENGER-Also I think it’s important to note that there’s not going to be a lot of hauling things in and out. Once those trucks are on the site and equipment is on site, it’s really just going to be people coming to work in the morning and going home. As they were doing the earthwork, the large bulk of this, and the construction of the hotel will be during a time, during off season time when we have an opportunity to actually use some of these lower lots for staging, after the Park is open. So when concrete is coming in, it’s going to be off season times, but when we’re working in the spring immediately, it will be mostly contained on the site, except for people that get to work and go home at night. MR. SANFORD-Yes. No, I appreciate that. I think, speaking just for myself at this particular point in time, I’m not really comfortable with that approach, but I would like to, perhaps, talk to staff and/or our consultant and get their feedback later, because there’s also another project that I’m sure you’re aware of that’s going to, I’m not sure what their timeline is, but they’re going to hopefully be getting an approval to tear down and build a hotel and I’m just concerned about, during the construction, the flow of traffic, and, you know, the best possible way to do it safely. MR. VOLLARO-With that, Mr. Chairman, I’d just like to add on to what Rich is saying here. I have got a comment that, just looking the DOT comment on 2/24/04, which is kind of a one pager, that said it took a cursory review at the traffic, and I would expect DOT to take much 5 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) more than a cursory review now, particularly since we’ve got a potential addition to the Waikita Motel at the intersection of Round Pond Road and Route 9. I think that the whole traffic situation up through there has got to be looked at more as an integrated approach, or a systems approach as I would like to say, rather than looking at each one of the applicants that come through. I think we’re at the point now where we’ve got to, particularly for SEQRA, I think we’ve got to take a look, in the aggregate there, of the whole project, from 254 all the way on up to probably past The Great Escape, and so I think DOT took a very, I think they took a quick slap shot at it and that was about it. MR. LEMERY-Yes, you know, 2001, there was a complete review by DOT, and they signed off, and it’s all right here, and we’re here now, Bob. So we can’t be responsible for what, you know, what Menter does. MR. VOLLARO-I understand that. I wanted to get that on the record, though. I still feel that this Board, as a Planning Board, we very seldom do any of that. We basically look at site plans and things of that nature. MR. COLLINS-I’m sorry, Bob, but you did do that for us. Okay. I mean, we did a five to ten year plan. So, you know, let’s give credit at least for that. MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I’m not trying to discredit anything. What I’m saying, I want to take a good hard look, I want DOT to do, take a good hard look, now, at what’s going on through that corridor. I mean, at the time we did what, for you, we had no idea that the Waikita Hotel was going to come up with another hotel on that corner. I mean, if you look at Route 9, just take a look at it as you go from 254 all the way on up. It’s a congested corridor, and I understand it’s not your problem. I’m just trying to look at it as a completely integrated systems problem. MR. MAC EWAN-Maybe it may help the situation. Where are we on what Creighton Manning is doing for you, based on the DOT meeting you had last week? What are they going to provide? MR. COLLINS-They are providing DOT with all the information that they need. MR. MAC EWAN-It’s a giant step in the right direction. MR. COLLINS-Yes, and I’m just learning the process. DOT planning signs off, and the actual implementation of that information is another step. MR. MAC EWAN-The main thrust here is to justify to DOT that there is a need to have a traffic light there, and potentially, hopefully a traffic light relocated down in front of Round Pond Road, at some point in time, that will help ease the traffic flow, safety issues that have been up there for some time, and I think what Bob is driving at is now that we have a proposal in front of us for the Waikita Hotel that DOT is not aware of, because when we started reviewing that project the other night, the applicant had a March 5 signoff letter from DOT saying there were th no issues, and they were allowing a curb cut to come out there pretty much in the existing area which would have been right directly across from the Martha’s location. So we kind of took exception to that based on the fact that what we knew was progressing here, and we asked the applicant to go back and take a look at that, and we’re looking at, at this point, limiting that curb cut to help ease the traffic situation, but more importantly what we’re trying to accomplish here is the end result, to have a traffic light sitting at Glen Lake Road and a traffic light sitting at Round Pond Road with the ring road complete to alleviate the congestion, potential for traffic accidents and pedestrian safety all through that area. MR. COLLINS-Right. MR. MAC EWAN-And that’s something that we’re striving to accomplish. 6 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. COLLINS-Right, and we did discuss that with DOT, because we may have to move that light, just due to the sight line coming south on Route 9, if the pedestrian bridge will interfere with that, as far as a clear distance to seeing that there’s a light there. So that may occur just because of the pedestrian bridge, but don’t forget, in our EIS, when that light, or when we do the southern ring road, our intention is to completely close off the front of Martha’s. So, if you want us to, you know, work with Dave Menter and, you know, give him some of our data, or what we’re planning to do, we have no problem doing that. MR. MAC EWAN-I think from this Board’s perspective, it’s an issue just trying to pull all these strings together and make it work, and how we get from Point A to Point B is still yet to be determined, but if we get all the information in front of us, I think we can put it in the right hands and maybe twist DOT’s arm a little bit in saying that this is definitely needed, and it’s not a matter of you judge the safety of working intersection by the number of accidents that you do or you don’t have. We’re looking at strictly from a standpoint of traffic flow, the congestion that we’ve faced up there for a number of years, between those two major intersections, and if we can do something to alleviate that, and make the whole area work a lot better from that standpoint, it’s a win/win for everybody. MR. LEMERY-If we can be helpful with that, we’re fully on board with the two lights, and if we can help you with Dave Menter or, you know, however that can work, and maybe they can help us with DOT. MR. MAC EWAN-How far are you aware from getting this Creighton Manning report? MR. COLLINS-I told them we definitely wanted it to them before the end of the comment period, so that they could respond to it, and we could respond to it in the comments. I don’t want to speak for DOT, but based on our meeting, and, Chris, maybe you can comment on that, I thought they felt pretty confident, or the gentleman that was there, felt pretty confident that the information was there to justify it. MR. ROUND-Speaking just to the letter that Bob has from DOT. Basically the conclusion of that letter says, we’re satisfied, and maybe you want to read that on the record, Bob. It says they’re satisfied from the SEQRA perspective, and that most of the items that we’re talking about, the DOT looks at these as work permit issues, and not SEQRA impact issues. So the EIS identified significant growth of the Park over a number of years. The mitigation that’s proposed in the EIS is satisfactory in the mind of SEQRA, and in the minds of DOT in regard to SEQRA impacts, and that the signal locations, the signal warrant is more of a housekeeping issue, in regards to DOT, and really not an issue that really rises to the level that they need to give you a signoff during the SEQRA review process. MR. VOLLARO-I don’t have it directly in front of me, but I know what it said, I know what the date of it was, and it said after a cursory review, we don’t have any comment, and we would defer really to the Town of Queensbury, and I think he mentioned that he would put it in our hands, but from a cursory review, he didn’t have a problem with it, but I think this requires more than a cursory review, and obviously it’s getting more than a cursory review, from what I can understand from my Chairman. So I don’t have any more to say about that really. If there’s a process moving along, that was my goal. MR. MAC EWAN-I think we’ll get there. MR. PITTENGER-Can I respond to just one thing that Mr. Sanford was asking about, and Dean reminded me of it, and in Creighton Manning’s work for the traffic plans that they’re working on, they’re also going to help us with preparing traffic plans for the bridge installation and for the construction access onto this site. So we’ll be looking for them for some guidance on safe turning and that kind of stuff. So we’ll be getting some information on that for you. MR. VOLLARO-Mr. Chairman, I do have the letter, and at the request of Mr. Round, I will read it, and it says, it’s dated February 24. It’s to Mr. Round, Director of Community Development. th 7 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) “Dear Mr. Round: We have performed a cursory review of the Draft Supplemental GEIS for the Great Escape Theme Park. The findings do not appear to compromise the operation of the state highway system and we are still comfortable with the Town of Queensbury monitoring the schedule for the implementation of the various phases of transportation improvements. We strongly encourage the Great Escape Theme Park and the Town of Queensbury to provide a preliminary design of the proposed pedestrian bridge for our review and comment at their earliest convenience. If you have any questions on this, please call Mark Kennedy of this office. Sincerely, William E. Logan Regional Traffic Engineer” So that’s in the record. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Any other questions relative to vehicle access, traffic patterns? Pedestrian access? MR. SANFORD-One question on pedestrian. The bridge, as I understand it, is going to go some distance into the parking lot, and I’m wondering, yes, you know, if people are walking along a sidewalk, and they want to cross the street, they’re going to have to cut, have a way to cut into The Great Escape property on the west, in order to get onto the bridge, because what we want to discourage is people who might not be inside those, the western part of The Great Escape, but might be, let’s say, at Martha’s. We want them to use the pedestrian bridge. So how is that going to be facilitated so a pedestrian would be able to have access to the bridge without deviating significantly from the sidewalk along the road? How is that going to be designed? MR. PITTENGER-This is sort of a double-edged sword. What we have presently planned for this part, on the pedestrian bridge to the north, that I can speak about first, is that we want it to be able to provide access for people who might be staying at the hotel to get to The Great Escape without driving there. So what’s not shown on this plan but I think is on your current plans, and we’ll be developing further, is a pathway that runs along this edge to this plaza where you would get on the bridge and ramp up and over. There’s a bridge here that rises up over Route 9, and then down again. There’s also a bridge that goes across this wetland. So really there’s going to be a drop off on the south side, and on the north side for the little jitney that would go around and pick people up from the remote parking lots, which would be needed for the far northern lots, and the far southern lots. The character of the way the lots will be parked is basically they’ll park in toward the bridge, and then like at the balloon fest, you’ll park your way out. So people will be walking generally through parked cars to get to where they’re going. We are committed to fence off access from the Route 9 sidewalk from our parking lot here, and it’s critical to this design that this fence continues into the ramp. So there really is no opportunity for people from this large north lot, the green lot, to cross the road and just filter their way through. MR. SANFORD-Nor is there an opportunity for a pedestrian to use that bridge, then. MR. PITTENGER-That’s correct, from this end. MR. SANFORD-Right. MR. PITTENGER-So people who would be coming from Glen Lake Road and walking, they would have an opportunity, at the Coach House, to get onto that system, but really, from south of the Coach House, they really would not have an opportunity from the north side. Luckily, there’s not been, that The Great Escape owns most of the property up to the corner, and there really is not a lot of facility for walking through there, but I think that would be the main opportunity. It’s critical for our design to not allow that cross connection to happen. MR. SANFORD-Maybe you ought to put an elevator, John, up there, so people can just be shot right up on an elevator. Just joking. MR. COLLINS-It was a good question, because we talked about that with DOT, because, and Russ is really the traffic, the foot traffic is mostly going to come from the south, the Greycourt, certainly the Waikita, the campground which is there, people that might go to Martha’s, etc. So how do you get them from the public sidewalk, which we don’t have any control over, across 8 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) the road? Do you let them come in to the Park property, get on the pedestrian bridge, but if you create that fence, does that create people wanting to walk through that fence? So we’re still playing that one through, because their question, also DOT’s question, was, how do they get to the A Frame, the little ice cream stand, as well as that other restaurant there. I personally don’t mind if they walk right by it, but, where they put a traffic light at Round Pond Road, they say there will be crosswalks there. MR. SANFORD-Okay. MR. COLLINS-Isn’t that what they said, Chris? If I’m not mistaken. MR. ROUND-Yes. At any light signal, I think that’s the DOT policy is to provide pedestrian amenities and so I think they’re going to have crossings at any intersection. MR. SANFORD-Yes, I didn’t have a solution, but I recognized it could be a problem and I just wanted to spend time. MR. ROUND-Can I ask a question. Russ, did you say people would be able to enter at some point, at the Coach House? MR. PITTENGER-Well, quite frankly, we do have this open driveway into the Coach House, and there is going to be a pathway, and that would be a logical location to get on that walkway, and from the south, just to finish the thought, is that Martha’s is owned by The Great Escape, and so there’s opportunities from Martha’s to get on to the shuttle system and to get a ride around and be dropped off here. Also with these out parcels, I think that the security, it’s not like you’re trying to keep people out. So as we have a, you know, private out holdings of land here, there’s going to be opportunities to get in to the project, but the closer we are to the bridge, I think the more strict we want to be in allowing access across, but as you think about the volume of people that will be coming in using the parking lots, the traffic on that road, the foot traffic on that road, is going to be, I would think it would be down to three or five percent of what it is now. So as long as we have an access for crosswalks, I think that, you know, we can accommodate that. MR. COLLINS-And we’re still in discussion whether or not they would need a crosswalk near the front entrance of the Park, or if the crosswalk at Round Pond Road, if that’s where the light goes, is sufficient for people to get on to that side of the road. MR. SANFORD-Yes. I don’t think, at least I’m not contemplating the crosswalk where they currently go. I mean, that’s the purpose of the pedestrian bridge, but okay. MR. PITTENGER-Correct. It seems also that once those lights get in at either end, the traffic, there’s going to be breaks in traffic which just don’t really exist today. You could sit there trying to pull out of Round Pond Road all day long on certain days, but now at least with the light there, there’ll be a break in the traffic where people could walk across if they had a need to. MR. COLLINS-Just one other comment. The one lot that is on the east side of Route 9, which is our administration parking lot, that will just be disabled parking. We’re going to eliminate the bus drop off, and the bus drop off will actually occur in the main parking lot, right at the base of the pedestrian bridge. So school groups and things will come into the main parking lot, drop right there, as opposed to what they’re doing now, which is right in front of the main gate. So anyone on a bus will walk across that pedestrian bridge. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Any other questions relative to vehicle access, traffic patterns? How about stormwater, sewage design? MR. VOLLARO-I think that’s going to be a public design. The sewer design is a public system now. It’s pretty much a fait accompli, as far as that’s concerned. The water system is, again, a public system. I don’ think we’re going to be dealing with that. 9 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. MAC EWAN-Any questions relative to stormwater, floodplains, retention, detention designs? MR. VOLLARO-It’s so well covered in the 19 March memo from Chazen, I don’t think I, I, th particularly, I don’t have any comment, other than what’s in here, which is very thorough, I think. MR. SANFORD-Well, how are we going to actually, how are these going to be addressed? You sent out the memo. Obviously, The Great Escape is going to review them, dialogue, and then what are they going to do, reflect these things on new drawings? MR. MESINGER-Right. There’ll be a revised set of plans and a revised SWPPP. MR. VOLLARO-I have a comment on that very same issue, and I guess I might as well say it now, Mr. Chairman. I had something I wanted to discuss along those lines as well. On February 10, 2004, the Planning Board, based on a recommendation from Chazen and from Staff, we accepted the Draft Supplemental EIS as complete for purposes of public review and comment. Now, does this March 19 memo in any way affect the status, the standing of that? th MR. MESINGER-I don’t think so. The comments, because this is sort of, a little bit of an unusual process, in that we’re doing site plan concurrent with SEQRA, our memo addresses both SEQRA comments, and site plan comments, and so there are some SEQRA comments that they’re going to have to respond to within the context of the SEQRA review, and then the site plan comments are responded to in the context of the site plan review. To my mind, the revisions in the site plan and the SWPPP don’t rise to the level of requiring some additional environmental review or revision to the EIS. They’re really technical in nature. MR. VOLLARO-That was really my question. Does the status still remain as it was. That was the only the question that I had on that. That’s it there, Mr. Chairman. MR. MAC EWAN-Any questions relative to lighting design? MR. VOLLARO-Yes, I do. For the first time, I have seen a lighting plan that I think is exceptionally well done. It probably, this Board has been chewing on lighting with Wal-Mart for about a year. MR. MAC EWAN-It seems like ten years, but, yes, close to a year. MR. VOLLARO-But now we’ve gotten Wal-Mart down to where you’re going to be very, very satisfied with the way the Wal-Mart thing looks, and I think that your lighting plan is probably more in order with the American Society of Lighting Engineers recommendations than it is even with our spec, and I said before here, and my Chairman got all excited last week when I said I would like to see us revisit our own lighting spec here, because I think we’re higher than what we should be, but you’ve done a good job, on all three, and you sectionalized it, which is a nice way to do it. We had to push Wal-Mart to get sectionalized. You came in on your own. I’m very happy with their plan. MR. MAC EWAN-I’m pleased with it, too. MR. VOLLARO-That’s all I’ve got to say on that. MR. HUNSINGER-I agree. MR. MAC EWAN-Landscape design. 10 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. ROUND-I’m sorry. Could I ask a question? It was in the EIS comments, which talked about lighting on the hotel structure itself, not the site lighting. Are you familiar with that comment, John? MR. COLLINS-A question about whether it be floodlit. MR. ROUND-Whether the structure itself, other than, you know, what kind of lighting is going to be on the building itself, or floodlit. MR. COLLINS-I don’t believe we’ve gotten to that point yet. We certainly will take comments about that and put them into a plan. MR. VOLLARO-Their current plan shows none. MR. COLLINS-Right. MR. VOLLARO-That I can tell you. MR. PITTENGER-I think the anticipation is that we are not going to be floodlighting the building at the main hotel drop off. There’ll be quite a bit of illumination. Even though we’ve dropped off the street lights, we’re putting some bollard lights, and there’ll be quite a bit under the portico share down lighting, and I think there may be a flagpole or a feature in the turnaround that might have some lights on it, but that would be on the east side of the, the west side of the building. MR. VOLLARO-I guess, I don’t want to have to retract this lovely statement I made a few minutes ago, but are you planning on revising that with more lighting because right now you’re right down in the noise on lighting. You’re way down. You’re below one foot candle, as a matter of fact, in your parking area there. MR. PITTENGER-I guess I’m not sure what your question is. MR. VOLLARO-Well, if you’re going to change it, it’s going to change the foot candles on the ground. MR. PITTENGER-The only thing it doesn’t reflect is that there’s going to be some lighting come out of the portico share. MR. VOLLARO-Well, it should be on the plan now. Once you do a lay down of your foot candles on the ground, those lights should show. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, the lighting plan should incorporate all the lighting on the site. Even on the building. MR. PITTENGER-Okay. Well, we can incorporate those in the plan, in our next submission. MR. VOLLARO-And I don’t expect it to raise very much, for what you’re going to do, because you’re down pretty low now, but I don’t want you to be slowly ramping up to a point where all of a sudden you’ve got a nice bright spot over there. MR. PITTENGER-No, it’s just our desire that at the entrance, you know, it’s important when you’re loading and unloading things, that’s all. It would be underneath the overhang. MR. MAC EWAN-While we’re on the subject of resubmission stuff, does everyone like this format of the 18 by 24’s, for ease of use? MR. VOLLARO-Yes. I carried the other ones with me, but I like these because I can use them easily. 11 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. MAC EWAN-Can we get you to, when you make your submissions, do the 18 by 24’s? We seem to like that. MR. PITTENGER-Yes, we’ll probably provide some big sets, too. MR. MAC EWAN-That seems to work well for us. MR. PITTENGER-Yes. MR. VOLLARO-More definition than the big set. MR. MAC EWAN-Actually, as a footnote, I’d like to see that become a policy for the Board, these 18 by 24’s. It’s much easier to work with for us, with the amount of reviews that we do. MR. SANFORD-Mr. Chairman, before you continue on, could I just sort of ask a clarifying question, I believe more of Staff than anyone else, just in terms of procedure here. I’m just trying to understand sequencing. The ZB hasn’t yet addressed the variance issues, and what we’re really kind of doing here, even though I don’t anticipate we’re going to be making any kind of a decision, but we’re really into site plan at this particular point, and aren’t we kind of, in a way, from an administrative point of view, putting the cart in front of the horse by having this meeting, rather than sequencing it where we would follow the ZB basically saying, hey, we’re okay with the height, and so now you can proceed and the other variances? Because what I’m trying to say here is there may be a perception out there in the public that, there may be a perception that there’s a presumption of approval here, and I just, I know that I didn’t set the meeting. I think it was largely driven through Staff’s dating. MR. MAC EWAN-Can I take a stab at this? MR. ROUND-Well, let me go first. MR. MAC EWAN-It’s relative to what we’ve got going through the pipeline right now. Did you have that feeling when we were doing the Wal-Mart review? MR. SANFORD-Not particularly. MR. MAC EWAN-It’s the same scenario. MR. SANFORD-But, in the Wal-Mart scenario, we issued a SEQRA Finding, then it went to the ZBA, then it comes back to us for site plan. What we’re really doing here is site plan without having environmental findings. So there is a distinction. MR. ROUND-Well, I think in the case of Wal-Mart you’re also, all the elements you were struggling over were site plan elements. I don’t think any of them, most of them didn’t rise to the level of significance when it came to SEQRA issues. MR. VOLLARO-I think noise did. MR. SCHACHNER-Your Staff and Counsel are not of one mind on this issue. MR. VOLLARO-I think noise did and light did. MR. ROUND-Yes, a number of them did, but I don’t think everything that you discussed, but let me go back to Mr. Sanford’s question, I guess, is that you’re precluded from issuing any Planning Board approval until you do complete the SEQRA process, and first you need to accept the Final Environmental Impact Statement, and then you need to find, have SEQRA Findings. I think the benefit of having a detailed discussion about the site plan elements is that you get full discovery about what the project is. You’re digesting the details of the project, you 12 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) know, it’s giving you more information to reach your SEQRA decision on these things. It’s going to give you a greater comfort level with whatever decision you reach, whether it’s yes or no on those elements. I don’t know, I’m sure Mark would give you a different answer. MR. SANFORD-Yes. I would like to hear Mark’s comments. MR. SCHACHNER-Mine’s a little more blunt. I think, Rich, that your comment is an accurate comment, that this is not actually typically, from the standpoint of SEQRA review and site plan review, with a project that requires ZBA variances, this is actually not typically the order in which you do things, that I’m familiar with, but my understanding is, and I don’t know who’s made the decision, whether it’s Board, Staff or however, but my understanding is that you’re correct, that this site plan review process, which is really all you’re doing tonight, technically, is starting your site plan review, that the decision was made as a policy decision to, in view of the magnitude of the project, people’s intended timeframes for review of the project and what not, to get the ball rolling, so to speak, on site plan review, recognizing that you certainly can’t make any decisions, but to the extent that I’m understanding your question to be, is this a little bit different than your typical process, I guess from Counsel’s standpoint, it is a little bit different. Nothing wrong with it, but it is a little bit different, and it could create the perception, and perhaps has created the perception, in some minds, that you weren’t concerned about it. I don’t think it’s necessarily an accurate perception. MR. VOLLARO-Well, we thought we had, we might have had, there was an intent at this meeting, of tonight, that perhaps we were going to have dual Boards here. It was discussed that maybe this meeting would have dual Boards, and I think that it’s very beneficial, in a case like this, where both Boards should be sitting, because I think both of them get a chance to take a look at all the data. MR. SCHACHNER-I mean, that’s fine, you have one joint meeting, and joint meetings are fine. MR. ROUND-Just to comment on that issue, Bob, is that, based on the feedback from the ZBA members, that they didn’t think it was productive. We have a meeting scheduled with the ZBA April 6, for them to go through, because it’s very much a different dynamic. They’re very th much, the variance test is very much statute driven, and I think, ideally, we thought that could be accomplished in concurrence with one another, but I don’t think it, we achieved our desired goal in that joint meeting. That’s why we didn’t continue this as a joint meeting of the Boards. Otherwise they would have been here. We chose to separate those two. MR. SANFORD-Right, and that was the purpose of my question, Chris. Because I think that, by us proceeding with site plan, begs the question, is the Zoning Board review little more than a rubber stamp. At least that could be the presumption, or the perception, and all I’m trying to say is I’m trying to be sensitive to some of the intramural activities that take place here. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s well put, and the only thing I’ll add, I think from Counsel’s standpoint, that’s a very appropriate concern, but I don’t think that the Zoning Board of Appeals, for what it’s worth, is viewing this as a rubber stamp situation. I don’t think that the Zoning Board of Appeals is viewing that, because this Planning Board is starting its site plan review at this juncture, that there’s undue pressure on the ZBA to grant variances. I’m sure the applicant is cognizant, obviously the applicant is cognizant of the need for those variances, and to the extent that what we’re reviewing does carry with it the presumption that those variances will be granted, the applicant’s proceeding at its own risk, and I’m sure with, you know, full knowledge of that, as is this Board, in terms of investing time and effort into this, as is Staff and everybody else. If those variances are denied, or if they’re either denied in full or if they’re approved with conditions that change, you know, some configuration of the site plan or what not, then the applicant will have to deal with that, and to some extent will have to, you know, back step. MR. SANFORD-I’m all done. I just wanted that on the record. 13 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. COLLINS-And for, you know, our point, we viewed this meeting as an update on where we stand, and pretty much answer any questions that might have come up between there and that’s pretty much what we anticipated out of the meeting was that we were going to update you on some issues that came up in the previous meeting, basically giving you a look into what our responses to some of the comments were going to be, but knowing that the ZBA meeting was the next step. MR. MAC EWAN-Is that it? Any questions relative to landscape design? I’ve got one. I was just curious as to why there was no landscaping proposed along the Route 9 corridor? As required by design standard guidelines. MR. PITTENGER-We hadn’t gotten that far, Mr. Chairman, but that will be on our revised plan, along with the fencing layout. Another, a comment was made, also, in Chazen’s review, that we provided a bunch of plants, the number of plants, but we didn’t really specifically locate where each would go, as we normally would do, and we’re going to have that corrected, also. MR. MAC EWAN-Super. MR. METIVIER-Wasn’t that on the original plan? MR. MAC EWAN-I didn’t see it. MR. VOLLARO-I don’t think so, Tony, at least I didn’t see it, on the original plan. MR. METIVIER-Well, we’re going back a few years. Wasn’t that part of the original plan? MR. MAC EWAN-Well. MR. ROUND-In the original SEQRA review, they identified that there would be a landscaping plan as part of the site plan review submission, and I think what they’re saying is they don’t have that level of review for your site plan yet. MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t think it was in specifics. MR. METIVIER-All right. That’s why I just questioned that. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other questions relative to landscaping? Anything I missed? MR. VOLLARO-I don’t think so. MR. MAC EWAN-Anything you gentlemen wanted to add? Staff? I’d ask you to give up the table for a couple of minutes. We’ll open up the public hearing. Does anyone want to comment on this application? We anticipate we will leave this thing open tonight, obviously. We’ll table this thing, continue it. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED PAUL DERBY MR. DERBY-Good evening, Paul Derby, President of the Glen Lake Protective Association. I would like you to know that we are extremely frustrated sitting back there, obviously, as you can probably tell by our inappropriate actions, and there is a perception that this thing is trying to be forced through without going through the adequate steps. It makes me wonder, if, in fact, we’re following the proper procedures here, and I mean, I look at the document that I received last evening from Chazen, which seems like a very meticulous one. I thank you for that, but there are over 75 shortcomings, inconsistencies, or substantial problems with the stormwater, the grading and the erosion plans alone, and I know they may be technical, and I know I don’t understand them all, but when I see page after page of that, you really have to wonder if we’re 14 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) really moving too quickly on this thing, and that we might want to just kind of slow down and take a breath and get all the information. I’m not sure how this process works, but obviously it is a process where the client works, or The Great Escape is going to work with the Town and Chazen to come with a completed plan, but I don’t know how we can make real comments unless we all get to see a completed plan, but is the public going to see that? Are you going to leave the public hearing open? Is there going to be comment? Are there going to be other opportunities for us to get up and speak after we see that, and I’m just worried that we’re moving way too quickly on this thing. So I guess at this point, and, you know, we asked about lights on the building at the last, three weeks ago, and they still don’t have it in plans. That’s a big concern for Glen Lake. We’re sort of concerned about what’s going to happen with the visual impact, and we see another visual impact study here. We had also asked that they involve us in this process, and they haven’t. We would certainly volunteer. There’s still nothing beyond the bike path that’s in their plan that I can see, to look at that. How do we know that we’re not going to see this from the lake? I don’t think we are, but how do we know? Why not go out and look, and now the ice is getting thin, but I could have arranged with property owners to view it from several areas along lakeshore. I’m sure people would have volunteered to do that. Nobody asked us to do that. I may still be able to arrange a few of those things, for Saturday, but we always feel like we’re kind of behind the information curve here. Stuff gets thrown in. We all work full time jobs and we’re trying to deal with this stuff. So I just want to express that frustration, and there’s nothing in there about the nighttime lights. They don’t have a plan for it yet. When is all that going to happen, and I guess, at this point, I’m just kind of, my sense is to just kind of, my sense is to ask you to table this process. It doesn’t seem appropriate at this time, to be talking about that, and I know it’s the beginning of the site plan, until we get a completed whole plan, particularly for Glen Lake. We’re concerned about the stormwater plan. Let me just remind you that, in your own Findings Statement, you said that it was paramount, the Glen Lake Fen is of paramount importance for protection of the Town, and we’re going to ask you to table this or reject it, or something at this point, until all the information is there for us to have. So I don’t know if it’s appropriate for me to ask questions of you guys, because I’m not sure how this is going to work. MR. MAC EWAN-Maybe I can help calm your frustrations a little bit. MR. DERBY-Okay. MR. MAC EWAN-When we do site plan review, regardless of whether it’s The Great Escape, Wal-Mart, or any other commercial type endeavor we do, when the application process commences, an application is submitted to the Town, through what’s required of our application submittal, an application is deemed complete. It may not necessarily deem it’s accurate. It may not necessarily say it has all the information we’re looking for, but to begin the review process, it’s deemed as complete. This application is no different than many others we’ve dealt with. If you’re a regular follower of what this Board does, routinely, site plan review is at least a three or four meeting process to get through, while we respond to engineering comments, while we ask for more information, while we obtain everything that’s available for us, to make an informed decision. This application is no different than anything we’ve been doing, as long as I’ve been a member of this Board, for the last dozen years, and to commence the site plan review process, it’s just a natural evolution for us. We’re not going to move any further on this thing tonight. It will be tabled. The public hearing will be left open. You still have days remaining on your comment period to the Supplemental Impact Statement, that’s until April 8, right? So you have two opportunities to still comment and make your th public input known. The public hearing will be left open on this site plan review right up until the night we make a decision on it, if that’s next month, two months from now or sixth months from now, we don’t know, but until we have all the data in front of us to make an informed decision, we certainly aren’t going to move forward on this or any other application that comes in front of us. So I certainly don’t want you to think that the Town, in any way, shape or form is showing any kind of preferential treatment to this application that we don’t show other ones, because, trust me, as long as I’m Chairman of this Board, everyone plays by the same rules. MR. DERBY-Okay. I appreciate that. 15 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. HUNSINGER-I think part of the reason why you didn’t see members of the Board asking a lot of questions tonight is because there still are so many open questions as a result of the memo from March. I mean, I don’t know what I could add that hasn’t already been asked by the consultants and the professionals. So that’s part of the reason why we didn’t have a lengthy dialogue with a lot of questions from Board members at this point. MR. MAC EWAN-And as you’ve already heard tonight, Paul, we’ve got a new lighting plan that’s going to be submitted to us. There’s landscaping that’s going to be, additional landscaping that’s going to be submitted. There’s additional information regarding the traffic impacts on Route 9 corridor that Creighton Manning’s preparing for DOT. So there’s three things right there that we’re aware of that is going to help us obtain a decision that we need to make down the road. MR. DERBY-Okay. Thank you. That clarifies many things. I do have a couple of other questions, and I know the information always kind of comes, seems to be last minute, and I was just wondering if there’s a way to get things in a more timely manner. A question about, are there also written comments taken during site plan review, or is it all just public hearing for them? MR. MAC EWAN-Public hearing. I mean, you’re welcome to submit letters, that’ll be made part of the public record. You can either mail your letters in to the Town, it’ll be made part of the packet. They’ll be read during the next time we have a public hearing, because this is obviously going to be tabled and be left open. Or if you wanted to bring the letter yourself and read it into the record, then give it to Staff afterwards, that’s totally acceptable as well. MR. DERBY-Okay. Are you going to set a timeline this evening for the phases of the site plan review? MR. MAC EWAN-I’m not sure exactly if we’re going to table it to a certain date tonight. As we advance along here, I’ll get a feel for that and where we think we’re going to be on this thing. MR. DERBY-Okay. I have, then, questions about, it seems to me that the lighting and some of these other issues that weren’t addressed before, when we had the SEQRA public hearing, were not part of that, and I’m just, I wonder if, for instance the lighting on the building is really part of the SEQRA issue, and is that going to be available in time for us to get the April 8 deadline, th and these things that go for that which we have not had the opportunity to view. Are we going to have the opportunity to do that? I don’t know if you have the ability to answer that, but I’m going to ask it anyway, and just one other thing. When they kind of come up here and say they think they’ve addressed all Glen Lake concern because we’ve put out that notice, you know, that’s not really accurate to say we have several concerns. We’ve put out a notice to our, to everybody at the lake, and obviously we still have written comment and all this whole process here. So we just want to make that clear, that this is, we’re still in this, too, and we would like to be brought into it more, and the visual impact, again, kind of shows that we asked to be into that. MR. MAC EWAN-How do you feel that you need to be brought into it more? MR. DERBY-Well, for instance, we asked, at the SEQRA hearing, that they contact us, and I know they have my number because they’ve called me for the visual impact, so we could make it easier for them, and assure people on the lake that you wouldn’t see it from the lake. Well here’s another study. I don’t see anything where they’ve called the Glen Lake Protective Association. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, I mean, it’s kind of like, it’s a difficult situation, Paul, because it is kind of like a fine line. I mean, this balloon flying that’s set up for Saturday is for the benefit of the ZBA, who is going to entertain the variance for the heights of the building. Additionally, it’s open for the Planning Board, if we wanted to go see where the balloons were going to be flown, 16 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) as part of our review of this. Where is an applicant’s responsibility to start making phone calls to everyone and the public? It’s my understanding this is a notice that’s going to be in the paper. So the requirements of what the applicant and the Town are required to do is being met. When we do reviews for subdivisions and such like that, I mean, it’s not the responsibility of the Town to pick up the telephone and call everybody who’s surrounding the property in question that’s it’s proposed for subdivision. MR. DERBY-I understand that. MR. MAC EWAN-So, you know, you try to do what you can to accommodate the public and make everybody fully aware of what’s going on. MR. DERBY-Yes. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m saying, you know, you’re keeping us out of this process, but we’ve actually asked The Great Escape, I thought it would have been a good practice, since they talk about working with their neighbors, to do that, and I’m not saying. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s something, that’s a vehicle that I would suggest the Glen Lake Association do, direct communications with representatives of The Great Escape. Instead of funneling it through the Town, because I think, you know, we walk a fine line, too, here, as far as how much we can ask of any applicant to integrate within the community and what they’re responsibilities are according to what our Town Codes are. MR. SANFORD-Mr. Chairman, though, one question that has come up, basically, with this individuals comments that raises an issue for me. With the multitude of stormwater issues that are still outstanding, is it practical to meet that April 8 deadline, because I’m not even sure th when these are going to be answered and solidified, and I believe the purpose for that April 8 th deadline was so that the Glen Lake Association could have time to review and feel comfortable, you know, get a comfort level together on it. Are we going to be able to do that satisfactorily? MR. MESINGER-Remember, our comments are also part of the comment record. April 8 is the th close of the SEQRA process. We’ve generated comments on SEQRA and the site plan, and as a result of that, the applicant’s have to do a couple of things. One is to prepare a Final EIS that addresses these comments, and they will also be revising the site plans and accompanying reports, and, you know, you, the Board, us, the consultants, Staff and the public are all going to have a chance to review the responses in the FEIS and the revised plans. MR. SANFORD-But my point is, or his point might be, I don’t want to speak for him, is that, if this comes in on April 7. th MR. MESINGER-Well, it won’t. It’ll probably come in afterwards. I mean, that’s the way SEQRA works, is SEQRA comment period will close, and then responses will be made, and there’s an opportunity to review the responses as well as the next iteration of plans, and that’s how the process works. MR. ROUND-Do you want to just touch on that you met with Warren County Soil and Water Conservation. MR. LEMERY-That was asked for and responded to. MR. MAC EWAN-John, this is, we’ll give you an opportunity to get back up here. MR. MESINGER-With respect to the stormwater, I think, you know, and I think I’ve already said this, but it bears repeating. We don’t think that from a conceptual, you know, big picture design point of view, they’re that far off. It’s really the details. In other words, if what we were saying is, you know, the whole way you have this thing laid out just isn’t going to work, and there’s a bunch of environmental issues with this, and you’ve got to redo it in some fashion, or do something else, then you might have a reason to say, okay, we need to, you know, do a 17 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) supplemental EIS or do something else, but that’s really not the case. I know there’s a lot of comments, but they really are how you meet the letter of the Phase II stormwater regulations which are fairly detailed. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thanks, Stu. MR. DERBY-Okay, and, you know, I appreciate this dialogue. I learn a lot from this, and I just want to reiterate that the Glen Lake Protective Association said then, and we say now, that we are not opposed to this project, but we want to make sure that it’s done properly, because that’s important to our environment and water quality is our biggest concern. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. MR. DERBY-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? KAREN ANGELSON MS. ANGELSON-Karen Angelson, 1 Greenwood Lane. Twicwood. I just have a couple of more comments. The Chazen Engineering company has reviewed the SDGEIS as compiled by Six Flags, The Great Escape, and as presented you with a document, and as I’ve been listening here, I had typed this up beforehand, I do know that you’ve read a lot of it, and that I’m assuming that each one of you have read it, and have noted all the numerous references to omissions, questions, numerous inconsistencies and recommendations and a lot of them have been mentioned tonight, and this review does have numerous questions, issues and inconsistencies and recommendations in it, and in addition, it brings out many of the, some of the same issues and concerns and questions that were brought up at the March 2 public hearing by the nd members of the community. So I guess the community’s concern is the same as what, and Chazen was able to identify some of those as well. Personally, I’m still very, very concerned about the amount of traffic and the flow of traffic on Route 9, and the whole corridor affected by The Great Escape. I cannot say it too many times, and you’re probably going to hear me every time I can have the opportunity to publicly say it. I’m concerned about the safety of the public and the conflict between vehicle and pedestrian traffic, and I recommend that the Certificate of Occupancy not be granted until the issues of the ring road, pedestrian bridge and traffic lights be in place. When saying that, I mean that the pedestrian bridge be built, used by the people crossing Route 9 from the west to east side of The Great Escape property and back. Whether these pedestrians be customers of either side of The Great Escape property or the general public walking on the sidewalks on Route 9. In the GEIS of 2001, it is stated that the entrances to the parking lots on the west side of Route 9 be closed and the entrances to the parking lot on the west side be from the ring road at the lower end, Round Pond Road and the upper Glen Lake Road. This needs to be included in the traffic solutions along with installing the traffic lights to the Glen Lake Road and the Round Pond Road intersections, and I was very happy to see that that was discussed tonight in that exact description, and The Great Escape needs to be held to their proposal that the ring road is complete as proposed in 2001. Not as they are attempting to re-sequence at this time. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? JOANN BRAMLEY MRS. BRAMLEY-Joann Bramley, Twicwood. I would like to ask a clarification. I don’t know if it can be given tonight or not. The last time I spoke about the Special Use Permit, and is it the understanding that if the Special Use Permit is granted, then the property to the west of Route 9, and east of the Northway, the entirety of that property, would be open to further amusement type development or not. Or is it only specific to this water park, or would there be a precedent usage that because it was there for the water park, it’s now? 18 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. ROUND-I think what’s been applied for is specific to what’s been proposed as a water park. It’s not a generic Special Use Permit. It’s specific to the project that’s proposed, this water park, and I think the applicant’s on record talking about, I think they haven’t reached a final decision whether they’re going to continue on with it as a Special Use Permit, or restrict it to just hotel users only, and I think they’ll probably respond to that in the context of the final impact statement. MRS. BRAMLEY-Okay. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Special Use Permits in general are just that. They’re Special Use Permits for specific uses. They’re not something that can be generically done. I’m going to give you an analogy is we’re seeing a run, right now, on a lot of Class A Marinas up in Lake George that are residentially owned, so to speak, that require them to come in and get a Special Use Permit to run their two or three docks. If they get an approval for a Special Use Permit to have three docks to rent, that doesn’t mean that they can go put in five docks, six docks or expand the operation in any way, shape or form. It’s very specific about what you can and cannot do. MRS. BRAMLEY-Okay. My next question is, in the drawings, the tubes that are coming from the water park, that are exterior to the building, are very brightly colored. Is that how it’s going to be in actuality, or is that just? MR. MAC EWAN-We can have the applicant address that. MRS. BRAMLEY-Okay. My concern is that maybe they be more in keeping with the Adirondack theme, color theme that the building is being done in. The signage, the turn lane that’s been constructed from Exit 20, south to Gurney Lane, so there can be a continuous turn lane at Gurney Lane, is there going to be signage between Exit 20 and Gurney Lane, on the west side of Route 9, indicating that that would be the lane to stay in for Great Escape, which would then render that turning lane now no longer a turning lane? MR. MAC EWAN-That’s a good question. That seems to be an offsite improvement, and I don’t know if it would be the applicant’s responsibility to provide the signage for the County to put up? We certainly would get an answer for you on that. MRS. BRAMLEY-But if a sign is there, I guess what I’m getting at is, if there is a sign that this is now going to be a southbound lane, do we need to entertain an additional lane, that would be the turn lane so that the lane that is there now would be the southbound lane? MR. MAC EWAN-I understand what you’re asking. I don’t have an answer for you. MRS. BRAMLEY-Okay. I wasn’t sure I was clear. MR. MAC EWAN-We’ll get an answer for you. MRS. BRAMLEY-I’m still, sorry to say I’m a little unclear about the main parking lots now being closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic. I heard Mr. Collins say, this evening, that they would be entrance only, and if there was no light, then they would exit the way they are now, which means they wouldn’t be entrance only. They would be exiting. MR. VOLLARO-Entrance only. No left turn coming in. With no light, there would be no exit at that. MRS. BRAMLEY-At all? MR. VOLLARO-No. MRS. BRAMLEY-Okay. 19 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. VOLLARO-They could only come in and not go out. MRS. BRAMLEY-Okay. I’d also like to say that I think, for the record, that the negative economic impact involved with the height of this hotel is related to fire protection, that the current ladder truck that Central has was purchased by Mr. Wood when he owned Great Escape and formerly Story Town. The replacement of that truck, or additional trucks, would be a taxpayer expense. I’m sure that the current owner isn’t going to supply another vehicle like that, and not only for the height of this structure, but there are other applicants, I understand, that are interested in having structures in excess of the height limitation that we have now also. Has that been discussed at all amongst the Staff or the Planning Board. MR. MAC EWAN-There is no other application in front of this Board for review, or the ZBA, that I’m aware, of, that an application is looking for a variance on a height beyond what the Code is. MRS. BRAMLEY-But I guess the potential exists. Now that we have precedent of this variance for additional properties to want to build heights in excess of the Code, and with that comes the chance that we are going to need additional types of fire protection that only those vehicles can provide. MR. MAC EWAN-I suppose the potential could exist that someone would want to propose a five story commercial office building somewhere in Town. How does one address that or how does the Board address that when you don’t have an actual application in front of you? MR. SANFORD-Well, we have this application in front of us, and I think what is being suggested is that the height of this building is tall, and it requires an unusual fire truck to service it, and that may, in fact, be a sizeable expenditure to the Town, and I think that’s your point. MRS. BRAMLEY-Yes. MR. SANFORD-I don’t have an understanding as to what the magnitude of these vehicles might be, but I would suspect they’re not inexpensive. MRS. BRAMLEY-Well, I think someone had given me a ballpark figure of $800,000 now, and I know that this isn’t anything that we need at this point. This isn’t, I just think that this is something we have to understand as a potential expense to the Town. MR. VOLLARO-I believe that there are tower trucks in Queensbury, and there’s several fire districts, but I think that there are tower trucks that are capable of handling this. Now I see a couple of people in the audience that probably know the answer to this, shaking their heads up and down, and I’d like to know how many tower trucks are in the Town of Queensbury that could respond to a fire in the hotel of this height. MR. MAC EWAN-We can direct Staff to ask Queensbury Central to provide us with a letter or report for a building of this size. We’ve routinely done it before with other applications. MRS. BRAMLEY-Okay. I’d also like to express my frustration at the, and there’s no need to go into detail, but this unusual process of why we’re all here tonight when, and I’ve heard the explanations, I just want to go on record as saying that, up until this point, that’s also been a frustrating factor that the timeframe does seem to be accelerated. I don’t know the origin, and I don’t know the goal of that, but I do think that this is an enormous project that has a lot of impacts that need to be looked at very carefully. When Mr. Vollaro was speaking about DOT taking a cursory view of the traffic, and you read from the document saying that they had signed off on the Town monitoring the schedule, does that mean the Town Planning Board, the Town Board or the Planning Board, or who is? 20 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. VOLLARO-It says comfortable with the Town of Queensbury monitoring the schedule for implementation of the various phases of transportation improvements. I read that to be not just us, but the Town. MRS. BRAMLEY-The Town Board, right. MR. VOLLARO-Which would include us, the Town Board and whoever else. MRS. BRAMLEY-Would be involved, right. MR. VOLLARO-The Town of Queensbury is the oversight on this one. MRS. BRAMLEY-My next comment is regarding the pedestrian bridge, and I still do not understand the vague language and the hesitancy on the part of the applicant, you know, again tonight, you know, the words were used that it’s part of an overall project, you know, we’re going to try, we’re going to start, you know, but there’s nothing about completion, there’s nothing about a commitment date to that project, and that really is not acceptable. In closing I’d like to say that I feel that it’s necessary that, as I stated before, that the improvements be completed prior to, or at the time the hotel becomes operational, including the pedestrian bridge, the lights at Glen Lake and Round Pond Road, the completion of the proposed ring road connecting these two points, and this project has changed tremendously in scope. That has stated on Page Four of Chazen Company’s March 19 document that we all have in front of us, th and this is what necessitates the difference between the document that Mr. Lemery said was completed in 2001 and did not tie the bridge to the hotel, and it is very frustrating to us, from our position, that so many changes have been made by the applicant, and they refer to as need, this needs to be done, and this has to be done. The project scope has changed, and I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility to change the scope in the direction of these things that we’ve asked to be tied to the hotel. I thank you for your time. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? WILLIAM TUCKER MR. TUCKER-William Tucker, Glen Lake. The last time I was here, I heard aggressively grading. Now, how’s that going to affect the noise coming off the Northway? MR. MAC EWAN-From what aspect are you referring to? MR. TUCKER-Buffer zone. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, a good portion of the hill that abuts Route 9 is not going to even be removed. There’s a substantial piece of the property that’s not going to be impacted at all. MR. TUCKER-Because when I look at that chart up there talking about that parking lot that goes up where the cabins are now, that looks like they’re going to flatten that all out, remove a lot of trees. MR. MAC EWAN-We’ll ask the applicant to respond to it for you. MR. TUCKER-The second thing, visual impact. You’re talking about a balloon. I mean, isn’t this building a little bigger than a balloon? MR. MAC EWAN-What the balloon will show you will be the proposed height of the building. It’s a standard thing that applicants do when they’re proposing heights. We’ve looked at them before in the Town. We’ve proposed cell towers have given us heights. What’s a couple of other ones we’ve done? MR. SANFORD-The ride. 21 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. MAC EWAN-Yes. We also did it with the proposed athletic complex over on Sherman Avenue. We had balloons floated over there so we could see the proposed height of the dome. I mean, it’s a good way to do it, and hopefully the weather conditions will be favorable when they float the balloons. MR. TUCKER-Right, but I guess they’re going to be removing trees that now are, will block the balloon? MR. MAC EWAN-No, I don’t think so. MR. VOLLARO-I think Mr. Pittenger gave you a position when he was talking about where the balloons would be flown from, and I think when we get to answer your question, he’ll probably go up and show you again where the balloons are actually going to be flown from. So that there aren’t any tree removal. I don’t see any trees being removed from where that balloon’s going to fly, to the line of sight where the people are going to view it. MR. TUCKER-Okay. Thank you. MR. VOLLARO-He’ll probably want to get up, give that to you again anyway. MR. MAC EWAN-Anyone else? ANNA FOWLER MS. FOWLER-Hi. I’m Anna Fowler. I am with the Glen Lake Protective Association Board, and I live on Ash Drive. There was a question, first of all, there was a question by Richard, I guess, and I’m not sure if I understood whether that was answered or not, and it was, he asked, since there were a multitude of outstanding issues about the stormwater management plan, and he asked whether or not it was practical for us to be able to meet the April 8 deadline that was th set at the last meeting, and assuming that this date was set to allow us time to review the information from the last meeting, but we just got this information yesterday, the new information. So I didn’t know if we, had we answered that question? MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, we did. MS. FOWLER-We did. So we can continue to? MR. MAC EWAN-No. The answer that was given by our consultant, correct me if I’m wrong, was that they were talking about the many changes, engineering wise, detail changes, from the conceptual plan that was submitted as part of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, and to go through the process, closing out the public comment period on April the 8, there’s th enough information contained in that document, from a conceptual point of view, that would allow the public comment period to go through its course and close on the 8. The detailed th engineering information, like we do with any site plan review we do, just needs to tidy up that stuff. Conceptually, the plan by our consultant deems it will work. It’s just a matter of closing those gaps in the details. MS. FOWLER-I haven’t had a chance to. MR. SCHACHNER-Mr. Chairman, could I chime in on that issue? MR. MAC EWAN-Sure. MR. SCHACHNER-I’m fearful that your response, which I don’t disagree with, but it could be misperceived by members of the public as suggesting that they will never have an opportunity to publicly comment on the additional stormwater information, and it’s important, I think we all understand, I hope we all understand, that’s not the case. As part of the application process, 22 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) as you indicated, the public hearing on the site plan review is not closing tonight, and it’s also not closing on April 8. So, members of the public will still have an opportunity to comment on th that stormwater information, what’s been submitted last night, and/or what’s being submitted, what still has not yet been submitted. It’s a little bit. I’m afraid it may be confusing to the public, because we’re talking about two different processes that are running concurrently but they’re not exactly parallel to one another. Did that comment help clarify that, I hope? From your standpoint? MR. MAC EWAN-It did for me. MS. FOWLER-Yes. Maybe it’s just because there’s so many things happening at once here, but I just want to make sure that we will get a chance to review this new information, because it just came to us, and I haven’t really looked at it adequately, but, just from a brief glimpse, it looked to me like it could be something that we wanted to look at more seriously, that it might not be just superficial details, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it. So, I had a question from the GLPA Board members here, that if more information comes in after tonight, if we could request that we have additional public comment period, 30 days would be wonderful, if there is more to come, after tonight, so that we have time. MR. MAC EWAN-Well, this public hearing for this site plan review will remain open. Certainly this isn’t closing. MS. FOWLER-Okay. I just wanted to make sure, because it’s very to misunderstand. MR. MAC EWAN-No, this public hearing is going to remain open. MS. FOWLER-Right. Thank you very much. MR. SANFORD-Well, Mr. Chairman, perhaps you could clarify for me. Regarding environmental findings, I hesitate to use SEQRA because we’re not doing a SEQRA. We’re doing environmental findings. MR. SCHACHNER-Wait. I’m sorry to interrupt. You are doing SEQRA review. What you’re not doing is reaching a negative declaration. The context of the findings that our Chairman is referring to are in fact what are called SEQRA findings. They’re the conclusion of the Environmental Impact Statement process. MR. SANFORD-Okay, and I think what I’m interested in getting clarified is this April 8, which th was established as a deadline for, I guess, closing public comment on SEQRA findings. MR. SCHACHNER-Closing public comment on the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. MR. SANFORD-Okay. It in no way, necessarily, suggests that we’re going to conclude environmental findings on that date. MR. SCHACHNER-You can’t conclude environmental findings on that date. Not even close, and if you don’t mind, I’ll explain the process quickly. The process is this. The close of the public comment period on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, in this case a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, is currently scheduled for April 8. After those th public comments, whatever public comments are left, are received, the applicant will then prepare a proposed Final Environmental Impact Statement. I underscore the word proposed, because you, as the SEQRA Lead Agency, have to then review what the applicant presents as the proposed Final Environmental Impact Statement, and decide whether you’re comfortable with accepting it as a Final Environmental Impact Statement. If and when you do that, there is then a minimum additional ten day period, after your acceptance of the Final Environmental Impact Statement, before yet another public meeting, like this meeting, you would then have the opportunity to adopt what’s called the SEQRA Findings Statement. So you will not 23 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) conclude your SEQRA review process. You will not make your ultimate SEQRA Findings on this until there’s been, until the close of the public comment period on the Draft EIS, preparation of a Final EIS, acceptance of a Final EIS, and at least 10 more days for public and other people to consider that Final EIS. Only then will you be able to conclude your SEQRA review process, make your SEQRA Findings, and until that happens, none of the Boards involved will be making any actual final decisions on anything. MR. SANFORD-That’s been helpful. Has it helped you out as well? Because I needed clarification on that. MS. FOWLER-Okay. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Thank you. Anyone else? LORRAINE STEIN MS. STEIN-Lorraine Stein. I just want a little bit more clarification on the 10 days. Is that after the Final draft is drawn up we only have 10 days to review it? MR. SCHACHNER-Do you want me to answer that? MR. MAC EWAN-Sure. MS. STEIN-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-No. It is a fairly complicated process, and I’m doing my best here. I think your question was is that after the Final draft is prepared. MS. STEIN-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-And the answer to that question is no. The 10 day period I referred to is later, down the road, after this Board, as what’s called the SEQRA Lead Agency, meaning the agency in charge of New York State Environmental Quality Review Act review, at some point, presumably, this Board will accept another document called a Final Environmental Impact Statement as complete. When that happens, there’s a minimum of 10 days between that acceptance of that Final Environmental Impact Statement, and the Board then adopting what are called its SEQRA Findings, which are the environmental findings that Mr. MacEwan’s been referring to. MS. STEIN-Okay. So how long does the public have to comment on the final draft, or the final? MR. SCHACHNER-Environmental Impact Statement. MS. STEIN-Yes. MR. SCHACHNER-That’s a thorny question in SEQRA review law because the purpose of the 10 day period is to allow people to review the Final Environmental Impact Statement, but unless the Board makes a decision to reopen any public hearing, there is no public hearing and there is no mandatory consideration of public comments at that juncture. That’s up to the Board as the SEQRA Lead Agency. MS. STEIN-Yes. See, and I think that’s the problem we are all having, because we don’t have the final information, and we won’t have final information for a while, and we won’t have, it doesn’t appear, enough time to comment on that, if at all be able to comment on it. That is our concern, I think. MR. VOLLARO-One of the ways to do that is to keep the public hearing open, right up until the very end, so the public has an opportunity to participate. 24 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. SCHACHNER-You can’t keep the SEQRA, initial SEQRA public hearing open until the very end, because then the process would be a never ending process. The applicant has to be able to prepare a proposed Final Environmental Impact Statement, and it can’t do that until conclusion of the public hearing on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. It wouldn’t be a reopening, and I’m being a little technical here, but that’s part of my job. What you can do, and what some Lead Agency’s do, is and you have the authority to do this if you wish, but you’re not obligated to, is you could have a public hearing on the Final Environmental Impact Statement during that period after acceptance of that document. You can do that if you wish, but you can’t keep the public hearing process that we’re in right now, you can’t keep that open until then or it will be a never ending process by definition. MR. VOLLARO-But we do have, based on what you said there, we have an opportunity to reopen, in effect. MR. SCHACHNER-Technically, you wouldn’t be reopening. Technically you’d be having another public hearing on the Draft of the Final, or on the Final Environmental Impact Statement. MR. MAC EWAN-We have some options available to us that we can take under consideration. MR. SCHACHNER-That is certainly true. MS. STEIN-And I would like to just say for the record that I would hope that the Town will do that, and at least give us enough time to review the documents, because this is a very critical project for our area, whether it be traffic, stormwater, it is a very serious project. Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else. Okay. We’ll leave the public hearing open. Chris, when do you anticipate that you’d want to reconvene this review? MR. ROUND-I think the next step is for the applicant to prepare a Final, proposed Final Environmental Impact Statement. They will deliver that to you, and then you need time for our technical review, and to bring it back to you, and I think at that point would be the next reconvening of this Board, and we don’t have a date. MR. SCHACHNER-It’s very difficult, at this stage, to pick another date. MR. MAC EWAN-Yes, it is. MR. SCHACHNER-Remember that the next significant step in the process is the step that really rests with the applicant, and the applicant can’t even know for sure, tonight, as the applicant sits here, how long it’ll take because they don’t have all the public comments, obviously. I’m sure they have a goal in mind, but. MR. COLLINS-Right, and, no offense to your timeline, but based on the comments we’ve heard, giving you that gives the public an idea that somehow there’s a timeline to this. So, you know, we can’t give you one until we find out what the timeline is. MR. MAC EWAN-And just so the public understands, when we were talking about a timeline to this whole thing, we’re looking at a construction schedule. We wanted to see how the pedestrian bridge was fitting in with completion of the hotel, versus the completion of ring roads and traffic lights and stuff like that. I think that’s what we were looking at from a timeline, so to speak. MR. SCHACHNER-Maybe, could I take a stab at that as well? MR. MAC EWAN-Sure. 25 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. SCHACHNER-Having been involved in several dozen of these situations, I think there may be a misunderstanding here. I think what the Board is looking for is a timeline that doesn’t necessarily have real days, as in November 11, April 5, but a Day One, Day One Hundred, thth Day One Hundred and Fifty, of construction schedule. Is that not correct? MR. MAC EWAN-That’s what we’re looking for. MR. VOLLARO-That’s how PERT is set. MR. COLLINS-We have that. MR. SCHACHNER-Okay, but I think Mr. Collins was saying he couldn’t say we’ll do this on April 10, and he’s absolutely right. th MR. COLLINS-Correct. MR. SCHACHNER-He’s absolutely correct. MR. COLLINS-Correct. MR. VOLLARO-I understand that completely. MR. COLLINS-Just a couple of comments, if we may. It was brought up about the balloon flights, and, yes, maybe we didn’t call the neighbors, but the intention for doing this balloon flight was obviously for the Planning Board and the public announcement will be through the papers and obviously through this meeting. So, not exactly calling them, we didn’t do that. So we apologize for that, but it is happening, on Saturday morning. John had a couple of issues. MR. LEMERY-Well, it’s the third time, it is about science, and I guess, you know, there have been two balloon flights which have been made, and they are documented. So this third balloon flight was for the purposes so that the Zoning Board could take a look at it, because there was some issue regarding a, the 78 foot dome that was approved over on the other side of town. So, that’s what we understood to be the case, and we were told that it was going to be published so that it would be public notice and anybody who wanted to go out there could go out there. So we encourage everybody who wants to look at this thing to go out there and take the time to understand how they do it. So that it, you know, can be a thoughtful process. The question of the stormwater management plan, the stormwater management plan is about science. It’s science. So, if we can encourage the Glen Lake Association to deputize, if they’re skeptical about what’s, you know, the end result, maybe they need to deputize somebody in the Association or someone that they have confidence in to work with the Town Engineer, work with our engineer, to make sure that every issue that they have relating to stormwater management is answered to their satisfaction. Glen Lake is not going to be impacted by this stormwater management plan. That is a promise and a commitment of this company, and it has been a commitment of this company that Glen Lake is not going to be impacted, since they acquired it, and since the implementation of this Impact Statement back in 2001, which I don’t know how to respond other than sometimes somebody needs to take the time to read it, because a lot of the issues that were raised tonight by some of the people were addressed I that document already, but if they could deputize somebody, we would like to make it an inclusive process. It doesn’t have to be some sort of process that people are thinking that they’re left out. I don’t know how we could do that, but we would certain encourage, what we thought we were doing was the correct thing when we were told that we had to coordinate it with the Warren County Soil and Conservation. That’s what we were told the last time we were here. That was done, and they have given their comments to the engineers, and some of Chazen’s comments are reflective of what the County did by way of looking at the document. So we will be responding to that. If there are other issues about the stormwater management plan that are of concern to the residents, if they could help us by engaging somebody, or having somebody deputized, as I said, to work with everybody, so that we can make sure that their questions are answered. 26 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. SANFORD-John, I believe that they probably did read the report, but if they didn’t, our consultant did, and he came up with a 19 page report, most of which was concerned with areas that needed to be further addressed within the stormwater report, and I can’t speak for the audience, but I know I was concerned about the volumes of issues that need to be taken care of. So I think the comments that I heard, at least, was it’s not yet complete. It’s not solidified at this point in time, and how can we feel comfortable when there are so many loose ends, and so I think that that was the point that was trying to be made. MR. LEMERY-Yes, no, I agree, and nobody’s asking for any approval of a stormwater management plan tonight. We viewed those comments as, some of them, a lot of them very minor technical issues. So, having said that, it’s an engineering and it’s a scientific, it’s scientific study which is done, and which is managed. So, the idea of just sort of, we can’t shoot at moving targets. We can’t be, you know, sort of shooting at, well, delay it for this, let’s keep looking, let’s keep looking, let’s keep looking. We have to have some definable standard. The Town has an engineer. The engineer has given his comments. That’s the definable standard. Our obligation is to respond, line for line, to that, and satisfy your engineer. If there’s anything else we can do to satisfy anybody out in the audience who has a question, we’d like to b able to do that, and get the right answer, take the right steps, and make it so that they’re comfortable with it. That’s all I can say with regard to that. MR. MAC EWAN-On your comment, in trying to maybe get someone from the Glen Lake Association to be representative as a liaison or whatever, I’ll get together with Chris on that and we’ll see if we can’t help facilitate that along. MR. LEMERY-Yes, I mean, we don’t want, it doesn’t have to be adversarial. It can be all inclusive and complete, because that’s what we’d like to see here. See, I want to address the comment about the west side of Route 9. There’s no intention, and you can make it part of the Findings, that there’s nothing, there are not going to be any rides or attractions over there. That’s parking. We had the permission to build the hotel, and we had the permission to build a convention center, and the only thing we did was put an indoor water park, which is a large expanded indoor pool, as part of the hotel. So we already have permission to do that. That was determined and the SEQRA Findings were made in 2001. The only issue was with the question of, and the only reason for the Supplemental Impact Statement was because of the special permit request, and the Area Variance. So it’s not like the project has changed in that regard. We had permission to do that from the outset, as a result of this six volume document. So that was the purpose for that, but there is no intent, and we’re more than happy to make that part of the Findings, Mr. Chairman, to make sure that everybody’s comfortable that nothing’s going on on the west side except the hotel and the water park, and the parking. There was never any intention to do that. MR. COLLINS-And also the comment about the completion of the entire ring road. With what we’re doing with the pedestrian bridge in the northern part of the ring road will address about 80% of the total traffic mitigation that was required in this document. So 80% will be done based on that 1.5 million figure that was originally put into this document with Park attendance, and we’re not close to that. So you’re talking about 80% of that, even without the southern ring road being done. MR. SANFORD-Can I just maybe jump in here, just for just a minute. I think that what I’m hearing quite often is that the point of departure, when we get into discussions like this, is going back to 2001. MR. COLLINS-Yes. MR. SANFORD-I would like to point out that I think that that would be fine if you were moving forward with the same kind of an approach to development that you were going to do back in 2001, but I think what we’re seeing here is a material modification of what was proposed back then, and I would suspect, and I’ll ask Counsel for their opinion, but this 27 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) somewhat brings it down to a whole new playing field, where we basically could look at this in a way, given the magnitude of this new project, and basically feel uncomfortable about not having the southern part of ring road. I mean, in other words, what I’m hearing from the applicant is, going back to July 2001, there was an understanding, and I’m saying that this modification is material enough to basically set aside many of those understandings. MR. SCHACHNER-Well, I guess I’m going to agree, in part, and disagree in part. I mean, I think it’s fair to call the new proposal a material modification, and I think the applicant, without maybe using those words, has conceded, or is not disputing that, and that’s why the applicant has, I believe voluntarily, prepared a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. So to that extent, the reason we’re in the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement mode, is because, in fact, we don’t have identically in front of us, or in front of you, what you had in 2001. To the extent that the modifications, I mean, I think to the extent if, Rich, you’re saying that now everything that happened in 2001 is out the window, and I don’t think you’re saying that. MR. SANFORD-I’m not saying that. MR. SCHACHNER-Right, just hear me out. I don’t think you are either, but if you were saying that, now it’s a whole new ballgame and everything that happened in 2001 is out the window, I would say, no, I don’t agree with that. To the extent that the thing that the applicant is proposing are things that were addressed by the Generic Environmental Impact Statement in 2001, and that the applicant’s current proposal is consistent with elements of its proposal back then, that’s the fundamental purpose of doing a Generic Environmental Impact Statement, so that you don’t have to redo the environmental review, but, the part of what you said there I’m agreeing with is to the extent that what the applicant is now proposing is inconsistent with and different than what was proposed back in 2001, and any direct ramifications of those new or different proposals, aspects that are new, yes, that’s why we’re in this mode is because you can look at those with a fresh eye. MR. SANFORD-So we can look at traffic, the traffic impact from a much larger amusement/hotel could be looked upon differently than in 2001, which was a much smaller strictly hotel, because it might generate a different traffic pattern. MR. LEMERY-Well, that’s not true, because in 2000 we got approval for the hotel and a convention center, which would, I don’t know if you know that, but there’s a convention facility as part of the Environmental Impact Statement. MR. MAC EWAN-I’d like Counsel to answer that question for our Board member. MR. LEMERY-This is an amenity to the hotel. MR. MAC EWAN-I know. MR. LEMERY-This is an amenity to the hotel. MR. MAC EWAN-Mark? MR. SCHACHNER-Remember, Rich, that one of the ways this Generic Environmental review was handled in 2001 is, there was some recognition that specific details of future development were not then known, and that’s why it was what’s called a Generic Environmental Impact Statement. That’s, in this context, what the word generic means, and in many respects, as I recall, and Stu knows this, and Chris, and they’ll chime in, too, if need be, in many respects, future development was not necessarily pinned down very precisely to here’s exactly what’s going to be developed, but what was established was a series of thresholds for performance criteria. Nothing can be noisier than this. Nothing can be taller than this. Nothing can be, I think, produced, I don’t know if there was a stormwater one. I don’t recall that. I don’t think there was one, but a noise, height, and traffic, I think those were three elements where certain thresholds or performance criteria were established for future development. This is the part 28 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) that Stu or Chris will have to chime in on, but my understanding, and you know what I’m about to say is not my area of expertise, but my understanding is that the traffic generation data that’s being presented for this proposed modification does not trip any of those thresholds to require new and different traffic mitigation than what was identified back in 2001. If you, and that doesn’t mean that the data’s true. Of course I have no opinion about that. MR. SANFORD-Yes. It’s a representation. MR. SCHACHNER-Correct. To the extent that you want to analyze that representation, analyze that data, question that representation, question that data, no question you have the right to do that, and I think you are doing that, in large respect, that’s one of the things Chazen’s doing and that’s one of the things DOT will be doing. MR. SANFORD-Can’t we look at, also, cumulative effects that have taken place since 2001, as we look at this project, namely the proposed additional hotel across from Martha’s? MR. SCHACHNER-I think you can look at those, at least from the broad brush perspective, not only can you look those, but from the standpoint of SEQRA review and cumulative impacts, you probably are obligated to look at those, again, not in, of course, the specific manner of, not as specifically as you’re looking at the applicant’s application, but, yes, you can take those into account. MR. VOLLARO-I would just like to say one thing. I think if you, the thing that’s taking this out of almost a one to one relationship, which Rich is talking about, in terms of 2001 and today, if we weren’t looking for a Special Use Permit for this water park, I would then look at that water park as an exotic pool, to go along with this hotel, but once we start to look at the Special Use Permit, it throws that into an entirely different mode, in my mind, and I’ve got some notes here that I wasn’t even going to reference tonight, but I will now because I’m looking at whether a non hotel guest versus a hotel guest, that was my note, my position is that the hotel probably should be, the water park should be for hotel guests only. It’s impractical, to me, to say, okay, the water park is now going to be open for the public. What do the people, what control measures do the people have? Do they put a flag up on top? MR. LEMERY-We’ll withdraw it. We’ll withdraw the Special Permit request. Consider it withdrawn. MR. COLLINS-Finished. MR. LEMERY-Finished, done. Consider it withdrawn. No need to address it any further. MR. VOLLARO-Okay. MR. LEMERY-Just so long as everybody understands. MR. COLLINS-That’s right. If you want to use it, you’ve got to stay overnight. MR. LEMERY-You’ve got to rent a room. MR. VOLLARO-And then it’s nice and clean. You don’t need a Special Use Permit. MR. COLLINS-I agree with you. MR. LEMERY-You’ve got to rent a room. MR. VOLLARO-If I want to use it, I’ll just go there and rent a room. MR. LEMERY-You’ve got to rent a room. 29 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. COLLINS-If that’s what you want. MR. LEMERY-So now we’ve got a hotel, and we’ve got a pool. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s just your opinion. MR. VOLLARO-Well, it’s just my opinion. I’m one person. Whenever this Board speaks as an individual, I’m speaking as one person, obviously, but that’s my, that’s how I view it. I view that it could be a one to one thing, but as soon as you get into the Special Use Permit, then it takes on an amusement. It takes on the characteristic of an amusement. MR. LEMERY-The whole purpose of it was so that when the hotel occupancy was down, and there would be, presumably, lots of requests from families to come up there and have birthday parties and events, and the Boy Scouts, and all the other kinds of things, and so the whole purpose was for, so that people in the overall community could go up there, when the hotel wasn’t busy, pay a fee, go into the hotel and use the water park, but we’ll withdraw it. Now if they want to come in, they’ll have to buy a key. MR. MAC EWAN-Mr. Lemery, the only thing I would encourage you to do is don’t make a hasty decision based on one member’s perspective. MR. LEMERY-I mean, we’ve spent millions of dollars here. You can understand. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s just one member’s point, and we’re just discussing things. All I’m asking people to do is just be level-headed here, and not make hasty decisions, one way or the other. MR. VOLLARO-I’m just trying to see where Rich is coming from in terms of a one to one analysis versus not a one to one analysis. MR. MAC EWAN-I don’t know, necessarily, that I agree with you from the standpoint of a Special Use Permit throws it into another realm. I understand where Rich is coming from, with the concerns of the proposed expansion of the Waikita Hotel to an 85 room, two story hotel on Round Pond Road, and the integration of that additional traffic impacting that Round Pond Road, Route 9 intersection, and how that ties into the traffic thresholds from the 2001 Generic Environmental Impact Statement that says we aren’t going to hit thresholds to build the ring road until we hit these numbers, but what we’re seeing is the cumulative impacts of extended development along that corridor that not necessarily applies to this application, but we have, as a Board, under SEQRA law, have to look at cumulative impact. Where does the burden fall? Will the burden fall on the Waikita to maybe say, okay, you need to make some modifications to that intersection before these guys hit their threshold? Is it a matter of getting both parties to come together and make this work reasonably? I mean, our interest is the Town, the health and safety of this Town, and how we achieve these goals and what goals it is we need to achieve, that’s what we need to wrestle with as a Board. MR. SANFORD-I think you’re summing up my position, clearly, Craig. That’s exactly what I’m getting at. I wasn’t really, Bob, linking it to the Special Use, per se, but my question to Counsel for clarification was, to what extent does a material modification, for lack of a better word, change the rules that were established back in 2001? And I think Mark did a nice job in clarifying that for me. So I’m pretty comfortable with what we can do. I still feel the ring road definitely needs to be completed now, and so does the pedestrian bridge, and the lights have to be in place, but, again, this is just a discussion night right now. MR. HUNSINGER-I had a couple of comments I’d like to make, with respect to one, traffic, and secondly to the material modification. The applicant did anticipate increased traffic in the Generic Environmental Impact Statement back in 2001. So there was some presumption at that point in time, that there would be an increase in traffic around Route 9. Now did they know that there was going to be an 88 room hotel proposed adjacent to The Great Escape? Of course 30 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) not, but, you know, there was the best science available at the time, and we set the thresholds based on attendance figures, not traffic and, you know, the increase in traffic from other things, and I guess my feeling with respect to the whole, you know, material modification, if you will, from the 2001 Generic Environmental Impact Statement, if the proposed project was 100% identical to what was proposed in 2001, we wouldn’t have this. I mean, we wouldn’t even be here now. I mean, we would have gone straight to site plan review instead of going through this whole process all over again. So I think there is, just by virtue of this process, inherent recognition that it is different, and that’s why we’re all here now. MR. SANFORD-But you’re really making, I don’t know if you think that you’re making my point, but you’re kind of making my point, Chris. MR. HUNSINGER-No, I’m agreeing with you. MR. SCHACHNER-Yes, I think he’s agreeing with what I said and with what you said. MR. SANFORD-Okay. Fine. I didn’t know where you were coming from. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, exactly. MR. COLLINS-But the traffic has a threshold, and as I said, forget the southern portion, the northern portion plus the pedestrian bridge addresses 80% of the threshold that was outlined in the original EIS, the Generic EIS. That’s what the trip is is the traffic threshold. That’s what’s associated with this as far as the build out of the property, okay, and we’re nowhere near that threshold. We’re at 80%, okay, and we’re going to build 80% of what it required at one and a half million guests, and we’re nowhere near that. I just want to clarify that. MR. HUNSINGER-I think the other thing that people need to remember is it was very clearly demonstrated, back in 2001, that after these improvements are made, that the traffic conditions on Route 9 will be better than they are today, even with increased traffic. So, if the hotel generates additional traffic, these improvements will more than make up for improvements to Route 9. MR. SANFORD-I think a lot more work has to be done on that. One of the things that the Chairman touched upon is if you take a look from Quaker Road area on north, you’ve seen a Home Depot get put in. You’ve seen, we’ve just approved, or near, the Zoning Board still has to do some work and we have to do more work on Wal-Mart, which is going to generate more traffic. You’ve got another hotel going up there. You’ve got this going on. We have two terrible intersections. It would be negligent if we didn’t look at cumulative impacts. The fact that back in 2001 there was, we envisioned something, doesn’t change the fact that it has changed since then, and I think that when we have to do our Findings, we have to keep in mind the safety factors here and address them. We can’t, if this is no longer, if what was envisioned in 2001 is no longer safe, then it’s no longer valid. MR. ROUND-There’s a lot of misconception on that. Each year, the Planning Board and Chazen Companies and Staff here back in 2001 acknowledged that traffic was not going to be static on Route 9, and the traffic analysis that we requested and the Planning Board looked at included growth figures and contemplated that Route 9 was going to grow. So there is a growth number in that. There’s also the safety issue or the stop gap measure that was built in to the SEQRA Findings requires the applicant to monitor that traffic each year. So we know what the traffic growth has been. It’s not like we set a target in 2001 and we had no idea what was going to happen in 2004, 2005. We know exactly how much traffic’s out there today. The applicant’s going to have to go out and monitor that this summer. They’re going to have to monitor it next summer, and when those traffic thresholds reach the triggers, to require the mitigation, they’re going to be obligated to do the mitigation. What the applicant’s trying to say is even before they’re obligated to do that mitigation, they’re going to construct that mitigation, and so I think what you need to do is you need to look at little bit back at, you need to look at the SEQRA Findings. You need to look at the EIS. The applicant needs to demonstrate that these 31 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) operational details of the signals will work at those intersections, and make you all comfortable with that, but I think all the things out there, I don’t think there’s a lot of new analysis that needs to be conducted. MR. SANFORD-Well, one of the things is the process is flawed. Again, you’re saying the applicant’s going to monitor the traffic. Well, I’d like it if the IRS let me audit my tax returns. MR. ROUND-Well, you would complete a tax return each year, and you give it to them, and what they’re doing, they’re doing a traffic report and they’re giving it to us to review, and they’re giving it to DOT, and we look at that, that’s the way. That’s the convention. MR. LEMERY-We were told we had to do it and we had to pay for it. It’s done by an independent engineer, and I assume the independent engineer is not going to put his license at risk. I mean, if we’re going to get into that kind of a discussion, where, you know, somebody’s data, or scientific data, is going to be questioned, about whether it’s truthful or accurate, we can’t do anything about that. We were told to get it done, get it paid for, submit it to the Town, which submits it to DOT, and DOT reacts. The traffic counts aren’t traffic counts generated by The Great Escape. They’re traffic counts generated by whatever is going on on Route 9. So we have certain mitigations we have to meet, based on traffic counts. You might want to say to other people coming in here, if a fellow’s going to put a hotel up the road down the road, wherever, when these traffic counts based on this get to a certain point, here’s what you’re going to have to do, or you’re going to have to put a ring, a turning lane in, or you’re going to have to do something else. We know what we have to do, based on this Town’s asking us to give them a plan which said, how big is this Park going to get and how are you going to get here, as Mark Schachner said, Counsel Schachner said, we had to deal with traffic, noise, visual impact, all the other things, and that’s what this, that’s why I keep going back to this, because we can’t do anything more than that, and so, when the traffic counts, Rich, get to the point where we have to mitigate, we know we have to mitigate our project, our company. Again, you might want to say to these other guys, look, fellows, you have to put a turning lane in. You have to do this. You have to do that, based on the traffic counts. If somebody else, if you want to have multiple traffic studies done, ask the other applicants who are building, ask Wal-Mart to give you a traffic study. As Menter to give you a traffic study. Ask George Stark to give you a traffic study, anybody else who wants to go do something here, based on Route 9. MR. SANFORD-We may very well, John. I think you can do more. What you can do is you can work to make a desirable project for you, and also for the community a more desirable project, a better project, which means to work with us and cooperate with us on recognizing that those intersections stink, and that, and certain infrastructure has to get put in place, something that you should be willing to want to do, even if it means accelerating what you envisioned was your timetable. MR. LEMERY-Well, we said we would do that. MR. COLLINS-I know. MR. LEMERY-We’ve agreed to put the lights up. MR. COLLINS-We have said that. MR. LEMERY-We can’t control whether we will get the right to do that, because that’s a DOT issue. We can’t go out on Route 9 and string a light. MR. COLLINS-We have agreed to do that. MR. LEMERY-I don’t know what else we can do. MR. SANFORD-Well, you haven’t agreed to the ring road. 32 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Enough said on that subject, I think. I think everyone’s gotten their point across, and what our goals are, our ambitions are, and it’s a matter for us, as a Board, to try to work in whatever direction we can to try to make that happen. MR. VOLLARO-One last thought on that subject, and I think that DOT, and I agree with you that DOT has got to take, it’s not up to The Great Escape. It may not even be totally up to this Board, but DOT has now got to look at this corridor. MR. MAC EWAN-That’s why that meeting was facilitated with DOT, to get them more actively involved and more understanding of what’s actually developing along that corridor, and asking for their assistance to make these things happen. MR. VOLLARO-Right. Maybe it’s because myself and Rich and maybe other Board members, in short, don’t know exactly what’s going on with DOT here, and probably that precipitates some anxiety on our part, particularly, I guess, on mine, for what the story is on the whole corridor. If DOT is now beginning to really think about what to do there, then I’m going to be silent until I see what they do. MR. SANFORD-Right. I’m with you. MR. MAC EWAN-Any other thoughts? MR. HUNSINGER-No. MR. MAC EWAN-Do we need to do a tabling motion? MR. SCHACHNER-No. MR. MAC EWAN-No. Are we going to get a whole set of drawings, complete new set of drawings, everything? MR. COLLINS-Yes. MR. MAC EWAN-I mean, as far as letting the public know when we will reconvene on this particular application, I will make sure that Staff notifies people in Courthouse Estates, Glen Lake Association, Twicwood, and then it will also be noticed in the paper. So everyone will have ample time. Mr. Derby, we’ll probably be contacting you in the next few days. Okay. MR. COLLINS-And just, I’m sorry, one last comment. I think that the original, for Saturday, is they’re going to meet in the front parking lot of the Park, and then go to the balloon location. Is that correct? Just for people’s information. MR. PITTENGER-Just quickly. I’ll be putting the balloons up. They will be up at nine o’clock. The timeframe between the time they go up and an opportunity to view them is really dependent on the weather. So we’re going to have balloons 100 feet above the roof of the hotel, and they will be visible. They’ll be blue. So if you want to get to a location where you’re concerned about, you will definitely see those upper ones. So I would suggest you could come by and look at the site, but then quickly get to where you’re interested in looking from, because they may stay up a couple of hours. It might last a half hour. Who knows. The height of the building is at Elevation 495. I’m going red, white, and blue. The red balloons will be at the height of the building roof. White will be 50 feet above that, and the blue will be 50 feet above that. Four ninety-seven above sea level. MR. MAC EWAN-Okay. Thank you, Russ. MR. COLLINS-Thank you. MR. MAC EWAN-All right. Thank you, John. Meeting adjourned. 33 (Queensbury Planning Board 3/25/04) On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Craig MacEwan, Chairman 34