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2008.09.23 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SECOND REGULAR MEETING SEPTEMBER 23, 2008 INDEX Site Plan No. 26-2008 Robert & Anne Clark 1. Tax Map No. 289.13-1-54 Site Plan No. 20-2008 LaForte Construction 8. Tax Map No. 240.5-1-33 Site Plan No. 35-2008 Frank DeNardo/Elite Dock Co., LLC 16. Tax Map No. 226.16-1-17 Subdivision No. 1-2008 R. Case Prime 20. FINAL STAGE Tax Map No. 290.10-1-5 Subdivision No. 6-2008 Collette Construction 24. SKETCH PLAN Tax Map No. 301.17-3-45 Special Use Permit No. 36-2008 Michel & Monique Julien 27. Tax Map No. 240.9-1-2 Site Plan No. 39-2008 Cellco Partnership 32. Tax Map No. 295.18-2-11 Site Plan No. 40-2008 The Pyramid Co. of Glens Falls, 52. NEWCO, LLC Tax Map No. 302.5-1-93.1, 93.2, 92.4, 92.11, 96.1, 96.2, 97 THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO BOARD AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING MONTHS MINUTES (IF ANY) AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL OF SAID MINUTES. 0 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SECOND REGULAR MEETING SEPTEMBER 23, 2008 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT CHRIS HUNSINGER, CHAIRMAN THOMAS SEGULJIC DONALD SIPP THOMAS FORD TANYA BRUNO STEPHEN TRAVER MEMBERS ABSENT GRETCHEN STEFFAN LAND USE PLANNER-KEITH OBORNE STENOGRAPHER-SUE HEMINGWAY rd MR. HUNSINGER-I’ll call to order the Tuesday, September 23 meeting of the Town of Queensbury Planning Board. I’d like to welcome members of the public. SITE PLAN NO. 26-2008 SEQR TYPE II ROBERT & ANNE CLARK OWNER(S) SAME ZONING WR-1A LOCATION 10 BENMOST BUR LANE APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 375 SQ. FT. RESIDENTIAL ADDITION. EXPANSION OF A NON-CONFORMING STRUCTURE IN A CEA REQUIRES PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE AV 30-08 WARREN CO. PLANNING N/A APA/DEC/CEA GLEN LAKE CEA LOT SIZE 0.55 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 289.13-1-54 SECTION 179-4-030 LINDA CLARK, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, if you could summarize Staff Notes, please. MR. OBORNE-Sure. Site Plan 26-2008, Robert and Anne Clark. Applicant’s request Site Plan Review for the expansion of a nonconforming structure located in a Critical Environmental Area. Location is located at 10 Benmost Bur Lane. The property is zoned WR-1A, Waterfront Residential. Application is a SEQRA Type II. Project Description: The applicants propose to construct an 817.5 square foot addition to their existing house on Glen Lake. This application had an Area Variance for side setback relief that the applicant has withdrawn. Staff offers the following. The submitted stormwater control plan appears to be in order. The type of drainage system to be installed and the precise location of the system are now noted on the revised plans that are attached to the stormwater management report. An item of concern is the location of utilities. The electric appears to enter the house above the existing front porch. However, there is a liquid propane cylinder in the location of the proposed addition. Clarification regarding this tank in its position in the construction sequence will need to be clarified. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Good evening. MS. CLARK-Hello. My name is Linda Clark. I’m here representing my parents, Robert and Anne Clark. This is my mother, Anne. I’m going to have to apologize. My brother would normally handle this. He’s done all the work on it, and his school district where he works did kind of a switcharoo on him in terms of open house. So he’s obligated to be at open house tonight. So I will do my best to answer any of your questions. I have been here for all the meetings, and I’m aware of the project, but in terms of all this funky terminology, you’ll have to bear with me. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Anything else to add? MS. CLARK-Not at this time. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. We’ll open it up for questions, comments from members of the Board. 1 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. FORD-Could we address the issue, or would you address the issue, please, of the propane tank, as per Staff Notes. MS. CLARK-Okay. Can you tell me, on his map, where he wants that propane tank that you have a concern with? MR. FORD-It says here clarification regarding this tank and its position in the construction sequence will need to be clarified. So the ball’s in your court to clarify. I’m not going to tell you where it should be. MS. CLARK-All right. The propane tank is currently in a position where it’s going to be changed. So it will have to be moved around the corner of the new addition. It’ll probably be disconnected during the time in which they’re putting on the addition. So, does that answer your question? MR. FORD-It’s a beginning. MS. CLARK-Okay. MR. FORD-Thank you. We will note the location of it and verification of its status during construction, and how it’s going to be provided for, and then its final location. MS. CLARK-Do you know the final location? ANNE CLARK MRS. CLARK-Well, it would have to be right there because that’s where the fireplace is, and it’s where the fireplace, so it has to be in that corner. It has to be, instead of on the side of the house, it’s going to have to be right here at the corner, just around the corner of the. MS. CLARK-Of the new proposal. MRS. CLARK-No, it’s not of the new, it would be of the existing house. MS. CLARK-Okay. So it would go back in the same place, is that what you’re saying? MRS. CLARK-No. MS. CLARK-No. It’s going to go around the corner of the existing house. Do you understand that? It’s going around the corner of the existing house, but it’s going to be moved from the existing location. MR. FORD-We don’t have that new location on the plan, correct? MS. CLARK-No, I don’t believe he has that new location on this plan. I don’t see it here. MR. SEGULJIC-Mr. Ford, do you mind if I ask Staff a question, just for clarification? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-I mean, this was a Staff comment. I guess, what is the concern, because of the hazard of a propane tank under an electrical line? Are you concerned about it during construction? Are you concerned about the line over, the line after construction? MR. OBORNE-Well, you can’t construct the house or the addition around the tank. I was curious if they planned on disconnecting it and removing it, just along, in the construction sequence. MS. CLARK-Well, it would have to be disconnected during construction sequence. I can tell you that. MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re going to disconnect it and move it during construction, after move it around the corner you would say? MS. CLARK-That is correct. 2 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. I guess, just show us where the new tank’s going to be and note that you’re going to take the tank out during construction and place it in another location. MS. CLARK-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-Did you see the engineering comments, VISION Engineering comments? MS. CLARK-I saw the comments from the meeting before this, and I know my brother went through and he met with the Town and they addressed all of the different issues. I attended that meeting as well, and he used the program that you had suggested that he use to come up with the stormwater runoff. MR. SEGULJIC-Right, and we appreciate that. MS. CLARK-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-And then the Town Engineer, VISION Engineering, reviewed the site th plan, and he came back with a letter dated September 19. You have not received that, then? MS. CLARK-No. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. All right. Just from my perspective, if you could just address the comments from VISION Engineering. MS. CLARK-Can you tell me what those comments are? MR. SEGULJIC-As a matter of fact, I’ll even give you my copy. Can I do that? MR. HUNSINGER-Sure, yes. MR. SEGULJIC-I’ll give you my copy. MR. HUNSINGER-While she’s taking a look at that, are there any other questions or comments from members of the Board? MRS. BRUNO-Well, her brother certainly did a crash course in learning all of the programs and stormwater management and everything. I’ve got to give him a lot of credit. Pass that on. MR. SEGULJIC-In looking at that, I think it’s a lot of little stuff that just needs clarifications. MS. CLARK-Yes. I think some of these things, I’m very familiar, wow, how many are there, 19? MR. SEGULJIC-Nineteen, but I think, once again, they talked, the engineer and your brother, I guess it is, talked. I think they can get it clarified. MS. CLARK-Yes, and a lot of these things, I mean, just the first three, I recall conversations that we had with the Town, and that was part of the revisions that were resubmitted. MR. SEGULJIC-Right, and I think what’s happened is since then you submitted your stormwater management plan, which, you know, kicked off more questions, but I think in looking at these comments, I don’t think really there’s anything major there. He talks about a clerical error, inlet protection should be provided. Nothing really major there. MS. CLARK-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-So what you’re going to need to do is get together with the Town Engineer and hopefully you’ll be able to explain it to him and then what’s going to happen after the process, once he’s satisfied, he’ll send us back a letter saying all of the comments have been satisfied. MS. CLARK-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-Sorry to put you through all this, but this is government in action. 3 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MS. CLARK-Does this mean we have to come back to another meeting? I’m sorry, or is this something that we can get approved at this point, on the stipulation that these comments will be satisfied, since they’re minor? MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone want to comment? MR. TRAVER-Well, it does appear that most of Dan’s comments are related to the stormwater management, comments regarding the specifications for the drywell and so on. MS. CLARK-I mean, for example, Number Two, it says erosion and sediment control measures should be specified during and post construction. Now I’ve reviewed the documents that I know he gave to all of you a month ago, and I recall reading what he was going to do with that. So I know it’s in here. So I’m kind of surprised that that’s there, and I know he has an entire contour map that he did. So providing an existing grading contours, there’s a whole contour map there. Those are the previous comments. Okay. All right. So new comments starts at Number Four. Okay. All right. MR. TRAVER-And it begins by pointing out that the stormwater report should really be certified by a professional engineer, and I think you’ll find that that process will ensure that any missing information on the final plans will be included and there should be no problem getting a signoff from VISION Engineering. MS. CLARK-Well, let me ask you something. We’ve been here, now, three times, at the Town meeting, and never once were we told we had to have a professional engineer, so long as we did the job that you asked us to do. There was no indication, from get go, that we had to hire a professional engineer to do this. I mean, that’s the whole reason why Bill learned the program and went through the process of submitting all these different things to you. He served as the engineer, and that’s why we continually went back to the Town and checked our work to make sure that we were doing things properly. So, I mean, asking us to hire an engineer is like re-doing the whole thing all over again, and it seems to me you should have told us that three months, four months ago, maybe five. MR. TRAVER-What Dan is referring to under new comments in Number Four, is that the design should be certified by a professional engineer. If the design has been prepared, by your brother, for example, as long as it meets the requirements for certification by a professional engineer, then VISION Engineering is saying that they will approve it. That’s not quite the same as going back in the beginning and having an engineer re-do the whole. MS. CLARK-Well, I guess I’m sort of having trouble with this because that’s not what we’ve been told all along, that we had to have any kind of engineering stamp on this. We’ve been told, so long as we do the job and we do the job according to what the Town wants, and from my understanding he has done this job according to what the Town wants, and I’ve been attending the meetings with the Town, and they seem very satisfied with the job that he was doing. At this point now, you’re asking us to hire someone to look over all these documents, to stamp them, and that’s going to be more months of delay. If we had been told that right from the get go. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, just a clarification. We’re not asking that. The engineer asked that. MS. CLARK-I’m sorry. Would you say that again? MR. SEGULJIC-The engineer, VISION Engineering had asked for that. MS. CLARK-The engineering asked for this? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. MR. TRAVER-The Town Engineer. MR. SEGULJIC-The Town Engineer. MS. CLARK-Why doesn’t the Town Engineer just look at it and say, yes, this looks good? 4 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. SEGULJIC-Because that’s not the way it works. He can look at it and say it looks good, but. MS. CLARK-Well, didn’t we pay for the Town Engineer to look at this and say, yes, it looks good? I think there was a charge for the Town Engineer, I remember. She just got a bill for the Engineer for the Town to look at this. MR. SEGULJIC-Here’s where I sit on this project. I mean, we’re talking about an addition to an existing structure. They have a buffer along the lake. They’ve gone and they’ve submitted a stormwater plan. I think that I’d be fine with approving it, with the condition that they get the signoff from the Town Engineer. MR. TRAVER-Sure. MR. SIPP-Yes. I think that’s what we were asking you. You hired an engineer to do this. MS. CLARK-No, we did not. MR. HUNSINGER-Her brother did it. MR. SIPP-Your brother did it. MR. SEGULJIC-Now, with regards to the PE stamp, is that required? MRS. BRUNO-I’m looking at the application and it doesn’t actually state, unless I’m overlooking it, but the checklist, beginning in the general, it just says the title name, address of applicant and person responsible for preparation of drawings. It doesn’t ask for a professional stamp at that point, and I would think, I don’t actually have the notes from your official. MR. SEGULJIC-I know this has come up in the past. MRS. BRUNO-Of your initial meeting here. Perhaps somebody else does on the Board, but I would assume that your brother had gone for the initial meeting in the Building Department? MS. CLARK-Yes. MRS. BRUNO-Perhaps with Craig Brown. MS. CLARK-Yes. MRS. BRUNO-Do we have a copy of that? Does anybody have one with them? MR. HUNSINGER-I don’t have it with me. MR. OBORNE-As far as the notes? MRS. BRUNO-Just to see if Craig had mentioned a stamp. MR. OBORNE-Absolutely. They sat down with me, also. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. MR. OBORNE-And I’ve been guiding them along, and I have been satisfied with their progress. Now, obviously I’m not an engineer, but it did not state in the resolution that they needed an engineer. Now that may be neither here nor there. You have to satisfy the Planning Board overall, and a condition of approval to have VISION Engineering signoff on it is not out of the realm of possibility. MR. HUNSINGER-What we’re inquiring about, ma’am, in fact, I want to defend what you just said, because I have sat here for a lot of years now, and I have always defended the fact that we should not force applicants to go out and hire engineers and prepare expensive studies when it’s not necessary. What the question that the Board is posing right now is because your property is located in a Critical Environmental Area, and it falls under Chapter 147, which is the stormwater management, there may be a requirement that the stormwater management plan be stamped by a certified engineer. Now what that means is, and I’ll give you an example. You can go out and have house plans drawn up by anybody, and then the Town won’t accept them for a building permit until 5 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) there’s an engineer’s stamp on it, certifying that the house is structurally sound, and so basically that would be the equivalent of what we’re asking you for here, and we’re not clear in our own minds if it is required or not. MS. CLARK-Well, that’s what I was going to say. You just used the word may be required, and we’ve been in process here for almost five months, and this is the first that I’ve heard that there is any possibility or realm of requirement. I believe that we had talked about engineering, and why, you know, we were doing it this way, and we were, from what I recall, informed that this process that we have used was appropriate, so long as we, you know, did what you asked, and we’re at that point now, and we’re five months later and you’re telling me I have to hire an engineer. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, we also cautioned your brother that this was a complicated project because it was within a CEA. MS. CLARK-Yes, but. MR. HUNSINGER-And there may be something that we, as a Board, cannot waive, and that’s what we’re trying to figure out. MS. CLARK-Well, if we could find out for sure if this is a requirement. MR. HUNSINGER-Did you get clarification on that? MR. SEGULJIC-No, not yet. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. While you’re looking that up, we do have a public hearing scheduled this evening for this project. Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to address the Board on this particular project? PUBLIC HEARING OPEN MR. HUNSINGER-I know there’s a lot here for the cell tower project which will be later in the evening. I will open the public hearing and will leave it open for the time being. I don’t think there’s anything in 183. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, one thing is it says, prepared in accordance with A183. So I didn’t know if there was something. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, there’s nothing in there that requires stamped plans. MR. SEGULJIC-Nothing in here. I’m looking under stormwater. I’m not seeing anything, Planning Board may refer. MR. OBORNE-Keep in mind that this is a minor stormwater project. That has not been classified major. MR. SEGULJIC-Right, and it’s not subject to 147 either. MR. OBORNE-It is in a CEA. MR. SEGULJIC-But 147 only applies to projects in the Lake George basin. MR. OBORNE-Right, that’s true. MR. SEGULJIC-That was our discussion earlier. Could we do this? Could we approve this with the condition that they get signoff from the Town Engineer, and we will, what’s the word I’m looking for? MRS. BRUNO-Investigate? MR. SEGULJIC-Well, the comment where they have to have the PE signoff, we will withdraw that unless it’s determined that one is necessary or required by the Code? MR. TRAVER-Well, that’s been, that was a requirement of the Town Engineer, not us. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. 6 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. TRAVER-So if, upon further review, VISION decides that that’s not necessary, then they would give them the signoff. MR. FORD-If Dan becomes satisfied that all issues have been resolved, that may not be an issue at all. MR. TRAVER-Exactly. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, and I think, I mean, I can only speculate to what the Town Engineer was saying, but it appears as though what he’s implying is that if a professional engineer had reviewed what your brother prepared, some of the questions that he’s posing may have already been addressed, but again, I’m speculating at what his intent was to make that comment. It also, it may be an issue of liability as well. That might be the reason he made the comment, but we can get that clarified. Is everyone comfortable? All right. I will close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. HUNSINGER-This is a Type II action. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Was there a motion prepared by Staff? MR. OBORNE-There should be. MR. HUNSINGER-I didn’t get one. MR. SEGULJIC-I could have lost it. Do you have one, by chance? MR. OBORNE-No, I do not. MR. FORD-I do not. MR. OBORNE-You can make up your own resolution. MR. SEGULJIC-All right. MR. OBORNE-This is a Type II SEQRA. MR. SEGULJIC-All right. So we don’t have one, then. MR. HUNSINGER-No, but I mean you could basically work off of this one. Just change the Site Plan number. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 26-2008 ROBERT & ANNE CLARK, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford: 1)A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes construction of a 375 sq. ft. residential addition. Expansion of a non-conforming structure in a CEA requires Planning Board review and approval; and 2)A public hearing was advertised and held on 6/24/08 and 9/23/08; and 3)This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; 4)Pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179], the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 26-2008 ROBERT & ANNE CLARK, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford: That SEQRA does not apply, and that project complies with Chapter 179, with the following condition: a)That the applicants obtain a signoff from the Town Engineer’s comment letter. 7 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) rd Duly adopted this 23 day of September, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: Mrs. Bruno ABSENT: Mrs. Steffan MR. HUNSINGER-So in other words, we approved your Site Plan. You have to satisfy the engineering comments. If you cannot, then you’re going to be back before us with new information for us to review. MS. CLARK-Okay. Once we get this signed, and signed off, then we leave it in the Town’s hands? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MS. CLARK-If they approve it? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Once you satisfy those comments from the Town Engineer, then you can go to the Building Department and get your building permit. MS. CLARK-Fabulous. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. SITE PLAN NO. 20-2008 SEQR TYPE II LAFORTE CONSTRUCTION CO. AGENT(S) PARAGON CIVIL ENGINEERING OWNER(S) SAME ZONING WR-1A LOCATION 2609 STATE ROUTE 9L APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 4154 SQ. FT. SINGLE FAMILY HOME, IN A CEA, WITH A DISTURBED AREA OF 15,870 +/- SQ. FT. THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN CLASSIFIED AS A MAJOR PROJECT. MAJOR STORMWATER PROJECTS REQUIRE SITE PLAN REVIEW AND APPROVAL BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE BP 06-566 WARREN CO. PLANNING 5/14/08 APA/DEC/CEA L G CEA, APA WETLANDS LOT SIZE 1.44 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 240.5-1-33 SECTION 147-12 CLARK WILKINSON, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you’re ready to summarize Staff Notes, please. MR. OBORNE-Site Plan No. 20-2008, Laforte construction. Applicant proposes construction of a 4,154 square foot single family home located in a Lake George CEA. The total disturbed area is approximately 15,870 square feet, without septic and stormwater management disturbance, and as such this project has been classified a Major Stormwater Project and requires Site Plan Review. Location is 2609 State Route 9L. This is Waterfront Residential One Acre. Project Description. The applicant proposes a 4,154 square foot single family home on 1.44 acres. The following is Site Plan Review. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Good evening. MR. WILKINSON-Good evening. For the record, my name is Clark Wilkinson with Paragon Civil Engineering, representing Laforte Construction on this project. As you th recall, we were here last month on the 19, and there was a couple of issues that remained, mostly from Mr. Seguljic and Mr. Sipp, with the discussion of the sediment control and stormwater management. The notes that we had discussed regarding the fact that it’s in a CEA were added to the plan for the sediment controls. That was a big one that I know Tom brought up. Also we have revised and clarified the plan for stormwater management, and specifically met with the Town Engineer on site to walk him through the design, and our intent for this site, and if you look at the plan in front of you, we’ve modified the plan for clarification because there was a, the discussion was surrounded in the fact that since there was a seasonal high groundwater less than 30 inches, and how do we know if we’re digging and things, we came up with the decision to create a berm that basically blocked and locked in all of the runoff to a certain area. The areas are exactly the same as we were proposing for stormwater management before, but the approach is to not disturb any of the area within the basin itself, and to build the berm around that area, so that the existing trees and bushes and things that are already existing can help with the uptake. There is no actual digging out of any of the soil. So we don’t have to worry about separation distances and things, and the design was 8 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) actually, again, I met with VISION Engineering on the site, as you recall that the main area of the site has been cleared to rock and there’s that large ponding area in the middle of it where the rock is. We had a fairly large storm right after the, about two inches, right after the Planning Board meeting, and I met with the engineer up there. There’s two places that the runoff came off of that rock area that’s ponding. Both of those locations ran down probably a three foot, four foot elevation max, eroded, there’s major erosion in those two locations, and then once it hit the lower areas where the stormwater management was proposed, the erosion stopped anywhere between three and five feet from the toe of slope and basically disappeared. There was no evidence of any flow off of that area, and there was no evidence of any further erosion downstream. Because of that, that’s why we came up with the idea to create the berm and trap that area, so we’re still utilizing that same scenario and same situation that occurs now, just preventing anything from going further under a frozen ground condition, which is our biggest concern, and trying to also make sure that we meet the minimum criteria for the 50 year storm that we were asked to do. We’ve done that. The computations have been provided, and in the last letter from VISION Engineering, it appears to me that there is no outstanding issues, and as far as Staff comments were concerned, the last issue on that was the FAR calculations, and that has been stated on the notes that it’s been completed as well. So at this point in time we’re requesting a Site Plan approval for this project, and I would like to turn it over to the Board for any questions, comments, issues. MR. HUNSINGER-Great. Thank you. Any questions, comments from the Board? MR. SEGULJIC-You moved the septic system. MR. WILKINSON-Slightly. From the original one, yes. We moved it off of the hill because that was the comment last month, if you recall, and we moved it last month. It’s in the same location as it was shown last month. MR. FORD-I appreciate the fact that this swale along the toe of the slope, there’s a modification. So we’re not anticipating the drainage of any stormwater into that septic area. MR. WILKINSON-Correct. MR. FORD-That was one of the concerns I had last month. MR. WILKINSON-That’s correct. MR. FORD-I appreciate the effort that’s been made. MR. SEGULJIC-But now my concern is the flow from the driveway. MR. WILKINSON-How so? MR. SEGULJIC-Well, you have a 100 foot, if I understand your plans correctly, a 100 foot at the base of the house, I guess, and then just to the right of that where your septic system is, you’re down to 99.2. MR. WILKINSON-There is a graded swale between them. The contour wraps up and around and comes back to it. I can point it out to you specifically, if you’d like. MR. SEGULJIC-If you would, please. MR. WILKINSON-You see how this contour wraps? That’s a swale, and with these spot elevations that are in here we’re showing that the swale is carrying that water around this way. MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re going to have the water flow this way and out this way? MR. WILKINSON-Actually water flows perpendicular to a contour. So the water is actually flowing this way. MR. SEGULJIC-Right. Okay. I was just concerned about these spots here. MR. WILKINSON-Yes. That’s why we twisted that contour in to force the water this way and come out that way. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. 9 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. HUNSINGER-So which way is the water going, from left to right or right to left, as I’m looking at the map? MR. WILKINSON-It’s flowing from in front of the garage, basically, out towards the culvert that crosses the driveway. We pitched the driveway in at that, tried to raise the outside edge to keep the water away from the septic tank. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-Now on the western berm, you have the weir in the berm. MR. WILKINSON-The weir, yes. It’s in the berm on both of them. MR. SEGULJIC-Right, but it would appear to me that that water, I guess if I understood it correctly, these are more or less designed for 25 years and over 25 years they’re going to flow through the weir? MR. WILKINSON-It’s designed for a 50 year. MR. SEGULJIC-And anything above the 50 year it’s going to flow through the weir? MR. WILKINSON-That is correct. I ran the 100 year computations and there was less than half a cfs flowing through the weir. MR. SEGULJIC-Onto the adjoining property, though. MR. WILKINSON-Actually, it’s not onto the adjoining property, on the west, you’re correct, or, no, the east it flows into the existing swale that’s there, and to the south. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, north and south. To the north it flows into an existing swale? MR. WILKINSON-To the northeast, yes, it flows into an existing swale, and again, that was all verified by VISION Engineering. We walked through the entire thing, and their last comment to me on the site is I had it shown in one location. They showed me, on site, where they wanted me to place it, and we actually put a stake there so that I could make sure the contractor puts it there. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Now you had said that these berms are going to retain the water, then? MR. WILKINSON-That is correct. MR. SEGULJIC-Isn’t that going to kill the trees? MR. WILKINSON-What’s going to kill the trees? MR. SEGULJIC-The standing water. MR. WILKINSON-That’s where the water flows now, and it actually percolates into the soil because the soil’s perc rate is about a five minute perc. MR. SEGULJIC-But we’re also going to add a lot of impervious surface. So, I mean, you talked about conditions when you walked the site, but you’re going to change those dramatically. MR. WILKINSON-I wouldn’t say dramatically, no. MR. SEGULJIC-I would say dramatically. You’re bringing on how many cubic feet of fill? MR. WILKINSON-But currently the site is cleared with rock that doesn’t have any runoff at all, and all the water from that rock area that’s impervious, that virtually matches the driveway and the house, flows into the two locations that I propose the stormwater. MR. SEGULJIC-But the driveway is going to have asphalt in the future. Now it’s dirt. MR. WILKINSON-And there’s currently compacted gravel on it which is virtually asphalt. 10 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re saying compacted gravel is impervious? So I’ll bring that up in the future. MR. WILKINSON-Virtually, compacted gravel, I always count compacted gravel as a minimum of 95% impervious. It’s virtually impervious. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, and out of curiosity, how much fill are you bringing on site? MR. WILKINSON-I don’t know the numbers for sure. MR. SEGULJIC-Because you’re going to bring in fill just about everywhere, under the driveway, under the house, for the septic system. MR. WILKINSON-Around the house, for sure. MR. SEGULJIC-And in some spots up to four feet. Where the house is your grade is. MR. WILKINSON-Yes. Right against the house it’s about four feet, and as you move away from there, it tapers down. To the south it tapers down fairly rapidly, and to the north it actually tapers down fairly rapidly, too, because the existing ground comes up, because it’s all been excavated out. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Any additional questions from other members? MRS. BRUNO-I think you’ve covered a lot of what we’d talked about before. MR. HUNSINGER-Did you have additional questions, Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. One more additional question. As I read 147, and you are a Major Stormwater Project. MR. WILKINSON-That’s correct. MR. SEGULJIC-If you look at 147-9B2(d), and I could be wrong in my interpretation, it states, infiltration devices for Major Projects shall be located a minimum of 100 feet from Lake George and any down gradient drinking water supply. You had just indicated that there is going to be infiltration at these two basins, if we can call it that. MR. WILKINSON-That’s correct, that are greater than 100 feet from the well. MR. SEGULJIC-But we don’t know the down gradient wells are on the adjoining properties. MR. WILKINSON-I know that they’re greater than 100 feet from the property line. MR. SEGULJIC-How do we know that? MR. WILKINSON-Because I measured them. MR. SEGULJIC-Is that on the plan? MR. WILKINSON-Yes, there’s a statement in the general notes. MR. SEGULJIC-I missed that. Okay. So that statement is on there. MR. WILKINSON-It’s in the general notes. It’s one of my main things that I do when I first visit a site. MR. SEGULJIC-Now as far as clearing limits, what are we proposing for clearing limits? MR. WILKINSON-They’re shown and labeled. Again, I’m hoping that they’re labeled clearly. They were labeled clearly, and again, I’m designing the plan, and you’re trying to read my design, but it’s shown as the heavy scalloped line, that’s the clearing limits, and I labeled them in a couple of places. It’s basically, the limit of tree clearing is the limit of disturbance. MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re talking about those scalloped lines I see? 11 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. WILKINSON-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-Then you also have those heavy dashed lines? MR. WILKINSON-That’s the silt fence. MR. SEGULJIC-That’s the silt fence. MR. WILKINSON-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-So along the western edge of the property where the silt fence is, there’s a scalloped line right under that. MR. WILKINSON-Correct. The only clearing, outside of what’s cleared right this moment, is where we’re putting in for the berms to store the water. That’s the only other clearing that’s going to occur. MR. SEGULJIC-Now clarify this. You also have that driveway, you have the driveway on the northern section of the property. You also have that entryway on the southern piece of the property. MR. WILKINSON-Say that again? That exists there now? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. MR. WILKINSON-That’s for the adjoining parcel. That’s on the adjoining parcel. MR. SEGULJIC-That’s not on this parcel, then. MR. WILKINSON-That’s correct. MR. SEGULJIC-That’s on the adjoining parcel. MR. WILKINSON-That’s correct. That’s on Lot One. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. All right. MRS. BRUNO-Clark, it’s not in the general notes. MR. WILKINSON-It’s not? MRS. BRUNO-No. MR. WILKINSON-Okay. I can certainly, because I did measure it. MR. FORD-I couldn’t find it either. Maybe you can give us a number in general notes. MR. WILKINSON-Sure. Typically I say no well within 100 feet of this property except as shown, and if it’s there I show it. If it’s not, I don’t. That’s my typical note, and I thought it was there. MR. FORD-But it’s not. MR. WILKINSON-Okay. I’ll add it. MR. FORD-Do you confirm that it’s not there? MR. WILKINSON-I confirm that there’s not a well within 100 feet of the property line, and I will add the note. MR. FORD-Okay. The note is not on there at this time. MR. WILKINSON-No. I just read through the first three, and it’s usually in the first one or two, and it’s not there. MR. FORD-Right. Thank you. MR. WILKINSON-Thank you, Tanya. 12 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MRS. BRUNO-You’re welcome. MR. SEGULJIC-And the only other thing is I think an administrative procedure. I mean, now we have, because you revised the stormwater with this, I believe, right? But then we have the original stormwater plan that was submitted last time. MR. WILKINSON-The only thing that was changed was I added the 50 year comp. It’s exactly the same. MR. SEGULJIC-Right. So if we could just, so do we have a clean copy of this? MR. WILKINSON-I believe so, but I can certainly submit one with the final to make sure it’s clean. MR. SEGULJIC-So we’ll just say a final stormwater. MR. WILKINSON-Yes, combined, because I just added, or added the additional storm to the computations only. I can certainly put them together and make one final report for the files. MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else? Okay. We do have a public hearing scheduled this evening on this project. Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to address the Board on this application? We do have one taker. If you could state your name for the record, and make sure you address your comments to the Board. PUBLIC HEARING OPEN CHRIS NAVITSKY MR. NAVITSKY-Chris Navitsky, Lake George Water Keeper. We had submitted a letter last evening. I believe one of our comments has been addressed, but as we previously commented, it’s troubling that the proposed disturbance has already occurred at this site, which exhibits standing water and ledge rock, and limits the project’s modification and mitigation. We offer the following comment. The suitability of the site for stormwater management and treatment, we believe, is marginal. The applicant provided subsurface investigations which indicate limited depth to bedrock, limiting the soils available for management and treatment. We do support the concept of incorporating the existing terrain and vegetation for stormwater management with the berm, but it’s not clear if the proposed systems will be effective. Additional concern is the significant amount of standing water in the vicinity of the house site, which could impact the ability of the stormwater management system to function. There is still a large pond there. It’s significant. So it will be displaced with the home. So really it is impervious, but we’re taking that water and really displacing it, and we do not have any site soil data where the ponds are proposed. It’s our opinion the application needs to evaluate and determine increased measures for stormwater treatment. We do not know if they’re bringing in four feet of fill, you know, if you could have a rain garden or something additional around the house, so that’s just some initial thoughts. We did have concern about the erosion and sedimentation control, but I think Clark had addressed that. So that’s what we have. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Anyone else? Okay. Do we have any written comments, Keith? MR. OBORNE-You just did it. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I will close the public hearing then. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. HUNSINGER-What’s the will of the Board? Final questions, comments? MRS. BRUNO-You looked a little skeptical when he had mentioned that the soil borings. MR. WILKINSON-Yes, because we did an additional, I believe, six or seven holes that the data was added to the plan, as well as when we added the berm. So if he didn’t get that information, I can certainly pass it on and make sure he knows exactly what’s what in the stormwater management, and they were also witnessed by VISION Engineering. He logged them. He actually logged them for me, and I just got a copy of his log. 13 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. SEGULJIC-Just to clarify that for me. I see the additional test pits you did, but there’s none in the stormwater management area. Am I missing something? It’s entirely possible. MR. WILKINSON-I may not have turned a layer on. I know they’re there because I put them, I did all the test pits and I put the locations. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, you do have the test pit results on the well and septic plan, Sheet Two of Three. MR. WILKINSON-All of the new ones do, from the new date? MR. HUNSINGER-The latest date is August 22, 2008. Yes, logged by Paragon and witnessed by VISION Engineering, and there were five, a through e. MR. WILKINSON-Just the layer for the locations was probably turned off, if they don’t show up, as far as the locations go. MR. HUNSINGER-I see. I’m sorry. I misunderstood. Okay. No, the locations are labeled. MR. WILKINSON-Okay. I thought they were there. I knew I had them. MR. HUNSINGER-Do you see them, Tom? MR. SEGULJIC-I see them, but there’s nothing in the area of the stormwater basins. MR. WILKINSON-They’re all in the stormwater basins, and the drainage ditches. MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re saying you put test pits in these stormwater basins? MR. WILKINSON-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-But they’re not on this plan. MR. WILKINSON-That one, that one. It’s all way back to the edge of the road. That’s why the contour’s there. That’s all storage, if you look at the elevations. MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re telling me that the basin comes all the way back here? MR. WILKINSON-That’s where the storage goes. It’s very shallow actually. It slopes down, but this elevation is high enough that it traps all of this water. MR. SEGULJIC-There’s a six foot differential. MR. WILKINSON-It’s a four foot differential, correct. MR. SEGULJIC-To there. MR. WILKINSON-And it’s a three and half foot high bed. MR. SEGULJIC-Why wouldn’t you put it closer to where you would need it? MR. WILKINSON-Because we didn’t want to take the trees down to get to it. MR. SEGULJIC-So what if it doesn’t work? MR. WILKINSON-The soils have been consistent. If you look at the soils logs, they’re all consistent. MR. SEGULJIC-How do we know that’s not bedrock there? I mean, there’s a lot of bedrock on this site. MR. WILKINSON-Because of the growth that’s there, because of the appearance of the soils, because of the consistency of all the rest of this data in the similar areas. MR. SEGULJIC-You’re in a CEA, and with that, I mean, you have a four foot differential there. 14 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. WILKINSON-Correct, and a three and a half foot dike. MR. SEGULJIC-I mean, what assurance are we going to have that this works? MR. WILKINSON-My seal on the plan. Because I get sued if it doesn’t. MR. SEGULJIC-That typically doesn’t happen. You know that. MR. WILKINSON-Yes, it does, actually. MR. SEGULJIC-How does everyone else feel? MR. HUNSINGER-Members ready to move forward? MR. FORD-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-All right. So it looks like we have two conditions. That no wells are located within 100 feet down gradient of stormwater management basins, and I’d like to have that verified, as a condition, and final stormwater control plan that incorporates the revisions to be submitted. I mean, we have this maintenance plan here. How are we going to know that they’re going to do this maintenance? MR. WILKINSON-How do you know anybody’s going to do any maintenance at any time? MR. SEGULJIC-That’s why I’m asking you. I mean, that doesn’t give me a comfortable feeling. MR. WILKINSON-Well, that’s the short answer. The long answer is, when I go up to inspect it, when I go up to, and actually I’ve had this discussion with the owner who is actually going to live there, who’s my client, Laforte, and that is that this is what’s required. It’s on the plan. If you don’t do it, you’re in violation of the Site Plan, if it’s part of the Site Plan. So technically there is some leverage for the Town, if they see that there’s something failing or something spilling downstream. If the maintenance wasn’t done, it’s part of the Site Plan that the maintenance agreement, or the maintenance part is on, they’re in violation of the Site Plan. MR. SEGULJIC-Would it make sense to have any type of inspection in (lost words). MR. HUNSINGER-By whom? MR. SEGULJIC-By the design engineer, and submit it to the Town? MR. WILKINSON-That’s totally up to you guys. MR. HUNSINGER-Great idea. How do you enforce it? How do you keep track of it? If they don’t, then? MR. SEGULJIC-They’re in violation of their approval, I guess. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. WILKINSON-It’s the same as the maintenance stuff on there. If they don’t do it. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, hopefully they do. I mean, it’s just a very marginal site, and they really don’t have test pits where most of this water is going to be stored. The test pit is a distance away and it’s four feet higher. MR. WILKINSON-Only in that one. In the other ones it’s all within that area, within less than a foot of depth. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I guess, to Staff, does that make sense to have an inspection submitted in one year? MR. OBORNE-After it’s approved, typically there’s no inspection done. This isn’t a commercial venture. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. 15 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. SEGULJIC-All right. Well, I’ll check it out. MR. WILKINSON-Please do. I want to make sure the design works. I think it will. It’s my professional opinion it will, based on all the conditions I’ve found on the site and my computations. MRS. BRUNO-I’m just curious, was that the original owner, Laforte Construction? MR. WILKINSON-They’ve owned it since, I believe, 2000, but I’m not sure when they. MRS. BRUNO-For some reason I was thinking that they were the builders for? MR. WILKINSON-No, they actually are the family that own it and the builders. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 20-2008 LAFORTE CONSTRUCTION CO., Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Donald Sipp: 1)A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes construction of a 2077 sq. ft. single family home, in a CEA, with a disturbed area of 14,690+/- sq. ft. This project has been classified as a major project. Major storm water projects require site plan review. 2)A public hearing was advertised and held on 5/29, 7/15, 8/19, 9/23/08; and 3)This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; and 4)Pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179], the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and 5)MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 20-2008 LAFORTE CONSTRUCTION CO., Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Donald Sipp: In accordance with the motion prepared by Staff. Number Four complies. Number Five does not apply,with the following conditions: a)That no wells are located within 100 feet down gradient of the on site stormwater management basins verified and add to the general notes. b)A final stormwater control report that incorporates the various revisions to be submitted to Staff. rd Duly adopted this 23 day of September, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Ford, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mrs. Steffan MR. HUNSINGER-You’re all set. Good luck. MR. WILKINSON-Thank you for your time, I appreciate it. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. MR. WILKINSON-It’s been fun, challenging. EXPEDITED REVIEW: SITE PLAN NO. 35-2008 SEQR TYPE II FRANK DE NARDO/ELITE DOCK CO., LLC OWNER(S) MARK KELLY ZONING WR-1A LOCATION 43 MASON ROAD, CLEVERDALE APPLICANT PROPOSES TO REMOVE EXISTING DOCK AND 16 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) CONSTRUCT A 38’ X 38’ U SHAPED DOCK WITH AN OPEN SIDED BOATHOUSE AND SUNDECK. BOATHOUSES WITH SUNDECKS IN THE WR ZONE REQUIRE PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE BP 08-411; PERC TEST WARREN CO. PLANNING 9/10/08 APA/DEC/CEA LG CEA; APA WETLANDS LOT SIZE 0.35 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 226.16-1-17 SECTION 179-5- 050 FRANK DE NARDO & MARK KELLY, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you’re ready, if you want to summarize Staff Notes, please. MR. OBORNE-Sure. Site Plan 35-2008, Frank DeNardo, Elite Dock Company, LLC, Site Plan Review for the construction of a boathouse in the Waterfront Residential zoning district is the requested action. The location is 43 Mason Road, Cleverdale. The zoning is Waterfront Residential One Acre. SEQR Status is Type II. Project Description. Applicant proposes to enlarge a 288 square foot straight pier into a U-Shaped dock with total surface area of 630 square feet. The dock will include an open-sided boathouse with sundeck. Staff comments. The applicant has stated that this proposal is a U- shaped dock and will have middle support piers only and no decking. Dock access from the property to be provided by what appears to be three steps of an undetermined material. If these steps are stone, then relief will be required for hard surfacing within 50 feet of a shoreline. The boathouse is open-sided and will have a 28 foot by 38 foot sundeck with stairs leading down to ground level. The proposed height of the boathouse/sundeck to be 14 feet measured from the mean high water level of Lake George. This proposal is part of a single family home proposed for this parcel, of which no plans have been submitted to date. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Good evening. MR. DE NARDO-Good evening. Frank DeNardo with Mark and Peggy Kelly who are going to be building, hopefully get approval for an open-sided boathouse on their site right now, as the plan shows, and if there’s any questions. MR. HUNSINGER-Questions from the Board? My question I ask everyone, you’re very clear how you measure the maximum height of the railing. MR. DE NARDO-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-No more than 14 feet to the top of the railing from the mean high water mark. MR. DE NARDO-Correct. We have the dock actually staked right now and pinned where the, and verified by the Lake George Park Commission where their mark it, as all our docks are. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Great. Thank you. MR. SIPP-Has it been determined what these steps are going to be made of? MR. DE NARDO-They’re all wood, wood steps, yes. MR. SIPP-Wooden steps. All right. What is the excavation that’s taking place on this plot? When I was out there yesterday, there’s a hole in the middle of. MR. DE NARDO-They removed the old house there. Yes, the old house was taken down. MR. SIPP-Was the septic system removed? MR. DE NARDO-I’m not certain. That has nothing to do with my project, to be honest with you. MR. SEGULJIC-What’s the length of the shoreline? MR. DE NARDO-The length of the shoreline? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. I didn’t see it on any of the figures. 17 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. DE NARDO-I believe it’s 90 feet. Actually it’s 91. MR. SIPP-How close will this be to the existing dock to the north, the north side? MR. DE NARDO-It’s 30 feet from the existing, the northern dock, the neighbor’s dock? MR. SIPP-Yes, the one that’s there. Is there enough room to operate with boats? MR. DE NARDO-Yes. Actually what we did is I discussed it with both neighbors, and to make it easier for the neighbor to the north, who’s dock is on their property line, to navigate in and out of their dock, we actually moved, with the Kellys, we sat there and we moved the dock over to its furthest point, without encroaching the other neighbor, either, and hopefully we made everybody happy. They seemed to be happy. MRS. BRUNO-I have a question, and it might be directed more towards Staff. Why was this particular application expedited? It really raises a red flag to me, considering that there isn’t even a house on the property, but yet it was expedited. Was there a particular reason for that? MR. OBORNE-I cannot answer that question. It was given to me with that moniker on it, Expedited Review. MRS. BRUNO-Do you have any answer to that? MR. DE NARDO-When I started this project and put the permits in, there was a house standing. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. Still no answer to the Expedited. This goes back to our first applicant, and I’m going to make it brief because we have a long night, but there are so many inconsistencies across the Board. Clark Wilkinson came in front of us and we were questioning his engineering review, whereas the previous people didn’t have a stamp, and it’s really, it’s just got to be made more clear, and, nothing against you folks, you know, building a house. I’m sure it’ll be beautiful. I’m going to have to say no because I’m not told why it’s expedited. MR. OBORNE-Ma’am, I can get that answered for you by close of business tomorrow. MRS. BRUNO-That’s fine, but if we vote on it this evening, that’s just the reason why. So I guess it falls back more on Queensbury than it does on. MR. SEGULJIC-I think Expedited came up a while ago, because these are supposed to be minor, relatively minor projects that we should be able to go through quickly, and I don’t think Expedited means they got in front of the line. MR. DE NARDO-No, I don’t believe so, either. MR. HUNSINGER-No. MR. SEGULJIC-I don’t think that’s the meaning of Expedited. It just means we’re supposed to be able to review it quickly. MR. HUNSINGER-That’s all it means. MR. OBORNE-It is a designation that the Zoning Administrator has put on this. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-Now just a clarification. Is this a U or an E dock then? MR. DE NARDO-This is a U Shaped dock. We have the permits. The middle part’s a supportive structure for the upper deck. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. DE NARDO-All right. You cannot walk on it. It is not decked. It’s basically columns that come down into the lake. I’ve been through this with the Park Commission and many other times in front of the Board, too, with many other docks I’ve done. It’s a support structure for the upper. It is not an E dock. It’s a U Shaped dock. 18 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. All right, and now just a clarification on the sundeck. I think I came up with 1444 square feet on the sundeck, and the deck area is 684. I hate to sound like Bob Vollaro, but. MR. DE NARDO-That’s okay. I’ll check it out. MR. SEGULJIC-Because I believe you refer to the deck as 1,064 feet. MR. DE NARDO-Right. MR. SEGULJIC-And the dock area is 630 square feet, if I’m understanding this correctly. So when they go out to inspect this, in theory, if the numbers don’t match up. MR. DE NARDO-I understand that. How did you come up with your numbers? MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I assumed the sundeck is going to be over the entire dock. MR. DE NARDO-No, it’s not. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. DE NARDO-No, it’s not. It’s only going to the inside edge of the dock. MR. SEGULJIC-Only to the inside edge of the dock. Okay. That’s one clarification. Then as far as the deck, then as far as the surface area, I just totaled up the area of the docks themselves, and this is a question of Staff. It’s my understanding the 700 square feet is for the dock surfacing, not the sundeck. MR. DE NARDO-Not the sundeck. MR. SEGULJIC-Is that accurate? MR. DE NARDO-It’s 700 for the dock itself, and the sundeck. MR. OBORNE-Correct, it is for the dock, absolutely. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions? MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I guess just make sure the numbers add up. MR. DE NARDO-Okay. I understand that. Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, and this is a Type II, I assume? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Any other questions from the Board? MR. FORD-I have none. MR. HUNSINGER-We do have a public hearing scheduled this evening on this project. Is there anyone in the audience that wants to address the Board on this application? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED NO COMMENT PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. HUNSINGER-It’s a Type II action. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Are we all set? MR. HUNSINGER-I’m not hearing any concerns. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 35-2008 FRANK DENARDO/ELITE DOCK CO., LLC., Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford: 19 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) 1)A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following: Applicant proposes to remove existing dock and construct a 38’ x 38’ U shaped dock with an open sided boathouse and sundeck. Boathouses with sundecks in the WR zone require Planning Board review and approval; and 2)A public hearing was advertised and heard on 9/23/08; and 3)This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; and 4)Pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179], the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and 5)MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 35-2008 FRANK DENARDO/ELITE DOCK CO., LLC., Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford: In accordance with the resolution prepared by Staff. Number Four complies. Number Five does not apply. There are no conditions. rd Duly adopted this 23 day of September, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Traver, Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mrs. Steffan MR. HUNSINGER-Good luck. MR. DE NARDO-Thank you very much. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. SUBDIVISION NO.1-2008 FINAL STAGE SEQR TYPE UNLISTED R. CASE PRIME AGENT(S) CAFFRY & FLOWER LOCATION 51 HILAND DRIVE & ROCKWELL RD. APPLICANT PROPOSES SUBDIVISION OF A 16.4 +/- ACRE PARCEL INTO FOUR LOTS RANGING IN SIZE FROM 2.63 TO 5.44 ACRES. SUBDIVISION OF LAND REQUIRES PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL PER CHAPTER A-183. CROSS REFERENCE AV 73-05 WARREN CO. PLANNING N/A APA/DEC/CEA NWI WETLANDS LOT SIZE 16.4 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 290.10-1-5 SECTION A-183 JOHN CAFFRY & STUART MESINGER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, do you want to summarize Staff Notes when you’re ready? MR. OBORNE-One moment, please. MRS. BRUNO-Keith, before you start, I’d just like to say something. Mr. Hunsinger, Chairman Hunsinger gave me the By-Laws, Policies and Procedures of the Planning Board, and the way that it is stated is that the Planning Board recognizes that certain classes or categories of projects that require the approval of the Board may be deemed appropriately reviewed and approved in an expedited manner. I interpret that to mean that we, as the Planning Board, can decide whether or not something is expedited or not, and I feel that, having it come from the Department is slightly inappropriate in that it puts pressure on us to perhaps approve or disapprove something that we might feel the need to look into further. MR. OBORNE-Well, I can say with confidence that was not the intent. MRS. BRUNO-Okay. Well, I guess it’s just another good thing that we can look at as we’re working on our zoning and all of the words that Queensbury uses. MR. OBORNE-Absolutely, yes, ma’am. MRS. BRUNO-So, thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. 20 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. OBORNE-Application Subdivision 1-2008, Final, R. Case Prime is the applicant. Applicant proposes to subdivide a 16.43 acre parcel into four lots. Lot sizes are 5.45, 5.59, 2.81 and 2.63 acres respectively. Subdivision of land requires Planning Board review and approval. The location is 51 Hiland Drive, SR-1A is the existing zoning. Unlisted is the SEQRA status. Project Description. The applicant proposes to subdivide the above sized lots. Lot One is 5.45 acres and is located on Rockwell Road. Lots Two, Three, and Four are located off Hiland Drive and are now accessed by a single loop driveway that is privately owned. There’s one additional comment that I would like to ensure that the applicant does pay attention to, and that is that, under General Note Number Eleven, Staff would request that this notation be a deed restriction, and that is that each lot is required Site Plan Review, and also that this notation be given further prominence by segregating this note from the General Notes and placing the above notation on the individual lots that this is a requirement for. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Good evening. MR. CAFFRY-Good evening. John Caffry from Caffry and Flower, representing Case Prime. Case is with me here tonight. Also Stuart Mesinger and Paul Guillet from the Chazen Companies if there’s any technical questions. The Preliminary plat was th approved July 15. We’re now asking for Final plat approval. We’ve made all the th changes the Board requested, on July 15, all the conditions. We have added the additional information needed for a Final plat. There’s a letter from VISION Engineering that says all of their concerns have been completed or addressed. The Staff has asked for two changes. One is moving Plat Note Number 11 about the Site Plan Review requirement on the plat itself I think to make it more prominent, and make it more visible to future buyers, future owners. We have no problem with that. Chazen can do that pretty easily. The other is to make it a deed covenant or a deed restriction. We’d really rather not do that. As the Board may recall, we have a very lengthy list of deed covenants and deed restrictions that we submitted as part of the application. This one is more the Town’s issue, we think. Generally deed covenants and restrictions are enforced by the other property owners in the subdivision against each other, and we’d really rather not put that in there as something that they’re going to be doing. We think that, if somebody comes in for a building permit, the Town Staff will catch it and bring it up, and one thing that could happen, too, is someday this could get amended. Somebody could come in, 10, 20 years from now, and ask to have it amended so they don’t need Site Plan Review anymore, but if it’s locked into the deed covenants, those are awful hard to change. You’ve got to get all the neighbors to consent to it. So, we’d ask that that not be made a deed restriction. What we would be willing to do is put it in the deed as a for information item, and we’d put right in there to bring it to the attention of any future owner. I assume that was the Staff’s real concern, that future owners see it in their deed, that the Town required that. So we’d rather do that than make it a deed restriction per se, and we are asking for one waiver. The application, or the form asked for the Tax Map Numbers on the plat. The County won’t issue them until the plat is filed. So it’s kind of a catch 22. So we’d ask for a waiver on that, and obviously they will be assigned, the County will make sure of that. So, any questions? MR. HUNSINGER-Questions, comments from the Board? How does the Board feel about the issue of the plot notation versus the deed restriction on Site Plan Review? I mean, one of the concerns, I guess I’ll chime in first, and I guess I don’t have real strong feelings one way or another, but I can’t tell you how many times we have applicants come before the Board and say, well, when I bought this property, nobody told me, or, the next door neighbor who’s here because they’re concerned about a new development going in next door saying, well, you know, when I bought my property, the real estate agent told me that, you know, this could never happen, and I think it was just a way to not only protect the neighbors, but also to protect any buyers and protect the Town as well. MR. CAFFRY-Well, I understand that. That’s why we suggested putting it on as a, really an information item rather than as one of the covenants and restrictions. Because we don’t think it’s up to the property owners to be enforcing that against each other. They’ve got plenty of other stuff to enforce on the covenants and restrictions. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Any other questions, comments from the Board? MR. SEGULJIC-I’m all set with it. MRS. BRUNO-I think the note’s fine. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. 21 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. SEGULJIC-So how do we want to say the second (lost word), I mean, it’s already on the plat. MR. CAFFRY-Yes. We have no objection that that note be moved on the plat, as suggested by the Staff, and that we add it to the deed as an information item. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, it’s already on the plan, the notation, under Number 11. The comment is to make it more prominent. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. MESINGER-I think they wanted it directly on each lot, rather than in the fine print of the notes. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. CAFFRY-So then if some property owner, realtor gives them part of the map or something, it’s right there. MR. HUNSINGER-There’s no question, yes, that makes sense. We’ve already done SEQRA. So we’re just here for the Final. MR. FORD-John, can you explain more precisely how that notation will be made on the deed? MR. CAFFRY-We would add it somewhere, I don’t have that right handy here, but we would add it somewhere that it says for information, Town of Queensbury subdivision approval requires Site Plan Review for construction of homes, or whatever it says in Note Eleven. MR. MESINGER-It says Lots One, Three, and Four, and so you’d put it, I guess, on the individual deed, right, will require individual Site Plan Review by the Town of Queensbury. MR. FORD-Thank you. MR. CAFFRY-And if you want when we submit the plat for signing, and I don’t know who signs it, is it you, Mr. Hunsinger, that signs the plats? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes MR. CAFFRY-We could submit the revised prototype deed for you to check and make sure it’s okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Sounds good. MR. FORD-Thank you. MR. SEGULJIC-All right. So what I have is each lot will be subject to Site Plan Review. Such notation shall be placed on each lot on the Final plat subdivision plan Sheet S-1, and such note stating that Lots One, Three, and Four will require, and note will be placed on deed stating that Lots One, Three, and Four will require individual Site Plan Review. That’s what we want, right? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-Then there was the issue of the waiver for the Tax Map Numbers. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-So we just grant a waiver for the Tax Map Numbers to be placed on the plat. Is that what we want? MR. CAFFRY-Correct, that’s what we want. That was the only thing was saw that we couldn’t satisfy. 22 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. SEGULJIC-Right. So, are we all set, then, Mr. Chairman? MR. HUNSINGER-I think so. We already granted the other waivers in Preliminary. MR. SEGULJIC-All set, then? MR. HUNSINGER-I think we’re all set. MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE SUBDIVISION NO. 1-2008 R. CASE PRIME, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: 1. A subdivision application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the following; Applicant proposes subdivision of a 16.4 +/- acre parcel into four lots ranging in size from 2.63 to 5.44 acres. Subdivision of land requires Planning Board review and approval per Chapter A-183. 2. A public hearing was scheduled and held on 7/15/08; and 3. This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and application material in the file of record; and 4. Pursuant to relevant sections of the Town of Queensbury Zoning Code [Chapter 179], the Planning Board has determined that this proposal complies with the requirements as stated in the Zoning Code; and 5. The requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered and the Planning Board has adopted a SEQRA Negative Declaration; and If the application is a modification, the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act have been considered, and the proposed modification[s] do not result in any new or significantly different environmental impacts, and, therefore, no further SEQRA review is necessary; and 6. MOTION TO APPROVE FINAL STAGE FOR SUBDIVISION NO. 1-2008 R. CASE PRIME, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: In accordance with the resolution prepared by Staff. Number Four complies. Number Five Negative. With the following conditions: a)Each lot will be subject to Site Plan Review. Such notation will be placed on each lot on the final plat subdivision plan Sheet S-1. In addition, a note will be placed on the deed stating that Lots One, Three, and Four will require individual Site Plan Review. Also a waiver for the tax number to be placed on the plats will be granted. b)Four and Five of the conditions in the prepared resolution do not apply. c)Final approved plans, in compliance with the Subdivision, must be submitted to the Planning Office before any further review by the Zoning Administrator or Building and Codes personnel. d)The applicant must meet with Staff after approval and prior to issuance of Building Permit and/or the beginning of any site work. Subsequent issuance of further permits, including building permits is dependent on compliance with this and all other conditions of this resolution; and e)The applicant will provide as-built plans to certify that the subdivision is developed according to the approved plans prior to issuance of the certificate of occupancy; and rd Duly adopted this 23 day of September, 2008, by the following vote: MR. HUNSINGER-I just had a question. In the motion prepared by Staff, there five sort of standard conditions of approval. Did we want to include any of those? It seems as though One, Two, and Three should apply. Four is not applicable and Five is not applicable. MR. SEGULJIC-Four and five of the conditions of approval do not apply. 23 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Traver, Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mrs. Steffan MR. HUNSINGER-Good luck. You’re all set. MR. CAFFRY-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-I guess I wanted to make a comment to Staff. I did notice the new format of the standard resolutions, and I really like it. I have only one minor suggestion. The top items, make them alphabetical instead of numbers, because you have two sets of numbers. So like the top one through five, you know, make it a through e. So that then when we get into the conditions at the bottom, you’re not duplicating numbers that were already on the resolution. MR. OBORNE-I shall pass that on to. MR. HUNSINGER-Like I said, I really like this format a lot. I think it works very well. It makes things a lot easier. MR. OBORNE-Yes. SUBDIVISION NO. 6-2008 SKETCH SEQR TYPE N/A COLLETTE CONSTRUCTION AGENT(S) VISION ENGINEERING OWNER(S) STEVEN & SUSAN KARP ZONING SR-1A LOCATION WEST MT. RD/UPR. SHERMAN AVE. APPLICANT PROPOSES SUBDIVISION OF A 36.21 ACRE PARCEL INTO 20 RESIDENTIAL LOTS RANGING IN SIZE FROM 1 ACRE TO 4.39 ACRES. SUBDIVISION OF LAND REQUIRES PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE BP 7824 WARREN CO. PLANNING N/A APA/DEC/CEA APA WETLANDS LOT SIZE 35.65 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 301.17-1-3-45 SECTION A-183 MATT FULLER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, if you want to just summarize comments. MR. OBORNE-Subdivision 6-2008, Sketch Plan, Collette Construction is the applicant. Site Plan Review requested for the subdivision of land. Location, corner of West Mountain Road and Upper Sherman Avenue. Existing zoning is Suburban Residential One Acre. It’s a Type I Realty subdivision SEQRA status. Project Description. Applicant proposes to subdivide, the subdivision of 36.21 acres of land into 20 residential parcels ranging in size from 1.0 acre to 4.39 acres. Each parcel to have individual well and septic. Further, the applicant proposes a 1,068 foot roadway that ends in a cul-de- sac for the proposed subdivision. Staff comments. Per A183-6, areas of existing vegetation should be shown along wells and septic tanks of adjoining properties. Further, the Adirondack Park boundary line runs through the western portion of the proposed subdivision and as such may require the Planning Board to determine if this project will be subject to the special requirements of Chapter 183, Article 11, Regional Projects within the Adirondack Park. Clarification as to the location of the boundary should be noted on the plan. Further has the applicant submitted a Jurisdictional Inquiry Form with the Adirondack Park Agency? It may appear that this is an APA zone Hamlet. Per 183-50A, subdivisions with wetlands in Hamlet may be a Class A regional project. Please clarify. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Good evening. MR. FULLER-Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning Board. For the record, Matt Fuller from Fitzgerald, Morris, Baker, Firth. Here representing Ken Collette and Collette Construction. Just to start off, I’ll get to the comments, we’ll go through the Sketch. I do have copies of the deed to the property. We did end up closing. So I know we have an authorization from the prior owner, and I’ve filed an authorization for me to be here tonight. I just gave it to you. So I’ll give you all a copy of the deed, so that you now have that for the correct applicant. Just to go through quickly the Staff comments and the project, it is a 36.2 acre parcel of land. The Staff comments are correct on the wetlands. We are going to have the wetlands flagged. I think, looking at the plan, we don’t think the wetlands are going to be an issue with the development. It’s way below the bank. I think it was 60 feet, somewhere in there, behind the lot. So that won’t be an 24 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) issue. I did talk to the APA today, and we will follow up with them again. It’s somewhat unique, and I’ll head over to the map here so we can look at that. The lot that, in particular here, is the lower Lot Six. It’s somewhat separate from the remainder of the project, and in discussions with the APA, the boundary line, we’re going to have this put on the Preliminary plat when we submit that, the boundary line for the APA runs right along the back of this lot. So the question becomes, are we subdividing a wetland in the APA, and like I said, I did talk to the APA today. We’re not clear right now that that’s going to be an issue, but we are going to follow up in writing with them. So that is a good comment. As far as the lots go, they’re all over an acre. The Sherman Ave. West Mountain corridors do require combined driveways for lots on those roads, and we have provided for that. The one exception being Lot Six, and I believe the requirement for that is double the frontage if you can’t combine the driveway, and we have done that. The initial feedback on the perc test, the soils are all very good, sandy. We will have a road approximately 1,068 feet, and we’re working with National Grid on whether or not we’ll have gas. It’s just down Sherman Ave. I think we’re going to have municipal water and then septic systems on the lots. So with that, I’ll turn it over to the Board and answer any questions. MR. HUNSINGER-Questions, comments from members of the Board? MR. SEGULJIC-My only comment really centers around, we have another cul de sac. We’re becoming this community of all these broken up roads and neighborhoods. So I have to ask a question. Any way to connect that into another road? MR. FULLER-That is a good question. We did look around to the neighboring developments that were approved, and we thought that the, it would be just to the south, that that cul de sac that’s in that development may have, there may have been a paper road or a stub road and there wasn’t. So all the neighboring developments that were approved, there were no stub roads or paper streets to the development, or we definitely would have definitely would have been interested in doing that. MR. HUNSINGER-I had a similar comment. My gut reaction was if Cranberry Lane wasn’t already there, if you could have done a loop road, it would have been a much better project. MR. FULLER-I think I would agree with you. Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-So there’s nothing we can do? MR. FULLER-There are houses there. I think we’d need variances and smaller lots and I think the prospects of that are slim. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. FULLER-A couple of other comments. The permeability. Even with the full build out, the permeable surfaces will still be in excess of 90% of the entire parcel, and I know one of the topics that’s come up with prior projects is the buffer, and on the Preliminary plat, when we submit that, we will set forth buffers on the boundaries, on the boundaries of the development, that’s something we’ve already looked into as well. MR. FORD-The intent is to convey that 1,000 plus road to the Town? MR. FULLER-It would be built to Town specs and dedicated, yes. MR. FORD-Has that been discussed with the Town? MR. FULLER-At this point, no, it’s still early. MR. SEGULJIC-And what’s the limit on the dead end roads, 1,000 feet? MR. OBORNE-On a cul de sac? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. MR. OBORNE-I believe it’s 1500. MR. SEGULJIC-1500. Okay. All right. MR. FULLER-Let me give you copies of the deed. 25 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Any other thoughts, questions from the Board, comments? MR. FORD-I know it’s early, but do you anticipate putting streetlights down that road? KEN COLLETTE MR. COLLETTE-Haven’t really thought about it yet. MR. FULLER-That’s something we can look at during design phase, if you’re interested in seeing lights down there. MR. FORD-It all depends on who pays for the lights. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, in my view, most of those people are going to have lights out in front anyway, and that’s usually enough light. MR. FULLER-We’d agree with you. MR. SEGULJIC-I mean, we don’t need more light. MR. COLLETTE-We thought about keeping everything on a photocell, so they would go off at the same time. MR. SEGULJIC-That’s just my opinion. MR. FULLER-Like I said, just to the, we’ll call south, the cul de sac there isn’t far, but it is a lot, and then we looked to see if it had a structure on it, so we pulled up the aerials, and it does have a structure, so we couldn’t even go to the owner to try to, because I’d agree, if we could provide some connection, that’s always a good idea, and we also looked at stubbing to the property, (lost word) for this development, but the neighboring properties are developed. MR. HUNSINGER-There’s nothing to stub to. MR. FULLER-Exactly. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other thoughts or comments from the Board? Have you already submitted the Preliminary? MR. FULLER-No. What we were asked tonight is if the Sketch could be approved. Then we’ll move forward with the APA, the wetland delineation, the buffers, and filing for the Preliminary. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I mean, we don’t really typically do any kind of approval on Sketch. I mean, it’s just a, it’s informal discussion. There’s typically no formal vote taken We express any comments or concerns and then the expectation is you would then take those into account when you submit Preliminary. MR. FULLER-Sure. MR. SIPP-Does the radius of that cul de sac turnaround meet the Fire Marshal’s requirements? MR. FULLER-Yes. I was going to say, if not, it will. Dan laid it out, so he better be right. MR. SIPP-If you call this a local road, it’s got to have a roadway radius of at least 25 feet, which it looks like it does. MR. FULLER-I think we’ll have a set out plan. When we submit the Preliminary we’ll make sure we check that. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-Just for my education, if this does become a regional. MR. HUNSINGER-Regional significant project? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. Whatever that is. 26 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. FULLER-A Class A Regional Project? MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. There you go. What does that mean? MR. FULLER-It’s just a permit review from the APA. MR. SEGULJIC-Because you’re subdividing a wetland is the issue. MR. FULLER-Well, that’s the thing is in the Park we’re not. We’re definitely not going to subdivide a wetland in the Adirondack Park. It would be conveyed all with that Lot Six. So one of the things I talked about with the APA today is right now we’ve got that boundary for Lot Six running along where we believe the APA boundary is, and I think it’s right there. Worst case scenario, although it’s outside the Adirondack Park, we may move that boundary all the way around the wetland, and put it all on that. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. So that boundary is the Park, even though the wetland extends over. So you’re not subdividing it within the Park. MR. FULLER-Exactly. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. FULLER-And it’s somewhat a unique situation, even visa vie a Class A Regional Project, because that Lot Six is already separated, within the Adirondack Park, from the remainder of the land, because those lots above that, the one lot in the middle there just north of Lot Six, is privately owned, unrelated to us. So within the Park, we’ve got a piece of the parcel that’s in the park, then private ownership, then another piece that’s up north of that. So my belief is that, for APA purposes, that’s already subdivided. Again, this is all to be discussed. It was just preliminary today. MR. SEGULJIC-But that’s an issue for the APA. MR. FULLER-Exactly, but we will get you that information. MR. SEGULJIC-All right. Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else? MR. SEGULJIC-One other thing. Our friends the Karner blue. Any information on that at all? Because you know that’s going to come up. MR. FULLER-Yes, we’ll look into that, too. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. FULLER-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. MR. SEGULJIC-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Good luck. SPECIAL USE PERMIT 36-2008 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED MICHEL & MONIQUE JULIEN OWNER(S) SAME ZONING WR-1A LOCATION 10 ANTLER ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES A CLASS A MARINA USE. CLASS A MARINAS IN THE WR- 1A ZONE REQUIRES A SPECIAL USE PERMIT REVIEW AND APPROVAL BY THE PLANNING BOARD. CROSS REFERENCE AV 7-99 WARREN CO. PLANNING 9/10/08 APA/DEC/CEA L G CEA, APA WETLANDS LOT SIZE 0.56 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 240.9-1-2 SECTION 179-10-060 MICHEL JULIAN, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you’re ready. MR. OBORNE-Special Use Permit 36-2008 Michel and Monique Julien Applicant’s seek a Special Use Permit for establishment and operation of a Class A Marina. Location is 10 Antler Road, Harris Bay Waterfront Residential One Acre. This is an 27 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) Unlisted action, a Short EAF has been submitted. Project Description. The applicant proposes to utilize their existing dock slips to provide for the berthing of three non- occupant boats. I’ll do a quick summary of the Staff comments. The applicant’s are seeking a temporary special use permit for a marina, the specific amount of time that this permit will be valid should be a condition of approval for this application per §179-10- 030. The applicant’s, at this time, do not have a special use permit for a Class A marina from either the Town of Queensbury or the Lake George Park Commission. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Good evening. MR. JULIEN-Good evening. My name is Michel Julien, and as stated, I’m applying for a Special Use Permit to be able to rent the docks at my space. MR. HUNSINGER-Do you have anything else to add? MR. JULIEN-No, I don’t have anything else to add. If you have any questions. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I’ll open it up for questions, comments from the Board. MR. TRAVER-Were you able to get the signoff for the pump out? MR. JULIEN-I was waiting to get the approval from the Town before I did that. It’s a form provided by the Lake George Park Commission, and they just sent me all of the bundles this week, and that was part of it, and I’m going to submit that to a marina close to me where I can get an agreement to have them pump out the boats. MR. TRAVER-Right. MR. SEGULJIC-With regards to a Class A Marina, could you point me in the direction where that is in the Code? Because aren’t there requirements you have to have a trash receptacle? MR. JULIEN-You need parking space, and depending on the size of the boats, the parking space varies. For a boat, 30 feet and over, I think it’s one and a half space, well, two spaces, but they say if you have two boats then you need three spaces for the two boats. So it’s one and a half space. For boats under that it’s one space. Then you need bathroom. You need trash. You need pump out. MR. SEGULJIC-All right. So you’re going to get a pump out letter from the. MR. JULIEN-An agreement with another marina to do the pump out. MR. SEGULJIC-And you have adequate parking? MR. JULIEN-I have adequate parking. The parking, I have 35 feet wide of parking area, suitable for four cars. MR. SEGULJIC-Then you’re going to allow use of your bathroom? MR. JULIEN-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-Because that’s required also, I believe. MR. JULIEN-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, and you’re going to have three boats? MR. JULIEN-Correct. I’m using one of the slips for myself. MR. FORD-One of the four. MR. JULIEN-One of the four. Correct. MR. FORD-There will be three non residents. MR. JULIEN-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Three non residents. One thing I’d like to see is, since your septic system is designed for your septic system is designed for your house use, you’re 28 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) going to put additional use on it. The condition, I’d like to see you provide an inspection of your septic system. MR. JULIEN-The septic system was pumped about a month ago, and after seven years there was 18 inches of sediment at the bottom, on a, I think it’s a 1,000 gallon tank, and there is, there are plans of the septic system in here, and somewhere in there they rate the capacity of the system, and I think it’s more than adequate. MR. SEGULJIC-Did they inspect it when they pumped it out? MR. JULIEN-No. MR. SEGULJIC-Because one of the things I’d like to see is that the system get inspected to make sure it’s functioning properly. Because you’re going to. MR. JULIEN-Who does that kind of inspection? MR. OBORNE-If I may, usually when you have your septic pumped out, they do an inspection sheet. So you might want to look at the ticket again. Typically they’ll ask you to flush your toilet or run some water to see if it’s working, if the baffles are working correctly. MR. JULIEN-I wasn’t present when he did it. So I can check that. MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. If you could submit an inspection indicating that the septic system is functioning properly, and if it’s not, take actions to repair it. MR. JULIEN-But it’s a brand new system that was put in place in 2001. MR. SEGULJIC-And you’ve only had it pumped out once in seven years? MR. JULIEN-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-Are you aware of how often you should have a septic system pumped out? MR. JULIEN-Every three years. MR. SEGULJIC-Especially since you’re on the lake. MR. JULIEN-But we’re two. We’re two living in the house. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, still. Now, just one other comment. When I’m reading Class A Marinas, it talks about all Class A Marinas in operation as of the date of the adoption, which I guess was 2003, shall be required to apply for a Special Use Permit on or before January 1, 2004. An existing may qualify for a Special Use Permit. So they didn’t apply by then. Does that mean anything? MR. OBORNE-Well, no. They need to obviously apply now. The applicant has stated that he was not aware of that. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. All right. The only other thing is how many years would we like to grant this for? I mean, I think we want to do it every, I don’t know, what would you think would be appropriate? I think annually would be too short. Maybe like five years? MR. JULIEN-Yes, I would think something like five years. Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-Any thoughts? MR. HUNSINGER-I’m trying to remember what we’ve approved in the past. MRS. BRUNO-Wasn’t it also based on if he had a change in the renter? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. If there’s a change they would have to come back. MR. SEGULJIC-But I don’t see what the change in renter would have to do with us. MR. JULIEN-I mean, if I rent to larger boats, will I still have enough parking space? If I have a three 30 foot boats in there. 29 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. SEGULJIC-Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but it says one space for every two boats. MR. OBORNE-Right, and you’re thinking of the APA guidelines. The Town guideline is. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Any other questions, comments from the Board? We do have a public hearing scheduled this evening. Is there anyone in the audience that wants to address the Board on this application? Yes, ma’am. If you could make sure you state your name for the record. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED FLORENCE CONNOR MS. CONNOR-My name’s Florence Connor, and I’m just curious as to where exactly this is located, and another comment is that he said there are two people living in the house now using the septic system and it’s completely functional. However, he’s adding three more boats, which could be three to six people on each boat, up to 11 people on a boat, and this may overdue the septic system. First of all, I’d like to know where exactly it’s located. MR. HUNSINGER-It’s on 10 Antler Road in Harris Bay. MS. CONNOR-Is that Cleverdale or Assembly Point? MR. JULIEN-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Which? MR. JULIEN-Cleverdale. MR. HUNSINGER-Cleverdale. MS. CONNOR-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, sir. Good evening. JOHN SALVADOR MR. SALVADOR-Good evening. My name is John Salvador. I believe our Code requires that these Class A Marina Permits conform to the requirements of Part 645 and 646 of the Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York. Those are fundamentally the Lake George Park Commission regulations. One criteria for granting a Class A Marina Permit, that the Park Commission uses, that the facilities must be legally pre-existing, and as your Code also requires that it be, you must also make a determination that the facilities are legally pre-existing. The other point I have tried to stress repeatedly that Class A Marinas are commercial activity, and this is a residential zone, and never are they required to get a Use Variance. We have substituted this Special Use Permit which is conditioned, it’s not a permit that goes with the land, as a use permit does. So, bear in mind that you are, in a left handed manner, approving commercial activity in a residential zone. The point has been made, concerning the septic system, and it’s a good point. I can tell you from personal experience, when people come to the lake to use their boat to go out on the lake, the first thing they do is hit the head, and the first thing they do when they come back from boating, they hit the head. They don’t leave, they don’t go anywhere without visiting the restrooms. I’m sure the septic system on the property has been designed predicated on a certain number of bedrooms in the house. Nowhere has that design taken into consideration the fact that there will be additional use, and at the peak season, at the critical time, you folks have all read the newspapers about algae blooms on Lake George. There’s a good reason for it. These septic systems are overburdened. We’ve had an extremely wet season, and the soils are saturated, and it’s beginning to show. Also the Park Commission regulations say that the restrooms must be open at all times. I don’t know what the applicant is going to provide for restrooms, but if the restrooms are in his dwelling, that should be addressed. How are they going to be open at all times, whether he’s home or not, whether they’re supervised. That’s the requirement. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. If the applicant wants to come back up, please. Did you have any comments to any of the public questions or comments? 30 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. JULIEN-No, I don’t. MR. HUNSINGER-One of the items that Mr. Salvador brought up is that the facilities must be pre-existing, and typically we would get evidence that the docks existed prior to the adoption of the Lake George Park Commission rules and regulations. MR. JULIEN-Correct. MR. HUNSINGER-Did we get any evidence in the file? I didn’t see anything, to the date, to how far back the existence of the docks may go. MR. OBORNE-As to when they were built? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. OBORNE-No, there’s no evidence. MR. HUNSINGER-Do you know when the docks were installed? MR. JULIEN-When I purchased the property, the docks were already in place, and they had to be resurfaced because of wear and tear from aging. If I had to make a guess, I would say in the 70’s. MR. HUNSINGER-So you purchased the property in 1999? MR. JULIEN-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-When these new rules were first adopted, we had a flood of these applications. So we were able to get through them fairly quickly because we kind of got used to certain standard documentation, and I wish I could recall what the primary document. I think there was something that was issued by the Lake George Park Commission that we would accept as documentation. MR. SEGULJIC-A permit, an aerial photograph. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-And what was the date, do you recall that? In the 80’s was it? 1988 I think for some reason. MR. HUNSINGER-It’s actually in the Code, 179-10-35. Use of the property and associated structures has been continuous to date without interruption since prior to 1981 for marinas. So we do need you to get that documentation, as to how long the docks have been there. MR. JULIEN-As to the time that the docks have been in place. Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-So like a Lake George Park Commission permit. I believe we accept an aerial photograph, is that true? MR. HUNSINGER-Or a building permit from the Town. MR. SEGULJIC-Building permit. MR. JULIEN-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-But it would require you to do research in both Town Hall and at the Park Commission. Anything else from members of the Board? MR. SEGULJIC-I think that’s it. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I think we’re going to have to table it because he’s going to have to bring back that documentation. We will leave the public hearing open. MR. SEGULJIC-So we need the pump out letter. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. So we’re going to be looking for information on the septic, and then the existence of the docks. 31 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. SEGULJIC-We also want to have a location of the trash receptacle on the Site Plan. You submitted the Site Plan, didn’t you? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-So just note where that’s going to be, just where the trash receptacle’s going to be, because that’s one of the requirements. MR. JULIEN-It’s on the path from the dock to the parking. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, just note a garbage can on that, then, trash receptacle, on the Site Plan you submitted. MR. JULIEN-Okay. On the Site Plan? Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Anyone want to make that motion? MR. SEGULJIC-So what we have is the pump out letter, location of trash receptacle on the Site Plan, submission of evidence that the docks were in continuous use without interruption since 1981, and the submission of a septic system inspection, and if they fail, you’d have to notify the Town Board of Health within seven days if they fail. MR. OBORNE-Whatever your wish is. There’s no requirement for it. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. All right. MOTION TO TABLE SPECIAL USE PERMIT NO. 36-2008 MICHEL & MONIQUE JULIEN, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Tanya Bruno: Tabled to November 18, 2008. We are requesting that the following information be submitted: 1.A pump out letter. 2.That the location of the trash receptacle will be noted on the Site Plan. 3.Submission of evidence that the docks were in continuous use without interruption since 1981. 4.That the on site septic system be inspected to ensure that it’s working properly, and if the tests indicate any deficiencies, the Town Board of Health shall be notified within seven days, and a compliant plan shall be submitted within thirty days of discovery of any deficiencies. rd Duly adopted this 23 day of September, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Ford, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mrs. Steffan MR. JULIEN-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Call Staff if you have any questions. Thank you. SITE PLAN NO. 39-2008 SEQR TYPE UNLISTED CELLCO PARTNERSHIP AGENT(S) MICHAEL CUSACK – YOUNG, SOMMER, LLC OWNER(S) QU. CENTRAL FIRE CO. ZONING SFR-1A LOCATION 145 AVIATION ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES REPLACEMENT OF EXISTING 50 FOOT MONOPOLE TOWER WITH A 120 FOOT MONOPOLE TOWER TO SUPPORT VERIZON WIRELESS EQUIPMENT, FIRE DEPARTMENT EQUIPMENT AND OTHER USERS. FURTHER THE APPLICANT PROPOSES A 360 SQ. FT. SUPPORT BUILDING. TELECOMMUNICATION TOWERS REQUIRE PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. THE PLANNING BOARD MAY COMMENCE SEQR REVIEW AND PROVIDE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS. CROSS REFERENCE AV 62-08; UV 61-08 32 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) WARREN CO. PLANNING N/A LOT SIZE 0.46 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 295.18-2-11 SECTION 179-5-130 MICHAEL CUSACK, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you’re ready to summarize Staff Notes. MR. OBORNE-Okay. Site Plan 39-2008, Cellco Partnership, Site Plan Review for the building of a telecommunications tower is the requested action. Location is 145 Aviation Avenue. Single Family Residential One Acre is the zoning. The SEQRA status is Unlisted. The Project Description. Applicant proposes to erect a 142 foot monopole tower capable of supporting Verizon Wireless equipment. Further, the applicant proposes to build an associated 360 square foot Equipment Shelter. Staff comments. The site for this proposal is bordered by a residential lot to the east, IDA of Warren and Washington Counties to the north and west, and Aviation Road to the south. The tower, if approved, will include the existing Fire Department emergency communication equipment and other unspecified equipment relocated to the top of the tower. The height in the application states 120 feet, however, the inclusion of the 22 foot Fire Department antenna on the top of the structure increases the total to 142 feet. Site Plan Review follows. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Good evening. MR. CUSACK-Thank you. I’m Mike Cusack. With me is Jean Marie Frawley from Techtonic Engineering. We represent Verizon Wireless. Our names and contact information is on the front of the application booklets that you received for this project, and since our appearance last week before the Zoning Board of Appeals, there’ve been a number of discussions arising out of the Zoning Board’s comment, which basically can be summarized to the following, that we evaluate in more particular detail some alternative or potential alternative sites for this facility, more to the west or perhaps more to the north of the location that we have now, and the Zoning Board of Appeals was kind enough to provide a few suggested sites, which we’re gathering preliminary information on. So after that meeting we did contact, I spoke with the Town Attorney and also the Town Supervisor about the possibility, a couple of the sites are municipal property, so that they want us to look at, and we all agreed, in concept, that the approach to this project that would work best would be to table it for 60 days to allow us to go out and look at these alternative sites. However, the hearing tonight is set. It’s a live hearing. It was advertised. So we definitely wanted to show up for the meeting, but at the end of my presentation, I’ve already filed a written request with Staff, we’re going to request that this be tabled for 60 days, so that we can evaluate the potential municipal and private sites that have been identified to us literally within the past three or four days, and before we go down that path of looking at alternative sites, I wanted to take some time to educate you, as the Planning Board, on the materials that we’ve presented, so that you have an understanding of why we’re looking in this area and what some of the limitations might be, in terms of how far west or how far north we could possibly move this facility. The materials that I’m referring to are in the application package, behind the sixth tab, excuse me, the seventh tab, which is the radio frequency engineer’s report, documenting the purpose and the need for this facility. Material’s a little dry. So I apologize in advance, but you’ll at least have an understanding of how we think in terms of approaching these projects. First and foremost, the service that exists in this section of the Town of Queensbury comes from three existing but somewhat distant sites. Up at the Queensbury Outlets at Exit 20, near the intersection of Route 149 and Route 9, we are co-located on an existing tower. This tower is approximately 2.8 miles from the proposed site. So almost three miles. Going down to Exit 18, there’s an existing communications tower there that we have antennas on. There are two communications towers, or excuse me, three at Exit 18. Ours would be the lattice tower on the east side of the Northway, not one of the two on the west side of the Northway. MRS. BRUNO-Excuse me. What are the heights of the other towers approximately? MR. CUSACK-The height of the tower at Exit 18 is approximately 180 feet. The height of the tower up at Exit 20 might be 140. I’m not exactly sure on that one. I do remember very clearly the one at Exit 18. MR. HUNSINGER-I remember the one up on 149. We didn’t approve what you had requested. MR. CUSACK-Right. It started out at one height and it was reduced, I believe. So I think it got down to 140 or something in that neighborhood. 33 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MRS. BRUNO-Thank you. MR. CUSACK-The third site is a co-location on an existing rooftop in Downtown Glens Falls, and that would be the CNA building, shown here on the coverage plot, and that site’s about 3.6 miles away, excuse me, 3.7 miles away. The Exit 18 site’s about 3.6 miles away. So you’re looking at sites that range between 2.8 and 3.7 miles away from the proposed site, and as this map depicts, it’s trying to show coverage levels in the community, at a signal strength that’s indicated at the top of the chart of – 85 dmb, or decibels per milliwatt, and this is an industry standard coverage level that Verizon Wireless uses to deploy its network in areas of Upstate New York, similar to the Glens Falls area and much of the Capital District. They use a slightly higher standard in densely populated urban areas where there are a lot of steel and brick buildings and building penetration can be a more significant issue, but for the most part, in our part of the State, this is a uniform standard that the network is designed to. So the area shown in blue on the plot would be where coverage is considered reliable, or adequate and safe under the regulatory standard, and the areas in white would be areas where there might be some coverage, it’s just not up to standard, or where coverage is missing all together. The area shown in yellow on this is a proposed facility that Verizon Wireless is considering, near Luzerne Road. It’s not existing. It’s not permitted or in permitting at this point in time, but under your Code it asks us to also explain what else we’re looking at in the vicinity to help improve our network and our service. So that’s shown in yellow to cover the areas to the south here, and then coming over to this plot on the left of my chart here, the area in green depicts what Verizon Wireless would be able to achieve, coverage wise, from a new facility at the location and height that we’re proposing in this particular application. So, taken together with the proposed Luzerne coverage and the existing coverage, you can see on the western side of the Town, or at least west of the I- 87 corridor, that this plan would provide fairly solid coverage to the Town of Queensbury and all the surrounding areas. How did we get to this particular site? That seems to be the big question. When the engineers look at the location of the existing network and the features of the area, such as terrain and vegetation, and population and density and available land and other resources such as Federal wetlands and things like that, they come up with a circle, generally described as a circle, call it a search area, and the engineers give that search area to Jean Marie or someone in Jean Marie’s role, and ask that they go out and evaluate properties in the area for potential co-location space, or if there aren’t any available structures to co-locate on, potential new tower space. So within the area that we were looking at, and even slightly outside it, there were three existing facilities that we wanted to take a look at. The first was the, over closer to the Northway by the hotel is a flagpole structure that was approved by the Town of Queensbury back in 2001, and that facility is fairly well filled up, and because of the flagpole type of structure, the antennas are internally mounted, it does not have the room to accommodate all of the antennas that Verizon Wireless would require for its various technologies, and specifically on that point, we’re operating three different technologies, excuse me, we’re operating two and we have a third coming on line soon. The first is the standard 800 megahertz cellular network that everyone’s familiar with, and we’ve expanded our services and our capacity by adding in a PCS network as well, that operates on different frequencies that use different antennas. In March, Verizon Wireless also won new licenses for a 700 megahertz spectrum that were auctioned off at the FCC. They were the winning bidder for a nationwide license that they paid approximately $9.8 billion for. So we’re operating two existing networks now, and we’re soon to add a third. So if we have differing antennas of differing types, and you can put in one antenna type inside of a flagpole structure, that limits your ability to deploy your networks and provide the services that we’re providing now and planning on providing in the future. A lot of bandwidth, a lot of high technology, it’s not basic voice communications anymore. The demand for data use is very, very high, as well as the demand for the advanced technologies that we’re seeing now, over Wireless devices. So that tower had issues in terms of available space. In addition, it was located generally too far to the east. It tended to duplicate a lot of the coverage that we already had in the area, and that’s why that particular facility was ruled out from an engineering standpoint. The second facility, which has been the topic of much discussion, is an existing tower at the SEMO facility, just past the Queensbury High School, off of Aviation Road, and this particular facility, it’s very, very old. It’s approximately 100 feet tall, fully loaded, and does not have the ability, structurally, to support any additional equipment. First of all, there’s no vertical space left on it, and second of all, it’s not built to a standard where it could take the additional weight and wind loading of new equipment. Due to the nature of this property as a SEMO facility, there’s also some difficulty and perhaps reluctance in improving it for commercial use as well. It is a State Emergency Management Office, and there are sensitivities with allowing third party vendors on these facilities, and their contractors over time. The last thing, it comes up a lot in discussion, 34 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) that people want is us needing to access the facility when there’s an actual emergency going on in the office, and as a result, there were some difficulties that we had in looking at that as a true replacement site. An interesting point of fact, the foundation of the existing tower that’s there is tied into the underground bunker where the communications equipment is located, and can’t be easily improved or reinforced without taking into account also all of the underground structural issues associated with that. So as a result, that facility didn’t pan out as well as we might have liked. The last facility that we looked at was the firehouse property that we’re talking about this evening, and on that site is a very small, light duty, 50 foot monopole with a 22 foot whip antenna on the top of it. It’s basically in the trees. It doesn’t really work all that well. We did do a tree survey on the property and in average terms the tree height there is 70 to 80 feet, and there are some trees taller than 80, approaching 87 and 89 feet there on the property and on surrounding properties. So it is a heavily wooded area that had on the one hand good screening aspects, but on the other hand had variance issues for potential setbacks. So our thinking, and I’m going to be as honest as I can here, was, is that, we’re naturally when we come into an area, we’re asked to look at municipal properties within our search areas and try to propose solutions on municipal property, because in that sense the benefit of the project goes to the people as a whole, as opposed to private. So our thinking was can we make something work on this site, in a telecommunications sense, and also help out the local fire department with its needs, and specifically the fire department’s antenna, as I mentioned, is in the trees now. It’s not functioning as well as they would like. It could use some improvement, in terms of its coverage abilities. So we came up with a design where Verizon Wireless would build a tower, and the tower is 120 feet tall, as proposed. Our antennas would go at the top of that tower, but then the fire department’s 22 foot whip antenna would just be mounted to the top, and in the interest of assessing things correctly and disclosing things properly, we labeled as an overall structural height of 142 feet. So it’s a 120 foot tower, plus a 22 foot whip antenna. Our thinking, in terms of the siting aspects, having done this in a number of similar situations, was that it doesn’t necessarily follow that a large lot with a tower on it translates to a less visible facility, if the facility on the smaller lot could be sited properly, and here, in terms of the visual impact, I think the report, and the conclusion speaks for itself. The visual results were very remarkable. The facility was visible in approximately .7% of the two mile study area, and primarily confined, visibility wise, to an area within three tenths of a mile of the project site, and I’m just going to put this board up here. It’s an enlarged view of the view shed map that’s included in the application materials, and what we found was, in the area right around the site, here shown in green, there would be some clear views of the facility, and then surrounding that, partial views through the dense, mature vegetation that I described, and through the large portions of the remaining two mile study area our consultants were not able to detect any meaningful levels of visibility. In red, the areas shown here are not visible, simply due to terrain blocking, and in yellow, we have views of the facility being blocked by dense vegetation or buildings or other structures. So the visible aspects of this facility were not initially, to us, from a site design standpoint, that dramatic. Now, the public comment on that may disagree with me, but that’s how we got into this particular site. In addition, in the Town of Queensbury, if we look at the regulatory framework that we were handed, the only area where towers are really allowed is to the south and east, at Exit 18 where the Light Industrial and Industrial type zoned properties are, and this would be consistent with the older cellular technology and everyone’s understanding of how that technology used to work. The entire area where we were looking for a site, again, the smaller search area, not the view shed area shown on this map, is residential and other land uses that it’s just simply not allowed. So, no matter where we go in the search area, we are required to get a variance, and I’ll add to that as we start going on this effort of looking to the west and to the north. No matter where we go in those areas, we are going to need a variance there as well, under the current zoning. So our goal and our hope would be, tonight, if the Board has any ideas or strong feelings about areas that should be considered or not considered as we go out and look at these alternative sites, as recommended by the Zoning Board of Appeals, that we get those ideas down on paper and consult with appropriate Town officials, if its municipal property, and try to give those facilities, or excuse me, those locations, a fair look, and we’ll be guided, going forward, by two general principles, first the facility has to work, and when I say work, turning to the radio engineer’s report, a proper site has to do two things. It has to cover the target area, and it has to integrate with coverage from the surrounding sites, and the second point requires a bit of explanation. What I mean by integration is, the coverage has to slightly overlap with the existing coverage, because if there’s a gap between the coverage from the two sites, it will result in ineffective attempts or dropped calls, poor to no existing service. So we want these things to line up slightly next to each other, and the second principle that we’re going to try to work very hard to get around is we certainly don’t want to have a situation where, in moving the site, or potentially moving the site, we’re simply bringing in another constituency of upset neighbors. We are going to try to find a 35 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) location that actually works from a distance and setback perspective a little bit better than the proposed site, but there’s no guarantees we can make at this point that anything we do end up looking at will be perfectly acceptable to everyone in the community, and that’s the other guiding principle that we’re going to try to keep in mind, as we consider these alternative locations. We do have, we did have a very favorable assistance offered from the Town Supervisor in terms of Town resources if there are Town properties involved, to make those properties open and available for us to look at, as possible facilities, and we appreciate that a lot, because it helps us do this. We are concerned. When I said this site has to work, our coverage is over here to the east, and down here to the south. We are concerned if we move too far to the west, we’re going to not be able to completely integrate with existing service, but we do think that there might be something in there that works. So we would ask your approval of our request to table this for 60 days. In terms of the Site Plan, I’m happy to go over everything, how it’s laid out on the site, if you want, or we can proceed to public comments or questions, however you wanted to go about it. I certainly know if we’re going to consider this the hearing and make a decision, I certainly want to go through everything that I have, but if that’s not the strategy then we can just agree and go forward. MR. HUNSINGER-I guess I’ll open it up for questions, comments from Board members, first. MR. SIPP-In saying your requirements here, what would be the maximum tree height that you would consider, that this could be placed? In other words, 40 feet, 50 feet, 20 feet? MR. CUSACK-At the current location? MR. SIPP-No, at any site? You’re talking about alternate sites. MR. CUSACK-We want to be above the tree canopy. I understand. MR. SIPP-If you go to an alternate site, what is the tree height that you would consider to be best for your operation, zero? MR. CUSACK-What we would do is we would try to stay 20 to 40 feet above the tree line. So it depends what’s on the site. If it’s primary growth, 20 to 30 or 40 feet, we can use a shorter facility initially than if it’s dense, mature growth in the 70, 80, and 90 foot range, such as we’re seeing in this particular area. MR. SIPP-All right. What is the amount of access that you need to this facility? In other words, do you have to have an open area that’s plowed continuously during the wintertime so that you can have access to your building that’s at the base of this? MR. CUSACK-No. The facility is an unmanned facility. So it’s not stationed by personnel. It’s visited one to three times a month, as needed, if there’s a problem at the site. If there aren’t any problems at the site, we typically don’t visit it, but it is inspected. They try to stick to a monthly inspection schedule. Physical access requirements are a driveway, approximately 12 feet in length. The driveway is built out of compacted gravel and crushed stone base. We maintain it to our access standard as required, and what I mean by that is we take care of, if it gets washed out or there are holes in it ,we fill that in. In the winter, it may or may not be plowed. It depends on the conditions that particular winter and the preferences of the network operation’s personnel, which is, all of our network operation’s personnel are equipped with quad runners and snowmobiles for winter use. So we don’t always have to have a perfectly pristine, maintained driveway to get in and out. We do like to try and keep it clear, particularly if the weather is bad for a long spell, in case there’s a problem and we need to get something heavy back there, but very, very light use, in terms of frequency. MR. SIPP-Is this an area which now would be more prone to lightening strikes because of the size and height of this antenna? MR. CUSACK-In the Adirondacks, I would say no, and it’s not a flat, desert area where you’re putting up a 300, 400 foot tower and there are no other tall, natural or manmade features in the vicinity. The facility is grounded, and it does include a lightening rod type protection, so that if there is a strike, it’s channeled directly into the ground and not dispersed through the area. MRS. BRUNO-Well, I wish we were able to have the Town Attorney here tonight. We’ve spoken of that in the past, because I know a lot of people, myself included, are going to 36 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) be curious in terms of how it’s handled, having municipal sites owned by the Town or County in use for private ventures, but I’m going to ask you if you can give me the short and sweet version of what the answer was when you spoke with the Town Attorney. MR. CUSACK-Sure. We didn’t get into logistics, but I was a Town Attorney for 10 years myself. So I can give you the thumbnail sketch. It’s not legal advice. You have your own attorney for that, but the Town has, the Comptroller’s Office and courts have ruled in the past that the Town has the authority to lease surplus real property for telecommunications use. The term of the lease cannot be more than would embarrass a future administration, which is generally defined as 40 to 50 years. We typically go 20 to 25 years on our terms, and the value has to be a fair value as determined by negotiation and other processes. The mechanism for authorizing the lease is a Town Board resolution, which must be subject to permissive referendum under my reading of the law, and permissive referendum does not need a mandatory vote on it. It just means that the resolution has to be posted and published in accordance with law, and if a significant percentage of the population base petitions, then it gets put up for ballot, as a proposed lease. So it’s a pretty routine process that’s been used by towns throughout our area to lease water tank space, land space for new towers, and quite frankly space for other things that don’t have to do with telecommunications. MRS. BRUNO-Thank you. MR. TRAVER-I’d like to talk about the technology a little bit. MR. CUSACK-Sure. MR. TRAVER-Looking through your application, Staff comments, and some anecdotal information and I don’t live in this particular area that you’re discussing, but the impression I’m getting is that there is cellular telephone service in this area, and in listening to your presentation, my impression is that this new equipment would primarily enable you to provide, for example, 3 g Internet service and expanded services beyond basic cellular telephone service. Is that fair to characterize it that way? MR. CUSACK-Yes. Everything is advanced service now, even a voice call is now data. It’s all ones and zeros. MR. TRAVER-Okay, but again, what I’m asking is, isn’t it true that there is basic, functional telephone, basic cellular telephone service in the area provided by the coverage of this proposed facility and that in providing the facility, you’re seeking not merely to perhaps enhance the cellular telephone service, but rather to be able to provide enhanced and additional services, and by example I give the 3 g Internet service and so on. Would that be a fair characterization of your application? MR. CUSACK-No. It depends on how you, if you look at it from the anecdotal standpoint versus the actual scientific standpoint. The level of service that we’re designing to and depicting is the neg 85 coverage standard that we’ve used throughout Upstate New York to design our networks, and that’s what’s shown in blue. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t fragmentary or less than standard service here and there throughout the community. MR. TRAVER-So that’s your standard. MR. CUSACK-That’s correct. MR. TRAVER-Not a standard that I, as a cellular telephone user, might experience in the field, necessarily. MR. CUSACK-No, you would experience it if you were within our network. You would experience that as the minimum standard. What we have outside of that area, the area shown in white, is a mixed bag of anything, from zero service, which was attested to at the Zoning Board of Appeals meeting where certain people felt the service was lacking, to service that’s good enough to get a call off here and there, which was clearly attested to at the Zoning Board of Appeals meeting. So your anecdotal evidence doesn’t even agree uniformly that there isn’t a problem there. Some people are admitting there’s a problem there. They just don’t want to see the facility at this particular location. We have no doubt, from a scientific standpoint, that the service that’s there is not adequate. There’s no doubt about that, because it can’t meet the coverage, the basic coverage standard of neg 85 at those distances, and to understand, I mean, if you want to ask the next question, go ahead. 37 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. TRAVER-No. MR. CUSACK-To understand that, and again, I apologize for the length of this short explanation, but I’m going to give it anyway. When we started cellular, cellular is only a 20 year old technology, 20, 23 years, and we started operations in the Capital District in the ’86, ’87 timeframe, and at that point in time, I think service to this entire area was provided from one facility, on top of Prospect Mountain, in Lake George, and so a common question that I get as an applicant is, you know, what’s changed? How come things are so different from the old days? So I start out and I explain to Boards much like yourself, that if you think back to those days, your cellular telephone was a three watt unit. It was mounted to the floor of your car. It had an external antenna on the roof of your car, and the facilities were broadcasting at very, very high power, and how the phone system works is you have an uplink from your phone to the nearest antennas. You have a downlink from the antennas to your phone. If the phone doesn’t have both ends of that connection, it tells you no service or it drops your call, and so, in the old days, you had three watts going up, and you had 500 watts or more coming down, analog, cellular telephone service, one call per channel. We were operating, at that time, at approximately 47 to maybe 50 or 60 channels per cell site, which means, if 60 people were on the phone at once, that site was at full capacity. If you were standing right next to it, you had to wait for someone to hang up, so that you could get on and make your call. So, that was obviously not efficient. Industry and the FCC had to come up with new ways to make the technology work more efficiently, because they simply can’t issue more spectrum to us for channels. It’s taken up by other things like tv, radio, emergency services, etc. MR. TRAVER-Right, but you’ve managed that through the digital technology, correct? MR. CUSACK-That’s correct. So what they did was they came up with digital, in I would say the mid 90’s is when it started to roll out, and that allowed what used to be one call per channel to be split into effectively, in the Verizon network, 10 calls per channel. So that increased your through put and your ability to have more people on the system, but having said that, you still, even if you jump from say 47 calls on the tower to 470 calls on the tower, with one site up on top of Lake George, you can easily imagine the time of the day where more than 500 people would want to be on the phone at once. So, you know, more had to be done, and as the digital technology evolved, we also had another event that changed our network designing practices dramatically, and that’s called reduced power levels. For digital to work, it has to balance. The system has to balance at a low, low power level. So that three watt uplink I mentioned earlier is now. 1 of a watt to .3 of a watt. The downlink, you know, at the antennas, before it hits the antennas, where it was hundreds of watts before, is typically 16 watt cellular and maybe 32 watts for PCS, before it hits the antenna. So you are operating at much lower power levels. Part of that is a requirement of digital for it to work. Another part of it is, if you think about the devices people use nowadays, is battery size. People want smaller and smaller devices. They want them to be truly portable, not mounted into the car, you know, lack of mobility was a big factor in the changes in technology. So, you have this phenomenon that comes out of all of that, where the sites that you had up on the mountaintop that worked fine and covered a wide area in the days of analog cellular are no longer efficient sites. We need a series of smaller or shorter sites closer together, covering smaller areas for this technology to work properly, and that more than anything else, that type of balancing, is what’s driving our network design, and, you know, for someone to come in and say, yes, at certain locations I have fine service, or my kids have fine service around our house and this that and the other, it does not answer the question that in the area generally the service is hit or miss, or there’s a lack of reliability, and at Verizon Wireless, we monitor this very, very carefully. We do not wait for it to become a problem or a disaster of calling and what not. We’re very proactive in how we approach network design, and this facility, and this proposal that we’re talking about tonight, in addition to being very, very necessary from a scientific standpoint, represents prudent planning on our part from a system’s standpoint. We can talk about the siting issue separately, but from a system’s standpoint, it’s a very legitimate need, and it is something we need to do to stay ahead of things. MR. TRAVER-Well, I can certainly understand, and thank you for that explanation. It’s very informative. I can certainly understand, you know, as a business, that you would want to enhance your service in the area, for existing and potential customers. I guess what I was trying to get at is, how significantly are you providing, as result of this application, cellular service to customers who currently are not receiving it. MR. CUSACK-How, what was the word, significantly? 38 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. TRAVER-In other words, you are, there are, there is cellular service in some parts of the area that would be served by the equipment in this application, correct? MR. CUSACK-There’s unreliable cell service in some areas and there’s none in others. MR. TRAVER-Okay. So I guess my question is, and I understand it’s somewhat subjective, and added to that is the fact that you no longer consider this necessarily as your primary site, but is it your presentation to us that this tower will not only enhance the existing service, but will serve areas that currently do not have service or acceptable service? MR. CUSACK-Yes. MR. TRAVER-Okay. Next question is, this is a Verizon facility, and I’m not familiar with the arrangements between companies or whatever, but might it be expected, or should be consider the fact that customers other than Verizon customers, for example, would you customarily enter into agreements with Sprint, with AT&T, to co-host their facilities, so that a larger number of people would benefit from having this new facility installed in the Town? MR. CUSACK-Well, starting from the standpoint of the local regulations, Section 179-5- 130J(1) does require that we design this facility with structural capacity to support additional users. This is an important objective of the local regulations that if a new facility is proposed, that it not be a one off facility. MR. TRAVER-Sure. MR. CUSACK-So, to a certain extent, we’ve built in some height in this particular project that can be used by at least two additional users. With two of the users already located at the hotel, there’s only four active users in our area, we think that’s a fair representation of the potential need that you may have down the road. Can’t guarantee it, but we certainly think it’s reasonable to proceed on that basis. In terms of arrangements, the major carriers are Verizon Wireless. The second major carrier is Cellular One, which changed its name to Cingular Wireless, and then change its name to AT&T, this is all the same company. The third major carrier would be Sprint/Nextel, the combination of Sprint PCS and Nextel, and the fourth major carrier operating in our area would be T Mobile, which also shows up in applications as Omni Point, if you’ve had an Omni Point project before. So that’s your pool of potential users, and among those users, Verizon Wireless and those companies, all have agreements in place, written agreements, governing the shared use of existing tower facilities. So the mechanism for us to co-locate on their facility or them to co-locate on one of our facilities, does exist as a matter of contract, and practice as well. There are departments within each company that handle these types of applications. If there were such a facility out in the area, as far west as we’re looking, we wouldn’t be here now with a new tower. If it worked, we’d be telling you we’re co-locating on their facility pursuant to our master agreement, but the mechanisms are all there. They’re required from a local regulatory standpoint, and they have been implemented by the major companies among themselves. MR. TRAVER-Thank you. MR. SIPP-What’s the present height of the one on French Mt. off of 149, do you know? MR. CUSACK-That question was asked earlier, and I believe it’s 140 feet, and I’m not sure where Verizon sits in the, there are four carriers on that facility. It’s fully loaded. MR. SIPP-How many lights do they have to have on that for night lighting, for planes? MR. CUSACK-Sure. On the facility that we originally proposed here, there was no FAA marking or lighting required, as long as we stay under 200 feet. We’re certainly not near 200 feet, and the consultant report documenting that compliance is behind the ninth tab of our application, and it is feasible to construct a facility here without FAA marking and lighting. On the site, there’s a shelter that has our equipment in it, and we approached this as required by planning officials, but our initial preference is to have one light outside the door, on a motion detector, so that if someone comes in the middle of the night to fix a problem, when they pull up to the site, the light goes on. Some boards make us change that to a manual switch that they have to hit when they get to the site, and that would certainly work here, because you can park right up next to where the shelter would be located. 39 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. SIPP-Have you contacted other government, such as the City of Glens Falls, in the process here of putting a tower on some of their property? MR. CUSACK-One of the sites that was suggested to us by the Zoning Board of Appeals, and you’ll have to forgive my lack of specific geographic knowledge here, was a reservoir near a dam that is up the mountain further west of our proposed site, and we did some initial digging around on that property and were advised by certain officials that there’s no power, there’s a power issue getting up to the higher points of that. MR. SIPP-There are, to be specific, I don’t know if you know where Potter Road is, off of Aviation, where it makes a turn from going sort of southwest to almost due west, there are fire lanes in their watershed property which are accessible, but not. MR. CUSACK-So this would be the willkee intake reservoir on the map here, or would it be? MR. SIPP-Not the reservoir. Come back where Potter Road goes off of Aviation, and then it turns and makes a 90 degree turn. MR. CUSACK-Right there? I see Potter, yes. Sorry. Yes. So along this area here? MR. SIPP-No, back further. Go to your right. MR. FORD-To the east. MR. SIPP-To the east, yes, that’s West Mountain Road. Now keep going east. Now it makes a sharp turn, keep going, makes a sharp right hand, left hand turn right in that area there. There are openings in the water shed area, there’s a good sized fire road right on that corner. MR. CUSACK-Okay. We will add that to our list. Thank you. MR. SIPP-I mean, I know the area because I’ve worked in that area, and it is accessible, except in that one, it would have to be plowed, then you said you would promote a driveway. It’s all sand in there. It’s very well drained, and the height of the trees does not, in most cases, exceed 40 feet, unless they’re planted too close together. It’s a thought. It’s owned by the City. MR. CUSACK-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Mr. Ford? MR. FORD-There’s some question as to the current service in that particular area. Some get it, some do not, but within a very short distance from this area, we all lose our cellular service. What’s the rationale for coming into an area where you may find it marginal for some and good for others, and there is not an effort being made to providing service, or at least better service, just a few miles further away? MR. CUSACK-You mean into the Park, or west, as an example? The rationale in Verizon Wireless comes down to sound network planning, and their sound network planning strategy is focused on one word, reliable. It’s more than their advertising campaign. It’s what the engineers are actually rated on, in terms of their performance, and what Verizon Wireless will not do is go and put a site in the middle of nowhere that’s not connected to the existing network, because that will become an island of coverage that people will drive in and out of. It will work for some people, not work for others. It’ll be a cause of significant, legitimate customer complaint, and so they approach things a little bit differently. If they’re going to expand further west and further north, they will take the existing network and even though it’s expensive, they will expand the footprint of the existing network, logically, towards those areas. So as an example, if the area of concern that we needed to get to was three cell sites away, three new cell sites away from the edge of the current network, they would slowly and methodically, over time, build the first two sites, so that when that third site came on line, the people who bought into the service would be connected to the larger nationwide network. I don’t know if that answers your question. MR. FORD-Somewhat. I have another concern. As we see an exponential expansion of towers and tower requests, not just here but across the nation, how far away would you estimate we are from using satellite technology, as opposed to one tower after another tower after another tower? 40 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. CUSACK-That’s a good question. Back in the early 90’s, when I was starting my training for this type of work, that question was being bantered about a lot by the industry, and the industry at that time believed that, there were people in the industry I should say, that at that time believed that within 10 years this would all go to satellite, and therefore we only needed, you know, 10 year leases or 15 year leases. Well, that time period, in my short lifetime, has since run, and all those deals had to be re-done or re-located to new facilities, and the reason is, is that the FCC has determined, very, very clearly, that satellite will be a competing form of telecommunications service to cellular and PCS. The difference, the distinction that the FCC makes, if you look at the FCC licenses that are in our package, is that this is land based or terrestrial, in their terms, radio technology. It’s two way radio technology. Satellite is licensed separately as an extraterrestrial, or outer space technology. They very much want differing forms of communications networks existing in our country, for any number of reasons, not just competition, but reliability redundancy, and catastrophic events, things like that. So they’ve put these technologies on separate paths, and despite the expense of satellite and the difficulty in maintaining a satellite system, it continues to this day as a different technology. It has a whole different set of users. The rates are much different. It’s not for everyday use. It’s still quite expensive compared to basic cellular, and in addition, satellite has some technological limitations that are relevant, based upon where we live, and mainly, much like if you use direct tv, you need a direct line of sight to their horizon. There are some locations where you can’t easily install direct tv because you might have buildings in the way, or, you know, you might be on the side of a hill or a mountain and something’s blocking line of sight to the horizon. The satellite phone systems require a certain amount of visibility that doesn’t always work well in mountainous areas, and I’ve worked with colleagues in the past who’ve, their whole entire career was spent deploying wireless networks in Texas, and they can’t understand, when they come up here, these things called mountains, and it’s a real, real problem. They just can’t put one every two miles and, you know, at 400 feet and it covers the perfect round circle of coverage. So we have different challenges where we live in the country, and satellite is a good technology. It’s a viable technology, but it’s not operationally, or from a regulatory perspective, seen as a replacement for land based radio communications. MR. FORD-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Other questions from members of the Board? Okay. We do have a public hearing scheduled this evening. Keith, I don’t know if we had our information sheet on the back table, for public hearings? MR. OBORNE-Yes, it is there. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I’d just bring your attention to that. The purpose of the public hearing is for Town residents to present information to the Planning Board about their concerns and feelings about projects. It is a valuable, although sometimes subject information from members of the Board. The public hearing is not an opportunity for members of the public to ask questions of the applicant, or to be critical of the applicant for making the application. I would ask that anyone wishing to address the Board raise their hand to be identified. I will call you up to speak into the record. We do tape our meetings, if anyone has noticed. All of our meeting minutes are posted on the Town’s website. I would ask that when you come to the microphone, that you speak your name clearly into the microphone, and address your comments to members of the Board. Because there are a number of people that wish to speak, I would ask that you limit your comments to three minutes. That way we will give everyone an opportunity to make comments. Who would like to be first? Yes, ma’am, and the timer that you hear is the timer when they set it, and then of course when the bell rings, that will mean your time is concluded. Good evening. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED JOANNE SIGISMONDI MRS. SIGISMONDI-Thank you. Good evening. My name is Joanne Sigismondi. I live on Aviation Road. I had five minutes worth of notes I would have given in my opposition to having had this tower at this location, even though my house I do not have good cell phone service, but I would rather have poor service than have that tower where it had been. First I’d like to thank my Councilman, John Strough, for being the first to let me know about this and by getting the news out to his constituents he worked very hard and long. Then I’d like to thank all the people who worked hard to get all these neighbors here tonight, and also to Mr. Stec, who last night showed his displeasure of this at the 41 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) Town Board meeting. The firemen having been spoken about tonight, like a lot of people here, I can see them respond to emergencies, and I think we should all give them the support because they haven’t been mentioned. They do a fantastic job. Lastly, I think everybody here in Queensbury as a resident should keep an eye on what happens with these towers, because if it goes to go into another neighborhood where it would be as close as what this had been, and I think if you all could go and look at where they wanted to put this tower, you would be amazed from the people across the street and the people who live behind it who, 12 steps from their property line is where this tower would have been, and there are already trees that are marked about where they would have been coming down, and seeing it is a lot different than just hearing about it, and I think we all should keep in touch and if other people need to be helped, we should help them. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone one else? Yes, ma’am. Good evening. CAROL DAHLHEIMER MRS. DAHLHEIMER-Good evening. I’m Carol Dahlheimer and I live at 12 Crownwood Lane, and I’m going to read the petition that was circulated following last week’s, Wednesday’s Zoning Board of Appeals meeting, and I have 126 signatures of close area residents who signed the petition against the cell tower. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Is that something that you want to submit for the record? MRS. DAHLHEIMER-I will submit these to this woman over here. MR. HUNSINGER-To Staff, yes. MRS. DAHLHEIMER-Number One, the area effected is zoned Single Family Residential. This is a well-established residential neighborhood of more than 25 years. Allowing the installation of a cell tower in this area would run contrary to past practice, a practice of restricting cell towers to Commercial, Light Industrial, and/or open areas, certainly not adjacent to well-developed residential areas. Number Two, zoning is one of the few protections a homeowner can count on to protect against projects that have the potential to diminish property values and quality of life issues. It allows some protection against nonconforming structures and land use that are potentially damaging to homeowners/taxpayers. Number Three, Public Safety is not in jeopardy. All potential areas to be served have land lines, or land lines available to them, for emergency calls for fire, police or rescue squad. Number Four, this project would adversely affect the aesthetic nature of the area. Trees would be removed and the cell tower would be visible to many area homes, including most on West Mountain. In addition, it will easily be visible to vehicles traveling east and west on Aviation road. The tower would become even more visible from November to May when the hardwood trees would be bare. In an area of one and two story homes, this tower, though not as massive, is similar in height to the former CNA tower building in Glens Falls and would be very imposing in an even wider area than just the local neighborhood. Number Five, It appears as though other potential sites that may avoid residential areas or co-locate on or near existing structures or visual disturbances, have not been explored – specifically; the water tower and property off West Mountain Road, co-locating on the new TV 8 antenna atop West Mountain, the access road area to Butler Pond, power line transmission towers and the Warren County snowmobile properties off West Mountain Road. Six, At last Wednesday’s Zoning Board of Appeals meeting, it was stated that the future trend is moving away from the larger towers to smaller and more multiple towers. How many new neighborhoods would the affect? Number Seven, Allowing a variance for a cell tower in a residential neighborhood would set a dangerous precedent for this neighborhood and all other similar locations in our town. Granting of the first variance would make future requests for space by Verizon, other carriers, and new technology that much easier to push through. It would also make any increase in tower height much more difficult to deny. In fact, the way the proposal is worded, they may not even need to seek further approval – i.e., a tower capable of supporting their equipment, other carriers, fire department equipment AND OTHER USES. Once a tower is in place, that broad statement leaves development open to almost anything. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. I would just add, since you’re going to submit this, to anyone else in the audience, too, there is an ability to submit any written comments, and those should be directed to Staff, sent to the Town of Queensbury Planning Board, and any written comments that are received between now and the next meeting will either be distributed among Board members and/or read into the record, just so that’s on the record. I think, sir, in the back, you had your hand up as well. Good evening. 42 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) GEORGE WINTERS MR. WINTERS-Good evening. My name is George Winters and I live on 4 John Clendon Road, and I was in favor of building this tower there. I believe it would be behind the fire station. It wouldn’t be able to be seen that well, and it would improve our communications. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Sir? Good evening. MIKE JULIANO MR. JULIANO-Good evening. My name is Mike Juliano. I live at 163 Aviation Road, on the corner of Crownwood and Aviation. For 23 years I was a Verizon employee, as a technician. I’ve since retired. I’ve worked on cell sites such a Prospect Mountain and assorted other cell sites during the wintertime, during inclement weather. At (lost word) can accumulate large amounts of ice. I’ve almost been hit and hurt badly by them. You are in the general proximity to a school, as well as other residential houses in that area. It’s my advice to my ex-colleagues at Verizon to find an area where these provide less damage to property and people. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-You’re welcome. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, ma’am. Good evening. DARLENE KOSINSKI MS. KOSINSKI-Good evening. My name is Darlene Kosinski, and I own the property at 150 Aviation Road across from the Firehouse. I’m against the cell tower being built in a residential neighborhood. It’s just plain wrong. First of all, the intent for residential zoning is to protect the residents against certain structures and building and maintain an appearance and feel of being residential without the intrusion of commercialism. Building a cell tower in residential area disrupts this whole intent. The Town Zoning Board clearly states that telecommunications towers are not in a SFR-1A district, and there are also rules about property setbacks and height requirements. Trees would be removed, making this cell tower more visible, especially in the Fall and winter months when the trees are bare. Also there are conflicting studies about health concerns and there are many families that could be affected including the children at Prospect School. Allowing a tower in our neighborhood would decrease and hurt our home value, be totally out of character and would look unsightly. The letter that was sent to everyone states that the tower would be capable of supporting Verizon Wireless equipment, Fire Department equipment and other users. Who are the other users? Does that mean Nextel, Sprint, etc. will be able to connect to the tower? And who’s benefiting from the tower? It’s certainly not the taxpayers. We’re losing the quality of our neighborhood and again the value of our home. There are more suitable places where the tower can be placed. They’ve all been mentioned, the TV 8 building, the tower on the top of West Mountain Road, the water tower over on West Mountain Road, and as a taxpayer I’m voicing my opinion that I’m against a cell tower in our neighborhood. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, sir. GARY DE ANGELO MR. DE ANGELO-She said everything I wanted to say. Hi. My name’s Gary DeAngelo, and I just want to read what I have to say here. I live approximately 150 yards from the proposed site. I feel that we have reached a critical juncture in having a smart Zoning Ordinance for cell towers in our community. I realize that cell towers are a necessity, but to put this in a densely populated residential area opens up Pandora’s Box. Why? Because it makes it acceptable to locate this in other residential neighborhoods and tells other phone companies that it’s okay to do the same. It’s hard for me to understand why you would allow this structure, a total of 14 stories tall, to be built within 30 feet of someone’s home, and towering over several neighborhoods to boot. Once they remove the trees that they need to remove to put this in, it’s going to be very visible. Surely there are many sites within close proximity that the people have already talked about, and away from visually destroying the pristine view of our homes. If there isn’t, there should be a smart zoning as to where towers are allowed and how high they should be. The need to locate this tower at this particular location is questionable. I have to hand it to Cellco. For them to use the Fire Department as a vehicle to promote their project is brilliant. Figuring that no one would interfere with the wishes of the Fire Department, all you have to do is offer them money, and you get a paid for partner, selling out their 43 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) neighbors and the beauty of the area to people like Cellco. They could care less about us, and we’ll be long gone before this is over with. Cell companies argue that these towers are not dangerous, but studies are not conclusive. Recent warnings have come out about overuse of cell phones and possible brain tumors. There are many disabled children that play within 100 feet of this proposed tower. There was a time when they thought asbestos was a safe building product, but as people develop lung cancer, those who said it was safe were wrong. Do we want to take that chance with our children that play in these neighborhoods? Just think what effect this tower would have on the value of our homes. If you were looking for a home, you would want to buy a house, who would want to buy a house next to a 14 story tower? Would you worry that there could be a health hazard? Those questions would certainly cross a buyer’s mind. Our houses would have to be reappraised, and both the Town of Queensbury and the homeowner would lose. Ask yourself if you would want this next to your house and near your children. Finally I wonder why only a few notices were sent out to notify people of this? People within a quarter mile radius should have received the notice. This project will not only have a visual impact, but a psychological one. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Just to answer your question, you asked about the notices. MR. DE ANGELO-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-The notice requirement is consistent for all types of projects. It’s anything within 500 feet. MR. DE ANGELO-Just 500 feet, even though that would have a bigger, wider impact? MR. HUNSINGER-That’s Town Code. MR. DE ANGELO-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Yes, ma’am. ANNE GOBBO MS. GOBBO-I know you already know what a cell tower looks like, but just for a fact, could I just give you a picture so you can take a look? MR. HUNSINGER-Certainly. MS. GOBBO-That’s a car, the little thing at the bottom. My name is Anne Gobbo, and I live at 6 Dorset Place, and I just want to show you that to give you an idea. I happen to be one of the most affected maybe, because my backyard, if I’m sitting here now, and I mean, it’s about as far as the corner of that room is where the tree is marked, I mean, from my property line. I walk like 12 steps. I said 18 last week at the other meeting, but I went back and counted. It’s like 18 steps from my property line to the trees that are sprayed to come down, and when I look at the picture in the binder, I know how photos always make everything look further away, but trust me, it’s right there. My kid could practically hit a whiffle ball into this thing, and it also, like in the picture, it looks really far away, but they’re talking about, it shows as far as Lehland Estates, and it’s taller, it’s a couple of stories taller, I think, than the CNA building. I’m amazed that they would think of putting this so close to our houses. People in my neighborhood, our backyards abut this. People are going to be sitting, eating breakfast, and looking right out at this gray, gigantic structure, because, as I said, a lot of the trees are coming down, and it’s gigantic, and I have to tell you, nobody is going to want to buy my house. I’ve spent 20 years paying off my mortgage, and I invite you to come over and look at this, any time, whether I’m home or not, nobody would buy this house with that there. I wouldn’t, and I know that a lot of people say, you know, it’s unproven one way or the other about the health benefits, I mean, the health dangers, but, besides the aesthetic value and the change in the character of the neighborhood, which I think would be dramatic, and it’s upsetting. The whole thing has been upsetting. We’ve done a lot of work just to get to this point, and I don’t think we should have, because I don’t think it even should have gotten this far, and there are a lot of people, like even last week, (lost word) was on CNN and the week before that I heard Dr. Oz was on Oprah, and I looked on the Internet, and I know you could, too. There’s still inconclusive studies, especially in Europe, about the dangers of radiation. Does it cause cancer? What about cardiac arrhythmias? I know my father has an implanted defibrillator. Is it okay for him to be this close to those radio frequency waves? And these are unanswered questions that, I mean, I know I wouldn’t buy it, and I just think we don’t want to find out down the road something else that we didn’t know now, and also I can’t believe there couldn’t be other sites for it, and I know 44 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) he’s going to look into some other sites, but driving around I see a lot of places that look more wooded without houses so close by, and I just think there must be maybe a better place they could put it. I just feel bad that we’ve kind of gotten pitted against the Fire Department. I feel like Verizon comes in and they find, I’ve heard they do this. They go into a town. They find a church or a fire department or something, and they offer them some money, and the next thing you know we’re pitted against them, and they’re kind of sitting back, and, you know, we’re in the middle of this whole thing now, and we really didn’t want to be there, and I don’t think we should be. So please take into consideration. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, sir. Good evening. ANDY CUNIFF MR. CUNIFF-I’m Andy Cuniff. I live at 4 Dorset Place, and the proposed tower would be, well, the firehouse, the back of the firehouse is 130 feet from my property line, and if you look at the drawings, the tower’s behind it. So it’s pretty close to my house, actually it’s 164 feet from my house, and we live in a small, well established residential neighborhood, and I don’t think this 142 foot cell tower is in character to our neighborhood. There has to be an area better suited for this tower, and I’d appreciate if you guys would do the right thing and deny these variances they’re asking for. Thanks. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? Mr. Salvador. Good evening. JOHN SALVADOR MR. SALVADOR-Good evening again. My name is John Salvador for the record. I think the applicant is under the misunderstanding that the firehouse property is municipal property. It is not municipal property. It is owned by the Volunteer Fire Company. They are a not for profit organization organized under the not for profit corporation laws of the State of New York. You can be sure that the revenue that this fire company might derive from this project will not be to the benefit of the taxpayers. These volunteer fire companies, if you check their audit statements, they have two columns of. MR. HUNSINGER-Could you focus your comments on the project, please, sir. MR. SALVADOR-Yes, I am. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SALVADOR-They report their revenue as Town revenue and non Town revenue, and I’m sure this revenue would be in the non Town part. With regard to the zoning, I’ve checked this table of allowable uses in residential districts, and fire companies, firehouses, that sort of thing, are not allowed themselves in residential districts. This would make the facility itself a pre-existing, nonconforming use, and this sort of facility, if located there, would constitute an expansion of a pre-existing, nonconforming use, which would need a Use Variance in and of itself. The rest of my comments are essentially what I had to say before the Zoning Board, and you don’t have the benefit of those minutes before you. The Queensbury Central Volunteer Fire Company is incorporated, according to the State of New York Not For Profit Corporation Law, Section 1402, as a Type B Not for Profit Corporation, as compared with Type A, are of the non business type. That’s the way they differentiate between A and B. Type A corporations are the ones you’re probably very familiar with, that are organized for the benefit of their members and officers. The volunteer fire companies are Type B, and Section 201 establishes the non business criteria for the Type B Not for Profit Corporations, as those which are, one, the type of non business organization which may qualify for tax exemption under Section 501C(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and, two, the type of non business corporation established primarily to benefit society in general, as opposed to the members of a not for profit corporation, and, Three, the type of non business corporation that which is more carefully regulated than Type A corporations, because of the public benefit purpose, and, Four, the type of non-business corporation which is publicly funded, and I submit that Verizon cannot entire into a contract with the Volunteer Fire Company because they’re not allowed to conduct business which a contract would constitute. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. MR. SALVADOR-Thank you. 45 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone else? Yes. Good evening. JIM DAHLHEIMER MR. DAHLHEIMER-Good evening. I’m Jim Dahlheimer. I live at 12 Crownwood, and I guess I just have a couple of maybe rhetorical questions of what is the point of the Board, the Town Planning Board, and what’s the purpose of the Zoning Board, and what’s the purpose of the laws? I believe it’s just to keep this sort of thing out of here. We have a solid residential area. It’s zoned that way. I bought my property knowing those features, knowing all those limitations, and I would abide by them. I don’t want to open a business there. I don’t want to violate the community. If we have these protections, why are we even considering this in the first place. I believe it’s an outrage. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Yes, sir. Good evening. ROMAN JAROSH MR. JAROSH-Good evening. I’m Roman Jarosh. I live at 8 Crownwood Lane in Queensbury. Let me get something out in the open. I’m one of those people who don’t want it in my backyard. Just like, Mr. Hunsinger, I don’t want it in your backyard. Mr. Ford, I don’t want it in your backyard. Mr. Traver, I don’t want it in your backyard. By Code, cell phone towers are not permitted in residential neighborhoods. I think we need to keep looking at that fact and not deviate from it period. I had a whole list here of comments that I needed to make, but I’ll try to enter them into the written record. I feel it’s an unjust and unwarranted heavy burden that we the neighbors, residents, and you, the Board members, must carrier, that we need to protect and defend our community standards and ourselves and our neighborhoods from a faceless corporate outsider, Verizon. We need to protect our way of life, and their quest to improve their bottom line, to improve their stock price, and to improve their CEO, executive packages and bonuses. That is their bottom line. They’re looking to put this thing in the cheapest place possible, all right. If you looked at the books and the pictures they took, they floated balloons, all right, and then they went around and took pictures. The one thing I noticed right away is the trees have leaves on them. You don’t see the tower through the leaves. All right. When those leaves are gone and winter comes, everybody’s going to see this tower. Now, I’m going to quote their application, Section Seven, Page One, where they actually describe that in order to provide cell phone service, due to changes in wireless technology, usage patterns, variable terrain and dense, mature vegetation in the vicinity, it is not possible for these facilities to serve the Exit 19 Queensbury residential area, and then I go to the Statement of Intent, and that’s Tab Number, the tab that says Statement of Intent, Page Nine, and then they state that by locating this tower at the Queensbury Central Volunteer Fire Department, existing build conditions, variable terrain, and substantial mature vegetation and brush, both on the premises and in the area generally, will serve to buffer and shield the tower from view to the immediately surrounding area and significant portions of the coverage area. Wait a minute. Here they’re saying they can’t put a tower up where there is mature vegetation and dense, mature vegetation, and here they’re saying it’s a good spot for it because of mature, dense vegetation. I don’t get it. I’m not done, but I can be. MR. HUNSINGER-Can you wrap it up? MR. JAROSH-I’ll try to wrap it up. Okay. Just give me a second, please, I promise. I think that, you know, by allowing, if the Town Planning Board allows this cell phone tower, you will be imposing an economic hardship on the residents of the neighborhood, in that their properties will be devalued, due to the proximity of the tower and the ugliness it casts upon the area. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Other people still waiting to be heard? Councilman Strough? JOHN STROUGH MR. STROUGH-John Strough, Queensbury. Now, as the cell phone, you know, merges into the next generation, the digital generation, we’re going to get capabilities. It’s not going to be just cell phone service anymore. It’s going to be multi-media. It’s going to be Internet. It already is. It’s going to be mobile TV. I mean, you’re going to be able to get real time video, and there’s going to be more and more users, and that’s all well and fine. I’m not complaining. I mean, I’m looking forward to that, but you know what it means is that the cell sectors get smaller and smaller. There’s going to be a need for more cell 46 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) towers. Not only that, but because of the non ionized electromagnetic radiation, the cell phones themselves have become lower in power, even to the point of two-tenths of a watt. So that means more cell towers, and I’m not crazy about cell towers, but I know that they’re going to be the future. There’s going to be more and more of them coming our way. What I’m concerned about is that if we start allowing cell towers in well developed, firmly established residential areas, I don’t think that’s what we want as a Town, and we have so many alternative areas, and so I was gleeful to hear that the Cellco people were going to look at alternative sites, and that’s very good, because I’m worried about the precedent that we would set here by putting it in and allowing it in a residential zone. I would like to think that we wouldn’t allow that, but also, you know, and that’s why we have zoning. This cell tower wouldn’t meet the setbacks. It wouldn’t meet height requirements. It wouldn’t meet anything that we would allow in a residential zone. We would have to really bend over backwards to allow this to come in, and I don’t think that’s what we want to do, but the aesthetic and visual impacts are going to be significant here, and take a look at aesthetics. According to Miriam Webster, pleasing in appearance. There’s no way you could make the argument that this cell tower is going to be aesthetic in this location. Now on the side of a mountain that it blends in, fine, you know, some place else in a commercial area along the interstate, near an exchange, fine. Maybe we could broaden some of the types of zones to allow more cell towers in, and I think we’re probably going to have to take a look at a more comprehensive view, but to allow them in a residential area is something that has me very concerned. It’s certainly an adverse action associated with the community or neighborhood character. You couldn’t argue that this is in line with the neighborhood character there, but public safety. Other municipalities have what they call a clear zone, that’s 110% of the height of the tower for public safety reasons, but while on the topic of public safety, and I’ll finish up here, if I may, we have District No. 2, Queensbury Central Firehouse Number Two, is very small. The lot’s very small. The parking area is very small. During an ice storm or some other natural catastrophe, we need all the space we can get. I’m very surprised that our Queensbury Central is allowing some of that space to go to a cell tower which is inappropriate in a residential zone, but also, you know, may short us as far as our future needs in terms of providing shelter and so forth to the area public. All right, and the rest of it you can read. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, sir. Good evening. GERRY LEMMO MR. LEMMO-Good evening. My name’s Gerry Lemmo. I live at 16 Crownwood Lane. I’m probably the second longest resident on that street, for 33 years. I just found out about the cell tower yesterday actually. I’ve been away on a business trip for a couple of weeks, and I’m very surprised to see that this instrument would be placed at the end of my street. I moved from Queens down in New York City 33 years ago to Crownwood Lane to get away from the City area, to be in the natural area, which I love, the Adirondack region, and it’s shocking to me to think I’d be having high rise structures come up again, right at the end of my street again, after so many years of being away from such impending development where I used to live, you know, I was maybe just about 20 or so. So it’s very much a shock to me. As a photographer and a naturalist, I’m used to talking to groups, and I’m not comfortable right now talking, but I feel that, in another sense that was touched on here about the possible dangers of cell towers with radio frequencies, and microwave transmissions, that I find that could also be a problem in our neighborhood because I see there’s been an incidence of cancer on my street that I’ve noticed over the years, having been there that long. Every neighbor around me, and I mean every neighbor around me on my street, has had cancer, and it’s just, I find it very disturbing. Thank you very much. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, ma’am. Good evening. LYNN LEMMO MRS. LEMMO-Good evening. Lynn Lemmo, 16 Crownwood Lane. We just came home for a long trip, and I just found this note on my door yesterday. Yes, I was unaware of the situation, and I think the first thing that came to me while I was cooking dinner tonight, my husband was down on the computer catching up on work, I don’t want to sound like a modern day Erin Brockovitch, but the first thing that came to my mind was cancer and disease, and he just mentioned about nine people on the corner of Dorset and on Crownwood Lane, and I had my, I purchased this house from his mother back in 2003, and after I had the house inspected, I spoke to Mr. Devoe, who does a lot of the inspections for Lake George, and he told me to call the Town to see what the property had been used for before, and they had told me just farmland. So this is supposedly just 47 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) farmland where people are having cancer. To have this thing right in your backyard, basically, it wouldn’t be far from the people that mentioned they’d have it in their backyard looking at it at breakfast, and Dorset, and a year and a half ago somebody purchased a new house next door to us, and they’ve taken down 13 trees, which is their choice, they were on their land, and to think that I can see, you can see my house, as soon as you turn onto Aviation Road because you’re removing trees, and as the turnover of people in the neighborhood changes, we see more and more people taking down trees. I foresee seeing this tower in the future even more than I might see it if it were put up now with just a removal of a few trees. I’m not a very good speaker, but I hope I’ve made some kind of a point. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. I will leave the public hearing open, but we will conclude comments this evening. If you want to come back to the table. MR. OBORNE-Mr. Chairman? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. OBORNE-I do have quite few to read in, for the record. MR. HUNSINGER-How many? MR. OBORNE-Well, 17 opposed and one against, and what I’d like to do, with your approval, is I’ll read the one that’s, I’m sorry, the one that’s for, and the 17 I’ll mention their names, as opposed to this. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. OBORNE-Instead of reading all the letters. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, thank you. MR. OBORNE-Okay. This one is for, John, this is to Mr. Strough. John, as my representative, I want you to know that I am in favor of the proposed cell tower in the back of Queensbury Central Fire Station #2 on Aviation Road. I know that there are dead spots along West Mountain Road that would benefit from the proposed tower. I hope you saw the test balloons so you could see the limited visibility of the tower. I urge you to consider that there will be a few people who will oppose anything new. The proposed tower will help a vast more of your constituents than it will effect. Please do what is best for all the people, just a select few. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thanks – Richard Goedert These following individuals are opposed, Floyd Pickett, 20 Mountain View Lane; Paul and Kathy Vesterby, 12 Bonner Lane; Richard Atkinson, 6 Dorset Place; James F. Gallagher, 15 Crownwood Lane; Joan Audette, I believe, no listed address; Tom Warner, 4 Queen Diana Lane; Donald and Lisa Lehman, I’m not quite sure, 3 Robin Lane; Mary Riley, 27 Mountain View Lane; Tom Warner, 4 Queen Diana Lane; Patricia Gallagher, 15 Crownwood Lane; Mike Sylvia, 6 Hummingbird Lane; Kristin & Jeremiah McEwen, 6 Dorset Place; and Mark and Colleen Orlesky, 157 Aviation Road; and that’s it. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. I had a couple of questions. MR. CUSACK-Sure, go ahead. MR. HUNSINGER-We saw, in the package of materials, the visual impact analysis and the balloon tests. Typically, when a balloon test is done, for visual analysis, the Staff would be notified so that the Planning Board is made aware when that’s being done. So I would just ask that, you know, in the future, if you plan a balloon test, if you could let us know, so that Board members can make sure that we’re aware of it and go out and check it out ourselves. MR. CUSACK-This was a point of procedure for us, and we’re going to try to get better at it the next time. We did notify Staff of the last balloon test, but the schedule for Planning Board involvement and the process to be followed was not feasible at that particular time. So we’ll buffer it with a little bit more time and notice the next time. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Yes, I mean, you don’t need to make any kind of a presentation to the Board, other than to make us aware that the test is going to be conducted so that, you know, we, as individuals, can go out and make sure we observe it personally. 48 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. CUSACK-Will do. MR. TRAVER-Usually the balloons are left up for a couple of days. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, depending on the weather, of course. MR. CUSACK-On the weather, yes. MR. HUNSINGER-And I guess the only other question, I guess maybe before I ask the other question I had was, see if there were any final questions or comments from other members? MR. SEGULJIC-So you’re going to be evaluating the other sites during the next 60 days? MR. CUSACK-That’s correct. MR. SEGULJIC-So you may come back with the same site, and you may come back with an alternative site. MR. CUSACK-Right. What we’ve been asked to do is take our search area, which we started with, and expand it west and expand it north, and then I picked up one site to the south tonight, from Mr. Sipp, that we’re also going to look at. We did look at alternative sites the first time around. That’s detailed in our application. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. CUSACK-And we’re actually going out to expand what we looked at to see if we can’t compromise a little and find something with better setback ratios. If you look at your Code, your Town of Queensbury Zoning Regulations, you’ll see that Verizon Wireless followed the siting procedure specified in your Code, to the letter. We looked for existing structures in the area. We looked for existing towers in the area. We looked for tower sites where we could replace the facility, which is the third or fourth priority, depending on how you’re reading the Code. That requires us to consider the Fire Department site, the analysis stops there. So we’re in compliance, literally, with your Ordinance. What we’re being asked to do is look, try to find something that just might be, in the words of the ZBA Chairman, and probably this Board, a little more palatable. MR. HUNSINGER-Did you have comments? MR. TRAVER-Yes. Thank you. We heard a number of speakers comment on the concern about the stray RF in the vicinity of the site. MR. CUSACK-Yes. MR. TRAVER-And I guess I’m not necessarily asking you to comment on that issue right now, but possibly you could provide some information regarding that issue to us as part of the consideration going forward. I know there’ve been, and I suspect that much of the public concern is related to the ongoing discussions regarding personal cell phone use, in fact I think I saw something on Good Morning America today or yesterday or something. MR. CUSACK-That’s correct. MR. TRAVER-But as you pointed out in your presentation before, in this case we’re dealing with a much higher wattage, and I know that’s attenuated, and so on, and again, I don’t want to necessarily elaborate on that this evening, but I do think that that’s something that, some information that. MR. CUSACK-Yes. Power levels are much lower in the present day than they were in the beginning of cellular. That’s a very clear point, and as a matter of Federal law, where the facility complies with the FCC’s safety standards, the issue of health effects is preempted locally, and that’s just a function of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which is in the application package behind the fifth tab, and behind the eleventh tab is a report from an engineer licensed by the State of New York, which documents the compliance of this facility with those FCC standards. MR. TRAVER-Okay. I understand that, but that’s not exactly what I’m asking for. 49 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. CUSACK-Okay. Go ahead, because I want to make sure I understand it. MR. TRAVER-Compliance with the Federal Communications Commission does not necessarily, I submit, mean that there cannot be any health effects, and I’m not suggesting that there are. What I am suggesting is that if you can provide us with some information that discusses specifically the health effects, if any, in the immediate vicinity, in a residential area, or it doesn’t have to be a residential area, but in the immediate vicinity of such a facility, that would be very instructive. MR. CUSACK-Okay. I’ll try to see if they have anything further, but it’s not an issue that they’re dodging, they’re documenting it. MR. TRAVER-I understand. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else? So the other question I did have is you asked us to table this for 60 days, and we certainly will comply with your request. The question is, are we tabling it for 60 days to give you time to resubmit so that you would be back before this Board in December, do you want to come back in 60 days to present new information and new materials? MR. CUSACK-Procedurally, if we find a site that we think might work as a compromise, it will take us more than 60 days to put that application together and do the engineering and schedule a balloon test and what not. So we would follow up with a letter to Staff, probably asking for a further extension if that’s an okay procedure with this Board. If we strike out on everything that we look at, you know, we would provide you a written report of what we looked at, and maybe we come back and discuss that and see if there’s any further analysis that you want us to. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Yes. Procedurally, when we table a project, we table it to a date specific, and there’s a couple of reasons for that. Number One is for the members of the audience to know when this project will be back before this Board. MR. CUSACK-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-If we cannot table it to a date specific, then typically what we would ask is that you would kind of go back into the queue, if you will, into our application list. th We have a submission deadline of the 15 of the month to get on the agenda for the next month. MR. CUSACK-Correct. MR. HUNSINGER-So if you wanted to come back before the Board in November, which th is 60 days, the deadline submission is October 15, and then typically if we can’t table it to a date specific, we would then re-notice the meeting, so that there would be notice to the public, again, of when the project would be heard by the Board. MR. CUSACK-Are you meeting in December? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. CUSACK-We’ll take that. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. CUSACK-Is it necessary to touch on the points that were raised in the comments or since we’re looking at alternatives, can that be deferred? MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, that would be my inclination. I mean, the public’s concerns are on record, and you’re certainly aware of them. We’re aware of them. They’ll be in the minutes, which you’ll get a copy of. The minutes will be posted to the Town’s website. I think if you come back with the same site, as being your final solution, I think it would be incumbent upon you to address those neighborhood concerns, yes. MR. CUSACK-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-In absence of that, it may just be an exercise that you don’t need to do. 50 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. CUSACK-Yes. We’re sensitive to the concerns. We’re going to try to address them with an alternative site. The Rosenburg standard that applies to the variance side, allowing a use in a residential zone, is necessary because facilities are prohibited in all zones in the entire area we’re looking at, and so what the law says is that utility facilities like this cannot be prohibited where the service is necessary. Having said that, it’s not a blank check. We have to be persuasive and come up with good reasons for needing the site and, you know, if there is a willingness on the part of the Town to make some Town property available and perhaps steer us towards some other locations, we’re going to look at those locations and we’re going to look hard at them. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I think one of the messages that at least I heard tonight, and I hope you can walk away with that as well, is I think you were very articulate in saying we followed your Town Code. So I think what we’re really kind of asking tonight, certainly what the public was asking tonight is maybe we think outside the box a little bit, and, you know, maybe there’s a better solution. When the Town Code was written, at that point, the pressure for cell towers was pretty much up and down the Northway corridor. MR. CUSACK-Right. MR. HUNSINGER-And if you look at the history of the cell towers that have been sited I the Town, that tends to be where they were. So, the Town Code was written with that in mind, and now that we’re moving into more residential neighborhoods, I think perhaps the Town Code needs to be updated, because I don’t think that procedural, the procedure that’s laid out fits the concerns that we heard this evening. So, you know, if there’s a wooded site that’s more out of the way, has a smaller visual impact and the neighbors can’t see it from their homes, I think that would be a preferred site. MR. CUSACK-I hope we can get something that’s as least visible as this. I don’t know if I’ll ever find a site that’s like this visibility wise, but hopefully we can also get some better setback and distance buffering. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. So what’s the date we’re going to table this to? thth MR. HUNSINGER-Well, it would either be the 16 or the 18 of December. th MR. SEGULJIC-So we’ll just say the 16. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. TRAVER-The other thing to keep in mind with regards to Rosenburg, is that the language in that specifically says telephone service, not Internet. Specifically says telephone service, with regards to a utility, but again, that may not be an issue because we may not be dealing necessarily with a zoning issue, but it does specifically say telephone. MR. CUSACK-Radio telephone is what it’s geared at, which is everything we do, but I get the point. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Are you read with a motion? MR. SEGULJIC-Absolutely. MR. OBORNE-Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, we would ask that you acknowledge Lead Agency Status at this point, prior to the tabling. MR. HUNSINGER-I’m sorry. I forgot that we were scheduled to do that this evening. We do have a resolution in our package to Acknowledge Lead Agency Status. Would anyone like to put forward that motion? MOTION TO ACKNOWLEDGE LEAD AGENCY STATUS IN CONNECTION WITH SITE PLAN 39-2008 AND AREA VARIANCE NO. 62-2008 CELLCO PARTNERSHIP, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Tanya Bruno: WHEREAS, in connection with the Cellco Partnership project, the Town of Queensbury Planning Board, by resolution, previously authorized the Community Development office to notify other involved agencies of the desire of the Planning Board to conduct a coordinated SEQRA review, and 51 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) WHEREAS, the Zoning Administrator has advised that other involved agencies have been notified and have consented to the Town of Queensbury Planning Board being lead agent, and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the Town of Queensbury Planning Board hereby recognizes itself as lead agent for purposes of SEQRA review according to the resolution prepared by Staff. MOTION TO ACKNOWLEDGE LEAD AGENCY STATUS IN CONNECTION WITH SITE PLAN 39-2008, USE VARIANCE 61-2008 AND AREA VARIANCE NO. 62-2008 CELLCO PARTNERSHIP, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Tanya Bruno: rd Duly adopted this 23 day of September, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Traver, Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mrs. Steffan MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO 39-2008 CELLCO PARTNERSHIP, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford: To the Planning Board’s December 16, 2008 meeting at the request of the applicant. rd Duly adopted this 23 day of September, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Traver, Mrs. Bruno, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mrs. Steffan MR. HUNSINGER-Good luck. MR. CUSACK-Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-And for members of the audience, we did keep the public hearing th open. There will be another opportunity on December 16 to make public comment. Between now and then, you’re also welcome to submit any written comments. Again, I would ask that you address those to the Town Planning Board and send them to Town Hall, 742 Bay Road. SITE PLAN NO. 40-2008 SEQR TYPE I – PREVIOUS EIS [ADOPTED BY TB 8/6/01; ADOPTED BY PB 9/4/01] THE PYRAMID CO. OF GLENS FALLS, NEWCO, LLC AGENT(S) CHAZEN COMPANIES; B P S R OWNER(S) SAME ZONING ESC-25A LOCATION AVIATION MALL AND OUT-PARCELS APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 6,400 SQ. FT. RESTAURANT BUILDING, 11,500 SQ. FT. ND MIXED USE BLDG. [RETAIL & RESTAURANT], 93,055 SQ. FT. BOX STORE W/ 2 LEVEL RETAIL, AND A 65,000 SQ. FT. THEATRE EXPANSION. EXPANSION OF AN ALLOWABLE USE REQUIRES PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. THE PLANNING BOARD MAY REVIEW FOR SEQR CONSISTENCY AND BEGIN SITE PLAN REVIEW. CROSS REFERENCE AV 63-08; SP 21-2001 WARREN CO. PLANNING 9/10/08 LOT SIZE 7 LOTS TOTALING 52.05 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 302.5-1-93.1, 93.2, 92.4, 92.11, 96.1, 96.2, 97 SECTION 179-9-030 JON LAPPER & BOB ORLANDO, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you’re ready. MR. OBORNE-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-Before I forget, thank you for catching the Lead Agency acknowledgement. MR. OBORNE-You’re welcome, sir. Site Plan 40-2008, Aviation Mall. Requested action is Site Plan Review for the expansion of a commercial entity. Location Aviation Mall and 52 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) out parcels. Existing zoning is Enclosed Shopping Center 25A, which means acres. It’s a Type I SEQRA status. Previously approved FEIS, dated August 6, 2001. Project Description. Applicant proposes construction of a 6,400 square foot restaurant, 93,055 square foot two story retail building, 11,500 square foot mixed use building, and a 65,000 square foot addition to the Mall theater, which includes a 25,000 square foot build out. All will have associated site work and stormwater management controls. There is extensive site comments and Site Plan Review that follows. What is the wishes of the Board concerning those? MR. HUNSINGER-You don’t need to read all of them. MR. OBORNE-Okay. MR. HUNSINGER-The floor is yours whenever you’re ready. MR. LAPPER-Good evening everyone. For the record, Jon Lapper, Bob Orlando, Chris Round, and Pete Romano, and we have our traffic consultant, Sean, as well. We’re very pleased to be here to finally get this project done, and we’d like to describe what we’re doing now compared to what happened last time for the SEQRA. We hope that you will be able to resolve that what we’re doing now is less than what was contemplated in the Environmental Impact Statement last time. So that we’re within the parameters of the SEQRA review, and then we can, once we get to that point, if we get to that point, we can move on to talk about the Site Plan issues, but initially there was a more ambitious plan for the Mall, ten years ago, and this is a, what we consider a realistic plan, which we think is the right project for the Mall, for the site, for finishing this out, and of course for the Town in terms of finally knocking down the buildings that are there that are an eyesore and that as we committed to the Zoning Board last week, at the first building permit, the hotel and the restaurant will come down. So that’ll be the first phase of this, that those will be completely removed from the site. This project was designed to work with the topography. The largest building is the, what’s called the junior anchor building, which has three stores down by Penneys at the bottom of the hill that’ll be hardly visible, certainly not from the Northway, and hardly visible from Aviation Road, because they’re built in to the bottom of that big hill. It’s just a way to use the topography. They’ll be facing the Penneys and one store would be on top of that, facing the back of the restaurant, facing Aviation Road. We’ve always known that the right idea here was to have an internal connection to the ring road, so that people that are using the upper area can use the traffic light, and that people can travel between the Mall and this developed area without having to go onto Aviation Road. So we’ve tried to accommodate all of that in this project, and as I’ve said, a smaller project than what was contemplated under SEQRA. The Staff Notes correctly digested all the numbers, and the difference is approximately 39,000 square feet of what was approved under SEQRA, which we’re not utilizing here. When you take into consideration the expansion of the theater and the restaurant and the retail spaces that are proposed tonight, we’re under the SEQRA threshold. So what we thought is that we’d have Bob walk you through the Site Plan, the proposed Site Plan, and then Chris can get into a discussion of the details of SEQRA, and we’d start with that and listen to your questions and get as far as you’d like us to get on Site Plan tonight. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. All right. Thanks. MR. ORLANDO-Good evening, everybody. My name’s Bob Orlando. I’m the General Manager of the Mall, and I have been for the past 10 years, and I’m very excited tonight to walk you through this Site Plan. As Jon mentioned, we purchased these parcels next to the Northway ten years ago when I got here, and we now have something before you that we feel is going to work for everybody involved, including us and the Town and the retailers that we’re looking to put in this development. So if I can just go one step at a time, starting up here next to the Exit ramp to 87 North, this is the area, today, which has Seven Steers restaurant, and we are proposing a 6400 square foot national chain restaurant to go there, and associated parking. What you’ll also notice is that we’ve designed a right in, right out access for folks who are coming from, on Aviation Road to the east to enter on the right, and to leave this particular piece of the development with a right hand turn only out, heading, once again east on Aviation Road, and as Jon mentioned, this connector road is an important piece for internal traverse around the site, to have folks who are here at the Mall be able to come up and utilize this development, as well as those who are going to utilize the restaurant, to be able to get down to the Mall site as well. The next piece is an 11,000 square foot, 11,500 square foot, excuse me, retail building. It’s proposed right now as mixed use restaurant and retail. Exactly how that’s going to turn out, we’re not sure. We never are, but that is at least what we’re proposing at this point, based on our conversations with some of the national retailers 53 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) and regional retailers that we’re talking to out there today. As you can see, it’s across the entranceway from Friendly’s, and last week we were before the Zoning Board. We came a little close to this Getty property here, and we obtained a variance from them last Wednesday for the setback there. You can see the associated parking that goes with that, and the access to it comes from this connector road coming from the top of the hill as well. Probably the biggest significant piece of this development is what we’ll call our junior anchor retail area. So today, you know, the ring road runs here to the west of JC Penneys. We would excavate out the hill and put these on the lower level, three junior anchor boxes, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 square feet or so, a little less, a little more, facing the corner of JC Penneys, and then also, too, with the possibility of a 40,000 square foot junior anchor store facing out towards the restaurant and Aviation Road, at a later phase. Last but not least, today we have a Regal Cinema theater, which is in need of an update, and we’ve been working with the folks at Regal, at all of our properties across our portfolio, and we are looking to get an approval for 25,000 square feet of additional GLA for the expansion of our Regal theater with stadium seating and more screens. That is something that is probably going to happen later rather than sooner, but it’s certainly something to talk about during this approval, and we wanted to get that in front of you as well. If you look at some of the economic impacts of what we’re talking about here, from a construction standpoint, there’s probably going to be 200 plus jobs. Those are a little bit more what we would call seasonal or something that’s temporary. All of these, if this plan comes to fruition, we’re looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 250, 300 retail type jobs from a development of this nature. Probably adding somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 million dollars in sales and sales tax revenue for the Town of Queensbury, on an annual basis of around $200,000, if we were able to bring this to fruition, and that’s all I have for right now. Maybe, Chris, if you want to talk a little bit about SEQRA. MR. ROUND-Good evening. Chris Round, Planner with the Chazen Companies. About 10 years ago there was a much grander project in front of this Board, and I don’t know that any Board member was here at that time. Were you here ten years ago, Chris? Wow. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, it was nine. It was at the end of it. It was nine. MR. ROUND-Nine years ago. It was a huge, huge project that caused concern for the Town, and I was the Planner reviewing that project at the time and advocated for a lot of rigorous studies of that project, you know, traffic study, visual impact assessment, a lot of concerns, and we got through that process and accomplished a lot. The economy changed. The Mall, at that time, was looking to divest its portfolio, I think, and so decisions were about what they could or could not accomplish at the site, and then came back with a proposal that was much reduced in scale, and, you know, so this initial evaluation was this big, 850,000 square foot expansion, multi-level parking garages, etc. So all the technical studies and all the evaluations were done for this huge project. It came back with a modified project, much reduced in scale, in 2001, and identified two components, expansion of the Mall proper and this out parcel expansion, and that’s what our memo outlines, is that back in 2001 they said this Environmental Impact Statement as going to be re-tooled to examine those impacts, traffic studies were revised and all the elements were included and this Planning Board said, issued a Positive Findings Statement, meaning the project can move forward such that, so that it falls under this umbrella of development that we have reviewed, and so that’s what our memo tries to outline is that the thresholds that you reviewed back in 2001, which were modified from the ’98 proposal, fully evaluated what’s contemplated in front of you, in that we did the math. I think your Planners validated our math was correct and that we’re well below the building footprint square footages that were put in front of you back in 2001, and we still have, I think Jon said about 39,000 square feet of capacity. No changes to our circulation patterns. No changes to, you know, building locations. It’s all very much consistent and that’s what we think is the test in front of you, is this project consistent with what you evaluated in kind of a generic sense back in 2001, and what, you know, what you don’t have to do is you don’t have to re-open the SEQRA process. What we’re looking for you to do tonight is to say, is this consistent with, are the evaluations that were performed in 2001 valid and consistent with what’s in front of you tonight, and I’d be happy to answer any questions, rather than drill down into the numbers and throwing things around, it might be more helpful to have an exchange of, you know, a Q & A, if that’s appropriate. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. 54 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. SIPP-Chris, I mean, I was in the audience for a lot of this at that time, and I don’t remember any reference to the upper, I’ll call it the upper portion, in that SEQRA. Maybe there was, but that was not a dominant feature of anything at that time, if I remember. MR. LAPPER-Let me direct you. We submitted a copy of the Findings Statement, which was the final document from the SEQRA review in 2001 that was submitted with the application, with Chris’ memo, and the Findings Statement talks about the future development of up to an additional 150,000 square feet at that, at the area what’s called the northwest lands. This is the northwest part. MR. SIPP-That was supposed to be a hotel, wasn’t it, at that time? MR. LAPPER-No. MR. ROUND-It’s tough to get through all the iterations, because the project had evolved, during this process. I think initially the entire site was going to be developed. Back in ’98 the parking garage and retail components were spread out over the entire site. The 2001 proposal said, well, no, we really don’t have a definitive user for that upper site, the northwest lands or possible future development, but we know we’re going to develop that, and we think we can accommodate about 150,000 square feet. So that’s what was written into the Findings Statement at that time, and that’s what was evaluated during this subsequent environmental evaluation. MR. LAPPER-Don, you’re not wrong about a hotel, but that was originally when we were talking about 850,000 square feet of new space back in ’98, but by the time we got done with the SEQRA process in 2001, with the Impact Statement, the hotel was no longer part of it and it was much scaled down. So what the Staff Notes talked about was a total of 811,000 square feet of gross leasable area, and that’s the number that we’re working off of, which is, you know, total for the existing Mall plus the existing expansion, which is far less than what the project was when we were talking about a hotel. MR. SIPP-All right. Tell me this. When you went to the, went through the Bed, Bath and Beyond scenario, was that, did you re-open SEQRA at that time? MR. LAPPER-No. MR. ROUND-No. This Board has reviewed two, maybe three projects, at least two, Bed, Bath, and Beyond and the Target, and both times this Board relied on the SEQRA evaluations that were conducted historically, and what you did is you reviewed the Findings Statement and you made, basically you’re looking at like a consistency decision, or, you know, we can throw around terms reaffirm the SEQRA Findings or somehow reach consensus that, yes, the previous evaluation did fully evaluate the project that’s in front of you. MR. SIPP-In other words, that’s still alive. In other words, you could go back and remodel the front end of whatever it is now, what’s in there, and put in something to fit that configuration that you have. MR. LAPPER-Well, because Site Plans last for a year, I mean, that tenant didn’t elect to take that space, at the end of that process. Certainly Target did, and that, you know, was an important tenant for the Mall. After Target, we did Bed, Bath and Beyond, but that Bed, Bath and Beyond approval has expired because a year went by after we got Site Plan approval and a building permit wasn’t asked for. So we always have to come back to this Board for Site Plan Review when anything is modified, and we’re sort of looking at it, as Chris said, sort of like the envelope review for SEQRA that we want to talk about first, just so that we don’t have to re-visit that hopefully, and then get into all the details for Site Plan Review. MR. SIPP-This is just a thought of mine. That entranceway off of Aviation Road for your restaurant, is that really necessary, the entrance and the exit there? At that point, if you’re going to have an access road coming, the more entrances and exits we get, the more traffic problems. MR. LAPPER-Well, an entrance is crucial, because you want to get people off of Aviation Road and into the Mall. If they’re going to that northwest land property, they don’t have to go through the main intersection, you know, just in terms of it splits up the traffic. The right turn out, we know that we can’t have lefts in or lefts out because it’s a busy road on Aviation Road. So that’s out of the question. 55 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. SIPP-What I’m worried about is people coming up Aviation, going west, and turning. MR. LAPPER-And they can’t. It’s going to be right in, right out. There’ll be a pork chop. MR. SIPP-No, no, turning into, off of Aviation turning into the restaurant. MR. LAPPER-And they can’t. If you’re coming west, you can’t turn into the restaurant. That would be a left turn. MR. SIPP-You can’t? MR. FORD-Not legally. MR. LAPPER-That would be a left turn in. MR. SIPP-Why do they turn in the gas station there? MR. LAPPER-Well, the gas stations don’t have the pork chop, they don’t have the curbs that prevent somebody. MR. SIPP-No, there’s no curbs, but how, if you blocked off that entrance, those people could get to that restaurant without going through, going along Aviation, and making a left. If you’re coming up the hill, towards the Northway, going west, you can turn left into that restaurant. MR. LAPPER-Not the way we’re proposing it. MR. ROUND-Not as it’s proposed. MR. SEGULJIC-It’s a right in, right out only. MR. FORD-The only way you could is by using the right out only to turn left in. MR. LAPPER-Yes. MR. SIPP-Yes, well, I don’t see why, legal or illegal, that people wouldn’t turn left off Aviation to get into the restaurant. MR. LAPPER-If you do it right, they don’t. PETE ROMANO MR. ROMANO-This is an existing aerial of the area that we’re all talking about. Pass these down so everyone can see, and you can see on the aerial, here’s the Extreme Sports here. This is the Sunoco station, the Getty station, and currently what exists is an uncontrolled access onto Aviation via this curb cut here, and also there’s another one at the Sunoco station like you pointed out, and also like you said, there is a cross connection currently between the gas station and our property. What we propose, and what we feel is a safer, I guess, access, is to close off the connection between the gas station and our property, thus allowing no one to circumvent the right in, right out at our property. So we’re trying to make a controlled access at our property, which currently there is no control. We’re trying to make that so it is only a right in and right out. We’re also trying to close up the cross connection so no one could then circumvent this right in, right out by cutting through the gas station on our property, and vice versa, cutting out our property through the gas station and then being able to make a left. So that’s essentially what we feel it’s a much safer movement. MR. FORD-Could I just ask an associated question with that? The right in makes a lot of sense, someone traversing Route 87. However, the right out concerns me, because those same people may be wanting to get back on I-87, and that starts them east on 87. MR. LAPPER-Well, if you want to get on 87, you’d be directed to use the traffic light at Friendly’s to make left turns. MR. ROMANO-Which that’s the connector road. MR. LAPPER-So you’d use the connector, and you’d use that existing traffic light. MR. SIPP-Can we eliminate their right out completely? 56 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. LAPPER-Well, we’re talking to DOT about the right out, and we don’t know how they’re going to feel about it either. We think that the advantage of having the right out is that it doesn’t force everybody, if you’re just going east on Quaker Road, and you just make that right out, it’s an easy movement, and you don’t have to go through a bunch of intersections on the property, getting towards Friendly’s, that it’s just simpler to go out, but that’s, it’s definitely an issue that we’re talking about with DOT and they’re going to tell us what they think, and so that’s certainly important what the Town, what the Planning Board thinks also, but that’s, for tonight, it’s just that that’s a Site Plan issue that’s up in the air that, and we may not get the right out anyway, but we think it’s better to have it and, you know, we’ll see how that goes, and the project works, if it’s only right in. We think it’s better to have both. MR. HUNSINGER-So how about the curb cut towards the other pod, further down, just the other side of the two gas stations? I mean, there’s a pretty large curb cut there now. MR. LAPPER-That’s going to be gone. Yes. That’s part of the DOT permit, yes. That was for an old street that was there before all this happened. MR. SEGULJIC-Mr. Chairman, so what we need to look at is if we have enough information to reaffirm SEQRA, and if not, what we need. That’s our general goal here. MR. LAPPER-Yes, we agree with Tom. MR. SEGULJIC-My only question is really the traffic. Because there was a traffic study done back in 2001, and I haven’t, I don’t have that, and I’m looking at the notes. MR. LAPPER-Here’s what happened with traffic, Tom. This study was done before all of the double left turns were added at the big intersection of 9 and 254, and so as part of the mitigation, the Mall was required to pay a dollar a foot for every square foot that was added to the Mall after that time. So Target, Dick’s Sporting Goods, all of the changes that happened subsequent to that, the Mall’s been paying into a traffic mitigation fund to help pay for improvements. Those improvements happened faster than was contemplated at the time because it became a State project, and they fixed the intersection, but in terms of the traffic, because we’re fewer square feet than what was studied, the traffic impact is less than what was studied. So certainly it’s a Site Plan issue in terms of the configuration, but we believe that, in terms of the entire project, that the traffic numbers were part of the traffic study that was done last time. It was all contemplated. MR. SEGULJIC-Right, and I guess I don’t know what those numbers are. I’m kind of operating in the dark here. I can understand. MR. LAPPER-It’s in the EIS. We submitted the Findings Statement. MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, but I didn’t see any traffic counts or anything. MR. LAPPER-We certainly have all that and the Town has all that, with all of the traffic numbers. MR. SEGULJIC-I would assume that traffic is not going to be an issue, but I don’t have that information in front of me. MR. LAPPER-We believe that’s just going to be a Site Plan issue. We’d have to get a DOT permit and obviously satisfy this Board. MR. SEGULJIC-Right, because I mean, they did talk about doing mitigation. MR. LAPPER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-I don’t know what the traffic counts are, and I believe one of the comments from the engineer or the Staff is that you should be submitting a traffic study. MR. LAPPER-We’re going to be submitting an application to DOT. MR. SEGULJIC-Isn’t there a note in one of the? MR. ROUND-The premise that we’re operating under, that the traffic study that was done for the original project is still valid, and that by reducing the amount of retail square 57 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) footage, we’re going to be generating less traffic than was initially contemplated, and therefore we don’t have to revisit a traffic study, and that’s the whole idea behind doing the SEQRA review. The traffic study is part of that SEQRA review, and so we. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, but I don’t know what those numbers are. Traffic on Aviation Road has changed. MR. ROUND-Okay. Understood. MR. SEGULJIC-And then VISION Engineering, you probably didn’t get this letter yet. We just got it tonight ourselves. MR. LAPPER-Yes, we have not seen it. MR. SEGULJIC-Number Two is no updated traffic study has been submitted for current project, an updated traffic study should be submitted. MR. LAPPER-Part of what happened is that the traffic on Aviation Road has partially been addressed because of the State project, because that was done subsequent to the EIS. MR. SEGULJIC-Right, and I can appreciate all that. All I’m asking is for that to be in front of us. We have bits and pieces here. MR. LAPPER-It’s in the EIS. They might not have given you copies. MR. SEGULJIC-We don’t have copies. MR. ROUND-Would it be helpful for us to give you copies of that traffic study, and explain our traffic generating characteristics of what the old project is and what the new project is? MRS. BRUNO-Yes. MR. ROUND-What we don’t propose to do is go and reanalyze all the intersections all over again, though. That’s what we want to make sure we’re clear on that piece of it. MR. LAPPER-And DOT’s not asking us to do that. MRS. BRUNO-I think we need a certain level of comfort, because, as we’ve discussed for other projects, depending on what type of facility it is, you can have peak times and all of that, and I, for one, am not familiar with the previous application. MR. LAPPER-Well, here’s what we can offer. We anticipated that, we were thinking of it more for Site Plan than for SEQRA, but either way, we anticipated that you would want to see before you came back, hopefully in October, that we would have a DOT letter, that they would analyze our traffic data and that they would give us their conclusion about what the movement should be, which won’t be their permit, but it’ll be their analysis. So we know that, we knew coming in here that you’d want to see documentation from DOT analyzing this, and we’re certainly proposing to come back with that the next time we see you, and we’ve been working with them towards that goal. MR. SEGULJIC-That will go a long ways. I don’t know that it will be completely acceptable, but it’ll go a long ways. MR. FORD-We’ll see what you present. MR. LAPPER-Okay. That’s totally fair. MR. SEGULJIC-I think you appreciate where I’m coming from, because I have all these dots, and nothing’s connected yet. MR. LAPPER-Yes, and we can get you copies of the whole EIS. We sent in Findings Statement because it was sort of like one document that tied everything together, but the raw data, you know, was just a pile of paper, but we have everything, and the Town has it as well. MR. SEGULJIC-I mean, that would be my only issue. I don’t think traffic is going to be an issue, but I just want to have a comfort level. 58 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. LAPPER-Okay. That’s totally fair. MR. SEGULJIC-Now just a clarification also. So you’re going to do a lot of excavation in that corner then? MR. LAPPER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-So, one of the drawings (lost words) so more or less the grade is going to stay the same coming off the exit, and then you’re going to start digging down for the? MR. LAPPER-The road connecting the two parking lots is going to go down a hill, and there’s a grading plan that shows that. So what’s hard to envision is if you’re looking at the big building, the bottom level is on the same level as JC Penneys, facing JC Penneys, and the top level is on the same level as the restaurant and Aviation Road. MR. SEGULJIC-So that’s all going to be excavated down? MR. LAPPER-Yes. That hill of sand is going to be pushed back. MR. SEGULJIC-Out of curiosity, why are you going to do that? MR. LAPPER-To create area for development, so that it’s on the same plane with the Mall. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, and the restaurant’s going to be up higher? MR. LAPPER-Yes, and it’s hard to tell that from the birds eye. MR. HUNSINGER-So will you be able to go between floors, or don’t you know yet? MR. LAPPER-Probably, but we don’t have a final answer on that for tonight. We just saw that in the notes. MR. FORD-There’s some concern about either stairs or elevators, and I wanted to throw out escalators. MR. LAPPER-Well, it’s not an escalator situation because it’s separate stores, but there’s going to be a freight elevator, most likely, from the downstairs to the top, because the freight entrance would be at the bottom, and there may, it may be appropriate to have a passenger elevator to get people that are parked on the lower level to go to the upper restaurant. We don’t have an answer tonight, but we’ll have an answer next month. They’re all good questions. MR. SEGULJIC-Just a clarification. During the presentation, and maybe I’m confused, but you had alluded to the fact of three big box? MR. LAPPER-They’re not big box. They’re little box. MR. SEGULJIC-So potentially three different retailers in that. MR. ORLANDO-These three stores right here are at grade with the existing Mall, and so this is the corner of JC Penneys. This is additional parking that was added, and you’ll be able to be able to utilize these three stores at grade today. The top of this development will be at grade with what is, or close, very close to what is there today, which is where the restaurant will sit, and so it is two separate levels, utilizing what is existing there and then excavating into the hill to make room for those stores, junior anchor stores, if you will, and then the associated parking that we need to make the whole thing work. MR. HUNSINGER-So do you have specific stores in mind or specific stores identified? MR. ORLANDO-Yes. Here’s our challenge. We cannot sign leases with these folks until we get an approval, and we have had, and we are in negotiations with many of them at this time, and this plan reflects some of that. MR. HUNSINGER-So you’re confident that it’ll be multiple users in the large building rather than the one or two big users? MR. ORLANDO-This one here? 59 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. ORLANDO-Yes. I’m thinking three different junior anchor stores on the bottom level, and then to answer your question, Tom, at a later phase, one facing out this way, at grade with the restaurant. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. I’m confused with that comment. MRS. BRUNO-Added on later. MR. SEGULJIC-On top, a second story. MR. ORLANDO-On top, a second story. MR. FORD-That’s not part of this phase, is that correct? MR. ORLANDO-That’s more than likely going to be later in the project. We are asking to be able to do it with this Site Plan Review. MR. ROUND-Yes. We’re seeking that approval now, and it’s just about phasing of construction, when phasing of construction might occur. This wasn’t created for that purpose, and I apologize. I’ll walk the Board down. This is that building that Bob was referring to. This was just a section just to show you, this is the Northway exit ramp. This is a section line through that to do this profile, and you’ll see there’s this two story building. The first, or ground floor, is that the elevation of the lower area, the Mall proper. If you’ve been out to the site, you know, you look up, this is a 40 foot cut. So the idea is to get the best circulation pattern we need interconnectivity between the Mall site proper and the upper area, and the way to do that, one, is we’ve got this sweeping roadway to interconnect, and the other way to do that is through the structure itself, by allowing the first floor to be exposed at the JC Penney floor elevation level, and then the second story, you know, we’ve planned for that. We’ve engineered for it. We’ve designed it. We’re seeking approval for that. This second story may not get constructed at the same time as this first story. I mean, if it’s fully leased out, it will all be built at the same time. There’s stuff going on in the economy right now. We don’t know that they’re all going to be leased out at the same time. The goal is to lease it and build it all in a single phase. That’s the goal. All right, but. MR. SIPP-You’re going to have to put a retaining wall in. MR. ROUND-That second story, and I have to ask our engineer involved, the second story is not necessary from a structural standpoint to maintain the grades. It is there to allow, there would be no interconnectivity. You wouldn’t come off this upper tier to go into the lower tier, until such time as that second story was built. Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-It just gives you more versatility down the road. MR. ROUND-You see, Tanya and Steve, this is that section. This is the exit ramp. What this profile view shows, here’s the ramp. Here’s this intervening ridge in between it. So it does obstruct a view of that. This first story would come all the way over, and it’s not as large as that, but because of the profile, it comes over to here, and this is the lower level. So you’re nearly, this is that elevation right in this area. MR. FORD-That second level could either accommodate one or two stores. MR. LAPPER-Yes. We’re anticipating one store, but, yes, that’s true. MR. SEGULJIC-All right. Well, that’s what I need to get me over the first hurdle. MR. LAPPER-Okay. MR. SIPP-This is going to be done in phases. As I see on the plan you’ve got Phase I laid out and Phase II when that. MR. LAPPER-We’re proposing it in phases. It could happen all together, as Chris said. It’ll likely happen in phases, but no matter what, the first phase will include demolition and removal of the motel and the restaurant that are there now. That’ll be a good day for everybody, especially Bob Orlando who has to police it. 60 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. SIPP-You’re going to have a lot of truck traffic going in and out of there with the demolition phase. MR. LAPPER-Yes, but that’ll be pretty short term. If necessary, we can use the traffic light, but we can talk about that at Site Plan. MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. I don’t think the demolition phase is going to be anything compared to your excavation, but I don’t, you guys can work around that. MR. HUNSINGER-Do you know where the sand will go when you take it out? MR. ORLANDO-Not at this point. MR. HUNSINGER-I remember years ago there were some projects in Town, and it was the hope that it could be used there. MR. LAPPER-Yes. If you hit it right, that can happen. The shorter distance, the better. MR. ROUND-That’s the cost. The cost is transportation, yes. MR. HUNSINGER-So what else, what other information do members of the Board feel we need? We talked about the traffic plan, traffic information. MR. TRAVER-As far as the issue of SEQRA? MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. TRAVER-Yes. I think traffic is the big one. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. LAPPER-It sounds like, except for traffic, everyone’s relatively satisfied in terms of the size of the project and the SEQRA that was done last time. MR. SEGULJIC-I think it’s a good project. We’ve just got to get over the traffic hurdle, and I don’t think traffic’s going to be an issue, but I don’t have that in front of me yet. MR. LAPPER-Yes, and I guess, and everything you’re saying’s totally reasonable. We’re just proposing we’ll come back with a letter from DOT. MR. ROUND-Yes. I mean, ideally a letter from DOT resolves a lot of your issues, but I think what our correspondence to DOT will identify is here is the data that was collected back in ’98 and ’01. We’re going to freshen that data, and we’re going to look at probably the operating characteristics of the two driveways that we’re looking at, and hopefully that will satisfy your concern. MR. LAPPER-Yes. So that new information will be presented to DOT. So when you see a letter from them, they will have updated information. MR. ROUND-Right, and we’ll copy you with that correspondence, as well as their response. MR. FORD-Obviously it’s a concern we have right now. So I need information. MR. ROUND-Understood. MR. LAPPER-We know we’ve got to satisfy that. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions, comments from members of the Board? MRS. BRUNO-Are the parking lot sizes really calculated based on Queensbury’s number? I mean, I didn’t sit here going through all of them or check through. MR. LAPPER-Well, the way the Mall works is that there’s, Enclosed Shopping Center has a 4.5, there’s a ratio for Enclosed Shopping Center and the out parcels are included. We did the traffic count sort of not that way, or the traffic analysis on the plan showing what’s at the top of the hill, and what’s at the bottom of the hill, traffic, sorry, parking. So it works under the Town Code for the entire Mall, and in terms of some of the uses, the way we broke it up and we looked at it, there’s more traffic, parking allocated to the 61 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) restaurant than what the Code calls for, but that top lot is designed to be a shared lot, to use for retail and for the restaurant. We certainly don’t need any parking variances. MRS. BRUNO-No, actually I’m thinking of, if we could actually back it off, I’d have to personally look at this a little bit further to understand it better, but I know as the Mall is right now, it just seems like even during the peak season. MR. LAPPER-What it’s about is that the anchor tenants have requirements in their leases that there have to be a certain number of spaces and, you’re right, some of them only get used during the holiday season, but it’s. MRS. BRUNO-Not even then sometimes. I mean, I’m thinking, you know, back through the back of JC Penney out by Dick’s. It just, you know, it just seems like a lot of. MR. LAPPER-Well, we’re going to be taking away some of that, removing some of that parking in order to bump out the theater. So that’ll just move the traffic more towards that Dick’s and JC Penney corner. That’ll probably take care of that issue. We feel that the parking that’s requested is needed to service the Mall with the new tenants, but we’ll look at that. MR. ROUND-Snow storage is the other reason for some of that excess parking. It doesn’t get utilized but during peak periods or as it’s consumed with snow storage, and the Mall does remove snow off site. They have a contract to do that. MR. ORLANDO-And at holiday time it can get pretty crowded depending upon the time, you know, of the season. The other thing to consider, too, is that, you know, as national restaurants, as an example, look at, you know, sites, prospective sites, they have, you know, requirements that are needed as well. So what we’re trying to juggle is, you know, making everybody happy, making sure the Town is happy, the Planning Board is happy, and the standards are met, and we’re meeting our anchor obligations that we have for the stores that are there right now as well as the prospective tenants that are coming in. So, it all seems to be pretty close. I mean, personally I’d rather see less parking, and we actually did, you know, upon our Target approval, we did get some of our anchor stores to back off a bit on their requirements, which, you know, it used to be higher at, you know, five per thousand was their threshold in the old days, which is just more than what’s needed. So we were able to work with them a little bit on that Target approval to get it down to be a little bit more reasonable for everybody. MRS. BRUNO-Thank you. MR. ORLANDO-You’re welcome. MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions, comments from Board members? MR. SIPP-This all depends upon the parent company. I mean, you’ve got empty stores in the Mall right now. MR. ORLANDO-I’m happy to report that we’re 95% leased in the Mall, and it’s really dependent upon getting signatures, getting this plan approved and getting signatures on leases, so that we can then finance the project and move forward, and, you know, assuming all of those things happen in a timely fashion, we certainly could be, you know, moving dirt before the end of this year. So, you know, that’s very optimistic on my part, but that is the ultimate goal, and as long as things can fall into place on both pieces of the puzzle, that can happen. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. We do have a public hearing scheduled this evening. Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to address the Board on this project? Councilman Strough. PUBLIC HEARING OPENED JOHN STROUGH MR. STROUGH-I’ll be quick. John Strough, Queensbury. The only thing I was thinking and from being on the Planning Board and reviewing this expansion proposal eight years ago, the right in and right out, one thing that makes it very bad, and, Chris, you’ll verify this, or a bad right in and right out is one that isn’t clear. They have to be clear. This little triangle in the middle has got to be a lot bigger. They’ve got to be curved. They’ve got to go in. Otherwise, as Chris has pointed out many times before, people are going to 62 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) have a tendency to go across, unless it’s clearly defined, that’s a no, no. Right in and right out only. The other thing I’m concerned about, as you’re going into this right in, if they could have their own turning lane, because we’ve just got traffic flowing here fairly good with the revamping of Route 9 here, and I’ve got a turning lane for the Carlton Drive people, but if we could have a separate lane, because the minute you start getting queuing into here, you’re going to stop this whole lane. So, if you had an access lane going into this right in, that would, if there was any queuing, that’s not going to stop the traffic in this whole lane, and the only other thing that I’d like to see, and I said this back in 2000, that little parking lot, they don’t show it here, but there’s a little parking lot just to the west of, or to the east of Sears, it’s down lower. We’ve always wanted to see an interconnect with the plaza down below, and I don’t have a problem with this right in, right out. It might take off some of the pressure on this intersection down here, which would be good for the people using Greenway North and that neighborhood, but, you know, myself and others, even though we’re not going to attend this restaurant and stuff, we’re probably going to use that as the entrance, okay, I mean, just a practical thing. We’re going to swing in, and I guess that’s fine, because like I said, it takes the burden off this intersection, but I’d hate to start to see queuing in this lane, and if they could have a separate lane coming in, and have that better defined, I think that would be better, and that’s all I have. Thanks. MR. FORD-It could back up all the way to the exit. MR. STROUGH-Well, at least they’ll have their own lane, like Great Escape. MR. FORD-Absolutely, but all the more reason to have their own lane. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, sir. JIM DOAN MR. DOAN-My name is Jim Doan. I work with the Carroll’s Corporation. We have the Burger King restaurant down at the other end of the lot. We would like to see any help we could get from you to get the access from our property to the top end of the Mall. I’ve been here 10 years. I went back in our records, and we actually asked for that about 13 years ago, and had a couple of different approvals, but we’ve never been able to make it happen. So we think it would reduce congestion. We have a lot of customers, although it is clearly marked no left turn, they still turn left because they want to get back to the highway. If we gave them access up the back end of our lot, and we would like to make sure that was clearly marked, so that we could tell them that we’re willing to pay for all the signage. They could have access around our parking lot to that back side and then out to the main light, which would alleviate a lot of them, and most of them are travelers and they’re afraid if they take a right that they won’t get back to the highway. So that’s why they wait and they take that left. So, safety concerns, congestion concerns. We’d like to see if we can make sure that that really happened, and again, it’s been approved by the Board in years past, I guess, but we’ve never been able to make it all happen with Pyramid. So any help you could give us would be worthwhile. We’d certainly be willing to pay for the site plans. We’ll pay for all the grading that will be necessary. It’s not a large slope from their parking lot down to ours, but we would do all the grading and make sure that it met all, you know, needs as well as all the signage, and all we could ask for the signage is that show us where the yellow brick road is, so customers clearly can see, from both top and bottom, how to get in and get out. We think it would be a value to reducing congestion and certainly safety. Thank you. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Do you want to come back to the table. We will leave the public hearing open. MR. LAPPER-We’ll just give you the quick answer to those two comments. John’s comments were very good. There’s room for a right turn lane, but that’s totally up to DOT because it’s right next to the exit to the Interstate. It’s their road, but, you know, that, we have no objection to that, and we’ll talk to DOT about it, and if they say that they want that, it’s going to be there, and clearly defining, we’ve always, every time you insist that that pork chop is done right so that people can’t abuse it and it’ll be designed correctly. In terms of Burger King, the last time we did the approvals, we already have on the plan that there’s an interconnect in that lower parking lot. So they already have the right, up to our property line, that’s the, under the Town Code we’re required to have a connection to adjacent properties, and that was on the plan. So in terms of the exact design, we can talk to them as to how they wanted to connect and make sure it works for both sides, but the agreement to provide that easement has already been done. 63 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Do you have any reason to believe that it would be a difficult issue to resolve? MR. LAPPER-It’s a grade issue. Everyone’s engineers have to look at and make sure that it’s done right. MR. FORD-Do we have any idea as to why that has not occurred? MR. LAPPER-It’s not up to us. We just have to give it to the property line to put it on there that we’re going to give an easement on the map and that’s there. Burger King has a grade issue to come up to the Mall’s property. They have to do the construction. MR. FORD-So the ball is in who’s court? MR. LAPPER-Well, they can do it whenever they want, based upon where it was in the plan. MR. FORD-That’s what I’m trying to get at. MR. LAPPER-And if they want to change it, you know, if they want to, you know, propose changing that, then we’d all have to talk about it. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. LAPPER-But it’s on the plan already. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. DOAN-When we approached the last time we were ready to do it. We had paid for all the site plans. Everything was done and agreed upon, and then the push back came from Pyramid that they had an issue with the number of handicap parking spaces. They had two overall spaces, and this was going to take five other spaces away. What we were told was we couldn’t go forward because they would no longer be in compliance with the number of handicap spots versus regular spots. So it kind of died there. We had already done all the site work. All the plans were there. MR. HUNSINGER-That was when? MR. DOAN-2001 I think. The first approval was in 1995, and then 2001, and we pretty much hit a roadblock where they said, hey, we can’t do it because we can’t afford to lose anymore spots and it was going to take five parking spots to really get this in and out out of there. It was not a grading issue. There is a grading issue, but we can backfill our parking lot far enough down to do that. That was where the push back was. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. DOAN-Thank you. MR. LAPPER-And we would just want to see what their proposal is for the grading, to make sure it works for both sites. MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Yes. Well, hopefully we can work it out this time. Great. So obviously we’re going to be looking to table this, and we’re going to be looking for the traffic information. MR. LAPPER-It sounds like you’re okay on the SEQRA, with the exception of wanting this traffic. Is there any way that a resolution could be passed so we could keep moving forward, that would be conditioned on the DOT letter, in terms of the SEQRA? MR. SEGULJIC-What could be conditioned? MR. LAPPER-That this is within the parameters of the prior SEQRA review, but that you want to verify traffic. MR. HUNSINGER-Subject to traffic review. MR. SEGULJIC-What’s Staff think of that? MR. OBORNE-I think it’s pre-mature at this point. 64 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MRS. BRUNO-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-Do you think you can get it for us next month? MR. LAPPER-Yes. What we hope is that we can have a date that we can submit, and we’ll probably, well, we haven’t seen the engineering comments, so I guess we’d need, you know, whatever a reasonable amount of time is to get in for the last meeting in October, to let us, we haven’t seen the comments, but we’ll respond to the comments, make whatever changes the engineer requires, and also supply the DOT letter, but we probably will not have a DOT letter until right before the meeting, but that’s an outside agency letter. So that’s what we’d hope, if we could work that out as a schedule, and get back here in October, that would be really appreciated. MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, what’s the list for October agenda items at this point? th MR. OBORNE-It is filling up. If you’re going to, suppose you table them to the 28, let’s say, and just table them for a specific reason to that date, i.e. consistency with the EIS, I think we can fit them in. That wouldn’t be an issue. If you’re going to go ahead and do a full Site Plan Review, we probably do not have time for that. If the applicant wishes to have the EIS vetted, let’s say, and continue Site Plan Review, well that’s going to take a good half of a meeting, and if you’re open to that. MRS. BRUNO-What about a special meeting? MR. HUNSINGER-A special meeting? MRS. BRUNO-Yes. MR. OBORNE-That’s my suggestion. MR. LAPPER-We’d really appreciate it, and if we didn’t have to be behind the cell tower, that would be okay, too. I don’t mean that at all. I was just kidding. We’re happy to be here. MR. HUNSINGER-We scheduled three meetings this month, and at some point it comes to the point of, well, we’re either going to hear you at 10:30 or you’re going to have to wait another month. MR. LAPPER-No. We’re fine. We’re glad to be on the agenda and we appreciate it. MR. HUNSINGER-Do we have any idea of the availability of the room for October? MR. OBORNE-I can find that out. MR. TRAVER-Do a special meeting at some point? Yes, that’s a good idea. MR. HUNSINGER-I think the project’s certainly of big enough magnitude at least for one or two meetings, so we can really get a whack at it. MR. SEGULJIC-Can we tentatively pick a date. MR. OBORNE-Absolutely. I can get that information to you by this coming Thursday for sure. Obviously we have another meeting. MR. FORD-Let’s look at the last Thursday in October. th MR. LAPPER-What if we looked at the 30, the Thursday after your second Tuesday meeting? MR. HUNSINGER-Then the only issue is, if the room’s not available for that date, we’d need to find alternative dates, then. MR. LAPPER-Probably we’d like it to be towards the end of the month, just to give us time. thrd MR. HUNSINGER-Sure, well, if not the 30, I think you would need the 23. 65 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MRS. BRUNO-Gentlemen, I don’t mean to be rude, but considering everybody’s getting everything under control, I’ve got kids at home that I need to make sure they’re taken care of. MR. LAPPER-Thanks, Tanya. th MR. HUNSINGER-So, table it until October 30? MR. FORD-Yes. th MR. SEGULJIC-So October 30, and then what we’re going to be asking for is provide updated traffic study information to be reviewed by the Town Engineer and DOT? And that’s all we’re asking for. MR. HUNSINGER-Well, and address Staff and engineering comments. MR. ROUND-Staff and engineering comments. MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. LAPPER-What can we have for a date for revised submittal, other than the DOT letter which we’ll get you as soon as we get it? MR. HUNSINGER-How quickly can you turn it around? MR. LAPPER-We haven’t seen the comment letter, but two weeks? th MR. FORD-October 10. th MR. HUNSINGER-October 10 . That still gives Staff three weeks, two full weeks to review. So it gives you two full weeks to review. MR. SEGULJIC-Do you want a copy of the letter? MR. ROUND-Yes, just to digest that and know (lost words) what we need to submit to you is two different things. MR. HUNSINGER-Right. MR. OBORNE-When do you plan on having the counters on the road, though? MR. LAPPER-The counts are happening this week. MR. OBORNE-It is happening this week? MR. LAPPER-Yes. MR. OBORNE-That’s fabulous. I’m flexible. MR. ROUND-All right. Let us digest it, and we’ll have a conversation with you tomorrow. MR. OBORNE-Absolutely. th MR. LAPPER-We’re shooting for October 10. th MR. SEGULJIC-So October 10. MR. OBORNE-Mr. Round, you know my number I’m sure. MR. ROUND-Yes. MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, we need to pick a date, and at some point we’ve got to cut it off, because we have to have Staff review and engineering review. thth MR. ROUND-The 16 is what I’m hearing. That’s assuming that you’re meeting the 30. thth MR. FORD-The 16 instead of the 10. 66 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. MR. SEGULJIC-That’s up to Keith. Are you okay with that? Okay. So we’re going to table this. Should I state for review of consistency with the EIS? MR. LAPPER-And Site Plan, really. MR. OBORNE-Well, if you’re going to do it all in one meeting, you’d have a special meeting, absolutely do it to both. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MR. OBORNE-Absolutely, and I’d be shocked if you got through Site Plan, to be honest with you. MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 40-2008 THE PYRAMID CO. OF GLENS FALLS, NEWCO, LLC, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver: th For submission of the following information by October 16 for our October 30, 2008 meeting. 1.Provide updated traffic study information to be reviewed by Town Engineer and New York State DOT. 2.Address engineering and Staff comments. rd Duly adopted this 23 day of September, 2008, by the following vote: MR. LAPPER-We’re not going to have the DOT. MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I guess, submit what you have. MR. ROUND-We’ll give you an updated report. We may not have the DOT letter. MR. LAPPER-We’ll give you what we submit to DOT. MR. SEGULJIC-Right. AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Ford, Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan MR. LAPPER-Thanks everybody. MR. ORLANDO-Thanks. MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Any other business? MOTION TO ADJOURN THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING OF SEPTEMBER 23, 2008, Introduced by Chris Hunsinger who moved for its adoption seconded by Thomas Seguljic: rd Duly adopted this 23 day of September, 2008, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Ford, Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger NOES: NONE ABSENT: Mrs. Bruno, Mrs. Steffan On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, 67 (Queensbury Planning Board 09/23/08) Chris Hunsinger, Chairman 68