2009.03.17(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
FIRST REGULAR MEETING
MARCH 17, 2009
INDEX
Site Plan No. 39-08 Cellco Partnership 1.
Tax Map No. 295.18-2-11
Site Plan No. 50-2008 General Timber 2.
Tax Map No. 265.-1-28
Site Plan No. 14-2009 Debaron Associates 5.
Tax Map No. 239.18-1-47
Subdivision No. 6-2008 Kelaco, LLC 23.
PRELIMINARY STAGE Tax Map No. 301.17-3-45
PUD Site Plan No. 20-2009 The Michaels Group 35.
SKETCH PLAN Tax Map No. 289.20-1-8
Site Plan No. 9-2009 John Witt 43.
Tax Map No. 289.15-1-2
Site Plan No. 10-2009 New Hope Community Church 45.
Tax Map No. 308.15-1-37, 38
Site Plan No. 11-2009 Newmeadow Saratoga School 53.
Tax Map No. 302.5-1-1
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.
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QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING
FIRST REGULAR MEETING
MARCH 17, 2009
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
CHRIS HUNSINGER, CHAIRMAN
GRETCHEN STEFFAN, SECRETARY
THOMAS FORD
STEPHEN TRAVER
DONALD KREBS
THOMAS SEGULJIC
DONALD SIPP
LAND USE PLANNER-KEITH OBORNE
STENOGRAPHER-SUE HEMINGWAY
MR. HUNSINGER-I'll call to order the meeting of the Town of Queensbury Planning
Board on St. Patrick's Day. Happy St. Patrick's Day to everybody. The first item on the
agenda is the approval of minutes.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
January 13, 2009
January 20, 2009
January 27, 2009
MOTION TO APPROVE THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF
JANUARY 13, 20, AND 27, 2009, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Donald Krebs:
Duly adopted this 17t" day of March, 2009, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Sipp, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Krebs,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. HUNSINGER-We have a couple of Administrative Items.
ADMINISTRATIVE ITEM
SP 39-08: CELLCO PARTNERSHIP FOR FURTHER TABLING CONSIDERATION
MR. HUNSINGER-They have requested that we consider a further tabling resolution.
We just talked briefly. Is there anyone here representing the applicant? Okay. That
makes it even easier. We were just discussing briefly, I think the preference would be to
actually deny without prejudice, and have them re-submit. It would be cleaner,
administratively, plus we're pretty sure they're going to be giving us a whole new
application anyway.
MR. SEGULJIC-Refresh my memory. Is that the one on West Mountain, then, or is that
the one in the neighborhood?
MR. OBORNE-Aviation.
MRS. STEFFAN-It's the one behind, on the Queensbury Central Fire Company on
Aviation Road.
MR. HUNSINGER-It's going in the neighborhood. We sent them packing to.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Yes. They had some issues.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, look for further sites, and apparently they're still doing research.
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Was there any other information from the applicant, Keith, other than
the request?
MR. OBORNE-No. Well, the request for the six month tabling request had to do with
funding for additional engineering and research, and at this point the applicant knows
that I was going to recommend to you deny without prejudice.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. OBORNE-And again, obviously it is the Planning Board's decision.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure. Yes. Okay. Thank you.
MRS. STEFFAN-And was there a public hearing?
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Then I'll make a resolution.
MOTION TO DENY WITHOUT PREJUDICE SITE PLAN NO. 39-2008 CELLCO
PARTNERSHIP, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded
by Thomas Ford:
Duly adopted this 17t" day of March, 2009, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Ford,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. HUNSINGER-Is there anyone in the audience that was here for that project, Cellco
Partnership? What we just did is we just denied their application without prejudice. So
they will have to file a new application. It would be warned in the newspaper. They
would have to go through the whole public hearing all over again, and they would have to
notify any neighbors, but at this point, there is no project.
SP 50-2008: GENERAL TIMBER FOR SEAR DISCUSSION
DENNIS PHILLIPS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-Is there anyone here representing the applicant? Do you want to
come up to the table?
MR. PHILLIPS-I just happened to be here. I don't think this was on the agenda, was it?
MRS. STEFFAN-No, it's an Administrative Item.
MR. HUNSINGER-It's an Administrative Item. Yes. Keith, I don't know if you want to
bring the Board up to date on the meeting that you had, since our last meeting.
MR. OBORNE-Sure. Staff had a meeting with representatives from the Town of Lake
George, Rob Hickey and Tom Jarrett, along with a forester that was retained by Tom
Jarrett. Staff and myself, we talked about the project in Lake George, and it's in excess
of 300 acres of a timber harvest, which is not uncommon. However, it has been decided
that it appears to be a Type I SEQRA, which deals with certain regulations and certain
environmental assessment forms that need to be taken care of for this. It is my
understanding that Lake George will, in fact, be changing their SEQRA status to Type I
in the future. At this point, all we need to do is to ask the applicant for additional
information for the project in totality, not just in the Town of Queensbury, but the whole
project, and then, once that information is in and is deemed complete, and the Board is
able to make a SEQRA determination, it shall do so.
MR. HUNSINGER-Did the Town of Lake George continue to express their interest in
being the Lead Agent?
MR. OBORNE-It is my understanding that they will continue to express their interest, but
at this point we need to go and gather our information.
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MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. OBORNE-And I think that, and I do advise the Board that that is all we need to do
tonight is to direct the applicant what to do.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Any questions, comments from members of the Board?
MRS. STEFFAN-I guess I'm kind of confused. If both Towns want to be Lead Agency,
what happens then?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, that can be sticky. Either one Town would eventually have to
acquiesce within a timeframe, or the DEC Commissioner would decide who would be the
Lead Agent.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-But that wouldn't happen until after all the information has been
submitted, right?
MR. OBORNE-Right. You have to gather your information, and then once you make
your determination, the clock starts.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-The 30 day clock?
MR. OBORNE-The 30 day clock.
MR. HUNSINGER-Did you have anything to add, Mr. Phillips? Just, if you could identify
yourself for the record.
MR. PHILLIPS-Yes. My name is Dennis Phillips, and I represent the McPhillips family,
and I think that the record shows that the McPhillips family has entered into a timber sale
agreement with General Timber. I have been involved on behalf of the family, and I just
wanted to mention that this Board has a letter from me, reciting seven reasons why, in
the family's opinion, this would not be a Type I kind of action under SEQRA. That letter
has not gone to Lake George yet, but it will, for the record, in Lake George. In the
meantime, the family has no problem at all with providing a Long Form EAF that would
be comprehensive for both Towns, and covering all 318 acres.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. PHILLIPS-I did speak with Keith earlier tonight, and I did say that I have an e-mail
indicating some lack of information items, and I indicated to Keith that we would provide
those items to both Lake George and Queensbury.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Great. Is there anything, for members of the Board, is there
anything that you would want to see in addition to what was mentioned in the information
from Staff?
MRS. STEFFAN-I think just without having the information in front of me, just as long as
they were answering Staff Notes from last month, because there were several
outstanding items from Staff, and I think there was a VISION Engineering comment or
two. Those were things that needed to be answered.
MR. OBORNE-I think at this point we want to look at this and keep it simple and look at it
myopically and just focus on the Long Form and the information that you need to gather
in order to make your determination.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Okay. As Keith said, we're really not taking any action tonight.
It was more of an update, make sure everyone was on the same page, make sure the
Board was comfortable with how this was playing out. Is there anything else that we
need to do?
MR. OBORNE-That's all I have.
MR. SEGULJIC-Are we going to change the determination to Type I, then, tonight, or
hold off on that, still?
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MR. OBORNE-What was your question? Sorry.
MR. SEGULJIC-Are we going to change our determination to a Type I or hold off on
that?
MR. OBORNE-Not at this point.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, we really don't need to.
MR. OBORNE-You have to gather your information and deem it sufficient.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right.
MR. OBORNE-I do want to add one thing. Another resolution is to the Town of Lake
George. In response to their request for Lead Agency status, if you could make a
resolution stating that insufficient information was submitted for us to make a
determination or an acquiescence to Lake George being Lead Agency.
MR. HUNSINGER-Didn't we do that at the last meeting, though?
MR. OBORNE-No.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Would anyone like to put forward that motion?
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MOTION REGARDING SITE PLAN 50-2008 GENERAL TIMBER, REGARDING THIS
PROJECT, THERE WAS INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION PROVIDED TO US TO MAKE
A DETERMINATION AS TO THE SEQRA STATUS, SPECIFICALLY TYPE I SEQRA
STATUS. SO WE WILL TAKE NO ACTION ON THIS PROJECT, Introduced by
Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Seguljic:
Duly adopted this 17t" day of March, 2009, by the following vote:
MR. HUNSINGER-I think we need to specify with the Town of Lake George's request to
be Lead Agent.
MR. OBORNE-Well, that should be a separate resolution.
MR. HUNSINGER-A separate resolution? Okay.
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Traver, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Ford, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. HUNSINGER-So now we need a resolution regarding the request from the Town of
Lake George to be Lead Agent.
MR. OBORNE-Yes, sir.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do we need to make a motion, for the record?
MR. OBORNE-Well, if you could make a motion or resolution to inform Lake George that
what they submitted for their Lead Agency Status request was insufficient.
MR. SEGULJIC-So you're really just trying to clean that up?
MR. OBORNE-I'm trying to clean it up is exactly what I'm trying to do.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. So they had sent the request to us for them to be Lead Agency,
but they didn't submit sufficient information.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-And that would be the completed environmental form?
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MR. OBORNE-Correct. Let me recap, just for clarity purposes. The Town of Lake
George issued a motion, a resolution stating that they wanted to pursue Lead Agency
Status for the project. We received, in the mail, a letter, in letterhead form, from the
Town of Lake George, stating that request. Typically when you request Lead Agency
Status, you submit a Long Form, for Lead Agency Status, denoting what other agencies
may be involved. That was not submitted. So it was not basically a request that we
could even remotely respond to.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-So we're really taking no action.
MR. FORD-And is it premature, as far as the information is concerned, for us to indicate
a willingness or a desire to take Lead Agency?
MR. HUNSINGER-It's premature.
MR. FORD-That's what I thought.
MRS. STEFFAN-So we will take no action on the Lead Agency.
MR. HUNSINGER-The Town of Lake George's request to be Lead Agent.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. I'll make another resolution.
MOTION REGARDING SITE PLAN NO. 50-2008 FOR GENERAL TIMBER, THE TOWN
OF LAKE GEORGE HAS REQUESTED LEAD AGENCY STATUS BUT DID NOT
PROVIDE A COMPLETE INFORMATION PACKAGE FOR THE TOWN OF
QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD TO ACT. THEREFORE WE WILL BE TAKING NO
ACTION ON THE TOWN OF LAKE GEORGE REQUEST TO BE LEAD AGENT,
Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford:
Duly adopted this 17t" day of March, 2009, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Ford,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you.
MR. PHILLIPS-Yes.
RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
SITE PLAN NO. 14-2009 SEAR TYPE UNLISTED DEBARON ASSOCIATES
AGENT(S) MC PHILLIPS, FITZGERALD & CULLUM OWNER(S) SAME ZONING
WR-3A LOCATION LOT 4, DARK BAY LANE, OFF RT. 9L, WEST OF DUNHAMS BAY
APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 2,351 SQUARE FOOT SINGLE
FAMILY DWELLING. THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN CLASSIFIED AS A MAJOR
STORMWATER PROJECT; PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL IS
REQUIRED. THE PLANNING BOARD WILL PROVIDE A RECOMMENDATION TO
THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS AS REQUESTED. CROSS REFERENCE BOH 1-
09, AV 11-08, SP 32-89, AV 1442, AV 12-92; SUB 2-69 WARREN CO. PLANNING
3/11/09 APA, CEA, DEC, ACOE L G CEA LOT SIZE 0.45 ACRES TAX MAP NO.
239.18-1-47 SECTION CHAPTER 147
DENNIS PHILLIPS & TOM HUTCHINS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you're ready to summarize Staff Notes.
MR. OBORNE-Yes. This is a recommendation to the Zoning Board of Appeals per ZBA
resolution per ZBA resolution of 3/26/08. Application is Site Plan 14-2009, Debaron
Associates, Site Plan Review for construction of a Single Family Dwelling in a Critical
Environmental Area. The location is Lot 4, Dark Bay off Rt. 9L, west of Dunham's Bay,
existing zoning is Waterfront Residential Three Acres. This is an Unlisted SEQRA
status. Project Description: Applicant proposes construction of a 2,351 square foot
single family dwelling on a 0.35 acre lot with shoreline frontage on Lake George. This
project has been classified as a Major Stormwater Project. Staff comments: The Zoning
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Board of Appeals has requested a recommendation from the Planning Board regarding
the stormwater protection plan. The applicant has received approval to install two 2000
gallon precast concrete holding tanks for wastewater. Design notes and alarm
sequences for the holding tanks are located on sheet S-5. The lot currently has an
existing gazebo to the north, 88 sq. ft. cabin, one `U'-dock, two `I' docks and five retaining
walls of differing length and height. All existing conditions will be incorporated into the
site plan. Site Plan Review follows, and I assume the Planning Board has reviewed
those issues.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Good evening.
MR. PHILLIPS-Good evening. Again, my name is Dennis Phillips, representing Debaron
Associates, and next to me is Tom Hutchins, also representing Debaron Associates. I'm
with the firm McPhillips, Fitzgerald, and Cullum. Tom is with his own firm, Hutchins
Engineering. Just in terms of procedure, I think I wanted to clarify, for the record, what I
think we're doing tonight, based on the resolution from the Zoning Board of Appeals. It's
my understanding that this Planning Board is going to take a look at the stormwater
protection plan that has been proposed, and then is going to make a recommendation to
the Zoning Board whether or not this site is suitable for stormwater protection. I say that
because I know that before we can proceed to the issue of Site Plan Review, that we
have to obtain the required variances that we're seeking from the Zoning Board, and only
after those variance issue, as I understand it, are we legally able to be back in front of
the Planning Board for Site Plan Review, and so that's our understanding, and I'd ask
Keith if that's his understanding as well.
MR. OBORNE-That is my understanding.
MR. PHILLIPS-Okay. So, with that, what I thought I would do, so that this Board is not
looking at this application in a vacuum, I thought that I could provide a little bit of
historical information, because there's a lot of history to this project, and the history starts
in the Year 1968, when Debbie Schiebel's father, and by the way, Debbie Schiebel is
sitting right behind me in the front row, when Debbie Schiebel's father bought this
property from a person by the name of Malcolm Mitchell, and it was a seven acre
property that he bought, and at the time of the sale in 1968, Malcolm Mitchell imposed a
number of conditions on the sale, for his benefit, and he said to Debbie's father, and his
partners, I want you to subdivide this property into four lots on Lake George, and I'll let
you subdivide the property into an additional 10 to 11 lots that are off Lake George, and
I'm doing that because when I sell the land to you, I want to protect the land that I'm
holding back, so that I don't have to worry about any kind of commercial development or
that kind of thing on the lake. I have a tax map that I would like to just point to in regard
to that. If I could walk over, I'll point this out to you.
MR. FORD-Dennis, before you do that, I have a question. What documentation do we
have that this was entered into, this communication and this agreement?
MR. PHILLIPS-You have that documentation in your record.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. PHILLIPS-And it was in your packet. It probably is the paper that is on black paper,
one of those old deeds, and hard to read, but anyway, what I've done is that I've outlined
in red the entire property that was owned by Mr. Mitchell at the time, and so he sold the
property, and I've got McCormick now, and that's the old Mitchell property that he
reserved for himself, but he sold the seven acres to Debbie's father over on the left hand
side, and then pursuant to those covenants, what I call the mandated subdivision, he
created Lot One, Lot Two, Lot Three, Lot Four, on the lakeshore, and then he created
another 11 lots behind the lakeshore, so that in all, it was a 15 lot subdivision, and Mr.
Mitchell reserved rights of access to get to his property. So, that was in the, basically the
vesting deed to Debbie's father. Following up on that, Debbie's father came to this
Planning Board in 1969, with this plan of subdivision, and asked this Planning Board to
approve the project as he proposed and as seen on that tax map, and this Planning
Board did approve it on August 6, 1969. It was approved by the Department of Health on
July 11, 1969, and then the map was filed in the Warren County Clerk's Office on
September 26, 1969. This was a period when Queensbury had very limited planning
and zoning. Obviously the reason we're here tonight is that there's been an evolution in
that process, to the point where there are more rules and regulations today, but after he
filed the subdivision map in the Clerk's Office, and by the way, you have a copy of that
original subdivision map that was filed in the Clerk's Office as well in your packet. After
that was filed, he began selling off lots, but before he sold off lots, he imposed, in 1971,
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
some additional covenants and restrictions that would affect not the shoreline lots, but
would affect the other lots, the back lots, Lots Five to Fifteen. You also have those
covenants and restrictions in your packet, and what he did is that he also set up a
homeowners association so that there was a beach lot, and all members of this
subdivision, owners of Lots One through Fifteen, have an entitlement to enjoy the use
and benefit of that beach lot. Ultimately the beach lot was conveyed to a separate
corporation, a homeowners association, but if people buy into this subdivision, they have
the right to use and enjoy that beach lot. In 1974, Debbie's father conveyed the property
that we're talking about tonight to her and to her sister and to her brother, and so as early
as 1974, Debbie and her siblings became the owner of this Lot Four and of course in the
meantime the Adirondack Park Agency Act came into being in 1971, and then the Land
Use and Development Plan came into being in 1973. So, in 1976, a submission was
made to the Adirondack Park Agency to ask that this subdivision be vested as a pre-
existing subdivision under the Adirondack Park Agency Act. Indeed a vesting letter was
sent. This was treated as apre-existing subdivision under the Adirondack Park Agency
Act. So no additional approvals on the subdivision would have to be obtained from the
Adirondack Park Agency. You have a copy of that letter in your materials as well, so that
you have that for the record. In 1981, Debbie and her siblings conveyed this property to
Debaron Associates, the partnership that now is before you making the application, and
then what's interesting is that in 1990, Debaron Associates made application to the
Zoning Board of Appeals for a variance, involving the construction of a home on this
property. At that time, the variance application was fora 36 foot setback. Our
application is fora 50 foot setback because we're trying to maximize the distance from
the shoreline, but interestingly the ZBA in 1990 approved that variance application, but it
got bogged down later on because of record issues, technical issues, and it was sent
back to the Zoning Board of Appeals for reconsideration, but at that time I think that
probably Debbie's father, I can only surmise this, was probably so frustrated with the
process that he didn't take it any further, and that was just marked off the calendar by the
Zoning Board in 1992. I think that's in your Staff Notes that you have before you tonight.
The interesting part of this property is that from 1974 on, this property has been
assessed as a building lot, and I have in the record before you the period between 2004
and 2008, to show you what a building lot does in Queensbury in terms of market value,
assessment and taxes, and as of the end of 2008, the implied market value, factoring in
the equalization rate on this property, was one million, five hundred and fifty-eight
thousand, four hundred and eighty-one dollars. The assessment was one million, two
hundred and thirty-one thousand two hundred dollars, and Debbie paid fifteen thousand,
five hundred and forty-seven and eighteen dollars of tax on this property, and so I think
that as the market value went up, as the taxes went up, I think that Debbie probably felt
that it was time to have her structure on this property, not to reduce the taxes. It
probably will increase the taxes, but at least to get something going that she's been
planning to do since 1974 or in that vicinity. So, with that, that gives you the extensive
historical background on this property. I think it's very telling, and so I'm going to turn the
mic over to Tom Hutchins, now, who has designed a stormwater protection plan for this
property, and I think it probably establishes that it can be done, which is the big issue,
but I'll let Tom address all of those issues.
MR. HUTCHINS-Good evening. Tom Hutchins, Hutchins Engineering. We started with
the Zoning Board last March, and at that time, we had proposed a little different
wastewater system, which was deemed to be undesirable. It wasn't looked on favorably
by the owners, by the neighbors, and by the Zoning Board of Appeals, and it was as a
result of that meeting, and you have those meeting minutes in your packet there, it was
last March, that we headed down the path for holding tanks, and we have, indeed,
received specific waivers from the State Department of Health, and a septic variance
from the Town Board of Health for holding tanks in this unusual new construction
situation. The house proposed is a 24 by 40 foot footprint, totaling 2,300 square feet of
area. That includes a portion of the basement, the first floor and the second floor. It's a
very small house. We have, in developing the site, we have concentrated upon
minimizing the disturbance, maximizing infiltration of stormwater, and maximizing the
separation from Lake George. What we did, as Dennis indicated, the prior variance from
'91, they had the house 34 feet from the lake. We have sited the house just over 50 feet
from the lake. We are asking for a variance for that based upon the zone. It's an RR-3
zone which is a 75 foot setback, but we have pushed it back beyond 50 feet, and it's
really, it's the upper limit of how far back we can push it from the lake, because the
parcel is something less than 100 feet in total depth. It has been deemed a Major
stormwater Project. One of the requirements of a Major stormwater Project is
stormwater controls are 100 feet from Lake George, as well as water supplies in certain
instances, streams, wetlands, etc. Obviously with a parcel that's just under 100 feet in
total depth, that's not feasible to get the stormwater, to get that separation. We have laid
out a system entirely utilizing infiltration, as infiltration is the preferred method of dealing
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
with stormwater per Queensbury's regulations. We have conducted site tests, or site
soils tests. The soils are granular in nature, conducive to infiltration, and we've done it
essentially with two systems of infiltration trench, one on the low side of the house, which
will be about 45 feet from the lake, not 100 feet, but it's not 20 feet either, and that is
really as the greatest separation we can work into this site. The other system, which
surrounds a small parking area in the neighborhood of 750 square feet, is just over 50
feet from the lake, and again, that's an infiltration trench. The trenches, I won't get into
the details of the trenches, the information's on there. I'm sure you'll have some
questions. The house area and the drive area are both handled with infiltration
stormwater, two infiltration trenches, and again, we've done, we've been very cognizant
of minimizing the disturbance, and maximizing the separation from Lake George, and
with that, I'll turn it over to the Board. If you have any questions on any of the other
specifics I've focused on, stormwater, but feel free.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Gretchen?
MRS. STEFFAN-When I read the minutes, there's a couple of conflicts, and I just wanted
to clear those up. I think it was the Lake George Water Keeper had identified that in
order to execute the Site Plan as you've designed it, you would have to take all the trees
down. Is that true?
MR. HUTCHINS-No. Within our clearing limit.
MRS. STEFFAN-Right, but not the whole site.
MR. HUTCHINS-No, not the whole site. We're not going to clear the whole site.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. One of the other issues that came up, when I read the minutes,
was the amount of rock that's located on the site, and yet the description that you just
gave was that, you know, the soils are granular in nature.
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, I can address that. There is a tremendous amount of rock in the
vicinity, in the area. You get across the road, we're showing some exposed ledge.
Frankly, the area where the house is going was filled a long, long time ago, and it was
filled with granular material, and it is very suitable for infiltration, and depth range from
five to six to seven feet to ledge rock in this material. So it has been there for a long
time. You can call it fill. You can call it native material. There's large trees growing on it.
It's been there a long, long time, but it's probably not been there since Day One.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, the reason I ask that question is just that, you know, some of the
information that was contained in the minutes would be contrary. Obviously if it was all
rock the water would sheet off. So the infiltration wouldn't work.
MR. HUTCHINS-And in those minutes our first trip to the Zoning Board, we were
discussing a wastewater pump station with a force main along the road up across
another lot owned by Debaron to another lot owned by Debaron, up by the tennis courts.
If you're familiar with the area, there's a couple of tennis courts up there, and the concern
is, from Point A to Point B, it's significant ledge, okay, and it would involve rock
excavation to do it, and it would be a major, major project. So that's where the reference
to rock has come from. I have been on the site with a back hoe, and I'm very
comfortable that the reports I'm showing are representative of the soils we're dealing
with.
MRS. STEFFAN-That water can be infiltrated?
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. Good. Thanks.
MR. HUNSINGER-Other questions?
MR. KREBS-I have a question. We had this infiltration garden, and it was within 100
feet, and the court said you couldn't have that. So are we going to get back into the
same kind of a situation here where we have an infiltration and the court, somebody's
going to take it to an Article 78 and we're going to go to court and then the court's going
to say, no, you cannot put those in? I don't know that answer.
MR. PHILLIPS-I can answer that, because I was here for that discussion, not as part of
it, but listening to it very intently, and I don't know what the outcome of that ultimately
8
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
was, but I understood that discussion to mean that the applicant had one of two choices.
Either go to the Zoning Board of Appeals and get a variance for the rain garden, or
eliminate it from the plan, and I don't know what happened on that, but what we're doing,
I mean, we're before the Zoning Board of Appeals now. So that if we get our variance,
that will take away that problem.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, and that was actually the discussion that we had was that,
obviously the Article 78 and the judge told us that we needed to make an alternate
decision, but, you know, do we want to have infiltration that close to the lake? One of the
reasons why our zoning is very specific on that particular topic is to protect the lake
quality, and so I think that was a two hour discussion that we had that, at our last
Planning Board meeting on March 3rd on that very topic. So I'm sure that's on all of our
minds, John brought it up.
MR. FORD-And we did come up with a third alternative that they eventually passed.
MR. TRAVER-I had a question regarding the existing storage cabin, right down near the
water. Would you consider moving that further away? That would reduce the impervious
right in the immediate vicinity of the shoreline.
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, I mean, that's really their call. It's got boat stuff and beach stuff.
MR. PHILLIPS-I would say we would consider that, you know, if and when we come back
on a Site Plan Review application, something we could consider.
MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions, comments from the Board?
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. A couple of things. With regards to your stormwater analysis
report, under the proposed, I'm looking at subcatchment one S, subcatchment two S,
and those. I didn't see anywhere where you included the driveway and patio in there. It
could be just a terminology thing.
MR. HUTCHINS-It's probably a breakdown within that sub.
MR. SEGULJIC-Because you have roof road infiltration trench wall (lost words) woods,
wall, road, but on your plan you call them patio and patio walkway.
MR. HUTCHINS-Well, part of the patio walkway is to the infiltration trench, or to the
house trench, part of it is. There's a high point back.
MR. SEGULJIC-What are you calling the house trench, the one in front?
MR. HUTCHINS-The one in front, yes, that swales around.
MR. SEGULJIC-But I guess what I'm saying, I didn't see it included in your calculation. It
could be my misunderstanding, because I just didn't see that terminology anywhere.
MR. HUTCHINS-Well, 2-S is listed as house and surroundings, and.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right, and you look at the descriptions, you have roof, road, infiltration
trench and walk. I didn't see patio walkway or patio.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay. I'll have to, I have a number of things to clarify with Town
Engineer.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right. The other thing is, as far as the steps go, did you include the
steps down to the lake?
MR. HUTCHINS-I did not include the existing steps. Those have been there for, those
are existing. I guess that's not totally clear. They've been there.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Under 147-9B(3)(f), it says for existing structures, you have to
accommodate the first half inch of flush. I don't see any stormwater controls there.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay. Well, I can.
MR. SEGULJIC-See, so that's what the Code says is you have to have some stormwater
controls there for the first half inch.
9
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay, and I don't have a problem with incorporating something in there,
but bear in mind, we've got steps that are going to the lake, and we're here dealing with
a setback from the lake for stormwater controls. So I can't get the water back up.
MR. SEGULJIC-I think, because that's going to get included, too, because you're going
to have to do because you're going to have to be within 100 feet.
MR. HUTCHINS-I'm absolutely going to have to be within 100 feet.
MR. SEGULJIC-So I'm just pointing that out, that you didn't include stormwater controls
for that, and my interpretation of 147, anything that's pre-existing, you have to include in
your stormwater controls, under 147-9B(3)(f).
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay. Where are you seeing that?
MR. SEGULJIC-147-9B(3)(f), and this is what a lot of what the last discussion we had
was hung up on. Okay. So you have 147-9 Design Requirements and Performance
Standards. B is Major Projects. Three is additional requirements for Major Projects, and
you go down to f, at a minimum the control measures shall include those reasonable and
necessary to infiltration the runoff from the first half inch.
MR. HUTCHINS-To the maximum extent practicable.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. The other thing is, with regards to your infiltration trenches, like,
for example, the one in front of the house, you're calling for it to be three feet, four feet
deep. The test pit says it's 54 inches. So if I did my math right, it's four foot, six inches,
and you're supposed to have two feet below the bottom of the infiltration trench. You
don't have that two feet.
MR. HUTCHINS-Two feet to what?
MR. SEGULJIC-To bedrock or water. You don't have that.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay, and I went through that. I don't see the requirement to bedrock
as a Major Project. I'm reading from the same Section.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I believe on our engineer's notes he also points that out. His
comment letter also points that out.
MR. HUTCHINS-And I've discussed that with him.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I guess, as a clarification, I don't believe you're supposed to
discuss things with the engineer. You're supposed to go through Staff, correct, when
you discuss things with the engineer.
MR. HUTCHINS-Well, I'll read that Section, okay. Infiltration devices shall be designed
such that the bottom of the system will be a minimum of two feet above the seasonal
high groundwater level to be realized following development. Where compliance with
this requirement would prevent compliance with Subsection B(2)(e) of this Section,
compliance with this requirement may be waived, okay. Now Subsection B(2)(e) says
infiltration devices shall be designed to extend a minimum of 10 feet in surface below
prevailing frost depths or four feet.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right, and I believe it's been interpreted that bedrock is included,
because where's the water going to go? The purpose of infiltration is not that it's going
to hit the bedrock and then run along it. It's an aquitard. So from what I understand it's
always been interpreted bedrock or groundwater.
MR. HUTCHINS-If it's a concern, I can modify it. I don't think the reg requires that.
MR. SEGULJIC-It's a concern. Okay. The other thing is, with regards to the house, you
know, you have Test Pit One, which your bedrock is at 66 inches, and bedrock at Test
Pit Two is at 54.
MR. HUTCHINS-Right.
MR. SEGULJIC-And you're calling for the basement floor to be at 334.8, and you have a
340 contour going through there. I assume what you're going to do is you're going to
grade this off. You're going to come in and grade that off and build a house on that.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. HUTCHINS-Well, we're going to excavate.
MR. SEGULJIC-Grade it off, excavate it.
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Are you sure you're going to be able to do that? Because there might
be bedrock right there, and what happens if you run into bedrock, and your bedrock is
actually at, your bedrock is actually four feet below. You're not going to have enough
room.
MR. HUTCHINS-You don't know that.
MR. SEGULJIC-Exactly.
MR. HUTCHINS-Well, and those are things that you don't know until we excavate. If
there's a patch of rock, you can't test pit every, you can test pit all you want.
MR. SEGULJIC-You only have two test pits.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-If I was your client, I think I'd want more information, because I don't
want you to come back to me with a change order. That's going to be a pretty big
change order. I'm not saying you can't do it. I'm just saying, looking at the information I
have here, I have a concern.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-And I think it's great you're going to have the holding tanks, but, as
portrayed, I don't know if this stormwater management system is going to work in
accordance with the Code.
MR. HUTCHINS-Perc Test Pit One, okay, I've got rock at Elevation 330, 330.5. Okay.
So I've got four feet of leeway with the basement floor elevation. Could we have done
another test pit over here under the basement? Yes, I guess we could have.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, you're going to be pretty tight when it comes up to that wall.
MR. HUTCHINS-It's going to be tight, tight, tight. No doubt about it.
MR. SEGULJIC-As far as having that elevation you're calling for.
MR. SIPP-Yes. There's a foot difference between 66 and 54. So, obviously, it's coming
closer to the surface on Test Pit Two, than it is on One. So, what is in the basement may
be, who knows.
MR. SEGULJIC-Then you might need another waiver for the height.
MR. HUTCHINS-No. It's designed to 28 feet, yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Right. So I'm just pointing that out that if that bedrock is way up.
MR. HUTCHINS-Well, and surprises happen.
MR. SEGULJIC-And we're trying to minimize those.
MR. HUTCHINS-And again, we've got ledge at Test Pit One is four feet below the
basement floor.
MR. SEGULJIC-And to continue on, you don't have Test Pits in the area of your other
infiltration trenches.
MR. HUTCHINS-You're correct. I don't have a test pit up there. It's significantly higher.
MR. SEGULJIC-So I'm just concerned that I don't know if the system's going to work, I
don't want to say as designed, well, I'm having issues with where the bedrock is and your
11
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
infiltration systems are, and the fact that you need infiltration on the steps, because it's
pre-existing.
MR. HUTCHINS-To the maximum extent practicable.
MR. SEGULJIC-Reasonable, I believe it was.
MR. HUTCHINS-I think it says practicable.
MR. SEGULJIC-Practicable. Okay.
MR. HUTCHINS-But the more that we got, the closer we are to the lake, we'll do, we'll do
whatever makes sense to the Board, with those steps, because it's going to be a very
small infiltrated area.
MR. SEGULJIC-Correct.
MR. HUTCHINS-But the further away from the lake it is, the less of, the less of what we
gather, but it's an existing access to the lake.
MR. SIPP-Are the steps concrete?
MR. HUTCHINS-The steps are stone, aren't they?
DEBBIE SCHIEBEL
MS. SCHIEBEL-They're stone. They've been there 100 years at least.
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes.
MR. SIPP-Are you willing to, under Staff Notes, to not remove anymore vegetation than
you have on there, on the plan?
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes. We're willing to comply with that Section, and we didn't get
detailed, and I believe that Section does allow an exception for an access way to the
lake, and we vision a walking access to the lake, which I don't think is unreasonable.
MR. SIPP-Permeable surface?
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes.
MR. SIPP-Yes, and also, on the depth to bedrock for the holding tanks, you've got 66
inches to bedrock, and you've got a holding tank that's 76 inches in height. So you're
going to have to have a hump there, right?
MR. HUTCHINS-It's, well, the whole thing is on a side grate, so finished grade is higher
than existing grade, yes, and again, with the test pit, with the rock as found in that test
pit, there's two feet of leeway with the grading shown versus the test pit rock depth. So
we've got two feet to work with, which is we can make that more, I guess. We can
always grade that up a little bit more if we have to. We don't intend to because we don't
want it to stand out like a sore thumb, but. Now, Tom, back to the trench. I can modify, if
there's a genuine concern with the bedrock separation, I can modify that trench and
shallow it up, make it a little bit wider and accomplish the same thing, except I don't meet
the four foot depth criteria.
MR. FORD-Wider rather than deeper?
MR. HUTCHINS-A little bit wider and shallower, yes. You basically take a foot of it and
put it up on the side, and I might even put an infiltrator or something in it to give it a little
more volume.
MR. SEGULJIC-I guess, getting back to the septic tanks, those septic tanks, maybe I'm
incorrect, but they're.
MR. KREBS-They're not septics.
MR. SEGULJIC-The holding tanks, they're six foot four inches in height, from outside
edge to outside edge. Plus you have to have the, plus you're calling for a foot cover on
that.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, on the detail.
MR. SEGULJIC-So that's a total of seven and a half feet, plus you probably have to have
gravel under it, correct? So probably up to eight feet, if I'm correct. You've got to set it
on something, some pea gravel or something I assume, six inches of that. That'll put you
up to like eight feet.
MR. HUTCHINS-I can summarize that, and we went through this with the Health
Department and the Board of Health. The grade at the, the contour at Test Pit One is
336. The rock is 66 inches, which puts rock at 330.5. Finished grade is 339, which
means there's eight and a half feet from rock to finished grade, and finished grade is
sloping. So there's eight and a half feet to work with. The tank is 6.3 feet. We've got
two feet to work with.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right. So you're going to fill over the top of those?
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Well, I guess where I'm coming from, I'm not satisfied,
personally, I don't think I can make a recommendation to the Zoning Board at this point
because I don't have adequate information. At this point, I'm not satisfied that this is
going to work. I mean, I need more information.
MR. HUTCHINS-What additional information would you need?
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, something that's going to work. It's not my, I'm going to lean on
our engineer to tell me that. Give me some insight on that. As I look at it, I have issues
with the bedrock. I think, I can understand it's a tough site to work with. It's not the
easiest site to work with, but we've got to do better.
MR. HUNSINGER-And the question is, is that a Site Plan issue, or is that a variance
issue?
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, as I see it, the Zoning Board is asking us for a recommendation
saying we're satisfied with the stormwater, and at this point I'm not satisfied. I'd need
more information, and I believe our Town Engineer had said that also, he had some
issues with the.
MR. HUTCHINS-Well, and the comments from the Town Engineer are manageable,
okay, in my opinion. We do have to come back. It would be nice to be able to come
back to Site Plan and have them all addressed, but I received them yesterday.
Obviously, I can't have information available to address that.
MR. SIPP-Well, when he says that the sides of these infiltration trenches should be solid,
that means you're going to have to increase the width of the trench, right?
MR. HUTCHINS-Which one are you reading?
MR. SIPP-Well, in his comments would be Number Two, infiltration devices should be
analyzed using the bottom of the trench only with no side wall infiltration.
MR. HUTCHINS-That's okay. We used side wall infiltration instead of the bottom
because it was, the area's going to be essentially the same.
MR. SIPP-Did you use the bottom at all?
MR. HUTCHINS-We did not use the bottom.
MR. HUNSINGER-So you only used the sides?
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. SIPP-But that gives you considerably more infiltration.
MR. HUTCHINS-Well, we use the (lost word).
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. SIPP-And I think we need a maintenance plan in order to be able to say that I would
waiver this, that we have to have a plan for maintenance of these infiltration trenches.
MR. HUTCHINS-Okay, and we can develop a plan for maintenance of the trench, and
again, those are comments that came through that we received yesterday.
MRS. STEFFAN-This question may have been answered somewhere in the materials,
but there's a lot of this material. Is this going to be a seasonal home or a year round
home? Is it planned to be year round?
MR. PHILLIPS-I think it will be a year round home, yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-So, if we're only addressing stormwater tonight, the three issues I see is
that to determine that the patio and the patio walkway were included in the stormwater
calculations. Additional test pit information in the area of the trenches, infiltration
trenches in the house, and then you have to include impervious features in stormwater
controls in accordance with 147-9B(3)(f).
MR. HUNSINGER-Any other comments from Board members? We do have a public
hearing scheduled for this evening. Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to
address the Board on this application? Okay. We do have at least one person. On the
back table, there is a handout from the Planning Board, regarding public hearing
information. There's just a couple of things that I just want to highlight. Anyone who
wants to address the Board, you need to state your name for the record. Please speak
into the microphone. We do tape these proceedings. From the tapes we do transcribe
minutes from the meeting. They are literal minutes. So it is important that we get
everything on record, and we do have generally a three minute time limit. You will hear a
buzzer go off at the end of the three minutes. I would ask that people please adhere with
our time restriction. With that, good evening, sir.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
JIM TOBIN
MR. TOBIN-Good evening. My name is Jim Tobin. I live at 15 Dark Bay Lane. I have
some handouts here. May I pass them out to the Board? One is a letter from a person
who could not be here, and one is some technical information which I'd like to discuss
with the Board.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure, and make sure you have a copy for Staff.
MR. TOBIN-The first item I would like to read is from James Grande, and James Grande
lives across the bay, directly across the bay. It's a large white house you may have
noticed if you're ever on the lake. Jim could not be here because his wife is in Florida
having a serious operation, and so he asked me to read this letter. "In 1984, I purchased
a home directly across Dark Bay to the east of the applicant's property. This is my
primary residence and I have several concerns regarding this application. My #1
concern would be for the lake itself. With the close proximity of this project to the lake
and the amount of trees and other vegetation that will be removed or disturbed, in
combination with the severe elevation change in the lot, how can we be 100% sure that a
stormwater management system can be adequately designed and, more importantly,
maintained that would ensure the lake would not be impacted? Will there be annual
inspections by a governmental agency to verify the stormwater plan is being followed
and maintained in future years? Secondly, ever since I can remember, the front parcel
with an existing home (239.18-1-44) has enjoyed the benefit of this lot to the extent that
they have built improvements on the shoreline which they have used as if it were one lot.
This beneficial use should prohibit this lot from being used separately. Third, this lot is
not in character with the lots which abut my property (McCormick's lot - 4 '/2 acres,
Matthews' lot - 2.5 +/- acres), and developing a '/2 acre lot in a 3 acre zone seems
ludicrous when this parcel would be combined with other parcels to be more in keeping
with adjacent properties. How will this affect the property values of the existing homes to
the east of this property? I am sorry I am unable to attend this meeting, but Mr. Tobin
was agreeable to read my comments so my concerns might be addressed. Thank you
for your consideration in this matter. Sincerely, James J. Grande" Comments that I
have. As an architect of 40 years of practice, I have reviewed this proposal before the
Board and have noticed numerous areas in which the Planning Board may wish to
consider. Number One, 20 years ago, the Board rejected an identical house on the
same lot with a holding tank system submitted by the applicant's father. The lunacy of
allowing installation of a holding tank within such close proximity to the lake is precedent
14
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
setting and down right foolhardy. Although a holding tank may contain an electronic
alarm and safeguards which sound an alarm when there is a malfunction, who will be
notified when the house is unoccupied. Who will be able to clean up the effluent before it
reaches the lake and pollutes the drinking water. What safeguards should be imposed
on the applicant to maintain the holding tank system in good working order I future years
and who will enforce these safeguards? There is an alternative for the applicant to the
holding tank. The applicant currently owns sufficient lots away from the lake to install a
typical fill type septic system with proper design and proper design and proper routing
system to remote lot, the lake will be protected from the potential overflows and the
applicant will be protected from potential fines due to overflow. Since a reasonable
alternative solution exists the applicant should be directed to consider this alternative
solution for the effluent disposal. The holding tanks are required to be designed by the
Health Department on a flow rate of 440 gallons per day which will fill the proposed
4,000 gallon tanks in eight days. The rapid filling of the tanks will require constant
pumping of the effluent. Currently, there are no provisions made for parking or a turn
around of the septic pump out-trucks. The road way is a narrow one lane wide, with no
shoulders and certainly not built for heavy truck traffic. Will passage of traffic from the
neighbors be blocked by the pump out truck, must we wait until the effluent is pumped
out? Currently, the water sheets down the driveway and is relieved partially by a
penetration through the existing stone retaining wall and then drops to the lower portion
of the lot. The remaining sheet flow and sediment continues to the northern portion of
the upper portion of the lot combining with sheet flow from an adjacent road to the west.
No provisions have been incorporated in the design to accommodate this additional
water and sediment flow. No design flow calculations have been included, I believe they
have been included, so maybe I shouldn't even read this item. I'll look at them later.
Currently, only minimal and ineffectual stormwater retention is proposed. The storm
water retention is questionable since the bed rock is too close to the grade to be
effective. An alternative method of stormwater retention is necessary. Currently, there
are thirty-five (35) trees of a four (4") inch caliper within the boundaries of the property of
which twenty six (26) are above a twelve (12") caliper. A caliper is measured at a four
and a half foot height above the grade and diameter of the tree. So some of them are
fairly large trees. This amounts to a major cut of one third of the existing trees. Is the
view from the lake important? Will a clear cut lot be a desirable solution? A properly
designed storm water retention system will require that additional trees be removed from
the site for its construction. These additional tree removals have not been included in
the eleven (11) removed trees previously mentioned. The height of the house as
currently submitted exceeds the height allowable Queensbury Zoning regulations. Does
the height of the proposed building exceed the allowable height of the APA? The APA
method of measuring allowable height is different than the method used in Queensbury.
There are two deed covenants which govern the height and setback required of a
building on this lot. Presently, none of these deed requirements have been incorporated
into the project and will eventually be resolved through future litigation. The proposed
house is situated poorly on the lot and is within six feet of the road. Being so close to the
road does not allow for an area which snow from the road can be plowed. The snow will
pile along the south face of the house and not allow for access during the winter and will
impede flow during the spring due to hardened snow pack. Lastly, other issues like
improving the architectural design, materials to be incorporated into the house and
impact of the house from the lake should be incorporated into the review process of this
Board. Any questions? I read kind of fast there because I knew my time was running
out.
MR. HUNSINGER-That's okay. We have your written comments. Thank you.
MR. TOBIN-Good.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone else? Yes. Good evening.
CHRIS NAVITSKY
MR. NAVITSKY-Good evening, Chris Navitsky, Lake George Water Keeper. First of all,
I'd like to address, early on, you referred to we said the site may be clear cut. I think that
showed up in previous minutes. I don't think we stated that. I think we were concerned
about the level, but that may have been reflected in the minutes, but we'd like to address
this Site Plan application and offer the following items for stormwater treatment for
consideration for the Board regarding the discussion of variance. First, the percolation
rate should be verified. I think Mr. Seguljic addressed this. The stormwater
management design is based on an infiltration rate of 6 inches per hour. The base of the
infiltration trench is within 6" of bedrock. Would the limited depth to bedrock, which is
less than the requirement of the Ordinance, affect the infiltration rate? Secondly, the
15
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
effectiveness of the infiltration trench should be evaluated. The infiltration trench will be
located close to the foundation and could be impacted from construction and potential
blasting. With the depth of the proposed foundation, which is built into bedrock, will there
be foundation drainage and will that impact how the infiltration trench will operate?
Third, stormwater management treatment must be enhanced if the separation to the lake
is minimized. Infiltration treatment is based on contact time with the soils. That's why
we have a 100 foot separation requirement. This proposal reduces the contact with soils
in half. Therefore enhanced treatment such as amended soils should be added at a
minimum. Amended soils, we recommend taking peat moss or compost, organics, and
mix them with the soils to increase the contact time and the removal rate of the nutrients
and pollutants. In addition, additional vegetation should be added for nutrient uptake.
Four, there should be a required "no disturbance" zone which will increase the level of
treatment if a significant variance is granted on setbacks for stormwater treatment
facilities. This zone should be shown on the final plan and delineated in the field prior to
any disturbance on the site. Five, what will be the effect of the existing drainage from
Dark Bay Road which flows onto the property through the existing stone wall? Will this
flood downstream facilities? Will this impact the proposed infiltration trench for their
parking area? And also their parking area should, the infiltration which is directly
connected to pavement should have some type of pre-treatment to remove the sediment
which could clog that trench. The sixth item I think was also addressed regarding the
existing ramp directed runoff right down towards the lake. We also agree that there
should be some type of stormwater facility to provide management and also that is
addressed in the Code regarding re-developed sites. So we feel that there is area for
improvement in the stormwater and appreciate the Board's consideration of these, and
we'll submit a letter for the record. Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Great. Thank you. Anyone else?
MR. OBORNE-Mr. Chairman, I do have some public comment.
MR. HUNSINGER-Written comments? Yes.
MR. OBORNE-"Dear Mr. Hunsinger: I am flying to Minnesota today and will miss the
Planning Board meeting tomorrow evening. Since the house my wife and I have lived in
for 36 years is the one nearest and most directly affected by the Debaron request for a
variance to construct a house on Lot 4 of the Dark Bay Association, I am responding with
this letter. I also play a second role in the affairs of our neighborhood as the President of
the Dark Bay Association. Debbie and Steve Schiebel have been good neighbors and
friends for many years and will continue to be so. We have no objection to the
construction f the house but did have two concerns after carefully studying their site
plans. Both of them have been resolved satisfactorily. Since the new house will partially
block our view of Dark Bay, we are obviously interested in its height. The size of the
proposed house is not disproportionate for a lot with nearly 200 feet of lakeshore, and in
fact it would be one of the smallest along this section of the shoreline. At the proposed
grade level of 325 feet for the basement, the ridge will be at 364.3 feet with the current
design. Experiments with sight lines from the living areas of our house show that to be
near the upper edge of what we would consider tolerable. We have been assured that
its height will not increase, either through redesign or a higher grade level. Also,
representing the Dark Bay Association as president, I was concerned about the original
very complicated waste water plan. In that plan, a waste water main was to run uphill
along Dark Bay for some way, then cross a spur of the lane to reach its destination on an
upper vacant lot At the Local Board of Health meeting on January 5, which I attended
and participated in, a much less cumbersome and more efficient holding tank plan
replaced the original plan. Using two linked tanks, it provides more than enough
capacity for the house and does not disturb the road in any way. With those two
concerns resolved, I can support the Scheibels request for a variance without
reservation, especially since the storm water plan is very carefully developed. The lot
has been taxed as a buildable lot since 1969 when the development Dark Bay began,
and the family has paid taxes on an empty lot at lakeshore rates for 40 years, so it
seems unconscionable to me that they would be denied the opportunity to use the lot for
its intended purpose now. Sincerely, Robert Foulke, President Dark Bay Association"
"Dear Queensbury Planning Board Members: We have been aware and have received
notices regarding the Planning Board review of an application submitted by Debaron
Associates. We wish to express our concern with the removal of a number of full grown
trees still left on the shoreline in order to build the proposed 2300+ sq. ft. house on the
water's edge of Lake George. Having been a contractor, I have built several homes on
sites similar to this. I would find it very difficult not to take down more of the vegetation
proposed on the property in order to fulfill the needs of construction, ground water
management, runoff management, and the holding tank areas which I understand have
16
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
been approved. Just by nature, the space allotted to do the work leaves little room for
machinery. I also know there is very little soil covering the ledge, and the root structure
of the trees is very shallow. The past few weeks we have walked on the ice and viewed
the property trying to imagine the visual impact this substantial clearing will have on the
beauty of the shoreline. The runoff and disturbance of the area within the required
setbacks from the lake are detrimental to the quality of our drinking water. If the dwelling
is deemed to be seasonal, who will be responsible for monitoring the holding tank and
any apparatus involved in the sewage disposal if no one is residing there? Several years
ago a proposal to erect basically the same type of building on the same lot was rejected
by all boards involved. This ruling was accepted by the owners who have not changed.
What makes this construction different now with the rules for the building of lakeshore
homes being more stringent and rightly so, at this time? The owners have been paying
taxes on this lot which they have known they are unable to build on. Now, suddenly the
owners are trying to make this unbuildable lot a buildable lot when we all realize that
pushing through variances has been proven to be detrimental to the Lake George
shoreline and the water quality of the lake. As Board members, it is your duty to enforce
the rules and uphold past rulings on this particular lakefront parcel. Sincerely, John
Matthews 18 Cedar Point Lake George, NY 12845" That's it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else? Okay. Thank you. We will leave the public hearing
open. We will cease taking comments this evening. What's the will of the Board? All
we're doing this evening is making a recommendation to the Zoning Board. At least one
member has said that he would want more information before he'd feel comfortable
making a recommendation.
MR. TRAVER-I think in view of the location within the CEA, I think we should explore any
additional information to support the project before we make a recommendation.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone else?
MR. FORD-I concur with that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Since this is a recommendation to the ZBA, you know, it's non
binding on them. It doesn't prohibit them from moving forward, but it appears as though
we would want to see more information before we would feel comfortable making that
recommendation. Is it scheduled to go before the Zoning Board this month?
MR. OBORNE-Tomorrow night, I believe.
MR. HUNSINGER-Tomorrow night. Yes. That's what I figured.
MRS. STEFFAN-I've prepared a recommendation, but it's just, you know, to look at
comments and.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, you can read it if you want.
MRS. STEFFAN-This is what I drafted, just based on the discussions, and I don't know if
it will help the applicant for tomorrow night, but, or the Zoning Board, but on behalf of the
Planning Board, I'd like to make a recommendation regarding Debaron Associates, Site
Plan No. 14-2009 from the Planning Board to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Based on
our discussion, we recommend that the applicant satisfy VISION Engineering comments
of March 12, 2009, as well as Staff Notes from March 17t" before returning to the ZBA.
We recommend that the Zoning Board of Appeals review the Planning Board minutes
regarding the concerns expressed regarding infiltration, both the quality of and the
location of the infiltration trenches, the depth of bedrock, possible blasting requirements
for the foundation and removal of vegetation and resulting impacts, and that's what I put
together.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. We have a motion, is there a second?
MR. SEGULJIC-Open for discussion? I just think we need more information before, you
know, I'd feel comfortable.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I think that's what the motion is suggesting.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes, but I think that there's other, I mean, because there's other things
than just 147. I mean, I'm not satisfied with just saying addressing engineering
17
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
comments, because I think, as was pointed out under, not to get into the details, but
under 147-9B(3)(c), it talks about pre-treatment. You have to have pre-treatment from
any paved areas. I don't see any pre-treatment. The other thing is, I didn't think of this,
as one of the comments from the public brought up, is you have that asphalt drive.
You're going to have to be, that water, if I'm understanding your contours correctly, it
would be coming right on site into your infiltration trenches. Have you taken that into
account?
MR. HUTCHINS-That's an item that we have to address and we intend to address.
MR. SEGULJIC-And the thing about the house is going to be right close to the road. I
mean, there's going to be issues there also. I just think there's a lot of issues. It's a
tough site. There's no doubt about that.
MR. HUTCHINS-This is a very difficult site, okay.
MR. KREBS-But if I could make a comment about, at the same time, this was approved
in 1969 as a subdivision. It was a legitimate lot when these people bought it. It was a
buildable lot when these people bought it. I don't know when the 100 feet infiltration was
put in, but it was after they originally subdivided this lot. I think we have, we just can't
steal people's property, and we seem to want to do that all the time.
MR. SEGULJIC-I don't think that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to do what's
best. We're not trying to, has anyone said they can't develop the site? I didn't hear that
from anybody.
MR. KREBS-Well, if you refuse to recommend that they can get a variance, they cannot
build.
MR. SEGULJIC-I did not refuse to recommend. I said I need additional information.
MR. KREBS-Right.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I think we all recognize the fact that the applicant does have the
legal right to build on the lot. It's a question of what can they build on the lot?
MRS. STEFFAN-Right. They've certainly paid significant taxes on the lot, with the
expectation on both parts that the Town wouldn't have taxed them that much if they
didn't think that it was a buildable lot, and they certainly wouldn't have paid those taxes if
they didn't think it was a buildable lot.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, going to the site and looking at your Site Plan, it's obvious
that the Site Plan that you've designed, you're trying to minimize the impact on the lake.
I think as Tom has pointed out, and some others, I think there's just a little bit more
information needed for us to feel real comfortable with it. If it wasn't so close to the lake,
it would be an easy decision to say, you know, to maybe make a recommendation, but,
you know, given the number of questions that are still kind of outstanding, and I meant to
ask this question of Staff before. In order for the Zoning Board to approve the variance
request on the infiltration devices, they have to be specific. Am I mistaken in that?
MR. OBORNE-They have to be specific in their approval?
MR. HUNSINGER-The infiltration devices themselves need to be specified.
MR. OBORNE-Absolutely.
MR. HUNSINGER-So if they were, if you go to the Zoning Board tomorrow evening and
they approve the infiltration device variance, and then we change it, then you're going to
have to go back, if I'm correct.
MR. HUTCHINS-Right, and at minimal I think I'd like to get a little more.
MR. HUNSINGER-So I think the process almost forces you to have this stuff cleaner and
clearer before we can make that recommendation. Does that make sense?
MR. PHILLIPS-I was thinking about that earlier today, and when the Zoning Board
referred this to the Planning Board for recommendation relative to the stormwater, and I
was thinking that, in terms of can a stormwater plan be designed here that will
substantially accomplish the purposes of the stormwater regs as a general question, as
18
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
opposed to the specific plan that gets approved, which I actually saw as within the
domain of the Planning Board, when it came back to the Planning Board for Site Plan
Review. Because the only thing that the variances do is they clear the way for us to
come back to you, and then work with you relative to Site Plan Review, and so, as I
heard comments here, and certainly stormwater is not my jurisdiction, but, you know, on
a fundamental basis, it seems to me as though stormwater can be done on this site,
even if on some of these separation distance issues, you know, there's an area of
interpretation, but we also can get variances relative to stormwater if we have to, so as to
clear the way for Site Plan Review, and so it's one of those things where I think that
we've been at this for a long time, and I think we'd like to get back to you, so that we can
do the planning part of it, and if we could satisfy you, and I don't know whether we have
or not, but if we've satisfied you on a minimal level tonight, that we can do some kind of
stormwater system on this property, with the authority of a variance behind us to do that,
you know, that's something that we would like to do, because I know that the Staff
mentioned that, and the Zoning Board mentioned it in the referral, that maybe we have to
do some tweaking relative to the stormwater when we come back here, with the idea that
maybe the stormwater is not going to be a definite plan at this point, just because there
may be other issues that come up in terms of this site, and, you know, we've heard them
tonight, you know, with the vegetative cutting and that kind of thing. So I think that we
were hoping that we could get from this Board tonight the communication to the Zoning
Board that you think that stormwater could be achieved on this site, and even adding
some of the things that the Water Keeper mentioned, in terms of soil content. I mean,
those are all things that cost us a lot of money to do, before we can get back here and
spend the money doing them, knowing that we have the authority to do that. So we were
looking for, I think, a general recommendation that it appears the stormwater can be
accomplished on this lot, subject to some tweaking and some modifications, but we, at
least get by the threshold question of can we do stormwater here, and based on what
Tom has put together, you know, it appears as though we can, but certainly we know
there are a lot of details that have to be tweaked in order to satisfy this Board ultimately
in approving the Site Plan.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I have a few issues with that. Number One, the trench that
services the drive area, we don't know what the depth to bedrock is there. The design
calls for four foot deep stone filled trenches. Can you put a four foot deep trench there?
We don't know yet. We have stormwater running off, coming on from off site. The
engineer himself has admitted he has to include those in the calculations. There's a
number of, I wouldn't call them tweaking. They're issues. They're big issues for me. We
can only look at what's before us.
MR. HUTCHINS-Did you look at the site, Thomas?
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes.
MR. HUTCHINS-You did?
MR. SEGULJIC-And I think looking at the site brings it all into perspective. It's a tough
site, but we've got to do better.
MR. TRAVER-I think one of the issues here for both us and the Zoning Board, is that
with the various adjustments to what you've initially proposed, I agree that we may be
able to develop a plan to manage stormwater on this site, even though it's very, very
difficult. The problem that I see we have, in terms of making a recommendation to the
Zoning Board, is that the Zoning Board is specifically asking us to make a
recommendation to approve your plan, and we don't yet have a plan.
MR. HUTCHINS-Well, you do have a plan. I mean, you do have a plan. It's been
submitted through you, and Staff's commented on it and the engineer has commented on
it, and we've talked about it, and we've talked about some modifications that you'd like to
see as part of the plan.
MR. TRAVER-Well, for example, looking in their discussion from the Zoning Board,
they're talking about, at that time we will have requested a confirmation from the
Planning Board regarding the stormwater protection plan as proposed or any tweaking
they want to do to make it compliant. So, it's more than simply telling, at least, and Staff
please correct me if I'm wrong, but what they're asking for is not merely the global
approach of, do we think that there may be some way of controlling stormwater, but
rather can we approve a plan to recommend to them that yes, this issue is resolved to
our satisfaction, and I think for that, and what Tom is alluding to, to answer that question
19
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
that, yes, we have a plan that has been tweaked, or that will work on this site, we need
more information.
MR. HUNSINGER-And I think part of the reason why many of us are being more
cautious is that in the past applicants have come back and said, well, I already got the
variance from the Zoning Board, you know, I don't need to give you more details. You
can't deny my Site Plan because I got the variance already, and I think that's part of our
concern as well, in that, we want to make sure that we're on solid ground, if we do need
to, well, I mean, we already know we need to change the plan, we need to add more
things. There's more information needed. So I think that's part of the caution as well.
MRS. STEFFAN-And I don't think that the Zoning Board would be any different than we
are as far as, you know, relying on VISION Engineering comments or the scientific
evaluation of whether the stormwater plan really works or not, and certainly you just got
their notes yesterday, and you didn't have time to satisfy those. If you were here before
the Planning Board for Site Plan Review, we would absolutely have to get compliance
with those issues before we would proceed. Tom, you've been up here enough times to
know that that's often, you know, one of the conditions when we approve a plan. So
we're kind of at a gray area right now.
MR. HUNSINGER-Would anyone else like to put forward a different recommendation?
MR. SEGULJIC-In my opinion we need more information. So we put forward a tabling
motion requesting additional information?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, it's not a tabling motion, because it's a recommendation to the
Zoning Board.
MR. SEGULJIC-Saying we need more information including, to make a determination we
need more information including, but not limited to.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. HUTCHINS-Can I just ask that if in that resolution, or maybe it's not a resolution.
Maybe it's a recommendation, can you clarify, or maybe we can just talk about it, in
terms of, because as somebody mentioned, we've asked for a variance from the Zoning
Board that's got a distance from Lake George that we can site stormwater devices, and
we have asked for 45 feet. We've asked to keep them 45 feet from Lake George. Now,
should we ask for less in order to address this stair? I mean, it's, I can't engineer my way
out of, the stair runs down hill.
MR. SEGULJIC-No, and what the Chairman was getting at earlier is the ideal thing is
that we have a plan, a stormwater plan that everyone's satisfied with, and then at that
point we make a recommendation saying we're satisfied with the plan, and we send that
to the Zoning Board, and then it's very clear as to where the infiltration devices would be
and their design. Because the problem is if we say we're satisfied with what you have,
there's a lot of unanswered questions here, and I think that's what, and correct me if I'm
wrong, Staff, that's the ideal thing. Maybe not.
MR. OBORNE-Let me think about this for a second. The Zoning Board of Appeals has
asked for a recommendation from the Planning Board concerning stormwater. The only
Zoning Board issue concerning stormwater is the infiltration device. My suggestion to
the Planning Board is to make a recommendation specific to the infiltration device and its
placement from the shoreline with the caveat that additional information needs to be
provided in order for this to be given a positive recommendation. It sounds to me like
you're not going to give them a positive recommendation. You're going to give them an
incomplete recommendation.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. OBORNE-Make sure the Zoning Board of Appeals knows that. If the Zoning Board
of Appeals chooses to act on that recommendation, they choose to act on the
recommendation. If they don't, they'll table it. They'll direct the applicant to get more
information to the Planning Board in order for them to feel comfortable with a positive
recommendation. I don't know what the will of the Zoning Board's going to be, but you
have to give something to the Zoning Board. If it's incomplete, it's incomplete, and just
keep in mind that they may act on it regardless.
20
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. OBORNE-And then when you come back for Site Plan Review issues, the applicant
is well aware of what the issues are at this point, and they will come back here, assuming
that they have their variance for placement of an infiltration device within 100 feet of a
shoreline, and then you Site Plan Review from that. Again, that's my recommendation.
MR. PHILLIPS-Could we just take a minute before you do anything on this?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Go ahead.
MR. PHILLIPS-We just had a discussion on the comments made by the Staff in terms of
we're asking for a variance from the 100 foot separation distance, and Staff, I think, was
talking about we're asking for 45.12 feet, something like that, for our, we're asking for
that, yes, we're asking for that, and so I guess the issue is can the Planning Board say,
yes, we can live with 45.12 feet, whatever we're asking for, subject to Site Plan Review?
I mean, because if it's just a setback issue, as opposed to a functioning issue. So this is
new conversation for us as well, and so we're wrestling with it, knowing how long we've
been in this process.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, you know, and I appreciate the kind of Catch-22, you know,
where do you go first, and we wrestle with that frequently back and forth with the Zoning
Board. So, you know, with sympathize with that issue for you. I don't think anyone on
the Planning Board has said, you know, we're absolutely opposed to an infiltration device
on this site that's within 100 feet of the lake, but what we're saying is we need more
information before we know if the site as designed can work, and because of that we're
not comfortable making a recommendation to the Zoning Board, and, you know, maybe
we'll kind of let the Zoning Board wrestle with the conceptual recommendation, because
that's really their bailiwick, and not ours.
MR. SEGULJIC-I have something written up here, just to run by everybody. For the
Planning Board to make a recommendation to the Zoning Board regarding stormwater
management for Site Plan No. 14-2009 Debaron Associates, the Planning Board
requires the following additional information, including but not limited to demonstration of
compliance with Chapter 147, determination if the patio/walkway and adjacent
impervious areas are included in the stormwater calculations, additional test pit
information in the area of the house and proposed infiltration trenches. I think that would
do it, because everything else, the pre-treatment and the pre-existing would get caught
up in 147.
MR. TRAVER-I think that those comments are appropriate to be a part of it, Tom, but I
think what they're going to want is something a little more directly related to their request,
which is the recommendation. If we say, for those reasons, that our recommendation is
incomplete.
MR. SEGULJIC-No, because my opinion is, first of all, they have to be in compliance
with 147. 147 you need the two foot differential. You need to have pre-treatment from
the parking area. Neither of those do they have. You need to have the pre-treatment,
you need to have pre-treatment of the first half inch, or treatment of the first half inch for
pre-existing areas. As someone pointed out, the adjacent road, has that been included
in the calculation? Because that's going to change infiltration design. So if you say
comply with 147, that captures a lot.
MR. TRAVER-No doubt.
MR. SEGULJIC-That's my opinion.
MR. TRAVER-And again, reading the minutes of the discuss they had at the Zoning
Board, they're looking for more than the setback issue. They're looking for a plan.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right. Yes. That was my reading as well.
MR. TRAVER-Yes. So I don't know how we can, I know Staff had suggested some
language. It seems as though it would be nice if we could give them something, and of
course, they're free to do what they're going to do, but I do think Tom's points are well
taken.
21
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, if the Zoning Board is comfortable giving it back to us for all
these, call them Site Plan issues, then that's their prerogative.
MR. TRAVER-Right.
MR. HUNSINGER-We're certainly not saying that they can't do that.
MR. TRAVER-Right.
MR. HUNSINGER-We're just saying, you know, we can't make a positive
recommendation, and I think that's what you want to say, Tom, is not say.
MR. SEGULJIC-For the Planning Board to make a positive recommendation.
MR. HUNSINGER-Positive recommendation.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. TRAVER-Yes, and that's the language that Staff used as well.
MR. SEGULJIC-Should I run with it, then?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, go ahead.
MOTION THAT FOR THE PLANNING BOARD TO MAKE A POSITIVE
RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD REGARDING STORMWATER
MANAGEMENT ISSUES FOR SITE PLAN NO. 14-2009 DEBARON ASSOCIATES,
THE PLANNING BOARD REQUIRES THE FOLLOWING ADDITION INFORMATION,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO DEMONSTRATION OF COMPLIANCE WITH
CHAPTER 147 STORMWATER MANAGEMENT; DETERMINATION IF THE PATIO
AND PATIO WALKWAY AND ADJACENT ROADWAYS ARE INCLUDED IN THE
STORMWATER CALCULATIONS; ADDITIONAL TEST PIT INFORMATION, IN
PARTICULAR DEPTH TO BEDROCK, IN THE AREA OF THE PROPOSED
INFILTRATION TRENCHES AND THE PROPOSED HOUSE; TO ADDRESS STAFF
NOTES AND ENGINEERING COMMENTS, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved
for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver:
Duly adopted this 17t" day of March, 2009, by the following vote:
MR. FORD-Did you get the steps in there?
MR. SEGULJIC-It's going to be captured in 147.
MR. FORD-All right.
MR. SEGULJIC-Instead of going through each one.
MR. TRAVER-I'll second that.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, what about the removal of the vegetation? What about Staff
Notes? What about VISION Engineering comments?
MR. TRAVER-Well, those are Site Plan issues, I think.
MRS. STEFFAN-I know, but they're going to help the applicant prepare for the Zoning
Board.
MR. SEGULJIC-If I can amend my motion to include addressing Staff Notes and
Engineering comments. Is that what you were getting at?
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, because then all the other issues would be included, because the
Staff Notes were comprehensive and covered everything with depth to bedrock,
vegetation, infiltration, it was covered.
MR. TRAVER-I'll second the motion as amended.
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Ford, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: Mr. Krebs
22
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. HUNSINGER-Good luck.
MR. PHILLIPS-We have our marching orders.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Keith, will you be at the Zoning Board meeting?
MR. OBORNE-Yes, sir, I will.
MR. HUNSINGER-I'm sure minutes won't be available, but you can help.
MR. OBORNE-Well, Sue and I were discussing that, and if Maria's listening, we're going
to ask you in the morning to get Debaron minutes to the Zoning Board tomorrow.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I think the intent and the feeling of the Board is pretty clear.
Okay. Great.
SUBDIVISION NO. 6-2008 PRELIMINARY STAGE SEAR TYPE I KELACO, LLC
AGENT(S) VISION ENGINEERING OWNER(S) SAME ZONING SR-1A LOCATION
CORNER WEST MT. ROAD & SHERMAN AVENUE APPLICANT PROPOSES
SUBDIVISION OF AN 11.23 ACRE PARCEL INTO 34 RESIDENTIAL LOTS RANGNG
IN SIZE FROM 4,257 SQUARE FEET TO 17,775 SQUARE FEET. SUBDIVISION OF
LAND REQUIRES PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS
REFERENCE PUD SP 44-2000 WARREN CO. PLANNING 3/11/09 APA, DEC,
ACOE, OTHER ACOE, DEC LOT SIZE 11.23 +/- ACRES SECTION 179-12-010
MATT FULLER & MIKE FARRELL, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you're ready to summarize Staff Notes.
MR. OBORNE-Subdivision 6-2008, Preliminary Stage, Kelaco, LLC, Site Plan Review for
subdivision of land, corner of West Mountain Road and Sherman Ave., existing zoning is
SR-1A. SEQRA Status is Type I, and I'll expand on why that's a SEQRA Status Type I.
It is due to the fact that the New York State Board of Health has their own internal
SEQRA issues with lots greater than one acre and more than five lots in the subdivision
requires them to force a SEQRA Review of Type I Status.
MR. FULLER-The 553 rule?
MR. OBORNE-Correct.
MR. FULLER- Yes. Okay.
MR. OBORNE-Project Description: Applicant proposes subdivision of a 36.2 acre parcel
into 21 residential lots ranging in size from 1 acre to 7.0 acres. The western portion of the
project is located in the Adirondack Park and effects portions of 3 lots. Staff Comments:
According to the applicant's narrative, an Adirondack Park Agency Jurisdictional letter is
forthcoming. There currently exists a single family dwelling on a mostly wooded 36.2
acre parcel. The predominant soils on site are Oakville loamy fine sand (OaB), 3 to 8
percent slopes. According to the Soil Survey of Warren County, these soils are generally
not conducive for absorption fields as the soil is a poor filter for effluent. Soils of this
class are poor filters due to the lack of minerals and microbes in the soil. Groundwater
contamination is a possibility. The plan does not have provisions to modify these soils
due to the high percolation rates and no provisions for soil amendments for effluent
filtering. This is mentioned because all of the leach fields will be located in and on this
soil series. Further, disturbed soils in general will need to be limed and have topsoil
amendments as part of any landscaping and lawn plan. Plan review follows, and I
assume the Planning Board has reviewed those.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Before I introduce the applicant, I have a question. I went to
the site today, and I guess I'll ask it of the Board and the applicant as well. One of the
requirements for the public hearing on a new subdivision is that there be a project sign
displayed on the property, and I didn't see one today when I went to the site.
MR. FULLER-I will take care of that. It should have been there.
MR. HUNSINGER-But it wasn't, but can anyone verify that it was done? I mean, it's
possible it was taken down.
23
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. FULLER-That's what I'm wondering. I'd have to ask Dan. I didn't put it there
myself.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, I saw the posted signs. I, you know, drove back and forth
three or four times, to make sure that I didn't miss it.
MR. FULLER-No. That's a good question. We'll have to, I don't know that sitting here. I
didn't put it up myself.
MR. OBORNE-And if I may add, being that you're on a corner, you need to have them on
both public highways.
MR. FULLER-Yes, West and Sherman. Yes. We'll take care of that.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Well, that means we can't act on it this evening, because we
can't hold a public hearing without that. Is there any people from the public that wanted
to address the Board on this project? All right. Well, I think what we'll do then is, I mean,
we'll move forward. We will take public comment, but we won't be able to act on
Preliminary phase. We'll have to table it, but because people did show up to speak on
the project, we will move forward and accept public comment, but we will end up tabling
the project.
MR. FULLER-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Is that fair? Everyone okay with that? Okay. The floor is
yours.
MR. FULLER-All right. With that, for your record, my name's Matt Fuller. I'm with
Fitzgerald, Morris, Baker, Firth. I'm here with Mike Farrell of VISION Engineering, and
what I'll actually do is propose to stand up and kind of go through the plan real quick.
What we have, the Staff Notes point out, is a 36.2 acre parcel at the corner of Upper
Sherman and West Mountain Road. What we propose is a 21 lot subdivision. Fourteen
lots are proposed to be, they run from one to seven acres each. Fourteen of them
propose to be off a new road, Katelyn Drive. Four of the lots off of Upper Sherman,
utilize, and those are Lots One and Two and Seventeen and Eighteen, utilizing combined
driveways, as required under the zoning. Three lots on West Mountain Road, two of
which, again, will utilize the combined driveway as required in the zoning, and one that's
kind of a standalone on its own down here, that is kind of separated from the rest of the
parcel by the DEC and that area, APA wetland, the Staff Notes point out we are partially
in the Adirondack Park, in the hamlet. We have had conversation with the APA and
followed up with them, with additional information that they had requested about the
mapping of things that we had done out there. So we've sent that up. The one lot, 21, is
already naturally subdivided in the Adirondack Park, due to the middle lot there. So it'll
be two lots, essentially, that are created in the Adirondack Park. Staff, some of the
comments, the driveway, there is an existing structure on the property, and some of the
clearing area that's shown is the existing driveway. To clarify how that'll be taken care
of, it'll be very specific that when the road is built and dedicated, that driveway will go
away, be seeded, planted, and eliminated in its entirety. So there will be, that's one of
the things that it'll be my job to take care of. It'll be absolutely clarified that there's to be
no (lost word) rights. No ingress, egress. The driveway that's on the plans that will be
the new driveway for that house. So that is unequivocally the plan. As far as the open
space and things like that, 56% of the property, just based on the clearing limits shown
here, is going to remain vacant and open, and I can tell you from working with Ken and
talking to him, his intent is to minimize the cuttings in there, because he wants it to
maintain that look that he's striving for. So we would presume and hope that that would
be our baseline, and that it could actually go up from there, you know, when the septics
and things get located for the houses. So that's based on that. We did maintain a 100
foot buffer around the wetland area. That was something that had been talked about. I
talked about the driveway. A couple of the Staff comments on my letter that was in
there. Low quality forest in a minor wetland. Certainly, visa vie Glendon Brook, you
know, this is a major ecologic structure. So that was my bad language, thanks for
catching me on that, and as far as the low quality timber, it was from a harvest
perspective, not to say that the forest was, to undermine or demean the existence of the
forest. So, thanks for that, Keith, and with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mike. I did
have a question on the Type I, but you clarified that.
MR. FARRELL-Good evening, Board. Mike Farrell from VISION Engineering. Basically,
Matt's gone through the whole entire project. It's a project, 21 lot subdivision, that meets
all the requirements of the Code. We've prepared a Preliminary Stage set of documents
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
for review to take public hearing comments and address any concerns that the Board
may have in our final set of documents. We believe that this is a good subdivision. It's in
keeping with the existing land use in the area of the site. If you look at that area of
Queensbury, pretty much these are the size lots that we're seeing. Certainly our client is
prepared to strategically place houses on this site to try to minimize the amount of
clearing. The limits that are shown on the plan today are based upon grades that we will
have to achieve to bring drainage into our infiltration devices in the center of the road,
and I can take any comments or any questions that the Board may have on the project.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Questions or comments from members of the Board?
MRS. STEFFAN-I guess the first question I have is that, since Mike is from VISION
Engineering, and VISION Engineering is our consultant, I'm sure we'll be having another
engineering firm review this?
MR. OBORNE-Yes. You should have Paragon Engineering notes.
MR. TRAVER-That came through a-mail.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-The letter's dated the 13t". I think it was forwarded on Friday.
MR. OBORNE-It was forwarded on Friday, absolutely, and I'm surprised hard copies
were not sent. Maybe they arrived today. I apologize for that.
MRS. STEFFAN-That's okay.
MR. FORD-I was waiting for the hard copy.
MR. OBORNE-I certainly can share.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, we'll certainly have them for the next, I mean, they're going to be
tabled tonight.
MR. SEGULJIC-Mr. Chairman, if I may propose, because this is a little unique. What if
we have the public comment and then we fill it in later? Because they may have a lot of
issues.
MR. FORD-I really would like to proceed that way.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. We do have a public hearing scheduled for this evening.
Again, as I mentioned earlier, we do have a handout on the back table for the process
during the public hearing. I would ask that you identify yourself for the record, and that
you address any comments to the Board, and that you keep your comments on the
project itself. Having said that, who would like to be first?
PUBLIC HEARING OPEN
ROBERT VOLLARO
MR. VOLLARO-Good evening, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Board. For the
record, my name is Bob Vollaro, 7 Glen Court, Queensbury, New York. I'm going to be
just referencing some of the documents in 179 and 183, and I'll reference them very
quickly. Reference 179-19-020, and if you have your books there, you can follow me on
this, if you'd like. It says Residential Lots abutting collector or arterial roads, and West
Mountain is classified in the Subdivision Regs as an arterial road. While lots fronting on
collector or arterial roads shall be discouraged. Now that's in 179. The operative
document for this subdivision is really 183. In 183-23, and I will go through this, this has
layouts of streets and roads. Subsection C, Special treatment along certain highways.
When a subdivision abuts or contains a regional arterial highway, the Planning Board
shall require that no new lots shall front or have direct access on such highway. Very
definite statement in 183. Recognizing that the intent of both 179 and 183 is to minimize
lots fronting on these types of roads, the assumption being is there's a safety issue when
driveways are intersected with arterials. In response to Attorney Fuller's inquiry to the
APA concerning wetland boundaries in particular adjacent to the lower lot, I think that's
being termed as Lot 21, now. Is that correct?
MR. TRAVER-Yes.
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MR. VOLLARO-The APA should issue a letter of nonjurisdictional determination, and
that letter should be available to this Board before any approvals are made, if made at
all, but then 183-24 J on driveways says that you would have to have a slope of less than
10% between the pavement and the setback line. If you look at the topography there,
that's not going to be very easy to do. 183-23 I, dead end streets and roads shall not be
longer than 1,000 feet. This is 1,068. I know that the Chairman has always been pretty
adamant about 1,000 foot roads.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. That's one of mine, yes.
MR. VOLLARO-Individual, I'm now going to move off to the individual residential
wastewater treatment system design handbook known as the red book to most of you.
High groundwater levels can be determined by observing the pre water surface in a deep
hole during normal springtime or groundwater. This has to be done in March to June,
March 15t" to June 30t". Now I don't know, we had, this was done in about November.
We have people here, myself included, who know when it was done because we were
there when the backhoes were moving. Now, I'd have to ask the applicant, were they
witnessed at that time?
MR. FARRELL-Yes, they were. They were witnessed last Fall.
MR. VOLLARO-Okay. On Design Handbook, again, 54 Site requirements, an expansion
equal to or greater than 50% of the required basal area shall be available on the site.
What they're talking about there is the drain field should have another 50% capability to
be able to expand, and I don't know whether that's on your drawings or not.
MR. TRAVER-It is.
MR. HUNSINGER-Any final comment, Bob?
MR. VOLLARO-Yes, well, the basic comment, going back to 183-23, to me, is the
clarifying comment. Layout of streets and roads in Section C. When a subdivision abuts
or contains a regional arterial highway, the Planning Board shall. That's not a kind of
may, kind of shall, require that no new lot shall front or have direct access on some
highway. Very definitive, almost no wiggle room in that statement, as far as I can see.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Okay.
MR. VOLLARO-And that's it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you.
MRS. STEFFAN-Thanks, Bob.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anyone else? Yes, sir. Good evening.
KEN POTTER
MR. POTTER-Good evening. My name is Ken Potter. I live at Three Glen Court, and
my comments are I guess of a more personal nature, in terms of things like water table,
and water problems on Glen Court, which is south of their proposed lots on West
Mountain Road. Two years ago, my wife and I became the proud parents of a sump
pump. We found out what that little hole in the northwest corner of our basement was
for. It was after a particularly wet autumn, winter, spring, and we had water in our
basement, and shortly after we experienced that problem, the Rabl's, Number One Glen
Court, Ray's back there, also experienced basement water problems. This is not the first
time we've had water problems on Glen Court. Several years ago, the driveway, the
front of the driveway on Number Five Glen Court, again, after a particularly heavy period
of rain, washed out, from beneath. Probably 10 to 15 feet of their driveway simply
collapsed and went into I guess you'd call it a gully on it would be the east side of their
house. The house at the end of the cul de sac, which is Glen Court, the number would
be the Sisson's house. What's their number? Nine Glen Court. They've had numerous
water problems in their basement. It's the lay of the land, and perhaps the water table as
well. I can't help but think that, you know, any construction, particularly that close to
West Mountain Road, and in pretty much the RABL's and my back yard, sort of, would
do anything other than contribute to more of the same. I don't have any scientific basis
for that, but since we've had recent problems with water, you know, it cost my wife and I
close to $1,000 to remedy those water problems. We might be in for some trouble again.
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MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Who's next? Yes, sir.
RAYMOND RABL
MR. RABL-My name is Raymond Rabl, and I live next to Ken, and again, if we're talking
about this particular one down on the corner here, I also had water in the basement and
had to install a sump pump, and every Spring the sump pump runs. So I don't know, I
know you did this water test back in the Fall, but I think that's the wrong time to do that.
So I think you ought to go back now, or they ought to go back now and do a percolating
test or whatever you do, because we definitely have water problems in that particular
area, and ever since the sump pump was installed, from about end of March to June, it
runs.
MR. FORD-In the last week or so it's been running.
MR. RABL-It's starting to right now, as the snow starts melting.
MR. FORD-It has started already?
MR. RABL-Yes.
MR. FORD-Okay.
MR. RABL-A little bit. Of course now we're having the slow melt and then we haven't
had any rain, but if we had a rain storm now then it would definitely run, but both my
basement and Ken's basement was definitely flooded when we discovered this thing,
before we had sump pumps. That's all I have to say.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, sir.
GERALD KANE
MR. KANE-My name is Gerald Kane. We live at the closest property to this
development. My questions at this point are very general because this is only days old
to us, this whole project. First of all, we'd like to know if there are any variances that
have been applied for. I heard the gentleman say that everything was according to
Code. Will there be any variances, construction variances, that would apply to this
project?
MR. HUNSINGER-They have not requested any at this time.
MR. KANE-Okay. Wetland protection. The lots, the two acre lots on the southwest side
of that diagram over there, they go into the wetlands by about an acre a piece. We were
told that once an owner owns a property, that they can do whatever they wish to the
trees on the property. Would that be true of the wetlands?
MR. HUNSINGER-No. Well, I mean, we can have the applicant address you raise them,
if you want to just continue on with the other questions you have.
MR. KANE-Okay. The others are very general. In terms of the project itself, general
project, is there a time line for a start and a finish of the project, and is there a project
sequence for how they would develop and how they would strip the lands?
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Any other questions?
MR. KANE-That's it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Great. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.
HEATHER USHER
MS. USHER-Good evening. My name is Heather Usher. My concern is for the wetlands
and the woods. It's mainly environmental concern. I am wondering whether a significant
habitat review has been done by the DEC, and if anyone has checked on the species
that live there currently. I've seen turkey and deer and maybe there is a blue lupine
there. So, my biggest concern is the trees and the order in which they would be cut
down, whether they could stand as long as the lots haven't been sold yet. Thank you.
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MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, sir. Good evening.
STEVEN BELLANGER
MR. BELLANGER-Good evening. My name is Steven Bellinger. I currently live on 477
West Mountain Road. My main concern, too, was basically more or less for the wetlands
also. We live right across from the wetlands, for the most part. We do see a lot of
animal activity there. The other concern I'd have is just if anybody's had any time to look
at the access and traffic that might occur. West Mountain Road already has a lot of
traffic as it is, if there's an extra traffic that's going to be coming into play that could effect
the plan whatsoever. That's it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Anyone else?
MR. OBORNE-Mr. Chairman, I do have written comment.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. OBORNE-This is from Christopher P. Anderson, 28 John Street, Queensbury, New
York, Dear Planners: Regarding the West Mountain Road and Sherman Avenue
proposed subdivision, it would be a wasted effort to appear at a meeting to express any
opposition. After all, this is a wooded lot and this is Queensbury, which means bulldozed
and develop it. I don't want to prevent people doing what they want with their land, but
there is a definite pattern of subdivisions going in with wooded buffers, then the homes
get sold and the owners clear the rest of the property. Let them develop it, but some
things need to be reconsidered as the density of houses multiples in our Town. First
remove Home of Natural Beauty from the Town letterhead. It think it is still a good place
to live. Second, regulate the number of animals, dirt bikes and ATV's people can have a
single residential home. I really don't care how many they have, if we don't have to listen
to them. There is always a dog barking in our area. Under the current regulations, none,
I'm sure 21 houses will bring 60 dogs. Third item, don't raise the water table in our area.
Thanks for listening. Happy developing. Christopher Anderson, and that's it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. You can come back to the table. I'm sorry, ma'am, did
you want to speak? I'm sorry. Good evening.
ROBIN MILLER
MRS. MILLER-Hi. My name is Robin Miller, and I live on Sherman Avenue, right across
from this project. My husband and I have raised our family. We've lived there for 25
years. Slowly but surely Sherman Avenue has turned into small communities all around
us. We used to hike and cross country ski do a lot of things on that land. We know that
there's a lot of animals there that we're very concerned with. Slowly but surely they're
being pushed totally away from that whole area. The wetlands, you know, what is this
going to do to the wetlands? Also, traffic. When we first moved there, we could back out
of our driveway practically not having to worry about a car on the road. With the snow
that we've had this year, it's been extremely dangerous for anyone on Sherman to pull
out of their driveways. Now you're adding even more homes that's going to create even
more, you know, there's going to be a serious accident, and we can't do anything, and,
you know, the snow plows plow it, and we can't see coming out, and now you're going to
add even more houses. I just think Queensbury has enough houses on the market right
now that they can't sell, and I just don't think we need another housing development.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Okay. Last chance. Anyone else? Okay. Now
you can come back. Since we will be tabling it, I guess I'd like to try to limit any
questions, comments from Board members. Is there, I know most people haven't seen
the engineering comments. Anything from the Board?
MR. SEGULJIC-I guess, the waste management systems. You have three or four
different types, if I recall, mound systems, absorption.
MR. FARRELL-Yes. There's three different types of systems proposed on the project
site.
MR. SEGULJIC-Because your perc rate is from 27 seconds, I think is the lowest, and the
highest is two and a half or something.
MR. FARRELL-One of the perc rates that we got was 27 seconds. There's a soil
amendment, a shallow absorption system, and also a standard absorption trench
28
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
system. Based upon discussions with the Department of Health, they preferred that we
would test the site as an overall project, with, I think we've got something in the
neighborhood of eight and twelve test pits and percolation tests, throughout the course of
the site, to get a general conformity of whether this subdivision will actually accept, the
soils will accept the subdivision for these systems. The systems that we proposed are
the three systems that we anticipate using. As we come back for the building permit
process, we will be testing each individual site in accordance with New York State
Appendix 75-A, which requires one deep test hole and two percolation tests in the
location of each individual system on these lots. So all 21 lots will be tested and certified
by a professional engineer that those systems meet, and it may be a shallow absorption
trench. Lot 21, we did hit that water table that the neighbors were talking about. That
was about four feet below the surface on Lot 21. The entire rest of the subdivision is
located about 50 feet higher than the rest of the surrounding ground. So we did do a
deep test hole out on the middle of the site on the higher elevations. We went 13 feet
and still didn't hit water. The water is seeping out of the embankment down near the
wetlands. It's visible when we did delineate the wetlands coming out of the bank, down
at the lower elevations, but that water table is up over there near Glen.
MR. SEGULJIC-I guess my only concern is, and I don't know if it's a concern of the
Board or not, but, you know, some of the sites might have mound systems. Correct?
MR. FARRELL-No, no mound systems.
MR. SEGULJIC-No mound systems?
MR. FARRELL-No mound systems.
MR. SEGULJIC-Would they be amended soils, then?
MR. FARRELL-They would be amended soils. There'd be amended soil systems.
There'd be shallow absorption trench. No mound systems.
MR. FORD-There are three different systems, though?
MR. FARRELL-Three different types of systems.
MR. FORD-Three different types, and the reason for those, for the record, for three
different systems?
MR. FARRELL-The reason for those is because the soil testing has not been conducted
for each individual lot as required by New York State. We spoke with the Department of
Health and the Department of Health witnessed the test holes on the site, and when we
come back for the building permit process, and the building permits for each individual
lot, the soil tests will be done then, and that's how the Department of Health requested
that we do it, rather than test each individual lot today. So, if a system moves, if a builder
wants to put a pool in, if something happens to the site during the course of getting the
building permit in the Town, the correct location is being tested.
MR. FORD-Let me rephrase the question. The reason for having, or recommending or
having in your pouch of options three different systems is what?
MR. FARRELL-Is based on the soil types that were observed and the deep test holes
and the percolation rates on the site today.
MR. FULLER-Alternatives, Tom, I think, to answer your question, based on the soils that
were encountered. Depending on the soils when you encounter on the specific area
where you're going to put it, then they'll decide, okay, of these three, this is what we're
going to recommend.
MR. FORD-Soils and water table.
MR. FULLER-Correct. Correct me if I'm wrong.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. SEGULJIC-And correct me if I'm wrong. On Sheet C-13, you have a shallow
absorption (lost word) trench detail.
MR. FARRELL-Yes.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. SEGULJIC-That looks like it's above existing grade. You're calling for a one on
three slope. My terminology is incorrect. In layman's terms, that's more or less a
mounded system.
MR. FARRELL-No, that's not a mounded system. That's a shallow absorption trench
system, and it's not classified by New York State as a mound system.
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, in a layman's term, you're building, you put soil above the ground.
MR. FARRELL-I'm not sure I used layman's terms. I used what the Code tells me to use,
and that's classified as a shallow absorption system. Basically it's a standard trench
system that's keyed into the soil six inches. They're actually one of the better systems to
use. We're using that one on Lot 21. That's the only place that that one's going to be
used.
MR. SEGULJIC-But you're going to bring fill in and put it on top of the existing soil.
You're going to end up with a system that extends above the existing grade.
MR. FARRELL-That's correct.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Now, one of my concerns might be is that we don't know where
those are going to be, if neighbors have concerns. Do we want to know, is it a concern
of ours to know where those are going to be?
MR. FARRELL-We do know where those are going to be. There will be one shallow
absorption system, which, once again, I said the system is keyed into the soil. So the
system actually does not sit above grade, as a mound system would. A mound system
sits above the actual existing grade, where the infiltration is in the bottom of the trench, is
keyed into the soil. So that's the difference between a mound system.
MR. SEGULJIC-But people are going to have mounds in front of their houses, or
potentially behind their houses.
MR. FARRELL-Well, certainly we know where the one system is, and that's in Lot 21.
MR. SEGULJIC-Does it make sense to have them show us on which lots potentially
those types of systems are going to be? Because that could impact, maybe you want
screening around them. Because, I mean, that's come up before.
MR. FARRELL-It's just Lot 21. I mean, we have shown that on the plans, and it says just
Lot 21. That's the only one. Everything else is 50 foot higher.
MR. SEGULJIC-But it's possible it could be on more. We don't know that yet.
MR. FARRELL-No, we do know that. We've dug deep test holes on the site, and there's
no signs of groundwater at all. We delineated the wetland, and we saw where the
infiltration is. The elevation in the sites from the wetland are about 50 feet difference in
elevation. The groundwater table on the top of that site is probably about 40 feet down,
which is the wetlands themselves.
MR. SEGULJIC-So it's only going to be on the one site.
MR. FARRELL-It's only going to be on 21.
MR. SEGULJIC-It's just that it's come up before and then people say they want
screening around it and let's get ahead of the curve instead of behind it.
MR. HUNSINGER-I think it's a good comment.
MR. FARRELL-I mean, we've got screening on the property line between that distance.
MR. SEGULJIC-So your stormwater system is more or less the two roads slope from,
they slope inward and you have the two stormwater detention basins at the low point?
MR. FARRELL-Yes, there's only one road, and the road will basically bowl right into.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay, and then you're going to have these rain gardens at other points.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. FARRELL-Yes, on Lot 19 and 20, and 18 and 17, we're proposing rain gardens.
There may be a few other coming in for final design, specifically Lot 21, to control and
treat. We may treat with a drywell, but we do have four feet to groundwater down there.
So we'll look at different options on Lot 21. The rest of this site is contained up on the
top, in those two infiltration ponds.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right, and then the last issue is the 183-23 issue. What say you?
MR. FULLER-That has been a conflict since before I was on that side of the fence, when
I was on that side of the fence, and the Town Board still hasn't fixed it, because you've
got certain provisions that say no access, but then you've got the other provisions in 179
that say when you're going to put lots on those arterials, you've got to have combined
driveways.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. FULLER-And I think the stance that the Town has taken, and I agree with it, is that
that represents a conflict. That's an ambiguity. That conflict is interpreted against the
Town, and there've been many developments on the arterials, and I think rightfully so,
both the Zoning Board and the Planning Board. I remember some other variances up
the road further a couple of years ago where they couldn't do that, and I think that's the
way to go, is make them have the combined driveways. That's the stance that, as far as
my knowledge, that the Town has taken with that conflict, because they directly.
MR. SEGULJIC-Can Staff weigh in on that, at all?
MR. OBORNE-Staff will weigh in when the time is right.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MR. FULLER-Yes. If I need to, I'll just rattle off to you the countless that we've done it,
because I remember a couple of years ago being at the ZBA, and it was just up West
Mountain, and again, rightfully so, the ZBA was pretty hard on them, and I think they
actually made them go with the combined driveway, even though they didn't want to. I
just think it makes sense.
MR. TRAVER-Speaking of driveways, one of the concerns I have there is the topography
of West Mountain Road in that area. The nature of the vehicular traffic, in the sense that
everybody that seems to drive on that road thinks they're on the Northway, not on West
Mountain Road, and the sight distances involved with these driveways.
MR. FARRELL-The sight distances on West Mountain, to the north, for Lot 20 and 19, is
over 700 feet down that stretch. To the south, it's approximately 800 feet. 21 is located
near Glen. So that one is the same sight distance as Glen, and it has plenty of ample
sight distance to the north. We will grade out the sight distance lines at, if you notice
when you go out there, the ground topography does jump up along the whole road there.
We're basically going to cut through to bring the driveways in and then grade off on each
side to limit the disturbance and keep that buffer along the property lines.
MR. TRAVER-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Any other questions or comments from Board members before we
consider a tabling?
MR. SIPP-Will you be addressing the cul de sac length and the driveway slopes?
MR. FARRELL-The cul de sac length is 1,000 feet.
MR. SIPP-Well, I think it measures out a little more.
MR. FARRELL-I think it's taken so called from the center line of the road. I'm not sure
how the Town is measuring the cul de sac length. Is it to the edge of pavement? But I
believe it's 998 total. The station on the profile will tell you a different length because the
station pulls from the center line of Upper Sherman Avenue. It doesn't pull from where
the cul de sac actually starts, which is edge of pavement. So there's another 16 feet
there that's lost.
MR. SIPP-Are you, then, only measuring to the south end of the road, not the cul de sac
itself?
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. FARRELL-I'm measuring from the edge of the pavement on Upper Sherman
Avenue to the end of the cul de sac.
MR. SIPP-To the end of the cul de sac, the furthest point south?
MR. FARRELL-The furthest point.
MR. SIPP-And that's only 998 feet?
MR. FARRELL-Yes. It's 900 to the beginning of the cul de sac, and that's minus 16 feet,
which is the center line of Upper Sherman Avenue. The cul de sac goes around on a
profile. So that's the difference in why it says it's 1110 feet, because the cul de sac,
because that's just how it's done in the profile, but it's measured from the edge of
pavement to the edge of pavement, which is, I believe, 998, if I'm correct on that. I could
re-check that.
MR. SIPP-What about the slope on some of these driveways? You're at 12 and 13
percent on a couple of them.
MR. FARRELL-I'd have to go back and check that, but I don't believe, they've gone
beyond 10.
MR. FULLER-We'll check that.
MR. SIPP-I think it's Number Four and Five, I believe.
MR. OBORNE-Lots Four and Five, Don?
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. FULLER-The internal lots? The main house?
MR. SIPP-What would be the east side of the entrance road.
MR. FULLER-We'll double check that.
MR. SIPP-Yes, well, I think one of them is 13%. I forgot what I figured the other one's
pretty close, 11 and a half or something, and that's the only two I did, but there's others
that look just as steep.
MR. FARRELL-Okay. We'll check those.
MR. SIPP-The existing house stays and becomes part of what lot?
MR. FARRELL-Five.
MR. SIPP-Five. All right. So that house will be, will remain in that position?
MR. FARRELL-Yes. They're changing the garages on that to enter from the side where
the road would be built.
MR. FORD-Can you re-address the issue about the standing timber and how that is
going to be addressed, relative to clearing for the lots and septics and so forth?
MR. FULLER-Yes. A couple of questions. I know the points that came up on that.
Certainly, in the wetland up to that bank, the limit of that bank, within that wetland zone,
there's not going to be any cut in there, and that'll be built into the restrictions. There'll
beano cut zone in there. They couldn't do that now. So, there won't be, I'll say that
unequivocally. There won't be any cut in there, and as far as the other areas, what I had
said is the clearing areas we've got shown on there is the intent to stay. That's what we
want to accomplish, and I think what, in speaking with the developer, Ken, his goal was
actually to remove as few trees as possible. That's the look he's going for in the
development, both along West and Sherman, you see that we've got the buffer areas
we've maintained there. Some of the houses on the other side are right there, and we've
tried to maintain that.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. FORD-And that's appreciated, but I look at the interior lots, along the main
thoroughfare there, and that is of concern, the amount of cutting that will be required in
order to put everything in there.
MR. FARRELL-Yes, and we got the comments from the Staff, and we hear that, and
we're going to take another look at the interior lots on the west side of the proposed road
to see what we can save. There is a lot of trees out there, and it is the intent of our client
to keep trees between the lot lines the best we can. Basically the grading in that area, I
looked at it today, is about, we're trying to pick the grade up about one foot in that area.
So we shouldn't kill the trees if we pick the grade up a little bit, but we need to maintain
drainage to keep it away from the wetlands and getting on to the steep slopes and
putting it into infiltration will basically put this entire site into those infiltration, which will
put it back down into the earth and not discharge off site. So it may reduce water
problems downstream.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. FORD-We'll be watching it very carefully.
MR. FULLER-Yes, and we will have cutting limitations and things like that in the final
restrictions.
MR. SEGULJIC-Next time you're going to give us plans that have the buffer in between
the lots, then?
MR. FARRELL-Yes.
MR. FULLER-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. Any lighting at all?
MR. FULLER-No.
MR. SEGULJIC-Sidewalks?
MR. FARRELL-No proposed sidewalks.
MR. SEGULJIC-It would be a good idea to have them, though.
MR. FARRELL-The sidewalk to nowhere?
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, they've got to start somewhere.
MR. FULLER-We thought about that. We talked about it a lot.
MR. KREBS-I personally am against sidewalks in subdivisions like this. There's no
reason for them. It's extra maintenance for the people who live there. Somebody has to
clean the sidewalks, and it goes nowhere. If you're talking about making it more
walkable, you can walk, I live on Masters Common North. I walk every day around there.
There are no sidewalks, and there's very little traffic. There will be very little traffic here.
Somebody's going to have to maintain, and pay to maintain, sidewalks when you put
them in.
MR. FARRELL-And we are planning on dedicating this road to the Town. So that would
become the Town's issue.
MR. KREBS-Right, and that's a very expensive process. They can't even maintain the
main thoroughfares today. We don't need to add sidewalks in a subdivision that is a cul
de sac that has no through traffic.
MR. SIPP-Is there a possibility of joining these two subdivisions together?
MR. FULLER-When we first came in, before we, if you remember back to Sketch, we
talked about that, and we did explore that. Unfortunately there were no streets of, to the
south, southeast right there, there were no streets stubbed.
MR. SIPP-Isn't that on the?
MR. FULLER-On either Cranberry. I forget the road right below.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. SIPP-On the south end, is that Town of Queensbury land?
MR. FULLER-No.
MR. SIPP-It says so on the.
MR. OBORNE-Yes, where the wetlands are?
MR. FULLER-The wetlands, yes.
MR. OBORNE-Down in this area where my arrow is?
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. OBORNE-That's Town of Queensbury lands.
MR. FULLER-But they're, I'd say, landlocked.
MR. OBORNE-And then it's a very small little spit. It's not actually where the wetlands
are. It's a small little spit coming out towards Glen.
MR. SIPP-Well, you know, I'd like to see these subdivisions joined together so that you
have a possible walking, bike riding area, in the summertime. I don't know as you
necessarily need sidewalks, but the ability to put these subdivisions together gives a
person more ability to do whatever they, bird watching, deer counting, whatever they
may do.
MR. FULLER-And, Don, I would agree with you. When you've got subdivisions that are
on large parcels, connected to other large parcels that haven't developed, then by all
means. Even when I was working with you guys, I would encourage the Planning Board
to take those paper streets, we went through that issue a couple of years ago, and make
sure they get dedicated to the Town for just that reason. Otherwise, even if you put the
paper streets down, the neighbors on either side end up buying them at a tax sale or
whatever, and stopping you from putting a road in there anyway. So, yes, we did explore
it.
MR. SIPP-I mean, you can cross country ski on sidewalks that aren't plowed.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I guess we're looking at two resolutions this evening. The first
one is acknowledge Lead Agency status. We did have a draft resolution provided by
Staff. Would anyone like to introduce that?
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes.
MOTION TO ACKNOWLEDGE LEAD AGENCY STATUS IN CONNECTION WITH
SUBDIVISION NO. 6-2008 KELACO, LLC, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved
for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford:
WHEREAS, in connection with the Kelaco, LLC 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
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.
Duly adopted this 17t" day of March, 2009, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Traver, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ford, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
34
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-Just a couple of quick questions. Endangered species, did we address
that already?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, it's in Staff Notes, but we haven't talked about it. Well, maybe it
was engineering comments.
MR. OBORNE-It was engineering comments, and the onus is on the applicant to provide
that.
MR. SEGULJIC-They haven't provided it yet.
MR. HUNSINGER-No.
MR. OBORNE-They have not, but they're aware that they need to.
MRS. STEFFAN-Right.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MOTION TO TABLE SUBDIVISION NO. 6-2006 PRELIMINARY STAGE KELACO,
LLC, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen
Traver:
Tabled because the applicant failed to meet the Town's posting requirements for
subdivisions. Therefore, I will make a motion to table this application to the May 19tH
meeting of the Planning Board. That would give an application deadline for new
materials of April 15t". This is tabled so that the applicant can properly post the property
according to our Subdivision Regulations and also so that the applicant can satisfy
Paragon Engineering comments as well as Staff Notes.
Duly adopted this 17t" day of March, 2009, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ford, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. HUNSINGER-I'm sure you'll get the sign up.
MR. FORD-Both of them.
PUD SITE PLAN 20-2009 SKETCH PLAN SEAR TYPE N/A THE MICHAELS
GROUP AGENT(S) NACE ENGINEERING; MILLER ASSOCIATES; BARTLETT,
PONTIFF, STEWART & RHODES OWNER(S) SAME ZONING HILAND PARK PUD
LOCATION MEADOWBROOK ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES SUBDIVISION OF AN
11.23 ACRE PARCEL INTO 34 RESIDENTIAL LOT RANGING IN SIZE FROM 4,257
SQUARE FEET TO 17,775 SQUARE FEET. SUBDIVISION OF LAND REQUIRES
PLANNING BOARD REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE PUD SP 44-
2000 WARREN CO. PLANNING 3/11/09 APA, DEC, ACOE, OTHER ACOE, DEC
LOT SIZE 11.23 +/- ACRES TAX MAP NO. 289.20-1-8 SECTION 179-12-010
JON CAPPER & JIM MILLER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you're ready to summarize Staff Notes.
MR. OBORNE-PUD Site Plan 20-2009, Sketch Michaels Group, Site Plan Review for
the subdivision of land involving a Planned Unit Development. Location is the north
portion of Meadowbrook Road. Existing zoning, Planned Unit Development, PUD. This
is a previous EIS dated 1/14/86. Project Description: Applicant proposes subdivision of
an 11.23 acre parcel into 34 residential lots ranging in size from 4,257 square feet to
17,775 square feet. Staff Comments: A Consistency Resolution for this project was
approved by the Town Board dated 12/1/08 and is attached. This resolution states that
this project `is consistent with the Hiland Park PUD as aooroved by Town Board
reso/ution 272.87 (see attached). The applicant will submit a Freshwater Wetland permit
at Preliminary Review. I do want to clarify the designation and the reason, in the future,
35
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
that there will be a public hearing for this project is because this is Site Plan and a PUD.
It's kind of a hybrid, so to speak.
MR. HUNSINGER-Even though it's just Sketch Plan?
MR. OBORNE-Even though it's just Sketch Plan. I don't believe that, we do have a
public hearing open for this, at Sketch Plan, but it required Site Plan Review. Hence why
we erred on the side of caution and scheduled a public hearing.
MR. HUNSINGER-And scheduled a public hearing. Okay. Thank you. Good evening.
MR. CAPPER-Good evening, everyone. For the record, Jon Capper with Jim Miller and
Dave Michaels. I just want to start out, and we'll be brief tonight because it's really
Sketch Plan, but just a little bit of history of this project. Of course this is north of the
Waverly Place Townhouse development that Michaels Group did a number of years ago,
and at the time that we came in for that approval, we had proposed, in the interest of full
disclosure, to show what we were planning for the corner piece, that this would have
been three, 30,000 square foot offices, and 48 multi-family units in eight unit buildings,
and we got Sketch Plan approval from the Planning Board at that time for that project,
and subsequently they've re-thought that they want to do here, and so now it's much
more similar to the Waverly Place subdivision with twin townhomes, 34 twin townhomes,
and we think that this is a lot more of what the Waverly Place neighbors want to see, and
compatible with both the Waverly Place and also the Amedore project which is just east
of this. The other historical issue here is the relocation of Meadowbrook Road which
happened I guess about a year, a year and a half ago. At that time, if you look at our
plan you can see that their property doesn't go all the way to new Meadowbrook Road. It
bordered on Old Meadowbrook Road. So when the County was in the process of
acquiring property rights to re-locate Meadowbrook which was done for sight distance
issue, because it was always, that intersection was too close to the top of the hill on
Haviland. There were accidents. It was certainly a much needed project, a good project,
but the Michaels Group was concerned that they were losing all of their Meadowbrook
Road frontage for this project. So, at the time, we were going through the Site Plan
approval which Rich Schermerhorn did for the commercial lots, and ultimately George
Amedore bought the Townhouse project before Rich got started building it, but we were
before this Board for subdivision approval for that project to the east, at the same time
that the County was contemplating this relocation. So the Michaels Group got involved
with the County and said, look, if you're going to relocate Meadowbrook Road, you have
to provide us with an access because obviously this project can't access Haviland Road
because their whole point is not to have an intersection on Haviland Road. So you're not
going to get rid of the Meadowbrook intersection there and then create one for a
residential property. So we worked it all out between the Michaels Group and Rich
Schermerhorn and the County, and we brought with us the, just because it was a
question that was asked by Staff, we brought with us a copy of the subdivision map for
the Schermerhorn project which shows exactly what we have here, that the road was
planned, at that time, and approved by this Board to go through the Schermerhorn
project to grant the access to this. There was a question asked, in either the engineering
comments or the Staff Notes, about whether or not we were creating a subdivision, and
the answer there is no, of the Schermerhorn Lot One, Commercial Lot One, that the land
in the back would be used for stormwater drainage but it's all, it's tied in. It's the same
lot. The piece in the back could not be a freestanding lot. It's not big enough. So it's just
part of the lot that split by this roadway, but when someday somebody goes in to develop
that into either office or commercial, what have you, that would be used for the
stormwater detention basin, just because the topography, it works out, and when the
road was conveyed, the road property was conveyed to The Michaels Group, for ultimate
conveyance to the Town, a stormwater easement was retained underneath the road, and
that's all part of the approved subdivision plan that this Board looked at at the time. So in
terms of planning, those issues were contemplated. The access was contemplated from
New Meadowbrook Road, and it all got addressed at that point. So that's how we got to
this point, and we are here, you know, yes, because it's a PUD we need subdivision and
Site Plan, so we're here for both, but we first had to go to the Town Board to say, is this
34 unit townhouse project consistent with the PUD, because that's a prerequisite to
coming before the Planning Board, and we took care of that at the end of last year and
got the resolution and Jim's done the Sketch Plan. So let me just ask him to quickly walk
you through the plan to familiarize you with it, and we'll take questions.
MR. MILLER-Good evening. For the record, Jim Miller, landscape architect. As Jon
said, this map shows Haviland Road and Meadowbrook, and here's with the realignment
and the property is on the corner. There's Waverly, in this area, this is the subdivision
with Amedore and the commercial lots of Rich Schermerhorn's. The site's about 11 and
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
a quarter acres, and as Jon was talking about on this plan here, there's Haviland again
and Meadowbrook. Here was the original alignment of Meadowbrook. This shows the
realignment, and as Jon was talking about, when this commercial lot was created, there
was an access provided for across that commercial lot that lined up with Beekman Place
for the Amedore subdivision, and the intent always was that this would be dedicated to
the Town when this roadway was developed, and as Jon said, the intent was that this
would be developed as office or commercial. The drainage flows southerly, and that this
small triangular piece would be used for the stormwater management for that parcel, but
our subdivision, as Jon said, we're looking at doing duplexes and threeplex townhouses,
very similar to Waverly and Amedores. We're coming in, we're looking at developing a
divided boulevard entrance off of Meadowbrook, coming in basically to a simple loop that
the lots would be developed off of. The concept for the townhomes, and Dave Michaels
has got some conceptual drawings that he'll share with you in a minute, but one of the
things that's a little bit different with these is that, you know, they're designed, it's lower
density than what was originally approved, but they're designed to provide adequate
space around the units. One of the unique things that was looked at with these units is
introducing some side entry garages, which, one of the things with the townhouses, you
see a lot of the garages in the front. So the intent was to break up some of these units
by accessing from the side, so there's less driveway in the front. The project is served
by municipal sewer and water. The area surrounding the parcel is homeowners
association land from Waverly, and to the west of our property is the wetland and way
back in here is a stream that flows down and eventually crosses Meadowbrook Road.
The site drains from north to south, down towards the wetlands, down into this corner,
and the proposed grading which was submitted, we're looking to do a balanced cut and
fill on the site, and there'll be some cut taking place in this upper level, and filling down
on the south. The units are going to be a mixture of conventional units, garden style, and
then some with walkout basements on the lower level where the grade is falling away, so
the units would be situated into the slope. So the storm drainage would drain southerly.
The area to the south here, there's going to be a stormwater management area that
would conform with all the DEC regulations, and since we're backing onto some of the
lots in Waverly, the intent is that basins will be designed with some berming and
landscaping, some groupings of some natural plants in there to provide some buffering
as well as to accommodate the stormwater management. There was some question
about some lighting. Lighting will be the same as Waverly, is there typically will be a
lamppost and some building mounted lighting at each residence. There'll be no street
lighting, you know, no lighting that will be owned by the homeowners association. This
also is a conceptual landscape plan. We're intending to develop some buffering, along
Meadowbrook as well as along Haviland, and actually the way the grading plan, this
grade will be dropped to your, it will also introduce some berming along Haviland. We
have a berm there that, from the roadside, is about four foot high, and then the grade
drops down to the rear yards of these units, and then this will be planted fairly heavily to
provide buffering, both for the residents from Haviland Road and plus the residences that
are on the other side of Haviland Road, and I guess, with that, that kind of summarizes
the plan. I think probably Dave can share with you some of the conceptual drawings for
the units that they're envisioning.
DAVE MICHAELS
MR. MICHAELS-Thanks, Jim. Dave Michaels with The Michaels Group, and this is,
when we had, you know, just to go back, we initially had Waverly gone before the Town
as part of the overall Hiland PUD, there was basically four components to the Master
PUD, and the first one that was approved was Waverly Place which is, we built and it's
existing, and then there was a standalone office to the south, that is still vacant, but it
was an identified parcel, part of this review. There was 12 acres of open space to the
southwesterly corner, that was on a set aside, and then there was what we called
Waverly North, our intention is to call this community Hiland Crossing, and then there
was this parcel that was identified, and part of our, as Jim said, and Jon, we had a
conceptual review for an allowed use of 48 multi-family homes, which were basically
eight plexes, six, eight plex buildings, condo style, with three, 10,000 square foot office
buildings, and it's been a number of years since we've finished and completed Waverly
Place, and we decided that, after we work with the County on their request to see what
we could do, and work is, you know, together, try to come up with a better scenario here
for traffic and sight distance. They approached us and said we're trying to relocate and
we worked with Schermerhorn and the County, tried to come up with a good solution, as
a good neighbor for everybody to work out, but part of that work out was we had to, of
course, be allowed access to this land. We did have apre-approved concept for a
certain amount of density as part of the Hiland PUD, but we didn't feel the timing was
appropriate to move forward. Now we feel it is the right timing to move forward. The
community now that we're proposing is significantly less dense at only 34 homes. We
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
tried to lay this out, not jamming them in, but mostly two unit townhome buildings.
Conceptually there'll be new architecture, a little different from what Waverly Place was,
but still a New England type theme. So it'll blend in with the existing community, but
what we tried to do here was design product that a good deal of the homes could be,
incorporate side entry garages, which we think will do a lot for the aesthetics of the
different buildings, instead of having all pretty much front load garages, and we have a
couple of concept renderings to give you an idea. They would mostly be ranches and
one and a half story, all master suites on the first level. This would be a typical ranch
design showing the side entrance type garage access, and again, another ranch style
that has a front load garage given a concept there. We're looking to, you know, add
some additional architectural features to the exterior, probably some use of some brick
veneer and things as seen here. Heavily landscaped, which has been sort of a tradition
of our communities. We want them to look good. Divided entry going in. Again, we
want to create a feeling of its own privacy. So we use minor berming and landscape
plantings to create a feeling of entrance. We did work with the Highway Department.
They reviewed our concept road layout, before we went too far, and we got a letter from
the Highway Department that said he felt fine with our roadways as long as we allowed a
certain width, and a certain distance in for the islands, and, Jim, the way he designed it
with the slopes and the grades, we're very cognizant of Haviland and the views, but as
Jim said, between the berming we plan on putting in place here and the drop in grade,
it's not like these are right even with the road. The backs of the homes drop down
significantly on the grading plan. So we feel that, as far as the community aspect, and as
far as the residents themselves, that it will create a good compromise. I also met with
Sherman Wood, who is the President of the Waverly Place Homeowners Association, a
number of weeks ago, to show what our concept plan was for the community. We are
going to be his neighbor. We did make the Waverly Place Homeowners Association
aware that future development was going to occur here. It's right in the Offering Plan.
When we had the turnover meeting, we did remind everybody that ultimately we will
propose something here. They knew clearly that this could be up to three, 10,000 foot
buildings and 48 multi-units, subject to Site Plan Review, of course, but we did meet with
them and showed them our plan, showed them a number of concept studies that we did
which were significantly dense, denser. We had five or six residential plans that were
anywhere from 48 to 56 multi-families, but with no office, and we just decided that, hey,
let's just tone it down. Let's just do the 34 homes, and space them so we could come up
with some side entry garages and everything should fit nice. Totally is going to be
focused on full maintenance, again, Homeowners Association, and they'll handle all the
maintenance for all the homes, including sill removal and all the common areas. All this
common center island areas would be fully maintained, including the entrance and the
side boulevards and island areas, and the, getting back to meeting with the Waverly
Place Homeowners Association, they did send a letter to ourselves, and I think it was
sent to Craig Brown with the Planning Department. I don't know, has it been forwarded
to the Board members, too?
MR. OBORNE-Yes, it's part of the submission, absolutely.
MR. MICHAELS-Okay, and so we tried to be diligent on that end of things, too. So that
pretty much finishes my end of it. Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Questions, comments from members of the Board?
MR. KREBS-I just wanted to ask, who owns that piece of property, now, that was
Meadowbrook?
MR. CAPPER-The Town still retains ownership of that.
MR. KREBS-The Town?
MR. CAPPER-Yes. That was one of the questions we were prepared to answer. So we
don't have to acquire those rights, because the road's going to be dedicated to the Town
ultimately, and the Town already owns that piece.
MRS. STEFFAN-So does it own the lot orjust the road bed usage?
MR. CAPPER-The bed of the former road.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay, but the lot next to it?
MR. CAPPER-Is Rich Schermerhorn's lot.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay, but it is split by your entrance?
MR. CAPPER-Yes, but it's still only one lot.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. KREBS-And your entrance is also going to split that road, so they'd never be able to
use that again, right?
MR. CAPPER-Never be able to use Meadowbrook Road?
MR. KREBS-The old Meadowbrook?
MR. CAPPER-Yes. The reason why that's still there is because there's the water line
and some fiber optic line. So that was too expensive to relocate. So it can't be built
upon.
MR. FORD-The pie-shaped lot is owned by?
MR. CAPPER-By Rich.
MR. FORD-By Rich. Okay.
MR. CAPPER-But all as part of that Commercial Lot One.
MR. FORD-That's what I thought it was.
MR. MILLER-Yes, and he agreed that when that road is put across there, where that
road sits on his lot would be dedicated to the Town. Because the whole road loop would
be the Town road.
MR. CAPPER-And that location was obviously put there to be a four way intersection, the
way this Board wants it, with the subdivision across the street.
MR. HUNSINGER-So how and why did we move away from the mixed use kind of
development? Let me just finish before you answer the question. I remember you had
on your plan, you know, the three, 10,000 square foot buildings with some, you know,
multiplex residential, but we also talked about a lot of other concepts, including some,
you know, live and work in the same building concepts, and, you know, we actually had
challenged the developer to be creative and to be innovative and to try to create
something that was unique and different, and, I mean, this is, fits nice with Waverly
Place. I know Waverly Place was successful, but it's not what we were looking for way
back when.
MR. CAPPER-Well, we discussed this with the Town Board when we went before them
recently for the consistency resolution, and this was the part of Hiland Park, and that's
really what you're referring to, that had some commercial, proposed commercial office,
commercial/office uses.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. CAPPER-So when we went to get the subdivision across the street approved for
Rich, that's the reason why we have the commercial lots, four commercial lots that still
exist. I would envision that there's not really a market for commercial. You might get,
you know, some small neighborhood retail, but more likely it would be small office
buildings that are designed to look residential to fit in with the Hiland Park design, but,
you know, fortunately or unfortunately, there's been no market. Those have been
advertised for sale for the last few years. Obviously, the residential has been successful.
Waverly Place sold out. The Amedore project is about half built right now, and there's
still no interest in the office/commercial, but, I mean, it's a lovely place for an office.
There are other offices in the area across the street. Jim's office is in one of the
buildings at Hiland Park. So ultimately, there probably will be a market, ultimately, for
office and, you know, maybe some Neighborhood Commercial as well, but in terms of
The Michaels Group, they don't see office and commercial as, you know, a huge, it's not
like the people are knocking down the doors to build that. So it seemed like what was
most appropriate to do was residential, and honestly, we heard from the Waverly Place
Homeowners Association when we were at this Board for Rich Schermerhorn, that they
were not excited about the idea of having office and commercial, and they really wanted
it residential. So to a certain extent, this is the path of least resistance, but also it's
39
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
compatible with what's already there, and it still does leave those other four lots for
residential, for office and commercial.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, I think the Town Board kind of made that decision, but I just
wanted to refresh everyone's memory, because I know there might have only been one
or two other members of the Planning Board on the Board when the Waverly Place
project was approved, and this is not at all what was thought about, contemplated and
discussed at that time.
MR. SIPP-Could I get a little specific here? What's the difference, I know what the
difference in elevation is between Haviland Road and the back end of those lots that
backup on Haviland.
MR. MILLER-I think it's about eight feet.
MR. SIPP-All right. Now what are you going to do there for stormwater? You're dealing
with a heavy clay soil in this area. So you've got to have something that's pretty good.
MR. MILLER-Right. The stormwater will drain to the west, and what's in the Sketch
grading plan is all of the drainage from the, or the majority of the drainage from the roofs
and the driveways and everything would drain to the street. So the drainage in that back
area comes down to the west, and then we're looking at, you know, the final designs
aren't done. If we need to have some kind of a settling or treatment basin just to handle
that small amount, it would be located in that back corner, but this back area here just
drains to the west as it does currently, and then everything else is collected down to the
storm basin to the south.
MR. FORD-Off the street?
MR. MILLER-Yes.
MR. SIPP-Who owns the lot to the west?
MR. MILLER-This back here?
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. MILLER-That's Waverly Homeowners Association.
MR. SIPP-Okay. Now, beyond that, do you butt on to ACC property?
MR. MILLER-Well, from this area back to the stream is Waverly Homeowners
Association, and then from the stream over this way is the open part of the lands owned
by ACC.
MR. SIPP-All right. Now, if you go beyond that stream to the west, some place back in
there, not too far, is a trail that's been cut through there, a fitness trail.
MR. MILLER-Okay. On the ACC property? Yes, that would be back in here some place
probably. Because I think there's a small house back in here, too.
MR. SIPP-Yes, but it is possible to access that trail from where you are because you do
own, the landowners own that.
MR. CAPPER-Well, that's owned by Waverly Homeowners Association.
MR. FORD-Waverly HOA.
MR. SIPP-Yes, but they, well, they would benefit from it. There's a 15 station fitness trail
back there. I know because my class put it in there, in 1984. Now how it's been
maintained, I don't know. It was maintained quite well for a while, but it offers a place for
walking, cross country skiing, nature trails. There's quite a bit of wildlife back in there.
All you need is a bridge which we constructed one across there, but I doubt that it's still
there, but there is a possibility of hooking on to that. I'm sure ACC would be very happy
to let somebody get in there. Because that was the original idea of the whole fitness trail.
Now, to the south, can we hook into Waverly Place that way by making a walking path?
MR. CAPPER-The simple answer there is that Waverly Place Homeowners Association
owns the common property. So it could be done with their permission, and the letter that
40
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
they sent in indicates that they're not excited about that idea, you know, so we were just
trying to respect their wishes, but certainly it's up for discussion.
MR. SIPP-Well, I have some comments on the landscaping, but that's down the road.
MR. CAPPER-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, since this is Sketch Plan, I guess, you know, what we should
focus on is typical Sketch Plan things, you know, layout, you know, number of units and
that kind of thing.
MR. SEGULJIC-As far as future potential uses for the west side of Meadowbrook in this
area, is there anything else that's going to be proposed for that area? It's wetlands to the
west of this.
MR. CAPPER-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-I guess what I'm getting at, does it make sense to have a stub road in
there of any type?
MR. CAPPER-No, there's nothing, that goes down into the stream corridor and wetlands.
MR. SEGULJIC-There's nothing that can go down there, because it's the Homeowners
Association and then the wetland.
MR. CAPPER-No, there's nothing developable.
MR. SEGULJIC-If you come back here in a few years and I ask that question again.
MR. CAPPER-No, Tom, there's nothing developable west of this. It's in the record.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else from the Board?
MR. FORD-Could you reinforce that gap on the western, is that too great a slope there?
MR. MILLER-You're talking about this area right in here?
MR. FORD-Correct.
MR. MILLER-Well, what happens is the wetland has been mapped, you know, this
hatched area is DEC wetland that comes across, and then there's a finger of Army Corps
Wetland, and then for some reason they mapped some Army Corps Wetlands up the
slope into that area. So that gap there is to respond to that wetland and I think we have,
I think as part of when we're back in for Preliminary, we have some grading maybe within
that buffer area, but in order to keep all the buildings and the paving set back out of the
wetland buffer and the setbacks.
MR. FORD-It's a setback issue. Okay. Thank you.
MR. MILLER-Yes.
MR. CAPPER-But the result will be that it will look less dense and it will be more green in
that area anyway.
MR. FORD-Yes. I assumed that's what it was, but I just wanted to clarify.
MR. HUNSINGER-Did you take into account that Meadowbrook watershed corridor
study?
MR. MILLER-Yes, we did. As a matter of fact, there was a letter from Dan Ryan, which
we reviewed. We really don't have any problems with anything. As a matter of fact, he
even stated in here that, you know, it looked like we're in general conformance with the
recommendations of that study.
MR. CAPPER-I know that, or I believe some of the public are here because it was
advertised. Some of the neighbors may be here to comment.
MR. HUNSINGER-All right. Anything else from the Board? Okay. Is there anyone in the
audience that wanted to address the Board on this application?
41
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. It's unusual to have a public hearing at Sketch Plan anyway.
MR. OBORNE-Well, it is Site Plan Review also.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Tonight is?
MR. OBORNE-That's a great question.
MR. HUNSINGER-It was listed on the agenda as Sketch Plan.
MR. OBORNE-It is Sketch, PUD Site Plan. I would say, there's no tabling resolution that
needs to happen. I just think you need to just go ahead with it as a Subdivision Sketch
Plan, I mean, as a Subdivision Sketch Plan, and then once you get to Preliminary, I
mean, there is a Site Plan aspect to this.
MR. HUNSINGER-You lost me.
MR. CAPPER-Can I clarify that?
MR. OBORNE-Absolutely.
MR. CAPPER-I know what the answer is from all these years, when Queensbury adopted
the PUD, it talks about Site Plan. It should talk about subdivision, because a lot of a
PUD has to do with subdivision. I believe that the proposed changes in the Zoning Code
do address that. So it's really subdivision, but because it's a PUD, it's also called Site
Plan. Just a Queensbury nuance.
MR. OBORNE-That's what I'm dealing with.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Does the new Code correct this?
MR. OBORNE-I could not tell you. I'm not too deep into the new Code at this point.
MRS. STEFFAN-So we don't have to make any resolutions, and the applicant.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, that's my question.
MR. OBORNE-You may want to do it clean and table to Preliminary, just to have it clean.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. OBORNE-And then we'll deal with it.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. CAPPER-We're pretty far along on the engineering. So we would like to submit for
Preliminary shortly.
MR. OBORNE-And I do apologize for the nebulousness.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. That's okay. When will you be submitting?
MR. MILLER-Well, I assume at this point we would submit on April 15t", and try to get
back probably in May, if we could.
MR. HUNSINGER-Should we specify a date, Keith, as we normally would in a tabling
resolution, or just table it pending submission of subdivision?
MR. OBORNE-I would say table pending, yes, submission protocol, or something along
those lines.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. CAPPER-That's fine with us.
42
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. FORD-I have an additional question. On each of the triplexes, will there be at least
one side entrance garage?
MR. MILLER-Yes, I believe so.
MR. CAPPER-Yes, I think they all have two, all except for one have two.
MR. MILLER-All of these have two, and then there's one threeplex that just has the one
there. So they have at least one.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. OBORNE-I'd like to clarify to you guys that the agenda is full through April. So at
the very minimum it would be May they'd be coming back.
MR. HUNSINGER-So do we need to close the public hearing, then, or do we leave the
public hearing open?
MR. OBORNE-I would leave it open.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Gretchen, whenever you're ready.
MRS. STEFFAN-So I'll just make a motion.
MOTION TO TABLE PUD SITE PLAN NO. 20-2009 SKETCH PLAN THE MICHAELS
GROUP, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by
Donald Krebs:
Pending Preliminary submission of subdivision plans.
Duly adopted this 17t" day of March, 2009, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Traver, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ford, Mr. Krebs, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. CAPPER-Thank you, everyone.
MR. MILLER-Thank you.
SITE PLAN 9-2009 SEAR TYPE II JOHN WITT AGENT(S) JOHN WITT OWNER(S)
NORTH TRACT PROPERTIES, LLC ZONING PO LOCATION 3 HUNTER BROOK
LANE APPLICANT PROPOSES 187 SQUARE FOOT OFFICE ADDITION.
EXPANSION OF A COMMERCIAL USE IN A PO ZONE REQUIRES SITE PLAN
REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE AV 17-03, SP 12-03, BP 03-794,
BP 03-647, BP 03-084 WARREN CO. PLANNING 3/11/09 LOT SIZE 0.95 ACRES
TAX MAP NO. 289.15-1-2 SECTION 179-4-020, 179-9-010
JOHN WITT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you're ready.
MR. OBORNE-Site Plan 9-2009, John Witt is the applicant. Site Plan Review for the
expansion of a commercial use in a Professional Office zone. Location is 3 Hunterbrook
Lane. Existing Zoning Professional Office. It's a Type II, no action necessary. Project
Description: Applicant proposes a 187 square foot office addition to the existing
Orthopedic & Spine Physical Therapy, PC location at 3 Hunter Brook Lane. Staff
Comments: With the relative small size of the project and the lack of major site plan
changes the applicant is seeking a waiver from Landscaping, Grading, Stormwater
Management and Lighting. The addition is 187 square feet with additional existing
interior reconfiguration to encompass an additional 427 square feet. The purpose of this
project is to expand office space for existing staff. Impermeability will be increase by 0.6
percent from 30.9 percent to 31.5 percent. This is well within the 70 percent allowable
maximum impermeable requirement for the P.O. zone per §179-4-030. And one Plan
Review. Drainage from addition roof may need to be clarified. To what extent is water
directed to existing stormwater controls? And with that, I'd turn it over to Mr. Witt.
MR. WITT-Okay. Thank you, Keith.
43
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. HUNSINGER-Good evening.
MR. WITT-Good evening.
MR. HUNSINGER-If you could identify yourself for the record.
MR. WITT-My name is John Witt, President of Witt Construction. We have a proposed
addition for the Orthopedic and Spine Therapy Office. It's nine feet, four inches by
twenty feet on that north corner of the building. The addition, the existing building is
3812 square feet, and again, we're adding an additional 187 square feet. So it's a small
addition, and the reason for the addition is currently there's no area for the office
manager to conduct her business. She's in the kind of reception area, and it's been
crowded. So there's not, the addition is not for additional employees or staff. It's just for
their current staff to work more efficiently in the building. The impermeable area
increase on the site is less than .6%. So it's very minor, as far as the storm drainage.
The proposed addition falls within the allowed setback and does not necessitate
additional parking spaces. We have requested a waiver for the landscaping, grading,
stormwater management and lighting plan. Currently, again, it'll be easier just to kind of
point. I don't know if you can see this, but this is the building itself currently. This is the
proposed addition here. There's an existing sidewalk here, an existing sidewalk here.
There's storm drainage that runs the perimeter of the building into a storm basin down
here. So all the water currently comes off the roof here and comes into this same area.
This sidewalk is all drained back from the sidewalk here is drained back and here is
drained back toward the building. So really there's no additional stormwater put into the
storm system currently, and looking at the site physically after all the snow has melted,
there's no evidence of ponding or, I mean, there's grade drainage, the soil that's on the
site peres at less than five minutes. So it's a very good perc soil. So I don't think we're,
there's any need for any additional drainage there.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Questions, comments from the Board? Yes, I thought it was
pretty straightforward, too. We do have a public hearing scheduled this evening. Is
there anyone in the audience that wanted to address the Board on this application?
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. HUNSINGER-Let the record show there were no takers.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MR. HUNSINGER-Type II action, no SEQRA required. So, I'll entertain a motion.
MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 9-2009 JOHN WITT, Introduced by Gretchen
Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Donald Krebs:
1) A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the
following: Applicant proposes 187 square foot office addition. Expansion of a
commercial use in a PO zone requires Site Plan Review and approval.
2) A public hearing was advertised and held on 3/17/09; and
3) This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and
application material in the file of record; and
4) MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 9-2009 JOHN WITT, Introduced by
Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Donald Krebs:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff.
a) 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
b) This is a Type II action - no further review required
c) Final approved plans, in compliance with the Site Plan, must be submitted to the
Community Development Department before any further review by the Zoning
Administrator or Building and Codes personnel. The applicant must meet with
Staff after approval and prior to issuance of Building Permit and/or the beginning
44
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
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.
d) The applicant will provide as-built plans to certify that the site plan is developed
according to the approved plans prior to issuance of the certificate of occupancy;
and
e) NOT APPLICABLE If applicable, Item 7 to be combined with a letter of credit; and
f) NOT APPLICABLE. The Sanitary Sewer connection plan must be submitted to
the Wastewater Department for its review, approval, permitting and inspection;
and
g) This is approved with waivers granted for landscaping, grading, stormwater
management and lighting.
h) One other condition, that the applicant satisfies VISION Engineering comments.
Duly adopted this 17t" day of March, 2009, by the following vote:
MR. HUNSINGER-I was just discussing, there were two comments from VISION
Engineering.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay. One other condition, that the applicant satisfy VISION
Engineering comments.
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Traver, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ford, Mr. Krebs, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. HUNSINGER-You're all set. Good luck.
MR. WITT-Thank you very much.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you.
SITE PLAN NO. 10-2009 SEAR TYPE UNLISTED NEW HOPE COMMUNITY
CHURCH AGENT(S) HUTCHINS ENGINEERING OWNER(S) RAYMOND BUTLER,
DELWYN MULDER ZONING CI-1A LOCATION 449 & 454 CORINTH ROAD
APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 13,244 SQUARE FOOT CHURCH
FACILITY INCLUDING WORSHIP AREA, OFFICES, CLASSROOMS, RECREATION
AREA, AND PARKING WITH ASSOCIATED UTILITIES. PLACE OF WORSHIP IN A CI
ZONE REQUIRES SITE PLAN REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS REFERENCE SP
21-03 WARREN CO. PLANNING 3/11/09 SECTION 179-4-020, 179-9-010
MARK DEL SIGNORE & TOM HUTCHINS, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you're ready to summarize Staff Notes.
MR. OBORNE-Site Plan 10-2009, New Hope Community Church. Requested action is
for Site Plan approval for Site Plan approval for places of worship in a Commercial
Industrial One Acre zone. Location 449, and I believe this is a typo on the address. So,
the location is on Corinth Road. Existing Zoning: CI-1A. SEQRA Status: Unlisted.
SEQRA determination is required. Project Description: Applicant proposes construction
of a 13,244 square foot church facility including worship area, offices, classrooms,
recreation area, and parking with associated utilities and site improvements. Staff
Comments: There are two lots associated with this project, one 6.89 acres and one 4.29
acres. The smaller of the two lots has a one story wood frame house with detached
garage and shed that are slated to be removed. Both parcels are relatively flat with a
total change in topography of 4 feet over the 11.15 acres. Total area of disturbance
proposed is 4.95 acres. The predominant soils on site are Oakville loamy fine sand
(OaA), 0 to 3 percent slopes. According to the Soil Survey of Warren County, these soils
are generally not conducive for absorption fields as the soil is a poor filter for effluent.
Soils of this class are poor filters due to the lack of minerals and microbes in the soil.
Groundwater contamination is a possibility. The plan does have provisions to modify
these soils due to the high percolation rates but no provisions to amend the soil for
effluent filtering. This is mentioned because the leach field associated with this project
45
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
will be located in and on this soil series. Further, disturbed soils in general will need to be
limed and have topsoil amendments as part of any landscaping and lawn plan. What
follows are Fire Marshal comments. There are issues with the entrance, compaction of
the parking lot, and location of municipal fire hydrants, and/or private fire hydrants.
Again, refer to attached Fire Marshal comments, and what follows is Site Plan Review.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Good evening.
MR. DEL SIGNORE-Good evening. Mark DelSignore, Tom Hutchins, and Pastor Robbie
Langford here. Pretty straightforward application, I think. The description fairly
represents what we're doing. It's two parcels. We're presently under contract. The
Church is presently under contract to purchase each of them. One of the conditions,
obviously, is getting the necessary approvals. I figured I'd talk now because I have a
strong hunch that that 95% of what we're going to be asking is going to end up going to
Mr. Hutchins. So I figured I'd give his voice a break for a couple of minutes. You
probably recall we've been here before. We think we've finally found the right site in the
Town. The Church has worked very hard to find the right site in the Town. They really
wanted to stay here and be a presence in the community, and I think, for the most part,
the drawings speak for themselves as to what we intend to do, you know, with respect to
the issues that were raised by Staff, I think that they are primarily pretty easily fixed, in a
way that should please the Board, and I don't know if Tom has anything to add to that, or
Robbie.
ROBBIE LANGFORD
PASTOR LANGFORD-I just appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight. Sorry it is so
late, but we are very excited about the community, just love being here, and have been
here for nine years, and the majority of that, eight of those years have been across the
street, leasing a facility, and just feel like it's time for us to take the next step and to be
able to have our own, move into our own property and be able to move forward from
there. So I just look forward to sharing with you and answering any questions that you
have.
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes. Good evening. Tom Hutchins, again. I'm going to do a very brief
description of the project and turn it over to, for questions. The site is just over 11 acres
and we'll be disturbing just under five acres. The topography is very flat. You'll see
contours on your drawings, but they're deceiving, because they kind of go like this. It's
very, very flat. The soils are of a high sand content, and there's, we have since done test
holes. You'll see in some of your comments that test holes weren't completed. We did
this design in early January, and I recall in early January it was very cold and there was a
lot of snow, and we decided not to try to get equipment back into the woods under those
conditions. I have since done them. I've discussed it with both Mr. Oborne and the
Town Engineer, and they're aware that we have since done the holes, and the holes are
conducive to our design. There's public water available, which is good, something we
didn't have in the previous application. Proposed structure is just over 13,000 square
feet. It's a sanctuary, class area, youth areas, and other related uses, all for church use.
There is a small kitchen for their use, and what we've shown on our plans includes the
site layout data, wastewater, stormwater, parking, lighting, landscaping, and I guess
that's it. Any questions, I'll try to address them as they come up. We felt that it was a
pretty complete set of plans and we hope you feel the same way.
MR. HUNSINGER-Questions, comments from the Board?
MR. TRAVER-Did you see anything in the Staff comments that you thought you would
have difficulty accommodating? There are a number of them. Many of them are, didn't
appear to be terribly significant.
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes. I do want to touch on some of those. Fire Marshal comment. We
invited the input of the Fire Marshal, and with regard to the divided entrance, his point I
believe says the Fire Marshal's Office prefers no dividers. However, the minimal
acceptable driving lane must be 20 feet. So what we propose to do is widen the driving
lane. In response to this comment, our intent is to widen this driving lane to 20 feet. The
owners really like the island and they desire to keep it, if at all possible.
MR. TRAVER-Okay. Well, I guess if we could, I don't know if Staff can clarify because it
does say Fire Marshal's Office prefers no dividers, but before that, it says divided
concrete entrance does not conform.
MR. HUTCHINS-Right. It's the width. Once we go to 20 feet, then it conforms.
46
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. TRAVER-Then it can be divided.
MR. HUTCHINS-Then it conforms.
MR. TRAVER-Okay. Thank you.
MRS. STEFFAN-Because you can turn a fire truck.
MR. HUTCHINS-Right.
MR. TRAVER-Okay.
MR. HUTCHINS-The surface of the parking lot will be appropriate, and I'll get a note on
there as he adds, and I haven't discussed with him with regard to the fire hydrant, but
there is a fire hydrant right here, and it's shown on all the plans. So I'm presuming that
may address his concern. With regard to the other Staff comments, I don't believe there
are any that can't be overcome. I've talked about the test pits. An area of 50%
expansion of the leach field, that's an item we missed on the plan, but there's a mirror
area immediately adjacent, and there's plenty of space available. With regard to soils, I
have since done the test holes, and, as I said, there's no ground water issues found
whatsoever. We've done percolation tests. They were one minute, twenty seconds,
which under Town and State regulations is sufficient for us to install a conventional
system without the amended soils. I showed the amended soils initially, because I've
had some experience in the neighborhood as I'm sure we all have with soils that perc
faster than one minute, significantly faster than one minute. This wasn't the case we
found. So it would be our intent, based upon, that information that wasn't available, to
install these as a conventional system without the amended soils, and with regard to
stormwater, the design relies on the infiltration. I didn't want to say that word again, and I
don't know that there are any other options, frankly, because there's no surface water
bodies. There's no drainage structures in the road, and I can't think of what else we
could do. The soils are very conducive to it. I don't see that as being an issue. I think
we'd like to touch on the comment on lighting, and I know this has come up before, and
we did submit a lighting plan. The Town's lighting requirements are a little bit difficult to
understand, in that if they are a maximum or an average, and what we've done is we've
designed the parking to the minimal amount of light that, and I didn't personally do it, but
that the lighting designer that laid it out was comfortable doing. Less than one foot
candle is not very much light. Your Code indicates commercial parking lot at a different
value than indicated in the Staff comments, and I'm just, I'm not sure where Staff is
coming. They say commercial parking lot and then they say churches as a different, and
what we've done is designed it to keep it as minimal light as we can, and still be
comfortable that it's going to be safe and accessible.
MR. HUNSINGER-How often do you have events in the evening?
MR. HUTCHINS-Frequently, right?
MR. HUNSINGER-Probably frequently in the winter, right?
PASTOR LANGFORD-Well, we have a fair amount of things in the evening.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
PASTOR LANGFORD-I think the main thing, we certainly want to comply with anything
that we need to, that you guys are comfortable with, but more for us just in terms of
safety and the ladies especially would feel comfortable at night walking out in the parking
lot and could see around, you know, a patch of ice here or there, you know, just make
sure it was safe.
MR. DEL SIGNORE-I will say, in that regard, also, that if you look at the lighting plan,
there are areas out in the center of the parking lot in a few places that are only half a foot
candle, I believe, .5, maybe a .4 or two. Also, we talked with, we were speaking today,
actually, with someone that is a little more knowledgeable with respect to lighting, and
they said the only way that we could get some of the higher numbers down, right near
the lights, obviously, would be to use higher lights and brighter bulbs. So we're dealing
with that balance of the Board's preferences for the foot candle, but the higher poles, and
bigger and brighter lights shining down, so the light disperses. I think the plan as
presented is, it appears very reasonable and I would hope would be acceptable, taking
into account the comfort and safety of people in the parking lot also.
47
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. OBORNE-If I may, obviously the Planning Board is aware that they can waive the
requirements of lighting. Just wanted to throw that out there, and as far as safety and
lighting, there's very little correlation between bright lights and safety. In fact, it can be
reversed on you. So it's a subjective, and it is a comfort, and I understand that. As far
as getting, to become compliant, if you're required to do so, there are Lexan covers and
diffusers that you can put on that'll get you down, but again, reviewing to the Code, and
that's all.
MR. SEGULJIC-It doesn't seem to be excessively over lit by any means.
MR. OBORNE-No, not at all, especially when it says commercial parking lot 2.5.
MR. SEGULJIC-And they're at .4, I think.
MR. OBORNE-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-I don't really have any problem with it.
MR. HUNSINGER-If anything, I might be concerned that some of the parking lighting is
too low.
MR. DEL SIGNORE-That was a creature of trying to keep the higher numbers down,
also.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, you have a min of .4, and there's fairly large area where it's
.4, .5.
MR. HUTCHINS-But our average is over one, which is your standard.
MR. HUNSINGER-The Uniformity Ratio is okay.
MR. HUTCHINS-Uniformity is close, yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-But I guess, once again, you went to a lighting professional and this is
what they came back with.
MR. HUNSINGER-So, yes, are they comfortable that what's proposed is?
MR. DEL SIGNORE-Yes. In fact, we had that exact discussion about the .5, saying is
that light enough. Yes.
MR. FORD-It's been addressed.
MR. DEL SIGNORE-Yes.
MR. FORD-Good. Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Is there anything else?
MR. HUTCHINS-And I'm just looking through engineering comments here. With regards
to the issue on the water line on Corinth Road, I have, I didn't show the line on the plan.
I have talked with Scott Bernard in the Water Department, and that information's
available. Soil test data has been added. I can provide what he's asking for. He's
asking to clarify storage volumes in one of the ponds in the model, which can be done.
So, to go back to your question, Mr. Traver, there's nothing here that I feel is going to
involve a significant redesign effort.
MR. TRAVER-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-One of the questions that I had was, you know, when I looked at the
design of the building, you know, you're designing a really nice building. I think it's going
to, you know, it's going to look nice, but then you set it back off the road real far, put all
the parking in front.
MR. SEGULJIC-Exactly what I was going to say.
MR. HUNSINGER-Did you give any consideration to moving the building up closer and
having the parking either on the side or in the rear?
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MR. HUTCHINS-And it was discussed. The site isn't necessarily conducive to parking
on the side with this building.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right. So it would have to be in the rear.
MR. HUTCHINS-And we did talk about it, didn't we?
PASTOR LANFORD-If I could share, one of the biggest values for us, in terms of the
building design, is if you notice there's a nice, large foyer, and for us it's really important
for people to build relationships and stop and talk and so we don't just go straight in and
come straight out. So, really, if we put it in the rear, we would kind of be losing the effect
of our large foyer space. People would just kind of be walking in the side of the worship
area but not really using that, utilizing that as much, and that's really a distribution point
to children's areas, to youth's areas, and then into the worship area. So that's really
important to us, if at all possible, to have the front entrance, but we did think about that,
and we tried every way we could to try to work around that. Otherwise we'd have to turn
the building, you know, the rear of the building towards Corinth Road, which obviously
wouldn't look (lost word).
MR. HUNSINGER-Did you have anything to elaborate on that, Tom, since you had the
same thought?
MR. SEGULJIC-No. I had the same thought, but I'm not, that's not my bailiwick.
MR. SIPP-If you turned it 90 degrees and had the parking, for your back end would face
the side boundary.
MR. HUTCHINS-Right, the back of the building, per se, would face the side.
MR. SIPP-Yes, the back of the church would face the side boundary, and your parking
could be somewhat in front, or more in front than it would be if you turned the whole
thing, or if you brought it upfront.
PASTOR LANGFORD-We considered that, but with the way the property's laid out,
there's actually another property owner to the east of the property, and so it kind of limits
how much space there is available there to put the building, as well as parking in front.
Especially if we ever wanted to, you know, expand out the worship area, as we had
growth, if we wanted to expand that back, we would be up against the property line.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I mean, I asked the question, and in looking at the map, I mean,
the problem is we have an automobile dominant society, and if you start to play around
with the entrance, you know, you start to mess around with the ingress and egress and,
you know, pedestrian access, and you start to create conflicts between cars and people
and, you know, I wanted to ask the question, you know, to see if it had been considered.
MR. HUTCHINS-And obviously this site doesn't lay out well for side parking, because, I
mean, if you rotate your building, your front door's facing the side.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, and then it destroys the whole purpose of having the front of the
building closer to the road.
MR. HUTCHINS-So, yes, we did consider it, but it's really the preference to keep it.
MRS. STEFFAN-Plus, didn't you want to have activity fields or something in the back, so
that, you know, play areas or something?
PASTOR LANGFORD-Yes, it just seems to lay out better that way, especially for the
reasons we've mentioned, yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right. Can we consider, then, you know, because my only concern is
you have that beautiful church, and as you're driving by, you're going to see this big sea
of parking, asphalt. Any way we can enhance the landscaping, then, along the road to
try and minimize that view there? You've got a pretty good landscaping there. My
problem is I never know what it really looks like. Could you try and make it so you could
minimize any visual?
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MR. DEL SIGNORE-Our only concern with that, that I can think of, would be that we
don't want the landscaping to interfere with the sight line to the sign, the signage that
we're intending to put in the median going, but beyond that, I think.
MR. SEGULJIC-They already have some, what do you have in there? You have some
pin oaks and some pines of some type. Maybe some lower shrub type things.
PASTOR LANGFORD-We'll definitely want to do everything we can to make it look nice
and aesthetic, obviously, you know, for our church facility.
MR. SEGULJIC-What do I know about landscaping? I like trees.
MR. SIPP-Rhododendron, something, four, five foot high, can be pruned. The trouble is,
you've got to have an acid soil, which you don't have there, but you could make it acid.
PASTOR LANGFORD-You've got some trees out front there, right, Tom?
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, we do. We've shown, you know.
MR. SEGULJIC-So maybe some type of shrubbery in there, some rhododendrons or
whatever mixed in there.
MR. SIPP-Low growing yews or cedars.
MR. SEGULJIC-It looks good to me.
MR. HUNSINGER-Anything else from members of the Board?
MR. SEGULJIC-I'm all set, other than the comment letter.
MR. HUNSINGER-We do have a public hearing scheduled. Is there anyone in the
audience that wanted to address the Board on this application? Okay. I will open the
public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. HUNSINGER-And if there are no takers, any public comments, written comments?
MR. OBORNE-Well, let me check. Nothing, no.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. I will then close the public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MR. HUNSINGER-It's an Unlisted action. Well, before we move on to SEQRA, what's
the feeling of the Board? There are fairly extensive Staff and engineering comments.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes. We'd need a signoff by the Fire Marshal, by VISION Engineering.
There's Staff comments. Not all of them need to be satisfied at this point, but most of
them do. There are no sign details submitted.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do you have any sign details yet?
PASTOR LANGFORD-We have just something very simple here, but we can at least
show you an idea. We basically intend to transport the sign that we have out in front of
our building currently.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. DEL SIGNORE-But we're not asking you to look out the window.
MR. HUNSINGER-I drive by it every day. In fact, it looks a lot like the new Town sign
that's right here on Bay.
MR. TRAVER-And it's not going to be at 185 feet.
MR. OBORNE-You would unhook this sign and put it right in your island?
PASTOR LANGFORD-That's our intention. (lost words).
50
(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MRS. STEFFAN-It's a perfectly good sign.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. TRAVER-Yes.
MR. OBORNE-Okay. I can keep this?
PASTOR LANGFORD-Yes, sir.
MR. HUNSINGER-Are people comfortable moving forward, or do we need to see it
again?
MR. SEGULJIC-Well, I guess it's just that there's a lot of little issues.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, I know.
MR. SEGULJIC-There's a lot of little minor things and as much as I'd like to move it
forward, I think you're going to have to come back.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-But it should be pretty quick, I hope.
MRS. STEFFAN-So what do we do, do we wait on SEQRA?
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, if they're going to come back. How does everyone else feel?
MR. TRAVER-I'm sorry. What was the question?
MR. HUNSINGER-I asked if members were comfortable moving forward, or if we want to
see them come back.
MR. TRAVER-Right. Well, again, the awkward part is some of the Staff comments.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. TRAVER-I mean, I guess I don't feel strongly either way. I guess I'd kind of defer to
the majority.
MRS. STEFFAN-I guess, from my point of view, I would just like to have all the details
wrapped up, so when they came back, if everything was in order, it would be a very quick
approval.
MR. TRAVER-Very quick.
MR. OBORNE-If I may add, you'd have enough information to make a SEQRA
determination also, especially with the test pit information that needs to be supplied.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, good point.
MR. OBORNE-So you just want to cover yourself.
MR. SIPP-I'm going to need the test pit information, just for our information, make sure.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, the weren't witnessed, and they weren't done in the appropriate
time window.
MR. HUTCHINS-Well, and I did call the Town Engineer two days before I did them and I
didn't get a return call, but, no, they were not witnessed. You're correct, but the window
is coming up.
MRS. STEFFAN-Yes, very quickly.
MR. FORD-I hope.
MR. HUTCHINS-I do have the test pit log.
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MR. HUNSINGER-Did you submit new information yesterday?
MR. HUTCHINS-No.
MR. HUNSINGER-Darn. Yesterday was the deadline for April.
MR. HUTCHINS-I did request, after we submitted in January, if the review could be
moved up a week, but it didn't happen.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. We couldn't. There were too many. In fact, we even had three
meetings in March.
MR. HUTCHINS-Yes, I was thinking about the engineering review.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. HUTCHINS-But that couldn't happen.
MRS. STEFFAN-All right. Well, it looks like we're going to have to bring you back in
May. The first meeting in May.
MR. DEL SIGNORE-Just so you're aware, the contracts on the two parcels, every month
that passes on one of the two parcels, is costing the church money, and additional,
basically, I believe it's worded as being additional payments for the holding of the
property. It's not being attributed towards their purchase price. One contract we do have
a one 60 day window that we're allowed to extend, in our discretion. So that would get
us, in theory on one of the parcels, I believe into June. On the second parcel, that's the
one that they're charging us money to hold it, I don't know what other offers they have,
but nevertheless, I've gotten my (lost words) in against those people.
MR. TRAVER-Yes. It doesn't appear that we're moving toward a denial.
MR. DEL SIGNORE-No, I don't think so, either. I mean, I think that, I mean, I'm hopeful
that maybe June would be a workable closing date on the properties, but it is going to
cost the church a few thousand dollars.
PASTOR LANGFORD-But we'll do whatever you guys.
MR. DEL SIGNORE-But we want the Board to be comfortable.
MR. HUNSINGER-If we were to table it until April, would you still incur that cost? If we
were to try to bring you in in April?
MR. DEL SIGNORE-Every month that passes costs the church another two thousand
dollars.
PASTOR LANGFORD-But obviously that would be helpful.
MR. DEL SIGNORE-Starting back in November. They held our feet to the fire pretty
good.
MRS. STEFFAN-Keith, once these parcels are acquired, do they have to be joined? I
mean, they're two separate parcels.
MR. OBORNE-Absolutely they need to be combined, yes.
MR. DEL SIGNORE-But that's before we can do any construction or anything like that.
MR. OBORNE-Absolutely.
MR. DEL SIGNORE-But we have to purchase the two parcels individually, and then we'll
file the appropriate paperwork with the County.
MR. OBORNE-Yes. Certainly not as a condition of approval for, you would want that, I'm
sorry, let me re-state that, you would want that as a condition of approval, that by a
certain date prior to a CO being issued that this needs to be combined.
MR. HUNSINGER-How quickly can you address the Staff comments and engineering
comments?
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MR. HUTCHINS-Relatively quickly, a week to ten days, a couple of weeks.
MR. HUNSINGER-So it's not like Friday.
MR. HUTCHINS-Well, if I can submit them on Friday.
MR. HUNSINGER-That's what we're wrestling with. I mean, it's a long list.
MR. HUTCHINS-No, I can't submit them by Friday.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Yes. I think we need to table it until May.
MRS. STEFFAN-Friday the 27t", were you saying?
MR. HUNSINGER-No, I was thinking as in this Friday.
MRS. STEFFAN-As in the 20tH
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. HUTCHINS-I could do Friday the 27tH
MR. HUNSINGER-I know. He's going to kill me. I think we need to be safe and table it
until May.
MRS. STEFFAN-All right.
MOTION TO TABLE SITE PLAN NO. 10-2009 NEW HOPE COMMUNITY CHURCH,
Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Thomas Ford:
Tabled to the May 19t" Planning Board meeting. That will mean a submission deadline
for the applicant of April 15t". This is tabled so that the applicant can address and satisfy
VISION Engineering comments, Fire Marshal's comments and the Staff comments.
Duly adopted this 17t" day of March, 2009, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Traver, Mr. Krebs, Mrs. Steffan, Mr. Ford,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. HUNSINGER-And I have one additional request. I like the color scheme that you
submitted, but the printout, the colors were strange, you know, the were kind of reddish
and it was supposed to be tan. Is there any way you could bring like small samples to
the meeting so we could see the actual color?
MR. DEL SIGNORE-Sure.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. That would be great.
PASTOR LANGFORD-Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you.
SITE PLAN NO. 11-2009 SEAR TYPE II NEWMEADOW SARATOGA SCHOOL
AGENT(S) DAWN WHEELER OWNER(S) QUEENSBURY MASONIC HISTORICAL
SOCIETY ZONING UR-10 LOCATION 15 BURKE DRIVE APPLICANT PROPOSES
A NOT FOR PROFIT PRE-SCHOOL FOR CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS.
SCHOOLS IN A UR ZONE REQUIRE SITE PLAN REVIEW AND APPROVAL. CROSS
REFERENCE BP 91-861 CO ONLY BP 89-118 NEW BLDG WARREN CO.
PLANNING 3/11/09 APA, DEC, ACOE, OTHER LOT SIZE 4.29 +/- ACRES TAX
MAP NO. 302.5-1-1 SECTION 179-4-020, 179-9-010
DAWN WHEELER, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. HUNSINGER-Keith, whenever you're ready.
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MR. OBORNE-Site Plan 11-2009, Newmeadows Saratoga School. Requested action is
Site Plan Review for a new pre-school in the Urban Residential zone. Location is 15
Burke Drive. Existing zoning is UR-10. SEQRA Status is Unlisted. SEQRA
determination required, and let me check that SEQRA status, because I believe we have
it down as a II on the agenda, and I will have to get back to you on that. Project
Description. The applicant proposes a not for profit pre-school for children with special
needs. This school will be situated in the lower portion of the Masonic Lodge located
north of Northway Exit 19. Staff comments. The applicant plans to reconfigure a portion
of the open area in the lower portion of the Lodge by erecting two walls in the activity
area to create two classrooms for approximately 36 children ages three to five years old.
Classroom One will be located in the eastern portion of the lower area and Classroom 2
will be located in the center area. Two walls will be erected to separate the two
classrooms and an office area located to the west of classroom two (Note: The floor
plans as drawn have south on top, north on bottom, east to the left and west to the right).
In other words, you need to flip it upside down to have correct northern orientation. Both
classrooms will have 18 children in each and include instructors and volunteers. Each
class is broken down into groups of 12 disabled preschoolers and 6non-disabled
preschoolers. The disabled preschoolers have transportation provided by the county and
the non-disabled preschoolers will have individual transportation. The class hours are
from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Monday through Friday. Quickly wrapping up. Twelve parking
spaces are request and six are required per §179-4-040 for this preschool. The Masonic
Lodge requires 16 spaces based on the 80 seat assembly area. A total of 27 spaces are
denoted on plot plan with additional space provided for parking not yet denoted on plan.
(Note: The term Lodge is ambiguous in the parking table and the Planning Board, per
§179-4-040C, can assign a parking requirement. A reasonable use that is listed might be
Places of Worship with the associated 1 space per 5 seating spaces in the main
assembly area. With a seating capacity of 80 denoted on original Masonic Temple plans
dated March 17, 1987, the result would be 16 spaces required for the Temple portion of
this plan). The applicant has requested waivers from stormwater, grading and
landscaping requirements, and what follows is Site Plan Review.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Good evening.
MICHAEL WASHOWSKI
MR. WASHOWSKI-Good evening.
MR. HUNSINGER-I apologize for the late hour.
MR. WASHOWSKI-That's okay. Thank you. Thank you for having us and we appreciate
the opportunity to come before the Board. My name is Michael Washowski. I'm the
Executive Director at Newmeadow School. We're located in Malta, New York. To my
left is Dawn Wheeler. She is our Director of Operations, and to my right is AI Bryant who
works with the Masonic Lodge and he's on the Board there. We appreciate the
opportunity, once again, to come before you and I think the description that was read to
you is, pretty much summarizes what we want to do. We're interested in renting the
space from the Historic Society Masonic Lodge in order to conduct apre-school program
for children primarily with autism, and it really represents an extension of our services up
to the Queensbury area. At this point, as I said, we're located in Malta and we have, I
think it's like 15 children who come from the Washington/Warren County area, and we've
been approached by the early intervention folks in the Counties to consider moving our
program north so that the children don't have to travel as far, and that really was the
motivation for doing this, and I think at this point we have eight, nine students that are on
awaiting list who would be ready to participate in the program once we've got everything
in order. So I'd like to turn it over, if I can, to Dawn, who's been involved with the
logistics of everything.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you.
MS. WHEELER-Good evening. Thank you. Michael covered just about everything.
Down in our Malta site we have 152 children right now, and as Michael said, a group of
them does come from the Warren/Washington County area. So what we're hoping to do
is move those children closer to home, and provide the same services that we provide
down at the school in Malta. Our signature program is called Bridges. It's a program for
children with autism, and that seems to be the program that parents are interested in and
why they're willing to send their children, at this time, to Malta. So we're hoping to bring
those services closer to home, and we've had quite an interest already from the school
districts in the area, Glens Falls, Queensbury, Fort Ann, Argyle, Hadley Luzerne. So
we're sure that it will be something that the community is happy with.
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Questions, comments from members of the Board?
MR. WASHOWSKI-I think AI would like to say something. I'm sorry.
MR. HUNSINGER-I'm sorry. I thought you were finished. My fault.
AL BRYANT
MR. BRYANT-Actually, I'm AI Bryant. I'm the Secretary/Treasurer of the Board of
Trustees of the Queensbury Masonic Historical Society. They actually own the building,
and I just wanted to give you a little bit of background about that building. I'm sure most
of you have already visited the site, but just to paint a picture. To the north, you've got
the Methodist Church, which, besides being a church, also has a daycare center, and
right next to that is the Catholic church, and you know they do the religious training and
stuff like that there. So we're kind of like in the neighborhood, and then of course across
the street, Aviation Road, is the school complex. The building at 15 Burke Drive was
erected in 1990 by the Masonic Hall Association of Glens Falls, Incorporated, a Not For
Profit corporation formed in 1897. The purpose of the facility was originally to house four
Masonic Fraternal Organization. As membership in these organizations declined, it
became evident that more than 50% of the facility was either underused or not used at
all. In 1991, the lower level of the facility was occupied by Adirondack Pre-school, which
was also licensed by New York State Department of Ed. The school was primarily
dedicated to children with special needs. I think they specialized in children with
Cerebral Palsy, and they operated successfully for almost seven years. When the State
regulations changed and this function was handled by BOCES, this school vacated the
premises. Since that time, the lower level has been used by Prospect Child and Family
Center, and a number of churches, while they were working on their building, and it's
kind of strange because this church, the New Hope Church, actually started in our
building, and Northway Christian, John Tether on Homer, who came before you, six or
eight months ago, he started in that building, and the Unitarian Church also used that
building. Early on, the Masonic Hall Association recognized the need to open the
building up to the community. Many Not For Profit government institutions, Not For Profit
and government institutions, have used the facility without fee and most continued to this
day. These institutions include Warren County, WICK Program, Alcoholics Anonymous,
the Warren County Historical Society, the American Red Cross, the Shriners Hospitals,
Boy Scouts and the Cub Scouts. In 2005, the Queensbury Masonic Historical Society,
an institution chartered by the New York State Department of Education, and recognized
by the Museum Association of New York, acquired the building. The Society is
committed to preserving local history and serving as a research resource for genealogy
and local historical topics. The facility is open to the public. From its inception, the
Queensbury Masonic Center has been used for educational purposes, as well as to
serve the community. Newmeadow would be a welcome addition to the long list of
community and educational organizations that have graced this institution. Thank you.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you. Now I'll ask if there's any questions, comments from the
Board.
MRS. STEFFAN-Actually, AI's presentation cleared up a couple of things. I was
wondering about the relationship. Obviously Newmeadow handles autistic children, but
the Prospect Center handles children with other disabilities, but they were using the site.
So that's kind of interesting. Okay.
MR. BRYANT-They actually, Prospect used the site when they were building their
addition, and they needed to use it for about 18 months. It was mostly for the teachers
that went out into the field. It wasn't necessarily for, you know.
MRS. STEFFAN-The students.
MR. SEGULJIC-Just one clarification. So it sounds like, theoretically, half the kids would
be getting dropped off by a bus, and the other half would come in a car. So traffic would
be pretty minimal, I assume.
MS. WHEELER-It is. Transportation is provided by the County the child lives in for the
children with special needs. So Warren County and Washington County would choose a
transporter. Right now it's Stansky Corporation. You've probably seen their little yellow
buses around, or mini vans is usually what they use. So there's usually three or four
children on a bus. The children who would be the nursery school children, those
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(Queensbury Planning Board 03/17/09)
typically developing children, the ones without special needs, would be dropped off by
their parents, as they would any nursery school.
MR. HUNSINGER-And that was my question, was on the size of the buses. Because I
don't know if it's a driveway or the road into the facility itself, it's not very wide.
MS. WHEELER-Right.
MR. HUNSINGER-So it's not the full size school buses.
MS. WHEELER-No. Usually the little 15 passenger buses, it looks like a van, a regular
van.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MS. WHEELER-And what they would do is come in that main road where that car is now
and just come around that large parking area and drop off at the side which, where our
entrance would be, and go right back out.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. FORD-Could someone please address the Not For Profit status of this school?
MS. WHEELER-We are a Not For Profit corporation, 501C-3, we have a Board of
Directors.
MR. FORD-Thank you.
MR. TRAVER-Once you begin service delivery to this population in the North Country,
do you expect that you will outgrow this facility in a relatively short few years? I mean,
that would be my expectation. You are bringing your service to a large, unmet need, I
suspect, and I'm just wondering, I guess it doesn't really have to do with this application,
but I'm just wondering, sort of strategically planning, are you thinking in terms of how you
might manage that increase in your case load?
MR. WASHOWSKI-It's a good question. It's a hard one to answer, because it's hard to
have a crystal ball to see what's going on, but in the field of Special Education, autism is
being a type of disability that seems to be, you know, more prominent than before. So a
lot more kids are.
MR. TRAVER-Well, being diagnosed more.
MR. WASHOWSKI-Being diagnosed more.
MR. FORD-Yes, right.
MR. WASHOWSKI-And, you know, if that translates into us outgrowing that facility, you
know, it's hard to say. I wouldn't know how to really answer that, but I think the one way
to look at is that autism is a prominent feature in the field of disabilities today.
MR. TRAVER-Yes, thank you.
MR. WASHOWSKI-And other questions, comments? We do have a public hearing
scheduled this evening. Is there anyone in the audience that wanted to address the
Board? Okay. We do have a couple, at least one person that wants to speak. If you
could just identify yourself for the record.
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
GEORGE FARONE
MR. FARONE-Good evening, George Farone, 4 Sugar Pine. I am here as the trustee for
Our Lady of Annunciation Church. Reviewed the records the other day. The Masons,
and we look forward to the new folks as neighbors. The only concern we had was with
possibly traffic problems. I think someone already brought it up there. This is an area
where you have two churches, and you have a school across the road. It seems to be
very busy around period of eight o'clock, nine o'clock, and with the additional traffic of,
you know, another 12 children being dropped off, I don't know how many buses from the
County, and you do have an interconnection between OLA's parking lot and the driveway
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in the back with the Masonic Hall and also the Methodist Church. So our concern was
people possibly trying to cut through parking lots and different things causing additional
traffic in that area, and OLA also has school programming in the morning. Queensbury's
been eliminating the afternoons for the children. So more and more of the classes are in
the morning. It sounds like the last two classes in the Middle School, for the fourth and
fifth graders, is being pushed to the mornings as well. So there's a lot of activity in that
area.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Thank you. Sir, did you want to comment, too? Okay. Any
written comments?
MR. OBORNE-No, sir.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Did you have any thoughts on the traffic issue?
MR. WASHOWSKI-Well, you know, the one thing that we've already covered is that we
are not bringing big buses in. So I don't know if that would have an impact on things. At
this juncture, our population would be rather limited. So at least for the immediate future
there would be, I wouldn't think there'd be any impact, and, you know, if there is, we'd be
happy to try to work with our neighbors to figure out how to address it.
MRS. STEFFAN-What's the start time for your school?
MR. WASHOWSKI-Our kids arrive about 10 minutes of nine, start arriving around 10
minutes of nine.
MRS. STEFFAN-Actually, that's much later than, I think.
MR. WASHOWSKI-We run a nine to one program.
MR. SIPP-Queensbury School would already be started.
MR. HUNSINGER-I was going to say, the big traffic problem in front of the Queensbury
School is around 7:15.
MR. SIPP-They would be started by that, the bus runs would be over by that time.
MR. FORD-Yes.
MR. SIPP-The last bus runs at 8:15, and the afternoon one doesn't start until two, two
something. So that it's a mess up there anyway.
MR. BRYANT-Can I respond a little bit about the parking?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Sure.
MR. BRYANT-Before the building was built, we came before this Board and it was
suggested in that meeting in 1988 that this structure connecting the two churches with
our method of egress onto Burke Drive was all part of the approved plan. As far as the
Church of the Annunciation goes, there is a do not enter sign just where that jog goes to
the left there. Unfortunately you don't see the sign. This is not a spy satellite, but.
MR. HUNSINGER-I did see it when I went out to visit the site.
MR. BRYANT-Yes. Mostly traffic doesn't go that way. Sometimes it goes through the
Methodist Church, if they're going onto Aviation Road, but the original purpose of that
whole structure was so that the churches, as well as our parking lot, could dump onto
Burke Drive, okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-Interesting.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, that makes sense, because we've asked for interconnects.
MR. HUNSINGER-So it was always intended to be sort of a one way
MR. BRYANT-Yes. Exactly.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes, but that wouldn't prohibit people from using the church parking
lots as a cut through to avoid Burke Drive.
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MR. BRYANT-No, it probably wouldn't. The way the parking lots are designed, I mean,
the Church is on Sunday. We never have activities on Sunday, in our building, and the
Churches, generally they overflow into our parking lot anyway, and sometimes when we
have a large presentation or some kind of activity, we flow into their parking lot. So, I
mean, that's just the nature of the beast.
MR. HUNSINGER-Sure.
MR. BRYANT-We're all neighbors.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-I'm comfortable with it.
MR. KREBS-Yes, me, too.
MR. TRAVER-Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-So, Keith, is it a Type II or is it Unlisted?
MR. OBORNE-I'm looking and I'm seeing it's a Type II. If you can give me one second
to corroborate that, please.
MRS. STEFFAN-Okay.
MR. FORD-I, personally, am glad to see this being offered closer to home for those
needy children.
MR. WASHOWSKI-Thank you.
MR. FORD-And it is a good facility because, when I used to be the Director of Special
Programs for the Glens Falls City School District, I used to visit that site many times and
see our kids in there.
MR. WASHOWSKI-Great.
MR. SIPP-Would these all be autistic?
MS. WHEELER-No. Down at our Malta site about 50% of the children with special
needs are children diagnosed within the autism spectrum.
MR. SIPP-What other?
MS. WHEELER-The other children?
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MS. WHEELER-Speech and language delays, motor needs. We don't service the more
severely.
MR. WASHOWSKI-Like physically disabled.
MS. WHEELER-Yes. We don't have children in wheelchairs or special equipment, that
kind of thing.
MR. SIPP-I was just reading an article in the times today about autism and the areas
where it seems to be more prevalent, definite areas, certain parts, certain States, certain
places within the State, and certain ethnic groups.
MR. WASHOWSKI-Was this in the New York Times?
MR. SIPP-Yes.
MR. WASHOWSKI-I'll have to get it. There's a lot of activity around autism in terms of
research and application of theory and everything.
MR. SIPP-There's also a lot of misdiagnoses according to the Times.
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MR. WASHOWSKI-Well, that's the nature of the beast when you're talking about Special
Ed.
MR. HUNSINGER-I just wanted to follow up on the traffic issue. I think, knowing that
you're willing to work with your neighbors, if and when there's an issue that comes up, I
think, you know, is helpful.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, certainly based on your numbers, and the kind of transportation
that's coming, and your hours of operation, I think that there won't be a dramatic impact
at all to your neighbors.
MR. FORD-Reinforcing, your numbers, again, will be?
MR. WASHOWSKI-Maximum would be 36 students at this point, you know, if we filled up
to that level. We have like eight on the waiting list now.
MS. WHEELER-We're only looking, at this facility right now, we've only asked State Ed.
for approval for two classrooms.
MR. FORD-Two classes, and how many in each?
MS. WHEELER-Eighteen. There'll be 12 children with special needs and six nursery
school children, in each classroom.
MR. WASHOWSKI-We have certified Special Ed. and nursery school teachers, along
with a number of aides.
MR. FORD-How many teacher assistants?
MR. WASHOWSKI-It depends upon the needs of the kids. Some have one to one aides.
Others are, you know, we have at least one full time teacher assistant and part time
assistants as well, plus the one to one aides. So we have a lot of coverage.
MS. WHEELER-In each classroom typically there are four staff, the Special Ed. teacher,
the nursery school teacher, and two teachers.
MR. SIPP-Are these State funded?
MS. WHEELER-The funding comes, is shared. It's shared by the New York State
Education Department and the County the child lives in.
MR. SIPP-The County. BOCES funds?
MR. WASHOWSKI-No.
MR. FORD-No, it's the County.
MR. WASHOWSKI-Actually, we've gotten letters of support from the BOCES in the area
to continue such a program because it's not necessarily available at this point in the
public schools.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay. Anything else? Everyone comfortable moving forward?
MR. FORD-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Do you have a resolution?
MRS. STEFFAN-Did you close the public hearing?
MR. HUNSINGER-I will close the public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MRS. STEFFAN-I'll make a motion.
MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 11-2009 NEWMEADOW SARATOGA
SCHOOL, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by
Stephen Traver:
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1) A site plan application has been made to the Queensbury Planning Board for the
following: Applicant proposes a not for profit pre-school for children with special
needs. Schools in a UR zone require Site Plan Review and approval; and
2) A public hearing was advertised and held on 3/17/09; and
3) This application is supported with all documentation, public comment and
application material in the file of record; and
4) MOTION TO APPROVE SITE PLAN NO. 11-2009 NEWMEADOW SARATOGA
SCHOOL, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded
by Stephen Traver:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. Paragraph Four A complies.
Paragraph Four B, this is a Type II action. Paragraph Four E does not apply.
Paragraph Four F does not apply.
a) 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
b) This is Type II action, no further review is required.
c) Final approved plans, in compliance with the Site Plan, must be submitted
to the Community Development Department before any further review by
the Zoning Administrator or Building and Codes personnel. 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.
d) The applicant will provide as-built plans to certify that the site plan is
developed according to the approved plans prior to issuance of the
certificate of occupancy; and
e) NOT APPLICABLE If applicable, Item 7 to be combined with a letter of
credit; and
f) NOT APPLICABLE. The Sanitary Sewer connection plan must be
submitted to the Wastewater Department for its review, approval,
permitting and inspection; and
g) The Planning Board will grant waivers for stormwater, grading and
landscaping requirements.
h) As a condition of approval, they would need to add one space to be
compliant.
Duly adopted this 17t" day of March, 2009, by the following vote:
MRS. STEFFAN-And are we okay on parking? They have 16 spaces which seems
adequate. Correct?
MR. FORD-Yes.
MR. OBORNE-You can't approve parking below, only above. So, what, all they need to
do, and all I'm looking for, just to make it clean, is to add one more space to their plan,
and they could probably add 60. So, just to make it clean, if you could add as a condition
of approval, that they add the one space per the Staff Notes.
AYES: Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Ford, Mr. Krebs, Mr. Traver, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
NOES: NONE
MR. HUNSINGER-Good luck.
MRS. STEFFAN-Good luck on your project.
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MR. WASHOWSKI-Thank you very much.
MR. HUNSINGER-Thank you.
MR. BRYANT-Thank you very much.
MR. HUNSINGER-Is there anything else to come before the Board? I see there's the
handout this evening on the training at the end of the month. Just remind everyone that
you do have to get in four hours of training during the course of the year, and this would
knock out three.
MR. SEGULJIC-Just a quick comment, Mr. Chairman. I guess one of my concerns is it
seems as if the applicant and the engineer are communicating a lot more. Because I
always thought the communication was to go through Staff.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I was a little surprised by that, too.
MR. SEGULJIC-My concern is that we don't have representation when they're speaking,
and there was one application in particular that came in and said I clarified it with the
engineer, but we don't have the engineer to clarify it, and we lose, so I guess what can
we do about that? Send them a letter just admonishing them when it occurs?
MR. OBORNE-Well, typically Dan doesn't respond. If they're in the same office,
because they are in the same area, you know, it's difficult to not mention things.
MR. HUNSINGER-Right.
MR. OBORNE-Any time that the applicant says that we have talked to the engineer,
disregard it. That would be my.
MR. SEGULJIC-But my problem is that then it leads to us getting a letter that says
everything's been taken care of when he's only, you know, we haven't had any.
MR. OBORNE-Yes. I'll certainly bring it up to Craig's attention and to Pam's attention,
Pam Whiting's attention that, you know, we need to do something about that, absolutely.
MR. SEGULJIC-Okay. I appreciate that.
MR. OBORNE-I agree.
MR. SEGULJIC-I assume the Board understands the concern and agrees.
MR. HUNSINGER-Absolutely.
MR. FORD-Absolutely. I agree with it.
MR. HUNSINGER-We've talked about that ad nauseum.
MR. OBORNE-And one other issue, and I know I'm adding and I know we want to get out
of here, is that the applicant's receive my Staff Notes on the Friday before the meeting
and engineering Staff Notes on the Friday before the meeting, and that really does not
give them a lot of time to digest it, and being here only a year now, it seems that that
would be one thing that probably should be changed. How you would go about it, I don't
know. What's the thought of the Board on that.
MRS. STEFFAN-It changes the whole queue. You have to change the whole schedule.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, and we've talked about that before, and we've even sent letters
and resolutions to the engineer to ask if he could get them done sooner.
MR. OBORNE-Okay.
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, the point's well taken.
MR. OBORNE-Right. It really handcuff's the applicant, I think.
MR. SEGULJIC-But on the other hand, aren't those comments for us to digest and get
back to the applicant and say you have to address all these, or you only have to address
three of these four.
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MR. OBORNE-That's true. Absolutely. Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, and it's kind of like, you know, the public hearing. Again this
evening you hear, you know, a commentor asking the applicant for information, that the
purpose of the public hearing is for the public to give us information, not for the public to
come and get educated.
MR. TRAVER-And that's in the directions that we have.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Which is why I pointed out, you know, I mean, I don't remember
to do it all the time, but I do try to remember to point it out at least once during the course
of the meeting, so that they know, look, you're here for our sake, you know, not the other
way around.
MRS. STEFFAN-Should we start to look at having the engineer present on some, you
know, at agenda control, you know, when we look at an issue, obviously, Chris, you look
at whether we need counsel, but maybe we need to start looking at, do we have
engineers present. I mean, they used to be present every meeting.
MR. HUNSINGER-At every meeting.
MRS. STEFFAN-And of course that cost us money, but like these lake projects, when we
get into the 147 Code, you know, we're out of our element.
MR. SEGULJIC-I would agree. With some applications it would be helpful and I think it
would help reduce the backlog, because then the engineer's right there and we can ask
point blank, this is exactly what we're looking for, because right now it's just.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. FORD-Well, we had a good case in point earlier tonight.
MR. HUNSINGER-Absolutely. Yes.
MRS. STEFFAN-That Lake George project with all the setbacks, and the infiltration close
to the lake.
MR. FORD-We ought to have him here when we have them back.
MRS. STEFFAN-For Site Plan.
MR. SEGULJIC-So I guess, Mr. Chairman, how would we handle it? Would we make a
recommendation to (lost words) and say I think we need the engineer on this application
and you can make that decision?
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. I mean, part of the problem is, I think, you know, we need to
give him adequate notice that we need him here.
MR. TRAVER-Yes.
MR. SEGULJIC-Once we get the agendas, right?
MR. HUNSINGER-I mean, I think that one is a pretty clear that that would be helpful.
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, let's give some thought to, you know, how, what would we look
for, what would be the key elements that we would want to look at? With the legal stuff
it's kind of clear, usually.
MR. SEGULJIC-Yes. The thing I was going to say, when we get the engineering
responses, the comment letter, but that's too late or.
MR. HUNSINGER-Well, it may be, it may not be.
MRS. STEFFAN-Well, tonight the Sketch that wasn't signed, when we had the guy from
VISION Engineering, Mike from VISION Engineering. I mean, he was definitively
assertive.
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MR. SEGULJIC-Absolutely.
MRS. STEFFAN-And so in that situation, because there's a wetland involved, I think that
we should have, for example I guess Paragon Engineering is our consultant on that job,
it would be helpful to have them here, because we're dealing with a wetland. We're
dealing with subdivision regulations in addition to, you know, wetlands, Army Corp
Wetlands. There's a lot going on.
MR. OBORNE-As far as the Sub Regs, you guys can handle that.
MRS. STEFFAN-They're straightforward. When you get into the wetland issues and
grade issues, and they start to come together.
MR. TRAVER-But at what degree, having engineer and, my only concern is having,
being careful about when we have, what applications the engineer is present for,
because I can see where at some point it's more beneficial to the applicant than it is to
us, and, you know, there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that, but, I mean, if it gets
to the point where it's primarily a benefit to the applicant, you know, then we're spending
money that we need to be thinking about. So maybe as part of the establishment of the
agenda, you know, it could become, evaluating the engineering concerns associated
with a given applicant, might lead to a recommendation that could be reviewed maybe by
somebody.
MRS. STEFFAN-Because I just think some of these projects that we're spending two
hours on, the reason we're spending two hours on them is because of the complexity of
the plan. So, in those situations, I think that we would be supported by having
professional help.
MR. HUNSINGER-Absolutely.
MR. FORD-And up and down the line wE
information, and if that engineer had been
have been able to clarify a lot of that issue.
continue to report we don't have sufficient
sitting here earlier tonight, I think we would
MRS. STEFFAN-I think that we could have been out of here an hour ago if we had more.
MR. HUNSINGER-I agree.
MR. KREBS-I often have thought, too, that if we could get Staff comments and
engineering comments to the applicant a week or so before they come to the Board, that
they would have answers to a lot of those questions, and we would be able to process
this much faster than we do today. Oftentimes they need to go off, like Tom said, I can't
do that by next Friday, but if we gave them adequate time, we would spend less time
sitting here and they would spend less time, and it would take less trips to the Board,
which would ease up our schedule, because we'd get that information to them, so that
they could look at it before they came to the meeting.
MR. OBORNE-Well, if you take my notes and you put them next to Dan's notes and
Mike's because writing a lot of these notes, too, Mike Farrell is, and if you find something
that's engineering related and I'm also hitting on it, ask me and we could just eliminate
that, that aspect of it. That two foot to bedrock is, like you said, it's two foot to bedrock.
It's an impervious surface. It's intrinsic. Yes, it doesn't say it in the Major stormwater
guidelines, but, come on, I mean, you're an engineer. Give me a break, and I've had
discussions with Craig. Everything that I write down is vetted in our Department. Are we
engineers? No, we're not. My background is stormwater. So I do have that down, and
soils. As far as the engineering for water quality and doing these subcatchment basins,
no. Those calculations are easy, but I don't do that, but when it comes to 147, you all
have a pretty good handle on it, I feel, but that would be my suggestion. If you see
engineering comments and you see my comments and they're similar, definitely ask me.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MR. OBORNE-At least maybe that'll speed it up.
MR. HUNSINGER-Okay.
MR. SEGULJIC-I mean, after Site Plan Review or whatever, we might decide we need
the engineer at the next meeting, and that's the easy answer, I guess.
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MR. HUNSINGER-Yes. Sure.
MR. SEGULJIC-All right. I'll motion to adjourn.
MR. HUNSINGER-Yes.
MOTION TO ADJOURN THE QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING OF
MARCH 17, 2009, Introduced by Thomas Seguljic who moved for its adoption, seconded
by Gretchen Steffan:
Duly adopted this 17`n day of March, 2009, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Ford, Mr. Traver, Mr. Sipp, Mr. Seguljic, Mr. Krebs, Mrs. Steffan,
Mr. Hunsinger
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
Chris Hunsinger, Chairman
64