2010.03.24
(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
SECOND REGULAR MEETING
MARCH 24, 2010
INDEX
Use Variance No. 66-2009 Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless 1.
Tax Map No. 307.00-1-31
Area Variance No. 10-2010 Casey VanAperloo 12.
Tax Map No. 309.18-1-42
Area Variance No. 13-2010 M & W Foods, Inc./Ray Aley 14.
Tax Map No. 302.6-1-43
Area Variance No. 14-2010 Christian & Eustacia Sander 18.
Tax Map No. 278.-2-29 and 30
Area Variance No. 15-2010 Chris Gabriels 21.
Tax Map No. 227.17-1-29
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 ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
SECOND REGULAR MEETING
MARCH 24, 2010
7:00 P.M.
MEMBERS PRESENT
JAMES UNDERWOOD, CHAIRMAN
ROY URRICO, SECRETARY
JOAN JENKIN
RICHARD GARRAND
JOAN JENKIN
BRIAN CLEMENTS
MEMBERS ABSENT
RONALD KUHL
LAND USE PLANNER-KEITH OBORNE
STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. I’m going to call the March 24, 2010 meeting of the
Queensbury Zoning Board of Appeals to order, and starting out I want to quickly go
through our procedures, once again, for anybody that perhaps is new here. As we
handle each application I’ll call the application by name and number. The secretary will
read the pertinent parts of the application, Staff Notes and Warren County Planning
Board decision if applicable into the record. Then we’ll ask the applicant to present any
information they wish to present to the Board. The Board will ask questions of the
applicant, and then we’ll open the public hearing. The public hearing’s intended to help
us gather information and understand it about the issue at hand. It functions to help the
Board members make a wise decision. It does not make the decision for the Board
members. There will be a five minute limit on all speakers, and we will allow speakers to
speak again after everybody’s had a chance to speak, but not for more than three
minutes, and only if after listening to other speakers, a speaker believes that they have
new information to present, and, Board members, I’d suggest that because we have the
five minute limit that we not interrupt the speaker with questions while they’re speaking.
Rather we should wait until the speaker has finished his five minute period and then ask
the questions. Following all the speakers, we’ll read in any correspondence into the
record, and then the applicant will have an opportunity to react and respond to the public
comment. Board members then will discuss the variance request with the applicant.
Following that, the Board members will have a chance to explain their positions on the
application, and then the public hearing will be closed or left open depending on the
situation, and finally, if appropriate a motion to approve or disapprove will follow. We’re
one member short tonight. So I think you can probably let everything roll here, unless
somebody wants a full Board of seven members, but I don’t think that’s probably going to
be necessary.
OLD BUSINESS:
USE VARIANCE NO. 66-2009 SEQRA TYPE: II CELLCO PARTNERSHIP d/b/a
VERIZON WIRELESS AGENT(S): NIXON PEABODY, LLP OWNER(S): ARTHUR L.
HULL, CHRISTINE D. HULL ZONING: MDR & LC-10A LOCATION: 301 WEST
MOUNTAIN ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES CONSTRUCTION OF A 120 FOOT
WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS FACILITY WITH 12 FT. BY 30 FT. EQUIPMENT
SHELTER AND ASSOCIATED IMPROVEMENTS. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM THE
ALLOWABLE USES OF THE MDR ZONE. CROSS REF.: SPR 36-2009; SP 69-05; SV
7-2003 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: MARCH 10, 2010 ADIRONDACK PARK
AGENCY: YES LOT SIZE: 147.23 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 307.00-1-31 SECTION:
179-5-130
JARED LUSK, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
MR. UNDERWOOD-This also has a 1,500 linear foot access road also proposed to get
up on the side of the hill. Keith, we had no hold ups with this last night with the Planning
Board?
MR. OBORNE-Not, just what they stated in their recommendation.
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MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes. Sure.
MR. OBORNE-Which I believe was site and proximity to the stream.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay, and I think what we’ll do, because you guys are probably
going to want to explain it to us, our task is such that, you know, we’re looking at this
because it’s not a permitted use in the zone where it’s being proposed to be built.
STAFF INPUT
Notes from Staff, Use Variance No. 66-2009, Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless,
Meeting: March 24, 2010 “Project Location: 301 West Mountain Road Description of
Proposed Project: The applicant proposes to erect a 120 foot monopole
telecommunication tower capable of supporting Verizon Wireless equipment on a +/-147
acre parcel adjacent to the West Mountain Ski area within the Adirondack Park. Further,
a 360 square foot support structure to house equipment associated with the
telecommunication tower and a 1,500 linear foot access road also proposed.
Relief Required:
The applicant requests relief from allowable uses in the Moderate Density Residential
district.
Criteria for considering a Use Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law:
The four (4) criteria usually associated with a use variance are different in this case.
Verizon Wireless is consider a public utility under New York decisional law (Cellular
Telephone Company v. Rosenberg, 82N.Y.2d 364(1993) and a provider of “personal
wireless services” under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. As a result of these
decisions, the following are to be shown by the public utility in order to gain a use
variance:
1.) That the proposed improvement is a public necessity in that it is required to
render safe and adequate service; That the safe and adequate service may be
considered a common practice by this public utility, the public necessity aspect
may be open to interpretation.
2.) That there are compelling reasons, economic and otherwise, for permitting the
variance. This public utility appears to have shown compelling reasons, both
economic and service specific, that this variance may be permitted.
3.) Where the intrusion or burden on the community is minimal, the showing required
by the utility should be correspondingly reduced. The applicant appears to have
chosen this site with minimal intrusion on the community in mind.
Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.):
BP 09-060 Single Family Dwelling Approved 3/17/09
Staff comments:
The applicant is before the Zoning Board in order to gain a use variance. Currently, the
zoning code only allows Telecommunication Towers in the Commercial Light Industrial
(CLI) and Heavy Industrial (HI) zones. In order for the applicant to proceed to Site Plan
Review, the Zoning Board of Appeals will need to pass the Use Variance before them.
Standards for placement. New or modified antennas or telecommunication towers shall
be placed according to the following priority:
1.Collocation on an existing tower
2.Placement of antennas or other telecommunication equipment in or on an
existing tall structure located in the Commercial Light Industrial and Heavy
Industrial zones
3.Placement of antennas or other telecommunication equipment in or on an
existing tall structure not located in the Commercial Light Industrial and Heavy
Industrial zones
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4.Placement of a new tower on a lot where another communications tower already
exists
5.Placement of a new tower on a lot within the Commercial Light Industrial and
Heavy Industrial zones.
Note: Where a shared use of existing towers and structures is not proposed, the
applicant must provide documentation of the inability to utilize an existing tower or
structure. This must be documented to the satisfaction of the Zoning Board of Appeals.
It has been brought to the attention of staff and subsequently confirmed by Michael
Hill, counsel for the town, that a SEQR determination is unnecessary for the Cellco
project off of West Mountain Road. The project has been reclassified as Type II as this
is an APA Class A regional project and is reviewed under the APA environmental
guidelines.
SEQR Status:
Type II - No environmental review necessary.”
MR. URRICO-And do you want me to read in the motion from the Planning Board last
night?
MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure.
MR. URRICO-Last night the Planning Board made a motion, “MOTION TO MAKE A
RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FOR USE VARIANCE
NO. 66-2009 AND SITE PLAN NO. 36-2009 CELLCO PARTNERSHIP d/b/a VERIZON
WIRELESS, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by
Steven Jackoski:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. We select Option Two. The
Planning Board, based on a limited review, has identified the following areas of
concern:
a.The visual impact of the proposed cell tower on the West Mountain vista.
b.The stream distance from the proposed driveway.”, and this was approved six
zero with one absent.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Do you want to fill us in? Anything else you want to add? I
know the application’s very thorough, you know, and for those of us that took the time to
really go through it, you could spend hours and hours and hours looking at your area of
coverage that you’re trying to get over there in that immediate vicinity of the
neighborhood of where this tower is going to be. I think many of us on the Board have
previously dealt with other applications and so we sort of have a good layman’s
background as to what is and what isn’t and what works and what doesn’t work. Maybe
you could fill us in as to why you finally decided on this site after reviewing the other ones
that you had possible.
MR. LUSK-Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the Board. My name is Jared Lusk.
I’m with the law firm of Nixon, Peabody in Rochester, New York, and I, along with my
colleagues, are responsible for Verizon Wireless, their expansion and coverage in the
Adirondack Park. I know there’s been other attorneys here representing Verizon
Wireless before you on other sites, but I’m here on this site because we do all of their
sites in the Adirondack Park. This is an application that’s both before the Adirondack
Park Agency as well as before you. I should also introduce Herb Glavoda who is from
Techtonic Engineering who is the engineer on the site. So if you had any questions on
the engineer, we wanted to make sure that Herb was here, particularly given the
Planning Board’s question of last evening. This project is not new. Those of you that
have been around for a while understand how I originally personally met with Craig
Brown and others back as far as 2007, and this has been a long process. We
preliminarily met with Skip Allcall from the Adirondack Park Agency as well as Mr. Brown
here, to sort of go over the site, what we were trying to cover, and sort of went through
an informal review process of the application, and I don’t want bore you with that, but
suffice it to say that the last sort of idea that they wanted us to explore was the water
tank, the existing Town water tank that’s down the street a bit from the site, and we
worked, it’s a very small, tight site. We visited the site that day. We walked the site. We
spoke to neighbors about potentially putting a tower up. It’s addressed in the site
selection analysis, but that’s what took a long time to try to get, finally to get the Town
Water Department to make a decision one way or the other on the site, and as it turns
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out, the Town Water Department came back and said they weren’t interested in us using
the site. From our preliminary analysis, we didn’t think it was as good a site anyway
because the tower would have had to have been much taller than 120 feet to make up
for the loss of ground elevation from our proposed site to that site, and the tight
constraints on the site, but again, they weren’t even interested in leasing us property or
attempting to get it to work. So we analyzed the tower, whether we could weld
something on the top of it, and it just became overly burdensome, I think, for everybody
involved, but once we went through that process, it took the better part of a year or so,
we then proceeded with moving forward with the Luzerne site, on the chosen site, on the
whole property. I can tell you I will refer to certain exhibits to the application and for
purposes of your time and the public’s time tonight, I’ll try to summarize it. Certainly
you’ve all read it, and as you said you’ve had some experience with it, but as far as our
coverage area, I’m sure you’ve seen the propagations that we’ve had before, and I don’t
mean to put my back to anyone, so feel free to look, but this is included in Exhibit J to
your application as well as Exhibit R that was the revised, but this is existing coverage is
the light blue area, and if you were to look in Exhibit R, actually I’ll pull this out so you
can see it, this map that you have here is actually the coverage area that we’re trying to
reach, is outlined in yellow. That’s the coverage, the approximate coverage area. It’s
drawn on a computer screen by hand. It’s really where we’re trying to be, and the RF
has well documented in the exhibits that have come through, is that our search area, in
order to provide coverage to that area, we needed to sort of be within that purple ring, as
you said because of the harsh topography, we needed to sort of be in the top of the hill
shooting into the area, and that was his preliminary assessment, and Verizon Wireless
then gives this search area, this ring, to its real estate people and they go out and find
location, and as part of their first responsibility, I know both in their corporate policy as
well as in your Code, is to try to look for co-location opportunities. One of them obviously
was the Town water tank, and as I discussed with you, that didn’t work for any number of
issues, the most important of which is the Town wasn’t interested in leasing the property
to use it, but again, as I said to you, it wouldn’t have worked as well. We would have
required a much taller antenna centerline, somewhere in the 150 foot range, instead of
the 120. The Luzerne Road tower, as is documented in the application, I’ve got to go
back, again, this has been well documented. I’m not an RF Engineer, but I stayed in a
hotel in Albany last night that wasn’t a Holiday Inn, but I can try to explain this to you in a,
that if the towers are too high, it actually shoots the RF energy over the whole area, and
it creates interference because one tower can only handle so many calls at any given
time, and if you get the coverage shooting over too much of an area, there’s too many
calls for that tower to handle, and that handset that you use gets confused because it
doesn’t know which tower it should be speaking to, and it actually drops the calls if
there’s no coverage at all. I think the RF Engineer tried to explain that to you, if you
recall, I think it was in Exhibit R where he discussed the rock station versus the country
station and you get on the edge between, you know, here and Albany and you’ll get two
different channels that are on the same frequency. Your radio doesn’t know which
channel to listen to, and it’s precisely, he used that as an analogy. It’s a crude analogy,
but it’s very similar. So you can’t have a tower that’s too tall and covering too much of an
area, and you can’t have a tower that’s too short. So the key here is having it just tall
enough, just from the Adirondack Park Agency’s perspective, just above the trees, so
that it’s substantially invisible, and in an effort to deliver service to as far as you can,
being substantially invisible. So we have the towers that were on top of the mountains
as we’ve described here, I can summarize them all as being too tall because they’ll shoot
into the City of Glens Falls and create too much of a problem, and I think that he’s done
a nice job in the application of outlining that, and I don’t want to belabor the point, only if
you have questions on that issue, as to why those other towers didn’t work.
MR. UNDERWOOD-I don’t think we do. I mean, I think everybody understands, too, like
the towers that we have along the Northway corridor, in the zones where we allow them
at the present time, that signal does not reach over to the area where you’re at, so that’s
why you’re proposing this over there because you’re in a blank spot.
MR. LUSK-Correct, and as noted here on the RF, the blue is the existing coverage and
we wanted to cover in this particular area here and expand it from existing coverage so
that you would have seamless coverage over the area. So our goal was, as identified to
you, is get, the RF Engineer has determined if you put a tower in that ring, you’ll cover
this area. So that’s really sort of where we are, but again, as part of that process, we do
review all the other surrounding towers and see if they work and the coordinates are
provided to the RF Engineer. He runs his computer modeling to see if it’s too tall, the
topography, etc., and he’s able to tell whether it’s going to cause interference or not
provide any coverage.
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MR. UNDERWOOD-Is there a problem with other providers? Does their signal interfere
with your signal also, or is it just your band that you’re worried about?
MR. LUSK-And Verizon Wireless’ license, the 1900 megahertz and the 850 megahertz
band by the FCC. They’re required to stay on that frequency and shall we say AT&T and
T-Mobile or Nextel, Sprint Nextel, whatever you have, are required to stay off of it.
They’re on separate frequencies, similar to your radio stations. Again, they’re assigned
a number and that’s what they’re assigned to operate, and if your country station was
suddenly operating on your rock station, for example, that would create problems and be
in violation of the license. They’re very close in their spectrum, but not permitted to be
on each other’s spectrum. So, the coverage that you see denoted in the Propagation
(lost word) is Verizon Wireless coverage, and Verizon Wireless coverage only. So, I’ve
sort of gone over how we got to the area and where we were, and the alternative sites
that we, there was one raw land site that we considered as well, that was well
documented in the application, the Jarvis property, and it just, the coverage wasn’t as
well. It left a hole, I believe, on, at the intersection, on Upper Sherman Road as well as
the intersection of Corinth Road. I think, again, well documented in the application, but
when comparing the apples to apples, our site on the whole property provided a much
better coverage block as opposed to the Jarvis property. So we ended up going forward,
again, with, after consulting with Craig Brown, I don’t think he expressed an opinion
about this one, but certainly he was at the site and more importantly with us and dealing
with the Adirondack Park Agency, Skip Alcall made it clear that this site was reasonably
acceptable to him, and so that’s why we moved forward on this site, again, particularly
given the coverage improvement from one to the other. So that sort of explains how we
got to this site, and I can deal with the specifics of this site, if you’d like, or if anybody has
any questions.
MR. UNDERWOOD-One of the questions I had was, if you’re going to be covering such
a very minute area, so to speak, with this tower, I saw the potential that along West
Mountain Road you might have multiple tower requests, you know, in the long term if you
were going to have total coverage of the whole West Mountain corridor there. So the
question in my mind was, if we were to allow this first one out of zone here, so to speak,
the potentiality is there for many other ones, and I don’t know if that’s really going to be
acceptable, because, you know, it’s the sort of thing, we have to look at it from the
viewpoint of not only this single request, which may be reasonable, but if we multiple a
whole bunch of other requests, we end up with a whole bunch of towers all over the
place, and I don’t know about co-location, you know, it looks to me like you’re pretty
close to the tree, top of the tree canopy already, and if you get into a situation where
people can’t co-locate, I think we may even get into a situation where we have other
providers that want to provide the services. They’ve got to put their towers up, too, and
eventually we lose the whole view shed, and I think the Planning Board last night spoke
to that question a little bit possibly, too. I wasn’t there, but, I don’t know what you can
say in regards to that, you know, other than it may happen or it may not happen, but I
don’t know what your, if your goal is to achieve total coverage, you know, in a more
suburban area, you know, where you do have more housing and things like that. I
assume that’s why you’re doing this.
MR. LUSK-The answer to the question is, yes, we are obligated, under our FCC license,
to do our best to cover our license area because we don’t want people to, when the
Federal government issues a license to a particular area, they don’t want you picking
and choosing who’s going to have coverage. You’ve got to do your best and have a plan
to cover, and that doesn’t mean that it has to be tomorrow. It doesn’t have to be next
week. In fact, you know, I have been working on sites that are hoped for the 2011/2012
project list, so to speak, and none of them are in the Town of Queensbury. So I think we
try to work as best we can with the budget. The economy hasn’t helped anybody, and I
think it’s, there are no other plans, other than the Aviation and Dixon site, that I’m aware
of, that have happened in the Town of Queensbury. This is the only one in the
Adirondack Park. Your second question about the proliferation of towers, essentially, is
a difficult question, because as I’ve told you, we have multiple masters to balance, not
the least of which is the Town of Queensbury, or the Adirondack Park Agency, who said
to us we need to have the tower just above the trees, and we can’t have it any taller, and
what happens is, you know, are the wireless telecommunications providers need to
provide the service. They like to do it in a substantially invisible manner, as I’ve said
before, as is the standard by the Park Agency, and so they require us, at the end of the
day, that the antennas usually are about five feet above the top of the trees, and they do
that because it has to be substantial invisible. With that comes the downside that your
opportunity for co-locations that you would have in a town, normal town that isn’t
requiring that this be five feet above the trees, is that it limits your availability for co-
location. That’s a problem, if you want to call it that, depending on your perspective, that
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some people say the view shed, the five feet above the trees, is ideal, and some people
say that it’s not. It certainly is not a cheap venture to run a 1500 foot road and to put in
foundations and to put the equipment together, and so we’d very much prefer the
opportunity to co-locate on someone else’s tower, and I think it’s happened in
circumstances. Again, in my experience in the Adirondack Park, there are opportunities
and requests for other companies that are co-locating on our towers, despite the fact that
they’re substantially invisible. What’s happening also probably as often is that
companies are coming in and they’re using our road, so to speak. They’re going up and
they’re putting a second tower that’s five feet above the trees, right next to it, and the
cost and the expense of putting in all the utilities are there, and the Adirondack Park
Agency, I can’t speak for them, I think is looking and saying, well, I suppose that’s better,
because it’s built there, they’re not clearing another road. They’re not there. They’re five
feet above the trees, again, painted black or brown as they are, as you’ve seen, and
that’s the way that they’re dealing with it. It’s sort of hard. It’s sort of a couple of moving
targets here that we’re trying to deal with. I’m not trying to give you the, it is what it is.
You guys could come in and say to us, and I’ve had towns, the Town of Chester, in fact,
our Pottersville site, I was there, and we proposed a tower that we believe is five feet
above the trees. Actually we have to verify it with the balloon tests that I’ll describe, and
they want it another 25 feet taller, because they want to have more coverage and they
want to have the ability, more of an ability for co-location, and I’ve got the Agency looking
at us and saying, you’ve got to meet the substantial invisibility standard, and so it can’t
be visible. This is a discussion that happens on a policy level at the Adirondack Park.
Right now Senator Little has really pushed back. We sort of said, we’ll do whatever
anybody wants, but we can’t play by, we’ve got to sort of play by a set of rules that are
uniform and we sort of said that some vistas may warrant 25 feet above the trees
because they’re not as, some vistas are more sacred than others, and you wouldn’t mind
having an extra 25 feet. Again, every community is different, and the Agency, and this is
stuff we’re grappling with.
MRS. JENKIN-So do you have the ability, this will be 120 feet, and you say it’s five feet
above the tree line now. When the trees, in a few years, grow up, because that’s exactly
what they do, do you have the ability to add on to this tower to make it taller, or what will
you do then?
MR. LUSK-Well, I think that, I’m not an arborist, but I think that Verizon Wireless is
confident that the trees reach a certain level, and the fact that we’re 120 feet in the air,
the trees are more likely to grow out than they do up, and we haven’t had to go trim
bushes or tops of trees off to get to them. Once they’re sort of at a certain height, we’re
above the trees and they’re mature enough, it’s sort of like people, they’re only going to
grow so tall and then they stop growing. Again, I’m not an arborist, but I know that, I’ve
asked that question, gee, and they said, no, you don’t have to worry, once the trees are a
certain maturity level, they’re not going to grow past the top of the towers.
MR. URRICO-My understanding of how the cell towers work is that originally when, you
went out, obviously they were higher, and as saturation coverage and services are
required, because there are more data services now, so you have to provide more
coverage to those areas that previously were serviced by the taller tower, that we’re
going to see more towers, but they’re going to be smaller. So, the possibility down the
road is that we’re going to see some other smaller towers, maybe even smaller than 120
feet, in neighborhoods. I mean, we’re seeing them in some locations anyway, right, in the
higher populated areas.
MR. LUSK-Yes. It will vary. There’s two bands of coverage that we operate under. The
first one was created in the 80’s, the cellular band, the 850 megahertz bands. That’s
what cell phones were, cellular, and the 850 megahertz band was, again, I’m not an RF
Engineer, but the frequency was sort of like this, and now when, because so many
people have used the 850, the capacity is, so many people using it, that they needed to
create a second lane of the highway, so to speak, and so they bought another cell phone
band, the 1900, which is the digital PCS band, and it’s a higher frequency, so the radio
frequencies go like this, instead of like this, and there, by physics, again, I barely passed
it in high school, but by physics, because it’s like this, instead of like this, it doesn’t go as
far on the energy, and so what happens is that you can’t use the same, you have to fill in
to get the same coverage, with the second line of the highway, you have to, it doesn’t go
as far. So they designed it so that they can put the second, make sure they provide
coverage for that second lane of the highway, so to speak, and they do that strategically
and to use as many of the existing towers as they can and to operate it. I hope I’ve
answered your question.
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MR. URRICO-You have, and the height of the tower is needed the same for both of
those band widths?
MR. LUSK-Generally not. I would say that the PCS, the second tower, if you were to do
a PCS only site, a digital site that was filling in a hole that was that was just that second
lane of the highway, it would be shorter, because, again, it doesn’t go as far and it
doesn’t do as much good. You can put it up to 200 feet, and it’s just not going to go that
far, so they bring it down, and again, it’s just, generally just above the trees.
MR. URRICO-Okay.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Is there any, I mean, I did a little bit of research on the side, looking,
but I notice that there’s stuff advertised that you can, for signals within the home, you can
get a repeater or some kind of a booster down in your cellar that, I don’t know if it feeds
into your landlines or how that works. I would assume that you’re doing this mainly for
mobile uses, then, for people that are on the road. Is that your primary intent, or is it for
home dwellers?
MR. LUSK-It’s for everything essentially.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Anybody who’s in that zone at the time.
MR. LUSK-Anybody that’s in the green that you see here, that’s the coverage, is going to
have reliable service, and people use it for their laptops. They’ll use it for their phones.
They’ll use it on the road. They use it when they’re hiking. They’ll use it whenever, and
they’ll use it for their wireless routers in their house, for just their Internet in their house.
So for any purpose that a wireless telecommunications can be used, they’ll use it in that
area that’s green.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Will we expect to see the amount of coverage area continue to
shrink with more repeaters necessary in the future, or has it sort of reached its (lost
word) point of, this is, the size of the area you can cover right now? I mean, when it’s
totally saturated with suburbia at some point in the future, are you going to need more
signal that what you can provide on this tower you’re proposing?
MR. LUSK-Well, again, you’re getting down into the RF questions, but there are two
issues, as outlined in the report, there are two issues, general coverage and capacity.
So if you were to take this tower and place it on Fifth Avenue in the City of New York, you
would cover two blocks, as opposed to, because it’s the unit, the radio system in there,
can only handle so many calls at one time. So in theory, if everything here became Fifth
Avenue in New York City, or some gradation of that, you’d end up having to have
another tower, but the odds of this developing in such a manner that this isn’t going to
cover this, in the foreseeable time, is remote, because it’s just, it depends on how many
users are using it, and how much wireless broadband. If somebody is in their house and
they’re downloading, you know, the phonebook every day, and taking all that data speed,
and you put five or ten of them in that area, they’re going to use a lot of the tower’s
capacity, if you know what I mean, but again, these are what ifs, and we design it to be
fine for many years. This is a typical suburban, rural design and footprint, if that answers
your question.
MR. GARRAND-It’s not a bandwidth intensive area.
MR. LUSK-Right, and you’d be surprised, with the AT&T I-Phone and you see the ads for
the droid phone, they’re doing a lot of things at one time. You can search multiple
websites and call and take pictures of your family, and when you do all those things
together, it uses bandwidth that the typical phones that you and I are, maybe two or three
times the bandwidth, and so, again, I’ve got rural sites that are like this in some parts of
the world. There’s a guy that, or gal that has a business there that’s downloading stuff,
and you can see the monitor the usage and the bandwidth, and places that you don’t
think would have high bandwidth use do, and some places that you expect to don’t. So I
think it’s a (lost word), but, again, they’re anticipating here that this is going to be fine for
the near end short term. This is sort of providing a little relief from the nearby Glens Falls
site. That’s sort of, there’s two purposes there.
MR. URRICO-Well, as far as the Use Variance, then, currently, you do not feel, or
Verizon doesn’t feel, you’re providing safe and adequate service to that area there, or to
the Town of Queensbury.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
MR. LUSK-Well, to that coverage area, correct. I mean, you guys know better than I do.
You drive that road more than I do. I’ve heard, I think at the Planning Board, I’ve heard
that they recognize that there isn’t service. We wouldn’t be here if we thought there was
adequate and reliable service, and that’s at the negative 85 dbm that has been
discussed throughout. It’s got to be at that level so that when you pick up that phone it
can be relied upon. It’s what we’re doing on the Northway. It’s what we’re doing
throughout the Adirondack Park as fast as we can. So the answer is no, I don’t believe
that there, I believe we demonstrated that there isn’t a neg 85 coverage here, and by
doing so, we would provide it.
MR. GARRAND-Part of what I look at is, when Verizon started going into the Adirondack
Park, they went into what they called an Agreement in Principle. Are you familiar with
that?
MR. LUSK-Yes, very much so.
MR. GARRAND-Okay. As far as co-location goes. It’s definitely what we would like to
see, if more towers should be necessary in the future.
MR. LUSK-And I can tell you that we will, that’s the first thing we look for. If we don’t
have to put a road in, like utilities, and put a new tower up, that’s, as a matter of
corporate policy and expense, if nothing more, aside from your, the Agreement in
Principle, they agreed that they would pursue co-location where possible and be
cooperative and they are, by law, and secondly, if they can do it, it would save them the
cost of this, and they do it. So I’m on the phone when we’re going through everything.
We try to make things work if they can, and if they don’t, they don’t. Again, they’ve got a,
they’re just trying to provide service, and they assess what’s out there and come up with
a solution. If it’s possible to co-locate, they do. We’ve done it on church steeples. I’ve
done it, I had the Adirondack Park multiple times on buildings, on the side of, probably
do one in Lake Placid on one of the hotels. Again, where we can do it, we do it.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Anymore questions from you guys right now? Or shall I open the
public hearing? Okay. I’m going to open the public hearing. Is there anybody from the
public wishing to speak on the matter?
PUBLIC HEARING OPEN
MR. UNDERWOOD-Any correspondence at all, Roy?
MR. URRICO-I don’t believe there is.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. All right. Everybody pretty much understands the situation
here?
MR. LUSK-There was the one issue that was raised at the Planning Board was about the
creek issue.
MR. UNDERWOOD-The stream.
MR. LUSK-The stream issue, and I think we’re confident that that issue is not an issue. I
know that’s an issue that has to go through the Town Engineer, and they’ll get that
worked out. I think we’re more than 50 feet from the creek, and I think it’s just a lack of
clarity on the plans. We can get into that if you’d like. The second issue that they
brought was visibility, and I wanted to show you, as part of the process here, we applied
in May of ’09 for this, and then after that we went through a visual analysis process with
the APA, and I know you guys were invited to that on that particular date. Did anybody
here attend that?
MR. UNDERWOOD-We wouldn’t have been there, no.
MR. LUSK-But what I have, what I’ve brought and provided to Mr. Oborne with the, when
they raised that issue, I sort of questioned whether or not they, and apparently with the
pile of information not everybody has seen the visual analysis that we completed with the
APA, and we have a CD/DVD that shows what the tower’s going to look like, and if you
were to, if I can just bore you for a second, Keith, if you want to pull up the first photo, but
in this packet, I’m going to assume everybody has one of these?
MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes.
8
(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
MR. LUSK-In the back is a map. I think I can basically summarize this.
MRS. JENKIN-One question. Is the visibility a concern because of the type of tree on
that property? Is it coniferous rather than deciduous?
MR. UNDERWOOD-It’s all hardwoods, for the most part.
MRS. JENKIN-It’s all hardwoods. So, in the winter, there would be more visibility, then.
MR. LUSK-There certainly could be more. I mean, there are some evergreens there, but
just the topography and the amount of trees that you see, and once you see the pictures
about where the tower is amongst the trees, but if you, I think you’ll understand why we
believe that the tower is, and I believe Adirondack Park believes, because they haven’t
told us that they don’t like it, and they would if they didn’t like it, that it’s not substantially
invisible, but what you see here is the green. If you see the green roads, if you follow the
legend. If you go over to the green map, or the map, and again, I’ve got to keep my
melon out of the way here, but if you look at the legend here, it says areas where the, I
can’t read it, but essentially green is good. It’s not visible. The tower will not be visible,
and how this was done is we flew a balloon at the height of the tower, and drove around
with the Adirondack Park people on all these roads, and we followed the balloon, and if
you could see the balloon, great. If you couldn’t see the balloon, and all the green roads,
the tower wasn’t visible. The only place that it was visible, and they required you, then,
to take photos of it, were in three locations throughout the, and they’d tell you where to
take the pictures, and you went. Now if you could go, and you see here there’s yellow
and red. Yellow means it’s partially obstructed by vegetation, and red means it’s visible,
and I want you to see the three photos that we have here. This is, again, I can’t read it,
but it’s view north, if I could grab my, Herb, could you bring me my book so that I can
read that. Pardon me while I get to the photos. Okay. If you go to Photo 1A in your
book, and I can read you what that says. It says obstructed view of balloon at 120 feet
AGL 1410 feet from the site, view north/northwest from the base of the ski resort lift. To
give you the context of where that is, the arrow here is pointing to the balloon, and then if
you were to change to the next photo, this is at the 85 millimeter lens, the 55 and the 85.
They make us take two pictures. If you want to go to the next one, it was obstructed
behind the trees, so although it was visible, you’re not going to be able to see the tower
with the trees. So if you go to the next on, to Two, this is the most visible that the tower
is in that five mile radius. This is a 100 foot balloon right here and this is the 120 foot
balloon, and if you switch to the next photo, that is the, and the APA will make us paint
the tower brown or black, depending on what they decide generally is what they do, and
that is the tower. Again, that is from 2,080 feet from the site northwest from Northwest
Road, and that’s the 85 millimeter. If you go to the next on, Keith, you’ll see the tower,
and that’s the 85 millimeter tower. That’s the most visible that the tower will be, from that
location. From the rest of it, the five miles, it’s going to be less visible than that, mostly
obstructed by vegetation, and so, you know, if you have any questions about the visibility
of it, I just wanted to show that to you.
MR. OBORNE-I don’t know if the Board caught that the first ones were the balloon, and
then they superimposed the tower on them.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure, yes.
MR. LUSK-Well, and if you know the Park Agency, we have to check the public roads as
well the public trails, and I don’t have to do it, but these guys have to carry, walk these,
hike these walking trails all during the day, and if you get an area that doesn’t have, that
has a lot of walking trails, they have to start early in the morning, and they’re not done
until they’re done, and it’s quite an adventure.
MR. GARRAND-Yes, I know.
MR. URRICO-Is it less likely that another service provider will want to co-locate on your
tower because of the height, that it’s not as high as they would like it, or what are the
chances of somebody wanting to co-locate on that tower?
MR. LUSK-I think the chances are as good as any other site in the Park. Every site in
the Park that we have has to be substantially invisible, which means it isn’t backlit, and
that’s what, if I were to give, if you were to coming up the street and you were to tell me
that you wanted to build a tower for whatever, and I were to give you one piece of advice,
I’d say, don’t go to the Adirondack Park with a tower that’s backlit. It doesn’t matter, it
can be huge, it can be purple, it can be pink. What they focus in on is that it not be
backlit on the vista. So every tower that you see in the Park, and I can’t say every, but
9
(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
the ones that I’ve been involved in in the many years that I’ve been doing it, everybody
will be five feet or so above the trees. So any co-locator coming in here, this is not going
to be a unique circumstance here. This is pretty much what you get.
MR. UNDERWOOD-You guys, any other questions you want to ask? Do you want me to
poll you? All right. I guess at this time I will close the public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MR. UNDERWOOD-And I guess I’ll poll the Board members and see what you guys
think. I’ll start with you, Brian.
MR. CLEMENTS-Okay. Good pictures. It gives us a good idea of what it would look like
from just different perspectives. I think that, given the Planning Board, I think that you’ve
answered those questions adequately, and seeing what you have here, that I would be
inclined to be in agreement with having a tower there.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joyce?
MRS. HUNT-Thank you. Yes. I think you’ve shown compelling reasons, economic and
service wise, why you need this, and I’m sure you wouldn’t have gone to all of this
expense if you could have found something that would have been more economically
feasible, and given the Planning Board’s okay, I would be in favor.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Roy?
MR. URRICO-Yes. We knew this day was coming. I think it was a matter of time when it
was going to happen. As we’ve seen some of the towers grow in the area, we knew that
the coverage wouldn’t last forever with those towers. So, be that as it may, we also
know we have limited location possibilities in the Town where the Heavy and Light
Industrial areas are located, are pretty well tapped out, and the areas that need the
coverage don’t have the proper zoning for the tower. So there’s going to have to be
some give and take, and I think, in this case, they have worked with the Town. It seems
like they’ve exhausted their possibilities of placement, and to me they’ve adequately
established themselves, versus the criteria that we have. My only concern would be,
down the road, which doesn’t affect them, but if we open this up, we’re going to have
other variances coming down the road. I just think we have to hold them to the same
criteria and make sure that the issues are adequately addressed as they have been
here. So I would be in favor of it.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Rich?
MR. GARRAND-Well, one of the things I looked at is the environmental impact on the
area. Declaring this over a one acre site I think was a good thing because it triggered
the stormwater protection plan, which I think is totally necessary for an area like this. It’s
a very environmentally sensitive area. The company also went for the co-location as
stated in the Agreement in Principle. They’ve made every effort to co-locate where it’s
reasonable, where service would work, given the nature of cell service and how the
towers actually work. They are seriously limited as far as where they can go. If there
was a site, I can’t find any other site within this entire area that I think that a tower would
work, except for this site. I would be in favor of this.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joan?
MRS. JENKIN-Yes. My feel that we need to look carefully at the criteria, the three
criteria that they’ve talked about, and I think it’s definitely a fact of our technologically
driven culture now, and the dependence on our cell service. It’s getting more and more
and more all the time, and I think that it becomes extremely important that we do have
coverage. I think that it’s a very, so I think that you definitely have demonstrated the first
one, that it would be safe and adequate service, and I think that there are compelling
reasons, because of the culture and the society that we have today, that we really do, it’s
quite important, and having towers, they will be seen a little bit, not tremendously when
it’s five feet above the tree line and there’s a lot of trees, and there will be a lot of trees in
this area, for the near future anyhow, and I don’t think it’s obtrusive at all, and I think that,
so it’s minimal intrusion, and I think that it actually is a good thing that you’re doing this,
putting in a cell tower. I’m perfectly willing to go for this variance.
MR. UNDERWOOD-And I’ll go along with everybody else’s opinion on this, too. I think
the important issue here was that we walk, don’t run, on these, and I think with the APA
10
(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
involved, the APA wants to make sure that as these start to proliferate, that we do it
properly from the get go, and that we don’t get into a situation where we regret what
we’ve done in the future. I still have concerns about co-location, you know, if we end up
with multiple servers, but as we know, just like in the early days of telephone, there were
lots of telephone companies, and only a few survived to be the big boys in the end, but in
any, way, shape or form here, I think what you’re doing is minimalist. It’s close to the
tree canopy. It’s not going to be a visual negative, as far as I’m concerned. I think it’s
going to allow you to achieve your service that you’re trying to provide, and at the same
time, the APA’s going to have the ultimate authority here to give this the green light or
not, and, you know, they’re going to look at this very thoroughly. As far as the SEQRA
determination goes, I mean, we’ve been told that no SEQRA is necessary on here. It
probably is to a degree because I think we’re doing something totally out of zone here,
but I think that, in this case here, your application and the thoroughness of it, you know,
shows that you really wanted this to happen, you know, that you weren’t just trying to like
wing this and push it through unnecessarily, and I don’t think you’d go to all the expense
and time and effort to do this if you weren’t going to do it properly. So I’ll go along with it,
too. Does somebody want to take this one?
MR. URRICO-I’ll take it.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay.
MOTION TO APPROVE USE VARIANCE NO. 66-2009 CELLCO PARTNERSHIP d/b/a
VERIZON WIRELESS, Introduced by Roy Urrico who moved for its adoption, seconded
by Joyce Hunt:
301 West Mountain Road. The applicant is proposing to erect a 120 foot monopole
telecommunication tower on a plus or minus 147 acre parcel adjacent to West Mountain
ski are within the Adirondack Park. They’re also putting up a 360 square foot support
structure to house the equipment with the tower and a 1500 linear foot access road is
also being proposed. The relief for this is from the allowable uses in the Moderate
Density Residential district, and noting in this motion that the normal four criteria usually
associated with this type of a Use Variance are different in this case. So as a result, the
criteria that we are considering involves, One, that the proposed improvement is a public
necessity, in that it is required to render safe and adequate service. We feel that this
safe and adequate service is considered a common practice by this public utility and that
the public necessity aspect may be open to interpretation which we’ve considered, and
we think they’ve proven this point. Two, that there are compelling reasons, economic
and otherwise, for permitting this variance. They have shown their reasons, compelling
and economic and service specific, that this variance is needed, and, Three, where the
intrusion or the burden on the community is minimal, the showing required by the utility
shall be correspondingly reduced, and the applicant appears to have chosen this site
with minimal intrusion on the community in mind. It’s only 120 feet, which is somewhat
below towers, many of the towers that have been put up in this area and throughout the
country. I move that we approve this Use Variance based on the three criteria that were
just mentioned.
th
Duly adopted this 24 day of March, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Garrand, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Clements, Mr. Urrico, Mr. Underwood
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Kuhl
MR. UNDERWOOD-All set. Good luck.
MR. GARRAND-Do you want these surveys?
MR. LUSK-I don’t think I’ve got enough copies, I think. I don’t need it back.
MR. OBORNE-Jared, there was a comment that you said to me before we started. Did
you not get the Staff Notes?
MR. LUSK-I got the Staff Notes, because I was, the copy of the recommendation from
the Planning Board, and a copy, you send a copy of that?
MR. OBORNE-Right. Yes. I can give you a copy of that. They just received it tonight.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
MR. LUSK-Okay, and the resolution, do you send that by?
MR. OBORNE-Yes. You’ll get a resolution in the mail.
th
MR. LUSK-All right. Thank you so much, and you said April 20 is the Planning Board
date? I’m sorry to hold everybody up.
MR. OBORNE-I believe so.
MR. LUSK-All right.
MR. OBORNE-And again, you’ll get a notice in the mail.
NEW BUSINESS:
AREA VARIANCE NO. 10-2010 SEQRA TYPE II CASEY VAN APERLOO OWNER(S):
CASEY VAN APERLOO ZONING MDR LOCATION 115 BIG BOOM ROAD
APPLICANT HAS CONSTRUCTED A 288 SQ. FT. GARAGE ADDITION AND SEEKS
RELIEF FROM SIDE SETBACK REQUIREMENTS AFTER THE FACT. CROSS REF.
BP 2009-564 GARAGE ADDITION; BP 89-720 SFD WARREN COUNTY PLANNING:
MARCH 10, 2010 LOT SIZE: 0.48 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 309.18-1-42 SECTION:
179-4-030
CASEY VAN APERLOO, PRESENT
STAFF INPUT
Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 10-2010, Casey VanAperloo, Meeting Date: March
24, 2010 “Project Location: 115 Big Boom Road Description of Proposed Project:
Applicant has constructed a 288 sq. ft. garage addition and is seeking side setback relief
after the fact.
Relief Required:
Applicant requests 1 foot of north side setback relief from side setback requirements per
§179-4-030.
Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law:
In making a determination, the board shall consider:
1. Whether an undesirable change will be produced in the character of the
neighborhood or a detriment to nearby properties will be created by the granting of
this area variance. Minor impacts to the neighborhood may be anticipated as a result
of the granting of this area variance.
2. Whether the benefit sought by the applicant can be achieved by some method,
feasible for the applicant to pursue, other than an area variance. Short of reducing
the existing structure to meet code requirements, options appear limited other than
an area variance.
3. Whether the requested area variance is substantial. The request for 1 foot or 4%
relief from the 25 foot side setback requirement for the MDR zone per §179-4-030
may be considered minor relative to the ordinance.
4. Whether the proposed variance will have an adverse effect or impact on the physical
or environmental conditions in the neighborhood or district. Minor impacts on the
physical and environmental conditions of the neighborhood may be anticipated.
5. Whether the alleged difficulty was self created. The difficulty could be categorized as
self created.
Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.):
BP 09-564 Garage addition
BP 89-720 Single Family Dwelling
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
Staff comments:
The applicant has requested a waiver from the survey requirements for this area
variance and was granted such by the Zoning Board Chair per phone with Planning Staff
in February.
SEQR Status:
Type II – No further review required.”
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Mr. VanAperloo, I assume you built this and didn’t have a
building permit, or you built it with one?
MR. VAN APERLOO-I built it without one unfortunately. That was the self-created
problem.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Sure. I’ll just make the comment. I think that, had he come in and
asked for a building permit and asked for the one foot of relief, I don’t think we probably
would have not granted it to him at this point, and as far as the one foot of relief, I don’t
really see that it’s any big deal. I don’t know if you guys feel differently about it. I think
occasionally people in Town go ahead and build things without a building permit and
learn their lesson the hard way and sometimes people go way over the line and, you
know, have to get a lot of relief or nonetheless, it doesn’t absolve anybody from breaking
the rules, so to speak, but at the same time, we’re not here to break people in half for,
you know, little minor things either.
MR. VAN APERLOO-I apologize for this. It was only going to be a pole barn, but I got
carried away.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Do you guys have any concerns about this at all?
MR. CLEMENTS-Only that it’s pre-existing.
MRS. HUNT-Yes.
MR. UNDERWOOD-In smaller dwellings on these smaller sites, everybody needs more
room, and I think that’s the way to go, and it doesn’t seem like it was an illogical addition
on here that you can make use of for whatever reason you need it for.
MRS. JENKIN-You will be putting a door on it?
MR. VAN APERLOO-Yes. I’ll be making it nice, yes.
MRS. JENKIN-Good, so it fits the garage.
MR. VAN APERLOO-Yes. It’ll be sided that you won’t even notice.
MR. UNDERWOOD-I guess I’ll open the public hearing. Anybody from the public
wishing to speak on this matter?
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. UNDERWOOD-Any correspondence?
MR. URRICO-No correspondence.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Then I’ll close the public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MR. UNDERWOOD-And I don’t think I need to poll you guys on this one. Does
somebody want to take this one?
MRS. HUNT-I’ll take it.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay.
MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 10-2010 CASEY VAN APERLOO,
Introduced by Joyce Hunt who moved for its adoption, seconded by Richard Garrand:
13
(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
115 Big Boom Road. The applicant has constructed a 288 square foot garage addition
and is seeking side setback relief after the fact. The relief required. The applicant
requests one foot north side setback relief from the side setback requirements per
Section 179-4-030. In making a determination, the Board should consider whether an
undesirable change will be produced in the character of the neighborhood or a detriment
to nearby properties, and I don’t think that that will happen. Whether the benefit could be
sought by some other means feasible to the applicant. I don’t think. He’s asking for a
very small variance. Whether the requested area variance is substantial. One foot, or
four percent of the twenty-five foot side setback relief, may be considered minor relative
to the Ordinance, and I think there’ll be minor impact to the physical and environmental
conditions in the neighborhood, and the difficulty was self-created. I move that we
approve Area Variance No. 10-2010.
th
Duly adopted this 24 day of March, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Garrand, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Clements, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Underwood
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Kuhl
MR. UNDERWOOD-You’re all set.
MR. VAN APERLOO-Thank you.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes, sure thing.
AREA VARIANCE NO. 13-2010 SEQRA TYPE: II M & W FOODS, INC./RAY ALEY
AGENT(S): BPSR, ESQ./HUTCHINS ENGINEERING OWNER(S): NORTHGATE
ENTERPRISES ZONING: CI LOCATION: 797 STATE ROUTE 9 – NORTHGATE
PLAZA APPLICANT PROPOSES TO DEMOLISH EXISTING 3,730 SQ. FT. KFC/A &W
RESTAURANT BUILDING IN ORDER TO CONSTRUCT A NEW 3,275 SQ. FT.
BUILDING FOR KFC ONLY. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM FRONT SETBACK
REQUIREMENTS. CROSS REF.: SV 14-2002; SPR 20-10 WARREN COUNTY
PLANNING: MARCH 10, 2010 LOT SIZE: 2.68 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 302.6-1-43
SECTION: 179-4-030
JON LAPPER & LUCAS DOBIE, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT
STAFF INPUT
Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 13-2010, M & W Foods, Inc./Ray Aley, Meeting
Date: March 24, 2010 “Project Location: 797 State Route 9 – Northgate Plaza
Description of Proposed Project: Applicant proposes to demolish existing 3,730 +/- sq.
ft. KFC / A & W Restaurant building in order to construct a new 3,275 sq. ft. building for
KFC only.
Relief Required:
Applicant requests 8 foot 6 inches of relief from the 75 foot front setback requirement for
Old Aviation Road per §179-4-030.
Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law:
In making a determination, the board shall consider:
1. Whether an undesirable change will be produced in the character of the
neighborhood or a detriment to nearby properties will be created by the granting of
this area variance. Minor impacts to nearby properties may be anticipated by the
granting of this area variance.
2. Whether the benefit sought by the applicant can be achieved by some method,
feasible for the applicant to pursue, other than an area variance. The applicant could
potentially reduce the size of the structure in order to avoid an area variance.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
3. Whether the requested area variance is substantial. The request for 8 feet 6 inches
or 11.3% relief from the 75 foot front setback requirement for the Commercial
Intensive zone per §179-4-030 may be considered minor relative to the ordinance.
4. Whether the proposed variance will have an adverse effect or impact on the physical
or environmental conditions in the neighborhood or district. With the proposed
reduction in building size and an increase in site permeability it could be argued that
a positive and not an adverse impact on the physical and environmental conditions in
the neighborhood may be realized.
5. Whether the alleged difficulty was self created. The difficulty may be considered self
created.
Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.):
SP 20-10 3,275 sq. ft. Restaurant Pending
SV 14-02 2 additional Wall signs Approved 3/20/02
AV 14-1997 Parking relief Approved 3/19/97
Staff comments:
The existing structure is located approximately 32.4 feet from Old Aviation Road property
line and the applicant is proposing situating the new structure approximately 66 feet from
Old Aviation Road property line; resulting net increase of frontline setback is
approximately 34 linear feet.
Planning Board recommendation will be in handout form.
SEQR Status:
Type II – No further review required.”
MR. URRICO-The Planning Board, last night, made a recommendation to the Zoning
Board of Appeals for this Area Variance No. 13-2010. “MOTION TO MAKE A
RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FOR AREA VARIANCE
NO. 13-2010 AND SITE PLAN NO. 20-2010 FOR M & W FOODS, Introduced by
Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver:
Whereas, the Town of Queensbury Zoning Ordinance, per Section 179-9-070 J 2 b.
requires the Planning Board to provide a written recommendation to the Zoning Board of
Appeals for projects that require both Zoning Board of Appeals & Planning Board
approval; and
Whereas, this project does require both Zoning Board of Appeals & Planning
Board approval, the following recommendation is hereby provided to the Zoning Board of
Appeals; and
Whereas, the Planning Board has briefly reviewed and discussed this application,
the relief request in the variance application as well as the potential impacts of this
project on the neighborhood and surrounding community, and found that:
MOTION TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
FOR AREA VARIANCE NO. 13-2010 AND SITE PLAN NO. 20-2010 FOR M & W
FOODS, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by
Stephen Traver:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. The Planning Board selects Item One.
The Planning Board, based on limited review, has not identified any significant adverse
impacts that cannot be mitigated with current project proposal.” And that was approved
six, zero with one absent.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Mr. Lapper.
MR. LAPPER-Good evening everyone. For the record, Jon Lapper with Lucas Dobie
from Hutchins Engineering. We’ll give you the very short version because we think this
is pretty simply. Obviously a pre-existing site, and we tried to have this designed so that
it wouldn’t require any variances and we wouldn’t have to bother you, but because of that
pre-existing side setback issue on Old Aviation Road which is just a cul de sac and rarely
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
used, we were able to get so it was within approximately eight and a half feet from that
75 foot setback. It’s a pretty significant change from the 32 feet setback now, to 66 and a
half. So the only variance that we need, and just in terms of this project, by reducing the
size of the building by approximately 14%, it did allow better parking, better circulation,
better landscaping, some stormwater infiltration. So we think, all in all, it’s really
improving the site, and obviously it’s a tight site, so having a smaller building is a better
thing than what’s there now. So hopefully you’ll view this as straightforward. Lucas, do
you want to add anything?
MR. DOBIE-For the record, Lucas Dobie with Hutchins Engineering. Again, like Mr.
Lapper said, it’s pretty straightforward. I would consider the Plaza 100% built out. So
our green area is pretty small on the macro scale. On our micro scale for the project,
we’re able to increase our green area about two and a half percent, which helps a little
bit, and I think the building is where it needs to be. That’s what the architect, their
specialty is, are in these kind of fast food buildings, if you will, and they sent it to us like
that, and it’s rare that we agree with an architect on a site plan, but I don’t think we
changed a thing from their layout, and it works well with the traffic flow around, behind
the building, with an ingress and egress off Old Aviation Road, which may take some of
the pressure off Route 9, and just for simplicity reasons on the Board I show in green the
existing building and then blue is our proposed building, and I think we’re working on
configuring the entrance a little bit. The Planning Board had some concern with that, so
it is an ongoing thing, and the boss, Tom Hutchins, is meeting with DOT there next week
to iron out a few things. It’s the intent to try to isolate the parking for the KFC a little
better than it is now. It’s kind of now it’s kind of a free for all and you have people
crossing the ingress and egress lanes. We’re trying to get more parking around our
building. That’s why we pulled it back and narrowed up the building a little more.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Is the ingress/egress to Old Aviation Road, has that been an issue
in the past, or is that something you’re going to newly create?
MR. LAPPER-It exists now, but it’s one lane. People go both directions. I don’t think it
gets a lot of traffic, but it does get some.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Because I don’t think we want to get into a situation where, you
know, we’re ever in a situation. I know at one time they were proposing to use that as a
bypass for the Route 9 corner down there, and the neighborhood went ballistic on that.
MR. LAPPER-I remember that.
MR. UNDERWOOD-So I don’t think we want to create more opportunities for people to
short cut up through, you know, if that is an issue with the neighborhood.
MR. LAPPER-My view would be that, in that area, it’s better to use a traffic light, you
know, just because of the congestion on Route 9, but certainly we’re open to whatever
the Planning Board and DOT suggests. We think this is an improvement, though.
MR. GARRAND-It’s definitely an improvement, because as it is now, people going into
the Plaza are constantly having to do battle with the people coming and going from KFC,
people are backing right out into the area where.
MR. LAPPER-Drive aisles, yes.
MR. GARRAND-Yes, and it’s kind of dangerous as it is now.
MR. LAPPER-Yes. It really needs to have the circulation around the building so people
can park and drive through at the same time.
MR. GARRAND-No more A&W?
MR. LAPPER-No. They have A&W’s at other of their sites, but in this market, they
decided that this was what was best.
MR. GARRAND-No more chili cheese fries.
MR. LAPPER-I think it’s just that, it’s that grilled chicken that’s so popular.
MRS. JENKIN-So you’re planning, by the addition of those landscaped bumpers, that
that will help to limit that parking area and divide it from that ingress/egress area?
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
MR. DOBIE-Yes, ma’am. That’s where we kind of have the projecting curb areas to try
to isolate that a little better for our customers.
MRS. JENKIN-Right. They can still park in the front, or wherever they can.
MR. LAPPER-Yes. Now it’s just like a big field. It’s not really well designated now where
anybody parks for anything. So this will help.
MR. CLEMENTS-I think I know the answer to the question, but could you explain there
would be a decrease in the impervious area?
MR. LAPPER-Because the building is smaller, and even though there’s going to be
more parking spaces, overall, that area in the front, that landscaped area in the front of
the building, is being added.
MR. CLEMENTS-The landscaped part?
MR. LAPPER-Yes.
MR. CLEMENTS-Okay.
MR. URRICO-Jon, this is a rare question. I know there are buses that occasionally park
there and they let people out, they go to the various restaurants there. The egress to Old
Aviation Road is not going to be wide enough for a bus to go through, is it?
MR. LAPPER-I don’t think you’d get the turning radius because of those curbs.
MR. URRICO-Okay. I just want to make sure. Out of town buses, they find odd places
to go.
MR. DOBIE-I think they’d be going for a wild ride trying to hop the curbs to make that
right hand turn.
MR. URRICO-Okay.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Anymore questions from you guys? Otherwise I’ll open a public
hearing. Anybody from the public wishing to speak on the matter?
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. UNDERWOOD-Any correspondence?
MR. URRICO-I don’t believe there is any correspondence. No.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Then I’ll close the public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
MR. UNDERWOOD-Do you guys, I don’t think we really need any discussion on this
one, either. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. It’s going to be a smaller building. It
seems to me like you’re really trying to dial in and make this work better than it’s been a
free for all in the past, and I don’t really think that any of us would have a problem with
what you’re proposing to do here. So, does somebody want to take this one?
MR. GARRAND-Sure.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay.
MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 13-2010 M & W FOODS, INC./RAY
ALEY, Introduced by Richard Garrand who moved for its adoption, seconded by Joan
Jenkin:
797 State Route 9 – Northgate Plaza. The applicant proposes to demolish the existing
3730 square foot KFC and A & W Restaurant, in order to construct a new 3275 square
foot building for KFC only. The applicant is requesting eight feet, six inches of relief from
the 75 foot front setback requirement for Old Aviation Road per Section 179-4-030. In
applying the balancing test, whether the benefit can be achieved by other means feasible
to the applicant. Given the layout and the pre-existing build out of this Plaza, I don’t think
that other means are feasible. Will this produce an undesirable change in the
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
neighborhood or character to nearby properties? I do not believe it will. I think it will
enhance the neighborhood and enhance the appearance of the Plaza, as well as
enhance safety for ingress and egress in the parking lot. Whether this request is
substantial. I would say this request is minimal. Whether this request will have adverse
physical or environmental impacts on the neighborhood. I don’t believe it’ll have any
adverse environmental impacts. Any time you’re increasing the permeability in an area
like that, it’s going to mitigate some of the stormwater problems that have plagued that
area. Is this difficulty self-created? Given the pre-existing nature of this Plaza, I do not
believe this difficulty is self-created. So I move we approve Area Variance No. 13-2010.
th
Duly adopted this 24 day of March, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Garrand, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Clements, Mr. Underwood
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Kuhl
MR. LAPPER-Thanks. Nice to see everybody.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Good luck.
AREA VARIANCE NO. 14-2010 SEQRA TYPE: II CHRISTIAN & EUSTACIA SANDER
AGENT(S): HUTCHINS ENGINEERING OWNER(S): EUSTACIA SANDER ZONING:
RR-3A LOCATION: 572 STATE ROUTE 149 APPLICANT PROPOSES A 10-LOT
SUBDIVISION. RELIEF REQUESTED FROM ROAD FRONTAGE REQUIREMENTS.
CROSS REF.: SUBDIVISION NO. 2-2010 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: MARCH
10, 2010 LOT SIZE: 55.24 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 278.-2-29 AND 30 SECTION: 179-
4-050
STAFF INPUT
Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 14-2010, Christian & Eustacia Sander, Meeting
Date: March 24, 2010 “Project Location: 572 State Route 149 Description of Proposed
Project: Applicant proposes to Subdivide 55.65 +/- acres into 10 residential lots ranging
in size from 3.07 acres to 23.5 acres off of State Route 149 outside of the Adirondack
State Park.
Relief Required:
Applicant requests 50 foot public street road frontage relief for Lots 3,
4, 6, 7, 9, and 10 as per §179-4-050A. These parcels do not front on a public road and
do not have the 50 foot required frontage.
Further, the applicant requests road access relief for lot 2 as per §179-4-050B. The
parcel has road frontage but access is not proposed.
Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law:
In making a determination, the board shall consider:
1. Whether an undesirable change will be produced in the character of the
neighborhood or a detriment to nearby properties will be created by the granting of
this area variance. Minor impacts to the character of the neighborhood may be
anticipated as a result of this area variance request.
2. Whether the benefit sought by the applicant can be achieved by some method,
feasible for the applicant to pursue, other than an area variance. The applicant could
reduce the number of lots proposed in order to reduce the number of variances
requested.
3. Whether the requested area variance is substantial. The request to eliminate an
access on a public road for lot 2 or 100% relief from the provision that actual physical
access from a public road must be built as per §179-4-050B may be considered
severe relative to the ordinance. Further, the request for 50 feet or 100% relief for
lots 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, and 10 from the required frontage on a public street for one principal
building be at least 50 feet as per §179-4-050A may be considered severe relative to
the ordinance.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
4. Whether the proposed variance will have an adverse effect or impact on the physical
or environmental conditions in the neighborhood or district. Minor to moderate
impacts on the physical and environmental conditions of the neighborhood may be
anticipated as the land is proposed for development. However, the proposal has
erosion and sediment control plan as well as stormwater controls proposed.
5. Whether the alleged difficulty was self created. With proposed access to be a private
road, the difficulty appears to be self created.
Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.):
SUB 3-2009 Pending
Staff comments:
The applicant has made the decision to build a Private road to access the parcels within
the subdivision and it is this action that necessitates the need for multiple variances.
This is not to say that if the road was to be built to Town of Queensbury specifications
and accepted by the town that different area variances would not be needed.
Note: For lots 2 and 5, §179-4-010A(1)(4) would be utilized for the private road aspect of
this subdivision.
SEQR Status:
Type II – No further review required.
MR. URRICO-Now last night at the Planning Board there was a motion to table the
Subdivision No. 3-2009 by Christian and Eustacia Sander, and this was passed six, zero
with one person being absent.
MR. OBORNE-I do want to correct the SEQRA. It is a Type I SEQRA because it is
coordinated.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Because the Planning Board did not spend any real time on this last
evening, I don’t know if the public was allowed to speak last evening. Were they?
MR. OBORNE-There was not a public hearing advertised.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. We, however, have advertised a public hearing, and so I
expect there may be some people here that want to speak to the matter here this
evening. Just for the benefit of those people that are here, our purview of the project in
its entirety is such that, you know, we look at it what’s proposed here and we’re looking
at the number of ingress/egress positions on busy Route 149 and I think we’re all well
aware of what a busy road that is and what a dangerous road that is, and whether the
Board is amenable to what’s been proposed here, we’re probably not going to let on to
that this evening, here, because we have not had the project presented to us by the
applicant either, but at the same time, if there’s anybody here from the public that wishes
to speak on the matter, that sort of gives you an extra bite at the apple. You can get up
here and tell us anything you want. We’ll give you your five minutes, and that’s more
information for us going further ahead.
MR. URRICO-Is there anybody here representing the applicant?
MR. UNDERWOOD-I don’t believe there is.
MR. OBORNE-Yes, Lucas is here.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Lucas is here, and I don’t really see any need to present anything. I
think that, you know, we can allow the public to speak, you know, and whatever.
However, whether you like the project or you don’t like the project, or you support it or
don’t support the project, our purview is we’re looking at the issue of the ingress/egress
onto the busy road out there, and I think, you know, you should be aware that we’re
aware of the situation and so if you would keep your commentary germane to that, as
well as you can, you know, add anything else you wish to bring to our attention this
evening. So, if you wish to come up and speak, would you raise your hand please.
Would you come up, ma’am.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
CAROLYN MARTINDALE
MRS. MARTINDALE-My name is Carolyn Martindale, and we own property on 149, and
it’s contiguous to this development, and one of my major concerns is I can’t, the average
family today is two children with the parents, and if you take 10 homes, there’s one pre-
existing, times four people with most of these people eventually will have cars. You have
two cars times 10 houses. That’s 20 cars going out in the morning to work or whatever,
coming back and night, and then you have children and friends and visitors and
everything. I’m really concerned about the traffic issue on 149. I see people passing
indiscriminately right now, just viewing out of our window, and it is a major concern to
me. I think that a kid’s going to be killed. I just, I don’t like all this, if they put less houses
in there, it might be less concern, but that is my major concern, Number One, and
Number Two, we have pole barns that are pre-existing. We have commercial use on the
property. We have five apartments, and I can foresee with, you know, these houses in
there, boys will be boys, girls will be girls, and with a 30 foot buffer, unless there’s a high
fence, I can see kids coming over. We have farm equipment, tractors, backhoes, and I
can see kids being curious and possibly getting hurt. I have a major concern with things
like that as well. I have other concerns, but those are my two major concerns, and I
would like to know more about the subdivision, what it’s going to look like. There’s a lot
of, I heard variances, various variances will be required. Just by, you know, numbers,
and I would have to see a picture and know what’s going on with each side, but I really
fear that this is going to cause a lot of accidents. There’s already a lot of accidents.
We’ve had traffic backed up on 149 right to our house and going beyond it with tractor
trailers and all kinds of traffic, and I have a concern, and I thank you.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Thank you.
MR. GARRAND-If you’d like to look at one of these proposed.
MRS. MARTINDALE-I looked at one today with this gentleman here, but you’ve
mentioned numbers tonight, and I’d like to see where the variances on the property, is
there one that didn’t have the proper road frontage or something. I don’t know if it’s that
one, is this the whole project here, this map?
MR. GARRAND-Several.
MR. UNDERWOOD-As the Town statutes exist, every house that’s built has to have its
own access onto a road.
MRS. MARTINDALE-Right.
MR. UNDERWOOD-And I think in most situations when we look at rural areas on arterial
roads like this one would be classified, in general we try to limit the number of them. Not
that each house would have, so you’d have like 12 or 15 separate ones on there. So
there is sort of a general consensus, I think, amongst the Town that we try to limit the
number of them. It’s better to have one main road, in most instances, I think, going into a
subdivision.
MR. OBORNE-If I could speak to that, and I think we touched on it today, this afternoon.
MRS. MARTINDALE-Yes.
MR. OBORNE-Was that the applicant initially came in with five access points, and with
one existing, and now they’ve cut it down to three with one still existing.
MRS. MARTINDALE-But that doesn’t, I don’t think that answers the concern of the traffic
that’s going to be going in and out of that, in that one area where a lot of the accidents
occur. I mean, a few years ago, we were going back and forth on that road, and it was
so slippery that, you know, you had no control over your vehicle when there’s, in the
winter. I’m a very cautious driver. I don’t have accidents, thank the Lord above, but
there are people that don’t use any commonsense when roads are bad, and like I said, I
see people, even on motorcycles, passing cars. With our tenants coming in and out,
people, when they have their blinker on to come in, people just passing, going fast, and I
just don’t like the circumstances there. I’m very concerned.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
MRS. JENKIN-I have a question. On this map, is this your, are these your, the garages
and the barns that are five feet from the property line, is that your property?
MRS. MARTINDALE-Yes. It’s a pre-existing condition. My father-in-law had this. He
had (lost words) and he turned it into apartments, back in the 70’s, and so it’s pre-
existing.
MRS. JENKIN-Yes, you’re very close to that line.
MRS. MARTINDALE-Very, very close to that line. Yes, and I know, I just know the traffic
there, and I would hate to see young kids driving in and out and getting killed. I really
would. It would bother me immensely.
MR. GARRAND-It’s a bad area.
MRS. MARTINDALE-It is a bad area.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Well, thank you. Anybody else from the public wishing to
speak on the matter? Okay. Well, then I think we’ll do is we will table this until it’s re-
advertised.
MR. OBORNE-Leave the public hearing open.
MR. UNDERWOOD-We’ll leave the public hearing open, and when we have the actual
presentation, we’ll act on this at some point in the future. So I’ll table this for up to, do we
have a date?
st
MR. OBORNE-Yes. We have a date. It is April 21.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay, and I’ll remind everybody to hang on to their stuff until then.
So I’ll make a tabling motion.
MOTION TO TABLE AREA VARIANCE NO. 14-2010 CHRISTIAN & EUSTACIA
SANDER, Introduced by James Underwood who moved for its adoption, seconded by
Brian Clements:
st
572 State Route 149. Tabled until April 21.
th
Duly adopted this 24 day of March, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mr. Clements, Mr. Garrand, Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Underwood
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Kuhl
AREA VARIANCE NO. 15-2010 SEQRA TYPE: II CHRIS GABRIELS AGENT(S):
CHRIS GABRIELS OWNER(S): STEPHEN P. LA FLECHE ZONING: WR
LOCATION: 12 WATERS EDGE DRIVE APPLICANT PROPOSES TO
RECONFIGURE AND EXPAND A PREEXISTING NONCONFORMING 648 SQUARE
FOOT COVERED DOCK TO INCLUDE THE REMOVAL OF 48 SQUARE FEET OF
EXISTING DOCK, A 57 SQUARE FOOT EXPANSION TO DOCK AND NEW
SUNDECK. RESULTING DOCK SIZE IS 705 SQUARE FEET. RELIEF REQUESTED
FROM SIDE SETBACK REQUIREMENTS, DOCK SIZE AND FOR EXPANSION OF A
NONCONFORMING STRUCTURE. CROSS REF.: BP 2009-135 SEPTIC ALT.; BP
2008-567 RES. ALT. WARREN COUNTY PLANNING: MARCH 10, 2010
ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY: YES LOT SIZE: 0.19 ACRES TAX MAP NO. 227.17-
1-29 SECTION: 179-4-030; 179-5-060; 179-13-010
CHRIS GABRIELS & STEPHEN LA FLECHE, PRESENT
MR. UNDERWOOD-Now, was there some correction on there, Keith, that some of that
relief was not necessary?
MR. GARRAND-Everything but the six feet.
MR. OBORNE-Well, the applicant is offering up some additions and he’ll speak to that.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. All right.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
STAFF INPUT
Notes from Area Variance No. 15-2010, Chris Gabriels, Meeting Date: March 24, 2010
“Project Location: 12 Waters Edge Drive Description of Proposed Project: Applicant
proposes to modify an existing boat house to include enlarging by 48 square feet each
dock extension, replacing existing peaked roof with an 800 square foot sundeck with
stairs and removal of a 48 square foot ancillary dock extension located on east side of
dock.
Relief Required:
The applicant is requesting the following relief:
1.5 feet of dock size relief as per §179-5-070(5)
2.100 square feet of sundeck relief as per §179-5-070(6).
3.6 feet of east side setback relief for proposed boat house expansion as per §179-
5-060(7).
4.Relief request for the expansion of a non-conforming structure as per §179-13-
010.
Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law:
In making a determination, the board shall consider:
1. Whether an undesirable change will be produced in the character of the
neighborhood or a detriment to nearby properties will be created by the granting of
this area variance. Moderate impacts to the neighborhood may be created as the
dock and sundeck are oversized and view sheds may be impacted.
2. Whether the benefit sought by the applicant can be achieved by some method,
feasible for the applicant to pursue, other than an area variance. The applicant could
reduce the size of the project in order to be compliant with size regulations.
Concerning setback relief, the attitude of the eastern property line appears to
preclude the applicant from any method other than the request for an area variance.
However, the applicant could reduce the size of the proposed docks in order to be
more conforming relative to the ordinance.
3. Whether the requested area variance is substantial. The request for 5 feet or 0.7%
relief from the 700 square foot dock size requirement per §179-5-070(5) may be
considered minor relative to the ordinance. Further, the request for 100 square feet
or 14.3% relief from the 700 square foot maximum surface area for a sun deck per
§179-5-070(6) may be considered minor to moderate relative to the ordinance.
Additionally, the request for 6 feet or 30% relief from the 20 foot side line setback
requirement per §179-5-060(7) may be considered moderate relative to the
ordinance. Finally, the request for relief for the expansion of a non-conforming
structure must be approved by this board.
4. Whether the proposed variance will have an adverse effect or impact on the physical
or environmental conditions in the neighborhood or district. Minor to moderate
impacts on the physical and environmental conditions in the neighborhood may be
anticipated due to the size of the project relative to the size of the parcel.
5. Whether the alleged difficulty was self created. The alleged difficulty may be
considered self created.
Parcel History (construction/site plan/variance, etc.):
SP 18-10 Boathouse/Sundeck Pending
BP 09-135 Septic alteration Pending
BP 08-567 Residential alteration 6/16/09
Staff comments:
The applicant has obtained a recommendation from the Planning Board to the Zoning
Board of Appeals concerning minimum dock setback requirements, dock size and sun
deck size per §179-5-060. Please see handout.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
SEQR Status:
Type II – No further review required.”
MR. URRICO-The Planning Board, last night, made a motion to make a recommendation
to the Zoning Board of Appeals. “MOTION TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE
ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS FOR AREA VARIANCE NO. 15-2010 AND SITE PLAN
NO. 18-2010 CHRIS GABRIELS FOR STEVEN & CARYN LAFLECHE, Introduced by
Gretchen Steffan who moved for its adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver:
Whereas, the Town of Queensbury Zoning Ordinance, per Section 179-9-070 J 2 b.
requires the Planning Board to provide a written recommendation to the Zoning Board of
Appeals for projects that require both Zoning Board of Appeals & Planning Board
approval; and
Whereas, this project does require both Zoning Board of Appeals & Planning
Board approval, the following recommendation is hereby provided to the Zoning Board of
Appeals; and
Whereas, the Planning Board has briefly reviewed and discussed this application,
the relief request in the variance application as well as the potential impacts of this
project on the neighborhood and surrounding community, and found that:
MOTION TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
FOR AREA VARIANCE NO. 15-2010 AND SITE PLAN NO. 18-2010 CHRIS GABRIELS
FOR STEVEN & CARYN LAFLECHE, Introduced by Gretchen Steffan who moved for its
adoption, seconded by Stephen Traver:
According to the resolution prepared by Staff. The Planning Board, based on
limited review, has identified the following areas of concern:
a.The applicant will correct the typo on the deck blueprint from three feet three
inches to two feet two inches. So the dock size relief is not necessary.
b.The applicant will reduce the sundeck square footage to 700 feet which is
Code compliant, so sundeck relief is not necessary.
c. The Planning Board supports the six feet of east side setback relief, and
the Planning Board also supports the request for expansion of a
nonconforming structure.” And this was passed with six yeses and one
absent.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Mr. Gabriels.
MR. GABRIELS-Mr. Gabriels and Mr. LaFleche is here. Do I need to go into the square
footage that we’re going to take care of, for clarification?
MR. UNDERWOOD-I guess the difference is you’re not going to need relief for the size
of it now?
MR. GABRIELS-Correct.
MR. UNDERWOOD-The size of the deck.
MR. OBORNE-For the sundeck.
MR. UNDERWOOD-For the sundeck.
MR. GABRIELS-Or the square footage from the dock either.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Everybody’s got their drawings in front of them, so they’re
looking at this? Do you guys want to ask any questions, any commentary you want to
make at this point? Brian?
MR. CLEMENTS-Yes, I have a question. As I was up there looking at it today, you said
there’s an existing 4 by 12 foot dock, 12 by 4 foot. Is that gone now?
MR. LA FLECHE-That got taken out by ice, yes. Here’s the picture of it.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
MR. CLEMENTS-Okay. I just wondered. It wasn’t there when I looked at it.
MR. LA FLECHE-No, that’s on file with the Lake George Park Commission. They
approved that.
MR. CLEMENTS-Okay.
MRS. HUNT-Yes. I’d like to just clarify that you’re only needing relief for the six foot east
side setback?
MR. LA FLECHE-Correct.
MRS. HUNT-And for the expansion of a non-conforming structures. Just two parts of the
variance?
MR. LA FLECHE-Correct.
MR. HUNT-The others have been taken care of?
MR. LA FLECHE-Right. We’re just going to repair and replace parts where it exists
today. Not moving anything. Actually the current dock is 29 feet wide and we’re going to
make it 28 feet on that side.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. One of the comments I would make about what you have up
there presently, in going to this expanded, you know, your renderings of what this is
going to look like, the docks on either side of the boathouse, as proposed, are going to
be eight feet wide, and I’m wondering why you need that much width on your docks, you
know, I’m talking about on the side extensions on either side.
MR. GABRIELS-The present docks are eight feet wide.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay.
MR. GABRIELS-So we’re simply seeking to utilize the square footage on the little “L”
portion.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Well, I’m just thinking in the sense of the very narrowness of the lot,
you know, if you’re going to proportion the thing proportionately, you know, when you put
that boathouse up on top above, with the deck, it’s really going to make it appear a lot
bigger than it does now, at the present time, but I don’t know if anybody else.
MRS. JENKIN-Well, that was my concern, too. Because I went out and looked at it, and
the docks on either side don’t have a very, they’re not really as high, although I looked at
the height, and you’re within the height restriction. So that, but it’s the appearance, with
the roof on it, that gives the appearance of it being a little lower, when all that is going to
be a railing, and then up above. I guess I didn’t understand why you want, and that’s
your personal preference to have a sundeck up there because you have that grassy area
in front of your cabin and you have a lot of area that you can sit on already. I guess I just
wanted to understand why you wanted a sundeck up there.
MR. GABRIELS-I believe the sundeck meets all your rules and regulations, if we indeed
modify it to the 700 square feet.
MRS. JENKIN-Yes, it is within the height. I checked that. It is within the height. It’s just
that, aesthetically what it will look like.
MR. LA FLECHE-My wife is not here, but she really wants this sundeck. We’ve been
looking at places on the lake for years, and one of the things we always wanted was to
have a place with a sundeck on it, and we bought this two years ago, and one of the
things that my wife kept talking about is we need to have at least 75 feet of frontage so
we can do that, because we looked at a lot of other places that had 50 and 60, and you
couldn’t do that. So the plan always was all along, I did a lot of work, because this
property had really been let go, and we’ve done a lot of, you know, internal modifications
(lost words) collapsing, and we met with Dave Hatin as soon as we bought it and I did
(lost words) and we just really, we want to have that for usage.
MRS. JENKIN-Yes. I notice you’ve got the stone walkways around, nicely done, and the
house definitely looks better now. You’ve done a lot of improvements. I agree with that.
That’s for sure.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
MR. LA FLECHE-Yes, thank you.
MRS. JENKIN-And the sundeck is part of it.
MR. CLEMENTS-I’d kind of like to see if I can get this straightened out. Keith, what is
the relief requested now?
MR. OBORNE-Well, the applicant obviously has offered up a reduction of 100 square
feet to the sundeck.
MR. CLEMENTS-So that one’s gone.
MR. OBORNE-Has offered up enough relief to get the actual dock down to compliance,
which would be 700. Right now it’s at 705 as drawn.
MR. CLEMENTS-Okay.
MR. OBORNE-So basically it’s expansion for a non-conforming structure, and the six
feet of south sideline setback relief.
MR. URRICO-East.
MR. OBORNE-Is it east?
MR. CLEMENTS-So those are the only two reliefs that are required now?
MR. OBORNE-At this point, yes.
MR. LA FLECHE-And those pertain solely to the dock, that the boathouse meets the 20
foot setback, and the boathouse, with the 700 square feet, complies with all your rules
and regulations. It is simply the dock which doesn’t meet your 20 foot setback, the pre-
existing dock, and the slight enlargement, the slight addition of 48 square feet on the far
end of the dock.
MRS. JENKIN-So you’re still planning to extend the dock, make it longer?
MR. LA FLECHE-Using the square footage that we have on the right side, yes.
MR. CLEMENTS-So the width of the docks as they are right now are going to stay the
same, same size, same place?
MR. GABRIELS-Correct, and this currently has Lake George Park Commission approval,
which, in addition, has the same square foot regulation you have, with the understanding
that the typo, the mislabeling of the angles will be taken care of and that it would be 700
square feet.
MR. OBORNE-They do need dock length. They’re at 39 feet. Forty is the requirement,
or the maximum.
MR. OBORNE-Now obviously they’re going to have to submit revised drawings. As a
condition of approval, you’re going to have to say 100 reduction, and being that it’s less
relief that they’re asking for, it’s okay.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Any other questions you guys have at this time? Okay. I guess I’ll
open the public hearing. Anybody from the public wishing to speak on the matter?
PUBLIC HEARING OPENED
MR. UNDERWOOD-Any correspondence?
MR. URRICO-No correspondence.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Why don’t we run through. Everybody familiar with what it
is? Okay. Anybody have a problem with it, any other questions you guys want to ask?
All right. Then I guess I’ll close the public hearing.
PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
MR. UNDERWOOD-And I guess I’ll poll you guys. I’ll start with you, Roy.
MR. URRICO-Well, being that probably the two most onerous issues for me are off the
board, then the sideline setback is not an increase over what was there before, and
obviously the expansion of a nonconforming structure is the other one that’s on there, but
I think the project’s a good one. I will be in favor of it.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joyce?
MRS. HUNT-Yes. I have to agree with Mr. Urrico. Reducing the size of the sundeck and
the fact that we only need two reliefs, the six foot side setback relief and the non-
conforming structure, I have no problem. I’d be in favor.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Rich?
MR. GARRAND-I think the relief being requested here is no more than what they
currently have. What I would like the applicant to consider for the future is that this lot is
75% impermeable. At some point if you do make any renovations or anything, just
consider increasing the permeability of this area. Mitigate some of the stormwater, but
otherwise I’d be in favor of it.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. Joan?
MRS. JENKIN-I think, by the changes you’ve made, that it definitely, the criteria that we
have to consider have been met. I don’t think that the six foot from the property line is
huge because it’s that right angle, and it just is, it’s a reasonable request when it’s
nonconforming already. So I would be in favor of the variance.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Brian?
MR. CLEMENTS-I have to agree with the rest of the Board. I think that this is a minimal
relief required. I think it’s going to be a desirable change. I can understand your reason
for wanting a sundeck up there rather than a roof. I don’t think it’s going to change the
character of the neighborhood. So I’d be in favor of it also.
MR. UNDERWOOD-I, too, will go along with everybody else on the Board. That’s fine by
me. I would just make sure, and the only stipulation would be that you check with Keith
that the 700 square foot on the deck is done properly so you don’t have to come back
and get relief at some point in the future. So, does somebody want to take this one?
MR. CLEMENTS-I will. The description of the proposed project, and maybe you can
help me out here, Keith. The applicant proposes to modify an existing boathouse to
include enlarging by?
MRS. JENKIN-No, not enlarging.
MR. OBORNE-Well, each dock is going to be enlarged by 48 square feet, the extensions
are going to be enlarged.
MR. CLEMENTS-It is.
MR. OBORNE-It’s going to be a reduction in the overall size, as proposed.
MR. CLEMENTS-Okay.
MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 15-2010 CHRIS GABRIELS,
Introduced by Brian Clements who moved for its adoption, seconded by Joyce Hunt:
12 Waters Edge Drive. The applicant proposes to modify an existing boathouse to
include enlarging by 48 square feet each dock extension, replacing existing peaked roof
with a 700 square foot sundeck with stairs and the removal of a 48 square foot ancillary
dock extension located on the east side of the dock which has already been taken out by
the ice. The relief requested is six feet of east side setback relief for proposed
boathouse expansion as per 179-5-060, and relief requested for the expansion of a
nonconforming structure as per 179-13-010. Criteria for considering an Area Variance
according to Chapter 267 of Town Law: In making the determination, the Board shall
consider, Number One, whether an undesirable change will be produced in the character
of the neighborhood, or a detriment to nearby properties will be created by granting of
this Area Variance. Moderate or minor impacts to the neighborhood may be created.
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(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 03/24/10)
Number Two, whether the benefit sought by the applicant can be achieved by some
method feasible for the applicant to pursue other than an Area Variance. The applicant
has reduced the size of the project, and the setback is already there. So the relief
sought cannot be achieved by any other method. Number Three, whether the requested
Area Variance is substantial. I’m just going to say that the request for the Area Variance
is minor and not substantial. Number Four, whether the proposed variance will have an
adverse effect or impact on the physical or environmental conditions in the neighborhood
or district. Minor impacts may be anticipated. Whether the alleged difficulty was self-
created. The alleged difficulty may be considered self-created, and I would move for
approval of Area Variance No. 15-2010.
th
Duly adopted this 24 day of March, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Garrand, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Clements, Mr. Underwood
NOES: NONE
ABSENT: Mr. Kuhl
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. I guess you’re all set.
MR. LA FLECHE-Thank you.
MR. UNDERWOOD-Yes. Anybody else from the public wishing to speak on any matters
this evening here? All right. I think what we’re going to do is we do have a set of
th
minutes. Did people get to review the February 17 minutes yet? Have you guys
reviewed them? You weren’t here, some of you guys. Then I’ll move to approve the
minutes of February 17, 2010.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
February 17, 2010
MOTION TO APPROVE THE QUEENSBURY ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
MEETING MINUTES OF FEBRUARY 17, 2010, Introduced by James Underwood who
moved for its adoption, seconded by Joan Jenkin:
Duly adopted this 24th day of March, 2010, by the following vote:
AYES: Mrs. Hunt, Mr. Clements, Mr. Urrico, Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. Underwood
NOES: NONE
ABSTAINED: Mr. Garrand
ABSENT: Mr. Kuhl
MR. UNDERWOOD-Okay. I guess we’re all set.
On motion meeting was adjourned.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
James Underwood
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