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1996-05-14 SP QUEENS BURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SPECIAL MEETING MAY 14, 1996 P.U.D. 1-96 SKETCH PLAN Indian Ridge APPLICANT: Michael Vasiliou 1. THESE ARE NOT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED MINUTES AND ARE SUBJECT TO BOARD AND STAFF REVISIONS. REVISIONS WILL APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING MONTHS MINUTES (IF ANY) AND WILL STATE SUCH APPROVAL OF SAID MINUTES. (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) QUEENSBURY PLANNING BOARD MEETING SPECIAL MEETING MAY 14, 1996 7:00 P.M. MEMBERS PRESENT ROBERT PALING, CHAIRMAN CATHERINE LABOMBARD, SECRETARY GEORGE STARK ROGER RUEL CRAIG MACEWAN TIMOTHY BREWER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR-JAMES MARTIN PLANNER-GEORGE HILTON TOWN ENGINEER-RIST-FROST, BILL LEVANDOWSKI STENOGRAPHER-MARIA GAGLIARDI P.U.D. 1-96 SKETCH PLAN TYPE I INDIAN RIDGE APPLICANT: MICHAEL J. VASILIOU, INC. OWNER: THOMAS J. FARONE & SON, INC. J. BUCKLEY BRYAN, JR. LOCATION: FARR LANE REZONING AND PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT ON 140 ACRE SITE - 111 SINGLE FAMILY LOTS; 9 DUPLEX LOTS (18 UNITS); 1 - 7.1 ACRE LOT FOR SENIOR CITIZEN HOUSING, 1 - 1 ACRE LOT FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE USE; 1 - 52.76 ACRE LOT FOR LAND CONSERVATION; AND 1 - 8.79 ACRE LOT FOR TOWN PARK USE. PER SECTION 179-57 C(l) THIS IS AN APPLICATION FOR SKETCH PLAN APPROVAL. THE PLANNING BOARD SHALL REVIEW THE SKETCH PLAN AND ITS RELATED DOCUMENTS AND SHALL RENDER EITHER A FAVORABLE OR UNFAVORABLE REPORT TO THE TOWN BOARD. §179-57 C(3) A FAVORABLE REPORT SHALL INCLUDE A RECOMMENDATION TO THE TOWN BOARD THAT A PUBLIC HEARING BE HELD FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONSIDERING PUD DISTRICTING. §179-57 C(4) THE CHAIRMAN OF THE PLANNING BOARD SHALL CERTIFY TO THE TOWN BOARD AND THE APPLICANT WHEN ALL OF THE NECESSARY APPLICATION MATERIAL HAS BEEN PRESENTED, AND THE PLANNING BOARD SHALL SUBMIT ITS REPORT WITHIN SIXTY (60) DAYS OF SUCH CERTIFICATION. §179-57 C(5) MICHAEL O'CONNOR, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT MRS. LABOMBARD-We're going to have a continuation of last week's New Business on the Planned Unit Development. It's basically a continuation of last week, where we as the Planning Board wanted to have more time to read through the Transportation Concepts data, and the phasing plan for this project, and I think Bob will expound on that a little bit more. - MR. PALING-Yes. This is a continuation of last week. It is a public meeting but not a public hearing, and with the concurrence of the Board, the format I'd like to follow tonight is to ask Staff for any input that they might like to make, ask Mr. Levandowski, then, for "a specific comment in addition to your letter regarding the test boreing. There was quite a bit of question about that, and then we'd like to have comment on the traffic study. I believe there is someone here that can comment on the traffic study, especially since it says Revised May 8th. We want to know in particular what was revised about the study. Then we'll ask the applicant to come back up and comment as they wish, and I think it's about at least four items they'll be commenting on, and then we're going to open it up for public comment. We're asking the applicant as well as the public to look or to address only matters that are new, and it is not a public hearing. It doesn't have the same impact as that. You'll have your opportunity with the Town Board to do that. So we ask that comments be kept current on the new stuff, and as brief as possible. So if that is okay with everyone, we'll open it up by asking the Staff if there's anything - 1 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) new that they have to add. I think one thing you might do is read the fire company letter into the record. MR. HILTON-Okay, and as of right now, that's all that I have new. It's a letter from Chief Richard Jones of Queensbury Central Volunteer Fire Company, dated May 13, 1996. It reads as follows: I have reviewed the plans for the Indian Ridge Development project and have identified the following two issues: 1.) Entrances to the development for emergency access to be a minimum of two. Note: This issue has been resolved. 2. ) Number of hydrants to be adequate to comply with town specifications. Per Mike O'Connor, a sufficient number of hydrants will be installed. At this time I have no further issues with this project and feel that there will be no negative impact on the ability of the Fire Company to serve the community." MR. PALING-At the time of your comment, I'm sure you'll tell us how many hydrants are going to be involved. Okay. We'll be asking the question. MR. HILTON-Okay. I have no further comment, unless Jim does. I would like to pass the microphone to Bill Levandowski. MR. MARTIN-We're all set for now, but we're here if anything should come up. MR. PALING-All right. I know we're particularly interested in the whole history of the test boreing and how, the selection of the holes and so on, how that all came about, and the results. MR. LEVANDOWSKI-This is a letter addressed to Mr. James Martin, Town of Queensbury, referenced Indian Ridge P. u. D. "Dear Mr. Martin: As you requested, we have reviewed the Traffic Impact Study, Summary of Soil Investigations and Geohydrological Investigation Report for the above referenced project. All of the studies appear to be based on relevant data and were conducted in accordance with usual professional standards. The conclusions reached appear to be supported by the data and analysis performed. Very truly yours, RIST-FROST ASSOCIATES, P.C. William J. Levandowski, P.E." Basically, our review of the documents submitted indicated that they used appropriate recent data, particularly as far.as the traffic studies were concerned, and that based on all of the historical soil studies and the most recent ones, the conclusions that they've drawn regarding subsurface conditions being appropriate for sewage disposal and the groundwater gradient flowing away from the wetlands all appear to be based on solid analysis and professional conclusions. MR. PALING-There was some question about the actual location of the holes themselves, one in particular, and I can't remember exactly where it was, but for some reason, it wasn't done in a normal way. Can you comment on that? MR. LEVANDOWSKI-I'm not aware of what the concern is. MR. PALING-Can anyone remember that better than I can? Jim, your name was brought up in regard to this one particular boreing. MR. MARTIN-As I understand it, the boreings were done in a triangular pattern, and that's done, any time I've seen this done, that's what's required at a minimum to establish the direction of the groundwater flow. You need to set up that triangular pattern to establish where the gradient is below ground, when you reach the groundwater, and to draw conclusions from that. Now, the third one was done, there was one, a request was made that it be done especially close to the existing septic system at the senior housing project. Just to see how far it is, in fact, down to the water in that particular location. - 2 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. PALING-Okay. MR. RUEL-Someone in the public had indicated that perhaps a test boreing in, I guess the northeastern corner would have been appropriate to establish a square rather than a triangle. MR. LEVANDOWSKI-If you're referring to just the groundwater determination, the actual, there are three test boreings that were advanced down through the overburden, and down to groundwater, but they also did elevations on the water surface in the wetland area, which is another data point. The surface elevation of the water in the wetland is an extension of the water table. So every time the water is exposed on the surface, that's another data point. So anywhere along the wetland where the water is standing, so to speak, that represents another point that can be used in determining the water surface. MR. RUEL-For my edification, could you tell me in a few words how you establish the flow of water, subsurface water? MR. LEVANDOWSKI-The conclusions are drawn from a study of the elevation of the water table where it's encountered. Water, even underground, flows downhill. So the direction of flow is from the higher point of the water table to the lower point. MR. RUEL-You don't actually see a flow? You just estimate that if one is higher than the other, then it must go in that direction? MR. LEVANDOWSKI-Exactly. MR. RUEL-And it's flowing away from the wetlands. MR. LEVANDOWSKI-In this particular case, that's true. MR. RUEL-The whole area is flowing away from the wetlands, or just the one area? MR. LEVANDOWSKI-It'd probably be the entire, it's not very likely it would flow downhill, and then back up again. The whole pattern would, in all likelihood, flow from the wetland area, probably all the way over toward Halfway Brook. MR. RUEL-Again, how do you know about the area that wasn't tested at all, the northeastern area of that property? MR. LEVANDOWSKI-Well, the water surface in that area would logically be at the same elevation all along that wetland. MR. RUEL-I see. So the test boreing, then, in the upper left hand corner you assume would be the same in the right hand corner? MR. LEVANDOWSKI-Well, there was an actual elevation, it was not a test boreins but an elevation was taken on the water surface, I think probably in the northwest corner. MR. RUEL-I see. MR. LEVANDOWSKI-And then it can be inferred that the elevation of the water surface in the wetland up to the northeast would be the same elevation. MR. RUEL-And then again the percolation rate is correct for septic systems? MR. LEVANDOWSKI -Based on the data that I've reviewed and the reports that were submitted, it appears to be reasonable, very consistent from the later studies to the ones that were done several years ago. - 3 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. RUEL-But early maps that I've seen in the Comprehensive Plan indicate that the percolation rate is extremely high and one of the reasons why it was zoned three acres. Would you care to comment on that? MR. LEVANDOWSKI-In the data that was submitted to us, that we reviewed, I have not seen anything that indicates any excessively high percolation rates. They're all consistently about a minute and a half I believe. MR. MARTIN-I think the reason for the conflict was that the inferences drawn out of the Comprehensive Plan were done on a large scale soil map that's available from the Soil Conservation Service, and then at such a scale, to take a 100 acre parcel, even a parcel of that size, and place it on that map and determine exactly what the soil conditions are, only broad generalizations can be made as to the percolation and suitability of various soils at that scale, and that's what they did. They tried to draw the best inferences they could based on the mapping they had. MR. RUEL-Wasn't it primarily for farm use rather than housing development? MR. BREWER-When they made that map, I presume. MR. RUEL-Well, I saw the map, and you had the same indication that you have around Glen Lake and Round Pond are also classified the same as this area. MR. MARTIN-Right, and that's what I'm talking about broad generalizations are drawn. There are probably elements of that soil type all throughout that area, but at a specific 100 acre parcel, it may vary greatly, and to find out exactly what you're dealing with, you should do soil testing right at that site, and that's what's been done several times over the last few years. MR. RUEL-Are there any sites in Queensbury where the percolation rate was so high that you had to remove the material and replace it with something else? MR. MARTIN-Yes. I think you encounter instances. I know we've had building permits in, for example, where we take a percolation test for the septic system. At one site in a subdivision it may require the soils to be modified, and just a couple of lots over it's within an acceptable range. I think that's why you saw with the DOH approval that carne on this particular development, DOH is stipulating that each individual lot, a percolation test be done at the time that the septic system is installed, just to make sure that we don't get that variation because you are, I think you are close enough to the threshold, at the minimum standard, to warrant that, and I think that's why DOH stipulated that in that manner. MR. RUEL-So, it may be different throughout the property? MR. MARTIN-Right. We're doing the same thing at Hudson Pointe right now, for example. With each building permit that comes in, percolation test data is supplied in the area of the leach system for each building permit before it's issued. MR. RUEL-Okay. Thanks. MR. PALING-Okay. I think that's sufficient for the moment. There may be other questions that corne up, and at this point, I'd like to call the applicant up and to the table for their comments and we're specifically asking for comments regarding the traffic study and the reference to the revised version, and we'd like to ask you to comment on Mr. Kilburn's letter of May 7th, and I know you have other things that you want to tell us. - 4 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. O'CONNOR-It might be more orderly. I'm Michael O'Connor, and I'm the king leader, as such, for the applicant. It might be more orderly to have Tom Nace make a comment, just as a completion of the thought process, on the question of perc tests on each particular lot. MR. PALING-Fine, no problem. MR. NACE-For the record, my name is Tom Nace, representing the applicant. Jim's comment perked my ears a little bit, so I went back really quick and looked at the letter from the Department of Health, and it says, "You're request on behalf of Tom Cerrone for variance from Section... .is granted, and is hereby granted subject to the following conditions. The soil and ground water conditions on each lot to be sold or offered for sale must be suitable for design and construction of on-site gravity subsurface sewage systems, acceptable to the Department." That becomes a determination that Brian Fear makes when he goes with us through the subdivision plans prior to DOH approval of the plans. Brian decides whether or not we have sufficient data and whether the site conditions are uniform enough to go with a perc test on every three lots or ten lots or every single individual lot. As you'll recall on Hudson Pointe we had to do one on each individual lot because the soils did vary. We went from 20 second soils in some places to four and a half to five minute soils in other places, and you could see in the test pits and the boreings we did that there was a variation of the type of material we encountered. Whereas on this site the conditioned we found that are in the report are very consistent. MRS. LABOMBARD-Can I ask a question about that, Tom? MR. NACE-Sure. MRS. LABOMBARD-So, that means that, down the line, when each phase is proposed, lets say, hypothetically, this gets passed, then what you're saying is, down the line, before the implementation of each phase, then Brian Fear will come and he will do his job and make his analysis, and he will let you know whether or not there has to be a perc test done on one lot or how many lots? MR. NACE-He'll let us know. We'll show him what we've done so far, and he'll let us know whether he thinks that's sufficient or whether we need more information. MRS. LABOMBARD-Okay. So then lets say more perc tests are done on the individual lots, and if some of those lots don't run the water like they should, then other types of septic systems would have to be designed for those lots? MR. NACE-That's correct, just as we're doing at Hudson pointe. the perc tests come up under one minute, then we have to go in bring in soils from other areas that is soil percolation soil, construct the system in these soils. If and and MRS. LABOMBARD-Okay. That's what I thought you said. I wanted to make it clear for the other people that are here. just MR. MACEWAN-Has that happened at Hudson pointe? MR. NACE-Yes, I believe there have been a couple that have been that way. MR. MACEWAN-Just a couple? MR. NACE-And we're getting now, in the earlier phase, the first phase, was up in soils that were generally a little slower perc rate than mixed soils. As we get down into the future phases, - 5 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) there are some soils that are very uniform gradation that do have faster perc rates. So I expect there will be more. MRS. LABOMBARD-So, in other words, this will be an ongoing study? MR. NACE-On Hudson Pointe, we're committed to doing a perc test on every lot because the soils vary a great deal, and we did have soils that were 20, 30 seconds, which are far different from the soils we have here. MRS. LABOMBARD-All right. Now, I'm not doing this to interrupt you, but I just want to make clear that, and Roger had asked the question earlier, before you got the mic, is back with those other boreings I know that that doesn't have to do with specific perc tests, but should those lots in the very back, which are 0ne of the last phases, that are within 200 to 300 feet of Rush Pond, this was what the concern was last week, when that phase finally, we progressed to that phase, then individual tests will be done there to make sure that the best State of the Art system is put in. MR. O'CONNOR-Not necessarily. MR. NACE-Right. We have soil pits from backhoes and manual digging that cover the subdivision fairly well. What I said was that Brian Fear will look at those. If he feels we have sufficient ones, he'll agree with it. If he doesn't, if he feels that there's enough variation or maybe there's a corner of the subdivision where we just don't have any test pits, if he sees that, he will ask for specific information there, and in fact if that were the case, we'd probably, through working with Brian, know enough to get the addition perc tests before we submit the plans to them. So, does that answer your question? MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes, thanks. MR. 0' CONNOR-Basically, I'll simply try to respond to what I thought were the open questions that have put to us this evening. You asked the question as to why we have denoted the traffic study as being revised. It was revised in two senses. One, we've changed the name of the development from Fox Farm to Indian Ridge, and that's been noted throughout the study. We also have actually, so that we have on the table trip generation, based upon what we think is going to be approved, changed the basis for the trip generation. Dennis O'Malley is here from Transportation Concepts, and Dennis is pinch hitting for somebody who is I think on maternity leave, which was obvious last week, and who has since had a child, very successfully. Basically, we had, I think, 104 single family and we took some of the duplexes and made them single family, decreasing the total build-out by seven units. So we increased the single family to Ill. We decreased the duplexes, I get confused on this each time, from I think 36 units in total to 18 units, and we increased the, 38 to 18, okay. We ended up giving up one duplex, which I wasn't aware of, to give the senior citizen more acreage, or one or two to give more acreage, and I get caught on that all the time. We had changed the senior citizen units from, I think, 41 to 61. The net effect on that, because the senior citizens actually generate less trips, was in both the morning peak hour and the afternoon peak hour a little less trips. I think it was a total of four trips less or something like that. If you have specific questions of the traffic study, Dennis is here to answer them. MR. PALING-All right. Well, lets cover the traffic study, if anyone has any questions. MR. RUEL-I have a question for you, Dennis. We now have a phasing plan which we didn't have at the last meeting. will this phasing plan in any way effect the traffic study, should it or does it? - 6 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) DENNIS O'MALLEY MR. O'MALLEY-Only from the sense that it will, by the way, for the record my name is Dennis O'Malley. I'm from Transportation Concepts. During the course of the phases, obviously, the beginning phases come on board, the impact of the site itself on the adjacent stream will be less because it's going to generate less traffic, and it will be proportionately less depending on what's done in each of the phases. So, the movements that are difficult, for example, coming out of Farr Lane onto Aviation Road left turns, there'll be fewer of them, and you'll have, obviously, more opportunities because as time goes on, there's expected to be more traffic on Aviation Road, fewer lefts at the beginning so those people will have better opportunities. So it should be an evolutionary process where as we get closer to the end, the build- out of the project site, we'll get closer to the conditions that we've talked about in the traffic study. MR. RUEL-Does the proposed Aviation Road widening, was this considered in the traffic study, or should it be? MR. O'MALLEY-I don't believe that it was. I don't think we had the geometry for the widening which is three lane segment, right, Jim? MR. RUEL-Yes. MR. MARTIN-Adding one lane. MR. O'MALLEY-Adding one lane, but is the center lane a median? MR. RUEL-It's a turning lane. MR. MARTIN-Yes. MR. O'MALLEY-It probably will have some impact, both positive and negative, I would guess. positive in the sense that, obviously, having more highway capacity gives the ability to move more traffic. MR. MARTIN-It will be a signal, also. MR. O'MALLEY-Okay. So, create some spaces in the which may give them more Farr Lane and turn left. but the signal at the High School will traffic that are not now present as well, opportunities for people to come out of MR. RUEL- Yes. I think one of the biggest problems, traffic problems, is the intersection of Dixon and Aviation, and that isn't even connected with the project, is it? MR. O'MALLEY-Well, we've talked about it at some length. We've had three different alternatives in the sense, for discussion purposes, in the traffic study, one of which was terminating a portion of Dixon and" making it one way, and essentially forcing the traffic that would not be going in this direction through the residential neighborhood which has it's own, obviously, discussion items. The second was to do some geometry which (lost words) which again would probably have almost the same impact as doing a one way section and forcing some of the traffic through the residential, and the third one was to essentially try to provide a re-design of the geometry at the intersection in order to make Dixon Road align with Farr Lane and get one intersection with control and have a four legged intersection. That would require some taking of property and some additional land and obviously some construction costs, all of which are questions which I think have to be answered in sort of a broader perspective, in whether or not, for example, the Town is interested in doing takings and exercising the rights of eminent domain, for example, for the public good. - 7 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. PALING-That Dixon Road/Aviation Road is a very difficult intersection, but I don't really think it's directly related to the application that we're looking at tonight. That's a problem I wish they would take into consideration with the widening of Aviation Road. MR. MARTIN-I'll bring the Board up to date on that. The Aviation Road project, as it's referred to, has been split into two phases. The first phase is you may even begin to see actual work done this week. They'll start grubbing out the area for the third lane in front of the school between the existing access aisles that are there today, and as soon as school is out, there'll be some, I believe, consolidation of access points. It's a School, right now the School has seven driveways. You could see that go down to maybe three or four. There will be a signal, and the project, the third lane, the signal and the consolidation of the access points will be completed by the start of the School year in early September. So, the money's already appropriated. Work is imminent. In terms of the second phase, we intend to get into that this summer, from a Planning standpoint. Harza, who is the design engineer who's been retained, will provide the Town with a conceptual plan for fixing that so called next leg of Aviation Road from the first phase on through to probably the intersection of Potter Road, and the first phase, from a physical dimension, is from Burke Drive westward to the first leg of Manor Drive, all right, and that'll be an actual construction project this summer. The second part is just a plan to be developed, hopefully for implementation next year, and that's yet to be determined, but a focus of the design will be what to do with the intersection at Dixon Road and Aviation, because I think it's the opinion of the, certainly the Planning Department and the Town Board, that Aviation Road and Dixon Road is a problem in its current state, regardless of what happens with this project. MR. BREWER-Can I ask one question? To the traffic study, on Page Four, it shows the existing levels of service, and if you go back to the last page of the report, or I would say the second to last, it shows the level of service in 2001. How do you compare those to the levels of service today? In your report, it says Fox Farm Road southbound is at a D, but anywhere I look on here I don't see a D. Does it get better? MR. O'MALLEY-You're talking about Page Four of the table, Table 2- I? MR. BREWER-2-3, Level of Service, Page Four. MRS. LABOMBARD-It's Table 2-1. MR. BREWER-Right. I'm sorry. MR. O'MALLEY-You see Level of Service Fox Farm Road southbound, Level of Service D, p.m. peak hours? MR. BREWER-Okay. Now if you go back to the second to last page, I'm just curious because I don't know anything about these studies. If you look on this table right here on the bottom. MR. O'MALLEY-You're looking at the actual analysis. MR. BREWER-Is that the same thing, or is it different? don't see the road names on here. This is signalized, signalized, then? Because I if it was MR. O'MALLEY-This is correct. MR. BREWER-Then that's what it would be if it was signalized. All right. Is there a table where we show that, if it wasn't - 8 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) signalized? MR. O'MALLEY-Yes. That's what you see in Table 2-1, that's existing. I'm sorry. MR. BREWER-That's existing, and then way in the back you've got signalized. MR. O'MALLEY-Table 3-3, 2001 unsignalized levels of service. MR. BREWER-What page are you on? MR. O'MALLEY-Seven. MR. RUEL-2001, unsignalized. MR. O'MALLEY-Tim, in the text. MR. MARTIN-Page Seven of the text, Tim. MR. O'MALLEY-Of the text. There it is. So southbound signalized. MR. BREWER-It would go to a D. All right. MR. O'MALLEY-And just for the Board's clarifications, in that case where you're talking about where you saw the analysis in the back for a signalized intersection versus an unsignalized, a lot of letters and grades that we use, we talked about before, which are like high school grades are the same, or in this case they're better. The actual evaluation is really quite different. For an unsignalized intersection, we're really talking about it's really kind of an amount of delay that people are going to experience when trying to turn left out of an unsignalized intersection, because obviously you have to make the decision as the driver. Where if you have a traffic signal, the siqnal makes the decision for you when you can go. The signal's level of service delay is really how much time you're waiting, and in the case of stop signs, or unsignalized control, Levels of Service D don't necessarily mean that there's anything you can really do because, as we said in the report, in order to meet the warrants for a traffic signal, there's a set of different criteria than we have at our unsignalized intersections. So, to some degree, they're like apples and oranges, but we did do analysis if the intersection were re-aligned and if a traffic signal were there, what kinds of delay might you expect under that condition, and that's what that analysis that (lost words) . MR. RUEL-Do you think it's possible, in the future, to take this highly technical information that I can't understand and convert it into layman's terms? MR. O'MALLEY-I hope so. MR. RUEL-You have a summary, but the summary really doesn't tell the story. What you just said, you explained to Tim, that's the kind of information that it would be nice to have in here. Take this and translate it into english. MR. O'MALLEY-It's interesting, off of this project, it's interesting because if you look at, for example, the delay, if we talk about signalized intersections, the delay you experience and whatever the analysis is, A, B, C, D, E, or F. For people in the Glens Falls area, it's a different experience than say the people in Westchester County. Forty seconds of delay up here may be totally unacceptable, or they would hope for it in Westchester County. So to try to make a presentation to a body like yourself down there, we'd be talking about apples and oranges to them, even though you may be saying the same thing. I think, from illY - 9 - -- ---.----.--.- (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) perspective, the better representation, if you come to a traffic signal, you expect to get through it when it turns green. If you come to it when it's red, you expect to get through it next time it turns green, and if you're waiting more than once up here, generally, except for a few times, that's probably an unacceptable condition, whereas down in New York, you may wait two or three of them and that may be acceptable. That's something you can deal with that's tangible, some experience. Few of us get to a traffic signal, look at our watch and say, gee, I start now, am I waiting 40 seconds or 30 seconds or 20 seconds. You're interested in getting through that signal when it does turn green, and I think, over long term, the people who develop these standard procedures for trying to provide some analysis are becoming more attune to the needs of the communities and allowing some adaptation so that you can in fact give something which I think is more tangible to people who are trying to review these documents. MR. RUEL-You've made several studies in the Queensbury area, traffic studies, and over the years, have any of them either become invalid or needed to be modified? Were the conclusions of the traffic study in effect what transpired over the years? MR. O'MALLEY-I don't think my experience, because we don't live with it on a daily basis, but we have done them. Jim obviously sees them quite regularly. I can't think of any of them that have come back, you know, I'll say the traffic engineers and traffic prognosticators are like weather people. They're pretty good at telling you what's going to happen tomorrow, but the longer you get away, and so many other things dictate what people do. Anyone who drives a car, obviously, can choose their path to wherever they want to go on a whim or a notice, depending upon what they're doing. So, development which is occurring out of Queensbury has an effect on intersections in Queensbury, but I think for the most part, the intersections have operated, I think, fairly close to what most operations people have said in the short term they probably will. MR. MARTIN-I think, for example, the K-Mart development, you know, this is the one this Board was heavily involved on, and I think that operates fairly well, and it's a pretty significant traffic generator down there, and we had, C. T. Male was the traffic consultant on that. We had the County looking at it, the State, the Town. MR. BREWER-Wal-Mart was the same way, right? MR. MARTIN-There's another example. You can see, now, in practice, what your projection showed. I think those are areas where the traffic works pretty well, considering. I've gone into that Plaza and not experienced that many delays coming out of Wal-Mart or that many delays at Route 9. MR. RUEL-Yes. Okay. MR. MARTIN-But as a general rule, and Dennis has done a lot of work on behalf of the Transportation Council. He's done two separate studies. Something X try to keep in the back of illY mind is that we're generally experiencing a two percent background growth in traffic, as a general rule, throughout the various travel corridors in the Town. MR. RUEL-Thank you. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. There were a couple of other issues, last week, when we appeared, and we addressed them in a letter to the Board. One had to do with phasing. We filed a phasing map and gave you a narrative as to what we thought would be a realistic time table for the phasing, with numbers of units that are set forth right on the - 10 - .-/ (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) phasing map itself. I think that's self explanatory. We put in writing our statement that we are hopeful that the Town will take a dedication of the park land, and either set up some type of conservancy group that will maintain it or operate it or maintain it themselves. We also followed up a little bit on your question about inclusion within the bike trail system, and I couldn't reach David Hodgson himself, but I did send him a copy of this letter and in trying to reach him, I went through the attorney Neil Lebowitz who I know was working on the grant. Apparently, they were not successful in getting the grant to do the bike trail in the manner that they were going to propose and actually construct a bike trail through the western part of the Town, which probably makes our offer of inclusion more significant to them because we're going to come on Board without the necessity of a grant and actually allow for an interconnection for the lands on the north side of Aviation Road and Westland, down through to the School. MR. PALING-Okay. You're going to do that. So, okay, fine. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. We also still are trying to put our arms around the question of generation of children for the school, and I don't have an answer for you for that. Basically, I'll go back to the phasing, though, and you're talking, perhaps, about 20 houses a year out of this development, and that's what we think is realistic. MR. PALING-Well, if the School isn't concerned, I won't say not concerned, but if the School can't give us a definite number, no one else can, then I don't think we should bother ourselves with it either, and let the kids come as they may. There seems to be no real way of finding out what that is, and if Queensbury High School, or the Queensbury complex isn't concerned, then I don't think we should be either. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. I think they're aware of the project. Dr. G. has been involved in a couple of public hearings and he's written a couple of letters on it. MR. PALING-He's commented on it. MR. O'CONNOR-And if you really look at the analysis of what you have for elements, I can understand why it's kind of hard to really make a determination. There are a lot of different factors there. I think, basically, that was, it's my understanding, an answering of the questions that you posed to us last week. I have looked briefly at Mr. Kilburn's letter that was submitted to you last week, and my initial reaction is that most of those issues appear to have to do with the issue of zoning or the issue of SEQRA. I can answer, and we've answered, I think, before the Board, most of them factually, how much of the property is presently zoning district LC-42A. It's the northwest corner. I think it's 50 some acres. We have no intention of changing that. We have not used that in our density. We have not used that in any manner except to offer it for dedication as an open space to the Town. Is the balance of this project RR-3A? I believe it all is RR-3A presently. That's the request that we have before the Board to change the zoning on it. Does the propose change to SR-15 constitute spot zoning? I think it does not. We are going to serve a community purpose. There's a specific whole set of series of cases that go along with that, when we're talking about the mixed type housing that we're talking about, even though it may benefit a developer, where it also benefits the community, particularly where we're getting involved with offering affordable housing and senior citizen housing. The Town Board can make that determination, and it's a Town Board determination. Does the proposed zoning change include significant property other than the developer's property? It does not, but I would say this, we've had to put together the property of more than one owner in order to put - 11 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) together the parcel. It is not simply one owner's parcel that is going to be re-zoned. I don't know the significance of that, if you don't fail the test under Number Three, which is a Town Board determination, who owns the property or whether is really not a significant issue. The next questions, as I understand them, all have been answered by the engineering that we have submitted to date. I really don't know of anything that indicates that this project is going to have any detrimental effect on either ground water or the wetland. The next series of questions on Page Two, I think, had to do with the Comprehensive Land Use Plan, and I think we've had two or three different presentations that the Comprehensive Land Use Plan was a broad brush approach. It was not site specific, and based upon the soils that we have, it is wrong for this particular property, and we can substantiate that. We're back again to geology. They're talking about areas with percolation rates greater than 20 inches per hour. That's not our site. Tom has addressed the percolation rates a number of times. He can address them again, but if you have a specific question. MR. NACE-Okay. The letter gives 20 inches per hour, which is three minutes per inch. That is not the Department of Health Standard. The Department of Health Standard is one minute per inch, and we're over that with all of our tests. MR. 0' CONNOR-The next question on Rush Pond and the designated C.E.A., I think, we're not within 500 feet. I think we had, actually, a wetland designation map out last week. I think, I'm not sure, we're probably almost 1500, 2,000 feet from Rush Pond, per se, or the area which is within that C.E.A., and then I think we've got 300 feet of hard ground before we even get to the next adjoining wetland. The aquifer recharge, I don't know of anything that indicates that residential septic systems are going to harm that aquifer, if there is an aquifer under there. If there is maybe everybody in Westland, including those that are opposing this, should think elsewhere, and I don't mean that sarcastically, but I mean, I think we should be environmentally realistic, and you've got 60 feet, here, to ground water, by what we can show by actual testing, and the rest of it, again, I think are environmental issues that are being undertaken by SEQRA. We've addressed them all in our presentation to SEQRA. I'd be glad to address any of them that you have specific concerns of. I don't know of any animal habitat that's on this site. We've gone through that with DEC. We have a letter acknowledging that from DEC, and like the summary paragraph, future developments. Once sewer facilities are installed where the location of high perked soils is the major determination for density, the plan states, that whole thing is based upon a premise that we're in a high perc soil, and I don't think we are. That's not what designates the other request for density here, it's actually the contrary to that. If you had too high a perc, you would have a lower density, I think, unless you're going to bring in soils to supplement the thing. So I don't mean to, if anybody has a specific question based upon that letter, somebody here would be glad to try to answer it. I don't think there's anything that is involved with this project that is going to be adverse. Unfortunately, there is a concept or maybe a fear, when we talk about affordable housing, that it might affect some of these property values, and when we got before the Town Board, I went to the trouble of submitting letters from, I think, five different realtors, that said that our development will not affect the realty value of the homes within Fox Farm, and last time after we got done, we talked a little bit about it, too, and I didn't mean to duck your question, Roger, as to what the pricing of housing is going to be in here, and I think perhaps even the term "affordable housing" is a misconception, and, Michael, maybe you want to give an idea, actually, as to what price range you're talking about, and then everybody can make their own mind as to how that housing fits in or doesn't fit in. - 12 - --...,/ (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MIKE VASILIOU MR. VASILIOU-Mike Vasiliou. I'm the developer. The duplex housing would be somewhere in the $80,000 range. The single family houses will be about $110,000 depending on what market conditions are, to about $160,000, and those will be, the more expensive houses will be those that are along the ridge area and the bigger lots. I don't know what else needs to be addressed. The housing size will be about 1450 to, I don't know, 1800, 2,000 feet. Certainly, if somebody wants a $200,000 house, we wouldn't deny them, but the idea is to keep the project affordable, and I think this needs to be brought out. We don't want to confuse affordable housing with low income housing, and I think that that's some of the concept that people are thinking that we're trying to do low income housing here. This is not. The idea is to keep it affordable within the means of where this community is. MR. RUEL-Are you aware that one of the requirements, and it's Sketch Plan application, is the submittal of either architectural renderings and/or drawings of these structures? MR. VASILIOU-We did that. MR. PALING-Yes, that's here. MR. RUEL-We have them? MR. PALING-Sure. MR. VASILIOU-We did a packet of suggested houses. early on in the process. We did that MR. PALING-Yes, we have that. MR. RUEL-Okay. Thank you. MR. VASILIOU-We did some designs for the duplexes as well. MR. RUEL-I had my eyes closed on that one. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. try and answer them. If there's any other questions, we'd be glad to If no questions, then I'd surrender the mike. MRS. LABOMBARD-Back to this animal habitats. When you read it, from Mr. Kilburn's letter here, it says, Rush Pond is one of the areas providing nesting for water fowl, waterways for migratory animals, etc., a buffer from disturbance by man and protection of vegetation is very important. Now, that sounds very plausible, and it's what we all want to uphold, and then we have some strategies here. Reduce the density of development permitted adjacent to wetlands. Require clustering in areas which include wetlands, increase setbacks for development adjacent to wetlands. I just felt that you didn't elaborate enough on this. Obviously, those strategies which Mr. Kilburn proposed, you know, are being considered, but would you just tell me a little bit more about, just make me feel like I can go to bed tonight and know that there's no problem there. I know that you've said that there's 1500 feet and all of that. MR. O'CONNOR-The Northway is closer to Rush Pond than this is, by about three times. MRS. LABOMBARD-Okay. MR. O'CONNOR-And if that's the background, if that's the background noise disturbances that we would be compared to, and I were to do a noise study based upon the noise that would come out of a - 13 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) residential subdivision, as compared to the Northway, I don't think I would even show up on the study, but I think the issue that we have is One, the distance that we are from Rush Pond, Two, the type of development that we're proposing. This is a single family residential subdivision. This is not an asphalt plant or something of that nature that's going to generate a great deal of noise. The noise that you're going to have, probably the greatest noise that you're going to have outside is going to be kids playing, or maybe a lawnmower or something of that nature. The distance between us and the actual wetland which is between us and Rush Pond, is 300 feet, by septic system. Probably by backyard, 200 feet. We've got a graphic here, and you can take a look at it, and maybe that's what Jim Miller's trying to show me. I can't conceive, in my mind, how we're going to have any impact upon whatever is within Rush Pond. I'm a little bit familiar with Rush Pond, and I don't know of that being a known and established habitat. It is a habitat for some rare plant, and they extend over into the Glen Lake Fen, which is behind Story town, and that's part of the reason that that is a designated Critical Environmentally Sensitive area. It's more a plant habitat, I believe, than it is an animal habitat. MRS. LABOMBARD-I wanted you to expound on that for the record. I just thought that it's something that should be reiterated. Thank you. MR. PALING-Okay. I have just one question. Just clarify for me the activity of the church that's going to build on that seven acre, the senior housing. Do you have an actual commitment from them, or what is the status of that? MR. O'CONNOR-No, we do not. MR. PALING-Do not have a commitment. MR. O'CONNOR-In speaking to the Town, let me explain to you the commitment we have, okay, and Michael has an idea of a commitment. My idea of a commitment and Matt's idea of a commitment is a little different. We don't have a signature. So lets not say we've got a signature. We've got a process to go through, okay. We were asked to include, within this proposal, a set aside for senior citizen housing. The Town Board said that they were very pleased, some of the Town Board that have looked at this, were very pleased with the church group that runs Solomon Heights, asked whether or not we would have any objection, would they have any interest? We've gone to them. We've talked to them a couple of times. I think Mr. Adams from the church group came to the public hearing at the SEQRA and indicated that they have a great interest in going forward. They have talked to Congressman Solomon's office about processing a grant, the windows of the grant, and what their timetable would be. They have not, they have indicated that they want to go forward, okay, but they have not signed anything. We're not in a position where we can contract with them, until we have approvals, and that, very specifically, is a problem that X have. They're part of the presentation. We think they are going to be the ones that are going to do the development, but the way that we're going to do it with the Town is to say, this is a set aside for senior citizen housing. We authorize you to have veto power over what group will actually take on that project. MR. BREWER-Worst case scenario, it falls through, then what happens to that land? MR. O'CONNOR-It would depend upon what conditions the Town puts on the re-zoning of it. MR. PALING-Did you say that they have an option to dictate what happens to this? - 14 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. O'CONNOR-We're going to offer the Town Board that option. MR. PALING-Okay, offer them that option. So we'll have to at least note this in any recommendation we make, that this is not a totally resolved detail. MR. O'CONNOR-We've made that proposal to Town Board already. MR. PALING-Okay. We can do that, too. MR. BREWER-Mike, would you guys consider, if that were to fall through, duplexes or something? I'm just trying to get it, or open space? MR. O'CONNOR-We have not gone through that thought process. There seems to be a great need. Right now, and I apologize if I'm off by a couple of numbers, but it was either 44 or 48 that they have on a waiting list for people who want to get in to the existing Solomon Heights. MR. BREWER-The only reason I say that, and I'll lead to the reason why, is because we just approved, how many units down here on Bay? Seventy units down here. MRS. LABOMBARD-Perry Noun. MR. BREWER-Perry Noun, yes. MR. STARK-That isn't the same thing that he's talking about. MR. VASILIOU-A different kind of project. MR. BREWER-It is? All right. MR. O'CONNOR-I'm not sure how they fund it. I'm not sure how they subsidize the. MR. MARTIN-It's not subsidized. subsidized. The Perry Noun one is not MR. O'CONNOR-Okay, but this is partially subsidized. MR. MARTIN-The Solomon Heights was a 202 Grant from HOO, and National Church Residence was the sponsor of that application. I understand there's another application that's coming up, and they hope to submit this location in another application. They have an excellent track record, and this would be very competitive. As I understand it, I thought the commitment was in place, that this area of this project is for senior housing. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes, it is. MR. MARTIN-And that's, and if this particular deal falls through, with National Church Residence, then this is still committed to senior housing, and we wait for the next senior housing proposal to come along. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. MR. BREWER-Right. that's all. I'm just trying to get all the options open, MR. O'CONNOR-In fact, I think we changed, when I was on vacation, we changed the number of senior citizen units based upon a request from the National Church group. MR. VASILIOU-It went from 42 to 61, and we changed the acreage from five to seven. - 15 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. MARTIN-They had a slot for 61 units. They could justify the feasibility in the grant application of a project of that specific size. MR. PALING-We can note that, then, that this is, will be a set aside for senior housing, with the Town Board controlling the outcome, detailed use of it. MR. RUEL- Is this senior citizen housing limited to Queensbury residents or anyone? MR. O'CONNOR-I truthfully don't know how they do their intake, but I would presume that they only have a limited amount of preference that they can give. I think they can give some preference, but I don't know if they can give outright preference, because it's federal money. MR. MARTIN-Yes. restriction. I don't think they could make that kind of a MR. O'CONNOR-I think there's some points that they can assign. MR. PALING-All right. Now, does anyone on the Board have any questions for the applicant for now? MR. RUEL-Yes. I have a question for Jim. Any plans in the future for a sewer up Aviation Road towards this development? MR. MARTIN-As I understand it, there's been discussion of at least attaching a dry sewer pipe to the side of the new bridge across Aviation Road. MR. RUEL-Period. MR. MARTIN-Because as you know, a new bridge is built about once every 40 years, and we might as well take advantage of that opportunity. There also has been discussion I think from the school wanting to be on the sewer system, but beyond that, I know of no plans to bring it any farther west. MR. RUEL-Okay. Thank you. MR. PALING-All right. At this point, we'll move into the, it's still a public meeting, but we're going to accept, again, comment from the public. So if anyone would like to come forward and talk on this matter, new items. Don't tell us what was told last time, but anything new, commenting on what came up tonight, please come up. If you're going to speak, please identify yourself for the record. MARK HOFFMAN DR. HOFFMAN-My name's Mark Hoffman. I'd like to thank the Planning Board for holding this additional meeting, and setting aside the time for it. I think it is time well spent, as this is an important project with significant implications for the Town. I also apologize if my presentation is not as crisp as some of the other presenters. I do have a full time job and I'm doing this in between my other responsibilities. At this point in time, I wanted to focus primarily on the traffic study, which was made available to me. I think the most glaring issue, in relation to the traffic study, is the discrepancy between the conclusion, the conclusions of the study and the data that's actually presented, which I found very, I just thought was remarkable. There are many assumptions that are made in the study which can be questioned, but lets take these assumptions at face value and look at the data. Now, the completion of the study was that. - 16 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. BREWER-Can you tell us where you are in the study? MR. HOFFMAN-Well, I'm talking about the entire study, but I'll keep you informed as we go along. The conclusion of the study, which is at the end, states that there'll be no significant impact on the intersections involved, and that the intersections will continue to operate at an acceptable level. Now, if you look at the actual levels of service, I didn't note the pages, but I'll find them for you, you have the peak hour generation. MR. BREWER-Page 4, 2.3 level of service? DR. HOFFMAN-I think the most useful data is on Page 7, which shows without the development and with the development, and basically, what's apparent from that, in the morning, if we look at the Aviation/Dixon Road intersection, which seems to be the most troublesome, at least in terms of a worsening, if you look at the a.m. Dixon Road northbound level of service, it's currently at a D, which is not very good, but it would go to an E, which is worse, and this, just for your information was not included in the traffic study, but I do have the descriptions of what these refer to, which I got from Warren County Department of Public Works. A means, this is for unsignaled, interrupted intersections. A Level of Service A means little or no delay. B means short traffic delays. C means average traffic delays. D means long traffic delays, and E means very long traffic delays. For most other types of intersections or roads, there's also an F, but apparently, F must be so bad that they don't describe it. So we see that it goes from D to E in the morning at the peak hour, Dixon northbound. In the morning, Farr Lane southbound goes from D to E. So, in other words, currently it's D. With the development, it goes to E. In the evening Parr Lane southbound is currently at a B, which would be certainly acceptable. It goes to a D. Again, D means long traffic delays. Okay. Again, you know, if this was going from A to B, we would have to live with it, but we're talking about going from bad to worse here. Now, again, these descriptions assume that weather conditions are acceptable, which we know in Queensbury is not often the case, in the winter time. In terms of, there are assumptions built into this, which I'll discuss shortly. That's the Dixon/Farr Lane intersection. Now the Aviation/Potter/Fox Farm intersection basically what they're saying is that it's currently at E, and the Fox Farm southbound is at E and will stay at E. In the evening it's at D and will stay at D. So they're saying it's already bad and will stay bad. Again, there is data here. There are some very sketchy discussion of where the data is generated, but it does apparently indicate that for these, for that intersection, after the project, there will actually be less traffic than before the project, and now the reason, apparently, why this intersection is going to remain manageable is that it will only be used for entering vehicles. Again, the assumption here is that the Town is going to go in and enforce a one way road of some sort there. How they're going to enforce this on a quiet residential street, whether they have adequate police manpower to do that, whether we want our taxpayer money spent having a policeman stationed there to make sure that nobody's going the wrong way, or whether we'd rather have our policeman out catching criminals is a separate issue. MR. PALING-All right. So this is your first question, I take it. I think we're going to call for comment to answer what you're saying. So this is your first question, the unsignalized service that you're looking at on Page 7? DR. HOFFMAN-Yes. Correct. MR. PALING-Okay. All right. DR. HOFFMAN-Now in addition to trying to maintain a one way road there, I know from experience, and I have friends and family that - 17 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) have dealt with one way roads and trying to put in obstacles and this sort of thing. There's always political pressure from drivers and from other people to try to get those one way roads turned back into two way, and I'm not sure I want to come back to the Town Board every year and continually have to argue that this should be maintained a one way road. Now, in terms of the Aviation/Farr Lane/Potter intersection, which again is the one which would deteriorate most, the argument has been made that it has to be viewed in the context of the overall traffic management of Queensbury, and that the Town has to do something about it, okay. That certainly is true, but to quote Mr. O'Connor from the previous meeting, he described some of the concerns that we had as being speculative, and he described them as being in Never Never Land. The reality is that I think the developer here and the traffic consultant is in Never Never Land by saying that the Town is going to just take care of the problem. The fact is, we dOh't know what the Town is going to do. We don't know whether they have the resources, whether they want to spend the tax money to take care of this problem. We don't know, I mean, there's been discussion about widening Aviation Road. To my knowledge, there's no data that widening the road will improve the situation. It could make it worse, because if you widen the road, you get faster cars, which might make the intersection more difficult to deal with. A number of potential solutions were discussed. There was no comment regarding the cost of those potential solutions. Discussion was raised about possibly putting in a traffic light. If, as appears to be the case, there's already going to be a traffic light placed at the intersection of the school and the Cottage Hill area, and then we're going to put another traffic light less than half a mile away, I would think that that's going to have a significant negative impact on traffic flow on Aviation Road there. Another potential solution that was raised was to route all these cars up through other residential streets, like Cottage Hill. You see a few residents here. If you're talking about re-routing 1,000 cars a day up Cottage Hill Road, you're going to see a lot more people packing this packing this hall. MR. PALING-Okay. You're getting a little off, when you're talking about the subdivision and down the street. DR. HOFFMAN-Well, I'm addressing a specific solution that was raised as a possible way of dealing with the problem, and I think it's totally unrealistic. Now, some of these calculations that attempt to determine the amount or the Level of Service at these intersections are based on assumptions of background increase in traffic, which is estimated at two percent per year. Those mayor may not be accurate assumptions. I would say, though, that the increase in traffic is going to be related to the amount of development in the area, and that the amount of development is going to, at least in part, be related to the zoning. Now if we start going around and saying, any developer that comes in and wants to re-zone any area the way he wants can go ahead and do that, you're going to see a big increase in background traffic. We do it for this developer, why not do it for the next one? There's another assumption with regard to the community building. For example, it's been stated that it might be used for a medical facility, and that there would be no outside traffic coming in to use that facility. I can tell you as a physician that if that is used as a medical facility, there is no way that that will be an economically viable clinic unless they have outside people coming in, because there's just not enough people, seniors or otherwise, to support a clinic, just based on local residents. So that, potentially, could significantly increase the traffic in and out, and it's not clear to me that they're going to be able to restrict that in any way. All right. I think, I've taken a fair amount of time, but I think it's reasonable and justified based on the information here. I would say, you know, ultimately, what this is going to come down to is, can this be done, and the answer is, - 18 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) sure, it can be done. Can you, ultimately, figure out a way to get the traffic moving? Yes. You can, if you're willing to spend the money, and if the community is willing to accept a significant change in the character of the neighborhood. If they're going to talk about widening roads and moving roads and taking land by eminent domain, sure, you know, you can start doing that, but there is a trade off here. It's not just as simple as saying, the Town's going to come in and take care of the problem. What is the justification for all this? We have a project which has been touted, as far as I can see, there are two justifications for this project, for why we've been told it's in the public interest. One, "affordable housing", and I guess now they're backing off. Maybe they don't quite like that term so much, and, two, cluster housing. With regard to affordability, again, I meant to bring it with me today, but I didn't have a chance. I was looking through the Sunday real estate section. I mean, there are just loads of houses in the $60,000 to $100,000 range. The price range that was quoted here is not any different than any place else in Queensbury. It's a standard development. It's just like any other development. It's got a reasonable range of homes that various people of various incomes can buy. There's nothing different or special about this, and as far as I can see, there's a whole lot of houses out there for people to buy. If they can't afford it, the problem is that there's not enough economic opportunity. There's not enough jobs. There's not enough people that can buy a house, period. By building more houses that people can't afford is not the solution, and then the other issue is this cluster housing issue. It was quoted at the last meeting that the amount of developable land, the amount of land that can be developed which is being set aside here is a total of six percent of the property that we're talking about. That was what was quoted by the professional. That, to me, is negligible. MR. BREWER-No. I think what the statement was, is if you took away the undevelopable land, being the wetlands and what not, the amount of green space left over would be six percent. Is that what we talked about, George? MR. HILTON-Yes. MR. PALING-But the number's like 40, I think. MR. BREWER-No. The number was six percent if we eliminated the 54. DR. HOFFMAN-Well, that's my point. They can't build on that land anyway. So what is this great contribution that they're making? Six percent? And for this we have to live with traffic delays? You're going to see noise coming from these. People are going to get frustrated at these corners. They're going to start bleeping on their horns. There is noise that comes from the Northway currently that is buffered by the trees where this development is going to be. The trees are going to get cut down, and the noise is going to come straight to the rest of the Queensbury, West Queensbury.area. To me, you know, I've concentrated on the traffic because that's what I had time to do, and I'm not a hydrologist. I'm not an engineer, but if these other issues related to the hydrology and these other questions are as questionable as what's showing up in this traffic study, I think it raises a question about the integrity of this whole development. Thank you. MR. PALING-Okay. Thank you. Who's next? RICK HAAG MR. HAAG-My name is Rick Haag. I'd like to address a few different issues. One of them is still the wetland area and the septic and sewage drainage. I know that we had an opportunity to see the test boreings last week, and since that I've talked to some of the - 19 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) people at DEC, in the Warrensburg office, and I would still say there's a real concern about the possibility of, since that soil has not changed from the original hinkley rating, that the rate of perc is so fast, in fact, that the drillings and the samples were taken at the extreme eastern portion of the development, that although it may be that that area does flow in the aquifer toward Halfway Brook, there's a very strong possibility that the area you can see on the ridge there, and again, we're talking about water flowing down hill, water certainly, if it were to be studied, I'm sure would still show that it's going to flow at the ridge area toward the wetland, and in the case of the wetlands area and the stream that flows through that, being classed a AA, drinking water intended usage class, I'd still be concerned that that area going toward the Glen Lake and the water shed is going to have, eventually, a problem with a failed system. I don't kµow what the distance is. I know there've been a couple of different figures talked about. Some of them are 200 feet from the back of the ridge line, and the ridge, I don't know, but the height there is something that would preclude the water going towård the wetland areas, and I would be concerned that still we should have some opportunity to see what the soils in that particular area would show, in terms of drainage. There certainly can be a case where the runoff in those areas for drainage as well as septic would flow into that wetland area and off into the watershed that feeds into Glen Lake, and those cases where the people at Glen Lake are using the resource for potable water, and I would also indicate that the inclusion of the wetlands area as included in that P.D.D. portion of give back to the Town is certainly unrealistic, and knowing that it is undevelopable land, we certainly shouldn't include that, in terms of what the Town may gain. The small amount of green space between the houses that are there in the development area certainly is not going to be used by outside residents as park space. It certainly would be good for those individuals that are in the development, but I can't see that there has been, at the last meeting, it was mentioned that it would be available for Town use. I think people from the general vicinity certainly would not be using this space as Town park land. Traffic study, I beat the Northway every day. I work in Albany. Today when I got off the Northway at 5:30 and attempted to make a left hand turn to come up Aviation Road, we had to wait because the traffic lights have the cars stacked up down past the old Howard Johnsons, and I think, again, there certainly needs to be more looking and working and trying to develop something that will be a workable solution. That Aviation Road turns into a three lane road now, even though there is not a paved Highway portion for a third lane. Either way you're going, east or west, people are a little impatient or start going around cars, and I really can't see that a three lane with a center left turn lane is going to alleviate the problem. I think the fact that we're going to go, in some cases, from a D to an E rating is indicative of a problem that is even going to compound. There's no way that adding 111 houses is not going to have, single family houses alone, is not going to have an ill effect or bad effect on those areas, and I would be concerned, in one case, where the mention of the National Church Residence building the, or possibly building the senior citizens housing, if that falls through, according to the Queensbury Zoning Ordinances, through the P.D.D. districts, there is an allowance for commercial space and non residential use, or accessory use. I would be concerned that the Planning Board and the Town Board certainly would not, at a point further down the road, should this not come to fruition, change the zoning and allow now, again, more density for that particular area, if senior citizens housing is not built in that area. It has been mentioned in the past about this area being clustered in its development. I'm not familiar with, in terms of planning, what clustering is when you're developing an area, but I did look it up in my desk dictionary, and I don't think that the particular layout "cookie cutter" that was used in the past is certainly cluster developing, in this particular area. The increase in density, - 20 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) going from the RR-3 to the SR-15, is quite a dramatic and drastic change for use of that land. I think, again that, even though time is of the essence for everyone concerned here, that certainly the Town should look back and be concerned about some of those areas that have been re-zoned drastically from the existing Comprehensive Land Use Plan and see what problems have cropped up, in some cases unfortunately, lawsuits have involved the Town and money and time and things are involved here for trying to straighten out some things that perhaps could have been avoided in the past and certainly could be avoided now. Some of the concerns that have been voiced, or taken a better look at and making some changes and a little bit of harmony in what is being proposed here with the Comprehensive Town Land Use Plan. That's all I have. MR. PALING-Okay. Thank you. Who else would like to talk? HAROLD SHAMUS MR. SHAMUS-Hi. My name is Howard Shamus, and I think the question that I have on my mind is what responsibility the Town has to the current community who has taken the time to do their do diligence when they purchased their homes and to really look over the area very, very carefully and see that there is zoning applications in the area that they chose to buy, where they chose to buy in. It has been brought up many times by the counsel that the real estate agents didn't dispute anything he said. Of course, if I was a real estate agent, I wouldn't either, and being that I have no monetary expenses right now, I'd say anything because, hey, I have an opportunity, if this thing goes through, to be the agent to sell these homes. Okay, but if you pick up these real estate magazines and if you thumb through them, you will see, over and over and over again, this area is zoned for this. This area is zoned for this, and people are making choices of where they are spending their hard earned dollars of where they're going to settle down, and right now we have an area that is zoned for three acres, and we are going to, we are considering, now, to intensify the population there tremendously with 100 and some odd homes, which are not going to be ª person. There's going to be plenty of people living there, plenty of need, services going in and out, and what is the real need? Do we really need another 111 homes there, when it's been brought out, and if you pick up the real estate section, where you have all these homes, in that price range, that are available. So how do we best serve the people who have already settled in this community, have made the determination to buy in this area, because it is not, because of the population structure of it, and now we're going to turn around and we're going to put in 111 homes. It just doesn't make any sense, and I think that the issue is really is here is how do we protect the investment and the desire of the people who have purchased in these areas, based upon what they were told when they bought? I think you have to give that a lot of consideration, of how you're going to protect the community that exists there now, not for what could possibly be in the future. MR. PALING-Thank you. DEBBIE COLIN MRS. COLIN-Hi. I'm Debbie Colin, and I'm the only neighbor, who sits right here. That's me. Okay. You had my letter last time. I'm the person who came, lets see, was it seven years ago you did your Master Plan, and I came to everyone of your meetings, and I went to the Warren County, and I looked up everyone who owned everything, and I know how much Mr. Farone paid for those 120 acres, and we were not going to buy our land. We waited two years to buy our land. We are on Fox Farm Road. We are right here on this map. We're right here. That's our two and a half acres. When we had the blessing of getting two and a half acres, and when it went for Rural Residential 3, we built our home according to - 21 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) that zoning, because we did wait two years before we purchased the land. We came to your other meeting in January, and there was the Town meeting, and there was going to be some revisions done. When my husband and I came up here last Tuesday, we could not make the meeting in the evening, so we came up during the afternoon and left our letter off. We compared our map with your new map that was somewhat revised, and what we did find is you addressed the senior citizens and made that bigger. You did not address our concerns about the one way street that would be right across from us. There's not a good demarcation. They did make some acreage smaller, which some gentleman, I don't know. I'm not going to say who, we noticed that the numbers were actually smaller along the ridge, maybe by three feet, but they're smaller. They're not bigger. There's some other concerns, as we were talking about, that water runs from high to low, correct? If I'm reading the elevations correctly, it says, 480 here on the ridge, "and then we go down to 470, 460, 450, 440, and 430. If you go from high to low, isn't that how the water would run, and that goes into Rush Pond, and then over across the street it's still 480, and then it goes to a 478, so it looks like a basin effect. I don't know if that's been addressed. Also, all of us neighbors received the Glen Lake Watershed. We're now in the Glen Lake Watershed area. I found that sort of interesting. If this is not going to be an impact, you know, if this force being developed is not an impact, then why are we considered in the Glen Lake Watershed study? Does anybody know why? MR. BREWER-Jim? MRS. COLIN-All of us neighbors got those. MR. MARTIN-Yes. That was a watershed survey that was sent out by the Glen Lake Technical Advisory Committee that's doing a watershed plant, and this area is a watershed area to Rush Pond, which is ultimately a. MRS. COLIN-Do you guys have a copy of this? MR. PALING-Which map are you referring to? Let me see what you've got. I don't think we have it. Okay, and this is the Glen Lake Watershed area, Butler Pond, Route 149. MRS. LABOMBARD-And who designated it as that, the Glen Lake residents? MR. MARTIN-That was done by this Technical Committee, and that map was developed by some students at ACC. MRS. COLIN-So they included our neighborhood in this area. MRS. LABOMBARD-Is that engineering, is that accurate, though, is that geologically accurate and geographically accurate? I mean, they're students. MR. MARTIN-It's based on a certain elevation. If you're at a certain elevation, then that line is drawn, and if you're within that, then you're within the Watershed. It's assuming that a certain elevation drains to a lower point, establishing a watershed area. MRS. LABOMBARD-But I mean, is that certifiable, like by a professional hydrologist? MR. MARTIN-Well, I think a lot of things come into play. I mean, I think there's a lot of misconception that every drop of water that falls in this entire area is going to end up in Glen Lake or Rush Pond, and I don't think that's accurate. - 22 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MRS. COLIN-I just didn't know if that should be taken into consideration that whether it's, I don't know what group this is. I didn't have the time to call them up and verify them. MR. MARTIN-It's an Advisory Board appointed by the Town Board that is preparing a watershed management plan. MRS. COLIN-It's appointed by the Town Board? MR. MARTIN-Yes. I'm on that Board. MRS. COLIN-Okay. I think that, I have to apologize, because I've been going back to school, college, as well as working, and so I didn't make a lot of the evening meetings, but I believe, when my husband came, one of the points that was brought up to be addressed was that the density on the ridge to be reduced, and as it stands now, there's still 18 homes on the ridge, which I would think would be the most critically environmentally sensitive area because you're going to have lawns. You're going to have those chemicals, you know, flowing in to that area, especially if they're at 480 and from the ridge down it does go down in elevation. MR. MARTIN-I think to accurately discuss this subject, because this is coming up time and time again, I think it would be a good idea to go through a detailed explanation of the typical site plan that's shown here, because there's a lot of little nuances here that are very, very important and should be gone through in detail and explained thoroughly, because I don't think the explanation, it doesn't appear that it's getting through, and I'd like to have some member of the development team, maybe Mr. Miller, come up and take us through this typical lot layout, as it's represented along the wetland ridge line here, because there's a lot of detail in here that's very important. MR. PALING-Okay. Jim, I agree with what you're asking. MR. MARTIN-Not right away, but at some point in the meeting, because there's grading notations that are made here, placement of septic systems, and all that are very important as to how water is going to fall and how water is going to drain in this particular area. MR. PALING-Lets do what you're asking. MR. MARTIN-There's a lot of mitigation built into this design already, that's not making it through. MR. PALING-I understand. Lets do what you're asking, but lets proceed with this, and at the end, because there may be other questions that can flow into this, too. MRS. COLIN -Okay. To go back to your Master Plan, your zone, Master Plan that you did just seven years ago, and that was, I know zoning does change, and we were aware of that, but I'm going to also make you aware of, you were talking about the test holes. The test holes were there seven years ago, and it wasn't just some study that they took, you know, I forget, it was so long ago, in the beginning of this meeting. You were saying it came from conservation studies of what the soil was like. There were test holes then, believe me. We watched this property. We wanted this property. We walked this property. We fell in love with the ridge here, and if anything saw it as a potential park for the Town, because there's some beautiful trails there. There's some lovely plant life. There are some foxes and deer that live there. We've had the pleasure of seeing, and turkeys. Lot of different types of birds as well as turkeys. I happened to see those in my back yard the other day. So the test holes have been there. Someone was testing the soil before, and we had presumed, at the time, it was - 23 - ~',,"r."" (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) for the Master Plan for this aquifer that was supposed to have gone through. Maybe not. Maybe it was Tom Farone getting ready, because it was zoned RR-3. MR. MARTIN-I heard that Buck Bryant did some testing of the zone to dispute the. MRS. COLIN-All right. Well, this was in Farone's property. Again, I went and got the map. I kind of did my homework on the piece of property. MR. MARTIN-I know for a fact that Committee did not do any test boreings. They didn't have the funding. MRS. COLIN-Well, someone did. There were test boreings. there. MR. MARTIN-Yes. I don't know who that was. It wasn't the Town. MR. MILLER-Tom Farone did them. Yes, they're in the soils report. MRS. COLIN-Okay. So they were there before. I'd like to see the density on the ridge reduced. I don't know if that's, and if anything, if you compare my map to that map you will find, like I said, by three feet, the acreage has gone down. There's some areas where it's gone up, but there some areas along the ridge where the acreage size has down. That's basically it, and if that drawing, that elevation there, is that along the ridge? Again, that shows the house up higher and then it gradually goes down. Maybe that's what you're going to address when you're talking about elevation and how water flows from. MR. PALING-I'll let somebody else answer that. MRS. COLIN-Okay. MR. PALING-But we'll try to answer your question. you. Okay. Thank MRS. COLIN-Thank you. MR. PALING-Who is next? TERRY O'KANE MRS. 0' KANE-My name is Terry O'Kane. I live in Evergreen Estates. Maybe this isn't important, but it seems to me when you're talking this traffic survey, do you guys shop in Sokol's and Stewarts? It's not just east/west, west/east. It's circles around. It's the kids coming out for their soda, walking over to Sokol's to the pizza place, back and forth. It's the track team coming over to drink something. So kind of please bear that in mind. Thank you. MR. PALING-Drive defensively. I know what you mean. MRS. 0' KANE-Right, just consider it. MARY JANE CANALE MRS. CANALE-Hi. I'm Mary Jane Canale, and I live at the bottom of this ridge. Right now, when it rains, my whole back yard is totally flooded. I've had Animal Control come out and pick up dead raccoons like crazy because the drain gets all filled up with water, flooded, and the raccoons that are in there get kind of washed up. They drown and come out. I saw an article in the newspaper last week about flooding, waterlogged homes, and the man who owns the property, Thomas Farone, is going to be doing the infrastructure on this development, and I just want to make sure that illY house isn't waterlogged. Thank you. - 24 - --- (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. PALING-Thank you. Okay. Is there anyone else who would care to speak? Okay. I think everyone's had a chance. We will close off the public meeting part of this, and now I think we have to consider going into a Board only. Now, does anyone have any questions for the applicant or for anyone? Okay. Then I guess the next thing to do, Jim, is to go to your suggestion and have someone representing the applicant. MR. MARTIN-Well, I was especially interested in the typical site plan. That's a cross section there. I was looking at that, Jim, you provided a typical site plan both of a lot away from the ridge and at the ridge. MR. NACE-I'd like to preface what Jim is going to say about the grading and the lot development with the fact that when we're talking about water, we're talking about two different aspects. We're talking about surface water drainage, where the surface water goes, and yes, if there's a bank, the surface water goes down hill. We're also talking about groundwater, which can be, in certain instances and in this instance is different than surface water flow direction. Surface water flow direction on site will find low points. It'll head toward the low points of surface elevation. The ground water that we have been discussing here on this site, we have shown that the test boreings does flow away from the wetland area, and because of the soils uniformity, the type of soils, it is very unlikely, to answer a question that was brought up earlier, very unlikely that there would be differences, local differences, in ground water flow direction, okay. The soils are uniform. In geologic terms, they' re relatively porous, that does allow the surface water, if there's a gradient, all the surface water in that area will honor that gradient for the elevation of surface water difference that's been shown. So it's very unlikely that at any particular portion of the site, the groundwater flow would be substantially different than what we've found, based on the three boreings. JIM MILLER MR. MILLER-I'm Jim Miller, Landscape Architect for the project. One of the concepts for the storm drainage is as this cross section shows, the site, as described by one of the neighbors, is exactly right. The upper portion of the site is extremely flat. There's slight undulations and depressions, but since the soil is so sandy and so porous there's very little runoff. So now what happens is the water will pocket in low depressions on the surface and infiltrate into the groundwater. Where across the back of the ridge, it slopes down toward the wetland, there will be surface runoff toward the wetland. There also will be infiltration in that area. Since there was a concern, the development along that wetland along the ridge, we've been working with the Town Board and the Planning Staff now for many months, and what we have come up with is, what's required by the Ordinance for wetlands, 100 foot setback, and also what's required, I believe, for septic systems is a 100 foot setback. What we have provided here is a setback to our property line of, I think there's approximately 200 feet. Obviously, I varies a little bit along the back of the ridge, approximately 200 feet. This is the closest septic system to that wetland, is 345 feet. So we're more than triple what's required. In addition, the Health Department talks about, you need four foot separation between groundwater and septic or any, or other type of infiltrating stormwater. We have 60 feet, and yet the questions came up about the grading and the chemicals, and what we've proposed is, since the site is so flat in the area that we're developing, in order to have positive drainage, the roads will be cut below grade. So they'll actually come in and excavate out a couple of feet, so that all the sites will sit above the road. What this'll do is the road will be Town standard with a wing swale and the front yards will slope up a minimum of two percent to the - 25 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) house. So it'll be a combination of some of the excavation from the basements, as well as depressing the road will provide a positive slope up to the house. In addition, we're proposing that each house will have a swale along the perimeters to take any surface runoff that may collect on the sites and drain it to the roads. Now what's going to happen, in 98% of the time, because of the porous soils, there's going to be no surface runoff, but there may be occasions when there's frost in the ground. You get heavy rain in the middle of the winter. There may be some surface runoff, and each site will be graded toward the Town road. Within the Town road, we've submitted the schematic drainage report. The proposed storm drainage is exactly as the system is working over at Hudson Pointe. There'll be drywells located within 250 feet, all throughout the road system. So all this drainage will come into the road and will infiltrate into the soils. There's ~o discharge into the wetland. I noticed in reviewing, in Fox Hollow, reviewing their subdivision map, they have a 24 inch storm discharge into the wetland. We will have no discharge into the wetland. MR. MARTIN-See, and that's an important point I want to emphasize, that planning in the Town has not been a static process. We're trying to learn from the Queensbury Forest and the things like that, and, you know, our road designs now and standards for drainage and grading and all that is far superior than what it was even 10 years ago, and we're trying to take into account all of these types of situations that arise, so you do not have direct discharge of water from the road any more into the low points or wetlands. It's just not done. It's an infiltration system now, where we don't have surface water going directly, with all its contaminants, going directly into wetlands. That is not done anymore. MR. BREWER-Is it similar to the infiltrators they used at the Mall? MR. MARTIN-Yes, and it's even getting to the point now where in commercial development. Wal-Mart, the addition to the Mall, the Kenny plaza that's not yet been built on Upper Route 9. Those are the three most recent developments in the, commercial developments in the Town of a major nature. They are practicing infiltration under the parking lot. Infiltrators are put in under the pavement and the water is infiltrated into the ground and not discharged to the nearest low point in the surface water. So, you know, there is evolving treatment systems for this type of thing. It's no longer, just get the water off the road and put it into the nearest lake or pond. MR. RUEL-As was done in Herald Square. MR. MARTIN-Right. It's evolved even since then, since Fox Hollow. MR. RUEL-The roads go directly into Clendon Brook. MR. BREWER-Warren County does it right into Clendon Brook. MR. RUEL-And that was only, what, six, seven years ago. MR. BREWER-Less than that. MR. PALING-All right. At this point, I think we've heard from the applicant, and we've heard from everyone in the public that wants to speak. So now it's up to us to do it, and from this point on, I'd like to make the meeting within the Board only and Staff. MR. BREWER-Bob, in all fairness, can we have the traffic engineer answer the questions that were brought up? MR. PALING-Yes. I think that is a good idea. I've got a couple of - 26 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) questions there. Yes. I'd like to have that commented on, especially, thank you, Tim. MR. O'CONNOR-I'm not sure the response, the report, I think, was correctly read by Mr. Hoffman, that there are two chains, levels of service, neither of which gets you to a level of service that is not operable or generally acceptable. MR. BREWER-I just wanted to offer you the chance to comment, that's all. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. MR. O'MALLEY-Just a couple of things in general. As I mentioned earlier, just for the record again, this is Dennis O'Malley with Transportation Concepts. When we talk about unsignalized intersections, we're not talking about, necessarily, situations where another remedy is available to us to take care of the traffic situation which is created. Obviously, this site's going to generate some new traffic. It's residential. It will generate traffic. We've estimated the amount of traffic that will be generated by that site, and we feel comfortable with that estimate, as we've said in the past. It's supported by evidence and we've collected both within this area and the Capital District, that sites of this type generate traffic and volumes approximately what we've estimated for the site. Having more traffic come to any intersection, Farr Lane or Fox Farm Road will have an impact. Obviously, the more cars that come, those who come have to wait, will have to wait longer, and traffic that's increased along Aviation Road will force that wait to occur, and that's really what the Level of Service is suggested. We've also suggested that there really is no other remedy given for the traffic volumes that we've predicted, both in the short and the long term, on Aviation Road, and Farr Lane and Dixon Road, given the existing situation, because we don't have a warrant, yet, for the installation of another device, which in this case, going from a stop sign, would probably be a traffic signal. That may very well occur, and some of the things that are going to force that, or may force that to occur are developments that are in addition to this particular project in the area of Queensbury west of the Northway. Certainly, the Town has placed an importance on Aviation Road by investing in the improvements along Aviation Road. Obviously, they feel there's a need, and my experience up there suggests and supports that investment in Aviation Road. Is it like Field of Dreams? To some extent it is. If you build a better road, more traffic may come, but some of it will also be as a result of other projects and maybe even development which is on the east side of the Northway and may use Aviation Road. It will have, as Jim has expressed, it's not a static situation. It's a very dynamic situation. With respect to the background growth, I just want to point out for clarification, background growth has nothing to do with generation from the specific project. Background growth is really used in order to predict additional vehicles that are in the system as a result of changes in demographics and economics within the system. For example, growing up with teenagers and acquiring an automobile, the house hasn't changed, but more vehicles within a household may generate more trips. The fact that people have two family incomes, two working people, may generate more trips, without having any more development within the Town, and that's what that two percent is used, and it has been supported by evidence, and it's supported by GFTC, by DOT. It's used in all of the projects. We took that and used that as a background growth figure, but added to it the traffic generated by Fox Farm and I would suspect that any other development, whether retail or commercial, come before this Board, would do likewise, because that's the standard practice today. To the best of our ability, we've tried to make some suggestions and consider some alternatives with respect to the operation of Dixon Road, and we have suggested that two of those alternatives may very - 27 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) well have an adverse impact that was very well pointed out by Mr. Hoffman, that forcing traffic through a residential may bring more problems than solutions to the Town of Queensbury from those people who live along those streets. I don't think anyone, in fact, within the report I think we make the indication that we're not suggesting that either of those two alternatives would be implemented, and in fact in my own opinion, the real serious alternative would be a reconfiguration of Dixon Road with Aviation, and probably would require the acquisition of some property at some point in time, but I don't think this project is going to solve that, and I think that it's a long term solution to a problem that the Town's going to have to deal with as part of growth that is occurring west of the Northway. We feel fairly comfortable that, given what we've got and given the traffic control and the improvements along Aviation Road, that there will be increased traffic, obviously, but the existing traffic control at Farr Lane can deal with that additional traffic in the short and the long term, and in fact I think we were sensitive and the developer was sensitive to the Fox Farm intersection by attempting to say we're going to restrict the people exiting the site from using the Fox Farm Road, and allowing them only to use Farr Lane to stay away from that intersection of Fox Farm and Potter, which has more activity, and not introduce more activity from a side street at that location. So, we support, we stand behind the traffic study as being a reasonable representation. I think the other professionals that have reviewed it also have indicated their support for the recommendations in the traffic study. MR. O'CONNOR-Any other comments that you want me to respond to? MR. PALING-I don't have anything right now, no, but even if we close the meeting off, we may still ask for comment. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. We'd be happy to respond. MR. PALING-Is that satisfactory with everyone? MR. MACEWAN-I do have some questions to ask. I need to get clear on where the housing is going itself. Now you talked about the senior portion up to 7.1 acres. How many units can that parcel hold would you think? MR. O'CONNOR-My understanding is that they will re-zone that to MR- s. So for every 5,000 square feet, they can have one residential unit, which is approximate of 61, and that's how they got to the figure of, I think it's 7.1 acres, that will be devoted to that. MR. MACEWAN-And if you weren't able to come to a contractual agreement with National Church, then it would be put into the P.U.D., legally, somehow that that area would be left for senior housing? MR. O'CONNOR-It would be re-zoned with the restriction that this development will be developed in accordance with the P.U.D. plan that's before the Town Board. That's my understanding of how they, and this is why they are doing this on a dual track. They are doing the re-zoning and the P.U.D. designation at the same time. MR. MACEWAN-And that would be senior housing? MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. MR. MACEWAN-On the duplex housing, how many units are we talking now? MR. O'CONNOR-We're talking nine units, and they are cross hatched on the map. - 28 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. MARTIN-Nine lots you mean. MR. O'CONNOR-Nine lots, eighteen units. MR. MACEWAN-Are they owned units or rental units? MR. O'CONNOR-We will market them, we hope, as owned units. I don't think he really can control that, Mr. MacEwan. Basically, we will sell them, and we're asking the Town Board to give us a specific exemption so that they can be interconnected, and they can be like family or in-law apartments, as opposed to the understanding, right now, if you have duplexes they can't be internally connected, with the idea that we would be able to market them to a nitch in the market. Our own understanding of the duplex market is that it's not very great. There are a lot of complexes out here that have tried to do duplexes and unless you do something different than the existing ones, there doesn't seem to be a real market for them or need for them, and there hasn't been, and I've been involved with projects that, as far back as five or six years ago, that got approved as duplexes, and then went away from that, or got approved on that concept. I think right across the street is a good example of that. It was L.A.D. Enterprises. I don't know the name of it now. They've changed the name of it, but they started out as four plexes and six plexes, and they're down to duplexes at most now. MR. PALING-Woodland. That's Michaels Group. MR. O'CONNOR-The Michaels Group took it over, but they would be zoned, again, as duplex lots. MR. MACEWAN-You're still looking at $110 to $160,000 varying price range for the houses, single family houses? MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. MR. MACEWAN-The $160,000 are more along the ridge, up at that end of it? MR. VASILIOU-Yes. along the School. The ridge, the $110,000 houses would be that are That's what we anticipate. MR. MACEWAN-Middle of the development, a little bit more? MR. VASILIOU-Toward the east side of the development. We think that as the development moves west, those houses will be more expensive. MR. MACEWAN-Okay. The other question I had is, on the typical site plan, on 100 foot lots, you have the notation on here, it says it's a 45 restricted no clearing area. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. MR. MACEWAN-And on the 125 foot width lots, which I'm the ones that are along the ridge, is that correct? here that it's a proposed 40 foot no build area. It there's movement in there to elaborate, make smaller, or whatever, it doesn't seem to be definitive. assuming are It says in sounds like make larger MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. The no cut or no build areas we're trying to take care of what we thought would be the most sensitive areas, and trying to respond to the idea of getting everything as far away from the top of the ridge as we could, so that, again, we would avoid the issue, as to whether or not there was to be any surface runoff by what we've put up there. MR. MACEWAN-Why wouldn't that area just be like the 100 foot width lot and just say no cut? - 29 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. I'd like to know which lot we're talking about, and Jim can answer that. MR. MILLER-Actually, there were two separate responses to different issues. When we first developed this plan, the intent was to develop this park land on the linear fashion for two reasons. One is, one it could be used for trail system through it, the bike trail or the pedestrian walkway to the School, and the secondary reason was to create some buffer and green space between the lot, so that this would be protected and will not be cleared in the construction of the houses. As the discussion with the Planning staff and the Town Board went on, some of these other areas we didn't have that, and it was desirable that we have some protected areas where the lots border. So what was intended in the darker green areas is to the back of lots, where lots would butt against each other, this would be a no clear area, so that a minimum strip of about 25 feet would be provided so that there would be buffer from lot to lot. The other one that you saw with an additional 40 foot no build area was, again, a response to try to prohibit buildings, say swimming pools or sheds or other types of construction, keep that further back from the top of the ridge. So there's two separate issues there. MR. O'CONNOR-Does that answer your question, Mr. MacEwan? I don't know if it did. MR. MACEWAN-I guess, yes. It would seem to me that it would be more logical to, you know, those lots that are along the bluff there, that instead of a no build area, just a no cut area, period, and that way, you can't but it, you can't build on it. MR. MILLER-Well, we talked about that, but there's already, we have an area of about 200 foot of existing woods there that's going to be part of the preservation area. So that's why we figured this area would still be usable as part of the back yard, but it was, pulled any other accessory structures or anything, any other construction in the back yard further back from the bank. MR. PALING-Okay. At this point in the meeting, I think the Board's questions have been answered and comments have been made. We're going to close the meeting off so that the discussion is going to be here at the Board, with Staff. We reserve the right to ask anyone in the audience or from the applicant a question, but we're no longer going to accept any comments from the floor. Okay. So, I think what we should do is to poll the Board, see what the feelings are, if you have any other questions, and then ask for a motion, or a suggestion for action. Tim, do you want to start. MR. BREWER-I've been thinking about it a lot. I've talked to a lot of people about it. It's just my opinion that I think, whether we can think this or not, this is what Å think. I think if you take the 54 acres that's undevelopable, and it's just my opinion, and we talked about it the last meeting, and leave six percent green space. For a density like this, I think the SR-15 is too much density. The adjoining neighbors have half acre lots. It's three acres now. I think a compromise could be made to half acre lots. I've tossed it back and forth in my mind, and I'm just, six percent of what they're going to develop I think is not enough green space. MR. PALING-Are you saying SR-20 versus SR-15? MR. BREWER-At minimum. That's the way I feel. I think six percent of this development, when the permeability on an SR-20 lot is 30%, and we're only giving 6%, I don't feel that it's enough. That's just my opinion. I think it can be cut back and still the developer can monetarily make his money. MR. PALING-You want to see the green space increased. - 30 - "' (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. BREWER-I want to see it increased. I want to see the density brought down, and the green space increased. I mean, the 54 acres is a given. They can't do anything with it anyway. So I think you have to work with what they're going to develop, and I think six percent, to me, if that is a proper figure, that was the figure that was given, I'm not sure it is or it isn't. MR. O'CONNOR-It's not. MR. BREWER-Okay. What is the proper figure, then? MR. HILTON-I can't say whether or not that's a solid figure. MR. BREWER-Well, give or take. \ MR. HILTON-But it's in that area. MR. BREWER-Okay. So if it was eight percent. MR. O'CONNOR-That's not right. Chairman? Do you want me to comment, Mr. MR. PALING-Okay. Are you asking a question? MR. BREWER-Yes. What is the proper figure? MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. I'm not sure what you're comparing the six percent. Are you saying six percent is the open space? MR. HILTON-We're saying six percent of what is developable land in here is being reserved for open space. MR. O'CONNOR-Okay. That is not green space. Probably 75% of each lot or better 75% of each lot, is, and constitutes, green space under our Ordinance. So, at the most, you're talking 20% development now. We've done any calculations under Part I, as to how much of the actual area, under our Part I we've got some actual calculations as to the area that it will not be considered green space, permeable area when we're done development, that's in our Part I, and it's no place near six percent. You're talking six percent open space. I don' t think there's a calculation or a requirement for open space when you cluster. I think you're entitled to cluster and develop your lots in the manner that you think is appropriate. I think you're mixing apples and oranges. MR. BREWER-My thought is, if I own a piece of property, and it's an acre or half an acre or whatever it is, if I want to cut every tree down on it, nobody has a right to tell me I can't. That's illY opinion. I mean, I own two and a half acres of land. If I want to cut every tree down on it, I don't think anybody has a right to stop me from doing that. MR. PALING-Just don't subdivide, then. MR. BREWER-Well, that's not true either. MR. O'CONNOR-Well, Matt's pointed out, even the definition of Open Space is land not covered by buildings, pavement, open storage, mining operations or any other use that visibly obscures the natural or improved landscape, except for recreational facilities. MR. BREWER-All right. Well, maybe those numbers are not correct. I just think the proportion, let me put it that way, the proportion of open space, green space, whatever you want to call it, I think is not sufficient. I think there should be more. MR. HILTON-I think you have a difference between green space, which can be on a property owner's lot, which is still green, which is - 31 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting S/14/96) still permeable, without building or paved surface, and what is considered open space, which is not on a property owner's lot. My calculation was six percent, which is open space, and when I say open space, I mean, not tied or owned by a particular property owner. That's what I'm saying. MR. O'CONNOR-And you're talking about the eight acres that's the park, that runs through the thimble part of it, and probably no credit for anything from bluff on down, and part of that is also still developable in that it could be included in a lot, like in the adjoining subdivision, but I don't know if that's an issue, if you're saying that SR-20 is, we've already gone past the issue of re-zoning. I thought we were here to see whether or not. MR. BREWER-Well, I think in this P.U.D., and I think that is an issue with me, after we went through the hearing, the're-zoning in. MR. O'CONNOR-If you're saying that you would be, you would look at this on an SR-20 basis, we are willing to say that we understand that and that is acceptable, even though our request before the Board is SR-1S. MR. PALING-Okay. MR. BREWER-I'm saying the density, I think, could be brought down. MR. PALING-Okay. I think going to SR-20 would do that, to whatever degree. MR. BREWER~I think they have to take a hard look at it, lets put it that way. MR. RUEL-I feel that our responsibility this evening on the Planning Board is to review all the inputs from the applicant, in terms of Sketch Plan application. Now I have reviewed the document. It's Article VIII, Section 179-S7C, in detail, and in my estimation the applicant has met all of these requirements. If, however, there are some outstanding, major impacts, this is going to the Town Board, and possibly we could make recommendations to the Town Board to take a look at certain areas. Some of the areas have been highlighted by public hearing, and also since the Town Board will have the responsibility for the environmental assessment, and the review of that, many areas that were touched upon at the public hearing here, traffic and other impacts, which also will be reviewed by the Town Board, and I do believe that the Town Board is educated enough to know how to review this. We can make the recommendation, from our standpoint, that you have in fact met the requirements for the Sketch Plan application. That's my feeling. MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes. I have a few things here that I'm concerned about, from the public hearing. First of all, I'm concerned about the person doing the infrastructure, because of past record that was brought up. I guess that's Mr. Farone. I'm not familiar with his work. I just would, except for what I've read in the paper, and I would just hope that that person's work is monitored carefully, if indeed he is doing the infrastructure. I think it's undisputable to say that everything is intact here. The Sketch Plan is complete, and I think the developer has addressed all the potential concerns and problems. It seems like every time somebody from the public asks a question, the developer or one of his associates, one of the people he's hired, has given viable solutions and has stated good facts and figures to back up those solutions. I still have a little problem with the traffic study, but again, like we addressed earlier, it is kind of hard to understand, maybe it should be written in layman's terms. I think that, and I said this last week, that I hope it's not naive to ask - 32 - ~ (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) the Town, in the future, to intervene and come up with some better designed roads for all the development that's going to be put in this community. I mean, the Town wants the community to grow, wants the community to be a nice place to live, but, again, new roads, new places to redesign these roads costs a lot of money, but that, to me, is the Town's responsibility, and maybe that traffic study would make more sense in the Year 2001, if a better road around Dixon, Dixon and Potter and that whole area was put in. Finally, I think that there's an ethics issue here, I really do. I've lived in four developments in this Town, and I was burned on one of them, you know, and fortunately, in the long run, I ended up selling that house for what I wanted to get out of that house, mainly because the people that bought it didn't see the trailer that went in at the end of the road, and if Doctor Fine were here, he was here last week, I can remember 12 years ago hiring Mark Schachner, he was new in Town, and he interceded on our behalf and it was pretty darn expensive. Here we had this nice new development. The Fines and the LaBombards were the two houses on that street, and all of a sudden a trailer goes in at the end of the street, and we just went out of our, you know, we just couldn't believe this was going on, and the trailer stayed, and the compromise that white pines would be built in front of the trailer and that would camouflage it. Well, after so many seasons, after a couple of seasons, the white pines died, and the trailer wasn't camouflaged, and we were known as high falutent. We didn't want our property values to be decreased, and we lost friends, and we were considered people with our nose up in the air because we really valued our property, but anyhow, when I did put the house on the market, fortunately, the people that bought it were looking at other things, and they didn't see the trailer at the end of the street. So, ultimately, everything turned out nicely, but I'm looking here at these people that put their life savings into a house, and they wait and wait to purchase the land, and when they purchase the land, they think that this is the way it's going to be, and then all of a sudden, five or six years later, it's not like that anymore, and all your life savings and your dreams, and, you know, the place that you thought, what it was like when you bought it, originally, isn't going to be like that anymore, and that's where, that's kind of scary, and, you know, who's to say that this isn't going to happen many more times in the future, and I just believe that that's something that we really should address here, and maybe we can make a compromise. Now we did recommend earlier to the Town Board that we would go with the re-zoning. Well, that can be, that recommendation can be modified, I think. The Town Board hasn't passed anything yet, and I have a little proposal here. Maybe we can decrease the density without affecting the applicant too much. Maybe we can go to SR-20, and I think that was nice, Mike, that that's a good, I mean, I think that's a good give back on your part, but I also notice that those .40 to .42 acre lots, maybe you could take every three and divide them into two .6 acre lots. Now you're talking about not really, you're losing some acreage and you're obviously not going to have the same number of lots, but that's a way the density could be decreased. You wouldn't touch anything with over .45 acres, because that could be rounded up to a half an acre, but anything in the point, and there's a whole line of .40 right on the Queensbury School property, and on the other, on the far west end, and maybe there could be a little compromise in that respect. I think that the developer has a right to go on with the project, and I think the people that live there have a right to express their ideas, and I think this has been very productive, and I think that we can come to a happy medium, we can reach a compromise here. Thank you. MR. PALING-Thank you, Cathy. George? MR. STARK-I concur with Roger, that the application's complete. We make a recommendation to the Town Board. - 33 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. PALING-Okay. Craig? MR. MACEWAN-I have no comment at this time. MR. PALING-No comment at this time. This Board, I guess it was back in January, acted upon the zoning, re-zoning recommendation, and we acted upon it at the time with what the, all of the inputs that we had, but we didn't have the amount of input, the quality or the quantity of the input that we've had over the past two nights on this, and it has had an effect on my thinking. I don't think I would vote the same way on the zoning now, having been exposed to everything we've been exposed to here tonight, and I pretty much agree with Cathy, that if this is a, if we've got a compromise in the works here that could be represented by SR-20 or from 15 to 20, or we could talk about changing the acreage of the lots a little bit, losing some house lots, yes, but changing, this would change the density, and if this seems, would be a good compromise that everyone could live with, still let the builder go ahead with the project, but let the neighbors not be as concerned with the quantity of housing going in, and perhaps the size even in this case, that I would tend to go to the SR-20, or something similar to that, in the layout of the subdivision. MR. BREWER-Bob, I would agree with that, too, but I think, if we make a recommendation that the zoning or that our recommendation on the zoning should be the SR-20, the Town Board can go through the detail work and maybe make them increase the size of the lots and just tell them that that's our concern. We think that they should increase those size of the lots to a half acre. Whether you cluster or not, it's my opinion those lots should be half an acre. MR. PALING-You're right. We have to get basic information, certify that we have it, but we can pass, I believe, that kind of decision, the final exact size to the Town. I do believe that's doable, and I think we can rescind our recommendation to them and change it. I don't see anything wrong with that, if we feel that, based upon additional input, that we would rather, now, go to a different recommendation. I don't see why we can't do that. MR. BREWER-Do we have our original motion? MR. RUEL-I've got it right here. MR. BREWER-And I have one more question to that. Jim, if we recommended that the lots should be half acre, how does that affect, the actual size of the lot will be a half an acre, never mind the clustering. MR. MARTIN-If they went ahead with your recommendation, yes. MR. BREWER-Okay. MR. MARTIN-This was pretty straight forward. follows. I'll read it as MR. BREWER-Roger, you made the motion, and I seconded it. MR. MARTIN-IIWe have reviewed the request for a Petition for Zone Change, the Board Resolves that IIMOTION TO RECOMMEND TO THE TOWN BOARD FOR ZONE CHANGE P1- 9 6 FOR MICHAEL VASILIOU, INC. FOR REZONING OF 140 ACRES, ZONING TO CHANGE TO SR-1S, Introduced by Roger Ruel who moved for its adoption, seconded by Timothy Brewer: II MR. PALING-And I think it was a unanimous vote, too, wasn't it? MR. MARTIN-Yes. We just had a couple of absentees that night. MR. RUEL-Do you know how many lots under a half acre you presently - 34 - ~ '--' (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) have? MR. MILLER-All the light green that you see here, is four tenths of an acre, and half acre. The dark green is over half an acre. MR. RUEL-How many are we talking about, roughly? MR. MILLER-Probably half of them. MR. RUEL-Half of them, 50? MR. MILLER-Fifty-five, sixty of them. MR. BREWER-So how, quick numbers, how many would you end up losing, just tabulating the numbers real quick. MR. MILLER-Probably 15 to 20. MR. RUEL-Yes. MR. O'CONNOR-Just so that the Board understands, and we don't have a problem later, this plan that is on the board would qualify under SR-20. We changed the plan from the SR-15 when we got the feedback from the Town Board that they would not approve SR-15, that they would approve SR-20. That is an SR-20 plan up there. I don't want you to think that when you make a motion to SR-20 you're going to see a plan different than that. MR. BREWER-That's what we're talking about, we are talking about seeing a different plan, that the lots are a half an acre. MR. O'CONNOR-I take strong objection to that, in that the lots that you're talking about aren't the lots that are out near the bluff or out near this ridge again. How those interior lots are going to change the effect that you've heard or you've heard talk about. I really, when you get in my seat sometimes, wonder, what package do we bring to you that is, in fact, going to perhaps get some support, that here is somebody that really has put a year and a half of planning with the Town Board together and corne up with a community type setting, or some mixture of housing, that will give us some affordable housing and decent size lots. MR. PALING-Okay. This is going beyond answering the question. Lets ask any question you want, but lets not spread the. MR. BREWER-It's still my feeling, maybe I'm wrong, but I think that what we're asking for is half acre lots. MR. RUEL-The SR-20 calls for 20,000 square feet. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes. MR. RUEL-And your lots do not go below 20,000 square feet, is that correct? MR. MARTIN-All of them at least are double that. MR. O'CONNOR-Yes, forty-one tenths. MRS. LABOMBARD-Four tenths of an acre, we talked about it last week. MR. MARTIN-I'm sorry. I stand corrected. MR. O'CONNOR-Sixteen thousand square feet. MR. MARTIN-I stand corrected. MR. RUEL-AII the lots meet the 20,000 square feet? - 35 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. O'CONNOR-No. MRS. LABOMBARD-No. MR. O'CONNOR-When you cluster. See, if you go SR-15, and some of the lots are larger than SR-20, it allows you to have some lots smaller than SR-20. MR. RUEL-I see. Okay. It's the fact that it's P.U.D. MR. O'CONNOR-By going SR-20, we were able to get the bigger lots along the sensitive area, and have the smaller lots near the school and the multiple housing that's already in existence, and the apartment housing that's in existence. MRS. LABOMBARD-Just because the average size is .495. MR. RUEL-No, it's higher than that. MRS. LABOMBARD-No, .485. MR. MILLER-.46 is 20,000 square feet. MRS. LABOMBARD-Right. That's what I wanted to know. MR. RUEL-So what Tim is suggesting as half acre would be about a 10 to 15 percent loss, reduction in total families, total lots. Right? MR. BREWER-I think that's the compromise. You make the lots a half an acre. You gain more open space or whatever the term is you want to use. MR. RUEL-No, but they're talking about 111 families, right? MRS. LABOMBARD-Well, 15 is not 20% of 111, Roger. MR. BREWER-Right. MRS. LABOMBARD-Fifteen is fifteen percent of 100. than that of 111. It's about 11%. So it's less MR. RUEL-Yes, 10 to 11%. MRS. LABOMBARD-I thought you said 20%. MR. BREWER-I think if you look at it, Roger, when you're talking about 11% loss of a 111 lots, when you compare what the density, right now, is zoned at, is 30 homes, and they're going to put 180 units. I don't think that's a big compromise. MR. RUEL-One hundred and eighty? You're counting all of them. MR. BREWER-Yes. You have to count them all. MR. RUEL-All right, and you're reducing it by 15 units, out of 180? It's a, what, eight percent reduction? MR. PALING-All right. Lets make the question specific to the applicant, if we can. If we were to say that this would be minimum half acre, how many lots are you going to lose? MR. O'CONNOR-I can't tell you as I sit here. We'd have to re- design the whole thing, road system and everything else, and it would make the proj ect not workable. We've come down twice. You're looking at 190 units of living house, 61 of those are put in there at the request of the Town Board for a project that we are not going to have a substantial input on, but is going to have a - 36 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) community benefit. We're talking about 111 units. The duplexes also were put in there at the request of the Town Board. MR. BREWER-That's what makes it a P.U.D., though, isn't it, Mike? MR. O'CONNOR-We've complied with every request that we've had from the Town Board to make this a community that is acceptable to them, and their re-zoning issues. MR. BREWER-I mean, we polled the Board. That's what our input is. I mean, they can take it and throw it out the window, or they can go by it. MR. PALING-We're going to have to bring that to a motion, Tim. We're going to have to bring it to a motion. MR. BREWER-The recommendation would be that the areas that are under half an acre be brought up to a half acre, increase the size, minimum lot size, to a half acre. MR. O'CONNOR-Mr. Chairman, don't you have to make a motion under Section 179? MR. PALING-If you please. Yes, we're going to have to do that. MR. BREWER-I should say that the application is complete. help me a little bit. Jim, MR. MARTIN-That's what I'm getting right now. MR. BREWER-179, what? MR. RUEL-It's 179.57C. MR. MARTIN-IIA favorable report shall include a recommendation to the Town Board that a public hearing be held for the purpose of considering a PUD. II I think that language should be in there. II It shall be based on the following findings... . The proposal meets the intent and objectives of planned unit development as expressed in 179-51B. The proposal meets all the general requirements of 179- 52. II I think Roger referenced that. liThe proposal is conceptually sound in that it meets a community need and that it conforms to accepted design principles in the proposed functional roadway system, land use configuration, open space system, drainage system and scale of the elements, both absolutely and to one another. There are adequate services and utilities available or proposed to be made available in the construction of the development. The Chairman of the Planning Board shall certify to the Board and the applicant when all of the necessary application material has been presented, and the Planning Board shall submit its report within sixty (60) days of such certification. II MR. BREWER-So if I were to say that the applicant's application is complete, meeting the outlined letters that you read, it would be our recommendation that. MR. MARTIN-I think you would couch your language in such a way that it's a favorable report with these following considerations, whatever they are, and then you would authorize the Chairman to make that certification to the Town Board, and you still have the issue out there about what you want to do with your re-zoning. First of all, do you want to do anything with your re-zoning resolution? I would decide that first. MR. BREWER-Okay. MR. MARTIN-Do you want to leave it, or do you want to rescind it and revise it? - 37 - --- (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. PALING-Okay. We're on the horns of a dilemma here. MR. MARTIN-I think you've got two motions here you've got to make. MR. PALING-Yes. Now would anyone care to make a motion? Tim, do you want to make a motion? MR. BREWER-Well, I think if we're going to make a motion to rescind the previous one, we've got to decide that. MRS. LABOMBARD-Right. MR. PALING-All right. Well; do I hear a motion to that effect? MOTION TO RESCIND THE PREVIOUS MOTION TO THE RE-ZONING ISSUE OF THIS P.U.D. (INDIAN RIDGE), Introduced by Catherine LaBombard who moved for its adoption, seconded by Timothy Brewer: Duly adopted this 14th day of May, 1996, by the following vote: AYES: Mr. MacEwan, Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Paling NOES: Mr. Stark, Mr. Ruel MR. PALING-All right. Then that carries. That zoning recommendation is rescinded. Now we go back to Square One, and start, and we can follow the format in the Code book. There's A, B, and C. Let me just mumble out loud here. MR. O'CONNOR-Gentlemen, there's no sense in going through this book unless you have a resolution before you for zoning. MR. PALING-Mr. O'Connor, would you please let the Board proceed. Jim, I think we can go ahead now and get motions to the effect of the zoning and what's in the book. MR. MARTIN-Yes. I would recommend that you square away your re- zoning, whatever your opinion is on that before you move into a consideration of the P.U.D. MR. PALING-Okay. MR. BREWER-All right. MOTION TO RECOMMEND TO THE TOWN BOARD THAT PETITION FOR ZONE CHANGE Pl-96, MICHAEL VASILIOU, INC. FOR RE-ZONING OF 140 ACRE ZONING TO CHANGE, WE WOULD RECOMMEND THAT ZONING CHANGE TO SR-20, Introduced by Timothy Brewer who moved for its adoption, seconded by Craig MacEwan: That minimum lot size in this P.U.D., or this Petition for Zone Change, be limited to minimum half acre lots. Duly adopted this 14th day of May, 1996, by the following vote: MR. RUEL-It already is SR-20. MRS. LABOMBARD-It is SR-20. MR. PALING-It complies with SR-20 now. MR. MARTIN-No, no, no. Tim is right. MR. BREWER-I'm right. It says on the previous one we did, they had an application to change from WR-3 to SR-15. We just rescinded that. Now we want to say to SR-20. MRS. LABOMBARD-With the stipulation that the minimum size. - 38 - '-" -..'.... --/ (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. BREWER-All right. Are we saying that we want every lot in there to be a half acre? MRS. LABOMBARD-At least, minimum, that means at least. MR. BREWER-Right. MR. MACEWAN-I think what you need to do, I think you need to make a resolution that says you're going to change the zoning from 15 to 20, and then deal with the P.U.D. as a separate issue. MR. RUEL-Why didn't we just make the recommendation to the Town Board to do just that, to make the minimum lot a half acre, and shouldn't have rescinded the first motion. MR. BREWER-Because you have to have a zone, Roger. MR. RUEL-As part of the favorable recommendation with following conditions, and one of the conditions would have been just that. MR. BREWER-That's the part of the P.U.D. MR. RUEL-Then let the Town Board do it. MR. BREWER-I said then, if we make that zoning change, rather than SR-15, to SR-20. Lets leave it at that. Then when we get to the P.U.D., we'll include the half acre for the lots. MR. PALING-Now, .46 acres is 20,000 square feet, if I understand. Is that correct? All right. So if you go to .5 acres, that's how many additional square feet? MR. RUEL-Twenty-two, isn't it? MRS. LABOMBARD-No. MR. PALING-That's only four percent. MRS. LABOMBARD-Four hundred more square feet. MR. MARTIN-Twenty-one and change. An acre's 43,560. MR. PALING-Okay. If you can go to 20,000 square feet, why can't we go to half an acre? It doesn't seem that big a step. MR. BREWER-We can. What we're saying, though, Bob, I think, is we want the zone to be SR-20, and then when we get into the P.E.D. recommendation, we can say. MR. MARTIN-Remember, this is an extra step with this particular ) proj ect, in that we don't have the proper underlying zoning to /' accommodate the requested density with the senior housing and duplexes. Remember, you're looking at, don't get caught up on your single fámily lots. You're looking at all the density that's been requested. In order to get at that density number, to establish the underlying zoning, I believe the lowest you could go, at the amount requested, is SR-20. MR. BREWER-And then when we get into the P.U.D. motion we can say the single family lots we would require to be one half acre. MR. PALING-And then that's going to affect the senior housing. MR. BREWER-No, it won't. It'll affect the light green area. They'll have to reduce the amount of housing units to increase the size of the lots. MR. PALING-To half an acre. - 39 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) MR. BREWER-There you go. MR. PALING-All right. Well, it appears the next step is to go to SR-20. Why don't we get that out of the way. AYES: Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Brewer, Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Paling NOES: Mr. Stark, Mr. Ruel MR. PALING-All right. The recommendation to the Town Board is that the zoning be changed to SR-20. Now we can proceed with the P. U. D. question. MR. O'CONNOR-Mr. Paling, could I give you one sentence? MR. PALING-No, sir. I'm sorry. We'd have to open it up to everyone. We've been through this before. No. Okay. Lets now proceed into the P.U.D. aspect of this. The material submitted by the applicant, basic material, I think, is complete. Would everyone agree with that? MRS. LABOMBARD-Yes. MR. PALING-And I think we could have a separate motion to that effect, without effecting anything. MR. BREWER-That the application would be complete? MR. PALING-Yes. MR. MARTIN-Tim, a good point is raised. In order to accommodate the senior citizen at that level, it would need MR-5 over that particular section of the project, that is true. MR. PALING-It would have to be MR-5 MR. BREWER-All right. So can I amend? MR. MARTIN-Yes, you can, with whoever seconded it, I think Craig seconded it. If he would agree to that. MR. PALING-All right. acre. Amend that motion to just include the 70 MR. BREWER-The senior housing would be MR-5. MOTION TO AMEND THE MOTION TO ACCOMMODATE THE SENIOR HOUSING, WHICH WOULD BE MR.-5, THE 7.1 ACRE PARCEL FOR SENIOR CITIZEN HOUSING, Introduced by Timothy Brewer who moved for its adoption, seconded by Craig MacEwan: Duly adopted this 14th day of May, 1996, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Brewer, Mr. MacEwan, Mr. Paling NOES: Mr. Ruel, Mr. Stark MR. BREWER-Okay. Now we can say that. MR. MARTIN-Tim, I would advise that you structure your, if you're the one making the resolution, on Page 18011, under Item 4, "A favorable report", and A through D there, make sure it would include that, plus whatever else you would want. MR. BREWER-Okay. MOTION TO RECOMMEND A FAVORABLE REPORT FOR THE P. U. D., THAT ELEMENTS ON ARTICLE 179-57, THE ELEMENTS HAVE BEEN MET FOR A, B, C, - 40 - --- (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) & D, Introduced by Timothy Brewer who moved for its adoption, seconded by George Stark: That one condition the Planning Board recommends is that single family lots be sized at a minimum of one half acre. Duly adopted this 14th day of May, 1996, by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. LaBombard, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stark, Mr. Paling NOES: Mr. Ruel, Mr. MacEwan MR. PALING-And I think we need one last motion for Item C in there, and I better not make that, somebody else better make it, that I've got to certify to the Town Board that all of the material presented. MR. RUEL-That was part of this one. MR. PALING-Was that part of yours? MR. BREWER-Yes. MR. PALING-Okay. MR. RUEL-It's in there. MR. PALING-All right. Then that takes care of A, B, and C, then, and I would say we're settled. MR. RUEL-Couldn't we have done just this resolution without the first two? MR. BREWER-No, because it would be contradicting. MR. RUEL-Because the Town Board, apparently, changed the SR-15. MR. BREWER-If we say that we want half acre lots and then we say SR-15 zone, it's not consistent. MR. PALING-I think that we do have one more matter to settle, and that's, what form does this communication take to the Board? We can either send the minutes along to the Board. MR. MARTIN-We'll send along a complete package of the minutes of this meeting and last week's meeting, as well as your resolutions of tonight, and maybe, Bob, you'd want to come in and we could structure a short transmittal that would constitute your certification as Chairman. MR. PALING-Okay. Lets do it that way, yes, fine. Lets do it that way. Okay. There's one other item, nothing to do with what we've talked about tonight. We'd like to change the site visit from Saturday to Thursday. Are we in any trouble doing that? MR. MARTIN-No. You've just got to give us enough notice, and we'll make sure the van's available, and we'll make sure, what day are you getting your packets, now, on? Is that going to affect your packets? MR. PALING-We have the packets for this already. problem with that. We have no MR. BREWER-Yes. We're getting them a week ahead of time anyway. Aren't we? MR. PALING-Yes, but it'll be two days earlier now. Instead of Saturday, it's going to be Thursday. So it'll be Thursday at 4 - 41 - (Queensbury Planning Board Meeting 5/14/96) o'clock. MR. MARTIN-You'll stop in to do that letter? Just make sure you mention that to Pam, because that'll be of interest to her. MR. PALING-All right, and we'll get together this Thursday at four o'clock. Okay. Meeting is adjourned. On motion meeting was adjourned. RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED, Robert Paling, Chairman - 42 -