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AV 2-2022 (Slote) Minutes 1.19.22(Queensbury ZBA Meeting 01/19/2022) 1 NEW BUSINESS: AREA VARIANCE NO. 2-2022 SEQRA TYPE TYPE II DAN SLOTE AGENT(S) ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN PARTNER (CHRIS KEIL) OWNER(S) DAN & LYNN SLOTE ZONING WR LOCATION 20 BURNT RIDGE ROAD APPLICANT PROPOSES TO CONSTRUCT A 1,205 SQ. FT. BUNK HOUSE, NEW SEPTIC, RETAINING WALL AND STORMWATER AREA. EXISTING HOME IS 804 SQ. FT. WITH NO CHANGES. SITE PLAN FOR NEW FLOOR AREA IN A CEA AND NEW BUILDING WITHIN 50 FT. OF 15% SLOPES. RELIEF REQUESTED FOR SIZE OF ACCESSORY STRUCTURE. CROSS REF SP 1-2022; AV 85- 2001; SP 45-2002 WARREN COUNTY PLANNING JANUARY 2022 ADIRONDACK PARK AGENCY ALD LOT SIZE 1 ACRE TAX MAP NO. 239.16-1-19 SECTION 179-5-020; 179-3-040; 179-6-060 CHRIS KEIL, REPRESENTING APPLICANT, PRESENT; DAN SLOTE, PRESENT MR. MC CABE-So, Roy, do you want to read this into the record? STAFF INPUT Notes from Staff, Area Variance No. 2-2022, Dan Slote, Meeting Date: January 19, 2022 “Project Location: 20 Burnt Ridge Road Description of Proposed Project: Applicant proposes to construct a 1205 sq. ft. bunk house, new septic, retaining wall and stormwater area. Existing home is 804 sq. ft. with no changes. Site plan for new floor area in a CEA and new building within 50 ft. of 15% slopes. Relief Required: The applicant requests relief for size of accessory structure. Site is located in the Waterfront Residential zone on a 0.92 ac lot. Section 179-3-040 dimensional; Section 179-5-020 accessory structures The proposed bunk house is 1,205 sq. ft. where accessory structures on the site are limited to 500 sq. ft. in total on the site. Criteria for considering an Area Variance according to Chapter 267 of Town Law: In making a determination, the board shall consider: 1. Whether an undesirable change will be produced in the character of the neighborhood or a detriment to nearby properties will be created by the granting of this area variance. The project may be considered to have little to no impact on the neighboring properties. 2. Whether the benefit sought by the applicant can be achieved by some method, feasible for the applicant to pursue, other than an area variance. The feasible alternatives may be considered to reduce the building size. 3. Whether the requested area variance is substantial. The relief may be considered substantial relevant to the code. The relief is 705 sq. ft. for size of building. 4. Whether the proposed variance will have an adverse effect or impact on the physical or environmental conditions in the neighborhood or district. The project as proposed may be considered to have minimal impact on the environmental conditions of the site or area. 5. Whether the alleged difficulty was self-created. The project as proposed may be considered self- created. Staff comments: The project includes constructing a bunk house with no additional site work. The bunk house is located on existing hard surfacing and the project will have site work for retaining walls, stormwater management. The project work also includes installation of a new septic system that will be for both the main house and the bunk house.” MR. URRICO-The Queensbury Planning Board passed a motion that based on its limited review did not identify any significant adverse impacts that cannot be mitigated with the current project proposal and that was passed unanimously on January 18th, 2022. MR. KEIL-Hello. Chris Keil with Environmental Design Partnership here with the owner/applicant Dan Slote. (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 01/19/2022) 2 MR. SLOTE-If you don’t mind, I’ll just give you a little bit of history about who I am and who may family is with regard to our history on the lake. MR. MC CABE-Sure. MR. SLOTE-My wife and I bought the cottage in 2002, and previous to that we spent about seven years renting on the lake. The reason was when we were married we could no longer stay with our family. It was tough for us to have friends over. I grew up across the bay from here. In 1968, the year I was born, my grandfather bought that house and it had multiple cottages on the property. My family stayed there, myself, my wife, my parents, my sister, my cousins, my aunts. In 2016 they sold that house. My cousins, my sister, my parents don’t come up. So my son is actually fifth generation on the lake. Both of my great grandparents on both sides bought property starting in the 40’s. One grandparent owned Hemlock Point and ultimately sold almost all the home lots on there to GE executives in the 50’s. My other great grandfather owned Homer Point where he developed that himself and then my grandfather owned the Antigua for years before he bought the house across the bay from us. So when my wife and I bought this cottage, it was literally electric heat and it was a two season at the most and at best, and when we wanted to upgrade it, our contractor said to us, tear it down right away and I’ll build exactly what you want for the amount of money you’re going to spend to actually re-do and re-fit and gut this cottage, and we didn’t want to do that, and you can see by the topo, not really indicated there as well as you’d probably like to see it. We’re 15% grade from the top of the hill to the shoreline. It’s as steep as you’re going to get, and we thought the worst thing in the world that we could do at the time would be to rip down a cottage from 1945 rather than just re-do it and make it work for us. My son is away at college. He comes back in the summer and as my wife and I get a little bit older, quite frankly I’d rather have a bigger home down by the water, but we don’t want to do that. We just are trying to solve an issue that we have which is being able to have my son come home, spend the summer with us and have somewhere for him to go stay and not literally be on top of us, as well as being able to have my mother and father who also grew up on the lake come spend time with us, my sister and my brother-in-law and their new baby. So I understand we’re asking for something that is completely out of the norm from what is already written into the current zoning, but it’s something that we felt that if we could ask for it and be able to get this done. We’re not changing the view of this property which hasn’t been changed in 70 plus years. We’re trying to build something up on the hill that is out of the way. It will not have a kitchen. It has no other purpose other than having a living area and two bedrooms, be able to have family and friends come stay with us. MR. KEIL-And just to add a little bit more to what Dan was saying, I mean I think the reality here is it’s an existing small two bedroom cottage and I think the way to think about this is, as Dan says, as a remote bedroom, well within the allowable FAR on the order of 6,000 square feet to get to that 22%, and it could be an addition attached to the existing house, but by separating it, it does a few things. One I think it’s more sensitive to the conditions at the shoreline. Two it allows the house down by the shoreline to be winterized and it allows the owners to access this remote bedroom during the wintertime. So I think you know, they’re just thinking of that separation as a remote bedroom. It’s actually a much better project. This wouldn’t be viewable from the lake as well, and the other things that I’d just like to bring up is there’s going to be a new septic system. The existing one is towards the end of its lifespan. So we see that as a big improvement for the lake and new stormwater. It’s a challenging site, the steepness and the proximity to ledge rock, but I think we have come up with a system that can make some improvements to that as well. MR. SLOTE-Just one more thing. We did have contractors. Ruben Ellsworth came to the site. He looked at what it would be and look like to actually dig next to the current cottage, add foundation with living space and two bedrooms above it, and he told me that he would have to take, the current home is built slab, crawl space, not even crawl space, but literally open to the elements and slab again. To marry the two foundations he’d have to dig underneath the current cottage and he’d have to dig 20 feet to bedrock which literally is within 60 feet of the lakefront. We’re certainly back from what the setback is. It’s at 51 at its closest point. It’s just not something we wanted to do. We don’t want to disturb lakefront. MR. KEIL-I’d be happy to answer any questions you guys have. MR. MC CABE-So do we have questions of the applicant? MRS. HAMLIN-A few. So the current home on the site has not yet been winterized. MR. SLOTE-No, it’s winterized. I think what Chris is getting at is that we leave it open during the winter. My wife and I go skiing, but I think to the point that we would not use it, it would be easier for us to just come up Friday night, get here late, ski Saturday and go home Saturday night, just accessing up on the top. My neighbors are much older. They don’t even come anymore. There’s numerous bumps, theirs and ours. Despite the efforts to keep it clean and expense, it’s very, very steep. We share a driveway. So our neighbor Myron who I bought from has almost two acres, and we have one acre. He bought the property prior to us buying it from him a few years before that timeframe, in ’97. Now we have an easement. We share one driveway between three acres of collective land between Myron and ourselves. (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 01/19/2022) 3 MRS. HAMLIN-Thank you. MR. MC CABE-You said you had multiple questions? MRS. HAMLIN-I think I’m done. MR. HENKEL-So you ski down to your cabin you said? MR. SLOTE-You could. MR. MC CABE-Do we have any other questions of the applicant? Seeing none, a public hearing has been advertised. So at this particular time I’m going to open the public hearing and see if there’s anybody in the audience who has input on this particular project. Seeing nobody, is there anything written, Roy? PUBLIC HEARING OPENED MR. URRICO-Yes. I have one letter. “We have known Dan and Lyn Slote for almost twenty years. They purchased our property in 2002. They have been wonderful neighbors and fine people. We have no objection to their construction of a 1200 square foot bunkhouse on their property. Sincerely, Myron and Barbara Rapaport” I don’t have an address here. MR. SLOTE-It’s 16 Burnt Ridge. MR. MC CABE-Is that it? MR. URRICO-That’s it. MR. MC CABE-So at this particular time I’m going to close the public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING CLOSED MR. MC CABE-And I’m going to poll the Board, and I’m going to start with Cathy. MRS. HAMLIN-I didn’t see this, I mean from an accessory structure point of view it’s a big ask, but when you put it in the context that he did, that it’s really just bedrooms. I mean you could bring it down, the number of bedrooms, the size down, but the other one is only two bedrooms. Correct? MR. SLOTE-Two. It’s listed for some reason as three. MRS. HAMLIN-Well, I would say that I would probably be I favor of this as it is. MR. MC CABE-Roy? MR. URRICO-Yes, I’m in favor of the application as presented. MR. MC CABE-Brady? MR. STARK-Yes, I’m in favor of the project. MR. MC CABE-Brent? MR. MC DEVITT-I, too, am in favor of the project. The description is sort of a remote bedroom. I think that’s the first time I’ve actually heard that on the Board, but it’s an interesting way of framing it in, but I am in favor of your project. MR. MC CABE-Jim? MR. UNDERWOOD-I’m still skeptical. I think that we still need to address the accessory dwelling units and I think it fails to address the fact that if everybody on the lake decides they want to do this, what’s the impact going to be? It’s a lot of land clearing, and I think that we should be cautious at the same time. I mean I think as an individual project I don’t have a problem with it, but who enforces whether you end up putting a kitchen in there at some point or something in the future. No one knows if the property changes hands whether that second dwelling on the property will amount to a second dwelling. MR. MC CABE-John? MR. HENKEL-I understand what Jim is saying, we don’t want to start this and have multiple dwellings on one piece of property, but with this family, I trust this family and it sounds like it’s been in the family (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 01/19/2022) 4 for a lot of years. Yes, it might change later. They could put a kitchen in, but I think we’ll address that at the time and I think as is it’s a good project and I am for it. MRS. HAMLIN-Could I ask one question? It is not considered an accessory dwelling is it, without a kitchen? MRS. MOORE-Correct. The idea of no kitchen. So it’s an accessory building. MRS. HAMLIN-But it is still an accessory dwelling? MRS. MOORE-It’s an accessory building. MRS. HAMLIN-Structure, thank you, but it’s not a dwelling. All right. I’d still be in favor, but if somebody wants to put out a condition that no kitchen be added in the future. MR. MC CABE-Well that’s tough. First of all if they did go to do something like that, they’d have to come back to us because it’s not conforming. And so I, too, support the project. Another approach would be to say it’s a garage and then it’s just about within the required size. So I really don’t think it’s a stretch calling it a great big accessory dwelling. So I would support the project. So it looks like we’ve got enough yes votes here. So at this particular time I’m going to ask Brady if he’d do a motion for us. The Zoning Board of Appeals of the Town of Queensbury has received an application from Dan Slote. Applicant proposes to construct a 1,200 sq. ft. bunk house, new septic, retaining wall and stormwater area. Existing home is 804 sq. ft. with no changes. Site plan for new floor area in a CEA and new building within 50 ft. of 15% slopes. Relief requested for size of accessory structure. Relief Required: The applicant requests relief for size of accessory structure. Site is located in the Waterfront Residential zone on a 0.92 ac lot. Section 179-3-040 dimensional; Section 179-5-020 accessory structures The proposed bunk house is 1,200 sq. ft. where accessory structures on the site are limited to 500 sq. ft. in total on the site. SEQR Type II – no further review required; A public hearing was advertised and held on Wednesday, January 19, 2022. Upon review of the application materials, information supplied during the public hearing, and upon consideration of the criteria specified in Section 179-14-080(A) of the Queensbury Town Code and Chapter 267 of NYS Town Law and after discussion and deliberation, we find as follows: 1. There is not an undesirable change in the character of the neighborhood nor a detriment to nearby properties. It will not change the view of the property or the lake. 2. Feasible alternatives could be considered but would not necessarily serve the applicant’s needs. 3. The requested variance is not substantial. 4. There is not an adverse impact on the physical or environmental conditions in the neighborhood or district. 5. The alleged difficulty is not really self-created. The other area makes a lot of sense for the applicant and what they’re trying to do. 6. In addition, the Board finds that the benefit to the applicant from granting the requested variance would outweigh (approval) the resulting detriment to the health, safety and welfare of the neighborhood or community; 7. The Board also finds that the variance request under consideration is the minimum necessary; 8. The Board also proposes the following conditions: a) Adherence to the items outlined in the follow-up letter sent with this resolution. b) BASED ON THE ABOVE FINDINGS, I MAKE A MOTION TO APPROVE AREA VARIANCE NO. 2-2022 DAN SLOTE, Introduced by Brady Stark who moved for its adoption, seconded by John Henkel: (Queensbury ZBA Meeting 01/19/2022) 5 Duly adopted this 19th Day of January 2022 by the following vote: AYES: Mrs. Hamlin, Mr. McDevitt, Mr. Stark, Mr. Henkel, Mr. Urrico, Mr. McCabe NOES: Mr. Underwood ABSENT: Mr. Kuhl MR. MC CABE-Congratulations, you have a project. MR. SLOTE-Thank you.