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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-01-24Page 1 of 4 January 23, 2014 Town of Dryden Planning Board January 23, 2014 Members Present: Craig Anderson, David Weinstein, Marty Hatch, Heather Maniscalco, Joe Laquatra (Chair), Tom Hatfield, and John Keifer. Town Board members: Mary Ann Sumner (Supervisor), Greg Sloan and Joe Solomon Town Staff Present: Jane Nicholson (Interim Planning Director), Dave Sprout (Code Enforcement Officer) and Nick Goldsmith (Sustainability Planner) Guests Present: Ron Symanski The Meeting was called to order at 7PM. 1. Reading and approval of minutes from December 2014. M. Hatch moved to approve the minutes and H. Maniscalco seconded the motion. 2. Fill Ordinance D. Sprout said that the only experiences in regard to the Fill Ordinance are the Freese Road and German Cross Road situations. Our law doesn’t address this but 5,000 sq feet or more would trigger a storm water pollution plan. He doesn’t know how this is enforceable; we are not engineers and would not sign off on any kind of fill for building purposes, an engineer would have to do that. D. Sprout offered to go over the Ordinance and indicated that several aspects are out of the Town’s range. He pointed out two problems that undermine the law: how do we inform people of the law and how will we know when fill or a soil disturbance is happening. H. Maniscalco said this law would be reactive. The law gives recourse after the fact. C. Anderson asked how many permits for soil disturbance where filled out last year, not affiliated with a building permit? D. Sprout said there were none. Hatch asked how the German Cross project was permitted? D. Sprout said it has a storm water pollution plan. C. Anderson asked how many storm water permits were issued. D. Sprout said 4-5. Two were permits related to fill and three were related to a building permit. D. Weinstein asked about the DEC regulations but D. Sprout said that the DEC doesn’t regulate anything under 3 acres of land. D. Weinstein said that part of the purpose of the ordinance is to give information to somebody who is thinking about using fill but doesn’t know what they have to do. It would be good for them to have to come in and see you guys (the Planning Department). D. Sprout agreed that would be a great idea and when Jack Bush (ex -Highway Supervisor) was cleaning the roads, he had a list of people that wanted fill and the CEOs verified those were acceptable locations. It would be great to have a warehouse where people that wanted fill could register and a way to contract with contractors for fill. D.Weinstein feels that if someone is considering a large project then the responsibility would be on the property owner to come and meet with the CEO. There are little things that can be said in a conservation that can help people understand the best way to proceed. Page 2 of 4 January 23, 2014 D.Sprout said that when the Storm Water Ordinance was written, the fill ordinance was not included. Supervisor Sumner indicated that she has some concerns about fill and feels that tracking the movement of fill would be a great idea but it would require significant inter-municipal cooperation. She provided an example of a water main that broke and it was determined that part of the pipe runs through an area that was filled with product that was more corrosive than the original soil. She is advocating for a level of awareness. Tom Hatfield suggested that instead of a new law, when the pipe was placed, they should have tested the soil. He recommended pro-active rather than reactive. D. Sprout suggested that the Ground Disturbance tally form could be modified. H. Maniscalco said her concern is not the quantity but the quality of the fill. D. Sprout asked how to determine or test for proper fill? Most of the Freese Road fill was construction debris that is acceptable to the DEC. H. Maniscalco suggested a fill ordinance will allow the Town to seek compensation should a fill site negatively affect surrounding environment J. Laquatra asked if the Town would have had recourse with the Freese Road site? Could we force the owners to fix the situation if the proposed ordinance had already been in place? H. Maniscalco is concerned with neighbors, not the person that has done everything the town required but in the end damaged the ground water or quality of another person’s property. T. Hatfield said the whole process is set up to determine that information as you go along unless someone takes a shortcut. He believes there are laws out there already to require compliance. Between the DEC, Ag and Markets and other Federal and State regulations, most of the Board’s concerns are likely covered. H. Maniscalco brought up fracking waste. She doesn’t think it is covered by laws. G. Sloan believes that fracking fluid is exempt when it is underground but once it is brought to the surface then it is under regulation via the Clean Water Act. D. Weinstein feels that if people had to come to talk to the Planning Department then 90% of the problem would go away. If someone puts 3 feet of fill across their land, it isn’t such a big deal but when you look at Mount Varna, that has definitely affected neighbors. D. Sprout pointed out that at some point storm water laws will kick in but someone has to be paying attention to enforce compliance. Weinstein suggested that since the Town has commercial and residential guidelines, perhaps we need fill guidelines but what would cause people to come into look at it? A person building a house will come in and look at the residential guidelines..... If we have these guidelines, how do we get people to come in and follow the guidelines? D. Sprout questioned how to let people know that the guidelines even exists. C. Anderson pointed out that if there is any soil disturbance, residents are required to fill out a soil disturbance form which will potentially kick the project to storm water regulations. D. Sprout suggested that it may be time to change the storm water law and the soil disturbance guidelines which are based on 5,000 sq feet. The amount of area could be reduced or the wording changed to cover more projects. H. Maniscalco asked why the ordinance is based on area instead of volume. D. Sprout repeated that we can amend the Soil Disturbance law. Page 3 of 4 January 23, 2014 Supervisor Sumner said the Storm Water law was put in place recently and it is a pretty good law. T. Hatfield questioned whether agricultural ditches or trench silos are included in the Storm Water law. Supr. Sumner said that the Planning Board and Storm Water law creators pushed to include farms but since no permit is required, there is no reason that we would ever be aware of it. H. Maniscalco said that we need to be careful about exemptions. Poisoning is poisoning regardless of the source. J. Keifer asked if the Board can make cut and fill operations beyond a certain volume subject to site plan review. M. Hatch agreed saying that was his thought. If it is not going to be part of the building permit, then it should require a permit of it’s own. What is it being done for? There has to be a purpose. J. Keifer said that the impacts are so site specific it would be hard to write an ordinance that would cover all the possibilities. The Board determined that they will create Fill Guidelines (similar to the residential and commercial guidelines) which will give the Planning Board and Town residents direction. 3. Supervisor Sumner addressed the Planning Board regarding a short discussion that the Town Board held last week. The Town Board is asking for consideration regarding the reorganization of the Planning Department. J. Laquatra addressed the Town Board last week and reminded them that a Planning Director can increase the tax base and revenue coming into the Town. Supr. Sumner feels the proposal to create the Planning Department and the Planning director’s job description are excellent but she is open to comments and suggestions. It is a civil service job and the description is the same as the Town of Ithaca’s. D. Weinstein asked if this is part of a general evaluation of the configuration of the Planning Department. Supr. Sumner said the Town Board seems interested in an evaluation but currently there isn’t one. If the Planning Board is interested in creating some kind of evaluation, she is willing to consider it. Supervisor Sumner said she has some suggestions to change the GIS technician position but although that position appears to have been targeted, no one has asked for job description changes. 4. N. Goldsmith presented information regarding the Comprehensive Plan review. He started with the Town Board directive asking how the Comprehensive Plan’s goals and objectives support the sustainability goals of the Town. They (N. Goldsmith and J. Nicholson) used the STAR program with 44 objectives. The Comprehensive Plan was analyzed to determine whether each section supports, does not support or doesn’t affect sustainability. The two page handout is a summary of the text of each goal and objective. The one page handout shows what has been accomplished already and they have only found two areas that were determined to hinder sustainability. The total points available for each section is 14 but that would require all objectives and goals score a 2. The top left box is the goal score range. The numbers in each cell add up to the number on the far left column. Right now we are doing best in Built Environment but Climate and Energy are not doing so good. Page 4 of 4 January 23, 2014 The Rows contain Comprehensive Plan goals (for example, under Built Environment the top row contains the 7 goals and objectives listed. Below each goal is a score from -2 to 2 indicating the completeness of that goal). Housing Affordability received a 1 (out of -2 to 2) indicating that goal has not only been addressed but the Town of Dryden is actively supporting it although there is room to do more. J. Nicholson said that one of the original reasons for doing this review was to see where the Town’s Plan rates with other plans. The problem with the comparison is that each municipality has their own goals and needs. C. Anderson had the following comments on the letter regarding the Fill Ordinance that D. Weinstein generated for the Town Board: - Removal of top soil. This is addressed in mining permits. Do we need to address it again? - He doesn’t see a lot of facts but a lot of opinion. J. Laquatra asked C. Anderson to edit the letter and send it around via email so the Board can work on it. Supervisor Sumner is asking for a document that will demonstrate the facts that support the proposed ordinance. R. Symanski said this is a big community issue and property owners should have the chance to generate input. In addition, the solution proposed needs to have a strongly documented reason or people will just see it as another level of bureaucracy. C. Anderson has talked to the Town Board regarding the need for an Economic Development Plan. He believes that we need to put some strategies in place to keep businesses here and to encourage appropriate businesses to develop here. He recommends adding this to the work goals for the Planning Board this year. T. Hatfield reminded the Board that the Town of Dryden has an Industrial Development Agency that could help get the Town back on track. He encouraged Supervisor Sumner to encourage the Town Board to rekindle that option. C. Anderson encouraged the Board to continue working on the Comprehensive Plan in the areas that need attention, in addition to reviewing the Plan. He also suggested that liaisons from the other Boards attend Planning Board meetings. There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 8:45PM. Respectfully Submitted, Erin A. Bieber Deputy Town Clerk The next meeting of the Dryden Planning Board will be February 27th at 7PM.