HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-03-13TOWN OF DRYDFN
Planning Board
10 Presentation of Design Guidelines
March 13, 2008
Members Present: Barbara Caldwell, Chair; Tom Hatfield; Megan Whitman, Martin Hatch.
Others Present: Mary Ann Sumner, Town Supervisor; Joseph Solomon, 'Town Board Liaison;
Henry Slater, Code Enforcement Officerm. Dan Kwasnowski, Environmental Planner; Nancy
Munkenbeck, Conservation Board member; John Behan and Lawrence Bice of Behan Plaruning
Associates; Patty Millard, Recording Secretary. Residents: John Anderson, Clinton Cotterill,
Dave Cutter, Michael Lane.
Introductions were made.
Lawrence Bice has dubbed the project the Comprehensive Plan Implementation Project, He gave
a powerpoint presentation overview of the proposed Commercial and Residential Guidelines.
In this first phase here, the town wants to build on the work that was done in the Comprehensive
Plan and move some ideas forward. There are a number of things that have been done like sonic
farmland preservation projects that were referenced in the Comprehensive Plan and initiated the
Recreation Master Plan, as examples. This is another element of that project. It's really looking
at how the torn really develops, looking in to the future, and what residents want the town to
look like moving forward. 1 "he first phase is really design guidelines and that's what we're here
tonight to talk about.
Design Ciuideiines are really about a toNvii and a landowner partnership. I think the biggest thing
that guidelines can do is they can develop more subtle ways of how a town wants to grow and
what it wants to look like. A good set Of guidelines establishes expectations up front so that
people don't have to guess. A good set of guidelines provides sonic flexibility. 'They're not
completely rigid, so they can anticipate different needs on different sites. What the town has
wanted to do is provide sonic alternatives in to these guidelines to make them adaptable to
different situations and goals.
"there are 2 main components: Residential Guidelines and Commercial Guidelines.
Residential Guidelines
We wanted to look at current development trends in the town. It's pretty obvious that
development in recent years has been outside of the villages and hamlets. You're not getting the
giant subdivisions in the town, a lot of the development is a few lots here and there. Lots are 1, 2,
3 acres, you're not getting real small lots. A lot of frontage development, and that means a lot of
driveways. We worked Nvith the town staff to identify those trends.
Some of the factors that contribute to that is there's not a whole lot of water and sewer structure
in the town, and therefore Health Department regulations in many ways are setting the lot size in
the town. "fhcre are some cost barriers for developers because of the smaller scale of
' development, a few tots at a time. It becomes a little less practical to put a road in for just a
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PB 03-13 -2008
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couple lots. In those cases, frontage development is a much more viable option. Real estate
market conditions — absorption rates, how fast houses get bought up by the market.
We did an analysis of year built data. This is a series (of maps) that shows year built in the
town's records.
N1 Lane — With flag lots, we're seeing more lots behind lots.
K. Ezell — Is there any record of how much road was built with this?
C Cotterill —The reason flag lots started is because people had the land, but they didn't have the
road frontage and they were trying to come up with a way to come up with road frontage. Of
course, then we go way back and find out .why road frontage was demanded, because if you built
a house with access to the road, and you went to sell your house, banks wouldn't finance them.
That's why they started demanding road frontage.
iv! Lane — We didn't track in the villages at all, right?
L Bice — Bight. We just used town data What would probably show up on that, in my
experience, is that the villages fill up by the 1920, things cluiet down until during the 40s and 50s
with development taking place in the surrounding town after that.
J Behan — This pattern is very common in New York State. if you see utilities available, you see
more development happen there first.
L Bice — This (slide) is putting that pattern, using an existing landscape, this is not traditional
frontage development.
J Behan — This is an example from another town. It shows how landscape can change slowly
over time, It becomes a useful conversation. This is happening now. This is Hudson Valley
prime farmland. You have all those issues of families and owners and keeping it. open and all that
stuff, The thought was, this doesn't happen overnight, but at some point folks come back and
say, that's not what I thought the town was like that i lived in before. The town has changed. .A
lot has it's own kind of space, but as you fill in those lots, you lose more of the country and the
resources, so at a certain point, what folks thought was rural or small town or country, that's
gone. So folks say, that's not really what we had in mind. We all want to be able to build, we
have houses and stuff. so...
M Sumner — Can you give me a sense of scale, the ones that came in on that last slide toward the
river, are those 1 or 2 acre lots?
J Behan — Those are 1 — 5 acre lots.
C Cotterill — Private septic systems'?
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J Behan — Yes. Private well and septic. There's no infrastructure. There's no planning for that.
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That kind of defines how this happens.
N1 Hatch — Where's the employment?
? Albany and Saratoga.
M Hatch — So those houses are up there in price.
J Behan — Whatever the market will bear. The earlier subdivisions
Larger lot kind of estate homes, then you start to get higher prices
not unlike the absorption rate you have here. In Dryden, you think
to plan for the future; and you're in good shape for that. But it doe
that have a growth spurt.
tend to be more entry level.
as things develop more. it's
there's a lot of land and space
sn't take much. You see towns
L Bice — And it's not to say there aren't some places where people are going to want that. It's
more about looking at different options and flexibility, maybe a combination of things.
T Hatfield — it'll be hard to call it rural.
L Bice — This is kind of the other end of the spectrum. Same landscape, same number of units,
• but using some conservation subdivision techniques, doing some clustering, having some of
those incentives, instead of depending on a big lot for each house and many roads, trying to
conserve some of the resources of the landscape clustering some of those houses together, the
upshot is having a more open and preserved landscape. That shows that other side of the coin.
M Hatch — What might you sell houses for in that circumstance?
J Behan — Well, the house value at some point, in the first scenario, you get a point where adding
another house in that landscape doesn't add a lot more value to it. These are essentially the same
prices in both scenarios. At some point, though, this town — studies have shown that if you have
planning and you can maintain the character that folks think they're buying into, you maintain
and tend to increase values, if the resources in common are still protected. So this is still the
same number of houses, maybe even a little bit more, so the overall number is still the same, and
the value is not just in the individual lot; but in your value in the town. So that land is essentially
not developable anymore. There may be purchase of development rights, a transaction in there,
where the farmland is protected. There may be a conservation subdivision where you develop
half and leave the woods alone. What that shows is that most of the resources, not all of them,
are protected; the prime soils, the good woods. the stream corridors. That's just another way of
accommodating that growth with a little more planning and coordination,
K Ezell — In this } ou obviously have a little less infrastructure and road. 4 lot less road, so there
was less up front cost to the developer as well as to the town for maintenance over the years.
isAudience — But if you substitute public sewer and water, it's probably a little closer to the same
dollar amount.
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T Hatfield — It seems to tit better, with all the surveys we've done here, the folks that want to
keep the landscape rural looking here in Dryden. That's a lot more rural looking than the other
scenario.
K Ezell — In this Case, we're not talking about having water and sewer in here. Or are you'?
J Behan — Probably when you started, you wouldn't have to
point where your density built up, especially that group in tl
community well field septic system kind of thing. There's a
accommodate that. it doesn't have to be the big sewer plant
terms of how to do this.
have it. But as you got to a certain
is bottom there, that might be a
lot of new technology out there to
on the river anymore necessarily in
K Ezell — in fact, I've read where that seems to be the better way to go instead of having a large
failure, if you have any failure, it's on a smaller scale. Instead of having a large failure which we
might have periodically every spring.
J Behan — Right. A lot of those plants were built in the 50s and COs and 70s. The engineering has
come so much farther. It's like computers that were built in those days compared to today.
They're doing groundwater discharge. Basically doing fancy septic systems that have pre-
treatment, aeration, there's a lot they can do today with these. But this is kind of along term
conversation for the town in terms of how to build infrastructure. It's more food for thought that
having to do something today.
K Ezell — One of the other things that I see a lot of people like is water. When somebody wants
to buy a lot, they would love to have tile. stream in their backyard, or be next to the riverbank, or
Dryden Lake. In this scenario, all of that prime land is not developed, because you were talking
about keeping it there. How are people reacting to that?
J Behan — Some thought there may be a market for folks who want to have that private space. if
you can create a common interest in a waterfront, for example, my family has a piece of land in
the Adirondacks and we share rights with seven other families to one nice piece on the water.
There's a dock and a beach. There's a homeowner's association and all that, but we share it, and
that land is undeveloped. You just go there and hang out and have a cookout, take your boat out,
but there are no buildings on it. So we are able to use that. That would have been maybe one or
two houses on it. So in this case, there. are 7 or 8 of us who can enjoy it — we're never there all at
once anyNway — so it's available to each of us. From a tax point of view, that property is taxed at
$0 from the town, but all of our logs are taxed at a value higher because we have water access. So
we, in a sense, the common land, there's no loss in tax base. As a matter of fact, it's probably an
increase, because there are 8 of us who have water access, and I just got a revaluation, and we
got dinged. So there's a way to do that so that the common resource becomes an asset and not a
problem. Sometimes if you give it all to an individual lot, it becomes marginalized.
L Bice — By being able to conserve some of the land, you might be able to avoid some of the
more public drainage problems that you might have with a uniform design.
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S J Behan — Orange County just came out with new flood maps. It's a double edged sword.
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Owners are ticked off because they're being forced to pick up flood insurance, but if they don't
pick up flood insurance and they bet flooded, they're really unhappy, because that's not covered
by home owners' insurance. You can't buy it.
L Bice —The Town Comprehensive Plan, it talks about areas of higher or more focused density
balanced by areas of more conservation and lower density. Like John was saying; some of'those
higher density scenarios may be a little bit longer term in the future of the town. It depends on
market forces and utilities.
We want to look at the guidelines that we looked at with the Planning Board. We wanted to
explore alternatives to the typical frontage strip development. We put some ideas out there for
people to look at. Here's an Agricultural Conservation Subdivision. It's pretty small scale. "I'he
main thing here is that it's built on the idea of some common land that raises the value of the
smaller houses. In this case; it could continue to be farmed. Wcove got a private road. Right now.
there's a barn and a house, it's basically a farm with horses and hayfields. Up here there's a
stream line running through the property, there's a scenic ridge line, forest. We've got more on
this later in the presentation, This is an area in town, a property that we looked at. The idea here
was to preserve as much of the open space character and also to make that open space serve as a
benefit. raise the value of these new houses here.
• J Behan — It's also trying to show how to address what's kind of an economic problem. if you
own a big piece of land; and you want to move on and sell it, you may find another owner,
another farmer, but they're only going to pay so much. This is a way to show how to offer the
feeling of, and the opportunity to have or to participate in, a farm property for a small group of
people on a more affordable scale, yet not chopping it up into farmettes. Leaving as much of the
farm in tact so that folk's who are interested in buying in to this. As a group, they could
compensate the owner who could ostensibly sell this for enough money to make ends meet
better, because now there are 6 or 8 people in on this, but the land is set aside as common
farniland. Kind of like the story with my waterfront property. l couldn't have afforded waterfront
property on the lake; but by sharing it with 7 other families; it makes it affordable. It's a low
impact development as far as there's one little road with a loop and you've got a little
neighborhood and you've got all the land still. It's just an example of a different way to think
about developing that tries to keep some of the land values intact.
K Ezell — Those are 2 acre lots'?
J Behan — 2 -5 acre lots.
M Lane — I just wondered, if one of the problems you have with small little subdivisions like that
is the amount of tax that they generate compared to what it costs to maintain the infrastructure,
for example, of a large loop like that of road, to pave it, to snowy plow it, and all that. One of the
things in the past when I've been involved in these kinds of planning, that's one of the things
® we've looked at is how much taxation do you get out of this subdivision. Will it pay for the costs
that you have? We knoNv a residential subdivision adds huge costs to the cost of our schools.
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NW J Behan — One of the thoughts is that it doesn't have to be a public road. In other words, it could
be a private road that the owners maintain. There would be a horneoNvner's association and the
fees collected would take care of that maintenance. It's a good point. At what point should these
things become public or stay private. There can be standards that the town establishes to enable
this to happen, to help introduce this. Maybe you don't have to have a town road standard.
Maybe it's a standard that's adequate for access, for safety, for emergencies. Maybe it doesn't
get paved, it could be gravel. That's quite user friendly to the environment, provides good
traction in the winter. That's the thought here. Maybe it's not a town public road.
M Stunner — I thought it was possible that the assessment on houses like that would be higher
than the road frontage lots because they have access to the commonly owned land.
J Behan —They would be valuable lots, that's for sure.
M Sumner — So that would compensate f.'or some increased infrastructure across die board,
whether it was increased deanand on the school system or whatever, they would be higher
assessments.
T IIatfield — That's a better trade off than to turn this in to six flag lots or strip lots with all the
houses up along the side of the road, now you've got 6 road cuts. You get a whole different feel
when you're driving by the community in terms of how the community looks at it and how the
community looks. i think those are all part of the debate.
J Behan — One of the thinks we're discussing is to try to give the land owners options. if the land
owner wants to make it a public road, the lots would cost more up front and they would need to
be built to a higher standard, and that might be acceptable too. It's a swing through, the snow
plow goes in and out. But there is a cost to the town, no doubt about it, but there's taxes coming
oft' of that too.
Does the school district go down that if it's a public road? Does the garbage truck? The fire
department?
M Sumner — The fire department does, but the school policy would determine whether or not
they would.
M Hatch — They don't do that now on Silverman Nottingham.
P livilillard — The trailer park is considered all private roads, and they make the kids walk to the
main entrance. If it`s less than a certain distance, they make kids walk to a common stop.
L Bice — 1 also wanted to look at a scenario cognitive of the fact that a lot of the subdivision are
quite small in the town. This is a 2 -4 lot scenario. Some of the benefits are eliminating curb cuts,
trying to eliminate as much frontage development. It shows over time how you might start with
one house here, maybe the beginning of a driveway, and then maybe allow a couple more lots in
there.
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Audience — Wouldn't you need to devise a new kind of specification for privately owned
driveways then so emergency vehicles?
K Ezell — The code already does that.
L Bice — Depending on how much you want to use this in the town, it could be elaborated on.
We also looked at sort of a village extension area looking at areas of the town close to the
village. Here's your sort of village in the woods, maybe some farm fields here, the idea here is
maybe here's the more predominant type of'development that you typically see bumping up
against the village — cul de sacs not really connecting. One idea is to look at trying to stay in the
village framework, partnering with the village for areas where there might be infrastructure
already and a denser development pattern. Then allowing the outer area there to remain
undeveloped almost like creating a green belt or an area of farm fields that don't have to get
developed. If you saw that happening around the whole edge of a village, you might have an
extension area where you might have denser more village -like development using a sort of
cluster approach. And then along that more open space to remain around the edges.
Audience: That's a good idea.
N1 Lane — I think that's what has been happening. In our Village, the Dryden Village, I'm very
worried about the accesses to this kind of development being cut off by conservation easements
or purchase of development rights which .won't let that happen directly next to the village. But
that's something that has to be looked at very, very carefully. `I "he other thing is, the villagers live
in villages because they don't want high densification. if they wanted high densification, they'd
live in the city. Even though the county would like to see it highly densihed, I'm not sure that the
village residents want to see that anvmore than the people in Ellis Hollow want to go to as dense
as a village would be probably. So I think it's what's happening and if you look at the old master
plan; at least in Dryden Village, this is what was talked about until we got stuck with a wetland
taking up a quarter of the village. That's what was going on.
M Sumner— If you look at the area that's developed,.just to the South of the Village, I think it's
probably outside the village, reflects to me what you're showing with the curly cues and the cut -
de -sacs. `there is room, still room for that on the west side of the village.
M Lane — That's where I worry about it being cut off is on the west side.
M Sumner — .lust one thought. Would you rather have those big viney cul -de -sacs, or the village
extension concept like this? Do you have a preference?
N1 bane — I like orderly growth. i think it's less hard to maintain. i think it's less expensive to
maintain. it's easier to plow.
M Sumner — And I don't
think we're
talking about
densification here. We're talking about the
® name number of units in
a Smaller
area than the big
flower cul -de -sacs.
M Vane — I et me just give you one
Two mistakes there that made it lo(
on the curb and added significantly
turn around at the far end, which is
turnaround.
example. Grey Stone
k nice was where the
to the maintenance lh
very blacktop hungry
Drive was
road splits
e village h
whenever
PR 03 -13 -2008
Page 8 of 18
developed in the late 1970s.
and lets a few more lots be
ad for blacktop. Also a huge
you repave as opposed to a T
T Hatfield — That's why I asked what you thought because you've had experience with the
dealing with the village on these same issues and the village might not want this approach.
M Lane — It doesn't want to become moribund, because if it is, the taxes will go so high that
people won't want to live there anymore in order to maintain the infrastructure and maintain the
services that people want in the village; water and sewer and police and street lights and other
kinds of things. Can i ask a question, as long as I'm here? I can't think of the term, but there's a
planning term I've heard, but it has to do with what people want. it's why people are living in
Ellis Hollow and Snyder Hill and places like that, because they want to live on a hill on 5 acres
or on a farmette as you say with 10 acres. They don't want to live in the Village of Dryden. And
1 don't mean everybody. They don't want to live in the City of Ithaca. They want to live out in
this area, and we're told that this is awful because it's sprawl. The factor I always worry about is,
how do we factor in what people want to do with their private lands and other things, and still be
able to factor in what we can afford? I think. it's as wrong to say you can't live on a house on the
hill as it is to say you've gotta have 4 -acre lots in every available spot in the Village and around
it. It's a tough planning issue.
Audience — It is a tough issue because people don't really know what they want, and they don't
want what they thought they did. I live in Ellis Hollow. I have an acre and a half. I'd rather have
50 acres if i could afford it. I can't. I grew up on a farm. I'm not used to having people next door
to me. Although I lived in the Village of Groton for almost 20 years and I was very happy. i
could wall: every place and it was wonderful. But I have neighbors who live near me now who
wish they ]lad public water. They wish they had public sewer. You're not going to get that on an
acre and a half out where I live.
M Lane — If you look at where the sales are, sales are in the 5 acre lots. That's where the
$300,000 houses are in town.
T Hatfield —1 think what we're trying to accomplish here is to have a discussion and
consideration to develop an arsenal of tools to supplement our existing zoning. I remember 12
}rears ago now a local developer came to the board and wanted to do the first cluster
development in town. We had no way to allow that to happen. We had a private developer
willing to take the development risk and pioneer something relatively new in terms of this
Community, structure for housing. And at this point, we still don't have the tools to allow that
type of development to really occur without getting the cul -de -sacs and water and sewer. There
are a lot of issues. The one I think had the greatest promise is a couple slides back. The rural
community slide. Its the same amount of acreage. The same rural community. Yet it allows you
• to start to balance off the demand for some isolation, bigger lots like you're saying. I don't know
what t m
he market — what you're really talking about is market demand. Is there enough demand to
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Support this type of development in this area`? I have no idea. None of us in here today know.
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The thing is, we need to devise the tools to allow that market place to work.
M Sumner — When offered this example; people haven't had the chance to event consider this
kind of development.
T Hatfield — I understand. That's part of what this whole process is about. I'm sure we'll have a
lot smarter audience to talk to before we get done. To come up with the tools to allow this to
occur is going to be real challenging. 1 don't know how you balance them all out, but if that's the
preferred method for identity, for services, that's great. 1-low you balance those competing needs
as individual buyers? There's a marketplace for you as a developer? Unless I'm wrong, I don't
see that thing without sewer and water.
J Behan — I think what's important too is helping people achieve what they want. bet's face it.
All of us are busy. There's only a few of us here that are thinking long -tern in the future. And
the Town is charging itself with getting the tools in place so that you can have some of these
different patterns play out. Something like this — the First person out of the box, they would be a
long time trying to Figure this out. So the town can enable this and say, we think this is ok, and
here's the standards for the roads and how you can do this, now it becomes something that's out
there. Let's face it. The 5 -acre lot thing is what happens everywhere in Nlew York State. Even the
village expansion thing. You don't see a lot of that. You do see something with a 12 -acre lot put
•a cul -de -sac in and put 12 lots in. A kind of waste, in my opinion, of 12 acres; where you could
have had 20 houses, a nice little walkable neighborhood in a little grid. The zoning may.just lead
them that way. This is about providing options and tools for folks and also looking ahead. The
people that buy the 5 -acre lot. They may think they're buying in to the country and the next guy.
Who's looking out to the future? They're the ones that come to the meeting when Elie developer
of the subdivision gets to the last parcel and they're saying, you can't develop that farm. It's kind
of late to have that conversation.
L Bice — We looked at a property on Irish Settlement where Card dead ends. it's 137 acres. This
is the one (same property) from the Agriculatural Scenario. It's an existing kind of rural natural
character now, horses. Here's a top down view. You can see a stream, the woods, a ridge, hay
fields. That shows you existing features right now. We want to look at how development is
happening in the town now. You can see some of the flag lots. Frontage lots to start with and ask
more get peeled off over time, you lose some of that landscape along the road that made it such
an attractive setting there. Here you get some flag lots popping in. You start to lose that frontage
because you want to get that access to the inferior. That means more driveways closer together,
more disturbance.
This is a little conceptualized, obviously, but we're looking at how
development has been happening in the toxvii. This would happen under the current business as
usual scenario over time. You can see how it kind of chops up the land. You cart see the
character from the road gets lost. Safety gets lost with more and more driveways.
J Behan — Just to go back to that, just for a second. By zoning, now, you could actually have
more than that. You could have at least double that many houses. 1°his is showing a reasonable
pattern based on what's happening now. The other thing to think about is, that's just one
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There's another property across the street another down the road. Start to add it t► in
property. P P. P
your mind stretched across the whole road and across the whole town over time.
1., Bice — This is looking at an alternative. Maybe sharing some driveways — access points. The
planning board does this to some degree now — trying to provide future options for roads and
things like that. This scenario shows how, instead of having everything so chopped up; if you do
a road or many more shared driveways; instead of getting so many curb cuts and then flag lots
later, you might get a better result. It's even more houses, but potentially a less visual impact on
the landscape . We were also asked to try and translate this in to numbers. How realistic is this?
How feasible is it for people to develop land in some of these ways. So we looked at some of the
scenarios we've shown you already. A normal subdivision, a clustered conservation subdivision,
and then an agricultural cluster.
J Behan — Looking across the top is the types. The first column shows the owner staying in the
picture with them keeping 10 acres or 17 acres plus the 117'11 share in the rest in that type of
scenario. Even though there's a time variable involved, the Planning Board felt we needed to
keep the money consistent and not look at this selling any faster or slower so the time factor
didn't complicate the analysis. So we looked at the revenues coming back over time over those
sales, 8 years of sale, and then we. discounted that based on the time value. There might be a little
more money in that farm scenario, but really any of those scenarios are close enough in net
income that even with the extras of building a road in some of those that you could make roughly
® the same amount of money in the end.
Audience — So the net present value is the value to the developer?
J Behan — Yes. After expenses, that's their net.
T Hatfield — When you start trying to compare an 8 year project vs. a 10 year project vs. a 12
year project, the numbers get too confusing. it's simpler to keep them all in the same time period.
J Behan — I think what's instructive for tine community is how to shape tine approvals and those
costs so that the dollar figure you put in up front is as reasonably as low as possible so that if you
are building roads, phasing them in and working that out so that's something that's acceptable to
the town. At one point, they'll make the developer build all the roads up front. If you do that, you
could create a problem for the developer financially. It may cause financial problems that you
don't want, as a town. To make these scenarios work, you have to work with folks and provide
protection and security for lot owners that the roads will eventually be built but set up in a way
so that they can phase it in with a partial road coming in so far. Some of it could be private drives
at first to keep costs down. especially in your market. You have a very cost sensitive market
here. I think you want to recognize that. in some markets you can just write a check and build
everything and tine stuff sells fast enough that it doesn't matter. That's not Dryden.
K Ezell —'The one thing that I've seen in the town is the difficulty of getting — the end product is
® that we want a town road that's up to spec; that when we take it over that it meets that criteria.
The difficulty is then getting that product in the different phases. �N'hat happens is that we did 1;3
of it but the phase fell out and now there's no longer — but yet there's all these lots to be
P13 03 -13 -2008
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developed and no road, no other infrastructure, and now no contractor because he's one under.
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I'm just cluestioning how this will work. Are there other areas where it is working that way?
J Behan — There are. And there are different ways to do it that are more cost effective. For
example, in future phases, to the developer you can say, you can't sell or convey any of the lots
in phase 2. That forces them to finish out Phase. l before moving on. You can put guarantees in,
or you can set it up, we'll have to do a little research if the town Wants us to, if you set Phase 1
as being — deciding what phase 1 is going to be. Is there going to be a public road. Nelaybe it's
only going to have 6 lots with a t turnaround. Or is that going to be acceptable to the town to be a
private road for now. As long as everyone knows going in what it is. What you can't have is your
buyers expecting a public road and you don't have the mechanism in place to guarantee it.
T Hatfield — "That's where you have a home oNvner's association to plow and maintain that shared
private driveway until tlhe point in time where the community Wants to go from being private
driveway driven to municipality driven. Collectively borrow the money, build the road, dedicate
it to the town. and pay for it. Whether they pay for it up front through the developer or pay for it
collectively through the individual when that time comes, it's still the same result for the
taxpayer and the rest of the taxpayers in town aren't carrying that burden. It depends on how you
want to do this and having a mix of tools will help us with that. A lot of the issues that we've
dealt with on the board where you've got developer that have failed, the road sat uncompleted
and on and on, the people that bought the lots bought them with an expectation and it's created
.some real issues to deal with. I think there's ways to do it if we're willing to dig around and
establish some methodologies to allow that to happen, but I think it's going to take some things
that most folks here aren't used to thinking about for a while.
K Ezell — To be honest With you, I like the Conservation cluster' agricultural cluster. I like the
looks of it. If it sells, obviously that's the other issue, but if people want the 5 -acre lots, off the
road frontage or Whether they Want to get in to something like that, but it obviously is more
attractive.
M Sumner — There is one thing I've heard lately. People don't want to live on the road. Irish
Settlement Road's not that bad, but if it's any bigger than Irish Settlement, people Would rather
be back off the main road.
L Bice — Let's talk briefly about Commercial Guidelines then wve can wrap it up and have an
open discussion. We're mainly talking about for the Route 13 1 366 corridor. One of the issues
really is this sort of unplanned continuous strip development along the town's major corridors. It
speaks to the functionality and safety of the roads and also to the character. Your major corridors
are some of the most defining elements of the town, in a way. They're also places because
people travel them that it's a reasonable place to expect to do business and to have storey and
things like that. Basically some of the goals of the guidelines were to strengthen a sense of place,
to look for ways, to do shared parking and driveway access so we don't end up with a zillion curb
cuts along the route. Also looking again at flexibility, creativity, trying to look at each site with
its unique strengths and opportunities, not doing a one- size -fits all. This is just a little case study,
not to offend anybody who had any involvement in any of these properties. This is Route 13
/366, East of Pinckney Road. You've got your gas station here (the fruit stand and the clothing
1'B 03 -13 -2008
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store). You can see the all have parking that bump up against one another but no shared access.
There are barriers between the parking lots. A lot of curb cuts in a pretty small area on a very
busy road. It makes it less convenient because you can't go between properties. You have to go
back out again, and less safe too. The Route 13 study that was done recently by the County in
conjunction with the "Town, they were looking at accident rates. Probably everybody knows this.
it's not any secret, but there's a higher rate of accidents, and safety is an issue on this route to the
town. Here's an on the ground view of the same area. (tape flip) "There's a bit of signage
overdose. Maybe that's strong, but there's quite a lot of visual — there's some nice flowers here,
so obviously they're making an effort, but as a whole, if you look at this together, it creates not
the most attractive environment necessarily. I think the question too is, do you want this
perpetuated all the way along your commercial corridors, this pattern continuing? We wanted to
look at how to avoid that. Give people some ideas tip front of what could be done.
Obviously; access management and circulation from a safety standpoint. also convenience, is a
big issue. This shows that concept of coordinating the development into a little bit better pattern.
This might be the best pattern here with a few coordinated driveways and maybe some
relationship between the buildings, make a little green space up front.
Audience — And they're all on private well and septic too, so you have to figure that in when
dealing with the Town of Dryden.
•L Bice — We did. We've got what we call character areas. We look at how it's a little different
along the corridor. Some of the more intense development is more likely to happen closer in the
Route 131366 split. The guidelines tried to be sensitive to that issue.. We looked at site details and
some guidance on better signage. I like to think of this building and the sign, the structure here,
they're all the same material. In a sense, it makes the whole site a sign. T'he fact that the whole
thing is so flashy, we want to give people ideas of ways to do things that are done more
attractively. Another thing we talked about is to be — it's not just telling developers what they
should do, but it's also giving the Planning Board or the Town Board some guidelines and
establishing up front what expectations might be and possibilities so that when someone comes
to the town and they've already seen this so they're not going to have to start that guessing game
from day 1 when you come to the town. Looking at some ways to integrate some of these public,
transit trails into these site plans.
J Behan — That would be volunteer too. For example, there's a Wegmans in Pittsford. Right
behind them is the old Erie Canal. They were very accommodating in terms of putting signs and
paths to their property to show folks how to get up to this resource. The town said, would you
consider this, and they said sure. In fact, they built a two -story restaurant there to take advantage
of that space and that view that played nicely in to it. They also changed their architecture to
make a custom design for the town. They said, tell us what you want and we'll do it. The town
very quickly had guidelines and was able to show them what they wanted. They were able to put
in a major store in a very tight area and build it very quickly by the town having direction for
them.
® L Bice — It's good even internally for the town, people have agreement and understanding
internally, here's .what we want to see happen. A lot of commercial development (in Dryden) is
PB 03 -13 -2008
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s also going to be on a smaller scale, so the guidelines also talk about applying them sensibly and
commensurate with the amount of investment on a site. Not every site hats to be a Taj Malial. It's
more of the general principles. Note these character areas — we want to acknowledge there are
different opportunities and characteristics along the town's commercial corridor. This takes some
inspiration from the Route 13 study that was done which also looked at different character areas
along the corridor. The biggest one here is the rural highway corridor — the green.
M Hatch — How do you remediate situations like the fruit stand, for example?
L Bice — As businesses change hands and come before the board for a new Special Permit, you
could address these things then. The guidelines are more what you want to happen over time so
you have a direction. This area is now more accessible to utilities. There is already some more
intense development with some industrial sites down there. The confluence of two major roads.
The guidelines don't necessarily say they're going to make development happen. They're just
saying that when someone comes in and wants to develop along the corridor, it gives them some
guidance of what might be more appropriate in the Town's eyes.
J Behan — For example, a lot of town codes say, there are a few words in a site plan that might
say to keep in character with the neighborhood. You may not want the existing that exists there
to be your standard. You may say, that's what we have, but the next project coming in, let's head
in this direction. As those other properties redevelop or somebody wants to add to it, you get a
chance to tall: to them about changes. Moving forward, there is still a lot of open land in that
stretch. I drove along the corridor to get a feel for what's there. 1 think if you continue what you
have here, even if you didn't change anything, 1 think you'd really be disappointed both from a
real estate point of view in terms of cluality and value of properties.
T Hatfield — It bears repeating that this is a long term process. None of this is going to happen
overnight. But you've got to have a vision Of" Where you want to see it go. When you put
something like this in front of developers corning to town, they can say, ok, in this area, they
would be more willing to entertain what I want to do. It enables them to start interacting with the
Planing Board and the Zoning staff in a way that Fits with what we want to see. And if we
collectively as a town can decide how we want to see the town develop over the next 20 or 30
years; every time these facilities change hands and come back for a Special Permit; that's when
we'll have the time to redress the produce stands, We'll redo this, but we're not going to put up
with the signage and you have to share a curb cut and parking. You're going to get those
opportunities as things turn over in a 20, 30, 40 year cycle. You're not going to make it happen
overnight.
L Bice — This was the hamlet area. It's one of the building blocks. We want to give people a
sense visually what some of7those elements might be. It's an idealized version, but not
necessarily unrealistic. Again; it wouldn't happen overnight, but Nwe're trying to illustrate
principles and the ideal. You move people towards this vision. Some of these ideas come from
the Comprehensive flan. More shared parking is in here. If you look at the guidelines; it talks
about some basic things. Oftentimes hamlets have consistent setbacks. General guidance to give
® people. Looking at building design and appearance, scale.
1' B 03 -13 -2008
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® Mixed use medium density, that's the pink area here a little north of the village. The idea here is
this is where you might be more likely to have a little more intense development. Aotost of it has
to do with shared curb cuts. Maybe more intense development but not all stripped along the road.
Trying to maintain some buffers along the road, some natural characteristics still. This is a top
down view of commercial development. What you might want to strive for if you got some
larger scale things corning in. Or even over time, it could be phased in. Again, shared curb cuts,
some parking in the front, some in the back also so that you don't have a landscape dominated by
giant parking lots with the big box way in the distance, a more organized kind of look. These are
obviously bigger scale that you're getting right now, but if utilities came in and more
development happened near 366 and 13, these are some building elements we want to talk about.
Awnings, windows, landscaping, things like that.
The rural highway corridor, that's the green area. 1 think we recognize that for the most part, you
have a lot of smaller kind of stores, little shops coming in, small scale, not utilities. We didn't
want to demand these standards that have to do with these very large scale kind of developments,
so a lot of it depends on maintaining a nice buffer along the road, occasionally trees planted,
some low signage. One of the inspirations, too, you see along Route 134 it kind of shovws this
consistent setback, maybe there wouldn't be so many trees, the theme is to not necessarily rely
on one store, but to keep a consistent character along the road. These are some of the
characteristics — rural lighting levels, low signs, when possible shared access.
•J Behan — That's a new building and that was bui It in a town with design guidelines that had
been around for 13 or 15 years. This is built out of natural stone that they quarried there and a
stone veneer. There are some chain stores in there, a Subway and some other national chains.
There's plenty of parking, but this was some of the architecture that is more a look and feel vvith
a lot of buildings down there. it's bigger than a normal house, but it fits in to the townscape.
Very successful. Fits in to a corner. That's the corner of a highway. There's one curb cut on the
right, way down at the corner, and one curb cut way down on the left. "]'here are only 2 ways in,
they're not near the traffic spot, and it's fully occupied. There's a beautiful stone wall out front
past the guard rail. It creates a cohesive look with its surroundings.
T Hatfield — this is a character statement. There's a real effort here to preserve some of our barns.
1f you tell architects that, they'll run with it and make things that tit better in that corridor with
the look and feel.
L Bice — That's the end of the presentation. Let me just say that this is Phase 1, The Town will
also be looking at making some zoning amendments and looking at the Land Use Plan and the
Comprehensive Plan and trying to also implement chat. This is part of that larger effort, so there
will be more public meetings.
Q &A:
M Lane — I think this was a very nice presentation. 1 like the way you run it. 1 like the way you
said, hia•e are some ideas. I really like that for our community, I think it's a great step. I like the
way you talked about access roads a little bit, particularly in the area near the NVSF.G area
® which is the overlap of the two highways and the high traffic count. Someone just told us that
traffic count is not much smaller than Meadow Street in Ithaca, Route 13, because of the overlap
P B 03 -13 -2008
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there of the two state highways. We've talked about access roads to limit curb cuts on Route 13
for more than 20 years. If we could come up with a scheme that .would encourage developers to
have these kind of back set access roads and fewer curb cuts, and maybe that's something in
planning that could be done, maybe the town has got to make an investment of some kind.
Maybe the town shares the cost in some way to help them — maybe the town paves them and the
builder builds them or something like that. It's not some new idea, is what I'm trying to say. Ws
not going to happen unless somebody finds a way to either extract it from the developers, and as
you say, ewe don't have that kind of development pressure here because the sales aren't: that sure
and there isn't that great a market. We're a small county. Or we. mind some way to jointly help
them and reduce the development expense for some feature that we think is so significant that it
will help our planning in the long road.
L 131ce — Incentivize it in some way, then,
J Behan — The thought I had way, we met with Heather hilliberto, and that area there is part of
the Empire Zone. That may be — there's a big investment there by tax payers on part of the state.
I wonder if that's not a way to loot: at something — planning, out something as a first step. At
least the infrastructure as far as roads and not parcel by parcel. Even those are going to be hard to
develop instantly. I know there are some grants available for access grants, industrial, i:fyou've
got job creation. We talked to her about the village site. You're not going to get anything big in
there. You might get something creative, a builder to put in a cabinet shop that might grow. You
• could eventually create some economic opportunity. I'm wondering if we put that in under the
planning — economic development planning. Most. of the developers, they look at a parcel. In real
estate, they want to know what they can do with their parcel. They're not going to look at this.
One thing other towns have done is they have sketched what they want — they've paid a little bit
of money to plan some particular areas. It's a bit of investment. Some of those buildings that w
showed you, the one you said you liked — that was actually planned by the town in concert with
the developer to get that building to look like that. The town put some thinking in to what they
wanted to have happen. That was a very modest investment in just some planning and design.
I'm not sure what's needed here. I could talk to developers about what more is needed. You need
to be ready to help partner with some infrastructure.
M Sumner — That little scenario around the gas station. That's the newest development along that
area, isn't it? How did that happen''
M 1 -latch — I remember that the curb cut situation for that was a real stickler with the town. i
knew Max when it was going in. It was a real issue about how it had to be a certain way, he had
to put a lot of money in to it. There was some incentive that was offered for him to pair with the
Sunoco, I'm sure he would have taken it, and if the town had encouraged the Sunoco to do it, but
maybe there were problems. 1 don't know. 1 got a little bit of a history of it from him. It was
definitely an issue. Plus it's very hazardous a situation because the double stripes just begin there
and the narrowing of the road there. It's bad for his business.
® M Sumner — And that's the emphasis for not a moment too soon. We're trying to provide
mechanisms to avoid anymore of that.
PB 03 -13 -20013
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0 K Ezell — I think part of it is just ignorance. It just wasn't out there.
1
M Sumner— Right. It wasn't a choice.
K l:.zell — it wasn't something that was even thought about as an offer or how to pursue that.
l.,ockwoods have been there — they were there before the gas station. And the gas station, before
it was gas station was a restaurant. So because it just sort of developed on its own. If we give
some direction here., we can help things not develop on their own, but be guided,
M Lane — It puts a lot of pressure on a Town Board or Planning Board when eve have a
development like you see. You'll have one project and it might be 5 years before you have a
project next door. How do you say to these people in developing a lot, you need to make room in
the front yard for the access road that is eventually going to go through here; or you need to set
back this far. Nobody else has to do that, why do we have to be the first?
K Ezell — And there's got to be an incentive, like you were saying.
M Sumner — How do you say, because I said so.
M Lane — There's a lot of pressure on those boards. This is a nice group of people. They want to
invest this. They want to give us a tax base. It really means coming down with ordinances or
zoning laws, if that's what you want, and the Planning Board and the Town Boards and the
Zoning Boards are all going to have to stand behind. There are a million exceptions and
arguments for every — all the reasons why we shouldn't have to do that because our project is just
a little bit different than anybody else.
M Hatch — I can imagine making suggestions in a configuration like this one. Maybe there are
others up the road as well. But this one, just getting folks together on a bit by bit basis and
saying, it maybe enhances your business to have tile, three of them combined. The gas station, for
example, looks like a part: and ride lot there's so much room there. It may be useful for them to
give up something to gain something] Ti the way of traffic that would help their business. I know
you could approach it that way. Lockwood may feel the same way. One could have a negotiator
in the Planning to go to these people.
M Sumner — And it is as Kevin says, a bit of an education too.
Audience — i think it's pretty difficult because you're asking the one property owner to ask let
someone else drive big construction vehicles across their paved parking lot to get to the
neighbor. What's the incentive for them to do that? During construction there's no curb cut,
you're going to have to go through the neighbor's property to get to it. You're going to have one
property without access to the highway. You're going to have to go through somebody else's
property to do it.
® K Ezell — Unless you did the shared driveway in the back and there were two cuts and you had a
whoel driveway that went through the whole back.
P13 03 -13 -2005
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Audience — Right — you make the curb cuts on the property line. even though there's nothing
next door, you make them put the curb cut on the property line.
J Behan — And you put it in the right way; so the curb cut is on the property line at the highway
where the property lines come together.
K Ezell — Which would help to eliminate some of that. Again, it happened because, just like
Mike said; it happened because one developer came in and developed it and much later another
developer came in and developed the other side.
N1 Hatch — Well, it's like with the residential; one has to find ways of selling it, the incentive, or
you create a better circumstance, more pleasant to look at and it's a better draw for the person
who has the residence saying, we want to get rid ofyour curb cuts. You find ways of making it
more enticing. I don't know whether there's any experience that way. You have to add the
incentive some \vay. Even though the building is far away from the curb cut. This is all a matter
of remediation and maybe we just have to wait until everybody dies off.
L Bice — There's probably a range of ways, depending on what works for the town. Some of it
could be almost more educational, casual, and collaborative. Maybe there's ways to make it
more formalized and reasonable in the zoning that almost requires it. i think there are issues.
There are very different kinds ol'businesses where a contractor's yard with big trucks coming in
• all day sharing a shared access or driving across a day care that wouldn't work.
M Sumner — But nothing like the impact that the first few developments have. Once people see it
as an alternative. 1 love the family dentist example there on the corner of Johnson Road. The
veterinarians' office just next door on the other corner. They are almost identical properties. You
got to see how much better the dentist's office is.
NT Lane — Go across the street from the gas station and see the beautiful Prudential Building
that's there and compare it to the construction building that's next door. They're almost identical
lots.
J Behan — I think you do make a good point about the laws and code. I always wanted to write
that balance and the need to specify what you might predict. Like write a bad scenario and say
you won't let that happen, and what we want to have happen, allow it. And the more clearly you
write this, it's enough strength, the Planning Board has the tools, but not so onerous that it
becomes tough. That some reasonable plan comes in and your laws don't accommodate it,
L Bice — Right, going from the worst case scenario to what you want.
J Behan — And there are places downstate where, you don't have the code, you aren't getting it.
M Hatch — One other question about the NYSEG area site, You mentioned that it's not an
industrial, so you can't get the Umpire Zone incentive. i was thinking, if you wanted to apply for
some planning funds, for some funds to plan that site and lay it out, if that's the area we're
talking about. If you have a pre - existing industry like Cornell which is nearby, and which has an
PB 03 -13 -2008
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interest in providing density housing for medium cost housing, could you claim that as your
industry and then create a zone there which might be a nice density with easy access to transport
and possible water / sewer connections and trails and a whole bunch of other things nearby. And
then do a plan around it and do a proposal.
M Sumner — In the Route 13 / 366 corridor study, there's a description but there is a description
of a housing area just to the East of Pinckney Road.
M Hatch — Either there or further West. IF one were able to make a proposal; obviously you
would have to coordinate with Cornell, but you might be able to get some money, make that
appeal.
M Lane —1 was thinking about what was said earlier about having some money to grease the
wheels here basically. What if the Town were to take, and I'm still looking at the NYSEG area;
what if the `l "okvn were to take that section as a dual section where the overlap was and make a
project of laying that out the way they would like to see it happen.
iii Sumner — A Planned Unit Development.
M Lane — Not a plan that couldn't be altered, but something that you could show people who
were going to build down there. This is what the Town would very much like to see happen and
what probably could make it through the planning process with all due speed. Are there places
doing things like that?
M Sumner — We just had a discussion with the Village the other day about doing that with the
newly annexed property. It was very interesting to me. It was a whole new concept to me. That
would be another interesting place to do that. It's kind of a natural in the new village area
because it's all owned by one developer, but it Would be good to look at the possibilities.
L Bice — 'that's what the county study was doing. They did their own. They set forth a vision for
that area showing where roads could be accommodated.
M Lane — i was thinking of something a little more detailed than that.
N Munkenbeck — Down in Pittsford, didn't they do something like that? (Yes.) And there was a
subdivide near Onondaga where they did something like that. Northwest of Syracuse. We can do
that, right'?
L Bice — Communities do it. Absolutely.
J Behan - and it's helpful to have at least one client tenant that's active. It kind of makes it more
real — sets the stage.
Respectfully Submitted,
Patty Millard