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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1975-12-11 PUBLIC INFORMATION MEETING HELD BY THE GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD , THURSDAY , DECEMBER 11 , 1975 HELD IN THE PERUVULLE CHURCH , PERUVULLE , N . Y . AT 8 * 00 PM PRESENT : H . Fink - Chairman* V . Rankin - Town Councilman* G . Totman - Vice- Chairman* R . Walpole - Town Justice* D . Payne* F . Wilson* A . Clark - Ithaca Journal* R . Gleason C . Twigg J . Laiacona J . Bell - Recording Clerk* Approximately 25 members of the general public* - Denotes those present . H . Fink : I ' d . like to welcome all of you this evening . I ' m Harvey Fink , Chairman of the Town of Groton Planning Board and I would like to introduce the other members of the Planning Board who are here with me this evening , - - Fred Wilson , Don Payne , George Totman who lives in McLean and I live on Elm Street Extension . We have called a series of public meetings in the 4 corners of the town to gain input from the citizens of the town per - taining to the ordinance after the moratorium is off . To clarify , we are not the governing body of the town , - -we make recommendations to the Town Board and they are the people that vote on it , not us . If you would like to speak I would be glad to recognize you . Josephine Bell is taking shorthand and if you would give you name we would like to have all your comments written down . Also we have a survey form if you care to sign it , you don ' t have to put your name on it and any comments you might have and possibly questions you can write in also and feel free to write in what you think . We would be glad to accept anything you might write down . If someone would like to kick it off ? M . Peck : I ' m Morris Peck , could you give a history of why the moratorium was introduced originally and what the reasons behind it were exactly? H . Fink : One of the things that came to our attention was the number of mobile homes - - the ratio of mobile homes or conventional homes - - this was running 3 - 1 one year , 2 - 1 and part of this year it was 4 or 4 to 1 in 1975 up until the moratorium . We feel this has created some kind of a problem with the tax base . Is there a reason why we don ' t have the growth of conventional houses that other towns do ? We did have a meeting with other officials from surrounding towns and counties and we listened to some of their problems and they listened to ours and that - 1 - 0AWOO 3 0 2 6 -Us5 1 H . Fink : is one reason we are here tonight to see if we can get input from the citizens for a plan to turn into the Town Board , Morris Peck : Do you have any idea how many mobile home units were established? H . Fink : We could go back a year or two but after that would have a problem , - - would have to look to the County Tax Office . M . Peck : I called the County Assessors today and found out we have about a $ 18 , 400 , 000 assessment valuation base . Each mobile home put on an individual lot would be assessed at the very minimum about $ 5 , 000 . Now if this would re - quire something like 200 mobile homes to make even a million dollar difference in assessed valuation base , I don ' t think that this is going to mean anything except gravy for the Town Board because these will be established unless you get a mobile home subdivision . You are not going to be plowing any new roads or maintaining any new roads , these would go on existing ones . The only possibility is the school district would have more children , - - right now we have a declining enrollment and we are funded 83% 85% from the State based on the enrollment so as long as we don ' t have to build a new school they should be beneficial . H . Fink : I don ' t want to get into questions and answers . But to answer some of the points that you made , - - the figures you have we don ' t know if they are actual assessment . M . Peck : It ' s assessment base . R . Walpole : That ' s the Village and the Town . M . Peck : Ten million in the Town of Groton . H . Fink : For this meeting we would like to exclude the Village , we want to talk only on the Town . Another thing 200 families could create a burden on the school district . I appreciate your point though , it ' s well taken . . G . Totman : We ' re looking for what people would like after the moratorium , - - - M . Peck : I thought maybe it was some kind of tax burden as this excuse was given but it doesn ' t seem to be in any respect but to make this kind of decision when there seems to be so much need when mobile home permits were outnumbering 5 - 1 it seems there ' s a tremendous need for low income housing . Something is wrong with your think- ing . It ' s not helping the people . I thought the Planning Board is supposed to be here to serve the interests of the people and it seems to be serving a special interest . H . Fink : We try to look at all interests . Anybody else want to say any- thing ? S . Simons : It seems to me that you ' re putting the cart before the horse . Why put a moratorium on mobile homes before getting some kind of input from the people in the Town . Why do you feel you can go ahead and ram it into effect seeing as how there ' s so much ill feelings against it from the last time and all of a sudden you put it on now why wasn ' t there some sort of input gathered before you put it in? In- stead of afterwards ? - 2 - H . Fink : Before the moratorium was put on the Town Board held a public hearing . S . Simons : How was it advertised ? And when ? H . Fink : It was advertised in the official Town newspaper , which is the Journal and Courier . S . Simons : Seems to me it has to be published in 3 different publications . H . Fink : No , - - Town law - - the Town designates an official newspaper and in this case it ' s the Journal and Courier and if you don ' t get it - - I know it ' s not a popular newspaper , - - but that ' s where the Town advertises their meetings . G . Totman : I think they are obliged to by law . It sounds very odd to the people in the Town that the Town uses the Journal and Courier - - there aren ' t that many people that take it . I was at the meeting and they reapppoint that paper every year and in the Town of Groton ' s case technically it ' s the official paper and the State law says you have to use the paper that is published in that Town so that ' s why they have to use it for their legal publications at Groton . S . Simons : But it seems to me if they are trying to keep the whole town- ship in mind they should have advertised it in more than one paper since it doesn ' t reach that many people in the town . I would say the Shopper would be better . Why did they all of a sudden come up with the idea of putting a moratorium on mobile homes at this time ? H . Fink : I think I partially answered that to this gentleman , - - it ' s a combination of many factors and agreement between the Planning Board and the Town Board , - - they did hold a public hearing and maybe in your case unfortunately you didn ' t get the paper and didn ' t know about it . We would like to pass this pad around and have you put your names and addresses on it . We would appreciate it if you would do this . H . Fink : Can you give us any input as to what you ' d like afterwards ? G . Totman : One of our jobs is , - -we are an auxiliary for planning and are supposed to make preliminary plans and suggestions to the Town Board as to what an ordinance should look like . We ' re not here to argue the good or bad of the ordinance , - -we have the ordinances in the Town of Groton for junkyards , swimming pools , and mobile homes and our job is to revise them and come up , supposedly , with a better workable ordinance , - -what we are looking for is what people in the Town would like in that = ordinance . Our job is to rewrite it and the Town Board after we rewrite it can change the whole thing or throw it out or accept our suggestions and we want suggestions from the people in the Town as to what they would like to have and I think we ' re losing our purpose on what we ' re looking for . After we get through with these meetings we will 3 - G . Totman : meet to discuss what will be in the ordinance . If you live in a mobile home what do you like about the ordinance that is there now and what don ' t you like about it and what would you like changed . Maybe you would like something in it to make people comply . Maybe some of you take good care of your mobile homes but have neighbors who don ' t and this makes your place look bad because they don ' t take care of theirs . We ' re going to have a mobile home ordinance but what kind is our responsibility . M . Peck : Why not a conformance code for all houses , - -why just on mobile homes ? G . Totman : This is the thing , - - it could be a part of the general ordinance . They list mobile mobile homes as single dwelling units but there will be some other factors regarding skirting and setbacks per- taining strictly to mobile homes . M . Peck : But the whole deal basically is anti -mobile homes , - - it ' s that way regardless and you are threatening people right now that live in the town whether you mean to or not . H . Fink : We ' re here , - - I think George explained it in a nutshell , - -we do have a zoning ordinance in the Town and we do have other zoning and what we want to do is try to perfect if , - - if the people want stricter one fine , if not , - - M . Peck : This is the second time now in three years that mobile homes have been specifically picked out for various restrictions , - - nothing is done about the guy that has a messy front yard . E . Hyde : What about junkyards ? H . Fink : They are working on them too . They have court cases coming up . M . Peck : Don ' t point out to one group of people that i"t ' s got to be just them that have to comply with this code , - -why can ' t it be all ? H . Fink : A good point . Ella Hyde : There are lots of homes that look just as bad or worse . I feel the same way as Mr . Peck does , I make mine look as good as I can . Just because the one next to mine isn ' t nice , doesn ' t mean mine isn ' t . G . Totman : Those are the kind of things we want to do . This is one of the reasons for having an ordinance , - - to protect the people that are trying to do something nice with theirs . E . Hyde : It ' s hard when you say you can ' t put a mobile home in but you don ' t say you can ' t put a house in and they aren ' t taken care of . M . Peck : If it was changed around and you excluded conventional homes , - - it ' s really a threat to people that live in mobile homes , - - it ' s their life savings more so than the guy with a $ 30 , 000 or $ 40 , 000 house . H . Fink : Thank you , - - anybody else ? - 4 - C . Conley : I ' m Chris Conley , - - do you have any idea of the type of controls they are considering ? H . Fink : None whatsoever , - -not at this time . G . Totman : We decided to have these meetings first , before we started working on it . The Planning Board met a couple of times and discussed the pros and cons of it but it was decided it would make more sense if we went out and listened to the people of the Town before we started making any proposals at all . C . Conley ; Did any of your people talk to the County Assessor ? G . Totman : Not yet we haven ' t . H . Fink : Anybody else ? R . Zhe : I ' m Bob Zhe , - - I understand in the constitution it says that our elected officers are supposed to be representing all of the people . Why wasn ' t this put to the people for a vote before it was passed? H . Fink : To answer your question , - - the Town Board doesn ' t have to use that procedure . They held a public hearing and then they voted on it . M . Peck : On zoning you can ' t come to a public vote , - - it ' s against the State law . H . Fink : That ' s why you elect officials . Does everybody have a questionnaire ? Anyone else ? Thank you for coming ladies and gentlemen , I appreciate it . As I said before if you want to write something down on the questionnaire don ' t be afraid , - - you don ' t have to sign your name if you don ' t want to . Respectfully submitted , I I e& Josephine Bell - 5 - I Ll �C Ill 'ot(a, , a41 od :2AJ oe ------------- - -�- "Y►'� .�d _ - -�_�—ems-- - sue- r� -- r