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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03-12-1998 Annexation INFORMATIONAL MEETING - JOINT TOWN & VILLAGE - ON ANNEXATION THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 1998 AT 7:30 P.M. Those present for the Town of Groton: Teresa M. Robinson, Supervisor Ellard L. Sovocool, Councilman Daniel J. Carey, Councilman Donald N. Palmer, Councilman Donald F. Scheffler, Councilman Richard Case, Highway Superintendent Colleen D. Pierson, Town Clerk Those present for the Village of Groton: Dennis Toolan, Mayor Chuck Rankin, Village Clerk Irma Lyon, Trustee Christopher Neville, Trustee Glenn Morey, Trustee Jeffrey Cargian, Trustee Frank Satterly, Director Those present from the Village of Groton I.D.A.: Gary Watrous, Ed Westlake, Karl Stamm, John Andersson. Also present: Virginia Munson, Louie Wolf, Kari Stamm, Lauren Stanforth - Ithaca Journal. Purpose of meeting - At the February 10, 1998 Groton Town Board Meeting, Mayor Dennis Toolan requested the Town Board meet with the Village Board and discuss the possible annexation of property. At this meeting Mayor Toolan stated, "What I'm shooting at offering you people is that in light of the Munson and Wolf acquisition of the Hunter property, I think this now is the time to sit down and annex a piece of property. What we're looking at is something like a small technology park or something like that. But you know, we want to sit down and get some ideas from you people. We put an offer in right now for 24 acres, and some change." MAYOR TOOLAN- .....what we're after is the 222 area and make some property available for anybody who wants to start a small high-tech business or some kind of commercial use. Any questions? Any answers? CLERK RANKIN- I have petitions from the owners (Louie Wolf & Virginia Munson). They are asking for the entire parcel. Pg.2 - Informational/Annexation - March 12, 1998 MAYOR TOOLAN- That's fine. CLERK RANKIN- And this, Colleen, is for the Town. Virginia, Louie, this is your copy. This is what their petition.... MAYOR TOOLAN- Does that include the piece on the other side of Lick Street too? CLERK RANKIN- No. MAYOR TOOLAN- Does anyone else want to see this? COUNCILMAN CAREY- How many acres in total Chuck? VIRGINIA MUNSON- 104. MAYOR TOOLAN- We figured it up at 104. With the assessment to Town would be losing......$1500, I think it was..... CLERK RANKIN- That was for the entire block........as it turned out, that $125,000 assessment included the Nilsson property that is off from there somewhere, and it's actually less than that. It's only $108,000, the assessment. (Someone asks how much that would be in taxes). At $125,000 I figured about $322 in taxes that the Town looses, so it's less. MAYOR TOOLAN- What we figured out before was all the landowners...we, aah...there was a mixed feeling amongst the landowners.....we'd like to have the outside of this parcel...at this point we don't really want to make a......and most of them don't want to participate because they'd have to pay Village taxes. UNIDENTIFIED- The figure you gave on the taxes, that's the gross figure after it became.......there would still be Town and County tax. CLERK RANKIN- That would be the gross loss for the Town...and maybe they'd still get some tax..... MAYOR TOOLAN- What we're saying is that any kind of development goes in there, the Town will recoup their money. Of course, what everybody has to understand is that when somebody comes in and starts a business, we also have to give them a tax break. GARY WATROUS- That's 50%........there'd still be some taxes. I think in the future, what this would do if we're ever able to attract someone, and there certainly are no guarantees. I've been on the I.D.A since it was formed in 1983, and we've had a number of companies that were interested in that, but really had no where to put them. And these companies come and start talking, they don't want to wait for property to be annexed or rezoned or whatever, you have to have something available at the time. I look at this as a wonderful opportunity. If we could locate one 5 or 10 thousand square foot building, we would get a lot more in taxes....... Supervisor Robinson inquired about the availability of Village Electric to the area. MAYOR TOOLAN- Because there's no customers there, NYSEG wouldn't really give us a problem, I don't believe, do you Chuck? What do you think Frank? DIRECTOR SATTERLY- I'd be pretty confident we could service them. If they were presently a development and they were being served by NYSEG, then they would have to sell it to us. We'd have to negotiate....but not being served we..... Someone points out that whoever buys the house and barn would have some problems and someone agrees that they would probably have to stay as is........Discussion of the electric follows. DIRECTOR SATTERLY- Just to get this off center, so we know where it's going, what's the procedure? Does the Town have to agree or do they have to have a May 12, 1998 - Informational/Annexation - Pg.3 referendum, or what is it? CLERK RANKIN- None of this has been officially filed. We have to have a joint public hearing within forty days. We have talked about it and looked at our schedule books, and we can get that scheduled tonight if you want. It would have to be before April 22, I guess.........Then I think each Board has to make their decision within ninety days after that. MAYOR TOOLAN- Right now is a good time to get everything out in the open. If there is any problems that anyone knows about, they should bring them out now so we can resolve them, or try to. ED WESTLAKE- If the Village is ever going to expand, that seems like the most logical direction to me.... JOHN ANDERSSON- Is that area easily accessible for sewer and water? DIRECTOR SATTERLY- We looked at it coming in by the ICF. Actually, when that was built, that road was built so that it could be a street at some future date. The waste water lines were put out to the end of that and the water lines were put out to there......ultimately, we always wished the water tank could have been on Lick Street, but it didn't work that way....We've had our Village engineers look at it and they feel pretty confident..... MAYOR TOOLAN- Like Gary says, people who want to start a business, they'll build the building maybe, but they don't want to wait for you to put in the water and the sewer and the electric and do all the legal work to get the land zoned properly. People today with ideas like to... well you see it with electronics: if you sit on an idea, in a year...... VIRGINIA MUNSON- You said that it was forty days for a Public Hearing and then it goes to a Board? So when would we know if it was annexed or not, so that at the auction time it would be available to future businesses? We'd have that as an attraction to them.... MAYOR TOOLAN- Well, it says that you can take up to 90 days, but you can pass it the next day after..... VIRGINIA MUNSON- I realize how that works, but if we can be sure of it at the sale time that would be an extra attraction for other businesses to come because there are other land sites that are available that they might be interested in. MAYOR TOOLAN- When's the sale, Virginia? VIRGINIA MUNSON- The 9th of May, is tentative. We can adjust it, but we would like to know. A discussion took place and the tentative date of April 2, 1998 was decided upon as the date for the Joint Public Hearing. MAYOR TOOLAN- Do you want to...well I guess we better feel the Public Hearing out and then make a decision that night as to when... SUPERVISOR ROBINSON- That depends on how the Public Hearing goes. CLERK RANKIN- We're going to be meeting the next Monday, on the 6th, for organizational........... MAYOR TOOLAN- No questions? No comments? COUNCILMAN CAREY- Is there any Town property in there between the Village and the Town land? MAYOR TOOLAN- Yes. There's a little square in there. It's hooked to the Village via Elm Street. Do you understand what I'm saying? We are going to land lock a little piece there...... Pg.4 - Informational/Annexation - March 12, 1998 COUNCILMAN CAREY- Is there any access from 222? Unable to understand answer from tape. COUNCILMAN SCHEFFLER- You're talking the whole length of Lick Street.......You said that some of the neighbors have a problem of taxes or they don't want to pay...... MAYOR TOOLAN- ........actually over here on this side there's a jog, there's four owners on Elm Street and there's three..... COUNCILMAN SCHEFFLER- Are there any other complaints that you've heard? MAYOR TOOLAN- No, I mean, what they're looking for, is if we probably could guarantee them electric, which I can't at this point. It's something maybe later on that we could offer. Just to get this thing moving and hold................If you as a board want to proceed with an eminent domain on one side or the other, doesn't matter. Here on the Elm Street side, they won't be land locked, they're away. This small parcel here on 222.... a little piece of the Town in the Village. There was further discussion about the land to be annexed and the surrounding parcels of land. MAYOR TOOLAN- ....I will stop and see them (it is unclear on the tape who he is referring to). I'll invite them to the meeting. I just heard that they were negative about it. The last couple of weeks, I've had a lot of negativity......hasn't had anything to do with landowners though.....I'm not pointing any fingers tonight. There was further discussion about the small piece of land that would be land locked if the annexation took place. MAYOR TOOLAN- The way we figure it...we have a reasonable utility rate, which at least half of what everybody else is paying. We feel we can attract some kind of a job market or some kind of a business in here that will be pleasing ethically or aesthetically pleasing and create jobs. New York is going after chip manufacturers now. They have tons of money. They've allocated billions. I don't think we'll ever pursue that because one of the requirements is they have to be able to handle 3 billion gallons of water a day. I don't think we..... Maybe we can get an off-shoot of something like that. I have been talking to a machinery, well it's an outfit that's looking for somebody to heat treat and somebody to polish small parts. There is going to be money available in Tompkins County at a lower interest rate, it's coming. Cortland will probably get it now, with the loss of Rubbermaid, but we're in line. Someone asked about zoning in the area and a discussion followed about what future zoning would be, local law that would have to be passed, and the possible favorable or unfavorable reactions of the surrounding landowners. It was stated that part of it is already zoned as commercial in the Town. SUPERVISOR ROBINSON- Let me get this right. When you originally started, you were going to have......you were going to ask just this one area.......? Someone asked about any possibility that the annexation might be turned down. MAYOR TOOLAN- That's why we're here. Who's going to turn it down? These Boards here are the only ones who can turn it down. The owners, there's only two people that own that land now. The landowners, obviously aren't going to vote it down, right? This is why we're here. It's these Boards that have to turn it down. CLERK RANKIN- Within these public hearings, there are certain structured questions that...they've got to come up with something that it's going to be detrimental to the municipality involved to turn it down. They have to come up with some reason that this action will be detrimental to both municipalities.........There's about five questions that we have to go through and then both Boards have to May 12, 1998 - Informational/Annexation - Pg.5 make determinations that night. Further discussion followed having to do with the questions that need to be answered as part of the annexation process. CLERK RANKIN- If you go back in your minutes to when we did Talbot's thirteen years ago and Jack Fitzgerald was your attorney at the time. I remember he laid them right out one by one, and went through them like clock-work and it really wasn't a big deal. In fact what I could do is make up a sheet as to what those questions are, write them down......... A question was asked as to whether anyone knew what the lot containing the house and barn was assessed for. It was explained, by members of the Village Board, that the lots have not been divided up in that way at this time. One lot, across Rt. 222, to the north, was previously divided off and deeded to Nilsson. This parcel had been part of the original $125,000 assessment. The assessment of the whole parcel now is now closer to $108,000. Gary Watrous inquired about the current Town Zoning of the M2 (commercial) district along Rt.222. Clerk Pierson explained that this extends 500 feet from the road. There was some more discussion about future zoning. MAYOR TOOLAN- We're meeting again, on April 2nd, for a Public Hearing? If anyone has any questions, feel free to call Chuck or me. CLERK PIERSON- Are you looking for just a hearing that night or are you going to make decisions? What are you going to do? It makes a difference in how we advertise... MAYOR TOOLAN- I think you have to schedule a Board meeting soon after that. CLERK PIERSON- After that night then.... MAYOR TOOLAN- Doesn't matter to me. If you want to have a Board Meeting that night.... CLERK PIERSON- No, I'm just asking. If we're running notices.... Members on the Town Board state that they have a Town Board Meeting soon after that, on April 14th. Mayor Toolan agrees that there would be no point in scheduling a Special Board Meeting at another time. The meeting was adjourned at 8:10 P.M. Colleen D. Pierson Town Clerk