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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1976-03-25 GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD MEETING Held at the Town Hall Groton , N . Y . Thursday - March 25 , 1976 at 8 : 00 P . M . PRESENT : H . Fink - Chairman* G . Totman - Vice - Chairman* D . Snell - Zoning Enforce - D . Payne * ment Officer * F . Wilson* C . Twigg* J . Laiacona* J . Bell - Recording Clerk * R . Gleason* # - Denotes those present . Mr . Fink called the meeting to order at 8 : 10 P . M . H . Fink : Mr . James Lockwood is here tonight . This map was approved for a minor subdivision . R . Gleason : Alright , H . Fink : He ' s made a change . I understand that this 40 . 3 R . Gleason : Tax map 40 . 3 that would be - - 0 . K . H . Fink : And 40 . 1 are owned by the same people . What he had to do in order for the people to buy the whole thing , he had to give them an acre of land free and clear . Jo Ladlwaad : So they could borrow the money to buy the land . H . Fink : To deed that out free and clear so they could get - - - - - - - - - - for the home . Those 2 lots are owned by the same people . J . Lac' kwood : Right . R . Gleason : Woods doesn ' t own that ? J . . L oakwood : No , Woods owns right there . H . Fink : Looking at this map , would Woods be right here ? J . LDrhkwood : That ' s right . D . Payne : Is that a land contract ? J . Lockwood : Yes . H . Fink : This doesn ' t change the whole thing but it does make a change and we should decide what and if we want to do on this . F . Wilson : What does it do to his frontage ? R . Gleason : Nothing . .,, 1 _ J . Lockwood : Nothing , H . Fink : It would still have to be 2 deeds , - - 40 . 1 and 40 . 3 . F . Wilson : He ' s going to put his house here on this acre ? D . Payne : Yes , F . Wilson : What would prevent him from selling that off , Harvey ? H . Fink : Nothing , they are both regular lots . F . Wilson : Yes , - - 150 ft . D . Payne : You have already deeded him this acre , now the rest of it would be on a land contract ? J . Lockwood : No , a mortgage . D . Payne : Held by you ? J . Lockwood : Yes . H . Fink : He gave him 2 deeds . He has deeds to both properties but it doesn ' t make any difference as long as you ' re holding the mortgage . D . Payne : The one person has a deed to both properties ? J . Lockwood : Yes , - - Fisher . D . Payne : The subdivision was approved but actually Kelley never bought the parcel . J . Laiacona : Is there a question before us ? H . Fink : The thing before us is that technically Mr . Lockwood should have come back and stated that he was going to change it . Now I think we have the jurisdiction to let it go the way it is here or J . Laiacona : I can see if he was selling it to 2 different guys . H . Fink : It doesn ' timake any difference , ;; - - it ' s 2 pieces . We had the same problem on Pleasant Valley Road . J . Laiacona : In effect a problem could arise because you ' ve deeded this acre to that guy and you can ' t get it back . J . Lockwood : I don ' t want it back . J . Laiacona : The other piece if he defaults on the mortgage then it ' s yours and then the 2 pieces of property are in 2 people ' s hands . R . Gleason : It still isn ' t the way the subdivision was approved . Why couldn ' t we do this , - - say , O . K . it ' s done but it is understood if there is any change in that , - that piece here that you have to come back . it n - 2 D . Payne : If he should default . H . Fink : I think Don made a point there . Jim if you make any other changes you ' ll have to come back for a of major subdivision . I ' ll throw this up to the Board . What I would like is an up - to - date , - - you must have a survey , - - could you give me an up - to - date map for the Town . Do you want to accept it that way . Don ? D . Payne : I don ' t see any problem as long as it is understood should there be any changes you ' ll notify use J . Lockwood : Right . R . Gleason : This is where you ' re living , - - right ? 8 , 45 , D . Payne : This whole section has just been sold . R . Gleason : You own this and still own this actually . This guy that bought this gets all this and back into the woods ? J . Lockwood : Yes . R . Gleason : So you have 1 , 21 39 4 . Actually that other guy could come in , - - if he sold he wouldn ' t be a sub - division . D . Payne : He could sell balance of it off as one piece and not be a subdivision . Some discussion was held on this and what could be done with the land by F . Wilson , R . Gleason and others . F . Wilson : I think you ' re on the right track , Harvey . H . Fink : Jim , give us an up - to - date map and if you do make any changes come back and let us know . J . Lockwood : 0 . K . H . Fink : If you don ' t it would prevent someone you sold to - - they couldn ' t build . Dana wouldn ' t issue a building permit . I wasn ' t on the Board when you came in for your first subdivision . Dana , does that sound alright to you ? D . Snell : Well , you people are the authority so that I can give them a building permit . H . Fink : They will be in for that house , right ? J . Lockwood : Yes . H . Fink : When will they be ready to build ? - 3 - J . Lockwood : April , I guess . H . Fink : How long will it take to get us a map ? J . Lockwood : A couple of days . H . Fink : 0 . K . when we get the map , - - R . Gleason : Where will the house be built ? H . Fink : That ' s another podnt , he owns an acre here and let ' s say if he was smart he would put that house on the line . J . Lockwood : You can ' t . R . Gleason : I ' m sure the bank will insist he build on the lot they lent the money on . H . Fink : Get that map to us and give us 2 copies . J . Lockwood : 0 . K . H . Fink : So that will solve that pr obem but if you change anything , please come back . J . Lockwood : Fair enough . I just thought it was all legal the way I did it , - - didn ' t stop to think . R . Gleason : The lawyer should have known that . J . Lockwood : He charged me enough , - - he should have known . H . Fink : Williams on Pleasant Valley Road - - same deal . Have contacted them and they are going to file for a minor subdivision so they will be in probably at our next meeting . Anything else you want to bring up on subdivisions ? Any questions before we move on ? 0 . K . , - - you ' re all set , Jim , no problem . Just drop the maps off , we would appreciate it . J . Lockwood : Alright , - - thanks a lot . J . Laiacona . I have a question , - - is it the policy of the Town Planning Board to send out letters after a meeting such as this so that guys like him have in writing what is expected of them . I ' ve noticed we ' ve been asking people to do things and we find out a week or two later that it hasn ' t been done and if we sent a letter and it ' s in the minutes 5 years from now if a hazzle comes upj,,, =. H . Fink : Well , true , - - we had a case , - - I think possibly you were here , - - a fellow from New Jersey , - - Halochek came in for a subdivision in 1972 and I talked to Dana and Ben and we tried to figure out what was the problem . He had come in when we didn ' t know so we went to the drawer and got the minutes and had a copy of the map . - 4 - D . Payne : He never came in . H . Fink : He sent a representative . D . Snell : That must have been before 1972 , wasn ' t it ? D . Payne : I think the one we acted on was in 1972 . We sent him a letter and copy of our subd avision regulations telling him what was required ,: - D . Snell : Zana Kane sent the letter and I had already written him before that . H . Fink : So on a case like that the man knows what he has to do . The letter won ' t change him if he ' s going to do anything wrong . The problem is we don ' t know if he does anything wrong , except through these slips , and if Dana didn ' t pick it up we wouldn ' t know . D . Snell : I don ' t usually go through these , - - I ' m just doing it now to see who changed property and what it involved . J . Laiacona : I understand all that but I guess as I get into more about aonducting a business I find more and more I get in less and less trouble if things are in writing . Some discussion was held on this by all present . H . Fink : 0 . K . if there are no other questions . We have a committee report from Roger and Joe . J . Laiacona : Roger is going to give it . H . Fink : Before you start , - - we went to Cornell . Go ahead Roger . R . Gleason : I got together with Dana and located on a map all of the , - - took this map and this land uses and got from Dana all of the permits that he had issued since 1970 and located them on this map . The trailers and the houses and a few other things like the Catholic Church and so on and seems like 87 trailer permits and 48 houses so the ratio isn ' t as bad in 6 years as it was in 1975 . Then I got together with Joe and we made some overlays and I ' ll let Joe tell you on just what we did with them and then we ' ll go on and tell you what happened after that . J . Laiacona : We traced the map and came up with various overlays to show what is happening in the Town of Groton . The first overlay was conventional homes and all the pencil marks and check marks are conventional homes in the Town of Groton with some main roads marked in to show where it was happening . These are existing con . ventional homes . R . Gleason : That is what was on here plus what I added . If you - 5 - R . Gleason : want to see what was put on since 1970 it ' s here in pencil . J . Laiacona : This gives a basic idea of how the population is scattered . We then did the same thing with mobile homes and the circles here show where the mobile homes are placed through the town . We then did another map and this shows main agricultural sections of the town and this is as current as we could make it . R . Gleason : Actually there are a few little farms over there . J . Laiacona : So we began to see where p - - - - - - - - - - farms are in the town and which are being used as agricultural and which aren ' t . We went through and figured where ' swamps and hillsides are and the fat horizontal lines are where the swamps are and land so steep can ' t do anything but ski or tobaggan on it and then we tried to overlay them to see what this might tell us as t o how we could use them but didn ' t really come up with anything specific except that we do find as we thought there are two predominant areas for mobile homes , - - one in this area and one over in this area . Those are not predominantly agricultural areas . We find there ' s a great - - scarcity of mobile homes in West Groton as compared to the rest of the town at the present time . C . Twigg : Might just as well contnue that way . J . Laiacona : We thought these were pretty interesting but aren ' t sure how constructive they are . In the meantime Roger talked with people at Cornell University , the Extension Service and professors and such and perhaps he wants to continue . R . Gleason : I contacted Glenn Kline , the County Agent , - - he got in touch with and brought over to my house Kenneth Cobb who is a regional agent and does work in planning and he talked with me and thought that people at Cor - nell , - - about 8 of them , - - we went and talked with most of them this afternoon . They included people in land planning , engineering and soil and studies on mobile homes and so on and anyways we discussed this this afternoon for about 2 hours and Harvey went down with us also and we have come up with several suggestions . They are interested in working with us on this . J . Laiacona : Actually I thought they were almost excited about it . They really thought it was a challenge . One guy was really excited about it . R . Gleason : They gave us some thoughts on this and one of the things they would be willing to do to help us is to make some kind of a sur vey to determine what people really want . There are several ways to make a survey by mail or by volunteers or even hire somebody if we had enough - 6 - R . Gleason : money . That was one of the things . A soils man told us about some maps we could get more detailed than this showing soil use and he thought if we could actually pinpoint areas that would be good for certain types of development . One of the things he said he would help us with it and Joe and I have talked about it . We ' re not sure . We thought we should take and do 3 things , - -make a projection of growth - - for instance don ' t change our policy at all , or ban all mobile homes , or cluster mobile homes and try to make some kind of projection on what would happen . The idea is just what kind of population growth do we want in Groton , or what kind don ' t we want ? Maybe we don ' t want any . Another thing that could be determined on a sur vey are these people moving in or are they here already . In other words what do we have to provide for housing for young people that are coming in . Those are some of the things we should look at . J . Laiacona : They raised the questions that we have asked really . One of the things they said we should consider is the view on environment and George will be happy to know that they noticed that more mobile homes were putting concentration over here in the southwest corner and on the eastern side and that natural concentration probably would be the best one for us to encourage and we should consider the factor of the road situation and where we are going to allow mobile homes to be and to put them in West Groton would mean building new roads to get there . If we put them on the corner of the town close to where they would be working would save so many gallons of gas per day . Your population would grow closer to where the highway would come through and that might be where you would want to put your mobile homes . R . Gleason : We talked to 5 or 6 people , besides Glen and Ken . J . Laiacona : They are very interested in working with us and are going to get together on it . Glenn and Ken will meet with Roger and I again to talk further and then go back and talk to Cornell people and they will help us with a survey and projections . The first thing I volunteered was to take a detailed soil map and plot where it would be feasible to put septic tanks and use that as the basis for any further discussion . Mr . Gleason passed out some free literature to all that the Cornell people had given him . Some discussion followed by all . H . Fink : Did anybody get a card on the joint meeting , - - Monday night at 8 P . M . F . Wilson : You guys did a great job , I think . H . Finks I think they should be commended for their efforts . You did a very , very good job . - 7 - F . Wilson : But it sound s thou some o h s a though s f the proposals are going to take a lot more time than we really have . Am I right ? R . Gleason : Yes , you ' re right . F . Wilson : How did you spot these ? R . Gleason : They are on the map right here . I went with Dana and did it . This was existing and this isn ' t absolutely accurate but gives the general concentra - tion . C . Twigg : It comes out about right . F . Wilson : There really isn ' t a lot of difference , - - they are pretty much integrated . D . Payne : You have a couple of big concentrations of mobile homes . F . Wilson , But not many down my way . J . Laiacona : No . What I ' m going to do , - - I ' m going to take the large town scale map and find some things out about soils unless you want to take this information . F . Wilson : When you overlay this unto this , you can see they have avoided these swampy areas very much . R . Gleason : The maps are right here in these books . J . Laiacona : One of the things that the soil guy said is if we took the soil map and - - - - - - - - - - - it out we might find some of these areas that people think are un - useable , - - we might find , - - there might be acreage in - - - - swamp that are usable for homes but not for farming . R . Gleason : There are some areas where we could try to encourage development where it wouldn ' t be getting into com - petition with existing uses . C . Twigg : Uh , huh . That McLean is just a natural trailer haven . G . Totman : I think that fits into my original plan just right . F . Wilson : If you look very carefully it prett y much follows my pattern , too . G . Totman : How n ca Y it follow ours and mine both . C . Twigg : It ' s in the eyes of the beholder , - - right ? H . Fink : We ' re getting towards the end of time , gentlemen , and you know - - you know this proposed idea of work - ing with guys from Cornell is really good and I really believe that ordinances are made to change and whatever we decide should be reviewed in a few - 8 - H . Fink : years after its enacted because we ' re not sure what we do , - - how it will come out , - - and the pieces might fall right but if they don ' t that is when you pick up and change it again . F . Wilson : We couldn ' t come up with a perfect plan that would last forever . Harvey , - - to work backwards when would be the logical time to present our plan to the Town Board . When do you think we should have something to give to the Town Board ? H . Fink : I would say between May and June but no later . J . Laiacona : For the finished proposal . F . Wilson : That gives us how many meetings ? H . Fink : Not too many . F . Wilson : So about 3 meetings , - - the way we are meeting now , (: is that right ? H . Fink : I ' m open for suggestions . F . Wilson : Being realistic we would have 3 or 4 more ,fimeetings . H . Fink : Two things I just want to hit , - - to add to this just a little bit . I had a phone call this morning from Mrs . Wood , who lives in West Groton , and her son was in an automobile accident recently and he is disabled and out of work and f - - - - - - - - - - - hardship , the word she used and she called me after she called the town hall and she wants to put a trailer on because her son is getting married and wanted to know about the moratorium so they recommended she call me and the word hardship was mentioned and I said no such thing , - - a natural disaster is the only way . She felt a little upset and said the son was getting married and couldn ' t afford to buy a home and she had a large lot with plenty of road frontage and I told her to wait until late summer when the moratorium would be off and probably certain areas in West Groton might be open but I couldn ' t guarantee it . She was still upset and said they were - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - for mobile homes and she called me three times today - - she went shopping for a mobile home and bought a modular instead but before she bought the modular she called my house and I wasn ' t home and the guy with the modular home told her she only needed 100 fte frontage and she asked me if I buy a modular can I put it on while the moratorium is on and I told her yes and asked her why she' ended up with a modular and she said she liked the looks of it better and the price wasn ' t that much far off . I told her she would have to get a building permit and then could slap it right on . I asked her pricewise but she wouldn ' t disclose any but said dollar for dollar she was getting a better deal and price was so 9 H . Fink : close , - - it will be a wooden home so there was some - body that called me at 9430 A . M . very upset and then called me at 6 P . M . with a big smile and was quite happy and I told her dollarwise she should make money . C . Twigg : It ' s still a better buy . G . Totman : Trailers make poor people poorer I always said . H . Fink : Talking informally to the Town Board members , and also to our Town Attorney , they are ready for a stringent ordinance on mobile homes , - - that ' s what I was told . D . Payne : Why , - - because we finally had a fire that did something? F . Wilson : Am I right in thinking that after we come up with a proposal we ' ll contact Mr . Neiderkorn to review it ? That cuts us back even more so far as time goes . We have only about 2 meetings I ' d say . H . Fink : I think Roger and Joe have done a marvellous job . J . Laiacona : My feeling , after today ' s meeting and hearing dis - cussions , - - I think I really strongly agree with Roger , - - we should come up with an interim proposal based on placement of mobile homes in certain sections of the town and also recommend to the town that further studies be developed into a more complete planning for the whole town with the cooperation of the Extension Service . G . Totman : I think what you are doing is great but what you are doing is what we should have been doing 5 years ago with that sort of thing . We ' re going to take some of the information of you guys and take this and follow up and make a real overlay and make it so can have a good chart on the easel and can take it from that and look at the whole town ordinance . H . Fink : Exactly . R . Gleason : This is what we are thinking and I think perhaps one of the things that could be tied into this , - - we could say allow mobile homes in certain designated areas . I envision on relatively small lots and another area where they could be allowed on larger lots but I think one of the things maybe we should start thinking and writing in some things on say building codes - - the only word I can think of is fire codes and so on . H . Fink : I think with Robert Walpole being a town board member and town justice and also fire chief of the Village Fire Department , at least I think I know that he ' s - - the Village , - - has adopted a building code or are about to and it ' s through the fire chief ' s efforts , also a fire code . Now the Town could adopt a State 10 - H . Fink : code and I think that ' s in the offing for the town because we do have a fire chief on the town board . I know he pushed it in the village before he became a town board member . When it will be adopted I couldn ' t say so what you are saying it would give the town a little better idea of how they build . When they were setting up the senior citizens ' hous - ing they called to find out what the codes were and they had none and the architects couldn ' t believe it . So through some local people ' s efforts they did put in a fire alarm system into the senior citizens ' building but there ' s nothing that makes it mandatory . Some discussion was held on this by F . Wilson , H . Fink and others . H . Fink : We ' re going to submit whatever we do submit to the Town Board and on the bottom of it will be a proposal for a comprehensive plan for the whole town on zoning and land use and a lot of it can be derived from the Extension Service , F . Wilson : How much time would Neiderkorn want ? G . Totman : It would depend on what projects he ' s working on at that time . If he ' s working far away might have to wait a month but if he ' s between projects he might be able to do it in a week . R . Gleason : He might not take too long to write this if we just want to restrict mobile homes to certain districts . F . Wilson : So we should estimate getting the information to him by May 1st , G . Totman : After the fourth Thursday in April we could send it to him . We might be able to have him come to that second meeting in April . F . Wilson : So we have to come up with this in the next couple of meetings and maybe have a special meeting? H . Fink : I would like to leave tonight coming prepared to vote at the next meeting as to how it ' s going to be . You could keep discussing it for the next 3 months . C . Twigg : We have it figured out , - - we ' re going to put trailers in certain areas and what we have to do now is figure out where they are going to be . G . Totman : That ' s right and let ' s all come next time with our own ideas and get it settled . Some discussion was held on this by all present . - 11 - H . Fink : The only thing that bothers me , - - we have a general concensus that we want to put mobile homes in cer - tain areas so why wait until the next meeting . You have a plan , George , - - G . Totman : I want to change mine now after I saw these overlays . R . Gleason : It seems to me as though , really , - - we could come up with 6 or 7 plans , - - I would almost think , - - George has some thoughts , - - seems as though maybe 2 or 3 people or maybe just one could draw up several alternate plans that we could study . G . Totman : You would have the same thing , - - if all 6 people come in with plans , - - you just vote on which you think is best . F . Wilson : If this is , - - why did people put their homes there . G . Totman : Because the land was available . D . Payne : You have a much heavier concentration of homes over here in the town than you have trailers , - - percentage - wise they outnumber trailers . C . Twigg : You wouldn ' t have a map with just homes on it , would you0 J . Laiacona : Yes , right there . H . Fink : Would you say that some of those people are limiting people from building mobile homes there ? G . Totman : Yes , they are . H . Fink : They are towing mobile homes out and putting in con - ventional homes . J . Laiacona : Ihave a suggestion , - - I ' m sorry I didn ' t bring some trac - ing paper . Why don ' t we work backwards and start with the map and put a piece of tissue on it and start eliminating areas for mobile home use . At least let ' s find the place where we agree there will be no mobile homes . C . Twigg : What we ' re talking about now is where we are going to put them . J . Laiacona : What I ' m saying is if we can cut off half this map tonight then we have ourselves halfways there . I was going to suggest that this area between Champlin Road and Lick Street , north of Dld Stage , - - this area up here would be a good area not to have mobile homes . F . Wilson : Based on what reasoning , Joe ? J . Laiacona : Well , because it ' s farm land predominantly . � � - 12 - r D . Payne : The majority of the land in the Town of Groton is basically farmland . J . Laiacona : It ' s removed from main highways . G . Totman : That ' s where you want the trailers . J . Laiacona : I thought in that area there were expensive homes being built , am I right ? C . Twigg : No . F . Wilson : If you didn ' t have mobile homes there would people build conventional homes there ? I have my doubts from what I have seen of it . G . Totman : I make a motion , for one starting point , that we agree that the area leading from the village out Route 38 going South on 38 to Peruville -Lansing line , done Perville -Lansing line to the Town of Lansing , down the line road , coming across the Town of Lansing line along the town line road to 1 , 000 ft . from Sovocool Hill Road and keeping that 1 , 000 fto barrier back to the Village line and in that area trailers will be permissible the way they are in our present ordinance . J . Laiacona : I propose for another area , - - from the Town line 500 ft * west of Lick Street , south to a point 1 , 000 fte north of 222 East to a point 500 ft * east of Champ - lin Road , north to the town line and west back to the place of beginning , G . Totman : I ' m agreeable on that right there for the placement of trailers . J . Laiacona made a motion the meeting be adjourned which was seconded by D . Payne and . � thejitbtion carried . The meeting adjourned at 10 : 10 P . M . Re pectfully submitted &Yf�� Jos phine Bell - 13 - i At 10 * 53 P .M . the meeting was reconvened . A motion was made by George Totman to accept two areas ( as discussed ) as general areas for the placement of mobile homes . All other areas in the Town of Groton shall be prohibited for the placement of mobile homes . The motion was seconded by Fred Wilson and carried unanimously . The meeting adjourned at 10 : 59 P . M . Respectfully submitted , � Jos phi a Bell - 14 -