HomeMy WebLinkAbout1976-05-27 GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD MEETING
Held at the Town Hall , Groton ,
N . Y . Thursday , May 27th , 1976
at 8 * 00 P . M .
PRESENT : H . Fink - Chairman* H . Dow - Town Supervisor*
G . Totman - Vice-Chairman* - L . Baker - Town Clerk*
F . Wilson* Be Walpole - Town Justice*
R . Gleason* V . Rankin - Town Councilman*
D . Payne*
Co Twigg* D . Snell - Zoning Enforcement
J . Bell - Recording Clerk* Officer*
* - Denotes those present .
Mr . Fink opened the meeting at 8 * 05 PM and asked the Town'
Board members for comments on the proposed plan on mobile
homes that the Planning Board had submitted to them .
H . Dow : We we:- ,t over your plan very carefully and suspended our
thinking until we got in touch with Frank Liguori to see
how it would square with other towns in the County . In
fact have been with Frank twice and again today for the
third time . Today didn ' t go especially on this business
but Frank said , - - this is his own personal opinion , -and it seems to be from experience he has learned from
other areas , -- it ' s very difficult to sectionlize towns .
People resent it because they feel that they are being
picked on as being second - rate as compared to their
neighbors .
Frank went on to say that probably he would recommend an
approach whereby we restricted mobile homes of lesser types
and ages , increased the lot sizes , provided for storage
space , - - if not big units then auxiliary buildings as part
of the property to conceal oil tanks and mowing machines
and stuff you see around and , with that in mind , here ' s
what we came up with . Listen carefully and see if this
fits into your thinking in any way .
1 . Under residential we proposed , - - Cecil you were here
when we were doing this , - -we proposed that the size re-
quirements , as found in the New York State Code Book , - -
this yellow book here , - -Part 109 . 1 . 2 . 3 and . 4 including
( a) the local zoning requirement , - -we ' d have to change our
zoning ordinance. - - of a minimum of 840 sq . ft . if it is
constructed over a basement . Now the minimum of 840 would
be a 70 ' x 12 ' minimum .
R . Gleason : 70 ' x 14 ' 9 Excuse me , you ' re right .
H . Dow : If constructed over a basement and (b ) if constructed without
a basement for storage additional building in the form of
added rooms , and storage of additional nature must be provided
and in parens said ( see appendix) meaning we would define
- 1 -
H . Dow : additional storage space they would have to have , and ( c ) above
requirements apply to residences both conventional and mobile .
This would do away with some of those little shacks and shanties
that aren ' t mobile but as distasteful in the community .
Now to go right along with that ;- - and this was before I happened
to read this article that Bob brought in from the Ithaca Journal ,
- - about a week or two ago about lot size . Under lot size ( a)
1 acre lot size minimum and this 1- acre lot size would provide
for a frontage of 150 ft . with depth of 290 ' or any amount above
that , and (b ) under lot size in the event of future major develop -
ments involving extension of utilities from the Village special
provisions would be dealt with as they arose .
Now we ' ve scratched the surface , - -what would you think of
approaching it from the standpoint of town-wide restrictions in
the form of lot size and nature of dwelling ?
H . Fink : The biggest thing that I see is enforcement - - because the way
that ' s set they can vary in many ways , - - the lot size , frontage
size , depth , size of trailer and outbuildings depending on
like you said see appendix as to what size outbuildings would be ,
- - I think it would place an undue burden on the enforcement
officer as part- time job .
H . Dow : But you say a minimum of 1 acre and we stick to our minimum frontage
of 150 ' so if they wanted 150 ' frontage could still have it but
- - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - would have to go back 290 ' .
H . Fink : But when I talked to Frank Liguori they would like - - - - - - - - feet
where runoff would occur - - if the width isn ' t right you would
still have a problem on septic systems so 150 ft . is what Frank
wants to change .
H . Dow : This section here , then , would not read as it does now if we said
200 or 225 . If you had 200 ' would have a depth of 218 ' so we
could change this 150 ' to whatever we wanted , - - see ?
H . Fink : I think that would be a problem if you left it at 150 ' .
H . Dow : It would defeat its own purpose .
H . Fink : The Planning Board , - - I tried to make an attempt - - I think I did
it somewhat backwards , - - last week - - what the feelings of the
Planning Board are are not necessarily mine or any one individual ' s
but of the majority of the Board and this time we can be a little
informal and let the members speak up . Fred , - - George , - -would you
like to say something to that ?
F . Wilson : On that footage problem , - - I can see Frank Liguori ' s idea , - - if you
have a septic system problem , - -but I wonder if it wouldn ' t be
just as feasible to let the Health Department control that situation .
Let them put in a sand filter before he even starts .
H . Dow : Are you saying leave the 150 ' in ?
F . Wilson : No , - - I ' m just discussing the situation , - - you just don ' t find 200 '
Available in a lot of places , - -when a sand filter would be the
best investment anyways . I ' m not excited about that 200 ' frontage
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F . Wilson : which eliminates a lot of good prospects as far as lots are con-
cerned .
R . Gleason : I personally think to say it ' s got to be 200 is defeating possibly
good land use .
H . Fink : What ' s wrong with that ? Do you want to live on top of one another
like on Cedar Lane ?
F . Wilson : You can buy more but to require a person to , - - that ' s what I mean .
H . Fink : I think if we want to keep the town urban or its rural characteristics , - -
maybe this won ' t happen , - - the growth isn ' t that great , - -but if you keep
the lot size large enough won ' t be sitting on top of each other . I
came from towns and cities these things occurred in . It takes the
rural effect away .
H . Dow : You mentioned growth - - our Town has the fewest trailers of any of
them studied here . We have 130 trailers in our Town but only one park
listed as 23 in the park . Now according to our population projection
of a possible 100 to 125 more . people annually , and dividing that by
the average number of people in a family , we come up with about 25
families and of that 25 families approximately one- third seem to be
going into mobile homes so our potential mobile home increase annually ,
according to present statistics , is around 8 units a year .
Dutch and Doug , - -Doug Wilson told me a couple of weeks ago they hope
to have about 20 units working in their new park and more when they can
afford it . I suppose , out of that 8 or 9 or 10 additional mobile
home families per year , a certain number of them would go into that
park if they were older people so we do not have , - - even though we see
things we don ' t like , - -we do not have , by comparison , as bad a problem
maybe as some of our neighbors .
Now , - -Dryden has 925 trailers but they have 14 parks and they also have
some pretty weird buildings around the Town . Newfield has 534 trailers
with 5 parks , Lansing has 239 trailers with 3 parks .
CO Twigg : How many of those trailers in Dryden are outside of parks ?
H . Dow : In Dryden ? I would say - - 925 trailers and of those 19 there , - -
1 / loth of them are in parks , - -we ' ll say 1 in 5 .
C . Twigg : They have a few scattered around , don ' t they ?
H . Dow : Now in terms of the County picture , - - Groton has 5% of the trailers ,
Dryden has 38% , Newfield has 22% and Lansing has 10% of them but
those figures are only relative , - - the important thing is growth
potential in the future . We are not at the top of the list there as
far as growth potential goes .
H . Fink : Hicks , are you asking us to work on say lot size restrictions , minimum
size of mobile homes with added restrictions such as the buildings , - -
some of the things you ' ve listed ? Would you care for the Planning
Board to work with you on that ?
H . Dow : We definitely want the Planning Board to work with us because these
are just ideas from one meeting and tonight I wanted to read it to
you so you folks could decide whether or not this is the route to
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H . Dow : take or whether we should go back and do a sectionalization of the Town
or what .
Now the question is , - - let ' s call your plan A and ours B . If we were to
pursue B the thing that makes mobile homes look bad is sloppy storage of
everything all around them , yards that aren ' t mowed and so on . He says
the time is coming when mobile homes will have to provide storage spaces .
Now when we got on to that little nugget the other night we said well if
it ' s over a full basement they could store stuff in the basement . If
they didn ' t go to that expense well then they could provide an extra
building or add a room on whatever and have concealment storage . What
do you folks think?
H . Fink : That ' s the question I was hoping we would get to , - - Fred , - -George , - -
F . Wilson : One thing I wonder , =- apparently you are using enlargement of lot size
as a deterring factor , - -right ?
H . Dow : The time is just around the corner when selective development is going
to take place in our County and with this development supports almost
a positive expectation that lot size will be part of the picture so we
thought rather than be extreme - - say Frank ' s helper wanted 2 acres
and we thought a one- acre lot , as a standard , would be more logical , - -
approachable . Well then , when you say 1 acre you go right back to our
ordinance and if you say 1 acre with 150 ft . frontage you ' re talking
about minimum depth of 290 ' - - now it ' s true lots won ' t be all the
same shape but if you don ' t change the minimum you won ' t have any
control at all .
F . Wilson : You ' re applying that as a deterrent . Perhaps Bob could tell us how
much more it would cost a person to buy a lot like that . Would you
have any idea , Bob ?
B . Walpole : I ' ve been in the real estate business less than a year but lot size
in the country - - they are breaking them off in acre lots all over
- - 1 acre or two acres . Take , for example , Roger who has 100 acres
and wanted 20 lots , - -he ' s talking acre right off the bat .
F . Wilson : I think we will fixed a lot of the people who want to have mobile
homes will be sons and daughters of people who have the land and
I doubt the dollars and cents cost would be much of a deterrent .
H . Dow : Probably in the case of a farmer it wouldn ' t be .
H . Fink : The proposal like Hicks says - A or B - what would the Planning
Board want to do on that ? I ' d like that question answered . I
have another opinion in my mind about what the Planning Board said .
F . Wilson : My impression I ' m getting tonight is , - - if you are asking for his
sanction of the plan I wouldn ' t be ready to sanction it .
G . Totman : It took us 8 months to come up with the plan we gave you and have
only heard yours read .
H . Fink : The thing is , George , - -Plan A is ours and Plan B is theirs . If they
take Plan A and scrap that and maybe modify Plan B;; - we don ' t want
to sectionalize trailers , - - is that right ?
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B . Walpole : That ' s my feeling .
H . Fink : So now I ' m asking the Planning Board what they think .
G . Totman : Basically they have the . perogative and can do anything they want . We
can ' t tell them what to do . We can work and suggest on their plan if
they don ' t want our plan but we can ' t make a motion as to what we
think they should do now .
H . Dow : Let ' s put it this way - - in lieu of sectionalizing the Town , - - it ' s
not abandoned , - -what do you folks think - - what would you say about
Plan B where we concentrate instead on higher quality mobile homes
and build it into the ordinance with companion regulation , which
would be a minimum 1 acre lot size . That ' s putting together
Liguori ' s ideas and some of our own and ideas taken from other towns
because apparently quite a number of towns have come after this
thing by insisting on certain standards for mobile homes and making
it uniform where you are speaking of residences whether they be con-
ventional or mobile . That way we would have the same success by
letting it be known we are dealing in the same manner with mobile
homes as conventional homes .
Now if we carry that a step farther and require better mobile homes
and minimum lot sizes for both mobile and conventional they are all
treated alike on that score and it ' s illegal for any town to deal
with mobile home lot size in any different manner than they do con-
ventional homes . That ' s the way it has always been dealt with
legally . Now , what we are wondering - - what do you folks think
of this suggestion - - if we took plan B and improved- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 840 sq . ft . of building .
F . Wilson ; Hicks , do you have a rough idea of what a mobile home that size
would cost today?
H . Dow : A 12 x 70 ranges in price from $6 , 500 on up , - - it depends on what
you get in them .
G . Totman : Did you think of going higher than that ?
H . Dow : We thought of 1 , 050 but that would include not just the trailer
but auxiliary buildings .
G . Totman : 1 , 040 would be the first floor living space of a dwelling unit .
H . Dow : The smallest 2 -bedroom is 24 x 36 , - - that ' s the smallest typical
2-bedroom . That yields 864 . Now 36 x 24 standard home , - - 2=bed=
room 864 sq . ft . so that ' s where we came back to that 12 x 70 .
Some discussion was held on this by B . . Walpole , G . Totman ,
H . Dow , R . Gleason and others .
R . Gleason : What about a person that puts in a summer type of place , - - like a
log cabin in the woods ?
B . Walpole : Same thing , - - this is something you have to take into consideration .
H . Dow : If we required a minimum of 864 sq . ft . would have to be 36 x 24 .
R . Gleason : I think you have to have some special provision .
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C . Twigg : You were telling about this selective community planning we would
have to go into eventually , - -what does that involve , - - sectionaliz -
ing or what .
H . Dow : Anybody here could answer that as well as I could , - - George you went
to those meetings where he had the 4 plans . What ' s your impression?
Where would those areas be ?
G . Totman : In the Town of Groton they would be from the Village out 38 , - - it ' s
directing the growth of the County to the municipality , water and
sewer supplies , making that land more acceptable to growth and
the other areas go to larger lot areas to discourage growth and
also they are discouraging any subdivisions larger than 7 units be-
cause if they get too large out there will eventually run into
sewer and water problems and the idea behind it , as I understand it ,
they are looking at this throughout the whole county to try and get
the pattern of growth throughout the county so the rural part stays
rural and the majority of the growth stays in the patterns closer to
and along the main highways nearest to water and sewer supplies .
F . Wilson : Is this a volunteer program on the part of the Town ?
G . Totman : It ' s been talked about in all of the towns and the county is very
strongly asking for comments from the Towns as to their ideas and ,
incidentally , they haven ' t heard back from Groton yet . And then
they are going to present it to the Board of Representatives for
their approval and , if they get it , then what they have to do is
get each town to change their zoning ordinance .
H . Dow : If you folks will write down in your date books , - - there ' s a meeting
on the 23rd of June at Sylvan Hills at 7 PM , - - I would be glad to
take a load of you to it . The big item on the agenda is lot size , - -
the thing we are talking about tonight . This will be one of the
topics . We ' ll hear from others that night and will give our
opinion too . This will be at Sylvan Hills on Route 79 at 7 PM - -
dinner . It ' s a dinner meeting and the Town budget will pay the shot .
Fred brought up a point , - -you said maybe if the Health Department
would set a standard for us to abide by it would help . Now
Frank told me we can ' t seem to get together with the Health Depart -
ment to get them to come our way on bigger lots . The lot size is
just for opinions , - -maybe selective communities planning is the
wrong idea . If so , we can go back to the drawing boards .
Membert. of the Planning Boards will bring informal feedback from
their respective communities to the next board meeting and an ad
hoc committee will meet with the County Health Board on the sub -
ject of minimum lot sizes . The Health Commissioner , Dr . Gaffney ,
said the current size was adequate to handle water and sewer
problems as far as the Department is concerned so you see there
are all kinds of opinions floating around .
More discussion was held on this by G . Totman , B . Walpole ,
F . Wilson and others .
R . Gleason : We ' re talking about big lot size but does everybody lose sight of
the fact that there ' s a small lot size proposed for sewered areas ?
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H . Dow : It ' s in the zoning ordinance .
R . Gleason : Yes , but when we ' re writing this we ' ll have to be careful we don ' t
write it out of that .
H . Dow : We ' re not dealing with the Village . We ' re outside of the Village
and not dealing with pre- existing circumstances . We aren ' t dealing
with status quo before the ordinance but from this point on when we
revise our ordinance , the zoning and mobile homes , - - from that point
on when we say sewered we ' re speaking of mobile home and conventional
and whatever lot size we adopt applies to both and the same for the
unsewered area , - - identical , but if it ' s a mobile home makes its
appearance then we have to come up with some requirement to make the
mobile home attractive .
Some discussion was held on smaller sized lots by R . Gleason ,
H . Dow and others .
H . Dow : How many of you guys , - -we have to call in reservations , - -how many
of you on the night of the 23rd could make that trip to Sylvan Hills ?
Don , if I stopped and picked you up , could you ?
D . Payne : It ' s doubtful .
H . Dow : Harvey ?
H . Fink : Yes .
H . Dow : We would have to leave around 6 * 30 P . M .
C . Twigg : Yes .
B . Walpole : No .
Verl Rankin : Yes
G . Totman : Yes ,
F . Wilson : No .
R . Gleason : Yes ,
Lois Baker : I ' ll try .
H . Dow : I think Lou will be going but Arland will have court , - - that makes
it about 8 we can bank on for our reservation number . If any more
can make it give us a ring we can always squeeze in more down there .
If you guys on the Planning Board would stand by with any kind of
suggestions , - - I ' m saving this one of Fred ' s because we promised these
people we ' d give them this kind of information . We probably ought to
deal with this thing that Frank is talking about , which is storage
space . That ' s where the trouble starts - - like on Route 222 , Dana ,
- - right next to Margaret Voorhees , - - if they had storage space things
would look different around there . If we say 840 ' it has to be over
a basement .
- 7 -
G . Totman : I thought you were talking about 24 x 36 .
H . Dow : That ' s 864 ' so the closest you could come to that in a mobile home
is 70 x 12 and if we have a standard of 840 or 850 or 860 or what -
ever , without a basement , they have to build extra storage space .
D . Payne : This past week I had occasion to talk to a member of the Cortland -
ville Planning Commission and I mentioned we were currently in the
planning stages of possible changes in the mobile home regulations
and he said you ' re finally going to do something , huh . It would
appear that we are the only Town in the immediate area that doesn ' t
have any regulations , - -I ' m quoting what the man said .
B . Walpole : Down the road 3 miles there isn ' t any control at all , - - in the
Town of Locke .
D . Payne : Apparently Cortlandville now allows no mobile homes except in parks
and for a farmer ' s hired help .
C . Twigg : That was the question I was going to bring up - - have you considered
that ?
H .. Dow : I ' ve thought of it because I know farmers are the ones that have sons
coming home to work on the farm and getting married and eventually
living in the big house . I think there ' s an awfully good point there .
And then if Doug gets units ready would have a little leeway there .
And then , in Dave Pierce ' s place , would let Dave have one on his
farm on a minimum sized lot .
V . Rankin : I don ' t know as it would , - -he ' s talking about selling .
H . Dow : I just picked him because he ' s an old friend . He touches me .
G . Totman : I think you can put into the ordinance he can do this once .
Some discussion was held on this by B . Walpole , G .
Totman , H . Fink , H . Dow and others .
H . Dow : I guess we ' re going to end up being thankful for the subdivision
regulations we do have . Did he say anything about lot size , Don ?
D . Payne : No , he didn ' t mention that at all .
H . Dow : Will you see him again ?
D . Payne * Yes ,
H . Dow : Get all you can on that , will you ?
G . Totman : If the restrictions become so heavy in Cortland with road systems
the way they are today if they can ' t get in Cortland will go to
Groton . They believe in Cortland that we don ' t have any regula-
tions here , - - if they want something and: the enforcement officer
says no the Board of Appeals says yes and they can get whatever
they want . It ' s being told from other areas that this is what
is happening here .
B . Walpole : But our growth pattern doesn ' t indicate that now .
- 8 -
G . Totman : But it could get worse , Bob . We have to prepare for what the
runoff will be .
F . Wilson : Disregarding personal opinions on it and looking at it legally , - -
on August 7 came out with legal - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - and it
says " . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " and goes on to say "once again . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . " so legally you ' re not doing anything that has not been
looked at .
H . Dow : How can we stick to our statement that we ' re going to deal the
same way with mobile homes and conventional homes ?
D . Payne : You made that statement .
H . Dow ; It ' s always been assumed on equal terms of lot size and all . Now
we ' re departing from that and I guess we can do it but it sort of
worries me as to how we can do it .
D . Payne : If we want continued healthy growth we can ' t allow trailers to
come in with no regulations at a11 .
C . Twigg0 Have you considered just letting them into parks ?
H . Dow : Yes , we have considered that but we don ' t have the parks .
C . Twigg : You said we ' re getting 8 per year and will have 20 available this
fall .
B . Walpole : That ' s in the Village .
CO Twigg : But they are still making them available , - - in other words no
trailers in the Village at all .
B . Walpole : There are quite a few .
Some discussion was held on this by B . Walpole , C . Twigg ,
L . Baker and others .
H . Dow : If we were to restrict them to trailer parks only , are you
talking about an exception for the farmer for his son ?
C . Twigg , G . Totman agreed they could buy that .
H . Dow : Do we want to say he may establish a mobile home ? Then in
comes Joe Doaks who the farmer wants to help him in the
winter and he moves his mobile home in by agreement and in
the spring he moves out and the farmer says I think I ' ll
have a hired man again in the fall is this use going to
determine it or the frequency of it , - -as long as he devotes
it to farm labor , can he go on doing this ?
CO Twigg : But most of these trailers that are there in that relationship
aren ' t the ones that are giving us the problem anyways , are
they ?
H . Dow : Whatever we do we have to have a standard .
D . Payne : How do you establish that , Hicks ? They are made in all types , - -
shapes . and sizes ?
- 9 -
H . Dow ; We have some protection here by going back to the beginning - -
Code 1091 . 2 which determines the quality of trailers . So once
we start with this as a base can ' t attack us because it is a
State code and that will rule out the junker trailer .
F . Wilson : I thought the people in the mobile home business had to handle
trailers that meet those requirements ?
H . Fink : They do .
H . Dow : Shall we adopt the principle that mobile homes should be
restricted to mobile home parks with the exception of mobile
home established on a farm by the farmer to house his help be
he relative or not and meeting the requirements as to lot size ,
setback and of the Health Department .
Nowrt- - going at it from another angle , we are going to require
that all mobile homes meet the State Building Code with respect
to required floor space , required number of exit doors and all
other requirements mentioned in our book here . Now , that will
work out nicely until we come into the situation of people who
are not farmers like very respectable older couples that want
to put up a nice trailer on say a 3 - acre lot G . Totman : It won ' t cost that much extra .
H . Dow : They can ' t put it up unless it ' s a double 12 on a wall . How
does that add up ?
C . Twigg : You mentioned lot size on farmer ' s trailer , - -now why does this
trailer have to be set on a particular lot providing it is far
enough back from the road , - -why can ' t it be on a 300 acre lot ?
H . Dow : I shouldn ' t have said any size if he has required acres .
C . Twigg0 He might just want to set it on the farm .
H . Dow : We do require him to keep it so far from other buildings .
C . Twigg : Yes ,
H . Dow : Does this begin to take shape in a way we can control it ?
H . Fink : You would have perfect control that way .
C . Twigg : Any other way would have a headache , - - something you can ' t enforce .
H . Dow : I don ' t mean enforce , - - I mean sell it to the people .
G . Totman : You ' re going to get complaints .
V . Rankin : You aren ' t going to sell that . I can tell you that .
H . Dow : We will have problems but at the same time we have to make it known
around - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ourselves up as judges .
G . Totman : You have to make it very certain that it gets out to people that in
no way does it affect the people that are already here in mobile
homes . That message has got to come out loud and clear .
10 -
B . Walpole : This is all new and has nothing to do with existing ones .
Some discussion was held on this by G . Totman ,
D . Payne , R . Gleason and others .
R . Gleason : I received a letter from Glenn Klines , - - they worked up a survey
proposal we might use . The survey has been worked out in which
they propose it be put out in the Town and suggesting it could
be done by taking a list of Town people and mailing it to them
and designate a person to follow up so would get the survey
back . It ' s set up as a list of questions to ask opinions about
different things and find out how they think things should be
and this sort of thing and it ' s made up in such a way that it ' s
a very reasonable cost to put it through a computer and have it
analyzed .
H . Dow : What facts would we have to have as a Town ? If Glenn ' s services
did extend to us , - -what data are we talking about that the
computer would come up with?
R . Gleason : It would show what we have . We could eliminate some things and
we could get opinions on what people thin, on how we should
develop things and so on . This he thought he would like to get
together with us on if we are interested and want to pursue this
avenue .
H . Dow : Would that be a good subject ?
G . Totma.n : I think a lot of these ideas are good , - - I think a lot of things
Roger and Joe came up with are good for study and hope we can
get into that when start back on our regular zoning ordinance
but we have to bear one thing in mind now and that is the
moratorium is up in September and we have to have a public
hearing .
D . Payne : You can figure August is lost .
H . Dow : I ' d like to get something jelled and go to Ben Bucko and have
him work it out .
G . Totman : I think the program you outlined could be worked out very well .
F . Wilson : If you are going this route we should look at our park regulations , -
- maybe they are O . K . now .
H . Dow : We allow up to 7 units in a park , - - I don ' t think any one of those
will interfere with what we are doing now .
F . Wilson : There ' s a lot of information in this you might like to look at .
C . Twigg : George has the right idea , - -would be good for the future but now
we have to do something different .
R . Gleason : We have to move but I - - I don ' t know - - I have an idea you are
going to have a hornets ' nest .
H . Dow : If tomorrow I run into Brother Bucko and I can say ( 1) basically
they will be restricted to mobile home parks with the exception
- 11 -
H . Dow : of farmer who has housing for his help , - - should we overlook lot size ?
D . Payne : In order for the farmer to put the trailer in he would have to have
a well and septic system and would have to meet the County Health
Department ' s rules .
C . Twigg : He wouldn ' t have to put in a well , - -most farmers have water enough .
H . Dow : What will bother us the most is working the State Code into our
ordinance .
F . Wilson : I notice you used the word farmer ' s help .
C . Twigg : If it ' s one per farm , it won ' t be a problem anyways .
V . Rankin : Maybe you would have to have 2 per farm .
C . Twigg : Well they could go to the Board of Appeals .
H . Dow : Fred brought up a point that will stare us in the face , - -he will have
help for say a season and then won ' t need help .
G . Totman : I don ' t think that would bother us that much .
More discussion was held on this by V . Rankin , G .
Totman , F . Wilson and others .
H . Dow : Any variation would have to go to the Board of Appeals so we ' re still
talking about one unit .
F . Wilson : I don ' t think we ought to monkey with the lot size .
V . Rankin : One thing , - -what about someone whose house burns up ?
D . Payne : That would be a hardship case and is covered even in our moratorium .
H . Dow : The only thing we have to worry about is setback and so on .
Some discussion was held on the Adams ' and Hora ' s viollations of
subdivisions by H . Fink , G . Totman , H . Dow and others .
G . Totman : I think it ' s important to have Ben sit in on the Board of Appeals
Public Hearings and help give them guidelines on what criterias
they use on making their decisions . They do the best they know
how but haven ' t gone through what we go through and have never been
involved as to why these decisions were made and many times you find
variances given that shouldn ' t have been and I think it would be
helpful if Ben would sit in with them .
H . Dow : Lois , who has received those letters , - - attorneys , banks and real
estate offices and so forth ?
L . Baker : 10 to real estate offices and to every bank you gave me on your
list .
H . Dow : You got them out of the phone book , didn ' t you ?
L . Baker : Not the banks , - - you gave me that list .
G . Totman : Did you send one to Barbara Caldwell ?
12 We
L . Baker : No .
G . Totman : She asked me if she could get a copy of it .
L . Baker : 0 . K .
H . Dow : You sent them to some banks in Cortland , Ithaca , Groton Savings and
Loan and the Groton Bank . Where did we leave off on attornies ?
L . Baker : Almost all the ones in Cortland and the ones you marked in the book
for me in Ithaca .
H . Dow : The purpose of this letter was to advise all banks , real estate
agencies and attornies that property sold or transferred in the
Town of Groton action must be taken in conformance with our zoning
and land -use ordinance and some two or three have called in and
wanted copies of it .
L . Baker : Helen Amdur wanted another copy .
R . Gleason : You should send one to FHA .
H . Dow : Village Green , Hanshaw Road .
F . Wilson : Did our chairman get a letter like that ?
H . Dow : No but - - - - - - - - - - - -
R . Gleason : What do you want to have me tell Glenn Kline ?
G . Totman : We can use his information for our zoning - - - - - -
R . Gleason : Should we , - -maybe at our next meeting or our July meeting get together
with him because you aren ' t going to do this thing in a minute .
G . Totman ; He can get together with the Planning Board .
F . Wilson ; Could he tell us how long it would take to do this?
R . Gleason ; I would assume so .
G . Totman : Let ' s meet again and decide on this .
R . Gleason : 0 . K .
H . Dow : Sometime between now and early next week I ' ll sit in with Brother Bucko
and bring him up to date on what we did tonight .
V . Rankin : When is our Board meeting ?
H . Dow : The 6th of June .
Fred Wilson made the motion that the meeting be adjourned
which was seconded by Don Payne and carried .
The meeting adjourned at 10 P .M . The next meeting will be
the second Thursday in June .
Respectfully submitted ,
J� ephi e Bell
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