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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1976-10-14 Meeting of the Groton Town Planning Board Held in the Town Hall Groton , N . Y . Thursday - October 14 , 1976 as 8 * 00 P . M . H . Fink - Chairman* G . Totman - Vice- Chairman* R . Gleason* M . Adams * D . Payne Co Twigg* J . Bell - Recording Clerk* * - Denotes those present . Mr . Fink called the meeting to order and introduced the new Planning Board member , Mary Adams , and ex- plained to her the procedures of the Planning Board and gave her pamphlets , books , etc . containing in- formation on ordinances , zoning and so on . Mr . Fink then asked Roger Gleason to present his plans for a minor subdivision . R . Gleason : I had the tax map which shows the location with regard to the larger area , - -here ' s a rough sketch of what it is . G . Totman : Old Stage Road and Clark Street , - - this is the location no , - this would be north , - - we ' re looking at it in the opposite direction . 0 . K . your application is in ? R . Gleason : The money is in . H . Fink : Can you make that out , George? G . Totman : Well , - - not quite . This is Clark Street Extension , - -what is this road up here? R . Gleason : That ' s the creek. H . Fink : Old Stage Road would be out here . M . Adams : Oh , here ' s Old Stage Road , G . Totman ; I know where this is . H . Fink : He subdivided this . R . Gleason ; Not this one one over here . M . Adams : Is this the land here ? - 1 - Y R . Gleason : No , - -Lumberts bought that back in 1972 . H . Fink ; What this shows is this parcel here but broken down . G . Totman : This parcel right in here ? R . Gleason : The shaded area . G . Totman : Who owns 12 and 24 ? R . Gleason : Lumberts . G . Totman : 0 . K . , - -now you ' re selling all this to one person ? R . Gleason ; Yes , 6 . 2200 acres . G . Totman : And is subdividing it because he has previously sold more than one plot of land . M . Adams : Yes , G . Totman : So , as I understand it , we tentatively accepted his provisions that we have here tonight . I ' m saying this for your benefit , Mary . And we go over it with Roger and any questions we have and then once we ' re satisfied it looks presentable we hold a public hearing and notify the adjacent neighbors and hold a public hearing and from that we approve or disapprove his minor subdivision . M . Adams : There ' s a lot of red tape to this , isn ' t there? I didn ' t know that . G . Totman : If you ' re really technicalized , like the Town of Ithaca does , - - every planning board operates differently - - if you have read the Ithaca Journal about problems Lansing Village is having on planning and zoning they would call in lawyers and professional planners and check all this stuff out whereas Groton and Virgil is something different . They bought land up here and haven ' t done anything with it yet . It ' s in a farm community . Bob Wright has bought land up here and he ' s building new houses up there . R . Gleason ; No he isn ' t , he ' s sold that . G . Totman : Now this is going to be one person building one house with 600 ft . frontage? R . Gleason : Yes , one dwelling unit . G . Totman : I see no problem . And he ' s getting >16 acres ? R . Gleason : A conventional house . G . Totman : We ' ll have to call a public hearing . H . Fink : That ' s the only thing we can do . 0 . K . , - - let ' s set a date . - 2 - H . Fink : It won ' t be published until next Tuesday so I say the 26th will be the next meeting and can have the hearing on that date , too . I think we can hold the hearing and the meeting on the same date . G . Totman : Why not hold the hearing at 8 PM and the Planning Board meeting at 7 PM? H . Fink : Here I have Joe Hora ' s , - -Ben ';.Bucko has given me a revised -and it ' s not revised very well . He is in hot water with the Health Department . G . Totman : He should have been in hot water with the Town a couple of years ago . M . Adams : Now he does it differently , - -he pays the taxes . H . Fink : He ' s as illegal as - - I can ' t think of what ! R . Gleason : Is my hearing going to be the 26th , Tuesday at 8 PM? H . Fink : Let ' s have the hearing at 7 . 30 PM instead and the meeting afterwards . G . Totman : 0 . K . H . Fink : Before we have a hearing with Joe Hora we have to talk to him . G . Totman : Before I leave , - -I would like to say something because I think it is of the utmost importance . The Planning Board we have now , - - Roger and I are the only ones left from the original members of the Planning BoardftotWe have had 2 people resign in the last 6 months and I ' m/ sure of Joe Laiacona but I know Fred Wilson resigned . It ' s because of spending 8 months working on the trailer ordinance that the Town Board asked us to work on and when it was submitted to the Town Board they completely changed it and what they presented to the public was nothing that we presented to them and yet they made the announcement in the paper it was what the Planning Board had presented and Fred resented that and consequently he resigned . But until the Planning Board makes the Town Board .realize that they are not going to sit down here and work for nothing month after month to have it thrown out the window and we ' re not going to have anybody on the Planning Board it if keeps up and Don Payne is now deciding whether he wants to spend any more time on the Board or not and I strongly feel these feelings should be presented to the Town Board because there ' s a lot of time spent on the Planning Board and if it ' s going to go down the drain because people get elected to office afterwards there ' s no object for us to go running around deciding what we want to do - - we might as well all resign but I won ' t resign because I feel that you can eventually carry your weight but I can see why a lot of these people get very discouraged . They can get very disheartened , very quickly , and I really think it should be made a matter of record and presented to the Town Board . Something has to happen very soon . We did present a united - 3 - G . Totman : effort to the Town Board and yet the Town Board made the statement that what they did present was presented to them by the Planning Board and I , for one , feel we should as a group ask Hicks to come to one of our meetings and find out why guys like Fred Wilson are resigning and if they are going to appoint new members they had better spend time studying what we are doing . H . Fink : I wish you would bring this up at the next meeting . G . Totman : I ' ve talked to them and that ' s their feeling . It ' s unfortunate but it ' s hard to get people to join our Board if that is going to continue to keep happening . It ' s not uniquely in our town , it ' s happening in other towns , politics enter into it and it ' s really too bad . (Mr . Totman left at 8 : q5 PM for another meeting) The remaining members present discussed Mr . Hora ' s subdivision plans . (Mr . Twigg came in at 8 * 30 PM and Mr . Fink explained to him that Ben BuckbN had submitted a revised map for Joe Hora . ) M . Adams : What does he want now? H . Fink : He wants permission to sell the ones he ' s already sold . These are all sold under land contract and no record of them but the minute he changes it and gives the people a deed and it ' s filed then we get a record and when someone tries to build a house on it we tell them no . In this case he ' s not a major subdivision . M . Adams : These people built , though . R . Gleason : They have been there quite awhile . C . Twigg : This here is the road here ? M . Adams : Yes , this must be their trailer but they have been there years , - - for a long , long time . H . Fink : This is deed , - - these are deeded , - - these are land contracts , - - vacant , vacant , contract , contract , deed , deed . Do you think we should call Joe Hora in at the next meeting ? C . Twigg : If you don ' t have any teeth , - -what good can you do if you bring him in ? H . Fink : We can ask him what ' s what . C . Twigg : Is he going to tell you anything he didn ' t tell you the last time he was in ? Some discussion was held on this by all present . H . Fink : I ' ll tell you what I think we should do . Roger ' s hearing is at 7 * 30 PM the 26th , Tuesday night . We ' ll get that over with - 4 - w H . . Fink : and then work on this one . It ' s the only project we have right now . He ' s in hot water with the Health Department . It might be worth our while to make a phone call and find out how , - - it might affect our decision , too . Some discussion was held on this by all present . H . Fink : Let ' s let this go until all the members are here . Fred Wilson resigned , Cecil . C . Twigg : He did ? How many more do we have , besides George ? H . Fink : Don Payne , C . Twigg : That ' s right . . H . Fink : Mary took Joe ' s place . C . Twigg : How come Fred quit ? H . Fink : He ' s working nights and I think he ' s a little upset over the trailer ordinance and so on . C . Twigg : So is George Lawrence . He bought a smaller trailer and he didn ' t pay too much attention to the ordinance they put through . H . Fink : Yes , but they blamed us for it and we had nothing to do with it . That was the most water-downed version of an ordinance that was ever passed . Some discussion was held on this by all present . Mary Adams made the motion that the meeting be adjourned which was seconded by Roger Gleason and carried . The meeting adjourned at 8 : 45 P . M . Resp ctfully submitted ., Josep ine Bell - 5 -