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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1977-09-07 GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD PUBLIC HEARING Held at the Town Hall Groton , N . Y . Wednesday - September 7 , 1977 - 7 : 30 PM PRESENT : G . Totman - Chairman* J . Hora* C . Twigg* C . Martens - Attorney for Mr . Hora* D . Paynek M . Adams* J . Kratochvil* R . Gleason* J . G . MacNeil L . S . Raymond J . Bell* - Denotes those present . G . Totman : We are all here but two and one is on the way so we might as well get started . I ' ll call the hearing to order and I have to read the notice that was in the paper . Mr . Totman read the Notice of Public Hearing aloud which was published in the Journal and Courier on the 31st day of August 1977 and a copy is on file in the Town Clerk ' s Office , G . Totman : The purpose of the public hearing is two - fold . One , - - it ' s re- quired by State law that any time somebody applies for a sub - division all property owners bordering that property have to be notified and have the chance to express their concerns pro or con for the Planning Board to review their comments and make a decision thereafter so I guess the proper thing to do , being as only one person - Mr . Kratochvil is here , is to open the hearing up for questions or other pertinent thoughts as to this particular subdivision requested by Mr . Hora . Does anybody have any questions ? J . Hora : I don ' t have any . G . Totman : Do you have anything particular in mind , Mr . Kratochvil ? J . Kratochvil : No , - - I haven ' t , - - I just came as an observer . I went to a few in Dryden and they were very interesting sessions they had there . They really battle them out . G . Totman : Fortunately we don ' t get that very often here . C . Martens : Mr . Totman the only comment I would like to make , - - I wanted to ask if you had received a copy of the Department of Environmental Health ' s letter of August 12 , 1977 ? G . Totman : No , I haven ' t . - 1 - r Mr . Martens xeroxed a copy of the letter for the Planning Board and a copy of it is attached and made a part of these minutes . C . Martens : The only other thing I wanted to say was to make my apologies to the Board for the delay in getting the maps to you . D . Payne : Does this take precedence over the Town ? C . Martens : No , it doesn ' t . The letter indicates that he is within all the County requirements now . Your approval is the only approval necessary as he is in compliance with the County now . D . Payne : 0 . K . G . Totman ; 0 . K . then , - - if there are no other comments there ' s no purpose in dragging this on so I ' ll close the hearing and we ' ll act on it and notify you of our decision . ( The hearing was closed at 7 * 40 P . M . ) G . Totman ; We have done our preliminary work on this and tentatively have agreed it meets the requirements of the Town or otherwise would not have called the hearing in the first place . Once in awhile when you hold a public hearing you get a lot of flak pro or con so have to go through the procedures so I think you have met all your obligations that we asked so far . So we ' ll hold our meeting and notify you and the County Clerk and file it with the Town Clerk and we ' ll let you know . C . Martens : Thank you very much . J . Hora : 0 . K . G . Totman : Thank you . GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD MEETING - SEPTEMBER 7 , 1977 7 : 45 P . M . PRESENT : G . Totman - Chairman* J . Kratochvil* C . Twigg* D . Payne* M . Adams* R . Gleason* J . MacNeil L . Raymond J . Bell* * - Denotes those present G . Totman : We ' ll start our Planning Board meeting now . Sometime last year we commissioned the Cooperative Extension Service of Tompkins County to do a survey of the housing in the Town of Groton under our name and they have that survey completed . I have only one copy here that Roger gave me but Mr . Kline of the Cooperative Extension Service is coming at 2 - G . Totman : 8 PM with extra copies and he ' ll go over the results of the survey with us . 0 . K . and , at this . particular time , I don ' t really have anything else to bring before the Board . C . Twigg : We don ' t have to do anything more on this subdivision , do we ? G . Totman : Yes , and we can do that before 8 PM and would like to note that the Town Board at their Monday night meeting appointed James McNeil , who lives on Church Street in McLean , and Lyle Raymond , who lives on Old Stage Road , to fill out the terms of Fred Wil - son and Harvey Fink . R . Gleason : What does McNeil do ? G . Totman : He ' s a lab technician at Ithaca College . Now back to the Hora subdivision . Does anybody have any questions on it before we make a decision ? D . Payne : I make a motion the subdivision . be passed as presented . G . Totman : For the benefit of Mr . Kratochvil , we have gone over this sub - division of Mr . Hora ' s for the last 2 years and we have had other public hearings on it but as Ben ' s assistant said tonight he apologized for being late with the maps . That is what the holdup has been , - - they never submitted the proper maps until a month ago so basically everybody is pretty much aware of what he has submitted and what he is asking to have approved has al - ready happened , - -he ' s making what happened legal . I ' m explaining this so you won ' t think we ' re approving it without knowing what we ' re doing . It ' s been going on for 2 years . R . Gleason ; I second the motion . G . Totman : D . Payne moved it be passed and Roger seconded the motion , - - all in favor - - all opposed ? The motion was carried unanimously . G . Totman : 0 . K . , it ' s passed , then . Mr . Kline said he would be here at 8 PM, Roger ? R . Gleason : Yes , - - one thing this letter we got just now . All the Counties are doing this - - Cortland has done it . Subdivision of lots of 5 acres do not have to come under the Subdivision .Regulations but I don ' t think we want to be quite as broad as that . I think Dryden has made a change too along these lines . I think this may have something to do - - didn ' t I read about a town in Dela - ware County where the Judge threw out too strict subdivisions or something ? G . Totmant But you don ' t know how small they were or what he threw out . Some discussion was held on this by R . Gleason , G . Totman and others . - 3 - G . Totman ; Good evening , Mr . Kline . Has everybody here met Glenn ? You can sit up here and listen if you want to , John . J . Kratochvil ; I can hear fine from right here , - -very interesting , G . Kline ; I have a supply of the final output . here . (Mr . Kline passed one out to all present ) . G . Totman ; I have a question before you start , - - from the Town Board . Let me start from the beginning . Apparently Harvey dealt with you getting it started and I don ' t know anything about it costing any money so it was all Greek to me and they called me at work the other day to say they got another bill for $ 140 . or something like that so now the work is finished . So all I could: tell them was the work was finished and apparently it was authentic and they were concerned whether they were . paying money on what wasn ' t done yet . G . Kline ; The situation was Ann Horner went over it one night at a meeting that the Town Board members were at and they wanted more detail , G . Totman ; The person who gave you the go ahead , - -Hicks Dow , - - isn 't here any more . G . Kline ; Right . G . Totman ; 0 . K . That explains it . C . Twigg ; Yes we voted to - - there was no definite figure set at that time , G . Kline ; I think so , G . Totmans Glenn is here to explain what they did in the survey and answer any questions about it . G . Kline ; Yes , - -Anne has moved up to Rhode Island with her husband so she isn ' t here to explain it but I have worked with her on it so I think I can answer most of the questions . I think maybe it might be well just to go through it and if there are any parts you want explained just ask . The first few pages are the introduction and on page 4 there ' s a Summary of Results . I ' ll start there and just review it , We sent out 865 questionnaires and we used the Town Directory so I guess we got most of the households , at least they should have gotten one and out of that we got 27 . 2% or 235 back which is pretty good , Out of these 235 there were about 3 /4 of them or 78% dived in regular dwellings , - - one family dwellings , and about 1 / 5th of them lived in mobile homes and 2 or 3% I think lived in duplexes or something - there weren ' t too many of . those . So it mainly regular family dwellings and 20% mobile homes and this represented., according to the figures we had , 38% of the mobile homes and 15% of the single family units . That gives you an idea of the kind of rate we got . 4 - G . Kline ; A higher percentage of questionnaires came back from mobile home families . Part of this questionnaire was aimed particu - larly at mobile homes and in the back later on if you want to look it over the questionnaire is included . At the bottom of page 5 there ' s a table that gives the Length of Residence in Unit and I think it ' s interesting until you get down to the 15 - 19 years . That group is a little lower . In other words they split fairly even . So that was a good cross - section . On page 6 the time the units were built , - - about 39% were built before 1900 , almost 40% or 2 out of 5 and then another group about 20% were build in the 1960 ' s and the rest were scattered through and , of course , the smallest amount being built during the depression which is logical : We were asked to get an idea if they were crowded . The rule of thumb is one room for each person and that is an accept - able standard and it looks as if out of these people that answered the survey most of them had adequate room . About 75% of the units --had up to 4 people and 25% had more than 4 people in it . 63% lived in houses with 4 - 7 rooms and another 25% had 8 - 10 rooms . This survey didn ' t show crowding , - - that was one thing that came out . (Mr . Kline continued reading on through the entire question - naire - a copy of which is attached to the permanent minutes and from here on I ' ll only type in where someone on the Planning Board questioned him about it in order to save xeroxing copies for all members paperwise - J . Bell . ) C . Twigg : Table 2 . 2 on page 7 - I don ' t understand that - - these per - centages add up - - G . Kline : Well those people that were 65 - 53% lived in units with only one in it and 46% of them lived in units with 2 . C . Twigg : Oh , I see , - 0 . K . G . Totman ; The largest percentage of the people who answered the survey were . between 45 and 64 . Page 11 - - Type of Unit and Income . C . Twigg : In other words when they could afford it they move out to live in something nicer . R . Gleason : It also indicates that almost 40% are 65 or over and that would be a large group with $ 10 , 000 or under . Then if you take the other larger group , under 25 , they would be like - ly to have less than $ 12 , 000 so this indicates that many people are living in new mobile homes because that is what they figure they can afford . - 5 - G . Kline : Yes , it ' s a practical choice . The date that the unit was built , - -we mentioned before 49% before 1900 and , of course , the mobile homes . there were 4 that they said were built in the 1950 ' s , - - the majority of them were built in the 1960 ' s and 13 were built in the 1970 ' s . C . Twigg : When did mobile homes become popular ? I mean where people were living in , them much . G . Kline : I guess it was back in the 1960 ' s . C . Twigg : There was nothing - - - - - - - - - - - - - - about mobile homes . R . Gleason : There were but they were small . In World War 2 we had them . Two things happened in the early 1960 ' s when they went to these 12 ft . wide mobile homes and longer length to give you more square footage and the other thing that happened , I think , this is my own observation , in about 1960 two things happened - - the price of conventional houses got to the point where people in this income group got priced out of them quietly and . the other thing it ' became much easier to ob - tain a loan through a bank or other institutions to buy mobile homes just like you could buy a car and I think it was some time in the ' 60 ' s the FHA even financed mobile homes . G . Totman : There ' s a plan out now where buying a regular conventional home payments are based on your wages . Are you familiar with that ? G . Kline : Is this a sliding mortage and later in life if you earn more you pay more ? G . Totman : That ' s right . G . Kline : I ' ve heard about it . Some discussion was held on this by G . Totman , G . Kline , and others . G . Kline : Going back to page 12 at the bottom . What it ' s saying is most of the mobile homes - - 77 . 8% were in units with 3 persons or less and compared with other type of housing 56% of those units were occupied by 3 or less . G . Totman : But , of course , also in this survey over 70% were past 45 so really not getting a true picture of the number of people living in mobile homes if majority of the people are above 45 years of age .. G . Kline : We had a pretty good percentage of those but I think it ' s logical because your mobile homes if you have too many people in them you have to look for another type of housing . CO Twigg : Then , too , if they had very many kids they wouldn ' t have time to answer the questionnaire ' Page 13 - Years in Groton G . Kline : As far as the years in Groton - - 52% of those in mobile homes - 6 - G . Kline : lived in Groton 10 years or less . G . Totman : There ' s a good reason for that . Lot of other towns had stricter rules than we did . G . Kline ; That could be one of the answers . C . Twigg : We ' re talking about the ' 60 ' s when the mobile homes started so only have 16 years . G . Totman : They started before the 60 ' s . More discussion was had on this by all . Page 17 - Restrictions on Where Mobile Homes Can Locate , G . Totman : It indicates that the people are more educated on what the regulations are . Doesn ' t make any difference whether mobile homes or regular housing . R . Gleason : Can you have a mobile home - - C . Twigg : Not in the Village . R . Gleason : You can have them anywheres in the Town . Some discussion was held on this by G . Totman , R . Gleason and others . Mr . Kline continued to read from the Summary of Results and the Appendix attached to it . Question 28 - Appendix C R . Gleason ; One thing ,- .comes up - - apparently , - - I ' m not sure - - what .George was talking about On - the new program that his son is about to get into , - - this isn ' t a local thing ? G . Totman : No , it ' s not . R . Gleason : Where would he do this ? In the City of Cortland ? G . Totman : Anywhere . I know there are some people that work at SCM that got involved in that program . G . Kline : I ' ve read about it but haven ' t heard of the Ithaca banks going along with it . R . Gleason : I know there are some in Dryden . Some discussion was held on this by R . Gleason , G . Totman G . Kline and others . G . Totman : I think we ought to take these and study them . Nobody else has seen these tonight until you came . G . Kline : No and I have extra copies - - I brought over 20 - - is that enough ? - 7 - G . Totman : I ' ll make sure . the Town Board gets some ' and after we all look them over and analyze them some of it can be looked at as time goes on . It ' s hard to tell when you sit here what you can do with it . C . Twigg : Some of the information is disappointing , though . G . Totman : It ' s always disappointing to me in surveys as to who answers the survey which leaves me in a negative sense about surveys . G . Kline : Unless you draw a sample of people and then go out and pick up everyone then you can put a little more faith in it . The ones that answered this one were the most interested or might have had more time and some people don ' t mind doing it and some never would fill it out . At least they had the opportunity . G . Totman : Yes , - - if they had any gripes they had the opportunity . G . Kline : We delayed sending these questionnairs out because the Town Board was making a decision regarding regulations for mobile homes . G . Totman : And when they finally made their decision they made it in favor of mobile homes completely . G . Kline : Yes , M . Adams : How ' s Dutch coming ? G . Totman : Pretty good , I guess . M . Adams : When does he . expect to start putting them in ? G . Totman : This Fall , I guess . R . Gleason : What happened on his request to put trailers out front ? G . Totman : The Town Board assured him they would look into the possibility of either making a change in zoning in that area or seeing what effect it would have in the community and in the meantime they assured him that as long as the trailers he put out there would eventually end up in his lot they didn ' t see any problem in what he was doing . M . Adams : Yeah ? G . Totman : I guess you ' d call it circumventing the law . R . Gleason : Regarding the survey , - - it doesn ' t look like there ' s much need for more housing in the Town of . Groton . Do you want population growth in Groton and if you coo what steps can you take to get this ? Maybe we ' re satisfied -- the way we are , - -we 're not getting tremendous growth but we ' re getting some . C . Twigg : I don ' t think that ' s what we ' re looking for , is it ? G . Totman : We ' re looking for controlled population growth . You ' re going to get growth whether you look for it or not but you have to - 8 - G . Totman : control growth so you won ' t be over- burdened with taxes and get growth in the right direction . That was one of the things that brought up trailers in the first place . At one time they were moving into Groton quite rapidly . Les Graves from the school came and said no homes were built that year but have to put an . extra school . bus on to pick up children because there were so many trailers in and they don ' t pay taxes like regular homes do . That was his concern . If you look at it . that way it could be a grave problem . R . Gleason : What I ' m getting at is - - 0 . K . - - controlled growth . If you take the opposite view , - - if you don ' t want trailers and yet because of the public attitude you can ' t restrict them but want to encourage development of regular housing then some incentive for building houses should be figured out and a way to get money to do it . G . Totman : One of the things we have done , - -we ' ve gone to larger lot sizes . R . Gleason : What . I was getting at is that if there ' s a need for developing housing , particularly for people with lower income who have been priced out of the conventional house market - - in some ways . restricted because of the cost - - and . we would rather have them building regular houses is there something the Planning Board or Town Board could do to help . In some places they have a housing authority - - now is the housing authority involved at all in this business you ' re talking about ? Subsidized housing has to be initiated . G . Totman : Hicks Dow worked hard on that but couldn ' t get any of the local banks interested . R . Gleason : Again , that ' s a local thing . Is there something local people can do to bring in subsidized housing ? c G . Totman : That all depends on the viewpoint of what you ' re looking for . You ' re looking to make it available for lower income and poorer people to move to Groton and I ' m not sure that ' s a good idea . Some discussion was held on this by C . Twigg , G . Totman , R . Gleason and others . Mr . Totman gave Mr . Kline a special thank you for coming tonight and doing all he did . C . Twigg made a motion that the meeting be adjourned which was seconded by R . Gleason - - motion carried . The meeting adjourned at 9 * 30 P . M . Res ectfully submitted , &c Josephine Bell 9 -