HomeMy WebLinkAbout1978-07-11 GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD MEETING
Held at the Town Hall
Groton , N . Y .
Tuesday - July 11 , 1978 - 8 PM
PRESENT : R . Gleason - Chairman* F . Liguori - County Planning Board*
G . Totman - Vice- Chairman* G . Evans on County Planning Board
D . Payne
M . Adams* T . Robinson - Town Supervisor
Co Twigg* C . Pierson - Town Clerk
L . Raymond* Be Bucko - Town Attorney*
J . MacNeil D . VanBenschoten - Town Councilman*
L . Cornelius - Town Highway Superintendent*
L . Haughn*
J . Bell - Recording Clerk* K . Wood*
Be Brown - Zoning Enforcement Officer*
G . Hoy on Zoning Board of Appeals Chairman*
G . Bushnell on Member Zoning Board of Appeals*
J . Bell - Member Zoning Board of Appeals*
F . Fouts - Member Zoning Board of Appeals*
* - Denotes those present .
Mr . Totman called the meeting to order at 8 : 15 PM .
G . Totman : Roger Gleason is Chairman of the Planning Board but he has a
problem on the farm so will be a little late tonight .
The main purpose of this meeting is to get together with Frank
Liguori and members of the Tompkins County Planning Commission
but I think , first as a Planning Board , we should approve our
minutes of the last meeting and then go into the business of
the meeting at hand . Will somebody make a motion .
L . Raymond said he had some corrections he felt should
be made to the minutes as follows :
On page 4 last line (where L . Raymond was speaking ) should be
" land use " patterns not " language " . On page 5 should be
" comparing '' instead of " concerning . " Also ? instead of .
Then on page 8 Mr . Raymond was referring to the "Owasco "
Watershed .
L . Raymond made a motion the minutes be approved as
amended which Was seconded by M . Adams and carried .
G . Totman : We asked Frank to come down tonight mainly for two different
things , - - to talk about SEQUA and how it relates to Groton and
what we have to do in the Town of Groton and Town Board and
Planning Board or whatever and also we , as a Planning Board ,
and the Town are talking about updating our zoning ordinance
and looking for areas of concern and how to correct them and
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r'
G . Totmant the Town has asked the County Board if they would offer us some
help and suggestions as to where we ' re going and how to get there .
I think I ' ll turn it over to Frank , if I may , - - if ° you ' re ready .
F . Liguori : May I sit over there ?
G . Totman ; I ' ll change places with you .
F . Liguori : Now I have some good news , or bad news , whichever way you want to
look at it in relation to SEQUA . As you know it ' s the State En-
vironmental Review by which all municipalities ' of the State must
review their actions and actions of the private sector for which
a municipality has some responsibility in connection with permits
or authorization to carry out actions . The law is rather complex
as some of you know . It was postponed a year ago . The State
Legislature and the Department of Environmental Conservation just
recently postponed it for an additional two months . It was
supposed to go into effect on September 1 but it will now go into
effect November 1 . The County Planning Department were asked by
the County Board to prepare the SEQUA regulations for County
government and in doing that we prepared them with the thought of
having them in a form that would be suitable for . each municipality
to consider so , in effect , you don ' t have to go through the entire
hearing procedures the way we did at County level ._
At the County level we gave the opportunity to individuals , groups
and anybody who wanted to put input in the drafting of the regula-
tions and , in effect , I think we might say we paved the way for
municipalities and procedures as they develop at the County level
will reflect a good reasonable compliance for those who want to
see them tougher and more detailed than the State presented them
and for those who , perhaps , would like to do away with them com-
pletely .
I have brought with me a package which includes a draft of the County
regulations as they now stand together with a package of forms that
can be used by the Village or the Town and will set them in business
so to speak , - - everything you need except that the law will be changed
by the Department of Environmental Conservation - - this will not be
released in a form for further review for at least another week or
two . I understand there has been a drastic change over the original
- - therefore much of what is said in here is no longer applicable .
My recommendation to you would be to sit tight , as we are going to
do at the County level , and wait for the revisions that will come
out of the Department of Environmental Conservation after which time
we will again review them and again establish procedures at the-
County level and make copies of everything available to the Towns
and Villages for their consideration . So at this point , perhaps you
may have some general questions on SEQUA and what it is all about and
I ' ll be glad to answer them but in so far as getting into details
it ' s quite likely they are going to be changed and there isn ' t much
point in getting too involved .
B . Bucko : Are they revising type 1 and type 2 actions ?
F . Liguori : Yes , I understand there will be - - a type 1 will almost invariably
require an environmental impact statement because of the nature of
- 2 -
F . Liguori : the activity - - almost always will create a significant impact
on the environment and those are being changed but I don ' t know
what the new package will look like . The type 2 activities - -
if you go - - let me explain what we tried to do at the County
level which might be of some value to you . Under the law the
State has designated what they call type 1 activities and these
are activities that because of their nature almost always will
require an environmental impact statement whether the Town
initiates it by developing a new highway , or someone wants a
subdivision or shopping center . Then there are the type 2
actions , which never require an environmental impact statement ,
and the State provided some guidelines but in our 11 activities at
the County level we spell these out in detail . For instance ,
any maintenance work that is involved , other than complete con -
struction of a new highway within the Town or County would be
a type 2 action . The type 1 threshold levels are up here and
type 2 are down here . In between there ' s a grey area and the
State law never really said what to do with that grey area but
it ' s clear if it doesn ' t fall in 1 or 2 and is in the grey : .
area then , as a Town , you have to make a determination - - Xa
negative impact statement which says it has been reviewed and
you have decided it will not have a significant impact or you
have reviewed it and feel it will have and should prepare a full
impact statement . So in developing the County regulations we
lowered the type 1 thresholds and fixed very clearly the type 2
almost eliminating the grey areas . That ' s the general philosophy
we used .
Be Bucko : When SEQUA first came out and so forth , we did pass a resolution
to accept SEQUA procedures ' by _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ that was
type 1 and _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ would get impact statement and
everything else is type 2 and we didn ' t provide for that grey area
and put through everything in the grey area into type 2 and DEC
did question that philosophy as to whether or not it would stand
a Court challenge from environmental groups . The only reason we
did that is the grey area if you left it even type 2 may have to
have an impact statement . In other words it doesn ' t say that type
2 is no impact statement but could have one if decided by the lead
agency .
F . Liguori : My understanding is the State Legislature made a deal with DEC in
effect they would repeal the law unless they changed the procedures
drastically so from that I ' m not sure what they will do but my
guess is they will be simplified considerably .
Be Bucko : The SEQUA conference at Grand Mountain - - what everyone was con-
' cerned about was integrating impact statements with the planning
or subdivision regulation time limitation . That was the biggest
concern they were having and it ' s difficult .
F . Liguori : The Health Department has been very much involved at the County
level and I think we now have a clear understanding of what the Health
Department ' s view is going to be in connection with development
and basically a subdivision of more than 25 lots will require an
environmental impact statement unless it is on public sewer and
water and if it is then it would be 50 lots and I think that is
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F . Liguori : probably the most important criteria and then there are other
activities like mobile home parks that require their own sewage
systems and it ' s satisfactory at 15000 gallons per day , that is
if it is not in excess of that per day if it is have to have an
environmental impact statement .
B . Bucko : Has the Health Code finally been accepted as part of the
regulations ?
F . Liguori : Yes ,
B . Bucko : The last time I talked to them they said they had signed it but
were going to make amendments .
F . Liguori : My understanding is that it ' s done .
B . Bucko : Can we get a copy of that ?
F . Liguori : Yes , from the Health Department . After we complete this we will
hold a meeting with Towns and Villages and hand out the package
which represents our recommendations for SEQUA decisions at local
levels , together with all the forms you will need . One of the
important - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - of the law is the attorneys - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - tell me even DEC - - - - - - - - - - - if you don ' t follow
procedures whatever your ruling might be it could be upset by
the Court but , on the other hand if you do follow the procedures
the Courts will not upset the judgments of the municipalities
providing you make no procedural errors . But it ' s horrendous
how easy it is to make procedural errors and this is why we have
outlined it so clearly . It ' s those kind of risks I think are
the greatest to a municipality in getting a determination upset .
On the other hand , if the municipality does follow the procedures
and make an honest determination the way they see it , it ' s quite
likely the Courts will not question that final determination .
B . Bucko : Frank , have you considered , because of the time limitations for
impact statements and notices and so forth , an assessment form
prior to accepting any application like the planning agreement ?
F . Liguori : Yes , there ' s an assessment form in here . The assessment form
though is only needed on non- type 2 . You don ' t need one for
type 2 but if it ' s in the grey area or type I the assessment
form is simply a form that asks the developer or whoever certain
questions and it ' s the kind of thing he doesn ' t have to go out
and hire anybody to do for him and , based upon that , you deter-
mine whether or not it will require ,an impact statement . It ' s
pretty clear to me that most municipalities aren ' t in a position
to prepare these themselves and the law says the developer may
ask the municipality to prepare it but doesn ' t say whether you
can refuse to but my recommendation is don ' t prepare the statement ,
let the developer prepare it , because whoever prepares it is
leaving himself wide open for criticism from both sides .
B . Bucko : He ' s going to have to justify it . If the Planning Board does it
they will be damned .
F . Liguori : Absolutely , - - there ' s no way you can really win . My judgment is
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F . Liguori : it ' s better to have the developer have a professional person
do it and the Town Board and Planning Board can review someone
else ' s work and look at it fairly hopefully . To begin with
I ' m not sure the small municipality can have the expertise or
time that is necessary to prepare these statements . I would
guess there would be a new position established in the County
sooner or later by people who will professionally prepare
those statements .
B . Bucko : In other words , when you ' re talking about environmental impact
studies that doesn ' t mean just water pollution but economic
problems too .
F . Liguori : Yes it does , the entire impact of a proposal and its surprising
what people can suggest as potential impacts like vegetation
on the site , removal of trash , drainage , erosion , road traffic ,
economic impact and then when you get all through you have to
make a judgment and quite often the best way to make a judgment
is - - there are no hard anf fast criteria . I can look at some -
thing and come to a conclusion based upon how I }view that kind
of thing while somebody else could look at the same information
and come to another conclusion . There are certain features
that are pretty clear though , like erosion , but a lot of other
things are not that clear like when is traffic a problem? It ' s
hard to say - - to somebody who has no traffic now it ' s a problem
but to someone that lives on a well - travelled highway it ' s no
problem . On the other hand you have been dealing with them all
these years anyways in terms of your subdivision reviews .
B . Bucko : I also suggest that there are going to be more law suits .
F . Liguori : This is why I pointed out that procedure is extremely important .
If the Town Board has asked for an impact statement and one is
prepared and you make your determination and follow the procedures
correctly I don ' t think a Court will question it . But you will get
in trouble if you don ' t follow the procedures . 0 . K . would you
like to look at this copy . I just have one with me .
B . Bucko : O . . K . leave it with George - - I ' ll get one from your office .
C . Twigg : Study it good , George .
F . Liguori : I wouldn ' t spend an awful lot of time on it - - as soon as we get
the new draft ready and have a chance to review it we ' ll redo this
and set up a meeting date and , hopefully , get representatives
from each municipality at that meeting and , hopefully , by November
1st you can do it at the local level . However if you fail to act
by November 1st there ' s no extreme penalty , the State law goes
into effect . However , if an action comes up you have to deal
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with it under the State Regulations .
G . Totman : Is everybody clear now about what Frank is talking about ?
L . Raymond : Could you indicate a bit more clearly what you mean by local
law ? '
B . Bucko : It can be a resolution .
F . Liguori : What the State law says - - they pass a law which provides the
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F . Liguori : basic framework . Then DEC was authorized to prepare procedures
at the State level . The law also says each municipality shall
prepare procedures . They can be in the form that you simply adopted
the State law and establish the structure within the Town as to how
it will be administered or can go into a really detailed one repeat -
ing almost everything that is in 617 . You can do it by resolution
or local law but , in either case , you have to have a public hearing .
B . Bucko : We already had one but will have to amend it .
F . Liguori : You ' ve already done that but now the New York will be
included .
C . Twigg : Is this SEQUA going to have any effect . on existing operations ?
F . Liguori : Like what ?
C . Twigga Say if there ' s something affecting the environment already - -
say industries - - would it have an effect on that ?
F . Liguori : No , - - only if they were asking for some new kind of a permit .
B . Bucko : If they were creating a nuisance then the Town would have to in-
stitute an action .
Some discussion was held on this by B . Bucko , F . Liguori ,
C . Twigg and others .
F . Liguori : Many of your actions at the Town level . will almost always require
Health Department and , in some cases , DEC , and there ' s a provision
for a lead agency when two or more are involved , - - one is designated
the lead agency and goes through all the procedures and the other
one sits by and listens and doesn ' t have to go through all the pro-
cedures .
G . Totman : , Who determines this?
F . Liguori ; You determine it between yourselves . My guess is that with the Health
Department involved - - say it ' s a subdivision - - they would get you
to be the lead agency .
G . Totman : You ' re talking about the Town Board or the Planning Board ?
F . Liguori : Whoever has the authority . If you have the authority now to approve
subdivision plans then you have the authority to operate SEQUA on
those actions .
B . Bucko : On subdivisions it ' s strictly the Planning Board as they have been
given the authority for approval . However if you have 25 or more
houses then probably the Health Department would be the lead agency .
You would want them to be because of all the problems involved . This
Planning Board would not have the expertise to do it .
L . Raymond : Is it possible that DEC would provide any technical assistance if
we were involved with a stream , say ?
F . Liguori : They say they will . If they have the time I presume they would .
We ' re saying the same thing - - we ' ll help you with first few cases
short of developing your plan for you .
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Some discussion was held by B . Bucko , C . Twigg , L .
Raymond and others pertaining to time limits on sub -
divisions and so forth .
F . Liguori : I ' m not sure how they are going to handle the time limits .
B . Bucko : The DEC very nicely comes out and says by = -- - - - - consent extension
of time . They even have a flow check .
F . Liguori : Have you seen that flow check ?
B . Bucko : I have it right here . They reduced it . You can ' t hardly read it .
It doesn ' t make sense . If you define the grey areas and people
understand the time procedures then it isn ' t difficult . I don ' t
think it ' s difficult , - - it ' s a question of getting the right in-
formation to, make the right decision .
G . Totman : It ' s 8 * 45 now and I don ' t want to keep Frank here too long . Would
like to change the subject for now . The Town Board members and
Zoning Board members are here and there are a lot of questions .
For example , we have been asked by the Town Board to look at the
Zoning Ordinance as it relates to commercial properties as to how
we can change the ordinance and many things have come up we didn ' t
plan on and I 'm sure you have run into this in all Towns and I ' m
not sure whether you ' re prepared to make some general comments or
whether those present would like to ask Frank questions from the
floor . Would you like to start off with any questions , Teresa ?
T . Robinson : Basically , I think as the Town expands we have a very limited
amount of commercial areas available and we ' re trying to look into
this and see what we can do about it .
F . Liguori : I think the Town of Groton is in a situation like any of the other
towns in the County where there isn ' t much rationale in setting
aside huge amounts of commercial land or industrial land . I ' m
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - about saying that is the only thing you can use it
for but , on the other hand , you should be in a position to take
advantage of commercial or industrial growth but in some sort of
framework that would have the least impact on other uses , particu -
larly residential . We have dealt with this kind of a problem quite
recently in the Town of Ulysses and the Town of Danby and Gary , who
is also on our staff , I consider an expert on, how to deal with this
kind of a problem in a rural town such as this . So Gary , - -why don ' t
you go over some of the policy?
G . Evans : First of all , I would like to say that I have looked at the Town of
Groton briefly , - -haven ' t really studied it in great detail , but the
things I see in it is that you do have an established special permit
procedure in your ordinance and a planned unit development procedure
and the techniques that Frank is referring to are those techniques -the use of special permit and planned use development . If there are
considerable broad use of the special permit and special permit pro -
cedures are worked out and a review of potential development is
reasonably careful I think you can expect that virtually any type of
proposal that comes along you will be able to find some place in the
Town that is suitable for it .
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G . Evans : Now I looked briefly through the use of permitted activities in
the three districts and so on and it seems to me you have , as I
recall , about 45 categories . I ' m sure you ' re finding things
that don ' t fit . into those categories , - - am I right ?
CO Twigg : Yes .
G . Evans : 0 . K . , - - there ' s an alternate system of finding and permitting
activities that I could suggest you could at least review . I
brought a few copies with me . The way it works is that there ' s
a - - there are six broad categories of economic activity and
instead of being defined in terms of what they are they are de-
fined in terms of what their effect is and how they relate to
their immediate . environment . The six categories are residential ,
civil , commercial , agricultural , manufacturing and extra- active
-mining - - mostly including such things as gravel pit operations .
Now within each of these broad categories there are subdivisions .
For instance the list of commercial activites is quite long - -
about 25 different subdivisions under that . Of those categories
you can see there ' s a focus between - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - and the
definition so it describes a general type of activity - - gives
some examples of it and leaves it deliberately open- ended . This
permits , then , an applicant for something you never dreamed of to
come in and can say that it belongs in this certain category and
because of the definition being in terms of effect rather than a
verbal description of the activity you can say it does belong in
here or it doesn ' t - -whatever yourt ' decision might be . This is a
complex system at first . It ' s what I call the Chinese menu system
because once you get into it you can usually find what you ' re
looking for . I have about 10 copies of this so will distribute
them around the room so you can look it over .
If you turn to about the fourth page from the rear , you will see
a table like this . If you will turn to the second page the first
item is residential activities 311 . LKand the next item is 311 . 2
civic activities . Are we all on the same page ?
Let ' s look at 311 . 2 civic activities A through M starting with
essential services , limited child care , nursing homes and so on .
These are the broad activities ' categories under civic activities .
If you look on about the second or third page from the front of the
handout I gave you there ' s a text describing in more detail the
civic activities . To make this work , - -you ' ll have to take the
table out of the binder so that you can look at both the table and
the text .
Now if you ' ll look at the items under civic activities in the
table you will find parallel items in the text and a description
of what that means .
The next item - limited child care etc , etc . nursing home civic
activities etc , etc . and on down the list to vehicular civic
activities - - police - - fire - - etc . etc .
You see each one of these categories is rather broad and the
list of examples is intended to be open - ended .
B . Bucko : But would you have a separate district for this ?
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G . Evans : Looking at the table now - - at the top are the names of dis -
tricts in an imaginary town . We find rural and residential and
to the right of these categories in the tables you will see there ' s
either a cross or whatever - - the other sign is zero or never
marked - it ' s blank . The cross means it ' s permitted with a build -
ing permit or zoning permit . The other sign means it ' s permitted
with special permit and if there ' s no sign it ' s not permitted .
So the use of the special permit plus this broad category of
activities in your district regulations allows you to review a
broad range of questionable or hard to anticipate types of
activities .
Let ' s look at Item J - extensive impact - civic activities for
an example . Airports , bus terminals - - what do these have in
common ? The thing they have in common is that they have a very
extensive impact and you want to be very careful where you put
them and the areas of the town where you would permit these
things . You would want to make sure they were permitted only
with a special permit .
B . Bucko : But in a particular district ?
G . Evans : Whatever - - whatever way you choose .
B . Bucko : Right , - -but what I ' m saying let ' s take J on this chart you have
it blank - O . K .
G . Evans : Right .
B . Bucko : That means it ' s not permitted anywheres ?
G . Evans : Right .
B . Bucko : So now take the Town of Groton where it ' s not permitted anywheres
- - it ' s excluded and nobody can do it .
G . Evans : If it appears in this list of categories but doesn ' t appear under
permits , it means it is to be used for planned development - - for
things that might come into the town . So if it doesn ' t appear in
either category this means it ' s only permitted through planning
and development .
L� Raymond : Are you saying you would go through our present zoning ordinance
and construct a chart like this , in which case if our ordinance
didn ' t say anything about some of these categories , you would
mark it blank ?
G . Evans : That ' s right . In fact at the rear there ' s a table that I found
very useful in designing this specific district regulations .
You put your districts along your left margin and you go across
and in each of the categories of activities you decide whether
you want to permit them in that district or not and so by going
through this list , which is quite long , you get to ask yourself
about each of a very large number of difficult kind of activities
- - whether you want to permit them or not .
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L . Raymond : But since we already have a list of activities in our present
ordinance , all you ' re saying is this would be a loosening up of
them ?
G . Evans : What I ' m suggesting is a translation from a narrowly defined list
of activities to a more broadly defined list .
L . Raymond : So we would have that same list we do now but end up with a little
different interpretation ?
G . Evans : That ' s right .
B . Bucko : Our biggest problem has been - - Gary - - our biggest area is
agricultural and some of the things allowed in the commercial
area are popping up in the south west , north east in that
agricultural section but are not in our planned unit development
because they are all - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - but because
they exist , or are illegal and the ordinance has not been
enforced now they are there and it ' s destructive to the compre-
hensive plan and there ' s no planned unit to it at all .
F . Liguori : Gary and I were talking about this problem where even the best
predictions - - - - there ' s not going to be a lot of developmental
activity but opportunities are going to come up sporadically but
there ' s nothing to suggest that the Town of Groton will grow in
huge quantities - - the growth will be very moderate in terms of
people and I think you have to decide whether - - - - - - - - - - - - - -mixed
kind of a plan is something that in the long run enhances the
Town from the standpoint of tax base or employment or whatever .
. You have enough open space in the Town that perhaps you can limit these
kind of activities in the Town without having a serious impact on
what is probably the prime uses - - agricultural and residential -and I think you have to develop some sort of philosophy - - I don ' t
think you can easily use parcels of commercial lands - - in fact it
might not be where the person wants to go . Quite often the
opportunity for these little industries are there because somebody
has a particular lot of land in mind for whatever reason and he is
limited in terms of where he wants to make his investment . As long
as you use enough vision so you don ' t let impact which you know will
end up mainly in the residential area . You have to decide are
you going to try to take advantage of the opportunities when they
come up or are you going to settle for a status quo .
G . Totmant Do I understand clearly what you ' re saying ? You read our ordinance .
Are you familiar with this plan we had a problem with a few years
back ? What you ' re saying is this planned use development part of
our ordinance could take care of that kind of problem . Where this
came up where the land was residential and it wasn ' t legal so we had
to change the zoning ordinance to make it legal , are you saying this
kind of thing can happen without changing the ordinance ?
B . Bucko : The planned unit development has to show what you ' re going to do with
that particular area . So the Town Board decided they would go for the
commercial zone in that area because they knew it wasn ' t going to go as
a residential area so they accomplished the same thing whether they
went through a zoning amendment or planned unit development .
G . Evans : It ' s a specific agreement between the Town Board and the developer as
to what will take place there . If you simply amend the map and
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G . Evans ; change it to a commercial district there are probably a lot of
other things it would permit that you would not necessarily want
to take place there . Let ' s say you do rezone it for industrial
development but it doesn ' t take place . This means , then , the
owner of the land can sell it for any other industrial activity
which may be alright but may be quite objectionable . With
planned unit development it doesn ' t take place it reverts .
Some discussion was held on this by B . Bucko , G . Totman ,
G . Evans , F . Liguori and others .
B . Bucko : So you have to be careful using a planned unit development ?
F . Liguori : Yes , but it ' s preferable to trying to prejudge where commerce
is going to want to go and setting aside a huge tract of land
that just sits there because you ' re waiting for that commercial
type to come but they may never come .
T . Robinson : That ' s basically why - - we ' re looking into the future . As you
say we don ' t expect a big plant to come here but we do have
little businesses that crop up .
G . Evans : Depending on the scale of these small businesses you are referring
to , a special permit may be more appropriate vehicle . One of the
provisions in your agricultural district regulations might be that
vehicle services and repair activities are permitted with a special
permit . This doesn ' t mean people aren ' t going to establish these
businesses without getting any permit at all .
B . Bucko : But then you have to be careful how you set up the conditions for
the permits .
G . Evans : One of the duties of the special permit procedure is you have a
list of general conditions that you impose and you can have
special conditions adopted to individual types of activities . They
are all in the ordinance and spelled out . Everybody can see them
and you are not acting arbitrarily .
F . Liguori : You have done this for two towns now , haven ' t you ?
G . Evans : Right .
F . Liguori : And we are prepared to assist you .
G . Totman : What ' s the proper way to go about getting your assistance ? Do
we meet here or take information to your planning office ?
F . Liguori : Generally Gary has been going out to the municipalities as his
time permits . I think the first thing is you have a basic con-
cept you should look at and see what you want to pursue and then
you go through it word by word until you come to a decision as
to what meets the needs of the Town . How long does this take ,
Gary?
G . Evans : Forever ! It. depends on how much - - it ' s quick if you know what
your objectives are . If there ' s disagreement about what needs
to be done it can go on forever . That ' s a question I can ' t
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G . Evans ; answer . The review and comments I can make on your ordinance
could be done in a matter of a couple of weeks but I don ' t
expect you to take what I ' m saying word for word and swallow
it . I know you will go over it with a fine - tooth comb and
make your comments back and forth .
B . Bucko : I think the biggest problem with the Town Board and planning
Board is how you are going to divide this Town up into any
other districts than what you have now to have any uniformity
or projection as to what is going to happen in the next 20
years .
G . Evans : I don ' t suggest any more - - maybe three are sufficient or may-
be you only need two , but a more flexible way of omitting cer-
tain things would be appropriate .
Let me give you two more examples with my experience with Danby ,.
There ' s an agricultural area - - one and two unit residential
buildings are permitted there only with a special permit . This
is in about 307. of the Town . Just a single family house you
have to have a special permit to put there and there ' s a 3 acre minimum
lot size . They are trying to protect it and are getting very fierce
about it and if you turn and look at the B - 1 and turn to the
commercial activities - - fruit sales and service - - none of them
are permitted with just a building permit . They all require a
special permit . The thinking there was this business area is
predominantly residential and always will be and the commercial
activities there are scattered and will continue to be scattered so
it is important '-, to consider how such development of business
relates to its environment which is why the special permit is
needed .
B . Bucko : Who issues the special permits ?
G . Evans : The Board of Appeals . It ' s necessary that the criteria for issuing
special permits be spelled out in great detail . It seems like a
laborious task at the time but when it comes to reviewing an actual
application it ' s a lifesaver .
Are there any other questions about this or any of these items I
should explain more clearly to you ?
One of the effects of allowing many different things only with
special permit is it gets the developer thinking in more detail
of what they are intending to do . If you have to make a pre -
sentation fairly specifically of what you intend to do it gives
you an opportunity to get yourself organized too so when it
comes time to issue the permit not only the Town but the
person getting the permit understands a little more clearly what
is permitted and what isn ' t .
B . Bucko : In fact at the conference the Towns that have adopted SEQUA found
the builders thought about environmental impact and took care of
the things ahead of time so I can see the special permit doing
that .
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F . Liguori : There ' s no doubt about it , the whole concept of SEQUA has a lot
of validity to it but the real problem is when people use it
frivolously but I think the concept is good . We should be able
to look at problems that have significance without having to go
into a lot of detail . I think we ' ll all gain from it but , un -
fortunately , there will be those who will use it frivolously ,
who will call for an investigation of something that normally we
would say is not a significant matter .
G . Totmsn : Does anybody have any more questions they would like to ask
Gary while he ' s here ? If not , I would like to thank you both
for coming . I think probably what the Planning Board will do
now - - I don ' t know - - how long have you been here Roger ?
R . Gleason : 10 or 15 minutes .
0 . Totman : We have decided we want to use your services so we ' ll meet with
Gary later after we set our next meeting date and plan our
meeting around his schedule and get working on some of the
problems we see in our ordinance .
L . Raymond ; I was wondering if Frank might like to elaborate - - just a
moment or two - - on the statement in the Ithaca Journal on the
development of the Owaso Inlet aiid •F `the City of Auburn ?
F . Liguori : 0 . K . , - -I attended a meeting in Auburn along with John Anderson
and there was a person from Groton there from the Village , I
think . Do you all know what the rules and regulations are we
are talking about here ? The City of Auburn , and the Town of
Owasco I guess it is , draw water out of Owasco Lake . Utider + the
State laws any municipality that draws water from a watershed
may petition the State Commissioner of Health to establish
rules and regulations controlling pollution that might get into
the watershed . The Owasco Watershed includes a good share of
Groton and the Village of Groton . The rules as they are being
prepared I think will emerge in a form you can live with here .
The first draft was prepared in such a way that it would appear
that inspectors from the Owasco Lake Watershed would have to
come down here and issue permits on septic systems or require-
ments they would set up would be different from the rest of
Tompkins County which could create a problem for the people in
the Town of Groton and there ' s a piece of Dryden in there too .
But the way they are emerging now I think is something you are going
to be able to live with . The Tompkins County Health Department
will administer it as far as areas in Tompkins County are con-
cerned . There will be no inspectors from the Owasco Lake Watershed .
They may come down to observe but will not deal here directly . The
'kequirements will be essentially the same as those in Tompkins
County . Perhaps the only difference will be how close to a stream
you can get with a septic system . Some of those in the Owasco
area wanted to limit it so no � new- commun tiet � eould ever get into
sever systems and we pointed out we didn ' t think that should apply
to Tompkins County but in Cayuga County they may have a regulation
to that effect . If they do , it ' s pretty well agreed it will not
apply to Tompkins County .
B . Bucko ; How about the expansion ?
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s ,
F . Liguori : The expansion will not affect it . We made that point very clear
at the last meeting and I got the definite impression that if
they want to do it within their own County they may do it but
they also recognize it might not be a good thing to do to them-
selves . I ' m sure the final draft will not have that type of
restriction .
L . Raymond : Will they have public hearings or will we be asked to review the
final proposed regulations ? Where does the Town of Groton come
in ?
F . Liguori : My recollection is Frank Satterlee , John Anderson and I will be
in on it and will bird - dog it through the drafting stage and
when one comes out to be presented to the State Commissioner of
Health then it will be presented to the Town and Village to
understand exactly what it says but , at this time , we are in the
negotiating stage of things - - giving and taking - - and I ' m
reasonably satisfied what comes out of it will not have a
significant effect on Groton .
R . Gleason : Was anything said about agricultural runoff in Owasco Lake ?
F . Liguori : I think the Mayor of Auburn was suggesting that animal waste
ought to be treated about the same way as human waste ought
to be treated . He was very serious about it and I asked him if
we were to put diapers on all the cows and he didn ' t like that
but I don ' t think the way it finally comes out there will be
anything overly restrictive to Groton . Again , I ' m reasonably
satisfied it ' s coming out alright - - I ' m not saying you can
throw anything you want into the creek but I ' m saying whatever
the Health Department here requires in Tompkins County will
meet the criteria of what they will require for Owasco Lake .
G . Totman : Is there anything else we ought tD go into tonight , Roger ?
R . Gleason : I think from the discussion I did hear that you ' ve covered the
area I talked to Frank about earlier today .
G . Totman : If not , then if noone has any questions , thank you again for
coming up and we ' ll need your services . We ' re now in order
for a motion to adjourn .
C . Twigg made the motion the meeting be adjourned
which was seconded by L . Raymond and carried unanimously .
The meeting adjourned at 9 : 40 P .M .
Respectfully submitted ,
Josephine Bell .
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