HomeMy WebLinkAbout1979-03-06 1
TOWN OF GROTON PLANNING BOARD MEETING
Held at the Town Hall
Groton , N . Y .
Tuesday - March 6 , 1979
8 : 00 P . M .
PRESENT : R . Gleason - Chairman * Gary Evans - County Planning Board*
G . Totman*
D . Payne* Teresa Robinson - Town Supervisor*
M . Adams *
C . Twigg
L . Raymond
J . MacNeil J . Bell - Recording Clerk*
* - Denotes those present .
Mr . Gleason called the meeting to order at 8 : 15 P .M .
R . Gleason : Are there any corrections or additions to the minutes of our last
meeting ? Lyle brought me some but I don ' t have them with me .
If not , they stand approved as presented .
0 . K . we ' ll start with reports . Shall we discuss this railroad
business first ?
Mr . Totman brought out a map of the railroad
showing Groton into Locke and the part the
Planning Board wants to discuss .
G . Evans : At the last meeting , you asked me two specific questions about this and
one was for an estimate of how much it would cost to convert the
railroad right - of-way to a Town road and the rule of thumb for estimat-
ing this is about one million dollars a mile if no special obstacles
so if you were interested in extending the Town road on the existing
right of way to provide frontage for industries or something it wouldn ' t
have to be a mile , - - it could be a quarter of a million for a quarter of
a mile .
The second question I was asked if this area was suitable for industrial
development and I checked on a report we did where we evaluated the
_ entire county and produced a map of physically suitable sites and arranged
them in three levels , in terms of what it would cost to develop them for
residential , industrial or whatever use and the area on either side of
the road here , - - this section here , - -was in the most expensive category
and this is because it ' s an unsatisfactory area , - - footings would be
difficult to get in place - -probably be a lot of frost , - -heaving founda-
tions and would have to be very deep and any kind of a roadway in there
would have to have a deep base of gravel and so on and if we compare it
with the one you already have for industrial development this would be
much , much more expensive to develop than the other one .
R . Gleason : Which way is that , - - south of the Village?
G . Evans : Yes , south of the village to Peruville .
R . Gleason : 0 . K .
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D . Payne : Going over the minutes of the last meeting , George ' s suggestion about
turning it back to the landowners , - -wouldn ' t it be better to do that
and if they decided to sell or develop the land let them develop it to
the Town specifications ?
R . Gleason : This is what we wanted to find out .
G . Evans ; I think that would be one way of guaranteeing it wouldn ' t happen , - - the
cost would be really terrific for an individual developer to take on .
R . Gleason ; 0 . K .
D . Payne : 0 . K . , if the Town was to invest that kind of money , what kind of pay
back could they expect to get in tax base ?
G . Evans : I don ' t think it would be worth it . The land on both sides would be
so expensive to develop hardly anybody would want to do it .
Also there were questions regarding the liability to the Town for use
of this property for incidental hiking and recreational type of things
and for this question I referred to the New York State General Obliga-
tions Law and it says : "Towns owe no duty to keep places safe for
entry or use for others for . . . . . . fishing . . . . . . " and so on "or to give
warning of any hazardous condition or use . . . . . What this is saying ,
as I understand it , is if the Town were to own that right- of-way and
it was to be used for recreational purposes this act exempts the Town
from any liability .
G . Totmant Is that something that has been enacted in the last 6 months ?
G . Evans : May 1977 .
G . Totman : I went to many meetings in Ithaca and this is why the County was against
it .
G . Evans : The distinction is they were going to develop it and maintain it . This
is the catch . If you improve this specifically for recreational use you
are in effect saying it ' s safe for recreational use thereby incurring
some responsibility . If you simply own it and permit these things to
take place then you aren ' t liable .
R . Gleasnn : This is the same type of law that applies to private lands that they passed
last year . Another question I forgot to bring up on the railroad is are
they obligated to maintain fences , bridges and so on ? Do you happen to
have anything on that ?
G . Evans : No , I don ' t .
R . Gleason : I guess this is the other type of liability they were thinking about .
G . Evans : I ' m just guessing but I would assume it would be the -same as a Town road .
They have no obligation to put fences between the road and private
properties do they ?
R . Gleason : No , however , if it reverts back to the clauses in the - - -when the rail -
road , acquired the right -0f-way whether the same clauses would apply to
2 -
e
a
R . Gleason : the municipality?
G . Evans : I see what you mean . Again , I ' m just guessing but I think - -
Some discussion was held on this by R . Gleason ,
G . Evans and others .
R . Gleason : What is the pleasure of the Board ?
D . Payne : I guess , what you ' re saying is , if it goes to the Town would be off
the tax rolls forever and if it reverted to the landowners we might
get it back on the tax rolls as far as development goes it ' s a very ,
very slim possibility .
R . Gleason : You would have a few acres that would go on the tax rolls .
G . Totman : But you wouldn ' t notice that much difference . We ' re only talking
about the places outside of the Village , not inside . ,
R . Gleason : This statement was made - - why should we let this go back to the
land owners when it would increase the value of their property by
$ 20 , 000 - - now he was referring to farms . But the point is ,
in the case of a farm it could increase its value by being a divided
farm back together and the same thing could happen to other parcels .
G . Evans : Of course the divided farm was divided by the railroad because its
tracks were there but if it was a Town right - of-way you would have
access to go across there .
Some discussion was held on this By G . Evans , R .
Gleason and others .
G . Evans : There were two final points I wanted to make can this subject and that
is if the Town were interested in purchasing this right - of-way and
and didn ' t have the funds to do so they could request the County or
the Department of Environmental Conservation to purchase it and they
might not have the money to do it either but at least there . are other
agencies that could accomplish this if the Town were unable to . I
spent some time this afternoon talking with the coordinator of the
Environmental Management Council and he is just trying to sum up
their position on this and he said since nobody really knows what the
effect of these things being open as public rights - of-way , nor the
effect of reverting . to abutting property owners - - this is what the
Council would like to have happen is to keep the options and try the
public right-of-way and if it turns out to be a mess of some kind then
it could be reverted to the property owners . What he suggested is
maintain public ownership until we know what is the best use for it .
R . Gleason : On the way back to Ithaca from New York I was talking to Shirley
Rothenberger and they were really interested -in having a hiking and
jogging trail to get the people off the highways around there .
They are concerned about getting the joggers off the roads - - they
are getting to be dangerous . So I don ' t know - -
I think this information we have here should be given to the Town
Board .
D . Payne : Right .
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R . Gleason : And then whatever you people want to do .
G . Totman : You want to change what we did last month , then ?
R . Gleason : Not necessarily , - - just want you to confirm what we did last month .
We do have this information and should pass it on and you can
make the recommendation the way you had it or change it .
(Mary Adams asked for a copy of the February minutes so
she could see what the motion was since she wasn ' t at
that meeting . )
R . Gleason : Gary , do you have some material there to pass out ?
G . Evans : This is the ordinance revision stuff .
R . Gleason : 0 . K .
G . Evans : My understanding was your resolution was that it would not
be used for recreational purposes .
R . Gleason : And that it revert to the land owners .
G . Totman : She didn ' t say it quite the way I said it .
(Mr . Totman read aloud from the minutes how the resolution
was typed up and went on to say that after discussion it
was added to . . . . . . . )
G . Totman : Basically , what we ' re saying is we are recommending to the Town
that they offer it back to the original land owners and /or adjacent
property owners to do as they see fit provided the Town doesn ' t
see any portion of it that could be used for the betterment of the
Town .
R . Gleason : Actually the Town can ' t do that , really , because they don ' t own it
but they can relinquish claim to it . In other words we are saying
they should relinquish their claim if they can find no use for it .
G . Totman : The way I understand it , the Town would exercise their claim to it
and then for what they have paid for it on an equal share basis so
much per square foot or acre turn it back to the original property
owners .
Further discussion was held on this by R . . Gleason , M .
Adams , G . Totman and others .
G . Totman : Basically all we can do is to recommend to the Town what we think
and they will do as they see fit .
R . Gleason : In other words , what you ' re saying is that the Town not exercise
any claim , - - that was the essence of the motion . Mary , do you
understand what we ' re saying and do you agree with it ?
M . Adams : Right . Yes , I agree with it .
R . Gleason : Then we have the motion so will leave it like that and pass the
information on to them .
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D . Payne : Also the information Gary gave us tonight .
G . Totman : Yes , they might want to look into that . Do you want that map ?
R . Gleason : Where did it come from?
G . Totman : From the New York State Department of Transportation . You can
have them to study or whatever . Teresa has a copy .
R . Gleason : 0 . K . so we really don ' t need it .
G . Evans : I have something written out on what I said at my office and will
dig, it out and send it to you .
R . Gleason : Send it to Teresa and the Town Board .
0 . K . , - - let ' s get on with this revision of the zoning ordinance
unless somebody has any other business .
G . Evans : Are we absolutely finished with this now ? Well , - - I have some blank
spaces I need to ask about , - - Sections 341 and 342 .
R . Gleason : Oh , yes , I have some blank spaces in here .
G . Evans : 0 . K . on Occupation 341 in the house and 342 outside the house
means commercial or industrial activities taking place on com-
mercial lots , - - I have it marked for low intensity but not
for agricultural or medium .
G . Totman : We have the agricultural taken care of .
G . Evans : 0 . K .
G . Totman : 0 . K . , - -now we ' re going to do the medium . Medium in our zoning
ordinance is the commercial areas so designated in the Town of
Groton that are supposedly commercial so they should be allowed
because that is the purpose of the medium intensity zone .
R . Gleason : The problem is , - - Jim said "hey , not in McLean . "
Some discussion was held on this by G . Totman ,
R . Gleason and others .
R . Gleason : On 341- 1 - 5 what is your wish ?
D . Payne : I have a note here on mine we 341 . 1 everything says special
limitations that we talked about earlier .
G . Evans : At the present time they are permitted in all 3 districts .
(Mr . Evans read aloud from the ordinance on this . )
But the point is here that they are permitted in all 3 at the
present time .
R . Gleason : Well , I was thinking there were some general provisions about
off- street parking and so on which would apply to these but
maybe I ' m wrong .
- 5 On
(Mr . Evans read aloud from another part of the zoning
ordinance about parking . )
R . Gleason : So we do have some things that would apply .
G . Evans : In your general regulations you would retain that home
occupations have these additional parking places .
R . Gleason ; What page are you on?
G. Evans : I don ' t know but it ' s Article XI , Section 1101 . 10 .
R . Gleason : Well , here again , that ' s where this index you are talking about
would be handy because Teresa asked me a question the other day
about how you determine the different zones and I just found it
now but couldn ' t find it then .
0 . K . , so that would cover it . So in view of that fellows do you
think on 341 - 1- 5 in the medium intensity zone we should go
along with a zoning permit ?
0 . K . , - -now restricted impact activities 342 - 1 -4 . Do we have
anything in regard to things like this already ?
G . Evans : I don' t think so .
G . Totman : On a zoning permit they have to apply for permit , explain what
they are going to be doing and have it investigated .
R . Gleason ; Right but on 342 we have to know what the restrictions are .
G . Evans : This is for home occupation but not in the house , - - in a building
on the house lot .
R . Gleason ; Well , again , you have some things , - - if you have another building
it would have to come under different deal like side yardage and
so forth so what should these be , - - zoning permit or special
permit ?
D . Payne : I almost think you need special permit for 2 , 3 and 4 .
G . Totman ; To me this medium zone is for everything that is in 342 . That is
why we have that zone .
R . Gleason : So what do you think ? Zoning permit ? Anybody else have any
comments ? 0 . K . 1 -4 zoning permit .
G . Evans : I have one more question that has to do with Section 335 item 5
Field & F6r.es:tPPrdduc'.ti+oneunderwl, low. and-imediu - I>dh'ave = 11-auks =there .
R . Gleason : Under low I have special permit .
G . Totman ; And under agricultural - zoning permit .
R . Gleason : So the only one we are lacking is under the medium intensity zone , -
- what is your wish ? Special permit ?
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G . Evans : One of the questions I wrote down last time was how do you
enforce a special permit on this kind of activity ?
G . Totman : More and more , as the Town develops , that kind of activity will
diminish anyways in the medium zone .
R .. Gleason : Right , but it might be 20 - 30 years .
G . Totman : I ' d call it permitted . In the low zone you have to have more
control , though .
R . Gleason : He just said you couldn ' t enforce it .
G . Totman : Yes , but the low zone is the residential zone .
R . Gleason : We have it in the agricultural zone by zoning permit . Just
change No . 335 . 5 Field & Forest to zoning permit under agricul -
tural , in the low intensity special permit and zoning permit in
the medium .
Some discussion was held on this by G . Evans , D . Payne ,
R . Gleason and others .
G . Evans : It would be an established non- conforming activity that you
couldn ' t do anything about . So regardless of what the zoning
says about it , it won ' t have much effect . This is why I see
having this as a permitted activity and letting people know .
Further discussion was held on this by G . Totman ,
G . Evans , R . Gleason and others .
G . Evans : There are some kind of agricultural activities that are pretty
noxious if permitted in a residential zone .
D . Payne : Wouldn ' t that come under more commercial zone than Field and
Forest Production ? 5 is the one we ' re talking about right
now , isn ' t it?
G . Evans : Yes , - - the only thing I ' m thinking about really is light supply-
ing . . Some people get really upset by supplying nearby and , other
than manure spreading - - pretty (ears; to get used to that - - and
that ' s about it as far as the noxious effects of the activity
are concerned .
R . Gleason : Well , it ' s up to you people what you want to do with this low , - -
we have it now as special permit - 335 . 5 low intensity zone , - -
Mary do you have any comments ?
M . Adams : I ' ll let you fellows do it . I don ' t understand it that much .
I think George understands it better than any of us .
D . Payne : I understand what George is saying but I don ' t understand how
you can enforce it .
G . Totman : You ' re talking about 2 different things , - - field and forest pro -
duction .
G . Evans : Yes , - - to include orchards and so forth , - - christmas trees .
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G . Totman : Logging and so forth .
G . Evans : Yes ,
G . Totman : The vast majority of our Town is agricultural which affords a
lot of opportunities for that type of thing and in my estima-
tion the value of these different zones is to separate these
things out so if someone wants to build a $ 50 , 000 home and
doesn ' t want some of these things happening in that area - - we have
low intensity in our Town and it ' s very small area and I don ' t
think we should allow those things to happen there . Harvesting
crops is not offensive but if someone is going in there operating
a chain saw nights it ' s really not what people are looking for -
ward to when they want to have a quiet house out in the country .
G . Evans : I can look into this further to see if there ' s any experience on
this type of thing .
R . Gleason : I do know the Town of Horseheads has an ordinance on forests and
the DEC have worked on that and I know they have developed an
ordinance in regard to forest practice in certain zones and it
may be in this case they would , - - for instance one thing is there
can be .no clear cutting .
0 . K . so we ' ll just leave a question mark on that one . We have
covered it all now except for that one small item .
G . Evans : Right . While we ' re talking about the mexium intensity zone I
thought I might bring up again the question of whether downtown
metropolitan McLean and this 1 - 2 mile strip along the Groton-
Cortland Road are sufficiently similar that the mexium intensity
zone applies to both of them .
R . Gleason : This is the question I raised .
G . Evans : This is not something that has to be resolved right now but it
seems to me they are quite different .
G . Totman ; The reason this was put there in the beginning was businesses
were already there and if you made it anything else you would
make those businesses non- conforming which would be a detri -
ment to the businesses already there so in the very beginning
that was why that was put there so as not to discourage what
we already had in the Town and to leave some areas that might
develop some more businesses .
G . Evans : Right , - -I can see they are protecting what ' s there and that is
a reasonable use of zoning but the . Gretpn- Cortland Road is
mostly undeveloped .
G . Totman : It ' s developed more now than when it was put in .
R . Gleason : There ' s Peter and Sons and 2 other motor shops or repair busi -
nesses up there now .
D . Payne ; But the McLean area is now medium - - runs itself more to the low
intensity setting .
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G . Evans : I ' m just bringing this up because of the differences of the
setting of the two places and just raising the question whether
one district is trying to do the work of two .
R . Gleason : That ' s what I ' ve wondered about too . We ' re really talking about
agricultural area that could possibly become commercial .
G . Totman : This only covers 1 , 000 ft . each way from the square in McLean .
(Mr . Evans passed out copies to all present of
(Articles I and II of the proposed Zoning Ordinance . )
G . Evans : This is a fairly rough draft and , in fact , you might find other
Towns than Groton mentioned in there .
Article I - Introduction covers a number of items two of which
are in your present ordinance . The official statement of the
title and purpose and they appear here as Sections 101 and
102 . Section 100 - Establishment of the Ordinance - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
in the present ordinance which was just a sort of legal notice .
It would be possible here also to make reference to the section
of New York State Town Law in which the Town has the authority
to pass this other ordinance . In fact , why don ' t we do that ?
Section 103 - Interpretation is just the relocation of a section
that is in your present ordinance under miscellaneous which
seems to be hardly not miscellaneous at all , and a Statement of
the Administrative philosophy of the zoning ordinance . It also
states the General Construction Provision which is when it con-
flicts with some other ordinance whichever has the highest
requirement prevails .
Section 104 - Availability - - this is really optional and you
can charge any price you want . Ordinarily a price is fixed
which would cover the cost of producing it . You don ' t sell them
as a revenue source . You would be surprised how much they cost
to produce .
G . . Totman : I like Section 105 . I think that would help everybody .
G . Evans : This is just the first page of maybe three or four that would be
required for your ordinance .
R . Gleason : I think that ' s really good .
G . Evans : This does a number of things , - - it ' s a table of contents which
shows you the overall structure of the ordinance and helps you
to understand what it ' s trying to do and the column on the
right is effective date . . Each section would have the date on
which that section is adopted . If you ever find yourself in
Court you ' re going to have to reconstruct exactly what sections
were in effect at that time which is the purpose of these dates .
It saves your attorney a number of hours of work .
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G . Evans ; Now , let ' s imagine that at some time in the future , - -heaven
tfoibhild - - you should want to revise the ordinance again .
Maybe you might decide you want another- district , - -you would
have to have district regulations and changes in your zoning
map so that would mean that somewhere in here you would add
some sections with their effective dates and in another place
you would have the section where your zoning map is and you
would yank that and replace it with the new one and this
section that has that information on it you would also replace
with a revised list of effective sections .
Now , moving on to the next section - - what I have done here is
to take four articles of your existing ordinance and kept them
and added a few items as well .
The purpose of this article is to establish the various officers
and boards that are involved in zoning , to describe the various
permits and certificates and what have you that are required .
It goes into some detail about how things get referred from one
board to another , what happens when you violate the zoning
ordinance , how you amend it , what kind of fees you pay and the
different kinds of actions and that sort of thing . So if you
want to go through it from front to back I can describe the
sections as we go .
Section 200 establishes the Zoning Enforcement Officer , - -I assume
that is the title you use for that person .
Section 201 should say zoning permit .
R . Gleason : There ' s one thing we have in our list we have permitted which I
interpreted to mean no permit required but then it says now
"when required . "
G . Evans : I may have to put a proviso in there , because permitted without a
permit is new . The present ordinance doesn ' t talk about that at
all .
The difference between building and zoning permit . You don ' t have
a building code you ' re enforcing . If you did than the zoning
ordinance simultaneously would be - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - permit .
201 . 2 when required . You notice there are two here and I think
it ' s important that we look at the difference between these two .
The first talks about facilities and the second talks about
activities . In going through this chart that we have been going
over for the last several meetings we have talked about these .
They are different . Even if you are not building something but
establishing a new activity a zoning permit is required and if
you building something a zoning permit is required .
R . Gleason : Except you have to write in this business about "permitted " .
G . Evans : Section 201 . 2 add at the end of the last paragraph after zoning
enforcement office "or other proper permit . "
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G . Evans : 201 . 3 last paragraph , - - the purpose of that is simply to remind
the zoning officer that as long as the application is in the
works it ' s not public record . Once the permit is issued or
the application is referred to a Board than it becomes public
information .
201 . 4 - Posting . It ' s one of those things that some places are
very keen on and some places don ' t care at all and I don ' t know
how you feel about it . It ' s really the only way a neighbor can
find out that a permit was issued if it ' s posted . So for that
purpose it ' s a desirable practice .
201 . 5 - Expiration . The expiration , after one year , is a standard
procedure but if , for some reason , you wish you can make it for
a longer period and the last sentence you can leave to the zoning
officer ' s discretion but if he refuses to extend it that is some -
thing that can be taken to the Board of Appeals by the applicant .
201 . 6 Revocation - - this is the policing function .
G . Totman : If that is done , that ' s an important part of the whole thing .
G . Evans : This is a difficult thing .
Section 202 - Certificate of Zoning Compliance - - this is a
renaming of the Certificate of Occupancy and the purpose of re-
naming it is to avoid confusion of a certificate of the same
name issued by the County Health Department which has to do
with the septic system . As a general practice these certificates
are not required for everything . Usually they are reserved for
larger types of things , - - for instance for just a single house you
would not issue one . Something like an apartment house or PUD - -
something like that which would be occupied by someone other than
the builder a Certificate of Zoning Compliance would be more in
order .
Now I have some speculative paragraphs here - 202 . 1 - 202 . 2 . These
kinds of certificates , as a part of the zoning enforcement , are
really more attuned to an urban situation than to a rural one .
In a large city where most of the buildings are occupied by
renters , some of those you might rent or lease before the building
is completed and once it is all rented out the builder might for-
get some of the amenities that are required and this certificate
is to protect the future occupants . The need for it in rural
areas is less pressing except for PUD .
Section 202 second last line change Article XVII to Section 211 .
We needn ' t dwell on this but one of the things we need to know is
what kind of permits will be required before a building can be
occupied .
R . Gleason : Where did you want to put it ? Right in here ?
G . Evans : Yes in the Applicability .
G . Totman : Definitely for PUD and have what we call special permit .
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R . Gleason : Maybe we should say anything deemed to require SEQUA or impact
statement .
G . Evans : That ' s another possibility there - - right . 0 . K . could add
special permits , environmental quality review .
R . Gleason : I was thinking anything that would be a major impact .
D . Payne : Anything other than a zoning permit .
G . Evans : Yes , I think that makes sense .
R . Gleason : Even some zoning permits might have to have SEQUA .
G . Evans : This would cover it then .
R . Gleason : Even some permitted activities , - - it ' s conceivable in some zone
they could be of such scope that they could require SEQUA .
G . Evans : If it ' s something the Town permits without any review you would
not have jurisdiction for SEQUA review .
R . Gleason : That ' s right . I was thinking there was some agricultural
facilities that are going to be requiring , - -O .K . commercial
farm headquarters is permitted but it ' s conceivable that , in
my understanding , large commercial livestock facilities are
going to require a permit from the State if they are over a
certain size . Now - -
G . Evans : 0 . K . , - -well if SEQUA was called for they would be the lead
agency so you wouldn ' t have to be concerned about it .
R . Gleason : 0 . K . , - -I wasn ' t sure .
G . Evans : Section 202 . 5 Appeals - - this is a reminder that any decision
the zoning officer makes may be appealed .
Section 203 - Certificate of Conformance . You don ' t have one
of these now and very , very few municipalities do . This was
developed to respond to a situation reported by the zoning
officer in Danby . He says that - - - - - - - - - - - - - - institutions are
requesting information from him frequently about whether certain
property conforms with the zoning ordinance or not and this
simply establishes that as an official certificate issued by
the zoning officer . It tells you how to apply for it , what it ' s
for , what the procedure is , what it ' s contents are .
G . Totman : It ' s good , - - that ' s protective . It ' s very conceivable some lots
around could be scold: that if a person didn ' t understand the
zoning ordinance wouldn ' t know until after they bought it .
G . Evans : Section 204 - Approval of County Health Department . This is
simply to state what the law is in the County .
R . Gleason : One question , - -O . K . I have to have a permit to put up a grain bin
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• R . Gleason : - - it doesn ' t require Health Department because there are no
sanitary facilities , - - so how does that , - - this doesn ' t apply ?
G . Evans : It says "in compliance with the rules and regulations of the
County Health Department " - - therefore it doesn ' t apply .
G . Totman ; Under 205 . 3 that is not the way it looks in our Town . Oh , wait
a minute , - - I ' m sorry , - - the Town Board does do it in our Town .
That ' s the way they do it in our Town . This is good . This is
what we talked about before - - having something in here explain-
ing what the Board of Appeals is .
T . Robinson : I found pamphlets at home that tell what it is but have no rules
and regulations .
R.. Gleason : We - were talking about granting special permits and PUDS and so on .
At the present time, . special permits are granted by the Zoning Board
of Appeals I believe but then there are other types of permits that
only the Town Board actually issue . The Zoning Board of Appeals
can do it under certain conditions but under other conditions the
Town Board can do it under their broad powers and so on . They can
retain all those powers or appoint .
G . Evans : You ' re talking about special permits . This is up to the Town
Board which can retain all of them or delegate some but not others .
R . . Gleason ; The only problem there is talking in New York the Zoning Board of
Appeals can only grant them under certain guidelines .
G . Evans ; The Town Board must also specify the criteria to be used if they
delegate that power .
205 . 5 specifies some of the things the Zoning Board of Appeals can -
not do .
205 . 6 deals with this business of the special permits where State
law says the Zoning Board of Appeals can hear and decide or
recommend on any other issues referred to it .
206 - Special Permits . This is written as though the Town Board
has reserved some of the special permit procedures and has
delegated others .
206 . 2 refers to the delegated ones and 206 . 3 to the retained ones .
Whether you want , in fact , to do that or not we ' ll get into later .
In delegating special permit power to the Zoning Board of Appeals
the Town Board can also establish the procedures , one of which
can be that the application is referred to the Planning Board for
its review and recommendations . This is just general information
here and the detailed procedures and contents of applications and
notification and so on appears in Article VII special permits .
Section 207 - Actions Directed by the Zoning Board of Appeals .
Now there are problems sometimes with their decisions getting
13 -
I
G . Evans : on to paper and into the hands of the people who need them so
that they can proceed and this . is an effort to deal with that
fairly directly and that is that what the Zoning Board of
Appeals does is actually instruct the zoning officer to issue
the permit . Sometimes this is a little time consuming so it
also says that a letter from the Zoning Board of Appeals or a
copy of the Board ' s meeting notifying the applicant or appellant
can serve .
Section 208 - Amendments Procedure for the Ordinance . This is
really just copied down out of State law . It tells who has to
be notified , what kind of zoning is required , etc .
Section 209 is some more use of State law . This is Section
239 L and M of the General Municipal Law for certain actions
relating to zoning and variance amendments , special permits
have to be referred to County Planning Office before taking
final action .
Section 210 - Schedule of Fees . These fees here are just ones .-
I don ' t know what kind of fees you would want to charge . The
purpose of the fee is to cover your cost . . It ' s not to be a
revenue source . The cost of advertising in the official paper
changes from time to time . These are the ones they are using in
Danby and they are based on estimates of what 4t . costs them to
administer the ordinance .
Section 210 - I think the fees for special permit and amendment
to zoning ordinance including PUD should be the same to be
consistent .
Section 211 - Violation Procedures and Penalties . This is the
one your Town Attorney will be most interested in because when -
ever you go into Court with this ordinance this is the section
that the . Town Attorney has to deal with primarily . Now this
is intended to be a sort of a cook book . It tells you who is
involved , what they do and when they are supposed to do it .
M . Adams : Now what do we do , - -put this all together with the charts and
give it to . the Town Board ?
G . Totman : It has to have a lot of revision to it .
R . Gleason : Is everybody up to 214 ? Any comments anybody ?
G . Evans : Most people are not aware of the fact that private citizens can
institute a procedure with regard to the enforcement of the
zoning ordinance . The general philosophy of this whole article
is that the powers of the private citizen with regard to zoning
need to be in here otherwise they have no way of finding out so
there ' s a lot of stuff in here that you will find in most exist -
ing zoning ordinances simply because they are dealing not with
the powers of the zoning officer or any of the Boards but the
powers of private individuals who feel that there has been a
violation or disagree with some decision somebody ' s made .
14 -
D . Payne ; 211 . 6 item 5 seems sort of odd that private citizens have
to pay for publishing the notice .
R . Gleason : You don ' t want to make it too easy because if a person doesn ' t
have to invest anything - -
G . Evans : If you look at 211 . 5 you ' ll see that one individual cannot
institute a proceeding . It takes you and 5 other residents
or land owners in the Town .
Some discussion was held on this by R . Gleason ,
D . Payne , G . Evans and others .
R . Gleason : But this spells out what the zoning officer has to do , what
the people have to do and I think that is part of our pro -
blem all along , - -nobody knew exactly what they had to do .
This looks good .
Anything George ? Mary ? Don ? Any more comments ?
Gary , do you have anything more for tonight ?
G . Evans ; Just the last three sections . These are boilerplate . . Now
there are other things that could be in this article . If you
are to get involved in design review or something of this
sort and established a design review board or assigned cer-
tain functions of that sort to the Planning Board the place
where that would be stated would be in this section here .
In other words any kind of new function assigned to any
board could be done in this article on administration .
I don ' t know of any such things that you have in mind but if
you do can find ' a place here for them .
I have some questions before I leave . My bookkeeping is
not all that reliable , - -I don ' t have a good record of what
articles and sections and so on I have handed out to you so
far . Seems I handed one out on variances and appeals .
R . Gleason : Yes .
G . Evans : Do you have an item called Article 9 ?
R . Gleason : I don ' t remember that .
G . Totman ; No , we don ' t .
G . Evans : 0 . K . , - - I was thinking that I handed out this article on
appeals and variances to everyone at the same time .
R . Gleason : Yes , I have it right here .
G . Evans ; 0 . K . so you have that .
On March 19th I ' m meeting with the Zoning Board of Appeals
here on variances and appeals and after - - - - - - - - - = - through
15 -
G . Evans ; this can tell you right now it will be a matter of going
through this book with the Board . I wrote to these people
at least twice asking for more copies but can ' t get them .
R . Gleason : I ordered some and George did so we have quite a few .
G . Evans : One other question and that is the cost of producing these
things that I hand out to you We an it ' s not insignificant
and if you have a budget for this revision work it wouldn ' t
hurt my feelings at all to have this duplicating work done
by a commercial firm and charged to your account .
R . Gleason : Teresa , how do we do this ? We have x number of dollars
budgeted ?
T . Robinson : I ' ll have to check and see .
Some discussion was held on this by T . Robinson , G .
Totman , R . Gleason and others .
G . Totman : I make a motion that we request the Town Supervisor
to have the Town Board pay for the necessary costs of
the printing of the proposed zoning ordinance docu-
ment that will be given to the Town Board ,
M . Adams : I second the motion .
The motion carried unanimously .
G . Evans : Then I ' ll take the work to Acrographics and tell them it is
to be billed to the Town of Groton , - - they will do the work
give me a copy of it and when I come to the meeting will
give it to you .
T . Robinson : The only thing is - - how much are they going to ask for ?
G . Evans : Let ' s see . Seven cents a page is what it would work out
to and I think , making 10 copies , would be about right , so
tonight we had - -
D . Payne : Close to 20 pages .
G . Evans : That would be $ 14 . 20 .
G . Totman : So you ' re talking about something like $ 100 to us ?
T . Robinson : All I ' m saying is they are going to ask what do you mean $ 300 ,
$ 400 or $ 500 .
R . Gleason : Anything else to come before the Board tonight ?
G . Totman made the motion the meeting be adjourned
which was seconded by M . Adams and carried .
The meeting adjourned at 10 : 30 P . M .
Respectfully sub ' tted ,
16 - Josephine Bell