Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout1980-05-28 GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD MEETING Held in the Town Hall , Groton Wednesday , May 28 , 1980 8 : 00 PM PRESENT : G . Totman - Chairman* L . Raymond - Vice -Chairman C . Twigg — Secretary D . Payne* J . MacNeil* R . Gleason G . Evans - County Planning Board* J . Bell - Recording Clerk* * - Denotes those present . Mr . Totman called the meeting to order at 8 : 30 PM and turned the floor over to Mr . Evans . The meeting was delayed in starting due to waiting for a quorum . G . Evans : I threatened to bring a bunch of stuff tonight and here it is . (Mr . Evans passed out notebooks he had prepared to all present . ) C . Twigg : Did you talk about that Helen DeMond that Lyle recommended ? He called me this morning D . . Payne : He called me late yesterday about somebody else - - - DeForest Hall . G . Evans : This stuff I handed out is part of a pile of things I was asked to bring - - one was USGS sheets of the Town of Groton . I looked around and they are temporarily out of stock We - maybe I can have them next time . What I have handed out here is a notebook including parts of the ordinance in various stages of completion and the first thing I should do is go through it and see if there are sections that I have not provided but have provided in the past at some time . One of these is the booklet of facilities and activity classifications which I handed out months and months and months ago . If you do have that with you it goes in Appendix I right after this page here . There ' s another part I handed out , I believe , at the last meeting , or the one before , and the subject is nonconformance and it ' s first page would say Section 480 - Non-Conformance and it ' s about 4-5 pages long . That goes at the far end right after the last tab in your notebook . Do you remember the outline I handed out a time ago - - it says : "Zoning Regulations outline " , - -well this is the outline on which all this is organized so if you find this and some other parts - 1 - 6 G . Evans : of this in your files at home you ' ll know where to put it . I think maybe the most productive thing to do here at this point is just to go through one of these notebooks from front to back to make sure we know where things are . G . Totman : Gary , before you start . Where do you feel we are now in this whole menagerie ? As far as you ' re concerned ? G . Evans : You mean how much more time can I spend? G . Totman : I mean how much time do you feel needs to be spent ? Just like , where do we go from here ? G . Evans : Alright - with regard to the District Regulations - - there are , . I think , three things that need to be dealt with . One is we talked briefly about an industrial zone . O . K . . and suggested that an appropriate location would be on the north side of 222 running through the east out of the village and then another location up on Route 38 at the County line . , Now that requires further dis - cussion , I think as to what would be permitted and so on . Secondly , the overall townwide district map . I think this has to be discussed and agreed on and the third thing is I think we ought to talk a little bit about what we call combining zones - - that is whether you want to _ combine your flood hazard regulations into the zoning regulations district map or not to qualify for flood insurance program you . are supposed to have some kind of regulations for flood hazard areas . G . Totman : That happened a couple of years ago , didn ' t it ? G . Evans : They have an emergency program and I think the Town of Groton is still under that program . C . Twigg : What areas - - do we have areas there ? G . Evans : Yes , along Fall Creek mostly and some around McLean , I think . J . MacNeil : That ' s Fall Creek , G . Evans : And some on Owasco Inlet north of the Village , I think . And the regulations that flood insurance administer require or prohibit against new construction in these areas . Some regulations on substantial redevelopment or rebuilding require all electrical and plumbing systems . to be above flood level and these sort of things . If you had regulations'- that apply only in the flood areas your basic ones would be combined with them for these areas and also apply so I think that needs a little bit of looking at . G . Totman : What I was getting at was how much more we had to do if we agree with what we have done so far . Then' if we can try to condense this at our June meeting so that we can then think about meeting with the Town Board and turning it over to them without prolonging it . Most people want to take the summer off so what we ' re thinking of is how much we can get done tonight so we • could try to condense it at the next meeting . - 2 - i I G . , Evans : Another thing- that I think needs to be done - - you need to look at the State Environmental Quality Review Legislation and decide whether you want to incorporate it into your zoning ordinance or not . I There are three different ways of handling State Environmental Quality j review . One is to have it as a separate ordinance - - in that case you can adopt your own or go with the State legislation - - one at I the present time operate under - the State law and youlcan combine the whole thing and make it a part of your zoning ordinance . An inter - mediate way of doing it is to incorporate what they call the Type I list which is the list of things you in this Town feel require environmental review of some kind . Now what difference does it make ? It doesn ' t make a hell of a lot of difference these three ways I have talked about . What does make a difference is that the locality make some kind of decision of the list of threshold Type I actions . The State law has certain elements which require environmental review and in the case of , a new subdivision it ' s 50 or larger . This calls for an environmental review . A 50 unit subdivision anywhere in Tompkins County would be monumental - - so the localities here have lowered the threshold to 10 or something like that so this means that particular item on the State ' s Type I list the localities have adjusted it to their needs and there are a whole bunch of different kinds of developments on this list and each of them has a threshold and the localities have the right to lower it to suit their own needs . C . Twigg : Yes , but we can,' t act on an individual basis - - if we felt that 5 units required an environmental review we could request that , right ? G . Evans : If your local law said you ' re going to - - you would have to fill out an environmental assessment form and if you review it and say it ' s ridiculous - - there ' s no serious environmental impact - then that ' s all there is to it . You file what they call a positive declaration or negative declaration saying you . are not going to do any more environmental review . Let ' s say like the Village of Trumansburg - - somebody decides they are going to do a large subdivision and wouldn ' t you be surprised to know the number is 49 and a lot of people are very upset about the environmental impact of that subdivision and yet because they have not adopted their own Type I list they can ' t require any kind of environmental impact assessment . C . Twigg : Oh , they can ' t even if they want to ? J . MacNeil : I thought we already had that in there . G . Evans : 0 . K . maybe a subdivision is not a good example . The Village of Trumansburg doesn ' t have one . G . Totman : We do . G . Evans : Anyway I think this Board should take the Type I list and go over it . 3 - G . Evans : What I ' m intending to do is to provide you with - - as part 6 of this Appendix II - - a New York State Environmental Quality Re - view procedure and a Type I list and you can take it and jimmy it ai to suit yourselves . G . Totman : You ' ll have that at the next meeting ? G . Evans : I hope so . 0 . K . , - - the other things that need to be done , I think , are just a matter of detail here and there . We will have to go through the Definitions section and I would suggest that that be left until as late as possible . Leave that as the last item . Typically a defini - tion section will be half full of terms which are not used in the ordinance . O . K . , - - can we go through this notebook I handed out this evening and then I can explain as quickly as possible what we have . The first part is Zoning Regulations - - Article I - - on the third page Section 5 should continue on for another page - - there should be an Article 3 and 4 that are missing . I ' ll get that to you later . You ' ll see I ' ve been a little bit loose with the section numbering . I have tried to renumber sections at the top of the page to indicate what kind of section numbering I had in mind . . Article II is General Regulations - - that would be the 200 series and these are all General Regulations that would apply throughout the Town and they are ones taken from your present ordinance or ones that have been reviewed and discussed at earlier meetings . The one that got the most discussion is Off- Street Parking which is shown as Section 240 . The material on Sign Regulations , which is in the next three pages - - you can see it ' s still a little bit bulky . If any of you have any ! " i+deers for condensing that down they could be considered . That ' s where they stand now . Article III - Establishment of Districts - - here in Section 303 and 304 I have tried to sketch out a difference between a medium intensity ; district appropriate to the hamlets - - McLean and Peruville being the 2 hamlets and 304 is low intensity industrial district . I have tried to say here what I think you meant . I may not have said what you thought you meant . G . Totman : O . K . You ' ve said something but we - - in making that other district down here where we have the activities checked off we don ' t have that district in there so would have to add that into what you ' re saying . We ' re talking . about 2 - 3 more sessions , - -O . K . G . Evans : But I would like to suggest we ' re not talking about another 3 -4 more months . We might be able to accelerate this . Let me tell you what another municipality is doing . The chairman nominated a committee to meet once a week with me . It was difficult to see that because it means a hell of a lot of midnight boil for me but I think it ' s - 4 - G . Evans : important at a certain point in working on this to develop a momentum and keep moving on it . J . MacNeil : Yes , I think we lost that somewhere . G . Evans : Now the next -several pages of Article III here are maps and I ' m not sure that I ' m going to be able to help you very much with this busi - ness because I ' m not really that familiar with the Town of Groton but the first three pages of maps are sectionalized town-wise zoning map . I ' ve dickered with it a little bit . I ' ve added a I zone and changed the - - - zone to a - - - - - - zone . I took the M zone out of the middle of McLean . Turn to the second page reduced the size of the industrial zone on Route 222 . I added in just a general kind of a blob on the County line on 38 . G . Totman : You didn ' t take the M out of McLean , did you ? Because that 's what you developed for the Hamlets . G . Evans : Stay with me for just a minute . I took the symbol off the map here . Now if you go on to the fourth and subsequent pages of maps you ' ll see what I have brought here is the sections of the tax maps . Now the first one I have them all in the same order is route 38 at the Town of Locke line and these are the partial boundary lines and with this map I think you can determine what specific boundaries you ' re interested in for the industrial area . C . Twigg : This is what - - the Old Stage Road at the bottom? G . Evans : Yes , Co Twigg : To the County line? G . Evans : Yes . Now the second page of detailed maps is route 222 at the east side of the village and I just have the north side of the road there be - cause that seems to be the only part you ' re interested in and it shows the boundary lines and with this you can determine what district boundary lines you ' re interested in . The next one - - the fold - out one - - is McLean . The penciled in line is the boundary line of Agricultural District No . 3 . I thought that might possibly be useful information . And the next one is the Peruville area . Peruville is mostly over to the left side of the page - Route 38 is about the middle and the railroad is a little to the right and , again , the penciled in boundary line around Peruville is the Agriculture District boundary line . C . Twigg : That don ' t include Peruville in the Ag District . i G . Evans : No . J . MacNeil : We could overlap . G . Evans : Oh , yes , this is just information . You don ' t need to follow those same boundary lines exactly or this sort of thing . G . Totman : What do you have , . Jim , - - 2 pieces of property and 2 deeds ? - 5 - J . MacNeil : Yes . G . Evans : Now the last Article is the regulations that apply to each of these 4 zones . Section 601 which should be 401 , -Rural Agri - cultural . G . Totman : Those should be 401 ? G . Evans : Yes , all these 601 should be 400 numbers . Rural Agricultural - low intensity and Section 403 is the medium intensity and 404 low intensity industrial district and here I just repeated the same statement of intent that appearred in the previous article and in the medium intensity district we . have the lot frontages , yard depth and so on that apply now in the medium intensity district . In Section 404 low intensity industrial district the minimum lot area , lot frontage and so on I believe these are the same but you may very well want to make some adjustments in that . Now the last part of these sections I went through this facility and activity type work sheet - - the rural agricultural low and medium I indicated just the way my notes were from our earlier work sessions and for the low intensity industrial district , which is the fourth column on each of these pages , I just sort of hustled through there and put something down and , in some ccases_ . D.:wrou&d say these are suggestions and in most cases I would say they are just something I wrote down . There are a few places where I got writer ' s cramp and just made a vertical line under these which means the same symbol is repeated a few times . G . Totman : You mean in areas like this you weren ' t sure what we wanted? G . Evans : My impression there was the idea was you would apply fora special permit but after the Planning Board thought it was of sufficient scale they would require a Planned Development instead . G . Totman : 0 . K . J . MacNeil : Did we have the exempt before ? G . Evans : You didn ' t use the word " exempt " you used "permitted " just the letter "P " . To be permitted means there ' s a permit involved . J . MacNeil : That ' s confusing . G . Evans : Yes . So with your facility type and activity type in hand looking over this industrial district you should be able to decide whether this is complete gibberish I have written down here or just partial gibberish but who knows maybe I hit the jackpot ! G . Totman : Well , actually , we should study this a little bit , I think everybody should look it over and at the next meeting recommend any changes rather than take your time up now . If everybody goes over it will have time to mark in their changes before the next meeting . 6 - G . Evans : If you turn to Appendix I - - the first page is just a Table of Contents and facility type and activity type applications you have seen all those . You know how those are organized but if you ' ll look at Part I Definitions - - this is just a suggestion instead of Definitions being organized according to chronology or alphabetized should be grouped by subject area . Facility- related would be something like what is a building line and so on . Now 306 there presupposes that you would have the flood hazard regulations incorporated in your - zoning ordinance and these are the definitions for that . 307 presupposes you have regulations on preservation on architectual sick buildings . A year or so ago our Department produced' a report , I think they called it Design Resources in Tompkins County and they did a survey of architectual sick buildings and historical sites and so on . I believe they sent a copy to the Town of Groton of all of their inventory forms including photographs of the buildings and so on . The purpose in doing that was to facilitate some kind of action to help preserve or perpetuate these buildings . The Committee has not exactly washed its hands of this , it ' s simply waiting for the localities to respond and typically the municipal planning boards have had a fairly active roll in getting a response to this sort of thing . 1,This , of course , could be dealt with later on or much later or not at all . I don ' t know how much interest there is in the community regarding historical buildings . G . Totman : Well , there ' s some . There ' s a committee working on it and some activity within that - - - they are doing some kind of a i study of the Town . i G . Evans : Well , I bring this up just to point out two things . One is if you are interested in preserving these buildings you can do something through zoning and secondly if you do have these I buildings designated in some fashion if and when money becomes j available for ass'ist°ing` _owners yin pre-hserVkrig the's`e eo:ld buildiQng;s if they are not designated they will not get the money and the money will go to places that do have designated buildings and preservation programs of some kind . C . Twigg : So we would have to talk to someone that is more knowledgable about them than we .are . G . Totman : If we wanted to include that we would do everything but name the buildings and then let the Historical Society designate the buildings . I think that would make more sense . We have a committee in town that have been working on that for a long , I long time and have even gone around and put plaques on them and Mrs . Court works with the Society on this . Some discussion was held by G . Totman , C . Twigg , G . Evans and others on this . G . Evans : The next section starts with Appendix II - Administrative Supplement and these are all of the parts that primarily 7 - G . Evans : cover the Zoning Officer , the Town Board , Planning Board and the Board of Appeals and the purpose for this breakdown , as I men- tioned earlier , is that the regulations part of the ordinance is just this much and all the rest of it is material which are pro - cedures , guidelines , decision criteria and so on . Now the first three pages here of Appendix II is just the Table of Contents . Part II - Administrative Boards and Procedures just has the different officers and boards and cer* i:Eicates and so on . It ' s all material that is currently in your administrative section . Ps t IlI is : Amendmentsr n`=mPart IV is Appeals and Variances and those four parts are . 'the only ones I ' ve brought this time . So Part V . VI , VII and VIII : '-are parts that I have not yet provided . Now this Table of Contents , - -I have to emphasize is just an illustration , - - it ' s not a Table of Contents of the parts as being prepared for the Town of Groton . It ' s simply to illustrate these parts which generally have these kind of things in them . Part IV , for example , - Appeals and Variances - - this . is ina.my opinion , one of the most important parts of any zoning ordinance in that it covers the operations of the Board of Zoning Appeals with respect to its appeals and variances . It lists the types of variances a Town can issue and following that are the decision criteria for issuing each of these kinds of variances . If you look at Section 406 , which has types of variances and as it happens only the first three apply to the Town of Groton because , and I think this is true , you have not adopted an official Town map , is that correct ? G . Totman: That ' s correct . G . Evans : So the top part does not apply and also there is no County official map so the fourth type of variance is superlative . G . Totman : What you ' re talking about - - this zoning map you were referring to earlier is not an official map ? G . Evans : No , - - the purpose of the official map is to determine and end any argument about the status of rights of way , - -whether they are official rights of way or not . In rural towns , there can be rights of way in which there are a lot of discussion . The purpose of the official map is to propose a map haven public hearing on it , then the Town Board adopts it and that is final . Some discussion was held on this by all . G . Evans : Anyways , Part IV - Appeals and Variances is 99% not optional , - -nearly all of it is what you call boilerplate . This is material that has been developed over 50 years . There , are . a few items in here that are variable and they are virtually all trivial but will point out the kind of thing I ' m talking about ;: Pike send x -number of copies to members of the Board , - -well that number is - 8 - G . Evans : variable - - you don ' t have to send that many copies . O . K . Section 405 - - two - thirds of the way down it says " 6: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . by the Zoning Officer" . These vary if you want to make it two copies or one , - -has to be at least one . Then such things as " . . . . . . within 30 days . . . . . " is not optional . Appeals may be amended 15 days before the public hearing - - again 15 days is pretty well agreed on as a reasonable time and there ' s no point in adjusting that . Now the whole purpose of this is to simplify the activities of the Board of Zoning Appeals and the reason for having it right - in the ordinance in my opinion is so the citizens can see where they stand on a few things . For example if the zoning officer issues a permit to your neighbor and you think it has been done erroniously you have legal standing and can appeal . Most zoning ordinances don ' t say that - - a person who thinks they have been aggrieved by the issuance of a permit are ordinarily not informed of that right . On the first page of this at the bottom: "A party other than the applicant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . or an official of the Town-. " Let us say the permit was issued in West Groton and George here thought it was done , in error he could appeal and the procedure that is followed in such a case is over here No . 411 . G . Totman : The last two pages in that section . G . Evans : And here ' s a full page of the procedures to be followed in the case of a person other than the applicant being aggrieved . Some discussion was held on this by all . G . Evans : The point I would like to make is thisis a legal right that citizens have . Whether it can be carried out smoothly or efficiently or not I think is of interest but the point isi .it is a legal right and people have the right to be informed of `it . In connection with this I have always suggested it be included in the legal notices - -I mean a list of permits issued . I just feel that once a week in the legal notices there should be a list of all permits issued . I haven ' t been able to get .' anyone to do that yet . Part .Ill - Amendments - - again this is boiler plate . Part II - Officers ., Boards and Procedures this is something we all went over in detail and I think any further review of this would be a matter of checking for references to various section numbers and that sort of thing . This Is something which I propose to do myself and if any of you want to do it too that ' s perfectly alright . But I think further review of that is probably not called for:. O . K . , - - the additional material thatla need to bring then consists of the Part V Special Permits and here I will be primarily translating the stuff on special permits that was developed in this - - anything here which is permitted with a special permit I ' ll include in that section and once we have those all listed we will need to go through that and attach any of the special conditions that are called for . Like in your present ordinance you say something or other is permitted in a certain district providing you do so and so . The State Environmental Quality Review material I will provide . The - 9 - I G . Evans : non- conformance thing , - - some of you have and some don ' t , - - that again is only slightly variable . There are certain parts of ith that can be adjusted but most of it is simply a matter of I explaining the doctrine developed through case law . And then , the last section will be Planning and Development . I ' m working on that - - primarily toward1the Town of Ithaca but what "I hope to do is once I get that finished to go through and strip it down so that it will fit the needs of the more rural towns and I hope to have that fairly soon , too , - - it will not be particularly different from the planning development review you have in your present ordinance . On this matter of definitions , -would you like me to do a full piece through that and come up with a list you can tear apart and we can argue about and all that sort of thing ? G . Totman : I think we would gain more that way , don ' t you ? G . Evans : I think it might be a more efficient way of working at it .. G . Totman : Otherwise you ' re shooting in the dark . G . Evans : O . K . , .well I guess I told you what I brought and talked about what I think the next steps are and told you what I ' m planning to bring but haven' t brought yet . G . Totman: No . 1 we havetto go over this new industrial zone and make our wishes known on that and have that ready the next time we get to - gether . We should do that first thing at the next meeting and then we have to decide what is a good night to meet and whether we should meet every week with him until we get this done or every other week . J . MacNeil : How long will it take you to preparetthe rest of the things you need ? G . Evans : I should think I would be able to have them , by being really optimistic , the week after next but to be a little safer say three weeks . Some discussion was held by all present Planning Board members on working together on what they have now between now and the next time they get together with Mr . Evans . G . Totman : What I was going to suggest is that we meet every other Tuesday : That would mean D . Payne : If we meet two weeks from now would meet the following week with Gary , right ? G . Totman : Let me check this out - - if we meet next Tuesday night and then again on the 17th with Gary , - - then . again on the 1st., - - that ' s every other week . Is Tuesday night alright? G . Evans : Yes , Tuesday night .= s O . K . G . Totman : Now it means , - -he said they appointed a committee of 3 . We ' re supposed to have 4 for a quorum . - 10 D . Payne : If we don ' t have them here the next official meeting we ' ll end up going over everything again and tearing everything apart . G . Totman: What I would like to do is give everybody the opportunity to come and if they don ' t .we say look we ' ve already discussed that , - - otherwise we ' ll be going -on this way forever . Further discussion was held on this by all . J . MacNeil : So the meetings will be June 3rd and 17th ? G . Totman: Yes . Before we adjourn this meeting we - should_ approve�thet,:minutes of the last meeting .. J . MacNeil made a motion the minutes of the April meeting be approved which was seconded by D.. Payne and motion carried. J . MacNeil : Under old business , - -has anything been done on a replacement for Mary Adams ? G . Totman : I talked to Teresa and she said she had two - three names and are% preferrably looking towards a lady member . C . Twigg%made a motion the meeting be adjourned which was seconded by J . MacNeil and motion carried.. The meeting adjourned at 10 : 05 P . M . Respectfully submitted ,, Jose hine Bell - 11 -