HomeMy WebLinkAbout1980-07-08 GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD MEETING
Held in the Town Hall at
Groton , N . Y .
Tuesday - July 8th , 1980
8 * 00 P . M .
PRESENT : G . Totman - Chairman* G . Evans - County Planning Board*
L . Raymond - Vice -Chairman*
C . Twigg - Secretary*
J . MacNeil*
D . Payne
R . Gleason J . Bell - Recording Clerk*
* - Denotes those present .
Mr . Totman called the meeting to order !.
at 8 : 30 P . M .
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J . MacNeil moved the minutes of the last meeting
be approved which was seconded by L . Raymond and
motion carried .
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Mr . Evans passed out copies of revised General Regulations ,
Article 2 to all present .
G . Evans : Now we ' re talking about General Regulations 200 -203 and the parts
that I ' ve added here are ' the - - - - - - - - - - of the language . In 201 i
Development and Occupancy . and in the previous version it said a
lot or facility may be developed and so on and says nothing about
activities being established so I have added an activity map - - - - -
" in a facility or on a road only lf . . . . . . . . . . "
What this means is the ordinance is controlling not only lots and
facilities but the establishment of activities as well .
L . Raymond : Is there a reason for stating it here in addition to having it in
the body of the regulations ?
G . Evans This is the body of the regulations .
L . Raymond : But we have regulations on both of these , right ? You ' ll find details
later on .
G . Evans : It ' s a kind of historical meaning and there ' s a fairly wide spread
assumption that zoning applies only to buildings and this is to
confront this assumption and expel it right at the beginning .
L . Raymond : For those who bother to read the first page .
G . Evans : And also in the previous version there was a statement to the effect
that facilities and activities were apparently permitted , - - that is
to say the ordinance lists the things that are permitted . If
it ' s not listed that means it ' s not permitted it ' s prohibited . I
expanded that statement somewhat because at the last meeting I
attended we talked about the categories 'of things for which no
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G . Evans : no permit was being required at all . So I don ' t know if it was
with this group or if I hatched it myself but I call that allowed .
202 - what I have said here is " the ordinance regulations are . . . . . "
Now in the allowed category " establishment . . . . . and zoning permit
issued by zoning enforcement official . . . . . . . . . . , , and then permitted
with special permit . . . . . . . . " All of those have a special permit and
the prohibited categories " any facility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . is expressly
prohibited . " So anything that doesn ' t show up under one of those
three categories is prohibitied .
Now in the table you handed me in the beginning - - one of the items
there I think we called it permitted .
G . Totman : In the items we went over we had 4 zones - not permitted , zoning
permit , special permit , PUD only and exempt .
G . Evans : 0 . K . exempt or allowed are the same . You might prefer exempt
but is it clear what I ' m trying to do here ?
G . Totman : Yes ,
G . Evans : Section 203 is where I tried to deal with Planned Unit Development .
"The Board . . . . . . . . . . . . "
Now the difference between those two as to procedure is : 1 . a special
permit application that meets all of the specified criteria must be
issued - - if it ' s the Board of Zoning Appeals there ' s a list of
criteria which the application must meet and if it meets those it ' s
no longer a discretionary matter - - you have the money - - you get
the ticket . -
Mow , with PUD that ' s a request for rezoning it ' s a legislative
matter - - the Town Board does it and the argument can be overwhelming
and they still don ' t have to do it . Another aspect is property owners
) bordering PUD have special rights with regard to rezoning . If the
people holding property within 100 ft . of the - - - - - - - - - - if 207. of the
owners make a formal protest - - it could be a letter to the Town Board
saying we don ' t want this . It could still be adopted but by a majority
of 4 out of 5 . So these are the things that are different . I have
never come across any legal opinion or anything in the literature on
zoning to suggest that this is an appropriate or legal thing for the
Board to be able tD do . I haven ' t found any authority for that . On
the face of it , it looks to me like it ought to be a permitted pro -
cedure . The criteria for issuance .of all special permits are stated
in very broad terms and so the Board could simply draw : on one of
those criteria and say sorry it doesn ' t meet that particular - criteria
so will deny . the special permit , however would suggest you resubmit
it as a PUD proposal . I think that would be considered legitimate
exercise of the Board ' s power .
L . Raymond : Do you have any towns in the area around here in Tompkins County or
immediate surrounding counties - - something like Groton - - that
have actually gone through a PUD ?
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G . Evans : Oh , yeah .
L . Raymond : How has it worked out ?
G . Evans : It has usually been done for a single purpose rather than for a
mixture of different kinds of things integrated in a complex of
some kind . It has been misused by some of the municipalities as
a technique for basically spot zoning , '- It has not been done with all
of the caution and legal safeguards that - the procedure does actually
allow the Town to use . In . PUD it ' s a negotiation procedure between
the Town Board and the developer . And typically the Town Board does
not insist on a PUD agreement or contract or some kind of statement
of assent which is signed by say the Town Supervisor and developer
which has in it a specific statement of what the developer intends
to do . This step is usually just forgotten about and also typically
the review or policing of the development to see whether , in fact ,
what he said he was going to do has been done is also overlooked .
C . Twigg : If the Town Board got out of line with this and used it for spot
zoning the applicant still has the recourse of the Courts to come
back on the Town Board saying that they didn ' t have a legitimate
reason for asking for a PUD .
G . Evans : These things are possible . I really don ' t know . When you ' re
talking in generalities it ' s almost impossible to come to a con-
clusion on these things , because you assume some degree of . common
sense by all parties involved which can throw all that into a
cocked hat .
. Some discussion - was held on this by G . Evans , L . Raymond ,
G . Totman and others .
G . Evans : You might look this page over and see if this does , in fact , . .express
your desires on this and I think when you get to the point where you
have your Town Attorney review this you might point that section out
to see if he thinks there ' s anything weird about it .
Now in the remainder of this Article 2 I have not made any changes
except for numbers of the sections and numbers of other sections
that are being referred to . O . K .
Now on that first page that we just went over there were a couple of
references to Appendix 2 , Part 5 and Part 8 - - now Part 5 is special
permit procedures and Part 8 is PUD and some parts of those you al -
ready have but this evening • I have brought you the whole shebang .
A whole Appendix 2 .
. T . Gotman : O . K . Give me another one for the Town Supervisor ' s book and also
one of the first ones you gave us so I can keep her book up - to date .
C . Twigg : That all goes in this little section here?
G . Totman : You have one called Appendix 1 and the very next one you ' re going to
take out your old Appendix 2 and put this one in .
G . Evans : Appendix 2 Part 1 has three pages .
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C . Twigg : And the new one has 3 pages ?
G . Evans : Yes . One of the things that I ' m doing is to try to put together
an administrative supplement that can be used in several different
municipalities around the County so it may be that some adjustment
may be necessary in the terminology of some of the things to make it
fit Groton .
One thing that comes to mind is zoning officer and zoning enforcement
officer . So there will, .be a few small adjustments like that as
necessary .
Appendix 2 Part 2 - - I would suggest you keep both the old and new
one until you have decided on the terminology for Groton .
J . MacNeil : Is it possible when you ' re going through one of these to make allow-
ances for the handicapped ? The way it is now you need a permit in
order to build a ramp or walk into your house to bring a wheelchair
or something up it and it seems to me a bit much for someone who is
handicapped to have to do something like this .
G . Evans : O . K . let ' s fiddle with this a little bit . There ' s a lot of
material being published now on design of facility for handicapped
and there may be something on zoning . I just haven ' t seen it yet .
Some discussion was held on this by - all .
G . Totman : Probably what we ought to do Lyle - - you take the parts to Roger
and Jim you take them to Don so they can bring their - books up to date
before the next meeting . That would be helpful , wouldn ' t it ?
G . Evans : Yes ,
Mr . Raymond and Mr . MacNeil said they would do this .
G . Evans : I ' m not absolutely certain what is the best way to proceed through
this . One thing to do this evening would be to go through it . from
front to back and hit the highlights - - some of these things are
boilerplate and some are optional .
Part 6 is the environmental review part . and this is something we
haven ' t talked . about at all and it might be a good idea to start
there .
0 . K . , the State Environmental Quality Review Act has the pro -
cedure is fairly well established but there are certain aspects of
it that are subject to local option .
The first Section . 600 - Applicability and Responsibility tries to
say in . a few words what it ' s for and who does it . Reams could be
written on this but basically it ' s an environmental review is re -
quired for any actions taken or permitted by the Town Board and
permitted , . in this sense , does not mean you turn your back it means
there ' s actually a permit issued . . There ' s the general rule that
the local or New York State regulations apply , . whichever is more
strict or imposes the higher standards . ,
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G . Evans : And then the responsibilities of the Town Planning Board , Town Board ,
and Zoning Officer are very briefly listed here .
L . Raymond : That first paragraph - - I assume because the SEQUA law says that
would include the Federal Environmental review where applicable and
wouldn ' t have to be repeated in this .
G . Evans : Right . Now I should hasten to point out that this remains a draft
and I am at the present time seeking review of this by specialists
in the field of zoning , in environmental conservation and other
matters so over the next few months there may be some adjustments
needed to be made to this so this is not chiseled or marbled just
yet .
Section 601 is a general statement of how the Town Board will
deal with actions that it undertakes .
Section 602 is the beginning of procedures by the zoning officer
and in the State regulations it does not distinguish between the
various officers and boards and so on of the municipalities . It
simply lumps them all together and calls it the agency and the
distribution of these functions among the officers and boards of
the town is , to some degree , optional so what Irl have done is dis -
tribute these things in what seems like a reasonable fashion to me .
It may be that you would want to change this radically I don ' t
know .
G . Totman : We would have to look it over and the Town Board would have to de -
cide how much responsibility they want to give to this person as
that would also determine how much pay they would have to give to
this person .
G . Evans : Basically what I have the zoning officer doing here is look at the
proposal and determine whether or not it fits into one of the four
categories in 602 . 1 . Then the zoning officer reviews the environ-
mental assessment form and sees that it is complete . Then the
Planning Board reviews the application and the environmental
assessment form and decide whether the proposed action is of
environmental significance and whether an environmental impact
statement is required or not . You can decide it is not significant
and no further review is called for . It does not mean you are
done but there ' s no further review . Everything you do under SEQUA
requires notifications . You have to notify that you are not going
to do anything . It ' s called a negative declaration .
Section 603 gets into the actions that require environmental review .
Those are Type I actions and unlisted actions which have been deter -
mined will have an environmental effect .
Type I is a list of actions which will almost always have some degree
of environmental effect which calls for scrutiny .
Unlisted actions they call the list of things you didn ' t think to put
on the Type I list - - basically the space between bar stools , for
example !
G . Totman : That ' s known as the gray zone !
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G . Evans : An environmental review doesn ' t have anything to do with whether it ' s
accepted or not . It ' s prior disclosure of environmental impact so
when you get around to permitting or not permitting you have this in-
formation available to you .
C . Twigg : But that would automatically fall into the not permitted which would
call for Town Board action anyways , wouldn ' t it ?
G . Evans : No , the environmental review doesn ' t deal with whether it ' s permitted
or not permitted .
C . Twigg : Alright .
G . Evans : 603 . 1 - general criteria for considering something . If it ' s not a
Type I or II or exempt - O��t ®D,- &t .: is •then . an " unlisted action and you
have to decide whether there should be an environmental review or
not and section 603 . 1 would be the criteria you would use to decide .
603 . 2 is the list of Type I actions and this is taken from the rules j
and regulations .
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L . Raymond : In this case the Town doesn ' t have any choice .
G . Evans : Yes it does , - - in fact the primary focus of local
you can change the thresholds of the Type I list . For example , go
down to No . 2 " change in the permitted facility . . . . . . . . . " you could
lower that if you wanted to . In fact I think this has already been
lowered in the rules and regulations which stipulates 50 .
No . 4 "Acquisition , sale , lease or . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . land" .
This is another threshold .
L . Raymond : What you . are referring to is the Town can be more stringent than the
State but can ' t be any looser .
G . Evans : I should have brought along , - - and didn ' t - - the actual thresholds in
the State Guidelines . What I have presented to you here is one that
I have . already adjusted .
G . Totman : To fit the town?
G . Evans : To fit the town and you , of course , may not agree with the adjustments
I have made .
G . Totman : Probably we would have to read it over - - other than tonight - - and
come back later because there ' s no way we can condense all this tonight
and say. it ' s right or wrong . There ' s a lot of homework to do here be -
fore the next time we meet .
G . Evans : O . K . I think before you can really work on this I ' ll have to get the
State thresholds to you .
L . Raymond : The red booklet I passed out has all that stuff in it also .
G . Evans : 603 . 3 List of Type II Actions - - doesn ' t require environmental review .
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G . , -Evans : 603 . 4 is the easy one - excluded actions - - these were ones which
were undertaken or approved prior to the effective date of the
State Environmental Ac6 .
603 . 5 was so longand meaningless that I g got tired so I just said
Other Actions Listed .
604 lists the contents required in a draft environmental impact
statement . Basically it just identifies the action , location ,
who to ask about it and so on . And then it has these six items
"Summary , Description . . . . . . . . . . . and references . " The way this
whole part is sketched out is there are about 5 different points I
along the way where you can say stop this is enough , we don ' t
have to go any further . However , if you get into something really
big , - - really complicated- -or really scary- -you have the procedure
here on how to go through the whole shebang if that should become
necessary .
Section 605 is procedure by . the Planning Board in the event an
environmental review is carried out . "The Planning Board is given
the responsibility of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " You can send it back and
ask for another one .
L . Raymond : If you really don ' t want the development you can keep doing that
until they get tired of it .
Some discussion was held on this by all .
G . Evans : I think probably it would be best just to continue looking over
this procedure and I will simultaneously have this reviewed by
experts when I can get hold of them , - - I ' m sure they are busy .
G . Totman : I think you gave us enough here tonight and if everybody goes
through this it will take their time up until we meet again .
G . Evans : Section 702 is Non-Conformance which we have . gone over a number
of times and one of the suggestions made was some explanation
on the matter of what is meant by non- conforming as to permitted
activities and as to dimension regulations and so on . This
caused me to review the whole thing . And Section 702 tries to
explain what a non- conforming activity is . It ' s as close as I can
get and still cover the whole thing and then there are subsections
to that .
Well , alright Section 702 non- conforming activities , the material
there is pretty much parallelled in Section 703 with regard to
non- conforming facilities . Now it can be non- conforming as to the
type it is or according to the dimensions . It could be too high
or too close to a lot line or something of that sort .
C . Twigg : Everybody has everything except this one page .
G . Evans : Yes which has vanished somehow .
G . Totman : I could take that one page and run off 8 copies .
G . Evans : Yes , I guess we ' d better do that .
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G . Evans : We ' ve gone over most of these points . Some of the things in
here are optional .
702 . 1 Item 4 - - that is quite optional . Discontinued in this
sense has a fairly precise meaning and that is it is a deliberate
intentional discontinuance of an activity , not as though through
some unforeseen circumstances that you go out of business for
awhile . It means that you discontinued with the intention of
remaining discontinued .
G . Totman : But then decide to reactivate 7 - 8 months later but that means
it ' s out .
L . Raymond : Say a guy has a non- conforming use and he has a car accident which
puts him in the hospital so finally he is able to pick up his busi -
ness again would that be out of line here ?
G . Evans : No ,,` - - it ' s deliberate , - - you would have to prove he had that accident
for the purpose of not having to work a couple of years !
Some discussion was held by all .
G . Evans : I ' m going to have to say a little bit more about discontinued and
what all it means .
L . Raymond : Can it be sold to anybody else ?
G . Evans : Yes ,
L . Raymond : Supposing he gets sick and the business is up for sale and it
takes over two years before he gets a buyer would that mean it
would be discontinued?
G . Evans : No . I - can see where some further explanation is called for .
This whole doctrine of non- conformance is confusing and a lot
of people have trouble with it so I think we have to be very
explicit on this .
Now , 702 . 1 and 702 . 2 - - this is in buildings and not in buildings .
A non - conforming activity not in a building is a little different .
Discussion was held on these two sections by all .
G . Evans : If you can think of certain specific kind of things this might
apply to .
L . . Raymond : Cecil had the best example - - seasonal campgrounds .
G . Totman : We don ' t have any in the Town of Groton now so that would be con-
forming .
Further discussion was held by all .
G . Evans : These are guidelines .
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. G . Totman : It gives you something to go on .
G . Evans : It gives you a starting place but when it gets right down to it
you have to take into consideration circumstantial - - - - - - - injury ;
These numbers of days are arbitrary .
Further discussion was held on this by all .
G . Evans : Another thing you should keep in mind of course is a non- conformt
activity is presumably something you really don ' t want there . As
a matter of Town policy you would like to be rid of it .
G . Totman : I can ' t think of anything we have going right now that ' s an
activity in our Town that is non-conforming , can you?
Further discussion was held on this by C . Twigg ,
G , Totman , L . Raymond and others .
G . Evans : Can we move on now to 8 - PUD . The Zoning Ordinance of the Town
of Groton has PUD in it . This Part 8 is designed to deal with a
fairly complex major PUD anticipating a considerable amount of
public concern . It assumes that the developer must be monitored
in most of the phases of the proposal of the project and so on .
In other words , this is more a straightlined , stamped down ver -
sion .
In looking this over you may decide there are some of these
things you may not or do want so the idea is instead of having
something you want you add something to , . . you have something
here you can delete sections from if they seem excessive .
Now Section 800 explains generally what a Planned Unit Develop -
ment is for . What the idea is , - - " it ' s intended to encourage
. . . . . . . . . . . " Well , it doesn ' t really encourage those things ,
it just allows them to take place . It gives your ordinance the
flexibility a developer can use to do things and still stay
within the law . What you do is exchange a custom-made zoning
district regulation for an extensive and detailed review pro -
cedure . You want to develop something none of the district
regulations permit you to . d.p it so you apply for a PUD , - -you
get in effect a zoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . written to your specifica -
tions . In exchange for that you have the Town ' s oversight of
every faucet of your development from the design right to the
completion of it .
Section 801 is Objectives of PUD and these are very general
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objectives and Section 802 are things which I ' m not altogether
sure you would agree with all of these . These are all optional .
"PUD may be considered anywhere in the Town" - - you may not want
t, o go along with that .
Section 802 . 2 is just a statement of fact . It ' s an amendment and
therefore it has to follow the amendment proceedings . . 3 minimum
lot area . 4 minimum frontage .
G . Totman : That ' s per lot ?
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G . Evans : . 4 is the whole unit development .
G . Totman : 0 . K .
G . Evans : . 5 overall development - intensity limit , - - it simply ties it
to the abutting districts .
C . Twigg : I see you have changed the - - you got the metric measures
ahead of the footage in this one .
G . Evans : Oh , did I change that ?
G . Totman : We might as well get used to it .
C . Twigg : But that PUD may be considered anywhere in the Town , - - I would
think that that is what it ' s all about so - -
G . Evans : O . K . - - . 8 is a sort of backing off from that position a little
bit and I have done this in response to a lot of comment I
have received around the County . " PUD which is primarily
for . . . . . . . . . . " Here there are some - - - -.- - as to where it can
go . Now these two ought to be together , one right after the
other .
G . Totman : Yes , that I can see .
G . Evans : The idea is this is just a formula and you can have whichever
you think is appropriate for the town . Some people think it
should be at least 50 acres and you turn it around and see these
people are looking primarily in the suburbs around big cities
and other people say small is 1 /2 acre and they work in central
cities but it ' s really a matter of tailoring it to what you
think . are the needs of this community .
G . Totman : Let ' s see , - -you ' re talking about strictly commercial now?
Now , Gary , I don ' t want to sound like I ' m rushing you but it ' s
ten o ' clock and I don ' t know how long you wan s t t o stay ,
Y
G . Evans : I don ' t want to stay after ten o ' clock at all !
803 and the following are procedures including public hearing
preparation , final development plans and so on . One of the
things not included in your present ordinance is PUD agreement .
They talk about a specific document which is drawn up by the
Town Attorney and the Town Supervisor and developer sign the
statement and that agreement becomes a part of the ordinance .
The PUD is an amendment and this agreement is the text of the
amendment . I would suggest looking this over to see if there
are any short- cuts you want to make , or if you want to retain
the whole thing . I ' ll tell you very frankly when I wrote this
I wrote it primarily thinking of the Town of Ithaca . I wrote
this with procedural safeguards and contractual safeguards and
the whole shebang included so they could see they could protect
their interests all the way through so you may find there are
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G . Evans : safeguards than you want to bother with .
Now , very soon I ' ll have Appendix I and I brought you an
Article 11 tonight . In your meetings did you work on the map ?
G . Totman : No , we have not .
G . Evans : 0 . K . so Article III can wait although we can do the text on it .
And now that I have the table of permitted facilities and
activities I can complete Article IV . We ' re getting close to
the end of this thing .
G . Totman : When do you want to meet again ?
G . Evans : Things always take me twice as long as I think they will so I
think it would be safe for me to say it should be a month from
now We - so I guess what I want to say is the second week of
August .
G . Totman : 13th? I think we had better go a little bit past that because
a lot of people will be on vacation then . How about the 20th
of August ? Is that alright with you ? You ' re talking about
Wednesday ?
G . Evans : No , Tuesday .
G . Totman : 0 . K . we ' ll meet on Tuesday the 19th of August .
J . MacNeil made a motion the meeting be adjourned
which was seconded by C . Twigg and motion carried .
The meeting adjourned at 10 : 10 P . M .
Resp ctfully submitted ,
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Jose hive Bell
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