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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1995-10-19 a TOWN OF GROTON PLANNING BOARD Thursday, 19 October 1995 Board Members (*present) Others Present *George Totman, Chairman George Senter, Sr. , CEO *Monica Carey Joan E. Fitch , Recording Secretary *Sheldon Clark Robert & Carol Warner Jeff Lewis Don & Margaret Palmer Verl Rankin Phillip Martinez *George VanSlyke Donald Andrus, Jr. *Cecil Twigg Merritt Dayton Mike Warner Dave Brong Phil Rhinehart Diane Berkley (sp?) The Public Hearing was opened at 8 *00 p .m. by George Totman , Chairperson. G. Totman: The first thing on the agenda tonight is the Public Hearing for the Palmer Subdivision up on Pleasant Valley Road (TM #35- 1 - 1). And for those of you who've never been to a public hearing before, I have to read the notice that was in the paper, so bear with me . Mr. Totman then read the Legal Notice of the public hearing, as published and on file. We now open the public hearing. Is there anybody here that doesn't really understand what this subdivision is all about? To explain a little further, all of the lots meet the rules and regulations of the Town of Groton subdivision . The normal rules are that they have to be 150 feet in frontage and have to be an acre of land. These lots are all six acres and above, and all of the adjacent property owners were sent a letter with a map showing where the lots are. Mr. Palmer is here to explain, briefly, just for the benefit of the people that come . I assume most people are here for that. D. Palmer: The original parcel that we purchased consisted of some 62 acres, and what we are looking to do, as exhibited on the map that you received with the notification, is to subdivide that large parcel into six, actually seven total, lots - one of which has already been sold off. The remaining items all have a road frontage of a minimum -- I think the smallest one is 200-foot road frontage. The parcels themselves are acreage of about six acres up to the largest one being about 16 acres in size. Anything further that you'd like to know about that? G. Totman: Any questions from anybody? M. Warner: Where's the 16 acres? Is that the open field there? D. Palmer: The 16-acre parcel, which is the largest one available, is the westernmost parcel . That's the one that extends out and abuts up to the Gebhardt (sp?) land . D. Brong: What, if any, deed restrictions will there be? D. Palmer: Deed restrictions? There are no deed restrictions. G. Totman : Any Planning Board members have a question? Anybody else? Okay. Thanks, Don . Well, usually we reserve about fifteen minutes for a public hearing in case anybody comes in late . What we normally do is have the public hearing and then close the public hearing in case anybody comes in afterwards. And then at the end of the meeting, because we have to take up the next things on the agenda, we go through the rest of the agenda and then vote on the application at the end of the meeting, unless there's anybody who has any objections or would like to know any more. if there's nothing more , I would entertain a motion to close the public hearing. M. Carey: I'll make the motion . 1 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 G. Van Slyke : I'll second it. G. Totman: All in favor? (All indicated that were in favor.) So the public hearing is closed and we will move on to the Carrington minor subdivision on Elm Street Extension (TM # 26- 1 - 11 ) . And I believe that Mr. Walpole is here to present that. R. Walpole: I think the Board received copies of the survey. It's a three-unit minor subdivision. The sketch plan that we have. . At last month's meeting, Monica Carey had asked about the driveway on Lick Street. We addressed that problem. I'm not sure if they sent you a note -- M. Carey: Yes, R. Walpole: This is just to bring everyone here up to date. We had the Highway Superintendent up there and looked at the exact location where the lot is located on Lick Street. He looked at the knoll toward the intersection of Lick Street and Elm Street Extension and pretty well decided where the driveway(s) should be . There was a reference to the brush and stuff which would have to come out of the Town right-of-way. This could be done at the driveway entrance is put in . I did brief the building inspector and took him to the site . We have tagged it, if there's a building permit to be issued , of the visibility. Everyone with concern at this point felt the visibility was clear at the point where the entrance of the driveway would be located. I think we have covered any concern that you people might have had with reference to that. That's basically the Elm Street side that is now being transferred instead of the original sketch being transferred in one complete unit and it will be served by public - - - - - - - - - - - - water. . The map speaks for itself. Lot # 2 is being retained by the owner. G. Totman: Does anybody have any questions? Is there anybody here from that area -- it wasn't advertised, so -- Planning Board members? Are you satisfied with the problem that we had with the visibility? M. Carey: Yes, I am. G. Totman: Cecil? C. Twigg: No , we discussed it all last time. That was the only question we had, wasn't it? G. Totman: Yes. Would you do the SEAR on it, George? Just for the benefit of the people who are here, every time we make an action, we have to do a SEAR -- a State Environmental Quality Review. This is the short form. It's up to the Planning Board to decide whether to go for a Short Form or a Long Form. Some of these questions sometimes don't pertain to the particular thing, but we have to do it and it's a State regulation, so bear with it. Board Member George Van Slyke then reads aloud Part H of the Short Environmental Assessment Form. Negative responses were obtained to all questions in Part II. Therefore , it was determined by the Planning Board, upon a motion made by Monica Carey, seconded by Cecil Twigg, with all members voting in favor, that the action, based on the information submitted, will not cause any significant adverse environmental impact, resulting in a negative declaration. G. Totman: Any other questions? Can I have a motion to accept the minor subdivision as proposed, or reject it? G. Van Slyke : I move we accept it as a minor subdivision -- G. Totman: and forego the public hearing? G. Van Slyke: Yes. S. Clark: I'll second it. 2 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 G. Totman: All in favor? (All indicated they were in favor.) Carried . The next thing on the agenda is Donald Andrus, Jr. He lives on the Cortland-McLean Road (# 212 - TM # 39-21 . 1 ) in an area where small home businesses are allowed. The question is does the Planning Board need to grant a Site Plan Review for this? Are you here? D. Andrus: Yes. G. Totman: I talked to him over the phone and just to make it understood what we're talking about, I asked him to come to the meeting because when you hear what he's going to do, I think you'll have a question of whether he needs to be here or not. Would you explain to the Board? D. Andrus: I simply want to start a small voicemail service . There are not going to be any incoming traffic, no changes to structures or land or anything, no sign going up at this time . There's absolutely nothing on the property being changed except I have to have additional phone lines. G. Totman: Basically, as I understand it, what you're doing -- you're running an answering service through the computer. D. Andrus: Right. G. Totman : There's no customers . D. Andrus: No customers will be coming. G. Van Slyke : What's this got to do with us? G. Totman: Well, he wanted to make sure D. Andrus: I just want to make sure that I have all the bases covered . G. Totman: He wanted to make sure that he approval from us that a permit wasn't required . I'd rather see people do it that way than do it and then have to go back. D. Andrus: Is it possible to reserve the right to come before you again if I need to? G. Totman: Definitely. If you have a change and do anything different, no problem at all. Is it the Board's opinion that he does not need a Site Plan Review? Would somebody want to move that for the record? M. Carey: I'll make the motion that we don't feel he needs a Site Plan Review, G. Van Slyke : I'll second that. G. Totman : All in favor? (All indicated they were in favor.) It's a matter of record. We've taken care of it. D. Andrus: Thank you . G. Totman: Phillip Martinez on 205 Bossard Road (TM # 14- 17.5) . Pyrotechnics. P. Martinez: You're probably not familiar with what I do. For the past four years I've put on the fireworks display at the Elm Street School . I work professionally in that capacity for Young Explosives out of Rochester, NY. That's a part-time business. I put on maybe about seven or eight shows a year and full time I'm employed by Smith Corona, still, as an engineering manager. I purchased some property up on Bossard Road about 3-4 years ago with the intention of putting in my residence there which I did last year -- I built a home. And also at the time, I approached Mr. Senter and discussed with him the possibility of putting in a manufacturing establishment there along with the residence. This would be a small-scale manufacturing operation ; in fact, there would be just one employee and that would be myself. The nature of the business would be to manufacture electrical ignitors for use with fireworks. If you're not familiar with these things, I brought one along. It goes by various names; here's 3 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 a catalog on these , and it shows some of the set up . What they do with these, they're inserted into the fireworks device and fired remotely by electricity. It can either be fired by computer or manually off a switch box. And there are various advantages to doing that. The first one is safety. You're remote from the firing line , you're not right next to the fireworks device lighting it with a flare. The second thing is you have better control over the ignition. As soon as the switch is hit, the firework device goes off. The third thing you can do is you can choreograph your fireworks show to music. This is done either manually by flipping the switches at different key points on our tape, or it's done automatically off a computer system. There are about three companies right now that sell these matchhead -- electric matchheads -- in the United States. The volume is quite high ; it's on the order of about two million a year. And I'm hoping to get a small piece of that business starting out in the region of New York State and then, hopefully, branching out. The nature of the business is that a lot of the work is electric oriented. It's soldering wires to little PC boards. I can do it in my home, it can be farmed out to any number of local companies that do electronic soldering; but when you get to a certain point where it involves the application of that pyrotechnic mix, and that little red dot you see on the end of that device is actually the pyrotechnic composition. It's comprised of an oxidizer and a fuel. And that is heated up by a small bridge wire on the tip of that electronic chip . When that reaches a certain temperature, it ignites that pyrotechnic mix which , in turn, lights the fireworks device. Now because that pyrotechnic mix is on there, I have to apply to the State and to the Federal government for licensing as an explosives manufacturer. I have to have certain storage facilities that meet regulations, both State and Federal, certain setback distances to occupied dwellings and roadways. This property that I have out there meets all the requirements right now. There's a 12 by 16 lawn building that I purchased which can be used as the processing building, if you will, the workshop to manufacture these . I applied for a permit for the building last year and brought that out to the premises. I've made application already to the State for my license ; that was done on Tuesday. And I'm in the preparation right now of preparing the paperwork for the ATF, the Federal requirements, and that should be submitted possibly tomorrow. So , basically, I've got things going in the works and Mr. Senter suggested that I approach the Board and kind of tell you what this is all about and see if you had any questions. M. Carey: With the explosives, you have to have a special building for that, right? P. Martinez: Yes. The building, if it has electricity in it -- which mine does not -- has to have explosionproof lighting, the light switch for the lights has to be located outside the building. If there is heat in the building - - mine does not - - the heating system has to be outside of the building; it has to be - - usually they are hydronic hot-water systems so that there's no spark-generating apparatus inside the building itself. There can be no exposed metal. Like you can't use it for storage of lawn mowers or anything like that. I've got anti-static mats that I've purchased . The building should be grounded. It's not required by State law but I've decided to do it anyways as a matter of safety. That's pretty much it as far as the building is concerned . What particularly the Federal government is concerned about, and the State, is the storage of the pyrotechnic composition and devices themselves. What I have right now is a commercial explosives magazine . It's fabricated of quarter-inch think steel; it's lined with two inches of hardwood and it has the capacity of 10 cubic feet. It's designed to be tamperproof -- it's got two locks on it which cannot be accessed by hacksaws, crow bars, bolt cutters. All of this has to be inspected by the State and Federal government to be approved to get a license. M. Carey: And how do you handle transportation of that? P. Martinez: Okay. When it gets to the point -- I've got to do a lot of R & D on this to begin with before I get into production. But as soon as I get to the point where I have to start transporting these , I myself have a Class C commercial driver's license with a HazMat endorsement. Besides that, I've got to apply to the DOT for certification of my company name on the carton. That costs about $600 just to do that. Once that's done, I have to apply to a carton manufacturer to get the proper carton manufactured with the company's name on it, with the proper labeling on the carton . That's pretty much it. And then this type of device can be shipped through UPS right now which is fortunate because a lot of the display fireworks, for instance, cannot be . G. Totman : Maybe you already said it, but I didn't hear it. You don't have any actual fireworks on your property and you will not be testing fireworks on your property. P. Martinez: Probably not. I can't say definitely that these won't be tested with say a device that won't make a lot of noise. I'm not going to be shooting boomer salutes -- 4 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 G. Totman: Well obviously you're not going to make them without testing them. But what I meant was skyrockets and things going up in the air -- that's the thing. P. Martinez: No. I might be getting into -- part of this is these devices right now - - there's not a lot of manufacturing where it's built into the fireworks device . What they have is they have a long fuse that's usually on the firework that that ignitor is put into the fuse . It saves a lot of cost if you can build that ignitor into the firework device without putting the fuse in. So eventually I might get into that type of manufacturing. G. Totman: Then you would have the fireworks on the premises? P. Martinez: Right. G. Van Slyke: I guess my question was how much of this material -- you talked about your security box that you keep this material in -- about how much of it would you have at any one time? P. Martinez: Probably the capacity of that magazine -- here again , I'm just starting out -- if the business takes off, I'll have to put in a larger facility -- but right now it would probably hold about four standard cases of those things -- about 1200 -- G. Van Slyke : The ends? P. Martinez: The whole wire and everything. G. Van Slyke: The whole wire and everything? P. Martinez: Right. And I would say one case would be about maybe an ounce and a half to two ounces. C. Twigg: That in itself is not a very dangerous item. P. Martinez: No. It's just like a match that's on a book of matches . C. Twigg: In other words if you had some way of igniting it, if it got next to something hot? P. Martinez: Right. When these are tested, part of the DOT certification is a 48-hour heat soak, if you want to call it that, at about 170 deg. F to qualify the device before they'll give certification on it. So I've got to go through all that testing too. G. Totman: I guess what I'm saying is, except for the fact of you needing more room and storage to put it in, or what I'm hearing you say anyway, if you had a large cellar, you could be doing this in your cellar and nobody would even know it. P. Martinez: You could if you wanted to , but - - it's not the smart thing to do. G. Totman: No, I don't mean that it's the smart thing to do; what I meant was is that if I decided that, and I had all the knowledge that you have about all this stuff and I had a large cellar, I could go down and manufacture these or do whatever I'm doing, and those no customers coming and going, it's just me going and taking my product out, nobody would really know that I had a business there. I'm not suggesting you do that - - I guess what I'm getting at is the C. Twigg: Insignificance of it. G. Totman: Is how much it is going to affect the neighborhood. . P. Martinez: As far as the neighborhood is concerned , the nature of the business is that it's not going to be open to the general public, at all . There's going to be no impact whatsoever on road traffic. Periodically I have to be inspected by the ATF and the State, so they're going to be coming around about four times a year. 5 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 G. Van Slyke: No noise problems? P. Martinez: No, G. Totman: You've got 14. 79 acres with 400-foot of road frontage . You should have enough acreage so that if you made a little bit of noise, your neighbors couldn't hear much -- just a few little pops or lights. P. Martinez: I've been living up there close to a year now, and I've been hearing gunfire quite often, and I can guarantee you the amount of noise I'm going to be making is probably no worse than that. M. Carey: Well, you're pretty regulated by the State and Federal government. P. Martinez: Yes I am. Right. In fact, I know Mr. Senter had voiced some concerns about the building itself. The manufacturing facilities are all inspected by the State before I'm granted a license, so basically the Town agrees if it's good enough for New York State, maybe it's good enough for Groton . I don't know. G. Totman : You haven't made out a formal application yet, right? P. Martinez: No, sir. I have the application, but -- G. Totman: See if this makes sense . Supposing you make out the formal application and give it to us. We make a decision whether we should have to hold a public hearing or not. And if we decide that in our particular minds it's not really offensive, or might fit into the character of the neighborhood or whatever up there , and we put conditions on it like say the Site Plan Approval is renewable each year by having the Code Enforcement Officer come and make sure they meet the conditions that we set up . And one of the conditions being that you produce a copy of the pennits and license, whatever, you get from the State government and whatever agency that covers that, so that he has them on file . So his file is current each year as to what you're permitted to do and what inspection reports you get from the State . Would that be something that you could live with? P. Martinez: It would be something that I could live with , but I can tell you that it's unusual. G. Totman: Is it really? P. Martinez: Yes, G. Totman : All it is is requiring a photocopy of your license . P. Martinez: There would be no problem with me doing that. G. Totman: The only thing I was thinking about is - people that live in the neighborhoods, and that's why they have boards like this - - they have rules and regulations -- if you just grant things willy- nilly without looking into it and somebody says "How come this guy can . . . ?" in most cases, except for the people that are her, what I hear is the guy wants to start a fireworks factory up on Bossard Road. And you see , that's not true at all with what you're saying. So I want to be able to say, "No, that's not true. Come down to the office and we can show you he's all qualified, legal with the State , and what he's doing is perfectly legal and he's not up there making fireworks so if it blows up it's going to blow your house up down the road aways. " Not too many years ago, there's a big place down in New Jersey that blew up and killed some people and shattered all the houses around the neighborhood . That's what they think about when they hear of someone that's doing something with fireworks. I want to be able to say this is not the case . If you see him doing something else up there, let us know. That's what I was looking for -- just a copy of what approvals you have. You say you're getting approvals from the State , and I could say, "Well, he says he's got approvals. " And they'll say, "Well, how do you know he's got them?" So if we have a photocopy of them, we'll just include them in the file. We'll have to decide that at the next meeting because we haven't formally -- you haven't formally applied for it yet. P. Martinez: Right. 6 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 G. Totman: Does the Board have any more questions? G. Van Slyke: On the building - - does the State require you to - - you mentioned the light switches had to be outside the building. Now you're going to do this 12 by 16 building to those specs that the State is going to require? P. Martinez: Eventually. G. Van Slyke: Eventually. But right now you're probably going to be working just daytime because obviously you don't have any light inside to see to do your work. P. Martinez: What I plan on doing is -- as I get the business going and can afford to put money into the business, then I'll upgrade the building. G. Totman: But can you get a license without it's meeting the qualifications? P. Martinez: Of, what - - putting in insufficient lighting? G. Totman: Well , you mentioned earlier about having a building that meets the requirements of the State and they come and inspect it. If they haven't build it and done all these things, what are they going to inspect? P. Martinez: Well the building is already onsite . It's there already. Right now I'm using it as storage for my lawn tractor. But once it gets where it's being utilized for the business, then it can't be used for storage for the lawn tractor. G. Totman: I understand. P. Martinez: Then I've got to put another building it. C. Twigg: But that really doesn't concern us too much anyway. That's all the State and Federal regulating that. All we're concerned with is how it's going to affect the neighborhood . G. Totman: And we can assure the neighbors that we did make sure of that. That's all . I don't see any problem, personally, but I just want to make sure P. Martinez: Well, my intention is not to start a business where I'm going to be, you know, a pariah of the neighborhood - - shooting off fireworks at midnight or something. My intention is to just be like every other neighbor over there. G. Totman : I understand. Like I say, if you formally make the application -- I don't know how we can do it tonight because none of the Board has had it ahead of time to look at or anything like that. We meet the third Thursday of every month . P. Martinez: I'm hoping that by next month I should have some definitive word from the State at least anyway. G. Totman: Sure. What you were looking for tonight is a discussion basis and to get the feeling of the Board. P. Martinez: Right. S. Clark: Sounds good. G. Totman: Anybody else got any questions? See any problems? Do you agree with any of the things that he or I said or whatever? Thank you . P. Martinez: Thank you very much . 7 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 G. Totman: Okay. I'm not even going to try to pronounce that name . This fellow (Yevgeniy Yereshkin) lives on Old Stage Road . I'll say it as best I can - - Yevgeniy Yereshkin - - is that right? Is he here? C. Twigg: Either you didn't say it right, or he's not here. G. Senter: It's not 9 o'clock yet, George. G. Totman: Okay. That's a good point. We're ahead of schedule. Let's move on to Mr. Dayton. M. Dayton: Right here . G. Totman: Mr. Dayton lives on Pleasant Valley Road (TM # 36- 1 -4.2) if my memory serves me correctly, and he would like to start a -- why don't you come up front. He would like to start an auto repair shop. Correct? M. Dayton: Yes, G. Totman : Would you like to explain to the Board a little bit about -- everybody's got a copy of your tax map and a copy of your application. M. Dayton: There's no change in the building at all. The building is already there. It was operated as a repair facility when I bought that property. I don't know as I'm going to be doing an awful lot right away as far as the amount of business, but I would like to search for a facility possibly in Town or something like that in the future . I 'd like to get rolling. G. Totman: Questions? M. Carey: How big is your garage? M. Dayton: I haven't measured it; I don't really know. M. Carey: How many cars in total - - probably two cars? M. Dayton: Yes, M. Carey: Okay, M. Dayton: I don't see any reason why it would obstruct the neighborhood. I won't have rusty cars piled up outside or anything like that. G. Van Slyke: Is this the property that had the pole barn on it? M. Dayton: No. C. Twigg: That must be about half way up the hill. M. Dayton: It's a green cape . G. Totman: Are you doing any work like that there now? M. Dayton: Very little. Couple hours a weekend for friends. M. Carey: So if you sell cars you'd have like two cars out front? M. Dayton: I don't know if I'd ever have two . M. Carey: But you want to have kind of like a turnkey operation? G. Totman: You're not going to buy and sell? 8 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 M. Carey: You're just going to repair? G. Totman: You're not going to do like your father's doing? M. Carey: Well, it says on the application, car repair and sales . M. Dayton: Yes. I'd like to buy a car and fix it up and take it to the auction once every month or something like that. M. Carey: But you're not going to put them out on your lawn with a for sale sign? M. Dayton: Maybe one, but I don't have the money to tie up in inventory. . . G. Totman: Do you want to look at this map right here? You're right about in there, right? M. Dayton: About half way up the hill -- about where the D is or the A. G. Totman : I just wanted to make sure because see that's a Low District -- Low Density District. Okay? So what we have to do is -- just to give you an idea -- is to look here to see what is allowed in certain districts. Okay? We look down 'til we find what you're talking about, which is a - -- C. Twigg: Auto repair shop. G. Totman : I've got to find it first. M. Carey: Right here. Page 53 - bottom. G. Totman: New and used car sales - - that's not right. M. Carey: No. Automobile repair. G. Totman: I thought we had another one just for repair. What I'm saying to you is -- and I don't know if anyone said anything to you earlier about it or not -- but it's not allowed in that district. M. Dayton: I understand that. G. Totman: What you would have to do is -- we would have to tell you no here, and if you really wanted to do it, then you'd have to apply for a variance before the Zoning Board of Appeals. M. Dayton: I already have that form. G. Senter: Merritt and I have talked . G. Totman: Oh , you already have that form. I just wanted to make sure, for the record, that we -- 'cause they won't take your appeal until you get turned down by us. M. Dayton: Right, G. Totman : Does everybody on the Planning Board understand? Do we agree to that? M. Carey: Yes. It's there . It's not allowed. G. Totman : We can't issue a permit for something that's in another zone . M. Dayton: Right. G. Totman: If the Zoning Board of Appeals -- M. Dayton: That's a separate group of people? 9 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 G. Totman: Separate group of people . Bureaucracy at it's best. They are like a safety valve for the people where they can go to another board and ask for a variance . This Ordinance was just revised and passed this past May, and we can't give a permit for what's not there . If you've already got the application for the ZBA, then you apparently know what I'm talking about. M. Dayton: Yes. I was afraid that I'd have to go through all those steps. G. Totman: I wanted you to explain what you were doing first before I come up with that. There's other people here and I just wanted to make sure to see what we were doing. So we have to formally turn it down . M. Dayton: So you're all done with me I take it, right? Or can I express my thoughts on that? G. Totman: Wait a minute, before you do, we have to make a motion to turn it down for that reason . G. Van Slyke: I move that we disallow the application because he's in a Low Density area and it's not allowed in our Zoning Ordinance . M. Carey: I'll second that. G. Totman: Okay, we'd like to hear anything else for the minutes sake . M. Dayton: Part of the reason I bought that property is because of the facility that already existed and the fact that there is a repair shop there and I liked it. And it's disappointing to find out that it's been changed as far as the zoning goes without . . . G. Totman: When did you buy the property? M. Dayton: Three years ago. C. Twigg: Grandfathered in . G. Totman: The Ordinance was changed this past year. C. Twigg: Yes, but the garage was there before the Ordinance was changed . G. Totman: But it wasn't being operated as such . G. Van Slyke: I guess the problem here is this. My understanding that on his property, this building was not being operated as per se a repair shop . M. Dayton: It was when I purchased the property. It has not been for the last two years. G. Van Slyke: Was it a repair shop or was it a paint shop? M. Dayton: It was repair -- well, that's a repair shop. G. Totman: Not to sound like the bad guy, okay -- even though I am -- G. Van Slyke: Yes you are. G. Totman: But you bought the property three years ago. Regardless of what you've done in those three years, you haven't come in and applied for a permit. So for three years, legally that shop has not been operating. The Zoning Ordinance was enacted in May of '95 which calls that a Low Density Area, so it's not going against what you were doing because you weren't doing it anyway. So if you've got something that's operating as a non-conforming thing in a zone where it's not allowed , you're allowed to cease operations as long as it's not more than one year. But this hasn' t been operating as a motor 10 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 vehicle repair shop for more than a year, so the grandfathering doesn't count. I'm trying to play the part of a lawyer now -- but that's the way the thing works . There's really nothing we can do about it. M. Dayton: Do I stand a chance against the G. Totman: I can't say what they will do. Even if we all wanted to, legally, we can't. Like if we granted that to you and somebody really didn't want it there, and they knew the Ordinance, they could get an Article 78 against the Town and say "What a bunch of bozos you've got up there . They made the rules and now they're not going to abide by it. " I can say I'm sorry. M. Dayton: I'll do the appeal and go from there . G. Totman: Okay. (It's now 8 : 50 . ) We've got a few minutes to go, and I think I heard a car just drive up. Has everybody read the minutes from the last meeting? (All acknowledged that they had .) Any corrections or omissions noted by anybody? Anybody want to make a motion we approve the minutes of the last meeting? C. Twigg: I'll make the motion we approve the minutes as written. M. Carey: I'll second it. G. Totman: Being duly seconded , all in favor? (All were in favor.) In all fairness, we got way ahead . It's not nine o'clock yet, so - - - (Mr. Yevgeniy Yereshkin arrives and the meeting continues. ) Tax Map # 20- 1 -32 .4 -- for the benefit of some of you people who might not know where this is, there was a subdivision with four lots on it (Old Stage Road) this is the second lot on the right. G. Van Slyke: It sets back up in three garages? G. Totman : What do you plan on doing? Y. Yereshkin: Repair and sell cars. G. Totman: Sale of cars too? Y. Yereshkin: Yes, G. Totman: Repair, sale -- so you'll have a lot of cars on display? You'll have cars sitting along the road with for sale signs on them? Y. Yereshkin: Yes, G. Totman : George, has anybody got any questions for him? Monica? M. Carey: How many cars will your garage hold? Y. Yereshkin: Now? M. Carey: Are you going to plan on adding on? Y. Yereshkin: I don't have permit for sale . I just fill out application. M. Carey: Right. But how many do you plan on repairing at one time? Or how big do you plan on having your garage? Y. Yereshkin: Maybe one, two car, and maybe sell 8 to 10 cars. G. Totman: Let me explain If I can what I think Monica's getting at. When the Planning Board approves of what you're asking for, then they put stipulations as to how many cars can be setting out front. We call turnkey cars cars you can put a key in, start them up, and drive away. And how many cars that can be for repair sitting out in the yard, or if they've got to be in a straight line, where are you 11 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 going to put them, like a sketch plan , and I don't see one here. But I'd like a sketch plan of where the garage is on the property, where the cars are going to be, you know. What we're trying to make sure is that there's other people who live in the neighborhood, and we want to make sure the environment in the neighborhood stays about the same and we don't approve somebody running a junk yard, for example, there with a lot of junks around and all that sort of thing. We're not saying you , but we treat everybody the same , so once we go through all that and we agree and you say you can live with it, that' s the way you have to operate because when the Code Enforcement Officer comes around or drives by or you renew your Site Plan Review, you won't get it renewed if you don't follow the rules. And so that's why we ask these questions ahead of time and then set down with you . But we need a sketch plan of where you are on the property -- you haven't been doing it yet then, right? Y. Yereshkin: Yes, G. Totman : That means you have been or haven't? Y. Yereshkin: No. G. Totman : So obviously you don't know how much business you're going to have because you're just starting off and it's kind of hard to answer those questions. So what we're saying is we really would like to have a sketch plan of your property so that we can sit down with you and agree as to where you would have the cars you're going to have for sale. Are they going to be too close to the neighbors yards -- you've got quite a lot of frontage there . Then between now and next month when we -- if we hold a public hearing for it -- we would like to have that from you so we can - - the sketch plan - - so we know what you're talking about. Where your garage is on your property, where the house, where you plan on displaying the cars, so we can have an idea of what are we approving. If we just said to a person, 'Yes, you can repair cars on your lot. " It could be that we go back up there six months later and he's got 15 or 20 cars around there, and he says he's using these for parts, and I'm doing this and I'm doing that. That type of thing is really not allowed in a residential area. So we want to make sure that the person is not making the other people's property around them go down in value. So if you -- G. Van Slyke: Also with the Site Plan Review, he should let us know how many vehicles he's going to involve himself with , right? G. Totman: Up to a point. See, most people come in and talk to us who've been caught and are already running a business and we have an idea of what they're doing. He's being honest and coming in first so maybe he won't have any customers; he doesn't know yet. But we don' t want to pin him down so close that --- G. Van Slyke : But he has an idea of how many cars he's going to put out in front for resale, and he would know maybe how many he's going to have maybe inside that he's going to recondition -- that's what I'm saying. If you're going to run a business, you have a little bit of an idea how many vehicles you're going to have sit out front. G. Totman: Like what does he envision? G. Van Slyke : Do you plan like having 30 cars out there for sale? Y. Yereshkin: No . G. Totman: Or two cars out there for sale? See, we don't know this . Y. Yereshkin: Yes, G. Totman: So I suppose you're chomping at the bit to get started on it? Y. Yereshkin: No, not really. G. Totman: Not really. That's good. Do you suppose you could make a sketch plan of your property like where your house is, how far it is from the side line, where your garage is and how far is it from your boundary lines? 12 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 Y. Yereshkin: . .it's empty. G. Totman: I know it's empty. What I mean is -- where is it on your property? How close is it to the back line of your property -- I know it's a long ways because you've got a deep property there . But how close is it to the side lines, side yard, and where do you plan on putting these cars for sale . Just like for example, we say okay you can have cars there, but you can only have two cars out front at a time. Could you live with that? I'm just using that for an example. So you've got to think about that before you sit down in a serious discussion with us. What can you live with? If we can say, not knowing the nature or size of your garage -- and most people don't like to leave their cars too long to get repaired because they're going to take it someplace where they can get it in a day or two -- but we're going to say to you you can't have more than four customer cars out in the open. Could you live with something like that? Those are the things we've got to sit down and talk about, so you've got to sit down and put something on paper so we can figure it out, and then I suggest you come back at our November meeting with that and we can make a more reasonable decision . Do you follow me? Y. Yereshkin: Yes, G. Totman: Planning Board -- do you follow me? Have you got any other ideas? Do you agree with that? M. Carey: Yes. I agree with that. (The other Board members agreed also.) G. Totman : George, have you got any comments to make about this? G. Senter: Are there any deed restrictions that you are aware of on that property or not? G. Totman: That's not our problem. G. Senter: You can't approve something with a deed restriction . G. Totman: Yes we can. The only reason I say that is I just came from a planning seminar meeting down in the Catskills and the lawyers stressed that to no end. That you have no authority to get involved with deed restrictions. That is strictly a civil matter. Because there were a lot of people there that were doing it, and the people from the Department of State really stressed that. They said there's been a lot of law suits against towns where they were enforcing deed restrictions, or trying to . Or some towns were trying to make property owners put in their deeds restrictions when they sold their property so they couldn't do certain things. It was deemed illegal and they had an Article 78 against the town. People can do it and the planning board could suggest it, but they couldn't hold up approval because of putting in a deed restriction. What we can do here is advise him that he should make sure, because if there are deed restrictions -- do you know what I mean by deed restrictions? If there's deed restrictions there, because that was a subdivision, and you go ahead and do something, and your neighbors don't like it and they find out there were deed restrictions there, then they could sue you . So you want to make sure there aren't any deed restrictions . But other than that, I think that if you do what we said - - and if you've got any questions, check with George -- then come back to our next Board meeting in November. Okay? C. Twigg: The third Thursday. G. Van Slyke: Does he understand what we mean by sketch plan? G. Totman: I think so. C. Twigg: We sent him to George anyway. We said if he had any questions, he should stop in and see George. G. Senter: Are you going to have a public hearing on that? G. Totman: I'm not sure. He'll come to the next meeting and show us what he's got and from that I will have to determine -- or the Planning Board will -- if we should have a public hearing or not. There's 13 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 a house right next -- going towards Cortland from there , and then that new one that Bobby Reese (sp?) built that's been setting there . G. Senter: That's two lots over from his. G. Totman: See , you have to bear in mind and I even told people if we do have a public hearing, and sometimes it sounds the wrong way to say it, but if they meet all the rules and regulations of the plans that we have here, the Ordinance , you can't turn something down just because somebody don't like it. You've got to have some good reasons -- and that's why you put the restrictions on that they can't do a lot of things . Then somebody would say, "Then why do you have a public hearing?" But a lot of times people will bring something up in a public hearing that the Planning Board might not have picked up otherwise , or might not know about. And that might make you think, in fact, twice about what you're doing. But if it meets all the rules and regulations -- like the Palmer thing here. If all the neighbors complained about it and said "We don't want them to subdivide that, " they would have to come up really truthfully with some real solid reasons other than the fact that "I don't want more neighbors" why we shouldn't subdivide that land . Some people get mad at me when I say that because then they say what are we here for? But it's not the point. Number one, it's the law in many cases, like tonight's subdivision hearing, but if the neighbors could turn something down just because they don't like it, then there wouldn't be any sense in having rules and regulations because people come in and move into a town or an area -- many times they come in and buy these rules and regulations to see what's allowed in that area. They either buy or don't buy because they don't like what's allowed in the area. Well, if we say no to somebody just because somebody don't like it, I think we could be in trouble . I'd rather say something to them up front -- if you've got anything we don't know about, fine, but you can't turn it down because you don't like it. Like Mr. Dayton who was here earlier. He said we passed an ordinance and he didn't know anything about it. Well we had about five public hearings before we had the final public hearing with the Town Board, and I don't know how much more notice you can give to people. But anyway, back to the Palmer Subdivision. Does anybody have any more questions on it? Nobody has any more questions? M. Warner: I just had one question, but is it closed already? G. Totman: Well, yes. But it's kind of informal; you can ask it. M. Warner: Does it have to be sold that way, or can somebody buy the whole thing, or half? C. Twigg: It does not have to be sold like that -- in other words, they can't change the boundary lines, but if someone bought the whole thing, they don't buy the subdivision, they just buy the land , right? The new owner would have to re-subdivide it. Or could he use this subdivision? Is that what you're asking? G. Totman : Let me explain. If we approve theirs tonight, it's not officially approved until they give us a survey map and we put our stamp on it and the Chairman of the Planning Board signs the stamp . That makes that subdivision a matter of record. So each one of those lots then become a lot of record as far as the Groton Planning Board is concerned . Before they can sell any of those lots, they have to file it with the County Clerk. Okay? So if you buy two of those lots and you keep them separately, too , then you don't have to do anything. But if you buy that whole thing and you want to buy it as one lot, not as six, then you have to ask for a change. Because otherwise you'll be taxed for six separate building lots and it will cost you a lot more money if you don't go through the formality of having it changed back to one lot. Does that make sense to you? Like a lot of people might do what they're doing, and if they don't have an immediate sale, they won't go down and file with the County Clerk until they've got a sale for a lot. Then they're going to have to in order to sell it. Because the minute you file with the County Clerk, then they turn it over to the tax assessor who assesses each lot as a building lot which could make an awful big difference in the taxes of that property. What you're asking is -- do they have to sell it the way it's being approved here? No. They don't. They can sell two lots together -- all they do is come in and ask for a boundary change and make it back into one big lot. You don't have to have a public hearing for that. That can just be done by the Planning Board -- just come in and say you want to change this and make a boundary change. Does that answer your question? If nobody else has got any questions, I would entertain a motion to approve the subdivision being that we've held the public hearing, all the lots exceed all the requirements of the rules and regulations, and that the SEAR has been done . If somebody wants to make that motion -- 14 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 C. Twigg: I will make that motion to approve it. G. Van Slyke: I'll second it. G. Totman: All in favor? (All were in favor.) That's basically the end of our agenda. Has anybody else got anything they want to bring before the meeting. M. Carey: I do. I had a message on my answering machine a couple weeks ago. I wanted to get something typed up for everybody, but I haven't had time. But at the last meeting we discussed that mini mart going into McLean, and Alan Stickles called and he was quite interested in it. And one of the things he stressed was the fact that we didn't bring up about alcohol being sold in the mini mart. And I didn't call him, but really we don't regulate the alcohol being sold in something like this. Right, George? G. Totman: Correct, M. Carey: But he just was asking questions, and I felt that the Board should know that he was concerned about it and about a mini mart being proposed for right across from the school and stuff. G. Totman: When a person wants to sell alcohol in a town -- supposing you just applied for a grocery store and six months later he wants to put in a package license for selling six packs or whatever. He has to notify the town clerk that he is applying for the license . And he has to have a copy of the certified letter that he sent to the town clerk to put with his application for the license so that he can prove that the town officials know that he is applying. As far as I know that's the only thing locally -- M. Carey: I guess he felt that our Board should have brought it up, but considering our Board has nothing to do with it -- G. Totman: We could have brought it up and he could have said no, and we could have passed it, and six months later he could have changed his mind and made an application and there wouldn't be anything we could do about it. So I understand his problem, and I understand his real problem, but -- C. Twigg: You do? G. Totman : Well, no, what I meant was is that there was a convenience store in McLean . And the facility is still there. All it needs is to have stuff back on the shelf and be sold . And there's quite a few people looking at that -- what did they call it -- Trading Post. There's a lot of people looking at it to start it up as sort of a convenience store with the idea that they want to sell alcohol in it. And I imagine if I were a person thinking about buying that, I wouldn't really want somebody down the street doing the same thing. It's free enterprise , but I think that's why the people are asking that question . That's what you have to bear in mind, I think. But the answer to the question is I don't think there's anything that we can do about it. We should have probably asked the question, but being that he's right directly across the road from the school, there's a lot of powers a lot bigger than ours who will make that decision . M. Carey: They will regulate it. I just wanted to bring it before the Board. G. Totman: He hasn't been back yet. He told you at the Board meeting that he would get back with me. The last I heard, a week ago Tuesday he had a meeting with the Tompkins County Health Department. And then he had a meeting with the Tompkins County Highway Department talking about curb cuts, and he told me he would let me know the outcome, because he sent me a little note in the mail , and he hasn't called me back. I have a feeling they probably got discouraged, but I really don't know. It's a very, very small lot for a business of that nature . But it's in the Ordinance that it's legal to put there if he meets the rules, regulations, and guidelines that we might set up for it. But he's also got to get the approval from the Highway Department for the curb cuts, and he's got to get the approval of the Health Department for the septic system on that very small lot. So although there is one on there now, because there's a house there now and there's people living there. I think before we hear from him again he'll have to have those in his hand. Anything else? Does somebody want to move we adjourn? G. Van Slyke: Yes. 15 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 19 October 1995 G. Totman: That means he moves to adjourn. S. Clark: I'll second that. The meeting was adjourned at 9*20 p.m. Respectfully submitted, oan E. Fitch Recording Secretary 16 J A,7J A4 3 v3V sY- - - - - - - �? ?- c - --L- - -- 6,2eeTd - - - - -- - - -- g ! /