Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout1997-01-16 TOWN OF GROTON PLANNING BOARD MEETING Thursday, 16 January 1997 Board Members (*absent) Others Present *George Totman, Chairman Joan E. Fitch , Recording Secretary Monica Carey George Senter, Town CEO *Sheldon Clark John A. Fitch *Jeff Lewis *Verl Rankin Cecil Twigg George VanSlyke The meeting was called to order at So. 15 p.m. by Acting Chair Monica Carey. M. Carey: Okay, let's call the meeting to order. We don't have a quorum, but we'll go ahead. Kevin Bailey IW%ere Preston - Cortland-McLean Road - TM #394-25.2 M. Carey, We have a gentleman here, Kevin Bailey. He purchased some land from Maere Preston on the Cortland-McLean Road . Do you want to tell us a little bit about it? We did do a subdivision on this property. K. Bailey: What kind of information do you need to know? M. Carey: I don't think anyone has any maps regarding which parcel you are speaking about. G. Senter. It's a flag lot, Monica. Remember the flag lot you did? Co Twigg: The one north? On the north side of the road. K. Bailey: The lower side of the road . G. Senter. Ray Preston's property. M. Carey: Oh -- and there's how many acres out behind it? G. Senter. 10. 9 or something like that. You approved the flag lot. She had to come in and pay the fee, which has been done, come in and sign the application , which she has done. What she had to do was bring in the survey map of the flag lot so George can sign it off and make it a legal lot. M. Carey: Okay. G. Senter. He can't do anything -- he can't get a building permit, or anything, until he has that. M. Carey: Okay. So what we need is that mylar copy. K. Bailey: This is what the lawyer gave me . M. Carey: No, it's got to be done by a surveyor, right George? G. Senter. Yes. That's my understanding. M. Carey: It's a special paper. G. Senter. The County gets the mylar; don't you just get a paper copy? 1 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 16 January 1997 M. Carey, But we have to sign it. Everything's been approved, so all we need from you is the mylar copy and three paper copies of it. You realize with the flag lot you have to build out in the back part of the parcel, you can't build in the flag pole area. This has been surveyed, but this is not the map that we need. There's an area on the surveyor's map that we have to stamp and sign. G. Senter. Didn't Jim give you that? K. Bailey: This is what his secretary gave me -- G. Senter. I talked to Jim, too, and told him what you needed . M. Carey: Well, you bring those in and Carol has the stamp and everything. And from what I read here, all the fees have been paid, so you're all set. G. Senter. The surveyor's maps is all he needs. You've got a septic system out there, Kevin? K. Bailey: They are working -- the haven't done it yet. They went to the Health Board who told them what they needed. G. Senter. Do you have a construction permit from Tompkins County Health Department? K. Bailey: Yes, G. Senter. Okay. Before you put your mobile home in there, you'll need a Building Permit. You know that? K. Bailey: Yes. M. Carey: And that map has to be signed before you can get any of that. K. Bailey. Do I have to come back to another Board meeting? M. Carey: No, no -- just bring the maps in to Carol in the front office and she'll take care of it for you . G. Senter. I called Jim and told him exactly what they needed. And he said isn't the map they had sufficient? And I said it was not. We need a survey map of the flag lot and that's all we need. K. Bailey: I stopped there and that's when she gave me this copy. M. Carey: Thanks for coming. Sorry you have to wait now. Other Business M. Carey: Well, seeing how we can't approve the minutes of the meeting, did everyone read this paper that's dated today that says 'Planning Board Members"? If not, read it now. When is February 4th? January 30th is two weeks from today. And the fourth would be Wednesday or so. J. Pitch: February 4th is a Tuesday. The 30th is on a Thursday, the week before. M. Carey: Does anyone have a conflict with either one of these dates? J. Fitch: George Totman can't make it on the 4th . I can make either date. M. Carey. Mr. Twigg, what date can you make? C. Twigg: It doesn't matter. M. Carey: We need to set a date. 2 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 16 January 1997 C. Twigg: Well, George can't come the 4th -- M. Carey: So we might as well do it the 30th. Actually, the 30th would probably be better for me . To me , I think this is a very important meeting and I think we really need all of our Board members to attend. We're meeting with the Town Board, meeting with the Supervisor, the four Councilmen, and the Town Lawyer, And I believe we should have a good turnout at this meeting to discuss the problems we seem to be having over trying to get these new regulations into place. G. Senter. I made a comment, Monica, at the last Board meeting. M. Carey: I see that, and I passed it out to everybody. G. Senter. I was concerned about if you take road frontage from 20 ft. minimum -- M. Carey: It's in the December Town Board minutes. G. Senter. all the way up to 150, my concern is that you have no frontage requirements in the Town of Groton anymore . M. Carey: I guess the way I look at it is that 20 feet to 149 feet is what we would consider the pole , and according to the regulations right now, you cannot build in that pole area. So even if they had 149 feet, they'd still have to have the land out in back or it's not a flag lot and we can't grant it to them. Co Twigg: In other words, they have to have 150 feet to build in. G. Senter. I understand that. C. Twigg: That's what it amounts to . G. Senter. But 150 foot is what it is now, minimum . And if you've got 20 to a half a mile, it doesn't matter -- you'd have no frontage requirements in the Town. That's the way I look at it. It takes away all the frontage requirements. Co Twigg: But in order to build on it, you have to have at least 150 foot. G. Senter: But if you have 140 feet, how deep is that pole? CO Twi : What is it, 500? There's a length to the pole. G. Senter. Yes, for how long it can be. But how short can it be? Co T wigg: I don't think it matters. G. Senter. That's my point, exactly, Cecil. C. Twigg: I don't know why it would matter. In what case would it matter? G. Senter: Well, if you have 140 feet of road frontage , you could build 55 feet, normal setbacks, right? M. Carey: We don't have how far back they go? G. Senter. It doesn't say how far back you have to go. C. T�vigg: You've got to go back out of the pole. In other words, you've got to go back far enough to get 150 foot before you can start building. G. Senter. Okay. M. Carey: Do we have that in there -- that you've got to go out 150 feet to building? 3 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 16 January 1997 C. T�vlgg: No, there's no limit. But you have to have 150 feet wide, see. G. Senter. But if you're accepting 149 feet of road frontage , Cecil, it doesn't say anything about you have to have 150, It says to go back and have two acres of land. CO TVvigg: You have to go back far enough to get septic and well, and you can't build in the pole . M. Carey: Do we have a length on the pole? C. Twiggy Yes, it's a thousand feet, but we don't have a minimum. And I don't know why a minimum would be necessary as long as you were back to at least 150 feet to build on. G. Senter. No you don't. Oh, you're saying that because of the septic system. C. T�vigg: Yes. I think you've got to have a circle . G. Senter. Yes, 140 feet, and you've got a line like this. CO T WIM Yes, you might not have to go back too far. G. Senter. 120 feet and you're in there . Because you put your septic system out back anyway, depending on the lay of the land. CO TWIWO They don't want a lot of congestion on the road. So if this lot is like this, the next lot has to be like this. G. Senter. Maybe somebody already owns that and he's got 400 feet. C. T wigg: So we're not going to be congested anyway. All the lots aren't going to be like that . You might have one like that, but somewhere down the line there's got to be a correction, so someone's going to have more than 150 feet down there somewhere . G. Senter. I think the definition lacks a little . It's a little confusing, I think. M. Carey: Do you think we need to have a length for the pole? G. Senter. But how should you define that? That's my concern. M. Carey: Yes, I can see what you're saying. CO TwIW: I'm trying to think of a circumstance that it would matter. G. Senter. There's probably not going to be that in any of these things. I understand that. But when you go from 20 to 149, there's going to be a lot more of them. But if you make it 20 to 40 or 20 to 509 its a good point -- what do you do with the other 90 feet, 100 feet -- I don't know the answer to that . What do other villages or towns do? There's got to be some we can compare this with. How does Lansing's read . CO TW1W I don't know of any other way to do it. We tried the maximum pole and found out right away that didn't work. But what if it was 75 -- what if you had 100 foot of road frontage then? So where are you going to put the limit -- up to 149? G. Senter. The 20 to 50 might have been a good way to go and then go through the variance procedure. M. Carey: But then we're going to have -- maybe not a lot -- but you're going to have a few undersized lots. C. Thum: Now you take up there on Spring Street. Those are 200 footers, right? 4 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 16 January 1997 G. Senter. Yes. C. Twigg. And clear back to the hedgerow he is -- he could have built clear up to the road. G. Senter. He's got a longggggg driveway. A lot of people like it that way. CO Twiggy But what I'm wondering is under what circumstances would this be a problem? G. Senter. 20 to 149? CO Twigg: Yes. G. Senter. I'm not saying it's going to be a problem, Cecil, I'm just saying it takes away all the frontage requirements in the Town. C. Twigbfi Except in order to build down on the road, you have to have 150 feet, and if you want to go back in the woods, there's not frontage requirements. But if you want to build down next to the road, there is a frontage requirement. That's about what it amounts to. G. Senter. Seems like we ought to be able to do better than that. C. Twigg: What would you suggest? G. Senter. Cecil, I don't know. That's why I think we ought to look at Lansing's. Did George look at Lansing's? Somebody ought to. Tracey Smith , she brought it in here and she put it 20 to 50. Is that what Lansing's is? CO Twim I know some of them are . G. Senter. Did George change Lansing' s too? C. Twigg: I know some of them were that way, but I see no particular reason for it that way. Why do we need a road frontage? M. Carey. I could call Rebecca at County Planning and talk to her about this. C. Twigg: But I don't know under what circumstances we would need a road frontage requirement. M. Carey: Would it satisfy you if we had a length on the pole , that they would have to go back so many feet off the road? G. Senter. It's not to satisfy me . I just think we need a good definition of a flag lot. C. TNvigg: But if a guy had 149 feet and he goes back in 10 feet and it widens to 150 feet --- what's the difference between 149 and 150 -- or 140? You've got to get the ruler out to measure the difference . And then this guy's 10 feet short. G. Senter. That's exactly my point. CO Twigg: You've got to get your ruler to find that error. So if the guy went back in 10 feet and he had room enough, start building 10 feet back then. As long as he's got room to satisfy the Health Department, I think they're the ones that control the density. If they're satisfied they are not building too close , and the people who buy the lots are satisfied they got room enough --- G. Senter. I don't think we're going to see that many flag lots, but I think we need a really good definition. I don't know if we have a good definition. If you're going to have this sort of thing, then why should you even say 150 feet required? 5 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 16 January 1997 J. Pitch: I'm not a member of this Planning Board, and I hesitate to speak, but I've been sitting here soaking up this stuff for two years, and I thought a flag lot was a lot with too little road frontage but it could provide access to an acreage in the rear -- like one acre or two acres. Co T WiW That's the primary reason. G. Van Slyke: That's a definition of it. Is your problem, George, is that in the definition it says it's a flag-shaped lot with its widest area set back some distance from the public road? You're saying 20 feet? Twenty feet, what's that? That's the minimum for a driveway? G. Seater For an emergency vehicle, yes. M. Carey. That's a State law. G. Van Slyke: So really, from this definition, you're saying that the only place you're really going to be concerned with flag lots is where you've got a piece of territory back in the back that you may want to make some use of, or somebody might want to make some use of. So you run the flag lot back. G. Seater. That's a flag lot, you know. And that's a good point. But like we were discussing, you've got one 145 feet, and you've got a sharp angle on one side -- does the guy still need at least two acres to build on that because that's a flag lot? Co T�vigg: Yes. M. Carey: Yes. G. Seater. He's got an acre - - could he go through the ZBA and get a variance for five feet? M. Carey: Yes -- if he's got less than a two-acre lot, he'd have to go get a variance the way the Ordinance reads. Co Twigg: And I'm really not all that concerned -- they wanted the pole , the flag lots, to be more rural, so one of the reasons we went to the two acres on the flag lot was there was someone who insisted we needed these flag lots bigger. We can't have an acre flag lot. I see no reason to have a flag lot any bigger than a regular lot, except that pole, if it's very long, will use up an acre before you get very far . G. Van Slyke: But that part doesn't count in. G. Senter. You can't build in that anyway. Co Tw1wo That's right -- the pole itself doesn't count. You've got to have two acres behind the pole . M. Carey: Behind the pole. Co Twigg: That doesn't make sense . G. Van Slyke: Why? Co T 1W Why would a guy need two acres back out there, but only an acre down here? It doesn't really make any sense . Most of these flag lots will probably be 8, 10-acre lots. Probably even bigger. G. Seater. At least. G. Van Slyke: What other use are you going to have for that unless you build a road out through there and make a cul-de-sac or something. 6 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 16 January 1997 C. lwigg: The land, once you get away from the road, is not that valuable . And if you look at an aerial map, the only place anybody can live is around the road frontage -- and all this back in the middle nobody can use . M. Carey: That's what flag lots are for basically, is to provide access to that land. CO Twigg: Then we can utilize some of that land back in there. G. Senter. I see nothing wrong with that. I think maybe what we should have done -- and this is just thinking out loud now -- is maybe leave the 20 to 50 in there. And if they've got 80 feet there, they still own that 30 feet whether it's identified as a pole or not. Who cares? CO Zwigg: As long as you use 20 foot for the pole. G. Senter. As long as you've got that -- and the rest of it they own anyway. So who cares? G. Van Slyke: We're not saying that they have to have just 20 feet to make the pole . G. Senter. The original concept was 20 to 50. M. Carey: Let's say this property has 60 feet, so then we've got 10 feet of road frontage that's really not good for anybody or anything. G. Van Slyke: Why isn't it any good? M. Carey: From what I understood, didn't Gleason sell it off to someone and he was left with 10 feet of road frontage? He could never sell that road frontage off again. It's too small for anything. G. Senter. So he's got 10 feet laying there next to his 50 -- who cares? He's still got 60 foot of road frontage. Who cares? If you've got 100 feet and you only need 50 feet for a flag pole, and you've got 50 left over -- who cares? It's still your land. CO TwiWe So you go back to the same reasoning why you have a minimum on a pole -- who cares? G. Seater. Well, you have to have a minimum. C. lwigg: A maximum, let's say. Who cares? G. Van S1yke: How about the guy next to the guy on Old Stage Road there. It appears like they must have built back in the woods someplace , didn't they? There's a road that goes back next to the guy who wanted to sell cars up there -- next to where Reese (?) bought the property and they sold off all the acreage across from the waterworks. M. Carey: And the house sets way, way, way back? G. Van Slyke: Yes. And he put a roadway back in there and put the house way back in the boonies ; you can't see it from the road. He's got a little house for his kids to get on the bus at. M. Carey: I think it might be the Russian guy. G. Van Slyke: No, he built the house up front. But there seems to be a road that goes back in there. M. Carey: Yes, there's a house back in there . G. Van Slyke: Maybe that isn't a flag lot. M. Carey: No it wasn't. I think that was a subdivision, wasn't it? 7 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 16 January 1997 CO Twigg: What you're concerned is not that they're a hundred foot, but is being able to interpret this — you want a clear definition so that if someone asks you just what is a flag lot, you've got something that you can understand. G. Senter. Like , what's the width of the pole? What kind of an answer is that? 20 to 50 feet -- maybe that's the best way to go. I don't know. It's something you ought to discuss with George . M. Carey: This will be something that will be brought up at the special meeting on the 28th . G. Senter. Have a good definition for the Board, because I know they're going to bring that up . C. TWigg: A flag lot is anything with less than 150 of road frontage, and he's got to have two acres back there to build on. I don't see as it needs a lot more explanation. We had meetings for this stuff for how many times? Colleen, Teresa, nor any of them came to the meetings. We had a public hearing. In a meeting where we needed support for the program, and they were invited to every meeting we had, they got minutes to all our meetings. They knew what was going on at all these meetings and then they wait to a public hearing to come out and criticize the program. They should have been to the meetings where it's going to be discussed. Not wait until the public is called in. G. Senter. It wasn't criticizing, it was just trying to make comments. CO Twigg: Well why didn't they do it before it went to the public hearing? M. Carey: Well, hopefully, the Town Board members — the four council people, Teresa, and the lawyer, and the ZBA will be prepared on this. We need to do our homework. And we'd like Joan to record the minutes for us. Ce TWIM You work with it all the while . If anybody was going to run into something, you should have by now, George . G. Senter. You'll run into flag lots before I will. M. Carey: I think we've discussed this enough. We'll need to do our end on it, talk it over with George, and I will call Rebecca Lubin at County Planning and ask her what kind of definitions different towns have on flag lots. We can come up with some definitions and try to get in contact with all of you before the 28th . CO Twi ffe Change this reference here -- this one where the definition -- Pachai's letter. G. Van Slyke: Why are we reading this? M. Carey: I guess John Pachai sent this. This is one thing, to me, that's not right. That letter was only sent to certain people on the Board. And George called me and asked me about this letter; I had no idea what he was talking about. If somebody's going to send information to a person , I think all Board members need to receive this information so we all know what's -- G. Van Slyke: He sent this to those that were operating as a committee -- not the whole Planning Board was involved in this committee that got together to discuss --- M. Carey: But we're Planning Board members and we need to see this also. G. Van Slyke: That would be nice, but -- M. Carey: I mean if somebody wants a change in the laws, then we all need to see what their suggestions are, and George gave me this just this afternoon and I haven't even had time to read it. Ce TWIM Now you got the letter from the lawyer? Proposed Change # 1 - Section 120 - Definitions. We didn't have a definition for Special Permit and for Site Plan Review. The definitions of these important items in the Code procedures were somehow left out of the last revision. This was the letter we sent to the Town Board. This is what we proposed to the Town Board. The lawyer took it . 8 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 16 January 1997 This is the lawyer's answer: "Site Plan Review: A rendering, drawing, or sketch prepared to specifications and containing necessary elements, as set forth in the applicable zoning ordinance or local law, which shows the arrangement, layout and design of the proposed use of a single . . ." All right. That's what the lawyer wrote . Now where's Pachai's letter? "Re: Amendment 1 . The definition of offered for Site Plan Review is actually the definition of a Site Plan. " See, that's a Site Plan definition. Not a Site Plan Review. And apparently we didn't have those in the definitions. But when the lawyer wrote it up for Site Plan Review, that's the definition we should have for a Site Plan, M. Carey: Now -- if you look at last month's minutes, I brought up -- on page 62 that we' re talking about -- is what I think the problem is is we don't have the definitions of these under the definitions section, but we do have definitions in the laws for this (page 52). But I know we had them, because -- page 73, Special Permits. If you look at page 73 where it says Special Permits, "Certain activities, land use regulations, as permitted with the Site Plan Review, because the nature, location, and effect on the surrounding environment warrants the evaluation of a Site Plan before development is allowed . To me, that's a definition . It's not in the definition section, but we could take this definition and put it in the definition section. C. Twigg: But his definition is not for a Site Plan Review; it's for a Site Plan . That's what Pachai's saying . G. Van Slyke: It's got to be in our procedures and rules anyway. I don't understand; the complaint was that we didn't put them in the definitions? C. Twigg: They suggested they should be over in the definitions so if someone's looking for a Site Plan Review, he goes to definitions. G. Van Slyke: Then why don't we just say that -- Section 441 . 1 a --- M. Carey: That's a special permit. I 'm not sure we've really got a definition for the Site Plan Review, G. Van Slyke: The Site Plan Review is a procedure . M. Carey: Right. Okay, what else? We don't have a quorum so we can't approve the minutes. We set down that we're going to meet with the Town Board on January 30th at 7 p.m. Might as well go for 7 o'clock. Anybody else have comments? G. Van Slyke: I've got a question about this deal. What is this thing? M. Carey: Our trip to New York. You've got to go to some sort of training every year. I went to New York last year, and Cecil, Mary Decker, and I went to Watkins Glen for training in the spring . Anyone going to NYC -- Teresa does need to know and you'll have to call her if you are going so she can set up the reservations. I don't think I'll go this year. Okay, we've discussed everything -- we can't make any motions, so we're going to end this meeting now. The meeting ended at 9:05 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Joan E. Fitch Recording Secretary 9