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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1997-05-15 l 1 c% TOWN OF GROTON PLANNING BOARD MEETING Thursday, 15 May 1997 Board Members (*absent) Others Present George Totman, Chairman James Landon Monica Carey Ezra Roher & Courtney Sheldon Clark *Jeff Lewis Verl Rankin *Cecil Twigg *George VanSlyke The meeting was called to order at S. 11 p.m. by Chairman Totman. G. Totman . Just to move things along, I'll call the meeting to order. We'll do the minutes after we get a quorum. Ezra Roher - 603 Davis Road - Site Plan Review - Elec. Motor Repair Shop - TM # 29- 1 - 11 . 1 G. Totman . But for the benefit of Ezra -- this is Ezra Roher. Do you want to do the SEAR? Anytime a business is started in the Town of Groton, we have to do what we call a Site Plan Review, and it's done for somebody who wants to sell cars out in front of their house , or have a beauty shop , or whatever. It's just a normal thing . And so when we do it, we have to do what we call a SEQR Review and most people think that's kind of ridiculous, but it's a State law. And if we don't do a SEAR Review, which we call the short form, and somebody like your neighbor or whatever didn't like what you did, and didn't like our decision to pass it, if we pass it, and we didn't do the Review, they could have it nullified and voided . They could throw it out and say it wasn't legal because we didn't do the Environmental Review Form, so we have to do those. Sometimes people look at them as too much bureaucratic stuff, but a lot of it isn't what the local government wants to do, it's what you have to do to protect the Town government. Sheldon -- Sheldon got here and it's 8: 13. This is Ezra Roher, Sheldon who lives on Davis Road , almost on the County line . M. Carey. I was just going to ask where this is. G. Totman . Just in from the County line on the right-hand side. He's a former toolmaker. E. Roher: If you're going from here to there, I'm the last one in Tompkins County on the right hand side . G. Totman . And he wants to start a repair shop. So we are in the process of doing my usual thing, explaining to him why we have to do some of the things we do. So we might as well get down to business and have Monica read the SEAR thing. Board Member Monica Carey then reads aloud Part II 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 the motion made by Verl Rankin, seconded by Sheldon Clark, with all members present 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 . What Ezra wants to do is, in the building that's already on his property, start an electric motor repair shop for people like you, Sheldon, that overheat your motors on your farm equipment and you need to have them repaired. Is that right? E. Roher. Yes, and I also want to do some light machining. 1 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 17 April 1997 G. Totman : Yes. And the buildings are already there and we don't have a diagram showing it, but -- V. Rankin: Is this where Jerry Holl's folks used to live? G. Totman : Yes. E. Roher: It's the original place - the Holl farm . G. Totman : He bought a part of that. Some of the things we're supposed to look at and make provisions for are -- there's different kinds of shops -- auto repair shops, body and fender shops, motor repair shops, and yours is a motor shop so we're not talking about having junk autos around , and all that sort of thing. Anyway, we're supposed to make sure that there is ample parking for customers, and stuff like that, and the hours of operation if it's gong to be noisy. In many cases, when people want to do repair work or anything around -- we try to make sure they don't operate after six o'clock at night so it disturbs the neighbors with little kids who want to go to sleep . So this is an operation where the work is all going to be done on the inside . E. Roher: Right. G. Totman: And there might be a customer now and then bringing a motor in , leaving it, and bringing it back. I'm just kind of bringing the Planning Board up to date as to what I think what you're asking for. So are there any questions from the Planning Board? M. Carey: No cars involved, so we don't have to worry about that. Just going to be small engines, right, basically? E. Roher: Right. G. Totman : And a little tool machining work like a machinist. Are you going to hire any help? E. Roher: In a couple years I hope to . G. Totman: Nobody s got any more questions? One of the things we have to do is decide if we want to put stipulations in about parking - - offstreet. One of the things we obviously have to put in is that you have to provide your own parking -- there can be no offstreet parking. And, of course - - M. Carey: No "onstreet" parking -- G. Totman: Or "onstreet" parking -- I always say that wrong. E. Roher: I have lots of parking. G. Totman: And on your road you wouldn't want to have onstreet parking anyway, because you're coming down the hill there -- and that sort of thing . But we do have to put that stipulation in and normally we talk about whether there's cars going to be out there. You're not going to have any outside activity , so if anybody drove by the wouldn't -- except for maybe a sign or something -- if you do have a sign , you have to get a sign permit from the Code Enforcement Officer. E. Roher: Okay, G. Totman: We don't handle that. But just so you know you do have to get a permit to put up a sign. I really don't know if we vote on something like this, we have to vote on whether we want to have a public hearing or not. That's why you had to put all your neighbors' names down -- either you did or the Town Clerk did it for you . These are all your neighbors' names. So if it's controversial, or it's going to be something that has a lot of outside activity, we're supposed to hold a public hearing so the neighborhood can know what's going on in the area so they can voice their opinions . M. Carey: On your side of the road you really don't have close neighbors, do you? It's on the other side . 2 ' Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 17 Apr1111997 E. Roher: No. G. Totman: Across the road he does . Not really close, but -- E. Roher: I wish there was something we could do about that -- with the bulldozer, but -- there's some problems there that should be taken care of. But there's nothing I can say. What I'd like to say is, since I'm going to start a business there is -- the people come down that road and do in excess of 65 to 70 MPH down that hill. Can there be a speed limit posted on that road? Someone's going to get killed, and they have been killed there at the foot of the hill . That road is treacherous . Now, if I'm going to start a business there, I'm going to have people in and out of that driveway and we don't need people coming over the crown of that hill doing 60 MPH . That's one of my grave concerns. G. Totman: Let me see if I can explain to you the normal way that's taken care of. If a road suddenly gets a lot more residential units on it than it's had in the past, or whatever, they can petition the Town Board to change the speed limit. And suppose the Town Board agrees with them for a particular reason -- then the Town Board , with their sanction and resolution, sends it onto the State . And the State looks at it and says, "Is that road worse than the other roads in the area, and is there more development or children at play in the area?" Then they decide whether they can lower the speed limit or not, even though it would be a Town or County road -- even then , the State has the ultimate decision on setting speed limits . I think, just to give you an example, down here on Route 38 and the Peruville Road where they just put the light in - - look how many deaths there were there before the State agreed to do anything. And the same thing up on the corner of Salt Road and 222 -- they've petitioned for all kinds of things up there, and the State just said there hasn't been enough accidents. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with it, but what I'm saying is you have the right to get all your neighbors to petition the Town Board to require a reduction in speed limit. What a lot of people will say -- if the speed limit is 55 and they're doing 65 and you can't control that, how are you going to control a 35? It's the proper and legal way to do it -- get all the neighbors to sign a petition in a given area and, if they are spread all over 2 or 3 miles -- if you got a concentration of people, you might have more of a chance than if it's spread out over a larger area. But that's the way you do it - - petition the Town Board. And you probably should have everybody in the area sign it because they'll look up the tax map numbers -- and like they did on your application here, you get a copy of the tax map that shows where you live and who all the neighbors are . That's he only way to do it. The Town can't do it automatically by themselves. They have to petition to the County and the County takes it from there and they petition it to the State . Inbetween times, each group has to approve of it. V. Rankin: In other words, you're wasting your time . G. Totman: I didn't say that, I don't want to give that impression . E. Roher: On some of the secondary roads I thought they were like 45 MPH speed zone and then some of the main roads were like 55, and -- well, our road is never patrolled -- it's never monitored. G. Totman: Unless you call in - - if there's no problems, they don't look at it as one of their problem places. E. Roher: It definitely is. V. Rankin: We all have the same problems. E. Roher: Yes, but I'm worried about her (referring to daughter who was present) and the other kids. G. Totman: One of the things, Ezra, that they'll tell you -- and I don't mean this facetiously, is why do you let your kid play in the road? I've been to other town board meetings and other people that are sitting in the room will say that to their neighbors -- we don't allow our kids out in the road . E. Roher: Most accidents I've seen on our road - - the cars end up 30 to 40 feet off the road . 3 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 17 April 1997 G. Totman : I didn't mean that as if I was saying it -- I meant it as what people were saying. I just sat at a town meeting where they wanted to change the speed limit on Searls Road -- do you know where that is? They want to cut that down to 20 MPH because there's a lot of development out there . And there were other people at the same meeting, only for other reasons, and they were saying to the town board -- they had a petition from everybody on the road and they wanted to cut the speed limit down. These other people said, "Hey, we live on North Trip, and it's 55 MPH on North Trip, and we don't have any problems. Why do you have a problem way out there on Searls Road?" You've got to be careful sometimes when you bring those up from what other people are saying or doing, because like North Trip -- you know where that is -- that's 55 MPH; Warren Road is 45 MPH -- actually, Warren Road gets less traffic than North Trip does, but that's a lower speed limit. Once it hits the village it goes down to 30. But these people were from Searls Road and they really couldn't convince anybody that they should cut the speed limit down there . But the legal way to do it is to get a petition and take it to the Town Board . Now, we have a proposition for a Site Plan Review for a motor repair shop . The only conditions that I , personally, can think that we would think about is the fact that there's not going to be any noticeable outside noise , not going to be any noticeable outside storage, so we can put in there that the applicant has stated that he has ample room for offstreet parking, there's no indication that any of the materials for this business are going to be stored outdoors, it's not going to deface the neighborhood , and so I see no reason why we shouldn't pass it, for the minutes sake. Anybody else got anything they want to -- if you vote to approve, then you've got to vote whether or not to bypass the public hearing. V. Rankin: I move that we bypass the public hearing and approve the Site Plan as submitted, with the condition that there will be no onstreet parking, and no noticeable outside noise or storage . M. Carey: I second that motion. G. Totman : All in favor? (Everyone present indicated they were in favor.) All you've got to do is to go to George Senter and apply for a sign permit to put up a sign. We don't do sign permits. E. Roher: Okay -- when I get ready to put one up , if I decide to put one up . Okay. That's it? S. Clark: That's it. Approval of Minutes G. Totman: Being that we didn't have a quorum to start with , we didn't approve the minutes, so now we're approving the minutes of the March and April meetings . V. Rankin: I read them and they're all right. G. Totman: We can approve them separately, or we can approve them both together. M. Carey: Might as well approve them both together. I so move . S. Clark: I'll second it. G. Totman : All in favor? (All indicated they were in favor.) Miscellaneous Business G. Totman : I got these things at a meeting I went to awhile back, and I just thought it would be - - you know lots of times you hear me ranting and raving about things we should be looking at - - this is sort of a guideline put out by the New York Planning Federation, and I thought it would be just something nice to refer to to understand why you're doing it, or whatever. Rather than a big piece of paper, it's something we can use . (George handed out a laminated "card" which contained a "Checklist for Subdivision Review" on one side, with a "Checklist for Site Plan Review" on the other side. ) Does anybody have anything else to come before the meeting? We can ask Monica to check into this, but I believe sometime in June there's a couple more training sessions that are coming up in relation to that 4 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 17 April 1997 type of thing that may be beneficial and might be qualifying for having some kind of educational program, sponsored by the Tompkins County Planning Federation, I think. M. Carey: I don't have anything for June . G. Totman : Check and see, because I thought I read that somewhere . S. Clark: We need to get something that's close and easy. (Bob Walpole sticks head in door and chit-chats for a minute .) G. Totman: Has anybody else got anything? M. Carey: I make a motion we adjourn . S. Clark: I'll second it. G. Totman : All in favor? (All indicated they were in favor.) The meeting ended at 8:43 p.m. Respectfully submitted, tie Joan E . Fitch Recording Secretary 5