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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1997-12-18 TOWN OF GROTON PLANNING BOARD MEETING Thursday, 18 December 1997 Board Members (*absent) Others Present George Totman, Chairman Joan E. Fitch , Recording Secretary Monica Carey George Senter Sr. , CEO Sheldon Clark Floyd Kyes, Applicant Verl Rankin Bruce Davison, Applicant Rep. *Van Travis Edward J. Volpicelli, Applicant Cecil Twigg George Van Slyke The meeting was called to order at 8 * 15 p.m. by Chairman George Totman. G. Totman: Okay, we've got quorum. Has everybody read the Minutes from the last meeting? G. Van Slyke: No, because we don't have the Minutes from the last meeting. G. Totman : Okay. I just thought I'd check. Is there a reason why we haven't got the Minutes of the last meeting? J. Fitch: Yes, G. Van Slyke : Because she hasn't typed them up. G. Totman: Okay, then we'll move on to the next thing on our Agenda. And we're almost on time by doing it that way. Floyd Kyes - 956 Salt Road - Amend Special Permit - TM # 17 - 1 -4 G. Totman : We have a problem with one of our constituents who, in 1993 , came before this Board -- and correct me if my figures are wrong -- and applied for a Site Plan Review for a storage building. He sat before this Board and said that he wanted to have a Site Plan Review and a storage building, and definitely he said he had no problem with any outside storage because he was not going to have any. Now he has outside storage and he is here tonight to present his case to the Board as to why he would like to have outside storage when he didn't think he needed it before . Am I correct on all that? F. Kyes: You are right as snow. G. Totman: The floor is yours. F. Kyes: The floor is mine. Okay. G. Totman: Can we call you Dusty? F. Kyes: You may if you wish . That's probably the kindest thing I've been called in awhile . I believe that meeting was October 21 , 1993? G. Totman: Yes, F. Kyes: Well, I will fast forward the hands of time to March 15, 1994 when we endured the great blizzard of 1994 when we had a large amount of snow falling in a short period of time . The bottom line through all of us rambling is that the quonset but that comprised quite a bit of my inside storage was now flat on the ground from snow. So we cleaned that up and moved it out of the way, but unfortunately I have not been able to hit the magic formula to create money enough to build another building comprising what used to be the quonset hut. So I lost about 40% of my inside storage . The outside storage problem that we are encountering today and what we're talking about at this particular meeting, I'm going to say 85 to 90% of the crates that are in question are on top of 1 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 cement that would have been still inside had the building not fallen down and been taken away. There are some crates that are not in that area that actually go beyond that. In the interest of being completely honest with you, part of it is is that we are being asked to do a slightly different thing by Polaris Industries than we did in 1993 . In 1993 , all we did was take vehicles in, hold them for a day or two , and then re-shuffle them out and distribute them. Now, because of problems with the watercraft market and some of the less sales that Polaris has had over the years, we have piles of machines that have been repossessed or are for some reason or another on hold that are not consigned to go anywhere. Some of those machines we try to keep off in the corner. Everything is still inside the fence . We have some piles of machines that I've no idea when they're going to leave or where they are going to leave, but I know for a fact from bitter experience I've got to keep those separate from the machines in the general population. A tired fork-lift operator has been known to put a hold machine on a load that ends up someplace and we've either got to figure out where it is or go get it. We still have one we haven't figured out where it is yet. That's why we try to keep those machines that aren't earmarked for anyone separate so they don't go anywhere else . So that's basically between the fact that my quonset but fell down and the fact that we've got to have blocks of machines that are away from the general population so that we don't inadvertently take them and put them on a load and get rid of them without knowing why we did it, or where they went. That's my reasoning . G. Totman : Do you have any intentions on re-building the quonset hut? F. Kyes: Well, right now I've got to have enough money to get the sprinkler system in the first warehouse . And I've had a little trouble with that. I don't know that I have intentions of re-building the quonset hut, but I would like to eventually expand the warehouse to get everything under cover again. But I would be telling you an untruth if I tried to tell you when I could do that because I don't know how any body else's business is going, but I'm not broke and I'm not being repossessed, but on the other hand I don't have enough money to go out and buy myself a new Corvette and a couple new trucks, and put on a big building, and do all kinds of other things either. M. Carey: Now is all this machinery behind the --- F. Kyes: Everything is behind the fence . I guess my question is if it's all right for me to have junk cars behind the fence, I understand that in the eyes of some of you people Polarises are even more of a bain on the earth than junk cars. G. Totman ; You can have junk cars behind the fence if you have a junkyard license . F. Kyes: I have that. G. Totman: You have a junkyard license? F. Kyes: I have a junkyard license, a repair shop license, and in the minutes of the same meeting where we talked about this, in 1993, we talked about my repair shop and how many inoperable cars I can have outside the fence and how many used cards I can have outside the fence, and how many had to be inside the fence. See , I've had a junkyard since before you had zoning in the village. I didn't even realize I was in violation on anything until just December of this year. The building fell down in the spring of 1994 , and I went all 494 , '95 , and '96, and all '97 -- G. Totman: I haven't talked to George on that part of it. Apparently, George wouldn't have cited you for not complying with this Special Permit you got for the warehouse storage if he hadn't have seen something that he thought was in violation of that permit that we gave you back in 1993. If you have a junkyard license , and George is not citing you for that, that means that everything you've got within the junkyard perimeters is behind the fence . F. Kyes: That's correct. G. Totman : Apparently, these things you've got here now are not behind the junkyard fence . F. Kyes: I'm sorry, sir, but yes they are. George is here. He can testify -- G. Totman: That's why I'm asking the question. 2 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 G. Van Slyke : So you can help us out -- I know where you are located. So the concrete slab - - the one out back there -- let me ask you the question, George . Did you notice the snowmobiles, watercraft, and so on through the gate? Is it visible from the road? Or had you driven in? G. Senter: If the fence was closed, you probably couldn't see or notice what was in there. There may be a couple of them stacked a little higher that you could see . G. Van Slyke : So you're saying that the majority of them are stored up close to the building then? F. Kyes: The majority of them are on the slab and they would have been inside if the building was still there . I don't know how close to the building that is. The quonset used to be 160 feet long; now, it's only 60 feet long. We lost 100 feet of it. So that 100 feet that used to be quonset is a cement slab where the floor was when the quonset still stood . And that's where most of these crates are is on that slab. Then there's a little paddock, for lack of a better word, made out of . . . wood , and at one time there were junk cars in there. We took all the junk cars out of there and put them farther back in the yard put these crates up in there. That's where that, and the foundation where the old cow barn used to be, is where we keep the hold pile - - the pile of machines that are in limbo that we don't know what's going to happen -- whether they're going to go to another dealer or whether they're going back to Minnesota, or what they're going to do with them . G. Senter: The only reason he's in here is the Special Permit said he had a warehouse , and had to be inside storage . He doesn't have inside -- he has it on the outside. G. Van Slyke : That's here in the minutes, right? G. Totman: Any more questions, anybody? M. Carey: As long as there's a fence there . G. Totman : We got two issues here, I think. I think you have to be careful. In this particular case, I think the Code Enforcement Officer is doing his job , because we made a decision back in 1993 that we allowed this type of activity as long as it was stored inside. It's now being stored outside . We also have, on the same piece of property, a qualified junkyard license. As long as it qualifies with being within a fence, then it's legal. Normally, you consider what's in the junkyard as junk. I think probably what would have prevented this case from happening tonight would have been if the owner had either come to the Code Enforcement Officer who could have, in turn, come to the Planning Board, or the owner of the property had come directly to the Planning Board and said I don't have anyplace inside anymore because I lost my building, can I store them within the parameters of the fence so they still won't be seen from the road, and would that be legal? Do you follow what I'm saying? F. Kyes: I would have no problem doing that if I thought that's what I was supposed to do . I had no idea. G. Totman : And I haven't talked to George about this, so George has no idea even what I'm saying. But that's the way I view the situation , and I think everything that's been done so far as why we're here is on the up and up . Our decision has to be as to how do we handle the situation as a Board? G. Davison: Can I just throw something in as a spectator? Can he just apply for open storage within the junkyard? G. Totman: Not really, Bruce. M. Carey: Why not just remove the condition of "no outside storage"? Would he have to reapply for a special permit? G. Van Slyke: Let's go back to the beginning, okay. Since we have the Minutes in front of us - - page 2. J. Fitch: What's the date on those Minutes, George? 3 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 1S December 1997 G. Van Slyke: October 21 , 1993 . Now, first of all, the reason Dusty came to us back in 1993 was the fact that he was planning at that time to build another storage building. So at that time you told him -- it was your suggestion -- he should come for a Site Plan Review on the property to build that extra storage facility. Obviously, that was going to be on in back of what you had there originally. Right? F. Kyes: Correct. G. Van Slyke: Okay. So the reason we got into this at this point was because of that Site Plan Review that he came to request. So in the process of this, we ended up -- why did we put that kind of stipulation on there? Was that just because he said he was going to build the building? G. Totman: No. Basically, it was because of the fact that there's a lot of other activities going on on that land . And in the past he had outside storage -- he had junk cars around there and all sorts of things. G. Van Slyke: He had a junkyard permit. G. Totman: Before he didn't, though. He got the junkyard permit sometime in that interim. Let me just ask a question of the Board members. We made that stipulation back then because we have to look at the neighborhood -- not only your neighborhood, but the whole Town, as far as protecting the quality of life and people's properties and all that sort of thing. And what we were looking at at that time was saying no outside storage . We didn't want the place all cluttered up with all kinds of stuff. He has a junkyard license . The Code Enforcement Officer has had no problems with his junkyard license . He's complied with it, as I understand it. Now George can correct me if I'm wrong. I can see this -- if we allow junk inside the perimeter of a fence where you can't see it from the road, and we call it a junkyard license, if we change this permit where it says no outside storage to no outside visible storage, I think it would solve the problem. G. Senter: Do you feel he's requesting outside storage outside the fence? G. Totman: No, no . I'm saying no outside visible storage . That means it's got to be inside the fence. G. Senter: That's what he has now. G. Totman: It just can't be visible from the road. G. Van Slyke : Okay, George . Let's go to page -- G. Totman: What it would mean is that what you have now that's stored too high would have to be dropped down. F. Kyes: I guess that's better than nothing, but I have a reason for storing them that high . The stuff that is farther away from the building I like to keep as high as possible so if somebody has a mind to come and steal it at least they have to work for it. I had it only three high and it was no problem to back up a pickup truck right in there and -- G. Totman: Don't you have your fence locked? F. Kyes: Yes . But a pair of bolt cutters is no problem on a lock. I lost two of them that way so far, and both of them I lost were ones that were only three high and the guy could back a pickup in there and spin it right off of the stack right onto the back of the pickup truck and drive it away and nobody knows nothing. But if it's four high or five high , they're at least going to take a chance of throwing their back off or something if they're going to try to spin it off from that high . G. Totman: I was trying to solve your problem. F. Kyes: I'm just telling you how we do things and why we do what we do . We pay big money for insurance and all kinds of other things to keep this business going. I'm here and I might as well put 4 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 all my cards on the table right now and tell you why we're doing what we're doing so I don't say, okay, that's fine , and we drop it down and then I start building them back up again only to have George say I better drop them back down. Might as well get it over with right now and get it so we know what we're doing. G. Totman: I guess what my other thought was is to increase the height of the fence. But that defeats what you're saying also , right? F. Kyes: Well, it's hard enough to keep a fence from falling down at 8 feet high the way the wind blows. In fact, to counter that move I pushed that dirt bank up and that's like 14 foot high . But a dirt bank would be very unsightly in that little paddock where those crates are . G. Van Slyke : Let me take you back to page 3 of the Minutes from that meeting. This is your quote , George . "And this Site Plan Review that he's asking for now is to receive permission to have the storage facility for on-going business and all the materials will be stored inside the building, and the only thing that will be visible on the outside will be the fence that circles the property. " So in reality, you said that the fence is the only visible thing you should see at that point. In your statement, right here, -- read that and see -- at that time you were saying that there shouldn't be anything visible except a fence. In other words, you shouldn't be stacking them so high that -- unless you put them inside a building where you can stack them as high as you want to . The only thing we're saying is the product -- what I'm thinking is that no product that should be visible except for the fence . F. Kyes: All these things are in crates . We're not talking about loose machines sitting out there rusting. G. Van Slyke: I realize that, but I'm trying to get you off of this thing somehow, too. G. Totman: Do you want to read what he's talking about? F. Kyes: I've read it already. George sent me it. G. Van Slyke: Now wait a minute. Were you referring to, at that time, George, the cars? Because at one time there was a used car business. G. Totman: He's got both there . G. Van Slyke : But we said he could put the used cars out in front of the fence. G. Totman: The turnkey used cards. G. Senter: But only so many. G. Van Slyke: We limited those. F. Kyes: And you also gave me permission -- see, I have a repair shop , too - - to have no more than 10 inoperable vehicles. G. Totman: The object of having the fence is so you can't seethe so-called junk from the road. But he's putting them in the area we call a junkyard. And I'm thinking about when we have to control the same thing throughout the Town with everybody else . And if we're telling everybody else that they can't have, within their junkyard area, stuff that's visible from the road how we can make an exception for one person and get away with it without having to go to court. F. Kyes: I guess that's probably why you guys get the big bucks. G. Totman : (To Cecil Twigg Q 8 : 38 p .m.) You just came . Do you know what we're talking about? C. Twigg: It doesn't matter. 5 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 G. Totman : I'm seriously trying to do what I can to help you, but I also have to look at what we have to do in relationship to the whole Town. And we've had other people who've had junkyard licenses that we've had to practically close down because their perimeters got outside of their fence, or above their fence . F. Kyes: I rest on my record on that. You've never had a complaint about the way I operate the junkyard. G. Totman : No . Until now. F. Kyes: But this isn't a junkyard matter. This is a warehouse matter. G. Totman: But it's in the perimeters of your junkyard. That's where we come in. F. Kyes: I would answer your question of how you would control it and not get in a lawsuit about things stacked higher than the fence. I would guess if somebody wanted to run a junkyard and put their car in crates and have a nice logo on the side of the crate and have it all enclosed in a box and stack them up that high , I suppose it wouldn't look so unsightly. Everything we're talking about here is a premium product. It's in a box. It's got a wrapper around it. And it's got a logo on it. Co Twigg: What are we talking about, George? Bring me up to date. What's the complaint? G. Totman : Have you read the Minutes? C. Twigg: Yes, I read the Minutes. G. Totman: I mean the packet that you got. What we're talking about is the permit we gave him to have an operation with no outside storage . He's got two permits -- a Special Permit for his operation with no outside storage, and a separate permit for a junkyard. Because he lost one of the buildings that he was storing stuff in, he's now storing stuff in his junkyard perimeter, but he's staking it so high you can see it from the road . It's higher than the fence . So as far as the Code Enforcement Officer is concerned, and he is correct, the stuff that's stored within the perimeter of the junkyard is visible from the road which is not allowable according to our Ordinance. And so that's why we're here tonight is because Dusty asked to meet with the Planing Board to see if he could get a variance -- incidentally, we can't give variances. If we tell you it's not legal, then you have to get a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals. I was trying to come up with some ways where we could figure out how we could do what we could do or whatever. F. Kyes: I don't understand that procedure . So I don't have a variance now, but I have a Special Permit. Is there a difference? What do I have now? G. Totman : You have a permit to operate, as long as you abide by the rules we agreed to . Now you have gone -- the only thing I can see that's troubling is you have lost your storage building -- I can't believe they let you store them outside in the rain and the snow. F. Kyes: That's where they keep them in Minnesota where most of the dealers -- G. Totman: Other than that, if you had kept them at the height of the fence , and they couldn't be seen from the road, you would have no problem. Nevertheless, the junkyard rules cover what he can store in the junkyard as long as we can't see it from the road . If he would agree to keep them in that area where we couldn't see them from road, then I don't think George would have a problem. F. Kyes: How did we have no problem from all of '94, all of '95, all of `96, and all of '97 until a week ago . G. Totman: Apparently George didn't see it. It's the same thing as if I got stopped for speeding and I'm in a line of traffic, and I say how come you stopped me -- everybody else is speeding? The trooper's answer is "you were the one I caught. " You were wrong all those years. 6 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 F. Kyes: Most of that stuff is ready to be shipped out. The day you were up there -- we try to keep each dealer's stuff in separate piles. G. Senter: That's probably why I didn't complain before because it was what was ready to be shipped out. But now you're moving them out into the yard . G. Van Slyke: Let me ask you a dumb question here at this point as I look at the Special Permit. First of all, he came to us because he wanted to build a warehouse . He already had a warehouse, but my understanding at that time was you wanted to expand it 100 feet when I get enough money to do it, right? F. Kyes: Yes. G. Van Slyke: Okay. So then we find ourselves putting this stipulation on this warehouse business. Right, George? G. Totman : Right, G. Van Slyke: But do we have any right to put a stipulation on his warehouse business? Where he necessary has to store everything. It would be like a guy who buys a barn and he's going to store vehicles in it. And you say well, you've got to store everything inside . G. Totman: We do that all the time, George . G. Van Slyke: But you have to have a Special Permit to do that. G. Totman: You have to have a Special Permit. And he was talking about storage. And we said we give you the Special Permit for your warehouse storage because that's what's required in the Ordinance, and at that particular time he told us that he had enough storage space so he didn't have to store anything outside . And he didn't come back to us and say he lost his storage space and now he had to store it outside . I'm not being critical of anybody. G. Van Slyke: I guess I can understand where you're coming from. So what he should have done when that building fell in is come back and said the conditions have changed , or he should have let George know the conditions had changed . G. Totman: And then we should have had another meeting and said how are we going to handle this situation? We have to answer to the general public also. F. Kyes: If I had a clue that I had to do that, I would have . George comes up and inspects my junkyard and I have two licenses - - I have a repair shop license that costs me $50 a year, and I have a junkyard license that costs me another $50 a year. And he has to come up and see that I am in compliance before he re-issues each one of those licenses, and it never crossed my mind that I had to come back and say anything about the building falling down. I remember I had to come down and buy a permit when we took a quonset down, or something. Didn't I have to do that? I had to get a demolition permit. C. Twigg: This stuff you're storing outside -- only thing is you want it inside the junkyard? For safety. F. Kyes: It's inside the fence. I figured it's always been inside the fence . I keep it inside the fence for safety. And we try to keep the stacks as high we can to discourage people from backing in with their pickup truck. If the stack is only three high , you can back a pickup truck next to that stack and a guy can stand in back of the truck and spin a crate off into the back of the pickup and away he goes. If it's 4, 5, or 6 high, it's pretty tough to do. You stand a good chance of smashing the cab of your truck up or breaking your neck. We've lost two of them that way so far. C. Tvi%g: George , I don't know, but this is boxed material. So what if you've got room to stack them outside of the junkyard? 7 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 F. Kyes: Outside the fence? C. Twigg: Yes. You don't want them outside the fence? F. Kyes: No. G. Totman: Cecil, what you missed before was -- the only reason that we're here now is not because he's storing them inside the fence, it's because he's storing them so high you can see them from the road. And the reason he says he's storing them that high is so people can't back in their pickup truck and then steal them because they are too up in the air to pull them off and put them in the truck. If he stores them outside that fenced-in area then they could steal them completely. C. Twigg: How do they get a pickup inside this fenced -in area? F. Kyes: A couple times they had bolt cutters and cut the lock on the gate and just went in there. C. Twigg: I don't believe it. F. Kyes: I can't see how they can do that myself. It bothered me a lot. C. Twigg: This is not New York City, you know. G. Totman: We have a problem trying to convince the public that we would approve something just because somebody would steal something. I know what you're saying, Dusty. Don't get me wrong. We really have a problem with trying to say that we let somebody get away with something because they don't want somebody to steal something. We've got to come up with a better excuse. C. Twigg: Now the reason we had the fence around the junkyard was so people couldn't see junk, right? F. Kyes: That's correct. C. Twigg: Now these crated snowmobiles -- that's what they are? F. Kyes: Well, there's some watercraft, there's some four-wheel vehicles -- C. Twigg: Whatever. They're all crated. F. Kyes: They're brand new. C. Twigg: Now that doesn't look like junk to me. If it's all crated, we've gone past trying to protect people from looking at junk. Now crates aren't really junk, are they? F. Kyes: They're brand new vehicles. They are in a crate to protect them from the elements. They are brand new units. C. Twigg: So I think that would be a little bit different, putting a stipulation in there that he can pile crates above the fence rather than piling junk cars above the fence . G. Totman: Okay. I don't want to get adversary here , but when we approved this in the first place, we were still talking about the same thing -- we were talking about new pieces of equipment, or whatever you want to call them -- to be put into a storage building, to have a storage building on a piece of land -- for which the Ordinance calls for a Site Plan Review. And at that particular time, he was talking about new Polaris snowmobiles. And primarily we were saying you can have this operation, a warehouse and all that, as long as you keep it inside . And that was what we agreed to in '93. We didn't distinguish whether it was junk or not then , or whether it was new or used. We were just saying we were keeping the neighborhood clean and having everything stored inside . G. Van Slyke: See, the thing on the Special Permit that they issued, the condition was no outside storage. 8 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 F. Kyes: Playing devil's advocate here, what would happen if say, I mean it's a warehousing operation, and I , in my particular warehousing operation , happen to store things in crates. But what would happen if my business changed and I picked up a contract where I stored lightpoles or something that was too tall to go inside the building -- I had another kind of commodity. I'm still in the warehousing and trucking business, but now I'm storing something else -- maybe cement blocks or big whatevers. Warehousing and storage is the kind of business that, depending on who your customers are and what it is you're handling, can come in all shapes and sizes. C. Twigg: You'd have to come in and get your permit. F. Kyes: I'd have to get a permit again if I had another commodity -- not that I'm planning on getting one . I feel quite safe with the commodity I've got. G. Totman: I'll tell you what, Dusty. There seems to be some confusion here and we're going by what you thought you could live with at that particular time . F. Kyes: Okay, G. Totman : And there seems to be some confusion as to what is right and what is wrong. What I think I'm going to suggest is -- depending on whether or not we can get the Planning Board's approval - - that we put you on hold for 60 days until our February meeting -- or whatever the 60 days is -- the third Thursday in February and between now and then you figure out what you can do to comply with this and we will talk it over and decide what we can do -- and what the Ordinance will let us do . We have to go by what the Ordinance will let us do . F. Kyes: I can comply with it now by just taking the stacks down. G. Totman: Because the Ordinance is written and approved by the Town Board. And we have to follow this Ordinance. We can discuss it inbetween times and decide where we can go, or maybe confer with the Town Attorney or whatever, and then the third Thursday in February we can sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk like we did in October of 1993 . F. Kyes: Okay, G. Totman : Would that be agreeable with the Planning Board (all members present acknowledged they agreed) , and George? G. Senter: Yes. I have no problem with it. G. Totman: Let's do it that way then . M. Carey: I make a motion we table this matter until our regular February meeting. G. Van Slyke: I'll second that motion, Monica. G. Totman : All in favor? (All members present indicated they were in favor.) Motion carried . Okay, we've got to move on. We took longer than we should have on that one . Glenn Munson - NYS Route 222 & Lick St. - Rural Subdivision (Hunter Farm) - TM # 26- 1 - 5 G. Totman: Okay, the next thing on the Agenda is the Hunter Farm. You all got the information? You all got maps in the mail. The representative for Munson Realty is here to talk to you . Bruce Davison, LS , is representing Munson Realty . And as I understand it, if we approve of this transaction, then in a couple of months there's going to be an auction to sell this land off. I have talked -- to be very honest with everybody -- I have talked with Mr. Munson and he explained to me what they were doing, and I explained to him that if he was still friends with Mr. Davison , that we would accept him here at the meeting, and that it looked to me like what he was presenting would be something that we would approve if it was presented on a normal basis. With that, I'll let the Planning Board members ask Mr. Davison whatever questions they want to ask. In the meantime, I 'm going to take a break. 9 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 V. Rankin: Is that property across the road from the church? M. Carey: On 222 and Lick Street, on the side . G. Davison: That was part of the Hunter Estate at one time , but it's been deeded off fairly recently. M. Carey: That won't be coming before us. This E, is that both of those hayfields there? The first two along the road. G. Van Slyke: That's along Lick Street? M. Carey: No. 222 . G. Totman: The ones on 222 are in the Industrial District. M. Carey: Are they, on that side of the road? G. Van Slyke: It's on both sides. G. Totman: What you've got to remember is -- part of Matt's (?) property is right in here, so it part of the road frontage in here will fall within that district. But I think we're still okay. M. Carey: Well, we have to have at least five acres for that, so these are all over five-acre lots. G. Totman: That's right. G. Van Slyke: Okay, the house, garage, and barn that set up there -- that's Parcel B -- I don't see where the lines are . Okay -- it's not outlined very good . So this is Parcel A? G. Davison: Right. The corner lot. M. Carey: Okay. But Parcel B has road frontage on Lick Street and 222 -- that little jog down on 222? G. Davison: Yes. G. Van Slyke : Plus all of this that goes to down here, right? Is this correct? M. Carey: And it has some road frontage on Elm Street, G. Van Slyke: No it doesn't. Does it go all the way to Elm Street? D is the one that' s down on Elm Street. M. Carey: Yes, you're right. G. Van Slyke : Have you got a highlighter, George, so we can see what this thing looks like? So this is A right here, right? G. Davison: Uh , huh . G. Van Slyke: So this is A. And now B is from here down here, kind of jogs around it like this. Okay, this is B . C is still down -- is this stuff out of here? C is on 222, right? G. Davison: Yes. G. Van Slyke: It's all fronted on 222 . D is the section down here that goes all the way back along Beechwood properties. I want to get all these blocked out so we know what the heck we're talking about. Now how far back does E go here? 10 . r Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 G. Totman: Three-hundred eighty some feet. G. Van Slyke: This just goes back this far, right? Okay, (Note: All the while Member Van Slyke is sketching out the lots, there is a separate conversation going on by others about Mr. Nelson's cows; therefore , some of the pertinent conversation is missed by the steno.) G. Van Slyke: What do you want? J. Fitch: When I do the Minutes, if you say over here is Parcel A, and over there is something else," it is not very clear. If you could give the acreage for each parcel, it would help clarify what you're referring to. G. Van Slyke: 11 . 58 acres. B contains 36, 139 acres -- (Note : Mr. Davison then shows the steno a list of Parcel Descriptions which sets forth the acreage and dimension of each parcel. This information had not been provided to the steno, but should be referred to as being on file.) G. Van Slyke: So all of Parcel A is in the Industrial Zone, pretty much , right? V. Rankin: I've plowed moldy corn lots of times. G. Davison: Right. G. Van Slyke: And only a piece of E -- M. Carey: Doesn't the Industrial Zone stop at Lick Street? G. Davison: It goes to Salt Road, G. Totman: All right. All the acreages -- the smallest acreage is 7 . 7 acres. In the Industrial Zone , we only require five. So as far as I'm concerned, everybody meets specs. M. Carey: Oh , yes. Definitely. G. Totman: So you want to take it from there . V. Rankin: Go ahead and sell it. G. Totman : Now George has talked to Bruce while you guys were talking down there, and outlined where the lots are . G. Davison: They're more bolder so you can see them better. G. Totman: What we're determining is -- it's all within the parameters of being legal. Now what other questions do we want to ask? M. Carey: A couple of the big lots will probably end up being re-subdivided, I would assume. G. Totman: Well, we can't help that. M. Carey: The only thing that I see is it needs to be brought up at the auction that - --- G. Van Slyke : Down in the residential area. Here's all the houses on Beechwood. M. Carey: I don't know how to read these maps, sorry . 11 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 G. Davison: It isn't labeled industrial limits or whatever, but I did draw it on this so it could be referred to. V. Rankin: This is the way you're going to put them up for auction? G. Van Slyke: You're going to sell the parcels this way, right? G. Davison: Yes, G. Van Slyke: And you care less what they do with it after that. G. Totman : Bruce , for the Minutes of the meeting, when is the proposed auction going to be? G. Davison: I would think as soon after approval as -- I'm not really sure -- probably February or March . G. Totman: You're not talking about April or May? G. Davison: I'm talking maybe February or March . I'm not really sure . They don't want to hold the money any longer than they have to. G. Van Slyke: Now when you advertise this, you're going to advertise it that some of these parcels are in the Industrial Zone? G. Davison: Yes. G. Totman: To answer your question , George, I have told Mr. Munson that we're in two different zones here , and he's got to advertise it accordingly. G. Davison: All right. And I have checked into wetlands in case that question comes up . There is no wetland . C. Twigg: No wetlands on that at all? G. Davison: Nowhere on that whole block. It's the soil type . G. Totman: There's a whole list of neighbors there -- but bearing in mind that these lots are all above 7 acres each , do you want to hold a public hearing on this? Or not? Do you have any questions other than what you've seen? C. Twigg: Why would we hold a public hearing ? I'm not suggesting it, but if there's a good reason for doing it, then I think we should do it. G. Totman : I'm asking the Planning Board, C. Twigg: But I see no reason for doing it. V. Rankin: I move we don't hold a public hearing. G. Davison: I think it's pretty public already. I don't think Munson is trying to hide anything. C. Twigg: I'll second that. Verl made the motion . G. Totman : I think that's Section 440. Is that correct? G. Senter: I'm not sure, but I think it is. J. Fitch: You have a motion and a second . C. Twigg: Aren't we getting ahead of the horse here? 12 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 G. Van Slyke: We're already to the public thing and we haven't done anything else with this property . G. Totman : What do you want to do? G. Van Slyke: Don't you have to approve the subdivision of the property before you talk about whether or not you're going to have a public hearing? G. Totman: Excuse me. if you approve of it, that automatically throws up the public hearing . You've got to decide whether or not you want to have a public hearing or not before you approve it. I thought what you were going to come up with , George, is the SEAR which is what I was going to ask you to do . Before we approve it, we have to do the SEAR. All right, George . J. Fitch: So are you going to withdraw the motion on the floor? G. Van Slyke: Let's put the SEQR ahead of this motion . G. Totman: Just to keep the members happy, let's put the SEAR ahead of the motion. 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 11. Therefore, it was determined by the Planning Board, upon the motion made by Monica Carey, seconded by Cecil Twigg, 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. Van Slyke: Now we can go to the motion. G. Totman: Before you do the motion, for Bruce's benefit because he's going to report back to the owners and the subdivider, contractors, whoever, there is another law that we have to take into consideration, and it's Section 239m of the Town Law that says that any transaction of subdividing lands on County or State roads has to go before the County Planning Board and we have to give them 30 days to respond. If they declare that they don't like it, then we have to pass it with a majority plus one. So what my suggestion is here is -- and I'm not trying to throw a block in it so don't get me wrong, because I've got criticisms before for us not doing the proper thing -- either approving it, which it looks like we're intending to do, or disapproving it -- but approving it conditioned upon approval by the County Planning Board. Otherwise, if we don't do it that way, and they have an auction, and somebody comes back and says that because you didn't follow proper rules it's not legal . And that would be unfair to the people who go to the auction. G. Davison: Now do you forward it to the County? G. Totman: Yes . We will forward it to them. G. Davison: And they've got 30 days to respond? G. Totman: They've got 30 days to respond. C. Twigg: We just started doing this, right? G. Totman: Well, it's been a law for a long time . We normally haven't had a 5-lot subdivision. Our subdivisions have always been smaller than that. G. Van Slyke: And they haven't necessarily been on a County or State road . C. Twigg: Does it have to be a subdivision? G. Totman : Well, not necessarily . It's usually an action of a Planning Board that's within 500 feet of this and this and this -- C. Twigg: So they generally get back to us in less than 30 days? 13 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 G. Totman: They normally do, yes. In fact, I'll talk to them. G. Davison: I'm not worried about it. G. Totman : In this particular case, it's better because it's going up for auction and if you were going to buy it, you've got to know that somebody can't come back on them. I think you've encountered that before. G. Van Slyke: So what's our process here? G. Totman: I would suggest now that we vote on the motion. Verl made a motion that we approve this, bypassing Section 440 of the Town Ordinance , approving it without a public hearing, conditioned upon Tompkins County Planning Board approval . Then if they disapprove it for some idiotic reason , we can approve it at our January meeting with a majority plus one . Is that your motion , Verl? V. Rankin: Yes, G. Totman: All in favor of Verl's motion as just stated? (All members present were in favor. ) Motion carried. I need three of those maps back for the Town records. I really need one for the County, too. Edward J. Volpicelli - 136 Old Peruville Road - Application for Special Permit - TM # 36 - 1 -56 G. Totman: Next, I had a question asked of me the other day. Our rules and regulations say that if you want to get on the Planning Board Agenda, you've got to apply ten days before the meeting. Due to circumstances that have arisen in the past, I have told everybody that they've got to follow that 10-day rule . But if they show up at the meeting, and we aren't too awful busy that night, we'll listen to them. And Mr. Volpicelli showed up at the meeting tonight and he presented these to us. It's 9 o'clock so I think we can listen to him. There's a reason why I did that. But Mr. Volpicelli showed up at the meeting tonight and he presented these . IVs a request to convert a two-car garage into a shoe repair shop. He's taking Clarence Knapp's place from Locke -- going to start selling shoes. E. Volpicelli: No, I'm not going to sell shoes. Fix them. There's a difference . No retail, all repair. G. Totman : Before we go any farther, he's got a house with a two-car garage in it and he wants permission to run a little business, a home occupation. And the home occupation is repairing shoes. It's been in the newspaper, it's been advertised, and he wants to make it legal now. And I'll let him explain what he wants to do . E. Volpicelli; I thought I was legal I guess. G. Totman : Did I get that right? E. Volpicelli; You did that right. George called me and said I wasn't legal or something and that I'd better go down and see him. Well, I've been in the shoe repair business for 22 years and I've been in Ithaca. And what I did in November was I decided not to renew a lease in Ithaca and move it to my home and just work out of my house , out of my garage. We have a two-car garage that's underneath our house and I've converted it into a one-car garage and put the shop in back. I strictly work like a shoe pickup and delivery service. I have six shoe pickups between Cortland and Tompkins County that I call on three days a week. I bring the shoes back, fix them, and then deliver them. Probably 95% of my business now is going to be done through shoe pickup and not through people coming to my house . I will have people coming to my house , but not like I did on Aurora Street in Ithaca. I had a storefront. So I hired an electrician and had some electrical work done. Me and my brother-in-law put up a drywall just to separate the garage from my shoe repair shop . George read my advertising and called me up to say I had to come down and fill out a form, and I did that. I really did call George about three months ago, two or three times, and never got ahold of him. I should have taken care of it. My mother had a business in that home for 25 years. She was a hairdresser. So I guess I looked at it as well, she did business there so I assumed I was okay. 14 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 G. Totman: I'll tell you what. I dealt with his brother in Lansing for a few years, and he was kind of shady. E. Volpicelli: I'm not like him. Mr. Twigg will vouch for me. I'm a nice guy. G. Totman: You've got to remember that this on tape and you're off the subject. Anybody have any problems? The normal thing we go through on a Site Plan Review is hours of operation, is it offensive to the people in the neighborhood, is it going to run down the people's property values in the neighborhood, do you have offstreet parking? E. Volpicelli: I've talked to all my neighbors and I've written down their names, addresses, and phone numbers. And I've spoken to them individually because I told them you might possibly be calling them and I didn't want to catch them off guard . They all know me and they had no problem with it. If I put a sign out in my front yard, and I wasn't going to do that, but I had some complaints from my customers - - hey, I can't find your place . My wife was very against me putting a sign in the front yard . But I did put a sign out there - - G. Totman : Did you get a permit? E. Volpicelli: No, I didn't get a permit. G. Senter: You have a sign in your front yard? E. Volpicelli: Yes, I do. M. Carey: You need a permit. G. Senter: Stop in, and I'll give you an application. E. Volpicelli: Like I said, probably no one would know there's a shoe repair shop there. It's not a dirty business -- it's very clean and I don't keep anything outside . I do have a large common driveway. G. Totman: For the purpose of this meeting, how many customer cars can you accommodate offstreet? E. Volpicelli: In my driveway? G. Totman: Yes. E. Volpicel is You could probably put ten cars in my driveway if I had to . G. Totman : So you have offstreet parking for ten cars. Is there anything that you do that if people didn't see a car going in or out that they would know you were running a business from the neighborhood? Is there any offensive outside noises or smells or anything like that? E. Volpicel is Not at all. G. Totman : So if we gave you a permit for this and said that we are giving you the permit for running a shoe repair shop as a home occupation, and that you would provide parking for at least eight customers off the street, and that there would be no outside storage of anything, and no audible outside noise from your operation, you could agree to that? E. Volpicelli: Right. G. Totman: When you were sitting here earlier tonight, you heard another guy agree to that four years ago, and now he wants to change his mind . So if we approve it with those kind of conditions, which would be put on your permit, then George would come out and check you and turn you into us if you didn't do it right. 15 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 E. Volpicelli: I'm not going to build anything; I'm not getting any bigger. I might have to get a permit someday from George to put up a little shanty out back to put my lawnmower in there , but I don't know what the rules are on that yet. Next spring I probably will want to build a 10 by 10 thing to put kids' bikes in, lawnmower, etc. G. Senter: You have to meet the setbacks, Ed . G. Totman: Has anybody on the Planning Board got anything else that they'd like to ask or require? G. Van Slyke : What about hours of operation? G. Totman: Well, as long as there's no outside noise, no outside storage , I don't really feel that we should tell him that he can't work in there. As long as the neighbors don't know what he's doing, what's wrong with him working at midnight? Okay, any other questions? George? 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 U. Therefore, it was determined by the Planning Board, upon the motion made by Cecil Twigg, seconded by Monica Carey, 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: If you approve this, you should make the motion to approve the shoe repair shop , as requested , providing that he guarantees he's got at least eight spaces for offstreet parking, that there will be no outside offensive noise , and there will be no outside storage of any equipment or materials related to the business . E. Volpicelli: I'd rather have less spaces for offstreet parking. G. Totman: Five? Is five better? E. Volpicelli: Yes. If two people came at the same time, I'd be shocked. G. Totman: Okay. We'll make it five then. M. Carey: I make the motion to approve the Special Permit with the conditions as stated . G. Van Slyke: I send the motion. G. Totman: All in favor'? (Everyone present indicated they were in favor.) Review of Proposed Amendment to Land Use & Development Code re Adult Entertainment Establishments G. Totman : All right. At our last Planning Board meeting, I think all of us were here, we appointed a committee of Cecil, Monica, and George to go over the ordinances that other towns had and come up with a proposed ordinance for the Town of Groton, and we decided at that time to meet again on the 1lth of December to agree or disagree with that proposed ordinance , and then have Joan Fitch, our Recording Secretary, type it up so we could present it to the Town Board . They did such a good job that night that I agreed with them that there was no sense in our having another meeting on the 1 lth , that I would "tweak" it and present it to the Town Board. Now the ordinance that they came up with that night -- you all got a copy of it in the mail, and I talked to all of you I think, except Cecil. I didn't talk to Cecil because I figured # 1 that the letter you got in the mail said that if you agreed with it, then you should call me and tell me that you agreed so we wouldn't have to have that meeting. I assumed, Cecil, that as long as you were there , you agreed with it. What I did was -- I changed it just a hair. And I'm going to give you copies of what I changed . And you probably won't recognize the change . The only change that I made was at the very end I added a little Severability section that says should any section of this provision of this article be declared to be unconstitutional or invalid by the courts , such decision should not affect the validity of the balance of this article. And that's usually in all of these type of 16 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 things. And that wasn't on the one that you came up with . And I didn't think of that. What I did was -- and I just wanted to tell you to be very honest -- before I did anything else with it, I looked it all over and I read it and I thought it was good. So I showed it to an unbiased attorney who is also working on ordinances for other towns, and asked him to read it and give me his view on it. And he read it over and he only made a couple grammatical corrections and he said we should have this severability section at the end. So I did that. I presented it to our Town Attorney at 5 o'clock ahead of the Town Board meeting, the last Board meeting. He took it home and read it and when he came back at 7 o'clock to the Board meeting, he told me that he thought it was good and that he saw nothing wrong with it. The only thing he did see wrong with it was that it was in the Agricultural District and was kind of wide open. He suggested that maybe it should be in the M-2 District which , with the way our Ordinance is written, it wouldn't be allowed at all anywhere which would make it illegal. As I brought it up to the Town Board, he conceded that maybe that was not a good idea after he read it. Because that's only a 500-foot span there and that would make it illegal anywheres and you've got to have it so it's legal someplace. One of the Town Board members suggested that it ought to be 2000 feet instead of 1000. And that would also make it illegal in the Town because when you consider 2000 from any given -- if you put a point on a map in the Town of Groton, then you've got to draw a circle of 4000 feet because it can't be within 2000 feet of any one given point. And there's no place, really, in the Town of Groton that's 2000 feet from anywhere, so it was left with the Town Board at that point. They accepted my giving it to them. The Town Board is working within a moratorium of 120 days, so they have to act on this within 120 days . I think you, the committee , did an excellent job -- a fantastic job . G. Van Slyke: So this thing is now in the hands of the Town Board, and we're done with this. G. Totman : That's exactly right. The Town Attorney made it explicit that I should present it to the Town Board as he agreed with it. At our last Planning Board meeting we were given this charge and were to have it in by January 4th , or something like that. We elected to do it the way we did it. J. Fitch: Shouldn't you have some action on record? G. Totman: I suppose it would probably be proper if the full Board approved of what the committee came up with to present to the Town Board , J. Fitch: You have nothing on record that shows that you have approved this proposed amendment to your Ordinance. M. Carey: That's true. I make a motion that we approve the proposed amendment to the Town of Groton Land Use and Development Code relative to Adult Entertainment Establishments as submitted to the Town Board by George Totman, Chairman of the Town Planning Board . V. Rankin: I'll second it. G. Totman: All in favor`? (All members present indicated they were in favor.) Review Proposed Local Law # 5 - Moratorium for Wireless Communication Towers G. Totman: Another thing that's come up in the Town and all the towns around us that affects some people -- some people are getting real excited about it -- is these cellular towers. It's a big thing all over the State of New York right now. What the Town has done, ahead of our action, is proposed a moratorium on cellular towers so they don't get caught with their pants down like we did with the nude entertainment. Other towns are doing similar things around the County. I will say one thing -- when the Town came up with the moratorium on the adult entertainment, I think Cecil and Verl were there and they wanted only 90 days and I talked them into 60 or 65 days - - you remember that transaction they came up with 120 days for the cellular tower -- it was proposed for 120 days and I asked for 180 days, and the lawyer said he would go along with it if he found that it was legal. He determined later that it was legal and he went for 180 days. I felt it was a little bit different than the adult entertainment thing because the cellular tower thing is new to everybody. It's been going on in Trumansburg now for four or five months and they haven't come up with anything yet -- they're trying to stop the tower. They got caught with their pants down, okay. But they're trying to do their best. The Federal government has said they are a public utility and they can go in . But there is a provision here that you can decide 17 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting 18 December 1997 where . And that's being debated . To me it doesn't bother me, but there's some that it bothers. So the Town Board did take the initiative to put a moratorium on for six months . G. Van Slyke: What does this mean to us, George? Do we have to write a law? G. Totman: So that means to us that within six months we've got to come up with a law. Now Monica Carey is on a committee that's going to have a meeting in February that's going to have many people there to talk about cellular towers and how to come up with ordinances, and I would suggest that we all go to it if we can. The Tompkins County Planning Board is working with the Tompkins County Planning Federation and they are supposed to be having this meeting in early February. There's no date on it yet. Other than that, I don't have anything to bring before the Board . Adjournment G. Totman: Does anyone want to make a motion to adjourn the meeting? V. Rankin: I move we adjourn the meeting. M. Carey: I'll second it. G. Totman: All in favor? (All members presented indicated they were in favor.) The meeting was adjourned at 9A5 p .m . \r Jo E. Fitch , Recording Secretary 18