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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1998-02-19 TOWN OF GROTON PLANNING BOARD MEETING MINUTES Thursday, 19 February 1998 Board Members (*absent) Others Present George Totman, Chairman Joan E. Fitch , Recording Secretary Monica Carey George Senter, Sr. , CEO *Sheldon Clark Francis Ciccoricco, Guest Verl Rankin Van Travis *Cecil Twigg George Van Slyke The meeting was called to order at 8 *02 p.m. by Chairman George Totman. G. Totman: We'll open up the meeting. We've got a quorum and it's after eight o'clock. Flo d K es - 956 Salt Road - Amend Special Permit - TM # 17- 1 -4 Tabled from December Meeting) G. Totman : As long as "Dusty ' is here , why don't we move to number two on the agenda first, then we'll go back to approve the minutes. Did all of you receive the letter from Dusty Kyes? V. Travis: Yes. G. Totman: Did you read it? V. Travis: Yes, F. Ayes: Was I coherent? V. Travis: Very much so . Well written. G. Totman : He has a Special Permit to operate - - if I may, I'll read what his Special Permit was for. It was issued on October 21st, 1993 for a warehouse storage, and it had the following stipulation : "No outside storage . " He was approved with this stipulation and they defined this as anything that needs to be stored will be stored inside the building and not outside the building. He had a copy attached of the Planning Board decision for your perusal . George has got some big words there . During his inspection on December 9, 1997, George found product stored outside the building which is a violation of your Special Permit. Then he invites him to come to the Planning Board meeting December 18, 1997 . He was here on December 18th ; we discussed it and decided to postpone it until tonight's meeting. Since then, Floyd Kyes has written everybody a letter explaining his situation . He also has a Junkyard Permit, and the Junkyard Permit says that everything has to be stored inside of a fence . What is in question now is crates of new snowmobiles and related stuff that are inside the fence, but they are so high you can see them from the road. The question is, is he in violation? Have I got that right, George? G. Senter: Yes. He explained why he stacked them so high also . G. Totman: The situation is this. We have an Ordinance that we were complying with when we met with Mr. Kyes, and proper procedures were taken, I believe, at that time. And we were discussing the fence as covering up junk, so-called junk. I believe , in most cases, he complied with that except for a few minor infractions. What's happened is, because of some unforeseen situations, like a fire and roof falling in and a few other things, the things that he was normally storing inside he is now storing outside, but he's storing them inside of the fence. The situation here is, do we allow the new materials that are stored inside the fence, which was originally designated as being junk materials, to be shown from the road? Any questions? 1 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting Minutes 19 February 1998 G. Van Slyke: I guess I have one question. George, when you made the inspection from the road, were you referring to the ones that were stacked in front of the building, just inside the fence? G. Senter: The ones off the concrete . G. Van Slyke: Off the concrete? G. Senter: Yes. G. Van Slyke: Okay. When I went by there a few days ago, the only thing I could see that was really visible from the road were some of the crates that were piled high enough -- Go Senter: Yes, that's the ones. G. Van Slyke : --above the fence line. And the only thing I could see wrong with that was the fact that some of the paper and -- whether they were returnees or whatever -- F. Kyes: They were repossessions. G. Van Slyke: Okay. So that was the material that was covering them up was tattered and it didn't look really nice, or it didn't look good. So I'm wondering if that is what you were referring to -- G. Senter: No , I was following the stipulations on the permit. G. Van Slyke: It was not stored inside . G. Senter: Yes. I can understand Dusty's situation also if he has a problem with somebody coming in there and stealing the units. Not too many of us can withstand that kind of loss, you know. The ones he had on the concrete outside of the building was understandable because the Quonset but had fallen down once before. And I was under the understanding, for whatever reason, that the ones that were on the concrete were awaiting to be shipped. So that was not a major problem. Then it started going out into the yard, and I thought he ought to come in and have the stipulation changed . V. Travis: George , I have a question. I also have driven by and I saw exactly the same thing that you did. There was a crate there that had obviously been punctured . I could see the machine inside, but I understand , and you explained in your letter, that damage does occur to those things . George, my question is what are the remedies that are available to us? Obviously, it is not a junk business that we are referring to , and we are referring to what is really a freight-forwarding business . Do we have the opportunity to change the permit? G. Totman: Yes, because we gave the Special Permit in the first place. We can set the perimeters of the Special Permit. Before I answer that, does anyone else have anything to say? G. Van Slyke: I'd just like to address the permit. When you talk about loss, by piling them three or four high does that really and truly keep it from -- if a person really wanted to go in there and really wanted one of those , it doesn't matter how tall you piled them, they would still help themselves. F. Kyes: That's true. But the only two I've ever had stolen -- I only lost two all these years through theft -- and both of them were cases where they were only piled two high so that when you bring your pickup truck in , you can spin one end right off into your pickup truck and push it right into the truck, and there's not too much danger. Yes, if you wanted one from a three high, you could get it. But there's quite a chance that you may still be there under it in the morning. When you're trying to climb up a stack and push something off, and you don't have any forklift or any mechanical means to help you, it's a lot more risky. I guess what I'm saying is, yes, if they're going to get one, they're going to get one , but maybe I'm going to be lucky enough that they'll break their leg, or they'll smash the windshield out of their truck or at least get a little bit of satisfaction by the time they did get it if they had to work a little hard for it. G. Senter: How much do those weigh, Dusty? 2 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting Minutes 19 February 1998 F. Kyes: They average 700 pounds. G. Senter: That would be tough . V. Travis: I have a comment. I drove by and observed. My assumption is that what this complaint is about is the appearance of the property, and while admittedly taking that top crate down would remove it from view, my opinion was that it would not appreciably change the appearance of the property. F. Kyes: It looks pretty bad, and taking the crate off is not going to make it any better. V. Travis: And it's a viable business. It's off the beaten path . It is not in downtown Groton, the Village, which we wouldn't have jurisdiction over anyway. And that's the nature of my question . Given what is there and that it is a viable business, do we have remedies available to us that would accommodate this? The other thing that I have some questions about is the ability of this Board to regulate business practices as opposed to land use practices. And I think that's something that, before we make our final decision, we need to discuss a little bit. G. Totman : That's what a Special Permit is. Like when Dusty was in four years ago, and with anybody else, we go over with them what do they think they can live with . Like we set up, in some cases, hours of operation, how many cars can be outside that do not belong to you or are not customer cars, and things like that. We go over all those things ahead of time before we give it a Special Permit. Over the years, we have exercised that power. Most have been successful. This has turned out to be a little different, because he originally started out with a junkyard. V. Travis: Right. I understand that. G. Totman: And he still has a junkyard, and the junkyard is situated so the fence covers it up or it's not really visible from the road, unless it's something he hasn't got outside yet. I guess, from what I've seen, and in looking at the intent of what we're trying to do, to keep the neighborhood reasonably clean and presentable so it doesn't run down other people's properties and stuff, I agree with George's opinion because he's following the intent of the Ordinance . I look at it a little bit differently in this particular case as long as Dusty's doing everything else -- there's one thing I did want to question, though , Dusty, is like if we can resolve this, can you make it -- like one of your reasons is so that people can't get in and steal the machines that are seven, eight- thousand dollars -- F. Kyes: That's one, and the other was clutter on the ground. G. Totman: Yes, okay. But if snowmobiles are piled up neat and everything, it's really not a lot of clutter. But especially if they're seven, eight-thousand dollar machines. But secondly, are you reasonably sure that nobody can back their vehicle up and just get into that fence without having a key? F. Kyes: Oh , a person can get anywhere they want to get. If you've got a four-wheel drive, you don't have to breach the fence . You can go around behind far enough , make a left, and go down into the field -- G. Totman: I guess I was thinking more or less of up front. Is the fence really covering everything around the front? F. Kyes: It's covering everything up, but it's not strong enough -- like if you take a pickup truck and back into it it's going to come down . G. Totman : No, I didn't mean that. The fence is up there. If I don't have a vehicle, the fence is up secure enough so I can't get in there . Is that correct? F. Kyes: You could climb over it. G. Totman : There's no gates that are open all time? 3 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting Minutes 19 February 1998 F. Kyes: No. Everything's locked. You'd have to make a conscious effort to either scale the fence , rip it down -- G. Totman: Okay. That's all I asked. With that, I would suggest that we look at -- the Special Permit says that he has no outside storage. That's the only condition on the Special Permit. And we did this as a Planning Board. if you have a junkyard and you put up a fence to cover it, you've got outside storage . M. Carey: Right. G. Totman : What I would -- in looking at the situation and the nature of it, and it's not junk -- originally we did this because it was junk. We're now talking about seven, eight-thousand dollar machines. I would suggest we change this so that it says that the outside storage is within a fence . M. Carey: I totally agree. V. Travis: I agree. F. Kyes: I don't have any problems with inside the fence . G. Totman : Does anybody else have any questions on that? V. Travis: Would you like a motion to that effect? G. Totman: Yes, I would. V. Travis: I'll move that. M. Carey: I'll second that. F. Kyes: I have only two other small questions. One's a question and one's a statement, I guess. The question I have is, how -- the Special Permit -- why did I not need the Special Permit until after I put this building up? All the years I operated without any building -- I poured the cement and built the loading dock and did the cement work for two or three years before I put the building up . And that's in the days when all the crates were outside. There wasn't any place to put them all inside. How did I go from just going on running it every day like I was until all of a sudden the building got up and I spent all this money and now all of a sudden, boy, you got to have this or you're going to be in trouble? How did I end up needing that, I guess? G. Senter: That's when the business started, Dusty. F. Kyes: The warehousing started in 1988 . G. Senter: I don't know who the Code Enforcement Officer was at that time, but whoever it was blew it. When I come on, we decided to go ahead and get it done so you wouldn't have a problem. F. Kyes: All right. And I'd like to mention that the proper name of this on the business certificate is Cozy Crest Development Corporation, So I don't know if you want it written on the permit. You might's well get the correct name on it while we're at it, because Floyd Kyes is just an employee anymore. G. Van Slyke : What is it? F. Kyes: Cozy Crest Development Corporation. Like my father's dairy was years ago. G. Senter: We'll have her type a new one up and send it to you tomorrow. We'll get it in the mail sometime -- either tomorrow or -- F. Kyes: It's after they vote and pass it, if they pass it, right? 4 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting Minutes 19 February 1998 G. Senter: They've already made a motion to do that. J. Fitch: You haven't voted yet. V. Travis: You're right. We haven't voted yet. G. Totman: Okay, I just had to write it down here. Any more questions? All in favor? (All members present indicated they were in favor.) Opposed? Thank you . F. Kyes: Thank you very much for your consideration, folks. I guess I'm done. Approval of December 18 , 1997 Minutes G. Totman: Has everybody read the December minutes? V. Travis: I will abstain on the December minutes as I was not here . M. Carey: I'll make a motion that we approve them as submitted. G. Van Slyke: Second . G. Totman : All in favor? (Aye : Carey, Van Slyke, Rankin, Totman ; Absent: Clark; Abstain: Travis) F. Kyes - Re-visited G. Senter: Before you get off this Dusty Kyes thing, I'd like to make a comment. The first part of Dusty's letter was, I think, a lot of frustration and I didn't want to get into innuendoes and whatever and didn't want to exacerbate the problem. But if anybody wants me to go through and explain that to you, the things he picked out had nothing to do with the zoning -- he's talking about the integrity of zoning, etcetera. I think he took a lot of his frustrations out in the first half of that letter. G. Totman: George and I talked about this the other day, and his place up there , to me, looks a lot better than it did ten years ago. We had some real problems. V. Travis: My reaction was that -- and he said it as well as I could -- it's not exactly a thing of beauty as it stands now -- M. Carey: But it's much better than what it used to be . G. Van Slyke : Even the house across the road is nothing to write home to mother about either. G. Totman: I didn't want to get into that, but a lot of this is the aesthetics of the neighborhood , too. And as long as he's willing to keep it within the fence and try to make it look as good as he could—we had some real problems up there 10, 15 years ago. G. Senter: You guys cleaned it up a lot, George , before I even came on. V. Travis: My impression is we could drive up there right now and walk through the fence . Slats are missing on the fence . Informal Discussion - Cellular Towers, Adult Entertainment G. Totman : Let's go on to our NYC meeting. This year was one of the best sessions they ever had . They had 139 separate sessions that you could go to if you wanted to. They had some great things on cellular towers and, in fact, I've got some sample ordinances. I've got some documents, and it's going to be brought up at our meeting next week, the 26th . Did you sign up to go? M. Carey: Yes. 5 'Groton Town Planning Board Meeting Minutes 19 February 1998 G. Totman: You , Van , Monica, and myself that I know of are going . V. Rankin: I think I'll go . It's at 6: 30? V. Travis: 6: 30 at the Holiday Inn . G. Totman: I'm not sure what Frank has got in mind, and I really don't know what kind of a deal he made with Teresa, or whatever, but we are just beginning to talk about these things, Frank. We haven't got into it yet. Our feeling is, the last time we met, that before we make any final decisions, we want to go to some of these seminars like Van and I went to . We want to learn what other counties are doing. And I kind of like what the Town is doing also on this nudity bar bit. The town attorneys from Dryden, Groton, and Lansing are getting together and trying to do the findings and the study and coming up with a - - you're using our sample that we had for an ordinance . Did you get a sample of what we submitted for an ordinance for nudity bars? V. Travis: No, I didn't get over to the hearing. G. Van Slyke: I guess you're answering the question I had. I was wondering why they're going to extend the moratorium. G. Totman: That's why. G. Van Slyke: Are they waiting for a study now? G. Totman: You've got to have a study. It's really quite crazy, because you can put a moratorium on for cell towers and you don't need a study; you can put a moratorium on mobile homes, but you don't need a study; but for nudity bars you need a study. Doesn't make a bit of sense . G. Van Slyke : So we had the cart before the horse? G. Totman: Well , we weren't any different than some of the other communities . M. Carey: But we need this study in order to pass the ordinance , I think. They're going to talk about this at the meeting next Wednesday. G. Totman : Actually, a lot of places around the State of New York have taken a study from a town of equal size relatively near them, changed the wording, and used the same study. F. Ciccoricco: Unless there's some odd peculiarities in the town. G. Totman: So anyway, that's what we're looking for is getting all that information . Like, we have a sample ordinance here: I've been collecting a lot of sample ordinances from different areas, and knowing what's been going on in Trumansburg where they've passed laws and had a lot of problems over there, taking their experience and the town attorneys of Lansing, Groton, and Dryden, theyre looking into that. And so whatever we come up with , they're going to go over it from what they know from the legal standpoint anyway, so I really feel we should take more time and look at it. Personally, I'm not against cellular towers. But from what I've been hearing from people is, they're here and they are going to be here for the next few years. In fact, one place I went to yesterday, they predict 10,000 towers in New York over the next five years. V. Travis: And the newest technology, which is what -- PSC , PCS -- F. Ciccoricco: PCS V. Travis: PCS, requires towers closer together rather than farther apart. G. Totman: For one frequency, they're going to break up in fifths. So if you've got ten frequencies in the area, that will mean 50 towers instead of one . G. Van Slyke: They could use co-location like they do in Cortland . 6 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting Minutes 19 February 1998 F. Ciccoricco: Stack them all on one tower. G. Totman: There are some municipalities that are even offering their own land so they can get the money for rent. M. Carey: They pay good rent on them. G. Totman: In this session that we went to, though , there seemed to be a lot of conversation about sharing the tower. And if you share a tower, that means it's got to go up an extra 15 or 20 feet, and a lot of the people's complaints about towers is that they're too high already. So if you make them share towers, you're making them go up higher. I'm really glad that we got so many people who have applied to go next week because I think we should take that rather than make quick decisions, look into it, and really know what we're doing. F. Ciccoricco: There you go. G. Totman : I've got another model ordinance coming that the NYS Planning Federation has written. That's coming in the mail. So we can put these altogether, like we did with the nudie thing. M. Carey: On the nudie thing, will we have to rewrite what we've already written? G. Totman: I don't think so. No. M. Carey: We'll just have to add the survey to it? G. Van Slyke: The survey is only to find out what the needs of the area are as far as where you are going to put them or where you are going to allow them. V. Travis: It's the justification for the ordinance. It was interesting in one of the discussions on cell towers that I was in, a company has come in , for example, and said oh, yes, we'd be glad to have others co-locate on our tower, but no one monitored the specifications of the tower construction and the darn thing wouldn't hold another antenna. And so they got snookered. So when you get into co- location, then you've also got to get into monitoring the construction -- F. Ciccoricco: Mechanical stresses, wind loading, so on and so forth . You have to have someone with expertise on your staff. G. Senter: Any tower they put up, Van, I understand they want at least two people on it. These guys go out and put them up and lease them out to the companies. G. Totman: You're talking about the guys that put up their towers to rent out. G. Senter: Yes. G. Totman: We were listening to the other side - - the companies that have their own towers. M. Carey: Why do they want more towers? I've got a cellular phone and I can call from right down here in town and I get good reception and I don't even have an antenna on my care for it. The only place I've ever found that I have a problem is over by the Sheriffs Department, V. Travis: Well, if you were to drive from here to New York City, which I used to do regularly, most of the time you're out of contact. You go from Ithaca and you pick back up at Whitney Point. You leave Binghamton going east on Route 17, shortly outside of town you do not pick up anything until you pick up a little cell at Liberty. You pick up main cells at Middletown and from there on into the metropolitan area. M. Carey: But surprisingly in this area you can pick up pretty good between here and Cortland . 7 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting Minutes 19 February 1998 G. Totman: I want to say something about Site Plan Review. The only reason I show this to you , and this is relatively new the way they do this now. It was started at the planning meetings in Saratoga Springs this year. These things on your left are the overheads and, if you want to, you can take notes from what they say on the overheads. J. Fitch: George, the minutes are going to say "these things on your left. " Can you say what you're looking at? The title? M. Carey: Site Plan & Special Use Permits, NYS Department of State . J. Fitch: Thank you . G. Totman: One of the things that struck my eye and we've been talking about ever since this nudie bar started is if you look at the second overhead down, where it says special use. . . and site plan, the first thing it says under Site Plan -- this is what we've been talking about, Van, in every meeting since October. It says if you agree to have a site plan, the use is allowed . I was glad to see this because this is what I've been saying and reading in the things. We all talked about it and I explained it to you ahead of time. We decided we were not going to hold a Site Plan Review regardless of what the Court said . We'll let the Court force us to do something. Because if we held a Site Plan Review, we would only be regulating what it says here . V. Travis: And I have a note somewhere that if you go to Site Plan Review, you have essentially approved the use ; the only question is what it is that you negotiated . I have that written down . G. Totman: I just wanted to make sure, because I couldn't get anybody where I live to agree with or thought I knew what I was talking about. They wouldn't want us to go to Site Plan Review. I talked to the Zoning Board of Appeals about that. If the people really knew what the rules and regulations were for, that wouldn't be really what they were looking for, so the answer they got at that meeting -- they clapped and they were happy about it, but it didn't mean anything. Okay, anything else to come before the Board? V. Rankin: I move we adjourn . G. Van Slyke: We didn't do the minutes for January, did we? J. Fitch: The January minutes you are just receiving tonight. V. Travis: I haven't read them, nor has anyone else, I take it. G. Totman: Do you want to approve the December minutes? M. Carey: We already did that. G. Totman : When did you do that? J. Fitch: Right after Dusty left. G. Totman: Okay, G. Van Slyke: On the January minutes, I've got a question on signing the thing -- oath of office or something. G. Totman : You didn't come down and sign it? G. Van Slyke: When was I supposed to do that? G. Totman: Just sign this thing. And I'd suggest that we keep the January minutes and maybe at the March meeting we can do the February and January minutes together. We might talk the clerk into getting them out on time next time. 8 Groton Town Planning Board Meeting Minutes 19 February 1998 V. Rankin: When's the meeting in March? M. Carey: March 19th , J. Fitch: You have a motion on the floor made by Mr. Rankin . G. Totman : We didn't have a second. V. Travis: I'll second it. It was to adjourn was it not? Yes. G. Totman: All in favor? (All members present indicated they were in favor.) The meeting was adjourned at 8*45 p.m. oan E. Fitch Recording Secretary 9