HomeMy WebLinkAbout1971-09-20 SPECIAL MEETING OF THE GROTON TOWN BOARD AND THE
GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD HELD IN THE TOWN HALL
SEPTEMBER 20 , 1971 - 8 : 00 P . M . - 9 : 30 P . M.
PRESENT : TOWN BOARD TOWN PLANNING BOARD 701 COMMITTEE
L . Baker H . Dow A . Clark
G . Munson R . Gleason R . Cotanch
V . Metzgar Z . Kane G . Totman
V . Rankin E . McLaughlin
L . Sovocool
OTHERS :
C . Holden
K . Wood
H . Dow : We have three different committees represented here
tonight . Ron from 701 and George who has been on
. the ground floor . with him for 2 or 3 years , and we
have Claude , our representative , and we have members
of the Planning Board and members of the Town Board .
In other words we are so well -.. represented there. isn ' t
much else to represent , is there ?
G . Munson : Whoever wants to take the bull by the horns here can
• .'
start off .
(Mr . Dow passed out maps the same as the one posted on the bulletin board
to everyone present and pointed out that everyone knows the Village is
right in the dead center of the map , he also. pointed out Peters ' section
going up to the Salt Road and Dr . Blatchly ' s section , - places where all
are looking forward to with great expectations for home sites especially
the one to the East Hill . He . also pointed out the low intensity area
going down Cayuga Street in the direction of Locke and said he has the
feeling that the whole character of the Town will sometime be affected by
what goes on off in there , and that he could say that without apologizing
to McLean because Groton City isn ' t even shown on the map but West Groton
is and it ' s low intensity , too . )
C . Holden : I ' m surprised that West Groton got on the map .
H . Dow : We1L, .amb%, - - 40nedme when we met two weeks ago we
i came up , - - I guess Glenn brought this up , - - with
i all the various steps we have taken toward understand -
ing this thing , - - Glenn said maybe the best thing
to get the whole area concerned would be to have some
sectional information meetings and it was suggested
we have a meeting in the McLean Community Center and
right here in this room to take care of this voting
area and maybe it might not be necessary but still
it might be good to have one in West Groton . What do
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s
O
you think , Claude ?
C . Holden : You have four areas . I don ' t know how far you want to
carry this thing but my thinking is that Dryden still
got into a lot of trouble despite doing everything they
could do . My only thought on this is that you do
everything you can to get it to the people so they will
understand it . Maybe two meetings would be enough .
H . Dow : We also thought that one fellow who should be there is
Tom Niederkorn because he has the knowledge of these
" facts and figures from experience elsewhere and we
should also have members of the 701 Committee at hand
just like we have tonight and our Planning Board and
our Town Board because legally once we get people in
this whole area informed reasonably well , - - once
that is down and the public generally informed , - then
the Town Board is legally empowered to act and to put
it into effect .
C . Holden : ' Yes , that is what I understand . It ' s definitely up
to the Town Board so would assume it would be up to
the Town Board to decide how far they have to go on
these hearings . °
, H . Dow ; ' And the Planning Board always has to be in existence
because they are the arm of the Town Board .
C . Holden : You are a lot closer because you are the ones who
have been working on it .
H . Dow ; As far as Groton City is concerned , Zana and I can
get people to come to a meeting in Groton City . The
only thing is I doubt we could get Tom Niederkorn to
come to all of these meetings .
G . Totman : We have to pay him for them as his obligation under
the contract is through .
Some discussion was held on this by G . Totman '. R .
Gleason , H . Dow and others .
G . Totman : You plan on having all the four corners of the Town , - -
before you get too deep into that , I would suggest
having the first meeting to see how it goes and what
' r kind of a turnout you would get because we have had
special meetings as such all through this thing with
very , very small turnouts and the last meeting we had , ,
which was Tom ' s last official one where he presented
it to the public , and we advertised it on the radio
and in the newspapers , we didn ' t get 30 people out .
More discussion was held on this by H . Dow $ G . Munson
and others .
G . Munson : I still feel when they know it ' s going to come right
down to a vote , we ' ll have a lot more interest .
- 2 -
H . Dow : The public don ' t vote , - - the Town Board has to do
it .
G . Munson : My feeling was if we went to two , three or four parts
of the Town you are taking it to them and giving them
a chance .
H . Dow Now , Glenn , did I understand George to say you have
done that in McLean?
G . Totman : No .
H . Dow : So that would be a new step . It would be ideal if
Tom could be with us on this but doubt that he would .
C . Holden : At each of these meetings you should explain there
would be one more meeting to finalize it at which
Tom Niederkorn would be there so if they weren ' t
satisfied they could attend that meeting .
H . Dow : These would be informational meetings .
G . Totman : The Town Board has to hold the public hearing one
after the other meetings are . over . Then if they
are not changed after that it goes into law .
Some discussion was held regarding Tom Niederkorn ' s
obligations .
H . Dow : I have the feeling that the night of the final push
he ( Tom Niederkorn) should be here because he could
add that final bit of information that someone might
be needing . I ' m talking about the public hearing ,
Z . Kane : That makes five meetings , then ?
More discussion was held on how many meetings should
be held and Mr . Totman said that we have had three
what we called advertised public information meetings
and then we had the grand finale - - when the Town
Board holds their public hearing before they vote
and when they have looked this all over then this
will be what they are telling the public they will
be voting on and not Tom Niederkorn ' s recommendations
or the Planning Board ' s .
R . Gleason : Before the Town Board passes on it , the lawyer has to
read it over .
G . Totman : Yes , - - there are places for him to write articles
in , etc .
H . bow : As far as I can see the only thing left undone is to
get the information out to people who are not fully
informed . Now George tells us all these preliminary
3
meetings actually have been pretty well held so we are
almost at the point where we can hold our public hear -
ing and take the vote . Is that your position , too ?
R , Cotanch : Yes , that ' s right . But I would say the Town Board
should spend some time familiarizing themselves with
this and then if they wish to have a public hearing
or public information meetings , - - either one , - -
that ' s up to them .
I have here our last public meeting which was held
June 29th at the School which was well advertised
and some of the comments made there were made by
people who made trouble over the years - - DeEtta
Jensen , Dorita Sanford , - - and we had probably 50
people there and Verne was there and Verle and Louie
and no real outstanding comments were made derogatory
or otherwise and people like Ben Erlitz who had plenty
to say before were there and he didn ' t have any
comments . It ' s my feeling that the 701 Committee has
done the job they were assigned by the Town Board and
were well received . Perhaps you could stir up some
controversy by having more meetings .
S H . Dow : You ' re very correct there . I ' ll tell you a little
background of what happened about two weeks ago - -
Phil was here and he took the position and I think
it ' s because he hasn ' t been able to get to the
meetings in depth a I that we
should keep on pushing until every living soul knew
all about it and Glenn , as supervisor , felt he was
responsible to the whole Town and he felt whatever
we could do to assimilate more information would be
helpful . Now these information meetings have been
held , that ' s true , - -
R . Cotanch : Of course you can still . find people who would say
"{ when did you have them , I never heard about that .
More discussion was held on this by Z . Kane , R .
Cotanch and others .
V . Metzgar : . One of the things I wondered about is why do you
. advertise only in the Ithaca ' Journal ? Nobody ever
reads that .
L . Baker : It ' s usually advertised in the Shopper , too , Verne .
f. •
G . Totman : On the public hearings we advertised in all- three
of them ( Groton paper , Shopper and Ithaca Journal ) .
More discussion was held on this by G . Totman , l".
Baker , Z . Kane and others .
G . Totman : I would like to know who is to hold these meetings ,
the Planning Board or the Town Board ?
- 4 -
H . Dow : This is a Town Board meeting tonight , we are just .
guests .
G ° Munson ; You ' re here to acquaint us with what we should do ,
We have to be united - - there ' s no sense in us
fighting at the public hearing among ourselves .
What I ' m trying to get across is the reason I want o
to hold information meetings is a lot of people aren ' t
familiar with this and when it comes to voting on it
they are going to be mad ,
More discussion was held on this by C . Holden , Z .
Kane , H . Dow and others ,
H . Dow : Glenn , how do you envision what these information
meetings would cover ?
G ° Munson : I think we should hold at least two and for Tom
Niederkorn to come to at least the final one .
R . Cotanch : I think he would come and discuss it if it isn ' t
changed too radically from the way he drew it up .
G ° Munsons This is what I say - - let him cone to the last one ,
H . Dow * When you go into the McLean Community Hall or West
Groton or Groton City , people will be coming with
their own problems in mind and they are going to
speak in terms of their own interest so all we can
do is to sit in with them and have fellows , like
George and Ron , and maybe myself and Claude who ' s
the father of this anyway , answer their questions ,
G > Munson : I ' m also sympathetic that they have had a lot of
meetings on this but know they would like it to
go over big when the vote is on it . I think if
only 10 people turn up , we have given them the
opportunity .
G ° Totmane What I was getting at is I ' m not against having
the public meetings but what I would like to say
is , - - like tonight , - - the Planning Board is
going over it with the Town Board and then , be -
cause the Planning Board has officially given it
to the Town Board , it ' s their baby . After they
have looked it over and decide they want to go the
route of information meetings they might want to
make changes in it .
G ° Munson : I don ' t think you have given it to us yet , - we
should go over it before we accept it ,
p '
More discussion was held on this by G ° Totman , ,
u P.trteryC`j_^� ""k
WL G . Munson , H . Dow and others .
F H . Dow@ Do you think in 1 - 1 / 2 hrs . we can go through this
54 page report ?
- 5 -
G . Totman : No .
H . Dow : Alright let ' s take the copy here and see if there are
any things we want to change .
R • Cotanch ; Let me get this straight now . You want to have a
public informational meeting , east and west , and then
a public hearing here . Then the Town Board takes
it into consideration and then they can change it , -
right ?
V . Rankin ; I think we had better have it the way we want it be -
fore we take it to the people and then stand by it .
R . Cotanch : The Town Board in Dryden changed theirs and then after
2 years it ' s back about the way it was drawn up in
the first place .
H • Dow : The changes that are in my copy are the changes the
Town Board discussed with me two weeks ago and
supposing we go over these changes again tonight and
then take it to Tom Niederkorn and if he O . K . ' s it
make up some new sheets and have our copies updated .
R . Cotanch : I think he has some money left he can use to do this .
n
! ; H • Dow : Go to page 4 - - here ' s what we decided two weeks ago
tonight under point 24 after the word "acres " we put
in any area included in the street right -of -way is
j_ not to be considered part of the gross area . "
Ben Bucko was here when this was promulgated . Now
if you don ' t agree , speak right up ,
Now let ' s go right along to page 9 and ' in part 4 page
9 the second line from the bottom cross out the dual
word "non - farm" so it would then read "applicable to
single family residences . "
Now we go on our merry way until we come to page 12
and down on page 12 where it says 601 . 11 we again
, . cross out "non - farm . "
G . Totman : In that same one , you have already crossed out " in-
% cluding mobile homes " , - - is that correct ?
j H . Dow : That came up and we did cross it out and inasmuch as
we are dealing with mobile homes the same as family
dwelling units we just . simply eliminated it .
He Dowse Then we go on to page 16 and in two places on page 16
we cross out again the word "non - farm . " It appears
Y .,
in Section 702 , part 1 and down here in Section ' 703. ,
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part 1 .
So over on page 19 , the same thing applies , - Section
< ` 802 , part 1 , cross out "non- farm : "
;> - 6 -
Some discussion was held by R . Gleason , C . Holden .,
G . Totman and H . Dow on why this "non- farm" was
put in in the first place . Mr . Dow and Mr . Munson
agreed that this should be discussed with Tom
Niederkorn .
0
. H . Dow : Go over to page 23 , the same thing applies again
so cross it out again and Tom will be appraised of
this .
Z . Kane : You asked me to find out what page setback was on , -
it ' s on page 24 .
Mr . Dow read this out loud but no changes were
made in it .
H . Dow : Page 25 1 . Front Yards "45 feet "
Some discussion was held on this and whether or not
the distance shouldn ' t be increased but it ' was de -
cided to leave it as is .
' H . Dow : Page 39 -40 - Signs , - Section 1202 Part 4 , the third
dine after " in area" add the words "and non- flashing , ! '
and cross out "and is not illuminated . " -
Some discussion was held by R . Cotanch , H . Dow and
i , others as to whether or not it should be better
spelled out as to who is going to be allowed these
lighted signs and who would be prohibited but it was
r } decided to just leave the other wording of this
section as is .
H . Dow : We do not want to prohibit anyone from having a lighted
sign .
i R . Gleason : I ' m in favor of having some kind of illumination but
I would certainly be hesitant to have a neon or some
gaudy colored ones .
H . Dow : It ' s provided in here somewhere that they can not be .
distracting .
More discussion was held on this by R . Cotanch , H .
Dow and others .
H . Dow : Now we are going to get over on the last page - - now
then George Totman raised the point on-' page 54 and it
applies to lots with public sewers or without and he
says that under frontage there the 75 should read 100
and I agreed with him that night but since then I have
changed my own mind on this . George do you want to
. .
stand up and tell us why ?
it
If
G . Totman : We all agreed to it and I think you should tell us
why you changed your mind .
- 7
H . Dow : Alright , - - first of all don ' t lose sight of the first
line at the top of the page , - these are minimum , -
that means at least , in other words , the frontage can
be 109 feet or 180 but can ' t be less than 75 and when
you take a lot that has to be 10 , 000 ft . supposing it o
is and supposing the 75 ft . wide , - that ' s a normal
situation . We are talking about minimal control and
to me that is a safeguard not a mandate . Now take the
last line down - 2 family or more or multi - dwelling ,
6 , 000 sq . ft . d . u . that ' s 12 , 000 sq . ft . of lot and
supposing there ' s 50 ft . of frontage that ' s 100 ft . .
frontage - - that ' s a normal situation but it also
says that they can go up as high as 160 ft . of frontage
and not more - - that ' s perfectly ideal .
G . Totman : That one I can agree with .
H . Dow : But , at the same time , with 2 families in that house
a , they are going to have at least 100 ft . of frontage .
G : • Totman : How many developers that come into an area go over the
minimum? And when we were talking before we were
; . talking about putting up a house - - 45 , 50 , 60 ft .
- - and then try to put in a garage or utility shed at
the side - - this doesn ' t make a very good view by not
having any open space between homes . We are looking
for the betterment of the Town .
F
H . Dow : The image you have in your own mind is it ' s going to
be a 75 ft . lot with a 65 ft . house .
4
R . Gleason : You have setbacks and so on , - - can ' t put that thing
in a 75 ft . lot .
E . McLaughlin : A developer comes in and is going to build them 75 ft .
to get the most of his tract .
Some discussion was held on this by R . Cotanch , G .
Totman , R . Gleason , H . Dows and others .
' G . Totman : I : think we are getting off base . We went through
all these meetings with the Planning Board and made
our final decisions at our last meeting and the pur -
pose tonight was not for the Planning Board to be
tearing it apart but to explain it to the Town Board
as to what we decided .
H . Dow : You were the pioneer on- the 100 ft . change . Ron , do
you support that ?
R . Cotanch : Yes ,
H . Dow : Ed , do you ?
E . McLaughlin : Yes .
- 8 -
V . Metzgar : I have to go along with it ;
H . Dow : Alright , - let ' s make it 100 subject to Tom ' s
explanation ,
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G . Munson : This Town is going to be in the sewer system , - - we are
going to grow sometime .
R ° Gleason : You didn ' t ask me how I voted . I wanted it left the
way it is .
H ° Dow : So do I .
Z . Kane : I ' d like to say 100 but he won ' t let me ride home .
J . Bell : I ' ll give you a ride home .
Z . Kane : 0 ° K ° I say 100 °
H . Dow : It ' s marked 100 . Verle do you go 100 or 75 ?
V . Rankin : I ' ll go 1006
p " H ° Dow : Ron , - will you be seeing Tom Niederkorn in the near
future ?
R ° Cotanch : I can get word to him .
H ° Dow : I would like him to take this' copy and pass judgment
on it and if he sees no reason to disagree with these
changes the next time we digest it again will have
good reasons .
R . Cotanch : If would like to say the 701 contracts have been given
to Mr . Niederkorn for signature and will be forthcoming
to the Village and Town fairly soon . The cost was
$5 , 500 and I have a letter here that it ,'fwas reinstated
so that I suspect once the contracts ar4 signed either
in October or November it will start u ag ain -when-
P
;} ever Glenn and Frank sign the contracts and we will be
off and running into the second phase ,
H ° Dow : That $ 5 , 500 is to be spent for sociological invest -
went , - - regulatory planning ?
i
R ° Cotanch Are you going to set times for the information hearings
tonight , Glenn ?
Ge Munson ; We are going to be tied up with budgetsthe next few
days .
R . Gleason : Going back to page 54 if one is to be 100 the 150 should
be changed to 200 . f
H ° Dow : May I have permission then , before we turn this over to
Tom , to go over here where it says public sewers and
a
n . - 9
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change this from 150 to 200 .
H . Dow : Will go to Mr . Niederkorn unchanged , - still 150 .
H . Dow : We are going to talk over now , - - we are almost in the
final stages here , - - about the procedure for these p
informational meetings and the final public hearing
right here in this room with Tom Niederkorn present and
shortly afterwards the whole thing will come into focus
when the Town Board takes its vote .
Now the question up for discussion is when do we want to
have these informational meetings and how many do we
want to hold ?
G . Totman : Who is going to hold the information meetings ?
4 .
H . Dow : The Town BoardFP .
t
G . Totman : Then they should decide this .
Ai
H . Dow : That ' s what we ' re doing - - Glenn asked me to ask this .
H . Dow : Does the Town Board accept this report ?
i .
y? it
V . Rankin : I do but can ' t speak for the others .
�. G . Munson : As a whole - - overall , we agree , - - Louie ?
PL . Sovocool : Overall , - yes .
G . Munson : I don ' t want to go to these information meetings saying
the Town Board is holding them .
V . Rankin : This is our baby - - we have accepted it .
V . Metzgar : We ' ve never had a meeting by ourselves on it - - maybe
we ought to have a meeting just amongst ourselves and
go over it ,
G . Munson : This could be done before the informational meetings .
4•
H . Dow : You are saying you would like to see the members of the
Town Board sit down by themselves and either O . K . it or
not ?
E . McLaughlin : When you talk about a final hearing in here , - - no
offense to this room , - ,but down at the school I
think would be a better . place to hold it .
a
H . Dow : The all -purpose room there would be the 'best place for
the public hearing .
vl
H . Dow : Lpt ' s ask Glenn and his Board when they want to devote
their meeting to the final acceptance of this draft .
When do you want to do this ?
10
i,
L . Baker : Unless you have a special meeting it will be two months ,
we have our budget meeting next month and the hearing on
the budget the following month .
G . Munson : The Board will meet as a group one week from tonight
( September 27th) and then we will get together with
this group as a body for a special information meeting .
G . Munson : What night of the week is the best for information meetings
at West Groton and McLean ? Is Monday night a good night ?
It was decided that Mr . Dow would not give the copy of
the report to Tom Niederkorn until after the Town Board
meets next Monday night in case there are more changes
made in it .
G . Munson : I think the first information meeting should be held in
West Groton ,
C . Holden : I ' m not so concerned whether there are only 5 - 6 there be -
cause they will get to talking and it might help as much as
it there were more attending .
H . Dow : At least we can say that they. can feel that they have had
a chance to hear about this .
C . Holden : Glenn would it be a good idea to call it expla3hing zoning
instead of regulatory planning .
G . Totman : I think we have stayed away from this word " zoning " too
long .
H . Dow : There is going to be change whether we regulate it or
don ' t regulate it .
• Re pectfully submitted ,
lB •
Jo ephine Bell
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