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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1972-02-16 M GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD MEETING Wednesday , February 16 , 1972 8 : 25 P . M, to 9 : 55 P . M . PRESENT : G . Totman , Chairman R • Gleason Z . Kane E . McLaughlin D . Payne F . Scheffler Mr . Totman called the meeting to order and then passed out copies of the Minutes of the last meeting for all present to read . G . Totman : Will someone make a motion we approve the minutes of the last meeting ? R . Gleason : I move the minutes be approved as written . D • Payne : I second the motion . (Motion carried . ) G . Totman : First of all I would like to bring you up to date on what I know of what the Town Board has been doing . I have attended all of the Town Board meetings but one since we met last and they have gone over the zoning ordinance quite well I thought at their meetings . I read from their meeting that they were pretty much all in favor of it , - - if any just one that had doubts about it . The only changes I know of that they made is that they included in Article VI , Section 601 . 46 the word " junkyards " so that the junkyard ordinance could be a part of the zoning ordinance . They deleted trailer parks from the L and M zones so unless they have another meeting and change it that is the way they will be presenting it . To my knowledge those are the only changes that they made . E . McLaughlin : Trailer parks , - -not trailers ? G . Totman : Parks , - - they left them in M and A zones . This zoning ordinance was published in its entirety in last week ' s Journal and Courier . The public hearing for the zoning ordinance is going to be held February 24 , next Thursday night . E . McLaughlin : What time ? G . Totman : 7 : 30 P . M . Z . Kane : Where ? G . Totman : Right here . I talked to Hicks Dow tonight and he wanted to come to our meeting to urge all of us to attend the public hearing . He feels we have spent a lot of the Town ' s money and many members have spent a lot of time making this up and he wants it presented to the people in the best way possible , so in place of Hicks may I plead with everybody to try and make it . - 1 - M G . Totman : Last night they had a public hearing on the swimming pool ordinance mainly • for fencing the pools in . The reason the public hearing was held last night is that they found that even though the Board thought: the ordinance was passed and in effect they found it wasn ' t properly recorded or published and if somebody had tested it they would have lost the case , so they had a new hearing and immediately following the hearing voted to pass it again and will publish it next week and , upon publication , it will then become effective . There were no changes made in it and only one person from the public was at . the public hearing and she wanted the pool ordinance to be stricter . She wanted the Town Board to not only require fencing but also covers for the pools when not in use but they told her they would study that after they had tried the ordinance so that ' s it as far as the Town Board is concerned and kind of brings you up to date . They are restudying the junkyard ordinance and I think they are going to make some changes in that and they are planning on holding a public hearing in the very near future on the junkyard ordinance . My feeling is that Hicks has got into a keg of nails on all these things because nothing has been done on them in the past and from my observations I think we are fortunate to have a person like Hicks on the Board . He appears to want to do something about them or take them off the books . Hicks said that he and the enforcement officer are going to get a list of all people who have pools and personally visit each one of them in the next month and require them during the month of April to have their problems taken care of . Now Roger Gleason is quite concerned over Route 13 coming through . He called me the other night and , in fact , asked me to invite somebody over which I didn ' t do . Couple of reasons ( 1 ) I wanted to go over our master plan a little bit tonight and ( 2 ) I ' m not quite as convinced as Roger is that the Town of Groton has too much to do with it because they are kind of by -passing the Town of Groton and I talked to M . Webb and he feels that the group of farmers most directly concerned are doing a bang -up job for themselves and seem to have made some really pertinent contacts . I did get you a map of the Town of Groton in case we might recommend a road through . E . McLaughlin : You mean for Route 13 ? G . Totman : Yes . E . McLaughlin : I think it ' s a little late . G . Totman : I have some copies here of the proposed route as it pertains to where it did go through the Town of Groton and into Cortland and this is , a copy of the map that appeared in the paper with the news article that came along with it . G . Totman : Roger had a letter from a man named Lyle Raymond . Let me read this to you . (Mr . Totman read the letter aloud and a copy is attached hereto and made a part of these minutes . ) Who is this man , Roger ? R . Gleason : He lives past me a mile or two across the Salt Road . He ' s down in the same office as Ernie Cole , - - Extension office . Some discussion was held on this subject by G . Totman , R . Gleason , E . McLaughlin and others . G . Totman : In this letter that Roger got , it says the Central New York Regional Planning Board turned it down . If my memory serves me clearly the chairman is the mayor of the City of Cortland who wants it to go around Cortland and I ' m sure the people at State Level will take that into consideration . 2 - M a R . Gleason : 281 and 13 to the West , Route 81 in the East and by putting 13 across the bottom where there is no good cross road that would be a beautiful traffic pattern . G . Totman : This is a map that the Dryden Town Board was given to study by the State Transportation Department . Apparently it was felt that so little of Groton was affected by it they didn ' t bother to consult with us . You can take a look at it . It shows where the proposed highway starts by the Hanshaw Road and into the Homer Interchange . R . Gleason : Groton does have a stake in this and this is why I thought we could G . Totman : The way I have looked at the maps it shows an interchange on Route 38 south of the Peruville Road and an interchange in McLean and it shows an inter - change in Groton - Cortland Road near the Sears Road . To me that is better than anything I have seen yet . Roger feels it will be a limited access highway . I can ' t see how they are going to have a non - limited highway out from Ithaca and then change it . More discussion was held on this subject by E . McLaughlin , R . Gleason , G . Totman and others . F . Scheffler : Where will it cross Route 222 ? G . Totman : At the Sears Road . Z . Kane : Right about where they intersect . (Mr . Totman discussed this subject further and showed everybody various different maps of the alternate routes proposed . ) G . Totman : We have to think of the Town of Groton and in looking at it: from the Town of Groton standpoint , my opinion is that this route would be more beneficial to Groton than any other one . It doesn ' t take much of our tax base out , - - puts three accessory routes into the Town of Groton and makes that part of the Town very acceptable to developers because then they can get from Cortland to Ithaca and even to Syracuse much quicker and it is my opinion that it will bring Groton much closer to the surrounding areas without us losing a lot of land or breaking up our farms and this sort of thing . If you want to make a proposal and submit it let me know . Roger suggested we should make a diagram on the map and send it to somebody . If it is the majority of the Board ' s feelings that we do this , I will entertain the feelings . More discussion was held on this and it was mentioned that we could send our support in favor of this route . G . Totman : Is it the Board ' s opinion that we should send a letter to the Transportation Commission in Syracuse saying we have studied it and our feelings and thinking about the Town of Groton is that this is the best route that has been proposed ? R . Gleason ; You could do that or give it to Liguori . G . Totman : It is my intention to have Mr . Liguouri come to one of our meetings and explain the functions of the County Planning Board and how we can relate to them . How- ever I feel it would be best to send the letter to Syracuse . More discussion was held on this by E . McLaughlin , R . Gleason , G . Totman and others . - 3 - 1 G . Totman : I think if you want to do that we ought to have a motion on it . E . McLaughlin : I would like to make a motion that we do that as discussed . I think Roger is right and all we need is to give it a little support . Z . Kane : I second the motion . G . Totman : All in favor , say aye . G . Totman : Those opposed? F . Scheffler : Only thing is I would like to know more about it before I would say this is the way it ought to be . G . Totman : This might not be the perfect solution but it is the best one we have seen . More discussion was held on the subject by all present . G . Totman : I wanted to spend some time tonight on this trip that Roger and I took . Roger Gleason , Ron Cotanch and myself , along with Hicks Dow , Town Supervisor , went to the New York Association of Towns ' meetings and it ' s the second time that I have been to them and for Roger also . I feel that a person on a planning or town board gets very valuable information from attending these meetings , not only from listening to the speakers but to the questions and answers that people have afterwards and how they solve their problems and you can gain any amount of knowledge you want . I brought back all kinds of pamphlets telling all the different things and some of them , if you read through them , can give you a lot of knowledge . Now I have quite a few of these leaflets that we picked up down there with me tonight and would like to have you look through them and take them home if you want to . The one in particular I think that could effect our Town would be the Agricultural Districts they are talking about whereby a farmer can , by applying to the proper people and going through all the rigamorole , can put his farm in the agricultural district which will give him a lower tax base but , by so doing , he has to make some commitments like , say , to keep it for 8 years there , - - - G . Gleason : Not in the district , you don ' t necessarily have to ask for the lower tax rate . G . Totman : Anyway I have a pamphlet on it and Roger has and you have to read it through to understand it . I guess I have a couple of them here . If you want to take them home and read them , please do so . There was a very interesting session on the planned unit development where they cited for an example an 80 acre tract near Ithaca and showed slides and different maps of the contours of the land and the proposed design of the developer which didn ' t take into consideration the ecology of the land or anything like that and then the State Extension Service redid the design and made what they call an ecological design which made a lot of sense if you look through it . I think it ' s very interesting reading . This is some - thing that we could very well get tangled up in in our Planning Board in just one area say , for instance , this Stevens property - - would be almost an identical type thing and if any educated Board looked at the developers ' plans they might look pretty good to them but if you look at the 2 plans and see it would make a lot of sense to suggest some changes to them. More discussion was held on this subject by all . - 4 - 1 G . Totman : I do have Ron Cotanch ' s delegate ' s report and I will read it to you if you like or pass it around . (Mr . Totman read Mr . Cotanch ' s report and a copy of the same is attached hereto and made a part of these minutes . ) G . Totman : What I did , in making my report , was to try not to slant it from my own point of view and I wrote it all about the meetings I went to and what type they were , who spoke and his position and made outline notes of what was said not what I thought they said . It ' s quite lengthy and I ' m not going to read it , - - it ' s 7 typewritten pages , but I will briefly outline the different type of people who spoke at the meetings and I would like you to take these notes home with you and read them if you want to . (Mr . Totman then gave all present a copy of his report of the meetings . ) G . Totman : On the Wednesday morning session , I felt I wanted to go to the Supervisors ' and Councilmen ' s session because it dealt with the Towns ' growth . I ' m glad I went to it . You can pick out what you want to go to and we went to different ones . I thought the meetings were very good and got a lot out of them . Z . Kane : I should think it would be very interesting . G . Totman : I would strongly suggest anybody that can go anytime should go . We did belong to the New York State Planning Federation and , as near as I can figure it out , the Town Board didn ' t pay the dues last year so we didn ' t get the informa - tion for last year . They have agreed to reapply and pay the dues and there ' s a monthly bulletin from this Federation and they have similar meetings to the ones in New York City only they are directly programmed to planning . Two years ago Hicks , Dan Carey and myself went to them and they were equally as good as the ones in New York City , although they were strictly oriented to - wards planning so once we get the dues paid up will know when these meetings will be held . It ' s usually a two - day session in the fall and usually held somewhere around Monticello or some place like that . I ' ll let you know more about it later . E . McLaughlin : Going back to this published proposed zoning ordinance , I wonder what trouble they have gotten themselves into , besides public reaction , by writing "under study" after junkyards and mobile home parks and so forth . Will they have to republish this thing ? G . Totman : No , only that part of it . E . McLaughlin : In other words , when they pass it they will pass it as only agricultural in both of these cases ? G . Totman : I ' m sure that they did this with Ben Bucko ' s sanction . If they had done any - thing different than that would have had to have it reprinted it again so rather than have to do it all over again , I would imagine that is what they did because they don ' t really know what they want to do in those areas now . E . McLaughlin : They already have ordinances for both of them , - -right ? G . Totman : Yes , G . Totman : Has anybody got anything they would like to ask or any questions ? - 5 - v Z . Kane : When will our next regular meeting be ? G . Totman : I think the first Wednesday in March . Z . Kane : Do you want me to call people ? G . Totman : Yes , E . McLaughlin : I have another question . I understand we have another developer talking about coming into the area where Yaman got through building . Is this going to extend the Village line again? Does anybody have any idea? G . Totman : The only thing I know about that is that a representative from the Gorman Real Estate has contacted the Village Board and asked them if they would consider extending their sewer and water lines to the proposed area and , to my knowledge , it ' s under study . E . McLaughlin : What happens when a developer wants to develop near the Village and needs an extension of water and sewer lines into an area that is part of the Town now? G . Totman : That ' s up to the Village if they want to bring it out to the Township . Some discussion was held on this subject by R . Gleason , E . McLaughlin , G . Totman and others . G . Totman : This is an interesting point . This pamphlet discusses annexation of a town and warnings on it . Here is a Town , - - the City keeps building up around it . It ' s a first class town , with its own water and treatment systems , and the subdivisions kept growing so that the City kept annexing parts of the Town and the Town is getting in trouble as losing high price tax bases to the City and are going to lose their first class town status because they are losing their tax base and the reason for the pamphlet is on this and they want people to read it and write to their legislators about it . It ' s in - teresting and you ought to take it home and read it . E . McLaughlin : Yes , I will . More discussion was held on this and future development and how it could eat into areas that the Town Planning Board have made decisions on which could be screwed up . G . Totman : One thing I think our Planning Board members should be doing and that is studying the subdivision regulations . These developers are coming in and asking all kinds of questions about the zoning ordinance and regulations with ideas of putting in subdivisions in our Town . When they decide to do this the first step is to come to us with their plans and we , as individuals , should be prepared to discuss our subdivision regulations with them . Z . Kane : Where are the subdivision regulations ? G . Totman : The subdivision regulations are controlled entirely by the Planning Board . All the proposals , maps , layouts have to be given to the Planning Board and gone over and we have to make sure they comply with the regulations and they are passed upon by the Planning Board and this is the only part of the regulations that the Planning Board has it over the Town Board . I think that if we are going to do a good job as a planning board the members should be prepared for this . More discussion was held on future development by G . Totman , R . Gleason , Z . Kane and others . 6 - (Mr . Totman had Zana Kane pass out pages on "What Does a Planning Board Member Do ? " and "Responsibilities of the Town Planning Board" to all present . Also a book entitled "General Development Plan Town and Village of Groton , New York . " ) G . Totman : This is the master plan that we have been talking about . The buildup from this is what brings on the ordinance . This is the study . E . McLaughlin : This is what we should base our thinking on ? G . Totman : Every board member should read this one through . We had 200 copies made , - - each one of us will get one and the rest will be turned over to the Town Board to do what they will with them . This completes the first phase of the 701 . The 701 study was put in two phases . The second phase of the 701 program has been funded and the contracts were signed on the 30th day of December with Mr . Niederkorn and the Town and Village and the State . The 701 Committee , which consists of Roger Hastings , Chairman , Art Clark , Ron Cotanch and myself , met a week ago Friday night with Mr . Niederkorn and laid out the groundwork for getting the second phase under motion . It is going to take a year and , mainly going to deal with the study of housing and what Groton needs are for better housing or housing for lower income people , aid a generalized study for that area . There will be 150 people in the Town and Village interviewed in their homes by a member of the planning staff of Egner and Niederkorn and the other part of that phase will be capital improvement study where a study will be made of the Town and Village ' s financial situation ; so that budgeted plans and suggestions can be made as to how they can best predict 5 years in advance what their expenses will be and generally things like that that might be of benefit . That ' s going to be the second phase . E . McLaughlin : I ' m wondering will we , in this second phase , - -will any information be brought out on housing plus what funds might be available from State or Federal governments , and things like that ? G . Totman : This information , according to Mr . Niederkorn , you can use the data to apply for Federal Assistance Programs , E . McLaughlin : Many times there are a lot of programs available that no one knows about . G . Totman : One of the reasons for this kind of study is in order to apply for assistance you have to make the study first . E . McLaughlin : I assume there are a lot of different ones , - - are they going to be put out in front of us ? For instance , like the new health complex , -- - they are after 3 or 4 different things but somebody knows where to go to get these things . After we get these studies done , will we have the information if somebody wants to do something ? G . Totman : No , - that is not part of that study . It ' s out of the realm of the Planning Board , E . McLaughlin : I ' m not saying that we would , - - I know it ' s up to private individuals but just knowing that such information is available would be helpful . G . Totman : This question was asked to Tom Niederkorn by Ed Morange and Tom ' s answer was that yes this can help you get Federal funds and once its done can give you information on funds available if you ask him . - 7 - y w Z . Kane : But it couldn ' t be included in something like that because they change from time to time . More discussion was held on this by E . McLaughlin , Z . Kane , G . Totman and others . G . Totman : Has anybody else got anything they want to bring up ? If not , our next meeting will be the first Wednesday in March (March 1st ) and I strongly urge everybody to attend the Public Hearing February 24th . I can ' t express strongly enough also the need that all of you become acquainted with the subdivision regulations and the swimming pool ordinance so if something comes up we can handle it . The Planning Board drew up this ordinance in the first place and there will be questions thrown sometimes and also it ' s Hicks ' opinion that once we pass the zoning ordinance he is going to immediately put it into effect and is going to appoint a Zoning Board of Appeals and he is going to suggest to the Zoning Board that they sit down with him , and us , and we can educate them on the zoning ordinance because it will be the Board of Appeals that will have more power than anybody else . R . Gleason : They are a court , in effect . G . Totman : And they are going to come into this thing with no knowledge and they will come to us , I hope , for information . Probably we will be having some joint meetings so we can explain to them what is in the zoning ordinance and I might feed the questions around the room to all of you . Some discussion was held on this subject by all . E . McLaughlin : I move we adjourn . F . Scheffler : I second the motion . (Motion carried . ) The meeting adjourned at 9 : 55 P . M . Res ectfully submitted , Jo phine Bell - 8 -