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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1972-05-03 y GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD MEETING Held in the Town Hall Wednesday , May 3 , 1972 8 * 35 P . M . - 10 : 00 P . M . G . Totman - Chairman Others on J . Bell* D . Payne%r J . Calhoun* F . Scheffler* R . Gleason* R . Cotanch Z . Kane an Secretary E . McLaughlin * - Denotes those present . G . Totman : You have read the minutes of the last meeting , - are there any corrections ? R . Gleason : I move they be approved as written . D . Payne : I second the motion . (The motion was carried . ) G . Totman : Let me , as near as I can , bring you up to date about what I observed since we met last . Last time we met Mr . Calhoun was here and agreed to do a soil survey of the south parcels across the Sovocool Hill Road and then we had our public hearing , which we had to hold up a few minutes because we didn ' t have a quorum at 8 P . M. You were all at the meeting afterwards when we met with Mr . Hamilton . Since then Mr . Hamilton has apparently contacted his clients in Florida , - - they in turn called Hicks Dow and quizzed Hicks as to the constitutionality of our regulations and tried to get him to bend the law . He referred them to Ben Bucko and Ben Bucko called me yesterday afternoon and he was quite excited and quite mad at them really . You know how Ben gets going . He informed them that as long as they kept calling Hicks Dow it would be held up because Hicks has nothing to do with passing this . He also informed them if they wanted to see anybody to see the Planning Board and suggested they write a letter asking what they want changed or what regula- tions they want by -passed . In talking with Ben I suggested that we take their letter and read it for what it ' s worth but before we make a decision Ben suggests that the things we think should be done by them , - - information we don ' t have and so forth should be put in a letter written by us telling them that this cannot be approved be - cause of insufficient information and telling them the approval will hinge upon their answer back with the information we need and that will take care of our 45 days . The information he is talking about is mainly regarding the roads . - 1 - r G . Totman : At our last meeting Mr . Dow told us they had obtained the services of Mr . Mobbs , County Highway Engineer , and they called me and said he would be here in this room at 2 P . M . Monday this week and I asked Frank Scheffler and Don Payne , as Planning Board members , to meet here with him and I think they can explain better what he said than I can because I wasn ' t here , so which - ever of you , or both of you , tell us what happened at that meet - ing . D . Payne : First of all Frank and I suggested we go up and take a walk over this particular parcel and Mr . Mobbs and Mr . Stevenson , the County Highway Superintendent , was also with Mr . Mobbs . They didn ' t feel it would really do any good to go up there and said what they needed was a topographical map of the area and , according to them , this is the way most subdivisions are presented with a topographical map showing the grade , the road and the ditching , - - the contractors ' plans for these things . G . Totman : One of the things I said we should be concerned with according to the engineer is the grades in relation to this long road , - some ditches down there , - - some are in a swampy area and with a topo map it would show that there would have to be a certain amount of sand brought in for certain ares which would make the road very expensive to build . F . Scheffler : They could have gone up and seen this if they would have gone up but I don ' t think they wanted to promenade around too bad . They like W do it on paper , - - easy way to do it . D . Payne : Frank and I looked all over the office for a topo map but couldn ' t find one . F . Scheffler : They enlightened us a little bit , along with the Town Board , on this road building business in regard that they agreed the Town agrees to run these ditches and the engineer says the first thing you need to do when you build this road is run the ditches , so really Groton is going to do all the work and all he is going to do is fill the ground , isn ' t this right ? R . Gleason : Hicks I thought said it meant the grade on it . G . Totman : That isn ' t the way it ' s written though it ' s what Hicks meant . D . Payne : Mr . Mobbs did say that before he could give us any real advise concerning this we would have to have additional information in the form of a topo map showing the road , ditches , as the con - tractor - - G . Totman : Didn ' t you get the impression from him that the developer should put this roadway on the map according to the topography conditions on the map ? D . Payne : That ' s right . He also said on most maps of this type contour lines are 2 feet . More discussion was held on this by J . Calhoun , D . Payne , G . Totman and others . G . Totman : 0 . K. Anything else ? 2 - D . Payne : As Frank said we spent some time discussing new road regula - tions the Town Board had passed . F . Scheffler : Really on that road , - - I have been thinking about this that for that road I think the specifications would be something like a main thoroughfare 6 " base 2" gravel with 6 " pressure run on top , - - a road like that ought to hold up . The road you are building for the subdivision doesn ' t require anything that substantial as there will be no truck traffic or through traffic or anything of that description . G . Totman : What the Town is worrying about is these might be extended out into another highway . More discussion was held on this by F . Scheffler , G . Totman and the rest present . F . Scheffler : The engineer said roughly it would cost $ 5 . foot ,just for the material , - - doesn ' t include hauling or labor or anything else , - so it would run into real money just the same . D . Payne : Under good conditions probably could put in in for $ 6 , a running foot . R . Gleason : About $ 35 , 000 a mile . G . Totman : At the Town Board meeting Monday night Hicks brought these road specifications up , - - apparently Hicks was here with you at the meeting with the engineer ? F . Scheffler : For part of it . G . Totman : And they changed the wording of the duties in the specifications so that it would read that the developer would be responsible for doing all the physical work as long as they meet the high- way superintendent ' s specifications . F . Scheffler : Another suggestion brought up was you could approve something like this with that after two families had moved , - - D . Payne : This would be an agreement between the contractor and the Town , - - in other words we will take it over after two or three families move in . G . Totman : This is one of the things that if we make the decision to approve it with conditions then you make that one of your conditions . F . Scheffler : Right . G . Totman : Jim , you haven ' t had a chance to talk to us on this lower part yet . Is there anything , - -highlights you would like to bring up on that ? J . Calhoun : You don ' t have a map of the development , do you ? G . Totman : Yes . This isn ' t a detailed one but its the one for across the road . J . Calhoun : Probably all of you have walked across this so won ' t be telling - 3 - J . Calhoun : you anything you don ' t already know . Think the highlight is from Houstons it ' s flat and then drops right off and the water gathers down in here where it is quite flat and wet with road culvert and water coming down in Q and there are a lot of hummocks , a pushed up pond here and holding water pretty good when we looked at it . According to the soil map shouldn ' t be this wet . Down in here it ' s weed canary grass , - - swamp grass . G . Totman : That means that it ' s wet all year long ? J . Calhoun : That ' s a pretty good indication that it is . It ' s like a floating mat of vegetation . R . Gleason : A fellow here at the hearing had some property down in here , - - was it Trinkl ? And he was very concerned about all that water . J . Calhoun : Myron Jacobs was in the office a couple of days before you were and he was concerned about what the water will do to him . G . Totma : He has a rig n. ht to be concerned . Once this 30" ditch is put in along these roads water from the land will go into the ditches and from there it has to go somewheres , and these on a down - hill area ditch won ' t hold it and it will have to go . J . Calhoun : There ' s no place really for the water to go per se anyway it ' s all flat in here . Will have to provide some place for it to go . There ' s no place on the property for it to drain to . More discussion was held on this water drainage problem by all . J . Calhoun : In other words it ' s safe to say , you ' re going to have a little worse drainage problem . D . Payne : How much worse could it be in 10 acre lots ? G . Totman : The only thing the Health Department did was approve the general plan of development on that farm . Any parcel that is sold , the buyer has to resubmit it for approval by the Health Department , R . Gleason : But is the individual buyer going to know that ? G . Totman : That ' s his problem . D . Payne : Wait a minute - - you say it ' s not our problem , it says right here in our Subdivision Regulations in Article I - Description of Policy "This means , among other things , that land to be subdivided . . . . . " (Mr . Payne read this aloud to everyone ) . While it may not be our problem I think we do have to take a look at this . We aren ' t experts but we at least have to take a look at it . R . Gleason : I suppose he has to go to the Health Department to see if a septic system will work . G . Totman : When a person buys one of these lots he cannot do anything with it until he comes to the Planning Board and gets our approval - 4 - G . Totman : and before we can give our approval he has to get the Health Department ' s approval on what he is planning to do . J . Calhoun : By the same token , if I go to buy a lot in a subdivision I ' m going to assume I can get approval from the Health Department , Mr . Calhoun gave Mr . Totman some pamphlets put out by the Department of Agriculture concerning development plans . Mr . Gleason suggested that Mr . Totman make copies of these before they are returned to Mr . Calhoun and Mr . Totman agreed to do so . G . Totman : What we have to do now is start making some decisions , - - take the information Jim has given us which has been very helpful , - -we can do this in a number of different ways as I see it and I ' m not going to try to influence you one way or another and I think the majority of the Board should be in favor one way or the other , - - J . Calhoun : Is there anything else I can add ? If you have any questions I would be glad to answer them but if not I ' d just as soon leave and will be glad to get together with you any time you need me . G . Totman : Thank you . (Mr . Calhoun left the meeting at 9 P . M. ) G . Totman : We can go the route of approving this subdivision and go into detail as to what provisions we want to make upon it in order to get our acceptance or approval like putting in the roads , giving us a topo map , showing what grades the road will be and telling them what they should submit . This would have to be approved by the County or Town engineer in this case the County engineer because the Town has obtained his services for this purpose . Personally I think that is the best route to take or else we can throw it all out but if we throw it all out we will have to make a good lengthy report as to why it ' s being thrown out in fairness to everyone concerned and I think some of the people who came to the public hearing would like to see this going in so if you accept it with provisions that they follow the ordinance we have and in citing our acceptance we cite the Declaration of Policy Don read about flooding and sewage and if they can assure us it won ' t affect other properties , then we can accept it . Has anybody any ideas on how to proceed from this point . D . Payne : The impression I got from Mr . Hamilton at the Public Hearing was that his client apparently doesn ' t intend to put any money into this until apparently lots are sold or something like this . I think maybe a way to approach it possibly would be first a request that they give us this information on a topo . If they do that then we can be at least assured they have plans for building a road . Right now we aren ' t even assured of that ! Anybody can sit down and draw lines on a map and show where a road will go but it takes an engineer to design that road for building . Another thing Mr . Mobbs brought up was before a - 5 - D . Payne : a road contractor would go in and build that road he would need that type of a map . I think if they are willing to give us this information we have some assurance there are plans being made for that . They may drop it right there . They may not go any further . G . Totman : It looks to me from what I observed that if they sell lots are going to leave an area open where roads are going to go and if they sell lot P they will say to the buyer you have a right of way and this is the area where you can get in and out of your land . Then he will come back to the Town in 5 years or so and ask for a roadway to it . So as far as I ' m concerned you have to put the road in first . D . Payne : They have no definite plans for putting a road in as I see it at this time . F . Scheffler : If you bought there you could have four or five kids there and no way to get them out to go to school . More discussion was held on this by all present . G . Totman : What course of action would you like to see , Roger? R . Gleason : I think we have to get this road and I agree that it sounds to me almost like if we are firm on this road business they will throw up their hands and say that ' s the end of it . Per - haps if we had the plans we could stipulate that they build the road in stages but not sell lots until they did . G . Totman : In a sense they can only sell lots in that area that has road accessible to them? R . Gleason : Yes . So they could sell 2 or 3 lots next to the existing roads and , - -we could take this assumption at this point and assume O . K. they are going to do this and I think Ben Bucko ' s thinking about a performance bond has some merit but assuming they will do that we can ' t wait until the forty - fourth day to decide what we are going to do so , at this point , I assume we ought to decide O . K . if we get the plans and did approve it should have certain other conditions in there like selling lots where there is access but , in the meantime should be thinking about other business and specify some conditions on some of the roads . We should sit down and start writing out these conditions that we feel have to be followed for the rest of it so in case they do come through we won ' t be stuck on the forty - fourth day trying to get the rest of our conditions down . G . Totman : That ' s a good point . F . Scheffler : The way they want to sell these lots , - - don ' t even guarantee there is ever even going to be a building on these lots . You don ' t know what people might use it for . R . Gleason : This is true but that ' s O . K. if someone wants to buy Lot J to ride through and chase foxes I guess that ' s alright but not buying it with the expectation of putting a house on it . - 6 - R . Gleason : I just don ' t think we can wait to arrive at these other conditions . F . Scheffler : Some of that land could be worked . Milt DeGraw lives right next to it , - -could sell some of those fields to the back and work them . G . Totman : My figuring shows that if the developer paid $48 , 000 for the land $ 70 , 000 for the road he is going to have to get at least another $ 5 , 000 or $ 10 , 000 together for legal fees and advertising and he would have to sell it for at least $ 6 , 000 a lot to make even a profit . R . Gleason : He ' s got to get at least about $ 10 , 000 . G . Totman : That ' s $ 1 , 000 an acre , - -no farmer will pay that . What would you think of the idea then of right now having me get together with Ben and draft this letter Ben is talking about and tell them any of our decisions will be dependent upon their information as to what they are going to do for this road , and if they don ' t intend to build a road for these lots they are proposing to sell then the subdivision will not be approved ? Some discussion was held on this by a11 . R . Gleason : Turn to page 34 of the subdivision regulations - 5 . 3 . 1 and read that at ( c ) ( d ) and (e ) Mr . Totman read this aloud . D . Payne : We never really got a map that covers sewer , etc , so how can we approve it ? R . Gleason : Now look at ( g ) . I really think Ben is right and we have tD have a lot more information from those people before we can approve this . If you read this page 34 on we have nothing from them really . More discussion was held on this by all . G . Totman : It might be good for you to read page 9 of the Public Hearing Minutes of the meeting afterwards where paragraph 5 of the contract was written in . Basically what Ben is saying is we can ' t make a decision be - cause we don ' t have sufficient information and if we don ' t get the information we can ' t approve it . F . Scheffler : According to this paragraph 5 from his contract he wants approval of every lot and that is not possible not to my way of thinking , no way . D . Payne : What we ought to do is decide what additional information we do need . R . Gleason : Maybe we should send them a copy of the subdivision regulations . - 7 - G . Totman : They have a copy of them . R . Gleason : You ' re right we should just write that letter and ask for the information . G . Totman : 0 . K. if that ' s agreeable to the Board I ' ll have Ben write the letter . R . Gleason : I ' ll make that a motion if that ' s what we need . G . Totman : That ' s what we need . More discussion was held on this by all . G . Totman : Roger made a motion we have Ben draft a letter and we will sign it as the Planning Board telling them all we need and telling them we can do no more on this until we have the information required in the subdivision regulations . D . Payne : I also think you should put a paragraph in there quoting their paragraph 5 and saying there is no way we can approve it with that paragraph in effect . G . Totman : In the minutes in the next paragraph down , Mr . Hamilton says it ' s a condition of the contract that it will not be closed unless he can sell 10 acre lots under those conditions . F . Scheffler : That ' s what he said . G . Totman : So I think we are at a standstill . More discussion was held on this by all . G . Totman. : Roger made a motion that we write this letter , if somebody would like to second it ? D . Payne : I second the motion . The motion was carried . More discussion was held on Mr . Hamilton ' s remarks at the Public Hearing . G . Totman : I ' m going to ask Ben to word this letter so they will know we won ' t do a thing until we get the proper information and probably what will happen if they don ' t throw it right out the window and it goes by the 45 days we would have to probably have another Public Hearing to be legal . If we write this letter won ' t be much point in us getting together for another meeting until we get an answer back . Does that make sense ? R . Gleason : The only thing is suppose they do meet our requirements we ought to know what we want to decide . G . T) tman : Alright , - - I ' 11 tell you what I have been thinking about then . It takes quite a lot of time to get 7 people to try and sit - 8 - G . Totman : around a table and try to agree on rules and this sort of thing . What would your thoughts be if I picked three people , sit down and from our observations and re -reading the minutes , we write something up like guidelines to follow or regulations that haven ' t been met and that it could be approved if they had been met and specify them and then hold a full meeting to go over this and make any additions or deletions necessary ? R . Gleason : I think that would be an excellent idea . In other words , you want a committee ? G . Totman : Right . R . Gleason : In the letter that is sent based on paragraph 5 of their contract it should be mentioned that we could not stipulate as a Planning Board to any such clause as that would call for because we can ' t speak for the County and other officials . G . Totman : O . K. and I ' ll get a copy of the letter that Ben sends . So then I f we have another regular meeting this month it will be on the 17th . R . Gleason : I hope we don ' t have to . G . Totman : In lieu of what I was saying , - - I talked to Zana Kane the other night and asked her if we did this sort of thing would she be willing to sit down with us and do the writing and she agreed so I guess probably the best thing to do is to pick others that aren ' t farmers ( since this is your busy time ) so if it ' s agreeable to everybody else will pick Zana. Kane , Don Payne and myself and we ' ll sit down and do this . R . Gleason : The 45 days will be up the llth of June . G . Totman : I ' ll get with Ben tomorrow and get this letter out and , in the meantime , will cover ourselves by writing something up with stipulations in it we can use if we need them . D . Payne : There ' s something else you should check with Ben - find out legally where we stand on these 45 days regarding the things they didn ' t give us . G . Totman : We accepted what they gave us . More discussion was held on this by all . G . Totman : 0 . K . that ' s about all we can do tonight really . I ' ll get together with Don and Zana , hopefully before our next meeting , it could be possible we might not have this done by the 17th . Why don ' t I leave it that if we don ' t have it done by the 17th we can hold our meeting the week after but will have Zana phone you as to when the meeting will be held . Will that be alright ? F . Scheffler : 0 . K. G . Totman : In the meantime I ' ll talk with Ben and make sure that we ' re still legal on this 45 days . - 9 - e 0 D . Payne made a motion that the meeting be adjourned , R . Gleason seconded it . The motion was carried . Res ectfully submitted , J eph ne Bell - 10 -