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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1972-06-07 d t GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD MEETING Held in the Town Hall Wednesday , June 7 , 1972 8 : 20 P . M . - 10 : 20 P . M . G . Totman , Chairman* R . Cotanch R . Gleason* Z . Kane* D . Payne* F . Scheffler* E . McLaughlin J . Bell* * Denotes those present . G . Totman : I think I ' ll open the meeting up , Frank , with letting you read some information the rest of us have read and you haven ' t as yet . This is a letter that I got last Friday in my mail and I got hold of most everybody but you , and I think you ought to read it before I go any farther . (Mr . Totman handed Mr . Scheffler a letter he had received from Harry S . Hamilton , attorney for Feho Corp . to read , a copy of which will be attached to the file copy of these minutes and made a part thereof . ) G . Totman : Let me read you the letter that we had Mr . Bucko write in answer to Mr . Hamilton ' s May 31st letter . (Mr . Totman then read this letter aloud and a copy of it will be attached to the file copy of these minutes and made a part thereof . ) After calling up the majority of the Planning Board members I felt this was the only route that we could take . F . Scheffler : As I read this here they would hold $3 , 000 from the sale of every lot and give it to the Town to finish any unfinished business , - - is that right ? G . Totman : As I interpreted this he says they are prepared to purchase a performance bond to the maximum of $ 70 , 000 to accomplish each and every item in our letter of May 9th . This was the whole crux of the thing as I see it . First of all a per - formance bond isn ' t meant for that . The items in that letter included such things as the topography map , a clear statement re . utilities , also what they planned to do on the road and a detailed map of the grade of the loads and this sort of thing and the $ 70 , 000 bond or whatever bond they would put up is supposed to be enough to cover the project in case they don ' t do it and then if they do do it they get their money back and if they don ' t a portion would finish what they didn ' t do or what was in the agree - ment but , then , he goes on to say they are prepared to give the Town $3 , 000 for the sale of each lot to be accumulated until they reach the $ 70 , 000 . F . Scheffler : That would be $ 69 , 000 on 23 lots , - -right ? - 1 - G . Totman : That ' s not how a performance bond is used , - - it ' s like an insurance policy . R . Gleason : The $ 70 , 000 is a good faith bond and the other $ 70 , 000 would be cash money . Apparently what he is really saying is give the Town the money and the Town will build it . G . Totman : He says after they sell all the lots they will give the Town $ 70 , 000 to cover the detailed improvements . F . Scheffler : It says to accomplish each and every item in your letter . D . Payne : That was what they would purchase the bond for . F . Scheffler : It says to accomplish , - - so they expect to spend it . G . Totman : Two miles of road in that area up there would cost more than $ 70 , 000 , F . Scheffler : The performance bond doesn ' t have to cover the entire pro - ject . G . Totman : That ' s true but if the Town were to put roads into a sub - division , - - I don ' t think it ' s legal for them to do this . F . Scheffler : They could if they got paid for it . R . Gleason : They can ' t work on private property . F . Scheffler : Can if you ' re paid for it . G . Totman : I don ' t think so but here they won ' t get the $ 70 , 000 until the lots are all sold . F . Scheffler : But it could be deeded over to the Town . G . Totman : But they don ' t get this $3 , 000 until each and every lot is sold and in the meantime people who buy lots would want roads . Z . Kane : Sounds to me like he is still talking about the same $70 , 000 so have no money to work with until you get that and that ' s pretty ridiculous . G . Totman : Basically what we are saying to this Feho Corporation is we didn ' t have enough time to fully analyse and make a decision on their latest proposal , - - the time limit has run out and if they are serious about this subdivision they can resubmit their proposal that we sent back and resubmit it in accordance with our subdivision regulations and this time we wi11 know what to work for before we accept the applica - tion . Looking at it backwards is always better than fore - sight , - -we should have had this information in writing about the roads and the other information we are asking for before we had the public hearing . We didn ' t do our homework the way we should have or we would have been alert in not accepting that as a bona fide application because it wasn ' t all there . I think we learned a lot from that application . - 2 - F . Scheffler : It wasn ' t totally our fault . R . Gleason : The attorney should have been on the ball and read it to us , - - the contract . More discussion was held on this by all present . G . Totman : One of the mistakes I made was when Mr . Daugherty was here , - - he was very , very evasive and we called the public hearing from the information he gave us and we shouldn ' t have until we had: the information on the roads . He lead us to believe they were planning to put the roads in but when we held the public hearing the attorney clearly stated that they had no intention of putting those roads in . Z . Kane : But Mr . Daugherty didn ' t know that . He sure looked surprised that night . More discussion was held on this by all present . Mr . Totman handed everyone a copy of the minutes of the Planning Board ' s May 24 , 1972 meeting . G . Totman : Are there any questions on the minutes of the last meeting ? If there are no exceptions , I would like a motion made to accept these minutes . F . Scheffler : I move the minutes be accepted as written . D . Payne : I second the motion . (The motion was carried . ) G . Totman : Would you like to have me read the Resolution that was sent to Mr . Hamilton where we rejected the proposal and then it can be attached to the file copy of tonight ' s minutes that go into the file cabinet here . (Mr . Totman then read the Resolution aloud and it is attached to the file copy of these minutes and made a part thereof . ) G . Totman : Incidentally I was thinking when I was filing the minutes tonight , - - each meeting night I take the master copy of the minutes and file it in the filing cabinet here and in the back of the second drawer of the filing cabinet I put extra copies so if you want to catch your minutes up you will find extra copies in the second drawer down . I always run enough off for us and for anybody that should turn up at the meetings so do have some extra ones tonight in case you want them . If you don ' t will file them away in there . I suppose the next question is where we go from here ? A couple of things , - - one in particular that I would like to have your thinking on is nowheres in our subdivision regula - tions do I recall where the developer is required to pay for the publication fees and cost of public hearings . I believe this is legal and , in talking to Ben Bucko , this is done in other towns . - 3 - G . Totman : As you know we have just completed a request for a subdivision even though we turned it down it cost the Town money for publication and a public hearing . We probably should be think - ing of , - - if it ' s the feeling of the Board , - - suggesting a change in this to include in the application the cost of the publication and for the public hearings so that the Town doesn ' t pay the cost for some crazy idea of developers . I don ' t think we should fly off the handle and make wild suggestions but if we think about it and it is the opinion of the Board that we should do this , - -maybe we can get some information on it from other Towns that do this . It could get expensive after awhile even if they are being approved . Z . Kane : What about that money they pay when they submit the application , - - what ' s that used for ? Like the $ 130 we just gave back? D . Payne : That belongs to the Town . R . Gleason : Actually that would be fee money to cover the cost of these things , wouldn ' t it? G . Totman : You have to pay , - - you see if they are hiring an attorney and he spends quite a lot of time on this , - -coming to meetings , - -writing letters , - - doing research , - - if we paid him on an individual basis it would come to more than $ 130 . R . Gleason : Two things then , - -can we get some information on the cost of the public hearing and what it cost to have this applica- tion processed through and we also ought to find out what other towns are doing in the same situation . D . Payne : We ' re talking about costs now , - -right ? Ben ' s fees whatever they might have been for this . I would say he spend a heck of a lot more time writing letters , doing research outside of the public hearing . What you ' re talking about is the total cost of the whole subdivision investigation ? R . Gleason : Yes . Maybe it ' s simply a matter of increasing our fees . I ' ve forgotten now , - - is it so much per parcel ? Z . Kane : $ 15 . 00 plus $5 . 00 per lot . R . Gleason : But we have given them the money back , - - is that a normal situation ? G . Totman : I ' m not sure . I only did this because Ben said to do this because we don ' t have anything in the subdivision regulations that says we can keep the money . Z . Kane : Right here it says that fees can be charged . G . Totman : Ben brought this up and said because it doesn ' t spell it out in our regulations you have to send the money back . YQiu see I questioned why send it back but Ben is our town attorney and he says that is what you are supposed to do . - 4 - Z . Kane : (Reading from the Subdivision Regulations ) : "The applica - tion for conditional approval should be accompanied by a fee of . . . . . . " . - - I bet we had a right to keep that money . R . Gleason : In this case I can see why we would send it back in case they might want to resubmit it . G . Totman : But we have to be careful about giving money back , - -maybe it should be stated clearly that the money is not to be refunded . D . Payne : Maybe we should check with the Tourn and see where this money goes to . G . Totman : I ' ll go to the next Town Board meeting and see what I can find out but don ' t want to do this unless everybody is in agreement with what I might say . We ' re a Planning Board a_id if there are inadequacies in what *ae are planning then we should plan to take care of the inadequacies . D . Payne : I have a suggestion about something we could do at some of our meetings , - -possibly take portions of our subdivision regulations and go over them . Z . Kane : Just like we ' re doing now , you mean , - - charge the money and all that ? F . Scheffler : Do you think even that will cover every situation ? G . Totman : No , but might make us more aware of what we are talking about . R . Gleason : I was thinking about _fr , - -what we really neexed on this subdivision , - - about the part in there that deals with the application and so on , - -a lot of us , - - I wonder if it couldn ' t be a simplified summary wh1ch says you have to do this , this and this . This could be given out to people . Z . Kane : Isn ' t that presented briefly over here where it says in accordance with the details in Article V , Section 3 , - - som.e - where back here , - -right in the Definitions on page 3 , - - it ' s just the same as a summary of it and then you can turn to the article referred to to find out the details . R . Gleason : If we maybe had just one or two pages that stated what the developer had to have , - - sketch , plats or whatever , - - then for more information could turn to page 34 . Z . Kane : Like a check list ? R . Gleason : Yes . G . Totman : Have any of you heard of anything happening from the Board of Appeals ? I went to their first two meetings in the spring and haven ' t heard anything from them since but heard on the radio the other morning that they discussed -the appeals that came up before their Board of Appeals and it amazed me because I hadn ' t even heard about any . Have any of you heard any comments or anything about them ? - 5 - F . Scheffler : I see Mohawk is building up there so he must have got a permit . In West Groton , G . Totman : Has anybody else got anything they would like to bring up or think that we should be doing other than what I think . Don suggested we should go through the subdivision regulations . Z . Kane : We probably should , - - there will be other ones of these . D . Payne : Another thing , awhile ago we were all discussing how lenient and easy the zoning ordinance is and after it was passed we all felt that there were changes right then that should be made . Isn ' t it up to us to go through it and plan these changes for the Town Board , G . Totman : As a see it a Planning Board is charged with .the responsibility of looking at the town , thinking of it as it is now and will be five or ten years from now and planning for the future and in so doing look at the ordinance we have and update it each year and if they ( the ordinances ) aren ' t right it ' s our fault because we didn ' t look into them and make plans for it . R . Gleason : Here ' s once instance , - - this subdivision wasn ' t really like any- thing we had in mind when this thing was written and , really , the zoning law should be changed . G . Totman : Not the zoning law , the subdivision regulations . R . Gleason : I ' m thinking of , - - these zoned agricultural up there . When some - one puts in a subdivision in essence being in an area contrary to that and if it had been in existence would probably have been zoned M or L . And I ' m wondering if there shouldn ' t be some tie - in between the subdivision and our zoning ordinance . G . Totman : The Town attorney tells me if you have any property dividing into 4 or more parcels automatically comes under subdivision regulations but what you ' re saying is you have to follow general plan that the zoning ordinance was derived from , R . Gleason : He could sell those 10 acre lots and it would still be agricultural zone up there . G . Totman : It doesn ' t say you can ' t have a housing development . More discussion was held on this by R . Gleason , G . Totman and others . R . Gleason : Either our subdivision regulations should have some provision to control use or else a provision should be written into our zoning which states ( I thought maybe under that one " Special Use Area " in the zoning ) maybe we should specify that any subdivision should come under that regulation and use would have to meet our zoning ordinance and this would give us the power to zone immediately . F . Scheffler : Isn ' t that pretty hard to tell anybody what they can do ? D . Payne : I think it ' s part of our job to put certain restrictions on it and tell them at least what they can ' t do . - 6 - R . Gleason : Right , - - there was nothing that would stop a person from putting up a big house on one lot and someone else putting a trailer on another lot . D . Payne : Of course this was the type of thing George and I and Zana were discussing when we thought this might go through , - - the possible restrictions that could be put on . G . Totman : The Planning Board can put those kind of restrictions on there when they make the approval . More discussion was held on this by G . Totman , Z . Kane and others . G . Totman : Don , Zana and I were working on what restrictions we would put on it if it was approved and the day before we had our meeting scheduled they came and intimated strongly that they had no intention of building roads so there was no point in our making any restrictions as the only thing we could do was reject their proposal and that is why we called the May 24th meeting and made our decision . I do think Don has a good idea in going back through this because we did learn quite a bit by going through this and seeing that we didn ' t get the right information . The entire approach to take to it I ' m not quite sure . It would be hard to try to sit and go through all these pages . Possibly the best thing to do would be for somebody to go through it and pick out points that are hard to understand and bring them back to the meeting . Z . Kane : Why don ' t each of us , - - D . Payne : Each of us could read a little bit of it and what we don ' t understand we could bring up at the next meeting , - - informal discussion . G . Totman : On this land that was being proposed for sale , - - I heard from a number of different people that Bert Houston had already bought part of the farm so before I had Ben Bucko write up the rejection on the proposal I had him call Bert and ask him what his position was on the land . I felt we were kind of spinning our wheels if it had already been soldito somebody else . Bert Houston said he had a second option on the land and that the first option went to Dory Auerbach in Florida and if their proposal didn ' t go through his application would then go through and that he was only buying a portion of the land . As I understand it the subdivision proposal being rejected gives Bert the perogative of buying what he wants and then if the same outfit want to buy the remainder they will have to make up a new plat etc . Bert is buying 30 acres and the house and barn . More discussion was held on this by R . Gleason , F . Scheffler , D . Payne and others . G . Totman : The 701 Committee is back in session again and are meeting once a month , - - this is the second phase of the 701 and the majority of the second phase is dealing with housing . I think the Planning Board should be aware of what they are doing because probably in the very near future there will be people from Egner and Nieder - korn Associates coming around for interviews with people on - 7 - G . Totman , housing and it will be connected with the Planning Board so as a member people might ask you what they are doing and why they are doing this and as a Planning Board member it will sound silly if you say you don ' t know . Here ' s a note that is going to be posted in public places . ( Zana Kane read the note aloud . ) G . Totman : In the first phase of the 701 study there was a questionnaire put out and it was 100% directed towards people that work in Groton but live elsewhere and why . Now the interviewing is going to be done to people that live in Groton asking why they live here , what they feel is wrong with housing , whether they are renting. or own their houses , what their opinions are on housing and this sort of thing , to get a better picture of the housing situation in Groton . At the last 701 meeting they went into capital expenditures for both the Village and Town . The findings from the 701 committee , when they are done , will be put into a report form the same as the first phase was and if there is any follow through on it , it will be this Board that does it so it would be very helpful if more of our Board could attend these meetings . The next meeting will be held here in the Town Hall on the 28th of June and the topic of the discussion that night will be sub - divisions . I understand Mr . Niederkorn is going to go through our subdivisions and make suggested changes in them . R . Gleason : When will our next Planning Board meeting be . Are we going to have one on the 21st ? G . Totman : We made a decision at the beginning of our annual year that we would hold them once a month unless something came up and had a need for a middle of the month meeting . Z . Kane : Let ' s not have one then and go to the June 28th meeting instead . G . Totman : Right , - - because if he is going to discuss our subdivision regula- tions we should be there . At the August 23rd meeting will discuss the results of their housing survey that will be taken shortly . G . Totman : In reading the paper tonight there was a long lengthy article in their from Les Graves , - - Z . Kane : What paper is this ? G . Totman : The Dryden Rural News . One of his big problems in the School Dis - trict is trailers and he very clearly states in there that the un- controlled growth of trailers in the Town is part of the contributing factor of not having enough funds to run the school . I think this is one of the areas that we should really think about , - - house trailers . D . Payne : Could we possibly start working on another trailer ordinance ? G . Totman : I think we should seriously consider this . Other Towns are making 8 - G . Totman : rules and regulations on where and what areas trailers will be allowed and what areas are inaccessible to traii(ers . Since they have put their ordinance in in Dryden their largest growth in dollar value has come from the area where they made it inaccessible to trailers . More discussion was held on this subject by all present . G . Totman : Seriously I think if we are thinking of the growth of Groton and the economy of the Town we will be remiss if we don ' t look back at the ordinance and work to encourage more economic growth by thinking of some of the things to stop and also things to encourage . Z . Kane : How do you encourage things to come ? I can understand how you can discourage trailers . G . Totman : That alone is encouraging some things to come . Z . Kane : How do you encourage small businesses ? G . Totman : I don ' t know that . More discussion was held on this subject by all present . G . Totman : Is anybody on the Board interested in looking at the zoning ordinance and changing any of the zones or making this provision in their for the location of trailers in the Town? Does anybody think that will help the growth of better homes in the Town of Groton? R . Gleason : Let ' s wait a little and see what happens on this 701 study on housing . Z . Kane : That ' s true . More discussion was held on this by all . F . Scheffler : I don ' t think commuting is a big factor in people not moving here . Z . Kane : Syracuse is nothing to drive from here . F . Scheffler : I think people are looking for secluded spots and the fact that a trailer is there will stop people from building a $ 50 , 000 home . D . Payne : I agree with that , too . F . Scheffler : If you have trailers spread all over this will discourage people from building homes . Z . Kane : Let ' s not do it in such a way that we will get in trouble again ' G . Totman : We have to be careful and really study this and make a strong proposition to the Board . More discussion was held on this by all present . F . Scheffler : What happened on that old folks ' home or what have you ? R . Gleason : It ' s been disapproved , - - no funds , - - still working on figures and so on . One of the biggest hitches is State has figure Tompkins County 9 - needs so many beds for elderly and so on and with Groton makes the figure too high . G . Totman : Last year when the proposal was made the State has a minimum and naximum bed allowance for that type of thing for each area . When the proposal was made there wasn ' t enough beds available in this area for it , = � if it had been submitted a month earlier it might have been approved but because of the defeated bond issue corners were cut to save money and one of the corners that were cut was minimum and maximum needs of the type of people that would use what was being proposed and then Tompkins County had more beds than were needed so there wasn ' t a need for this complex that was being pro- posed in Groton . F . Scheffler : Another thing to look at , - - the way employment is today , - - you are looking for people to build $50 , 000 homes and if people aren ' t making that kind of money they can ' t build them . R . Gleason : This is what I was getting at , - - how many people can build a $ 50 , 000 on the wages they are making in this area ? More discussion was held on this by all present . G . Totman : What do you think we should be planning for when we don ' t have subdivisions to approve or disapprove . What is the Board ' s opinion that we should be doing some planning for the growth of the Town of Groton because everything I ' ve suggested so far doesn ' t work be - cause nobody wants to come to Groton , but we should be planning for something . In most cases Planning Boards in other Towns , Cities , Villages feel that the approvals or disapprovals are really a minor matter because they are so busy looking to the future growth of the Town . I think we should change our path and start planning something and as a Board we should be thinking about what we should be planning for . R . Gleason : I guess what bothers me is , - - your opinion , - - we each have an opinion of what ought to be done and I feel we ought to get some facts be - fore we do anything and then any new information based on , hopefully , information from the master plan , - - from that we can decide what we want to do . G . Totman : You can ' t stop trailers but you can make provisions where there ' s an area they can ' t go into and see if that would help growth . Z . Kane : I don ' t think we want to jump into , - - one thing you said , - - we haven ' t planned all that , - - the zoning ordinance was a plan for the Town , - - now I think we should study the master plan and the subdivision regulations and look it all over and see what areas we can work on to see that some of those dreams in there can come true . F . Scheffler : I think it has to start with the people as a whole . People should do more to make things look more attractive . Lots of things could be done here to beautiful this Town and make it look better to make people come . Slums begat slums and unless everybody gets together and wants to beautify the Town or make it more attractive , you aren ' t going to get more than this type of people . G . Totman : People won ' t do this on their own . F . Scheffler : It ' s pretty difficult to lay down rules . - 10 - • e � G . Totman : Somebody has to initiate something or nothing will happen . The village are contemplating delapidated housing . Before we adjourn , I would like to ask Don and Zana to go through and make questions on the subdivision rules and regulations and also from the meeting that they have with the 701 meeting , - - make some points and jot them down in writing so we can go over them at our next meeting which will be in July . Go through it and pick out areas where you might have questions or might think that we might have to change , or areas you don ' t understand and bring this up at our next meeting . Would you do that ? That way it will give us a topic to discuss rather than try to go through the whole book at the meeting . By reading it through entirely like that might come up with some things we could suggest changes to the Town on . In the meantime I will go to the next Town Board meeting and find out about the application money and whether or not we did the right thing . Some discussion was held on this and the fact that a provision might be made for partial return and some kept to help pay expenses for public hearings , etc . Z . Kane : Aren ' t we supposed to talk about somebody for our Board too ? G . Totman : We are supposed to suggest someone to the Town Board to replace Ed McLaughlin . R . Gleason : I made the suggestion that we either get a younger person or an older person . Somebody under 30 or 25 , or maybe somebody like a senior citizen? Z . Kane : Do we have any suggestions ? R . Gleason : How about Ken Portzline , G . Totman : Didn ' t you say you had the name of a guy that owns a trailer ? Put him in . G . Totman : Do any of you know Wilson Barry? Z . Kane : Does he live in McLean? G . Totman : Yes . D . Payne : Is he the one on the corner there that sells antiques ? G . Totman : He ' s a retired farmer . He ' s a level - headed man . F . Scheffler : We have Howard Tyler who just retired from Cornell . R . Gleason : What about Morris Halliday ? F . Scheffler : He wouldn ' t be available half of the time . G . Totman : I now have three names here that I will submit to the Town Board . They are Howard Tyler , Ken Portzline and Wilson Barry . R . Gleason : I move the meeting be adjourned . Z . Kane : I second the motion . ( The motion was carried . ) The meeting adjourned at 10 : 20 P . M . Respectfully submitted : - 11 -