HomeMy WebLinkAbout1973-07-25 GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD MEETING
Held at
Town Hall , Groton , New York
Wednesday , July 25 , 1973
8 : 00 P . M . - 9 : 30 P . M .
D . Payne - Chairman'*
G . Totman - Vice -Chairman*
Z . Kane - Secretary*
D . Chase*
R . Gleason*
F . Scheffler*
* - Denotes those present .
D . Payne : Frank , we haven ' t any minutes to approve from the last meeting
because I left them at home .
Z . Kane : We ' ll approve them next time with the ones tonight .
D . Payne : I don ' t know if any of you have heard but Anthony Ceracche
of Ithaca would like to have the cable television for the
Town of Groton which would , as I understand it , include the
Village of Groton and probably the Hamlet of McLean .
Hicks contacted me and said he would like to have a committee
from the Planning Board involved with the drawing up of the
regulations and requirements according to Federal Regulations
that will be used as guidelines for Mr . Ceracche to operate
by . He would like a three -member committee from the Planning
Board to work with members of the Town Board and I would also
assume the Village Board .
Z . Kane : Tell him to get us another member so we won ' t have to send
half the Planning Board ,
G . Totman : As I understand it - - I ' m not 1007/o sure McLean wants Cable TV
and Ceracche has agreed to bring his line into McLean down the
Peruville Road but has to have a certain number of people sign
up in order to do this . This is one of the problems he runs
into in smaller areas getting enough people to sign up ,
D . Payne : Mr . Ceracche or his attorney , I ' m not sure which , and Ben Bucko
are drawing up guidelines and regulations
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G . Totman : Is this going to be a continuous type committee ?
D . Payne : No , strictly for original approval for him to come in and
supply the Cable TV ,
D . Chase : What would our obligations be , Don ? Any idea what kind of
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decision making we would be doing ?
D . Payne : I don ' t really know and talking to Hicks he doesn ' t really
know either because he hasn ' t heard from Ben or Ceracche
since they agreed to draw up the guidelines .
G . Totman : If he is coming up through the Lansing area he might con-
ceivably drop it in the Peruville area if enough people
sign up .
R . Gleason : Sorry I ' m late .
D . Payne : We have just covered a little bit about what little we know
about Ceracche and Cable TV for the Town of Groton . Hicks
has requested a three -member panel from the Planning Board
be involved with it . I would like some volunteers to serve
on this committee .
G . Totman : I ' ll very gladly serve on this . There ' s a lot of people in
McLean that really want it badly .
Some discussion was held on this by Z . Kane , D . Payne , G .
Totman and others .
D . Chase : I could probably work on it , Don .
D . Payne : 0 . K.
D . Chase : I don ' t know what it would involve .
D . Payne : I don ' t think it would involve too much as far as meeting
time is concerned . Well , - - I ' ll volunteer too , then .
I spoke with Hicks and he said he had contacted Ken Portzline
re . becoming a member of our Planning Board . Ken is still not
feeling well and isn ' t sure he could do the job so he refused .
So we ' re back to a six -member Board again with no names in the
hat that are acceptable to the Town Board .
R . Gleason : What happened in April ? There were some members that had to
be reappointed , weren ' t there ?
Z . Kane : That ' s automatic .
Some discussion was held on this by F . Scheffler , Z . Kane
and others .
D . Payne : Does anybody have any possible suggestions of someone we
could contact as a new member for our Planning Board ,
D . Chase : Is there a certain area we ought to " look for ?
D . Payne : At this point should look for just anybody . I did mention to
Hicks that Rick LaFrance might but they hadn ' t contacted him
as yet and I got a rather cool response .
The following names were suggested by various members
of the Planning Board :
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Don Cummings
Ralph Cummings
Leona Cummings
Harvey Fink
Bob Moore
Lyle Raymond
Al Rohm
Charlotte Scheffler
Don Slocum
Barbara Steger
Marion Steger
Doug Wilson .
It was decided that D . Payne would leave a list of the
above names on Hicks Dow ' s desk for his use at the next
Town Board meeting .
D . Payne : I have just received a notification from the New York State
Planning Federation regarding the Annual Planning and
Zoning Institute meeting .
Z . Kane : We all got that , didn ' t we ?
D . Payne : Did you ? I didn ' t know - - this concerns their 35th Annual
Planning and. Zoning Institute Meeting which is to be held
October 21 - 23 in Ellenville , N . Y .
Z . Kane : That ' s down towards New York City ,
D . Payne : I contacted Hicks and he said the Town will pay the expenses
for 2 members of the Planning Board to attend these meetings .
The agenda looks quite interesting .. Hicks said he would like
to see more of our members go but due to other commitments
such as State . and Town meetings where Ben and the Town Board
will go and some members of the Board of Appeals would go to
this meeting so he felt it would have to be limited to two
members . It would begin on a Sunday afternoon for registra -
tion and checking into the hotel . Any volunteers ?
G . Totman : I ' d just as soon go but would concede to any new member that
hasn ' t been as far as expenses go if somebody wants to go
that hasn ' t gone before and I ' ll probably go anyway .
D . Chase : It is Sunday and Monday ?
D . Payne : Registration on Sunday and meetings on Monday and Tuesday .
Frank?
F . Scheffler : I don ' t know - - it ' s a bad time of the year for me .
D . Payne : Same for you , Roger ?
R . Gleason : It ' s right in corn time .
D . Payne : Zana ?
Z . Kane : I can ' t go .
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D . Payne : Don?
D . Chase : I don ' t know , - - it sounds sort of interesting but I don ' t
know what my schedule is right then but I might consider
it .
F . Scheffler : What ' s the latest time you have to know ?
D . Payne : Any reservations received after October llth . . . . . . we do
have to know if we are going to use both openings that
Hicks has given us so he can bring it up at the next Board
meeting .
G . Totman : Put it in for two . Don and I will put in for it and if
anyone else wants to go they can go . If you know you
want to go should send the reservations in early and get
the better rooms .
D . Payne : 0 . K. We ' ll leave it this way , if for any reason either
one of you don ' t go , I will .
Z . Kane : You have to go anyway . You ' re the chairman and you ' ve
never gone .
D . Payne : Well , - -why don ' t we give Hicks three names .
Z . Kane : Put in for 3 - - can ' t lose anything .
G . Totman : Put in for 3 and wait til after the meeting to see what they
are going to do - - you have to pay the reservation out of
your own money and then after you get all done you submit
your bill to the Town Board and get reimbursed when you get
back .
D . Payne : Is there a limitation on expenses , George ?
F . Scheffler : $ 150 , isn ' t it ?
G . Totman : You don ' t pay that much actually , - - the only expense you ' re going
to have is your trip down and back and $ 27 . 50 day while you ' re
there . Your room also covers your meals .
Some discussion was held on this by all present .
D . Payne : George also handed me when he walked in - - apparently a
special type of meeting-, - -.
G . Totman : It ' s a planning seminar put on by the University of Pennsylvania
and the registration fee is $ 125 .
D . Payne : Out of our class for individuals and the Town Board .
As you are all aware there was a joint meeting scheduled to be
held by the Village Planning Board and Town Planning Board . This
meeting was cancelled and I think maybe we ought to be thinking
in terms of scheduling another one . I think one of the reasons
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for this meeting , - - -Mrs . Blatchly told George was the
possibility of this trailer park .
G . Totman : Yes , they have a request for a trailer park and are not
familiar at all with it and one of the things she had in
mind was for the Town and Village Planning Boards to meet
monthly or so in areas where they have some similarity .
D . Payne : I can contact Mrs . Blatchly . Is there a date where we could
all agree to be here ? I think the first two weeks in August
is out because Smith -Corona will be out on vacation which
will mean quite a few people will be away so maybe we could
make this for our first meeting in September .
D . Chase : That ' s O . K. with me .
D . Payne : 0 . K .
G . Totman : That was when she made the request for the first week in June .
D . Payne : That was for another reason at that time to also discuss their
zoning ordinance as well as the trailer park .
G . Totman : They still have not resolved the trailer park request . If that
trailer park goes in that ' s being proposed for the Village ,
the people then are going to turn around and ask for the same
type of change in the ordinance from the Town so they can
extend their land where the extension in the Town borders .
Z . Kane : Where is it?
G . Totman : Up in back of VanBenschoten ' s barn .
D . Payne : I ' m not familiar with this request for a trailer park or what
it involves .
Some discussion was held on this by G . Totman , F . Scheffler
and others .
R . Gleason : It must be on Doug Wilson ' s land .
G . Totman : It is , - -he and Dutch are going 50 -50 on it .
R . Gleason : That would be a good place for one - could hide it up there
very nicely .
More discussion was held on this by D . Payne , R . Gleason
and others .
D . Payne : This is something that would be discussed at the joint meeting .
Don McCoy stopped in tonight before the meeting . He called
Zana today concerning a subdivision he is planning or has
possibilities of . His concern is , as everybody ' s has been
lately , why are we trying to hold him up . He feels that his
subdivision as he would use it would be a minimum size of
one acre lots . They would very probably have 150 ft . frontage
minimum . He was kind of interested as to how long it would
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take once he sold his second lot to get approval for a minor
subdivision . I did advise him of what would be required
like a surveyor ' s map , Board of Health approval and I think
he was satisfied when he left .
R . Gleason : Where is this going to be , Zana?
Z . Kane : He mentioned Stage Road to me . There ' s an A frame house up
there , believe it ' s on that same piece of land farther down .
D . Payne : I assured him that once he was guaranteed of the sale of
his second lot that we would do everything possible to get
it through with as little delay as possible provided he
had everything we require to look at .
Some discussion was held on this by G . Totman , Z . Kane ,
D . Payne and others .
D . Payne : He would make original sketch for his whole piece of land and
then he would just come back to us and let us make a deviation
from the original sketch if he wanted to increase the size of
the lot .
D . Payne : There would still be no problem as long as he makes them bigger
lots .
Z . Kane : That ' s it . As long as he doesn ' t make them any smaller , and I
mentioned the Board of Health and he said he knew all about that .
D . Payne : He is aware of the Regulations of the Subdivision Ordinance and
he , as I said , has two main concerns - - if he changed the size
of the lot would he be held up for any length of time and if he
met all of our regulations would he then be held up for a long
time before he could sell the lot .
Z . Kane : Look how fast we put Mrs . Lyon ' s through . We could do the same
thing for him .
D . Payne : Does anybody else have anything they would like to bring up at
this meeting ?
G . Totman : There are two 4 - family apartment houses completed in McLean .
D . Chase : Whereabouts are they ?
G . Totman : They are on Champlin Road where the creek crosses - - just after
you cross the creek .
Z . Kane : On a piece of land I never realized was there .
D . Payne : I did discuss that with Hicks . He said that they did meet
zoning regulations . They do look to me like they are very
close together but I don ' t know how much additional land there is .
G . Totman : He had to buy some more land .
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Z . Kane : There ' s a place - - right on the Townline Road between us and
Cayuga County . Anyways right where the Town of Groton begins
is a road that turns up .
R . Gleason : Sears Rd .
Z . Kane : Right there , there are two homes which must have been somebody ' s
subdivision at some time which we never heard anything about .
R . Gleason : One is a replacement of a trailer and the other is owned by another
person .
G . Totman : This Cable TV Committee , is that to wait for directions from the
Town Board before they hold meetings ?
D . Payne : We have to wait until Ben and Mr . Cerachhe , or his attorney , get
finished drawing up these proposed guidelines in a legal manner
so they can be used by the Committee . Nothing can be done until
this is completed . As of this date , there ' s no completion date
set for the drawing up of these regulations so apparently. it will
-be awhile and , as I understand it , after the Committee is formed
and meets would be a minimum of six months before the whole deal
could be completed because it involves Federal regulations which
I don ' t think , at this time , any of us are familiar with .
Another interesting situation came up since our last meeting , - -
I don ' t know if any of you know Leonard Adams on Route 222 . He ,
or his son , applied for a building permit and was informed by
Dana that he was a part of a subdivision since his Father had
just bought a house and sold a house and his other son was in
the process of building a house and now he applied for a permit
to put a trailer home in back of his Father ' s new house . :- He
called me up and I tried to clear up some points with him but
didn ' t have much success . Then he contacted Hicks and the way
it ended up was the trailer home was put under trailer regula -
tions and there was no subdivision involved as determined by
the Town Attorney . ]I guess the son that was in the process
of building a house had already had possession of the land for
12 years - - I don ' t know how the other areas were cleared up
but it was determined was not considered to be a subdivision
since it was a trailer home involved . He ' s gone am and talking
about getting away with it ever since .
Some discussion was held on this by Z . Kane , G . 9btman , D .
Payne and others .
D . Payne : Have you heard any more concerning your plans , Roger ?
R . Gleason : I ' m waiting to see if the second is going to go because if it
doesn ' t won ' t be worth spending the time and the money on it .
D . Payne : Any other areas to be covered ?
D . Chase : No , I don ' t have anything .
Z . Kane : Do you have any definite time that we will be meeting again or
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will I wait til I hear from you and phone everybody ?
D . Payne : Why not leave it right now that there ' s no definite meeting
date set but will definitely have one in September and if
something comes up before concerning the Cable TV or other
problems we ' ll hold one in August .
As soon as I get an answer from Hicks on this New York Planning
Federation meeting , I will let you both know .
Also as soon as I hear anything at all on the Cable TV I ' ll let
you both know . Seems like you both are the main two I have to
contact , eh ?
D . Chase : I move that the meeting be adjourned .
R . Gleason : I second the motion .
(Motion carried . )
Res ectfully submitted ,
Jos phone Bell
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