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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1973-11-07 GROTON TOWN PLANNING BOARD MEETING Held at the Town Hall Groton , N . Y . Wednesday , November 7 , 1973 D . Payne - Chairman* G . Totman - Vice Chairman* Z . Kane - Secretary* D . Chase* R . Gleason* F . Scheffler* J . Bell* * - Denotes those present . D . Payne : Has everyone read the minutes of our October meeting ? G . Totman : I move the minutes be approved as written . D . Chase : I second the motion . (Motion carried . ) D . Payne : Well , our trip down to Nevele for the New York State Planning Federation ' s annual meeting was quite interesting . I don ' t know about George but I got quite a bit of additional information . One of the things I found out was even though there are sub - division regulations in a Town the Planning Board can be abolished . The only way this can be done is if the legislative body , which in this case would be the Town Board , is willing to take over its com- plete activities . D . Chase : Otherwise you couldn ' t enforce the zoning ordinance ? D . Payne : The zoning ordinance is enforced by the zoning enforcement officer . D . Chase : Then the subdivision regulations are a separate item ? D . Payne : Yes , and is controlled by the Planning Board . The Town Board or enforcement officer have nothing to say as to subdivision regula - tions . Z . Kane : Except for what is in it - has to agree with the zoning ordinance and permits to build and all that . More discussion was held on this by Z . Kane , D . Payne and others . D . Payne : Another item is that the Town Board , or legislative body , can refer any items they wish to the Planning Board for investigation . Z . Kane : We heard of that possibility before because we talked about why didn ' t they . D . Chase : An example would be that TV cable study we did . - 1 - D . Payne : Right , that ' s a perfect example of it . But the Town Board is not required to abide by the Planning Board suggestions . All we are in this respect is an investigative body to make suggestions . If we submitted a report on aay item they referred to us , they could completely ignore it . It wouldn ' t be very probable that this would happen . The Planning Board is strictly an advisory body with the exception of the Subdivision Regulations where they are the controlling body . When it comes to Subdivision as a whole the Planning Board does enforce the Subdivision Regulations but when it comes to individual plats in the subdivision this is handled by the enforcement officer . Z . Kane : That was what I was trying to say before . You know how they get all mixed up together . D . Payne : The Planning Board does have the power to employ private concerns for purposes involving subdivision if required , such as engineers or soil conservation people as needed . In order for this to be possible , however , it would have to be put in a budget for the Planning Board . At this time , I ' m not even sure , George , if we have a budget , do we ? G . Totman : Yes , we do have . We never see it but it ' sithere . D . Payne : Is it for this purpose ? G . Totman : It ' s for anything that comes up pertinent to the Planning Board . It ' s handled in our Town a little differently than most towns do . As I understand it , from talking to other people , if there is $ 1 , 000 put into the Planning Board ' s budget have to budget how it ' s spent and are allowed to spend $ 1 , 000 - - - in our case we don ' t know how it ' s being spent and we don ' t spend it . It ' s not really in the true sense a Planning Board budget . It ' s a means of paper work . They have to have it in the budget in order to be able to spend the money . D . Payne : But no regulations as to what the money is to be spent for ? G . Totman : No . D . Payne : Could be spent for this type of requirement . G . Totman : It could be spent according to the law for Josephine ' s salary comes out of the Planning Board budget , for example . It could be used for seminars , such as we went to and could even be used to pay members of planning boards for attending meetings or anything like that but it very seldom ever is used for salary . D . Payne : I also found out down there that it ' s not uncommon for town and village planning boards to hold joint meetings . Z . Kane : We ' ve tried . D . Payne : Especially in places where boundaries of a subdivision or anything else the planning boards are investigating or doing . 2 - G . Totman : In our case that could be very beneficial as respects the trailer park for Dutch VanBenschoten . D . Payne : The only thing I have heard about that is that the village , I be - lieve , is trying to get the part in the town annexed into the village . Some discussion was held on this by D . Payne , G . Totman and others . Mr . Payne said that hopefully in a month or so would be a joint meeting of both planning boards concerning this proposed trailer park . D . Payne : George , do you have anything to say on our trip down there ? G . Totman : I think you pretty well covered everything . There are a lot of things you learn and pick up at these meetings , - -all the things that strike you as new and you didn ' t realize before . I always find it beneficial to pick up something new but it ' s hard to relate back to other people and I find it interesting just sitting there listening to other people ' s problems around the State - - towns enforcing their ordinances and hearing reactions on how they solve their problems . Most of the problems that you heard them talking about down there were with the developers and most of the questions were from people much farther along in planning stages than we are . Talk - ing about things like - - a lot of town boards are taking the master plans , like we have in our big book here , and the things suggested for the future , - - like , for example , East Groton Lake that was proposed , - - a lot of towns are taking those master plans and implementing them and going in those directions and that is what people are talking about . Z . Kane : They are away ahead of us aren ' t they ? G . Totman : Oh , yes , - -until the legislative body requests you to do these things you don ' t do them . This is why I went to the Town Board and asked them if they would like us to study some of these things that might be beneficial to the Town . More discussion was held on this by Z . Kane , U. Totman and others . D . Payne : I think another good thing is listening to people on an. individual basis during dinner . I had the opportunity to sit with a profess - ional planner and another familiar problem we heard about was trailers and we are so far behind in that area which is one thing we do have permission to work on . Many of these towns and villages do not allow them in on an individual basis and only in certain areas and only in a trailer park . G . Totman : And most of the people we talked to about trailers - - none of them let trailers go in indiscriminately like we do . D . Payne : They all had controls . Some discussion was held on this by all present . - 3 - D . Chase : This comes under the zoning ordinance , doesn ' t it ? D . Payne : There ' s a trailer regulation and also a zoning ordinance . This would be the sort of thing we could take on a referral basis and give them suggestions and recommendations . G . Totman : I think something else you listen to a lot down there , - started a couple of years ago and more and more now you hear people talk- ing about cluster housing and Planned Unit Developments - - getting a new concept of this now . Some planning boards are taking sub - dividers ' plans and suggesting that instead of taking all the land and subdividing in single dwelling units put cluster housing in and have heard some pretty good ideas on things like that . D . Payne : This does not necessarily have to be a suggestion , it can be a requirement in a subdivision . G . Totman : Yes , you can demand that in a subdivision but would have to have a good reason why you are demanding it . Some discussion was held on this by Z . Kane , D . Payne and others . G . Totman : One of the other things I like about going to these meetings is I gain a lot by reading the available pamphlets and literature laid out on different things and I remember back before I got involved saw people with these pamphlets and wondered where they got them . If they don ' t have extra copies you sign up on sheets for everything the State prints and they will send them all to you in the mail and can get a vast reading knowledge that way . D . Payne : At our last meeting we had a preliminary hearing with Mr . Barber . It seems that he has run into a little problem with the Town since that meeting . It appears that he has sold one lot and is in the process of trying to sell another one . As you can see from the letter Ben Bucko is involved now and through Dana Snell ' s groundwork has informed Mr . Barber that he has to go through subdivision before any further subdivision work can go on . (Mr . Payne gave members each a copy of Mr . Bucko ' s letter . ) G . Totman : The way this reads , this Mr . O ' Connell is representing Barber as a legal adviser or could be that Barber was leasing land from O ' Connell as the letter is addressed to O ' Connell . Z . Kane : It ' s someone Ben knows so I bet it ' s an attorney . G . Totman : He came to us with a good sketch plan and sounded very sincere and acid he sold one parcel of land , which is legal . Had a permit for it but then the parcel of land he said he sold wasn ' t the one the trailer appeared on and the people have moved into the trailer . The day we came back from Ellenville , the 23rd , I met with the Health Department concerning our fire department and we were talking about - 4 - r planning and they brought that up that they had issued permits for two lots over there and I said you can ' t do that as it hasn ' t been approved as a subdivision yet . They said they had and that they told Dana Snell about it . Some discussion was held on this by all present . D . Payne : He hasn ' t contacted me yet . As I said I think he is having some problems here in this area . I was up there last Saturday and the one trailer is being lived in . The lot adjacent that is being developed - - there ' s electricity to it and work going on on the ground because I walked back in . R . Gleason : This is how I read the thing , - -Mr . Barber has sold a lot to some people who have permission to build something and that is not Mr . Stanford . He owns the trailer . D . Payne : He is in there without a permit . G . Totman : The lot he had permission to sell isn ' t the lot the people moved into so Dana took it to Ben Bucko which was the right thing to do . Z . Kane : I wouldn ' t worry quite so much if he was going to do something about it . G . Totman : Have you heard anything more on the other one , - - Mr . Malechek ? Z . Kane : I wrote a letter and told him he would have to send us the various things required and I called Dana to make sure he had sent him a copy of what is required and he said he had and I told him if he had any questions to contact me . That was about 3 weeks ago and I haven ' t heard anything from him . D . Payne : Does anyone have anything they would like to bring up at the meeting ? F . Scheffler : Are those culverts big enough up there ? D . Payne : I don ' t think so . G . Totman : Dana says they aren ' t . D . Payne : I understand the Town is making tremendous strides in enforcing the junkyard ordinance . Since the Bixler case was closed and found in favor of the Town . Mr . Metcalfe ' s is in the process of being cleaned up and also mentioned that Dusty Kyes is going to clean his up . Well , - -as there ' s no more business - - Z . Kane : I move we adjourn . G . Totman : I second the motion . (Motion carried . ) The meeting adourned at 9 P . M . R pectfully sub fitted , Joule h `ne Bel1 - - p 5