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Home My WebLink AboutPB Minutes 2004-06-01FILE DATE.-_, TOWN OF ITHACA PLANNING BOARD TUESDAY, JUNE 1; 2004 The Town of Ithaca Planning Board met in regular session on Tuesday, June 1, 2004, in Town Hall, 215 North Tioga Street, Ithaca, New York, at 7:00 p.m. PRESENT: Fred Wilcox, Chairperson; Eva Hoffmann, Board Member; George Conneman, Board.Member; Tracy Mitrano, Board Member; Rod Howe, Board Member; Jonathan Kanter, Director of Planning; John Barney, Attorney for the Town (7:14 p.m.); Dan Walker, Director of. Engineering (7:17 p.m.); Susan Ritter, Assistant Director of Planning; Mike Smith, Environmental Planner. EXCUSED: Larry Thayer, Board Member; Kevin Talty, Board Member; Christine Balestra, Planner: OTHERS: Maria B. Andrews, 95 Brown Rd; Mina Amundsen, Cornell University; Brian Wilbur, Ithaca Fire Department; Bill Goodhew, 674 Coddington Rd; Carl Sgrecci, Ithaca College; Wei -Lin, Ling Ling; John Murray, SB Ashley Management; Barbara Blanchard, TC Legislature; Mikel Shakarjian; TC Planning; Peter Penniman, TC Legislature; Peter Meskill, TC Sheriff; John Rollins, 127 Troy Rd; Lee Shurtleff, 82 Drum Rd; Paul Rubin, 530 Hudson St; Nick Quorio, 150 Troy Rd; John Rowlands, 646 Coddington Rd, AGENDA ITEM: PERSONS TO BE HEARD Chairperson Wilcox opened this segment of the meeting at 7:08 p.m. and asked if any member of the public wished to be heard. With no persons present, Chairperson Wilcox closed this segment of the meeting at 7:09 p.m. AGENDA ITEM: SEQR Determination: Ling -Ling Garden Expansion, 331 -333 Pine Tree Road. Chairperson Wilcox opened this segment of the meeting at 7:09 p.m. John Murray, SB Ashley Management My name is John Murray, the property manager for East Hill Plaza. We are representing Cornell, the owners of the plaza, and with me is the applicant, Wei -Lin; the owner of Ling -Ling Gardens and he is seeking approval for an expansion into some existing vacant space which adjoins his current operation to allow for a sit -down capacity which currently he cannot provide. Chairperson Wilcox -John, Can I have a business address? Mr. Murray. Please. Our home office is 16 West Main St, Rochester NY 14614. PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 6s 2004 Chairperson Wilcox - Thank you. You know the drill, but just in case you don't, we'd like a brief overview of what's being proposed and any environmental implications that you might be aware of. Mr. Lin - Yeah, I just ... for seating area for restaurant Chairperson Wilcox - I didn't hear.him John. Mr. Murray - I'm sorry. He's saying he's seeking approval so he can expand his current restaurant. - Board Member Hoffmann.- It helps if you have the microphone really close. Mr. Lin - We are current restaurant, and I just want to offer more seating area in the rest of 330 suites, left of the regular Ling Ling right now. Chairperson Wilcox - I'm having real trouble picking this up. Mr. Murray- His current restaurant, I'll help him out.a little bit. Chairperson Wilcox - Help him out, please Mr. Murray - He's been in ours since I, want to say 91, so approximately, 13 years. The current space he occupies is just about 1200 square foot, and if you have ever visited the facility you walk in through a main front door area. There rare some limited booths to your left and right. Some people do take advantage of those booths and occupy them while they eat a meal; a lot of people just sit there while their waiting: As you enter, you walk about halfway into the existing' space and that's where his counter receives you, menu board up, top, you can place your order. He does have an open kitchen, you can view everything being prepared as it's being made, so I .want to say I think it's his goal to continue providing obviously a good quality product that he has for many folks in ,that area, but take it up to another, Level that would allow for a more formal seating area.. The Video Ithaca store, which is adjacent to him, has been empty for a while. He sees this as an opportunity to provide for an opening from the existing space, and for lack of a better word, sort of move up to have a receiving counter or reception closer to the front, and then allow for access into the 1856 square foot space that.was formerly occupied by video Ithaca. Part of that you will see on his plans, if you take 'a look, there will. be some six booth stations he would have there. He is aware and will. be providing for the requirement as it relates to ADA. capacity to the restrooms; they're over in the corner. Again, I don't really know if there's anything else to tell you, minus from our perspective, the owner, he's been a great tenant to .have at the plaza. He has another operation down on Route 13; he's .been in this area for quite a while. Another thing I just want to mention too, on signage, that would be minimal impact, I think he's just going to move over into an existing box, which Video Ithaca occupied. Can you think of anything else I'm overlooking? 2 K lip i PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 a, Chairperson Wilcox - I think Christine Balestra's memo, she's not here this evening, noted that Video Ithaca's sign would be changed to Restaurant or something like that. i, Mr: Murray - Those box actually allotted, for a certain amount of signage by the dimension of the storefront, so he would be confined. And obviously those permits, electrical, plumbing, signage would go through the typical application that any of our tenants do, which is come. through the town, work with Andy Frost and folks to get the things up to code and what's required by today's standards.. i Chairperson Wilcox - The issue of parking which was brought up both in Chris's memo It o the planning board members and also in Maria Andrew's letter to Chris Balestra, both spem to agree that there is sufficient parking in and around. the facility. I think the issue is that we're going to get more long term parking, like an hour, versus short term parking; 5-or 10 or 15 minutes. Mr. Murray - And we agree with that observation. I think they indicated the town staff was at like 80% capacity rate. I guess another thing, food for thought is, a lot of his customers that he will now see in the evening and the weekends when the entire Cornell operation is pretty much not up and running then. � Chairperson Wilcox - Good point, Thank you. Someone else, questions regarding environmental review? Board Member Hoffmann - Well, I was wondering a little bit about the parking too, because I have had the impression and people who observe the east Hill.Plaza more than I do, have said to me that it seems as if many of the cars that are parked there are cars of people who park there and take the bus and go into central campus where they work and the cars are left there all day. Which I don't think is supposed to happen. o Mr. Murray - It's not ma'am, actually we have our staff ticket those folks ... Board Member Hoffmann- Could you turn the microphone closer to you? SRI Mr. Murray - Yes. We will actually have our porters in the morning do a ticketing process, if they do see these individuals, and I guess we sort of establish a criteria that they give them the benefit of the doubt or that one courtesy ticket, and the next time we tow the vehicle if they don't heed that warning. It is private property and it's not a shuttle lot for any campus activity. l Board Member Hoffmann - Is that something you've done already? Mr. Murray - We've done it many times. Board Member Hoffmann How often do you do it, typically? And how often do you catch people that park illegally? K PLANNING BOARD MINUTES.OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 6s 2004 Mr. Murray - We111, they've caught a lot of people, and a lot of people have been respectful and they understand .that they're not supposed to be there. I guess you're giving everyone the benefit of the doubt that they might not be aware of so we aren't dust towing right at the first infraction, but I know they did forcibly have to tow a few cars. I i`think they were actually some students too that were using it as a carpooling center. Again, we're very cognizant of that because you do have a certain number of folks that do park there all day long that work in the numerous departments there. But as part of t `iat in the equation, we have to be careful that we don't like double count them because they might be people that in turn would visit the restaurant too and have already taken their parking. And I only go by what he's mentioned too, with his costumer base. Do yo, u have complaints on? Mr. Lin - I have never had a complaint with 13 years of parking. I Board Member Hoffmann - Right. No, it's usually possible to find a parking spot, but find and I notice it . more because I have more trouble walking lets say, so I'm not so happy when I have to park very far away and walk in, that's when I can find a parking place close in, and I notice that it's gotten to be harder and harder to find a parking place close in at that end of the plaza, where the Cornell offices are and where this restaurant is and the... Murray - And again, in defense of where his location is, he's actually quite a few refronts going towards P & C. Member Hoffmann - I know where it is. I live in that area. r. Murray - So the Cornell end, which starts at the former Warehouse Carpet space all e way down.. I guess I would agree because you. do see people, there isn't that ;quency in the turnover because they do come in and park, but yet, we did our own irking count and worked with your staff to see if they in most cases observe a good mover in those spots that service the corner and retail end. )ard Member Hoffmann - Well, I think that as part of this approval if you are willing to II us that Cornell University is willing to monitor that let and make sure.that people m't park there all day and go into main campus to work without having a proper irking permit then, and so on, and they use this as a parking lot essentially and take e bus, if you can make sure that that doesn't happen so much. r. Murray -.I can go on record to tell you what I told you is the truth. I can't stand there id say it's never going to happen that someone might get in there sometime that is yet >ing that against the rules. )ard Member Hoffmann - I understand that, but if there is some enforcement ippening regularly, usually people catch on pretty quickly, and stop doing that sort of ing. a PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 1, 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 Mr. Murray - Yes there is.. Our staff enforces it through a courtesy notice, and if they don't heed that, then we tow the vehicle. Board Member Mitrano - What are the parking rules and regulations for the Cornell employees who work `in that area towards the end of the plaza, the financial affairs area? Mr. Murray - I'm sorry, I didn't hear. Board Member Mitrano -.What are the rules for the employees who work in the financial affairs and whatever else? Mr. Murray - As a courtesy they ask, and again I `recommend to the department heads that they ask their employees, because you are going to be there all day. Some of them might even have some folks that are visiting, either suppliers or customers, just as a courtesy to leave the prime spots open, but it is not assigned parking, and it's not permit .based parking. It's still a shopping plaza. Board Member Mitrano - So are those folks allowed to park there just as part of their employment. Mr.. Murray - Some do park there and again it's not a requirement like a campus, no, but out of'courtesy I think we work with all of the department heads and encourage them to encourage their employees to if you will, use the outermost spots so if they do have vendors or customers they're not trapping all the way through the parking lot. Chairperson Wilcox - There's been some anecdotal information both at East Hill Plaza, and we've heard rumors of people who park at the hospital and then jump on the bus. Board Member Mitrano - The hospital out on 96 ?` Chairperson Wilcox - Yeah, if they live on West Hill, they'll park in the hospital parking lot and take the bus to downtown, and then rather than having a parking permit and Possibly paying a fee to park in A lot or B lot. Board Member Mitrano - Cornell's parking is expensive. Board Member Howe - How. do you identify them? I mean:.. . Mr. Murray - You usually witness them getting on the bus,. leaving their car and getting on the bus. Laughter. Board Member Howe - Oh, I see. 5 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES.OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 Mr. Murray - And Then we'd make a note of their car. Board Member Howe - So you post the campus patrol over there. Mr. Murray - Well, the porters, the guys that do the pickup. Early in the day the lots almost empty do you can really get a good job running the vacuums, :and they would see that this person has a 90 Honda, and if they can approach them, they will. And then they'll leave a note on the car, you know "You are observed, this is not a park and ride lot, this is your only notice, and you'll' be subject to towing without further notice." And they have had to do that unfortunately. You try and give everybody the benefit of the doubt. Some people I truly believe they know what they're doing isn't right, but they'll still try and do it anyway. II Board Member Mitrano - Perhaps, are you asking then Eva, rather than custodial help, acting in some intermediary capacity to do the reporting on an alleged parking violation, that you would like this gentleman to speak top the appropriate administrators at Cornell to establish some type of more coherent enforcement mechanism. Board Member Hoffmann - Yes, and obviously the people that work at East Hill Plaza have to be able to park there and I remember some years back we allowed an expansion of the parking areas in the back of the buildings towards Genex, for employees to park rather than to have them park in the main parking lot which is supposed. to be for people who go to the businesses as well as some who work there. And the parking lot has been dimensioned in such a way that it's not supposed to be too big. We don't want more pavement there than we have to have, and it was number of parking spaces were. figured out depending on how many each business ..and each office would need but if a lot of those places are being taken over by people who are parking there for convenience and go elsewhere, then that defeats the whole planning that has been done. Board Member Mitrano - Yeah, well I wouldn't from my point for view defeat this gentleman's application on the basis.of the... Board Member Hoffmann - Oh no, absolutely not, I wouldn't think of doing .that either, but I was hoping maybe we could get some.sort of cooperative... Chairperson. Wilcox - Effort. Board Member Hoffmann - Yes, thank you, from the owners of the plaza, who you represent, I believe Mr. Murray, to police this a little bit better so people who aren't supposed to park there don't park there. Mr. Murray - And again I guess it's a constant effort that is being put forth, so I don't know what else to say. I go by my tenants, who believe me, when they have problem with access or snow or whatever you might have; they talk to you and let you know. 6 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 19 2004 APPROVED JULY 6, 2004 The rest of it, the Cornell,,departments, they pay rent, they have an entitlement to park . there. The rest of it is almost human nature that you hope that what the department heads ask of their employees they respect. And I think most of them do, and then again we try our best by working with people, giving them the benefit of the doubt, giving them a written notice, tow them if we have to, so I don't mean to be contradictory but I think they are doing a good' job at what they're doing there, it's just an ongoing process, it's not the same population you're dealing with. Board Member Hoffmann - Right, well how about this suggestion, could you put something in writing to us suggesting how much of an effort could be put into this? Comments from the floor Chairperson Wilcox - You can address us only if you sit down, and only if you give us your name and an address. Maria B. Andrews — Maria B. Andrews, property manager here in the Ithaca office for .SB Ashley management. Chairperson Wilcox - And that office address is... Ms. Andrews - 95 Brown Road, Ithaca. Chairperson Wilcox - Very good, go ahead. Ms. Andrews - And Ms. Hoffman, I think you do raise a very valid question and concern and we have taken efforts and measurements in place including posting a sign where the TCAT bus is that basically spells out that you will have your car towed if you park your car here. There is also monitoring that is done by our staff, who show up to work .about 7:15 to :7:30 each morning. Now I can't say it is done 5 days a- week, but it is done on a consistent basis to assure we don't have those types of violators. It's not just a concern for the retailers but for Cornell employees as well. I mean if you've got 10 or 15 or 20 cars, we don't really want to have them parking and riding. We have towed cars, we have given them courtesy memos, and also whenever I find a peculiar car, I contact Cornell University Transportation, and a lot of those cars are sometimes registered because they are Cornell employees, and I do take the time to -call the Cornell employee and explain to them that it's. not a park and ride situation. I went through great lengths with many folks, including Cornell university transportation saying you know, how can we address this, can TCAT perhaps provide another park and ride location. It has been continually addressed. It's as. Mr. Murray says, you would have to be. out there policing and standing - there for a couple of hours in the morning, and it's ongoing but we do make those efforts to do that: I assure you that any cars that we see that are not there on a regular basis, and of course if you see them hop on the bus and then their car is still there at 3 O'clock rA PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 in the afternoon, we have taken their License plate I and we have made attempts to contact them to explain that to them versus just towing their vehicle. Board Member Hoffmann - Right. Ms. Andrews - I just wanted to let you. know that. Board Member Hoffmann - Well thank you. Now would you be able to provide us with a letter saying that this kind of effort is happening and will be ongoing? I Ms. Andrews - It is an ongoing,effort that we do as part of the monitoring of the parking lot so we don't have those park and ride `situations. Putting it in writing, I mean I don't think I have any reason why not to explain that it is not a standard procedure that I do and instruct my staff members to do that 5 days a week. I If someone is absent from work, I mean, I'm certainly not going to run over there and stand there for two hours myself, but again it is continuing. Board Member Howe - I think we're getting off track. Chairperson Wilcox - Well we are a little bit. Board Member Conneman . - Well, Eva's point is, you could write a letter about policy, not saying that you do it every day:.. that's the difference. Ms. Andrews - Right, that.it is an ongoing effort, that we do monitor the parking lot. Chairperson Wilcox - Is the fact that she stated it for. the record sufficient? Board Member Conneman Yes. Chairperson Wilcox - OK. Very good, thank you. Board Member Hoffmann - I guess I.will be satisfied with that. I have another question about the number of spaces in :the. restaurant. Mr. Murray- Yes, ma'am. Board Member Hoffmann - We've got a drawing which shows the number of tables and booths and it doesn't look like the number of seats add up to the hundred or maximum which is requested. In the letter that we :received from Ling Ling restaurant, it was received on April 26, it says that this would be a hundred seat restaurant or the maximum allowed. The drawing doesn't reflect as many seats as 100, I don't remember now, I counted it out, it was more like 60 or 70 1 thought. Mr. Murray explains the comment to Mr. Lin. Lei Q PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 Mr. Mr. Lin - Yes, I don't know what the town require how many seating. Board Member Hoffmann - So you would like to know from us. Mr. Lin — Yeah, I don't know how many seating can you approve. Does it have a front entry or right... I don't know how many require. Board Member Mitrano - Does the fire department? Chairperson. Wilcox - Well, fire department, I don't know, health department certainly has a building code. Mr. Murray - They would indicate what's legally allowed, right? Attorney. Barney - They are the maximum requirement. Mr: Kanter - Yeah, there is no maximum zoning number. Attorney Barney - I think it's a product of how many exits and.... Mr. Murray - And I think it's generally. square footage. Chairperson Wilcox - And'exits and ... r Mr. Murray - Egress. Chair .person Wilcox - Right, all those sorts of things. purview. That's generally not within our Board Member Hoffmann - But the number of parking spaces would be related to the number of seats in the restaurant. Attorney Barney - Well, the application is fora hundred, so I think in terms of parking spaces,.you would minimize it as if it were going to be a hundred, but whether it can or cannot be a hundred is dependent on code. Board.Member Hoffmann But actually the application is for a hundred or the maximum amount. Attorney Barney I think probably if that's the case, if you choose to grant it, you probably want to qualify it by saying ... whatever it is your basing your analysis on, if they want more than that, that they come in. and ask for more. Mr. Kanter Interestingly, I did a look at our zoning for the parking standards, and the standard for a restaurant is one space for 5 seats, so for 100 seats that would be 20 parking spaces, whereas if you use the conversion by square footage, and that figure s 0 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 67 2004 was provided in the table in the parking analysis provided by the applicant, ended up being 30, 30 parking spaces, so actually by seats, and by the maximum of 100 seats, that's 10 spaces less.than you would otherwise have to have Board Member Hoffmann - I guess in this case, it's also related to whether the restaurant will keep the carryout portion,. because then that would be more cars parking. Chairperson Wilcox I think we're talking about additional seating here; all the numbers we've talked about are additional seats for the expansion. Board Member Hoffmann. - Additional, on top of the carryout. Chairperson Wilcox - On top of the existing function, yes. Board Member Hoffmann That wasn't clear, I remember that that's what Christine Balestra said in her memo, that it was unclear whether that would continue or not. So she must have had a question about that. Attorney Barney - If it's a question, can.the applicant answer? Mr. Murray - do you ... their question is are you still providing carryout service? Mr. Lin - Yes, we're still, carryout service, yeah. Chairperson Wilcox - I still .didn't hear it. Mr. Murray - He said yes. Chairperson Wilcox - OK, thank you, thank you. Mr.: Kanter - I think Christine did note that when she observed the use of the takeout area that typically the seating in the takeout are is for people waiting to pick up and take out there food as opposed to actually sitting and eating. I mean some people do, I know I go there a lot, so I see it happening all the time, but generally it's people waiting for the food and then taking it out. Board Member Hoffmann - Right. Chairperson Wilcox - Question about the environmental, short environmental assessment for number 11 is supposed.to actually require permit approval or funding now or ultimately from any other government agency. I assume the county health department has to grant a permit, so I'd like. to change number 11 from no to yes and note that the county health department has to grant permit for approval. All right, any further discussion? Board Member Mitrano - No, I wish the applicant good luck. 10 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 Chairperson Wilcox We'll talk about Grease trap under site plan, we'll get there. Well, no let's talk about it now, it is environmental assessment. We have the memo from Dan Walker indicating that there has been a problem up in the East Hill plaza area with a discharge of grease. in the sewer lines. I showed Mr. Murray a copy, of your memo.. He was here early so I was here. Mr. Walker - They're well aware of the problem, I think. Chairperson Wilcox As far as I'm concerned as far as you're concerned there's no issue. Mr. Murray - Correct. Chairperson Wilcox - OK. Who would like to move the SEQR motion? So moved by Rod Howe. Seconded? Board Member Connemara - I'll second. Chairperson .Wilcox - Seconded by George Conneman. Any .further discussion regarding environmental review? There being none, those in favor please signal. by saying. aye. Anyone opposed? No one is opposed. There are no abstentions. The motion is passed. Please stay right there. PB RESOLUTION NO. 2004 -052: SEQR, Preliminary & Final Site Plan Approval, Ling Ling Gardens Restaurant, 331 -333 Pine Tree Road, East Hill Plaza, Tax Parcel No. 62.-2 -1.121 MOTION made by Rod Howe, seconded by George Conneman WHEREAS. 1. This action is the consideration of Preliminary & Final Site Plan Approval for the proposed expansion of the existing Ling -Ling Gardens Restaurant located in the East Hill Plaza, 331 -333 Pine Tree Road, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 62 -2- 1.121, Community Commercial Zone. The project includes expanding the existing restaurant into the adjacent vacant space (formerly Video Ithaca) for a dining room with additional seating. Cornell University Real Estate Department, Owner, Wei -Lin, Applicant, and 2. This is an Unlisted Action for which the Town of Ithaca Planning Board is legislatively determined to act as Lead Agency in environmental review with respect to Site Plan Approval, and 31 The Planning Board, on June 1, 2004, has reviewed and accepted as adequate a Short Environmental Assessment Form Part I prepared by the 11 A. PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 1, 2004 APPROVED JULY 6, 2004 applicant, a, . Part 11 prepared by Planning staff, a site plan entitled, "Floor Plan," prepared by New York Planning & Design, Inc., and additional application materials, and 41 The Town Planning staff have recommended a negative determination of environmental significance with , respect to the proposed Site Plan Approval. NOW, THEREFORE, BE. IT RESOLVED: That the Town of Ithaca . Planning Board hereby makes a negative determination of environmental significance in. accordance with the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act for the .above referenced. action as proposed. Therefore, neither a. Full Environmental Assessment Form nor an Environmental Impact Statement will be required. The vote on the motion resulted.as follows: AYES: Wilcox, Hoffmann, Conneman, Mitrano, Howe. NAYS: None. The motion was declared to be carried unanimously. AGENDA. ITEM: PUBLIC HEARING: Consideration of Preliminary and Final Site Plan Approval for the proposed expansion of the existing Ling -Ling Gardens located at 331 - 333 Pine Tree Road in the East Hill. Plaza, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 62 -2- 1.121, and zoned Community Commercial. The project. includes expanding the existing restaurant into the adjacent vacant space (formally Video Ithaca). for a dining room with additional seating. Cornell University Real Estate Department, Owners Wei -Lin, Applicant. Chairperson Wilcox opens the public hearing at 7 :34 p.m. Chairperson. Wilcox - Do we have any additional questions for the applicant and their agent? There being none, do you want to take a seat? Mr. Murray - Thank you. Board Member Mitrano - What happened to all those videos that video Ithaca had? Chairperson Wilcox - Which ones? Board Member. Mitrano - Well, is there no more Video Ithaca anywhere in town? Chairperson Wilcox - I don't think so. 12 I i i tII i i i i PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 Board Member Hoffmann,, - They went out of business. Chairperson Wilcox - It's like trying to find a donut shop in Ithaca.. Think about it. Pause. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a public hearing, if there is a member of the audience that wishes to address the board on this particular agenda. item, we ask you to please come to the microphone, have a seat, please, give us your name and address, and we'll be very interested to hear what you have to say. There being no one, we'll close the public hearing at, 7:36 and bring the matter back to the board. So, we'll take out .the .proposed change once we, after we get through the draft that's been provided. Any further discussion. Would someone like to move the resolution. as drafted? Board Member Mitrano - I will. Chairperson Wilcox - So moved by Tracy. Mitrano. Seconded by? Board Member Hoffmann - I'll second it. Chairperson Wilcox -. Seconded by Eva Hoffman, all right. Based on the memo from. Dan Walker, you add an additional addition, I assume 2c. Attorney Barney - I think that item 2 itself might want to be changed a little bit, instead of talking about the outdoor tables and chairs, to say that the proposed expansion of the restaurant as requested up to a maximum seating of 1001 Board Member Howe - Works for me. Patrons, customers, patrons is fine. Attorney Barney - And then a new c which I haven't written yet which will say provision of a design acceptable to the director of engineering for the ... inaudible.:. but I thought approval, excuse me approval of the grease :trap design by. the town director of engineering. Board Member Hoffmann - I'm not sure about the outdoor tables and chairs. Chairperson Wilcox - Tracy, that change acceptable? Eva, that change is acceptable? Board Member Hoffmann - Yes, but you know, I have another question now. I didn't see any outdoor tables and chairs in any of these plans: Where did they...? Mr: Kanter That was a word processing glitch, because I think Chris here has a resolution probably from Collegetown Bagel, which has outdoor seating. Sorry. Board Member Hoffmann - OK, so tell me what should be crossed out here. Attorney Barney - Use of outdoor tables and chairs as shown on submitted site plan and insert instead, expansion of the restaurant as requested up to a maximum seating of 100 patrons, subject to the following conditions. 13. Board Member Hoffmann - OK. PLANNING BOARD MINUTES-OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 Chairperson Wilcox - We're all set, any further discussion? .There being none, all those in favor please signal by saying aye. Anybody opposed? No one is. opposed, there are no abstentions, the motion is passed. Thank you very. much., PB RESOLUTION NOw 2004 -053• Ling Ling Gardens. Restaurant, Preliminary & Final Site Plan Approval, 331 -333 Pine Tree Road, East Hill Plaza, Tax Parcel No. 62- 2-1.121 MOTION made by Tracy Mitrano, seconded by Eva Hoffmann. WHEREAS: 1. This action is consideration of Preliminary & Final Site Plan Approval for the proposed expansion of the existing Ling -Ling Gardens Restaurant located in the East Hill Plaza, 331 -333: Pine Tree Road, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 62 =2- 1.121, Community Commercial Zone. The project includes expanding the existing restaurant into the adjacent vacant space (formerly .Video Ithaca) fora dining room with additional seating. Cornell University Real Estate Department, Owner, Wei -Lin, Applicant, and 21 This is an Unlisted Action for which the Town of Ithaca Planning Board, acting as Lead Agency in environmental review with respect to Site Plan Approval, has, on June 1, 2004, made a negative determination of environmental significance, after having reviewed and accepted as adequate a Short Environmental Assessment Form Part 1, prepared by the applicant, and a Part 11 prepared by Town Planning staff, and 3. The Planning Board, at a Public Hearing held on June 1, 2004, has reviewed. and accepted as adequate a site plan entitled " Floor Plan," dated May 25, 2004, prepared by New York Planning & Design, Inc., and additional application materials. NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: �. That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby waives certain requirements for Preliminary and Final Site Plan Approval, .as shown on the Preliminary and Final Site Plan Checklists, having determined from the materials presented that such waiver will result in neither a significant alteration of the purpose of site plan control nor the policies enunciated or implied by the Town Board, and 2. That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby grants Preliminary and Final Site Plan Approval for the proposed expansion of the restaurant as represented above — up to a maximum of 100 patrons, subject to the following conditions: 14 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 a. Submission of an original or mylar copy of the final site plan to be retained by the Town of Ithaca, prior to the issuance of a building permit, and b. Submission of any Tompkins County Health Department permits, prior to the issuance of a building permit, and c. Submission of the design for an adequate grease trap to be approved by the Town Director of Engineering prior to the issuance of a building permit. The vote on the motion resulted as follows: AYES: Wilcox, Hoffmann, Conneman; Mitrano, Howe. NAYS: None. The motion was declared to be carried unanimously. AGENDA ITEM: PUBLIC HEARING. Recommendation to the Town Board. regarding a local Law to amend the Town's Zoning Ordinance to rezone the Cornell University parcel at 391 Pine Tree Road from Office Park Commercial.and Multiple Residence to Low Density Residential, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel.No. 63= 1-3.4. Cornell University, Owner /Applicant; Harold D..Craft Jr., Agent. Chairperson Wilcox opens the public hearing at 7:39 p.m. Chairperson Wilcox - Speaking for Cornell is? Mina, welcome back. Mina Amundsen, Cornell University Thank you. Good evening, I think you can hear me. Mina Amundsen, University planner for Cornell University, and presenting on behalf of Hal and Cornell. Thank you for the opportunity to present this request. I'll just go over the reasons for requesting.re= zoning of the parcel on 320 Pine Tree Road. I stated in Hal's letter of the 25th March, our reasons are as follows: The new OPC and MR zones do not allow, do not permit any educational use, and Cornell presently uses the land and in future intends to use it for educational use. We do not intend to use the parcel for housing and further as you will see in the aerial photographs, the high tension lines that diagonally cross the parcel make it unsuitable for any kind of residential development, so again we request that you consider our re- zoning request and thank you once again for the opportunity. Chairperson Wilcox - Thank you. For those of us on the codes and ordinances committee as well are sitting here thinking, it was what they want to turn it back to, which is residential. We split it, and the portion that fronts on the road became commercial. The portion in the back we decided that multiple residences work best. We had input from Cornell University, we decided well let's leave it the way we changed it, we changed it, and as soon as we do that now they're back to put it the old way. 15 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 1, 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 What. were multiple residences and we thinking when we decided that office park commercial were the way to go? In codes and ordinances committee? Mr. Kanter -Would you like my viewpoint? Chairperson Wilcox - Yeah, I'll take either yours or Mr. Barney's. Mr. Kanter - Because a number of us were at the committee meetings. Chairperson Wilcox - ,Myself included. Mr. Kanter - Yeah. My recollection is .that primarily the Town Board and some of the committee members, although it was not unanimous, if, you recall there was quite a bit. of debate about that rezoning, but that the primary purpose I think was to promote the opportunity for some, affordable housing in that area because it was felt that being immediately proximate to that concentrated center of development and public transportation, that would potentially be a viable site for that type of housing. I don't think we really did .a thorough analysis of the site aspects of the property and so the power line presence certainly was something we thought about,. but not, we didn't really take a very close look at it. Chairperson Wilcox - The power line, the easement for the power line, which is either 225 or 250 feet, nonetheless, it's significant, and it does. cut off a significant part of the north and northeast corner that makes it certainly difficult to develop in a multiple residence format, at least.from the, from this, I don't where this came from Cornell Mr. Kanter - Yes, right. Chairperson Wilcox - Thank you very much Questions? It made sense when we rezoned we think about it and look at the power line I t to. All right. I'm all set. Anybody else? it the way we did, unfortunately now that link is the big issue, it now makes sense Attorney Barney I think also in fairness, at the time we were doing this, we didn't have as Jon said, as good a picture as this_ very graphically shows. And then when we became aware of it, we were on the verge of adopting the zoning ordinance, and rather than at that point, trying to tinker with it, which would require putting the whole ordinance back through the process and probably delaying the adoption until after the first of the year, when we have effectively almost a brand new town board that would have to become conversant with it, it was felt to proceed and then deal with this issue subsequently, so that's why we're back here tonight. Board Member Hoffmann As I remember it there were many good reasons for doing it, but I don't remember that we really talked very much about the impact of the high - tension power lines. Maybe,. because we really didn't know what it means and what kind of limitations there would be because of them. This.goes a long time back. PLANNING BOARD MINUTES:OF JUNE 1, 2004 APPROVED JULY 61 2004 Jon Kanter — The other aspect of it was, which we did talk about quite a bit, was the fact that neither the office park zone nor the multiple residence zone allow, educational uses. So it pretty much would have been locked into office and housing. Realistically, anything other than that for educational purposes, Cornell would have had to come in for some kind of special request or zoning change. . Chairperson Wilcox — I think it was John Barney that handed: out a draft. Attorney Barney — You have one that the "assistant Town Attorney" drafted and I took the liberty of modifying it slightly. I would prefer not to have all the recitalment. We're going to a codification of. all of the Town's laws and all the recitals in the local law we have to deal with whether we're going to put it into the codification or not so I'm trying to abbreviate the actual laws themselves to just what the law needs to say so that they can be incorporated. into the codification somewhat more simply. It was a good effort by Jon, but this. is the reason that I we knock the recitals. We'll put those recitals into the resolution of the Town Board if they choose to adopt it so the history that they represent will be carried forward. Chairperson Wilcox — The content of the two is the same? Attorney Barney — Yes. Chairperson Wilcox — Ladies and gentleman, this is a public hearing this evening. If you wish to comment on. this particular agenda item we asked to please come to the microphone, give us your name and address, and we'll be most interested to hear what you have to say. There was no one wishing to. address the Board and Mr. Wilcox closed the `public hearing at 7:48 p.m. and brought the matter back to the Board. PB RESOLUTION NO. 2004 -054: Recommendation to Town Board Regarding a Proposed Local Law to Amend the Town of Ithaca Zoning Ordinance to Rezone a Cornell University Parcel, 391 Pine Tree Road, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 63.- 1 -3.4 MOTION made by Fred Wilcox, seconded by George Conneman WHEREAS, on December 8, 2003, the Town Board of the Town. of Ithaca enacted the comprehensive revision of the Town of Ithaca Zoning Ordinance and Map, which included the rezoning of Tax Parcel No..63.- 1 -3.4, owned by Cornell University, located at 391 Pine Tree Road, from R -30 Residence to Office Park Commercial (OPC) and Multiple Residence (MR), and 17 , 40 : PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 1, 2004 APPROVED JULY 6, 2004 WHEREAS, Cornell. University has requested that Tax Parcel No. 63.4- 3.4. consisting . of 25.8 +/- acres, be rezoned from OPC and MR to Low Density Residential (LDR) for the following reasons: 1. Neither the OPC nor the MR Zones permit educational uses, and 21 Cornell University has no intent to develop the land for housing, and 3. Cornell University presently uses the land for educational purposes, and future development of the parcel will likewise be for educational purposes, and WHEREAS, the Town Board of the Town of Ithaca in Resolution No. 2004 -063 has referred the request to rezone the above - described property to the Planning Board for a recommendation, and WHEREAS, the Town of Ithaca Planning Board has held.a public hearing on June' 1, 2004 to consider comments from the public regarding this rezoning request, NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, pursuant to Article XXVIII, Section 2805 hereby finds that: that .the Town. of Ithaca Planning Board, of the Town of Ithaca Zoning Ordinance, 1. There is a need for continuing educational use on this Cornell University parcel, and 2. The existing and probable future character of the neighborhood will not be adversely affected by the proposed rezoning, and 3. The proposed rezoning is in accordance with a comprehensive plan of development of the Town, and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby recommends that the Town Board adopt a local law to amend the Town of. Ithaca Zoning Ordinance to rezone the Cornell University parcel at 391 Pine Tree Road (Tax Parcel No. 63.- 1 -3.4) from Office Park Commercial (OPC) and Multiple Residence (MR) to Low Density Residential (LDR); and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Town of Ithaca Planning Board urges Cornell University to work closely with the Town of Ithaca to find ways to provide opportunities for affordable housing within the Town. The vote on the motion resulted as follows: AYES: Wilcox, Hoffmann, Conneman, Mitrano, Howe. NAYS: None. M PLANNING BOARD MINUTES-OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 692004 The motion was declared to be carried unanimously. Chairperson Wilcox — At 7:50 the next item is AGENDA ITEM. Consideration of a Sketch Plan Review for the Proposed Tompkins County South Hill Communication Tower Located on the Ithaca College Campus, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel #41. -1 -30.2, Medium 'Density Residential Zone Chairperson Wilcox — The project involves construction of a 180 foot south supporting tower, either monopole or lattice, and 192 square foot building located adjacent to the existing Ithaca College's 150 foot guide tower for the County's public safety communication system. The existing Ithaca College tower will be removed once the existing transmitters are relocated to the new structure. Ithaca College, owner. Tompkins County Applicant Mikel Shakarjian, agent. This is what we call a sketch plan review. This is an opportunity for the Board to hear about this particular proposal on South Hill, on Ithaca College's property. It is an opportunity for us to provide feedback to the applicant and generally, time permitting, if there are members of. the audience, members of the public who .wish to address the Planning Board, we will do our best. to give. you a chance to speak as well. It is not a. public hearing, therefore, there is not legal requirement,, but we want to hear from you and if we have time we'll be glad to give you a chance to speak. Barbara Blanchard, 316 Brookfield Road, Ithaca The reason I am hear is because until quite recently I chaired the County's Communications Capital Project Committee. which has been working on this communications system upgrade since the time when I was young and beautiful. That was many, many years ago. Tonight, because this is a joint project between the County and Ithaca College, which incidentally Ithaca College is the owner and the applicant. I think that was a misunderstanding when Jonathan wrote this, which is a great write -up and description of this project. But because it is a joint project we have representatives from all the concerned parties here. Carl Sgrecci is here representing Ithaca College. Peter Penniman, who is the current chair of the Current Chair of the Communications Capital Project Committee, is here. Steve Whicher, the County Administrator is here. Lee Shurtleff our Director of Emergency Response is here. And Mikel Shakarjian is.our Capital Program Coordinator and what we'd like to do is have Mikel present some information to you and get your feedback. Mikel Shakrjian gave a power point presentation to the Board. Her accompanying comment follow: Mikel Shakarjian — I want to thank you for having me here tonight. This is a project that we've been working on for quite some time. 19 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 6, 2004 I'm here tonight to, talk about the County's proposal to redevelop the existing WICV guide tower that stands at 150 feet up on the Ithaca College Hill. This is a project that, as Barbara mentioned; we've been working on for quite some time. I'm going to go over a variety of things tonight. The first thing I want to go over is the critical need for this site. This is a site that we've known for quite some time. We.'ve done a variety of studies that all indicate to. us that .this is a very important site. I'm also going to go through some of the constraints with rebuilding that particular tower at that location as well as a tentative or a very draft site plan and then finally some of the next steps and what the County's timeline is. Before I get into.-all of that, it's important to understand how Ithaca College actually plays into our current. communications system,, Right now we have 14 sites networked Countywide. That gives us voice and data and paging communications. They're all linked together. Right now we do operate several transmitters on top of the Ithaca College West Dorm. We can hit three locations from there and it is also used as our paging broadcast link. Even right now the Ithaca College site is a very important site for us. This project actually began back in 1998, we have quite some history. The County established the project as a capital program in 1998. In 2000 we conducted extensive surveys to determine the needs of the public safety community as well as take a. look at the technological options, what were the options for providing communications. Then also the. constraints on building any kind of countywide system. In 2001 we commissioned a study to take a look at the paging situation that we had and come up with a proposed rebuild of our paging system. We identified a frequency and I'll be showing you those coverage maps: In 2002 we released an RFP that allowed us to go out to vendors and seek a countywide design. I'll get into that a little bit and how we incorporated some proactive steps there. ,In 2003, we constructed the emergency management center in the Village of Lansing. That's going to serve as our prime site for the countywide system: Then in 2004, the County Legislature funded the entire project. That brings us up to where we are now. This project is overseen by a legislative special committee called the Com Cap Committee Barbara eluded to already. A mission statement guides us. Our mission statement is that we provide a system that meets the needs of public safety as well as a cost.effective solution with minimal impact on the environment. That's been a theme that's been carried through over the years as we've been trying to develop this project. In order to minimize the impact on the environment, one of the first things that we did was we took a look at what our existing sites were countywide. We conducted a site audit that allowed us to characterize what the .improvements and upgrades were that were necessary at our existing sites so we had a handle on what our current infrastructure looked like, whether it was usable and what needed to be replaced. We also worked with the County's Environmental Management Council to put together a list of tall structures. We identified almost 100 sites countywide; everything from rooftops to existing privately owned cell towers. We included a variety of information there and then we took both of these pieces and incorporated it into the County's RFP, and we've encouraged vendors all along the way to make sure that they consider these sites, Wei PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 69 2004 consider our existing sites and consider the sites that are already built out in the community. Again, another one of the proactive things that we did was we took a look at the different areas in the County that we. considered either restricted or discouraged. Restricted areas are those areas that are currently under regulatory control. Discouraged. areas are areas where we anticipate there could. be some negative,. environmental impact if a vendor did propose a tower in that location. So these maps were given to vendors as part of the RFP process to try to give them a proactive way of, if they were going to propose site that they go through a hierarchical approach before they come up with proposing a new site. There I kind of outline what that was. We had them look at . existing sites first, rebuilding existing sites, alternative. technology, was there another way that.we could get communications to that location. And if and when they did need to propose .a new site that they were suppose to look at the restricted and discouraged areas. We also asked public safety personnel what were the areas that they felt were most critical, where did they need those communications, and we identified a variety of areas.. As you can see, those areas are mostly centered around population centers. The City. of Ithaca; the Village of .Lansing, Groton, Trumansburg. Those were the areas that public safety folks identified as being critical for coverage. We also took a look at what were our natural constraints when we were trying to develop a system. We asked our consultants to go out and take a look at the areas that were naturally shaded, the areas that were going to be hard to cover with communication signal just simply due to where they were and as you can see there is a lot of red area there. Those are the areas that are naturally shaded by something than greater than a 20% slope. Almost 30% of the area in the County falls into one of these areas that we call aggressive terrain. As you can see there's a lot of that area right around Ithaca College heading out on any of the major roads. One of the first. propagation studies that we had done was the paging.system. In August 2001, we put out an RFP and asked a vendor to .design a countywide paging system for public safety. They came back with multiple propagation studies. We sent them back to the table and asked them to do alternative analysis for us. Every alternative that we analyzed on a countywide basis came back with the South Hill, site in it. None of the proposals came back without that in it. It is a very critical site for both paging and, as you'll see, voice and data. One of the other things along the alternative analysis for paging, one of the other things that we asked them to do is not only look at the West Dorm Tower, but also look at coverage if we had rebuilt the WICB tower. That's what you're seeing here, that's the coverage that would be provided by that one site on a countywide basis. So that's a rebuild of the WICB tower and the paging coverage that would result.. As you can see, this particular site would cover a lot of those areas that are considered critical for public safety. It also covers a lot of the area that fall into the aggressive terrain category. In the final paging design, the consultant came.back and basically encouraged us to reuse the WICB tower or rebuild it for our needs due to the benefits of countywide coverage and its anticipated use for the voice and data system. 21 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 In May 2002, the,-County issued an RFP for the public safety communications systems, a countywide system. As a result of that, we received a response that had three separate designs in it. This configuration up there shows actually two different designs, but the same sighting, You'll notice Ithaca College is located there.right in the middle. And this is the other configuration that the vendors came back with. The designs, all three of these designs differed in coverage, some sites, and cost. However, the South Hill site was included in every one of the designs that came back. So, again, it's a very critical site for us,. Conclusion, the South Hill site is critical both from the voice and data of perspective, as well as the paging perspective. It gives great coverage countywide. Our studies have indicated to us, by rebuilding the Ithaca College Tower we can minimize the total number of towers by at least one,. possibly more, on a countywide basis. In order to do that, we need to rebuild it. At this point in time it doesn't really meet our height needs to provide coverage in some of those valleys, and. it doesn't meet our needs at all for structural integrity. We need to have a very rigid, solid structure up there. We're going to be using microwave. They have a pinpoint accuracy at the other end; we can't have that sway. That would result in lost communication. That's another reason this site needs to be rebuilt. Some of the constraints when we started looking at rebuilding this particular site, some of the constraints we ran into had to do with just the implementation. We had to look for an area that was in close proximity to the existing tower, the existing shelter, the existing road, and possibly the fuel tank. We want to try to reuse that. One of the difficulties of this project iswe have to construct this tower while keeping the other tower up. and operational. So we don't want to be taking anyone off the air. We do want to construct a new tower and then take them off the air just to relocate the transmission equipment, but not during construction so that led to a variety of site constraints. One of the other site constraints that we had was the County prefers not to have to build any towers that are lit or marked. In order to get the assurances that this tower.doesn't have to be lit or marked, you have to apply to the FAA, which is what we did. We applied to the FAA and we were given approval for constructing a tower up to 185 feet within a 75- foot radius of the existing tower. At this point, as Fred mentioned, we are looking at either constructing a self - supporting monopole or a lattice. Essentially it would be a self- supporting structure that would be 30 feet higher than the current structure. It is the college's preference that we build a monopole, so that is what we are going to try to do. We are looking at quotes and doing some site investigation to try to firm those up. I'll be coming back with more information on that once we have done that. In addition to the actual structure itself, we look at putting a shelter there. Fencing the area in. And possibly a generator as well. In terms of how this fits in to local planning, the South Hill site is located in Medium Density. Residential. It's just a little bit north of the Conservation Zone. You can there that I've marked the current ICB tower, the 75 foot radius for the FAA, and the water. tank. This is what the actual site looks like at this time. This is a digital aerial photo so the trees are showing up red. We have an existing access road that we intend to use.. 22 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES-OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 You can see the. exiting shelter and the existing tower, which is all fenced in right now. There are some utility lines running from building 10 down the hill to provide power to the location and additional utility, lines going over to the water tank. The fuel tank is kind of hard to see; hopefully it came out better on your materials. And then some sparse vegetation. There are some large, 14 to 16 inch trees, just a few that might have to be removed, but overall the vegetation is pretty sparse , up there. There is a lot of. down material. Just to point it out, these are the guide wires. There is probably our biggest constraint to developing the site. The guide wires attach .to the tower probably 50 / 60 feet out. In order for us to be able .to do any construction around that, We have to be able to get under and around those guide wires without damaging them in any way. So when we looked at those site constraints this was the proposal that we came up with Here's the existing shelter, existing tower, here are the guide.wires, and right back over here seemed to be a very good area for us to 'work in. We had plenty. of access getting in underneath these wire. We were close enough to the shelter to be able to run an ice bridge so that we could just run the transmission lines right into. the College's existing shelter. We're close enough that we could reuse the fuel.tank, as well as power, we'd be close to the power lines. I'm showing here a 25. by 25 foot base. That's the maximum base that one might expect if we ended up building a freestanding lattice structure. If we end up building a., monopole, depending upon the type of foundation that .could be significantly reduced. Adjacent to that, you'll see the shelter. We're anticipating a shelter of 12 by 16 feet. Just to give you an idea of.what the shelter and generator might look like, that's a standard shelter used for public safety as well. as generator. We are talking about putting the area in an 8 -foot high fence with three rows of barbed wire around the top. In terms .of some of the features that we're developing, the design for, we've asked for a design that would be basically overbuilt. We want to be able to provide at least enough space and enough rigidity to give us to.. arrays?????, so two, commercial co- locaters. If you're not familiar with what those look like, these. are the typical structures that we've asked them to add. There's a triangular base and then the antennas actually hang off of those, usually three panels on one side. That's a fairly considerable weight that you add into your design. We also have extensive safety feature e. Grounding, lots and lots of grounding. It's to the County's benefit to provide all that grounding. If anything ever happened. up there with lightning, you don't want to lose any of the equipment so we put a lot of time into grounding. The structure would be inaccessible from the ground up to .15 feet. If it's a monopole, likely it would be climbing pipes that would be pulled out. Again, the barbed wire 8 feet high. We will have a locked gate. At this point, I've heard from our folks who are doing the design and it does appear that we can get a fall zone of 70 feet and that would keep us clear of the water tank, which was the primary goal. There aren't any public facilities up there. It's private land, private road, but we wanted to do everything . we could to keep the structure if and when, in the very unlikely event it would collapse, we don't want. it to hit the water tank. 23 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 1, 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 Attorney Barney — How do you determine what the fall zone is? Mikel Shakarjian — It's a built to suite project. We ask the engineers and say what is the smallest fall zone you can give us. I want 70 feet, and they come back and that's what they've told us at this point. And then they have to design the foundation and the pole itself to be able to comply with that. Attorney Barney - How do you assure that a tower that's 185 feet tall will fall within 70 feet of its base? Mikel Shakarjian — There is a variety of ways that they do that. They are designing towers now that actually will collapse upon themselves to they don't actually fall over.. The tower that we constructed up at the 911 center, as you were mentioning, actually has a weak spot in it so if and when that tower every decided that it was going to go over, it would break at the weak point and that's what it is designed to do, so it would actually collapse in half and fold over on itself. How this tower will actually be designed to accomplish the 70 400t remains to be seen. We haven't gotten quite that far yet. Board Member Conneman —Is that a lattice or is.that a monopole? Mikel Shakarjian — That's a lattice structure. One of the other things that the County will take care of is structural 'Maintenance ., bk annual inspections of the structure to make sure it's sound. We are also asking for either a galvanized or gray structure. so it will blend into the most dominant sky color. Some sparse vegetation, as I've already mentioned, will need to be removed. We did do simulations. I was hoping I could pull those up for you, but they're in PDF and I don't have Adobe Acrobat on this machine. I'm hoping that you were all able to take a look at those in the packets that I sent around. We did three different simulations from three different vantage points. Both monopole and a free standing, and then we added co- locaters onto that. The College had some concerns about what it might look like with co- location on the facility and basically what you end up seeing in those simulations is co- location doesn't really make any difference. It's the County's equipment and the College's equipment that's really ..what's going to be in skyline that people are going to see. Another one of our goals was to use the current road to the greatest extent possible. It looks like. we may be able to get away without actually building .any other roads. In terms of next steps, and I alluded to some of these in the letter that I sent over. We will be applying to the FCC to determine whether or not the WICB antennae can be raised up. That is something that the FCC will come back and tell us. We also are. trying to coordinate with the statewide wireless network and their goals to build out a statewide project. It's our hope that they're going to use the County sites if and when they roll in and start implementing their own project. 24 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 19 2004 APPROVED JULY 69 2004 I have a final site. plan that is underway. As soon as we get some of the engineering done, we'll be able to determine the final type of structure, whether it's going to be a lattice or a monopole. And then the shelter and the fencing locations right now is preliminary. We may end up shifting some of that around but I wouldn't say significantly. In terms of environmental review, we've taken a look at the zoning and I've tried to address the issues in your telecommunications ordinance in the materials that I sent over a couple weeks ago. And we're also having the County's Environmental Management Council review the packet. We're hoping to be able to construct this tower before the fall session starts and relocate the College's transmission. equipment before students are back. That puts us right into August is when we really want to get this done. It doesn't take long to .put up these structures. I think our greatest lead -time is manufacturing in a build to suit project like this. That's all the slides I have. Board Member Hoffman - You mentioned that Ithaca College would like to have a monopole instead of a lattice. pole. What is the reason for that, do you know? Carl Sgrecci, 1132 Trumansburg Road, Ithaca, representing Ithaca College We took the various projections where they put the projected towers on the various vantage points on campus to our trustees.. In looking at all of them we felt that the monopole was a :cleaner, slenderer look, and was going, to interfere, if you will, with the appearance less than a lattice pole. We became more conscious of the different types of poles once we started to look at this and as we drove around and looked around the country and found that we just generally found, we thought the lattice poles were more conspicuous than the monopoles. Particularly some of them ended up with more extensive wiring systems and the inside became more obvious and... usually less P. attractive. Board Member Conneman — Also less likely for birds to fly into them. Is that another? Carl Sgrecci — I can't speak to that. I suppose to the extent that birds are able to judge a solid mass should be easier for them to avoid that a mesh type of environment. There are no guide wires on either one of these poles, because I know that wires are an issue as well: Board Member Hoffmann — Did you look at the existing tower on Ithaca College land, and the existing tower on South Hill in.the City of Ithaca from the East Hill area? Both are quite visible from Pine Tree Road, for instance. Carl Sgrecci — You're talking about our current tower? Board Member Hoffmann - Yes. And also the existing one in the City, which I think is more of a monopole. It has had things added to it in the last couple of years. Carl Sgrecci — You're talking about the south -side field place? 25 Board Member Hoffmann — Yes. PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 6, 2004 Carl Sgrecci That is a lattice pole also. Well the flagpole is a monopole, but the one that I think you're referring to that has had a number of things added to it is. a guided lattice tower. The Ithaca College tower. is also a lattice tower, but it's quite small. As you get into the type of tower that the County is talking about, at least from what we understand it, you're talking about a much larger lattice . tower than anything that's on South Hill at this point. Board Member Hoffmann — The one on Ithaca. College land looks quite slender compared to the one in the City, which really stands out. Carl Sgrecci — We're trying, to maintain it as much as possible. We think the monopole. is much more slender and will be closer to what we currently have than a freestanding lattice tower. Board Member Hoffmann — The thing is, from the East Hill area, the existing Ithaca College tower, I think is much more visible than you show it in any of the simulations that you provided for us. And this new tower is going to be taller, so I think it's going to be quite a bit more noticeable. Mikel Shakarjian - We didn't actually take any vantage points from that part of the County. I do know what you mean. That concern came up regarding the simulations and what the existing tower looked like in those photos because on of the concerns was, the College felt that the existing tower was getting washed out in the pictures and actually looks much worse than it showed up in those simulations. That was, not much that we can do about, those pictures had gone through a variety of manipulations in order to do the simulations, and the consulting firm that did the work felt that they couldn't change that. Board Member Conneman — There will not be Fights, is that right, no lights? Mikel Shakarjian — Correct. Board Member Hoffmann — committee had looked at this. Ms. Ritter — They did. I was going to ask if our own environmental review Chairperson Wilcox — And we just got it. I'll read it for the record. It says, "We understand that the tower will not have lights. This will help mitigate bird collisions with. the tower. In addition, since both monopole and lattice structures as being considered, we recommend that a monopole design be used, as it appears .that lattice construction can also be hazardous for birds. We also assume that transmission by WICB will not be effected." Those are their comments: 26 PLANNING BOARD MINUTE&OF JUNE 1, 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 The monopole is less ugly than the lattice structure. Carl Sgrecci = We feel that way. Ah r Peter Penniman, County Legislator, 3391 Halseyville Road, Ulysses just wanted to clarify one point about the ability of this project to prevent the need for additional towers. Mikel alluded to the fact that our analysis shows that it will prevent us from needing a different configuration for public safety purposes that would require an additional tower. I believe that does not include the co- location potential, which would preclude the need for another, a cellular tower somewhere else, if we can provide facilities at this location. So there's the possibility of preventing two. additional towers by doing this project. Peter. Meskill, Sheriff of Tompkins County, 64 East Seneca, Trumansburg I would urge all of you., and I know the staff has done a lot of work already with this to take whatever appropriate action that you would as a board and take it as swiftly as you can because every day that we're without this future tower and other futurel towers . proposed in this capital project we run the risk of trying to provide public safety, myself, see Chief Wilbur is in the background, and the other public safety providers throughout Tompkins County. This tower coverage, depending on whose propagation study you read and. believe, covers anywhere from 50 to 70% of the major population in the County. I would differ slightly from the County presentation, for me and the deputies, the men and women that work with me, we've got to cover every single square inch of the County in the hinterlands that most people don't even know exist. For us, it's important, this is a start for a communications system that will allow, and allow my people, to do their jobs safely so that we can provide public safety for everybody in the County. I know that you're under certain regulations and constraints, and you have the .Town constituents and other Town government to deal with, but if you would just consider the importance of this project in this particular location from a standpoint of public safety in the County. I can't.over- emphasis that both for the firefighters, the EMS, and for every law enforcement agency in the County. As quickly as you can act, it would help the County to act because from my vantage point it seems like it has taken the County forever, even though they are doing a nice thorough job it seems like it's almost too thorough from my point. We were just without coverage, two weeks ago, for four hours with tower in the County covering and half of my cars couldn't get back in to where they needed to get back into. And we've had instances like that in the past. Fire Departments were called out where they had to man their fire stations. That's, not your problem. You're doing your job. I'm just explaining to` you how difficult this old system is we are working with and how important it is to move along and this is the first `major step other than the building and the small tower they've put in Lansing`, Anything that you could do to help that process, I would really appreciate it. Thanks. Chairperson Wilcox- Can I ask you to come up again? I have a. question for you. One of. the issues for me is the fall zone and the water tank that is there. How is Ithaca 27 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 College dealing with thatl,issue of a water tank within the 180 / 185 degree radius of the site? Mr.. Sgrecci - We feel that the engineers are tower that we'll be assured of that. So we're done that the water tank will not be at risk. Chairperson Wilcox— Who will own the tower? Mikel Shakarjian — The County going to be able to provide a collapsible comforted by the' work that County has Chairperson Wilcox — And, I assume lease the land? Mr. Sgrecci — We're going to lease the land. That is correct. If I could just add one other statement. I think that, I know there are concerns about the attractiveness of these towers, and we've tried to take that into consideration. We have a tower that is there, but we feel that the evidence here is pretty compelling that, from the College's point of view, this is the right thing to do for the community. As a tax exempt organization, we are frequently criticized for now making payments in lieu of taxes, but we think that there is an opportunity here for the college make a contribution to the community in an entirely different manner by allowing basically a tower that is 30 feet taller than what we already have that will end up hopefully saving the. County a substantial amount of money, which hopefully will ultimately be reflected to all of the taxpayers. We as a college feel, it's going to be a little bit taller, and it might be a little bit bigger around that what's there, but we think overall it's the right thing to do for the community. Chairperson Wilcox - The fall zone's been an issue for me. So I was trying to do a little bit of independent research. I found a professional paper entitled "Atmospheric Icing and Tower Collapse in the United States" written by N.D. Mulherrin, presented at the Seventh International Workshop on Atmospheric Icing of Structures in Quebec, Canada. In this paper, based upon his study of about 140 tower collapses that they catalogued, he writes the following: "Though they may have underestimated the distance to downplay the danger, the data show that when towers fall the.. debris is usually contained within a radius of 50 percent of the tower's height ", which I thought was interesting. This is not some theoretician, this is based on actual events, talking to the people and having them fill out a form. That helps mitigate for me, to some extent, the fall zone issue. There's also the issue that it's a tower on Ithaca College's property that if it falls over is going to fall on Ithaca College property and not someone else's property. Clearly I have to combine my want for a fall zone with the need, I think the County's demonstrated the need for this particular site and why it is beneficial. A couple of comments, if I may, in regard to the environmental assessment for, and I didn't go through it in excruciating detail but a couple things just popped our real quickly. There's a chart under Part 1, Number 2, which is the number of acres or square feet before and after construction. It's page 4 of 17 of the form. Generally, the COO PLANNING BOARD MINUTES:OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 columns the left and the right add up to the same number when you are done. So if there were 4,900 square feet of forested and 2,500 square feet of roads building and other paved surfaces. now, when you're done it should. still add up to 7,400 square feet, the distribution obviously be different. And the other thing, in Part 2 which is a broad measure of the environmental impacts, many of the questions, both the "no" and the "yes" boxes are checked. I'll give you an example.., Page 10 of 17, "Will proposed action affect surface or ground water quality or quantity ?" "Yes" and "no" are both check. I think its a very binary thing. It's either "yes" or "no ". In most cases I think where "yes" has been checked "No" should not be checked. That's the way I look at the form. Did the person who filled . out the form have a different way of looking at it because I've never seen and I'm not sure the board has ever seen it filled out this way? Board Member Hoffmann — I haven't either Mikel Shakarjian The reason that's it's marked "yes" and "no" is because there could be some short-term impacts, but not long-term impacts. So, "yes" there could be some impact, in the short term. "No" not long-term. Chairperson Wilcox — I would much prefer "yes" there's and impact and then down at the bottom, the impact is marked small to moderate and then the comments down there indicate it's a short-term impact and they're limited. Mikel Shakarjian — Sure. We can do that. Board Member Hoffmann — About the trees. You said that there would be some careful cutting down of trees. I don't remember if you said it would just to be able to do the construction. So there won't be anymore cutting of trees, for instance, with.in the fall zone? Mikel Shakarjian — No, we're not planning on doing that. It's just for construction purposes and access. Board Member Hoffmann — Because the trees, on that wooded hillside do a lot to hide most of the tower as seen from. a distance, from other hills around, and that's very important. Mikel Shakarjian -We're going to do everything possible to minimize the number of trees that have to come down. That was one of the reasons that we chose the area that we did. Most of it's just downed trees, actually, maybe one. or two larger trees may have to come down, but it's pretty minimal. Board Member Hoffmann — Good. Chairperson Wilcox Is there anything we want to see as this goes forward? Landscaping around the fence that surrounds the structure, for example? 1111111IM4:1 4,:: PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 Board. Member Hoffmann,,— I think it might be interesting to, if it would be possible to do a study of what sort of colors blend in better. You said gray, presumably because you think it is overcast here a lot of the time. I come from a country that is overcast much more often; I think it's sunny here. There might be reflective that would show up less than a solid color which is not reflecting. Mikel Shakarjian — Actually, I chose gray or the galvanized finish because that is what the ordinance asked for. I1can certainly take a look and see if there are other colors out there that might blend. Board Member Hoffmann ,,— Might disappear more. Chairperson Wilcox — If there's a study that helps indicate that it might disappear. Board Member.Hoffmann — It's the kind of thing that happens on water towers and such, too. So there. might be studies on what kind of colors are used on those. ..Chairperson Wilcox — I take it no one's interested in trying to hide this thing as a tree. Board Member Conneman - ? ? ? ?? painted green and not beautiful. Chairperson Wilcox — I want to give the, public a quick chance since we have the opportunity. Chairperson Wilcox invited the pubic to speak in regard to the proposed sketch'-plan. John Rowlands, 127 Troy Road I truly have mixed feelings about asking these questions since I am much more interested in the next item on your agenda. Nevertheless, Sheriff Meskill's comments brought a couple questions to mind. He notes that this particular tower will cover 75% of the area, of his jurisdiction. I wondered what percentage is covered now, but then I said maybe its 100% covered and this tower duplicates or is an overlay and is there for a security insurance and that brings me to the concern. of one of his other comments that recently one other tower was out and his operation was significantly affected and here it makes me wonder. then. You have some fence with some barbed wire on top as a security issue. If this particular tower goes out, there goes 75% of something and what is the security. It looks like someone could lob some explosive over this fence and into this tower and knock out 75% of something. Perhaps my imagination has run away with me. That's my reaction. Lee. Shurtleff,. Director of Department of Emergency Response I am responding to the gentleman. 1 will try to cover the points as best I can and you may have to remind me of a couple of these questions as we go. A couple of items that maybe will clarify that. With regard to the outage last week, that was a function of the microwave radio system. This tower or the proposed tower would be part of a greater system of eight to twelve towers linked together through a microwave connection, point . 30 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 to point microwave that spands around the County. The communications travel in a loop manner to all of those sites in reverse. Ithaca College west tower at this point in time is a key point. If we have a. single point of failure that exists there coming from our dispatch center on Green Street to South Hill and then starting that loop throughout the County and that is where the failure occurred last week. In the overall proposals that we are looking at, Ithaca College would still be the key point, but we are seeking redundancy in that system design so that any one particular tower wouldn't take down the entire system. So that is one , benefit to this overall system design .that we are working on. With regard to coverage, in the propagation of the radio frequencies that we use Countywide by virtue of that location on South Hill, a large amount of the radio propagation coverage begins or happens from that site and that is where the 75% figure that the Sheriff has estimated comes from. And with removing that site in particular from any existing design, the rest of the sites throughout the County would probably make up less than 25% or 30% of the total population when you are looking at it from a population standpoint. But the short of it is, we need a site in that South Hill. area to provide .wide radio coverage to the middle part of .the County where most of our population and travel occurs and .is supplemented by all of the other sites. in the County. As far security goes, a number of things would occur there. We would, through the new microwave system, would have an alarm capability that would tell us of any electrical problems.. Generators operating, any security breaches, intrusion alarms and what have you. That is in far excess of what we have today. Chairperson Wilcox — First response on an intrusion alert would be ... I assume Ithaca College or potentially could be Ithaca College or to be worked out with Ithaca College. Mr. Shurtleff — Yes. Currently using our west tower site, Ithaca.College is the first on site and I don't envision any changes in that and that would be supported as well by the other police agencies. In fact, we had a second incident last week after the first.one that had to do with the power failure and Ithaca College was there in a matter of minutes and were able to mitigate the circumstances and get us back in line while I was driving from Groton at a high rate of speed. Chairperson Wilcox — Thank you very much.. Mr. Shurtleff = Thanks. Chairperson Wilcox — Anybody else this evening? All sorts of people Questions from you? You all rset Barbara, Steve, everybody, Peter' Then we'll see you back here probably pretty soon, right? Very good. much. Board Member Hoffmann — Did you have something? here this tonight. ' We're all set. Thank you very 31. M a1C OEM Ms. Ritter — Its okay. 11 Board Member Hoffmann = Go ahead. PLANNING BOARD MINUTES.OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 Ms. Ritter — I just had a quick question. 'I might not have understood. The road that is being used to bring the Town up, there is an existing road there now and there was some question on whether that road could be used or if just the end of the road could be used: Mikel — We do intend to'use that gravel road. it fronts the existing shelter. It kind of goes up and circles around and Ms. Ritter — So there is no question, the steep road that gets you up there that would definitely be used. There is not another.:. Mikel - Definitely. The only question is if we will have to construct a smaller road to our shelter, which would be very short. Ms. Ritter —Great. Thanks. Chairperson Wilcox — Thank you. Speak up next time if I miss you. I apologize. Thank you very much. AGENDA ITEM: Consideration of Sketch Plan review for the proposed 14 -lot subdivision located on Troy Road approximately 1,600 feet south of the Coddington Road and Troy Road intersection, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 49 -1- 26.2, Low Density Residential zone. The proposal includes subdividing the 69 +/- acre parcel into 6 lots of approximately 3.3 acres, 7 lots of approximately 2.2 acres, and one +/- 34 -acre lot, with all lots fronting on Troy Road. Paul Rubin, Owner /Applicant. Chairperson Wilcox opened this segment of the. meeting at 8:44 p.m. Chairperson Wilcox — Is Mr. Rubin here this evening? Mr. Rubin, if you would come up please. Thank you for waiting and being patient. Paul Rubin, 530 Hudson Street, Ithaca I am proposing just what you said; at least I thought it was. I just got your letter in the mail this weekend and was very.surprised... Chairperson Wilcox — Before we get into that, is there anything you want to say about the proposal before we get into discussing it. Mr. Rubin— Nothing new. K�� H4 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 1, 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 Chairperson Wilcox — Then lets dive right in. Both Susan Ritter's comments, the comments from the County who have reviewed what you have submitted so far, and the Town Environmental Review Committee... I'll just read what the ERC said, "the lots are too long so that the land is under utilized.l. with the current plan the houses are to be build fairly close to the road with a drive entering each lot on Troy Road, reducing lot length would provide' space for additional home sites while an interior road would eliminate the need for multiple driveways, but still make all future home sites accessible, an interior road also expands the possibilities not only for the 13, perhaps more lots being planned but also development of the 34 acre lot that remains. You have the Town's and the County's comments, which have to do with, long thin lots, long skinny lots, which increase the potential future owner's wanting to subdivide. off the rear portion, which creates the potential for;' flag lots. Mr. Rubin - How. could they subdivide it if they are not providing 150 foot of road frontage for the lot? Chairperson Wilcox — They can get a variance. They can come here and ask for the subdivision and go to the Zoning Board and get a variance. And very often, I shouldn't say very often, they are granted under certain circumstances. The County has also commented about the number of curb cuts and I believe Susan has as well that would be created in a short distance in which the number of curb cuts would be created on a road that I believe is 55 mph right now. Those are my comments. You have seen what staff has said. Any board members? Board Member Hoffmann My comments go along the same lines as what we have seen in Sue's letter and what the Conservation Board r has. said. I think .there are probably better ways of laying out .the lots to make better use of the land. Board Member Conneman — It seems unimaginative Chairperson Wilcox — And also safety on Troy Road. Mr. Rubin - The big limitation is money. 1 mean you are all asking me to. build an interior road and I did it in a way that I didn't have to build an interior road. An interior road costs about $300,000. 1 don't have $300,000. 1 proposed to do it. along Troy Road where I wouldn't have that initial costs and I proposed to do one house at a time: When I sold one house I could afford to build another. There is no way that I could start out by building a $300,000 road. In a matter of fact, before l bought the land I went to see, maybe I went to the wrong person; I went to see Dan Walker who I thought was the right person. I showed him the sketch and asked him if he .saw any problem with me doing this. and he said no. I have been in to see Mike. about a month ago and came back to ask about building and if a r driveway could be separate from my 150 -foot swap into the. interior and he told me about that. I was just surprised to get this letter saying. that you wanted me to build a road on the interior. I would love to build a road on the interior. I mean I would love for you to build the road for me then I could develop more 33 PLANNING BOARD MINUTE,S.OF JUNE 1, 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 lots. It's not at all what I've been thinking all along ,of doing just because of the cost involved. Chairperson Wilcox — I understand that there is a cost involved, but there is also the cost of excessive curb cuts, safety, along that road. There may be other considerations as well; I'm not sure I given the plans that we've seen, or the lack of plans that we have seen. There may be additional costs as well. Mr. Rubin — Another thing l wanted to know about. It seemed that this land is possibly could be used for more lots because of the municipal sewer. That, seemed to be a big point. This has municipal sewer; I should try to get more lots. But when I looked at the elevations, I might, not be right in the way I read them, but it looks to like most all of the land behind where I was going to develop would be. lower than the sewer line so wouldn't be able to use municipal sewer any way for those lots back there. Chairperson Wilcox — There are ways to push sewer up hill. Mr. Rubin — Well, I. know sewer pumps, but. I've been told that people don't want. to buy a house with a sewer pump in it. Chairperson Wilcox — That] don't know the answer to. Mr. Rubin — I mean I don't really see that as seeing the municipal really being that useful.for anywhere else but where I put it. Not that I won't do this, but I mean I just don't like being surprised like that. I don't know why I wasn't told about it months ago. Chairperson Wilcox - Which I don't know the answer to. Mr. Rubin — All right. Chairperson Wilcox = But I do know this is.your first time before this board and this is your opportunity to hear what we.think as well as our opportunity to hear what you think. Mr. Rubin — Are you telling me I have to do it your way or are you just saying you don't like the way I'm doing? Chairperson Wilcox — That is always an interesting question. You can come back to this board, if you so choose, you can come back to this board with drawings, with information sufficient for us to review that may make this plan and you may go away without a proposal, potentially. There are five of us here tonight. I think you. would ... and if you want to go that route, you are welcome to try. My advice .as one member of the board, not as the chair, my sense is that you are not going to get four. Votes out of seven for something that resembles this. That's my sense of this board even though two aren't here. That is based upon professional staffs comments, the ERC and the County's professional planning staff's comments.. It's just the way that I feel. I'm going to speak just for myself. An interior road is the way to go for many. 34 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 reasons. So I would encourage you to work with whatever professionals you want to work with or staff. They are not going to design it for you. That's not their job to design this for you, but work with them. They have a pretty good idea right now of what we would like ... well you're right. Mr. Kanter — We have'an idea of what you don't like Chairperson Wilcox — Right. You have an idea of what we'don't like. And frankly, it's not our job to tell you what we want to see. It is our job to say this is what we don't want to see. Mr..Rubin — If I built an interior road, would I have to build the whole thing at once or could I just build it far enough to build and sell a couple of houses? Chairperson Wilcox — We have in the past allowed roads to be built in sections, okay, so that you build a road. There are costs that would come with that, though. For example, and I'm not saying this would be required here, but if the road is built and lets say dedicated to the Town or part of the road. is built and dedicated to the Town: What .about the emergency vehicles?. They .would need to be able to get in there and turn around for example. What about the snow plows's ability to get in? So you might wind up building some sort of a hammer head turn around at the end until you sell a. couple . more lots and then you'll take away the hammer head and extend the road and build another hammer head, that sort of thing. So there are issues that come with building a road in stages, but I'm not going to say, again I'm talking only for myself and looking at the members of the board, I'm not going to say that I'm opposed to that, but it requires a pretty good plan to be able. to stage the road so you can meet fire and safety requirements and the ability for all emergency vehicles to gain access and then get out safely. Anybody else over here? Board Member Mitrano I wanted to ask Susan if this is the appropriate time if you could expand on the comment, "the proposal does not appear to be the best use of the land given. the infrastructure for this area and precludes options to accommodate the future growth potential." Could you tell us about that, about what you were thinking? Ms. Ritter — I guess I would just say that there is the potential... we are going to have increased development in years down the. road and this is an area that does have utilities. This is not. a Unique Natural Areas. It doesn't seem to have a lot of environmental constraints so this would be an area where you would expect to have more development down the road. This plan would sort of limit some of those options in the future. Board Member Mitrano — What other kinds .of options are you thinking of? Ms. Ritter — Residential housing. I am sure some of the people who live there would like to see.open space right now and I think as he's planning, a slow development, but in time as the Town. is growing, this is probably an area of the Town, South. Hill, is where 35 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 we are. seeing growth. So I guess if you are going to plan a subdivision and you -are going to be provided with utilities in this part of Town unlike other parts of the Town that do not have utilities, this is where we want to have at least thinking out in the future that there is potential for development options. Chairperson Wilcox _This is an area. appropriate for growth, if you will. 11 Ms. Ritter — Right now it is .a farmland. and I am sure there are people very sad. to see that developed, and I can understand that. But if people are looking at this now to be developed and I think it needs to be done with thinking into the distant future. Chairperson Wilcox — Thank you. Board Member Mitrano — Mr. Rubin, are you prepared to suggest some scale of what price .these houses might be expected to be sold at? Mr. Rubin - Around $300,000. Chairperson Wilcox - Everybody's in that range. Is that the range now? Board Member Mitrano — I think that's the range now. Mr. Rubin — With a big lot. I would have to ask for less, I guess, if I cut the lot. Board Member Conneman —Sue, are you implying that there could be some clustering of the houses? Ms. Ritter — I don't know if we would necessarily require it in this case. Sometimes, think, we require clustering where. there are certain environmental conditions where you want to move someone away a Unique Natural Area, or a forested area or a stream or whatever it is. I don't know if in this case . clustering would be something we would require, but it is certainly something that you guys can discuss. Board Member Mitrano — What would cluster mean? What would that mean in this context? Ms. Ritter — Well, I don't know what it would mean exactly, but in general terms it means moving the houses a little bit closer, smaller lots, leaving more open space areas identified to leave alone for open space and having more intense development areas. Mr. Rubin — Would they still be 30,000 square feet lots? Ms. Ritter - It could be less if you cluster Board Member Hoffmann — But then you would instead have to leave some of the land open and unbuilt on. 36 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 Board . Member Conneman — It would provide an opportunity to have less lines for sewage and water and so forth. Chairperson Wilcox — Think about it this way, if you took your piece of land and laid out a subdivision that met the Town's requirements in terms of zoning, granted you try to maximize the number' of lots on there, as long as those lots met, essentially met the zoning. requirement in terms of their size that gives you an idea of how many clustered units you could build possibly in one corner of the lots. It doesn't buy you more units, but it allows you to put them closer together. Depending upon the developer you talk to, it is either a good thing or a bad thing. And depending upon whether people are getting older and.want smaller lots because they don't want to take the time mowing them or whether homebuyers right now want bigger lots because they need to build their $350,000 mcmansion on them. So developers will go either way on that in terms on what they think the market is or what the market isn't. That is a possibility if cost is an issue because it cuts down on the infrastructure. Board Member Hoffmann — Now you have planned out lots that are quite lots, 2.2 to 3.3 .acres, but they are awkward shapes. They are narrow and very long. If you were to lay out over the whole parcel of land this size parcel, but in a different way with an interior road then you could figure out ... you could maybe get, I'm just guessing, 20 to 30 houses on, the land. And if you then were to take, to change it all. , around and concentrate those houses on smaller lots like one acre lots or three - quarter acre lots, in the part of the parcel where you feel ,the conditions are best for sewer without pumps and things like that or where the views are best, then you would have a much. smaller, much shorter road to build if you concentrated them and you would have a lot °land left over that could be just enjoyed for views from the .people who bought those_ houses, for instance, or for open space land by the people who bought houses there. I guess if you went and talked to staff again for some new ideas you could get some additional ideas of how to do this Mr. Rubin — I mean the whole thing is, the problem for me is getting started, getting started With building a road. I just had an idea sitting here, though, if I could build one or two houses fronting on Troy Road, once they are sold .I would have some money to build an interior road. Otherwise... Chairperson Wilcox — Now we are at least being creative and we are working. I think any subdivision on this property, which includes an interior road, is going to have a certain number of lots fronting on Troy Road. It would not surprise me if you have an interior road off of Troy Road that serviced some number of lots and that there were a much smaller number of lots that still had a driveway off of Troy Road. I don't think we are sitting here saying you can't have a driveway off of Troy Road, but what we are saying is that you can't have a driveway every 150 feet right down the line. So if you come in with a subdivision that includes an interior which services many of the lots and some lots have frontage on Troy Road and that subdivision is approved, then you could potentially start by developing the lots on the road and then moving on. That is part of staging and we would ask you to provide details on how you plan to stage the project. 37 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES.OF JUNE 17 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 Mr. Rubin — Okay. That sounds good. I would have to figure that out. Chairperson Wilcox — Do some thinking. Be creative. Board Member Mitrano — Does this 'stream start in, the middle of the property, Mr. Rubin? There are two streams; one that seems to be coming from much further up hill down. Mr. Rubin — It is very, very small. At first it is a trickle, and then somehow it evolves into a huge gorge. There's not much water, but... Mr. Walker If you look just to the left of the. tax parcel, you can see a little bit of a defined path through that field there. There is a drainage way that comes off just north of the Town Park that sort of cuts across and comes down and goes in and feeds that. There is quite a bit of watershed above it, which probably is running when it is raining hard, like for the past month. That blue line is really what the USGS defines as a defined streambed at that point. The water doesn't start there; it starts quite a ways up the hill. Chairperson Wilcox — Its like our version of the. Colorado River, right? It just kind of ends. Do you have enough information from us this evening, Mr. Rubin ?.. Mr. Rubin — Yeah. I'll come in and talk... Chairperson Wilcox As I did before, you have some of your neighbors here so I am going to give them a chance to address the board. Chairperson Wilcox invited members of the public to address the board. John Rowlands, 127 Troy Road Again, I speak with very mixed feeling since my wife bought one lot to keep development further from us and to keep this citified atmosphere further away. So my comments fly in the face of that because I guess I have encouragements for both Mr. Rubin and the board. Mr. Rubin might find that a three -acre lot, which produces one property in his scheme, might more efficiently' provide some three or four properties. If each house is in the price range of what he sees, he has the potential for making four times as much money by producing four times as many residences. The Board or the public makes four times as much taxes. There is a much incentive to develop this land to its maximum and avoid having a hodge podge. I agree, we walked that area and looked at it, and I agree with Mr. Rubin that you are not going to develop this downhill section without one. huge sewage pump. And here again, we get into cost... avoiding each house having such a pump. A pump having a possibility to fail. A pump being possibly a public facility. I've seen pump stations., elsewhere around the county and the vicinity and often they are public or A I PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 1, 2004 APPROVED JULY 612004 municipal facilities maintained and so forth by the public, but under some arrangement with the original developer. So when Mr. Rubin is fortunate enough to sell a doze or so of these high class residences, maybe he and the board or the County or the Town can get together and come to some agreement as to how they can dedicate the land or dedicate the roads or,dedicatep.the sewage treatment plants in such a way, on such a schedule that everybody will benefit. But again, just the word schedule and just the word plan suggests that this is going to take more than just some scratching on a piece of paper. Thank you: Nick Quorio, 150 Troy Road As a point of information,] live straight across from that field. There is a large amount of rapid traffic up and'down and I'm interested to hear you say 55 mph because I think the plow trucks go faster than that. But 114 cutouts to me is a big safety issue. Likewise, . even. putting a cluster housing in lots more population in there, that road is...its astounding how fast the traffic goes up there, including the deer population that is on that road. Thank you. Board Member Hoffmann — Cluster housing doesn't have to mean more housing. There are other restraints on this land. John Orack, 646 Coddington Road was looking for the write up for how he has sketched he is building right behind me. So I was curious as to... out that back property because Chairperson Wilcox — A copy of the plan that was submitted to us? Mr. Orack — Yes. Chairperson Wilcox - Here comes. If you quickly open it to the_ next to last page, that is essentially what we had available to us tonight. Mr. Orack So you don't like the layout, huh? Neither do I, but its true if he subdivided it much better with smaller lots he would be better off in the long run. Chairperson Wilcox — We won't deny the.fact that he has the right to build there. Mr. Orack — That is true, but I also can't see ... someone on the board proposed one - acre lots. You've got 75 acres back there; we're talking 75 homes eventually. Board Member Hoffmann - Not necessarily. Attorney Barney - You've got these overhead electric lines. Mr. Orack — Sixty homes. 39 ft TOWN OF ITHACA PLANNING BOARD 215 North Tioga Street Ithaca, New York 14850 Tuesday, June 1, 2004'. AGENDA 7:00 P.M. Persons to be heard (no more than five minutes). 7:05 P.M. SEQR Determination: Ling Ling Gardens Expansion, 331 — 333 Pine Tree Road. 7:10 P.M. PUBLIC HEARING: Consideration of Preliminary and Final Site Plan Approval for the proposed expansion of the existing Ling -Ling Gardens located at 331 - 333 Pine Tree Road in the East Hill . Plaza, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 62- 2- 1.121,.and zoned Community Commercial. The project includes expanding the existing restaurant into the adjacent vacant space (formally Video Ithaca) for a dining room with additional seating. Cornell University Real Estate Department; Owner; Wei -Lin, Applicant, 7:15 P.M. PUBLIC HEARING: Recommendation to the Town Board regarding a local Law to amend the Town's Zoning Ordinance to rezone the Cornell University parcel at 391 Pine Tree Road from Office Park Commercial and.Multiple Residence to Low Density Residential, Town of Ithaca Tax. Parcel No. 63- 1 -3.4. Cornell University, Owner /Applicant; Harold D. Craft Jr., Agent. 7:30 P.M. Consideration of Sketch Plan review for the proposed Tompkins County South Hill communication tower located on the Ithaca College campus, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 41 -1 -30.2, Medium Density Residential zone. The project involves construction of a 180 -foot self - supporting tower (monopole or lattice) and a 192 square foot (12' x 16') building located adjacent to the existing Ithaca College's 150' guyed tower for the County's Public Safety Communication System. The existing Ithaca College tower will be removed once the existing transmitters are relocated to the new structure. Ithaca College, Owner; Tompkins County, Applicant; Mikel Shakarjian, Agent, 8:00 P.M. Consideration of Sketch Plan review for the proposed 14 -lot subdivision located on Troy Road approximately 1,600 feet south of the Coddington Road and Troy Road intersection, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 49 -1 -26.2, Low Density Residential zone. The proposal includes subdividing the 69 +/- acre parcel into 6 lots of approximately 3.3 acres, 7 lots of approximately 2:2 acres, and one +/- 34 -acre lot, with all lots fronting on Troy Road. Paul Rubin, Owner /Applicant, 7. Persons to be heard (continued from beginning of meeting if necessary). 8. Approval of Minutes: May 13, 2004 and May 18, 2004. 90 Other Business: 10. Adjournment. Jonathan Kanter, AICP Director of Planning 273 -1747 NOTE: IF ANY MEMBER OF THE PLANNING BOARD IS UNABLE TO ATTEND, PLEASE NOTIFY SANDY POLCE AT 273 -1747. (A quorum of four (4) members is necessary to conduct Planning Board business.) PLANNING BOARD MINUTES01F JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 6,'2004 Chairperson Wilcox — I don't know. I think it is unfair to speculate. I think it is up to Mr. Rubin at some point to put together a plan. Ensure that the lots meet the necessary requirements and see. how many he can fit on there, given: :the` overhead power lines, which are an issue, the lay of the land, the ability to deal with water and sewer. If he decides that he can't use the sewer he may decide to try to go with septic systems, which means bigger lots. I'm not sure how he is going. to go. Board Member Conneman — And if he were to cluster, he would leave some land idle ... open space. So you don't just take the division... Mr. Orack — That is an easy way of calculating things. Board Member Conneman — But that is probably not correct. .Mr. Orack — Well, of course it is not correct because you g'ot to put in roads and what not so that takes away from that. I understand that. I'm just doing a quick calculation. That's it. Thank you. Chairperson Wilcox — Anybody . else? I thank you very much Mr. Rubin. I thank members of the general public. Chairperson Wilcox closed this segment of the meeting at 9:14 p.m. AGENDA ITEM: APPROVAL OF MINUTES — May 4, 2004 PB RESOLUTION NO. 2004 =055: Approval of Minutes — May 4, 2004 MOTION by Fred Wilcox, seconded by Rod Howe. RESOLVED, that the Planning Board does hereby approve and adopt the May 4, 2004 minutes as the official minutes of the Town of Ithaca Planning Board for the said meeting as presented. The vote on the motion resulted as follows: AYES: Wilcox, Conneman, Mitrano; Howe. NAYS: None, ABSTAIN: Hoffmann. The. motion was declared to be carried. AGENDA ITEM: APPROVAL OF MINUTES — May 13, 2004 PB RESOLUTION NO. 2004 =056: Approval of Minutes — May 13, 2004 MOTION by Fred Wilcox, seconded by Rod Howe. 40 PLANNING BOARD MINUTES OF JUNE 11 2004 APPROVED JULY 69 2004 RESOLVED, that the Plan, ning Board does hereby approve and adopt the May 13, 2004 minutes as the official minutes of the Town of Ithaca Planning Board for the said meeting as presented. The vote on the motion resulted as follows: AYES: Wilcox, Conneman, Mitrano, Howe. NAYS: None. ABSTAIN: Hoffmann. The motion was declared, ,,.to be carried. AGENDA ITEM: OTHER BUSINESS The board discussed having materials that are handed out at the meeting sent to board members who were not present at the meeting. It was decided that the materials would be given to the Planning Department secretary and forwarded to board members. The board discussed a memo from Dan Walker to Fred Wilcox and Jon Kanter regarding modification to the Westview Subdivision. Mr. Simkin has been evaluating the drainage system and is considering underground storm drainage for the project. The new drainage wouldd allow shoulders on the road that would be level with .the front yards. Mr. Simkin inquired if this configuration could replace the sidewalks and. asked for a sense of the board prior to bringing the . matter before the board as ,,a formal submission. The board wanted sidewalks regardless of the drainage design. Information on upcoming training sessions was provided to the board. The Town will be holding a public meeting on the Transportation Plan, Thursday, June 10, 2004. The board discussed an email from Mr. Aube to the Board. Mr. Kanter gave the Board a preview of the June 15,1 2004 agenda. AGENDA ITEM: ADJOURNMENT: Upon MOTION, Chairperson Wilcox declared the June 1, 2004 meeting of the Town of Ithaca Planning Board duly adjourned at 9:31 p.m. Respectfully Submitted,_ I: r 'Li Carrie Coates hitmore Deputy Town Clerk 41 TOWN OF ITHACA PLANNING ;BOARD NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARINGS Tuesday, June 1, 2004 By direction of the Chairperson of the Planning Board, NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that Public Hearings will be held by the Planning Board. of the Town of Ithaca on Tuesday, June 1, 2004, at 215 North Tioga Street, Ithaca, N.Y., at the following times and on the following matters: 7:10 P.M. Consideration of Preliminary and Final Site Plan Approval for the proposed expansion of the existing Ling -Ling Gardens located at 331 - 333 Pine Tree Road in the East Hill Plaza, Town of Ithaca. Tax Parcel No. 62- 2- 1.121, and zoned Community Commercial. The project includes expanding the existing restaurant into the adjacent vacant space (formally Video Ithaca) for a dining room with additional seating. Cornell University Real Estate Department, Owner; Wei -Lin, Applicant. 7:15 P.M. Recommendation to the Town Board regarding a local Law to amend the Town's Zoning Ordinance to rezone the Cornell University parcel at 3, 91 Pine Tree Road from Office Park Commercial and Multiple Residence to Low. Density. Residential, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 63- 1 -3.4. Cornell University, Owner /Applicant; Harold D. Craft. Jr., Agent. Said Planning Board will at said times and said place hear all persons in support of such matters or objections thereto. Persons may appear by agent or in person. Individuals with visual impairments, hearing impairments or other special needs, will be provided with assistance as necessary, upon request. Persons desiring assistance must make such a request not less than 48 hours prior to the time of the public hearings. Jonathan Kanter, AICP. Director of Planning 273 -1747 Dated: Monday, May 24, 2004 Publish: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 Theathaca Journal = s ne Wedsday, May26; 2004= TOWN OF ITHACA AFFIDAVIT OF POSTING AND PUBLICATION I, Sandra Polce being duly sworn, depose and say that I am a Senior Typist for the Town of Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York; that the following Notice has been duly posted on the sign board of the Town of Ithaca and that said Notice has been duly published in the local newspaper, The Ithaca Journal. Notice of Public Hearings to be held by the Town of Ithaca Planning Board in the Town of Ithaca Town Hall 215 North Tioga Street Ithaca New York, on Tuesday, June 1, 2004 commencing at 7:00 P.M., as per attached. Location of Sign Board used for Posting: Town Clerk. Sign Board — 215 North Tio ag Street. Date of Posting Date of Publication: May 24, 2004, May 26, 2004 . D.. CYa�� Sandra Polce, Senior Typist Town of Ithaca. STATE OF NEW YORK) SS:. COUNTY OF TOMPKINS) Sworn to and subscribed before me this 26th day of May 2004 Notary Public CONNIE F. CLARK Notary Public, State of New York No. 01CL6052878 Qualified in Tompkins County Commission Expires December 26, 20' M,